Children of War Read online

  CHILDREN

  OF WAR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ahmet Yorulmaz was a Turkish journalist, author and translator. He was born in Ayvalık to a family of Cretan Turks deported to mainland Turkey as part of the Greek/Turkish population exchange decreed in the Treaty of Lausanne. He was fluent in modern Greek and translated novels and poems from contemporary Greek literature to Turkish. Most of his original works were written with the aim of making people learn about Ayvalık, the city where he grew up. He dedicated himself to Greek-Turkish friendship and rapprochement.

  CHILDREN

  OF WAR

  AHMET

  YORULMAZ

  TRANSLATED FROM THE TURKISH

  BY PAULA DARWISH

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,

  events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination

  or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Originally published in Turkish as Savaşın Çocukları, 1997

  Published by Neem Tree Press Limited 2019

  Neem Tree Press Limited, 1st Floor,

  2 Woodberry Grove, London, N12 0DR, UK

  [email protected]

  Copyright © 1997 AHMET YORULMAZ

  The WORK is protected by the International Copyright conventions.

  This book is published with the arrangements of

  Telif Hakları ONK Ajans Ltd. Şti

  Translation Copyright © Paula Darwish, 2019

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-911107-29-3 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-911107-30-9 (e-book)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including

  photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,

  without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the

  case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain

  other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address above.

  CONTENTS

  Maps and Historical Timeline

  Translator’s Historical Note

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART TWO

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Glossary

  This novel, originally written in Turkish, is set on Crete during the period from the late nineteenth century to the years following the First World War. The story is set against a background of real historical events and is based on three notebooks left by a Cretan refugee who died in Ayvalık in Turkey in 1948. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 stipulated that population exchanges should take place between Greece and Turkey, leading to the mass deportation of an estimated 1.8 million people. Most had little or no connection with the country they were sent to and many did not speak the language at all.

  Maps of Crete and environs

  HISTORICAL TIMELINE

  69 BC – 1202 AD

  At various times, Crete is part of the Roman and Byzantine Empires and also conquered by Arabs from Andalusia.

  1202–11

  Crete is captured in the Fourth Crusade and sold to the Republic of Genoa.

  1212

  Crete becomes a colony of the Republic of Venice.

  1453

  The Ottomans take Istanbul from the Byzantines and begin to expand their empire. It eventually expands to include the lands that make up modern-day Turkey, Greece, Hungary, the Balkans, large parts of Arabia (modern day Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Jordan), Egypt, parts of North Africa and the Arab Peninsula.

  1669

  The Ottoman Empire takes Crete from the Venetians.

  1832

  An independent state of Greece is formerly recognised, making the Greeks the first subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence. Its borders did not correspond to those of present-day Greece and the new state sought to expand its borders as they contained less than one third of the Greek population of the region.

  1913

  Treaty of London – Crete becomes unified with Greece and the Ottomans relinquish their rights to the island. The Greek flag is raised in Chania in Crete.

  1914–18

  First World War – the Ottoman Empire is defeated. However, the Ottoman victory at Gallipoli in 1915 led to the eventual rise of Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish Republic.

  1916

  Sykes-Picot Agreement – a secret accord between Britain and France, approved by Russia, to divide up the lands of the Ottoman Empire between them.

  1919

  The Greek army enters Anatolia, along with other foreign troops, including French, Italian and British. Other parts of the former Ottoman Empire are also occupied. The new Turkish national resistance movement forms in opposition.

  1920

  The Treaty of Sevres partitions the Ottoman Empire, including parts of Anatolia, between the victors of the war, setting out the boundaries and new countries of the Middle East. It is rejected by the new Turkish national movement.

  1920–23

  The new Turkish National Army succeeds in expanding the territory allotted to Turkey in the Treaty of Sevres.

  1923

  The Treaty of Lausanne between the Allies and new national government of Turkey. A new independent state of Turkey is recognised and the new borders of the Middle East are amended accordingly. As part of the treaty, population exchanges of Christians and Muslims take place between Greece and Turkey.

  TRANSLATOR’S

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Despite the thousands of foreign visitors who visit the Aegean Islands every year, the history of the abandoned villages, mosques and municipal buildings that still bear inscriptions in the Arabic script of Ottoman Turkish is little known outside of Greece and Turkey.

  In early history, the island of Crete hosted numerous civilisations including the Minoans, Mycenaeans and Dorians. It became part of the Roman Empire in 67 BC. In the years that followed, parts of Crete were taken over by Iberian Arabs, but the Romans won them back and the island remained part of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) until the Fourth Crusades in 1204. The crusaders sold the island to the Republic of Genoa and soon after it fell under Venetian rule, until Ottoman incursions gradually took parts of the island, finally gaining complete control in 1669. The Ottomans ruled Crete until they were forced to leave in 1898, following numerous rebellions against their rule.

