FEATURES The Kordon today at the Pasaport Pier, Smyrna. © Paul Watkins SMYRNA: Return of the Greeks? Paul Watkins wanders the streets of old Smyrna (Izmir) looking for survivals of the 1922 Catastrophe Old Levantine houses in the Punta. © Paul Watkins 23 FEATURES alking north along the two-mile stretch of Smyrna’s promenade, Wthe historic Kordon, with the Mediterranean Sea to your left and the high-rise blocks to your right, you’ll catch a glimpse, out of the tail of your eye, of a poignant memento of another city, cauterized and buried but not yet erased from your mind. This is the sea-worn rampart of the old quay, overlaid now with a smart walkway of tessellated The great fire of Smyrna, September 1922. waves. Mute stones that weep with result of the holocaust and the Lydians but ultimately flourishing the buffeting sea, and with the rest were forced into exile. As to under Alexander the Great’s spectral touch of feet – burnt who started the fire, a long-held colony on Mount Pagus, a mile by the hot stones, gripping the theory that it was the Armenians, or so inland. Its commercial edge before the plunge. For fleeing from their historic foes, development was galvanized many of the thousands forced who wished to deny their property during the Byzantine period by onto the quay by a vengeful army to the Turks, has been disproved. the competition between Turks, and merciless flames, the water Cumulative eye-witness reports Venetians, Genoese and others was no salvation but a stay of describe Turkish soldiers pouring for its possession, and the issue execution, either by rifle shot petrol on Armenian houses, in of the first ‘capitulations’ from or drowning in a vain attempt anticipation of a wind that would the Greek empire. Renewed to reach the heedless ships ignite the Greek and Armenian later by the Ottomans after the anchored offshore. quarters, sparing the Jewish fall of Constantinople (1453) This was the scene during and Muslim areas. Levantine these were the special trading the terrifying days and nights of commercial properties – those concessions offered to foreign September 1922, when in the lining the central Frank Street companies that allowed them wake of the retreating Greek and the Cordon – would also be to trade freely throughout the army, sent by the Greek prime destroyed. subject territories. Beneficiaries minister Eleftherios Venizelos The outcome of the tragedy of these concessions (often won three years earlier, Turkish troops was the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, by military achievements against under Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal which provided for a mass the Ottomans themselves) Atatürk) had marched on Smyrna exchange of populations. More from the north. The Greek troops, were first the Genoese and the than a million and a half people Venetians and then the French making good their escape via the were forcibly resettled – Muslims Çesme peninsula to the south, (1569), who were to become living in eastern Thrace sent to long-term allies of the Turks. Later thus abandoned the people they Turkey and Greek Christians were sworn to defend, the city’s on, capitulations were extended living in Asia Minor to Greece. Greek majority. For the Christian to the English (1580), the Dutch Smyrniots, accustomed to and other trading nations. In the centuries of tolerance by their Why Smyrna? case of the English, trade was Ottoman masters, it was a bitter consolidated by the founding adieu. The genesis of this dynamic of the Levant Company (1581), The great fire of Smyrna, multi-cultural city on Turkey’s which guaranteed its protection otherwise known as ‘the western seaboard lay in its under the English crown. The Catastrophe’ lasted two weeks superb deep-water harbour, company’s monopoly – similar to and destroyed nearly two thirds which unlike others on her antique that of the East India Company of the city. Estimates of the Aegean coastline (Greek Miletus, – brought it great power and human toll vary greatly, often Ephesus and others) had not influence in the region of the depending on the viewpoint of silted up, leaving their port-cities Eastern Mediterranean, including the observer. The consensus stranded. From the earliest Greek Smyrna and Alexandria, which is that out of a joint Greek and settlement (c. 9th century BC) made its representatives – the Armenian population of 200,000, Smyrna had been an important English Vice-Consuls – minor approximately 50,000 died as a centre of trade, contested by the potentates whose businesses 24 FEATURES and families enjoyed special privileges including exemption from the taxes and laws of the state. Architectural survivals My curiosity about the fate of the Levantine families and their properties following the fire, which had virtually extinguished their community, and those of the Greeks and