My principal motive in visiting Çeşme, a small coastal town west of Izmir, was the hope of seeing a little bit of the lost world of the cosmopolitan Levant that had been partly preserved. Izmir itself, or Smyrna as it had been known, had been largely destroyed by the great fire of 1922 and the depredations of 20th century town planners. Çeşme is, of course, now a Turkish town, its Greek population having departed for good in 1922. The last remnants of the retreating Greek army that had been routed by the Turks in the summer of 1922 had been evacuated from Çeşme. As the Turkish army of Mustafa Kemal entered Smyrna, the last Greek troops were still hastening away.
Çeşme is a charming little town. Many old houses, once the homes of rich Greek merchants, still survive. The main street leading down to the seafront is dominated by the large Greek basilica of Ayios Haralambos. It is no longer used for the purpose it was built, its congregation having departed. When I visited, it was firmly bolted, although it is sometimes used for exhibitions.
Just across the water from Çeşme is the Greek island of Chios. The town and the island have long been closely linked, and many of Çeşme’s onetime Greek inhabitants moved to Chios during the population exchange in 1922-23. Now they are linked again, by tourism. Regular ferries carry visitors, Greeks and Turks among them, back and forth. One waterfront restaurant in Çeşme had a menu in Greek, including Greek coffee, identical to Turkish coffee, but the name is important to Greeks. Before travelling to Çeşme, I read online the account of a Turkish visitor to Chios who, asked at a supermarket checkout whether he was Turkish, was told that in that case he could have a discount.
The owner of the guesthouse where I stayed told me that hotel owners from Çeşme and Chios cooperated in order jointly to promote tourism. He told me of an initial meeting at which one of the Çeşme Turks had produced old photos from before the population exchange. A Greek from Chios had recognised his grandfather in one of them. It was evidently an emotional moment. In his book, Twice a Stranger, Economist journalist Bruce Clark described cases of emotional visits to towns or villages by descendants of people who had been forced to leave during the population exchange, often welcomed with open arms by the current residents.
The population exchange had been a traumatic experience, people uprooted from their homes and forced to move to an alien country, whose language, in some cases, they did not even speak. Many retained a lifelong attachment and nostalgia for the places they had left. Visiting Thessaloniki a few weeks earlier, I was told by a Greek man that he could remember as late as the 1950s that one cinema in the town continued to show Turkish films to audiences of Greeks who had been born in Turkey.
The Çeşme seafront is dominated by the castle. A plaque states that it was built in 1508, during the reign of Sultan Beyazit II, although some believe there was already a fortress there, built by the earlier Genoese rulers. Outside the castle walls stands a statue of Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha, the Ottoman admiral at the Battle of Çeşme, in 1770. Hasan Pasha is hailed as one of the greatest Ottoman admirals, and he went on to hold the position of Grand Vizier, second only to the Sultan in the Empire. All this seemed rather peculiar given that the battle ended in defeat for the Ottoman fleet, at the hands of the Russians. Inside the castle is a museum devoted to the battle and the background of European politics at the time. Again Hasan Pasha is lauded for his outstanding performance during the battle. He had succeeded in sinking the Russian flagship, losing his own flagship in the process. The museum’s exhibits delight in taunting the then Russian Empress Catherine the Great for her expansionist policies as well as her notorious carnal appetites. Two cartoons from the contemporary British press are displayed. One shows the devil offering Catherine Constantinople and Warsaw in a dream. Another shows the Empress striding across Europe’s monarchs from Russia to Constantinople, while the monarchs gawp up her skirts and make lascivious remarks.
At one time, Çeşme had been a popular retreat for the wealthy of Smyrna. Nowadays it is a favoured resort for Istanbul’s smart set. Next to the castle is a caravanserai built in the 16th century on the order of Suleiman the Magnificent. Now it has been renovated as a smart hotel. Non-guests are allowed to peak in. There are good fish restaurants in Çeşme. The lowness of the prices led me to believe that the fish on offer must be farmed. But they were so tasty that I think they were wild. Delicious. Though I did not particularly like the local habit of washing it down with raki.
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