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| Son Saat, 7 May 1950 |
The editors of
Son Saat published a brief report -- a 'psychological analysis,' they called it -- on May 7, 1950. Below the photograph ran this diagnosis:
Any sort of act can be expected from this type. When angered, he doesn’t see the world around him. An uncouth man disposed to flattery.
If required, he’ll appear to believe, even in things he doesn’t believe in. There are a great number of puerile acts of this individual, who lacks a firm core of belief and can claim that he doubts Allah’s existence.
He’s enamored of the world of drink, and he speaks with a loud voice. He has no chance alongside women. The greatest of his sufferings is his ill fortune in love.
I can't help but wonder about the extent to which this brief article speaks to then-current anxieties about a changing Istanbul. The reference to the man's 'kabadayı' attitude, his propensity to speak 'yüksek sesle,' and his seeming willingness to pretend to be something other than what he is might speak to the shifting social worlds of 1950 Istanbul. The ways in which in-migration brought with it new sorts of anxieties about social mores and public decorum. Also can't help but think once more about Tanpınar's
Time-Regulation Institute and that book's central preoccupation with the cultivation of new identities in a time of change.
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