From Polypathis to Diinya, from the Safe Port of

Translation to the Open Sea of Creation

Anthi Karra

"Ev i:;vi Jc6yw 17 copr1/ avr111/wv ro Of:mpov rov KOapov" (Pal 157)
"Has!lz, §U Karnaval bir Tenza§a-i Diinya ve Cefaktir ve Cefake§ler
1
ayinesi olup ... " (Mis 717)

Evangelinos Misailidis ( 1820-1890), called the "Komis of the Turkish-speaking

/
Greeks" (Choudaverdoglous-Theodotos 1930: 303), constitutes a very interesting
example of the educated Ottoman Christian of the nineteenth century, having con-
tributed through lifelong industrious activity as writer, editor and translator to ex-
pand the range of "Karamanlidika" readers to embrace a wider and more popular
public. His unique novel Tema§a-i Diinya ve Cefaktir ve Cefake§ler ("The Theater of
the World and Tyrants and Tyranized") was published in four volumes in Istanbul
from October 1871 to December 1872 (Kut 1987). Nowhere in the book, neither
under the title nor in the preface, is to be seen the slightest mention of the author's
debt to Grigorios Palaiologos's picaresque novel 0 Polypathis ("The Man of Many
Sufferings"), published thirty years earlier, in 1839 in Athens, while Misailidis was a
student in the Faculty of Philology and Philosophy of the then newly-founded Uni-
versity of Athens.
Misailidis certainly read the book, whose author claimed to be introducing the
novel to Greece, as soon as it was published and he probably appreciated it, unlike
2
the Greek readership of that time • Was it even from then, enchanted by the instruc-
tive and entertaining aspect of the novel, inspired by his juvenile optimism, and
boosted by the proclamation of Hatt-1 Serif of GUlhane (J 839), that he nourished the
idea of translating it into Turkish for his co-religionists to read? Or would it be more
plausible to argue that the idea occurred to him much later, having reconsidered it in

The editions used are: Grigorios Palaiologos, 0 Jlo?.Dlro.01/<;, ed. Alkis Angelou, Athens: Ennis
1989; and Evangelinos Misailidis, Seyreyle Diinyay1 (Tema1a-i Diinya ve Cefakllr ve
Cefake1ler), ed. Robert Anhegger & Vedat Giinyol, Istanbul: Ccm Yaymevi 1986. The
comparative references to Palaiologos's and Misailidis's texts will be indicated as follows: Pal
... /Mis ... ).
2 The book had a rather hostile reception and was completely forgotten by the time Misailidis
published in 1872 his Theater of the World (Tziovas 2003: 65), and was practically ignored by
scholars till 1988 (Kechagioglou 1997: 128).
202 Anthi Karra

the light of the important changes induced by the Tanzimat reforms and his thirty-
year experience as a journalist, publisher and, incidentally, as a translator3 , at a time
when his contemporary reformist Ottoman intellectuals, both Christians and Mus-
lims, used literary translation as a means of spreading new ideas and educating peo-
ple4? An important change had actually taken place during the thirty years that sepa-
rate the two novels. The development of the Press had brought about the journalist-
writer, while the objective of attracting a wider reading public had led to the emer-
gence of the serial novel and to a consequent boom of popular literature, with Istan-
bul and Smyrna being the gateways of these developments both for the Ottoman
Empire and for the Greek State (Moullas 2007: 91).
In this context, while it remains to study Misailidis's translation and literary ac-
tivity not only from a strictly philological point of view, but most importantly from a
historical and sociological perspective in close connection with the related activity of
his contemporary Christian and Muslim Ottoman intellectuals (Evin 1983: 57-58), a
careful comparative reading of Palaiologos's novel and Misailidis's translation of it
allows for some interesting remarks to fuel such a future study.
In his intriguing analysis of Palaiologos's novel, Dimitris Tziovas emphasizes its
political rather than didactic character, and suggests that it be read as a "national
allegory from the Ottoman empire to the Greek state" (Tziovas 2003: 55-82). En-
dorsing this view about Palaiologos' s novel the present contribution focuses on
Misailidis' s interventions in the original text, both as a translator and a writer, sug-
gesting that having perceived, if not the allegorical at least the inherent political
character of the novel, he adopted while translating it acculturation strategies that
inevitably led him to build upon it his own version of Favini's adventures in his
effort to adapt them to what he considered to be the political challenge of his own
time, that is a world deprived of tyranny for his country, the Ottoman Empire, and
the survival of their particular identity for his fellow co-religionists, the Ottoman
Christians (Rum). Publishing it at a time of accelerated political and social change
both at home and abroad 5, he kept off the danger of presenting a novel culminating

3 The publication of TenzaJa-i Diinya in 1871 inaugurates a more intense period of book
publishing and translation activity in Misailidis's life, the six previous books he published since
1844 being mainly, with the sole exception of Aesop's fables (1854), adaptations of strictly
religious content (Tarinas 1996: 299-350).
4 The nineteenth century was a period or intense translation activity with young intellectuals
from all the ethno-religious communities of the Ottoman Empire publishing in the newly-
establishcd newspapers and journals. The first translator of verses in Turkish is considered to be
ibrahim Sinasi (1859), who was soon followed by, among others, Ahmed Midhat Efendi
(1844-1912). Translations made by non-Muslims published in Armenian and Greek script,
although first to appear, have long been ignored by the traditional nationalist vision of
literature, thus remaining as a subject of future research.
5 The book was published at a time of rapidly-emerging nationalist unrest in the Balkans on the
eve of the Oriental Crisis of 1875, but also of the proclamation of the first Ottoman constitution
(1876). The parallel has to be drawn in this respect with Palaiologos's Polypathis, which was
published on the eve of the revolt leading to the adoption of the Greek Constitution of 1843 !
 From Polypathis to TemaJa-i Diinya 203

in a whole-hearted cry in favor of the Greek state and in line with several other Ot-
toman intellectuals of his time he probably presented the book as an "original
work" 6 •

