Turks are relatively young people. Its age is only over 600 years old. The first Turks were a bunch of Turkmens, fugitives from Central Asia who fled from the Mongols to the west. They got to the Sultanate of Konya and asked for land for settlement. They were given a place on the border with the Nicene Empire near Bursa. There the fugitives began to settle down in the middle of the XIII century.
The main thing among the fugitive Turkmen was Ertogrul-bey. He called the territory allocated to him the Ottoman Beilik. And taking into account the fact that the Sultan of Konya lost all power, he became an independent ruler. Ertogrul died in 1281 and power passed to his son Osman I Gazi... It was he who is considered the founder of the Ottoman sultan dynasty and the first ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 to 1922 and played a significant role in world history.
Ottoman sultan with his warriors
An important factor contributing to the formation of a powerful Turkish state was the fact that the Mongols, having reached Antioch, did not go further, since they considered Byzantium their ally. Therefore, they did not touch the lands on which the Ottoman beylik was located, believing that it would soon become part of the Byzantine Empire.
And Osman Gazi, like the crusaders, declared a holy war, but only for the Muslim faith. He began to invite everyone to take part in it. And seekers of fortune began to flock to Osman from all over the Muslim East. They were ready to fight for the faith of Islam until their sabers became blunt and until they received enough wealth and wives. And in the east, this was considered a very great achievement.
Thus, the Ottoman army began to replenish with Circassians, Kurds, Arabs, Seljuks, and Turkmens. That is, anyone could come, pronounce the formula of Islam and become a Turk. And on the occupied lands, such people began to allocate small plots of land for farming. Such a site was called "timar". He imagined a house with a garden.
The owner of the timar became a rider (spagi). His duty was to appear at the first call to the Sultan in full armor and on his own horse to serve in the cavalry army. It was noteworthy that the Spagi did not pay taxes in the form of money, since they paid the tax with their own blood.
With such an internal organization, the territory of the Ottoman state began to expand rapidly. In 1324, Osman's son Orhan I captured the city of Bursa and made it his capital. From Bursa to Constantinople a stone's throw, and the Byzantines lost control of the northern and western regions of Anatolia. And in 1352 the Ottoman Turks crossed the Dardanelles and ended up in Europe. After that, a gradual and steady conquest of Thrace began.
In Europe, it was impossible to manage with cavalry alone, so there was an urgent need for infantry. And then the Turks created a completely new army, consisting of infantry, which they called janissaries(young - new, charik - army: it turns out a janissary).
The conquerors took by force boys from the Christian nations aged 7 to 14 and converted to Islam. These children were well fed, taught the laws of Allah, military affairs and made infantrymen (janissaries). These warriors turned out to be the finest foot soldiers in all of Europe. Neither the knightly cavalry, nor the Persian kyzylbashs could break through the janissary system.
Janissaries - Ottoman army infantry
And the secret of the invincibility of the Turkish infantry lay in the spirit of military comradeship. From the first days the Janissaries lived together, ate delicious porridge from the same cauldron, and, despite the fact that they belonged to different nations, were people of the same destiny. When they became adults, they got married, had families, but continued to live in the barracks. Only during the holidays did they visit their wives and children. That is why they did not know defeat and represented the loyal and reliable force of the Sultan.
However, having reached the Mediterranean Sea, the Ottoman Empire could not limit itself to only one janissary. Since there is water, then ships are needed, and there was a need for a navy. The Turks began to recruit pirates, adventurers and vagabonds from all over the Mediterranean for the navy. Italians, Greeks, Berbers, Danes, Norwegians went to serve them. This audience had no faith, no honor, no law, no conscience. Therefore, they willingly converted to the Muslim faith, since they had no faith at all, and they absolutely did not care who they were, Christians or Muslims.
From this motley public, a fleet was formed that looked more like a pirate than a military one. He began to rage in the Mediterranean, so much so that he terrified Spanish, French and Italian ships. The very same sailing in the Mediterranean Sea began to be considered a dangerous business. Turkish corsair squadrons were based in Tunisia, Algeria and other Muslim lands with access to the sea.
Ottoman military fleet
Thus, from completely different peoples and tribes, such a people as the Turks was formed. Islam and a common military destiny became the connecting link. During successful campaigns, Turkish soldiers captured captives, made them their wives and concubines, and children from women of different nationalities became full-fledged Turks who were born on the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
A small principality that appeared on the territory of Asia Minor in the middle of the 13th century, very quickly turned into a powerful Mediterranean power, called the Ottoman Empire after the first ruler, Osman I Gazi. The Ottoman Turks also called their state the High Port, and themselves not Turks, but Muslims. As for the real Turks, they were considered the Turkmen population living in the interior regions of Asia Minor. These people were conquered by the Ottomans in the 15th century after the capture of Constantinople on May 29, 1453.
European states could not resist the Ottoman Turks. Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople and made it his capital - Istanbul. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire significantly expanded its territories, and with the capture of Egypt, the Turkish fleet began to dominate the Red Sea. By the second half of the 16th century, the population of the state reached 15 million people, and the Turkish Empire itself began to be compared with the Roman Empire.
But by the end of the 17th century, the Ottoman Turks suffered a number of major defeats in Europe.... The Russian Empire played an important role in weakening the Turks. She always beat the warlike descendants of Osman I. She took away from them the Crimea, the coast of the Black Sea, and all these victories were a harbinger of the decline of the state, which in the 16th century shone in the rays of its power.
But the Ottoman Empire was weakened not only by endless wars, but also by the ugly farming. The officials squeezed all the juices out of the peasants, and therefore they ran the economy in a predatory way. This led to the emergence of a large number of waste lands. And this is in the "fertile crescent", which in ancient times fed almost the entire Mediterranean.
Ottoman Empire on the map, XIV-XVII centuries
It all ended in disaster in the 19th century, when the state treasury was empty. The Turks began to borrow loans from French capitalists. But it soon became clear that they could not pay the debts, since after the victories of Rumyantsev, Suvorov, Kutuzov, Dibich, the Turkish economy was completely undermined. Then the French brought a navy into the Aegean Sea and demanded customs in all ports, mining as a concession, and the right to collect taxes until the debt was repaid.
After that, the Ottoman Empire was called "the sick man of Europe." She began to quickly lose the conquered lands and turn into a semi-colony of European powers. The last autocratic sultan of the empire, Abdul Hamid II, tried to save the situation. However, under him, the political crisis worsened even more. In 1908, the Sultan was overthrown and imprisoned by the Young Turks (a pro-Western republican political trend).
On April 27, 1909, the Young Turks elevated to the throne the constitutional monarch Mehmed V, who was the brother of the deposed sultan. After that, the Young Turks entered the First World War on the side of Germany and were defeated and destroyed. There was nothing good about their rule. They promised freedom, but ended up with a terrible massacre of the Armenians, stating that they were against the new regime. And they really were against it, since nothing had changed in the country. Everything remained the same as before it was 500 years under the rule of the sultans.
After defeat in World War I, the Turkish Empire began to agonize... Anglo-French troops occupied Constantinople, the Greeks captured Smyrna and moved inland. Mehmed V died on July 3, 1918 of a heart attack. And on October 30 of the same year, the Mudros truce, shameful for Turkey, was signed. The Young Turks fled abroad, leaving the last Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI in power. He became a puppet in the hands of the Entente.
But then the unexpected happened. In 1919, a national liberation movement was born in the distant mountain provinces. It was headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He led the common people. He very quickly drove the Anglo-French and Greek invaders from their lands and restored Turkey within the borders that exist today. On November 1, 1922, the sultanate was abolished. Thus, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. On November 17, the last Turkish Sultan Mehmed VI left the country and went to Malta. He died in 1926 in Italy.
And in the country on October 29, 1923, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey announced the creation of the Turkish Republic. It exists to this day, and its capital is the city of Ankara. As for the Turks themselves, they have lived quite happily for the last decades. They sing in the morning, dance in the evening, and pray during breaks. May Allah protect them!
The Ottoman Empire, which kept the whole of Europe and Asia in fear, existed for over 600 years. The once rich and powerful state founded by Osman I Gazi, having gone through all the stages of development, prosperity and fall, repeated the fate of all empires. Like any empire, the Ottoman Empire, having begun the development and expansion of borders from a small beylik, had its apogee of development, which fell in the 16th-17th centuries.
During this period, it was one of the most powerful states, containing many peoples of various faiths. Possessing vast territories of a significant part of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, at one time, it completely controlled the Mediterranean Sea, providing a link between Europe and the East.
