Barriers lifted for conversion of Trotsky's Istanbul home into museum: Report

ISTANBUL– Hürriyet

Leon Trotsky lived in exile at the Arap İzzet Pacha mansion between 1929 and 1933. Hürriyet photo

The house where Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky lived in exile from 1929 to 1933, located on Büyükada, the largest of the high-toned Princes Islands a few miles off Istanbul’s shore, could be converted into a museum, according Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s new plans.

The traditional wooden house, known as Arap İzzet Pacha mansion, had been threatened by demolition, as its owner had demanded last year that the area be considered a construction site zone as it was previously. However, the municipality’s cultural protection board rejected the demand in a decision issued February 28, daily Hürriyet reported.

The house, neglected for years, was set to be evaluated within this year’s expropriation program, according to the decision. If given the green light, the conversion of the house into a museum would get underway, the report said, as the Culture Ministry had already formally requested in 2011.

Trotsky wrote his major work, “The History of the Russian Revolution’” during his period of exile in Istanbul. His neighbors also remembered him fishing from the shore in front of his house. After Istanbul, Trotsky moved to Mexico where he lived several months at the home of the famous painter Diego Rivera. He later died in the Central American country, assassinated on Stalin’s orders in 1940.