Hasan-Ali Yucel: Minister of Enlightenment

May 2003
Year 14 No. 318

Hasan-Ali Yucel: Minister of Enlightenment
His "Village Institutes" were a revolutionary innovation then and still are today
By Talat S.Halman, Professor, Chairman, Department of Turkish Literature, Bilkent University Newspot - He served 7 years 7 months 7 days. He was Minister of Education from December 1938 to August 1946. He gave inspiration and direction to an exciting enlightenment project in Turkey. He became a legend in his own lifetime -- and remains so forty two years after his death in February 1961. The Republic of Turkey remembers Hasan-Ali Yucel with admiration and affection.

Yucel presided over what he called "mobilization for primary education" as the world had begun to convulse with the pains and deprivations of World war II. Nonetheless, he launched an ambitious program that encompassed all levels of education from grade one to post-graduate training. An epoch-making project led to the creation of "Village Institutes" which trained promising boys from the rural areas as village teachers. Between 1940 and 1952 (when the Institutes were closed because of Cold War apprehensions) 21 Village Institutes produced more than 25 thousand graduates. These teachers received a well-rounded schooling in all basic subjects, but they were also taught hygiene, cooperative management, carpet-weaving, agriculture and apiculture, and a broad range of practical skills. With staunch idealism, the Village Institute graduates went allover Anatolia to spearhead rural education and community development. Some became local and national leaders, an impressive number achieved fame in arts and literature. Such prominent writers as Mahmut Makal, Fakir Baykurt, Mehmet Ba§aran, Talip Apaydln, Osman Sahin, and many others were products of Village Institutes.

Hasan-Ali Yucel himself was a teacher. A graduate of the University of Istanbul with a degree in philosophy, he taught philosophy and literature at high schools in Izmir and Istanbul, later served as a School Inspector and Director General of Intermediate Education at the Ministry of Education.

In his early career, he did journalistic work, contributed articles to newpapers, published poetry and literary studies, and a philosophy textbook.

As Minister of Education, Hasan-Ali Yucel launched a broad spectrum of programs that came to have a profound effect on culture and learning all over Turkey:

•Establishment of Istanbul Technical University, Ankara State Conservatory; Faculty of Sciences (Ankara); Institute of the Turkish Revolution; Izmir School of Economics and Commerce; Ankara University Faculty of Medicine; Professional and Technical Schools; Balikesir Institute of Education.

•Symposia and Congresses of Publications, Education, Philosophical Terms, Antiquities and Museums, Sports and Physical Education, Grammar, Geography.

•Publication of the In6nO (later Turkish) Encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia of Islam.

•Journal of Translation / Translation Bureau.

CAN YUCEL
ALL MY LIFE I LOVED MY FATHER BEST OF ALL
All my life I loved my father best of all.
The way a child sprouting like gorse from a cliff,
With legs bowed - about to tumble any minute
Would run in the trail of a giant,
That's how I loved that philandering father of mine.
What neighbourhood we lived in, he could never say:
Always busy, in a rush; if he dropped by, he'd dash away,
I'd look up in my atlas the places for which he'd depart:
That way I learned exile and longing by heart.
How I'd fly with joy: sickness was the best ...
If my fever zoomed past 40, they'd call him to Istanbul,
After all, wouldn't he want to bid farewell to his son?
Ours was a love game: when typhoid fever struck, I won:
I said Ohh, and buried my nose in his chest.
Until he went on the inspection tour that was his last,
I ran after that giant flying to heaven,
For other kinds of passion, for loves so vast
My breath opened up, my mind, my inmost soul.
All my life I loved my father best of all.

(Translated by Talat S. Halman)

Yucel was also a moving spirit behind the expansion of the nation-wide system of "People's Houses" which functioned as community centers, town halls, and venues of cultural activities for children and adults. By the end of Yucel's tenure, Turkey boasted nearly 500 major "People's Houses" and no fewer than 4,500 "People's Rooms" through the length and breadth of the country. (Regrettably, the government closed down the Village Institutes and the People's Houses/Rooms in the early 1950s).

Had they continued, flourished, and experienced further growth, they probably would have made a massive contribution to mass education, graduate studies, and cultural renascence in Turkey.

An impressive success was scored in the field of humanistic studies thanks to an inspiring publication project launched by Hasan-Ali Yucel 's ministry: With lightning speed, reliable translations of "World Classics" were published in affordable pocket-size editions. Eventually, close to 500 titles from the classics of the East and the West would become available to foster humanistic studies.

Yucel was a principal actor among the founding fathers of UNESCO. As Minister of Education, he headed Turkey's official delegations and signed on behalf of his country the UNESCO Convention in 1946.

In August 1946, he resigned from his cabinet post and retired from active politics. Until his death in 1961, he contributed scores of articles to a number of leading dailies and journals, and published numerous books. The titles of some of his books are indicative of his intellectual concerns "(Out of Our Literary History", 1957; "Toward Freedom",

1955; "Good Citizen, Good Human Being", 1956; "Freedom, Freedom Again", 1960, second volume: 1966; "One God", 1961) A major collection of his essays and articles was published posthumously in 1974: "Thoughts on Culture".

In November 1995, the UNESCO General Conference adopted a unanimous resolution declaring the 1OOth anniversary of Yucel 's birth, 1997, "The International Hasan-Ali Yucel Year". In Turkey, the Yucel Year was observed by a wide variety of activities, (seminars and symposia, lecture series, television programs, concerts, exhibitions, etc.) and publications.

His son Can Yucel (b. 1926-1999) achieved fame as a poet, satirist, and translator of Shakespeare, Fitzgerald et al. He wrote several poems about his father.

One of them entitled "All My Life I Loved My Father Best of All" is among Can Yucel 's best-known poems. It appears here in translation -- a poet-son's tribute to a poetfather who was also a visionary of culture and learning.