Jean-Paul BurdyLecturer in contemporary history at Sciences Po Grenoble (until 2015) ; Jean Marcou, Professor of law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.

Our colleague and friend Professor Aydın Uğur, passed away in Istanbul at the age of 71, on August 2, 2022, after a long illness. His first name, "Aydın", undoubtedly predestined him for his personal and academic career. academic career: it can, in fact, be translated as "the literate literate", "educated", "enlightened" (in the sense of the Enlightenment), or "the intellectual". A welcome denomination underlined by the former Rector of Bilgi University, Professor Lale Duruiz, during the tribute to our colleague on August 4, 2022, at the University of Bilgi. institution: "Let's bid him farewell with a with a smile. True to his name Aydın, he was a true intellectual. He interested in all subjects, even if he wasn't a specialist. curious. When he heard of a new problem, he would read up on it and start telling us about it. and start telling us about it. Aydın was a wizard with words. He expressed himself wonderfully. He was a truly different person, may he rest may he rest in peace.

Born in 1951 into a family of senior civil servants and politicians [1], Aydın Uğur had made an impressive career in Turkey's top academic institutions. After studying economics in English at Ankara's Middle East Technical University(Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, ODTÜ), from which he graduated in 1976, he went on to pursue doctoral studies in political science at the prestigious Faculty of Political Science University of Ankara (his father had graduated in 1944). 1944). But it's important to note that, in Aydın's education high-level Turkish education was combined with several French academic experiences academic experiences that had left a deep impression on him. For he had attended secondary education at the Lycée Saint-Joseph in Istanbul, and later in Paris completed a post-graduate course in Paris at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), in economics and communications.

This eclectic approach undoubtedly produced the endearing personality personality we know. Aydın Uğur did not publish many academic works in academic works in French, yet he constantly radiated the contributions of his French culture: his knowledge of contemporary French intellectuals (Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and above all Edgar Morin...), mastery of the subtleties the subtleties of language (in particular, the "mot juste which he would ask you in French with ruthless precision, when he didn't find it himself before you), an affinity for contemporary art art (in the 1970s, he was impressed by the construction and construction and opening of the Beaubourg museum), a taste for French and Turkish French and Turkish cuisines, which he compared with tried-and-tested vocabulary. We'll remember for a long time to come the tasting of a tête de veau de veau sauce gribiche in a small Grenoble restaurant (Chez la Mère Ticket), now defunct, that he had spotted from Istanbul from Istanbul (at a time when the internet didn't exist) and which he had us. This experience, which he placed at the pinnacle of his culinary epics national and international culinary epics, gave rise to an encyclopedic discussion sophisticated gastronomy, before concluding with an ode to the virtue of the simplest the virtue of the simplest dishes, when after the enchanting flavors of our our tête de veau shared at dusk in an ex-occupation canteen, we celebrated the rapture that can also come from an early-morning tasting an işkembe çorbası [2]in the dim light of a the pale light of a lokanta[3]in Istanbul! stambouliote!

Aydın Uğur began his academic career at Ankara University's Faculty of Communication University of Ankara (1981-1989), then became a professor at the Francophone Department of Political and Administrative Sciences (DFSPA) at Marmara University, Istanbul (1989-1997), the first Franco-Turkish initiated in 1988 by our colleague Yves Schemeil (then advisor to the French (then advisor to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was also director of Sciences Po Grenoble from 1981 to 1986), on the basis of a partnership between this university and several French institutions, including Sciences Po Grenoble (a partnership that is still in force today, in the case of Sciences Po Grenoble). That's where we met him. Aydın taught innovative courses in French innovative teaching in the fields of cultural studies, political sociology and political sociology and communication, but for ten years he was also for ten years, when Jean Marcou was the coordinator of the course. was its coordinator. In his office on the second floor of the Yalı on the second floor of the Yalı[4] building in Tarabya, where the French-speaking department in question was based at the time, we were the university world, watching the boats cross the Büyükdere Bend the Büyükdere bend to enter the narrowest and most perilous the narrowest and most perilous pass in the strait. It was to see the flags of these ships change, and the flags on their sterns their sterns with flags (Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian...) that we were unfamiliar with. unfamiliar to us, we witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Union the disintegration of the Soviet Union, while trying to understand its significance for international balance.

For his part, Aydın had immediately perceived the magnitude of the change brought about by this imperial collapse and, keen to learn more about the issue, he organized a seminar on the new Turkic-speaking republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The initiative was risky, to say the least. In the Turkey of the early 1990s, few specialists had any real knowledge of these Turkic brethren, forgotten behind the Iron Curtain for decades. It was therefore necessary to involve an obscure center for Turkish studies in the operation, whose members, known for their ethnic nationalist commitment, probably had more than purely academic preoccupations in the conduct of their work... It wasn't a simple matter to set up for Aydın and his colleagues, whose ideas were poles apart. But at the end of the seminar, happy in spite of everything with what he had learned, he looked at us and said with a big smile: "Well, my friends, the world is really changing! If anyone had told us just a few weeks ago that we'd be debating subjects like this, we'd never have believed it!"

