Fate or Future: Time to Save Istanbul’s Jamanak Newspaper

 Naneh Hovhannisyan

Ever since the 2020 Karabakh War, there has been a pervasive stench of doom, defeat and despondency threatening to envelope us Armenians. A piece of news from Istanbul exacerbates it. Last year, a number of Armenian media outlets, as well as the Union of Journalists of Armenia, expressed concern over news that Istanbul’s Jamanak (Ժամանակ, pronounced ‘zhamanak’, i.e. ‘time’) is facing closure. For over a year, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Ara Kochunian [Gochunian, Koçunyan] had been warning in a large number of diasporan and Republic-based media outlets that without wider support, it will only survive another year. The reasons are several: the current drastic fall of the Turkish lira, the decline of the number of Turkish Armenians who can read Armenian, and the general trend of shrinking print journalism. 

Herkan: Remembering the Power of Indigeneity

 Talin Suciyan

Herkan. She had one of those special names I had never heard before… It must be one of those old Armenian names, like the ones which I had only come across in the mid-19th century archival documents. She was the mother of four children and my admiration of her started when I got to know her one and only daughter. I had first met her daughter more than 25 years ago, when I was 16 and she was 48. We lost track of each other until reconnecting recently all these years later. I had not remembered her name, I had not remembered where I first met her, but I remembered how much I loved her. A heart full of love, which she inherited from her mother Fatma-Herkan. Now on the occasion of the 8th of March, I write to bring Herkan’s legacy into the present, as it whispers a long-lost song into our ears, one that we all recognize. 

Orwell casts his shadow on Istanbul’s culture scene

Nazlan Ertan

 

Six neon figures that light up a single wall at Istanbul’s Pera Museum make no sense until you read the title, “A Few Hours After the Revolution.” Then you realize that the neon letters duplicate the Turkish word DEVRIM (Revolution) in capital letters after the letters have been altered by anti-revolutionaries or police. In Turkey, leftists often write "devrim" on walls only to have the graffiti quickly made incomprehensible by others.   

For someone who has lived in Turkey during the left-right clashes on the streets before the 1980 military coup and, to a lesser degree, during the 2013 Gezi Park revolt in Istanbul, this distorted version of “devrim” is almost as familiar as its correct writing.

In Search of the ARF’s 1908 Istanbul Headquarters

Varak Ketsemanian and Daniel Ohanian

 

Of the plethora of contexts from which the history of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) is inextricable, that of the late 19^th-/early 20^th -century Ottoman Empire is among the most important. As a prominent political party, the ARF came to the forefront of Ottoman politics particularly after the July 1908 Constitutional—or Young Turk—Revolution, in which it played an important role. While it had had underground cells, secret meeting places, and an organizational network in Istanbul (Constantinople) since its founding in 1890, it was the political liberty brought about by this revolution that allowed the ARF to operate openly in the imperial capital.¹

Medz Bazar Collective: a dynamic vision of Armenian identity

Vahan Kerovpyan, 30, is a musician in the collective Medz Bazar. Created in May 2012, this band is a cluster of eight musicians from various origins (French, Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, American) who revive traditional classics and play their own original compositions. In this interview, Vahan recalls his travels around Turkey and Armenia, how he felt in relation to Armenians living in those two countries and to the Turkish civil society. He also comments on the lyrics of the Medz Bazar songs and shares his vision of the future of Armenians, in the Diaspora and elsewhere. His rather positive outlook stands in contrast with the ambient pessimism of part of the community who think that Armenian identity and culture are dying out.

More than One April 24, 2015, in Istanbul

Nareg Seferian

 

It was the evening of April 24, 2015, and I was sitting on the street in Istanbul, right near where Istiklal Avenue starts off from Taksim Square. The area had been closed off especially for us—a part of town usually bustling (bursting, really) with people. Those around me were holding placards, mostly of the Armenians who had been placed under arrest that day 100 years earlier. I got a placard with one Hagop Terzian on it. “I must look him up,” I thought, somewhat ashamed of the fact that I had not heard of him before, one of the many whose memory was being honored that evening.

In the Wake of Gezi, Taking Stock of Istanbul’s Art Scene

Nevdon Jamgochian

 

Public art in Turkey’s largest city exploded during the mass uprising of the Gezi Taksim protests, which lasted from May 2013 through September 2014. There are too many examples to do any kind of justice to the breadth of artistic reactions during Gezi, as they ranged from the expected performance pieces to graffiti to a 5,000-book park library to an internet mock-up of the Turkish version of eBay, which listed Gezi Park as an item to bid on. The protests started over the proposed privatization of the beloved little park in Istanbul and exploded into a mass expression of dissatisfaction with the right wing government of Turkey. Gezi was similar to the 15-M and Occupy movements but riskier for the participants, as the violent crackdown by the Turkish government demonstrated.

Turkey's Kristallnacht

Uzay Bulut

 

Sept. 6, 1955 started just like any other day for the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews of ‎Istanbul—or Constantinople. ‎

‎”I resided in Cengelkoy with my wife and two children back then,” wrote Apostolos Nikolaidis ‎in the book I Nihta ton Kristallon. ‎”Just as protests were starting in Taksim, I left my shop in Karakoy and went home.”

Nikolaidis did not know that a horrid ethnic cleansing campaign was on the way. Just like Nikolaidis, ‎thousands of non-Muslims in Istanbul were not yet aware of the intent of their own state to ‎destroy their private property, businesses, and places of worship, to terrorize them into ‎abandoning their ancient homeland.

‎

Pope Francis Appoints Boghos Levon Zekiyan as Apostolic Administrator of Armenian Archieparchy of Istanbul

Pope Francis has appointed Archpriest Boghos Levon Zekiyan, emeritus lecturer at the Universita Ca’ Foscari, Venice, as apostolic administrator “sede plena” of the archieparchy of Istanbul of the Armenians, Turkey, elevating him to the dignity of Archbishop, the Vatican Information Service reports.

Which Way Turkey? A Personal Reflection

Terry Cowan



Turkey is somewhat in the news these days—and not in a good way. A recent New York Review of Books article considers three books on the current state of affairs, and particularly the fraying relationship between the Gulen movement and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I have only the most superficial understanding of the Gulen movement and the intricacies of this struggle for leadership among Turkey’s Islamists. Plots and conspiracies abound within this whirlwind, aided in large part by a complicit judiciary on one side and a police community on the other, each willing to do the bidding of their particular faction. And in probably the most important story that you didn’t read in this last week’s news cycle, a video caught high-ranking Turkish government officials planning a false flag attack on northern Syria. Add to that the fact that the Turkish economic miracle may be fading. And of course, many still recall the demonstrations in Taksim Square from last summer.

In Local Election, a Referendum on Turkey’s Leader

Tim Arango

Ceylan Yeginsu 

As the campaign bus moved through Istanbul’s traffic, the cityscape blurred: construction cranes, new shopping malls and boutiques, a billboard for the luxury department store Harvey Nichols — all signposts of a city more populous than some European countries, vastly reshaped under the Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Inside the bus was a secular candidate to be the next mayor, Mustafa Sarigul, who for years has led Istanbul’s most affluent district, Sisli, and is now the greatest hope among Mr. Erdogan’s opponents. They see Sunday’s mayoral elections as the first step in loosening the hold that Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., has over Turkish politics.

On the Way to Baykoz

Nigol Bezjian



I was in Istanbul recently as part of a Lebanese production team working on a mobile phone commercial for a third country. Normally this would have taken place in Lebanon, but the politically unstable conditions here are diverting work into Turkish coffers. Interestingly, I was booked in a hotel located only a hundred meters away from the Armenian Agos newspaper, whose founder, Hrant Dink, was assassinated on Jan. 19, 2007. While resting and waiting for time to pass, I recalled my first ever visit to Istanbul where, once again unknowingly, I had booked a hotel just a street away.

In 2009, I was back in the city to film Marc Nichanian for “Milk, Carnation & a Godly Song,” my film about Taniel Varoujan, the Armenia poet who was killed in the genocide.

Examining "the Denialist Habitus in Post-Genocidal Turkey"

Varak Ketsemanian

The forced eradication of the Armenians from their homeland in 1915 has generated a unique scholarship that closely examines the genocidal policies from 1915 to 1923. One aspect, however, has remained blurred: the post-genocidal period and the repercussions of the genocide on the remaining Armenian population in Turkey. In this interview with the Armenian Weekly, Talin Suciyan shows the consistency of state policies and internalization of these policies on the level of everyday life by the larger parts of the society. According to Suciyan, the normalization of denial both by the state and the society created a denialist habitus. She also presents tangible examples of how the Armenians had to become part of the denial as there was no other way of existence for them in the public sphere.

Commemorating Genocide in a Post-Genocide Denialist Habitus

Ayse Gunaysu

 

Dilara Balcı, in her book that gives a detailed account of how non-Muslims were represented in the Turkish film industry until the 1980’s, tells an anecdote that elucidates a great deal the environment in which Armenians, the descendants of genocide survivors, in Turkey led their lives.

Gezi Park: Whose History Is Erdogan Respecting?

Vicken Cheterian

 

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his defence of the project of building a new shopping centre and luxury apartments at the place of Gezi Park in Istanbul, said something symbolic: the reconstruction plans, which supposedly would resurrect the architecture of an old military barracks based on the architecture of a 19th century Ottoman building, would amount to “respecting history (1).”

Learning From Taksim Square: Architecture, State Power, and Public Space In Istanbul

Heghnar Watenpaugh

In a matter of days, "Taksim Square" has become a household name akin to Tahrir Square, shorthand for a youthful protest movement against the brutality of state power in the Middle East. What began last week as a peaceful sit-in to protest the uprooting of trees from Gezi Park, one of Istanbul's last open green spaces near Taksim Square, has morphed into a broader Occupy movement against the Turkish government, with massive demonstrations in many Turkish cities, as well as solidarity demonstrations throughout the world. The movement shows the deep discontent within a large cross section of Turkish society against the increasingly authoritarian government, and especially its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the ruling Islamist AKP party. People have reacted with shock at the Turkish police's disproportionate, brutal repression of the protests, as well as Erdogan's and other government officials' apparent contempt for and vilification of the protestors, and their seeming indifference to their concerns. As the protest movement continues to unfold, there has been much analysis about the significance of the protests, the way they reflect class and identity divisions within Turkey and their possible repercussions, such as here, here and here.

The Revolt of the Rising Class

Bill Keller

In the upscale Istanbul suburb of Bebek, at 9 p.m. sharp, the diners began drumming on the tables or tapping their wineglasses with forks. The traffic passing along the Bosporus chimed in with honking horns and flashing headlights. It was a genteel symphony of solidarity with the protesters who a few days earlier were confronting fire hoses and tear gas in the heart of the city and elsewhere around Turkey.

Those street battles that caught our attention this summer have mostly been policed into submission, and the world’s cameras have moved on, but the afterlife is interesting.

The Armenian Past of Taksim Square

Emily Greenhouse

 



Taksim Square, like Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park before it, is just another space in a city: it could have been one more spot to meet friends, or to read a book under a tree. But Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, decided he’d like to replicate the Ottoman-era Taksim military barracks on the site, and build it into a shopping mall and a mosque. In late May, several dozen environmentalists began protesting Erdoğan’s designs in Gezi Park, the island of trees within the Square, and were attacked by Turkish police with tear gas and water cannons. Soon, as Elif Batuman wrote, “only fifteen per cent were protesting the destruction of trees, while forty-nine per cent were protesting police violence against the kinds of people who were protesting the destruction of the trees.” Since then, nearly eight thousand protesters have been injured. By now, the protest has broadened into an objection to Erdoğan’s religious agenda and authoritarian rule. Today, “Taksim Square” is no longer just a tangle of people and plazas but a byword for a clash of ideas, a movement, a battleground.

Turkey in Turmoil



Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had many opportunities over the last three weeks to resolve the political crisis in Turkey peacefully and quickly. However, with almost every statement and directive he has made the situation worse, increasing concerns at home and abroad over his authoritarian tendencies and Turkey’s future as a democratic model in the Muslim world.

Postcard from Turkey

Thomas Friedman

 

ISTANBUL — Having witnessed the Egyptian uprising in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, I was eager to compare it with the protests by Turkish youths here in Taksim Square in 2013. They are very different. The Egyptians wanted to oust President Hosni Mubarak. Theirs was an act of “revolution.” The Turks are engaged in an act of “revulsion.” They aren’t (yet) trying to throw out their democratically elected Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. What they’re doing is calling him out. Their message is simple: “Get out of our faces, stop choking our democracy and stop acting like such a pompous, overbearing, modern-day Sultan.”