Weakening the Ottomans
The history of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire began long before the apparent reasons for the weakening of power. At the end of the 17th century. Before that, the invincible Turkish army was first defeated in an attempt to take the city of Vienna in 1683. The city was besieged by the Ottomans, but the courage and self-sacrifice of the inhabitants of the city and the protective garrison led by skilled military leaders did not allow the invaders to conquer the city. Because of the Poles who came to the rescue, they had to abandon this venture along with the prey. With this defeat, the myth of the invincibility of the Ottomans was dispelled.
The events that followed this defeat led to the conclusion of the Karlovytsky Treaty in 1699, according to which the Ottomans lost significant territories, the lands of Hungary, Transylvania and Timisoara. This event violated the indivisibility of the empire, breaking the morale of the Turks and raising the spirit of the Europeans.
Ottoman chain of defeats
After the fall, the first half of the next century brought little stability by maintaining control over the Black Sea and access to Azov. Second, by the end of the 18th century. brought an even more significant defeat than the previous one. In 1774 the Turkish war ended, as a result of which the lands between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug were transferred to Russia. The following year, the Turks lose Bukovina, annexed to Austria.
End of the 18th century brought an absolute defeat in the Russian-Turkish war, as a result of which the Ottomans lost the entire Northern Black Sea region with the Crimea. In addition to Russia, the lands between the Southern Bug and the Dniester were ceded, and Porta, called the Ottoman Empire by the Europeans, lost its dominant position in the Caucasus and the Balkans. The northern part of Bulgaria merged with South Rumelia, becoming independent.
A significant milestone in the fall of the empire was played by the next defeat in the Russian-Turkish war of 1806 - 1812, as a result of which the territory from the Dniester to the Prut ceded to Russia, becoming the Bessarabian province, present-day Moldova.
In the agony of losing territories, the Turks decided to regain their positions, as a result of which 1828 brought only one disappointment, according to a new peace treaty they lost the Danube Delta, and Greece became independent.
Time was wasted for industrialization, while Europe was developing with great strides in this regard, which led to the lagging of the Turks in technology from Europe and the modernization of the army. The economic decline caused it to weaken.
Coup d'état
The coup d'état of 1876 under the leadership of Midhat Pasha, combined with previous reasons, played a key role in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, accelerating it. As a result of the coup, Sultan Abdul-Aziz was overthrown, a constitution was formed, a parliament was organized, and a draft reform was developed.
A year later, Abdul-Hamid II formed an authoritarian state, repressing all the founders of the transformations. Facing Muslims with Christians, the sultan tried to solve all social problems. As a result of the defeat in the Russian-Turkish war and the loss of significant territories, structural problems only exacerbated, which led to a new attempt to resolve all issues by changing the course of development.
Young Turk revolution
The 1908 revolution was accomplished by young officers who received an excellent European education. Based on this, the revolution began to be called the Young Turk. Young people understood that the state could not exist in this form. As a result of the revolution, with the full support of the people, Abdul Hamid was forced to reintroduce the constitution and parliament. However, a year later, the Sultan decided to carry out a counter-coup, which turned out to be unsuccessful. Then the representatives of the Young Turks erected a new Sultan Mehmed V, taking almost all power into their own hands.
Their regime turned out to be brutal. Obsessed with the intention of reuniting all Turkic-speaking Muslims into one state, they ruthlessly suppressed all national movements, bringing the genocide against Armenians to the policy of the state. In October 1918, the occupation of the country forced the Young Turk leaders to flee.
The collapse of the empire
At the height of the First World War, the Turks entered into an agreement with Germany in 1914, declaring war on the Entente, which played a fatal, final role, predetermining 1923, which was the year of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, the Porta suffered defeats along with the allies, until the complete defeat in the 20th year and the loss of the remaining territories. In 1922, the sultanate split from the caliphate and was liquidated.
In October of the following year, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the consequences of this led to the formation of the Turkish Republic within new borders, headed by President Mustafa Kemal. The collapse of the empire led to the massacre and eviction of Christians.
On the territory occupied by the Ottoman Empire, many Eastern European and Asian states arose. The once mighty empire after the peak of development and greatness, like all empires of the past and the future, was doomed to decay and decay.
By the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman state, as a result of the aggressive policy of the Turkish sultans and the military feudal nobility, turned into a vast feudal empire. It consisted of Asia Minor, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina and the vassals of Moldova, Wallachia and the Crimean Khanate.
The plundering of the wealth of the conquered countries, along with the exploitation of their own and the conquered peoples, contributed to the further growth of the military power of the Turkish conquerors. Many seekers of profit and adventure, who called themselves "gazi" (fighter for the faith), flocked to the Turkish sultans who pursued a policy of conquest in the interests of the military feudal nobility. Feudal fragmentation, feudal and religious strife that took place in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula favored the implementation of the aspirations of the Turkish conquerors, who did not meet with a united and organized resistance. Capturing one area after another, the Turkish conquerors used the material resources of the conquered peoples to organize new campaigns. With the help of Balkan craftsmen, they created strong artillery, which significantly increased the military power of the Turkish army. As a result of all this, the Ottoman Empire by the 16th century. became a powerful military power, whose army soon inflicted a crushing defeat on the rulers of the Safavid state and the Mamluks of Egypt in the East and, defeating the Czechs and Hungarians, approached the walls of Vienna in the West.
The 16th century in the history of the Ottoman Empire is characterized by continuous wars of aggression in the West and in the East, the intensification of the offensive of the Turkish feudal lords against the peasant masses and the fierce resistance of the peasantry, which repeatedly rose up in arms against feudal oppression.
Turkish conquests in the East
As in the previous period, the Turks, using their military advantage, pursued an offensive policy. At the beginning of the XVI century. the main objects of the aggressive policy of the Turkish feudal lords were Iran, Armenia, Kurdistan and the Arab countries.
In the battle of 1514. at Chapdyran, the Turkish army, led by Sultan Selim I, who had strong artillery, defeated the army of the Safavid state.Capturing Tabriz, Selim I took out from there a huge military booty, including the personal treasury of Shah Ismail, and also sent a thousand of the best Iranian craftsmen to Istanbul serving the court and the Turkish nobility. The Iranian craftsmen brought to Iznik then laid the foundation for the production of colored ceramics in Turkey, which was used in the construction of palaces and mosques in Istanbul, Bursa and other cities.
In 1514-1515, the Turkish conquerors conquered Eastern Armenia, Kurdistan and Northern Mesopotamia up to Mosul inclusive.
In the campaigns of 1516-1517. Sultan Selim I directed his armies against Egypt, which was under the rule of the Mamluks, who also owned Syria and part of Arabia. The victory over the Mamluk army put the whole of Syria and the Hejaz into the hands of the Ottomans, along with the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In 1517, Ottoman troops conquered Egypt. Modest booty in the form of precious utensils and treasury of local rulers was sent to Istanbul.
As a result of the victory over the Mamluks, the Turkish conquerors gained control over the most important trade centers in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Cities such as Diyarbekir, Aleppo (Aleppo), Mosul, Damascus were turned into strongholds of Turkish rule. Strong janissary garrisons were soon placed here, placed at the disposal of the sultan's governors. They carried out military-police service, guarding the borders of the new possessions of the Sultan. The named cities were at the same time the centers of the Turkish civil administration, which mainly collected and recorded taxes from the population of these provinces and other receipts to the treasury. The collected funds were sent annually to Istanbul to the court.
Wars of conquest of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman Qanuni
The Ottoman Empire reached its greatest power by the middle of the 16th century. under Sultan Suleiman I (1520-1566), called the Legislator by the Turks (Qanuni). For his numerous military victories and the luxury of the court, this sultan received the name of Suleiman the Magnificent from the Europeans. In the interests of the nobility, Suleiman I sought to expand the territory of the empire not only in the East, but also in Europe. Having captured Belgrade in 1521, the Turkish conquerors undertook during 1526-1543. five campaigns against Hungary. After the victory at Mohacs in 1526, the Turks suffered a serious defeat in 1529 near Vienna. But this did not free Southern Hungary from Turkish rule. Soon Central Hungary was captured by the Turks. In 1543, the part of Hungary conquered by the Turks was divided into 12 regions and transferred to the control of the governor of the Sultan.
The conquest of Hungary, like other countries, was accompanied by the robbery of its cities and villages, which contributed to the further enrichment of the Turkish military-feudal elite.
Campaigns against Hungary Suleiman interspersed with military campaigns in other directions. In 1522 the Turks captured the island of Rhodes. In 1534, the Turkish conquerors launched a devastating invasion of the Caucasus. Here they captured Shirvan and Western Georgia. Having also captured coastal Arabia, they went through Baghdad and Basra to the Persian Gulf. At the same time, the Turkish Mediterranean fleet drove the Venetians from most of the islands of the Aegean archipelago, and Tripoli and Algeria were annexed to Turkey on the northern coast of Africa.
In the second half of the XVI century. The Ottoman feudal empire spread over three continents: from Budapest and Northern Tavria to the northern coast of Africa, from Baghdad and Tabriz to the borders of Morocco. The Black and Marmara Seas became the inner basins of the Ottoman Empire. In this way, vast territories of South-Eastern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa were forcibly included in the borders of the empire.
The Turkish invasions were accompanied by the brutal devastation of cities and villages, the looting of material and cultural values, the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of civilians. For the Balkan, Caucasian, Arab and other peoples who fell under the Turkish yoke, they were a historical catastrophe that delayed the process of their economic and cultural development for a long time. At the same time, the aggressive policy of the Turkish feudal lords had extremely negative consequences for the Turkish people themselves. Contributing to the enrichment of only the feudal nobility, it strengthened the latter's economic and political power over its own people. Turkish feudal lords and their state, exhausting and ruining the country's productive forces, doomed the Turkish people to lagging behind in economic and cultural development.
Agrarian system
In the XVI century. in the Ottoman Empire, developed feudal relations were dominant. Feudal land ownership took several forms. Until the end of the 16th century, most of the land of the Ottoman Empire was state property, the sultan was its supreme administrator. However, only a part of these lands was directly managed by the treasury. A significant part of the state land fund was the ownership (domain) of the Sultan himself - the best lands in Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. The income from these lands went entirely to the personal disposal of the Sultan and to the maintenance of his court. Many regions of Anatolia (for example, Amasya, Kayseri, Tokat, Karaman, etc.) were also the property of the Sultan and his family - sons and other close relatives.
The sultan distributed state lands to feudal lords in hereditary possession on the terms of military-fiefdoms. The owners of small and large fiefs ("timars" - with an income of up to 3 thousand akche and "zeamets" - from 3 thousand to 100 thousand according to the income received). These lands served as the basis of the economic power of the feudal lords and the most important source of military strength for the state.
From the same fund of state lands, the sultan distributed land to the court and provincial dignitaries, the income from which (they were called hasses, and the income from them was determined in the amount of 100 thousand akche and above) went entirely to the maintenance of state dignitaries in return for salaries. Each dignitary used the income from the lands provided to him only as long as his post remained with him.
In the XVI century. the owners of Timars, Zeamets and Hasses usually lived in cities and did not run their own households. They collected feudal duties from peasants sitting on the land with the help of stewards and tax collectors, and often tax farmers.
Another form of feudal land ownership was the so-called vakuf holdings. This category included huge land areas that were fully owned by mosques and various other religious and charitable institutions. These land holdings represented the economic base of the strongest political influence of the Muslim clergy in the Ottoman Empire.
The category of private feudal property belonged to the land of feudal lords, who received special Sultan's letters for any merits for the unlimited right to dispose of the estates provided. This category of feudal land ownership (it was called "mulk") arose in the Ottoman state at an early stage of its formation. Despite the fact that the number of mulks was constantly increasing, their share until the end of the 16th century was small.
Peasant land use and the position of the peasantry
Lands of all categories of feudal property were in the hereditary use of the peasantry. Throughout the Ottoman Empire, the peasants who sat on the lands of the feudal lords were included in the scribe books called raya (raya, reaya) and were obliged to process the allotments allotted to them. The attachment of rayats to their allotments was recorded in laws at the end of the 15th century. During the XVI century. there was a process of enslavement of the peasantry throughout the empire, and in the second half of the 16th century. Suleiman's law finally approved the attachment of the peasants to the land. The law said that the rayat was obliged to live on the land of the feudal lord in whose register he was entered. In the event that a rayat voluntarily left the allotted allotment to him and transferred to the land of another feudal lord, the previous owner could find him within 15-20 years and force him to return back, imposing a fine on him.
By cultivating the allotments allotted to them, the peasants-rayats bore numerous feudal duties in favor of the landowner. In the XVI century. In the Ottoman Empire, all three forms of feudal rent existed - labor, food and cash. The most common was product rent. Raya Muslims were required to pay tithes on the harvest of grain, horticultural and vegetable crops, tax on all types of livestock, as well as to fulfill the fodder duty. The landowner had the right to punish and fine the guilty. In some areas, peasants also had to work several days a year with the landowner in the vineyard, at the construction of a house, deliver firewood, straw, hay, bring him all kinds of gifts, etc.
All of the above duties were also required to be performed by non-Muslims. But on top of that, they paid a special poll tax to the treasury - jizya from the male population, and in some areas of the Balkan Peninsula they were also obliged to supply boys for the Janissary army every 3-5 years. The last duty (the so-called devshirme), which served the Turkish conquerors as one of the many means of forcible assimilation of the conquered population, was especially heavy and humiliating for those who were obliged to fulfill it.
In addition to all the duties that the rayats performed in favor of their landowners, they had to perform a number of special military duties (called "avariz") directly in favor of the treasury. Collected in the form of labor work, various kinds of in-kind supplies, and often in monetary form, these so-called Divan taxes were the more numerous the more wars the Ottoman Empire waged. Thus, the sedentary agricultural peasantry in the Ottoman Empire bore the main burdens of maintaining the ruling class and the entire enormous state and military machine of the feudal empire.
A significant part of the population of Asia Minor continued to lead the life of nomads, united in tribal or clan unions. Submitting to the head of the tribe, who was in vassal dependence on the sultan, the nomads were considered military. In wartime, cavalry detachments were formed from them, which, led by their commanders, were supposed to appear at the first call of the Sultan to the indicated place. Among the nomads, every 25 men constituted a "hearth", which was supposed to send five "next" ones from their midst on a campaign, providing them at their own expense with horses, weapons and food during the entire campaign. For this, the nomads were exempted from paying taxes to the treasury. But as the importance of the cavalry of the Lenniks increased, the duties of the detachments made up of nomads increasingly began to be limited to the performance of auxiliary work: the construction of roads, bridges, transportation service, etc. The main places of settlement of the nomads were the southeastern and southern regions of Anatolia, as well as some areas of Macedonia and South Bulgaria.
In the laws of the XVI century. traces of the unlimited right of nomads to move with their herds in any direction remained: “Pasture lands have no borders. Since ancient times, it has been established in such a way where the cattle is sent, let it roam in that place. Since ancient times, it is not compatible with the law to sell and cultivate the established pastures. If someone processes them forcibly, they should be turned back into pastures. The villagers have nothing to do with pastures and therefore cannot forbid anyone to roam on them. "
Pastures, like other lands of the empire, could be the property of the state, clergy, or a private person. They were owned by feudal lords, among whom were the leaders of nomadic tribes. In all these cases, the realization of the right to own the land or the right to own it belonged to the person, in favor of whom the corresponding taxes and fees were received from the nomads who passed through his land. These taxes and fees represented the feudal rent for the right to use land.
Nomads were not attributed to the owners of the land and did not have individual allotments. They shared the pasture land in communities. If the owner or proprietor of pasture lands was not at the same time the head of a tribe or clan, he could not interfere in the internal affairs of nomadic communities, since they were subordinate only to their tribal or clan chiefs.
The nomadic community as a whole was economically dependent on the feudal landowners, but each individual member of the nomadic community was economically and legally dependent entirely on its community, which was bound by mutual responsibility and ruled by tribal leaders and military leaders. Traditional tribal ties covered up social differentiation within nomadic communities. Only nomads who broke their ties with the community, settling on the ground, turned into rayats, already attached to their allotments. However, the process of settling the nomads to the land was extremely slow, since they, trying to preserve the community as a means of self-defense from oppression by the landowners, stubbornly resisted all attempts to accelerate this process by violent measures.
Administrative and military-political structure
State system, administrative structure and military organization of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. were reflected in the legislation of Suleiman Qanuni. The Sultan was in charge of all the revenues of the empire and its armed forces. Through the great vizier and head of the Muslim clergy, Sheikh-ul-Islam, who together with other high secular and spiritual dignitaries formed the Divan (council of dignitaries), he ruled the country. The office of the great vizier was called the "High Port".
The entire territory of the Ottoman Empire was divided into provinces, or governorships (eylets). At the head of the Ayalets were the governors appointed by the Sultan - beyler-beys, who kept in their subordination all the feudal rulers of this province with their feudal militia. They were obliged to go to war personally, leading these troops. Each eyalt was divided into regions called sanjaks. At the head of the sanjak was the sanjak-bey, who had the same rights as the beyler-bey, but only within its own area. He was subordinate to the Beyler Bey. The feudal militia, supplied by the holders of the fiefs, was in the 16th century the main military force of the empire. Under Suleiman Kanuchi, the number of the feudal militia reached 200 thousand people.
