1953, East Berlin, Istanbul
TAM Collection
Hard Cover Book, Anatolische Geschichten written by Sabahattin Ali, Paper, Verlag Volk und Welt Berlin, 227 pages, published 1953, purchased by TAM Museum in 2025.
1953 translated Tales of Sabahattin Ali at GDR publishing house Volk und Welt Berlin, TAM Collections //Photo: Gülşah Stapel
1922 Sabahattin Ali in Berlin // Photo: Menekse Toprak, https://www.literaturport.de/wab/szenen/detailseite/tuerkische-szene/
The Story of the publishers behind this book
The publishing house Volk & Welt Berlin was the most important fiction publisher for international literature in the GDR and its second-largest fiction publisher. The publishing house was founded on March 14, 1947, by Michael Tschesno-Hell and Wilhelm Beier as a GmbH (limited liability company) in the Soviet Occupation Zone to publish translations of Soviet literature and antifascist German literature. For this purpose, it received a license from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD). Later, the publisher was opened to international contemporary literature.
In 1964 Volk & Welt merged with Kultur und Fortschritt, a publishing house of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF) specializing in translations of Soviet books.
Volk & Welt published around 100 titles annually. Like all publishing programs in the GDR, Volk & Welt’s publications were subject to censorship. However, the popularity of its program was not limited to the GDR.
Volk & Welt published around 100 titles annually. Like all publishing programs in the GDR, Volk & Welt’s publications were subject to censorship. However, the popularity of its program was not limited to the GDR.
The Archive of the Publishing house is stored in the Archives of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.
Sabahattin Ali's collection of Anatolian Tales was published in 1953. At this point Ali was already dead and his works forbidden in Turkey. It was translated by Prof. Herbert Melzig. He was a longtime professor of the German language and Oriental history at the University of Istanbul and Ankara and wanted, in August 1944—after the breakdown of German-Turkish relations—to save the books that were at risk of finding „false friends" in the German bookstore Kalis in Istanbul. He also criticized how things were put to an end between the German-Turkish relations and how military attachés had to his knowledge embezzled funds. His cooperation with the GDR, living in Istanbul can be read as a critique on post-nazi West-Germany.
Sabahattin Ali
Sabahattin Ali’s life was short and eventful, ending in violence.
The details of his birth date vary. He was born either in February 1906 or 1907. He was born in İğridere near Gümülcine, which is today Ardino in Bulgaria. His father was stationed there as an officer of the Ottoman Empire. His mother was married to his father at the age of 14, and their marriage is said to have been an unhappy one. Which might have influenced the topics of his romantic writings of the search of real connections between a woman and a man.
Due to his father’s profession, the family had to relocate repeatedly. Sabahattin Ali attended school in Istanbul, Çanakkale, İzmir, and Edremit at different times and experienced the proclamation of the Republic in 1923 as a student. In 1927, he completed his teacher’s exam. He was a popular intellectual and a sociable guest in coffeehouses in a province of Ankara, where he had his first position as the head of a hospital. However, he found the intellectual atmosphere of the small town stifling and publicly declared that he did not want to return to Yozgat—he would rather go to Moscow than back to the small town. Shortly after, he received a scholarship to study in Germany.
Ali ended up in Berlin, but instead of staying for the planned five years, he left the German capital after only 18 months. Eyewitnesses report that he was too involved in spreading communist ideas and was therefore no longer welcome in Germany. He returned to Turkey with Marxist writings and a new command of the German language and began translating German texts. Once again, he was assigned to work as a teacher in rural areas, but he spent as much time as possible in Istanbul, where he met Nâzım Hikmet and who had an impact on his writing genres.
After World War II, a paranoia about communists spread in Turkey; intellectuals came under general suspicion and so did Ali. In December 1945, the editorial office of the newspaper TAN, run by the Sertel couple, was set on fire in Istanbul. That same month, Ali lost all his positions. His successful magazine Markopaşa (founded in 1946), which he published with Aziz Nesin, was repeatedly targeted by censorship. His newly released short story collection The Glass Palace was immediately banned in 1947.
Weary of the harassment, Ali supposedly planned to try his hand as a transport entrepreneur in 1948 and likely intended to emigrate. He disappeared and was found dead on June 16 at the Bulgarian border. A political murder seems highly probable. Sabahattin Ali’s books remained banned in Turkey until the mid-1960s.
The book published by Volk & Welt materializes the continuity of German-Turkish relations in all its complexions. The connections between the GDR and People from Turkey also mark the marginalized perspectives on possible other histories about the GDR per se. An opening approach of how complex the past and present can be. Hence a very typical TAM history.
Source:
Albath, Maike, Der Holzwurm des Selbst, Der Türkische Schriftsteller Sabahattin Ali, Afterword in: Ali, Sabahattin, Die Madonna im Pelzmantel, 2021, Berlin, p. 253-267.
Albath, Maike, Der Holzwurm des Selbst, Der Türkische Schriftsteller Sabahattin Ali, Afterword in: Ali, Sabahattin, Die Madonna im Pelzmantel, 2021, Berlin, p. 253-267.