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Fount of ethnic inspiration
[See more at: http://turkradio.us/kapali/ ]
x0x Fount of ethnic inspiration By BENAN KAPUCU When Cemil Ipekci describes Istanbul's Grand or `Covered' Bazaar, his own colours mingle with those of this `timeless' and enchanted space. "The Covered Bazaar, a covered box", said the modern Istanbul poet, Orhan Veli. Doesn't life flow differently at the Grand Bazaar? In what other part of Istanbul, indeed in what other part of the world, can you find so many different times under a single roof? A rainbow of colours made up of crimsons, greens, purples; objects reflecting different beliefs and cultures. Every person who belongs to these lands can find a piece of himself in the Grand Bazaar's labyrinthine streets. We would like to look at the Grand Bazaar from the perspective of the famous Turkish fashion designer, Cemil Ipekci, who takes us on a journey through history's multiple layers. A journey on which we are accompanied by magical spells, trees of life, needlework, and chintamani motifs. THE OTTOMAN SOUL Our meeting place is the Fes Café, one of the Grand Bazaar's modern venues. Ipekci sips a cup of coffee here every time he comes to the Bazaar. He says he likes it because `it reminds people once again of the forgotten Grand Bazaar'. The Bazaar has a special meaning of course for a designer who, throughout the thirty-plus years of his professional career, has always interpreted the Ottoman in his collections, taking his visual language from its synthesis of cultures: `This place nourishes me,' he says. `It's also a place that reminds me over and over again of my entire life... I was only three or four years old the first time I came to the Grand Bazaar. I came here every week with my mother and my two grandmothers. We always bought something, drank tea and then went down to Eminonu.' A habit going back to his boyhood days... Ipekci emphasises that he owes his unique outlook and his reputation as an ethnic designer to the culture he acquired in the Grand Bazaar: `Exactly fifty-four years ago I started getting to know lots of people and jewellers in the Grand Bazaar, lots of stones and old jewellery too. Ottoman mores and customs surrounded and shaped me. Who knows, maybe that's why I always feel I'm as solid as the Bazaar itself.' The designer does not believe in rejecting custom and tradition in the name of `modernisation' but believes that cultures are only enriched if they are re-interpreted by the new age. The two separate Abdulla shops on Halicilar Caddesi, the avenue of the carpet merchants, satisfies this aspiration of Ipekci's. `Abdulla brought a new approach to the Bazaar. That's why I like his place. The decor and presentation are modern but the soaps and towels and the blue beads hanging at the door are all exactly as they were in the old days...' Leaving Abdulla, we follow Ipekci to the shops he frequents. Our next stop is on Terlikciler Sokak, the street of the slipper merchants, a shop where Afghan and Turkmen goods are sold. Its name, Kuyumcular. What all they have here! Traditional jewellery made of German silver and semi-precious stones, children's clothes decorated with seashells and old coins, spice boxes... These are the pieces Ipekci included in large numbers in his 1992 embroidery collection called `Suzeni', a Persian word meaning `needlework', a form of decorative embroidery that started in Iran and was later picked up by the Uzbeks, Turkmens and Ottomans. `Five years ago the Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kyrgyz and Tatars started reviving our authentic ancient culture. Fifty years ago there wasn't anything called Uzbek work, but when you stroll through the Grand Bazaar today you can see motifs going back to our Asian roots.' `IN THE TIME OF THE GYPSIES' Each one of these pieces tells a different story, expresses different feelings. And this is what impresses Ipekci. Pointing out the traces of the cultures assimilated and spread by the nomads in the lands through which they passed, he explains enthusiastically: `Look at these children's clothes! This floral motif, for example, is the `flower of life' which goes back to the earliest periods of Mesopotamia. You can see it on Byzantine gravestones, and in Roman jewellery as well. And the seashells used as decoration show that half of the Gobi desert used to be a sea.' Everything in this shop is a source of inspiration for Ipekci's `Sahire' (Sorceress) collection, which tells the story of the Turks' conversion from Shamanism to Islam. The next stop on our Grand Bazaar tour is a shop on Perdahcilar Caddesi, Muhlis Gunbatti's place selling covers and caftans decorated with needlework. Examples of Maras and Selimiye work are brought out one by one. He also has an interesting story to tell: `In the seventeenth century the Ottoman Sultan sent a wife to the Sultan of Malaysia, a woman of Antep who was highly skilled in the local technique of embroidery with gold thread. She taught everyone in the palace, and eventually it became Malaysia's traditional embroidery. While we pay a thousand dollars for one piece, over there