Enter Armenians: The Rediscovery of Armenian Theater in Post-Hrant Dink Turkey

English (OpenAlex)

Writing a theater history is quite a complicated task, not to mention the difficulties of writing the history of anything. Methodological challenges aside, the more-than-two-centuries-old romantic quest for well-defined and protected cultural borders for every single nation urges the historian either to include or to exclude languages, religions, ethnicities, and more importantly, people.1 To such an extent that the theatrical activities in a multi-ethnic environment, with some inclusions and exclusions here and there, can well be turned into distinct national theater histories. Yet if the historian was once charged with the task of coming up with a plausible story of the nation’s glorious cultural past at the expense of its others, the student of performance historiography today has to tackle with the issue of those excluded from these national historiographies. In terms of national historiography, Turkish theater is no exception. Taken as a case, theatrical life in the polyglot multicultural Ottoman Istanbul during the second half of the nineteenth century could fit perfectly in both histories of Armenian and Turkish theater, and clearly illustrates the cost of underrepresenting cultural achievements based on ex post facto constructed national identities. In this article I highlight a recent revisionist trend in Turkey, in Theater Studies, challenging a historiography that has so far failed to do justice to a genuinely vibrant theatrical atmosphere.Turkish theater historiography has lately been criticized for its minimization of, if not a total failure to acknowledge, the leading role Ottoman Armenians played in the development of what we now (rather problematically) call “Turkish theater.”2 This criticism seems to have found an echo after the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s assassination on January 19, 2007. In point of fact, public opinion in Turkey had already been preoccupied with Ottoman Armenians since the conference titled “Ottoman Armenians During the Decline of the Empire: Issues of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy,” which, after the unsuccessful attempts to block it, was eventually held at Istanbul Bilgi University in 2005. Dink’s assassination, however, inciting public rage particularly in big cities, furthered this interest and, together with the centenary of 1915 to follow, helped create an atmosphere in which discussions and publications on Armenians proliferated. My aim here is to present an overview of works published lately in Turkey, on and related to Ottoman Armenians’ theatrical activities roughly in the empire’s last century.3 Through the individual works and performances I refer to below, I argue that Theater Studies in Turkey has both significantly enriched itself source- and methodology-wise and called into question the mainstream nationalist historiography and offered alternatives, but that it has not turned into an overall intellectual trend challenging the prevailing orthodoxy in the field as yet.The pioneers of Turkish performance historiography were orientalists who, toward the end of the nineteenth century, began collecting, recording, and analyzing folklore products in Turkish, which they primarily saw as linguistic sources.4 The Turkology tradition in Turkey, as it is currently represented by Turkish Language and Literature and History departments across the country, has long preferred to focus on dramatic literature in the Turkish language, the early examples of which it finds around the mid-nineteenth century.5 Today, research on the history of theater in the Ottoman Empire and its successor nation-state, be it academic or not, is best represented by the works of Metin And (1927–2008), who chaired the Theater Department in Ankara University for many years.6 Building upon his predecessors, such as Selim Nüzhet Gerçek (1891–1945) and Refik Ahmet Sevengil (1903–1970), and expanding their sources with more access to major European languages, And not only wrote comprehensive histories of Turkish theater in diachronic order but also published extensively in a much wider framework of performance in the Empire, and even across the world, through centuries. Overall, voluminous accounts heaped mainly with documents and sources in the Turkish language have so far dominated the field. The product of diligent and devoted research, these texts exemplify what Erika Fischer-Lichte calls the “historicist fashion”: “they pile source on source, description on description, anecdote on anecdote, names, dates, and facts, without formulating a problem for whose resolution the material presented was selected and examined.”7Although histories of theater in the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey have been written since the late nineteenth century, Turkish theater historiography itself, with astonishingly minor exceptions, has not been the object