Depending on the specific area in question, due to their cultural heritage descending from Catholics who lived under the Ottoman Empire, they are sometimes referred to as Levantines, Italo-Levantines[it], or Franco-Levantines (Arabic: شوام; French: Levantins; Italian: Levantini; Greek: Φραγκολεβαντίνοι Frankolevantini; Turkish: Levantenler or Tatlısu Frenkleri) after Frankokratia.
When the United Kingdom took over the southern portion of Ottoman Syria in the aftermath of the First World War, some of the new rulers adapted the term "Levantine" pejoratively to refer to the inhabitants of mixed Arab and European descent in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, and to Europeans (usually French, Italian or Greek) who had assimilated and adopted local dress and customs.
The Catholic community of Cyprus (Latinoi, Λατίνοι) consists one of the three recognized religious minorities of Cyprus, together with the Armenians and Maronites, according to the 1960 constitution.[3]
The majority of the Levantines in modern Turkey are the descendants of traders/colonists from the Italian maritime republics of the Mediterranean (especially Genoa and Venice) and France, who obtained special rights and privileges called the Capitulations from the Ottoman sultans in the 16th century.[5]
There are two large communities of Italian Levantines: one in Istanbul and the other in İzmir. At the end of the 19th century there were nearly 6,000 Levantines of Italian roots in İzmir.[6] They came mainly from the nearby Genoese island of Chios in the Aegean Sea.[7]
The community had more than 15,000 members during Atatürk's presidency in the 1920s and 1930s, but today is reduced to only a few hundreds, according to Italian Levantine writer Giovanni Scognamillo.[8]
The largest Catholic church in Turkey is the Church of St. Anthony of Padua on İstiklal Avenue in the Beyoğlu (Pera) district of Istanbul, which was constructed between 1906 and 1912 by the Italian Levantine community.
They have been influential in creating and reviving a tradition of opera.[9] Famous people of the present-day Levantine community in Turkey include Maria Rita Epik, Franco-Levantine Caroline Giraud Koç and Italo-Levantine Giovanni Scognamillo. Most of Turkey's small Catholic community are Levantines.
Notable people
Notable people of the Italian Levantine community in Turkey include:
Sir Alfred Biliotti, who joined the British foreign service and eventually rose to become one of its most distinguished consular officers in the late 19th century. Biliotti was also an accomplished archaeologist who conducted important excavations at sites in the Aegean and Anatolia.
Livio Missir di Lusignano. Historian. His masterpiece is Les anciennes familles italiennes de Turquie.
Alex Baltazzi, George Galdies, George Poulimenos, A Lexicon of Smyrneika (Izmir Rumcasi Sozlugu): Illustrated with Phrases, Proverbs, Pictures and Dialogues, ISBN975333284X. Also, Second Edition, ISBN978-1-4632-0251-4
Consorti, A., Vicende dell’italianità in Levante, 1815-1915 in: Rivista Coloniale, anno XV.
Franzina, Emilio. Storia dell'emigrazione italiana. Donzelli Editore. Roma, 2002 ISBN88-7989-719-5
Gagarin, Michael (31 December 2009), Ancient Greece and Rome, vol.1, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, p.247, ISBN978-0-19-517072-6
Missir di Lusignano, Livio. Due secoli di relazioni italo-turche attraverso le vicende di una famiglia di italiani di Smirne: i Missir di Lusignano. "Storia contemporanea", (4) pp.613–623. Università di Bologna. Bologna, 1992.
Pannuti, Alessandro. Les Italiens d’Istanbul au XXe siècle: entre préservation identitaire et effacement. Université de Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle. Parigi, 2004
Pongiluppi, Francesco. La Rassegna Italiana Organo degli Interessi Italiani in Oriente. Giornale Ufficiale della Camera di Commercio Italiana di Costantinopoli, Edizioni Isis, Istanbul, 2015.
"Levant", Encarta, Microsoft, 2009
"Levant", Oxford Dictionaries Online, Oxford University Press