The Most Famous
EXTREMISTS from Türkiye
This page contains a list of the greatest Turkish Extremists. The pantheon dataset contains 283 Extremists, 4 of which were born in Türkiye. This makes Türkiye the birth place of the 12th most number of Extremists behind Austria, and Egypt.
Top 4
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Turkish Extremists of all time. This list of famous Turkish Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Herostratus (-301 - -356)
With an HPI of 77.67, Herostratus is the most famous Turkish Extremist. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages on wikipedia.
Herostratus (Ancient Greek: Ἡρόστρατος) was a 4th-century BC Greek, accused of seeking notoriety as an arsonist by destroying the second Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (on the outskirts of present-day Selçuk), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The act prompted his execution and the creation of a damnatio memoriae law forbidding anyone to mention his name, orally or in writing. The law was ultimately ineffective, as evidenced by surviving accounts of his crime. Thus, Herostratus has become an eponym for someone who commits a criminal act in order to become famous.
2. Abdullah Öcalan (b. 1949)
With an HPI of 74.75, Abdullah Öcalan is the 2nd most famous Turkish Extremist. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.
Abdullah Öcalan ( OH-jə-lahn; Turkish: [œdʒaɫan]; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish; Kurdish for "uncle"), is a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from 1979 to 1998. He helped found the PKK in 1978, and led it into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict in 1984. For most of his leadership, he was based in Syria, which provided sanctuary to the PKK until the late 1990s. After being forced to leave Syria, Öcalan was abducted by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in Nairobi, Kenya in February 1999 and imprisoned on İmralı island in Turkey, where after a trial he was sentenced to death under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed organizations. The sentence was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty. From 1999 until 2009, he was the sole prisoner in İmralı prison in the Sea of Marmara, where he is still held. Öcalan has advocated a political solution to the conflict since the 1993 Kurdistan Workers' Party ceasefire. Öcalan's prison regime has oscillated between long periods of isolation during which he is allowed no contact with the outside world, and periods when he is permitted visits. He was also involved in negotiations with the Turkish government that led to a temporary Kurdish–Turkish peace process in 2013. From prison, Öcalan has published several books. Jineology, also known as the science of women, is a form of feminism advocated by Öcalan and subsequently a fundamental tenet of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). Öcalan's philosophy of democratic confederalism is applied in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), an autonomous polity formed in Syria in 2012.
3. Mehmet Ali Ağca (b. 1958)
With an HPI of 67.90, Mehmet Ali Ağca is the 3rd most famous Turkish Extremist. His biography has been translated into 52 different languages.
Mehmet Ali Ağca (Turkish pronunciation: [mehˈmet ɑˈli ˈɑːdʒɑ]; born 9 January 1958) is a Turkish hitman and former member of the Grey Wolves. He murdered the leftist journalist Abdi İpekçi on 1 February 1979 and was imprisoned. He escaped from prison and travelled illegally to Vatican City on 13 May 1981 to assassinate Pope John Paul II. However, after the failed assassination attempt, he was captured and imprisoned by the Italian police. After being imprisoned for 19 years in Italy where he was visited by the Pope, he was deported to Turkey, where he served a ten-year sentence. Ağca was released from prison on 18 January 2010. He described himself as a mercenary with no political orientation, although he is known to have been a member of the fascist, Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, as well as the state-sponsored Counter-Guerrilla. Thirty-three years after his crime, Ağca visited Vatican City to lay white roses on the tomb of the recently canonized John Paul II, and said he wanted to meet Pope Francis, a request that was denied.
4. Abdullah Çatlı (1956 - 1996)
With an HPI of 56.70, Abdullah Çatlı is the 4th most famous Turkish Extremist. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Abdullah Çatlı (1 June 1956 – 3 November 1996) was a Turkish secret government agent, as well as a contract killer for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). He led the Grey Wolves, the youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), during the 1970s. His death in the Susurluk car crash, while travelling in a car with state officials, revealed the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime in what became known as the Susurluk scandal. He was a hitman for the state, and was involved in the killings of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA).
People
Pantheon has 4 people classified as Turkish extremists born between 301 BC and 1958. Of these 4, 2 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Turkish extremists include Abdullah Öcalan, and Mehmet Ali Ağca. The most famous deceased Turkish extremists include Herostratus, and Abdullah Çatlı. As of April 2024, 1 new Turkish extremists have been added to Pantheon including Abdullah Çatlı.
