ESMé SCOTT- STEVENSON AND CYPRUS

Cyprus, which has attracted the continuous attention of foreign countries throughout its history due to its strategic value, after the defeat of Ottoman Empire in 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War, was handed over the British administration but remained part of the Ottoman Empire formally. This study is about Esmé Scott-Stevenson’s work entitled Our Home in Cyprus (1879). The book deals with the early years of British rule in Cyprus and covers the narratives of Scott-Stevenson when she came to Cyprus with her husband, Andrew Scott-Stevenson. Andrew Scott-Stevenson was the assistant commissioner of Sir Garnet Wolseley, the first High Commissioner of Cyprus who was charged by the British Queen to establish British presence on the island. Esmé Scott-Stevenson’s Our Home in Cyprus is an example of colonial travel writing from the perspective of a woman, and cannot be regarded as a piece of work written by an English woman accompanying her husband and describing only the people and characteristics of the place with no political intentions in mind. In this study, after giving the historical background of Esmé Scott-Stevenson’s work, consistencies, and inconsistencies within the text are analyzed. Apart from Orientalist images within the text, the most crucial subject is the opposition of Turkish and Cypriot. This opposition is continuously reproduced and intensified within the text by comparing the two societies in general and description of Turkish and Greek women in particular