| | IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS |             new |
| Sunday, 28 June 2009 Year |
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 10:53 | Revenge of an Ottoman Sultan |  |
| The Execution
Çandarlı (Chandarly) Halil Pasha was a highly influential Ottoman grand vizier under the Sultans Murat II and, for the first years of his reign, under Mehmet II (from 1439 to 1 June 1453 precisely). He was a member of the Çandarlı family, considered to have contributed nearly as much as the ruling Ottoman dynasty to laying the foundations of the Ottoman Empire.
Twice during the reign of Murat II, the sovereign, a religious and artistic mind not very keen on holding power himself, retired to the city of Manisa and Çandarlı Halil Pasha held the effective helm in the capital Edirne with Mehmet II, then still a child, as the nominal sultan. On both occasions, upon the dangers presented by allied European armies attacking Ottoman territories, Çandarlı called back Murat II and deposed Mehmet II to replace him with his father. These two incidents led to lasting resentment by Mehmet II towards Çandarlı. The Çandarlı family having become extremely rich, possibly richer than the Ottomans, did not help ease the tension either.
In 1453, one of the first acts committed by the (then fully reigning) Mehmet II immediately after the conquest of İstanbul (Constantinople) was to execute his grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha and confiscate his property. It is interesting to note that the city had been taken on 29 May 1453 and this execution took place on 1 June 1453, suggesting a design conceived by the sultan for a long time.
Mehmet II has thus ended the period called Çandarlı era in the Ottoman Empire, and the later members of family, whose descendants came to our day, became no more than provincial notables based in İznik, although they were to give yet another, short-term, grand vizier to the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 15th century.
Çandarlı (2nd) Halil Pasha was, as such, the first Ottoman grand vizier to be executed.
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| Thursday, 25 June 2009 Year |
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| 18:25 | .. | |
| does it make any difference?
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| Sunday, 14 June 2009 Year |
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| 23:35 | about living | |
| ABOUT LIVING
I
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example-
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people-
even for people whose faces you've never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees-
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don't believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
II
Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery -
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast ...
Let's say we're at the front-
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We'll know this with a curious anger,
but we'll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind-
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.
III
This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet-
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space ...
You must grieve for this right now
-you have to feel this sorrow now-
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say ``I lived'' ...
Nazim Hikmet
February, 1948
| | | | 23:26 | age 35 | |
| AGE THIRTY-FIVE
The age is thirty-five! Half of the way!
We're in the middle of life like a Dante.
The fire we felt at the time of our youth,
When complaining is no use any longer,
Goes out without caring about tears.
Did it snow on my temples or what's this?
God, this wrinkled face belongs to me?
Or those purple bulges beneath my eyes?
Why did you become enemy to me,
Oh the mirrors I knew as friends for years.
How the man changes with time!
The man at those pictures is not me.
Oh those days, my desires, and excitement!
This cheerful man is not me.
That I lack of troubles is but a lie.
My first love like only a dream,
Is now strange even as a memory.
Our ways separated, one by one;
With the friends we began our lives,
My loneliness gradually increases.
There was also another colour of sky!
I recognized a stone hard so late.
Water would drown man, fire would burn!
Everyday, rising, is a trouble,
One understands when he comes to this age.
Quince's yellow, pomegranate's red autumns!
Which I accept a little further each year.
Why are the birds still circling around at sky?
Why is this funeral? Who died again?
How many such gardens did I see topsy-turvy?
What can you do, death comes to all us.
You fall asleep; and you don't wake up.
Who knows, where, how, at what age?
You will have a single prayer long sovereignty,
By the grave stone as if it was your throne.
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı
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