Fabio L Grassi says 'History is not a fight between good and evil'
Fabio L Grassi is an Italian historian who has been living in Istanbul since 1998. The writer of the first Italian-language biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Grassi says he admires the man without sacrificing his objectivity. 'Let us try neither to anachronistically condemn the past nor look at things with the eyes of the 1920s and 1930s,' the author says
Fabio L. Grassi was always interested in history, but it was a university professor of his who set him down the road of Turkish studies, ultimately culminating in a biography of the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
“I was enchanted by the Turkish language,” Grassi said. Such enchantment is evident because, apart from the interview, he preferred to chat in Turkish. He said he does not feel fluent enough yet in Turkish, but intends to speak it flawlessly in the future.
Born in Rome in 1963, Grassi switched to late Ottoman and early Republic history during his college years. Naturally, he then discovered Atatürk and the Westernization and modernization of Turkey that came with the founding of the Turkish Republic.
“I found it to be a very meaningful history,” he said. “I found Kemalist Turkey to be very meaningful. It was like a laboratory experiment, comparatively shut off from the outside world; [it was] an attempt to shape a new society completely different from the old one.”
Asked if he thought the experiment was successful, Grassi said: “It is partly successful because Mustafa Kemal’s psychology and culture were rooted in positivist culture. He thought there was a clear and straight road to civilization.”...
... Grassi does not perceive Turkey to be different from his own country and said he feels at home here after 11 years of residence. “I first came for pure cultural interest, which has turned later to genuine love for the country,” he said.
Now at Yıldız Technical University, Grassi has written extensively about Atatürk, including a detailed biography. “I felt a big gap in Italian historiography; the lack of a serious and comprehensive book on Atatürk,” he said. The biography was published in Italy in September 2008 and its Turkish translation appeared on the shelves of bookstores one month ago...
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Fabio L. Grassi was always interested in history, but it was a university professor of his who set him down the road of Turkish studies, ultimately culminating in a biography of the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
“I was enchanted by the Turkish language,” Grassi said. Such enchantment is evident because, apart from the interview, he preferred to chat in Turkish. He said he does not feel fluent enough yet in Turkish, but intends to speak it flawlessly in the future.
Born in Rome in 1963, Grassi switched to late Ottoman and early Republic history during his college years. Naturally, he then discovered Atatürk and the Westernization and modernization of Turkey that came with the founding of the Turkish Republic.
“I found it to be a very meaningful history,” he said. “I found Kemalist Turkey to be very meaningful. It was like a laboratory experiment, comparatively shut off from the outside world; [it was] an attempt to shape a new society completely different from the old one.”
Asked if he thought the experiment was successful, Grassi said: “It is partly successful because Mustafa Kemal’s psychology and culture were rooted in positivist culture. He thought there was a clear and straight road to civilization.”...
... Grassi does not perceive Turkey to be different from his own country and said he feels at home here after 11 years of residence. “I first came for pure cultural interest, which has turned later to genuine love for the country,” he said.
Now at Yıldız Technical University, Grassi has written extensively about Atatürk, including a detailed biography. “I felt a big gap in Italian historiography; the lack of a serious and comprehensive book on Atatürk,” he said. The biography was published in Italy in September 2008 and its Turkish translation appeared on the shelves of bookstores one month ago...