https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/the-daily/troubled-turkeys-fearless-art-scene


THE EKONOMİST

İhsan Oturmak, “Alphabet Revolution and Repetition” (2013)

Based on an old photograph from 1928, İhsan Oturmak’s painting is a reflection on President Mustafa Kamal Ataturk’s decree that Turkish was to be written using the Latin, rather than the Arabic, alphabet. The unhappy-looking students were against Ataturk’s government, the artist says, and many of them were later beheaded. As the title suggests, the painting explores the repetitive cycles of history. Over the past decade, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promoted the culture of Turkey’s Ottoman past. Religious schools at which students study subjects including Arabic and the Koran are growing in number, effectively reversing Ataturk’s reform in 1928.