K H À L ID p i Y Â J — K H Â L ID E E D lB 933
T T
-Uşaklıgil'm hayatından mülhem küçük hikâyeleri, in Ülkü, xv, No. 86 (April 1940); A. H. Tanpinar, Edebiyat üzerine makaleler, İstanbul 1969, index; Ahmet Ihsan (Toksöz), Matbuat hatıralarım, İstan bul 1930-1, passim; Hüseyin Cahit Yalçin, Edebi hatıralar, İstanbul 1935, passim; Cevdet Kudret, Türk edebiyatında hikâye ve roman2, Ankara 1971, 15 7-219 (synopses and selection); Kindi er s Literatür Lexicon, Zurich 1965-72, suppl. 1974 (synopses and analysis of four novels and of Kirk yıl, see Index). (Fa hİr İz) al-K H À L ID À T . [see a l-d j a z â3ir a l-k h â l i d â t],
K H À L ID E E D ÏB (modem Turkish, Halide Edib Adivar), prominent T u r k is h n o v e li s t , w r ite r a n d n a t i o n a li s t , (1884-1964). She was born in Beşhiktaşh not far from the Yıldız Palace, where her father Mehmed Edib Bey was First Secretary to the Sultan’s Privy Purse (d£eyb-i hümâyûn ser- kâtibi). Edïb was the adopted son of a Shevkh Mahmüd of Salonica, who brought him up and later sent him to Istanbul for further education (Halide Edib, Memoirs, New York 1926, 200). In later life, he served as director of the Tobacco Régie in Yanya (Janina) and Bursa. Khâlide’s mother Bedrfem Khanim was a daughter of cAli Agha from Kemah (in northeastern Anatolia), a former Chief Coffee Maker (Kahvedji Bashl) in the Palace of Prince Reşhâd (Mehemmed V) who had become the Warden of the Porters’ Guild (Hammâllar Kdhyasl). A t the age of 15, Bedrfem had been married to cAli Shamil Bey (later Pasha, 1855-1908), but this marriage did not last, and Melimed Edib was her second husband. A few years later she died of consumption. As Edib Bey soon remarried, Khâlide’s need for motherly affection was filled by her grandmother, her half-sister Makhmure and by other members of both households.
The women folk and the servants initiated her into the traditional Muslim and Turkish way of life and the popular stories and epic tales of folk literature. A local imâm taught her to read and write and re cite the K ur5ân. When she was eleven, her father sent her for a year to the American College where she learned English and studied the Bible, to the horror of the people at home. Khâlide then had an English governess, and several celebrated tutors, particularly Riçlà Tewfik (Bölükbaşhî, [?.t>.]), the pioneer of folk-inspired poetry, (Rüşhen Eşhref, Diyorlar ki, Istanbul 1918, 133-4, 179)- In i 8 99 she re-entered the American College as a boarder, where she was the only Turkish pupil. The year 1900 was a turning point in her life, as the mathematician Sàlih Dheki Bey (see î. A. Gövsa, Türk meşhurları ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1948, s.v.) became her tutor; she married him in the year of her graduation (1901)» and had two sons by him. During the years 1901-8, she read deeply in Shakespeare, Zola and the Ottoman chroniclers. In July 1908, when the Constitution was restored, she became a writer overnight, urging immediate educational and social reforms. Her articles were published mainly in the daily T^n^n) organ of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), founded in August 1908 by Hüseyn Djàhid and Tewfik Fikret [qq.v.], and found an immediate favourable response. Following the counter-revo lutionary attempt of 13 April 1909, Khâlide thought her life was endangered and went to Egypt and from there to England, where her visit to Parliament particularly impressed her, as did also a speech of the Irish nationalist John Dillon which “ was one of the emotional causes which started her on the road of nationalism” {op. cit., 293). Back in Turkey
in October 1909, she wrote her first important novel Seviyye fâlib (published in 1910), and while continuing her articles on educational problems, joined the staff of the Women Teachers’ Training College {Dâr al-mucallimât), and with the help of the noted educationist Nakiyye Khanîm (Nakiye Elgün, 1882-1965) reformed its syllabus and ad ministration. In the meantime, she was divorced from Şâlih Dheki Bey, having left home immediately after he had told her that he had married a second wife (1910). Soon she was attracted b y the new movement of Turkism (Türköülük [q.v.]). She wrote her novel Yeni Türân (1911) and joined the activities of the Turkish Hearth (Türk Odjaghî [q.v.]), where she worked with D iyâ5 Gökalp [^.^.] and his associates. When she resigned her teaching position over a conflict of principle with the Minister of Public Instruction Şhükrî Bey (see Gövsa, op. cit., s.v.), she became Inspector-General of Ewkdf Schools which the minister, (the later Şheykh al-Islâım Muştafâ Khayri Efendi [<7.*’.]) decided to modernise. This gave her an opportunity to visit and study the outlying and poorest districts of Istanbul and their people, which incidentally became valuable for her novels. At the same time, she joined with Nakiyye (Elgün) in the activities of the Women’s Club (Tacâlî-yi Nisıvân DiemHvveti) in social relief work and nursing.
