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FOURTH CONFERENCE OF
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR STUDY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS

THE EUROPEAN LEGACY: TOWARD NEW PARADIGMS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
TURKISH DRAMA IN MACEDONIA CULTURAL BRIDGE BETWEEN THE PEOPLE

August 22-27, 1994
Karl-Franzes -Universitat. Graz. AUSTRIA

BETWEEN EAST AND WEST - TURKISH DRAMA IN MACEDONIA
CULTURAL BRIDGE BETWEEN THE PEOPLE

Macedonia, a Balkan land where East meets West, a Slavic culture that provided Slavic nations the Cyrillic alphabet, is a land where different ethnic groups and cultures exist side by side for centuries. In so doing, the members of these diverse ethnic communities living under the same sky, created various modes of cultural activities which enabled rich multicultural artistic, social and political life in that part of the world. Although in the light of the current horrible events on the Balkans this statement may seem unrealistic or even unbelievable, the truth is: such a wealth of multicultural life existed and still exists in Macedonia.

In modern times this multicultural life was reintroduced to the Macedonian environment and culture at the turn of this century with the deliberation of the renowned "Krushevo Manifesto." This document was the most important liberal political statement conceived by the Macedonian national liberation movement. In its call for liberation the first line of the "Krushevo Manifesto" reads: "Dear brothers, friends, and neighbors, regardless to your race, religion and ethnicity come under our flag of liberty in a battle for freedom for all." This conception was, at that time, a revolutionaries' serious attempt to create a tolerant multicultural world in which there would be enough cultural and existential room for everyone. In fact, the ideologist of the Macedonian liberation movement, the most influential leader of the period, Gotze Delchev, had perceived that forthcoming world "as a field for cultural competition between the nations;" as a field for mutual understanding, coexistence and tolerance among the people living in Macedonia.

This courageous idea blossomed and had its heights in the life of Macedonia after the Second World War. For many artists the multi-ethnic co-existence and mode of artistic creation became both a normal way of life and a great challenge. In that way many ethnic Macedonians, Turks, Albanians, Jews, Gypsies, Serbians etc. living in Macedonia and creating in their own language and voice made significant contributions to the multi-cultural life of this community.

The dramatic literature written in Turkish language and the Turkish Drama Ensemble as a part of the Theatre of National Minorities in Skopje, have a particular place on the multi-cultural map of Macedonia. Inspired on one hand by the wealth of the creative forms existing in the traditional Ottoman and Muslim heritage, and on the other building up on the achievements of the western European tradition and thought, dramatic literature created in Macedonia and performed on the stage of the Turkish Drama Ensemble not only enriched its own ethnic literature and culture, but made a remarkable break through in the Macedonian theatrical environment and contributed to building a cultural bridges between the people living together there. So, East and West were, once again, brought together enriching the delicious taste of our complex, very often misunderstood, Salade Macédoine.

The list of plays in Turkish language, the list of productions created and based on these plays in the last two decades, and the list of significant results achieved by the playwrights and theatre artists of Turkish nationality living and creating in Macedonia are very long. In order to single out some of these plays and their artistic and intercultural achievements I will keep my attention just on those few examples which made outstanding contribution to this process of bridging our cultures.

There are two groups of plays and/or theatre productions that made such significant achievement: a) plays/productions which are based on the centuries old Turkish culture and tradition introducing us simultaneously to the cultural wealth of the Islamic world as well, and b) trans-cultural and/or trans-ethnic plays/productions which build up on contemporary creative methods, explore events from the recent mutual past concerning issues of importance not only to their own ethnic community but of importance to other ethnic groups, and disclose the complexity of living with differences.

Memet by Irfan Bellür and The Virgin Bridge by Hasan Meçran stand as the most prominent representatives of the first group of plays/productions. Significantly enough the inspirational point of departure to both of them is oral folk tradition (stories, folk poems, old legends, myths, beliefs, chants, etc.) dealing with the individual and his or her attempt to change or at least to revitalize the life in social community.

The Virgin Bridge, written in modern blank verse, is based on a well known legend about a young woman, a bride, sacrificed on the day of her wedding as a scapegoat (she is built up in the foundation at the beginning of the construction of a new bridge) for better future of the community. On the other hand, in the terms of creative technique the play builds up upon well known poetic, symbolic, and metaphoric means of theatrical expression which are founded both in traditional and contemporary dramatic theory. In so doing, combining recognizable subject matter and easy to follow and accept artistic form, the play/production actually takes a contemporary features.

The mixed audience, in this way, receives with immediate lightness a story about the gap between generations, about the conflict between old and new, about the confrontation between traditional conservatism of the elders and burning energy of the youngsters who would like to see their future in bright lights building bridge between two traditionally hostile villages, about contrasts between past and present. The Virgin Bridge is also a painful confrontation with human hypocrisy, manipulation, malice, hatred, and insane grid for power and dominance. This play brings to the stage powerful imaginary which inaugurates with poetic enthusiasm tolerance, understanding and love, against isolation, violence, destruction and death.

