Kınar Hanım

Kınar Hanım — Biography

Kınar Hanım, born Kınar Sıvacıyan (1876, Istanbul - 13 August 1950, Istanbul), was a stage actress of Turkish-Armenian descent active in the late Ottoman and early Republican eras. Her stage career is said to have run from the mid-1890s into the 1930s, a period in which women performers were still rare on Turkish stages.

In 1912 she co-founded the Yeni Osmanlı Tiyatrosu theatre company in Istanbul together with Zabel Binemeciyan and Sırapyon Hekimyan, making her one of the first two Armenian women to establish their own theatre during the Ottoman era. Alongside pioneers such as Güllü Agop and Mardiros Mınakyan, she is remembered as a founding figure of Turkish theatre, and she was later counted among the earliest members of the Darülbedayi company.