Great fire in Smyrna
At the turn of the 20th century, Smyrna, a port city on the Aegean Sea, was an important oasis of economic and cultural development in the declining Ottoman Empire, and its cosmopolitan ethnic mix gave it a special charm. Apart from the predominant Greeks and Turks, significant communities of Armenians and Jews lived in the city, as well as numerous European merchants. Among the Europeans there were mostly Italians, but Germans, French and English also lived there, and the local population simply called them Levantines, using the medieval term for Westerners.
And then it all ended in a tragic way. Growing intolerance between religious communities in the Ottoman Empire led to a series of ethnic cleansings and the division of the population into Greeks and Turks. Orthodox “Greeks” from Anatolia, many of whom knew only the Turkish language, as well as “Turks” from the Aegean islands, actually Muslims whose mother tongue was Greek, fled their villages, cities and islands to safer places, saving their lives and carrying within himself, not only bitterness, but also the desire for revenge.
The whole series of events led to the tragic finale, for which the Greeks have only one word – “Catastrophe”. The culmination was in Smyrna, in September 1922, when the victorious army of Kemal Atatürk marched into the city full of desperate refugees. A few days later, a big fire broke out in the city, in which several tens of thousands of people lost their lives, and for which the Greeks and Turks still accuse each other. The Greek and Armenian parts of the city suffered, while the Turkish and Jewish quarters were spared.
A hundred years have passed since that moment. The city is now called Izmir and it tells us a lot that its traditional cosmopolitan atmosphere will be completely restored. Today, the city has almost 4 million inhabitants, wide palm-lined boulevards and tall modern office buildings, and is considered a significant liberal stronghold in Turkey’s complicated political panorama.
However, many things in Izmir still remind of its enchanting past, and the central part of the city exudes the atmosphere of bygone times. The centenary of the great fire is a convenient occasion to stop in front of some of the buildings from the past and try to present to ourselves, in a few pictures, the way of life of the people who once lived there.
Inns and bazaars
The part of the city that suffered the most in the fire was never rebuilt in the architectural sense, but was turned into a public “Cultural Park”, but south of it, in the Turkish and Jewish quarter of the old town, life continued and still reminds of past centuries. The center of trade is the Kemeralti Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest open markets in the world, where trade has been carried on, more or less the same way, since the Hellenistic period. In the chaotic mix of oriental streets, shops, restaurants, mosques and synagogues, you have to be careful, because it’s easy to make a mistake, so instead of entering a fake Louis Vuitton store, you can enter a real mosque.
Današnji izgled bazara nastao je širenjem oko Ulice Mevlevi derviša (danas Ulica Anafartalar), a njegovo zlatno doba nastupilo je u 16. i 17. veku kada je Izmir postao krajnja tačka poznog Puta svile. U zoni bazara bilo je na desetine, a po nekim dokumentima i na stotine hanova, to jest urbanih karavansaraja. Većina njih nije dočekala naše vreme, ali najatraktivniji među njima, Kizlaragasi han iz 18. veka, potpuno je obnovljen 1995.
That khan occupies a central position in the Kemeralti bazaar and is home to teahouses and shops, and especially attractive are the antique shops in whose windows you can even see very valuable and rare fossils.
Jewish cultural heritage and the messianic movement
Jews and crypto-Jews, also known as Maranos, settled in old Smyrna in several waves after being expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. Their descendants made up a significant percentage of the city’s population, and at their peak in the 19th century there were several tens of thousands of them. Most of their descendants moved to Israel over time, so today there are not many of them in Izmir and they would not be able to restore and maintain the nine synagogues in the central city area, if there were no funds from the European Union and the German government earmarked for those purposes. Those Izmir synagogues look unsightly from the outside, barely more than ordinary houses, often close together, and actually hard to spot in the multitude of shops and mosques of Kemeralti Bazaar. The largest among them was the Portuguese Synagogue, founded by Maranos expelled from Portugal in the 16th century.
The Portuguese synagogue was the focal point of the messianic movement that shook the world Jewish community in the seventeenth century. At the center of the confusion was Sabatai Zevi, an Izmir rabbi and mystic who, thanks to a series of coincidences related to his personality, was recognized by many as the Jewish messiah. Newly awakened hope spread throughout the Jewish world and the messianic movement reached unimagined proportions, although there were not a few opponents either. At one point, Sabatai and his followers occupied the Portuguese Synagogue, expelled its hostile rabbis, and thus the Portuguese Synagogue in Izmir became the world center of that new messianic movement.
It all ended badly in the end. Sabatai, blackmailed by the sultan, accepted Islam, thus admitting that he was not the messiah, to the great disappointment of his followers. However, a part of them interpreted his act as a temporary maneuver, so they followed him in that act, also formally accepting Islam. That new crypto-Jewish community, known as the Dönmeh, characteristic above all of the city of Thessaloniki, evolved over time into the most liberal and most modern layer of society of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Republic, and the analogy with the European Illuminati is self-evident. We don’t know if they still exist today, because no one publicly declares himself a follower of Sabatai Zevi.
Just across the street from the Portuguese Synagogue, when you cross Esref Pasha street, at the entrance to the old Roman agora from the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, there is a beautiful three-story residential building from the seventeenth century, which is currently being reconstructed and which is claimed to be a family home Sabatai Zevia. I don’t believe there is any reliable evidence for that claim, but there isn’t any against it either. It is known that his father was a wealthy merchant who provided the young, talented Sabatai with what was considered the best education at the time. And indeed, of all the people who claimed to be prophets, messiahs, or sons of God, Sabatai was the most qualified. He died in exile, in Ulcinj, in 1676.
Izmir Jews, refugees from Spain, brought with them some customs from the old region. To this day, the favorite breakfast of Izmir residents is a certain boyoz, a pastry of Spanish origin that resembles mantles. Today, boyoz are made only in Izmir, they are not found in Spain, Istanbul, or Israel. When they came from Spain, the Jews lived in modest houses surrounding a small common yard, which was called cortejo (or cortijo), which is both a model and a term carried over from the former homeland. This is what the entire Jewish quarter looked like in the beginning, but today it is almost impossible to find an authentic cortejo, despite the efforts made to restore the Jewish heritage. One cortejo has been restored, but it is unattractive, inauthentic and empty, although it is allegedly used by some city administration.
Levantine heritage in Izmir
The term “Levantines” was originally used for the descendants of the inhabitants of Christian kingdoms from the era of the Crusades, and Genoese and Venetian medieval merchants who, after the fall of Byzantium, remained in the Ottoman Empire, adopting local oriental customs, but preserving their religion and language. When later there was a new immigration of traders from Europe, who brought Western European culture with them, the local Greek and Turkish population also called them Levantines. The Levantine quarters of Izmir were oases of Western Europe in the heart of the Orient, and much of it is still visible today. The most characteristic for the Levantines were the parts of today’s Budza and Bornovo districts, which were then on the outskirts of the city, as well as Karšijak, on the other side of the Izmir Bay, where there are some of the most beautiful examples of “Levantine” villas. Rich merchant Levantine families provided an opportunity for local architects to stand out, but unfortunately, for most of the villas today we cannot find reliable information about the designers.
The Aliotti family, of Florentine origin, traded in oriental carpets and was one of the richest. They had estates in Buja and Bornova and all over the world, and their villa in Karshiaki from 1914, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, is certainly one of the most beautiful. In the spirit of tradition, that villa today belongs to one of the richest residents of Izmir.
Nearby, on the same promenade along the seashore in Karšijaka, there is also a villa that belonged to the German Löhner family. The villa was renovated in 2004, and on a nice day, the café on its ground floor is a favorite hangout for those who want to be seen.
The British predominated in the Bornovo quarter and this can be seen even today in several main streets where the liberal city elite live. In them, on both sides of the street, there are cafes, bars and pubs, mostly in the British style, with sonorous names: “The Doors”, “Rock and Burger”, “North Irish Pub” and the like.
Darko Veselinović, March 2023