[FIRST CRITICS OF ANTISEMITISM IN FRANCE FOR DREYFUS BY TURKISH INTELLIGENTSIA] Dreyfüs meselesi ve esbâb-i hafiyesi. [i.e. The Dreyfus Affair and its reasons of secrecy]

ALI RESAD, (1877-1929).; BABANÂDE ISMAIL HAKKI, (1876-1913)., A[rtin] Asaduryan Sirket-i Mürettibiye Matbaasi., Istanbul, [AH 1315] = 1899.

Contemporary black cloth with marbled boards. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). [8], 420 p., 18 unnumbered b/w plates, and facsimiles of portraits and business cards, and autograph letters came from Emile Zola, Monsieur Labori (the lawyer of Dreyfus), and Alfred Dreyfus on the publication of this critic, with the translation of documents in Ottoman Turkish. Slight foxing on boards, restored spine and repaired two pages. Overall a good copy.

Scarce first edition of this original work written in Ottoman Turkish on the Dreyfus affair, an anti-Semitic political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906.

Ali Resad was one of the pioneers of positivist historiography in the Ottoman Empire. He read Charles Seignebos, Ernest Lavisse, and Alfred Rambaud and after he translated their works into Turkish, wrote this critique where his passion for France and the French Revolution began. This book was one of the earliest examples in the Ottoman Empire that criticizes “anti-Semitism" and the anti-Semitic thought in France by the Turkish intelligentsia through Ali Resad and Babanzâde Ismail Hakki in Kurdish origin. Alfred Dreyfus' lawyer Monsieur Labori and the famous writer Emile Zola congratulated both of them for the book they wrote: "with the aim of serving the truth and the justice" in the cards and letters they sent to Ali Resad and Ismail Hakki. Emile Zola's letter, found as a facsimile at the beginning of the book, ends with his famous saying: "La vérité est en marche et rien ne l'arrétera" [i.e. The truth is on its way and nothing will stop it]. Readers of the late Ottoman society and the early Republic learned about the French Revolution through Ali Resad's translations and writings. The Dreyfus Case affected the Jews of Turkey as well as all the Jews of the world, and this book was one of the first reactions of Turkish intellectuals to this case. (Sources: Eski Türkçe Kitaplarda Temel Hak ve Özgürlükler. Toprak, Zafer).

Artin Asaduryan is one of the most important founders of the Ottoman printing houses of Armenian origin. Artin Asaduryan was born in Kayseri. Although he was among the five most productive printers in the history of the Turkish press, both in Ottoman and Republic periods. Asaduryan started working in the publishing and printing market after buying "Sirket-i Mürettibiye Printing House" in 1889. From this time to 1928 when the alphabet reform took place, he created a considerable amount of corpus. Asaduryan published a total of 1413 materials on a variety of topics such as history, theatre, novels, medicine, veterinary, politics, business, agriculture, industry, military, literature, religion, law, diplomacy, philosophy, and science, art, philology, sports, etc. He also published many magazines and newspapers as well as two catalogues.

Özege 4395.; TBTK 3695.; Fourteen printed copies in OCLC: 320156294, 25346717, etc.