An Overview of the Nineteenth-Century Women of Istanbul in the Works of Pierre Loti and Yamada Torajirō

Abstract

Ōtani Kōzui (1876-1948) was the first Japanese, or perhaps the first foreigner to point towards Turkey (Feb. 1924) as soon as the Republic was declared (Oct. 1923); the first to bring foreign direct investment to the Turkish Republic through his collaboration with the founding father of the Republic of Türkiye, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the Ankara Gazi Farm (Feb. 1927); the first to make a foreign industrial investment with his collaboration with Memduh Gökçen in Bursa (Apr. 1929). Ōtani was also one of the co-founders of the Japanese-Turkish Trade Association in Osaka (Nov. 1925), the Japanese-Turkish Association in Tokyo (June 1926), and he was the author of the lines on “Ōtani Kōzui Epitaph” dedicated to Turkish soldiers who lost their lives at the Ertuğrul Firgate Incident in 1890, erected at the Kushimoto Ertuğrul Memorial (Mar. 1929). This paper traces his footprints in the early years of the newly founded Republic of Türkiye.