Black, White, and Grey: Hüsnü Bingöl – Part 3

ABDÜLKERİM BEY’S MARRIAGE TO CEVAHİR HANIM

Hüsnü Bingöl’s daughter, Şükran Hanım, continues:

“My grandfather (Abdülkerim Bey) first married a lady we called ‘Ottoman Grandma.’ From this marriage, three sons and one daughter were born. After ‘Ottoman Grandma’ passed away, my grandfather married Cevahir Hanım from the Sheikh family of Karşeyh village, Doğubayazıt. From this marriage, four sons, including my father, and two daughters were born.

When my grandfather Abdülkerim was promoted to Colonel, he moved from Ağrı to Erzurum. My father and his siblings were born in Erzurum. My grandfather sent my uncle Nizamettin, one of his sons, to the School of Political Science (Mülkiye), and his other sons to Kuleli Military High School in Istanbul, and married off his daughters to soldiers. That’s why we are a complete military family in every sense. After retiring as a Colonel, my grandfather spent his free time teaching French and Russian at Erzurum High School.”

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL IN IĞDIR

Cavalry Major Hüsnü Bingöl voluntarily retired from the army in the summer of 1932. He came to Iğdır from Kars as a MAH (National Security Service) Inspector. There were, of course, many reasons for his arrival in Iğdır. First and foremost, Imam Bey, the head of MAH in Iğdır, had passed away. Someone needed to be appointed in his place. Hamza Aygün recounts the following anecdote about Imam Bey in his memoirs:

IMAM BEY

“Imam Bey was the head of MAH in the Iğdır region before Hüsnü Bingöl. Imam Bey was originally from the Caucasus. When he passed away (1932), a large funeral ceremony was held. He was buried with a military ceremony in the battalion’s military cemetery.

Imam Bey had a black horse. As the funeral procession slowly advanced along the main street of the town, a soldier, perhaps out of respect for Imam Bey, led this black horse behind the procession, holding its reins.

That day, Iğdır was enveloped in such a deep atmosphere of mourning that a saying circulated among the people: ‘Even the black horse couldn’t bear the sorrow. It was crying!’”

THE GENERAL SITUATION IN IĞDIR UPON HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S ARRIVAL

The real reason Hüsnü Bingöl was brought to Iğdır was certainly not a simple appointment. In those years, Iğdır was one of the most troubled places of the young Republic. Let’s take a look at the general situation together:

In the early 1930s, Iğdır was undergoing a profound upheaval. Armenians and Yazidis had crossed the Aras River more than a decade earlier, leaving behind abandoned villages and houses that still bore their warm traces. The massacres in Oba, Hakmemet, Kucax, and other villages, and the family tragedies and pains caused by the “Kaça-Kaç” (flight/exodus), were still vividly alive in hearts and memories.

Immigrants pouring in from the Caucasus, Iran, and Anatolia were rapidly filling the villages and towns, hoping to cultivate a new life on Iğdır’s soil.

The Ağrı (Ararat) Rebellion, which lasted for nearly five years and deeply affected the structure of Kurdish tribes in the region, had slowly faded away amidst fierce clashes (September 1930). Those who participated in the rebellion had sought refuge in Iran; those who did not were forced to leave their ancestral lands and settle in other plateaus and villages.

The indigenous tribes of Iğdır, who had migrated to Van and Muş in the early 1920s, were returning to their ancestral lands, disadvantaged and impoverished, in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

A large group (500 households) belonging to the Helikan tribe, led by Halit Ağa, who had clashed with the Iranian Government and crossed the border, sought asylum on Iğdır’s soil (Winter 1929).

As if all these upheavals and the difficulties caused by reconstruction were not enough, from the 1930s onwards in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s rising cry of “Kars and Ardahan are ours!” echoed in Ağrı Dağı.

The young Republic needed a dedicated statesman who could understand this multifaceted political and social polarization and withstand its difficulties. It was under these circumstances that Hüsnü Bingöl voluntarily retired from the army with the rank of “Cavalry Major” and took on the duty of National Security Regional Inspector in Iğdır. He had only one goal: to protect and safeguard the young Republic...

IĞDIR, THE VALLEY OF SPIES

International relations and diplomacy have their own logic. An average citizen, caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life, tries to make sense of events when they sit down in their armchair in the evening to watch world news, often exclaiming, “How can this be?” unable to hide their astonishment, because it is impossible to understand developments in international relations with the logic of daily life. To my readers interested in international relations, I would like to remind them of the words of the famous Indian statesman Chanakya, who lived in the 4th century BC:

“Behind every friendship between countries, there is always an interest. Without interest, there is no friendship. Bitter but true!”

