By the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman state, as a result of the aggressive policy of the Turkish sultans and military-feudal nobility, turned into a vast feudal empire. It included Asia Minor, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina and vassal Moldavia, Wallachia and the Crimean Khanate.
The plunder of the wealth of the conquered countries, along with the exploitation of their own and conquered peoples, contributed to the further growth of the military power of the Turkish conquerors. Many seekers of profit and adventure flocked to the Turkish sultans, who carried out a policy of conquest in the interests of the military-feudal nobility, calling themselves “ghazi” (fighter for the faith). Feudal fragmentation, feudal and religious strife that took place in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula favored the implementation of the aspirations of the Turkish conquerors, who did not encounter united and organized resistance. Capturing one region after another, the Turkish conquerors used material resources conquered peoples to organize new campaigns. With the help of Balkan craftsmen, they created strong artillery, which significantly increased the military power of the Turkish army. As a result of all this, the Ottoman Empire by the 16th century. turned into a powerful military power, whose army soon inflicted a crushing defeat on the rulers of the Safavid state and the Mamluks of Egypt in the East and, having defeated the Czechs and Hungarians, approached the walls of Vienna in the West.
The 16th century in the history of the Ottoman Empire is characterized by continuous aggressive wars in the West and in the East, the intensification of the offensive of the Turkish feudal lords against the peasant masses and the fierce resistance of the peasantry, which repeatedly rose up in arms against feudal oppression.
Turkish conquests in the East
As in the previous period, the Turks, using their military advantage, pursued an offensive policy. At the beginning of the 16th century. The main objects of the aggressive policy of the Turkish feudal lords were Iran, Armenia, Kurdistan and Arab countries.
In the battle of 1514 at Chapdiran, the Turkish army led by Sultan Selim I, which had strong artillery, defeated the army of the Safavid state. Having captured Tabriz, Selim I took out huge military booty from there, including the personal treasury of Shah Ismail, and also sent a thousand of the best Iranian craftsmen to Istanbul for serving the court and Turkish nobility. Iranian craftsmen brought to Iznik at that time laid the foundation for the production of colored ceramics in Turkey, which was used in the construction of palaces and mosques in Istanbul, Bursa and other cities.
In 1514-1515, Turkish conquerors conquered Eastern Armenia, Kurdistan and Northern Mesopotamia up to and including Mosul.
During the campaigns of 1516-1517. Sultan Selim I sent his armies against Egypt, which was under the rule of the Mamluks, who also owned Syria and part of Arabia. The victory over the Mamluk army gave all of Syria and Hejaz, along with the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, into the hands of the Ottomans. In 1517, Ottoman troops conquered Egypt. Modest war booty in the form of precious utensils and the treasury of local rulers was sent to Istanbul.
As a result of the victory over the Mamluks, the Turkish conquerors acquired control over the most important trading centers in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Cities such as Diyarbakir, Aleppo (Aleppo), Mosul, Damascus were turned into strongholds of Turkish rule. Strong Janissary garrisons were soon stationed here and placed at the disposal of the Sultan's governors. They carried out military and police service, guarding the borders of the Sultan's new possessions. The named cities were also the centers of the Turkish civil administration, which mainly collected and recorded taxes from the population of the province and other revenues to the treasury. The collected funds were sent annually to Istanbul to the court.
Wars of conquest of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman Kanuni
The Ottoman Empire reached its greatest power by the middle of the 16th century. under Sultan Suleiman I (1520-1566), called the Lawgiver (Kanuni) by the Turks. For his numerous military victories and the luxury of his court, this sultan received the name Suleiman the Magnificent from the Europeans. In the interests of the nobility, Suleiman I sought to expand the territory of the empire not only in the East, but also in Europe. Having captured Belgrade in 1521, the Turkish conquerors undertook throughout 1526-1543. five campaigns against Hungary. After the victory at Mohács in 1526, the Turks suffered a serious defeat in 1529 near Vienna. But this did not free Southern Hungary from Turkish domination. Soon Central Hungary was captured by the Turks. In 1543, the part of Hungary conquered by the Turks was divided into 12 regions and transferred to the management of the Sultan's governor.
The conquest of Hungary, like other countries, was accompanied by the robbery of its cities and villages, which contributed to the even greater enrichment of the Turkish military-feudal elite.
Suleiman alternated campaigns against Hungary with military campaigns in other directions. In 1522, the Turks captured the island of Rhodes. In 1534, Turkish conquerors launched a devastating invasion of the Caucasus. Here they captured Shirvan and Western Georgia. Having also captured coastal Arabia, they reached the Persian Gulf through Baghdad and Basra. At the same time, the Mediterranean Turkish fleet drove the Venetians out of most of the islands of the Aegean archipelago, and on the northern coast of Africa Tripoli and Algeria were annexed to Turkey.
In the second half of the 16th century. The Ottoman feudal empire spread over three continents: from Budapest and Northern Taurus to the northern coast of Africa, from Baghdad and Tabriz to the borders of Morocco. The Black and Marmara Seas became the internal basins of the Ottoman Empire. Vast territories of South-Eastern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa.
The Turkish invasions were accompanied by the brutal destruction of cities and villages, the plunder of material and cultural values, and the abduction of hundreds of thousands of civilians into slavery. For the Balkan, Caucasian, Arab and other peoples who fell under the Turkish yoke, they were a historical catastrophe that delayed the process of their economic and cultural development for a long time. At the same time, the aggressive policy of the Turkish feudal lords had extremely negative consequences for the Turkish people themselves. Contributing to the enrichment of only the feudal nobility, it strengthened the economic and political power the last over her own people. The Turkish feudal lords and their state, depleting and ruining the country's productive forces, doomed the Turkish people to lag in economic and cultural development.
Agrarian system
In the 16th century In the Ottoman Empire, developed feudal relations were dominant. Feudal ownership of land came in several forms. Until the end of the 16th century most of The land of the Ottoman Empire was state property, and its supreme administrator was the Sultan. However, only part of these lands was under the direct control of the treasury. A significant part of the state land fund consisted of the possessions (domain) of the Sultan himself - the best lands in Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. The income from these lands went entirely to the personal disposal of the Sultan and for the maintenance of his court. Many regions of Anatolia (for example, Amasya, Kayseri, Tokat, Karaman, etc.) were also the property of the Sultan and his family - sons and other close relatives.
The Sultan distributed state lands to feudal lords for hereditary ownership on the terms of military fief tenure. Owners of small and large fiefs (“timars” - with an income of up to 3 thousand akche and “zeamets” - from 3 thousand to 100 thousand akche) were obliged, at the call of the Sultan, to appear to participate in campaigns at the head of the required number of equipped horsemen (in according to the income received). These lands served as the basis of the economic power of the feudal lords and the most important source of the military power of the state.
From the same fund of state lands, the Sultan distributed land to court and provincial dignitaries, the income from which (they were called khasses, and the income from them was determined in the amount of 100 thousand akche and above) went entirely to the maintenance of state dignitaries in return for salaries. Each dignitary enjoyed the income from the lands provided to him only as long as he retained his post.
In the 16th century the owners of Timars, Zeamets and Khass usually lived in cities and did not run their own households. They collected feudal duties from the peasants sitting on the land with the help of stewards and tax collectors, and often tax farmers.
Another form of feudal land ownership was the so-called waqf possessions. This category included huge land area, wholly owned by mosques and various other religious and charitable institutions. These land holdings represented the economic base of the strongest political influence of the Muslim clergy in the Ottoman Empire.
The category of private feudal property included the lands of feudal lords, who received special Sultan's letters for any merit for the unlimited right to dispose of the estates provided. This category of feudal land ownership (called "mulk") arose in the Ottoman state at an early stage of its formation. Despite the fact that the number of mulks was constantly increasing, their share was small until the end of the 16th century.
Peasant land use and the position of the peasantry
Lands of all categories of feudal property were in the hereditary use of the peasantry. Throughout the territory of the Ottoman Empire, peasants living on the lands of feudal lords were included in the scribe books called raya (raya, reaya) and were obliged to cultivate the plots allocated to them. The attachment of rayats to their plots was recorded in laws at the end of the 15th century. During the 16th century. There was a process of enslavement of the peasantry throughout the empire, and in the second half of the 16th century. Suleiman's law finally approved the attachment of peasants to the land. The law stated that the rayat was obliged to live on the land of the feudal lord in whose register it was entered. In the event that a raiyat voluntarily left the plot allotted to him and moved to the land of another feudal lord, the previous owner could find him within 15-20 years and force him to return back, also imposing a fine on him.
While cultivating the plots allotted to them, the peasant rayats bore numerous feudal duties in favor of the land owner. In the 16th century all three forms existed in the Ottoman Empire feudal rent- labor, food and money. The most common was rent in products. Raya Muslims were required to pay tithes on grain, garden and vegetable crops, taxes on all types of livestock, and also perform fodder duties. The landowner had the right to punish and fine those who were guilty. In some areas, peasants also had to work several days a year for the landowner in the vineyard, building a house, delivering firewood, straw, hay, bringing him all kinds of gifts, etc.
All the duties listed above were also required to be performed by non-Muslim rayas. But in addition, they paid a special poll tax to the treasury - jizya from the male population, and in some areas of the Balkan Peninsula they were also obliged to supply boys for the Janissary army every 3-5 years. The last duty (the so-called devshirme), which served the Turkish conquerors as one of the many means of forcible assimilation of the conquered population, was especially difficult and humiliating for those who were obliged to fulfill it.
In addition to all the duties that the rayats performed in favor of their landowners, they also had to perform a number of special military duties (called “avaris”) directly for the benefit of the treasury. Collected in the form of labor, various kinds of natural supplies, and often in cash, these so-called Divan taxes were the more numerous, the more more wars led by the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the settled agricultural peasantry in the Ottoman Empire bore the main burden of maintaining the ruling class and the entire huge state and military machine of the feudal empire.
A significant part of the population of Asia Minor continued to lead the life of nomads, united in tribal or clan unions. Submitting to the head of the tribe, who was a vassal of the Sultan, the nomads were considered military. In wartime, cavalry detachments were formed from them, which, led by their military leaders, were supposed to appear at the first call of the Sultan to a specified place. Among the nomads, every 25 men formed a “hearth”, which was supposed to send five “next” ones from their midst on a campaign, providing them at their own expense with horses, weapons and food during the entire campaign. For this, nomads were exempt from paying taxes to the treasury. But as the importance of the captive cavalry increased, the duties of the detachments made up of nomads increasingly began to be limited to performing auxiliary work: the construction of roads, bridges, baggage service, etc. The main places of settlement of the nomads were the southeastern and southern regions of Anatolia, as well as some areas of Macedonia and Southern Bulgaria.
In the laws of the 16th century. traces of the unlimited right of nomads to move with their herds in any direction remained: “Pasture lands have no boundaries. Since ancient times, it has been established that where cattle go, let them wander in that place. Since ancient times, it has been incompatible with the law to sell and cultivate established pastures. If someone forcibly cultivates them, they should be turned back into pastures. Village residents have no connection with pastures and therefore cannot prohibit anyone from roaming them.”
Pastures, like other lands of the empire, could be the property of the state, clergy, or private individual. They were owned by feudal lords, which included the leaders of nomadic tribes. In all these cases, the exercise of ownership of land or the right to possess it belonged to the person in whose favor the corresponding taxes and fees were collected from the nomads who passed through his lands. These taxes and fees represented feudal rent for the right to use land.
Nomads were not attributed to the owners of the land and did not have individual plots. They used the pasture land together, as communities. If the owner or proprietor of pasture lands was not at the same time the head of a tribe or clan, he could not interfere in the internal affairs of nomadic communities, since they were subordinate only to their tribal or clan leaders.
The nomadic community as a whole was economically dependent on the feudal land owners, but each individual member of the nomadic community was economically and legally dependent entirely on his community, which was connected mutual guarantee and where tribal leaders and military leaders ruled. Traditional family ties covered social differentiation within nomadic communities. Only the nomads who broke ties with the community, settling on the land, turned into rayats, already attached to their plots. However, the process of settling the nomads on the land occurred extremely slowly, since they, trying to preserve the community as a means of self-defense from oppression by landowners, stubbornly resisted all attempts to speed up this process by violent measures.
Administrative and military-political structure
Political system, administrative structure and military organization of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. were reflected in the legislation of Suleiman Kanuni. The Sultan controlled all the income of the empire and its armed forces. Through the great vizier and the head of the Muslim clergy - Sheikh-ul-Islam, who, together with other high secular and spiritual dignitaries, formed the Diwan (council of dignitaries), he ruled the country. The office of the Grand Vizier was called the Sublime Porte.
The entire territory of the Ottoman Empire was divided into provinces, or governorates (eyalets). At the head of the eyalets were governors appointed by the Sultan - beyler beys, who kept all the fief rulers of a given province with their feudal militia under their subordination. They were obliged to go to war personally, leading these troops. Each eyalet was divided into regions called sanjaks. At the head of the sanjak was the sanjak bey, who had the same rights as the beyler bey, but only within his region. He was subordinate to the Beyler Bey. The feudal militia, supplied by the fief holders, represented the main military force of the empire in the 16th century. Under Suleiman Kanuchi, the number of feudal militia reached 200 thousand people.
The main representative of the civil administration in the province was the qadi, who was in charge of all civil and court cases in the district under his jurisdiction, called “kaza”. The borders of the kazy usually, apparently, coincided with the border of the sanjak. Therefore, the kediyas and sanjak beys had to act in concert. However, the qadis were appointed by Sultan's decree and reported directly to Istanbul.
The Janissary army was on government pay and was staffed by Christian youths, who at the age of 7-12 were forcibly taken away from their parents, brought up in the spirit of Muslim fanaticism in Turkish families in Anatolia, and then in schools in Istanbul or Edirne (Adrianople). This is an army whose strength in the middle of the 16th century. reached 40 thousand people, was a serious striking force in the Turkish conquests especially important it had garrison guards in the most important cities and fortresses of the empire, primarily on the Balkan Peninsula and in the Arab countries, where there was always the danger of popular indignation against the Turkish yoke.
From the middle of the 15th and especially in the 16th century. Turkish sultans paid great attention to creating their own navy. Using Venetian and other foreign specialists, they created a significant galley and sailing fleet, which, with constant corsair raids, undermined normal trade in the Mediterranean Sea and was a serious opponent of the Venetian and Spanish naval forces.
Internal military-political organization state, which responded primarily to the tasks of maintaining a huge military machine, with the help of which conquests were carried out in the interests of the class of Turkish feudal lords, made the Ottoman Empire, in the words of K. Marx, “the only truly military power of the Middle Ages.”( K. Marx, Chronological extracts, II “Archive of Marx and Engels”, vol. VI, p. 189.)
City, crafts and trade
In the conquered countries, the Turkish conquerors inherited numerous cities, in which a developed craft had long been established and a lively trade was conducted. After the conquest big cities were turned into fortresses and centers of military and civil administration. Handicraft production, regulated and regulated by the state, was obliged primarily to serve the needs of the army, court and feudal lords. The most developed industries were those that produced fabrics, clothing, shoes, weapons, etc. for the Turkish army.
Urban artisans were united into guild corporations. No one had the right to work outside the workshop. The production of artisans was subject to the strictest regulation by the guilds. Craftsmen could not produce those products that were not provided for by the guild regulations. For example, in Bursa, where it was concentrated weaving production, according to the workshop regulations, for each type of fabric it was allowed to use only certain types of threads, it was indicated what the width and length of the pieces should be, the color and quality of the fabric. Craftsmen were strictly prescribed places to sell products and purchase raw materials. They were not allowed to buy threads and other materials in excess of the established norm. No one could enter the workshop without a special test and without a special guarantee. Prices for handicraft products were also regulated.
