ÖZDEM SANBERK
Hurriyet Daily News - July/08/2014
When a new ambassador arrives in a great city, it is always a slightly
daunting experience. He or she has to slip into the scene as a central
figure, even though most of the faces that he sees are new. For
Turkish ambassadors arriving in London, however, there was always one
face who they knew and who could be relied on to offer shrewd and
authoritative opinions and advice to help them find their way. In Turkey
and in Britain, Andrew Mango was for many years one of the staunchest
friends of our country. What’s more, he knew far more about
Turkey, its people and its history than many Turkish ambassadors, myself
included. He had followed its news closely for decades at the BBC and
afterward. His range of acquaintances stretched from the 1940s to the
21st century and he had a superb memory. He was also an exceptionally
widely-read scholar. He could speak not just modern Turkish, but also
the language of the late Ottoman Empire. He had completed a doctorate
many years before on Persian poetry and his vocabulary was so wide that
many Turkish professors of Ottoman language and literature marveled at
it. He could talk about 19th century Ottoman history in detail and
followed the range of books coming out on Turkey each year, writing a
long review article covering them all for the Middle Eastern Studies
journal.
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