1884
Ahmet Midhat takes a second wife, Melek Hanım.
1889
Ahmet Midhat represents the Ottoman state at the Eighth Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm. While there, he makes the acquaintance of a Russian noblewoman and orientalist, Madame Gülnar (Olga de Lebedef), who later spent time in Istanbul. As part of his trip, Ahmet Midhat tours Europe extensively for two and a half months, visiting Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria.
1894
Ahmet Midhat publishes Hayal ve Hakikat (Dream and Truth) coauthored with Fatma Aliye (1862–1936), considered the first female novelist in Turkish literature.
1908
The Ottoman Constitution, which had been largely ignored by the sultan, is restored and Sultan Abdülhamid II abdicates the throne. Mehmed V (r. 1909–1918) becomes the thirty-fifth Ottoman sultan.
1912
Ahmet Midhat dies in Istanbul.
1914–18
World War I.
1919–23
The Turkish War of Independence.
1920
The Turkish Grand National Assembly was established in Ankara.
1920
The Treaty of Sèvres is imposed on the Ottoman Empire and the empire is divided amongst Western powers.
1922
The Ottoman Sultanate is abolished.
1923
The Treaty of Lausanne supersedes the Treaty of Sèvres and the Republic of Turkey is recognized internationally.
1924
The Ottoman Caliphate is abolished.
1924
The Ottoman Sultanate and Caliphate are abolished and Turkey becomes a secular republic under the presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
1. A Reader’s Map of Istanbul. Illustrated by Rana Irmak Aksoy.
2. A Reader’s Map of Beyoğlu. Illustrated by Rana Irmak Aksoy.
3. The front page from the Ottoman publication of Felâtun Bey and Râkım Efendi. Published in 1875 by Mehmet Cevdet. Provided by the Atatürk Kitaplığı (Taksim, Istanbul).
Felâtun Bey and Râkım Efendi
Chapter 1
HAVE YOU HEARD of Felâtun Bey? You know who I’m talking about, old Mustafa Meraki Efendi’s son! Doesn’t ring a bell? Well now, he’s a lad worth meeting.
Mustafa Meraki Efendi lives in a district near Beyoğlu, in the Tophane neighborhood. There is no need to provide the name of this district. You know the neighborhood, right? Well, that’s all you need to know.
He is a man of forty-five. If only, his father thought, if only they could get him married at a young age when he was still innocent and didn’t know about the birds and the bees, he’d be able to preserve his honor and his manners. With this in mind, his father got Mustafa Meraki Efendi married when he was sixteen. That’s why, although Mustafa Meraki Efendi is only forty-five, he has a son who is already twenty-seven: Felâtun Bey. And that’s not Mustafa Meraki Efendi’s only child. He also has a daughter, Mihriban Hanım. Now, at this point in our story, Mustafa Meraki Efendi is forty-five and his daughter is fifteen.
How splendid for a man of forty-five to have a twenty-seven-year-old son and a fifteen-year-old daughter. But let us remind you, this kind of happiness is reserved for fathers; as for mothers, this brings more trouble than happiness. And this was precisely the case for Mustafa Meraki Efendi’s wife. For she was only twelve years old when Mustafa Meraki Efendi’s father got them married. That’s the way it is! The wife is supposed to be a few years younger than the husband! This twelve-year-old bride gave birth to Felâtun when she was fifteen. But after that every other pregnancy ended in miscarriage. The doctors couldn’t identify the problem, so they gave up, saying that she had an incurable defect. Finally, the midwives, in their usual way, ended up delivering Mihriban Hanım. But her poor mother passed away while giving birth to her.
May God rest her soul! These things happen . . . What else can we say? With a thirteen-year-old boy and an infant girl in tow, Mustafa Meraki Efendi couldn’t find another woman to marry after his wife’s death. But after remaining single for some time, Mustafa Meraki Efendi didn’t really see it necessary to get married since the last century’s social progress in Istanbul now allows a man to lead a single life: he simply got a slave to serve as a nanny to his daughter and take care of the children, hired an elderly Greek lady to manage the household, and found an Armenian lady to cook.
How about that? Do you find the domestic arrangements of his home a bit odd? Our Mustafa Meraki Efendi was a man with an alafranga spirit. And do you know what sort of alafranga spirit? Remember the alafrangas of Istanbul from fifteen or twenty years ago? That’s right, he was one of them. He was prosperous, very prosperous indeed, and possessed a beautiful mansion and an orchard in Üsküdar, but he nonetheless sold them off with no regard to price and had a pleasant house built near Beyoğlu, in Tophane, solely in order to live alafranga—that is, comfortably. Do you want to know how badly he wanted to live this alafranga life? Just look at his house! It was built of stone for that very reason: to be perfectly alafranga. Now, in a neighborhood and house of this kind, would such an alafranga man fill his house with uncouth Arab servants? Especially since his alafranga friends visited from time to time, Greek and Armenian servants were obviously necessary.
Because our main purpose is to acquaint our readers with Felâtun Bey, don’t think it unnecessary to give information about his father’s past. How can you understand Felâtun Bey properly if you don’t know where he comes from? Surely, it’s easier to understand someone’s temperament and manners if you understand their roots.
We don’t need to give long accounts of Felâtun Bey’s childhood. As for Mustafa Meraki Efendi, who suddenly leapt from an extreme alaturka lifestyle to an extreme alafranga one, a change he sought in order to further material and spiritual pleasures, one can easily guess the kind of upbringing he provided his motherless son. By the time his son entered middle school, he was parading around with a school bag all day. He also had a French tutor who would come and go twice a week. Mustafa Meraki Efendi, who was not a very educated man and didn’t take much of an interest in his son’s education, thought middle school and a French tutor perfectly sufficient for a child’s upbringing.
By looking at the kind of education his son received, you can imagine what his daughter’s education was like.
However, let’s admit that the way he dressed his children was above reproach. Whenever a new dress style became fashionable in Beyoğlu, Meraki Efendi felt obliged to be among the first to have his children wear it.
Ah! See, we almost forgot to tell you. The name of our Mustafa Meraki Efendi was actually just Mustafa Efendi. People started calling him “Meraki” “the curious” because of some odd behavior on his part. To give you an example, even though he could enjoy a magnificent dinner at home, some evenings he would stop at a grocery in Beyoğlu and buy olives and dried fish for dinner. When his friends criticized him, he would say, “What can I do! I can’t help my curiosity!” And when people wondered why, rather than going to Naum’s theater, he went to places in Elmadaği where the likes of fishermen and bird fanciers frequented, he would reply, “It’s just curiosity,” “I’m curious, that’s all,” and “I need to satisfy my curiosity.” This is how he came to be nicknamed “Meraki” “the curious.”
What we have recounted up to this point about Felâtun Bey is enough to give some idea of his past. Now let us return our gaze to the present, when Mustafa Meraki Efendi was forty-five, his son Felâtun Bey twenty-seven, and his daughter Mihriban Hanım only fifteen.
At this time, Felâtun Bey was a clerk at one of the government offices. Now, you know those gentlemen who, rather than working day and night on their own tasks, spend all their time inquiring into other departments’ affairs in order to maneuver themselves into important state positions. You know the sorts of studious individuals I’m talking about . . . Well, our Felâtun Bey wasn’t one of them. Why should he be? As the only son of a fathe
r who had a considerable monthly income of at least twenty thousand kuruş, he believed his own philosophical ideas to be more refined than any number of Platos—that is, he appreciated his own virtue and maturity, and accordingly decided that in this world, a man with a twenty thousand kuruş income didn’t need anything else, so he always went on an outing on Fridays. Saturdays he rested from the previous day’s exertions, and on Sundays couldn’t not return to the pleasure spots, as going on outings on Sundays was considered even more alafranga. As for Sundays’ weariness, he recuperated from that on Mondays. On Tuesdays, although he typically prepared to go to the office, whenever the weather was suitable his desire to visit places in Beyoğlu and see his father’s old friends and companions got the better of him, so he would declare that day a holiday as well. If he made it into the office at all on Wednesdays, he only found enough time to talk about his exploits for three hours in the early afternoon and usually returned home with two hangers-on. As they were young like him and as Felâtun Bey lived in Beyoğlu, he had to amuse his friends alafranga style, so he spent those nights at alafranga places of entertainment. Since he burned the midnight oil those evenings, he slept much of the day Thursdays. Finally Friday would come around again and the next week repeated a similar pattern.