Building upon translation

Translation constitutes the backbone of Tema.ya-i Diinya. Even its apparently new
title is a clever amalgam of the original title and a phrase taken out of Palaiologos's
description of the Italian carnival. The numerous passages of rather "faithful" trans-
lation scattered in the book suggest that Misailidis was perfectly able to stick to the
source-text. The translated text is nevertheless a condensed version of the original,
with action being favored rather than style. A high degree of concordance of the
meanings of words does not necessarily imply, though, fidelity to the source-text, as
translation cannot be restricted to that. There are two points in this respect worth
taking into consideration while examining Misailidis's translation, and they are both
intimately related to his target audience.
The first one concerns his choice of language since Palaiologos wrote in a puri-
fied Greek (katharevousa), and the second one the strong oral character of the lan-
guage register he used compared to Palaiologos's literary text.
Born in 1794 in Istanbul, but familiar with western Europe, having lived and
studied in England, France and Germany, Palaiologos started writing 0 Polypathis
after he established himself in Athens, invited by Kapodistrias to work as an agri-
cultural engineer, with the obvious ambition of offering a novel that would "corre-
spond to the European reality of his time" (Angelou 1989: 124). His choice of a
purified Greek language was perfectly in line with his target audience, the more or
less educated, rapidly westernizing social strata of the newly-founded Greek State.
Misailidis, on the other hand, motivated by the ambition to affirm and promote
through education the particular identity of his co-religionists at a time of political,
social and economic transformations in the Ottoman Empire, and eager to contribute
- and this was a political objective - to the assurance of their survival and their equal
partipation in a rule-governed empire, favored in his book the simplified journalistic
prose of his time; and this, notwithstanding his initial effort towards a more elabo-
rate style in the translated parts.
This stylistic difference between the two texts is due to a similar process (albeit
moving in the opposite direction) in the creation of a national language in Greece
and Turkey. The attempt to resurrect the ancient Greek language through the use of
katharevousa created an artificial written idiom, restricted to the well-off, educated

6 Having not been able to check whether the novel first appeared, along with some kind of
introduction, as a serial in the newspaper Anatoli, I would prefer to refrain from judging this
assertion. Concerning acculturated translations from western languages to Turkish presented
without, or with incomplete, acknowledgements, or as "original works", see Berk 2004: 84.
204 Anthi Karra

social strata, possessing or aspmng to power (and/or social recognition) in the

newly-founded Greek State, while the gradual distancing from the official Ottoman
language and its elaborate stylistic requirements through the simplification of the
language introduced by the reformist Ottoman intellectuals during the Tanzimat
period, did not merely sign the struggle between rival poetics, but most importantly
denoted the effort to create a widely-accepted linguistic instrument, able to serve the
introduction of the social and political reforms that were eventually to lead to the
creation of a modem Turkish State (Paker 1986: 75).

Aiming at a different public

Having in mind his target audience, Misailidis chose the kind of language he used
and its register accordingly. Knowing instinctively that all meaning is created
against background meanings already made and shared in a community, he acclima-
tized the source-text to this different cultural setting through different strategies.
The changes he introduces vary from small sporadic corrections aimed at "up-
dating" the source-text in order to match the everyday experience of an audience
better acquainted with Istanbul (the priest of St. John's Church in Stavrodromion
[Pal 12] I the pope in the Virgin Mary's Church in Beyoglu [Mis 39]) to large-scale
adaptations that would open a window to creation: for example the chapter con-
cerning Favini's school years, in which Misailidis offers us in return a vivid picture
of the "schools" run by Orthodox priests in the Anatolia of his childhood (Pal 11-15
/Mis 37-51).
A major characteristic of Misailidis's small sporadic corrections is that by ren-
dering concrete and specific many of Palaiologos's general and often allusive refer-
ences7, they progressively erode Palaiologos's literary aspiration to portray through
Favini's life the human adventure. The outcome is a text which is down to earth,
easy to read, to understand, and if possible, to situate within one's own map of ex-
perience thanks to the author's enrichment of the text by meaningful details so as to
attract the interest of a wide, popular public with little, if any, literary preoccupa-
tions8. It is a typical example of popular literature (Volksliteratur).
Misailidis's adaptations are all closely related to the particular cultural identity of
the target-audience: to its religious faith, cornerstone of this identity, its mainly tra-
dition-based moral rules and vision of the world, as well as to its particular cultural
and aesthetic environment.

7 For example, "a certain priest of the western church" becomes "the frenk pope of Virgin
Mary's Church in Beyoglu" ["tcpfo nva (Pal 15) " ... Beyoglu'nda
Santa Maria bir frenk pappasma verdi" (Mis 51).
8 It is interesting to compare, in this regard, Palaiologos's narration of young Favini's first erotic
encounter with the two young cousins (Pal 18) with Misailidis's translation of it (Mis 62-63)!
 From Polypatlzis to Te11U1$a-i Diinya 205

