From: erkin@nynexst.com (Erkin Cubukcu)
Subject: Turkish Culture
Organization: NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 16:58:53 GMT



TURKISH CULTURE

As a digression  from  the hot topic, seriat vs.  secularism.  I decided to
write  about  something  which  I  felt  we,  as  Turks,  should  pay  more
attention,   that   is   our   culture.   Speaking   of   culture,  in  any 
typical international gathering, someone will come up and say Chineese have
(8000?), Iranians have (5000?) & Greeks have (3000?) years of civilization,
what have you got, as Turks. My typical comment has been that we have  also  
a very long  history of civilization, maybe (2000?) or (3000?) years, maybe
longer.  But I am not sure, in the back of my mind, the  exact  length  and
how to  measure  it,  in the first place.  Usually, discussion ends with no
concrete result.  So the question is how can we measure its length.    When
someone  talks  about  its lenth does he/she mean the written civilization.
If that is  so, then do the tales, (e.g. Dede Korkut, Homer) told from  one
generation to   another   count?    What  about  the  interactions  between
civilizations?  Which culture gets (copies) from which culture?  The reason 
I decided to write on these topics was some books and articles I read,  and
of course,  the discussions I had with my non-Turkish friends.  I will talk
about them below:  

In one of the footnotes of Plato's "The Symposium" there was a reference to
a play  written  by  Euripides. The name of the play was Alcestis.  In this
play, Admetus, king of Pharae in Thessaly was told by Apollo that  he  must
die unless he could induce a substitute to die in his place.  When even his 
parents refused  to  do  so, his  wife  Alcestis  offered herself.  She was
afterward rescued from Hades by Heracles.  Phaedrus mentions this story  in
his speech in the Symposium to praise the love and  emphasize its power.   

Does this sound familiar?  I remember reading the same story in Dede Korkut 
in Lycee in Turkiye. Is it possible that two societies in different parts of 
the world  in  different times can come up with exactly the same story?  If
this is not possible then is it possible that one copied from another?   

Does anyone on the net know which is older, Dede Korkut stories or Euripides's
play Alcestis?   

Again, one day I was browsing the Magazine, National Geographics. In one of 
the letters to the editor, an Iranian wrote that National Geogrphics made a 
mistake  identifying  Mevlana  Celaddin  Rumi as a Turkish Sufi although he
lived or died in Asia Minor. The letter, I assume  was  referencing  to  an
article   about   Mevlana   published  in  an  earlier  issue  of  National
Geographics, According to this letter, Mevlana is  Iranian  with  his  name
spelling (and possibly sounding) Iranian as given in the letter.   

These create some confusion for me.  Either in high school in Turkiye, they 
are not teaching us the truth or other cultures are trying to claim what we 
have.  And  we,  Turks, are not trying hard to protect our culture.  We are
not studying our past, our culture and its interaction with others.   

I do not even remember seeing a book  about  Dede  Korkut  selling  in  the
bookstores in Turkiye. I am sure it is published somewhere in Turkiye,  but 
is not  very popular so you do not see it in the bookstores.  I do not dare
to imagine seeing translations of Dede Korkut or similar literature selling 
in New York, Paris or London. I keep wondering if it is  too  difficult  or
not  worth  the  effort  to  translate  them to other  languages by Turkish
literati born and/or living in these places.  Or other  possibility  we  do
not have capable people to the job.   

As I  think  about  I get mor frustrated.  Not only do we care our past but
also today's culture.  I remember in "Ilkokul" we use to have a very  small
pocket size dictionary.  Many decades past since then I have yet to see one 
big  dictionary  including  all the words we use new or old, similar to the
American Webster's Dictionary. Is it embarasing that there is not even  one
descent dictionary we can give to the students coming from Turkic Republics 
of Central asia?   

In  Turkiye, there is a big euphoria about Central Asia. Apart from forming
economic relationships, everyone wants to  know  more  about  these  Turkic
Republics. there  is  a  desire  to  know  our ancestry.  After all, we are
taught that we came from there.  Turkish Education   Minister  visited  the
Central Asia  in  this  past summer.  (At that time I  was in Turkiye and I
watched an interview with him about his trip to the area on  TV  after  his
return).   In  his  interview,  he told that visiting Semerkant, Buhara and
many other great places we learned in history classes  is  like  living  in
history since  our  ancestry  lived  in  those  places.    I  wonder if any
professor in any Turkish University started a study on the culture  and  as
part  of it the  language of these Turkic republics to see the commonalities
and  differences  between these and Turkish culture and to see which of the
stories  are genuinely ours and which ones we took from other cultures.

Erkin Cubukcu


-- 
Erkin Cubukcu                          Ph#:     (914) 644-2876
NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.       Fax#:    (914) 644-2237
500 Westchester Ave. Rm# 2G-16B        e-mail:  erkin@nynexst.com
White Plains, NY 10604
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish