Table of Contents

Turkey in Numbers

The National Obsession: Rakı and Tea — Kaleydoskop

The Icon: Bülent Ersoy — Kaleydoskop

The Big Dig — Elif Batuman

Urban planners in Istanbul have a problem: too much history – and too many agendas: which chapter of the past should they showcase? Turkey’s pre-Islamic origins, as promoted by Atatürk, or the Ottoman glories so dear to President Erdoğan’s heart?

Don’t Call It Soap Opera — Fatima Bhutto

Turkish TV series like The Magnificent Century are rivalling US programmes for international popularity and taking the Middle East, Asia and Latin America by storm. What is the reason for their global success?

The Thirty-Year Coup — Dexter Filkins

Was an exiled Islamic preacher behind the attempted military coup of 2016? Dexter Filkins probes the secrets and mysteries of the Gülen movement and its clash with former ally President Erdoğan, following decades spent infiltrating Turkish bureaucracy to undermine the secular state.

Business à la Turque — Alev Scott

A portrait of the Turkish economy, which is driven by an innate entrepreneurial spirit and the great dream of instant wealth but perennially forced to deal with political instability.

Eros and Thanatos at the Restaurant — Sema Kaygasuz

Although the Turkish feminist movement is more than a century old, women still find themselves trapped between two opposing but equally suffocating ideologies – one secular and one religious. Only recently have they begun to make their voices heard within a patriarchal system dominated by men who ‘love them to death’ but have no hesitation in killing them to keep them quiet.

A Story of Dust and Light — Burhan Sönmez

Every summer the writer Burhan Sönmez returns to the Anatolian village in which he was born – but the only remnant of that unspoiled rural world, with its traditions and apolitical religious faith, is the banned Kurdish language.

Turkish Nationalism and Its Historical Roots — Gerhard Schweizer

From the ruins of the Ottoman Empire – where Turks, Kurds, Armenians and Greeks lived together in peace for centuries in a multi-ethnic state in which language played no role in politics or identity – a new nationalism grew up that would separate the different peoples and impose an enforced Turkification, the principal victims of which were the Armenians.

No Fairy-Tale Ending: Hasankeyf and the Ilısu Dam — Ercan y Yılmaz

In the heart of the Mesopotamian basin, the cradle of the world’s most ancient civilisations, the city of Hasankeyf should have been an prime candidate for UNESCO’s World Heritage List – but rather than being flooded by tourists it has been drowned following the damming of the River Tigris.

‘I Can’t Stay Silent’: Turkish Rap — Begüm Kovulmaz

Turkish rap first emerged in Kreuzberg, Berlin, and reached Istanbul in the 1990s, where it remained a niche genre for many years. When it exploded into the mainstream in the late 2010s the time was ripe for it to become the Gezi generation’s main forum for protest and the reclamation of their physical and cultural spaces. 

The Pen(cil) Is Mightier ... — Valentina Marcella

Satire is one of the few remaining channels for criticising the government in Turkey. Undeterred, amid protest and censorship, cartoonists are continuing their fight against attempts to squash the right to freedom of expression.

Ultras United: How the Gezi Park Protests Brought the Fans Together — Stephen Wood

The 2013 protest movement was so widespread that it even achieved the miracle of bridging the chasms between football’s big three in Istanbul – Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş – some of the most deeply felt rivalries in world football.

A Sign of the Times — Kaleydoskop

An Author Recommends — Elif Shafak

The Playlist — Açık Radyo and Kaleydoskop 

Further Reading