Christiane Schlötzer picked twenty-four of Istanbul's sixteen million inhabitants and with their life stories she drew a portrait of the metropolis on the Bosporus.
Each person represents an hour of the day.
The result is a book of hours for a city that is said to never sleep.
Rainer Hermann
Editor in politics.
Follow I follow
The author is a good observer and a good listener as well.
In each of the twenty-four pieces she describes the everyday life of the person portrayed, lets them tell their life story and thus leads the reader deeper and deeper into the city.
You learn how torn the city and Turkish society are.
Some meet the author in front of the enchanting landscape of the Bosporus, others lead her to Silivri with the maximum security prison at the gates of the city, which was built primarily for the many political prisoners.
Struggle for self-determination
Simple Istanbul residents, such as the wife of an imam from the neighborhood, and powerful ones, such as an adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have their say. An architect and a creative cook, also a descendant of the Ottoman aristocracy, show the bright side of the Istanbul way of life, the dark side is a human rights lawyer who fights against injustice, a psychotherapist who exposes the double standards in society, and political victims like Osman Kavala .
The frustration of a doctor who wants to leave Turkey is countered by the energy of a young Gezi activist.
Several portraits lead into the lively art scene.
Biographies of the descendants of the once numerous non-Muslim minorities are as breathtaking as life can have written.
This also applies to desperate young people who are fighting for individual self-determination.
tears in the eyes
Schlötzer takes readers to Istanbul's university district, where a successful entrepreneur meets with fellow students and friends in a simple student café on plastic chairs for a weekly reading and discussion group, even decades after his studies. You learn a lot about Turkish society. The story of a young woman who is the daughter of a second wife leads deep into Kurdish Anatolia and tells how she managed to escape from the narrowness of the Kurdish village, which is backward in every respect.
Ethel Rizo, who says of her family, gives an idea of how cosmopolitan Istanbul used to be: “I had a mother who spoke German, a father who spoke French with my mother, a grandmother who spoke Italian, and a grandfather who spoke with me Greek spoke. ”And a little later:“ I am German, Greek, Italian, Jewish, but I feel like I am from Istanbul.
I love this city.
There are places on the Bosphorus, when I see them I keep tears in my eyes. "
The relation to Germany
The author got to know many of her heroines during the ten years that she worked as a correspondent for the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in Istanbul. However, she wrote the book during her time as a scholarship holder at the cultural academy in Tarabya. The cultural academy offers artists and writers the opportunity to work on projects related to Turkey for four to eight months in the historic buildings of the residence of the German ambassador in Istanbul. The academy is subordinate to the German embassy, the curatorial responsibility lies with the Goethe-Institut.
Readers learn much more than just individual fates. Each portrait also explains the major developments in Turkey from an individual micro-perspective. Several red threads run through the book. One thread is the social development that triggered the rural exodus after the Second World War and that only allowed Istanbul to grow into a city of this size. Most of the residents of Istanbul have an intra-Turkish migration history in which they left the poverty of the Anatolian village behind.
Each portrait also depicts important events in Turkey from the perspective of those affected, such as the population exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923, the riots against the Greeks living in Istanbul in 1955 and 1964, the beginning of Erdogan's rule in 2002, the Gezi protests in 2013, the failed coup attempt in 2016 and the local elections in 2019. Another common thread is the relationship many of those portrayed to Germany. This shows how important Germany is for Turkey.
The portraits come together to form a Turkish kilim, the colorfulness of which opens the eyes to the fact that Turkey is more than fixation on its president.
Christiane Schlötzer has written several books about Turkey and Istanbul that are worth reading, this one is perhaps the most beautiful.
Anyone traveling to Istanbul in the future should have it with them.
Christiane Schlötzer: "Istanbul - one day and one night". A portrait of the city in 24 encounters.
Berenberg Verlag, Berlin 2021. 280 pp., Br., 16, - €.