Trade, like crafts, was regulated by the state. The laws established the number of shops in each market, the quantity and quality of goods sold and their prices. This regulation, state taxes and local feudal levies prevented the development of free trade within the empire, thereby restraining the growth of the social division of labor. The predominantly subsistence nature of peasant farming, in turn, limited the possibilities for the development of crafts and trade. In some places there were local markets where exchanges were made between peasants and townspeople, between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders. These markets operated once a week or twice a month, and sometimes less often.
The result of the Turkish conquests was a serious disruption of trade in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and a significant reduction in trade relations between Europe and the countries of the East.
However, the Ottoman Empire was not able to completely break the traditional trade ties between the East and the West. Turkish rulers benefited from the trade of Armenian, Greek and other merchants, collecting customs duties and market duties from them, which became a profitable item for the Sultan's treasury.
Venice, Genoa and Dubrovnik were interested in Levantine trade back in the 15th century. obtained permission from the Turkish sultans to conduct trade in the territory subject to the Ottomans. Foreign ships visited Istanbul, Izmir, Sinop, Trabzon, and Thessaloniki. However, the internal regions of Asia Minor remained almost completely uninvolved in trade relations with the outside world.
Slave markets existed in Istanbul, Edirne, in Anatolian cities and in Egypt, where an extensive slave trade was carried out. During their campaigns, the Turkish conquerors took tens of thousands of adults and children from the enslaved countries as prisoners, turning them into slaves. Slaves were widely used in the domestic life of Turkish feudal lords. Many girls ended up in the harems of the Sultan and the Turkish nobility.
Popular uprisings in Asia Minor in the first half of the 16th century.
Wars of the Turkish conquerors from the beginning of the 16th century. entailed an increase in the already numerous exactions, in particular exactions in favor of the active armies, which in a continuous stream passed through the villages and cities of Asia Minor or were concentrated in them in preparation for new offensives against the Safavid state and Arab countries. The feudal rulers demanded more and more funds from the peasants to support their troops, and it was at this time that the treasury began to introduce emergency military taxes (avaris). All this led to an increase in popular discontent in Asia Minor. This discontent found expression not only in the anti-feudal protests of the Turkish peasantry and nomadic herders, but also in the liberation struggle of non-Turkish tribes and peoples, including residents of the eastern regions of Asia Minor - Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, etc.
In 1511-1512 Asia Minor was engulfed in a popular uprising led by Shah-kulu (or Shaitan-kulu). The uprising, despite the fact that it took place under religious Shiite slogans, was a serious attempt by the farmers and nomadic pastoralists of Asia Minor to provide armed resistance to the increase in feudal exploitation. Shah-kulu, proclaiming himself a “savior,” called for refusal to obey the Turkish Sultan. In battles with rebels in the Sivas and Kayseri regions, the Sultan's troops were repeatedly defeated.
Sultan Selim I led a fierce struggle against this uprising. Under the guise of Shiites, more than 40 thousand inhabitants were exterminated in Asia Minor. Everyone who could be suspected of disobedience to the Turkish feudal lords and the Sultan was declared Shiites.
In 1518, another major popular uprising broke out - under the leadership of the peasant Nur Ali. The center of the uprising was the areas of Karahisar and Niksar, from there it later spread to Amasya and Tokat. The rebels here also demanded the abolition of taxes and duties. After repeated battles with the Sultan's troops, the rebels scattered to the villages. But soon a new uprising, which arose in 1519 in the vicinity of Tokat, quickly spread throughout Central Anatolia. The number of rebels reached 20 thousand people. The leader of this uprising was one of the residents of Tokat, Jelal, after whom all such popular uprisings subsequently became known as “Jalali”.
Like previous uprisings, Celal's uprising was directed against the tyranny of the Turkish feudal lords, against countless duties and extortions, against the excesses of the Sultan's officials and tax collectors. Armed rebels captured Karahisar and headed towards Ankara.
To suppress this uprising, Sultan Selim I had to send Asia Minor significant military forces. The rebels in the battle of Aksehir were defeated and scattered. Jalal fell into the hands of punitive forces and was brutally executed.
However, the reprisal against the rebels did not pacify the peasant masses for long. During 1525-1526. The eastern regions of Asia Minor up to Sivas were again engulfed in a peasant uprising, led by Koca Soglu-oglu and Zunnun-oglu. In 1526, an uprising led by Kalender Shah, numbering up to 30 thousand participants - Turks and Kurdish nomads, engulfed the Malatya region. Farmers and cattle breeders demanded not only a reduction in duties and taxes, but also the return of land and pastures that had been appropriated by the Sultan's treasury and distributed to Turkish feudal lords.
The rebels repeatedly defeated punitive detachments and were defeated only after a large Sultan's army was sent from Istanbul against them.
Peasant uprisings of the early 16th century. in Asia Minor testified to a sharp aggravation of the class struggle in Turkish feudal society. In the middle of the 16th century. A Sultan's decree was issued on the deployment of Janissary garrisons in largest points all provinces of the empire. With these measures and punitive expeditions, the Sultan's power managed to restore calm in Asia Minor for some time.
External relations
In the second half of the 16th century. The international importance of the Ottoman Empire, as one of the strongest powers, increased greatly. Its range of external relations has expanded. The Turkish sultans pursued an active foreign policy, widely using not only military but also diplomatic means to fight their opponents, primarily the Habsburg Empire, which faced the Turks in South-Eastern Europe.
In 1535 (according to other sources in 1536), the Ottoman Empire entered into an alliance treaty with France, which was interested in weakening the Habsburg Empire with the help of the Turks; At the same time, Sultan Suleiman I signed the so-called capitulations (chapters, articles) - a trade agreement with France, on the basis of which French merchants received, as a special favor of the Sultan, the right to freely trade in all his possessions. The alliance and trade agreements with France strengthened the position of the Ottoman Empire in the fight against the Habsburgs, so the Sultan did not skimp on benefits for the French. French merchants and French subjects in general in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed especially privileged conditions on the basis of capitulations.
France controlled almost all of the Ottoman Empire's trade with European countries until the beginning of the 17th century, when Holland and England managed to achieve similar rights for their subjects. Until then, English and Dutch merchants had to trade in Turkish possessions on ships flying the French flag.
Official relations between the Ottoman Empire and Russia began at the end of the 15th century, after the conquest of Crimea by Mehmed P. Having conquered Crimea, the Turks began to obstruct the trade of Russian merchants in Kafe (Feodosia) and Azov.
In 1497, Grand Duke Ivan III sent the first Russian ambassador, Mikhail Pleshcheev, to Istanbul with a complaint about the said harassment of Russian trade. Pleshcheev was given an order to “give a list of the oppressions inflicted on our guests in Turkish lands.” The Moscow government repeatedly protested against the devastating raids of the Crimean Tatars on Russian possessions. The Turkish sultans, through the Crimean Tatars, attempted to extend their rule north of the Black Sea coast. However, the struggle of the peoples of the Russian state against Turkish aggression and the defensive measures of the Russian authorities on the Don and Dnieper did not allow the Turkish conquerors and Crimean khans to carry out their aggressive plans.
Culture
The Muslim religion, which sanctified the domination of the Turkish feudal lords, left its mark on the science, literature and art of the Turks. Schools (madrassas) existed only at large mosques and served the purpose of educating clergy, theologians, and judges. The students of these schools sometimes produced scientists and poets with whom the Turkish sultans and dignitaries liked to surround themselves.
The end of the 15th and 16th centuries are considered the heyday, the “golden age” of Turkish classical poetry, which was strongly influenced by Persian poetry. From the latter the following were borrowed poetic genres, as a qasida (ode of praise), gazelle (lyrical verse), as well as subjects and images: traditional nightingale, rose, singing of wine, love, spring, etc. Famous poets of this time - Ham-di Chelebi (1448-1509) , Ahmed Pasha (died 1497), Nejati (1460-1509), poetess Mihri Khatun (died 1514), Mesihi (died 1512), Revani (died 1524), Ishak Celebi (died 1537) - wrote mainly lyric poems. The last poets of the “golden age” - Lyami (died 1531) and Baki (1526-1599) repeated the plots of classical poetry.
The 17th century in Turkish literature is called the “century of satire.” The poet Veysi (died 1628) wrote about the decline of morals (“Exhortation to Istanbul”, “Dream”), the poet Nefi (died 1635) for his cycle of satirical poems “Arrows of Fate”, in which evil was exposed not only know, but also the Sultan, paid with his life.
In the field of science, Katib Chelebi (Haji Khalife, 1609-1657) gained the greatest fame during this period with his works on history, geography, bio-bibliography, philosophy, etc. Thus, his works “Description of the World” (“Jihan-nyuma”), “Chronicle of Events” (“Fezleke”), a bio-bibliographic dictionary of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Central Asian and other authors, containing information about 9512 authors, have not lost their value to this day. Valuable historical chronicles of events in the Ottoman Empire were compiled by Khoja Sadddin (died 1599), Mustafa Selyaniki (died 1599), Mustafa Aali (died 1599), Ibrahim Pechevi (died 1650) and other authors XVI and first half of the XVII centuries.
Political treatises by Aini Ali, Katib Chelebi, Kochibey and other authors of the 17th century. are the most valuable sources for studying the military-political and economic state of the empire at the end of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. Famous traveler Evliya Celebi left a remarkable ten-volume description of his travels throughout the Ottoman Empire, southern Russia and Western Europe.
The art of construction was largely subject to the whims of the Turkish sultans and nobility. Every sultan and many major dignitaries considered it obligatory to mark the period of their reign by building a mosque, palace or some other structure. Many of the monuments of this kind that have survived to this day amaze with their splendor. Talented architect of the 16th century. Sinan built many different structures, including more than 80 mosques, of which the most architecturally significant are the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul (1557) and the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (1574).
Turkish architecture arose on the basis of local traditions in the conquered countries of the Balkan Peninsula and Western Asia. These traditions were diverse, and the creators of the architectural style of the Ottoman Empire primarily sought to unite them into something whole. The most important element of this synthesis was the Byzantine architectural scheme, especially manifested in the Constantinople Church of St. Sofia.
The prohibition by Islam to depict living beings resulted in the fact that Turkish fine art developed mainly as one of the branches of construction craftsmanship: wall painting in the form of floral and geometric patterns, wood, metal and stone carvings, relief work on plaster, marble, mosaic work made of stone, glass, etc. In this area, both forcibly resettled and Turkish craftsmen achieved a high degree of perfection. The art of Turkish craftsmen in the field of decorating weapons with inlay, carving, notching in gold, silver, ivory, etc. is also known. However, the religious prohibition of depicting living beings was often violated; for example, in many cases miniatures were used to decorate manuscripts, depicting both people and animals.
The art of calligraphy has reached high perfection in Turkey. Inscriptions from the Koran were also widely used to decorate the walls of palaces and mosques.
Beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire
By the end of the 16th century, at a time when strong centralized states began to emerge in Europe, in the vast and multi-tribal Ottoman Empire, internal economic and political ties not only did not strengthen, but, on the contrary, began to weaken. The anti-feudal movements of the peasantry and the struggle of non-Turkish peoples for their liberation reflected irreconcilable internal contradictions that the Sultan’s government was unable to overcome. The consolidation of the empire was also hampered by the fact that the central region of the empire was backward in economically Anatolia did not and could not become a center of economic and political gravity for the conquered peoples.
As commodity-money relations developed, the interest of feudal lords in increasing the profitability of their military fief possessions increased. They began to arbitrarily turn these conditional possessions into their own property. Military fiefs began to evade the obligation to maintain detachments for the Sultan and to participate in military campaigns, and began to appropriate income from fief possessions. At the same time, a struggle began between individual feudal groups for the possession of land, for its concentration. As a contemporary wrote, “among them there are people who have 20-30 and even 40-50 zeamet and timar, the fruits of which they devour.” This led to the fact that state ownership of land began to weaken and gradually lose its significance, and the military-feudal system began to disintegrate. Feudal separatism intensified. At the end of the 16th century, undoubted signs of a weakening of the Sultan's power appeared.
The extravagance of the sultans and their courtiers required enormous funds. A significant share of state revenues was absorbed by the continuously growing bureaucratic military-administrative and financial apparatus of the state in the center and in the provinces. A very large part of the funds was spent on maintaining the army of the Janissaries, whose numbers increased as the feudal militia supplied by the fiefs decayed and declined. The number of Janissary troops also increased because the Sultan needed military force to suppress the growing struggle of the Turkish and non-Turkish masses against feudal and national oppression. The Janissary army at the beginning of the 17th century exceeded 90 thousand people.
The state authorities, trying to increase treasury revenues, began to increase old taxes and introduce new ones from year to year. The jizya tax, at the beginning of the 16th century equal to 20-25 akche per person, by the beginning of the 17th century reached 140 akche, and tax collectors who extremely abused their powers sometimes brought it up to 400-500 akche. Feudal taxes levied by landowners also increased.
At the same time, the Treasury began to give the right to collect taxes from state lands to tax farmers. Thus, a new category of land owners appeared and began to strengthen - tax farmers, who actually turned into feudal owners of entire regions.
Court and provincial dignitaries often acted as tax farmers. A large amount of state land, through taxation, fell into the hands of the Janissaries and Sipahii.
During the same period, the aggressive policy of the Ottoman Empire encountered increasingly serious obstacles.
Strong and ever-increasing resistance to this policy was provided by Russia, Austria, Poland and, in the Mediterranean, Spain.
Under Suleiman Kanuni's successor, Selim II (1566-1574), a campaign was launched against Astrakhan (1569). But this event, which required significant costs, was not successful: the Turkish army was defeated and was forced to retreat.
In 1571, the combined fleet of Spain and Venice inflicted a crushing defeat on the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto. The failure of the Astrakhan campaign and the defeat at Lepanto testified to the beginning of the military weakening of the empire.
Nevertheless, the Turkish sultans continued to wage wars that were exhausting for the masses. Started in 1578 and bringing enormous disasters to the peoples of Transcaucasia, the war of the Turkish Sultan with the Safavids ended in 1590 with the signing of a treaty in Istanbul, according to which Tabriz, Shirvan, part of Luristan, Western Georgia and some other regions of the Caucasus were assigned to Turkey. However, she was able to keep these areas (except for Georgian ones) under her rule only for 20 years.
Peasant uprisings at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries.
The state treasury sought to compensate for its military expenses through additional levies from the tax-paying population. There were so many all kinds of emergency taxes and “surcharges” to existing taxes that, as the chronicler wrote, “in the provinces of the state, emergency taxes brought the subjects to the point that they were disgusted with this world and everything that is in it.” The peasants went bankrupt in droves and, despite the punishments that threatened them, fled from their lands. Crowds of hungry and ragged people moved from one province to another in search of tolerable living conditions. Peasants were punished and forced to pay increased taxes for leaving the land without permission. However, these measures did not help.
The arbitrariness of officials, tax farmers, all kinds of duties and labor associated with the need to serve the Sultan's army during camps, caused outbreaks of discontent among the peasants during the last quarter of the 16th century.
In 1591, there was an uprising in Diyarbakir in response to the brutal measures taken by the Beyler Bey when collecting arrears from the peasants. Clashes between the population and the army occurred in 1592-1593. in the Erzl Rum and Baghdad areas. In 1596, uprisings broke out in Kerman and neighboring areas of Asia Minor. In 1599, discontent, becoming general, resulted in peasant revolt, which covered the central and eastern regions of Anatolia.
This time the indignation of the rebels was directed against feudal exactions, taxes, bribery and the arbitrariness of the Sultan's officials and tax farmers. The peasant movement was used by small peasants, who in turn opposed the usurpation of their rights to land by people from the court-bureaucratic aristocracy, large landowners and tax farmers. The small Anatolian feudal lord Kara Yazıcı, having gathered an army of 20-30 thousand people from rebel farmers, nomadic cattle breeders and small farmers, took possession of the city of Kayseri in 1600, declared himself the sultan of the captured regions and refused to obey the Istanbul court. The struggle of the Sultan's armies against popular anti-feudal uprisings continued for five years (1599-1603). In the end, the Sultan managed to come to an agreement with the rebellious feudal lords and brutally suppress the peasant uprising.
