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Notes
1 Fredric Jameson (Citation1986, 65–88) views allegory as a quality of political consciousness rather than individual psyche. For criticisms directed at Jameson’s generalizations about the “Third World,” see Neil Larsen (Citation2005, 37–40). For a Turkish response see Sibel Irzık, “Allegorical Lives: The Public and the Private in the Modern Turkish Novel (Citation2003, 551–566).
2 Tassos Boulmetis (Citation2003), A Touch of Spice (Release in Greece 2003; Thessaloniki: Village Roadshow Productions, Greek Film Center, et. al, 2008; Screenplay Tassos Boulmetis; Performances Georges Corraface, Markos Osse, Başak Köklükaya, Tamer Karadağlı, et al.; Music Evanthia Reboutsika; DVD).
3 Çağan Irmak (2011), My Grandfather’s People (Release in Turkey 2011; Istanbul: Ay Yapım, Most Production et. al. 2012; Screenplay Çağan Irmak; Performances Çetin Tekindor, Gökçe Bahadır, Yiğit Özsener, Durukan Çelikkaya, Ezgi Mola, Hümeyra, et al.; DVD).
4 According to the DVD cover and English-language reviews accessible in popular outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter, A Touch of Spice was Greece’s “all-time boxoffice hit.” The film represented Greece in the 2005 Oscars. April 27, 2009. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/touch-spice-film-review-93089 Access July 24, 2020. Although it faced tough competition from popular comedies like Eyvah Eyvah 2, romantic tear-jerkers like Love Likes Coincidences, and nationalist blockbusters like Valley of the Wolves, My Grandfather’s People secured a place among the top ten highest-grossing films in 2011. Following data published by Box Office Mojo by ImdbPro, Wikipedia lists the film within the top ten in Turkey. See “List of Turkish films of 2011” April 28, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_films_of_2011#cite_note-BOT01-1 Access July 24, 2020.
5 A Touch of Spice incorporates autobiographical elements from the director Tassos Boulmetis’ life. See Michelle Orange (Citation2009). https://www.villagevoice.com/2009/04/22/tassos-boulmetiss-a-touch-of-spice-a-childhood-upended/ Access July 1, 2020. My Grandfather’s People includes a dedication to director Çağan Irmak’s grandfather who, like the grandfather in the movie, had come from Crete as a result of the forced population exchange. See Yaşar Aksoy (Citation2011), December 25, 2011. https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/dedemin-insanlari-19537904 Access July 1, 2020.
6 An examination of Greek and Turkish textbooks written all the way until the 1990s revealed antagonistic and ethnocentric visions of nationhood in each country. Hercules Millas (Citation1991, 21–33).
7 I refer to social and cultural distinction as described by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu talks about “the system of dispositions” and tastes which are embedded in one's training, education, and exposure to bourgeois culture. Distinction stems from one's class conditions. Pierre Bourdieu (Citation1984, 56).
8 Ernest Gellner discusses the culturally homogenous nation-state as the necessary outcome of industrial society. See Ernest Gellner (1993, 45–46). Economic globalization weakens the hold of the homogenously defined nation-state thereby creating the conditions for greater inclusivity of socially marginalized groups such as migrants, deportees, and refugees. Conversely, it also bolsters the hold of economically advantaged and internationally linked groups that can reap the benefits of economic globalization. The latter results in socio-economic exclusion of the poor.
9 Astrid Erll states that “a nation’s version of its past and its version of national identity” are intractably linked. Astrid Erll (Citation2008, 6). Hence revision of historical narratives implies revisions of national identities. For questions of distinction and its attainment see Pierre Bourdieu (Citation1984, 56) where Bourdieu discusses cultural capital as a sign and symptom of a person’s socio-economic status.
10 I am borrowing from Bruce Clark (Citation2006).
11 The 1999 earthquakes in Turkey and Greece put existing disputes on hold and led to what experts call “disaster diplomacy.” For a comprehensive discussion of the earthquakes and disaster diplomacy see Ganapati, Kelman, and Koukis (Citation2010, 162–85, Access July 20, 2021).
12 The 1990s marked a turn for recognition of difference and a search for individual and family histories in Greece and Turkey. Some of these attempts translated into books, museums, and organizations, supported by EU cultural policies as well. Multiculturalism was successfully linked to social conservatism (e.g. neo-Ottomanism in Turkey) and economic liberalism which fueled competition for resources and recognition among different groups. For an assessment of “liberal multiculturalism” and its limits in Greece and Turkey see Iğsız (Citation2015, 324–45). The present article submits that notwithstanding these limits the idea of social inclusion remains a potent concept for the scrutiny of Greek and Turkish nationalisms.