Armenians, brought me to Smyrna in the early summer. It was a good time to experience the contrast of the growing heat of the hinterland with the cooling breezes of the seaward-facing The Kordon photographed in the early 20th century. city, whose vision of the blue- grey infinity that lay beyond its alleys, most famously Frank of Orthodox churches, modern western gulf was more bracing Street, the main shopping artery Greek schools and splendid than the congested Istanbul of the European quarter, was now mansions for their families. where I had started my journey. overlaid by a radiating network of It seemed appropriate that As I carried on northwards modern boulevards and traffic one of the pre-1922 buildings along the Kordon (now officially circles. on the Kordon was the home of Atatürk Caddeşi), I found it Today, the shade of the old the present Greek consulate, that difficult to reconstruct the burnt Greek quarter lies beneath a had been temporarily vacated city, which would have lain to my vast parkland known as the for restoration. Adjoining 19th- right, behind the modern blocks Kültürpark, in the centre of the century buildings also looked of apartments and hotels. The city, scene of a yearly trade fair. in need of repair, which might Kordon itself, built by a French- The Greek population, initially be considered a priority after a owned consortium in the 1870s, eclipsed by the arrival of the halt was put to the large scale had extended the line of the old Ottomans in the 15th century, destruction of such buildings in wooden quay into the sea by had revived dramatically in the the ‘90s, following an outbreak of fifty metres. Its name (Turkish: ensuing centuries, becoming a heritage consciousness among ‘cord’) brought to mind another majority again in the mid-19th. In the Turks. meaning: the cordon thrown this period it had been enlarged One survival stood out: the around it by the Turks to keep the by Greeks from the Aegean mansion wedged incongruously panic-stricken refugees trapped islands, notably from Chios, between two blocks that had been on the quay between the burning whose own population had been adapted for use as the Atatürk city and the sea. In its Levantine decimated by the Turks in the Museum. The discovery that this heyday, the ‘quai’, as it was Greek War of Independence. The was formerly the property of the otherwise known, would have same war, paradoxically, had wealthy Armenian, A. Spartali, thronged with porters and their brought an influx of Greeks from a member of the consortium animals, camels and donkeys Greece itself, where conditions (Societé des Quais de Smyrne) of poverty and brigandage had carrying goods to and from the which had built the Kordon, increased since the country’s waiting vessels. Figs, raisins, raw reminded me of the fate of cotton and other products from liberation. They had arrived in a Smyrna’s other large non-Turkish the Anatolian hinterland would city which was well established community. The area of the city have mingled with the imports, as the largest and most to the west and south of the predominately the cotton-cloth prosperous port of the Ottoman from England. Empire, with a Greek population Greek district, inhabited by the The destruction of the old greater than the city of Athens. Armenians, had been consumed, city had given Atatürk an The leaders of the community along with its Greek neighbour, opportunity to carry his national were the Greek merchants and by systematic burning. With a modernization programme into bankers, many of whom (such single exception, which I was to urban reconstruction. The original as the Mavrogordatos and Ralli discover later, most of the city’s labyrinth of narrow streets and from Chios) financed the building Armenian and Greek Orthodox 25 FEATURES churches had been destroyed in Now I understood that their half-a-dozen others in Alsançak the fire, and those that survived numbers had increased with an showed that there had been no – either ruined or converted to influx of Greeks, mainly from attempt to destroy monuments other uses – had been dynamited Thessaloniki, escaping the of the Catholic faith, the focus to make way for the new city. Did economic crisis in Greece to of the majority of Smyrna’s non- any of their adherents remain in seek new opportunities abroad. Orthodox Christian worshippers. the city today? My researches They had been made welcome The fire, in any case, had not into this question had largely by the Turkish government and reached this part of the city, and drawn a blank. The Armenians, with their work and academic I was delighted to discover the a thriving community in the studies, were integrating with the streets of old Levantine houses Levantine city, had completely Smyrniot community. with the characteristic wooden disappeared, just as they had balconies of the Ottoman period.