Capital Cities of Ottoman
The First Capital of Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman province of Hüdavendigar
When the Seljuks commenced their conquest of Anatolia from 1071 onwards, they began settling their new lands with Turkish tribes from further east. When the Seljuk Empire weakened and began to fall apart in the thirteenth century, numerous small Turkish principalities sprang up, one of which was the Ottoman Beylik in northwest Anatolia. The Ottomans expanded rapidly as they conquered additional lands from the Byzantines.
Founder of the Ottoman Beylik was Osman Bey, who was born in the town of Söğüt in Bithynia in 1258. In 1299 he conquered Bilecik, Yenikent, İnegöl and İznik, and this is the year regarded as the founding of the Ottoman Empire, which was to survive for over six hundred years. As Osman Gazi gained in strength, the Byzantine governor of Bursa Atranos sought assistance from the governors of Kestel and Kite. Their united army joined battle against the Ottomans at Koyunhisar in 1301. The Ottomans were victorious.
Osman Bey resolved to take Bursa, and began preparations to besiege the city in 1317. First he had to cut off its link to the sea, for which purpose he built a fort near Kaplıca and appointed his nephew Ak Timur its commander. His slave Balabancık was given command of a second fort in the mountains behind Bursa, so cutting off access to the city on either side. The Turks then demolished the fort of Atranos Beyce and made their encampment at Pınarbaşı. Leaving the command of the army to his son Orhan Bey, Osman Gazi returned to Yenikent.
The siege lasted eight years, and meanwhile Osman Gazi fell seriously ill and could no longer fight. He ordered his son Orhan Gazi to take Bursa, and Orhan began by taking Evrenos Fortress. The governor of the fortress fled into the rnöuntains. Orhan Gazi sent Mihal Bey to the governor of Bursa demanding his surrender. The governor sent a gift of precious clothes and forty thousand gold sovereigns as a gesture of submission, and after consulting his father Orhan Gazi allowed the governor to leave the city with his family and entourage. They made their way to Gemlik on the coast and sailed for Istanbul. In 1326, the Turkish army entered Bursa.
This news reached Osman Gazi on his deathbed, and he died happy in the knowledge that his greatest goal had been achieved. The capture of Bursa marked a turning point for the Ottoman Empire. Orhan bin Osman, who had been born in 1281, the year that his grandfather Ertuğrul Gazi died, was now the second Ottoman sultan. Orhan Gazi’s elder brother one day advised him to do three things. The first was to strike coins in his name, the second was to wear clothing which would distinguish him from his subjects, and the third was to form an army of infantry soldiers to be paid out of the treasury. Previously coins had been struck in the name of the Seljuk sultans, but in 1328, following his brother’s advice, Orhan Gazi became the first Ottoman sultan to mint his own coins. He also introduced white uniforms for his soldiers, in place of their former red and black apparel.
In 1335 Bursa became the first Ottoman capital. Orhan Gazi ruled for nearly 35 years until his death in 1360. He was succeeded by his son Murad, who had been born in 1326. Sultan Murad Han bin Orhan bin Osman Gazi was the third Ottoman sultan, and became known by the cognomen Hüdavendigar.
In 1362Murad captured the city of Edirne (Adrianople). One night Murad Hüdavendigar dreamed that a white bearded man with a radiant face told him to build a palace in Edirne. A great palace was immediately built and in 1363 the Ottoman capital moved from Bursa to Edirne, although Bursa retained its spiritual and economic importance.
In 1399 Bayezid Yıldırım (the Thunderbolt) founded a hospital in Bursa where the hot mineral springs of the city featured largely in the treatment of patients. When Timur’s armies captured Bursa in 1402, they destroyed and burnt many of the medreses (colleges), mosques and other monuments of the city. In 1429 further disaster struck, this time in the form of plague which decimated the population. In 1482, when Cem Sultan was fighting for the throne against his brother Bayezid, he ruled in Bursa for just eighteen days, but in this brief time struck coins in his name. In the battle against the army of his brother Bayezid II, Cem’s forces were defeated and he fled the city.
BUILDINGS OF BURSA
Bursa style
The Ottoman architecture of Bursa has a distinctive style with close parallels to that of the Byzantines. With the conquest of the Byzantine lands of the region many local masons, carvers and other artisans continued to work for the Ottomans. The Byzantine influence which they brought to the new buildings of the Ottoman principality distinguished them from those of the other Turkish principalities of Anatolia. Bursa style lived on after the conquest of Edirne and Istanbul in 1362 and 1453 respectively, showing itself in the architecture of the early monuments constructed in both these cities. The T plan which developed in the fourteenth century çan be seen in almost all the royal mosques of Bursa. The Bursa arch is another distinctive feature. This broad flattened arch does not have great carrying strength, and is rather decorative than functional in character.
Ulu Mosque
Bursa Ulu Mosque belongs to the early Islamic style of mosque building, with a multidomed roof supported by numerous piers and columns and a covered court. This mosque was built by the architect Ali Neccar for Yıldırım Bayezid in 1399. It has two large minarets and twenty domes of more or less equal size resting on twelve square pillars, the central dome being glazed. Inside are 192 inscriptions written by celebrated calligraphers executed on the walls and on panels.
Yeşil Mosque
The earliest example of Bursa style is the Yeşil (Green) Mosque, which was built in 1419 by the architect Vezir Hacı İvaz Paşa for Çelebi Sultan Mehmed. The tiles which lend their name to the mosque are the work of Mecnun Mehmed. The marble carving on the façade, window frames, door, stone inscriptions and ceiling above the door is exquisite. The early mosques of Bursa and İznik are characterised by plain lines emphasising spatial form, and a controlled use of decoration. Gradually the Ottoman decorative arts acquired their own style, and new masters emerged. The first Ottoman nakkaş -a decorator who painted and stencilled designs on plaster- was Ali bin İlyas Ali, who did all the painted decoration for the Yeşil Mosque.
Muradiye Mosque
Muradiye Mosque was constructed between 1426 and 1428 for Murad II and exhibits all the typical characteristics of Bursa style, including a reversed T plan. The domes and both minarets of this mosque collapsed in the earthquake of 1855 and were not rebuilt until 1902, when the mihrab (niche facing Mecca) and minber (pulpit) were renovated with the rococo decoration fashionable at the time.
Emir Sultan Mosque
Steps to the west side lead up to a gateway between two columns which is a marble inscription consisting of a verse from the Koran. This leads into a large courtyard surrounded by a wooden colonnade, with a şadıruan -fountain for ablutions- in the centre. To the south stands the mosque, whose mihrab is revetted in İznik tiles. North of the mosque stands the tomb of Emir Sultan. Around most of the rectangular window frames are carved mukarnas (stalactite work), and above these the pediments are decorated with rumî scrollwork motifs.
Vernacular architecture
Traditional houses built in the style which developed in Bursa over the centuries of Ottoman nıle feature distinctive decoration. Most have fireplaces, unlike the houses of Istanbul. Above the main windows are smaller windows placed high in the walls with stucco tracery and coloured glazing. Walls, ceilings, and the doors of the fitted cupboards are all richly decorated. A considerable number of traditional houses survive in Bursa today, and although most date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries they provide a remarkable picture of the vernacular architecture of the city.
PEOPLE OF THE CITY
Portraits
Bursa is one of Turkey’s cities that have experienced a high influx of migrants over the centuries, and the communities of different people have each added their own colour to life in the city. In the sixteenth century a wave of Turks arrived here from Central Asia, for instance, doubling the city’s population between 1530 and 1575.
Around the city were villages populated by Greeks who had been there since the middle ages, and during the reign of Mehmed II (1451-1481) Greek migrants from the Morea were settled in Bursa.
Armenians from Kütahya first arrived here during the reign of Orhan Bey in the fourteenth century. When the Armenian Patriarchate was founded in Istanbul by Mehmed II in 1461 the Bursa metropolitan, Ovakim, was elected patriarch. From the early nineteenth century onwards Armenians from eastern Turkey came to Bursa in large numbers, and most of them settled in the neighbourhood of Setbaşı. Bursa’s first newspaper, the semi-official Hüdavendigar published by the city governor Hacı İzzet Paşa, introduced a section in Armenian from issue 82 onwards. Although there is said to have been a Jewish colony in Bursa as early as 79 BC, Jews first attained a significant presence in the city after it became the Ottoman capital, when Sultan Orhan gave permission for the Jews to build a sinagogue and their own quarter. Trade, money-lending, tailoring and goldsmithing were the occupations in which most of the Jews were engaged. When the Russians occupied Rumelia (the Ottoman provinces of eastern Europe) and Caucasia during the 1877-1878 Ottoman Russian War, large numbers of Muslims from these regions migrated to Bursa. Thirty thousand people came from Ruse in Bulgaria alone. But the majority of the newcomers were Georgians and Tatars. Those from Caucasia settled in the district of Yıldırım, those from Kazan in Mollaarap, and those from the Crimea in Alacahırka.
There had been Copts in Bursa since very early times, and on the spring festival of Hıdırellez they would go to the area around the Lime Kilns in the foothills of Uludağ and spend the day in celebrations, in the course of which they also elected their chief, known as the çeriba,sı. They lived in the neighbourhoods of Kanberler and Demirkapı.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there were German, British, Austro-Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, French, Belgian, Greek and Iranian consulates in Bursa, and according to the population census carried out at this time 9.84% of the population were Greeks, 6.66% Armenian, 18% various others, and the remaining 65.5% Muslim Turks. In 1903 the provincial assembly’s members included Müftü Ali Rıza Efendi, the Greek metropolitan, the Armenian Archbishop Natalyan Efendi, the Armenian Catholic representative Arşoni Efendi, Archbishop Artin Efendi, and Chief Rabbi Moşe Hayim Efendi. Of the 19 qualified physicians working in the city five were Turkish, and of the 17 pharmacists four were Turkish.
The week of the hyacinth festival was one of Bursa’s colourful annual events. The people would go out to picnic in the hyacinth meadows which surrounded the city. Women and men went separately, women on three days of the week and men on the other four. One spring day in 1869 when the women of Bursa were singing and amusing theınselves in the hyacinth fields, two men joined them. The scandal was investigated by the judicial authorities and the two men interrogated. They said in their defence that they were strangers to the town and did not know that it was forbidden for men to go into the flower meadows that day. They were acquitted, but the incident was recorded in Bursa’s court records.
Bursa has a rich culinary tradition that has evolved over many centuries, but it is famous most of all for its kebab. The German general Helmut von Moltke, who visited Bursa in 1836, wrote in his memoirs about the delicious flavour and cheap price of this kebab: “We ate lunch in typical Turkish style, in a kebab house. After washing our hands we ate not around the table but seated upon it [this “table” would have been a large cloth spread on the floor]. I did not know where to put my legs. Then a wooden tray arrived, on which the kebab, that is, was small pieces of mutton cooked on skewers and wrapped in bread. This is a very delicious dish. After that came a plate of excellent salted olives, helva, which is a sweet dish much loved by the Turks, and a bowl of sherbet (raisins stewed in water with a lump of ice tossed in). For two hungry diners this meal cost altogether 120 para, or five shillings.”
City of Exiles
By the nineteenth century Bursa, with its beautiful old buildings and luxuriant greenery, had long since left its days as a capital city behind. Instead it had become a city of exiles.
After long years of opposition to the Ottoman government abroad, Mevlânazade Rıfat came back to Istanbul and surrendered himself to the police. The martial law court sentenced him to exile in Bursa on the basis of a judgement reached in his absence at an earlier date. His exile was only repealed after Sultan Abdülhamid II was deposed on 27 April 1909. When Mehmed V Reşad succeeded him as the thirty-fifth Ottoman sultan, the dissidents of the previous regime were pardoned and Mevlânazade Rıfat returned to Istanbul.