Born and raised in the "heart of the Greek Enlightenment" (Angelou 1989: 129),
Palaiologos wrote for a literate public eager to repress the memories of an Ottoman
past, considered as a long period of decline, and to embrace Europe's gaze on it. His
was a public which had started to replace the pre-national, religion-centered identity
with a modern national one. Misailidis, on the other hand, wrote for a public that did
not hold in contempt the Ottoman world in which Favini's adventures evolve, nor /
did it contest its place within Ottoman culture; a public with a solid religious identity
and, at best, a rudimentary, if not non-existant, national one; and for which the dif-
ference between Catholic baptism (by affusion) and Orthodox baptism (by immer-
sion) was very much of relevance, which explains Misailidis's choice to correct
Palaiologos's literary liberty that presented them as the same. (Pal 110/ Mis 648).
In the same way, all references with a western content, be they about music (Pal
134/ Mis 688), food (Pal 18/ Mis 64), dance (Pal 98 I Mis 635), manners, morals or
customs, are adapted to their Ottoman equivalent whenever the action is taking place
in the Ottoman world. In the chapter about Favini's love affair with the Ottoman
lady, Misailidis omits the passage about the symbolic language of the flowers (Pal
96), but adds a little bit later a passage on the symbolic language of the women's
handkerchief (Mis 632). The young Ottoman bride wears "a red veil" (al duvak)
(Mis 643) in Misailidis's text, not a white one (AcvK6v nbdov) as in the Greek text.
The list of examples could be quite long. Misailidis does not hesitate to censor the
source-text whenever it offends his cultural taste, omitting or adapting accordingly
Palaiologos's implicit or explicit orientalist views. Favini's relationship with the
Ottoman lady deprived of Palaiologos's numerous orientalist references (like the
pompous oath to Allah and the prophets) and comments, is thus presented as a quite
usual relationship between a married woman and her secret lover (Pal 97 I Mis 637).
The very word "Ottoman" is used in a different way, without the slightest hint of
exoticism or depreciation. Most of the times it is omitted, replaced by a word refer-
ring more or less explicitly to the religion of the person concerned9, while the
distinction is made between the "old times" responsible for the negative image of the
10
Turks in Europe, and modern times •
His effort to make Palaiologos's text more intelligible to his public urged him to
add extra information which can vary from short historical references to whole sto-
ries of several pages.
These long additions to the very corpus of the translated text offered him the
chance he was looking for to educate while entertaining his public. It is in this way
that most of the well-known ancient Greek philosophers are made to parade through
his pages, as well as practically all the emblematic big names of the Greek antiquity

9 For ex. islam hammlar (Mis 632), or simply hamm, bey, hoca etc.
JO See in this respect his footnote on p. 577. He does not hesitate a little bit futher on to say that
the Tanzimat reforms have brought Turkey ahead of Europe; "[ ... ] elyevm Tlirkiye nizamall
Evropa nizamatma tefevvuk eyledi desem hilaf soylemem" (Mis 641).
206 Anthi Karra

a Greek is summoned to learn at school 11 • And that is not to mention Aesop's Fables,
already translated and published by that time by Misailidis (Balta 1987: 46-47), or
stories taken from the Old Testament, Aelian's Varia Historia etc. All of these were
adapted to the taste of his public in order to match the numerous widely told stories
ofNasreddin Hoca and of the dervishes 12 (Strauss 1997: 281).
Without completely excluding the possibility that Misailidis chose this novel for
the innumerable possibilities it offered him to indulge in his desire for telling stories
of his own, it would not be exaggerated to suggest that he rarely leaves an unex-
ploited track. In the chapter about "Rome, Popes and Cardinals" he briefly inserts
the story of the Papess Joanne (Mis 651), the recent Athenian literary scandal
(1866), without mentioning, though, Roidis or his book In Palaiologos's chapter
about the hero's English widow he inserts a whole new chapter about the Crusades 13 ,
while Favini' s arrival in Athens offers him the perfect chance to instruct his readers
about the Greek Revolution, Rhigas Ferraios and Adamantios Korais (Mis 797-798).
Without contesting Misailidis's profound conviction and pride of being of Greek
descent and his ardent desire to transmit this sense to his Turkish-speaking co-relig-
ionists 14, his translation of this last chapter reveals a very clear Ottoman-oriented
political perception, as does, among others, his interesting epilogue to Palaiologos's
brief reference to Ali Tepedelenli 15 , or his omission of the passage on the
philhellenism movement in Europe (Pal 181 I Mis 747). This Ottoman perception is
also very much reflected in his language, as he refrains from the re-naming, through
the re-imagining of both places and identities, that nationalism introduced into lan-
guage, and which is characteristic of Palaiologos's text 16 • The human and political
geography depicted in his text reflects quite faithfully the Ottoman reality in the
Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean of his time. It is interesting in this regard to

11 While the question of Misaili<lis's various sources deserves a serious an<l thorough exploration,
there seems to be no doubt that the then very popular Gerostatlzis (fi:pocrt6.011i;) by Leon Melas,
translated by Philippos Aristovoulos into Turkish and published in karamanli<lika script a few
years earlier in Athens (1866), occupies an important place among them (Stathi 1995: 134).
12 A great number of jokes accentuate the entertaining aspect of the book: there are jokes about
the numerous language problems in a multilingual society, about the different ethnic groups,
but also about women and sex.
13 Herc the equation Muslim = Turk, widely-accepted in his <lay induces Misaili<lis to make the
mistake of having the Crusaders conquer in the twelfth century some islands belonging to the
"Ottomans":"[ ... J istanbul'a ve Osmanhlar'a tabi baz1 a<lalan <la zapt eyle<liler" (Mis 756).
14 For Misaili<lis, education is the necessary condition for his coreligionists to claim their noble
ancient Greek descent and be able to contest the allegations made by European scholars ( !)
presenting them as an intermixture of nations (Mis 327-328).
15 Revolting against the sovereign is synonymous for Misaili<lis to revolting against God, Ali
Tepe<lelenli having been punished for his irreverent behavior (Mis 569).
16 Palaiologos presents to his readers the image of a world divided into clearly distinctive nation
states (Greece, France, England, Russia, Valaehia/Daeia ... ), although this was not always the
case politically (e.g. Italy). It is interesting to notice how he slips from '"Valachia" (BA.uxiu) to
'"Dacia" (ll.aKia), so as to avoid calling the people there "Valachs" (B/,6.xot), something which
of course poses no problem to Misaili<lis (Mis 586).
 From Polypatlzis to Tema:ja-i Diinya 207

notice that he uses the term Rum to translate Palaiologos's I'pa11c6c; and confines the
use of the term Yunan !Yunanlt to cases directly connected with the Greek State
(Yunanli palikarya [Mis 462] and Yunan gemisi [Mis 463]). Influenced by the
source-text he translates as Yunan! lisam (Mis 37) and Ywumice (Mis 48) !l/V
£)).17v1K1v c5ux).<:Krov Favini was first taught, but sticks to Rumca (Mis 436) I Rwnice /
(Mis 439, 739) I Rwnf lisan (Mis 344) in his own text to indicate the language the
people speak, describing with the term Ellinika (Mis 49) only the language the
children are taught at school.

