Why remember the Ottomans and their empire, since almost a century ago that empire was reduced to what we know today as Türkiye? Recent events, just in 2016, tell us that it is a good time to review a little the history of this country that, like Russia, shares two continents: Europe and Asia.
It is no secret to those who usually watch the news that the name of Turkey is increasingly resonating internationally. Not only because of the shaky and still unsigned agreement between this country and the European Union regarding the fate of the thousands of refugees seeking hope in Europebut for the failed coup d’état that the government of the president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan managed to thwart in July 2016.
Both Erdoğan and Fetulá Gulen, his main opponent – who lives in exile in the United States – maintain similar rhetoric, from two apparently opposite points: both agree on revive the once greatness of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans, where did they come from and who are they?
In it Turkestan, in Central Asia, there was a group of nomadic cattle ranchers who were dedicated to trade; They soon interacted with Muslim cultures and adopted Islam as their religion. We could think that the silk Road It was the one that promoted cultural and commercial exchange, since Muslim merchants had to travel through the territories where the Ottomans lived.
During the 9th century, the neighbor abasid caliphate It required soldiers and armies to quell internal struggles and expand power in Christian and Byzantine lands, while the Turks, little by little, were climbing military and geographical positions in that caliphate.
One of the Turkish dynasties that ruled Asia Minor, Iran and Iraq between the mid-11th century and the end of the 13th century was the Seljuk, which destroyed the Abbasid caliphate and deeply weakened the Byzantine empire; They are considered the direct ancestors of the current Turks who live in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Gagauzia and Turkmenistan, and constituted a barrier to Europe from the Mongol invaders from the east. It was they who defended the Islamic world from the Western Crusades and who conquered large Byzantine territories.
The Mongol wave devastated much of this Seljuk dynasty, but a handful of what we might call survived. autonomous principalities. In one of these principalities were the Turks, a small, almost insignificant one, whose capital was the city of Söğütand whose king, Ertruğul, died in 1290, thus giving way to Osman I accessed the throne. The word ottomans It comes from Osman, or the Osmanli dynasty, and this king is the one who begins the impressive Turkish territorial expansion, forming an empire that would survive almost 700 years.
From then on a succession of fights began, taking the cities of Nicaea and Bursa in 1331; They defeated Turkmen enemies, which allowed them to ally themselves with the candidate for the Byzantine throne, Juan Cantacucenoand earn the right to plunder Byzantine territory, as well as the hand of the king’s daughter.
The Turks established a base in Gallipoli, a European peninsula, despite the protests of Cantacucene, who had to resign because he was responsible for the Ottomans entering Europe. And here the thing of the Ottoman Empire really begins: they conquered the first lands of southeastern Europe, in the 14th century, being Edirne –Adrianopolis– the capital. The first vizier of the Ottoman Empire as such was Kara Halil Paşa, of the Candarli family, who monopolized the position in the following century.
Meanwhile, in Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor agreed to pay tribute to the Ottomans (which meant money and military contingents), as he could not face such Turkish pressure on the city.
Kara Halil He was one of the most prominent and important sultans, since Thrace and the Balkans fell under him, but he also maintained pacts with the Orthodox Church, and governed with prudence and tact.
In Europe, meanwhile, the pope called for one more Crusade, in 1366, to stop “the Turkish threat”; This crusade was a failure, and the Ottomans maintained the traditional Islamic policy of tolerance towards the Zimmies (or “people of the book”, monotheistic religions with a sacred book: the Bible or the Talmud). This policy ensured the right of these cultures to be protected by the sultan, as well as their property and religious beliefs, in exchange for paying tribute and accepting the rule of a Muslim government. This resulted in very little interest in converting them to Islam.
Around this same time, bloody fights against the kingdom of Hungary also took place, and the battle of Kosovo, in 1389, guaranteed the Ottomans’ entry into the Balkans.
At that time, Beyazid I was the sultan, and He murdered all his brothers to avoid fights for the throne; this practice would be institutionalized by Mehmed II. In 1390 he conquered western Asia Minor.
However, Sigismund reigned in Hungary, who weakly continued to fight against the Ottoman force; Weak and all, he was the one who contained the Turks, who were already invading Magyar lands. In 1408 Sigismund founded the Order of the Dragon, formed mainly to repel the Ottomans; Vlad II Dracul, the father of the bloodthirsty Vlad III, who in part inspired Bram Stoker’s well-known Dracula, belonged to this order.
Mehmed II was the one who finished conquering the remaining territory of the Byzantine Empire during his reign (1451-1481), finally taking Constantinople in 1453.
The Ottomans thus expanded into three continents: a large part of southeastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The boundaries were vast: to the west it bordered Morocco, to the east with the Caspian Sea and to the south with Sudan, Somalia, Arabia and Eritrea. This vast empire had 29 provinces, and Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania and Crimea were vassal states.
One of the main characters was Suleiman the Magnificent, which turned Istanbul, former Constantinople, into the most thriving city of the 16th century in Europe. The famous battle of Lepanto, in 1571, was the counteroffensive of the papacy, Venice and the Spanish crown to stop the muslim expansionism.
As multi-ethnic and multi-confessional empirethe Ottomans adopted customs and traditions from the classical empires, and later mixed with the immense number of cultures and religious groups that lived in their territories, creating a particular Ottoman identity.
By the 19th century, many Ottoman territories – especially in Europe – became independent; Many factors contributed to the decline of this empire: the rise of nationalism, its participation in the First World War and the proliferation of revolutionary movements in Turkey caused the vast territory to quickly be divided. One of the most important results was the abolition of the sultanate in 1922, and then that of the caliphate in 1923. In this same year the Republic of Türkiye, with the territory that we currently know. An important change in this fledgling republic was the acquisition of a civil and penal code (and not sharia) and the will to maintain a secular government and state.
No empire is forged with words. The history of the Ottomans shows the great amount of blood shed to expand one power over another. Today we should not talk about empires, but about republics.
If you were interested in this article, don’t miss the story of Kahina, the queen who faced the Umayyad expansion, and learn about the dancing dervishes, which exist mainly in Turkey.