Category: Culture/Art

Istanbul’s 16th century “New Mosque”

Last week, the New York Times ran a story describing what it called “an aggressive campaign by Turkey to reclaim antiquities it says were looted,” calling attention to a situation which spotlights the unique position of that country in relation to the rest of the world – as much culturally as politically – at a time when its global role is rapidly gaining power.

And even as the repatriation demands — which particularly gained momentum during the past spring – heighten tensions between Turkey and its European neighbors, they expose in many ways the path it seems to be carving for its future: one of continued independence, to be sure, but of greater influence and power, particularly in the Middle East.

It makes sense, of course, that the Turks would seek restitution of their heritage, as any country would. What is surprising in this case, however, is the vehemence and strong-arming tactics with which they are attempting to do it, and the belligerence of the country’s Cultural Minister, Ertegrul Günay, who has described the private owners of some Turkish artifacts he claims were stolen as “unscrupulous”, and whose tactics include blackmailing countries who contest his demands by refusing museum loans and, worse, revoking archeological permits. (When I contacted his office for comment, an English-speaking press officer informed me that he could not speak about the matter and hung up on me.  After a Turkish journalist friend called the Ministry of Culture and chided them for this behavior, another officer promised to respond to questions sent via e-mail. She did not.)

Yet all of this is playing out even while, as far as the owners of many of these items are concerned, the treasures in question were covered by a 1970s UNESCO resolution, ratified by Turkey in 1981, that, as the Times writes, “lets museums acquire objects that were outside their countries of origin before 1970.”

So why has Turkey changed its mind? And what does its new drive to retrieve these artifacts really signal?

The first answer is simple: Nationalism. Always strong in Turkey, where portraits of Ataturk grace virtually every restaurant, shop, and home, nationalist sentiment is on the rise these days, a result largely of the country’s strengthened economy, and of its new roles as an ideological beacon to many in the wake of the “Arab Spring.”   Yet it is a nationalism with a particular bent, and one that diverges from the attitudes that have characterized the country for the past 90 years – since the rise of Kemal Ataturk an the founding of the Republic: under its conservative leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP, or Justice and Development Party, Turkey is looking to its roots.  The secular elite, long the engine that ran Turkey’s politics and culture, are losing their stronghold to a religious youth that, thanks to economic changes and new policies allowing women to wear headscarves at universities (for the first time in 20 years), are better educated and so, more influential than ever before.  Turkey’s pre-Kamal past, of course, is more popular among this group, and is particularly well-suited to reflect and help promote the goals of an Islamic government.

But not all the artifacts in question relate to the Ottomans, by any means; among those being pursued, for instance, are 6th-century Byzantine silver items now in the collection of Dumbarton Oakes in Washington, D.C.; a Cycladic marble sculpture, previously belonging to Nelson Rockefeller, now owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art; and last year, the Metropolitan Museum returned what a Turkish journalist described as “a stolen hoard of Lycian gold.”

Which brings us to the second reason – the one that powers all things political: money.

In 2011, Turkey ranked 6^th in world tourism, with $25 billion in revenues generated by 31.4 million tourists – and Günay aims to bring the country into the list of the top five, with a goal to generate $50 billion a year from 50 million tourists annually by 2023, when the country marks the 100th anniversary of the Republic.

Much of that revenue comes from Turkish cultural sites and museums, according to the Anatolia News Agency. Income from these sources, Günay claims, has surged from 70 million Turkish lira (about $40 million) in 2007, when he took office, to 250 million ($140 million) in 2011.    Now the country plans to invest in the cultural tourism sector with a bang: a 25,000 square meter “Museum of Civilizations” is scheduled to open in Ankara, the nation’s capital, in time for the anniversary year.  “Our dream,” Günay told German magazine Der Spiegel last July, “is the biggest museum in the world.”

It is telling, however, that this museum is aimed at focusing on civilizations past, not present. As a contemporary art boom explodes in the intellectual centers of Istanbul, conservatives have responded with reactionary dismay. To date, despite the popularity and international success of the Istanbul Biennale, the annual Contemporary Istanbul art fair, and a host of contemporary art galleries in Istanbul; despite strong sales of Turkish contemporary art at Sotheby’s and Christie’s London, not one of the country’s many modern and contemporary museums is sponsored by the state; they are all private enterprises, a combination of vanity and philanthropy initiated and maintained by wealthy members of the secular intellectual elite.  And much of it is part of a push towards further Westernization and the desire for EU membership.

By contrast, Prime Minister Erdogan has visibly turned Eastward, and even as Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gül, presses still towards the EU, Erdogan continues to institute policies that alienate Turkey from its European neighbors while coquettishly courting Iran.

These more recent antagonisms are not likely to help.  In fact, der Spiegel is quick to call Turkey on its hypocrisy, noting that “during the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, the occupiers emptied out entire rooms,” and that Egypt’s Obelisque of Theodosius now stands in Istanbul. A furious Hermann Parzinger, who oversees Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, clearly agreed,  telling the New York Times that Turkey “should be careful about making moral claims when their museums are full of looted treasures. “  (Even so, the Times quotes Günay a saying – bizarrely – that “artifacts, just like people, animals, or plants, have souls and historical memories. When they are repatriated to their countries, the balance of nature will be restored. “ One can’t help but wonder if this applies, too, to something like the Hagia Sophia mosque,  created as the center of the Eastern Orthodox church in the 4^th century.)

But the worst of it is that these tensions, it seems to me, are likely to have long-term deleterious repercussions – and it is Turkey who will most suffer.  How much greater would it be to see the Museum of Civilizations, say, open up to the modern world, making possible museum loans from places like the Met, as well as from MoMA and, say, the Stedelijk or the Pompidou, allowing works by Van Gogh and Mondrian, by Basquiat and Warhol, by Gerhard Richter and Richard Serra and more to appear in Turkish museums for the first time. What riches it would bring the Turkish people.

Alas, it seems that this is not to be.

Tags: Abigail R. Esman, Ankara, Ataturk, Istanbul, national heritage, Turkey, UNESCO