A brand new regulation empowering Turkey’s central authorities to grab historic properties from native authorities is elevating fears that heritage websites have gotten the most recent entrance in a wider marketing campaign towards opposition-led municipalities.
Among the many websites at stake are cultural venues run by the Istanbul municipality, whose mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu launched an formidable conservation drive and expanded cultural programming earlier than he was jailed final 12 months after saying plans to run for president.
Adjustments to a regulation governing foundations, or vakıfs, took impact in December, stipulating that property initially endowed to a basis—typically centuries in the past—or that when benefited from basis assets, and is now held by different public establishments, will likely be transferred to state-run foundations.
Zeynep Oduncu Kutevi, a lawmaker for the Individuals’s Equality and Democracy Social gathering, warns that such laws dangers “not solely cultural loss however a usurpation of the folks’s will and id” as the federal government seeks to “side-line” municipalities. Opposition events gained management of extra cities than the ruling social gathering in 2024 elections.
“This variation straight contradicts the precept of native self-government,” Kutevi tells The Artwork Newspaper. “Properties that municipalities have restored, maintained and stored open to the general public for years will likely be taken away.”
‘Safeguarding the legacy entrusted to us’
Tens of 1000’s of properties in Turkey had been initially endowed to vakıfs to finance non secular, academic or social companies in the course of the Ottoman period. Many are actually managed by the Basic Directorate of Foundations in Ankara or different public our bodies, together with municipalities, after their unique boards ceased to exist.
“Safeguarding the legacy entrusted to us by our nation and preserving the material of our cities whereas enabling growth is our most basic precedence,” Adem Çalkın, a lawmaker within the ruling Justice and Growth Social gathering who sponsored the invoice, mentioned on X earlier than the regulation handed.
However the directorate’s mandate is to lease property, and it lacks the capability, personnel and native information to function cultural areas, says Ülkü İnanlı, the deputy chair of İmamoğlu’s Republican Individuals’s Social gathering within the Istanbul metropolis council. “They won’t function these venues because the municipality has and both shut or lease them out.”
Whereas the adjustments have an effect on belongings nationwide, Turkey’s largest metropolis of Istanbul hosts the best focus of heritage websites. Since successful management of town in 2019, İmamoğlu’s administration has repaired or restored almost 1,000 historic properties, together with lots of of monuments, fountains and graves.
İmamoğlu additionally sought to make Istanbul a world centre of latest tradition, changing long-neglected areas into museums, libraries and public venues. He credited his reputation forward of his 2024 re-election partially to delivering better entry to tradition, with the municipality allocating greater than 1% of its roughly $10bn annual price range to cultural actions and conservation.
İnanlı believes the success of the coverage is what led to the brand new laws. “As soon as they realised cultural actions had been a vote-getter, they determined to move this regulation,” she says.
İmamoğlu’s arrest in March final 12 months on corruption and terrorism costs, which he denies, triggered the biggest anti-government protests in Turkey in additional than a decade. Greater than 100 metropolis officers had been detained, together with his deputy, Mahir Polat, an artwork historian who oversaw the restoration initiatives and was later positioned below home arrest attributable to poor well being.
A contemporary-day ‘Kulturkampf’
The battle over these websites is a part of Turkey’s broader “Kulturkampf”, says Emre Erdoğan, a political scientist at Istanbul Bilgi College. “These websites present earnings to the opposition, and that may be a downside for the federal government,” he says. “If you wish to silence the opposition, jailing folks is a method, chopping off their assets is one other.”
Among the many websites that could possibly be appropriated is the World Heritage-listed Basilica Cistern, constructed within the sixth century by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Final 12 months, almost 2.8 million folks visited the underground museum, which town restored in 2022.
Additionally in danger are Casa Botter, Istanbul’s first Artwork Nouveau constructing, which reopened as a design centre in 2023, and ArtIstanbul Feshane, a Nineteenth-century fez manufacturing facility now used as a gallery that hosted a Tate Fashionable touring exhibition in 2024. “If the foundations directorate has made even a small restore to a construction up to now, this regulation allows them to take the property with out bringing a lawsuit,” İnanlı says.
Kutevi worries the brand new guidelines will slender public stewardship and public entry if websites are transformed into profitable growth initiatives. “These cultural belongings will turn into a supply of profiteering for the ruling social gathering,” she says.
An instance of the divergent approaches to heritage will be seen at Tersane, the Fifteenth-century shipyard on the Golden Horn waterway. The state-owned portion of the waterfront opened as a privately run luxurious lodge, buying and residential advanced in 2024. That very same 12 months, town rehabilitated its smaller part into an artwork house and stored the docks working, sustaining the location because the world’s oldest constantly working shipyard.
