Turkey History
Destiny put Turkey in the union of two continents. Land bridge, meeting point and battlefield, has seen all kinds of people - mystics, merchants, nomads and conquerors - go from Europe to Asia, and vice versa, since time immemorial. Many left their mark on the landscape, in the form of Byzantine castles, Greek and Roman ruins, Seljuk caravans and Ottoman palaces. The great history book of Turkey is full of events, cultures and people of great relevance and interest.
First cultures, cities and conflicts
Archaeological discoveries indicate that Anatolia (the Asian area of Turkey) was inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic. The Neolithic man carved the stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe around 9500 B.C. About 7000 B.C. some formed settlements; Çatalhöyük appeared around 6500 B.C. Perhaps, the first known city was an urban center whose inhabitants created a unique pottery. His remains can be seen in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations of Ankara (p. 409).
During the Chalcolithic, the southeastern communities absorbed mesopotamian influences, including the use of metal tools. Throughout Anatolia, growing and interacting communities grew.
Around 3000 B.C. Metallurgical advances led to the creation of several kingdoms. One of them was in Alacahöyük, in the heart of Anatolia, although it showed Caucasian influence, proof of the trade developed beyond the plateau.
Trade also increased on the west coast, as Troy traded with the Aegean Islands and with mainland Greece. Around 2000 B.C., protohitite groups founded their capital in Kanesh, near Kayseri, and dominated a network of communities dedicated to commerce. That's when the story of Anatolia begins: clay tablets provide written documents with dates, events and names. Cultural interaction, commerce and war would become recurring elements of Anatolian history.
The Bronze Age: the Hittites
The Protohitite people soon weakened and the Hittites absorbed their territories. From Alacahöyük, they moved their capital to Hattuşa (near the current Boğazkale) around 1800 B.C.
The Hittite legacy was formed by its capital, its archives and its unique artistic styles. Towards 1450 BC, after repeated internal confrontations, he began to expand his domains. The Hittites were warriors, but they showed other imperial features, they governed vassal states without stopping showing an inclination to diplomacy. This did not prevent them from invading Egypt in 1298 B.C., but it did allow them to sign the peace with the defeated Ramses II by marrying a Hittite princess.
The Hittite Empire was attacked in successive years by the subdued principalities, such as Troy, and was finally invaded by the so-called "peoples of the sea", coming from the coasts of Greece, which already melted iron. The Hittites with no exit to the sea lost positions during an era of flourishing maritime trade, in addition to not having the latest and revolutionary technology: iron weapons.
Meanwhile, a new dynasty made Troy the new power of the region. The Trojans were in turn harassed by the Greeks, which originated the Trojan War in 1250 BC. This allowed the Hittites to breathe, although their end would soon come. Some nuclei of Hittite culture persisted. The later city-states favored a Neohitite culture and served as a conduit for Mesopotamian religion and art to reach Greece.
Classical era: Greece and Persia
Posthitite Anatolia was a town mosaic. To the east, the urarteos founded a kingdom near Lake Van. In the S. VIII BC, the Phrygians arrived in western Anatolia. During the reign of Gordias, famous for the Gordian knot, they established their capital in Gordion and their power reached the top during the reign of Midas; It culminated in 725 BC, when the kingdom was razed by the Cimmerian cavalry.
On the southwest coast, the Lycians created a confederation of city-states that extended from the current Fethiye to Antalya. Inside, the Lydians dominated western Anatolia from their capital in Sardis and minted the first coin.
Meanwhile, the Greek colonies proliferated on the Mediterranean coast, and their culture infiltrated Anatolia. Almost all the peoples of Anatolia had a clear influence and even Greek origin: King Midas of Phrygia had a Greek wife; the Lycians borrowed the legend of the Chimera; and lidio art was an amalgam of Greek and Persian artistic forms. It seems that, in some cases, the admiration was mutual, since the Lycians were the only Anatolian people that the Greeks did not describe as barbaric; Impressed by the wealth of Creso, king of Lidia, the Greeks coined the expression "rich as Creso".
The great Hellenic influence did not go unnoticed. Cyrus, the emperor of Persia, did not tolerate this in his back garden. He made an invasion in 547 BC, first defeating the Lydians and then extending his control to the Aegean. Under the command of Emperors Darius I and Xerxes, the Persians contained the expansion of the Greek coastal colonies. They also managed to subdue the interior, ending the era of the Anatolian kingdoms.
However, directing Anatolia through local satraps was not easy for the Persians. They had to deal periodically with the bellicose anatolians, led by the Greek cities, as happened in the uprising of the Ionian city of Miletus in 494 B.C. The uprising, supposedly fostered from Athens, was suddenly stifled. The Persians tried to invade Greece for the first time, but were defeated by a coalition, led by Athens, in the battle of Marathon.
Alexander and his successors
Persian control over Anatolia was prolonged, in a continuous tug of war with Greece, until 334 BC, when Alexander the Great and his troops crossed the Hellespont to free Anatolia from the Persian yoke; they went down the coast and ran over the Persians near Troy, and then continued on to Sardes, who surrendered immediately. After besieging and taking Halicarnassus (the current Bodrum), they turned east and annihilated a new Persian army on the Cilicia plain.
Alexander was more a conqueror than a smith of nations. When he died without succession, his empire ended up divided after several civil wars. However, if Alexander's intention was to cleanse Anatolia from Persian influence and introduce it into the Greek sphere, he succeeded greatly. Thanks to Alejandro's army, the Hellenization was continued, culminating a process begun centuries ago. A formidable network of commercial communities spread throughout Anatolia. The most notable was Pérgamo (now Bergama), whose kings were great warriors and patrons of art. The largest of them was Eumenes II, who built much of what is left of the Acropolis of Pergamum. As important as the construction of temples and aqueducts was the gradual diffusion of the Greek language, which eventually led to the extinction of native anatolian languages.
