ISTANBUL THROUGH THE EYES OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
' For fifteen years I grew up watching the beauty
of the Bosphorus from the hills above Bebek. Istanbul and the Bosphorus
have certainly played a very great part in my love of nature, to
which I owe my success in my career.'
These are the words of Dr Gilbert H. Grosvenor, editor of the world
famous National Geographic Magazine for 55 years, who was born and
brought up in Istanbul. They are taken from an interview with journalist
Haluk Durukal in 1950. At that time Grosvenor could not have foreseen
that exactly fifteen years later the National Geographic Magazine's
photographs of Istanbul would be shown at
a major exhibition at the Ottoman Imperial Mint. Grosvenor explained
that the magazine had nearly two million photographs in its archives,
and declared that 'the largest collection of all is that depicting
the country where I was born and Istanbul, the city where I grew
up.'
 The
boys had been born in Istanbul, then capital of the Ottoman Empire,
and spent their childhood and early youth there. Their unusual background
attracted the attention of inventor Alexander Graham Bell, one of
the founders of the society who was to become its president in 1898.
Years later Gilbert Grosvenor said in the same interview,
'I can never forget the Galata Bridge, which we often crossed with
my father. Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Arabs, Easterners and
Westerners were to be seen, as if people of all the nations of the
word had come together in this legendary city, bringing their own
customs and cultures. I used to wonder if there could be another
city on earth like it.' Gilbert Grosvenor became first assistant
editor of the National Geographic Magazine, and in 1899 succeeded
Bell as the National Geographic Society's president.
In 1900 he was appointed editor of the magazine, which entered a
new era under his direction. In 1901 the number of subscribers rose
from 1000 to 74,000, and by 1915 there were 424,000 subscribers.When
Grosvenor retired in 1955, 2.2 million copies of the National Geographic
Magazine were being printed each month. Grosvenor was succeeded
by his son Melville Bell Grosvenor, who retired in 1967, to be succeeded
by his own son Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, who is currently chairman
of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society.
 The
exhibition of photographs of Istanbul from the archives of the National
Geographic Magazine, which has been documenting the world and its
transformations for over a century now, is being organised by Is
Bankasi, a bank which has played a major role in Turkey's own transformation
from a largely agricultural to an industrial society.
Writer Murat Belge has described the exhibition
in the following words: '"To see with on'so own eyes"
is an expression which is used in many languages. Photography shows
us what other eyes have seen.
This exhibition brings photographs produced for
other eyes in which we are the main protagonists. Now we are the
viewers of ourselves as we were once seen by others. "That
is us!" we exclaim.'
 The
photographs of the people, buildings, streets and monuments of Istanbul
in the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the first fifty years
of the Turkish Republic create a vivid picture of this eventful
period. They reflect the faces of a people tired after years of
war and the varied costumes of immigrants to the city from Anatolia,
the Balkans and Caucasia.
We are reminded of the change-over to a new Turkish
alphabet, that memorable winter when the Bosphorus iced over, and
many other events in our recent past that the older generation remembers
but the younger has only heard about. As Murat Belge says, it is
like looking at ourselves in funfair mirrors, and suddenly realising
that it is indeed us.
* Ozgur D. Durgun is a journalist
Articles
Index
|
