Istanbul Memories Quotes

The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.

Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.

For me it has always been a city of ruins and of end-of-empire melancholy. I’ve spent my life either battling with this melancholy or (like all İstanbullus) making it my own.

And before long, the music, the views rushing past the window, my fathers voice and the narrow cobblestone streets all merged into one, and it seemed to me that while we would never find answers to these fundamental questions, it was good for us to ask them anyway.

Benim için kitap okurken hala önemli olan anlamaktan çok, okuduğum şeye uygun düşler kurmaktır.

It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other.

In the beginning the point was not to have a point, to escape the world in which everyone had to have a job, a desk, an office.

البيت مهم بالنسبة لي لأنه مركز العالم في رأسي أكثر من كونه جمال غرف وأغراض

My fear was not the fear of God but, as in the case of the whole Turkish secular bourgeoisie, fear of the anger of those who believe in God too zealously(...) I experienced the guilt complex as something personal, originated less from the fear of distancing myself from God than from distancing myself from the sense of community shared by the entire city .

Zengin olmak belki de sürekli bir "gibi yapmak" haliydi.(s.188)

Tužna projekcija života za pjesnika je primamljivija od samog života.

After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directly it. As I watched the pencil race across the page, I would look on it in amazement, as if the drawing were the proof of another presence, as if someone else had taken up residence in my body. As I marveled at his work aspiring to become his equal, another part of my brain was busy inspecting the curves of the branches, the placement of mountains, the composition as a whole, reflecting that I had created this scene on a blank piece of paper. My mind was at the tip of my pen, acting before I could think; at the same time it could survey what I had already done. This second line of perception, this ability to analyse my progress, was the pleasure this small artist felt when he looked at the discovery of his courage and freedom. To step outside myself , to know the second person who had taken up residence inside me, was to retrace the dividing line that appeared as my pencil slipped across the paper, like a boy sledding in the snow.

In our household doubts more troubling than these were suffered in silence. The spiritual void I have seen in so many of Istanbul's rich, Westernised, secularist families is evident in these silences. Everyone talks openly about mathematics, success at school, football and having fun, but they grapple with the most basic questions of existence - love,compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred - in trembling confusion and painful solitude. They light a cigarette, give their attention to the music on the radio, return wordlessly to their inner worlds.

...i have in all honesty believed that two people with similar names must have similar characters, that an unfamiliar word - be it Turkish or foreign - must be semantically similar to a word spelt like it, that the soul of a dimpled woman must carry something of the soul of another dimpled woman i knew before, that all fat people are the same, that all poor people belong to a fraternity about which i know nothing, that there must be a link between peas and Brazil - not just because Brazil is Breziliya in Turkish and the word for pea is bezelye but also because the Brazilian flag has, it seems, an enormous pea on it....

Whenever I think of these writers together, I am reminded that what gives a city its special character is not just its topography or its buildings but rather the sum total of every chance encounter, every memory, letter, color, and image jostling in its inhabitants’ crowded memories after they have been living, like me, on the same streets for fifty years.

I've accepted the city into which I was born in the same way I've accepted my body and my gender.

After becoming engaged to my grandfather, and before marrying him, she did something rather brave in Istanbul in 1917—she went out with him to a restaurant.

Çünkü benim gibilerin daha sonra yaşayabileceği ikinci hayat, elindeki kitaptan başka bir şey değildir.

Okul denen yerin aslında temel soruları cevaplamadığını, yalnızca onları hayatın gereği olarak benimsememize yardım ettiğini çıkarmıştım.

My fear, which I shared with everyone in the Turkish secular bourgeoisie, was not of God but of the fury of those who believed in Her too much.

..These exhibitions, and the stories behind them, should also in due course have their own catalogs and novels. As visitors admire the objects and honor the memory of Füsun and Kemal, with due reverence, they will understand that, like the tales of Leyla and Mecnun or Hüsn and Așk, this is not simply a story of lovers, but of the entire realm, that is, of Istanbul.

Why should we expect a city to cure us of our spiritual pains? Perhaps we cannot help loving our city like a family. But we still have to decide which part of the city we love and invent the reasons why.

I amused myself with mental games in which I changed the focus, deceived myself, forgot altogether what had been troubling me or wrapped in a mysterious haze. We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity; veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a tea kettle has been spouting steam on winters day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I trace out words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates, and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawings, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside. But the view itself can bring its own hüzün. The time has come to move towards a better understanding of this feeling that the city of Istanbul carries as its fate.

Like most Istanbul Turks I had little interest in Byzantium as a child. I associated the word with spooky, bearded, black-robed Greek Orthodox priests, with the aqueducts that still ran through the city, with the Hagia Sophia and the red brick walls of old churches. To me, these were remnants of an age so distant there was little need to know about it. Even the Ottomans who conquered Byzantium seemed very far away.