The melting pot of anatolian cultures continued to generate several kingdoms, almost all passengers. In 279 B.C. the Gauls broke in and founded the kingdom of Galatia, with capital in Ankyra (Ankara). To the northeast, Mitrídates created the kingdom of Ponto, with capital in Amasya, and the Armenians, from the region of Lake Van, reaffirmed in power after having achieved some autonomy at the time of Alexander.
Meanwhile, the increasingly strong Romans, seated on the other side of the Aegean, had set their sights on the rich commercial networks of Anatolia.
Roman domination
The Roman legions under the command of Scipio defeated the armies of the Seljuk king Eumenes II in Magnesia (Manisa) in 190 BC, and Pergamos, the largest post-Alexandrian city, became a bridgehead for the capture of Anatolia, especially after of the death of Atalo III, who bequeathed the city to Rome. In 129 B.C. Ephesus became the capital of the Roman province of Asia; in 60 years the Romans had extended their government to the edge of Persia itself.
But, over time, Roman power was dissipating. At the end of the s. III Diocletian tried to stabilize the empire by dividing it into two administrative units: eastern and western; He also tried to eliminate Christianity, but both attempts failed. The incipient Christian religion spread, albeit in hiding and with intermittent persecution. Tradition tells that St. John retired to Ephesus to write his Gospel, taking Mary with him. The indefatigable Saint Paul took full advantage of the Roman roads, traveling throughout Anatolia to preach the new religion. Meanwhile, Diocletian's reforms resulted in a civil war, which Constantine won. Responsible for authorizing Christianity in Roman dominions, Constantine was said to have been guided by angels to build a new Rome in the ancient city of Byzantium. The city became known as Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). On his deathbed, the emperor was baptized and, by the end of the century, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire.
The fall of Rome and the flowering of Byzantium
The governability of the Roman Empire did not improve with the new capital of Constantinople and, after the death of Theodosius [379-395], who led it with a firm hand, it was divided. The western (Roman) half succumbed to decay and barbarian invasions. The eastern half (Byzantine) prospered by adopting Christianity and the Greek language.
With Justinian [527-565], Byzantium assumed the mantle of imperialism that had been characteristic of Rome. He built Hagia Sophia (Hagia Sophia), codified Roman law and extended the boundaries of the new empire by incorporating southern Spain, northern Africa and Italy. It was then that Byzantium became an independent entity of Rome, although the sentimental bond with Roman greatness persisted: the Greco-speaking Byzantines were still considered Roman, and later the Turks would call them rum. However, Justinian's ambition overwhelmed the empire. Slavic invading tribes limited the expansion.
Subsequently, the struggle with Persia, its eternal rival, further weakened Byzantium, leaving Eastern Anatolia at the expense of the attack of the armies of Arabia; the Arabs took Ankara in 654 and by 669 they already had Constantinople under siege. They were a new people that brought a new language and a new religion: Islam.
The western front suffered in turn the invasions of Goths and Lombards; in the S. viii, Byzantium had retreated to the Balkans and Anatolia. The empire declined until Basil rose to the throne in 867, scoring victories against Islamic Egypt, the Bulgarians and Russia. Basil II [976-1025] earned the nickname "Matador of Bulgarians" after taking his eyes off 14,000 prisoners of war of that nationality. When he died, the empire missed someone of his character and the era of Byzantine expansion came to an end.
First Turkish Empire: the Seljuks
From approximately the s. VIII, Turkmen nomadic groups were moving westward from central Asia, facing the Persians and converting to Islam. Vigorous and martial, the Turks engulfed parts of the Abbasid Empire and built their own kingdom on lands of ancient Persia. Tuğrul, of the clan of the Seljuks, was named Sultan in Baghdad, from where the attack on the Byzantine territory began. In 1071, Tuğrul's son, Alp Arslan, defeated the Byzantine army in Manzikert. The agile Turkish cavalry prevailed, leaving Anatolia at the mercy of the new power and beginning the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
However, not everything was in favor of the Seljuks. During the ss. xii and xiii there were incursions of the Crusaders, who founded temporary settlements in Antioch (Antakya) and Edessa (Şanlıurfa). In parallel, an army of rebel crusaders sacked Constantinople, capital of the Byzantines, apparently allies of the Crusaders. Meanwhile, the Seljuks succumbed to their own internal struggles for power, which would eventually fragment their empire.
The Seljuk legacy persisted in Anatolia with the Sultanate of Rum, whose center was Konya. Celaleddin Rumi, the Sufi mystic who founded the Mevleví order of the Girovago dervishes, is an example of the cultural and artistic development achieved in Konya. Although, ethnically Turkish, the Seljuks had received a great influence from Persian culture and art. They introduced wool carpets in Anatolia and its architecture, still visible in Erzurum, Divriği, Amasya and Sivas. These buildings were the first expressions of really Islamic art in Anatolia, and would become the prototypes of Ottoman art.
The Mongol descendants of Genghis Khan crossed Anatolia, defeating the Seljuks in Köse Dağ in 1243. Anatolia was divided into a mosaic of Turkish beyliks (principalities), but in 1300 a single Turkish bey (ruler), Osman, established a dynasty that soon I would give a lot to talk about.
The Ottoman beginnings
Osman's armies moved across the borderlands between Byzantium and the Seljuk territory. In an era marked by chaos, they offered a fortress that attracted legions of followers and, very soon, they established an administrative and military model that allowed them to expand. From the beginning, they assumed anatolian cultures to create their own as an amalgam of Greek, Turkish, Islamic and Christian elements.
Apparently invincible, the Ottomans advanced westward and established a first capital in Bursa, to later cross into Europe and take in 1362 Adrianópolis (the current Edirne). In 1371 they had already reached the Adriatic and in 1389 they defeated the Serbs in Kosovo Polje, taking control of the Balkans.
There they found an entrenched Christian community, to which they ably absorbed by applying the millet system, which officially recognized minority communities and allowed them to govern their internal affairs. However, Sultan Beyazıt crushed the armies of the last Crusade in Nicopolis (Bulgaria) in 1396. But Beyazıt, who perhaps thought that from then on he would count all his battles for victories, also provoked Tamerlane, the warlord tartar; He was captured, his army defeated and the incipient Ottoman Empire suffered a sudden slowdown in its expansion.
