In commemoration of the 92nd anniversary of the death of Bekir Sami Kundukh

Türkçe Tercüme
We commemorate the great Caucasian patriot and politician, Osset Bekir Sami Kundukh on the 92nd anniversary of his death with mercy and gratitude.
Although many sources mention his birth year as 1867, Bekir Sami Bey was born in 1865 in the town of Saniba in the Prigorodny region, where his father Musa Pasha Kundukh, and 5,000 Mountaineers on their way to Anatolia to find refuge there.
Like other prominent intellectuals of the period, Bekir Sami was educated at the Mekteb-i Sultanî (Lycée de Galatasaray) and then studied Political Sciences in Paris.  He was fluent in six languages.  He started his professional career as a clerk at the Ottoman Embassy in St. Petersburg.  He later served as Mutasarrıf (Governor) in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire.  In the early years of WWI, while serving as the Governor of Beirut, he negotiated with German officials to establish a Circassian Legion under the auspices of the German Empire to foment uprisings in the Caucasus.  This initiative could not be realized due to the inconsistent policy of the German officials. 
He was one of the founders and prominent figures of the organization Karakol, the intelligence service of the Union and Progress Party.  During World War I, he took part in secret activities in Anatolia against the Entente. In the last stages of the war, he negotiated with the British to unite the Caucasian Mountaineers in an anti-Bolshevik organization under the leadership of Turkey.  After the war, he took part in the Turkish National Resistance movement.  He was one of the leading members of the Delegation of Representatives at the Sivas Congress in August 1919 and took an active role in the establishment of the Grand National Assembly.  After the British occupation of Istanbul, Armenian revolutionary groups spent great efforts to associate him with 1915 events and to have him arrested by the British. From 1920 to 1921, he served as the first Foreign Minister of the Angora Government.  During his tenure, he had difficulties with the extreme Turkish nationalist wing of the parliament due to his ideas and activities on the implementation of the Moscow Treaty and relations with the Soviets. 

Bekir Sami Bey, who met with Haydar Bammat in Tbilisi on his return from Moscow, provided important assistance to facilitate the passage of North Caucasian politicians who were working in Tbilisi to Anatolia after the occupation of Georgia by the Russian Bolsheviks. At the end of 1920, Bekir Sami Bey also met with the Bolshevik Abkhaz leaders Nestor Lakoba and Efrem Eshba, who came to Turkey, had fierce debates with them on the contradictions of the Soviet policies of autonomy in the Caucasus and did not support their efforts to organize a Bolshevik revolution in Turkey with the support of Ottoman subject Caucasians.    In 1921, he headed the delegation representing Turkey at the London Conference.  The biggest obstacle in the post-war negotiations with the representatives of the Entente powers was the trial and punishment of the Turkish prisoners held by the British in Malta. Although the text of the treaty was not signed at the end of the conference, Bekir Sami Bey, on his own initiative, paraphrased three separate agreements with the Entente powers. With these agreements, Bekir Sami Bey would have ensured the official recognition of the Angora Government by the Entente as well as the release of 72 people imprisoned in Malta.

In the same period, he also participated in a series of negotiations in Paris with the French Government and the political representatives of the Caucasian governments in exile in Paris.  In these negotiations with the parties for the establishment of a confederative union state in the Caucasus, he made great efforts to create an atmosphere of reconciliation in the eyes of the Angora Government, especially for the border disputes of the Trans-Caucasian governments with Turkey.   However, the Angora Government rejected these compromise texts signed by him on the pretext that they were signed without government approval and authorization. At that time, these issues caused fierce debates in the secret sessions of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, and Bekir Sami Bey resigned in May 1921 after receiving unfair accusations from the extremist wing of the parliament.

His relations with Mustafa Kemal gradually weakened due to the developments after the proclamation of the Republic and his opposition to the abolition of the Caliphate, which led to severe criticism from his political rivals in the parliament. In October 1921, he waged a great political struggle against the activities of the Şark-ı Karib Çerkesleri Temin-i Hukuk Cemiyeti (Association for the Protection of the Law of the Circassians of Near-East), which led to the fragmentation of the Caucasian subjects, and against the deportation of the Circassians of Southern Marmara in 1923. When relations with Mustafa Kemal and his inner circle reached a breaking point, he founded the Progressive Republican Party in November 1924 with the participation of Rauf Orbay, İsmail Canbulat, and some other Caucasian-origin politicians and left the Republican Popular Party.  Thereafter, he became one of the target figures of the Angora government's discrediting activities at every opportunity.  In 1926, Bekir Sami Bey was among the suspects in the assassination plot against Mustafa Kemal, along with other politicians of Caucasian origin.  Despite all efforts during the trials, there was not enough evidence to execute Bekir Sami Bey and he was acquitted.  However, this last political conspiracy convinced him that he could no longer exist in the Political life in Turkey. 

He lived in solitude in his farmhouse in Tokat and died in Istanbul in 1933.  The mystery about the cause of his death and the location of his grave has not been lifted until today.  One of the most important tasks facing researchers working on the history of the North Caucasus immigration is to study the life of Bekir Sami Kundukh adequately, to write a work on this subject, and to lift the veil of mystery over his death. 

To commemorate this day, I am sharing with you the documents from our archive of his meetings with the Abkhazian Communists in Turkey in 1920 and the French and Caucasian politicians in Paris in 1921.

Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, January 16, 2025