Princes' Islands
Thomas Allom (1841)
The
islands are nowhere this craggy or dramatic. Allom's vision is so Romanticized
as to be imaginary. Compare this photograph, which was taken in 1880 from a
spot nearby also on Büyükada.
The
earliest-known name given to this archipelago is Demonisia–Isles of the Demons.
Due to the presence of a large number of monasteries during Byzantine times,
they came to be known as Popodonissia–Isles of the Monks. The islands were
remote however and in time, the Orthodox Church began dispatching its more
troublesome priests to the monasteries on Kinalı and Heybeli islands. This
practice was adopted by the Byzantine court, and the islands became a place of
exile for members of the royal family whose disposal was not otherwise
expedient. Some of these were princes and it was because of this that they
became known as the Princes' Isles (Isles de Princes) in Europe. Under
the Ottomans, the islands ceased to be a place for exiles of this sort. (Not
for lack of troublesome princes, mind you; they were just dealt with in other
ways.) As a result, the term "Princes' Isles" has no Turkish
counterpart.
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