19. Today in 1920s Turkey: 16 September 1925 (A Woman’s Place is Not the Dervish Lodge)

(Women’s Dervish Lodges, Karagöz, 16 September 1925, no. 1826, page 4.)

Comments:
The following cartoon was published 91 years ago today in Karagöz—a satirical journal named after one of the two main characters (Karagöz and Hacivat) of Turkish shadow theater. At the center of this half-page illustration stands Karagöz. He appears surprised at the sight of women exiting a building with signage that reads “Women’s Dervish Lodge” (Kadınlar Tekkesi). Karagöz’s visible astonishment is echoed in his words below the cartoon where he reminisces about the mythical days when women were luminous sources of joy and happiness. Apparently times have changed and women have abandoned these virtues in favor of supposedly bad pursuits like joining a dervish lodge.

Throughout most of September 1925 hundreds of dervish lodges and sheikh tombs across the country were shut down in preparation for the November 1925 law imposing a nationwide ban on the establishment and maintenance of these religious institutions. This cartoon depicts a scene in which Karagöz, accompanied by his friend Hacivat (featured wearing a modern hat and smoking a cigarette) and an unnamed government official approach a dervish lodge with the intention of closing it down only to discover that the lodge is a rare/unexpected women’s lodge.

One step forward two steps backward: One of the many reasons the Turkish government wanted these particular religious institutions eradicated was because they supposedly harbored lazy vagrants and promoted regressive beliefs, superstitions and other unorthodox (i.e., non-Sunni) rituals and practices. Overall, they were considered to be backwards and incompatible with the new state’s progressive agenda. And yet while modernist rhetoric and actions support progressive ideals such as secularism on other fronts they fail. Women in cartoons of this period are still regularly treated as inferior. Sadly, this is a trend that penetrates Western and Eastern publications alike in the 1920s. In the Turkish satirical press often anecdotal stories of women’s experimentations with transgressing public, masculine spaces are narrated (by male authors/cartoonists) with varying degrees of judgment from scorn to mild amusement. Here, in a streak of timeless paternalism, Karagöz scolds the dervish women like children and demands they return to their domestic occupations where they belong. If these freshly “liberated” women don’t know what to do once safe and sound at home the wise and all-knowing Karagöz has a suggestion: cook.

English:
[It Turns Out] There Are Also Women’s Dervish Lodges!
Karagöz: Oh sister ladies, rather than bringing cheerfulness, happiness, and well-being to the world you are opening up dervish lodges and making a ruckus! Why don’t I close down your lodges and you can busy yourself with your housework. Go on and prepare your dried soups (tarhana) for the winter!

Türkçe:
Kadın Tekkeleri de Varmış!
Karagöz: Hey gidi bacı hanımlar, sizler dünyaya şenlik, sevinç, saadet getirecek yerde tekke açıp hay huy ediyorsunuz ha! Ben sizin tekkelerinizi kapayayım da evinizin işiyle meşgul olun. Kışlık tarhanalarınızı hazırlayın bakalım!

(Entire page, Karagöz, 16 September 1925, no. 1826, page 4.)