1In order to better understand how the Orient is perceived by the West, one needs to have a profound understanding of the relationship between East and West. The relationship between these two geographical and political spheres has been mostly defined by a power relationship that can be traced back to the ancient periods. Catherine MacMillan writes that the dominant narratives concerning the definitions of the West and the East are ancient; she adds that “Europe, previously a neutral, geographical expression, became increasingly defined in contrast to Asia following the wars between the Greeks and the Persians” (MacMillan 2013, 29). In time, the relationship between the East and the West, however, evolved into a dynamic in power structures, as Said explains: “the other feature of Oriental-European relations was that Europe was always in a position of strength, not to say domination”. He also argues that “the essential relationship, on political, cultural, and even religious grounds, was seen – in the West, which is what concerns us here –, to be one between a strong and a weak partner” (Said 2019, 51). If such was the case between Western countries and Arab nations, it remains however to be seen how other nations and social groups interacted with each other in relation to Said’s account of orientalism.
2In his work, Róbert Gáfrik comments thus on Said’s notion of the Orient:
Said’s model of orientalism requires a united European, Western identity at the beginning of the history, which assumes an integral relationship between Ancient Greece and Modern Western Europe since Said sees modern imperialist Eurocentrism even in the oldest European texts (Gáfrik 2020, 178).
Similarly, Gáfrik’s analyses of the Central European nations can also be applied to the countries of the Balkans. It is possible to argue that, in Said’s account, modern Balkan countries such as Greece and Bulgaria do not fit either side of the equation. At least a part of what Czech Indologist Martin Hribek writes about the Czech nation can also be relevant to the South-Eastern Balkan nations. In his view, since the Czechs had no colonies, they also had no “hangover after the loss of an Empire” (Hribek 2011, 46). A question arises then, about the inapplicability of Said’s account of orientalism on a global scale. The Orient as understood by the Eastern European nations was quite different from that of the Western Europeans which was highlighted by Said’s work.
3The images concerning the near Orient were particularly prominent in Romantic literature, as Filiz Turhan comments about Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, in which she describes the Orient: “Instead of a victorious re-Hellenization of Constantinople, we experience only the slow contamination of the Western world with the Oriental plague” (Turhan 2003, 129). In this regard, saving the Orient from the “Turkish Menace” was pivotal during the Renaissance period, as MacMillan, quoting Özlem Kumrular, notes:
Although the Turks now controlled the birthplace of the Greek culture and had taken over the second city of the Roman Empire, they were viewed as vandals and barbarians who were unworthy and incapable of taking on the responsibility of this classical heritage (quoted in MacMillan 2013, 35).
The importance of re-imagining the Orient as a Hellenized peak of the civilized world can be considered one of the most important elements of European self-image, an image which became significant with the Renaissance’s self-fashioning.
4The concept of self-fashioning, introduced by the Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt, emphasizes a person’s ability to create an identity for himself or herself. As he explains,
[a]s a term for the action or process of making, for particular features of appearance, for a distinct style or pattern, the word had been long in use, but it is in the sixteenth century that fashion seems to come into wide currency as a way of designating the forming of a self (Greenblatt 2005, 2).
He further writes:
self-fashioning occurs at the point of encounter between an authority and an alien, that what is produced in this encounter partakes of both the authority and the alien that is marked for the attack, and hence that any achieved identity contains within the signs of its own subversion or loss (Greenblatt 2005, 9).
In this regard, it would be beneficial for us to understand the construction phase of the European Renaissance identity, in order to better grasp the relationship between the East and the West. MacMillan, quoting Soykut, asserts that, concerning the relationship between Renaissance and Hellenic culture, Besarrion was one of the first men of the Renaissance to identify the ancient Greeks and Romans with the Renaissance idea of “civilization” and Christendom and to equate the Turks with the Persian enemies of the ancient Greeks (MacMillan 2013, 34). It can be claimed that the intellectual structure of the Byzantine empire inspired the Humanist movement during the Renaissance, but with the fall of Constantinople and the total subjugation of the Greeks, the Hellenic civilized world transformed into an idea or an image which can still be observed in the literature of the nations that prized the classical notion of “civilization”.
5In this regard, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s fascination with the Greek world or the idea of Byzantium is closely connected with Lord Byron’s understanding and dream of a free Hellenic geography. George Prochnik analyses Leigh Fermor’s interest in the opinions of Robert Byron, who was actually a relative of Lord Byron, writing:
Fermor declared that his discovery of The Station, Byron’s account of his travels to Mount Athos and exposure there to the Byzantine treasures of the monasteries, changed the entire itinerary of his plans to walk across Europe, and perhaps the trajectory of his life (Prochnik 2014, 165).
