Wednesday Talk

Res. Assist. Zuhal Mert

1940 GRECO-ITALIAN WAR IN TASVIR-I EFKAR AND TAN NEWSPAPERS

This week in the MURCIR Wednesday Talk we hosted Research Assistant Zuhal Mert who is a PhD canditate at Marmara University Department of International Relations. In her speech, Zuhal Mert, told the audience that she has chosen to focus on how the war between Greece and Italy in 1940 was perceived by the public in Turkey. In this regard she examined the news, comments and visual materials (photographs, cartoons, etc.) released in two leading newspapers of the time: Tasvir-i Efkar and Tan. As a general conclusion she told that the public opinion in Turkey was on the side of Greece despite the bad memories of Turkish people about the Greek invasion of Western Anatolia during the Independence War of Turkey. She considered this attitude of the Turkish public as closely related with the new perspective of a new generation of intellectuals. This new generation who had begun to interpret the Greek revolt for independence under the Ottoman rule and the Greek invasion of the Western Anatolia fairly different from the previous generations affected the public opinion as well. The seminar continued with the questions and comments of the participants.