Asen Balikci

Asen Balikci (* 1929 in Istanbul ; † January 4, 2019 ) was an anthropologist and filmmaker who became famous for his work with the Netsilik Inuit.

Childhood and youth

Balikci grew up in Istanbul. His parents belonged to the Greek Orthodox minority of the Bulgarians. The family's last name was Nikolow. Balikci's father came from what is now Greece near the Albanian border and was initially a dairy trader and later, after his marriage, a fish trader in the Istanbul bazaar. Balikci's mother came from a Bulgarian village near Istanbul. The family spoke Bulgarian at home. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the family emigrated to Sofia for fear of a pogrom against the Christian population . The family there was bombed out in 1943. In 1944, a few days before the Red Army marched in, the family returned to Istanbul. After the Second World War, his father chose the surname Balıkçı ("fisherman") in accordance with his occupation for fear of persecution in Kemalist Turkey. Asen Balikci attended a French school in Istanbul.

Life in Switzerland

In 1946 Balikci left Turkey with his sister. He then went to school in Geneva and studied economics and sociology in Geneva. After completing his studies, Balikci volunteered at the Ethnological Museum in Neuchatel. After a year he left Switzerland because of financial worries and lack of professional prospects.

Living in Canada and America

Balikci went to live with relatives in Canada and studied librarianship . He completed this degree in less than a year. He then lived in Toronto and worked in a meat packaging factory. In the evening Balikci worked on a monograph on the Macedonian-Bulgarian community in Toronto. He later got a job at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa . There he cataloged French folklore. In Ottawa he completed his monograph, which was only published in small editions. During this time Balikci married and became a father. Balikci continued his studies at Columbia University in New York in 1956 and received his doctorate there.

Professional

In the 1960s, Balikci conducted research with the Netsilik Inuit in northern Canada, where he shot a film series that is one of the classics of ethnographic documentary film. The films show the netsilik hunting seals, hiking, building igloos, hunting salmon, building sleds and playing.

Asen Balikci later shot the film "The Son to Haji Omar" with Timothy Asch in Afghanistan, a study of nomadism and agriculture among pastoral Pashtuns in Afghanistan. In 1989 Balikci produced a film about the Eskimos in East Siberia. Balikci also worked in Bulgaria and India. Until 1994 he was Professor of Ethnology in Montréal. Balikci lived in Sofia.

The film series about the netsilik

• At the Autumn River Camp
• At the Winter Sea Ice Camp
• Jigging for Lake Trout
• At the Spring Sea Ice Camp
• Group Hunting on the Spring Ice
• At the Caribou Crossing Place
• Building a kayak
• Fishing at the Stone Weir

Books

• The Netsilik Eskimo. New York 1970 (Paperback 1989: ISBN 0881334359 )

Web links

• Asen Balikci in the Internet Movie Database (English)