Writing about Istanbul as a guide has taught me to keep two questions in view: what happened here, and what can a visitor actually see? When I write about Hagia Sophia’s mosaics, I need to explain the works that survive and the history behind them. A guide to Fener and Balat has a different task: helping readers understand the streets, buildings and communities they will encounter.
Even a broad history of Istanbul, stretching back to the founding of Byzantium, depends on dates, places and events that can be checked. I value that approach, but I began to wonder whether there was a different way to tell Istanbul’s story, with room for a literary perspective while remaining clear about what the historical record tells us.
That question led to two separate publications. I’m Serhat Engul, and I write both Alek, Misi & Rubi — Istanbul Stories and Byzantine Stories. Both draw on more than 20 years of guiding experience, but each uses a different method. Istanbul Clues continues to be my guide to visiting and understanding the city.
Alek, Misi & Rubi — Istanbul Stories
The first publication, Istanbul Stories, is a series of literary historical fables written for adults. Its stories draw on Istanbul’s documented past, but they are told through three fictional animal witnesses. These fictional scenes require a clear distinction between invention and historical fact.
Alek is an adult seagull who observes the shoreline, the monuments and the city’s changing outline from above. His view covers a wide area, but he cannot make out individual people far below him. Height gives him one kind of knowledge and leaves other things beyond his reach.
Misi, a black-and-white cat, stays closer to people. From a doorstep or a threshold, she can notice a movement, a voice or a touch that Alek would miss. Yet she cannot know what the people around her are thinking, however close she comes to them.
Rubi is a small grey mouse who follows sounds, vibrations and faint traces inside walls and beneath buildings. He may hear something without seeing its source, and sometimes he draws the wrong conclusion. His limited view shapes the story.
Their memories may span centuries, yet they forget, make mistakes and perceive only what their circumstances allow. The historical events, locations and dates are checked against sources; the animal witnesses and scenes involving unnamed people are fictional. Every story ends with The History Behind the Fable, where readers can see how the documented material relates to the literary account.
The First Fable: The Obelisk of Theodosius
The first place to encounter these characters is Thirty Days, Thirty-Two: The Obelisk of Theodosius. Its title comes from two inscriptions on the monument’s base: the Latin text says the obelisk was raised in thirty days, while the Greek text says thirty-two. The obelisk was erected in the Hippodrome in AD 390.
The story takes that documented event as its starting point and gives the three fictional witnesses different ways of experiencing it. A reader looking for the monument’s setting and the history of the square can turn to my guide to the Hippodrome of Constantinople.
Byzantine Stories: History Told Through Its Sources
My other publication, Byzantine Stories, approaches historical writing differently. It is a source-based narrative history project about the Byzantine world. Its central figures are usually people who actually lived: travelers, rulers, pilgrims, diplomats and others whose words or actions survive in written accounts. The prose brings those accounts to life without inventing events.
The project began with an experiment involving Stavros, a fictional man living in New York who entered the Byzantine past through his dreams. Three stories from that early creative period remain on the site. Each episode required a modern-day story about Stavros before reaching the historical scene I wanted to explore.
Eventually my question changed from “Where should I send Stavros next?” to “Who was already there?” Chronicles, travel accounts, letters and saints’ lives already contained witnesses worth following. The shift is described on the Byzantine Stories About page.
On Istanbul Clues, I explain Byzantine Constantinople through surviving sites and the history connected to them. Byzantine Stories can follow a witness beyond the city, because the Byzantine world was never confined to Constantinople alone. I do not present imagined conversations or private feelings as established facts, and an account of a miracle is presented as a belief reported by its source.
The first example of this approach is Arculf in Constantinople — The City Chosen in the Night. Arculf was a bishop from Gaul who spent months in Constantinople in the late seventh century. His recollections were recorded by Adomnán, the abbot of Iona, in De Locis Sanctis.
Arculf describes a relic of the True Cross and the ceremonies surrounding it, along with accounts concerning St George. He also passes on a foundation legend in which building tools move overnight from the Asian to the European shore. That episode is part of what the account says, not a verified event. It is precisely the kind of distinction I want readers to be able to recognize.
An important part of Byzantine Stories is the Behind the Story section that accompanies its major narratives. It identifies sources and discusses uncertainties, including questions of dating and the difference between a witness’s testimony and a later author’s presentation. The narrative gives the reader a way into the material; the accompanying notes show the basis on which it was written.
Two Different Ways of Writing About the Past
Alek, Misi and Rubi are fictional witnesses in an adult literary fable. Byzantine Stories follows accounts of real historical people and builds its narratives from those sources. These are independent publications, with no shared fictional universe. What connects them is the person writing them and the care taken to separate evidence from invention.
I keep Istanbul Clues as a separate publication because it answers another set of questions: how to understand a monument, what to look for during a visit, and how to plan time in the city. The two literary projects offer reading experiences that belong outside that practical format.
The obelisk fable is a starting point for seeing how the three witnesses work. The account of Arculf shows how Byzantine Stories handles a medieval testimony. Each is followed by notes explaining its relationship to the historical record.
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