İlhan Erdost

Who was İlhan Erdost?

İlhan Erdost was a Turkish publisher.

Erdost started working after elementary school, because of his family’s poverty and World War II. Thereafter, he settled in Ankara with his older brother Muzaffer İlhan Erdost. He started school again there. He adopted Kemalist thinking in his years at high school. After the 1960 Turkish coup d'état, when he was 16, his opinions turned towards the left. Erdost, after high school, entered Ankara University Faculty of Law. At the same time, because of that he was working for Sol Yayınları, he was not able to finish the school. After his brother Muzaffer Erdost was imprisoned in 12 March 1971, he assumed the responsibility of Sol Publications and Onur Publications. In the meantime he married his wife Gül Erdost.

After the 1980 coup d'état, he was charged with having and printing banned publications and was taken into custody. The particular book that occasioned the arrest was Dialectics of Nature by Friedrich Engels. He was beaten to death by soldiers on 7 November 1980 in Mamak Prison.

Leman Sam’s song “Ağıt” was composed for İlhan Erdost. His older brother Muzaffer Erdost, after İlhan Erdost’s death, changed his name to Muzaffer İlhan Erdost.