SPEAKING OF THE TURKS
SPEAKING OF
THE TURKS
BY
MUFTY-ZADE K. ZIA Bey
LONDON
STANLEY PAUL & CO.
31, Essex Street, Strand, W. C. 2.
All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOMECOMING 3
II. SUMMER MONTHS 16
III. ERENKEUY 29
IV. MODERN TURKISH WOMEN 47
V. LIFE ON THE BOSPHORUS 67
VI. STAMBOUL 87
VII. BUSINESS IN CONSTANTINOPLE 107
VIII. A STAMBOUL NIGHT 127
IX. A NIGHT IN PERA 145
X. CONSTANTINOPLE, 1922 161
XI. ROBERT COLLEGE 183
XII. EDUCATION AND ART 204
VXIII. A GLIMPSE OF ISLAM 224
XIV. A VOICE FROM ANATOLIA 245
Speaking of The Turks
I
HOMECOMING
We were arriving at Constantinople, my native city, from which I had
been absent nearly ten years. I had been in America all this time. At
first my business interests and later the general war had prevented my
coming back to my own country even on a visit. I was of military age
and Turkey was under blockade. When I had left Constantinople a few
years after the Turkish revolution, the whole country was exhilarated,
filled with joy, with ambition and with hope. Freedom and emancipation
from an autocratic domination had been obtained. Nothing was to prevent
the normal advance of Turkey and the Turks along the road to progress.
We were at last to obtain full recognition as a civilized nation. We
were at last to receive equal treatment from the other European nations.
But, alas, during the following years the gods decided otherwise. Long,
interminable wars either waged or fomented by neighbouring enemies
had hampered the progress of Turkey. First in Tripolitania, then in
Arabia and Albania, then again in the Balkans and finally during the
general war the Turkish nation had been nearly bled to death and now I
was returning to my country, and my native city was groaning under a
domination a thousand times worse even than autocracy: the domination
of victorious foreign countries Yet I was elated; homecoming is
always exciting and the entrance to Constantinople by boat is always
intoxicating. Besides, I was newly married. My young bride--an American
girl from New Orleans--was with me and I was anxious to show her my
country so maligned by the international press.
Our boat stopped at the Point of the Seraglio and a tug brought the
Inter-Allied control on board. The ship's manifesto and the passports
of all passengers had to be examined by the representatives of the
foreign armies of occupation. I was the only Turk on board and my wife
and I travelled of course on a Turkish passport. We had been obliged
to obtain a special permit from the Inter-Allied authorities before
we could even start home. I took my turn with my wife, in the line of
passengers. We showed our passport to the officer in charge: he glanced
at it and seeing it was Turkish, asked us to wait. Our passport was in
perfect order, but I believe that just for the pleasure of humiliating
a Turk the officer decided to examine everybody else's passport
before mine, and kept me waiting till the last. An Italian friend of
mine who happened to travel with us, stood near us to vouch for me in
case of need. I was coming back to my own country and I might need the
assistance of a foreigner! Poor Turkey, what had happened to you! Poor
Turks, what had become of our illusions of ten years ago which made us
believe that being at last a free and democratic country we would be
recognized as a civilized nation, and would receive equal treatment
from the other European nations. Our hopes were being systematically
trampled under the spurred heels of foreigners, whose one desire seemed
to be to eradicate for ever even our self-respect, the better to
destroy our freedom, the better to hamper our march toward progress,
the better to annihilate our national independence!
The Inter-Allied officer had humiliated me: he could do nothing
more--my passport was in order. The boat proceeded into the harbour.
The magnificent panorama of the Bosphorus and of the Golden Horn
unfolded once more before my eyes. I tried to forget the incident of
the passport with all its disheartening significance. The view was
too sublime, the moment too thrilling to attach too much importance
to an occurrence which had already passed. I turned my attention to
pointing out to my wife the resplendent charm of our surroundings. We
were entering within the water gate of an Eternal City--the queen of
two continents--the coveted prize of all nations--which, to make it the
more desirable, God had endowed with the most gorgeous beauty.
Under our eyes Asia and Europe were uniting in a passionate embrace.
Historic monuments, palaces and mosques emerged under the clear blue
sky of the Orient, curving their shining domes, raising their slender
minarets as if pointing to God, the Merciful. The City was shrouded in
an atmosphere of peace and calm, Constantinople was reposing in her
timeless dignity ... but the harbour was filled with foreign warships
in horrid contrast with the setting. Motor boats and chasers glided
busily through a maze of dreadnaughts and cruisers deadly gray in a
mist of colour! Battleships were lying at anchor, their decks cleared
for action, their guns turned on the City! My thrill changed to a
shudder, I winced.
“Never mind, Zia,” said my wife, gently placing her hand on my arm,
“every one has his day. A country cannot die, a nation cannot forever
be enslaved. Patience and untiring work will lead Turkey to progress
and to-morrow the Turks will have their day!”
