Fall 2020 Communique

The Constantinople Communiqué

Merhaba arkadaşlarım!  //  Hello my friends!

I like maps, and I also like to sketch my own

Hoş geldiniz!
I’m really glad you’re here with me again, thanks for coming.  It’s been some time since the last update, but of course it was a planned hiatus due to nearly a year of training after my return from Iraq.  After more than 44 weeks of full-time language training (the State Department standard for Turkish training is 44 weeks, but the pandemic caused an extension of several weeks), I managed the 3/3 needed to be functionally proficient in Türkçe.  Now that I’m here, it’s sometimes painfully evident where the holes are in that proficiency!
 
Turkish is a pretty darn interesting language.  Consider speaking a bit like Yoda, with the main verb coming at the end of each sentence (i.e. subject-object-verb word order).  In other words, in English we might say “Ali is going to the theater,” where the Turkish equivalent is “Ali to the theater is going.”  Essentially, that means it’s spoken in a modified reverse manner, and the listener is often waiting until the end of the sentence to determine what actually happened, is happening, or will happen.  It definitely took some getting used to for me, and when reading my trick was essentially learning to read sentences backwards, so I would first locate the subject (which is usually up front in a sentence), then look for the verb that goes with that subject (often near the end of the sentence), and then read the rest of the sentence from back to front.  Of course that method is slow, and isn’t much help when speaking.  And like Russian, there is no real present tense for “to be,” so instead of saying “Ali is an engineer,” it’s just “Ali an engineer.” Luckily there are no gendered nouns like in Russian and French, and it uses the Latin alphabet (with only a couple special characters), so that’s helpful.
 
However, Turkish requires vowel and consonant harmony, and is also an agglutinative language.

What's that, you say?  You have no idea what that  means?  Yeah well, welcome to the club, because neither did I.

Suffice it to say that certain vowels (and some consonants) must be paired together within a word, and therefore are harmonious when spoken.  It takes some getting used to, but there’s a logic to the system, and once you practice it enough it comes somewhat naturally.  For one example of this harmony, notice that in the two words above (geldiniz and arkadaşlarım), you’ll see two different types of the letter “i”, one with the dot and one without.  Each represents a different sound, and they are almost always paired to the vowel immediately preceding it.  (Exceptions to this rule are often Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, or other foreign borrowed words.)  In the first of those two words you can see the vowel “e” followed by the vowel “i” with the dot, and in the second word the vowel “a” followed by the vowel “ı” without the dot.  This is the logical pattern in most Turkish words, so that you know which “i” sound to use based on the prior “a” or “e” vowel.  Our Turkish instructors told us this is because these combinations just sound better together; they are just more harmonious when spoken.

 
Now, agglutination is a funny word, isn’t it?  It was definitely a new concept for me.  Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish and a few others are considered agglutinative languages.  This is the process of stringing together words or word parts in order to form more complex words with expanded meaning, basically adding suffixes to suffixes, sometimes even four, five or six of them.  Using the example above (arkadaşlarım), and knowing that Turkish works backwards in the way the structure conveys meaning, you’ll see the root (arkadaş = friend) plus the plural (lar = s) plus the first person possessive suffix (m = my).  In the end we have one word for “my friends”:  arkadaş is friend, arkadaşlar is friends, and arkadaşlarım is my friends.
 
But wait!  What’s that little undotted “ı” doing in there?  Well, in this case, the “ı” serves as a buffer between two consonants, because *of course* we couldn’t have the r next to the m, it just wouldn’t be harmonious!  But note it is also harmonious with the previous vowel “a.”  So much harmony!
 
The other word, geldiniz (when together with “hoş” is the greeting “Welcome”), also has two suffixes, and also happens to have vowel harmony.  We start with the infinitive verb (gelmek = to come), use only its root (gel), then add the past tense suffix (di) and the second person suffix (niz = formal or plural you).  In the end we have the structure for “you came”: geldi is came and niz is you.  Together, Hoş geldiniz! means [We hope or we are glad is implied] you came well or pleasantly, in other words “you [are] well come.”
 
