A Greek Rum from Istanbul Narrates
By Christina Chatzitheodorou
[Written with the help of memory and nostalgia, always in conversation with my Greek Rum grandparents and friends]
In this essay, I am both the writer and its most committed reader.
Writing this essay, I am somehow confused who is actually writing: Is it me, or is it my İstanbullu Rum grandmother who transmitted to me the heritage of being a ‘Turkish seed’? Is it just me or do I write in conversation with my friends, Greek Rums themselves, with whom I have shared and exchanged memories of Istanbul through the years? I decide that to write this essay, I have to flirt a bit with madness and forget about the strict definitions of time and space: I do not only define home for me, but I narrate the idea of home for three generations of İstanbullu Rums; and the story of friendship that became a home, shaped, in many ways, by our common heritage of being an İstanbullu Rum. It is true that no historical research can ever be the work of one individual. Rather, it is a dialectical process between different people, from different eras, with different ideas. Yet, this essay is not an effort to write history stricto sensu. It is however one that wishes to define the notion of home for the İstanbullu Greek Rums, living in Palaio Faliro. Therefore, it is not written exclusively by me but collectively by my Greek Rums friends, friends’ parents, my grandparents, and their grandparents. It is a piece of work written out of a collective nostalgia and our common memories and experiences. I exist and write in conversation with the İstanbullu Greek Rums of Palaio Faliro. My representation of home is their representation of Istanbul.
As a granddaughter of İstanbullu Greek Rums, also known as Rum Polites, Constantinopolitan Greeks, or Konstantinoupolites, who were forced to leave Istanbul in the 1970s, I used to return home from school listening to Turkish radio and series; I grew up in a house with politiki kouzina (Istanbul’s cuisine); and two grandparents who passed on to me through their stories their love and nostalgia for their lost homeland, Istanbul. However, along with this nostalgia, a cross-generational trauma of loss was also passed on to me. Having to navigate my way to through this heritage of being a second/third generation ‘Turkish seed’, it took me years to define my ‘home’ in relation to Istanbul. Growing up in Palaio Faliro, an area predominantly inhabited by Greek Rums who migrated from Istanbul in the 1970s, my neighborhood was always something more than just a Greek neighborhood in the south suburbs of Athens. Therefore, my personal definition of ‘home’ became restricted in and associated with a certain place in Athens, but it always existed beyond the Greek borders, embodied in the city of Istanbul. My home, Palaio Faliro, might seem a pure Greek neighborhood at first glance, but beneath its surface, one can see a small Istanbul. Yet this notion of home does not necessarily follow the strict idea of territoriality. You can only experience it as such by letting your senses accompany you in a journey of migration, forced displacement and prosfygia, but also love and nostalgia, going back two and three generations of İstanbullu Rums.
You can identify the resemblance of Palaio Faliro to Istanbul with a naked eye. Situated by the sea, Greek Rums from Istanbul decided that this will be their new home as it reminded them of the Bosporus. And it truly does remind you of the Bosporus: Walking by the sea in Floisvos, you are surrounded by cats who are kind enough to let you walk in their area. You can spot Greek Rums yiayias (trans. grandmothers) who go to church like they are going to a fancy party, competing with who has the most extravagant outfit, with their jewelry, and their silver, gold, and red nails. However, to take a proper taste, you have to actually break into their homes and see the Anatolian interior design to feel truly like an İstanbullu Rum: first things first, the small coffee tables, where all the Greek Rums gather to drink their Greek/Turkish/Arab coffee, along with some asmades on the side. The Greek Rum will always bring you the coffee on a silver plate – there is just too much silver flatware in İstanbullu Rum households. Then, you see the carpet, proper Anatolian; Greek Rums and their carpets, we truly love our carpets, they are a pain in the ass to clean, but every İstanbullu Rum who respects themselves will go to great lengths to keep them in excellent condition. A Greek Rum knows where to buy them, and it will do the best pazarlık/παζάρι (trans. bargain) in town to make sure she got it at the best price possible. And I am saying she, because everybody knows it, she rules the household.
Then, you have to listen to them talk. With my friends, we did not have to tell each other we were Greek Rums from Istanbul. Our language was enough manifestation of our common heritage. Words like ‘τέντζερης’ (tencere), κατάϊς (from the Greek word ‘katw’ trans. on the bottom/down and the Turkish suffıx ıs/is/us/üş used to make a noun from a verb), ‘γιαβρί’ (yavru trans. baby/child), σαλόζης (saloz trans. foolish/silly), σους! ( sus, the imperative form of the verb susmak, which means be quiet/shut up), γιαβάς γιαβάς (yavaş yavaş, trans. slowly), πατιρντί ( patırdı trans. a noise disturbance) gave away our common identity. We used these words in our homes, with our grandparents and parents, and we learned to identify each other by ear. And there are so many more words and phrases, which we use that a “native” Greek would not understand. After all these years, many of them have been integrated into the Greek language, but some remain the sole property of Greek Rums, used predominantly by them, who learned them from their parents and grandparents, only to transfer them to their kids and grandkids one day.
Yet despite this infliction of Turkish/Arabic words in their everyday language, very few Rum kids and grandkids speak the Turkish language. Our grandparents spoke Turkish in the house everyday, they listened to Turkish radio and television, and yet our knowledge is restricted to some words, making you wonder why and how this linguistic heritage has almost been lost. And here, one should talk about the racism that Anatolian Greeks and Greek Rums received when they arrived to Greece. With the first big wave of Anatolian refugees arriving to Greece in 1923, the ‘native’ Greeks were by no means welcoming. As Markos Vamvakaris, a musician of rebetiko, writes in his autobiography: “And the locals didn't look kindly upon them [ the refugees]. They actually called them bad names... Get out of here! Get lost! They wouldn't look at them. They didn't have the love to say wait a minute, they're our relatives, [they are] real Greeks. Let's give them a hug. That's not what happened. I mean, what I [personally] saw. Maybe elsewhere. They wanted to steal from them, the thieves that were here. [They wanted to] Grab everything they had. Steal from them, laugh at them.” Τhere are several more accounts towards the hatred Anatolian refugees received when they first came in Greece, but it goes beyond the scope of this essay to examine them in depth. However, this was the case, even though not to that extent, towards the Rums from Istanbul that arrived in Greece later, from the 1950s until the 1970s. The latter, being excluded from the Greek-Turkish population exchange in 1923, were allowed to remain in the ‘City’ (Greek Rums of Istanbul called Istanbul ‘Poli’ trans. City, as they considered it the most beautiful city in the world). They were not, however, excluded from the racist hatred when they were meant to arrive. As the father of my İstanbullu Greek Rum best friend Vaso once told her: “In Turkey, we were seen as Greeks, and in Greece as Turks. We felt like we had no homeland.”
İstanbullu Rums had, eventually, to abandon their beloved city too: used as an apparatus to pressure the Greek government and as the victim of the Greek-Turkish rivalry related to the Cyprus issue, the first wave of İstanbullu Rums arrived in Greece after the ‘Septemvriana’ (trans. September Events), also known as Istanbul pogrom. The Istanbul pogrom was a series of riots against Istanbul's Greek minority in September 1955. Beginning on September 6, 1955, Turkish mobs ravaged the Greek, Armenian, and other minorities’ districts in Istanbul. The pogrom resulted in the death of thirty-seven Greek Rums, along with the demolition and looting of their places of worship, houses, and businesses in Istanbul's neighborhoods. During the Septemvriana, my grandmother’s house was attacked and destroyed. In the same pattern, the house of my best friend’s mother was also attacked and destroyed. You will not find a single İstanbullu Rum that does not remember the pain and devastation caused to the İstanbullu Greek community due to the September events. This essay does not wish to narrate the well-known documented history of the pogrom. It wishes to narrate how this collective trauma was transmitted by our grandparents and parents to us. These stories became a point of reference for us: a common element of collective trauma which shaped our history and identity while growing up.
Despite these events, the majority of our grandparents were not ready to leave their ‘homeland’ in the 1950s. For İstanbullu Greek Rums, as Romain Örs argues, their belonging was beyond the territorial Greek (nation)-state. Their home was centered around Istanbul and their cosmopolitan experience as Greeks of Istanbul. However, in the next two decades after the Septemvriana, İstanbullu Greek Rums were about to move to Palaio Faliro en masse, forced to leave their beloved city, but always carrying with them a part of Istanbul. The notion of home for İstanbullu Greek Rums has been shaped by this story of migration and continues to be shaped by our common heritage, manifested in small things in everyday life.
The most well-known movie to every single İstanbullu Greek Rum kid and grandkid, ‘A Touch of Spice’ (Politiki Kouzina), demonstrates exactly this understanding of ‘homeland’ embodied in the city of Istanbul. The movie tells the story of a Greek Rum family from Istanbul, who are deported to Greece in the 1960s. In 1964, İstanbullu Greek Rums with Greek passports were deported, with many of them taking with them family members holding Turkish passports. The grandfather, a holder of a Turkish passport and therefore able to remain in Istanbul, refuses to leave his home in Istanbul, despite the harshening of the situation for the Greeks there. For him, his home is in Istanbul, and he is not willing to abandon it. If he is to be buried somewhere, this will be in Istanbul. He decides to stay there without his family until the last day of his life. For him, his ‘Greekness’ is not restricted to the strict territorial borders of Greece.
This movie is emotional for İstanbullu Greek Rums as it resonates with their stories and memories of Istanbul. Listening to my Rum grandparents talking about Istanbul, I fell in love with the city before even visiting it. I had already lived there through my grandparents’ memories. I had fallen in love with the cats of the city, and the Bosporus only by listening to the stories of my grandparents. I had walked the İstanbul sokakları (Istanbul’s streets) even before learning how to walk. I became passionate for a football team only because my İstanbullu Greek Rum grandfather transmitted to me his love for the team: I have a photo with my grandfather, where I wear an AEK (Athlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupoleos, meaning Athletic Union of Constantinople) uniform as a baby, holding an AEK scarf. Until today, as AEK’s song goes, “I only have one love in my heart, only one, the yellow-and-black Goddess, hardly another, and as long as this world turns, I will love you, AEK, for you I will sing for a life.” Needless to say, all of my İstanbullu Greek Rum best friends sing this song with great passion – sometimes louder than our national anthem.
The movie, more than anything else maybe, tells the story of a ‘distinct cuisine’, the politiki kouzina (Istanbul’s cuisine). The grandfather, prior to the family’s deportation, teaches his grandson everything about the secrets of cooking with spices – that is, adding and expressing sentiments of love when cooking. Greek Rums from Istanbul, when they arrived in Greece, also brought with them their gastronomy, and we were fortunate enough to have grown up with it. For İstanbullu Greek Rums, the ‘gurbet’ became somehow easier through their (our) cuisine, their gatherings where the food was always present, and this unique taste that reminded them (us) of their (our) home, Istanbul. As daughters and granddaughters of İstanbullu Greek Rums, we grew up with this cuisine in our houses, distinct by its spices. The politiki kouzina, as shown in the movie, is mainly characterised by its spices, making it ‘special’ (cinnamon, cumin, red pepper, nutmeg, mace, mastic, cinnamon etc). Yet it is not only restricted to that. Hünkar Beğendi, Kazandibi, Samali, Tavuk göğsü, and many more also accompanied İstanbullu Greek Rums on their journey and made them feel like home. Greek Rums make amazing dolmadakia, also known as dolmadakia gialantzi (yalancı trans. fake, because they have rice instead of meat). The İstanbullu Greek Rum version of ‘warak enab’ contains rice, dill, a bit of sugar, salt and grated onion. Another famous recipe from the ‘politiki kouzina’ is the İmam bayıldı, İstanbullu version, with plenty of onion, a brave touch of garlic, and, if this was not enough, some hot pepper too. One cannot help but fall in love with Tas Kabab, where a variety of spices mingles together: garlic, pepper, oregano, cinnamon, bay leaf, salt and even some sugar if the tomatoes are not sweet enough. And then, it’s the ‘atsmades’ (small brioche pastry, springled with nigella seeds) – nothing extraordinary at first glance: it is the taste that brings back beautiful memories, transferring you to more innocent times. The definition of home for me can be summarized in this picture: a Saturday morning, with friends, a coffee and some atsmades to accompany the gossiping. This memory always makes me feel at home, while living as an immigrant in the UK.
Last but not least, our İstanbullu Greek Rum identity is manifested through our life-lasting friendships that also became our home without strictly following spatial norms. My grandmother and her friends, who all came from Istanbul in the 1970s (with their proper Greek Rum appearance, Gesthimani, Marikoula, and Kyveli are the CCTV of Palaio Faliro), meet every week to drink their coffee in their Anatolian houses – only to read the coffee cup after – with some atsmades on the side, a lot of gossiping, and the recurring theme of paying a homage to their lost ‘homeland’: Istanbul. Their home became Palaio Faliro in spatial terms, but if we are being honest, the İstanbullu friendships were responsible for actually transforming it into one. Two generations after them, my definition of home has also been closely related to an İstanbullu friendship, where the cross-generational trauma of lost homeland and the distinct culture of İstanbullu Greek Rum gave us something to bond. Istanbul has been for us, transmitted to us through our parents and grandparents, a part of our common identity, manifested through our common love for politiki kouzina, our football team AEK, our common words, and everyday experiences. For one to be lucky enough to exist beyond the strict territories of Greece and Turkey, to have lived through memories in the city of Istanbul, to have tasted a cuisine mixed with sentiments of nostalgia and love, to have shaped life-lasting friendships, this is what it means ‘home’ for an İstanbullu Greek Rum.
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