Ali Sami Bey (born c.1872; last documented in 1938), also known as Bahriyeli Ali Sami ("Sailor Ali Sami"), was an Ottoman naval officer, photographer, journalist and newspaper publisher. He worked as a photographer for Sultan Abdülhamid II before losing his official positions following the Young Turk Revolution. He later settled in Thessaloniki and became an opponent of the Turkish National Movement.
During the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), he supported the Greek campaign in Anatolia, fighting for Greece, leading a militia and attaining the rank of colonel. He also published an anti-Kemalist newspaper, notably condemning the Armenian genocide and the Greek genocide. After the war, he remained in Greece, where he continued his photography work throughout the country, especially on Mount Athos.
Early life and career
Ali Sami was born at around 1872, to Mehmed Bey and his unnamed wife, originating from Kasımpaşa, Beyoğlu in Constantinople. He entered the Ottoman Naval College on 14 May 1890 and graduated on 22 May 1892 as an engineer sub-lieutenant. By 1893, he began publishing photography manuals, including the Mebadi-i Usul-i Fotoğrafya, one of the earliest Ottoman publications on photography. He dedicated the book to Abdülhamid II. On 7 August 1893, he received an iftihar (honour) medal for writing the manual.
Ali Sami later worked as a photographer for the Ottoman navy, recording warships, naval officers and visiting foreign dignitaries. He also taught photography at the naval school and was associated with photographic work for the imperial palace. In 1894, he photographed a visit by King Alexander I of Serbia to Mount Athos. On 13 March 1896, while holding the rank of lieutenant, he received the fourth-class Order of the Medjidie. During the Greco-Turkish War (1897), he served in the Ottoman navy and received a silver medal for his wartime service. Following the war, he was appointed to direct an exhibition at Yıldız Palace, and produced photographic albums for the sultan.
Ali Sami Bey in 1902.
In 1898, Ali Sami accompanied German emperor Wilhelm II on his visit to the Levant, including Damascus and the Umayyad Mosque. In 1900, he photographed vessels built at the İzmit shipyard and the construction of the Haydarpaşa port facilities. That year, he also compiled a photographic album of the Darülaceze[tr], where he served as honorary chief photographer alongside his naval duties. He attended the institution once a week and was paid two silver mecidiye for the work. In 1901, he photographed the visit of Germany's Prince Adalbert to Constantinople.
Ali Sami was promoted to major in August 1902. In 1902, he photographed manuscript fragments from the Qubbat al-Khazna for the Ottoman government before their transfer to the German embassy. The photographs were intended to help ensure the return of the fragments. He took over 3,116 photographs, two for each fragment, and handed them over to German officials. These photographs are now lost. In 1903, he photographed visits by German princes and Italian admiral Giuseppe Palombo, together with a reception in the admiral's honour. He was replaced as Darülaceze photographer by naval photographer Rıza Efendi in October that year.
In 1904, he accompanied an Ottoman delegation to the ceremonies marking the opening of the Hejaz Railway section at Ma'an, photographing events at Ma'an and Daraa. Promoted to colonel on 12 December 1905, he photographed the interiors and exteriors of Ottoman warships repaired by the Italian firm Ansaldo in 1905–1906, including Feth-i Bülend, Muin-i Zafer and Avnullah. In 1906, he was granted the title of chief imperial photographer (Ser-fotoğrafî-i Hazret-i Şehriyari). He was also awarded the third class of the Order of Osmanieh for his services under Abdülhamid II. A certain art medal is also recorded among his honours, although the available sources do not date these awards.
Young Turk Revolution and World War I
After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, Ali Sami served as an active member of Abdülhamid II's informer network, carrying out investigations and surveillance on the sultan's behalf. After the deposition of Abdülhamid II in 1909, Ali Sami lost his position on 4 May of the same year. His property was also seized and he left for Egypt, taking a government-owned camera with him.
Ali Sami subsequently lived in Thessaloniki, where Abdülhamid had been sent into exile. By 1912, he was publishing a newspaper called Hak. During World War I, he published the Greek–French weekly Le Droit/To Dikaion (transl.Justice), which described itself as supporting the Entente and the interests of Islam and the Greeks, criticizing the Committee of Union and Progress. The publication was popular enough to receive commentary from the Cretan Muslim newspaper İstikbal.
Greco-Turkish War
Advertisement for Ali Sami Bey's photography laboratory and night school in Filippiada. On the left, a picture of him as an Ottoman officer. On the right, a picture of him as a Greek officer.
At the start of the Greco-Turkish War, in an open letter published in the Athens newspaper Dikaio on 20 November 1919, Ali Sami offered to place himself and his men under the orders of the Greek government and said that he was willing to serve wherever it directed him. During the Greek campaign in Anatolia, he travelled to Greek-held territory and published the Turkish-language anti-Kemalist newspaper Adalet (transl.Justice) in Bandırma. He defended Abdülhamid's reign and criticized Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Union and Progress.
Ali Sami served as commander of an irregular armed militia fighting for the Greek Army and achieved the rank of colonel under Greek general Konstantinos G. Petimezas[el]. The latter's militia served near Manisa. The Greek military authorities also assigned him to Savaştepe. Petimezas later credited him for conducting confidential staff duties in the Greek army as well. In an article of 23 August 1921, at the first day of the Battle of the Sakarya, he welcomed the Greek presence in Asia Minor as a source of freedom and fraternity.