Istanbul was an illusion. A magician’s trick gone wrong. Istanbul was a dream that existed solely in the minds of hashish eaters. In truth, there was no Istanbul. There were multiple Istanbuls – struggling, competing, clashing, each perceiving that, in the end, only one could survive. There was, for instance, an ancient Istanbul designed to be crossed on foot or by boat – the city of itinerant dervishes, fortune-tellers, matchmakers, seafarers, cotton fluffers, rug beaters and porters with wicker baskets on their backs … There was modern Istanbul – an urban sprawl overrun with cars and motorcycles whizzing back and forth, construction trucks laden with building materials for more shopping centres, skyscrapers, industrial sites … Imperial Istanbul versus plebeian Istanbul; global Istanbul versus parochial Istanbul; cosmopolitan Istanbul versus philistine Istanbul; heretical Istanbul versus pious Istanbul; macho Istanbul versus a feminine Istanbul that adopted Aphrodite – goddess of desire and also of strife – as its symbol and protector … Then there was the Istanbul of those who had left long ago, sailing to faraway ports. For them this city would always be a metropolis made of memories, myths and messianic longings, forever elusive like a lover’s face receding in the mist.

Eso que llaman familia cada día que pasaba me parecía más como un grupo de personas que aparentan ser felices acallando por un rato sus demonios interiores para que creer que son amadas y para sentirse tranquilas, cómodas y seguras

The Istanbul in which they lived was a city littered with the ruins of the great fall, but it was their city. If they gave themselves to melancholic poems about loss and destruction, they would, if discovered, find a voice all their own.

My prolonged study of these photographs led me to appreciate the importance of preserving certain moments for prosperity, and as time moved forwards I also came to see what a powerful influence these framed scenes exerted over us as we went about our daily lives. To watch my uncle pose my brother a maths problem, and at the same time to see him in a picture taken thirty-two years earlier; to watch my father scanning the newspaper and trying, with a half-smile, to catch the tail of a joke rippling across the crowded room, and at that very same moment to see a picture of him to me that my grandmother had framed and frozen these memories so that we could weave them into the present.When, in the tones ordinarily preserved for discussing the founding of a nation, my grandmother spoke of my grandfather who had died so young, and pointed at the frames on the tables and the walls, it seemed that she, like me, was pulled in two direction , wanting to get on with life but also longing to capture the moment of perfection, savouring the ordinary life but still honouring the ideal. But even as I pondered these dilemmas-if you plucked a special moment from life and framed it, were you defying death, decay and the passage of time, or were you submitting to them? - I grew very bored with them.

ESAELP GNITTIPS ON This mysterious decree would incite me to defy it and spit on the ground at once, but because the police were stationed two steps away in front of the Governor's Mansion, I'd just stare at it uneasily instead. Now I began to fear that spit would suddenly climb out of my throat and land on the ground without my even willing it. But as I knew, spitting was mostly a habit of grown-ups of the same stock as those brainless, weak-willed, insolent children who were always being punished by my teacher. Yes, we would sometimes see people spitting on the streets, or hawking up phlegm because they had no tissues, but this didn't happen often enough to merit a decree of this severity, even outside the Governor's Manson. Later on, when I read about the Chinese spitting pots and discovered how commonplace spitting was in other parts of the world, I asked myself why they'd gone to such lengths to discourage spitting in Istanbul, where it had never been popular.

I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another—where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. Such places once abounded. Well into the twentieth century there were many cities comprising multiple communities and languages—often mutually antagonistic, occasionally clashing, but somehow coexisting. Sarajevo was one, Alexandria another. Tangiers, Salonica, Odessa, Beirut, and Istanbul all qualified—as did smaller towns like Chernovitz and Uzhhorod. By the standards of American conformism, New York resembles aspects of these lost cosmopolitan cities: that is why I live here.

Until I was ten, I had a very clear image of God; ravaged with age and draped in white scarves, God had the featureless guise of a highly respectable woman. Although She resembled a human being, She had more in common with the phantoms that populated my dreams: not at all like someone I might run into on the street. Because when She appeared before my eyes, She was upside down and turned slightly to one side. The phantoms of my imaginary world faded bashfully into the background as soon as I noticed them, but then so did She; after the sort of elegant rolling shot of the surrounding world that you see in some films and television commercials, Her image would sharpen and She would begin to ascend, fading as She rose to Her rightful place in the clouds. The folds of Her white head scarf were as sharp and elaborate as the ones I’d seen on statues and in the illustrations in history books, and they covered Her body entirely; I couldn’t even see Her arms or legs. Whenever this specter appeared before me, I felt a powerful, sublime, and exalted presence but surprisingly little fear. I don’t remember ever asking for Her help or guidance. I was only too aware that She was not interested in people like me: She cared only for the poor.

Sometimes what-if fantasies are useful. Imagine that the entirety of Western civilisation’s coding for computer systems or prints of all films ever made or all copies of Shakespeare and the Bible and the Qur’an were encrypted and held on one tablet device. And if that tablet was lost, stolen, burnt or corrupted, then our knowledge, use and understanding of that content, those words and ideas, would be gone for ever – only, perhaps, lingering in the minds of a very few men of memory whose job it had been to keep ideas alive. This little thought-experiment can help us to comprehend the totemic power of manuscripts. This is the great weight of responsibility for the past, the present and the future that the manuscripts of Constantinople carried. Much of our global cultural heritage – philosophies, dramas, epic poems – survive only because they were preserved in the city’s libraries and scriptoria. Just as Alexandria and Pergamon too had amassed vast libraries, Constantinople understood that a physical accumulation of knowledge worked as a lode-stone – drawing in respect, talent and sheer awe. These texts contained both the possibilities and the fact of empire and had a quasi-magical status. This was a time when the written word was considered so potent – and so precious – that documents were thought to be objects with spiritual significance. (...) It was in Constantinople that the book review was invented. Scholars seem to have had access to books within a proto-lending-library system, and there were substantial libraries within the city walls. Thanks to Constantinople, we have the oldest complete manuscript of the Iliad, Aeschylus’ dramas Agamemnon and Eumenides, and the works of Sophocles and Pindar. Fascinating scholia in the margins correct and improve: plucking work from the page ‘useful for the reader . . . not just the learned’, as one Byzantine scholar put it. These were texts that were turned into manuals for contemporary living.

Atatürk Bizden Biridir Ne var ki, 10 yıl süren bir savaş sonucunda Anadolu yıkıntıya dönmüş, halkı ve doğal kaynakları sömürülmüş, insanları cahil bıraktırılmıştı. Elbette, bitkin ve yorgun bir ülkede savaşı kazanmış olmak yetmeyecekti, ülkeyi kalkındırmak ve ilerletmek gerekiyordu. Bu, düşmanı savaş alanlarında yenmekten de önemliydi. Üstelik yatırım yapacak para yokken, Osmanlı’nın borçları da ödeniyordu. Bu da yetmezmiş gibi, dünya ekonomik bunalımı çıkageldi. Bunalım, bir şeyler üreterek satmaya çabalayanları da yiyip bitirecekti. İşte bu koşullar altında kıvranan halkının sıkıntılarını doğrudan ondan dinlemek için, Gazi yurt gezisine çıktı. Yol boyunca dura dura, halkı dinleye dinleye 6 Mart 1930 günü Isparta üzerinden Antalya’ya ulaştı. Gazi, kaldığı evin bir odasına Hasan Rıza Soyak’la birlikte çekilerek, kapıyı kapatır ve bir koltuğa yığılır. Çok yorgun ve sinirlidir. Elleri titreyerek sigarasını yakar ve şöyle konuşur: -“Bunalıyorum çocuk, büyük bir acı içinde bunalıyorum. Görüyorsun ya, gittiğimiz her yerde devamlı dert, şikâyet dinliyoruz... Her taraf derin bir yokluk, maddi, manevi bir perişanlık içinde... Ferahlatıcı pek az şeye rastlıyoruz; memleketin hakiki durumu bu işte. Bunda bizim bir günahımız yoktur; uzun yıllar hatta asırlarca dünyanın gidişinden aymaz, birtakım şuursuz idarecilerin elinde kalan bu cennet memleket; düşe düşe şu acınacak hale düşmüş. Memurlarımız henüz istenilen seviyede ve kalitede değil; çoğu görgüsüz, kifayetsiz ve şaşkın... Büyük yeteneklere sahip olan zavallı halkımız ise, kendisine kutsal inanç şeklinde telkin edilen bir sürü temelsiz görüş ve inanışların tesiri altında uyuşmuş, kalmış... Bu arada beni en çok üzen şey nedir bilir misin? Halkımızın aklında kökleştirilmiş olan, her şeyi başta bulunandan beklemek alışkanlığıdır. İşte bu zihniyetle; herkes, her şeyi Allah’tan bekleyiş ve rahatlık içinde, bütün iyilikleri bir şahıstan, yani şimdi benden istiyor, benden bekliyor; ama nihayetinde ben de bir insanım be birader, sihirli bir gücüm yok ki... Yeri geldikçe, her yerde tekrar ediyorum; bütün bu dertlerin, bütün bu ihtiyaçların giderilmesi, her şeyden evvel, pek başka şartlar altında yetişmiş; bilgili, geniş düşünceli, azim, gönlü tok ve uzmanlık sahibi adam meselesidir, sonra da zaman ve imkân meselesidir. Bu itibarla evvelâ kafaları ve vicdanları yıpranmış, geri, uyuşturucu fikir ve inançlardan temizleyeceksin. İşlerin uzmanı, idealist ve enerjik insanlardan kurulu, düzenli, her parçası yerli yerinde, modern bir devlet makinesi kuracaksın; sonra bu makine halkın başında ve halkla beraber durmadan çalışacak, maddi ve manevi her türlü doğal yetenek ve kaynaklarımızı harekete getirecek, işletecek, böylece memleket ileriye, refaha doğru yol alacaktır. İleri milletler seviyesine erişmek işini; bir yılda, beş yılda, hatta bir nesilde tamamlamak da imkânsızdır. Biz şimdi o yol üzerindeyiz; kafileyi hedefe doğru yürütmek için, insan gücünü üstünde, gayret sarf ediyoruz; başka ne yapabiliriz ki?” Gazi, sözlerinin burasında duracaktı, gözleri dolmuştu, elleri titriyordu. Hasan Rıza’ya: -“Kalk, bana bir kahve getirmelerini söyle de, gel...” diyecekti. Hasan Rıza anlamıştı Gazi’nin gözlerinden yaşlar boşandığını kendisinin görmesini istemediğini. O da, kahve söylemek bahanesiyle dışarı çıktığında oyalanacak, hemen dönmeyecekti odaya. Hasan Rıza Soyak, Atatürk’ten Anılar, İstanbul 1973, s. 405–406.