Additionally, his journey to the East can be interpreted as a successor to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters (1763). Even though about two centuries have elapsed, in a similar fashion to Wortley Montagu, Leigh Fermor describes and imagines the East, not only for a Western audience however, but for a global one.
6In 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor started his journey on foot to Istanbul from Hook of Holland. The first book about his travels, A Time of Gifts – On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube, was first published in 1977. In the second book of his trilogy, Between the Woods and the Water – On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland: the Middle Danube to the Iron Gates, published in 1986, Leigh Fermor describes his journey from South-Eastern Czechoslovakia to the borders of Bulgaria. Unfortunately, Leigh Fermor passed away before publishing the last book of his trilogy, The Broken Road – Travels from Bulgaria to Mount Athos, which was published posthumously in 2013 in accordance with his unfinished manuscript. Initially, I will focus on a significant instance in his second book Between the Woods and the Water in which Leigh Fermor stops on a small island on the Danube called “Ada Kaleh”, meaning “Fortress Island” in Turkish. He describes the island in a few sentences:
The inhabitants were Turkish, probably descendants of the soldiers of one of the earlier Sultans who invaded the Balkans, Murad I, or Bayazid I, perhaps. Left behind by the retreating Turks, the island lingered on as an outlying fragment of the Ottoman Empire until the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The Austrians held some vague suzerainty over it, but the island seems to have been forgotten until it was granted to Rumania at the Treaty of Versailles, and the Rumanians had left the inhabitants undisturbed (Leigh Fermor 2004, 224).
As Leigh Fermor describes the origins of the inhabitants of the island, he reminds the audience of the strong Oriental presence which existed in the region for centuries. In this regard, contrary to Said’s notion of Oriental, it can be reasoned that the Oriental was not the weak partner in its relationship with the West – in fact, it was the strong and threatening occupying force. In Frontier Myths of Orientalism, Andre Gingrich holds that Said’s notion of the backward and primitive Oriental is not applicable to certain regions of Europe. He presents the Oriental of Eastern Europe thus:
He rarely is a distant Muslim (except for his role on the other side of the Mediterranean); he is rarely a non-Muslim (except for his role as Jew and Slav), and he certainly is not primitive: with its folk and elite images, frontier orientalism quite clearly distinguishes (with the help of early academia) between the Oriental and the Primitive (Gingrich 1996, 120).
While continuing to describe the island and its unique culture, Leigh Fermor comments on the Turkish language of the inhabitants and relates that a doctor claims that the Rumanian accent of the inhabitants of the island caused amusement on the shore. As he expresses his remarks on the Turkish language, he writes:
According to the doctor it had either drifted far from the metropolitan vernacular of Constantinople or remained immovably lodged in its ancient mould, like a long-marooned English community still talking the language of Chaucer (Leigh Fermor 2004, 229).
Leigh Fermor’s observations regarding the Turks on the island and their language can provide us with an understanding of the Western perception of the Orient. It can be argued that for Leigh Fermor, Ada Kaleh represents the entirety of the Turkish presence in Europe while it also signifies a great deal about the Orient. He remarks:
So these were the last descendants of those victorious nomads from the borders of China! They had conquered most of Asia, and North Africa to the Pillars of Hercules, enslaved half Christendom and battered on the gates of Vienna; victories long eclipsed, but commemorated here and there by a minaret left in their lost possessions like a spear stuck in the ground (Leigh Fermor 2004, 226).
Arguably, the Oriental that Leigh Fermor offers to his readers differs from the Oriental in Said’s account of orientalism. From this perspective, the Oriental or the Turk, a word which has been used interchangeably with Oriental and Muslim, represents a great empire of conquerors. However, his views on the Orient differ from those of his predecessors. In his Don Juan, Lord Byron comments on the Turkish presence in the birthplace of Hellenic civilization in the following lines:
It was indeed a wide extensive building
Which opened on their view, and o’er the front
There seemed to be besprent a deal of gilding
And various hues, as is the Turkish wont –
A gaudy taste; for they are little skilled in
The arts of which these lands were once the font (Byron 2006, 239).
