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Ali Kemal

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In thisOttoman Turkishstyle name, thegiven nameisAli Kemal.There is no family name.

Ali Kemal
Bey
Minister of the Interior
In office
4 March 1919(1919-03-04)– 20 June 1919(1919-06-20)
MonarchMehmed VI
Prime MinisterDamat Ferid Pasha
Preceded byMehmed Ali Bey
Succeeded byAdil Bey
Personal details
Born(1869-09-07)7 September 1869
Istanbul,Ottoman Empire
Died6 November 1922(1922-11-06)(aged 53)
İzmit,Ottoman Empire
Resting placeİzmit, Turkey[1]
NationalityTurkish
Political partyFreedom and Accord Party
Liberty Party
Spouses
  • Winifred Brun
  • Sabiha Hanım
Children4, including Wilfred Johnson
Relatives
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • Newspaper editor
  • Poet
  • Politician
  • Government official

Ali KemalBey(7 September 1869 – 6 November 1922) was a Turkish journalist, writer, poet, andliberalpolitician. He wasMinister of the Interiorfor some three months in the government ofDamat Ferid Pasha,theGrand Vizierof theOttoman Empire.In the weeks following the Turkish victory in theGreco-Turkish War,he was lynched byNureddin Pasha's paramilitary officers for his opposition to theTurkish National Movement.

Kemal is the father ofZeki Kuneralp,who was the former Turkish ambassador in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Spain. In addition, he is the paternal grandfather of both the Turkish diplomatSelim Kuneralp,and the British politicianStanley Johnson.Through Johnson, Ali Kemal is the great-grandfather of formerBritish prime ministerBoris Johnsonand his siblings.

Early life and career

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Ali Kemal was born in 1867 in theSüleymaniyedistrict ofIstanbul.He was born Ali Rıza, but changed his second name due to his admiration ofNamık Kemal.Kemal's father,HaciAhmet Rıza Effendi, was a Turk from the village ofKalfatinÇankırıwho ran a candle making enterprise.[2]His mother was aCircassian,reputedly ofslaveorigin.[3]

He attended theMekteb-i Mülkiye,the Civil Service School, in Istanbul. He left the institution in the last year of the four-year term and went to Paris in 1886 to improve his French. The following year he moved toGenevaand returned to Istanbul in 1888 to finish his education in the Mülkiye. This visit to Europe likely gave Kemal his liberal convictions which the autocratic government ofAbdul Hamid IIcould not tolerate. Impressed by what he saw, he formed a student association which was forcefully dissolved by authorities.[4]Kemal again attempted to establish another association, but was caught and imprisoned for nine months. After being released from prison, he was exiled toAleppoin July 1889.

Years of exile

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During his exile in Aleppo, he taught the Turkish language and literature at a high school. He could not stand the stagnant life in the city and returned to Istanbul without permission in 1895.[4]Thereupon, when another exile order was issued, he escaped to Paris, which had become a kind of headquarters of theYoung Turks.In Paris, he followed a mediating line between the Young Turks andYıldız Palace.However, whenMizancı Muratleft the Young Turk movement to return to the Hamidian fold, Ali Kemal followed him.

While Ali Kemal was studying political sciences in Paris, he was also working as a journalist for theİkdamnewspaper in Istanbul, publishing articles about his impressions of Paris and an admiration for western culture.[5]Hüseyin Cahit Yalçınlater exposed that much of Kemal's work in the newspaper were actually translations from the French press, and this incident caused an enmity between the two that would last until the end of Ali Kemal's life.

In 1897, he was appointed as deputy secretary of the Ottoman Embassy in Brussels. He did not return to Istanbul because he was afraid of how theCommittee of Union and Progresswould react. After receiving his Political Sciences diploma in 1899, he lived in Egypt until theYoung Turk Revolution.He managed a farm belonging to an Egyptian prince in Cairo, where he established and edited a weekly magazine,Türk,from 1903 and 1907.[6][4]In one of several visits toSwitzerland,he fell in love with an Anglo-Swiss girl, Winifred Brun, the daughter of Frank Brun and Margaret Johnson.[7]They were married inPaddington,London,on 11 September 1903.[8]He returned to Istanbul the day before the declaration of theSecond Constitutional Monarchy.

