20 years without Attila İlhan

I first met him in 1997, on an autumn day, at the Divan Patisserie in Taksim. He was reading his newspapers at a table with a plaque on the wall behind him that read, “Attila İlhan Sits Here.” I was very nervous when I sat down across from him. We were working at the same newspaper. Moreover, we had started at Cumhuriyet in the same year, almost on the same days (September 1996). I had already gotten his phone number from the newspaper's switchboard operator. When I called him, a bit hesitantly, and told him I wanted to meet him, he accepted immediately and told me the place and time. When I asked, “Do you have a request, an order?”, he kindly asked me to bring the mail that had accumulated at the newspaper. Apparently, just as he rarely came to the newspaper, he also very rarely sent anyone to pick up his mail. Because his accumulated mail could only fit into a large, black bag.

I was at the Divan Patisserie on the day and at the time we agreed upon. I had even arrived 10 minutes before our appointment. When he saw the large bag in my hand, he laughed. “It has really piled up. I wish you hadn't carried it all, you must be tired,” he said. Until then, I had only seen him on television. He looked quite vigorous for his age. After a short introduction, our conversation deepened. The one-hour appointment lasted over 2.5 hours due to the questions stemming from my hunger for knowledge. He had answered my questions with a very fatherly attitude and the patience of a teacher. We got up from the table together. Since the mail was very heavy, he took a taxi. I had learned during our conversation that he had walked to the Divan Patisserie and would walk back.

Our relationship continued later with frequent phone calls and meetings. I was now calling him Attila Ağabey (Brother Attila). After a while, our meetings at Divan were replaced by meetings at the cafe of The Marmara Hotel. He was always sitting in the corner, by the window. I would go to our meetings with a notebook in my hand and take notes constantly. Sometimes my friends would accompany me. Our conversations were mostly focused on politics. He would always greet those who came to say hello, ask how he was, or have him sign books with humility, love, and respect. After The Marmara Hotel, our conversations continued for a while at the Bilgi Publishing office on İstiklal Street, and later at the Gezi Patisserie.

In our conversations, I didn't delve much into poetry, literature, or novels. From Sultan Galiyev to İsmet Paşa, from leftism to rightism, from globalization to nationalism, from Turkey to the USA, I would ask whatever came to my mind on political topics. In addition to his tremendous intelligence and analytical ability, his work discipline also impressed me greatly. He would either take notes on the papers in front of him or make short translations from French magazines to use in his articles. As I learned how he wrote, how he sent his articles to the newspaper in advance, how he set aside time for novels, poetry, and newspaper articles, and how he adjusted his work tempo and duration, my admiration grew even more.

He would always accept my interview requests for magazines I was on the editorial staff of, such as Jeopolitik, Bizim Yurdumuz, and Ulusal, with great kindness and sincerity. I had become one of the journalists who interviewed Attila Ağabey the most. As our relationship developed over time, I could also get into private topics. Like marriage, women, love, his taste in food, and his days in Paris. I really liked the conditions he set for his wife when he got married: “No wanting children, no wanting me to drive, no involving families in our relationship.”

ATTİLA İLHAN HAD SUGGESTED MY DOCTORAL THESIS TOPIC

I was very curious about Atatürk's policy during the War of Independence and his view of the Turkish world and oppressed nations during this period, and my interest in the subject increased even more with his articles. Especially what he wrote about Sultan Galiyev was groundbreaking. Attila İlhan's influence on my choosing this topic as a doctoral thesis and his contribution to the completion of the thesis were immense. With great patience and generosity, he shared what he knew with me. He corrected my mistakes and showed me the truths. He was not just being a brother, but also a teacher and advisor to me. He also had a great contribution to the thesis being published as a book. When I went to the military just at that time, the greatest reward and source of morale for me was him mentioning my book in his column and quoting from it.

After my basic training at the Air Defense School in Çekmeköy, Istanbul, when I was assigned to Harbiye (Turkish Military Academy) as a reserve officer (second lieutenant), I stopped by to say goodbye. “I also did my military service in Erzincan as a reserve officer. My branch was Signal Corps. I laid a lot of wire. During my military service, I saw the loyalty, self-sacrifice, and devotion of the Anatolian people and the Mehmetçik (Turkish soldier) once again. Since I was left alone, my military service was very productive in terms of writing and thinking,” he had told me. He stated that military service was a great experience and an important opportunity to get to know our country, and emphasized that every Turkish child must do it. Attila Ağabey was against paid military service and a professional army. He pointed out that military service and tradesmanship do not overlap, and pointed to the identity of “army-nation” and “Turkish army-people's army.”

As the old saying goes, while I was doing my patriotic duty as a Reserve Officer at the Military Academy, I saw once again that Attila Ağabey had many admirers at the Academy and in military circles. There were many cadets who read his books and did not miss his interviews on television. Those who learned of our closeness insistently invited Attila Ağabey to the Military Academy. When I conveyed these requests, he always stated that he could not come due to health problems. I benefited greatly from his articles, in which he reflected his deep knowledge of history and foreign policy and “saw beyond the horizon,” in my international relations classes. History and the process always proved my master right.

