History of Turkey - Turkish History

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Anatolia, meaning "land of mothers" is the timeless term for the geographical area know as Turkey which has supported countless civilizations for thousands of years. The oldest city in the world Çatalhoyuk, is thought to be near what is modern day Konya. In 7500 BC, this city thrived on agriculture and obsidian trade and practiced goddess worship. Evidence of this matriarchal civilization and their way of life and worship can be found in Ankara at the Museum of Anatolian civilization.

During the Neolithic and Bronze Ages life in Anatolia was relatively quiet and the existing indigenous people where easily conquered by the Hittites in 2000 BC. The Hittites, an Indo-European people introduced writing and an advanced legal system. In uniting all of Anatolia the Hittites created a superpower which rivaled and invaded Egypt. At the turn of the 13th Century Hittite power began to decline, due to the onslaught of warring bands of Thracians who were also responsible for the fall of Troy.

After the Hittites, Anatolian unity dissolved and was replaced by small, unrelated groups across the land.

Greek city-states sprang up along the Aegean coast, Miletus and Symrna are two of the most famous of these independent cites united by their Greek culture and the role they played in Greek colonization.

The Lycians lived in city-states along the southern coast; one of the most important of their ports was Phaselis near modern day Antalya.

The Phrygians lived in the middle of Anatolia, with Gordion as their capital. King Midas, with his immense wealth that lead to his legendary "golden touch" ended his rule with a defeat by the Cimmerians. The Phrygians were renowned for their bravery, artistic talents, and intricately designed tombs.

The Cimmerians were defeated by the Lydians, creative people who invented many musical instruments and were the first civilization to make and use coins.

In about 600 BC the Medes came from Persia and took over Eastern Anatolia. Cyrus the Great conquered all of Anatolia and began 300 years of Persian rule. Persian rule gradually became less tightly structured and the provinces became more independent, making the conquest of Anatolia by Alexander the Great in 334 BC a quick success.

Alexander the Great, a Macedonian, had conquered the Greeks politically in the late 4th Century BC. Alexander though he ended the "golden age" of Greece under the rule of Athens, had great respect for Greek culture and created an empire that closely resembled that of Greece. This was the Hellenistic Period. Trade and prosperity increased and new cities where built throughout Anatolia. After Alexander death in 323 BC, his generals became his successors and set up rival kingdoms in an Empire that stretched from Italy to India. The largest kingdom in Anatolia was called Pergamon. The Pergamon kings allied themselves with Rome and when the last Pergamon ruler died in 133 BC he bequeathed his empire to Rome.

In the following four years, Rome took over most of Anatolia and declared it a Roman province calling it "Asia". Roman rule brought with it a time of cultural and economic prosperity for western Anatolia. Between 47 and 57 AD Saint Paul made three missionary journeys to Anatolia. Several books of the New Testament are letters, which he wrote to the emerging congregations at Ephesus, Colossea and Galatia. Christianity was just beginning and Paul's work helped to find it a stronghold in Anatolia. The political center shifted increasingly to the Northwest, the Emperor Diocletian (284-305) made Nicomedia, present day Izmit, his capital after the split of the Roman empire into its Eastern and Western halves. When Constantine became the Roman emperor, he moved the capital of his kingdom to a more strategic powerful position. He choose the provincial city of Byzantium, a city that linked Europe and Asia. In 3330 AD Constantine declared Byzantium to be the "New Rome" and with great modesty named the capital Constantinople (modern day Istanbul).

Anatolia became the heartland of the Eastern realm and thus began the Byzantine Empire, a state founded on Roman law and government, Greek culture and language, and the Christian faith. In 380, Theodosius I established Christianity as the state religion. The Byzantine Empire reached its peak during the reign of Justinian (527-565), encompassing the Balkans, Italy, Egypt, and North Africa. The Byzantine Empire declined gradually, due to political mistakes, such as over taxation which strangled its economy and also due to the rise of Islam.