In the autumn of 1916, at the invitation of Djemal Paşha [0.v.], Arm y Commander in Syria, she toured all the important educational institutions there, and then returned to Istanbul after submitting her report. She subsequently continued her educational activity there by organising schools and by reforming the large 'Ayntura Orphanage. Meanwhile, she was married to Dr. cAdnân (Adivar [q.v.]), a leading member of the CUP, by proxy (23 April 1917)- Her educational work completed, she returned to Istanbul in early March 1918. In the autumn of the same year the war was over. After the Armistice of Mudros (30 October), the CUP triumvirate and many leading members of the Committee fled the country, and the Allied fleets entered Istanbul.
Parliament was dissolved, Italian troops occupied Antalya, and the Greeks, supported by the Allies, landed in Izmir (15 May 1919) and were advancing towards the interior. Sporadic resistance and guerilla warfare started in Anatolia. Khâlide Edib joined in protest rallies, and her name is particularly associated with the historic mammoth meeting of 23 May in Sultân Ahmed Square, where she made a famous moving and dramatic address; her bust stands there today in memory of that unique occasion (Halide Edib, The Turkish ordeal, New York 1928, 32-3). In the following week, 55 intellectuals were deported to Malta by the British. In the meantime, Muştafâ Kemâl Paşha (Atatürk) had assumed the leadership of the resistance movement in Anatolia. On 10 August of the same year, Khâlide Edib wrote a famous con troversial letter to Muştafâ Kemâl Pasha in support of an American mandate over Turkey (Ghâzi Muştafâ Kemâl, Nutuk, Ankara 1927, 56-9; Speecha, Istanbul 1963, 76-80). She represented a group of opinion which thought that in the summer of 1919 there could be an alternative to armed resistance and to the partition of the country, sc. by asking for a great power’s mandate (H. N. Howard, The King-Crane Commission, Beirut 1963, index; Sabahattin Selek, Anadolu ihtilalia, Istanbul 1968, 276-8; Niyazi Berkes, Türkiye'de çağdaşlaşma, Ankara 1973» 419-20). A t Khâlide’s suggestion, an American representative was sent to the Congress of Sivas
934 K H Â L ID E ED ÏB (4-11 September) by Charles R. Crane, the co-
chairman of the American King-Crane Commission, in order to interview Muştafâ Kemâl and to investi gate the question of the American mandate (Nufuk, 63, Speech2, 85-6, Kinross, Atatürk, 188, Howard, op. cit. 289-90). The idea was discussed and definitely rejected by the Congress (Ali Fuat Cebesoy, M illi mücadele hatıraları, Istanbul 1953, 175-6). During the winter months of 1919-20 Khâlide kept in close contact with the Nationalists and their supporters in Istanbul and talked frequently to a number of American and British officials, but there came a reinforced occupation of Istanbul by the British (16 March 1920), followed by a raid on the Parliament and more arrests and deportations, so that the recently-elected pro-Nationalist Parliament which had adopted the National Pact (see mIt h â k-im i l l î)
had to prorogue itself on March 18 (see B. Lewis, Emergence2, 251). To avoid certain arrest and depor tation (see Ordeal, 65-8, and A. E. Yalman, Gördük lerim ve geçirdiklerim, ii, Istanbul 1970, 55) Khâlide and her husband Dr. cAdnân went into hiding in a dervish convent (özbekler tekyesi) in Üsküdar and left secretly for Ankara. They arrived in Ankara on 1 April 1920 (followed shortly by Colonel cIşmet (İnönü) and Fevzi (Çakmak) Paşha (G. Jaeschke, Türk kurtuluş savaşi kronolojisi, Ankara 1970, 96-100), and she immediately began to work in the “ Agricultural School” , the headquarters of the Nationalists, where she surveyed the foreign press, collected news for the “ Anatolian Agency” , trans lated or drafted English and French correspondence and occasionally contributed to the daily lidki- miyyet-i milliyye, the organ of the Nationalists. She soon became a member of their “ inner circle” , and with Muştafâ Kemâl Paşha, and five other Nationalist leaders, was condemned to death on 11 May by the sultan’s government in Istanbul. In the fighting in central Anatolia, the first victory of the nationalist regular army was won by cIşmet at İnönü (10 January 1921), a few days after the guerilla leader Cerkes Edhein [1q.v.] had gone over to the Greeks. Khâlide Edib was busy in Ankara, mobilising the women of the city and reorganising the Red Crescent and relief work. Before the Greek offensive of July, she went to Eskişhehir and worked as a nurse in the Red Crescent hospital until the fall of the city. On August 5 1921, Muştafâ Kemâl was elected generalissimo [Başh kumandan), and soon afterwards, Khâlide Edîb volunteered for work on the Western front under cIşmet Paşha. During the critical