Ahmed Rıza Bey

Intellectual and writer (b. 1859, İstanbul - d. 26 February 1930). He attended the Galatasaray High School (1874) and started working at the Babıali* Translation Office. He received education on agriculture in Paris, where he went in 1884. After working as principal at Bursa High School and Bursa Directorate of Education, he went to Paris for the second time (1889) and took part in the Young Turk Movement and undertook their leadership. He published Meşveret newspaper in Paris until the Second Constitutional Monarchy and opposed the rule of Abdülhamit. He worked as the İstanbul parliamentary deputy and Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly, which was established after the announcement of the Second Constitutional Monarch. Later, he was elected as a member of the Senate. Ahmet Rıza, who founded an opposition faction called the National Union during the government of Damat Ferit, was one of the people that Third Army Coordinator Mustafa Kemal asked for help in connection to the National Independence Army (1919). With his official visits to France and Lausanne, on behalf of the new government in Ankara, he was one of the people to establish the first official contacts with European countries.

In the book that he wrote and published in French called "Moral Bankruptcy of the Eastern Policy of The West" (1922), he explained “the tortures and injustices that the West has perpetrated towards Muslim people and Turks for centuries through the efforts of Christianizing, based only on western sources” (Osman Hami). When he returned to Turkey after the Lausanne Agreement, he started to re-write some of his works, but died before he was able to finish them. He is buried in the family graveyard in Kandilli.

His articles were published in Meşveret (1895-1908), Şurayı Ümmet (1902-80) and in some journals published by the Positivists in Paris and London (1896-1908).

WORKS:

Lâyihalar (Memorandums, 5 memorandums that were presented to Sultan Abdülhamid, undated, Paris), Cevat Paşa'ya Layiha (Memorandum to Cevat Paşa, pamphlet, undated), Tolerance Muslumane (Free Ritual in Islam, Paris, 1907), La Crise de I'Orient (The Crisis of the East, Paris, 1907), Echos de Turquie (Echoes of Turkey, Pairs, 1920), Vazife ve Mes'uliyet (Job and Liability; Sultan, Soldier, Woman, three different pamphlets, Paris, 1907-08), La Failite Moralle de La Politique Occidentale en Orient / Hayye Ale'l Felah (Moral Failure of the Western Policy in the East / Direction for the Salvation, Paris, 1922; translated as Batının Doğu Politikasının Ahlâken İflası-Moral Failure of Eastern Policy of the West by Ziyad Ebuzziya, 1988), Ahmet Rıza Bey'in Anıları (Memories of Ahmet Rıza Bey, first serialized by Haluk Şehsuvaroğlu in Cumhuriyet newspaper, January - February/1950; also published in book form; some of its impressions were named Batı Politikasının Ahlâksızlığı-The Viciousness of Western Policy, 1993).

REFERENCE: Şerif Mardin / Jön Türklerin Siyasi Düşünceleri 1895-1908 (1983), Ziyad Ebüzziya / TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (c. 2, 1988), Hilmi Ziya Ülken / Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi (1999), Niyazi Berkes / Türkiye’de Çağdaşlaşma (2007), Emre Kongar 21.Yüzyılda Türkiye, 2000’li Yıllarda Türkiye’nin Toplumsal Yapısı. (2007), Ülken Fahri Güven / Ahmed Rıza Bey’in Anıları (Millî Gazete, 19 Ocak 2009), İhsan Işık / Yazarlar Sözlüğü (1990, 1998) - Türkiye Yazarlar Ansiklopedisi (2001, 2004) – Encyclopedia of Turkish Authors (2005) - 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), Payitaht Abdülhamid (diziler.com., 16.03.2018).