of intellectual inquiry. The task of delineating a Turkish theater, the debates on the origins of this theater, and the efforts to draw a future path for it based on what was coterminously being constructed as tradition must have been so consuming that the question whether there were any problems in the way histories were written was overlooked. One exception is Arzu Öztürkmen, who criticized the dominance of a nationalist agenda in Turkish performance historiography, as well as its exclusionary narrow-mindedness in terms of the definition of folklore, and made call for a “performative turn” in Ottoman Studies.8 The above-mentioned criticism apropos of the underrepresentation of Armenians in Ottoman/Turkish theater historiography, however, has been leveled specifically against Metin And. Fırat Güllü rightly argued against the efforts to reduce the multinational empire’s culture into that of a national identity and made a call for an alternative and much more inclusive path.9 The following account, then, is a preliminary step toward a discussion on to what extent this call has been met.In Turkey, the first PhD dissertation devoted to the works of nineteenth-century Ottoman Armenian playwrights was defended by Mehmet Fatih Uslu in 2011; the dissertation was written in Turkish and was published as a book as well.10 This work is important for a number of reasons. To begin with, it introduces some of the best authors of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Armenian community such as Bedros Tourian (1851–1872), the famous Armenian poet and playwright, and offers analyses of their plays totally unknown to Turkish readership as they were written in Armenian. Moreover, it adopts a comparative perspective and discusses these plays not only as part of the contemporary dramatic literature produced in the Ottoman Empire but also with reference to their European models. Overall, it is neither a compilation of basic facts on Armenian theater and authors nor a complementary to the existing periodization of Ottoman/Turkish theater; rather it builds its argument, which I cite below, around concepts, genres, and a problem. Far from adopting the above-mentioned historicist method, it does not treat texts as if they were written in a vacuum either. Apart from these, Uslu’s work marks a milestone in Theater Studies in Turkey because, besides English, Italian and Turkish, it draws on sources in Armenian. This is quite remarkable for the simple reason that research on Ottoman/Turkish theater, with few exceptions, has not even made use of Turkish texts written in the Armenian alphabet, let alone those in Armenian. Refik Ahmet Sevengil and Metin And, two of the Turkish theater historiography’s founding fathers, had referred to a few books and journals in Armenian but we know, at least for the latter, that this had been possible only by the help of a friend. Uslu’s work will hopefully provide inspiration for a new generation of scholars competent in Armenian and ready to tap a very rich corpus of sources hitherto unexplored. Finally, yet importantly, this dissertation is the expression of a political stance not only because it interprets Tourian and Namık Kemal (1840–1888), an iconic Turkish nationalist playwright, in the same chapter but also because it argues that “melodramas and historical dramas on the side of conflict and comedies on the side of negotiation disclose an inexorable struggle. This struggle is the evidence of the empire’s future collapse and the possibility of a peaceful solution at the same time.”11 Thus, besides its “historicist fashion,” Uslu’s work is a serious challenge to the parochialism dominating Turkish performance historiography as well.Fırat Güllü followed Mehmet Fatih Uslu with a master’s thesis he defended in 2016 and published shortly after.12 Güllü compares two individual works as responses to a system crisis in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire: a play by Şemsettin Sami (1850–1904), who played key roles both in Albanian and Turkish nationalisms,13 and a play adapted from one of the most famous satirical novels of Hagop Baronian (1843–1891), an eminent Armenian satirist. For Güllü, these two authors with hyphenated identities, one Albanian-Ottoman and the other Armenian-Ottoman, were “alternative intellectuals” who “both prefer to speak to their own communities, not to the general public in the empire, but they still talk about common problems.”14 In other words, their Armenianness or Albanianness and Ottomanness were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Yet the Ottoman government did not choose to hear what these authors, who were poised between identities in a time of rising nationalisms, had to say. Overall, despite significant differences, Güllü’s thesis echoes Uslu’s argument and offers a political reading: Another Ottoman Empire was possible; one that embraced its multi-ethnic and multireligious population—just like it arguably did before nationalistic