Like academics who had first (and for a long time) worked in public public universities, Aydın Uğur was later part of the movement to create private universities, which expanded rapidly in Turkey from the Turkey from 1990-2000. In this case, he was involved in Bilgi University, where he created and directed one of Turkey's first programs in Turkey in the field of cultural policies. cultural policies. A few years later, we found him dean of the university's Faculty of Communication at this university, first located in the Kuştepe district. This location, closer to the gecekondu [5] than the posh residential district, was unexpected, to say the least. unexpected. The cab drivers who took us there the first few times, who struggled to find their way around, were unmoved: "Who could have thought of building a university in a place like this? in a place like this! Aydın was very comfortable. He was always pointing out the advantages of a place of a place that could be a breeding ground for new research ideas for urban planning studies. ideas for the University's urban planning program, and was also home to a large gypsy community. a large gypsy community with whom many of his sociology colleagues had already sociologist colleagues had already forged ties with. A few years later Jean Marcou returned to Istanbul as a researcher as a researcher at the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA), would have the had the opportunity to verify the validity of this discourse, which valued academic locations as close as possible to the field, by regularly visiting at Aydın's invitation to teach at a comparable campus Bilgi University's Dolapdere campus. which regularly took him through the Tarlabaşı district, an important of identity and migration, in Istanbul.

Meanwhile (since 2004) Aydın Uğur had become Rector of Bilgi University, a position he would hold until 2009. In this capacity, in October 2008, he was to host the symposium "The Republic in Turkey and France. Histoire et évolution des Histoire et évolution des systèmes républicains turc et français dans une perspective européenne", co-organized by Sciences Po Grenoble and Bilgi University, and coordinated by Jean-Paul Burdy. It was also at this time that what has become the most important the university's most important campus, Santral Istanbul, an original campus at the end of the Golden Horn. For, this time, the location was history rather than urban sociology, as it involved the rehabilitation of a the rehabilitation of an industrial wasteland, the site of Istanbul's first power station built by the French at the end of the Ottoman era. Ottoman era. Today, it's clear that the heritage of this site has been preserved. has been preserved, with the power station itself now a sort of and the rector's office (where Aydın welcomed us on several occasions) has been set up in the residence of its former director. residence of its former director. But who knows why, in the midst of this empire of thoughtful restoration the unexpected innovation of a contemporary concrete building, surrounded by pipes and and staircases! Passion, when you passion!

Aydın Uğur had been a member and advisor advisor to the TESEV(Türkiye Ekonomik ve Sosyal Etüdler Vakfı), the Turkish Turkish Foundation for Economic and Social Studies, one of Turkey's oldest and most think tanks in Turkey. He later became Chairman of the Chairman of the Board.

A guest lecturer at numerous European European universities, he had visited Sciences Po Grenoble several times. In 1994, he took part in a symposium on "Secularism in France and Turkey and in Turkey", organized after a group of students from Sciences students from Sciences Grenoble to the Marmara University department. The proceedings colloquium were subsequently published by CEMOTI (Cahiers d'études sur le monde Cahiers d'études sur le monde turco-iranien) in a now indispensable issue no. 19. His last visit to Grenoble IEP was in spring 2018, during a sabbatical leave. sabbatical: at the time, he had taught several courses in the "Mediterranean in the "Mediterranean-Middle East" (MMO) master's program, and took part in the day on "Dynamiques identitaires et reconfigurations territoriales en in North Africa and the Middle East today", organized by Université Grenoble Alpes and Sciences Po Grenoble, on March 9, 2019. Settled for a few months in a small town, quite different from the sprawling sprawling megalopolis that Istanbul has become today, he was impressed by the ease of getting around and the quality of student life. student life. He described Grenoble as the epitome of a smart city, and this experience convinced him to devote his teaching and research his teaching and research to environmental and living environment policies. and living environment. So, in addition to his contributions to the MMO, he devoted much of his time during his stay to reading and interviewing interviews on the subject.

Researcher teacher and administrator, Aydın Uğur was a cultivated and subtle mind cultivated and subtle mind, both discreet and warm. And above all full of humor. A true Turkish intellectual.... He will be missed.

Nur içinde yatsın Aydın![6]

[1] His father Necdet Uğur (1923-2004), a graduate of Ankara's Faculty of Faculty of Political Science, Ankara a career in public security in the prefectural administration, provisional mayor of Istanbul in 1963, was a deputy for the Kemalist deputy for the Kemalist CHP party in the 1970s, and briefly and then Minister of Education.

[2] Mutton tripe soup, very popular with especially after a sleepless night...

[3] Popular restaurant in Turkey.

[4] In Istanbul, the yalı are wooden houses or palaces built on the banks of the Bosphorus. In Tarabya, northwest of the Bosphorus, the French Embassy Embassy has a yalı that was long the summer residence of its ambassadors. From 1989 to 2013, it housed the French Department of Political and of the University of Marmara.

[5] This term, which literally means "built at night meaning "built at night", originally refers to informal settlements in major Turkish cities, populated by migrants from Anatolia. In their configuration, they appear more like Anatolian villages built than shantytowns. Little by little, the Turkish authorities have either razed them to the ground or "normalized" them, as Orhan Pamuk Pamuk, in his novel, Cette chose étrange en moi (for the French translation Éditions Gallimard, 2017).

[6] "Rest in the light Aydın!"