The main representative of the civil administration in the province was the qadi, who was in charge of all civil and judicial affairs in the district under his jurisdiction, called the "kaza". The boundaries of the kaza usually, apparently, coincided with the boundary of the sanjak. Therefore, the Kedi and Sanjak Beys had to act in concert. However, the qadis were appointed by the sultan's decree and were directly subordinate to Istanbul.
The Janissary army consisted of a state salary and was staffed from Christian youths who, at the age of 7-12, were forcibly taken from their parents, brought up in the spirit of Muslim fanaticism in Turkish families in Anatolia, and then in schools in Istanbul or Edirne (Adrianople). This is an army, the number of which in the middle of the XVI century. reached 40 thousand people, was a serious striking force in the Turkish conquests, it was especially important as a garrison guard in the most important cities and fortresses of the empire, primarily on the Balkan Peninsula and in the Arab countries, where there was always a danger of popular outrage against the Turkish yoke.
From the middle of the XV and especially in the XVI century. Turkish sultans paid great attention to the creation of their own navy. Using Venetian and other foreign specialists, they created a significant galley and sailing fleet, which with constant corsair raids undermined normal trade in the Mediterranean and was a serious opponent of the Venetian and Spanish naval forces.
The internal military-political organization of the state, which met primarily the tasks of maintaining a huge military machine, with the help of which conquests were carried out in the interests of the class of Turkish feudal lords, made the Ottoman Empire, in the words of K. Marx, "the only truly military power of the Middle Ages." ( K. Marx, Chronological extracts, II Archives of Marx and Engels, vol. VI, p. 189.)
City, crafts and trade
In the conquered countries, the Turkish conquerors got numerous cities, in which a developed craft had developed for a long time and a lively trade was conducted. After the conquest, large cities were turned into fortresses and centers of military and civil administration. Handicraft production, regulated and regulated by the state, was primarily obliged to serve the needs of the army, court and feudal lords. The most developed were those of its industries that produced fabrics, clothing, footwear, weapons, etc. for the Turkish army.
Urban artisans were organized into guild corporations. No one had the right to work outside the workshop. The production of artisans was subject to the strictest regulations on the part of the workshops. Craftsmen could not produce those products that were not provided for by the shop charter. So, for example, in Bursa, where the weaving production was concentrated, according to the shop charter for each type of fabric, it was allowed to use only certain types of thread, it was indicated what the width and length of the pieces, the color and quality of the fabric should be. The artisans were strictly prescribed the places of sale of products and the purchase of raw materials. They were not allowed to buy threads and other materials above the established rate. No one could enter the shop without a special test and without a special guarantee. The prices for handicraft products were also regulated.
Trade, like handicrafts, was regulated by the state. Laws established the number of shops in each market, the quantity and quality of the goods sold, and their prices. This regulation, state taxes and local feudal extortions hindered the development of free trade within the empire, thereby restraining the growth of the social division of labor. The predominantly natural character of the peasant economy, in turn, limited the possibilities for the development of handicrafts and trade. In some places there were local markets, where exchanges were made between peasants and townspeople, between sedentary farmers and nomadic pastoralists. These markets functioned once a week or twice a month, and sometimes less often.
The result of the Turkish conquests was a serious disruption of trade in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and a significant reduction in trade relations between Europe and the countries of the East.
Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire was unable to completely sever the traditional trade ties between the East and the West. Turkish rulers benefited from the trade of Armenian, Greek and other merchants, collecting customs duties and market duties from them, which became a profitable item of the Sultan's treasury.
Venice, Genoa and Dubrovnik, interested in Levantine trade as early as the 15th century. obtained permission from the Turkish sultans to trade in the territory controlled by the Ottomans. Foreign ships called at Istanbul, Izmir, Sinop, Trabzon, Thessaloniki. However, the interior regions of Asia Minor remained almost completely uninvolved in trade relations with the outside world.
In Istanbul, Edirne, in Anatolian cities and in Egypt, there were slave markets, where an extensive slave trade was carried on. During their campaigns, the Turkish conquerors took tens of thousands of adults and children away from the enslaved countries as prisoners, turning them into slaves. In the domestic life of Turkish feudal lords, slaves were widely used. Many girls fell into the harems of the Sultan and the Turkish nobility.
Popular uprisings in Asia Minor in the first half of the 16th century.
Wars of the Turkish conquerors from the beginning of the 16th century. entailed an increase in the already numerous levies, in particular levies in favor of the active armies, which in a continuous stream passed through the villages and cities of Asia Minor or were concentrated in them to prepare for new offensives against the Safavid state and the Arab countries. The feudal rulers demanded more and more funds from the peasants to support their troops, and it was at this time that the treasury began to introduce emergency military taxes (avariz). All this led to the growth of popular discontent in Asia Minor. This discontent found its expression not only in the antifeudal actions of the Turkish peasantry and nomadic pastoralists, but also in the liberation struggle of non-Turkish tribes and peoples, including residents of the eastern regions of Asia Minor - Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, etc.
In 1511-1512. Asia Minor was gripped by a popular uprising led by Shakh-kulu (or Shaitan-kulu). The uprising, despite the fact that it took place under religious Shiite slogans, was a serious attempt by the farmers and nomadic pastoralists of Asia Minor to provide armed resistance to the intensification of feudal exploitation. Shah-kulu, proclaiming himself a "savior", called for a refusal to obey the Turkish sultan. In the battles with the rebels in the Sivas and Kayseri regions, the Sultan's troops were repeatedly defeated.
Sultan Selim I waged a fierce struggle against this uprising. More than 40 thousand inhabitants were exterminated under the guise of Shiites in Asia Minor. Everyone who could be suspected of disobeying the Turkish feudal lords and the sultan was declared Shiites.
In 1518, another major popular uprising broke out under the leadership of the peasant Nur Ali. The center of the uprising was the districts of Karahisar and Nixar, from there it later spread to Amasya and Tokat. The rebels here, too, demanded the abolition of extortions and duties. After repeated battles with the Sultan's troops, the rebels scattered across the villages. But soon a new uprising, which arose in 1519 in the vicinity of Tokat, in a short time covered the whole of Central Anatolia. The number of rebels reached 20 thousand people. The leader of this uprising was one of the inhabitants of Tokat, Dzhelal, after whom all such popular uprisings were later called "Dzhelali".
Like previous uprisings, the revolt of Jelal was directed against the tyranny of the Turkish feudal lords, against countless duties and extortions, against the outrage of the Sultan's officials and tax collectors. Armed rebels captured Karahisar and headed for Ankara.
To suppress this uprising, Sultan Selim I had to send significant military forces to Asia Minor. The rebels in the battle of Akshehir were defeated and scattered. Jelal fell into the hands of punishers and was brutally executed.
However, the reprisal against the rebels briefly pacified the peasant masses. During 1525-1526. the eastern regions of Asia Minor up to Sivas were again seized by a peasant uprising, led by Koca Soglun-oglu and Zunnun-oglu. In 1526, an uprising led by Kalender Shah, numbering up to 30 thousand participants - Turks and Kurdish nomads, swept the Malatya region. Farmers and cattle breeders demanded not only a reduction in duties and taxes, but also the return of land and pastures that were appropriated by the Sultan's treasury and distributed to Turkish feudal lords.
The rebels repeatedly defeated punitive detachments and were defeated only after a large Sultan army from Istanbul was sent against them.
Peasant uprisings at the beginning of the 16th century. in Asia Minor testified to a sharp exacerbation of the class struggle in Turkish feudal society. In the middle of the XVI century. a sultan's decree was issued on the deployment of janissary garrisons in the largest points of all provinces of the empire. With these measures and punitive expeditions, the Sultan's power managed for some time to restore calm in Asia Minor.
External relations
In the second half of the XVI century. the international importance of the Ottoman Empire, as one of the strongest powers, has increased greatly. Her circle of external relations expanded. The Turkish sultans pursued an active foreign policy, widely using not only military, but also diplomatic means to fight their opponents, primarily the Habsburg empire, which faced the Turks in South-Eastern Europe.
In 1535 (according to other sources in 1536), the Ottoman Empire concluded an alliance with France, which was interested in weakening the Habsburg empire with the help of the Turks; at the same time, Sultan Suleiman I signed the so-called surrender (chapters, articles) - a trade agreement with France, on the basis of which French merchants received, as a special favor of the Sultan, the right to freely trade in all of his possessions. Allied and trade treaties with France strengthened the position of the Ottoman Empire in the fight against the Habsburgs, so the sultan did not skimp on the benefits of the French. French merchants and French subjects in general in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed especially privileged conditions on the basis of surrender.
France controlled almost all the trade of the Ottoman Empire with European countries until the beginning of the 17th century, when Holland and England managed to achieve similar rights for their subjects. Until then, English and Dutch merchants had to trade in Turkish possessions on ships flying the French flag.
Official relations between the Ottoman Empire and Russia began at the end of the 15th century, after the conquest of the Crimea by Mehmed P. Having conquered the Crimea, the Turks began to obstruct the trade of Russian merchants in Cafe (Feodosia) and Azov.
In 1497, Grand Duke Ivan III sent the first Russian ambassador, Mikhail Pleshcheyev, to Istanbul with a complaint about the aforementioned oppression of Russian trade. Pleshcheev was ordered to "give a list of the oppression inflicted on our guests in Turkish lands." The Moscow government has repeatedly protested against the devastating raids of the Crimean Tatars on Russian possessions. The Turkish sultans, through the Crimean Tatars, attempted to extend their dominion north of the Black Sea coast. However, the struggle of the peoples of the Russian state against Turkish aggression and the defensive measures of the Russian authorities on the Don and on the Dnieper did not allow the Turkish conquerors and the Crimean khans to carry out their predatory plans.
Culture
The Muslim religion, which sanctified the rule of the Turkish feudal lords, left its mark on the science, literature and art of the Turks. Schools (madrasahs) existed only at large mosques and served the purpose of educating clergymen, theologians, and judges. From among the pupils of these schools, scientists and poets sometimes emerged, with whom the Turkish sultans and dignitaries liked to surround themselves.
The late 15th and 16th centuries are considered the heyday, the "golden age" of Turkish classical poetry, which was heavily influenced by Persian poetry. From the latter were borrowed such poetic genres as qasida (laudatory ode), gazelle (lyric verse), as well as plots and images: the traditional nightingale, rose, chanting of wine, love, spring, etc. Famous poets of this time - Ham- di Chelebi (1448-1509), Ahmed Pasha (died in 1497), Nejati (1460-1509), poet Mihri Khatun (died in 1514), Mesihi (died in 1512), Revani (died in 1524), Iskhak Chelebi (died in 1537) - they wrote mainly lyric poems. The last poets of the "golden age" - Liami (died in 1531) and Baki (1526-1599) repeat the plots of classical poetry.
The 17th century in Turkish literature is called the "Age of Satire". The poet Weissy (died in 1628) wrote about the fall in morals ("Exhortation to Istanbul", "Dream"), the poet Nefi (died in 1635) for his cycle of satirical poems "The Arrows of Fate", in which evil was denounced not only know, but also the Sultan, paid with his life.
In the field of science, the greatest fame during this period was acquired by Kyatib Chelebi (Haji Khalifa, 1609-1657) with his writings on history, geography, bio-bibliography, philosophy, etc. Thus, his works "Description of the World" ("Jihan-nyuma"), The Chronicle of Events (Fezleke), a bio-bibliographic dictionary of Arab, Turkish, Persian, Central Asian and other authors, containing information about 9512 authors, has not lost its value to this day. Valuable historical annals of events in the Ottoman Empire were Khoja Sadeddin (died in 1599), Mustafa Selyaniki (died in 1599), Mustafa Aali (died in 1599), Ibrahim Pechevi (died in 1650) and other authors XVI and the first half of the XVII century.
Political treatises by Aini Ali, Kyatib Chelebi, Kochibei and other authors of the 17th century. are the most valuable sources for studying the military-political and economic state of the empire at the end of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. The famous traveler Evliya elebi left a wonderful ten-volume description of his travels in the Ottoman Empire, southern Russia and Western Europe.
The art of building was largely subordinated to the whims of the Turkish sultans and nobility. Each sultan and many major dignitaries considered it obligatory to mark the period of their reign with the construction of a mosque, palace or any other structures. Many of the monuments of this kind that have survived to this day are striking in their splendor. A talented architect of the 16th century Sinan built many different structures, including more than 80 mosques, of which the most architecturally significant are the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul (1557) and the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (1574).
Turkish architecture arose on the basis of local traditions in the conquered countries of the Balkan Peninsula and Western Asia. These traditions were varied, and the creators of the architectural style of the Ottoman Empire, first of all, sought to unite them into something whole. The most important element of this synthesis was the Byzantine architectural scheme, which was especially evident in the Church of St. Sofia.
Islam's prohibition of depicting living beings resulted in the fact that Turkish fine arts developed mainly as one of the branches of building craftsmanship: wall painting in the form of floral and geometric patterns, wood, metal and stone carvings, relief work on plaster, marble, mosaic work. from stone, glass, etc. In this area, both forcibly displaced and Turkish masters have achieved a high degree of perfection. The art of Turkish masters is also known in the field of decorating weapons with inlay, carving, engraving on gold, silver, ivory, etc. However, the religious prohibition of depicting living beings was often violated; for example, to decorate manuscripts, in many cases miniatures were used, which depicted both people and animals.
The art of calligraphy has reached high perfection in Turkey. Quranic inscriptions were also widely used to decorate the walls of palaces and mosques.
The beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire
By the end of the 16th century, at a time when strong centralized states began to take shape in Europe, in the vast and multi-tribal Ottoman Empire, internal economic and political ties not only did not strengthen, but, on the contrary, began to weaken. The anti-feudal movements of the peasantry and the struggle of non-Turkish peoples for their liberation reflected irreconcilable internal contradictions, which the sultan's power was unable to overcome. The consolidation of the empire was also hampered by the fact that the central region of the empire - economically backward Anatolia - did not and could not become a center of economic and political attraction for the conquered peoples.
With the development of commodity-money relations, the interest of the feudal lords in increasing the profitability of their military-fiefs increased. They began to arbitrarily turn these conditional possessions into their own property. Military fiefs began to evade the obligation to maintain detachments for the Sultan and from participation in military campaigns, they began to appropriate the income from the fiefs. Simultaneously with this, a struggle began between individual feudal groups for the possession of the land, for its concentration. As a contemporary wrote, "among them there are people who have 20-30 and even 40-50 zeamets and timars, the fruits of which they devour." This led to the fact that state ownership of land began to weaken and gradually lose its significance, and the military-fief system began to decay. Feudal separatism intensified. At the end of the 16th century, there were undoubted signs of a weakening of the Sultan's power.
The extravagance of the sultans and their courtiers demanded huge funds. A significant share of government revenues was absorbed by the constantly growing bureaucratic military-administrative and financial apparatus of the state in the center and in the provinces. A very large part of the funds was spent on the maintenance of the army of the janissaries, the number of which increased as the feudal militia supplied by the Lenniks decayed and dwindled. The number of the janissary army increased also because the sultan needed military force to suppress the growing struggle of the Turkish and non-Turkish popular masses against feudal and national oppression. The Janissary army at the beginning of the 17th century exceeded 90 thousand people.
The state authorities, striving to increase treasury revenues, began to increase old and introduce new taxes from year to year. The Jizya tax, which at the beginning of the 16th century was equal to 20-25 akche per person, reached 140 akche by the beginning of the 17th century, and tax collectors who were extremely abusing their powers sometimes increased it to 400-500 akce. Feudal levies, levied by landowners, also increased.
At the same time, the Treasury began to give the right to collect taxes from state lands to tax farmers. This is how a new category of land owners appeared and began to grow - tax farmers, who actually turned into feudal owners of entire regions.
Court and provincial dignitaries often acted as tax farmers. A large number of state lands through the ransoms fell into the hands of the Janissaries and Sipahis.
During the same period, the policy of conquest of the Ottoman Empire ran into more and more serious obstacles.
Strong and ever-increasing resistance to this policy was put up by Russia, Austria, Poland and on the Mediterranean Sea - Spain.
Under the successor of Suleiman Qanuni - Selim II (1566-1574), a campaign was undertaken against Astrakhan (1569). But this event, which required significant costs, did not bring success: the Turkish army was defeated and was forced to retreat.
In 1571, the combined fleet of Spain and Venice inflicted a crushing defeat on the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto. The failure of the Astrakhan campaign and the defeat at Lepanto testified to the beginning of the military weakening of the empire.
Nevertheless, the Turkish sultans continued to wage wars, exhausting for the masses. The war of the Turkish Sultan with the Safavids, which began in 1578 and brought great disasters to the peoples of the Transcaucasia, ended in 1590 with the signing of an agreement in Istanbul, according to which Tabriz, Shirvan, part of Luri Stan, Western Georgia and some other regions of the Caucasus were assigned to Turkey. However, she was able to keep these areas (except for the Georgian ones) under her rule only for 20 years.
Peasant uprisings at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries.
The state treasury sought to compensate for its military expenses at the expense of additional levies from the taxable population. There were so many extraordinary levies and "surcharges" to existing taxes that, as the chronicler wrote, "in the provinces of the state, extraordinary taxes drove the subjects to the point that they were disgusted with this world and everything in it." The peasants were devastated en masse and, in spite of the punishment that threatened them, fled from their lands. Crowds of hungry and ragged people moved from one province to another in search of tolerable living conditions. The peasants were punished, forced to pay increased taxes for unauthorized leaving the land. However, these measures did not help.
