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The melting pot of this linguistic confusion was Istiklal Street, the central shopping street and promenade in the Beyoglu district. When a passer-by walked along Istiklal Street towards Taksim Square, he heard Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Ladino at the same time as French and Italian. Istanbul was a special case of multinationalism in the late 1940s and early 1950s, so that the man on the street did not pay attention when these different languages ​​were spoken. The confusion of languages ​​was part of his everyday life.

The term "Istanbul" comes from this diversity. Istanbul is neither a place name, nor does it have something to do with the birth or directly with the family origins. Rather, Istanbulers call themselves those inhabitants of the city who have internalized their long history and culture from Byzantine to Ottoman times as a continuous whole. These long-established inhabitants, whether Turks, Armenians, Greeks or Jews, call themselves first Istanbulers, because they shaped Istanbul more than their national or religious affiliation.

Several Turkish authors have reported on this particular relationship of Istanbul to your city. Although this is (at least in Germany) best known of these works "Istanbul" by Orhan Pamuk, but I like the novels of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar much better. The novel by Mario Levi provides an important contribution "Istanbul is a fairy tale", which not only discusses the life of the Jews, but also the (co-) life of the minorities.

Istanbul is one of the few cities in the long (and sometimes very questionable) series of Capitals of Culture, which should be better known as the "Capital of Cultures" instead of the "European Capital of Culture". But the custody and peeping of this cultural diversity was a work of the Ottoman Empire, not the Republic of Turkey. The distanced, almost distrustful attitude toward cultural diversity and minorities began with the Young Turks. They fought for a Turkish national state and were not particularly impressed by this mixed culture.