Ali Cenani

Ali Cenani (1872 Constantinople–5 December 1934[1]) was a Turkish politician and a member of the Ottoman Parliament and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.[2]

Ali Cenani

Early life and education

He was born into the Ottoman bureaucratic family of the Cenanizade, of which Grand Vizier Kadri Pasha was also part of.[1] After having graduated from high school, he studied finance and economy.[1]

Political career

He settled into Antep (today Gaziantep) in 1891 and was elected into the Ottoman Parliament in 1908, representing Aleppo.[2] The same year he was elected the head of the Antep branch of the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), the teacher Taşçızâde Abdullah Effendi became the Vice-President.[3] He was re-elected for a second term.[2] As the leader of the CUP in Antep, he was involved in the deportations of the Armenian population during World War I.[4] Even though Cenani played a leading role in the deportations of Armenians, he was tolerant to requests of exemptions of deportation of some wealthy Armenians, which caused a complaint by Ahmet Faik Erner, the Kaymakam of Antep at the time.[5] In 1915, he focused on the deportations of the elite of the protestant Armenians, of whom he eventually took over many of heir possessions.[6] He was an MP of the Ottoman Parliament until on the 16 March 1916, Constantinople was occupied by the British army.[2] During the Turkish War of Independence, he organized the resistance in the region around Antep in 1918.[7] He reportedly received weapons for this means on the orders of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk).[8] The British managed to get hold of Cenani in Constantinople on the 24 May 1920 and sent to Malta in November 1920.[9] He and Ahmet Faik Erner, were accused of having been involved in the deportation of about 25'000 Armenians from Antep.[9] Upon his return from Malta, he joined the Kemalist faction and became a member of the Grand National Assembly for Antep.[10] He later became a Minister of Commerce between 22 November 1924 and the 17 May 1926,[11] and served in both, the Governments of Fethi Okyar and also Ismet Inönü.[10] In 1928 he was investigated for misspending 500'000 TL and sentenced to one year in prison and to pay a fine of 170'000 TL.[12] He died in 1934.

References
  1. "Ali Cenani". www.biyografya.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  2. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018). "The curious case of Ali Cenani Bey: the story of a génocidaire during and after the 1915 Armenian genocide". Patterns of Prejudice. 52: 67. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2018.1430887. S2CID 149046852 – via Tandfonline.
  3. Kurt, Ümit (2018), p.64
  4. Kurt, Ümit (2019). Kieser, Hans-Lukas Dieser; Anderson, Margaret Lavinia; Bayraktar, Seyhan; Schmutz, Thomas (eds.). The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 279. ISBN 978-1-78831-241-7.
  5. Kurt, Ümit (2019). Kieser, Hans-Lukas Dieser; Anderson, Margaret Lavinia; Bayraktar, Seyhan; Schmutz, Thomas (eds.). The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-78831-241-7.
  6. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018), p.70
  7. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018), p.72
  8. Mango, Andrew (2002-08-26). Ataturk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey. Abrams. ISBN 978-1-59020-924-0.
  9. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018), p.71
  10. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018), p.73
  11. Chorbajian, Levon; Shirinian, George (2016-07-27). Studies in Comparative Genocide. Springer. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-349-27348-5.
  12. Kurt, Ümit (31 January 2018), p.74
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