The history and historiography of Athens, Greece, has been dominated by its classical past. This excellent and rather provocative volume brings to light the rather neglected archaeology, topography and history of early modern Athens under Ottoman rule (AD 1458–1827). The classical past was, of course, present throughout the history of Athens, and even under the Ottomans: the illustrious Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682), a contemporary, and even precursor of the Western European travellers who made known Athens as a classical city, described in his travelogue (Seyahatname 8: 113; Kahraman et al. Reference Kahraman, Dağlı and Dankoff2003) Athens as the “City of the Ancient Sages” and the Parthenon as “the most beautiful mosque in the world”, due to its classical architecture. Evliya Çelebi, however, also contributed an alternative—albeit mythological—experience of the history and archaeology of Athens, one that was much different from the later Western European approach that privileged the classical past, with Athens at its centre. The present volume embarks upon investigations of multiple aspects of life in Ottoman Athens, both in its contemporary dimensions and in dialogue with its classical past.
George Tolias demonstrates in the volume that, for the Renaissance geographer, after the Ottoman conquest, Athens was a ruined city, which was best discovered through ancient texts. On the other hand, as Dimitris Karydis argues in his paper—and contrary to common understanding—Athens expanded from the very outset of Ottoman rule, developing a new Ottoman topography. According to Ottoman fiscal registers, the city's population was also rising, reaching 15 000 inhabitants in 1570. Moreover, Tasos Tanoulas presents a case-study of the Vienna Anonymous (a late fifteenth century manuscript) account of Athens and the 1670 Bassano drawing of the Acropolis, which re-dates the phases they represent to the Ottoman period. In the Western European imaginary, Athens became gradually recognised as the metropolis or national centre of ancient Greece; at the same time, however, contemporaneous Athens, in terms of population and importance, was the capital of Ottoman Greece. The Parthenon, the Fortress Mosque, situated on the Athenian Acropolis—as discussed in the volume by Elizabeth Key Fowden—was converted from church to mosque by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who visited the Acropolis in 1458 and, according to Laonikos Chalkokondyles (Histories 9.18; Kaldellis Reference Kaldellis2014), “greatly admired its ancient magnificence and its buildings”. Evliya Çelebi noted that the Parthenon had a pagan and Christian past, but also an Islamic one (Seyahatname 8; Kahraman et al. Reference Kahraman, Dağlı and Dankoff2003). The same illustrious Athenian building, and the history of Athens itself, was the topic of a unique Ottoman chronicle, written c. 1715: The history of the City of Ancient Sages. This is presented in the volume by Gülçin Tunalı, and was written by Mahmud Efendi, with the help—Efendi acknowledges—of two Greek priests who had read the history of Athens by Georgios Kontaris (published in Venice in 1675). It is a fascinating text that focuses on antiquity through the lens of a contemporary Ottoman Muslim living in Athens. Contemporaneously, the Ottoman town of Athens had acquired hammams, or Ottoman baths (investigated in the volume by Eleni Kanetaki, and Aliki Asvesta & Ioli Vingopoulou, through travellers’ narratives), and rich residences such as the surviving and beautifully restored Benizelos mansion (discussed by Yannis Kizis). Last, but not least, as shown by Joanita Vroom's study of the Ottoman period pottery from excavations in the Agora of Athens, the town's inhabitants had access to local and imported ceramics from both Western Europe and the eastern Ottoman Empire; like all people in the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century, they enjoyed coffee and smoking.
Ottoman Athens includes a study of Western European intervention in Athens—particularly of the removal of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin. Elena Korka and Seyyed Mohammad Taghi Shariat-Panahi discuss three particular Ottoman documents connected with the removal of the Marbles, an issue that remains highly contentious today. By the early nineteenth century, Athens had become symbolically important for Western Europeans due to its antiquities. The Greek revolutionaries after 1821 knew this and, as shown by H. Şükrü Ilıcak's contribution to the volume, the Ottomans were also aware of this ideological dimension of the war. Reşid Mehmed Pasha, in particular, reported to the Sublime Porte that Western European eyes were fixed on Athens during the siege of 1826. The Greeks finally capitulated and left the Acropolis in the hands of Reşid Mehmed Pasha in 1827. In the same year, a beautiful hand-drawn, detailed Ottoman map of Athens was produced, and is presented in the volume by Katerina Stathi. This map is reproduced excellently in the book, both in its entirety and in detailed extracts. The volume also includes a total of 95 beautifully printed illustrations.
The book demonstrates the potential for further research on the neglected story of Ottoman Athens. The editors claim in their Introduction (p. 21), that the Ottoman Archives “do not contain the wealth of information that exists for other parts of the Ottoman Empire”. To the best of my knowledge, there is plenty of material in the Ottoman Archives to support further research. The two editors, Maria Georgopoulou and Konstantinos Thanasakis, deserve praise for bringing the volume to publication, as do the foundations which funded publication, and the designer and press for such a professional outcome. The book is a necessity for both classicists and modernists studying Athens, and future researchers should begin by reading this fascinating volume.