The arbitrariness of officials, tax farmers, all kinds of duties and labor related to the need to serve the Sultan's army during the standstill caused outbreaks of discontent among the peasants during the last quarter of the 16th century.
In 1591, an uprising took place in Diyarbekir in response to the brutal measures taken by the Beyler Bey in collecting arrears from the peasants. The clashes between the population and the army took place in 1592-1593. in the districts of Erzl Rum and Baghdad. In 1596, uprisings broke out in Kerman and neighboring regions of Asia Minor. In 1599, discontent, having become general, resulted in a peasant uprising, which swept the central and eastern regions of Anatolia.
The indignation of the rebels was again directed against feudal extortions, against taxes, bribery and arbitrariness of the Sultan's officials and tax farmers. The movement of the peasantry was used by petty lenniks, who, in turn, opposed the usurpation of their rights to land by immigrants from the court-bureaucratic aristocracy, large landowners and tax farmers. The small Anatolian feudal lord Kara Yazidzhi, having gathered an army of 20-30 thousand people from the rebellious farmers, nomadic pastoralists and petty fiefdoms, in 1600 took possession of the city of Kayseri, declared himself the sultan of the occupied regions and refused to obey the Istanbul court. The struggle of the Sultan's armies against popular anti-feudal uprisings lasted for five years (1599-1603). In the end, the sultan managed to negotiate with the rebellious feudal lords and brutally suppress the peasant uprising.
However, in subsequent years, during the entire first half of the 17th century, antifeudal actions of the peasantry in Asia Minor did not stop. The Jelali movement was especially powerful in 1608. This uprising also reflected the struggle of the enslaved peoples of Syria and Lebanon for liberation from the yoke of Turkish feudal lords. The leader of the uprising, Janpulad-oglu, proclaimed the independence of the regions he had captured and made efforts to attract some Mediterranean states to fight against the Sultan. He concluded, in particular, a treaty with the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Using the most brutal terror, the Sultan's punishers mercilessly dealt with members of the Jelali movement. According to the chroniclers, they destroyed up to 100 thousand people.
Even more powerful were the uprisings of non-Turkish peoples of the empire in Europe, especially in the Balkans, directed against Turkish rule.
The struggle against the anti-feudal and national liberation movements demanded from the Turkish rulers enormous resources and constant exertion of forces, which further undermined the regime of the Sultan's despotism.
The struggle of feudal groups for power. The role of the Janissaries
The Ottoman Empire was also shaken by numerous feudal-separatist uprisings throughout the first half of the 17th century. the uprisings of Bekir Chavush in Baghdad, Abaza Pasha in Erzurum, Vardar Ali Pasha in Rumelia, Crimean khans and many other powerful feudal lords followed one another.
The janissary army also became an unreliable support for the sultan's power. This large army required huge funds, which were often lacking in the treasury. The intensified struggle for power between individual groups of the feudal aristocracy made the Janissaries a force actively participating in all court intrigues. As a result, the janissary army turned into a hotbed of court troubles and revolts. So, in 1622, with his participation, Sultan Osman II was overthrown and killed, and a year later his successor, Mustafa I, was overthrown.
Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 17th century was still a strong power. Vast territories in Europe, Asia and Africa remained under the rule of the Turks. The long-term war with the Austrian Habsburgs ended in 1606 with the Sitvatorok Treaty, which fixed the former borders of the Ottoman state with the Habsburg Empire. The war with Poland ended with the capture of Khotin (1620). As a result of the war with Venice (1645-1669), the Turks took possession of the island of Crete. New wars with the Safavids, which lasted with short interruptions for almost 30 years, ended in 1639 with the signing of the Kasri-Shirin treaty, according to which the lands of Azerbaijan, as well as Yerevan, retreated to Iran, but the Turks retained Basra and Baghdad. Nevertheless, the military power of the Turks was already undermined.It was during this period - in the first half of the 17th century. - those tendencies that further determined the collapse of the Ottoman Empire received their development.
Any Hollywood scenario pales in comparison with the life path of Roxolana, who became the most influential woman in the history of the great empire. Her powers, contrary to Turkish laws and Islamic canons, could only be compared with the capabilities of the Sultan himself. Roksolana became not just a wife, she was a co-ruler; they did not listen to her opinion - it was the only thing that was correct, legal.
Anastasia Gavrilovna Lisovskaya (born c. 1506 - d. C. 1562) was the daughter of the priest Gavrila Lisovsky from Rohatyn, a small town in Western Ukraine located southwest of Ternopil. In the 16th century, this territory belonged to the Commonwealth and was constantly subjected to devastating raids by the Crimean Tatars. During one of them, in the summer of 1522, the young daughter of a clergyman fell into a detachment of ludolovs. Legend has it that the misfortune happened just before Anastasia's wedding.
First, the captive came to the Crimea - this is the usual path of all slaves. The Tatars did not drive the valuable "live goods" across the steppe on foot, but under watchful guard they drove them on horseback, without even tying their hands so as not to spoil the delicate girl's skin with ropes. Most sources say that the Krymchaks, amazed by the beauty of the clearing, decided to send the girl to Istanbul, hoping to sell her profitably in one of the largest slave markets of the Muslim East.
"Giovane, ma non bella" ("young but ugly"), - told about her the Venetian nobles in 1526, but "graceful and short." None of his contemporaries, contrary to legend, called Roksolana a beauty.
The captive was sent to the capital of the sultans in a large felucca, and the owner himself took her to sell her - history did not keep his name. On the very first day, when the Horde brought the captive to the market, she accidentally caught the eye of the all-powerful vizier of the young Sultan Suleiman I, the noble Rustem Again, the legend says that the Turk was struck by the dazzling beauty of the girl, and he decided to buy her to make a gift to the Sultan.
As can be seen from the portraits and confirmations of contemporaries, beauty is clearly nothing to do with it - I can call this coincidence of circumstances only in one word - Fate.
In this era, the Sultan was Suleiman I the Magnificent (Magnificent), who ruled from 1520 to 1566, considered the greatest sultan of the Ottoman dynasty. During the years of his reign, the empire reached the apogee of its development, including the whole of Serbia with Belgrade, most of Hungary, the island of Rhodes, significant territories in North Africa to the borders of Morocco and the Middle East. The nickname Magnificent was given to the Sultan by Europe, while in the Muslim world he is more often called Qanuni, which in translation from Turkish means Legislator. "Such greatness and nobility," wrote about Suleiman in the report of the 16th century Venetian ambassador, Marini Sanuto, "was also adorned by the fact that, unlike his father and many other sultans, he had no inclination to pederasty." An honest ruler and an uncompromising fighter against bribery, he encouraged the development of arts and philosophy, and was also considered a skillful poet and blacksmith - few of the European monarchs could compete with Suleiman I.
According to the laws of faith, the padishah could have four legitimate wives. The children of the first of them became heirs to the throne. Rather, one firstborn inherited the throne, and the rest often faced a sad fate: all possible contenders for supreme power were subject to destruction.
In addition to wives, the ruler of the faithful had any number of concubines that his soul desires and his flesh requires. At different times, under different sultans, from several hundred to a thousand or more women lived in the harem, each of whom was certainly an amazing beauty. In addition to women, the harem consisted of a whole staff of eunuchs-eunuchs, maids of different ages, bone setters, midwives, masseuses, doctors and the like. But no one, except the padishah himself, could encroach on the beauties belonging to him. All this complicated and restless economy was supervised by the "chief of the girls" - the eunuch of the Kyzlyaragassa.
However, one amazing beauty was not enough: the girls intended for the padishah's harem were necessarily taught music, dancing, Muslim poetry and, of course, the art of love. Naturally, the course of love sciences was theoretical, and the practice was taught by experienced old women and women, experienced in all the intricacies of sex.
Now I will return to Roksolana, so Rustem Pasha decided to buy a Slavic beauty. But her Krymchak owner refused to sell Anastasia and presented her as a gift to the all-powerful courtier, rightly expecting to receive for this not only an expensive reciprocal gift, as is customary in the East, but also considerable benefits.
Rustem Pasha ordered to comprehensively prepare it as a gift to the Sultan, in turn hoping to achieve this even greater benevolence. Padishah was young, he ascended the throne only in 1520 and greatly appreciated female beauty, and not just as a contemplator.
