“With those children, Winston thought, that wretched woman (Mrs. Parsons) must lead a life of terror.
Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy.
Nearly all children nowadays were horrible.
What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency to rebel against the dıscipline of the Party.
On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it.
The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother – it was all a sort of glorious game to them.
All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought criminals.
It was almost normal for people over 30 to be frightened of their own children.
And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak – ‘child hero‘ was the phrase generally used – had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police.”
(Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell)
The members of the Hitler Youth were viewed as ensuring the future of Nazi Germany and were indoctrinated in Nazi ideology, including racism.
The boys were indoctrinated with the myths of Aryan racial superiority and to view Jews and Slavs as subhumans.
Members were taught to associate state-identified enemies such as Jews with Germany’s previous defeat in the First World War and societal decline.
The Hitler Youth were used to break up church youth groups, spy on religious classes and Bible studies and interfere with church attendance.
Education and training programs for the Hitler Youth were designed to undermine the values of traditional structures of German society.
Their training also aimed to remove social and intellectual distinctions between classes, to be replaced and dominated by the political goals of Hitler’s totalitarian dictatorship.
Sacrifice for the Nazi cause was instilled into their training.
As historian Richard Evans observes:
“The songs they sang were Nazi songs.
The books they read were Nazi books.“
Former Hitler Youth Franz Jagemann said that the notion “Germany must live” even if the members of the HJ had to die, was “hammered” into them.
The Hitler Youth appropriated many of the activities of the Boy Scout movement (which was banned in 1935), including camping and hiking.
However, over time it changed in content and intention.
For example, many activities closely resembled military training, with weapons familiarization, assault course circuits and basic fighting tactics.
The aim was to turn the HJ into motivated soldiers.
There was greater emphasis on physical ability and military training than on academic study.
More than just a way to keep the German nation healthy, sports became a means of indoctrinating and training its youth for combat.
This was in keeping with tenets outlined in Hitler’s notorious work, Mein Kampf.
In a 1936 edition of Foreign Affairs, an article discussing the appropriation of sports by contemporary dictatorial regimes such as Nazi Germany, commented that:
“The dictators have discovered sport.
This was inevitable.
Middle-aged and older persons have their roots in the ground, have affiliations with former régimes.
The hope of the dictators, therefore, was to win over youth to the new conception of life, the new system.
They found that they could best succeed through sport.
From being a simple source of amusement and recreation, it became a means to an end, a weapon in the hands of the All Highest.
It became nationalistic.
The ideal of sport for sport’s sake became an object of ridicule.
The real preoccupation of those who directed athletics became the mass production of cannon fodder.“
By 1937, there was a HJ rifle school established, partially at the behest of General Erwin Rommel, who toured HJ meetings and lectured on “German soldiering“, all the while he pressured Schirach to turn the HJ into a “junior army“.
During 1938, some 1.5 million HJ members were trained to shoot rifles.
Starting in early 1939, the OKW began supervising HJ shooting activities and military field exercises.
Upwards of 51,500 boys had earned their HJ Marksmanship Medal before the year’s end.
On 15 August 1939, a fortnight before the beginning of World War II, Schirach agreed with General Wilhelm Keitel that the entire Hitler Youth leadership must have “defence training“.
On 1 May 1940, Artur Axmann was appointed deputy to Schirach, whom he succeeded as Reichsjugendführer of the Hitler Youth on 8 August 1940.
Axmann began to reform the group into an auxiliary force which could perform war duties.
The Hitler Youth became active in German fire brigades and assisted with recovery efforts to German cities affected by Allied bombing.
The Hitler Youth also assisted in such organisations as the Reich postal service, the Reich railway services, and other government offices.
Members of the HJ also aided the army and served with anti-aircraft defence crews.
In 1942 Hitler decreed the establishment of “Hitler Youth defence training camps“, led by Wehrmacht officers.
Nazi leaders began turning the Hitler Youth into a military reserve to replace manpower which had been depleted due to tremendous military losses.
The idea for a Waffen-SS division made up of Hitler Youth members was first proposed by Axmann to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in early 1943.
The plan for a combat division made up of Hitler Youth members born in 1926 was passed on to Hitler for his approval.
Hitler approved the plan in February and Gottlob Berger was tasked with recruiting.
Fritz Witt of SS Division Leibstandarte (LSSAH) was appointed divisional commander.
In 1944, the 12th SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend was deployed during the Battle of Normandy against the British and Canadian forces to the north of Caen.
Over 20,000 German youths participated in the attempt to repulse the D-Day invasion.
While they knocked out 28 Canadian tanks during their first effort, they ultimately lost 3,000 lives before the Normandy assault was complete.
During the following months, the division earned a reputation for ferocity and fanaticism.
When Witt was killed by Allied naval gunfire, SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer assumed command and became the divisional commander at age 33.
As German casualties escalated with the combination of Operation Bagration and the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation in the east, and Operation Cobra in the west, members of the Hitlerjugend were recruited at ever younger ages.
By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting 12-year-old Hitler Youth members into its ranks.
During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann’s Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defence, and they were reportedly among the fiercest fighters.
Although the city commander, General Helmuth Weidling, ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations, in the confusion this order was never carried out.
The remnants of the youth brigade took heavy casualties from the advancing Russian forces.
Only two survived.
In 1945, there were various incidents of Hitler Youth members shooting prisoners, participating in executions, and committing other wartime atrocities.
The Hitler Youth was disbanded by Allied authorities as part of the denazification process.
Some Hitler Youth members were suspected of war crimes but, because they were children, no serious efforts were made to prosecute these claims.
While the Hitler Youth was never declared a criminal organisation, its adult leadership was considered tainted for corrupting the minds of young Germans.
Many adult leaders of the Hitler Youth were put on trial by Allied authorities.
German children born in the 1920s and 1930s became adults during the Cold War years.
Since membership was compulsory after 1936, it was neither surprising nor uncommon that many senior leaders of both West and East Germany had been members of the Hitler Youth.
Little effort was made to blacklist political figures who had been members, since many had little choice in the matter.
These German post-war leaders were nonetheless once part of an important institutional element of Nazi Germany.
Historian Gerhard Rempel opined that Nazi Germany itself was impossible to conceive without the Hitler Youth, as their members constituted the “social, political and military resiliency of the Third Reich” and were part of “the incubator that maintained the political system by replenishing the ranks of the dominant party and preventing the growth of mass opposition“.
Rempel also reports that a large percentage of the boys who served in the HJ slowly came to the realization that “they had worked and slaved for a criminal cause“, which they carried for a lifetime.
Some of them recalled a “loss of freedom” and claimed that their time in the HJ “had robbed them of a normal childhood“.
Historian Michael Kater relates how many who once served in the HJ were silent until older age when they became grandparents.
While they were eventually able to look back at their place in “a dictatorship which oppressed, maimed and killed millions“, he maintains that an honest appraisal should lead them to conclude that their past contributions to the regime had “damaged their own souls“.
Once Nazi Germany was defeated by the Allied Powers, the Hitler Youth was officially abolished by the Allied Control Council on 10 October 1945 and later banned by the German Criminal Code.
Children in the military, including state armed forces, non-state armed groups, and other military organizations, may be trained for combat, assigned to support roles, such as cooks, porters/couriers, or messengers, or used for tactical advantage such as for human shields, or for political advantage in propaganda.
Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures.
Children are targeted for their susceptibility to influence, which renders them easier to recruit and control.
While some are recruited by force, others choose to join up, often to escape poverty or because they expect military life to offer a rite of passage to maturity.
Child soldiers who survive armed conflict frequently develop psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioral problems such as heightened aggression, which together lead to an increased risk of unemployment and poverty in adulthood.
Research in the United Kingdom has found that the enlistment and training of adolescent children, even when they are not sent to war, is often accompanied by a higher risk of suicide, stress-related mental disorders, alcohol abuse, and violent behavior.
Since the 1960s, a number of treaties have successfully reduced the recruitment and use of children worldwide.
Nonetheless, around a quarter of armed forces worldwide, particularly those of third-world nations, still train adolescent children for military service, while elsewhere, the use of children in armed conflict and insurgencies has increased in recent years.
History is filled with children who have been trained and used for fighting, assigned to support roles such as porters or messengers, used as sex slaves, or recruited for tactical advantage as human shields or for political advantage in propaganda.
In 1813 and 1814, for example, Napoleon (1769 – 1821) conscripted many young teenagers for his armies.
Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First and Second World Wars.
Children continued to be used throughout the 20th and early 21st century on every continent, with concentrations in parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Only since the turn of the millennium have international efforts begun to limit and reduce the military use of children.
The adoption in 2000 of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) committed states who ratified it to “take all feasible measures” to ensure that no child takes a direct part in hostilities and to cease recruitment below the age of 16.
As most states have now opted into OPAC, the global trend has been towards reserving military recruitment to adulthood, known as the Straight-18 standard.
Above: A map of parties to the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. Parties in dark green, countries which have signed but not ratified in light green, non-members in grey.
Nonetheless, as of 2018, children aged under 18 were still being recruited and trained for military purposes in 46 countries, which is approximately one quarter of all countries.
Most of these states recruit from age 17, fewer than 20 recruit from age 16, and an unknown, smaller number, recruit younger children.
As of 2022, the United Nations (UN) verified that nine state armed forces were using children in hostilities:
Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan in Africa
Palestine, Syria and Yemen in Western Asia
Afghanistan in Central Asia
Myanmar in South East Asia.
Above: Flag of the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child and others have called for an end to the recruitment of children by state armed forces, arguing that military training, the military environment, and a binding contract of service are not compatible with children’s rights and jeopardize healthy development.
These include non-state armed paramilitary organisations such as militias, insurgents, terrorist organizations, guerrilla movements, armed liberation movements, and other types of quasi-military organisation.
As of 2022, the UN identified 12 countries where children were widely used by such groups:
Colombia in South America
Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan in Africa
Lebanon and Palestine in the Middle East
Syria and Yemen in Western Asia
Afghanistan in Central Asia
Myanmar in South East Asia.
Above: Emblem of the United Nations
Not all armed groups use children and approximately 60 have entered agreements to reduce or end the practice since 1999.
For example, by 2017, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Philippines had released nearly 2,000 children from its ranks.
In 2016, the FARC-EP guerrilla movement in Colombia agreed to stop recruiting children.
Above: FARC–EP coat of arms: shield, flag, and country
Other countries have seen the reverse trend, particularly Afghanistan and Syria, where Islamist militants and groups opposing them have intensified their recruitment, training, and use of children.
In 2003, one estimate calculated that child soldiers participated in about three-quarters of ongoing conflicts.
Above: Flag of Afghanistan
In the same year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that most of these children were aged over 15, although some were younger.
Above: The logo of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Due to the widespread military use of children in areas where armed conflict and insecurity prevent access by UN officials and other observers, it is difficult to estimate how many children are affected.
In 2003 UNICEF estimated that some 300,000 children are involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide.
Above: Emblem of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund
In 2017, Child Soldiers International estimated that several tens of thousands of children, possibly more than 100,000, were in state- and non-state military organisations around the world, and in 2018 the organisation reported that children were being used to participate in at least 18 armed conflicts.
In 2023 the UN Secretary General report presented 7,622 verified cases of children being recruited and used in armed conflicts in 23 countries. More than 12,460 children formerly associated with armed forces or groups received protection or reintegration support during 2022.
Above: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres
It is estimated that girl soldiers make between 10% and 30%, 6% and 50%, or over 40% of the child soldier population.
Of the verified cases presented in the 2023 UN Secretary General report, girls make 12.3% of all child soldiers recruited or used by armed groups.
Despite children’s physical and psychological underdevelopment relative to adults, there are many reasons why state- and non-state military organisations seek them out, and why children themselves are often are drawn to join up of their own volition.
Relative to adults, the neurological underdevelopment of children, including adolescent children, renders them more susceptible to recruitment and also more likely to make consequential decisions without due regard to the risks.
With these susceptibilities in mind, military marketing to adolescents has been criticised in Germany, the UK and the US for glamorizing military life while omitting the risks and the loss of fundamental rights.
Research in the same three countries finds that recruiters disproportionately target children from poorer backgrounds.
In the UK, for example, the army finds it easier to attract child recruits from age 16 than adults from age 18, particularly those from poorer backgrounds.
Once recruited, children are easier than adults to indoctrinate and control.
They are more motivated than adults to fight for non-monetary incentives such as religion, honour, prestige, revenge and duty.
In many countries growing populations of young people relative to older generations have made children a cheap and accessible resource for military organisations.
In a 2004 study of children in military organisations around the world, Rachel Brett and Irma Specht pointed to a complex of factors that incentivise children to join military organisations, particularly:
Background poverty including a lack of civilian education or employment opportunities.
The cultural normalization of war
Seeking new friends
Revenge (for example, after seeing friends and relatives killed)
Expectations that a “warrior” role provides a rite of passage to maturity
The following testimony from a child recruited by the Cambodian armed forces in the 1990s is typical of many children’s motivations for joining up:
“I joined because my parents lacked food and I had no school.
I was worried about mines but what can we do — it’s an order to go to the front line.
Once somebody stepped on a mine in front of me — he was wounded and died.
I was with the radio at the time, about 60 metres away.
I was sitting in my hammock and saw him die.
I see young children in every unit.
I’m sure I’ll be a soldier for at least a couple of more years.
If I stop being a soldier, I won’t have a job to do because I don’t have any skills.
I don’t know what I’ll do.“
Above: Flag of Cambodia
Some leaders of armed groups have claimed that children, despite their underdevelopment, bring their own qualities as combatants to a fighting unit, often being remarkably fearless, agile and hardy.
The global proliferation of light automatic weapons, which children can easily handle, has also made the use of children as direct combatants more viable.
Child soldiers who survive armed conflict face a markedly elevated risk of debilitating psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioural problems.
Research in Palestine and Uganda, for example, has found that more than half of former child soldiers showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and nearly nine in ten in Uganda screened positive for depressed mood.
Researchers in Palestine also found that children exposed to high levels of violence in armed conflict were substantially more likely than other children to exhibit aggression and anti-social behaviour.
The combined impact of these effects typically includes a high risk of poverty and lasting unemployment in adulthood.
Further harm is caused when armed forces and groups detain child recruits.
Children are often detained without sufficient food, medical care, or under other inhumane conditions, and some experience physical and sexual torture.
Some are captured with their families, or detained due to one of their family members’ activity.
Lawyers and relatives are frequently banned from any court hearing.
While the use of children in armed conflict has attracted most attention, other research has found that military settings present several serious risks before child recruits are deployed to war zones, particularly during training.
Research from several countries finds that military enlistment, even before recruits are sent to war, is accompanied by a higher risk of attempted suicide in the US, higher risk of mental disorders in the US and the UK, higher risk of alcohol misuse and higher risk of violent behaviour, relative to recruits’ pre-military experience.
Military academics in the US have characterized military training as “intense indoctrination” in conditions of sustained stress, the primary purpose of which is to establish the unconditional and immediate obedience of recruits.
The research literature has found that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to a high-stress environment, particularly those from a background of childhood adversity.
It finds in particular that the prolonged stressors of military training are likely to aggravate pre-existing mental health problems and hamper healthy neurological development.
Military settings are characterized by elevated rates of bullying, particularly by instructors.
In the UK between 2014 and 2020, for example, the army recorded 62 formal complaints of violence committed by staff against recruits at the military training centre for 16- and 17-year-old trainee soldiers, the Army Foundation College.
Joe Turton, who joined up aged 17 in 2014, recalls bullying by staff throughout his training.
For example:
“The corporals come into the hangar where we sleep and they’re wild-eyed, screaming, shoving people out.
A massive sergeant lifts a recruit in the air and literally throws him into the wall.
A corporal smacks me full-force around the head — I’ve got my helmet on but he hits me so hard that I’m knocked right over, I mean this man’s about 40 and I’m maybe 17 by then.
A bit later, we’re crawling through mud and a corporal grabs me and drags me along the ground, half-way across a field.
When he lets go I’m in that much pain that I’m whimpering on the ground.
When the other corporal, the one who hit me, sees me crying on the ground, he just points at me and laughs.“
Elevated rates of sexual harassment are characteristic of military settings, including the training environment.
Between 2015 and 2020, for example, girls aged 16 or 17 in the British armed forces were twice as likely as their same-age civilian peers to report rape or other sexual assault.
The military use of children has been common throughout history.
Only in recent decades has the practice met with informed criticism and concerted efforts to end it.
Progress has been slow, partly because many armed forces have relied on children to fill their ranks, and partly because the behaviour of non-state armed groups is difficult to influence.
After the adoption of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, a campaign for global ratification made swift progress.
As of 2018 OPAC had been ratified by 167 states.
The campaign also successfully encouraged many states not to recruit children at all.
In 2001, 83 states only allowed adult enlistment.
By 2016 this had increased to 126, which is 71% of countries with armed forces.
Approximately 60 non-state armed groups have also entered agreements to stop or scale back their use of children, often brokered by the UN or the NGO Geneva Call.
Child Soldiers International reports that the success of the OPAC treaty, combined with the gradual decline in child recruitment by state armed forces, has led to a reduction of children in military organisations worldwide.
As of 2018 the recruitment and use of children remains widespread.
In particular, militant Islamist organisations such as ISIS and Boko Haram, as well as armed groups fighting them, have used children extensively.
In addition, the three most populous states – China, India and the United States – still allow their armed forces to enlist children aged 16 or 17, as do five of the Group of Seven countries: Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, again.
Red Hand Day (also known as the International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers) on 12 February is an annual commemoration day to draw public attention to the practice of using children as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts.
The date reflects the entry into force of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
Above: Red Hand Day, the International Day Against Use of Child Soldiers, is often marked by displaying red handprints.
Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful.
Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour.
Exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work undertaken by Amish children, as well as by Indigenous children in the Americas.
Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5 – 14 from poorer families worked in Western nations and their colonies alike.
These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining and services such as news boys – some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours.
With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of child labour laws, the incidence rates of child labour fell.
As of 2023, in the world’s poorest countries, around one in five children are engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom live in sub-saharan Africa, where more than one in four children are so engaged.
This represents a decline in child labour over the preceding half decade.
In 2017, four African nations (Mali, Benin, Chad and Guinea-Bissau) witnessed over 50% of children, aged 5 – 14 working.
Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour.
The vast majority of child labour is found in rural settings and informal urban economies.
Children are predominantly employed by their parents, rather than factories.
Poverty and lack of schools are considered the primary cause of child labour.
UNICEF notes that “boys and girls are equally likely to be involved in child labour“, but in different roles, girls being substantially more likely to perform unpaid household labour.
Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank.
Nevertheless, the total number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF and ILO acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5 – 17 worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013.
Child labour is still common in many parts of the world.
Estimates for child labour vary.
It ranges between 250 and 304 million, if children aged 5–17 involved in any economic activity are counted.
If light occasional work is excluded, ILO estimates there were 153 million child labourers aged 5–14 worldwide in 2008.
This is about 20 million less than ILO estimate for child labourers in 2004.
Some 60% of the child labour was involved in agricultural activities such as farming, dairy, fisheries and forestry.
Another 25% of child labourers were in service activities such as retail, hawking goods, restaurants, load and transfer of goods, storage, picking and recycling trash, polishing shoes, domestic help, and other services.
The remaining 15% laboured in assembly and manufacturing in informal economy, home-based enterprises, factories, mines, packaging salt, operating machinery, and such operations.
Two out of three child workers work alongside their parents, in unpaid family work situations.
Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants.
Child labour predominantly occurs in the rural areas (70%) and informal urban sector (26%).
Above: Map for child labour worldwide in the 10–14 age group, in 2003, per World Bank data. The data is incomplete, as many countries do not collect or report child labour data (coloured gray). The colour code is as follows: yellow (<10% of children working), green (10–20%), orange (20–30%), red (30–40%) and black (>40%). Some nations such as Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Ethiopia have more than half of all children aged 5–14 at work to help provide for their families.
Contrary to popular belief, most child labourers are employed by their parents rather than in manufacturing or formal economy.
Children who work for pay or in-kind compensation are usually found in rural settings as opposed to urban centres.
Less than 3% of child labour aged 5 – 14 across the world work outside their household, or away from their parents.
Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in the US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations.
The proportion of child labourers varies greatly among countries and even regions inside those countries.
Africa has the highest percentage of children aged 5–17 employed as child labour, and a total of over 65 million.
Asia, with its larger population, has the largest number of children employed as child labour at about 114 million.
Latin America and the Caribbean region have lower overall population density, but at 14 million child labourers has high incidence rates too.
Accurate present day child labour information is difficult to obtain because of disagreements between data sources as to what constitutes child labour.
In some countries, government policy contributes to this difficulty.
For example, the overall extent of child labour in China is unclear due to the government categorising child labour data as “highly secret“.
China has enacted regulations to prevent child labour.
Still, the practice of child labour is reported to be a persistent problem within China, generally in agriculture and low-skill service sectors as well as small workshops and manufacturing enterprises.
Above: Flag of China
In 2014, the US Department of Labor issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, where China was attributed 12 goods, the majority of which were produced by both underage children and indentured labourers.
The report listed electronics, garments, toys, and coal, among other goods.
The Maplecroft Child Labour Index 2012 survey reports that 76 countries pose extreme child labour complicity risks for companies operating worldwide.
The ten highest risk countries in 2012, ranked in decreasing order, were: Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Burundi, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
Of the major growth economies, Maplecroft ranked Philippines 25th riskiest, India 27th, China 36th, Vietnam 37th, Indonesia 46th, and Brazil 54th, all of them rated to involve extreme risks of child labour uncertainties, to corporations seeking to invest in developing world and import products from emerging markets.
The ILO suggests that poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour.
For impoverished households, income from a child’s work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household.
Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income.
Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according to the ILO, is another major factor driving children to harmful labour.
Children work because they have nothing better to do.
Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60 and 70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities.
Even when schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.
In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalised child labour and thereby encouraged it.
Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children.
In many cultures, particular where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents’ footsteps.
Child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age.
Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.
Children’s rights or the rights of children are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors.
The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as “any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier“.
Children’s rights includes their:
right to association with both parents
human identity
physical protection
food
universal state-paid education
health care
criminal laws appropriate for the age and development of the child
equal protection of the child’s civil rights
freedom from discrimination on the basis of the child’s race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, colour, ethnicity or other characteristics
Above: Human rights logo
Interpretations of children’s rights range from allowing children the capacity for autonomous action to the enforcement of children being physically, mentally and emotionally free from abuse, though what constitutes “abuse” is a matter of debate.
Other definitions include the rights to care and nurturing.
There are no definitions of other terms used to describe young people such as “adolescents“, “teenagers“, or “youth” in international law, but the children’s rights movement is considered distinct from the youth rights movement.
The field of children’s rights spans the fields of law, politics, religion and morality.
Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765 – 1769) recognized three parental duties to the child: maintenance, protection, and education.
In modern language, the child has a right to receive these from the parent.
Above: Portrait of English jurist, justice and politician Sir William Blackstone (1723 – 1780)
The 1796 publication of Thomas Spence’s Rights of Infants is among the earliest English-language assertions of the rights of children.
Above: English radical Thomas Spence (1750 – 1814)
Throughout the 20th century, children’s rights activists organized for homeless children’s rights and public education.
In the UK the formation of a community of educationalists, teachers, youth justice workers, politicians and cultural contributors called the New Ideals in Education Conferences (1914 – 1937) stood for the value of ‘liberating the child‘ and helped to define the ‘good‘ primary school in England until the 1980s.
Their conferences inspired the UNESCO organization, the New Education Fellowship.
Above: Logo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
A.S. Neill’s 1915 book A Dominie’s Log (1915), a diary of a headteacher changing his school to one based on the liberation and happiness of the child, can be seen as a cultural product that celebrates the heroes of this movement.
The League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924), which enunciated the child’s right to receive the requirements for normal development, the right of the hungry child to be fed, the right of the sick child to receive health care, the right of the backward child to be reclaimed, the right of orphans to shelter, and the right to protection from exploitation.
Above: Flag of the League of Nations (1920 – 1946)
The 1927 publication of The Child’s Right to Respect by Janusz Korczak strengthened the literature surrounding the field.
Above: Polish Jewish pediatrician /educator /children’s author / pedagogue / children’s rights advocate Henryk Goldszmit (aka Janusz Korczak) (1878 – 1942)
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) in Article 25(2) recognized the need of motherhood and childhood to “special protection and assistance” and the right of all children to “social protection“.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), which enunciated ten principles for the protection of children’s rights, including the universality of rights, the right to special protection, and the right to protection from discrimination, among other rights.
Above: Children’s day 1928 in Bulgaria. The text on the poster is the Geneva Declaration.
Consensus on defining children’s rights has become clearer in the last 50 years.
A 1973 publication by Hillary Clinton (then an attorney) stated that children’s rights were a “slogan in need of a definition“.
Above: American politician Hillary Clinton
According to some researchers, the notion of children’s rights is still not well defined, with at least one proposing that there is no singularly accepted definition or theory of the rights held by children.
Today dozens of international organizations are working around the world to promote children’s rights.
Young people need to be protected from the adult-centric world, including the decisions and responsibilities of that world.
In a dominantly adult society, childhood should be idealized as a time of innocence, a time free of responsibility and conflict, and a time dominated by play.
National Sovereignty and Children’s Day (Turkish: Ulusal Egemenlik ve Çocuk Bayramı) is a public holiday in Turkey commemorating the foundation of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, on 23 April 1920.
It is also observed by Northern Cyprus.
23 April is the day that the Grand National Assembly of Turkey was founded in 1920.
The national council denounced the government of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI (1861 – 1926) and announced a temporary constitution.
Above: The 36th / last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and 115th / last Caliph of Islam, Mehmed VI
During the War of Independence, the Grand National Assembly met in Ankara and laid down the foundations of a new, independent, secular and modern republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Following the defeat of the Allied invasion forces on 9 September 1922 and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923, the Turkish Government started the task of establishing the institutions of a state.
23 April was declared “National Sovereignty Day” on 2 May 1921.
Above: Seal of the Turkish Parliament
Since 1927, the holiday has also been celebrated as a children’s day.
Thus, Türkiye became the first country to officially declare children’s day a national holiday.
In 1981, the holiday was officially named “National Sovereignty and Children’s Day“.
Every year, children in Türkiye celebrate National Sovereignty and Children’s Day as a national holiday.
Similar to other April events, Children’s Day celebrations often take place outdoors.
Schools participate in week-long ceremonies marked by performances in all fields in large stadiums watched by the entire nation.
Students decorate their classrooms with flags, balloons and handmade ornaments.
Anıtkabir is visited by children and politicians every year.
Among the activities on this day, the children send their representatives to replace state officials and high ranking civil servants in their offices.
The President, cabinet ministers, provincial governors and mayors all turn over their positions to children’s representatives in a purely ceremonial exercise.
On this day, children also replace parliamentarians in the Grand National Assembly and hold a ceremonial special session to discuss matters concerning children’s issues.
After UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) organized the first TRT International April 23 Children’s Festival.
Five countries participated in this first holiday.
Over the years, this number grew steadily, resulting in children from about 50 countries coming to Türkiye in an official ceremony every year to participate in the festival.
During this time, children stay with Turkish families and interact with Turkish children and learn about each other’s countries and cultures.
The foreign children groups also participate in the ceremonial session of the Grand National Assembly.
There are aspects of Türkiye’s Children’s Day that I find disturbing.
I am in no way, shape or form, suggesting that Türkiye has children in the military.
In Turkey, compulsory military service applies to all male citizens from 21 to 41 years of age.
It is six months for all males regardless of education degree.
Different rules apply to Turks abroad.
For Turks with multiple citizenship, the conscription lapses if they have already served in the army of another country.
Conscripts can be deployed in all parts of the Turkish armed forces, except in combat operations or active conflicts.
For example, only professional soldiers are used in operations by Turkey against the PKK.
Women are not conscripted, but they are permitted to become officers.
Each year, approximately 300,000 men over the age of 20 are called up for military service.
According to 2018 data from the Turkish government, a total of 1.9 million young men have been deferred from military service because of their studies.
Three million other men have asked for a postponement for other reasons.
An exception was 2017, the year after the coup attempt, when the Turkish government did not call on new conscripts to register.
No professional soldiers were hired in that year either.
Above: Abandoned military vehicle used during putsch in Ankara, near the bombed building of the Directorate of Police, 16 July 2017
Many companies require men to have completed their military service before their job candidacies can be accepted.
Traditionally, families do not consent to their daughters marrying men who have not served their terms.
The reason behind this requirement is an irregular loss of workforce; the companies are legally bound to discharge draft evaders or face legal consequences, however valuable an asset these people are.
It is a common opinion that having completed military service carries a symbolic value to the majority of Turks.
It is commonly regarded as a rite of passage to manhood.
Most men grow up with the anticipation of serving out their time.
On the other hand, it is held to be one of the main reasons behind the brain drain prevalent among well-educated young professionals.
Above: Seal of the Rurkish Armed Forces
Turkish Economics Professor Cevdet Akçay has stated that conscription always results in a net loss of wealth for any country, and that politicians do not discuss the topic of conscription based on objective and logical arguments.
Akçay states:
“One side might say that, mandatory military service is a net loss for our economy and therefore I don’t support it.
Whereas the other side might support it despite its effect on the economy and explain their reasons, but such discussion does not happen in our country.“
I too have my objections regarding conscription, but that can be a subject of discussion for another time.
Above: Conscription map of the world:
Green: Countries that do not have any armed service.
Blue: Countries that do not have conscription.
Purple: Countries with active, but limited conscription.
Orange: Countries where the current government is planning to abolish conscription.
Red: Countries with active conscription.
Grey: No information.
Neither am I suggesting that Türkiye engages in child labour, for according to statistics, only 2.6% of the Turkish labour force are children between the ages of 7 and 14.
0% would be ideal but compared to some of the abovementioned countries with massive records of child employment Türkiye has quite a low number of child workers.
My objections stem from the nationalistic and adult-centric elements of this holiday.
I find the combined day to be a touch Orwellian.
Above: English writer Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) (1903 – 1950)
Students decorate their classrooms with flags.
Anıtkabir is visited by children and politicians every year.
(Anıtkabir is a complex located in the Çankaya district of Ankara, which includes the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
In addition to the mausoleum building, the complex consists of various structures and monuments, as well as a wooded area known as the Peace Park.
After Atatürk’s death on 10 November 1938, it was announced that his remains would be kept at the Ankara Ethnography Museum until a mausoleum could be constructed in Ankara.
On 10 November 1953, Atatürk’s remains were transferred to Anıtkabir in a ceremony.
The main building in the complex is the mausoleum, which includes Atatürk’s symbolic sarcophagus in the section known as the Hall of Honour, while his actual tomb is located in the lower level of the building.
The entrance to the complex is through a tree-lined avenue called the Lions’ Road, which leads to the ceremony square.
The mausoleum is situated on one side of this square, surrounded by colonnades, while the exit from the complex is located on the opposite side of the square along the path of the Lions’ Road.
The complex features ten towers at the four corners of the Lions’ Road, at the exit of the ceremony square, and at the corners of the square, as well as two sculpture groups and the Atatürk and Independence War Museum.
All of these structures, collectively known as the Monument Block, are surrounded by a wooded area called Peace Park.
The structures in the complex are made of reinforced concrete and feature surfaces and floors made of various types of marble and travertine, as well as decorative elements created using relief, mosaic, fresco, and carving techniques.
The Neoclassical style of the Second National Architecture Movement features elements inspired by the Hittite, Greek, Seljuk, and Ottoman cultures that have dominated the region now known as Turkey throughout history.
The responsibility for all services and tasks at Anıtkabir belongs to the Turkish Armed Forces General Staff, and events to be held here are regulated by law.
Official commemoration ceremonies are held at Anıtkabir on national holidays in Turkey and on the anniversary of Atatürk’s death on 10 November, organized by the government.
In addition to these, ceremonies are also organized by individuals and representatives of legal entities who are included in the state protocol.
Anıtkabir is a place that is occasionally visited and official ceremonies are held at the site by foreign government officials during their official visits to Turkey.)
“Happy is the one who says: ‘I am a Turk.’ ” is the much quoted maxim of the much-quoted man, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Türkiye’s founding president, who uttered the words as the emotional finale to a speech in 1933, marking the 10th anniversary of the Republic.
It is a simple idea – “If you think you are Turkish, then you are.” – that belies a sophisticated approach to nation-building.
You become a Turk by feeling the benefits and obligations of being a citizen of the Republic of Türkiye.
In historical context, Atatürk’s emphasis on Turkishness was a way of forging an inclusive national identity out of disparate parts.
In this, Atatürk was very successful.
Today, Turkish nationalism is a very powerful force.
Above: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – 1938)
It does not take long for the most casual visitor to conclude that Türkiye subscribes to the “Great Man” view of history.
Portraits of Atatürk hang in schools, public offices, private businesses and many homes.
Even I have a picture of Atatürk in a dark corner of my apartment kitchen that I inherited when I helped a friend move apartments.
Atatürk is Türkiye’s George Washington, Winston Churchill and FDR.
He is celebrated as both soldier and statesman.
Atatürk represents a common denominator of what modern Türkiye is all about.
First is the creation of a nation within secure boundaries, one that embraces modernity, that tries to keep religion largeşy confined to the private realm, and that takes its international responsibilities seriously.
High in the pantheon of most quoted sayings is his “Peace at home, peace abroad“.
I cannot nor will not detract from the significance of Atatürk.
Kemal Atatürk is commemorated by many memorials throughout Turkey, such as the Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul, the Atatürk Bridge over the Golden Horn (Haliç), the Atatürk Dam, and Atatürk Stadium.
Above: Atatürk Airport, İstanbul
Above: Atatürk Bridge, İstanbul
Above: Atatürk Dam, Euphrates River, Türkiye
Above: Atatürk Olympic Stadium, İstanbul
Atatürk statues have been erected in all Turkish cities by the Turkish Government and most towns have their own memorial to him.
His face and name are seen and heard everywhere in Turkey.
His portrait can be seen in public buildings, in schools, on all Turkish lira banknotes, and in the homes of many Turkish families.
Above: Atatürk Mask, Izmir, Türkiye
At 9:05 am on every 10 November, at the exact time of Atatürk’s death, most vehicles and people in the country’s streets pause for one minute in remembrance.
In 1951, the Democrat Party-controlled Turkish parliament led by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (despite being the conservative opposition to Atatürk’s own Republican People’s Party) issued a law (Law on Crimes Committed Against Atatürk) outlawing insults to his memory (hatırasına alenen hakaret) and destruction of objects representing him.
Above: Adnan Menderes (1899 – 1961)
The demarcation between a criticism and an insult was defined as a political argument.
The Minister of Justice (a political position) was assigned in Article 5 to execute the law rather than the public prosecutor.
A government website was created to denounce websites that violate this law.
In 2011, there were 48 convictions for “insulting Atatürk” and insulting Atatürk’s memory is punishable by up to three years in jail.
In 2010, the French-based NGO Reporters Without Borders objected to the Turkish laws protecting the memory of Atatürk, arguing that they contradict the current European Union standards of freedom of speech in news media.
Above: Logo of Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders)
Atatürk’s cult of personality was started during the life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and continued by his successors after his death in 1938, by members of both his Republican People’s Party and opposition parties alike, and in a limited amount by himself during his lifetime in order to popularize and cement his social and political reforms as founder and first President of Türkiye.
The cult has been compared to similar personality cults in the authoritarian regimes of Central Asia and the former Soviet Union.
The Economist wrote in 2012 that his personality cult “carpets the country with busts and portraits of the great man” and that this has been “nurtured by Turkey’s generals, who have used his name to topple four governments, hang a Prime Minister and attack enemies of the Republic“.
A 2008 article in National Identities also discussed Atatürk’s ubiquitous presence in the country:
“Atatürk’s houses exist in an Atatürk-inundated context with his face and sayings appearing on all official documents, buildings, television channels, newspapers and schoolyards, coins and banknotes.
Moreover, regardless of personal belief, every Turk lives in a country where nationalism is part of standard political discourses.
Politicians, teachers and journalists appeal to the nation and Atatürk on a daily basis.
Yet they are not alone in this.
The omnipresence of Atatürk paraphernalia can only be partly attributed to state sponsorship.
Atatürk’s face appears on posters behind supermarket counters, in barbershops and video stores, in bookshops and banks.
Atatürk talismans even dangle from car mirrors, while Atatürk pins adorn lapels.
And even the Turks who do not join in with such spontaneous commemorations know how to ‘read’ the Atatürk semiotic universe.“
Above: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
To remember the Great Man and to commemorate the events that formed the nation should be celebrated and commemorated, but why must we combine national sovereignity and children together?
Why can we not give children their own isolated day, a day just for them, without the waving of flags and the marching of troops, where we instead focus not on their nationalism nor on their assumption of adult roles, but rather why not simply have a fun day that focuses on the joy of being a child?
Physical activities certainly remain a great idea, but what about the spirit, the mind, the heart, the imagination of children?
The first seeds of children’s literature in Turkey were planted long before the tradition of printed books.
The distinctive feature of this early period is one based on oral cultures, such as folk legends, lullabies, nursery rhymes, heroic tales or religious stories.
Around the time of the Tanzimat Period – defined as the movement of Westernisation and reform in the Ottoman Empire (1839 – 1876) – these oral works were turned into written texts, and some children’s books of western origin began to appear in Turkish.
With the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, the alphabet revolution and the beginning of educational mobilisation, children’s literature in its current sense began.
Above: Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Kayseri. 20 September 1928
In the first 50 years of the Republic, works for children were primarily designed to prepare them for citizenship and social life according to the period’s ideology.
They were generally realistic and instructive.
Above: The flag of the Republic of Türkiye
The development of children’s literature was also shaped by Orhan Veli, one of Turkey’s most important poets, and his adaptations of La Fontaine’s fables and his compilation of Nasrettin Hoca’s Anecdotes.
Above: Orhan Veli (1914 – 1950)
Above: French fabulist Jean de la Fontaine (1621 – 1695)
Above: Statue of Nasreddin Hoca (1208 – 1285), Eskişehir Train Station
Other influential writers from this period include Ahmet Haşim, Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin, Peyami Safa, Kemalettin Tuğcu, and Eflatun Cem Güney.
Above: Photo of Turkish writer Kemalettin Tuğcu (1902 – 1996)
Eflatun Cem Güney received the “Hans Christian Andersen Award”, “Andersen Honor Diploma” and “World Children’s Literature Honor Certificate” for his fairytale compilations.
Above: Turkish writer Eflatun Cem Güney (1896 – 1981)
During the 1970s, authors such as Aziz Nesin, Rıfat Ilgaz, Muzaffer İzgü, and Gülten Dayıoğlu began to introduce the notion of ‘suitability for children’.
Above: Turkish writer / humorist Aziz Nesin (1915 – 1995)
Can Göknil brought the art of painting to children’s literature.
Above: Turkish painter / writer Can Göknil
In 1978, UNESCO declared the following year International Year of the Child which encouraged some of the country’s most important literary figures – Yaşar Kemal, Orhan Kemal and Nâzım Hikmet – to publish works for children.
Above: Turkish-Kurdish author / human rights activist Yaşar Kemal (1923 – 2015)
Above: Turkish writer Orhan Kemal (1914 – 1970)
Above: Turkish poet / writer Nâzim Hikmet
The first children’s publishing house, Mavi Bulut Yayınları was founded in the 1980s by author Fatih Erdoğan.
Above: Turkish writer Fatih Erdoğan
This was a fascinating period when significant writers such as Yalvaç Ural, Behiç Ak and Sevim Ak started producing books.
Above: Turkish writer Yalvaç Ural
Above: Turkish cartoonist / writer / film director Behiç Ak
Above: Turkish writer chemical engineer Sevim Ak
In the 1990s, the children’s publishing industry in Turkey began to develop, with an increase in the number of writers and books.
More publishing houses also became involved with children’s literature, investing both intellectually and financially.
One of the most significant of these was Günışığı Kitaplığı.
The writers, illustrators and editors that this publishing house brought to the industry offered a new perspective on children’s literature.
With their wide range of titles and content, other noteworthy presses from this time are: Mavi Bulut, Can Çocuk Yayınları, Altın Kitaplar, Doğan Egmont, Tudem Publishing Group, Timaş Publications, Nesin Publications, İthaki Child, İletişim Child, Word Publications, Redhouse Kids, Dinozor Child.
Here is a summary of some books that have already been translated into English.
The Red Apple is a lyrical story about a cute bunny looking for ways to fill his stomach on a cold winter day.
He cooperates with other animals in the forest to reach the red apple.
A Friend in Winter starts with Leo the Cat who is bored.
He lives in a wooden house on the edge of the forest and this tale evolves into a beautiful story of friendship.
Based on an exciting gift a little boy received from his grandfather when he started primary school, Grandpa’s Book of Daydreams establishes a dialogue with the reader using some blank pages and unpainted sketches, giving space for the reader to add their own dreams to the little’s boy’s grandfather’s notebook of daydreams.
The King of Seasons’ Birthday is celebrated every year on the first day of Autumn.
He takes off his paints and starts working to celebrate his birthday. He has to draw Autumn and change all summer colours.
However, the King can’t do it, probably because someone doesn’t want the summer to end.
My Grandad’s Magical Wardrobe is a fascinating illustrated story based on the meeting of a boy who lost his grandfather meeting with his new grandfather.
Three Cats, One Wish tells the heart-warming adventures of three very different friends, Piti, Pati and Pus.
The book emphasizes the importance of working together to achieve a dream.
A Wonderful Day in Istanbul tells the story of three friends and their cat, who stroll the streets of Istanbul to show the city to their friends from abroad, taking children on a beautiful historical journey.
My Grandpa’s Grocery Store is a story full of fun facts from a child’s mind.
The funny anecdotes of a small-town girl who dreams of making a big commercial breakthrough in her grandfather’s grocery store.
The Beyoğlu Adventure takes place in one of the oldest districts of Istanbul.
Along with his dog Bilgin, knowledge hunter Sinan’s mission becomes an adventure thanks to the Password Pirates, taking readers to historical places on the streets of Beyoğlu.
The book, which is a work of art with beautiful illustrations, has an interactive structure, inviting its readers to decipher the codes hidden in the story.
During the week of Children’s Day, children stay with Turkish families and interact with the Turkish children and learn about each other’s countries and cultures.
And how better to learn than to compare children’s literature?
I think of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (18 April 1874 – 1938) was a Croatian writer, praised as the best Croatian writer for children.
On 15 August 1891 , Ivana Mažuranić and Vatroslav Brlić, lawyer and politician, got engaged.
Their wedding was on 18 April 1892, on Ivan’s 18th birthday, in the Church of St. Brand.
After the wedding, Ivana moved with her husband to Brod na Sava (today Slavonski Brod), where she lived most of her life, which she devoted to her family, education and literary work.
As a mother of seven children, she had the opportunity to become familiar with children’s psyche, and thus understand the purity and naivety of their world.
Above: Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić
Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić started writing poetry, diaries and essays rather early, but her works were not published until the beginning of the 20th century.
Her stories and articles, like the series of educational articles under the name “School and Holidays” started to be published more regularly in the journals after the year 1903.
It was in 1913 when her book The Marvelous Adventures and Misadventures of Hlapić the Apprentice (also known as The Brave Adventures of Lapitch / Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića) was published that really caught the literary public’s eye.
In the story, the poor apprentice Hlapić accidentally finds his master’s lost daughter as his luck turns for the better.
A poor young orphan called Lapitch works as the apprentice for the Scowlers – a mean-mannered shoemaker, and his kind-hearted wife.
After Master Scowler blames him for the wrong size of a customer’s shoes, Lapitch leaves a note and runs away from home.
Later joined by Bundaš, the Scowlers’ dog, he sets off on a seven-day adventure, during which he meets Gita, a circus performer, and encounters a local thief known as the Black Man and his henchman named Grga.
Her book Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Priče iz davnine), published in 1916, is among the most popular today in large part because of its adaptation into a computerized interactive fiction product by Helena Bulaja in 2006.
In the book Mažuranić created a series of new fairy tales, but using names and motifs from the Slavic mythology of Croats.
It was this that earned her comparisons to Hans Christian Andersen and Tolkien who also wrote completely new stories but based in some elements of real mythology.
Above: Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875)
Above: English writer / philologist John Ronald Reuel (J. R. R.) Tolkien (1892 – 1973)
Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Priče iz davnine / “Stories from Ancient Times“), is a short story collection her masterpiece and features a series of newly written fairy tales heavily inspired by motifs taken from ancient Slavic mythology of pre-Christian Croatia.
The following is the list of original titles followed by English titles as translated by Copeland (stories missing from the English version are marked with the † symbol):
Kako je Potjeh tražio istinu (How Quest Sought the Truth)
Ribar Palunko i njegova žena (Fisherman Plunk and His Wife)
Regoč (Reygoch)
Šuma Striborova (Stribor’s Forest)
Bratac Jaglenac i sestrica Rutvica (Little Brother Primrose and Sister Lavender)
Lutonjica Toporko i devet župančića †
Sunce djever i Neva Nevičica (Bridesman Sun and Bride Bridekins)
Jagor †
“The environment exerted the strongest influence on my sensitive child’s soul.
The first conscious feeling that arose in me in my parents’ house was love for the Croatian homeland.
When my parents finally moved to Zagreb in 1882, the impression (and all other impressions of my parents’ home) increased even more by staying in my grandfather’s house every day, poet and Ban Ivan Mažuranić.
Of course, I should mention that before (when I was 4 and 5 years old) I visited my grandfather in Banski dvori on Markovo trg with my parents.
Although life in the Ban Palace brought a lot of things that greatly occupied the interest of such a young child, I still clearly and particularly clearly remember the person of my grandfather from that age.
But his real influence on me only started at the time I want to talk about, when we moved to Zagreb.
In my grandfather’s home, his extended family met every evening, so that 15-18 people would always sit at the table.
The table was chaired by Grandfather himself, he led the conversations, and his physically and mentally powerful presence had an unfathomable influence on my being – the strict patriarchal spirit made any rapprochement with Grandfather impossible.
Nevertheless, during these four years (from the age of 12 to 16) that I was attached to his desk, I developed under the impression of his great appearance my whole being as it is now.
Every word of his, every debate (he was happy to engage in debates and did not let the subject fall until he was exhausted) was sublime in mind, and even more sublime in that purity and rigor of ethical views with which it seems that this mighty old man permeated all his surroundings, all his home, all his knee.”
(Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić)
Above: The house where Ivana Brlić Mažuranić lived and worked in Slavonski Brod
Brlić-Mažuranić was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times – in 1931 and 1935 she was nominated by the historian Gabriel Manojlović, and in 1937 and 1938 he was joined by the philosopher Albert Bazala, both based in Zagreb.
In 1937 she also became the first woman accepted as a Corresponding Member into the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Above: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb, Croatia
She was awarded the Order of Saint Sava.
Above: The Order of Saint Sava medal
Her books of novels and fairy tales for children, originally intended to educate her own, have been translated into nearly all European languages.
Highly regarded and valued by both national and foreign literary critics, she obtained the title of Croatian Andersen.
After a long battle with depression, she committed suicide on 21 September 1938 in Zagreb.
She is buried in Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb.
Above: The grave of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić
I cannot claim to comprehend depression nor can I condemn those who are in such physical and / or psychological pain that the ending of their own lives seems to them like a release from their suffering and sorrow.
I only have a sense that somehow the world has failed them.
Above: Édouard Manet – Le Suicidé (1877)
What I do believe is that how we develop as children moulds us into the adults we eventually become.
Part of that formation is the mythologies and ideologies, the hopes and dreams, the facts of life and the tales of fiction that we expose them to.
I think in many cases our approach in forming our future generations is failing them.
We need to teach them how to think for themselves, how to love all humanity, how to live life joyfully.
Indoctrination and oppression only creates robots or rebels, neither of which is good for a nation or for the world.
We need to encourage free expression so the interchange of ideas is possible.
If a government is doing well by its people it needs not view dissent as a threat but rather as a challenge to better itself.
Censor that which is destructive but encourage debate and discussion whenever possible.
Make men out of boys and women from girls by encouraging them to read books, instead of causing them to seek solace by isolating themselves from the world with eyes glued to phone screens and ears plugged into iPods.
I firmly believe that chidren’s literature plays a crucial role in the formation of our future and the development of children into healthy and happy fully-functioning adults.
Teach them a love of literature and the adventure of intellectual and emotional discovery.
Let them naturally fall in love with the poetry and prose of their nation.
Let them curiously compare Orhan Veli and Nasrettin Hoca with the literature of La Fontaine, the artistry of Andersen and the brittle brilliance of Brlić-Mažuranić.
Let us encourage poets and musicians, essayists and novelists to write children’s literature.
Children need wholesome stories in the same way that they need fibre and fruit.
Just as there has been a concerted effort to reintroduce children to the benefits of exercise and decent nutrition, there needs to be a battle to engage the hearts and minds of children with the joy and adventure of reading.
Despite the grumbling that Turks do when they consider their spiralling economy, Türkiye still has the 18th-largest economy in the world and the 7th-largest economy in Europe.
It also ranks as the 11th-largest in the world and the 5th-largest in Europe.
According to the IMF, Turkey has an upper-middle income, mixed-market, emerging economy.
Türkiye has often been defined as a newly industrialized country since the turn of the 21st century.
The country is the 4th most visited destination in the world and has over 1,500 R & D centres established both by multinational and national firms.
Türkiye is among the world’s leading producers of agricultural products, textiles, motor vehicles, transportation equipment, construction materials, consumer electronics, and home appliances.
It is a culture of plenty.
Most people in Türkiye have plenty of food, decent accommodation as well as education, health, recreation and entertainment facilities that would astonish our ancestors and is the envy of other nations.
And yet Türkiye, much like the economic powerhouse nations of the West, seems determined to squander these gifts.
Our children are bored witless despite a plethora of entertainment options that someone born just a generation ago can only marvel at.
As recently as the 1970s who could have predicted digital TV or the rise of Internet games where hundreds of thousands of players compete without ever meeting – without even being on the same continent?
We have Wii, PSP, Nintendo, giant plasma screen HD TVs and computer games to suit every taste and yet…
Many children are restless and dissatisfied while their parents, overworked and overfocused on consumerism, are consequently frustrated and cross.
Part of the problem is that a lot of the entertainment choices pushed at children are junk, the equivalent of a non-stop diet of pop and sweets.
A good book can show them that life is much more enriching, much more fulfilling, much more thrilling than anything electronics can produce.
Reading might seem hard work when compared with sitting in front of a television or a game console all day, but for the mind and heart and soul and spirit reading is far more rewarding.
The modern world is loud and bright and children have access to unlimited entertainment.
Reading can offer a rare and vital moment of peace and reflection.
Let me see children playing outside and reading in libraries and I promise you a land of future happiness.
“When you’re happy, the sun is chasing you.“
(Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić)
“Oh, grown-ups cannot understand
And grown-ups never will
How short the way to fairy land
Across the purple hill.”
(Alfred Noyes)
Above: English poet Alfred Noyes (1880 – 1958)
Children like to read about other children, not adults.
Children’s writers need to make the heroes children.
Children’s writers need to make sure they solve the mysteries and overcome the odds on their own rather than with adult help.
Children need a day to play with children not to pretend to be adults.
I want to rediscover the boy inside the man.
If I can’t find a favourite children’s book then I will learn how to write one.
There will always be children who will always need children’s books.
There will always be adults who will need to rediscover the joy and wonder of childhood.
So long so long so long he’s been away So long so long so long he’s back again When I turned seventeen We had passion, we had dreams Thought the love we were fighting for Was something holy, something more
When I turned twenty-one We were outside on the run When I walked out with my girl We went halfway around the world
I dreamed I saw her standing there Running for the boy inside the man I was hit hard by the light so bright it burned All at once I knеw she’d understand
Boy inside thе man The boy inside the man When I turned twenty-five We were hungry, we had drive When I turned much older then When the boy was lost in pride
Now I just turned thirty-one I have lost and I have won Still I’ve kept my dreams alive ‘Cause the boy will never die
I dreamed I saw her standing there Running for the boy inside the man I was hit hard by the light so bright it burned All at once I knew she’d understand
Boy inside the man The boy inside the man When I turned twenty-five We were hungry, we had drive When I turned much older then When the boy was lost in pride
Ah do you understand
I dreamed I saw her standing there Running for the boy inside the man I was hit hard by the light so bright it burned All at once I knew she’d understand
Boy inside the man The boy inside the man When I turned twenty-five We were hungry, we had drive When I turned much older then When the boy was lost in pride
The boy inside the man The boy inside the man So long so long so long You been away So long so long so long You’re back again
Sister cool this face As if it’s carved in stone Don’t leave me in this place Like a boy without a home Like a boy without a home Boy inside the man
Above: Two parents and a child: the statue Family in the garden of the Palace of Nations (United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland) is a commemoration of the International Year of the Child (1979).
Sources
Wikipedia
Google Photos
How to Be a Writer, Stewart Ferris
“An Overview of Children’s Literature in Turkey”, worldkidlit.org, Gulşah Özdemir Koryürek
As the dates below will show, this blog (The Chronicles of Canada Slim) (one of two) has suffered from neglect.
I offer only one explanation:
I have been….distracted.
Above: Flag of Canada
The purpose of The Chronicles of Canada Slim is to capture in writing my adventures prior to the calendar year.
Generally, the Chronicles tells the tales of travels in Alsace, Italy, Lanzarote, London, Porto, Serbia and Switzerland.
Above: Flag of AlsaceAbove: Flag of ItalyAbove: Lanzarote (red) of the Spanish Canary IslandsAbove: London, EnglandAbove: Flag of Porto, PortugalAbove: Flag of SerbiaAbove: Flag of Switzerland
But much has been happening since the finale of my Zwingli Way Walk (recorded here): an accident which broke both my arms, work commitments, a visit to Canada, the Corona virus, and the decision to work here in Turkey.
Please see Canada Slim and…..
the City of Spirits (3 January 2016)
the Push for Reformation (5 January 2016)
the Genius of Glarus (14 August 2016)
the Road to Reformation (12 November 2017)
the Wild Child of Toggenburg (20 November 2017)
the Thundering Hollows (27 November 2017)
the Basel Butterfly Effect (3 December 2017)
the Vienna Waltz (9 December 2017)
the Battle for Switzerland’s Soul (18 December 2017)
the Last Walk of Robert Walser (25 December 2017)
the Monks of the Dark Forest (8 January 2018)
the Privileged Place (26 January 2018)
the Lakeside Pilgrimage (24 April 2018)
the Battlefield Brotherhood (8 July 2018)
the Family of Mann (12 August 2018)
the Anachronic Man (8 October 2018)
the Chocolate Factory of Unhappiness (30 January 2019)
the Third Man (26 June 2019)
the Humanitarian Adventure (10 December 2019)
the Succulent Collection (14 November 2020)
the Zürich Zealots (19 November 2020)
I have tried to contribute regularly to my other blog Building Everest, which tries to relate events of this calendar year along with ongoing accounts of Swiss Miss‘s world wanderings and recollections of my 2020 travels in Canada just prior to Covid-19’s impact being felt globally.
As well, other writing projects have also suffered, but as long as I breathe I will still believe that these too will eventually be accomplished.
Above: Mount Everest
Landschlacht, Switzerland, Thursday 3 December 2020
All things end.
One day these fingers will stop typing and my mind will go silent.
One day one breath will be my last.
Death is the one commonality we all share, regardless of whether pauper or prince, peasant or president, saint or sinner.
And it is accepting this inevitability that all of us must come to grips with, in our own way, in our own time.
Save for the suicidal or the sick, few of us wake up in the morning and think to ourselves:
Perhaps today is a good day to die.
Perhaps an exception to this rule of the suicidal or the painfully sick are the lives of those in risky professions, such as health care, the police force, the military.
Above: St. Leonhard Chapel, Landschlacht, Switzerland
As death is part of, and the end of, life, the question we all ask and the answer we all fear is what, if anything, follows death.
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death or the world to come) is an existence in which the essential part of an individual’s identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body.
According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary nirvana.
Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.
In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, and in other popular views, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld.
Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics.
Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific plane of existence after death, as determined by God, or other divine judgment, based on their actions or beliefs during life.
In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those in the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life.
Above: Danube cemetery, Cernavoda, Romania
The Abrahamic religions, also collectively referred to as the world of Abrahamism, are a group of religions that claim descent from the worship of the God of Abraham, an ancient Semitic religion of the Bronze Age Israelites and the Ishmaelites, the direct predecessor of various ancient Israelite sects, including the remaining two extant Israelite religions of Judaism and Samaritanism, with all other Abrahamic religions descending from Judaism.
The Abrahamic religions are monotheistic, with the term deriving from the patriarch Abraham (a major figure described in the Torah, Tanakh, Bible, and Qu’ran, variously recognized by Jews, Samaritans, Christians, Muslims, and others).
Above: Portrait of Abraham, by Guercino, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy
The three major Abrahamic religions trace their origins to the first two sons of Abraham: for Jews and Christians it is his second son Isaac, and for Muslims his elder son Ishmael.
Above: The Angel Hinders the Offering of Isaac, by Rembrandt, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Abrahamic religions spread globally through Christianity being adopted by the Roman Empire in the 4th century and Islam by the Umayyad Empire from the 7th century.
Today the Abrahamic religions are one of the major divisions in comparative religion (along with Indian, Iranian and East Asian religions).
The major Abrahamic religions in chronological order of founding are Judaism (the source of the other two religions) in the 6th century BCE, Christianity in the 1st century CE, and Islam in the 7th century CE.
Christianity, Islam and Judaism are the Abrahamic religions with the greatest numbers of adherents.
Above: The Star of David, symbol of JudaismAbove: The cross of Christ, symbol of ChristianityAbove: The word “Allah” in Arabic calligraphy, symbol of Islam
Christians are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
The words Christ and Christian derive from the Koine Greek title Christós (Χριστός), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ) (usually rendered as messiah in English).
While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance.
The term “Christian” used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense “all that is noble, and good, and Christlike.”
It does not have a meaning of ‘of Christ’ or ‘related or pertaining to Christ‘.
Above: Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century icon, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt
According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910.
Today, about 37% of all Christians live in the Americas, about 26% live in Europe, 24% live in sub-Saharan Africa, about 13% live in Asia and the Pacific, and 1% live in the Middle East and North Africa.
Christians make up the majority of the population in 158 countries and territories.
280 million Christians live as a minority.
About half of all Christians worldwide are Catholic, while more than a third are Protestant (37%).
Orthodox communions comprise 12% of the world’s Christians.
Other Christian groups make up the remainder.
By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.
According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, Christianity will remain the world’s largest religion in 2050, if current trends continue.
Christians are the one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world, especially in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is the world’s largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.
Its adherents, known as Christians, make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.
Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination and Christology.
The creeds of various Christian denominations generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God who ministered, suffered and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind, referred to as the Gospel, meaning the “good news“.
Describing Jesus’ life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with the Old Testament as the Gospel‘s respected background.
Above: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Bloch (1877)
Christianity began as a Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea.
Jesus’ apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution.
Above: The eastern Mediterranean region in the time of Paul the Apostle (5 – 64 CE)
It soon attracted Gentile (non-Jewish) God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem (70 CE), which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism.
Above: Siege and destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)
Emperor Constantine the Great (272 – 337) decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the state church of the Roman Empire (380).
Above: Bust of Constantine, Capitoline Museum, Rome
The early history of Christianity’s united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the “Great Church” (though divergent sects existed at the same time, including Gnostics and Jewish Christians).
The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology, while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East-West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.
Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Following the Age of Discovery (15th – 17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.
Above: Various depictions of Jesus
The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion / 50.1%), Protestantism (920 million / 36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million), and the Oriental Orthodox churches (62 million) (Orthodox churches combined at 11.9%), though thousands of smaller church communities exist despite efforts toward unity (ecumenism).
Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.
Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world’s most populous continents.
Protestantism is a form of Christianity that originated with the 16th-century Reformation, a movement against what its followers perceived to be errors in the Catholic Church.
Protestants originating in the Reformation reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy, but disagree among themselves regarding the number of sacraments, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and matters of ecclesiastical polity and apostolic succession.
They emphasize:
the priesthood of all believers
justification by faith (sola fide) rather than by good works
the teaching that salvation comes by divine grace or “unmerited favour” only, not as something merited (sola gratia)
affirm the Bible as being the sole highest authority (sola scriptura / “scripture alone“) or primary authority (primascriptura / “scripture first“) for Christian doctrine, rather than being on parity with sacred tradition.
The five solae of Lutheran and Reformed Christianity summarize basic theological differences in opposition to the Catholic Church.
Protestantism began in Germany in 1517, when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the temporal punishment of sins to their purchasers.
Above: Door displaying the Ninety-five Theses, All Saints’ Church, Wittenberg, Germany
The term, however, derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in March 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical.
Above: German reformer Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)
Although there were earlier breaks and attempts to reform the Catholic Church — notably by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus — only Luther succeeded in sparking a wider, lasting and modern movement.
Above: Statue of French reformer Pierre Vaudès (aka Peter Waldo) (1140 – 1205), Worms, GermanyAbove: English reformer John Wycliffe (1328 – 1384)Above: Portrait of Jan Hus (aka John Hus) (1372 – 1415)
In the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Iceland.
Above: Lutheranism in the world, 2013 – The darker the region, the more Lutherans therein.
Calvinist churches spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by Protestant Reformers, such as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and John Knox.
Above: French reformer Jehan Cauvin (aka John Calvin) (1509 – 1564)Above: Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531)Above: Scottish reformer John Knox (1514 – 1572)
The political separation of the Church of England from the Pope under King Henry VIII began Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement.
Above: English King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547)
Today, Protestantism constitutes the second-largest form of Christianity (after Catholicism), with a total of 800 million to 1 billion adherents worldwide or about 37% of all Christians.
Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts and many other fields.
Protestantism is diverse, being more divided theologically and ecclesiastically than the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church or Oriental Orthodoxy.
Without structural unity or central human authority, Protestants developed the concept of an invisible church, in contrast to the Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which all understand themselves as the one and only original church — the “onetrue church” — founded by Jesus Christ.
Some denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while others are confined to a single country.
A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of Protestant denominational families:
Adventists
Anabaptists
Anglicans / Episcopalians
Baptists
Calvinist / Reformed
Lutherans
Methodists
Pentecostals
Charismatic, Evangelical, Independent and other churches are on the rise and constitute a significant part of Protestantism.
Above: Key figures of the Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther and John Calvin depicted on a church pulpit, Mikolow, Poland. These reformers emphasized preaching and made it a centerpiece of worship.
As regular followers of my blogs know, I have, for quite some time, been writing about my following in the footsteps of Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli.
By “following in the footsteps” I do not refer to following the example of Zwingli’s life as a model for my own.
But rather I mean that I have been tracing on foot the life path of Zwingli by walking from his place of birth in Wildhaus in the Toggenburg region to his final resting place in Kappel am Albis – a five-hour / 19 km walk south of Uetliberg overlooking Zürich.
Above: Marcel and Yvonne Steiner
Huldrych Zwingli or Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system.
Above: Birthplace of Huldrych Zwingli, Wildhaus, Canton St. Gallen, Switzerland
He attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly center of Renaissance humanism.
Above: Seal of the University of Vienna (Austria)Above: Logo of the University of Basel (Switzerland)
He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus.
In 1519, Zwingli became the Leutpriester (people’s priest) of the Grossmünster in Zürich where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic Church.
In his first public controversy in 1522, he attacked the custom of fasting during Lent.
In his publications, he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, promoted clerical marriage, and attacked the use of images in places of worship.
Among his most notable contributions to the Reformation was his expository preaching, starting in 1519, through the Gospel of Matthew, before eventually using biblical exegesis to go through the entire New Testament, a radical departure from the Catholic mass.
In 1525, he introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the Mass.
He also clashed with the Anabaptists, which resulted in their persecution.
Historians have debated whether or not he turned Zürich into a theocracy.
The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Catholic.
Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines.
In 1529, a war was averted at the last moment between the two sides.
Above: Religious map of Switzerland, 1536
Meanwhile, Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther and other reformers.
They met at the Marburg Colloquy and agreed on many points of doctrine, but they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Above: Woodcut illustration of the Marburg Colloquy (1 – 4 October 1529)
In 1531, Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons.
The cantons responded with an attack at a moment when Zürich was unprepared….
Above: Battle of Kappel, 11 October 1531
Zwingli wanted to enforce the Reformed sermon in the entire area of the Swiss Confederation.
He tried to break the resistance of central Switzerland by force of arms.
This was his undoing.
The Reformation in Switzerland was unstoppable.
It prevailed in church and state and gave the authorities more power.
But there were also opponents of the Reformation.
Zwingli and his innovations were sharply criticized, but that didn’t detract from its popularity.
The people flocked to the Grossmünster for its services.
Zwingli commented on theological, ecclesiastical and political questions in the pulpit.
He tried to renew the Church from the inside and to abolish the excesses and abuses with the consent of the Bishop and Pope.
His mission was to lead the entire Swiss Confederation to true Christianity.
He could not accept that the five places involved in the pension system continued to withhold the Reformed sermon from the central Swiss.
Above: Switzerland, 1530
The struggle for the right belief, in his opinion, required courageous action.
Zwingli wrote:
“I believe that just as the Church came to life through blood, it can also be renewed through blood, not otherwise.”
The open break with the Pope and the Church became evident on 29 January 1523, when the Zürich Council obliged the pastors to preach the “pure gospel” based on Zwingli’s example.
At Easter 1525, the Evangelical Last Supper formulated by Zwingli was celebrated instead of Mass for the first time.
Above: Zürich, Switzerland
There were similar developments in other parts of the Swiss Confederation.
Zwingli was in contact with like-minded people.
Well-known exponents of the Reformation in the Swiss Confederation were:
Johannes Dörig (1499 – 1526)
Walter Klarer (1500 – 1567)
Johannes Hess (1486 – 1537)
Valentin Tschudi (1499 – 1555)
Fridolin Brunner (1498 – 1570)
Sebastian Hofmeister (1494 – 1533)
Above: Swiss reformer Sebastian Hofmeister
Berchtold Haller (1492 – 1536)
Above: German reformer Berchtold Haller
Niklaus Manuel (1484 – 1530)
Above: Swiss reformer Niklaus Manuel
Konrad Pellikan (1478 – 1556)
Above: German reformer Konrad Pellikan
Wilhelm Reublin (1484 – 1549)
Johannes Oekolampad (1482 – 1531)
Above: German reformer Johannes Oekolampad
Johannes Comander (1484 – 1557)
Jakob Salzmann (1484 – 1526)
Dr. Joachim von Watt (aka Vadian) (1483 – 1551)
Above: Swiss reformer Joachim Vadian
The disputes about what it meant to be a good Christian led to internal political tensions in the Swiss Confederation.
The 1524 Diet did not lead to an audible solution in dealing that the true gospel should be preached to all confederates.
The Swiss Confederation was weakened.
Above: Flag of the Swiss Confederation
The Pope and the French tried to influence.
Johannes Eck (1486 – 1543), who fought on behalf of the Pope, and Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), took part in the 1526 Baden Disputation.
Above: German counter-reformer Johannes Eck
Eck needed nine places in the Confederation to ostracize and ban Zwingli as Emperor Charles V (1500 – 1558) had done with Luther in 1521.
Above: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
However, the decision was never implemented.
Tensions continued.
Zwingli thought armed conflicts were possible.
He wanted to prevent the Reformed places from being reintegrated into the Catholic Church by military force.
He consulted with Zürich officers and at the beginning of 1526 he drafted a war plan for the attention of the Zürich authorities.
In February 1528, Bern officially converted to the Reformation.
Zwingli took note of this pleasure and satisfaction.
Above: Bern, Switzerland
On Zwingli’s advice, Zürich concluded so-called “Christian castle rights” with the Reformed cities of Bern, Konstanz, St. Gallen, Biel-Bienne, Mühlhausen, Basel and Schaffhausen.
Above: Konstanz, GermanyAbove: St. Gallen, SwitzerlandAbove: Old town, Biel, SwitzerlandAbove: Mühlhausen, GermanyAbove: Basel, SwitzerlandAbove: Schaffhausen, Switzerland
The cities pledged to help each other should they be attacked because of their beliefs.
As a reaction to this, the Catholic towns of Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Zug and Unterwalden allied themselves with Ferdinand von Habsburg-Austria (1503 – 1564) in the “Christian Association“.
Above: Images of Luzern, SwitzerlandAbove: Flag of the Canton of UriAbove: Schwyz, SwitzerlandAbove: Zug, SwitzerlandAbove: Flag of the Canton of Unterwalden
In the early summer of 1529 the situation came to a head:
Both parties committed attacks, the Unterwaldner in the Bernese Oberland, the Zürichers in St. Gallen, and the Schwyzers by executing Reformed pastor Jakob Kaiser (1485 – 1529).
The Zürich government decided to go to war on 4 June 1529.
On 9 June, 4,000 people in armor and guns were standing in Kappel am Albis on the border with the canton of Zug.
Zwingli and several like-minded pasters were there.
Zwingli wanted to ride of his own accord, but the army commanders would have preferred because of the hospitality against Zwingli that he would have stayed at home.
They appointed another pastor to be the field chaplain.
Above: Kappel am Albis, Switzerland
The troops of the Reformed towns numbered 30.000 men, the central Swiss had an army of 9,000 men.
In view of the great overwhelming power, the people of Zürich saw themselves marching into Zug and Luzern without much bloodshed, thus enforcing the free preaching of the Gospel and the prohibition of mercenaries and pensions throughout the entire Confederation.
Above: Coat of arms of ZugAbove: Coat of arms of Luzern
But shortly before the attack, the Glarner Landammann Hans Aebli suddenly wanted to parley.
The central Swiss troops were not yet fully armed and one should refrain from a brotherly fight.
So a break was agreed and the Zürich authorities informed of the Glarus request.
Above: Flag of Canton Glarus
Zwingli wanted to use the numerical superioriry of the Reformers at all costs.
He wrote from the field to the Zürich Council:
“Be steadfast and do not fear war.
We do not thirst for someone’s blood.
We are only concerned with one thing:
That the nerve of the oligarchs’ policy must be cut.
If that does not happen, neither the truth of the Gospel nor the servants of the Gospel safe with us.
We do not contemplate the cruel, but the good and patriotic.
We want to save people who otherwise perish from ignorance.
We thirst for freedom to be preserved.
So do not be afraid of our plans.“
Above: Flag of Zürich
As a condition for peace he suggested to the Council:
The Gospel should be able to be preached unhindered throughout the Confederation.
No more pensions should be accepted.
Those who brokered pensions in the five towns were to be punished while the Zürich troops were still in Kappel.
The Zürichers were to receive war compensation.
Schwyz had to make amends for the children of Pastor Kaiser of 1,000 guilders.
Zwingli’s admonitions and warnings to the Zürich authorities were not heard.
Above: Flag of Canton Schwyz
In the meantime, the central Swiss were ready to fight, but the fighting spirit waned on both sides.
The federal spirit gained the upper hand.
In addition, the men suffered from shortages on both sides.
The central Swiss lacked bread.
The Zürichers lacked milk.
A couple of people from central Switzerland put a bucket of milk on the border.
The people of Zürich got the hint:
They brought the chunks of bread for the soup, which went down in history as “Kappel milk soup“.
But the wait and the negotiations continued.
Above: Kappel Milk Soup
Since the assembly of 14 June in Aarau did not bring an agreement, the negotiations were conducted at Zwingli’s suggestion in front of the assembled troops in the vicinity of Kappel.
Above: Aarau, Switzerland
The ambassadors of the central Switzerland, Zürich and Zwingli expressed themselves.
Zwingli wrote to the Zürich authorities:
“For God’s sake, do something brave!“
The formulation of a peace agreement progressed resinously and after more than two weeks of negotiations the First Kappeler Landfrieden was finally proclaimed on 26 June 1529:
The Reformed sermon was allowed everywhere and the central Swiss cancelled with the Habsburgs.
This strengthened the “Christian castle rights” of the Reformers who felt themselves to be victorious.
Zwingli was on the one hand satisfied with the bloodless peace.
On the other hand, he did not trust the central Swiss.
Above: Huldrych Zwingli
The wording of the peace treaty left a lot of room for interpretation, which just two months later led to violent disputes at a parliamentary meeting.
In particular, there was a dispute over the sovereignty over belief in the individual areas.
Both sides demanded that the minority bow to the majority.
So it was allowed in Zürich to stick to the old faith and attend Catholic mass.
In central Switzerland, Reformers were not allowed to hold their own church services in communities that remained mostly Catholic.
There was also a quarrel about war compensation.
Instead of the 80,000 guilders demanded by Zürich and Bern, they awarded only 2,500 guilders from both places, which the central Swiss did not want to pay either.
The mutual trust was gone.
The Reformers were suspicious of the central Swiss, despite the contractual ban they were again in contact with the Habsburgs.
Zwingli and Zürich feared that Emperor Charles V and the Habsburgers could attack the Reformed areas in the Confederation and Germany with the support of central Switzerland.
Above: Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy
Zwingli wanted to defend the Reformed areas of the Confederation and tried to forge an alliance with Hesse and other Reformed states in Germany, as well as with Venice and Milan.
His attempts were unsuccessful.
Above: Coat of arms of the German state of HesseAbove: Images of Venice, ItalyAbove: Images of Milan (Milano), Italy (Italia)
At the beginning of 1531, Zürich again asked the central Swiss to allow the Reformer sermon.
They felt their autonomy was threatened and rejected the request.
Zwingli urged the Zürich Council to force the people of central Switzerland to make this concession.
Above: Zürich, Switzerland
They were not convinced by the food boycott either.
At a meeting on 14 June 1531, the two parties – Zürich and Bern on one side, the five central Swiss towns on the other – sat opposite one another.
No agreement could be reached, negotiations were held on 20 June and 11 July with no results.
Zwingli could not stand the hesitation of the people of Zürich and decided on 26 July to leave the city immediately.
The influential lords of the city did not want to allow that to happen.
They literally begged him to stay.
After a period of reflection, Zwingli withdrew his resignation.
Above: Zürich in the time of Zwingli
Since the negotiations between Zürich, Bern and central Switzerland were still going on, Zwingli arranged to meet the Bern representative before the meeting on 11 August and tried to win them over a war against the five central Swiss towns.
Shortly afterwards, Zwingli wrote in a letter:
“I am prepared for more than just one disaster.“
He felt himself at a loss.
“The retirees don’t want to be punished.”
They had too much popular support.
Instead of going to war, Bern advised in September 1531 to lift the supply block against central Switzerland.
Above: The Bern negotiations, 1531
The people of Zürich were informed of the preparations for war by the central Swiss from various quarters, but they remained inactive.
When, on 9 October 1531, a runner from Luzern demanded the delivery of the federal letters, Zürichers did not expect an attack.
Even after the central Swiss had already mobilized their troops, the people of Zürich still did not call their soldiers to arms.
Only when reports came in on 10 October that the central Swiss were at Baar did the Zürich-based vanguard send an advance guard to the border with Zug.
Above: City Hall, Baar, Switzerland
The central Swiss invaded and plundered Freiamt.
Above: Coat of arms of Freiamt, Switzerland
The Grand Council of Zürich now sent its main force to support the vanguard.
Instead of the expected 4,000 men, only 1,000 arrived.
Zwingli rode at their head as field preacher together with the captains.
More troops arrived.
Finally on 11 October 1531, 7,000 central Swiss troops faced 3,500 soldiers in Kappel.
The people of Zürich who hurried up in forced marches were exhausted even before the fight.
When the central Swiss attacked at 4 pm, they fled after a brief resistance.
Zwingli fell in the front ranks.
More than 500 people from Zürich died with him in this second battle of Kappel.
The central Swiss had fewer than a 100 deaths to mourn.
Above: The Battle of Kappel, 11 October 1531
Zwingli did not immediately die, as the Menzinger Jahrezeitenbuch reported:
The central Swiss recognized the wounded man and offered him a confessor.
Zwingli refused.
Then a captain killed him with a halberd.
Above: The murder of Zwingli, by Karl Jauslin
The following day, “martial law was held over the dead body of this dishonourable God and the unfaithful, perjured, vow-breaking arch heretics and seducers of the people“.
As a result, Zwingli was “first cut off as a traitor to the entire Confederation by the Luzern executioner and then burned to ashes as an arch heretic“.
As a resulr, Zwingli was “first cut off as a traitor to the entire Confederation by the Luzern executioner and then burned to ashes as an arch heretic“.
Above: Zwingli memorial, Kappel am Albis, Switzerland
Zwingli’s death triggered a fall in friends and followers in Zürich and raised hope among his opponents, but the majority of the population wanted to hold on to the Reformation.
As a result of Zwingli’s interference in urban and federal politics, a clear separation of religions and politics was sought.
Pastors were instructed not to interfere in politics, but to concentrate on the preaching of God’s word and to work for peace and tranquility.
Anyone who did not comply was dismissed by the Zürich Council.
The Council appointed Heinrich Bullinger (1504 – 1575) as the new pastor at the Grossmünster on 9 December 1531.
In doing so, he fulfilled Zwingli’s wish:
He had recommended Bullinger as his successor if he did not return from Kappel.
Above: Heinrich Bullinger
The Second Kappel War was not ended by Zwingli’s death.
More defeats for the people of Zürich and Bern followed on the battlefield.
After the defeat, the forces of Zürich regrouped and attempted to occupy the Zugerberg, and some of them camped on the Gubel hill near Menzingen.
Following the defeat at Kappel, Bern and other Reformed Cantons marched to rescue Zürich.
Between 15 and 21 October, a large Reformed army marched up the Reuss Valley to outside of Baar.
Above: Reuss River, Luzern, SwitzerlandAbove: Baar today
At the same time, the Catholic army was now encamped on the slopes of the Zugerberg.
Above: Zugerberg and the city of Zug
The combined Zürich-Bern army attempted to send 5,000 men over Sihlbrugg and Menzingen to encircle the army on the Zugerberg.
Above: Babenwaag bridge in Sihlbrugg
However, the Reformed army marched slowly due to poor discipline and looting.
By the night of 23–24 October, they had only reached Gubel at Menzingen.
Above: Coat of arms of Menzingen
That night they were attacked by a small Catholic force from Aegeri and driven off.
Above: Oberaegeri (formerly Aegeri), Switzerland
About 600 Protestant soldiers died in the attack and the panicked retreat that followed.
This defeat destroyed much of the combined Zürich – Bern army and, faced with increasing desertion, it had to retreat on 3 November back down the Reuss to Bremgarten.
Above: Bremgarten, Switzerland
The retreat left much of Lake Zürich (Zürichsee) and Zürich itself unprotected.
Zürich now pushed for a rapid peace settlement.
Above: Map of Lake Zürich
On 20 November 1531, the Second Treaty of Kappel was concluded on the mediation of the federal states that had remained neutral.
It was stipulated that each canton could determine its own denomination.
The Abbey of St. Gallen was taken from Zürich and restored.
Above: Abbey of St. Gall, St. Gallen, Switzerland
The “Christian castle law” of the Reformed cantons repeatedly led to tensions and disputes.
After a long domination of the Catholic towns, the Reformed towns of Bern and Zürich gained the upper hand in the Swiss Confederation in 1712 in the Second Villmerger War (or Toggenburg War) (12 April – 11 August 1712).
Until the French Revolution, there were always new denominational disputes.
Above: The Helvetic Republic (1798 – 1803)
They also played a role in the Sonderbund War (3 – 29 November 1847), which led to the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848.
Above: Switzerland, 1847
Zürich to Kappel am Albis, Switzerland, Friday 13 March 2018
I am not a religious man, though I do respect the morality and traditions that religion tries to maintain.
I am considered by statistics as a man without religion, though I do consider myself a fairly moral man who was raised in the tenets of Christianity – my foster mother was a non-practising Baptist, my foster father was a non-practising Catholic, my foster sister and her family are fundamentalist Christians – I do not adhere to the notion that there is only one faith to follow to salvation – if there is indeed salvation at all.
My following in the footsteps of Huldrych Zwingli was far less a pilgrimage of faith as it was a pedestrian project of walking a path divided into many stages and accomplished in separate stages when time and money permitted.
I was not searching for God or holy illumination but rather I simply wished to get a sense of a historical period before my own and I felt that there was no better way to get a sense of Zwingli than to march along with his memory.
I have always preferred walking to any other method of transportation as the slowest of journeys generates the deepest experiences.
I have always held that the moment one puts wheels beneath them the journey loses its significance and the destination becomes the primary goal.
I wanted to imagine what the places I saw now appeared back then.
How did it come to this?
What did the people of yesterday think?
How did they feel?
How different were they from us?
How similar to us were they?
The Steiner book had led me in eight stages since 11 October 2017 from Wildhaus to Wollishofen in downtown Zürich.
Above: WildhausAbove: Wollishofen with the Uetliberg in the background
Today would be the final march that would take me from Zürich to Uetliberg, Hotel Uto Kulm, Balderen, Felsenegg, Buchenegg, Näfenhüser, Albispass, the Albis Hochwacht, Schnabellücken and Kappel am Albis.
Above: Limmat River, ZürichAbove: Uetliberg, seen from Lake ZürichAbove: Hotel Uto Kulm, UetlibergAbove: Balderen houseAbove: FelseneggAbove: Restaurant Chusperhüsli, BucheneggAbove: NäfenhüserAbove: Rüschlikon and AlbispassAbove: Albis Hochwacht (lookout)Above: SchnabellückenAbove: Kappel Monastery, Kappel am Albis
From the Haus zur Sul, at Kirchgasse 22, Zwingli’s official residence from 1522 to 1525, the last three years of his life, I walk from there to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Grand Central Station), to catch the Uetliberg train and the official start of this last leg of the Steiner trail.
Above: Haus zur Sul, ZürichAbove: Zürich Hauptbahnhof
The Uetliberg railway line (Uetlibergbahn) is a passenger railway line which runs from the central station in Zürich through the city’s western outskirts to the summit of the Uetliberg.
The route serves as line S10 of the Zürich S-Bahn (street railway/trams) with the Zürcher Verkehrsverband (Zürich Transport Commission)’s (ZVV) standards zonal fares applying.
The line was opened in 1875 and electrified in 1923.
In 1990 it was extended to its current terminus at Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Central Station).
Above: Zürich Hauptbahnhof
Today it is owned by the Sihltal Zürich Uetliberg Bahn, a company that also owns the Sihltal line and operates other transport services.
The line has a maximum gradient of 7.9% and is the steepest standard gauge adhesion railway in Europe.
It carries both leisure and local commuter traffic.
Above: Sihltal Zürich Uetliberg Bahn
The Uetliberg line shares a common terminus with the Sihltal line, utilising a dedicated underground island platform (tracks 21 and 22) at Zürich Hauptbahnhof.
There is no rail connection to the rest of the station, but the platform is served by the same complex of pedestrian subways and subterranean shopping malls that link the station’s other platforms.
From the Hauptbahnhof to Zürich Giesshübel station the two lines share a common twin-track line, initially in tunnel, partly running along and under the Sihl River.
