A brief history of Turkey

Today's Turkey was once the centre of the vast Ottoman Empire, which in its prime spanned three continents and covered most of South Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. With Constantinople, now know as Istanbul, as the capital, it was at the centre of commerce and politics between the East and West for six centuries. Constantinople had earlier been the seat of the Byzantine Empire, until its fall to Mehmed the Conqueror in 1453.

By Mike Stock

The golden age of Ottoman expansion was during the reign of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-66), which is when the empire reached its height of success both militarily and in artistic endeavours. Under his strong leadership the Ottoman Empire more than doubled its realm and advanced into central Europe and throughout the Arab portion of the old Islamic caliphate. The conquest of the Arab world brought with it wealth and power.

During the 18th century Ottoman power declined because a lack of ability and loss of power of the sultans. As a result, central government became weak, and control of most of the provinces was lost to the local ruling notables. This weakening continued until World War I, where the Ottoman armies fought on the German side. This ultametly ended in defeat and collapse for what was termed the sick man of Europe. At the end of the war the empire was conquered and divided among the Allied forces, including Greece who took control of large areas of what is now Turkey.

Turkish nationalist forces started a counter attack over the next 3 years and by October of 1922 had retaken control of Greek held territory and signed agreements with Italy, France and Great Britain to take control of the remaining areas.

In 1923 modern day Turkey rose from the ashes of the crumbling Empire through the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the enigmatic revolutionary and first President of the new nation. Over the next decade, the country took a course towards Westernization through reforms which included the discontinuation of religious and other titles, the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code. There was also recognition of the equality between the sexes and women were granted full political rights.
In1934 the language reform act, initiated by the newly founded Turkish Language Association, saw the replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with a new Turkish version, based on the Latin alphabet.
A dress law was brought in, which among other things banned the wearing of the fez, a traditional Muslim hat, along with the introduction of family names.

Today, Turkey is still a crossroads between east and west with its secular principles but Muslim religion.

The country has been in negotiations to join the EU, a long held desire to be more integrated with the West, something that can in be traced back to the reforms brought in by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s.

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