Who Were the Levantines? A Talk by Scholar Chloe Metz

Inside the subtleties of identity in the 19th-century Med

Dear readers,

The below event recap is July’s TLS bonus essay. If you’re new, or had missed it, the monthly publication schedule is discussed in this article.

Some Midsummer Mediterranean History, Thanks to the LHF

On 25 July, I learned more about late-Ottoman social history with another great online event from the UK-based Levantine Heritage Foundation. I recommend the LHF and their events to those interested in Ottoman and East-Med history. While having many world experts as members and speakers, the LHF gears events toward general-interest audiences, making them inclusive and useful for wider groups.

The above-linked LHF website has a newsletter for upcoming events, and unique academic resources. The foundation “promotes the research, preservation and education of the heritage, arts and culture of the communities of the Levant region encompassed by the former Ottoman Empire between the 17^th and 20^th centuries.”

The Presentation and Presenter

Entitled “A Thoroughly Mongrel Race” in a “Faraway, Gaslit World”: Levantine Liminality and Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Port Cities,” the talk was given by American scholar Chloe Metz, an Amherst College graduate and aspiring law-history double-major at the University of Virginia’s graduate school.

For the presentation, attendees enjoyed research that well exceeded what could be expected of the typical undergraduate. Having majored in both History and French, Metz performed archival research at the Diplomatic Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve and Nantes. According to the LHF, her research there and her ‘discoveries made about Levantine Amherst alumnus Henry Van Lennep in the Amherst College Archives & Special Collection culminated in her honors thesis (the subject of this talk), winning the European Studies Prize.’

Who Were the Levantines?

The much-celebrated and sometimes reviled group known as the Levantines was a key community of the later Ottoman Empire, and one that Metz stated has only received serious academic consideration in the past couple decades. Their multi-faceted identity – which, very interestingly, slightly pre-dated modern senses of nationalism and ethnic belonging – was the talk’s focus.

The sources consulted ranged from diplomatic and commercial documents to Levantine newspapers, postcards and other materiel. The explication of this lost community, which Metz dubbed as ‘shapeshifters’ for their ability to establish themselves variously within diverse settings and exigencies, was fascinating.

‘Levantine’ was a term used broadly and often, with negative connotations in Europe, though it remains unclear whether the community known (then or now) as Levantine even considered themselves as such. For their success in trade, translation and other areas at the convergence of international business and diplomacy, the Levantines were often criticized by Europeans, or were the subject of jealousy. As Metz explained, they were consider both (and neither) European and Ottoman, but inferior to either, by different observers and for different reasons. And this tendency has maintained itself in the modern historiography. What the scholar pointed out was the need for a more nonacid way of looking at this curious population.

The primary features of shared identity that seem to define the group was activity in commercial affairs or translation at Ottoman ports and European consulates there, a multilingual capacity (especially, knowledge of French), large and diverse families, and a liminal capacity to negotiate the custom and behavioral norms of European and Ottoman cultures. As such, these people were often excellent negotiators, wealthy businessmen, and (though some scholars emphasize a Catholic identity) multi-religious, with all Christian denominations, Jewish members and (in the 20^th century) some Muslim intermarriage witnessed too.

We moderns have a hard time understanding such groups, because of today’s rigid and restrictive senses of nationalism and ethnicity, which tends to exclude people or tie them to a single homeland. I appreciated Metz’s analytic approach, which divided scholarly takes on Ottoman identity (and retroactive views) into different camps. Thus she also showed an awareness of contemporary trends in political discourse and historiography. This is quite important.

I tend to agree with her conclusion that the Levantines probably perceived identity and nationalism primarily as fluid concepts, and the objects of acquisition when economically or diplomatically advantageous. This was well-supported by her archival examples cited in her talk, and by her contextual description of Ottoman legislation (and French counter-legislation) in the late 19^th century concerning nationality.

This cumulative process forced the Levantines to acquire new national rights as the laws changed. The whole discussion of what it had meant to be a protégé (protected class of non-Ottoman foreigners in the empire) over time, and how this shifted with events, was particularly interesting.

Ephesus and the Origins of Turkey’s Tourism Industry

One entertaining and unexpected topic was the role of shrewd Levantine businessmen in running the first postcard industry, as well as religious tourism to alleged Christian heritage sites, at the ancient Greek ruins of Ephesus. I was interested in this as Ephesus was among the places I’d researched for the 2013 Lonely Planet Turkey guide.

In Metz’s retelling, the Levantines took a commercial interest in the new tourism excitement caused by the 19^th century’s fervor for religious pilgrimages to Biblical lands, and the Western ‘free-for-all’ for antiquities in the Eastern Mediterranean. In fact, in her own college’s archive, she discovered an Ephesian sculptured foot taken by a Levantine-born alumnus, the fellow mentioned above, in the 19^th century. That was before the Ottomans introduced an antiquities law banning such appropriations.

For the scholar, Ephesus became a point of pride for the Levantines, a place where perhaps more than any other in the Ottoman Empire, they staked their claim to overseeing a group legacy. It was an intriguing argument, one I would certainly like to know more about.

Epilogue for the Levantines: Their Value to the Sublime Porte and Europe

While their name was often invoked with pejorative undertones, and while many in Europe despised them for their economic riches and apparent lack of allegiances, the Levantines performed very useful functions as consummate insiders, and as the glue between disparate societies. While laws strictly forbade them from Ottoman civil service or military duty, their presence, prestige and knowledge of both East and West facilitated diplomatic and trade relations in ways that are not really quantifiable.

Metz noted that the Levantine factor may have delayed the need or desire for European nation-states to assert themselves against the Ottomans; while there is certainly no way of proving this, especially considering that the Levantines were an amorphous group that did not even necessarily consider themselves as a constitutive whole with a single interest, there is certainly much to consider for historians in future here. Looking at European-Ottoman relations through this lens will allow a more precise and nuanced view of both micro-histories and larger social and economic trends.