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Art emerged the moment humankind existed. Today it is seen that art exists everywhere humans do. It is essential for the future of nations that art and culture is maintained and transferred to next generations. For this reason, developed or developing nations give considerable value to the education of art and conduct studies so as to increase its quality constantly. Fine Arts High Schools which are established for this purpose aim at educating individuals who have self-confidence in society, who think and criticize. In addition, they aim at creating artistic and cultural awareness in students through Fine Arts High Schools and make contribution to the free thinking of individuals in an environment where art is produced. In this study, the opinions of 100 students chosen with convenience sampling who are enrolled at two different art schools (Nicosia Anatolian Fine Arts High School and Atatürk Vocational High School) in Northern Cyprus are consulted as regards the branch of art they are studying and an effort is paid to display where they see themselves in this field in the future. Besides, based on student opinions, an effort is paid to determine the viewpoint of Cypriot Turks towards art and recommendations are made for the development of fine arts education in Northern Cyprus with the obtained results. An evaluation of the results of the research shows that a majority of both female and male students are planning to continue with the branch of art they are studying and that they are satisfied with the education they receive. In addition, it is concluded that the expectations of the majority of students at their entrance to the art school are met and that the students have a negative perception as regards the viewpoint of Cypriot Turkish community towards art.

Karagöz shadow plays, which has acquired a place in the social life of Turkish society for long years, is an essential instrument which entertains people by making them think and contributes to the formation of social conscious. With the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571, the people who came to the island from Anatolia brought their own culture to Cyprus. They added different cultural ele-ments arising from the socio-geographical characteristics of Cyprus to these cultural elements they brought and blended them. One of the cultural elements brought to the island from Anatolia was the Karagöz shadow play, and this play has gained unique aspects of the island culture over the years and added local features to its structure. The earliest depictions and bread and circuses that can be reached in the Turkish Cypriot Karagöz tradition today date back to the first quarter of the 1900s. Mehmet Ertuğ, who has a very important place in the mentioned tradition in the island began his plays and production of bread and circuses in 1963 and quitted descriptions and producing bread and circuses in 2005 due to health problems. Since 2015, the Karagöz tradition in Cyprus has been carried on by the artist Izel Seylani. For this reason, descriptions and bread and circuses used as unique to the island in Cypriot Turkish Karagöz shadow plays are examined in three periods in the article, namely "from the first quarter to 1963", "from 1963 to 2005" and from 2015 onwards". In this manner, the contributions that Cypriot Turkish culture made to Karagöz plays in the context of descriptions-bread and circuses are displayed. Some of the depictions and bread and circuses dis-cussed in the study belong to Karagözcü Mehmet Salih Efendi, and these depictions and bread and circuses have been used in the games played on the island since the first quarter of the 1900s. The depictions in question were found by Ertuğ, named after a detailed field research and repaired. In addition to using characters such as Bekri, Jew, and Çelebi in his plays, Mehmet Ertuğ added local features to the art of Karagöz by using characters such as the Turkish Cypriot epic teller, public storyteller and minstrel Aynalı, who lived on the island, and the Greek Avrayimi, who displayed films in the Nicosia Çağlayan Cinema; he also included structures unique to the island. Seylani, who continued this art in Northern Cyprus after Ertuğ stopped performing Karagöz, also prefers to use mainly local types and some island-specific elements as bread and circuses in his plays. Seylani uses these local types and places in Cyprus in his plays more intensely than Mehmet Ertuğ. The depic-tions and bread and circuses discussed in the study have survived to the present day thanks to Kara-gözcü Mehmet Efendi, Mehmet Ertuğ and, today, İzel Seylani. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anatolian and Turkish Cypriot folk tales are oral narratives that are fed by similar sources and contain common content, structure, form, and function features. While the Turkish Cypriots migrated from Anatolia to the island, they brought together the cultures, social insights, beliefs, and narratives of the regions they came from and blended them with the island culture and transferred them to future generations. Depending on the island geography, the Turkish Cypriot people melted various place names, geographical shapes, and social conditions within the folk tales over the years and added many different elements from Anatolia to the fairy tales. For example, the priest type and various Greek characters take part in fairy tales as well as different elements of Christian culture are mentioned in the narrations. While evaluating the cultural elements in Anatolian and Turkish Cypriot tales, culinary culture, handicrafts, crafts, beliefs, religion, social life, architecture, games, weddings, dowry, feast-banquet, fairy-tale motifs, folk types etc. were taken into consideration as well as how these cultural elements take place in fairy tales. Many similar cultural elements have been identified between Anatolian and Turkish folk tales. Qualitative research was applied as a research method and document analysis was used to collect data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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