However, even in next years During the entire first half of the 17th century, anti-feudal protests by the peasantry in Asia Minor did not stop. The Jalali movement was especially powerful in 1608. This uprising also reflected the struggle of the enslaved peoples of Syria and Lebanon for liberation from the yoke of Turkish feudal lords. The leader of the uprising, Janpulad-oglu, proclaimed the independence of the regions he had captured and made efforts to attract some Mediterranean states to fight against the Sultan. He concluded, in particular, an agreement with the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Using the most brutal terror, the Sultan’s punishers mercilessly dealt with participants in the “Jalali” movement. According to chroniclers, they destroyed up to 100 thousand people.
Even more powerful were the uprisings of the non-Turkish peoples of the empire in Europe, especially in the Balkans, directed against Turkish rule.
The fight against anti-feudal and people's liberation movements required enormous funds and resources from the Turkish rulers. DC voltage forces, which further undermined the regime of the Sultan's despotism.
The struggle of feudal groups for power. Role of the Janissaries
The Ottoman Empire was also shaken by numerous feudal-separatist uprisings throughout the first half of the 17th century. the uprisings of Bekir Chavush in Baghdad, Abaza Pasha in Erzurum, Vardar Ali Pasha in Rumelia, the Crimean khans and many other powerful feudal lords followed one after another.
The Janissary army also became an unreliable support for the Sultan's power. This large army required huge funds, which were often not enough in the treasury. The intensified struggle for power between individual groups of the feudal aristocracy made the Janissaries a force actively participating in all court intrigues. As a result, the Janissary army turned into a hotbed of court unrest and rebellion. So, in 1622, with his participation, Sultan Osman II was overthrown and killed, and a year later his successor, Mustafa I, was overthrown.
Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 17th century. there was still strong power. Vast territories in Europe, Asia and Africa remained under the rule of the Turks. The long war with the Austrian Habsburgs ended in 1606 with the Treaty of Sitvatorok, which fixed the former borders of the Ottoman state with the Habsburg Empire. The war with Poland ended with the capture of Khotyn (1620). As a result of the war with Venice (1645-1669), the Turks took possession of the island of Crete. New wars with the Safavids, which lasted from short breaks almost 30 years, ended in 1639 with the signing of the Kasri-Shirin Treaty, according to which the lands of Azerbaijan, as well as Yerevan, went to Iran, but the Turks retained Basra and Baghdad. Nevertheless military power The Turks had already been undermined. It was during this period - in the first half of the 17th century. - those trends developed that later led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks are a relatively young people. Its age is only a little over 600 years. The first Turks were a bunch of Turkmens, fugitives from Central Asia who fled to the west from the Mongols. They reached the Konya Sultanate and asked for land to settle. They were given a place on the border with Nicene Empire near Bursa. There the fugitives began to settle in mid-XIII century.
The main one among the fugitive Turkmens was Ertogrul Bey. He called the territory allocated to him the Ottoman beylik. And taking into account the fact that the Konya Sultan lost all power, he became an independent ruler. Ertogrul died in 1281 and power passed to his son Osman I Ghazi. He is considered the founder of the dynasty Ottoman sultans and the first ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 to 1922 and played a significant role in world history.
Ottoman Sultan with his soldiers
An important factor contributing to the formation of a powerful Turkish state was the fact that the Mongols, having reached Antioch, did not go further, since they considered Byzantium their ally. Therefore, they did not touch the lands on which the Ottoman beylik was located, believing that it would soon become part of the Byzantine Empire.
And Osman Ghazi, like the crusaders, declared holy war, but only for the Muslim faith. He began to invite everyone who wanted to take part in it. And from all over the Muslim east, seekers of fortune began to flock to Osman. They were ready to fight for the faith of Islam until their sabers became dull and until they received enough wealth and wives. And in the east this was considered a very great achievement.
Thus, the Ottoman army began to be replenished with Circassians, Kurds, Arabs, Seljuks, and Turkmens. That is, anyone could come, recite the formula of Islam and become a Turk. And on the occupied lands, such people began to be allocated small plots of land for farming. This area was called “timar”. It was a house with a garden.
The owner of the timar became a horseman (spagi). His duty was to appear at the first call to the Sultan in full armor and on his own horse to serve in the cavalry army. It was noteworthy that the spahi did not pay taxes in the form of money, since they paid the tax with their blood.
With such internal organization, the territory of the Ottoman state began to expand rapidly. In 1324, Osman's son Orhan I captured the city of Bursa and made it his capital. Bursa was just a stone's throw from Constantinople, and the Byzantines lost control of the northern and western regions of Anatolia. And in 1352, the Ottoman Turks crossed the Dardanelles and ended up in Europe. After this, the gradual and steady capture of Thrace began.
In Europe it was impossible to get along with cavalry alone, so there was an urgent need for infantry. And then the Turks created a completely new army, consisting of infantry, which they called Janissaries(yang - new, charik - army: it turns out to be Janissaries).
The conquerors forcibly took boys between the ages of 7 and 14 from Christian peoples and converted them to Islam. These children were well fed, taught the laws of Allah, military affairs, and made infantrymen (janissaries). These warriors turned out to be the best infantrymen in all of Europe. Neither the knightly cavalry nor the Persian Qizilbash could break through the Janissaries' line.
Janissaries - infantry of the Ottoman army
And the secret of the invincibility of the Turkish infantry lay in the spirit of military camaraderie. From the first days, the Janissaries lived together, ate delicious porridge from the same cauldron, and, despite the fact that they belonged to different nations, they were people of the same destiny. When they became adults, they got married and started families, but continued to live in the barracks. Only during vacations did they visit their wives and children. That is why they did not know defeat and represented the faithful and reliable force of the Sultan.
However, having reached the Mediterranean Sea, the Ottoman Empire could not limit itself to just the Janissaries. Since there is water, ships are needed, and the need arose for a navy. The Turks began to recruit pirates, adventurers and vagabonds from all over the Mediterranean Sea for the fleet. Italians, Greeks, Berbers, Danes, and Norwegians went to serve them. This public had no faith, no honor, no law, no conscience. Therefore, they willingly converted to the Muslim faith, since they had no faith at all, and they did not care at all whether they were Christians or Muslims.
From this motley crowd they formed a fleet that was more reminiscent of a pirate fleet than a military one. He began to rage in the Mediterranean Sea, so much so that he terrified the Spanish, French and Italian ships. Sailing in the Mediterranean Sea itself began to be considered a dangerous business. Turkish corsair squadrons were based in Tunisia, Algeria and other Muslim lands that had access to the sea.
Ottoman navy
Thus, such a people as the Turks were formed from completely different peoples and tribes. A link became Islam and a common military destiny. During successful campaigns, Turkish warriors captured captives, made them their wives and concubines, and children from women of different nationalities became full-fledged Turks born on the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
The small principality, which appeared on the territory of Asia Minor in the middle of the 13th century, very quickly turned into a powerful Mediterranean power, called the Ottoman Empire after the first ruler Osman I Ghazi. The Ottoman Turks also called their state the Sublime Porte, and called themselves not Turks, but Muslims. As for the real Turks, they were considered the Turkmen population living in the interior regions of Asia Minor. The Ottomans conquered these people in the 15th century after the capture of Constantinople on May 29, 1453.
European states could not resist the Ottoman Turks. Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople and made it his capital - Istanbul. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire significantly expanded its territories, and with the capture of Egypt, the Turkish fleet began to dominate the Red Sea. By the second half of the 16th century, the population of the state reached 15 million people, and the Turkish Empire itself began to be compared with the Roman Empire.
But by the end of the 17th century, the Ottoman Turks suffered a number of major defeats in Europe. The Russian Empire played an important role in weakening the Turks. She always beat the warlike descendants of Osman I. She took the Crimea and the Black Sea coast from them, and all these victories became a harbinger of the decline of the state, which in the 16th century shone in the rays of its power.
But the Ottoman Empire was weakened not only by endless wars, but also by disgraceful agricultural practices. Officials squeezed all the juice out of the peasants, and therefore they farmed in a predatory way. This led to the emergence of a large amount of waste land. And this is in the “fertile crescent”, which in ancient times fed almost the entire Mediterranean.
Ottoman Empire on the map, XIV-XVII centuries
It all ended in disaster in the 19th century, when the state treasury was empty. The Turks began to borrow loans from French capitalists. But it soon became clear that they could not pay their debts, since after the victories of Rumyantsev, Suvorov, Kutuzov, and Dibich, the Turkish economy was completely undermined. The French then brought a navy into the Aegean Sea and demanded customs in all ports, mining concessions and the right to collect taxes until the debt was repaid.
After this, the Ottoman Empire was called the “sick man of Europe.” It began to quickly lose its conquered lands and turn into a semi-colony of European powers. The last autocratic sultan of the empire, Abdul Hamid II, tried to save the situation. However, under him the political crisis worsened even more. In 1908, the Sultan was overthrown and imprisoned by the Young Turks ( political current pro-Western republican).
On April 27, 1909, the Young Turks enthroned the constitutional monarch Mehmed V, who was the brother of the deposed Sultan. After this, the Young Turks entered the First World War on the side of Germany and were defeated and destroyed. There was nothing good about their rule. They promised freedom, but ended with a terrible massacre of Armenians, declaring that they were against the new regime. But they were really against it, since nothing had changed in the country. Everything remained the same as before for 500 years under the rule of the sultans.
After defeat in the First World War, the Turkish Empire began to die. Anglo-French troops occupied Constantinople, the Greeks captured Smyrna and moved deeper into the country. Mehmed V died on July 3, 1918 from a heart attack. And on October 30 of the same year, the Mudros Truce, shameful for Turkey, was signed. The Young Turks fled abroad, leaving the last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI, in power. He became a puppet in the hands of the Entente.
But then the unexpected happened. In 1919, a national liberation movement arose in the distant mountainous provinces. It was headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He led the common people with him. He very quickly expelled the Anglo-French and Greek invaders from his lands and restored Turkey within the borders that exist today. On November 1, 1922, the sultanate was abolished. Thus, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. On November 17, the last Turkish Sultan, Mehmed VI, left the country and went to Malta. He died in 1926 in Italy.
And in the country on October 29, 1923, the Great national assembly Turkey announced the creation of the Turkish Republic. It exists to this day, and its capital is the city of Ankara. As for the Turks themselves, they have been living quite happily in recent decades. They sing in the morning, dance in the evening, and pray during breaks. May Allah protect them!
Introduction
By the beginning of the 16th century. The military-feudal Ottoman Empire brought almost the entire Balkan Peninsula under its rule. Only on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea did the Dubrovnik Republic retain its independence, formally recognizing, however, after the Battle of Mohács (1526) the supreme power of Turkey. The Venetians also managed to retain their possessions in the eastern part of the Adriatic - the Ionian Islands and the island of Crete, as well as a narrow strip of land with the cities of Zadar, Split, Kotor, Trogir, Sibenik.
The Turkish conquest played a negative role in the historical fate of the Balkan peoples, delaying their socio-economic development. To the class antagonism of feudal society was added religious antagonism between Muslims and Christians, which essentially expressed the relationship between conquerors and conquered peoples. The Turkish government and feudal lords oppressed the Christian peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and committed arbitrariness.
Persons of the Christian faith did not have the right to serve in government institutions, carry weapons, and for showing disrespect for the Muslim religion they were forcibly converted to Islam or severely punished. To strengthen its power, the Turkish government resettled tribes of nomadic Turks from Asia Minor to the Balkans. They settled in fertile valleys, strategically important areas, displacing local residents. Sometimes the Christian population was evicted by the Turks from cities, especially large ones. Another means of strengthening Turkish dominance was the Islamization of the conquered population. Many “post-Turkish” came from among the people captured and sold into slavery, for whom conversion to Islam was the only way to regain freedom (according to Turkish law, Muslims could not be slaves)². Needing military forces, the Turkish government formed a Janissary corps from Christians who converted to Islam, which was the Sultan's guard. At first, the Janissaries were recruited from among captured youths. Later, systematic recruitment of the healthiest and most beautiful Christian boys began, who were converted to Islam and sent to study in Asia Minor. In an effort to preserve their property and privileges, many Balkan feudal lords, mainly small and medium-sized ones, as well as urban artisans and merchants, converted to Islam. A significant part of the “post-Turkish people” gradually lost contact with their people and adopted the Turkish language and culture. All this led to the numerical growth of the Turkish people and strengthened the power of the Turks in the conquered lands. Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians who converted to Islam sometimes occupied high positions and became major military leaders. Among the rural population, Islamization became widespread only in Bosnia, some regions of Macedonia and Albania, but the change in religion for the most part did not lead to separation from their nationality, to the loss of their native language, native customs and culture. The majority of the working population of the Balkan Peninsula, and above all the peasantry, even in those cases when they were forced to convert to Islam, were not assimilated by the Turks.
The entire structure of the feudal Turkish state was subordinated to the interests of waging wars of conquest. The Ottoman Empire was the only true military power of the Middle Ages. The military success of the Turks, who created a strong army, was facilitated by a favorable international situation for them - the collapse of the Mongol state, the decline of Byzantium, and contradictions between the states of medieval Europe. But the huge empire created by the Turks had no national basis. The dominant people, the Turks, constituted a minority of its population. At the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries, a protracted crisis of the feudal Ottoman Empire began, which determined its decline and subsequently facilitated the penetration of European colonialists into Turkey and other countries under its domination.
How many years does it usually take to collapse an empire?
And how many wars does this require? In the case of the Ottoman Empire, it took 400 years and at least two dozen wars, including the First World War that began in Sarajevo.
I can’t even believe how many of the most pressing problems of today’s Europe have their roots in that national-political-religious node that remained in the place where the Ottoman Empire once stretched.
Section I: Ethnosocial and religious policy Ports in the Balkan countries
1.1 The situation of the Orthodox Church (using the example of Bulgaria)
1.1.1 Bulgaria within the Patriarchate of Constantinople
The first metropolitan of the Tarnovo diocese within the Patriarchate of Constantinople was Ignatius, the former metropolitan of Nicomedia: his signature is the 7th in the list of representatives of the Greek clergy at the Florence Council of 1439. In one of the lists of dioceses of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the mid-15th century, the Tarnovo Metropolitan occupies a high 11th place (after Thessaloniki); Three episcopal sees are subordinate to him: Cherven, Lovech and Preslav. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Tarnovo diocese covered most of the lands of Northern Bulgaria and extended south to the Maritsa River, including the areas of Kazanlak, Stara and Nova Zagora. The bishops of Preslav (until 1832, when Preslav became a metropolitan), Cherven (until 1856, when Cherven was also elevated to the rank of metropolitan), Lovchansky and Vrachansky were subordinate to the Tarnovo metropolitan.
The Patriarch of Constantinople, considered the supreme representative before the Sultan of all Orthodox Christians (millet-bashi), had broad rights in spiritual, civil and legal economic spheres, but remained under the constant control of the Ottoman government and was personally responsible for the loyalty of his flock to the authority of the Sultan.
Church subordination to Constantinople was accompanied by increased Greek influence in the Bulgarian lands. Greek bishops were appointed to the departments, who in turn supplied Greek clergy to monasteries and parish churches, which resulted in the practice of conducting services in Greek, which was incomprehensible to most of the flock. Church positions were often filled with the help of large bribes; local church taxes (more than 20 of their types are known) were levied arbitrarily, often using violent methods. In case of refusal of payments, the Greek hierarchs closed the churches, anathematized the disobedient, and presented them to the Ottoman authorities as unreliable and subject to relocation to another area or taking into custody. Despite the numerical superiority of the Greek clergy, in a number of dioceses the local population managed to retain a Bulgarian abbot. Many monasteries (Etropolsky, Rilsky, Dragalevsky, Kurilovsky, Kremikovsky, Cherepishsky, Glozhensky, Kuklensky, Elenishsky and others) preserved the Church Slavonic language in worship.
