A wedding in Istanbul during the Armistice: ‘the rich man’s wealth tires the poor man’s jaw’

In early January 1922, a wedding held in Fatih, Istanbul, for the son of a merchant named ‘Raşid Ağa’ aroused great interest in the press. This local event was, in fact, a microcosm of the dislocations plaguing post-war societies everywhere: across Europe, the war’s aftermath brought severe inflation, food shortages, and struggles over the redistribution of wealth. As Charles S. Maier has demonstrated, the post-war inflationary decade was not merely a monetary phenomenon, but a political process that redistributed assets, eroded middle-class savings, and stoked class anxiety. This same volatility produced the nouveaux riches, or war profiteers, who amassed fortunes through speculation and black marketeering while ordinary people faced extreme deprivation, an instability François Bouloc has also traced. This study examines how these dynamics manifested in Armistice-era Istanbul, through the lens of this extravagant wedding.