the women do it for five dollars so of course the whole world has it done there. That's how we gave this art away back in the seventeenth century.' As we admire the lovely needlework, we notice a `tree of life' motif on one 300-year-old piece. `This is truly significant,' says Ipekci, taking us straight back to our Shamanist roots: `We turned from Shamanism to Islam, but we never abandoned our beliefs. The god of land, the god of the sky, scraps of cloth tied on trees as votive offerings, the Chintamani... Its three dots symbolize eternal life, and the curving shapes the fertility of woman--a talisman exhibiting traces of Buddhism and Shamanism. Among Muslims it was worn only by the Ottoman sultans, with a prayer embroidered over it. And I find that very nice.' THE MAGIC OF ANATOLIAN CLOTH We turn now to Yaglikcilar Caddesi, a street lined with shops selling regional textiles. Ipekci is in his element at the Sivas Tokat Pazar at no. 55. Here Murat Danis, an old friend of the Ipekci family, sells cotton flannels, Denizli `buldan' textiles, bridal gowns and trousseau fabrics that he collects from all over Anatolia. `I owe my identity as Cemil Ipekci to this man!' he says, `with whom I've done business every since I opened my first boutique, called Cingene (`Gypsy'), in 1974. This shop is my true niche in the Grand Bazaar. I buy all my fabrics here. The flannel in the clothes I made for Azra Akin was from here. There's something magical about these fabrics.' `THE EMERALD IS MY STONE' At the end of our journey into the different layers of history, we turn to the Bedesten, the old market at the heart of the Grand Bazaar. Selcuk Ipek is a shop where Ipekci listens and learns: `Selcuk is very important to me because I get all my jewellery, or have it made, here. I like the crazy side of everything in life! People who work in the arts have to go beyond the mind. And Selcuk is like that, he's mad! Like me, he believes in the power and energy of stones. We meet here once a week on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes jewellery is being made. Taking a break here and chatting is like restoring your soul...' A talisman of every culture and every belief hangs round his neck... An original Chinese coin, an Indian `Om' inscription... His lucky stone is the emerald: `I've had a huge interest in the emerald all my life, ever since childhood. The first time I cried as a baby, I stopped when I grabbed onto my mother's emerald necklace. I have an inexplicable love for that stone. I get lost in its green. I have a big emerald ring and a collection of emerald seals. The emerald is actually a very sacred stone. It brings luck, and life...' The Grand Bazaar's `magic' too lies in the way it is able to embrace all cultures, beliefs and vanishing values. What else could it be that binds Cemil Ipekci to this place with such a deep sense of belonging? |
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TALES OF ARMENIAN HORRORS CONFIRMED
TALES OF ARMENIAN HORRORS CONFIRMED
NEW YORK TIMES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 27, 1915 Committee on Atrocities Says 1,500,000 Victims Have Suffered Already. Professor Samuel Train Dutton, Secretary of the Committee on Atrocities on Armenians, made public yesterday a preliminary statement of the committee outlining the result of its investigation of the terrible conditions existing among the Armenians. The committee says that the reports concerning the massacre, torture, and other maltreatment of Armenians of all ages abundantly are confirmed by its investigation. Other members of the committee besides Professor Dutton are Cleveland H. Dodge, Arthur Curtis James, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, John R. Mott, Frank Mason North, James L. Barton, William Sloane, D. Stuart Dodge, and others. The statement issued by the committee yesterday is as follows: "A sub-committee has thoroughly investigated the evidence and has just made report to the full committee confirming in every particular the statement recently made by Viscount Bryce regarding the imprisonment, torture, murder, massacre, and exile into the deserts of Northern Arabia of defenseless and innocent Armenians, including decrepit men, women, and children, and their forcible conversion to Islam." "Written testimonies of eyewitnesses whose names are known to the committee, but which obviously cannot now be made public, have been examined with utmost care. This testimony covers hundreds of pages, and the character and position of the authors and the positiveness of utterance carry absolute conviction." "The witnesses examined include Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Italians, Germans, Turks, Englishmen, Americans, business men, travelers and officials of great variety and rank. Not a single statement can be questioned as to the facts reported. These all agree in the declarations that from Smyrna on the west to Persia, and from the Black Sea to Arabia, a propaganda of extermination of non-Moslems is now being carried on by the Turkish Government far surpassing in ferocity and exceeding in destruction anything done by Abdul Hamid during his