Tatari Oguz Effendi
Tatarî Oğuz Effendi was an Ottoman educationist, literature teacher, translator, art collector and writer.
Early life
Tatarî Oğuz Effendi was born in Paris. While still very young, in 1838, his father, Tatarî Enis, who was the personal messenger of the Sultan Mahmud II, brought him to Dersaadet. Tatarî Oğuz Effendi studied at the Enderun School between 1843 and 1848.Youth
Following his graduation, between the age of seventeen and nineteen he worked as a French translator. Between 1850 and 1852, he worked as a translator of stories from French into Ottoman Turkish for the first private Ottoman newspaper Ceride-i Havadis. Between 1852 and 1854, he worked for the first official Ottoman newspaper to be published within the Ottoman borders, Takvim-i Vekayi, again as a French translator and published dozens of articles and short stories.Between 1854 and 1856, he worked as the apprentice and assistant for the Reis-ül-Küttab at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he translated political documents. In 1856, he was appointed to be the literature teacher at Enderun School, his former school, where he worked for two years, until 1858.
Having mastered his skills in teaching literature based on dialectics of languages between French and Ottoman Turkish, Tatarî was entrusted with the task to teach in foreign lands, in Mekteb-i Osmânî, the high-school of the Ottoman Empire in Paris.
Teaching
From the beginning of his career at the school in late 1858, Tatarî developed seven principles to follow in his seminars, which would, in his mind, foster better results for his students.
1. To embrace the local and national literature as equally as possible.
2. To augment the participation of students through sincerity and dialogue.
3. Practice makes perfect. Reading and writing exercises in every session.
4. French as the first language to be used during classes and during breaks.
5. Language is something ALIVE. For perfection, it should be practised in daily life.
6. Education does not occur solely in a building. Go out!
7. Education does not start with the school and it never ends.
His efforts in an 'open-air' educational system would not be applied to the other courses, and would not be enough to effect long-term changes. Consequently, the school would face abolishment in 1864, six years after Tatarî's arrival in Paris.
Collector for the Modern Museum of Art in Istanbul
During the Era of Tanzimat, the Ottoman Empire began to send pupils to Paris and to Sorbonne art schools to create a generation of contemporary artists with an academic education. In addition, they considered establishing a museum of modern art in Istanbul. In December 1860, Tatarî Oğuz Effendi was commissioned for the acquisition of the artworks.It is stated in the Ottoman Paris Embassy Archive that until 1863, there were remarkable names in his collection, such as Daumier, Ingres, Delacroix, Monet and many more.
In 1863, after visiting the major art show of the year, the legendary Salon, Tatarî Oğuz Effendi decided to resign his job and wrote a letter to Sultan Abdülaziz, explaining why he thought a museum of modern art would later trigger the end of an Empire, arguing primarily on the idea that the art he collected was based on Christian values. The Ottoman Sultan agreed with this argumentation and the Empire could not accomplish the goal of opening its first museum of modern art.
Secretly in Basel
Just a few months after Tatarî accepted his new employment as the imperial art collector, he began secretly traveling to Basel. Between March and September 1861 he visited the city thirteen times, coming every other weekend with only two disruptions to this schedule, and lodged in the Hotel Gasthof zum Wilden Mann. During his stays in Basel, he developed a chocolate recipe that is a fusion of Turkish coffee and Swiss absinthe. For the production of the chocolate, he used South American cocoa beans that were brought from the Suchard factory in Neuchâtel by his friend Louis-Daniel Perrier. In his letter to Perrier, which is found in a private archive in Neuchâtel, he talks on a great deal about the content of the recipe and describes the way his chocolate should be consumed, but does not reveal the exact recipe. He also says that he sealed his recipe inside a tiny glass tube, placed it in a wooden looking metal crate, and threw it in the waters of the Rhine:
Whence you consume the chocolate, you should be viewing art; art of any kind I say, art that would normally provoke you, but somehow cannot. You will feel a transformation in the level of your perception, it will transform you into a connoisseur of art, and you will appreciate life through enjoying and understanding art, in your heart, and in your mind. It will be this chocolate to enable me, you, and all the others, to reach over, and individually grasp the idea that lies beyond the world of semblances.