I am speaking of the evenings when the sun sets early, of the fathers under the streetlamps in the back streets returning home carrying plastic bags. Of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted stations in the middle of winter, where sleepy sailors scrub the decks, pail in hand and one eye on the black-and-white television in the distance; of the old booksellers who lurch from one ϧnancial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a customer to appear; of the barbers who complain that men don’t shave as much after an economic crisis; of the children who play ball between the cars on cobblestoned streets; of the covered women who stand at remote bus stops clutching plastic shopping bags and speak to no one as they wait for the bus that never arrives; of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorus villas; of the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men; of the patient pimps striding up and down the city’s greatest square on summer evenings in search of one last drunken tourist; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ship horns booming through the fog; of the wooden buildings whose every board creaked even when they were pashas’ mansions, all the more now that they have become municipal headquarters; of the women peeking through their curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home in the evening; of the old men selling thin religious treatises, prayer beads, and pilgrimage oils in the courtyards of mosques; of the tens of thousands of identical apartment house entrances, their facades discolored by dirt, rust, soot, and dust; of the crowds rushing to catch ferries on winter evenings; of the city walls, ruins since the end of the Byzantine Empire; of the markets that empty in the evenings; of the dervish lodges, the tekkes, that have crumbled; of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, unϩinching under the pelting rain; of the tiny ribbons of smoke rising from the single chimney of a hundred-yearold mansion on the coldest day of the year; of the crowds of men ϧshing from the sides of the Galata Bridge; of the cold reading rooms of libraries; of the street photographers; of the smell of exhaled breath in the movie theaters, once glittering aϱairs with gilded ceilings, now porn cinemas frequented by shamefaced men; of the avenues where you never see a woman alone after sunset; of the crowds gathering around the doors of the state-controlled brothels on one of those hot blustery days when the wind is coming from the south; of the young girls who queue at the doors of establishments selling cut-rate meat; of the holy messages spelled out in lights between the minarets of mosques on holidays that are missing letters where the bulbs have burned out; of the walls covered with frayed and blackened posters; of the tired old dolmuşes, ϧfties Chevrolets that would be museum pieces in any western city but serve here as shared taxis, huϫng and puϫng up the city’s narrow alleys and dirty thoroughfares; of the buses packed with passengers; of the mosques whose lead plates and rain gutters are forever being stolen; of the city cemeteries, which seem like gateways to a second world, and of their cypress trees; of the dim lights that you see of an evening on the boats crossing from Kadıköy to Karaköy; of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same packet of tissues to every passerby; of the clock towers no one ever notices; of the history books in which children read about the victories of the Ottoman Empire and of the beatings these same children receive at home; of the days when everyone has to stay home so the electoral roll can be compiled or the census can be taken; of the days when a sudden curfew is announced to facilitate the search for terrorists and everyone sits at home fearfully awaiting “the oϫcials”; CONTINUED IN SECOND PART OF THE QUOTE

By the end of my first year at the university (1938-39), the history of art professor organized a trip for his students to be sightseeing in Turkey, Greece and Egypt. We were supposed to study especially the Hadjia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, the pyramids in Egypt and the many architectural sights in Greece. The trip was supposed to take place in September, 1939. I had registered for the student trip abroad, in the company of friendly colleagues. As a preparation for the boat crossings, I had a tailor make for me a rain jacket, with a woolen buttoned-in lining. We were supposed to travel by boat from Constan ta, a Black Sea port in Romania. That trip never materialized since World War II broke out on September 1, 1939. The only good that came of these preparations was the jacket, which did me great duty during the war years.

En yakınımda oturan, arada sırada ateş istemek için küçük maşasıyla nargilenin camını tıklatan yaşlı adama yanaştım ve lafa girdim. Arkadaşlarımın Avrupalı olduklarını, şehrimizin eski hikayelerini merak ettiklerini, şehrimizin eski hikayelerini merak ettiklerini, eğer lütfedip anlatırlarsa hepimizi mutlu edeceklerini söyledim. Yaşlı adam uzun uzun yüzüme baktıktan sonra şöyle dedi: "Ne öğrenmek istiyorlar? İstanbul Boğazı'nın nasıl yapıldığını mı, altında kayıklarla gezilen sudan bir şehir olan eski mabedin esrarını mı yoksa köpeklerin hikayesini mi?

As famílias em que nascemos, os países e as cidades a que a loteria da vida nos destina - devemos supostamente amá-los, e no fim das contas de fato os amamos do fundo do coração, mas será que não merecíamos melhor sorte?

Still, the melancholy of this dying culture was all around us. Great as the desire to westernize and modernize may have been, the more desperate wish was probably to be rid of all the bitter memories of the fallen empire, rather as a spurned lover throws away his lost beloved’s clothes, possessions, and photographs. But as nothing, western or local, came to fill the void, the great drive to westernize amounted mostly to the erasure of the past; the effect on culture was reductive and stunting, leading families like mine, otherwise glad of republican progress, to furnish their houses like museums.