Conquest of Constantinople and Ottoman Empire
The dust settled slowly after the humiliating defeat of Beyazıt at the hands of Tamerlane. His sons fought for power until Mehmet I appeared and the Ottomans expanded again. With renewed impulse they took over the rest of Anatolia, razed Greece, made a first attempt in Constantinople and defeated the Serbs for the second time.
The Ottomans had resurfaced when Mehmet II became a Sultan in 1451. Constantinople, the last Byzantine stronghold, was surrounded by Ottoman territory and Mehmet was determined to conquer it. He built a fortress on the Bosphorus, imposed a naval blockade and rallied his army. The Byzantines asked for help from Europe; after seven weeks of siege, the city fell on May 29, 1453. Christianity trembled before the seemingly unstoppable Ottomans, and servile diplomats declared Mehmet, now known as Mehmet the Conqueror, worthy successor to the first Roman and Byzantine emperors.
The Ottoman army was unstoppable and alternated campaigns between the eastern and western limits of the empire, expanding both. The body of jenízaros, made up of young Christians who were trained to fight, made the Ottomans the only permanent army in Europe; They were fast and organized.
Successive sultans were expanding the kingdom. Selim I the Severe captured Hiyaz in 1517 and, with it, Mecca and Medina, for which he claimed the title of guardian of the holy places of Islam. Although not everything was militarism: Beyazıt II demonstrated the multicultural character of the Empire when in 1492 he invited the Jews expelled from Spain to Istanbul.
The golden age took place during the reign of Soliman I the Magnificent [1520-1566], who was praised for codifying Ottoman law as well as for his military prowess. Under his rule, the Turks celebrated victories over the Hungarians and annexed the Mediterranean coast of Algeria and Tunisia. Solimán's legislative code was a visionary amalgam of secular and Islamic law.
Soliman is also known for being the first Ottoman sultan to marry. The previous sultans had enjoyed the pleasures of concubinage, but he fell in love with Roxelana and married her. Sadly, monogamy did not achieve happiness in the home: palatial intrigues caused the death of their first two children and the era of Roxelana was known as "the sultanate of women." Exhausted, Soliman died fighting on the Danube in 1566.
The sick of Europe
It is difficult to determine when or why the decline of the Ottoman Empire began, but some historians point to the death of Soliman as a turning point. The sultans that succeeded him were not up to par. The son of Soliman and Roxelana, Selim, disparagingly known as "the Drunk", reigned shortly after the catastrophe of Lepanto, which announced the end of the Ottoman naval supremacy. Soliman was the last sultan to take his army to the fight. His successors were trapped in the pleasures of the palace, had little experience of everyday life and little inclination to administer the empire. This, together with the inevitable inertia of 250 years of expansion, meant the decline of Turkish military power.
The siege of Vienna in 1683 was the last attempt to expand the Ottomans, but failed. From there began the downhill. The empire was vast and powerful but was lagging behind the West in the military and the scientific. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in 1799 showed that Europe was willing to stand up to the Ottomans. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs, in central Europe, and the Russians were getting stronger. The Ottomans, meanwhile, were still locked in themselves, unaware of the changing times.
Nationalism, an idea imported from the West, accelerated the Ottoman decline. For centuries, various ethnic groups had coexisted in relative harmony, but the creation of nation-states in Europe unleashed the desire of the subject peoples to decide their own destiny; This is how the various pieces of the Ottoman puzzle were separated. Greece gained independence in 1830. In 1878 it was followed by Romania, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia.
As the Ottoman Empire was reduced, there were futile attempts at reform. In 1876, Abdülhamit II allowed the creation of the Constitution and the first Parliament, although he took advantage of the events of 1878 to abolish it and become increasingly authoritarian.
But the pressure did not come only from the subject peoples: the cultured Turks also wanted changes. In Macedonia the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) was created. With a reforming mentality and Western influence, in 1908 the CUP, which was known as the "Young Turks", forced Abdülhamit to abdicate and restore the Constitution. But the joy was short-lived, because in the First Balkan War, Bulgaria and Macedonia escaped Ottoman rule and Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian troops advanced rapidly over Istanbul.
The Ottoman regime, once feared and respected, eventually became known as "the sick of Europe."
European diplomats plotted to get the most precious parts of the empire.
World War I and its consequences
The military crisis saw how three nationalist (general) countries of the CUP seized control of the increasingly small empire. They managed to push back the Balkan League and save Istanbul; then they allied with the central powers for the impending world war. As a result, the Ottomans had to dodge the forces of the West on multiple fronts: Greece in Thrace, Russia in northeastern Anatolia, Great Britain in Arabia and a multinational army in Gallipoli. It was during this confusion that the Armenian tragedy broke out.
At the end of World War I, the Turks were in chaos. The French, the Italians, the Greeks and the Armenians, with Russian support, controlled parts of Anatolia. The Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 meant the dismemberment of the empire and left the Turks with only a redoubt of arid steppe. European triumphalism did not have the violent Turkish reaction, but it was: a nationalist movement was developed, driven by the humiliation of Sèvres. In front was Mustafa Kemal, the victorious winner of Gallipoli, who began organizing the resistance and established a national assembly in Ankara.
Meanwhile, a Greek force appeared in Izmir. The Greeks saw the opportunity to carry out their megali idea (great idea) to reestablish their secular domains in the area. They got Bursa and Edirne. This was the excuse Mustafa Kemal needed to boost the Turkish uprising. After some initial skirmishes in İnönü, the Greeks pressed in the direction of Ankara, but the determined Turkish resistance restrained them in the battle of Sakarya. The two armies met again in Dumlupınar, where the Turks dealt a great defeat to the Greeks, who beat in retreat towards Izmir and from there were expelled from Anatolia.
