| Altan Sahin | |
|---|---|
| |
| Altan Sahin photographed in 1986 | |
| Reign | November 1983 - 6 June 2024 |
| Coronation | 7 December 1987 |
| Predecessor | None |
| Successor | Cengiz Akyüz |
| Spouse | None |
| Born | 10th November 1935 İzmir, Republic of Turkey |
| Died | 6 June 2024 (aged 89) Trabzon, Empire of Trabzon |
| Religion | Islam (nominal) |
Altan Sahin (10th November 1935 - 6th June 2024) was a Trabzonian political and military leader who ruled the Second Empire of Trabzon as its self-styled emperor from 1987 to 2024. Sahin was quietly usurped after an abortive coup and the resulting counter-coup in 2023, and ceased to hold effective political power. His death from an unspecified illness was formally announced on June 6, 2024.
Before Doomsday[]
Almost nothing is none of Sahin's past prior to Doomsday, in no small part because most of the Turkish government and military records predating that event were destroyed in the nuclear exchange. For much of his reign as emperor, Sahin refrained from making public comments about his previous life and military career. According to press statements released by the Trabzonian government upon his death, Sahin was born in İzmir in 1935, and graduated from Maltepe Military High School. He was serving as a brigadier general in the Turkish Third Army's 11th Corps, based in Trabzon, during the early 1980s.
Doomsday[]
On September 25, 1983, the Doomsday event devastated much of western Turkey, obliterating Ankara, Istanbul, and most of the country's major cities. Eastern Turkey, with its low levels of development and relatively sparse population, was spared much of the destruction, although Soviet nuclear strikes obliterated the strategic NATO and Turkish military command centers at Erzurum and Diyarbakir. Much of the Turkish Third Army's command staff was decapitated by the nuclear exchange. The acting head of the Third Army was General Hüsnü Çelenkler, who was initially preoccupied with mobilizing his intact formations to carry out conventional counter-offensives against Soviet forces massed along the eastern borders with Georgia and Armenia. To this end, the 11th Corps was hastily mobilized and thrown into the fighting against the Soviet 31st Army corps with short notice and minimal logistical preparations. The corps was woefully unprepared for conventional operations, as the Turkish Third Army had preferred to concentrate the bulk of its supplies, resources, and best-equipped units in the southeast and Cyprus rather than the Black Sea coast. Consequently, it suffered from increasingly heavy losses and mass desertions. Its officers' complaints and pleas for reinforcements and supplies to the Third Army headquarters in Erzincan went unanswered.
In early November 1983, Sahin and a cabal of other senior officers in the 11th Corps mutinied. They cut off all contact with the Third Army and unilaterally brokered a ceasefire with their Soviet counterparts on the Georgian frontier. The 11th Corps at this point had suffered losses of up to 40% of its prewar manpower and was likely combat ineffective; nevertheless, Sahin managed to organize the orderly withdrawal of whatever remained. The corps set off for its former facilities in Trabzon and advance elements reached the city on November 3, reporting scenes of chaos among the civilian population and a breakdown in order. Sahin and his troops aided local gendarmerie in forcibly restoring order; however, they also deposed much of the civilian government and public servants, replacing them with military officers. The Turkish Air Force personnel at Trabzon Air Base also refused to accept Sahin's authority and stood to arms until he threatened to fire on any returning Turkish or NATO military air traffic unless the airstrip was surrendered.
From November 1983 until December 1986, Trabzon was governed under martial law. Political activity was banned, and all political parties were forced to close their offices. For the most part, Trabzon's relatively conservative civilian population accepted martial law without resistance. Encouraged by the locals' apparent ambivalence, Sahin took the opportunity to dispose of whatever civil administration remained in the province, and sever all forms of communication with other parts of Turkey. However, despite the mutineers' deliberate attempts to isolate the city and surrounding countryside from further contact with surviving organs of the Turkish government, Turkish symbols and flags continued to be displayed prominently. Preoccupied with fighting the Soviets as well as a full-scale Kurdish uprising in Van, Çelenkler and the Third Army's general staff simply could not spare the resources to crush the mutiny.
Sahin initially followed in the footsteps of other Turkish military men who had seized the reins of power in the past: he promised that a return to political activity would be permitted in the future, and he would give up power after threats to stability had been eliminated. However, his actions indicated otherwise: Sahin formed a new government called the Administrative or alternatively, the Advisory Council - patterned after the Turkish junta's National Security Council - and openly invalidated the existing Turkish Constitution of 1982.
Reign as emperor[]
In early December 1987, Sahin announced that he would be instituting a new constitution that transformed Trabzon into the Empire of Trabzon, with himself as "İmparatoru" Altan I. His formal coronation took place on December 7 and, in a shock to much of the local population as well as some of his own compatriots, co-opted old imperial symbols from Trabzon's past, including the eight-pointed star favored by ancient Pontus as well as the Megas Komnenos Dynasty, which ruled the (first) Empire of Trebizond between 1204 and 1461. These emphasized the imperial pretensions of old Byzantine Trebizond and Mithridatic Pontus coupled with the Muslim, Turkish-speaking culture of modern Trabzon.
