Semiotics of Istanbul image in the Turkish literature and painting in the twentieth century

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Semiotics of Istanbul image in the Turkish literature and painting in the twentieth century

A.P. Artemenko, Doctor of Science (Social Philosophy and Philosophy of History), Professor, Professor of Social &Humanitarian Sciences Department (Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, Kharkiv, Ukraine)

G.B. Yetkin Gulhanim Bihter Yetkin PhD, Russian Language and Literature Department, Faculty Member (Ordu University, Turkie)

The article examines the semiotic model of Turkish literature and painting of the early twentieth century. The purpose of the article is to examine the dynamics of the visual and verbal images of Istanbul at the beginning of the twentieth century and its value basis. The object of the research is the image of Istanbul occupation period as special social period, created by the contemporaries of these events. The city is seen as an independent character of literature and painting works. It turns into a participant in history and a keeper of the collective memory of it. At the same time, an image of the city's authenticity, cultural and historical rootedness is born. The process of the city mental image creating by aesthetic and psychological tools is analyzed. This is an interdisciplinary study and it involves the combination of philosophical, literary and art criticism approaches to the study of verbal and visual images of the era. In theoretical terms, the work is focused on the phenomenological concept of culture. The methodological basis of the research is a semiotic and hermeneutic analysis of literature and painting works. The article examines the mechanisms of verbalization and visualization of the Istanbul image in the Turkish culture of the early XX century. The space of the city in the novel is the entourage of events, the place where the characters find the reality of their existence. Istanbul plays a key role in the manifestation of the Turkish novels characters of the occupation era. This is a general background that reveals the cultural and socioeconomic characteristics of people's lives. With this spatial reference, the fictional world in the work takes on visibility. The article analyzes the works of the artists of the "Generation 1914" group. The use of impressionistic techniques by Turkish artists of the early 20th century is considered. Thanks to her, a complex mosaic of the visual image of the city is formed; the diversity of everyday life is layered on the tectonic structures of Istanbul (minarets and domes of mosques). They turn into markers of urban identity, hold the space together into a single whole.

Conclusions: the image of Istanbul in painting and literature, as product of symbolic production and exchange, makes it possible to see a complete, decorated image of the era at the everyday social life. For a modern person, it is a marker of the historical past, national identity and regional authenticity. It reveals the complex evolution of the historical events, reflected in the art works, and their modern interpretation. This is noted as a manifestation of metaxis as hovering between different forms of reality, allowing one to experience the past in the present.

Key words: Symbolic production and exchange, Social Space, Social Challenges, City Atmosphere, Mental Image of Town, Urban Landscape, Turkish Painting, Turkish Literature.

Семіотика образу Стамбула в літературі і живописі Туреччини ХХ століття

А.П. Артеменко, Г.Б. Єткін

Стаття присвячена дослідженню семіотичної моделі творів турецької літератури та живопису початку ХХ століття та її світоглядно-ціннісним основам. Мета статті - розглянути динаміку візуального та вербального образу Стамбула початку ХХ століття. Об'єкт дослідження - образ цього міста періоду окупації, як періоду особливих соціальних викликів, створений сучасниками подій. Місто сприймається як самостійний актор творів, він перетворюється на учасника історії та зберігача колективної пам'яті про неї. Разом з цим народжується образ автентичності міста, культурної та історичної вкоріненості. Аналізується процес створення ментального образу міста за допомогою естетичних та психологічних інструментів. Дослідження має міждисциплінарний характер і передбачає поєднання філософського, літературознавчого та мистецтвознавчого підходів до вивчення вербальних та візуальних пам'яток епохи. У теоретичному плані робота зорієнтована на феноменологічну концепцію культури. Методологічна основа дослідження - семіотичний та герменевтичний аналіз творів літератури та живопису.

Висновки: образ Стамбула у живописі та літературі, як продукт символічного виробництва та обміну, дає можливість побачити закінчений, оформлений образ епохи у соціальному бутті конкретної спільноти. Для сучасної людини це маркер історичного минулого, національної ідентичності, регіональної автентичності. У ньому розкривається складна еволюція подій історії, відбита у художніх творах, та їх сучасна інтерпретація. Це визначено як прояв метаксису чи зависання між різними формами реальності, що дозволяє переживати минуле у теперішньому.

