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For the first time, we are publishing the full text of the letter registered in the Presidential Archive with the number 01018843 and prepared for publication by Celil Güngör, without making any changes to its spelling and style.

Celil Güngör – World Bulletin/DUBAM
We are publishing for the first time the full text of the letter Zeki Velidi Togan wrote to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from Vienna after he had to resign from his position as a history teacher at Istanbul University and leave Turkey due to the discussions following his paper opposing the dominant view of history at the First Turkish History Congress held in 1932 and the lynching campaign against him.

In this congress, where the foundations of the official view of history of the Republican period were laid, papers were presented that created an artificial history design by isolating the history of the Turks and Anatolia from Islamic, Seljuk and Ottoman culture.

Zeki Velidi Togan opposed some of these theses because they did not reflect historical facts. He was subjected to slander and discredit by Reşit Galip, Şemsettin Günaltay and Sadri Maksudi because they did not comply with the official view of history and scientific facts.

For the first time, we are publishing the full text of the letter registered in the Presidential Archive with the number 01018843 and prepared for publication by Celil Güngör, without making any changes to its spelling and style.

The cry of the faithful son of the nation
The meeting, later called the First Turkish History Congress, which was designed as a course in which the basic theses about shaping the official understanding of history of the Republic of Turkey and how and in what content history should be taught as an educational tool, would be conveyed to university and secondary school history teachers, was held on 2-11 July 1932 in Ankara Community Center.

232 people, including 25 members of the Turkish Historical Society, 10 university faculty members, 1 teacher from the Academy of Fine Arts, and 196 high school and secondary school teachers, attended the congress. Of those who attended the congress, 33 participated in the discussions, 15 presented papers, and the others were present as listeners.

The work titled Keys to Turkish History, prepared as the main source of the Turkish History Thesis, and the four-volume History book were presented to some historians for review before the congress, and a report was requested from them. The main goal of this new history thesis is to reset history and create a radical break from the past, especially the Seljuk-Ottoman past, and a new consciousness shaped by a nationalism with a predominant racism aspect.

In addition, with the motivation of the complexes against European civilization, this history thesis, which can be expressed as proving the antiquity of Turkishness in these lands, proving the antiquity of Turkishness in these lands, proving that Turks belong to the white race like Europeans, and therefore the indisputableness of their Europeanness, and most importantly finding a historical basis and legitimacy for the efforts to break away from Islam and the Ottomans, has taken its first step into history education since the early 1930s, with the impulse of the complexes against European civilization.

In his opening speech of the Congress, Minister of Education Esat Bey also gave clues about the purpose of the congress and the new understanding of history by stating that although the Turks experienced the Paleolithic Age in their homeland, Central Asia, 12000 years before Christ, the Europeans were only able to get rid of this period 5000 years later, and that the Turks developed the timber and mining civilization in Central Asia while people were still living in rock holes.

Yusuf Akçura, one of the founders of the New Turkish History Thesis, explained the main idea of the Thesis, which he described as “our great cause”, as follows:
“It is the case that the Turks in the Ancient and Middle Ages were people who lived only as nomads and invaders and could not reach high levels of civilization, they were not people of the second degree, but they were people who established the first civilization in human history and carried the torch of the struggle for civilization in various periods since the earliest times.”
Representatives of Turkish historiography at that time, such as Şemsettin Günaltay, Fuat Köprülü, Zeki Velidi Togan, Yusuf Akçura, Ahmet Ağaoğlu, Ahmet Refik, Sadri Maksudi Arsal, Afet İnan and Reşit Galip also attended the congress.

The most controversial issues of the congress took place between Fuat Köprülü and Afet İnan, Zeki Velidi Togan and Sadri Maksudi, Şemsettin Günaltay and Reşit Galip. Köprülü made very naive and veiled criticisms, especially against Afet İnan’s declaration, and advised to be more careful about the application and interpretation of historical methods and sources.

He suggested that a history thesis could not be built with deficiencies such as the use of first-hand sources and the importance of using critical sources, and that one should be careful in the use of new and unfinished studies in Europe. This proposal and even his mild criticisms were perceived as opposition and were subjected to severe criticism.

For example, Hasan Cemil Bey said, “Now, let’s touch upon the idea that the documents are nakafi, that is, these sciences are still children, in his own words. With the permission of the esteemed professor, let us remind that when new truths were revealed at every stage of science, these truths were considered children. The trick is to consider the value of the truth, not its seniority. We rely on the latest discoveries about the real nature of Turkish civilization and Turkish origin.

“The fact that the discoveries are the latest or are children is not a weakness of our claim, it is its strength.” He makes a heroic criticism by saying. Köprülü took these and similar harsh criticisms lightly by stating that he was misunderstood, could not explain some aspects well, and was not clear enough, and took care not to be labeled as an opponent.

When Köprülü was asked why he was so docile after the congress, he said: “What can I do, I don’t have my home behind me.” It is said that he replied by saying that he meant Zeki Velidi, who came as an immigrant, and that he was not as brave as him.

At the Turkish History Congress held in this environment, Zeki Velidi Togan had to leave his job at Istanbul University and go to Vienna after his paper titled “Drought Issue in Central Asia”, and as a result of feeling obliged to respond to the unfair accusations and slanders made against him, he wrote a letter to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from Vienna on March 3, 1933.

In his letter registered in the Presidential Archive with the number 01018843, Zeki Velidi responds to the unfair accusations and slanders made against him. We are publishing this letter in its entirety below.

