Remarks in Ottoman dynasty family wedding stir debate

ISTANBUL

A viral video from an Ottoman dynasty family’s wedding is circulating with a renowned historian pushing back on criticism for being unresponsive to hostile remarks about modern Türkiye’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, daily Hürriyet has reported.

Berna Sultan Osmanoğlu, the granddaughter of Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, married in a ceremony in Istanbul’s Beykoz district. The couple's wedding witnesses were Professor Dr. İlber Ortaylı, former MP Şevki Yılmaz and writer Fatih Çıtlak.

Yılmaz took a microphone at the wedding ceremony and said, "I curse the degenerates who drove the Ottomans out.”

After the abolition of the sultanate in 1922, all members of the dynasty were exiled in 1924.

A large number of people harshly criticized the historian for not responding to Yılmaz's words against Atatürk.

According to a daily Hürriyet report published on Feb. 20, Ortaylı stated that he has known Berna Osmanoğlu, the bride, since she was a child, adding, “The wedding belongs to the couple.”

“It is not used for other things, it is not a place to give a message, it is very shameful…everyone is out of proportion,” he said.

“It is a mistake to quarrel with the institutions and greats of Turkish history, that is, to come out with a destructive nationalism. Today, if anyone can speak their mind in this country, it is thanks to Atatürk and his comrades-in-arms,” Ortaylı expressed.

Ortaylı emphasized the republic is the continuation of the Turkish empire, there is no other way of looking at it.

“I don't know Şevki Yılmaz either. It is not possible for me to approve his unwarranted speeches. It is a clear enmity against Atatürk,” he concluded.