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Bititci Family

A Turkish family with family history tracing back to ancient times. According to family records and folklore the family was part of the Oghuz Turks who migrated from Horezm in Central Asia to settle in the modern-day Trabzon on the Black Sea Coast of Turkey. Originally the family was known by the name Pehlivanoğulları which can be interpreted as wrestler’s sons or hero’s sons. The oldest ancestor known to the family who lived in these times was Abdullah Bey who was a wealthy businessman, who was succeeded by his son Haci Mustafa Efendi  and then his grandson Ömer Vasfi Efendi (1760s-1824) who was born in the Pulathane district of Trabzon, Turkey.

During the second half of 18th century Haci Mustafa Efendi moved his family to İstanbul to settle at the large timber house near the Cerrahpasa Mosque at No. 5, Kürkcü Sokak, Kürkcübaşı, Kocamustafapaşa, İstanbul. The family lived at this address for six generations. The family’s records dating back over 250 years can be found in the Registry of Births and Deaths, Fatih, İstanbul in volume 24.

Ömer Vasfi Efendi (1760s-1824) had two sons, Ibrahim Etem Efendi (1787-1808) and Osman Şâkir Efendi (? -1835). Ibrahim Etem died at an early age of 21 but his other son Osman Şâkir Efenedi continued his father’s art and the family tradition of calligraphy. He was born at the family home in Kocamustafapaşa in İstanbul. He studied Arabic and Farsi as well as taking calligraphy lessons from his father. He became a Müderris, a term that described the religious scholar, professor or faculty member, in the Ottoman Empire. In 1824 he was appointed as the calligraphy teacher Galata Saray school, a position vacated as a result of his fathers’ death.

Osman Şâkir Efendi was survived by his son, Mehmet Salih (Ferdi) Efendi (1826-1898), who was born in the same house and like his father and grandfather studied Naskh and Tuhuluth calligraphy which he practiced under the pseudonym Fredi. He was commonly referred as Mehmet Ferdi or Mehmet Salih Ferdi. He also taught calligraphy at various schools and died in Üsküdar in İstanbul. The image below is a photograph of one of Ferdi’s calligraphies, the original which is currently with the Bititci family home in Scotland.

Ferdi had a daughter, Fatma Sabire (1844-1882), and two sons Osman (1858-??) and Ömer Vasfi (1872-1937), all born at the same family home in Kürkcübaşı, İstanbul.

Ferdi’s daughter Fatma Sabri died when she was 38 years old, his older son Osman Efendi became a manager in the telegraph office and had one daughter Ayşe Sıdıka (1879-? ) and three sons, Mehmet Rıfkı (1885-??) who became a medical doctor,  Huseyin Ruhi (1893-1895), and Mehmet Salih (1899-) who worked in the merchant navy.

Ferdi personally trained his younger son Ömer Vasfi Efendi (1872-1937) as a calligrapher, who continued the family tradition of calligraphy. However, during this period it was difficult to earn a living just with calligraphy, thus, Ömer Vasfi Efendi, whilst practicing his art worked as a calligraphy teacher as well as working in the telegraph office beside his older brother. From his first marriage he had a son and two daughters named Ragip (1893-???), Lebibe (????) and Cavidan (????) respectively. His second wife, Ümmügülsüm Fahriye (?-1965) was descended from a Tatar ancestry and her family were living in the Crimea but had settled in Gönen, near Balıkesir, Turkey to escape the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish war. From this marriage they had three sons Mehmet Salih (Vasfi) (1901-1983), Mehmet Şerafettin (1905-1905), Ibrahim Zühtü (1905-?) and a daughter Feriha (1904-?).

Ömer Vasfi Efendi, like his ancestors enjoyed wrestling, he was also built like a wrestler and family folklore suggests that Ali Riza Tarhan, the Customs and Excise minister of the period, was his regular wrestling partner. After the infamous Fatih Fire in İstanbul the family had to move and they settled in Tonozcu Koyu, Beşiktas. Ömer Vasfi Efendi died in 1936 and is buried in the Yahya Efendi Dergahı (Yahya Efendi Dervish Lodge) in Besiktas, İstanbul. His wife Ümmügülsüm Fahriye died in 1965, she is buried in the Kağıthane cemetery in Eyüp, İstanbul.

Ömer Vasfi Efendi was significantly wealthy, when he died 1937 his estate included a hotel, an apartment, a classic wooden İstanbul mansion at Üsküdar, İstanbul and a 6500m2 farm in Pendik.

Mehmet Salih (Vasfi) Bititcioğlu

Mehmet Salih (Vasfi) (1901-1983), Ömer Vasfi Efendi’s oldest son was also born at the families ancestral home in Kürkcübaşı, İstanbul. Although his birth name was Mehmet Salih, he adopted this ancestors name Vasfi and lived under the name Salih Vasfi.

When the family-name laws were introduced in 1934 he adopted Bititcioğlu as his surname. The surname is based on the original/abstract Turkish word Bitit meaning writing or calligraphy, Bitit-ci meaning calligrapher, and Bititcioğlu meaning son-of-calligrapher, with the term oğlu meaning son-of.

Following his primary education, he attended the Bursa Agricultural School in Bursa followed by Higher Agricultural School in Halkalı, İstanbul. Towards the end of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923) he served as headmaster at teacher training school (1923) after which he was appointed as a teacher at the Beykoz Agricultural School. In 1926 he was appointed as the Landscape Engineer at the Ankara Municipality with the responsibility for designing and creating the gardens of the Parliament building in Ankara.

He married Nigar Dalay in 1928 and his son Osman Özer was born on 24 September 1929 and then then their daughter Fatma Tülin was born on 29 November 1936, During this period there was a law that prohibited the use of the term oğlu in family names thus which was rescinded sometime later, consequently the Nigar and Osman Ozer’s family names were recorded as Bititci whlist Mehmet Salih (Vasfi) and Fatma Tülin’s family names were recorded as Bititcioglu

Soon after the birth of his son, in 1930 Mehmet Salih Vasfi went to San-Remo, Italy for two years to attend the San-Remo Portici University to study Ornamental Plants and Landscape Architecture. He returned back to Ankara in 1937 as Turkey’s first Landscape Architect and was appointed as the Head of the Ornamental Plants and Landscape Architecture department of the Ministry of Agriculture. At some point through his life, he became a Freemason and in 1930 he was admitted to the Scottish Masons Lodge as 3rd degree Freemason, see his certificate below.

Throughout his career he designed and developed a number of city parks across Turkey including  Antakya, Kaş, Kayıseri and Adana. He also led the development of a number of schools dedicated to training of Landscape Architects in İstanbul-Cayırova, Mersin-Alata, Aksaray-Özden. To support these schools, he wrote a number of textbooks on the subject of ornamental plants and landscape architecture. Even today, his books entitled Bahçe Sanatı ve Süs Bitkileri (Garden Art and Ornemental Plants) and Süs Bitki ve Bahçeleri (Ornemental Plants and Gardens) can be found in second-hand bookshops and online (search for Salih Vasfi Bititci).

In 1951 Mehmet Salih Vasfi for a short period moved from Ankara to Isparta to work on rose gardens, then to Department of Agriculture in İstanbul where he retired from public service 1953 and pursued an active career as a landscape architect until he died in 1983 at the age of 82. During this period, he designed the grounds and gardens of French Holiday Village in Kusadasi, the new parliament buildings in Ankara, Middle East Technical University, Ataturk Airport in İstanbul, İstanbul Opera Building, İstanbul bypass (E5). His work was much influenced with his involvement in Freemasons and many of his designs included the Freemasons symbol of the square and the compass.