Speaking of Beki Luiza Bahar: A Jewish Woman Playwright in Turkey & Negotiating an Ambiguous Identity in the Public Sphere

Year 2021, , 77 - 97, 16.12.2021

Verda Habif

https://doi.org/10.26650/jtcd.1004225

Abstract

This article focuses on Beki Luiza Bahar, the first published Turkish-Jewish woman playwright. Her oeuvre includes prose, poetry, memoir and a wide spectrum of fictional and non-fictional works. To better grasp the author’s writing praxis and prove how the merging of fiction, biography, and autobiography allows her to manage the contradictory elements of her identity, the study uses an inter-textual approach relying on both fictional and non-fictional works by the author. Beki Luiza Bahar’s works highlight how understanding, remembering, and speaking of one’s past are interwoven with selfhood and recognition in her opinion. The present analysis moves back and forth between these ideas, attempting to understand how she negotiates her minority subjectivity while writing.

Keywords

Beki Luiza Bahar, Jewish woman playwright, biographical drama, minority subjectivity, identity

References

• Bahar, Beki L. Demokles’in Kılıcı: Flavius ile Demokles: İki Bölüm. İstanbul: Mitos-Boyut, 2004. google scholar
• Bahar, Beki L. İkiyüzbininci Gece: Müzikal Oyun: IV Bölüm. İstanbul: B.L. Bahar, 1986. google scholar
• Bahar, Beki L. Kişi Bunalımı + Dişi Bunalımı. Ankara: B.L. Bahar, 1970. google scholar
• Bahar, Beki L. Oradan Buradan: Ne Kendi Tanır, Ne De Söz Edeni Vardır. İstanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik Basın ve Yayın, 2000. google scholar
• Bahar, Beki L. Ordan Burdan: Altmış Yılın Ardından. İstanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik Basın ve Yayın, 1995. google scholar
• Bahar, Beki L. Toplu Oyunları 1: Ölümsüz Kullar ; Senyora ; Alabora. Istanbul: Mitos-Boyut, 2005. google scholar
• Bali, Rıfat. “Politics of Turkification in the Single Party Period”. Swiss Society for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Basel, Switzerland, 14-16 October 2004. google scholar
• Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity.’” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (February 2000): 1-47. google scholar
• Calhoun, Craig. Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2003. google scholar
• Ellenson, David. “Ellis Rivkin and the Problems of Pharisaic History: A Study in Historiography.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLIII, no. 4 (December 1975): 787-802. https://doi.org/10.1093/ jaarel/xliii.4.787. google scholar
• Esen, Uluç, Selim Hubeş, İzzet Bana, Rivka Bihar and Ömer Faruk Kurhan. “Panel: Beki L. Bahar Tiyatrosu.” In MİMESİS Tiyatro Çeviri/Araştırma Dergisi 19, edited by Ayşan Sönmez, 19:236-62. March, 2009. google scholar
• Hadar, Gila. “Turkey: Ottoman and Post Ottoman.” Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed July 6, 2021. https:// jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/turkey-ottoman-and-post-ottoman. google scholar
• Hayim, Beti. “The Sense Of Self, Superego And Ego-Ideal In Turkish Sephardic Jewish Young Adults,” 2009. google scholar
• Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. Edited by Paul John Eakin. Translated by Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1995. google scholar
• Özmen, Emre. “Beki L. Bahar’ın Tiyatro Eserlerinde Sefarad Dünyası,” 2010. google scholar
• Saral, Sevilay. “Beki L. Bahar’ın Ardından .” MİMESİS Tiyatro Çeviri/Araştırma Dergisi 19 (March 2012): 227-34. google scholar
• Türkoğlu, Gülriz, Zeynep Kutluata, and Beki Luiza Bahar. Türkiye’de Yahudi Olmak: Beki Bahar ile Söyleşi. Interview. Kültür ve Siyasette Feminist Yaklaşımlar 7, March 2009. google scholar
• Ulusoy Tunçel, Ayşe. “Beki L. Bahar’ın Oyunları ve Oyun Yazarlığı .” MİMESİS Tiyatro Çeviri/Araştırma Dergisi 13 (March 2007): 95-138. google scholar
• Tischler, Ulrike, and Rıfat Bali. “The Alternative Way to Come to Terms with Past. Those Who Try to Forget: Turkey’s Jewish Minority.” Essay. In From “Milieu De memoire” to “Lieu De memoire” The Cultural Memory of İstanbul in the 20th Century, 100-110. München: Martin Meidenbauer, 2006. google scholar
• Wagner-Egelhaaf, Martina. “Autobiography/Autofiction Across Disciplines.” Introduction. In Handbook of Autobiography/Autofiction, edited by Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf, 1-9. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. google scholar
• Woolf, Virginia. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1942. google scholar