The Unknown Ethem Feyzi: Life and Journalism in the Light of Little-Studied Crimean Tatar Sources. 2025

The aim of the study is to identify the distinctive features of Ethem Feizi’s authorial discourse in the sphere of economic modernization and the reform of Crimean Tatar social structures in 1917-1920, drawing on Crimean Tatar sources introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time. The scientific novelty lies in the incorporation of a large body of previously unexamined materials from the funds of the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea (GARK), the Russian National Library (RNB), and libraries in A zerbaijan, D agestan, a nd T urkey. F or t he f irst t ime, t he c orpus o f h is j ournalistic articles p ublished in the national periodicals “Terciman” (“Translator”), “Millet” (“Nation”), “Azerbaycan” (“Azerbaijan”), and “Maarif yolu” (“The Path of Enlightenment”) has been subjected to analysis. New facts of his biographical timeline have also been verified. The results demonstrate that the dominant vector of Feizi’s journalism was the elaboration of a model of economic self-organization of the Crimean Tatars in the designated historical period, which contrasted with the cultural-political orientation of the works of his contemporaries (N. Celebidzhikhan, J. Seydakhmet, H. Aivazov). Feizi, to justify the creation of national financial institutions, integrated concepts from classical thinkers of social thought (A. Smith, K. Marx, J.-J. Rousseau). In his texts, genre hybridity is evident, along with the use of rhetorical strategies (pathos, logos, ethos) and narrative arcs from crisis to healing; medical and anatomical metaphors and terms (for example, “organism” (vücut), “microbes” (mikroblar), “diseases” (hastalıqlar), “paralysis” (meflüc), “therapy” (tedavileme)) serve to represent reforms as the “recovery” of the system. Complex ideas were adapted through the prism of Islamic ethics and national folkloric knowledge (citation of hadiths and proverbs, among others), thereby ensuring resonance with a traditionally oriented readership and strengthening the reformist positions.

Keywords: Ethem feizi, Crimean tatar journalism, Socioeconomic modernization, National revival, Rhetorical strategies

Abstract source: cyberleninka.ru