Midnight at the Pera Palace_The Birth of Modern Istanbul

by Charles King

  137A musical matinee was available: See the advertisement in Le Courier de Turquie, Apr. 1, 1919. Boxing matches were staged: Adil, Gardenbar Geceleri, 25–27. Boutnikoff’s Symphony Orchestra: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 141. “Artists cannot live in Russia”: Quoted in Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 143. At the Garden Bar, the memoirist Ziya Bey reported: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 152.

  138The whole neighborhood was like the slums: Gritchenko, Deux ans à Constantinople, 278–79. Princesses of the imperial household: Musbah Haidar, Arabesque, 98–100. “At Petit Champs [sic] you could watch”: Dunn, World Alive, 287.

  140Known by a variety of names: See Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 143; Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 159; Orient News, July 13, July 18, and July 29, 1919. For biographical details on Thomas, I am indebted to Vladimir Alexandrov’s painstaking research in his biography The Black Russian. In the middle of the 1920s: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 143. “Never before were Pera and Galata”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 154. “[T]he only thing which this international crowd”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 154. When a group of American tourists: Farson, Way of a Transgressor, 470.

  141Other clubs were popping up: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 140. “The post-war world was jazzing”: W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez, “Life is Less Hectic in Constantinople,” New York Times, July 8. 1928. It was all a sad affair: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 144. A mysterious group: Adil, Gardenbar Geceleri, 20–23.

  142Maxim’s dancing instructors: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 143–44. In 1926, municipal authorities issued: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Nov. 7–20, 1926, p. 9, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 75. On the “Charleston debate” in Istanbul, see Woodall, “Sensing the City,” chapter 4. “They changed the shape”: Urgan, Bir Dinozorun Anıları, 155. According to the seventeenth-century traveler: DBIA, 5:434. Anyone “who can fry three stinky fish”: “Meyhaneler Çoalıyor,” Cumhuriyet, Jan. 12, 1939.

  143“My foot takes no step”: Evliya Çelebi, An Ottoman Traveller, 20–21.

  144About eight percent: Shaw, “Population of Istanbul,” 269. Given the need for food: For two examples of memoirs that discuss local foodways, in this case in the Beikta and Balat neighborhoods, see Mintzuri, stanbul Anıları, and Shaul, From Balat to Bat Yam. “Narcotic stimulants such as Indian hemp”: Balkanstaaten und Konstantinopel, 222.

  145Turkey was not a signatory: Russell, Egyptian Service, 239–40. The white powder was so easily concealable: Woodall, “Sensing the City,” 67–79.

  146“[D]elete forever that misunderstood word”: Ellison, An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem, 17. “All that I have known”: Goodrich-Freer, Things Seen in Constantinople, 19.

  147In the late 1920s, as many as fifty: “Review of the Turkish Press,” June 28–July 11, 1928, p. 17, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 76. One of Sultan Abdülhamid II’s eunuchs: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 122. Even Mustafa Kemal: Mango, Atatürk, 441. As part of the empire’s modernizing reforms: See Wyers, “Wicked” Istanbul. I thank Wyers for my understanding of changes to Istanbul’s sex trade from the Ottoman era through the early republican period. One story—apparently true: Duke, Passport to Paris, 71.

  148At the YMCA: Commanding Officer to Senior US Naval Officer, Turkey, Feb. 9, 1919, Bristol Papers, LC, Box 1, File “February 1919.” Venereal disease was “rampant”: “British Forces in Turkey, Commander-in-Chief’s Despatch, Period 1920–1923,” p. 8, NAUK, CAB 44/38; and Harington to High Commissariat for Refugees, League of Nations, July 14, 1923, p. 2, NAUK, FO 286/800. A contemporary survey revealed: Johnson, ed., Constantinople To-Day, 356–57. In another survey, police counted: Quoted in Bali, Jews and Prostitution, 27.

  149The majority of both proprietors and prostitutes: Johnson, ed., Constantinople To-Day, 356–57. A two-week snapshot: Medical Officer to Senior US Naval Officer Present in Turkey, Feb. 25, 1919, Bristol Papers, LC, Box 1, File “February 1919.” Fortunately, there was a surfeit: See the advertisements in Le Journal d’Orient, May 24, May 25, June 1, June 7, 1919. Since the bar run by the sometime madame: Dunn, World Alive, 288, 420.

  150“Intoxicated sailors rock from side to side”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 151–52. Even under the Ottomans, “white slavers”: Bali, Jews and Prostitution, 58–62.

  151The writer Fikret Adil dated the decline: Adil, Gardenbar Geceleri, 31–32. “Most of the people in our country”: Quoted in Wyers, “Wicked” Istanbul, 137.

  “THE PAST IS A WOUND IN MY HEART”

  155The first automobile: Çelik, Remaking of Istanbul, 103. “At Pera, where I live”: Bibesco, Eight Paradises, 225–27.

  156“They exasperate and deafen”: “The Street Hogs,” Orient News, June 19, 1919. Especially popular during Ramadan: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 28. “There are a lot of ‘movie’ shows”: Fox-Pitt to mother, Oct. 14, 1922, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. Istanbullus could see French: “‘Glorya’ Açıldı,” Cumhuriyet, Nov. 7, 1930.

  157By the beginning of that decade: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 34–43. For the first time, Istanbullus: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 21. Tickets were reasonably expensive: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 44.

  158A detailed survey of first-run films: The report, by Eugene M. Hinkle, is reproduced in Bali, Turkish Cinema. The percentages are on p. 76. A widely reported legal case: Grew to Secretary of State, Mar. 28 and Apr. 19, 1928, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 50.

  159After painstaking research: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 81. Greta Garbo and Betty Blythe: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 66. When Josephine Baker made a short personal appearance: “Jozefin Beyker,” Cumhuriyet, Jan. 20, 1934; and “Jozefin Beykerle Mülakat,” Cumhuriyet, Jan. 20, 1934.

  160The same report: Bali, Turkish Cinema, 81. “For a city of its size”: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, p. 2, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 49. By the early 1920s, they could be had: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923. Throughout the decade, importers brought: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, p. 8. Barely had a dance tune: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, p. 3.

  162But in the early Turkish Republic: I am grateful to Harold Hagopian for his insights into the music of the period, as well as the liner notes to his rereleases of the music of these performers on his Traditional Crossroads label.

  164“My soul, that’s enough now”: Eskenazi’s version of “Gazel Nihavent” is available on the album Rembetika: Ak, Gurbet, Hapis, ve Tekke arkıları (Kalan Müzik, 2007).

  166In 1933, when the Austrian writer Franz Werfel: “stanbul Ermenilerinin F. Werfele mukabelesi,” Cumhuriyet, Dec. 16, 1935.

  171The company’s local affiliate: Akçura, Gramofon Çaı, 29–30.

  172During the Allied occupation, it was reasonably safe: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, p. 4. “The [manufacturing] process is a secret one”: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, p. 4. There the firm re-created: See the family’s historical timeline at www.zildjian.com.

  173The Erlegün brothers were too young: On the life and career of Ahmet Ertegün, see Greenfield, The Last Sultan.

  175“[A] younger generation that knew not Thomas”: Tinckom-Fernandez, “Life is Less Hectic.”

  MODERN TIMES

  179Never before had all Istanbullus: Sperco, L’Orient qui s’éteint, 131–32. As the Guide Bleu explained: De Paris à Constantinople, 185.

  181Little boys threw rocks: Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family, 223. Since the regulation did not affect: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Dec. 19, 1926–Jan. 1, 1927, p. 17, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 75. The same year, drinking liquor: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Aug. 15–28, 1926, p. 24, and Dec. 19, 1926–Jan. 1, 1927, p. 15, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 75.

  184As a diplomatic observer noted: Henderson to Vansittart, Oct. 31, 1923, NAUK, FO 794/10, ff. 5–6.

  185Close to seven hundred: Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 253. The reevaluation of the early Kemalist period is now a major theme among historians of Turkey. The leading figure in this reassessment has been Erik J. Zürch
er, whose works are cited in the bibliography. Small demonstrations or individual acts: On the elevation of small affairs into major events, see the corrective in Brockett, “Collective Action.” Communal violence that fell short: Guttstadt, Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust, 61–70; see also Bali, 1934 Trakya Olayları.

  186Still, eighteen armed uprisings: Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 251. Even then, the turbaned pious: Ostrorog, Angora Reform, 74.

  189Five of the other largest mosques: “6 Camide Türkçe Kur’an,” Cumhuriyet, Jan. 29, 1932; and “Türkçe Kur’anla Mukabele,” Cumhuriyet, Jan. 30, 1932. On the Night of Power: “70 Bin Kiinin tirak Ettii Dini Merasim,” Cumhuriyet, Feb. 4, 1932. In the new republic, even God: The ban on the Arabic-language call to prayer, although irregularly enforced, continued until 1950. See Azak, “Secularism in Turkey.” He arrived for the first time: Mango, Atatürk, 460–61.

  192The Turkish Republic, by contrast: Pallis, “Population of Turkey,” 441. “I awoke . . . to an oppressive silence”: Richardson to Grew, Oct. 29, 1927, p. 1, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 57. At precisely 10:15 p.m.: Grew to Secretary of State, Nov. 8, 1927, pp. 1–2, with the attached “Communiqué of the Stamboul Vilayet Indicating the Manner in which the Census Shall Take Place on Friday, October 28, 1927;” and Richardson to Grew, Oct. 29, 1927, all at NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 57.

