Starting with a brief discussion of the first Hamlet translations in accordance withthe Ottoman interest in western culture and Shakespeare in the 1880s, this studyintends to present an in depth historical analysis of the modern and contemporarytranslations of the play. Since the act of translation is an attempt to rewrite and/oradapt a given text in the target language and culture, this analysis does not onlyportray the way Shakespeare is perceived by the Turks but also gives evidence tothe changing nature of the Turkish culture and its understanding of language,literature, and translation throughout the years. With the close reading of translationsmade or conducted by academicians and translators such as Halide Edib, Can Yüceland Özdemir Nutku, this study aims at displaying the differences between thesetranslations’ target audiences/readers. Since the skopos, purpose and hence, strategyof a given translation is utterly dependant on the target audience, defining the targetaudience of each translation is a significant starting point. Furthermore, apart fromthe differences in the translators’s purpose and strategy, the changes the Turkishlanguage and culture experienced since the nineteenth century play a crucial rolein presenting a historical discussion of Hamlet translations in Turkey. In this respect,while examining Hamlet’s inter-temporal and inter-cultural journey in Turkey, througha close reading of translations, this paper also presents various examples of shiftsof expression in Popovič’s terms.