A treasured history of Turkish music is housed in the Armenian Music and Science Library, located a few kilometers away from the center of the Armenian capital, which maintains an archive of world music.

Besides maintaining recordings of the usual international names in music, from Beethoven to Mozart, and to Armenian music’s best-known figures such as Gomidas and Khacaduryan, and tens of thousands of documents, manuscripts, musical notes, gramophone recordings and some famous composers’ private correspondence, an archive of Turkish classical and pop music is kept in a special room in the library, which also features an impressive collection of Azeri music. It is almost impossible to find such a comprehensive archive in Turkey.

The museum’s director, Gulo Nahadakyan, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review the reason for maintaining the archive was to preserve especially regional music, because music transcends geography and politics. “Turkey and Azerbaijan are our neighbors. Moreover, art does not have a religion and language. Music is universal,” Nahadakyan said, adding that her biggest wish is to collaborate with a Turkish organization and university working in the field of music in order to safeguard the archive.

Dilapidated conditions and a lack of funds

Unfortunately, the library, which accommodates hundreds of years’ worth of world music history, has been severely neglected and some of the documents in the archive are kept in dust and dirt because of a lack of funds. Nahadakyan said the archive is deprived of financial support and has severe economic problems.

“If these documents belonged to another country, they would have been kept like priceless treasures. But unfortunately, this is our situation,” said Nahadakyan, adding that the condition of the building was far from secure. “People are not aware of the riches here. If they knew, they would steal everything in one night,” she said.

The museum employs 36 expert staff, almost 90 percent of whom are women. Nahadakyan said the reason why it is mostly women who work in the museum is again one of funding. “The maximum amount of money we can pay is $30 dollars a month. A man cannot support a family with this money.”

Nilüfer moves the library to tears

The room where the Turkish and Azeri collections are kept is full of gramophone recordings. A Turkish music expert who simply calls herself Ruzan said they had transferred the collection of gramophone recordings onto CD over the last few years in order to make things easy for researchers. “In this way, we try to protect gramophone recordings as much as possible. Researchers can take them home, which makes things easier for them,” she said.

Yet one day, as a surprise, Ruzan and her friends brought a record player to the library one day and played a record of renowned Turkish pop singer Nilüfer. The Turkish singer’s voice echoed around the library on the other side of the closed border and everyone in the room was moved to tears, she said. The name of the song was “Taa Uzak Yollardan” (From Very Far Roads). Nilüfer is the most beloved Turkish pop singer among the women working in the library, Ruzan said.

She added that recordings by many famous artists who have left their mark on Turkish and Azeri music are kept in the Turkish and Azeri music archive room.

Nahakdakyan said that all documents in the library are the common heritage of mankind and required support, calling on Turkey to contribute to the archive. “The language of music is universal. We want to meet with you in the universal denominator. Let’s collaborate. Our doors and archives are open to you,” she said.

source: here

The culture array of Polonezköy -expanding from Nazım Hikmet to Gencer, from Franz Liszt to Atatürk, from Gustave Flaubert to Pierre Loti, from Chopin to Czeslaw Milosz, from music to literature- is exposed by the book and photographs of the artist Akgün Akova.

Artist Akgün Akova has got over five thousand photographs depicting Turkey and over four hundred articles about the country that appeared in magazines like Voyager, Skylife and National Geographic etc. The book titled “The Eagle beneath the Crescent and Star: Polonezköy” by Akgün Akova aims at showing the meaning and importance of a tiny village in Istanbul that serves European culture and world peace.

Founded in 1842 in Beykoz, Istanbul, the village Polonezköy established a strong bond between Turkey and Poland. This project is about a book and a photograph exhibition to be held in Istanbul and in Warsaw to tell about artists that relate to Polonezköy along with their stories.

Within the scope of this project, Polonezköy will be told as a symbol of peace, friendship and fraternity between the peoples of Turkey and Poland all through a wide array of names such as Nazım Hikmet, Leyla Gencer, Franz Liszt, Atatürk, Gustave Flaubert, Pierre Loti, Chopin and Czeslaw Milosz. The story of Polish originated people living in Polonezköy will be examined through history, poetry, literature, music, photography and other lines of art.

 The book titled “The Eagle beneath the Crescent and Star: Polonezköy” by Akgün Akova aims at showing the meaning and importance of a tiny village in Istanbul that serves European culture and world peace. The book published on December 15.

Source: here

With Turkish nationalism on the rise among young people in the last decade we have seen TV and cinema unabashedly cashing in on the sensitivities of a significant portion of the country. It was inevitable that the plethora of Turkish historic comic books of the ’60s and ’70s with larger-than-life heroes would hit the shelves again nearly a half-century later.

