Turkish Consulate in Odesa (1925–1938)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the activities of the Turkish Consulate in Odesa during 1925–1938. It is the first attempt of its kind to highlight the key aspects of this topic, as there is no such work to date. Ukrainian-Turkish relations have a long and centuries-old history. They had both ups and downs. Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize the Ukrainian People’s Republic and establish diplomatic relations with it. Turkey was among the first to express its desire to sign the “Treaty of Friendship and Fraternity” with Soviet Ukraine, which became the basis for the intensification of diplomatic, trade-economic, cultural, and scientific relations between the countries. In 1925, the Turkish government, taking into account the strategic location of the city of Odesa, opened its consulate here, which was located in the house of the Tolstoys family (19 Gogol Street). The consular staff of the Odesa consulate consisted exclusively of citizens of Turkey who were career diplomats; representatives of the administrative and technical staff were citizens of both Turkey and Soviet Ukraine; the service staff actually consisted of residents of the city. However, despite the constantly emphasized friendship in relations between the USSR and Turkey, the Turkish consulate and its employees found themselves under the close supervision of the Soviet special services, which considered any actions of representatives of this consular institution as espionage. In order to be fully effective, the special services recruited representatives from both consulate employees and persons who were in contact with the consul. And after the consulate was closed, the process of “cleaning” them began. Among them were the secretary of the consulate V. Kanshyn, the teacher of the Russian language for foreign consuls operating in Odesa P. Feldman-Brown, the courier Khalil Belial, the spouses Ilia and Biana Ichaldzhyk, who worked in the consulate as a teacher of the Russian language and a nanny for the child of the Turkish consul Malkos Ali-Riza.