Staging the revolution: the theatre of the revolution in the Ottoman Empire 1908-1909

Abstract

This study scrutinizes the role of theater in the transformation of the public sphere and its political character by focusing on the “theater epidemic” that emerged immediately after the 1908 Revolution. This period is conceptualized as the “theater of revolution” which started with the first performance of Besa by Şemsettin Sami and ended first with the ban of Sabah-ı Hürriyet and finally with the 31 March Affairs. In this period in which mass politics emerged was distinctive from the previous and following eras, theater was used as an effective vehicle in the transformation of the public sphere, mobilization of the masses and intervening in the actual daily politics. In this regard, the performances of the plays are taken into account as a social and political phenomenon, rather than a literary text. These performances forms the main subject of this thesis were social, political and mass events, which reflected the revolutionary aspects of the period. However, these performances are undermined by the conventional historiography with the claim that they do not have “artistic” value. The performances of Besa, Vatan, and Sabah-ı Hürriyet, which are the representatives of the genre of revolutionary plays, became political and social events such as a mass pageant, a festival or a demonstration. In this respect this study includes one of the main components of theater, the audiences, in the analysis by criticizing the conventional theater historiography. That is why, this thesis consider theater as a research area of social history rather than field of literature. The main sources of this thesis are comprised of theater critiques, new and advertisements that appeared in periodicals, memoirs and the Başbakanlık Ottoman Archives. iii