Ключові слова: символічне виробництво та обмін, соціальний простір, соціальні виклики, атмосфера міста, ментальний образ міста, міський пейзаж, турецький живопис, турецька література.

Introduction of the issue

The relevance of this study is associated with the formation of a new idea of the role and significance of culture in the conditions of modern civilization. We turn to the processes and phenomena of a difficult era of changing the worldview paradigm. Traditionally, culture has been viewed as a reflection of socio-economic processes, the formation of social structures, and social practices. With the advent of the concept of a creative economy, aspects of culture as a tool for social and economic correction of society were revealed. Culture began to be regarded as a special sphere for constructing the emotional and psychological experience of reality. The means of culture form the atmosphere in which a person lives, makes decisions, acts. It is the atmosphere of the environment that is responsible for the goals and meanings of human actions. In our study, this is the atmosphere of the city of Istanbul at a turning point in history. On the one hand, this makes it possible to see the finished, decorated historical image of the era. On the other hand, we see the influence of this image on a modern person, for whom it becomes a marker of historical rooting, authenticity, existential definition. Analysis of artistic works of a hundred years ago brings us to the problem of understanding modern culture and man. How are these works perceived in the situation of metamodern culture? How do meanings change in the conditions of metaxis - hanging between different forms of reality (works, history and modern interpretation)? How are the symbolic systems of the past decoded and recoded in modern consciousness? These are questions that actualize the chosen research topic, taking into account the new cultural conditions of the network space, new sincerity, meta-irony.

The purpose of the research is to determine the specifics of the formation of the visual and verbal image of Istanbul during the period of social upheavals at the beginning of the 20th century. The object of our research is the image of the city of the period of occupation, created by contemporaries. Let's consider several aspects. First, the city as an environment of social change, reflected in the literature and art of this period. Traditionally, literary criticism studies the image of a hero who accepts a city and creates a city, but at the same time, the city is rarely considered as an independent actor. Although it was the period under study that gave rise to the image of the city as an independent character in literature and painting. Secondly, the ways of describing the city as a space that is lived by the hero and the author, the man of the past era and our contemporary. We touch upon the problem of creating a mental image of the city with the help of aesthetic and psychological tools. And thirdly, in the context of the visual turn of modern culture, we will look at the process that Gernot Bцhme has described as "creating the atmosphere", in our case of Istanbul. That is, when the city becomes not just a background, but a condition of events. He turns into a participant in history and the keeper of the collective memory of it (comemoration). Along with this, an image of the city's authenticity, cultural and historical rootedness is born. As subjects of analysis, we have chosen a number of literary works of the occupation period. The second group of objects of research are paintings by Turkish artists painted in Istanbul at that time, where the main attention is paid to the urban landscape, genre scenes of urban life, and portraits of citizens.

The outline of unresolved issues brought up in the article. We consider the study of verbal and visual images in the culture of a certain era from the point of view of the modern visual turn of culture. The process of the birth of images reflecting the era has been studied in some detail within the framework painting, but their meanings change over time. We are interested in this process of changing, decoding and recoding the artistic image in new cultural conditions. Over time, we observe a layering of meanings in the understanding of literary characters and pictorial images. Distance in time turns them into an independent material for artistic creativity. Collage, citations, hypertextuality of postmodern culture are also relevant in the conditions of modern culture, but all these features are realized in an atmosphere of new sincerity, meta-irony, new sensuality that came along with the metamodern paradigm [3:50].

The subject of research we have chosen is quite unique in itself and does not often attract the attention of European scientists. Turkish literature and painting of the early twentieth century is a product of complex civilizational processes. On the one hand, this is the result of another westernization, but on the other hand, it is the emergence of a new national culture of Turkey, the rethinking of tradition with the help of new artistic techniques, and the “optics” of values and meanings. As a result, not a peripheral copy of European cultural innovations is born, but the original world of modern Turkish culture.

