History of Europe

History of Turkish Civilization - Curiosity of Turkish Civilization

The first major civilization of Anatolia was that of the Hittites, between 1900 and 1200 BC. The Phrygians dominated the region between the 9th and 8th centuries BC; In the 7th century BC, the Lydians founded a kingdom on the shores of the Aegean Sea, which was occupied by the Persians of Cyrus II the Great in 546 BC.

The city of Ephesus in Turkey reconstructs an ancient Greek city situated on the western coast of Asia Minor. The Arcadian Way (pictured) is a marble pavement built during the reign of Emperor Arcadius (AD 395-408). Its route starts in the central area of ​​the port and ends at the city theater. This Greco-Roman theater was built in the Hellenistic period. Later rulers modified the structure of the building and the traces that are still preserved seem totally Roman.

In the 4th century BC, the territory was dominated by Alexander the Great. In the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, the Romans arrived.

After the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD, Asia Minor became part of the Byzantine Empire, whose capital was Constantinople or Byzantium. In the 11th century, Asia Minor was invaded by the Seljuk Turks, who were defeated by the Mongols of Genghis Khan. In Anatolia, Turkmen nomads founded a series of principalities.

Mount Ararat, which rises in the highlands of eastern Turkey, has two summits; the highest, Great Ararat, with 5,122 m of altitude, is covered in perpetual snow. According to the Old Testament, it was on this summit that Noah's ark landed.

Osman I, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, engaged the services of numerous Turkmen, Arab and Iranian nomads fleeing the Mongols. From 1326, the Ottomans came to control the administrative, financial and military system of the area.

Ottoman expansion into Europe began with the reign of Orjan. Ottoman soldiers (Janissaries) occupied several Byzantine territories in Thrace and Macedonia, and carried out continued attacks on Byzantine possessions situated in Europe.

In the 14th century, the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Danube to the Euphrates; it was founded by Murat I and consolidated by his son Bajaze I, who conquered most of the Turkoman principalities in Anatolia. The Mongol empire of Tamerlane occupied Anatolia in 1402, capturing Bajaze.

Sardis, capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, reached its maximum splendor during the reign of Croesus, famous for his wealth. After the Persian conquest of Lydia in 543 BC, Sardis was the western capital of the Persian Empire. These columns correspond to the period of Ardis, father of Croesus, and were discovered in excavations that began in 1910.

Mehemet I restored the Ottoman Empire, Murat II re-established Ottoman rule as far as the Danube, Mehemet II the Conqueror took Constantinople (1453) and subjected Anatolia to the Euphrates and his successors incorporated the heart of the ancient Islamic caliphate. Suleiman the Magnificent crossed the Danube to conquer Hungary and besieged Vienna in 1529; towards the east he conquered the last strongholds of Anatolia and the former Abbasid and Seldjuk center of Iraq.

After his reign, the decline of the Ottoman Empire began. The millets, communities created with religious criteria, and the corporations increased their autonomy. In Europe, powerful national states emerged.

In 1571, a fleet formed by several Catholic countries and commanded by the Spaniard Juan de Austria, destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the battle of Lepanto. The Ottomans regained naval control of the eastern Mediterranean for another half century.

In the mid-17th century, Sultan Murat IV implemented the so-called traditional reforms, which had the support of the ruling class and the army. He executed numerous guild members, drove the Iranians out of Iraq, and began the conquest of the Caucasus (1638). After his death, a long war broke out with Venice (1645-1669), Sultan Mehemet IV (1648-1687) handed over the government to Grand Vizier Mehemet Köprülü, starting a dynasty of viziers (heads of government), who lasted until the beginning of the 18th century. After a long siege of Vienna, the Ottoman army was utterly defeated; a new League formed by Austria and Venice was then established, with the support of Poland and Russia, which obtained territories from the Empire.

Situated on the Bosphorus strait, Istanbul is the largest metropolis and the main port city in Turkey. Its walls belong to the original city, built in the year 324 AD. by Constantine I of Rome.


The war against Venice and Austria (1714-1717) meant the loss of Belgrade and northern Serbia. During the reign of Ahmed III (1703-1730), a new era of reforms oriented towards the Europeanization of the country was inaugurated; the Ottoman army was modernized. In the war against Russia and Austria (1736-1739), the Ottomans regained most of the lost territories in northern Serbia and on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Between 1768 and 1792, in the Turco-Russian Wars, the Empire was close to total collapse.

