THE LEGENDARY TROY
Troy was founded 3000 BC, and played a major role in the importation of tin, vital for the production of bronze.
THE HITTITES ARRIVE
The Hittites arrived in Anatolia towards the second millenium BC. They absorbed much of the Babylonian civilization and long enjoyed a monopoly of iron Asia. This, combined with the use of the chariot, gave the Hittites a military superiority over Egypt and other Mesopotamian states. The victorious raid against Babylon in 1590 BC was the climax of the first Hittite empire, followed by a period of decline. Then, in the first half of the fourteenth century, came a revival of power. This second era saw a Hittite hegemony stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.
MITANNI KINGDOM
The Mitanni kingdom was a contemporary and the enemy of the Hittites. It was founded by the Hourrites, a people originally from the South Caspian Sea. The Hourrites exercised considerable influence over the religion of the Hittites, and spread the use of two-wheel chariots and the breeding of horses throughout the near-East.
THE URARTIAN STATE
At the beginning of the first millenium BC, the Urartus created a unified state whose territory extended from the Caucasus to lake Urmiya, with its capital in the present city of Van. The Urartus were masters in hydraulic works and skilled in irrigation, drainage and the construction of canals and artificial lakes. They were also known for their horse breeding and formidable cavalry.
THE PHRYGIANS AND KING MIDAS
The Phrygians (750-300 BC) settled in Central and Western Anatolia, in the Afyon-Ankara-Eskisehir triangle, declaring Gordion on the Sakarya river to be their capital. Their civilization met its apogee in the second half of the 8th century BC, under the famous King Midas whom, according to Greek mythology, Apollo ridiculed by having him grow ears of a donkey, and whom Dionysus invested with the power to turn everything he touched into gold. Gordion fell to Persian domination around 550 BC and was liberated in 333 BC by Alexander the Great.
THE LYDIANS INVENT MONEY
In the east of Izmir, lived another people, the Lydians, thought to have invented money between 800 and 650 BC. In the 6th century BC, Croesus, the King of Lydia, agreed with the advancing Persians to divide Anatolia along the river Kizilirmak. The Persians, however, did not keep this commitment and continued to encroach on Lydian territory. They remained the sovereign power in Anatolia until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 BC.
THE ROMAN PERIOD BEGINS
After the death of Alexander the Great, Anatolia became the hub of the Seleucid Empire. Bergama grew at the expense of its neighbors, and snatched part of Phrygia in 241 BC. The kingdom became prodigiously rich, the emporium of Anotolia and a brilliant intellectual center.
THE ROMAN PERIOD BEGINS
The Roman period of Anatolia began with the death of king Attalus III of Bergama who willed his country to the Romans because he had no direct heir. Anatolia then lived through a period of peace and prosperity, particularly in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
The pax Romana proved to be an extra ordinary period of urban development. Ephesus served as the seat of the Roman governor of Asia and as a great commercial and cultural center.
The era of Byzantium is an essential chapter in the history of the region. In 330, Constantine, the Roman emperor, transferred his capital from Rome to Byzance. Byzance, at that time a small city founded 1,000 years earlier by the Greeks on the shores of the Bosphorus was henceforth called Constantinople. The center of the Empire thereafter became the Orient, in particular Anatolia, inhabited by the descendants of Hattis, Hittites, Phrygians, Greeks and others. Byzantium became the Eastern Roman Empire; its official religion was proclaimed to be Christianity in 380 and in 392 paganism was banned. In 476, Rome collapsed and Constantinople remained the sole capital of the empire. Byzantium was both a state and a civilization, built along the lines of the Roman state, the Greek culture and the Christian faith. The emperor enjoyed divine power and relied heavily on the Church.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Byzantium knew its first golden age under Justinian. One thousand years of Roman jurisprudence were gathered together in four volumes, a work which had a lasting influence for many centuries. Justinian was also a great builder. The Basilica of St. Sophia (AD 532-7) was constructed during his reign. The history of Byzantium is one of alternating periods of glory and decay, of religious dissent, of conflicts and wars with Persians, Arabs, Seljuks, Ottomans and peoples of the North.
BAD TIMES
By the 13th century, Byzantium was drawing her final breath. After the mortal wound of 1204, when the Crusaders occupied Constantinople, sacked the city, forced the emperor to leave and established a Latin kingdom, she was a small state. Bulgaria declared her independence and a new maritime power, Venice took for herself the whole Aegean complex of islands. In 1261, the Byzantines had regained possession of their capital, but there were new threats.