What can a young man possibly learn if he goes to the office only three hours per week and spends that time telling stories?
What do you mean, what can he learn? See, Felâtun Bey has learned a lot! He knows how to write, how to read. He knows French; he is intelligent, clever, and articulate. Most especially, his father has a monthly income of twenty thousand kuruş. What else is there to learn in this world?
Look, to be fair, let us say this: Felâtun Bey took an enormous interest in new publications. It was inconceivable for Felâtun Bey to admit, “I haven’t heard of it,” whenever someone said, “My dear, a new story has just been published.” Every time a new book came out, the distributor was in the habit of taking Felâtun Bey’s book right away to the Beyoğlu bookbinder H—— who, after binding it alafranga style and gilding the letters A and P on its back, would hand it to Felâtun Bey’s servant to take home to him, so that when he came home at night, he would find the book and place it in his very neat library.
You know these two French letters, right? One of them is the letter A and the other, P. The former is the first letter of Felâtun Bey’s first name, Ahmed, and the latter is the first letter of Plato, the French word for Felâtun. In alafranga, there is a practice of inscribing the first letter or letters of one’s name on a book and that’s called one’s “emblem.”
Don’t get us wrong, our purpose is not to criticize Felâtun Bey here; far from it, we intend to introduce his character to the reader. Therefore, let’s add this piece of information as well:
Even though one would expect Felâtun Bey to be overwhelmingly arrogant given his wealth and self-assurance, his demeanor was quite otherwise. You know what it’s like to be alafranga! He had to act modestly toward everyone and smile to everyone’s face! In fact, sometimes when Felâtun Bey’s servant saw his master speaking with someone very pleasantly, courteously, and respectfully, he would assume, “This gentleman must be a close friend of my master’s.” But the servant would be astonished and not know what to think after witnessing Felâtun erupt in rage and swear like a sailor upon parting from that person. Old-fashioned people would find it inappropriate and dishonorable to be courteous to someone face-to-face but then to curse them violently behind their back. Alafrangas, however, find this code of honor almost foolish.
We just mentioned Felâtun Bey’s servant but haven’t even touched upon his situation. This poor Mehmet, who had recently come from Kastamonu and who did not know much about the world, was enchanted by his stipend of a hundred kuruş per month, and was a man who expected a sympathetic slap on the back as praise. He managed to learn not only that his master had a son and a daughter but also that the son’s name was “Pantolon Bey” (Master Pants) and the daughter’s “Merdivan Hanım” (Miss Stairs).
What were you thinking! It certainly requires a fair amount of intelligence to be able to migrate from the name Felâtun to the word “Pantolon” (pants) and from the name Mihriban to the word “Merdivan” (stairs). Although poor Mehmet would call his real master “Merakli Efendi,” he knew he was not saying it right and felt embarrassed since his master’s name actually did not contain the letter L. Besides, back when Mehmet was in his hometown, he had even managed to read two dozen of the shorter Quranic verses!
Don’t be surprised that Meraki Efendi, despite his alafranga lifestyle, employed a man like Mehmet at his mansion. The plan was to civilize him. In fact, he even started instructing him in manners. One day Meraki Efendi asked Mehmet, “What is your master doing?” and Mehmet replied, “He is eating his soup.” Meraki Efendi corrected him, “Boy, don’t say it that way, in alafranga they say ‘he is eating la soupe.’” And when Mehmet said, “No, Sir, God forbid! He is not eating his ‘suit,’ he is eating soup!” Meraki Efendi understood Mehmet’s confusion and counseled, “Son! In alafranga soup is called la soupe! You should learn this bit by bit.” So, now you can see how Mehmet, too, was gradually becoming alafranga.
How could he not? Is there any other way? Regardless of how his father spoke, Felâtun Bey never uttered a word in anything but French! He said “café au lait” when he wanted coffee with milk, and Mehmet would willy-nilly memorize this by shuffling through different words he had learned earlier, like kovala (to chase) or karyola (bedstead).