  Greece, which had also been part of the Ottoman Empire, achieved independence in 1832, although not with its current borders; according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it contained under one-third of the entire Greek population of the Middle East. Some Cretans desired union with Greece, which was also trying to expand its territory and supported the Cretan uprisings. The last Cretan revolt sparked an intervention by the ‘Great Powers’ (Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, France, Italy, Russia and the UK), who sent an international fleet of ships to quell the local insurgency and cut the rebels off from the Greek army. They set up a naval blockade and stationed troops on the island, initia
lly intending to establish an autonomous state of Crete within the Ottoman Empire. All Ottoman troops were expelled from Crete in 1898 and Prince George of Greece and Denmark was installed as High Commissioner with the future prime minister of Greece, Eleftherios Venizelos, serving on his executive committee. This autonomous status came to an end in 1913 when the island was officially unified with Greece. By this time, the island had an ethnically and religiously diverse population, including Muslims and Christians. The First World War began the following year, bringing a final end to the Ottoman Empire, which at its height had included modern-day Turkey, parts of the Middle East which are now Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; parts of North Africa and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula; modern-day Greece, the Balkans and Hungary, even reaching the gates of Vienna.

  With the Ottoman Empire defeated, the Greek army entered Anatolia in 1919, encouraged by promises of territorial gain from the allies, especially Britain. The victors of the First World War divided up the lands of the former empire between themselves and their allies in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. However, all these events provoked a backlash from a new Turkish nationalist movement, which rejected the treaty and fought to increase the territory allotted to the new Turkey in the treaty. The new movement was victorious, and the borders of the region were once more redrawn by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. This treaty also stipulated that population exchanges should take place between Greece and the new Turkey, leading to the mass deportation of an estimated 1.8 million people. As a result of the population exchanges that took place between Greece and Turkey, Anatolia was all but emptied of its Christian “Greek” population, whose presence dated back to 20 BC, while Muslim “Turks” who had lived in the Aegean Islands for hundreds of years were deported to Anatolia. This was the dawn of the nation state in the Middle East and the beginning of the end for the religious and ethnic identities that preceded it, identities that were not defined by national borders.

  It is known that following the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1669, a significant number of the Christian population converted to Islam for financial or other judicious reasons. Intermarriage was also a factor and historians have suggested that up to 40 per cent of the island’s population may have been Muslim at one time. Muslims were nearly always referred to as Turks, regardless of whether they had any ancestral connection with Turkey. Historians referring to the reports of European travellers reiterate that the Cretan “Turks” were more often than not Cretans who had converted to Islam rather than of Turkic origin. The character of Mullah Mavruk in the novel also reminds the reader that there were black Cretans, first brought to the island as slaves after the Ottoman conquest.

  Anatolia at the time was an equally mixed bag of religions and ethnicities, reflecting the extent and diversity of the Ottoman Empire.

  Yet, despite this local mixture, in 1923 millions of people were deported to “national homelands” with which they had, at best, a spurious connection. Many did not speak the language of the country they were sent to and were unwelcome when they arrived. The tragic Middle East wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have increased awareness of the Sykes–Picot Treaty, the 1916 agreement that created the nation states of the Middle East by drawing often random lines that cut communities down the middle or closed off areas once freely travelled by Bedouins and other nomadic communities. Even knowing these hard facts, it is easy to overlook the fact that historical peoples did not have the same concept of national identity that later generations were raised with and easy to forget that national identities themselves are constructed from stories that are a function of their time and so anything but timeless. This is where the story of Crete connects with very contemporary issues.

  PART

  ONE

  “Don’t look down on the first steps

  Because from there you will ascend to the palace.”

  Cretan Folk Poem

  1

  To be honest, I’m not sure why I was given the nickname “Hassan, the mirror”. It might have been because of my immaculately polished boots, smart khaki trousers and walking cane, or perhaps it was the red fez I habitually wore on my head. Maybe it was the cravat carefully fastened under my collar with a long pin inlaid with sparkling stones, or the ring on my little finger set with a shimmering claret jewel that never failed to draw attention? Could it have been the ornate and elegant gold chain watch that always hung from my waistcoat?

  No. Somehow, I don’t really think it was for any of these reasons, especially when I compare myself to other memorable figures that had been around before me, such as the so called “fragrant Mr Nail”, who bathed his customers’ feet in special lotions brought from Europe. He used to light up the carnation in his lapel with tiny bulbs connected by a hidden wire to a battery in his pocket. At that time, there were no gas or kerosene lamps lighting the streets, and when the great man passed by the Greek women would lean out of the window to signal to each other that “fragrant Mr Nail” was on his way.

  So, in that case, could it have been my neat moustache, swarthy skin and good height that led to the nickname? I just can’t work it out. Maybe it was supposed to mean mirror-like but in any case, my real name is Hassan, so forget about the other ones. And don’t let the way I dressed fool you into thinking I was one of the wealthy Chanians. I certainly wasn’t on a par with jovial Mr Ferid, the entrepreneur, who was one of the richest people in Chania. I was just one of those people who did well by the times and was able to earn a comfortable living, a bit of a night owl who worked hard all day and whiled away the evenings in the tavernas. By the way, Mr Ferid was an incredible man. When the navies of four great countries* anchored in the Chanian port of Souda, and the so-called temporary government was set up, he adopted French citizenship to protect himself and his property. That was during the 1897 uprising, the uprising that started with Venizelos† shouting, “Turks out!” and “Greece is great!”; the uprising that threw us from our homes and villages, forced people into the big cities to try and scratch a living; the uprising that sentenced some of us to die on the battlefield and left others to be strangled in their own fields.

  As well as changing his nationality, Mr Ferid also swapped the fez on his head for a hat. Strangely enough, our women saw the fez as a sign of being a good Muslim whereas the Greeks thought it the sign of a dandy or a womaniser. The first time the great Mr Ferid greeted me, only a mere child at the time, is one of my most vivid memories. He used to pass us on his way back from the farm, ambling along on his Arab horse with a hide as smooth as leather, his booted feet in the stirrups, his hands gripping a silver-handled crop and the hat perched on his head.

  “Hello, my boy,” he would say in Greek.

  In fact, he always greeted me and the family in Greek although we also heard him speaking French. We heard that he was French, and we knew he didn’t really speak Greek. Whether he spoke any Turkish I couldn’t tell you. I always resented the fact that we didn’t really know Turkish, which must have been our original language, our mother tongue. The sultans went and scattered us here like seeds, but they didn’t take into account our heritage and future. How much impact could a few Turkish teachers sent over from Istanbul really have? Especially when you think about what kind of teachers they were. There was one in particular, called Master Ismail, who was famous only for his ignorance. Stories about him abounded. One of the most popular ones concerned Master Ismail’s friends, who, presuming that his job as a geography teacher meant that he was knowledgeable, consulted him on important matters. One day his friend and fellow teacher Nasip asked him in which direction the Libyan city of Derne lay from Crete. Master Ismail immediately replied, “In the north.”

  “But dear Master Ismail,” replied Nesip, “everyone says that Greece, I mean the place they call Hellenica, is in the north.”

  Master Ismail was not happy with this response.

  “What are you trying to say? Perhaps you think I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

 
“Oh, dear sir. If you say it’s in the north, that’s where it is, but can you just tell me where exactly is the north?” continued Nesip.

  “Let me explain this in a way that you can’t fail to understand. On which side is Turkey?” asked Master Ismail.

  “To the north, sir.”

  “And what language is spoken in Derne?” continued Master Ismail.

  “Arabic,” replied Mr Nesip.

  “And Arabic and Turkish are related, are they not?”

  “True, sir.”

  “And which language is spoken in Turkey?”

  “Turkish of course!”

  Master Ismail’s reply was interesting. “In that case, how can you possibly think that Derne is in the south!”

  The African city to the south of Crete was apparently to the north just because Turkish and Arabic were spuriously related languages. No doubt the story was a bit exaggerated – and probably made up to deride the stream of incompetent teachers sent from Istanbul, festooned in their robes and turbans – but it goes without saying that the overall situation was far from good.

  I’m still preoccupied by this language issue. If I tell you that even the biggest braggarts amongst us only knew about fifty words of Turkish – please don’t think I’m making it up. Especially as the number of us who could read and write could be counted on two hands. I’ll try to count the ones I knew: there was Tahmişçizâde Mehmed Macit Bey, the leader of the dervish lodge*; Mustafa Tevfik Bey; Ağazâde Mehmed; Fotinzâde Nesimi Bey; Bedribeyzâde Ibrahim Bey; Darmarzâde Ibrahim Bey; Vladimiros, the Greek printer and newsagent who helped me so much when I was growing up; Behcet Bey, who worked at the Joint Emigration Commission preparing documents for those going back to the motherland; Baha Bey, who owned the photographer’s in Chania and I also seem to recall another merchant called Celal Bey. They were the people who knew Turkish really well and were able to write. Apart from these and a few others, the rest of us knew about ten to fifteen words and there was a further small number who could maybe muster up to fifty at best. Take Mr Behcet, assistant to the Swiss head of the Joint Emigration Commission, and one of the few who really knew his Turkish: people said he had been educated in Istanbul and Paris. Whereas the rest of us would say, “Get here,” he would say, “Come over here.” As for the old Greek printer Vladimiros, he had picked up Turkish really well when he was a young man learning his trade in the Tahtakale district of Istanbul. Instead of pronouncing Tahtakale as it’s written, he used to enunciate each syllable “Taht-el-Kal-a”.