“I heard a heart beating inside me that wasn’t mine.”
— Clarice Lispector, from The Complete Stories: “The Foreign Legion,”
(via violentwavesofemotion)
Mihailo and Mahmud Anđelović were separated as infants. Although they belonged to a branch of the aristocratic Greek family Angelos, their branch had taken refuge in Serbia after the Ottoman conquest of Thessaly in 1394.
The family could not escape the Ottomans entirely. Mahmud was captured by Ottoman Turks as an infant, brought up near Edirne in Turkey, and converted to Islam. Mahmud grew up to be smart and capable. He rose through the Ottoman bureaucracy to become beylerbey (senior provincial governor) of Rumelia in 1451, and Grand Vizier in 1455.
Mahmud’s brother Mihailo (or Michael in English) stayed in Serbia. He served as a Serbian court official under the reigns of Đurađ and Lazar Branković. Serbia at the time was a state bordering the Ottoman Empire, and was largely dominated by the Ottoman Empire.
The two brothers were eventually reunited! But under strange circumstances. In the negotiations between Serbian ruler Lazar Branković and Ottoman emperor Mehmed II in 1457, Mihailo was sent to represent and negotiate for Lazar, and Mahmud represented and negotiated for Mehmed II!
The year was 1868 and the Boshin War – also known as the Japanese Revolution – had made its way north to the the city of Aizu. The Aizu Clan was locked in battle with the Imperial Army, who were trying to restore the power of the Japanese Emperor to rule the country. Aizu was on the side of those who wanted to keep the shogunate system, where power lay in the hands of feudal lords and the samurai they employed. This battle here would be one of the last. The castle at Aizu was besieged and, after a month, the rulers surrendered.
There was a particularly famous incident that occurred during the Battle of Aizu. A group of teenage warriors, 16 or 17 years old, had retreated to a hill from which to survey the battle and figure out what to do next. Called Byakkotai, their unit was intended to be reserve warriors, who fought if things got dire. And things were very dire: looking down on the city the Byakkotai saw flames consuming everything. The castle had fallen! The last stronghold of the Aizu was gone. Rather than surrender and lose their honor, the young soldiers drew their swords and committed suicide.
What makes the Byakkotai’s story so tragic – and famous – was that they were wrong. The castle had not fallen, yet, although parts of the city of Aizu were indeed on fire. They died for nothing.
It was the beginning of the end and it wouldn’t be long until the Emperor Meiji was able to take control of all of Japan. After their defeat the armies of Aizu and its allies were banished, and lost all status – and as samurai under a shogunate they had been near the top of the totem pole in Japan. It was a big loss. A loss that echoed across the entire country as samurai everywhere lost their privileges and had to adapt to a new way of living.