Even though Leigh Fermor shares Byron’s nostalgic enthusiasm for the lost Hellenic Empire, his views on the Orientals appear to be different from Byron’s. It can be stated that Byron’s perception of the Oriental can be related to Said’s, i.e. unskilled and uncivilized. Leigh Fermor’s Orientals, on the other hand, are conquerors of the East who barged into the gates of Vienna, presenting us with a different picture than the general understanding of the Orient.
7As such, it is possible that Leigh Fermor re-constructs and re-imagines the East as the former lands of a mighty Oriental empire, by describing the Turks as a strong occupying force rather than the weak partner in Said’s account of the relationship between the West and the East. In this regard, Ada Kaleh is depicted as a precious artefact from a long-lost Oriental power which Leigh Fermor is still able to observe:
It was getting late. The sun left the minaret, and then the new moon, a little less wraith-like than the night before, appeared on cue in a turquoise sky with a star next to it that might have been pinned there by an Ottoman herald (Leigh Fermor 2004, 227).
Even though, by the time of Leigh Fermor’s “great trudge”, it has been a decade since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and centuries since it was a great power, the influence of the Orient in Eastern Europe is still present in Leigh Fermor’s imagination. It can be asserted that, from his perspective, the region cannot be described as a homogenous ethnic community since the Orient is still alive, untouched by political and demographic changes and stuck in a time capsule, which makes his readers question the extent and limits of the ideas and perspectives regarding the West and the East. This approach to Eastern Europe as a former Oriental region, especially as regards its structure after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, can be further analysed with the help of Andre Gingrich’s theory of frontier orientalism, in which he differentiates between the Western approach to the Oriental and the Central European perspective:
In this metaphoric language, defending ourselves against the vital threats from the Bad Muslim rival is a necessary task for gaining strength, and prosperity, whereas under different circumstances, the Good Muslim Oriental, if subjected to colonial control, maybe a courageous ally and loyal subject when other enemies endanger the frontier (Gingrich 2005, 199).
Furthermore, it can also be maintained that Leigh Fermor’s approach to the Orient is closer to the one which Gingrich describes in his work. As the grandchildren of the Oriental invading forces, as mentioned before, the Turkish population of Ada Kaleh can be interpreted as the Good Oriental Muslim after conforming to the Christian authority. Leigh Fermor develops a positive perspective regarding the kind behaviour of the inhabitants of the island and comments:
I didn’t know what to do when leaving; an attempt at payment was stopped by a smile and an enigmatic backward tilt of the head. Like everything else, this was the first time I came across the universal negative of the Levant; and, once more, there was that charming inclination, hand on breast (Leigh Fermor 2004, 226).
Their positive approach to a western traveller can also be interpreted as the loyalty of the “Good Muslim” who resides on the western side of the frontier.
8Regarding the re-imagining and re-definition of the Orient, it is possible and most likely beneficial for us to focus on an important part of the third book of Leigh Fermor’s trilogy, namely, The Broken Road. After a long and hard trip along the Black Sea shores of Bulgaria, Leigh Fermor arrives in a cave full of fishermen and shepherds. After finishing a dinner of mackerel and debating on the name of the fish, Leigh Fermor explains that the shepherds were Bulgarians and the fishermen were Greeks. What Leigh Fermor describes after the dinner is quite relevant for the topic of this essay as a young fisherman begins a Turkish belly dance called köçek. What Leigh Fermor finds and describes in the East consists of Greek and Bulgarian men dancing in a Turkish fashion while playing the bagpipe:
As the drone swelled, one of the younger fishermen began a burlesque Turkish belly-dance – I think called the kütchek – learnt, he said, in Tzarigrad, Constantinople. It was very convincing, even to the loud crack that accompanied a particularly spasmodic wrench of haunch and midriff, produced by the parting of the two interlocked forefingers of either hand as they were held, with joined palms, above his head (Leigh Fermor 2013, 237-238).
Here Leigh Fermor provides his readers with a representation of the multicultural structure of the Ottoman Empire. Even though it had the same structure, it did not display the same cultural harmony as Maria Todorova writes:
At no time, but especially in the last two centuries, was the Ottoman Empire a country with strong social cohesiveness or with a high degree of social integration. Not only was there no feeling of belonging to a common society but the population felt it belonged to disparate (religious, social, or other) groups that would not converge (Todorova 2009, 163).