Mohammed had heard the voice of God and the Arab and Turkish worlds listened. In 1037, Selcuk Turks from Central Asia rode a wave of Islam into Baghdad, where they established the Selcuk kingdom among fellow Muslims. After conquering modern day Iran and Iraq, the Selcuks fought Byzantine forces all the way to the Sea of Marmara, winning control of Anatolia, but leaving Constantinople to the Christians. The Selcuks created a wealth of beautiful architecture, poetry and most famous of all their beautiful tiles. During the 13th Century the Selcuk empire was home to a great philosopher. Mevlana, founder of the Whirling Dervish Sect, a religious mystic leader who lived in Konya. Mevlana wrote poetry and preached love and acceptance for people of all religions. Constantinople had many problems during this time, its rulers fought for control and the fourth Crusade sacked this Christian city and carried off its wealth.

Selcuck rule came to an abrupt end when in 1243 the Mongols conquered Anatolia, scattering the Turks. The Turks formed small city-states one of which is ruled by Osman. As was custom his subjects took his name Osmanli; Europeans later mispronounced this name into Ottoman. In 1453 the Osmanli had grown strong enough to challenge the eastern stronghold of Christianity, Constantinople. In this year Mehmet II conquered the city and renamed it Istanbul.

In the mid-1500s, the Ottoman Empire reached its peak during the reign of Suleymen the Magnificent. He triggered an architectural explosion and expanded his territory as far east as Hungary and as far south as North Africa. The Ottoman Empire died a long and lingering death drawn out over the next three centuries, due to inept leadership and the sultans' eventual withdrawal from the political and military arenas. The Ottoman Empire became know as the "Sick Man of Europe"and was increasingly reliant on European powers for protection against Russia; a growing European cultural influence marks this time.The Ottoman Empire made its final mistake when it sided with Germany during WWI. After the end of the war the victorious Allies carved up Turkey with the Mudros Armistice on October 30th, 1918.

Mustafa Kemal Pas,a (Atatürk) almost single-handedly created modern day Turkey, after having risen to prominence in Turkey for his success and bravery at the battle of Gallipoli. After WWI, when the fate of his country was in the hands of the Allies, Atatürk asserted control. In 1919, with amazing rapidity he gathered an army. During the next three years he chased out French, Armenian, British, and Russian troops. The Greeks who had occupied large parts of western Anatolia where also driven out by Atatürk and his army after their attempt to conquer Turkey. The evacuation of Smyrna (Izmir) in September of 1922 ended 3000 years of Greek settlement on the west coast of Anatolia.

With the Lausanne Peace Treaty (July 24th) the allies recognized Turkey's sovereignty, but forced it to give up the non-Turkish parts of the former Ottoman Empire. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on October 29th 1923 and Mustafa Kemal became its first president (the surname Atatürk- father of the Turks- was bestowed on him in 1934). In the years that followed he brought his far-reaching "Kemalist" reforms to Turkey; separation of religion and state (by removing Islam as the state religion and upholding civil law over Islamic law), adopted the Roman calendar, introduced the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic script, abolished polygamy, aligned Turkey with the West rather than the East, distanced Turkey from the corrupt Ottoman Empire by abolishing the sultanate and the caliphate and outlawing the fez and the veil, decreed that Turks should have last names in the western fashion, and emancipated women long before many other European countries. In a strategic move to bring the eastern and western halves of the country together, centrally located Ankara was named as the capital of the new Republic.

After the death of Atatürk in 1938, Turkey foundered as it searched for a leader and experimented with democracy. On three occasions, during times of crisis or political inaction, the military has taken control of the government each time returning control to the people. The major problem facing Turkey today is a weak economy with high inflation that only this year has been brought down to a more manageable 23 or so percent and with Turkey's current candidacy for membership to the European Community many changes both economic and political are under way. Another problem that has been much publicized is a Kurdish uprising in southeast Anatolia. With the arrest in 1999 of Abdulah Öcalan leader of the PKK, the Kurdish rebel group, this problem seems to have been diffused and relations between Turkish and Kurdish people have resumed a normal tone. In a region of much political and social changed and strife Turkey has managed well to keep to Atatürk's motto "Peace at home, peace in the world".