Drawing on oral tradition

Contrary to Polypathis, Temafja-i Diinya has a very strong oral character. It was
written in order to be read out loud to a wider, probably illiterate public and most of
the above-mentioned adaptations can also be seen as strategies to conform the
source-text to the oral tradition of a new target audience. Translation in oral tradition
involves the adaptation of narrative to the poetics and ideology of the target culture.
Action being more important than words in oral tradition, Misailidis senses the need
to condense his text, leave out Paleologos's literary pretensions and stick only to the
strictly necessary. In order for translated narratives to remain alive and function fully
as literature, they must be conformed to the standards of the receptor culture. Given
that the very notion of the word is different in an oral context, translators refrain
from translating word-for-word, something which has as a result the dramatic re-
fraction and manipulation of the source materials (Tymoczko 1990: 53-54).
A non-adapted translated literature appears as antiquarian or exotic to a public
impregnated by the practical-mindedness of the oral culture. Antiquarianism and
exoticism are born of literacy and are intimately related to the notion of a fixed text.
Misailidis does not want to be exotic, he does not want to shock or confuse his
public. It is in a barber's shop olmak iizere bir perukan dlikkanma vard1m"
[Mis 709]) and not while eating in some hotel (navc5oxdo [Pal 154]) that his own
Favini meets the man doing magnetics, as a barber shop is for him and his public a
more plausible place for one man to meet another man!
Avoiding literary abstractions he prefers to give a name to the different persons
his hero has to do with. The deacon ("[ ... ] am1vrouv etc; rriv
[Pal 99]) has a name, "Sofronios" (Mis 637), and so does the young girl (17 vi:a) to
whom Favini performs a serenade, "Eleni" (Mis 690). He transforms Palaiologos's
indirect speech to direct, reproducing in his own passages the everyday way of
speaking of his public: "I said 'swimming' and I suddenly thought of a joke", and he
goes on and tells the joke! (Mis 393) He reproduces colloquial rather than journalis-
tic speech very much influenced by the meddah story-telling tradition 17 • This

17 Ahmed Midhat's novel Hasan Mel/ah, considered to be the first Turkish novel (1874), was also
very much influenced by the simple language of the meddah (Moran 1983: 55).
208 Anthi Karra

influence is visible not only in the language but also in the content of various of his
stories, which reflect the atmosphere of the lower and even underground social
layers dominant in the 1neddah repertoire of that time (Moran 1983: 27). The
language has to capture and keep alive the interest of his listeners. It is not a
language bound to express the singularity of a particular individual, the author, that
is the language of the modern novel. It is the language of a larger consensus, the
language of a community. This is the reason why he makes, drawing on the
expressive wealth of the colloquial Turkish language, abundant use of proverbs and
idiomatic expressions. Palaiologos is extremely frugal in his use of proverbs and
idiomatic expressions as he manipulates a language with little if no contact with the
everyday spoken language. There are more or less 26 proverbs or idiomatic
expressions to be found in his whole text, 13 of them being in the two pages (Pal
234-235) in which he reproduces the demotic speech of his time. Misailidis on the
other hand offers a real thesaurus of Turkish proverbs and idiomatic expressions,
over 200 of them, most of them still widely in use today. Only five of them are given
in Greek, and they are all well-known ancient Greek maxims or often-repeated
religious phrases 18 • Interestingly enough the only phrases in modern Greek are the
insults addressed by the teacher-pope to his naughty Turkish-speaking Christian
students, as Misailidis, not contented with Palaiologos's simple mention of insults
and curses pronounced, reproduces them verbatim in his text 19 •

Sailing away from the original

Whether "visible" or "invisible" the translator always accepts to remain a few steps
behind the author whose authority he consents to promote through an as faithful as
possible interpretation of both the spirit and the word of the source-text. The
translator's creativity, even when expressed through radical acculturation strategies,
never actually undermines the authority of the source-text. This particularly sensitive
balance between two different creative processes is disturbed when the translator
distances himself from the author and sets a different, completely new goal for his
text. Whether this happens at the beginning, middle or end of the translation process,
it allows for a different evaluation of the target text in its totality, setting henceforth
the translator in the place of the author and ascribing to him the responsibility for
this "new" text.

18 For example in the first case aci 7tEAUsc1" (Mis I 03), in the second case
"AoOcvi1s Kat o8om6pos ouK txct" (Mis 543), "Tov rcrtAl:Ka, n1v nionv
rcnjp11Ka, air6.Kttc ouv o n1s 8tKatomivris ort<pavos" (from Paul's letter to Romans, p.
544), or the emblematic closing phrase of the book "Marat6rris ra navra
("Vanitas vanitatis et omnia vanitas" [Mis 815]).
19 Cf. Pal 11, at tippets Kat at Karapat!" (Mis 39), "kakon hronon nahis", "zoon tetrapodon",
'"gaidare'', "gremisu apo do", "guruni".
 From Polypathis to Tema1a-i Diinya 209

