Köprülüzade Arif Bey descended from the Köprülüs of the 17th century, an exceptional dynasty of Grand Viziers whose reforms and conquests delayed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

By the time he entered the Istanbul University School of Law at the age of 17, Fuat Köprülü already had an excellent command of French, Persian and Arabic.

After three years of study, Fuat Köprülü abandoned the School of Law because of the poor quality of instruction, saying that diploma was not worth the loss of time it would entail.

[2] Toward the end of 1913, Fuat Köprülü published his seminal and widely lauded academic article, “The Method in Turkish Literary History (Türk Edebiyati Tarihinde Usul), in Bilgi Mecmuasi.

Fuat Köprülü believed that in addition to public and official records, historians should also study art, archeology, literature, language, folklore and oral traditions.

His plea for historians to study social history was so unique and ahead of its time that the Annales school in France,[citation needed] famous for embracing a similar approach in the journal Annales d’histoire economique et sociale, did not emerge until 1929, a full 16 years after the publication of "Turk Edebiyati Tarihinde Usul".

In 1936 Köprülü was appointed editor-in-chief of Ülkü, an official periodical of the Ankara People House, one of the cultural institutions established by Atatürk in 1932, a position which he held until 1941.

[citation needed] In 1935, at the request of President Atatürk, Fuat Köprülü joined the single party regime in the Turkish Parliament as a Kars deputy, and was elected again in 1939 and 1943.

In 1945, as calls to establish a multiparty democracy increased after World War II, Fuat Köprülü joined the opposition and was dismissed from the ruling party along with Adnan Menderes and Refik Koraltan.

A Mehmet Fuat Koprulu Scholarship Programme was recently established to provide funds for Turkish students to undertake PhD study at the University of Cambridge.