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Professor researches in Turkey, values culture

Sept. 17, 2009

By Kelsey Mohr

Reporter

Dr. George Gawrych, associate professor of Middle East history, spent the 2008-2009 academic year in Turkey after receiving a prestigious Fulbright Senior Researcher Scholar grant.

His research was focused on the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the Turkish War of Inde pendence from 1919 to1923.

Gawrych said Turkey was a very rich and inspiring environment for his research.

"It was fantastic," he said. "Every day was an adventure."

Atatürk was a powerful statesman whom Gawrych compared to America's founding father, George Washington, and to Abraham Lincoln, since both unified their respective countries after civil war.

Courtesy Photo Dr. George Gawrych, associate professor of Middle East history, spent a year researching in Turkey after receiving a Fulbright Senior Researcher Scholar grant. Here he is visiting with family during a ferry ride across the Dardenelles in Canakkale, Turkey, during a visit to the World War I battle site of Gallipoli.

Through his research, Gawrych found that Atatürk was an intellectual who held ideas about the mind and the conscience which he used to affect people in his fight for independence, he said.

These findings resonated well with the Turkish people since they conveyed a new side of their beloved founder, who has been depicted primarily for his famous military feats.

Gawrych spent most of his time in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, researching in the military archives. He also traveled to surrounding cities and countries researching and speaking. He appeared on national television and talked with newspapers about his findings.

While Gawrych was helping the Turks understand a part of their history, they were also helping him understand their culture. Gawrych said their warmth caused him and his wife Joan, who quit her job to accompany him, to change their habits here in America.

"On one level it has shown my wife and me that we can live more simply," Gawrych said.

The people in Turkey don't see eating as simply a functional thing; the evening meal can last a few hours, which allows for more communication, he said.

Gawrych said that he and his wife learned much about hospitality.

They were invited to a Turkish wedding after meeting a family and were invited to sit at the head table.

"That's Turkish culture and all those relatives understood," Gawrych said. "You are touched and humbled by that."

Traveling also brought surprising moments of generosity, such as a cheese merchant who gave Gawrych cheese for free since he was a guest in the country.

"Their neighborhood merchants were also extremely hospitable," said Joan Gawrych. "They became our friends. They accept you right into their environment and culture."

The local community was a large part of the Gawrych's time in Turkey, including a parish at the Vatican embassy. It was an international church with the priest from Malta and members from all over the world.

"The church was very strong in reaching out to the homeless and refugees," Gawrych said.

There were Christians reaching out to Muslims, Gawrych said. He even recalled a Muslim man who ministered to him with words of encouragement and affirmation about his work in Turkey.

Gawrych said he left Baylor excited to research in a country he had spent so much time studying the history of and returned with a renewed perspective.

"It made me more excited in teaching," Gawrych said. "It feels more of a privilege to teach at university. It has me more fired up."

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