Gunkia "Hunkiar"

The last Ottoman heritage of Constanța: the "Hunkiar" Mosque

You find it somewhat surprising, if you have the curiosity to go down a narrow and dirty street, flanked by places with cheap but fast food, among the sweet and sour smells of spices and fried meat. Nothing announces it, not even the entrance: now, you have to go through the terrace of a restaurant to enter the small, cobbled courtyard.

The Hunkiar Mosque is the oldest Muslim place of worship in Constanta and, unfortunately, among the last remnants of the Ottoman heritage of more than four centuries at the seaside. It is a witness to a period in which very few still believed in the future: after the Russo-Ottoman war of 1828-1829 and, especially, that of Crimea (1853-1856), the city numbered only a hundred houses. Sultan Abdul Medgid I (1839-1861) gave Constanţa the railway that connected it to the Danube. His successor, Abdul Aziz (1861-1876), perhaps the most enlightened of the masters of Constantinople in the nineteenth century, gave him the beautiful mosque, so that the Turks could enjoy a spiritual rebirth with the revival of the old port. Abdul Aziz did the same in Tulcea, on the banks of the Danube: the last minute of Ottoman rule in Dobrogea was recorded in these splendid stone constructions.

Begun in the first year of the reign of the new sultan, the construction of the mosque was completed almost at the same time as, a few meters further to the sea, the Orthodox Church "Metamorphosis" of the Greeks in the neighborhood was consecrated. Ever since the British opened the station in 1862, the Ottomans were eager to bring a new city, especially since the old mosque, Mahmudie, in the city's small, unsanitary square, was cramped and quite damaged.

"Hunkiar" was built on the very edge of the old defensive wall of the fortress, destroyed by the Russian occupiers of Constanta, in the summer of 1828. If you look closely, however, at the stone slabs of the minaret, the surprise is great: they were taken from the Ottoman wall but, in turn, came from the Greek and Roman constructions of Tomis. Thus, the mosque of Sultan Abdul Aziz managed to bring back to light a part of the fame and permanence of Antiquity.

The stone cube, ie the prayer hall, has at the entrance, on the left, on a marble plaque, the monogram of the founding sultan. Otherwise, sober and austere walls, with a stone facade, with large, side windows, and with an entrance framed by columns and a portico of stone and marble. Almost certainly, most of these were recovered from the land of ancient Tomis and brought to light to serve another God in another age. Interestingly, the windows, thick and large for the room you enter, brightly illuminate the prayer hall and do not give, as you expect, a mystical space, with a filtered view of the sun or a darkness in which the interior colors get even more. depth. This strangeness of the mosque of Sultan Abdul Aziz may be due to the influence of the surrounding neighbors: the pragmatic Englishmen who, for several years, had been crafting almost everything that was being built in Constanţa. In rainy Britain and with few sunny days, the houses usually have openings with large windows, sometimes as big as a wall; the sultan, a great admirer of English fashion and of Queen Victoria, was able to accept this transformation with which the locals were less accustomed.

The interior no longer preserves anything from the time of the good founder. The Mihrab, the place that shows Mecca, is covered with tiles that dominate the shades of blue, and you reach it by stepping on a beautiful red carpet of prayer, donated by the pious President of Turkey, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, in 2001 The minbar, the place from which the prayer is said and which symbolizes the path to Allah, with steps in odd numbers, is worked in wood and is small in size, without overwhelming the sober stone cube. Calligraphic verses from the Qur'an are scattered on the white, undecorated walls.

The minaret, 24 meters high, is entirely covered with massive stone slabs, without natural light and is more reminiscent of the style of Moorish, austere constructions. Five times a day, the muezzin climbed narrow, semicircular, unlit stairs: an effort that the faithful always rewarded with reverence.

Few were the happy days of the "Hunkiar" mosque: less than a decade after its sanctification, Dobrogea became a Christian administrative land after, following the War of Independence, it became part of Romania. Then, the commercial, financial and economic tumult quickly changed the faces of Constanta to the point that King Carol I founded, near Ovidiu Square, his own Mosque.

It was not until the erection of a beautiful American-style Art Deco block in 1936, in which the Mufti moved quickly, in front of the window, that it brought him a drop of glory. Only in Constanţa can you admire interwar elements that remind you of the huge Buick cars and in which the good running of the believers in Allah is administered. A bewildering and charming combination, the idea of a forgotten architect, Ioan Căpşuneanu, who left his signature on the entrance wall.