Above: Giesshübel StationAbove: Sihl River near Sihlbrugg
The current Selnau station is located in this under-river tunnel section.
Above: Selnau Station
Although the two lines diverge at Giesshübel station, and the depot for Uetliberg trains is located there, Uetliberg line trains do not stop.
Just beyond Giesshübel, the line serves Zürich Binz station.
Above: Binz Station
The line then commences a long, steep but relatively straight climb through the Zurich suburbs, serving the stations of Zürich Friesenberg, Zürich Schweighof and Zürich Triemli.
Above: Friesenberg StationAbove: Schweighof StationAbove: Triemli Station
This section of line is single track, with a double track section between Binz and Friesenberg.
Triemli station is adjacent to the Triemli Hospital , one of Zürich’s main hospitals, and is the terminus for some trains on the line.
Above: Triemli Hospital
The station has two tracks and two platforms.
Beyond Triemli the line enters a more wooded and hilly environment, and executes a broad U-shaped route to the summit of Uetliberg, which is 5.9 km (3.7 mi) from Triemli by rail, but only 1.5 km (0.93 mi) away in a direct line.
Above: Uetliberg, seen from Felsenegg
This section of line serves Uitikon Waldegg and Ringlikon stations, and is single track, with double track sections between Triemli and Uitikon Waldegg, and at Ringlikon.
Above: Waldegg StationAbove: Ringlikon Station
Uetliberg station lies some 650 m (2,130 ft) from, and 56 m (184 ft) below, the summit of the Uetiberg.
The station has two terminal tracks, and a substantial station building, including a restaurant.
Above: Uetliberg Station
A refuge castle existed on the Uetliberg as early as the Bronze Age or an oppidum in Celtic times.
Various archaeological finds such as ramparts and the Prince’s grave mound Sonnenbühl can still be visited today.
From 1644 it was the location of a high watch.
Above: Sonnenbühl
The Uetliberg and the nearby Albiskamm were the location of six castles in the Middle Ages, of which only remnants are left today: Uetliburg, Sellenbüren, Frisenberg, Baldern, Schnabelburg and Manegg.
Above: Uetliberg Castle Above: Sellenbüren Castle ruinsAbove: Old mill, Friesenberg CastleAbove: Original location of Baldern CastleAbove: Schnabelburg Castle ruinsAbove: Manegg Castle
Uotelenburg was first mentioned in a document in 1210.
In 1267 the people of Zürich allegedly destroyed the Uetliburg under Rudolf von Habsburg (1218 – 1291) in the course of the Regensberg feud (1268 – 1269), but this is not considered historically certain.
Above: Grave slab of Rudolf von Habsburg, Speyer Cathedral, Germany
Twice (perhaps) Zwingli ascended Uetliberg in 1531 en route to battle.
That a man of the church sought bloodshed leaves me disappointed, but lives had already been lost in Zürich in the name of his religious reforms.
Above: Zwingli Monument, Wasserkirche, Zürich
In 1750 the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724 – 1803) climbed the mountain.
He too would cause others to doubt his religious convictions.
Above: Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock grew up as the eldest of 17 children in a pietistic family.
His father, Gottlieb Heinrich, the son of a lawyer, was a commissioner and had leased the estate of Friedeburg, so that Friedrich Gottlieb spent his childhood here from 1732 until the lease was given up in 1736.
Above: Klopstock birthplace, Quedlinburg, Germany
His mother Anna Maria had the Bad Langensalza council chamberlain and merchant Johann Christoph Schmidt (1659 – 1711) as a father.
Above: Anna Maria Klopstock (née Schmidt)
After attending the Quedlinburg grammar school, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock came to the Fürstenschule in Schulpforte at the age of 15 , where he received a thorough humanistic education.
Above: Pforta State School (Fürstenschule), Schulpforte, GermanyAbove: Klopstock Memorial Stone, Pforta School
Klopstock read the Greek and Latin classics: Homer, Pindar, Virgil and Horace.
Above: Bust of Homer, Glyptothek, Munich, GermanyAbove: Replica of Pindar (522 – 446 BCE), Capitoline Museum, Rome, Italy Above: Representation of Virgil (70 – 19 BCE), Monnus Mosaic, Trier, Germany
Here he also made his first own poetic attempts and wrote a first plan for the Messiah, a religious epic.
In 1745 he began studying Protestant theology in Jena, where he also wrote the first three chants of the Messiah, which he initially laid out in prose.
After moving to Leipzig, the work was reworked in hexameters the following year.
The appearance of the first parts in the articles in Bremen in 1748 caused a sensation and became the model for the Messiad literature of its era.
In Leipzig, Klopstock also created the first odes.
Above: Messiah, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
After completing his theology studies, he took a private tutor in Langensalza (according to the custom of all theology candidates).
During the two years of his stay in Bad Langensalza, Klopstock experienced the passionate love for the girl Maria-Sophia Schmidt, the intoxication of hope, the despair of disappointment, and finally the elegy of renunciation.
Above: Old quarter, Bad Langensalza, Germany
This led to, during these two years, his composing the most beautiful of his earlier odes for the unapproachable lover.
The publication of the odes sparked a storm of enthusiasm among opponents of the “reasonable” poetics of Johann Christoph Gottsched, which had prevailed up until then.
Above: German writer, “the literary pope“, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700 – 1776)
It was the hour of birth of pure poetry.
Above: Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Contacts were made with Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698 – 1783), who invited Klopstock to Zürich in 1750.
Above: Swiss philologist Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698 – 1783)
Klostock gladly accepted the invitation from Bodmer, the Swiss translator of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Klopstock was initially treated with every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits.
Above: English writer John Milton (1608 – 1674)
Bodmer, however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the Messiah a man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two men.
After eight months, Klopstock went at the invitation of King Frederick V of Denmark (1723 – 1766).
With Friedrich’s support he was able to complete his work.
This granted him a life pension of 400 (later 800) thalers a year.
He spent three years of his life in Denmark.
Above: King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway (1723 – 1766)
On 10 June 1754, Klopstock married Margreta (Meta) Moller (1728 – 1758), whom he met in Hamburg in 1751 while traveling to Copenhagen.
She died of a stillbirth on 28 November 1758.
For thirty years Klopstock could not forget her and sang about her in his elegies.
It was not until old age (1791) that he married Johanna Elisabeth Dimpfel von Winthem (1747-1821), a niece of Meta Moller.
Above: Johanna Elisabeth von Winthem
From 1759 to 1762 Klopstock lived in Quedlinburg, Braunschweig and Halberstadt, then travelled to Copenhagen, where he stayed until 1771 and exerted a great influence on the cultural life in Denmark.
In addition to the Messiah, which finally appeared in full in 1773, he wrote dramas, including Hermanns Schlacht (Herman’s Battle) (1769).
He then returned to Hamburg.
Above: St. Michaelis Church, Hamburg, Germany
In 1776, he moved temporarily to Karlsruhe at the invitation of Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden (1728 – 1811).
Above: The statue of Karl Friedrich von Baden, Karlsruhe Castle, Karlsruhe, GermanyAbove: Karl Friedrich von Baden
After his death on 14 March 1803 at the age of 78, Klopstock was buried on 22 March 1803 with great public sympathy in the church cemetery in Ottensen.
Above: Klopstock Grave, Ottensen, Hamburg, GermanyAbove: Klopstock’s grave under the linden tree, Ottensen bei Altona
In Quedlinburg, the Klopstockhaus provides information about the poet.
Above: Klopstockhaus, Quedlinburg, GermanyAbove: Klopstock Memorial, Brühl Park, Quedlinburg, Germany
In 1831, a memorial was inaugurated in the local park in Brühl.
Above: Brühl Park, south of Quedlinburg
As a father of the German nation-state idea, Klopstock was a proponent of the French Revolution, which he described in the 1789 poem Know Yourself as the “noblest deed of the century”.
Klopstock also called on the Germans for a revolution.
In 1792, the French National Assembly accepted him as an honorary citizen.
Later, however, he castigated the excesses of the revolution in the 1793 poem The Jacobins.
Here he criticized the Jacobin regime, which had emerged from the French Revolution, as a snake that winds through all of France.
Above: Jacobin hat, Army History Museum, Vienna, AustriaAbove: Jacobin Club session, January 1792
Klopstock’s enlightened utopia The German Republic of Scholars (1774) is a concept that installs an educated elite in power for the princely rule, which is regarded as incapable of governing.
The republic is to be ruled by “aldermen“, “guilds” and “the people“, whereby the former – as the most learned – should have the greatest powers, and guilds and people accordingly less.
The “rabble”, on the other hand, would only get a “shouter” in the state parliament, because Klopstock did not trust the people to have popular sovereignty.
Education is the highest good in this republic and qualifies its bearer for higher offices.
This republic would do extremely well in accordance with the learned approach and would be pacifistic too:
Klopstock estimates sniffing, scornful laughter and frowning as punishments between the scholars.
This made special demands on the executors:
“Whoever wants to become one of them must have two main characteristics, namely a great skill in being very expressive, and then a very special larval face, whereby the size and shape of the nose come into consideration.
In addition to this, the scornful laugher must have a very strong and at the same time rough voice.
It is customary to release Schreyer from being expelled from the country and to raise him to a sneer if his nose has the necessary properties for this task.”
Klopstock’s conception of Heaven, shaped by the scientific achievements of NIcolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), is not that of an ancient sky at rest in itself, whose stars are gods and heroes.
Its celestial sphere is rather a world harmony, a rhythm and symmetry of the spheres.
Above: Polish scientist Nikolaus Kopernikus (1473 – 1543)Above: German mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630)
So it says in the first song of the Messiah:
In the middle of this gathering of the suns the sky rises, round, immeasurable, the archetype of the worlds, the abundance of all visible beauty, which, like fleeting brooks, pours out, imitating it through the infinite space. So, under the Eternal, it revolves around itself.
While he is walking, the spherical harmonies resound from him, on the wings of the wind, to the shores of the suns high. The songs of the divine harpists resound with power, as if animating. These agreed tones lead the immortal hearer past many a high praise song.
Above: Kepler’s Platonic model of the Solar System
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) will take up this picture again in Faust.
The “Prologue in Heaven” begins like this:
The sun resounds in the old fashion in the fraternal song of contests, And its prescribed journey completes it with a thunderous walk.
Above: German polymath Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAbove: Faust in his study, by Georg Friedrich Kersting
Klopstock gave the German language new impulses and can be seen as a trailblazer for the generation that followed him.
He was the first to use hexameter in German poetry with his Messiah, and his examination of the “German hexameter“, as he called it, led him to his doctrine of the word foot (the smallest rhythmic unit.
This paved the way for free rhythms such as those used by Goethe and Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 – 1843) for example.
Above: German poet Friedrich Hölderlin
Klopstock also fought against the strict use of rhyme according to the Martin Opitz (1597 – 1639) school.
Opitz’s aim was to elevate German poetry on the basis of humanism and ancient forms to an art object of the highest order, and he succeeded in creating a new kind of poetics.
In his commemorative speech on the 100th anniversary of Opitz’s death in 1739, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700 – 1766) called him the first who had succeeded in bringing the German language to a level that met all the demands of sophisticated diction and eliminated everyday language, which allowed him to advance of the French.
With his reflections on language, style and verse art, Opitz gave German poetry a formal basis. In doing so, he drew up various laws that served as guidelines and standards for all German poetry for over a century:
He demanded strict observance of the meter, taking into account the natural word accent.
He rejected impure rhymes. (Probably rejected dirty limericks, too!)
He forbade word abbreviations and contractions.
He also excluded foreign words.
Opitz’s aesthetic principles included the Horace (65 – 8 BCE) Principle:
“Poetry, while it is pleasurable, must be useful and instructive at the same time.”
Above: German poet Martin Opitz
Klopstock gave the poet’s profession a new dignity by exemplifying the artistic autonomy of the poet, and thus freed poetry from didactic poems.
Klopstock is considered to be the founder of experiential poetry and German irrationalism.
His work extended over large parts of the age of the Enlightenment.
Unlike most Enlighteners, however, he was not committed to reason, but to sensitivity.
In 1779 he coined the term inwardness, which he called one of nine elements of poetic representation:
“Inwardness, or highlighting the actual innermost nature of the thing.”
Furthermore, he is considered an important pioneer for the movement of Sturm und Drang – literally “storm and desire”, though usually translated as “storm and stress“, where individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression.
Above: Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, an example of “Sturm und Drang“
In The Sorrows of Young Werther, Klopstock’s effect is felt in the writing of Goethe:
“We went to the window, it thundered to the side and the wonderful rain rustled on the land, and the most refreshing fragrance rose to us in the fullness of warm air.
She stood on her elbow and her eyes penetrated the area, she looked up at the sky and at me, I saw her eyes full of tears, she put her hand on mine and said – “Klopstock!”
I sank into the stream of sensations which she poured out on me in this loosing.
I could not stand, leaned on her hand and kissed it with the most delightful tears.
And looked at her eye again –
Noble!
You would have seen your admiration in this look, and now I would never hear your name, which has so often been desecrated, mentioned again.“
In spite of all this, the young Lessing registers:
“Who will not praise a Klopstock? But will everyone read it? – No! We want to be less exalted and read more diligently.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Above: Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther
Klopstock reminds me of Zwingli.
Both strong men, both well-educated, both advocating radical change.
In 1812 the Uetliberg watch was erected.
Above: Lookout Tower, UetlibergAbove: The view from Uetliberg
The Alt Uetliberg is a small farm west below the former Annaburg.
Mentioned in a document 400 years ago and probably much older, the mountain home is a witness of old farming culture on the Uetliberg.
In 1984 the canton of Zürich wanted to demolish the building.
A petition successfully opposed this.
Today the buildings serve as a scout home.
Above: Alt Üetliberg
A wooden ski jump was built in 1954 south of the Alt Uetliberg farmhouse .
A hill record of 41.5 meters was achieved in the 1970s.
Due to the frequent lack of snow and decreasing public interest, the ski jump was demolished in 1994.
Above: Ski jump, Uetliberg
During the Second World War, the Uetliberg and Waldegg area was fortified with over 100 bunkered shelters as part of the first army position.
Above: Waldegg tank trench
In 1815 an inn opened in the former Hochwacht.
In 1838 Friedlich Bluntschli acquired the summit area from his cousin Gerber Bluntschli
The Zürich architect Johann Caspar Breitinger built the first spa house for Friedlich Bluntschli.
In 1840 Friedrich Beyel opened the Uetliberg guest house and spa.
Above: Hotel Uto Kulm, Uetliberg
Friedrich von Dürler was the son of Xaver von Dürler, a businessman from Lucerne, and Barbara Gossweiler from Zurich.
Above: Friedrich von Dürler (1804 – 1840)
After the early death of his father, he trained as a businessman, but soon gave up the profession to devote himself to archeology and gymnastics.
He was close friends with Ferdinand Keller, the founder of the Antiquarian Society of Zürich, and as treasurer of the association took part in excavations on the Lindenhof in Zurich and the Uetliberg.
Above: Swiss archaeologist Ferdinand Keller (1800 – 1881)
Together with the theologian Alexander Schweizer, Dürler was one of the early promoters of gymnastics based on the ideas of the father of German gymnastics Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.
Above: German educator Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778 – 1852)
From 1836 the bachelor served as secretary for the Zurich poor relief.
In September 1838 Dürler became a member of the Swiss Society for Natural Research.
On 19 August 1837, he had the chamois hunters and mountain farmers Bernhard and Gabriel Vögeli and Thomas Thut from Linthal take him up to the Glarner Tödi to prove their first ascent of the peak from the north on 11 August 1837.
Dürler is still honored today with a plaque in Linthal.
Above: Tödi Mountain, Canton Glarus, Switzerland
Dürler and friends climbed the Uetliberg, where the first restaurant had just opened.
On 8 March 1840, this mountaineer, naturalist and Zürich secretary for the poor, Friedrich von Dürler (1804 – 1840) fell to his death after visiting the inn while descending.
On the basis of a bet, he slipped down a steep gully on his alpine stick, fell over a rock and died.
The friends erected a memorial stone with a plaque on the ridge east of today’s Uto Staffel Restaurant, the Dürlerstein.
Inscription:
Here Friedrich von Dürler fell down and died on March 8th MDCCCXL Mourning friends set this stone for him
Above: The Dürler Stone, Uetliberg
In 1873 the hotelier Caspar Fürst bought the mountain inn.
The existing house was enlarged and a hotel was built to the north of it.
In 1927 the Uetliberg Hotel was taken over by the City of Zürich and the ETH Zürich-Lehrwald (teaching forest) was established.
Above: Logo of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
In 1935 the Niedermann brothers, both major butchers in Zürich, bought the hotel.
In 1943 it was closed.
In 1973 the hotel came into the possession of the general contractor Karl Steiner.
In 1983 the Swiss Bank Corporation bought the Uto Kulm mountain inn.
In 1999 Giusep Fry bought the hotel with a lookout tower.
He subsequently carried out various modifications that were declared illegal by the Federal Supreme Court.
Tourist development began in the 19th century with the Uetlibergbahn (opened in 1875) and the construction of various hotels and guest houses on the Uetliberg and the Albis chain.
Today the traditional Hotel Uto Kulm and the Uetliberg observation tower, open to the public all year round, stand on the summit of the Uetliberg.
Above: Hotel Uto Kulm and observation tower, Uetliberg
Car-free Üetliberg is accessed by the S10 line of the Sihital-Zürich-Uetliberg Bahn, which is part of the Zurich S-Bahn network, is Europe’s steepest standard-gauge adhesion railway, running from Zürich Main Station to the Uetliberg station – a ten-minute walk below the summit.
Above: Uetliberg, by Hans Leu the Elder
From the train station, the Uetliberg – Felsenegg Planet Path leads to Felsenegg, where the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway leads down to Adliswil.
Various hiking trails lead from the city of Zurich to the summit in around an hour:
The varied Denzlerweg leads from Albisguetli (tram line 13 terminus) in a fairly straight direction to the summit. It is named after a baker Denzler who is said to have brought his rolls to the Hotel on the summit every morning on this route and is said to have made this route about 4,000 times.
Above: The Denzler Path
Also from Albisgüetli, the Laternenweg leads a little further west onto the ridge. It takes its name from its earlier gas lantern lighting, which has been electrified since 2003.
Above: Lantern Path in winter
From Triemli (tram line 14 terminus) the Hohensteinweg leads up a mountain shoulder, which is particularly popular as a toboggan run in winter.
Above: The High Stone Path
A forest road leads from Uitikon-Waldegg (parking lot) to the summit. This path has the least incline.
The Uetliberg is particularly popular in winter, as its summit is often above the Zürich fog.
In the past, in such inversion weather conditions, the tram lines that go to the foot of the Uetliberg carried the sign “Uetliberg hell”.
In winter, some of the hiking trails are used as toboggan runs.
Swisscom operates an important telecommunications system on the Uetliberg (the Uetliberg television tower) for the transmission of radio and television programs.
The Uetliberg offers – especially from the Uetliberg observation tower on the mountain top – a view of the entire city and Lake Zürich.
When the weather is good, the view extends to the north as far as Hohentwiel, and from east to south to Glarus, Graubünden and the Bernese Alps.
Other mountain ranges in Germany (the Black Forest / Schwarzwald), France (Vosges) and Austria can also be seen.
Above: Uetliberg
The Felsenegg (810m) is a lookout point on the Albis chain and the mountain station of the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway southwest of Zürich.
The Albis is one of the most important local recreation and hiking areas in the greater Zürich area.
Via the Felsenegg, the hiking trail from Uetliberg leads along the Albis ridge in an easterly direction to the Albis Pass, starting with the Uetliberg – Felsenegg Planet Trail.
Above: Felsenegg
The Uetliberg – Felsenegg PlanetTrail is a hiking trail in the canton of Zürich on the Albis.
The path leads from the Uetliberg railway station of the Uetlibergbahn to Staffel, Annaburg, above the Fallätsche via Mädikon to the Felsenegg station of the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway, via Felsenegg to Buchenegg.
The duration of the hike is around two hours.
The trail was designed by Arnold von Rotz and opened on 26 April 1979.
The patronage was taken over by the Astronomical Society Urania Zürich.
Above: Urania Observatory, Zürich
The path is laid out on a scale of 1:1 billion and thus offers a clear representation of the sizes and distances in the solar system.
One meter of the model corresponds to one million kilometers in reality.
The planetary path includes not only the Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, planets Mercury, but also the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.
Above: Representation of the Solar System – We are the third rock from the Sun.
The planet models are attached to boulders on the Linth or Reuss glacier along the way.
Above: Reuss glacier boulder with model of Jupiter
The smaller planet models were poured into glass and set into a niche in the boulder, the larger ones attached to the top of the boulder.
Above: Venus model in a Malmkalk boulder
A board on each planet provides information about its position in the solar system and additional information, such as equatorial diameter, rotational speed, orbital speed, orbit circumference, and the like.
As a model of the sun, a yellow sphere with a diameter of 1.39 meters was attached to a pole, which can be seen clearly from the first planetary models .
Above: Sun model with two Reuss glacier boulders
Dwarf planet Pluto is represented with three stations because of its strongly elliptical orbit:
Above: Pluto
The first position corresponds to the perihelion, while it lies ahead of Neptune.
Above: Model of Neptune with view of Uetliberg
The second position at Felsenegg corresponds to the mean distance and the third station near Buchenegg corresponds to the aphelion.
The next star, Proxima Centauri, would be around 40,113 kilometers away on the same scale.
Above: Proxima Centauri, as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope
(For comparison: the circumference of the Earth is around 40,030 kilometers).
Above: Earth
A steep forest path built between 1908 and 1912 leads from Adliswil up to Felsenegg.
Above: Uetliberg
Adliswil is located in the lower Sihl valley between Albis and Zimmerberg on the border with the city of Zürich.
The forest covers a third of the municipal area, the settlement area and traffic almost half, 20% are still used for agriculture.
The graves from the early Middle Ages, which were found in the Grüt near the border with the city of Zurich, give evidence of settlements.
The slopes of Zimmerberg and Albis were settled first, as the valley floor along the Sihl was repeatedly endangered by floods.
Above: Adliswil and the Sihl Valley
A bridge over the Sihl has been documented since 1475.
The first mill with a weir (dam) is also mentioned in the 15th century.
The manorial power lay with the Grossmünster and Frauminister of Zürich, as well as the monasteries of Muri and Rüti, and passed to the city of Zürich in 1406.
Above: Grossmünster, ZürichAbove: Fraumünster, ZürichAbove: Müri MonasteryAbove: Rüti Monastery before the fire of 1706
From 1942 to 1945, the second largest internment camp in Switzerland, which was set up as a result of the German occupation of southern France, was located in Adliswil.
It was housed in the rooms of a disused mechanical silk weaving mill.
In particular, German Jews who had previously found refuge in southern France tried to escape to Switzerland afterwards.
The transit camp, which, despite its size, was little known among the population because it was shielded by the military, offered space for around 500 people.
The community experienced a strong growth spurt in the 19th century through industrialization, during which a large spinning company, the Mechanische Seidenweberei Adliswil (MSA), was built.
Above: The Mechanical Silk Manufacturing Company, Adliswil
The village was also home to the chocolate manufacturer Norma, which later became part of the Cima – Norma SA company in Dangio – Torre.
Above: Buildings of Cima-Norma SA, Dangio-Torre, Canton Ticino, Switzerland
Today many of the residents work in Zürich.
The majority of the resident companies operate in the tertiary sector.
In particular, insurance companies (Generali, Swiss Reinsurance Company) have located part of their administration in Adliswil.
The Liechtenstein tool manufacturer Hilti has its Swiss headquarters in Adliswil.
A total of around 5,000 people in all sectors work in Adliswil.
Above: Coat of arms of Adliswil
Some personalities of Adliswil:
Stefan Bachmann is a Swiss-American author of novels and short stories.
Above: Stefan Bachmann
His debut novel The Peculiar was published in 2012.
Bachmann was born in Colorado, but soon moved with his family to Adliswil.
He was home schooled by his American mother and four siblings through high school.
Above: Adliswil
He attended the Zürich Conservatory since he was 11, and then the Zürich University of the Arts, where he studied organ and composition.
His first novel was published when he was 19 years old.
He writes his books in English.
The Peculiar is about the opening of a portal to the fairy world, as a result of which a multitude of magical creatures come into the human world.
Since the portal closed, the fairies and elves have been prevented from returning and have to live side by side with the humans.
Children of a human and a fairy are called “the Peculiar” and are especially outlawed as crossbreeds on both sides.
Bartholomew and his little sister Henrietta “Hettie” Kettle are mixed race whose fairy father has left the family.
They live with their mother on Krähengasse in Bath and are almost never allowed to leave the house, as very few people shy away from killing “mixed race children”.
One day Bartholomew observes a lady in a plum-colored dress from the window of a secret attic room who is picking up another mongrel boy from the neighbors.
When Bartholomew follows her, he is magically wrapped in feathers and taken into a distant, noble room, which he leaves shortly afterwards in the same way.
Arthur Jelliby is a parliamentarian and member of the Council of State in London, which also includes a fairy elite.
For some time now, mongrels have been mysteriously disappearing and then found dead, which most of the Members of Parliament don’t care much.
When Jelliby is invited to the fairy attorney general Lickerish, he gets lost in his house in a corridor and is tracked down by Lickerish’s fairy butler, who suspects him to have spied.
By chance, Jelliby overhears Lickerish in an office and comes across a diabolical plan to open the portal to the fairy world in order to deliver England to the fairies.
To do this, Lickerish needs a certain mixed-race child that the lady in the plum-colored dress named Melusine is supposed to get for him.
In the meantime, Bartholomew has tried to conjure up a house ghost and instead leads Lickerish’s henchmen to him, who kidnap Hettie.
At the same time, Jelliby arrives in Crow Alley and comes across Bartholomew, who is desperately looking for his sister.
Together they make their way to the fairy market to get weapons for defense, and then to a lonely place in the forest where an old fairy lives in a trailer and tells them about Lickerish’s plans.
He wants to invade all magical beings from the fairy world to England in order to subdue people and to rule over them.
Bartholomew and Jelliby travel back to London, where they locate an old warehouse with access to an airship over the city.
That is where Lickerish is holding Hettie.
He is responsible for the disappearance and death of the other mixed race children because he was looking for the right one.
Hettie is the portal to the fairy world and is supposed to open it that night.
When it happens, Bartholomew and Jelliby join them.
They want to prevent the portal from opening, but fail, and Hettie disappears into the fairy world together with the fairy butler.
The story ends with Bartholomew’s decision to bring Hettie home at all costs.
Bachmann wrote The Peculiar in English at the age of 16, inspired by The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, among others.
Above: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
According to his own information, he needed six months for the first version with 400 pages, plus another six months for the revision.
Above: Bachmann at the time of the publishing of The Peculiar
An agent sent the manuscript to US publisher Harper Collins, who published it on 18 September 2012.
According to some media reports, the novel quickly became a bestseller in the US, which also led to the film industry’s interest in film rights.
Along with the publication, a book trailer was produced, the musical accompaniment of which was composed by Bachmann himself.
A reading tour through the USA and a blog tour through Asia followed in 2013 and brought the author an income in the six-figure range.
The book has been translated into seven languages, including Czech, Polish, and Spanish.
The German translation was published on 26 February 2014 by the Swiss Diogenes Verlag.
Both the press, as well as representatives of fantasy literature judged The Peculiar mainly positive.
The New York Times wrote in September 2012 that The Peculiar was “a story young fantasy buffs are sure to enjoy”.
The Los Angeles Times wrote “Bachmann’s prose is so elegantly witty.”
Publishers Weekly described the novel as “limitless reading pleasure for readers of all ages.”
Christopher Paolini, author of the fantasy series Eragon, praised the book as “swift, strong and entertaining, highly recommanded”.
Above: Christopher Paolini
Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan said:
“Stefan Bachmann breathes fresh life into ancient magic.”
Above: Rick Riordan
Margrit Baur (1937 – 2017) was a Swiss writer and secretary.
She was born and raised in Adliswil.
After teachers’ college, she attended a drama school in Vienna, where she also appeared in small theatres for a few years after completing her training.
Back in Switzerland, she worked in various “bread and butter” jobs in order to be able to devote herself freely to writing.
She brought up this juxtaposition of professional life and “real” life above all in Survival (1981) and Downtime(1983)
Baur lived in Gattikon near Zürich until 2017.
Above: Margrit Baur
Franz Fassbind (1919 – 2003) was a Swiss writer, playwright and journalist.
Franz Fassbind was the son of photographer and small publisher Bernardin Fassbind (1887 – 1954) and Lina Fassbind-Marty (1884 – 1931) in Unteriberg in the canton of Schwyz.
Above: Unteriberg
He grew up in poor conditions, first in the Engadine, then in Zürich’s industrial district and in Wipkingen.
Above: The course of the Inn River – Within Swiss territory the Inn (En) River Valley is called the Engadine.Above: Zürich’s Industrial QuarterAbove: Wipkingen
Later he attended the collegiate school of Einsiedeln Monastery and the Jesuit college in Feldkirch.
Above: Einsiedeln MonasteryAbove: The former Jesuit college, Stella Matutina (today: the Vorarlberg State Conservatory), Feldkirch, Austria
During these years Franz Fassbind wrote his first poems and small compositions.
After dropping out of high school, he studied music at the Zürich Conservatory from 1936 and German studies at the University of Zürich.
Above: The Zürich Conservatory (today: Zürich University of the Arts)
Without ever finishing a degree, he worked as a freelance journalist, writer and composer.
His first poems were published in 1936, Radio Beromünster broadcast his first radio play at Christmas 1938, and his first novel was published three years later.
Above: Landesender Beromünster, home of Radio Beromünster, Gunzwil, Canton Luzern, Switzerland
Franz Fassbind became known primarily for his work for Swiss Radio.
His radio plays and features had a formative effect on the medium from 1938 to 1974.
Just as important was the series of programs he initiated, “The International Forum”, in which he allowed well-known scientists to have their say.
His radio reviews in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung found a wide readership.
His journalistic work is also an expression of the spiritual defense movement.
Above: Logo for Swiss Radio
(The spiritual defense movement is the cross-party strengthening of values and customs perceived as “Swiss” in order to ward off totalitarian ideologies.
At first it was directed primarily against National Socialism (Nazism) and Facism, later during the Cold War against Communism.
Even when intellectual national defense was no longer actively pursued by the authorities, the cultural, anti-totalitarian values remained in effect.
Swiss politicians still use the terms and metaphors of intellectual national defense today.)
Above: Marble sculpture Readiness for military service, Ramisstrasse, Zürich
In the Dramaturgy of the Radio Play published in 1943 , he also reflected on his radio work theoretically.
In 1956 he turned to the medium of film.
For The Art of the Etruscanshe provided both the script and the music.
The work earned him the 1st Film Prize of the City of Zürich.
From 1948 Fassbind’s main poetic work, Die Hohe Messe (The High Mass), was published in demanding terzins – an Italian rhyming scheme wherein each stanza consists of three verses – based on Dante.
There, as in his novels from the post war period, the focus is on dealing with Catholicism in today’s world.
Above: Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321)
Fassbind married Gertrud Schmucki in 1941.
Their only child, a daughter, Ursula was born in 1943.
The family lived in Adliswil near Zürich, where Franz Fassbind died on 9 July 2003 at the age of 84.
Peter Wild published an edition of his work at Walter Verlag in Olten.
Above: Fassbind’s Zeitloses Leben (Timeless Life)
Hannes Gruber (1928 – 2016) was a Swiss painter.
Above: Hannes Gruber
Hannes Gruber was the second son of Paul and Erna Gruber-Hartmann.
He spent his youth and school days in Oberrieden on Lake Zürich.
Above: Oberrieden
In 1943 – 1944 he attended the Zürich School of Applied Arts (1883 – 2007).
From 1944 to 1948 he did an apprenticeship with Swiss bookseller Orell Füssli in Zürich, at the same time he attended courses in the painting at the Zürich School of Applied Arts.
After moving to Grevasalvas in the Upper Engadine (1948) he worked there as a freelance painter.
In 1953 his son Stefan (now known as filmmaker Steff Gruber) was born.
Above: Grevasalvas, Upper Engadine
After returning to Zürich (1954), Hannes Gruber opened his own graphic studio.
In 1957 his daughter Ursina was born.
In 1968 his daughter Sandrina was born.
Above: Hannes Gruber painting
The next year Gruber opened a studio on the Hirzel, a Swiss pass in the foothills of cantons Zürich and Zug, between Wadenswil and Sihlbrugg.
Above: Hirzelpass
In 1972 he moved to the Engadin again, this time to Sils Baselgia.
Above: The towns of Sils Maria (left) and Sils Baselgia (right)
He moved into a studio in Bondo.
Above: Bondo
Gruber made his first painting trip to Northern Italy in 1949.
Above: Flag of Italy
A study trip took him to the Netherlands in 1950 and another painting trip to Denmark in 1952.
Above: Flag of the NetherlandsAbove: Flag of Denmark
He made further trips to Italy (1958) to Bergamo and Verona, then to Sicily (1966) and Tuscany (1967).
Above: Bergamo, ItalyAbove: Images of Verona, ItalyAbove: Flag of SicilyAbove: Flag of Tuscany (Toscana)
A summer stay in Spain (1969) earned him a commission for several wall paintings on a building on Ibiza.
Above: Mediterranean Spanish island of Ibiza
He travelled to New York in 1974.
Above: Images of New York City
Another summer stay in Italy took place in 1977..
Above: Emblem of Italy
His first watercolours of landscapes from the area around Oberrieden were created in 1940.
He painted in oil for the first time in 1942.
Above: Oberrieden
Above: Oberrieden, by Hannes Gruber
In 1950 he received an order for large murals for the Olma – the annual agricultural fair in St. Gallen.
Above: OLMA (Swiss Fair for Agriculture and Food) halls, St. Gallen
In 1966 he illustrated an edition of Tristan by Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955).
In 1971 he was commissioned with a three-dimensional wall design in the Fuhr schoolhouse in Wädenswil.
Above: Fuhr Schulhaus, Wadenswil
Peter Holenstein (1946 – 2019) was a Swiss journalist and author.
Above: Peter Holenstein
In his journalistic work, for example in the Swiss weekly magazine Weltwoche, Peter Holenstein dealt in particular with topics relating to criminal justice and crime, the perpetrator-victim problem and the causes of violent crimes.
His book The Incredible: The Murderous Lifeof Werner Ferrari in 2007 led to a review of the child murder case of Ruth Steinmann at the Baden District Court, which ended in Ferrari’s acquittal.
Werner Ferrari is a Swiss serial killer.
As a five-time child murderer, he is one of the most famous prison inmates in Switzerland.
For example, he kidnapped or lured children away from public festivals, abused some of the victims and strangled them.
Ferrari grew up in various children’s and youth homes and was considered an introvert.
He performed various jobs as an unskilled worker.
In 1971 Ferrari committed his first infanticide:
In Reinach (BL), he murdered 10-year-old Daniel Schwan.
Above: Daniel Schwan (1961 – 1971)
Ferrari was sentenced to ten years in prison and released early after eight years in prison from the Zürich prison in Regensdorf.
Above: Regensdorf Prison
Between 1980 and 1989, 21 children disappeared in Switzerland, 14 of whom were found abused and murdered.
Seven children, including Peter Roth (8) from Mogelsberg (SG), Sarah Oberson (5) from Saxon (VS), and Edith Trittenbass (9) from Gass-Wetzikon (TG), are still missing today despite intensive searches.
Above: Peter RothAbove: Edith Trittenbass
On 30 August 1989, four days after Fabienne Imhof’s murder, Werner Ferrari called the police – and stated that he had nothing to do with her death.
Above: Fabienne Imhof
Shortly afterwards he was arrested in his apartment in Olten, and he made confessions in four cases.
Above: Olten
Ferrari vehemently denied the murder of 12-year-old Ruth Steinmann, who was found on 16 May 1980 in a wooded area near Würenlos (AG).
In 1995 Ferrari was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Baden District Court for fivefold murder, including for the crime committed against Ruth Steinmann.
Seven years later, research by journalist and book author Peter Holenstein discovered evidence that Ferrari could not be responsible for the murder of Ruth Steinmann.
Among other things, a DNA analysis initiated by the journalist revealed that a pubic hair that could be secured on Ruth Steinmann’s corpse did not come from Ferrari.
On the basis of Holenstein’s research, the higher court of the canton of Aargau overturned the judgment against Ferrari in the Ruth Steinmann case in 2004 and referred it back to the Baden District Court for reassessment.
As a result, a suspect on Ruth Steinmann was exhumed in March 1983 in Wolfhalden (AG) who had committed suicide.
A dental report from the Scientific Service of the Zürich City Police showed that the bite marks on the girl’s body were definitely not from Ferrari, but from the man who died in 1983 and who looked very similar to Ferrari.
In a national appeal, Werner Ferrari was found innocent on 10 April 2007 by the Baden District Court for the murder of Ruth Steinmann and acquitted of this crime.
However, he remains detained for the other four cases.
Above: Ruth Steinmann (1968 – 1980)
As early as 1979, Holenstein succeeded in resolving a murder case in Italy with his research:
After he was able to convict the right perpetrator and he made a confession, the 46-year-old Swiss Werner Rudolf Meier was declared innocent in Elba Prison after 24 years served and was pardoned by Italy’s President Sandro Pertini.
Above: Sandro Pertini (1896 – 1990), 7th Italian President (1978 – 1985)
From Dominique Strebel and Christoph Schilling, Beobachter, 28 December 2006
The fortnightly Swiss magazine Beobachter (The Observer) reveals grievances where state arbitrariness is worst: in educational, reformatory or penal institutions.
Everywhere where the individual is exposed to state power without protection.
And this is most glaringly shown in the case of errors of justice, to which the Beobachter repeatedly points out.
Take the case of the Zürich furniture maker Werner Rudolf Meier, who was imprisoned in Italy for 24 years – for a murder that he demonstrably did not commit.
Only when the journalist Peter Holenstein researched meticulously did the matter move.
Holenstein convicted the real murderer, who made a full confession.
A revision procedure failed, because the court declared the confessing perpetrator to be insane.
Holenstein continued to write about the case until Federal Councilors Willi Ritschard and Pierre Aubert spoke directly to the Italian President Sandro Pertini on behalf of Meier.
He was finally released in 1979.
“Without the Beobachter, this would not have been possible,” said Holenstein.
“It played a decisive role in putting pressure on us.”
Meier was not acquitted, but pardoned.
Therefore, he did not receive any compensation for unlawful detention.
Even now, the Beobachter does not let Meier fall and “participates in the necessary health, professional and human integration efforts with advice and action”.
Above: Logo of the Beobachter (Observer)
In 2001, Holenstein was awarded the German Regino Prize for the best judicial report of the year for Der Verdacht (TheSuspicion), published in the magazine Tages-Anzeiger (Daily Indicator).
Above: Logo of Das Magazin (formerly Tages-Anzeiger)
Peter Holenstein was a member of the Swiss Working Group for Criminology (SAK) and the Swiss CriminologicalSociety (SKG / SSDP).
At the age of 72, he died in Zürich in January 2019 as a result of a heart attack.
Pjotr Kraska, actually Peter Johannes Kraska, also known as Kraska rex (1946 – 2016) was a Swiss action artist, writer, visual artist, critic of the authorities and a Zürich original.
Above: Pjotr Kraska
In the late 60s he appeared, sometimes together with Dieter Meier, in experimental theatre and in avant-garde shows that startled the bourgeoisie at the time.
Above: Dieter Meier
His book, The Big Throw, reflects on speaking and writing.
One poem (1978/79) was partly enthusiastically discussed.
In 1980 he declared himself “King of Zürich and Bilbao, ruler of the Zen and A-centric empires” and from then on fought a bitter but unsuccessful dispute over free travel on the Zürich public transport network (ZVV).
Above: Kraska’s “Triumphal Arch Card” for the entire transport network in the canton of ZürichAbove: ZVV logo
Kraska, the son of East Prussian parents, grew up as the third of four children in Oberleimbach (Adliswil).
Above: Adliswil
After leaving school, he attended the Appenzell-Ausserrhoden (AR) cantonal school in Trogen, but took off before completion, deciding that he was an actor.
Above: The Kantonsschule Trogen
He later lived in Zürich’s old town in Niederdorf.
In 1966, Kraska began writing and performing experimental plays.
He made his first public appearance on the occasion of the performance of Ladislav Kupkovic’s Písmená by the Zürich Chamber Choir in Fred Barth’s piece Forum Concert .
Above: Slovak musician Ladislav Kupkovic (1936 – 2016)
In 1968 the 22-year-old Kraska founded the Wath-Tholl-Theater, where he performed the Darkroom play the same year:
“What can be admired in the non-stop, two and a half hour Darkroom piece is the concentration of the actors, the consistency with which the audience is alluded to that openly expressing incomprehension, and above all the virtuoso leadership of a – if one may say so – musical perceived arc to which the text is subordinated.
Kraska’s problem is – and in this piece, in this nightmare, in any case in an annoying way, he chokes it out of himself – the lack of relationships, the groping in the pitch dark.
Must this artistically inadequate examination of what may afflict a sensitive young man today take place in public and on a stage? “
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16 June 1968
Above: The King of Zürich’s 1968 passport
In 1969 Kraska took part with the Wath-Tholl-Theater in the avant-garde show Underground Explosions, which was performed in Munich (München), Zürich and Cologne (Köln), among others, together with the rock groups Amon Düül and Guru Guru Groove, the Bavarians Paul and Limpe Fuchs (aka Anima) with experimental primal scream music, as well the Viennese performance artists Valie Export and Peter Weibel.
