Karagöz

We have been discussing forms of the Turkish popular theatre in which the rôles are assumed by living men. Now we pass to the puppet theatre. The name most commonly used for this theatre is Karagöz. There are other names as well, to which we shall refer later. Kara and göz are two Turkish words which mean "black-eyed". This term is applied to the principal character, and thus the theatre received its name. It suggests the childish shadow pictures shown on magic lantern slides. But whence did the Turks derive this theatre?

In the style of their art and especially in their coloring, the puppets resemble Chinese drawings more than anything else, so we have the right to assume that this theatre had its origin in the Far East. It is not without cause that the magic lantern pictures are called in French "les ombres chinoises"--Chinese shadows. It is quite probable that in ancient times the Mongols learned the art of this lantern from the Chinese and transmitted their knowledge to the Turks. How completely the Turks assimilated it is clear from the fact that as early as the 13th century the theatre was called by the purely Turkish name "cabarchuk". Later it was given the Arabic name "haial", i.e. imagination, fancy, mirror, show.

The Gipsies seem to have been instrumental in popularizing this theatre. We have data showing that the first quasi-historical Karagöz was a Gipsy. The Gipsy type is clearly defined in several of the puppets which represent Karagöz. In some plays Karagöz' addresses his welcome to the public in Gipsy language. In other plays he appears as a blacksmith, a Gipsy's occupation. Sometimes he refers to Gessas, the legendary stock of the Gipsies.

This theatre has met with great success throughout the Near East. In Beirut and Damascus we still see a strong Turkish influence in the Arabic Karagöz, but in Egypt, Morocco and Algeria it already has its own character. In Bosnia-Herzegovina it flourished even at the time of the Austrian yoke. In Greece and on the Greek islands it is still a beloved popular attraction. Some of the material of the Karagöz plays shows evidence of having been borrowed from the literature of the Arabs (The Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights Entertainments), from India and China. Moreover its plays, especially the prologues, abound with the ideas of Moslem mysticism, known by the term Sufism. Numerous works have been written on Sufism, but here it is enough to say that it is a kind of pantheism, the roots of which derive from classic Greece as well as from India and Iran, or ancient Persia.

Karagöz too is related to classic Greece, through Byzantium, thanks to the Orta oyunu and Meddah. In the former as in the latter the principal action revolves about the taklid or, as we have said before, the classic mime. It is opportune to indicate here the following fact as well. The Moslem miniature, or the picture which illustrates the text, was created under the influence of the painting of several countries. Scholars see in this miniature the product of the art of the classic world, of Byzantium, of the Copts and Arabs, of India, Iran and China. All this is also true of the puppets of Karagöz. They are direct descendants of the Moslem miniature, though, of course, their style has been greatly popularized.

Generally, all that has been said of the origin of the Orta oiunu and of the Meddah may be accepted as relating to the Karagöz as well, but it must be added that the embryo of the latter appeared in China. The Karagöz is besides closely related--the cousin or brother--to all the similar popular puppet theatres of various countries of Europe; the English Punch, the French Guignol, the German Hanswurst, the Italian Pulcinella, the Russian Petrushka, and others. It bears the same relationship, on the other hand, through China with the shadow theatres of Indo-China, Siam, the Dutch East-Indies, Japan and so on. This whole question of relationship is very complicated and its final solution is far from complete. An enormous amount of work in this field has already been done as a result of the brilliant research of the German Orientalist, Georg Jacob.

Karagöz or haial was already flourishing at the dawn of Turkey's existence. That is, according to tradition, for we have no historical proof. At Bursa (in the North-Western part of Asia Minor, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire) there was a man, we are told, Sheih Küshteri by name, who presented the shows of the puppet theatre. An echo of this legend comes down to us in the term sometimes used for the Karagtz' screen--"Sheih Küshteri Meidani", i.e. the place of Sheih Kiishteri. A dervish, Mehmed Küshteri, an emigrant from Persia, actually lived at the time of the second Ottoman sovereign Orhan, 1326-1359, and died at Brusa in l366; his tomb is still preserved. But we do not know whether or not he was a specialist in Karagöz.