The satirical weekly Gırgır, founded by Oğuz Aral in 1972, has been Turkey’s best-selling satirical magazine of all times. Characterized by a multitude of genres and styles, its contents ranged from written jokes to comics and political cartoons. Such diversity has prompted scholars to present this magazine in different, often contrasting ways, especially with reference to the nature and strength of its satire. This study intends to contribute to solving the ambiguity concerning whether Gırgır’s caricatures and cartoons may be deemed political or not. For this purpose, it focuses on its satirical repertoire from its early days up to the end of the military regime of 1980 to 1983, the most challenging time in terms of freedom of expression and dissent. This article argues that satire in Gırgır became increasingly political parallel to the growing politicisation of society in the 1970s and that the magazine did not bow to political pressure under the military rule. Especially its reactions to the repressive climate of the regime allow us to define its satire as political.

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The military rule that was inaugurated by the coup d’état of 12 September 1980 plays a key role in the history of modern Turkey. With this seizure of power, the third since the foundation of the republic, the military promoted a set of reforms that radically reshaped the political system, the institutions, and society. Even though elections were held three years later, the regime left an enduring legacy that remains hard to come to terms with. At the same time, studies on the military era have started to flourish almost simultaneously and the regime never ceased to be a prominent research object. This article maps the historiography on the 1980 era by discussing a selection of publications that in the past forty years opened the debate or led it in new directions. The article engages with the work of scholars from various disciplines and academic traditions, without neglecting publications by journalists and other authors. Even from this mapping, that includes a small and not exhaustive sample of studies, the 1980 era emerges as an undoubtedly complex period, whose understanding can count, however, on a set of landmark publications.

The Gezi Park protests that sparked in Turkey in summer 2013 were characterized by a strong presence of satire. Not only did satirical magazines extensively cover the mobilization, the satirical element was also on the foreground in the physical and virtual spaces of the protests, produced and circulated by protestors themselves. Such practice contributed significantly to the expression ‘extraordinary intelligence’ (orantısız zeka) through which protestors came to be defined. Drawing on the concept of laughtivism, that refers to the large-scale use of the satirical element in the tactics of recent non-violent protests, the present work discusses satire’s contribution to political dissent in the Gezi Park protests and assesses its legacy in their aftermath. This study argues that during the protests, satire asserted itself not only as a form of communication and cultural expression but actually as a form of activism, able to foster cultural change and produce transformation in society. It also argues that satire has the potential to perform such a role at less exceptional political times, too, but certain conditions are necessary to make a difference in these contexts. Overall, this work sheds light on the dynamics that make satire a successful form of activism, as well as on its limits.