Gurdjieff in Constantinople

(pictured Gurdjieff Institute at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak, Yemeneci Sokak and entrance to Koumbaradji (Kumbaraci) Street in Péra today)

On October 29, 1949, at the American Hospital in Paris died a Caucasian Greek named Georgy Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. A few nights later at Cooper Union, New York, a medal was presented to the revolutionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. After his part in the ceremony was over, Wright asked the chairman's permission to make an announcement. "The greatest man in the world," he said, "has recently died. His name was Gurdjieff." Few, if any, in Wright's audience had ever heard the name before.

Mavi Boncuk |

When the Bolshevik revolution struck Russia, Gurdjieff moved south. He halted at various places, notably at Tiflis, to launch groups. In late May 1920, when political conditions in Georgia changed and the old order was crumbling, Gurdjief and his followers crossed the Caucasian mountains on foot to Batumi on the Black Sea coast and then to Istanbul. Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Koumbaradji (Kumbaraci) Street in Péra, and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the Galata Tower. The apartment is near the Dervish house of the Mewlevi Order of Sufis , where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Thomas de Hartmann experienced the sema ceremony of The Whirling Dervishes.

In Istanbul, Gurdjieff also met Captain John G. Bennett[1], then head of British Military Intelligence in Constantinople. Later, Bennett would become a follower of Gurdjieff and of Ouspensky.[2] 

"Few places exist where East and West blend so intimately that one cannot tell whether the environment is Asiatic or European. I have never seen this fusion more completely realised than in the palace of Kouron Chesme (Kurucesme), the home of Prince Sabahaddin[3][4], nephew of the last Sultan of Turkey and deep student of Christian and Islamic tradition. 

It was there that I first met Gurdjieff in the autumn of 1920, and no surroundings could have been more appropriate. In Gurdjieff, East and West do not just meet. Their difference is annihilated in a world outlook which knows no distinctions of race or creed. This was my first, and has remained one of my strongest impressions. A Greek from the Caucasus, he spoke Turkish with an accent of unexpected purity, the accent that one associates with those born and bred in the narrow circle of the Imperial Court. His appearance was striking enough even in Turkey where one saw many unusual types. His head was shaven, immense black moustache, eyes which at one moment seemed very pale and at another almost black. Below average height, he gave nevertheless an impression of great physical strength. The prince had apparently known him since before the war but did not tell me anything about their former meetings.…" SOURCE Gurdjieff The Unknown Teacher by John G. Bennett

[1]   John G. Bennett, (8 June 1897 - 13 December 1974) In the closing months of World War 1, Bennett undertook an intensive course in Turkish language at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and was posted to Constantinople, where he held a sensitive position in Anglo-Turkish relations as the British liaison officer at the Ottoman war ministry. "In 1921 he showed up in Constantinople. "His (Gurdjieff) coming to Constantinople," says J. G. Bennett, "was heralded by the usual gossip of the bazaars. Gurdjieff was said to be a great traveler and a linguist who knew all the Oriental languages, reputed by the Moslems to be a convert to Islam, and by the Christians to be a member of some obscure Nestorian sect." In those days Bennett, who is now an expert on coal utilization, was in charge of a British Intelligence section working in Constantinople. He met Gurdjieff and found him neither Moslem nor Christian. Bennett reported that "his linguistic attainments stopped short near the Caspian Sea, so that we could converse only with difficulty in a mixture of Azerbaidjan Tartar and Osmanli Turkish. Nevertheless, he unmistakably possessed knowledge very different from that of the itinerant Sheikhs of Persia and Trans-Caspia, whose arrival in Constantinople had been preceded by similar rumors. It was, above all, astonishing to meet a man, almost unacquainted with any Western European language, possessing a working knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology and modern astronomy, and able to make searching comments on the new and fashionable theory of relatively, and also on the psychology of Sigmund Freud."

To Bennett, Gurdjieff didn't look at all like an Eastern sage. He was powerfully built—his neck rippled with muscles—and although of only medium height, he was physically dominating. He had a shaven dome, an unlined swarthy face, piercing black eyes, and a tigerish mustache that curled out to big points. In his later years he had a large paunch. But in one respect Gurdjieff's reputation followed the pattern of all the swamis, gurus and masters who have roamed the Western world: his past in the East was veiled in mystery. Only the scantiest facts are known about him before he appeared in Moscow about 1914.

[2] Via Germany, Gurdjieff reached France where, as related, Lady Rothermere enabled him to found the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château du Prieuré. This Institute, Orage once told me, was to have made Bacon's project for an Academy for the Advancement of Learning look like a rustic school. But in 1924, Gurdjieff met with an automobile accident which nearly killed him, and thereafter he turned to the less strenuous activity of writing. The Institute plans were canceled, and he began the tales of Beelzebub as told to his grandson on a ship in interstellar space. This book is a huge parable with chapters on the engulfed civilization of Atlantis, the "law of three" and the "law of seven," objective art, and many riddles of man's history. It purports to be an impartial criticism of the life of man on the planet Earth. In this period Gurdjieff also composed many pieces of music, making original use of ancient scales and rhythms. SOURCE

[3] Prince Sabahaddin of Thrace (born as Sultanzade Mehmed Sabâhaddin Beyefendi Hazretleri; 13 February 1879, İstanbul—30 June 1948, Neuchâtel, Switzerland) was an Ottoman sociologist and thinker. Because of his threat to the Ottoman dynasty due his political activity and attitude, he was expelled. Prince Sabahaddin was a person full of surprises. He was connected to the Ottoman Palace through his mother, but was known as a Young Turk standing in opposition to that regime. Allegations of his close affinity to the ambassador of England could not be proven. As a follower of Émile Durkheim, Prens Sabahaddin is considered to be one of the founders of sociology in Turkey. He established the Private Enterprise and Decentralization Association (Teşebbüsü Şahsî ve Ademi Merkeziyet Cemiyeti in Turkish) in 1906. 

Sabahaddin had, unknowingly, influenced many people including John G. Bennett who was introduced to him by Satvet Lutfi Bey (Satvet Lütfi Tozan) in Istanbul during 1920 while working as an intelligence officer for the British Army which were among the occupying forces of Istanbul after the First World War. Sabahaddin introduced Bennett into the world of spirituality by borrowing, among others, the book and encouraging him to read Les Grands Initiés ("The Great Initiates") by Édouard Schuré. He had also introduced to Bennett an English woman living in Turkey, Winifred "Polly" Beaumont, to whom Bennett had married. Among the others Sabahaddin had introduced to Bennett, the most influential was doubtlessly G.I. Gurdjieff - Bennett has assumed him as his mentor and his master for the rest of his life.

[3]" The proposed guest was a man whom he had not seen since 1912, but whom he regarded as unusually interesting. He mentioned the name, which I could not catch over the telephone, and said that he had recently come to Turkey from the Caspian region. I learned that the name of the guest was Gurdjieff, and that the Prince had first met him by chance when he was returning from Europe to Turkey after the Young Turk revolution of 1908. He had met Gurdjieff only three or four times, but knew that he belonged to a group of occultists and explorers with whom he had travelled far and wide. The Prince regarded him as one of the very few men who had been able to penetrate into the hidden brotherhoods of Central Asia, and had always profited by the talks they had had together. He could not, or would not, tell me any more." J.G. Bennett - Witness p.55