long career of massacre and extermination." "The statements examined, many of which are in the possession of the committee, cover hundreds of towns and cities in which in many instances all of the Armenians have been killed outright, often after horrible torture, or sent to the desert to die of starvation, and that too, with diabolical cruelty. The ostensible deportation of men, women, and children toward Mesopotamia is usually but a form of marching those starving, helpless, and frequently naked refugees out into the mountains to be outraged and butchered, sometimes by the Kurds who gladly co-operate in the work of destruction." "Included among these refugees and victims are pupils and graduates from the American schools and colleges, teachers and professional men who have taken degrees in American and European universities, men and women who have represented the brains and enterprise of the country for a generation or more." "The plan of procedure, which is identical in all parts of the country, seem to aim at the complete elimination of all non- Moslem races from Anatolia, and already that aim is in fair way of accomplishment so far as the Armenians are concerned." "In several places American property has been seized, Americans searched, imprisoned and expelled from the country, their letters and telegrams, even from United States Consular offices, intercepted and their lives put in jeopardy. This, however, is of trivial importance compared with the work of destruction going on toward the Armenians." "Evidence seems to prove that probably 1,500,000 Armenians have already been murdered or forced to the desert where only death awaits them unless relief is secured at once. And all this has taken place since March, and is now at the height of its gruesome fury." "The committee is confident that if the press of the country should, with all the emphasis at its command, voice its protest and call upon the Turkish Government to put an end to this crime against humanity and return the exiles who may yet be living to their homes it could hardly fail to produce results." "In view of the great influence which Germany and Austria exercise over their ally the American people cannot fail to hold them morally responsible if these atrocities are permitted to continue." T. R. H. wrote: [See more at: http://turkradio.us/kapali/ ] x0x Fount of ethnic inspiration By BENAN KAPUCU When Cemil Ipekci describes Istanbul's Grand or `Covered' Bazaar, his own colours mingle with those of this `timeless' and enchanted space. "The Covered Bazaar, a covered box", said the modern Istanbul poet, Orhan Veli. Doesn't life flow differently at the Grand Bazaar? In what other part of Istanbul, indeed in what other part of the world, can you find so many different times under a single roof? A rainbow of colours made up of crimsons, greens, purples; objects reflecting different beliefs and cultures. Every person who belongs to these lands can find a piece of himself in the Grand Bazaar's labyrinthine streets. We would like to look at the Grand Bazaar from the perspective of the famous Turkish fashion designer, Cemil Ipekci, who takes us on a journey through history's multiple layers. A journey on which we are accompanied by magical spells, trees of life, needlework, and chintamani motifs. THE OTTOMAN SOUL Our meeting place is the Fes Café, one of the Grand Bazaar's modern venues. Ipekci sips a cup of coffee here every time he comes to the Bazaar. He says he likes it because `it reminds people once again of the forgotten Grand Bazaar'. The Bazaar has a special meaning of course for a designer who, throughout the thirty-plus years of his professional career, has always interpreted the Ottoman in his collections, taking his visual language from its synthesis of cultures: `This place nourishes me,' he says. `It's also a place that reminds me over and over again of my entire life... I was only three or four years old the first time I came to the Grand Bazaar. I came here every week with my mother and my two grandmothers. We always bought something, drank tea and then went down to Eminonu.' A habit going back to his boyhood days... Ipekci emphasises that he owes his unique outlook and his reputation as an ethnic designer to the culture he acquired in the Grand Bazaar: `Exactly fifty-four years ago I started getting to know lots of people and jewellers in the Grand Bazaar, lots of stones and old jewellery too. Ottoman mores and customs surrounded and shaped me. Who knows, maybe that's why I always feel I'm as solid as the Bazaar itself.' The designer does not believe in rejecting custom and tradition in the name of `modernisation' but believes that cultures are only enriched if they are re-interpreted by the new age. The two separate Abdulla shops on Halicilar Caddesi, the avenue of the carpet merchants, satisfies this aspiration of Ipekci's. `Abdulla brought a new approach to the Bazaar. That's why I like his place. The decor and presentation are modern but the soaps and towels and the blue beads hanging at the door are all exactly as they were in the old days...' Leaving Abdulla, we follow Ipekci to the shops he frequents. Our