Memet focuses around another folk story, Mad Emine or Deli Emine, well known among the Turkish ethnic community in Macedonia. Namely, it is a play based on a legend about a woman pretending to be a village's simpleton in order to survive, to revenge her self, and finally to bring justice in her enclosed and oppressed community. But in contrast to the legend, there is a slight shift in the action of this work. The spotlight, in this case, is moved from Emine, who is central character of the legend, and is focused to her teenage son Memet who even does not know at the beginning of the story who is his mother. In so doing, Memet is transformed not only into central character of the play but into dominant and moving force beneath the wheel of the action. So, Memet grows up into a rebellious, passionate, romantic hero who is forced in that repressive world to chose between his father's despotism, conformism, and wealth and his own drive and need to find who he is. He chooses freedom, truth, and personal identity. As a result, on the long and a poignant road to himself, to the discovery of his own identity paved by human despair, Memet has to admit a horrible truth: he is unwanted Mad Emine's son, born out of violent and incestuous rape committed by her despotic brother, Hasan-Aga. But, Memet has to accept the tormenting consequences as well: Under such circumstances he is urged to become both his mother's powerful means in her pursuit of revenge and populist leader of the rebellion against his father's merciless tyranny which "sucks blood out of the villagers."

Memet is dramatically well structured play, with carefully developed conflicts, precisely defined characters, and attractive imagery. An impressive work of art which ritualizes individual's personal, social, and humanistic endeavor for better future, redefines individual's quest for personal identity, individuality and humanity, and finally reaffirms individual's archetypal step out of the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.

It has to be noted here that Memet and The Virgin Bridge sparkling out of the deep ethnic well brought about on Macedonian theatre stage innovative approach to the national heritage and challenging insights about the widely accepted beliefs. They opened the doors of the neglected but to many well known Turkish culture in Macedonia and simultaneously requestioned many of its values. In that way these two plays critiquing sharply the deviance in the life of the social community, removed centuries long veils which stood over petrified taboos and disclosed another point of view about various stereotypes and patterns of human life. These plays introduced another truth about tradition build upon glorified heroism and justice, about mythologized innocence, purity, and importance of "traditional" family values, and/or about forcefully imposed role, function and place of the woman in society. They also shifted the approach to the ordered relationship between social, ethnic, gender, and hierarchical groups in the community, and changed the comprehension of the fixed ideas such as obedience, betrayal, friendship, love, etc. In so doing, these plays inaugurated new visions, modern options, contemporary comprehension of the world in which we all live, and most importantly created open transversals to common understanding of the ethnic, cultural wealth of the groups living side by side in that part of the word.

Rachel by Sherafetin Nebi and People and Doves by Irfan Bellür are the most interesting representatives of the second group of plays discussed in this work. They introduced valuable insights in our recent bitter history with remarkable intuitive sense for interculturalism. Approaching the same sad events and struggle for survival in nazi occupied Skopje during the W. W. II from two different directions, these two plays arrived at the same point with almost identical results and made in their own way identical contribution to the multiethnic life of the community.

While Rachel, set at the eve of the mass deportation of the Macedonian Jews to the death-camp Treblinka, explores the idea of institutionally condemned ethnic group and love between its representatives and representatives of other groups, in this case between a Jewish girl and a Turkish boy, People and Doves introduces us to the harsh life of another ethnic group, the world of the condemned Macedonian Gypsies who live and resist the oppression in identical situation at the same period of nazi occupation and brutality.

Rachel is based on a true story. It uses traditional form of dramatic narrative and focuses on the last year in the life of the central character, Rachel. That is, it unfolds in chronological order events of particular significance to her: her last birthday party, her secret dates and passionate kisses under the old (chestnuts) maroons, her boyfriend's attempt to save her and her family from the forthcoming horror and disaster, her family's refusal to accept that offer and its agreement to obey the orders of the oppressive system which condemns them as human beings, her unsuccessful escape, her arrest and the mass deportation of the Jews, her trip in a stock wagon to the concentration camp and finally her death in the camp.

This personal account as transformed into theatre production and as seen on the Turkish Drama Ensemble stage in 1985, enhances its field of artistic expression. The horrible events in that production, in fact, are set in an environment which resembles concentration camp. There, at the beginning of the performance, the spectators are separated in two groups according to their gender, as it was done in the real camps in the time of their pogrom. In so doing, they are transformed both into participants and helpless witnesses of the horror that Rachel, as an innocent victim, had to pass through in her life and to face in the final minute before her death and the death of millions others - the exit to the Trebilnka's crematorium. Everything happens in that production between two blinks of an eye - Rachel's eye which still looks at us with prudence.

