türkçe links to original Turkish article
(Milliyet Newspaper, 13 June 2020)
Seeking US Mandate for Turkey (1918) click here for a
thorough and very well written analysis of the issue
from Perin Gurel.
Thomas Whittemore click here for his biography.
Crane click here for a 1915 NY Times article about
him and Turkish-Armenian issues.
John Hurt will play Whittemore and Jude Law will play
Crane in the inevitable movie.
It has been learned that the person who brought the mosaics of Aya
Sofia to light, but who was also accused of being an 'agent', Thomas
Whittemore, was supported by American businessman and diplomat
Charles Richard Crane, who tried to organize American public
opinion against Turkey on the Armenian issue.
Historian Prof. Dr. Bahri Ata has accumulated documents from the
University of Chicago Library's Samuel Harper Collection; the
Crane-Lillie Collection in the Chicago History Museum; and the
Library of Congress in Washington's Admiral Mark L. Bristol
Collection, along with articles from the New York Times and
the Chicago Tribune, to show that Crane had lobbied for a U.S.
mandate over Turkey in collaboration with Halide Edip, Celaleddin
Muhtar and Ahmet Emin Yalman during the time immediately
after Ottoman Turkey's surrender in World War I.
Prof. Dr. Bahri Ata
According to the archive documents, Crane had memorized the
anecdotes of famous Turkish poet-humorist Nasreddin Hoca and
shared them with his friend President Woodrow Wilson, and Ahmet
Emin Yalman, a Turkish journalist educated at Columbia University,
was a close friend of Crane and they would host each other when
Crane visited Turkey and Yalman went to the USA.
Prof. Dr. Bahri Ata explained that "Crane was the reporter for the
'King-Crane Report' of 1919 and he was characterized in a number
of books after 1920 at a 'friend of Turkey'. So it is worth researching
how Crane, who began his career as an 'enemy of Turkey', became a
'friend of Turkey'.
As for Whittemore, he established the Bizantium Institute in 1930
and Crane and his family were big American supporters of it. The
Turkish government of the period gave the Institute permission to
reveal and restore the mosaics of Aya Sofia, thanks to the intercession
of American Ambassador to Turkey Joseph C. Grew.
In June 1931 permission was officially given to the Byzantium Institute
for this undertaking and Whittemore uncovered the mosaics in Aya
Sofia Mosque's southern entrance and south gallery. Atatürk received
Whittemore in Ankara on 11-12 July 1932 and listened attentively
to Whittemore's description of his findings. Also attending this
meeting were Atatürk's adopted daughter Zehra Kemal, who was
a student at the American Girls College, and Halil Ethem Eldem,
one of the founders of the Turkish History Council.
On 24 November 1934, Aya Sofia Mosque was changed to a
museum and opened to visitors on 1 February 1935. Whittemore
continued his work in Turkey until his death in 1950 and Crane
and his family supported Whittemore's cultural and educational
activities in Turkey."
//Ed. note: President Erdoğan plans to re-open Aya Sofia as a
working mosques in the very near future.//
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder