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Mehmet Fuat Köprülü | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey | |
| In office 22 May 1950 – 15 April 1955 | |
| Preceded by | Necmettin Sadak |
| Succeeded by | Adnan Menderes |
| In office 9 December 1955 – 20 June 1956 | |
| Preceded by | Adnan Menderes |
| Succeeded by | Fatin Rüştü Zorlu |
| Turkish Deputy Prime Minister | |
| In office 29 July 1955 – 9 December 1955 | |
| Preceded by | Fatin Rüştü Zorlu |
| Succeeded by | Ahmet Tevfik İleri |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1890-12-04)December 4, 1890 Istanbul,Ottoman Empire (modernTurkey) |
| Died | June 28, 1966(1966-06-28) (aged 75) Istanbul,Turkey |
| Alma mater | Istanbul Erkek Lisesi |
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (December 5, 1890 – June 28, 1966), also known asKöprülüzade Mehmed Fuad, was a highly influentialTurkishsociologist,Turkologist,scholar,Minister of Foreign Affairs andDeputy Prime Minister of theRepublic of Turkey. A descendant of the prominentKöprülü family, Fuat Köprülü was a key figure in the intersection of scholarship and politics in early 20th century Turkey.
Fuat Köprülü was born in the city ofIstanbul in 1890 as Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad. His father was Faiz Efendi, an Islamic judge. His mother, Hatice Hanim. was the daughter of an Islamic scholar.
His paternal grandfather, Ahmet Ziya Bey, was the former ambassador to Bucharest, and Ahmet Ziya Bey was son of the former head of the Imperial Chancery of State (Dîvân-i Hümâyun Beylikçisi), Köprülüzade Arif Bey. Köprülüzade Arif Bey descended from theKöprülüs of the 17th century, an exceptional dynasty ofGrand Viziers whose reforms and conquests delayed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Fuat Köprülü was named after the first Grand Vizier of the Köprülü Era,Köprülü Mehmed Pasha.
Fuat Köprülü received his formal education at theAyasofya Middle and Mercan High schools, both products of the Ottoman educational reforms of the 19th century. In 1905, while a student at Mercan High School and at the age of only 15 years, the magazineMusavver Terakki published three poems by Fuat Köprülü. By the time he entered theIstanbul University School of Law at the age of 17, Fuat Köprülü already had an excellent command ofFrench,Persian andArabic. His first book,Hayat-i Fikriyye (The Intellectual Life), was published when he was 19 years old. After three years of study, Fuat Köprülü abandoned the School of Law because of the poor quality of instruction, saying that the diploma was not worth the loss of time it would entail.
From 1910 to 1913, Fuat Köprülü taught Turkish and literature at various high schools in Istanbul, including the prestigiousGalatasaray High School. Fuat Köprülü initially opposed the literary movement known as New Language [yeni lisan],[citation needed] which sought to simplify the Turkish language, and wrote articles for theServet-i Fünun magazine using a literary style comprehensible only to the most learned of Ottoman intellectuals. Fuat Köprülü changed his writing style and politics during theBalkan Wars. On February 6, 1913, the day after theBulgarian army attacked the Ottoman lines in the outskirts of Istanbul,Türk Yurdu magazine, a bastion of simplified Turkish prose andTurkish nationalism, published the first of many popular and patriotic essays by the 23-year-old Fuat Köprülü: “Hope and Determination" (Umit ve Azim), “Mourning Migration (Hicret Matemleri), "A Turk's Prayer (Türk’ün Duasi), and “Turkishness, Islamness, Ottomanness" (Türklük, İslamlık, Osmanlılık). He published articles inİslam Mecmuası, one of the publications of theCommittee of Union and Progress, between 1914 and 1918.[1] From 1919 to 1920 he contributed toBüyük Mecmua, a supporter of theTurkish War of Independence.[2]
Toward the end of 1913, Fuat Köprülü published his seminal and widely lauded academic article,The Method in Turkish Literary History (Türk Edebiyati Tarihinde Usul), inBilgi Mecmuasi. He argued that historians should not only research kings,viziers, commanders and scholars, but ordinary people as well. Fuat Köprülü believed that in addition to public and official records, historians should also study art, archeology, literature, language, folklore and oral traditions. This plea of his for historians to study social history was 16 years before the emergence ofAnnales school, which embraced a similar approach in France. One month after the publication of this article, Fuat Köprülü was appointed a Professor of the History of Turkish Literature atDarülfünun when he was at the age of 23.