Above: Austrian artist Waltraud Stockinger (née Lehner) (aka Valie Export)Above: Austrian artist Peter Weibel
The Zürich concept artist Dieter Meier and Munich film activist Karl Heinz organized the shows, which culminated in student revolts, pop revolts and avant-garde culture, which grew into tangible scandal.
Der Spiegel (The Mirror) devoted a whole page to the occasion after the performance in the Munich Circus Krone (which claims to be the biggest circus in the world) and in the Zürich Volkshaus, led to panic and chaos.
The Wath Tholl theatre of Zürich actor Pjotr Kraska (22):
The group of twelve, aged between 16 and 24, spent the winter at an Andalusian farm honing their style.
The Kraska clan entered the Krone Circus with animal screams, attacked each other in combat ballets and ecstatic Blocksberg hugs.
Kraska, who uses his pants as a notepad, wants to achieve “unity between mind and body”.
When a spectator kissed a Kraska girl, she fell to the ground as if touched by lightning.
Der Spiegel, 21 April 1969
Above: Pjotr Kraska
Even later, Kraska appeared as an action artist.
For example, in 1982 he invited to a “simple monarchical-clerical celebration” on the Pestalozziwiese in Zürich , where Kristin T. Schnider was supposed to “let go“, as was announced – apparently with little public success:
Above: Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Monument, Pestalozziwiese (park), Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich
“Now Kristin T. Schnider is no longer black-haired and no longer a poet, but rather bald and, as one hears, the first court poet to Kraska’s spiritual monarchy.
And the actors pull away.
The honoured audience sinks back into the grass and into boredom.“
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 – 25 July 1982
Above: Swiss writer Kristin T. Schnider
From the 1970s, Kraska shifted increasingly to writing and worked as a publicist.
In 1979 his first book, The Big Throw, was published.
A poemwas enthusiastically reviewed by some of the critics and reprinted in 2000:
“The Big Throw is a ‘narrative‘ (246 pages) about writing, about language itself, which is rare in the linguistic landscape of Switzerland and which has so far hardly been heard of reflexive density, biblical form of language and metalinguistic stubbornness.
Stubbornness repeatedly brought back the litter before it could still hit.
Sounds fall silent in meaning, profundity evaporates in letters:
In every way language is driven out of language, but hollowness and fullness now fall back all the more into the words.
Here there is no commitment to this or that, here is total commitment to the language.
There is an intelligent and at the same time eloquent talent at work.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2 May 1978
Above: Kraska’s Der Grosse Wurf (The Big Throw)
In 1981 the novella Death in Napleswas followedin 1982 by the novel The Hand in the Clong, and Buddha smiles forever.
Above: Images of Naples (Napoli), Italy (Italia)Above: Buddha statue, Sarnath Museum, India
Kraska also published several articles in the Neue Zürcher Zeitiung on bullfighting and flamenco.
Above: Matador and bull, Cancun, MexicoAbove: Flamenco dancers, Cordoba, Spain
He had an ambivalent relationship with the Kunsthaus Zürich.
Above: Kunsthaus Zürich (Zürich Arthouse)
For the exhibition Dada Global(1994) he was allowed to design a showcase as a “contemporary representativeof Dadaism.”
In 2013 the Kunsthaus acquired two Swiss banknotes painted by Kraska, and the museum library owns a complete collection of Court News.
Conversely, the latter refused to include the “royal coat of arms” designed by Peter Fischli in the Fischli / Weiss retrospective, whereupon Kraska burned it in a public staging in front of the Kunsthaus.
Above: Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946 – 2012)
Most recently, Kraska bequeathed his urn with the ashes to the Kunsthaus – a gift that was not accepted.
Above: Kraska burns the coat of arms, Kunsthaus Zürich
During the Zürich youth riots of 1980, Kraska declared himself “His Majesty King Kraskaof Zurich and Bilbao, ruler ofthe Central and A-Central Empire“.
Above: Images of Bilboa, Spain
During this time, he published the Crown’s Official Court News every nine months.
In this glossy magazine he printed, among other things, excerpts from his numerous disputes in court, wrote instructions for the production of blank stamp cards, glorified the Spanish bullfight and rounded off everything with numerous photographs of himself and his followers.
In 2015 he laid down the “crown”.
In the 80s and 90s he quarreled with the Zürich transport company (ZVV) and the responsible city councilor, Jürg Kaufmann:
Above: Jürg Kaufmann
The “King” took the right to travel without a ticket and declared himself a “green driver” (“in the service of theenvironment”) and fought a bitter dispute through all court instances until the Federal Court upheld a sentence of 30 days in prison in 1987.
Above: Federal Courthouse, Lausanne, Switzerland
In another trial, the Zürich District Council sentenced Kraska to three months’ imprisonment for “continued fraudulentactivity“.
Above: District Courthouse, Zürich
Kraska unsuccessfully sued the Zürich city councilman Jürg Kaufmann for “insulting”, as he had described him in the magazine Bonus 24 as a “total weirdo”.
Kraska’s defense attorney was temporarily the politically committed lawyer Barbara Hug, who had also represented the “escape king” Walter Stürm , the “sprayer of Zürich” Harald Naegeli and the alleged terrorist Giorgio Bellini in court.
Above: Walter Stürm (1942 – 1999)Above: Harald NaegeliAbove: Giorgio Bellini
As the quotations interspersed here show, Kraska’s work was controversial.
In a résumé, the Tages Anzeiger wrote:
“In fact, King Kraska, together with Dieter Meier and other Dadaists, took up what had moved the 1960s: the liberation from authority and bourgeois morals.
Today, the 67-year-old’s art and subjects are outdated.
The civil fright has degenerated into a civil servant fright.“
Tages-Anzeiger, 26 June 2014
Above: Pjotr Kraska
His work as an artist faded increasingly into the background in the public perception, and from the 1980s his persistent fight for free use of public transport was at the center (“Schwarzfahrer-König“), which occupied all court instances.
For the Beobachter, Kraska was therefore “a prominent example of the type of the modern resister“.
In the obituaries published in 2016, Kraska was drawn primarily as a city original.
Above: Pjotr Kraska (right), Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich, 2007
Kamil Krejčí is a Czech-Swiss actor, director and author who has lived in Switzerland since 1968.
Above: Kamil Krejčí
Kamil Krejčí attended the Zürich Acting Academy, where he trained as an actor and director.
Since 1987 he has been active on the stage and in film.
After a permanent engagement at the Stadttheater St. Gallen and the Stadt Bühnen Münster, he was a freelance actor and director.
Above: Stadt Theater, St. GallenAbove: Theater Münster, Germany
Krejčí worked on many stages in Switzerland and Germany, for example, the B. Fritz Rémond Theater, comedy in the Bayerischer Hof (Bavarian Court), Stadttheater Bern, Luzern and Solothurn.
Above: The B. Fritz Rémond Theater, Frankfurt am Main, GermanyAbove: The Bavarian Court, Munich, GermanyAbove: Stadt Theater, Bern, SwitzerlandAbove: Stadt Theater, Bern, SwitzerlandAbove: Stadt Theater Solothurn, Switzerland
He also played Erwin Imhof in Mannezimmer (Swiss television) in 65 episodes.
He was the founder of various theater companies, such as BIM Stage, Artsi Fartsi or Take Theater.
Above: Bühne Imst Mitte (BIM)(Stage in the middle), Zürich
Kamil Krejčí was responsible for the text editing of Der kleine Horrorladen (Little Shop of Horrors), as well as the Swiss-German version of the musical Elternabend (Parents’ Night) for the Theater am Hechtplatz or s’Dschungelbuech (TheJungle Book) for the Bernhardtheater.
Above: Virginia Theater, Broadway, New York CityAbove: Theater am Hechtplatz, ZürichAbove: Bernhard Theater, Zürich
The family musicals Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), De chli Isbär (The Little PolarBear), s’Dschungelbuech (The Jungle Book) and D’Schatzinsle (Treasure Island) toured Switzerland for several years.
Krejci wrote the scripts for TheSorcerer’s Apprentice, The LittlePolar Bear and Treasure Island.
For Dschungelbuch he was responsible for the direction and the text version.
Above: First page of Der Zauberling by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Kamil Krejčí is the “inventor” of the “Adliswil Christmas Calendar”.
From 2001 to 2018 he organized and hosted his living Christmas calendar in Adliswil.
Together with Brigitte Schmidlin and Beat Gärtner (Stadt Theater) he told his own and adapted Christmas stories every day of Advent.
Krejci now has a “story pool” of more than 200 Christmas fairy tales written in Swiss German.
Above: The Adliswil Christmas Calendar
From 2005 he wrote columns for the Zürcher Tages Anzeiger, then until 2016 in the newspaper “Züri 2”.
In addition, a number of radio plays were created both under his direction and under his pen, for example, various Schreckmümpfeli (horror stories), but also several CDs with Papa Moll stories produced by SRF.
In many other radio plays he acts as a speaker.
Above: Papa Moll and son
Felix Mettler (1945 – 2019) was a Swiss writer.
Above: Felix Mettler
Mettler studied veterinary medicine and worked for several years as a senior assistant at the Institute for Veterinary Pathology at the University of Zürich.
His first work, The Wild Boar, was translated into English and Italian.
The novel also served as the basis for the film Death of a Boar (2006) with Joachim Król.
The 73-metre high transmission tower Felsenegg – Girstel transmission tower of Swisscom is visible from afar and is around 300 metres from the mountain station of the Felseneggbahn cable car.
The tower was built in 1959 to broadcast radio and television programs in the region.
With the completion of the directional tower in 1963, radio and television broadcasting began in Switzerland.
The Felsenegg station was the most important national technical center for television broadcasting.
It was the control centre for many private Swiss television stations and allowed national and international distribution.
Above: Felsenegg transmission tower, 1963
With the introduction of the REAL system, several transmission systems were distributed to 27 other Swisscom towers.
As a result, the tower lost its originally outstanding central importance.
The Felsenegg transmission tower is now integrated in the general network of transmission towers.
Since fiber optics became popular, conventional broadcasting of radio programs has also declined.
The tower shone until 10 December 200 as VHF radio from Radio Zürisee before it was switched to the Üetliberg.
In 2020 the Felsenegg Tower was released from the canton’s inventory of historical monuments.
In 2021 the dilapidated Felsenegg tower will be replaced by a 73-meter high lattice mast tower.
The old concrete tower is to be dismantled by the end of 2022.
Above: Felsenegg transmission tower seen from Adliswil
Skyguide – the air traffic control company that monitors Swiss airspace and adjacent airspace – has been operating a radio receiving station there since 2005.
The directional beam tower was built by Zürich architect Edwin Schoch.
It is 51 meters high and was made of reinforced concrete and clad with aluminum.
This cladding not only has significant technical advantages, but also has a special play of light that adapts the tower’s color to the changing moods of the day and the weather.
By choosing a consistently slim tower shape, it was possible to avoid a forest fall on the narrow ridge of the Felsenegg.
A triangular floor plan with cut corners makes the tower light and at the same time allows the large antennas mounted on special platforms outside the tower to be placed in the desired main beam directions without difficulty.
At the top there is a 22-meter high dipole antenna made of steel.
The tower has 16 floors and one underground floor in which the operating rooms are located.
The antennas are mounted on the top five platforms and the roof.
This includes parabolic and directional antennas.
The maximum radiated power to the Nods Chasseral transmitter 111.3 kilometers away, as the crow flies, is 10 watts.
Above: Felsenegg transmission tower
The Türlersee (Türler Lake) is located in the Säuliamt in the canton of Zürich, on the border of the communities Aeugst and Hausen am Albis at 643 metres above sea level.
Above: Türler Lake
The Türlersee lies for the most part in the municipality of Aeugst.
The lake is around 1.4 kilometers long and around 500 meters wide.
On the southeastern bank there is a campsite and the Türlen Lido.
Above: Türler Lake, Türlen
Türlen is a hamlet that belongs to the municipality of Hausen am Albis and is located on the Türlersee, west of the Albis in the canton of Zürich.
Türlen has a bus stop where regional buses run to and from Wiedikon, Hausen am Albis, Ebertswil and Affoltern am Albis, a restaurant and the outdoor pool on the Türlersee.
The only campsite on the Türlersee is near Türlen, where on 26 May 2009, 17 caravans burned out due to a gas explosion and fire.
Sixteen people were injured.
In the north the River Reppisch leaves the lake.
Above: Reppisch River at Dönibach
A landslide on the Aeugsterberg changed the landscape at the end of the last ice age around 10,000 years ago.
The Aeugsterberg, made up of molasse (sedimentary rock), rose like an island out of the ice masses formed by the Reuss and Linth glaciers.
Above: Molasse rock
After the glacier melted, the pressure on the mountain flank eased, and at the same time the meltwater streams increased the erosion at the foot of the mountain.
The slope lost its stability and 60 million cubic meters of rock slid into the valley and dammed the Reppisch to the Türlersee.
Above: Aeugsterberg and Türlersee
First the Türlersee flowed over the Hexengraben (witches’ pit) towards the Reuss, only later over the Reppisch into the Limmat.
Above: The Hexengraben
With a path around the lake and through the surrounding forests, the lake is a popular local recreation area.
A lido, as well as other beaches and jetties, offers bathing opportunities.
First and foremost, the landscape at the Türlersee is a diverse nature and landscape protection area with natural banks, species-rich flat and sloping moors and dry meadows.
The lake is of cantonal importance as a spawning area for common frogs and toads.
Above: TürlerseeAbove: Common frogAbove: Common toad
In 1786 a coal seam was discovered north of the Aeugsterberg near Gottert, which led to the construction of the Riedhof Mine, in which coal was mined during the periods of 1786–1814, 1917–1921 and 1942–1947.
In 1944 the first ordinance for the protection of the Türlersee was issued, which was adjusted due to the steadily increasing influx of visitors in 1998 and 2001 (Protection Ordinance of December 17, 2001).
For this reason, intensive recreational use is only possible in the demarcated areas:
In the area of the campsite, near the cantonal road at the northern end of the Lake and at the Hexengraben.
Above: Türlersee
The Türlersee was frozen over in January 2009 and January 2012, with an accessible layer of ice.
Because of its sheltered location between Albis and Aeugsterberg, the water of the Türlersee is hardly circulated.
Therefore, the water circulation in winter is supported by a circulation system.
The Türlersee is easy to reach by public transport:
From the city of Zürich, take tram 14 to Triemli and Postbus 235 or take the S5 Zürich S-Bahn to Affoltern am Albis, then Bus 223 via Hausen am Albis to Türlersee.
Above: Zürich tram symbolAbove: Logo of the Zürich Transportation Authority
The Türlersee is on the regional cycling route 51 Säuliamt – Schwyz – Zurich – Schwyz.
There is a legend about the origin of the water:
Where the Türlersee now spreads, there used to be a beautiful farm with fertile fields.
The owner had an only child, a graceful, dear daughter.
She caught the eye of the young lord of Schnabel Castle, and he pursued her passionately.
But the honorable child persistently refused all his promises.
Then the lord of the castle persuaded the father to bring the girl to the Castle at midnight under all sorts of pretenses.
He opened the gate himself and pulled the reluctant daughter in.
As he was about to close the gate, she noticed what was being played and uttered a cry of curse on her traitorous father.
At that moment lightning flashed from the sky and struck her parents’ house.
She saw how a fiery chasm opened and the neat and once so blessed courtyard with all its fields disappeared into it.
In the morning, however, there was a lake in its place.
Above: Türlersee
The Affoltern district is a district in the southwest of Canton Zürich.
It lies between the Albis chain and the Reuss with borders in the west and northwest with Canton Aargau, in the south with Canton Zug.
The district is identical to the Knonaueramt region (or Knonauer Amt) and is popularly called Säuliamt .
The name Zürcher Freiamt , which was also used in earlier centuries, is virtually unknown today.
Above: Coat of arms of Affoltern
From the beginning of the 15th century until the Reformation, the city of Zürich gradually gained control over the areas between Albis and Reuss.
Already in 1406 the heirs of John of Hallwyl sold Langnau, Kappel, Rifferswil, Maschwanden, Ottenbach, and portions of today’s Obfeldens to Switzerland’s largest city.
In the course of the Swiss conquest of Aargau in 1415, Zürich then annexed the Freiamt Affoltern and jurisdiction over Steinhausen, the Maschwanderamt and the Kelleramt.
During the Old Zürich War (1440 – 1446), the entire region was severely affected by acts of war and was administered by Schwyz, Glarus, Lucerne and Zug between 1443 and 1450.
Above: Knonau Castle
One of the traditional autonomy rights of the Freiamt was its own jurisdiction.
The courts handed down from the Habsburg era (1173 – 1415) were Rifferswil, Affoltern am Albis and Berikon.
Above: Old courthouse, Affoltern am Albis
The Freiamtsgemeinde met in the Mettmenstein church.
It met for the last time on 26 March 1795, but had to be moved to Rüteli near today’s train station because the church was too small for the large number of visitors.
Above: Reformed Church, Mettmenstetten
From 1507 to 1512, the Zürich government combined the abovementioned areas to form the Knonau bailiff and standardized the legal system.
The centralization efforts of the city of Zürich’s guild regime provoked the resistance of the Ämtler population, for example in the Waldmann trade in 1489, in the Wädenswil uprising in 1646 (a tax revolt in Wädenswil and in the Knonaueramt, which Zürich condemned with military actions, executions and heavy fines), in Ämtlerhandel (1794 – 1795), and in the Bock War (1804).
Above: Wädenswil and the Zürichsee
This last uprising ended the Knonaueramt with the disarmament and military occupation of the villages, imprisonment and fines as well as the execution under martial law of two revolutionaries, Jakob Schneebeli from Affltern am Albis and Heinrich Häberling from Knonau.
Their names (together with those of the also executed Hans Jakob Willi from Horgen and Jakob Kleinert from Schönenberg) are immortalized on a memorial stone at Affoltern train station.
Above: Affoltern Station
Hans Jakob Willi was born in Horgen as the son of the shoemaker Johann Jakob Willi and his wife Anna Maria Leuthold.
After completing his apprenticeship as a shoemaker in his father’s workshop, Willi started working as a mercenary in Spain and France at the age of 15.
After escaping from British captivity, he returned to Horgen in 1801.
On 28 March 1803 he married Anna Anton von Horgen.
Above: Horgen
The Mediation Constitution of 1803 shifted the balance of power in favor of the city of Zürich.
Above: The Mediation Constitution
Willi, with his war experience, became the leader of the rebels in the countryside.
The battles were named Bockenkrieg (Bock War) after the Bocken inn in Arn bei Horgen.
Above: Bocken Inn, Arn bei Horgen
Three warships were used to bombard Horgen from Lake Zürich.
The insurgents won the battle, but Willi had to retire injured.
The uprising now collapsed very quickly.
After the battle at the Bocken, Hans Jakob Willi stayed in hiding until he was caught in Stäfa after seven days.
An unconstitutional court martial condemned him despite the intervention of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Above: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821)
On 25 April 1804 at 2 p.m. Willi was executed in Zürich along with two co-defendants.
Above: Old city, Zürich
“We are free Swiss, citizens with equal rights throughout.
If our government does not want to hear the voice of the people, it is tyrannical.“
Hans Jakob Willi
Above: Willi memorial plaque, Horgen
In 1798 the authorities of the Helvetic Republic created the district of Mettmenstetten, which included the core area of the Landvogtei Knonau, as well as Aesch, Birmensdorf, Oberurdorf, Wettswil, Stallikon and Bonstetten.
Langnau was assigned to the Hirgen district on this occasion.
Steinhausen came to Canton Zug and Canton Baden, which in turn became part of the new Aaargau in 1803.
In its current boundaries, the district emerged as the Knonau Oberamt after the end of the Mediation Constitution in 1814.
The district capital was relocated in 1837 from the former bailiff’s seat of Knonau to the more centrally located Affoltern am Albis.
This gave the district its current name.
Above: Coat of arms of Affoltern am Albis
After the turmoil and crises of the beginning of the century, a strong industrialization set in around the middle of the 19th century, which also found its expression in transport technology with the opening of the Zürich – Zug railway in 1864.
The opening of National Highway 4 in 2009 marked another important turning point, as Affoltern am Albis could now be reached from Zürich and Zug in less than 15 minutes.
In the 1980s a regional protest movement postponed the construction of the motorway for more than twenty years with growth-critical and ecological arguments, but ultimately could not stop the suburbanization of large parts of the district.
In 2012 almost 50,000 people lived in the Affoltern district and there were 16,000 jobs.
In the last ten years, the district has recorded a population growth of 16.1% (compared to 14%, the cantonal average).
Above: Affoltern train and bus station
Hausen am Albis is located in the south of the canton of Zürich in the Affoltern district, on the south side of the Albis.
The community, located in the upper Jonental Valley, consists of the villages of Hausen am Albis and Ebertswil and the hamlets of Türlen, Vollenweid, Tüfenbach, Hinter-, Mittel- and Oberalbis, Husertal, Hirzwangen and Schweikhof.
The municipality extends from Sihlbrugg to the Türlersee.
This makes Hausen am Albis the largest municipality in the district with a total of 13.64 km².
The highest point in the municipality is 916 metres above sea level.
Bürglen is the lowest point at 532 metres above sea level.
Hausen am Albis is located between the cities of Zürich and Zug.
Above: Hausen am Albis
Hausen am Albis was first mentioned in a document in 869 as Huson, today’s district of Heisch in 1184 as Heinsche.
During this time the lords of Hausen were the Barons of Eschenbach.
It was they who built the Schnabelburg on the Albis ridge in 1150 and founded the Cistercian Abbey of Kappel in 1185 .
Above: Kappel Monastery
The Schnabelburg is the ruin of a hilltop castle on the beak-like elevation north of the Schnabellücke near the village of Hausen am Albis.
In 1185 Walter I, Baron von Eschenbach, named himself after the newly built castle.
Above: Eschenbach coat of arms
However, it is not known for sure whether it was really the same castle, the ruin of which is known today.
Archaeological investigations of the castle complex have shown that the castle was probably built in the 13th century, and that it was built very hastily.
However, no traces have been found in the vicinity of the ruins that are visible today, which would suggest that another castle was built first.
In 1218 the last Duke of the Zähringen family, with whom the castle owners were connected, died, and the economic decline of the family of the Lords of Eschenbach-Schnabelburg began with Berchtold II.
Above: Zähringen coat of arms, New City Hall, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
In 1270 von Eschenbach became a friend of Rudolf I von Habsburg, the new lord of the castle of Schnabelburg.
Berchtold II fought with the Habsburg in the decisive battle – one of the largest knight battles in Europe – on the Marchfeld (26 August) against Ottokar von Böhmen in 1278.
Above: The iron and gold king of Bohemia, Ottokar II Přemysl (1232 – 1278)Above: Memorial stone of the battle, Dürnkrutfeld, Austria
It can be assumed that the Eschenbach knight fell in the decisive battle near Göllheim in 1298, as he disappeared from documents at that time.
Above: Göllheim, Germany
A son of Berchtold, Walter von Eschenbach, helped murder King Albrecht I of Habsburg in 1308.
After that, he was given the imperial ban.
Above: Equestrian seal of Albrecht I (1255 – 1308)
In August 1309, the Habsburgs then besieged and conquered the Schnabelburg in revenge for the regicide.
According to archaeological findings, the castle was either not destroyed during the siege or was later rebuilt.
In 1955, Hugo Schneider carried out excavation work and conservation measures at the ruins.
Above: Ruins of Schnabel Castle
In 1309 Eschenbach rule was ended by the destruction of the Schnabelburg, because Walther von Eschenbach was involved in the murder of King Albrecht.
Albrecht I was the first legitimate son of the Roman – German King Rudolf I of Habsburg, born in wedlock, from his first marriage to Gertrud Anna von Hohenberg (died 1281).
His older half-brother Albrecht von Schenkenberg, who received the Grafschaft Löwenstein from his father, was born out of wedlock.
His motto were “Fugam victoria nescit” (“The victory knows no flight.”) and “Quod optimum idem jucundissimum” (“The best is the most pleasant.”)
From 1273 he officiated as Landgrave in the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace.
After the 1278 victory in the Battle of Marchfeld over King Ottokar Premysl of Bohemia, he was appointed by his father in May 1281, when he left the conquered Vienna again, as imperial administrator over the imperial fiefs of the Duchy of Austria and the Duchy of Styria.
The office had been vacant in the turmoil of the Austrian Interregnum since June 1278 because the Wittelsbach Heinrich XIII, had defected from Bavaria to the enemy.
On 17 December 1282, at the Reichstag of Augsburg, he was appointed Duke of Austria and Styria together with his brother Rudolf.
One year later on 1 June 1283 in the Treaty of Rheinfelden, he ruled alone in these rights.
Above: King Albrecht I sends a messenger to Pope Boniface
Rudolf was to be compensated for this with other territories in southwest Germany, but this did not happen until his death in 1290.
Albrecht quickly made himself unpopular with his policy of pushing back the natives through his Swabian clientele, especially the Lords of Walsee.
Above: Coat of arms of the Lords of Walsee
In 1291 – 1292, the Landsberger Bund revolted in Styria, against whom Albrecht was able to quickly assert himself.
Above: Deutschlandsberg Castle (1681), Styria, Austria, from whence the Landsperger Bund (conspiracy of nobles) was derived
In 1295 the Austrian nobility rose up as well.
In Vienna, too, Ottokar Přemysl remained much more popular for a long time – not least because of economic relations with the Bohemian region.
After all, Vienna got a new city charter in 1296.
Above: Coat of arms of Vienna (Wien), Austria (Österreich)
Rudolf I tried to make Albrecht co-king during his own lifetime in order to make the royal dignity in the House of Habsburg hereditary.
Above: Habsburg Castle, Habsburg, Canton Aargau, Switzerland
However, the Electors, especially the Count Palatine (officials and representatives of the King or Emperor) and the clerical Electors, did not allow this to happen.
An elector was one of the originally seven, later nine and finally ten highest-ranking princes of the Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany), who had had the sole right to elect the Roman (German) King since the 13th century.
This royal title was traditionally associated with the right to be crowned Emperor by the Pope.
Above: The Codex Balduineus (1340) contains the first known pictorial representation of the college of electors: Here the electors elect Heinrich of Luxembourg (1278 – 1313) as King. The Electors are, recognizable by their coats of arms (from left to right), the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the King of Bohemia, who was actually not present when Heinrich was elected.
In 1290 Rudolf wanted to put his son on the throne of Hungary, which after the assassination of Ladislaus IV was regarded as a reverted fiefdom, but his death in 1291 thwarted this plan.
Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Ladislaus IV (1262 – 1290)
As Rudolf’s successor, Adolf von Nassau was elected the new Roman (German) king in 1292.
Above: King Adolf von Nassau (1250 – 1298)
In the following years Albrecht hardly intervened in imperial politics, as he was bound by revolts by various nobles in his Austrian lands.
In 1295 he was seriously poisoned, the reason for which remained unclear.
Maybe the kitchen had processed slightly spoiled food or an assassin had mixed poison in the food.
In any case, Albrecht collapsed from convulsions.
His doctors gave him laxatives.
After the colic, when he got angry, he lost consciousness and, faced with the fear of death, was hung upside down on both legs so that the poison could flow out of his body.
The patient survived this procedure, but one eye was destroyed.
Above: Statue of Albrecht I, Army History Museum, Vienna, Austria
When Adolf was deposed again in 1298, Albrecht was elected as his successor as King on 23 June 1298.
In the Knight’s Battle of Göllheim (Battle of the Hasenbühel) on 2 July 1298, Adolf fell while fighting the Habsburgs.
On 27 July, Albrecht was elected a second time and then crowned King in Aachen on 24 August 1298.
Above: Modern Aachen, Germany
On his first court day in Nuremberg in the same year he enfeoffed (gave) his sons – Rudolf, Fredrich the Beautiful and Leopold the Glorious – Austria and Styria.
Above: Stained glass depiction of Rudolf I (1282 – 1307), St. Stephan’s Church, ViennaAbove: Seal of Frederick the Beautiful and his wife Isabella, Duke (#1) and King’s seal of Frederick (#5), Queen’s seal of Isabella (#9). Friedrich is shown enthroned frontally on the king’s seal with a crown and scepter. His feet rest on a lion.Above: Stained glass depiction of Leopold I (1290 – 1326), Königsfelden Monastery
Through a marriage connection with France, Albrecht I achieved peace with Philip IV the Fair, with whom he had previously been in dispute over the course of the border.
Above: French King Philippe IV (1268 – 1314)
Albrecht also reached an agreement with Wenceslaus II (Vaclav) of Bohemia in the dispute over rule over Poland:
The Bohemian king added the most important parts of the recently re-established kingdom to a new collapse into his territory, but recognized Albrecht’s suzerainty onwards.
Above: Wenceslas II (1271 1305) with the Bohemian and Polish crowns, illustration from the Chronicon Aulae Regiae
Opponents of Habsburg power, however, remained the Rhenish Electors, including Pope Boniface VIII.
The papal approbation was only obtained in 1303 in return for far-reaching concessions which severely restricted the King’s power, especially in Italy, and which could have been understood as an oath of subjection towards the papacy.
However, Albrecht refused the coronation offered by Boniface.
Above: Pope Boniface VIII (né Benedetto Caetani) (1235 – 1303)
In 1304 Albrecht and his son Rudolf moved together against Wenceslaus II, who, after the death of Andreas III the Venetian, his son Wenceslaus III became the Hungarian king.
Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Andreas III the Venetian (1265 – 1301)Above: King of Hungary, Bohemia and Poland Wenceslaus III (1289 – 1306)
Since the Pope would have liked to see another Italian on the Hungarian throne in the form of the Neapolitan Prince Karl Robert, he asked Albrecht for help.
Albrecht made the strangest demands on Wenceslaus II.
When this did not fulfill them, the imperial ban was imposed on him.
Wenceslaus then transferred the Hungarian crown jewels from Ofen to Prague.
Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Karl I (1288 – 1342)Above: The Hungarian Crown Jewels
On the following campaign Albrecht and Rudolf Kuttenberg besieged Kutná Hora, the silver mine in Bohemia.
Their Cuman auxiliaries committed terrible atrocities in the country.
At the beginning of winter, hunger broke out in their army and they withdrew.
Above: modern Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
A political unification of Central Europe under the leadership of the Habsburgs seemed within reach.
Albrecht succeeded after the death of the childless King Wenceslaus III on 4 August 1306, who himself became king in Bohemia after the death of his father in 1305, installed his son Rudolf as King of Bohemia.
But then the Bohemian estates rebelled and decided to depose the king.
Albrecht quickly forced them to recognize his sovereignty.
However, 1307 brought a serious setback for the Habsburg hegemonic plans.
After Rudolf’s early death, Heinrich von Carinthia from Meinhardingen became the new King of Bohemia.
Above: Seal of Heinrich von Carinthia (1265 – 1335)
In connection with a controversial reverted fiefdom in Thuringia and Meißen, Albrecht also lost the Battle of Lucka against the sons of Albrecht the Degenerate from the House of Wettin.
Above: Coinage of Albrecht the Degenerate (1288–1307), Margrave of Meißen and Landgrave of Thuringia
When King Albrecht invaded with a large army, the Margraves Dietrich IV of Lausitz and Friedrich I of Meißen fought him, at the head of armed citizens and peasants as well as Braunschweig cavalry bands, Albrecht suffered a complete defeat on 31 May 1307.
Above: Friedrich I the Bitten (1257 – 1323) and Dietrich IV (1260 – 1307)Above: Wettinger Fountain commemorating the Battle, Lucka, Germany
In the dispute over the customs posts of German princes, Albrecht soon cracked down on them until the archbishops and Rudolf, the Count Palatine near the Rhine, surrendered.
However, Pope Boniface stood in the way of breaking up the Kurkollegium.
Unrest in Swabia, Baden, Alsace and Switzerland also increased again during this period.
Peace remained elusive.
Above: The Electors in the royal election in 1308: From left – Peter von Mainz (1245 – 1320), Balduin von Trier (1285 – 1354) and Rudolf I (1274 – 1319)
Albrecht was murdered in 1308 near Windisch, now in Switzerland, not far from his ancestral castle.
The murderers were his nephew Johann von Schwaben – who was nicknamed Parricida (relative murderer) because of his deed – Baron Rudolf von Wart (1274 – 1309), Baron Rudolf von Balm, Baron Walter von Eschenbach and Baron Konrad von Tegerfelden.
Above: Johann Parricuda (1290 – 1313)Above: BaronRudolf von Wart’s wife Gertrud von Balm (1286 – 1322) pleads with Albrecht’s daughter Agnes of Hungary (1281 – 1364) for her husband’s life, by August Weckesser
The exact course of the murder is presented differently by the chroniclers.
Albrecht was probably on the way from Baden to his wife in Rheinfelden.
In the morning, Duke Johann had claimed his inheritance at Stein Castle – as he had often done before – which led to a scandal.
Above: Johann Parricida and his accomplices murder Albrecht after crossing the Reuss River. In the background are the cities of Brugg and Königsfelden as well as Habsburg Castle. Coloured pen drawing, The Chronicle of 95 Dominions (1480), City Library, BernAbove: Stein Castle, Aargau Canton, Switzerland
According to the chronicler Matthias von Neuenburg (1295 – 1364) the first sword cut that pierced Albrecht’s neck was received from his nephew Johann, then Rudolf von Wart pierced him with his sword, while Rudolf von Balm split the King’s skull in two.
Johann was the son of Albrecht’s early deceased brother Rudolf II, who had renounced the regency in Austria in the Treaty of Rheinfelden and had become Duke of Swabia, Alsace and Aargau.
Above: The murder of Albrecht in Königsfelden, Windisch, Switzerland, 1308
According to Chronicle reports, the failure to pay Johann in compensation was the main motive.
Depending on the sources, Johann’s blood lust is also given as the motive for murder.
The successor as Duke was Albrecht’s son Friedrich the Fair, but he did not succeed as King.
The royal dignity went to the House of Luxembourg with Henrich VII (1278 – 1313), where it remained until 1437 – interrupted by the governments of Ludwig of Bavaria (1282 – 1347) and Ruprecht of the Palatinate.
Above: Statue of Heinrich VII, Pisa Cathedral, Pisa, ItalyAbove: Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, Frauenkirche, Munich, GermanyAbove: Ruprecht (1352 – 1410) with his wife Elisabeth von Hohenzollern-Nürnberg (1358 – 1411) in a miniature copy of a now-lost mural in Heidelberg Castle, Germany
King Albrecht was first buried in the Wettingen monastery (in today’s Switzerland).
Above: Wettingen Monastery
In 1309, at the instigation of Henrich VII, his body was transferred to Speyer, where he was buried side by side with his former rival Adolf von Nassau in the Speyer Cathedral.
Above: Speyer Cathedral, Speyer, Germany
As a result of Eschenbach’s treachery Hausen am Albis was subordinated to the Hallwylers, who ceded it to the city of Zürich in 1406.
Above: Coat of arms of Hausen am Albis
It is said that the storyline of The Game of Thrones franchise was inspired by England’s Wars of the Roses, but I submit that the story of Albrecht I and his assassination is also worthy of dramatic accounts.
Kappel am Albis is first mentioned in 1185 as de Capella.
The settlement was founded in 1185 as a Cistercian monastery which today houses a seminar centre, hotel, cafe and a restaurant.
Above: Kappel am Albis
It was the location of the Wars of Kappel in 1529 and 1531, during the turmoil that accompanied the Reformation of Huldrych Zwingli.
Above: Huldrych Zwingli
A monument to Zwingli is located nearby at the hamlet of Näfenhäuser, marking the spot where he met his fatal end.
Above: Zwingli Monument, Näfenhäuser
In 1185 the Monastery was founded by the Barons of Eschenbach – Scnabelburg and confirmed by the Bishop of Konstanz Hermann II.
Above: Coat of arms of the Diocese of Konstanz
A chapel was available to the first abbot Wilhelm and his monks to build a Cistercian monastery.
The mother monastery of Kappel was Altenryf (Hauterive) Abbey (Freiburg Canton).
Above: Hauterive Abbey, Posieux, Canton Freiburg, Switzerland
Through Pope Innocent III, the monastery received the Privilegium commune Cisterciense and it was placed under the protection of the Papacy in 1211.
Above: Pope Innocent III (né Lotario dei Conti di Segni) (1161 – 1216), San Benedetto Monastery, Subiaco, Italy
Until the end of the 14th century, the Monastery received donations from the founding family and other noble families, especially in the Knouauer Amt, in Zugerland (today’s Aargau), in Luzern Canton, on Lake Zürich (Zürichsee) and in the Zürich Lowlands (Zürich Unterland).
There were also isolated lands in central Switzerland.
The Monastery got into financial difficulties through the social development, especially the emerging money economy, the upswing of the cities and through the competition of the mendicant orders.
In addition, the Monastery came more and more under the influence of secular lords, especially after the assassination of King Albrecht in 1308.
Above: Kappel Monastery
In 1344 the Monastery concluded a permanent alliance with the city of Zug in 1344 and a similar one with Zürich in 1403.
Through these alliances, the Monastery got between the fronts in the Old Zürich War (1440 – 1446) and was plundered by the Confederates in 1443.
On 15 January 1493, a fire devastated the convent building, which the then Abbot Ulrich had rebuilt.
Due to his dissolute lifestyle, Abbot Ulrich was forced to resign in 1508.
Above: Kappel Monastery
A new spirit arrived under Abbot Ulrich’s successor, Wolfgang Joner.
In 1523 he summoned Heinrich Bullinger, who was only nineteen, to Kappel, where he taught the monks and young men from the area as a private tutor.
Through Bullinger, the teachings of the Reformation found their way to Kappel, and so pictures (icons) were removed from the Monastery Church on 9 March 1525.
Holy Mass was abolished on 4 September of the same year.
A year later, on 29 March 1526, the monks celebrated the Lord’s Supper for the first time according to the Reformed order and took off their robes.
Many left the Monastery and turned to a trade or became preachers.
The convent finally handed the Monastery over to the city of Zürich in 1527.
Wolfgang Joner, Heinrich Bullinger and four other men stayed in Kappel and continued to run the school as a boarding school for boys.
The previous monastery church became the parish church of Kappel.
Above: Statue of Heinrich Bullinger, Grossmünster, Zürich
During the First Kappel War in 1529, Kappel became the scene of the June deployment of the Reformed and Catholic troops, which came to a peaceful end with the legendary Kappel milk soup.
Above: The Milk Soup Stone Memorial, Kappel am Albis
At the end of June 1529, the Zürich troops marched against the central Swiss cantons.
In this First Kappel War, thanks to the mediation of the neutral towns, a fratricidal war among the Confederates was prevented.
According to the reports, the common footmen of the two armies used the time while the leaders were negotiating to fraternize and put a large saucepan on a fire near Kappel am Albis, exactly on the border between the two cantons.
The people of Zug are said to have contributed the milk and the people of Zurich the bread for a milk soup, which was then eaten by both armies together.
Today the “Milchsuppenstein” (milk soup stone) is located on a hill southwest of Ebertswil.
The large pot from which everyone ate together was of great symbolic value for the later historiography and identification of Switzerland.
Above: Kappel milk soup
In memory of this event, Kappeler milk soup is still served today when a dispute can be settled through negotiation, for example by Federal Councilor Pascal Couchpin at the conclusion of the St. Gallen cultural property dispute in 2006.
Above: Pascal Couchepin
It was entirely different on 11 October 1531, when the Zurich reformer Zwingli was killed in the second battle near Kappel.
Above: The death of ZwingliAbove: Zwingli’s helmet
After the Reformation, the Monastery remained Zürich’s domain.
Above: Kappel Monastery, 1741
From 1834 the buildings were used for social purposes, and since 1983 by the Zürcher Landeskirche (Zürich Canton Church) as a seminar hotel and educational center called the House of Silence and Encounter.
Since 2008 it has been called Kloster Kappelagain.
The Monastery has been renovated since 2009.
The Monastery Church shows a glass painting work by the Swiss graphic artist and painter Max Hunziker in the choir .
The Kappel Monastery Association (formerly the Kappelerhof Association) is the owner of the Kappel Monastery domain (real estate, land, forest).
The 14 association members are the 13 parishes of the Affoltern district and the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich.
The church and rectory belong to the Canton of Zürich.
Above: Kappel Monastery
As personalities go, Zwingli is not the sole person to get recognized when one speaks of Kappel am Albis.
Above: Coat of arms of Kappel am Albis
Josias Simler (1530 – 1576), Swiss Reformed theologian and historian, known among other things for his works on Swiss regional studies and history, was born in Kappel am Albis.
In 1544 Josias Simler went to Zürich to study under his godfather and sponsor Heinrich Bullinger.
In 1546 he continued his studies in theology, languages and natural sciences in Basel, and from 1547 to 1549 in arithmetic and geometry in Strasbourg.
He then completed his theology studies in Zürich, worked as a pastor and occasionally as a mathematics teacher for Swiss physician/polymath/encyclopedist Conrad Gessner (1516 – 1565).
Above: Conrad Gesner
In 1552 he became professor at the Carolinum for instruction in the New Testament in Zürich and in 1560 for theology.
In that year he temporarily took over the chair of the dismissed Theodor Bibliander (1505 – 1564), who represented the views of Erasmus of Rotterdam and not those of the Reformed Church.
Above: Theodor BiblianderAbove: Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536)
From 1555 he began to re-publish Conrad Gessner’s Bibliotheca universalis.
Above: Bibliotheca Universalis
In his work De Alpibus Commentarius (Commentary of the Alps)(1574), the first work that dealt extensively with the Alps, he collected all information about the mountains from the works of various other authors with comments from his own experience.
