Turkey Factbook 4

Turkey Factbook 3

History

Turkey has had along and turbulent history, and has witnessed the rise and fall of many great empires. Since earliest times, the country's geographical position between Europe and Asia has made it an inescapable battleground for clashing invaders from East and West.

This concise history of the major events which have shaped Turkey's destiny will give you a better understanding of the country's culture, and help you appreciate more fully the art, architecture and historic sites you will inevitably come across.

Early Times

Stone Age artefacts and wall paintings found in the Mediterranean regions show evidence of human life as early as 7500 BC, though it wasn't until the Bronze Age (almost 6000 years later) that cities of any significant size emerged. The first known inhabitants of Turkey were the Proto-Hittites, a Middle Eastern people who eventually took control of central Anatolia and much of Syria. The Hittite Empire started to crumble around 1200 BC, following a mass invasion by the Phrygians (and other sea people) from the Greek islands. By this time, Achaean Greeks had already infiltrated the Aegean coast following their attack on Troy (the famous Trojan War). Western Anatolia was slowly taken over by invaders of Greek and European origin, and as the Hellenic influence grew stronger, it replaced the Hittite culture.

Around 500 BC, the armies of Persia penetrated Anatolia from the east and crept slowly westwards towards the Aegean. Anatolia came under Persian control for two centuries until Alexander the Great crossed the Dardanelles from Macedonia in 334 BC, and thereafter conquered the entire Middle East. When Alexander died at the age of thirty-three, his land was divided up by his generals, which weakened the empire and enabled several small kingdoms to flourish.

The Roman Empire

The Romans were the next major influence on Turkey. Tired of the various Anatolian rulers threatening their growing empire, the Romans decided that life would be easier if they conquered Anatolia, too. By AD 90 they had gained control of the Aegean coast. Sixty years Iater, on the death of the last king of Pergamon, the most powerful of the Anatolian rulers, his kingdom passed to the Romans. This allowed them to move further inland and establish a capital city at Ephesus.

The birth of Christ in Palestine had a dramatic impact on the Roman Empire. By AD 300, despite severe persecution of Christians, the new religion had spread throughout the empire. In AD 324, when Constantine succeeded Diocletian as Emperor, he declared equality for all religions and put an end to the persecution of the Christians. He built a city on the shores of the Bosphorus at Byzantium, a Greek colony founded 900 years earlier, and made this his new eastern capital in a bid to fend off the Persians who were threatening Ephesus from the south-east. The new capital was later to be named Constantinople.

The Byzantine Empire

As the western Roman Empire was weakened by attacks from the Persians and the European barbarians, the eastern Empire, which became known as Byzantium, gained in strength. It was Constantine's successor, Justinian, who took the Byzantine Empire to its zenith. Under his rule the Byzantine armies recaptured Anatolia and took control of the Balkans, Egypt and North Africa. The first real threat to the Byzantines came with the birth of Islam in the seventh century.

Only 100 years after the birth of Mohammed in Mecca in AD 570, the armies of Islam, followers of the new Muslim faith, had conquered the Middle East and were trying to break the Byzantine stronghold in Constantinople.

The Seljuk Turks

The Muslim caliphs (Mohammed's deputies) ruled the Middle East for almost four centuries, constantly challenging Byzantium, until they found themselves confronted by a new force - the Turks themselves. The first Turks, the Seljuks, were descendants of the Mongols, a strong and ambitious people. The Seljuks had already gained strength in eastern Anatolia and could not resist challenging the great power of the Muslims. By the middle of the eleventh century the Turks had captured Persia and Anatolia, and the Seljuk Empire was threatening Byzantium.

The Ottoman Empire

By the late twelfth century, in the aftermath of the Crusades (the Holy Wars), Byzantium was beginning to disintegrate and the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan were threatening the Seljuks. This left Anatolia with several small Turkish/Mongolian emirates which were ruled independently until the Osmanli emirate took the initiative to bring them together. The Osmanli family were courageous fighters and their uniting of the tribes was the beginning of the great Ottoman (Osmanli) Empire.

The Ottomans rapidly gained power, advancing to the east and the west, and in 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople, ending more than nine centuries of Byzantine rule. From then on the Turks seemed invincible. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent took the empire to its greatest strength, conquering Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. By the 1520s the Ottoman Empire was posing a real threat to Western Europe- Yugoslavia and Hungary had fallen and in 1529 the Turks were fighting at the gates of Vienna.

Though they never managed to penetrate Central and Western Europe, the Turks consolidated their control of the Balkans, Eastern Europe and North Africa. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that decadence, political and social backwardness and internal power struggles seriously eroded the empire's strength and credibility. As the decline took hold, the subjugated areas began to reclaim their independence and Turkey became known as 'The Sick Man of Europe'.

It was then that a new and powerful political movement emerged.

The young Turks began to push for the abolition of the Sultanate and the adoption of a Western-style constitution. But it was the First World War which dealt the final blow to the great Ottoman Empire.

Turks sided with Germany and the Axis, and were defeated by the Allies; the Allied forces moved into Istanbul to negotiate the Treaty of Sevres which divided up the Ottoman Empire.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

It was a young general named Mustafa Kemal who prevented Turkey from being wiped off the map completely. Unhappy with the way his country was being treated, he organized a resistance movement (the National Assembly) based in Angora (Ankara). When Greece in 1919 pre-empted the Treaty of Sevres and invaded Izmir, this provided the spur the Turks needed to stand up and fight for their country.

When the Turks, under the leadership of Kemal, won the War of Independence in 1922, the country's destiny was placed in his hands.

Within weeks Kemal had organized elections, and in 1923 the Republic of Turkey was founded, ending 631 years of Ottoman rule. Shortly after this the treaties of the First World War were renegotiated.

Kemal's main aim was to modernize Turkey in line with Western standards, and to this end he introduced a number of swingeing reforms. Islamic law was replaced with Western-style civil law; the Arabic alphabet was replaced with a Latin-based alphabet; symbols of Ottoman backwardness such as polygamy and the fez were outlawed, and women were given the right to vote.

Mustafa Kemal changed his name to Kemal Ataturk (Father of Turks), and Turks with only one name were forced to adopt a family name. In 1930 Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, Angora became Ankara, the capital of the new Republic, and the names of many other towns and cities were changed. In little more than ten years Kemal Ataturk bridged the gap of centuries.

Recent Years

Despite Ataturk's achievements, attempts to fully Westernize Turkey have been hindered by political extremism and the reluctance of some Turks to give up ancient religious traditions. In the early days of the Republic, Ataturk's People's Party was the only recognized political party, but in the late 1940s a democratic constitution was adopted and an opposition party was formed.

Since 1950, when the People's Party was first overthrown by the new Democratic Party, the country has struggled to maintain a multi-party system. The foundations of its democracy have been constantly threatened by the infiltration of Marxist extremists and right-wing religious fanatics, and on several occasions the military has stepped in to restore order and prevent political street killings.

The last military intervention was in 1980, when cold-blooded political violence had taken the country to the brink of civil war. Since then, the enforcement of martial law and a concerted crackdown on political troublemakers has helped to restore stability. In 1982, a new democratic constituion was drawn up and approved by a 91 per cent referendum. This was followed by a win for the Motherland party in the November election of 1983. Democracy is now fairly established in all Turkey's institutions and full EEC membership was applied for in April 1987.