HÜSEYİNZADE ALİ

Philosopher, journalist (b. 24 February 1864, Salyan / Baku / Azerbaijan – d. 1942, İstanbul). He also wrote under the pen name Ali Turan. He is one of the founders of the Party and Union and Progress and one of the first Turkists. He was the son of Tiflis Turkish School teacher Hüseyin Bey. His childhood passed with his grandfather Caucasian Sheikh-ul-Islam Hüseyinzade Ahmet Saylani. He attended Tiflis Muslim Primary School. He entered Tiflis Classic Gymnasium in 1875. He benefited from the conversations of his grandfather Şeyh Ahmet and his grandfather’s friend Mirza Fetih Ali Ahundzade and was acquainted with the literary environment of time under their guidance. Şeyh Saylani and Ahundzade had a great affect on his thoughts that made him interested in Turkish, Turkism and Türkiye from the time of his education at the Gymnasium.

He went to İstanbul with the desire to analyze Turkism and being Turkish closely, and entered the Military Medical School in 1890 after having graduated (1889) from Petersburg University, Department of Physics and Mathematics in 1885. He allied himself immediately to those that were against the rule of Abdülhamit as he was full of the emotions of uprising and liberty against the rule of the Tsar that were rising among the Northern Turks. These young persons were in contact with Ubeydullah Efendi and took advantage of his thoughts. He joined the Greek-Turkish wars. He passed an exam and he was appointed as an assistant professor at the School of Medicine after returning from the war (1900). He could not stay at this post because he was a member of the Union and Progress Party. He had to flee to Caucasia in 1903. He worked for Turkism and the independence of his motherland and wrote publications. He published a newspaper called Hayat with Ahmet Ağaoğlu, Ali Merdan Topçubaşıoğlu and Zeynelabidin Tagiyef and was the editor of this newspaper for two years. He published important articles in this newspaper such as Türkler kimdir ve kimlerden ibarettir (Who are the Turks and of Whom are They Composed?), Bize hangi ilimler lazımdır (Which Sciences do we Need?), Yazımızı, dilimiz ve birinci elimiz (Our Writing, Our Language and Our First hand).

Ali Bey supported that importance must be given to three principles which he described as “Turkification, Islamization, and Europeanization” in these articles. This thought that he suggested in Tiflis in 1905 found ardent support after seven years, in 1911. Ziya Gökalp published his articles Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak (Turkification, Islamization, and Modernization) and published his book in 1918 featuring these articles. Gökalp, not mentioning his name, respected him and called him “The Prophet” (H. Ziya Ülken).

Ali Turan published a review called Füyûzat in Tiflis in 1906 and was the editor of this review. Afterwards, he worked in the newspaper İrşad, Terakki and Hakikat in the Caucasus. He was the editor of the newspaper Kapsi that was published in Russian to support the ideals of Caucasian Turks before Hayat was published.

He established the Saadet School in Baku and gave lectures there during the years 1907 and 1910, the year he returned to İstanbul. He passed an exam again and he was promoted to professor of skin and syphilitic diseases when he returned to İstanbul.

He became the central organization member of the Committee of Union and Progress as he had been one of the founders of the party. He was one of the most active members of the committee between 1910 and 1918. He recruited young people with his conversations and suggestions at the Turkish Guild and pioneered the Turkist movement with Gökalp. However, he could only affect the philosophers but not masses because of his hesitant and modest character. He was a member of Caucasian Turks Education Association (1913), the High Assembly of Health (1916) and the Turk-Hungarian Friendship County Association (1916). He worked at hospitals during the Balkan wars and was sent to many countries on political duties. He also worked for Azerbaijan to be declared a national state during this period. He helped Yusuf Vezirli, İstanbul’s Ambassador in Azerbaijan, to write and publish Azerbaijani Turkish Literature (1919).

During World War I, he traveled around Middle Europe giving Turkism propaganda with the “Turan Committee”, with Akçuraoğlu and other friends. He participated in the congress of Turkish tribes that gathered in Berlin in 1916. He was sent to the International Socialist Congress that assembled in Stockholm with Akil Muhtar and Nesim Muslih in 1917. He read a remarkable paper at this congress. Finally, he participated in the First Turkology Congress that took place in Baku in 1926 and left notes about this congress. He spoke Russian, French, English and Persian. He continued his lessons at his faculty until his retirement in 1933. He died at his house in Üsküdar in 1942. He wrote the non-published Büyük Tıp Lûgatı (Big Dictionary of Medicine) as well as his published books on Skin and Venereal Diseases.