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  • ISTANBUL: Ottomania all the rage in Turkey

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    April 1 2012


    Ottomania all the rage in Turkey


    Neo-Ottomanism is becoming the political lens through which many Turks
    view world politics. box-office record-breaker historical epic `Fetih
    1453' best exemplifies this trend.

    1 April 2012 / SUNA Ã?AÄ?APTAY AND SONER Ã?AÄ?APTAY*,

    `Fetih 1453' (The Conquest 1453), a Turkish spring blockbuster that
    glorifies the Ottomans and their conquest of Ä°stanbul, is breaking
    viewership records in Turkey these days.
    Over 5 million Turks have already seen the movie, making it the
    country's most popular film of all time. The film's popularity sheds
    light on Turkey's emerging preoccupation with its Ottoman past:
    Ottomania is all the rage in Turkey today.

    In recent years, the Turks have re-engaged with their Ottoman past to
    the point of abandoning the early 20th-century thinking of Mustafa
    Kemal Atatürk. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end
    of World War I, Atatürk recreated Turkey in a European mold, in the
    hopes of completely separating it from its Ottoman history. Atatürk's
    thinking, termed `Kemalism,' dictated that Turkey could become a great
    country only if it abandoned its Ottoman past.

    Now, though, this need to distance themselves from their history has
    passed, and the Turks are once again connecting with their Ottoman
    heritage. Many Turks no longer seem content with an inward-looking
    state of mind. Rather, buoyed by record-breaking economic growth over
    the past decade and at the same time finding Kemalism's century-old
    thinking to be tiring, the Turks are, once again, feeling imperial.

    The Turks' excited embrace of their Ottoman heritage was most recently
    demonstrated by the millions of people who flocked to the movie
    theaters to see `1453,' though this is not a pure `return to the
    past.' Rather, the rising Ottomania is laden with contemporary
    accretions, such as consumerism and political neo-Ottomanism.

    Resurgent Ottomania is especially obvious in Ä°stanbul, the former
    capital of the Ottoman Empire. Once upon a time, Ä°stanbul was a
    bustling metropolis at the empire's heart. It was an Ottoman Babylon
    of sorts, with a multitude of languages and religions, a city which
    Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk vividly describes in his novel `White
    Castle.' However, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the
    imperial Ä°stanbul of long ago has vanished, giving way to an
    increasingly homogenous city.

    Lately, though, Ä°stanbul is rekindling its imperial character, and the
    city's cosmopolitanism is making a comeback. This is due to a variety
    of factors, from the collapse of the Iron Curtain, which has linked
    the city to its traditional Eastern European hinterland, to Turkey's
    booming economy.

    Economic growth is the key. In the past decade, the Turkish economy
    has nearly tripled in size, experiencing the longest spurt of
    prosperity in modern Turkish history. The Turkish Sabah daily wrote
    that in 2011 alone, another 9,755 millionaires joined the country's
    wealthy elite. With 38 billionaires, Turkey already boasts more
    über-wealthy citizens today than Japan, Canada or Italy.

    As is the case elsewhere, the city's new rich class is buying
    influence through the arts, bringing top-notch exhibits to Ä°stanbul.
    Accordingly, Ä°stanbul is recovering from its 20th century provincial
    cultural stasis, and its residents are rediscovering and embracing the
    cosmopolitan Ottoman feeling of the olden days. In February alone, the
    city hosted three select exhibits, which brought Rembrandt, Van Gogh
    and Dali to the shores of the Bosporus. The former Ottoman armory
    grounds hosted Dali's works under oriental domes, while Van Gogh's
    paintings found their home in a warehouse along the city's historic
    port.

    Another show introduced İstanbulites to Nazmi Ziya Güran, one of the
    few Ottoman impressionists who blended Ottoman art with French
    techniques in the late 19th century. The exhibit, housed at Kadir Has
    University -- whose campus is, poignantly, a converted 19th-century
    cigarette factory -- allowed İstanbulites to experience fin-de-siècle
    Ottoman impressionism first hand.

    Indeed, the Ottoman Empire and its capital, Ä°stanbul, have always
    embraced cultural and temporal crossings. When Osman I, founder of the
    Ottoman principality, died in the early 14th century, his son and
    successor, Orhan, had him buried in an Eastern Orthodox monastery in
    Bursa, the first capital city of the Ottomans. With this act of
    brilliant statecraft, Orhan kicked off a multi-religious vision for
    the emerging Ottoman Empire. He paved the way for the integration of
    the Christian and Jewish populations of the withering Byzantine Empire
    into his state, catapulting the Ottomans to empiredom, thus
    transforming Ä°stanbul into a cosmopolitan metropolis.

    In due course, the Ottoman Empire expanded into Europe, thus
    incorporating numerous Eastern European nationals, from Greeks to
    Poles to Hungarians. As the empire became multiethnic, so did its
    capital. By the 16th century, Ä°stanbul, with over a million
    inhabitants, was the largest city in the world. It also boasted a
    multilingual and multi-religious population, including Venetians,
    Germans, Spanish Jews and Armenians, as well as Ottoman Turks.

    After the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the 19th century, modern Turkey
    was born of its ashes. Led by Atatürk, Turkey became a new state
    dominated by an elite who sought to sever all ties with their Ottoman
    past. Multiculturalism swiftly ended; Italians, Russians, Greeks and
    Armenians left the city, and Ä°stanbul became almost entirely Muslim
    and Turkish. The city's imperial luster seemed to be lost forever.

    Lately, however, this trend of homogenization has been reversed.
    Instead, Ä°stanbul's multi-religious and multiethnic nature is getting
    a fresh infusion. Again, economic growth has been the key: In the
    third quarter of 2011 alone, the Turkish economy grew by a record 8.2
    percent, outpacing not only the country's neighbors, but also all of
    Europe. Turkey is the only growing and stable country in its region.
    Hence, many Eastern Europeans, such as Romanians, Moldovans and
    Russians, are returning to the city, looking for trade and jobs.
    Azerbaijani, Ukrainian and Kazakh billionaires are coming to Ä°stanbul
    to find a safe haven for the wealth they have amassed in the energy
    and metals trades.

    Initially attracted by the international trade and finance
    opportunities Ä°stanbul offered, Western Europeans, too, returned. Some
    of them eventually settled down and intermarried with the Turks, a
    convergence reminiscent of the economic boom years that graced the
    Ottoman Empire.

    Even Armenians are coming back, thanks to economic growth. Since the
    collapse of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Armenian citizens
    have arrived in Ä°stanbul in search of jobs. This influx has been so
    significant that Armenians now outnumber the city's 60,000-strong
    Turkish Armenian community. Responding to the influx, Ankara recently
    expanded its laws to allow the children of undocumented Armenian
    immigrants access to the Turkish school system. The return of
    Armenians `has reached a meaningful point,' says Aram AteÅ?yan, acting
    patriarch of the Armenian Church in Turkey.

    The Greeks are coming back, too. The financial crisis in Greece has
    started a mass migration of professionals to `Constantinople,'
    including academics, doctors and teachers. Take Georgia Kapoutsi, for
    instance, a 29-year-old English teacher from Athens who recently moved
    to Ä°stanbul to `learn, work and live.' `Wealthier Greeks are returning
    to the city for its quality of life and to escape Greece's chaos,' she
    notes. Ä°stanbul's trendy Cihangir and BeyoÄ?lu neighborhoods are
    brimming with wealthy Athenians who fill the district's humming
    bistros and vintage stores.

    Ä°stanbul's re-emerging cosmopolitan identity has even surpassed that
    of the original Ottoman realm. Take, for instance, the Filipinos, who
    are coming to Ä°stanbul as babysitters, and the Chinese, who have built
    the city's first Chinatown in downtown Taksim. Taner Akpınar, a
    Turkish specialist in labor economics, points out that `due to free
    labor movements ¦ Ä°stanbul has been a haven for immigrants from the
    Asian countries.' For instance, whereas only a decade ago, Central
    Anatolian Turks and Kurds from Eastern Turkey provided domestic help
    in upper class households, now rich Ä°stanbulites are increasingly
    hiring East Asians, looking beyond traditional Ottoman realms. Indeed,
    Ä°stanbul is opening to a whole new world.

    Subsequently, new trends have recently emerged that help restore
    Ä°stanbul's imperial identity on the one hand, while challenging
    Kemalism's nation-state ethos on the other.

    One of these trends is Ottoman Islamic consumerism. This trend, which
    envisions the Ottomans as a religious civilization, is a type of
    Ottoman revivalism that is increasingly being adopted by some of
    Turkey's newly moneyed conservative elite. Å?afak Cak, an
    Ä°stanbul-based designer, says Islamic consumerism `explains why some
    people are busy designing mansions with specially arranged praying
    rooms and Swarovski-covered toilet seats.'

    Consumerist and conservative Ottoman revivalism is not just limited to
    interior design, though. Turkey now has a number of `Islamic' summer
    resorts, with baroque Ottoman architecture, state of the art services,
    and separate facilities for men and women.

    The rise of Ottoman revivalism is Kemalism's demise in reverse. For
    decades, visitors to Turkey were treated to Atatürk mania -- statues
    and portraits of Turkey's founder, Kemal Atatürk. Such depictions were
    sprinkled across the country, from airports and schools to hotels and
    homes. Now, medieval Ottoman calligraphy, indecipherable to many Turks
    but undoubtedly Islamic in character, is replacing Atatürk mania.
    Ottoman Islamic consumerism sells a simple message: Never mind who the
    Ottomans really were, just buy their symbols.

