WHOSE IS IT ANYWAY?
Today’s Zaman
14 August 2008, Thursday
Turkey
Despite the gradual improvement in relations between Greece and Turkey
over the last decade, it seems that there is still much to squabble
about. Both countries have laid claim to the origins of the shadow
theater show (Hacivat and) Karagöz, or in Greek Karagiozis.
Newspapers reported this week that the Turkish Ministry of Culture and
Tourism will be launching an attack on Greek efforts to appropriate
the Turkish folk figures. Their efforts are part of their attempt
to register Karagöz at the planned 2009 UNESCO Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. They are planning a
range of actions, including preparing a dossier of historical research
proving that Karagöz originated in Turkey, naming office buildings,
parks and public squares after him and encouraging TV producers to
show programs about him and his sidekicks. They will also be trying
to revive the tradition of touring shadow theater companies performing
across the nation by employing actors and training them in the art of
puppetry. A Karagöz research institute will be founded, his stories
will be reprinted and a book of Karagöz images will be published.
Who is this Karagöz that everyone wants to have a piece of? He’s a
puppet with six or seven centuries of history behind him, the Ottoman
equivalent of Mr. Punch (though somewhat less violent). Popularly
thought to be based on the lives of two garrulous laborers whose
comic chatter slowed down work on a construction of a mosque in
Bursa, after their execution they became folk heroes. Karagöz is
the not-too-bright representative of the common man, and Hacıvat is
a low-ranking official of sorts. Generally whatever scheme the two
come up with during the course of a play, Karagöz ends up ruining it
through his buffoonery, and Hacıvat reacts like the long-suffering
Oliver Hardy dealing with the incompetent Stan Laurel.
The shows were incredibly popular in Turkey, but the advent
of television has almost wiped them out (except at cultural
festivals). However, the 2006 film release of the popular costume
drama "Who Killed Hacıvat and Karagöz?" sparked new interest in
the puppets, both in Turkey and across the sea in Greece. Three
months after the film came out Turkish papers were reporting that
Karagiozis was playing to packed Athens theaters, telling a story
of Greek suffering under the Ottomans. Turkish theater artist Emin
Å~^enyer said that the Turkish government’s unwillingness to invest in
keeping traditions alive was allowing the more active Greek government
to present this particular shadow puppet to the world as if he was
their own.
Karagiozis: inspiration for poor
In Greece there are those who are happy to accept that Karagiozis made
his way to the country via the Turks, but there are also alternative
theories that Greek merchants brought shadow theater from China,
or that a Greek invented the art during Ottoman rule in order to
entertain the sultan. Despite these differences, experts agree that in
the 1880s the stories and adventures of Karagiozis were adapted for
a newly independent Greek society through the invention of numerous
local characters. Karagiozis’ popularity flourished from 1915 until
1950, a difficult time for the nation with its wars and social
unrest. The puppet hero was a continuous inspiration for the poor,
an uncompromising protagonist who tried in vain to change his fate
and protest against social injustice. The character is still regarded
with great affection.
Of course these are not the only cultural elements that the two
nations argue over. Comments responding to a recent news story
illustrate some of Turkey’s fears: "Let’s not wake up to the danger
too late; we need to be ever vigilant. … They’ve taken yoghurt,
feta and baklava; we’ve lost döner and helva, too. None of these
are known as ours anymore." Should UNESCO choose to involve itself
in the nebulous area of cuisine, they may never extricate themselves
from the arguments. Several dishes are fiercely contested:
Dolma/sarma: The Turkish word dolma means stuffed, and can be used
to describe any vegetable with a mince and rice filling, whereas
sarma means wrapped, and refers to the vine leaf or cabbage leaf
version. Called dolmades by the Greeks, it’s probably acceptable to
infer that if the word actually means something in Turkish then the
dish originated here. There are variations of dolma throughout the
Middle East and Eastern Europe.
