Theatrical Plays

Teodor Kasap has a very interesting place among 19th century Ottoman intellectuals. As one of the leading journalists of the period, Kasap was first of all an incorrigible polemicist and a keen humorist. Kasap began publishing Diyojen in 1870 and the magazines Çıngıraklı Tatar and Hayal followed after. The daily newspaper İstikbal depicted us 19th century Istanbul, from street gossip to complaints about the municipality, to the journalists of the period, the press law, the managers, the dressing of women and men, the modernizing life, with so much detail and sarcasm that he is rightfully considered the founder of humor magazine tradition, which still continues today. Kasap was born in 1835 in the town of Tavlasun in Kayseri under the name Theodoros Serafim Kasapis and died in Istanbul in 1897, leaving behind translations, adaptations, and original productions, which are qualified as a treasure for Turkish language.

In addition, since he was a Greek Ottoman intellectual and his magazines were multilingual, he provided very striking information about the Muslim, non-Muslim and foreign press life of the period, and the solidarity and fights of other newspapers and magazines with each other and with the administrators. Of course, Kasap’s political satire, which almost everyone gets a share of, would cause great trouble for him. “It seems that Kasap  – aside from staging – found it very practical to write in the form of a theatrical text, as it can create contrasts, questioning moments, sarcastic and provocative dialogues. Apart from the theatrical adaptations of Teodor Kasap’s Pinti Hamit (Stingy Hamit) and İşkilli Memo (Dubious Memo), the texts from Hayal magazine, which were not published in book form, are also included in this book.