On May 29, 1453, witnessed by the soaring seagulls of the Bosphorus, the Venetian defenders and the Greeks were defeated by the Turkish army and Constantinople fell. After going through the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Latin Empire, this great capital finally fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire and became the capital of the Turkic Empire for nearly 400 years. The name "Constantinople" comes from the Greek Κωνσταντινούπολη, which you probably know, but in fact today's "Istanbul" is not created by the natives, but also from the Greek στην Πόλη, meaning " into the city". For so many years, from the capital of the empire to the largest city in Turkey today, her arrogant figure has been standing on one side of the Aegean Sea, while the other side is the eternal capital of the Greeks, the second largest city in the Aegean Sea after Istanbul, It is also the place where European civilization originated - Athens. The love and hatred between the Turks and the Greeks also revolved around these two cities.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire gradually conquered the whole of Greece. At the end of the Ottoman Empire, the dynasty was divided. In 1821, the Greeks launched the War of Independence and officially declared the independence of Greece. After the First World War, the defeated country, the Ottoman Empire, became the target of the Allied Powers. Feng shui took turns, and the Greek government at this time, with the ambition to establish a "Great Greece", began to actively participate in the invasion of the Ottoman Empire. To develop to this point, it is necessary to invite a legendary figure in Turkey's modern history, Turkey's current founding father - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. If you have been to Istanbul, you can probably remember that Istanbul Atatürk Airport, the largest airport in Istanbul, is named after him. It was he who set up the National Army, served as the general director, and defeated the nearly 100,000 army led by the king of Greece in the Battle of the Sakarya River. Interestingly, Mr. Ataturk, the first president in Turkey's history, was actually born in Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, in northern Greece, closer to Istanbul than Athens.
From being ruled by the Ottoman Empire to independence to the counterattack of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks and Greeks spent a long four hundred years of identification and exclusion. In modern Turkey and Greece, due to territorial disputes, ethnic disputes, religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds and other reasons, there were also constant conflicts. Relations between Greece and Turkey remain strained to this day over the ownership of the Aegean islands and the issue of Cyprus. Cyprus, a member of the European Union, is divided into two halves like the Korean peninsula, with Greece in the south and Turkey in the north. Turkey still does not recognize the Cypriot regime. My Cypriot friend Beth, who had previously been denied entry to Turkey from a direct flight from Europe, was "from a country that does not exist". Having written this, it is probably not difficult for you to understand the long-standing contradictions and conflicts between the two ethnic groups. In addition to these, the "repatriation" incidents that occurred in Turkey and Greece decades ago are also one of the main sources of conflicts and disputes in modern times.
In 2003, the film "The Republic of Spice", which was written and directed by Greek director Tassos Boulmetis based on his childhood experiences, was released in Greece, which aroused great repercussions and quickly became the highest-grossing film in Greek film history. In 2005, the film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and became famous overseas. Interestingly, the film, which is mostly about Istanbul, was not shown in Turkey. The story tells the story of a boy, Vanessa, who lived with his family in Istanbul, where his grandfather owned a spice shop, where Vanessa spent his childhood. In the 1960s, Vanness’s father was deported by the Turkish authorities because of his Greek nationality. Vanness and his mother moved to Athens with their father, and became Turkish citizens (Greek, but because they were born in Istanbul, they took Turkish passports. His grandfather, whose mother also has a Turkish passport), chose to stay in Istanbul. From a boy to a teenager, to a teenager to a middle age, the hometown of Istanbul, the grandfather and childhood playmates in memory, become the lingering sadness in Dennis' heart.
The film vividly describes the situation in which Greek citizens were forced to leave Istanbul at that time. Those who left were informed that only one suitcase was allowed, and other properties left in Istanbul were confiscated and owned by the Turkish state. In fact, it was not only the Greeks who were driven out at that time, but also Armenians and other non-Turkic people. Many Turks living in Greece had to return to Turkey. This "repatriation" incident has almost nothing to do with China, so it does not appear in the books of our world history. But the separation that year caused many Greeks to be separated from Istanbul forever. The most moving part of the film is what Vanness's father said:
"Your grandfather didn't want to leave Istanbul at all, none of us wanted to leave, we didn't want to say anything. Istanbul is a city on a city, it is the most beautiful in the world. City. Beautiful music, brilliant sunsets, and gossip that we can't separate from us, and the night we were told to get out, the immigration officer said in my ear, as long as I convert to Islam, we can stay, No one will hurt us again. Do you want to know the nightmare that I have lingered on all these years? That is that I didn't say no on the spot, I hesitated for five seconds, God forgive me, it was the hardest time in my life For five seconds, Greece is still more beautiful in the imagination, and it is more beautiful in the imagination than what I actually see after moving in. God forgive me.”
I asked my Greek friend yesterday, I said Istanbul and Athens, where would you prefer to live; he said: "Istanbul is a good time to travel, it's okay to stay for a week, I can't stand it if I live there, see Look at the traffic, you can be stuck in a road for three hours and you can't move, and the crowds, I can't stand it. And living in Athens, I think it will be safer than Istanbul, in Athens, one or two in the morning You don’t feel dangerous walking on the street, but there are some neighborhoods in Istanbul that are dangerous.” I told him I mean if Istanbul and Athens are empty cities, none of this exists today, you have to choose If you live in a city that you think is more beautiful, which one would you choose? "In that case, I'd choose Istanbul," he replied.
Of course, Athens is still beautiful, and I would have no problem moving here for a year. But after four hundred years, it seems that the Greeks of the past have left the best things in Istanbul. In fact two of my favorite places in Istanbul, used to be Greek neighborhoods, one is Cihangir and the other is Galata, this neighborhood is a typical Greek neighborhood, just at the ends of İstiklal Street in the new European district, İstiklal Street ——This is the most iconic main shopping street in Istanbul, and it is also a masterpiece of the Greeks. The Greek embassy in Istanbul is also on this main street. Often seeing it makes people feel embarrassed. . Cihangir and Galata didn't even change their names, but continued to use the original Greek names: Galata means "milk seller" in Greek, although there are no milk men in Galata now; and Cihangir is Yicheng Now the most famous artist area, and one of the most expensive places, the Nobel Prize-winning Orhan Pamuk, whose studio is in Cihangir.
The love and hatred between the Turks and the Greeks continues, and the history of the rise and fall of these two peoples is actually surprisingly similar. Istanbul fell with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, from the "great city" of the Viking population to the largest city in contemporary Turkey, and not even the capital anymore. Athens, the capital of Alexander the Great's dynasty, although still the capital of Greece, always makes headlines with the words "national bankruptcy" and "economic collapse". Legend has it that Alexander had consulted a wise man before his expedition. The wise man said, "Look, clouds always come from the west." The fall of the Eastern Roman Empire. My friend from Greece quipped, "If he hadn't gone east and west, the Eastern Roman Empire wouldn't even have existed." A lot of the things that seem to us to make a big difference in the world now were actually just a small idea in the beginning. That's it.
My friend from Greece, she always thinks that Americans are the dumbest people in the world and their language is fake, from a patchwork of Latin and Greek (although we're talking about this in English ). She said that when she was learning English, she often felt that some Greek words could not be compared in English. "Make people stupid, the government can control them better. When English was born, it actually compresses people's horizons. Many other languages have reached places where they don't have it. English is actually a very poor language. Because of this, the government It's easier to rule the people. It's a pity that today's Greeks think that these English cultures are amazing, they forget that Greek is one of the oldest languages in the world, and I believe this must happen in China as well. "
The word "Freedom" was born in Greece and comes from the Greek word "ελευθερία", which means that a person has come to a place that he likes very much. "This place can be real, or it can be a realm of thought, just like a person who realizes the meaning of his life through comprehension." The word "Ocean" also comes from the Greek words "Ωκεανός", which means "a large expanse of blue" and "Ω" which means surprise. The person who originally coined the word was probably surprised and shocked by the large dark blue of the Aegean Sea. Often when I stand on the streets of Athens and look into the distance, I will feel that time is really a magnificent thing. How much has she changed over thousands of years and people insist that it will be eternal? The love-hate relationship between Turkey and Greece is actually just a drop in the ocean in the long run of time. In a few hundred years, or thousands of years ago, what nation will stand on the stage of the world, and what will be touching Will life and death happen? When that time comes, what will happen to Istanbul and Athens on both ends of the Aegean Sea?
Nobody knows the answer.
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