Istanbul and Constantinople
What's in a name? Sculpture in the teachers' Lounge at the Zapeion High School. On the 2nd of August, I found myself in excellent company, in a place I had held in my heart and mind since I was a young boy. It fills me with sadness to think that the change in stewardship of Constantinople, which became Istanbul, signaled the end of an era and the beginning of another. A loss for one 'nation' and triumph for another. My childhood was filled with the melancholic feeling that something had been lost and would be restored to 'us' someday. In truth, I had no idea what had been lost. The City, the Polis, the whole Christian construct that used God as a vehicle to create a state and a way of life, had been subsumed into an advancing culture that would influence the Balkans and shape the region for the next 500 years. (More on this change in name another time). I’ve often written about my family's history, a subject that seems to captivate only me. My siblings usua...