Nihal Atsız

In Turkey in 2012 a nationalist group calling itself the Atsız Youth emerged, participating in anti-Armenian demonstrations in Istanbul, carrying banners stating "You are all Armenians, You are all bastards", in response to the slogan "We are all Hrant Dink, We are all Armenians". In February 2015, in response to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Anti-Armenian banners of the Atsız Youth appeared in cities around Turkey, including banners in İstanbul condemning the Khojaly Genocide, and a banner in Muğla proclaiming "We celebrate the 100th anniversary of our country being cleared of Armenians".

During his lifetime, many scholars and authors who were influenced by Atsız decided to give a "present" to him by writing an honorary book. However, he died before receiving the present, which was published in 1976.

Nihâl Atsız was an important ideologue who lived during the early years of the Republic of Turkey. His circle attacked Atatürk's leadership, condemned Turkey's foreign policy, and particularly the appeasement policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Most importantly, his supporters ridiculed Kemalist attempts at connecting Turks with early Anatolian and Mesopotamian civilizations in the Atatürk era. His views on Atatürk became more positive after the military coup against the Democrat Party in 1960 and he stressed Atatürk's nationalism in his writings. By the Justice Party, he was offered to be candidate for parliamentary election in 1961 for Kütahya, but he did not accept.

Atsız wrote a satirical political comedy about the İnönü government, Z Vitamini (Vitamin Z), which was about a fictional special vitamin which gives immortality to the dictator and his government. It was published in 1959 containing eleven pages.

On the 3 May 1945, Atsız, Alparslan Türkeş, Reha Oğuz Türkkan, Nejdet Sançar and others, all imprisoned in the Tophane military prison, held a meeting in memory of the rallies held on the 3 May 1944 in support of Atsız during the trial between Atsız and Sabahattin Ali. This meeting was the beginning of the annual celebrations of the Turkism Day.

Atsız was prosecuted twice in 1944. Once he was prosecuted on the initiative of Sabahattin Ali for accusing him (and 3 other communists) of being a traitor and warning Prime Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu about them, who established important positions in high schools and universities, which Atsız believed was with the help of the Minister of National Education. Atsız knew Ali from before as they shared a room with him in the 1920s, when Sabahattin Ali was a nationalist. He was given a sentence of 6 months in the trial against Sabahattin Ali, which was later reduced to a suspended sentence of 4 months. During the Atsız-Ali trial, rallies by adherents to the political right-wing spectrum in support of Atsız were held on both court hearings on the 26 April and 3 May 1944. Many of the attendants of these rallies were arrested and later prosecuted during the so-called Racism Turanism trial. During this trial Atsız and 22 others, amongst them also Reha Oğuz Türkkan, Alparslan Türkeş, were prosecuted for inciting racism and Turanism. He first got sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in prison, after the sentence was lowered to 1 year and 6 months and at the end he (along with the other nationalists) received an amnesty. In 1973, despite his health problems, he received a prison sentence of 15 months because of his writings against Kurdish separatists, after 6 years of trials. He wrote Kurds should leave Turkey (if they insist on keeping the pro-Kurdish propaganda) and learn from the Armenians what happens to the people who challenge the Turkish nation. Many people; including mayors, journalists, writers, university lecturers and students; requested president Fahri Korutürk to release Atsız from prison. After .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}2+1⁄2 months, he was pardoned.

During his lifetime he wrote thirty-eight poems and six novels. A famous politicised novel of his was Dalkavuklar Gecesi (Night of the Sycophants), a historical allegory and critique of Kemalism. Published in 1941, it tells the story of political corruption during the Hittite era but actually referring (in a roman a clef fashion) to the injustices and arbitrariness of Atatürk's rule during the 1930s, especially the Turkish History Thesis, and the sycophants around him.

In 1934, he had written that "the Jew" was among "the internal enemies of Turkey" but in 1947, he praised the Jewish people for setting an example of strong nationalism (Zionism): indeed, the Jews managed "to get back the land they had lost 2,000 years ago and to revive Hebrew which has remained only in the books and turn into a spoken language."

Atsız published several academic essays about Ottoman literature and history. He began to publish magazines in 1931, which he kept doing until 1975. Atsız Mecmua was the first Pan-Turk magazine, which was published from 15 May 1931 to 25 September 1932. He also published Orhun from 1933 to 1934 and again from 1943 to 1944. Orkun, as a successor of Orhun, was first published in 1950 and later in 1962-63. His last magazine Ötüken was published from 1964 to 1975.