Her understanding braced me. Progress, yes, progress! But had we
progressed in the midst of ten years of fighting, could we progress
during this interminable state of war which had not ceased even since
the armistice? Patience, yes, patience! But could we be patient and
work untiringly under the present conditions?
* * * * *
I took my wife to my father's residence. He lived then in Nishantashe,
in a house on a hill, surrounded by a garden, overlooking the
Bosphorus. The house was large, but our family is large too, especially
when it comes to living together under the same roof. My father wanted
us to settle with him. Family bonds are very strong in Turkey and the
Turks have retained to a large degree the old idea of clans. Large
homes dating from the old days, designed to shelter all the members
of one family and their children, are still in use in Constantinople.
It is true that the high cost of living and the restricted housing
facilities--caused by a series of fires, by the influx of war refugees
and by the foreign invasion--have contributed to perpetuate to this
date this system of cohabitation. It is true that even families not
related to each other now live together for economy's sake. But
the custom originated in the clan spirit and its continuation is
principally due to the strength of the bonds attaching the members of
one family to each other.
Traditions have been most carefully respected in my father's family,
as in all genuine old Turkish families. We have adopted or adapted
as the case may be, any and all of the western customs which are
compatible with the Orient. But we still jealously preserve certain
quaint customs characteristic of the old Turkish civilization. The
relations between the members of our family remain as in the past:
most intimate and cordial, although outwardly somewhat ceremonious
and the family has stuck together as much as the cosmopolitanism of
its members and their frequent travels permitted. This blending of
Eastern and Western customs, of Oriental and Occidental education and
mode of living is a very natural occurrence in Turkish families such
as ours. Identified with official positions which have placed them for
generations in continuous touch with surrounding European countries
and with the Western world, they had the duty at the same time of
perpetuating Turkish traditions and the desire of assimilating any part
of Western customs and education they deemed compatible with their
own. Our family's governmental service dated back to the fifteenth
century when it had been appointed “mufty” of Western Albania. By
hereditary right it had ever since then to personify, represent and
propagate Turkish customs and education in that outlying province of
the Empire where it exerted a sort of political-religious governorship.
But the constant relation with the Italians, Austrians, Dalmatians and
Croatians of the neighbouring states gave it an opportunity to learn,
appreciate and assimilate certain Western ideals. In recent years
this double influence of the East and the West became if anything more
pronounced. My grandfather having died when my uncle and my father were
very young, they were brought up by my grandmother, and the dear old
lady succeeded so thoroughly in her task that she had the satisfaction
of seeing, before she died, her two sons representing at the same time
their country as Ambassador to France and Ambassador to Italy. The
delicate Oriental touch imparted by this lady of another age is still
to-day very much alive in members of the family. Although a man of a
certain age and having filled the highest dignities in the Government,
my father still to-day gets up respectfully when my uncle--his elder
brother--enters the room. Although we discuss freely any subject among
ourselves, without distinction of age, although the greatest cordiality
and intimacy exists between all of us, none of the younger members of
the family would, for instance, think of smoking before one of his
seniors unless he had been especially invited to do so. Although each
of us travels extensively and at times lives far away for years, the
ties uniting us to each other are as strong and as “clannish” as they
were generations ago.
So my father wanted us to live with him. But it happened that most of
the family were then gathered in Constantinople. Besides our immediate
family numbering four, my uncle, his wife, their daughter and a cousin
were in town and lived with my father and two old servants who had been
so long with us that they were now part of the family also shared the
same roof. Old servants are an immovable institution in Turkey. After
years of service they acquire a standing almost equal to that of a
member of the family. They have their own establishment, they do not
do any work except watching over the hired men, and they would feel
insulted if they were paid any salary. They ask for money when they
need it. They are really part of the family. One of the old servants
who was then with my father had been the nurse of my mother, and had
married many years ago--at which time she had been given a little
house comfortably furnished. At the death of her husband she felt so
lonely--they had no children--that she sold her house and came back
to us. She has lived with us ever since and considers us all as her
adopted children!
So while the house in Nishantashe was quite large it was nevertheless
full; and much to the regret of every one of us we decided that we
would visit there only until we could find a place of our own.
This was a difficult task. All the principal houses, all the best
apartments had been requisitioned by foreign officers belonging to
the Inter-Allied armies of occupation, by their retinues and by their
friends. We were shown many small, dirty cubby-holes in Pera, which
Greek and Armenian owners were eager to rent us at prices even higher
than those prevailing in New York. In Stamboul there was no place to be
had, more than two-thirds of the city having been destroyed by fire.
We were just about deciding to settle in a hotel, when at last we had
the good luck to fall upon a Greek couple who had suddenly decided to
get a divorce. No foreign officers had yet heard of it. The house was
situated in a populous Greek section but was otherwise all right and
it had a bathroom which is more than can be said of the houses and
apartments in Pera. The Greeks and Armenians evidently do not consider
bathrooms as a necessity. In fact I believe that the bathroom in this
house--although in the cellar--has greatly contributed to make of the
place an American headquarters ever since we gave it up.