antagonisms gradually replaced a relatively peaceful coexistence throughout the nineteenth century. Furthermore, relying more on disciplines of history and political science unlike Uslu’s, Güllü’s dissertation is yet another challenge, from within academia, to the nationalist and historicist trends in Turkish Theater Studies.Two other theses deserve mentioning here. Kevork B. Bardakjian’s PhD dissertation on the eminent Armenian satirist Hagop Baronian, which he defended at Oxford University in 1978, was not published as a book until the Turkish edition in 2017.15 Bardakjian, in this unsurpassed monograph on Baronian, extensively using sources in Armenian, places the author in an imperial context. Therefore, his work is still relevant and invaluable for students not only of Armenian satire, press, and theater but also of late Ottoman politics and culture. The publication of such a book in today’s Turkey is especially noteworthy because a growing interest in Baronian’s plays and generally in Armenian theater, is observable, albeit mainly in limited academic circles and among theater enthusiasts.The publication of Yervant Baret Manok’s (1958–2020) master’s thesis on plays written and performed by the members of the Mekhitarist religious order on the island of San Lazzaro around the turn of the eighteenth century is also a significant step in the recent development of intellectual curiosity about Ottoman Armenians and theater in Turkey. Originally written in Italian, this thesis was also published as a book for the first time in Turkish.16 Apart from a translation, the book offers the transcriptions of three manuscripts written in Armeno-Turkish, that is, the Turkish language using the Armenian letters, for the performances in the monastery. These texts, written and directed by the priests to be performed by students, are crucial for a better understanding of the development of theater in the Ottoman capital throughout the second half of the nineteenth-century because Mekhitarists, through the schools they established and the plays they staged there, took a leading role in introducing drama to Istanbul.17 Fırat Güllü, in an appendix to this book, draws attention to the link between these performances and argues that they can be considered attempts at modernizing traditional Ottoman theater.18 Seen from this perspective, Manok’s monograph is among the markers of a shift in focus from text to performance.In addition to the research conducted under the auspices of academic institutions, three monographs appeared in Turkey between 2008 and 2019. Nonacademic research capacity is quite relevant for the discussion here and must be increased because debunking national myths is much harder in the overwhelming majority of universities in Turkey. The first monograph is a short treatise on Mekhitarists’ theatrical activities by Boğos Levon Zekiyan.19 It is based on a lecture delivered in Istanbul in 1973 and offers quite useful and basic information not only on the background of these performances but also on how all this practice was transferred over to Istanbul. Zekiyan thus emphasizes a link between the Armenian Renaissance and the rise of modern theater in the Ottoman Empire.The second monograph, written by Fırat Güllü, is based on a critique of Ottoman theater historiography as it is represented by Metin And and suggests a rethinking of Hagop Vartavoyan’s (1840–1902) theatrical enterprise around the 1870s.20 Vartovyan, known as Güllü Agop to the Turkish audience, is reduced to a Muslim convert staging plays in Turkish in mainstream Ottoman/Turkish historiography. The author, however, shows that this is just one side of the picture and the company produced a considerable number of plays in Armenian as well. Besides, apparently there was a supportive relationship between the repertoires in Armenian and Turkish, and Güllü’s research implies that economic factors affected Vartovyan’s decision to produce Turkish plays despite the pressure from the Armenian community. Overall, even though it primarily draws on secondary sources (for example, Pars Tuğlacı’s monumental work on Western Armenians),21 this work is an important contribution to performance historiography in Turkey because it is built around a well-defined problematic and levels a criticism not easily avoidable.The third and last monograph to be mentioned here was written by Nesim Ovadya İzrail on an Armenian family, the Şahinyans, who struggled to make theater from the late Ottoman Empire into the Republic.22 İzrail’s primary aim is to save this passionate family’s life in theater from oblivion. Apart from this modest aim, this is, in the author’s own words, also an attempt at a “small history of Armenian theater.”23 İzrail, though not a professionally trained historian, has thus made a significant contribution to the literature on Ottoman Armenians. In this monograph, using a relatively rich body of sources (interviews, memoirs, periodicals, and archival documents), he