ТУРЕЦКИЙ КОНТИНГЕНТ В КОММУНИСТИЧЕСКОМ УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ ТРУДЯЩИХСЯ ВОСТОКА. ЧАСТЬ I

Abstract

The Communist University of Workers of the East (Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka, KUTV) was opened in early 1921 in Moscow with the aim of training national cadres for work in party and government bodies in the Soviet and foreign East. The press organ of the KUTV was the academic research journal “The Revolutionary East”, publishing articles on Oriental Studies by the country’s leading scientists. Formally reporting to the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks, KUTV in fact carried out all of its multifaceted work under the leadership of Comintern. For this reason, the documents of Comintern are of great importance for the study of KUTV history. With an eye on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the university, this article aims to study the contingent of Turkish students who studied there in 1921–1938. The author analyses memoirs and analytical works that impacted the Turkish leftist movement. Graduates of KUTV retained their memories of the days spent in Moscow, their living conditions, organization of classes, recreation and internships. The article attempts to reconstruct the names and individual episodes of the activities of Turkish students. Along with the poet Nazim Hikmet, many major leaders of the leftist movement and of the Turkish Communist Party (TCP) were also alumni and teachers of Communist university. However, ideological differences within the TCP itself and the severe consequences of political persecution by the Turkish government crushed the development of the communist movement in the country. After returning to their homeland, part of the KUTVovites were arrested and imprisoned for a long period, another part abandoned socialist ideas, and some even joined the Kemalist camp.