Bodrum Hotels

FISHERMAN OF HALICARNASSUS

The greatest influence on the faith of today's Bodrum may be attributed to Cevat Sakir Kabaagacli.

Cevat Sakir Kabaagaçli, the scion of a prominent Ottoman family and Oxford don, was convicted in 1925 of some obscure crime (for critisizing the execution of people who refused to join the army during the Turkish Independence War) and exiled to Bodrum. Bodrum was then considered beyond the pale of the civilized world, a simple and poor place that eked out a meager existence from the sea by fishing and sponge diving. The journey was long and arduous, with the shadows of bandits lurking in the hills; the last stretch of the route from Milas was passable only on foot and mule back.

He made friends with the local fishermen and sponge divers and got to know the various bays and coves in the Gulf of Gokova. Later on, a handful of other intellectuals from Istanbul came to visit him and joined his trips. Together they constructed a theory of culture, which embraced the cultures of all the people who had lived in Asia Minor. This was how the "Blue Cruise," practiced nowadays by thousands of people, first originated.
 

He fell in love with the town and although half of his three year sentence have been excused, he remained in Bodrum and have written some of the best stories and novels on the lifestyle and history of the region. Even though his style and language have never been regarded as successful, his choice of subjects have always been unique.

Cevat Sakir, who was to become the great raconteur of Turkish literature under the name "Fisherman of Halicarnassus," tells the story of his forced march in his memoirs.

On a curve of the road, he reminisces, the sea "cracked upon the horizon without warning like a vast blue thundering infinity." The sea dominated the town, where it "infiltrated through alleys and courtyards with a shimmering transparent light." It "sparkled to an incomprehensible depth full of yearning and beauty and terror." The air was "dry and bright as if lit by an inner light." The town was "modest and dazzling white with straight lines that cut the sky's blue with knife-like precision." People lived close to the basics of existence with simple direct passions and the distilled wisdom of countless civilizations.

The exile fell in love with Bodrum and elected to remain there for most of the rest of his life. He became the town’s grand old man, introduced new fishing techniques, planted trees (the palms lining the quay are his) and above all told the fantastic tales of an ancient Aegean civilization and of the passionate, broad-spirited, fatalistic people of the sea. Two generations of Bodrum's youth grew up under his spell.

In the early 60s a group of the Fisherman's disciples from Istanbul began to visit him in Bodrum in search of aesthetic ecstasy and spiritual purification. They included a classical scholar, the Turkish translator of Homer, two prominent painters, a political philosopher, and a socialist theorizer. They initiated the tradition of the "Blue Voyage" sailing into the Aegean for a few weeks on a simple boat and confronting nature with as few amenities as possible. The late 60s, with its culture of the rejection of middle-class values, swelled their ranks. This was a time of staying in fishermen's houses and paying for room and board with a bottle of raki.

In the 70s, members of the middle class who were bold enough to experiment with the unconventional began to spend vacations in Bodrum. The turning point arrived when the singer Zeki Müren, the ultimate impersonation of the Turkish kitsch, announced his decision to settle in Bodrum. Around 1985, the number of tourists in town for the first time exceeded that of the native. Bodrum became the principal vacation haven of western Turkey, with all the conveniences and curses that ensue.

Herodotus, later famous as a Greek historian to the point of becoming known as the "father of history". He was born in Halicarnassus (now Bodrum in Turkey) about 484 BC.

Halicarnassus was at this time an ancient Greek colonial town subject to Persian over lordship.

As a son of a prominent family Herodotus received a good education sufficient to allow him to eventually gain an extensive familiarity with the literature of ancient Greece.

He seems to have traveled very extensively in the Greek and Persian worlds into which he had been born. When he was in his early thirties (circa 457 BC) some political difficulty between Herodotus' wider family and the rulers of Halicarnassus contributed to his living in exile for several years. During these times his initial destination seems to have been the island of Samos but thereafter Herodotus traveled widely throughout virtually the entire ancient Middle East visiting Asia Minor, Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece.
 

Herodotus was centrally involved in the rebellious overthrow of the unpopular ruler of Halicarnassus and was thereby enabled to enjoy full rights of citizenship in his home city. He did not settle down there however but, circa 447 BC, went to Athens, then the center and focus of culture in the Greek world, where he won the admiration of the most illustrious men of Greece, including the great Athenian statesman Pericle.

During a stay of some years in Athens Heredotus seems to have been awarded a substantial sum, by a decree of people, in appreciation of his literary talents.

Herodotus did not enjoy the status of citizenship, with associated enhancements in rights, in Athens and this may have contributed to his joining in (443 BC) with a new colonial settlement at Thurii in southern Italy where he could hope to be a citizen. Such colonies were widely sponsored by individual Greek city-states for commercial reasons and also to better provide for the employment of their citizens.

Herodotus settled down in Thurii and devoted his efforts to the completion of a great work entitled 'Inquiry' (the Greek word for which is History). Herodotus' wide-ranging work has subsequently been presented by scholars as a nine part work the first six of which are introductory and give rounded introductions to most of the peoples of the ancient world giving insights into their customs, legends, history, and traditions. The last three parts treat with the rivalries and conflicts between the Greek and Persian worlds from the early fifth century BC.

Herodotus' work presents the development of civilization as moving inexorably toward a great confrontation between Persia and Greece, which are presented as the centers, respectively, of Eastern and Western culture. In preparing his History Herodotus' sources of information include the works of predecessors, but these are widely complemented through the knowledge that he gained from his own extensive travels. Although Herodotus' great work does in fact contain some factual inaccuracies, he does seem to have striven for accuracy. The entire work being an ambitious attempt to present the historical context of the Greek rivalry with Persia that is rendered particularly appealing by such admirable qualities as the fullness with which Herodotus conveys his subject and the beauty of expression that he is able to impart to the Ionic dialect in which it is composed. The whole being a grandly conceived narrative with appropriate episodic diversions that manages to elucidate the main theme without seeming to interrupt its flow.
 

The universe, he believed, is ruled by Fate and Chance, and nothing is stable in human affairs. Moral choice is still important, however, since the gods punish the arrogant. This attempt to draw moral lessons from the study of great events formed the basis of the Greek and Roman historiographical tradition, of which Herodotus is rightly regarded as the founder

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