Second Constitutional Era

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Back in Istanbul, Kemal became one of the most prominent figures in Ottoman journalistic and political life. Because of his opposition to theCommittee of Union and Progress(CUP), the group which had carried out the revolution, he spent most of the following decade opposed to the government. Upon his return, he appeared before the sultan and accepted Abdul Hamid's compliments and royal moneys; This was criticized by the Unionist press. He joined theLiberty Party,the CUP's main opposition.[9]Kemal, now editor-in-chief of the liberalİkdamnewspaper while also teaching political history at the Faculty of Literature at theDarülfünun,began to write editorials heavily criticizing the CUP. In the classroom, he passionately praisedFrench liberalismto students, violently attacking those who disagreed with him.[citation needed]

InThe Timesdated 9 March 1909, on speculating that he would contest the seat of the lateMinister of JusticeRefik Bey, Kemal was described as amongst the "leading men of letters in Turkey, an excellent speaker, and personally very popular".[10]Kemal was unanimously adopted as the Liberty Party's candidate for the 1909 Istanbul by-election at a party meeting on 9 March 1909,[11]though he lost to the CUP's candidate,Mehmed Rifat Pasha.

Ali Kemal in his middle age

After the murder of the editor-in-chief of theSerbestînewspaper,Hasan Fehmi,in April 1909, Kemal stated that he had warnedIsmail Kemaland Rifsat, the assistant editor ofSerbestî,that they had been condemned by Unionist extremists inSalonica.[12]A media storm between the liberal paperİkdamand the CUP organTaninfollowed, withİkdamaccusingAhmet Rıza Beyof having been in favour ofenlightened absolutism,andTanin,the organ of the CUP, accusing Liberty Party of being a subversive body, conspiring withArmenians.At that time Kemal accusedRahmi BeyandDoctor Nazımof the CUP of proposing his murder.[13]After a speech he gave to a crowd at the Darülfünun on April 7, 1909, the day after the murder of Hasan Fehmi, students and faculty marched to theSublime Porteto demand the arrest of the murderers; These events began the31 March Incident,a political crisis that served to almost dismantle the Ottoman constitutional order and restore it as an autocracy under Abdul Hamid II. Ali Kemal had to flee to Paris again asUnionist forces dispatched from Salonicawere about to enter Istanbul to restore order. In the meantime, his duty at the Mülkiye was terminated. Abdul Hamid was deposed on 27 April 1909 and his brother Reshad Efendi was proclaimed as SultanMehmed V.

Kemal fled to exile inEngland,where in late 1909, his wife Winifred gave birth to a son, Osman Wilfred Kemal, inBournemouth.Shortly after giving birth his wife died ofpuerperal fever.They already had a son Lancelot Beodar who died in Switzerland aged 18 months after contracting whooping cough, and a daughter named Celma. Kemal stayed with his mother-in-law Margaret Brun (née Johnson) and with his children, first in Christchurch, nearBournemouth,and then inWimbledon, London,until 1912, when he returned to the Ottoman Empire afterthat year's anti-Unionist coup d'état.

On his return from exile, Kemal gave a speech in favour of a war against theBalkan Leaguein Istanbul on 3 October 1912.[14]Montenegrostarted theFirst Balkan Warby declaring war against the Ottomans five days later, and the Ottoman presence in the Balkans was reduced to a small part of Eastern Thrace. With the Unionists ascendant after theRaid of the Sublime Porte,Kemal was briefly arrested and again sent into exile, this time toVienna,though he returned to the Empire three months later. He briefly published in a new newspaper that he founded as its editor-in-chief,Peyam,though it was shuttered under CUP pressure. He regained his teaching position in the Mülkiye. He also remarried during this time. His second wife was Sabiha Hanım, the daughter of the Minister of Schools, Zeki Pasha.[15]They had one son,Zeki Kuneralp,who was born in October 1914.

DuringWorld War I,Kemal kept a low profile and was not interested in politics, instead making a living as a teacher and merchant. This attitude continued until 1918, when the CUP leaders boarded a German submarine and escaped from Turkey.

