The Kolağasızâde Project
a crowdsourcing experiment
updated 27 November 2016
Transliteration Supervisors
Transliteration Reviewers
Transliteration Team
Önder Akgül, Ebru Aykut, Idan Barir, Lale Can, Chris Gratien, David Gutman, Faisal Husain, Ahmet Gökhan Kaynakçı, Ellinor Morack, James Ryan, Nir Shafir, Alp Eren Topal, Seçil Yılmaz
Introduction
This project is aimed at finally allowing for Kolağasızâde's treatise to be read by the international audience that he had envisioned for his work. This treatise offers a rare look at the intellectual life of a marginal author interested in the relationship between religion, morals, and society during a pivotal moment in the history of Turkey and the modern Middle East. In addition to furnishing a transliterated text of the Ottoman Turkish original, we hope to create a space for exploring the intellectual world of Kolağasızâde. In doing so, we employ a unique method and workflow, pooling the energies of dozens of researchers through a multi-stage crowdsourcing project.
Below is complete access to our finished and ongoing work on Kolağasızâde's manuscript entitled Rûh-i Edyân (The Spirit of the Religions). This project welcomes the additions of all, and we hope that readers will both benefit from and add to the resources on the page as they see fit. The content on this page is periodically updated, so make sure to check back for the latest additions and changes as we uncover more about the world and ideas of Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin.
The Story of the Manuscript
The US diplomatic records for the Ottoman Empire and the post-Ottoman period are not nearly as extensive as the British or French archives, but they hold many interesting surprises. This may be especially true for the understudied period of the 1920s and 30s in Turkey. Many of the files for that period, which are kept at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland and cataloged under Record Group 84, have never been exploited by researchers. Some are delivered still wrapped in plastic from the last time that they were transported.
I found the manuscript of an obscure author from Turkey by the name of Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin in one such sealed dossier of diplomatic correspondence from the US embassy, which was still in Istanbul at the time. The subject heading for the file from 1929 read "Hoover, Herbert, President of U.S." The file contained correspondence between the embassy and the US Department of State regarding Kolağasızâde's treatise entitled Rûh-i Edyân, a copy of their response to Kolağasızâde, and the original envelope he had sent to Washington. At the back of the file was the original handwritten copy of his manuscript!
Although the file does not contain Kolağasızâde's original letter to President Hoover, we understand from the correspondence that Kolağasızâde had sent his treatise "requesting the President's opinion of its merits." The Department of State decided to directly return the treatise to its sender, informing Kolağasızâde that "unfortunately the press of his public duties has prevented the President from examining this work and passing opinion upon its merits."
Rûh-i Edyân was a handwritten text in Ottoman Turkish penned with blue ink in small lined notebook paper similar in size to junior legal pages. Its 44 pages, which included a few blanks, were numbered and arranged in booklet format using the fronts and backs of each page. The manuscript was dated 18 February 1927 at the beginning and 24 March at the end, meaning that it was composed in just over the span of a month. It is signed by Kolağasızâde himself using his signature reading "Hasan Tahsin."
Kolağasızâde lived in Tarsus (Southern Turkey), and as the postmarking on the original letter shows, he had sent the treatise directly to Washington via the nearby city of Mersin, and the US Embassy sought to return the manuscript to his address in Tarsus. But on the journey back to Tarsus, the envelope lost its way and ultimately was returned to the US Embassy in Galata. One possible reason as to why the manuscript never made it back to Kolağasızâde is the address provided by the US Embassy: "Koulaghai Zadé, Tarsous, Turkey." The embassy employee that processed the letter had misread the name Kolağasızâde, and with no apparent address or neighborhood specified on the envelope, it would have been nearly impossible for the postal service to redeliver the treatise to its author. Perhaps Kolağasızâde never even knew the fate of the manuscript, although it is apparent that he never received a response from President Hoover.
