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Janissary Fate
- University of Wisconsin Press
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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...