Emin Bektöre

Emin Bektöre — Biography

Emin Bektöre was a folklorist, ethnographer, educator and Crimean Tatar activist, born in Dobruja, who worked first in Romania and then in Eskişehir to keep Crimean Tatar folk dances and songs alive. He was born in Hacıoğlupazarcığı (today's Dobrich) and died in Eskişehir in 1995; a book published about him in 2023 called him the doyen of folklore in Turkey and the Balkans.

In his youth he founded Crimean Tatar folk-dance ensembles and wrote and staged didactic plays such as Şahin Giray Han, Atilla, Bora, Kırım and Kök-köz Bayar. In 1930 he joined the young people gathered around Müstecip Ülküsal to launch the journal Emel. In 1940 he moved to Turkey with his family and settled in Eskişehir; from 1941 he did folklore work at the Halkevi until it closed, then at the Public Education Centre. In 1944 Muzaffer Sarısözen visited Eskişehir and met him, and he shared his documents on Crimean songs; together they made shellac recordings with mandolin accompaniment. Sarısözen passed these songs to the Ankara Radio Mandolin Orchestra, and in 1957 Yıldız Ayhan and A. Gazi Ayhan took some of them into their repertoire.

The Eskişehir Crimean Turkish Culture Association printed his book Kırım Halk Türküleri in 1972. Thanks to his work Crimean Tatar folk dance and music entered the education curriculum of Eskişehir; he trained many folklorists and, until 1990, worked with young people as a jury member, adviser and observer. In the 1960s he contributed to the relaunched Turkish Emel alongside Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer, Ülküsal and Mustafa Edige Kırımal.