The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul (Stamboul) is a picturesque description of women's life in post-World War I Turkey during a period of social and political turmoil. Here Demetra Vaka (1877-1946), an expatriate of Ottoman Turkey, established American journalist and acquaintance of Prince Sabaheddin, returns to her native Istanbul after a 20-year absence. Describing women's lives in post-World War I Turkey, she reports on the successful project of female emancipation pursued by Mustafa Kemal as part of the nationalist agenda. Noting how much this project had benefited upper- and middle-class Turkish women, Vaka nonetheless regrets that the gradual emergence of the monocultural, modern Republic was bringing an end to the multiethnic character of the Ottoman State.
Availability: Out of stock
SKU (ISBN): 1-59333-216-5
Publication Status: In Print
Publication Date: Jan 1,2005
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 356
ISBN: 1-59333-216-5
In Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul (Stamboul), Demetra Vaka (1877-1946), an expatriate of Ottoman Turkey, established American journalist and acquaintance of Prince Sabaheddin, returns to her native Istanbul in 1921 after a 20-year absence. Describing women's lives in post-World War I Turkey, she reports on the successful project of female emancipation pursued by Mustafa Kemal as part of the nationalist agenda. Noting how much this project had benefited upper- and middle-class Turkish women, Vaka nonetheless regrets that the gradual emergence of the monocultural, modern Republic was bringing an end to the multiethnic character of the Ottoman State. In this period of social and political turmoil, her optimism about the active role promised for women in the new nation is in tension with the elegiac picture that she paints for the ethnic minorities in the new Republic. This is especially seen in her nostalgia for the old ways of harem life that she had shared with the Muslim friends of her youth.