    A second and perhaps deeper trend is neo-Ottomanism, which overlays
    the Ottoman legacy with modern day political sensitivities. Just as
    the sudden spread of middle-class prosperity in 1950s United States
    instilled a can-do attitude in Americans, the same is now happening in
    Turkey. A young cab driver we spoke with in Ä°stanbul said, `Europe is
    too small an arena for Turkey; we need to be a global player.'

    Accordingly, in the past decade, Turkey's Justice and Development
    Party (AKP) government has pursued a foreign policy that transcends
    the country's 20th century Europeanizing vocation. Buoyed by economic
    dynamism, political stability (the AKP has already run Turkey longer
    than any other party since it became a democracy in 1946) and a new
    supra-European vision, the Turks are again embracing their Ottoman
    past, though with a modern, power politics twist.

    Subsequently, neo-Ottomanism is becoming the political lens through
    which many Turks view world politics. `The Conquest 1453' best
    exemplifies this trend. Armed with plenty of artistic license,
    including an imaginary Turkish female chief engineer whose skills help
    the Ottomans breech the walls of Constantinople, the movie casts
    Ottomans and contemporary Turks as a superior but tolerant people,
    enjoying their global power status.

    After two hours of fighting between medieval Turks and Greeks, `1453,'
    nevertheless, ends with a contemporary, albeit neo-Ottomanist,
    political message. Having just conquered Ä°stanbul from the Greeks,
    victorious Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II marches into the Aya Sofya, hugs a
    little Christian girl, and promises a grand message of `a world of
    Muslim-Christian coexistence, to be managed by the Turks.' The French
    paper Le Figaro also sees the film as confirming the rise of political
    Ottomanism, saying, `The huge enthusiasm for this epic [film] is an
    indication of the wave of Ottomania that has affected Turkey in recent
    times.'

    A third and alternative trend that enshrines Turkey's imperial past is
    cosmopolitan Ottomanism, reminiscent of Sultan Orhan's vision. Deeply
    rooted in a nostalgia for the Ottoman era, this vision calls for the
    city's inhabitants to cherish Ä°stanbulite cosmopolitanism.

    The rise of cosmopolitan Ottomanism can best be observed in
    Karaköy-Galata, the city's Ottoman-era financial center.
    Karaköy-Galata, which became dilapidated with shabby shops and parts
    suppliers in the 20th century, is now being gentrified. The area's
    recent revival can be traced back to the opening of the Ä°stanbul
    Modern Museum in 2004. Overlooking the Bosporus and the Golden Horn
    and housed in a converted customs warehouse, this is Ä°stanbul's answer
    to New York's Museum of Modern Art. A welcome addition to the city's
    contemporary art scene, the museum has 8,000 square meters of
    exhibition space, and its permanent collection is filled with a
    selection of modern Turkish art. Ä°stanbul Modern, which also hosts the
    Ä°stanbul Biennial, the biannual contemporary art exhibition, calls
    forth the city's past cosmopolitan charms.

    Furthermore, most of the Ä°stanbul-based Turkish universities and think
    tanks have opened research centers in Karaköy-Galata, thus taking
    advantage of the grandeur of Ottoman-era financial houses, especially
    the Ottoman Imperial Bank building designed by French-Ottoman
    Levantine architect Alexandre Vallaury.

    The Ottoman Imperial Bank building now houses SALT Galata, a private
    organization that promotes research in visual and material culture
    with an open archive of print and digital resources. SALT Galata also
    holds a 219-capacity auditorium, the Ottoman Imperial Bank Museum,
    workshop spaces, a bookstore, a temporary exhibition space and a café,
    Ca d'Oro Restaurant (named after the Venetian Palace overlooking the
    Grand Canal, the Casa D'Oro) fitting the café's paysage over the
    Golden Horn.

    Soon after its opening, SALT became a hub for contemporary art,
    including an exhibit titled `Scramble for the Past,' which explores
    the historiography of archaeology under the Ottoman domain. The
    exhibit affirms Ä°stanbul's re-emerging cosmopolitan identity as a
    blend of East and West and narrates archaeology not as a Western
    imposition upon the East, but rather as a process that emerged out of
    the interaction between Europe and the Ottoman world. This is one way
    to define Ä°stanbul: a bit of Europe and a bit of the East.

    In the past decade, Ä°stanbul has emerged as the wealthiest town
    between Frankfurt and Mumbai, restoring its reputation as a global
    city of political power. At the same time, Turkey has outgrown
    Atatürk's Europeanizing vocation, instead choosing to embrace its
    Ottoman past. Accordingly, while Ä°stanbul rediscovers its true
    cosmopolitan self, it will also emerge as a hub of consumerism and
    neo-Ottoman political power.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------

    *Suna Ã?aÄ?aptay is an assistant professor of architectural history and
    archaeology at BahçeÅ?ehir University, Ä°stanbul, where she focuses on
    the medieval Mediterranean world. Soner Ã?aÄ?aptay is a senior fellow
    and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington
    Institute for Near East Policy.

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