Istanbul, eh? There ain’t half been some history

It’s an open secret, and one I’m happy to perpetuate, that we live in the greatest city on earth. So, with many new friends arriving here fresh in the autumn, it’s not a bad idea to reconsider its anything-but-dusty history and briefly spotlight some of the scenes and actors, dead and living, that have given rise to ‹stanbul’s prominence on the global stage.
Water was the very basis of ‹stanbul’s flourishing as a strategic settlement, and down the centuries it has been the source of its commerce, industry (especially leather), natural splendour, and even its downfall.  We all learned in history class (we did? – ed) about the Golden Horn, whose romantic-sounding name conjured up images that belied the reality of a polluted waterway of shipyards and taxi-boats. Less known perhaps, is that until the late Byzantine era, roughly where the Galata Bridge stands today, the two banks of the Golden Horn were spanned by a mighty chain that barred unwanted shipping from accessing the city. While Constantinople, as it was then known, relied on its massive walled defences to repel numerous land-borne sieges, said chain was the sole defence from the sea. This proved to be the proverbial Achilles’ heel when, in the early 13th century, the Fourth Crusade bizarrely set its sights on Constantinople - then of course an orthodox Christian city run by the Greeks - even though the Crusaders had actually been tasked by the Pope with recapturing the Holy Land! Suffice to say that the slaughter, destruction and looting that followed the smashing of the chain and the entry of the Crusaders’ fleet is one of darkest stains on Christian history. And it happened right here!
Funnily enough though, an ironic revenge of sorts followed centuries later. Because European Protestantism flourished more that it might otherwise have done due to its wheels being greased, yep, by Ottoman money, just to widen the rift with the Vatican. The Byzantines did, of course, make a return to power, until the city was recaptured in 1453 by the Ottomans, who, from their capital city of Bursa, had long coveted it as their new address.
The Ottoman Empire, at its height, not only spanned three continents, but also gave us the concept of meritocracy since many of its foreign subjects rose to positions of immense influence at the royal court in Topkapı Palace, in both military and civil capacity. The astonishing Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, whose mosques, and educational and military facilities grace this city and those of other regional countries, was himself an Armenian. Elsewhere, a Pole rose to the rank of Admiral in the Ottoman navy, whose official language by the way, was French. In fact ‘Turk’ had, for centuries, the rather derogatory meaning of provincial, or ‘peasant’.
As they say, though, pride comes before a fall, and the Ottoman’s famously unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1683 ended their expansionist drive. Yet it only inflamed frozen Russia’s desire for a warm-water port. The Bosphorus, today a heavily clogged commercial artery, therefore became the main motive for war between Tsar and Sultan throughout most of the 18th century. The result was, however, stalemate.
As for modern İstanbul, well, it’s a bit like DIY existentialism - whatever you choose to make of it. Victorious against all the odds, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the much-adored founder of the secular republic in the 1920s, chose to move his capital to the relative safety of central Anatolia. Yet Ankara, or Angora as the ancients called it, for all its modern academic prestige and anthropological riches, remains, like Washington, the capital in political terms alone, with ‹stanbul playing the part of New York. In fact, among today’s most prominent symbols are İstanbul’s Manhattanesque skyline and absurdly mushrooming shopping centres (Cevahir being the second largest in the world after the USA), all brimful at any given time due to consumer-friendly opening hours.
Then there’s the city’s febrile nightlife, acknowledged as one of the hottest in Europe, plus, ominously since 1999, the expectation of a bloody great earthquake right on our doorstep at any time. Also, and frankly a personal favourite of mine, you’ve probably seen that short, besuited man on İstiklal Caddesi virtually chainmailed in Atatürk and other nationalistic badges, and sporting a gigantic moustache and even more preposterously outsize set of worry beads. He’s been a staple of this particular pedestrian zone as long as I can remember, which means the late ‘80s. He’s been filmed and photographed, but otherwise to my knowledge just ‘is’, like a professional sculpture (although who the hell pays him?).
Yet in light of Turkey’s continental drift towards consumerism/Islamism, he’s become a bit of an anachronism even as a cartoon version of a Republican icon. Because despite being a hodge-podge of Turkish archetypes, he’s as incongruous and alien a figure here now as Yoda might be if he was spotted in a London taxi. You know what I mean:
Cabbie: ‘So, Yoda, you bin on your holidays yet, mate?’
Yoda: ‘Your eyes on the road just keep, pal.’
A bit forced, no pun intended.