Burhan Asaf Belge

Burhan Asaf Belge was a Turkish politician and diplomat, who was a prominent figure among the young intellectuals during the early periods of Republic of Turkey. He was born in Istanbul in 1899 and graduated from the Faculty of Political Science of Istanbul University in 1921. He joined the Republican People's Party and became a close associate of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. He served as the governor of several provinces, such as Konya, Sivas, and Muğla, and also as the ambassador of Turkey to Hungary and Romania. He was elected as the representative of Muğla province in the 11th term of the Turkish National Assembly in 1946. He was also a journalist and a writer, who contributed to various newspapers and journals, such as Kadro, a left-wing journal dedicated to "discussions on ideology and economic-development strategy", and Zafer, the official newspaper of the Democrat Party. He wrote several books on Turkish history, politics, and culture, such as "The Turkish Revolution and Kemalism", "The Turkish National Movement and the Republic", and "The Turkish Culture and Civilization". He was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor, a famous Hungarian-American actress, from 1935 to 1941, but they did not have any children together. He had a son, Murat Belge, from his second marriage, who became a prominent Turkish intellectual and academic. He died in 1967 in Ankara and was buried in Cebeci Asri Cemetery.