Abstract
Muhsin Ertugrul in Turk-Soviet Cultural Relations
Political, military, economic and cultural relations were established between Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Russia, which allied against the common enemy of the Western European States such as Britain, France and Italy in the 1920s. The Turkish-Soviet cultural relations carried out by the Soviet organization VOKS continued intensively until the beginning of World War II. In the fields such as cinema, theater, music and painting, activities such as artist exchanges, concert and exhibition were realized. The Turkish theater and actor Muhsin Ertugrul visited the Soviets at that time, observed the art scene, filmed and worked with important Soviet artists as Stanislavski, Meyerhold and Eisenstein. When he returned to Turkey he staged Russian classics as Gogol’s Marriage, The Government Inspector; Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Dostovevski’s The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment. Although Ertuğrul’s these activities were claimed that sometimes instilling Communism with art activities in Turkey, he rejected these claims. Ertuğrul, who stated the Soviet art as the highest level and was affected by the Soviet art, played a key role in the development of Turkish cinema and theater by taking advantage of his experiences in the years he spent in the Soviets.
Keywords
Muhsin Ertugrul, Soviet Russia, VOKS, Theater, Cinema.