This week, Turkish cinema lost the last of its truly beloved leading men. If only it had been a loss for cinema alone. All of Turkey lost Kadir İnanır.
Kadir İnanır was born in 1949 in Fatsa, a district of Ordu on Turkey's Black Sea coast. He came from a poor family. Then came his education, followed by the inevitable journey to Istanbul in the late 1960s. Istanbul was, as it still is today, the city where countless people from Anatolia arrived in search of a livelihood. İnanır found his own doorway to life in what was then called Yeşilçam, Turkey's film industry.
He began with small roles but soon became the industry's undisputed leading man.
Armenian writer Mıgırdiç Margosyan once titled his collection of stories about the Armenians of Diyarbakır “Tell Me, Margos, Where Are You From?” It is a question that echoes here as well.
Where, really, was Kadir İnanır from?
KADİR İNANIR AND TAILOR FİKRİ
Everyone knows Kadir İnanır was from Fatsa. In one interview, he joked about the endless debate over his hometown.
'They recently said our village had been placed within the borders of Ünye, so now I'm supposedly from Ünye. My father was from Sürmene, so others insist I'm from there instead. We've moved beyond all that. We all are from Turkey.'
Yet Fatsa carries a far deeper meaning in İnanır's story.
During the 1980s, when İnanır stood at the very peak of Turkish cinema, Fatsa became known for another remarkable figure: Fikri Sönmez, simply as 'Terzi Fikri'—Fikri the Tailor. Backed not by the CHP but by an influential leftist movement in the region, he won election as mayor of Fatsa as an independent candidate.
Then came the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980. Sönmez died in prison in 1985 while still under detention.
Whether Kadir İnanır and Fikri Sönmez ever actually met, no one knows—or perhaps we simply do not know.
What we do know is that their lives intersected in one place: Fatsa.
THE KURDISH QUESTION AND THE BLACK SEA
Kadir İnanır's real profession was cinema, and entire volumes have been written about his work on screen. But since we are not from the film sector, let us remember another side of him.
During Turkey's ultimately unsuccessful Kurdish peace process in 2013, İnanır served as one of the 'Wise People'—a group of respected public figures tasked with helping build public support for reconciliation between Turks and Kurds.
At the time, he explained his decision with characteristic clarity:
'I am 65 years old. From now on, as an actor, I dedicate myself to helping solve my country's problems.'
That commitment carried particular weight because he came from the Black Sea region, perhaps the part of Turkey where opposition to any settlement of the Kurdish question has traditionally been strongest. When you drive from Samsun eastward to the Georgian border, you will see overpasses lined with memorial banners honoring young soldiers who died in the fight against the PKK, each remembered as a martyr.
Yet İnanır stood against the current of his own geography. Unmoved by the pressure surrounding him, he devoted himself to the hope that 'no more children should become martyrs.'
For that stance, there were those who erased him with a single stroke—who dismissed not only his politics but his artistry, as though his entire acting career no longer existed.
He never wavered.
Not then.
Not later.
Not until the day he died.
And still, it would be impossible to leave without saying a few words about the actor himself.
He was a giant of Turkish cinema. No screen partnership became more iconic than the one he shared with Türkan Şoray. People remembered him for having 'the most beautiful smile in Turkish cinema.' On screen, he carried the swagger of a fearless leading man, yet always with unmistakable warmth.
Kadir İnanır passed through this world.
How fortunate we were that he did.
