CULTURAL LIFE

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey in terms of culture and art, as it is in the political perspective and Çankaya is the most vibrant and exuberant point of this culture and art capital. The State Theatres, private and amateur theatres, State Opera and Ballet, Presidential Symphony Orchestra, State Art and Sculpture Museum, many picture galleries, amateur music groups and cultural centers organize activities that make the citizens of the capital, especially people in Çankaya to run from one to the other.

“Ankara Film Festival”, started in 1988, “Ankara International Art Festival” that has prevailed since 1984, “Flying Broom International Women's Film Festival”, “International Labor Film Festival”, “Ankara, Young Ladies Young Gentlemen International Children's Theatre Festival” and the film festivals that the Embassies organize in collaboration with our municipality add new colors to the life of the people of the capital.

The theater of Turkish Republic, exceeding half a century, has not only exhibited the most beautiful plays in Ankara, it also raised a conscious and refined theater audience.

The ballet of Turkish Republic, exceeding forty years, was also sprout in Ankara. Similar to theater, this branch of art has created and developed its own audience. Theater, opera and ballet scenes that open their curtains in October each year present selected local and international works of art until the end of May.

Presidential Symphony Orchestra also gives concerts in the same time interval. There are twelve universities in Çankaya.Ankara University is the first university established in a modern and western sense, in 1930’s. Academicians who escaped from Nazi Germany have also instructed in this university that has been established through the university reform realized by Minister of Education, Reşit Galip upon the directives of Atatürk. The famous city planner Ernst Reuter, the first mayor of Berlin after the war, was one of them.

Reuter has refused to leave Turkish citizenship when he was invited to be Berlin mayor candidate, he stayed as a Turk and Ankara citizen until his death. He was addressed as “Big Turk” during his life. The following can be named among numerous precious European scientists, technicians and art people, who came to Turkey, Ankara with the efforts of Cevat Dursunoğlu, who was Mustafa Kemal’s one of the most important comrades in the fight since 1919 Erzurum Congress until his death and who prepared the law on universities in 1946: Eduard Zuckmayer, founder of Gazi Education Institute Music Department; famous maestro Ernst Praetorius, who developed Presidential Symphony Orchestra; Paul Hindemith, founder of Ankara Conservatory; famous civilization history expert Prof. Landsberger, who worked on the establishment of Ankara University, Faculty of Languages, History and Geography; Prof. Kurt Bittel who had significant findings about Hittite civilization; Ernst Hirsch, one of the founders of Ankara University Faculty of Law; Economist Fritz Neumark, Carl Ebert one of the founders of the State Theater, Opera and Ballet; Bruno Taut who was one of the leaders of architecture in Europe and Turkey, architect of the Faculty of Languages, History and Geography building; Paul Bonatz who is one of the important theoreticians in architecture, urban planner and architect of Saraçoğlu Quarter; famous archeologist Prof. Guterbock who decoded Hittite writing; famous Hungarian composer Bela Bartok; English Choreograph Dame Ninette De Valois.

The student community exceeding one hundred thousand is of paramount importance in Çankaya’s cultural life. These students make a beautiful world with the social setting that they create, various activities, the shopping that they make and above all with their dynamic, energetic presence.

In addition to the State Theater, Ankara Art Theater is another institute that left its mark on the last 55 years of theater life of the capital.

National Library of Turkey is located in Çankaya. It is a treasury in which you can find whatever you are looking for, including printed books, hand-written books, maps, atlas, records, notes, audiotapes, microfilms, paintings, periodicals. National Library is one of the six libraries in Turkey that includes all kind of publication in its archive. It was opened to service in 1948. National Library, which has worked with an insufficient organization and a few staff at the beginning, has rapidly improved with the new departments added in time. Today there are around 1,090,300 printed books and around 27,450 manuscripts at the library. Moreover, the library serves with the “Speaking Library” addressing blind readers, Adnan Ötüken Reading Hall, Rare Books Museum, special rooms for researchers, group rooms in which seminars and various meetings are organized, binding workshop and printing house.

National Library has been moved to its new building in 1983, and it continues to perform its mission as a survey and research library; besides all kind of readers are accepted without bias. The old building of the library located at the Saraçoğlu Quarter serves as Ankara Public Library today. The libraries of the universities and GNAT Library are also at the service of the researchers.

A place where those who perform research in more technical contents can apply to Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), which has been established in Çankaya in 1963, for the purpose of performing basic and experimental researches in positive sciences and to encourage the studies in this field.

Museum of Nature of the Mineral Research and Exploration Institute (MTA), in which many artifacts involving natural structure of Anatolia are exhibited, is within the body of the institution located next to Middle East Technical University.

Ethnography Museum should also be seen in order to get information about Turkish history, folklore and art. This museum was established in 1932 on a hill looking at the city, which was called as Namazgâh at that time. You can see many artifacts in this museum in the Hall of Honor at the entrance and in another 10 big halls where ethnographic artifacts, Turkish- Islamic works, folk clothing mostly embroidered with gold and silver, Turkish embroideries, precious documents, unique samples of Turkish calligraphy, Ottoman woodworks and Seljuk woodworks are exhibited. It is possible to see the samples of copper working in one hole, whereas some objects of dervish lodge, hall and shrine are introduced in another. Besim Atalay Hall contains the artifacts that this famous linguist has collected during his whole life and left to the museum. One of the halls is decorated as the guest room of a 17th century Ankara house. If you take a glance at the garden before entering the museum, you will see that Islamic sepulchral monuments brought from the neighborhood are exhibited. The museum containing around 20 thousand artifacts had been used as Atatürk's temporary tomb from 1938 to 1953. This place that falls under the arabesque dome is now used as the corner of Atatürk.

State Art and Sculpture Museum is a treasure for those who want to see and know ancient, important and interesting paintings and collections of Turkish art of painting. The collections of Isbank and Cimcoz family are also kept in this museum and the collections of first Turkish painters such as Şeker Ahmet Pasha, Khalifa Abdülmecid and Osman Hamdi Bey, the painters of the Republic era and the paintings of the 1940’s “Turkish Impressionists”. In addition, the museum is enriched with the works of İbrahim Çallı, Turgut Zaim, Eşref Üren, Orhan Peker and other award-winning artists; it also features original print artists. The basement of the museum is allocated to painting studios, where damaged paintings are repaired and treated. It is worth-seeing.

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