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ALİ KEMAL YİĞİTOĞLU. Photo by: SAYKUT1-

Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Ali Kemal

Hacı Ahmet Rıza Effendi, Kemal’s father, was a Turk from the village of Kalfat in Çankırı, and his mother was a Circassian, reputedly of slave origin. Kemal was a journalist who traveled extensively after being expelled from Turkey for his political beliefs. During one of his many trips to Switzerland, he met and fell in love with Winifred Brun, the daughter of Frank Brun’s marriage to Margaret Johnson. On September 11, 1903, they married in Paddington, London.

1. Why was Ali Kemal valuable in the Turkish government?

Ali Kemal Bey (September 7, 1869 – November 6, 1922) was a Turkish journalist, newspaper editor, poet, liberal-leaning politician, and government official who served as Minister of the Interior in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, for about three months. 

2. Ali Kemal’s brief family tree

Kemal Kuneralp is the father of retired Turkish ambassador Zeki Kuneralp, who served in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Spain. He is also the paternal grandfather of Turkish diplomat Selim Kuneralp and British politician Stanley Johnson. Ali Kemal is the great-grandfather of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his siblings through Johnson.

3. He was hunted down due to  his political views

Ali Kemal Bey-

He had taken a tram to the barbershop on November 6th, 1922, unaware that two police officers were following him with orders to bring him to an Independence Tribunal in Ankara. Even though Kemal managed to flee his captors for a short time, he was quickly apprehended, loaded onto a ferry, and shipped to a nearby city.

General Nureddin Pasha, an influential soldier looking to make an impression on revolutionary leaders, was waiting for him there. All whilst, a crowd had gathered outside the general’s headquarters. What happened next is described in various ways.

4. Was Ali Kemal harmed during the ambush?

An “angry mob of women pounced on Ali Kemal, attacking him with knives, stones, clubs, tearing at his clothing, and slashing at his body and head with cutlasses,” as per The New York Times. Others claimed that Kemal was killed by young Turkish soldiers who crushed his skull with hammers, while others claimed that he was stoned to death.

Kemal’s body was hung from a pole near a train station so that it could be seen by Ä°smet Ä°nönü, one of the Turkish revolution’s masterminds. Ä°smet Ä°nönü noticed a placard around the lynched man’s neck that misspelled his name as “Artun Kemal,” implying that he was Armenian rather than Muslim.

Even so, contrary to Nureddin Pasha’s expectations, Ä°smet Ä°nönü was shocked by this display of force.

5. Why Ali Kemal was considered a traitor in Turkey

Nonetheless, Kemal has become Turkey’s famous “betrayer” ever since. After the Great War, he was an enemy of nationalists, favoring Turkey becoming a British protectorate, and he doubted that a nation-state could be built that would reflect the will of the Turkish people.

His short temper harmed his reputation even more. His name came to be associated with antidemocratic demagoguery. When the country’s accession to the European Union was being debated in the 1990s, those opposed to membership dubbed EU sympathizers “modern Ali Kemals.”

The central theme of these conversations was supreme authority. According to critics of the ascension process, the refusal of Turkish sovereignty and Brussels’ support for political rule were partially motivated by Ali Kemal’s suggestions. He remained a symbol of betrayal and sedition.

6. Ali Kemal’s children and marriage

ALİ KEMAL YİĞİTOĞLU. Photo by: SAYKUT1-

When they decided to marry, they looked for a priest but had difficulty finding one who would marry them. They eventually found one, and they were married in a church in London in 1903.

The couple soon had a son, but he caught whooping cough when he was only a few months old and died despite being taken to Switzerland for treatment.

Ali Kemal had a daughter named Selma later in life. After living in Cairo for a while, Ali Kemal and his wife returned to Istanbul in 1908 due to financial difficulties, and the couple settled in Bebek.

Nevertheless, after the Committee of Union and Progress took power, Ali Kemal decided to leave the country for London.

Winifred died in London shortly after the birth of their son Osman Ali. Ali Kemal wrote a two-volume novel titled “Fetret, Birinci Kitap ve kinci Kitap” after the death of his wife, in which he reflected on his life as well as his political beliefs.

7. What did Ali Kemal’s children do after his death?

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire was allied with the German Empire, and Kemal’s son and daughter living in England took their maternal grandmother’s maiden name of Johnson. His son Osman began to use his middle name, Wilfred, as his first name as well.

(Osman) Wilfred Johnson later married Irene Williams (daughter of Stanley F. Williams of Bromley, Kent, by his marriage to Marie Luise, Freiin von Pfeffel, born in 1882, and their son Stanley Johnson became an expert on the environment and a Conservative member of the European Parliament.

On July 24, 2019, his son Boris Johnson, Kemal’s great-grandson, was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Celma, Kemal’s half-English daughter, returned to her Turkish surname and took Turkish nationality after the First World War.

She married Reginald St John Battersby, and their son Anthony Battersby served in the Royal Marines, went on to become an architect/health planner, and spent the majority of his career as a public health consultant for various UN agencies.

8. How did Ali Kemal join politics?

ALİ KEMAL YİĞİTOĞLU. Photo by: SAYKUT1-

He left his teaching job at Darülfünun after students protested his articles criticizing the National Struggle (Istanbul University). Because of his writings opposing the Independence War, Ali Kemal earned the moniker “Artin Kemal,” which denoted a pro-Armenian stance.

Long opposed to the national struggle, Ali Kemal eventually wrote a piece titled “We had and still have the same goal” on Sept. 10, 1922, following the liberation of Ä°zmir, in which he admitted to being wrong.

9. Ali Kemal’s educational background in Istanbul

Ali Kemal was born in Istanbul’s Süleymaniye neighborhood to Hac Ahmed Efendi, a guild chief. His father was born in the village of Kalfat (Halfat) in the province of Ankr. Ali Kemal attended the Gülhane Military Middle School after graduating from the local elementary school, but was later expelled for misbehavior.

He enrolled in the Mülkiye, or political science school, in 1882, where he wrote poems and published a magazine. His real name was Ali Rza, but he became known as Ali Kemal because he used that pen name in his poems and writings. He traveled to France in 1887 to improve his French.

10. He lived in France for a while

ALİ KEMAL YİĞİTOĞLU. Photo by: SAYKUT1-

During his visit to France, he made contact with opponents of Sultan Abdülhamid II’s regime. He returned to Turkey soon after, but returned to France due to his opposition to the regime. In Â鶹APP, he joined the Young Turks movement.

Ali Kemal left the movement when Mizanc Murad disassociated himself from it. Due to financial difficulties, he traveled to Egypt in 1900 to manage the farm of Ahmed Celaleddin PaÅŸa’s wife.

Soon after the proclamation of the second Constitutional Monarchy in 1908, Ali Kemal returned to Istanbul and became the editor-in-chief of kdam newspaper.