Ottoman Salonika
court poet Fuzûlî ( 1483 ?– 1556 ) was composed by Cudi Efendi, a teacher at
the Terakki school.^70 However, Gonca-i Edeb also displayed an openness
to change, incorporating the latest western European technological de-
velopments, literary forms, and styles, including children’s stories. In the
first issue’s opening statement, the editors proclaimed that the youth of
Salonika aimed to advance the cause of education by publishing “original
compositions, translations, and selections of rare works and current sci-
ences.”^71 The writers asserted that they would write in “plain language”
so that youth would be able to understand the work without difficulty.
Yet the language used in the journal includes French, Italian, and Sufi
words and phrases in addition to more standard Ottoman vocabulary,
and French literature and Ottoman and Persian poetry are discussed.
Gonca-i Edeb might have “blossomed in a quiet corner of the rose garden
of literature,” but its founders hoped that this “plant newly sprouted” in
Salonika, planted by “the youth of the city,” would “perfume the area” of
the “gardens” of the “region of literature.”^72
Most of the journal’s writers and readers were drawn from among those
who played a role in crafting the new culture of the late Ottoman Empire:
intellectuals, male and female students, teachers, and school administra-
tors, civil servants, professionals, military officers, and even the Karakaş
Dönme general Galip Pasha. One important writer was the Dönme in-
tellectual Fazlı Necip ( 1863 – 1932 ), who had graduated from the school
for civil servants and worked in the office of the chief secretary of the
provincial government. This office had many Dönme employees, includ-
ing Yakubi Osman Tevfik and Abdi Fevzi, founders of Gonca-i Edeb, who
when Fazlı Necip was head clerk served as treasurers and accountants.
Like other Dönme and Jews who would join the Constitutional Revolu-
tion in 1908 , he was also rewarded for his years of service with a sultanic
honor, along with Mehmet Kapancı, Mustafa Cezar, Mehmet Karakaş
(b. 1867 ), and Emmanuel Carasso.^73
Displaying their links to the wider world, writers for Gonca-i Edeb
translated French and European literature, philosophy, and writings on
social science. In keeping with the needs of the age, the rapid transforma-
tion of Salonika, and the introduction of new technologies into everyday
life, the journal was filled with scientific articles. Teachers of French wrote
original pieces on subjects such as obtaining a pearl, carbonic acid, coal
gas, dynamite, salt, and Christopher Columbus. They translated pieces
from French, including wisdom literature, poetry, articles on bees, birds,