  193Previous estimates had put Turkey’s population: Pallis, “Population of Turkey,” 440–41. The city was smaller than it had been: evket Pamuk, “Economic Change in Twentieth-Century Turkey: Is the Glass More than Half Full?” in Kasaba, ed., Cambridge History of Turkey, 275. Only two cities had more than a hundred thousand: Türkiye statistik Yıllıı: 1950, 41. As the newspaper Milliyet: Grew to Secretary of State, Nov. 8, 1927, p. 5.

  194In greater Istanbul, the census counted: Shaw, Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, 287.

  195Prost’s plan called for cutting highways: For details, see Gül, Emergence of Modern Istanbul, 98–106; F. Cânâ Bilsel, “Henri Prost’s Planning Works in Istanbul (1936–1951): Transforming the Structure of a City through Master Plans and Urban Operations,” and idem, “European Side of Istanbul Master Plan, 1937,” both in mparatorluk Bakentinden, 101–65, 245–76.

  196When John Dos Passos went to a cabaret: Dos Passos, Orient Express, in Travel Books and Other Writings, 136. Prost probably would have cringed: It was no small irony that the salvation of Gezi Park, which was slated to be replaced by a reconstruction of the old barracks, became the inspiration for widespread antigovernment demonstrations in the summer of 2013. The Turkish government insisted its plan to remodel the park was in fact about historic restoration, reaching back beyond Prost to an authentic Ottoman past. The public saw it as rampant destruction.

  197“Presenting the Turkish nation”: Quoted in “Review of the Turkish Press,” Mar. 7–20, 1929, p. 23, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 77.

  BEYOND THE VEIL

  201“The shape of social life changed”: Urgan, Bir Dinozorun Anıları, 155. Unlike the fez for men: Mango, Atatürk, 434–35. Window screens: “Kafesler Kaldırılacak,” Cumhuriyet, Nov. 5, 1930.

  202The types and sizes of veils: Ekrem, Everyday Life in Istanbul, 98. Public harassment was made: “Kadınlara Laf Atanlar Derhal Tevkif Edilecek,” Cumhuriyet, Sept. 10, 1929. Four years later, the franchise: Ayten Sezer, “Türkiye’deki lk Kadın Milletvekilleri ve Meclis’teki Çalımaları,” unpublished paper, Hacettepe University, available at www.ait.hacettepe.edu.tr/akademik/arsiv/kadin.htm#_ftn21. The first Muslim female lawyer: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Nov. 29–Dec. 12, 1928, p. 23, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 77. The first surgeon . . . first pharmacist: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Mar. 5–18, 1931, p. 9, NARA, RG59, M1224, Reel 20; and “Review of the Turkish Press,” Apr. 16–29, 1931, p. 9, NARA, RG59, M1224, Reel 20. The first wrestler: “Digest of the Turkish Press,” Aug. 21–Sept. 24, 1932, p. 20, NARA, RG59, M1224, Reel 21.

  203The first female tramway conductors: “Tramvaylarda Kadın Biletçiler e Baladı,” Cumhuriyet, Apr. 16, 1941. Even in the last days of the sultans: See Duben and Behar, Istanbul Households, chapters 5 and 6. By 1920, more than a third: Yavuz Köse, “Vertical Bazaars of Modernity: Western Department Stores and Their Staff in Istanbul (1889–1921),” in Atabaki and Brockett, eds., Ottoman and Republican Turkish Labour History, 102. Tramcars accommodated both genders: “Constantinople,” p. 37, Shalikashvili Papers, HIA.

  204Mass rallies in 1919 and 1920: Yeim Arat, “Contestation and Collaboration: Women’s Struggles for Empowerment in Turkey,” in Kasaba, ed., Cambridge History of Turkey, 391. By the time of the 1927 census: Shorter, “Population of Turkey,” 431, 433fn. “The duty of Turkish Women’s Societies”: Quoted in Crosby to Secretary of State, July 18, 1927, p. 4, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 22.

  206She remained one of the principle expounders: On Afet nan, see Yeim Arat, “Nation Building and Feminism in Early Republican Turkey,” in Kerslake, Öktem, and Robins, eds., Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity, 38–51. The family mansion, covered in wisteria: Edib, Memoirs, 3.

  207Flouting Ottoman fashion: Edib, Memoirs, 23. She was slight and frail: Woods, Spunyarn, 2:66. Once she was old enough to begin: Edib, Memoirs, 149.

  208“No little Circassian slave”: Edib, Memoirs, 206.

  209“I became a writer”: Edib, Memoirs, 260. It was the first time in her life: Edib, Memoirs, 275.

  210He was short and round: Edib, Memoirs, 217. “I felt stupefied”: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 3. Small and pale: Biographical sketch of Adnan Bey in Dolbeare to Secretary of State, Jan. 3, 1923, p. 1, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 21.

  211In 1919, Halide later recalled: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 23. That summer, she was invited: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 31. “Brethren and sons, listen to me”: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 33fn.

  212Mustafa Kemal met her: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 127. “I feasted my eyes on the sea”: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 381.

  213It had been two years: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 404. “Dr. Adnan Bey is one of the leaders”: Dolbeare to Secretary of State, Jan. 3, 1923, p. 1. “I have seen, I have gone through”: Edib, Memoirs, 275–76.

  214“There will be only the sum total”: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 407.

  215History and culture, she said, had formed the Turks: Edib, Turkey Faces West, 209–10.

  216“It is after I have loved my own people”: Edib, Memoirs, 326. “Women,” she was fond of saying: Edib, Conflict of East and West in Turkey, 235.

  LIVING LIKE A SQUIRREL

  219“Girl,” she said: Hikmet, Human Landscapes, 72.

  221As a diplomatic report noted in 1930: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Mar. 19–Apr. 16, 1930, p. 16, NARA, RG59, M1224, Reel 20. He was born perhaps in 1902: I have relied on two important studies—Blasing, Nâzım Hikmet, and Göksu and Timms, Romantic Communist—for biographical details.

  223Relations between Mustafa Kemal’s nationalists and the Bolsheviks: Bristol to Secretary of State, Aug. 22, 1921, NARA, RG59, M340, Reel 7. With so many penniless Russian-speakers: Dunn, World Alive, 288. Allied police even detained Russians: N. N. Chebyshev, “Blizkaia Dal’,” in Konstantinopol’-Gallipoli, 142–43. According to American intelligence sources: Bristol to Secretary of State, July 21, 1926, p. 3, NARA, RG59, M340, Reel 8.

  224They eventually took for granted: See Hirst, “Anti-Westernism,” for a discussion of the interactions between the two systems in this period.

  225A Turkish Communist Party was established: Mango, Atatürk, 293.

  226Right-wing Unionists were blamed: Mango, Atatürk, 303–4. In Moscow he read Marx: Blasing, Nâzım Hikmet, 18.

  227He may have invented: Blasing, Nâzım Hikmet, 52. He was arrested and imprisoned at the border: Blasing, Nâzım Hikmet, 78.

  229The record sold out: Blasing, Nâzım Hikmet, 93.

  231“Living is no laughing matter”: “On Living,” in Hikmet, Poems of Nâzim Hikmet, 132. “You are a field”: “You,” in Hikmet, Poems of Nazim Hikmet, 155.

  232“Some people know all
about plants”: “Autobiography,” in Hikmet, Poems of Nazim Hikmet, 259. He blew in on a winter gale: Trotsky, My Life, 547.

  ISLAND LIFE

  235“Dear Sir”: Trotsky, My Life, 565–66. It was one of the coldest winters: “Review of the Turkish Press,” Feb. 21–Mar. 6, 1929, p. 21, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 77; “Dün Kar Tipisi ehrin Umumi Hayatını Durdurdu,” Cumhuriyet, Feb. 3, 1929; “Fırtına stanbulu Kastı Kavurdu!” Cumhuriyet, Feb. 4, 1929; “Kar Afeti Bugün De Devam Edecek,” Cumhuriyet, Feb. 5, 1929. Trotsky and his wife: Trotsky, My Life, 566.

  236On Stalin’s orders: The main Soviet security service was known by a succession of names, from the Cheka, or Emergency Commission, to the KGB, or State Security Committee. The service carried the name OGPU, or Unified State Political Administration, throughout much of the 1920s and early 1930s. Yakov Minsky: Agabekov, OGPU, 225–26.

  237He had no desire to stay: “Troçki Anlatıyor,” Cumhuriyet, Mar. 20, 1929. Minsky, the Soviet secret police agent: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 45. Exasperated, Minsky finally booted: Agabekov, OGPU, 226. After another move: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 6.

  238For years afterward: Neave, Twenty-Six Years on the Bosphorus, 271.

  239“The waves of the Sea of Marmara”: Serge and Trotsky, Life and Death of Leon Trotsky, 164. A fire, probably caused: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 25. Trotsky reportedly sued: “Troçki’nin Ziyanı,” Cumhuriyet, Mar. 22, 1931. The family was once again: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 6–7. He routinely carried: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 18. Like a crotchety old man: Author’s interview with Fıstık Ahmet Tanrıverdi, Büyükada, Aug. 16, 2012. Trotsky hired local guards: Tanrıverdi interview. When he happened to find: Van Heijenoort, With Trotsky in Exile, 20.