Attributed to him due to his notification at the congress; In this letter, in which he responds to the accusations of forgery, national treason, and making propaganda against activities in the field of national history among European scholars, he explains the reasons of who accused and slandered him and for what purpose, and expresses his regret that his service to the Turkish scientific world and to producing works by writing in Turkish was prevented.

At the congress, on the issues of drought and migration in Central Asia, Zeki Velidi was subjected to criticism and disapproval from every aspect due to medical doctor Reşit Galip’s paper to prove that the view that migration in Central Asia occurred due to drought and that this drought was continuous in Central Asia was not based on solid evidence.

He stated that the migration was not only due to drought, but also had many economic and political reasons, and that he cited Elbiruni and Barthold, the history scholar of the period, as sources on this issue, but this could not prevent objections and objections in the congress.

He attempted to belittle Reşit Galip Barthold and his works by saying that they are rich in material but have no value in terms of thesis, that the fact that Zeki Velidi wrote an ode to him does not concern us, and that Barthold is a man who worked to prove that the presence of the Turks in Central Asia belongs to very recent times and that they are an unfounded and generationless nation.

A secondary school teacher, encouraged by this, said, “It is true, Barthold is an ordinary enemy of the Turks.” he said. Elbiruni was equally tried to be trivialized by Reşit Galip.

He also states that he is the complainant of the rumors about Sadri Maksudi Arsal, who was involved in these discussions and called Zeki Velidi in his letter a Russian charlatan who wanted to settle old political scores with him at the history congress, and Şemsettin Günaltay, whom he described as a sloppy turban who had previously taught Islamic History at Darülfunun and now has his sights set on the Department of Turkish History.

Moreover, similar complaints have been made to Atatürk before. While explaining the environment and world of ideas that prepared Timur’s emergence in the Timur and Naqshbandi course he gave at the Istanbul University, Bahaeddin talked about Naqshbandi and his legends, and one of his students told the situation to his father, who was a member of parliament, and he reported Ataturk for using harmful books as a source and was subjected to investigation.

He could no longer bear this intolerance, which he had difficulty reconciling with the dignity of science and history he experienced during and after the History Congress, and went to Vienna to complete his doctorate. However, he does not lose his interest in Türkiye and always keeps alive the hope that one day the environment in which he can do his scientific work will become available.

He evaluates every opportunity in this regard and asks for help and support to be able to work at the university in Turkey and within the Turkish Historical Research Society.

In a letter he wrote to Afet İnan, who was in Geneva while he was in Bonn in 1937, he stated that he was given the opportunity to work in the country by intermediating with Atatürk, that he was raised to work among his nation, that working in a foreign language in foreign hands was very difficult for him, that he missed producing works in Turkish and the environment where he could address a wide readership from there, and that he wrote a similar letter to Şükrü Kaya.

But these attempts do not find a positive response. This letter is Zeki Velidi’s unanswered cry in 1933, immediately after the incident, to defend and protect the damaged scientific and intellectual dignity of a scientist. Here is the full text of the letter:

Who is Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan? He was born in 1890 in the Bashkir lands in Russia.

He learned Arabic from his father and Persian from his mother. He completed his madrasa education in a village close to his village. He took Arabic literature lessons and learned Russian. Later, he studied at Kasımiye Madrasa in Kazan. He met Russian orientalists and became interested in Turkish history. He assisted the deputies in the Russian Parliament on the problems of Muslim peoples. He met with Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin from the 1917 Soviet Revolution.

He held negotiations on the future of the Bashkirs. He fought against the Bolsheviks. He went to Iran, Afghanistan and Europe. He came to Turkey in 1925 with the invitation of the then Minister of Education, Hamdullah Suphi Tanriöver. He served as a member of the Copyright and Translation Committee of the Ministry of Education in Ankara for a while, and then was appointed as a History teacher at the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul Darülfünun.

After the discussions on his paper at the Turkish History Congress in 1932, he resigned from his position and went to Vienna in the same year. He completed his doctorate in 1935 and taught at the Universities of Bonn and Göttingen. He returned to Turkey in September 1939 and worked as a faculty member at Istanbul University Faculty of Letters until his death. He passed away in 1970.

About Zeki Velidi Togan’s life, political works and academic studies;
• Zeki Velidi TOGAN, Memories, TDV Publication. Ankara, 2002
• Tuncer BAYKARA, Zeki Velidi Togan, Ankara, 1989
• A Gift to Zeki Velidi TOGAN, TTK Yay.

Ankara, 2010
• Hüsnü ÖZLÜ, Afet İNAN’s Geneva Days and Historical Studies, ÇTTAD, X/22, İzmir, 2011
Turkish History Congress, on Turkish History Thesis;
• First Turkish History Congress, Conferences, Negotiation Minutes, TTK Publication.

Ankara, 2010
• Zeki Velidi TOGAN, Usul in History, Enderun Bookstore, Istanbul, 1985
• Nadir ÖZBEK, Zeki Velidi TOGAN and Turkish History Thesis, Social History V.8-45, Istanbul, 1997
• Şefik Taylan AKMAN, The Ideological and Political Character of the Official Historiography of the Early Republican Period in the Context of Turkish History Thesis, Hacettepe Faculty of Law Journal 1, Ankara, 2011
• Nevzat KÖKEN, Conceptions of History and History Education in the Republican Era (1923-1960) Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, SDÜ Institute of Social Sciences, Isparta, 2002
Source: http://www.dunyabulteni.net/turkiye/298287/zeki-velidi-toganin-mustafa-kemale-yazdigi-mektup

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