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Istanbul City of Desire
© by Karen-Claire Voss

How can one convey, in the space of one brief article, a sense of the layers and layers of time, culture, and experience that comprise the magical city of Istanbul? A city that occupies a unique geographical location, with one part in Europe, the other in Asia, Istanbul has been dreaming itself and being dreamed for thousands of years. Myths about the origins of the city abound, and all of them involve either divine or semi-divine origins. In any case, human beings have been living in the area now called Istanbul since prehistoric times. For example, recent archeological evidence has unearthed the remains of a prehistoric settlement in a cave twenty kilometers west of Istanbul. The evidence shows that the cave has been inhabited for 300,000 years, or, since the end of the last Ice Age. This cave was always regarded as a sacred place, a belief that persisted throughout the Byzantine period.

The land here has always been fertile, the shoreline has always afforded safe harbors for sailing vessels, and the waters have always teemed with fish year round. No wonder Istanbul is sometimes called the “City of Desire.” For centuries, people have come here in search of something, and while the object of their quest varied, the one thing that links each of them is their conviction that here, in this mysterious city, they will find their heart’s desire.

hoteles MunichAs for the real name of the city, there have been many. Although it is not well known, historically, in certain official correspondence and poetry, Istanbul has also been known as Darü’l-mülk, Darü’l-islam, Ümmü-d-dünya, Islambol, Der-i devlet, Deraliyye, Darü’l-milk, Darü’hilafe, Dersaadet, and Asitane. During the reign of Constantine, of course, the city became known as Konstantinoupolis, from whence comes Constantinople, the name that many Europeans still use today, but its official name is Istanbul, or, more properly Istanbul, and we know that this name was used as early as the 11th century.

Konstantinoupolis, which was also called the “second Rome” or the “new Rome,” was founded by Constantine towards the end of the Roman Empire, in 330 ce, on the site of a Greek city that had been founded in 680 bce. Until the end of the second century bce, the city was a wealthy place. Income was generated from the tolls that ships paid to pass through the Bosphorus, there was a thriving fishing industry, and the land was a center of agricultural production. Constantine assumed rulership of Istanbul in 325. Although he declared Christianity the official state religion for political reasons, he himself remained faithful to his polytheistic, Roman faith. In 330 ce, the city had all the privileges (and responsibilities) of any Roman state. Later, under the rule of Theodosius II in the fifth century, the city walls were built, walls that visitors to the city can still see today. The city limits stayed inside those walls until the end of the Ottoman period. Another emperor, Justinian, completed the church of Ayasofia between 532 and 553. Environment was a concern even during the Byzantine period. There were actually laws that prohibited anyone from building a structure so high that it prevented their neighbor from seeing the sea.

In the 13th century the city, by then magnificent, was plundered by Crusaders under direction from France. Many of its palaces were destroyed by a fire that broke out during battle. This so-called “Latin invasion,” lasted fifty-seven years, from 1204 to 1261. The rationale for the invasion was to recapture sites that were sacred to Christianity, but the damage inflicted was anything but holy. Although this is not widely known, reliable historical records show that these Christian knights not only plundered and destroyed property throughout the city, but that their pillaging resulted in irreparable damage being done to one of those sacred places, Ayasofia. They also brutally raped and tortured women and even girls.

The Genoese had begun to settle in an area now known as Galata, near the present day center of the city, and slowly, inside the Byzantine city walls, a second city called Galata that was actually ruled by Genoa developed. This city within a city stayed neutral when Mehmet the Conqueror successfully laid siege to Istanbul in 1453. The Genoese even signed a document allowing for their peaceful coexistence with the new conqueror, thereby insuring their prosperous continuance.

When Constantinople was captured, there were almost no people living here, and Mehmet II began a campaign of attracting people from other areas to come and settle in the city. In 1457, Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman Empire and by 1480 the population was somewhere around 70,000,000. During these first years of Turkish rule, many Turks from outside the city came and settled in parts that had been deserted. Thus, an era of construction was ushered in. Great mosques were built, along with a highly advanced plumbing and sewage system; there was running water, and there were public fountains and public baths, called hamams. A great palace was built in Beyazit, followed by Topkapi Palace, the seat of the sultan until the mid 19th century, when Dolmabahçe was built.

The reign of Süyleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) was characterized by the same kind of cultural brilliance that is associated with Renaissance Italy. It was also a period of continuous construction. It was during this era that Mimar Sinan, the great architect, worked. Fountains, palaces, mosques, hospitals and libraries were built, and the entire city was transformed.

