Claudia Calleja
Almost a century after a Turkish politician was exiled to Malta, his five great-grandchildren and their families are visiting the island aboard a boat they call home.
Curious to see the island where their ancestor was imprisoned for 21 months, their trip to Malta is really part of their farewell to Hulda, the sailing boat brimming with childhood memories.
Their late father, Turkish sculptor Ilhan Koman, renowned for merging art and scientific principles, had bought the Baltic cargo ship in 1965 when he moved to Sweden and met his second wife Kerstin. The couple turned the two-mast schooner into a home for their family.
During this emotion-packed voyage, rooted in family ties, his five children will realise his unfulfilled dream: to take the boat to Turkey. “It’s a dream that our parents had,” his daughter, Elif, said as her brother Korhan added: “When he bought the ship he dreamt of taking it to Turkey but did not manage”. So, a few years ago, their brother Ahmet decided that he would ensure his father’s wish came true.
In September, Hulda will be visiting the land their great-grandfather, Mehmed Seref, fought for to the extent that he was imprisoned in his quest for its independence.
In 1920, when Turkey was under British invasion, Mr Seref, an MP in the last Ottoman Parliament, was involved in a movement that drafted a vow for independence.
During a parliamentary sitting he deviated from procedure and read out the vow that was accepted by Parliament. Soon after, British forces disbanded Parliament and he was arrested and became one of 149 Turks exiled to Malta between 1919 and 1920.
“In his diary he wrote about the Polverista prison which we now know houses the Vittoriosa local council… He also wrote that he was inmate number 2779 in cell 19 at the Niverola prison, which we did not manage to trace,” his great-grandson, Ahmet Koman, said. He hoped to organise a reunion of the relatives of the exiled men.
“There were 149 people… If they have large families like ours we can invade Malta again,” he joked in reference to the Great Siege when the Ottoman Empire attacked the island.
In fact, their large family – consisting of the five siblings, most of their 12 children, some with spouses, and three grandchildren – are now aboard the Hulda for the farewell sail.
Apart from serving as their home, the boat was also an inspiration to Ilhan Koman’s works.
“He always said that the Hulda was his biggest work because he was always working on it,” Elif said adding it was built in 1905 and demanded a lot of maintenance till today.
“Our parents had bought the boat because they no longer afforded the house they lived in. At the time, there were lots of cargo ships available, so they took the opportunity and realised their dream to live on a boat,” Korhan added.
Their father used to work on his art on the boat and on the quayside and, whenever they sailed around the Stockholm archipelago in summer, he took his art with him.
Now, 24 years after his death, his art is travelling around 10 countries through the Hulda Festival organised by Ahmed to showcase his father’s works and celebrate the relationship between art and science.
Through this project – realised with the help of the Turkish and Swedish authorities, the European Commission and the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Programme – the boat left Sweden in March 2009 and travelled through the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Now it is in Malta, where the family gathered for the farewell holiday, after which the boat will go to Greece before reaching its new home in Turkey’s Istanbul where it will remain a travelling cultural and scientific centre… just as Ilhan Koman dreamed it should.
, 19th July 2010