Iles Chypre

Victor Marie De Launay and Osman Hamdi Bey travelled around the Ottoman Empire in an effort to record all the costumes in 1873. Osman Hamdi Bey remains perhaps Turkey’s most important artist, although his role was different in this case. Being also an archaeologist, he was the founder of the Istanbul archaeological museum and the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. Victor Marie Delaunay was an Ottoman official, amateur historian, and an artist of French origins. Osman Hamdi Bey and De Launay ware commissioned by the Ottoman government to prepare an album of the popular costumes of the Ottoman Empire and the islands of the archipelago for the International Fair in Vienna in 1873. With them travelled the prolific and well known Ottoman photographer Pascal Sebah. The album is based on a series of Sebah’s photomechanical prints. This particular one depicts the traditional costumes of Cyprus in a studio picture. According to the information given in the album under photograph 9, plate 9, second part, titled Iles, Chypre, the picture portrays a Christian from Famagusta (right), a Christian lady from Famagusta (centre) and a monk from Kykko monastery near Lefke (left). This suggests that the group of travelers journeyed across the island. It is obvious that the descriptions given are not precise. A man dressed in white can not be a Christian during the period of Ottoman rule in Cyprus. This is most probably a case of a ‘cotton-flux’ or linobambakos, as they were commonly known in Cyprus. It is very possible that he came from one of the ‘cotton-flux’ villages of the Karpass peninsula which is part of the Famagusta (Magusa) district. Such communities could be found in Cyprus, Crete and parts of Asia Minor. They were primarily Greek speakers who adopted a synthetic form of religion combining both Christian and Moslem elements. Although referred to as crypto-Christians in Greek nationalist historiography, this is not how they saw themselves. Rather, this is a typical example of religious syncreticism. The synthetic religion adopted by the ‘cotton-flux’ formed a unitary system of beliefs and practices that were not seen to be in any contradiction to each other. In Cyprus, their communities disappeared after the arrival of the British whose classificatory categories of ‘Mohammedans’ and ‘non Mohammedans’ made no allowances for hybrid formations. In a typically modernist fashion, the categories introduced by the British, as well as those employed by Greek and Turkish nationalists afterwards, were mutually exclusive, leaving no room for grey areas. To this day, the descendants of the ‘cotton-flux’ bear Turkish first names and Greek surnames. Until recently, some of the older ones only spoke Greek. Their existence remains a matter of controversy in both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. The figure in the centre of the picture, that of a Christian woman, is dressed in a typical costume although, the head scarf is worn in a rather untraditional manner. The same applies to her belt which appears to be a long scarf tied around her waist when traditionally women wore belts with buckles. The loose hair on her shoulders indicates a more liberal appearance. The third figure is that of an Orthodox cleric who is definitely a monk. Certain details such as the monastic hat, the long loose hair and the red monastic habit on his chest attest to the fact that he is a monk and not a member of the married clergy.