In the first centuries of Ottoman rule, there was no ethnic hostility between the Bulgarians and Greeks; there are many examples of joint struggle against conquerors who equally oppressed Orthodox peoples. Thus, Metropolitan of Tarnovo Dionysius (Rali) became one of the leaders of the preparation of the first Tarnovo uprising of 1598 and attracted the bishops Jeremiah of Rusensky, Feofan Lovchansky, Spiridon of Shumen (Preslavsky) and Methodius of Vrachansky subordinate to him. 12 Tarnovo priests and 18 influential laymen, together with the Metropolitan, vowed to remain faithful to the cause of the liberation of Bulgaria until their death. In the spring or summer of 1596, a secret organization was created, which included dozens of both clergy and secular persons. Greek influence in the Bulgarian lands was largely due to the influence of Greek-speaking culture and the influence of the growing process of “Hellenic revival”.
1.1.2 New martyrs and ascetics of the period of the Ottoman yoke
During the period of Turkish rule Orthodox faith was the only support for the Bulgarians that allowed them to preserve national identity. Attempts at forced conversion to Islam contributed to the fact that remaining faithful to the Christian faith was also perceived as protecting one’s national identity. The feat of the new martyrs was directly correlated with the exploits of the martyrs of the first centuries of Christianity.
Their lives were created, services were compiled for them, the celebration of their memory was organized, the veneration of their relics was organized, churches consecrated in their honor were built. The exploits of dozens of saints who suffered during the period of Turkish rule are known. As a result of outbreaks of fanatical bitterness of Muslims against the Christian Bulgarians, George the New of Sophia, burned alive in 1515, George the Old and George the New, hanged in 1534, suffered martyrdom; Nicholas the New and Hieromartyr. Bishop Vissarion of Smolyansky was stoned to death by a crowd of Turks - one in Sofia in 1555, others in Smolyan in 1670. In 1737, the organizer of the uprising, Hieromartyr Metropolitan Simeon Samokovsky, was hanged in Sofia. In 1750, Angel Lerinsky (Bitolsky) was beheaded with a sword for refusing to convert to Islam in Bitola. In 1771, the Hieromartyr Damascene was hanged by a crowd of Turks in Svishtov.
Martyr John in 1784 confessed the Christian faith in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, converted into a mosque, for which he was beheaded; martyr Zlata Moglenskaya, who did not succumb to the persuasion of her Turkish kidnapper to accept his faith, was tortured and hanged in 1795 in the village of Slatino Moglenskaya areas. After torture, the martyr Lazarus was hanged in 1802 in the vicinity of the village of Soma near Pergamon. They confessed the Lord in the Muslim court. Ignatius of Starozagorsky in 1814 in Constantinople, who died by hanging, and so on. Onufriy Gabrovsky in 1818 on the island of Chios, beheaded by a sword. In 1822, in the city of Osman-Pazar (modern Omurtag), the martyr John was hanged, publicly repenting of having converted to Islam; in 1841, in Sliven, the head of the martyr Demetrius of Sliven was beheaded; in 1830, in Plovdiv, the martyr Rada of Plovdiv suffered for her faith. Celebration of the memory of all the saints and martyrs of the Bulgarian land, who pleased the Lord with a firm confession of the faith of Christ and accepted martyr's crown for the glory of the Lord, the BOC performs on the 2nd week after Pentecost.
1.1.3 Patriotic and educational activities of Bulgarian monasteries
During the Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the 2nd half of the 14th - early 15th centuries, most of the parish churches and once thriving Bulgarian monasteries were burned or looted, many frescoes, icons, manuscripts, and church utensils were lost. For decades, teaching in monastery and church schools and the copying of books ceased, and many traditions of Bulgarian art were lost. The Tarnovo monasteries were especially damaged. Some representatives of the educated clergy (mainly from among the monastics) died, others were forced to leave the Bulgarian lands. Only a few monasteries survived due to either the intercession of relatives of the highest dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire, or the special merits of the local population to the Sultan, or their location in inaccessible mountainous regions. According to some researchers, the Turks destroyed mainly monasteries located in areas that most strongly resisted the conquerors, as well as monasteries that were on the routes of military campaigns. From the 70s of the 14th century until the end of the 15th century, the system of Bulgarian monasteries did not exist as an integral organism; Many monasteries can be judged only from the surviving ruins and toponymic data.
The population - secular and clergy - on their own initiative and at their own expense, restored monasteries and churches. Among the surviving and restored monasteries are Rilsky, Boboshevsky, Dragalevsky, Kurilovsky, Karlukovsky, Etropolsky, Bilinsky, Rozhensky, Kapinovsky, Preobrazhensky, Lyaskovsky, Plakovsky, Dryanovsky, Kilifarevo, Prisovsky, Patriarchal Holy Trinity near Tarnovo and others, although their existence was constantly under threat due to frequent attacks, robberies and fires. In many of them, life stood still for long periods.
During the suppression of the first Tarnovo uprising in 1598, most of the rebels took refuge in the Kilifarevo Monastery, restored in 1442; For this, the Turks again destroyed the monastery. The surrounding monasteries - Lyaskovsky, Prisovsky and Plakovsky - were also damaged. In 1686, during the second Tarnovo uprising, many monasteries were also damaged. In 1700, the Lyaskovsky Monastery became the center of the so-called revolt of Mary. During the suppression of the uprising, this monastery and the neighboring Transfiguration Monastery suffered.
The traditions of medieval Bulgarian culture were preserved by the followers of Patriarch Euthymius, who emigrated to Serbia, Mount Athos, and also to Eastern Europe: Metropolitan Cyprian († 1406), Gregory Tsamblak († 1420), Deacon Andrei († after 1425), Konstantin Kostenetsky († after 1433 ) and others.
There is a revival in Bulgaria itself cultural activities occurred in the 50s–80s of the 15th century. A cultural upsurge swept the western former territories of the country, with the Rila Monastery becoming the center. It was restored in the middle of the 15th century through the efforts of the monks Joasaph, David and Theophan with the patronage and generous financial support of the widow of Sultan Murad II Mara Brankovich (daughter of the Serbian despot George). With the transfer of the relics of St. John of Rila there in 1469, the monastery became one of the spiritual centers not only of Bulgaria, but also of the Slavic Balkans as a whole; Thousands of pilgrims began to arrive here. In 1466, an agreement on mutual assistance was concluded between the Rila monastery and the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos. Gradually, the activities of scribes, icon painters and traveling preachers resumed in the Rila Monastery.
The scribes Demetrius Kratovsky, Vladislav Grammatik, monks Mardari, David, Pachomius and others worked in the monasteries of Western Bulgaria and Macedonia. The Collection of 1469, written by Vladislav the Grammar, included a number of works related to the history of the Bulgarian people: “Long Life of St. Cyril the Philosopher”, “Eulogy to Saints Cyril and Methodius” and others; the basis of the “Rila Panegyric” of 1479 is made up of the best works of the Balkan hesychast writers of the 2nd half XI-beginning XV century: (“Life of St. John of Rila”, epistles and other writings of Euthymius of Tarnovsky, “Life of Stefan Dečansky” by Gregory Tsamblak, “Eulogy of St. Philotheos” by Joseph of Bdinsky, “Life of Gregory of Sinaite” and “Life of St. Theodosius of Tarnovsky” Patriarch Callistus), as well as new works (“The Rila Tale” by Vladislav Grammarian and “The Life of St. John of Rila with Little Praise” by Dimitri Kantakouzin).
At the end of the 15th century, monks-scribes and compilers of collections Spiridon and Peter Zograf worked in the Rila Monastery; For the Suceava (1529) and Krupniši (1577) Gospels stored here, unique gold bindings were made in the monastery workshops.
Book-writing activity was also carried out in monasteries located in the vicinity of Sofia - Dragalevsky, Kremikovsky, Seslavsky, Lozensky, Kokalyansky, Kurilovsky and others. The Dragalevsky monastery was restored in 1476; The initiator of its renovation and decoration was the wealthy Bulgarian Radoslav Mavr, whose portrait, surrounded by his family, was placed among the paintings in the vestibule of the monastery church. In 1488, Hieromonk Neophytos and his sons, priest Dimitar and Bogdan, built and decorated the Church of St. with their own funds. Demetrius in the Boboshevsky Monastery. In 1493, Radivoj, a wealthy resident of the suburbs of Sofia, restored the Church of St. George in the Kremikovsky Monastery; his portrait was also placed in the vestibule of the temple. In 1499, the church of St. Apostle John the Theologian in Poganov, as evidenced by the preserved ktitor portraits and inscriptions.
In the 16th–17th centuries, the Etropole Monastery of the Holy Trinity (or Varovitec), founded initially (in the 15th century) by a colony of Serbian miners that existed in the nearby city of Etropole, became a major center of writing. In the Etropol Monastery, dozens of liturgical books and collections of mixed content were copied, richly decorated with elegantly executed titles, vignettes and miniatures. The names of local scribes are known: the grammarian Boycho, the hieromonk Danail, Taho Grammar, the priest Velcho, the daskal (teacher) Koyo, the grammarian John, the carver Mavrudiy and others. IN scientific literature There is even a concept of an Etropol art and calligraphy school. Master Nedyalko Zograf from Lovech created an icon of the Old Testament Trinity for the monastery in 1598, and 4 years later he painted the church of the nearby Karlukovo monastery. A series of icons were painted in Etropol and surrounding monasteries, including images of Bulgarian saints; the inscriptions on them were made in Slavic. The activity of monasteries on the periphery of the Sofia Plain was similar: it is no coincidence that this area received the name Sofia Small Holy Mountain.
Characteristic is the work of the painter Hieromonk Pimen Zografsky (Sofia), who worked at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century in the vicinity of Sofia and Western Bulgaria, where he decorated dozens of churches and monasteries. In the 17th century, churches were restored and painted in Karlukovsky (1602), Seslavsky, Alinsky (1626), Bilinsky, Trynsky, Mislovishitsky, Iliyansky, Iskretsky and other monasteries.
Bulgarian Christians counted on the help of the Slavic peoples of the same faith, especially the Russians. Since the 16th century, Russia was regularly visited by Bulgarian hierarchs, abbots of monasteries and other clergy. One of them was the above-mentioned Tarnovo Metropolitan Dionysius (Rali), who delivered to Moscow the decision of the Council of Constantinople (1590) on the establishment of the Patriarchate in Russia. Monks, including the abbots of Rila, Preobrazhensky, Lyaskovsky, Bilinsky and other monasteries, in the 16th–17th centuries asked the Moscow Patriarchs and sovereigns for funds to restore damaged monasteries and protect them from oppression by the Turks. Later, trips to Russia for alms to restore their monasteries were made by the abbot of the Transfiguration Monastery (1712), the archimandrite of the Lyaskovsky Monastery (1718) and others. In addition to generous monetary alms for monasteries and churches, Slavic books were brought from Russia to Bulgaria, primarily of spiritual content, which did not allow the cultural and national consciousness of the Bulgarian people to fade.
In the 18th–19th centuries, as the economic capabilities of the Bulgarians grew, donations to monasteries increased. In the first half of the 18th century, many monastery churches and chapels were restored and decorated: in 1700 the Kapinovsky monastery was restored, in 1701 - Dryanovsky, in 1704 the chapel of the Holy Trinity in the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Arbanasi near Tarnovo was painted, in 1716 In the same village, the chapel of the monastery of St. Nicholas was consecrated, in 1718 the Kilifarevo monastery was restored (in the place where it is now), in 1732 the church of the Rozhen monastery was renewed and decorated. At the same time, magnificent icons of the Trevno, Samokov and Debra schools were created. In monasteries, reliquaries for holy relics, icon frames, censers, crosses, chalices, trays, candlesticks and much more were created, which determined their role in the development of jewelry and blacksmithing, weaving, and miniature carving.
1.2 The situation of foreigners (mustemen) and non-Muslims (dhimmis)
Müstemen (person who received eman-promise of security, i.e. safe conduct). This term denoted foreigners who were temporarily, with the permission of the authorities, in the territory Dar ul-Islam. The status of the Mustemen in Islamic countries and the Ottoman state is similar to the status dhimmi, but still there are some differences. According to Abu Hanifa¹, when the Mustemen committed crimes against individuals, the norms of Islamic law were applied to them. According to this, if a mustemen intentionally killed a Muslim or a dhimmi, he was punished according to the norms kysas(revenge, "an eye for an eye"). There are no punishments in Islamic law for crimes that violate divine rights. An example of this is adultery. Abu Yusuf, also a Hanefi, disagrees with his teacher on this issue; he says that the mustemen must be held accountable for any crimes according to Islamic law. The Melikites, Shafi'ites and Hanbelites approach this issue like Abu Yusuf, and do not believe that the Mustemen should be treated with special treatment in matters of criminal law.
If we talk about whether or not the mustemen were given autonomy in legal rights, like dhimmis, it should be noted that until the time of Suleiman Kanuni there is no information about this. For the first time in 1535, in the capitulations granted to France, it was recognized that any legal and criminal cases of traders, subjects of France, on the territory of the Ottoman Empire were decided by the French consuls. Then this benefit was extended to other foreigners, and the consular courts became the judicial authority in the event of conflicts between the Mustemen themselves. Thus, the Müstemen, in terms of litigation on the territory of the Ottoman state, found themselves in a position similar to the dhimmi. If conflicts arose between the Müstemen and Ottoman subjects, here, as in the case of dhimmis, the Ottoman courts were considered competent. But here, too, there were some differences and benefits for the Müstemen: for example, some cases were heard in Divan-i Humayun, and embassy dragomans (interpreters) could be present at court hearings.
Over time, this practice created situations that were contrary to the sovereignty of the Ottoman state, and it attempted to abolish the legal powers of the consular courts. But by that time, the Ottoman state was seriously weakened, and it did not have the strength to resist the West and resolve this issue.
The legal privileges enjoyed by non-Muslims in the Ottoman state, whether müstemen or dhimmis, acquired new uniform after the signing of the Treaty of Ouchy-Lausanne between the Western powers and the Turkish Republic. According to him, these legal privileges were abolished.
It is known that when a country became part of Dar ul-Islam, those living in this country had to leave the country, or enter into an agreement with the Islamic state and continue to live in their homeland on the terms of the agreement. This agreement between the Islamic state and the non-Muslims who entered into the agreement was called dhimmet, and the non-Muslims who entered into the agreement were called dhimmis. According to the treaty, dhimmis were largely subordinate to the Islamic state, and instead of compulsory military service, they paid a special poll tax. jizya. In response, the Islamic state took upon itself the protection of life and property and allowed them to live according to their faith. In the first treaties with the dhimmis, the emphasis was on these three points.
Islam had a high state level in relation to other religions:
1) Christians and Jews do not dare to build monasteries, churches, synagogues and chapels on conquered lands. In fact, this could have been arranged with the permission of the Sanjakbey.
2) They do not dare to repair their churches without permission. The permission of the Sanjakbey was required.
3) Those of them who live near Muslims can repair their houses only in case of great need. Indeed, the authorities sought to resettle the Christian and Muslim population quarter by quarter. However, representatives of other faiths also sought to separate themselves. For example, in Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki there were separate compact settlements of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and foreigners.
4) They will not accept fugitives, and if they find out about such people, they must immediately hand them over to the Muslims. This refers to runaway peasants and outlaws. The same rule applies to Muslims.
5) They do not have the right to pronounce sentences among themselves. Indeed, the court was administered by a Muslim judge - a qadi. However, the millets had the right to consider trade proceedings between co-religionists. However, already in the 17th century. their rights in this direction are significantly expanded.
6) They cannot prevent anyone from their midst from becoming a Muslim.
7) They will behave with respect towards Muslims, stand up when they arrive and give them a place of honor without delay. 8) Christians and Jews cannot wear clothes and shoes like Muslims. This refers to religious clothing. This applies only to the green color and “truly Muslim” attributes, such as, for example, a turban or a fez.
9) They can't learn Arabic literary language. In fact, this rule was violated all the time. Arabic was often taught to Christian youth voluntarily in order to instill a good attitude towards Islam.
10) They cannot ride a saddled horse, carry a saber or other weapons either in the house or outside it. You cannot ride on horseback only if there are Muslims on foot nearby, so as not to be taller than them.
11) They do not have the right to sell wine to Muslims.
12) They cannot put their name on a signet ring.
13) They cannot wear a wide belt.
14) Outside their homes they do not have the right to openly wear a cross or their holy letter.
15) Outside their homes they do not have the right to ring loudly and loudly, but only in moderation (meaning church ringing). Bell ringing was completely prohibited. Because of this, a serious stagnation of bell art occurred in Greece, Bulgaria, and Mount Athos.
16) They can only sing religious chants quietly. This means “without attracting the attention of Muslims.” In fact, there is ample evidence that Christians, Muslims and Jews held mass religious celebrations together using musical instruments and carrying banners during times of drought.
17) They can only silently pray for the dead. No loud funeral processions are allowed.
18) Muslims can plow and sow in Christian cemeteries if they are no longer used for burials.
IISection: Feudal relations under Ottoman rule
2.1 Peasant land use and the position of the peasantry
In the 16th century In the Ottoman Empire, developed feudal relations were dominant. Feudal ownership of land came in several forms. Until the end of the 16th century, most of the land of the Ottoman Empire was state property, and its supreme administrator was the Sultan. However, only part of these lands was under the direct control of the treasury. A significant part of the state land fund consisted of the possessions (domain) of the Sultan himself - the best lands in Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. The income from these lands went entirely to the personal disposal of the Sultan and for the maintenance of his court. Many regions of Anatolia (for example, Amasya, Kayseri, Tokat, Karaman, etc.) were also the property of the Sultan and his family - sons and other close relatives.
The Sultan distributed state lands to feudal lords for hereditary ownership on the terms of military fief tenure. Owners of small and large fiefs (“timars”, “iktu” - with an income of up to 3 thousand akche and “zeamet” - from 3 thousand to 100 thousand akche). These lands served as the basis of the economic power of the feudal lords and the most important source of the military power of the state.
From the same fund of state lands, the Sultan distributed land to court and provincial dignitaries, the income from which (they were called khasses, and the income from them was determined in the amount of 100 thousand akche and above) went entirely to the maintenance of state dignitaries in return for salaries. Each dignitary enjoyed the income from the lands provided to him only as long as he retained his post.
In the 16th century the owners of Timars, Zeamets and Khass usually lived in cities and did not run their own households. They collected feudal duties from the peasants sitting on the land with the help of stewards and tax collectors, and often tax farmers.
Another form of feudal land ownership was the so-called waqf possessions. This category included huge areas of land that were fully owned by mosques and various other religious and charitable institutions. These land holdings represented the economic base of the strongest political influence of the Muslim clergy in the Ottoman Empire.
The category of private feudal property included the lands of feudal lords, who received special Sultan's letters for any merit for the unlimited right to dispose of the estates provided. This category of feudal land ownership (called "mulk") arose in the Ottoman state at an early stage of its formation. Despite the fact that the number of mulks was constantly increasing, their share was small until the end of the 16th century.
Lands of all categories of feudal property were in the hereditary use of the peasantry. Throughout the territory of the Ottoman Empire, peasants living on the lands of feudal lords were included in the scribe books called raya (raya, reaya) and were obliged to cultivate the plots allocated to them. The attachment of rayats to their plots was recorded in laws at the end of the 15th century. During the 16th century. There was a process of enslavement of the peasantry throughout the empire, and in the second half of the 16th century. Suleiman's law finally approved the attachment of peasants to the land. The law stated that the rayat was obliged to live on the land of the feudal lord in whose register it was entered. In the event that a raiyat voluntarily left the plot allotted to him and moved to the land of another feudal lord, the previous owner could find him within 15-20 years and force him to return back, also imposing a fine on him.
While cultivating the plots allotted to them, the peasant rayats bore numerous feudal duties in favor of the land owner. In the 16th century In the Ottoman Empire, all three forms of feudal rent existed - labor, food and cash. The most common was rent in products. Raya Muslims were required to pay tithes on grain, garden and vegetable crops, taxes on all types of livestock, and also perform fodder duties. The landowner had the right to punish and fine those who were guilty. In some areas, peasants also had to work several days a year for the landowner in the vineyard, building a house, delivering firewood, straw, hay, bringing him all kinds of gifts, etc.
All the duties listed above were also required to be performed by non-Muslim rayas. But in addition, they paid a special poll tax to the treasury - jizya from the male population, and in some areas of the Balkan Peninsula they were also obliged to supply boys for the Janissary army every 3-5 years. The last duty (the so-called devshirme), which served the Turkish conquerors as one of the many means of forcible assimilation of the conquered population, was especially difficult and humiliating for those who were obliged to fulfill it.
In addition to all the duties that the rayats performed in favor of their landowners, they also had to perform a number of special military duties (called “avaris”) directly for the benefit of the treasury. Collected in the form of labor, various kinds of natural supplies, and often in cash, these so-called Diwan taxes were more numerous the more wars the Ottoman Empire waged. Thus, the settled agricultural peasantry in the Ottoman Empire bore the main burden of maintaining the ruling class and the entire huge state and military machine of the feudal empire.
A significant part of the population of Asia Minor continued to lead the life of nomads, united in tribal or clan unions. Submitting to the head of the tribe, who was a vassal of the Sultan, the nomads were considered military. In wartime, cavalry detachments were formed from them, which, led by their military leaders, were supposed to appear at the first call of the Sultan to a specified place. Among the nomads, every 25 men formed a “hearth”, which was supposed to send five “next” ones from their midst on a campaign, providing them at their own expense with horses, weapons and food during the entire campaign. For this, nomads were exempt from paying taxes to the treasury. But as the importance of the captive cavalry increased, the duties of the detachments made up of nomads increasingly began to be limited to performing auxiliary work: the construction of roads, bridges, baggage service, etc. The main places of settlement of the nomads were the southeastern and southern regions of Anatolia, as well as some areas of Macedonia and Southern Bulgaria.
In the laws of the 16th century. traces of the unlimited right of nomads to move with their herds in any direction remained: “Pasture lands have no boundaries. Since ancient times, it has been established that where cattle go, let them wander in that place. Since ancient times, it has been incompatible with the law to sell and cultivate established pastures. If someone forcibly cultivates them, they should be turned back into pastures. Village residents have no connection with pastures and therefore cannot prohibit anyone from roaming them.”
Nomads were not attributed to the owners of the land and did not have individual plots. They used the pasture land together, as communities. If the owner or proprietor of pasture lands was not at the same time the head of a tribe or clan, he could not interfere in the internal affairs of nomadic communities, since they were subordinate only to their tribal or clan leaders.
The nomadic community as a whole was economically dependent on the feudal owners of the land, but each individual member of the nomadic community was economically and legally dependent completely on his community, which was bound by mutual responsibility and dominated by tribal leaders and military leaders. Traditional clan ties covered social differentiation within nomadic communities. Only the nomads who broke ties with the community, settling on the land, turned into rayats, already attached to their plots. However, the process of settling the nomads on the land occurred extremely slowly, since they, trying to preserve the community as a means of self-defense from oppression by landowners, stubbornly resisted all attempts to speed up this process by violent measures.
Section III: Revolts of the Balkan peoples
3.1 The growth of the liberation and anti-feudal movement of the Balkan peoples at the end of the 16th-17th centuries
Popular uprisings in Asia Minor in the first half of the 16th century.
Wars of the Turkish conquerors from the beginning of the 16th century. entailed an increase in the already numerous exactions, in particular exactions in favor of the active armies, which in a continuous stream passed through the villages and cities of Asia Minor or were concentrated in them in preparation for new offensives against the Safavid state and Arab countries. The feudal rulers demanded more and more funds from the peasants to support their troops, and it was at this time that the treasury began to introduce emergency military taxes (avaris). All this led to an increase in popular discontent in Asia Minor. This discontent found expression not only in the anti-feudal protests of the Turkish peasantry and nomadic herders, but also in the liberation struggle of non-Turkish tribes and peoples, including residents of the eastern regions of Asia Minor - Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, etc.
In 1511-1512 Asia Minor was engulfed in a popular uprising led by Shah-kulu (or Shaitan-kulu). The uprising, despite the fact that it took place under religious Shiite slogans, was a serious attempt by the farmers and nomadic pastoralists of Asia Minor to provide armed resistance to the increase in feudal exploitation. Shah-kulu, proclaiming himself a “savior,” called for refusal to obey the Turkish Sultan. In battles with rebels in the Sivas and Kayseri regions, the Sultan's troops were repeatedly defeated.
Sultan Selim I led a fierce struggle against this uprising. Under the guise of Shiites, more than 40 thousand inhabitants were exterminated in Asia Minor. Everyone who could be suspected of disobedience to the Turkish feudal lords and the Sultan was declared Shiites.
In 1518, another major popular uprising broke out - under the leadership of the peasant Nur Ali. The center of the uprising was the areas of Karahisar and Niksar, from there it later spread to Amasya and Tokat. The rebels here also demanded the abolition of taxes and duties. After repeated battles with the Sultan's troops, the rebels scattered to the villages. But soon a new uprising, which arose in 1519 in the vicinity of Tokat, quickly spread throughout Central Anatolia. The number of rebels reached 20 thousand people. The leader of this uprising was one of the residents of Tokat, Jelal, after whom all such popular uprisings subsequently became known as “Jalali”.
Like previous uprisings, Celal's uprising was directed against the tyranny of the Turkish feudal lords, against countless duties and extortions, against the excesses of the Sultan's officials and tax collectors. Armed rebels captured Karahisar and headed towards Ankara.
To suppress this uprising, Sultan Selim I had to send significant military forces to Asia Minor. The rebels in the battle of Aksehir were defeated and scattered. Jalal fell into the hands of punitive forces and was brutally executed.
However, the reprisal against the rebels did not pacify the peasant masses for long. During 1525-1526. The eastern regions of Asia Minor up to Sivas were again engulfed in a peasant uprising, led by Koca Soglu-oglu and Zunnun-oglu. In 1526, an uprising led by Kalender Shah, numbering up to 30 thousand participants - Turks and Kurdish nomads, engulfed the Malatya region. Farmers and cattle breeders demanded not only a reduction in duties and taxes, but also the return of land and pastures that had been appropriated by the Sultan's treasury and distributed to Turkish feudal lords.
The rebels repeatedly defeated punitive detachments and were defeated only after a large Sultan's army was sent from Istanbul against them.
Peasant uprisings of the early 16th century. in Asia Minor testified to a sharp aggravation of the class struggle in Turkish feudal society. In the middle of the 16th century. A Sultan's decree was issued on the deployment of Janissary garrisons in the largest points of all provinces of the empire. With these measures and punitive expeditions, the Sultan's power managed to restore calm in Asia Minor for some time.
3.2 The struggle of Montenegrins for liberation from Turkish rule
During the period of Turkish rule, Montenegro covered only a small part of the territory that it currently occupies. It was a small mountainous region lying to the west of the Moraca and Zeta rivers. In socio-economic terms, Montenegro lagged behind other Yugoslav lands. The transition to the rule of Turkish feudal lords of low-lying areas near Podgorica and Zabljak deprived the Montenegrins of fertile lands and complicated trade. The annexation of the entire Dalmatian coast from Kotor to Bar to Venice blocked their access to the sea and further worsened economic situation Montenegro.
Engaged mainly in cattle breeding, cultivating tiny plots of land reclaimed from rock-covered mountains, the Montenegrins could not satisfy even the most basic needs of life and usually suffered severely from hunger. Trade ties were maintained with the nearest cities - Podgorica, Spuzh, Niksic, Skadar, but mainly with Kotor, where the Black people sent livestock and livestock products for sale, and bought salt, bread, gunpowder and other goods they needed. Montenegrins had to constantly defend their land from attacks by Turkish troops or neighboring tribes. This instilled in them good fighting qualities and made military affairs a profession for many of them. Since Montenegro was considered the sultan's khas, there were no possessions of Turkish feudal lords in it. Land convenient for cultivation was in the private ownership of individual families, while forests and pastures were owned by rural communities as collective property.
The Turkish government never managed to strengthen its power in Montenegro, whose dependence on the Porte was weak and actually came down to the Montenegrins paying harach, often collected with the help of military force. The Montenegrins also had military obligations to the Porte: they had to defend the border from attacks from outside. The special conditions that developed in Montenegro - isolation from the outside world, the need to protect freedom from Turkish encroachments - led to the formation of territorial administrative units-tribes, consisting of several brotherhoods, on the basis of pre-existing knezhins. Tribal associations became and military - political unions. They jointly defended themselves from attacks and conducted military operations. The tribes provided protection to their members; they strictly observed local law, which included some archaic customs: blood feud. Each tribe had its own assembly of all adult members, the decisions of which were binding on everyone. However, essentially all power was concentrated in the hands of the prince elders and governors, who actually enjoyed hereditary rights to this position; in addition, there was a chief prince. He usually acted as a mediator in relations between the Turkish authorities and the Montenegrins. But the power of the main princes and spahii was, as a rule, small.
In Montenegro there was a general representative body - assembly or assembly. The most important issues of internal life, relations with the Turks, Venice and other states were resolved at it. Decisions were made by the metropolitan, the chief prince and the rest of the governors and princes-representatives of each tribe. However, they could be canceled by the people present at the gathering.
Despite the existence of this all-Montenegrin representative body, the tribes were very divided among themselves, and hostility and armed clashes did not stop among them. Intertribal strife was often incited by the Turkish authorities, who hoped in this way to strengthen their power and influence in Montenegro. For the same purpose, a policy of Islamization was pursued, which led to the formation of a layer of Turkmen among the Chergogorsk people, although there were few of them.
Under these conditions, the only factor uniting the Montenegrin tribes was the Orthodox Church. In the 1750s. The power and political importance of the Montenegrin metropolitans gradually increased, slowly but steadily uniting the tribes into a single state whole. The residence of the Montenegrin metropolitans or rulers was located in the inaccessible mountains of Katun Nakhia. The monastery gradually increased its property and land holdings, on which lived peasants who were feudally dependent on it. Subsequently, it turned into the political center of all of Montenegro.
In the 17th century, the Turkish government and feudal lords increased pressure on the Montenegrin tribes, trying to deprive them of their autonomous rights, force them to regularly pay harach and introduce new taxes. This policy met with active resistance from Montenegrins who defended their rights and privileges. The struggle of the Montenegrins was led and organized by metropolitans, individual princes and governors.
Due to its important strategic position in the system of Turkish possessions in the Balkans, Montenegro in the 17th century began to attract increasing attention from European governments interested in the fight against Turkey.
The Montenegrin metropolitans, princes and governors, for their part, hoped to rely on outside help in the fight against the Turks. The close proximity of the Venetian Republic, which was at war with the Ottoman Empire, economic ties Montenegrins with Kotor and other centers of Primorye - all this contributed to the establishment of close political relations between Montenegro and Venice.
Together with the Dalmatians, Brd and Herzegovinian tribes, the Montenegrins undertook an anti-Turkish offensive during the Kandyan War between Turkey and Venice over Crete. In 1648 The Montenegrin assembly decided to establish a protectorate of Venice over Montenegro, provided that the republic accepted certain obligations. However, this act had no real consequences due to the failure of Venice's military actions against the Turks.
The anti-Turkish movement in Montenegro took on a wide scope during the war of the Holy League with Turkey. Venice, which had been significantly weakened by this time, hoped to wage the war in Dalmatia and Montenegro using the forces of the local population. Therefore, the Venetians used all means to persuade the Montenegrin ruler and tribal leaders to revolt against the Turks. To prevent it, Skadar Pasha with a large army came out against the Montenegrins and inflicted on them in 1685. defeat in the battle of Vrtelskaya. By this, however, he could not force the Montenegrins to submit. In 1688 The armed struggle of the Montenegrin tribes against the Turks intensified again. In the battle near the village of Krusy, they inflicted a serious defeat on the Turks. After this, the Montenegrin gathering, represented by a significant part of the tribes led by Metropolitan Vissarion, decided to come under the rule of Venice and ask the lord to send his army to Cetinje. Clashes with Turkish troops continued in the following years. But Venice did not provide the Montenegrins with sufficient military assistance. Arrived in Cetinje in 1691. a small military detachment could not protect Montenegro from Turkish attacks. In 1692 Turkish troops again invaded Montenegro, captured the Cetinje Monastery and destroyed it.