In practice, little changed. Sahin retained the same powers he had held for the past four years as Trabzon's de facto supreme leader, and the country remained a military dictatorship, with absolute authority vested in Sahin and his fellow mutineers, who were rewarded for their loyalty with various administrative posts.
Sahin's renunciation of the Turkish Constitution and decision to adopt imperial garb caused great dissension among many of the soldiers who had initially supported his rule. The Turkish military officer caste was heavily steeped in the teachings and anti-monarchist philosophy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and believed in the role of the armed forces as guardians of the Turkish Republic. Sahin's declaration of a monarchy, his rescinding of promises to lift martial law and encourage a return to civil government, and his repudiation of the constitution disillusioned many of the original mutineers. On May 4, 1988, a cabal of the officers led by Colonel Bahri Yalçın attempted to overthrow their erstwhile leader in a coup. However, the coup was stillborn due to the apathy of the rank and file, as well as the local population, which had never been a bastion of Kemalism either. Loyal troops forced Yalçın to flee the city and later executed him.
Sahin's rule throughout the 1990s was marked by an attempt to impose a military purchasing monopoly on agricultural goods, severe crackdowns on smugglers, and futile military expeditions in New Erzurum and Greater Patnos, both of which Sahin attempted to subdue with his new army, primarily composed of thousands of hastily enrolled Trabzonian conscripts. The Patnosi-Trabzon War of 1999 was a disaster for Sahin which resulted in the depletion of much of the country's remaining fuel reserves and thousands of casualties.
Soon after Sahin consolidated his power, the military reinforced its governing role with respect to the economy. The military's purchasing monopolies and oversight of all sectors, and the ease with which any property or enterprise could be requisitioned, all but ensured the subservience of the business class. By the year 2000, the military and its enterprises were responsible for about 30 percent of the country's estimated gross domestic product (GDP). Sahin also presided over the establishment of a new Central Bank to normalize the financial market after the monetary dislocation and barter economy of the 1980s.
The emergence of the Sultanate of Turkey as a major regional power in the early 2000s was regarded as a major existential threat by Sahin. Not only did the Sultanate claim all the former territories of the defunct Republic of Turkey, but it also trumpeted a virulent strain of post-Doomsday Turkish nationalism and appealed to historic pan-Turkish greatness - which Sahin feared would find sympathy among his own domestic populace. To counter this possibility, Sahin manufactured a homegrown strain of nationalism focused on Trabzon and the greater Pontic region rather than Turkish ethnic chauvinism. From Sahin's perspective, asserting Trabzonian identity was key in ensuring that Trabzon remained distinct (and independent) from Turkey.
Illness and death[]
By 2022, Sahin had withdrawn from public affairs and delegated most of the administrative oversight to the Administrative Council, giving rise to numerous rumors of ill health. On March 11, 2023, General Ali Ulutaş - then serving as the council's chairman - attempted a soft coup by unilaterally dissolving the council and usurping the reins of government for himself, supposedly with Sahin's approval. The other council members, led by General Cengiz Akyüz, then launched a successful counter-coup with the aid of loyalist troops and a Giresun-based private military firm, Scimitar International. Ulutaş and his supporters were killed or imprisoned, and Akyüz assumed the role of council chairman.
Akyüz denied that Ulutaş had acted with the knowledge of the ailing monarch, but carefully stated that the emperor's judgment had in any case become vulnerable due to an unspecified "serious illness", from which he had apparently been suffering from some time. Akyüz stated that the emperor would remain the ceremonial head of state, but would have no future influence on the governance of the nation or on political affairs until he made a "full recovery".
On June 6, 2024, the Trabzonian government reported that Sahin had died of his illness at a private health clinic where he had been sequestered "for his own safety" in the wake of the coup. Sahin was not known to have any surviving family and did not name a successor. In the same press communique, the government declared seven days of mourning with flags flown at half-mast, and all state-sponsored entertainment and cultural events canceled.
On June 9, the Administrative Council issued a decree claiming that Sahin would remain the emperor of Trabzon, and out of respect for the deceased monarch, his title would not pass to a successor. Instead, the title was abolished and Sahin would posthumously retain the ceremonial status of head of state. The powers of head of state were formally transferred to Akyüz in his role as head of the Administrative Council, confirming its status as the new de facto leadership position. Meanwhile, military officials announced plans to install monuments, portraits, and commemorative statues of the deceased emperor across the country.
Sahin's state funeral, which was open to public attendance and devoid of religious rites in accordance with his wishes, was held at Hüseyin Avni Aker Stadium in Trabzon on June 16. He was interred in a small mausoleum in Boztepe Park overlooking the city.
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