Although the file does not contain Kolağasızâde's original letter to President Hoover, we understand from the correspondence that Kolağasızâde had sent his treatise "requesting the President's opinion of its merits." The Department of State decided to directly return the treatise to its sender, informing Kolağasızâde that "unfortunately the press of his public duties has prevented the President from examining this work and passing opinion upon its merits."
Rûh-i Edyân was a handwritten text in Ottoman Turkish penned with blue ink in small lined notebook paper similar in size to junior legal pages. Its 44 pages, which included a few blanks, were numbered and arranged in booklet format using the fronts and backs of each page. The manuscript was dated 18 February 1927 at the beginning and 24 March at the end, meaning that it was composed in just over the span of a month. It is signed by Kolağasızâde himself using his signature reading "Hasan Tahsin."
Kolağasızâde lived in Tarsus (Southern Turkey), and as the postmarking on the original letter shows, he had sent the treatise directly to Washington via the nearby city of Mersin, and the US Embassy sought to return the manuscript to his address in Tarsus. But on the journey back to Tarsus, the envelope lost its way and ultimately was returned to the US Embassy in Galata. One possible reason as to why the manuscript never made it back to Kolağasızâde is the address provided by the US Embassy: "Koulaghai Zadé, Tarsous, Turkey." The embassy employee that processed the letter had misread the name Kolağasızâde, and with no apparent address or neighborhood specified on the envelope, it would have been nearly impossible for the postal service to redeliver the treatise to its author. Perhaps Kolağasızâde never even knew the fate of the manuscript, although it is apparent that he never received a response from President Hoover.
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| Original envelope addressed to "sa majeste le grand chef de l'etat de l'Amerique (i.e. Hoover)" by Kolağasızâde |
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| Back of envelope addressed to Hoover, signed "Hassan Tahsine fils l'adjudan major (i.e. Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin or Hasan Tahsin, son of the Adjudant-Major) |
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| Return envelope addressed to "Koulaghai Zadé" in Tarsus |
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| The response of US Embassy to Kolağasızâde |
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| The first page of the body of Rûh-i Edyân by Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin |
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| The sealed binder of US-Turkey correspondence |
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| Herbert Hoover, circa 1928 (Source: Library of Congress) |
Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin and His Intellectual World
The story of who exactly Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin was and why he sent his manuscript to the President of the United States is still in the making. The file from the archive offers very few clues as to the identity of the author. His title kolağasızâde refers to the fact that he was the son of a kolağası, a military rank like "captain" or "major."
Our transliteration team worked to find out more about Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin, but we discovered very little. We did turn up a text by "Tarsuslu Hasan Tahsin" also in Ottoman Turkish under the title of "İlm-i Kelam Defteri" or "Theology Notebook" that had been sold on the internet. But the small image of the text that still remains on the web reveals that this text was probably just a handwritten notebook; it is not clear that any of Hasan Tahsin's work on theology was ever published. Perhaps he was only an educated amateur, perhaps the alphabet change in 1928 served as a barrier to his publication, or perhaps other circumstances prevented his work from circulating. All we can gather about the person of Kolağasızâde Hasan Tahsin of Tarsus is that he had an interest in philosophy, religion, and Islamic theology.
Kolağasızâde wrote during an extraordinary time in the history of Middle East. After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and a new Republic of Turkey was soon founded in its place. Kolağasızâde's home region of Cilicia had passed through a period of political and social upheaval beginning in 1914 with the horrors of the First World War and the Armenian genodice; continuing in 1918 with the French military occupation of Cilicia, the rise of the Kemalist resistance, and the expulsion of the French and repatriated Cilician Armenians in 1922; and ending with the exchange of populations that resulted in the transfer of Turkey's Greek Orthodox population to Greece and the arrival of Balkan Muslims for settlement beginning in 1923.
Over the subsequent decade, the new national government of Turkey would champion secularism at the expense of religious institutions, abolish the Ottoman alphabet, and cleanse the Turkish language of what were deemed "non-Turkish" elements. Kolağasızâde wrote just before the major linguistic rupture of the alphabet reform of 1928, completing Rûh-i Edyân in 1927 and sending it in vain to Herbert Hoover in 1929.
