Mustafa Celalettin Paşa
“Twenty years were enough to get to know, love and describe this people.”
An Ottoman officer… but also a former Pole and an observer. In this striking work, *The Ancient and Modern Turks*, Mustafa Celâleddin Pasha presents a powerful defence of the Turks’ origins and culture, challenging the West’s prejudices against them.
The Pasha’s pen is that of a historian, a military expert, a friend, a witness and a conscience. In this book, the historical injustices, misrepresentations and intellectual neglect to which the Turkish nation has frequently been subjected are countered by a text written with observation, experience and sincerity.
*The Ancient and Modern Turks* is a book that looks not only to the past but also to the future. Paşa was one of the first writers to recognise the potential of the Turks within an empire that had not yet completed its modernisation, and to express this in a language ahead of its time. Language reform, relations with the West, the question of identity… Within these pages lies a perspective that views today’s debates through the lens of the 19th century.