At the Court of the Ottomans: Exploring Istanbul

“If the world had a single Empire, Istanbul would be its capital”.

 

            It is said that Napoleon pronounced these words talking about the capital of the old Ottoman Empire. Istanbul is an incredible melting pot of cultures and religions. Only when walking through its narrow and crowded streets, did I finally understand Napoleon’s words. This city magnificently embodies the idea of a crossing point between Christianity and Islam and expresses it by means of its gorgeous and massive historical buildings of rare beauty. Facing each other, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia best exemplify the coexistence and mutual understanding between competing faiths that uninterruptedly ruled over these lands for the last two thousand years.   

For example, the defaced images of the Christian saints provide a glance into the historical tension that marked the relation between the two religions in times of war and conquest. At the same time, the underground cistern built during the early Roman age to guarantee the city adequate water supplies, represents an element of continuity between Roman and Ottoman rule and stresses past rulers’ concern for people’s needs. Not only virtues but also vices and luxury made Istanbul the “new Rome”. The Sultan’s palace, Topkapi, best exemplifies this contradiction showing personal pleasure in the extravagantly decorated Harem, wealth in its treasury which contains the 5^th largest diamond in the world, and religious relics. 

Yet, in Istanbul, images and conceptualizations of West and East dissolve into a single mainstream that combines rather than divides traditional categories of “us vs. other”.  Western electronic music reverberates from the bars of the city only to stop when the daily prayers are broadcasted from nearby mosques. Conservatively dressed women walk side by side with friends dressed in mini-skirts and high heeled shoes. Traditional Turkish dishes and “cay” is listed on the same menu as European cuisine and alcoholic beverages. Not to mention the Grand Bazaar, a micro-cosmos of human interconnections and economic interdependence that largely anticipated the globalization era. These examples are just a drop in the ocean of the multicultural identity of a city whose geographical position and European-Asian halves further complicates traditional categories of West and East.

Does East or West make any sense in Turkey?  Right now, based on my experiences during my first month living in the Eastern side of the country and traveling West, I am still undecided. Istanbul itself embodies the dual face of the same coin, depending on one’s geographical location, because fluid and undefined borders disprove the rigid categorization of political scientists.  Taking a cruise on the Bosporus further reinforces the ambiguous and contested identity of the port city that, undisputed in terms of its national and Turkish territorial belonging, leaves room for debate of its supranational dimension. Such a problematic definition provides further evidence of the tensions and contradictions of this marvelous country that throughout its multiple cultural facets points out the existence of an ongoing process of reconciliation between secularism and religion, a significant issue on its path to democracy.

Malatya and its Neighbor “Gods”

Hello everybody! After a pleasant trip from Ankara to Malatya, I finally arrived at my final destination, Inonu University! This medium size university, named after  the second Turkish President, is located about fifteen minutes from downtown Malatya, a city which has approximately 400,000 people and is famous for its delicious apricots.

Moving from Ankara to Malatya one of the first things you’ll notice is the incredible amount of  construction. Everywhere you turn, new roads are being built, apartment buildings and offices are being renovated and dust is inescapable. You get the feeling of a city in continuous motion and transformation and a state that is constantly building up its infrastructure, not just here but in many small towns in the region.  

So far everyone has been incredibly  friendly and curious about foreigners, though it appears they separate Americans from the general category of westerners and Italians  from  all other Europeans. Despite this, all categories seem to be a rarity in the area and we have been welcomed with excitement and curiosity. We have had long dinners with our amazing neighbors, frequent chats over  warm cups of çay and Turkish kahve with people we have just met. Once more, the warm welcome of Turkish neighbors has reminded me of Southern Italy and its people. At the same time, I have  also noticed two other interesting parallels with Italian society:  the relaxed pace of life and the bureaucratic inefficiency.

Although my  permanence in Ankara was too short to even acquire a superficial sense of it,  Malatya definitively  seems to offer a more conservative  outlook,  especially inside its urban centre.  Differently from Ankara, there seems to be an equal amount of ‘covered’ and uncovered women on campus, which is slightly different from Malatya’s city center where a slight majority of women wear headscarves. The legality of wearing headscarves in public offices and universities has been a highly debated issue over the years and exemplifies the problematic reconciliation between Kemalist secularism and religious practice in Turkey.  

Even though exercising doesn’t seem to be a common habit among Turkish youth, some people also play volleyball or basketball on some of the numerous courts built inside the campus.  In terms of infrastructures and student services you could again easily exchange the Inonu campus for any other US campus, which is visibly oriented toward the students’ happiness and success. What instead contrasts with American universities is the massive veneration of Turkey’s President Ataturk, which resembles past and consolidated forms of political liturgy and surrounds the memory.  The cult of personality of the WWI war hero and President of national independence is best symbolized by his Mausoleum, an outstanding architectural construction whose dimension and authoritarian outlook impressively magnifies the myth of Kemal Ataturk.  

Being located in Southeastern Turkey, Malatya is a great location to begin exploring the Eastern Turkish border. After making friends on a Turkish “Dolmus”, we were led to Battalgazi, a small village outside Malatya that hosts the Grand Mosque or Ulu Camii! Such mosque, situated next to an old Ottoman caravan serai , a wonderful and well preserved site still used for amazing handcraft production, is simply breathtaking.  The tiles inside the mosque courtyard are unique and still show an intense light that recalls a mythical past.

After this first visit, I headed to Mount Nemrut, a UNESCO World heritage Site of rare beauty.  Before reaching the site, the bus stopped in two other historical sites. First, the ancient city of Perre which was part of the Commagene kingdom and offers an incredible landscape made of ruins and burial caves carved into the rocks, all dating back to the first B.C.   

Next, I went to the Septimus Severus bridge,  built in honor of the Roman Emperor in 3 B.C. with Corinthians columns, massive blocs, and an impressive arch.  Finally, after driving up through the mountains and walking about 500 meters, we reached the summit, which hosts the stone bodies and heads of old Kings and Gods dating the reign of Antiochus. The faces of the colossal bodies are well preserved and accessible, transmitting a sense of respect and majesty for all visitors.  

In returning to Malatya I couldn’t stop thinking about the incredible combination of religious and political symbols that I encountered in a few days.  Within a week, in an area stretching from Battalgazi to Mount Nemrut I ran into one of the oldest mosques of Islam, a pre-Roman city, a Roman bridge that reminded me of its imperial past, and a pagan site representing the polytheist past of human civilization. All of this coexisted within the same geographical space in separate moments in history, exemplifying the changing and fluid nature of human societies.  But how did people adjust to such changes over time and which legacies still affect modern Turkey?