This new and re-imagined Orient which Leigh Fermor describes is no longer a threat to European Christianity nor it is a primitive and despotic land. The cave in which Bulgarian shepherds and Greek fishermen reside represents a new, harmonious East, consisting of elements from Turkish culture to Greek culture. Leigh Fermor further comments on the folkloric dance of the fishermen and shepherds:
It was only later, in Greece, that I was to learn a bit about them: that some scholars place the birth of the first dance in Tatavli, the butchers’ quarter of Constantinople, and the second one among the Tzeibeks, a wild tribe in the mountains of Phrygia, and think it possible that they date from Byzantine times (Leigh Fermor 2013, 244).
This sentence makes it clear that the relationship between the cultures of Asia Minor and Western Europe was in the form of mutual exchanges. Describing people from different cultures existing in a similar yet integrated culture, Leigh Fermor provides the audience with a new approach to the Orient. The elements of the Oriental threat which was the Ottoman Empire, now exist in different folkloric structures, from music to dance. In this regard, Leigh Fermor’s Orient consists of the Turks and cultural elements from the Turkish culture, no longer observed and approached as a threat. However, it can also be argued that this harmonized Eastern culture was not what Leigh Fermor was nostalgic for, even though he accepts and makes peace with it.
9Nostalgia as a general concept can be handled in a variety of manners, especially in terms of literature and artistic works. However, when the concept of nostalgia first emerged in Europe, it was not regarded as a concept for artistic works, but as a medical disorder found among soldiers fighting in distant lands and regions. The term itself was first coined by Swiss Doctor Johannes Hofer in 1688 in his dissertation entitled Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia, with the purpose of identifying a common problem among the Helvetians. In his thesis, Hofer holds that those afflicted with this disease often grieve “either because they are abandoned by the pleasant breeze of their Native Land or because at some time they picture themselves enjoying this more” (Hofer 1934, 380). Hofer further explains the source of the term “nostalgia”, derived from Greek nostos, “return to the native country, home”, and algos, meaning “grief or suffering”. This condition, describing an immense yearning for one’s own homeland, in time lost its medical connotations and came to be known as a psychological phenomenon. According to Fred Davis, in consideration of the result of the surveys he conducted on college students with his colleagues, these students “are likely to associate nostalgia with homesickness per se, while almost no one thinks of it as a “disease” (Davis 1979, 4). Furthermore, he argues that “nostalgia” in our modern society has been “demilitarized” and “de-medicalised” (Davis 1979, 4). As such, this feeling of homesickness and yearning, now free from the semantic grasp of military and medical terminology, often places the concept of “home” at its centre. However, the meaning of this concept of “home” appears to vary from person to person, with all or many at the very least, agreeing on one of its aspects to a certain level: the fact that this “home” is lost or does not exist anymore.
10Then, in consideration of the above-given descriptions and comments on the nostalgic condition, it is possible to broadly define nostalgia as an impossible wish and subsequent pain regarding the return to a place or condition. Accordingly, Svetlana Boym, in her famous The Future of Nostalgia, comments on the nostalgic condition in a more contemporary manner. She states that the concept of nostalgia has an emotional, almost romantic value in addition to its property of longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed (Boym 2001, xiii). Furthermore, Boym also defines nostalgia, not as a historical or medical concept, but as a modern condition:
Modern nostalgia is a mourning for the impossibility of mythical return, for the loss of an enchanted world with clear borders and values: it could be a secular expression of a spiritual longing, a nostalgia for an absolute, a home that is both physical and spiritual, the Edenic unity of time and space before entry into history. The nostalgic is looking for a spiritual addressee. Encountering silence, he looks for memorable signs, desperately misreading them (Boym 2001, 8).
While Boym maintains that nostalgia, as a modern phenomenon, is a spiritual yearning for places that do not exist anymore or never existed in the first place, it is also possible to argue that such nostalgia could concern historical conceptions, or rather, reproduction of historical and in some cases, to long-lost empires as a part of a broader past consisting of clear borders and values. Furthermore, Svetlana Boym also distinguishes between two distinct types of nostalgia, namely restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia, that those two forms of nostalgia are not absolute and certain types but tendencies regarding the experience of the concept of longing. From this perspective, she further explains and differentiates between these two types:
Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on nostos and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps. Reflective nostalgia dwells in algia, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. The first category of nostalgics do not think of themselves as nostalgics; they believe that their project is about truth. This kind of nostalgia characterizes national and nationalist revivals all over the world, which engage in the antimodern myth-making of history by means of a return to national symbols and myths and, occasionally, through swapping conspiracy theories (Boym 2001, 41).
