This one goes to the two Turks in my life (that I know of) one is a nice puppeteer friend whom I was honored to marry to her husband at the marionette cottage in Central Park a few years back. The other is a pen pal who lives in Turkey and is the most devoted scholar and promoter of the work of Jerry Lewis, quite possibly, in the world (for real!). And, then, there's Bea Benaderet, the one Turkish-American I know about on Travalanche. Anyway, I dedicate this post to THEM, because though governments and leaders may be predominantly heinous (never more so than now), people themselves are frequently great.
Today is being celebrated as the centennial anniversary of modern Turkey, October 29, 1923 being the date the country officially shook off the brief colonization of the region by Great Britain following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the First World War. Having watched the Middle East burn all my life, never more so than at the present moment, I can't help but daydream wistfully about the (relative) stability and tolerance the Ottomans fostered throughout the region for centuries, and decry the bloody mess the Brits and French made by carving these ancient lands up into artificial colonies that became contentious and feuding nation states. Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in relative harmony in the Ottoman Empire, something that can't even be said of Western Europe. Anyway, it's a digression, but top of mind at the moment for reasons that should be obvious.
Anyway we are here to talk Turkey (ha! See what I did there?) It's surprisingly hard to do. Because the Turks of Modern Turkey are not "Turks" per se, and neither has the land occupied by The Republic of Turkey been "Turkish" for most of its existence. Anatolia is probably the oldest civilized region in the world, and it has been ruled and occupied by countless cultures over the millennia. Recent genetics tells us that the so-called "Eastern European Farmer" group that migrated into Western Europe during the Neolithic Era and formed a population baseline prior to the later arrival of Indo-European speakers, originally came from Anatolia. Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest known human settlement, complete with monumental architecture, dates to around 9.500 B.C., and is located in Southern Anatolia, near the Syrian border. (By contrast, pre-dynastic Egypt begins around 5,500 B.C.) During the Bronze Age, Anatolia was dominated by the Hattians and then the Hittites, and then various post-Hittites. Then obviously, it was central to the Classical Greek world for centuries, then a Roman colony. Then Constantinople became the Eastern capital of the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, it stood alone as the Byzantium Empire until it finally fell to the invading Turks in 1453 A.D.
The Turks are therefore not native to the region that now bears their name. Believe it or not, they are believed to have originated in Northeast Asia, North of Korea! Displaced by Han Chinese, they moved westward and for centuries lived nomadically in Central Asia alongside their neighbors the Mongols. Many Turkic speaking people (Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Uyghurs, Uzbeks) still inhabit that region, living much as their ancestors did. Then (to grossly oversimplify) in the Middle Ages groups of Oghuz Turks were pushed westward by Mongols and wound up in a portion of Anatolia then ruled by Islamicized Persians. Much as the German tribes had done in the Western Roman provinces, the Turks rose in the military, becoming generals, and finally rulers. They eventually built an empire that incorporated the entire Middle East, North Africa, and quite a ways into Eastern Europe. And they were a major factor of the balance of power in Europe until the end of the First World War. Greek Independence from the Ottomans 200 years ago marked the beginning of the end; Lawrence of Arabia's liberation of the Sahara region was near the end of the end. Followed by British conniving, and then the rise of the group known as the Young Turks led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, modern Turkey's George Washington.
When I say that the Turks of Turkey are not "Turks", this is what I mean. Genetically, they are a mix of the native Balkan people and the Turkic speaking peoples who migrated to the region a few centuries ago. (In very much the same way, as we have recently learned, the people of England are not strictly speaking "Anglo-Saxon" as has long been held, but a mix of the native Celtic-speaking Britons and the German and Viking invaders who came in during the Middle Ages). Turks are a wonderfully diverse people both culturally and genetically, vastly more so than the name of their nation-state implies. Not only are the people called Turks diverse within themselves, but the country has minorities such as the Kurds and others. Once upon a time, there were also ethnic Greeks and Armenians; the story of their removal is not to be minimized, and is certainly relevant here. Nation-states based on ethnicity have been the bane of modern times. (Though not for nothing in this particular case it gave Hollywood such figures as Elia Kazan on the one hand and Akim Tamiroff on the other).
