Day 12 -- Bergama and Ayvalik and Cunda

I'm catching up...lots of miles, no internet, but now we're back in Istanbul and the electrons are working. So.....

On Friday morning we somewhat reluctantly left Kusadasi (you pronounce it Coosh-ah-duh-suh with out much stress on any syllable...it means Island of the Birds). We headed north, past the outskirts of Izmir. I took lots of pictures out the window of the bus. Some are okay, some are blurry, but I will sort them out in time.

After a couple of hours of agrarian scenery and occasional glimpses of the Aegean, we reached Bergama, ancient Pergamum. Most of the wonderful marbles, including the altar of Zeus, have been carted off to the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, but there's still plenty to see here, with the foundations of a city that was influential for many reasons for a long time. It was already old when St. Paul referred to it as one of the seven churches in the book of Revelation; its early roots go far back to the time before Alexander the Great. Legend has it that on Alexander's untimely death, one of his generals, Lysimachus, chose Pergamum as a repository of much of his wealth. (lots of gold in the area,including the river that inspired King Midas). At its height, Pergamum was comparable to Antioch and Alexandria. One of its prides was one of the largest known libraries in the world....over 200,000 manuscripts. The King ofEgypt at that time, perhaps motivated by envy, forbade the export of papyrus....so the King of Pergamum ordered his citizens to find a replacement. And so they did.... using goat skin, scraped to fine surface with pumice. Thus was born "parchment" which actually comes from the word for Pergamum. Later, Mark Antony was to give the entire library to Cleopatra as a wedding gift and it was carted off to Alexandria and lost in the destruction of that library. Sad. No back ups, either!!

Pergamum was also the site of a notable medical facility under the famous early physician, Galen.

Like many/most ancient sites in Asia Minor, it was placed on the highest point around, for purposes of defensibility. They were not thinking ahead to modern motor buses. The road was one lane... but it went both ways. It is hairpinny-- and up- and up and up. At one point our driver had to back up thru one of the hair pins to let another bus down.... we were on the inside of the mountain but it didn't make us feel a lot better. We all bought evil eyes at the shop on the top in preparation for the trip down. It worked, since we got safely down. I contemplated walking, but it was too narrow for pedestrians and buses too.

After Bergama we headed north again for a change of centuries. Our next stop, several hours away, was Ayvalik, or rather its suburb of Cunda. Ayvalik is a small beach town of great simple charm, across from the island of Lesbos. Cunda is tiny, connected to the mainland by a causeway.

The reason we went there is that Harvard, in conjunction with Turkey's Koc (pronounced "coach") University, runs a summer program to teach Ottoman Turkey and Turkish language. We had an appointment to meet with their students (mostly doctoral and post doctoral students from all over the place) and discuss the Greek/Turkish population exchange of 1924. They were lovely, let us use their modern bathroom facilities and gave us tea to drink.

Let me do the short version of the population exchange. Following the turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire began to lose its lands. Islands like Crete were taken by Greece;the Bulgarians got independence, the Balkan Wars nibbled away at the Empire. This left many ethnic, Greek speaking Moslems in what now was Greece; many Turkish speaking Christians had also settled in what is now mainland Turkey over the years. Under the Ottomans, there was religious freedom as long as taxes were paid, so it wasn't much problem all in all.

When WWI came, the most powerful people surrounding the emperor favored throwing in their lot with Germany... with the hope of reclaiming lands lost, with the thought of taking the Turkic speaking peoples then in Russia and adding them to the empire. However the general Turkish population felt more of a pull to England and France. It looked as though they would ally themselves with England and even ordered two warships to be built in English shipyards. However, just as they were finished, and the Turkish naval crews were in England to bring the ships home, the British government rescinded the sale. There was great fury in Turkey (the ships had been financed by popular donations, even school children contributing in the schools). Germany stepped in with replacement ships, and the die was cast.

Of course, Germany and its allies lost the war. Among the results were the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Its Arab possessions were made into mandates given to France and England. The mainland was occupied by England,France, Italy, Russia, and Greece. Mostly Greece, whose armies immediately started pushing toward the center of the Anatolian plains.

Here is where Turkey's great hero (Washington, Lincoln,and anyone else you admire all rolled into one) came to the forefront. A mere lieutenant colonel under the old Ottoman regime, he'd been in disfavor since he spoke out against allying with Germany. Now he rallied a combination of the remnants of the Turkish armies, mountain bandits, provincial fighters, etc., and began to push the Greeks out. Most of the other occupiers left wtihout much fight, but it was not till 1923 that the Greeks were pushed out of Smyrna (modern Izmir), wtih half of the city burning in the process.

So Europe, mostly Lord Curzon of England, got back in the act, pushing the Treaty of Lausanne... this was intended to prevent violence and anarchy and unrest.. according to Curzon, people of differing groups could not live together in the same nation state so his dividing characteristic was religion. Hence, all Muslims in Greece would be relocated to Turkey; all Christians in Turkey would move on, mostly to Greece. Language or willingness to be relocated were not considered.
Over a million were moved out of Turkey; unfortunately for Turkey,many of them were wealthy, educated and skilled. With them went much of the middle class, the entrepreneurial classes.... from Greece they got half a million peasant farmers. They were assigned new homes and occupations at pretty much random, so it was not terribly successful. But it served as a pattern for similar relocations in India and Pakistan, Palestine, even the Balkans.

We asked our hosts at the school about primary source materials, so they trooped us down the street to MEET a primary source, a Mr. Ali Onay. He is 91 years old, so he was just a child when his family was relocated to Turkey from Crete. He has lived in the same house ever since. He was very happy to see us, found us all seats (we refrained from bad puns when two of us got to sit on Ottomans) and fed us chocolates. He was in possession of a remarkably sharp intellect and good memory... and a sad story. He showed us the picture of his very lovely wife, who died 7 years ago. He had the interpreter explain that he became deaf at the shock of losing her, that once he could no longer hear her voice, he could hear nothing at all. There were moist eyes.

We had our translators write down our questions. He'd put on his reading glasses, then launch into answers, changing back to distance glasses, answering sometimes in Turkish, sometimes in Greek. Luckily our guide speaks both. It was fascinating to hear his story. He was not bitter, but felt it was not fair and that everyone lost in the process. But he said his life was good. He has many children, all of whom live nearby (though he continues to live alone in his lovely old house) and they run his various businesses and restaurants. He pressed us to stay for dinner as his guests, but we had many miles. It was a highpoint. He seemed sad to see us go, and gravely shook our hands, insisting that we take more chocolates.....

One other oddity of Cunda was the cats.... seems that the family that owns the building that Harvard rents, is interested in the local cats. They regularly round them up, have them vaccinated and neutered and turn them back loose. I have never seen so many cats in the streets, on shady steps, under cars, etc. They were not like feral cats at home, though; very friendly and amicable. You will see at least one picture.

Back on the road... now to Assos, just about 60 km up the shore. Hah. It took forever... and was all straight up and straight down. One of the harsh moments was when we were going straight up and our guide told us the driver had missed the turn to our hotel (no GPS here) and was looking for a place to make a U turn. Ay. He drove on a ways, we turned, went back, unloaded onto the beach, and found a very quaint seaside hotel. Lovely, but no internet. So I slept!