Mustafa Kemal became the hero of the Turkish people, materializing the dream of the Young Turks: to create a modern Turkish nation-state. The Lausanne Treaty of 1923 amended the humiliations of Sèvres and imposed the withdrawal of foreign powers from Turkey. Thus the borders of the modern Turkish state were drawn.
Atatürk and the Republic
The Turks consolidated Ankara as capital and abolished the sultanate; Mustafa Kemal assumed the newly created presidency of the secular republic. He would later be given the nickname of Atatürk, literally, "father of the Turks." Kemal's energy seemed to have no limits: he wanted to see Turkey among the most modern and developed countries in Europe.
But the country was devastated after years of wars, so a firm hand was needed, that of Atatürk and its enlightened despotism, which created democratic institutions but without allowing hardly any opposition to ensure the overcoming of conflicts and the improvement of its people. However, one aspect of Kemal's project would have serious consequences: the insistence that the nation be only Turkish. Encouraging national unity was logical after national separatist movements that had harassed the Ottoman Empire, but with it the cultural existence of Greeks, Kurds and other minorities was denied. As expected, years later a Kurdish revolt broke out, the first of the countless that would emerge throughout the s. XX.
The desire to create homogeneous nation-states in the Aegean caused population exchanges: the Greek-speaking communities of Anatolia were sent to Greece, while Muslim residents of Greece moved to Turkey. These forced exchanges caused serious upheavals and the appearance of ghost towns like Kayaköy (Karmylassos). It was a maneuver designed to avoid ethnic violence, but also a grim episode in putting obstacles to the development of the new State. Turkey found itself without much of the cult elite of Ottoman society, as many of its members were Greeks.
Atatürk's vision totally changed the image of the Turkish state. Everything, from the head cover to the language, was scrutinized and, where appropriate, reformed. Turkey adopted the Gregorian calendar (like the West), reformed its alphabet (adopting the Roman alphabet), standardized the language, banned the fez, established universal suffrage and decreed that the Turks should have surnames in the European way. When he died, in November 1938, Atatürk had successfully earned his name, creating the Turkish state and bringing it to modernity.
Towards democratization
Although the reforms were advancing rapidly, Turkey remained an economically and militarily weak country, and Atatürk's successor, İsmet İnönü, avoided getting involved in World War II. Once it was finished, Turkey became an ally of the United States. As a bulwark against the Soviets, it acquired strategic importance and received American help. The new friendship was cemented with the Turkish participation in the Korean War and the country's entry into NATO.
Meanwhile, democratic reforms gained momentum. In 1950 the Democratic Party came to power. Governing for a decade, the Democrats did not honor his name and became increasingly autocrats. The army intervened in 1960 and dismissed them. The military government was short-lived, but allowed the liberalization of the Constitution and laid the foundations for future decades. The military considered themselves guardians of the Atatürk project, so they felt compelled to intervene to ensure that the republic followed the correct path.
New political parties of all trends were born in the 1960s and 1970s, but profusion did not make democracy robust. In the late 1960s, there was a leftist activism and political violence that led to a shift of the center parties to the right. The army re-entered the scene in 1971 and civil power was not restored until 1973.
The political chaos lasted during the 1970s, so that, in 1980, the military again took power to restore order. They did it through the new and feared National Security Council, although in 1983 they allowed the holding of elections. For the first time in decades, a satisfactory result was recorded. Turgut Özal, leader of the Motherland Party (ANAP), won the majority and started the country again. Özal, cunning pro-Islamic economist, promoted important economic and legislative reforms that allowed Turkey to reach a good international level and plant the seed for its future development.
Millennium Twist
In 1991, Turkey supported the Allied invasion of Iraq and Özal allowed air strikes from bases in southern Anatolia. With this, after decades of isolation, the country reaffirmed its position in the international community and as an important US ally. At the end of the Gulf War millions of Iraqi Kurds fled to Anatolia. The exodus caught the attention of the international media and made known the Kurdish problem, which resulted in the establishment of a Kurdish "refuge" in northern Iraq. This in turn encouraged the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched a violent campaign to create an independent Kurdish state. The Turkish army responded with an iron hand and the southeast ended up suffering a civil war.
Turgut Özal died suddenly in 1993 leaving a power vacuum. Throughout the decade, weak coalition governments succeeded each other, with characters soon disappearing from the political scene. Tansu Çiller was the first woman to become prime minister of Turkey, but despite high expectations, she failed to solve the problems.
In December 1995, the Islamist Welfare Party (PR) formed Government, with veteran Necmettin Erbakan at the helm. Drunk with power, the RP politicians made Islamist statements that provoked the wrath of the army. In 1997, the military declared that the PR had committed contempt against the Constitution, which prohibited the use of religion in politics. Faced with what was called a "postmodern coup," the government resigned and the Refah dissolved.
The capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, at the beginning of 1999 seemed a good omen after the terrible decade of 1990. His arrest offered the opportunity (not yet achieved) to fix the Kurdish issue. That same year, horrific earthquakes destroyed İzmit, ending any kind of optimism. The Government managed the crisis very badly, but the sympathy and global collaboration helped the Turks to convince themselves that they are important members of the international community.
With the new millennium a new political force was born: the Justice and Development Party of Recep Tayyip (AKP) gained power in 2002, announcing social reforms in the wake of improvements in economic conditions. With Islamic roots, the AKP sought Turkey's entry into the EU and the end of the military presence on the political landscape.
Much of the support of the AKP emerged in the thriving cities of Anatolia. Inland cities were experiencing economic growth, proof that modernization and economic development projects were finally paying off. In fact, the Turkish economy continues to grow, with a sustained annual increase in GDP, even during the global financial crisis of 2008, so many Turks feel relieved not to be part of the EU, and have avoided the economic situation that Greece suffers.
The AKP adopted a new direction in international politics, trying to reestablish relations with its close neighbors, a modestly successful policy until the Syrian civil war in 2012. In national politics, the AKP has tried to reduce military intervention in politics and has initiated procedures to fix entrenched problems such as minority rights, the Kurdish issue, bad relations with Armenia and recognition of the rights of the Alevíes, a Muslim minority in Anatolia. But for the moment there are no glimpses of long-term solutions. The AKP has also won criticism, both at home and abroad, especially for limiting press freedom, including social networks. Others argue that their Islamic political philosophy is restricting social freedoms such as drinking alcohol. The great projects of Prime Minister Erdoğan, such as digging a channel between the Black Sea and Marmara or building the largest mosque in the world in Çamlıca, Istanbul, also raise suspicions.
These controversies provoke extreme positions. The Turks are either totally in favor or absolutely against the AKP and its program, which creates a polarized society. Even so, there is no doubt that Turkey is in continuous movement.
During the Chalcolithic, the southeastern communities absorbed mesopotamian influences, including the use of metal tools. Throughout Anatolia, growing and interacting communities grew.
Around 3000 B.C. Metallurgical advances led to the creation of several kingdoms. One of them was in Alacahöyük, in the heart of Anatolia, although it showed Caucasian influence, proof of the trade developed beyond the plateau.
Trade also increased on the west coast, as Troy traded with the Aegean Islands and with mainland Greece. Around 2000 B.C., protohitite groups founded their capital in Kanesh, near Kayseri, and dominated a network of communities dedicated to commerce. That's when the story of Anatolia begins: clay tablets provide written documents with dates, events and names. Cultural interaction, commerce and war would become recurring elements of Anatolian history.
The Bronze Age: the Hittites
The Protohitite people soon weakened and the Hittites absorbed their territories. From Alacahöyük, they moved their capital to Hattuşa (near the current Boğazkale) around 1800 B.C.
The Hittite legacy was formed by its capital, its archives and its unique artistic styles. Towards 1450 BC, after repeated internal confrontations, he began to expand his domains. The Hittites were warriors, but they showed other imperial features, they governed vassal states without stopping showing an inclination to diplomacy. This did not prevent them from invading Egypt in 1298 B.C., but it did allow them to sign the peace with the defeated Ramses II by marrying a Hittite princess.
The Hittite Empire was attacked in successive years by the subdued principalities, such as Troy, and was finally invaded by the so-called "peoples of the sea", coming from the coasts of Greece, which already melted iron. The Hittites with no exit to the sea lost positions during an era of flourishing maritime trade, in addition to not having the latest and revolutionary technology: iron weapons.
Meanwhile, a new dynasty made Troy the new power of the region. The Trojans were in turn harassed by the Greeks, which originated the Trojan War in 1250 BC. This allowed the Hittites to breathe, although their end would soon come. Some nuclei of Hittite culture persisted. The later city-states favored a Neohitite culture and served as a conduit for Mesopotamian religion and art to reach Greece.
Classical era: Greece and Persia
Posthitite Anatolia was a town mosaic. To the east, the urarteos founded a kingdom near Lake Van. In the S. VIII BC, the Phrygians arrived in western Anatolia. During the reign of Gordias, famous for the Gordian knot, they established their capital in Gordion and their power reached the top during the reign of Midas; It culminated in 725 BC, when the kingdom was razed by the Cimmerian cavalry.
On the southwest coast, the Lycians created a confederation of city-states that extended from the current Fethiye to Antalya. Inside, the Lydians dominated western Anatolia from their capital in Sardis and minted the first coin.
Meanwhile, the Greek colonies proliferated on the Mediterranean coast, and their culture infiltrated Anatolia. Almost all the peoples of Anatolia had a clear influence and even Greek origin: King Midas of Phrygia had a Greek wife; the Lycians borrowed the legend of the Chimera; and lidio art was an amalgam of Greek and Persian artistic forms. It seems that, in some cases, the admiration was mutual, since the Lycians were the only Anatolian people that the Greeks did not describe as barbaric; Impressed by the wealth of Creso, king of Lidia, the Greeks coined the expression "rich as Creso".
The great Hellenic influence did not go unnoticed. Cyrus, the emperor of Persia, did not tolerate this in his back garden. He made an invasion in 547 BC, first defeating the Lydians and then extending his control to the Aegean. Under the command of Emperors Darius I and Xerxes, the Persians contained the expansion of the Greek coastal colonies. They also managed to subdue the interior, ending the era of the Anatolian kingdoms.
However, directing Anatolia through local satraps was not easy for the Persians. They had to deal periodically with the bellicose anatolians, led by the Greek cities, as happened in the uprising of the Ionian city of Miletus in 494 B.C. The uprising, supposedly fostered from Athens, was suddenly stifled. The Persians tried to invade Greece for the first time, but were defeated by a coalition, led by Athens, in the battle of Marathon.
Alexander and his successors
Persian control over Anatolia was prolonged, in a continuous tug of war with Greece, until 334 BC, when Alexander the Great and his troops crossed the Hellespont to free Anatolia from the Persian yoke; they went down the coast and ran over the Persians near Troy, and then continued on to Sardes, who surrendered immediately. After besieging and taking Halicarnassus (the current Bodrum), they turned east and annihilated a new Persian army on the Cilicia plain.
Alexander was more a conqueror than a smith of nations. When he died without succession, his empire ended up divided after several civil wars. However, if Alexander's intention was to cleanse Anatolia from Persian influence and introduce it into the Greek sphere, he succeeded greatly. Thanks to Alejandro's army, the Hellenization was continued, culminating a process begun centuries ago. A formidable network of commercial communities spread throughout Anatolia. The most notable was Pérgamo (now Bergama), whose kings were great warriors and patrons of art. The largest of them was Eumenes II, who built much of what is left of the Acropolis of Pergamum. As important as the construction of temples and aqueducts was the gradual diffusion of the Greek language, which eventually led to the extinction of native anatolian languages.
The melting pot of anatolian cultures continued to generate several kingdoms, almost all passengers. In 279 B.C. the Gauls broke in and founded the kingdom of Galatia, with capital in Ankyra (Ankara). To the northeast, Mitrídates created the kingdom of Ponto, with capital in Amasya, and the Armenians, from the region of Lake Van, reaffirmed in power after having achieved some autonomy at the time of Alexander.
Meanwhile, the increasingly strong Romans, seated on the other side of the Aegean, had set their sights on the rich commercial networks of Anatolia.
Roman domination
The Roman legions under the command of Scipio defeated the armies of the Seljuk king Eumenes II in Magnesia (Manisa) in 190 BC, and Pergamos, the largest post-Alexandrian city, became a bridgehead for the capture of Anatolia, especially after of the death of Atalo III, who bequeathed the city to Rome. In 129 B.C. Ephesus became the capital of the Roman province of Asia; in 60 years the Romans had extended their government to the edge of Persia itself.
But, over time, Roman power was dissipating. At the end of the s. III Diocletian tried to stabilize the empire by dividing it into two administrative units: eastern and western; He also tried to eliminate Christianity, but both attempts failed. The incipient Christian religion spread, albeit in hiding and with intermittent persecution. Tradition tells that St. John retired to Ephesus to write his Gospel, taking Mary with him. The indefatigable Saint Paul took full advantage of the Roman roads, traveling throughout Anatolia to preach the new religion. Meanwhile, Diocletian's reforms resulted in a civil war, which Constantine won. Responsible for authorizing Christianity in Roman dominions, Constantine was said to have been guided by angels to build a new Rome in the ancient city of Byzantium. The city became known as Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). On his deathbed, the emperor was baptized and, by the end of the century, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire.
The fall of Rome and the flowering of Byzantium
The governability of the Roman Empire did not improve with the new capital of Constantinople and, after the death of Theodosius [379-395], who led it with a firm hand, it was divided. The western (Roman) half succumbed to decay and barbarian invasions. The eastern half (Byzantine) prospered by adopting Christianity and the Greek language.
With Justinian [527-565], Byzantium assumed the mantle of imperialism that had been characteristic of Rome. He built Hagia Sophia (Hagia Sophia), codified Roman law and extended the boundaries of the new empire by incorporating southern Spain, northern Africa and Italy. It was then that Byzantium became an independent entity of Rome, although the sentimental bond with Roman greatness persisted: the Greco-speaking Byzantines were still considered Roman, and later the Turks would call them rum. However, Justinian's ambition overwhelmed the empire. Slavic invading tribes limited the expansion.
Subsequently, the struggle with Persia, its eternal rival, further weakened Byzantium, leaving Eastern Anatolia at the expense of the attack of the armies of Arabia; the Arabs took Ankara in 654 and by 669 they already had Constantinople under siege. They were a new people that brought a new language and a new religion: Islam.
The western front suffered in turn the invasions of Goths and Lombards; in the S. viii, Byzantium had retreated to the Balkans and Anatolia. The empire declined until Basil rose to the throne in 867, scoring victories against Islamic Egypt, the Bulgarians and Russia. Basil II [976-1025] earned the nickname "Matador of Bulgarians" after taking his eyes off 14,000 prisoners of war of that nationality. When he died, the empire missed someone of his character and the era of Byzantine expansion came to an end.
First Turkish Empire: the Seljuks
From approximately the s. VIII, Turkmen nomadic groups were moving westward from central Asia, facing the Persians and converting to Islam. Vigorous and martial, the Turks engulfed parts of the Abbasid Empire and built their own kingdom on lands of ancient Persia. Tuğrul, of the clan of the Seljuks, was named Sultan in Baghdad, from where the attack on the Byzantine territory began. In 1071, Tuğrul's son, Alp Arslan, defeated the Byzantine army in Manzikert. The agile Turkish cavalry prevailed, leaving Anatolia at the mercy of the new power and beginning the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
However, not everything was in favor of the Seljuks. During the ss. xii and xiii there were incursions of the Crusaders, who founded temporary settlements in Antioch (Antakya) and Edessa (Şanlıurfa). In parallel, an army of rebel crusaders sacked Constantinople, capital of the Byzantines, apparently allies of the Crusaders. Meanwhile, the Seljuks succumbed to their own internal struggles for power, which would eventually fragment their empire.
The Seljuk legacy persisted in Anatolia with the Sultanate of Rum, whose center was Konya. Celaleddin Rumi, the Sufi mystic who founded the Mevleví order of the Girovago dervishes, is an example of the cultural and artistic development achieved in Konya. Although, ethnically Turkish, the Seljuks had received a great influence from Persian culture and art. They introduced wool carpets in Anatolia and its architecture, still visible in Erzurum, Divriği, Amasya and Sivas. These buildings were the first expressions of really Islamic art in Anatolia, and would become the prototypes of Ottoman art.
The Mongol descendants of Genghis Khan crossed Anatolia, defeating the Seljuks in Köse Dağ in 1243. Anatolia was divided into a mosaic of Turkish beyliks (principalities), but in 1300 a single Turkish bey (ruler), Osman, established a dynasty that soon I would give a lot to talk about.
The Ottoman beginnings
Osman's armies moved across the borderlands between Byzantium and the Seljuk territory. In an era marked by chaos, they offered a fortress that attracted legions of followers and, very soon, they established an administrative and military model that allowed them to expand. From the beginning, they assumed anatolian cultures to create their own as an amalgam of Greek, Turkish, Islamic and Christian elements.
Apparently invincible, the Ottomans advanced westward and established a first capital in Bursa, to later cross into Europe and take in 1362 Adrianópolis (the current Edirne). In 1371 they had already reached the Adriatic and in 1389 they defeated the Serbs in Kosovo Polje, taking control of the Balkans.
There they found an entrenched Christian community, to which they ably absorbed by applying the millet system, which officially recognized minority communities and allowed them to govern their internal affairs. However, Sultan Beyazıt crushed the armies of the last Crusade in Nicopolis (Bulgaria) in 1396. But Beyazıt, who perhaps thought that from then on he would count all his battles for victories, also provoked Tamerlane, the warlord tartar; He was captured, his army defeated and the incipient Ottoman Empire suffered a sudden slowdown in its expansion.
