You tell, we listen Istanbul
EFNAN ATMACA [email protected]
When you take the word, Istanbul’s preparations do not end. There are so many tales and so many heroes that this measure, archaeologist of recent history, Gökhan Akçura, in the same way, describes what he will do in the excavations in a sad and sometimes crazy language.
From time to time, fairy tales always experience this process. But Istanbul is the progress of all times… Tales come true, this thing, maybe the facts are fairy tale heroes. Those who pass through this city are bid farewell to this day. It colors the deodorized soul. Even if it is lost in time, time stops or flows with all its heroes, Istanbul is always upright, all the continuation and development from yesterday are insatiable tales. The greatest education of these tales is definitely the archaeologist of recent history, Gökhan Akçura. How can he find all those tales and stories that are forgotten, hidden, shamed, and transfer them to today? This time, Akçura meets the readers with the book ‘Time Beyond Istanbul’.
Istanbul, with its protagonists in the lead role, continues to amaze readers, creating a time of their own and making a crazy journey between yesterday and today. First stop is Aphrodite. No, not Banu Alkan, Aphrodite as a book hero. What is happening to the hero of that book? He is being judged, obscene, diminished, criticized… Why is this story so important, he wonders, why is this story so important, he looks right… let’s not give it the rank of masterpiece after the claim is made of its own design. This is ‘Aphrodite’, but it doesn’t give us much of a framework…”
DON’T STAY BOBSTIL, DO NOT RECEIVE CRITICISM!
Let’s go past Aphrodite, do you know what a bobsyle is? The French say, “Crazy make fashion, the wise obey”. This word abide by the name. This is the fashion of the 40s. Import from America, this fashion immediately found its place in Turkey, but some people were very angry. For example, Refik Halit Karay. He conducts a survey among Karaite cases and has the last word: “I think those who cut their shirts will not be able to keep their fashion because you are stupid, arrogant and tasteless rather than crazy.” Well, great writers, what’s up with this fashion? Because, in fact, there is a new cultural imposition with this fashion. The advocacy of extremes is the foreground of wannabe. Then comes the bobstil writing a review. Nurullah Ataç says: “If there is something that they like or they don’t convert, they will immediately.” Orhan Veli even has a poem with ‘bobstil’ in it. Better not be fooled by fashions, don’t fall into bobstyling!
FIRST Amusement Park, CIBILGIZ, KILLING…
He gives up going to the heroes in the book as well. Killing’s bridge in Istanbul, preferably King Kong’s Bosphorus adventure, American cowboys on his way, dwarf Simon, Turkish Tarzan, shy to be designed to be exemplary to the popular. After that, return to the amusement park on the way. Did you know, the first amusement park 11 was opened in 1931 in Istanbul. Dreaming of a Taksim Square, which does not like students, did not want to build a huge amusement park, but he should not allow it. The most beautiful amusement park I remember was the Little Farm. We used to go to school after school. No more. But fortunately, Akçura has a story.
the interesting thing is, from the scenes seen in American movies of a time (also in Beyoğlu. When was the last time you went to a fancy circumcision? Or how long has it been since you listened to Muzeyyen Abla from the forked voice of the gramophone? Okay, records also have time. say striptease, say Akçura, if you expect to be prepared about ‘Istanbul Beyond Time’, ‘Istanbul Beyond Time’.
ISTANBUL BEYOND TIME –
BEFORE, NOW, AFTER THE CITY
Gokhan Akcura
Capricorn Publications, 2022
248 pages.