A particularly impervious-to-understanding, outlandish and downright egregious example of agglutination is the word “muvaffakiyetsizleştiriciveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine.”  Here’s how that shakes out, after 63 letters and 17 suffixes:
 

Suffice it to say that Turkish can easily make one as if they are an unsuccessful one of the language!
 
Istanbyzantinople
Ok, that’s just silly, of course.  The city was never called that, but it has had many different names over the millennia.  And millennia is not overstating the point, either.  Recent excavations for a tunnel under the Bosporus Strait revealed that human settlement in the area dates to prehistoric times, or the Neolithic era some 8,000 years ago.

Kız Kulesı (Maiden Tower) on the Bosporus

Just a coupla diplomats doin' diplomat stuff

Sunset view of Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) and the Sultan Ahmet mosque (the Blue Mosque) from the Asian side of the Bosporus

 
The Bosporus splits this modern city of 15 million, as it has since before there was any settlement at all.  Geographers refer to the western side of the strait, which is in Europe, as Thrace, a Greek word which was the name of an ancient tribe of people who inhabited this area of Southeast Europe.  The opposite bank (which includes 97% or so of the landmass of the Republic of Turkey) is in Asia and is referred to as Anatolia, also historically referred to as Asia Minor.  Why the line is drawn here to separate the European and Asian continents is more a matter of geographical convention, not actual plate tectonics or anything.  Mostly we can blame (or credit) the Ancient Greeks for having made this distinction.
 
Over the course of those millennia, these early settlements of humans yielded to invasion, conquest and governance by the Hittites; the Persians (including Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great); a series of Greek city-states (from which we get King Midas as well as the invention of coins, among other things); the Macedonians under Alexander the Great; the Romans; the Goths; the Seljuk Turks; the Mongols; and the Ottomans.  All the while, the city grew, adapted, and acquired the cultures and religions, the cuisine and the architecture, of these different peoples.  It’s a truly fascinating place.

Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia)
Originally a church built in 537 CE by Constantine,
converted to a mosque in 1453 by the Ottomans,
further converted into a museum in 1935 by the Turkish Republic.
In summer 2020 its use as a functioning mosque was reestablished.

 
Byzantium was founded as a city in the 7th century BCE by those early Greeks, led by a man named Byzas, who built a fortification on one of the seven hills overlooking the important trade route of the Bosporus.  The Romans came on the scene, and after Constantine the Great became Emperor of Rome in the 4th century CE and converted to Christianity, he moved the seat of power to Byzantium and referred to the city as Nova Roma.  The citizens of the city, however, referred to it as Constantinople, the city of Constantine.  The language of the realm was Greek at the time, and when those who lived further afield would travel to Constantinople, they would say they were going “to the city,” or “stin poli” in Greek, the pronunciation of which closely resembles that of “Istanbul.”
 
The Turks retained that colloquialism, and so, as the song goes (the original was written in 1953 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans)

Istanbul was Constantinople

Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople

Been a long time gone, oh Constantinople

Istanbul city street cars, complete with straphangers on the back

Famous shopping and tourist area on Istiklal Caddesi (Istiklal High Street)

 

The US Embassy and the Inside Straight
Perhaps the three of you recall that, about a year ago in the last update, I hinted at an oddity about the US Embassy building in Istanbul.

This is that story.
 
The United States of America and the Ottoman Empire first established diplomatic relations in the 1830s.  At the time, we referred to our side as the American Legation at Constantinople.  Just north and across the Golden Horn from the famous historic district of the city is a grand old neighborhood called Beyoğlu, which is filled with imposing, historic buildings like those often seen in Old Europe.  One such building was built in the 1870s by a wealthy Genoese Italian ship owner and merchant, Ignazio Corpi, who died under mysterious circumstances the year it was completed in 1882.  That same year, Corpi’s family leased the lavish, four-story residence to American Ambassador John Leishman, who moved the Legation’s operations to the Palazzo Corpi, as the building was known. 
 
(Incidentally, it’s said the building is haunted by Corpi’s ghost.  One rumor stated that perhaps he was building the residence for his paramour rather than for Mrs. Corpi, and as a result a soothsayer told him he would die as soon as he moved in.  Construction took ten years, and upon moving in he killed himself.  Another rumor suggested that after moving in, Corpi and his suitor were, ahem, celebrating a bit too heartily, leading to the wealthy merchant’s untimely expiration.)
 
The status of the Legation was raised to an Embassy in 1906, and Palazzo Corpi then became the home of the US Mission as well as the official residence of the Ambassador.  At the time, the United States government owned precisely one property overseas, the US Legation to Tangiers, which was gifted to the United States by the Sultan of Morocco in the 1790s.  Evidently the good Ambassador felt this was an unacceptably small number of buildings for a world power to own, and in 1907 he purchased the building and grounds with his own money, 28,000 Ottoman gold lira, equal to millions today.  Complete with imported Italian marble floors and exterior facade, original frescoes, parquet floors, etched glass and magnificent fireplaces, Ambassador Leishman also evidently felt that the United States Congress would reimburse him for this expense.
 
Completely unexpectedly, his friends in Congress felt no such compulsion to do so.
 
In an audacious stroke of complete genius, moxie, or foolishness (or really all three), the Ambassador hatched a plan. 
 
A man of means himself (I mean, he bought an Italian villa!) who was friends with Andrew Carnegie, Ambassador Leishman planned a lavish bachelor party for a time when he was back in Washington.  On the guest list were the Speaker of the House (probably Joseph Cannon, after whom one of the House Office Buildings is named), the leaders of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committees, and other key members of Congress.  No expense was spared; only the best food was served, and the highest quality liquor flowed freely.  Awash in expensive cigars and booze, the poker game lasted deep into the night.  Having lost copious amounts of money as the evening wore on, Ambassador Leishman set his plan in motion, suggesting to the Congressmen at the table that they play for his Embassy.  Feeling they had him comprehensively refreshed and on the ropes, they readily agreed.  Setting aside his highball and attacking the game with renewed vigor and gravity, the Ambassador won the night, and therefore the reimbursement he hoped for.
 
And thus, the Palazzo Corpi became the first overseas building to be purchased by the State Department, as well as the first and still the only State Department building in the inventory won in a game of poker.  It remained the United States Embassy until 1937 when the Turkish capital moved to Ankara, then becoming the US Consulate General until 2003 when operations were moved to a new facility about 20 miles north of the city center.  In 2004 Congress created the Hollings Center (a non-governmental organization that works to increase understanding between the United States and the Muslim world) which is housed in the building, and leased the complex to Soho House, an upscale private club, hotel, restaurant and conference center after a major renovation in 2014.
 
My office has a contact who works out of Soho House, and a few weeks ago we ran into one another at one of the public restaurants there.  She happens to have many connections, and as a member of the club gave us a tour and arranged for dinner at the rooftop restaurant on a beautiful early autumn evening.  When you come to visit we’ll stop in, see if we can get a tour, have a refreshing Soho Mule, and toast Ambassador Leishman and the ghost of Iganzio Corpi.

Historic Palazzo Corpi, once the United States Embassy in Turkey.  If you look carefully in the pediment at the roofline, you can still see the Great Seal of the United States.

Palazzo Corpi, now the Soho House in the city center of Istanbul

Sunset view of Istanbul from the rooftop of Soho House

 
Consulate General of the United States
Because we no longer work out of the grandiose Palazzo Corpi in the city center, and because the Embassy is in the capital Ankara, we work out of a modern building up on a hilltop overlooking a suburban area of Istanbul, with a glimpse of the Bosporus in the distance.  This principal satellite, if you will, of an Embassy is called a Consulate General, a designation separating it from any other Posts within the Mission in a country.  In Turkey we have the Embassy (Ankara), the Consulate General (Istanbul), and a Consulate in the southeastern city of Adana.
 
