Celâl Bayar

Celâl Bayar
File:Celal bayar.jpg
3rd President of the Republic of Turkey
In office 22 May 1950 – 27 May 1960
Prime Minister	Adnan Menderes
Preceded by	İsmet İnönü
Succeeded by	Cemal Gürsel
Prime Minister of Turkey
In office 25 October 1937 – 25 January 1939
President	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk İsmet İnönü
Preceded by	İsmet İnönü
Succeeded by	Refik Saydam
Leader of the Democratic Party
In office 7 June 1946 – 9 June 1950
Preceded by	founder
Succeeded by	Adnan Menderes
Personal details
Born	(1883-05-16)16 May 1883 Gemlik, Ottoman Empire
Died	22 August 1986(1986-08-22) (aged 103) Istanbul, Turkey
Nationality	Turkish
Political party	Democratic Party (1946–1961) Republican People's Party (1923–1945)
Spouse	Reşide Bayar
Signature

Mahmut Celâl Bayar (16 May 1883 – 22 August 1986) was a Turkish politician, statesman and the third President of Turkey. At the time of his death, he was the longest lived former head of state, living over 103 years (he was surpassed in 2008 by Chau Sen Cocsal Chhum).

Early years

He was born in 1883 at Umurbey, a village of Gemlik, Bursa as the son of a religious leader and teacher who migrated from Lom, Ottoman Bulgaria. After school, he worked as a clerk, first in the court in Gemlik, then in Ziraat Bankası, and still later in the Deutsche Orientbank in Bursa.

Political career

In 1908, he joined the volunteer’s troop of "İttihad Terakki Cemiyeti" (Committee of Union and Progress), a political organization of Young Turks. He served as the secretary-general of the newly founded Bursa branch and later of the İzmir branch of this party.

In 1919, Bayar was elected to the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul as deputy of Saruhan (today Manisa). As he disagreed with the new constitution determined by the sultan, he went in 1920 to Ankara to join Mustafa Kemal by the Turkish Independence Movement. He became an active member of the "Müdafaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti" (Association for Defense of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia), another political organization formed after the World War I. He became deputy of Bursa in the newly established Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The same year, he served as deputy Minister of Economy and on 27 February 1921 he was appointed as Minister of Economy. He led the negotiation commission during the Çerkes Ethem uprising. In 1922, Bayar took part in the Turkish delegation during the Lausanne Peace Conference as an advisor to İsmet İnönü. After the elections in 1923, he served as deputy of İzmir in the parliament. On 6 March 1924 Celâl Bayar was appointed minister population exchange, development and resettlement (until 7 July 1924). On 26 August 1924, he founded Türkiye İş Bankası in Ankara by using as capital the gold bullions sent by the Moslems of India to support the Turkish War of Independence. He was the Managing Director of this largest Turkish commercial Bank until 1932.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Celal Bayar on the Ertugrul Yacht, 1937.

On 25 October 1937 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk appointed him as prime minister of the 9th government after İsmet İnönü left the government. He continued to serve as prime minister when Atatürk died and İnönü became president in 1938. Differences of opinion with Inönü led him to lay down his office on 25 January 1939.

Until 1945, he was a member of Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (the Republican People's Party), a republican party. Then on 7 January 1946, he founded Demokrat Parti (the Democratic Party), a socially conservative economically liberal party, along with Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü and Refik Koraltan. The DP won, with 408 of 487 seats, a majority in the first free general elections in Turkish history on 14 May 1950. The parliament elected Bayar, the chairman of the DP, as president of Turkey. He was subsequently re-elected in 1954 and 1957, serving for 10 years as president. In that period, Adnan Menderes was his prime minister. It was under his presidency that the anti-Greek Istanbul Pogrom (6.-7. 1955) took place.

Coup d’etat

On 27 May 1960 the armed forces staged a coup d’etat and sent Celal Bayar along with Adnan Menderes and some other government and party members to a military court on the tiny island Yassiada in the Sea of Marmara on 10 June of the same year. He and 15 other party members were tried for violating the constitution and sentenced to death by a kangaroo court appointed by the junta on 15 September 1961. The ruling military committee approved the death sentence for Menderes, Zorlu and Polatkan, but the punishment for Bayar and other 12 party members was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment. Bayar was sent to jail in Kayseri, but he was released on 7 November 1964 due to ill health.

Bayar was "pardoned" in 1966 [1]. Full political rights were restored to him in 1974, but he declined an invitation to become a life member of the Senate, on the grounds that one can represent the people only if elected [2]. He died on 22 August 1986 in Istanbul at the age of 103. He was father of three children. Their names were Refii (1904–1940), Turgut (1911–1983) and Nilufer (1921– ). Refii Bayar was the General Manager of "Milli Reasurans" a reinsurance company from 1929 to 1939, was the founder of "Halk Evleri" an educational government entity in Istanbul, and was a journalist and published "Halk" newspaper between 1939–1941 with Cemal Kutay. Dr. Nilüfer Gürsoy married Ahmet İhsan Gürsoy (1913–2008), who was Kütahya deputy for Democratic Party between 1946–1960 and was Bursa deputy of Justice Party between 1965–1969 and İstanbul deputy for Democratic Party between 1973–1975 and for again Justice Party between 1975–1980.

In 1954, Bayar was awarded the Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Sonderstufe des Großkreuzes des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland). In 1958, the Freie Universität Berlin (Free University Berlin) awarded him an honorary doctorate. Previously, in 1954, Bayar was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Belgrade. Celal Bayar University, which was established in 1992 in Manisa, is named after him.

External links

• Celalbayar.org

Books

• Kayseri Cezaevi Günlüğü (Kayseri Prison Diary), Yapı Kredi yayınları/Tarih dizisi.
• Ben De Yazdım – Milli Mücadeleye Gidiş (And so I wrote – Going to the War of National Independence) 8 volumes., Sabah kitapları/Türkiyeden dizisi, 1965–1972.