The young Republic soon faced this bitter truth in international relations. To better summarize the situation, let’s look at Iğdır’s last few centuries:

1502-1747: Changes of hands between the Ottoman and Safavid States

1747-1828: Erivan Khanate

1828-1917: Russian Administration

1917-1920: Civil War and Republic of Armenia

From November 14, 1920: Grand National Assembly and Republic of Turkey

As I stated in my article series “Ağrı Dağı Rebellion and Iğdır,” during the Ağrı Dağı Rebellion years (1926-30), the Soviet Union and Iran helped the Republic of Turkey. After the rebellion was suppressed, Reza Pahlavi was invited to Turkey. It was believed that Turkish-Iranian relations would continue amicably. The same sentiment was held for the Soviets. But as I said before, international relations change rapidly; they have their own logic. The Soviet Union was planning to reclaim Iğdır, which they had lost just yesterday. Iran was uneasy about North Azerbaijan falling into the hands of the Communist regime. While hoping to incorporate Baku-centered North Azerbaijan into its own Shiite borders, the Soviet Union was now planning to incorporate Tabriz-centered South Azerbaijan into the Soviet Union through communist propaganda.

In fact, the Soviets came very close to these goals right after World War II. In November 1945, with Soviet support, the Azerbaijan National Government, centered in Tabriz, was established in South Azerbaijan, but with the withdrawal of the Soviets, this republic was overthrown by the Iranian government in November 1946.

In short, the country of Azerbaijan was becoming a scene of power struggle between Shiite Iran and the Communist Soviets. Iran, both for this reason and to make its Shiite influence, remaining from the Erivan Khanate period, felt more strongly in Iğdır, made its own initiatives. The common opinion of MAH administrators during this period was that there were Bolshevik agents among the Azerbaijani population who had fled the Russian Revolution, and similarly, there were Iranian agents among the Azerbaijani population who had taken refuge in Iranian Azerbaijan during the Kaça-Kaç period and then returned to Iğdır. In other words, Iğdır was becoming the scene of a War of Spies.

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S FIVE CIRCLES

Hüsnü Bingöl implemented a brilliant plan: In Iğdır, there were three distinct ethnic and sectarian groups: Azerbaijanis (Jafari/Shiite), Karapapaks (Sunni), and Kurds (Sunni). Hüsnü Bingöl analyzed the existing danger and identified his friends and enemies in five intertwined circles.

Since he himself was of Karapapak origin, he first gathered the Karapapaks around him; that is, the first circle he could unconditionally trust was the Karapapak (Terekeme) group. Names like Eşref Başaran, Hasan Alkazak, and Eşref Kaya were prominent figures in this group. (FIRST WHITE)

The second group consisted of Sheikh-origin Kurds because Hüsnü Bingöl’s mother, Cevahir Hanım, was of Sheikh origin and had relatives among the Sheikhs in Iğdır. All the Sheikh families in Iğdır (Barbaros, Balamir, Karadeniz, Balandi, Doğan) had come from Doğubayazıt and settled in Iğdır after the Republic. Families bearing these surnames formed Hüsnü Bingöl’s second circle of trust. (SECOND WHITE)

The third circle was the Brukan and Mametkan tribes. In the last year of the Ağrı Dağı Rebellion, a part of the Brukan tribe set out from Van towards Ağrı Dağı to join the rebellion but was massacred in Zilan Valley (1930). Hüsnü Bingöl protected the dispersed tribe, forgave them despite their participation in the rebellion, and spearheaded their settlement in the villages of Tecirli, Alut, and Panik, which had been vacated by Armenians. Thus, he developed an unbreakable and strong bond with the leaders of the Brukan tribe. The prominent figures of the tribe, Ahmet Armağan, Hacı Abdullah Armağan, and Hacı Abdulhadi Kuş, were among Hüsnü Bingöl’s indispensable friends. Also, Hacı Kerem Şen, leader of the Mametkan tribe, who participated in the Ağrı Dağı rebellion and suffered massacres, and Ferman Kaya (father of Yaşar Kaya) from the Xellesini (Sipkan) tribe of Muça village, were part of this circle. (THIRD WHITE)

The fourth circle comprised the remaining Kurdish tribes and their leaders. Among these, he kept his distance from the Güneş Family (Fettah Bey, Kerem Bey, Abdürrezak Bey, Naci Bey) and Ahmed Şemo. Probably, Kerem Bey and Ahmed Şemo having Ishak Bey killed to avenge Numan Bey must have caused discomfort for Hüsnü Bingöl. Furthermore, the Güneş Family representing the Caucasian Kurds to the Tsarist regime during the Russian Administration raised questions in Hüsnü Bingöl’s mind. A growing bond of trust was forming with Hacı İsa Yiğit, son of Ali Mirze Bey, but it also carried some suspicions. (GREY)