In the harem, Anastasia receives the name Khurrem (laughing). And for the sultan, she always remained only Khurrem. Roksolana, the name under which she went down in history, is just the name of the Sarmatian tribes in the II-IV centuries AD, who roamed the steppes between the Dnieper and the Don, translated from Latin as "Russian". Roksolana will often be called both during life and after death only as "Rusynska" - a native of Russia or Roxolanii, as Ukraine was previously called.
The mystery of the birth of love between the Sultan and a fifteen-year-old unknown captive will remain unsolved. After all, there was a strict hierarchy in the harem, the one who violated which was awaited by cruel punishment. Often death. The recruits girls - ajemi, step by step they put first jariye, then shagird, gedikli and usta. No one except the mouth had the right to be in the Sultan's chambers. Only the mother of the ruling sultan, the valid-sultan, had absolute power within the harem, and decided who and when from the mouth to share the bed with the sultan. How Roksolana managed to occupy the Sultan's monastery almost immediately will remain a mystery forever.
There is a legend about how Hurrem fell into the eyes of the sultan. When the Sultan was introduced to new slaves (more beautiful and dear than she), a small figure suddenly flew into the circle of dancing odalisques and, pushing the "soloist" away, laughed. And then she sang her song. The harem lived by cruel laws. And the eunuchs were waiting for only one sign - what to prepare for the girl - clothes for the sultan's bedroom or a lace with which the slaves were strangled. The Sultan was intrigued and surprised. And on the same evening Khurrem received the Sultan's handkerchief - a sign that in the evening he was expecting her in his bedroom. Having interested the Sultan with her silence, she asked for only one thing - the right to visit the Sultan's library. The Sultan was shocked, but allowed. When after a while he returned from a military campaign, Hurrem already spoke several languages. She dedicated poetry to her sultan and even wrote books. This was unprecedented in those days, and instead of respect, it caused fear. Her scholarship, plus the fact that the Sultan spent all his nights with her, created Hurrem's enduring glory as a witch. They said about Roksolana that she bewitched the Sultan with the help of evil spirits. Indeed, he was bewitched.
“Finally, let us unite in soul, thoughts, imagination, will, heart, everything that I threw mine in you and took yours with me, oh my only love!”, The sultan wrote in a letter to Roksolana. “My lord, your absence has ignited a fire in me that does not go out. Have pity on this suffering soul and hurry up your letter so that I can find at least a little consolation in it, ”Hurrem answered.
Roksolana eagerly absorbed everything that she was taught in the palace, took everything that gave her life. Historians testify that after a while she really mastered the Turkish, Arabic and Persian languages, learned to dance perfectly, recite contemporaries, and also play according to the rules of a foreign, cruel country in which she lived. Following the rules of her new homeland, Roksolana converted to Islam.
Her main trump card was that Rustem Pasha, thanks to whom she got to the padishah's palace, received it as a gift, and did not buy it. In turn, he did not sell her kyzlyaragassa, who replenished the harem, but presented it to Suleiman. This means that Roksalana remained a free woman and could claim the role of the padishah's wife. According to the laws of the Ottoman Empire, a slave woman could never, under any circumstances, become the wife of the ruler of the faithful.
A few years later, Suleiman enters into an official marriage with her according to the Muslim rite, elevates her to the rank of bash-kadyna - the main (and in fact, the only) wife and refers to her as "Haseki", which means "dear to the heart."
The incredible position of Roksolana at the Sultan's court amazed both Asia and Europe. Her education made scientists admire, she received foreign ambassadors, responded to messages from foreign sovereigns, influential nobles and artists. She not only resigned herself to the new faith, but also gained fame as a zealous Muslim woman, which earned considerable respect at court.
Once the Florentines placed a ceremonial portrait of Hürrem, for which she posed for a Venetian artist, in an art gallery. It was the only female portrait among the images of hook-nosed bearded sultans in huge turbans. “There has never been another woman in the Ottoman palace who would have had such power” - Venetian ambassador Navajero, 1533.
Lisovskaya gives birth to four sons (Mohammed, Bayazet, Selim, Dzhangir) and a daughter Khameria to the Sultan, but Mustafa, the eldest son of the first wife of the padishah, a Circassian woman Gulbekhar, was still officially considered the heir to the throne. She and her children became mortal enemies of the power-hungry and insidious Roxalana.
Lisovskaya perfectly understood: until her son becomes the heir to the throne or sits on the throne of the padishahs, her own position is constantly under threat. At any moment, Suleiman could be carried away by a new beautiful concubine and make her a legal wife, and order some of the old wives to be executed: in a harem, an unwanted wife or concubine was put alive in a leather sack, an angry cat and a poisonous snake were thrown there, the sack was tied and a special stone chute was lowered with a tied stone into the waters of the Bosphorus. The guilty considered it happiness if they were simply quickly strangled with a silk cord.
Therefore, Roxalana prepared for a very long time and began to actively and violently act only after almost fifteen years!
Her daughter was twelve years old, and she decided to marry her off to ... Rustem Pasha, who is already over fifty. But he was in great favor at court, close to the throne of the padishah and, most importantly, was something like a mentor and "godfather" of the heir to the throne Mustafa - the son of a Circassian woman Gulbehar, the first wife of Suleiman.
Roxalana's daughter grew up with a similar face and chiseled figure like a beautiful mother, and Rustem Pasha became related with the Sultan with great pleasure - this is a very high honor for a courtier. Women were not forbidden to see each other, and the sultana deftly inquired from her daughter about everything that was happening in Rustem Pasha's house, literally bit by bit, collecting the information she needed. Finally, Lisovskaya decided it was time to strike the fatal blow!
During a meeting with her husband, Roxalana secretly informed the ruler of the faithful about a "terrible conspiracy." Merciful Allah allowed her to find out in time about the secret plans of the conspirators and allowed her to warn her adored spouse about the danger that threatened him: Rustem Pasha and the sons of Gulbehar planned to take the padishah's life and take possession of the throne by placing Mustafa on him!
The schemer knew very well where and how to strike - the mythical "conspiracy" was quite plausible: in the East, during the time of the sultans, bloody palace coups were the most common thing. In addition, Roksalana cited as an irrefutable argument the true words of Rustem Pasha, Mustafa and other "conspirators" that the daughter of Anastasia and the Sultan had heard. Therefore, the seeds of evil fell on fertile soil!
Rustem Pasha was immediately taken into custody, and an investigation began: Pasha was terribly tortured. Perhaps he incriminated himself and others under torture. But even if he was silent, this only confirmed the padishah in the actual existence of the "conspiracy." After being tortured, Rustem Pasha was beheaded.
Only Mustafa and his brothers were sent away - they were an obstacle on the way to the throne of the first-born Roxalana, the red-haired Selim, and for this reason they simply had to die! Constantly instigated by his wife, Suleiman agreed and gave the order to kill his children! The Prophet forbade the shedding of the blood of the padishahs and their heirs, so Mustafa and his brothers were strangled with a green silk twisted cord. Gulbehar lost her mind with grief and soon died.
The cruelty and injustice of her son struck Valide Khamsa, the mother of Padishah Suleiman, who came from the family of the Crimean khans Gireyev. At the meeting, she told her son everything she thinks about the "conspiracy", execution, and her son's beloved wife, Roksalana. It is not surprising that after this valid Hamsa, the mother of the Sultan, lived less than a month: the East knows a lot about poisons!
The Sultana went even further: she ordered to find in the harem and throughout the country the other sons of Suleiman, whom their wives and concubines gave birth to, and to take their lives! As it turned out, the Sultan's sons were about forty people - all of them, who were secretly, who obviously, were killed on the orders of Lisovskaya.
Thus, in forty years of marriage, Roksolana succeeded in almost the impossible. She was proclaimed the first wife, and her son Selim became the heir. But the sacrifices did not stop there. Roxolana's two youngest sons were strangled. Some sources accuse her of involvement in these murders - allegedly in order to strengthen the position of her beloved son Selim. However, reliable data on this tragedy was never found.
She was no longer able to see how her son ascended the throne, becoming Sultan Selim II. He reigned after the death of his father for only eight years - from 1566 to 1574 - and, although the Qur'an forbids drinking wine, he was a terrible alcoholic! Once his heart simply could not stand the constant excessive libations, and in the memory of the people he remained as Sultan Selim the drunkard!
No one will ever know what the true feelings of the famous Roksolana were. What is it like to be a young girl in slavery, in a foreign country, with an imposed foreign faith. Not only not to break, but also to grow into the mistress of the empire, to gain glory throughout Asia and Europe. Trying to erase the shame and humiliation from memory, Roksolana ordered to hide the slave market and put a mosque, madrasah and almshouse in its place. That mosque and hospital in the almshouse building still bear the name of Khaseki, as well as the adjacent area of the city.
