A long walk across the mountains…

«I remember she had an old book filled with beautiful patterns in all the colors of the rainbow. She would show her traditional designs to the customers, who in turn would pick out wonderful shawls and ascots for her to weave»

These words belong to my father. He speaks of his childhood memories of his warm-hearted, generous and hard-working grandmother. Her name was Olympia. In the years around 1920, she was to meet my great grandfather, Seraphim. Together they would establish a textile business and become parents to a little girl they baptized Alexandra. She was my grandmother and I am named after her – Alexia.

THE BEGINNING

Just like a fairy tale, the stories about my great grandparents started with a book; an old and well-kept book with pages of solid paper, yellow-beige in color, marked by years of my great grandmother’s delicate fingers having turned the pages again and again.

For me as a little girl, my father’s colorful way of telling his stories, transformed Olympia’s pattern-book – which I unfortunately have never seen – into a magical world of secret drawings and extraordinary beauty. Little did I know then, that the story of her book would later be the inspiration for my own design adventure, almost a century later.

My father’s stories gave my imagination wings that swept me away to Constantinople – today’s Istanbul – and the old Greek-Armenian community. However, my family’s textile story did not begin in Istanbul. We have to move a thousand kilometers to the south east – to the town of Maraş – and more than 125 years back in time.

SERAPHIM – MY GREAT GRANDFATHER

In 1888 my great grandfather Seraphim was born in Maraş, in what then was a part of the six centuries old Ottoman Empire. These were troubled times with social unrest and sharp political tension, which often escalated into violent conflicts between the many different ethnic and religious groups living in this multicultural society.

Great grandfather Seraphim grew up in an Armenian Evangelical Christian family of weavers and textile manufacturers. Like so many other Armenian families in this region, they were skilled craftsmen proud of their old traditions. They were also often clever merchants and successful business-owners.

But something significant must have happened as he grew up. One time or another during these violent and difficult years he left Maraş. I don’t know why he left his hometown but there are a few possible scenarios. One or several of them might have led my great grandfather to one day walk all the way to the capital of the Ottoman Empire – Istanbul – barefoot:

IN THE ARMY? LABOR CAMP?

Was my great grandfather recruited as a soldier for the Ottoman army?

Armenian men did not serve in the Ottoman army before in 1908 but after that all eligible men could be conscripted for the army, no matter what kind of ethnic background they had. Six years later, in 1914, Seraphim was 23 years old when the First World War broke out.

However, just a year later, in 1915, the Ottoman war minister Enver Pascha decided that all ethnic Armenians should be removed from the army, in fear they would not be loyal to the Empire. Many Armenians were «moved» into so-called unarmed labor battalions, which in reality meant they were sent off to forced labor camps.

Was my great grandfather deported to a labor camp in the remote areas of central Anatolia – together with up to half a million other Armenians and Greeks?

ARMENIANS IN DANGER?

In 1918, the war was over but the armed conflicts still lingered on in the declining Ottoman Empire. A nationalistic, Turkish movement – The Young Turks – tried to uphold the resistance against the allied forces, which wanted to divide the old empire into pieces. Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece. They all had colonial interests in the territories, which once belonged to the Ottomans. So the fighting continued. Early in 1919, British soldiers took control over my great grandfather’s hometown Maraş.

Was my great grandfather still living in the town at this time or had he left already?

In 1921, the Ottoman/Turkish armed forces signed a treaty with Russia to settle the borders of the new Armenian state and to end the fighting on the Eastern front. This crushed the dream of a greater, free state for the Armenians independent from the Ottoman Empire.

Did this make it dangerous for my great grandfather to stay in and around Maraş, where a large part of the population was Armenian? Was it dangerous just to be ethnically Armenian? Or maybe dangerous to be an Evangelical Christian? Both? Or did he leave Maraş because he was looking for work as a weaver or simply searching for adventure?

I don’t know. It remains a mystery.

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS

Nonetheless, at some point in time during these violent years, between the age of a young boy and up until late in 1923 – when the imperial era is over and the modern Republic of Turkey sees the light of day – my great grandfather left his family in Maraş and started walking towards Istanbul.

It is a long and hazardous walk of around a thousand kilometers through rough landscapes, impressive mountains, deep valleys and across vast highlands in either scorching heat or blistering winter storms. Passing village after village on foot with one goal: The Sultan’s city.

How did he manage that?

All I know is that many years later, my father heard a story of how Seraphim apparently arrived in Istanbul barefoot some time before, during or after the war. Barefoot? He must have been very poor and exhausted after a long walk that probably took several weeks.

OLYMPIA – MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER

29^th of January 1899 – eleven years after Seraphim was born in Maraş – my great grandmother Olympia was born into a Greek Orthodox family in Istanbul. Curiously enough, they were also weavers and textile manufacturers. Sadly, much of her family story has been forgotten over the years as well.

Some time around 1920, maybe a few years earlier, maybe later, she met Seraphim. I don’t know where or how. Maybe he found work as a weaver in her family’s business? Maybe he lived in the same Greek-Armenian neighborhood in old Istanbul?

However, I can imagine that Seraphim must have made a significant and good impression on Olympia and her parents. He must have been a gentleman and a skilled weaver, as well as a handsome man in his late 20s or early 30s. How else could an Evangelical Christian Armenian have been accepted as potential future husband for their Greek Orthodox daughter?

SUCCESSFUL BUT…

After a time of courtship, Olympia and her family accepted Seraphim’s proposal. They married and became Mrs. and Mr. K.

They established their own textile manufactory – or maybe they continued Olympia’s family’s business? – in the Fatih district of old Istanbul, located in Sultanahmet on the Golden Horn close to the 1479 year old basilica of Hagia Sophia (picture on the right) – built between 532–537 AD.

With time they had a small staff of five professional weavers. According to my father’s memories of the drawings in my great grandmother’s pattern-book, they were making traditional shawls, ascot ties and textile belts.

Through out the 1920s and 1930s their business was thriving and a steady stream of customers found their way to Olympia and Seraphim’s textile store.

However, there were difficult times ahead.

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TO BE CONTINUED…