After this, the liberation movement of the Montenegrins began to gradually weaken. Left to their own devices by Venice, they were forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Turkish government. However, the Porte never managed to establish lasting power over the Montenegrin tribes. In the 18th century, the struggle of the Montenegrins against the Turks entered a new phase. It is now being waged for complete liberation from Turkish rule and the creation of its own state organization.
Completion
Began in the middle of the 14th century. The Turkish offensive on Europe radically changed the fate of the Balkan peoples of South-Eastern Europe. By the beginning of the 16th century. The Ottoman Empire included: Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania. Moldavia and Wallachia were turned into vassal states of Turkey.
Turkish domination delayed the historical development of the Balkan peoples and led to the conservation of feudal relations among them.
Start
The transformation of the Ottoman Empire from a tiny state in Asia Minor in the mid-15th century to the greatest empire in Europe and the Middle East by the mid-16th century was dramatic. In less than a century, the Ottoman dynasty destroyed Byzantium and became the undisputed leaders of the Islamic world, wealthy patrons of a sovereign culture, and rulers of an empire stretching from the Atlas Mountains to the Caspian Sea. The key moment in this rise is considered to be the capture of the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople, by Mehmed 2 in 1453, the capture of which turned the Ottoman state into a powerful power.
History of the Ottoman Empire in chronological order
The 1515 peace treaty concluded with Persia allowed the Ottomans to gain the regions of Diyarbakir and Mosul (which were located on the upper reaches of the Tigris River).
Also, between 1516 and 1520, Sultan Selim 1 (reigned 1512 - 1520) expelled the Safivids from Kurdistan and also destroyed the Mameluke power. Selim, with the help of artillery, defeated the Mameluke army at Dolbec and took Damascus; he subsequently subjugated the territory of Syria, took possession of Mecca and Medina.
S ultan Selim 1
Selim then approached Cairo. Having no other opportunity to capture Cairo except by a long and bloody struggle, for which his army was not prepared, he offered the inhabitants of the city to surrender in exchange for various favors; the residents gave up. Immediately the Turks carried out a terrible massacre in the city. After the conquest of the Holy Places, Mecca and Medina, Selim proclaimed himself caliph. He appointed a pasha to rule Egypt, but left next to him 24 rains of Mamelukes (who were considered subordinate to the pasha, but had limited independence with the ability to complain about the pasha to the Sultan).
Selim is one of the cruel sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Execution of their relatives (the Sultan’s father and brothers were executed on his orders); repeated executions of countless prisoners captured during military campaigns; executions of nobles.
The capture of Syria and Egypt from the Mamelukes made Ottoman territories integral part an extensive network of overland caravan routes from Morocco to Beijing. At one end of this trade network were the spices, medicines, silks and, later, porcelain of the East; on the other - gold dust, slaves, precious stones and other goods from Africa, as well as textiles, glass, hardware, wood from Europe.
The struggle between Ottoman and Europe
The reaction of Christian Europe to the rapid rise of the Turks was contradictory. Venice sought to maintain as large a share as possible in trade with the Levant - even ultimately at the expense of its own territory, and King Francis 1 of France openly entered into an alliance with (reigned 1520 - 1566) against the Austrian Habsburgs.
The Reformation and the subsequent Counter-Reformation led to the fact that they helped the slogan of the Crusades, which once united all of Europe against Islam, to become a thing of the past.
After his victory at Mohács in 1526, Suleiman 1 reduced Hungary to the status of his vassal and captured a significant part of European territories - from Croatia to the Black Sea. The siege of Vienna by Ottoman troops in 1529 was lifted mainly due to winter cold and due to long distances, which made it more difficult to supply the army from Turkey than due to the opposition of the Habsburgs. Ultimately, the Turks' entry into the long religious war with Safavid Persia saved Habsburg Central Europe.
The peace treaty of 1547 assigned the entire south of Hungary to the Ottoman Empire until Ofen was turned into an Ottoman province, divided into 12 sanjaks. Ottoman rule in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania was consolidated by peace from 1569. The reason for such peace conditions was the large amount of money that was given by Austria to bribe Turkish nobles. The war between the Turks and the Venetians ended in 1540. The Ottomans were given the last territories of Venice in Greece and on the islands in the Aegean Sea. The war with the Persian Empire also bore fruit. The Ottomans took Baghdad (1536) and occupied Georgia (1553). This was the dawn of the power of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire's fleet sailed unhindered in the Mediterranean.
The Christian-Turkish border on the Danube reached a kind of equilibrium after the death of Suleiman. In the Mediterranean, the Turkish conquest of the northern coast of Africa was facilitated by naval victory under Preveza, but the initially successful offensive of Emperor Charles 5 in Tunisia in 1535 and the extremely important Christian victory at Lepanto in 1571 restored the status quo: rather provisionally sea border passed along a line running through Italy, Sicily and Tunisia. However, the Turks managed to restore their fleet in a short time.
Equilibrium time
Despite endless wars, trade between Europe and the Levant was never completely suspended. European merchant ships continued to arrive in Iskenderun or Tripoli, in Syria, in Alexandria. Cargoes were transported across the Ottoman and Saphivid Empires in caravans that were carefully organized, safe, regular, and often faster than European ships. The same caravan system brought Asian goods to Europe from Mediterranean ports. Until the mid-17th century, this trade flourished, enriching the Ottoman Empire and guaranteeing the Sultan's exposure to European technology.
Mehmed 3 (ruled 1595 - 1603) upon his accession executed 27 of his relatives, but he was not a bloodthirsty sultan (the Turks gave him the nickname the Just). But in reality, the empire was led by his mother, with the support of great viziers, often replacing each other. The period of his reign coincided with the war against Austria, which began under the previous Sultan Murad 3 in 1593 and ended in 1606, during the era of Ahmed 1 (reigned from 1603 to 1617). The Peace of Zsitvatorok in 1606 marked a turning point in relation to the Ottoman Empire and Europe. According to it, Austria was not subject to new tribute; on the contrary, it was freed from the previous one. Only a one-time payment of indemnity in the amount of 200,000 florins. From this moment on, the Ottoman lands did not increase anymore.
Beginning of decline
The most costly of the wars between the Turks and Persians broke out in 1602. Reorganized and re-equipped Persian armies regained lands captured by the Turks in the previous century. The war ended with the peace treaty of 1612. The Turks ceded the eastern lands of Georgia and Armenia, Karabakh, Azerbaijan and some other lands.
After the plague and severe economic crisis, the Ottoman Empire was weakened. Political instability (due to the lack of a clear tradition of succession to the title of Sultan, as well as due to the increasingly growing influence of the Janissaries (initially the highest military caste, into which children were selected mainly from Balkan Christians according to the so-called devshirme system (forcible abduction of Christian children to Istanbul , for military service)) was shaking the country.
During the reign of Sultan Murad 4 (reigned 1623 - 1640) (a cruel tyrant (approximately 25 thousand people were executed during his reign), a capable administrator and commander, the Ottomans managed to regain part of the territories in the war with Persia (1623 - 1639), and defeat the Venetians. However, the uprisings of the Crimean Tatars and the constant raids of the Cossacks on Turkish lands practically drove the Turks out of Crimea and the adjacent territories.
After the death of Murad 4, the empire began to lag behind the countries of Europe in technology, wealth, and political unity.
Under Murad IV's brother, Ibrahim (ruled 1640 - 1648), all of Murad's conquests were lost.
The attempt to capture the island of Crete (the last possession of the Venetians in the Eastern Mediterranean) turned out to be a failure for the Turks. The Venetian fleet, having blocked the Dardanelles, threatened Istanbul.
Sultan Ibrahim was removed by the Janissaries, and his seven-year-old son Mehmed 4 (reigned 1648 - 1687) was elevated to his place. Under his rule, a number of reforms began to be carried out in the Ottoman Empire, which stabilized the situation.
Mehmed was able to successfully complete the war with the Venetians. The position of the Turks in the Balkans and Eastern Europe was also strengthened.
The decline of the Ottoman Empire was a slow process, punctuated by short periods of recovery and stability.
The Ottoman Empire alternately waged wars with Venice, Austria, and Russia.
Towards the end of the 17th century, economic and social difficulties began to increase.
Decline
Mehmed's successor, Kara Mustafa, launched a final challenge to Europe by laying siege to Vienna in 1683.
The answer to this was the alliance of Poland and Austria. The combined Polish-Austrian forces, approaching besieged Vienna, were able to defeat the Turkish army and force it to flee.
Later, Venice and Russia joined the Polish-Austrian coalition.
In 1687, the Turkish armies were defeated at Mohács. After the defeat, the Janissaries rebelled. Mehmed 4 was deposed. His brother Suleiman 2 (ruled 1687 - 1691) became the new sultan.
The war continued. In 1688, the armies of the anti-Turkish coalition achieved serious successes (the Venetians captured the Peloponnese, the Austrians were able to take Belgrade).
However, in 1690, the Turks managed to drive the Austrians out of Belgrade and push them beyond the Danube, as well as regain Transylvania. But, in the Battle of Slankamen, Sultan Suleiman 2 was killed.
Ahmed 2, brother of Suleiman 2, (ruled 1691 - 1695) also did not live to see the end of the war.
After the death of Ahmed 2, the second brother of Suleiman 2, Mustafa 2 (ruled 1695 - 1703), became the sultan. With him the end of the war came. Azov was taken by the Russians, Turkish forces were defeated in the Balkans.
Unable to continue the war any longer, Türkiye signed the Treaty of Karlowitz. According to it, the Ottomans ceded Hungary and Transylvania to Austria, Podolia to Poland, and Azov to Russia. Only the War between Austria and France preserved the European possessions of the Ottoman Empire.
The decline of the empire's economy was accelerated. The monopolization of trade in the Mediterranean Sea and oceans practically destroyed the trading opportunities of the Turks. The seizure of new colonies by European powers in Africa and Asia made the trade route through Turkish territories unnecessary. The discovery and development of Siberia by the Russians gave merchants a way to China.
Türkiye ceased to be interesting from the point of view of economics and trade
True, the Turks were able to achieve temporary success in 1711, after the unsuccessful Prut campaign of Peter 1. According to the new peace treaty, Russia returned Azov to Turkey. They were also able to recapture the Morea from Venice in the war of 1714 - 1718 (this was due to the military-political situation in Europe (the War of the Spanish Succession and the Northern War were underway).
However, then a series of setbacks began for the Turks. A series of defeats after 1768 deprived the Turks of the Crimea, and a defeat in the naval battle at Chesme Bay deprived the Turks of their fleet.
By the end of the 18th century, the peoples of the empire began to fight for their independence (Greeks, Egyptians, Bulgarians, ...). The Ottoman Empire ceased to be one of the leading European powers.
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OTTOMAN (OTTOMAN) EMPIRE. This empire was created by Turkic tribes in Anatolia and existed since the decline of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century. until the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1922. Its name came from the name of Sultan Osman I, founder of the Ottoman dynasty. The influence of the Ottoman Empire in the region began to gradually be lost from the 17th century, and it finally collapsed after its defeat in the First World War.
Rise of the Ottomans.
The modern Turkish Republic traces its origins to one of the Ghazi beyliks. The creator of the future mighty power, Osman (1259–1324/1326), inherited from his father Ertogrul a small border fief (uj) of the Seljuk state on the southeastern border of Byzantium, near Eskisehir. Osman became the founder of a new dynasty, and the state received his name and went down in history as the Ottoman Empire.
In the last years of Ottoman power, a legend arose that Ertogrul and his tribe arrived from Central Asia just in time to save the Seljuks in their battle with the Mongols, and received them as a reward western lands. However, modern research does not confirm this legend. Ertogrul's inheritance was given to him by the Seljuks, to whom he swore allegiance and paid tribute, as well as to the Mongol khans. This continued under Osman and his son until 1335. It is likely that neither Osman nor his father were ghazis until Osman came under the influence of one of the dervish orders. In the 1280s, Osman managed to capture Bilecik, İnönü and Eskişehir.
At the very beginning of the 14th century. Osman, together with his ghazis, annexed to his inheritance the lands that extended all the way to the coasts of the Black and Marmara Seas, as well as most of the territory west of the Sakarya River, up to Kutahya in the south. After Osman's death, his son Orhan occupied the fortified Byzantine city of Brusa. Bursa, as the Ottomans called it, became the capital Ottoman state and remained so for more than 100 years until they took it. In almost one decade, Byzantium lost almost all of Asia Minor, and such historical cities as Nicaea and Nicomedia received the names Iznik and Izmit. The Ottomans subjugated the beylik of Karesi in Bergamo (formerly Pergamon), and Gazi Orhan became the ruler of the entire northwestern part of Anatolia: from the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles to the Black Sea and the Bosphorus.
Conquests in Europe.
The formation of the Ottoman Empire.
In the period between the capture of Bursa and the victory at Kosovo Polje, the organizational structures and management of the Ottoman Empire were quite effective, and already at this time many features of the future huge state were emerging. Orhan and Murad did not care whether the new arrivals were Muslims, Christians or Jews, or whether they were Arabs, Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Italians, Iranians or Tatars. The state system of government was built on a combination of Arab, Seljuk and Byzantine customs and traditions. In the occupied lands, the Ottomans tried to preserve, as far as possible, local customs so as not to destroy existing social relations.
In all newly annexed regions, military leaders immediately allocated income from land allotments as a reward to valiant and worthy soldiers. The owners of these kind of fiefs, called timars, were obliged to manage their lands and from time to time participate in campaigns and raids into distant territories. The cavalry was formed from feudal lords called sipahis, who had timars. Like the Ghazis, the Sipahis acted as Ottoman pioneers in newly conquered territories. Murad I distributed many such inheritances in Europe to Turkic families from Anatolia who did not have property, resettling them in the Balkans and turning them into a feudal military aristocracy.
Another notable event of that time was the creation in the army of the Janissary Corps, soldiers who were included in the ranks of those close to the Sultan military units. These soldiers (Turkish yeniceri, lit. new army), called Janissaries by foreigners, later began to be recruited from captured boys from Christian families, in particular in the Balkans. This practice, known as the devşirme system, may have been introduced under Murad I, but only became fully established in the 15th century. under Murad II; it continued continuously until the 16th century, with interruptions until the 17th century. Having the status of slaves of the sultans, the Janissaries were a disciplined regular army consisting of well-trained and armed infantrymen, superior in combat effectiveness to all similar troops in Europe until the advent of the French army of Louis XIV.
Conquests and fall of Bayezid I.
Mehmed II and the capture of Constantinople.
The young Sultan received an excellent education at the palace school and as governor of Manisa under his father. He was undoubtedly more educated than all the other monarchs of Europe at that time. After the murder of his underage brother, Mehmed II reorganized his court in preparation for the capture of Constantinople. Huge bronze cannons were cast and troops were assembled to storm the city. In 1452, the Ottomans built a huge fort with three majestic castles within the fortress in a narrow part of the Bosphorus Strait, approximately 10 km north of the Golden Horn of Constantinople. Thus, the Sultan was able to control shipping from the Black Sea and cut off Constantinople from supplies from the Italian trading posts located to the north. This fort, called Rumeli Hisarı, together with another fortress Anadolu Hisarı, built by the great-grandfather of Mehmed II, guaranteed reliable communication between Asia and Europe. The most spectacular step of the Sultan was the ingenious crossing of part of his fleet from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn through the hills, bypassing the chain stretched at the entrance to the bay. Thus, cannons from the Sultan's ships could fire at the city from the inner harbor. On May 29, 1453, a breach was made in the wall, and Ottoman soldiers rushed into Constantinople. On the third day, Mehmed II was already praying in Hagia Sophia and decided to make Istanbul (as the Ottomans called Constantinople) the capital of the empire.