The food wars
Baklava: The Lebanese, Armenians and Greeks all claim that they
invented this sweet, sticky pastry, and they did probably all have
early variants. However, the form we know today — with its syrupy,
nutty filling — was devised in the kitchens of the Ottoman court; the
word means diamond-shaped in Turkish. On May 16, 2006 Turkish baklava
producers held a demonstration and press conference in Ä°stanbul,
attended by then-State Minister for Economy and chief EU negotiator
Ali Babacan. The demonstrators were protesting Greek Cypriot claims
that baklava had been their national creation. The placards read:
"Baklava is Turkish. We will not allow Greek Cypriots to feed it to
the world."
Feta: The Greeks won this battle, not just against Turkey but against
the entire EU. Under a European Court of Justice ruling, feta — like
Champagne and Parma ham — became protected. As of 2007, producers of
this crumbly white cheese who do not actually make it in Greece cannot
call it feta or even feta-style cheese. Turks call their version of
this beyaz peynir, or white cheese. According to cookery expert and
chef Hulya Erdal, "Feta cheese can only come from Greece. Any other
cheese that remotely resembles this delightful fare is really only
an imitation and cannot be called anything other than white cheese."
Yoghurt: Known worldwide as Greek yoghurt, this plain white substance
was probably a spontaneous appearance caused by wild bacteria in animal
skin bags used for carrying milk. There are records of 11th century
yoghurt consumption by nomadic Turks in the Diwan Lughat al-Turk. The
Greeks call it yiaourti. The name may be derived from the Turkish
word yogurmak, which means to knead, although the etymological link
is tenuous. Hulya Erdal states: "If you know anything about food,
then you’ll know that yoghurt was without a doubt invented, cooked
up, made, produced, whatever you want to call it, in Turkey. Forget
what anyone else tells you. It’s an original Turkish food product
and always will be. Of course, that’s not to say that "Greek-style
yoghurt" or "French-style yoghurt" isn’t original, but notice their
choice of words. Let’s make sure that we all understand: It’s just
a variation on a tried and tested Turkish recipe."
Döner: Outside of Turkey and Greece, this roasted spitted meat dish
seems to be equally well known as a Turkish and Greek dish. In the
UK and Ireland it is predominantly recognized as Turkish; in Sydney,
Australia, it is Turkish döner, but 800 kilometers away in Melbourne
it is Greek souvlaki, and in Adelaide it is called gyro (this means
rotating, as does the word döner). In America it is mainly gyro,
but in Canada it’s döner. In the Netherlands they say both gyro
(pronounced geero with a Dutch, throat-searing g) and döner. In
Moscow it’s sheverma. Shall we call this one a draw?
Whoever made the food or created the puppet seems by and large
irrelevant, provided we can all enjoy them. It’s not like putting meat
(or a puppet) on a stick ranks up there with the discovery of the
theory of relativity. Still the debate rages on. Take, for example,
the cuisine of Cyprus: Despite the two ethnic groups’ long history
of close proximity to each other’s kitchens, each side still tries
to distinguish one food or another as theirs.
In reality it’s more complicated than this. Cyprus, for instance, is an
island fraught with history. Its history is reflected in its cuisine,
with recipes originating from the Middle East, Greece, Turkey, Italy
and even Africa. Recipes include molohiya, a leafy green vegetable
long known to grow only in Cyprus and on the banks of the Nile River
in Egypt. The dish kolokas is a stew made from a large, brown-skinned
yam that probably originates in Sudan or thereabouts. The food of
Cyprus cannot be claimed by one nation or another; this is a cuisine
that mixes old and new, that represents almost the entire world.
Perhaps the best solution to some of these debates is to follow the
EU plan on how to handle the long-running Cypriot cheese debate. Last
year Nuno Miguel Vicente, in charge of Cyprus at the EU Directorate
General of Agriculture, made a statement declaring that the best case
scenario for everyone would be to register the cheese bilingually as
both hellim and halloumi.
–Boundary_(ID_tjCWGX9JUqTJyygcw++MQw)- –
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress