Theatre
Vatan yahut Silistre
Not translated into English
Namık Kemal · 1873
Synopsis
In 1854, during the war against Russia, the fortress of Silistra is under siege. İslam Bey leaves with the volunteers who are going to defend it, and Zekiye, who loves him, follows him, disguised as a man, under the name of Âdem. Inside the besieged fortress, İslam Bey is wounded and Zekiye tends him. Despite his wound, he leaves the fortress with Abdullah Çavuş and Zekiye to set fire to the enemy's munitions.
Context
Written at Gelibolu in 1872 according to the Ministry of Culture's website, the play was first staged on 1 April 1873 at the Gedikpaşa theatre in Istanbul. The enthusiastic spectators went as far as the offices of the author's newspaper to see him; the letter they left there was published two days later, the newspaper was closed and the author exiled to Famagusta with several collaborators. The plot transposes to Silistra events taken from the siege of Shumen, and the text was reprinted more than ten times between 1873 and 1972, then translated into Russian, German and Arabic.
Who it is for
A patriotic play in four acts, in Ottoman Turkish; no French translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
According to Britannica, it earned its author a prison sentence; a critic of the time saw in it the first play on Ottoman national virtues.
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