Rıza Nur | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1879-08-30)30 August 1879 Sinop, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 8 September 1942(1942-09-08) (aged 63) Istanbul, Turkey |
| Resting place | Merkezefendi Cemetery, Istanbul |
| Occupation | Surgeon, politician, writer |
| Education | Medicine |
| Alma mater | Military Medical School |
Rıza Nur (30 August 1879 – 8 September 1942) was aTurkishsurgeon,politician andwriter. He was prominent in the years immediately after theFirst World War, where he served as a cabinet minister but was subsequently marginalised, and became a critic ofAtatürk. His acclaimed autobiographyHayat ve Hatıratım was written from exile in France and Egypt as an alternative narrative to Atatürk's famous speechNutuk that has dominated thehistoriography of Turkey. LikeHalide Edib andRauf Orbay, Rıza Nur's work is part of a body of early Republican literature that sought plurality in the increasinglyauthoritarian Turkish Republic.[1]
Nur was born on 30 August 1879 inSinop. After graduating from the Military Medical School in 1901 Rıza Nur went on to work as asurgeon at Gülhane Military Hospital before returning to the Military Medical School as an academic in 1907. Before this, an early posting had seen him serve on the border withBulgaria where his job was to check if imported flour was contaminated with killer germs, after the Sultan had claimed this to be the case. The somewhat foolish nature of the work, as well as the refusal of his superiors to supply Rıza with amicroscope and other basic scientific tools, helped to convince him thatAbdul Hamid II's rule was backward, corrupt and leading Turkey into severe decline.[2]
He had also engaged in what he called in his memoir a period of "philandering," during which he contracted gonorrhea twice, experiences that, along with his medical training, informed his 1907 bookProtection from Venereal Diseases.[3]
He entered politics following the adoption of aconstitutional monarchy but was imprisoned and later exiled for coming into conflict with theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP) administration, remaining a dissenting voice from abroad. Feeling that Turkey was too reliant onGermany but accepting that the country needed a close relationship with a bigger power to prosper he toyed with the idea of aUnited Statesmandate in Turkey in the immediate aftermath ofWorld War I.[4]
Returning to Turkey in 1919 he was a founder member of theGrand National Assembly of Turkey and was appointed Minister of National Education in 1920 and Minister of Health and Public Assistance in 1921, as well as serving as the envoy at the1921 Treaty of Moscow and theConference of Lausanne. ForKemal Atatürk, Rıza was an important appointment as his presence in government, along with that ofAhmet Ferit, lent weight to Atatürk's claims to being a uniting force, as both men had been opponents of the CUP which provided most government ministers.[5]
During the negotiations of theTreaty of Lausanne Rıza was sent as assistant to the head of the Turkish delegationİsmet İnönü.[6] He was in the subcommittee responsible for minority issues and he defended the view that a Muslim minority would not be acceptable for Turkey. He drew a comparison between theKizilbash and theMuslims, which he claimed are both ethnicTurks. He opposed the inclusion ofKurds,Bosniaks orCircassians as minorities in any agreement reached at Lausanne.[7] It was he who proposed the motions recognizing the Grand National Assembly as the legitimate government of Turkey, the end of the monarchy but the continuing control of theCaliphate by the Turkish government.[8] However whilst at Lausanne he also came to blows with the formerPrime Minister of GreeceEleftherios Venizelos over the issue of thePontic Greeks.[9] Indeed what theAllies saw as Rıza's intransigence over both this issue and that of theArmenians led to aYugoslavian delegate claiming that Rıza was "beginning to show thecloven hoof".[10]
Rıza Nur had negative views ofAlbanians as being inclined to banditry which formed his view to press for their exclusion from thepopulation exchange Between Greece and Turkey (1923) to whichGreece agreed.[11] Nur expressed displeasure that Albanians had arrived asTurks from Greece contravening the exchange agreement and that they were resettled in areas such asKartal,Pendik andErenköy, west ofİzmit considered to be high quality lands and in Ankara.[12] Nur also accusedAbdülhalik Renda, theGovernor of İzmir, of encouraging his Albanian compatriots (refugees and immigrants) to resettle from other Anatolian regions to İzmir, claims which Renda denied.[13] Nur also had negative views ofCircassians in Turkey and along with the Albanians viewed them as a threat to the Turkish state due to developing rival nationalisms.[14]
Following the formation of the Turkish Republic, Rıza Nur fell out of favour and left Turkey in 1926 after the attempt on the life of Atatürk atİzmir. Rıza condemned the executions ofMehmet Cavit Bey and the other alleged assassination conspirators arguing that, whilst he personally disliked the men who had been his own political opponents, he felt that they had not been involved in the plot and so were unjustly killed.[15] Embittered at the fall-out with his former ally, Rıza also wrote widely about Atatürk's allegedalcoholism.[16] Between 1931 and 1937 published theRevue de Turcologie in French and Turkish language, which founded inParis, was issued inAlexandria.[17] Returning from exile in Paris and Alexandria after Atatürk's death, in 1942 he published the journalTanrıdağı, which supportedTuranism andpan-Turkism.[17] The journal's name refers to theCentral Asian mountain rangeTien Shan, a region inhabited by ancientTurkic tribes.[18]
Rıza Nur was also a noted writer on a number of topics, with his most well-known work being a history of Turkey in 14 volumes.[19]
He died at the age of 63.
