Today in 1920s Turkey: 31 December 1927 (A Local Colorful Character)

(Snippet with photograph, Karagöz, 31 December 1927, no. 2065, page 4.)

English
There Are All Kinds of People:
This picture you see is of a quiet, crazy man who harmlessly lives in Fethiye and is known by everyone. He keeps a clean appearance, tolerates the cold, wears only a long shirt [made] of American cloth, doesn’t live in the city during the winter, goes up to the plateaus and lives among the snow. He looks quite energetic despite being fifty-two years old. One ought to exchange overly smart ones with [good] crazies like him, right?

Türkçe
Her Çeşit Adam Var:
Şu gördüğünüz resim Fethiye’de kimseye zararı dokunmayan kendi halinde gezen herkesin sevdiği bir delidir. Üstünü başını gayet temiz tutar, soğuğa çok tahammül eder, yalnız Amerikan bezinden uzun bir gömlek giyer, kışın şehir içinde oturmaz, yaylalara çıkar, karlar arasında yaşarmış. Elli iki yaşında olduğu halde pek dinç görünüyor. Böyle deliyi çok akıllıya değişmek gerek değil mi?

Comments:
Published regularly since 1908, the biweekly Karagöz was a well-recognized journal which enjoyed wide circulation across the country by the 1920s. For this reason, regular, deliberate efforts were made to include short blurbs, articles, and stand-alone photographs covering events and people of the provinces outside of Istanbul, its place of publication. This is precisely the type of snippet presented in this post. Paired with a photograph, we are introduced to an interesting man living in the Aegean coastal town of Fethiye. Although mentally ill (“crazy” or deli), the text stresses his good qualities: self-reliant, clean, harmless, well-known, and old but lively. In this way the writer invites the reader to consider the importance of living life to ones best abilities no matter what their natural shortcomings may be.

Some local characters were more famous than others. Whereas this gentleman’s name is never mentioned several proto/pseudo-celebrities from the streets of Istanbul became recurring characters in newspapers and satirical journals alike. Istanbul’s famous porter, Zaro Ağa is the most prominent of these types, known at this time for his extremely advanced age. Another colorful character, Pazarola Hasan Bey was a staple among Istanbul’s shop keepers and caricatures of him graced the pages of the city’s satirical journals from time to time as well.

(Entire page, Karagöz, 31 December 1927, no. 2065, page 4.)

This article has been updated and modified from its first iteration published right here on Steemit on 30 December 2016. For the original version see:
43. Today in 1920s Turkey: 31 December 1927 (A Local Colorful Character)