Anyhow we took the place and we settled in it as best we could.
Of course my father, my mother and my brother became our frequent
visitors. My sister came to live with us so that my wife would not be
too lonely when I was out during business hours. We were in a Greek
section and not one of the best. A lady alone may be quite safe in
Stamboul or even in a lonely house in the suburbs. But in Pera, in the
midst of the riff-raff, it is not quite safe to leave her alone even
during the day. My sister is about the same age as my wife and speaks
fluently English, French, Italian, German and of course Turkish. This
knowledge of foreign languages is not extraordinary in Turkey where
everybody speaks at least three or four. But it made her very useful
until my wife could pick up Turkish. It interested me beyond words to
see how easy, after all, it is to establish good understanding between
two people of a certain education, no matter how far apart their racial
origins may be, no matter how little each one knows of the other's
customs, breeding and upbringing. Language is enough to avoid serious
misunderstanding, personal contact is enough to bridge any previous
misconception. Here was my wife, born in New Orleans and bred in New
York, who had never before been out of America, and my sister, born
and bred in Turkey. The only apparent point in common between the two
was that one had married the brother of the other. But between the two
developed a friendship and devotion which can be built up only upon
good understanding, irrespective of any legal bonds.
We were leading a very retired life at the time and the two girls were
thrown entirely upon their own resources. The prevailing political
conditions would have made it disagreeable and at times even unsafe
to go out extensively. The city was full of British and French
colonial troops--mostly Australians and Senegalese. While outwardly
everything seemed calm and quiet, a sense of impending tragedy hung
in the air. Vague rumors of riots and risings, reports of atrocities
committed by colonial troops were circulating from mouth to mouth.
Turkish newspapers appeared every morning heavily censored: nearly one
blank column out of every four. A general and indefinable uneasiness
prevailed. Under the circumstances we did as other Turkish families;
we led a retired life, sufficient unto ourselves, and sought our
distractions in small every-day happenings.
The local colour of the street we lived in, with its vendors, its Greek
children playing on the sidewalks, the nearby open-air fish market,
the milk man making his morning calls at the neighbouring houses and
milking his goats on their doorsteps afforded us the greatest part
of our distraction. We took advantage of this general lull of things
to get our bearings and to become thoroughly acclimatized to our
surroundings.
Thus we were as happy as could be under the circumstances and perfectly
contented with our quarters, until the beautiful summer sun started
to shine. Then the local colour became somewhat more than local: it
became stagnant. The noise of the Greek children in the street began
to resemble too much that of the tenement district in New York. The
vendors and the milk men became commonplace. The sun became too warm
for the fish market. The narrow streets surrounding our house--badly
ventilated streets, without proper drainage, like most of the streets
of Pera--developed an odor which reminded my wife of the French
quarters of New Orleans, increased to the _N_th. degree! To top it all
a case of bubonic plague broke out in a neighbouring house. Greek
quarters, with the Armenian and Jewish quarters, are the centers of
contagious diseases in Constantinople.
We had already decided that we would elect for our permanent domicile
Stamboul, as far removed from the Greek, Armenian, Levantine and
foreign elements as possible. Stamboul is exclusively Turkish and we
preferred to live in a Turkish milieu. We had succeeded in finding a
house which was to be vacated in the fall It was right opposite the
Sublime Porte, on a broad avenue, bordered with plane trees, typical of
Stamboul. It was in a decent, quiet Turkish surrounding. It had large,
airy rooms and a private Turkish bath, as is usual with all the old
houses in Stamboul. True, it needed a few repairs, but we arranged with
the landlord to have the floors recovered, to install electric light
and telephone and to add a shower in the bathroom. The house would be
ready for us in a few months. However, we decided that we could not
pass the summer in Pera. We would go to visit my Father in Prinkipo,
an island at commuting distance in the Sea of Marmora, where my family
passed the summer and where many of my old friends lived and later
we would visit my aunts, my mother's sisters, for a couple of weeks,
at Erenkeuy and possibly a distant cousin of mine who lives on the
Bosphorus. In this way we would make the round of the summer resorts in
the neighbourhood of Constantinople. These long visits are customary
in Turkey and the different members of the family expect you to make a
round such as the one we considered, especially when you return after a
long absence. Furthermore they were all anxious to know my wife better
and we desired to tie up solidly the family bonds uniting us to our
different relations before we started our new Turkish life. By this
time my wife understood a little Turkish and wanted to identify herself
as much as possible with her new relations.
II
SUMMER MONTHS
Prinkipo reminds me of Bar Harbor. It is the largest of a group of four
islands. It is covered with pine trees and has large and small country
estates and villas scattered all over its balmy hills. It has several
hotels and two beautiful clubs and many prominent Turkish families
have their summer residences there. In the old days it was the Turkish
resort “par excellence” as opposed to Therapia on the Bosphorus where
all the embassies and foreign missions have their summer headquarters.
But now the Turkish families who can still afford to live there lead a
retired life, depressed as they are by the general political situation
of the country and by their own much depleted finances. Therefore the
Levantines, the Armenians, and especially the Greeks have invaded
Prinkipo and try to crowd out the Turks from this island as they have
crowded them out from Pera. They are in a better material and moral
situation than the Turks for indulging in amusements and they have
made of Prinkipo--which used to be in the old days a refined and
distinguished resort, like Bar Harbor--a common playground for holiday
makers.
Casinos, gambling houses and even less reputable institutions have
lately flourished on the balmy shores of the island. On Saturdays
and Sundays a noisy crowd invades the place, while on every pay-day
it becomes the picnic ground of intoxicated soldiers belonging to
the international navies guarding Constantinople! The day we arrived
a few intoxicated British sailors were making themselves generally
conspicuous and disagreeable right on the landing pier, in front of the
casinos. They rushed the Italian officer commanding the police of the
island, who had tried to make them behave in a manner more in harmony
with their supposed mission of maintaining order and peace in a foreign
country. Finally the Italian officer had to draw his revolver and fire
a shot in the air. This happened in broad daylight, in a place crowded
by the mixed Levantine elements now making up the showy summer colony
of Prinkipo. Composure and calm are not one of the qualities of such
crowds. A panic started, the Levantines running in every direction
and the general stampede was only quieted when Turkish policemen were
called to the assistance of the Italian carabinieri. The Turkish police
knows how to handle a Levantine crowd better than the foreign police,
but now it can only interfere if it is especially asked to do so by the
foreign police.
With such conditions prevailing, aggravated by their own financial
difficulties, it is not surprising that the Turkish elements have
neither the heart nor the desire to assume again their position as
leaders of the summer colony in Prinkipo. They prefer to keep quietly
to themselves and they make it a point to avoid as much as possible
any contact with foreigners or with the mixed crowd of Levantines.
The beautiful Yacht Club, which was formerly an essentially Turkish
institution really devoted to yachting, is now more of a gambling
den than a club and only a few unprincipled Levantinized Turks still
frequent it. We passed before it on our way home, and father said
smilingly that it was now “taboo” for us. I can well imagine how he
felt. He had been one of the founders of the club.
My father and my uncle lived together in a big white villa midway on
the hill. The house had been originally built by my father as a small
cottage during the first years of his marriage and when my uncle was
away on one of his diplomatic missions. Then gradually as the family
increased and as my uncle came back, additions had been made to the
cottage. It stood now, a large twenty-five room house in the midst of
pine trees, with shaded verandas running around each floor, commanding
a gorgeous view over the three neighbouring islands, on the one hand,
and the smiling shores of Anatolia on the other. The background to this
panorama is furnished by the city of Constantinople, dimly discernable
at a distance, refleeting at night its millions of blinking lights in
the blue waters of the Marmora. We settled into one of the wings of the
house originally built for my elder brother when he married. He was now
away with his family.
To celebrate our arrival my father took us at the first opportunity
to the Prinkipo Club of which he was still president. This club has
remained more exclusive than the Yacht Club and has therefore a larger
and better Turkish attendance. It occupies the beautiful estate
which was the American summer Embassy at the time of Mr. Leishman.
Weekly concerts are given in its gardens every Friday night--the
Turkish Sunday. My father took us to one of these concerts to make
our “debut” into the Turkish society of Prinkipo. Groups of Turkish
families were wandering together in the gardens or sitting at tables,
enjoying the beautiful starry night and listening to the music. The
ladies were attired in summer garments--beautiful Oriental capes of
embroidered white silk, draping their Parisian gowns in flowing loose
folds--their hair covered by a net or veil, but their faces uncovered.
The men wore tuxedos or business suits and could be distinguished
from the foreigners only by their red fezes, a most unbecoming and
unpractical headgear which is, alas! obligatory for all Turkish men in
Constantinople.
This public association of Turkish ladies and men was an innovation
to me. It had gradually come to pass during my ten years absence.
Before my departure Turkish ladies could only be seen by friends of the
family, and then exclusively in the strict privacy of their homes. They
went out by themselves. They never mingled with men in public places.
They did not even talk to them if they met casually on the streets.
They would only bow slightly or make a discrete “temenah”--the graceful
Turkish salutation which consists in lifting the hand towards the lips
and to the forehead. Now, ten years later, Turkish men and women were
talking and sitting together in public places and in clubs, freely
associating with each other. This was surely a concrete sign of, at
least, social progress.
I renewed many old friendships that night at the club, and my wife
began there many acquaintances which developed later most cordially. My
wife was surprised to meet many foreign girls who had, like herself,
married Turks.
When we announced our engagement several of her friends in America had
endeavoured to dissuade her from marrying a Turk. Surely a Turk could
not make a good husband, East and West could never mix and anyhow why
should she be the first foreigner to marry a Turk? She had of course
set aside all these arguments and had believed me when I told her that
many Turks had married foreigners and lived happily ever after. I don't
think, however, that she ever conceived that foreign marriages had
been so usual. That evening at the club and during our subsequent stay
in Constantinople, she found herself in a most international _milieu_,
although associating exclusively with Turkish families. She met in
Prinkipo a charming Austrian girl, who had married an admiral of the
Turkish navy. The mother of one of my childhood friends is a Russian
lady, while the wife of another is a most attractive Bavarian girl.
Many are the Turks who studied in France and married French girls. But
the first prize for international marriages goes unquestionably to the
family of Reshid Pasha where four out of seven members married foreign
girls? Italian, English and American. So, after all, my wife found out
that not only she was not the first foreign girl, but she was not even
the first American girl who had married a Turk and she hastened to
write it to her friends in America and to tell them that from what she
could see and by her own experience East and West could and did mix.
The Moslem religion and the Turkish customs allow complete latitude as
far as marrying foreign girls is concerned and leave them of course
absolutely free to practise their own religion. As for the Turks making
good husbands, I believe of course that this is entirely dependent on
the individual and not on the race. There are good and bad husbands
among the Turks, just as there are good and bad husbands among other
nations.
Our stay in Prinkipo turned out to be one of the most pleasant summer
vacations I ever had. I would go to town to attend business regularly,
but would take long week-ends off; that is, I would do as most
business men do in summer and would stay home Fridays, Saturdays and
Sundays. We would then go bathing in the mornings, and play tennis
or go out sailing in the afternoons. The Sea of Marmora is ideal for
yachting, and numerous are the sailing yachts which use Prinkipo as
their port. Of course the fact that we usually used Turkish yachts
would somewhat hamper our movements, as boats flying the Turkish
flags were not allowed to go anywhere near the Anatolian shores, the
Inter-Allied authorities enforcing at that time a strict blockade of
the Nationalists.
Often there would be tea-parties or informal after-dinner gatherings
in the Turkish homes. And while these were small, unpretentious
affairs--the Turks cannot afford to entertain elaborately on account
of their precarious means--they were a most pleasant manner of
passing away the time. There was always someone interesting at
these gatherings. A man or a woman of prominence who would give to
us a new point of view or some insight into the general situation.
Once an Egyptian princess told us of the difference in the progress
accomplished by the Turks and by their cousins of Egypt in the last
years. How, despite the fact that the Turks had been hampered by
political circumstances while the Egyptians had had the supposed
benefit of British help, Turkish women now enjoyed a much larger
political and social freedom than Egyptian women, and public education
had spread more generally in Turkey than in Egypt. Another time the
director of the Turkish Naval Academy in Halki told us how he had
taken advantage of the temporarily complete independence of Turkey
during the war to make of his school one of the most progressive and
up-to-date naval academies in the world--how since the armistice he
was meeting seemingly insurmountable difficulties in protecting his
school from the process of disintegration systematically applied by
the Allies to everything Turkish in Constantinople. Another time Zia
Pasha, former Turkish Ambassador in Washington, told us how for years
Sultan Abdul Hamid succeeded in keeping his Empire intact by playing
the greedy ambitions of one western nation against that of the other.
Once again Reshid Pasha, the Turkish diplomat who negotiated all the
peace treaties made by Turkey in recent years--up to but excluding
the Treaty of Sèvres--told us of his experiences at the London Peace
Conference following the Balkan War. His position was most delicate as
he was representing a nation which had been defeated on the battlefield
and had to contend also with the inherent enmity that the ever-grasping
imperialistic western powers have always felt in regard to Turkey. His
was a pitched diplomatic battle against the Greek Venizelos. Reshid
Pasha was too modest to add what everybody knows: that he came out the
victor, having turned the tables on Venizelos to such a degree that the
Greek statesman came away from London with his reputation as a diplomat
greatly imperilled.
Unfortunately, subsequent events had put back Venizelos to the fore,
and after numerous shifts of policy the Greeks had succeeded before
our arrival in having the great powers present to Turkey the terms of
the Treaty of Sèvres. Naturally, past, present and future politics
were the subject of all conversations. Feeling was running high in
Turkish circles. Every one was incensed both against the Allied
powers and against the Turkish Government of the moment. The Grand
Vezir, or Prime Minister, was being severely criticised and accused
of trampling on the dignity of the nation by accepting the Treaty of
Sèvres. The Nationalist movement had already started and while the
Turks remained stoically calm in Constantinople for fear of reprisals
by the Inter-Allied fleets upon the innocent population of the city,
the tide of despair was rising in Anatolia. The Nationalist movement
was as yet not thoroughly organized. But the set purpose of preventing
the application of the terms of the treaty was already noticeable in
the activities of the Turkish Nationalist bands who had sworn to die
rather than to lose their independence. They have, since then, stuck
most efficiently to their patriotic aim.
During those critical days following the publication of the terms of
the Treaty of Sèvres, and during the first weeks of the conception of
the Turkish Nationalist movement, many a time have we watched from
Prinkipo the smoke of firearms indicating encounters between Turkish
Nationalist bands and British Colonial troops, on the hills dominating
the nearby shores of Anatolia. Once we witnessed a big forest fire
engineered for the purpose of destroying the hiding-places where
the Nationalist volunteers would take refuge after their successful
raids against the armies of occupation. These Anatolian hills lie to
this day, their once smilingly green slopes bare--a silent example
of the work of destruction undertaken in the name of civilization by
the western powers who champion the rights of certain small nations
by destroying the properties of others. These Anatolian hills are at
this day, desolate and sad--but a proud monument commemorating the
unsuccessful attempt of the so-called civilized governments to pass a
death sentence upon a small nation whose will to live independently
could not be conquered either by fire or by blood. The prologue of the
greatest crime perpetrated in history since the partition of Poland was
thus gradually unfolding itself almost under our very eyes, while the
Turkish circles of Prinkipo and Constantinople--prisoners in their own
capital--had to watch, aloof. It was an edifying show of real Oriental
restraint to see all these people stand stoically and without a murmur
so that their brethren in Anatolia might have time to organize. In the
face of the worst adversities and while their hearts were bleeding,
they furnished to Anatolia the breathing-spell it required. To the
cry of “chase the Turk out of Europe” shouted in their very face,
the Turks of Constantinople were opposing a passive and dignified
resistance. A friend of mine summarized one day most clearly the motive
underlying their passive resistance. We were on the Prinkipo boat going
to Constantinople--the boat which in the old days was full of Turkish
dignitaries going to their offices. Now only a few Turkish business men
were distinguishable in the crowd. A few foreign officers were lounging
comfortably on benches “reserved for Inter-Allied officers”--large
enough to accommodate twenty people--while crowds of men and women
were standing all around for lack of place to sit. The boat was
filled with noisy Levantines, Armenians and Greeks, eating dates and
pistachio nuts, throwing the seeds and the shells on the deck, making
of the floor a place not fit for animals, and rendering themselves
generally obnoxious. My friend pointed to them and said: “These are the
people who want to take Constantinople away from us in the name of
civilization! But we have to overlook their impudence, we have to close
our eyes on their misbehaviour, we have to stand and bear it all. What
else can we do? If we weaken and join “en masse” the Nationalists in
Anatolia, we would leave in Constantinople a majority of these people
and the Western Powers would take advantage of this majority to detach
the city completely from the rest of Turkey. If we can't control our
patience, and rise against the foreigners and the usurpers in our own
city, the Western Powers will interfere and their battleships will
destroy our homes. But if we stand pat and ignore them they can not do
us any harm. Our duty is to preserve our city for Turkey and we can
only do it by remaining here and by opposing to those who plot against
us a passive and silent resistance.”
In this atmosphere of suspense the last days of our stay in Prinkipo
drew near. Our house in Stamboul would be ready now in about a month. I
had promised my wife to take her to Erenkeuy and to the Bosphorus. My
father wanted us to discharge our obligations towards the rest of the
family and besides he was soon going back to town himself. The season
of Prinkipo was at its end. Constantinople and its surrounding are at
their best in the early fall, but Prinkipo gets too cold. The bathing
season was finished, the yachting season was at its end. The hotels
were closing. One by one the villas were shutting their hospitable
doors. The summer colony was disbanding. Prinkipo was preparing for its
annual winter sleep.
We packed our bags and went to visit my aunts.
III
ERENKEUY
Since our arrival at Constantinople my wife had been complaining that
I had not shown her a “harem.” So she was very anxious to visit my
aunts, in Erenkeuy, when I told her that it was there that she could
see one, at least in the Turkish sense of the word. Harem in Turkish
means nothing less, but nothing more, than the special house or the
special section of a house reserved to the ladies of the family. In
the old days when the ladies did not associate with men they used to
live in the main house or in a part of the house, generally the best,
where they had their own sitting-rooms, dining-rooms, boudoirs, etc.,
distinct from the sitting-room, dining-room or den of the men of the
family. When I speak of “ladies” and “men” in the plural it is well to
remember it was and still is the custom in Turkey for all the members
of the same family to live together under the same roof. The Turkish
family is a sort of a clan. So while there are always many ladies in
a family, foreigners must not imagine that there are many “wives.”
