The Museum of Innocence

“3 We don’t need more museums that try to construct the historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, tribe, company, or species. We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are richer, more humane, and much more joyful.​

4 Demonstrating the wealth of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Iranian, or Turkish history and culture is not an issue—it must be done, of course, but it is not difficult to do. The real chal­lenge is to use museums to tell, with the same brilliance, depth, and power, the stories of the individual human beings living in these countries.

5 The measure of a museum’s success should not be its ability to represent a state, a nation or company, or a particular history. It should be its capacity to reveal the humanity of individuals.”        

    -Orphan Pamuk, Manifesto of the Museum of Innocence  

I started the book Istanbul by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orphan Pamuk before we left for Turkey.  It was going to help me get a feel for the neighborhoods of Istanbul.  

But in Istanbul, I learned of another Pamuk book that people recommended. The Museum of Innocence. An intriguing aspect was the fact that there is a Museum of Innocence in Istanbul that is related to the book. More than that.  It’s part of the book.  So much so that if you have a copy of the book, you get in free.  Mine was an audio book from the library so I didn’t get in free.

The Museum of Innocence - The book

Kemal is part of the post Ottoman Empire 1970s elite.  Rich, educated, well travelled, and engaged to even richer Sibel. But one day he reconnects with Füsun, a cousin, part of a poorer side of the family,  he hasn’t seen since she was a child.  They begin a passionate love affair that takes over his life and the book.  

In telling this bizarre and tragically obsessive love story, Pamuk also reveals layers of socio-economic webs that capture and tie together the people of Istanbul. 

There’s the decaying legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which the elite try to cover with European fashion and culture, though the physical remnants of thousands of years of Byzantine and Ottoman engineering and architecture dominates people’s lives.   

A key theme, I’m guessing the theme of the book’s title, involves the difference between what’s allowed of men and women.  Virginity before marriage is daringly challenged by upper class women who flirt with European mores, but ultimately they live in Turkey and even the chic look down on marrying women who have slept with someone other than their fiancee.  

Kemal has taken the virginity of both his fiancée and his lover.  In the first instance it would not be a problem if they didn’t break off the engagement.  In the latter case, we learn late in the book, it does, very much matter to Füsun. 

There’s also a fair amount on Turkish cinemas and movies.  

I have to admit that at one point I was getting weary of Kemal’s over-the-top obsession with Füsun.  But I’m sure there are readers who can relate to that situation better.  And it all works - as a novel and as a museum - in the end.  

Listening to the book, means I got to hear how names and places were pronounced, but not how they were spelled.  So some neighborhoods challenged me as I tried to locate them on maps.  But overall, the book gave me a richer sense of Istanbul than I would have otherwise noticed, and also reminded me how Istanbul was wrapped in millennia of nuance that I would never come close to understanding.  

The Museum of Innocence - The Museum

It’s easier to do pictures from a museum, than from a book - especially an audio book.  

The Galata Tower is a major landmark in Istanbul. This first picture is from the Istanbul Modern (the modern art museum.). The tower is the one on the left.  The other one is a minaret from a mosque.  

Here we see the Tower from across the Golden Horn in Eminönü.  The Galata bridge is the black line that goes from the middle of the left side across the water.     Below you see it much closer up.  

The map should give map people a better sense of things.  The Galata Tower is pretty much in the middle of the map.  The Museum of Innocence is about where the red marker is.  Istanbul Modern is toward the water below the blue marker that says European side.  

The picture looking out over the water was taken a bit to the right of the southern side of the bridge, about where it says “Hamam.” 

(All the land here is on the European Side.  The waterway going up to the left is the Golden Horn which has a series of bridges and ferries crossing it.  The Asian side would be in the right, but isn’t shown.)

The hotel we stayed at when we were in Istanbul, was right near the mosque (Ayasofia) at the bottom. 

This is all pretty close.  From our hotel to the museum was maybe 4 or 5 km.  

The ‘start’ on the map is where we started up the hills to the Museum.  Though we went by the Galata Tower on the way. Not very direct.

The streets are cobblestone, steep, and narrow.  Sometimes cars come through.  More often motorcycles.  

The Museum of Innocence is in an old house in a neighborhood near where much of the book takes place.  All the cabinets are labeled by chapter and are filled with items which Kemal says he collected during the events of the book, but which the author, who is a minor character in the book, said came from various collections and from thrift shops,

Each cabinet (or larger display) is numbered with the corresponding chapter of the book.
 

The sign at the bottom of this one says:

“In those days [1970s], even in Istanbul’s most affluent Westernized circles, a young girl who ‘gave herself’ to a man before marriage could still expect to be judged harshly and face serious consequences:  If a man tried to avoid marrying the girl, and the girl in question was under eighteen years of age, an angry father might take the philanderer to court to force him to marry her.  It was the custom for newspapers to run photographs with black bands over the “violated” girls’ eyes.  Because the press used the same device in photographs of adulteresses, rape victims, and prostitutes, the photographs of women with black bands over their eyes were so numerous that reading a Turkish newspaper in those days was like wandering through a masquerade.”

On the fourth floor is the bed where Kemal and Füsun met.

Gallipoli - Why?

The Gallipoli Tour:  The bus picked us up Tuesday (October 22) at 7am, before the breakfast buffet opened.  So the hotel gave us sandwiches to take along.  We were headed to Gallipoli, where the Turks held off the British and French in 1915 and 1916.  

1.  Why did the British and French undertake what turned out a military failure that cost so many lives?

2.  Why were most of the people on our tour Aussies and Kiwis?

You military and World War I buffs, of course, know all about this, but The Dardanelles was a name I knew, and I sort of understood it was a shipping route to Istanbul.  Having been in Istanbul for a couple of weeks now, having taken a Bosphorus cruise to the edge of the Black Sea, and having ferried by the Marmara Sea,  I understand all this much better.  

For those of you who are like I was, I’m going to map this out.

Let’s start with the Black Sea.  [Update Nov. 2, 2025 -I didn't have a picture of the Black Sea when I first posted this, but we flew over the Black sea when we left Türkiye.]

It’s bordered by six countries.  What are they?  Start with Turkey and go clockwise.  

Turkey

No, not Greece, the Turkish border goes north of Istanbul

Bulgaria

Romania

NOT Moldova - it’s landlocked

Ukraine

Russia

Georgia

And on the western side of Turkey you can see the Aegean Sea.  Our day off Friday has been in Kușadası.  Our travel guy in Istanbul, Ilyas, got us into a hotel that’s got a balcony looking out at the Aegean Sea.  (See photo on the right.)

We could hear the waves. 

 Between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, you can see a small blue puddle - that’s the Marmara sea.   The picture below is looking toward the Marmara Sea.

Now back to Istanbul’s important location.  Further west and south of the Aegean Sea, you can see the Mediterranean Sea.  Russia is on the Black Sea, but needs to go through Istanbul to get to the Marmara Sea and then the Dardanelles to get to the Aegean Sea and then on to the Mediterranean Sea.  

But since on the map above Istanbul is just a dot, you can’t really see the wet significance.  So below is a map of Istanbul and its watery environment.  

All the white is Istanbul.  On the top and on the right is European Istanbul.  On the right is Asian Istanbul

.  The Bosphorus, coming from the Black Sea, flows into Istanbul. From the upper right.  Look closely, it says Bosphorus   The photo to the right is looking at European Istanbul from the Bosphorus. Then at the bottom you can see the Marmara Sea. .  On this map you can see how the Bosphorus connects to the Marmara Sea and divides Istanbul into the European and Asian sides.  There are lots of ferries that go back and forth.  That channel going up on the left is called the Golden Horn and ends not far above the edge of the map.  

I’ve got you to the Marmara Sea, now let’s proceed from the Marmara Sea to the Dardanelles.

You can see on the map above how narrow the Strait gets. Several websites (here’s just one) say that at the narrowest point, the Dardanelles is 1400 meters wide (about 3/4 of a mile.  We took a ferry at that point to Çanakkale where we spent the night.  

Getting close to the WHY question.  

1.  Britain and France were allied with Russia in WW I.  This was 1915.  The Russian Revolution was two years off.  Britain and France wanted to get supplies to their ally Russia. Central Europe was allied with Germany, so this was the only warm water port for Russia.  

2.  Australians and New Zealanders (ANZAC = Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) were a large part of force used to try to get control of the Dardenelles in Gallipoli.  8,709 Australians died and 19,441 were wounded.  The Kiwi numbers were 2,721 and 4,752.  The British numbers were much higher (34,072 and 78,520)  and the Turk casualties were significantly higher (56,643 and 97,007).  (From Wikipedia.)

One of the Kiwi families on the tour brought along a New Zealand flag and held it up at an ANZAC memorial.

So Gallipoli was all about opening the route to and from Russia’s Black Sea ports. 

You might have noticed I started out talking about Turkey and then switched to the Ottoman Empire.  The Empire was on its last legs - which was why the British thought they could overpower the military.  But looking back at other accounts, they use Turk and Ottoman, so I’ll leave it mixed.  

After WWI what was left of the Ottoman Empire was partitioned among the Western Allies .  However Ataturk defeated their forces and abolished the Ottoman Empire in 1922 and in 1923 declared the secular nation of Turkey.  That is grossly simplified.  You can read more about Ataturk here, and about the partition of the Ottoman Empire here.  And about the WWI Gallipoli campaign here.   Just writing this post reminded me how much I don’t know.  Fights over the Dardanelles goes way back.  

Those heroes that shed their blood 

and lost their lives . . .

You are now living in the soil of a friendly country

Therefore rest in peace

There is no difference between the Johnnies

And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side

Here in this country of ours. . .

You the mothers ,

Who sent their sons from far away countries

Wipe away your tears

Your sons are now living in our bosom

And are at peace.

After having lost their lives on this land,

They have become our sons as well

-Ataturk, 1934

By a cemetery for Turkish soldiers is a large statue of Ataturk with a group of Turkish students posing for a picture.  Ataturk was the commanding officer defending Gallipoli from the British and French and ANZAC troops.  There were also Indians.  

