‘Anatolia is a large folder in terms of artistic creation,' says Erdoğan

* Photo: Murat Çetinmühürdar (Presidency) / AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

The "2020 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Awards" were presented in a ceremony held at the Presidency in Ankara yesterday (December 30).

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Delivering a speech at the ceremony, President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed his happiness to come together with "artists, who steer Turkey's artistic, scientific and cultural life and whose works brighten its path":

"I hope the 2020 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Awards may lead to auspicious developments. I wholeheartedly congratulate our men and women of science, culture and arts to whom we will present their awards."

Likening the lands of Anatolia in Central Turkey to "a large folder in terms of artistic creation", President Erdoğan said that Anatolia was "a folder that contains cultures and civilizations piled up in files."

"The zeitgeist, which encapsulates cultures layer by layer, civilizations chunk by chunk, and arts pile by pile from Göbeklitepe, from the Hittites, from Lydia, from Phrygia, from the Roman Empire, from the Byzantine Empire, from the Seljuk Empire and from the Ottoman Empire to the present day, proudly lives on in these lands," said Erdoğan and added:

"Just look at our works which end up in museums across the world though they belong to our geography, signifying theft of history or identity...

"Even this alone suffices to prove how vast and deep an artistic heritage our Republic, which nears its centenary, is in possession of as well as the potential this heritage harbors to recreate works admired by the entire world."

Erdoğan's expectations from artists

Further in his speech, Erdoğan also listed a series of expectations from the artists in Turkey. Some of these expectations were as follows:

"The artists that we expect will shake the music lists with their songs which they composed as a cry against tyranny and injustice and will, thereby, change the universal understanding of music.

"The artists that we expect will not try to show themselves by chanting slogans, but will receive standing ovations in the greatest halls of the world.

"The artists that we expect will put their stamp on history with their manner of art or with the form of art that they perform.

"The artists that we expect will be persons of distinction thanks to what they produce and they will attract masses with their manner of art.

"The artists that we expect will not be swayed by the order of the day, but they will give an agenda to the world, enter the record books with their performance and create an art fashion with their own styles.

"The artists that we expect will produce their works of art instead of holding the nation in contempt or constantly complaining.

"The artists that we expect will not show their opposition by hurling political polemics on social media, but with their art they gave wings and made fly."

(EKN/SD)