Welcome
readers ~ today I’m excited to present my review for something a little different - an epic period romance TV series, Kurt Seyit ve Sura, now available on Netflix, North America. The TV series is based
on the true story of Seyit (officer in the Russian Tsar’s Imperial Guard) and
Sura (daughter of a Russian nobleman) who fall in love but then must flee the
Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The TV series is based on the series of books by
Nermin Bezmen, the actual granddaughter of two of the characters in the story.
I have not read the books but rather my review is for this gorgeous, romantic, tragic TV series.
Normally
I review young adult and fantasy books but this incredible series has just
yanked me by the heartstrings and I want to tell you all about it. That said,
the real Sura is noted to be 15-16 at the time of the story so that definitely
rates as YA territory.
I
will be comparing bits of the true story that I’ve gathered from blogs and
websites to the TV series storyline to fill out my review because once you start watching this series you
will probably want to know just how much of it is taken from the true story just
as I did! Warning – spoilers ahead!
The
Book(s):
Kurt Seyit ve
Sura (1st
in series)
Book by: Nermin Bezmen
Publish Date: December 18,
2017
Published: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform
Genre: Historical,
Romance, Epic, International
Pages: 446
An instant best seller since its debut in 1992,
Nermin Bezmen’s Kurt Seyt & Shura is a classic of contemporary Turkish
literature, a sweeping romantic drama set around the time the splendor of
Imperial Russia is obliterated in the wake of the Great War. Bezmen tells the
story of two star-crossed lovers fleeing the wave of devastation wreaked by the
Bolshevik Revolution-- and does so with great sensitivity: one half of this
couple who sought refuge in the capital of the dying Ottoman Empire was her
grandfather.
Translated into 12 languages, Kurt Seyt & Shura
inspired a sumptuous T.V. series that continues to enchant millions of viewers
across the world. With the publication of this novel in the United States,
English-speaking fans will now be able to read the true story of this great
love affair, which triumphed over so much adversity yet failed to overcome
human fallibility.
Kurt Seyt, the son of a wealthy Crimean nobleman, is
a dashing first lieutenant in the Imperial Life Guard. Injured on the
Carpathian front and later sought by the Bolsheviks, he makes a daring escape
across the Black Sea. Too proud to accept payment for the boatful of arms he
hands over to the Nationalists, he faces years of struggle to make a new life
in the Turkish Republic rising from the embers of the dying Ottoman Empire. All
he has is his dignity and love.
Shura: An innocent sixteen-year-old beauty enchanted
by Tchaikovsky’s music and Moscow’s glittering lights, falls in love with Seyt.
A potential victim of the Bolsheviks due to her family’s wealth and social
standing, she is determined to follow her heart and accompanies Seyt on his
perilous flight over the Black Sea. Their love is the only solace to their
crushing homesickness for a land and family they will never see again, two
lovers among hundreds of thousands of White Russian émigrés trying to eke out a
living in occupied Istanbul.
*********************************
Source for My Review: Kurt Seyit & Sura, TV Series on Netflix,
46 episodes
Principals
(really hard to trim this list!):
Kurt Seyit Kivanç
Tatlitug
Sura Farah Zeynep Abdullah
Murvet Fahriye Evcen
Petro Borinsky Birkan
Sokullu
Baronesa Lola Asli
Orcan
Celil Kamilof Ushan
Cakir
Tatya Eva Dedova
Guzide Elcin Sangu
Ahmet Yahya Tolga
Savaci (owner of Seref Hotel in series, and author's husband!)
Lieutenant Billy Cem
Bender
Where
else does an epic historical romance begin except at the scene of combat, here at Russian pre-revolutionary Carpathian front line skirmishes. Director, Hilal Saral, starts with the events that
lead to Petro Borinsky’s intense, poisonous hatred of his friend Seyit Eminof which
comes to dominate many of the dramatic and tragic events that occur in the TV
series. To Lieutenant Eminof honour is everything, but it seems that maybe even
honour pays a price …
We
now attend Alexandra (Sura) Verjenskaya’s first society ball in Petrograd (St.
