More Readings About the Greek Population of Istanbul
A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou
Fanis Paleologos, a charming widower, is at the center of a small yet stubbornly proud community of Rum, Greek Orthodox Christians, who have lived in Istanbul for centuries. When American-born Daphne arrives in Istanbul to learn more about her Rum roots and to study Turkish, Fanis’s memories of the 1955 pogrom and the fiancée he lost shortly afterward are reawakened.
This contemporary novel, sure to transport and entertain, is a literary comedy about the resilience of Istanbul’s Rum Community.
Diaspora of the City by Ilay Romain Ors
As the former capital of two great empires―Eastern Roman and Ottoman―Istanbul has been home to many diverse populations, a condition often glossed as cosmopolitanism. The Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox community (Rum Polites) is among the oldest in the urban society, yet their leading status during the centuries of imperial cosmopolitanism has faded.
Diaspora of the City examines how experiences of forced displacement can highlight changing conceptualizations of what constitutes a local, diasporic, minority, or migrant community in different multicultural urban settings, past and present.
Smyrna in Flames by Homero Aridjis
This powerful and moving historical novel is inspired by the written recollections and the memories that haunted the author’s father, Nicias Aridjis,—a captain in the Greek army, who returned from the fields of battle to Smyrna just as Turkish forces captured this cosmopolitan port city. Smyrna in Flames, by the internationally acclaimed Mexican writer and poet Homero Aridjis, lays bare the unimaginable events and horrors that took place for nine days between September 13 and 22—known as the Smyrna Catastrophe.
After capturing Smyrna, Turkish forces went on a rampage, torturing and massacring tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians and devastating the city—in particular, the Greek and Armenian quarters—by deliberately setting disastrous fires.
Konstantinoupoli: I Poli ton Aponton by Alexandros Massavetas
As the former capital of two great empires―Eastern Roman and Ottoman―Istanbul has been home to many diverse populations, a condition often glossed as cosmopolitanism. The Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox community (Rum Polites) is among the oldest in the urban society, yet their leading status during the centuries of imperial cosmopolitanism has faded. They have even been brought to the brink of disappearance in their home city.
The Rum Polites in the diaspora of Istanbul (“the City” or Poli) continue to identify with its cosmopolitan legacy, as vividly shown through their everyday practices of distinction and cultural memory.
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city.