The fifth circle consisted of the Azerbaijani population whom Hüsnü Bingöl did not trust and opposed. He exerted ruthless pressure on this group and kept them under close surveillance. Since Bolshevik ideas did not gain traction among the Kurds, Hüsnü Bingöl believed that both the Soviets were spreading Bolshevik propaganda and Iran was creating supporters among the Azerbaijani population to establish Shiite influence in Turkey, and that special spies were assigned for this purpose. (BLACK)

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S AUTHORITY

When Hüsnü Bingöl arrived in Iğdır, he looked for a house to settle in. He settled in a Russian-built building on Doğubayazıt Street. A new era had begun for both Hüsnü Bingöl and Iğdır. This period, which would last for a quarter of a century, would be recorded as the HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL ERA.

Here, I want to give the floor to Mecit Hun’s memoirs:

“If I do not give due place in my memoirs to a name that has not been erased from my memory since my childhood and that left deep, undeniable traces in Iğdır for a quarter of a century, I would consider myself to have betrayed the facts and history. This name is Hüsnü Bingöl, the National Security Inspector of that time. He was a state official during the single-party period. His powers were not limited to merely receiving information, like those of a current MIT (National Intelligence Organization) director. All state tools and resources were at his disposal. He interpreted and evaluated the information he obtained as he wished. He would apprehend those he deemed guilty through his civilian and military personnel and have them detained. He would conduct the necessary investigations and interrogations himself and refer those whose guilt was established to military court. In summary, Hüsnü Bingöl combined the duties of intelligence inspector, political prosecutor, and interrogating judge under his responsibility.

He had no official connection with the civil and judicial authorities of the district. The building on Doğubayazıt Street, whose ownership later belonged to the heirs and siblings of Muhsin Yılmaz, was used as an official office and residence. In the adjacent buildings, there were barracks for assigned soldiers, detention cells, and waiting rooms. The public was unaware of what was happening in these places. In any case, no one dared to inquire out of fear. People were brought to these buildings, which resembled an iron curtain, blindfolded and masked, accompanied by soldiers, but no information could be obtained about the fate of these people.”

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S FOUR APPROACHES

Dear reader! When I read Mecit Hun’s lines above, I must admit I shivered. The sudden imposition of such discipline and control on Iğdır, which had successively experienced social and political traumas like the Civil War, the Kaça-Kaç, and the Ağrı Dağı Rebellion, created deep unease among the populace. Step by step, a veil of fear and mystery covered Iğdır.

Hüsnü Bingöl based his intelligence work on four main principles:

• Espionage / Intelligence / Spying
• Counter-espionage / Counter-intelligence / Counter-spying
• Propaganda
• Technical and Support Activities

Counter-espionage encompasses all efforts to counter the espionage activities of foreign intelligence services, especially those of the Soviets and Iran. Hüsnü Bingöl particularly focused on deception (disinformation) activities against hostile services through double agents. He created an impression that Iğdır was a region not valued by the young Republic, meaning it was a weak link for spies wanting to infiltrate Turkey. He succeeded in this strategy. The Soviets and Iran conducted their espionage activities centered in Iğdır. Hüsnü Bingöl hunted them down one by one.

One day, Yunus Bey, the MAH Chief responsible for intelligence work in the Ardahan region in those years, came to visit Hüsnü Bingöl. Seeing the seriousness and scope of the work being done, he was surprised and expressed his opinion:

“So, you mean we’re just lounging around in Ardahan!”

Hüsnü Bingöl created a local network to catch spies coming to Iğdır. He had spies in almost every village, every neighborhood, every street corner, and even every house. Sometimes he would have one spy follow another. Thus, he gathered his most reliable agents around him. He taught them his self-developed intelligence techniques one-on-one. He avoided group work, so no one in Iğdır knew who was a spy. Everyone suspected everyone else. He also tried to infiltrate Iran and the Soviets by establishing a counter-espionage network.

When Hüsnü Bingöl started his duty, there was no professional staff in Iğdır MAH to undertake all these activities. Hüsnü Bingöl followed a unique path. He drew people he could trust from among the civilian population. For counter-espionage, he mostly relied on the Brukan tribe, which formed the THIRD WHITE circle. Since members of this tribe knew Russian and even Armenian, they could easily infiltrate Erivan and surrounding villages and establish contact with spies there.

Hüsnü Bingöl had an undeniable charisma and power of persuasion. The agents took their assigned tasks seriously and carried out their missions even at the cost of their lives.