لعلني الشخص الأبعد عن الحزن في إسطنبول بسبب الولد السعيد اللعوب في داخلي، ولا أريد الاعتياد على هذا الشعور، ولا أقبله مع إحساسي به في داخلي، وأهرع متأرقًا، وأريد اللجوء إلى “جمال” إسطنبول فقط. لماذا يكون جمال مدينة، وغناها التاريخي، وأسرارها، علاجاً لألمنا النفسي؟ قد يكون حبنا للمدينة لا مناص منه كحبنا لعائلتنا! ولكننا يجب أن نعثر على ما سنحبه فيها، ولماذا؟

أحببت شتاءات اسنطبول دائماً أكثر من أصيافها. كنت أحبُّ الفرجة على المساء الذي يحلُّ باكرًا، والأشجار العارية المرتجف” بتأثير الهواء الشمالي الشرقي، والناسَ العائدين إلى بيوتهم بسرعة في الأزقة شبه المظلمة وهم يرتدون السترات والمعاطف السوداء في الأيام التي تصل الخريف بالشتاء. كانت جدران الأبنية القديمة والدور الخشبية المهدمة، التي يعطيها إهمالها وعدم طلائها لوناً إسطنبوليًّا خاصَّا، تثير فيّ ذائقة فرجةٍ وهمٍّ أستمتع بهما. ألوان الأسود والأبيض أيام الشتاء، والناس العائدين إلى بيوتهم مسرعين إثر المساء الذي يحلُّ مبكرًا، تثير فيّ شعورًا بأنني أنتمي إلى هذه المدينة. وأنني أشارك هؤلاء الأشخاص أشياء ما. كأن ظلام الليل سيغطي على فقر الحياة والشوارع والأشياء. وعندما نتفس جميعنا داخل البيوت وفي الغرف والأسرّة، أشعرُ بأننا سنندمج بالخيالات والأحلام المكونة غنى إسطنبول السابق الذي صار بعيدًا جدًا، ونيتها وأساطيرها المفقودة.

With time, life - like music, art and stories - would rise and fall, eventually to end, but even years later, those lives are with us still in the city views that flow before our eyes, like memories plucked from dreams.

To see the city in black and white is to see it through the tarnish of history: the patina of what is old and faded and no longer matters to the rest of the world. Even the greatest Ottoman architecture has a humble simplicity that suggests an end-of-empire gloom, a pained submission to the diminishing European gaze and to an ancient poverty that must be endured like an incurable disease. It is resignation that nourishes Istanbul’s inward-looking soul.

Still, the melancholy of this dying culture was all around us. Great as the desire to westernize and modernize may have been, the more desperate wish was probably to be rid of all the bitter memories of the fallen empire, rather as a spurned lover throws away his lost beloved's clothes, possessions, and photographs. But as nothing, western or local, came to fill the void, the great drive to westernize amounted mostly to the erasure of the past; the effect on culture was reductive and stunting, leading families like mine, otherwise glad of republican progress, to furnish their houses like museums.

If you know how to swim and manage to find your way up to the surface, you'll notice that for all it's melancholy, the Bosphorus is very beautiful, no less than life.

Losing myself inside my reflections came to be the ''disappearing game'' and perhaps I played it to prepare myself for the thing I dreaded most... I knew or sure that, one day, my mother would disappear too.

It is no more possible to take pride in these neglected dwellings, in which dirt, dust and mud have blended into their surroundings, than it is to rejoice in the beautiful old wooden houses that as a child I watched burn down one by one.

Life can't be all that bad. Whatever happens, I can always take along the Bosphorus.

... to ''discover'' the city's soul in it's ruins, to see these ruins as expressing the city's ''essence'', you must travel down a long, labyrinth path strewn with historical accidents.

... what is important or a painter is not a thing's reality but it's shape, and what is important for a novelist is not the course of events but their ordering, and what is important for a memorist is not the factual accuracy of the account, but it's symmetry.

Here among the old stones and the old wooden houses, history made peace with it's ruins; ruins nourished life, and gave new life to history.

Se spune ca vestitul scriitor francez Victor Hugo obisnuia sa urce de cele mai multe ori la etajul de sus al omnibuzelor cu cai de la Paris, colindand astfel orasul de la un capat la altul si studiind comportamentul concetatenilor sai. Ieri am facut si eu acelasi lucru si am ajuns la concluzia ca foarte multi dintre concetatenii nostri istanbulezi circula pe strazi foarte neglijent, izbindu-se necontenit unii de altii, ca obisnuiesc sa arunce pe jos bilete, cornete de inghetata ori coceni de porumb, ca pietonii circula pe sosele, iar masinile pe trotuare si ca toti locuitorii orasului sunt foarte prost imbracati, nu atat din saracie, cat din lene si ignoranta. Daca vom circula pe strazi ori prin piete respectand regulile de circulatie, la fel ca in Occident, nu asa cum ne trece prin minte ori cum ne vine noua, vom scapa de haosul care domneste in jur. Daca o sa ma intrebati insa cate persoane din acest oras cunosc regulile de circulatie, asta este alta poveste.

Quizá me siento culpable porque no pertenezco por completo a la ciudad. Las tardes de los días de fiesta cuando toda la familia reía después del almuerzo en el piso de mi abuela con la alegría de los licores o la cerveza, o dando vueltas por la ciudad en el coche del padre de alguno de mis amigos ricos del Robert Collage un lluvioso día de otoño, o caminando por las calles las tardes de primavera, se alzaba en mí la idea, no, la idea no, más que una idea, un instinto animal, de que era una persona sin valor, que no pertenecía a ningún sitio, así que me equivocaba, así que debía alejarme de toda esa gente; y al mismo tiempo me provoca un profundo sentimiento de culpabilidad porque rehúyo la sensación de comunidad que me ofrece la ciudad, el ambiente fraternal y solidarios, la mirada que todo lo ve y todo lo perdona de Dios y eso significa quedarme solo

Con cada uno de aquellos amigos me dotaba de una personalidad diferente, de un sentido del humor, una voz y una moralidad distintos. Esa capacidad camaleónica de cambiar según el entorno no era algo que hiciera de forma planeada, retorcida ni cínica. En la mayor parte de las ocasiones, esas personalidades aparecían por sí solas según avanzaba la conversación con los amigos o cuando me dejaba llevar por el entusiasmo de lo que estábamos hablando. Creo que, al contrario de lo que les ha ocurrido a muchos amigos míos, esa habilidad que me permitía ser bueno con el bueno, malo con el malo y raro con el raro con toda facilidad, me protegió de ser cínico y en exceso sarcástico a partir de los 20 años. Todo lo que me interesaba lo creía con absoluta sinceridad con una parte de mi corazón y me absorbía por completo

Cuando me voy de Estambul, a veces pienso que mi deseo de volver lo antes posible a la ciudad se debe a que quiero seguir contando barcos. A veces también creo que, si no los cuento, la ciudad se dejará llevar con mayor rapidez por la sensación de amargura y pérdida que se expande por ella. Quizá la amargura es un destino inevitable para alguien que ha pasado toda su vida en Estambul en los mismos años en que yo he vivido en ella. Pero la determinación de hacer algo para contrarrestar la amargura también es importante para darle un significado de misión al hecho de contemplar perezosamente el Bósforo por la ventana

Pero aquella torpe relación mía con la religión nunca me mantuvo alejado de los temas metafísicos y religiosos. Siempre mantenía en un rincón de mi mente el razonamiento de que si Dios, aunque no pudiera creer en él como a mí me habría gustado, era un ser omnisciente como decían, sería sin duda muy inteligente y entendería por qué yo era incapaz de creer y me perdonaría

Para mí, la esencia de la religión es el sentimiento de culpabilidad

En nuestro edificio nunca vi a nadie de nuestra familia rezando, ni ayunando, ni susurrando oraciones. Desde cierto punto de vista, los míos vivían como asustados burgueses franceses, voluntariamente apartados de la religión pero temerosos de intentar un último ajuste de cuentas con ella

De la misma forma que a mi familia le incomodaba la gente excesivamente pía, a mi me molestaba que Dios se entrometiera entre yo y una mujer que me quería de aquella manera, que siempre me acariciaba y me cogía en brazos a la menor oportunidad, y que me presentaba como “mi nieto” a los extraños que nos encontrábamos por la calle, que me veían muy mono. Con todo, respetaba su decisión de seguir rezando aunque me inquietaba y me daba miedo su devoción hacia un ser ajeno a nosotros. Mi miedo no era temor de Dios, sino, como el de toda la burguesía laica turca, temor a la ira de los que creen demasiado en Dios

Llegué a la conclusión de que el lugar al que llamaban escuela en realidad no respondía a las preguntas verdaderamente importantes, sino que simplemente ayudaba a que las asumiéramos como parte integrante de la realidad de la vida, Por eso, hasta los años de instituto, tuve buen cuidado en levantar el dedo y permanecer en el lado cómo y tranquilo de la línea

Pero su poder sobre mí no procedía de algo exterior, de ser un “centro de poder” ajeno, sino de mi propio deseo de gustar, de ser querido y acariciado. Por eso me resultaba tan interesante el poder que la maestra tenía sobre una clase de 25 personas

Lo primero que aprendí en la escuela fue que había gente que era tonta, y lo segundo que algunos eran más tontos todavía. Como con la edad que tenía aún no me había dado cuenta de que el ignorar una diferencia tan fundamental y determinante en la vida, como también lo son las de religión, raza, sexo, clase, fortuna y cultura, es una muestra de madurez, delicadeza y caballerosidad, cada vez que la maestra preguntaba algo en clase levantaba excitado el dedo para demostrar que me sabía la respuesta correcta

La comprensión del desplome, del hundimiento irreversible de la civilización otomana, les proporcionó a estos autores un punto de vista poético desde el que podían hablar del pasado sin caer en la nostalgia insustancial, el elogio vacuo de la historia o los peligros del nacionalismo o el comunalismo violentos, que sufrieron tantos de sus coetáneos. Estambul, que vivía entre las reliquias ruinosas de la gran pérdida, era su ciudad. Comprendieron que solo podrían encontrar una voz propia si se entregaban a la poesía amarga de la destrucción y la ruina

La violenta confrontación y competencia que inicié con mi hermano por el amor de mi madre ocuparon de sobra el lugar de las magulladuras que hubieran podido provocar en mi alma el autoritarismo, la fuerza y el poder que mi padre no me hacía sentir. Pero por entonces no era capaz de entenderlo como ahora. Porque la competencia con mi hermano, sobre todo al principio, nunca salía a la luz de manera desnuda, sino que siempre se dejaba sentir como parte de un juego y, además, mientras soñábamos que éramos otros dentro de aquel juego. La mayor parte de las veces no nos enfrentábamos como Orhan y Sevket, sino como un futbolista o un héroe con el que yo me identificaba y otro con el que se identificaba él. Era como si, mientras representábamos aquellos personajes reales o imaginarios que luchaban en nuestro lugar y como nos entregábamos por completo a aquellos juegos y riñas que acababan con sangre y lágrimas, se nos olvidara que éramos dos hermanos los que en realidad nos estábamos peleando, hiriéndonos, humillándonos y aplastándonos de puros celos. Tal y como calculó y me contó años después mi hermano, que durante toda su vida tan aficionada fue a las estadísticas de todo tipo de triunfos y a exponer los detalles de la victoria de la parte victoriosa, él ganó el noventa por ciento de nuestras peleas y juegos