The popular comic book heroes of the period, referred to as Heroes with Swords, were inspired by motifs from the histories of Turks as well as by Islam. Although the heroes and the worlds they lived in were rarely accurate in their depiction, three of the 50 or so popular comics of the day proved to be more careful about their historic backgrounds. Karaoğlan (Kebir, in its French editions) took place in 12th- and 13th-century Central Asia during the reign of Genghis Khan. Malkoçoğlu took place during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.

The third of these proved to be more timeless, with its historical background going back to the 4th-century Hunnic Empire. The classic adventures of cartoonist Sezgin Burak’s Tarkan is now being published once again, more than four decades.

The hero Tarkan is a Hunnic warrior, serving for Attila the Hun. The origin of the story goes like this: Born as the son of a Hunnic warlord in the Caucasus Mountains, Tarkan’s parents are slaughtered when he is an infant. He is then raised by gray wolves. He grows up to be a solitary warrior, his only companion a wolf, called simply Kurt, the Turkish word for wolf.

What makes the Tarkan comics more timeless is their unique blend of historical accuracy and their mythic and fantastic nature. Burak conceived the idea for the character when he was working for the art agency Studio D’Ami in Italy in the mid-60s. He had earlier created the comic character El Cougar and had drawn for the comic Colosso.

Historic accuracy vs fantastic worlds

Burak’s research of Italian history made him realize the crucial role of the Hunnic Empire and Attila the Hun in their history. His research into the Huns, coupled with the fact that official Turkish history considers Huns to be the ancestors of modern Turks, helped in the conception of Tarkan. Burak’s fascination is most evident in the depiction of the origin of his hero when he is suckled and cared for by a she-wolf, quite similar to what happened to Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome. But the wolf is a crucial mythical figure in many ancient Turkic legends, some going as far as saying that the Turks have descended from wolves; in many others the gray wolf is seen as a savior and a guide to Turks.

Burak did thorough research in Italy, which would later be reflected in the background details of the Tarkan comics, in the cities, dwellings, clothes and accessories of the period. That said, most of the adventures of Tarkan would be over-the-top, where he would fight giant man-eating dragons, sorcerers and Cyclops and look after the sword in the stone with magical powers. The occasional sado-erotic imagery where Tarkan would be tied and tortured by half-naked sexy women with whips was a sight for sore eyes for many of the male readers.

Most of the adventures of Tarkan were set in northern, northwestern and middle Europe, with Vikings and Romans being some of the enemies. While Tarkan called himself a “Hunnic Turk,” the word “Turk” was not to be used for another two centuries after the period he lived in.

The first Tarkan strip was published in the daily Hürriyet in 1967. It ran for nine years. In 1970, the adventures of Tarkan were published separately as a weekly comic book. The comic’s popularity led to a string of films from 1969 to 1973 starring Kartal Tibet as Tarkan in all but two. The first of these films was directed by veteran director Tunç Başaran and was a faithful adaptation of the very first Tarkan adventure, “Mars’ın Kılıcı” (The Sword of Mars). Now, a whole new generation of Turks will delight in a new hero who will defeat anyone from Vikings to dragons.

Source: here

The difficulties of living as a woman in Saudi Arabia are the subject of a new book by Turk Zekiye Yüksel, who lived in the country for three-and-a-half years.

“You can never walk alone. You should either have your husband, father or brother with you. During the three-and-a-half years I stayed there, I couldn’t go out to buy bread even once, for instance. This is very important because it hurt me. That means you have no bread at home and cannot go out to buy it. I even had to order my tweezers through the driver,” she said.

Yüksel is the author of “Being a Woman in a Sharia Country,” which recounts her time in the austere kingdom as a literature teacher for Turkish children whose parents had moved to Saudi Arabia for work opportunities.

Most of the children were from the Mediterranean province of Hatay, which has a high Arabic-speaking population.

“My students were born and raised there. They had never gone to the theater. The Turkish school was like oxygen for them. They couldn’t go out, but the curriculum of the Republic of Turkey was used by the school,” said Yüksel.

Since the families heard about Turkish girls who married rich Saudi men but were unhappy, they generally sent their daughters back home to Turkey after graduation, Yüksel said.

“I lived in Riyadh and just craved to drive a car, go to a supermarket, take a commuter bus from one city to another and walk in the street. I learned how valuable life in the Republic of Turkey is. I walked 40 minutes every day in the school’s yard, as though I was pacing back and forth in a prison yard,” she said.

“Arab women communicate nonverbally through their eyes and feet. These are the only body parts visible to everyone. So, women give importance to their eyes and feet. Since the weather is always hot, they wear shoes and sandals that are unimaginably attractive,” Yüksel said.

