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 Turkey 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.
REFERENCE: Yusuf Akçura / Türk Dünyası (1926), Hüseyinzade Ali / Ubeydullah Efendinin Oynadığı Roller (Tan gazetesi, 4-5 Mart 1938), Hilmi Ziya Ülken / Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi (1966), Ertuğrul Yaman / Türkiye’deki Türk Dünyası (A. K. Bolaç – A. Esatoğlu ile, 1998), Ali Haydar Bayat / Hüseyinzâde Ali Bey (1998), Ali Haydar Bayat, Hüseyinzâde Ali Bey, Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı Yayını, Ankara, 1998, s. 32, 302), Yusuf Akçura / Türkçülük, Toker Yayınları, İstanbul, 1990, s. 149), Ziya Gökalp / Türkçülüğün Esasları (1969, s. 11), Bilge Ercilasun / “20. Yüzyılın Eşiğinde Dört Türk Aydını: Gaspralı İsmail, Hüseyinzâde Ali, Akçuraoğlu Yusuf, Ağaoğlu Ahmet” (Türkler, Cilt 14, s. 863), Hilmi Ziya Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, Ülken Yayınları, İstanbul, 2005, s. 271-272), Ziya Gökalp / Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak, İnkılâp Kitabevi (Tarih yok, s. 16), Göktürk Ömer Çakır/ “Gökalp’a Türkçülüğü Aşılayan adam: Hüseyinzâde Ali Turan” (Orkun, sayı 54), Nizam Önen / İki Turan: Macaristan ve Türkiye’de Turancılık (2005 s. 103), Abdülkadir İnan / Makaleler ve İncelemeler 2 (1998, s. 294), Ziya Gökalp, Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak, Necati Gültepe / Turan Turancılık Tarihinin Kaynakları ( 1999, s. 30), İhsan Işık / Resimli ve Metin Örnekli Türkiye Edebiyatçılar ve Kültür Adamları Ansiklopedisi (2006, gen. 2. bas. 2007) - Ünlü Fikir ve Kültür Adamları (Türkiye Ünlüleri Ansiklopedisi, C. 3, 2013) - Encyclopedia of Turkey’s Famous People (2013), Abdullah Işık / Hüseyinzade Ali Turan (abdullahabdurrahman.wordpress.com, 08.04.2015).