You might ask this question: Why didn’t Hüsnü Bingöl use teams from the FIRST AND SECOND WHITE circles, i.e., Karapapaks and Sheikhs, in counter-espionage activities? The answer is simple: Karapapaks and Sheikhs, having come to Iğdır from Ottoman/Turkish lands after 1920, knew neither Russian nor Armenian, and had no knowledge of Erivan or the surrounding villages. The Brukan tribe, having lived under Russian rule for centuries, possessed all the characteristics Hüsnü Bingöl desired in terms of language, geography, and culture. Although they had migrated to Van between 1919 and 1930, not even a generation had passed.

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S FRIGHTENING SHADOW

As time passed, Hüsnü Bingöl took control. He had a perfectly functioning network. Every day, suspects were apprehended, interrogated under Hüsnü Bingöl’s supervision, and those who resisted were tortured. He would send those who might be spies to Erzurum, but those he was 100% convinced were spies, he would execute and discard. The public knew this. Fear circulated in the deepest veins of the city. Iğdır had surrendered to an indescribable fear.

Mecit Hun recounts this part in his memoirs as follows:

“I saw Hüsnü Bingöl when I was in elementary school. He wore a Major’s uniform. His mustache was curled in the fashion of the Committee of Union and Progress. With his cane in hand, his ornate whip, and his cute poodle by his side, he would usually go out in the afternoon, walk along Cumhuriyet Street, and go to the tea garden next to the Municipality.

Cumhuriyet Street, where tradesmen were generally concentrated, was like a route prepared for a parade in the afternoon. Tradesmen, having tidied their clothes, eagerly awaited Hüsnü Bingöl’s passage. Upon leaving the house, the poodle would lead the way for 15-20 meters on the path it traveled every day. Hüsnü Bingöl’s arrival was understood by the appearance of the cute poodle, and positions were taken accordingly. During his passage, some would greet him with a nod, some with a bow (a salute given by lowering the right hand, then touching the lip, and then the head), and some would remove their hats, competing in salutations.

Hüsnü Bingöl had different perspectives on these people. Generally, his demeanor was stern. He would respond to some with a slight smile. This was a compliment. It was a message that he currently had no suspicious thoughts about them. That day, tradesmen would interpret Hüsnü Bey’s attitude among themselves.

Words like, ‘He looked at so-and-so very sternly, I hope he shows mercy and pities his children,’ or ‘He looked at so-and-so with a smile. He’s lucky, he has a charm,’ circulated. Occasionally, he would call someone over and say, ‘You come to the office!’ This was considered a harbinger of disaster. Because the fate of those who went with such calls was unknown. This news of a call would spread like a wave through the town, and interpretations would begin. According to some, the man was unfortunate; according to others, he got what he deserved. The summoned man would immediately be gripped by the fear of death, losing his appetite. Such people would usually bid farewell to their families and make their wills.

Hüsnü Bingöl truly possessed a terrifying personality. What were the factors that contributed to this? In my opinion, the following can be listed:

• The state, which initially did not take communism seriously, now considered it the greatest danger and felt the need to meticulously monitor immigrants coming from Erivan and Azerbaijan.
• The Ağrı rebellion had just been suppressed, and no change was expected in the state’s suspicious view of Kurds.
• People who had fled the Armenian massacres and atrocities and sought refuge in Iran were returning. However, the state, suspecting Iran’s sincere friendship, felt the need to keep these citizens under a kind of surveillance.

These issues were entrusted to Hüsnü Bingöl, the National Security Inspector during the single-party period. Every segment of the region, regardless of ethnicity or belief, was uneasy and fearful. On the other hand, some unfortunate events caused alarm. In Çaldıran and Muradiye, right next to Iğdır, 33 of our citizens were summarily executed by order of the Third Army Commander Mustafa Muğlalı, and arrests and trials had begun in the Independence Courts. Most importantly, unjust and unnecessary exiles had begun based on the enacted Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükun Kanunu). Hüsnü Bingöl was not responsible for many of these. However, the people were in distress. They had lost the ability to think clearly and evaluate events. They recognized Hüsnü Bingöl as the sole authority and responsible party. These were the events that gave Hüsnü Bingöl’s personality its terrifying appearance.

Yet, there was no reason to suspect the people. The people, suffering from the pain of Bolshevism, migration, and military operations against rebels, were worried about their livelihoods. Their only hope was the Republic of Turkey. They, who fought against the Armenians as one body, regardless of Kurd, Azerbaijani, Shiite, or Sunni, to establish this state, fed the soldiers at the front by cutting from their own mouths and their children’s sustenance, and ensured the establishment of this state by giving hundreds of martyrs in Nakhchivan, Erivan, Vedi, Zengi, Iğdır, Tuzluca, and Aralık. Therefore, such suspicion towards them was truly unfair. On the other hand, those governing the state were also in trouble. Hostile circles, disturbed by the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, were encouraging and organizing chaos and rebellions in Anatolia.

Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the young Republic, was subjected to an assassination attempt in Izmir. The leaders at the head of the state had to take harsh measures, and due to the assassination attempt on Atatürk, people who were the backbone of the country, including heroes of the National Struggle such as Kazım Karabekir, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Refet Bele, Cafer Tayyar Eğilmez, and Mersinli Cemal Pasha, were arrested and tried in the Independence Courts.

Hüsnü Bingöl was a civil servant who took on very important duties during a period dominated by such contradictions. It is useful to provide information about Hüsnü Bingöl’s environment and life, as he left his mark in Iğdır for a long period of a quarter of a century.

He came from a Karapapak family that migrated from the Caucasus to the villages of Ağrı (Karaköse). On his mother’s side, he was related to the well-known Sheikh families of the region. He served in the army as a cavalry officer and rose to the rank of Major. He married the daughter of Mehmet Ağa, a Karapapak immigrant from Hınıs. His brother-in-law, Ziya Bey, also came and settled in Iğdır when Hüsnü Bey started working as a National Security Inspector.

He had a very modest life. He was a heavy smoker. He smoked village or military cigarettes. He used a pipe outdoors. When walking, his pipe was always in his mouth. He drank a maximum of two double rakis at every dinner. He dressed very simply. He usually preferred his military uniform. He had two daughters named Şükran and Müjgan.

He had various people around him. These people formed different circles. Eşref Başaran, Eşref Kaya, Hacı İsa Yiğit, Hacı Kerem Şengo, Sheikh Abdulbaki from Karaşeyhli, Sheikh Mehmet from Babıhanlı, and Abdulhadi and Abdullah Ağas from Burukan, who are no longer with us today, were valuable, balanced, and trustworthy people who were constantly around Hüsnü Bey. I believe that these respectable people tried to influence Hüsnü Bingöl positively.

Hüsnü Bingöl had a circle of people who never left his side, waited for him in front of his house at the hours he would go to the market, followed him a few steps behind, greeted him, paid their respects, and looked down on others. Some of them would light his pipe, some would take on the task of protecting his poodle from street dogs, another would play backgammon with Hüsnü Bingöl to entertain him, but for some reason, always lost. And they would try to prove what a backgammon master Hüsnü Bingöl was. There were also those who wiped the dust off his shoes with a handkerchief, and those who went to the stove to make and bring his coffee themselves. The common point of all of them was to flatter Hüsnü Bingöl, to be sycophantic. This circle, with the advantage of their closeness to Hüsnü Bingöl, exploited some wealthy but anxious individuals and created a small reign of terror in society. Hüsnü Bingöl, being isolated from society due to his duty, did not notice this disgrace. I do not want to mention the names of those in this circle among these beautiful memories. They know I am referring to them, and they are known by society.”

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL AND SOVIET INTELLIGENCE

Hüsnü Bingöl served as a MEH/MAH Security Inspector between 1932 and 1954. During this 22-year period, he engaged in a ruthless espionage struggle with the Secret Intelligence organization in the Soviet Union, which was sometimes called CHEKA, sometimes OGPU, and sometimes NKVD. More than ten intelligence chiefs came and went in the Soviet Union, including Stalin’s famous Intelligence Chief Beria, but Hüsnü Bingöl remained in his place. Each new Soviet Intelligence organization or chief followed different ways to eliminate or neutralize Hüsnü Bingöl. Hüsnü Bingöl, with his extraordinary intuition, quickly adapted to changing conditions, reorganized his intelligence and counter-intelligence network, and made it suitable for the circumstances. This flexibility of MAH and its transformation of Iğdır into a comprehensive ‘intelligence case’ created both astonishment and admiration in the Soviet Union.

One day, an agent Hüsnü Bingöl used as a double agent infiltrated Erivan. In the Soviet Union, intelligence had undergone a new reorganization, and a new chief (Merkulov) had been appointed. His counterpart, who had worked as a Soviet agent for many years, could not hide his surprise and confessed: “My goodness! Is Hüsnü Bingöl still alive? The man is like he has nine lives!”