Tema:ja-i Diinya offers a perfect illustration of this, given that in addition to the
numerous adaptations intimately related to the translation process, the book contains
lengthy, utterly new passages having no relation to Palaiologos's novel. The small
occasional changes initially introduced in order to adapt the source-text to its new
target audience have progressively led Misailidis to distance himself from the
/
source-text in an effort to satisfy both the needs generated by his newly invented plot
and his own desire to express views and ideas on various issues. The articulation of
translated passages with newly created ones, mainly to be found in the beginning of
the novel, undoubtedly contribute to anchoring Favini's Istanbul adventures to
Misailidis's contemporary reality, with the later brief reappearance of some of the
new characters in Favini's European peregrinations being motivated rather by the
desire to bind together more successfully these two distinct elements of the novel
than by a carefully premeditated plan. Even when translation continues later, more
or less in conformity with the general lines of the source-text, with Misailidis's in-
terventions being restricted to small stories of religious, historical or mythological
content, numerous jokes, and omissions of passages too difficult for his public to
follow or understand 20 , there is no doubt that the train moves onward on a different
track 21 •
The very span of Favini's life is found chronologically displaced. Favini's life,
according to Palaiologos's narration, expands from the last two decades of the
eighteenth century to 1834 (he is then said to be over 65), in support of Tziova' s
argument that Polypatlzis be seen as an allegory of the modern Greek State. By
omitting the final passage of Palaiologos's novel and adding abundant post-
Tanzimat references in his own passages, along with the various small changes and
corrections he introduces, Misailidis displaces Favini's life, making it start sometime
in the early nineteenth century, that is before the abolition of the Janissary corps by
Sultan Mahmut II ( 1839), and expand through his own contemporary Tanzi mat
period. With Favini being his persona rather than a humble journalist to whom this
whole story is told ( Mis 815), Misailidis deprives these adventures of any
allegorical references, and, by retaining and accentuating only the entertaining and
instructive side of his stories, imposes in the same time his own seal upon them.

20 Misailidis ommits, for example, the description by Palaiologos of the French ''bourgeois"
society in Favini's Parisian adventures (Cf. Pal 195-203 I Mis 766-780), as well as the
description of the political situation in Athens during the Bavarian rule, found in the last
chapter of the book.
21 A previous serial publication of the novel in a newspaper could explain the integration of some
of these stories, known to Misailidis from his personal (for example, the story of Kiriakoula on
Mis 279-287) and professional life, into Favini's adventures, as well as the loose relation
existing between them.
210 Anthi Karra

Two axes converging towards a single goal

To the plot of Palaiologos's Polypathis, rich in adventures but linear in structure,

Misailidis superimposes a quite labyrinthine plot, pretty difficult sometimes for the
modern reader to follow. In search of Ariadne's thread through this often awkward
and confusing intermingling of stories, the reader feels the existence of two main
axes running across practically all of them. The first axis concerns women and is
remarkably illustrated by the series of stories about the whores Favini meets when
disguised as a priest in the brothels of Beyoglu and whom he manages to save from
perdition. The second axis, which can be best epitomized by Usta Yorgis's story,
concerns the struggle of everyday life for the Greek Orthodox Christians in the
Ottoman Empire during the tumultuous nineteenth century.
If the main female characters in Palaiologos's novel contribute, according to
Tziovas, to the distinction between the two aspects of the novel, the "ideal and the
real, stability and change" (Tziovas 2003: 63), and serve as social barometer,
indicating the degree of liberalism in each society (Tziovas 2003: 69), the colorful
parade of very realistically portrayed women in Misailidis's lengthy contribution
reveals a completely different set of preoccupations. Misailidis realistically depicts
popular women, fully engaged in the everyday life of their time. Whether whores or
respectful housewives, they all seem somehow familiar to today's Greek reader, they
all step out of stories that have reached him through the women of his family and
echo a still familiar world.
This peregrination through the life of prostitutes could of course be regarded as a
journey to the unknown world that exists away from the well-protected traditional
way of life, and to the particular dangers it represents for women, having as its
counterpart for men the lives and deeds of the twenty prisoners Favini meets while
imprisoned. Slowly introducing the traditional Ottoman world to modernity through
the occidentalization of its institutions, the Tanzimat reforms progressively
undermined a well-established, century-long social equilibrium. First to grasp the
new possibilities offered, the different Christian minorities faced increasing changes
in their lives for which they were not prepared, while often becoming rivals with one
another. Misailidis sensed this as both a chance and a threat for his community and
tried to raise his public's awareness of these new problems.
He reports more than 130 brothels with over 760 prostitutes working in them in
Beyoglu, the most westernized quarter of Istanbul at that time. They were poor girls,
mostly from the minorities, presented by him almost always as victims. Victims of
poverty, of bad luck, of love, of indecent or licentious husbands and lovers, of their
own immaturity or sensual feminine nature. The morality of women is a matter of
primary concern in all traditional societies grappling with the ambivalent charm of
modernity. Misailidis is aware of the new challenges women face and, being
convinced of the primary importance of women in the family structure, he focuses
on them. His women characters find themselves in all kinds of difficult situations,
and even if there is a man - husband or brother - around, they are very often obliged
 From Polypatlzis to TemaJa-i Diinya 211

