The new Ottomans

IN NOVEMBER 1920, THE RUSSIAN FUTURIST ILIA Zdanevich steamed down the Bosporus past a number of Russian warships moored at Istanbul. The initial awe he felt at witnessing the great moment when the Russian navy reached what Napoleon Bonaparte had called the “capital of the world” soon dissipated. Ragged military paupers clustered upon the remnants of a once-mighty Tsarist navy, battered by its experience in the First World War and three years of civil war against Moscow’s new communist revolutionaries. Zdanevich was not the only one to be affected by this “most terrible, devastating, and miserable” sight. “It makes my hair stand on end,” wrote the Turkish novelist and diplomat, Yakup Kadri, in Istanbul’s most popular İkdam newspaper. Empires were collapsing everywhere in the winter of 1920. German-built train terminals…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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