Kolağasızâde wrote during an extraordinary time in the history of Middle East. After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and a new Republic of Turkey was soon founded in its place. Kolağasızâde's home region of Cilicia had passed through a period of political and social upheaval beginning in 1914 with the horrors of the First World War and the Armenian genodice; continuing in 1918 with the French military occupation of Cilicia, the rise of the Kemalist resistance, and the expulsion of the French and repatriated Cilician Armenians in 1922; and ending with the exchange of populations that resulted in the transfer of Turkey's Greek Orthodox population to Greece and the arrival of Balkan Muslims for settlement beginning in 1923.
Over the subsequent decade, the new national government of Turkey would champion secularism at the expense of religious institutions, abolish the Ottoman alphabet, and cleanse the Turkish language of what were deemed "non-Turkish" elements. Kolağasızâde wrote just before the major linguistic rupture of the alphabet reform of 1928, completing Rûh-i Edyân in 1927 and sending it in vain to Herbert Hoover in 1929.
If we can safely assume that Hasan Tahsin was a Muslim author concerned primarily with theological questions, then the works he chose to engage with are very intriguing. Namely, he states in his introduction that his work should belong to the same group as the publications of Lootfy Levonian, an Armenian Protestant preacher and professor originally from Aintab in Southern Anatolia. Beginning in the 1920s, Levonian published short works on religion, morals, and ethics in English that were translated into many languages including Ottoman Turkish, Armenian, Arabic, and even Chinese. Levonian left Turkey after the war, teaching abroad in places such as the United Kingdom and Lebanon and finally settling in California as an American citizen (Source: Fred Goodsell, They Lived Their Faith, Boston: ABCFM, 1961, pg. 166-167). One of his main scholarly concerns was the compatibility and coexistence of different religious traditions and in particular, affinities between "eastern" varieties of Christianity and Islam (see his treatise on "Insufflation" in The Expositor, August 1921). Alongside his theological treatises, Levonian also wrote about issues in early Republican Turkey for Anglophone audiences.
In addition to engaging extensively with the writings of Lootfy Levonian throughout the Rûh-i Edyân manuscript, Kolağasızâde cites a number of authors: John Ruskin, Sir Oliver Lodge, Aristotle, William James, Immanuel Kant, and Leo Tolstoy. However he does not cite a single Ottoman or Turkish author, nor any theologian or philosopher from the extensive Islamicate literature in Arabic and Persian. In other words, we must infer that his major point of intellectual reference was the post-Enlightenment Western canon.
One cannot help but speculate as to whether Kolağasızâde was educated in a Protestant school such as the American College in his hometown of Tarsus given his points of reference, especially his preoccupation with the figure of Lootfy Levonian. Since we know so little about his identity, it is not even possible to determine his age or background. Then there is the larger question to as why he would write such a text and why he would look to the President of the United States as a potential reader. As we explain below, Kolağasızâde did consider his work to be of import for the future of humanity and the struggle for coexistence in the 20th century.
One cannot help but speculate as to whether Kolağasızâde was educated in a Protestant school such as the American College in his hometown of Tarsus given his points of reference, especially his preoccupation with the figure of Lootfy Levonian. Since we know so little about his identity, it is not even possible to determine his age or background. Then there is the larger question to as why he would write such a text and why he would look to the President of the United States as a potential reader. As we explain below, Kolağasızâde did consider his work to be of import for the future of humanity and the struggle for coexistence in the 20th century.
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| The town of Tarsus, circa 1900 from Ferdinand Brockes, Quer durch Klein-Asien. Source: houshamadyan.org |
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| Title page of Ottoman version of "Din nedir?" (What is Religion?) by Professor Lootfy Levonian, published by Matbaa-i Amire in 1922 (digitized by Atatürk Kitaplığı) |
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| Cover of translation of "Religion and Morality" by Lootfy Levonian in Chinese |
Reading Rûh-i Edyân
Rûh-i Edyân is concerned with the origins and purpose of religions in human society. In fact, the human (insan), humankind (beşeriyet), and humanity (insanlık) figure prominently throughout the treatise, which addresses major theological questions arising from the work of Lootfy Levonian and other writers. Rûh-i Edyân contains a large amount of Arabic-derived terminology that was intelligible to Ottoman Turkish readers but is no longer known today. Kolağasızâde makes the job of reading somewhat easier by defining and debating many of the most important terms throughout the text.
We hope that this project might someday yield a translation, but for now, we are content to offer the transliterated text Rûh-i Edyân for those who can read modern Turkish. The title Rûh-i Edyân may be translated as "The Spirit of the Religions," with an emphasis on the plural.
Rûh-i Edyân is concerned with the origins and purpose of religions in human society. In fact, the human (insan), humankind (beşeriyet), and humanity (insanlık) figure prominently throughout the treatise, which addresses major theological questions arising from the work of Lootfy Levonian and other writers. Rûh-i Edyân contains a large amount of Arabic-derived terminology that was intelligible to Ottoman Turkish readers but is no longer known today. Kolağasızâde makes the job of reading somewhat easier by defining and debating many of the most important terms throughout the text.
While we will not spoil the whole text for the reader, we do make note of some of the more intriguing discussion that comes at near the end of Rûh-i Edyân, which offers a clue as to how Kolağasızâde envisioned the relevance of his treatise and its questions. He states that:
Today, along with secularism (laiklik), humankind is under the influence of 1001 religions and denominations bent on eliminating one another. It is necessary and incumbent to save humankind from extinction in the whirlpool into which it has fallen and to put an end to this [state of affairs] by identifying and demonstrating this reality.
Bu gün beşeriyet laiklikle beraber «bin bir» din ve mezhebin tesiri altında, yekdiğerini imhâ kasdındadır. Bu hakikatin bulunarak ‘ilanıyla beşeriyeti düştüğü girdâb inkirâzından kurtarmak ve buna bir hâtime vermek lâzım ve vâciptir.
In addition to identifying the problem of religious discord (particularly in the former Ottoman Empire perhaps), Kolağasızâde attempts to resolve the conflict of religions by searching for commonalities, such as the importance of triads, whether in the Christian trinity and other monotheistic religions or in the triad of liquids, solids, and gases found in nature and worshiped by human socities. He then undertakes a consideration of whether or not religion is innate and inborn (fıtraten mevcut, hılkî), and after a short discussion of religion, morals, and reason, he finishes with the statement that humans first began to worship fire, stars, and other objects and only later did the present religions emerge. His meandering treatise leads Kolağasızâde to the provocative conclusion that "religion is not inborn (din hılkî değildir)," with the implication that it was created by human societies.
Transliteration of Rûh-i Edyân
Rûh-i Edyân is a relatively short text, under 4000 words, and was composed in Kolağasızâde's idiosyncratic but relatively legible handwriting. In order to furnish a workable transliteration, we used a crowdsourcing method in which a number of contributors worked on very short sections of the text. This first stage of transliteration was completed within less than 48 hours of collaboration in a single GoogleDoc, after which the more painstaking phase of editing, streamlining, and review took place. The complete transliteration team is as follows:
Transliteration Supervisors
Review Team
Transliteration Team
Önder Akgül, Ebru Aykut, Idan Barir, Lale Can, Chris Gratien, David Gutman, Faisal Husain, Ahmet Gökhan Kaynakçı, Ellinor Morack, James Ryan, Nir Shafir, Alp Eren Topal, Seçil Yılmaz
Below is the embedded GoogleDoc of our transliteration of Rûh-i Edyân. This document is still editable by our transliteration supervisors and therefore slight changes in spelling, punctuation, or the removal of typos may occur subsequently, but in general, our multi-stage editing and review process has resulted in what we can more or less certify as a faithful and accurate transliteration of Kolağasızâde's work.
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