[April 18, 2006]

The Tulip Period blooms anew in Istanbul

(Turkish Daily News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Spring has at last arrived in Istanbul, bringing with it, as it does every year, warmer weather and brilliant sunshiny days, an awakening of the city from its long winter slumber and a floral explosion in the metropolis' many gardens. But this year the commercial and cultural capital of Turkey is being treated to a new vernal phenomenon: tulips -- a veritable profusion of the graceful bloom springing up along almost every main boulevard and throughout the city's main parks and squares.

The Greater Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has invested upwards of YTL 1 million to plant 3 million tulip bulbs around the city, harking back to the days of the Ottoman Empire and the Lale Devri, or Tulip Period, when the turban-shaped bloom became the symbol of Turkish civilization. Secreted in the soil in November, the flowers are now pushing their way up to the light of day, forming a tableau of riotous color and form, with 22 varieties of the venerable blossom decorating the entire city.

When the word "tulip" is mentioned, many people automatically associate it with Holland. But in fact, although it is commonly believed to have originated in Turkey, it probably first appeared on the steppes of western and central Asia, from whence it traveled to Turkey and points beyond. Some sources have Turks cultivating tulips as early as A.D. 1000.

Although the court of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566 during the "golden age of Ottoman power and grandeur," is believed to have had a fondness for tulips, the real heyday of the dulbend lalesi, meaning "turban-like wild flower," from which the English word "tulip" is derived, emerged during the reign of Sultan Ahmet III, who ruled the empire from 1703 to 1730. The Tulip Period, extending from 1718 until 1730, in addition to an obsession with the cultivation of tulips by the upper classes, witnessed a blossoming of culture that manifested itself in Istanbul's architecture and public works and the construction of numerous villas in Uskudar, Beylerbeyi, Bebek, Findikli, Alibeykoy, Ortakoy and Topkapi.

Istanbul's first fire brigade was established in this period as well as its maiden printing press, operated by Ibrahim Muteferrika, along with tile, textile and paper factories. The arts and literature experienced a renaissance during these years, with poetry and art being given prominence. The tulip decorated the coins of the period, which also saw completion of such masterpieces as the Emetullah Gulnus Valide Mosque, the Ahmet III fountain, the Uskudar fountain, the Ahmet III Library and the Damat Ibrahim Pasa complex (Kulliye).

The Ottomans had suffered a defeat at the gates of Vienna and were forced to sign the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz. Anxious to forget the war and its humiliation, Ahmet III was encouraged to indulge in his love for flowers and soon started to host huge spring palace garden parties that were graced by thousands of tulips. Society also wholeheartedly embraced the flower, competing to come up with the most innovative garden entertainment as well as to produce the best flowers. An array of "how-to" and informational books came into circulation, with one 1726 publication listing some 890 varieties available on the Istanbul market.

The Tulip Period ended with the Patrona Halil uprisings in 1730, during which a number of the villas and tulip gardens that had come to symbolize the era were destroyed.

The era may have died, but the Turkish fascination with tulips hasn't. You can still buy them from garden shops and street vendors all over the city. You'll find them in famous gardens and parks, as has been the case for centuries. But now you will also see them along such roads as the Sahil Yolu, a riot of color transforming a once-ordinary highway into a multicolored carpet of spring blossoms.

The Second Lale Devri has dawned, bringing along with it all the wonder, fascination and magnificence of the first.

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