64. Today in 1920s Turkey: 25 February 1920 (Censorship: Better Late Than Never, Part 2 of 3)
Türkçe:
Geçen hafta sansür tarafından te’hir edilen resimdir. Bu hafta müsaadesi istihsal edilmiştir.
Karagöz: Ooo… Maşallah, maşallah, eşekli agalar, tonton sakallılar, [SANSÜRLENMİŞ] böyle düşe kalka nereye!
Damat Paşa yaranı: Ne yaparsın Karagöz usta, attan indik eşeğe bindik, önümüzde deve kılaguz (kılavuz), içimizde birçok uğursuz arkamızda bir alay donsuz böyle kervan böyle gider.
English:
This is the picture that was held up last week. This week its permission was obtained.
Karagöz: Oh! Praise be, praise be, sirs with donkeys, darling bearded ones, [CENSORED] where are you going with such difficulty?
Damat Pasha’s Entourage: What can a person do, Karagöz? We got off horses and onto asses, before us [is] a camel guide, among us [are] many ill-fated/sinister ones, behind us [are] vagabonds such a caravan can only go like this.
Comments:
Four days prior to the publication of the present issue, Karagöz was forced to run a half-blank page because the cartoon was held up at the censorship office which was the subject of discussion in the previous post: #63. Censorship: No Cartoon Today, Part 1 of 3. Since the announcement on the page merely informed readers that the cartoon had been “delayed” we were left with the question of whether or not that cartoon would ever see the light of day. Thankfully, readers need not wait longer that the following issue of Karagöz … Here, not only is the “delayed” cartoon featured on the front page but it is explicitly identified as the picture that was omitted from last week’s issue in the text above.
Although the cartoon ended up passing the scrutiny of the censorship office it did not escape unscathed. A bit of the text has been removed from the dialogue below, presumably for violating someone’s delicate sensibilities. Based on the location of the blank spot at the end of a series of less-than-flattering descriptors aimed at the ex-Ottoman administrators featured in the picture one could conclude that the redacted text was some sort of insult.
The text below the cartoon relays a dialogue between Karagöz, the magazine’s namesake and mascot and the entourage of Damat Pasha. The imagery is simple and consists of a small caravan passing through a valley. Damat Pasha is the man riding the camel and Karagöz is the man overlooking the scene from the hillside. The Pasha’s entourage is located directly behind him and consists of two tired men on donkeys. I can’t identify the man on the right at the moment but the man on the left (while blurry) should be Cemal Pasha. Damat Pasha had married into the Ottoman family and served as Grand Vizier twice. He was brought to office on 4 March 1919 and was dismissed on 2 October 1919 only to be brought back to office a few months later on 5 April 1920. This cartoon was published in the months between his two terms. Cemal Pasha was part of the triumvirate of dictators that ruled the Ottoman Empire during WWI. After the war was lost the now infamous triumvirate and its party, the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki) was very unpopular and leaders such as Cemal Pasha fled the country before 5 July 1919 when they were found guilty for organizing and carrying out war crimes including the Armenian Genocide. Depicted in obvious exile, the disgraced Cemal Pasha being represented as a follower of the former Grand Vizier (and still, bridegroom to a former Ottoman sultan) may have raised some brows in the pro-sultanate censorship office, especially since the followers of the ex-vizier are described as vagrants or literally as “a brigade of underwearless [people] (bir alay donsuz)” rather than competent, desirable types.
Originally published at https://steemit.com on February 26, 2017.
