EXHIBITION REMOVES VEIL OF HISTORY OBSCURING ANATOLIAN MINORITIES
yerkir.am
18:55 – 15.02.2012
Some 200 photographs are on display at an exhibit ‘Cultural
Diversity in Old Diyarbakır,’ which relates the lives and commercial
contributions of Diyarbakır’s long-forgotten peoples.
The Birzamanlar (Once Upon a Time) Publishing House has launched a
photography exhibition in Istanbul’s Tophane neighborhood, providing
a rare glimpse into the history of non-Muslim minorities living in
the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.
“Official history teaches us that all these cities were created by
the Turks, and that all the fair deeds of the past were done by them.
Those who are not Turks or Muslims are depicted as unfavorable
figures,” Osman Köker, the owner of the Birzamanlar Publishing
House, recently told the Hurriyet Daily News. “The cultures, faiths,
traditions and genetics of the peoples of old are also part of the
reality we call the Turkish nation.”
Around 200 photographs compiled from 40 different sources are on
display at the “Cultural Diversity in Old Diyarbakır” exhibition,
which is being jointly organized by the Birzamanlar Publishing House
and the Anatolian Culture and Global Dialogue, an Istanbul based
nongovernmental organization. The exhibition at Tophane’s Tutun Deposu
began Feb. 10 and will continue until March 10.
“Eastern Anatolia was much richer at the turn of the 20th century than
it has been in the Republican period, both culturally and materially,”
Köker said, adding that the memories of old were still very much
alive in Anatolia.
The exhibition, which relates the lives and commercial contributions of
Diyarbakır’s long forgotten peoples, such as the Armenians, Syriacs,
Chaldeans, Anatolian Greeks and the Yezidis, also features explanatory
notes in Turkish, English and Kurdish.
“Armenian newspapers were published and theaters [staged plays]
not merely in Diyarbakır, but also in many other [nearby] places
like Elazıg, Erzurum, Van and Erzincan. There were many factories
[making various kinds of produce] ranging from the silk industry
to metal wares. These [factories] did not [produce] solely for the
domestic market but also for exports,” Köker said.
Turkish people are now striving to learn about the truth instead
of the bragging of official history, he said. “All of us have grown
weary of such vein boasting.”
Old shopkeepers and artisans in the region readily confide they had
learned their skills from Armenians and Syriacs, he said.
Köker said they had already taken the exhibition to many different
corners of the world, including Armenia and that Anatolian peoples
had always shown great interest in the exhibition at every stop.
“Diaspora Armenians know precious little of the things they see in
the exhibitions. They see the concrete [images] of things that seem
to them like the stuff of legends. Moreover, they are nonplussed
that this project has been undertaken by a person of Turkish-Muslim
identity from Turkey,” he said.
Köker also said they had conducted research in the Orlando Carlo
Calumeo Collection, the
Boston-based Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archive, as well as
the Annuaire Oriental, an annual commercial almanac that has been
published since the mid-19th century, while they were preparing for
the exhibition.