The Digitization Project

THE DIGITIZATION OF KIRKPINAR OIL WRESTLING FESTIVAL

Social, economic, technological winds of change brought us by the century that we are living in, 21st century, caused everything to be in our lives as “e-thing” with the help of globalization.  Today’s people has now been involved in the struggle of keeping up with all the  necessities of the digital age  and e-world with all of its infrastructure and manage to live with these developments (Yurdadoğ, 2004, p. 4-5)

The reality of “Information is the power! …” has been said as a motto for centuries. However, information being a source of “POWER” is directly linked with its being accessed, commonly used and having it used by others. The information produced as a result of the technological developments brought about by industrialization has the feature of “being accumulated-reproduced”. Thanks to this feature, today produced information can be written, reproduced and accumulated (Kongar, 1997, p.25)

The society foreseen by the digital age, share and get this new environment, that is “all kinds of activity” via the internet with their e-life style.

In this context, it is a fact that all the cities of our World have historical, cultural and social heritage. The important thing is that to what extent this history, cultural and social heritage are conveyed in todays World and the future World. And whether they conveyed this heritage compatible with the traditions or not.

Cities are living organisms. It is relatively easy to keep an historical material or a document in a closed area or a museum. On the other hand, it needs an interdisciplinary study, a good organization, financial source and sensitive public contribution to keep a historical city without losing its originality (Ahunbay, 1999, p.27).

Edirne being historical, cultural and touristic city, has carried out the Turkish traditional Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival successfully for 653 years. This success belongs to oil wrestlers, and the announcer (Cazgır), the Referee, the drummer, and the clarion players who plays active roles in the realization of these wrestling events and all the workers and the wrestling fans who contributed to the event.

The history of the sport starts with human beings facing the natural conditions and adapting to it and starting to dominate the nature, and at last develop his body and muscles which are the only means of protecting himself (Özbay, 2009, p.1). Wrestling in Turkish sport culture has always presented remarkable development by changing in the different geographies of Seljuks and Ottomans until reaching Europe from Asia. Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling started when the Turkish arrived in Rumelia (Gümüş, 1990, p.2).

 “The Digitization Project of Edirne Municipality, Historical Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival” was published in order to digitize all available written and oral materials like documents, movies, photographs and make them public by using current digital technologies on 654.“Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival” which was included in the “Humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List” of UNESCO.

 This study is one of the historical and cultural responsibility projects of the Municipality of Edirne as for keeping cultural heritage and transferring it to the future by digitizing all related information and the documents for today’s digital society.

All printed, verbal, visual and audio data under the heading of “Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling” in libraries, archives and local newspapers were scanned and be transferred into digital media in the scope of this project. The materials listed below are scanned and digitized as a result of the studies carried out up to now.

Type of the Material               Number                The Number of Scanned Pages

Book                                         82                                 8559

Magazine, Gazette,

Brochure, Poster, and others       452                               5.622

Other                                         4                                  2.550

Newspaper                               2,900                              2,900

Photos                                   39.950                             39.950

Total                                      43.388                             59.621

The profiles of the people who has contributed to  Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling’s coming to these days like Kırkpınar Ağaları (masters, landlords), Mayors, Wrestling Champions and others have been transferred into the digital media. 450 people was reached up to now.

As a result of these studies, all the archival documents of “Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival”, which has been carried out for 654 years, are going to be gathered and published on Edirne Municipality’s WEB server in order to be shared by the people throughout the world. Thus, this project is going to contribute to the advertising of the historical Kırkpınar and Edirne.

Cultural Heritage is a treasure that tells the common history of the society to its members, and strengthens the powers of unity and solidarity between them (Çekül, 2013).

KEY WORDS

1-      Kırkpınar      2- Oil Wrestling         3- Sports        4- Edirne        5- Tarih          6-History        7- Digitization

REFERENCES

1-      Ahunbay, Zeynep, (1999), Tarihi Çevre Koruma ve Restorasyon, 2. Basım, Yapı Endüstri Merkezi Yayınları, İstanbul

2-      Gümüş, Ali (1990) Kırkpınar Güreşleri.-Ankara: Başbakanlık Gençlik ve Spor Eğitim Dairesi Başkanlığı Yayınları

3-      Kongar, E.(1997) Demokrasi ve Kültür. İstanbul: Remzi

4-      Güven, Doç.Dr.Ozbay, (1999) Türklerde spor kültürü.-Ankara:Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı Yayınları

5-      Yurdadoğ, U.B. (2004) Kitap hakkında. E.Bilar, Küreselleşen Dünya’da Bilgi Paylaşımı ve Kütüphaneler kitabı içinde (ss.3-6). Edirne:Türk Kütüphaneciler Derneği Edirne Şubesi

6-      Çekül Vakfı, 2 Eylül 2013, http://www.cekulvakfi.org.tr/proje/cekulun-kulturel-miras-anlayışı. (Retreeved on 30 March, 2015)