Every family keeps a secret. And when it comes to the deaths of almost 800 Jews fleeing Nazism for a sum total of crimes and negligence by Russia, England, Germany, Romania and Turkey, we find ourselves before an event of such magnitude that it has to get out of the dark territory it was buried in the story. The 76-year-old Turkish writer Zülfü Livaneli, also a famous musician and activist for rights and historical truths such as the Armenian Genocide, has turned the tragedy of the sinking of the Goiter in the waters of the Bosphorus into a great novel Love Steals the Prominence, which the great players of World War II.
In Serenade for Nadia (Galaxia Gutenberg with a translation by Rafael Carpintero) everything is true, even if it is fiction. In the background: the mysteries that buried this story in a country that collects it. Because?
“It happens in all countries and in all families, but in Turkey there are more forbidden subjects. We grew up in the silence of our families because we have been through too many tragedies,” says Livaneli in Madrid.
We are talking about a counter-story to the Exodus by Leon Uris, filmed by Otto Preminger in 1960, which told the hardships of hundreds of Jews in a similar flight until they reached Israel. In the real case narrated by the Turkish author, hundreds of Jews tried to flee German-occupied Romania on an infected and damaged ship, the Struma. The Churchill government prohibited landings in Palestine and the ship was eventually torpedoed by the Russians in Turkish waters. Too many culprits in a story that Livaneli (Ilguin, Turkey, 1946) stumbled across almost by accident and devoted himself to researching. “When I heard the story, I asked Foreign Affairs and they said they didn’t know anything. Not in the UK either. There were secrets because the five countries were guilty,” he says. After selling more than a million copies in Turkey and extensive press coverage, “the government had to accept the truth and now holds a memorial service for the victims every year It’s the impact of literature,” he asserts.
The protagonist of this story, Maya Duran, receives a visiting professorship from the USA at the University of Istanbul. The old man had lived in Turkey decades ago thanks to the reception of German scientists practicing in that country. And he wants to pay tribute to the woman he lost who traveled on this ship, Nadia. The protagonist will begin to walk with and through him the threads of a story unknown in Turkey, which will lead her to unravel the mysteries accumulated in her own family: one of her grandmothers hid her Armenian origins; and the other miraculously survived the Russian (and Turkish) persecution of the Turks settled in Crimea.
“Historically we have integrated strata and strata of different cultures: Armenians, Turks, Romans, Hittites… The Turks are descended from Central Asian tribes that experienced exchanges with the Chinese and Mongols in the Marco Polo era. They reached Anatolia and forcibly adopted Islam from the Arab armies, who massacred them. And we also have European Balkan influence. We come from three problem areas that have nothing in common.”
— And what is the Turkish identity?
– It’s the crisis. Is the problem. Ataturk proclaimed that all these comers from the Middle East, Caucasus and Balkans would have to live together and share a Turkish identity. It’s a melting pot without melting (laughs). A melting pot, but no mixing.
02/13/23. (DVD1148). Zulfu Livaneli, Turkish writer, musician and composer, at Hotel Sardinero in Madrid. Jaime Villanueva
Such a mixture of ingredients, along with those contributed by WWII itself, runs through the Serenade for Nadia. And he lets his novel go through geography, borders and contradictory nationalities as a plea for the defense of humanity beyond passport and origin. There he draws on the lessons learned from the recent earthquake that shook the country. “The earthquake, like the story of my novel, shows us that humans are simple mammals who have no identity other than nature itself.” The earthquake affected Turks, Kurds and Syrians alike, and help came from countries as hostile as Greece itself or Armenia. Livaneli recalls that he and his friend Mikis Teodorakis organized a solidarity concert in Athens during the earthquake that devastated Turkey in 1999. And while they were rehearsing, the Greek capital was hit by another earthquake. “Earthquakes know no borders and show us that our names, nationalities, religions or identities are some kind of fiction, they do not belong to us.” In her novel, the protagonist will confront her brother, a security guard, to whom she says sharply, “When you see a person, all you see are flags, religions, and identities. I only see people who are hungry, cold or in love, it’s as simple as that. And that’s my way of understanding people, the rest is artificial.”
Livaneli, who in other decades suffered imprisonment, torture and exile for defying and denouncing the power of the military, speaks today with the calm that fame bestows on him both inside and outside his country. But he denounces that “there is no freedom in Turkey”. President Erdogan has seized power as personally as Ataturk, he says, and is losing support from the economic crisis and in recent days from the earthquake paralysis. “He changed the system and only he decides whether in the judiciary, military or legislative area. Not even the Ottomans had that power. That’s why he’s scared now and wants to postpone the elections.”
— What is the problem with Turkey?
— Countries like Spain, Italy, Greece or Germany have transitioned from dark times to democracy. But not us. We have always lived in a gray area because political Islam is a regime, not a religion. I have nothing against faith, but political Islam uses the faith of ordinary people to stay in power, and that’s what Erdogan is doing. So we’re still groping in the dark.
For him, music and literature emerge from this darkness, the brightest resources he finds to face life. “Literature is my whole life, it is everything. It’s the haven of safety and if it didn’t exist I would commit suicide because, as Camus said, there is only one philosophical question: to commit suicide or not. That saves us.”
– Finally: is there the serenade that the novel titles and that the old professor composed for Nadia, his lover?
“I never wrote it because it’s impossible to beat Schuberts, but maybe I will,” he replies mysteriously.
And it so happens that Netflix will turn his novel into a movie. The script is finished and the casting is underway. If they ask him, maybe he will compose it. And the last secret of their whole story is revealed.
All the culture that suits you awaits you here.
subscribe to
Babelia
The literary novelties analyzed by the best critics in our weekly bulletin
GET IT
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits