Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film has reignited a debate in Turkey that runs far deeper than cinema. Turkey's Ragıp Soylu...

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film has reignited a debate in Turkey that runs far deeper than cinema. Turkey's Ragıp Soylu, bureau chief for Middle East Eye in Ankara, published a piece titled "The Turks Who Avenged Troy," arguing that Turkish identity has long been bound up with the Trojans and their defeat at the hands of the Greeks. The claim traces back at least to Mehmed II. When the Ottoman sultan captured Constantinople in 1453, the Italian Renaissance poet Giovanni Mario Filelfo framed it explicitly as revenge against the Greeks for destroying Troy. A 7th-century chronicle and the 12th-century Gesta Francorum both suggest Turks and Franks descended from Trojan refugees after the city fell, a theory that gained wide circulation by the 16th century. Ataturk appears to have embraced it personally. After forcing the Greek army into the Aegean following the Battle of Dumlupinar on August 30, 1922, he reportedly told his commanders, "I have now avenged Hector." Hector was the Trojan prince killed by Achilles in Homer's Iliad. The parallel extends to Gallipoli. Turkish academic Naim Baburoglu and Australian historian Sarah Midford both argue the 1915 campaign mirrored the Trojan War almost point for point. Allied forces attacked from the sea to the west, just as the Achaeans had. One British warship was even named Agamemnon, after the commander of the Greek forces at Troy. The Allies even attempted their own Trojan Horse, deliberately grounding the troop ship River Clyde on the shore on April 25, 1915, packed with up to 2,000 soldiers. The operation failed, with heavy Irish casualties. Erhan Afyoncu, a Turkish historian favored by President Erdogan, devoted an entire book to the subject, titled "Truva'nin Intikami," or The Revenge of Troy, tracing the Trojan origin theory of the Turks through medieval European chronicles. Nolan chose not to film any part of the Odyssey in Turkey, where ancient Troy actually stood, near modern Canakkale. That decision did not go unnoticed in Ankara. #Turkey #Greece #History