"Back door? Funny things"
Η Eleni Glykatzi- Arveler She used to remember her foreign students at the Sorbonne sending her a τηλε condolence telegram every May 29th, at the same time that most Greek girls, if you asked them what happened that day, did not know exactly. In recent years the situation has reversed.
In Greece it has become, more or less, fashionable to remember such a day every year Fall of the City - some out of acquired speed or ignorance speak of "celebration", instead of an anniversary, and not to be content with celebrating the beginning of the Revolution, every March 25th. The importance of the city, one might say, for the Greeks.
Right. So the symbolic significance of the Fall is just as great. Even if its siege by the Ottomans was just one of many, even if the climate of the time was such, the situation of the Byzantine Empire was such that it would be a surprise not to conquer the city.
"We are in the middle of the 15th century, around 1450. The city is a small town now - it has no 70.000 inhabitants, when once it had passed half a million" Eleni Glykatzi-Arveler tells "NEA", trying to take into account put things in their place, to record truths and myths of the Fall as only a Byzantine scholar with her own path can do.
"The city has been decimated by the plague and the successive sieges of the Turks. But also from the controversies of the West, since the frictions of Genoese and Venetians took place in its port. There was also a tendency of independence of the few countries that remained free - not only of Mystras which incidentally fell in 1460, also on May 29! The situation was one of general insecurity. "
The division.
And as if that were not enough, "there was a great unifying and unifying controversy, for and against the Union of the Churches. Opponents in the Union allied with the Turks were the so-called unnatural alliances. Proponents of the Union declared: "When the two Romans were united we ruled the world.
"When they were divided, we lost the lead." In this sense the real fall of the City dates from 1204 onwards. The anthropocentric controversy even took on enormous proportions after 1438 and the Council of Ferrara.
"There the Emperor John IX stirred up the Church in a last effort of Union, but while the intellect wanted to be renaissance, the Church remained devoted to the homeland in a fanatical way, if nothing more," says the Greek Byzantine scholar without chewing her words. , the first female rector of the Sorbonne in the 700 years of history of the great French university.
He continues: "But there was another factor of decline. It was the general superstition fueled by the prophecies. There have been prophecies since the 6th century, but then they were optimistic.
Now they were prophesying the end of the City and with it the end of the world and of History. This, then, was the climate in Istanbul at the time. Superstition, discord, poverty, misfortune.
The Byzantines lived in a deserted city. And in the palaces of Porphyrogenitus very few rooms were used. As Palamas says in the "Twelfth Book of Gypsum": "And those were the times when the City / prostitute in penance spent the night / and kept her hands tied / and a butcher (…) And pushed the Turk to take her" ».
"The City could have fallen much earlier"
The city could have fallen into the hands of the Turks much earlier. "The reason this did not happen and they breathed for fifty years was that Bayazit fell into the hands of the Mongols," says Eleni Glykatzi-Arveler.
"The Byzantine Empire could not stand on its own. Manuel ran to see Charles, John went to Ferrara. It is the age of begging emperors. Beggars went to the West, even if they were received there with honors and glories.
Something that Greeks usually do not accept is that the Pope tried to help.
He disposed of the indulgences - the paid pardons - of 1450, which as Jubilee indulgences were more lucrative, in the war against the Turks. Unless this was effective, since he gave the money to the Aragonese who used it for their own purposes.
Many say the West did not help. But when we talk about the West, what do we mean? The Byzantines were all over the East. The West was fragmented and the Pope had a rift in his back and the Eastern Church against him.
It is characteristic that when Palaiologos fights the Turks together with the Pope's envoy, Isidore of Kiev, and the Genoese, Gennadios-Georgios Scholarios, the first Patriarch after the Fall, put up a curse against Palaiologos. And also: after the fall of the City, the Westerners trembled.
When Pope Collomini, that is, Pius II, took over the Pope, he wrote a treatise on the Fall in which he spoke of the destruction of Christianity. On the contrary, the Russians, who are in fact fanatical anti-Semitists, write almost nothing about the fall of the city. It took years for the Slavic lamentations to begin. Those who mourned for the city from the beginning are in Trabzon. "Take the city, take Romania," they said.
Something that Greeks usually do not accept is that the Pope tried to help
The agreement of the sultan with the Patriarch
Roumeli Hisar, the castle built by Mohammed in 1452 to control the passage between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, played an important role in the outcome of the siege, says Eleni Glykatzi-Arveler.
"He also trained the fleet by passing his ships in Keratios. "On the other hand, only 3-4 Genoese ships passed through to bring food to the besieged."
Of course, this was not the only reason for the defeat of the Byzantines. "Mohammed had gathered Serbs, Albanians, Turks. Against at least 100.000 men - some talk of 120.000, others raise them to 200.000 - a maximum of 4.500 people opposed, including foreigners.
And many were children and women fighting with their elbows. The help of the Genoese was great, but when Justiniani was killed they lost their morale and retreated. Those who fought, however, fought heroically.
When Muhammad sent a reply to Paleologos asking him to hand over the City, he received the answer that the City is not his thing and that "with our will we decided to die".
Even the famous Notaras, who had three nationalities and all his property abroad, and who said that the Turkish kaftan was better than the Latin tiara, fought and was eventually executed by the Turks. Characteristic of the heroism is that when at the Roman Gate the Turks began to go up and through, they were looking for rival warriors and did not believe that they were so few.
And we must also say of Muhammad, whom we are accustomed to equate with barbarism, that he was not a barbarian or was not only a barbarian. He was one of the biggest reformers in Turkey. He knew what he wanted and how to do it. "
As for the Kerkoporta… “Open or forgotten. Funny things. There were thousands out, their boats in the Horn, the Genoese were leaving. What about Kerkoporta? On a symbolic level you can only say something. But it is as if to say that instead of killing three Turks as they entered the City, ten would be killed if the door was closed. So what; "After they had climbed stairs and entered from wherever they wanted."
"Muhammad gave the patriarchal office to Gennadios Scholarios, appointing him the immediate leader of Milliet, that is, of all the Orthodox. "Somehow we know why the Church kept all its estates and the empire lost them", says Eleni Glykatzi-Arveler sharply. "Somehow we got to today's vatopedina vakoufia.
And we must not forget, in contrast to other behaviors of the state, that when Manuel Paleologos is in Thessaloniki and there is a risk of destruction, he confiscates all the estates of Mount Athos. And that Komnenos confiscates all ecclesiastical property in order to confront the Seljuks ".
At the time of the Fall, moreover, there was an upsurge of monasticism. "In all the controversy of the anthenotics, the monks in the monasteries of Polis and Athos were first. There are many and they do not fight. "Unlike the western monks who can carry weapons, the Orthodox cannot", notes the Greek Byzantine scholar.
The Church kept all her estates and the empire lost them…