Mehmed Tevfik Bey, who was governor of Bursa between 1906 and 1909, recalls some of the exiles in his memoirs. His kindness to three sisters of his acquaintance was one of the main reasons for his friendship with Fehime Sultan, one of the daughters of Sultan Murad V (1876). Mehmed Tevfik Bey explains that when the three sisters, one from the household of Sultan Abdülhamid, the other from the household of Sultan Mehmed V, and their elder sister were exiled to Bursa, he invited them to stay at his house until they found a permanent home of their own.
The story of how Gazi Osman Paşa’s second son Kemaleddin Bey was sent into exile is a tragic one. Kemaleddin Bey was married to Naime Sultan, one of the daughters of Abdülhamid II. Naime Sultan fell ill at one point, and Dr. Hakkı Şinasi Paşa administered an injection of cacodilate. This gave rise to a rumour that Kemaleddin Bey was in love with Sultan Murad’s eldest daughter Hatice Sultan, who lived in the palace next door, and had instructed the doctor to inject his wife with poison in order to marry Hatice. When this rumour reached the ears of Abdülhamid II he could not be persuaded that the injection was indeed for medical reasons, and arranged a divorce for his daughter. Kemaleddin Bey was exiled to Bursa and Dr. Hakkı Şinasi Paşa elsewhere. Kemaleddin Bey rented a house in Bursa, where he was kept under house arrest, guarded by one of the imperial aides Major-General Mustafa Paşa and several other officers from the sultan’s riflemen. The illustrious prisoner was allowed no visitors, even the governor being unable to call without first obtaining the sultan’s permission.
After the death of Sultan Murad V in 1904, one of his favourites together with a large number of women from her household were allocated pensions of 10 lira each and exiled to Bursa. It was commanded that a house be purchased for each, and that they be married off to those who applied for their hands. Since purchasing so many houses and settling each woman down would be a long process, two mansions were rented where they all lived together in the mean time.
Necmeddin Molla’s elder brother Ali Ata was crossing The Strait of Istanbul on a steam ferry one day where he lit his cigarette from that which the stranger seated beside him was smoking. The stranger turned out to be from the household of heir apparent Reşad Efendi, and when this political gaff was reported to Sultan Abdülhamid II, Ali Ata joined the ranks of exiles in Bursa.
Fehim Paşa was another celebrated exile to Bursa at this time, and there were many others in and around the city. Bursa’s provincial clerk and director of education were both exiles.
COMMERClAL LIFE
Bazaars
The külliye-mosque complex- built by Orhan Gazi after the conquest of Bursa included the city’s first bedesten or exchange building, Emir Han, where textile merchants stored and sold their wares. When the bedesten moved to a new building constructed by Sultan Yıldırım Bayezid (1389-1402), the other tradesmen moved into the old bedesten and other bazaars (çarşı or Pazar)grew up in the area around it. Hacı İvaz Paşa Çarşısı housed the felt makers, Sipahi Çarşısı the quilt makers, Gelincik Çarşısı the cotton carders and tailors, Atpazarı the horse and livestock traders, Kapan Çarşısı the fruit traders, and Tahıl Pazarı the dried fruit and nut traders. The famous Bursa cutlers had their workshops around the Tahıl Pazarı.
In addition to these there was Uzunçarşı, Bitpazarı (the flea market), Tahtakale, Tavukpazarı (poultry market), Bakırcılar Çarşısı (coppersmiths market), Pirinç Han (rice market), Tuz Han (salt market), İpek Han (silk market), and Koza Han (cocoon market). As these indicate, trade and manufacturing were vigorous and varied in Bursa.
Tradesmen
Bursa’s tradesmen and artisans belonged to guilds which exerted strict control over trading practices. Only those trained in a trade and qualifıed as masters were permitted to open their own shops, and the copying of items made by master craftsmen was prohibited.
After completing a long period of apprenticeship, followed by years as a journeyman, the artisan was finally qualified as a master. The completion of each phase was marked by a ceremony. When an apprentice was judged ready to become a journeyman, his master would inform the steward and other officials of his own guild. All the members of the guild would then be invited to a feast at one of the excursion places outside the town, where they wauld be entertained by wrestling matches and other amusements. Then, to the recital of prayers, the guild official known as the yiğitbaşı would ceremonially gird the apprentice in the peştemal (cloth wrap or apron) which marked his new status as journeyman.
Making the next step up to master craftsman did not only depend on long years of work and acquiring outstanding skill. Since a specific number of master craftsmen were permitted for each trade, the journeyman had to wait until one of the masters died or retired. Then the most senior journeyman of the guild would be ceremoniously granted the rank of master.
The first silk mill was opened in Bursa by Konstanz Bey in 1833, and a second by Boduryan Efendi in 1843. Gradually the traditional small craftsmen made way for industrial scale manufacturing.
Sericulture
Bursa’s economic wealth rested to a considerable extent on agriculture – vine growing, fruit growing, dairy products, and on the olive production of Gemlik and Mudanya. The large quantity of mulberry trees also made Bursa an ideal centre for silk production.
Producing the raw silk for the textile mills was a labour intensive process. Beginning with the production of the eggs, through to hatching the worms and the cocoon stage, all involved considerable risks. One of the worst disasters was pebrine, a disease affecting silkworms which broke out in France and spread to Bursa in the 1860s. As a result output plunged, and many producers went out of business and began to uproot the mulberry orchards. Then the news arrived that a cure for the disease had been discovered in France, and unaffected eggs were imported. Production went smoothly only for a while, before the disease broke out again.
As the need for technical knowledge in the silk production sector became evident, it was decided to open a school for this purpose. Known as the Silk School (Harir Dariılttalimi) it opened on 2 April 1888 in a house rented from Kazaz Ahmet Muhtar Efendi in the neighbourhood of Şehreküstü in Bursa. The first students graduated in 1889. Soon afterwards the school moved to a larger building in Setbaşı, a house belonging to Burdurizade Osman Efendi. In 1894, when it moved into a building constructed near Maksem, the school was renamed the Institute of Sericulture. Torkumyan Efendi was appointed principal of the institute, and as well as training large numbers of silk technicians he introduced the Pasteur technique of egg production which gave a valuable boost to Bursa’s silk industry.
Silk weaving
Bursa was the main textile manufacturing centre of the Ottoman Empire. In the early 1850s Bursa had fourteen textile mills equipped with steam driven machinery like their counterparts in Europe, and there were a further two in Mudanya. In Bursa there were around 150 to 200 looms weaving tulle, and pure and mixed silk fabrics.
The traditional looms used in Bursa were extremely simple, consisting of a rectangular wooden frame on which the weft threads were stretched, and two cylinders for rolling up the fabric as it came off the loom. Lead weights kept the threads balanced and in tension as the alternate threads were pulled forward by a foot pedal for the shuttle to cross between them. Apart from the weights every part of the loom was made of wood.
Bursa fabrics were celebrated far beyond the borders of the Ottoman Empire. They were exported as far afield as China, and filled the markets of Hungary, Poland, Italy and the Balkan countries. In the sixteenth century rich fabrics woven in Bursa from silk, wool and silver and gold thread were used for clothing worn by the Ottoman sultans and princes. Bursa fabrics included velvets, the velvet brocade known as çatma-which was also woven in Bilecik and Üsküdar, diba- a brocade incorporating gold thread, and a fine taffeta known as canfes.
The weavers of Bursa had their own guild which inspected the bales of cloth before they could be sold, and stamped those which were up to standard. Those which did not pass inspection were confiscated. Each weaving shop specialised in one particular fabric type. Cotton yarn imported from abroad was subjected to similar close inspection before being put up for sale each Saturday in the market held in the courtyard of Ulu Mosque. Silk cocoons were sold at Koza Han.
When foreign competition began in the eighteenth century the Bursa weavers were forced to produce fabrics more cheaply, and their quality gradually declined.
SCHOOLS
The Missionary School In October 1834 American Protestant missionaries began establishing schools in Turkey. They first opened a secondary school for boys in Pera in Istanbul, followed over the next five years by schools in İzmir, Bursa and Trabzon. Their curricula followed those of American schools, and they quickly won popularity. The American Girls School in Bursa had seventy pupils in four grades. In 1893 the lessons taught were Greek or Armenian and English, arithmetic and geography being taught in Greek or Armenian, and geometry, botany, physics, astronomy and history in English.
Işıklar Military High School
This school was established in 1845 on the orders of Sultan Abdülmecid on the site which is today Heykel Meydanı square. It subsequently moved to a new building whose lower floor was of stone and upper floor of wood in the district of Işıklar. The new building was inaugurated by city governor Münir Paşa on 10 June 1892. A second building was added in 1894, and the number of pupils increased to five hundred. In 1911 a school hospital was added. During the Greek occupation following World War I the building was used as stables by the Greek forces. The school reopened on 11 December 1922. Işıklar Hill from which the district took its name, was originally known as Âşıklar or Lovers Hill, which in time was compted to Işıklar or Lights Hill.
Hamidiye Technical School
This technical school first opened on 10 April 1869 in a mansion called Türkmenoğlu Konağı in the neighbourhood of ilibos. Two years later it moved to a new building in Tophane. At first the pupils were only taught weaving, and they made fabric for gendarme uniforms. Subsequently shoemaking was added to the curriculum, and tools and teachers were sent from Istanbul. In the early twentieth century French and music lessons were added and a school band formed. In 1906 a shop was opened on Hükümet Caddesi to sell the shoes and fabrics made by the pupils. The school became the pride of the city, and local people raised funds for improvements. A lottery was held, and a livestock sale at Atıcılar was organised, at which a percentage of each purchase was donated to the school. Again in 1906 Necip Efendi of Bursa and Mirat Efendi of Istanbul obtained a licence to sell European made cigarette papers under the name Hamidiye Technical School Cigarette Paper, on which the profits also went to the school.
Mülkiye İdadi School
In 1885 a boys’ seeondary school known as Mülkiye İdadisi was founded, and in July 1888 its fırst five graduates matriculated. Three more grades were added to the original four in 1891, and between 1901 and 1904 a chemistry laboratory, dormitory, refectory, and recreation room were added. In 1909 it became known as the Mektebi Sultani.
Agricultural College
This agricultural college was opened in March 1891 by city governor Mahmut Celaleddin Paşa to give boys practical training in agricultural technology. Known as Hüdavendigar Model Farm Agricultural College; it was built on land belonging to Topal Mehmed Ağa in the village of Hamitler. It accepted twenty pupils the first year, and for many years around fifteen boys graduated annually.
In 1904 Mülkiye İdadisi had 325 pupils, Hamidiye Technical School 150 and the Agricultural College 78. In 1905 a teacher training school known as the Hamidiye Medresesi Muallimini opened, and this was later renamed Darülmuallimin.
SPAS
From Rome to the Byzantines A letter written by Plinius, the first Roman governor of Bursa appointed by the Emperor Trajan early in the second century AD, tells us that there were no baths in Bursa prior to that time. During the reign of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (527-565)when a major building programme was carried out in Bursa, baths were built at Pythia (today Çekirge) so that the public could take advantage of the hot springs there. More baths were added over the centuries and Bursa became one of the most important spas of the Byzantine period.
Spas under the Ottomans
The seventeenth century Turkish writer and traveller Evliya Çelebi declared, justly, that Bursa consisted of water. The two-domed baths at the spa built by Justinian were enlarged by Sultan Murad Hüdavendigar (1360-1389) who had another two domed sections added. Over the centuries people came from far and wide to bathe in the hot mineral water here. They included members of the imperial family and household, notables and diplomats from Istanbul, foreign princes travelling in the region, and foreign scholars, writers and statesmen. Over the four years that Mehmet Tevfik Bey was governor of Bursa, for instance, he was host to the Duke of Holstein, brother-in-law of Wilhelm II of Germany, and his wife on 6 May 1906, to Prince Victor Napoleon of the Bonaparte family on 7 June 1908, and to Duke Carl Edward Saxe-Coburg and his wife on 4 July 1908.
Bursa hamams consist of an entrance hall, a tepidarium, and the washing hall itself known as the halvet. The Ottoman poet Arif wrote of these baths,
Those who enter remain
Bathing in the life giving water
Cures the ills of many
At Bursa’s spa.
