Making a Revolution, 1908 sive crowd of men in white derby hats enthusiastically applauding the
electric speeches of CUP leaders.^87 Among the speakers were Moiz Kohen
(Tekinalp) and Sabiha Sertel’s handlebar-mustachioed older brother Celal
Dervish, who shouted: “We want brotherhood between all peoples. We
are all one without regard to religion or sect. Long live the fatherland!
Long live freedom! There are no Greeks, Jews, or Bulgarians, there are
only Ottomans.”^88
Dönme journalists played an important role in the events of July 1908.
Fazlı Necip, a member of the Véritas lodge, became a leading CUP ac-
tivist and publicist and during the revolution was put in charge of or-
ganizing and coordinating all the movement’s propaganda activities in
Salonika.^89 Ahmet Emin Yalman, at the time employed by the daily
Sabah (Morning) and the translation bureau of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, wrote: “We journalists decided to take open action... to elec-
trify the public. We staged a small revolution of our own in Istanbul. Fa-
mous writers in disfavor with the Sultan were all invited to write patriotic
poems and articles welcoming the new liberty. We held the first street
demonstrations, called a meeting of all sorts of writers, and organized a
press association. Decisions were made immediately to communicate to
the public excitement of the new era.”^90 Yalman would become the news
editor of the CUP’s Tanin (a title roughly meaning “Echo”) in 1914.^91
Yalman’s alma mater, the Terakki, boasted that it raised freedom-loving,
constitution-supporting youth, and that those who announced the sec-
ond constitutional government were Terakki graduates.^92 In 1909 , articles
appeared in the Journal de Salonique celebrating the twenty-fifth anniver-
sary of the founding of the Feyziye school. One article mentions the re-
grettable absence of the new finance minister Mehmet Cavid, formerly a
Feyziye administrator, who could not attend the anniversary celebrations
because important matters in Istanbul detained him, and then praises the
revolution and the revival of “Young Turkey” by the heroes of indepen-
dence through their struggle for liberty, equality, and the fatherland.^93
After 1908 , the Feyziye’s journal Bahçe (Garden), originally for children,
became an enthusiastic supporter of the CUP, until it ceased publication
two years later.^94
Dönme had an excellent reputation among their allies in this revolu-
tionary period. Their significance was corroborated by one of the first
memoirs written by a CUP activist, the 1911 account of Leskovikli Mehmet
Rauf. He had been arrested for working underground for the Committee