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History
The tower, which once guarded the eastern end of the city's sea walls, is a construction of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Until 1912, an inscription in Ottoman Turkish verse above the door dated the structure to AH 942 (1535-1536). The historian Franz Babinger speculated that the work was designed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan who is known to have built fortifications, including a similar tower at the Albanian port Valona in 1537. The present tower likely replaced an older Byzantine tower mentioned by the 12th century archbishop Eustathios.[1]
The Tower was used by the Ottomans successively as a fort, garrison and a prison. In 1826, at the order of the Sultan Mahmud II, there was a massacre of the prisoners in the Tower. Owing to the "countless victims of Ottoman torturers and executioners", the tower acquired the name "Tower of Blood" or "The Red Tower", which it kept until the end of the 19th century.[2]
The Tower was for centuries part of the walls of the old city of Thessaloniki (known as Selanik by the Ottomans), and separated the Jewish quarter of the city from the cemeteries of the Muslims and Jews.[3] The city walls were demolished in 1866. When Thessaloniki was annexed from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek State during the Balkan War of 1912, the tower was whitewashed as a symbolic gesture of cleansing, and acquired its present name. King George I of Greece was assassinated not far from the White Tower in March 1913.
The Tower is now a buff colour but has retained the name White Tower. It now stands on Thessaloniki's waterfront boulevard, Nikis (Victory) Street. It houses a Byzantine museum and is one of the city's leading tourist attractions. The Tower is under the administration of the Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Banknotes controversy
In the early 1990s, the White Tower became the focus of a major controversy between Greece and the newly independent former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The nationalist VMRO–DPMNE, the leading opposition party in the Republic of Macedonia, proposed the printing of banknotes (bills) depicting the Tower. It supported the irredentist "United Macedonia" concept at the time, with Slav Macedonian nationalists arguing that "Solun [Thessaloniki] is ours". However, the government in Skopje rejected the VMRO-DPMNE proposal and adopted a different design for the new Macedonian denar, which it issued in 1992.[4]
Extreme nationalist organizations in the Republic of Macedonia nonetheless went ahead with the printing of unofficial banknotes depicting the White Tower,[5] which were sold as souvenirs on the streets of Skopje.[6][7] The printing of the notes became the subject of a rumor in Greece that the currency of the new neighbouring state did in fact depict Greek symbols — a highly controversial point, given the dispute with the Republic of Macedonia over its name and flag.[8] The notes were never placed in circulation, as they were not legal tender, but the episode nonetheless exacerbated the ill will felt between the two countries and helped to aggravate tensions in the Balkans.[9]
Notes
- ^ Kiel, Machiel (1973). "A Note on the Exact Date of Construction of the White Tower of Thessaloniki". Balkan Studies 14: 325–357.
- ^ Glenny, p.181
- ^ Glenny, p.181
- ^ Roudometof, Victor (2002). "Toward an Archaeology of the Macedonian Question", Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Greenwood Publishing, 64. ISBN 0275976483.
- ^ Sassoon, Donald (1997). Looking Left: European Socialism After the Cold War. I.B. Tauris, 77. ISBN 1860641806).
- ^ Smith, Helena (1992-01-31). "Gamble of the Macedonia gambit", The Guardian, Guardian Newspapers, pp. 23.
- ^ Karakasidou, Anastasia; R Brian Ferguson (2003). The State, Identity and Violence. Routledge, 202. ISBN 0415274125.
- ^ Borza, Eugene N.; Frances B. Titchener, Richard F. Moorton Jr. (1999). The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity. University of California Press, 256. ISBN 0520210298.
- ^ Marks, Michael P.; Peter J. Katzenstein (1997). Tamed Power: Germany in Europe. Cornell University Press, 149. ISBN 0801484499.
References
- Glenny, Misha (2001). "A maze of conspiracy", The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999, Penguin 2001 softcover, New York, New York: Penguin, 181. ISBN 0140233776.
- Simons, Marlise (February 3, 1992). "As Republic Flexes, Greeks Tense Up", New York Times.