In the summer of 1941, Soviet planes devastated some of the city's central buildings, including the mosque. Remains of stone and rubble, objects of worship destroyed, burned or disappeared, the collapsed minaret were, for months, the image of the place. From now on, the beautiful foundation of Sultan Abdul Aziz has started an incredible story in the relationship with the local administration. It is difficult to understand why, from the Second World War until now, the Constanta authorities not only turned their backs on him and tried to hate her, but many times they even thought about demolishing it.

A colonel, N. Oprescu, who became mayor of Constanta because of the war, found that the "Hunkiar" mosque had been damaged by Soviet bombing. He would have liked to demolish it and, perhaps, lease the land to an investor to build another building. Constanta has known, in its passage through history, not only moderation and confessional and ethnic harmony. In the case of the "Hunkiar" mosque, but also of the Jewish places of worship, the local administrations gave their all about xenophobia, nationalism, racism and inculturation. And, obviously, we are not just referring to the time of World War II.

On May 11, 1942, the forgotten mayor took his nationalist boost and wrote to the Secretary of State for Cults and the Arts, Ministry of National Culture. He says, at that time the almighty mayor, that “the little window can disappear without any damage. My humble opinion is not to brag too much about Turkish historical monuments. If we erased them in time, it wouldn't hurt. It is a sad memory of the Turkish domination to preserve the crescents in the tops of the mosque ".

He was a God with "Hunkiar," even in those troubled times of war. Minister of National Culture and Cults in the government of Marshal Ion Antonescu was an intellectual of the caliber of Romanian society, Ion Petrovici. He handed the receipt to the mayor of Constanţa to the president of the Commission of Historical Monuments, a great historian of this country, who paid tribute to the places where he passed, Alexandru Lapedatu. The latter, sidered by the request of the leader of Constanta, replied dryly that he asked him to take into account the laws of the country which require, in the case of historical monuments (the "Hunkiar" mosque had this status, despite the mayor), their speedy restoration. This story takes place in the middle of the world war, in a Romania affected by an unprecedented cataclysm and at a time when, obviously, the good rules of civilization were more and more often forgotten. The attitude of the Ministry of National Culture and Cults in the summer of 1942 towards the initiative of the mayor of Constanța can be a model of institutional and professional attitude. More than seven decades ago, it was the last time the "Hunkiar" window was defended against the intentions of destruction or demolition.

The communist regime did not order the reopening of the place of worship, although in 1956-1958 the walls, roof and minaret were rebuilt. The "Hunkiar" mosque remained a kind of tourist attraction but without visitors. The local administration and the central forums hoped that the systematization of the city, and the demolition of the old center to build socialist buildings, would also affect the perimeter of the mosque and therefore have the fate of the Sephardic Temple, ie will be sent into history. And for the communists, as well as for the mayor of the Second World War, the Mosque in Ovidiu Square was enough for the postcards with minarets, sent from the seaside by the union tourists.

The regime change, which took place in December 1989, brought a glimmer of hope. "Hunkiar" was reopened to the cult, after being held captive for almost half a century and hopes were directed towards its restoration in the memory of the city, where it pays homage. It was not to be. In 2008, Constanța City Hall legally accepted the construction of a multi-storey building. Initially, the building permit came from the institution that had to admit that the "Hunkiar" mosque is a historical monument of category A, at position 561. The director of the Department of Culture, Cults and Heritage Constanta approved to build only one meter of the building that had it, at least morally, in inventory. The Mufti of the Muslim Cult has challenged the decision in court and, for reasons obviously related to the smooth running of the judiciary, things have been delayed until a decision is taken. The Court of Appeal of Constanţa annulled the construction permit. At the time of the court decision, the building next to the window was ready, erected. What remains unclear at the beginning of this fairy tale is why the Ministry of Culture gave legal approval for the construction and, obviously, why the Muftiat of the Muslim Cult did not sanction, from the first days, this defiant decision against the historical heritage of Constanţa.

In addition, as revenge that it was not demolished during the war or by the communists, the same local administration also approved the opening of a terrace at the entrance to the window. The lawsuits of the Muftiat of the Muslim Cult did not impress either the Local Council, or the people responsible for the patrimony and culture in the county, or the court officials. The mayor, in the fall of 2011, was blaming with contempt for the whim of keeping the "Hunkiar" window standing to the detriment of the two-story building and restaurant: "The Mufti is stammering and threatening. Well, that's how we Romanians are, when we complain that nothing is being built, when we complain that why no money is put in the Peninsula. When someone puts in two million euros (the real estate investor who built, with the authorization of the City Hall and the County Directorate of Culture, the building next to the window) makes a construction and gives jobs, on his own land, I find someone to shout at ”. The public debate initiated by the head of the local administration, elected four times in a row by the electorate of a city that is confused with the "ethnic and denominational mosaic", ended with a sharp reply: "The Mufti should take care not to fall in the head of the window, than to throw mud on the neighbor who put two million euros in a very beautiful building in a rather dilapidated area ”. The derelict area is the Peninsula, the old city, and was then under the administration of the same mayor for almost three consecutive terms.