So, moving forward from its initial dramatic material, the theatrical production took form of a poignant, nightmarish reminiscence freely structured as a net of fragments and orchestrated episodes. Simultaneously, it was imaginatively enriched with carefully selected documents and artifacts about that horrible time of destruction and genocide. "This production is a powerful protest against abomination and hatred" wrote a Macedonian theatre critic and in the same voice continued, "Rachel brings about creative space in which war, totalitarism, and freedom are sought from a particular perspective which reveals individual's permanent desire to resist the madness brought about in the time of wars and to confront the evil behind it. It presents chilling images of human's power and weakness, dreams and nightmares, love and death. Everything is braided in this production in a phantasmagoric manner: past and present, dream and reality, fiction and document. In that way, the artifacts (documentary footage, newspaper's clips, slides and photographs, personal accounts of events) introduced and explored in this production as a creative means of expression become impressive symbols and metaphors communicating painful truth to the audience. Simultaneously, throughout the whole production the audience continuously listens to the long list of real names of our Jews as they were called before they have ended their lives through the Treblinka's crematorium chimneys." Briefly, becoming global metaphor which stands for man's desire for a life with human face the production of Rachel emanates messages relevant for all times.

People and Doves on the other hand is a cruel story about a very poor Gypsy family who lives on the edge of society fighting for his survival during the Bulgarian nazi occupation of Macedonia. The head of the family, in order to protect his wife and children is forced to accept the worst jobs. The only bright light in that dark night are his doves which he keeps in the backyard in his spare(free) time. But, the youngsters, his sons, don't accept the ongoing humiliation. They see their future only in a free country, without ethnic or racial discrimination, in which they could be equal and would have real opportunity to express themselves. To that end they join the resistant movement in the occupied Skopje and fight the forces of darkness and repression. But, their engagement on the side of hope has its price. The occupation's evil police machinery is set in motion and swallows everything before itself. The young rebels are arrested, tortured and murdered, the family torn apart, while the doves who stood there as a symbol of human desire for peace and dignified life are butchered.

This depressive, production inspired by the contemporary trends in the world theatre, was conceived as a collage of visual and musical fragments where the impressive images and the action dominate the words and the literature. The subject matter was ritualized and generalized in order to present comprehensible production to broad and diverse audience. Also, this aesthetic method was employed in order to convey messages not only relevant for understanding our mutual past but as well as to enable the spectators to perceive in different light our not always ideal present.

What is significant about the examples discussed above, is that they both have several creative and cultural characteristics in common which strongly support the subject matter of this discussion and affirm the idea of ethnic and cultural integration in the contemporary works of arts.

Rachel for example was a theatre production created on the following premises: a play was written by a playwright of Turkish ethnic background with secular education; it explores relevant issues that concern not only the Turkish and the small Jewish community in Macedonia, but as well the Macedonian and world community in general; it was directed by a director of Macedonian ethnicity with a strong western education; the music was composed by Macedonian composer but was based on well known Jewish, Turkish, German and Macedonian music motifs; and finally, Rachel was perfumed in Turkish language by actors who were Turks, Albanians, and Macedonians.

A similar set of segments could be discovered in People and Doves, also: a play was written in Turkish language by a Turkish playwright; the subject matter is about issues that concern an ethnic group (Gypsy community) different from the playwright's own one; the production was directed by a director who is ethnic Gypsy himself; the music was composed by Macedonian, and the play was produced and performed in Gypsy language, by a Gypsy Theatre, and by actors who were Gypsies, Turks, Albanians, and Macedonians.

What one might, actually, discover behind these artifacts, is a specific reconciliation of forms, means of expression, languages, people, nations, races, religions, ideologies, cultures. They were brought together, harmonized, and recreated as authentic works of art. Consequently, each one of these productions introduced a specific mode of intercultural braiding. On one hand the productions expressed themselves as a multicolored and kaleidoscopic canvases of multicultural codes and meanings, on the other, having remarkable artistic success in Macedonia and former Yugoslavia, made a notable impact on the multicultural community with their widespread social significance as well.

It has to be noted also that these plays/productions which made genuine bridges among the people living in that "small" country at the center of the Balkans are of paramount importance not only to the Turkish community in Macedonia, but to the Turkish literature and culture created in Turkey as well. They bridge places, time, people, and represent the wealth of social, political and inter-cultural experience in Macedonia. This experience could be a plausible example of creative and existential tolerance for the forthcoming United Europe.

A conclusion must be drawn here, that from theoretical, aesthetic, practical and social point of view the examples discussed above created by many artists in that ethnically diverse environment represent various creative forms which bring to stage the richness of these centuries old cultures. The dramatic work of art, therefore, represents interests and concerns of the multicultural community. As a result, one could crystallize a specific, genuine intercultural poetics which might be perceived as intercultural drama and theatre from below. It can be named so because this artistic form grows up not as a theoretical speculation formulated and introduced "above" by educated scholars, but as a natural expression of the multi-ethnic society in which the work of art was created. Furthermore, this conception of art might be perceived also as Macedonian artist's attempt to create a world not only "as a field for cultural competition between the nations," as we had occasion to quote Gotze Delchev at the begging of this work, but as a field for cultural cooperation and integration of people, cultures and ideas, or to rephrase the slogan "I see Macedonia as a field for intercultural braiding of the people."