Tarihçe

58 English

Karagoz is a Turkish traditional shadow theater, which has a history originating among the Turks living back in Central Asia. Shadow theater was named after the main character Karagoz, which according to the legends had started with the following story. One of the Ottoman Sultans Orhan Gazi had conquered Bursa and had ordered a mosque to be built there bearing his name. All the necessary materials and masters were quickly gathered together and the work had begun right away. On the construction site there was Karagoz – the blacksmith, and Hacivat – the master mason. Due to the entertaining and funny conversations between these two friends, other construction workers would stop their work just to listen to the dialogue exchange of those two friends. Consequently, it caused the delay in completion of the mosque, and the Sultan learns about. Thus Karagoz and Hacivat were warned not to distract construction workers from their tasks on site. At the beginning, the two friends try to comply with the first warning, but unable to go on silent any longer – they continue their much entertaining verbal exchange. This distracts all the construction workers again and cause another delay in completion of the mosque. This time the Sultan gets very angry and orders an execution of these two workers that caused disruption. This punishment had compelled the workers to finish the construction of the mosque as soon as possible. The desires of the Sultan were fulfilled. However, it is sad to be executed Karagoz and Hacivat In. Sultan, who is no longer heard the sadness. Hacivat and Karagoz‘s friend, Sheikh Kuster white turban cloth securing a place at the beginning of the stretch of the four ends and burns the torch to provide the back lighting.

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