Petersburg, Russia). Seyit is stunned by his first sight of the luminous,
innocent Sura and immediately realizes that she will not be one of his usual
society girl conquests. Kivanc Tatlitug
as Seyit Eminof is strikingly handsome with the formal manners of a courtier
and such intense blue eyes you just know Sura won’t last one minute once they
lock with hers. When Seyit falls in with her social circle, at first she’s too
tongue-tied to even speak to him and you just feel for her naïvete and hope
that she will withstand Seyit, the wolf.
Farah Zeynep
Abdullah
as Sura gives a rare natural sweetness to our beautiful heroine. Despite Sura’s
crushing attraction to the dashing lieutenant she summons the nerve to get to
know him. But this is a powerful two-way attraction and both Seyit and Sura are
soon in each other’s thrall.
We
break to visit the Eminof family in Alushta, Crimea, with Seyit and his male
buddies (Crimea is that little peninsula that hangs down from the Ukraine into
the Black Sea) and learn Seyit’s father is very traditional and more so, very traditional
Turkish. Interestingly, Seyit’s family’s values are the next source of looming
problems between him and Sura. Seyit then goes to fight at the front but when Russia
withdraws from WW1 and Russian society begins to disintegrate to the rebels, he
must flee Petrograd. He and Sura are now hopelessly in love and she breaks with
her family (who are also fleeing the capital) to run with him back to his
family home in Alushta.
The
TV series is in spoken Turkish with English subtitles so busy watching, but I
would rather hear the natural voices of the actors and just deal with subtitles. Turkish is a curious language, unlike any other that I've ever heard. Even so, you pick up a few words here and there from the subs.
I’ve
read that in the real story Petro is finished when they reach Alushta, but in
the TV series, he continues with them to Istanbul. Close friend in arms, Celil
too doesn’t make it past Alushta in real life but is a significant player in
the TV series to the end. Both characters (along with Misha) contribute significantly to the series story line though so this was definitely a great move on the part of the script writers.
Emotions
run high through all 46 episodes. Turkish cinema does not shy away from
intense, soulful, even poetic expressions of love by both the men and women and
while there are no Hollywood style bedroom scenes, you scarcely miss them. The
pain of lost loved ones is met with heavy sorrow, and loyalty to family and
friends is profound and unbreakable so betrayals are evil and unbearably destructive.
Kivanc
Tatlitug is outstanding in his role, lavishly giving us everything;
· Laser perception
of everything that’s happening around him in war and in his personal life.
· The most tender, sweet expressions of his love for Sura.
· Intense grieving
for his murdered family.
· A man’s terrible
righteous anger.
· Caring of young
children and siblings.
His
emotional range through this series is spellbinding and it’s easy to see why Kivanc
is currently named one of Turkey’s highest paid actors. He's especially brilliant in expressing those emotions through his eyes.
Seyit
and Sura eventually make it to the Seref Hotel in Istanbul, a safe haven for Russian
emigres run by Ali and Yahya two kindly brothers and their families. We are
taken often to the hub of the place, the kitchen, and you feel just like one of
the family in no time in getting to know everyone and everything that’s going
on.
Supporting
characters and their story lines fill out the main wonderfully and we follow sister Valentina
and the Baron, a scheming Baronesa, Celil and Tatya, then Guzide, and Yahya, Binnaz, Ayse, Alya, a
young lad, the terrible Lieutenant Billy, and even Murvat through these turbulent times.
The Flaws (flaws
make for great drama)
Let’s
look at handsome Petro first. Because of a single mistake at the beginning, Petro evolves
into a magnificently pathological character. As Baronesa Lola says, he is Evil. Petro is conniving, manipulative, a liar even to himself, and a sneaky traitor.
