Dancing the Charleston in Constantinople/Or how the Russian Revolution brought jazz to Turkey

 

With the 17th annual Istanbul Jazz Festival opening in a few days, I wanted to post a piece on the beginning of jazz in Istanbul.

Given that jazz is sometimes described as a cultural and social revolution, it is fitting that it was the after-shocks of a real revolution, that brought one of the earliest sponsors of jazz and big band to the city. In November 1920, under the command of General Pyotr Wrangel 100,000 Russian refugees arrived in Istanbul. The refugees were part of the first wave of the “white emigration” that fled the country in the wake of the revolution and subsequent Bolshevik victory. The refugees were a diverse lot.  According to “The Orientalist” by Tom Reiss: “More than half the Russians that General Wrangel had with him were not even soldiers but civilians-peasants, professionals, monarchists, Jews and anti-Semites-who had managed to climb aboard his motley flotilla as it evacuated from the Crimea, final stronghold of the Whites in Russia. General Wrangel and his men found the Ottoman authorities, their traditional enemies, surprisingly welcoming…”

The day to day life of many of the refugees was marked by poverty.  As one commentator noted: ““Constantinople has seen refugees of all descriptions-refugees from unsuccessful wars, refugees from panic, and a hundred other kinds-but none more pitiful than those who came crowded on Wrangel’s ships.” Those who could afford to, stayed at the legendary Pera Palace Hotel, most though lived in whatever accommodations they could find-monestaries, factories, even the stairwell of the Russian embassy. The American Red Cross, Turkish Red Crescent and other aid organizations provided basic provisions.

If the Russian experience in Istanbul was partially defined by poverty and melancholy,  it was also characterized by a flowering of artistry: fashion shows, theatre and opera. In October 1921, the Union of Russian Artists of Constantinople debuted their first exhibition. Singers Anna Pavlova Volina and Nastya Polyakova made a name for themselves performing songs popular with Russian and Turkish audiences. Exile Lidia Krassa-Arzumanova, widely considered one of the founders of the Turkish ballet, opened a ballet studio in Istanbul in 1921.

And of course, there were the nightclubs. Popular with both Russians and a growing number of Turks. This latter development prompted the local wives’ and widows’ association to protest the clubs as places where “hundreds of young Turks drag their health, wealth and honor into the whirlpool of calamity every night.”

For the refugees, the clubs were as much about escape as entertainment. Banine  Asadullayeva, the daughter of a wealthy Azeri wrote about the clubs:

“One of the great attractions in Constantinople were the Russian clubs… The most elegant nightclub was the Black Rose. My husband often took me there… One Russian song was sung afer another. One after another, bottles of champagne were drunk…In all sincerity I was told, “one comes here not to laugh, but rather to cry,” by one of the regulars.”

-from “Jours Caucasians”,  as quoted in “The Orientalist”

It was in this atmosphere of the “Roaring 20s” set against the backdrop of the imperial capital that the first jazz club opened in Istanbul. The owner, Friedrich Thomas, sometimes refer to as Fedor Thomas. Of African and European ancestry, he moved to Russia to open his first jazz club.  In 1913 he managed “Maxim’s Moscow” night club. Besides the opera and cabaret acts, “Maxim’s Moscow” also featured lectures by guests such as Inayat Khan, the founder of Universal Sufism. When the Russian revolution hit and most of Thomas’ clients fled for the Bosphorus, he followed them. In Constantinople he opened a jazz club at Stella Gardens. Influenced by “Maxim’s” the club introduced the city to the Charleston and the early jazz recordings.

* Postscript* Despite being a figure in the entertainment world of both Czarist Russia and Constantinople, there is scant information about Thomas. If you are ever in Moscow, you can always check out  the elegant, if not very p.c. named, restaurant, ”Mulatto Thomas“

Sources: The Orientalist, Tom Reiss; Beauty in Exile: Alexandre Vassilev, Constantinople City of the World’s Desire: Philip Mansel.