How many times was Zekeriya Sertel exiled from his country?

Who was Sertel?

Zekeriya Sertel is one of the interesting figures in our press history. He spent a significant part of his 90-year life in exile. Some of these years away from his homeland were spent in the newly established socialist republics in Europe. He was not a member of the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey). He was considered a member of the TKP. When Nazım returned from Russia in 1928, he hired him at Resimli Ay. Their friendship dates back to those years.

Zekeriya Sertel’s childhood and youth were spent in a cosmopolitan environment in the province of Thessaloniki. He graduated from the Thessaloniki Law School and was sent to Paris for his studies on a scholarship provided by the Committee of Union and Progress government. Later, together with his wife Sabiha, they won the King Crane scholarship upon the recommendation of Halide Edib and studied at Columbia University in New York between 1919 and 1923.

The Sertels were in America during the National War of Independence. Zekeriya studied journalism, and Sabiha studied social services. They returned to Turkey after the great victory. Their eldest daughter, Sevim, was born in Istanbul (she married an American of Irish descent and took the surname O'Briand), while Yıldız was born in the USA.

He was primarily Western. Although a significant part of his life was spent in the Eastern Bloc, his leftism was European leftism. He had been educated in Thessaloniki, Paris, and New York. These experiences made him uncompromising regarding freedom of thought and expression. Due to circumstances, he could not manage to remain silent; he would say, write, and publish what he knew to be true. When he returned from the USA and was appointed Director General of the Press by the Ankara government, he struggled to define the limits of freedom under revolutionary conditions. He had to leave his post shortly after. He began publishing the magazine Yeni Ay in Istanbul. The gathering of opposition figures such as Nazım Hikmet, Suat Derviş, Nail Vahdeti Çakırhan, Emin Türk Eliçin, and Sabahattin Ali around this magazine caused it to shift toward a dissident line. Yet, the magazine had started as an American-style magazine. Over time, its content and function changed. Nazım's "We are tearing down the idols" campaign was launched there. Later, he started newspaper publishing. He published Son Posta for a long time. Then he took over Tan.

HIS SELF-CRITICISM AFTER ATATÜRK’S DEATH

The Independence Tribunal had sentenced him to exile and imprisonment in a fortress during the period of the Law on the Maintenance of Order. He was not against the Republican revolutions, but he found the method too authoritarian. Despite this, his newspaper Tan announced Atatürk’s death with the headline “We have lost our father.” He also wrote a sincere piece of self-criticism as follows:

“During his lifetime, we had waged a war for democracy and freedom against this man. We found his actions dictatorial. Because at that time, we were inside the forest. We saw the trees, but we could not see the forest in all its magnitude. Now I can see the past more clearly. Atatürk had made great revolutions in the social, political, and economic life of the country. He had destroyed the Caliphate and the Sultanate and replaced them with a republican regime. He had made many fundamental changes in the social life and traditions of the people.

Imperialists had also incited rebellions within the country. The entire pro-Caliphate, pro-Sultanate, and reactionary press in Istanbul had opened fire on Atatürk. Could freedom and democracy develop under all these conditions? On the contrary, it is necessary to act somewhat harshly against the enemies of the revolution. Atatürk also needed to be cautious and wary against internal and external enemies. He attached more importance to the sovereignty of the Parliament, that is, the sovereignty of the people, than to individual rule. All conditions were favorable for him to become an Eastern dictator. However, despite being a soldier, he established a soft, charming, and intelligent authority. This authority was based not on fear, as in a dictatorship, but on love. What gave him this power was the people's loving attachment to him. That is why Atatürk was great yesterday, is great today, and will remain great tomorrow. We can only reach the freedom and democracy we fought for by following the path he opened.”

THE 1945 TAN NEWSPAPER TRAGEDY

The Tan newspaper, which he published after 1935, had adopted a cautious but pro-Allied stance during the war years. It had received reactions from the pro-German fascist front within the army, the press, and the CHP. Just as they were saying they were transitioning to full democracy, his newspaper Tan was destroyed by an incited mob. December 4, 1945.

Interestingly, political figures who would appear before him in later periods of his life, such as Orhan Birgit and Süleyman Demirel—who were university students at the time—had also participated in the act of destroying his newspaper. Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of property had been severely violated.

Despite this, the judiciary found him guilty along with Halil Lütfü Dördüncü, Cami Baykut, and Sabiha. Three months later, the Court of Cassation overturned the decision, and they were released. But one thing had been understood: there was no room for the left in Turkey's new democracy.

HOW DID THE FIRST EXILE HAPPEN?

