Gasprinski, Ismail

Gasprinski, Ismail

(born c. 1851, near Bakhchisaray, Crimea, Russian Empire—died Sept. 11, 1914, Bakhchisaray) Russian-born Turkish journalist. Educated in Moscow, his travels brought him to Paris, where he met refugees from the Ottoman Empire who inspired him to take up the Turkish cause at home. He wrote about the cultural problems of Turkic Muslims for a Russian newspaper and later for his own bilingual paper, Tercüman (founded 1883), which became Russia's most influential Turkish-language newspaper, advocating Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism. He was a committed advocate of educational reform.