While describing the restorative features of nostalgia experienced by individuals, within the framework of a return to a more traditional way of life, as well as revisioning history as a general narrative, Boym also sets out some of the characteristics of nostalgics, arguing that using or swapping conspiracy theories can be regarded as a means of explaining this tragic loss regarding past. Furthermore, she distinguishes between these two inclinations of nostalgia, arguing that reflective nostalgia has no aim of rebuilding the imaginary place “home” but it is rather ironic, undecisive and fragmentary: “Nostalgics of the second type are aware of the gap between identity and resemblance; the home is in ruins or, on the contrary, has been just renovated and gentrified beyond recognition” (Boym 2001, 50).
11I will now focus on Patrick Leigh Fermor’s account of his travels from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, in the light of these two nostalgic inclinations explained and differentiated by Boym, with the purpose of examining Leigh Fermor’s re-imagining and reproduction of the regions he visits as well as the Orient. Furthermore, I aim to underline the nostalgic elements in Leigh Fermor’s retellings as well as his understanding of his nostalgia, especially concerning the powerful and influential empires and states founded in such regions. Similarly, Leigh Fermor’s fascination with the Byzantines and the Hellenic culture and its features will be examined in parallel with his historical nostalgia as well as its current state and his quest to find or even unearth the golden era of the East.
12As a person who travelled a lot between the First World War and the second, and experienced the subsequent horrors and tragedies inflicted upon Europe and the rest of the world, it is no surprise that Leigh Fermor’s account of his travels, as well as his re-imaginings and reproductions, strongly evoke Boym’s idea of restorative nostalgia, yearning for a peaceful region. Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia towards the past of the Orient as a peaceful Hellenic utopia can be attributed to his perception of Western civilisation as it feeds on ancient Greek culture, it would be adequate to suggest that Leigh Fermor’s quest to reach Constantinople was also a quest for him to reach this ancient utopia for which he was nostalgic, his quest which failed at the end of his journey as can be observed from the fact that he barely mentions Constantinople. His nostalgia regarding the past of the Orient can best be explained by his remarks concerning dances, upon encountering the above-mentioned Bulgarian shepherds and Greek fishermen in Bulgaria, and watching them dance their traditional dances:
To me, they seemed at the time, and they still seem, to be exactly that amalgam of Greece and the Orient which is covered by the word “Byzantine”, appertaining to the city which was the heart and soul of the Greek world for over a thousand years (Leigh Fermor 2013, 247).
Arguably, Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia regarding the Greek Orient has certain restorative features. Writing about the features of restorative nostalgia, Boym explains that nostalgia arises as a result of temporal distance and displacement, while the problem of distance is handled with an intimate experience and the availability of the desired object, the problem of displacement is resolved by returning to the home (Boym 2001, 45). It is possible to argue that, on his quest to reach the Oriental utopia, Leigh Fermor’s remarks, such as the above-given one, are his manner of expressing his nostalgic feelings. By getting close to Constantinople, which is the desired object or love-object at the centre of his nostalgia, he both eliminates said distance and acquires the chance to interact with the parts and remnants of his desired object. Leigh Fermor’s nostalgic relationship with his love-object, namely Constantinople which symbolizes all Oriental civilizations including the Greek one, is further underlined by his remarks regarding the Turks and the fall of Constantinople, which signifies the fall of the Orient as a civilization as he describes the origin of the Turks,
kinsmen of the all-destroying Mongols, who had surged westwards, turned Muslim, founded the Sultanate of Rum and then conquered the Roman Empire of the east, and finally, by capturing Constantinople, inflicted the greatest disaster on Europe since the sack of Rome by the Goths a thousand years earlier (Leigh Fermor 2013, 47).
However, it would be unfair to assume that Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia regarding Constantinople and what it represented depends on a totally nationalistic approach riddled by conspiracy theories, as Boym describes. His nostalgia, possessing restorative features, mostly focuses on his observations and re-imaginings of the Orient, without searching for scapegoats. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that, as said above, Leigh Fermor’s quest to reach the Oriental civilization initially failed, as it can be observed that journal entries from Constantinople are quite limited and often without any significant re-imaginings and remarks. However, it is also possible that his quest is reinvigorated by his travel to Thessaloniki and subsequently to Mount Athos, at which point his journal entries interestingly increase in number.
