Turkish Radio and Television – TRT broadcasts on collections in the IRCICA’s archive

IRCICA is gradually opening to access in digital format the valuable collections of historical photographs and rare materials contained in its archive, for the benefit of interested audiences worldwide. Two documentary videos and interviews with Director General Prof. Mahmud Erol Kılıç prepared by Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) on the subject were broadcast in the news segment of TRT1 on 19 December and the Life/Art program of TRT2 on 24 December. The videos introduced the ongoing large-scale project and the collections digitized, in particular rare ones of special value already made accessible such as around 600 photographs taken by Fahrettin Pasha (the Ottoman Commander Fahrettin Ömer Türkkan, known as The Defender of Madina during World War I)  in Makkah, Madina, throughout the Hejaz, and Afghanistan (where he later served as the Ambassador of Türkiye) and more than eleven thousand photographs taken in the 20th century by Mr. Nuri Arlasez, a learned Istanbulite and collector of manuscripts and calligraphy, depicting various cities, districts and monuments including the largely extinct wooden architecture of Istanbul.