Rahşan Ecevit Rahşan Ecevit Rahşan Ecevit ("née" Aral; born 1923) is the widow of Turkish politician and former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit. She was born in Bursa, Turkey to a family from Şebinkarahisar, a town in the north-eastern Giresun Province. Her father was Namık Zeki Aral, and her mother Zahide Aral. Their family came from Thessaloniki after the population exchange agreement in 1920. Rahşan graduated from the American high school Robert College in İstanbul. She married her classmate Bülent Ecevit in 1946. Following the military coup in 1980 led by General Kenan Evren, her husband was imprisoned and was suspended from active
Bülent Ecevit T. S. Eliot, and Bernard Lewis into Turkish. Ecevit, who also studied at the American Robert College, one of the most prestigious high schools in Istanbul, was successful in these literary endeavors despite never having graduated from a university, a fact that also prevented him from ever running for the Presidency of the Turkish Republic. Ecevit was hospitalized in Ankara and placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on 18 May 2006, which struck him after he attended a friend's funeral. He died there from respiratory failure on 5 November 2006 at 20:40 (UTC), aged 81.