In the process, he developed new insights into the nature of avalanches, the difference between firn and ice, the low temperature at high altitudes and the plant endism in the Alps, in this the oldest description of the Alps in Latin.
In his childhood and youth in Kappel am Albis, Simler had the panorama of the Glarus, Uri and Bernese Alps on his doorstep.
Above: Kappel Monastery and the Alps
Later he was unable to travel because of his gout.
He had to draw his information from literary sources.
The “Commentary of theAlps” is a first attempt to give an overview of the natural and cultural history of the Alps and their individual mountain ranges.
It is a collection of experiences from Swiss scientists that they personally gained in the Alps.
An abundance of quotes from the classical tradition underlines the humanistic orientation of the text.
Above: De Alpibus Commentarius (1574)
Simler also wrote other works on Swiss cultural studies, such as De Republica Helvetiorum (1548) (abstract of the Chronicle by Johannes Stumpf: 1500 – 1578) or Vallesiae Descriptio.
Above: Swiss historian Johannes Stumpf
He also advised Ulrich Campell (1510 – 1582) in formulating his Raetiae alpestris descriptioTopographica (Topographical Description of Alpine Raetia) (1573).
The Simler Snowfield in Antarctica is named in his honour.
Above: Location of the Simler Snowfield, Antarctica
I tour the Monastery of Kappel am Albis, sit in its cafeteria and dine on soup and salad and cola, and I make notes as I try to assess my feelings at this, the final end of this unreligious pilgrim’s progress.
Above: Descent into the cloister cafeteria
I have followed the life of one man, from his birthplace to the spot where he fell, and now I feel I must take stock of this man and decide for myself what is my opinion of this man who has garnered so much respect for his role in the Reformation in Switzerland.
I cannot claim to be wise in the understanding of Christianity, for it seems to be too often that they who profess to be Christian fail too often to act in a manner which Christ would have.
Above: Crucifixion of Christ, by Diego Velázquez
In fairness, I suspect that there are Buddhists who do not live in the way Buddha intended or Muslims who do not practice the teachings of Muhammad.
Above: The Buddha teaching the Four Noble Truths, Sanskrit manuscript, Nalanda, Bihar, IndiaAbove: The Kaaba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia – the direction of prayer and destination of pilgrimage for Muslims
Religious affiliation checked on a census poll does not mean religious practice.
If that were so then Trump would not have been the candidate of choice for American evangelical Christians.
Above: Donald Trump
Trump went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, New York City.
In the 1970s, his parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.
In 2015, the Church stated Trump “is not an active member“.
Above: Marble Collegiate Church, Manhattan, New York City
In 2019, he appointed his personal pastor, televangelist Paula White, to the White House Office of Public Liaison.
Above: Paula White
In 2020, he said he identified as a non-denominational Christian.
Above: The cross symbol of Christianity
On 1 June 2020, federal law enforcement officials used batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray projectiles, stun grenades, and smoke to remove a largely peaceful crowd of protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House.
Trump then walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where protesters had set a small fire the night before.
Above: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC
He posed for photographs holding a Bible upside down, with senior administration officials later joining him in photos.
Above: The “Christian” Donald Trump
Trump said on 3 June that the protesters were cleared because “they tried to burn down the church on 31 May and almost succeeded“, describing the Church as “badly hurt“.
Above: George Floyd protest, Washington DC, 31 May 2020
Religious leaders condemned the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself.
Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned Trump’s proposal to use the US military against anti-police brutality protesters.
Above: George Floyd protest, Washington DC, 1 June 2020
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, later apologized for accompanying Trump on the walk and thereby “creating the perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
Above: The walk from the White House to St. John’s, 1 June 2020 – Milley is in military uniform
As a candidate and as President, Trump frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics.
His falsehoods became a distinctive part of his political identity.
Trump’s false and misleading statements were documented by fact checkers, including at the WashingtonPost, which tallied a total of 30,573 false or misleading statements made by Trump over his four-year term.
Trump’s falsehoods increased in frequency over time, rising from about 6 false or misleading claims per day in his first year as president to 16 per day in his second year to 22 per day in his third year to 39 per day in his final year.
He reached 10,000 false or misleading claims 27 months into his term, 20,000 false or misleading claims 14 months later, and 30,000 false or misleading claims five months later.
Many of Trump’s comments and actions have been considered racist.
He has repeatedly denied this, asserting:
“I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.“
In national polling, about half of respondents say that Trump is racist.
A greater proportion believe that he has emboldened racists.
Several studies and surveys have found that racist attitudes fueled Trump’s political ascent and have been more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters.
Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are a strong indicator of support for Trump.
Trump’s comment on the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — that there were “veryfine people on both sides” — was widely criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters at the rally.
Above: Donald Trump
In a January 2018 Oval Office meeting to discuss immigration legislation, Trump reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as “shithole countries“.
His remarks were condemned as racist.
Above: Flag of El SalvadorAbove: Flag of HaitiAbove: Flag of HondurasAbove: Africa (in green)
In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen — all minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans — should “go back” to the countries they “came from“.
He was referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth, how our government is to be run.
Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?
Then come back and show us how it is done.
These places need your help badly.
You can’t leave fast enough.
I’m sure that (Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump on Twitter, 14 July 2019)
Above: Logo for Twitter
Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his “racist comments“.
Above: House of Representatives Speaker Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
White nationalist publications and social media sites praised his remarks, which continued over the following days.
Trump continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign.
Trump has a history of insulting and belittling women when speaking to media and on social media.
He made lewd comments, demeaned women’s looks, and called them names like ‘dog‘, ‘crazed‘, ‘cryinglowlife‘, ‘face of a pig‘, or ‘horseface‘.
In October 2016, two days before the second presidential debate, a 2005 “hot mike” Access Hollywood recording surfaced in which Trump was heard bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying:
“When you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything… grab ’em by the pussy.”
The incident’s widespread media exposure led to Trump’s first public apology during the campaign and caused outrage across the political spectrum.
At least 26 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct as of September 2020, including his then-wife Ivana.
Above: Ivana Marie Trump (née Zelníčková)Above: Jill HarthAbove: E. Jean CarrollAbove: Summer ZervosAbove: Alva JohnsonAbove: Jessica LeedsAbove: Kristin AndersonAbove: Lisa BoyneAbove: Cathy HellerAbove: Temple Taggart McDowellAbove: Amy DorrisAbove: Karena VirginiaAbove: Karen JohnsonAbove: Mindy McGillivrayAbove: Rachel CrooksAbove: Natasha StoynoffAbove: Juliet HuddyAbove: Jessica DrakeAbove: Ninni LaaksonenAbove: Cassandra SearlesAbove: Faith Daniels
There were allegations of rape, violence, being kissed and groped without consent, looking under women’s skirts, and walking in on naked women.
Above: Logo of the Miss Universe beauty pagents
In 2016, he denied all accusations, calling them “false smears” and alleged there was a conspiracy against him.
There is very little that is Christ-like about this so-called “Christian”.
I am in no way suggesting that Zwingli resembled in any way the former US President, save in one respect.
Acting in a very un-Christ-like manner unbecoming to a Christian…..
Certainly Zwingli was an educated man and scholarship is something I deeply respect.
His studies led him to see the need for reform in the Catholic Church and this impulse to improve current systems is a wise and necessary impulse anywhere at all times.
Above: St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City – the largest church in the world and a symbol of the Catholic Church
There is room for improvement in all things, though that being said I do not believe in simply progress for the sake of progress.
Changes should be considered not just for their potential profit but as well soberly assessed as to the cost of their consequences.
And it is here that the Reformation erred.
Certainly the Church was at this time truly a corrupt institution that the faithful found difficult to swear fealty towards.
But in freeing themselves from the rule of Rome they allowed the powerful within their groups to dominate them with the same sort of abuse from which they had fought to free themselves.
Voltaire wrote about Calvin, Luther and Zwingli:
“If they condemned celibacy in the priests and opened the gates of the convents, it was only to turn all society into a convent.
Shows and entertainments were expressly forbidden by their religion, and for more than two hundred years there was not a single musical instrument allowed in the city of Geneva.
They condemned auricular confession, but they enjoined a public one.
And in Switzerland, Scotland and Geneva, it was performed the same as penance.“
Above: French writer François-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire) (1694 – 1778)
The Church dictated when a man should eat and when he should restrain himself from eating.
Ulrich Zwingli was a pastor in Zurich and was dedicated to the Reformation ideology of Martin Luther.
His first rift with the established religious authorities in Switzerland occurred during the Lenten fast of 1522, when he was present during the eating of sausages at the house of Christoph Froschauer, a printer in the city who later published Zwingli’s translation of the Bible.
Above: Christoph Froschauer (1490 – 1564)Above: The Zwingli Bible
According to William Roscoe Estep, Zwingli already held Reformation-oriented convictions for some time before the incident now known as the Affair of the Sausages.
In March 1522, he was invited to partake in a sausage supper that Froschauer served to his workers – who, Froschauer later claimed, were exhausted from putting out the new edition of The Epistles of St. Paul – and to various dignitaries and priests.
Leo Jud, Klaus Hottinger and Lorenz Hochrütiner were present at the supper and later gained notoriety for their part in the Swiss Reformation.
Above: Klaus Hottinger (d. 1524)
The meal involved Swiss Fasnachtskiechli and some slices of sharp smoked hard sausage, which had been stored for more than a year.
Because the eating of meat during Lent was prohibited, the event caused public outcry and led to Froschauer being arrested.
Though he himself did not eat the sausages, Zwingli was quick to defend Froschauer from allegations of heresy.
In a sermon titled Von Erkiesen und Freiheit der Speisen (Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods), Zwingli argued that fasting should be entirely voluntary, not mandatory.
According to Michael Reeves, Zwingli was advancing the Reformation position that Lent was subject to individual rule, rather than the discipline which was upheld at the time by the Catholic Church.
The Zürich Sausage Affair was interpreted as a demonstration of Christian liberty and is considered to be of similar importance for Switzerland as Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in Wittenberg for the German Reformation.
Above: Smoked sausages
The Catholic Church historically observes the disciplines of fasting and abstinence at various times each year.
For Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one’s intake of food, while abstinence refers to refraining from something that is good, and not inherently sinful, such as meat.
The Catholic Church teaches that all people are obliged by God to perform some penance for their sins, and that these acts of penance are both personal and corporeal.
Bodily fasting is meaningless unless it is joined with a spiritual avoidance of sin.
Basil of Caesarea gives the following exhortation regarding fasting:
Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord.
True fasting is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood and perjury.
Privation of these is true fasting.
Above: Basil of Caesarea (330 – 379)
As a man who struggles with self discipline when it comes to his diet I can see a certain wisdom in dietary directives while I simultaneously differ with the notion of someone telling me when and what I should eat.
The Church demanded that the clergy remain single and celibate, which is not natural for all men despite their religious inclinations.
Certainly women and sex distract a man from his devotion to God, but wasn’t the point of Christ that we live our lives to the fullest if we do no harm to others?
In the Old Testament it is suggested that God is a jealous god insisting on total allegiance to Him, but I doubt that the intention of allegiance was the total denial of our biological imperatives.
Certainly there is a kind of freedom for a man to remove himself from the imperatives of woman.
Certainly sex is often not practiced in the life-affirming and mutually satisfactory and freely consented manner in which I believe it was intended.
But whether Zwingli was as chaste a man as he should have been and whether he acted responsibly towards women has come into question when his life prior to Zürich is examined.
On the topic of religious imagery I find myself ambivalent.
Images are representations of reality, but they were never meant to replace reality.
Though faith is, to a certain degree, an abandonment of reason to religion, I think the confusion of image with the intended recipient of devotion is a phenomenon too rare to be relatable a worry.
I think an image of the divine makes it easier to believe in the existence of that which is intangible and invisible to the human senses.
Imagery makes the voyeur more easily accept the existence of God whose sole proof of existence is our inability to prove His non-existence.
Imagery makes the unexplainable more palatable and acceptable to the incredulous.
Above: Destruction of icons in Zürich, 1524
As much as I respect the Islamic prohibition of images being made of Muhammad, I sincerely doubt whether viewing Muhammad as a man could ever possibly detract the Islamic faithful from fealty to his teachings.
Above: Logo of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo – The magazine has been the target of three terrorist attacks: in 2011, 2015, and 2020. All of them were presumed to be in response to a number of cartoons that it published controversially depicting Muhammad. On 7 January 2015, in the second of these attacks, 12 people were killed.
Let me repeat myself:
Murderers and terrorists are not true followers of faith.
Above: Commemorative plaque, Paris
Someone once said:
“Don’t try to be a ‘great’ man.
Just be a man and let history make its own judgments.”
Letting our moral leaders be visible human beings, does this diminish the value of what it is they had to teach?
I am uncertain.
Above: The Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci (1490)
Zwingli’s notion of Bible study as opposed to simply a routine of rituals is a practice I approve of.
Our faith should be examined, should be questioned.
If a faith is true it can stand up to examination and questioning.
We are not only impulse and emotion.
We are also capable of reason and rationale.
An infallible and all-powerful God need never fear the legitimate desire for understanding that makes worship more possible.
Where I truly find myself at odds with the man who was Zwingli was in his persecution of those who disagreed with him.
Many in the radical wing of the Reformation became convinced that Zwingli was making too many concessions to the Zürich Council.
They rejected the role of civil government and demanded the immediate establishment of a congregation of the faithful.
Above: Coat of arms, Zürich City Hall
Konrad Grebel (1498 – 1526), the leader of the radicals and the emerging Anabaptist movement, spoke disparagingly of Zwingli in private.
On 15 August 1524 the Council insisted on the obligation to baptise all newborn infants.
Zwingli secretly conferred with Grebel’s group and late in 1524, the Council called for official discussions.
When talks were broken off, Zwingli published Wer Ursache gebe zu Aufruhr (Whoever Causes Unrest) clarifying the opposing points-of-view.
On 17 January 1525 a public debate was held and the Council decided in favour of Zwingli.
Anyone refusing to have their children baptised was required to leave Zürich.
Above: Commemoration of Konrad Grebel’s home, Zürich
The radicals ignored these measures and on 21 January, they met at the house of the mother of another radical leader, Felix Manz (1498 – 1527).
Above: Felix Manz
Grebel and a third leader, George Blaurock (1491 – 1529), performed the first recorded Anabaptist adult baptisms.
On 2 February, the Council repeated the requirement on the baptism of all babies and some who failed to comply were arrested and fined, Manz and Blaurock among them.
Zwingli and Jud interviewed them and more debates were held before the Zürich council.
Meanwhile, the new teachings continued to spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation as well as a number of Swabian towns in southwestern Germany.
On 6 – 8 November, the last debate on the subject of baptism took place in the Grossmünster.
Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock defended their cause before Zwingli, Leo Jud and other reformers.
Above: Swiss reformer Leo Jud (1482 – 1542)
There was no serious exchange of views as each side would not move from their positions and the debates degenerated into an uproar, each side shouting abuse at the other.
The Zürich council decided that no compromise was possible.
On 7 March 1526 it released the notorious mandate that no one shall re-baptise another under the penalty of death.
Although Zwingli, technically, had nothing to do with the mandate, there is no indication that he disapproved.
Felix Manz, who had sworn to leave Zürich and not to baptise any more, had deliberately returned and continued the practice.
After he was arrested and tried, he was executed on 5 January 1527 by being drowned in the Limmat River.
He was the first Anabaptist martyr.
Three more were to follow, after which all others either fled or were expelled from Zürich.
Above: Memorial plate on the river wall opposite 43 Schipfe, Zürich, in remembrance of Manz and other Anabaptists executed in the early 16th century by the Zürich city government
Historians have debated whether or not Zwingli turned Zürich into a theocracy.
Certainly it seems that he did not discourage the tendency.
Above: Zwingli statue, Wasserkirche, Zürich
The problem I have with religion is not with the faith itself but with the so-called practitioners of religion, for they divide the world into Us and Them camps, then turn upon their own to dispute the details of that faith causing further division amongst themselves.
The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Catholic.
Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Swiss Confederation along religious lines.
In 1529, a war was averted at the last moment between the two sides.
Above: The Swiss Confederation, 1530
Meanwhile, Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) and other reformers.
They met at the Marburg Colloquy (1 – 4 October 1529) and agreed on many points of doctrine, but they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (holy communion wherein wine and bread are symbolically consumed to represent the body and blood of Christ).
Above: Woodcut illustration of the Marburg Colloquy
The leading Protestant reformers of the time attended at the behest of Philip I of Hesse (1504 – 1567).
Philip’s primary motivation for this conference was political.
He wished to unite the Protestant states in political alliance, and to this end, religious harmony was an important consideration.
Philip I felt the need to reconcile the diverging views of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli in order to develop a unified Protestant theology.
If Philip wanted the meeting to be a symbol of Protestant unity he was disappointed.
Above: Philip I of Hesse
Both Luther and Zwingli fell out over the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Above: Stained glass illustration of the Eucharist, St. Michael the Archangel Church, Findlay, Ohio
Luther believed that the human body of Christ was ubiquitous (present in all places) and so present in the bread and wine.
This was possible because the attributes of God infused Christ’s human nature.
Luther emphasized the oneness of Christ’s person.
Above: Martin Luther
Zwingli, who emphasized the distinction of the natures, believed that while Christ in his deity was omnipresent, Christ’s human body could only be present in one place, that is, at the right hand of the Father.
Above: Huldrych Zwingli
The executive editor for Christianity Today magazine carefully detailed the two views that would forever divide the Lutheran and Reformed view of the Last Supper:
“Luther claimed that the Body of Christ was not eaten in a gross, material way but rather in some mysterious way, which is beyond human understanding.
Yet, Zwingli replied, if the words were taken in their literal sense, the Body had to be eaten in the most grossly material way.
“For this is the meaning they carry:
This bread is that Body of Mine which is given for you.
It was given for us in grossly material form, subject to wounds, blows and death.
As such, therefore, it must be the material of the Last Supper.”
Indeed, to press the literal meaning of the text even farther, it follows that Christ would have again to suffer pain, as his Body was broken again — this time by the teeth of communicants.
Even more absurdly, Christ’s Body would have to be swallowed, digested, even eliminated through the bowels!
Such thoughts were repulsive to Zwingli.
They smacked of cannibalism on the one hand and of the pagan mystery religions on the other.
The main issue for Zwingli, however, was not the irrationality or exegetical fallacy of Luther’s views.
It was rather that Luther put “the chief point of salvation in physically eating the body of Christ,” for he connected it with the forgiveness of sins.
The same motive that had moved Zwingli so strongly to oppose images, the invocation of saints, and baptismal regeneration was present also in the struggle over the Supper: the fear of idolatry.
Salvation was by Christ alone, through faith alone, not through faith and bread.
The object of faith was that which is not seen (Hebrews 11:1) and which therefore cannot be eaten except, again, in a nonliteral, figurative sense.
“Credere est edere,” said Zwingli:
“To believe is to eat.”
To eat the Body and to drink the Blood of Christ in the Supper, then, simply meant to have the Body and Blood of Christ present in the mind.
Near the end of the Colloquy when it was clear an agreement would not be reached, Philipp asked Luther to draft a list of doctrines all that both sides agreed upon.
The Marburg Articles had 15 points and every person at the Colloquy could agree on the first fourteen.
The 15th article of the Marburg Articles reads:
Fifteenth, regarding the Last Supper of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, we believe and hold that one should practice the use of both species as Christ Himself did, and that the Sacrament at the Altar is a Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and the spiritual enjoyment of this very Body and Blood is proper and necessary for every Christian.
Furthermore, that the practice of the Sacrament is given and ordered by God the Almighty like the Word, so that our weak conscience might be moved to faith through the Holy Spirit.
And although we have not been able to agree at this time, whether the true Body and Blood of Christ are corporally present in the bread and wine of Communion, each party should display towards the other Christian love, as far as each respective conscience allows, and both should persistently ask God the Almighty for guidance so that through His Spirit He might bring us to a proper understanding.
The failure to find agreement resulted in strong emotions on both sides.
Above: Marburg Castle, Marburg, Germany
When the two sides departed, Zwingli cried out in tears:
“There are no people on Earth with whom I would rather be at one than the Lutheran Wittenbergers.”
Because of the differences, Luther initially refused to acknowledge Zwingli and his followers as Christians, though following the Colloquy the two Reformers showed relatively more mutual respect in their writings.
Luther and Zwingli were more concerned with being “right” than being united in a common cause.
Above: Coat of arms of Marburg
In 1531, Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons.
Starve or comply.
On 9 October 1531, in a surprise move, the Five States declared war on Zürich.
Zürich’s mobilisation was slow due to internal squabbling.
On 11 October, 3,500 poorly deployed men encountered a Five States force nearly double their size near Kappel.
Many pastors, including Zwingli, were among the soldiers.
The battle lasted less than one hour and Zwingli was among the 500 casualties in the Zürich army.
Zwingli had considered himself first and foremost a soldier of Christ, second a defender of his country, the Swiss Confederation, and third a leader of his city, Zürich, where he had lived for the previous twelve years.
Ironically, he died at the age of 47, not for Christ nor for the Confederation, but for Zürich.
Above: The death of Zwingli, Kappel am Albis, Switzerland, 11 October 1531
In Table Talk, Luther is recorded saying:
“They say that Zwingli recently died thus.
If his error had prevailed, we would have perished, and our church with us.
It was a judgment of God.
That was always a proud people.
The others, the Papists, will probably also be dealt with by our Lord God.”
Above: Martin Luther’s grave, Schlosskirche, Wittenberg, Germany
Erasmus (1466 – 1536) wrote:
“We are freed from great fear by the death of the two preachers, Zwingli and Oecolampadius, whose fate has wrought an incredible change in the mind of many.
This is the wonderful hand of God on high.”
Johannes Oecolampadius (1482 – 1531) had died on 24 November.
Erasmus also wrote:
“If Bellona (Roman goddess of war) had favoured them, it would have been all over with us.“
Above: Basel Minster, Basel, Switzerland, where Erasmus is buried
Such arrogance!
Such lack of sympathy!
Religious division seems to me as pointless as two bald men fighting over a comb.
If there is indeed a God and each of us has been given an individual mind then I believe that faith must be individual choice.
I believe that religion has its place in teaching us morality and in giving significance through rituals to the various stages of our lives.
It is here where I draw the distinction between individual faith and communal religion.
Above: Praying Hands, by Albrecht Dürer (1508)
I desire in no way, shape or form for anyone to follow my example on faith or lack thereof.
That being said, I equally resist anyone trying to force me to follow the rules of a religion which I myself do not practice.
Simply put, I live and let live.
I presently live in a predominantly Muslim nation.
Above: Reşadiye Camii (mosque), Eskişehir, Turkey
I was raised in a predominantly Christian country.
Above: Église de St-Philippe, Brownsburg-Chatham, Québec, Canada
I would never presume to tell others how to live nor will I willingly submit to others telling me how to live (except where my actions cause harm to others).
In all humility I mourn the loss of anyone past or present, whether I would have agreed with them or not.
Every death diminishes us even if we are unaware of their passing.
I will never celebrate the death of anyone no matter what evils they may have perpetuated, even men as reprehensible as terrorists or tyrants.
That said I will not celebrate the lives of everyone to whom life was given, for we do judge people by the acts that they do.
That a man of religious principle died in battle at the mere age of 47 is cause for sadness.
That a man of religious principle accepted the executions of Anabaptists and a food blockade against Catholic cantons is not cause for commemoration.
My journey, my walk, sought to understand Zwingli and what he represents to the Swiss celebrating his legacy.
I respect his legacy that lives on in the confessions, liturgy, and church orders of the Swiss Reformed churches of today, but I sincerely doubt that had we met that I would have liked him.
In my own way I did get a sense of what his life was like by visiting the places where he once lived.
I do not know in absolute certainty whether I would have acted as he, had my life experience been his.
I do know that Zwingli’s life was remarkable enough to relate it to my readers in the hopes that they might better understand his significance to the Swiss people with whom I lived with for a decade.
I believe that every person is my superior in that I may learn from them.
And the Zwingli walk was certainly…..
Educational.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Yvonne and Marcel Steiner, Zwingli-Wege: Zu Füss von Wildhaus nach Kappel am Albis – Ein Wander- und Lesebuch
It has been ages since I have written about Turkey, but those who know me are aware that there are both many things I adore about this bridge between Asia and Europe and many things I abhor.
Of the little exploration I have done in this great republic (the Turquoise Coast with Alanya and Antalya, Kas and Kale, Egirdir and Pamukkale, and the great city of Istanbul)….
I fell immediately and forever in love with Istanbul.
I spent only three days there.
I would have loved to have spent three decades there.
I have written a wee bit about this amazing and ancient metropolis.
(See: Canada Slip and the Lamp Ladies, The sorrow of Batman, The fashionable dead, Take Me Back to Constantinople, Fireworks in the Fog, and Silence and Gold, of this blog.)
Of the little I know and understand about Turkey I find myself more and more disliking the present leader of Turkey and former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Erdogan, and so I have written a wee bit about him as well.
(See: Bullets and Ballots and The rise of Recep of this blog.)
Above: His Excellency President Recep Erdogan
There is so much to see and do in Istanbul that it is difficult to know what to recommend.
Does one go to the district of Sultanahmet and visit Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Basilica Cistern?
Does one look for souvenirs in the historic Arasta Bazaar?
Does one watch whirling dervishes whirl or wind down at a nargile café?
Is life a bazaar and should one explore the labyrinthine lanes and hidden caravanserais of the world-famous Grand Bazaar, or is it better to follow the steady stream of local shoppers making their way to the Spice Bazaar?
Can a person remain the same after visiting that most magnificent of all Ottoman mosques, the Süleymaniye or after watching the sunset as one walks across the Galata Bridge?
Is it wrong to envy the lifestyles of sultans at Topkapi Palace or to indulge sultan-like in the steamy luxury of a hamam (Turkish bath)?
Can one forget the Bosphorus or be unimpressed by the Istanbul Modern Museum?
How did one live before Istanbul?
How can one live afterwards?
How does one discover Istanbul through literature?
It depends on what kind of Istanbul you seek.
Rose Macauley’s The Towers of Trebizond is a largely auotbiographical novel that focuses on a group of lively and eccentric travellers on the way from Istanbul to Trebizond (Trabzon on the Black Sea coast of northeast Turkey).
Read this and you will soon find yourself on a boat between these cities.
Then there is The Prophet Murders by Mehmet Murat Somer:
“Most tourists come and visit the historical sights of Istanbul, but we have very modern parts and life is completely different there….”
The reader is transplanted into a subculture of the city, the transvestite club scene.
As Venice has Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti and Edinburgh has Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus, Istanbul has Barbara Nadel’s Inspector Ikmen crime series.
The first of the series, Belshazzar’s Daughter, finds the Ikmen examining the torture and murder of an elderly Jewish man, a crime that sends shock waves through Istanbul.
Elia Shafak’s highly acclaimed The Flea Palace focuses on the residents of the Bonbon Palace, a once Grand residency built by a Russian émigré at the end of the Tsarist period, but now a sadly rundown block of flats.
Think A Thousand and One Nights in modern Istanbul.
Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk is one of Turkey’s most celebrated authors and much of what he has written is essentially a love letter to his city of Istanbul.
Above: Orhan Pamuk
Pamuk shows through both his Istanbul: Memories and the City and his novels – (at least those I have found and read) – The Red-Haired Woman, A Strangeness in My Mind, The White Castle and The Museum of Innocence – sides to Istanbul that most tourists never see nor will ever see.
“To savour Istanbul’s backstreets, to appreciate the vines and trees that endow its ruins with accidental grace, you must, first and foremost, be a stranger to them.”
From Lonely Planet’s Istanbul:
“His status as a Nobel laureate deserves respect, but we feel obliged to say that we think Orhan Pamuk is a bit cheeky to charge a whopping 25 liras for entrance to his Museum of Innocence.
That said, this long-anticipated piece of conceptual art is worth a visit, particularly if you have read and admired the novel it celebrates.
The Museum is set in a 19th-century house and seeks to re-create and evoke aspects of Pamuk’s 1988 novel The Museum of Innocence by displaying found objects in traditional museum-style glass cases.
The Museum also includes strangely beautiful installations, such as a wall displaying the 4,213 cigarette butts supposedly smoked by the narrator’s lover Füsun.
The exhibits seek to evoke what Pamuk as described as “the melancholy of the period” in which he grew up and in which the novel is set.”
The narrative and the Museum offer a glimpse into upper-class Istanbul life from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
The novel details the story of Kemal, a wealthy Istanbulite who falls in love with his poorer cousin, and the Museum displays the artefacts of their love story.
Kemal, of the wealthy Nisantasi family, is due to marry Sibel, a girl from his own social class, when he falls in love with his distant relative Füsun, who works as a sales assistant in a shop.
Kemal and Füsun begin to meet in dusty rooms filled with old furniture and memories.
After Füsun marries someone else, Kemal spends eight years visiting her.
After every visit, he takes away with him an object that reminds him of her.
These objects form the collection of the Museum of Innocence.
According to the Museum website, the collection, which includes more than a thousand objects, presents what the novel’s characters “used, wore, heard, saw, collected and dreamed of, all meticulously arranged in boxes and display cabinets.”
“The Museum of Innocence is based on the assumption that objects used for different purposes and evocative of the most disparate memories can, when placed side by side, bring forth unprecedented thoughts and emotions.”
On the floor at the entrance of the Museum, the Spiral of Time can be seen from every floor.
If Aristotle thought of time as a line joining moments worth remembering, Pamuk sees time as a line joining objects.
“The idea for my museum came to me when I met His Imperial Highness Prince Ali Vâsib for the first time in 1982 at a family reunion in Istanbul….
Above: Ali Vâsib (1903 – 1983)
My curiosity at the family table prompted the elderly Prince to share some stories.
Among them was King Farouk’s kleptomania.
Above: King Farouk I of Egypt (1920 – 1965)
During a visit to the Antoniadis Palace and Museum, Farouk had, unbeknowst to anyone, opened a cabinet and taken away an antique plate he had set his sights on for his own palace in Cairo.
Above: Antoniadis Palace, Alexandria, Egypt
Prince Ali was looking for a job that would provide him with an income and enable him to settle down in Turkey permanently after 50 years in exile.
During his exile (1924 – 1982), the Prince, for many years, made a living by working as a ticket taker and then as director of Antoniadis Palace and Museum in Alexandria, Egypt.
Someone at Pamuk’s table suggested that the Prince might find employment as a museum guide at Ihlamur Palace, where he had spent so much time as a child.
Above: Ihlamur Palace, Istanbul
Upon this suggestion, the Prince and all those at the table began to imagine, in complete seriousness and without a trace of irony, how Ali might show visitors around the rooms where he had rested and studied as a child.
I remember that I later built on these imaginings with the zeal of a young novelist looking for new perspectives:
“And here, sirs, is where I sat 70 years ago studying mathematics with my aide-de-camp.”
He would walk away from the ticket-toting crowd, step over the line that visitors are not allowed to cross – marked by those old-style velvet cords that hangs between brass stands – and sit once again at the desk he used in his youth….
I imagined the joy of being a guide to a museum and one of the museum’s artifacts at the same time, and the thrill of explaining to visitors a life, with all its paraphenalia, many years after it was lived.”
(Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects: The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul)
“I had not said:
“This trip to Paris is not on business, Mother.”
For if she had asked my reason, I could not have offered her a proper answer, having concealed the purpose even from myself….
I felt such consolation, the same deep understanding, as I wandered idly around museums.
I do not mean the Louvre or the Beaubourg or the other crowded, ostentatious ones of that ilk.
Above: The Louvre, Paris
I am speaking now of the many empty museums I found in Paris, the collections that no one ever visits.
There was the Musée Édith Piaf, founded by a great admirer, where by appointment I viewed hairbrushes, combs and teddy bears….
Above: French singer Édith Piaf (1915 – 1963)
And the Musée de la Préfecture de Police, where I spent an entire day….
And the Musée Jacquemart-André, where other objects were arranged alongside paintings in a most original way.
I saw empty chairs, chandeliers and haunting unfurnished spaces there.
Whenever wandering alone through museums like this, I felt myself uplifted….
I would dream happily of a museum where I could display my life, where I could tell my story through the things left behind, as lesson to us all.
On visiting the Musée Nissim de Camondo, I was emboldened to believe that the Keskins’ set of plates, forks, knives, and my seven-year collection of salt shakers, I too could have something worthy of proud display.
Above: Béatrice (sister) and Nissim de Cumondo (1892 – 1917)
The notion set me free.
The Musée de la Poste made me realize I could display letters….
And the Micromusée du Service des Objets Trouvés legitimated the inclusion of a wide range of things, as long as they reminded me….
It took me an hour in a taxi to reach the Musée Maurice Ravel, formerly the famous composer’s house, and when I saw his toothbrush, coffee cups, china figurines, various dolls, toys and an iron cage….
Above: French composer Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)
I very nearly wept.
To stroll through these Paris museums was to be released from the shame of my collection….
No longer an oddball embarrassed by the things he had hoarded, I was gradually awakening to the pride of a collector.
One evening while drinking alone in the bar of the Hôtel du Nord, gazing at the strangers around me, I caught myself asking the questions that occur to every Turk who goes abroad (if he has some education and a bit of money):
What did these Europeans think about me?
What did they think about us all?
Eventually I thought about how I might describe what Füsun meant to me to someone who knew nothing about Istanbul….
I was coming to see myself as someone who had travelled to distant countries and remained there for many years:
Say, an anthropologist who had fallen in love with an native girl while living among the indigenous folk of New Zealand, to study and catalog their habits and rituals, how they worked and relaxed, and had fun….
My observations and the love I had lived had become intertwined.
Now the only way I could ever hope tp make sense of those years was to display all that I had gathered together – the pots and pans, the trinkets, the clothes and the paintings – just as an anthropologist might have done.
During my last days in Paris, with….a bit of time to kill, I went to the Musée Gustave Moreau, because Proust had held this painter in such high esteem.
Above: French painter Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898)
I couldn’t bring myself to like Moreau’s classical, mannered historical paintings, but I liked the Museum.
In his final years, the painter Moreau had set about changing the family house where he had spent most of his life into a place where his thousands of paintings might be displayed after his death.
This house in due course became a museum….
Once converted, the house became a house of memories, a “sentimental museum“, in which every object shimmered with meaning.
As I walked through empty rooms, across creaking parquet floors and past dozing guards, I was seized by a passion that I might almost call religious….
My visit to Paris served as the model for my subsequent travels.
On arriving in a new city I would move into the old but comfortable and centrally located hotel that I had booked from Istanbul, and armed with the knowledge acquired from the books and guides read in advance, I would begin my rounds of the city’s most noteworthy museums, never rushing, never skipping a single one, like a student meticulously completing an assignment.
And then I would scan the flea markets, the shops selling trinkets and knickknacks, a few antique dealers.
If I happened on a salt shaker, an ashtray or a bottle opener identical to one I had seen in the Keskin household, or if anything else struck my fancy, I would buy it.
No matter where I was – Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Baku, Kyoto or Lisbon.
At suppertime I would take a long walk through the back streets and far-flung neighbourhoods.
Peering through the windows, I would search out rooms with families eating in front of the television, mothers cooking in kitchens that also served as dining rooms, children and fathers, young women with their disappointing husbands, and even the rich distant relations secretly in love with the girl in the house.
In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, I would kill time on the avenues and in the cafés until the little museums had opened.
I would write postcards to my mother and aunt, peruse the local papers, trying to figure out what had happened in Istanbul and the world, and at 11 o’clock I would pick up my notebook and set out hopefully on the day’s program.”
(Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence)
Pamuk goes on to relate his experiences in other museums around the world:
Helsinki City Museum
Museum of Cazelles, France
State Museum of Württemberg in Stuttgart
Musée International de la Parfumerie, Grasse
Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris
Historiska Museum, Göteborg, Sweden
Brevik Town Museum, Norway
Civico Museo del Mare, Trieste, Italy
Museum of Insects and Butterflies, La Ceiba, Honduras
Museum of Chinese Medicine, Hangzhou
Musée du Tabac, Paris
Musée de l’Atelier de Paul Cézanne, Aix-en-Provence
Rockox House, Antwerp, Belgium
Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna
Museum of London
Florence Nightingale Museum, London
Musée de Temps, Besancon, France
Teylers Museum, Haarlem, the Netherlands
Fort St. George Museum, Madras, India
Castelvecchio Museum, Verona
Museum der Dinge (Museum of Things), Berlin
Uffizi Museum, Florence
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Museu Frederic Marès, Barcelona
Glove Museum, New York City
Museum of Jurassic Technology, Culver City, California
Ava Gardner Museum, Smithfield, North Carolina
Museum of Beverage Containers and Advertising, Nashville
Tragedy in US History Museum, Saint Augustine, Florida
Stalin Museum, Gori, Georgia, Russia
Museum of the Romantic Era, Porto, Portugal
(In darker font are the places your humble blogger has also visited….)
So many museums, so many places, so many memories….
But for Kemal Bey each museum was appreciated (or not) more for its connection to Füsan and emotions evoked, rather than for the virtues of the museum itself.
Helsinki had familiar medicine bottles, Cazelles – hats his parents wore, Stuttgart convinced him that possessions deserved display in splendour, Grasse had him trying to remember Füsan’s scent, Munich’s Pinakothek’s stairs would serve as a model for the Museum of Innocence while Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Sacrifice of Abraham reminded him of having told Füsan this story and of the moral of giving up the thing most precious to us and expecting nothing in return.
And so on.
And what does Pamuk / Kemal want from the Museum?
“Do you know who it was that taught me the central place of pride in a museum?….
The museum guards, of course.
No matter where I went in the world, the guards would answer my every question with passion and pride….
If someone asks a question at our Museum, the guards must describe the history of the collection, the love I feel for Füsan, and the meanings invested in her possessions, with the same dignified air….
The guards’ job is not, as is commonly thought, to hush noisy visitors, protect the objects on display (though of course everything connected to Füsan must be preserved for eternity!) and issue warnings to kissing couples and people chewing gum.
Their job is to make visitors feel that they are in a place of worship that, like a mosque, should awaken in them feelings of humility, respect and reverence.
The guards at the Museum of Innocence are to wear velvet business suits the colour of dark wood – this being in keeping with the collection’s ambience and also Füsan’s spirit – with light pink shirts and special Museum ties embroidered with images of Füsan’s earrings.
They should leave gum chewers and kissing couples to their own devices.
The Museum of Innocence will be forever open to lovers who can’t find other place to kiss in Istanbul….
Never forget that the logic of my museum must be that wherever one stands in it, it should be possible to see the entire collection, all the display cases and everything else.
Because all the objects in my museum – and with them, my entire story – can be seen at the same time from any perspective, visitors will lose all sense of time.
This is the greatest consolation in life.
In poetically well-built museums, formed from the heart’s compulsions, we are consoled not by finding in them old objects that we love, but by losing all sense of time….
And let those who have read the book enjoy free admission to the Museum when they visit for the first time.
This is best accomplished by placing a ticket in every copy.
The Museum of Innocence will have a special stamp and when visitors present their copy of the book, the guard at the door will stamp this ticket before ushering them in.”
(Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence)
And, sure enough, at the bottom of page 713 (invalid if torn from the book), the reader finds a free ticket for a single admission to the Museum.
The butterfly stamp is reminiscient of the Museum’s Spiral of Time.
The Museum of Innocence, both the novel and the building, offers a glimpse into upper class Istanbul life from the 1970s to the early years of the Second Millennium.
The collection includes more than a thousand objects and presents what the novel’s characters used, wore, heard, saw, collected and dreamed of, all meticulously arranged in boxes and cabinets.
In the Museum’s catalogue, The Innocence of Objects, Pamuk lays out a manifesto for museums.
Pamuk calls for exchanging large national museums, such as the Louvre and the Hermitage, for smaller, more individualistic and cheaper museums, that tell stories in the place of histories.
“A museum should work in its capacity to reveal the humanity of individuals.”
To get to the Museum took some effort on my part as a first-time solo visitor.
My Istanbul accommodation was in the southeast district of Cagaloglu on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait.
The Museum is also on the European side but required crossing the Golden Horn via the Galata Bridge, which demanded either half the afternoon to walk that distance or at least an hour using public transport.
It was warm, at least by this Canadian’s standards, so I opted for public transport – tram and bus.
And as Pamuk writes in Istanbul: Memories and the City, “there was more to my world than I could see“.
I had, before Istanbul, many books I wished to read and Pamuk’s books remain on my list after Istanbul, but reading his works and visiting his museum I began to understand why his writing has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages making him Turkey’s best selling author.
Pamuk has tried to highlight issues relating to freedom of speech at a time when his President is trying to destroy it.
He is among a group of authors tried for writing essays that criticized (and rightly so) Turkey’s treatment of the Kurds.
In 2005, after Pamuk made a statement regarding the Armenian Genocide and mass killings of Kurds, a criminal case was opened against the author based on a complaint filed by ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz.
The criminal charges against Pamuk resulted from remarks he made during an interview in February 2005 with the Swiss publication Das Magazin, a weekly supplement to a number of Swiss newspapers: the Tages-Anzeiger, the Basler Zeitung and the Solothuner Tagblatt, to name but a few.
In this interview, Pamuk stated:
“Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here and a million Armenians.
And nobody dares to mention that.
So I do.”
He was consequently subjected to a hate campaign that forced him to flee the country.
(I am uncertain whether he lives in Istanbul again or not.)
In an 2005 interview with BBC News, Pamuk said that he wanted to defend freedom of speech, which was Turkey’s only hope for coming to terms with its history:
“What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation.
It was a taboo.
But we have to be able to talk about the past.”
In Bilecik, Pamuk’s books were burnt in a nationalist rally.