In case you were wondering about Felâtun Bey’s clothing, it is indescribable. Let us say this much, you know those latest fashion pictures in front of the clothing stores and tailor shops in Beyoğlu? Felâtun Bey would have a few hundred of them and he’d take the picture, get in front of a full-length mirror, and do everything possible to resemble the picture. For this reason, nobody ever saw him in the same clothes twice, so you could never hear anyone say, “That looks like Felâtun Bey’s coat!”
We can, however, briefly describe his physique. He was a young man of roughly medium height, fragile-looking stature, yellowish complexion, black eyes and eyebrows. His hair, mouth, nose, and other features all depicted a beauty that would make a woman say, “He’ll do.” That’s enough about Felâtun Bey for now, let us briefly turn to Mihriban Hanım.
It was clear from everything about her that she was Felâtun Bey’s sister. Naturally, as one would expect of a girl, she was prettier.
Mihriban Hanım didn’t know how to embroider the way other girls do. For alafrangas don’t do that sort of thing. She didn’t even know how to knit a pouch, socks, or anything, since modistes knit those. They are also the ones who do embroidery. There are many artificial flowers in Beyoğlu! Why would she bother to make them? It was the servants’ job to do the laundry and ironing, and the cook’s job to prepare the food. In fact, even brushing one’s own hair is not an alafranga thing, so a coiffeur would come for the sole purpose of brushing her hair.
Although alafranga girls were expected to read, write, and have an education, poor Mihriban grew up without a mother, so couldn’t manage to do this. For her musical education, her father hired a superb piano teacher. However, since this teacher played by herself while Mihriban’s father listened, she didn’t learn anything apart from the following tune: A snake lies underneath the stone/Whose eyebrows rise respectfully.
This song would make her lighthearted and cheerful! She would jump up and down and dance about with joy! Once she came of marriageable age, various people came to visit. Her father’s fortune attracted all sorts of fortune hunters. When mothers of eligible sons came to investigate Mihriban Hanım, she’d ask them what their sons did for a living, and if they said “clerk,” she’d say, “Ah! Penniless!” If they said “soldier,” she’d picture their shoes and say “slipper wearer.” If they said “cleric,” she’d picture their turban and say “garlic head!” In this way, she would make up a pretext to reject them all. God forbid if the
visitors said, “Oh! Young lady! Why are you saying this? Our son has this quality and that quality,” she would laugh gaily and walk away saying, “Ay! Am I that desperate to marry your son? Go and look elsewhere!”
How about that? Are you surprised at Mihriban Hanım’s independence? Don’t be. Forasmuch as, having grown up as the mistress of the house, she’d appear in front of the visitors as both a potential bride as well as the mother of the bride. She would assume the role of her own mother when she rejected her visitors. Look, if you are going to be surprised, be surprised at this independent mother of the bride!
Are you weary of hearing about Felâtun Bey, Mustafa Meraki Efendi, and Mihriban Hanım? I ask for your forgiveness and with your permission, would like to say this final thing about them:
When the family was all together, Meraki Efendi and Felâtun Bey knew that if they criticized one of Mihriban Hanım’s hair accessories or the way she wore her gloves, the poor girl would cry for three days and three nights. So even if she were to wear a flowerpot in her hair, they’d feel obliged to swear that it suited her very well. As for Meraki Efendi, even when he didn’t agree with his son’s ideas, he nevertheless felt compelled to pretend to agree with them, in order not to be embarrassed in front of a son who was, after all, named Felâtun and who never hesitated to point out his father’s ignorance. What’s more, poor Meraki Efendi would go so far as to claim that he had been thinking exactly the same thing for the last forty years. As a matter of fact, one day when they were discussing why days get longer and shorter, Mustafa Meraki Efendi abstained from stating his ideas on the subject and waited eagerly for his son to state his erudite opinion. Even when his son said, “Since the weather is cloudy in the winter the clouds postpone the arrival of sunlight,” his father said, “Wonderful! Praise be! This renders even the Platos of the world impotent! Honestly, I am of the same opinion but just wanted to hear your thoughts on this.”
Felâtun Bey and Râkim Efendi Page 2