Today this chocolate is being produced by a Basel based chocolate company, Beschle Chocolatier Suisse, with the brand ‘The Lore of Tatarî Oğuz Effendi', and it can be purchased in single truffle packages. In March 2011, exactly 150 years after the event occurred in the city, the veracity of the events has been acknowledged by Basel-City with a commemorative plaque, which points out the resting place of the recipe. It reads:
On 22 September 1861 Tatarî Oğuz Effendi threw the recipe of his occult chocolate in a metal crate to the Rhein. It is believed that the crate is located under the main abutment of the Mittlere Rheinbrücke today.
Later years in Paris
Following the abolishment of Mekteb-i Osmânî in 1864, Tatarî Oğuz Effendi was assigned to remain in Paris and work for the Ottoman Paris Embassy as a translator of official letters and documents between French and Ottoman Turkish. In his remaining time, Tatarî devoted himself to the world-famous Parisian literature scene and translated a handful of books, most recognised as classics today.- Honoré de Balzac, Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu, Le Père Goriot
- Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
- Alexandre Dumas, père, Georges
- Marie-Henri Beyle, Le Rouge et le Noir
- Alexandre Dumas, père, La Tulipe noire
- Émile François Zola, Les Mystères de Marseille
La Douce Fièvre
Recognising his moment of epiphany within the intensity of the pages of Goethe’s Divan, Tatarî decided to retranslate and rewrite the Divan where it was written: in Weimar. Later, he persuaded the authorities to receive the commission to translate the Divan. In early 1867 he was appointed to work, this time as a German translator and in Weimar.
Life in Weimar
Arriving in early 1867 in Weimar, he began his stay in the house of Franz Liszt. After a few months he moved to his new accommodation facing the Marktplatz. Today, because of the devastating aerial bombings by the allied forces during WWII, this house no longer exists. Instead, to keep the image of the architectural heritage alive, there exists a slightly altered replica of the former houses in the same area of the Marktplatz.Instead of merely doing translations, Tatarî Oğuz Effendi was in Weimar to offer a fundamental – perhaps even epistemological – intervention into the reigning discourse of the local and national literature that had been overwhelmingly dominant since the time of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Becoming an everyday customer in Ratskeller, he met his future best friend Severin Schutze, who was a brilliant linguist and whose notes illuminate Tatarî's years in Weimar.
In 1870, Schutze was battling in Sedan for Prussia against France, and had no contact with Tatarî Oğuz Effendi. Finally, when he returned home in early October 1870, it was too late to help prevent the inevitable.
Death
On Friday, around the midnight of 19 May 1871, Tatarî Oğuz Effendi martyred himself to kill his other self, as he found his enemy in his own body.The recently appointed Ottoman Ambassador in Berlin, Ahmed Tevfik Paşa, along with a few other officers, travelled to Weimar three days prior to the ceremony to escort Tatarî’s body to Berlin. The ceremony was planned to start from the Berlin central train station, carrying the coffin to the embassy where the praying would take place. Later, they would convey the coffin to the national cemetery, , which is situated just a short distance from the Tempelhof Airport.
His Will
It is only this city,
its ancient and sacred soil,
keeps my rotten heart.
Only this city,
brings it back to life.
Image:oguz effendi-plague in Ilmpark.JPG|thumb|250px|right|The plague along the River Ilm in Weimar.
Tatarî’s will was not an Ottoman custom and certainly went against the Islamic regulations. However, the true friends of Tatarî took the action to fulfil the demands of his will at the moment it was carved behind his bedroom door. Today in Weimar there is a new plaque, installed in June 2009 to mark where the heart and inner organs of Tatarî Oğuz Effendi lie. This location is marked underneath the old oak tree along the River Ilm, and facing the Duchess Anna Amalia Library. It reads:
The humble heart of
TATARÎ OĞUZ EFFENDI
lie beneath this tree.
1831-1871
in Weimar from 1867 onwards