This history is hardly something I have known my whole life. My wife's family is Albanian; Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Her interest in the topic has kindled my own of course. And this is how we found ourselves watching an entertaining Turkish TV series called Midnight at the Pera Palace on Netflix a few weeks ago.
As it happens, Atatürk is a character in this show, which is set against a backdrop of the nation's founding. You don't need to know all that history I just laid out to appreciate idnight at the Pera Palace, but it will probably enhance the experience. Most Americans know little more about the country than is sung about in the Four Lads' 1953 novelty number "Istanbul (Not Constable)", which was later covered by They Might Be Giants. Strike that -- most Americans don't even know that. But, speaking of anniversaries, that song turned 70 this year, and it was written by lyricist Jimmy Kennedy ("Red Sails in the Sunset") and composer Nat Simon to mark the 500th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople. And speaking of songs, I just want to add that both the title and vibe of this show are reminiscent of Maria Muldauer's "Midnight at the Oasis", which just turned 50!
Midnight at the Pera Palace is set at the titular Istanbul hotel, a hotbed of intrigue at the time of the nation's founding. The show was inspired by Charles King's 2014 non-fiction book Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, my wife's enthusiasm for which, and for Jazz Age Istanbul in general, as well as for Agatha Christie (you'll soon see why), were principal drivers in our checking out the show.
That said, Midnight at the Pera Palace relates to Turkish history in about the same way Back to the Future Part III relates to the Old West. This is not a criticism -- far from it. It's just to alert you that the historical intrigue is a backdrop for what is basically a time travel story mixed with a Nancy Drew mystery. A plucky gal reporter played by Hazal Kaya (one of Turkey's top stars and it's easy to see why) is assigned to write an article on the hotel's 130th anniversary. She interviews the hotel's manager (Tansu Biçer), who shows her a room where Agatha Christie once stayed. Later, the reporter sneaks back to the room and happens to be there at the stroke of midnight -- when the magical key is holding transports back in time a century. It is then that she gets involved in all of the political intrigues that lead to the birth of the country -- and ends up replacing her own great-great grandmother, an apparent doppelganger who played some sort of role in it all. She finds herself in a kind of love triangle with a dashing club owner and revolutionary (Selahattin Paşalı) and a good-hearted policeman (Engin Hepileri). Atatürk is played by Hakan Dinçkol. And the villain of the piece is a sinister English officer referred to as simply "George" (James Chalmers).
Don't be intimidated! Interestingly, perhaps tellingly, the show is almost exclusively concerned with romance, adventure, and fantasy. Politics and history are present as a storytelling framework but really not much more so than in things like the Indiana Jones and Star wars movies. And religion (somewhat jaw-droppingly) is entirely out of it. There is no mention of Islam or Muhammad, no scenes set in a mosque, no imams walking around. Head scarves are worn by women, and there is a stern father character who disapproves of his apparent daughter's modern Jazz Age ways, but those details seem almost generic here, sans context, clearly a choice made to prevent the show being controversial. The Republic of Turkey technically remains a secular state, but over 99% of the population is Muslim, and it's not as though Erdoğan's semi-autocracy is a bastion of liberal values. That said, the show is surprisingly "western", right down to the inclusion of a Britney Spears song.
Most entertainingly, the British Empire is refreshingly demonized. You'd think you'd see more of that in American entertainment given the fact that the British were once reviled in the U.S. for shooting people in the streets of Boston and burning down the White House. Those with a real sense of history take note of what is happening at this moment is taking place in the former British Mandate of Palestine. But like I said at the top of this post, and it's a great rule of thumb in nearly all places and times: hate the government, love the people!
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