İlber Ortaylı

He was born on May 21st, 1947 in a refugee camp in Bregenz, Austria where his parents, Crimean Tatars, had fled to avoid Joseph Stalin's persecution. His family immigrated to Turkey when he was 2 years old. Ortayli is maternally a descendant of Crimean Tatar Mirza nobility.

He grew up trilingual, learning German from his father and Russian from his mother. As a polyglot historian he is proficient in Italian, English, French, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Latin.[2] His published articles are mainly in Turkish, German and French and a variety of them are translated into English.

During his studies in Turkey, he worked as a travel guide, which, according to him, influenced his approach to history. It cultivated his apprehension in practice and gave him an opportunity "to teach history" to different groups of people with various backgrounds.[3] He credits his experiences as a travel guide in his writing of "popular history" books and essays.[4]

He made acquaintance with intellectuals from both Turkey and other countries. Notable are Halil İnalcık, Murat Bardakçı, Irene Melikoff, Bernard Lewis, Andreas Tietze.[5]

His biography Zaman Kaybolmaz: İlber Ortaylı Kitabı (Time Does not Disappear: Book of İlber Ortaylı) was published in 2006. The book includes a long journalistic conversation with Nilgün Uysal, passages from his childhood, student years in Ankara, Vienna and Chicago, his recent reflections on near history events and anecdotes from the years he when he worked as a travel guide all over Turkey.

Ortaylı started elementary school at St. George's Austrian High School in İstanbul and later transferred to Ankara Atatürk High School. He studied Public policy at Ankara University Mekteb-i Mülkiye (School of Political Science) and later left for Vienna to attend University of Vienna where he studied both Slawistik and Orientalistik while working with Andreas Tietze. He received his master's degree under the supervision of professor Halil İnalcık at the University of Chicago and obtained his doctorate at Ankara University in the School of Political Sciences. His doctoral thesis was Local Administration in the Tanzimat Period (1978). After his doctorate, he joined the faculty at the School of Political Sciences of Ankara University. In 1979, he was appointed as associate professor. In 1982, he resigned from his position, protesting the academic policy of the government established after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. After teaching at several universities in Turkey, Europe and Russia, in 1989 he returned to Ankara University and became professor of history and the head of the department of administrative history.[6]

Among his interviews on TV, newspapers; Ortaylı's critical discourse on Turkish intellectual and political figures became emblematically popular among public even as entertaining internet meme shared on social media such as humiliating notes written under his photograph as depiction of a superiour personality reacting to the ignorant others.

But his criticisms shouldn't be confused with anti-intellectualism. Yet criticism of Turkish intellectuals is an old and an ongoing debate in Turkey and İlber Ortaylı may be put separate from other figures of Turkish media those who shape the public opinion as journalist commentators. He is one of very few to bring historical context -in respect to every subject in its own variety- to debates on contemporary social issues and debates so that his thoughts and opinions bring attention and his knowledge is praised widely among public.