Sabahatin Ali (1907-1948) –„Cello“

Abstract

The prominent Turkish writer of the 20th century Sabahatin Ali was born in Turkey in 1907. The father, who died earlier, was an officer. The family often had to change their residence. The writer first received a good education in Istanbul. He graduated from the peda-gogical institute there and started working as a teacher in the city of Ozgat.
In 1928-1930, Sabahatin Ali studied at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Berlin, where he had a fight with a Nazi student on national grounds. The writer was forced to leave the university and return to his homeland. He taught German in schools in Aydin, Konya and Ankara. He has been tried several times for expressing a critical opinion towards the Turkish government.
In 1948, he decided to leave his homeland and sneak to Europe, but a close friend interrogated him in the police. The writer was arrested at the Turkish-Bulgarian border. According to one of the versions, he was shot there, and according to the other version, he was killed while being questioned by the police.