to find a solution to their problems alone. They are far from being passive Oriental
women, they are creatures full of desire, will and determination, and very often
slyness and maliciousness. They have learnt through the centuries to claim their due
using oblique ways, to manipulate rather than ask. They are caring mothers (Mis
210), jealous (Mis 413) though not always faithful wives. They can even dress and
behave like men and nobody will ever notice the difference (Mis 214), a proof of
what they are capable of. Yet most of the time their strength lies elsewhere, making
them both vulnerable and fearsome, and this is the reason why they should be
/
protected, if not secluded.
Men on the other hand are born with the responsibility of both meeting the needs
of their families and "running the world". Men move around while women stay
mostly in one place. Dimitris from Kayseri spent only a month with his newly-wed
wife before going to work in Egypt (Mzsir), whence he came back to her 35 years
later (Mis 305). Kitsos the butcher from Yanya makes every July the trip to Salonica
to sell his flock of sheep (Mis 431). The monks roam around the Ottoman empire,
from the Balkans (Athos and Meteora) all the way to Jerusalem and the Sinai
Monastery, through Anatolia and Cyprus, in search of holy relics (Mis 53) and
exercising their dubious power upon an ignorant flock. Those engaged in political
action (Philiki Etaireia) travel across Anatolia to save Christians made captives after
the Chios massacre, while instilling the spirit of the new national age to come (Mis
291). By moving around, men often find themselves trapped. Sometimes they have
to change their name or pretend that they belong to another religion (Mis 205). They
easily get involved in new love-relations and create new families. Quite often the
man has one wife in his home village and another one in Istanbul, and children of his
own with both of them. And this is not to mention those who do not hesitate to have
one family in one part of Istanbul and one in another (Mis 253). The lack of official
registration of civil acts encourages such situations. Young women find themselves
obliged to abandon their new-born illegitimate babies in front of churches (Mis 11),
while the elders of their community try to find a home for these children.
Although Usta Yorgis's story is very characteristic of the kind of stories
Misailidis tells, his effort to create a plot out of it and attach it to a whole series of
characters and minor stories, reveals his desire to update Favini's adventures and
inscribe them to the new goal he sets for his text.
Usta Yorgis's father Polychronis was one of the numerous orphans dispersed in
Anatolia after the massacre of Chios (1822) to be raised as Muslims by the family
which saved them. Although Muslim in appearance he kept deep in his heart the
memory of his family name, Pantazis, together with his Christian faith. He married a
young girl, an orphan from Chios like himself, but his wife died while giving birth to
their only son Yorgis, and Polychronis decided to take the baby and run away to the
town of Sile (:EiA.Ari or I 0 km NW of Kon ya), have it baptized and reinte-
grate himself into his original religious community. Earning his living as an itinerant
merchant, he was killed by bandits near Aksaray leaving little Yorgis alone. The
Christian community took him in charge and sent him, when he became 20 years
212 Anthi Karra

old, to Nigde to be married to a Christian girl named Meryem. His wife had already
born him three children when Yorgis decided to leave Nigde for Istanbul in search of
better work, something very common for Christian men of this region at that time.
Lonely men are easy prey in big cities. The middle-aged Kyriakoula - who had
already played a trick on Favini in order to get rid of the child the elders of the
Greek Orthodox church had entrusted to her and her daughter Aspasia for a monthly
salary - spotted him in a popular fair and after having encouraged him to spend a
night with her daughter, obliged him to marry her. Yorgis found himself in this way
bigamous, something apparently quite common for men like him at that time. After a
whole series of extremely complicated and rather improbable adventures, sometimes
reminiscent of Dickens's stories and involving many other side characters,
Kyriakoula, Aspasia, and Agios Megas - the priest of the Patriarchate in charge of
giving a solution to the whole affair when Yorgis's legitimate wife arrived in
Istanbul with her children in search of him - would finally prove to be Polychronis's
lost brothers, dispersed like him after the massacre of Chios, in other words, Usta
Yorgis's uncles and aunts! Usta Yorgis thus regained his legitimate wife, having
reconstituted in the meantime his original extended family.
With women holding in this story the main thread, both tangling and untangling
the plot, Misailidis points out their angular position in the family and the social
problems created whenever this position is weakened by deeds of men or outside
factors. The discussion about women between Agios Megas and Misailidis's
persona, Favini, is quite evocative in this respect (Mis 274-276). Women were
created by God equal to men but being by nature more delicate they should be
shown more consideration and respect. Of course the civilized world no longer
accepts the seclusion of women as was the case in ancient Greece and is still
prescribed by Islam, but isn't it better than the moral decay observable all around?
If, that is, proper education proves to be impossible. Misailidis stigmatises several
times the lack of education given to girls, and asks that the example of Victorian
England of his time be taken (Mis 275).
And here is where the two main axes converge. Women must be protected in
society because they are the guardians of a particular identity: "An immoral man
cannot mix the different sorts of people but an immoral woman can!" 22 • With the
Turkish word cins echoing its etymology from the Greek word - the Greek
term for the Ottoman millet - Misailidis aims at the very heart of the problem.
Pointing at this necessary condition for the survival of their particular identity, the
fears of the Tanzimat man expressed here in moral terms seem to pave the way for
the more radical views of the next, henceforth nationalist generation, and lead to the
inevitable separation of the different ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, through
deportations, massacres, wars and ultimately the exchange of populations.

22 "[ ... ] zira bir erkck olmakla, silsilesinde cins olamaz, liikin bir
olacak olur ise, cinse cins bundan fenahklar zuhur gelir, [ ... ]"(Mis 275).
 From Polypathis to Tema$a-i Diinya 213

The theater of his community's world

Before the eyes of modern readers who open his book over a hundred years later,
Misailidis unfolds in panoramic vision, the "theater" of his world. It is the world of
the Greek Orthodox community in the late Ottoman Empire, confined by its
religious faith, but at the same time open to its wider Ottoman reality.
The particular community-confined world emerges with the very names of its
various characters. The men in Istanbul who, after a joyful carnival evening, go to
one of the brothels of Beyoglu are not anonymous, they are respectable people, per-
haps even of our own acquaintance: Savvas Kyriakidis, Dimitrakis Ioannidis, Hatzi-
Prodrommos Basiliadis, Dionysios Christidis, Ioannis Petridis and Evgenios
Michailidis! Also explicitly named are the various Karamanli clients of the lawyer
Favini: Lambik Aga from Egin, Dimitri Aga from Kayseri, Anton Aga from Nigde,
Lazaron Aga from Isparta, Vasil Aga from Kostanti Aga from Silli, Yorgi
Aga from Ankara! 1,

