Ali Nusret Bey

Ali Nusret Bey was born in Yenişehir on 23 March 1872 and was the son of Major Osman Şehabeddin Efendi, one of the martyrs of Plevna, and İsmet Hanım. He was the brother of the Servet-i Fünûn poet Cenab Şahabeddin and the elder brother of the poet Osman Fahri. He lost his father at Plevna when he was still a child and came to Istanbul with his family after the Ottoman-Russian War.

After the Mekteb-i Feyziyye in Tophane, he studied at Eyüp Military Rüşdiye and the Imperial School of Military Engineering. In 1891 he graduated as an engineering lieutenant and in the same year was appointed a teacher, beginning to teach French, composition and history at the Engineering School. He rose to the rank of military kaymakam, or lieutenant colonel, and retired young in 1908.

In Ali Nusret Bey’s life, teaching stood out more than military service. From 1909 onward he taught literature at Vefa High School, and he continued to teach literature at Mercan High School and the Darülmuallimîn until his illness worsened. In his time he was remembered as a distinguished literature teacher known for his knowledge of morphology, syntax, rhetoric, meanings and lexicon.

Ali Nusret Bey began literature at a young age with poetry and used the pen name “Nusret” in his poems. He published his first and only poetry book, Şihâb, and wrote poems, prose poems and articles on literature, history, military affairs, science, language and education in the newspapers and journals of the period, especially Servet-i Fünûn. Through his translations from French and his writings on language and literature, he gained a place in the literary circles of the Second Constitutional Period.

After the Second Constitutional Period, he also took part in debates on language simplification and purification. In his articles in Servet-i Fünûn, he defended a more conservative understanding of language against purification, standing in a line that saw the Turkish, Arabic and Persian heritage as part of literary language.

Ali Nusret Bey contracted tuberculosis and died in Istanbul on 31 January 1328 in the Rumi calendar (13 February 1913). After his death, his brother Osman Fahri collected the poems he had written for him in a small book entitled Mersiyeler. In accordance with his will, he was buried in the Fatih Mosque Cemetery, in front of the Tomb of Gazi Osman Paşa, defender of Plevna.