Splendour and Misery
BYZANTIUM AND ISTANBUL. By Robert Liddell. (Cape, 25s.) HIS-TORY lies buried—often alive—in the structures of ancient cities. It may be centred in a single monument—the Kremlin, the Forbidden City, the Dome of the Rock : or drowned under the clatter of daily life. But in some it forces itself on the mind, leaving the present a mere afterthought. Constantinople is one of these. It literally breathes history. The churches, mosques and other buildings form its great contribution to humanity. To those familiar with them Mr. Liddell brings added knowledge: to a newcomer he offers an expert companion. He is right, too, in praising the Turkish contribution. What would the silhouette of Istanbul at sunset be without the mosques and minarets?
Where history is concerned, the whole sixteen centuries are darkened with horror. There is little to choose between Emperor and Sultan, Empress and Valide. Mr. Liddell's narration is inevitably bewildering. The series of accessions, imprisonments, assassinations and restorations is impossible to follow. Only occasionally is relief found in a Justinian, a Constantine Porphyrogenitus or a Mahmud.
Christianity was largely a matter of superstition, of disputes over futile heresies, of gorgeous ceremonial. Moslem simplicity provides a sharp contrast, even if a comparison exists between Leo the Isaurian and Mehmet the Conqueror. Outside church and mosque there is little to choose between the splendour of the two courts. I remember what this had sunk to in the last days of the Sultans. 1 saw Mehmet V, Abdul Hamid's successor, return from the Friday 'Selamlik,' in a shabby victoria. There was a small escort and a band which played a Western music-hall tune transposed appropriately into a minor key. His subjects showed no interest. There can have been but little 'seraglio life' for him, but Mr. Liddell's chapter on that palace inspires a most vivid notion of how the earlier Sultans lived.
Throughout, the whole story is beset with tragedy, punctuated with lost opportunities. Oceans of spilt blood and oceans of spilt milk. What would have happened if East and West had held together? If there had been no schism between their churches? If there had been no Fourth Crusade (or possibly no Crusades)? If the Eastern Empire had not sunk in the mire of its own degeneracy? Mr. Liddell has a pertinent answer. The destruction inflicted by Christian on Christian in 1204 was an outrage against creed and race. The fall in 1453 was a natural consequence, the replacement of an outworn. disintegrated Empire by, as he puts it, 'a young and more vital people.'
Mr. Liddell deals with all aspects of the story and it is astonish- ing how much he has put into how little space. If he makes no claim to originality, he deserves praise for piecing together so much valuable information and for enlivening his account with so many admirable illustrations.
IUGEIE KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN
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