Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award to TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Ortaylı

Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award to TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Ortaylı

TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. İlber Ortaylı has been awarded the Presidential Culture and Art Grand Award of the year 2017 according to the statement made on 29 October Republic Day.

It has been decided to grant the 2017 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Awards to Prof. İlber Ortaylı, Göksel Baktagir, Yavuz Turgul, Ali Toy, Selahattin Kara and Nurettin Topçu.  Upon the proposal of the Evaluation Board comprised of Secretary General Fahri Kasırga, Deputy Secretary General Assoc. Prof. İbrahim Kalın, Head of Corporate Communications Department Dr. M. Mücahit Küçükyılmaz, Chief Press Advisor Lütfullah Göktaş, Advisor H. Hümeyra Şahin of the Presidency, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Ömer Arısoy, President of the Yunus Emre Institute Prof . Dr. Şeref Ateş and author Alev Alatlı and author Rasim Özdenören, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deemed it suitable to grant the 2017 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Awards to the following names:

HISTORY: PROF. İLBER ORTAYLI
To Prof. İlber Ortaylı for his valuable contributions in exploring and transferring our history in depth, popularizing it, sharing it with all segments at home and abroad through academic platforms and media on the basis of the fact that nations which do not know their history cannot built their future,

MUSIC: GÖKSEL BAKTAGİR
To Göksel Baktagir who popularized his style which inspires tranquillity, who proved to be an outstanding prodigy in various fields as a performer and composer, who created a universal synthesis by expanding the use of Qanun which is fundamentally an instrument of Turkish music to other music genres such as New Age and Jazz and who is on the spotlight especially with the techniques he developed for the left hand in addition to other techniques in playing the Qanun,

CINEMA: YAVUZ TURGUL
To Yavuz Turgul who created an identity for the Turkish cinema with his sophisticated personality as a screenwriter, writer and director, who pioneered his successors with his scenarios and films leaving marks in various genres such as comedy and drama, who insistently shoots quality films during a turbulent period in which Turkish cinema has experienced political and cultural divisions,

TRADITIONAL ARTS: ALİ TOY
To Ali Toy who in a sense revived our traditional calligraphy with his specific, modest, efficient and balanced style in his designs, who managed to beautifully combine modern architecture and calligraphy at his prime years at a time in which traditional arts are rediscovered by the new generation of artists,

PAINTING: SELAHATTİN KARA
To Selahattin Kara who won recognition both at home and abroad with his original works, who is known as the “Artist of Istanbul” beyond being a city artists, who interpreted the “Aziz İstanbul” manifesting an artistic aesthetic in each frame in the language of his brush and made it possible for us to feel the hidden beauties with our hearts,

SPECIAL RECOGNITION: NURETTİN TOPÇU
To late Nurettin Topçu who analysed in his works the ancient Islamic and Turkish history, the Sufism and the sociological reality in the modern period, who advised the nation to acknowledge the value of the Anatolian wisdom and to adopt its prescriptive principles, who articulated that rebellion, too, has its own principles and that the individual will find his place in the society within ethical order and who explored the depths of the spirit by not reducing the existence of humanity to sole matter.

The award ceremony will be held at the Presidential Complex at later date to be announced.