Tarih okumaları serimizin bugünkü kitabı The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Kitap bizdeki tabiri ile İstanbul'un fethini, batıdaki tabirle Konstantinapolis'in düşüşünü anlatıyor. Batının tarih kaynakları üzerinden sosyal, politik ve askeri konularda güzel ayrıntılar veriyor. Tadı bana Amat'ı hatırlattı.
Kuşatmanın kolayca gerçekleştiği kanısındaydım. Kitabı okuyunca ne kadar zahmetli ve ne kadar trajik olduğunu gördüm. Konstantinapolis'lilerin çaresiz fakat kahramanca direnişlerini gözlerim yaşararak izledim. "Bashi-bazouk"lar arasına karışıp aman vermeden kale duvarlarına hücum ettim. Fatih'in yanında sabırsızlık ve öfkeyle atımı denize sürdüm. Halil Paşa'nın ızdırabına ortak oldum. Konstantin ve Teophilus'la birlikte "bugüne şahit olmaktan ölüm yeğdir" diyerek kapılardan içeri dalan Osmanlı'nın üzerine dört nala sonsuzluğa koştum.
Ne müthiş bir film olurdu Konstantinapolis'in düşüşü... Biraz Kingdom of Heaven ve 300 Sparta'lı karşımı... Bizi biraz kızdırırdı "gavurlar bizi kötü göstermiş" diye ama çok etkliyici olurdu. Hele şu ifadede anlatılan sahne olursa:
[p.137] Wave after wave of these fresh, magnificient and stoutly armoured men [Janissaries] rushed up to the blockade, to tear at the barrels of earth that surmounted it, to hack at the beams that supported it, and to place their ladders against it where it could not be brought down, each wave making way without panic for its successor. The Christians were exhausted. They had fought with only a few minutes' respite for more than four hours; they had fought with desperation, knowing that if they gave way it would be the end. Behind them in the city the church bells were clanging again, and a great murmur of prayer rose to heaven....ve filmin bitişi şöyle olsa:
[p.191] They remembered that dreadful Tuesday, a day that all true Greeks still know to be of ill omen; but their spirits tingled and their courage rose as they told of the last Christian Emperor standing in the breach, abandoned by his Western allies, holding the infidel at bay till their numbers overpowered him and died, with the Empire as his winding-sheet.Kitap son derece akıcı bir dille yazılmış, bir macera filmi seyreder gibi, 11 saat aralıksız okuyarak bitirdim (256 sayfa). 11 saat vakit ayırabilmemi Amerika uçak yolculuğuna borçluyum, duraksamadan kitap okuma rekorumu kırdım. Sadece duygularımın had safhaya çıktığı anlarda sükûnet molaları verdim, yoksa hostesler bende bir sorun olduğunu düşünebilirlerdi.
Kitapta altını çizdiğim bölümler:
[p.9] Despite the brilliance of its scholars Constantinople by the close of the fourteenth century was a melancholy, dying city. The population which, with that of the suburbs had numbered about a million in the twelfth century, had shrunk now to no more than a hundred thousand and was still shrinking.
[p.13] The intervention of Timur postponed the fall of Constantinople for half a century.
[p.19] The Byzantines knew that this earthly life was only a prelude to the everlasting life to come. To buy material safety here below at the price of eternal salvation was not to be considered... Union with the heretic West could not bring salvation nor could it alter fate.
[p.20] ...union with Rome might well cost the Patriarch the loss of more than three-quarters of his dependent bishops. That was a formidable argument to add to the natural reluctance of the Byzantines to sacrifice their religious freedom.
[p.21] Greek integrity might well be better preserved by a united people under Moslem rule than by a fragment attached to the rim of the Western world. The remark attributed by his enemies to the last great minister of Byzantium, Lucas Notaras: 'Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's hat', was not so outrageous as at first it sounds.
[p.22] In the great days of the past the prosperity of Byzantium had been linked with the posession of Anatolia.
[p.23] Warfare was continuous, whether or not the Byzantine and Arab governments were officially at peace; but the border barons were not unfriendly with their rivals over the frontier, who led similar lives. The Moslem frontier lords were perhaps a little more fanatical for their faith; but their fanaticism was not too great to prevent intercourse or even intermarriage. On neither side of the frontier was official religion very popular. Many of the akritai belonged to the Separated Armenian Church, and almost all of them willingly gave protection to heretics; while Moslem heretics could always find refuge with the Moslem frontier lords.
[p.25] Alp Arslan was in Syria, campaining against the Fatimids, when he heard of the expedition. He assumed it to be a move in the Fatimid-Byzantine alliance and hurried north to oppose it. It is curious that in this campaign, which was to be vital for world-history, each side believed itself to be taking defensive action.
[p.30] The Conquering Sultan, Mehmet II, sought to impress both his Turkish and Greek subjects by supporting a theory that his family was descended from a prince of the Imperial House of Comnenus, who migrated to Konya and there became a convert to Islam and the husband of a Seljuk princess.
[p.79] Yet, for all the feeling of despair, there was no lack courage [on the Christian side]
[p.85] Against the Sultan's army of some eighty thousand men and his hordes of irregulars, the great city, with its fourteen miles of walls, had to be defended by less than seven thousand men.
[p.97] The largest of them [the cannons], including Urban's monster, needed so much attention that they could only be fired seven times a day.
[p.123] Among the Christians hope was fading. But in the Turkish camp, too, there was pessimism and a general feeling of frustration. The siege had lasted for seven weeks; and yet the huge Turkish army with its magnificient war-engines had achieved very little.
[p.130] To his Greek subjects he [Constantine] said that a man should always be ready to die either for his faith or for his country or for his family or for his sovereign. Now his people must be prepared to die for all four causes.
[p.131] All that were present rose to assure the Emperor that they were ready to sacrifice their lives and homes for him. He then walked slowly round the chamber, asking each one of them to forgive him if he ever caused offence. They followed his example, embracing one another, as men do who expect to die.
[p.137] Wave after wave of these fresh, magnificient and stoutly armoured men [Janissaries] rushed up to the blockade, to tear at the barrels of earth that surmounted it, to hack at the beams that supported it, and to place their ladders against it where it could not be brought down, each wave making way without panic for its successor. The Christians were exhausted. They had fought with only a few minutes' respite for more than four hours; they had fought with desperation, knowing that if they gave way it would be the end. Behind them in the city the church bells were clanging again, and a great murmur of prayer rose to heaven.
[p.191] They remembered that dreadful Tuesday, a day that all true Greeks still know to be of ill omen; but their spirits tingled and their courage rose as they told of the last Christian Emperor standing in the breach, abandoned by his Western allies, holding the infidel at bay till their numbers overpowered him and died, with the Empire as his winding-sheet.
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