Saudi houses are surrounded by high walls like castles from the Middle Ages, said Yüksel. “When you open the windows at your house, you face huge walls. Having a balcony is banned, in order to keep women inside.”

Yüksek said women were banned from driving in Saudi Arabia and added that women could not go anywhere alone because there were no commuter buses either.

“In Turkey, even if women are pious, they drink tea with neighbors and go to the village market. The wife of the religion instructor became ill in Riyadh because she did not have a social life. Since my friend was coming home tired, he couldn’t take his wife out,” he said.

Polygamy is widespread in Saudi Arabia, according to Yüksel. “I realized this because three or four women were walking behind a man in the street or at a park after they left luxurious villas.”

The muezzin, or the person who calls the faithful to prayer at the mosques, would make the call with an unattractive tone of voice in order to prevent women from falling in love with the voice, said Yüksel.

“After I returned to Turkey, I started to listen to the adhan [call to the prayer] admiringly,” she said.

Source: here

Popular Turkish television director Osman Sınav is leading a film project set during the Bosnian War of the 1990s that features true events from the fighting.

“We are working on a real story. A young person who only wants to play guitar and make music and has no idea about the war until the day it begins loses his arm and cannot make music. Later on, he becomes a sniper and a fearless warrior using his two remaining fingers. The film tells the drama of this period,” Sınav recently told Anatolia news agency.

Sarajevo University Conservatory Department member Almir Basovic is the screenwriter of the drama, which features real events from the period.

Sınav, the director of popular Turkish TV series including “Deli Yürek” (Crazy Heart) and “Kurtlar Vadisi” (Valley of the Wolves), visited Sarajevo last week to confer with Basovic. The director said he came to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a second meeting with Basovic after their first meeting in Istanbul.

Sınav said he had previously come to Bosnia immediately after the war for footage for a TV series he was working on.

“When I came here for the first time, I saw that one can fall in love with a country just like a man falls in love with a woman. Bosnia gives me the feeling of love and I am in love with the country. It is like a lover who is far away from me,” Sınav said.

He also said the Ottoman-period Gazi Hüsrevbey social complex in Sarajevo was a very significant place for a common story. “A social complex was constructed 500 years ago and it includes a Turkish bath, a covered bazaar, a mosque and an almshouse, which still serves meals every day for free regardless of the religion, language or nation of the people. This complex has survived for 500 years thanks to this perspective. This is why we should not produce Brazilian TV series but more different and serious stories.”

The director said Turkish cinema should broaden its horizons and make stories on a wide range from Sarajevo to Tabriz and from Baku to Almaty.

Sınav also said Turkish TV series were very popular across a wide region. “Turkish TV series draw great interest in many countries. Turkish artists are loved so much. We have to make the most of it and make good productions for further cultural collaborations. This is why we are here.”

First Turkish TV series broadcast abroad

Sınav said the first Turkish TV series broadcast abroad was his “Deli Yürek,” which was sold to Kazakhstan for a low price. It received huge interest in the country and was later shown in Bosnia, drawing the same interest, he added.

“At the moment, Turkish TV series are on the screen in a wide region on three continents. This is a very serious gain and it will bring economic income. You not only sell TV series, you also establish a cultural connection. Brands and tourism are sold thanks to it,” he said. “Politicians or academics couldn’t do this over 20 years but you can do it in one or two years with a TV series. Today, most children under 5 years old in Azerbaijan are speaking Istanbul Turkish.”

Sınav said the interest in Turkish TV series should be evaluated in the best way and added that the most important issue was to find stories in common.

‘Muhteşem Yüzyıl’ disappoints

Filmmakers should also be extra careful during the present period in which the Turkish film sector is opening to the world, he said, adding that there was big interest in the Ottomans throughout the Balkans and that Ottoman heritage still survived in many places.

“The new TV series ‘Muhteşem Yüzyıl’ [Magnificent Century] will draw great interest in the country because of Süleyman the Magificent,” he said. “But I am sure people will say the [Süleyman] in the TV series is different from the man they know. Because he is shown like a poor man running after a woman. It will disappoint them. Producers should have this perspective but they don’t have it. It is too wrong that the Ottoman Sultan [Süleyman], who was called ‘magnificent’ even by his enemies, is shown to be a very simple man,” he said.

Source: here

According to summary I can say, book includes mostly exaggeration, not reflecting the real situation in KSA...

Ok si++, please check the bolded parts, does not reflect the situation, and also many of them differs from location to location. 

Turkey´s culture minister Thursday demanded Germany return an ancient sphinx uncovered from a German archeological dig nearly a century ago or it would revoke permits for other excavations.

Ertuğrul Günay told the Tagesspiegel daily in an interview that German authorities had until the start of the digging season in June to hand back the priceless artefact, thought to date from around 1400 BC.

The sphinx, dug up from the ancient city of Hattusha, the capital of the Hittite empire, in the early part of the 20th century, was taken to Germany for restoration but now sits in a Berlin museum, much to Turkey´s annoyance.

"If there is no commitment (to return the sphinx) by the beginning of the digging season, I am firmly determined to cancel the excavation license for Hattusha," said the minister.

Gunay also threatened the several other German archaeological digs around the country, saying the permits could go to Turkish scientists.

"Turkey has new universities, new archaeological institutes as well as keen and successful archaeologists. If we do not see the hoped-for cooperation in this area, we would not hesitate to transfer the digs to our own universities."

Germany is also embroiled in a row with Egypt, which has demanded the return of the 3,400-year-old bust of fabled beauty Nefertiti which currently has pride of place in the Neues (New) Museum in Berlin.

Cairo began to demand the restitution of the Pharaonic-era statue back in the 1930s, but successive German governments have insisted the piece was bought legally and that there are documents to prove it.

Source: here

Canadian singer and composer Loreena McKennitt will promote her latest album in Istanbul at the end of March.

McKennitt will be in Istanbul on March 27 and 28 as the guest of Odeon Music to promote her latest album, “The Wind That Shakes The Barley.”

The musician will participate in several TV programs and hold a press conference while in the city.

A singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes, McKennitt is known for her refined, warbling soprano vocals. She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.

Source: here

Turkish novel receives book of year award in Serbia

A Serbian publishing house picked a Turkish novel as the book of the year, Turkey´s Culture & Tourism Ministry said on Friday.

BALIKESIR- Gendarmery forces seized the painting that was said to be Picasso´s.

"Picasso 1924" writes in the front of the painting, whereas there is a stamp of the Museum of Kuwait in the back of the painting named "The Naked Woman".

The painting was stolen from the Museum of Kuwait during the Gulf War I in 1991.
Balikesir Museum executives said the market value of the painting was around 10 million USD.

Picasso is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and worked in. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d´Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Source: here

CANNES- The marketing company of the "Magnificent Century", Global Agency, held a special party in Cannes on Wednesday, attended by the full crew of the TV series and foreign TV directors to promote the series globally.

The party took place at the garden of the Grand Hotel in Cannes.

More than 500 guests attended the party and they included executives from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Fox TV and NBC.

"Magnificent Century" is a Turkish prime time history-drama television series broadcast on Turkey´s Show TV network. It is based on the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Hurrem (also known as Roxelana), the slave girl who became his queen.

Source: here

The “ugly king” of Turkish cinema, Yılmaz Güney, who won the Golden Palm in Cannes in 1982 for the film “Yol” (The Road), was once again at the festival after 29 years.

The celebration of the director Ömer Lütfi Akad’s film “Hudutların Kanunu” (Border Law), which was made in 1966 and restored with the contributions of the world-renowned Turkish director Fatih Akın, was shown on Saturday at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Starring Güney, it is one of the most important films in Turkish cinema.

Speaking to daily Hürriyet, Akın said Güney was the greatest name of Turkish cinema and he followed in his footsteps. “Güney’s life is too complicated, just like Shakespeare. He draws my attention,” he said.

Akın said he restored the film with financial support from Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Fund. “Martin Scorsese has offered me the opportunity to restore a film from Turkey and I chose ‘Hudutların Kanunu.’”

Akın said he would dedicate himself to restoring films. “We have lots of valuable old films. They call me a young director in Cannes but I love classical cinema and want to continue with this style.”

Source: here

A Turkish drama about an immigrant from Macedonia coping with the death of her mother and her grieving father, has clinched the top prize at China’s top international film festival.

Organizers of the Shanghai International Film Festival announced late Sunday that Orhan Oğuz’s “Hayde Bre” won the Golden Goblet for best feature film. The jury led by “Rain Man” director Barry Levinson said in a statement it was impressed by Oğuz’s “stark, honest, unflinching look at a mother dealing with a modern world and her separation from her rural background.”

The jury added the movie was “effective, sometimes disturbing, but always true to its intentions.”

The leading man in the film, Şevket Emrulla, also took the award for the best actor, his performance being described by the jury as “just perfect, simple but full of meaning.”

The other members of the jury were British screenwriter Christopher Hampton, Japanese director Yoichi Sai, French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, Chinese director Wang Quanan, Spanish actress

Source: here