Description

An end-of-the-year thesis (Jahresarbeit – a German term for a research, submitted at the end of the year, by students, usually in the last years of Gymnasium) was written in German language by a Turkish female student Jale Taylan in 1936-1937, possibly at the time in her late teens.

The typescript, which includes original photographs and images from contemporary newspapers, critically analyses the role of a Turkish woman through the history: in the pre-Islam time, after the introduction of Islam, in the time after the Tanzimat until 1908, and in the Republic.

The chapters analyze women in the countryside and in the cities, their roles at home, divorce, women’s right in the court and their right on the heritage. The chapter referring to the republic also discusses the school and sport education of women and the voting rights. The photographs cut out from a newspaper showcase modern young women at sports, education and a female pilot, and the four original photographs represent contemporary covered women from the rural areas.

The work was written by a female student Jale Taylan, who in 1936-1937 had to be in her late teens. Not much is known about Taylan. In 1940, she wrote an article on the sport education of girls, and about two years later she married one Reşit Egeli, with whom she had two children. The example, which belonged to the writer, was given in 1996 by the author Jale Taylan (here signed as Jale Egeli), 60 years after it was written, to Herry Schaefer, an esteemed Swiss collector of the Ottoman and Middle Eastern books, stamps and objects.