Fez (headgear)
The Fes (also Fez ) or Tarbusch is a headgear in the form of a truncated cone made of red felt with a flat lid and usually with a black, blue or gold tassel , which was previously widely used in the Orient and the Balkans . It is named after the city of Fez in Morocco .
history
The exact origin of the fez is unknown. Before it was established in the Ottoman Empire , it was widespread along the entire North African coast. The headgear was named after the dye production in Fès , a city in Morocco . The fez in this original form is still worn in Tunisia and Morocco today and is about twice as high and equipped with longer tassels than the otherwise known fez. In 1453 (after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans) this headgear came into fashion via Venice as a servant costume for both men and women. Another, more historical, thesis is that Fez is of Greek origin.
The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II had the goal of reforming the official traditional clothing of the imperial employees in the sense of a stronger western orientation. At first he had the European three-cornered hat in mind, but his advisors pointed out the connection to the Christian idea of the Trinity. Since a shipload of Fez had just arrived from Tunisia, these were instead chosen as new headgear. The introduction of the FES took place in two steps. In 1826 the Fez was introduced for the army, in 1829 it was made mandatory for civil and religious servants as part of a dress reform. Wearing the traditional oriental, so-called Old Turkish costume, which included harem pants and a turban , was prohibited. The introduction of the fez led to protests among the religious groups who only accepted the turban as just the Islamic rites. Some of them wore the fez on their turbans as a protest and some Europeans also criticized the lack of oriental aesthetics. With a fatwa by Sheikhul Islam that religiously approved the Fez, the resistance died down and the Fez became a strong patriotic symbol over time. With the civil servants it assumed the meaning of a political service badge, the color of the tassel showed the rank of the wearer. Every citizen - including non-Muslims - had to wear it, which in line with the sultan's rapprochement with the West led to a visual unification of the various citizens of the Ottoman Empire. Some women also wore the fez, but in a smaller version that did not have a tassel.
Mahmut II founded a Fez factory in Istanbul to implement the clothing reform, the Feshane , which started production with Tunisian craftsmen. The city of Fès initially had a monopoly on the production, as it controlled the spread of the Kermes scale insect , which was used for the characteristic coloration of the crimson hats. After the discovery of synthetic aniline dyes in the 1840s, the way was cleared for the manufacture of hats in France, Germany and Austria. At the beginning of the 20th century, Strakonitz in southern Bohemia and Guben in Lower Lusatia became the centers of Fes production, which increasingly dominated the Ottoman market. The Turkish fes production was limited to the richer upper class as the target group. Austrian imports in particular accounted for such a considerable proportion that even the Ottoman War Ministry resorted to cheaper Austrian products. The Austrian monopoly lost its position in 1916 with a protective tariff and the technical upgrade of domestic production by European experts.
In large parts of the Young Turk movement, the Fes became increasingly unpopular with the invasion of Austro-Hungarian troops in Ottoman Bosnia in 1908 , so that a boycott of several months was called and the Central Asian Kalpak moved in among the officers. In the army, the fez lost its importance because the lack of an umbrella caused difficulties for soldiers when exposed to sunlight, so that at the beginning of the 20th century a helmet initiated by Enver Pasha , the Enveriye , became increasingly popular in the army .
Wearing a fez was common in parts of Europe in the Biedermeier period as a symbol of cosiness. Likewise, the Fez was often an integral part of the uniforms of various militias in fascist Italy and in the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Handschar" (Croatian No. 1) . With a large tassel and an almost bag-like shape, the fez is also part of the Greek national costume.
Prohibition
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk regarded the Fez as a symbol of backwardness and a symbol of the fallen Ottoman Empire. In order to bring the clothing up to "international and civilized" status, the wearing of the Fes (as well as all other oriental headgear) was prohibited by the hat law on August 30, 1925 . By around 1930, the Fes had almost completely disappeared from the public eye.
After it was banned in Turkey, wearing the Fez was also banned under penalty of punishment in Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser as a "sign of anachronistic backwardness".
In Bulgaria , after independence at the state level, the Fez was banned from the public as a sign of Ottoman rule over Bulgaria.
Pop culture echo
In the novel Le Tarbouche (1992) by Robert Solé , the production, distribution, way of carrying and the symbolic meaning of the tarbusch, the Egyptian variant of the fez, is described in detail. The book is about the rise of the businessman and trader Georges Batrakani to become the leading tarboosh manufacturer in Egypt up to the end of the tarboosh in the 1950s.
In the British science fiction series Doctor Who , the eleventh doctor occasionally likes to wear a fez, which he always defends as "cool" against any mocking remarks. The hat achieved a certain cult status within the fan community of the series.
further reading
- Markus Purkhart: The Austrian fez industry . Dissertation, University of Vienna 2006.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hilda Amphlett: Hats: A History of Fashion in Headwear , 2003, Dover Publications, p. 212
- ^ Mary Neuburger: The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria , 2004, Cornell University Press, p. 90.
- ↑ Marcel Maussen, Veit-Michael Bader, Annelies Moors (author): Colonial and Post-colonial Governance of Islam: Continuities and Ruptures , 2011, IMISCOE Research, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 135-137.
- ^ Fes in Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , fourth edition, 1885-1892
- ^ Rudolf Agstner & Elmar Samsinger (eds), Markus Purkhart (author): Austria in Istanbul: K. (below) K. Presence in the Ottoman Empire , LIT Verlag, Vienna, pp. 259–266.
- ↑ dtv-Lexikon, Volume 6, 1976, page 131
- ^ Mary Neuburger: The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria , 2004, Cornell University Press, p. 93