Collapse of the Empire

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Ali Kemal andDamat Ferid Pasha

On a report dated 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day) speculating on the successor toAhmed İzzet Pasha,The Timesreported that Kemal was backingAhmet Tevfik Pashato begrand vizier,with the support of the Naval andKhojaparties.[16][clarification needed]Ali Kemal became the general secretary of theFreedom and Accord Party,which was reestablished on January 14, 1919. He was appointedMinister of Educationin the first Damat Ferid Pasha government established on March 4, 1919, and asMinister of Interiorin the second Damat Ferid Pasha government established immediately after his attempted resignation in May.[17]While Kemal was in this position, he issued orders against theNational ForcesofMustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk).He resigned from the ministry on June 26, 1919, due to a disagreement within the government.

As part of his campaigns against theTurkish national movement,along with other conservatives serving under the Sultan in Istanbul, Kemal set up an organisation known as the Friends of England Association (Turkish:İngiliz Muhipleri Cemiyeti), which advocated British protectorate status for the Ottoman Empire. Ali Kemal thought of Mustafa Kemal's movement as a continuation of the CUP. This, combined with his past opposition to the Unionists, made him anathema to the nationalist movement gathering strength in Ankara and fighting theTurkish War of Independenceagainst the attempts betweenGreeceand theEntenteto partitionAnatolia.

Kemal was a member of the Ottoman delegation to theParis Peace Conferencein June 1919.[18]In an article dated 25 June 1919,The Timesreported that Kemal had accused agents of the CUP of impeding the restoration of order in the Ottoman provinces, specifically accusingTalaat Pashaof organising Albanian brigand bands inİzmitandEnver Pashaof doing the same in theBandırma,Balıkesir,andKarasidistricts. He also alleged that the CUP had £700,000 of party funds available for propaganda, as well as numerous fortunes made by profiteering during the Great War. In fact, Kemal had resigned between the filing of the report and its publication inThe Timeson 3 July 1919.[19]

After leaving the ministry, Ali Kemal returned to the editorship ofPeyam-ı Sabahnewspaper, whose editorship includedRefik Halit (Karay)andYahya Kemal (Beyatlı).This newspaper was founded in 1920 by merging Kemal's defunctPeyamnewspaper and theSabahnewspaper owned by MihranEfendi,where he continued his attacks against the nationalist movement. However, after theGreat Offensiveand theLiberation of İzmir,he wrote an article titled "Our Goals Were and Are One" (Turkish:Gayelerimiz Bir İdi ve Birdir) on September 10, 1922, and said that he was wrong for opposing theNationalists.

Kemal condemned the events ofthe Armenian genocideand inveighed against the Unionist chieftains as the authors of that crime, relentlessly demanding their prosecution and punishment. In an 18 July 1919 issue of theAlemdar,Ali Kemal Bey wrote: "... our Minister of Justice has opened the doors of prisons. Don't let us try to throw the blame on the Armenians; we must not flatter ourselves that the world is filled with idiots. We have plundered the possessions of the men whom we deported and massacred; we have sanctioned theft in ourChamberand ourSenate.Let us prove that we have sufficient national energy to put the law into force against the heads of these bands who have trampled justice underfoot and dragged our honour and our national life through the dust. "[20]In a 28 January 1919 issue of theSabahnewspaper, Kemal Bey wrote, "Four or five years ago a historically singular crime has been perpetrated, a crime before which the world shudders. Given its dimensions and standards, its authors do not number in the fives, or tens, but in the hundreds of thousands. In fact, it has already been demonstrated that this tragedy was planned on the basis of a decision reached by theCentral Committee of Union and Progres."[20]

Due to his opposition to theTurkish National Movement,Ali Kemal was among the four Darülfünun faculty members compelled to resign by students in March 1922 for being insufficiently patriotic. Kemal andCenâb Şehâbeddînwere dismissed from their duties by a decision of theCouncil of Ministerson September 3, 1922.[21]