Zekeriya Sertel, his wife Sabiha Hanım, and their young daughter Yıldız had to leave Turkey in 1951. Just before the communist arrests. Out of concern that his wife and daughter would be arrested. The fact that Nazım Hikmet had to flee had made them uneasy.

The “democratic stance” that the Democrats had followed while in opposition had changed in a short time. Yet, before the Tan raid, they had even pledged to contribute articles to the joint opposition magazine Görüşler. For example: Adnan Menderes.

DP leaders parted ways with other dissidents. After coming to power, their political line would not be multi-voiced politics, but fierce anti-communism. Throughout their 10-year rule, anti-communist populism would be enough to keep them in power the easy way.

The Sertels, in the oppressive environment created by the DP government, went to Paris via Rome with good timing. The Fourth Republic had just been established in France. The French left carried the pride provided by the years of anti-fascist struggle. It had become one of the main actors of French politics. After the 1948 DTCF purge, there was a small group of Turkish intellectuals who had left Turkey. The Sertels would join them.

OPPORTUNITIES CREATED BY THE PEACE COUNCIL AND LIFE IN BUDAPEST AND PRAGUE

With the beginning of the Cold War, the World Peace Council was established with Soviet support. The Council received the support of Western social democratic, socialist, and communist circles. The Council was a peace platform that included Aragon, Neruda, Sartre, Dali, and Nazım Hikmet.

Throughout Europe, the left was praising the Soviet Union's role in defeating fascism. They believed that international peace could only be established with the support of the Soviets.

Regimes in Europe had not fully clarified, and the international status quo had not yet been established. The Iron Curtain bloc did not yet exist.

After Nazım was released in 1950, the World Peace Council had given him the Peace Prize. But because the Menderes Government did not provide a passport, he could not go abroad to receive his award. In 1951, our world-famous poet Nazım Hikmet was now in the socialist world. In 1952, the Peace Council took him into its administration. We will always see Nazım at the Council's subsequent meetings in cities such as Vienna, Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Helsinki.

Nazım had Sertel invited to the Council's meeting held in Vienna. This invitation was the fundamental reason that enabled Sertel and his family to transition to the newly forming Socialist Bloc. At that time, Vienna, like Berlin, was under joint allied administration. The Council had a permanent administrative center. And it was in the Soviet zone.

The reason the Sertels were able to stay in Vienna is most likely that a position had been secured for Zekeriya before the council through Nazım's mediation.

After a while, the place they lived became Budapest, Hungary. They lived there until the 1956 Hungarian uprising. With the opportunities provided by the Council, Sertel traveled to Soviet Russia, Bulgaria, and the Central Asian Turkic States. He published works. He even went to China and met with Mao.

Publications such as “45 Days in Soviet Russia” and “Bulgaria Trips” belong to these years. In these publications, we see Sertel in admiration, especially in the face of large investments made with public power. I call this period of Sertel the “Socialist Paradise Utopia” period.

In this early period, he realized the fact that real socialism did not include freedom of thought and dissident voices. However, conditions were not suitable for explicitly pronouncing this. After a while, Sertel realized that an Iron Curtain was rising behind education, health, large industrial investments, and production abundance. This was not the socialism Sertel dreamed of. Socialism could not just be the right and duty to work, and the state providing education, health, and housing at minimum costs. Something very important had to be added to this: freedom.

Realizing that the restricted freedom of thought and expression, which could be tolerated for a while during the process of purging remnants of the old regime and reactionary forces, would never come, Sertel began to criticize the Soviet system, provided it was not at a very high pitch. Later, “Russian-Style Socialism,” as he titled one of his books, was not the socialism in his mind. According to him, the theory was correct, but the way it was applied in Russia was wrong. In Russia, it was not the proletariat but the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) bureaucratic elite that was in power.

When Hungary was “brought into line” by the Soviets in 1956, his concerns increased. They moved from Budapest to Prague. Before Bolshevization, the Czechs were a Central European state with multi-party political life and Western democratic institutions. After joining the socialist world, they were trying to follow a path of their own. This relative environment of freedom in Prague allowed them to live there for a while.

TKP AND BİZİM RADYO - LIFE IN LEIPZIG

On April 1, 1958, Bizim Radyo (Our Radio) was established with Soviet support. The radio was financed by the German Democratic Republic. It was a radio broadcasting to Turkey by the TKP foreign bureau. The broadcasting center was Leipzig. The Sertels were in this circle.

However, there was a very important detail. Sabiha and Yıldız were TKP members. Zekeriya never joined the TKP. The environment provided by his wife and daughter, and the journalism training Sertel received in the USA, allowed him to be reluctantly accepted by Bizim Radyo.

The TKP, led by İsmail Bilen (Mara İsmail), was systematically keeping Nazım away from the party, and Zekeriya was being excluded. There was a tacit compromise; according to TKP executives, Sertel was a bourgeois intellectual and had no place among them. They were tolerating him because of Sabiha. Despite this, Zekeriya and Nazım were able to express their own views in the radio scripts they wrote.

WHY DID THEY GO TO BAKU?

This regime of tacit compromise continued until 1962. But Sertel became seriously ill after a while. He was struggling with joint and circulatory problems. Again, through the connections Nazım had established, he went to Baku. His wife and daughter joined him after a while. The Sertels did not have a settled life in Soviet Russia. They stayed in Europe the most within the Eastern Bloc. The climate of Baku, the treatments applied, and the interest of Azeri intellectuals were very good for Zekeriya.

After the living conditions that had continued since 1951, Azerbaijan provided them with a comfortable environment. When Nazım passed away in Moscow on June 3, 1963, only their daughter Yıldız could attend the funeral from the Sertels. Because Sabiha and Zekeriya were receiving treatment in Baku.

The Sertels initially felt very good in Baku due to the comfort provided by the Turkish-speaking environment and the attention they received. Their living standards were good. In the autumn of 1963, they met with Nazım's wife Münevver Andaç in Yalta. Then Münevver returned to her lectureship job at Warsaw University.

BUT HOW LONG COULD THEY LIVE IN BAKU?

Their background and outlook on the world had developed from the left but within the liberal world. For these reasons, despite all the positive conditions, it was impossible for them to live for a long time in an Asian country like Azerbaijan. One benefit of the Baku residence was that their daughter Yıldız Sertel could pursue her doctoral studies. Her thesis was published in 1969 by Ant publications under the title "Advanced Currents in Turkey." Yıldız later became an Associate Professor.

Thus, the Sertels lived outside the liberal world, in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Azerbaijan. They did not have a long-term residence in Soviet Russia. Sertel was disappointed with the socialism established in the Eastern Bloc after the Second World War. To this was added his wife's serious illness (lung cancer), and after a while, Sabiha passed away.

HOW DID THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO RETURN FROM EXILE HAPPEN?

Meanwhile, the May 27 Revolution had taken place, the 1961 Constitution had come into effect, and fundamental rights and freedoms had become the principles of the new regime.

Under these conditions, they could return to Turkey with their daughter Yıldız. They requested a passport and to return to the country from Hasan Esat Işık, who had been the ambassador in Moscow since 1964. Despite all the efforts of the Ambassador, the Justice Party Government, which came to power in 1965, “met the request with silence.” This attitude meant the following: During Demirel's 1965-1969 prime ministry period, the Republic of Turkey effectively rejected the passport application of Sertel, who had no criminal prosecution against him, without any legal basis.

Realizing that he could not return to Turkey under these conditions, Sertel returned to Paris, where he first went to study in 1913, with an acceptance document provided by Pertev Naili Boratav. Boratav was working at the Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris. He had provided Sertel with a 45-day academic research acceptance document. This document enabled the Sertels' exit from Azerbaijan.

We can say that the left-wing opposition inside and outside the parliament was quite strong in Turkey in the 60s, when the Justice Party government was considered the representative of the comprador bourgeoisie. These circles were challenging the order with magazines like Yön, Ant, and Devrim. In an environment where Turkish-Soviet joint investments were increasing, artists and scientists began to go to the Soviets. Meanwhile, Sertel's Memoirs began to be published in Ant magazine. Most likely thanks to Aziz Nesin or İlhan Selçuk.

In 1969, it was known to the public that Sertel wanted to return to his country and that there was no legal obstacle to his return. The coincidence was that Hasan Esat Işık had come to Paris as ambassador this time. In an environment where Demirel's "monseigneur" Foreign Minister İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil was in Paris, the subject was opened to him once again. Çağlayangil said there was no legal obstacle.

Meanwhile, an interview conducted with him by Gündüz Vassaf, the son of his sister Belkıs living in the USA, was published in Vatan newspaper. Another interview would be conducted and published by İsmail Cem. Despite Çağlayangil's positive comment, the passport request was met with silence once again.

This situation was, of course, contrary to citizenship law. After waiting with a little more patience, he was advised to try another way. That way was the known way. According to the citizenship law, one of the most fundamental principles was that if a citizen returned to the homeland, the “citizen could not be extradited.” Faced with all these developments, unable to bear the longing for his homeland, he came to Istanbul without a passport.

In the Turkey of 1969, where Demirel was prime minister, the Justice Party government did not let Zekeriya Sertel into his country from the airport. After being detained for one night at the Çınar Hotel, he was put on a plane with a justification that meant nothing legally. He was sent back to Paris. It was a practice completely contrary to the Constitution and the citizenship law.

Sertel was not allowed into the country of which he was a citizen and from which he had been away for 25 years; he was deported. I see the political conditions of 1969 Turkey as the reason for this. The value that fetched the most premium on the right was again anti-communism. The JP government was preventing communist infiltration into the country with a political act that disregarded the constitution and laws.

POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF THE SECOND ARRIVAL

Zekeriya Sertel went to the USA after Paris with great disappointment. He already had health problems. He wanted to be treated there, to see his eldest daughter Sevim and his sister, and to spend some time with them. Belkıs's husband was a psychiatry professor in the USA. He had also served as a deputy from the Democrat Party in the 50s. He had an old relationship with Menderes dating back to Aydın. The March 12 interim regime intervened. One of the governments established after the 1973 elections was again the Demirel government. Demirel had formed the Nationalist Front government at the beginning of 1975. The AP-MSP-MHP-CGP coalition government.

Public pressure for Sertel's return came to the agenda once again. It was constantly emphasized that Sertel's not being allowed into the country was contrary to human and citizen rights, and articles were being published. After Interior Minister Oğuzhan Asiltürk said there was nothing in our legislation to prevent Sertel's return, a passport was given this time. He was welcomed at the airport by a large delegation, including Mehmet Ali Aybar. He was finally in his country. The exile was over, he had returned. His first act was to go to Prof. Halet Çambel's house in Arnavutköy. Çambel was the wife of Nail Vahdetli Çakırhan, with whom they worked together at Yeni Ay in the 1930s.

ZEKERİYA SERTEL’S LAST THREE YEARS

The years after 1977, when Sertel was in Turkey, correspond to a turbulent period of the country in terms of social and political aspects. After a while, Sertel's return fell off the agenda. There were other problems occupying the society.

Sertel wanted to do something beautiful upon his return from exile. He had a historical relationship that started with Nazım at Yeni Ay. He wanted to publish a memoir about his very close friend. This would be a publication dealing with the unknown aspects of Nazım. Naturally, he first went to Cumhuriyet Newspaper, but İlhan Selçuk did not find the text suitable for publication, citing the political environment and perceptions on the left.

Sertel’s memoir was tearing down the Nazım Hikmet myth, making him too human. For example, Nazım was emerging as someone who told lies when he was in a tight spot, could not restrain his passion for women, and did not have deep knowledge of political issues. The mythological hero created over the name of Nazım was being destroyed.

Upon Cumhuriyet's excuse that the environment was not suitable, the memoirs were serialized in Milliyet newspaper with the intervention of Aziz Nesin. Then it was published as a book under the title “Nazım Hikmet’s Last Years.” Sertel’s memoirs received a great reaction in left-wing circles. He was subjected to quite a wide range of attacks, from disloyalty to Nazım's memory to treason.

Murat Belge also joined the caravan of criticism against Sertel with a very theoretical article in Birikim. He questioned the real function of the memoirs with a “condescending” attitude. Although Sertel first tried to counter this attack and explain himself, he was not successful. After a while, he returned to Paris quietly and silently with a resentful mood. To his youngest daughter Yıldız.

Afterward, he went to America. To his sister and eldest daughter. He spent the rest of his life in France. He was 90 years old when he passed away. The date was March 11, 1980. When he had to leave his country for the first time, the Democrats had just come to power. For them, democracy consisted of populism, fierce anti-communism, and capitalism under US protection. The first Democrat Party had exiled the Sertels from the country. 25 years later, Demirel did not allow him to enter his country. He was able to return in 1977. The reason for the last exile was different; he was excommunicated by our intellectuals who said they would build a free, equal, and exploitation-free world. He was very hurt, resentful. This last one was a voluntary exile. He left and did not return.

When Sertel passed away, his daughters wanted to bring him to Turkey. There was such a tense environment in the country that they gave up. Later, he was buried in Paris to be brought later. Today, his daughters are in the Büyükada Tepeköy cemetery, his wife is in Baku, and he is in Paris.

My final opinion about him is this: Zekeriya Sertel was perceived as more left-wing, partly due to the conditions he was in. However, on the political scale, if he lived in England, he could have been in the Labour Party, in Germany in the Social Democratic Party, and in France in the Socialist Party.