Analysis of recent research and publication from which the solution to this problem was initiated

The phrase "production of space” refers us to the direction in social theory, represented by such authors as Pierre Bourdieu [5], Henri Lefebvre) [7], Michel de Certeau [10], Umberto Eco [11]. The works of these authors reveal the problem of creating a mental image of the city, as a result of complex procedures for correlating trajectories and transformations of spaces and their representations of what M. Mamardashvili called the sum of angles [8].

Historical process: the occupation of Istanbul Istanbul is called the "City of Emperors and Sultans". This is a city that for most of its history was the capital of the great empires - Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. This is where world history was made. Due to its importance in the world militarypolitical, religious-cultural and economic processes, Istanbul received the names "Paytaht-i-Zemin / Center of the Earth", "Capital of the World", "Tsargrad", "Belde-i Tayibe / Holy Land", " Ummu addunya/mother of the world” [37:13-15]. This city throughout its history was the center of medieval Mediterranean civilizations, and on May 29, 1453 it was conquered by the Turks and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire for many centuries.

After the decline of the empire in the second half of the XIX century, Istanbul attracted the attention of European states and became one of the main strategic goals of the Entente countries in the First World War of 1914-1918. After the signing of the Armistice of Mudros between the Ottoman Empire and the powers of the Entente on October 30, 1918, the allied squadron, consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships, stood on the roadstead of Istanbul on November 13, 1918. After that the city was actually occupied (the first occupation)[30:18]. In 1920, the Ottoman Empire accepted a new treaty imposed by the powers of the Entente, and on March 16, 1920, Istanbul officially came under the control of the occupation administration [18:2]. If during the first occupation the administration of the city remained independent and only important strategic points of Istanbul were taken under control, then during the second occupation the entire city and administration were completely subordinated to the occupation authorities [28].

During the years of the armistice, the total population of Istanbul was about 1 million 200 thousand people. At that time, Muslims made up half of the population. The second half of the inhabitants are representatives of other faiths, which included Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Levantines. After the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, a significant number of supporters of the White movement emigrated to Istanbul. The flow of refugees from Russia peaked in November 1920 after the defeat of the White Army of Baron Wrangel in the Crimea. [4:83]

At this time, a split was observed among the inhabitants of Istanbul, caused by the attitude towards the occupation. One part of them did not want war and demanded an end to the national liberation movement that originated in Anatolia. The other part resigned itself to what had happened and was inactive, waiting for salvation. The third: actively supported the fire of struggle that engulfed Anatolia.[13:25] From the end of 1918, only hopelessness, disappointment and despair reigned in the once mighty Ottoman capital [36:323,365,369]. This was reflected in literary works describing this period. Istanbul acts as an independent character in the events of the occupation, a mirror that reflects the worries, traumas and aspirations of the people living in it.

The image of the occupation of Istanbul in the Turkish novel Each literary work represents to us the time and space in which the characters live and act. Real or fictional spaces of literary works create the general atmosphere of the work, form a holistic mental image of events. It is associated with the internal perception of the environment in which a person grew up, with his culture and practice of relating to the world [25:83].

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu's novel Sodom and Gomorrah (1928) is also set in Istanbul. The high society of the Levant during the years of occupation is the main theme of the work. Istanbul, the capital of the once mighty Ottoman Empire, became a place of sin, where moral decay reached its climax [15:326]. This is the realm of casinos, bars and entertainment venues. The title of his novel Karaosmanoglu contains an allusion to the fate of Istanbul as biblical cities that were destroyed due to the immoral life of their inhabitants. This novel is a denunciation of the dirty life prevailing in the capital, where people who collaborate with the occupation regime are sharply condemned. Istanbul is depicted in the novel as a dystopia where there is no way to survive. The city has lost its former glory, turned into a tasteless and devalued monument of the past. Prostitution and immoral relationships have become a normal part of everyday life in a city that is sinking into the abyss day by day. Sexual intemperance, extramarital sex are becoming the norm. Women compete among themselves in the number of sexual partners from among foreign officers. Men who want to get rich quick with the help of the British also engage in homosexual relationships with officers. According to Yakup Kadri, Istanbul with its glorious history, architecture and unique urban culture no longer exists, it has become a shabby and dirty city where women are left to the enemy on a golden plate. [16: 230, 231, 235]. The work reflects the sad transformation of Istanbul, in which the city is simultaneously presented as a place of events and an image of the moral decay of people.

