A Turkish Woman's European Impressions by hanoum Zeyneb Grace Ellison

Author:hanoum Zeyneb, Grace Ellison, [hanoum Zeyneb, Grace Ellison,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465605733
Google: KJ1GAQAAMAAJ
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2021-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

The year that the Belgian anarchist tried to kill the Sultan Hamid, was certainly the worst I have ever spent. Even the Armenian Massacres, which were amongst the most haunting and horrible souvenirs of our youth, could not be compared with what we had then to bear. Arrests went on wholesale! Thousands were “suspect,” questioned, tortured perhaps. And when the real culprit had declared his guilt before the whole tribunal and had proved that it was he, and he alone, who had thrown the bomb, the poor prisoners were not released.

It was in the summer. Up till then in the country, a woman could go out in the evening, if she were accompanied, but this was at once prohibited; every Turkish boat which was not a fishing boat was stopped; in the streets all those who could not prove the reason for being out were arrested; no longer were visits to the Embassies possible, no longer could the ladies from the Embassies come to see us; no “white dinners,” no meeting of friends. There were police stationed before the doors, and we dared not play the piano for fear of appearing too gay, when our “Sovereign Lord’s” life had been in danger.

Of course no letters could be received from our Western friends. The foreign posts were searched through and through, and nearly all the movement of the daily life was at an end. One evening my sister and I went outside to look at the moonlit Bosphorus. Although accompanied by a male relative, three faithful guardians of the safety of our beloved Monarch stepped forward and asked for explanations as to why we were gazing at the sea. Not wishing to reply, we were asked to follow them to the nearest police station. My sister and I went in, leaving our relative to explain matters, and I can assure you that was the last time we dared to study moon effects. Never, I think, more than that evening, was I so decided to leave our country, come what might! Life was just one perpetual nightmare, and for a long time after, even now in security, I still dream of these days of terror.

I remember full well what importance was given to the French 1st of May riots. When I myself saw one of the strikers throw a stone which nearly blinded a doctor, called in haste to see a patient, and saw his motor stopped and broken to pieces and the chauffeur thrashed, I thought of the days of our Armenian massacres—the awful days of Hamidian carnage—and the 1st of May riots seemed to me a Revolution arranged to amuse little children.—Your affectionate

Zeyneb.

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