Karagöz Müzesi

The Karagöz Museum, opened by Bursa Metropolitan Municipality in 2007 to keep alive the culture of Karagöz, the traditional Turkish shadow play, is Turkey's first Karagöz museum. It stands on Çekirge Caddesi, directly opposite the monumental tomb known as the symbolic grave of Karagöz and Hacivat. Before becoming a museum, the two-storey building served for about thirty years as an electricity transformer station. From Karagöz House to museum After the 3rd International Bursa Karagöz Festival held in November 1995, the municipality began work to devote this disused building to the art of Karagöz. Arranged with the help of the Bursa branch of UNIMA, the international puppetry and shadow theatre union, and of the collector Şinasi Çelikkol, the building opened in June 1997 as an arts centre called the Karagöz House. Karagöz performances began here three days a week, and for a while textiles and costumes from the Keles area in Çelikkol's collection were also on display. The Karagöz House became one of the main venues of the International Bursa Puppet and Shadow Play Festival held between 1997 and 2005. In 2005 the exterior of the building was covered with Karagöz characters made as ceramic reliefs. The building was emptied in 2006, rearranged in 2007 and registered as a museum by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The core of the collection was formed by 72 characters from the collection of Metin And. Figures by Karagöz artists such as Tacettin Diker, Orhan Kurt, Mustafa Mutlu, Metin Özlen and Osman Ezgi were added later. What you will find According to the municipality's museum website, the building has three galleries, a figure-making workshop for five children, a specialist library and a performance hall with 69 seats. In one gallery, panels tell the history of shadow theatre and the tools and materials used to make the figures are introduced. The handmade puppets of Hayali Nevzat Çiftçi are also shown here, together with figure-making materials. Another gallery holds Karagöz figures and the life stories of the masters who made them; the municipality gives the number of figures in this gallery as 119. The middle gallery is devoted to puppets from different countries, some of them donated by artists who came to the puppet festival in Bursa. Karagöz and Hacivat cartoons collected from old newspapers and various printed material about the play are also on display. Live shadow play performances are held in the hall in cooperation with UNIMA. The municipality notes that the shows are suitable for audiences over five, and that figure-making sessions are organised for children aged 8 to 13. A short history of the shadow play There are different views on the origins of Karagöz. Some researchers thought the play came from Central Asia, but according to Metin And's entry in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, shadow theatre was unknown among the Turks of Central Asia. The view that it came from India with Romani migrations is also weak, because there is no trace of shadow theatre in Anatolia before the 16th century. According to a story told in Bursa, Hacivat worked as a mason and Karagöz as a blacksmith on the building of a mosque in the time of Orhan Gazi. When their witty exchanges distracted the workers, the construction fell behind and both men were executed; later a man called Sheikh Küşteri made their figures and performed them before the sultan. And stresses that, since there is no document or evidence, these stories carry little weight as history. According to written sources, shadow theatre entered the Ottoman lands in the 16th century through Mamluk artists in Egypt. The Mamluk historian Ibn Iyas relates that in 1517 a shadow player performed before Selim I, who had just taken Egypt, in the palace on Roda Island in the Nile. Pleased with the show, the sultan invited the artist to Istanbul, and according to the sources some 600 Egyptian artists came to Istanbul with him. Mamluk figures were single-coloured and not translucent; in the 17th century Turkish artists used their skill in leatherwork to make the figures translucent and movable at the joints. The name Karagöz also first appears in that century. The figures are made of leather, especially camel hide, made translucent through various processes and coloured with natural root dyes. The play is performed behind a white screen, lit by an oil lamp or a candle. The figures are moved along with horizontal rods, and turned left and right with vertical rods called fır döndü. Each play consists of four independent parts called mukaddime, muhavere, fasıl and bitiş. Karagöz is a man of the people who says what he thinks, often out of work and in trouble; Hacivat is a well-spoken Istanbul gentleman who tries to smooth everyone's quarrels. Many other types also appear on the screen, such as the woodcutter from Kastamonu, the cook from Bolu or the man from Kayseri, each speaking in his own regional accent, which brings the diversity of Ottoman society to the stage. UNESCO inscribed Karagöz on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. According to the listing, the play was once performed above all during Ramadan and at circumcision celebrations, in coffeehouses and in open spaces. Visiting Before going in, look at the facade; the heroes of the play can be picked out one by one in the colourful ceramic reliefs. You can also see the monumental tomb opposite on the same visit; TDV notes that, based on the old stories, a grave in Çekirge has been claimed to belong to Karagöz. The museum is closed on Mondays; check opening hours and the performance programme on the municipality's museum website before you go. The municipality states that accessibility on the site is limited, so if you are coming with a wheelchair or a pushchair it is worth asking in advance. Eski Kaplıca and the Hüdavendigar Complex lie a few hundred metres west of the museum, so they are easy to combine on a walk through Çekirge. Çekirge is reached from the city centre by public transport; check current routes on the transport pages of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality.