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Modernleşme süreci ile paralel olarak, on dokuzuncu yüzyılın ortalarından itibaren resimli periyodik basılı yayınlar, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'ndaki popüler ve görselleştirilmiş yeni bir bilgi biçiminin ifade edilmesini olanaklı hale getirdiler. Modern yaşam tarzlarını ele alan ve modernite deneyimi üzerine çeşitli ideolojik anlatıları içeren resimli dergiler, görsel ve yazılı kültür formunu kitlelere tanıttılar. Bu yayınlar, içerisindeki anlatılarla, halihazırda oluşmakta ve dönüşmekte olan çeşitli toplumsal mekânların üretimine de aktif olarak katıldılar.
Zamanın en etkili resimli dergilerinden olan Servet-i Fünûn, 1891 yılında Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun başkenti İstanbul'da yayınlanmaya başladı. Dergi, entelektüel ve bilimsel üretimin yanı sıra sanat, edebiyat, sanayi ve tarım gibi alanların da popülerleşmesinde etkili oldu. Bu alanların dışında mimarlık kültürüne dair içerikleri ile de toplumsal mekânın üretimine katıldı. Bu kapsamı üzerine pek de çalışılmamış olan Servet-i Fünûn, o dönemin içerisinde inşa edilen yapılar, kentler ve kent yaşamıyla ilgili mekânsal anlatılara yer vermesi bağlamında da incelenmeye değer malzemeler sunar. Bu nedenle, dergideki mekânlara dair görsel ve metinsel anlatılar bize zamanın tahayyüllerini, inşalarını ve deneyimlerini görünür kılan potansiyelli kaynaklar sunar.
Çalışmam kapsamında, anlatı kavramını kurucu bir omurga olarak ele alarak, bu kavram ile modernite ve toplumsal mekânın üretimine eğiliyorum. Öncelikle, modernite anlatılarının nasıl kurulduğunu araştırarak, meta-anlatılar ve minör anlatılar olarak iki düzlem keşfediyorum. Modernitenin sıklıkla başka anlatıların üzerini örterek merkezi büyük bir anlatı dahilinde ele alınmasını meta-anlatılar olarak tanımlarken, çalışmam dahilinde modernitenin çoğul perspektifler sunan anlatılarının peşine çıkıyorum. Muhayyel, inşai ve gündelik pratiklerin görsel ve metinsel olarak anlatılara eklenmesi dahilinde, meta-anlatıların bozulduğu ve mekânın zaman içeren bir yapı ile temsil edildiğini keşfediyorum. Bu anlamda, resimli dergiler ve çalışmanın odağı olan Servet-i Fünûn, kâğıt yüzeyinde okuyuculara etkin bir biçimde mekânı anlatıya dönüştüren ve çoğunlukla minör ve tutarsız olan anlatı yapıları sunarlar. Böylece, mekân anlatısı, içerisinde pratikleri barındıran bir yapı ile toplumsal olana katılmaya eğilim gösterir. Dolayısıyla, tez çalışmasının başlıca argümanı olan toplumsal mekânın anlatılar ile üretiminin izlerini, derginin kâğıt mekânında sürüyorum.
Çalışma dahilinde, Servet-i Fünûn'a on dokuzuncu yüzyıl sonu ve yirminci yüzyıl başı Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'ndaki toplumsal mekânın üretimini anlatılar üzerinden okumak için bir kazı sahası olarak yaklaşmayı öneriyorum. Bu okumayı kolaylaştırmak için, arkeolojik bir yöntem ile dergi içerisinde bulunan toplumsal mekânın üretimine dair 'tahayyüller, inşalar ve deneyimler atlası'nı tasarlıyorum. Bu atlas, derginin 1891 ve 1910 yılları arasındaki anlatılarında yer bulan 'balon', 'büyük şehir', 'deniz banyosu', 'fabrika', 'köprü', 'mesken', 'panayır', 'sahne', 'sergi', 'sokak', 'şimendifer', 'tarla', 'velosiped', 'vesait-i nakliye' ve 'yer altı' toplumsal mekânları özelinde tartışıyorum. Her bir mekânın bu yıllar arasındaki sürede biriken anlatılarını minör bir yeni anlatı oluşturarak inceliyorum. Bu başlıklar altında dergi içerisinde keşfedilen anlatıları bir araya getirerek toplumsal mekân üretimin metinsel ve görsel montajlarını üretiyorum. Bu montajlar ile beraber heterojen bir yapıda, dolaysız süreye yayılan mekânın üretimini izlemek mümkün olduğunu düşünüyorum. Dolayısıyla, atlas içerisinde oluşturduğum süre-imgeler ve süre-metinler dahilinde kronolojik bir sıra izlenmiyor. Aksine, atlasın her bölümündeki mekân anlatıları; tahayyül, inşa ve deneyim ekseninde bir araya getiriliyor. Böylece, dönemin ortaya çıkan toplumsal mekânlarının anlatılar ile üretiminin birer imgesini ortaya çıkartmayı ve modernite deneyiminin Osmanlı coğrafyası içerisindeki tartışmalarını okumak için alternatif bir anlatı üretmeyi hedefliyorum.
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The genre of social narrative was prominent in the printed press of the Ottoman Empire to the early Republic of Turkey (1850s-1920s). The ideological narratives disseminated through the periodical press were influential in the establishment of a new, changing society and social space. Among Ottoman intellectuals, questions about modernity, modernization and the subsequent reforms that grew out of the Tanzimat era (1839–1876) were intensely debated. Through various popular media, including newspapers, magazines, almanacs, and depictions in photographs and films, these discussions reached a broader public and implemented changes in the social order, which affected the daily life of the average citizens. The tradition of publicly discussing social questions in the printed press, which originated in Western Europe, influenced publishers in the Ottoman Empire from the 1850s into in the 1920s, the early years of the Republic of Turkey. Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, the illustrated periodical press that entered the market in the mid-nineteenth century introduced a shared body of visual and written information, addressing the topic of new ways of living on a hitherto unprecedented scale. In particular, the ideological narratives on modernity that were disseminated through the illustrated periodical press were influential in the political sphere and provided relevant input for a new understanding of society. These narratives were influential in the making of a new social space.
The nineteenth-century becomes a critical century in human history in many ways. On the one hand, after the industrial revolution, the cities became incredibly crowded, and on the other hand, technological developments started to transform the rhythm and experiences of everyday life. Just as today's cities are characterized by digital urban life, the end of the nineteenth-century and the beginning of the twentieth-century's cites were characterised by the mass printing, new machines, and image production methods and therefore illustrated magazines, photographs, films, and radio. Technological advances allowed the media to multiply, diversify and become cheaper. Thus, it became easier for the masses to come across narratives of the experiences of modernity.
Examples of popular visual culture media that emerged in the nineteenth-century include engravings, illustrated magazines, travel guides, cigarette paper cartons, postcards, photographs, stereoscopes, fenacystitiscops, magic lanterns, and films. In the early nineteenth-century, a wide transformation was experienced in the organization of vision. It was possible for an observer who has never questioned his historical status before, to encounter the appearance of the new. Throughout this century, the observer had to increasingly function in the flow of visual information, using train journeys, the use of telegrams, which broke it out of a specific context in fragmented urban spaces. With the modernization, the narratives in which subjectivated individuals encounter themselves have increased. While the reader, the audience and the observer received the narrative away from the crowd, it was also necessary to create a spiritual environment that would feel part of that society and time. Individuals who are subjectivized with the experience of modernity were offered the promise of adventure, power, pleasure, development, and self-transformation. But at the same time, this environment became an uncanny space where the threat of destroying everything that was owned, known and traditionalized.
With this perspective, it is seen that the late nineteenth-century Ottoman cities did not experience a rapid change as much as the countries where the concept of modernization emerged. Therefore, the changing physical environment of the time was not yet visible and comprehensible. Neither Istanbul nor other cities of the Ottoman Empire have become crowded and the industry has spread rapidly nor technological innovations have increased enough to produce new experiences every day.
In the cities of the Ottoman Empire, where the physically built environment has not yet been established, the problems created by modernity spread through the narratives provided by mass communication networks. On the one hand, a sense of optimism caused by technological developments, and on the other hand, a sense of cultural pessimism about the deterioration of life were felt together at the same time.
Ottoman modernization practice occurred in two phases. At first, it was observed that there was a hesitant modernization but later shifted to a hectic modernization tendency. In the first phase, Western modernization was examined through coincidental texts and much emphasis was put on popular books. Thus, a modernization was attempted to be created in the form of useful pills that did not deepen and remain superficial. It was a progressive attitude to find an immediate solution to the problems stemming from the experience of modernity. The illusion of hopes of modernization was created by an easy, quick, short way.
Minority-language newspapers published by private entrepreneurs had already appeared in Istanbul before the end of the eighteenth-century. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Empire promoted print technology as part of its efforts to promote Turkish as a shared language of its citizens, and as a consequence, the Turkish-language press flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. While daily non-illustrated newspapers and weekly illustrated magazines dominated the periodical press in the early years of their inception, starting in 1847, the number of imperial yearbooks and privately issued almanacs increased in number and dissemination range.
Servet-i Fünûn, one of the most influential illustrated magazines of the time, started to be published in 1891 in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The magazine not only played a significant role in the popularization of intellectual and scientific production within the fields of literature, science, industry, and agriculture but also became a significant medium for the dissemination of architectural culture to the public. Along with spatial narratives on buildings that were constructed within the bounds of the Empire, the magazine also gave ample space to debates on cities and on the urban living, linking the architectural culture of the time to the broader social space. As such, visual and textual narratives on buildings and urban spaces in the magazine emerge as valuable sources with reference to which the spatial imaginations, constructions, and experiences of the time could be unveiled.
Within the scope of my dissertation, I propose that Servet-i Fünûn can be treated as an archive to read the culture of social space in the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century. To facilitate this reading, I propose an archaeological method, creating an 'atlas' of narratives of social space. This atlas is shaped by the spaces discussed in the narratives of the magazine between 1891 and 1908, categorized under the headings of 'the balloon', 'the big city', 'sea bath', 'the factory', 'the bridge', 'the home', 'the fairground', 'the stage', 'the exhibition', 'the street', 'railways', 'the farm', 'the bicycle', 'public transport', and 'the underground'. Under these headings, found narratives from the magazine are assembled and new textual and visual narratives on social space are constructed. The narratives I bring together in the atlas as such do not follow a chronological order. On the contrary, each section in the atlas is assembled by the narratives' discourse as imaginations, constructions, and experiences. In this way, the images of the emerging social spaces of the period come together and provide an alternative way for the discussion of modernity. |
