Pierre Loti, whose real name was Louis Marie Julian Viaud, was a French naval officer, turned travel writer and acclaimed novelist. In 1892 he was elected to the Academie Francaise. His first book, published in 1879, was the semi biographic novel "Aziyade".
Background of Aziyade and Loti
In the course of his military service, Pierre Loti came to Greece and Turkey during the fall and winter of 1876. He kept many diaries of his extensive travels and adventures, which brought him to Algier, Tunis, Vietnam and Tahiti and many other exotic places all over the world.
He started writing travel articles which were snapped up by the newspaper Le Figaro and became quite popular, mainly due to the fact that travel writing at the time was not very widespread and foreign travel not as easy as it is today.
When Loti visited Istanbul for the first time, he fell in love with the city and the oriental lifestyle, an acquired taste which he maintained during the rest of his life. According to his diaries, he also fell in love with "the green eyes of a woman whose gaze followed him from behind the shutters of the harem, where she lived as the main wife of a wealthy Turkish business man."
Utterly smitten, Loti set about meeting with her and, with the help of servants and huge bribes, succeeded in conducting a clandestine, extremely dangerous love affair with the lovely Aziyade. It appears that she lived in a big, wooden house from where she escaped at night, with the help of a trusted slave, to meet with Loti on a lavishly outfitted boat in the middle of the waters of the Golden Horn.
Aziyade Locations in Istanbul
Visiting Istanbul's Sutlanahamet district, which features some of the oldest wooden houses in the world, one of them might well have been the abode of Aziyade and her husband.
Loti also rented a house in the same district, in Divan Yolu, the most important street. Although his original house does not exist anymore, the beautiful Pierre Loti Hotel in the middle of the historic district and just steps away from Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, keeps the memory of Loti alive.
Aziyade, whom Loti even planned to abduct from Istanbul to bring to France and marry her there, but later abandoned the idea because he couldn't find diplomatic help to carry out his harebrained plan, died in Istanbul and was buried in the cemetry of Eminonu, overlooking the Golden Horn.
Loti moved to another house nearby and a cafe bearing his name exists there today. He spent many hours sitting on a bench overlooking the waters turn golden at sunset, a unique spectacle which gave the inlet of the Bosporus its name.
The memory of Loti is very present in Istanbul today, not least because he became a national hero, when he used his reputation and influence to support Turkey when the Ottoman Empire came to an end and the western world turned against the country in an attempt to divide and annect it.
Following his footsteps and retracing the locations of his wild love affair, make for an interesting and worthwhile diviation from the usual "Istanbul Sightseeing" trips. The bookshop called "Bookshop" located in Divan Yolu has a biography as well as a commented edition of Aziyade, both in English, on offer and it's a good idea to buy and reach them before embarking on a "Pierre Loti Memory Lane" trip of Istanbul.
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