Ottoman Odyssey: Travels through a Lost Empire Kitap
ISBN:9781784293710
Alev Scott's odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey's borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800-year rule ended a century ago - and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that's vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets 21st century nationalism, and displaced people seek new identities.
It's a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem's Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force.
Faced by questions of exile, diaspora and collective memory, Alev Scott searches for answers from the cafes of Beirut to the refugee camps of Lesbos. She uncovers in Erdogan's nouveau-Ottoman Turkey a version of the nostalgic utopias sold to disillusioned voters in Europe and the U.S. And yet - as she relates with compassion, insight and humor - diversity is the enduring, endangered heart of this fascinating region.
OTTOMAN ODYSSEY was published by Riverrun on 4th October 2018.
"A journalist born to a Turkish mother and British father engagingly weaves together personal odyssey with Ottoman and contemporary history.
In her second book, Scott (Turkish Awakening: Behind the Scenes of Modern Turkey, 2015), who has reported from Turkey for a variety of publications, including the Financial Times, delivers an ambitious travel memoir/history, tracing the footsteps of "descendants of ancient minorities that were allowed to flourish in the empire, and [were] then intimidated, ignored or expelled from modern Turkey." The author grounds her thoroughly researched narrative in history and past travel accounts, and she injects it with earnest, wry observations and personal interviews with the many interesting people she met along the way. Besides Turkey, the dizzying tour covers Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, the Balkans, and the Levant. Threaded throughout the tale are intriguing historical details; at the same time, Scott shows the significance of the past to the present, especially how historical sites from the Ottoman past are often appropriated to support modern tribalism. As the author writes, Mehmed Paša Sokolovi? Bridge over the Drina River, built in 1577, has become “a perverse symbol of retribution of Christians against Muslims supposedly righting the wrongs perpetuated against their Ottoman subject forefathers hundreds of years ago.” Scott also pinpoints little-known historical injustices—e.g., in 1989, Bulgarian-born Turks were deported from Bulgaria but could not integrate because they spoke Ottoman, rather than modern, Turkish. As the author ably demonstrates, shared language is an important legacy of the lost empire. As George Hintlian, an Armenian scholar from Jerusalem, says, “if you speak the language, you can’t hate the people.” The author also includes a timeline divided by country.
In her quest to understand her complicated, tense childhood, Scott treats us to a lively grand tour of the lost Ottoman Empire and shows how contemporary leaders exploit simplified versions of history to support nationalist agendas.
Her first book, TURKISH AWAKENING, was published by Faber in spring 2014.
The religious working class, on the other hand, insist that life has never been better.
Alev Scott's book explores the shifts in Turkish society in recent years, and the roots of the indelible patriotism that characterises every Turk, whatever their politics.
From the European buzz of Istanbul to the strife-torn villages of the South East, Turkey is a country going through rapid change. Mass migration, urbanisation and a growing awareness of human rights have changed the social, economic and physical landscapes of a powerful country.
The book delves into the Turkish psyche and looks ahead at the immediate future of a country the whole world is watching.
TURKISH AWAKENING was published on 6th March 2014 by Faber.
OTTOMAN ODYSSEY: Travels through a Lost Empire was published by Riverrun in October 2018.
In 2019 she published POWER & THE PEOPLE: Five Lessons from the Birthplace of Democracy, written with Androinike Makres (Riverrun).
With verve and acuity, the heroics and the critics of Athenian democracy are brought to bear on today's politics, revealing in all its glories and its flaws the system that still survives to execute the power of the people.
POWER & THE PEOPLE was published on 14 November 2019 by Riverrun.