Head of the Department of Drama and Acting, theater director Prof. Mehmet Birkiye’s play “War and Peace” directed by Kocaeli City Theater was invited to Russia’s most prestigious International Theater Festival by Russian curator Argor Grigoryants. The play, which is the world-famous work of Lev Tolstoy and adapted by Helen Edmunson, featuring Drama and Acting Department graduate student Kubilay Ata Şimşek, represented Turkey as the opening play of the INSPRATION International Art Festival held in Moscow.
The INSPRATION Festival, one of the most prestigious art organizations in Russia, was held this year between 23-27 July 2025 at the VDNKh Culture and Fairground in Moscow. The play staged at the opening of the festival was highly appreciated by the audience of about 3 thousand people.
City Theaters General Artistic Director Aydın Sigalı told AA correspondent that representing Turkey in an international festival is a great source of pride for them. Sigalı stated that they will move to Russia on July 20 after the invitation they received and mentioned the following about the details of the work they will stage at the festival: “Lev We will stage Tolstoy’s important work ‘War and Peace’ in Moscow. We will present the work in Turkish with subtitles. Russian audiences have known the work since middle school, so what is different for us is that they will hear this classic story in Turkish. They will hear the unique rhetoric and harmony of Turkish, and they will also They will also experience the merging of these voices with the story.”
Prof. Mehmet Birkiye, the director of the play, who gave an interview to the Russian television channel about the play “War and Peace”, which was the subject of Russian newspapers and Russian television news, mentioned the following words: “Tolstoy is one of the most important names not only in Russian literature but also in world literature. For me, “War and Peace” is a work that tells about a certain period of your history. The main purpose of this play I directed is to answer the question of the meaning of life. Of course, I am doing this based on Tolstoy’s work.”