In this context, a Control Body of the City Hall descended to the "Hunkiar" mosque and found that the annexes of the Muftiat, in the yard, which had obtained an authorization in 1992, had undergone enough changes without the necessary approvals. Moreover, the same Mufti of the Muslim Cult, it was found after these visits, did not have a permit for the pavement in front of the window.

The public interventions of the mayor of Constanța took place against the background of an unusual international scandal in the bilateral relations between Romania and Turkey. A delegation of six parliamentarians from Ankara, accompanied by the Consul General in Constanta, Haluk Agca, visited "Hunkiar" in June 2009. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, one of Turkey's most important leaders of the past decade, chose for his first official visit to the Balkans to come to Constanţa, in August 2011. More precisely, to pray at the "Hunkiar" mosque. Obviously, no one from Constanţa wanted to understand the transparent message, although the press wrote then that Davutoglu, who now leads the Turkish government, was not happy with the menus offered by the pubs near the place of worship.

Ankara's Minister of Culture, Guntu Ertugrul, also came to Constanta in the fall of 2011 and was less diplomatic than the Foreign Minister, stating that "unfortunately, despite the court rulings, the building was erected and we have saw that the window was damaged. There are cracks in the glass walls. The building next to the Hunkiar Mosque shades the monument. This situation does not only displease the Muslim community, it is a historical monument that must be protected ". In December of the same year, on the agenda of the discussions between the presidents of Romania and Turkey, Traian Băsescu and Abdullah Gul, was the situation of the "Hunkiar" mosque. The dialogue on this issue was continued with the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At that moment, painful for the image of the "confessional and ethnic mosaic" of the city, the press made known the situation of the historical monument.

One of the most important German-language dailies, "Neue Zurcher Zeitung", which appears in Switzerland, in Zurich, also brought a boost in the promotion of Constanta. On December 3, 2011, an article entitled "Mosques in Danger" described the serious "slippage" near the historic monument in terms of respect for the equality of all ethnic communities and denominations in Romania. Obviously, the local administration in Constanţa and the partner institutions from all levels had no cause for concern: international scandals do not concern anyone at the seaside.

The muftiat obtained a final and irrevocable decision from the Court of Appeal of Constanţa by which the owner of the building near the window, who had obtained favorable approvals from all authorized institutions, was obliged to demolish his building. This was not the case because a new permit was requested. And the same leader of the same Directorate of Culture, Cults and Heritage from Constanţa obviously granted it, the City Hall also giving its consent, based on the decision of those who protect the heritage. Just a few days before the great celebration of Kurban Bairam in 2011, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, notified, established something else: the relocation of the trial to Bacău. Meanwhile, the Court of Constanţa had ruled that the Mufti of the Muslim Cult has no active procedural capacity. Moreover, the owner of the neighboring building is currently requesting significant material damages because he failed to open the building for the planned business.

If you have time to walk around the old center of Constanta and, especially, around this unfortunate awkward remnant of the Ottoman heritage, the "Hunkiar" mosque, you can easily notice certain features that usually precede a real estate development. Many abandoned and ruined buildings, several unmaintained squares, a state of waiting for a real estate explosion in the context of the rebirth of the Peninsula. The former hotel and restaurant "Pescarul", a building destroyed by indifference, was razed for street hygiene. Now, well-maintained fences, announce a future construction. A mosque that no longer has a place on the list of concerns of national heritage guards and that, for more than seven decades, has been bothering local administrations, may have its sentence signed. A well-controlled and legally covered demolition?

This is how it was: the “Hunkiar” mosque, built with love for Constanţa, became, in time, an example of the inability of public and cultural administrations to protect and pass on a symbol and, sometimes, even of intolerable feelings of racism and xenophobia. . No Christian place of worship in the city has been defiled as has been the case with the Ashkenazi Synagogue and the "Hunkiar" mosque in the last decades of democracy, and there is no reason to ask us a question: to say goodbye to this last Ottoman gift. for the seaside town?