According to Jacob M. Landau, he was a sympathizer of the Nazi government. Landau in his book Exploring Ottoman and Turkish History states: "Atsiz was a great admirer of the race theories of Nazi Germany, expressing some of them repeatedly in his own works during the 1930s and 1940s (with the Turks labelled as the 'master race'). His articles insisted, again and again, that Pan-Turkism could – and should – be achieved by war." Aside from favoring Nazi Germany for their war with Soviet Union, he denied these claims as he started to publish his ideas even before Hitler was well-known in Turkey.

Kemalism, which had been condemned so harshly in his novel "Dalkavuklar Gecesi" (Night of the Sycophants) is the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey. The nature and the type of Atatürk's nationalism during the Early Republican Period (1923–50) had since 1923 have interpreted Turkish identity under the guiding light of constitutional principles which equated ‘Turkishness’ with being a Turkish citizen. Identifying all Turkish citizens as Turks proper, the three constitutions of the Republican Era were completely and positively blind to ethnic, and religious differences between Turkish citizens and disassociated ‘Turkishness’ from its popular meaning: that is, the name of an ethnic group. Supporters of this view argue that Republican statesmen rejected the German model of ethnic nationalism and emulated the French model of civic nationalism by reducing ‘Turkishness’ to a legal category only. In other words, citizens of Turkey who happened to be of Kurdish, Greek, Armenian, Jewish or Assyrian descent had only to accept a plebiscite, according to this view, to take advantage of the opportunity of Turkification, as far as their citizenship status was concerned, and gaining full equality with ethnic Turks, provided that they remained faithful to their side of the bargain.

He attended two French (one of them was in Egypt), one German and one Turkish secondary schools and Kadıköy High School before he began to study at the Military School of Medicine in 1922 but was expelled due to his ultra-nationalist views and activities as he declined to salute an officer of Arab origin who was of a superior rank than his in 1925. He then began to study at the Teachers College in Istanbul and the Istanbul University School of Literature and graduated from both in 1930. Following he became assistant to Professor Fuat Köprülü at the Istanbul University. He challenged the Turkish History Thesis and following this incident he was dismissed from the university in 1932. After he worked in high schools in Malatya and Edirne as a teacher but due to his persistent challenge of the Turkish History Thesis he often faced difficulties in his career. Following his imprisonment due to the Racism-Turanism Trials in 1944–1945 he wasn't rehired as a teacher and only in 1949 he was employed at the Süleymaniye Library. He returned to teaching for several years, ultimately to return the Library in 1952. He was active there until 1969. After his retirement in 1969 he kept publishing Ötüken.

Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız (Ottoman Turkish: حسين نيهال آتسز; January 12, 1905 – December 11, 1975) was a prominent Turkish ultranationalist writer, novelist, and poet. Nihâl Atsız self-identified as a racist, Pan-Turkist and Turanist. He was a critic of Islam in his later life, defining it as “a religion created by the Arabs, for Arabs”. He was the author of over 30 books and numerous articles and was in strong opposition to the government of İsmet İnönü, which he criticized for co-operating with the communists. He was accused of being a sympathizer of the Nazi government and plotting to overthrow the Turkish government.

Nihâl Atsız was born on January 12, 1905, at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul. His father was navy commander Mehmet Nail Bey, from the Çiftçioğlu family of Torul, Gümüşhane; and his mother was Fatma Zehra, daughter of navy commander Osman Fevzi Bey, from the Kadıoğlu family of Trabzon. Nihâl Atsız had two sons from his second wife Bedriye Atsız, who he married in 1935. Yağmur Atsız, a left-wing journalist and writer, and Dr. Buğra Atsız, academician and nationalist writer; he also had an adopted daughter: Kaniye Atsız. The marriage was divorced in 1975. Atsız had a younger brother, Nejdet Sançar, also a prominent personality of the pan-Turkist ideology. The surname he adopted following the enforcement of the Surname Law by Atatürk means 'nameless' or 'one who has not yet made himself a name. Because in Old Turkic Culture you should be successful to deserve a name. Atsız name was also the name of at least two Seljuk emirs, Atsiz (1098 – 1156) and Atsiz ibn Uwaq (died 1078 or 1079).