Ahmet Vefik

1823 - 1891

Ottoman administrator and scholar.

Like his father and grandfather, Ahmet Vefik entered government service and soon rose to positions of great importance during the Tanzimat period of the Ottoman Empire. He served twice as minister of education (1872 and 1877) and helped to reform the Ottoman educational system. In 1877, Sultan Abdülhamit II appointed him president of the first Ottoman parliament, and when it was dissolved less than a year later, Ahmet Vefik served as the sultan's grand vizier for several months in early 1878, as governor of Bursa (1878 - 1882), and briefly as grand vizier once more at the end of 1882.

In spite of his illustrious political career, Ahmet Vefik is better remembered for his work as a writer, translator, and educator. Having served as ambassador to France, he translated Molière into Turkish. He also edited the first modern dictionary of the Turkish language, published in 1876, and he compiled a history of the Ottoman Empire that became the standard text in the Ottoman ruşdiye (adolescence) schools.

Bibliography

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3d edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808 - 1975. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

— ZACHARY KARABELL