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Adakale lives! 55 years of memory and history of the island, marked in the European Capital of Culture 2023

Adakale lives! 55 years of memory and history of the island, marked in the European Capital of Culture 2023

Monday, April 3, 2023, a day dedicated to the Romanian-Turkish cultural dialogue at the Western University of Timișoara, between 14-15.30:XNUMX p.m., in the Hall of the Magna Hall, the Center for Turkish Studies - Faculty of History, University of Bucharest together with the Museum of the Iron Gates Region Drobeta Turnu Severin, the Western University of Timișoara and the Bănățean Village Museum are organizing an event dedicated to the memory and history of Adakale Island.

More than half a century ago, the history of the island of Adakale ended under the waters of the Danube. The island, located in the Turnu Severin area, was submerged in 1970 as a result of the construction of the Portile de Fier I Dam. In 1968, the islanders lived "the last spring on Adakale", as is called a documentary made at that time by the Studio by Film Sahia. The residents, around 680 people and mostly of Turkish ethnicity, were evacuated and had a choice between settling in Romania or Turkey. Today we meet members of the Adakale community in Orșova, Turnu Severin, Timișoara, Constanța, Alba Iulia, Bucharest but also in Istanbul, Edirne, Ankara, Izmir, Eskişehir who communicate virtually through the Facebook page called ADAKALE live!!! / ADAKALE lives!!!.

The event includes the opening of the photo-documentary exhibition Adakale lives!, made by Silvana Rachieru together with the photojournalist Bogdan Cristel, but also a guided visit in the company of the curator, marking 55 years since the evacuation of the population from the island.

The exhibition is composed of archival materials belonging to the members of the Adakale community in Istanbul and Edirne and their photographs taken by the photojournalist Bogdan Cristel in 2014. A graduate of the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest, Bogdan Cristel has been a professional photographer since 1992, working for over 20 years at Reuters International News Agency. For one week, between October 12 and 19, 2014, he met in Istanbul and Edirne with families from the community. The members of the community received with emotion and enthusiasm the proposal of collaboration from the historian Silvana Rachieru, making available to Bogdan Cristel numerous archive photos and objects brought from the Danube island and uncovering memories from the past of the Turkish community of the island.

The Adakale Exhibition Lives! he was the messenger of the story of the islanders who chose Turkey as their new home in an itinerant project, organized in 2014-2015 by ICR Istanbul in Izmir, Çanakkale, Thessaloniki, Edirne and Istanbul, and in 2018 in Bucharest in a coordinated event by the Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Institute and the Turkish Studies Center-FIUB. In 2021 the exhibition was hosted by the Venice Humanities Institute of Culture and Research and in 2022 by the Museum of the Iron Gates Region in Drobeta Turnu Severin. Today, 55 years after the last spring on Adakale, its creators reunite the great Adakale family in Timișoara, in an event dedicated to the history and memory of the island and Romanian-Turkish cultural relations.

Contact: university associate Dr. Dorel Micle (dorel.micle@e-uvt.ro)

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