In a letter to his father written during his sojourn in Turkey in the 1830s, Helmut von Moltke wrote: “I have already told you of the pleasures of the Turkish hamams. In Bursa the water is not artificially heated, but is by nature so hot that at first one cannot believe that one will live to survive immersion in the large, clear pool without being scalded. There was a wonderful view from the terrace of the hamam which we entered and it was so comfortable that we were reluctant to leave.”
TRANSPORT
The Marmara coast
In the nineteenth century Bursa was capital of the province of Hüdavendigar, which consisted of the districts of Balıkesir, Karahisar-ı Sahip and Kütahya, and the sub-provinces of Gemlik, Pazarköy, Mudanya, Yalova, Karamürsel, Tirilye, Bilecik, Lefke, Gölpazan, Söğüd, Mihaliç, Kirmasti, İnegöl, Yarhisar, Yenikent, İznik and Pazarcık.
The province had three main ports on the Marmara coast: Gemlik, Yalova and Mudanya. Gemlik stood at the end of the gulf between the mainland and Bozbunın headland, which was the tail-end of the Samanlı Mountains. This port had been famous for its shipyards for centuries. Geınlik Harbour was sheltered from the northwesterly wind and so provided shelter to ships caught in storms. The port of Yalova further to the noıth had the disadvantage of poor road connections. The busiest port of the three, with convenient access to Bursa Plain, was Mudanya, with a hinterland filled with mulberry woods, olive groves and vineyards. According to Evliya Çelebi Mudanya was named after the daughter of Constantine the Great.
In the 1850s the journey by sea from Istanbul to Mudanya took eight hours in calm weather. When the northwest wind was blowing a gale, high waves off Bozburun forced small ships to shelter in the mouth of the gulf until morning, so they did not arrive at Mudanya until the following day.
Roads
Travellers arriving at Mudanya by ship took horses for the last part of the journey to Bursa. Their way passed through orchards and vineyards, and for a long time the delightful view of the Marmara Sea was visible in the distance. Then as the traveller began the gradual descent from the hills the view of the sea disappeared, to be replaced by the sight of a city rising above a plain with many cypress trees. The city climbing the steep forested lower slopes of Mount Olympos had more than one hundred white minarets and domes. Nearing Bursa the traveller came to a bridge over the Nilüfer river, which wound its way between gigantic walnut trees with their dark leaves, pale green planes, verdant meadows and mulberry groves. Each step nearer to the city brought fresh scenic delights.
The Railway
In the second half of the nineteenth century the Ottoman government realised the crucial importance of constructing a railway across the country, and in 1871 an edict was promulgated for a main line from Istanbul to Baghdad. The Asian Ottoman Railway Company was founded, and a German engineer named Wilhelm von Pressel appointed its director. Pressel planned to begin the line at Haydarpaşa at the southern mouth of The Strait of Istanbul. An independent line between Bursa and its port Mudanya was also envisaged, and the tracks for this local line began from Mudanya and reached Bursa in 1874. The tracks alone cost 185,000 Ottoman lira (4,200,000 French francs) and there was no money left to complete the work. Not until 17 years later, in 1892, was the project completed and the line put into operation by the Ottoman Railway Company owned by Monsieur Nagelmakers who purchased operating rights.
It took just two hours for the train from Mudanya to reach Bursa’s Acemler Station. Since the railway was run by a foreign company the timetable was designed according to Western time, which led to confusion (Turkish time divided day and night into twelve equal hours, which varied according to the length of daylight). The railway company hung up a notice on 5 September 1892 warning passengers that the timetable was based on Western time, but eventually gave into popular demand and
2nd Capital Edirne |
Capital Cities of Ottoman
Edirne, The Second Capital of Ottoman Empire
HISTORY OF THE CITY
The Odrys
Near the city of Ainos archaeologists have excavated a settlement belonging to one of the oldest known neolithic cultures in the Balkans. Their pottery and the defensive wall around the settlement are typical of contemporary Anatolian cultures, so these people are thought to have been a colony from Anatolia.
Later Thrace was settled by a people whose courage and skills as warriors put fear into many of their neighbours. These qualities meant that the Thracians were sought after as mercenaries by first the Athenians and then the Romans. Thracian settlements took many forms, from caves to strong forts, farms to fishing villages whose houses were raised on poles, and unwalled cities.
The Apsinti, east of Ainos, the Drugeri in the central region of the Hebrus, the Tyns in Salmydessos and the Kalopothaks were some of the Thracian tribes who inhabited the region stretching from Ainos to the Kallipolis (Gallipoli) peninsula. Most famous of all were the Odrys who at the height of their power inhabited an area extending from the Tonzos valley to the Aegean coast.
Odrysai was one of the major towns of the powerful Odrys Thracians. Odrysai lay in the fork at the confluence of the Hebrus and the Tonzos, and was a centre of commerce.
Transit point
Since this region lay on the only transit route between Europe and Asia Minor, migrations, invasions, trade and cultural exchange had a profound effect on its inhabitants. The passage of peoples to and fro was unceasing.
In 513 BC the Persian king Darius led his army against the Scythians, crossing the Starit of Istanbul and advancing along the coast into Thrace. The army made its first stop in the land of the Odrys, which now became part of the Persian Empire.
Two decades later, in 492 BC, another Persian army led by Mardonius consolidated Persian rule over Thrace, and in 480 BC the Thracians were obliged to supply troops for the army of King Xerxes, who set out from the Gulf of Melas (today Saros) on the Kallipolis peninsula, and conquered his way to the city of Ainos, taking possession of the entire Hebrus plain.
After the Persians lost control of the region, the Thracian tribes resolved to unite, choosing as their leader King Teres of the Odrys. In this way the Odrys became master of an area stretching from the Hebrus to Kypsela (Ipsala) and Varna, and established an aristocratic feudal state.
The Roman period
In 342-341 BC the Odrys were defeated in battle against the Macedonian army led by King Philip, and thereafter steadily declined in power. When his father was killed in 336 BC Alexander the Great, afraid of uprisings tearing his country apart, marched into Thrace in 335 BC. He advanced along the coast, crossing through the kingless land of the Thracians and over the river Nestos (Mesta) to reach the foothills of the Balkans in just ten days. After passing through Odrysia and over the Hebrus, he marched along the banks of the Tonzos, then crossed a pass. After Alexander’s death the successors to his empire turned Thrace into a satrapy.
In 280-279 BC Thrace was invaded by the Galatians, but the Odrys soon regained their former power and their king Kotys established friendly relations with Macedonia. In the war against Rome which lasted from 171-168 BC, Kotys was the only ally of Perseus. Eventually the Romans conquered Macedonia, while Thrace began to live in the shadow of Rome.
The Romans pursued a policy of maximising their influence over the region by establishing numerous kingdoms and principalities, but the Thracians who had never been amenable to foreign domination rebelled against all these efforts. Nevertheless, in the early years of our era, the land of the Odrys had become a Roman base and leverage point for maintaining its power over the region. In these years the Greek coastal cities became part of Rome, ruled by a Macedonian governor.
In 37-38 AD Caligula made Rhaimetalkes king of Thrace, but after Rhaimetalkes was killed the Emperor Claudius put an end to Thracian independence. In 45 AD Thrace was reduced to a province of the Roman Empire.
Hadrianopolis
When the Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138) travelled to the East in 123-124, he commanded that new buildings be constructed in the town of Odrysai, also known as Uscudama. The town grew into a city, and became one of the most important in the Roman Empire. It was now thought worthy to take the name of the emperor who had so honoured the city, and Odrysai was re-named Hadrianopolis (Adrianopolis), Hadrian’s city.
The most important building which Hadrian had constructed here was the castle. Corresponding exactly to the plan of a Roman castrum, the castle had nine gates, four circular towers, one at each corner, and along each wall twelve quadrangular turrets. Around the walls was a moat. When Rome was enjoying its golden age during the second century and first half of the third century, the cities of Thrace grew and prospered. Hadrianopolis, an important military stronghold and centre of trade with a fertile hinterland, was no exception.
In 297 Diocletian (284-305) established a tetrarchy to govern the Roman Empire more effectively in these times of civil strife, and the empire was divided into East and West, Diocletian becoming emperor of the former. As part of these changes Hadrianopolis was made provincial capital of Haemimontus, one of six provinces in Thrace. But when Diocletian abdicated in 305 a power struggle broke out between the eastern and western empires.
In 324 a battle was fought near Hadrianopolis in which Licinius, emperor of eastern Rome, was defeated by Constantine, emperor of the West. Licinius withdrew to Byzantium, but was again defeated and then killed. Constantine moved the capital from Rome to Byzantium, where as Constantine I he ruled the now reunited Roman Empire alone from 324 until 337. The new capital was known as Nea Roma until Constantine renamed it Constantinopolis after himself on 11 May 330.
In 378 during the reign of the Emperor Valens (3~4-378) a Roman army was defeated in battle against the Goths north of Hadrianopolis.
In order to prevent upheavals in Thrace and a threatened mass exodus out of the region, the Emperor Theodosius I (379-395) adopted a more conciliatory policy towards the Goths. Theodosius spent September of 381 in Hadrianopolis.
Fifty years of relative peace was broken by a new threat, as the Huns launched incursions against Thrace. The looting and plundering continued sporadically between 441 and 447.
In 550 it was the turn of the Avars, who roundly beat a Byzantine army outside Hadrianopolis. Huge numbers of soldiers were taken captive and the sacred standard of Constantine the Great was seized by the Avars. The victors pursued the Byzantines as far as the wall of Anastasius west of Constantinople, but here the Byzantines re-formed, set upon the Avars and recaptured both the sacred standard and some of their companions from the enemy.
During the reign of Heraclius (610-641), whose Heraclian dynasty lasted until the end of the seventh century, Hadrianopolis was the centre of five bishoprics.
In 807 the Emperor Nicephorus I (802-811) led an army against the Bulgars, who had taken Hadrianopolis, and recaptured the city, but had to immediately return to Constantinople where an uprising was being formed against him.
From 1018 onwards, the Pecheneks posed the greatest threat to Byzantine security. During the reign of Constantine IX Monomachus (1042-1055) the Pecheneks united to raise a powerful army which marched to Hadrianopolis, encamped beneath its walls, and commenced raiding and looting the surrounding villages and towns. When Constantinople was captured by the Latins in 1204, Hadrianopolis came under the control of Venice, which received the larger share of the divided Byzantium.
In 1336 one of the daughters of Andronicus III (1328-1341) married the Bulgarian prince Mikhael in Hadrianopolis. When Andronicus III died in 1341, he was succeeded by his nine-year-old son John V (1341-1391). Cantacuzene, who had been entrusted with the post of regent, betrayed this trust on 26 October 1341 by declaring himself emperor in Didymoteikhos. The resulting conflict between factions supporting John V and Cantacuzene escalated into civil war, which broke out in Hadrianopolis and swiftly spread through Thrace. Cantacuzene took Hadrianopolis and in 1347 entered Constantinople, where for the second time he proclaimed himself emperor as John VI in place of John V Palaeologus. In 1352 he was obliged to fight for possession of Hadrianopolis once again, this time against John V, who was strongly supported by the Serbians and Bulgarians, including a contingent of 4000 cavalry. Cantacuzene appealed for help against this intimidating force from the Turkish sultan Orhan Gazi (1326-1360), who was at the same time his son-in-law. Orhan Gazi sent his old friend and allies a force of around ten thousand soldiers under Süleyman Bey, so securing Cantacuzene’s victory.
THE OTTOMAN PERIOD
Hadrianopolis becomes Edirne
One night in 1354 Süleyman Bey took the fortress of Kallipolis, opening the way for the Ottoman advance into Thrace. In 1360 under Orhan Gazi’s successor Murad I (1359-1389) Turkish forces conquered Didymotheikos. Murad I set his sights on expanding Ottoman territory into Europe, and quickly took Sultan, Çorlu and Keşan in western Thrace. He charged Lala Şahin Paşa with the conquest of Hadrianopolis, and together with another Turkish commander Hacı İlbeyi the city was captured from the Byzantines in July 1362.
