Ayhan Aktar

Ayhan Aktar is a sociologist who worked at the Department of Political Sciences, Marmara University until 2006. After early retirement, he joined to Istanbul Bilgi University.

He studied the discrimination, forced migration and genocidal policies conducted against non-Muslim minorities in Turkey. His research on notorious anti-minority Wealth Tax (1942-43) is based upon field research and the British and US Archives.

His books include Varlik Vergisi ve Türkleştirme Politikalari [Wealth Tax and Turkification Policies] (2000) and Türk Milliyetçiliği, Gayrimüslimler ve Ekonomik Dönüşüm [Turkish Nationalism, Non - Muslims and Economic Transformation] (2006), Yorgo Hacıdimitriadis’in Aşkale Günlüğü (1943) [The Diary of Yorgos Hacidimitriadis in Askale Labour Camp, 1943] (2011), and Nationalism in Troubled Triangle: Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, (With Niyazi Kızılyürek and Umut Özkırımlı) London, 2010.

Finally, he published the memoirs of Captain Sarkis Torossian, Çanakkale’den Filistin Cephesine [From Dardanelles to Palestine] in 2012. Memoirs of the Armenian artillery officer had initiated heated debate in Turkey and abroad. Nearly hundred newspaper articles and reviews were published in Turkish and English. An edited volume published as Tarih, Otobiyografi ve Hakikat: Yüzbaşı Torosyan Tartışması ve Türkiye’de Tarihyazımı [History, Autobiography and Truth: Captain Torossian Debate and Historiography in Turkey] in 2015.