Conquest of Constantinople and Ottoman Empire
The dust settled slowly after the humiliating defeat of Beyazıt at the hands of Tamerlane. His sons fought for power until Mehmet I appeared and the Ottomans expanded again. With renewed impulse they took over the rest of Anatolia, razed Greece, made a first attempt in Constantinople and defeated the Serbs for the second time.
The Ottoman army was unstoppable and alternated campaigns between the eastern and western limits of the empire, expanding both. The body of jenízaros, made up of young Christians who were trained to fight, made the Ottomans the only permanent army in Europe; They were fast and organized.
Successive sultans were expanding the kingdom. Selim I the Severe captured Hiyaz in 1517 and, with it, Mecca and Medina, for which he claimed the title of guardian of the holy places of Islam. Although not everything was militarism: Beyazıt II demonstrated the multicultural character of the Empire when in 1492 he invited the Jews expelled from Spain to Istanbul.
The golden age took place during the reign of Soliman I the Magnificent [1520-1566], who was praised for codifying Ottoman law as well as for his military prowess. Under his rule, the Turks celebrated victories over the Hungarians and annexed the Mediterranean coast of Algeria and Tunisia. Solimán's legislative code was a visionary amalgam of secular and Islamic law.
Soliman is also known for being the first Ottoman sultan to marry. The previous sultans had enjoyed the pleasures of concubinage, but he fell in love with Roxelana and married her. Sadly, monogamy did not achieve happiness in the home: palatial intrigues caused the death of their first two children and the era of Roxelana was known as "the sultanate of women." Exhausted, Soliman died fighting on the Danube in 1566.
The sick of Europe
It is difficult to determine when or why the decline of the Ottoman Empire began, but some historians point to the death of Soliman as a turning point. The sultans that succeeded him were not up to par. The son of Soliman and Roxelana, Selim, disparagingly known as "the Drunk", reigned shortly after the catastrophe of Lepanto, which announced the end of the Ottoman naval supremacy. Soliman was the last sultan to take his army to the fight. His successors were trapped in the pleasures of the palace, had little experience of everyday life and little inclination to administer the empire. This, together with the inevitable inertia of 250 years of expansion, meant the decline of Turkish military power.
The siege of Vienna in 1683 was the last attempt to expand the Ottomans, but failed. From there began the downhill. The empire was vast and powerful but was lagging behind the West in the military and the scientific. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in 1799 showed that Europe was willing to stand up to the Ottomans. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs, in central Europe, and the Russians were getting stronger. The Ottomans, meanwhile, were still locked in themselves, unaware of the changing times.
Nationalism, an idea imported from the West, accelerated the Ottoman decline. For centuries, various ethnic groups had coexisted in relative harmony, but the creation of nation-states in Europe unleashed the desire of the subject peoples to decide their own destiny; This is how the various pieces of the Ottoman puzzle were separated. Greece gained independence in 1830. In 1878 it was followed by Romania, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia.
As the Ottoman Empire was reduced, there were futile attempts at reform. In 1876, Abdülhamit II allowed the creation of the Constitution and the first Parliament, although he took advantage of the events of 1878 to abolish it and become increasingly authoritarian.
But the pressure did not come only from the subject peoples: the cultured Turks also wanted changes. In Macedonia the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) was created. With a reforming mentality and Western influence, in 1908 the CUP, which was known as the "Young Turks", forced Abdülhamit to abdicate and restore the Constitution. But the joy was short-lived, because in the First Balkan War, Bulgaria and Macedonia escaped Ottoman rule and Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian troops advanced rapidly over Istanbul.
The Ottoman regime, once feared and respected, eventually became known as "the sick of Europe."
European diplomats plotted to get the most precious parts of the empire.
The military crisis saw how three nationalist (general) countries of the CUP seized control of the increasingly small empire. They managed to push back the Balkan League and save Istanbul; then they allied with the central powers for the impending world war. As a result, the Ottomans had to dodge the forces of the West on multiple fronts: Greece in Thrace, Russia in northeastern Anatolia, Great Britain in Arabia and a multinational army in Gallipoli. It was during this confusion that the Armenian tragedy broke out.
At the end of World War I, the Turks were in chaos. The French, the Italians, the Greeks and the Armenians, with Russian support, controlled parts of Anatolia. The Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 meant the dismemberment of the empire and left the Turks with only a redoubt of arid steppe. European triumphalism did not have the violent Turkish reaction, but it was: a nationalist movement was developed, driven by the humiliation of Sèvres. In front was Mustafa Kemal, the victorious winner of Gallipoli, who began organizing the resistance and established a national assembly in Ankara.
Meanwhile, a Greek force appeared in Izmir. The Greeks saw the opportunity to carry out their megali idea (great idea) to reestablish their secular domains in the area. They got Bursa and Edirne. This was the excuse Mustafa Kemal needed to boost the Turkish uprising. After some initial skirmishes in İnönü, the Greeks pressed in the direction of Ankara, but the determined Turkish resistance restrained them in the battle of Sakarya. The two armies met again in Dumlupınar, where the Turks dealt a great defeat to the Greeks, who beat in retreat towards Izmir and from there were expelled from Anatolia.
Mustafa Kemal became the hero of the Turkish people, materializing the dream of the Young Turks: to create a modern Turkish nation-state. The Lausanne Treaty of 1923 amended the humiliations of Sèvres and imposed the withdrawal of foreign powers from Turkey. Thus the borders of the modern Turkish state were drawn.
Atatürk and the Republic
The Turks consolidated Ankara as capital and abolished the sultanate; Mustafa Kemal assumed the newly created presidency of the secular republic. He would later be given the nickname of Atatürk, literally, "father of the Turks." Kemal's energy seemed to have no limits: he wanted to see Turkey among the most modern and developed countries in Europe.
But the country was devastated after years of wars, so a firm hand was needed, that of Atatürk and its enlightened despotism, which created democratic institutions but without allowing hardly any opposition to ensure the overcoming of conflicts and the improvement of its people. However, one aspect of Kemal's project would have serious consequences: the insistence that the nation be only Turkish. Encouraging national unity was logical after national separatist movements that had harassed the Ottoman Empire, but with it the cultural existence of Greeks, Kurds and other minorities was denied. As expected, years later a Kurdish revolt broke out, the first of the countless that would emerge throughout the s. XX.
The desire to create homogeneous nation-states in the Aegean caused population exchanges: the Greek-speaking communities of Anatolia were sent to Greece, while Muslim residents of Greece moved to Turkey. These forced exchanges caused serious upheavals and the appearance of ghost towns like Kayaköy (Karmylassos). It was a maneuver designed to avoid ethnic violence, but also a grim episode in putting obstacles to the development of the new State. Turkey found itself without much of the cult elite of Ottoman society, as many of its members were Greeks.
Atatürk's vision totally changed the image of the Turkish state. Everything, from the head cover to the language, was scrutinized and, where appropriate, reformed. Turkey adopted the Gregorian calendar (like the West), reformed its alphabet (adopting the Roman alphabet), standardized the language, banned the fez, established universal suffrage and decreed that the Turks should have surnames in the European way. When he died, in November 1938, Atatürk had successfully earned his name, creating the Turkish state and bringing it to modernity.
Towards democratization
Although the reforms were advancing rapidly, Turkey remained an economically and militarily weak country, and Atatürk's successor, İsmet İnönü, avoided getting involved in World War II. Once it was finished, Turkey became an ally of the United States. As a bulwark against the Soviets, it acquired strategic importance and received American help. The new friendship was cemented with the Turkish participation in the Korean War and the country's entry into NATO.
Meanwhile, democratic reforms gained momentum. In 1950 the Democratic Party came to power. Governing for a decade, the Democrats did not honor his name and became increasingly autocrats. The army intervened in 1960 and dismissed them. The military government was short-lived, but allowed the liberalization of the Constitution and laid the foundations for future decades. The military considered themselves guardians of the Atatürk project, so they felt compelled to intervene to ensure that the republic followed the correct path.
New political parties of all trends were born in the 1960s and 1970s, but profusion did not make democracy robust. In the late 1960s, there was a leftist activism and political violence that led to a shift of the center parties to the right. The army re-entered the scene in 1971 and civil power was not restored until 1973.
The political chaos lasted during the 1970s, so that, in 1980, the military again took power to restore order. They did it through the new and feared National Security Council, although in 1983 they allowed the holding of elections. For the first time in decades, a satisfactory result was recorded. Turgut Özal, leader of the Motherland Party (ANAP), won the majority and started the country again. Özal, cunning pro-Islamic economist, promoted important economic and legislative reforms that allowed Turkey to reach a good international level and plant the seed for its future development.
Millennium Twist
In 1991, Turkey supported the Allied invasion of Iraq and Özal allowed air strikes from bases in southern Anatolia. With this, after decades of isolation, the country reaffirmed its position in the international community and as an important US ally. At the end of the Gulf War millions of Iraqi Kurds fled to Anatolia. The exodus caught the attention of the international media and made known the Kurdish problem, which resulted in the establishment of a Kurdish "refuge" in northern Iraq. This in turn encouraged the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched a violent campaign to create an independent Kurdish state. The Turkish army responded with an iron hand and the southeast ended up suffering a civil war.
Turgut Özal died suddenly in 1993 leaving a power vacuum. Throughout the decade, weak coalition governments succeeded each other, with characters soon disappearing from the political scene. Tansu Çiller was the first woman to become prime minister of Turkey, but despite high expectations, she failed to solve the problems.
In December 1995, the Islamist Welfare Party (PR) formed Government, with veteran Necmettin Erbakan at the helm. Drunk with power, the RP politicians made Islamist statements that provoked the wrath of the army. In 1997, the military declared that the PR had committed contempt against the Constitution, which prohibited the use of religion in politics. Faced with what was called a "postmodern coup," the government resigned and the Refah dissolved.
The capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, at the beginning of 1999 seemed a good omen after the terrible decade of 1990. His arrest offered the opportunity (not yet achieved) to fix the Kurdish issue. That same year, horrific earthquakes destroyed İzmit, ending any kind of optimism. The Government managed the crisis very badly, but the sympathy and global collaboration helped the Turks to convince themselves that they are important members of the international community.
With the new millennium a new political force was born: the Justice and Development Party of Recep Tayyip (AKP) gained power in 2002, announcing social reforms in the wake of improvements in economic conditions. With Islamic roots, the AKP sought Turkey's entry into the EU and the end of the military presence on the political landscape.
Much of the support of the AKP emerged in the thriving cities of Anatolia. Inland cities were experiencing economic growth, proof that modernization and economic development projects were finally paying off. In fact, the Turkish economy continues to grow, with a sustained annual increase in GDP, even during the global financial crisis of 2008, so many Turks feel relieved not to be part of the EU, and have avoided the economic situation that Greece suffers.
The AKP adopted a new direction in international politics, trying to reestablish relations with its close neighbors, a modestly successful policy until the Syrian civil war in 2012. In national politics, the AKP has tried to reduce military intervention in politics and has initiated procedures to fix entrenched problems such as minority rights, the Kurdish issue, bad relations with Armenia and recognition of the rights of the Alevíes, a Muslim minority in Anatolia. But for the moment there are no glimpses of long-term solutions. The AKP has also won criticism, both at home and abroad, especially for limiting press freedom, including social networks. Others argue that their Islamic political philosophy is restricting social freedoms such as drinking alcohol. The great projects of Prime Minister Erdoğan, such as digging a channel between the Black Sea and Marmara or building the largest mosque in the world in Çamlıca, Istanbul, also raise suspicions.
These controversies provoke extreme positions. The Turks are either totally in favor or absolutely against the AKP and its program, which creates a polarized society. Even so, there is no doubt that Turkey is in continuous movement.
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