patrolling turkish history, part 2: the memory of 6-7 Eylül 1955

Fifty years ago this month, on the nights of 6 and 7 September 1955, a series of anti-minority riots took place here in İstanbul, delivering a terrible blow to the cosmopolitan legacy of the Ottoman Empire by promting the mass emigration of many of the city's remaining Greek Orthodox population. The rioters, supposedly infuriated by rumors of a bomb planted in Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's birthplace, destroyed or severely damaged 4,214 houses, 1,004 shops, 73 churches, one synagogue, 2 monasteries, 26 schools, and 5,317 other establishments, including factories, hotels, bars, etc., owned by non-Muslim minorities (figures from the Tarih Vakfı/History Foundation). Hundreds of people were injured, and between 12 and 20 people killed. Among the mob were organized units of provocateurs and members of nationalist organizations, some of whom had prepared lists of the addresses of minority homes and shops. The ultranationalist "Kibris Türktür" ("Cyrpus is Turkish") organization helped coordinate the attacks, and some accounts suggets that the ruling Democrat Party government played a role in organizing (or at least turning a blind eye to) the pogrom (see here for the abstract of a recent article on the subject).

At the time, the Turkish government blamed "Communists" for the riots and used them as a pretext to persecute leftist activists and intellectuals. But one of the the judges who served at the military courts that investigated the events, Vice Admiral Judge Fahmi Çoker, quietly preserved much of the evidence against the real perpetrators of the riots, hoping it could later be made public. He eventually granted the materials to the Tarih Vakfı to be exhibited after his death, and they now form the core of an extraordinary exhibition--Ellinci Yılında 6-7 Eylül Olayları--currently being shown at İstanbul's Karşı Sanat gallery.

The exhibition, organized by the Tarih Vakfı with the co-sponsorship of the human rights organizations Helsinki Yurtaşlar Derneği and İnsan Yerleşim Derneği--consists primarily of photos and documents, annotated with wall panels bearing eyewitness narratives of the events, all arranged chronologically, hour by hour, tracking the unfolding violence. There's also a video of witnesses and survivors recounting their experiences. In concert with the exhibition, Tarih Vakfı has scholarly panels on the riots, published a book on the events and a bound volume of the photographs, and put the matter on the front page of its monthy history magazine Toplumsal Tarih (Social History). These unflinching efforts to face a dark episode in modern Turkish history strike me as a very hopeful sign indeed, especially in the context of other recent and ongoing attempts to broaden the discussion about historical wrongs, minority rights, the Kurdish question, the Greek-Turkish relationship, the Cyprus dispute, and so forth. They've certainly provoked a defensive reaction from right-wing nationalists, though--a group of militants attacked the Karşı Sanat exhibit last week, throwing eggs and ripping down photos. But their attempts to stifle this confrontation with the past seem to have failed--when I went to see it last week, the rooms at Karşı Sanat were full of people--some near tears--soberly viewing the shocking images. Go here to see some of them yourself.