BeÅŸir Fuad (5 February 1887) was an Ottoman soldier, intellectual, and writer during the
First Constitutional Era
The First Constitutional Era (; ) of the Ottoman Empire was the period of constitutional monarchy from the promulgation of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 (, , meaning ' Basic Law' or 'Fundamental Law' in Ottoman Turkish), written by members ...
.
He wrote works on science, philosophy, literary criticism and biography. Unlike
Tanzimat
The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...
era intellectuals, who generally subscribed to
romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, he promulgated
realism and naturalism in literature; and
positivism
Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...
in philosophy. He has been called "the first Turkish positivist and naturalist".
His suicide at the age of 35 had wide repercussions in the Ottoman society and the press, which were unfamiliar with the concept of suicide until then. His death is reported with starting a suicide epidemic in Istanbul.
Early life and military career
BeÅŸir Fuad was born in
Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
(modern-day
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
) to a family of
Georgian descent. He was the son of Habibe Hanım and Hurşid Pasha, who had served as
mutasarrif
Mutasarrif, mutesarrif, mutasarriff, or mutesarriff () was the title used in the Ottoman Empire and places like post-Ottoman Iraq for the governor of an administrative district in place of the usual sanjakbey. The Ottoman rank of mutasarrif was e ...
of
Marash and
Adana
Adana is a large city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province, Adana province, and has a population of 1 81 ...
.
After graduating from
Fatih Highschool, he continued his education at the
Aleppo
Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...
Jesuit School in
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, where his father was posted. During his stay in Aleppo, he learned French. He graduated from
Kuleli Military High School
Kuleli Military High School was the oldest military high school in Turkey, located in Çengelköy, Istanbul, on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus strait. It was founded on 21 September 1845, by Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I.
After the 2016 Turkish ...
in 1871 and the
Ottoman Military Academy
The Turkish Military Academy () or as it is known historically and popularly Harbiye is a four-year co-educational military academy and part of the National Defence University. It is located in the center of Ankara, Turkey. Its mission is ...
in 1873. After graduating, he served as an
aide-de-camp to Sultan
Abdulaziz
Abdulaziz (; ; 8 February 18304 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother Abdulmejid I in 1861.
Ab ...
for three years. When the
Serbian-Ottoman war of 1876-1877 began, he joined the army as a volunteer. Afterwards, he took part in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and the suppression of the
Cretan revolt of 1878; achieving the rank of
binbashi
A ''binbashi'', alternatively ''bimbashi'', (from , "chief of a thousand", "chiliarch") is a major in the Turkish army, of which term originated in the Ottoman army. The title was also used for a major in the Khedivial Egyptian army as ''Bimba ...
(
lieutenant colonel).
He stayed in Crete for several years, and learned English and German during this time.
His marriage to an aunt was
arranged
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestratio ...
when he was very young, he had a son named Mehmet Cemil from this marriage. He divorced a short time later and married Şaziye Hanım, daughter of Salih Pasha, a son of the palace doctor Kadri Pasha. He had two sons from this marriage, Namık Kemal and Mehmed Selim. He also had a daughter named Feride, born to a French mistress.
Career as a writer
BeÅŸir Fuad was interested in science and philosophy, and thanks to his knowledge of English, French and German, he was able to keep up with
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
intellectual and artistic developments. He started his career as a writer in 1883 by translating articles for the ''
Envâr-ı Zekâ'' magazine. He left the military in 1884, and from then he devoted himself entirely to writing.
He published over 200 articles on science, philosophy, language learning and the military; as well as reviews of theatrical plays. During his short writing career, he also published 16 books, and introduced Western figures such as
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...
,
Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet (; 13 May 184016 December 1897) was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet.
Early life
Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the ' ...
,
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
,
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , ; ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realis ...
,
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the ...
,
Karl Georg Büchner,
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...
,
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopé ...
,
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (; November 23, 1709 – November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his 1747 work '' L'homme machine'' ('' ...
,
Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...
Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term ''milieu intérieur'' and the associated c ...
and
Gabriel Tarde
Jean-Gabriel (de) Tarde (; ; 12 March 1843 – 13 May 1904) was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals (much as if it were chemist ...
to the Ottoman audience.
