Eyüp Sabri Akgöl

Eyüp Sabri (Albanian: Ejup Sabriu), Ohrili Eyüp Sabri (1876-1950) known as Eyüp Sabri Akgöl (literally 'white lake') after the 1934 Surname Law,[2] was an Ottoman-Albanian revolutionary and one of the leaders of the Young Turk Revolution (1908).

Eyüp Sabri

Bey
Eyüp Sabri Akgöl (circa 1930s)
Born1876[1]
Ohri, Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia)
Died16 August 1950[1]
Istanbul, Turkey
CitizenshipOttoman, Turkish
OccupationAdjuntant Major (kolağası), revolutionary, politician
MovementCommittee of Union and Progress

Biography

Sabri was of Albanian descent[3] and born in Ohri (modern Ohrid), Ottoman Empire in 1876.[4] Ismail Enver Bey recruited Sabri into the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) movement.[5] Foreigners such as Ernst Jäckh who came into contact with Young Turk (CUP) leaders such as Sabri described him as being an Albanian.[6] He was a prominent military leader of the CUP.[7] Adjuntant Major Sabri possessed strong authority among fellow Muslims in the area where he resided and could communicate with them as he spoke both Albanian (his mother tongue) and Turkish.[8][9]

Mejtebot (the Meyteb), a school built by Eyüp Sabri and now used as the St. Kliment Ohrid gymnasium[10]

In Ohri an armed band called the Special Muslim Organisation (SMO) composed of 40 members, mostly notables was created in 1907 to protect local Muslims and fight Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) bands.[11] Sabri along with Enver bey recruited the organisation and turned it into the Ohri branch of the CUP with its band becoming the local CUP band.[7] On July 3, 1908 Ahmet Niyazi bey protesting the rule of Abdul Hamid II fled with his band from Resne (modern Resen) into the mountains where he initiated the Young Turk Revolution and issued a proclamation that called for the restoration of the constitution of 1876.[12] Following that example other officers like Eyüp Sabri in Ohri and Enver Bey in Tikveş also went into the mountains and formed guerilla bands (çetes).[12][13][3]

During the revolution Subgovernor Sülayman Kâni and Sabri organised the SMO group into the CUP Ohri National Regiment.[14] Under Sabri's command the band went into the mountains.[14] From the outset in July Sabri worked closely with Niyazi.[15] Tatar Osman Pasha, an Ottoman official was kidnapped after the Resne band of Niyazi, the Ohri band of Sabri and two Albanian bands conducted an attack on Monastir (modern Bitola).[15] Toward the end of the revolution CUP Internal headquarters gave orders to the CUP Monastir branch that if the situation persisted a march on Istanbul would commence on 26 July and they in turn told Sabri that his regiment along with Second Lieutenant Mazhar Efendi to leave for the mountains.[16] Facing a deteriorating situation in the Balkans on July 24 sultan Abdul Hamid II restored the constitution.[17] After the revolution Sabri, along with Niyazi and Enver got popular acclaim as Hürriyet Kahramanları (Heroes of Freedom).[17] During the late Ottoman period, Sabri, the town bazaar and donations from the CUP in Istanbul financed the construction of a large school (Mejtebot) in Ohri.[10] The Balkan Wars interrupted its construction and the completed building serves as a gymnasium in modern Ohrid.[10]

Eyüp Sabri (1920s)

Sabri was a delegate representing Ohri at the Congress of Dibra (1909) organised by the CUP regarding Albanian ethno-linguistic rights and he refused to sign any resolutions due to disagreements with other delegates over its contents.[18] The Ottoman Ministry of Interior in March 1911 sent telegrams to its officials in the Albanian provinces that removed some restrictions on the Albanian alphabet and schools and the CUP tasked Sabri and Haxhi Adil bey as emissaries to keep the populations of Ohri, Starova, Korça and Dibra regions calm.[19] In June 1911 Mehmed V on a stopover in Monastir during his Balkans tour had a scene from the revolution reenacted by Niyazi and Sabri.[20] Both men wore their old clothes, rode horses accompanied by a gun carriage with the event recorded on camera by the Manakis brothers and the film titled Sultan Rešad's Visit to Bitola currently preserved in the Macedonian Archives.[20]