Lynching

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On 4 November 1922, Kemal was kidnapped from a barber shop atTokatlıyan Hotelin Istanbul, and was carried to the Anatolian side of the city by a motorboat en route toAnkarafor atrial on charges of treason.On 6 November 1922, the party was intercepted at İzmit byNureddin Pasha,then the commander of theFirst Army,which was aligned with Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Ali Kemal was attacked and lynched, stoned to death by a group of paramilitary officers set up by Nureddin. As described by Nureddin personally toRıza Nur,who withİsmet Pasha (İnönü)was on his way toLausanneto negotiatepeace with the Allies,his corpse was hanged with an epitaph across his chest which read, "Artin[an Armenian name] Kemal, traitor to religion and homeland ".[22][23]Upon İsmet Pasha's anger at this situation, his body was hurriedly removed, and was buried in İzmit. For a long time, It was unknown where he was buried due to the lack of a tombstone or any sign on his grave, but the burial location was determined in 1950.[24][1]

Falih Rıfkıreported that Mustafa Kemal used to talk with disgust about his lynching.[25][1]

Ali Kemal's death was also memorialised in a poem byNâzım Hikmet:"I saw the blood run down into his moustache. Someone yelled: 'Get him!' It rained sticks, stones and rotten vegetables. They hung his body from a branch over that bridge."[26]

Descendants and legacy

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During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was one of theCentral Powersallied with theGerman Empire,and Kemal's son and daughter living in England adopted their maternal grandmother's maiden name of Johnson. His son Osman also began to use his middle name of Wilfred as his first name. Wilfred Johnson later married Irene Williams (the daughter of Stanley F. Williams ofBromley,Kent,by his marriage toMarie Luise, Freiin von Pfeffel,born in 1882[27]) and their sonStanley Johnsonbecame an expert on the environment and population studies and aConservativemember of theEuropean Parliament.His sonBoris Johnson,Kemal's great-grandson, became thePrime Minister of the United Kingdomon 24 July 2019.[28]

After the First World War, Kemal's half-English daughter Celma took Turkish nationality. TheSurname Lawof 1934 required her to adopt a Turkish surname, so she chose Kemal, her father's given name. She marriedReginald St John Battersby.Their son Anthony Battersby served in theRoyal Marinesand became an architect and health planner, spending most of his career working as a public health consultant for various UN agencies.

Sabiha, Kemal's second wife, went into exile inSwitzerlandwith their sonZeki Kuneralp.He returned to Turkey after the death of Atatürk and was admitted—with the personal approval of Presidentİsmet İnönü—into the Turkish Diplomatic Service, serving twice as its Permanent Under-secretary in the 1960s and as ambassador to London from 1964 to 1966 and again from 1966 to 1972. His wife and her brother were killed when an unidentifiedASALAmilitant opened fire on his car while he was serving as ambassador inMadridin 1978.[29]

Zeki Kuneralp wrote an account of his father's life in English for the benefit of the British side of the family. Kuneralp's sons Sinan andSelimboth live in Turkey. The former is a publisher in Istanbul and the latter followed his father into the diplomatic service.