next stop is on Terlikciler Sokak, the street of the slipper merchants, a shop where Afghan and Turkmen goods are sold. Its name, Kuyumcular. What all they have here! Traditional jewellery made of German silver and semi-precious stones, children's clothes decorated with seashells and old coins, spice boxes... These are the pieces Ipekci included in large numbers in his 1992 embroidery collection called `Suzeni', a Persian word meaning `needlework', a form of decorative embroidery that started in Iran and was later picked up by the Uzbeks, Turkmens and Ottomans. `Five years ago the Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kyrgyz and Tatars started reviving our authentic ancient culture. Fifty years ago there wasn't anything called Uzbek work, but when you stroll through the Grand Bazaar today you can see motifs going back to our Asian roots.' `IN THE TIME OF THE GYPSIES' Each one of these pieces tells a different story, expresses different feelings. And this is what impresses Ipekci. Pointing out the traces of the cultures assimilated and spread by the nomads in the lands through which they passed, he explains enthusiastically: `Look at these children's clothes! This floral motif, for example, is the `flower of life' which goes back to the earliest periods of Mesopotamia. You can see it on Byzantine gravestones, and in Roman jewellery as well. And the seashells used as decoration show that half of the Gobi desert used to be a sea.' Everything in this shop is a source of inspiration for Ipekci's `Sahire' (Sorceress) collection, which tells the story of the Turks' conversion from Shamanism to Islam. The next stop on our Grand Bazaar tour is a shop on Perdahcilar Caddesi, Muhlis Gunbatti's place selling covers and caftans decorated with needlework. Examples of Maras and Selimiye work are brought out one by one. He also has an interesting story to tell: `In the seventeenth century the Ottoman Sultan sent a wife to the Sultan of Malaysia, a woman of Antep who was highly skilled in the local technique of embroidery with gold thread. She taught everyone in the palace, and eventually it became Malaysia's traditional embroidery. While we pay a thousand dollars for one piece, over there the women do it for five dollars so of course the whole world has it done there. That's how we gave this art away back in the seventeenth century.' As we admire the lovely needlework, we notice a `tree of life' motif on one 300-year-old piece. `This is truly significant,' says Ipekci, taking us straight back to our Shamanist roots: `We turned from Shamanism to Islam, but we never abandoned our beliefs. The god of land, the god of the sky, scraps of cloth tied on trees as votive offerings, the Chintamani... Its three dots symbolize eternal life, and the curving shapes the fertility of woman--a talisman exhibiting traces of Buddhism and Shamanism. Among Muslims it was worn only by the Ottoman sultans, with a prayer embroidered over it. And I find that very nice.' THE MAGIC OF ANATOLIAN CLOTH We turn now to Yaglikcilar Caddesi, a street lined with shops selling regional textiles. Ipekci is in his element at the Sivas Tokat Pazar at no. 55. Here Murat Danis, an old friend of the Ipekci family, sells cotton flannels, Denizli `buldan' textiles, bridal gowns and trousseau fabrics that he collects from all over Anatolia. `I owe my identity as Cemil Ipekci to this man!' he says, `with whom I've done business every since I opened my first boutique, called Cingene (`Gypsy'), in 1974. This shop is my true niche in the Grand Bazaar. I buy all my fabrics here. The flannel in the clothes I made for Azra Akin was from here. There's something magical about these fabrics.' `THE EMERALD IS MY STONE' At the end of our journey into the different layers of history, we turn to the Bedesten, the old market at the heart of the Grand Bazaar. Selcuk Ipek is a shop where Ipekci listens and learns: `Selcuk is very important to me because I get all my jewellery, or have it made, here. I like the crazy side of everything in life! People who work in the arts have to go beyond the mind. And Selcuk is like that, he's mad! Like me, he believes in the power and energy of stones. We meet here once a week on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes jewellery is being made. Taking a break here and chatting is like restoring your soul...' A talisman of every culture and every belief hangs round his neck... An original Chinese coin, an Indian `Om' inscription... His lucky stone is the emerald: `I've had a huge interest in the emerald all my life, ever since childhood. The first time I cried as a baby, I stopped when I grabbed onto my mother's emerald necklace. I have an inexplicable love for that stone. I get lost in its green. I have a big emerald ring and a collection of emerald seals. The emerald is actually a very sacred stone. It brings luck, and life...' The Grand Bazaar's `magic' too lies in the way it is able to embrace all cultures, beliefs and vanishing values. What else could it be that binds Cemil Ipekci to this place with such a deep sense of belonging? |
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