|
Selimiye Barracks , Florence Nightingale
Museum, Istanbul
This travel feature is from Linda Baas and Mary
Lou Bernardo, who each traveled to Turkey and visited the Selimiye Barracks.
 |
The Florence Nightingale Museum
in Istanbul, Turkey, is housed in Selimiye Barracks within the Peace
Headquarters of the Turkish First Army Command on an active military
base. In 1954, to mark the centennial of her arrival in Crimea,
the Turkish Federation of Nurses converted her rooms in the tower
to a museum. While there is some controversy as to which tower Florence
Nightingale occupied during the Crimean War, the museum occupies
two floors in the Northwest tower.
The second floor of the museum contains memorabilia of Florence
Nightingale as well as more current artifacts related to nurses
and nursing. In the life size tableau of Miss Nightingale bending
over a soldier, she holds a lamp. It doesn't look at all like the
Aladdin's lamp we are accustomed to seeing. It can be better described
as a paper lantern. |
The ground floor of the museum has Army memorabilia
as well as life size tableaux of Turkish soldiers from the Crimean
war to the Turkish War of Independence (1919 - 1922). The tableau
of the Crimean War includes a statue of Miss Nightingale and is directly
below the winding staircase up to the second floor.
Even though this museum is much smaller than the one in London, it
is well worth seeing for lovers of nursing history. Each year a group
of Japanese nursing students visits the museum as part of a special
nursing visit. There are between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors annually.
Each visitor can sign a guest book. |
 |
 |
Visiting the museum, however, is not easy. Since
it is on an active military base, security is high. Potential visitors
must request permission and supply a copy of their passports 48 hours
in advance. Once there, the visitor must pass a security check and
hand in his/her camera and cell phone. The visitor is escorted by
a soldier to the barracks where he/she is met by the Protocol Officer.
The Protocol Officer takes the visitor on a tour of the museum. Several
military guards accompany the officer and the visitor.
From a Mary Lou Bernardo's viewpoint, it was very poignant to be in
this museum and know that Miss Nightingale's work with wounded soldiers
was continuing at that very moment in neighboring Iraq, less than
800 miles away. I wondered what she would be thinking. |
The Museum is open daily.
There are a number of websites with further
information and photos:
Istanbul
Hugh
Small, Avenging Angel
Travels
to Sevastopol
Crimea
From Art-Ukraine, Travel Tourism Gallery , background on Crimea War.
Crimea
Thank you to Linda Baas for sharing the photos!
And to Mary Lou Bernardo for sharing her more recent travel experience!
|
