Understanding Reşit Galip Baydur and the 'Student Oath'

Let us summarize the life story of Dr. Reşit Galip, whom we bid farewell to eternity on March 5, 1934, and who is not sufficiently known to the Turkish public:

Reşit Galip, or Mustafa Reşit Galip Baydur, was born in Rhodes in 1893. After completing his primary and secondary education in Rhodes, he attended high school at İzmir Atatürk High School. In 1911, he entered the Istanbul School of Medicine.

While a medical student, he published a newspaper called "Hakikat" and a caricature magazine called "Sivrisinek" for his friends, and his articles were published in various newspapers in Istanbul.

While still a student, he was wounded in the Balkan War, which he joined as a volunteer. Later, he fought on the Çatalca and Caucasus fronts during the First World War.

At the end of the First World War, he became one of the founders of the "Köycüler" (Villagers) society established in Istanbul. The society consisted of fifteen young people who settled in villages to work.

During the War of Independence, he established an organization to conduct propaganda for the national struggle in the villages.

In March 1923, he impressed Atatürk, who had come to Mersin where he was working as a physician, with a speech he delivered, and two years later, upon his recommendation, he was nominated for parliament. He entered parliament by being elected as a deputy for Aydın in the 1925 by-elections.

Atatürk’s Intellectual Fedayeen

The service of Dr. Reşit Galip that left the most significant mark on our intellectual world is the University Reform he carried out in 1933 during his ministry.

Atatürk had made the decision to transform the Istanbul Darülfünun into a modern university in 1931. This was because the Darülfünun had ceased to be a university and had also remained distant from the War of Independence.

The implementation of the decision was carried out during Reşit Galip’s ministry.

The law regarding the establishment of Istanbul University in place of the Darülfünun was accepted by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on May 31, 1933. To determine the new teaching staff, nearly 150 professors and assistant professors were first dismissed from their duties.

In their place, German scientists fleeing the Nazi regime were appointed. However, due to the intense criticism regarding the determination of the staff before the law came into effect, Reşit Galip was forced to leave the ministry on July 13, 1933.

When Did the 'Student Oath' Begin to Be Recited?

During his ministry, Reşit Galip, who aimed to instill a spirit of loyalty to Atatürk’s principles in students starting from primary school, had his children recite an oath he had written himself on the morning of April 23, 1933, as the Republic reached its 10th year, and he repeated this text in his opening speech for Children's Week that day.

Following this speech, with a circular issued by the Ministry, this Oath was recited in unison in schools starting from the 10th year of the Republic until 2013.

What was the function of the 'Student Oath'?

In the first of the two most important functions of the Republic, which was established under the leadership of Atatürk at the end of the National War of Independence, the transition from subjecthood to citizenship was ensured; in the second, regulations were attempted to be carried out in the direction of establishing a Turkish Republic that would make the Turkish cultural identity visible and sovereign.

According to Atatürk, these two functions were a sociological and political necessity. Because in the lands saved from the yoke of imperialism, the dominant race in terms of population majority was Turkish and the mother tongue was Turkish. Besides this, the era was the era of national states.

The work carried out by the Republic under the leadership of Atatürk was not to create a nation that did not exist, according to the assessments of some who were wrong even if they were well-intentioned. It was to make the Turkish identity and culture, which were the great majority in the founding of the state, visible. Because a nation cannot be created from nothing, nor can it be destroyed from something.

Because during the Ottoman Empire period, Turks had experienced a loss of identity. The pre-Islamic past of the Turks, the civilizations they created, their origins in Asia, and their migration from there had been erased from the collective memory and forgotten. For this reason, under the guidance of Atatürk, the transformation of the invisible Turkish Nation into a visible Turkish state, in addition to political-economic practices, making culture and education policies prominent became the most important issues.

The main practices and institutions realized were: "Unification of education (March 3, 1924), adoption of the new Turkish alphabet (November 1, 1928), establishment of the Turkish Language and History Institutions (1931-1932), regulation of university education - secularization of education (May 31, 1933), and innovations in fine arts."

In this sense, the "Student Oath" was an expression of directing the people living within the borders of Turkey toward an ideal within the integrity of the Nation. In this context, the oath was a symbol of primary school students internalizing the concepts of homeland, Republic, Atatürk, Turkish Nation, respect, and love.

Why was it abolished?

Does one not feel like asking, "Is it intended to bring out Ummahism underneath by removing the concept of Turkishness?"

I commemorate the author of the "Student Oath", Dr. Reşit Galip, a Turk born in Rhodes and a graduate of İzmir Atatürk High School, with respect.

Notes:

1- The recitation of the Student Oath in schools in Turkey was ended in 2013 with legal changes made within the scope of the resolution process. As a result of the lawsuit filed by the Turkish Education Union at the Council of State, the 8th Chamber of the Council of State decided by a majority vote in 2018 to cancel the regulation that abolished the oath. However, this decision was not implemented by the executive branch. The Ministry of National Education appealed the decision, and the file came to the Council of State Administrative Litigation Chambers. On March 13, 2021, the Board accepted the objection of the Ministry of National Education by a majority vote and overturned the decision of the 8th Chamber of the Council of State that canceled the regulation.

2- Every state has texts similar to the "Student Oath". For example, in many schools in the United States (though there is no exact number, in more than half), students recite the "Pledge of Allegiance" in class every morning before starting lessons from kindergarten to the 12th grade. The oath written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 is as follows: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all..." (See: Eğitimpedia; milliyet.com.tr/yazarlar/gungor-uras)

3- A competent book on Reşit Galip was written under the title "Yener Oruç, 2007. Atatürk’ün Fikir Fedaisi. Gürer Yayınları".