ENTER THE SELJUK TURKS
In the 11th century, under their leader Tugrul, the Seljuk Turks founded the dynasty of great Seljuks reigning in Iran, Iraq and Syria. In 1071, his nephew Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantians in Malazgirt, near Lake Van. The doors of Anatolia were thus opened to the Turks, and Anatolia went through a profound transformation ethnically, politically, and in the religious, linguistic and cultural spheres. The Seljuk Sultanate in Anatolia continued until the beginning of the 14th century. The zenith of the Seljuk civilization came in the first half of the 13th century with Konya as its political, economic, religious, artistic and literary center. The Seljuks created a centralized administration organized around the Sultan, his ministers and provincial governors. Science and literature blossomed, as did mystic poetry. Anatolia was crossed by the great routes linking the east and west, and many of the caravanserais built along these routes still stand today. Agriculture, industry and handicrafts expanded and the country was suddenly rich in mosques, medreses and caravanserais.
COLLAPSE OF THE SELJUK SULTANATE
The Seljuk Sultanate collapsed due to internal dissent and Mongol invasions. Anatolia was again fragmented into rival independent principalities, one of which came under Ottoman rule. Anatolia, though divided, had been united by language, religion and race, offering an opportunity for statesmanship and courage. This would be the task of Osman and his successors.
In 1296, Osman declared himself the independent Sultan of the region of Sögüt he had hitherto held in fief, and founded the Ottoman State. During the rule of his son Orhan, Bursa and Iznik were captured and soon the whole south-eastern coast of Marmara was under Ottoman control. The many conquests and diplomatic successes of Orhan were not the only achievements of his reign. He had encouraged and promoted art, literature, science and commerce. He also established a regular standing army, known as the Janissaries. Well paid and disciplined, the Janissaries provided the new Ottoman state with a patriotic force of trained soldiers. Built upon such solid foundations, the Ottoman Empire spread apace. In the reign of Murat, this expansion was still in a westerly direction and it was not until the frontiers were extended to the Adriatic, the Danube and Thessaly, that the Sultan turned his attention towards Eastern Anatolia. Now that his rule was established in Europe and Asia, Beyazit turned towards Constantinople in 1402. The city was almost within his grasp when he was called to meet the westward march of Timurlane which delayed the conquest of Istanbul for several decades. In 1453, under Mehmet the Conqueror, the Ottomans took Constantinople, a momentous event for the whole world and a great feat of arms. But the banner of Ottoman success was to be raised much higher and by the late 16th century the Ottomans were deep into Europe. In the following centuries, however, the Ottoman empire lost its momentum, entered a period of stagnation and then gradually a period of decline.
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
At the peak of its military success, the great Otoman Empire spanned three continents, stretching from Budapest to Azerbaijan and takin in Persia, Syria and the whole of the North African coast.
It began, however, fromrelatively humble beginnings with OsmanBey, the leader of a small principality innorthwest Anatolia, who gave the Empire its Turkish name, Osmanlı (with Osman). His first military conquests began in 1299 withthe conquest of Bilecik, Yenikent, İnegol andİznik. He resolved to take Bursa, and after asiege, which lasted some eight years, his son,Orhan, finally took the city in 1326 and, in1335, made the city his capital.His son, S・eyman, conquered Thrace in 1353and it was his successor, Murad H・avendigar,who continued the expansion by takingthe Balkans into the Empire. In 1362 Muradcaptured the city of Edirne, formerly known asAdrianople, and the following year establishedit as his capital. In 1453 Fatih Sultan Mehmet(Mehmet the Conqueror) conquered İstanbulthus bringing an end to the Byzantine era.In 1516-17 both Syria and Egypt fell to theOttoman army, and with them the holy citiesof Mecca and Medina, making the Otomansultan the most important figure in the SuniMuslim world. 1520-66 was the golden age ofthe Ottoman Empire, under the rule of Suleymanthe Magnificent, but from then onwardsit began a slow decline, losing its economicand military superiority over Europe. Despite efforts at reform during the 19thcentury, a number of nationalist movementsbroke out in Ottoman territories and the Empirebegan to fragment. Its fate was sealed whenit entered the First World War on the side ofGermany. Following the end of the war, thevictorious allies shared the Ottoman landsand Britain, Italy, France and Greece beganto invade its territories. The Ottoman parliamentwas dissolved on March 16th 1920.The Turkish Grand National Assembly, withMustafa Kemal as its President began thestruggle for Independence, and in the processof establishing itself, decided on November1st 1922 to abolish the sultanate. The lastOttoman Sultan Mehmet VI (Vahideddin) leftİstanbul in secret on November 17th 1922 ona British Royal Navy vessel bound for Malta,and died in exile in 1926.
Ottoman Culture
Although the Ottomans became known in the west for their opulent lifestyle and military might, the Empire’s real strength was the fact that it created a well-ordered society, based on principles of religious and cultural tolerance, caring for the welfare of the sick and the poor. The arts were cultivated and Ä°stanbul and its other major cities became centres for trade in fine silks and other valuable commodities. In the late 15th century, at a time when it was common in Europe for the mentally ill to be burned at the stake as witches, asylums in Edirne were using music therapy and the scent of flowers to treat their patients. The Ottoman Empire united peoples of many different faiths, nationalities and cultures. In the 19th century, Ä°stanbul’s population was made up of Muslim Turks, Orthodox Greeks, Gregorian and Catholic Armenians, Jews, Levantines as well as numerous foreign merchants. Even today, Ä°stanbul is one of the few places in the world where you can see churches, synagogues and mosques built within a short distance of each other. It was Mehmet the Conqueror (1451-1481) who established his patronage of the fine arts, setting up an atelier in the new palace of Topkapı, which developed techniques such as calligraphy and miniature painting. He also encouraged study visits from foreign
artists, which is how Gentile Bellini came to spend a year in Ä°stanbul in 1479, when he painted his famous portrait of Sultan Mehmet II, which now hangs in the National Gallery in London. Even before the advent of Islamic belief, Turks had the tradition of illustrating manuscripts, however, the art of calligraphy flourished alongside the strict Islamic belief
that it was wrong to depict people or animals, and was mainly used to illuminate words from the Koran. It was also used for the elaborate, stylised signature unique to each of the sultans known as the tuğra. The detailed miniatures, on the other hand, act as a historic document portraying the lives of the sultans and their court, showing both historic and everyday events.At a much later date, Sultan Abduhamid II who ruled from 1876-1909, appointed state photographers and sent albums of their photographs to fellow heads of state around the world, to show them the progress and achievements of his empire. The Ottomans were also great explorers and the famous Admiral Piri Reis was a renowned navigator and important cartographer, who charted and drew remarkably accurate maps of the world, including the oldest surviving map showing the Americas, which dates back to 1513 and is kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum.
The Ottoman Court
Building work on Topkapı Palace began in 1472 and was completed six years later, although successive sultans added considerably to its structure. It was home to the sultan and his court, and the seat of government until 1853 when the court moved to the new palace of Dolmabah軻.
The Harem
Although harem was simply the word used to describe the female living quarters in a residence, to many westerners it conjures up a romantic image, based largely on the Imperial harem at Topkapı Palace. The most important person in the harem was the ValideSultan (Mother of the Sultan), followed by the Sultanas, sultan’s daughters, his favourites and other concubines and odalisques (a word which comes from the Turkish ‘odalık’ or chamber-maid). Traditionally, there were up
to four kadıns or favourites, who were the equivalent of legal wives and thus accorded privileges. Nurbanu, for example, the favourite of Selim II was given an entourage of 150 ladies in waiting. In fact, many of those living
in the harem had no contact at all with the sultan but simply acted as servants to the other members of the household. At its peak there were 1000 women living in the harem at Topkapı Palace. All of these were slave women, and non-Muslim, brought from all corners of the Ottoman Empire, avoiding the risk of betrayal by a wife, who might have interests of her own. The women of the harem were said to be the most beautiful in the Empire and the most attractive were trained to entertain the sultan by dancing, reciting poetry, playing musical instruments and mastering the erotic arts. According to Muslim tradition, no man could lay his eyes on another man’s harem, which lead to the tradition of the harem being guarded by the black eunuchs, who were male prisoners of war or slaves fully castrated before puberty, captured from territories such as Egypt,Abyssinia and the Sudan. At the height of the Empire as many as 600-800 eunuchs served in the palace The Chief Black Eunuch (Kızlar AÄŸa), was the Ottoman Empire’s third highest-ranking officer, after the Sultan and the Grand Vizier. His duties were wide-ranging: overseeing the protection of their women, the purchase of new concubines, arranging all royal ceremonies and sentencing those women accused of crimes.
The Janissaries
Christian subjects were required by the practice of devÅŸirme to give up one of their sons to the service of the sultan.After the boys had converted to Islam they became either civil servants or soldiers, joining the elite army corps known as
the Yeniçeri or Janissaries. Strict disciplinewas imposed upon them, but those who were gifted and ambitious could rise through the ranks, even as far as becoming Grand Vizier – the highest rank after the sultan. The Janissaries became
so powerful, however, that they protested whenever they felt their privileges were being threatened signalled by their overturning of their soup kettles and often leading to full scale riots. The system persisted, however, until 1826, when the Janissaries lost popular support andwere disbanded byMahmut II. The traditional marching band of the Janissaries, the MehterTakımı, has been revived in recent times and you can see them perform in the traditional uniform, playing kettle drums, clarinets and cymbals.
Ottoman Architecture
Architectural monuments to the greatness of the Ottoman Empire stand, not only, throughout Turkey, but also throughout the many lands which were under its rule. The Ottomans were prolific builders and some of their finest works are public buildings such as mosques (cami) and their surrounding külliye (complex) consisting of buildings providing for the
welfare of the community such as: ÅŸifahane (hospital), medrese (college), imaret (alms kitchen), tabhane (guest house) and hamam (Turkish baths). Palaces, bridges, fountains, tombs and kervansarays (travellers’inns) are also amongst the fine buildings which remain to the present day. The Ottomans were fond of hunting and of spending time outdoors, often with lavish picnics, and you will findwooden köÅŸks (pavilions or summer houses) in many parks and woodlands. Private houses, amongst which are the konak (mansion) and yalı (summer house, especially those on the shores of the Bosphorus) were traditionally built of wood, with the ground floor and foundations only being built of stone. Some have survived to the present day, despite the fire hazard that their wooden structure posed. Recently, great interest has been shown in their preservation and many of them have been renovated and some converted to hotels and pensions. Typically the upper floors jut out over the street and the windows are obscured by wooden lattice-work, intended so that the women of the house could look out without being observed. The houses were planned around a central gallery room known as a hayat off which the other rooms opened. The quarterswere divided into the harem (the private part of the house only visited by the family and female guests) and the selamlık (where the man of the household received his guests). In grander houses these two areas would have separate courtyards, sometimes with fountains and ornamental pools.
WORLD WAR ONE
The final blow to the Empire came with the First World War, during which Turkey was on the losing side with Germany. Great Britain had reversed the policy she followed until then, and undertook with France, Russia and Italy to dismember the Empire. At the end of the war in 1918, the Ottoman government, under the occupation of the allied forces, was in no position to resist a peace treaty embodying the partition of Turkey. In May 1919, the Greeks, who had been promised a part of Anatolia, landed at Izmir and started an offensive to occupy Western Turkey.
THE VISIONS OF ATATURK
Against this challenge, the Turkish nation engaged in a struggle to restore her territorial integrity and independence, to repulse foreign aggressors, to create a new state, to disassociate Turkey from the crumbling Ottoman dynasty, to eradicate an old decrepit order and to build a modern Turkey dedicated to political, social and economic progress. This was the vision of Atatürk, a general in the Ottoman army who had distinguished himself in the defense of the Dardanelles. Atatürk wanted a clean break with the past, to unite the nation in the quest for modernism and to lift Turkey to the level of European countries. On October 29, 1923, the republic was proclaimed and Atatürk was elected president. Secularism was established by separating religious and state affairs. The Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic script and women were given the right to vote and to be elected as members of parliament. These reforms, as well as many others in all aspects of social life, put Turkey on the track towards becoming a thoroughly modern country.
A PROUD NATION
When Atatürk died in 1938, he left a legacy of which the Turkish people today are proud. This is now a nation that has regained confidence in itself and is ready to confront challenges; a society determined to preserve the political, intellectual, cultural and social values he had bequeathed. The Turkish republic has now been a member of the international community for over 70 years. During this period, great changes have occurred. But the country remains firmly attached to the policies initiated by Atatürk. It has established a democratic multi-party political system, developed a vibrant civil society, and embarked on the path of industrialization and market economy. It has consolidated its ties with the west through membership of NATO and the Council of Europe and Customs Union with the European Union. These trends mark radical change from the days of the Ottoman Empire. Yet there is also continuity. The Turks have inherited both from the Islamic past ant their Ottoman past. They have also inherited from their western past, as well as forming a part of the Western present. All these heritages, Eastern and Western, Asian and European, are intermingled in the civilization of modern Turkey. A symbol of this union is the two bridges that span the Bosphorus, linking the two continents with as many parts and one future.
