THE REMAINS OF TALAT: A DIALECTIC BETWEEN REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE

BY

ROBERT W. OLSON

Universityof Kentucky

There is much of interest in the historiography of the Young Turks regarding their rise to power in 1908 as well as the desperate and dramatic flight from Istanbul in 1918 of some of their leaders such as Talat, Enver and Cemal among others, in a German destroyer with sundered lights.l The death of the dashing Enver Pasa occurred while fighting Soviet forces in Central Asia. Cemal and Talat were tracked down and killed by Armenian assassins. But the burial and reburial of the latter two, especially that of Talat Pasa, has received much less attention. The return of the remains of Talat Pasa from Germany and their reburial in Turkey on 25 February, 1943 and the significance of this event is the topic of this article. "Talat: Remains of...." is the interesting title of a dossier numbered 480 in the Public Record Office of Great Britain under the listing FO 195/2479. The dossier discusses the return of the body of Talat Pasa, a leader of the Committee of Union and Pro- gress (Ittihad ve Terrakki Cemyeti) and the Young Turks during 1908-1918. Talat served as Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire from 4 February, 1917 to October, 1918. He fled from Turkey aboard a German destroyer, along with other Young Turk leaders, during the night of November 2-3, 1918 (1-2 Tesrinisani, 1334).

1 FO 195 designates the records of the Ottoman and Turkish Embassy records of the Foreign Office. I wish to thank the Head of the Public Record Office for permission to cite material in this article. Unless otherwise stated all references and quotes in this article refer to materials found in dossier 480. 47

Talat was assassinated by a young Armenian on the morning of 16 2 March, 1921 (6 Receb, 1339) in Berlin.? Once of the first public announcements that Talat's body was to be returned to Turkey appeared in an article in the newspaper Tasvir-i Ejkdr on 18 February 1943 written by Orhan Seyfi which stated that Talat Pasa was a revolutionary who rose from the people and that it was not the Padisah or the Sublime Porte which brought him to power. According to Seyfi, Talat and a handful of others seized power, but he never separated himself from the people and he remained a child of the people. Seyfi's article goes on to say that when Talat was forced to flee to Germany he expected to find a friend and ally but that he did not; instead he found an assassin's bullet. And as painful as that was, it was more painful that German justice remained indifferent. Seyfi ended his article by stating, "Today, however, Germany has expressed its respect toward the martyr, Talat Pasa, and has acquitted itself of their old debt to him and it is this that Turks have waited for.3 After being alerted that Talat's body was to be returned, there was increased activity and excitement in the British Embassy. In a memorandum dated 2 February, A. C., Maby, vice-consul, Istan-

2 For a short bibliography of Talat Pasa see Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli Dearinde Son Sadrazamlar, vol. 3 (Istanbul, 1940-3), 1933-1972 and the relevant pages in Bernard Lewis, The Emergenceof ModernTurkey (Oxford University Press, 1961) especially pages 221-22 and generally, pages 206-33; Feroz Ahmad, The YoungTurks: The Committeeof Union and Progressin Turkish Politics 1908-14 (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1969), 179-80; Ernest Edmondson Ramsaur, Jr., The YoungTurks: Prelude to the Reaolutionof 1908 (Princeton, 1957), especially pages 100-39; Huseyin Cahit Yalyn, Talat Pasa (Istanbul, 1943). Huseyin Cahit Yalqin also edited the memoires of Talat, Talat pa¡a' nzn Hatzralarz(Istanbul, 1946). The biography of Talat in Inal's work is only 39 pages and most of it consist of quotes from newspapers in connection with Talat's assassination. The short biography by Yalcin is largely a defense of the Committee of Union and Progress. Indeed, the monograph is dedicated to those friends of Talat who remained faithful to him un- til the return of his remains. Yalyn's monograph was written after the return of Talat's remains to Turkey and was no doubt intended as an elaboration of his arti- cle which appeared in La Republicon February 26, 1943, and was doubtless pub- lished as a part of the whole ` `Talat Pasha Affair". Ahmad states that Talat was assassinated on 16 March (p. 180) but Inal gives the date as 15 March, 1921 (5 Receb), p. 1946. The latter date is the correct one. Talat's assassin was a twenty- four year old Armenian student named Soghomon Tehlirian from the city of Selmas, Iran. 3 FO 480 excerpted from Tasvir-i Efkar, February 18, 1943.