These are the last years of the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid, the period after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and the years of the armistice and occupation of Istanbul after the end of the First World War. The social life of Istanbul at this time reflects the political and social changes in Turkish society. The novel demonstrates the complex relationship between the political elite, the intelligentsia and the people. Corruption, decay and meanness in these relations are the main theme of the novel. The author's goal in this work, which he achieves perfectly, is to show three different Istanbuls as an image of a society that found itself in a difficult historical situation and the changing social reality of that period [14:20-21].

Esat Mahmut Karakurt, one such writer, uses this technique in Goodbye (1936). His book tells the story of the love between the daughter of a British general and a Turkish soldier. The places of events change - Istanbul, then Inebolu and, finally, Istanbul again. This makes it possible to see not only plot changes, but also changes in the situation and the image of the city where the events unfold. During this period, espionage, attacks, arms smuggling and destructive social conflicts became commonplace, part of everyday life in Istanbul.

The image of occupied Istanbul in Turkish painting of the 1920s

The events of history that shocked contemporaries are reflected not only in literature, but also in painting. The writers of this time are trying to comprehend the new world that came with the dream of Westernization and progress, of a new social order and enlightenment, with the desire to get rid of the oppressive archaism and with faith in the future of the Motherland. But "the coming tomorrow” turned out to be sad. And this moment is experienced as a break in ideas about the world, to which the attention of artists and writers is riveted. As a result of this experience, a clear evaluative discourse appears with its own system of sign and symbolic constructions, indicating the meaning of the events of the era. Verbal structures are complemented by visual images of painting.

Among the painters, the group “Generations of 1914” should be singled out. According to Burcu Pehlivan, it was they who created the tradition of the Turkish Istanbul landscape of the 20th century [29:101]. This group included Mihri Musfiq Khanim, Adil Omer, Duran Feykhaman, Lifij Avni, Ibrahim Challi, Mehmet Ruhi, Nazmi Ziya Guran, Namik Ismail. The artists were educated in Europe and brought the principles of the new painting tradition to Turkey. They returned to their homeland in 1914 and became direct witnesses of the period of occupation. We will consider their works, which were written from life and under the impression of the events experienced in 1917-1923.

In the Turkish art history tradition, the works of the Generation 1914 group have been studied quite well. These are representatives of the national school of impressionism, who formed a new art school of Turkish painting at the beginning of the 20th century. Themes, plots and genres of works, as well as the writing technique of representatives of the "Generation of 1914" - all this has not lost its relevance for historians of Turkish art. However, studies devoted to the semiotic analysis of these works are much rarer 35:23-32]. As part of the development of this direction in Turkish painting, not only the technical methods of European painting are applied, but a special relationship to the surrounding world is created. This is a revolution in visualization, which corresponds to the socio-cultural and economic-political processes that took place at that time in Turkey. We can agree with the opinion of A. Lefebvre that any social process and social system creates its own physical space and ways of its presentation. Therefore, the works of artists belonging to the Generation of 1914 group will be considered as a reaction to the historical events of this period, their comprehension and visualization. But at the same time, we will also be interested in the process of perception of these works within the framework of modern culture.

In the literary tradition, we meet the opposition of heroes, personifying the opposing forces of invaders and patriots, retrogrades and revolutionaries, conditional "us" and "them". In painting, the emphasis of confrontation is shifted to the periphery of the image. The artist turns to the landscape, in which there are so many objects that are associated with the lost calm of the past. And in this genre, the Istanbul landscapes of this period occupy a special place. It is they who create the image of the ubiquitous actor of all events - the city. Istanbul is not just a background, but a condition for those life experiences that contemporaries talk about.

The image of Istanbul in the painting of this time is unusual. In the urban landscape, artists avoid talking directly about what frightens them today, limiting themselves to allusions and allegories. An exception may be the work of Ismail Namik "Typhus" (1917), where the oppressive image of the epidemic is placed in the urban landscape. The dark silhouettes of women, the sad ruins, the twilight that swallowed up the city - all this is like a bad dream, a bad vision. The beautiful city remains in the background, like hope coupled with nostalgia for the past.

Fig. 1. Ismail Namik "Typhus" (1917)

It seems that for the artists all the hardships and horrors remained outside the walls of the city. The landscapes of Istanbul can be snow-covered like those of Khoja Ali Riza (“Snow in Uskudar”) (who was not part of the “Generation of 1914” group) (Fig. 2) or Sami Yetik (“Snowy Istanbul”) (Fig. 6), mysterious like that of Ismail Namik (“Mosque in the Moonlight”) (Fig. 3) or windy cold, as in the painting by Nazmi Ziya Gyuran “Nusretiye Mosque in Tophane” (Fig. 4). But they do not convey the impression of a city under occupation or a city that has undergone deep sociocultural and political upheavals. Istanbul appears as a kind of constant, where all events are perceived as a kind of night or seasonal bad weather. At the same time, the snow reveals the contours of the city, the diversity of the street crowd, or the moonlight draws the contours of the eternal city with deep shadows.

Fig. 2. Khoja Ali Riza "Snow in Uskudar"

Fig. 3. Ismail Namik "Mosque in the moonlight"

Just like the literature of this period, the urban landscape tends to capture everyday life. But in this aspiration, a special language of Turkish painting is manifested, created by the adopted tradition of European academicism and impressionism, layered on the national specifics of visual perception. Here color, light and forms take on new meanings. This is similar to a language reform, when there is a transition to the Latin alphabet, but the words and their meanings remain the same. Turkish artists of the "Generations of 1914” group mastered the technique of European painting at the turn of the 11th - 20th centuries, which they transferred to national soil. But in their perception, impressionism has become one of the technologies for creating an image, and not a protest against academic tradition. Most of the authors of this period define themselves as representatives of impressionism, but the key to understanding Turkish impressionism lies in getting to know the history of the formation of artists. A significant part of them were trained at the Acadйmie Julian and worked in the workshop of Fernand Cormon. In the 1900-1910s, the influence of German Impressionism and especially Max Liebermann on Turkish artists is noted. However, in essence, the impressionism of the early twentieth century became an officially recognized style and took its place in the academic structures of painting education. This technique of writing became the norm of art education, which was practiced by many artists of that time, who in the future would discover their own style and new directions in painting. For Turkish artists, Impressionism is part of the academic tradition, not a protest against it, as was the case in France in the 1860s and 70s.

This is an emotional reaction to an environment where a kaleidoscope of historical events and the uncertainty of the future reveal the value of the present, every day of life.

Ismail Namik creates the image of a guardian city with dazzling white walls and towers, or sunny streets and a road that curves, but always leads us to the light. The dark lower third of these landscapes, like a shadow from a cloud, will quickly be replaced by the sun. This is a slight obstacle separating us from the desired city.

Compositionally, these two works by Ismail Namik are similar to the landscapes we examined by Sami Yetik.

There is a certain spatial gap in the foreground, which speaks of distance in relation to the image.

We see an image distant from us. In the landscapes of these two artists, the city appears as a dream and hope, or as nostalgia and sadness for the past. In any case, this is a world that embraces a person from all sides. The impressionistic technique of large strokes creates a special language of the image, as if leaving the details unsaid and not clarified.

Why talk about small things when the world is falling apart? The space of these paintings captures not the details, but the experience of presence.

Things and people become color spots that only make sense in the general canvas of the picture.

Of course, parallels arise here with the perception of historical events, the huge mass character of the processes that took place at that time. This is reminiscent of the plot of Kemal Tahir's novel "Inhabitants of the Captive City", where a huge number of characters create a vivid literary canvas of the events of the occupation period.