This is a true narrative of Turkey and the Turks as they really are,
so I have to speak the truth even at the risk of shattering many
legends. I am bound therefore not to fall in line with the traditions
established by other writers who never fail to refer to a servant in a
Turkish household as being a “slave,” and to the ladies of a Turkish
family as being “wives.” The truth is that slavery was not generally
practised in Turkey even before the Civil War in America, and the
“wives” referred to by most of the foreign writers either exist only in
their imagination or else are the sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters
or cousins of the head of the family which foreign writers innocently
or purposely represent as his wives. Of course there might be several
wives in the same household--but not the wives of the same man. For
instance, when we were visiting my father in Prinkipo, there were four
“wives” living together: my father's, my uncle's, my cousin's and my
own wife. Anyhow I warned my wife that she would see in Erenkeuy a
“harem” in the Turkish sense of the word and not the kind of private
cabaret which exists only in the fertile imagination of scenario
writers, and in the ludicrous pages of sensational newspapers or dime
novels.
Erenkeuy is a little village at about half an hour ride from
Constantinople and on the Asiatic side. The shores of Anatolia are here
covered with country estates uniting small villages all the way from
Scutari to Maltepe--a distance of about fifteen miles and all except
Cadikeuy and Moda are peopled with Turks. The Turks living here are
mostly conservatives. They are not old fashioned and narrow but they
have kept to the Turkish ways of living more accurately than the Turks
living in other sections or suburbs of Constantinople. It really cannot
be explained but there is here an indefinable something that makes you
feel that you are in Turkey more than you do in any other suburb of
Constantinople. Perhaps it is only due to the fact that you are on the
hospitable soil of Anatolia.
Suburban trains running on the famous Bagdad railroad take you to
Erenkeuy. I again had a jolt on these trains. In the old days the
company belonged to the Germans and was run by the Germans. But it
endeavoured not to arouse the susceptibility of the Turks by flaunting
in their faces that it was a foreign company. All the employees
on the train wore the fez, the national Turkish headgear, and the
greatest majority of them were Turks. Now the Allies have replaced
the Germans and have taken over the railroad as part of Germany's war
indemnity towards them. The result is that their systematic campaign
of humiliating the Turks has been practised even here. The new Allied
administration employs mostly Greeks and Armenians--and all the
employees of the company now wear caps. Really the difference between
caps or fezzes is only one of form, but it has a psychological effect.
For instance, even in my case, although I dislike the fez as a most
unpracticable and unbecoming headgear, and although I have worn hats
the greater part of my life I could not help resenting the change: it
rubbed me the wrong way. It made me most vividly feel as if we were not
the masters in our own homes--at least temporarily in Constantinople
and its environs.
We arrived in Erenkeuy in the afternoon on one of those beautifully
clear days-which make of the fall almost the most pleasant season of
Constantinople. The air was mildly heated by an autumnal sun shining in
a marvellously blue sky. The leaves of the plane trees surrounding the
station had turned golden red and had become scarce on the branches.
Even now some were volplaning to the earth on the wings of a gentle
fall breeze. The square in front of the station, with its clean little
shops--each a diminutive bazaar of its own--opened itself smilingly to
us as we emerged from the train with our baggage. In the background we
could see the little mosque where villagers were entering for their
afternoon prayer.
We decided to walk to my aunt's house, which is not far from the
station. Besides, it was prayer time and we should avoid arriving
while the whole household was at prayer. We heaped our luggage in
a carriage--a typically Asiatic conveyance with bright coloured
curtains hanging from a wooden canopy and with seats char-a-banc
fashion. It disappeared in a cloud of dust to the gallop of its
sturdy little Anatolian horse. My wife was delighted, this was at
last Turkey somewhat as she had imagined it to be. But what would
happen to our bags if the coachman was not honest? Had I a receipt?
Didn't the coachman give me a check? At least I had taken the number
of the carriage, hadn't I? I reassured my wife: the coachman was not
a Greek--he was not even a taxicab driver of one of the “civilized”
western metropolises. He was a plain Turk, just an Anatolian peasant,
and our luggage was as safe in his keeping as it would be in the strong
box of a bank.
We leisurely followed the carriage through a little country road
bordered by garden walls on both sides. High stone walls, white washed,
protected the privacy of the gardens from the glances of passers-by.
A big gate here, a half-opened door there would give us a glimpse of
houses, small or large, surrounded with trees--elm trees, plane trees,
fig trees, cedars and cypresses--whose dark branches enshrouded the
houses in a mystery of falling leaves. The only house of which we could
get a full view from the road was a little old house, with a slanting
brick roof, an enclosed balcony hanging high in the air and supported
by arched pillars, a cobbled courtyard where a few hens were picking
their feed while a big brown dog, a relic of the old street dogs, was
peacefully sleeping. It was at the corner of a street, its gate wide
opened, and there was only one big old tree in the garden. The others
must have died of old age, and the owner must have been too poor to
replace them.
The road we followed was dusty and almost deserted, with deep furrows
left by chariots, carts and carriages since the beginning of time.