HASAN ARMAĞAN FROM THE BRUKAN TRIBE

Dear reader! To understand Hüsnü Bingöl in all his aspects, we need to closely examine his human relations. I would like to recount my interview with Hasan Armağan, son of the late Hacı Abdullah Armağan, a prominent figure of the Brukan tribe:

A tribal person connects with their own adventures and heroes, and whenever they find an opportunity, they settle on a divan or floor cushion with the air of a pasha, the warmth of a teacup in their hand, and whisper the difficult days of the tribe into the mystery of the dimly lit room, like a fairy tale. My uncle Hasan Armağan, with his rich conversation and sweet tongue, had settled comfortably in a corner of the room in Panik village and captivated me with his conversation.

“I was born in 1930 in Dilan village, Erciş district of Van province. I belong to a family with five brothers and three sisters. We have very little information about the origin of the Brukan (Brukî) tribe. As far as I heard from my father, our tribe came from a town or region called ‘Karakeçi,’ probably in Syria, a long time ago and settled in Iğdır. Our tribe’s winter quarters for nearly 250-300 years were the lands within the borders of today’s State Production Farm. There were 12 Brukan villages here. Today, members of the Brukan tribe in Van, Iğdır, and other provinces and districts have dispersed from these 12 villages. Our tribe lived under Russian rule for many years. In the summer, they would go to the Axmaxan plateau near Erivan. When the Surname Law came out, our fathers tried to compensate for this longing by taking the name of this plateau, ‘Armağan,’ as their surname.”

“After 1917, a power vacuum emerged in the region. Every tribe and group was fighting for survival. A branch of the Brukan tribe that had left Iğdır returned to Iğdır and settled in Tecirli, Alut, and Panik, which had been vacated by Armenians. (1930-32)

When the Law on the Exile of Ağas and Beys was implemented, my father, fearing capture, left the Erciş region in 1927 and came to Iğdır, crossed the Aras River, and sought refuge in the Soviet Union. He was caught and accused of espionage. After living in exile for 5.5 years in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, he found a way to return.”

Hasan Armağan brings his speech to Hüsnü Bingöl:

“Hüsnü Bingöl had noticeable upward-curled mustaches. He wore boots. He would tilt his hat down to cover his eyes, closely monitoring the populace as if watching from behind a secret curtain. When he walked, his poodle would go behind or in front of him, and people on the street would make way with fear and respect. Hüsnü Bingöl’s eyes were constantly on people. He would immediately distinguish who was from Iğdır and who was not. In fact, once, he had policemen follow a foreigner he saw in the city center, and it turned out that this foreigner, who was caught, was indeed in the city for espionage.”

“INZI ÇUR DUR!”

Hasan Armağan recounts:

“Inzi çur dur!” is an Armenian expression. It means “Give me water!” Since our village was close to the border, we often witnessed espionage incidents. One day, two gendarmes were taking a tall, dark-skinned Armenian between them. As they passed near our village, he pleaded with us, crying out, “Inzi çur dur!” The elders of the village knew Armenian. They brought water and melon. The young man squatted on the ground, sliced and ate the melon. Soon after, the gendarmes prodded the young man with their weapons, pushing him forward, and set off towards Iğdır.”

RICH TODAY, POOR TOMORROW

The 1917 Russian Revolution opened a brand new era. By Lenin’s directive, Russian armies withdrew from the South Caucasus. The Republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia were established. The years 1917-1920 meant Civil War and Kaça-Kaç for Iğdır. Wealthy Azerbaijani businessmen extended a helping hand to their Azerbaijani brethren in Sürmeli (Iğdır) and Nakhchivan and to the Ottoman army, but most of these aids were wasted. To better convey this period to my readers, I will share excerpts from the memoirs of Mecit Hun and Hasan Armağan. You might ask what this has to do with Hüsnü Bingöl. With the Soviet capture of Azerbaijan in 1920, wealthy Azerbaijani people fled to Iğdır en masse. Some were swept away and drowned in the raging waters of the Aras River, some families were scattered. After the 1930s, the syndrome of broken families would greatly exhaust Iğdır. Many people from Iğdır who tried to cross the border to reach their families without Hüsnü Bingöl’s knowledge were caught either by Soviet soldiers or by intelligence agents loyal to Hüsnü Bingöl and accused of espionage. Many innocent people were unjustly imprisoned or executed.