All of these ‘qualities’ I find Birkan Sokullu plays with insidious subtlety. He keeps Petro believable under the guise of being a noble gentleman but who keeps getting away with it. On one level you can't help admiring Petro's malevolent cleverness.
Seyit’s
flaw takes more time to uncover. One revealing incident in the TV series is on
Seyit and Sura’s wedding day (by episode 29 things are actually getting a bit
soap-opera-ish as there are several similar incidents). Because of continuous
undermining behind the scenes by ‘friends,’ Seyit vanishes before this very
special event. Using clever tactics he escapes being shipped back to Russia and
certain death and in about a month and a half finds his way back to Istanbul
and his fiancé. For unknown reasons he is unable to discuss what happened to
him openly with Sura (!!!). Whether it is because men at the time didn’t consider
it right to tell women the difficulties of life to protect their soft
sensibilities, or other ‘masculine’ reasons, this incredibly important discussion does not take
place.
Because
of the real life timeline of some characters that did not make it to Istanbul, many
of these betrayal ‘incidents’ portrayed in the TV series did not actually occur
so something else was at play in the true story as Seyit and Sura never actually
marry.
Neither
do they marry in the TV series, but the series storyline offers these
continuous heinous and painful betrayals by others as causes that lead to that
eventuality.
In
reality it seems that Seyit either was unable to get over the strictures of his
father not to marry outside of their culture (his subsequent marriage to
Turkish girl, Murvat, seems to bear this out), or he could just never properly own
up to the young Russian girl he must have undoubtedly loved truly, and who gave
up her whole world to be with him, because of cultural/social norms of men at the time,
or expecting the little woman to have blind faith in her man with zero
explanations of what’s going on, or really whatever. The world was very
different in early 1900s let’s not forget.
As
the denouement starts to unfold, Farah Zeynep Abdullah does a great job
bringing a young, vulnerable Sura to the point where she eventually matures
enough to comprehend Seyit’s limitations whatever their unknown source. This is
difficult on a backdrop of having lost most of her own family and having the
guts to start over in yet another foreign city. She’s a tough survivor who despite everything does believe in their love. In the end, I
was left just shaking my head.
Still,
intense experiences bind people together and I’ve read that Seyit never forgot
Sura to his very death, and that she apparently wrote to him years after she
moved away from Istanbul. Their story is drama-filled, emotional, and tragic
and just pulled me in. It seems somehow impossible that a young couple in love who had endured so much to secure a new life together do not stay together in the
end. Fairy tale endings in this world are no guarantee, that’s for sure.
This television series is really well produced and I think will be a big hit with North American audiences.
If
you love epic period romance, check this out.
If
you love sweeping historical/international films, check this out.
If
you love costumers, check this out.
Just
lay in with supplies as it’s hard not to binge-watch this magnetic series!
To learn more about Turkish history, check out
Ginger Monette on Turkish History where she gives a great run down without throwing the whole textbook at you.
About the Author
Nermin
Bezmen is an accomplished artist, art teacher, yoga instructor, and broadcaster
whose meticulous research into family history led to the publication of Kurt
Seyt & Shura in 1992. This fictionalized account of her grandfather’s life
became an instant best seller and is now considered a masterpiece of
contemporary Turkish literature; in fact, it has reached textbook status in
several secondary schools and universities. Exquisite detail distinguishes her
writing as she proves that truth is indeed stranger than fiction and that our
ancestors call out to us from the pages of history. Her powerful character
analysis and storytelling skills invite readers to explore their own dreams,
sorrows, anxieties, and even fleeting fancies. Bezmen has published seventeen novels,
two of which are biographical and one of which is a fantasy. In addition, she
has a children’s novel, a collection of short stories, and a book of poems to
her credit. She has two children and three grandchildren and lives with her
husband, actor Tolga Savacı, in New Jersey and Istanbul.
