I need to know about Emmanuel Karasu, who was the Prime Minister at
the end of the Ottoman Empire (either under the Sultan Vahdettin or
Mehmet VI ??)--when, where, and how he died. I need an exact
reference and as much information as possible about his life, but
particularly the end of his life. Is this a question for Scriptor?
Thanks, Sylvia |
Request for Question Clarification by
scriptor-ga
on
09 Jun 2005 13:47 PDT
Dear Sylvia,
The current result of my research is that we have a considerable
problem: There never was a Turkish Prime Minister of the name Emanuel
Karasu. Please have a look at this list of Turkish rulers, Prime
Ministers and Grand Viziers:
http://www.rulers.org/rult.html#turkey
You will see that neither under the rule of Sultan Mehmet VI
Vahidettin (1861-1926, ruled 1918-1922) or at any other time there was
a Grand Vizier, Chief Minister or Prime Minister of that name.
But this does, of course, not mean that Emanuel Karasu is fictitious.
I have found him, but his rôle in Turkish history obviously was a
different one. By the way, I found his name also spelled as Emmanuel
Karasu, Emanüel Karasu, Karaso, Karassu, Karasso and Carasso. I guess
that this is so because he was born decades before the introduction of
the Latin alphabet in Turkey.
So who was this Emanuel Karasu? Most sources that mention his name
are, alas, in Turkish; and unfortunately my Turkish vocabulary is
extremely limited. But based on what I could understand, these are
some basic (and very incomplete) biographical facts:
- He was born in 1862.
- He originally was a lawyer in Thessaloniki in the late 19th century,
when that part of Greece was still part of the Osman Empire.
- He was a Sephardic Jew.
- He also was a Freemason, a distinguished member of the lodge
"Macedonia Rissorta" in Thessaloniki (founded in 1864 by the lodge
"Italia" of Istanbul). It may be interesting that Turkish Prime
Minister Talat Pasha (1917-1918) was also a member of Karasu's lodge.
- He was one of the founders of the "Young Turks" movement in the 1890s.
- He was a member of the three-men delegation that announced his
dethronement to Sultan Abdülhamit II after the counter-coup of April
1909.
- Before 1918, he was a deputy for Thessaloniki in the Turkish
parliament for the Party of Union and Progress.
- He organized a conference of all Jewish organizations of Turkey on 1
November 1918 in Istanbul; at that conference, the "National Council
of the Jewish Community of Turkey" was founded.
- He died in 1934.
This is an abstract of the relevant parts of an English text [1] that
mentions Karasu several times:
"Salonika was also a city in which there were Freemason lodges.
Emmanuel Carasso (or Karasu), a Jewish lawyer, had founded an Italian
Freemason lodge in which he apparently allowed Talaat's secret society
to meet when it was in hiding from the Sultan's secret police.
FitzMaurice concluded that the C.U.P. was a Latin-influenced
international Jewish Freemason conspiracy; and Lowther duly reported
this to the Foreign Office in London. Lowther referred to the C.U.P.
as "the Jew Committee of Union and Progress." (...) In his report,
Lowther pointed out that "liberte, egalite, fratenilite'' (liberty,
equality, fraternity), words drawn from the French Revolution, were
both the slogan of the Italian Freemasons (hence Karasu's lodge) and
of the Young Turkey movement. (...) However, when the 288-man Ottoman
Parliament was elected in 1908, only four Jews were elected to it, and
when the C.U.P. created a Central Committee in 1909, Karasu was not
elected to membership on it, nor did he ever rise to a leadership
position either in the party or in the government; he was never the
influential figure that foreigners supposed him to be. As deputies in
Parliament, Karasu and the three other Jews bent over backwards to
prove that they were Turks first and Jews only second; indeed, they
supported the C.U.P.'s measures against Zionist settlement in
Palestine. [ Karasu, however, did attempt at various times to
reconcile the aims of Zionism with those of C.U.P. nationalism.]"
If Emmanuel Karasu, who obviously played a relatively important rôle
in Turkish politics between the 1890s and 1919, was confused with a
Turkish Prime Minister, this certainly happened because of his
connection with Mehmed Talat Pasha.
Due to my extremely limited knowledge of the Turkish language (most
sources mentioning Karasu's name are in Turkish), this is all I can
say at the moment. I could try to find out more by offline research,
but I don't know yet what amount of information I will be able to
find.
Please let me know what you'd like me to do.
All the best,
Scriptor
Some sources:
The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists: Remember
Salonika (PDF file)
http://www.intjewishlawyers.org/docenter/viewDocument.asp?id=9266
Geopolitics.gr: The Turkish, Islamic-like phenomenon of mystic orders (PDF file)
http://www.geopolitics.gr/PDF/art-imaz-tur03en.pdf
Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture: The
foundation of the Jewish secondary school "Bene Berith" in Istanbul
and a biographical memorandum on its protagonist Yosef Niego
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/school.html
Globalfreemasonry.com: Freemasons (or Templars) in Turkey
http://www.globalfreemasonry.com/knight_templars_04.html
[1] Michigan State University: David Fromkin: A Peace to End All Peace
- The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle
East
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/fromkin.html
|
Clarification of Question by
sylk-ga
on
09 Jun 2005 16:20 PDT
Dear Scriptor,
Thank you so much for your immediate response. Actually, the only
questions more I need to know are exactly how he died and exactly when
(under what circumstances). I hope your sources will be able to tell
you that.
Thanks so much for trying.