Eyüp Sabri's grave in Şişli

Throughout the Young Turk era, Sabri was a seminal member of the CUP central committee from 1908 to 1918 with his position being renewed by the committee in 1917.[3][21][22] He was a fedayi (a militant fighting for the cause).[21] Sabri was a member of the Ottoman Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa (Special Organisation), a group involved in guerilla warfare.[23][24] As such the Imperial War Ministry during World War One sent him to the Balkans where he agitated among Albanians with acts of subversion committed in Macedonia and Albania.[23][24] Those activities later resulted in his imprisonment at Malta by the French, one of the Allied Powers.[23][25] By 1921 Sabri was a supporter of Enver and belonged to the group Halk Zümresi.[26] Sabri was involved in the Turkish War of Independence and was a supporter of the Nationalist Movement yet he was marginalised by followers of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[27] After the establishment of the republic Sabri was awarded an annual salary for services to the state and served in five Turkish parliaments as an CHP MP for Eskişehir (1), Çorum (5, 6, 7) and Erzurum (8) within the National Assembly.[1][28][29]

References
  1. Zürcher 1984, p. 43.
  2. Hanioğlu 2001, p. 521.
  3. Gingeras 2009, p. 175.
  4. Zürcher 2014, p. 314.
  5. Zürcher 2014, p. 35.
  6. Hanioğlu 2001, p. 452.
  7. Hanioğlu 2001, pp. 226.
  8. Hanioğlu 2001, pp. 228, 452.
  9. Clayer 2007, p. 382.
  10. Grupče, Asen (1998). Ohrid: Kulturniot život i tvoreštvo vo Ohrid i Ohridsko vo 20. vek: Pregled na poistaknati ličnosti od 20. vek. Matica Makedonska. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9789989481765.
  11. Hanioğlu 2001, pp. 225.
  12. Başkan, Birol (2014). From Religious Empires to Secular States: State Secularization in Turkey, Iran, and Russia. Routledge. p. 51. ISBN 9781317802044.
  13. Zürcher 1984, pp. 43, 53.
  14. Hanioğlu 2001, pp. 226, 228.
  15. Zürcher, Erik Jan (2014). The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Atatürk's Turkey. I.B.Tauris. p. 32. ISBN 9780857718075.
  16. Hanioğlu, M. Șükrü (2001). Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908. Oxford University Press. p. 273. ISBN 9780199771110.
  17. Zürcher 1984, p. 44.
  18. Clayer 2007, pp. 624–625.
  19. Clayer, Nathalie (2007). Aux origines du nationalisme albanais: La naissance d'une nation majoritairement musulmane en Europe [The origins of Albanian nationalism: The birth of a predominantly Muslim nation in Europe]. Paris: Karthala. p. 635. ISBN 9782845868168.
  20. Özen, Saadet (2017). "The Heroes of Hürriyet: The images in Struggle". In Lévy-Aksu, Noémi; Georgeon, François (eds.). The Young Turk Revolution and the Ottoman Empire: The Aftermath of 1918. I.B.Tauris. pp. 36–37. ISBN 9781786720214.
  21. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2006). Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities. I.B.Tauris. p. 106. ISBN 9781845111410.
  22. Hanioğlu, M. Șükrü (2001). Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908. Oxford University Press. p. 216. ISBN 9780199771110.
  23. Gingeras 2009, p. 64.
  24. Göçek 2014, p. 199.
  25. Göçek 2014, p. 521.
  26. Zürcher, Erik Jan (1984). The Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905-1926. Brill. p. 131. ISBN 9789004072626.
  27. Gingeras, Ryan (2009). Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1912-1923. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 64, 175. ISBN 9780199561520.
  28. Göçek, Fatma Müge (2014). Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789-2009. Oxford University Press. pp. 521, 613. ISBN 9780199334216.
  29. Demirel, Ahmet (2015). Tek Partinin İktidarı: Türkiye'de Seçimler ve Siyaset (1923-1946) [Single Party Government: Elections and Politics in Turkey (1923-1946)]. İletişim Yayınları. pp. 89, 99, 103, 214. ISBN 9789750515033.

Further reading
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