Cornucopia No.1: Insider's Turkey

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CORNUCOPIA is the award winning international magazine on Turkey and Turkish culture. The launch issue is now sold out. Subscibe now and complete your collection of back issues to avoid missing issues.

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CORNUCOPIA

Issue 1,1992, sold out

Volume 1
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Volume 2
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Volume 3
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Volume 4
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Volume 5
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Special Istanbul Edition 32

Volume 6
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Cover: Lake Egirdir, by David George

CORNUCOPIA HIGHLIGHTS #1

SWEET WATERS

Lake Egirdir

By Jeremy James

Photographs by Manuel Citak

The train cuts the gorge and there it is: a wide band of shivering silver, the sleeve of the morning sun lying across the lake of Egirdir. Jeremy James discovers in the mountains above Antalya in southwest Turkey, a town lapped by the passage of history, and the waters of one of Turkey's most beautiful lakes.

'Sweeping round the loop of rail as you come in by train, Egirdir looks like a new town, with new buildings all facing out over the huge blue lake. But it is a new place and an old place. Egirdir has a watery calm. Everything happens in a dream-like way, without hurry or demand. And whatever brings you to town, the first thing you notice is the softness of the air and the quiet, balmy effect of the lake...'

Related articles:
Also by Jeremy James in this issue: Patures New
In 1986, armed with a pair of jodhpurs, a chest of horse medicine and a saddle, Jeremy James bought an Anatolian stallion and spent the next nine months riding the two thousand miles home from a mountain village in western Turkey to Wales. The book of the journey, Saddletramp: From Ottoman Hills to Offa's Dyke, was published by Pelham Books (now out of print). Cornucopia invited James to retrace his journey.

Also on Turkey's lake district:
Cornucopia 11: Lake Shore Drive: Lake Beysehir, by John Ashe, The Anatolia Travel Issue
Cornucopia 17: Silence of the Lammergeiers: Walking in the mountains above Egirdir by Kate Clow,
Cornucopi a 22 : The Secret Gardens of Kasnak, by Kate Clow

TURKISH GARDENS

GARDEN IN THE LEVANT

Bornova

By Rosemary Baldwin

Photographs
by Bünyat Dinç

The European merchants of nineteenth-century Izmir built their gardens in Bornova, below the hills where they loved to shoot and fish. Rosemary Baldwin revisits the home of the Girauds and discovers a haunting reminder of a genteel era.

Related articles:
The Whittalls in Winter, by Yolande Whittall, Cornucopia 19

Also see The Turkish Gardens Issue: Cornucopia 13

BYZANTINE HERITAGE

THE MIRACLE OF SANTA SOPHIA

With a fold-out panorama of the city after drawings by Gaspare Fossati

By Anthony Bryer

One thousand tons of loose glass cling suspended in the world's largest unsupported brick dome, an architectonic miracle and the last great monument of Roman architecture.

Article excerpts

Related articles:
Drama in the Round, the frescoes and mosaics of the Kariye Camii, by Robert Ousterhout Cornucopia 27

PROThe Road to Godhead: in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, by Brian SewellFILE

MAGNUM OPUS

Ara Güler

By Geordie Greig

From the glamour of Hollywood to the gritty humanity of post-war Turkey. Ara Güler, Istanbul's most celebrated photographer, Time Life correspondent and Magnum Associate, has captured the spirit of the twentieth century. In a rare moment of respite between international assignments he talks to Geordie Greig (at the time of publication London's Sunday Times New York correspondent, now editor of Tatler Magazine)

Related Articles:
Sinan: Architect of a Forgotten Renaissance, by Brian Sewell, with photographs by Ara Güler from Sinan: Architect of Süleyman the Magnificent, by John Freely and Augusto Romano Burelli Cornucopia 3

ARCHITECTURE

ON THE ROAD TO TARSUS

By Brian Sewell

Photographs by David George

Architectural ideas flowed freely in medieval Anatolia. Brian Sewell discovers the Islamic past in the Cappadocian city of Nigde

Also by Brian Sewell:
The Road to Godhead: in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, by Brian Sewell Cornucopia 2

Sinan: Architect of a Forgotten Renaissance, by Brian Sewell, with photographs by Ara Güler from Sinan: Architect of Süleyman the Magnificent, by John Freely and Augusto Romano Burelli Cornucopia 3

Over the Hills and Far Away: Travels in northeast Anatolia Cornucopia 12

ART

THE PAINTED
WORD

Sir David Wilkie in Turkey

By David Blayney Brown

Sir David Wilkie, 1785-1841, was one of the first artists to show the human face of an eastern people. David Blayney Brown, of the Tate Gallery, marks his hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Wilkie's death with a tribute to this forgotten Scottish Romantic

TRAVEL & FOOD

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Text and photographs by Christopher Ryan

Christopher Ryan samples hand-churned butter, thick home-made yoghurt, and other Anatolian fare on the plains of Konya.

Related articles:
East with the Night: travels on the Konya Plain, by Rory Knight Bruce, Cornucopia 7

Travel Notes:
The new Konya Hilton opened 2002. See Cornucopia's Hotel Directory

TURKISH COOKERY

THE GOLDEN APPLE OF THE HESPERIDES

Text and photographs by Berrin Torolsan

Berrin Torolsan tells the secret tale of the quince.

Books reviewed in Cornucopia 1

David Barchard's guide to the guides, including Tom Brosnahan's Turkey: A Travel Survival Kit; The Istanbul Blue Guide/Strolling Through Istanbul, by John Freely; Istanbul: the Istanbul City Guide; Brian and Eileen Anderson's Landscapes of Turkey around Antalya; Lyn Rodley's Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia and Spero Kostof's The Caves of God; Betsy Harrell's Mini Tours; Ekrem Akurgal's Ancient Ruins of Turkey; George Bean's Aegean Turkey and Turkey's Southern Shore; Rod Heikell's Turkish Waters Pilot etc

And there is more besides... boating on the Bosphorus, Cappadocian wines...

Which is why we recommend you subscribe and collect all the back issues while you can.

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CORNUCOPIA 1

ARTICLE EXCERPTS

THE MIRACLE OF SANTA SOPHIA

By Anthony Bryer

A medieval writer trying to describe an elephant to people who had never seen one began: "It has a small tail." Anyone who has tried to describe the domed basilica of Santa Sophia in Istanbul will sympathise. But you have to start somewhere. In 1894 WR Lethaby began with the words "Sancta Sophia is the most interesting building on the world's surface." It's a start.

Cathedrals are dedicated to local patrons but Constantinople - Byzantine Istanbul - was an upstart place in the Roman world. few have heard of its local martyr, St Mokios: his cistern is now a vegetable garden, impossible to find unless you happen to fall into it.

The city was to come under the patronage of the Mother of God, but the Cathedral, first opened on February 15, 360, could only be called the Great Church. By about 430, people also called it the Holy Wisdom of God. Its feast day was Christmas Day when the Holy Wisdom (Haghia, Aya or Santa Sophia) became incarnate.

The original Great Church was burned down in a rumpus on June 20, 404. Theodosios replaced it with a massive basilica which was burned down in the Nika riots against Justinian on the night of January 12, 532.

Anyone who knows what a January night can be like in Istanbul may suspect the Hippodrome mob of trying to keep warm. But the reaction of dictators who survive a coup is swift. The site was cleared and Justinian began rebuilding Santa Sophia on February 23, 532. On December 27, 537, he reopened the Great Church which stands today. Such speed is a clue to what makes it the most interesting building on the world's surface...

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