Levantine

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The term Levantine denotes in a broader sense the inhabitants of the so-called Levant , i.e. the countries of the Mediterranean region east of Italy .

General

In a specific meaning, the members of the colonies of European merchants and their descendants residing in the Ottoman Empire , especially in Constantinople , were referred to as Levantines. These colonies, especially those of merchants from Genoa and Venice , already existed in part during Byzantine times. This group was based on their legal status. Their relatives were not subjects of the Ottoman sultan and were privileged by the surrenders . On the other hand, they acculturated to the local conditions and lost more and more the social connections to their nominal homelands, but without fully assimilating. In the 19th century, this group came under pressure as their nominal home countries increasingly relied on an active commitment to their home country, e.g. diplomatic and consular protection, on which their status depended. B. by completing military service or faultless language skills, made dependent. With the surrender of surrenders in and after the First World War , these Levantines lost the basis of their existence as a separate group.

What this group of predominantly Italian, French and Maltese origins have in common is their membership of the Catholic Church and a socio-cultural urban milieu that was traditionally initially shaped by the use of the Italian language, which was increasingly pushed back by the French language in the course of the early modern period. As a result of the privileged status of this group, their lifestyle became more attractive to members of the autochthonous Christian groups and, towards the end of the 19th century, opened up European culture to penetration into the Muslim upper and middle classes. With the end of the capitulations, the special status of the Levantines and their socio-cultural milieu also ceased to be attractive. Some of the members of the local Christian minorities emigrated and some turned to secular nationalism in their home countries.

The descendants of Western Europeans lived in Constantinople mainly north of the Golden Horn in Pera , while Greeks and Armenians lived in the old town, there especially in the quarters around the official seats of their patriarchs . The long-established Greek families were therefore called Phanariotes , after the Phanar district in which the official seat of the ecumenical patriarch is located.

Played an important role in Constantine Opel also mainly Sephardic , but also Ashkenazi Jews .

For the definition of the Levantines, see also the work by Schmitt (2005) (see bibliography).

Significance in the late Byzantine and Ottoman era (13th to early 20th century)

There were similar ethnic groups in all the important port cities of the Ottoman- ruled Mediterranean area. B. in Saloniki (where the Jewish population played an important cultural role), in the Turkish coastal cities such as İzmir , Tarsus and the Arab Mediterranean ports of Latakia , Beirut , Haifa , Jaffa , Alexandria .

In all of these cities as well as in the important trading cities of the Arab hinterland such as Damascus , Baghdad and Cairo , non-Muslim population groups (some of them autochthonous, descended from the ancient Syro-Phoenician population of the region and spoke Arabic) played an important cultural and economic role.

In the course of the Europeanization of the 19th century, these non-Muslim groups mixed with each other, which is why in Europe people of mixed European-Oriental descent are also called Levantines.

Levantines were the main bearers of cultural modernity in the Middle East, at the same time paradoxically they laid the foundations for modern secular nationalisms.

The modern Turkish language was propagated by non-Muslims such as Munis Tekinalp , the modern Arabic language was defined analogously to Luther by the translation of the Bible by an Arabic Protestant, Butrus al-Bustani .

Decline in the 20th century

In the 20th century, Levantine culture has largely disappeared in the port cities of the eastern Mediterranean. The major European powers played an essential role in this, and since the 19th century they had been driving the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. To a certain extent, they promoted ethnic nationalism first in Europe ( Greece , Yugoslavia , Bulgaria ), later also in the Orient ( Kemalism , for example in Turkey, and Arab nationalism and Zionism ).

In Turkey and the modern Arab states, the Levantine culture became after the abolition of the Ottoman Empire, whose Millet system finally brought down minorities from secular regimes, but less for religious reasons: for example, Christian families were expropriated on a large scale in Egypt in the fifties by Gamal Abdel Nasser to reform the bureaucracy of the monarchy, which was dominated by Copts , in Istanbul a large part of the Greek population was forcibly expelled at the same time by the pro-American government of Menderes (here out of nationalistic, not religious motivation).

The Levantine culture was able to persist longest in Lebanon , in whose denominational constitution the Ottoman millet system survives. But even there, the Christian population has been gradually emigrating since the civil war. It is estimated that the Maronite Christian Church, for example, which today numbers less than a million people in Lebanon, has over six million members worldwide.

In today's Israel , on the one hand, many Jewish Levantines from all over the eastern Mediterranean have found a new home; at the same time, the establishment of this state resulted in the almost total disappearance of Jewish culture in the Arab Mediterranean ports as a result of the Middle East conflict .

Almost the entire Jewish population in Saloniki was the victim of persecution and murder by the German National Socialists ( Shoah ) during the Second World War . At the same time, many of the Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967 had a Levantine background, and some of the most important PLO functionaries, especially from Marxist groups such as the PFLP (e.g. George Habasch ), were Arab Christians . On the other hand, one of the most important liberal heads of the Palestinian movement, the American literary scholar Prof. Edward Said , also came from a Christian milieu. His book "Orientalism" is an important theoretical contribution to understanding the developments in the Levantine region in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Levantines today

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Levantines have emigrated mainly to North America, France, Latin America, Australia and South Africa. Syrians and Lebanese are also in Francophone West Africa , v. a. the Senegal emigrated, where they in some countries the economic life largely dominate today.

In France and the USA, Levantine immigrants play an important role in economic and cultural life, but also in politics ( France : Charles Aznavour , Édouard Balladur , Amin Maalouf , Robert Solé , Sylvie Vartan , Gabriel Yacoub, Gabriel Yared (film composer, Oscar for the soundtrack of The English Patient ); USA : Paul Anka , Cher , George Joulwan (General, former NATO Supreme Commander in Europe), Kirk Kerkorian , Ralph Nader , Tony Shalhoub , Nassim Nicholas Taleb ). The family of the mother of the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy , the Mallah , played a role in the Levantine milieu of Ottoman Saloniki. There are numerous politicians and business leaders of Levantine origin in Latin America , including the former Argentine President Carlos Menem , the current CEO of Renault-Nissan Carlos Ghosn and the richest man in the world, the Mexican telecom entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helú . Famous pop stars with a Latino image such as Shakira and Salma Hayek are descendants of Levantine immigrants. There are also important figures of Levantine origin in Great Britain, for example the historian Eric Hobsbawm from Alexandria or the musician George Michael .

The descendants of Levantines are successful in the globalized economy thanks to their multiculturalism and adaptability . At the same time, especially in the Arab countries, the extensive displacement of this cultural element is an essential basis for the economic and cultural decline of the region in the course of the 20th century, although in addition to Lebanon, especially in Egypt, a Levantine heritage is still alive, for example through the multiply in Cannes winning film director Youssef Chahine , and former UN Secretary General and later President of the Francophonie Boutros Boutros-Ghali is embodied.

"Levantine" as a discriminatory term in the German-speaking area

The term "Levantine" has negative connotations, especially in German-speaking countries. “Levantine” has all sorts of negative connotations such as mafia, corrupt, haggling, etc. Some of the clichés are similar to those of anti-Semitism and come from the time before the First World War, when the German Reich wanted to open up the collapsing Ottoman Empire as a possible area of ​​colonization. While the Turks and the religious settlers in Palestine (Protestants and Zionist Jews) were seen as allies who also corresponded to the Protestant work ethic that dominated the German Empire, the predominantly Francophone and culturally oriented "Levantines", who were culturally oriented to England and France, were viewed with suspicion.

Levantines in literature

A well-known writer who was fascinated by Levantines and their culture was the British crime writer Eric Ambler . One of his best-known novels is entitled “The Levantine”, but Levantines, that is, people of European-Oriental origin, also play an important role in novels such as “The Mask of Dimitrios” and “ Topkapi ”, which was successfully filmed with Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov Role.

The fate of a typical Levantine citizen in the 20th century is described in the novel “Die Häfen der Levante” (French: Les échelles du Levant , German published by Suhrkamp, ISBN 3458168702 ) by the French author Amin Maalouf , who comes from Lebanon . In the novel, a Lebanese of Armenian-Turkish origin, who more or less by chance ended up in the French Resistance during the Second World War, falls in love with an Austrian Jew. In the context of the beginning Arab-Israeli conflict , their relationship takes a tragic turn.

An important chronicler of the glory and decline of Levantine culture in Constantinople was the writer and journalist Friedrich Schrader , who lived and worked in the city from 1891 to 1918.

See also

literature

  • Schmitt, Oliver Jens, 2005, Levantines - lifeworlds and identities of an ethnoconfessional group in the Ottoman Empire in the "long 19th century": R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, series: Southeast European works, ISBN 3-486-57713-1
  • Bammer, Anton, 2001, “The Return of the Classical to the Levant: Modern Architecture and Minorities”, in: Cultural History of the Ancient World; Volume 79, Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern
  • Marie de Testa & Antoine Gautier, Drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la Porte ottomane, éditions ISIS, Istanbul, 2003, 479 p. (sur l'enseignement des langues orientales en Europe et des biographies individes et familiales sur les Adanson, Chabert, Crutta, Deval, Fleurat, Fonton, Fornetti, Jaba, Murat, Roboly, Ruffin, Stoeckl, Testa, Timoni, Wiet).
  • A. Gautier, Un consul de Venise à Smyrne, Luc Cortazzi (ca 1714-1799) , Le Bulletin, Association des anciens élèves, Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales (INALCO), May 2005, pp. 35-54.
  • A. Gautier, Un diplomate russe à Constantinople, Paul Pisani (1786-1873) , Le Bulletin, Association des anciens élèves, Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales (INALCO), octobre 2004, pp. 11-30.
  • A. Gautier, Anne Duvivier, comtesse de Vergennes (1730-1798), ambassadrice de France à Constantinople , Le Bulletin, Association des anciens élèves, Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales (INALCO), novembre 2005, pp. 43-60.

Web links

Wiktionary: Levantines  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations