Old Europe Nostalgia Thread

[jorb]

His political activity kinda falls outside of the time period here, but how do you feel about Ataturk?

Freemason, liberal, revolutionary destroyer of his patrimony's genuine heritage and tradition of tolerance. I have no love for the Turkish republic. The persecutions of minorities started precisely with it.

[jorb]

Also westernization is bs.

[Potjeh]

But without westernization Turkey would've been just another British colony. While Ataturk may have radically changed Turkey's culture, he also ensured that it has a culture of it's own, by ensuring it's independence.

[jorb]

But without westernization Turkey would've been just another British colony.

Arguably the Ottoman empire wasn't in its heyday, but I think Japan aptly illustrates how tradition can be merged with modernity in a relatively quiet manner, and without becoming another bland republic with a reputation for genocide.

[jorb]

Thinks like changing the alphabet, forbidding the traditional dress... kills the soul of the place. I read a travelouge from Istanbul during the fading days of the old imperial sense of life, and it was so sad to feel that vibrancy of life, and that crossroads of cultures and religions just fade away. Then came the armenian genocide, the expulsion of the greeks, &c&c&c. Tragedy, and a loss of what was one of the most unique cultural milieus of the old world.

[jorb]

And, I mean... obviously only a fool could argue that the middle east is better off today than it was during the days of the Sultans. The area hasn't known any real sort of peace since the empire.

[jorb]

(I'd rather not bring up the sordid fact that America's al Qaeda allies are presently murdering orthodox christians en masse in Syria, but I will say that the sultan would never have allowed it, and would have hung, drawn and quartered anyone who dared to attempt such infamy.)

[aljuspt]

D. Afonso Henriques



1500 - Pedro Alvares Cabral - Brasil



1498 - Vasco da Gama - India


Fernao Magalhaes first circumnavigation of the Earth

[jorb]

The LOC has an absolutely sublime collection of photochrome prints from the fin de siècle. Here, St. Demitry, Charkov, The Ukraine. Before the Holodomor, the bolsheviks, and the genocides.

[Potjeh]

Well, Turkey is a lot better off than the rest of the Middle East, so I'd say Ataturk did something right. And yeah, it did involve replacement of the rich old culture with something new, but at least that something was Turkish. That's just the way of the world, old traditions die and new ones replace them. There's no better example than Christianity, there's never been a more culturally destructive force, and yet here we are celebrating it's traditions. As for Japan, I'd hardly say it retained it's old culture, it's an even more corporate clone of America that just happens to be wearing the severed head of the old culture as a mask.