Cahit Tanyol

Hüseyin Cahit Tanyol (1914 – 11 August 2020) was a Turkish writer, poet, and sociologist, often regarded as the father of Turkish sociology.

Early life and education Hüseyin Cahit was born in 1914 in the town of Nezib, then located in the vilayet of Aleppo, Ottoman Empire. In 1931, he finished Adana Boys' Teacher School. He graduated from Gazi Institute of Education in 1935. In 1940, he started studying philosophy at Istanbul University and got his master's degree four years later with his thesis "The Origin of Ethics in Schopenhauer." He started working as an assistant at the same university in 1946 and got his PhD with his work "The Place of Pleasure and Suffering in Morality." and Turkmens of Barak and Chepni tribes.

Books Poetry Kuruluş ve Fetih Destanı (1969) Son Liman (1992) Düş Yorgunu (2001)

Non-fiction Örf ve Adetler Bakımından Sanat ve Ahlâk (1952) Sosyal Ahlâk - Laik Ahlâka Giriş (1960) Sosyolojik Açıdan Din-Ahlâk-Laiklik ve Politika Üzerine Diyaloglar (1970) Atatürk ve Halkçılık (1982) Türk Edebiyatında Yahya Kemal (1985) Laiklik ve İrtica (1989) Çankaya Dramı (1990) Türkler ile Kürtler (1993) Schopenhauer'da Ahlâk Felsefesi (1998) Neden Türban? Şeriat ve İrtica (2002) Hoca Kadri Efendi'nin Parlamentosu (2003) Sancılı Toprak (2014) As a non-Kurd, he touched on the Kurdish issue:

Controversies After the death of Tanyol, a video of him from 2018, then aged 104, was released by one of his former students. In the video, he was confronted by his former students and shown declaring support for president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This video was aired by regime-sided media along with an article by the confronting student on Anadolu Agency. The video received great criticism, especially from Tanyol's son, Tuğrul Tanyol, who regarded the video as "disgusting" and "an insult to [Tanyol's] memory." He underlined that Tanyol had a leftist background and previously fiercely criticized Erdoğan's original political movement, Millî Görüş. Tuğrul Tanyol further mentioned his father's encroaching dementia and that his father never voted for Erdoğan's party.

Personal life Cahit Tanyol was married to Fethiye. He had one son, named Tuğrul, and one daughter, Bilge.