Ottoman Empire

Sublime Ottoman State
  • دولت عليه عثمانیه
  • Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿOsmānīye
c. 1299–1922
Flag of Ottoman Empire
Flag
(1844–1922)
Coat of arms
(1882–1922)
Motto: 
  • دولت ابد مدت
  • Devlet-i Ebed-müddet
  • "The Eternal State"[1]
Anthem: 
Various
StatusEmpire
Capital
Official languagesOttoman Turkish
Common languages
Religion
Demonym(s)Ottoman
Government
Sultan 
• c. 1299–1323/4 (first)
Osman I
• 1918–1922 (last)
Mehmed VI
Caliph 
• 1517–1520 (first)
Selim I[16][g]
• 1922–1924 (last)
Abdulmejid II
Grand vizier 
• 1320–1331 (first)
Alaeddin Pasha
• 1920–1922 (last)
Ahmet Tevfik Pasha
LegislatureGeneral Assembly
(1876–1878; 1908–1920)
• Upper house (unelected)
Chamber of Notables
(1876–1878; 1908–1920)
• Lower house (elected)
Chamber of Deputies
(1876–1878; 1908–1920)
History 
• Founded
c. 1299[17]
1402–1413
29 May 1453
1876–1878
1908–1920
23 January 1913
1 November 1922[h]
• Republic of Turkey established
29 October 1923[i]
3 March 1924
Area
1481[18]1,220,000 km2 (470,000 sq mi)
1521[18]3,400,000 km2 (1,300,000 sq mi)
1683[19]5,200,000 km2 (2,000,000 sq mi)
1913[18]2,550,000 km2 (980,000 sq mi)
Population
• 1912[20]
24,000,000
CurrencyAkçe, sultani, para, kuruş (piastre), lira
Predecessor states and successor states
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Sultanate of Rum
Anatolian beyliks
Byzantine Empire
Despotate of the Morea
Empire of Trebizond
Principality of Theodoro
Second Bulgarian Empire
Tsardom of Vidin
Despotate of Dobruja
Despotate of Lovech
Serbian Despotate
Kingdom of Bosnia
Zeta
Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Croatia
League of Lezhë
Mamluk Sultanate
Hafsid Kingdom
Aq Qoyunlu
Hospitaller Tripoli
Kingdom of Tlemcen
State of Turkey
Hellenic Republic
Caucasus Viceroyalty
Principality of Bulgaria
Eastern Rumelia
Albania
Kingdom of Romania
Revolutionary Serbia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Principality of Montenegro
Emirate of Asir
Kingdom of Hejaz
OETA
Mandatory Iraq
French Algeria
British Cyprus
French Tunisia
Italian Tripolitania
Italian Cyrenaica
Sheikhdom of Kuwait
Kingdom of Yemen
Sultanate of Egypt

The Ottoman Empire,[j] historically and colloquially known as the Turkish Empire,[22][23] was an imperial realm[k] that spanned much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.[24][25][26]

The empire emerged from a beylik, or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid 14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II, which marked the Ottomans' emergence as a major regional power. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire reached the peak of its power, prosperity, and political development. By the start of the 17th century, the Ottomans presided over 32 provinces and numerous vassal states, which over time were either absorbed into the Empire or granted various degrees of autonomy.[l] With its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries.

While the Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of the 18th century. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind those of its chief European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in the loss of both territory and global prestige. This prompted a comprehensive process of reform and modernization known as the Tanzimat; over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organized internally, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans, where a number of new states emerged.

Beginning in the late 19th century, various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines, culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multi-party elections under a constitutional monarchy. However, following the disastrous Balkan Wars, the CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic, leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a one-party regime. The CUP allied the empire with Germany, hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses; it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers. While the empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict, it struggled with internal dissent, especially the Arab Revolt. During this period, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.

In the aftermath of World War I, the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France. The successful Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire.

  1. ^ McDonald, Sean; Moore, Simon (20 October 2015). "Communicating Identity in the Ottoman Empire and Some Implications for Contemporary States". Atlantic Journal of Communication. 23 (5): 269–283. doi:10.1080/15456870.2015.1090439. ISSN 1545-6870. S2CID 146299650. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  2. ^ Shaw, Stanford; Shaw, Ezel (1977). History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. I. Cambridge University Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-521-29166-8.
  3. ^ Atasoy & Raby 1989, p. 19–20.
  4. ^ a b "In 1363 the Ottoman capital moved from Bursa to Edirne, although Bursa retained its spiritual and economic importance." Ottoman Capital Bursa Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Official website of Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  5. ^ a b Edhem, Eldem (21 May 2010). "Istanbul". In Gábor, Ágoston; Masters, Bruce Alan (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase. p. 286. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, all previous names were abandoned and Istanbul came to designate the entire city.
  6. ^ Shaw, Stanford J.; Shaw, Ezel Kural (1977b). History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614972. ISBN 9780511614972.
  7. ^ Shaw & Shaw 1977b, p. 386, volume 2; Robinson (1965). The First Turkish Republic. p. 298.; Society (4 March 2014). "Istanbul, not Constantinople". National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 28 March 2019.)
  8. ^ Flynn, Thomas O. (2017). The Western Christian Presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c.1760–c.1870. BRILL. p. 30. ISBN 978-90-04-31354-5. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  9. ^ Fortna, B. (2012). Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic. Springer. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-230-30041-5. Archived from the original on 21 October 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2022. Although in the late Ottoman period Persian was taught in the state schools...
  10. ^ Spuler, Bertold (2003). Persian Historiography and Geography. Pustaka Nasional Pte. p. 68. ISBN 978-9971-77-488-2. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2022. On the whole, the circumstance in Turkey took a similar course: in Anatolia, the Persian language had played a significant role as the carrier of civilization. [...] where it was at time, to some extent, the language of diplomacy [...] However Persian maintained its position also during the early Ottoman period in the composition of histories and even Sultan Salim I, a bitter enemy of Iran and the Shi'ites, wrote poetry in Persian. Besides some poetical adaptations, the most important historiographical works are: Idris Bidlisi's flowery "Hasht Bihist", or Seven Paradises, begun in 1502 by the request of Sultan Bayazid II and covering the first eight Ottoman rulers...
  11. ^ Fetvacı, Emine (2013). Picturing History at the Ottoman Court. Indiana University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-253-00678-3. Archived from the original on 21 October 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2022. Persian literature, and belles-lettres in particular, were part of the curriculum: a Persian dictionary, a manual on prose composition; and Sa'dis 'Gulistan', one of the classics of Persian poetry, were borrowed. All these titles would be appropriate in the religious and cultural education of the newly converted young men.
  12. ^ Yarshater, Ehsan; Melville, Charles, eds. (359). Persian Historiography: A History of Persian Literature. Vol. 10. Bloomsbury. p. 437. ISBN 978-0-85773-657-4. Archived from the original on 21 October 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2022. Persian held a privileged place in Ottoman letters. Persian historical literature was first patronized during the reign of Mehmed II and continued unabated until the end of the 16th century.
  13. ^ Inan, Murat Umut (2019). "Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian learning in the Ottoman World". In Green, Nile (ed.). The Persianate World The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. p. 92 (note 27). Though Persian, unlike Arabic, was not included in the typical curriculum of an Ottoman madrasa, the language was offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas. For those Ottoman madrasa curricula featuring Persian, see Cevat İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, 2 vols. (Istanbul: İz, 1997),1: 167–69.
  14. ^ Ayşe Gül Sertkaya (2002). "Şeyhzade Abdurrezak Bahşı". In György Hazai (ed.). Archivum Ottomanicum. Vol. 20. pp. 114–115. Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved 23 October 2022. As a result, we can claim that Şeyhzade Abdürrezak Bahşı was a scribe lived in the palaces of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and his son Bayezid-i Veli in the 15th century, wrote letters (bitig) and firmans (yarlığ) sent to Eastern Turks by Mehmed II and Bayezid II in both Uighur and Arabic scripts and in East Turkestan (Chagatai) language.
  15. ^ a b Strauss, Johann (2010). "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages". In Herzog, Christoph; Malek Sharif (eds.). The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy. Würzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul. pp. 21–51. Archived from the original on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2019. (info page on book Archived 20 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 26 (PDF p. 28): "French had become a sort of semi-official language in the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Tanzimat reforms.[...] It is true that French was not an ethnic language of the Ottoman Empire. But it was the only Western language which would become increasingly widespread among educated persons in all linguistic communities."
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lambton-1995 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Pamuk, Şevket (2000). A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 30–31. ISBN 0-521-44197-8. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2022. The Ottomans began to strike coins in the name of Orhan Bey in 1326. These earliest coins carried inscriptions such as "the great Sultan, Orhan son of Osman" [...] Ottoman historiography has adopted 1299 as the date for the foundation of the state. 1299 might represent the date at which the Ottomans finally obtained their independence from the Seljuk sultan at Konya. Probably, they were forced at the same time, or very soon thereafter, to accept the overlordship of the Ilkhanids [...] Numismatic evidence thus suggest that independence did not really occur until 1326.
  18. ^ a b c Rein Taagepera (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 498. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  19. ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 223. ISSN 1076-156X. Archived from the original on 20 May 2019. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  20. ^ Erickson, Edward J. (2003). Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-275-97888-4.
  21. ^ Strauss, Johann (2010). "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages". In Herzog, Christoph; Malek Sharif (eds.). The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy. Würzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul. pp. 21–51. Archived from the original on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2019. (info page on book Archived 20 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 36 (PDF p. 38/338)
  22. ^ P., E. A. (1916). "Review of The Caliph's Last Heritage: A Short History of the Turkish Empire". The Geographical Journal. 47 (6): 470–472. doi:10.2307/1779249. ISSN 0016-7398. JSTOR 1779249. Archived from the original on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  23. ^ Baykara, Prof. Tuncer (2017). "A Study into the Concepts of Turkey and Turkistan which were used for the Ottoman State in XIXth Century". Journal of Atatürk and the History of Turkish Republic. 1: 179–190. Archived from the original on 26 January 2024. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  24. ^ Ingrao, Charles; Samardžić, Nikola; Pešalj, Jovan, eds. (12 August 2011). The Peace of Passarowitz, 1718. Purdue University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wq7kw.12. ISBN 978-1-61249-179-0. JSTOR j.ctt6wq7kw.
  25. ^ Szabó, János B. (2019). "The Ottoman Conquest in Hungary: Decisive Events (Belgrade 1521, Mohács 1526, Vienna 1529, Buda 1541) and Results". The Battle for Central Europe. Brill. pp. 263–275. doi:10.1163/9789004396234_013. ISBN 978-90-04-39623-4. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  26. ^ Moačanin, Nenad (2019). "The Ottoman Conquest and Establishment in Croatia and Slavonia". The Battle for Central Europe. Brill. pp. 277–286. doi:10.1163/9789004396234_014. ISBN 978-90-04-39623-4. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  27. ^ "Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri – Turkish Naval Forces". 29 March 2010. Archived from the original on 29 March 2010. Retrieved 12 March 2020.


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