Zafer Karatay

Zafer Karatay — Biography

Zafer Karatay was born in 1958 in Gunalan, a village near Ankara founded by Crimean Tatars. He finished his schooling in Ankara and graduated in 1980 from the Ankara State Academy of Architecture and Engineering. After a short time in public service he joined TRT as a producer in 1986, first making music, entertainment and educational programmes and from 1989 turning to documentaries. Between 2000 and 2002 he directed education, culture and drama programming, was appointed to a management post at TRT in 2004 and left it in 2008 to continue making documentaries. In 2017 he earned a master's degree in history. A tribute event was held in his honour when he retired from TRT.

Karatay has belonged to the Crimean Tatar national movement since 1975. He became an editor of the magazine Emel in 1983, was among the founders of the Emel Crimean Foundation established in 1986, and since 1992 has been its chairman and the magazine's owner. He is the Turkey representative of the Crimean Tatar National Assembly and an honorary member of the Crimean Tatar Writers' Union and the Turkish Journalists' Association.

Among his documentaries are Fetih ve Fatih, Ismail Bay Gaspıralı and Cengiz Dugji, and in 2012 he won a producer-of-the-year award for documentaries. He holds Ukraine's medal for 25 years of independence (2016) and the badge of honour for services to the Crimean Tatar people (2019). His book Kırımoğlu, Popüler Mücadele appeared in 2019.