Best as always,
Sylvia
|
Request for Question Clarification by
scriptor-ga
on
10 Jun 2005 05:27 PDT
Dear Sylvia,
I have not been to the library yet (I'm preparing to leave right now),
but I wanted to let you know that I have found this biographical
sketch of Emanuel Karasu [Carasso]. It shows that he died in exile, in
the Italian city of Trieste, in 1934. Alas, no exact date of death is
given. However, it seems that he died of natural causes since no
extraordinary circumstances are mentiones (after all, he was 72 years
old, so it's not unlikely that he died of old age):
"Emmanuel Carasso (1862-1934)
Emmanuel Carasso was born in Thessaloniki. He was a lawyer and a
statesman. He taught criminal law at the University of Thessaloniki.
He took part in the Young Turks movement and was elected deputy for
Thessaloniki in 1908. The Parliament had 240 members of whom six
representatives were elected from Salonika. When asked to participate
in the Government, he refused. He was member of the Committee which
informed Abdul Hamid of his dethronement in 1909. In 1910 he was
asked to direct the Ministry of Commerce and Public Affairs, but again
he refused. He was a member of the Committee which negotiated the
Peace Treaty between Italy and Turkey at the end of the 1912 War. In
return for his services he was granted permission to make exports to
Germany to his considerable benefit. He was on the committee planning
to internationalize the City of Thessaloniki. He fell from grace after
the rise to power of Kemal Ataturk in 1923. He took refuge in Italy
and died in Trieste."
Source:
The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists: Remember
Salonika - Emanuel Carasso (1862-1934) [PDF file]
http://www.intjewishlawyers.org/docenter/viewDocument.asp?id=9266
And now, I'm off to try to find more information.
Greetings,
Scriptor
|
Clarification of Question by
sylk-ga
on
10 Jun 2005 05:37 PDT
Dear Scriptor,
Again, thanks so much for your wonderful scholarship. I look forward
to anything else, if possible, regarding circumstances of his
death--it does seem it could be of natural causes (any idea what?),
but wonder was it an assassination or anything else involved.
Thanks again,
Sylvia
|
Request for Question Clarification by
scriptor-ga
on
10 Jun 2005 09:40 PDT
Dear Sylvia,
The results of my research in the library are rather frustrating. I
waded through the indices of all books on 19th and early 20th century
Ottoman, Turkish and Jewish history I could get, as well as
encyclopedias. But it seems that Emmanuel Karasu, while he used to be
a quite important person during his time, has faded into obscurity
now. I found him mentioned in a German lexicon from the late 1920s,
when he was still alive; but the article was very short, vague and did
not offer any new information. Furthermore, I located his biography in
the Encyclopedia Judaica:
"Carasso, Emmanuel (1862-1934)
Turkish lawyer and politician. Born in Salonika, Carasso lectured on
criminology at the university of Salonika. He was one of the prominent
figures in the Young Turk movement to which he gave considerable
material support. After the Young Turks seized power in 1908, Carasso
was elected deputy for Salonika in the Turkish parliament and headed
the committee which informed Sultan Abdul Hamid II of his deposition.
Subsequently, he was a member of the parliamentary commission of 1912
which negotiated the treaty of Ouchy concluding peace with Italy. He
was adviser to the Turkish government during World War I and in
recognition of his services was granted licenses to export Turkish
goods to Germany which enabled him to amass a considerable fortune.
However, when Kemal Atatürk came to power in 1923, Carasso fell into
disfavor and his fortune was confiscated. He lived his last years in
penury in Italy and died in Trieste."
Source:
Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 5. Kefer Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1971.
Again, neither the exact date of death not the circumstances of his
death are mentioned. This is extremely annoying.
Since he died in Trieste, the responsible authorities there may have
archived copies of his certificate of death or related documents. I
will now try to find out what offices hold those records and under
what circumstances specific information can be requested.
Greetings,
Scriptor
|
Request for Question Clarification by
scriptor-ga
on
11 Jun 2005 07:29 PDT
Dear Sylvia,
I finally managed to find out about Italian death records: Those
records are held by the civil register office (Archivio dello Stato
Civile) of the town where the respective person died. The death
records state the location and date of death, the name of the
deceased, the age and town of birth of the deceased, as well as town
of residence and occupation. This record also lists the parents of the
deceased and their residences. Witnesses are also named and described.
So since Emmanuel Carasso / Karasu died in Trieste, his death record
is held by the municipal Archivio dello Stato Civile (provided that it
has not been destroyed in the war or the like). The record would list
his exact date of death; I can't say if the cause of death is also
included, like in other countries.
Italian registrars are not required by law to assist in research work;
however they usually agree to search records from the archives if a
fee is paid and if enough vital data of the deceased person is
available so the record can be located. For specific information, it
is necessary to contact the civil register office (requests should be
made in Italian). Unfortunately, I neither do I speak Italian nor do I
know anyone who does. But maybe the office's contact information will
be of any value for you:
Comune di Trieste
Archivio dello Stato Civile
Passo Costanzi 2
34100 Trieste
Italy
--
Phone: +39-(0)40-675-4236 / +39-(0)40-675-4876
E-Mail: urp@comune.trieste.it
Though I have, alas, not been able to answer your question, I hope
that the information I have found (especially the article from the
Encyclopedia Judaica above) will be a bit helpful for your research.
All the best,
Scriptor
|
Clarification of Question by
sylk-ga
on
12 Jun 2005 11:23 PDT
Dear Scriptor,
Your scholarship, again, is extraordinary! Thank you so much for all
you could find. I am sorry it was such a frustrating search. I doubt
anyone could find anything else. I do consider the question answered
sufficiently enough at this point and will search out the Italian
connection. Thank you, again, for all your unbelievably persistent
and diligent search.
Until next time,
Sylvia
|
