Ad for Safa’s forthcoming serial novel Şimşek in Cumhuriyet, February 2, 1926 In his lifetime, Peyami Safa was one of Turkey’s most popular authors; he wrote newspaper columns, short stories,…| Reuben Silverman
Top: President Evren and Sheikh Khalifa (Milliyet, March 11, 1985) Bottom: President Erdoğan and Sheikh Tamim (Stratejik Düşünce Enstitüsü, November 15, 2024) The relationship between Turkey and Qa…| Reuben Silverman
From Cumhuriyet, January 21, 1956 He would certainly have made an impression on the Dino brothers when they first met him in Adana in the early 1940s. Abidin and Arif Dino were urbanites, art…| Reuben Silverman
Before he was a famous left-wing literary figure—and long before he was found murdered in a forest along the Turkish-Bulgarian border—Sabahattin Ali was a frustrated teacher, appointed to positions in the provinces, far from his country’s cultural centers. During the school year of 1927/28, when he was just twenty-one years old, he was assigned to […]| Reuben Silverman
On the eve of Turkey’s centennial anniversary celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a mass rally in support of Palestine. He reminded his audience that, only a century earlier, Gaza had been part of the Ottoman Empire. He condemned Israel’s government and criticized the West for remaining silent in the face of Israel’s retaliatory killing […]| Reuben Silverman
I am a graduate student at the University of Washington. I tend to focus on Turkey, but I am interested, more generally, in the wider world. I am particularly interested in food, culture, and other…| Reuben Silverman
Ömer Seyfettin (1884-1920) is the sort of writer whose role in shaping a “national” literature is profound and unignorable, but whose writing fits awkwardly with contemporary sensibilities.[1] The …| Reuben Silverman
Like westerns in the US or samurai films in Japan, the efe film genre in Turkey drew on a past, partly real, partly mythologized, to create stories that resonated with movie-goers during the 1950s …| Reuben Silverman
The startling success of opposition parties—the CHP chief among them—played out in provinces across Turkey. Consider several examples. Compared to the results elsewhere, the local elections in Düzc…| Reuben Silverman
The Republican People’s Party Approaches Its First Election Under New Leadership in Over a Decade Local Mayoral Election Maps (from Haberler) The 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections were …| Reuben Silverman
Following Turkey’s elections, President Erdoğan empowered well-connected financial experts to return Turkey to economic orthodoxy. But is “orthodoxy” the solution to Turkey’s problems? …| Reuben Silverman
Rather than being outside the mainstream, Turkey’s far-right is disturbingly close to the centers of power. From Left to Right: Sinan Oğan, Ümit Özdağ and Meral Akşener (picture from Daily Sabah, A…| Reuben Silverman
Analysis of the Turkey’s May 14 Elections Picture from Sözcü, March 23, 2023 Election night on May 14 was deeply discouraging for supporters of the opposition coalition. They were prepared and on g…| Reuben Silverman
What politics in a small, southeastern province tells us about twenty years of AKP-rule in Turkey Picture from Independent Türkçe, March 9, 2021 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan first entered Turkey’s parliame…| Reuben Silverman
Halkbank, one of Turkey’s largest state-controlled financial institutions, gained notoriety during the 2010s as it was implicated in a scheme to evade Iranian sanctions. The bank, the scandal…| Reuben Silverman
Esbank was one of Turkey’s fastest growing financial institutions in the 1990s, until was revealed to be participating in a widespread manipulation of the banking system. Its rise and fall re…| Reuben Silverman