Ali Sami also publicly criticized the Armenian genocide and the Greek genocide. In a statement reproduced in a speech delivered to the Hellenic Parliament in May 1922, he condemned the violence around Samsun and in Pontus and Cilicia, and accused France of encouraging the Kemalists through its assistance. Addressing the French government, he wrote in Adalet:
We are in the twentieth century, Mustapha Kemal and his men are undefined criminals. You the so-called civilised France, behold the massacres of Samsoun! Your assistance to the Kemalists constitutes the greatest crime. You have been the cause of the disappearance of thousands of Greeks and Armenians beneath the feet of these criminals. You, Mr. Poincaré, should be aware that the responsibility of hundreds and thousands of Greeks and Armenians in Pontus and Cilicia falls greatly upon France, whose alliance with Kemal has given rise to these atrocities. History will record in black letters this injustice committed by France. In the name of my fellow country-men, I protest against this wrong.
Following the Greek withdrawal from Anatolia, Ali Sami returned to Thessaloniki. On 30 September 1922 he wrote to the newly-returned Eleftherios Venizelos about the persecution of anti-Kemalist Muslims and their refusal to submit to the new nationalist movement. In the letter, he claimed that some 30,000 anti-Kemalist Muslims had fled with him to Greece and that hundreds of thousands more remained in Anatolia and Istanbul. He asserted that nearly one million Muslims opposed Kemalist rule, accused Kemalist forces of killing unarmed women and children, and asked Venizelos to urge the Great Powers to take humanitarian measures. He also wrote that opposition to Kemal extended beyond Anatolia, including among Muslims living in Arab countries.
In addition, he worked with Greek authorities to influence local Muslims against Mustafa Kemal, weakening their ties to the Turkish National Movement, and also encouraged support for Greek claims to Thrace during the Lausanne negotiations.
In October 1924 Ali Sami was again publishing To Dikaion (The Right or Justice) in Thessaloniki. The paper called itself a Greek democratic newspaper and a voice of refugees, and had a presence in other northern Greek cities, including Serres, Drama, Kavala and Xanthi. By 1 July 1926, his newspaper Dikaion had reached its fiftieth issue, identifying Ali Sami as its proprietor and editor and describing itself as a Greek democratic newspaper representing refugees.
Ali Sami was personally exempted from the 1923 Greek–Turkish population exchange. In October 1924 he protested to the prefect of Thessaloniki against a proposal by the departing mufti to take the carpets of the Hamza Bey Mosque to Turkey. He argued that the carpets belonged to the mosque's waqf and should remain for those Muslims, including anti-Kemalists and foreign nationals, who continued to reside in the city, instead of being sent to Turkey. In 1927, he also publicly rejected accusations circulating in Turkey that the Greek government was mistreating the Muslims in Western Thrace. In addition, during the same year, the Turkish government requested his expulsion from Greece in a diplomatic note, alongside other anti-Kemalist exiles, however that request was declined. He was also allegedly involved in a supposed plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal. A 1928 Foreign Greek Ministry record listed Ali Sami as residing in Kavala, although other accounts place him in Thessaloniki.
Ali Sami Bey near a waterfall in Greece.
He maintained a photographic studio at 4 Raktivan Street, behind the Thessaloniki Government House. From about 1925 to 1927, he worked on Mount Athos, photographing monasteries, religious objects, monks and landscapes. He initially worked at the Skete of Saint Andrew and later opened a studio in Karyes, where he was assisted by the photographer Athanasios Kontakis. On 26 April 1928, he sent a card to the abbot of Simonopetra, announcing further postcards of the peninsula and seeking support for a photographic album. Two handmade albums of his Athonite photographs have been preserved in the Christos Kalemkeris Archive.
After leaving Mount Athos he worked in other parts of Greece, including Kalavryta. He travelled with his camera, photographing people, monuments, towns and landscapes, and sold photographs and albums to support himself.
Ali Sami Bey near a spring in Greece.
By 1932, he was working in Messenia, where he opened a studio on Aristomenous Street in Kalamata and a photographic workshop in Gargalianoi. He photographed Methoni, Pylos and other settlements, and produced a photographic album of Trifylia. Photographs from his work in the region are held by the Messenia branch of the General State Archives. He remained in Messenia until 1933.
In 1937, Ali Sami maintained a photographic studio at Tholopotami[el] in Chios, where a number of his photographs survive. He later travelled to Samos, and according to testimonies reported by journalist Katerina Rovva, opened a studio at Margariti in Epirus. A photographic album of Margariti dating from 1938 contained 52 photographs and was preserved by local resident Toula Stefanidou-Malakata, who made it available to the village museum. One of his photographs, from 1938, shows the western side of the Margariti Castle and was later reproduced in a study by the Greek Ministry of Culture's Ephorate of Antiquities of Thesprotia.
Ali Sami's traces disappear at around 1938. It remains unknown whether he died in Greece or if he ever returned to Turkey, as his date and place of death have not been established. Turkish historian and journalist Gazanfer İbar stated that Ali Sami never returned to Turkey.
Notes
↑Ali Sami Bey is not to be confused with Ali Sami Boyar (1880–1967), a naval officer and painter, or with Ali Sami Aközer (1866–1936), also known as Üsküdarlı Ali Sami. Aközer was another Ottoman officer and photographer whose work has sometimes been confused with that of Bahriyeli Ali Sami. However, their different military backgrounds make it easy to distinguish the two photographers. M. Sinan Genim explicitly notes that the designation Bahriyeli was used to distinguish him.
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