Türkiye History

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Türkiye

History

General History

The history of the Republic of Türkiye, located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, is rooted in the long history of Anatolia. As one of the earliest cradles of civilization, numerous cultures have settled or conquered the region, including the Hittites, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. After 324 AD, Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, became the new capital of the Roman Empire, and in subsequent centuries parts of Anatolia changed hands between the Byzantines and Sassanid Empires. Turkish tribes began arriving in the region in the Middle Ages, and by the 11th Century the Seljuks had founded the first Turkish empire in Anatolia.

Around 1299 CE, the Ottoman state was established in Anatolia by Osman I, and over the next several centuries expanded into a vast empire encompassing much of Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, the Middle East, and North Africa. The area of modern-day Turkey remained the Ottoman heartland, with the empire's capital at Constantinople on the Bosporus Strait. Although ruled by Sunni Muslim Ottoman Turks, the empire's numerous ethnic and religious communities were largely permitted to govern themselves according to their own legal codes and traditions. Ottoman control over parts of the empire fluctuated throughout its 600 year history, and at times certain regions, such as 19th century Egypt under Muhammad Ali Pasha, were ruled by local administrators and remained only nominally Ottoman.

The Ottoman Empire collapsed following its defeat in World War I, leading to the establishment of a Turkish republic in Anatolia in 1923. Under the decisive leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the state rapidly secured its modern borders in Anatolia and eastern Thrace, expelling foreign forces and minority communities, including Greeks and Armenians, from the state. In the decades that followed, Turkey underwent extensive reforms intended to modernize and Westernize the state, including the adoption of the new Latin-based Turkish alphabet in 1928 and the Surname Law of 1934, which required all Turkish families to adopt hereditary last names.

Although originally known in English as the Republic of Turkey, in 2021 the state changed its official English spelling to Türkiye.

Timeline

• 1453: Ottoman forces conquer Constantinople and establish the city as their new capitol.
  
• 1914 - 1918: The Ottoman Empire joins World War I as one of the side of the Central Powers. The Empire is eventually defeated by Allied forces and the Arab Revolt and subsequently dismantled. During this time, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forcibly deported by Turkish soldiers, resulting in death, disease, and other atrocities.
  
• 1923: The Grand National Assembly of Türkiye announces the establishment of the Republic in Türkiye with its capitol at Ankara.
  
• 1934: The Turkish government passes the Surname Law, requiring all Turkish families to adopt hereditary last names.
  

Resources

Online Resources

• al- Maktabah al-ʻArabīyah al-Ṣiqillīyah by Amari, Michele. Baghdād:Maktabat al-Muthanná, 1969?. Online at: New York University; History of Arabs in Sicily
  • .المكتبة العربية الصقلية .ميخائيل أماري بغداد:مكتبة المتنبى ,1969?
• al- Qawl al-sadīd fī ḥarb al-Dawlah al-ʻAlīyah maʻa al-Yūnān by Shākir, ʻAlī Riḍā. Miṣr:Maṭbaʻat al-Mawsūʻāt, 1903?. Online at: New York University; Greco Turkish War 1897; "Half of this book is an aid to the Hejaz Shahani Railway, and the other half is for the widows and orphans of the soldiers who were martyred in the Greek War."
  • .القول السديد في حرب الدولة العلية مع اليونان .علي رضا شاكر مصر:مطبعة الموسوعات ,1903?
• Kitāb kashf al-maktūm fī taʼrīkh ākhirī salāṭīn al-Rūm by Shākir, ʻAlī Riḍā. Bayrūt:Maṭbaʻat al-Ābāʼ al-Yasūʻīyīn, 1890. Online at: New York University; History of late Byzantine emperors.
  • .كتاب كشف المكتوم في تاريخ آخري سلاطين الروم .خليل مخائيل البدوي بيروت:مطبعة الاباء اليسوعيين ,1890
• Tārīkh al-duwal wa-al-imārāt al-Kurdīyah fī al-ʻahd al-Islāmī by Zakī, Muḥammad Amīn. Miṣr:Maṭbaʻat al-Saʻādah, 1945. Online at: New York University; History of Kurdish states.
  • .تاريخ الدول والإمارات الكردية في العهد الإسلامي .محمد أمين زكي مص:مطبعة السعادة ,1945
• Anṭākīyah al-Urthūdhuksīyah, aw, tārīkh al-Ābā’ Baṭāriqat Anṭākiyah by Burayk, Mīkhāʼīl. al-Qāhirah:al-Maṭba‘ah al-Tijārīyah, 1903. Online at: New York University; History of the Patriarchs of Antioch.
  • .انطاكية الارثوذكسية، أو تاريخ الآباء بطارقة انطاكية .مخائيل بريك القاهرة:المطبعة التجارية ,1903