Her name, shrouded in myths and legends, sung by contemporaries and denounced by black glory, has forever remained in history. Nastasia Lisovskaya, whose fate could be similar to hundreds of thousands of the same Nastya, Khristin, Oles, Mariy. But life decided otherwise. No one knows how much grief, tears and misfortunes Nastasya endured on the way to Roksolana. However, for the Muslim world, she will remain Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska - LAUGHING.
Roxolana died either in 1558, or in 1561. Suleiman I - in 1566. He managed to finish building the majestic Suleymaniye mosque - one of the largest architectural monuments of the Ottoman Empire - near which the remains of Roksolana rest in an octahedral stone tomb, next to the also octahedral tomb of the Sultan. This tomb has stood for more than four hundred years. Inside, under a high dome, Suleiman ordered to carve alabaster rosettes and decorate each of them with a priceless emerald, a favorite gem of Roksolana.
When Suleiman died, his tomb was also decorated with emeralds, forgetting that his favorite stone was the ruby.
Many years after the collapse of the Great Seljuk Empire in Asia Minor, a new powerful Turkic-Muslim state arose - the Ottoman Empire.
During the campaign of Genghis Khan in Central Asia, about 70 thousand Oghuz Turks moved to Anatolia. In 1231, Ertogrul from the Oguz clan of Gaia led his fellow tribesmen to the borders of Ankara, and, pledging to protect the borders with Byzantium, received from the Seljuk sultan the village of Soyudpu and the eylag of Domanchy in the form of ikta. Soon, these Oghuzes subdued the neighboring Byzantine rulers. After the death of Ertogrul, his son Osman bey (1289-1326) headed the Gaia, put an end to the existence of the Konya Sultanate and created his own state in 1299. The conquest of Bursa in 1326 marked a turning point in the history of this state. The Ottomans forever took possession of the Anatolian part of the Sea of Marmara. From 1329 Bursa became the capital. The son of Osman Kazn - Orkhan bey (1326-1359) was engaged in state construction. He defined the state authorities and their tasks. The Ottoman Empire was divided into regions and districts.
In order to take possession of Constantinople, it was necessary first of all to capture the city of Nicaea. At the Battle of Maltepe in 1329, Orhan Kazn defeated the Byzantines, captured Nicaea and renamed it Iznik. So Byzantium lost one of its main pillars in Anatolia. In 1337 the Ottomans captured the city of Nicomedia and renamed it Izmit.
In the 30s of the XIV century, the Byzantine emperor turned to the Ottomans for help to calm internal strife. Suleiman Pasha, who came to the rescue, defeated the rebellious Serbs. Taking advantage of the moment, the Ottomans in 1354 captured Gelibola and the surrounding Byzantine fortresses.
Ottoman Empire - oheducation
Murad I (1359-1389), who came to power in 1359, took the title of Sultan. In 1361 he occupied Edirne and made it his capital. In the XIV century, the states of the Balkan Peninsula were weakened by internal feudal strife, as well as by wars among themselves. In 1370, Byzantium, and then Bulgaria, recognized their subordination to the Ottomans. In 1371, the Serbs, having lost the Battle of Chirmen, recognized their dependence on the Ottomans, pledging to pay tribute and supply soldiers. Mobilizing all forces, the Serbs on June 25, 1389, opposed the Ottomans in the Kosovo field, but suffered a severe defeat. Sultan Ildirim Bayazid I (1389-1402) put an end to the independence of Serbia, capturing territories up to the banks of the Danube. In 1393, Tarnovo, the capital of Bulgaria, fell, at the end of the XIV century, most of Bosnia and completely Albania were captured by the Ottomans. The Hungarian king Sigismund, with the help of French, German, English and Czech knights, organized a crusade. In 1396, in a battle near Nikopol, the crusaders were defeated, and the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria was completed. Preparing for the seizure of Constantinople, Ildirim Bayazit I built the Anadoluhisar fortress.
At the beginning of the 15th century, taking advantage of the fact that Ildirim Bayazit I was occupied with the siege of Constantinople, Emir Timur raided Eastern Anatolia and returned to Azerbaijan with a victory. During the repeated campaign of Timur on July 28, 1402, one of the largest battles of the Middle Ages took place on the Ankara Plain. The Ottomans were defeated, and Sultan Bayezid was captured. Timur's victory saved Europe from the Ottoman conquest. Upon learning of the result of the battle, the overjoyed Pope ordered bells to ring throughout Europe and offer prayers of thanks for three days. Then came the 11-year period of the struggle for power in the Ottoman Empire.
Sultan Murad II (1421-1451) restored the power of the Ottoman Empire. In 1444, he defeated the Hungarian-Czech crusaders led by Janos Hunyadin near Varna, and in 1448 he defeated these crusaders again on the Kosovo field. The son of Murad II - Mehmet II (1451-1481) in the spring of 1453 laid siege to Constantinople, captured the Golden Horn harbor and, after a 53-day siege, forced the city to surrender. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died. The Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. Constantinople was renamed Istanbul (Istanbul) and made the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmet II received the nickname "Conqueror".
In 1475, the Crimean Khanate fell into vassal dependence on the Ottoman state. In 1479, Albania finally submitted, and a peace treaty was concluded with Venice, according to which:
1) the islands of the Aegean Sea retreated to Turkey, and the islands of Crete and Corfu went to Venice;
2) Venice pledged to pay 1,000 ducats in annual tribute, but received the right to duty-free trade.
In the second half of the 15th century, Moldova, Wallachia, the Morey Greek principality and the Duchy of Athens also fell under the control of the Sultan. The main part of the Ottoman army was made up of feudal cavalry, called "akynchy". Orkhan Kazn first created mercenary foot troops, tk. during the siege of fortresses, the cavalry became ineffective. One of the innovations in the army was the organization of military units made up of the so-called "janissaries". These were regular infantry troops, formed from young Christians who converted to Islam and received support from the state treasury.
After the sultan, the second most important in the state was the chief vizier. He kept the state seal, directed political activities. Deterdar was in charge of financial affairs.
The entire territory of the country was divided into administrative units - pashalygs and sanjaks. The forms of land ownership were state lands, lands of the sultan family (hasse), lands of wakuf, mulk. Instead of salaries, hired soldiers began to distribute lands called "timar". In 1375, Sultan Murad I created another conditional land ownership - ziyamat.
The entire taxable population of the Ottoman Empire was called reya. Muslim farmers paid an ashar, a tax of one tenth of their income. Non-Muslims were charged a poll tax - ispenja, they were not called up for military service.
Ottoman Empire in the 16th - first half of the 17th centuries
Capturing large territories in the Middle East at the beginning of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became the largest state in the region.
Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) captured Aleppo, Damascus and Palestine in 1516, and Egypt in 1518. In the same 1518, the Ottoman fleet under the command of Heyreddin Barbarossa inflicted a heavy defeat on the Spanish fleet, Algeria also fell under the influence of the Ottoman Empire. The conquests of Sultan Selim I increased the territory of the emperor by 2.5 times. Sultan Suleiman I Qanuni ("thief in law", another nickname - "magnificent") in 1521 captured Belgrade, which was considered the key to the doors to Central Europe. In 1526, in a battle near the city of Mohacs, the Ottomans defeated the Hungarian-Bohemian army of King Lajos II and captured the capital city of Buda. Sultan Suleiman I elevated his vassal, Janos, to the Hungarian throne. To punish the Austrian Duke Ferdinand, who attacked Buda, Suleiman I laid siege to Vienna in 1529. But unfavorable weather conditions and depletion of ammunition forced him to lift the siege.
In 1556 Tripoli and its surroundings were annexed by the Ottoman Empire, and Tunisia in 1564. Thus, all of North Africa was captured. The Ottoman Empire spread over three continents (Asia, Europe, Africa). The authority of Suleiman I in the world was very high. In 1535, the "Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Trade" was concluded between the Ottoman Empire and France, which went down in history as "Surrender". The agreement was divided into chapters (in Latin “surrender” means “chapter”), therefore the document was so named.
Numerous wars required a lot of money. Therefore, the government was forced to increase taxes, and this led to the impoverishment of peasant farms. The reduction in the number of spoils of war, the loss of military art led to an increase in internal contradictions.
The dismemberment of the land holdings of Timar and Ziyamat, as well as the refusal of military service by a part of the Janissaries, who turned into large landowners, led to a crisis of the military-fief system. Sultan Selim II (1565-1574) banned the division of the land of Timar and Ziyamat, thus trying to slow down this negative process.
The uprisings of the 16th - early 17th centuries also dealt a serious blow to the socio-economic and political foundations of the country. Western diplomacy managed to prevent the further conquest of Europe by channeling the military might of the Ottomans against the Safavid state.
Taking advantage of the Safavid war with the Ottoman Empire, Portugal established itself in the Persian Gulf.