Suleyman Nazif

Suleyman Nazif

Süleyman Nazif ( Ottoman سلیمان نظیف; * 1870 in Diyarbakır ; † January 4, 1927 in Istanbul ) was an Ottoman - Turkish poet , journalist and civil servant.

Life

Nazif was born the son of the poet and historian Sait Pascha. He started his education in Maraş very early, later he started school in Diyarbakır: From 1879 he received private lessons from his father and French lessons from an Armenian priest in Maraş . After the death of his father in 1892, Süleyman Nazif worked as a state employee in the Vilayet Diyarbakır . In 1896 he was promoted and worked in Mosul . With the move to Istanbul he began to write articles against the absolutist Sultan Abdülhamid II , making friends with the ideas and goals of the Young Ottomans. Due to government pressure, he fled to Paris for eight months , where he wrote articles for various newspapers.

After his return, Süleyman Nazif was forcibly transferred and between 1897 and 1908 worked as a secretary in the Vilâyet Hüdavendigâr (Bursa). Here Nazif contributed to the literary magazine Servet-i Fünûn ("Wealth of Knowledge") until it was censored by the Ottoman government in 1901. In 1908 he moved back to Istanbul, joined the Committee on Unity and Progress and worked as a journalist. Together with the journalist Ebüzziya Tevfik he founded the newspaper Tasvir-i Efkar . However, this newspaper soon had to close again. After Abdülhamid II surrendered power in 1908, Suleyman Nazif became governor of the Ottoman provinces of Basra (1909), Kastamonu (1910), Trebizond (1911), Mosul (1913) and finally Baghdad (1914).

As governor of Baghdad

During the Armenian genocide , Suleyman Nazif, as governor of Baghdad, played an important role in preventing murders in his province. Nazif intercepted a deportation convoy with 260 Armenian women and children who were to be sent to their deaths. Nazif demanded that the convoy be directed to a safer zone in Mosul, but his proposal was rejected and the members of the convoy were eventually murdered. During his time as governor of Baghdad, he visited Diyarbakır, where he "encountered a pungent odor from decaying corpses [which permeated] the atmosphere and the bitter stench blocked his nose." Nazif criticized Mehmed Reşid , the governor of Diyarbakır, who was known as the "butcher of Diyarbakır". Nazif, who testified that Resid "destroyed thousands of lives by massacre", wrote about a committee formed by Resids with the aim of finding a "solution to the Armenian question"; Nazif also encouraged other governors to oppose the deportation order. In a letter to his brother Fâik Áli Bey (Ozansoy) , the governor of Kütahya , Nazif wrote: "Do not take part in this event, pay attention to our family honor."

In a letter to the interior minister, Nazif stated that the catastrophic deportations and murders in Diyarbakır were Reşid's work. He alone is responsible. He killed the Kaymakame to deter all other opposition Muslim men and women and presented the Kaymakame's bodies in public. When the Interior Minister Talât Pascha , himself a leader in the genocide, convicted Reşid of theft, Nazif criticized the fact that he only pursued a murderer as a thief.

After the war

On November 23, 1918, Nazif's article entitled Kara Bir Gün ("A Black Day") was published in the Hadisat newspaper to condemn the French occupation forces of Istanbul . The article led the commanders of the French units to have Nazif executed by firing squad, but the order was withdrawn. Because Nazif was giving a speech at a meeting in honor of Pierre Loti on January 23, 1920, the British military forced him into exile in Malta . After the Turkish Liberation War , he returned.

Nazif, a critic of the imperialist powers, earned their hostility when he wrote his satirical article Hazret-i İsa'ya Açık Mektup ("Open Letter to Jesus"), in which he described all the crimes committed by his followers in Jesus Christ Names were committed. Two weeks later he published "The Answer of Jesus", in which he refuted the allegations from Jesus' point of view and replied that he was not responsible for the crimes of Christians . The two letters caused a stir among Christians in Turkey and Western Europe, and Nazif was supposed to be brought to justice, which did not come about as Nazif apologized. But he remained critical of the “crusader mentality” of the imperialists, who supposedly wanted to extend their power to the soil of Turkey .

Bust in the Gazi Köşkü of Diyarbekir

He died on January 4, 1927, of pneumonia and was buried at the martyrs cemetery Edirnekapı.

Works

• Batarya ile Ateş (1917)
• Firak-ı Iraq (1918)
• Çal Çoban Çal (1921)
• Tarihin Yılan Hikayesi (1922)
• Nasıruddin Şah ve Babiler (1923)
• Malta Geceleri (1924)
• Çalınmış Ülke (1924)
• Hazret-i İsa'ya Açık Mektup (1924)
• İki Dost (1925)
• İmana Tasallut-Şapka Meselesi (1925)
• Fuzuli (1926)
• Lübnan Kasrının Sahibesi (1926) ( La châtelaine du liban , 1924 by Pierre Benoit ), translation

literature

• David Gaunt: Massacres, resistance, protectors: muslim-christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during world war I . 1st Gorgias Press edition. Gorgias, Piscataway, NJ 2006, ISBN 1-59333-301-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
• Syed Tanvir Wasti: Süleyman Nazîf - A Multi-Faceted Personality . In: Middle Eastern Studies . tape 50 , issue 3, 2014, p. 493-508 , doi : 10.1080 / 00263206.2014.886571 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Necati Alkan: Süleyman Nazif's Nasiruddin Shah ve Babiler: an Ottoman Source on Babi-Baha'i History. (With a Translation of Passages on Tahirih *) . In: h-net (ed.): Research Notes in Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies . 4, No. 2, November 2000. Retrieved November 13, 2008.
2. ↑ David Gaunt: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors. P. 306.
3. ^ Perry Anderson: The new old world . pbk. ed.Verso, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-84467-721-4 , pp. 459 : "Resit Bey, the butcher of Diyarbakir"
4. ↑ Joost Jong earth and Jelle Verheij: Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, from 1870 to 1915. Leiden 2012, p. 279
5. ↑ Bülent Günal: Binlerce Ermeni'nin hayatını kurtarmıştı. In: HaberTurk. Retrieved April 23, 2013 (Turkish): “ Pasif de olsa bu olaya katılma, ailemizin şerefine dikkat et. " 
6. ↑ David Gaunt: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors. P. 177.
7. ^ Necati Alkan: Süleyman Nazif's 'Open Letter to Jesus': An Anti-Christian Polemic in the Early Turkish Republic . In: h-net (Ed.): Middle Eastern Studies . 44, No. 6, November 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2008.