In the fetihname (declaration of conquest) sent by Murad I to Üveys Han, ruler of the Turkish Celayirli principality, Hadrianople is referred to as Edirne. In 1363 Murad I paid a visit to his new city, and appointed Lala Şahin Paşa commander of the garrison. Edirne became a crucial military base for subsequent territorial conquests by the Turks in Rumelia (Land of the Romans) as they called the Balkans and Thrace. The following year the Battle of Sırpsındığı was fought 25 km west of Edirne against a joint army of Serbs, Wallachians and Hungarians. One night Sultan Murad had a dream in which he was conversing with a wise, white bearded old man, who advised him to build a palace in Edirne. Murad I took heed of this dream and constructed himself a large palace beside the river.
The Ottoman Dar-ül Mülk
Following the conquest large numbers of Turks began to settle in Edirne, which was proclaimed the Ottoman capital in 1365, marking a new chapter in its history. It was from here that Sultan Bayezid I (1389-1403) commanded the first Turkish siege of Constantinople.
After the death of Yıldırım Bayezid I, the empire was torn apart by a decade of strife between his sons who all lay claim to the throne. During the interregnum, which lasted from 1403 to 1413, Edirne acquired even more importance. Bayezid’s eldest son Emir Süleyman Çelebi moved the state treasury from Bursa to Edirne, where he declared himself sultan. In 1411, his brother Musa Çelebi, with the help of the voyvode of Wallachia, attacked the city and seized it from his brother. Musa Çelebi struck coins in his own name. In 1413 Mehmed I Çelebi (1413-1421) reunited the country and took Edirne from his brother.
In 1419, another claimant to the throne made a sudden appearance, declaring himself to be Mustafa Çelebi (Mustafa the Pretender), the son of Bayezid I who had disappeared at the Battle of Ankara against Tamerlane. Gathering an army of supporters he captured Edirne and struck money in his name. Later he marched into Anatolia, but was defeated by Murad II (1421-1451) near Bursa. Mustafa Çelebi, who had made off with his father’s treasury but been waylaid on his way to Wallachia, was brought back to Edirne in 1442 and executed, the first public festival was held in the city in the wake of this event.
Murad II also held magnifıcent celebrations in Edirne upon the circumcision of his sons Alaeddin and Mehmed. In 1444 Murad II abdicated in favour of his son Mehmed so as to lead a life of peaceful retirement in Manisa. Mehmed II was the first Ottoman sultan whose accession took place in Edirne after the city became the Ottoman capital. The future Mehmed the Conqueror was just a child of 12 when his father entrusted him with the throne, but Murad II’s retirement did not last long. When a crusader army gathered against the Ottoman Empire he was obliged to return to Edirne and resume leadership of the army against the enemy.
Murad II crushed the enemy at Varna, and attempted again to leave the country to his son, but this time the janissaries mutinied, and he had to return to Edirne again to take up his throne for the third time. Only upon his death on 5 February 1451 did his son Mehmed II (1451-1481) finally rule independently. This young man of 19 had a very important goal ahead of him, to take Constantinople, and he began his preparations in Edirne.
Constantinople becomes capital
Mehmed II achieved his greatest ambition in 1453. In a final attack on the morning of 29 May, the landward walls of Constantinople were breached. That day the young sultan rode into the city and performed his prayers in the great church of Haghia Sophia. He was to go down in history as Fatih Sultan Mehmed, Mehmed the Conqueror. Constantinople became the third Ottoman capital, but Edirne was not pushed altogether into the background, and was the scene of many important events in the empire’s subsequent history. Mehmed II’s son Bayezid II (1481-1512) had Gedik Ahmed Paşa executed at Edirne Palace, and it was here that the struggle with his son Selim for the throne took place.
Edirne was the main military base for all the sixteenth century campaigns of conquest westwards into Europe, and in consequence the sultans spent much of their time in the palace there. So Edirne was effectively the seat of government for much of that time, enjoying the attention that this brought. Yavuz Sultan Selim I (1512-1520), Süleyman I the Magnificent (1520-15ü6) and Selim II (1566-1574) all founded public buildings here.
Edirne’s golden age
In the l7th century, beginning with Ahmed I (1603-1617), the sultans continued to divide their time between Istanbul and Edirne. Osman II (1617-1622) and Murad IV (1623-1640) organised magnificent hunting parties in the forests around Edirne, and Mehmed IV (1649-1687), so passionately fond of the chase that he was known as Mehmed the Hunter, spent most of his time hunting here. In the 1670s this sultan embarked on his campaigns against Russia and Poland from this surrogate capital.
Another sultan who preferred life in Edirne to Istanbul was Mustafa II (1695-1703), who was deposed after an uprising known as the Edirne Incident in 1703.
Following the Battle of Prut against Russia, which ended in the Treaty of Prut signed on 16 April 1712, the Russians refused to withdraw from Poland as agreed. After seven months the Ottomans resolved to go to war again, and Ahmed III (1703-1730) set off at the head of his army from Istanbul to Edirne. Alarmed by this, Peter I of Russia sent news that he was ready to negotiate. As a result of peace talks held in Edirne the Treaty of Edirne was signed on 24 June 1713, under which the Russians agreed to withdraw from Poland within two months, to the restoration of the frontiers as they had, stood in the reign of Mehmed IV, and to the return of King Karl XII of Sweden -who had been living in exile in the Ottoman Empire- to his country under the escort of a Turkish guard detachment.
Destruction and decline
First the great fire of 1745 and then the earthquake of 1751 left Edirne devastated. Its days of popularity and splendour were gone, and the city went into decline. The leading Ottoman notables in the Balkans, afraid of their power being undermined when Selim III (1789-1807) established his new army the Nizam-ı Cedit, rebelled twice in Edirne, in 1801 and 1806.
War broke out with Russia in 1828, and on 22 August 1829 the Russians took Edirne after a siege of just three days, forcing the Ottomâns to sign a peace treaty that would leave the empire weakened. The treaty was signed on 14 September 1829 and Edirne restored to Ottoman rule, but the Muslim population felt vulnerable and began to abandon the city in large numbers. Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) visited the city in 1831 to boost its morale, remaining for ten days during which he gave orders for the rebuilding of the city’s damaged buildings. In commemoration of the visit coins bearing the stamp of Edirne were struck, the three denominations being known as the hayriye, nısfiye and rubiye.
During the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878 Edirne was again occupied by Russian forces on 20 January 1878. This time the occupation lasted for over 13 months, during which many areas of the city were burnt and razed before Ottoman rule was restored on 13 March 1879.
Three decades of relative peace for Edirne again came to an end when the Balkan states formed an alliance against the Ottoman Empire and war broke out in 1912. A Bulgar and Serbian army attacked Edirne, whose defending forces under Şükrii Paşa held out for 160 days until hunger forced them to surrender on 26 March 1913. On 22 July 1913 an Ottoman force led by Enver Paşa met with no resistance when they came to retake a city now in a ruinous state. All efforts by the European powers to eject the Turks from Edirne on a permanent basis failed, and under the Bucharest Treaty of 10 August 1913 Edirne was left to the Ottomans.
Frontier city
Between 1920 and 1922, in the wake of the First World War, Edirne spent over two years under Greek occupation. Following the Mudanya Armistice a Turkish army entered Edirne on 25 November 1922. Finally the Lausanne Treaty of 24 July 1923 turned Edirne into a frontier town on the border with Greece and Bulgaria.
THE BUILDINGS
Despite nearly two centuries of largely man-made devastation, Edirne still retained many of its Turkish monuments. While the first Ottoman capital Bursa is renowned today largely for its early Ottoman architecture, the second capital Edirne represents the entire spectrum of Ottoman architecture over the centuries. Even though its own role as capital ended in the mid-fifteenth century, it was bedecked over subsequent centuries with buildings representing the greatest eras of Ottoman architecture.
Yıldırım Bayezid Mosque
The oldest Turkish building in Edirne, dating from 1397-1400, this mosque was built on the foundations of an earlier cruciform Byzantine church. It has a small central dome surrounded by four vaults.
Eski Mosque
Construction of this mosque began in 1403 by Emir Süleyman Çelebi, and was completed in 1414 by Sultan Mehmed Çelebi. Its architect was Hacı Alaeddin of Konya. The square building with nine small domes and four pillars is of the ulu mosque type. It is constructed of ashlar stone, and the portico is built of alternate courses of stone and brick. One of its most interesting features are the large inscriptions.
Muradiye Mosque
This mosque founded by Sultan Murad II in 1436 is one of the finest examples of mosques with secondary areas off the central prayer hall. While the exterior is severe, the interior is decorated with superb examples of fifteenth century Ottoman decorative art, in the form of tiles covering all but the north wall, beautiful stenciled decoration on the intrados of the large arch linking the two central domes, the magnificent mihrap niche and the minber.
Üç Şerefeli Mosque
This mosque was also founded by Murad II and constructed between 1438 and 1447. It marks the transition between early and classical Ottoman architecture. A transverse plan is used here in Turkish architecture for the first time. One of its four minarets has three balconies, another two balconies and the remaining two have a single balcony each. The minarets are richly decorated with stalactite carving, reeding and spiral motifs. Separate spiral staircases cleverly intertwined lead up to each of the balconies in the first minaret, which gives the mosque its name – Üç Şerefeli, meaning Three Balconied. The courtyard is surrounded by colonnades with slightly pointed arches and contains a şadırvan (ablution fountain).
Sultan Bayezid Mosque
When Sultan Bayezid II set out to conquer the forts of Kilia and Akkerman in Moldavia and Bessarabia he halted in Edirne to get in military supplies, and on 23 May 1484 the foundations were laid for a mosque and large külliye (complex) consisting of şifahane (hospital), medrese (college), imaret (public kitchen), tabhane (guest house), hamam (baths), and flour mill on the banks of the Tunca river. The project also included a bridge over the river. At a time when in Europe the mentally ill were believed to be under the influence of the devil, and frequently burnt at the stake, patients in Bayezid’s hospital were treated with music therapy. The hospital staff included ten singers and musicians playing the ney, violin, santur and ud. Certain modes of Turkish music were found to be particularly beneficial, among them neva, rast, dügah, segah, çargah and buselik. As well as music another form of therapy involved the scent of flowers.
This mosque numbers among the greatest monuments of Ottoman Turkish architecture. Designed by the architect Hayreddin, it has a single dome 21 metres in diameter over the prayer hall, and nearly a hundred smaller domes over the buildings of the complex.
Selimiye Mosque
This mosque was built between 1569 and 1575 by Mimar Sirıan for Sultan Selim II, and Mimar Sinan described it as his masterpiece. It has four minarets, each with three balconies, and these graceful minarets set at each corner around the central dome are visible from a great distance outside the city.
The 31.5 metre diameter dome rests on eight pillars set back against the walls, so creating an unbroken soaring central space. The eloquent unity of the interior, visible in entirety at a glance, is remarkable. The clear silhouette of the exterior is dominated by the dome.
Selimiye Mosque is also celebrated for the perfection of its marble carving, tiles and calligraphic decoration. In particular the marble carving of the minber has never been surpassed. The mihrap wall, royal gallery and the pediments of all the lower course windows are decorated with beautiful tiling, the finest in colour and composition being the large tile panels on the mihrap wall. The stencil decoration on the ceiling of the lower part of the royal gallery is also of special note.
An intricately carved marble şadırvan stands in the cloistered courtyard.
Edirne Palace
The earliest palace in Edirne was built by Murad I. In 1450 Sultan Murad II started building a new palace on a large site on the west bank of the Tunca, and following his death in 1451 this palace was completed by his son Mehmed II.
One of the most important palace buildings was the Cihannüma Kasır, a seven storey structure on whose top floor was an octagonal chamber containing an ornamental pool in the centre. Next to Cihannüma was the Kum Kasır, which had a hamam with a spiral ribbed dome.