weeks before and during the battle of Sakarya [q.v.], 22 August-11 September, she served in the general headquarters ( Ordeal, 284-310); she was promoted to corporal (onhaşhî), and the name Khâlide Onbaşhl became the symbol of Turkish women who took part in the national struggle. Towards the end of December 1921, she moved to Akşhehir (be tween Afyon and Konya), the new headquarters, and she spent the best part of the eight first months of 1922 with the army, which was preparing for the great offensive. On 24 August she was summoned to the front just before the offensive started. After the decisive battle of Dumlupinar on 30 August the Greek army began to retreat, burning cities and villages and massacring the civilian population in their wake (Lord Kinross, Atatürk, London 1971, 318). After spending a week in recaptured Izmir with the leaders, Khâlide, now a sergeant-major, left with a group of journalists to inspect and report on the devastated area between Izmir and Bursa (published in Izmirden Bur say a, in collaboration with Y a cküb Kadri and
Fàlih Rîfkï, Istanbul 1922). After the armistice of Mudanya (11 October) which confirmed the triumph of the Nationalists, the sultanate was abolished by the Grand National Assembly presided over by Dr. cAdnân (1 November) and Khâlide settled in Istanbul, as her husband was appointed represen tative of the Ankara Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Khâridiivve mürakhkhaşî) in Istanbul.
Ideological differences between Muştafâ Kemâl, an uncompromising radical, and most of his close asso ciates (including Khâlide and cAdnân), who were con servatives or liberals, soon developed into a rift culminating with the foundation (17 November 1924) of the Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Djumhüriyyet Fîrkasî [q.v.]). This party was soon suppressed (3 June 1925) following the counter-re volutionary rebellion, led mainly by Kurdish şheykhs, in the east. Khâlide Edib and Dr. cAdnàn had left for Europe before the discovery on 15 June 1926 of the conspiracy against Muştafâ Kemâl’s life, planned mainly by a group of former Unionists. All leading members of the former Progressive Party, suspected of the complicity with the plotters, were arrested. Dr. cAdnân was tried in his absence, and although completely acquitted, he and Khâlide Edib lived in self-imposed exile in Europe for fourteen years.
During the four years when she lived in England (1924-8) she wrote her memoirs and continued to write novels which were serialised in the Turkish dailies (see N. A. Banoğlu’s interview with Khâlide Edib in the Yedigün of 28 May 1939). During 1929- 39 she lived mainly in Paris, where her husband was lecturer in Turkish at the École des Langues Orien tales Vivantes. In 1929 she was in the United States, and went on a lecture tour of various American Uni versities. She was a visiting professor at Columbia University during the 1931-2 academic year. In 1935 she went to India to lecture on the political and cul tural background and contemporary problems of Modern Turkey, at the Didmi^a M illivva Islâmiyya of Delhi, then left for a lecture tour of the principal universities of the sub-continent. Back in Paris, she wrote more novels, particularly her only novel in English, The Clown and his daughter, which she later re-wrote in Turkish as Sinekti bakkal (see below). She paid a brief visit to Istanbul in August 1935 and returned to Turkey on 5 March 1939 for good, four months after A tatlirk’s death (10 November 1938). In December 1939 Khâlide Edib was appointed the chair man of the newly-founded department of English at the University of Istanbul where she trained, in ten years, a team of young scholars with whom she worked on new translations of Shakespeare. Elected as an independent member of Parliament for Izmir at the general elections of May 1950, she retired from politi cal life in January 1954. Dr. cAdnân died in July 1955 and her health began to decline; she herself died in her modest home in Bayezid on 9 January 1964 at the age of eighty.
Khâlide Edib was a woman of small stature but with extraordinary energy and vitality. Although considered primarily a novelist, Khâlide Edib was an extremely prolific and versatile writer and her enormous output extending over nearly 60 years covers a wide area: novels, short stories and essays, criticism, articles on social, educational and political topics, plays, memoirs, translations and research. Many of her essays, etc. appeared in various dailies and periodicals, where most of her novels were also serialised. Khâlide Edib (who signed her name Khâlide Şâlih until her divorce from Şâlih Dheki in 1910) started her career in the daily Tanin and since
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