And this spot - the remains of the trenches of the ANZAC/British troops so near to the trenches of the Turkish troops - brought the reality of all this much closer.  The trees weren’t there back then.  It was hot, there were lots of bugs.  

That’s it.  A post like this takes me way too much time.  There are so many other stories and pictures that I’m afraid most of which you’ll never see here.  

We only have a few days left.  Can’t spend them at the keyboard.  

”. . . we can return to dreams of our long gone riches, our legendary past”

 I’m reading Istanbul by Nobel Prize winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.  It’s an autobiographical look at the author, Istanbul, and Turkey. (I’m speculating here, because I’m not that far into it.  He’s talking about his childhood when the neighborhood was filled with the dilapidated old palaces of the pashas of the Fallen Ottoman Empire,  I’m not sure what kids learn about in world history these days, but the magnificence of the Ottoman Empire was left out of the history classes I took.  

This is what people in the US might feel in 50 years or more if our current political trajectory continues and the many riches of the US are gutted, and the rest of the world leaves us in the dust.  

“When I watch the black and white crowds rushing through the darkening streets of a winter’s evening, I feel a deep sense of fellowship, almost as if the night has cloaked our lives, our streets, our every belonging in a blanket of darkness, as if once we’re safe in our houses, our bedrooms, our beds, we can return to dreams of our long gone riches, our legendary past.  And likewise, as I watch dark descend like a poem in the pale light of the streetlamps to engulf these old neighborhoods, it comforts me to know that for the night at least we are safe; the shameful poverty of our city is cloaked from Western eyes.”  (p. 35)

“To stand before the magnificent iron gates of a grand yali bereft of its paint, to notice the sturdiness of another yali’s moss-covered walls, to admire the shutters and fine woodwork of a third even more sumptuous yali and to contemplate the judas trees on the hills rising high above it, to pass gardens heavily shaded by evergreens and centuries-old plane trees - even for a child, it was to know that a great civilization had stood here, and, from what they told me, people very much like us had once upon a time led a life extravagantly different from our own - leaving us who followed them feeling the poorer, weaker, and more provincial.” (pp 53-53)

I’m sitting at SeaTac waiting to board our flight to Frankfurt, so that’s it for now.  

Off To Turkiye Soon

The year I studied in Göttingen, Germany, we had most of March and April off.  Hitchhiking was my main means of travel out of town, though in Yugoslavia I ended up taking trains, busses, and a boat.  As you leave Yugoslavia  and enter Greece you could go to Istanbul,Turkey (which is now Türkiye by the way) or to Greece.  I wanted to do both, but I would have to speed through Greece if I also went to Istanbul.  Also, I had five or six names and addresses of people in Greece - the friends and the parents of a Georg, a Greek student I knew in Göttingen.  

So I vowed to return to Istanbul another time.  It’s now 60 years later and I’m finally going to Istanbul.  Though I fully realize the Istanbul I will see now, is not at all the same place I would have seen in 1965. 

So I’ve been playing travel agent for the last six months.  After booking flights, some initial hotel rooms, loading apps, arranging with our house sitter, trying to figure out which eSIMS to use, doing Turkish on DuoLingo, to list just a few things, we’re almost ready.  But I do understand why people take package tours and let someone else do all that work.  

I’m a bit hesitant to take long journeys these days.  We know about carbon footprints, and I was lucky enough to fall into a life that gave me opportunities when I was younger to see much of the world - mostly I had assignments for an extended period of time (like being a student or a teacher or working/volunteering at an organization.)  It’s a great way to get connected into the local community and be more of a traveler than a tourist.  You are there long enough to be able to use at least some of the local language.  

As I say, I have had opportunities to live in other countries and learn what I could from those experiences.  The world has an endless supply of interesting places to visit.  Bit I've also learned there is an endless supply of interesting people much closer to home and I can connect with them to do important things without traveling the globe.  I hope to enjoy this trip, learn from it, share it with you and others in my life, and then settle back home and discover the richness of the people and geography around Anchorage that I haven't discovered yet. And revisit those I already know.  

But I also realize this trip might tempt me to venture out again.  We'll see.  

We haven't taken any overseas trips for a while and our Outside trips have been to see family and friends.  But the impact does weigh on me.

We all have to figure out how to live reasonably moral lives in the 21st Century.  It’s not easy in a system that values money above everything.  Of course it isn't either or - moral or not. It's probably better to think about it on a continuum from something like evil to something like virtuous.  

The basic standard that I think is reasonable for most people is that they give back to the world more than they got.  “Got” doesn’t have to mean being born wealthier than most.  Having loving parents is also a gift.  Having good friends is too.  But in a capitalist society money tends to give you a greater ability to do harm or good.  

I don’t know how one measures one's moral balance precisely - one needn’t give back in the currency one receives.  Being kind to others is one sort of currency.  Contributing to the improvement of other people’s lives also works.  Passing on wisdom works too, though many people think what they have to say is wiser than it probably is.  All we can do is think about the equation of giving back more than we receive and seriously strive for that everyday.