Nihal Atsız

Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız (January 12, 1905 – December 11, 1975) was a prominent Turkish ultranationalist writer, novelist, and poet.

Atsız self-identified as a racist, Pan-Turkist and Turanist.

He later became a critic of Islam, calling it "a religion created by Arabs, for Arabs".

He was the author of over 30 books and numerous articles and was in strong opposition to the government of İsmet İnönü, which he criticized for co-operating with the communists.

He was accused of being a sympathizer of the Nazi government and plotting to overthrow the Turkish government.

Nihâl Atsız was born on January 12, 1905, at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul.

His father was navy commander Mehmet Nail Bey, from the Çiftçioğlu family of Torul, Gümüşhane; and his mother was Fatma Zehra, daughter of navy commander Osman Fevzi Bey, from the Kadıoğlu family of Trabzon.

He attended two French (one of them was in Egypt), one German and one Turkish secondary schools and Kadıköy High School before he began to study at the Military School of Medicine in 1922 but was expelled due to his ultra-nationalist views and activities as he declined to salute an officer of Arab origin who was of a superior rank than his in 1925.

The nature and the type of Atatürk's nationalism during the Early Republican Period (1923–50) had since 1923 have interpreted Turkish identity under the guiding light of constitutional principles which equated ‘Turkishness’ with being a Turkish citizen.

Identifying all Turkish citizens as Turks proper, the three constitutions of the Republican Era were completely and positively blind to ethnic, and religious differences between Turkish citizens and disassociated ‘Turkishness’ from its popular meaning: that is, the name of an ethnic group.

Supporters of this view argue that Republican statesmen rejected the German model of ethnic nationalism and emulated the French model of civic nationalism by reducing ‘Turkishness’ to a legal category only.

In other words, citizens of Turkey who happened to be of Kurdish, Greek, Armenian, Jewish or Assyrian descent had only to accept a plebiscite, according to this view, to take advantage of the opportunity of Turkification, as far as their citizenship status was concerned, and gaining full equality with ethnic Turks, provided that they remained faithful to their side of the bargain.

He then began to study at the Teachers College in Istanbul and the Istanbul University School of Literature and graduated from both in 1930.

Following he became assistant to Professor Fuat Köprülü at the Istanbul University.

He challenged the Turkish History Thesis and following this incident he was dismissed from the university in 1932.

After he worked in high schools in Malatya and Edirne as a teacher but due to his persistent challenge of the Turkish History Thesis he often faced difficulties in his career.

In 1934, he had written that "the Jew" was among "the internal enemies of Turkey" but in 1947, he praised the Jewish people for setting an example of strong nationalism (Zionism): indeed, the Jews managed "to get back the land they had lost 2,000 years ago and to revive Hebrew which has remained only in the books and turn into a spoken language."

He thought Turks and non-Turks should not intermarry and love has not the same value as nationalist feelings.

He further believed nationalism was superior than religion and Islam was a manifestation of the struggle of the Arabs to form a nation.

He granted Islam as a "national religion", but he criticized Islam in his later life.

Atsız had two sons from his second wife Bedriye Atsız, who he married in 1935.

They were Yağmur Atsız, a left-wing journalist and writer, and Dr. Buğra Atsız, and academician and nationalist writer; he also had an adopted daughter: Kaniye Atsız.

Following his imprisonment due to the Racism-Turanism Trials in 1944–1945 he wasn't rehired as a teacher and only in 1949 he was employed at the Süleymaniye Library.

He returned to teaching for several years, ultimately to return the Library in 1952.

His views on Atatürk became more positive after the military coup against the Democrat Party in 1960 and he stressed Atatürk's nationalism in his writings.

By the Justice Party, he was offered to be candidate for parliamentary election in 1961 for Kütahya, but he did not accept.

He was foremost known for his nationalist views, his active campaign against Turkish communists, and his embracing of Tengriistic ancient Turkic traditions.

Atsız viewed racism and pan-Turkism as the two main components of Turkish nationalism and disputed the ideologues of the likes of Ziya Gökalp or Hamdullah Suphi Tanriöver who didn't share his views regarding racism, however, according to him, racism "is not about measuring head, analysing blood or counting seven ancestors as a couple of phony zanies claimed" and during the Racism-Turanism trials, he stated he counts partly non-Turks who served Turkishness a lot (e.g. Bayezid I) and don't have any feeling of another race Turks as well.

He was among the authors that influenced a type of Turkish nationalism known as Ülkücü movement (translated as "idealist"), a nationalist movement later associated to Alparslan Türkeş (and which eventually led to a break with Atsız's previous ideology of Pan-Turkism, on the grounds that it reconciles with Islam instead of denouncing it as "Arab religion", which Atsız previously stated).

He wrote that the Kipchaks in Lithuania and Kirghiz are from the same blood and therefore Turks, but "alien people" living in Turkey like Jews or Negroes are not Turks even if they speak Turkish.

Kemalism, which had been condemned so harshly in his novel "Dalkavuklar Gecesi" (The Night of the Sycophants) is the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey.

He was active there until 1969.

After his retirement in 1969 he kept publishing Ötüken.

Atsız was an important ideologue who lived during the early years of the Republic of Turkey.

His circle attacked Atatürk's leadership, condemned Turkey's foreign policy, and particularly the appeasement policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.

Most importantly, his supporters ridiculed Kemalist attempts at connecting Turks with early Anatolian and Mesopotamian civilizations in the Atatürk era.

They divorced in 1975.

Atsız had a younger brother, Nejdet Sançar, also a prominent personality of the pan-Turkist ideology.

The surname he adopted following the enforcement of the Surname Law by Atatürk means 'Nameless' or "one who has not yet made himself a name," for in Old Turkic Culture, you should be successful to deserve a name.

Atsız name was also the name of at least two Seljuk emirs, Atsiz (1098 – 1156) and Atsiz ibn Uwaq (died 1078 or 1079).