Here in Istanbul, I am the Cultural Attaché in the Public Affairs Section.  Public Affairs has two parts, the side that deals with local, international and domestic press and other traditional and social media, and the side that deals with culture:  all levels of education and training, music, art, literature, and other areas of the creative arts.  Under the circumstances, I spend a lot of time staring at, and talking to, small images of people on my computer screen as I meet important existing contacts, make new contacts, talk to program participants, and monitor grants and grantees.  Once the pandemic is finally behind us, then I will do much the same, although I’ll monitor the grants and meet in person the people who help us carry out the strategic goals of the United States.
 
I am convinced that I have the best job in the entire Mission.

2020:  Uff da
These past few months in-country have been quite strange and extraordinary, as it no doubt has been for all of us who represent the United States all over the world.  Very little has been left untouched by this novel coronavirus, and we are no exception.  Infections and deaths in Turkey were quite high in April and May, and then the spread slowed over the summer as efforts to flatten the curve took effect.  Like many places, once the restrictions and efforts loosened in the late summer and early fall, the numbers went in the wrong direction, requiring their reinstatement.  Now the numbers are on a slight downward trajectory, and while my colleagues and I have been ‘free to move about the cabin’ within Turkey, I have yet to really take advantage of that, given the risks involved.  I have three years to get out and about, and would rather be a bit more cautious right now.  This incredible city offers no end of things to see, and so for the time being I’ll simply take this opportunity to explore a few of the historic sites, quaint streets and colorful neighborhoods of Istanbul. 

                                                                                                               
2020 certainly seems to be one for the record books, what with the confluence of major domestic and international events and challenges.  In the middle of all the craziness in the larger world, I was completing language training in preparation to come to Turkey, and our stuff had to get organized and packed into four separate lots:  The packers came for my air freight in mid-July, then returned in mid-August for Kate’s air freight, as well as separate lots for any household effects designated to come to Turkey (which go by land and sea), and any remaining household effects which are designated for storage on the East Coast.  I departed for post in early August, and Kate stayed back in the US to finish up her last month at the library and wait for cooler weather, which is important when traveling with Riley the Wonder Dog.
 
On top of that, we decided to sell our home of 26 years, which necessitated multiple cross-country road trips back to Minnesota at the end of July to prep the house for sale, clean and fix up some things, and to move all of our remaining household goods into storage in Bloomington.  We worked our tails off for two weeks, and then shortly before putting it on the market, a hail storm caused us no small amount of indigestion because the final inspection revealed roof damage, and the entire thing had to be replaced.  Nevertheless, buyers were still interested, the house showed well, and we had a purchase agreement within two days.  Some residual damage inside the house remains, but we’re working with the insurance company to get it fixed, and the buyers are flexible about what must yet be done.
 
On one of those cross-country trips, Sophie moved back to Minnesota. (She had her own cross-country trip when she drove out to Virginia in May to live with us after being furloughed from her job with the Minnesota Historical Society.)  So amidst prepping our home for sale, we also packed her up and moved her into an apartment in St Paul, where she recently landed a new full-time job with Fairview Health Services in their credentialing department.
 
I flew back to Virginia for a few days prior to my departure for Turkey, and Kate drove back a week or so later to finish working at the library, and also to finalize our move out of the apartment in Arlington.  Given that temperatures for traveling with the dog would still be quite warm in early September, she decided to stay into the fall a bit longer, but then needed to live somewhere, so she moved in with Tommy and Jenna, who at the moment remain the most residentially stable among us.  She made another cross-country trip to Madison in mid-September to stay with her mom, where she is staying for the time being.
 
Not to be outdone, in September my parents moved from their home of 54 years to a nice apartment not far from where they’ve been my entire life.
 
Suffice it to say, we’ve had transition in spades this year, and frankly, I’d prefer to stop the tilt-a-whirl and get off.

Until Next Time:  Görüsürüz!

Despite being apart at the moment, and the outright craziness of 2020, our family is healthy and safe, and that's all that really matters.  We hope you can say the same.  Stay in touch, and be well.

-30-

 

The nazar boncuğu, sometimes called the “evil eye,” is a common symbol in Turkey and the region.  It is often displayed in the home to ward off bad luck and evil spirits and as a symbol of new beginnings.

The opinions expressed within are my own and not those of the U.S. Government.

Please do not disseminate widely without permission.