Above: Bilecik, Turkey
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code states:
“A person who publicly insults the Republic or the Turkish Grand Assembly, shall be punishable by imprisonment of six months to three years.”
The charges against Pamuk caused an international outcry and led to questions about Turkey’s then-desired entry into the European Union.
Amnesty International released a statement calling for Article 301 to be repealed and for Pamuk and six other people awaiting trial under the Article be set free.
Above: Logo for Amnesty International
PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists and all other writers) also denounced the charges against Pamuk:
“PEN finds it extraordinary that a state that has ratified both the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which see freedom of expression as central, should have a Penal Code that includes a clause that is so clearly contrary to these very same principles.”
Eight world-renowned authors (José Saramango, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Günter Grass, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, John Updike and Mario Vargas Llosa) issued a joint statement supporting Pamuk and decrying the charges against him as a violation of human rights.
On 27 March 2011, Pamuk was found guilty and was ordered to pay 6,000 liras in total compensation to five people for having insulted their honour.
“I strongly feel that the art of the novel is based on the human capacity, though it is a limited capacity, to be able to identify with ‘the other’.
Only human beings can do this.
It requires imagination, a sort of morality, a self-imposed goal of understanding this person who is different from us, which is a rarity.”
(Orhan Pamuk, Carol Becker interview, The Brooklyn Rail, February 2008)
“What literature needs most to tell and investigate are humanity’s basic fears: the fears of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears, the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kin.
Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments and by the irrational overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me.
We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world – and I can identify with them easily – succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities.
I also know that in the West – a world which I can identify with the same ease – nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.”
(Orhan Pamuk, Nobel lecture, 7 December 2006)
The Museum of Innocence is five levels of emotional complexity, much like Pamuk’s writing.
On the ground floor is where the visitor can buy tickets (if his novel isn’t available), pick up an audio guide, read the acknowledgements wall, watch a movie and videos and see Box #68 with the aforementioned 4,213 cigarette stubs (more than the Musée du Tabac).
On the first floor, we witness Kemal’s happiest moment of his life, the Sanzelize Boutique, photographs of distant relations, love at the office, matchbooks from fuaye restaurants, Füsun’s tears collected in a yellow jug, the Merhamet Apartments, Turkey’s first fruit soda (Meltem), the F box, city lights and happiness, the feast of the sacrifice, photos to be kissed on the lips, and how love, courage and modernity are represented by the night, the stars and other people’s lives.
The eyes through photographs wander down Istanbul’s streets, across bridges, over hills and into squares.
I discover a few unpalatable anthropological truths about Turkish culture:
If a man tried to wriggle out of marrying the girl he slept with and the girl in Question was under the age of 18, an angry father might take the philanderer to court to force him to marry.
These cases attracted press attention, so it was customary for newspapers to run photographs of the “violated” girls (not the “violating” men) with black bands over the ladies’ eyes to spare their being identified in this shameful situation. (No names were published, but it does seem odd that photos needed to be printed at all if the avoidance of shame truly was the goal.)
The press used the same black eyeband in photographs of adultresses (“…and here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson“), rape victims and prostitutes (“Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light.“) so often that reading a Turkish newspaper was like wandering through a masquerade ball.
Turkish newspapers ran very few photographs of Turkish women without black bands unless they were singers, actresses or Beauty contestants.
These were presumed to be of easy virtue anyway.
I witness Ahmet Isikci’s enigmatic art, how one’s whole life depends on the taxis of Istanbul.
I learn the story of Belki, the sorrow of funerals, a father’s gift of earrings to his mistress, the hand of Rahmi Efendi that almost pats the dog (“Take this longing from my tongue and all the guilty things these hands have done.“), the spell that (“the sound of“) silence casts, and an engagement party at the Istanbul Hilton.
Oh, the agony of waiting can be relieved if you carefully study an anatomical chart of love pains!
And, remember, don’t lean back that way or you might fall.
Pamuk wants his visitor to take consolation in objects and how they can remind a person of those they love.
“By now there was hardly a moment when I wasn’t thinking about her.
I would awake to the same pain, as if a black lamp were burning eternally inside me, radiating darkness.”
Sadly, Füsun doesn’t live here anymore, though there are streets that remind me of her and shadows and ghosts I mistake for her, life has left me with nothing but vulgar distractions.
I am an unnamed dog sent into outer space.
A dog which dares not entertain even a small hope that might allay his heartache.
Life is an empty house, an end-of-summer party without guests.
I make my confession to the Bosphorous and seek consolation in a yali.
Soon I am swimming on my back between Istanbul’s ships.
The melancholy of autumn leads to cold and lonely November days spent wandering the neighbourhood between the Fatih Hotel and the Golden Horn.
Maybe I need a holiday on Uludag.
I wonder:
Is it normal to leave your fiancée in the lurch?
I mourn my father’s death, realizing that the most important thing in life is to be happy.
I was going to ask her to marry me, because happiness means being close to the one you love, that’s all.
On the second floor, I learn that a film about life and agony should be sincere and that an indignant and broken heart is of no use to anyone.
I contemplate the spiral of time and I ask that you come again tomorrow and we can sit together again.
These are lemon films I watch but I am unable to stand up and leave.
A game of tombula should get past the censors as we share evenings on the Bosphorus at the Huzur Restaurant.
We make the gossip column.
We are our own fire on the Bosphorus.
Dogs are everywhere and the air reeks of cologne.
So climb up to the top floor to Kemal’s room.
Then down to the basement for a complimentary Turkish coffee.
Such is the Museum of Innocence.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Istanbul/ Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence/ Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects / Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City
As another New Year begins the question turns to New Year´s resolutions, to make them or avoid them, and if made what those resolutions should be.
Above: New Year´s Eve, Sydney, Australia
For example, some of us resolve to become fitter in the following twelve months, but those that know us know better than us that the sacrifice of time, effort and money required to do so isn´t truly who we are or really want to be.
Sometimes a person can be too close to a situation to properly see it for what it is.
Two women in my life recently caused themselves and others great friction, because they never accepted that their behaviour is harmful and refused to change their behaviour, despite being warned of consequences.
In fairness to them, it is often difficult to see beyond our own perspectives, regardless of what is said to us or what happens around us.
For example, I never truly appreciated how much I am liked by some of my regular customers when two evenings ago one of them spontaneously entered the Café and gave me a hug wishing me “Happy Holidays”.
It wasn´t until I have reflected upon this several hours later that I realised that my response might not have been as warm and welcoming to him as it should have been.
Visiting him at his place of business bearing gifts of apology and remorse for my unintended coldheartedness is the first of my New Year´s resolutions.
For every person there are also situations that trigger a kind of blindness that makes it difficult to see anything besides the emotions the situations generate.
For example, nothing makes me see red more than bullies.
So, as a result, I have the most difficult time seeing American, Turkish or Filipino politics open-mindedly, for Trump, Erdogan and Duterte strike me as being the epitome of bullies in their behaviour.
Above: Donald Trump, 45th US President since 20 January 2017
Above: Recep Erdogan, 12th President of Turkey since 2014, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey (2003 – 2014)
Above: Rodrigo Duterte, 16th President of the Philippines since 2016
These leaders and their followers can´t see, won´t see, what they are doing is wrong and truly believe that they are doing what is best and can´t comprehend, won´t comprehend, why others don´t see things as they do.
I was reminded of this last summer when we visited Lovere…..
Lovere, Italy, 4 August 2017
The Rough Guide to Italy doesn´t love Lovere very much.
“Lago d´Iseo raises your expectations:
Descending from Clusone, the road passes through steep gorges, thick forests and stark angular mountains, at the foot of which lies the Lake.
(For a description of Clusone, please see Canada Slim and the Dance Macabre of this blog.)
As Iseo is the 5th largest of the northern lakes and the least known outside Italy, you would imagine it to be more undiscovered than the others but the apartment blocks, harbourside boutiques, ice cream parlours and heavy industry of Lovere put paid to any notions that Lago Iseo might have escaped either tourist exploitation or industrialization.”
Lonely Planet Italy isn´t complimentary either.
“Lago d´Iseo is the least known and least attractive of the lakes.
Shut in by mountains, Iseo is scarred by industry and a string of tunnels at its northeastern end around Castro and Lovere, although driving through the blasted rock face at the water´s edge can be enjoyable.”
And herein lies the problem.
Because so many English-speaking readers trust and faithfully follow the advice given by these two popular travel guides, they fail to discover that there might be more to Heaven and Earth than is expounded by these two guidebooks´ philosophies.
Automobiles are quick, efficient and quite liberating from the quirks of predetermined routes and set schedules, but much is missed if the destination is deemed superior to the possible discoveries that can be made if one stops and explores along the journey.
My wife and I, like many other automobile travellers, were restricted by time and money to how often we could leisurely stop and explore.
And that is a shame.
For had we taken the train from Bergamo to the harbour town of Iseo then a ferry from there to Lovere, we might have discovered a town far more deserving of compliments than the aforementioned guidebooks give it credit.
Lovere is much like Lecco in that it is considered far more unremarkable than it truly is.
(For Lecco, see Canada Slim and the Unremarkable Town of this blog.)
At first glance of Lovere a person might be forgiven for thinking that somehow the road had led the traveller somehow back to Switzerland, for the houses in this town (of 5,000 residents) have overhanging wooden roofs, typical of Switzerland, yet united with the heavy stone arcades of Italy.
Lovere faces the Lago Iseo and is held in the warm embrace of a semi-circle of mountains behind.
The Tourism Council of the Associazione Nazionale Comuni Italiani includes Lovere as one of the I Borghi piu belli d´Italia, one of the small Italian towns of artistic and historical interest and one of the most beautiful villages in Italy.
Being part of the crossroads of culture and conflict that this region has been for centuries, Lovere has seen different peoples struggle to possess it: the Celts, Romans, Lombards, Franks, the monks of the Marmoutier Abbey (Tours, France), the Bishops of Bergamo, the Republic of Venice, the Napoleonic French, the Austrians and finally Italians.
There are a few sights in town worthy of a look and a linger of a few hours: the Church of Santa Maria in Valvendra with works by Cavagna, Carpinoni and Marone; the Palazzo Tadini which is both historic palace and art gallery, with many beautiful paintings and magnificent marble sculptures, along with terracotta, porcelain, antique armaments, furniture and zoological collections; the Church of San Giorgio with Cavagana´s Last Supper and Palma the Younger´s Trinity with the Virgin; the Clarissan monastery of Santa Chiara; the frescoes of the Oratorio San Martino; the ancient fortifications of Il Castelliere Gallico.
Above: Basilica Santa Maria in Valvendia, Lovere
Above: Palazzo Tadini, Lovere
Above: Church of San Giorgio, Lovere
Above: Convent of Santa Chiara, Lovere
Above: Church of San Martino, Lovere
Above: Fortifications of Castelliere Gallico, Lovere
This town is truly deserving of mention and preservation.
Yes, Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, there is industry here in Lovere, for the town possesses a metallurgic plant, Lucchini, which employs about 1,300 people and specializes in the manufacture of railroad wheels and axles.
But this town is more than industry and churches and it has produced or adopted a few folks worthy of mention:
The English aristocrat, letter writer and poet Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762) resided in Lovere for ten years.
Above: Lady Mary Montagu (1689 – 1762)
The 1906 Nobel Prize for Medicine recipient Camillo Golgi studied in Lovere´s Liceo Classico.
Above: Camillo Golgi (1843 – 1926)
(Golgi was known for his work on the central nervous system and his discovery of a staining technique called black reaction or Golgi´s method, used to visualize nerve tissue under light microscopes.)
The all-time leader in victories in motorcycle Grand Prix history, Giacomo Agostini was born in Lovere in 1942.
Above: Giacomo Agostini
Leading cinema critic and author Enrico Ghezzi was born in Lovere in 1952.
Above: Enrico Ghezzi
And while these abovementioned four have world recognition (at least in their day), Italians and the locals of Lovere also won´t forget that the town has also produced Santa Vincenza Gerosa, Santa Bartolomea Capitanio, acrobatic pilot Mario Stoppani, as well as Italian liberators, athletes and politicians.
Of the more famous four the person that captures my imagination the most is the Lady Montagu.
The Lady Mary Pierrepont Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762) is today chiefly remembered for her letters from travels to the Ottoman Empire as wife to the British Ambassador, which have been described as “the very fine example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient”.
Aside from her writing, Lady Mary is known for introducing and advocating for smallpox inoculation in Britain after her return from Turkey.
Her writings address and challenge the hindering contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth.
Mary began her education in her father´s home and to supplement the instruction of a despised governess, Mary used the library in Thoresbury Hall to “steal” her education, teaching herself Latin, a language reserved for men at the time.
By 1705, at the age of 14, Mary had written two albums filled with poetry, a brief epistolary novel (a novel written as a series of documents), and a romance modelled after Aphra Behn´s Voyage to the Isle of Love (1684).
By 1710, Mary had two possible suitors to choose from: Edward Wortley Montagu (1678 – 1761) and Clotworthy Skeffington.
May corresponded with Edward, but Mary´s father rejected Edward as a prospect pressuring her to marry Skeffington.
In order to avoid marriage to Skeffington, Mary and Edward eloped in 1712.
The early years of Mary´s married life were spent in the countryside.
She had a son, Edward Jr., on 16 May 1713.
On 1 July 1713, Mary´s brother died of smallpox, leaving behind two small children for Mary and Edward Sr. to raise.
On 13 October 1714, Edward Sr. accepted the post of Junior Commissioner of the Treasury.
When Mary joined him in London, her wit and beauty soon made her a prominent figure at court.
Her famous beauty was marred by a bout with smallpox in 1715.
In 1716, Edward Sr. was appointed Ambassador to Istanbul, where they remained until 1718.
After unsuccessful negotiations between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, the Montagus set sail for England via the Mediterranean, finally reaching London on 2 October 1718.
The story of this voyage and of her observations of Eastern life is told in her Letters from Turkey, a series of lively letters full of graphic descriptions.
Above: Flag of Turkey
Letters is often credited as being an inspiration for subsequent female travellers/writers.
During her visit Mary was sincerely charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she encountered and she recorded her experiences in a Turkish bath.
She recorded a particularly amusing incident in which a group of Turkish women at a bath in Sofia, horrified by the sight of the corset she was wearing, exclaimed that “the husbands in England were much worse than in the East, for they tied up their wives in little boxes, for the shape of their bodies”.
Mary wrote about misconceptions previous travellers, specifically male travellers, had recorded about the religion, traditions and the treatment of women in the Ottoman Empire.
Mary´s gender and class status provided her with access to female spaces that were closed off to males.
Her personal interactions wth Ottoman women enabled her to provide, in her view, a more accurate account of Turkish women, their dress, habits, traditions, limitations and liberties, at times irrefutably more a critique of the West than a praise of the East.
Above: Lady Mary Montagu in Turkish dress
Mary returned to the West with knowledge of the Ottoman practice of inoculation against smallpox.
In the Ottoman Empire, Mary visited the women in their segregated zenanas, making friends and learning about Turkish customs.
There she witnessed the practice of inoculation and eager to spare her children, she had Edward Jr. vaccinated.
On her return to London, Mary enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because vaccination was an Eastern custom.
In April 1721, when a smallpox epidemic struck England, Mary had her daughter inoculated and published the event.
She persuaded Princess Caroline to test the treatment.
Above: Caroline of Ansbach (1683 – 1737), Queen of England (1727 – 1737)
In August 1721, seven prisoners at Newgate Prison awaiting execution were offered the chance to undergo vaccination instead of execution.
All seven survived and were released.
After returning to England, Mary took less interest in court compared to her earlier days.
Instead she was more focused on the upbringing of her children, reading, writing and editing her travel letters – which she then chose not to publish.
In 1736, Mary met and fell in love with Count Francesco Algarotti.
Above: Francesco Algarotti (1712 – 1764)
She wrote many letters to Algarotti in English and French after his departure in September 1736.
In July 1739, Mary departed England “for health reasons” declaring her intentions to winter in the south of France.
In reality, Mary left to visit and live with Algarotti in Venice.
Their relationship ended in 1741, but Mary stayed abroad and travelled extensively.
She would finally settle in Avignon and then later Lovere.
After August 1756, she resided in Venice and resumed her relationship with Algarotti.
Mary received news of her husband Edward´s death in 1761 and left Venice for England.
En route to London, she handed her Letters from Turkey to Benjamin Sowden of Rotterdam, for safekeeping “to be disposed of as he thinks proper”.
Mary´s Letters from Turkey was only one set of memoirs written by Europeans who had been to the Ottoman Empire:
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522 – 1592) was a diplomat in the Holy Roman Empire sent to the Ottoman Empire to discuss the disputed territory of Transylvania.
Above: Ogier de Busbecq
Upon returning to his country Busbecq published the letters he had written to his colleague Nicholas Michault under the title Turkish Epistles.
Busbecq is also known for his introduction of the tulip from Turkey to Europe.
Above: Tulip cultivation, Netherlands
Kelemen Mikes (1690 – 1761) was a Hungarian essayist, noted for his rebellious activities against the Habsburg Monarchy.
Above: Kelemen Mikes
Although backed by the Ottoman Empire, Hungarian rebels were defeated and Mikes had to choose a life in exile.
After 1715, Mikes spent the rest of his life in Tekirdag (near Istanbul).
His work is known as Letters from Turkey.
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800 – 1891) was an officer in the Prussian army.
Above: Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
He spent four years in the Ottoman Empire as a military advisor between 1835 and 1839.
Upon returning to Germany, Moltke published Letters on Conditions and Events in Turkey (1835 – 1839).
As I ponder my visit to Lovere and think of how necessary and important the Lady Montagu observations about Turkey were, I am left with two distinct impressions:
First, Lady Mary saw what others did not see.
She viewed Turkey through her own perspective, inspiring generations of writers and travellers to express themselves in their own unique fashion.
Second, Lady Mary saw something about Lovere, a town possibly as ignored in her day as it is ignored in these modern times, that inspired her to remain until the siren call of love compelled her return to Venice and an old flame.
All of which reminds me that I, in my own humble way, have my own unique perspective on places that guidebooks ignore and that people might be inspired to visit.
And, as well, perhaps my observations about places and politics that are often misunderstood or ignored might encourage others to advocate positive changes to both our perspectives on these places and a rallying call to empathise with people rather than judging them for the inadequate governments that suppress them.
So, if I have any New Year´s resolutions, it would be to continue reading, travelling and writing about places both near and far.
Who knows what ripples my wee pebbles can cause?
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / The Rough Guide to Italy / Lonely Planet Italy
In this season of goodwill and gratitude for all the blessings we enjoy, those who are healthy should especially be thankful, for we live in an age when life expectancy is higher because mankind has developed medicines and methods to extend life and restore health.
Granted there is still much significant progress needed, for far too many people still fall victim to the scourges of cancer and strokes.
There is still much we do not understand about diseases like Parkinson´s, AIDS and far too many others to comprehensively list here.
Even the common cold with its endless variety of mutations remains unsolvable and must simply be accepted as one of the countless burdens we must endure in life.
What is significant about today when compared with yesteryear is that common injuries are less likely to be fatal.
As well through the contributions of thoughtful compassionate innovators, our attitudes towards the care of the injured and ailing have improved.
Here in Switzerland and back in my homeland of Canada I have been hospitalized due to injuries caused by accidents: a fall from a tree (shattered shoulder), an axe slip (shattered foot), and a fall on a staircase (shattered wrist).
And though I also have medical conditions of anemia and celiac, neither these conditions nor the accidents I have had led to risks of fatality.
For prompt and compassionate medical attention provided to me ensured that I still live a functional, mostly painless, and happy healthy existence.
For the Christian West, Christmas is the season to show thanksgiving to God for sending His Son Jesus Christ to save our immortal souls, we also should not forget the human instruments of change that have assisted mankind to save our mortal flesh.
I married a doctor, and, even though she is a children´s physician, knowing her has given me an appreciation of just how difficult a profession medicine really is at all levels of medical treatment.
From the surgeon whose precision must be matched with efficiency, to the specialist doctor whose diagnosis must be accurately matched with the most likely cause of the patient´s symptoms, to the technicians who operate machinery that can reveal the interior of a patient´s body, to the family doctor who must know when to send a patient to a specialist and when to trust his/her own treatment, to the pharmacist that must know what medicines do and how to administer them, to the administrator who must balance the needs of patients with the cost of maintaining those needs, to the cleaning staff who ensure that the health care environment is as sterile as humanly possible, to the therapist who teaches the patient how to heal him/herself, to the nurse who monitors and comforts the bedbound sick person unable to fend for him/herself…..
The world of health care is a complex and complicated system demanding dedicated people and a neverending desire to improve itself.
A visit to a London museum two months ago has made me consider how grateful I am that an Englishwoman had the courage to be compassionate, Christian, and transformed the world for the better.
London, England, 24 October 2017
As mentioned in great detail in my blogpost Canada Slim and the Royal Peculiar my wife and I visited Westminster Abbey, that necrophiliac fetish house for the Establishment.
And folks whether or not they were avowed antiestablishment found themselves commemorated here.
The poet Shelley, despite wishing to be known as an anarchist artist and was buried in Rome, is memorialised here in Poets´ Corner, across from Viscount Castlereagh, a man Shelley loathed.
Above: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
“I met Murder on the way.
Above: Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769 – 1822)
He had a face like Castlereagh.”
Before leaving the Abbey, we briefly visited the Undercroft Museum with its death-worshipping collection of royal funeral effigies.
Until the Middle Ages, British monarchs were traditionally embalmed and left to lie in state for a set period of time.
Eventually, the corpse was substituted for a wooden figure of the deceased, fully dressed with clothes from the Great Wardrobe and displayed on top of the funeral carriage for the final journey.
As the clothes were expected to fit the effegy perfectly, the likenesses found in the Undercroft are probably fairly accurate.
Edward III´s face has a strange leer, a recreation of the stroke he suffered in his final years.
Above: Westminster Abbey effigy of Edward III (1312 – 1377)
His eyebrows came from a plucked dog.
Several soldiers are known as the Ragged Regiment due to their decrepit decay.
Frances, the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, holds what may be the world´s oldest stuffed bird, an African Grey parrot that died in 1702.
Above: Frances Teresa Stewart (1647 – 1702)
Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that Frances was the greatest beauty he had ever seen.
Sadly she was disfigured by smallpox in 1668.
Sadly her final fate no different than that of her parrot.
Leaving the Abbey we see the Methodist Central Hall, an inadequate and unnecessary replacement to the building that once stood here.
On this site once stood the Royal Aquarium and Winter Garden, opened in 1876, a grand Victorian entertainment venue.
It housed palm trees, restaurants, an art gallery, an orchestra, a skating rink, the Imperial Theatre, smoking and reading rooms.
A variety of sea creatures were displayed here, but the Aquarium was often plagued by frequent plumbing problems, so the place became better known for the exciting performances staged here than for the fish.
Come one, come all.
See William Leonard Hunt, aka the Great Farini, the world renowned Canadian showman and tightrope walker!
Above: William Hunt, aka the Great Farini (1838 – 1929)
Gasp in awe at 14-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter, aka Zazel, the first ever human cannonball, as she (barely 5 feet tall and 64 lbs heavy) is launched through the air flying 30 feet or more!
Above: Rossa Richter, aka Zazel (1863 – 1929)
Protests were launched over the danger Zazel faced and for a while the venue was in danger of losing its license but crowds kept coming to see the performances.
By the 1890s the Aquarium´s reputation became disreputable and it became known as a place where ladies of poor character went in search of male companions.
The Great Farini and Zazel were one thing, but an Aquarium of ill repute was too much for Victorian propriety to accept.
The Aquarium closed in 1899 and was demolished four years later.
In 1905 construction began on the Hall for Methodists, Christianity´s least entertaining sect.
We headed towards the Thames and followed Millbank Road to a place which suffered the opposite fate of the Aquarium.
While the Aquarium lost its aura of entertainment and was replaced by a stodgy religious institute, opposite the Tate Britain Museum is an almost invisible plaque upon an unremarkable bollard that tells the reader that where the entertaining Tate stands once stood Millbank Prison.
Above: Tate Britain
Millbank was built to serve as the National Petientiary and was used as a holding facility for convicts due for transportation to Australia.
“Near this site stood Millbank Prison which was opened in 1816 and closed in 1890.
This buttress stood at the head of the river steps from which, until 1867, prisoners sentenced to transportation embarked on their journey to Australia.”
Novelist Henry James called Millbank “a worse act of violence than any it was erected to punish”.
Above: Henry James (1843 – 1916)
The phrase “down under” is said to be derived from a nearby tunnel through which the convicts were walked in chains down to the river.
A section of the tunnel survives in the cellars of the nearby Morpeth Arms, a pub built to seve the prison warden and said to be haunted by the ghost of a former inmate.
Depending on their crime, prisoners could be given the choice of receiving a five-to-ten-year jail sentence instead of exile.
Among the many to be sent to Australia – and perhaps the unluckiest of them all – was Isaac Solomon, a convicted pickpocket and the inspiration for the character Fagin in Charles Dickens´ Oliver Twist.
Above: Isaac “Ikey” Solomon (1727 – 1850)
In 1827 Solomon managed to escape while being taken to Newgate Prison.
He fled England to New York, but then travelled on to Tasmania when he discovered his wife had been transported there for crimes of her own.
Upon arrival in Tasmania, Solomon was rearrested, shipped home to London, retried, reconvicted and sentenced to exiled imprisonment for 14 years….back to Tasmania.
We made our weaving way to Pimlico Tube Station, a unique station in that it doesn´t have an interchange with another Underground or National Rail Line.
We rode the rails until Waterloo, the last station to provide steam-powered services and the busiest railway station in London / the 91st busiest in the world / the busiest transport hub in Europe.
I had once taken the Eurostar from Waterloo Station to Paris as one of the 81,891,738 travellers during the 13 years (1994 – 2007) Eurostar operated from here, before it began service from St. Pancras.
The clock at Waterloo has been cited as one of the most romantic spots for a couple to meet, and has appeared in TV (Only Fools and Horses) and in the film Man Up.
Waterloo Station has appeared in literature (Three Men in a Boat, The Wrong Box, The War of the Worlds), films (Terminus, Rush Hour, Sliding Doors), theatre (The Railway Children), music (the Kinks song “Waterloo Sunset”) and paintings.
Our destination – typical of travelling with a doctor – a hospital, St. Thomas Hospital, noteworthy for a male serial killer and a lady humanitarian.
Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish Canadian serial killer who claimed victims from the United States, England, Canada and Scotland.
Above: Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (1850 – 1892)
Born in Glasgow, Cream was raised outside Quebec City.
He attended Montreal´s McGill University and then did his post-graduate training at St. Thomas.
In 1878 Cream obtained qualifications in Edinburgh.
He then returned to Canada to practice in London, Ontario.
In August 1879, Kate Gardener, a woman with whom he was having an affair, was found dead in an alleyway behind Cream´s office, pregnant and poisoned.
Cream claimed that she had been made pregnant by a prominent local businessman, but after being accused of both murder and blackmail, Cream fled to the United States.
Cream established a medical practice not far from the red light district of Chicago, offering illegal abortions to prostitutes.
In December 1880 another patient died after treatment by Cream, followed by another in April 1881.
On 14 July 1881, Danial Stott died of poisoning, after Cream supplied him a remedy for epilepsy.
Cream was arrested, along with Stott´s wife.
Cream was sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet prison.
Cream was released in 1891, after Governor Joseph Fifer commuted his sentence.
Using money inherited from his father, Cream sailed for England.
He returned to London and took lodgings at 103 Lambeth Palace Road.
At that time, Lambeth was ridden with poverty, petty crime and prostitution.
On 13 October 1891, Nellie Donworth, a 19-year-old prostitute accepted a drink from Cream.
She died three days later.
On 20 October, Cream met 27-year-old prostitute Matilda Clover.
She died the next morning.
On 2 April 1892, after a vacation in Canada, Cream was back in London where he attempted to poison Louise Harvey.
Above: Louise Harvey
On 11 April, Cream met two prostitutes, Alice Marsh, 21, and Emma Shrivell. 18, and talked his way into their flat.
Cream put styrchine in their bottles of Guinness.
Both women died in agony.
On 3 June 1892, Cream was arrested and was later sentenced to death.
On 15 November, Cream was hanged on the gallows at Newgate Prison and his body buried in an unmarked grave within the prison walls.
Cream´s name does not appear in later McGill graduate directories.
No mention of those who mourned Cream´s victims is made either.
Ladies of the night lost in the shadows of Lambeth lamplight, fallen and forgotten.
Another medical professional is equally remembered at a site as inconspicuous as a prison burial ground: a parking lot.
On the south side of Westminster Bridge, a series of red brick Victorian blocks and modern white additions make up St. Thomas´s Hospital, founded in the 12th century.
At the Hospital´s northeastern corner, off Lambeth Palace Road, is a car park.
A hospital car park isn´t the most obvious location for a museum, but that where one finds the homage to Florence Nightingale, the genteel rebel who invented the nursing profession.
Born on 12 May 1820 at the Villa Colombaia, three decades before Cream, Florence Nightingale was named after the city of her birth, Florence, Italy.
Above: Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910)
“There is nothing like the tyranny of a good English family.”
Florence was born into a rich, well-connected family though quite liberal in their attitudes.
Their circle of friends and acquaintances included the author Elizabeth Gaskell, the scientist Charles Darwin and the reform politician the Earl of Shaftesbury.
(For the story of the Earl of Shaftesbury, please see Canada Slim and the Outcast of this blog.)
Her maternal grandfather William Smith campaigned to abolish slavery and Florence´s father William Nightingale educated both her and her sister Frances Parthenope (after her birthplace of Parthenope, Naples) in French, Latin, German, mathematics, philosophy and science, then considered strictly male pursuits,
The Nightingales loved to travel – her parents´ honeymoon lasted so long that they produced two daughters before they returned home.
Growing up Florence visited many European cities.
She travelled to France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
She enjoyed visiting museums, dancing at balls, and going to concerts, confessing at one point that she was “music mad”.
In 1838, her father took the family on a tour of Europe where they were introduced to the English-born Parisian heiress Mary Clarke, with whom Florence bonded.
Above: Mary Clarke (1793 – 1883)
Clarke was a stimulating hostess who did not care for her appearance, and while her ideas did not always agree with those of her guests, “she was incapable of boring anyone”.
Clarke´s behaviour was said to be exasperating and eccentric and she had no respect for upper class British women, whom she regarded generally as inconsequential.
She said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, she would choose the galleys.
Clarke generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals.
However Clarke made an exception in the case of Florence.
They were to remain close friends for 40 years despite their 27-year age difference.
Clarke demonstrated that women could be equals to men, an idea that Florence did not obtain from her mother Fanny Smith.
Florence underwent the first of several experiences that she believed were calls from God in February 1837 while at her family home of Embley Park, prompting a strong desire to devote her life to the service of others.
Above: Embley Park
Devout and scholarly, Florence was not expected to do anything much apart from marry and procreate.
As a young woman, Florence was attractive, slender and graceful.
She had rich brown hair, a delicate complexion and a prominent, almost Roman, nose.
She was slim until middle age and tall for a Victorian woman, about 5´8″ or 172 cm in height.
While her demeanour was often severe, she was very charming and possessed a radiant smile.
Florence received several marriage proposals.
She was certainly not supposed to work, but Florence´s ambition was to become a nurse.
Her parents were aghast.
In the Victorian Age, nurses were known for being devious, dishonest and drunken.
Hospitals were filthy, dangerous places exclusively for the poor.
The rich were treated in the privacy of their own homes.
In her youth Florence was respectful of her family´s opposition to her working as a nurse, but nonetheless she announced her decision to enter the field in 1844.
Despite the intense anger and distress of her mother and sister, Florence rebelled against the expected role for a woman of her status to become a wife and mother.
“I craved for something worth doing instead of frittering time away on useless trifles.”
Florence came closest to accepting the marriage proposal of politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, but after a nine-year courtship she rejected him in 1849, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing.
Above: Richard Monckton Milnes (1809 – 1885)
Whether Milnes´ devotion to the writing of Marquis de Sade and his extensive collection of erotica had something to do with Florence´s decision remains unstated.
She knew that marriage would mean swapping one cage for another and felt that God meant her to remain single.
“Marriage had never tempted me.
I hated the idea of being tied forever to a life of Society, and such a marriage could I have.”
In the essay Cassandra, Florence wrote about the limited choices facing women like her and raged against the way women were unable to put their energy and intelligence to better use.
Florence´s parents allowed her to visit Rome in 1847 with family friends, Charles and Selina Bracebridge, hopefully to take her mind off nursing.
In Rome, Florence met the young politician, former Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert on his honeymoon with his wife Elizabeth.
Above: Sidney Herbert (1810 – 1861)
Together Florence and Elizabeth visited convents and hospitals run by Catholic nuns.
Sidney and Florence became lifelong close friends and the Herberts would later be insturmental in facilitating Florence´s future nursing work.
Florence continued her travels with the Bracebridges as far as Greece and Egypt.
Her writings on Egypt in particular are testimony to her learning, literaray skill and philosophy of life.
Sailing up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel in January 1850, Florence wrote of the temples there:
Above: The temples of Abu Simbel: the Great Temple of Ramses II (left), the Temple of Nefertari (right)
“Sublime in the highest style of intellectual beauty, intellect without effort, without suffering …. not a feature is correct – but the whole effect is more expressive of spiritual grandeur than anything I could have imagined.
It makes the impression upon one that thousands of voices do, uniting in one unanimous simultaneous feeling of enthusiasm or emotion, which is said to overcome the strongest man.”
At Thebes, Florence wrote of being “called to God”.
A week later near Cairo she wrote in her diary:
“God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for Him alone without reputation.”
During a visit to the Parthenon in Athens, Florence rescued an owl, which she called Athena.
Above: The Parthenon
Athena always perched on Florence´s shoulder or in her pocket, with a specially designed pouch to to catch her droppings.
Above: Athena (1850 – 1855)
Athena was a demanding creature who had to be bathed with sand daily.
When the badtempered owl died, Florence wrote:
“Poor little beastie, it was odd how much I loved you.”
Her sister Frances wrote a short story, The Life and Death of Athena, ensuring the little owl´s posthumous fame.
Rather than forget nursing as her parents hoped, Florence´s determination grew even stronger.
Later in 1850, Florence visited the Lutheran religious community at Kaiserswerth-am-Rhein, near Dusseldorf, in Germany, where she observed Pastor Theodor Fliedner and the deaconesses working for the poor and the sick in a hospital, orphanage and college.
Above: Kaiserswerth Clinic
She regarded the Kaiserswerth experience as a turning point in her life, where she received months of medical training which would form the basis for her later care.
Florence learned about medicines, how to dress wounds, observed amputations and cared for the sick and dying.
She had never felt happier.
“Now I know what it is to love life.”
On 22 August 1853, Florence took the post of Superintendant at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street in London, a position she held until October 1854.
When an epidemic of cholera broke out in London, Florence rushed to nurse victims in the nearby Middlesex Hospital.
Florence read about the disaster facing the British army in the autumn of 1854.
Hundreds of soldiers were sent to fight with the French and the Ottoman Turks against the Tsar´s Russian army in the Crimea were dying of disease.
The Crimean War was the first time the public could read in the newspapers about how the troops were suffering.
Above: Map of the Crimean War (Russian version)
When the news broke of the disaster in the Army, polticians were criticised.
More soldiers were dying from disease, and from cold during the winter, than from enemy action.
“In most cases the flesh and clothes were frozen together.
As for feet, the boots had to be cut off bit by bit, the flesh coming off with them.”
The wounded arrived by the boatloads at the British Army´s base hospitals at Scutari in Constantinople (today´s Istanbul).
Reporting from the front lines in the Crimea, William Howard Russell, Times journalist, blamed disorganization and a lack of supplies.
Fellow Times journalist in Constantinople, Thomas Chenery, reported that the French allowed women to nurse, unlike the British.
After the initial battles in the Crimea, the conflict centred on the besieged port of Sebastopol, where Russian and Ukranian women nursed heroically.
Above: The Siege of Sebastopol(September 1854 – September 1855), by Franz Roubaud (1902)
Conditions in the vast hospitals were horrific.
“Must men die in agony unheeded?”, demanded the Times.
The scandal provoked a public outcry.
Sidney Herbert, once again Secretary of War, wrote to Florence asking her to lead a group of women nurses – a new and risky idea.
Florence and her team of 38 brave women volunteer nurses that she trained and 15 Catholic nuns set sail for Scutari.
Florence arrived early November 1854 at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari and found that poor care for wounded soldiers was being delivered by overworked medical staff in the face of official indifference.
Medicines were in short supply, hygiene was being neglected and mass infections were common, many of them fatal.
There was no equipment to process food for the patients.
There was a lack of food, a lack of blankets, a lack of beds.
Casualities arrived, after a long journey, dirty and starving.
“It is of appalling horror!
These poor fellows suffer with unshrinking heroism, and die or are cut up without complaint.
We are steeped up to our necks in blood.”
At Scutari the nurses had to contend with rats, lice, cockroaches and an absence of sanitation and had to cope with long hours and hard physical work.
After Florence sent a plea to the Times for a government solution to the poor condition of the facilities, the British Government commissioned engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design a prefabricated hospital that could be built in England and shipped to the Dardanelles.
Above: Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 – 1859)
The result was Renkioi Hospital, a civilian facility that had a death rate less than one tenth that of Scutari.
Florence reduced the death rate from 42% to 2% by making improvements in hygiene.
She implemented handwashing and other hygiene practices in the war hospital.
She organized the nurses and soldiers´ wives to clean shirts and sheets and the men to empty the toilets.
She bombarded Herbert with letters asking for supplies and used her own money and funds sent by the public via the Times, to buy scrubbing brushes and buckets, blankets, bedpans and operating tables.
“This morning I foraged in the purveyor´s store – a cruise I make almost daily, as the only way of getting things. I am really cook, housekeeper, scavenger, washerwoman, general dealer and storekeeper.”
Every night she walked miles of hospital corridors where thousands of casualities lay, holding a Turkish lantern (fanoos) on her nightly rounds of the wards.
Florence would always dismiss the idea that she alone improved the Hospital.
It was a team effort.
In Britain, penny papers popularised the image of “the Lady with the Lamp” patrolling the wards.
Her work went beyond nursing care.
Florence treated the soldiers equally, whatever their rank, and also thought of their families´ welfare.
She wrote letters of condolence to relatives, sent money to widows, and answered inquiries about the missing or ill.
When the initial crisis was over, Florence also organized reading rooms.
As an alternative to alcohol, the Inkerman Café was opened, serving non-alcoholic drinks.
She set up a banking system so ordinary soldiers could send their pay home, rather than drink or gamble it away.
Stories of Florence´s devotion to the men flooded home to Britain.
One soldier wrote home of the love and gratitude for Florence felt by “hundreds of great rough soldiers”.
The men worshipped her.
During her first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died.
Ten times more soldiers died from diseases such as typhoid, typhus, cholera and dysentary than from battle wounds.
Scutari had been built on top of a huge cesspool.
With overcrowding eased, defective sewers flushed out and ventilation improved, death rates were sharply reduced.
Florence still believed that the death rates were due to poor nutrition, lack of supplies, stale air and overworking of the soldiers.
She came to believe that most of the soldiers at the hospital were killed by poor living conditions.
Florence believed that she needed to maintain military style discipline over her nurses.
“If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally the fault not of the disease but of the nursing.”
She wanted her nurses to be treated with respect by the men and doctors.
This meant no flirting with doctors or soldiers, no disobedience or drunkenness.
The first image showing Florence as “the Lady with the Lamp” appeared in the Illustrated London News early in 1855.
As the war dragged on, Florence´s work made her internationally famous.
“She is a ministering angel without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow´s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her.
When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.”
Florence hated what she called the “buzz fuzz” of celebrity, but she knew how to use public opinion.
Fame gave her power and influence to make changes, but she knew it obscured the achievements of others and the human cost of the war.
Florence´s image appeared as pottery figurines, souvenirs and even on paper bags.
Songs and poems were written about her.
When the US poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published “Santa Philomena” in 1857, it fixed Florence´s image forever as the Lady with the Lamp.
Above: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)
“Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And flit from room to room.”
After contracting “Crimean fever” from infected goat´s milk, Florence suffered ill health.
After the Crimean War, Florence returned to Britain in August 1856, travelling under the name “Miss Smith” to avoid publicity.
Thin, exhausted and ill, she felt a sense of failure and grieved over the soldiers who did not return.
“My poor men lying in your Crimean graves, I stand at the altar of murdered men.
Florence devoted the rest of her life to ensure that they did not die in vain.
While Florence shrank from public appearances, she skillfully used her reputation and the authority of her name to convincethose in power of the need for health reform, starting with Queen Victoria, whom she impressed greatly when they met in Balmoral.
Above: Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901)
For the rest of her days she would continue to suffer reoccuring bouts of fever, exhaustion, depression, loss of appetite, insomnia and severe back pain.
Unable to continue nursing, she devoted herself to health reform, founded the first training school for nurses at St. Thomas, campaigned to improve hospital conditions and championed the cause of midwives.
Often irritable, highly critical of herself and others, Florence worked on, writing hundreds of letters, gathering and analysing statistics, commenting on reports, briefing politicians and medical experts.
Prompted by the Indian mutiny of 1857, Florence began a lifelong campaign to improve the health of all Indians, not just British soldiers.
She studied the design of hospitals in Britain and across Europe.
Florence wrote Notes on Nursing to help ordinary women care for their families.
She stressed the importance of cleanliness, warmth, fresh air, light and proper diet.
Florence wrote some 200 books, pamphlets and articles, and over 14,000 letters.