Behind the Cihannüma Kasır was a rectangular maksem (a water distribution structure) over a vaulted basement. Water from the su terazisi (water towers placed in valleys which acted on the principal of hydraulic levels and served as inverted siphons) filled tanks in the maksem, from which it was distributed in six directions. In the second half of the sixteenth century a prayer terrace was built at the palace.
Much of the palace was badly damaged during the Russian occupation which began on 22 August 1829. When Sultan Abdülaziz made his state visit to Europe in 1867, he travelled on the Sultaniye yacht for the outward journey but returned by land. Since the original plan had been for him to travel via Edirne, the Cihannüma Kasır was repaired and some additions made in preparation for his arrival. But instead the sultan travelled from Belgium via Coblenz, Prussia, Vienna and Budapest by road, and made the rest of the journey by steam ship along the Danube, across the Black Sea and through the İstanbul Strait.
In 1875 when news arrived that the Russian army was on its way to capture Edirne, the city’s governor Cemil Paşa blew up the ammunition dump near the palace to prevent it falling into Russian hands. The explosions lasted for three or four days, endangering the city and demolishing the 425 year-old palace.
When the Roman emperor Hadrian journeyed to the eastern provinces of his empire in 123-124 he built a magnificent castle at Edirne, which had been named Hadrianopolis after himself. This castle was still standing until the mid-nineteenth century. Between 1866 and 1870 it was demolished and the stone used to build a hospital, school, government buildings and an army barracks. Of the four corner towers only one survived, transformed into a clock tower.
Bridges
Edirne is a city of many bridges, most of them spanning the Tunca. These stone bridges, mentioned in many folk songs, reflect the spatial and monumental concepts of contemporary Ottoman architecture. Those within the city are an integral part of the urban texture. The imposing beauties of Edirne’s bridges, some of which outside the city are the work of Mimar Sinan, were never matched elsewhere.
The oldest of these bridges dates from the reign of the Byzantine emperor Michael Palaeologus (1261-1282). This 27 arch bridge was renovated by Gazi Mihal Bey in 1420 and thereafter known after him. In 1640 Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Paşa constructed a pointed arched baldachin, the Tarih Köşk, on the bridge.
In 1451 the twelve arch Şahabettin Paşa Bridge (also known as Saraçhane Bridge) was constructed. This was followed in 1452 by the Fatih Bridge, the Bayezid Bridge built in 1488 by Mimar Hayreddin, the Saray (Kanuni) Bridge built in 1560 by Mimar Sinan, Ekmekçizade Ahmed Paşa Bridge built in 1608-1615 by Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa and the Meriç (Yeni) Bridge at the confluence of the Meriç and Arda rivers between 1842 and 1847. These are the most notable of Edirne’s historic bridges.
Kervansarays
Keruansarays (caravanserais) were the hotels of their day, providing accommodation and stabling for merchants and travellers. One of the most interesting examples of classical Ottoman kervansarays is Rüstem Paşa Kervansaray, built by Mimar Sinan for Süleyman the Magnificent’s celebrated grand vezir Rüstem Paşa. It consists of a central rectangular courtyard surrounded by colonnades, behind which are the rooms. Along one of the exterior walls it has a row of shops which provided income for the institution. Ekmekçioğlu Ahmed Paşa Kervansaray was built in 1609 by Ekmekçioğlu Ahmed Paşa, finance minister to Sultan Ahmed I, on that sultan’s orders. Its architects were Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa and Hacı Şaban of Edirne.
Vernacular architecture
Edirne houses were timber framed with stone foundations, and the exterior often plastered. They had broad eaves and jutting bays supported by series of straights. The entrance was set back slightly in the centre of the main façade.
One room facing Mecca was usually set aside as a prayer room. All the living rooms had fitted cupboards where linen and household ware of all kinds were kept. There were jugs, cups, bowls and plates for serving preserves, confectionery, sherbet and syrups, embroidered towels and other linen, basins and ewers. Rooms where guests were received had shelves along the walls on which the family’s most treasured pottery and porcelain plates, bowls and jugs would be displayed and alcoves containing several shelves known as katlı raf were similarly used to display pretty bowls, gülabdan (rosewater sprinklers) and vases.
Since Edirne’s winters could be extremely cold, the walls were thick to provide insulation and the rooms contained fireplaces either set into the walls or protruding from the exterior walls in the form of conical towers.
The Edirne house plan, which was adopted throughout the Balkans, was characterised by a central gallery room known as a hayat off which the other rooms opened, a feature of all houses from the most humble to the grandest. At one end the hayat jutted out over the garden, supported by posts 1.5-2 metres in height. This end of the hayat was raised slightly from the floor level of the rest of the gallery and surrounded by wooden divans.
Large houses had separate courtyards for the harem (the private part of the house reserved for the family and female guests) and selamlık (where the master of the household received guests and carried out his business affairs) sections. These contained marble fountains, sometimes small pools and vine shaded arbours. A small door linked the harem and selamlık courtyards.
COMMERCIAL LIFE
Edirne was a major centre of trade which enjoyed centuries of prosperity. The fortress like bazaars known as bedesten where traders in jewellery and other precious goods had their shops was guarded by a watchman at night. The revival of trade in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifteenth century was the main factor in Edirne’s economic development. Wheat, barley, maize and other agricultural staples shipped from Egypt, the Aegean islands, İzmir and other western Anatolian cities arrived at the port of Enez, where they were loaded onto smaller ships and sent up river to Edirne. In addition rice from Filibe (Plovdiv) arrived via the Meriç river and was sent from here to Istanbul.
In the seventeenth century merchants arriving with their caravans from Iran would market these goods in Edirne, load up with new purchases and continue on into the Balkans. Goods from Europe were also found in the markets of Edirne, and from here European merchants returned home with beeswax and leather goods. Venetian and French merchants came here to purchase silks from Bursa and woollens from Ereğli.
Bazaars
Numerous commercial buildings were constructed in Edirne to provide accommodation, storage and retail premises for merchants and shopkeepers as the economy of the city flourished. As well as bedestens for trading and storing valuable goods, there were hans where craftsmen and merchants could rent offices and workshops and bazaars. Rentals from these buildings provided revenues for the upkeep of the mosques, and paid for the food distributed to students, the poor and mosque personnel at the imarets.
Between 1417 and 1418 Sultan Mehmed I Çelebi founded a bedesten as an endowment for Eski Mosque. Built by Mimar Alaeddin, this 14 domed building consisted of a row of shops around the outside and 36 vaulted rooms inside. Its walls were of red and white ashlar stone.
Ali Paşa Çarşısı was a bazaar of 130 shops built by Mimar Sinan for Hersekli Semiz Ali Paşa in 1569. The bazaar was 300 metres long and had six gates.
An arasta (open bazaar) consisting of 124 shops was founded as an endowment for Selimiye Mosque by Murad III (1574-1595) and built by the architect Davut Ağa. The arasta was 255 metres in length with 73 arches.
Tradesmen and shopkeepers
Edirne attracted a large population of craftsmen, including leather workers, saddlers, harness makers, felt makers, shoe makers, weavers, spinners, silk thread makers and tailors. There were also large numbers of cook shops, kebab shops, grocers, bakers and butchers. The frequent presence of the court, notables and wealthy local citizens also meant that goldsmiths and jewellers were numerous.
Other groups of artisans included metalworkers such as iron and coppersmiths, dyers, cart and carriage makers, textile printers, rose oil makers and soap makers. Their shops were mainly on the ground floors of two or three storey buildings facing the streets, and in some cases consisted of rows of shops with upper storeys. Part of the tax revenues raised in Edirne provided income for public institutions.
CULTURAL LIFE
Door onto the West
At its height Edirne was one of the Ottoman Empire’s most important cities, situated strategically on the military and economic transit routes into Europe. The westernised fashions of Istanbul were adopted with alacrity in Edirne, from which they spread into the Balkan territories of Turkey.
In the seventeenth century Edirne had a population of 350,000, making it Europe’s fourth largest city after Istanbul, Paris and London. Subsequently the decline which had begun with the fire of 1745 gathered momentum with the series of enemy occupations during the nineteenth century (the Russian occupations of 1829 and 1878, Bulgarian occupation of 1913 and Greek occupation of 1920-1922). During the war with Russia in 1828-1829 a large part of the Muslim population migrated, and their place was taken by Christians from outlying villages.
The local gipsy community were without doubt the most vivacious of Edirne’s inhabitants. The men made a living tinning copper and as carters, while most of the women were peddlers who sold their wares from door to door. The gipsies, who were Muslims, were also popular musicians with their own distinctive style. They played such instruments as drums; zurna, clarinet, kanun, darbuka, def (tamborine), ud and cümbüş.
At the end of the nineteenth century the Turkish and Muslim population was 79,000, Greek 77,000, Armenian 5000, Bulgarian 32,000 and Jewish 9000.
Edirne was a subprovince known as a paşa sancağı attached to the Beylerbeyi of Rumel: until the 1840s, when it became a province.
Kırkpınar oil wrestling
Kırkpınar, the site of the famous oil wrestling tournament, is a word meaning Forty Springs, and is thought to have been named after forty Turkish warriors who formed the vanguard of the first Ottoman crossing over the Çanakkale (Dardanelles) Strait into Europe in the fourteenth century.
The Turkish principalities of Aydın and Saruhan who had assisted the Byzantines in quelling rebellious Byzantine fortresses and cities in the European territories of the empire, later made a habit of raiding these regions, and the Byzantine emperor sought an alliance with the Ottomans, who were becoming an increasingly powerful and expanding force in Anatolia.
Orhan Gazi had no objection to taking advantage of this situation by aiding the Byzantines against rival Turkish principalities. While the latter were intent only on short term gains, and always returned to Anatolia after their incursions, his aim was different. Orhan Gazi intended to gain a foothold on European soil and to expand his budding Ottoman Empire westwards.
Orhan Gazi sent a force under Süleyman Bey to take one of the Byzantine forts in Rumelia. Süleyman Bey crossed the Çanakkale Strait on two rafts with forty picked warriors, and in a surprise attack towards dawn took the fort of Kallipolis (Gelibolu). With reinforcements who crossed the strait later, he went on to lead his forces against a series of fortresses in the region.
The forty trusty warriors who formed the vanguard of this force were all master wrestlers, and whenever the army stopped to camp they held wrestling matches. When they arrived at a meadow some distance away from Hadrianopolis, they again organised a tournament, at which one pair of wrestlers resumed a match that had remained unfinished at the previous tournament. The match happened to coincide with the spring festival of Hıdrellez. Evening fell, but still neither of the pair had beaten the other. They continued in the darkness, and eventually towards midnight both died of exhaustion. They were buried in the meadow here, and the army marched on to Hadrianopolis the next day.
Time passed and Orhan Gazi had died to be succeeded by his son Murad I. Hadrianople was now in Turkish hands, and had become known as Edirne. The surviving warrior wrestlers decided to erect stones over the graves of their two heroic fellows. When they arrived at the meadow they found a stream of crystal clear water gushing from forty springs, and named the meadow Kırkpınar. The meadow of Kırkpınar lies about 25 kilometres west of Edirne, and is today inside the Greek frontier.
When Murad I made Edirne his capital, he established a lodge to train archers, cirit players (an equestrian game played between two teams throwing a javelin) and wrestlers, and at the same time it became traditional for a wrestling tournament to be held at Kırkpınar each year. About three weeks before Hıdrellez the steward of the tournament, known as the Kırkpınar Ağa, would send candles with red bases to the cities, towns and villages of the region, and these would be hung from the ceilings of coffee houses as messages to wrestlers of particular note living in those neighbourhoods. This gave rise to the expression, `Were you invited with a red based candle?’, in reference to someone who turns up uninvited.
Two weeks before the tournament local villagers would begin erecting stalls for tradesmen and shaded arbours around the wrestling field for the spectators. Tradesmen would rent the stalls to sell their wares, food and drinks.
A week before the tournament the steward would supervise the erection of tents for the wrestlers and guests. Cauldrons and pans would be brought to the meadow, and the cooks would begin their preparations for the three days of feasting and entertainment to come. The tournament commenced three days prior to Hıdrellez. Two or three of the oldest and most respected wrestlers would be appointed as referees who watched the matches with the steward from his own tent. The last day was set aside for the wrestling match between the first and second master wrestlers, and generally the tournament would draw to an end on the eve of Hıdrellez.
Edirne red and Edirne work
Edirnekâri is a type of painted decoration done on wood. From the fourteenth century onwards this decoration was applied to ceilings, doors, and shelves in the wooden houses of Edirne, and to furniture such as cupboards, clocks, chests, pen cases and boxes. Inside the boxes gilt tuğra (imperial ciphers) and other motifs were executed.
The designs of Edirnekâri consisted primarily of flowers, leaves and fruits, executed with fine craftsmanship in paints noted for their durability.
The single flowers or small sprays of flowers typical of this work until the seventeenth century were replaced in the eighteenth century by large bunches of flowers or flowers in vases.
At the same time designs of this type began to appear on leather book bindings, and the lacquered bindings for which Edirne was renowned therefore also became known as Edirnekâri.
In the eighteenth century Edirne became famous for a red dye known as Turkey red or Edirne red (rouge d’Adrianople in Europe). Cotton fabrics dyed in this colour were also known as Edirne red.
The original painted decoration known Edirnekâri work survived until the mid-nineteenth century, and pieces of great beauty were produced by masters of the art.
Festivals
Until the sixteenth century all imperial festivals in celebration of events such as victories, circumcisions of royal princes and marriages of royal princesses were held in Edirne. Although from the sixteenth century onwards Istanbul took over this role, Mehmed IV held a festival in Edirne in 1675 to celebrate the, circumcision of his sons.
The first festival in Edirne was held to celebrate the capture and execution of Mustafa the Pretender by Murad II. The same sultan held splendid circumcision feasts here for his sons Alaeddin and Mehmed II, and in 1444 organised a festival in celebration of the Ramazan bayram (the holiday marking the end of this month of fasting) consisting mainly of sports displays and lasting three days and three nights. In 1450 a festival which continued for an unprecedented three months was held in celebration of the marriage of Murad’s son Şehzade Mehmed to Sitti Hatun.
In 1457, four years after Istanbul had been conquered and proclaimed capital, Mehmed II the Conqueror held a festival in Edirne to celebrate the circumcision of his sons’ Şehzade Bayezid and Şehzade Mustafa. As well as sports events and other accustomed entertainments, it featured discussions and debates between scholars.
In addition to these, circumcision celebrations were held in Edirne in 1472 for Mehmed’s sons Cem Sultan and Şehzade Abdullah, and in 1480 for Selim, Şehinşah, Mahmud, Alem, Korkud, Ahrnet and Oğuz Han.
Undoubtedly the most spectacular of all these festivals was that organised in 1674 by Mehmed IV who lived in Edirne for most of his reign. This was to celebrate the circumcision of his 12 year-old son Mustafa (the future Mustafa II) and his two year-old son Ahmed (the future Ahmed III), and the wedding of his 17 year-old daughter Hatice Sultan to his vezir and companion Mustafa Paşa. The feasting and celebrations for the circumcision lasted 16 days, for the wedding 19 days, and are among the most colourful pages in Edirne’s history.
Preparations for the festivities began six months in advance. Extravagantly decorated standards known as nahıl, artificial gardens carried on floats, and figures of animals made of sugar were traditional features of the parades. Acrobats, illusionists, snake charmers, shadow players, puppeteers and many other performers entertained the crowds and horse races, archery contests, cirit matches, sword fights and wrestling matches were held.
In the eighteenth century country excursions and picnics became a favourite recreation of the urban population. Every city had its attractive meadows and parks in the vicinity, and in Edirne it was the orchards and meadows along the Meriç river where the people gathered on summer holidays to enjoy the green surroundings, the view of the river, and chatting to their companions
3rd Capital Istanbul |
Capital Cities of Ottoman
İstanbul, Third Capital of Ottoman Empire
HISTORY OF THE CITY
The first settlement
About 300,000 years ago the first inhabitants of what is now İstanbul made their home in Yarımburgaz Cave on the shores of Küçükçekmece lake. At the end of the last ice age, when the lake formed, human beings continued to inhabit the cave through the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. Meanwhile on the Asian coast of İstanbul, excavations near Dudullu have uncovered tools dating from the Lower Palaeolithic age (around 100,000 years ago). And near Ağaçlı north of the city, Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic period tools have been found. There was an important culture at Fikirtepe on the Kurbağılıdere river in Kadıköy around 5000 BC.
Byzantium (660 BC – 324 AD)
Pioneers from the city of Megara on the Greek mainland, where in ü80 BC Dorian incursions had been causing havoc, and other settlers from Miletus on the Anatolian coast of the southern Aegean, established the city of Chalcedon, what is today Kadıköy on istanbul’s eastern shore. Another group of Megarans consulted the Oracle of Delphi about the situation of their new city, and the oracle told them to found their city opposite the Land of the Blind. The blind turned out to be the Chalcedonians, who had failed to see the superiority of the site on the opposite side of the Strait of İstanbul. So began the history of Byzantium, which was founded in 660 BC on Sarayburnu (‘Palace Headland’ as the Turks named it in reference to Topkapı Palace). The Chalcedonians and Byzantines got on amicably, placing both their names on coins that they minted jointly.
Walls were constructed around Byzantium, which stood on a peninsula. There was sea on three sides and abundant fish. The Golden Horn inlet was a sheltered harbour right by the city. There was fertile land for agriculture, and it was conveniently placed on the maritime trade routes. All these factors combined to make Byzantium grow quickly in size and prosperity.
But Byzantium’s unsurpassed advantages and wealth also made it a tempting target for invaders. In 269 BC it was captured by the Bithynians and looted. In 202 BC the Macedonian threat obliged Byzantium to seek aid from Rome, and this was the first step towards Rome’s own possession of the city.
In 73 AD Byzantium became part of the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus. The Emperor Vespasian contributed to the city’s development. In 193, after Byzantium took sides with the Parthians, the Roman emperor Septimus Sevenrus besieged the city, looted it, and pulled down the walls. Subsequently he had the walls rebuilt, and constructed new buildings and streets. He began construction of the Hippodrome. In 269 the city was attacked by the Goths, who to mark their victory erected a column close to the sea. In 313 the Nicomedians took the city, but did not hold it for long before Emperor Constantine recaptured it.
Capital of the Roman Empire (324 – 395)
The lands of the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic in the west to the Euphrates and the Tigris to the east, and early in the fourth century the idea of establishing a second capital to control the eastern provinces had germinated. Byzantium, strategically positioned at the crossroads of the land and sea trade routes between east and west, was the obvious choice. This new status underscored the city’s significant cultural and political position in the Old World.
Constantine I the Great (324-337) invited high-born Romans to settle in Byzantium, so swelling the Roman population. At the same time he launched a building programme to befit the city for its new role as eastern capital. The harbours and water supply channels were improved, and construction commenced of a new water distribution system within the city. A new wall was built to improve the city’s defences.
The Hippodrome begun by Septimus Sevenıs was completed. This great building, 117 m wide and 480 m long, could seat 100,000 people. Down the centre was the spina, around which the chariots raced. As well as chariot racing, the Hippodrome was used for wild animal fights, athletic competitions, festivals, celebrations and entertainments. It was mainly here that the ordinary people got the chance to see and be with the emperor. The most exciting events of all were the chariot races between four teams, the Blues representing the air, the Whites water, the Greens earth, and the Reds fire. On the walls of the Hippodrome stood numerous statues, most famous of which were the four bronze horses later carried back to Venice by the Latin invaders and installed in St. Mark’s Square.
The imperial palace was next to the Hippodrome on the site where Sultanahmet Mosque now stands, and the area where Topkapı Palace was later built was the ancient acropolis with its monumental temples.
Known earlier as Nea Roma, Constantine I named it Constantinople after himself on 11 May 330.
The same year he built the Forum Constantine (now Çemberlitaş Square), and had a bronze statue of himself placed on top of the tall column brought here from the Temple of Apollo in Rome. The 35 m high column was badly damaged at an early date, and iron hoops placed around it in the early 5th century. As a result the Turks referred to it as the Hooped Stone or Çemberlitaş.
Constantine I erected the Milion Stone which was the symbolic hub of all roads fanning out through the Eastern Roman Empire, into Russia, Persia, Egypt and Europe. Just as all roads had earlier led to Rome, they now led to Constantinople, and merchants from myriad countries found their way here from the remotest corners of the world.
When Christianity developed into a religion based on the figure of Christ and his divine mission, the concept of the church arose. Haghia Eirene, the church of the Divine Peace, was one of the oldest Eastern Roman churches, and took its present form when it was enlarged during the reign of Constantine I. Before Ayasofya was constructed this was the patriarchal cathedral. After the Turkish conquest it was used as an armoury by the janissaries, and housed Turkey’s first military museum established in the nineteenth century. It stands in the first courtyard of Topkapı Palace.
Ayasofya, the largest and most magnificent of the eastern churches, was first built in 360 by Constantine I. Although the patriarch of Constantinople was the nominal head of the Orthodox Church, all authority lay with the emperor.
The city’s infrastructure quickly became inadequate for the city as its population grew, and in 375 the Emperor Valens (364-378) constructed the 1000 m long Valens Aqueduct as part of a new water supply system over the valley west of the Hippodrome. Water from the Belgrade Forest beyond the city was carried over the aqueduct to the centre of the city around the Great Palace.
Several sets of walls were built around the city, beginning with the time of its founder Byzas, and they enclosed areas of differing size. Beyond the outer wall was a moat 10 m deep and 20 m wide, and inside this a second wall with 96 towers. As well as gates used by the general public, there were others reserved for military purposes. The walls overlooking the mouth of the Golden Horn where the city was least vulnerable to attack were the weakest. The next section to the south were the walls along the Marmara Sea which were 8260 m long and pierced by the Ahırkapı, Çatladıkkapı, Samatya and Narlıkapı gates. The land walls were 5632 m long and contained the Belgrad, Silivrikapı, Mevlevihane, Topkapı, Edirnekapı, Eğrikapı and Yedikule gates. Yedikule Gate was also known as Porta Aurea or the Golden Gate, and was the most magnificent, consisting of three archways. It was built by Emperor Theodosius (379-395). Over the gateway was a double headed Byzantine eagle carved in relief. It was through this gate that the emperors passed when returning from victorious campaigns. İstanbul’s city walls were almost invincible, and only breached twice in their entire history, once in 1204 by the Fourth Crusaders and once in 1453 by the Turks.
In 390 the Emperor Theodosius I had an obelisk brought from Egypt to İstanbul which he intended to erect as a mark of Roman supremacy. The obelisk dated from 1500 BCduring the reign of Pharaoh Tuthmosis II, and was one of two which stood at the entrance of the Luxor Temple in the city of Teb. The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the obelisk tell of sacrifices made to the god Amon-Ra. The obelisk was placed on the spina in the Hippodrome, on a rectangular marble plinth bearing relief carvings depicting Theodosius watching chariot races in the Hippodrome, and scenes showing how the obelisk was set in place.
Another monument on the spina of the Hippodrome was a bronze statue of three entwined serpents brought from the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. It had been made from the shields of Persian soldiers killed in the Battle of Palatea. Originally there was a gold cauldron resting on the heads of the three serpents, but this was apparently melted down for minting coins during the Latin occupation of the city, along with the bronze plates which covered the third of the ancient monuments on the spina, a stone pillar 32 m in height.
Capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395 – 1453)
Upon the death of Theodosius in 395 AD the empire was partitioned into East and West, and Constantinople became capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, subsequently known as the Byzantine Empire. The first Byzantine emperor was Arcadius (395-408). The short reign of Arcadius was followed by the long one of Theodosius II (408-450), who in 439 constructed new additions to the three sets of walls, closing up all weak points in the land and sea walls.