13 In its search for lowering of national barriers to international trade, privatizing national industries, and monetizing and marketing everything from goods to identities, neoliberalism created its own global transnational imagination. But it also created a social environment marked by deregulation for the capital and economic injustice for the labor.
14 Only Golden Dawners and neo-Ottoman expansionists would claim that. Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi Greek party that defends Megali Idea (the Great Idea), the reclaiming of ancient Hellenic and Byzantine lands from Turkey. According to Renée Hirschon, around World War I the Allies dangled the “Great Idea” in return for Greek entry into the war on their side but the war brought loss and devastation. Renée Hirschon (Citation2004, 4). Jenny White (Citation2012) describes the novel discourse of religio-nationalism, the “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” that flourished in Turkey during the 1980s reaching its peak in the 2010s.
15 Ernest Gellner argues that nations are not some essences awaiting liberation, but are ways in which cultural units are re-organized and mobilized by ideology. Ernest Gellner (Citation1983, 48–49).
16 As a catastrophic process of sorting, Reşat Kasaba mentions “the deportation and murder of Armenians and the mandatory exchange of Anatolian Greeks for the Muslims of western Trace” (Kasaba Citation2009, 137).
17 The Greek Orthodox in Istanbul, Rum populations of two islands Imbros/Gökçeada and Tenedos/Bozcaada and the Muslims in Thrace were excluded from the exchange agreement. Aslı Iğsız (Citation2018, 4).
18 Kaliber argues that deportations were a part of the larger Turkification policies. For more see Ayhan Aktar (Citation2000).
19 Suavi Aydın argues that the “Turkish History Thesis,” aimed to resolve the complications of claiming ancestral roots in Central Asia by insisting that all civilizations came from Turkish origins (Aydın Citation2010, 36–37).
20 In an article that argues that denationalization of citizenship was an important trend of the 2000s, Ayşe Kadıoğlu describes the “citizen, speak Turkish” campaign as part of the assimilatory practices implemented during the first decades of the Republic: “…Accordingly, languages other than Turkish were forbidden in such public places as movie theatres, restaurants, and hotels. Posters declaring “Citizen, Speak Turkish!” were posted in public transportation vehicles” (Ayşe Kadıoğlu Citation2007, 289).
21 Daniel Koglin explains how rebetiko was originally viewed in Greece as the music of marginalized lowlife figures from Asia Minor. It encountered censorship (under Metaxas) and experienced politicization (Daniel Koglin Citation2008, 2, 29). https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mp/9460447.0002.102/–marginality-a-key-concept-in-understanding-the-resurgence?rgn=main;view=fulltext Access July 28, 2020.
22 In his well-known and much studied work Said described the orient as a discursive space constructed in European artistic, diplomatic, military, etc. representations and reliant on tropes such as oriental backwardness, irrationality, ahistoricity and sensuality (Edward Said 1978).
23 Ottomans took the island of Crete from Venetians in the seventeenth century. Most Cretan Muslims were Christians who converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest (Bruce Clark Citation2006).
24 This point about the gendered and heteronormative semiology of the nation deserves further elaboration, which remains beyond the scope of this paper.
25 Ethnic nationalism became the “archenemy of cosmopolitanism.” See Ayhan Aktar (Citation2004, 94).
26 By the nineteenth century, most Muslim Cretans lived in cosmopolitan urban areas. Manos Perakis (Citation2011, 137).
27 For some recent examples, Pelin Basci (Citation2017); Asuman Suner (Citation2009); Eylem Atakav (Citation2014, 158–165); Maria Chalkou (Citation2019, 185-199).
28 This refers to the imagined space as described in Edward Said (1978).
29 In a humorous vignette from the film Mr. Vassilis’ friends from Constantinople/Istanbul turn around, re-orient themselves towards the City, before helping the lost with directions. Fanis explains this as being “magnetized” to the City.
30 For more on how the 1980 coup forged a new economy and society as reflected in cinema, see Pelin Başcı (Citation2017).
31 I am invoking Deniz Kandiyoti’s discussion of classical patriarchy in which mother-in-law seeks increased power and autonomy in return for upholding the patriarchal arrangements in the patrilocally extended family. In some ways we all bargain with systems in which we exist. For more on the article, see Deniz Kandiyoti (Citation1988, 274–290).
32 A relatively fluid sense of Greekness and Turkishness was replaced by strict choices between one nation or another (Bruce Clark Citation2006, 17).
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Pelin Basci
Dr. Pelin Başcı is a professor of humanities in the Honors College at Portland State University. She has publications on late-Ottoman and early Republican women's popular press and on literature, cinema, and gender in modern Turkey. Her book Social Trauma and Telecinematic Memory (2017) investigates how Turkish cinema and television depicted the 1980 military coup as a national trauma. To the loving memory of Nimet Sıla Pamir Doğramacı, forever alive in remembrances from Rethymnon to Anatolia.