Istanbul on Fire: End-of-Empire Melancholy in Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul

Abstract

This article discusses the depiction of Ottoman ruins in Orhan Pamuk's 2003 memoir about Istanbul. The charred ruins of Ottoman palaces lining the Bosporus, the article argues, evoke in Pamuk's Istanbul a post-imperial melancholy that connects the Ottoman past to the Turkish present. In his book, Pamuk portrays hüzün, a form of melancholy, as a collectively produced, constitutive element of Istanbulites' daily life. Hüzün is not merely a sentiment emanating from individual literary or visual representations of Istanbul, he points out, but a specific cultural idiosyncrasy. Pamuk is one of the few contemporary Turkish authors who recognizes the ethical and political significance of the Ottoman imperial legacy—something that is denied in official parlance even to this day. This article suggests, however, that in attempting to reconnect the Ottoman past to the Turkish present, Pamuk elevates hüzün to a form of collective and national affect. By dignifying imperial melancholy in this way, Pamuk glosses over the political and social costs of imperialism, costs that extend into the present.