Description

Müstecib H. FAZIL (later Müstecib ÜLKÜSAL, 1899-1996), Editor.

Constanța, Romania: 1932-1935.

1932: 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12.
1933: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
1934: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9.
1935: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

30 issues (of circa 120?), all large 8° , each 40 pp. with black and white illustrations (wrappers slightly stained with small tears, tiny loss of material, contemporary Romanian postal stamps and written or pasted-down typed names of the recipients, sporadic old annotations on the covers, internally with minor age-toning, foxing and sporadic light water-staining and old annotations, some examples uncut, issue 1932, 1: 12 with a large cut-out on first page with missing text).

The monthly Emel (Ideal) was published regularly from 1932 until September 1940, what was “a rarity for the Muslim press of the time on the Balkans and documents the professionalism of the editorial” (Adam 2009, p. 79). The magazine included mostly literary texts and articles on the culture . The magazine used the Ottoman script, combined with Latin titles and names on the wrappers.

The editor Müstecib H. Fazıl (later known as Müstecib Ülküsal, 1899-1996) was an author and lawyer of Crimean Tatar origins living in Romania. Fazıl was known for his active work on the history of the minority and connecting the contemporary émigrés. His most famous work is Dobruca ve Türkler (Dobruca and Turks) on the Turkish population in the Romanian region Dobruca on the Black Sea, published in 1940. He was also an author of books on Crimean Turkish Tatars and proverbs of the Turkish Tatars in Dobruca. In 1941, he moved to Turkey, where he received a Turkish citizenship.

Müstecib H. Fazıl started publishing Emel magazine together with his friends in Constanța from 1930 until 1940. On the initiative of his friends he resumed the publication in 1960 in Ankara.

The Note on Rarity

The magazine is very rare and only sporadically appears in the Western institutions. Worldcat lists four institutions, holding examples of the publication: Harvard University (6 issues), Duke University Libraries (10 issues), University of Chicago Library (unknown number of issues from 1930,1932-1940) and University of Minnesota (unknown number of issues).

References: OCLC 6337910, 1114955078. Cf.: Volker Adam, Zwischen rumänischer Heimat und dem Traum von der Krim : das Nationalbewusstsein der Dobrudschatataren von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart, Acta Orientalia 2009, 70, pp. 63–91, on-line source: aengelse,+Adam_Krimtataren2.pdf).