Cavit Orhan Tütengil

Cavit Orhan Tütengil was a Turkish sociologist, writer and columnist who was assassinated in 1979.

Biography

He was born in Sebil, a village of Tarsus, in Mersin province of what was then the Ottoman Empire. Following his primary education in his hometown, he attended Haydarpaşa High School in Istanbul finishing in 1940. Tütengil studied philosophy at Istanbul University and graduated with a degree in 1944.
Between 1944 and 1953, Tütengil served as a high school teacher for philosophy in Antalya and Diyarbakır, and worked in village institutes as well.
In 1953, Cavit Orhan Tütengil started his academic career by entering the Faculty of Economics at Istanbul University as an assistant for sociology. He conducted his Ph.D. research on "Political and Economic Opinions of Montesquieu", which won him the 1957 Science Award of the Turkish Language Association. He became an associate professor in 1960, and from 1970 on, he served as professor. In 1962, the Turkish Ministry of National Education sent him to England for two years.

Contributions

He was one of the most original Turkish sociologists. His basic field of interest focused on development sociology. To his opinion, Turkey is a transition country and the compass should be Atatürk's thoughts. Having an excellent command of the Turkish language, he wrote his Kemalist opinions in his column in the leftist newspaper Cumhuriyet for many years.

Death

Cavit Orhan Tütengil was murdered early in the morning on December 7, 1979, on the way to university at a city bus stop in Levent, Istanbul. The four assassins gunned him down in crossfire and left a notice signed "Anti Terör Birliği" at the crime scene. The assassination remains unsolved.