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Contemporary perception of Byzantium in Turkish cinema: the cross-examination of Battal Gazi films with the Battalname

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Buket Kitapçi Bayri
Buket Kitapçi Bayri*
Affiliation:
Istanbul
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Extract

During the 1960s and 1970s many Turkish films dealing with Byzantium were produced. The protagonists of these films were usually semi-historical/semi-legendary characters such as Battal Gazi, an eighth/ninth-century Arab frontier warrior. This paper proposes a cross-examination of the Battal Gazi films with the Battalname, a medieval prose work on the deeds of the same frontier warrior, in order to find out what Byzantium represented for the audience of these films in Turkey. This representation is important because the films played a crucial role in shaping the contemporary perception of Byzantium in Turkey.

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Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , 2013 , pp. 81 - 91
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Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2013

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References

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20 For a list, see Köksal, H., Battalnamelerde Tip ve Motif Yapısı (Ankara 1984) 17–19 Google Scholar, 21.

21 This testimony concerning the Janissaries, which comes from the Polish convert Bobovi, alias Ali Ufku Efendi, is quoted in Dedes, Battalname 23.

22 For the cross-examination of the tomb with the Battalname and the ideology behind its composition, see Yiirekli, Z., Architecture and hagiography in the Ottoman empire. The politics of the Bektashi shrines in the classical age, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies (Farnham 2012) 77-8Google Scholar.

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30 Ibid., 336.

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32 Aşıkpaşaoğlu, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, ed. Atsiz, N. (Istanbul 1947) 129-30Google Scholar, 233-4; on booty and its distribution among the frontier lords and the Ottoman sultans, see Beldiceanu, I.-Steinherr, ‘En marge d’un acte concernant le pengyek et les aqingi’, Revue des études islamiques 38 (1969) 21–47 Google Scholar, especially 38-41 on the history of pençik (it was a tax given by the frontier lords to the Ottoman rulers comprising 1/5 of the booty). For an analysis of the criticism against the creation of a state treasury from among the ghazi, see Kafadar, Between two worlds, 111-13, 139-50.

33 Kafadar, Between two worlds, 93.

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35 The Ottoman historians (or at least the Turkish speaking ones) were not much interested in Byzantine history. The earliest exception to this rule was Hüseyin Hezarfen in the seventeenth century. For the early Ottoman Turkish historiography, see S. Yerasimos, ‘Byzance dans les chroniques ottomans (XIVe-XVIesiècle)’, in Byzance en Europe, 19-29. For the late Ottoman period, see Ursinus, M., ‘Byzantine history in late Ottoman Turkish historiography’, BMGS 10 (1986) 211-22Google Scholar. For the perception of Rome, Byzantium and Constantinople in the seventeenth-century work of Hüseyin Hezarfen, who was probably the first historian to write a history of Byzantium, see Bekar, C., A new perception of Rome, Byzantium and Constantinople in Hezarfen Hiiseyin’s Universal History (MA thesis, Boğaziçi University 2011)Google Scholar.

36 While the scriptwriters do not seem to be aware of the fact that die Byzantines never really developed the idea of Holy War and diat there were no military orders in Byzantium, in the frontier narratives such as Daniş-mendname and Saltukname the distinction between the crusaders and the Byzantines is clearly made. While the Byzantines are called Rum, the crusaders are mentioned as Franks. In the Saltukname, it is the pope (Papos, Babos or Filyon Firenk) who unifies the Frank infidels against the Muslims. Akaiin, , Saltuk-name, I, 16 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the idea of Holy War in Byzantium, see Laurent, V., ‘L’idée de guerre sainte et la tradition byzantine’, Revue historique du sud-est Européen 23 (1946) 72–98 Google Scholar; Laiou, A., ‘On just war in Byzantium’, Studies in Honor ofSperos Vryonis, I (New York 1993) 153-77Google Scholar; Haldon, J., Warfare, state and society in the Byzantine world, 565-1204 (London 1999) 13–33 Google Scholar.

37 Belge, M., Genesis. Büyük Ulusal Anlati ve Türklerin Kökeni (Istanbul 2008)Google Scholar.

38 Attila the Hun (434-453), the ruler of the Hun empire; Tarkan the Hun is a fictitious character who fights as a warrior in the name of the Huns. Sezgin Burak, a Turkish caricaturist, created the Tarkan character in 1966. According to Burak’s story, Tarkan was left in the wilderness when he was a baby and was raised by wolves. In the films, a wolf always accompanies him. Kara Murat is also a fictitious character created by Rahmi Turan, journalist and novelist, who published 18 volumes of the Kara Murat series. He is a ‘Turkish’ warrior fighting for the early Ottoman sultans. As these ‘historical’ Kara Murat novels became extremely popular, several films were produced based on them. Among these films, the most famous is the ‘Fatih’in Fedaisi’ (‘Warrior of the Conqueror’).

39 Iordanova, D., ‘Whose is this memory? Hushed narratives and discerning remembrance in Balkan cinema’, Cineaste 32/3 (2007) 22-7Google Scholar.

40 Examples of such films are the Greek 1922 (1978), the Yugoslav Banovic Strahinja (1981), the Bulgarian Vreme na nasilie (‘Time of Violence’m) (1988) or the Macedonian Dust (2001).

41 The Russian-Ottoman War of 1877-78 is known in Turkey as the ‘93 Russian War as the years 1877-78 correspond to 1293 in the Rumi calendar, which is based on the Julian calendar but starts with the year of Muhammed’s migration in 622. The calendar was used officially in the Ottoman empire after 1839.

42 For a detailed study of the reflection of ‘identity crisis’ in popular modern Turkish literature, see Beige, Genesis.

43 Bora, T., ‘Resmi Metinlerde “Yunan Düşmanhğı” Neden Eksikti?’, Defter 32 (1998) 35–42 Google Scholar.

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