ISTANBUL: A TALE OF THREE CITIES

Nonfiction
Not Constantinople

ISTANBUL:
A Tale of Three Cities
By Bettany Hughes
800 pp. Da Capo

Reviewed by: David E. Hoekenga, M. D.

Riding across modern Istanbul’s crowded streets in a bus, I was struck by the drifts of purple hyacinths in the medians, tall pink tulips and yellow daffodils along the curbs. “Where did these colorful bulb flowers originate?” Our guide asked in flawless English. “Holland” or the “Netherlands,” several guests piped up brightly. “No,” Ruslan answered with pride after a pause. “They all came from the mountains of Turkey.”

As we drove around the modern city of Istanbul, we saw part of the three cities—Byzantium, Constantinople (you know the song as well as I do-it’s Istanbul not Constantinople), and of course Istanbul—from the Hagia Sophia to the Blue Mosque to the Topkapi Palace to the Ortakoy Mosque. You travel by motor to understand the layout of much of this town of sixteen million people along the Bosporus, a narrow north south channel of water connecting the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea and more arbitrarily separating Europe from Asia.

From 5500 BCE until nearly 700 CE, the Greeks and Romans built and prospered on the southern part of the Bosporus. While attacked by the Muslims during the lifetime of Mohamed, the walls of the city held. Hughes writes, “As Byzantium was reaching her Golden Age, the natural cliffs and coastal harbours must have witnessed a bustling scene—transoceanic sailors bartering luxury goods and raw materials (spices and incense, perfumed oils, fine dining ware) and locals lapping up the travellers’ tales of exotic lands the merchants and sailors had seen, populated by wild beasts, dark maidens and soldiers of Christ.” In 527, Justinian had a cistern built near Hagia Sofia that held 24 million gallons of water and now contains hundreds of columns lit by an eerie soft yellow light.

By 1453, Istanbul was a Renaissance city. Leonardo da Vinci designed a single-lane bridge to cross from Istanbul to Galata that was never built.

There was a proliferation of fountains and taksim, water systems they noted the created a paradisiacal impression of running water and patches of green—fruit trees in the form of mulberries, fig and pomegranate.

…

Since Muslims who could afford it might take multiple wives…marriage celebrations were downgraded and celebrations of royal circumcisions started to outshine the gaudiest…traditions. The fifty-two-day celebration of one future Caliph was passed away with burning of replicas of fortresses, horses, elephants and other creatures. Fireworks represented churches, unicorns and towns. Dancers and musicians performed on rafts lit by lanterns.

Then from 1550 to 1650, “fresh female meat” was presented to the sultan each year, and favored members of the harem could gain considerable power. “The exacting reality of the harem did little to dampen the external fervor,” Hughes writes. “Sexual fantasists and pseudo-scientists elevated Istanbul’s captive women to legendary status (and)…that the Sultan’s concubines were perfectly white and somehow blessed.”

Then in 1770, twelve Russian gunboats sailed 4,000 miles and destroyed the Ottoman gunships. The Russians consecrated an Orthodox Church in the city and changed the name of Constantinople to Tsargrad, of all things. Pushkin described with “wide-eyed delight the women bathing in the ‘sultry waters’ of the Ottoman baths.”

Finally in 1923, Ataturk established the republic of Turkey, ruling until 1938 and attempting to reform and modernize Turkey. Constantinople became Istanbul.

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The footnotes, references and indices for this book cover one hundred and sixty-two pages. It is a volume useful to an historian, a traveler, a curious reader, or a scholar of Greek, Roman, Muslim or the Middle East. Hughes speculates on the wide ranging importance of this strategic speck of land in history. I’m surprised she doesn’t see it as a Poland of the East, fought over by powerful countries that waxed and waned over the centuries. If you controlled Byzantium, Constantinople, or Istanbul you controlled along with this fascinating and complex metropolis a vast area of the surrounding world.