On Vartan İhmalyan’s political autobiography, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story) (7)
From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: İsmail Bilen (1)
In 1956, Vartan İhmalyan and his wife were assigned by the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) to work in the Turkish Service of Budapest Radio. It was through this posting that he first came into contact with İsmail Bilen. In his political autobiography Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story), İhmalyan recounts that Aram Pehlivanyan informed him of the assignment with the following words:
“Well,” he said, “you know that fellow Erdem who used to speak on Moscow Radio during the last years of the war? I met him. The radio station is short of people, so I put your name forward.” (p. 145)
After relaying Pehlivanyan’s words, İhmalyan opens a long parenthesis concerning “Erdem”:
The aforementioned Erdem, who spoke on Moscow Radio during the Second World War, is none other than Marat, S. Üstüngel, and İ. Bilen himself. I see no harm in writing this, because İ. Bilen himself has, in recent years (1978), had it stated in his biography published in Yeni Çağ magazine that he worked at Moscow Radio during the war years. I say “had it stated” because he does not recount his deeds in the first person –“I did this, I did that”- but instead has someone else write, “Comrade İ. Bilen did this, he did that”. And here one notices a certain cunning: the biography contains such far-fetched, self-aggrandising claims that if one day someone were to come along and prove them false, he could easily shrug it off by saying, “Well, I didn’t write it myself; the writer made those bits up.” For example, at one point in his biography it is written that when İ. Bilen went to Moscow to study at the University of the Toilers of the East, he encountered people who had fallen under the sway of deviant trends and steered them back towards Marxism-Leninism. But where did İ. Bilen -who had only just arrived in Moscow and who, while in Turkey, had not known a single foreign language- learn Marxism-Leninism, that he should presume to steer those who had gone astray back onto the correct path? Moreover, I never heard that İ. Bilen had actually graduated from the University of the Toilers of the East -not from Nâzım Hikmet, who was attending that university at the time, nor from Şükrü Baba, who knew him very well, nor from Sabiha Sümbül, the wife of Baytar Salih Hacıoğlu.
However, the man is a dreadful megalomaniac who feels the need to deify himself. Do not the pseudonyms he has adopted confirm this? Names such as “Erdem” (virtue), “Marat” (after one of the most renowned French revolutionaries), “Üstüngel” (the one who overcomes all), and “Bilen” (the one who knows everything!)… (pp. 145-146)
İhmalyan then briefly recounts how Pehlivanyan and Bilen first met, based on what he was told by others, and subsequently closes the parenthesis concerning Erdem.
An “engineer” in Warsaw
İhmalyan’s first face-to-face encounter with İsmail Bilen took place in Warsaw. In A Life Story, this meeting gives the reader the impression of a scene lifted straight from an absurdist play:
One day, we received news that Marat (Erdem, S. Üstüngel, İ. Bilen) -I still have no idea who had given him the right to represent the TKP abroad- would be coming to Warsaw. I was pleased, as I was going to see the person representing the TKP abroad for the very first time.
Was it two days later? I was sitting in the hotel room of either Hayk or my brother when there was a knock at the door. They opened it, and there stood Marat. We each embraced him in turn, exchanged kisses; coffee was drunk, cigarettes were smoked, and we began to talk. At one point, Veli Gündüz pointed to the radio on the table and said to Marat:
İsmail Bilen “Abi,” [*] he said, “we just can’t pick up ‘Bizim Radyo’ [Our Radio] with this thing.” (‘Our Radio’ had only just started broadcasting at that time[**]). “What can we do to get it?”
“What could be easier than that, mate?” Marat replied. “You just do that thingy to this radio; you know, that thingamajig, if you turn it towards the whatsit, it becomes such-and-such, and you’ll pick up the thingamabob perfectly…!” Didn’t he just!
I froze. We all looked at each other blankly, completely at a loss for words.
Veli said:
“I swear, abi, I didn’t understand a thing!”
Marat:
“What’s there not to understand, for goodness’ sake! That thing there, see? That one! When you do the whatsit to it, it becomes such-and-such, and then you turn the doohickey towards the thingamajig so there are two whatsits -and after that, you’ve got Our Radio. Understand now?”
And he even has the cheek to ask if we understand! I couldn’t contain myself:
“Abi,” I said, “forgive me, but even though I’m an engineer, I didn’t understand a word of that.”
He gave me a once-over, looking down his nose at me, and said:
“I’m an engineer too! So what?”
“Well, long live you and your engineering!” I thought to myself. Alas, woe betide the TKP whose guide is a crow! [***] That TKP for whose sake its members had given their lives, been worn down in prisons and in exile, whose leaders were drowned in the Black Sea, some hurled from the sixth floor of the police directorate onto the street, others dead under torture…
(Some five or six years later, while talking in Moscow with Şükrü Baba -who knew Marat inside out- I asked:
“Abi, is it true, is Marat really an engineer?”
To which he replied:
“Engineer, my foot! In his whole life he worked as a lathe operator for three or four months at most -that’s all.”) (pp. 163-165)
While reading this passage, I asked myself: could one ascribe to İsmail Bilen a kind of reverse tecahül-i arif [****]? Even so, the Dunning-Kruger effect -that is, the condition in which a person, despite having low levels of knowledge and skill, perceives themselves as more competent than they actually are- seems a far more fitting way to describe Bilen’s situation. I believe this was a common trait among Stalinist bureaucrats.
[*] Abi: A Turkish term of address, literally meaning "older brother." It is used extensively beyond familial relationships to express respect, familiarity, or camaraderie when speaking to an older male peer or figure. Its use defines a specific social dynamic in the conversation.
[**] Bizim Radyo began broadcasting on 1 April 1958.
[***] This Turkish proverb literally means “One whose guide is a crow will never escape trouble.” It metaphorically warns that following an unwise or unreliable leader leads to misfortune.
[****] Tecahül-i arif is an Ottoman Turkish compound phrase describing a person who pretends to be ignorant of something they actually know -a form of rhetorical irony.
To be continued
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