DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0403
CONSTANTINOPLE
sense so obvious. The Turks have stuck at the first stage of
colonization, and are as little in place here as their brothers
on the Nile. Without the remains of other civilizations one
would find it hard to believe that they were settled here at all.
Though entrancingly situated, the Seraglio is nothing but
the hastiest improvisation; and no one would dream of
supposing that the Sultans who resided here were imperial
potentates. This is how hurried governors build, who may
be gone by tomorrow. In the seventeenth century and even
earlier you find the astonishingly commonplace setting of a
modern monarch. It does not repel you, however. There is
something almost touching about the poverty of the whole
layout.
In one of the many garden-like places they have just
arranged a collection of Chinese porcelain; there is some good
blue and white Kang-Hsi among it. In such surroundings the
Asiatic decoration seemed extraordinarily natural; whereas
every Turkish attempt to appropriate European architectural
forms merely betrays the cravings of a kleptomaniac.
The inhabitants of the town have had to put away their
oriental costumes. There are no dogs and no fezzes any
more, and the women go unveiled. The veil lies on their
hair and can be pulled down at a moment’s notice, and many
Moslems carry their turbans in their pockets, to have them
at hand against the fall of Kemal. Nobody ventures to do so
before that happens. Impenitent wearers of the fez are
executed. Kemal’s views on dress perhaps symbolize the
promised renovation of the people; but the town has looked
like Kattowitz ever since. It is very remarkable and signi-
ficant, alike of this Mussolini and of the place as well. The
picturesque Orient famed in song survived only in the native
costume. Probably Stamboul was never anything but a
fancy-dress Kattowitz, and Kemal has done an admirable
thing in suppressing the masquerade.
The ancient remains of the town dating from the pre-
2 a 369
sense so obvious. The Turks have stuck at the first stage of
colonization, and are as little in place here as their brothers
on the Nile. Without the remains of other civilizations one
would find it hard to believe that they were settled here at all.
Though entrancingly situated, the Seraglio is nothing but
the hastiest improvisation; and no one would dream of
supposing that the Sultans who resided here were imperial
potentates. This is how hurried governors build, who may
be gone by tomorrow. In the seventeenth century and even
earlier you find the astonishingly commonplace setting of a
modern monarch. It does not repel you, however. There is
something almost touching about the poverty of the whole
layout.
In one of the many garden-like places they have just
arranged a collection of Chinese porcelain; there is some good
blue and white Kang-Hsi among it. In such surroundings the
Asiatic decoration seemed extraordinarily natural; whereas
every Turkish attempt to appropriate European architectural
forms merely betrays the cravings of a kleptomaniac.
The inhabitants of the town have had to put away their
oriental costumes. There are no dogs and no fezzes any
more, and the women go unveiled. The veil lies on their
hair and can be pulled down at a moment’s notice, and many
Moslems carry their turbans in their pockets, to have them
at hand against the fall of Kemal. Nobody ventures to do so
before that happens. Impenitent wearers of the fez are
executed. Kemal’s views on dress perhaps symbolize the
promised renovation of the people; but the town has looked
like Kattowitz ever since. It is very remarkable and signi-
ficant, alike of this Mussolini and of the place as well. The
picturesque Orient famed in song survived only in the native
costume. Probably Stamboul was never anything but a
fancy-dress Kattowitz, and Kemal has done an admirable
thing in suppressing the masquerade.
The ancient remains of the town dating from the pre-
2 a 369