Refik Saydam

Refik Ibrahim Saydam (8 September 1881 – 8 July 1942) was the 4th Prime Minister of Turkey, serving from 25 January 1939 to 8 July 1942.

Biography

He was born in Istanbul in 1881 and is the son of Hacı Ahmet Efendi of Çankırı. After completing primary and secondary education in Fatih Military Junior High School, he entered to Military School of Medicine in 1899. He went on training course at Gülhane as of graduating with the rank of doctor captain on 4 November 1905. He was assigned as doctor at Maltepe Military Hospital and Feshane Factory between the years 1907-1910 and improved his expertise on military camps and hospitals by being sent to Germany in 1910.

He was a medic in the Ottoman Army during the dissolution of the empire. He created a medicine to cure typhus, which was used largely by the Central Powers.

He was one of the key people of the Independence War. He landed at Samsun with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1919 to start the resistance in Anatolia. He was known as a reformist while he was the Prime Minister. Just four years after his death, the single party period came to an end in Turkey.