We get to know their jobs and their origin, the two being very often inter-related
. .,,
in the Ottoman world: sea captains from Kefallonia and <;amltca (Hydra), hard-
working ustas from Kamman, butchers, shepherds and charlatan doctors from Yan ya
(Ioannina), sponge-divers from Sombeki island (Symi) and Kastelorizo (Mis 217),
bandits from Strantza, clergymen and prostitutes from all over the country.
The mention of numerous customs, morals and manners allow us to see the
complexity of this plural world as well as its profound embeddedness in its
geography. Traditions and customs are often mentioned as local particularities
transcending religion: for example the tradition that obliges the young bride in the
vilayet of Konya to communicate with her in-laws only in sign language until the
birth of her first child (Mis 209), the custom of hanging bells aroung the neck of the
young groom in Chios (Mis 209), or binding strings and wires around the feet of the
young bride in Patmos (Mis 209), the cheerful display through the streets of
Kastelorizo of the blood-stained underwear of the young bride (Mis 207) etc. They
are mentioned sometimes in order to be condemned as remnants of older times
responsible for today's social problems: the tradition in the island of Mytilini (and
other islands in the area) of handing down all property to the first-born daughter of
the family, thus condemning the most passive of the other daughters to servitude,
and the most rebellious to life in a monastery2 3 or a brothel, while sometimes leaving
the old parents at the mercy of an idle husband (Mis 191 ).
We see deep-grounded beliefs and superstitions - like the belief in the existence
of vampires - walking hand in hand with religious faith (Mis 219), but also being
shared with the other religious communities (Mis 506). This world's numerous
feasts and celebrations, whether local fairs (panayir) organized in honor of some

23 Life in a monastery does not deprive them, though, of a sexual life as there are plenty of
occasions to meet young monks from nearby monasteries, not to mention the existence of
lesbianism, which seems to be quite common in such surroundings (Mis 193)!
214 Anthi Karra

saint 24 , agricultural activities like the olive harvest in Mytilini which turned every
25
year into a real celebration (Mis 192), places of pilgrimage or the carnival time in
Istanbul, serve not only to enhance the ties binding its members together, but also as
26
occasions to socialize with the other religious communities •
A particular history transmitted both through written and oral sources forges the
ties that bind together this community. Written sources safeguarded and transmitted
by the church attach its members together through the memory of Roman emperors'
chrysobulls (Mis 59), encourage them to discover - thanks to the acquisition of the
Greek language in the schools - ties with their remote ancient Greek ancestors, who
are highly-appreciated by the modern world (Mis 328-329). Oral sources constantly
re-negotiate their meaning through the incessant repetition of similar, and yet
everytime different, life stories bursting out of recent historical events: the massacre
of Chios, the Greek Revolution, the Janissary revolts and the Tanzimat reforms.
Social phenomena more or less contemporary with the author and which
fascinate the wider modern Greek public emerge with all the complexity and
ambivalence of the times that gave birth to them: New Martyrs of the Church
(Neomartyres), Crypto-Christians, Conversions to Catholicism or Protestantism. The
case of the New Martyrs serves to reveal the instrumentalization of the ignorant
clergy by the Church (Mis 120-121 ). Proselytism, far from being the privilege of the
dominant Muslim religion, as was largely the case in the previous centuries (Mis
130), takes the form of an open competition between the different religious groups,
with none of them being excluded 27 but with a definite advantage on the side of the
Catholics! The fear inspired by the very energetic proselytism activities of the
Catholic Church in Anatolia, along with the apprehension created by the growing
appeal of Europeanization to the Greek Orthodox Christians28 , incite Misailidis not
only to denounce them but also to be more critical towards the Greek clergy and
stigmatize its misbehavior and faults.

24 Prophet Elias panayir in Arnavutkoy, Virgin Mary's in Yenikoy, St. John's in Therapia or
Kulitta (GOl<le) (Mis 218), St. Panteleimon's in Kuzguncuk or (Philadelphia) (Mis
218), etc.
25 Christians an<l Muslims sometimes share the same place of pilgrimage, for example, with
Christians revering St. Nicholas an<l Muslims Murat Reis near Patara (Mis 205).
26 Likewise the Muslim religious celebration (bayram) is also perceived as a time for
entertainment, an<l what can be more fun than a Karagoz play in Numan Aga's coffeshop near
Mehmet Cami (Mis 315)?
27 "Rumlar o <lerece <legit ise <le, arastra ellerine bir Katolik ya Ermeni ya Yahu<li rast olur ise,
efkiirlanru etmeksizin hemen suya batmp ismini teb<lil etmege ("Maybe not to
the same degree, but even the Rums from time time, when they happen to run across some
Catholic, Armenian or Jew, without checking their ideas, try to plunge him in the water and
change his name") (Mis 131 ).
28 "Zira bir taktm Cezuitlcr Devlet-i Aliye topragma gibi Ermenileri Katolik ve
Devlet-i Aliye tebas1m Frenk etmeye ("Because a whole bunch of Jesuits have
fallen like grasshoppers onto the Ottoman State and are trying to convert Armenians into
Catholics an<l the Ottoman subjects into Franks") (Mis 508).
 From Polypathis to Tema:ja-i Diinya 215

