GASPIRALI ISMAIL BEY (ISMAIL GASPIRINSKI)       

        
       Gaspirali Ismail is a famous educator, journalist, pedagogist and philosopher from Crimea who strove to realize world Turkish union and awakening of Turks. He was born in Avcı village in the vicinity of Bahçsaray in 1851. His father Mustafa Aga is from a village named Gaspira between Yalta and Alupka, from which Ismail Bey's surname is derived.

 

       Ismail Gaspirali had a good education. He studied his primary school in Bahçesaray. Then he studied in Akmescit Jimnaz, Voronej Russian Military College, and Moscow Military Academy. He felt himself tied to Turks in Turkey even when he was in the Academy. He escaped from the school to fight against Greek brigands in Crete. He was arrested on the way. He did not return to military academy again.

 

       He had began instructing in his country by teaching Russian and Turkish when he was 17. He went to Paris in 1877 and managed to earn a living as a Russian translator and to learn French. He had the opportunity to compare West and East in Paris. He saw the development of Western culture and turned back to Crimea having worked as a writer for about one year in Istanbul.

 

       In 1878, that is, when he was only 27 years old yet, he was elected the Mayor of Bahçesaray. He served his people and country during his four years in office. He married Zühre Hanim, the daughter of Isfendiyar Bey from Akçura family and became a kin of Yusuf Bey. His aim was to illuminate the people. He strove for this ideal. Once he published a weekly newspaper named Tunguç, and instituted the famous Tercüman newspaper in 1883. This important ideal newspaper, bearing the name Tercüman-ı Ahvali-i Zaman, which was published first weekly and then daily, had broad influences and services.

 

       Ismail Gaspirali died in Crimea in 1914. His grave is in Bahçesaray. Ismail Gaspirali was an influential opinion leader who dedicated himself to raising his nation, a high instructor and a big idealist. Gaspirali thought that education took the first place in serving the people. So he tried to correct schools, westernize education methods and wrote an alphabet himself. In his last years, he visited Egypt and India and attempted to gather a congress between Egypt and Islam countries. Ismail Gaspirali worked to awaken the people and their advancement in all of his speeches. One of his ideas he spread with his published newspapers was unity of world Turks. There is a 248-page book by Cafer Seyyit Ahmet Bey from Cremia on his life and books published in Istanbul in 1934.