Mecit Hun writes in his memoirs:

“For the Azerbaijanis who left their villages in the Iğdır plain, the safest place was Iran. They took refuge with Iranian Azerbaijanis living around Maku, Khoy, Marand, and Tabriz in western Iran and monitored the situation in Iğdır from there. For this reason, Azerbaijani settlements and villages were completely deserted. Tribal militias greatly assisted the Azerbaijani people in migrating to Iran. Some Azerbaijani people stayed with Kurds they knew for weeks and even months and were safely delivered to their destinations. During this time, there were serious difficulties in supplying and provisioning the Ottoman Army, which was active in Nakhchivan and partly in Azerbaijan. Since the state’s resources had dried up and the country was occupied from end to end, providing food in this large geography was a major problem. The Azerbaijani people shared the meager food they obtained with the soldiers. Azerbaijani wealthy individuals supported the Kurdish militia forces in addition to supplying provisions to the Ottoman army. The late Hacı Zeynel Abidin Tağıyev (Baku oil industrialist) sent tens of thousands of cans of preserved meat to the fronts. Some of these preserved meats spoiled due to being kept too long at stations and were buried in pits dug in the area between Baharlı Neighborhood and Melekli village. Since the can remnants remained for years, this area is popularly known as the TENEKELER (CANS) locality.”

LENIN ZAVOD PA NEFTİ (LENIN REFINERY)

Hacı Zeynel Abidin Tağıyev, once the richest man in Azerbaijan, lost all his wealth overnight in 1920 when the Soviets confiscated it. An anecdote recounted by Hasan Armağan illustrates this tragic situation:

“These are the days following the 1917 Russian Bolshevik revolution. In Baku, there is a very wealthy Azerbaijani named Hacı Zeynel Tağıyev. He has amassed a great fortune thanks to the oil wells and factories he owns. Hacı Tağıyev is as generous as he is rich! Every year, he donates thousands of Rubles in aid to the holy places of the Islamic world.

However, one day the Bolsheviks come to power and confiscate Hacı Tağıyev’s oil wells and factories. Hacı begins to live a modest life in a shack.

One day, the new administration struggles to operate the factory. The gears don’t turn, production falters. They bring Hacı to help. Hacı Tağıyev enters the factory, which he built with all his life and energy, with a bitter feeling. He puts on his glasses, walks among the machines he knows like the back of his hand, and with a gear here and a bolt there, the machines start working with a loud noise.

Hacı, tired and happy, his hands covered in oil, leaves the factory and calls out to a young man:

“My son! Pour some water on my hands!”

“Hacı, Comrade Lenin has forbidden (qadaxan) pouring water on a man’s hands.”

Hacı Tağıyev shakes his head sadly:

“Yes, my son, yes!”

He washes his oily and dirty hands, cleans his glasses. After a deep sigh, he puts on his glasses and tries to read the inscription on the plaque at the factory entrance but struggles to read it.

He calls out to the young man:

“My son! Read this inscription! What does it say there?”

“Hacı, it says: Lenin Zavod Pa Nefti.”

“My son, it can’t be wrong, read it again.”

“Lenin Zavod Pa Nefti.”

“Oh! Oh! My son! I remember everything, who I sold what to, who I bought what from, I remember it all very well. But who is this ‘Lenin,’ and when did I sell this factory to him, I don’t remember at all...”

“Perhaps, uncle, you sold it in your dream...”

“Yes, my son, yes!”

It is rumored that Hacı Tağıyev left there, shaking his head, and died of grief a week later.”

IS SALADIN A KURD?

Hüsnü Bingöl occasionally opened his home to his dear friends. He would engage in deep and pleasant conversations with them. One day, Hasan Armağan, as a child, went to Hüsnü Bingöl’s house with his father, the late Hacı Abdullah Armağan. He recounts what he experienced that day:

“One day, my father and I were guests at Hüsnü Bingöl’s house on Doğubayazıt Street. I sat quietly in a corner, listening to my father and Hüsnü Bingöl’s conversation. Somehow, the topic of Saladin came up. My father proudly and insistently claimed that Saladin was a Kurd. Hüsnü Bingöl, with the same determination, rejected this, arguing that Saladin was a Turk. My father, confidently, turned to Hüsnü Bingöl:

“My Bey, shall we make a bet (mercine)?”

“Alright!”

“If I prove that Saladin was a Kurd, you will give me a pistol, agreed?”

“Agreed!”

As soon as we returned home, my father spread all his books on the table. He was flipping through the pages, muttering to himself, “I read it somewhere, but where?..” By chance, I found that sentence. There was a sentence in a book that read:

“Saladin, by offering his qafese sine-i Kurdi (Kurdish chest) against the şimşir-i merg (sword of death), achieved victory against his enemies.”

When I read this sentence aloud, my father was almost in tears of joy. A few days later, with the book in hand, we went back to Hüsnü Bingöl’s house. Hüsnü Bingöl took the book, and spoke, surprised but satisfied:

“Hoca, you have proven your claim! Thank God you are not uneducated, otherwise you would have been a menace to this nation!”

Hüsnü Bingöl gifted my father a pistol with a stock.

HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL’S RIGHT-HAND MAN: DURAK ELBRUZ

When Hüsnü Bingöl settled in Iğdır, he needed someone to look after his family. He made sure this person was not from Iğdır. In this search, he met Durak Elbruz and appointed him as his right-hand man.

Durak Elbruz was born in 1908 in Cinis (Ortabahçe) village, Aşkale district, Erzurum province. In his childhood, he witnessed Armenian committees locking civilians in mosques and burning them. This created a trauma for him. In 1928, he completed his military service in Aralık (Başköy) district. (Aralık is today a district 46 km from Iğdır province. In those years, Iğdır and Aralık were districts of Kars province.)

While serving in the military, he became a soldier assigned to the prison in Hüsnü Bingöl’s garden. Occasionally, he also helped with Hüsnü Bingöl’s household chores. After completing his military service, Hüsnü Bingöl recruited Durak Elbruz into MAH and made him responsible for his family’s security.

While Durak Elbruz continued this duty as a civilian, he also developed an interest in vineyards and gardens, leasing state land in Iğdır center for 49 years. However, after Hüsnü Bingöl’s death, the lease document was canceled by bureaucrats and politicians who launched a smear campaign against Hüsnü Bingöl’s name. Durak Elbruz, not wanting to return to Erzurum, settled in Aralık. He operated a lime kiln, but soon after, the same political forces closed down the lime kiln. Following this, he engaged in trade on the Turkish-Iranian border. During these years, Durak Elbruz was not a permanent employee of MIT (National Intelligence Organization) but continued to work with MIT. MIT set a condition:

“If you are not caught, you are our agent, but if you are caught, we do not know you.”

Durak Elbruz, who prioritized people, won the affection of the Kurdish and Azerbaijani people with his personality and helpfulness. He even once prevented the exile of a Kurdish family. When Durak Elbruz died in Aralık in 1984, military units also attended his funeral.

HÜSNÜ BEY’S HORSESHOE

I want to end today’s article with an anecdote:

Hüsnü Bingöl had made it a habit to walk from his house to the city center with his poodle in the afternoons and have a coffee with acquaintances in the municipal garden.

However, on rainy days, since the street was covered in mud, he preferred to go by horse. On one such rainy day, Hüsnü Bingöl, returning home from the city center, dismounted his horse and noticed that one of his beloved horse’s shoes had fallen off. He called out to his assistant, Durak:

“Durak, my son, walk along the street towards the city center and find the fallen horseshoe. These horseshoes were specially made for this horse.”

Durak said, “Yes, sir!” and went out onto the street. Realizing that the road from the house to the city center was completely covered in mud and that he couldn’t handle this task alone, and also knowing that the given order had to be carried out flawlessly and as soon as possible, Durak panicked and stopped a man named Bağır who came his way:

“Bağır, hurry up! Hüsnü Bey’s horse’s shoe is lost. Go along this street, find the horseshoe, and bring it!”

Hearing that the task was related to Hüsnü Bey, Bağır rushed to the street and started searching for the horseshoe. With great difficulty, he probed the mud with his foot, and even his hand, seriously continuing his search all the way to the city center, but he couldn’t find any horseshoe.

“I must find the horseshoe,” he muttered to himself, and decided to continue his search by going back along the street in the opposite direction. As he carefully probed the mud piles, he occasionally looked up and saw people around him walking with pride and peace, holding horseshoes in their hands, which he couldn’t understand. One person was even carefully cleaning the horseshoe in his hand with a handkerchief he took out of his pocket.

Bağır, suspecting nothing, muttered to himself:

“Lucky ones! Everyone has a horseshoe, but I couldn’t even find one.”

He reached the end of the street, but still couldn’t find a horseshoe. He became frightened.

“It’s best to go to Farrier İbrahim and get a horseshoe.”

Humble and generous Farrier İbrahim silently granted the request, pointing to a box with his hand:

“Go, take the horseshoe you want from that box and bring it!”

Farrier İbrahim also muttered to himself:

“Today, the whole city comes and asks me for a horseshoe, I wonder what happened!”

Bağır went to Hüsnü Bey’s house with the horseshoe in his hand, and called out from the front door:

“Durak Bey, hardasan (where are you), I found the horseshoe.”

Suddenly, the house door opened, and Hüsnü Bey came out:

“Durak, my son, what’s going on? Today, all of Iğdır comes to the door and calls you like this?”

Durak blushed:

“Sir, I had given the task of finding the horseshoe to many people to be sure!!”

Hüsnü Bey, with a half-serious, half-smiling expression, re-entered the house.

This time, Durak called out to Bağır:

“Hey Bağır, we found the horseshoe! Don’t worry (darıxlanma) anymore. Go home!”