Hüküm Gecesi by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu

A few days before his assassination, Ahmet Samim received an invitation from the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ottoman state, Talat Bey. Ahmet Samim’s assassination is described in a period novel titled Hüküm Gecesi authored by Yakup Kadri (Karaosmanoğlu). With vivid memories of Hasan Fehmi’s assassination, his friends were fearing for his life. Ahmet Samim had already received threatening letters prior to his assassination. Hasan Fehmi and Ahmet Samim were both in opposition to the policies of the Committee of Union Progress (CUP) that became increasingly powerful during the time leading to the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy in 1908. These were turbulent times in the wake of a major social and political transformation. Before him, Hasan Fehmi, the editor in chief of another newspaper, Serbesti, was killed on the Galata bridge on April 6, 1909. Ahmet Samim was the second journalist/writer assassinated in the last 14 months in Istanbul. His friend Fazıl Ahmet, although in a state of shock, managed to find shelter inside the Greek bakery. As he fell to the ground, a second bullet hit him on his back. First bullet penetrated Ahmet Samim’s neck from behind. As they walked by the Greek bakery in Bahçekapı behind the New Mosque, two shots were heard.

Woman must put herself into the text -as into the world and into history- by her own movement.Ī fine summer evening in Istanbul on June 9, 1910… Ahmet Samim, the chief columnist of the opposition newspaper, Sada-yı Millet left the print house with his friend Fazıl Ahmet (Aykaç) they were headed to the Galata Bridge on their way to a dinner in Kuruçeşme. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies -for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal.

Hüküm Gecesi by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu