40. Today in 1920s Turkey: 14 December 1927 (Life is Cheap in Istanbul: Homicide, Suicide, and Everything Between)

(Article, Karagöz, 14 December 1927, no. 2060, page 3.)

Comments:
Appearing on the same page as the subject of today’s earlier post (#39: Planning Ahead for Snow in Istanbul), this brief blurb draws the reader’s attention to the many senseless acts of violence happening across the city on a given day. The opening question “Are we chopping leeks,” compares human lives to leeks (which are a dime a dozen). It suggests that these violent incidents are conducted with the same emotional distance and disregard for life as a cook preparing inanimate food products. Therefore, another way of phrasing this question would be: Is life sacred or cheap?

All but one of the seven incidents listed includes a clear location, providing a somewhat balanced spread of offenses across Istanbul’s three major districts of Fatih (1, 2, 4), Beyoğlu (7), and Kadıköy (3, 5). Along with a description of the violent act each case on the list states the tool used to carry out the crimes as well as the offender’s occupation (e.g. slipper-maker, woman, dairyman, girl, drunk, municipality cyclist, crazy man, etc).

English:

Are we chopping leeks here?
Take a look at one day’s worth of police reports from Istanbul:

1. Two dairymen in Kozlu, Merkezefendi neighborhood got into a brawl and one of them split the other’s face with a knife.
2. A slipper-maker from the neighborhood of Laleli out of drunkenness wrapped a rope around his son’s neck and stabbed him in the throat with his shoe-maker’s knife.
3. Depressed that she could not go out in fancy clothes, an eighteen-year-old girl from the district of Kadıköy poisoned herself after drinking an entire bottle of iodine tincture.
4. A crazy man named Na’man from the neighborhood of Unkapanı threw himself into the sea at Kumkapı and he yelled “Get out of the way, I am Lokman Hakim” to those trying to save him.
5. In Kadıköy a woman named Nuriye lost her mind and scorched her intestines by drinking poison.
6. One of the municipality’s motorcycles ran over a five-year-old child and turned him/her to pulp.
7. A drunkard in Tophane drank, fell over, and died!

Look at this list from just one day [of events]. How many people foolishly invite/command treachery over nothing every day.

Türkçe:

Pırasa mı doğrayoruz yahu!
Istanbul’un bir günlük zabıta vakalarına bir bakınız:

1. Merkezefendi’de Kozlu’da iki mandıra uşağı dalaşmışlar biri bıçağıyla ötekinin yüzünü ikiye bölmüş.
2. Laleli’de bir terlikçi sarhoşlukla oğlunun boğazına ip geçirmiş, kunduracı bıçağını da gırtlağına saplamış.
3. Kadıköy’de 18 yaşında bir kız, süslü gezemiyorum, diye içlenmiş bir şişe tentürdiyotu içip zehirlenmiş.
4. Unkapanı’nda Na’man isminde bir deli Kumkapı’da kendini denize atmış ve kurtarmak isteyenlere: — Ben Lokman Hakim’im çekilin, diye bağırmış.
5. Kadıköy’de Nuriye isminde bir kadın aklını bozmuş bir şişe zehir içip bağırsaklarını kavurmuş.
6. Şehremanetin motorsikleti beş yaşında bir çocuğu ezip pestile çevirmiş.
7. Tophane’de bir sarhoş içmiş, düşüp ölmüş!

Şu bir günlük listeye bakın. Günde kaç kişi enayi gibi pisi pisine keyd buyur.

(Entire page, Karagöz, 14 December 1927, no. 2060, page 3.)