Nos acostumbramos a enterarnos del significado de todo lo que vivimos -incluso los placeres más profundos- por otros. Al igual que esos “recuerdos” de la primera infancia de lo que nos hemos apropiado escuchándoselos a los demás hasta que por fin empezamos a pensar que realmente somos nosotros mismo quienes los recordamos obstinándonos en contárselos como tales a cualquiera, lo que opina el resto de la gente sobre todo tipo de cosas que hemos vivido acaba convirtiéndose no solo en lo que pensamos al respecto, sino en un recuerdo más importante aún que la propia experiencia vivida. Y, al igual que ocurre con nuestras vidas, la mayor parte de las veces es por otros por quienes nos enteramos del significado de la ciudad en la que vivimos

Todo el que siente curiosidad por darle un significado a la vida se ha preguntado al menos una vez por el sentido del lugar y el momento en que ha nacido. ¿Qué significa que yo haya nacido en tal fecha en tal rincón del mundo? ¿Han sido una elección justa esta familia, este país y esta ciudad que se nos han otorgado como si nos hubieran tocado en la lotería, que esperan que los amemos y a los que por fin conseguimos amar de todo corazón? A veces me siento desdichado por haber nacido en Estambul, bajo el peso de las cenizas y las ruinas decrépitas de un imperio hundido, en una ciudad que envejece respirando opresión, pobreza y amargura. (Pero una voz interior me dice que en realidad eso ha sido una suerte.) En lo que respecta al dinero, ocasionalmente pienso que he sido afortunado por haber nacido en una familia de posibles. (Aunque también se ha dicho lo contrario.) Pero la mayor parte de las veces, de la misma manera que me he convencido de que no debo quejarme de mi cuerpo (ojalá fuera algo más apuesto y de constitución más robusta) ni de mi sexo (¿sería menor problema la sexualidad si fuera mujer?), comprendo que Estambul, donde nací y donde he pasado toda mi vida, es para mí un destino incuestionable. Este libro es sobre ese destino

Весь город спал, и лишь я один видел этот огромный советский крейсер, направляющийся неведомо куда, чтобы натворить неизвестно каких бед.

the hüzün the boy has carried with him since birth will lead the story into melodrama.

Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness. My imagination, however, requires that I stay in the same city, on the same street, in the same house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul’s fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am.

This book is concerned with fate.

Каждый раз, когда я начинаю рассказывать о красоте Стамбула, Босфора и его темных улиц, некий внутренний голос говорит мне: ты, подобно писателям предыдущих поколений, преувеличиваешь красоту своего города, чтобы скрыть от самого себя изъяны собственной жизни. Если город представляется нам красивым и необыкновенным, значит, и наша жизнь такова. ...я каждый раз думаю, что неповторимым и уникальным город делает не его топография, не здания и не людские представления о нем, возникающие по большей части случайно, а совокупность случайных встреч его обитателей, живущих, как я, пятьдесят лет на одних и тех же улицах, их воспоминаний, слов, цветов и образов, накопленных их памятью. Говоря об источниках стамбульской печали – бедности и чувстве поражения и утраты, возвращаюсь к тому значению, в котором слово «хюзюн» употребляется в Коране. Но печаль для Стамбула – не «болезнь, от которой можно вылечиться» и не «беда, из которой нужно выбраться». Это выбор, сделанный по доброй воле. Печаль не только парализует волю стамбульца, но и даёт ему замечательное оправдание. Большинство из них приобрели капиталы не благодаря уму, способностям или трудолюбию, а в результате счастливого стечения обстоятельств или какого-нибудь мошенничества, о котором им хотелось бы за быть. Они понимали, что ихбудущее зависит не от них самих, а от того, на сколько сохранны будут их сбережения. Находясь в обществе людей, по лучивших, как и они сами, высокое положение в обществе исключительно благодаря деньгам, они чувствовали себя увереннее и спокойнее. Возможно, в этом и было моё счастье — когда любящие меня люди подавляли своих внутренних демонов, и я мог позволить вовсю резвиться своим.

It was all because of the traffic, she would later reassure herself. Rumbling, roaring, metal clanking against metal like the cries of a thousand warriors. The entire city was one giant construction site. Istanbul had grown uncontrollably and kept on expanding - a bloated goldfish, unaware of having gobbled more than it could digest, still searching around for more to eat. Looking back on that fateful afternoon, Peri would conclude that had it not been for the hopeless gridlock, the chain of events that awakened a long-dormant part of her memory would never have been set in motion.