The first synagogue built in İstanbul was located in the district of Bakırcılar, and was converted into a church by Theodosius II in 450. In the sixteenth century there were over thirty synagogues in İstanbul.
The great cistern built in the sixth century by Justinian I (527-565) to supply the palace with water became known as the Basilica Cistern because the commercial basilica stood on top of it. Two of the 336 columns in the cistern stand upon carved heads of Medusa taken from earlier buildings.
Ayasofya had been burned down twice during insurrections and was rebuilt by Justinian in 537. Various stories about the church were current among the people of İstanbul. One of these related that during mass one day the Emperor Justinian dropped the holy bread in his hand. Before he could bend down to pick it up, a bee seized the bread and and flew off with it. The emperor sent messengers to bee keepers throughout the empire telling them to look out for this bread in their hives, and offering a reward for whoever found it. A few days later a bee keeper came to the capital with an unusually shaped honey comb thought to have resulted from the effects of the holy bread. Justinian decided to construct a şplendid church on the same plan as the honey comb. Anthemius of Tralles and Isidor of Miletus were appointed architects of the church, which rose up in its full splendour. The church was renovated and restored on numerous occasions over the next fourteen centuries, the last major changes being carried out by the Swiss Fossati brothers at the request of Sultan Abdülmecid in 1847-1849.
Another Byzantine Church, the Chora, contains what are thought by many to be the most spectacular examples of Byzantine frescos and mosaics depicting biblical scenes. This church took its present form in the fourteenth century; and was converted into a mosque by Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512).
Byzantine Constantinople never recovered from the destruction and plunder of the Fourth Crusaders, who occupied the city and established a Latin Empire there. The Byzantine Empire regained control of Constantinople in 1261, but even an ambitious building programme could not restore the city to its former splendour and prosperity. The population, which had once been 500,000, steadily declined to 50,000. Production levels diminished and famine broke out. A thousand year-old chapter of history was drawing to an end, and the city was on the brink of a new era as the Ottoman Turks gradually advanced through Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula.
THE OTTOMANS
The Ottomans first laid siege to İstanbul in 1391. The siege dragged on for years, and in 1396 Bayezid I (1389-1403) constructed a fortress on the Asian shore of the Strait of İstanbul to prevent aid getting through to the besieged city from the Black Sea.
Sixty years later Mehmed II (1451-1481) besieged İstanbul again. He built a second fortress, Rumeli Hisarı, on the other side of the Strait of İstanbul facing that built by his grandfather Bayezid I, so exerting an even tighter stranglehold on the city. The fortress, which was completed in the brief time of four months, had an irregular plan following the contours of the hilly site. The three great towers were named after three of Mehmed II’s vezirs, Halil Paşa, Zağanos Paşa and Sarıca Paşa.
Mehmed II had artisans brought from Europe to cast great cannon powerful enough to demolish the Byzantine walls. When everything was ready at the beginning of March 1453, the Ottoman armies gathered outside the city walls. The siege had begun. On 4 April Turkish cannon began to bombard the walls along the Marmara Sea. The Golden Horn was, as the Byzantines thought, impenetrable thanks to the great chain stretched across the mouth of the waterway to prevent vessels entering. They had not reckoned with Mehmed II’s decision to drag fifty of his galleys on wooden runners over the hilly ridge of land between Dolmabahçe on the Strait of İstanbul and Kasımpaşa on the Golden Horn. This nasty surprise undermined what remained of Byzantine morale.
Capital of the Ottoman Empire (1453 – 1923)
İstanbul will without fail be conquered What an excellent commander is he who will take it,And what excellent soldiers will his soldiers be.Hadith(I’raditions of the Prophet)
In the attack launched on the morning of 29 May the land walls were breached at Topkapı (not the palace of that name but a city gate several kilometres to the west). The same day Mehmed II entered the city on horseback and performed his prayers in the church of Ayasofya. In accordance with Ottoman tradition the city’s cathedral was converted into a mosque. The church of the Holy Apostles and numerous others remained as churches for the time being. Thereafter Mehmed II was known as Fatih, or the Conqueror.
The Byzantine Great Palace which had stood between Ayasofya and the Hippodrome had been looted and razed during the Latin occupation. With the restoration of the Byzantine rulers in 1261, they used the Palace of Blakhernai situated inside the land walls where they descended to join the sea walls along the Golden Horn. Immediately after the conquest Mehmed II had a fortress and palace built in the area which was to become known as Beyazıt west of Ayasofya. A large bazaar was constructed beneath the walls of the fortress.
The once splendid city was falling into ruin when it was taken by the Turks, who set about repairing the old buildings and city walls. Others beyond repair provided foundations on which new Ottoman buildings were constructed. The huge underground water cisterns were also repaired.
Those who had fled the city began to return, while new settlers of diverse ethnic origin and faith arrived from all over the Ottoman Empire, creating a colourful cultural mosaic.
Acquiring an Ottoman architectural identity
Gradually the city developed its distinctly Ottoman identity. Mosques founded by the sultans and members of their families were distinguished by having more than one minaret, and were known as selatin, the plural form of sultan. İstanbul’s first selatin mosque was that built by Mehmed II, with its symmetrically arranged complex of colleges (medrese), hospice (tabhane),hospital (darüşşifa),shops, and baths (hamam).Its architect was Atik Sinan (‘Old’ Sinan to distinguish him from the later and more celebrated Sinan). Over the next few centuries sultans, other members of the dynasty, and statesmen founded mosques in their names, and around them various institutions. Small mosques with modest complexes built by statesmen were known as vezir camior vezir mosques.
When the Umayyads had besieged İstanbul in the year 668 Eyyub el-Ensari, standard bearer to the Prophet Muhammed, had died in the fighting. In 1459 Mehmed II had Eyüp Sultan Mosque built in his memory, together with a complex consisting of medrese, imaret(public kitchen) and hamam. It was in this mosque that the Ottoman sultans girded their sword of office upon acceding to the throne.
Construction of Topkapı Palace began in 1472 and was completed in, 1478, although successive sultans added new buildings to the complex over the centuries. The outer entrance which led into the first court, the Alay Meydanı (Parade Square), was the Imperial Gate or Bab-ı Hümayun. At the farther end of the first court was the main entrance gate called Babüsselam (Gate of Greeting), which led into the second court, the Divan Meydanı. Here were the palace hospital, bakery and arsenal buildings, the royal mews along the left side and the kitchen buildings along the right.
The gate leading from the second to the third court was the Babüssaade (Gate of Felicity), and in the third court was the Arz Odası or Throne Room where foreign ambassadors and statesmen were granted audience. The buildings behind here date from the eighteenth century and were occupied by the pages and men of the Enderun who served in the private household of the sultan. The Has Oda or Hall of the Privy Chamber, occupied by the officials who served the sultan in person, stands on the west side of the court next to the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle containing relics of the Prophet Muhammed and the first caliphs. In the fourth court are several lovely köşks(pavilions) built by different sultans. These are the Bağdat, Revan, Sofa and Mecidiye köşks.
Topkapı Palace was both home to the Ottoman sultans and centre of government for four hundred years, and over this time the palace was in a constant state of fluctuation, with additions and alterations carried out by various sultans.
Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512), the son of Mehmed II, built a mosque complex in his name between 1500 and 1505. Located in a central position west of the Hippodrome, it was almost certainly the work of two architects, Kemaleddin and Hayreddin. The complex is an important link in the history of Turkish architecture, in terms of its relationship to its site, its architectural composition, decoration, and the institutions housed in the secondary buildings. As well as the mosque itself, there was a türbeor mausoleum for Sultan Bayezid, an imaret, children’s school, hospices, medrese, hamam, and kervansaray. The mosque had a square prayer hall covered by a large dome supported on either side by two semidomes. The arches of the colonnades around the court were of white and red marble. Exquisite stone carving decorated the mihrapniche, minber(pulpit), müezzin’s gallery, and the women’s gallery, while the woodwork decoration of the doors and windows was the finest of its period.
On his return from the Egyptian Campaign in 1517, Selim I (1512-1520) brought back the Islamic holy relics and took the title of caliph. From that point on
İstanbul became the centre of Islam.
During the reign of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), Mimar Sinan built the Şehzade Mosque in memory of Süleyman’s son Mehmed, overlooking both the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea. This was the fırst royal mosque built by Sinan, and the one which he was to refer to later in life as ‘the work of my apprenticeship’. The complex consisted of mosque, medrese, hospice, stables, school, imaret and the tomb of Şehzade Mehmed.
Selim’s royal mosque complex, which was completed posthumously in 1522, consisted of his türbe, and an imaret, medrese and hospital.
From this point on the new Ottoman capital began to find its own identity through buildings constructed by Mimar Sinan. In 1548 he built Mihrimah Sultan Mosque for Mihrimah Sultan, the daughter of Süleyman the Magnificent, in Üsküdar. It was surrounded by a complex consisting of medrese, guest house, stables, food store, warehouse and han. The two great pillars inside this mosque were in the shape of four-leafed clover.
Süleymaniye Mosque, which Sinan referred to as his `journeyman’s piece’, was constructed in 1557. The genius of Sinan’s architecture seemed to symbolise the power of Süleyman. The composition of the great domed inner space illustrates the culmination of Ottoman mosque design. In order to draw off the smoke from the burning lamps and candles, and keep the air fresh when the mosque was full of people, he created a ventilation system whereby the air circulated through a chamber over the main entrance. Moreover the particles of carbon in the smoke were deposited in this chamber and scraped off for making the lamp black ink used by calligraphers.
The Atik Valide Mosque was constructed between 1570 and 1579 for Nurbanu Valide Sultan, the mother of Murat III (1574-1595). Again the mosque and its complex were designed by Sinan, and consisted of mosque, medrese, tekke (dervish lodge), children’s school, darülhadis(school for teaching the hadith), darülkurra (school for teaching the Koran), imaret, hospital and hamam. The courtyard encircling the mosque to the north, east and west, contained a şadırvan(fountain for ablutions) and gave access to the mosque through four doors. The finest of the tiling decoration are two exquisite panels on either side of the mihrap niche. The wooden doors and window shutters are inlaid with mother-of pearl and ivory.
Şemsi Paşa Mosque on the water’s edge in Üsküdar was built by Sinan for Şemsi Ahmed Paşa in 1580. This is the smallest of the mosque complexes built by Mimar Sinan. It is in classical Ottoman style, and consists of the founder’s türbe and a medrese as well as the tiny mosque.
Sultanahmet Mosque was built at the southern end of the ancient Hippodrome between 1609 and 1616 for Sultan Ahmed I (1603-1617). Its architect was Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa. On the eastern side of the mosque was an arasta, or market of shops to provide income for the upkeep of the mosque, and to the north a hünkâr kasır, or suite of private rooms for the sultan’s use prior to and following prayers. The mosque was celebrated not so much for its architecture as for its exquisite İznik tiles of the last great period.
The Galata Tower built in 1349 was part of the defences of the old Genoese city facing İstanbul proper across the mouth of the Golden Horn. Its original name was the Christ Tower. During Ottoman times it was used first as a prison and later as a fire tower. In the seventeenth century, during the reign of Murad N (1623-1640), a scientist by the name of Hezarfen Ahmed Çelebi Iaunched himself off the top of the tower wearing wings which he had made for himself, and successfully completed the flight across the Strait of İstanbul to Üsküdar.
In 1660, during the reign of Mehmed IV. (1649-1687), the Mısır Çarşısı (Egyptian Bazaar) was built, and between 1661 and 1663 the half-finished Yeni (New) Mosque was completed by Hatice Sultan. This mosque had been begun in 1597 by Safiye Sultan, the mother of Mehmed III. After the death of Davud Ağa, the original architect, Mimar Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa continued with the construction until 1603. With the accession of Ahmed I the project was left unfinished, and meanwhile Ahmed I began construction of his own mosque in Sultanahmet.
The magnificent baroque fountain of Sultan Ahmet III (1703-1730) which has a fountain in each of its four walls and a sebil where cups of water were distributed to passersby at each corner, was built outside the main gate of Topkapı Palace.
The ancient Hippodrome, known in Turkish as Atmeydanı, was used for playing the equestrian game of cirit (jereed) and for public celebrations of the circumcision of royal princes. One of the monuments on the spina of the Hippodrome was a stone column originally sheathed in bronze, but this was melted down to mint coins by the Fourth Crusaders after they occupied İstanbul in the thirteenth century and set up a Latin empire which lasted until the middle of the century. During the Turkish period climbing this bare column was regarded as an acrobatic feat, as recorded by eyewitnesses and contemporary miniatures.
In 1755 Mahmud I (1730-1754) built the Nuruosmaniye Mosque at one of the entrances to the Covered Bazaar. With its polygonal projecting mihrap and western stylistic influences, this mosque was very different from its predecessors. Its complex consisted of an imaret, medrese, library, türbe, sebil, fountain and shops.
In 1763 Mustafa III (1757-1774) built his royal mosque in Laleli, with its complex of imaret, fountain, sebil, türbe, han, medrese, muvakkithane(horologe room), houses for the imam and müezzin, and shops. Its architect is thought to be Hacı Mehmed Ağa.
Dersaadet of the Ottomans
In the nineteenth century İstanbul’s population consisted of Muslim Turks, Orthodox Greeks, Gregorian and Catholic Armenians, Jews, Levantines and colonies of foreign merchants.
This century was a time of modernisation and reform for the Ottoman Empire, and naturally the capital city was at the forefront of these changes. In the process of westernisation in the military, economic and social fields foreign experts from Europe were appointed to important posts, particularly in the army, which had German, Swedish, British and French paşas in its ranks. The sultans adopted the dress of their western counterparts, rejecting kaftans and şalvarin favour of trousers and jackets, and replacing the turban with the fez. In the cultural field, western style painting, architecture and music became popular.
The reign of Mahmud II (1808-1839) marked the first most important phase of these changes. In 1824 the empire’s first newspaper, Smyrnéen, went into publication in İzmir. Convinced that the tradition-bound Janissary Corps was no longer capable of defending the empire, Mahmud II laid plans to found a new modern army, resolving to pick 150 of the ablest soldiers from each of the 51 janissary regiments in İstanbul for this puıpose. When the news got out it sparked off a janissary revolt on the night of 4 June 1826. The janissaries rampaged through the city looting, but when they found that they had no popular support from citizens who backed the sultan’s plans, they retreated to their barracks. The sultan’s own forces surrounded the barracks and bombarded them, killing all those inside and then set fire to the building. Thus, after 465 years, the Janissary Corps was dissolved on 15 June 1826. Sultan Mahmud II set about founding his new army.
Mahmud II’s own royal mosque, the Nusretiye, was built by Kirkor Amira Balyan for the sultan in 1826. The şadırvan in the stone courtyard has twelve taps and a conical roof resting on twelve slender columns.
The first steam driven vessels began to replace sailing ships around this time. Meanwhile, fires continued to ravage the city at frequent intervals, since almost all the houses were made of wood. In 1828 the Balyan family of architects built the 50 m high Beyazıt fire tower.
The first bridge connecting the walled city of İstanbul to Galata on the other side of the Golden Horn was constructed in 1836. It was a pontoon bridge designed by Admiral of the Fleet Ahmet Fevzi. Since no toll was charged to cross it, it was known as the Hayratiye (Charity Bridge).
Mahmud II was the first Ottoman sultan to have his portrait hung in government offices. He also had a decoration inaugurated bearing miniature poıtraits of himself, known as Tasvir-i Hümayun (Imperial Portrait), which he presented to his most loyal state officers, hanging the decoration around their necks himself. Conservative factions began to stir up public opposition on the grounds that portraiture contravened religious doctrine, and following the death of Sultan Mahmud in 1839, his portraits in government buildings were covered over by curtains. But gradually people became used to the idea, as they were to become used, to photographs. Mahmud II’s son Sultan Abdülmecid (1839-1861) proclaimed a series of reforms known as the Tanzimat Ferman or Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayun almost immediately after his accession to the throne. The reforms had been drawn up by Mustafa Reşid Paşa and were proclaimed by the latter in Gülhane Gardens behind Topkapı Palace on 3 November 1839.
In 1847 the first demonstration in the Ottoman Empire of the newly invented telegraph was conducted at the large wooden palace of Beylerbeyi in the presence of Sultan Abdülmecid, who himself sent the first message over the line. He then ordered that a telegraph line be set up between İstanbul and Edirne.
In 1850 Şirket-i Hayriye, İstanbul Maritime Lines, was established and began to organise regular steam ferry services across the Strait of İstanbul and to the Islands.
In 1851 Sultan Abdülmecid had the Empire style Hırka-i Şerif Mosque (Mosque of the Holy Mantle) constructed in Fatih. Here the mantle presented by the Prophet Muhammed to Veysel Karani was to be kept and visited during the month of Ramazan.
Another member of the Balyan family of architects, Nikoğos, built the neo-baroque Ortaköy Mosque on the European shore of the İstanbul Strait in 1853. The same year the Ottoman Empire and its allies France and Britain began fighting Russia in the Crimean War.
Topkapı Palace, which had been both the sultan’s private residence and seat of government since the fifteenth century, lost this status in 1853 when the court moved to the new palace of Dolmabahçe. This palace, designed by the Balyan family of court architects, was in an eclectic style heavily influenced by contemporary western architecture.
Two years later Dolmabahçe Mosque, one of the last examples of Empire style in İstanbul, was designed by Garabet Balyan. Its founder was Bezmialem Valide Sultan, the mother of Abdülmecid, who completed its construction after his mother’s death.
Around the same time the small summer palace of Küçüksu designed by Nikoğos Balyan, chief architect to Abdülmecid, was constructed on the Asian shore of the İstanbul Strait in the area known to Europeans as the Sweet Waters of Asia.
The nineteenth century saw a rush of new inventions and an expansion of world trade, and from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards the fashion for trade and industrial exhibitions began. Here goods from all over the world and the latest inventions were displayed to the public. The first Ottoman trade fair was held in Sultanahmet in 1863 during the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861-1876). The exhibits ranged from commodities like Turkish coffee and silk production, to the fine arts, including architectural models. The first two days of each week the exhibition was opened to women only. The same year Sultan Abdülaziz visited Cairo.
In 1865 the architect Sarkis Balyan built the new Beylerbeyi Palace in place of the old wooden palace on the Asian shore of the Strait of İstanbul.
On 21 June 1867 Sultan Abdülaziz became the first Ottoman sultan to pay a state visit abroad. He travelled by the royal yacht, the Sultaniye,to Toulon, from where he took the train to Paris, and then travelled to England. He returned by land via Belgium, Coblenz, Prussia, Vienna and Budapest, aı-riving back in İstanbul on 7 August.
In 1847 the first demonstration in the Ottoman Empire of the newly invented telegraph was conducted at the large wooden palace of Beylerbeyi in the presence of Sultan Abdülmecid, who himself sent the first message over the line. He then ordered that a telegraph line be set up between İstanbul and Edirne.
In 1850 Şirket-i Hayriye, İstanbul Maritime Lines, was established and began to organise regular steam ferry services across the Strait of İstanbul and to the Islands.
In 1851 Sultan Abdülmecid had the Empire style Hırka-i Şerif Mosque (Mosque of the Holy Mantle) constructed in Fatih. Here the mantle presented by the Prophet Muhammed to Veysel Karani was to be kept and visited during the month of Ramazan.
Another member of the Balyan family of architects, Nikoğos, built the neo-baroque Ortaköy Mosque on the European shore of the Bosphon in 1853. The same year the Ottoman Empire and its allies France and Britain began fighting Russia in the Crimean War.
Topkapı Palace, which had been both the sultan’s private residence and seat of government since the fifteenth century, lost this status in 1853 when the court moved to the new palace of Dolmabahçe. This palace, designed by the Balyan family of court architects, was in an eclectic style heavily influenced by contemporary western architecture.
Two years later Dolmabahçe Mosque, one of the last examples of Empire style in İstanbul, was designed by Garabet Balyan. Its founder was Bezmialem Valide Sultan, the mother of Abdülmecid, who completed its construction after his mother’s death.
Around the same time the small summer palace of Küçüksu designed by Nikoğos Balyan, chief architect to Abdülmecid, was constructed on the Asian shore of the Bosphon in the area known to Europeans as the Sweet Waters of Asia.
The nineteenth century saw a rush of new inventions and an expansion of world trade, and from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards the fashion for trade and industrial exhibitions began. Here goods from all over the world and the latest inventions were displayed to the public. The first Ottoman trade fair was held in Sultanahmet in 1863 during the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861-1876). The exhibits ranged from commodities like Turkish coffee and silk production, to the fine arts, including architectural models. The first two days of each week the exhibition was opened to women only. The same year Sultan Abdülaziz visited Cairo.
In 1865 the architect Sarkis Balyan built the new Beylerbeyi Palace in place of the old wooden palace on the Asian shore of the Strait of İstanbul.
On 21 June 1867 Sultan Abdülaziz became the first Ottoman sultan to pay a state visit abroad. He travelled by the royal yacht, the Sultaniye, to Toulon, from where he took the train to Paris, and then travelled to England. He returned by land via Belgium, Coblenz, Prussia, Vienna and Budapest, arriving back in İstanbul on 7 August.
In 1871 Çırağan Palace was built by Sarkis and Agop Balyan according to a design by Nikoğos Balyan. A royal hunting lodge was then built at Ayazağa in Maslak, and the Valide Mosque founded by Pertevniyal Valide Sultan, mother of Sultan Abdülaziz in Aksaray, which had been commenced in 1869 but left unfinished, was completed in 1871. This mosque complex, consisting of school, türbe, muvakkithane and sebil, was designed and built by Sarkis Balyan. The diverse and ornate decoration on the façades distinguish it from other nineteenth century mosques, as do the neo-Gothic features of the interior.
Horse-drawn trams and the short underground funicular railway which carried passengers up and down the steep hill between the commercial district of Karaköy on the shore and the residential district of Pera introduced alternative means of transport in İstanbul.
In 23 December 1876, the year of his accession, Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) proclaimed the First Constitutional Government. For a brief time the Ottoman Empire was ruled by a constitutional monarchy, but three months later the sultan dissolved Parliament and repealed the constitution. The Academy of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi) was founded, primarily due to the efforts of Osman Hamdi Bey, who was also instrumental in the founding of the Archaeological Museum, later housed in a building designed by Vallaury.
Sultan Abdülhamid II appointed photographers to document events, buildings and sights around the empire, and was the principal patron of photography in Ottoman Turkey. He sent albums of photographs to fellow heads of state around the world, as a means of illustrating the progress and achievements of his empire.
The area northwest of Beşiktaş had been forest in Byzantine times, and was a hunting ground for Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent and his successors. When the waterfront palaces were constructed there, the woodland was preserved as a park belonging to the palace grounds. Early in the nineteenth century Sultan Selim III had a country house constructed in this woodland for his mother Mihrişah Valide Sultan and in 1834 Sultan Mahmud II had another country house known as Yıldız built here. In 1842 Sultan Abdülmecid had a third house built here for his mother Bezmialem Valide Sultan. The area became known as Yıldız, and the small complex of royal summer residences here grew into a full-scale palace with the accession of Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1876. He constructed new state apartments, the Şale Kasır (so named because its architecture was inspired by the chalets of Switzerland), and the köşks (pavilions or country houses) of Malta and Çadır designed by Sarkis and Agop Balyan. The Italian architect Raimondo d’Aronco designed the Winter Gardens and conservatories, the guard pavilion, the Harem Köşk, the Aides Köşk, the stable building, theatre, and exhibition building. In 1896 the terraced stone houses on Akaretler Hill were constructed to house palace officials.
The Second Constitution was proclaimed on 23 July 1908, and in 1909, the year that Haydarpaşa Railway Station was opened, Abdülhamid II was deposed by the Young Turks.
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