What does the public understand about history

Let me write one more piece for Professor İlber, as he deserved it.

The Turkish public did not leave their Professor İlber alone on his final journey.

His conferences were also packed to the rafters.

The Turkish State also did what was required and laid its professor to rest in the burial ground of the world sultan he loved so much.

Much more will be written and drawn about Professor İlber.

It is not my place to make analyses about the professor.

I want to emphasize the importance of the event in terms of university-public integration.

He gave us all one of the best examples of the fourth-generation university, a trendy term of recent years.

He liberated the campus behind iron bars and offered it to the service of the citizens.

He turned the non-existent university-industry cooperation into a reality through university-citizen cooperation.

Professor İlber simplified the detailed knowledge that does not leave academic environments for the enlightenment of his people and turned it into current literature.

Not content with that, he made the knowledge, which he adapted to be pleasing to the public, widespread through both television and social media.

He made historical processes something that could be listened to with interest and pleasure by everyone, from those living in mansions in Bebek to the most uneducated person in the most remote village.

He took the literature that was dismissed with the attitude of "the public won't understand, or what is the need for the public to understand" out of academic congresses, scientific journals, and other intellectual environments, and ensured that the public understood it.

And he did it very well.