sketches the biography of a family on the one hand and relates the elimination of Armenians from a theatrical life addressing the public, on the other. Performance historiography in Turkey needs more monographs and biographies of this sort, for sure. Yet when compared to Güllü’s work on Vartovyan, Izrail’s text is closer to Metin And and his predecessors’ historicist approach but with distinctively an anti-nationalist perspective and an Armenian family under focus.Research by academics, dissertations, or monographs by independent researchers are not the only indicators of intellectual interest in a subject. In the last decade, the Turkish audience also has enjoyed the translations and performances of plays by nineteenth-century Ottoman Armenian authors; two plays by Hagop Baronian and an adaptation from one of his novels appeared in Turkish for the first time.24 One of these plays, Şark Dişçisi, was performed by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality City Theater, arguably the oldest institutional theater in Turkey, and was critically acclaimed.25 Amateur groups, too, staged plays by Armenian authors, especially by Hagop Baronian and Yervant Odian (1869–1926), Baronian’s successor, and yet another famous satirist.26 Bearing in mind Uslu’s above-mentioned argument, it must be noted that comedies have so far been preferred both for translation and staging in Turkey. Interestingly, plays on the lives of Armenians are not comedies; on the contrary, they bring dramatic and very sad, if not tragic, stories on the stage. Zabel, a play based on the life of Zabel Yesayan (1878–1943), the famous Armenian novelist,27 and Who’s Out There? Mr. Muhsin’s Last Hamlet, a play centering on the legendary Armenian actor Vahram Papazian (1888–1968),28 are examples of this sort.29 Multicultural theater festivals organized by the Boğaziçi Performing Arts Ensemble (bgst) were also quite effective for the materialization of Armenian theater before the audience.30In addition to these works, the special issues by Mimesis, a most rooted and intellectually rich journal of performance studies in Turkey, on Hagop Baronian and cultural pluralism, which in fact is practically a compilation on Armenian theater, are among the best sources for students of the subject.31 Moreover, Sarkis Tütüncüyan’s (aka Şarasan, 1880–1948) monograph on Ottoman/Armenian theater, which provides useful information on performers and groups, was published in Turkish in 2008.32 The publication of journalist and satirist Yervant Tolayan’s (1883–1937) memoir covering 1900 to 1935, in Armenian, should also be noted here because it is a rich source on the formative period of institutional theater from the Empire into the Republic.33 Last but not least, performer Boğos Çalgıcıoğlu’s public lectures and writings in the popular magazine Paros must be noted here. All these have been truly instrumental in unearthing the remnants of Ottoman Armenian cultural heritage.34This account does not claim to be exhaustive at all. Nevertheless, I am confident to have pointed out the rise of an intellectual interest in Armenian theater in post-Hrant Dink Turkey through examples that attest to an obvious enrichment in terms of sources, methodology, and perspective. Those who take the pains to go through the endnotes below will realize that this interest is represented by a relatively small circle of universities, translators, researchers, and publishing houses whose efforts well deserve praise. Academic works tend toward comparison, are well aware of their political implications, and adopt a independent researchers are more to performance history and an of history the of nationalist in Turkish performance historiography and the call for their to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire or the Turkish is a significant there is still a to be for this trend to its and even For example, between hitherto texts and those members of the established are quite but the question of whether one better to that or question the through is yet to be Moreover, dramatic texts are after all. In terms of cultural historiography, the between groups, and performers much more the texts which more archival work and access to sources in Armenian. In a of the theater life in the Ottoman capital during the second half of the nineteenth century provides an to in the One other to be is to question drama departments in Turkey, which are not intellectually for a of members and have up history writing since Metin And, or universities Boğaziçi have not in this as and to to a with The remarkable of drama departments in this revisionist arguably to a new to be a critique of performance historiography in Turkey both by more research and as well as institutional The argument that Armenians are in a history of “Turkish is a after all because a national history is by definition exclusive. It is, but not to the of Armenians in Turkish performance historiography and in histories with Armenians.