Istanbul, the city of dreams and nightmares

As the exhibition of his Museum of Innocence is currently being presented to the public in Great Britain, Orhan Pamuk took his colleague, writer and activist Elif Šafak on a tour of its showcases and curiosities. The two discuss what Istanbul means to them and collective amnesia in a country where writers can be jailed for advertising on Twitter. Šafak described that experience for "The Guardian" and conveyed what she and Pamuk concluded on the occasion; almost every detail and observation of two excellent writers, not at all popular among the Turkish ruling elite, is universal and easily applicable to any similar state and order.

"Istanbul is the name of a city and the name of an illusion. In reality, there is no such thing as Istanbul. There are only Istanbuls, competing with each other, clashing and somehow coexisting in the same overcrowded space. This is one of the topics I want to talk about with Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. About the loss of diversity and nuance. About the increasing dominance of the ideology of sameness throughout our homeland. Turkey is a country where it is easy to forget. Everything was written on water, except the works of great builders, such as Sinan, which were written in stone; and verses of great poets, such as Nazim Hikmet, which are memorized. Istanbul is a city of collective amnesia. As you walk the streets of London, you come across countless plaques that remind you of the people: composers, writers, politicians, who lived in those buildings. Memory is also kept alive, through statues, signs and books.

An imposed reading of the past, a triumph over individuality

Not so in Istanbul. And where there is such a woefully weak memory, it is easier for selective state memory to survive without anyone questioning it. The subjective way of reading the past, imposed from above, means that the view of the majority triumphs over individuality and differences. Hence all this populist rhetoric in Turkey about "our noble Ottoman ancestors". These imperial dreams encouraged a disastrous neo-Ottoman foreign policy in the Middle East, a dangerous fusion of nationalism and Islamism. We meet at Somerset House in London, where Pamuk's Museum of Innocence is presented.

Pamuk is excited and a little nervous, which is a sign of how much he cares about this idea. The museum was created at the same time as the novel of the same name: the story of the lost love of a (already betrothed) rich member of society named Kemal and his obsessive love for his cousin, the beautiful Fusun. The museum has a number of objects for everyday use - from wedding invitations and newspaper clippings, to tin spoons and salt shakers - that chronicle the evil fate of this couple, while simultaneously telling the story of two families, as well as the city of Istanbul itself. We're talking about the city we call home.

Pamuk was born and raised in Istanbul, in an upper-class family from Nişantaş, the sense of continuity has a central role in his life. My relationship was more complicated. I was born in Strasbourg, raised by a single mother in Ankara, Madrid, Cologne, Amman, and then arrived in Istanbul as a newcomer; I led a nomadic life, both internally and externally. The result is that the way the two of us perceive the City is radically different.

Where he sees melancholy, a primal, persistent sadness for lost time, I see instability - a chaotic urban energy that can go in any direction, dizzying, stimulating and exhausting, all at once. But we start on common ground: how the past, far from being a matter of long, bygone times, still lives on in Turkey.

There are significant challenges in bringing this exhibition to London. For tourists, who visit the museum in Istanbul every year, finding its location in the maze of city streets is only part of the experience.

"The poor, dilapidated and sloppy appearance of these settlements 10-15 years before I opened the museum sometimes made me depressed," says Pamuk. With the help of the museum, he wanted to give these neighborhoods a "poetic aura".

Even without those seedy streets of Istanbul, the exhibition at Somerset House is a great find. It is beautifully housed in two rooms which, although small, retain the warmth and charm of the original. Each small showcase is a window into the soul of Istanbul, each piece is carefully selected and is clearly a work of love. And "love" is the key word in the whole project. Not only Kemal's love for Fusun, but also Pamuk's unwavering dedication and passion for literature.

Self-censorship, the shadow and our constant companion

Museums and novels have a lot in common. They share, says Pamuk, the desire to show what is special in the "ordinary" and to help people see things differently. Annually, about 30.000 people, mostly foreigners, visit the Pamuk Museum.

Most of them have not read the novel "Museum of Innocence", he adds, although he and the museum are organically connected. Pamuk describes the entire project as a Proustian endeavor: instead of madeleines, he uses everyday objects to stimulate memory. Through a pile of antique trinkets, visitors enter not only the world of Kemal and the world of the author of the text, but are also introduced to the cultural history of Turkey, and to the drastic transformations the country has undergone.

The London exhibition also boasts Grant Gee's documentary, The Innocence of Memories, a powerful exploration of Istanbul's endless conflicts with its skyscrapers, construction projects, restoration of old, dilapidated buildings and shops, and insatiable greed. Pamuk and I tiptoe around political topics. These days, anyone who dares to say anything critical is labeled a “traitor” and “enemy of the nation.

We both know how it feels to have to live with bodyguards because of something you said in an interview or wrote in a novel. Every poet, writer, journalist or scholar in Turkey understands that, for a book, article, tweet or even a reply to a tweet, they can be lynched on social media, demonized in the mainstream media, taken to court or even imprisoned. As a result, there is widespread self-censorship, like a shadow looming in the background, our constant companion.

Both Islamic and modern at the same time

In the name of Westernization, the modernist elite created a new identity during the Republican era. They longed for a clearing, a chance for a new beginning, an opportunity to write the future of the nation. This negative approach to the past, ironically, made it easier for the new, conservative elite, when they took matters into their own hands after 2002, to impose their own distorted version of the past.

One of Turkey's endless ironies is that domestic conservatives, unlike conservatives in other countries, have been less interested in "preserving the past" than in actively destroying it. Pamuk believes that AKP, the ruling Justice and Development Party, wants to present itself and the people as Islamic and modern at the same time.

"They did it successfully in business, diplomacy and politics," he says. "In architecture, however, look at what they have done - the mosques are really bad imitations of classical Ottoman architecture". Turkish society is very patriarchal, sexist and homophobic.

The literary world may seem different at first glance; in fact, it is anything but that. The novel, as a genre, arrived in Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire era, mainly from continental Europe.

The first writers started a literary tradition that survives today: the founding fathers. I ask Pamuk what he thinks about gender politics in literature, and how it might be reflected in Kemal's view.

Since the time of the Ottoman Empire, we have witnessed, again and again, that male writers treat women as muses, almost statically, to observe and fetishize them, in an almost frozen existence, beautiful to look at, but devoid of intelligence or creativity.

Pamuk laughs and says: "Hey, Elif, I understand what you mean, but I'm a male Turkish writer, what should I do?". In the end, regardless of gender, to be a Turkish writer is to be condemned to a lifetime of loneliness.

True, writers are solitary creatures around the world, but in deeply polarized, highly politicized and highly flammable places like Turkey, the novelist is a public figure, hated or loved.

And between love and hate is a very small step. Where freedom of speech is curbed and imagination censored, literature is, paradoxically, even more important, art is more and more necessary.

The story matters in Turkey. Every word written in the "Museum of Innocence", every object in this exhibition, makes a positive difference in the rapid river of oblivion and change. The Museum of Innocence will enrich your understanding of Turkey - what it is now and what it has lost.

Translated and edited by:

Nina Vujacic

Gallery