13What Leigh Fermor failed to achieve in Istanbul was once again re-ignited with his travelling between the many monasteries of Mount Athos. While on a ship to Athos, he re-imagines the history of the region and finally, even though it endured changes, he appears to reach his nostalgic love-object, with reassurance that the mountains and the region itself, that were subjected to many historical events, are the same:
I wonder just how much has changed; one thing however is reassuring: these pine-clad mountains and golden strands are the same as those on which the heavy-helmeted hoplites stood looking seaward, the Macedonia of Philip and Alexander (Leigh Fermor 2013, 271).
Furthermore, in accordance with the above-given quotations and Leigh Fermor’s retelling, it is possible to conclude that Leigh Fermor manages to actualise his nostalgic feelings in Mount Athos with its strong Orthodox and Byzantine heritage, after failing to find what he dreamed of in Istanbul. Arguably, for Leigh Fermor, Mount Athos and what it represents were somewhat sufficient to quench his nostalgia regarding the utopian Orient, with historical artefacts he was able to see in Athos:
The manuscripts were priceless – old monastic charts and geographies, written before the centuries were in double figures – gold and black Byzantine psalters, each initial a work of art, the gift of some almost mythical empress or voivode; wonderful calligraphies of the sultans, and lastly a precious chalice, the gift of one of the Comneni (Leigh Fermor 2013, 293).
Similarly, as it can be gathered from Leigh Fermor’s remarks about the calligraphies of Sultans among other Byzantine artefacts, Leigh Fermor’s Oriental utopia is not actually a purely Hellenistic or Christian environment; in fact, it also includes various major changes that occurred in the Orient since the Byzantine golden era. Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia towards his love-object thus takes a turn towards a reflective approach, as Boym argues:
Reflective nostalgia cherishes shattered fragments of memory and temporalizes space. Restorative nostalgia takes itself dead seriously. Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, can be ironic and humorous. It reveals that longing and critical thinking are not opposed to one another, as affective memories do not absolve one from compassion, judgement or critical reflection (Boym 2001, 59).
It is possible to find some fragments belonging to different cultures, different eras and different people in Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia as he never hesitates to put Turkish artistic forms next to the ones belonging to Greeks and Byzantines. Arguably, even though his nostalgia has restorative qualities, it also becomes fragmented, embracing all the different elements that, at one point, belonged to the Orient. As such, at the end of his journey, Leigh Fermor’s ideal or utopian Orient is, contrary to his starting point, not to be considered a purely Hellenic or Christian one – instead, it becomes a harmonious amalgamation created by the history of the very region itself. He further emphasizes that in one of the monasteries in Vatopedi, the “Turkish rug in the sanctum where the epitrope sat was adorned with the double-headed eagle and crown of Byzantium” (Leigh Fermor 2013, 293). This harmonious combination of Christian and Turkish symbols can be underlined as Leigh Fermor’s final perception of the Orient. Again, he resorts to a somewhat humorous tone for his restorative and yet fragmented nostalgia as he explains that while in Vatopedi and with the companionship of good quality wine he managed to amuse a group of people by
giving an imitation of a muezzin calling from the minaret and then a Muslim at prayer – ablutions, prostration etc. I must have been a little drunk, looking back, but it was quite a success. They applauded in Turkish – “Eyi, eyi! Teshekur ederim! Chok güzel, Bey effendi! (Eyi, eyi! Thank you! Very fine, sir!) (Leigh Fermor 2013, 293).
14It should be noted that although Said’s account of orientalism provides insight into the relationship between the East and the West its application to all Western and Eastern nations is questionable. In this regard, Gingrich propounds a much more applicable concept of orientalism, which can generally, with exceptions, of course, be applied to the nations of Eastern and Central Europe and their relationships with the East. Leigh Fermor’s remarks on the Orient in his imagination provides his readers with a new and more accurate description of the modern Orient. This new Oriental which can be observed from Leigh Fermor’s comments on various important regions is examined with the reflection of the Turkish heritage in Eastern Europe, in a peaceful and calm atmosphere, co-existing with Greek and Bulgarian Christian heritages. His nostalgia towards an utopian Hellenic civilization can be fruitfully examined with Svetlana Boym’s concept of restorative and reflective nostalgia. Leigh Fermor’s nostalgia towards the Orient carries influences from both of these concepts as a region which hosts Oriental cultures, as well as Christian cultures, in a harmonious atmosphere. Starting as a nostalgia for Hellenic utopia with restorative qualities, as he journeys on, it becomes much more fragmented, embracing and accepting all the fragments of the Orient.
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