We would chat for a long time on the phone. The “A Nation Awakens” series he was working on had also begun to take shape. The fact that he liked the article I sent for the first book of the series, our joint book, warmed my heart in the cold of Ankara. The first book of the series, in which he brought together Turkish intellectuals who, in his own words, “have a consciousness of homeland, nation, and history,” and Turkish writers who are sensitive, uncompromising, and jealous about the homeland and honor, regardless of their political views, had attracted great attention. He was very happy with the interest shown in the book, for which he wrote the foreword, edited, and was the mastermind. The password of the book series is the historical bronze law of the Turkish Nation: “Password: Homeland; Sign: Honor”

After my one-year military service, our meetings continued uninterrupted from where they left off. New books in the A Nation Awakens series were also coming out slowly. Shortly before his death, in another meeting, when he said he would end his articles in the Cumhuriyet newspaper due to health problems, I objected and teased him, saying, “Ağabey, I hope your doctors aren't 2nd Republicans?” I had told him, perhaps overstepping my bounds, “A Kuvayı Milliye (National Forces) heart sustains these articles. A nationalist shoulder carries this burden. This is no longer your personal choice. Writing is your duty to society and the reader.” His close friend, our mutual friend, and my professor from the faculty, Prof. Dr. Erol Manisalı, who came to deliver the book he prepared with his students, had also insisted like me to Attila Ağabey. He emphasized that he adjusted his own tempo himself and that no doctor could adjust it better than him. Attila Ağabey, on the other hand, reiterated that his burden was heavy and his doctors' strict warnings. However, both Erol Hoca and I knew that the reactions towards Attila İlhan from within the newspaper and from a section of the newspaper's readers were difficult even for İlhan Selçuk, who invited Attila İlhan to write for the newspaper, to handle.

After the cover topic of the new issue of Jeopolitik magazine was decided, we agreed to do an interview and I left him. And this was my last time seeing my master, my brother, my teacher. When I received the news of his death at the newspaper, it fell to me to write the news. It was one of the hardest news stories I have ever written in my life. But he was such a formidable writer that even the headlines of his death news came from his verses and poems: “Separation is Included in Love,” “The Moment Comes Attila İlhan Dies,” “Sorrow is at Hand”...

Just as Attila Ağabey united Turkey with his poems, novels, essays, screenplays, and the intellectual battles he fought, he did the same at his funeral. Regardless of their political views, he gathered the Turks who said “homeland first” and Turkey's accumulation of honor on his final journey, just as he did in his articles.

HE LIVED AS HE WROTE, HE WROTE WHAT HE BELIEVED

Attila İlhan was a multifaceted thinker, artist, literary figure, and man of culture. Alongside his poet persona, he also had a thinker, journalist, and polemicist persona. First and foremost, he was a very formidable, sharp-eyed researcher. When working on a subject, he would split hairs. He worked regularly, disciplined, on time, and according to a schedule.

Attila İlhan was a Kuvayı Milliyeci (National Forces member). He was a brave Kemalist, a fearless Republican. He was a socialist. He was a nationalist, collectivist, and enlightenment figure. Attila İlhan was a Jacobin. While some self-proclaimed writers and scientists criticized Jacobinism, and even claimed to do so in the name of the left, he would laugh at them and never take them seriously.

He always stood by Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Republic and its revolutions. And he did so without compromise. The roots and gains of the Republican Revolution, the anti-imperialist War of Independence, the great importance Atatürk gave to the solidarity of oppressed nations, and the Gazi's national leftism were among the subjects he covered the most.

He often underlined that globalization is colonization and deculturalization. He looked at education, culture, language, industrialization, and cinema from this perspective. While criticizing today's degeneration, lumpenism, and ignorance, he distinguished his own generation's knowledge and love for the Republic as follows: “The current ones are the democracy generation, we are the Republic generation.”

He was a populist, and to the end, and stubbornly so. He loved, respected, defended, and owned his people's values bravely and heroically. He was nourished by those values, those roots, and drew inspiration from that source. He knew them very well and synthesized them very well. He used to say: “My whole miracle from the beginning is being able to capture the resultant of the Turkish people. I am a child of this people...”

He followed foreign policy closely and knew it in depth. He established the connection of this field with domestic policy with the following words he often repeated: “Three things must be national. Education, economy, and defense.”

He attached great importance to national cultural synthesis. He stated that this was one of the fundamental pillars of the Republic. He fearlessly accused the Turkish intellectual of not being national, of not being Turkish. Criticizing the attitude of intellectuals distant from the people, he pointed to their fate by saying, “Those who do not imagine a mission for themselves to civilize this people have always been close to the people. As for those who imagine this mission for themselves, the people straighten them out quite well anyway...”

He was respectful and passionate about the Turkish people's language, culture, belief, accumulation, past, history, and way of life. He had always objected and rebelled against the Turkish people being ignored, insulted, excluded, belittled, and humiliated, and had always opposed it, saying no. He used to say:

“I believe in the common sense of the Turkish people. They opposed a dynasty they hadn't uttered a peep against for 700 years within a month. When it is said, ‘Nothing can be done with these people,’ my answer is the same: ‘If Kemal Paşa was able to wage a national struggle with these people, you should look for the fault in yourself.’”

The National Pact (Misak-ı Milli), National Sovereignty (Hakimiyet-i Milliye), and Full Independence (İstiklal-i Tam) were sacred concepts for Attila İlhan. He was an unyielding, tireless defender of the integrity of the homeland, the unconditional sovereignty of the nation, and full independence. He approached the unity of oppressed nations and the development of Eurasia from this perspective.

He knew and observed Asia, the South, and the East very well. When he said, “Westerners fear death, but Easterners do not fear death,” and when he described Asians as “people capable of dying for their causes and beliefs,” he was always nourished by the great cultures and civilizations of the East.

In one of our conversations, he had said he saw death “like a power outage.” In the 20 years that have passed, we have seen that Attila İlhan continues to illuminate.