In winter the rain and the snow turned the soft, pinkish Anatolian
soil into a greasy mud and every winter, ever since the days of the
Janissaries, chariots, carts and carriages had passed on these roads,
furrowing always deeper. One felt as if the clock of time had stopped
here years ago. An acute sense of the living past permeated everything.
On our way my wife asked me to tell her something of my aunt's family.
Our surroundings reminded me of old stories and I told her the story
as told to us by my grandmother when we were tiny little boys. I used
to love it as it opened before my mind vast visions of heroic ages.
“Centuries ago,” I told my wife, “there lived a young man, almost a
boy, in the faraway mountains of Anatolia, bordering the snow-covered
peaks of the Caucasus. He was tall and handsome but did not marry
because he had to support his old father and mother who were so old and
so poor that they could only sit on their divans all day and pray the
Almighty to call them back to him so that their boy might be left free
of worries and responsibilities. But they were good parents and the boy
was a good son. Therefore, the Almighty heard their prayer and freed
their son of all worries, but not in the way the old people had prayed
for. It so happened that the “Frank” kings of Hungary, Servia and
Bulgaria declared war on our powerful Sultan and invaded his domains.
To repulse the invaders our Sultan called all his brave subjects under
arms. They flocked from all over to the standard of their emperor. The
young boy from the Anatolian mountains near the Caucasus heard his
sovereign's call and answered it immediately. But he was so far away
that when he came to Adrianople, which was at that time the capital of
the Sultan, he found that the armies had left many days before to meet
the detested foes. He galloped post haste through the Balkans, days and
nights without rest until he finally reached the plains of Kossovo.
But, alas, what a sight met his gaze when he arrived there! The armies
of the allied “Frank” kings had captured the standard of the Sultan,
and the Turkish armies were in rout. Tooroondj--that was the name of
our young hero--decided to recapture the standard of the Sultan and in
the depths of the night when the “Frank” armies were asleep, he climbed
the walls of their citadel, killed the sentry on watch, took the flag
and returned to the Turkish camp. Next morning at dawn the Turkish
soldiers, awakening and seeing the standard of the Sultan waving
again on the imperial tent, were filled with renewed courage. The
Sultan assembled them all and before all the Turkish armies he called
Tooroond; to him. He gave the imperial flag to our hero and ordered
him to lead a final charge against the enemies. Tooroond; was so
brave that he planted victoriously the standard of his emperor on the
citadel of the enemies. Thus, first through his bravery in recovering
single-handed the standard, and second through the valour he showed in
leading the charge Tooroondj won for the empire the first battle of
Kossovo. In recognition of his services the Sultan made him Bey of his
natal province. After the war Tooroond; returned to his principality
and to his old father and mother, and took to himself a wife. His
descendants have ruled there until feudality became gradually extinct.
Then the main branch came to Constantinople where it has ever since
served the empire in all branches of the government services. Now the
last descendants of the main branch are here, in Erenkeuy, and we are
entering through the gate of their house.”
A wrought-iron garden gate opened on a road bordered with trees. Right
near the gate and on each side of the road were two little houses of
seven or eight rooms each. These used to be the “Selamlik,” or quarters
where my uncle received his men friends in the old days, entertained
them or talked state matters with them. When business required it, or
when the friends desired, they would stay a few days as his guests.
The little houses were specially designed for this purpose, each of
them having even its own kitchen. The service was made by a retinue
of men servants alone and in the old days only men were to be seen in
and around these two little houses, as around all “Selamliks.” They
were a sort of private club at the time that Turkish ladies were not
allowed to associate with the social or business activities of their
men. But now that the barkers curtailing the activities of women have
been torn down the two little houses were rented to two families. Some
of the tenants were sitting on the verandas and looked at us with the
curiosity that all people living in a quiet country place feel towards
strangers.
We followed the road winding its way through old trees and shrubs
and soon reached an inner wall covered with vines, separating the
gardens of the “Harem” from those of the “Selamlik.” The road skirted
this inner wall and took us to the back of the main house, or “harem”
proper which in the old days was consecrated to the living quarters
of the ladies and the private quarters of the family. It is a big
building with its main entrance opening on the outer court, but with
its façade turned toward the gardens of the harem, so that there is no
communication with the old Selamlik other than this entrance. The door
was ajar and opened as soon as we set foot on its steps.
My aunt, with her two sisters, their children and the servants had
formed a semi-circle inside the entrance hall and were awaiting
us, outwardly calm but with their eyes shining with restrained
excitement. Turkish etiquette requires composure no matter how excited
one is. Every one has to wait his turn and we greeted each other
accordingly, starting by the eldest and going down the line according
to age--kissing the hands of those older than us and having our hands
kissed by those younger than us. This hand-kissing is a sign of respect
which remains supreme in Turkey; no matter what their respective social
position, when two Turks greet each other the younger one always at
least makes a motion as if to kiss the hand of his elder. It is a
quaint, graceful acknowledgment of the respect and allegiance due to
old age.