Ninety-one years ago, on March 28, 1930, Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul by the Turkish Post Office. The city was built in 657 BCE when it was called Byzantium until it was renamed by Constantine the Great in 330. When Constantinople fell in 1453 it became a part of the Ottoman empire. Connecting two continents, this queen of cities has had many names.
The Persians called it Dersaadet, meaning door to ultimate happiness. The Greeks called it Teofilaktos or city guarded by God while the Romans called it Nuova Roma. To the Arabs it was Farrouk, the city that separated two continents, while to Ottoman Turks it was Ummti-diinya or mother of the world. Today it is called Istanbul, which has its roots in the Greek words for simply The City or tin polin – an apt name for a city at the center of the world.
Like many others throughout history, Russian artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817 – 1900) was enchanted by this city that he first visited in 1845 as the official artist of the Russian Naval fleet of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. Between then and 1890 Aivazovsky visited the city more than ten times and captured it in all its glory in numerous paintings.
Aivazovsky was born into an Armenian family in Crimea, and studied art at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He was considered one of the best marine artists of his time and was appointed the main painter for the Russian Navy. He was so highly regarded in Russia that the saying “worthy of Aivazovsky’s brush,” from Anton Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya became the Russian buzzword for describing something that was lovely beyond description.
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