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
by
Naum Panovski, Ph.D.
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."