References

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Notes

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  1. ^abcÇetintaş, Cengiz (2022).CUMHURİYET'İN SEKİZİNCİ YILI 1931: TBMM Tutanakları Yıllığı[THE EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPUBLIC, 1931: GNAT Minutes Yearbook] (in Turkish). p. 308.Cesedi Lozan Konferansi'na giderken trenle Izmit'ten gececek olan İsmet Paşa görsün diye istasyonda bir sehpaya asıldı. İsmet İnönü'nün bu durum karşısında sinirlenmesi üzerine Ali Kemal'in bedeni apar topar kaldırıldı. İzmit'te defnedilen Ali Kemal'in mezarı başına bir mezar taşı veya herhangi bir işaret konulmaması sebebiyle zamanla ortadan kayboldu ve uzun araştırmalar sonunda 1950'lerde yeri tespit edilebildi. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Ali Kemal'in öldürülüş şeklinden tiksinerek bahsederdi.
  2. ^"Boris Johnson: Kökeni Çankırı'ya uzanan, Brexit'te ısrarlı olan ve İngiltere'de başbakan olacak siyasetçi".BBC Turkish(in Turkish). 23 July 2019.
  3. ^Gimson, Andrew (2012).Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson(Revised & updated ed.). London: Simon & Schuster. p. 1957.ISBN978-0-85720-738-8.
  4. ^abcAfyoncu, Erhan."Dedesini linç ettik, torunu Londra Belediye Başkanı oldu".Bugün Gazetesi(in Turkish). Archived fromthe originalon 14 February 2010.Retrieved1 November2010.
  5. ^Hür, Ayşe (11 April 2008)."Resmi Tarihin Ünlü Haini: Ali Kemal".Taraf Gazetesi(in Turkish). Archived fromthe originalon 1 November 2012.Retrieved1 November2010.
  6. ^Mezili, Önder (2021)."Osmanlı Aydınlarından Ali Kemal'in Türk Gazetesi ve Gazetenin Yayın Anlayışına Dair Bir Değerlendirme".İçtimaiyat(in Turkish).5(2): 7.doi:10.33709/ictimaiyat.958739.
  7. ^Kuneralp, Zeki(1993).Ali Kemal: (1869–1922): A Portrait for the Benefit of His English Speaking Progeny.Istanbul: Z. Kuneralp. p. 7.[self-published source]
  8. ^Johnson, Stanley(2009).Stanley I Presume?.London: Fourth Estate. p. 88.ISBN978-0-00729-672-9.
  9. ^"Turkey. Banquet Of Ottoman Liberals".The Times.London. 27 January 1909. p. 5.
  10. ^"Turkey. Refik Bey's Constituency".The Times.London. 9 March 1909. p. 5.
  11. ^"The Turkish Parliament".The Times.London. 10 March 1909. p. 5.
  12. ^"The Murder Of A Turkish Editor".The Times.London. 9 April 1909. p. 3.
  13. ^"Turkish Internal Affairs. Parties And Politics".The Times.London. 13 April 1909. p. 3.
  14. ^"War Demonstrations In Constantinople".The Times.London. 10 April 1912. p. 6.
  15. ^Ekinci, Ekrem Buğra (7 May 2008)."Ali Kemal'in Acıklı Sonu".Turkiye Gazetesi.Archived fromthe originalon 24 July 2024.
  16. ^"Turkey's Internal Politics. Enver Pasha's Legacy".The Times.London. 19 November 1918. p. 5.
  17. ^"New Turkish Cabinet".The Times.London. 26 May 1919. p. 11.
  18. ^"Turk Mission Leaves For Paris".The Times.London. 11 June 1919. p. 14.
  19. ^"C.U.P. Intrigue".The Times.London. 3 July 1919. p. 14.
  20. ^abDadrian, Vahakn N. (1991).Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in Turkish Sources.Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide.
  21. ^Çukurova, Bülent."Büyük Taarruz Günlerinde Ali Kemal ve Siyasi Görüşleri"(PDF).Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi(in Turkish).6(23): 357–370.
  22. ^Nur, Rıza (1967).Hayat ve Hatıratım, III. Cild(in Turkish). Altındağ Yayınevi. p. 975.
  23. ^Cargas, Harry James(Fall 1987). Totten, Samuel (ed.). "An Interview with Vahakn N. Dadrian: An Expert on the Armenian Genocide".Social Science Record: The Journal of the New York State Council for the Social Studies.24(2): 24.
  24. ^Yalman, Ahmet Emin.Gördüklerim ve Geçirdiklerim(in Turkish). Vol. IV (1945-1970). p. 203.
  25. ^Atay, Falih Rıfkı (2004).Çankaya(in Turkish). Pozitif Yayınları. p. 396.ISBN978-9756461051.
  26. ^Callaghan, Louise (28 July 2019)."Village of blond Turks ready to kill a sheep for Boris Johnson, its famous son".The Sunday Times.ISSN0956-1382.Retrieved24 December2019.
  27. ^van de Pas, Leo."Ancestors of Boris Johnson, Lord Mayor of London".Worldroots.com.Archived fromthe originalon 15 May 2008.
  28. ^Mason, Rowena (24 July 2019)."Boris Johnson becomes PM with promise of Brexit by 31 October".The Guardian.Retrieved27 July2019.
  29. ^Genç, Kaya (3 September 2013)."Ali Kemal: Martyred Journalist and Iconic Traitor".Los Angeles Review of Books.Retrieved8 September2013.

Primary sources

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  • Kemâl, Ali (2004). Özgül, M. Kayahan (ed.).Ömrüm(in Turkish). Ankara: Hece yayınları.ISBN9789758988112.
  • Kemal, Ali (1985). Kuneralp, Zeki (ed.).Ömrüm(in Turkish). Istanbul: İsis Publications.OCLC13011582.

Secondary sources

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