In the 19th century, nationalism emerged among non-Turkish peoples. Greece was the first country to fight for its independence in 1829, and several uprisings broke out by Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians and Armenians in eastern Anatolia.

During the reigns of Mahmud II and Abdülhamit II, the Ottoman ruling class implemented a pro-Western reform movement (1839-1876), known as Tanzimat, which included the elimination of minorities and provoked the genocide of many millions of Armenians between 1894 and 1918. .

The authoritarianism of the new, modern bureaucracy led to a broad opposition movement, the Young Turks. In Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, secret societies were born that fought through terrorist actions. With the death of the main leaders of the Tanzimat movement around 1870, the regime of corruption took over again.

The Ottoman Empire lost its European dominions, except Istanbul, although at the Congress of Berlin of 1877 it regained its Thracian and Macedonian provinces. In 1878, Sultan Abdülhamit established an extremely autocratic government. The reaction came with a new liberal opposition movement led by the Young Turks, which forced the reinstatement of the Constitution and Parliament. Abroad, Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria occupied eastern Romania, and terrorist actions continued in Macedonia and eastern Anatolia.

After the counter-revolutionary attempt led by the sultan in 1909, he was overthrown by the Macedonian army; the Ottoman sultans remained on the throne, but their governing power was nil.

The early years of the Young Turks period (1908-1918) constituted the most democratic stage in Ottoman history. Various political parties were organized, such as the Union and Progress Party, and industry and agriculture received a strong boost. The first of the Balkan Wars led to the triumph of the most authoritarian sector of the Union and Progress Party, which imposed a triumvirate in the government, led by Enver Pasha.

Turkey entered World War I motivated by the German offer to recover lost provinces in Europe. After a brilliant performance by the Turkish Armed Forces in the Gallipoli campaign, British forces invaded Syria and occupied southern Anatolia. The Russians invaded eastern and central Anatolia in 1915 and 1916. A quarter of the population died, and a severe economic crisis ensued.

With the surrender, the Turkish government was handed over to the allied occupying forces. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) determined that Turkish territory encompassed part of central and northern Anatolia, established zones of French and Italian influence, authorized the creation of an independent Armenia and an autonomous Kurdistan, internationalized the zone of the straits and gave Greece the Thrace and the region around Smyrna. The Greek army occupied Smyrna in 1922. In Anatolia, under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish nationalist movement reappeared. In the Turkish War of Independence (1918-1923), Atatürk expelled the Greek, English, French and Italian occupying forces. The Turkish areas of eastern Thrace and Anatolia came to form a single state. The republic was proclaimed with its capital in Ankara, and in 1923 the sultanate was abolished.

Led by Atatürk for 15 years, the Republic experienced intense economic progress. Ismet Inönü continued this policy and kept the country neutral throughout most of World War II. In 1952, Turkey became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Inönü democratized the regime and allowed the introduction of opposition political parties. In 1950, the Democratic Party, which advocated the introduction of private enterprise, triumphed in the general elections.

The Democratic Party controlled the government between 1950 and 1960, and the economy expanded rapidly. Nevertheless, the mismanagement generated political discontent. In 1960, a military coup d'état overthrew the government and installed a new constitution.

After 1961, Turkey was run by a series of weak governments. Extremist groups appeared and violence increased. The power struggle was generally between the two most represented parties, the Republican Party, under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit, and the Justice Party, under the command of Suleimam Demirel. There were other parties, but the proportional representation established by the Constitution prevented them from obtaining a majority.

In 1974, Turkey occupied northern Cyprus in response to a Greek civil rebellion on the island. In 1980, the Army seized power and suspended the Constitution.

In 1982, a new constitution was enacted, and Kenan Evren was named president. In the parliamentary elections of November 1983, the Motherland Party won a landslide victory. Its chief leader, Turgut Özal, was appointed prime minister in 1989, becoming the first civilian head of state since 1960. After the war in the Persian Gulf and after an uprising by Iraqi Kurds, hundreds of refugees crossed the Turkish border.

Western governments continue to criticize the Turkish violation of human rights. With the victory of the (Islamic-leaning) Welfare Party in 1995, its leader Necmettin Erbakam formed a coalition government with the previous prime minister and with the support of deputies from the far-right Great Unity Party.

Turkish Civilization