He published the magazine ''Hâver'', later ''Güneş'', which ran for 12 issues. He wrote the editorials of
Ceride-i Havadis
Ceride-i Havadis (Journal of News) was the first semi-official newspaper in the Ottoman Empire, and was published from 1840 to 1877.
History
''Ceride-i Havadis'' was published by William Nosworthy Churchill, an Englishman who moved to Turkey aged ...
for a month and a half. After the closure of that newspaper, he wrote articles for ''Tercüman-ı Adalet'' and ''Saadet''.
Despite not writing any literature himself, he engaged in
literary criticism
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...
, often contradicting the dominant views in the Ottoman Empire at the time. He defended the power and value of science and philosophy against the Romantic writers of the period, engaging in fierce arguments with
Mehmet Tahir and
Namık Kemal
Namık Kemal (, ; ; 21 December 1840 – 2 December 1888) was an Ottoman writer, poet, democrat, intellectual, reformer, journalist, playwright, and political activist who was influential in the formation of the Young Ottomans and their stru ...
. He expressed his thoughts on art and philosophy in his work ''Intikad'', which includes his correspondence with
Muallim Naci
Muallim Naci (), literally "Naci The Teacher" (b. 1850 – d. 12 April 1893), was an Ottoman writer, poet, educator and literary critic.
He lived during the reform-oriented Tanzimat period of the Ottoman Empire and advocated modernization withou ...
.
Upon the death of
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician.
His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...
in 1885, he wrote a small book about him. This work is considered the first critical monograph written in the history of
Turkish literature
Turkish literature () comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Turkish language. The Ottoman form of Turkish, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was highly influenced by Persian and Arabic literature,Bertold Sp ...
.
In another monograph on
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
, he defended positivism.
Death
His son Namık Kemal died at the age of one and a half years old from
scarlet fever
Scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'', a Group A streptococcus (GAS). It most commonly affects children between five and 15 years of age. The signs and symptoms include a sore ...
in 1885, and BeÅŸir Fuad could not get over the impact of the loss. After his mother (who suffered a
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
) died in March 1886, he started worrying because he thought the disease could be hereditary. He turned to nightlife and had several mistresses, being torn between them and his wife. He had a daughter, Feride, from a French mistress.
He fell into financial difficulties by spending his father's inheritance, and decided to kill himself. He took the decision two years before he carried it out, also motivated by his disbelief in afterlife.
He committed suicide on February 5, 1887 by cutting his wrists in his house. He first injected himself with
cocaine
Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...
to relieve the pain, and then cut his wrists. He took notes while he remained conscious, regarding his suicide as a scientific experiment:
I performed my operation and did not feel any pain. It hurts a little as the blood flows out. My sister-in-law came downstairs while the blood was flowing. I told her I shut the door because I was writing and send her back. Fortunately she did not come in. I cannot think of a sweeter death than this. I raised my arm like fury to let the blood out. I started to feel dizzy...
He had intended to donate his body to the
Imperial School of Medicine, but he was buried in
Eyüp Cemetery
The Eyüp Cemetery (), aka Eyüp Sultan Cemetery, is a historic burial ground located in the Eyüp district, on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. It is administered by the General Directorate of Foundations. One of the oldest and largest Musl ...
instead. His tomb was later lost.
BeÅŸir Fuad's death was widely reported in the press. Since suicide was a rarely discussed topic in the Ottoman Empire, it was reported as starting a suicide epidemic in Istanbul.
Subsequently,
Abdul Hamid II
Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...
's government banned newspapers from publishing news involving suicide.
References
{{Authority control
1850s births
1887 deaths
1880s suicides
19th-century journalists from the Ottoman Empire
Opinion journalists
19th-century translators
Positivists
Materialists
Journalists from Istanbul
Political people from the Ottoman Empire
Philosophers from the Ottoman Empire
Georgians from the Ottoman Empire
Suicides in the Ottoman Empire
Suicides by sharp instrument in Turkey
Kuleli Military High School alumni
Ottoman Military Academy alumni
Ottoman Army officers
Serbian–Turkish Wars (1876–1878)
Ottoman military personnel of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)
Burials at Eyüp Cemetery
Military personnel who died by suicide