Abstract:

This article focuses on Ord. Prof. Dr. A. Süheyl Ünver’s contributions to the historiography of traditional Turkish arts of the book via his archive. A medical doctor, medicine historian, science historian, art historian, artist and painter Professor Ünver has conducted extensive research on the safeguarding of traditional arts throughout his life, being one of the preeminent actors of the Turkish artistic and cultural environment of the twentieth century. His productivity can be traced through his rich archive on all of his interests. This archive serves as a treasury of the Turkish culture. However, it has not been fully studied by means of its importance for the historiography of Turkish arts of the book. This study is an attempt to fill the gap in the specified area. Thus, the notebooks and files on polymath calligrapher Necmeddin Okyay has been studied in detail. In total eight notebooks (including five in the files and three separate notebooks) and over five hundred documents (including notes, records, artworks, photographs) were detected in the archive, which were then evaluated by their content, art historical importance, and contribution to the arts of the book. These documents, which predominantly consist of notes taken by Süheyl Ünver during conversations conducted with Necmeddin Okyay and many original records acquired from Okyay as well as other artworks, are a profound source of knowledge with regards to traditional arts of the book. This present research is primarily of importance since it puts the oral historical information in writing. Although these documents and information were used as a reference in many of the previous literature, they are for the first time holistically analyzed with this study. Furthermore, the general evaluation of the archive revealed that Süheyl Ünver collected data on many other subjects in the same manner. Detailed study of this extensive archive as a whole or compilation of this vast amount of information into topics will not only carry valuable information on the arts of the book to the future, but will also serve as a key source for different fields of traditional arts.

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