The Escape to Europe of the Daughters of Mehmed Nuri Bey Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign

Abstract

Zinnur and Nuriye, the daughters of Mehmed Nuri Bey, one of the important statesmen of the Abdulhamid II period, made plans to escape to Europe due to the pressure of the environment on women. They had the opportunity to meet several times with the famous writer Pierre Loti, whom they admired at that time. These interviews were about the general situation of Ottoman women. Having firmly set their minds on escaping, the girls seized this opportunity by sending home workers to different places. In this way, with the help of music teachers, they took the train from Sirkeci and took the road to Europe. When it was understood that the girls had escaped, they wanted to be stopped in Belgrade, but this was not possible. The girls who secretly went to Vienna from Belgrade went to Paris from there, where they carried out activities on women's freedom. The girls' flight to Europe had a profound effect on her family. The subject has made a great impact at home and abroad as of the period in which it was lived. Years later, her eldest daughter Zinnur returned to the Ottoman lands and continued her life here. Nuriye, on the other hand, married a European person and lived there the rest of her life. The aim of this study is to reveal the events and the effect of the escape of Mehmed Nuri Bey's daughters to Europe. As a matter of fact, it has been tried to be explained through the official records of the Ottoman Empire and the newspapers of the period. © 2023, Abidin Temizer. All rights reserved.