The Greek Orthodox clergy is criticized for being ignorant and greedy for money
(Mis 118-121 ), celibacy is pinpointed as one of the reasons for the corruption
existing among its members (Mis 162-163), while ignorance is presented as a real
threat to the doctrine and teachings of the Church (Mis 208). The traditional enmity
of the Orthodox world towards the Catholic incites Misailidis to adapt Palaiologos's
text accordingly. In the chapter about "Rome, Popes, and Cardinals", Favini is not
seen by the Catholics as a Muslim converted to Christianity, but as a schismatic
Greek having finally "purified his soul which was stained by his Rum identity and
accepted the Catholic doctrine" 29 •
The Ottoman State is definitely home to Misailidis who depicts it in all its
extended geography and its even wider cultural-geographical references 30 • He
emphasizes over and over again the benefits of Tanzimat for its multi-ethnic, multi-
religious fabric. The different ethnic and religious groups parade in his text not as
1
homogenous entities but as complex and diverse as his own religious community3 •
He grasps the occasion to correct unfounded conceptions and aphorisms, displaying
in his tactful handling of the different religious groups a very different view of
alterity to that of Palaiologos and his nation-confined world. Misailidis choses in this
respect to omit the characterization of Jews as rpzuKa.raparoz ("thrice-damned") in
Palaiologos's text (Pal 127), while he disdains as sayings of ignorant people the
popular rumours about Jews killing Christian children and using their blood in their
rituals (Mis 244). Jews, often closely associated with the city of Salonica (Mis 129),
can sometimes be just poor miserable guys (Mis 420), but they generally keep their
typical characteristics of being fraudulent borrowers (Mis 412) and impossible to
Islamize 32 •
Although the term "Turk" is used on one occasion in a pejorative way meaning
"uncivilized peasant" 33 it is generally synonymous with "Muslim". Misailidis
stresses repeatedly the difference between the Turks of his time and those of the pre-
Tanzimat era, although he recognizes that it is not easy for people to lose overnight a
centuries-long feeling of superiority. He corrects the image of Turk reflected in
Palaiologos's text by praising their forgiving nature, clemency and generosity,
qualities bestowed on them by the Prophet (Mis 626). There is an interesting episode
in which a quite peculiar character, half Orthodox priest and half imam, tries and
manages to convince a Muslim young girl in love with the son of an orthodox
priest, to become Christian and marry her beloved one. He draws in his arguments

29 "[ ... ] sen dahi vaptis olarak Katolik mezhebini kabul etmekle, Rumlukla
oldugun ca111111 temizlcdin [ ... ]"(Pal 114 /Mis 657).
30 Misailidis's characters travel all around the Ottoman Empire. They make their living travelling
in the Balkans and Anatolia, wandering as itinerant merchants from Adana all the way to Persia
(Mis 507), or by going to work in Teheran or in the mines of Kandahar (Mis 104--105).
31 Muslims can be Slinni or (Alevi) (Mis 401 ).
32 He tells the story of an imam who converted 250 Jews but didn't bury a single one, because
they all went to Salonica and became Jews again (Mis 129).
33 When, for example, a Muslim, Nuri Efendi, says "ey yonulmad1k Tlirkler" (Mis 319).
216 Anthi Karra

some interesting parallels between the two religions, implying far greater similarities
for the ordinary people than one could imagine (Mis 452). Armenians on the other
hand seem to be an issue of particular concern for Misailidis who devotes several
pages to the history of the Armenian church and the schism within it. His views
reflect the ambivalent relationship existing between them, both as Nestorians and
Catholics, and the Greek Orthodox (Mis 514-525), and hardly dissimulate his
apprehension about the numerous personal ties woven between the members of these
two Christian communities.
"Civilized Europe" seems to be a constant point of reference and comparison. In
Europe the mentally disturbed are taken care of and are not treated like animals (Mis
106). Prostitutes are regularly followed and examined by doctors (Mis 230). The
doctors themselves have studied medicine and are not ignorant like all those
charlatans wandering around and pretending to be doctors (Mis 185). Births,
weddings and deaths are declared and bigamy thus prevented (Mis 252). Illegitimate
babies are deposited in special spots, not left in front of churches to be torn apart by
wandering dogs (Mis 121 ). There are actually no stray dogs in the streets of Europe,
they all have a master and a collar round the neck (Mis 427). Europe seems to offer
an answer to many everyday problems shared by all the religious communities. Its
people, though, are perceived as different, and not always as an example to follow.
There is a slight condescension expressed through irony (Mis 430), numerous jokes
(Mis 271, 306, 441) and characterizations 34 , quite indicative of the cultural clash
experienced and an emerging feeling of inferiority.
There is no doubt in Misailidis's presentation that the Ottoman Empire is a
friendlier, more humane place to live in than all these European countries where
money is everything and uniformity the rule (Mis 628-629). In the last chapter of
the book Misailidis's Favini settles down in Istanbul and names his son Vassilaki,
while Palaiologos settles in Athens and names his son Konstantinos, an implicit
reference to the hoped-for king who will conquer the city of the nation's desires!
The modern Greek State and it's nationalist agenda do not appeal to the wise and
cautious Tanzimat man Misailidis. His Favini judges completely groundless the
ambition of Modern Greeks to conquer Constantinople and hopes for them "to
experience Tanzimat in order to get to know the value of freedom" 35 • His own
identity remains well-confined by his faith. To the nationalist final cry of
Palaiologos's hero "Long live the nation! Long live the King!", his own hero
opposes the wish for a world where knowledge attained through education will put
an end to tyranny and to its disastrous consequences on the life of men. His long life
of adventures and sufferings has taught him all but one thing: how wise are
Solomon's words Maw.16r17r; 1iaro.wr1/rwv m mxvro. paro.16r17r; ("Vanity of vanities,
all is vanity"). He finishes his book as if it were a prayer "Amin siimme Amin!!",

34 While Palaiologos mentions simply llyy).oc;, Misailidis specifies zevzek Ingiliz.

35 '"Yunanlar <la Tanzimatm lezzetini alsalar, serbestiyetinin kadr-ii kiymetini de tamrlar" (Mis
802).
 From Polypathis to Tenza$a-i Diinya 217

knowing that his readers will nod their head and mutter in consent: "Bu dtinyaya
kimse kalmaz, gelen gos;er illerine" ("Nobody stays in this world, they all come and
go in its provinces").

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