As well as nursing she wrote about religion and philosophy, sanitation and army hygiene, hospitals, statistics and India.
She wrote about her travels and the frustrations of life for educated women.
Florence changed society´s ideas about nursing.
She believed in looking after a person´s mental as well as physical wellbeing.
She stressed the importance of being sensitive to a patient´s needs and their environment to aid recovery.
She helped make nursing a respectable profession for women.
Her work proved an inspiration to many, including the founder of the Red Cross movement, Henri Dunant.
Above: Henri Dunant (1828 – 1910)
Florence championed causes that are as just important today as they were in her day, from hospital hygiene and management, to the nursing of soldiers during war and afterwards, and healthcare for all around the world.
In recognition of her pioneering work in nursing, the Nightingale Pledge is taken by new nurses.
The Florence Nightingale Medal is the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.
The Florence Nightingale Museum doesn´t just celebrate Florence as a devout woman who single-mindedly revolutionized the healthcare industry but as well it hits the right note by putting the two years she spent tending to the wounded of the Crimean War in the context of a lifetime of tireless social campaigning, and also mentions others involved in that same health care crisis.
Dimly lit and curiously curated with circular display cases covered in fake grass or wrapped in bandages, this small museum is packed with fascinating exhibits, from Florence´s hand-written ledgers and primitive medical instruments to pamplets with titles like How People May Live and Not Die in India.
The Museum and the neighbourhood of Lambeth are worth exploring, especially in a world too full of Dr. Creams and too few Florence Nightingales.
Perhaps if our politicians visited more museums like the Red Cross Museum in Geneva or the Florence Nightingale Museum there might less incentive to cause war ourselves or to ignore wars far removed from us, such as Yemen – “a pointless conflict (that) has caused the world´s worst humanitarian crisis”.
Perhaps if we followed role models such as Florence we might one day truly find peace on Earth and good will towards man.
Sources: Wikipedia / The Rough Guide to London / Rachel Howard and Bill Nash, Secret London: An Unusual Guide / Simon Leyland, A Curious Guide to London / Florence Nightingale Museum / http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk
On Easter Sunday, the Turkish people had an election and chose to support President Recep Erdogan by a slim minority of votes. (3% victory margin)
Depending on who you listen to, this means that either the President has now received a mandate to exercise unbridled power or he can now make democratic reform a reality.
I have been closely watching Turkey over the past few years and in particular the actions of His Excellency Recep Erdogan and I think that one needs to closely look at the President of Turkey to better understand the dynamics of Turkish politics and how these dynamics can affect global affairs.
In three previous blogposts (The sick man of Europe 1: The sons of Karbala / The sick man of Europe 2: The sorrow of Batman / The sick man of Europe 3: The rise of Recep) I wrote about the relationship between the Turkish people and the Kurds, with the latest post examining the rise of Recep Erdogan to the post of Prime Minister.
His tenure of Prime Minister (Turkish head of government) and his actions since he was elected President (Turkish head of state) are critically worth examining as his recent proposed reforms involve dissolving the post of Prime Minister and incorporating these powers into the position of the Turkish Presidency.
For non-Turkish readers I believe that the vigilant observation of Turkey is important for the world as Turkey has been and continues to be the bridge between Europe and Asia, between secularism and fundamentalism, between Christianity and Islam, between the West and the East and the Middle East.
And, of course, Europeans are keenly interested in Turkey as, at present, Turkey harbours millions of Syrian refugees and prevents them from entering, in uncontrollable numbers, the European Union and other countries of the West.
Above: A Syrian refugee centre on the Turkish border 80 km from Aleppo, Syria (3 August 2012)
So what affects Turkey has a rippling effect on the rest of the world.
In my last Turkey-related blogpost I ended by suggesting that Recep Erdogan has begun his political reign quite successfully.
He had risen from the role of one of Istanbul’s best mayors to the post of Prime Minister.
Erdogan served as the 25th Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and is at present the 12th President of the Republic and remains the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) which he established in 2001.
So, let’s examine his record in power…
In 2002, Erdogan inherited a Turkish economy that was just beginning to recover from a recession as a result of reforms implemented by then Minister of State for Economic Affairs Kemal Dervis.
Erdogan supported Finance Minister Ali Babacan in enforcing macroeconomic policies and he tried to attract more foreign investors to Turkey by lifting many government regulations.
In his tenure as Prime Minister, Erdogan reduced Turkey’s debt to the International Monetary Fund from $23. 5 billion to $0.9 billion, increased the Turkish Central Bank’s reserves from $26.5 billion to $92.2 billion, reduced Turkey’s inflation rate from 32% to 9%, reduced Turkey’s public debt from 74% to 39%, but he was unable to curb the increase in unemployment rates in his country.
In 2003, Erdogan’s government pushed through the Labor Act, a comprehensive reform of Turkey’s labor laws, greatly expanding the rights of employees, establishing a 45-hour workweek and limiting overtime work to 270 hours a year, providing legal protection against discrimination due to gender, religion or political affliation, prohibiting discrimation between permanent and temporary employees, entitling employees terminated without valid cause to compensation and mandating written contracts for employment arrangements lasting a year or more.
In 2003, the Turkish government, together with UNICEF, started a campaign called “Come on girls, let’s go to school!”(Haydi Kizlar Okula!), with the goal of closing the gender gap in primary school enrollment through the provision of a quality basic education for all girls, especially in southeast Turkey (Kurdish populated).
After assuming power in 2003, Erdogan’s government embarked on a sweeping reform program of the Turkish healthcare system, called the Health Transformation Program (HTP), to greatly increase the quality of healthcare and protect all citizens from financial risks.
On 18 April 2003, BBC News reported that the US had named 30 countries which were prepared to be publicly associated with the US (George W. Bush Administration)’s action against Iraq.
All of the Arab states, Israel, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, most of Latin America and most of Africa did not support the US action, but Turkey along with 29 other countries (including Britain and Australia) did join this “Coalition of the Willing” in the war against Iraq.
Above: The flag of Iraq
Besides his government’s Haydi Kizlar Okula campaign, Erdogan would go on to increase the budget of the Ministry of Education (from 7.5 billion Turkish lira in 2002 to 34 billion Turkish lira by 2011), would raise the age of compulsory education from 8 years to 12, and would ensure that every province in Turkey would have its own university, doubling the number of universities from 98 in 2002 to 186 by 2012.
In 2004 textbooks became free of charge.
The construction of Marmaray, an undersea rail tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait separating Asia from Europe, was started in 2004, and, when completed, will be the world’s deepest undersea immersed tube tunnel.
As well in 2004, as part of the government’s health care reforms, the Green Card program, which provides health benefits to the poor, was expanded, aiming to increase the ratio of private health care to state-run healthcare, which, along with long lines in state-run hospitals, resulting in the rise of private medical care, forcing state-run hospitals to compete by increasing quality.
And his reforms would attract the world’s attention…
In 2004, Erdogan would be listed in Time magazine one of the 100 most influential people in the world, “a builder of bridges”, and be named European of the Year by the weekly European Voice, for having put Turkey on the road to reform.
During Erdogan’s Prime Minstership, Turkish relations with Greece both politically and economically improved significantly.
In 2004, Erdogan and his party strongly supported the EU-backed referendum to reunify Cyprus, thus inspiring the EU to promise to end the economic isolation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Above: The flag of Northern Cyprus
In 2004, Syrian President Bashar al-Assan arrived in Turkey for the first official visit by a Syrian President in 57 years, signing a free trade agreement with one another.
Above: Bashar al-Assan, 15th President of Syria since 2000, born 1965
And at the end of the year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Turkey – only the second presidential visit in the history of Turkish-Russian relations after Chairman Podgorny’s visit of 1972.
Above: Vladimir Putin, Russian President (2000-2008/2012- ), Prime Minister (1999-2000/2008-2012), born 1952
In 2005 Erdogan seemed to continue his exemplary reforms and positive foreign relations.
Erdogan and the main opposition party leader Deniz Baykal wrote a letter to Armenian President Robert Kocharian, proposing the creation of a joint Turkish-Armenian commission of historians, archaeologists, political scientists and other experts to acknowledge the mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide.
Above: The flag of Armenia
Armenian Foriegn Minister Vartan Oskanian rejected the offer, because he asserted that the proposal was “insincere and not serious”.
“This issue cannot be considered at historical level with Turks, who themselves politicized the problem.”
The Turkish Parliament granted amnesty to students expelled from university before 2003, on academic or disciplinary grounds.
On 1 May 2005, in a rare state visit by a leader of a Muslim majority country, Erdogan came to Israel offering to serve as a Middle East peace mediator and looking to build on trade and military ties, bringing with him a delegation of businessmen.
During his visit to Israel, Erdogan also visited the Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust).
Above: Aerial view of Yad Vashem
In November 2005, Russian President Putin attended the inauguration of a jointly constructed natural gas pipeline in Turkey, considering it their strategic goal to achieve “multidimensional cooperation” in the fields of energy, transport and the military.
Erdogan was a co-founder of the Alliance of Civilisations (AOC), first proposed by Spanish Prime Minister José Rodriguez Zapatero at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005, seeking to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
Erdogan said that “Turkey’s accession shows that Europe is a continent where civilisation reconcile and not clash.”
On 3 October 2005 negotiations for Turkey’s accession to the EU formally started.
Above: The flag of the European Union
In 2006, a Turkish-Armenian friendship monument, the Monument to Humanity, was commissioned in Kars, representing the rapprochement of the two countries after many years of dispute over the events of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
Above: The Statue of Humanity (2009 – 2011)
But Turkey’s troubles and questions regarding Erdogan’s questionable methods began to arise…
In March 2006, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) held a press conference to publicly protest his obstruction of the appointment of judges to the high courts for over 10 months, saying that Erdogan wanted to fill the vacant posts with his own appointees.
Erdogan was accused of creating a rift with Turkey’s highest court of appeal, the Yargitay, and high administrative court, the Danistay.
Erdogan said the constitution gave him the power to assign these posts to his elected party.
Yet reforms still seemed underway as Erdogan unveiled a social security reform package demanded by the IMF under a loan deal.
The move which Erdogan called “one of the most radical reforms ever”, was passed with fierce opposition.
Turkey’s three social security bodies were united under one roof, bringing equal health services and retirement benefits for members of all three bodies.
The previous system had been criticized for reserving the best healthcare for civil servants and relating others to wait in long queues.
Under the 2006 bill, everyone under the age of 18 was entitled to free health services, while starting from 2036, the retirement age was increased to 65 for both men and women.
In August 2006, Saudi King Abdullah as-Saud made a visit to Turkey – the first visit by a Saudi monarch to Turkey in four decades, increasing their trading volume as their strategic locations meant their economies were in a a position to supplement each other.
Above: The flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Erdogan received the Outstanding Service Award from the humanitarian organization Red Crescent (Islamic equivalent to the Red Cross).
But 2006 would mark the last year where people were mostly praising Erdogan…
In May 2007, the head of Turkey’s High Court asked prosecutors to consider whether Erdogan should be charged over critical comments he made the previous month regarding the election of Abdullah Gül as President.
Above: Abdullah Gül, 11th President of Turkey (2007 – 2014) / 24th Prime Minister of Turkey (2002 – 2003)
Erdogan said the High Court ruling was “a disgrace to the justice system” and criticized the Constitutional Court which had invalidated a presidential vote because a boycott by other parties meant there was no quorum.
Prosecutors investigated his earlier comments, saying Erdogan had fired a “bullet at democracy”.
Tülay Tuglu, head of the Constitutional Court, condemned the Prime Minister for “threats, insults and hostility” towards the justice system.
On a positive note, the Turkish Parliament agreed to reduce the age of candidacy to elected office from 30 to 25 and abolished the death penalty in all instances, including war time.
Both the military and the judiciary are widely known for their secular credentials (that is, the separation of religion from government), so both therefore represent a threat to Erdogan’s moderately Islamic government.
2007 was an election year.
The stage was set for a fight for legitimacy in the eyes of voters between Erdogan’s government and the second largest party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
On 14 April 2007, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Ankara to protest against the possible candidacy of Erdogan in the Presidential election, afraid that if elected Erdogan would alter the secular nature of the Turkish state.
Ten days later, Erdogan announced that his party had nominated Abdullah Gül as the AKP candidate in the Presidential election.
Protests continued over the next several weeks, with over one million people reported to have turned out as a 29 April rally in Istanbul, tens of thousands at separate protests on 4 May in Manisa and Canakkale, and one million in Izmir on 13 May.
Above: Protest rally of 14 April 2007, Ankara
Early parliamentary elections were called after the failure of the parties in Parliament to agree on the next Turkish President.
The opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary vote and deadlocked the election process.
Erdogan spoke of a failure of the Turkish political system and proposed to modify the Turkish constitution.
Gül was later elected President after the general elections on 22 July 2007 that saw the AKP and Erdogan brought back to power with 46% of the vote.
Later in 2007, a Turkish constitutional referendum was approved with the support of 69% of the voters to modify the constitution to allow the people, not Parliament, to elect the President.
This reform also reduced the Presidential term from seven years to five, allowed the President to stand for re-election for a second term, determined that general elections would be held every four years instead of five and reduced the quorum of lawmakers needed for parliamentary decisions from 367 to 184.
During this chaotic elction, the military issued an electronic memorandum warning the government to keep within the boundaries of secularism when choosing a candidate, because Erdogan had close relations with Fethullah Gülen and his Hizmet movement.
Above: Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, born 1941
(Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish preacher, former imam, writer and political figure, as he has been actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state and Islam in the modern world.
Gülen has been described in English-language media as an imam “who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education” and as “one of the world’s most important Muslim figures”.
The Gülen movement has millions of followers in Turkey and abroad.
Beyond the schools – over 1,000 schools around the world – established by Gülen’s followers, it is believed that many Gülenists hold positions of power in Turkey’s police forces and judiciary.
Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue and multiparty democracy.
In his sermons, Gülen has reportedly stated: “Studying physics, mathematics and chemistry is worshipping God.”
He has initiated dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organisations and has personally met with Pope John Paul II, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and Israeli Sephardic Head Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.
Above: Gülen with Pope John Paul II, 1998
Gülen teaches that the Muslim community has a duty of service to the “common good” of the community and to the nation and to Muslims and non-Muslims all over the world, and that the Muslim community is obliged to conduct dialogue with not just the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) and people of other religions, but also with agnostics and atheists.
Gülen has said that he favours cooperation between followers of different religions as well as religious and secular elements within society.
Among his strongest supporters and collaborators has been for years the Greek Orthodox Turcologist and Professor at the University of Ottawa, Dimitri Kitsikis.
Above: Crest of the University of Ottawa
Though Gülen has criticized secularism in Turkey as “reductionist materialism”, he has said that a secular approach is not “anti-religious” and “allows for freedom of religion and belief, compatible with Islam”.
Gülen has supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union and has said that neither Turkey nor the EU have anything to fear, but have much to gain, from a future of full Turkish membership in the EU.
Gülen has condemned terrorism and has warned against the phenomenon of arbitrary violence and aggression against civilians, saying it “has no place in Islam”.
Gülen wrote a condemnation article in the Washington Post on 12 September 2001, one day after the 9/11 attacks and stated:
“A Muslim cannot be a terrorist nor can a terrorist be a true Muslim.”
Gülen lamented the “hijacking of Islam” by terrorists.)
In 2007, Erdogan’s government developed the SECSIS secure vote counting system in order to reduce fraud.
However SECSIS has been criticized for being prone to manipulation, and, according to one of its critics Neval Kavcar, “with this electoral system, the AKP can be elected for a thousand years”.
However, not all the news regarding Erdogan that year was bad.
The President of Israel Shimon Peres addressed the Turkish Parliament during his November visit, the first time an Israeli leader had addressed the legislature of a predominantly Muslim nation.
Above: Shimon Peres (1923 – 2016), 9th President of Israel (2007-2014) / 8th Prime Minister of Israel (1995-1996)
And that same month, Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis met on the bridge over the Evros River, at the border between Greece and Turkey, for the inauguration of the Greek-Turkish natural gas pipeline, linking these longtime rivals and giving Caspian gas its first direct Western outlet, easing Russia’s energy dominance.
Above: The flag of Greece
Erdogan received awards for his efforts from the President of Tatarstan, the Prime Minister of Spain, the Chancellor of Germany, and the United Nations.
2008 didn’t garnish much world attention for Erdogan or for Turkey.
In December 2008, Erdogan criticized the “I Apologize” campaign by Turkish intellectuals to recognize the Armenian Genocide saying:
Above: An Armenian woman kneeling beside a dead child in field within sight of help and safety at Aleppo, 1915
“I neither accept nor support this campaign.
We did not commit a crime, therefore we do not need to apologize.
It will not have any benefit other than stirring up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps that have been taken.”
Above: Headline of New York Times, 15 December 1915
Erdogan supported the continuation of Turkey’s high population growth rate and commented that to ensure the Turkish population remained young every family would need to have at least three children.
He has repeated this statement on numerous occasions.
In 2008, the Turkish Parliament adopted a law to prohibit smoking in most public places.
Erdogan is outspokenly anti-smoking.
On 14 March 2008, Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor asked the country’s Constitutional Court to ban Erdogan’s governing party.
The AKP escaped a ban on 30 July 2008, although judges did cut the party’s funding by 50%.
As 2009 dawned, though Erdogan was not loved by everyone within Turkey itself, Erdogan had, for the most part, the support of the world community.
This would begin to change as Erdogan’s relations with Israel and the Kurds would become problematic…
(To be continued)
Sources: Wikipedia / Andrew Finkel, Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know / Richard Stoneman, A Traveller’s History of Turkey
I have twice visited this beautiful country and I have rarely met a Turk I haven`t liked.
I began to talk about Turkey in this blog, because of the event that began 2017: the ISIS attack on a nightclub in Istanbul.
Above: The Reina restaurant/nightclub, Istanbul
(See this blog’s No Longer My Country 1: Take Me Back to Constantinople and No Longer My Country 2: The fashionable dead.)
Four days later, a PKK car bombing in Izmir made me curious about exactly why the Kurdish people and the Turkish people have been at each other’s throats for decades and I have tried to be objective in writing about what my research has turned up.
I wrote of Turkey`s history from its ancient beginnings until the election of Turgat Özal in 1989.
I promised that I would explain why Turkish politics of today, especially the actions of its President, are affected by events of the past.
The events that followed the election of President Özal and all that has taken place in Turkey since 1989 I believe are instructive, for a number of reasons:
The location of Turkey as the crossroads of Asia and Europe, the meeting point of a predominantly Christian West with a predominantly Muslim Middle East, the crucible of secularism vs fundamentalism, makes Turkey one of the major countries I think the world cannot afford to ignore.
The political evolution of Turkey, especially since Recep Erdogan first assumed office as Turkey’s 25th Prime Minister (2003 – 2014) and then its 12th President (2014 – Present), runs very similarly to other nations’ histories and possible destinies.
(See this blog’s The sick man of Europe 1: The sons of Karbala and The sick man of Europe 2: The sorrow of Batman.)
To understand Turkish politics of today, we need to look at how His Excellency became ruler of Turkey and how his mind might work.
Recep Erdogan was born in the Kasimpasa neighbourhood of Istanbul, to which his family had moved from Rize Province.
Erdogan spent his early childhood in Rize, where his father was a member of the Turkish Coast Guard.
His summer holidays were mostly spent in Güneysu, Rize, where his family originates from.
Throughout his life Erdogan has often returned to his spiritual home and in 2015 he opened a vast mosque on a mountaintop near his village.
His family returned to Istanbul when Erdogan was 13 years old.
As a teenager he sold lemonade and sesame buns (simit) on the streets of the city’s rougher districts to earn extra money.
Brought up in an observant Muslim family, Erdogan graduated from Kasimpasa Piyale primary school in 1973, received his high school diploma from Eyüp High School, studied business administration at the Marmara University’s Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences – though several sources dispute the claim that he graduated.
(To be President of Turkey, one must have graduated from a university.)
In his youth Erdogan played semi-professional football for the Kasimpasa football club, but when Fenerbahce Football Club wanted him to join their team his father prevented this.
While studying business administration and playing football, Erdogan engaged in politics by joining the National Turkish Student Union, an anti-communist action group.
In 1974, Erdogan wrote, directed and played the lead role in the play Maskomya, which presented Freemasonry, Communism and Judaism as evil.
In 1975 Süleyman Demirel, president of the conservative Justice Party succeeded Bülent Ecevit, president of the social-democratic Republican People’s Party as Prime Minister of Turkey.
Demirel formed a coalition government with the Nationalist Front, the Islamist Salvation Party led by Necmettin Erbakan, and the far right Nationalist Movement Party.
The 1970s were troubled times for Turkey: many economic and social problems, strike actions and political paralysis.
Turkey’s proportional representation system made it difficult to form any parliamentary majority and an ability to combat the growing violence in the country.
In 1976, Erdogan became the head of the Beyoglu youth branch of the Islamist Salvation Party and was later promoted to the chair of the Istanbul youth branch of the party.
In 1978, Erdogan married Emine Gülbaran of Siirt (a city in southeastern Turkey and capital of Siirt Province) and they have two sons (Ahmet and Necmettin) and two daughters (Esra and Sümeyye).
After the 1980 military coup, Erdogan followed most of Necmettin Erbakan’s followers into the Islamist Welfare Party.
Between 1984 and 1999, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish military engaged in open war.
Above: Flag of the PKK
The Republic forced inscription, evacuation, destruction of villages, extreme harassment, tortue, illegal arrests, murder and disappearance of Kurdish journalists and executions of Kurds.
Since the 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the thousands of human rights abuses.
Erdogan became the party’s Beyoglu district chair in 1984 and a year later became the chair of the Istanbul city branch.
Meanwhile, the military coup leaders under Kenan Evren appointed Turgut Özal state minister and deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs.
Özal formed the Motherland Party (ANAP) in 1983 after the ban on political parties was lifted by the military government.
The ANAP won the elections and he formed the government to become Turkey’s 19th Prime Minister at the end of the year.
When Özal became Prime Minister, the issue of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 was one of topics on his aganda.
Above: Remains of Armenians massacred at Erzinjan
In 1991, after a meeting with representatives of the Armenian community, Özal said in front of journalists and diplomats:
“What happens if we compromise with the Armenians and end this issue?
What if we officially recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide and face up to our past?
Let’s take the initiative and find the truth.
Let’s pay the political and economic price, if necessary.”
Özal was reelected Prime Minister in 1987.
On 18 June 1988 Özal survived an assassination attempt during the ANAP party congress.
One bullet wounded his finger while another bullet missed his head.
The shooter, Kartal Demirag, was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment but was pardoned by Özal in 1992.
On 9 November 1989, Özal became Turkey’s 8th President elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the first president to be born in the Republic of Turkey rather than the Ottoman Empire.
(Demirag was later retried in 2008 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)
Özal was born in Malatya to a Turkish family with partial Kurdish roots on his mother’s side.
Above: Scenes of the city of Malatya
In 1991 Özal supported the coalition of nations (France, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States) against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.
Above: Scenes from the 1991 Gulf War
In the early 1990s Özal agreed to negotiations with the PKK, the events of the Gulf War having changed the political dynamics in the region.
(Kurds make up 17% of Iraq’s population.
In 1974 the Iraqi government began a new offensive against the Kurds.
Between 1975 and 1978, 200,000 Kurds were deported out of oil rich Kurdistan.
During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi government implemented anti-Kurdish policies: the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the wholesale destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages, the deportation of thousands of Kurds.
The Anfal (spoils of war) genocidal campaign destroyed over 2,000 villages and killed 182,000 Kurdish civilians, using ground offensives, aerial bombing, firing squads and chemical attacks, including the most infamous attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 civilians instantly.
Above: First Lieutenant of the US 25th Infantry on patrol in fron of Halabja Cemetery
After the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in March 1991, Iraqi troops recaptured most of the Kurdish areas and 1.5 million Kurds abandoned their homes and fled to the Turkish and Iranian borders.
It is estimated that close to 20,000 Kurds succumbed to death due to exhaustion, lack of food, exposure to cold and disease.
On 5 April 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 688, which condemned the repression of Iraqi Kurdish civilians and demanded that Iraq end its repressive measures and allow immediate access to international humanitarian organisations.
In mid-April, the Coalition established safe havens inside Iraqi borders and prohibited Iraqi planes from flying north of the 36th parallel.
Kurds held parliamentary elections in May 1992 and established the Kurdistan Regional Government.)
Apart from Özal, few Turkish politicians were interested in a peace process with the Kurds, nor was more than a part of the PKK itself.
In 1993 Özal worked on peace plans with former finance minister Adnan Kahveci and General Commander of the Turkish Gendarmerie Esref Bitlis.
Negotiations led to a ceasefire declaration by the PKK on 20 March 1993.
With the PKK’s ceasefire declaration achieved, Özal planned to propose a major pro-Kurdish reform package at the next meeting of the National Security Council.
On 17 April 1993 Özal died of a suspicious heart attack, leading some to suspect an assassination.
Özal died just before he had the chance to negotiate with the PKK.
A month later a PKK ambush on 24 May 1993 ensured the end of the peace process.
After Özal’s death, his policies of compromising with the Armenians in order to solve the conflict concerning the Armenian Genocide were abandoned.
Özal’s wife Semra claimed he had been poisoned by lemonade and she questioned the lack of an autopsy.
Blood samples taken to determine his cause of death were lost or disposed of.
Tens of thousands of people attended the state burial ceremony in Istanbul.
(On the 14th anniversary of his death, thousands gathered in Ankara in commemoration.
Investigators wanted to exhume the body to examine it for poisoning.
On 3 October 2012 Özal’s body was exhumed.
It contained the banned insecticide DDT at ten times the normal level.)
Under the new President Süleyman Demirel and Prime Minister Tansu Siller, the Castle Plan – to use any and all means to solve the Kurdish question using violence – which Özal had opposed, was enacted.
In the local elections of 27 March 1994, Erdogan was elected Mayor of Istanbul (1994 – 1998).
Many feared that he would impose Islamic law.
However he was pragmatic in office, tackling chronic problems in Istanbul, including water shortage, pollution and traffic chaos.
The water shortage problem was solved with the laying of hundreds of kilometres of new pipeline.
The garbage problem was solved with the establishment of state-of-the-art recycling facilities.
Air pollution was reduced by making public buses more environmentally friendly.
Istanbul’s traffic and transportation jams were reduced with more than 50 bridges, viaducts and highways built.
Erdogan took precautions to prevent corruption, using measures to ensure that municipal funds were used prudently.
He paid back a major portion of Istanbul’s two billion dollar debt and invested four billion dollars in the city.
Erdogan initiated the first roundtable of mayors during the Istanbul Conference, which led to an organised global movement of mayors.
In December 1997, while in his wife’s hometown of Siirt, defending his party from being declared unconstitutional by the Turkish government, Erdogan recited a poem from a work written by Ziya Gökalp, a Turkish activist of the early 20th century.
Above: The Ebul Vefa Mosque, Siirt
(To understand Turkey, one must never forget that this is a country that subscribes to the “great man” view of history and politics.
Travellers in Turkey find portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – 1938) everywhere.
Atatürk created modern Turkey, not only by reclaiming from the Ottoman Empire virtually all the territory that we call Turkey today but as well by lending his name to a series of reforms to demonstrate the uniqueness of living in Turkey – the elimination of the fez, the alteration of the calendar to make Saturday and Sunday the weekend, women encouraged to enter more fully into public life by no longer making veiling compulsory, the adoption of the Latin alphabet, to name just a few changes that led to genuine transformation of the most intimate moments of the Turkish people’s lives.
Mehmed Ziya Gökalp (1876 – 1924) was a Turkish sociologist, writer, poet and political activist whose work was particularly influential in shaping the reforms of Atatürk.
Above: Ziya Gökalp
Influenced by contemporary European thought, particularly the views of Émile Durkheim, Gökalp rejected the unity of the Ottoman Empire or unity through Islam, in favour of Turkish nationalism through the promotion of the Turkish language and culture.
Above: Émile Durkheim (1858 – 1917)
Gökalp believed that a nation must have a “shared consciousness” in order to survive, that “the individual becomes a genuine personality only as he becomes a genuine representative of his culture”.
He believed that a modern state must become homogeneous in terms of culture, religion and national identity.
In an 1911 article, Gökalp suggested that “Turks are the ‘supermen’ imagined by the German philosopher Nietzsche”.
Above: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)
Gökalp differentiated between Avrupalilik (Europeanism – the mimicking of Western socieities) and Modernlik (taking initiative).
He was interested in Japan as a model for this, for he perceived Japan as having modernised itself without abandoning its innate cultural identity.
Above: Flag of Japan
Gökalp suggested that to subordinate “culture” (non-utilitarian, altruist public-spiritedness) to “civilisation” (utilitarian. egotistical individualism) was to doom a state to decline.
“Civilisation destroyed societal solidarity and morality.”
(Many historians and sociologists have suggested that his brand of nationalism contributed to the Armenian Genocide.)
Gökalp’s poetry served to complement and popularise his sociological and nationalist views.)
Erdogan’s recitation of Gökalp’s work included verses which are not in the original version of the poem:
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
Aboe: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, or Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Under Article 312/2 of the Turkish Penal Code, Erdogan’s recitation was regarded as an incitement to violence and religious/racial hatred.
In 1998, his fundamentalist Welfare Party was declared unconstitutional on the grounds of threatening the secularism of Turkey and was shut down by the Turkish Constitutional Court.
Erdogan was given a ten-month prison sentence of which he served four. (24 March – 27 July 1999)
Due to his conviction, Erdogan was banned from participating in parliamentary elections.
As 9th President of Turkey, His Excellency Süleyman Demirel had four Prime Ministers rise and fall during his time in office:
Tansu Ciller
(Turkey’s 22nd and first and only female Prime Minister (1993 – 1996), Ciller was responsible for the aforementioned Castle Plan, the persuasion of the United States to label the PKK as a terrorist organisation, the creation of a budget plan that led to a lack of confidence in her government and an almost total collapse of the Turkish lira, was alleged to have supported the failed 1995 Azerbaijan coup d’état, claimed Turkish sovereignty over the islands of Imia and Kardak almost leading to war with joint claimant Greece and was implicated in the Susurluk Scandal involving the close relationship between her government, the armed forces and organised crime.)
Necmettin Erbakan (1926 – 2011)
(Turkey’s 23rd Prime Minister (1996 – 1997), Erbakan formed a coalition government with Ciller acting as Deputy Prime Minister and strongly promoted close cooperation and unity among Muslim countries.
He was the founder of the still-existent D8 (Developing Eight) Organization for Economic Cooperation, whose goal is increased economic and political unity between its members (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey).
Erbakan found his popularity wane when he made fun of the nightly repetition of demonstrations against his Deputy Prime Minister.
He was strongly encouraged by the military to resign over his perceived violation of the separation of religion and state as mandated by the Turkish Constitution.)
Mesut Yilmaz
(Turkey’s 21st Prime Minister (June – November 1991, March- June 1996, 1997 – 1999), Yilmaz quickly began to fade for his 3rd and final time as Prime Minister.
In October 1998, he threatened “to poke out the eyes of Syria” over Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s (1930 – 2000)(18th President of Syria: 1971 – 2000) alleged support of the FKK.
Above: The flag of Syria
(During Assad’s presidency, Syria’s relations with Turkey were tense.
An important issue between the countries was water supply and Syria’s support to the PKK.
Assad offered help to the PKK enabled it to receive training in the Beka’a’ Valley in Lebanon.
Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founders of the PKK, openly used Assad’s villa in Damascus as a base for operations.
Turkey threatened to cut off all water supplies to Syria.
However, when the Turkish Prime Minister or President sent a formal letter to the Syrian leadership requesting it to stop supporting the PKK, Assad ignored them.
At that time, Turkey could not attack Syria due to its low military capacity near the Syrian border, and advised the European NATO members to avoid becoming involved in Middle East conflicts in order to avoid escalating the West’s conflict with the Warsaw Pact states, since Syria had good relations with the Soviet Union.
Above: Logo of the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance
However, after the end of the Cold War, Turkish military concentration on the Syrian border increased.
In mid-1998, Turkey threatened Syria with military action because of Syrian aid to Öcalan, and in October it gave Syria an ultimatum.
Assad was aware of the possible consequences of Syria’s continuing support to the PKK.
Turkey was militarily powerful while Syria had lost the support of the Soviet Union.
The Russian Federation was not willing to help; neither was it capable of taking strong measures against Turkey.
Facing a real threat of military confrontation with Turkey, Syria signed the Adana Memorandum in October 1998, which designated the PKK as a terrorist organization and required Syria to evict it from its territory.
After the PKK was dissolved in Syria, Turkish-Syrian political relations improved considerably, but issues such as water supplies from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers remained unsolved.)
In December 1998, in an attempt to privatise the Turkish Trade Bank, allegations of cooperation with Mafia boss Alaattin Cakici began to arise.
Mustafa Bülent Ecevit
(Turkey’s 16th Prime Minister (January – November 1974, June – July 1977, 1978 – 1979, 1999 – 2002), Ecevit would try to bring economic reforms, aimed at stabilizing the Turkish economy, in order to gain full membership into the European Union.)
(Despite lasting only ten months, Ecevit’s first government was responsible for the successful Turkish invasion of Cyprus, for which he is nicknamed the ‘conqueror of Cyprus’. (Turkish: Kıbrıs Fatihi) )
In 2000, Ahmet Necdet Sezer was elected as Turkey’s 10th President (2000 – 2007) after Süleyman Demirel’s seven-year term expired.
The Prime Ministers during Demiril’s term with their unstable coalitions, rampant corruption and lack of durability caused the Turkish people to become highly disillusioned with their government.
Their lack of faith would cause foreign nations to carefully examine any investment in Turkey.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey relied heavily on foreign investment for economic growth.
The government was already running enormous budget deficits, which it managed to sustain by selling huge quantities of high-interest bonds to Turkish banks.
Continuing inflation and the enormous flow of foreign capital had meant that the government could avoid defaulting on the bonds in the short term.
As a consequence, Turkish banks came to rely on these high yield bonds as a primary investment.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1996 warned the Turkish government of an impending financial crisis because of the deficit.
Turkey’s unstable political landscape led many foreign investors to divest from the country.
As foreign investors observed the political turmoil and the government’s attempts to eleiminate the budget deficit, they withdrew $70 billion worth of capital in a matter of months.
This left a vacuum of capital that Turkish banks were unable to alleviate because the government was no longer able to pay off its bonds.
With no capital to speak of, the Turkish economy declined dramatically.
By 2000 there was massive unemployment, a lack of medicine, tight credit, slow production and increasing taxes.
In November 2001, the IMF provided Turkey with $11.4 billion in loans and Turkey sold many of its state-owned industries in a effort to balance the budget.
But these stabilisation efforts were not producing meaningful effects and the IMF loan was widely seen as insufficient.
On 19 February 2001, Prime Minister Ecevit emerged from an angry meeting with President Sezer saying:
“This is a serious crisis.”
This statement underscored the financial and political instability and led to further panic in the markets.
Stocks plummeted, interest rates reached 3,000%, large quantities of Turkish lira were exchanged for US dollars or euros, causing the Turkish Central Bank to lose $5 billion of its reserves.
Above: Symbol for the Turkish lira
The crash triggered even more economic turmoil.
In the first eight months of 2001, nearly 15,000 jobs were lost, the US dollar was equal to 1,500,000 lira, and income inequality was greater than ever.
Despite this, the government made swift progress in bringing about an economic recovery.
Nevertheless, almost half of his party in the parliament left to form the New Turkey Party(YTP).
Added to this economic crisis, allegations of corruption, as well as Ecevit’s poor health, made early elections unavoidable and the DSP faced an electoral wipeout in the 2002 general elections losing all of its MPs.
In 2001, Erdogan established the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The AKP won a landslide victory and Erdogan assumed office as Turkey’s 25th Prime Minister on 14 March 2003.
Erdogan inherited a Turkish economy just beginning to recover, unresolved issues with the Kurds and the Armenians, the need to improve democratic standards and the rights of minorities, the need to reform labour laws, the need to invest in education, the need to increase Turkey’s infrastructure, as well as the need to reform the Turkish healthcare system and social security.
Recep Tayip Erdogan, born 1954, had come a long way from selling simit in rough districts, or kicking a football, or sitting in a prison cell for speaking ill-chosen words.
He had shown he could rise above coups and his party being declared unconstitutional and dissolved and could improve the lives and the prospects of one of Turkey’s oldest and populous cities.
Erdogan would go on to be known by two, completely contrary to each other, titles:
the most successful politician in the Republic of Turkey’s history
the world’s most insulted president
Erdogan was Prime Minister for 11 years and has been President for almost three years with four more years to go in his mandate.
And he seemed to start off so well…
(To be continued…)
Sources: Wikipedia / Andrew Finkel, Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know)
These are interesting times we live in, where nothing seems as certain as it once was.
Uncertainty as to whether foreign governments can determine other national elections…
Increased irrationality and xenophobia and hate crimes against folks whose only offence is the appearance of being different…
Wars that never end, from the ancient conflict between the Koreas that was resolved by uneasy ceasefire but without a peace treaty, to Afghanistan whose location and lithium cause empires to clash, to Syria so divided and torn apart causing untold millions to become adrift in modern diaspora, Africa where bloodshed is constant but media attention is scarce…
The most public nation on Earth run by an administration whose only real goal seems to be the total erasure of any achievements the previous administration might have accomplished…
Brazil: where governments change and prison conditions worsen…
Turkey: a land of wonderful people ruled over by a government that seems desperate for the world to view the country in the completely opposite way…
Israel: fighting for its rights of self-determination while denying the same rights of those caught within its reach…
India: a land of unlimited potential yet prisoner of past values incompatible with the democracy it would like to be…
A world where profit is more important than people, short-term gain more valuable than long-term consequence…
Interesting times.
And it is these interesting times that find me re-evaluating the behaviour of the routine traveller and why this type of person may be more deserving of respect than is often shown him…
A routine traveller is that kind of person who, regardless of a world that has so much to offer visitors, will not visit any other location than the one to which he returns to, again and again, year after year.
This kind of routine traveller tends to be found amongst the older population.
My biological father will drive down from Canada to Florida once a year, following the exact same route, stay at the same motels and eat at the same restaurants he slept in and ate at before, return to the same trailer by the same beach and do the same things he did before, vacation after vacation, year after year.
An elderly lady student of mine travels from Switzerland to Spain once every seven weeks and lives in Barcelona for a week, remaining in her apartment except to visit familiar places and familiar faces.
And the only thing that would dissuade them from changing their routine would be circumstances beyond their control, like ill health or acts of God or government.
For much of my life I have mocked this kind of traveller.
I have wanted to explore the planet and visit faraway places with strange sounding names.
I have loved the sound of ship horns, train whistles, plane engines…
I have loved discovering new sights and smells, meeting new people with different perspectives, learning anew just how much I have yet to learn, every day a new discovery, every moment a new adventure.
And that inner child, with eyes wide open with excitement and wonder, never really disappeared from within me.
But as I age I feel I am beginning to understand the routine traveller more, for there is something comforting in the familiar.
My father and my student had made wiser financial investments than I ever had or ever will so they have managed to build themselves second homes in other locales outside their countries of regular residence.
My wife and I, limited like most by time and money, have not even considered the lifestyle of the routine travelling retiree just yet.
But I am beginning to see their point of view.
Last month the wife and I visited the Zürich Zoo and I found myself, to my own amused astonishment, expressing a desire to retire one day in walking distance of a zoo with an annual membership and spend my final days sitting on benches watching the animals obliviously engage in their natural routines.
I could see myself spending hours watching monkeys climb and swing, penguins march, peacocks strut, elephants calmly forage for food, owls stare back at me unblinkingly, bird song filling my ears, animal odors filling my nose, the solid concrete beneath my feet, the endless activity and colourful wonders of nature in myriad form.
I can imagine worse ways of spending my last days.
There must be something comforting about going away to a place oft-visited, to once again shop in familiar markets, to take familiar strolls that never require a map, to rediscover the pleasure of a favourite café, to browse again in a well-loved bookshop, to feel at home in a place that isn`t home.
Above: Café Terrace at Night, Vincent van Gogh
I am a married man, for better or worse, so I am unable to simply abandon everything and hit the road as I once did.
I, like most, am bound by schedules and obligations and responsibilities and it is an adjustment, a rut, quite easy to mold oneself to, with its security and certainty in a world not so secure, not so certain.
Time is precious – as is health – and the unreligious know that we only get one life, so there should be more to life than spending one`s youth working for unappreciative others than finding oneself struggling painfully to maintain a sliver of dignity in a health care centre just waiting to die.
Yet if this be fate then few will avoid it.
As much as I long to see more of a world so vast and unexplored, I think what might attract me to a life of a routine traveller is the increasing realisation that change is inevitable so it is important to appreciate what we’ve got before it is gone, before it is no longer available.
My father at Jacksonville Beach, my student in Barcelona… are comforted by the false security of the familiar getaway.
No matter how much their lives have changed back in Canada or in Switzerland, the trailer by the beach abides, the apartment in Barcelona is waiting.
But I am not yet ready for a trailer by the sea or an apartment in another city, for what I want to do in the few precious leisure moments afforded me at present, though I am limited by money, I want to step outside as often as possible and explore and re-explore the outdoors within my reach.
While it still lasts…while I still can.
For the newspapers and the media suggest that things might not last.
America has convinced itself that running a pipeline next to a major supply of fresh water is somehow a good idea.
Around the globe, forests are denuded, holes scar the Earth in Man’s mad search for scarce resources, waste is dumped into rivers and oceans with no thought or compassion as to what dwells under the surface or the consequences these actions will have for generations to come.