Pierre Gilles, a French botanist who was sent to Istanbul by the King of France and lived here between 1544 and 1577, wrote two books based on his research. He wrote: “All the earth’s cities are doomed to perish sooner or later, but as long as mankind remains on earth this city will endure.” A traveler who came to Istanbul in the 16th century would see “hillsides covered with houses and adorned with mosques.” Another 16th century writer (1573) spent some idyllic hours gazing out at the city from Galata hill: “When I behold all this beauty, the extraordinary quality of the hills leaning against the gentle green slopes of the city, it cast such a spell on me that I felt an astonishment amounting to an assumption that I had arrived in a new paradise.” He continued: “The Turks regarded flowers with the love accorded to a sacred object.” “There are so many gardens and cypress trees that when viewed from afar, Istanbul appears to consist of a number of small buildings within a forest. Large palaces can be discerned and it is only the minarets that are outside the framework of each group of buildings.” At this time, there were more than 100 public hamams, 300 mosques, and many, many hospitals.

Indeed, Istanbul was a major cultural center just as was Renaissance Florence. Robert de Dreux, a French chaplain to the French embassy, wrote: “I cannot remember having seen anything so beautiful. There are seven hills in the city on the peninsula, and on the summit of each of these hills, which give the impression of having been created especially for the purpose, there is a large mosque . . . The houses are surrounded with evergreen trees such as cypresses and pines.” Even the poorest house, he said, is comfortable and very clean.

G. Joseph Grelot called Istanbul: “the city of wonders” The Turkish traveler par excellence (c. 1611-c.1680) Evilya Celibi, furnished truly encyclopedic information about Istanbul, but in the 18th century, Lady Montague, the wife of an English ambassador, really caught the spirit of Istanbul. She says, “Palaces, mosques and other public buildings are set out in the well arranged manner of pieces of china and porcelain in a glass-fronted cupboard.” She went to Ayasofia, duly appreciated it, but found mosques “that were even more beautiful” (she was right). She went to a gelen hamam, the special, very elaborate bath that prepares a bride for the marriage bed, and tried whenever possible to correct stereotypical views of Istanbul and of Turks. She even learned some of the language. The 18th century has been referred to as the “Tulip Period,” a time when “good taste and optimism reigned.” It was at this time that picnic areas along the Golden Horn and Kagithane Creek flourished.

The inhabitants at this time certainly tried to live in harmony with nature as much as possible. The wondrous effects of the play of light and shade are mentioned countless times by visitors, as are plants. In 1786, Englishwoman Lady Elizabeth Craven wrote: “The Turks revere the beauty of nature so much that they do not cut down trees in the places where they build their houses. On the contrary, they set aside a place for the tree inside their house and the branches of the tree are considered to be the finishing adornment for the roof.” (2) Von Stummer, an ambassador, described it in 1816 as “a city enthroned on seven hills.” Compte de Forbin said “a city that seems to have been built to give pleasure to the eyes.” About the same time, Alphonse de Lamartine wrote that in Istanbul “one looks at the most beautiful view to be found anywhere on earth, one which was created by the joint efforts of God and man, art and nature.” And in 1820, a French army colonel said that here one could experience: “a dreamlike state that would be induced by partaking lightly of laudanum.” From the beginning of the 19th century, for reasons far too complex to go into here, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. This decline was accompanied by an influx of Western visitors and a taste for all things European. Everything gradually began to be westernized: music, decoration, literature, and fashion, as well as architecture. The city continued to be beautiful, however, and miniatures from the 19th century are renowned for showing just how lovely the city was. An ambassador named Augier Ghislain de Busbeck wrote a book of travels dating from this period in which he said, “It is as if Nature created this place to be the world’s capital. It is impossible to conceive a more beautiful, better laid out city.” Antoine Louise Castellan, a European artist, called Istanbul “a ravishing dream, “ and Gerard de Nervalis called it a “magnificent city,” with “its green and mobile horizons, houses of many hues, lead-covered cupolas and slender minarets.”

Changes continued until the 20th century, when from out of the ruins of the once great, but by then terribly corrupt and oppressive, Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to power. He established the country as a secular Republic (on October 29, 1923), unified the Turkish people, changed the calendar, and replaced the Arabic script with the Latin alphabet. He also declared Ankara the capital.

hotels in CalaisThe implications of this for Turkey were extremely profound, and are well worth studying, but what of Istanbul? In spite of everything, Istanbul has somehow remained the pulsating heart of Turkey. Visitors here who make an effort to see behind and underneath the layers of modernization will be rewarded with experiences not unlike those experienced by the foreigners who came here centuries ago. A shimmering energy continues to enliven this place. The traditions of hospitality, tolerance, and sensual enjoyment persist. Istanbul has a unique quality. Here, one expects to find the extraordinary mixed in with the everyday. Here, you will encounter nuances beyond anything you dreamed existed. You see Istanbul is not only a bridge between two continents, but also a bridge between two levels of being.

Footnotes:

hotel rooms Berlin1. The title for this article, “Istanbul-City of Desire,” was inspired by the title of a beautiful website bearing the name, “Istanbul-The City of the World’s Desire.”