MASSAVETAS TRIES TO FIND WHAT’S GONE IN ‘A CITY OF ABSENCES’
Today’s Zaman
24 September 2009, Thursday
A view from Istanbul’s Tarlabasi neighborhood.
Alexandros Massavetas suggests taking a walk in Tarlabasi. Tumbling
down from just below the British Consulate in Beyoglu and landing on
the doorstep of Bilgi University’s Dolapdere campus, Tarlabai’s steep
hills and rows of narrow, three-story buildings are home to Kurds,
Roma, some Africans and enough Arabs to make it good business sense
for one shop to advertise the price of baguettes in handwritten Arabic
Many of the transvestites who work in Beyoglu also live in Tarlabai. A
woman sitting on the curb is separating wool into a plastic
bowl. Streams of men head for the mosque for Friday prayers. Stoned
huffers crowd a side street. Friendly taxi-drivers offer directions
to the Adam Mickiewicz Museum. Lots of kids play in the streets. At
the tea and börek shop, the only table is taken, but the local man
enjoying his tea clears out and insists the foreigners sit. These days,
Tarlabasi is a poor neighborhood; it has a reputation for crime and
is at risk of gentrification.
One hundred years ago, it was Greeks and Armenians who tramped
up and down the slopes of Tarlabasi. After generations of calling
Istanbul home, the 20th century saw most of them off, forced out by
politics. "Though you can’t find Jews, Greeks, Armenians or Russians
to speak to in every corner, you can, in almost every corner, find
their memories," says Massavetas. Only a few steps inside Tarlabasi,
Massavetas has already spotted a Greek engraving preserving the name
of a home’s architect. At the bottom of the hill, the facade of a
red-brick hamam is decorated with Greek, Armenian and Ottoman plaques;
each reads, in its own language: "Baths of the Constitution 1911."
Massavetas, a 33-year-old Greek journalist, is an expert on the
history of cosmopolitan Istanbul. He is the author of "Going Back
to Constantinople — Istanbul: A City of Absences." He was rrived
in Istanbul after deciding to "flee" a career in law, and though he
didn’t have sensational memories of his first visit to Istanbul as
a young tourist under the lignite fumes in the mid-1980s, Massavetas
says he was "shocked" when he returned in 2000. Since then, he says,
he’s been obsessed and in love with Istanbul. Comfortable between
cultures, Massavetas, who speaks 10 languages, says, "I’m more able
to relate to the late Ottoman time and to districts like Pera [today’s
Beyoglu], which was a Babel of people, languages and customs."
Time travel
"I wanted to talk about Istanbul and its cosmopolitan past, which
doesn’t only include the Greeks … [and] convey my sense of amazement
at the memories of Istanbul," says Massavetas, explaining why he wrote
his book. Though the old minority communities are now a fraction of
their previous numbers, "you have their heritage still dominating
over the city," he says. "I just wanted to preserve the memory of
cosmopolitanism."
The book is about "how you can reach the people who are absent." To
make contact, Massavetas studied Benjamin of Tudela’s account of his
visit to Constantinople in the 12th century; he researched medieval
Russian travelogues; he mined the mountain of 19th century travel
literature. Massavetas learned of the White Russian refugees, of the
Sabbateans and of the Bulgarians who once monopolized the milk trade.
"This is what I found most charming about late Ottoman Istanbul,
that it was such a mosaic of all these people — some of them
very integrated into their communities … and others who were in
between, with one foot here, the other there, the Levantines being
an example." The Levantines are Mediterranean Europeans who settled
in stanbul for centuries. "European historians, in a sort of very
cheesy way, [have] written about this ‘beautiful co-existence’
and tolerance — it’s a bit exaggerated," says Massavetas. "It’s
exaggerated to speak about this brotherhood and coexistence being
so idyllic, ple existed together. And I found that very interesting,
having been brought up in such a homogeneous country as Greece."
Ministry to memories
At midday, the white sun melts the discrete shapes of the Tarlabasi
skyline into shimmers. Trying to photograph the dome and vault of
St. Constantine’s church becomes futile.
An hour earlier, as if Massavetas’ Greek greeting had been a
shibboleth, the gate of St. Constantine’s was opened for us, and
we were welcomed into the courtyard. Mesmerizing and spooky, the
church is kept immaculate and airy for a congregation that doesn’t
exist. But nothing in the church suggests closure. No dust. The metals
shine. Everything is ready. It feels like everyone has either just
left moments ago, or is set to arrive. But this is not the case.
Tarlabasi’s Greeks, like Istanbul’s, like Turkey’s, are almost all
gone. In 1923, the peace treaty between Greece and the new Turkish
Republic required "population exchange." Half a million Muslims in
Greece and 1.5 million Greek Orthodox people in Turkey were forced
to emigrate. The Orthodox of stanbul were permitted to stay, but the
so-called "wealth tax" of 1942 and the pogrom of 1955 forced many
to leave.
"We are told in Greece about the September 1955 events, evictions,
and that people were subject to a constant intimidation. 1955 was
the most hysterical expression of something that was there from the
foundation of the republic until very recently. … Although nobody
would phrase it this way, I think that only a Jew would understand
the situation who had experienced being Jewish in Europe in the 1930s."
Today there are perhaps 5,000 Greeks in Istanbul. "They hang on to
the city with great determination," says Massavetas. "And they felt
when there was a community; [that] they were the real owners of the
place … A lot of people felt like that — because it’s their city
and their culture. The local community has always defined themselves
as Constantinopolitan first and foremost, and then Greek. They felt
very s eeks were so insistent in staying in Istanbul that even 1955
did not succeed in wiping the community out."
"There are different kinds of responses," he says, speaking of how
Greeks now view this history. "You can never generalize different ways
of dealing with it. [You could] become very nationalist and aggressive,
or become very open-minded and see yourself as part of all this mess
of the 20th century. … We always think in Greece of us being a
nation of refugees, coming over from Asia Minor or wherever, but it
is also true here."