Fuat Köprülü continued his scholarly research and academic publications through the years, eventually culminating in his magnum opus,The First Mystics in Turkish Literature (Turk Edebiyatinda İlk Mutasavviflar), in 1918, a book that focused on two Turkishmystics and folk poets,Ahmet Yesevi andYunus Emre. HisTurk Edebiyati Tarihi (History of Turkish Literature), published in 1920, was another seminal book that traced the history ofTurkish literature through millennia. In 1923, at the age of 33, Fuat Köprülü was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Literature at Istanbul University. In a short book entitledThe History of Turkey (Türkiye Tarihi) published that same year, he reviewed thehistory of the Turks from ancient Central Asia to the modern Ottoman Empire, continuing the approach he pioneered in his study of Turkish literature.
Fuat Köprülü was appointed undersecretary to the minister of education at the request of PresidentAtatürk and remained in this post for eight months. In addition, Fuat Köprülü was appointed the director of the Turcology Institute, established on the orders of President Atatürk, and began publishingTurkiyat Mecmuasi (The Turcology Journal).
In 1936 Köprülü was appointededitor-in-chief ofÜlkü, an official periodical of theAnkara People House, one of the cultural institutions established by Atatürk in 1932, a position which he held until 1941.[3]
Fuat Köprülü won numerous international accolades for his scholarship as well. The Soviet Academy of Sciences granted him a corresponding membership in 1925. TheUniversity of Heidelberg honored him with an honorary degree in 1927. TheUniversity of Athens and theUniversity of Paris (Sorbonne) granted him honorary doctorates in 1937 and 1939, respectively. In fact, most European Oriental societies made him a corresponding or honorary member, as did theAmerican Oriental Society in 1947.[citation needed]
In 1933, Fuat Köprülü became a professor ordinarius, a title denoting a professor of the highest rank in Turkey. In 1935, he delivered a series of influential lectures at theUniversity of Paris (Sorbonne) on the origins of the Ottoman Empire. Fuat Köprülü argued that ethnic Turks formed the Ottoman Empire usingSeljuk andIlhanid administrative traditions, and he discredited the prevailing view among Western scholars that the Ottoman Empire was formed by a race of predominantly Albanian, Eastern Roman and Slavic converts to Islam.[citation needed]
In1935, at the request of President Atatürk, Fuat Köprülü joined the single party regime in theTurkish Parliament as aKars deputy, and was elected again in1939 and1943. In 1945, as calls to establish a multiparty democracy increased after World War II, Fuat Köprülü joined the opposition and was dismissed from the ruling party along withAdnan Menderes andRefik Koraltan. In 1946, Menderes, Koraltan and Köprülü, together withCelal Bayar, formed theDemocrat Party. Fuat Köprülü became theMinister of Foreign Affairs when the Democrat Party came to power in the1950 elections, and he served in this post until 1955.[4] In 1953, an agreement was reached between YugoslavPresident Tito and Fuat Köprülü that promoted the emigration of Albanians from Yugoslavia to Anatolia.[5] Concerning Cyprus, he had a tolerant view of the dispute and supported the line of the Turkish government, that the status quo of a British government on the island was favorable.[6] Fuat Köprülü also briefly served as Deputy Prime Minister in 1955. On September 6, 1957, Fuat Köprülü resigned from the Democrat Party after disagreeing with the authoritarian tendencies displayed by the party leadership;[7] the same year he joinedLiberty Party. Following thecoup d'état in 1960 he was tried at theYassıada trials but found not guilty.[8]
Fuat Köprülü died on 28 June 1966.
A prolific scholar and public intellectual, Fuat Köprülü wrote over 1500 poems, essays, articles and books. AMehmet Fuat Koprulu Scholarship Programme was recently established to provide funds for Turkish students to undertakePhD study at theUniversity of Cambridge. His works include the following:
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey May 17, 1954–Dec 9, 1955 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey 1950–1955 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of National Defense of Turkey (acting) Sep 15, 1955–Dec 9, 1955 | Succeeded by |
