I. Comments on Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul – II. Comments on John Julius Norwich’s Byzantium – III. Why are we so focused on war? IV. What it actually means to know your history
I. Comments on Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul
Bettany Hughes is a classicist who has previously written several books on ancient Greece and done a few programs for the BBC. Her latest book Istanbul is worth your time; interesting, extensively researched, intensely readable. Istanbul covers the history of the city from before recorded history to the mid-20th century. It works in an idiosyncratic way not unlike a travel guide, moving forwards in a loose chronological order. Unlike many books about the city, Hughes covers both the Roman and Ottoman periods, which is something I’ve never seen anywhere else – perhaps because others who have inspected its history are enamoured with a particular narrative enough that they want to write away half of what Byzantion is.
Hellenophiles consider it a Greek city under Turkish occupation; Pro-Turk commentators a hard-won treasure for their own side. Of course, it’s neither of those things, and she makes the point really well. I have criticisms. Hughes offers only a touristic look at Turkic Kostantiniyye – maybe because that’s all the city had going for it after that, but where is the view of the empire that supposedly has it as capital? We’re given no understanding of Istanbul in the context of the Ottoman empire, only as a city unto itself, even though there are presumably many extant sources about Ottoman life outside the city. Is Istanbul the center of culture for whole empire? What about Ankara? We read about the impact of Constantinople on the west; what about Istanbul to the east?
I understand that the book is specifically focused on the city, and yet the lack of any context about the empire around it is a problem. Everyone who studies it gets sucked into the city, the city, the city, and forgets about everything that lies around it. Because it’s so old and contentious people can’t tear themselves away from the idea and everything that touches it and impacts it is forgotten. And, conversely, everything it impacts is forgotten too. The city in our collective consciousness exists in an otherwise empty space, for its own sake.
II. Comments on John Julius Norwich’s Byzantium
What follows are some deeply-rooted complaints I have about Byzantium, a 1000-page trilogy written by historian John Julius Norwich about the titular city. These complaints bear recording because they are a symptom of a much deeper problem with the way modern people think about history. There’s something irksome in his presentation of Constantinople as a tragically doomed empire struggling against impossible odds, subject to the whims of barbaric eastern tribes after the avarice of her western allies and rule by feckless and false kings etc etc.
The city, the culture, is endlessly promoted. Support of the Romans is never stated outright, this being a formal work of history, but the work is clearly written from a pro-Roman perspective. This point is not specific to Norwich, but to people I’ve had discussions with on the topic; even during admissions of Ottoman cultural clout a distressed Hellenophile can be found bleating about the glories of their lost empire in a way that annoyingly destroys the notion that there might be a potential future for the race that doesn’t involve excessive displays of power and imperial might, but simply continues to live on.
The Hellenophilic historian’s obsession with power (a nationalistic desire for Greece to achieve worldly influence of the kind it enjoyed in the classical period) is often reflected in their focus as historians, as well. Where are the accounts of the Romans’ enemies, a thousand years’ worth of different cultures impacting the city? Where is the account of any of Greece outside of Constantinople? I will be countered here by the historians telling me that extant sources from outside the city are rare and most of the territory now known as Turkey and Greece was farmland occupied by illiterate peasants. This doesn’t excuse even the barest mention of their activity, probable mindset, daily lives, the impact of politics on the rural areas.
III. Why are we so focused on war?
This is part of a larger point I want to make about how the layman perceives history and how those who enter the field with an agenda work. Simply put: they’re all too focused on war. I haven’t done any number crunching, but simply from long experience of bookshop browsing I know that a huge chunk of historical literature is exclusively focused on Hitler; not even the Second World War, just Hitler. Or just a single battle of the Second World War. The layman’s construction of history in the west is almost entirely built on an understanding of the Second World War, endlessly discussed in British and American television, endlessly remarked upon due to its massive impact on the planet, and of course, justifiably made compulsory learning in most schools.
To be clear, it’s not the excessive focus on the Second World War that is the problem – it’s the fact that the teaching of the Second World War in our country is all in relation to the fighting itself. Where is the discussion of culture at the time, of the mindset, of the context, of the specific ways in which people lived? Not taught. At least, barely more than touched on unless a student takes a specific class for it. All that is taught in basic history classes for most people (the cultural baseline) is a laundry list of facts, of who fought what battle where and which capital city belongs to which country and when Hitler reached it etc etc.
Scan a normal bookshop. You won’t find much cultural history. At best, you’ll find a history of an object or order or city, but you won’t find anything with too much depth. Because the Second World War is still fresh in the cultural consciousness (in other words, because everyone still hates Nazis), the people who teach it have no desire to also teach the basic fundamental characteristic of historical inquiry – an attempt at objective questioning. Sure, there are mentions of David Irving and exhortations to avoid non-scholarly sources, but there is no encouragement for us to remove ourselves from the conflict, to (gasp, shock, horror) see a German man who happened to be born at a very wrong time as another human being. Which results in the following…
IV. What it actually means to know your history
So, when a schoolboy graduates and decides to study history, he hasn’t been taught not to pick sides, and he becomes a Byzantinist and writes a thousand page tract on the late Roman emperors and nothing else Roman, and bills it as a history of Constantinople, which it isn’t. Imagine that occurrence–that focus on nothing but leaders, decisions, and war–across every field of history. That’s how popular historical discourse appears to me. The historical equivalent of a superhero film, featuring the flashy movement of the powerful minorities and nothing else. He not-so-subtly derides the Turks, because he doesn’t like them despite not having met any, and as a result writes nothing about them. Another potential perspective on the mixing of east and west–that eternal bicameral line–is lost. He could have written something of worth but he let his preconceptions get in the way and ignored everything after 1453, leaving the task to his equally biased Turkish equivalent, who writes a tract attacking the decadent Roman leaders and praising Mehmet the Conqueror instead.
And they only care about one-upping one another, and talking endlessly about military might. That’s why you don’t read much history. There’s no exposure in the pop culture for more complex study. But plenty of it exists. This Bellophilic amateurism infects casual conversation to the extent that many people are turned away from historical study by the excessive enthusiasm of combative, sweaty, pasty-faced young men who’ve never been in a fight and geek out over old weapons on Youtube. You have to wade through tons of waffle in discourse before discovering anything about what people actually did in (to return to our example) Constantinople: daily life and trade. Byzantine art-makers, icon-carvers and composers, schooling, the average person’s attitude to the religious squabbling of their leaders etc etc are largely unknown to most people.
In short, you don’t read history because you don’t want to read about it in terms of kings and wars, because they’re largely boring and irrelevant to how people live their lives. And you’ve convinced yourself you have no interest in the entire field because that’s all you’ve been exposed to. But surely you have questions about why the world is the way it is. And, hint hint, there’s more than one way to consider history. There’s a supreme irony in modern Hellenophiles not knowing the history they get so emotional about, or who created the traditions they cling to (whether theirs or not), while crying about how important it is to remember. They jot down lineages, and ancient deals over land and gold, but they don’t recall anything important. Why were things done the way they were done? Who was responsible for the colour, the textures of your modern world? The ancient Greek composers who wrote the Orthodox chants still sung today in churches are forgotten – the most John Koukouzelis gets is an Antarctic cove named after him.
But at least we know plenty about Justin II and his golden nose.
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