We rattle our sabres, stockpile our nukes, cry out for war and blindly fight for invisible gods under ever-changing banners, staggering drunk down the road towards our destruction while applauding ourselves for our cleverness.
How long will the forest beyond the village of Landschlacht stand?
How long will seagulls and ducks swim in the clear waters of the Lake of Constance?
How long will the waves crash upon the shores of Jacksonville without dead fish and rotting carcasses polluting the sands?
How long will Barcelona’s streets be filled with music before the sound of marching militia boots tramp over the assumed tranquility?
How long will mothers fear the future for their newborns, teenagers feel the rage of a legacy cheated, the workman groan under the weight of his duties, the elderly too weary to care?
Too many questions…
I still want to explore the planet, but I no longer mock the man who embraces the familiar.
For the routine traveller may be lacking in courage or curiosity, but he is wise in his appreciation of the moment.
The routine traveller abides.
I take some comfort in that.
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot….
…They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em….
…Hey farmer, farmer, put away that DDT.
Give me spots on my apples but leave me thebirds and the bees please….
…Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi come and take away my old man
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve gone ’till it’s gone…”
Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”,Ladies of the Canyon, 1970
In Istanbul, extraordinary experiences are found around every corner.
Here, dervishes whirl, müezzins call from minarets and people move between continents multiple times a day.
Istanbul is home to millenia-old monuments and cutting edge art galleries – sometimes on the same block.
It is an utterly beguiling city full of sumptous palaces, domes and minarets, cobblestone streets and old wooden houses, squalid concrete apartment blocks and graceful Art Nouveau apartments, international fashion shops cheek and jowl next to bazaars and beggars, street vendors and stray dogs and wild cats, the beauty of the Bosphorus and the promising spell of the Orient.
Vast labyrinths of narrow covered passageways and wide boulevards lined with superb fin-de-siecle architecture, the breathtaking interior of the Blue Mosque, the smells and sounds of the markets, tiny boats vying with huge tankers for a piece of the waterfront, street hustlers and people bum-to-bum striving to navigate alleyway and passage…
This is the Istanbul I fell in love with, the Istanbul that remains with me as poignant as one´s memories of former intimates.
Istanbul attracts millions of tourists every year but as well it draws into itself many who have come in search of work, of a new life, for a chance to thrive here where fortune is denied elsewhere.
It is my last day in Istanbul and my heart feels as sad as the inevitable farewell that must be said to a loved one leaving whose return is uncertain.
I am in the Sultanahmet district where tourists congregate and the locals bend over backwards to accommodate to their every whim no matter how unreasonable these whims might be.
This is a neighbourhood where one stands beneath magnificent domes or inside opulent palaces, where history is experienced by all one´s senses, where one can explore the watery damp depths of the Basilica Cistern then surrender to the steam of a hamam.
Wander through the produce markets, then join the locals in smoking nargiles, drinking tea and playing backgammon.
I stand outside the Metropolis Hostel, on a quiet side street awaiting my shuttle bus to the airport and talk quietly to one of the co-owners of this very friendly, very comfortable, very clean, home away from home.
He is a Kurd and he talks about his life in Istanbul and what transpired to lead him to this city so very distant from his home in Batman in faraway southeastern Turkey.
Above: City centre, Batman, Turkey
I have no political feelings towards either the Kurds or the Turks, except sadness that neither side sees a possibility of peace and cooperation with one another.
He speaks of battlefields where Kurd has fought ISIS warrior and Turk has bombed Kurd despite their common enemy.
He speaks of devastation and death, of friends and family forever affected by loss and injury.
There are no words of comfort I can give him, for I am an ignorant foreigner, on a mini-visit to Istanbul before attending a friend´s wedding in Antalya the very next day.
He speaks of how the Syrian civil war has driven many Syrians into Turkey competing for the same jobs as those already resident here.
Above: Map of the Syrian Civil War
He tells me of how bombings and attacks of ISIS upon Turkey and Kurd upon Turk and Turk upon Kurd have drastically reduced tourism in Istanbul to a third of what it once was.
I leave Istanbul and this Kurd with much of his pain unspoken and distract myself with the Antalya events that await me.
But it is nonetheless an uneasy departure filled with helplessness and sadness.
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 23 January 2017
I often wish I were a wiser man, more knowledgeable in the ways of politics and psychology.
I find myself uncertain of whether I should hate those who have caused indescribable sorrow, for the Turks I have met both within and outside Turkey have always been friendly towards me, as have the few Kurds I have met as well.
I am rational enough to know that those who murder in the name of Allah are not true followers of Muhammed or Islam, so the gullible who have followed the infidels of ISIS have done so either out of ignorance or hope that those governments that failed them will be supplanted by a new order, albeit a dark order, that offers some sort of security through fear and intimidation.
I refuse to hate all the individuals caught up in forces unleashed by those that wield power without compassion, but instead find fault with those who claim to serve their fellow man yet use their fellow man for power, gain and profit.
Now, it is a fair question for any reader to ask:
Why should I care?
And why the history lessons?
We are all human beings, a few saints and monsters amongst us, but most of us are decent basic human beings in the pursuit of happiness.
I think we tend to forget this.
We are all so focused on what makes us different and in our fear use these differences to do unspeakable acts towards one another.
But I firmly believe that there is more that connects us than divides us.
We are bound by love and compassion, by conscience and will, by strength and weakness, by morality and mortality.
In looking at the complexities and tragedies of the ongoing saga of Turkey, or any other part of the world for that matter, I hope to understand the mindsets of both sides of this conflict and hope, in my own humble and naive fashion, to offer a possible idea that might help.
We are all interconnected and what happens in faraway places eventually find its way – by sometimes subtle, sometimes powerful means – to our own doorsteps.
I explore history, because by trying to understand what leads people to where they are now, why they think and act the way they do, helps to comprehend who they are and, perhaps, as well, avoid some of the mistakes people make in this ongoing, neverending process of life and time.
In part 1 of this blog post I wrote of events in Kurdish / Turkish history – from ancient times until the Sixties – including the 9 January bombing in Izmir – that compelled me to discuss the problems that plague a country I love.
Prior to the Sixties, the record shows again and again brutal violence towards and suppression of the Kurdish people by the Turks, responded to by armed Kurdish rebellion when it appeared that all attempts at negotiation were impossible:
“Thousands of Kurds, including women and children, were slain.
Others, mostly children, were thrown into the Euphrates, while thousands of others in less hostile areas, who had first been deprived of their cattle and other belongings, were deported to provinces in central Anatolia.
It is now stated that the Kurdish question no longer exists in Turkey.” (British Council, 1938)
In Part One, we examined the Kurdish perspective.
But what has led the Turkish people, especially its governments, to respond to the Kurds in the manner in which they have?
Why has President Recep Erdogan reacted to events both domestic and international in the manner that he has?
To understand His Excellency, to understand the Turkish point-of-view, (not always the same) we need to travel back in time once more:
27 May 1960:
A coup d’ état is staged by a group of 38 young Turkish military officers.
It is a time of socio-political turmoil and economic hardship as US aid from the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan is running out.
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes plans a visit to Moscow in the hope of establishing alternative lines of credit.
Above: Adnan Menderes (1899 – 1961), 9th Prime Minister of Turkey (1950 – 1960)
Colonel Alparslan Türkes orchestrates the plot and declares the coup over radio to announce “the end of one period in Turkish history and usher in a new one.”
Above: Alparslan Turkes (1917 – 1997)
The Great Turkish Nation:
Starting at 3 am on 27 May, the Turkish armed forces have taken over administration throughout the entire country.
This operation, thanks to the close cooperation of all our citizens and security forces, has succeeded without loss of life.
Until further notice, a curfew has been imposed, exmept only to members of the armed forces.
We request our citizens to facilitate the duty of our armed forces and assist in reestablishing the nationally desired democratic regime.”
In a press conference held on the following day, General Cemal Gürsel emphasizes that the “purpose and the aim of the coup is to bring the country with all speed to a fair, clean and solid democracy.”
Above: Cemal Gursel (1895 – 1966), 4th President of Turkey (1960 – 1966)
I want to transfer power and the administration of the nation to the free choice of the people.”
The coup removes a democratically elected government while expressing the intent to install a democratically elected government.
235 generals and more than 3,000 commissioned officers are forced to retire.
More than 500 judges and 1,400 university faculty members lose their jobs.
The chief of the General Staff, the President, the Prime Minister and other members of the administration are arrested.
General Gürsel is appointed provisional head of state, Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense.
Minister of the Interior Namik Gedik commits suicide while he is detained in the Turkish Military Academy.
President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and several other members of the administration are put on trial before a court appointed by the ruling junta on the island of Yassuda in the Sea of Marmara.
The politicians are charged with high treason, misuse of public funds and abrogation of the Turkish constitution.
16 September 1961:
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Minister of Foreign Affairs Fatin Rüstü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan are executed on Imrali Island.
(Imrali Island Prison is known as the place where American Billy Hayes was incarcerated later telling his story in Midnight Express and where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been imprisoned since 1999.)
Above: Poster of the film adaptation (1978)
A month later, administrative authority is returned to civilians.
In the first free election after the coup, Süleyman Demirel is elected in 1965.
Above: Suleyman Demirel (1924 – 2015), 9th President of Turkey (1993 – 2000)
As the 1960s wear on, violence and instability plague Turkey.
Economic recession sparks a wave of social unrest marked by student demonstrations, labour strikes and political assassinations.
On the left, worker and student movements are formed.
On the right, Islamist and militant nationalist groups counter them.
The Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey (DEV-GENC) is founded in 1965 and it will inspire various other organisations, including Devrimci Yol, the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers´ Party.
DEV-GENC members set US Ambassador Robert Komer´s car on fire in 1969 while he is visiting an Ankara campus, participate in the protests against the US 6th Fleet anchoring in Turkey from June 1967 to February 1969, and also play an active role in the workers´ actions on 15 – 16 June 1970.
Above: Robert Komer (1922 – 2000) (left) in meeting with US President Lyndon Johnson
CIA agent Aldrich Ames is able to unveil the identity of a large number of members.
Above: Aldrich Ames (b. 1941), CIA – KGB double agent, presently incarcerated in Allenwood Penitentiary
The Grey Wolves, a Turkish nationalist paramilitary youth organisation, often described by its critics as an ultra-nationalist or neo-fascist death squad, are responsible for matching and surpassing the left´s violent activities, engaging in urban guerilla warfare with left-wing activists and militants.
On the political front, Prime Minister Demirel´s center-right Justice Party government is experiencing trouble.
Various factions within the Party defect to form groups of their own, gradually reducing the Party´s parliamentary majority and bringing the legislative process to a halt.
By January 1971, Turkey is in a state of chaos.
Universities have ceased to function.
Students rob banks and kidnap US servicemen and attack American targets.
University professors critical of the government have their homes bombed by neo-fascist militants.
Factories are on strike and many workdays are lost.
The Islamist movement becomes more aggressive and openly rejects Atatürk and Kemalism, thus infuriating the armed forces.
The government, weakened by defections, seems paralysed, powerless to curb campus and street violence and unable to pass any serious legislation on social and financial reform.
12 March 1971:
The Chief of the General Staff Memduh Tagmac hands the Prime Minister a Memorandum – an ultimatum by the armed forces – demanding “the formation, within the context of democratic principles, of a strong and credible government, which will neutralise the current anarchical situation and which, inspired by Atatürk´s views, will implement the reformist laws envisaged by the constitution”, putting an end to the “anarchy, fratricidal strife, and social and economic unrest.”
If the demands are not met, the army would “exercise its constitutional duty” and take over power itself.
Demeril resigns after a three-hour meeting with his cabinet.
The coup doesn´t surprise most Turks, but what direction will the coup take the country?
Who is in charge?
The “restoration of law and order” is given priority.
The left is to be suppressed in an attempt to curb trade union militancy and the demands for higher wages and better working conditions.
The public prosecutor opens a case against the Workers’ Party of Turkey for carrying out Communist propaganda and supporting Kurdish separatism.
All youth organisations affliated with DEV-GENC are to be closed, as they are blamed for the left-wing youth violence and university and urban unrest plaguing the country.
Police searches in offices of teachers’ unions and university clubs are carried out.
Such actions encourage the right who target provincial teachers and Workers’ Party supporters.
The commanders who have seized power are reluctant to exercise it directly, so the regime rests on an unstable balance of power between civilian politicians and the military.
It is neither a normal elected government nor an outright military dictatorship which can entirely ignore parliamentary opposition.
In April, a new wave of terror begins, carried out by the Turkish People’s Liberation Army, in the form of kidnappings and bank robberies.
27 April 1971:
Martial law is declared in 11 of Turkey´s 67 provinces, especially in major urban areas and Kurdish regions.
Youth organisations are banned, union meetings are prohibited, leftists publications are forbidden, and strikes are declared illegal.
After the Israeli consul is abducted on 17 May, hundreds of students, young academics, writers, trade unionists and Workers’ Party activists as well as people with liberal-progressive sympathies are detained and tortured.
The consul is shot four days later.
For the next two years, repression continues, with martial law renewed every two months.
Constitutional reforms repeal the essential liberal fragments of the constitution.
The National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) uses the Ziverbey Villa as a torture centre, employing physical and psychological coercion.
Interrogations, directed by CIA-trained specialists, result in hundreds of deaths or permanent injuries.
Among their victims is journalist Ugur Mumcu, arrested shortly after the coup, later writes that his torturers informed him that not even the President could touch them.
Above: Journalist Ugur Mumcu (1942 – 1993), assassinated 24 January 1993 in a car bomb outside his Ankara home (Cumhuriyet, 24 January 2003)
By the summer of 1973, the military-backed regime has achieved most of its political aims.
The constitution has been amended so as to strengthen the state against civil society.
Special courts are in place to deal with all forms of dissent quickly and ruthlessly.
Universities, their autonomy ended, have been made to curb the radicalism of students and faculty.
Radio, TV and newspapers are curtailed.
The National Security Council is much more powerful.
In October 1973 Bülent Ecevit wins the election and the problems that plagued the pre-coup government return.
Above: Mustafa Bulent Ecevit (1925 – 2006), 16th Prime Minister of Turkey (1974, 1977, 1978 – 1979, 1999 – 2002)
As the 1970s progress, the economy deteriorates, violence by the Grey Wolves escalates and intensifies, and left-wing groups as well commit acts aimed at causing chaos and demoralisation.
In 1975 Suleyman Demeril succeeds Ecevit as Prime Minister.
Demeril´s Justice Party forms a coalition with the Nationalist Front, the Islamist National Salvation Party and the Nationalist Movement Party.
There is no clear winner in the elections of 1977.
Demeril continues the coalition.
Ecevit returns to power in 1978, but Demeril regains it the following year.
By the end of the Seventies, Turkey is in turmoil, with unsolved economic and social problems, facing strike actions and political paralysis.
Since 1969, the proportional representational system has made it difficult to find any parliamentary majority.
Politicians are unable to combat the growing violence in the country.
The overall death toll of the Seventies is estimated at 5,000, with nearly ten assassinations per day.
16 March 1977, Istanbul
The University of Istanbul is attacked with a bomb and gunfire.
7 die, 41 injured.
1 May 1977, Istanbul
Labour Day has been celebrated in Istanbul since 1912.
500,000 people gather on Taksim Square.
Shots are heard coming from the building of the water supply company Sular Idaresi and the Marmara Hotel (in 1977, the tallest building in Istanbul).
Security forces intervene with armoured vehicles making much noise with their sirens and explosives.
They hose the crowd with pressurized water.
Many casualities are caused by the panic that this intervention creates.
42 people killed, 220 injured, most crushed.
None of the perpetrators are caught or brought to justice.
The CIA is suspected of involvement.
9 October 1978, Ankara
7 university students, members of the Turkish Workers’ Party, are assassinated by ultra-nationalists.
27 November 1978, Diyarbakir
The left-wing organisation is mostly made up of students led by Abdullah Ocalan in Ankara and focused on helping the large oppressed Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
The violence of the times, especially the attacks on the University of Istanbul, the Taksim Square massacre and the assassinations in Ankara, compel the group, meeting here inside a teahouse, to adopt the name Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a Marxist ideology to counter violence with violence.
19 – 26 December 1978, Kahramanmaras
Kahramanmaras is a city in the Mediterranean region of southern Turkey close to the Syrian border.
Above: The minaret of the Grand Mosque of Kahramanmaras
Kahramanmaras lies on a plain at the foot of Ahir Mountain and is best known for its production of salep (a flour made from dried orchids) and its distinctive ice cream.
It all starts with a noise bomb thrown into a cinema popular with right-wingers.
Rumours spread that left-wingers had thrown the bomb.
So, the next day a bomb is thrown into a coffee shop frequently visited by left-wingers.
The following evening known left-winger teachers Haci Colak and Mustafa Yuzbasioglu are killed on their way home.
While a crowd of over 5,000 people prepares for Colak’s and Yuzbasioglu’s funeral, right-wing groups stir up emotions saying that the Communists are going to bomb the mosque and massacre many Muslims.
On 23 December, things turn ugly.
Crowds storm the quarters where left-wingers live, destroying houses and shops.
The offices of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey, the Teachers’ Association of Turkey, the Association of Police Officers and the Republican People’s Party are destroyed.
Over 100 people are killed and more than 200 houses and 100 shops destroyed.
“They started in the morning, burning all the houses, and continued into the afternoon.
A child was burned in a boiler.
They sacked everything.
We were in the water in the cellar, above us were wooden boards.
The boards were burning and falling on top of us.
My house was reduced to ashes.
We were with 8 people in the cellar.
They did not see us and left.” (Meryem Polat, one of the victims)
Martial law was declared across Turkey the following day.
Court cases, opened at military courts, lasted until 1991.
A total of 804 defendants, mostly right-wingers, were put on trial.
The courts passed 29 death penalties and sentenced 328 people to prison.
11 September 1979
General Kenan Evren orders a hand-written report on whether a coup is in order or the government merely needs a stern warning.
Above: Kenan Evren (1917 – 2015), 7th President of Turkey (1980 – 1989)
21 December 1979
The War Academy generals convene to decide a course of action.
The pretext for a coup is to put to an end the social conflicts plaguing the country as well as the political instability.
12 September 1980
The Turkish economy is on the verge of collapse with triple digit inflation, large scale unemployment and a chronic foreign trade deficit.
The National Security Council, headed by Evren, declares a coup d’etat, extending martial law throughout the country, abolishing the government and Parliament, suspending the Constitution and banning all political parties and trade unions.
The Council invokes the Kemalist tradition of state secularism and in national unity, presenting themselves as opposed to communism, facism, separatism and religious sectarianism.
The Council aims to unite Turkey with the global economy and give companies the ability to market products and services worldwide.
“A feeling of hope is evident among international bankers that Turkey’s military coup may have opened the way to greater political stability as an essential prerequisite for the revitalisation of the Turkish economy.” (International Banking Review, October 1980)
During 1980 – 1983, the foreign exchange rate was allowed to float freely, foreign investment encouraged, land reform projects promoted, export vigourously driven and wages frozen.
The Council rounded up members of both the right and left for trial by military tribunals.
650,000 people were under arrest.
1,683,000 people were blacklisted.
230,000 people were tried in 210,000 lawsuits.
7,000 people were recommended for the death penalty.
517 persons were sentenced to death.
50 of those given the death penalty were executed (26 political prisoners, 23 criminal offenders and 1 ASALA militant).
The files of 259 people, which had been recommended for the death penalty, were sent to the National Assembly.
71,000 people were tried by articles 141, 142 and 163 of Turkish Penal Code.
98,404 people were tried on charges of being members of a leftist, a rightist, a nationalist, a conservative, etc. organization.
388,000 people were denied a passport.
30,000 people were dismissed from their firms because they were suspects.
14,000 people had their citizenship revoked.
30,000 people went abroad as political refugees.
300 people died in a suspicious manner.
171 people died by reason of torture.
937 films were banned because they were found objectionable.
23,677 associations had their activities stopped.
3,854 teachers, 120 lecturers and 47 judges were dismissed.
400 journalists were recommended a total of 4,000 years imprisonment.
Journalists were sentenced 3,315 years and 6 months imprisonment.
31 journalists went to jail.
300 journalists were attacked.
3 journalists were shot dead.
300 days in which newspapers were not published.
13 major newspapers brought to trial
39 tonnes of newspapers and magazines destroyed
299 people lost their lives in prison.
The Council begins a program of forced assimilation of its Kurdish population.
The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan” or “Kurdish” are officially banned.
The Kurdish language is prohibited in both public and private life.
People who speak, publish or sing in Kurdish are arrested and imprisoned.
(Even now in 2017, Kurds are still not allowed to get a primary education in their mother tongue and still don´t have a right to self-determination.
Above: Kurdish boys in Diyarbakir
Even now, there is ongoing discrimination against Kurds in Turkish society.)
The Council pushes the PKK to another stage…
PKK members have been executed, imprisoned and forced to flee to Syria (including Abdullah Ocalan).
10 November 1980, Strasbourg, France
Above: Strasbourg Cathedral
The Turkish Consulate is bombed causing significant material damage but no injuries.
In a telephone call to the office of Agence France Presse, a spokesman said the blast was a joint operation and marked the start of a “fruitful collaboration” between the ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) and the PKK.
(Armenia has been officially independent since 1991.)
After the Council’s approval of the new Turkish Constitution in June 1982, General Evren organizes nationwide general elections, to be held on 6 November 1983.
This results in the one-party government of Turgut Ozal’s Motherland Party.
Above: Turgat Özal (1927 – 1993), 8th President of Turkey (1989 – 1993)
The Özal government empowers the police force with intelligence capabilites.
Beginning in 1984, the PKK initiates a guerilla offensive with a series of attacks on Turkish military and police targets.
Since 1984, 37,000 people have been killed.
The three coups of 1960, 1971 and 1980 revolutionized modern Turkey.
So, His Excellency Recep Erdogan´s instinct to (over)react to the 2016 attempted coup becomes somewhat understandable, for soldiers can overthrow governments.
(More about this later…)
Yesterday, Turkey´s Parliament in Ankara adopted a package of 18 amendments placing all executive powers in His Excellency’s hands.
His Excellency believes he has learned from these coups and his administration has revved up nationalist rheotric to justify a mounting crackdown against the Kurds, socialists and the press.
I believe His Excellency is mistaken.
Violence creates violence.
Rebellion incites suppression and suppression incites rebellion.
Revolution encourages revolution.
There is much that I see about Turkey that saddens me.
Like anyone not resident in Turkey I am limited to what I receive second-hand so I try to find as many sources of information as I can and hope through the complexity to find and share as unbiased and complete a picture as I can.
I am left with a few questions I will try and address in the third part of this essay on Turkey and the Kurds:
Is change possible without bloodshed?
How can change without bloodshed be realisable?
Surprisingly, hope will begin with the Özal government…
(To be continued…)
Sources: The Economist, 21 – 27 January 2017 / Wikipedia / Andrew Finkel, Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know
“Turkey seems to be falling to pieces, the fall will be a great misfortune.
It is very important that England and Russia should come to a perfectly good understanding… and that neither should take any decisive step of which the other is not apprized.”
“We have a sick man on our hands, a man gravely ill, it will be a great misfortune if one of these days he slips through our hands, especially before the necessary arrangements are made.”
(Russian Czar Nicholas I, Interview, 9 January 1853)
Above: Russian Czar Nicholas I (1796 – 1855)
This handsome devil below is my good friend and Starbucks co-worker, Volkan – a talented musician, a good husband and father and a credit to his employer and his homeland of Turkey.
I asked Volkan once:
“Do you still love your homeland?”
I have never forgotten his answer.
“If you had a child who became sick, would you stop loving it?”
How must it be to simultaneously miss your home and the people you left behind, while feeling glad you are removed from the problems your homeland is in the middle of?
Volkan is a good man.
Volkan is saddened when he reads the news.
An ISIS disciple kills 39 New Year´s revelers at an Istanbul nightclub.
A gunman with a police badge assassinates Russia´s ambassador at an Ankara reception.
Kurdish separatist bombers kill 14 soldiers on a bus in central Turkey and dozens of police at an Istanbul soccer match.
Those assaults were just in the last few weeks, which made a car bombing on Thursday in the city of Izmir, where at least two people were killed, seem relatively minor.
Izmir, Turkey, 5 January 2017
Izmir is a big place, far to the west of Anatolia and the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. (Population: nearly 3 million).
Biblical scholars and fans of Indiana Jones might know Izmir better by its former Greek name, Smyrna.
Izmir has almost 4,000 years of recorded urban history, and it has seen conquerors come and conquerors go, empires rise and fall: the Hittite Empire, the Lydian Empire, the Persian Empire, the empire of Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Selcuks, the Ottomans and finally modern Turkey.
It has seen conquerors come and conquerors go and has survived earthquakes, plagues and great fires.
Above: The Great Fire of Smyrna, 14 September 1922
Terrorist attacks, though unpleasant, these too Izmir has survived and will survive.
Suspected Kurdish militants clashed with police and detonated a car bomb in western Turkey on Thursday after their vehicle was stopped at a checkpoint, killing a police officer and a court employee, officials said.
The explosion and gunfire outside the main courthouse in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, highlighted the country’s deteriorating security after a gunman killed 39 people in a New Year’s Day mass shooting at an Istanbul nightclub.
“Based on the preparation, the weapons, the bombs and ammunition seized, it is understood that a big atrocity was being planned,” Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak told reporters.
The local governor said the arms included Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades and ammunition for rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Izmir police shot dead two of the attackers and were hunting a third, a police source and the state-run Anadolu agency said.
“Our heroic police officer martyred in this attack, Fethi Sekin, prevented a much bigger disaster happening, sacrificing his own life without a thought for it,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a statement, condemning the “heinous” attack.
Two people, believed to have sold the vehicle used in the attack to the assailants, were subsequently detained, security sources said.
CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed a passerby fleeing as the vehicle exploded in a fire ball.
Initial findings suggested that Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were behind the attack, Izmir governor Erol Ayyildiz said.
Dozens of people rushed to the scene of the blast and chanted “God damn the PKK” and other slogans against the militant group.
Volkan told me that his Turkish relatives in Izmir were very close to where the bomb exploded.
A helicopter was seen flying overhead.
Ayyildiz said a second vehicle had been detonated in a controlled explosion.
Anadolu said police suspected the attackers had planned to escape in this vehicle.
NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and is also battling an insurgency by the PKK in the largely Kurdish southeast.
It regularly bombs PKK camps in northern Iraq and its military operations in Syria also aim to stop Kurdish militias it sees as an extension of the PKK from gaining territory there.
“Turkey will be instrumental in its region. These (attacks) will never prevent us from being present in areas like Iraq and Syria, which produce terrorists like viruses,” Kaynak said.
Ayyildiz said the clash outside Izmir’s main Bayrakli courthouse erupted after police officers tried to stop a vehicle at a checkpoint and that the attackers detonated the car bomb while trying to escape.
The PKK – deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union – and its affiliates have been carrying out increasingly deadly attacks over the past year and a half, ever further from the largely Kurdish southeast, where they have fought an insurgency for more than three decades.
A PKK offshoot claimed responsibility for twin bombings that killed 44 people, most of them police officers, and wounded more than 150 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium on 10 December.
A car bomb a week later killed 13 soldiers and wounded 56 when it tore through a bus carrying off-duty military personnel in the central city of Kayseri, in an attack President Tayyip Erdogan also blamed on Kurdish militants.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Izmir, a liberal coastal city which had largely escaped the violence that has plagued Istanbul and the capital Ankara in recent months.
Ayyildiz said the attackers were carrying two automatic rifles, rocket launchers and eight hand grenades.
The attack occurred near a courthouse in Izmir’s Bayrakli district, close to an entrance used by judges, prosecutors and other employees.
Ayyildiz said “six or seven” people were also wounded in the attack, adding that police vigilance had foiled a possible more serious attack.
Police detained 20 suspected Islamic State militants thought to be of Central Asian and North African origin in Izmir on Wednesday, in raids Turkish media said were linked to the Istanbul nightclub attack.
Now, here is where things begin to get confusing and muddled…
Where life gets…complicated.
The Kurds are estimated to number, worldwide, around 32 million with the majority living in West Asia.
Turkey´s Kurdish minority is estimated at more than 15 million people.
Sparsely populated southeastern Anatolia is home to perhaps eight million Kurds, while seven million more live elsewhere in the country, largely integrated into mainstream Turkish society.
Istanbul is the largest Kurdish city in the world, in the way that New York City is home to the largest number of Jews.
The majority of Turkish Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
The city of Diyarbakir serves as the unofficial capital of the Kurdish region.
There has been over centuries a diaspora of Kurdish communities to the cities of western Europe and in coastal Turkish cities like Adana and Izmir.
In western Europe, Germany has the greatest number of Kurdish people: 800,000.
Britain has 50,000, Switzerland has 35,000, the US – over 15,000, Canada – over 12,000.
The Kurds are an ancient people, mentioned as far back as 4,000 BC when they are mentioned on Sumerian clay tablets.
Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people and some even use a calendar dating from 612 BC when the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was conquered by the Medes.
This claim is reflected in the words of the Kurdish “national” anthem:
“We are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow.”
(Kai Khosrow was a legendary king of the Kayanian dynasty and a character in the Persina epic book Shahnameh.
The Cup of Kai Khosrow was a cup of prophecy and divination which was said to be filled with the Elixir of Immortality, and some suggest might be the origin of the ideas we have of crystal balls, reading tea leaves, the Fountain of Youth and the Holy Grail.
The Kayanians were the heroes of the Avesta – the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism was already one of the world´s oldest religions when it was first recorded and is said to have strongly influenced Judaism, gnosticisim (monks and hermits), Christianity and Islam with the concepts of a Messiah, Heaven, Hell, free will and the universal struggle between Good and Evil.)
Persian King Ardashir I the Unifier (180 – 242), was depicted as having battled the Kurds and their leader Madig.
In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe Ardavan V, Ardashir himself is referred to being a Kurd himself:
“You´ve bitten off more than you can chew and you have brought death to yourself.
O son of a Kurd, raised in the tents of the Kurds, who gave you permission to put a crown on your head?”
In 360, Sassanid King Shapur II marched into the Roman province Zabdicene to conquer its chief city of Bezabde (present day Cizre) to find the city heavily fortified and guarded by three Roman legions and a large body of Kurdish warriors.
In 639, Sassanian General Hormuzan battled Islamic invaders in Khuzestan and called upon the Kurds to aid him in battle.
Hormuzan lost and the Kurds were brought under Islamic rule.
Many dynasties would rise and fall and the Kurds were either used in great military campaigns throughout recorded history or they would be considered a problem by those who had conquered Kurdish territory.
Under the leadership of Saladin, Kurds would be instrumental in the recapture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin (4 July 1187).
Above: Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (or Saladin)
Kurds would revolt several times against their rulers and rulers would put down these rebellions and punish the Kurds by forcing them to move away from their territories, be forcibly and massively deported and enslaved.
The Ottoman Empire had historically and successfully inteegrated (but not assimilated) the Kurds by repressing Kurdish independence movements.
The Russo-Turkish War (1877 – 1878) devastated Kurdish territory and left therein a political vacuum.
Sheik Ubeydullah, a powerful landowner, filled the role and demanded recognition from the Ottoman Emire for an independent Kurdish state.
“The Kurdish nation, consisting of more than 500,000 families is a people apart.
Their religion is different and their laws and customs distinct.
We are a nation apart.
We want our affairs to be in our hands, so that…we may be strong and independent and have privileges like other nations.
This is our objective.
Otherwise, the whole of Kurdistan will take matters into their own hands as they are unable to put up with these continual evil deeds and the oppression, which they suffer at the hands of the Persian and Ottoman governments.”
Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid responded with a campaign of integration by co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents with offers of prestigious positions in his government.
Above: Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842 – 1918)
This strategy appears to have worked given the loyalty displayed by the Kurdish Hamidiye regiments during World War I.
The Young Turks, a political reform movement that consisted of Ottoman exiles, students, civil servants and army officers, favoured the replacement of the Ottoman Empire´s absolute monarchy with a constitutional government and led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1908.
With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in Turkey´s history.
After 1908, the Young Turks’ political party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) began a series of modernizing military and political reforms across the Ottoman Empire.
By 1913, the CUP-led government was headed by Interior Minister and Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha, War Minister Enver Pasha and Naval Minister Djemal Pasha.
The “Three Pashas” exercised absolute control over the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918, bringing the country closer to Germany, signing the Ottoman-German Alliance to enter the Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers and carrying out the Armenian Genocide (1914 – 1917).
Jakob Künzler, of Hundwil, Appenzell, Switzerland, the head of a missionary hospital in Urfa, documented the large scale ethnic cleansing of both Armenians and Kurds by the Young Turks.
Above: Jakob Künzler (8 March 1871 – 15 January 1949)
The Kurds were perceived to be subversive elements that would take the Russian side in the War.
The Young Turks embarked on a large scale deportation of Kurds, aiming to weaken the political influence of the Kurds by deporting them from their ancestral lands and dispersing them in small pockets of exiled communities.
By the end of World War I, up to 700,000 Kurds had been forcibly deported and almost half of the displaced perished.
On 10 August 1920, in the exhibition room of a porcelain factory in Sevres, France, the Manufacture nationale de Sevres, four representatives of the Ottoman Empire and representatives of the Allied Powers (the UK, France and Italy) met to discuss the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
Much to the world´s shock the Ottoman Empire was allowed to continue to exist but with much of its territory assigned to various Allied powers.
This Treaty would ultimately lead to the creation of Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Armenia.
It would also lead to two wars: the Greek – Turkish War (1919 – 1922) and the Turkish War of Independence (1919 – 1923).
Above: The Turkish Army enters Izmir (9 September 1922).
Izmir is both the beginning and end location of the Turkish War of Independence.
On 15 May 1919, armed Turkish civilians first resisted the occupation of Turkey by the Allies following the Treaty of Sevres.
The end of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the nation of Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, made the Kurdish people feel threatened, as radical secularisation which the strongly Muslim Kurds abhorred and the centralisation of authority and rampant Turkish nationalism marginalised Kurdish autonomy.
Above: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – 1938)
Some Kurdish groups sought self-determination and the confirmation of Kurdish autonomy as established in the Treaty of Sevres, but Kemal Atatürk prevented such a result.
On 6 March 1921, 6,000 members of the Kocgiri tribe rebelled.
The commander of the Central Army Nureddin Pasha said:
Above: Nureddin Pasha (1873 – 1932)
“In Turkey, we cleaned up people who speak Armenian.
I´m going to clean up people who speak Kurdish.”
The brutality of his repression made the National Assembly decide to put Pasha on trial.
Although Pasha was dismissed from his position and recalled to Ankara, Atatürk intervened and prevented a trial.
In 1925 Sheikh Said and a group of former Ottoman soldiers known as the Hamidiye, led the Kurdish groups the Zaza and the Kurmanj in rebellion against the Turkish state.
Above: Sheikh Said (bottom right)
Various elements of Turkish society were (and still are) unhappy that Atatürk had abolished the Islamic Caliphate system.
Apart from inevitable Kurdish cultural demands and complaints of Turkish maltreatment, the rebels were also afraid of imminent mass deportations.
They were also annoyed that the name “Kurdistan” did not appear on maps, at restrictions on the Kurdish language and education, and they objected to the Turks’ economic exploitation of Kurdish areas at the expense of the Kurds.
“Certain among you have taken as a pretext for revolt the governmental administration.
Some others have invoked the defence of the Caliphate.” (Military tribunal President, 28 June 1925)
Sheikh Said appealed to all Muslims of Turkey to join in the rebellion.
15,000 men did.
In the night / early morning of 6 – 7 March the forces of Sheikh Said laid siege to the city of Diyarbakir with a force of 10,000 men, attacking the city at all four of its gates simultaneously.
All of the rebel attacks were repelled by the Turkish garrison’s use of machine gunfire and mortar grenades.
When the rebels retreated, the area around the city was full of dead bodies.
By the end of March, most of the major battles of the Sheikh Said rebellion were over as the Turkish authorities crushed the rebellion with continual aerial bombardments and a massive concentration of forces.
Sheikh Said was captured and executed by hanging.
In the east of Turkey in Agri Province, during a wave of rebellion among Kurds led by General Ihsan Nuri Pasha, a self-proclaimed Kurdish state arose in 1927 called the Republic of Ararat and Kurdava, a village near Mount Ararat, was designated as its capital.
Ararat made appeals to the Great Powers and the League of Nations and sent messages for assistance from Kurds in Iraq and Syria, but to no avail.
On 12 July 1930 in the Zilan valley located to the north of the town of Ercis in Van Province, 1,500 armed Turkish soldiers destroyed 220 Kurdish villages and massacred 5,000 women, children and elderly Kurds.
Above: Headline of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, 13 July 1930:
“Cleaning started, the ones at Zilan valley were completely annihilated.
None of them survived.
Operations at Ararat are continuing.”
By the summer of 1930, the Turkish Air Force was bombing Kurdish positions, demoralising the Kurds and leading to their surrender and Turkey resuming control over the territory.
Most of the former Ottoman Empire’s eastern regions had been administered by feudal lords, tribal chieftains and dignitaries, but as the Republic of Turkey grew in power and confidence the Dersim region tribes objected to losing their authority and refused to pay taxes.
Complaints kept coming from the governors, so by 1926 the Atatürk government considered it necessary to use force against the people of Dersim.
Dersim had a reputation for being rebellious, having been the scene of 11 separate periods of armed conflict over the previous 40 years.
Ankara began to pass laws to “Turkify” the eastern provinces:
1934: Law on Resettlement: forced relocation of people within the country, to promote cultural homogeneity
1935: The Tunceli Law renaming Dersim “Tunceli”
On 1 November 1936, during a speech in Parliament, Atatürk acknowledged the situation in Dersim as Turkey´s most important internal problem.
The Turkish government built military observation posts in the centres of Kurdish districts.
Following public meetings in January 1937, a letter of protest against the Tunceli Law was written to be sent to the local governor.
“The government has tried to assimilate the Kurdish people for years, oppressing them, banning publications in Kurdish, persecuting those who speak Kurdish, forcibly deporting people from fertile parts of Kurdistan for uncultivated areas of Anatolia where many have perished.
The prisons are full of non-combatants, intellectuals are shot, hanged or exiled to remote places.
Three million Kurds demand to live in freedom and peace in their own country.” (Nuri Desimi)
The emissaries of the letter were arrested and executed.
In response, a group of local Kurds ambushed a police convoy in May.
The Dersim Rebellion had begun.
“The rebellion was clearly caused by provocation.
It caused the most violent tortures that were ever seen in a rebellion in the Republican years.
Those that didn´t take part in the rebellion and the families of the rebels were also tortured.” (Huseyin Aygun, Dersim 1938 and Obligatory Settlement)
In September 1937, a Kurdish leader Seyit Riza came to the government building of Erzincan Province for peace talks and was immediately arrested.
Riza was tried and sentenced after a show trial.
Riza and his companions were not informed of their rights nor the details of their case.
No lawyer was provided for them.
They were not able to understand the language of the trial in Turkish since they spoke only Kurdish.
No interpreter was provided.
Seyit Riza was almost 78 years old, making it impossible to hang him.
The court accepted he was only 54.
Riza was transferred to the headquarters of the General Inspectorate at Elazig.
Riza did not understand the meaning of the judgement until he saw the gallows.
“You will hang me.”, he said.
Then he turned to me and asked:
“Did you come from Ankara to hang me?”
We exchanged glances.
It was the first time I faced a man who was going to be hanged.
He flashed a smile at me.
The prosecutor asked whether he wanted to pray.
He didn´t want it.
We asked his last words.
“I have 40 liras and a watch.
You will give them to my son.”
We brought him to the square.
It was cold and there was nobody around.
However, Seyit Riza addressed the silence and emptiness as if the square was full of people.
“We are the sons of Karbala. (the land which will cause many agonies (karb) and afflictions (balā) )
We are blameless.
It is shame.
It is cruel.
It is murder.”
I had goose bumps.
This old man swept to the gallows, strung the rope around his own neck, kicked the chair and executed himself.” (Minister of Foreign Affairs Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil)
Six of his companions would also hang that evening.
Turkish planes flew numerous sorties against the Dersim rebels, bombing the district with poisonous gas.
Over 70,000 Kurdish civilians were killed by the Turkish Army and over 11,000 taken into exile.
Many tribesmen were shot dead after surrendering.
Women and children were locked into haysheds which were then set on fire.
Around 3,000 Kurds were forcibly deported from Dersim.
Southeast Anatolia was put under martial law.
In addition to more destruction of villages and massive deportations, the Turkish government encouraged Albanians and Assyrians to settle in Kurdish areas to change the ethnic composition of the region.
People were put in barns and caves and burned alive.
Forests were surrounded and set ablaze to exterminate those who had taken refuge there.
Many Kurdish females committed collective suicide and threw themselves into rivers.
More than 1.5 million Kurds were deported and massacred.
The area remained under permanent military siege until 1950.
In order to prevent the events from having a negative impact on Turkey´s international image and reputation, foreigners were not allowed to the visit the entire area east of Euphrates until 1965.
The Kurdish language was banned and the words “Kurds” and “Kurdistan” were removed from dictionaries and Kurds only referred to as “Mountain Turks”.
“The Turks, who had been fighting for their own freedom, crushed the Kurds, who sought theirs.
It is strange how a defensive nationalism develops into an aggressive one, and a fight for freedom becomes one for dominion over others.” (Jawaharial Nehru, Glimpses of World History, 1942)
Might the Kurds hold a grudge?
(To be continued)
Sources: Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know / Wikipedia
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Chronicles of Canada Slim 