Owning such a well-located city, Mehmed II controlled the situation in the empire. In 1456 his attempt to take Belgrade ended unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, Serbia and Bosnia soon became provinces of the empire, and before his death the Sultan managed to annex Herzegovina and Albania to his state. Mehmed II captured all of Greece, including the Peloponnese Peninsula, with the exception of a few Venetian ports, and the largest islands in the Aegean Sea. In Asia Minor, he finally managed to overcome the resistance of the rulers of Karaman, take possession of Cilicia, annex Trebizond (Trabzon) on the Black Sea coast to the empire and establish suzerainty over the Crimea. The Sultan recognized the authority of the Greek Orthodox Church and worked closely with the newly elected patriarch. Previously, over the course of two centuries, the population of Constantinople had been constantly declining; Mehmed II resettled many people from various parts country and restored its traditionally strong crafts and trade.
The rise of the empire under Suleiman I.
The power of the Ottoman Empire reached its apogee in the mid-16th century. The period of the reign of Suleiman I the Magnificent (1520–1566) is considered the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman I (the previous Suleiman, son of Bayazid I, never ruled over its entire territory) surrounded himself with many capable dignitaries. Most of them were recruited through the devşirme system or captured during army campaigns and pirate raids, and by 1566, when Suleiman I died, these “new Turks” or “new Ottomans” already firmly held power over the entire empire. They formed the backbone of the administrative authorities, while the highest Muslim institutions were headed by indigenous Turks. Theologians and jurists were recruited from among them, whose duties included interpreting laws and performing judicial functions.
Suleiman I, being the only son of the monarch, never faced any claim to the throne. He was an educated man who loved music, poetry, nature, and philosophical discussions. Yet the military forced him to adhere to a militant policy. In 1521, the Ottoman army crossed the Danube and captured Belgrade. This victory, which Mehmed II could not achieve at one time, opened the way for the Ottomans to the plains of Hungary and the upper Danube basin. In 1526 Suleiman took Budapest and occupied all of Hungary. In 1529 the Sultan began the siege of Vienna, but was unable to capture the city before the onset of winter. Nevertheless, the vast territory from Istanbul to Vienna and from the Black Sea to the Adriatic Sea formed the European part of the Ottoman Empire, and Suleiman during his reign carried out seven military campaigns on the western borders of the power.
Suleiman also fought in the east. The borders of his empire with Persia were not defined, and vassal rulers in the border areas changed their masters depending on whose side was powerful and with whom it was more profitable to enter into an alliance. In 1534, Suleiman took Tabriz and then Baghdad, incorporating Iraq into the Ottoman Empire; in 1548 he regained Tabriz. The Sultan spent the entire year 1549 in pursuit of the Persian Shah Tahmasp I, trying to fight him. While Suleiman was in Europe in 1553, Persian troops invaded Asia Minor and captured Erzurum. Having expelled the Persians and devoted most of 1554 to the conquest of the lands east of the Euphrates, Suleiman, according to an official peace treaty concluded with the Shah, received a port in the Persian Gulf at his disposal. Squadrons of the naval forces of the Ottoman Empire operated in the waters of the Arabian Peninsula, in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez.
From the very beginning of his reign, Suleiman paid great attention to strengthening the naval power of the state in order to maintain Ottoman superiority in the Mediterranean. In 1522 his second campaign was directed against Fr. Rhodes, located 19 km from the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. After the capture of the island and the eviction of the Johannites who owned it to Malta, the Aegean Sea and the entire coast of Asia Minor became Ottoman possessions. Soon french king Francis I turned to the Sultan for military assistance in the Mediterranean and with a request to move against Hungary in order to stop the advance of the troops of Emperor Charles V, who were advancing on Francis in Italy. The most famous of Suleiman's naval commanders is Hayraddin Barbarossa, Supreme ruler Algeria and North Africa, devastated the coasts of Spain and Italy. Nevertheless, Suleiman's admirals were unable to capture Malta in 1565.
Suleiman died in 1566 in Szigetvár during a campaign in Hungary. The body of the last of the great Ottoman sultans was transferred to Istanbul and buried in a mausoleum in the courtyard of the mosque.
Suleiman had several sons, but his favorite son died at the age of 21, two others were executed on charges of conspiracy, and his only remaining son, Selim II, turned out to be a drunkard. The conspiracy that destroyed Suleiman's family can be partly attributed to the jealousy of his wife Roxelana, a former slave girl of either a Russian or Polish origin. Another mistake of Suleiman was the elevation in 1523 of his beloved slave Ibrahim, appointed chief minister (grand vizier), although among the applicants there were many other competent courtiers. And although Ibrahim was a capable minister, his appointment violated the long-established system of palace relations and aroused the envy of other dignitaries.
Mid 16th century was the heyday of literature and architecture. More than a dozen mosques were erected in Istanbul under the leadership and designs of the architect Sinan; the masterpiece was the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, dedicated to Selim II.
Under the new Sultan Selim II, the Ottomans began to lose their position at sea. In 1571, the united Christian fleet met the Turkish in the battle of Lepanto and defeated it. During the winter of 1571–1572, the shipyards in Gelibolu and Istanbul worked tirelessly, and by the spring of 1572, thanks to the construction of new warships, the European naval victory was nullified. In 1573 they managed to defeat the Venetians, and the island of Cyprus was annexed to the empire. Despite this, the defeat at Lepanto foreshadowed the coming decline of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean.
Decline of the Empire.
After Selim II, most of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire were weak rulers. Murad III, son of Selim, reigned from 1574 to 1595. His tenure was accompanied by unrest caused by palace slaves led by the Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokolki and two harem factions: one led by the Sultan's mother Nur Banu, a Jewish convert to Islam, and the other by his beloved Safiye's wife. The latter was the daughter of the Venetian governor of Corfu, who was captured by pirates and presented to Suleiman, who immediately gave her to his grandson Murad. However, the empire still had enough strength to advance east to the Caspian Sea, as well as to maintain its position in the Caucasus and Europe.
After the death of Murad III, 20 of his sons remained. Of these, Mehmed III ascended the throne, strangling 19 of his brothers. His son Ahmed I, who succeeded him in 1603, tried to reform the system of power and get rid of corruption. He moved away from the cruel tradition and did not kill his brother Mustafa. And although this, of course, was a manifestation of humanism, from that time all the brothers of the sultans and their closest relatives from the Ottoman dynasty began to be kept in captivity in a special part of the palace, where they spent their lives until the death of the reigning monarch. Then the eldest of them was proclaimed his successor. Thus, after Ahmed I, few who reigned in the 17th and 18th centuries. Sultanov had a sufficient level of intellectual development or political experience to rule such a huge empire. As a result, the unity of the state and the central power itself began to quickly weaken.
Mustafa I, brother of Ahmed I, was mentally ill and reigned for only one year. Osman II, the son of Ahmed I, was proclaimed the new sultan in 1618. Being an enlightened monarch, Osman II tried to transform state structures, but was killed by his opponents in 1622. For some time, the throne again went to Mustafa I, but already in 1623 Osman’s brother Murad ascended the throne IV, who led the country until 1640. His reign was dynamic and reminiscent of Selim I. Having come of age in 1623, Murad spent the next eight years tirelessly trying to restore and reform the Ottoman Empire. In an effort to improve the health of government structures, he executed 10 thousand officials. Murad personally took charge of his armies during the eastern campaigns, prohibited the consumption of coffee, tobacco and alcoholic drinks, but he himself showed a weakness for alcohol, which led the young ruler to death at the age of only 28 years.
Murad's successor, his mentally ill brother Ibrahim, managed to significantly destroy the state he inherited before he was deposed in 1648. The conspirators placed Ibrahim's six-year-old son Mehmed IV on the throne and actually led the country until 1656, when the Sultan's mother achieved the appointment of grand vizier with unlimited powers talented Mehmed Köprülü. He held this position until 1661, when his son Fazil Ahmed Köprülü became vizier.
The Ottoman Empire still managed to overcome the period of chaos, extortion and crisis of state power. Europe was divided by religious wars and Thirty Years' War, and Poland and Russia were going through a troubled period. This gave both Köprül the opportunity, after a purge of the administration, during which 30 thousand officials were executed, to capture the island of Crete in 1669, and Podolia and other regions of Ukraine in 1676. After the death of Ahmed Köprülü, his place was taken by a mediocre and corrupt palace favorite. In 1683, the Ottomans besieged Vienna, but were defeated by the Poles and their allies led by Jan Sobieski.
Leaving the Balkans.
The defeat at Vienna marked the beginning of the Turkish retreat in the Balkans. Budapest fell first, and after the loss of Mohács, all of Hungary fell under the rule of Vienna. In 1688 the Ottomans had to leave Belgrade, in 1689 Vidin in Bulgaria and Nis in Serbia. After this, Suleiman II (r. 1687–1691) appointed Mustafa Köprülü, Ahmed's brother, as grand vizier. The Ottomans managed to recapture Niš and Belgrade, but were utterly defeated by Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1697 near Senta, in the far north of Serbia.
Mustafa II (r. 1695–1703) attempted to regain lost ground by appointing Hüseyin Köprülü as grand vizier. In 1699, the Treaty of Karlowitz was signed, according to which the Peloponnese and Dalmatia peninsulas went to Venice, Austria received Hungary and Transylvania, Poland received Podolia, and Russia retained Azov. The Treaty of Karlowitz was the first in a series of concessions that the Ottomans were forced to make when leaving Europe.
During the 18th century. The Ottoman Empire lost much of its power in the Mediterranean. In the 17th century The main opponents of the Ottoman Empire were Austria and Venice, and in the 18th century. – Austria and Russia.
In 1718, Austria, according to the Pozarevac (Passarovitsky) Treaty, received a number of more territories. However, the Ottoman Empire, despite defeats in the wars it fought in the 1730s, regained the city according to the treaty signed in 1739 in Belgrade, mainly due to the weakness of the Habsburgs and the intrigues of French diplomats.
Surrender.
As a result of the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of French diplomacy in Belgrade, an agreement was concluded between France and the Ottoman Empire in 1740. Called the "Capitulations", this document was for a long time the basis for the special privileges received by all states within the empire. The formal beginning of the agreements was laid back in 1251, when the Mamluk sultans in Cairo recognized Louis IX the Saint, King of France. Mehmed II, Bayezid II and Selim I confirmed this agreement and used it as a model in their relations with Venice and other Italian city-states, Hungary, Austria and most other European countries. One of the most important was the 1536 treaty between Suleiman I and the French king Francis I. In accordance with the 1740 treaty, the French received the right to freely move and trade in the territory of the Ottoman Empire under the full protection of the Sultan, their goods were not subject to taxes, with the exception of import-export duties, French envoys and consuls acquired judiciary over compatriots who could not be arrested in the absence of a consular representative. The French were given the right to erect and freely use their churches; the same privileges were reserved within the Ottoman Empire for other Catholics. In addition, the French could take under their protection the Portuguese, Sicilians and citizens of other states who did not have ambassadors at the court of the Sultan.
Further decline and attempts at reform.
The end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 marked the beginning of new attacks against the Ottoman Empire. Despite the fact that the French king Louis XV sent Baron de Tott to Istanbul to modernize the Sultan's army, the Ottomans were defeated by Russia in the Danube provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia and were forced to sign the Küçük-Kaynardzhi Peace Treaty in 1774. Crimea gained independence, and Azov went to Russia, which recognized the border with the Ottoman Empire along the Bug River. The Sultan promised to provide protection for the Christians living in his empire, and allowed the presence of a Russian ambassador in the capital, who received the right to represent the interests of his Christian subjects. From 1774 until the First World War, Russian tsars referred to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty to justify their role in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. In 1779, Russia received rights to Crimea, and in 1792, the Russian border, in accordance with the Treaty of Iasi, was moved to the Dniester.
Time dictated change. Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730) invited architects to build him palaces and mosques in the style of Versailles, and opened a printing press in Istanbul. The Sultan's immediate relatives were no longer kept in strict confinement, some of them began to study the scientific and political heritage Western Europe. However, Ahmed III was killed by conservatives, and his place was taken by Mahmud I, under whom the Caucasus was lost to Persia, and the retreat in the Balkans continued. One of the outstanding sultans was Abdul Hamid I. During his reign (1774–1789), reforms were carried out, French teachers and technical specialists were invited to Istanbul. France hoped to save the Ottoman Empire and prevent Russia from accessing the Black Sea straits and the Mediterranean Sea.
Selim III
(reigned 1789–1807). Selim III, who became Sultan in 1789, formed a 12-member cabinet of ministers similar to European governments, replenished the treasury and created a new military corps. He created new educational institutions designed to educate civil servants in the spirit of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Printed publications were allowed again, and the works of Western authors began to be translated into Turkish.
In the early years French Revolution The Ottoman Empire was left alone by the European powers with its problems. Napoleon viewed Selim as an ally, believing that after the defeat of the Mamluks the Sultan would be able to strengthen his power in Egypt. Nevertheless, Selim III declared war on France and sent his fleet and army to defend the province. Only the British fleet, located off Alexandria and off the coast of the Levant, saved the Turks from defeat. This move of the Ottoman Empire involved it in the military and diplomatic affairs of Europe.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, after the departure of the French, Muhammad Ali, a native of the Macedonian city of Kavala, who served in the Turkish army, came to power. In 1805 he became governor of the province, which opened a new chapter in Egyptian history.
After the conclusion of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, relations with France were restored, and Selim III managed to maintain peace until 1806, when Russia invaded its Danube provinces. England provided assistance to its ally Russia by sending its fleet through the Dardanelles, but Selim managed to speed up the restoration of defensive structures, and the British were forced to sail to the Aegean Sea. French victories in Central Europe strengthened the position of the Ottoman Empire, but a rebellion against Selim III began in the capital. In 1807, during the absence of the commander-in-chief of the imperial army, Bayraktar, in the capital, the sultan was deposed, and he took the throne cousin Mustafa IV. After the return of Bayraktar in 1808, Mustafa IV was executed, but first the rebels strangled Selim III, who was imprisoned. The only male representative from the ruling dynasty remained Mahmud II.
Mahmud II
(reigned 1808–1839). Under him, in 1809, the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain concluded the famous Treaty of the Dardanelles, which opened the Turkish market for British goods on the terms of recognition by Great Britain closed status Black Sea straits for military ships in peacetime for the Turks. Previously, the Ottoman Empire agreed to join the one created by Napoleon continental blockade, therefore the agreement was perceived as a violation of previous obligations. Russia began military operations on the Danube and captured a number of cities in Bulgaria and Wallachia. According to the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812, significant territories were ceded to Russia, and it refused to support the rebels in Serbia. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Ottoman Empire was recognized as a European power.
National revolutions in the Ottoman Empire.
During the French Revolution, the country faced two new problems. One of them had been brewing for a long time: as the center weakened, separated provinces slipped away from the power of the sultans. In Epirus, the revolt was raised by Ali Pasha of Janin, who ruled the province as sovereign and maintained diplomatic relations with Napoleon and other European monarchs. Similar protests also occurred in Vidin, Sidon (modern Saida, Lebanon), Baghdad and other provinces, which undermined the power of the Sultan and reduced tax revenues to the imperial treasury. The most powerful of the local rulers (pashas) eventually became Muhammad Ali in Egypt.
Another intractable problem for the country was the growth of the national liberation movement, especially among the Christian population of the Balkans. At the peak of the French Revolution, Selim III in 1804 faced an uprising raised by the Serbs led by Karadjordje (George Petrovich). The Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) recognized Serbia as a semi-autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire, led by Miloš Obrenović, Karageorgje's rival.
Almost immediately after the defeat of the French Revolution and the fall of Napoleon, Mahmud II faced the Greek national liberation revolution. Mahmud II had a chance to win, especially after he managed to convince the nominal vassal in Egypt, Muhammad Ali, to send his army and navy to support Istanbul. However, the Pasha's armed forces were defeated after the intervention of Great Britain, France and Russia. As a result of the breakthrough of Russian troops in the Caucasus and their attack on Istanbul, Mahmud II had to sign the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, which recognized the independence of the Kingdom of Greece. A few years later, the army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha, captured Syria and found itself dangerously close to the Bosphorus in Asia Minor. Only the Russian naval landing, which landed on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus as a warning to Muhammad Ali, saved Mahmud II. After this, Mahmud never managed to get rid of Russian influence until he signed the humiliating Unkiyar-Iskelesi Treaty in 1833, which gave the Russian Tsar the right to “protect” the Sultan, as well as close and open the Black Sea straits at his discretion for the passage of foreigners. military courts.
Ottoman Empire after the Congress of Vienna.
The period following the Congress of Vienna was probably the most destructive for the Ottoman Empire. Greece separated; Egypt under Muhammad Ali, who, moreover, having captured Syria and South Arabia, became virtually independent; Serbia, Wallachia and Moldova became semi-autonomous territories. During the Napoleonic Wars, Europe significantly strengthened its military and industrial power. The weakening of the Ottoman power is attributed to a certain extent to the massacre of the Janissaries carried out by Mahmud II in 1826.
By concluding the Unkiyar-Isklelesi Treaty, Mahmud II hoped to gain time to transform the empire. The reforms he carried out were so noticeable that travelers visiting Turkey in the late 1830s noted that more changes had occurred in the country in the last 20 years than in the previous two centuries. Instead of the Janissaries, Mahmud created a new army, trained and equipped according to the European model. Prussian officers were hired to train officers in the new art of war. Fezs and frock coats became the official clothing of civil officials. Mahmud tried to introduce the latest methods developed in young European states into all areas of management. Managed to reorganize financial system, streamline the activities of the judiciary, improve the road network. Additional educational institutions were created, in particular military and medical colleges. Newspapers began to be published in Istanbul and Izmir.
In the last year of his life, Mahmud again entered into war with his Egyptian vassal. Mahmud's army was defeated in Northern Syria, and his fleet in Alexandria went over to the side of Muhammad Ali.
Abdul-Mejid
(reigned 1839–1861). The eldest son and successor of Mahmud II, Abdul-Mejid, was only 16 years old. Without an army and navy, he found himself helpless against the superior forces of Muhammad Ali. He was saved by diplomatic and military assistance Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia. France initially supported Egypt, but concerted action by the European powers broke the deadlock: the pasha received the hereditary right to rule Egypt under the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman sultans. This provision was legitimized by the Treaty of London in 1840 and confirmed by Abdülmecid in 1841. In the same year, the London Convention of European Powers was concluded, according to which warships were not to pass through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus in times of peace for the Ottoman Empire, and the signatory powers took undertake an obligation to assist the Sultan in maintaining sovereignty over the Black Sea Straits.
Tanzimat.
During the struggle with his strong vassal, Abdulmecid in 1839 promulgated the hatt-i sherif (“sacred decree”), announcing the beginning of reforms in the empire, which was addressed to the highest state dignitaries and invited ambassadors by the chief minister, Reshid Pasha. The document was canceled death penalty without trial, guaranteed justice for all citizens regardless of race or religion, established a judicial council to adopt a new criminal code, abolished the tax farming system, changed army recruiting methods, and limited the length of military service.
It became obvious that the empire was no longer able to defend itself in the event of a military attack from any of the great European powers. Reshid Pasha, who had previously served as ambassador to Paris and London, understood that it was necessary to take certain steps that would show the European states that the Ottoman Empire was capable of self-reform and manageable, i.e. deserves to be preserved as an independent state. Khatt-i Sherif seemed to be the answer to the doubts of the Europeans. However, in 1841 Reshid was removed from office. Over the next few years, his reforms were suspended, and only after his return to power in 1845 they began to be implemented again with the support of the British ambassador Stratford Canning. This period in the history of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Tanzimat ("ordering"), involved the reorganization of the system of government and the transformation of society in accordance with ancient Muslim and Ottoman principles of tolerance. At the same time, education developed, the network of schools expanded, and sons from famous families began to study in Europe. Many Ottomans began to lead a Western lifestyle. The number of newspapers, books and magazines published increased, and the younger generation professed new European ideals.
At the same time, foreign trade grew rapidly, but the influx of European industrial products had a negative impact on the finances and economy of the Ottoman Empire. Imports of British factory fabrics destroyed cottage textile production and siphoned gold and silver from the state. Another blow to the economy was the signing of the Balto-Liman Trade Convention in 1838, according to which import duties on goods imported into the empire were frozen at 5%. This meant that foreign merchants could operate in the empire on an equal basis with local merchants. As a result, most of the country's trade ended up in the hands of foreigners, who, in accordance with the Capitulations, were freed from control by officials.
Crimean War.
The London Convention of 1841 abolished the special privileges that the Russian Emperor Nicholas I received under a secret annex to the Unkiyar-Iskelesi Treaty of 1833. Referring to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty of 1774, Nicholas I launched an offensive in the Balkans and demanded special status and rights for Russian monks in holy places in Jerusalem and Palestine. After Sultan Abdulmecid refused to satisfy these demands, the Crimean War began. Great Britain, France and Sardinia came to the aid of the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul became the forward base for preparations for hostilities in the Crimea, and the influx of European sailors, army officers and civilian officials left an indelible mark on Ottoman society. The Treaty of Paris of 1856, which ended this war, declared the Black Sea a neutral zone. European powers again recognized Turkish sovereignty over the Black Sea Straits, and the Ottoman Empire was accepted into the “union of European states.” Romania gained independence.
Bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire.
After the Crimean War, the sultans began to borrow money from Western bankers. Even in 1854, having practically no external debt, the Ottoman government very quickly became bankrupt, and already in 1875 Sultan Abdul Aziz owed European bondholders almost one billion dollars in foreign currency.
In 1875, the Grand Vizier declared that the country was no longer able to pay interest on its debts. Noisy protests and pressure from European powers forced the Ottoman authorities to increase taxes in the provinces. Unrest began in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The government sent troops to “pacify” the rebels, during which unprecedented cruelty was shown that amazed the Europeans. In response, Russia sent volunteers to help the Balkan Slavs. At this time, a secret revolutionary society of “New Ottomans” emerged in the country, advocating constitutional reforms in their homeland.
In 1876 Abdul Aziz, who had succeeded his brother Abdul Mecid in 1861, was deposed for incompetence by Midhat Pasha and Avni Pasha, leaders of the liberal organization of constitutionalists. They placed on the throne Murad V, the eldest son of Abdul-Mecid, who turned out to be mentally ill and was deposed just a few months later, and Abdul-Hamid II, another son of Abdul-Mecid, was placed on the throne.
Abdul Hamid II
(reigned 1876–1909). Abdul Hamid II visited Europe, and many associated with him big hopes to a liberal constitutional regime. However, at the time of his accession to the throne, Turkish influence in the Balkans was in danger despite the fact that Ottoman troops had managed to defeat Bosnian and Serbian rebels. This development of events forced Russia to threaten open intervention, which Austria-Hungary and Great Britain sharply opposed. In December 1876, a conference of ambassadors was convened in Istanbul, at which Abdul Hamid II announced the introduction of a constitution for the Ottoman Empire, which provided for the creation of an elected parliament, a government responsible to it and other attributes of European constitutional monarchies. However, the brutal suppression of the uprising in Bulgaria still led in 1877 to war with Russia. In this regard, Abdul Hamid II suspended the Constitution for the duration of the war. This situation continued until the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.
Meanwhile, at the front, the military situation was developing in favor of Russia, whose troops were already camped under the walls of Istanbul. Great Britain managed to prevent the capture of the city by sending a fleet to the Sea of Marmara and presenting an ultimatum to St. Petersburg demanding an end to hostilities. Initially, Russia imposed on the Sultan the extremely unfavorable Treaty of San Stefano, according to which most of the European possessions of the Ottoman Empire became part of a new autonomous entity - Bulgaria. Austria-Hungary and Great Britain opposed the terms of the treaty. All this prompted German Chancellor Bismarck convened the Berlin Congress in 1878, at which the size of Bulgaria was reduced, but the full independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania was recognized. Cyprus went to Great Britain, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary. Russia received the fortresses of Ardahan, Kars and Batumi (Batumi) in the Caucasus; to regulate navigation on the Danube, a commission was created from representatives of the Danube states, and the Black Sea and the Black Sea Straits again received the status provided for by the Treaty of Paris of 1856. The Sultan promised to govern all his subjects equally fairly, and the European powers believed that the Berlin Congress had forever resolved the difficult Eastern problem.
During the 32-year reign of Abdul Hamid II, the Constitution never actually came into force. One of the most important unresolved issues was the bankruptcy of the state. In 1881, under foreign control, the Office of the Ottoman Public Debt was created, which was given responsibility for payments on European bonds. Within a few years, confidence in the financial stability of the Ottoman Empire was restored, which facilitated the participation of foreign capital in the construction of such large projects as the Anatolian Railway, which linked Istanbul with Baghdad.
Young Turk revolution.
During these years, national uprisings occurred in Crete and Macedonia. In Crete, bloody clashes took place in 1896 and 1897, leading to the Empire's war with Greece in 1897. After 30 days of fighting, European powers intervened to save Athens from being captured by the Ottoman army. Public opinion in Macedonia leaned towards either independence or union with Bulgaria.
It became obvious that the future of the state was connected with the Young Turks. The ideas of national uplift were propagated by some journalists, the most talented of whom was Namik Kemal. Abdul-Hamid tried to suppress this movement with arrests, exile and executions. At the same time, Turkish secret societies flourished in military headquarters around the country and in such remote places like Paris, Geneva and Cairo. The most effective organization turned out to be the secret committee “Unity and Progress”, which was created by the “Young Turks”.
In 1908, the troops stationed in Macedonia rebelled and demanded the implementation of the Constitution of 1876. Abdul-Hamid was forced to agree to this, not being able to use force. Elections to parliament followed and the formation of a government consisting of ministers responsible to this legislative body. In April 1909, a counter-revolutionary rebellion broke out in Istanbul, which, however, was quickly suppressed by armed units arriving from Macedonia. Abdul Hamid was deposed and sent into exile, where he died in 1918. His brother Mehmed V was proclaimed Sultan.
Balkan wars.
The Young Turk government soon faced internal strife and new territorial losses in Europe. In 1908, as a result of the revolution that took place in the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria declared its independence, and Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Young Turks were powerless to prevent these events, and in 1911 they found themselves drawn into a conflict with Italy, which invaded the territory of modern Libya. The war ended in 1912 with the provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica becoming an Italian colony. In early 1912, Crete united with Greece, and later that year, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria began the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire.
Within a few weeks, the Ottomans lost all their possessions in Europe, with the exception of Istanbul, Edirne and Ioannina in Greece and Scutari (modern Shkodra) in Albania. The great European powers, watching with concern as the balance of power in the Balkans was being destroyed, demanded a cessation of hostilities and a conference. The Young Turks refused to surrender the cities, and in February 1913 the fighting resumed. In a few weeks, the Ottoman Empire completely lost its European possessions, with the exception of the Istanbul zone and the straits. The Young Turks were forced to agree to a truce and formally give up the already lost lands. However, the winners immediately began an internecine war. The Ottomans clashed with Bulgaria in order to recapture Edirne and the European areas adjacent to Istanbul. The Second Balkan War ended in August 1913 with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, but a year later the First Balkan War broke out World War.
The First World War and the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Developments after 1908 weakened the Young Turk government and isolated it politically. It tried to correct this situation by offering alliances to stronger European powers. On August 2, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe, the Ottoman Empire entered into a secret alliance with Germany. On the Turkish side, the pro-German Enver Pasha, a leading member of the Young Turk triumvirate and the Minister of War, took part in the negotiations. A few days later, two German cruisers, Goeben and Breslau, took refuge in the straits. The Ottoman Empire acquired these warships, sailed them into the Black Sea in October and shelled Russian ports, thus declaring war on the Entente.
In the winter of 1914–1915, the Ottoman army suffered huge losses, When Russian troops entered Armenia. Fearing that they will come out on their side local residents, the government sanctioned a massacre of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia, which many researchers later called the Armenian genocide. Thousands of Armenians were deported to Syria. In 1916, the Ottoman rule in Arabia came to an end: the uprising was launched by the sheriff of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, supported by the Entente. As a result of these events, the Ottoman government completely collapsed, although Turkish troops, with German support, achieved a number of important victories: in 1915, they managed to repel an Entente attack on the Dardanelles Strait, and in 1916, they captured a British corps in Iraq and stopped the Russian advance in the east. During the war, the regime of capitulations was abolished and customs tariffs were increased to protect domestic trade. The Turks took over the business of the evicted national minorities, which helped create the core of a new Turkish commercial and industrial class. In 1918, when the Germans were recalled to defend the Hindenburg Line, the Ottoman Empire began to suffer defeats. On October 30, 1918, Turkish and British representatives concluded a truce, according to which the Entente received the right to “occupy any strategic points” of the empire and control the Black Sea straits.
Collapse of the empire.
The fate of most of the Ottoman provinces was determined in secret treaties of the Entente during the war. The Sultanate agreed to the separation of areas with a predominantly non-Turkish population. Istanbul was occupied by forces that had their own areas of responsibility. Russia was promised the Black Sea straits, including Istanbul, but the October Revolution led to the annulment of these agreements. In 1918, Mehmed V died, and his brother Mehmed VI ascended the throne, who, although he retained the government in Istanbul, actually became dependent on the Allied occupation forces. Problems grew in the interior of the country, far from the locations of the Entente troops and the power institutions subordinate to the Sultan. Detachments of the Ottoman army, wandering around the vast outskirts of the empire, refused to lay down their arms. British, French and Italian military contingents occupied various parts of Turkey. With the support of the Entente fleet, in May 1919, Greek armed forces landed in Izmir and began advancing deep into Asia Minor to take the protection of the Greeks in Western Anatolia. Finally, in August 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres was signed. No area of the Ottoman Empire remained free from foreign surveillance. An international commission was created to control the Black Sea Straits and Istanbul. After unrest occurred in early 1920 as a result of rising national sentiments, British troops entered Istanbul.
Mustafa Kemal and the Treaty of Lausanne.
In the spring of 1920, Mustafa Kemal, the most successful Ottoman military leader of the war, convened the Great National Assembly in Ankara. He arrived from Istanbul to Anatolia on May 19, 1919 (the date from which the Turkish national liberation struggle began), where he united around himself patriotic forces striving to preserve Turkish statehood and the independence of the Turkish nation. From 1920 to 1922, Kemal and his supporters defeated enemy armies in the east, south and west and made peace with Russia, France and Italy. At the end of August 1922 Greek army retreated in disorder to Izmir and coastal areas. Then Kemal's troops headed to the Black Sea straits, where British troops were located. After the British Parliament refused to support the proposal to begin hostilities, British Prime Minister Lloyd George resigned, and war was averted by the signing of a truce in the Turkish city of Mudanya. The British government invited the Sultan and Kemal to send their representatives to the peace conference, which opened in Lausanne (Switzerland) on November 21, 1922. However, the Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, and Mehmed VI, the last Ottoman monarch, left Istanbul on a British warship on November 17.
On July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, which recognized the full independence of Turkey. The Office of the Ottoman State Debt and Capitulation were abolished, and foreign control over the country was abolished. At the same time, Türkiye agreed to demilitarize the Black Sea straits. Mosul province with its oil fields, went to Iraq. It was planned to carry out a population exchange with Greece, from which the Greeks living in Istanbul and the West Thracian Turks were excluded. On October 6, 1923, British troops left Istanbul, and on October 29, 1923, Turkey was proclaimed a republic, and Mustafa Kemal was elected its first president.