In fact, every image of this novel is a bright spot of color, similar to those that create Sami Yetik's painting "Snowy Istanbul".

Istanbul appears in a completely different way in the female portraits of Ibrahim Challa, Ize ta Zeya, Nazmi Zeya Guran, Ismail Namik. The interiors of apartments and restaurants, streets and embankments become the backdrop for new female images.

Not only the silhouettes of women's clothing are changing (they are becoming more open and even defiant), but also the faces and images of women. It is enough to compare two works by Izet Ziya "Woman with an umbrella" (1911) (Fig. 11) and "Girl on the shore" (1917) (Fig. 12).

There is a whole gulf between these female images. And the same abyss between the worlds in which they live. A common detail is a red umbrella.

But if in the picture of 1911 he lies on the shoulder of a girl coquettishly and proudly looking at the viewer, then on the canvas of 1917 he is closed and left aside, and the heroine herself looks thoughtfully and sadly into the distance.

These two images are an illustration to the novel "Three Istanbuls" by Mithat Cemal Kuntai, showing Sultan Abdulhamid's Istanbul and Istanbul after the Young Turk Revolution.

Fig. 11. Woman with an umbrella

The inhabitants of Istanbul in the paintings of this period tell us about how their world has changed. And step by step, year by year, these changes are becoming more radical and irreversible.

Analyzing novels about this time, we noted the desire of writers to show the profound changes in the lives of the characters and society as a whole that took place in such a short period of time. In the same way, these three portraits by Ismail Namik become the illustration "People off the stage” by Ahmet a Hamdi Tanpinar, expressing the movement of the city's mood towards disappointment and apathy.

Fig. 15. Ismail Namik Mediha Khanym (1920)

Conclusions

Thus, the verbal and visual images created by the authors as witnesses to the occupation are combined into a single set of ideas about the events of 1918-22. Within the framework of the literature and painting of this time, stereotypical images are formed that speak of fear, confusion, despair and disappointment that accompany the experience of social cataclysms. In the future, these stereotypes themselves will serve as a kind of "building material" for the literature and painting of the next time. This happened in Tanpinar's novel "People Out of the Scene" or in Khalil Dikmen's painting "Women in the War of Liberation", where the images fit into a meaningful and designated context of historical events. The pathos of heroism and tragedy is manifested against the background of the markers of great events. The greater the time distance with the events of the last century, the more the role of images created in modern culture changes. The great events of the past become the entourage for the adventurous novels of modern literature. However, we are not talking about mockery or distortion of the idea of the era. This is an attempt to reconstruct events on the basis of modern ideas about the past, within the framework of our perception of social and aesthetic practices. In turn, this brings us to the problem of understanding modern culture and man. From the stage of describing the experiences of events and creating a symbolic expression of meanings, modern culture is moving to the construction of mechanisms for historical rooting, authenticity, and existential definition. Thus, we comprehend these works in the situation of metamodern culture, constantly keeping in mind the understanding of cultural, semantic, historical distance. We evaluate artists' writing techniques and literary images from a postknowledge point of view. Turning to the topic of the historical past, we are forced to go through a multi-layered procedure for decoding and recoding images.

By means of culture, an understanding of the emotional and psychological atmosphere of the events of the past is formed, in which a person lives, makes decisions, and acts. The recent past with all the hardships, fears, the feeling of losing the familiar world appears as a cleansing before a new life. In our study, this atmosphere of the city of Istanbul, reproduced in painting and literature, reflects a turning point in history. It becomes an explanation of how the goals and meanings of human actions are formed. On the one hand, this makes it possible to see the finished, decorated image of the era. On the other hand, we see the influence of this image on modern man. For him, it is a marker of the historical past, national identity, regional authenticity. In general, the complex evolution of the events of history, their reflection in the work, and their modern interpretation are revealed before us. We have the right to note this as a manifestation of metaxis - hanging between different forms of reality, which allows us to experience the past in the present.

Література

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