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Izmir Izmir has earned the noble designation of Güzelyali (Beautiful Waterfront), and with the completion of a multi-million dollar redevelopment plan that includes the green waterside park, the Kordon Promenade and the restored Konak Pier built by Gustave Eiffel, the name is more than appropriate. At the end of the War of Independence, a fire destroyed all traces of the cultural melting pot that was once Smyrna. Eighty-two years later, Izmir has been reinvented as a prosperous, cosmopolitan, commercial city, more livable than Istanbul, less sterile than Ankara, and filled with wide boulevards and swaying palm trees. With the azure waters of the Aegean and the extraordinary remains of Ephesus nearby, Izmir is the best location to stay on the Aegean Coast. The story of Izmir begins with the traces of an unidentified group dating from at least the 3rd millennium B.C. Excavations at the nearby site of Bayrakli in the Meles River Valley have uncovered evidence of a primitive culture influenced by Hittite religious models; in fact, the Luwi word closely resembling "Smyrna" means "land of the holy mother." Somewhere along the way, the Amazon ruler Smyrna (or Myrina) added to the confusion of the origins of the city's nomenclature. Various civilizations referred to the city as Zmürni, Smyrne, Simirna, and Esmira. Around 200 years after the disintegration of the Hittite Empire, waves of Ionian immigrants began to populate the region, creating a thriving metropolis comparable to the success and influence of its contemporary, Troy. The Lydians who moved in and trashed the place were no match for the Persian Empire, though they, too, succumbed to Alexander the Great's blaze of glory. In the 4th century B.C., Alex rebuilt an unmistakably Hellenistic city, relocating it on the hill of Pagos under the watchful protection of the Kadifekale citadel. Izmir was absorbed by General Lysimachos into his kingdom of Pergamum, but bad estate planning on the part of Attalus 200 years later resulted in the entire region becoming a Roman colony. Under the Romans and then the Byzantines, Ionia became a thriving center of trade and intellectual innovation, but the city was razed to the ground by a devastating earthquake in A.D. 178. Control vacillated between the Byzantines and the Arabs until 1390, when the region was stabilized under Selçuk, then Ottoman rule. Izmir became a flourishing center of commerce in the 15th century, nurtured by the liberal policies of tolerance practiced by the Ottomans. But there was hardly a Turk in sight. The city opened its arms to waves of immigrant Jews fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition as well as the Greeks and the Armenians. French and other European merchants, known as the Levantines, set up customs houses here, and each enclave left its own cultural imprint on the city. After World War I, the Treaty of Sèvres assigned Greece the administration of Izmir and the surrounding region, but the Greek occupying forces got greedy and foolishly pushed eastward. The defeat of Greek forces by Atatürk's national liberation army on September 9, 1922, was the defining moment in the establishment of national sovereignty; as the Greeks were chased off the peninsula, occupying French and British forces prudently pulled out of the regions under their protection. Depending on who tells the story, the city was destroyed by fire either by an accident of war or by angry vengeful Turks on a rampage after their victory in 1922. Izmir has since been rebuilt into a modern, functional, and thoroughly pleasant metropolitan city. |
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