Studies on the early Ethnology of the Turks in the Middle East

Collected and translated here for the first time into any language are Mehmed Fuad Koprulu's various studies in Turkish on the early ethnology of the Turks in Southwest Asia, the Middle East. Mehmed Fuad Koprulu (1890-1966) was one of Turkey's leading twentieth-century intellectuals and historians. Born in Istanbul and related to the famous Ottoman grand vizier Koprulu Mehmed Pasha (d. 1661), he devoted his life primarily to scholarly pursuits and secondarily to politics. He eschewed a university education and was almost completely self-taught. In 1913 he became professor of history at Darulfunun, later Istanbul University, and published his first major article, on method in the study of Turkish literature. Thus began a stream of more than 1.300 publications (books, articles, reviews, essays, editorials, and other writings, almost all in Turkish) that laid the basis for the modern study of Turkish literature and Turkish history, in the widest sense, in Turkey. Many of these works are still of great interest. Applying modern European methods of research and analysis to a wide variety of sources, he brought to light an enormous amount of unknown or poorly known information on the Turks. Furthermore, as a Turkish nationalist historian, he used this information to help give the Turks a distinct historical identity. Koprulu entered politics in 1935 and was elected to parliament. In 1939 he joined the faculty of Ankara University. In 1943 he gave up his professorship to participate in politics full time. In 1946 he helped found the Democratic Party. When it came to power in 1950 he became minister of foreign affairs. He left the Democratic Party in 1956 and was briefly arrested after the military coup of 1960. He retired from politics in 1961 and returned to scholarly research until his death.
- Gary Leiser.