Yusuf Halaçoğlu

Prof. Dr.
Yusuf Halaçoğlu
Leader of the Blessed Party
Incumbent
Assumed office
28 June 2024
Preceded byPosition established
Member of the Grand National Assembly
In office
12 June 2011 – 7 July 2018
ConstituencyKayseri (2011, June 2015, Nov 2015)
Chairman of the Turkish Historical Society
In office
27 September 1993 – 23 July 2008
Prime MinisterTansu Çiller
Mesut Yılmaz
Necmettin Erbakan
Bülent Ecevit
Abdullah Gül
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded byİbrahim Agâh Çubukçu
Succeeded byAli Birinci
Personal details
Born (1949-05-10) 10 May 1949 (age 75)
Kozan, Adana Province, Turkey
Political partyNationalist Movement Party
(2011-2017)
Good Party
(2017-2018)
Independent
(2018-2024)
Blessed Party
(2024-present)
Alma materIstanbul University
OccupationAcademic, politician and author
ProfessionHistorian

Yusuf Halaçoğlu (born 10 May 1949, in Kozan, Adana) is a Turkish historian and politician. He is a former president of the Turkish Historical Society[1] and was a member of the Turkish Parliament from 2011 to 2017 representing the electoral district of Kayseri for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and from 2017 for the Good Party. As of 2024 he is Leader of the Blessed Party (Kutlu Parti).

He studied history at Istanbul University and pursued an academic career at the same university after graduating in 1974. In 1983, he became an assistant professor. Halaçoğlu entered Marmara University in 1986, and in 1989 he was appointed a professor. After serving in leading positions at the Turkish State Archives, he returned to the university in 1992. From 1993 on, he served as the chairman of the Turkish Historical Society until his dismissal in 2008. He then returned to his chair at Gazi University.

In the 2011 general election, Halaçoğlu was elected into parliament, and was reelected in June[2] and November 2015.[3] In November 2015, the MHP nominated him for Parliamentary Speaker, where he finished on fourth place. In 2017 he left the MHP to be a founding member of a new party, the Good Party.[4] He was deselected as a candidate for the 2018 Election[5] After the 2018 elections, he resigned from the Good Party.[4]

Views

Halaçoğlu is a well-known researcher on Armenian genocide and has authored several works that mitigate the suffering the Armenians underwent during World War I.[6][original research?] He also preferred the term relocation to deportation, as the displacement had taken place within the Ottoman Empire.[7] He places the number of deaths during the deportations, which he calls "forced relocations", at no higher than 9,000-10,000 (as opposed to the 600,000 to 1,500,000 that is widely stated by those who acknowledge the genocide).[6] His views are parallel to the official Turkish state thesis according to which the massacres and death marches did not constitute genocide.[7] He compared it to the relocations the USA undertook with the Japanese during World War II.[7] His research has been criticized by such scholars as Taner Akçam.[8] In 2008 Halaçoğlu was dismissed from his post as the head of the Turkish Historical Society for his controversial claims about Armenians and Kurds.[9] In regards to Kurds he denied the Kurd referred to an own ethnicity in Ottoman times, but that this was used as a general denomination for the nomads.[10]

In the year 2004 he was prosecuted in Winterthur, Switzerland after he denied the Armenian genocide in a speech he held at the Turkish Association in Winterthur.[11][1]

In 2007, Halaçoğlu claimed that he had a list of crypto-Armenians living in Turkey and threatened to publish it. He also claimed that the Dersim Alevis are Armenian.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b "Augenzeuge aus dem Appenzell | NZZ". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 2006-12-23.
  2. ^ "MHP Kayseri Seçim Sonuçları - 7 Haziran 2015 Genel Seçimleri | SABAH". www.sabah.com.tr. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  3. ^ "KAYSERİ SEÇİM SONUÇLARI - 1 KASIM 2015 GENEL SEÇİM SONUÇLARI". secim.haberler.com. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  4. ^ a b "Good Party in distress as founding members quit citing Akşener's policies, election defeat". DailySabah. 6 August 2018. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  5. ^ "Yusuf Halaçoğlu, Mansur Yavaş'la birlikte sahaya indi". 16 June 2018.
  6. ^ a b See, for example, Yusuf Halaçoğlu, "Realities Behind Relocation," in Armenians in the Late Ottoman Period, ed. Türkkaya Ataöv. Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 2001, pp. 109-42, figure on p. 140.
  7. ^ a b c Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Plozza, Elmar (2006). Armenian genocide, Turkey and Europe (in German). Chronos. p. 123. ISBN 978-3-0340-0789-4.
  8. ^ Akçam, Taner, The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 354-56.
  9. ^ "Controversial historian dismissed from office". Hurriyet. 24 July 2008.
  10. ^ Winter, Stefan (2017). "The Reşwan Kurds and Ottoman Tribal Settlement in Syria, 1683-1741". Oriente Moderno. 97 (2): 257. doi:10.1163/22138617-12340151. ISSN 0030-5472. JSTOR 48572068. S2CID 165746274.
  11. ^ Behrens, Paul (2016-03-16). The Criminal Law of Genocide: International, Comparative and Contextual Aspects. Routledge. ISBN 9781317036968.
  12. ^ Galip, Özlem Belçim (2020). New Social Movements and the Armenian Question in Turkey. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Springer. pp. 154–155. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-59400-8. ISBN 978-3-030-59399-5. S2CID 241085879.