Accessibility, appropriation, and theatrical nationhood: minority Shakespeare(s) in Türkiye

This article examines how minority engagements with Shakespeare in Türkiye, specifically Armenian and Kurdish translations and stagings, function as acts of cultural negotiation, political visibility, and legitimisation rather than as passive receptions of a global canon. Drawing on theories of adaptation, appropriation, accessibility, and minor literature, the article argues that Shakespeare’s works have provided minority communities with a sociopolitical resource through which linguistic and theatrical agency have been asserted across different historical moments. Focusing on the Armenian reception of Shakespeare in the late Ottoman period and the Kurdish turn to Shakespeare in the Republican era in the 2010s, the article situates these practices within what Lauren Kruger terms “theatrical nationhood.” Particular attention is given to Othello and Hamlet, whose representations of displacement, marginality, and political crisis resonate with minority experiences in Türkiye. By tracing translation strategies at textual and paratextual levels, the article demonstrates how accessibility works bidirectionally: how Shakespeare is appropriated into the Armenian and Kurdish languages, and how these cultures are legitimised within global literary circuits at the same time.