Modernist Writers and the Multilingual Print Culture of Constantinople

Abstract

Bordering between the East and West, Constantinople – today’s Istanbul – has played the significant role of a world literature topos in national literatures of diverse languages. Yet no single national community could solely embrace this metropolis of religions, ethnicities and languages. This article concentrates on the early-twentieth century, when the capital of the Ottoman Empire was desired by several empires and nation-states, and the modernist ‘feeling for the great city’ combined with the rediscovery of Byzantium and the acute political crisis of Constantinople compelled several British modernist writers to engage with the imperial city.