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145 Ja­ nis­ sary Fate What could he take away from the spir­ i­ tual re­ mains of this de­ stroyed Ot­ to­ man time, of this ­ damned Bab­ y­ lon with its jum­ bled al­ ley­ ways, with its emp­ tied lab­ y­ rinths—har­ ems, mar­ ket­ places, ce­ me­ ter­ ies, moun­ tains, a Babel of lost il­ lu­ sions for many gen­ er­ a­ tions. Like other Bal­ kan in­ tel­ lec­ tu­ als, he did not mourn the fall of the em­ pire, but he did mourn the false dream, the last­ ing il­ lu­ sion, that had given mean­ ing to his life. He re­ gret­ ted that some peo­ ple in the Bal­ kans would not im­ me­ di­ ately under­ stand and come to terms with the fall of the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire, es­ pe­ cially the fall of the cal­ i­ phate. He wor­ ried that the fear the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire had in­ stilled would re­ main in the souls of the peo­ ple for many years. His­ tor­ i­ cally, when­ ever an em­ pire fell—he had ­ learned this well from his­ tory—fear burst and dis­ si­ pated. He knew that many ­ tribes on the sum­ mits, on the hills and tow­ er­ ing moun­ tains of the ­ cursed Bal­ kans, would re­ main loyal to the sul­ tan and to the cal­ i­ phate, even when they no ­ longer ex­ isted. He ­ wanted to re­ turn to set­ tle these ­ people’s ac­ counts with that era. Per­ haps he ­ wanted to be a small, un­ seen ­ Atatürk of the Bal­ kans. He­ wanted to have an ­ anti-Janissary fate. He be­ lieved that the Bal­ kans would be truly saved only when the peo­ ple freed them­ selves from their Ja­ nis­ sary des­ tiny . . . R What was left for him to take as the last mo­ ments of the Ot­ to­ man era­ flowed away? He could take a gen­ u­ ine step, a step away from this time. He could win this bat­ tle with time, but only if he ac­ cepted its re­ verse cur­ rent. 146 The cur­ rent of his il­ lu­ sions. The curse of the vi­ cious cir­ cle of iden­ tity. He could eas­ ily win this bat­ tle with time, but he knew that for him there could be nei­ ther de­ feat nor vic­ tory, ­ merely sur­ vi­ val, if in the era of ­ Atatürk he kept ­ within him­ self the ­ spirit of his ­ people’s Ja­ nis­ sary tra­ di­ tion. Many ac­ cepted this tra­ di­ tion; they be­ came re­ nowned in ­ Atatürk’s state. They ­ changed their names, their father­ lands, their fam­ i­ lies, their sur­ names, and they be­ came a part of the new Turk­ ish realm. R He knew very well who these Ja­ nis­ sar­ ies were. There was no ­ greater mis­ ery in the world than the Ja­ nis­ sary tra­ di­ tion, a curse that awoke every hun­ dred years. He was very ­ afraid that he would ­ awaken the Ja­ nis­ sary ­ within. ­ Surely it had ex­ isted in his fam­ ily line. There was, in fact, no fam­ ily in the Bal­ kans that had not been ­ touched by the Ja­ nis­ sary curse. Even after the in­ sti­ tu­ tion of the Ja­ nis­ sar­ ies had ended, many re­ mained Ja­ nis­ sar­ ies in their own lives. My ­ father had ­ closely ex­ am­ ined the local char­ ac­ ter, the Homo bal­ can­ i­ cus, the man for all sea­ sons; he ob­ served that the Ja­ nis­ sary in­ sti­ tu­ tion was sim­ ply a facet of the govern­ ment, of the des­ potic, ab­ so­ lute power of the sul­ tan. Many re­ mained Ja­ nis­ sar­ ies through­ out their lives with­ out even re­ al­ iz­ ing it. Some­ how, the Ja­ nis­ sary in­ stinct had be­ come ­ rooted ­ within them. Their de­ scen­ dants strug­ gled to root out these Ja­ nis­ sary ­ traits, but they were un­ suc­ cess­ ful. When it came to re­ bel­ lion, rev­ o­ lu­ tion, or war, the Ja­ nis­ sary seed ger­ mi­ nated with­ out any­ one hav­ ing ­ planted it there, in the ­ people’s souls. For years, my ­ father col­ lected all sorts of books...

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