In Istanbul we took ferries between Europe and Asia. Sometimes several in a day. Once we tried to take a bus from Asia to Europe too, but we missed it, so we settled for the ferry yet again.
Okay so that was a bit of a cheap thrill. But how many cities can boast of straddling straits and continents? And of a history so rich ... though perhaps that comes with the territory. Such a commanding position--- between the Black Sea to the north and the Marmara to the south, between Anatolia and the Levant to the east and Europe to the west---would inevitably have drawn empires and conquerers, eager to gain control of strategic and lucrative trade and communication routes.
So the Greeks came. And then the Romans. Then the Byzantines, and the Seljuks, and the Mongolians, and the Ottomans ... Also, along the way, latter-day Europeans, though not as conquerers, but only as visiting merchants come to do business in one of the world's great crossroads. Each left their trace on the place, some more than others. The aqueduct, the columns in the Hippodrome and beyond, the Hagia Sofia, the great mosques, the palaces, the bustling marketplace of Galata and Pera.
How much of that can really said to belong to the history of the Turks, to the modern, unitary nation-state of Turkey? Very little, I submit. Istanbul's history has been, above all, a long and rich discourse between nations and civilizations. The Turks can only claim it as part of history in the sense that they are now the custodians of that discourse and its heritage.
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