لماذا يجب ان نتوقع من مدينة ان تعالجنا من الامنا الروحية ؟ ربما لأننا لا نستطيع إلا أن نحب مدينتنا مثلما أحببنا عا ئلتنا . ولكن يجب علينا أن نقرراي جزء من المدينة نحبه ولماذا نحبه

هناك كثيرون في اوروبا اصبحو فنانين لأنهم اعتزوا بأنفسهم وكانوا جديرين بالإحترام . إنهم في اوروبا لا يعتبرون الفنان حرفيا أو نشالا ‘ انهم يعاملون الفنانين كأشخاص متميزين . لكن هل تعتقد حقا انك تستطيع ان تكون فنانا في بلد مثل هذا وتظل محتفظا باعتزازك بنفسك؟ أن يتقبلك هنا أناس لا يفهمون عن الفن ‘ وان تجعل هؤلاء الناس يشترون أعمالك ‘ سيكون عليك أن تتملق الدولة والأثرياء ‘ بل والأسوا من كل هؤلاء ‘ الصحفيين انصاف المتعلمين . هل تعتقد انك على استعداد لذلك؟

لماذا كنت اجد متعة ‘ في تلك اللحظات من التعاسة والغضب ‘ في الجولات الليلية في الشوارع المهجورة في صحبة احلامي وحدها؟ لماذا فضلتُ ‘ بدلا من مشاهدة اسطنبول الغارقة في الشمس على البطاقات البريدية التي أحبها السائحون كثيرا ‘ الأماكن شبه المظلمة في الشوارع الخلفية والأمسيات والليالي الشتوية الباردة و أشباح الناس الذين يمرون في ضوء المصابيح الشوارع الخافتة ‘ مشاهد الحصى ووحدتها؟

وفي تلك الفترة انتهت طفولتي ‘ واكتشفت أن العالم أعقد وأصعب وأو سع بشكل مزعج مما توقعت . قضيت طفولتي كلها مع عائلتي المتشابكة داخل منزل ‘ في شارع ‘ في حي كان بالنسبة لي ولكل من عرفتهم مركز العالم . وإلى أن التحقت بالليسيه لم يفعل تعليمي شيئا ليحررني من وهم مفهوم أن قلب عالمي الشخصي و الجغرافي وضع ايضا المعايير لبقية العالم . واكتشفت في الليسيه أنني في الواقع لم أعش في مركز العالم و أن المكان الذي عشت فيه - وكان ذلك أكثر إيلاما - لم يكن منارة العالم . وبعد أن اكتشفت هشاشة مكاني في العالم واكتشفت اتساع العالم في الوقت نفسه ‘ أحسست أنني أكثر وحدة وضعفا مما كنت

كانت الجمهورية الجديدة ‘ حين سقطت الإمبراطورية العثمانية ‘ واثقة من هدفها إلا أنها لم تكن واثقة من هويتها ؛ وقد اعثقد مؤسسوها أن الطريق الوحيد للإنطلاق بها هو إنشاء مفهوم جديد للتركية ‘ وكان هذا يعني نطاقا معينا يفصلها عن بقية العالم . كانت هذه نهاية العصر الإمبراطوري ‘ اسطنبول العظيمة متعددة الثقافات واللغات ؛ ركدت المدينة وخلت وصارت بلدة احادية اللغة مملة بالأبيض والأسود

تظهر مدينة المرء احيانا وكأنها مكان غريب. ستغير الشوارع التي كانت تشبه البيت لونها فجأة ؛ سأتأمل الحشود الغامضة التي تحتشد بجانبي وأتذكر فجأة انهم كانوا يسيرون هنا منذ مئات الأعوام . تصبح هذه المدينة بحدائقها الموحلة ‘وساحاتها الخربة‘ وأعمدتها الكهربائية ‘ ولوحات الإعلانات في ميادينها ‘ ومبانيها الخرسانية الرهيبة مكانا خاويا -خاويا حقا- مثل روحي. قذارة الشوارع الجانبية ‘ الرائحة العفنة المنبعثة من صناديق القمامة المفتوحة ‘ المطالع و المنازل وحفر الأرصفة ؛ كل هذا الاضطراب والفوضى ؛ الشد والجذب اللذان يجعلان هذه المدينة بهذه الصورة - وأترك لأتساءل في حيرة ان كانت هذه المدينة تعاقبني لأنني أضيف الى قذارتها ‘ لأنني هنا عموما . حين تبدأ سوداويتها تتسرب الي ومنى اليها‘ ابدأ في الإعتقاد أنه ليس لدي ما أقوم به ؛ أنتمي مثل المدينة‘ للميت الحي‘ أنا جثة ما زالت تتنفس ‘ حكم علي بالسير في شوارع وارصفة لا تذكرني الابقذارتي وهزيمتي

With time, life—like music, art, and stories—would rise and fall, eventually to end, but even years later those lives are with us still, in the city views that flow before our eyes, like memories plucked from dreams.

Exotic, vaguely sinister with its skyline of onion-domed mosques and slender minarets, its ornate Topkapi Palace housing the sultan's seraglio, its noisome Haydarpasar stews, the luxury hotels overlooking the Bosporus, the Golden Horn separating the city from its wealthy suburbs, Constantinople had seen Saracens and Crusaders eviscerate one another, had watched red-bearded Sultan "Abdul the Damned" butcher his subjects in the streets, and seemed stained by its memories.

Bütün hayatım İstanbul'un yakılıp, yıkılıp, tahrip edilip değiştirilmesinin hikayesidir. Bu, insanın kendi hatıralarının, kendi hatırladıklarının, bağlı olduğu sokakların, çevrelerin, neredeyse hafızasına, ezberine aldığı görüntülerin yok edilmesi hikâyesidir ve benim için çok dramlı, acılı ve ağır bir hikâyedir.

who no doubt honored a keen memory as a sign—bogus though it was in and of itself—of intelligence: