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Having become the ruler of the mountainous region, Osman received the title of bey from the Seljuk sultan in 1289. Having come to power, Osman immediately set out to conquer the Byzantine lands and made the first captured Byzantine town Melangia his residence.

Osman was born in a small mountainous area of ​​the Seljuk Sultanate. Osman's father, Ertogrul, received the neighboring Byzantine lands from the Sultan Ala ad-Din. The Turkic tribe, to which Osman belonged, considered the seizure of neighboring territories a sacred deed.

After the escape of the ousted Seljuk sultan in 1299, Osman created an independent state on the basis of his own beylik. For the first years of the XIV century. the founder of the Ottoman Empire managed to significantly expand the territory of the new state and moved his headquarters to the fortress city of Episehir. Immediately after this, the Ottoman army began to raid the Byzantine cities located on the Black Sea coast and the Byzantine regions in the Dardanelles Strait.

The Ottoman dynasty was continued by Osman's son Orhan, who began his military career with the successful capture of Bursa, a powerful fortress in Asia Minor. Orhan declared the prosperous fortified city the capital of the state and ordered the minting of the first coin of the Ottoman Empire - a silver akche - to begin. In 1337, the Turks won several brilliant victories and occupied territories up to the Bosphorus, making the conquered Ismit the main shipyard of the state. At the same time, Orhan annexed the neighboring Turkish lands, and by 1354, under his rule were the northwestern part of Asia Minor to the eastern shores of the Dardanelles, part of its European coast, including the city of Galliopolis, and Ankara, recaptured from the Mongols.

Orhan's son Murad I became the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire, who added territory near Ankara to its possessions and set off on a military campaign to Europe.

Murad was the first sultan of the Ottoman dynasty and a true champion of Islam. The first schools in Turkish history began to be built in the cities of the country.

After the very first victories in Europe (the conquest of Thrace and Plovdiv), a stream of Turkic settlers poured onto the European coast.

The sultans fastened the firman decrees with their own imperial monogram - tugra. The intricate oriental pattern included the name of the Sultan, the name of his father, title, motto, and the epithet "always victorious."

New conquests

Murad paid much attention to the improvement and strengthening of the army. For the first time in history, a professional army was created. In 1336, the ruler formed a corps of janissaries, which later became the personal guard of the sultan. In addition to the janissaries, a cavalry army of the Sipahs was created, and as a result of these fundamental changes, the Turkish army became not only numerous, but also unusually disciplined and powerful.

In 1371, on the Maritza River, the Turks defeated the united army of the southern European states and captured Bulgaria and part of Serbia.

The next brilliant victory was won by the Turks in 1389, when the Janissaries first took over firearms... That year, the historic battle took place on the Kossovo field, when, after defeating the crusaders, the Ottoman Turks annexed a significant part of the Balkans to their lands.

Murad's son Bayazid continued his father's policy in everything, but unlike him, he was distinguished by cruelty and indulged in debauchery. Bayazid completed the defeat of Serbia and turned it into a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, becoming the sovereign master in the Balkans.

For the rapid movements of the army and energetic actions, Sultan Bayazid received the nickname Ilderim (Lightning). During a lightning march in 1389-1390. he subdued Anatolia, after which the Turks took possession of almost the entire territory of Asia Minor.

Bayazid had to fight simultaneously on two fronts - with the Byzantines and the Crusaders. On September 25, 1396, the Turkish army defeated a huge army of crusaders, gaining control over all the Bulgarian lands. On the side of the Turks, according to the description of contemporaries, more than 100,000 people fought. Many noble European crusaders were taken prisoner, later they were ransomed for huge sums of money. In the capital of the Ottoman Sultan, caravans of pack animals with gifts of Emperor Charles VI of France were drawn: gold and silver coins, silk fabrics, carpets from Arras with paintings woven on them from the life of Alexander the Great, hunting falcons from Norway and many others. True, Bayazid did not make further trips to Europe, distracted by the eastern danger from the Mongols.

After the unsuccessful siege of Constantinople in 1400, the Turks had to fight the Tatar army of Timur. On July 25, 1402, one of the greatest battles of the Middle Ages took place, during which an army of Turks (about 150,000 people) and an army of Tatars (about 200,000 people) met near Ankara. Timur's army, in addition to well-trained soldiers, was armed with more than 30 war elephants - quite powerful weapon on the offensive. The Janissaries, showing extraordinary courage and strength, were nevertheless defeated, and Bayazid was captured. Timur's army plundered the entire Ottoman Empire, destroyed or captured thousands of people, burned down the most beautiful cities and towns.

Muhammad I ruled the empire from 1413 to 1421. Throughout his reign, Muhammad was on good terms with Byzantium, turning his main attention to the situation in Asia Minor and making the first in the history of the Turks to Venice, which ended in failure.

Murad II, the son of Muhammad I, ascended the throne in 1421. He was a just and energetic ruler who devoted much time to the development of the arts and urban planning. Murad, coping with internal strife, made a successful campaign, capturing the Byzantine city of Thessalonica. The battles of the Turks against the Serbian, Hungarian and Albanian armies were no less successful. In 1448, after the victory of Murad over the united army of the crusaders, the fate of all the peoples of the Balkans was sealed - for several centuries Turkish rule hung over them.

Before the start of the historic battle in 1448 between the united European army and the Turks through the ranks of the Ottoman army, a letter was carried at the tip of a spear with the armistice agreement, violated once again. Thus, the Ottomans showed that they were not interested in peace treaties - only battles and only offensive.

From 1444 to 1446 the Turkish sultan Muhammad II, son of Murad II, ruled the empire.

The rule of this sultan for 30 years turned the state into a world empire. Starting his reign with the now traditional execution of relatives who potentially claimed the throne, the ambitious young man showed his strength. Muhammad, nicknamed the Conqueror, became a tough and even cruel ruler, but at the same time he had an excellent education and spoke four languages. The Sultan invited scientists and poets from Greece and Italy to his court, and allocated a lot of funds for the construction of new buildings and the development of art. The sultan set the conquest of Constantinople as his main task, and at the same time treated its implementation very thoroughly. In March 1452, opposite the Byzantine capital, the fortress of Rumelihisar was founded, in which they installed the latest cannons and placed a strong garrison.

As a result, Constantinople was cut off from the Black Sea region, with which it was tied by trade. In the spring of 1453, a huge Turkish land army and a powerful fleet approached the Byzantine capital. The first assault on the city was not crowned with success, but the sultan ordered not to retreat and organize the preparation of a new assault. After being dragged to the bay of Constantinople along the deck of part of the ships specially built over the iron barrage chains, the city found itself in a ring of Turkish troops. Battles were fought daily, but the Greek defenders of the city showed examples of courage and tenacity.

The siege was not a strong point for the Ottoman army, and the Turks won only due to the careful encirclement of the city, the numerical superiority of forces by approximately 3.5 times and thanks to the presence of siege weapons, cannons and a powerful mortar with cannonballs weighing 30 kg. Before the main assault on Constantinople, Muhammad invited the inhabitants to surrender, promising to spare them, but, to his great amazement, they refused.

A general assault was launched on May 29, 1453, and elite janissaries, supported by artillery, broke into the gates of Constantinople. For 3 days the Turks plundered the city and killed Christians, and the temple of Hagia Sophia was later turned into a mosque. Turkey has become a real world power, proclaiming the most ancient city as its capital.

In subsequent years, Muhammad made conquered Serbia his province, conquered Moldova, Bosnia, a little later - Albania and captured all of Greece. At the same time, the Turkish sultan conquered vast territories in Asia Minor and became the ruler of the entire Asia Minor peninsula. But he did not stop there either: in 1475 the Turks captured many Crimean cities and the city of Tanu at the mouth of the Don on the Sea of ​​Azov. The Crimean Khan officially recognized the power of the Ottoman Empire. Following this, the territories of Safavid Iran were conquered, and in 1516 Syria, Egypt and Hijaz with Medina and Mecca were under the sultan's rule.

At the beginning of the XVI century. the conquest campaigns of the empire were directed to the east, south and west. In the east, Selim I the Terrible defeated the Safavids and annexed the eastern part of Anatolia and Azerbaijan to his state. In the south, the Ottomans suppressed the warlike Mamluks and took control of trade routes along the coast of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, in North Africa they reached Morocco. In the west, Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1520s. captured Belgrade, Rhodes, Hungarian lands.

At the peak of power

Ottoman Empire entered the stage of its highest flowering at the very end of the 15th century. under Sultan Selim I and his successor Suleiman the Magnificent, who achieved a significant expansion of territories and established a reliable centralized government of the country. The reign of Suleiman went down in history as the "golden age" of the Ottoman Empire.

Starting from the first years of the 16th century, the Turkish empire became the most powerful state in the Old World. Contemporaries who visited the lands of the empire, in their notes and memoirs, enthusiastically described the wealth and luxury of this country.

Suleiman the Magnificent
Sultan Suleiman is the legendary ruler of the Ottoman Empire. During his reign (1520-1566), the huge power became even larger, cities more beautiful, palaces more luxurious. Suleiman (Fig. 9) also went down in history under the nickname Legislator.

Having become a sultan at the age of 25, Suleiman significantly expanded the borders of the state, capturing Rhodes in 1522, Mesopotamia in 1534, and Hungary in 1541.

The ruler of the Ottoman Empire was traditionally called the Sultan, the title Arab origin... It is considered correct to use terms such as "shah", "padishah", "khan", "caesar", which came from different peoples under the rule of the Turks.

Suleiman contributed to the cultural prosperity of the country; during his reign, beautiful mosques and luxurious palaces were built in many cities of the empire. The famous emperor was a good poet, leaving his works under the pseudonym Muhibbi (in love with God). During the reign of Suleiman, the remarkable Turkish poet Fizuli lived and worked in Baghdad, who wrote the poem "Leila and Medjun". The nickname Sultan Among Poets was given to Mahmud Abd al-Baqi, who served at the court of Suleiman, who reflected the life of the high society of the state in his poems.

The Sultan entered into a legal marriage with the legendary Roksolana, nicknamed the Ridiculous, one of the slaves of Slavic origin in the harem. Such an act was exceptional at that time and according to the Sharia. Roksolana gave birth to an heir to the Sultan, the future emperor Suleiman II, and devoted a lot of time to patronage. The spouse of the Sultan had great influence on him in diplomatic affairs, especially in relations with Western countries.

In order to leave a memory of himself in stone, Suleiman invited the famous architect Sinan to create mosques in Istanbul. The emperor's associates also erected large religious buildings with the help of the famous architect, as a result of which the capital was noticeably transformed.

Harems
Harems with several wives and concubines, permitted by Islam, could only be afforded by wealthy people. Sultan's harems have become an integral part of the empire, its hallmark.

Harems, except for the sultans, were possessed by viziers, beys, emirs. The overwhelming majority of the population of the empire had one wife, as it should be in the entire Christian world. Islam, on the other hand, officially allowed a Muslim to have four wives and several slaves.

The Sultan's harem, which gave rise to many legends and traditions, was in fact a complex organization with strict internal orders. This system was ruled by the mother of the Sultan, "Valide Sultan". Her main assistants were eunuchs and slaves. It is clear that the life and power of the ruler of the Sultan directly depended on the fate of her high-ranking son.

In the harem lived girls captured during the wars or acquired in slave markets. Regardless of their nationality and religion, before entering the harem, all the girls became Muslims and learned the traditional arts of Islam - embroidery, singing, conversation skills, music, dancing, and literature.

Being in the harem for a long time, its inhabitants passed several steps and titles. At first they were called jariye (beginners), then quite soon they were renamed shagirt (students), over time they became gedikli (companions) and usta (craftswomen).

There were also isolated cases in history when the sultan recognized the concubine as his legal wife. This happened more often when the concubine gave birth to the long-awaited son-heir to the ruler. A striking example is Suleiman the Magnificent, who married Roksolana.

Only girls who reached the level of craftswomen could gain the attention of the Sultan. From among them, the ruler chose his constant mistresses, favorites and concubines. Many representatives of the harem, who became the sultan's mistresses, were awarded their own housing, jewelry and even slaves.

Legal marriage was not provided for by Sharia, but the sultan chose four wives from all the inhabitants of the harem, who were in a privileged position. Of these, the main one became the one who gave birth to the sultan's son.

After the death of the Sultan, all his wives and concubines were sent to the Old Palace outside the city. The new ruler of the state could allow retired beauties to marry or go to his harem.

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 to be 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 ranks of the janissaries.

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 to 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.... An important role in the weakening of the Turks was played by Russian empire... 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 3 July 1918 from 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 out the Anglo-French and Greek invaders from his 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!

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Ottoman Empire portal

Formation of the Ottoman Empire(January 17, 1299 - May 29, 1453) - a period that began with the weakening of the Sultanate of Konya at the very beginning of the XIV century and ended with the fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453.

The rise of the Ottomans correlates with the fall of the Byzantine Empire, which produced a change in power from an exclusive Christian European society to Islamic influence. The beginning of this period was characterized by the Byzantine-Ottoman wars, which lasted for one and a half centuries. During this period, the Ottoman Empire gained control over both Anatolia and the Balkans.

Immediately after the establishment of the Anatolian beyliks, some Turkic principalities united with the Ottomans against Byzantium. This period also witnessed the Sultanate of Rum in defeat by the Mongols in the 14th century and was accompanied by the rise of the Ottoman Empire - a period called "Pax Ottomana", the economic and social stability achieved in the conquered areas of the Ottoman Empire, by some historians.

Anatolia before the Ottomans

Over the next century, the Seljuks occupied the territories of their weaker neighbors, and in 1176 the Sultan of Kilich-Arslan II of Kony utterly defeated the army of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus at the Battle of Myriokephalus, after which the Seljuks began to advance to the coast.

In the first half of the 13th century, the Mongols attacked the Seljuks from the east. After the battle of Kose-dag in 1243, the Sultan of Kony became a vassal of the Mongol khan, and later the Ilkhan-Hulaguids of Iran. The sons of the last independent sultan Kay-Khosrov II began to dispute their inheritance with the support of various Turkic and Mongolian groups, as a result of which Asia Minor turned into a conglomerate of rival beyliks. One of them was the Ottoman Beylik

The reign of Osman I

The earliest information about the Ottomans dates back to the beginning of the XIV century. According to reports from Byzantine sources, in 1301, the first military clash between the Byzantine army and the army led by the leader Osman I took place.

After this victory, the Ottomans became impossible to ignore. The Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus, seeking to create a reliable alliance against the growing threat, offered one of the princesses of his house as a wife to the nominal suzerain of Osman, the Ilkhanid Gazan Khan, and then, after the death of Gazan, to his brother. However, the expected help in men and weapons did not come, and in 1303-1304 Andronicus hired Spanish adventurers-crusaders from the "Catalan company" to protect his possessions from further Turkish attacks. Like most bands of mercenaries, the Catalans acted at their own discretion, calling on the Turkic warriors (although not necessarily the Ottomans) to join them on the European side of the Dardanelles. Only the alliance between Byzantium and the Serbian kingdom prevented the Turkic-Catalan advance.

Osman I, apparently, died in 1323-1324, leaving to his heirs a significant territory in the north-west of Asia Minor.

Orhan I's reign

In 1350, another Venetian-Genoese war began, the subject of which was control over the lucrative trade in the Black Sea. Orhan I took the side of Genoa, supplying food to both its fleet and the trading colony in Galata, and in 1352 he concluded a treaty with his allies. His troops also helped the Genoese when Galata was attacked by Venetian and Byzantine troops.

The reign of Bayezid I

Bayazid brutally avenged his father's murder by exterminating most of the Serbian nobility in the Kosovo field. With Stefan Vulkovich, the son and heir of the Serbian prince Lazar, who died in the battle, the sultan entered into an alliance, according to which Serbia became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. Stefan, in exchange for preserving the privileges of his father, pledged to pay tribute from the silver mines and provide the Ottomans with Serbian troops at the first request of the Sultan. Stephen's sister and Lazarus' daughter, Oliver, were given in marriage to Bayezid.

While the Ottoman troops were in Europe, the small Anatolian beyliks tried to regain control over the territories taken from them by the Ottomans. But in the winter of 1389-1390, Bayazid transferred his troops to Anatolia and conducted a rapid campaign, conquering the western beyliks of Aydin, Sarukhan, Germiyan, Menteshe and Hamid. Thus, for the first time the Ottomans came to the shores of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, their state took the first steps towards the status of a maritime power. The nascent Ottoman fleet devastated the island of Chios, raided the coast of Attica and tried to organize a trade blockade of other islands in the Aegean Sea. However, as seafarers, the Ottomans were not yet comparable to the representatives of the Italian republics of Genoa and Venice.

The revolt of the Janissaries and the appearance of Georg Castriot Skanderbeg in Albania forced Murad to return to the Turkish throne in 1446. Soon the Turks captured Morea and launched an offensive in Albania. In October 1448, a battle took place in the Kosovo field, in which the 50,000-strong Ottoman army opposed the crusaders under the command of Hunyadi. A fierce three-day battle ended in complete victory for Murad and decided the fate of the Balkan peoples - for several centuries they were under the rule of the Turks. In 1449 and 1450, Murad made two campaigns against Albania, which did not bring significant success.

The reign of Mehmed II: the conquest of Constantinople

After the death of his father in 1451, Mehmed II killed his only surviving brother and began to strengthen the borders: he extended his father's contract with the Serbian despot Georgy Brankovic, concluded a three-year agreement with Janos Hunyadi, confirmed the agreement with Venice in 1446, conducted a campaign against Karaman, not allowing the emir of the latter to support the contenders for power over the territories in Asia Minor, which not so long ago became part of the Ottoman state.

In the years 1451-1452, Mehmed II built the Bogaz-Kesen fortress in the narrowest part of the Bosphorus on the European coast. As soon as the construction of the fortress was completed, the sultan returned to Edirne to oversee the final preparations for the siege, and then with a 160-thousandth army marched to Constantinople. On April 5, the city was besieged, and on May 29, 1453, it fell. Constantinople became the new capital, marking a new stage in the history of the Ottoman Empire.

Sources of

• Caroline Finkel, History of the Ottoman Empire. Osman's Vision "- Moscow: AST Publishing House", 2010. ISBN 978-5-17-043651-4

View this template Coat of arms of the Ottoman Empire Education (1299-1402) European · with Russia · with Serbia · with Byzantium · Croatian-Ottoman wars · with Austria · with Persia · with Greece (1821-1832 · · 1919-1922) · with Hungary · with Poland · with Venice · in the middle east · World War I · War of Independence 1919-1922 ( chronology I asked Stela what his name is, and how long ago she created it. - Oh, I have not even figured out what to call! And he appeared right now! Do you really like him? - the girl chirped cheerfully, and I felt that she was pleased to see me again. - This is for you! She said suddenly. - He will live with you. The little dragon funny stretched out its spiky muzzle, apparently deciding to see if I had anything interesting ... And suddenly he licked me right in the nose! Stella squealed with delight and was clearly very pleased with her work. - Well, okay, - I agreed, - while I'm here, he can be with me. - Aren't you taking him with you? - Stella was surprised. And then I realized that she, apparently, does not know at all that we are “different”, and that we no longer live in the same world. Most likely, the grandmother, in order to feel sorry for her, did not tell the girl the whole truth, and she sincerely thought that this was exactly the same world in which she had lived before, with the only difference that now she could still create her own world by herself .. ... I knew for sure that I didn't want to be the one who would tell this little gullible girl what her life is really like today. She was contented and happy in this “her” fantastic reality, and I vowed to myself in my mind that I would never be the one to destroy this fairy-tale world of hers. I just couldn't understand how my grandmother explained the sudden disappearance of her entire family and, in general, everything in which she now lived? .. - You see, - I said with a slight hesitation, smiling, - dragons are not very popular where I live ... - So no one will see him! - the baby chirped cheerfully. I really had a mountain off my shoulders! .. I hated to lie or twist, and especially in front of such a pure little man as Stella was. It turned out that she understood everything perfectly and somehow managed to combine the joy of creation and sadness from the loss of her relatives. - And I finally found myself a friend here! - the baby declared triumphantly. - Well? .. Will you ever introduce me to him? - I was surprised. She nodded amusingly with her fluffy red head and narrowed her eyes slyly. - Do you want it right now? - I felt that she was literally "fidgeting" in place, unable to restrain her impatience any longer. "Are you sure he'll want to come?" - I was alerted. Not because I was afraid of someone or ashamed, I just didn't have the habit of bothering people without a very important reason, and I was not sure that right now this reason was serious ... But Stella was apparently in this I am absolutely sure, because literally in a fraction of a second a person appeared next to us. It was a very sad knight ... Yes, yes, it was a knight! .. And I was very surprised that even in this “other” world, where he could “put on” any energetic “clothes”, he still didn’t parted with his harsh knightly appearance, in which he apparently still remembered himself very well ... And for some reason I thought that he must have had some very serious reasons for this, if even after so many years he did not want to part with this appearance. Usually, when people die, for the first time after their death, their essences always look exactly as they looked at the moment of their physical death. Apparently, the tremendous shock and wild fear of the unknown are great enough not to add any additional stress to this. When time passes (usually after a year), the essences of old and elderly people gradually begin to look young and become exactly the same as they were in best years of his youth. Well, and prematurely dead babies sharply "grow up", as if "catching up" with their undelivered years, and become something similar to their essence, what they were when they entered the bodies of these unfortunate ones who died too early, or from some kind of illness untimely dead children, with the only difference that some of them "add" a little in development, if during their short years in the physical body they were lucky enough ... And much later, each entity changes, depending on how she lives on in the "new" world. And high essences living on the mental level of the earth, unlike all others, are even able to create a "face" and "clothes" for themselves, of their own accord, since having lived for a very long time (the higher the development of the essence, the less often it reincarnated in a physical body) and having mastered enough in that “other” world, at first unfamiliar to them, they themselves are already able to create and create a lot. Why little Stella chose this particular adult and somehow deeply wounded person as her friend is still an unsolved mystery to me. But since the girl looked absolutely pleased and happy with such a "purchase", I could only completely trust the unerring intuition of this little, sly sorceress ... As it turned out, his name was Harold. The last time he lived in his physical earthly body was more than a thousand years ago and apparently possessed a very high essence, but I felt in my heart that the memories of the interval of his life in this, last, incarnation were something very painful for him, since it was from there Harold endured this deep and sorrowful, accompanying sorrow for so many years ... - Here! He is very good and you will make friends with him too! - Stella said happily, not paying attention that her new friend is also here and hears us perfectly. She probably didn't think that it might not be very right to talk about him in his presence ... She was simply very happy that at last she had a friend, and with this happiness she was openly with me and with shared pleasure. She was generally an incredibly happy child! As we said - "happy by nature." Neither before Stella, nor after her, I have never met anyone, even a little like this "sunny", sweet little girl. It seemed that no misfortune, no misfortune could knock her out of this extraordinary "happy rut" ... And not because she did not understand or did not feel human pain or misfortune - on the contrary, I was even sure that she felt it much deeper than all the others. It's just that she was, as it were, created from cells of joy and light, and protected by some strange, very "positive" protection that did not allow either grief or sadness to penetrate into the depths of her small and very kind heart, in order to destroy it so familiar to all of us daily avalanche of negative emotions and pain-wounded feelings ... Stella herself WAS HAPPINESS and generously, like the sun, gave it to everyone around. - I found him so sad! .. And now he is much better, right, Harold? - Stella continued happily addressing both of us at the same time. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” I said, still feeling a little stiff. - It's probably very difficult to be between the worlds for so long? .. “This is the same world as everyone else,” the knight replied calmly with a shrug. - Only almost empty ... - How - empty? - I was surprised. Stella immediately intervened ... It was evident that she was impatient to tell me "everything, everything" as soon as possible, and she was already just jumping up and down from the impatience that was burning her. - He simply could not find his loved ones here, but I helped him! - happily blurted out the baby. Harold smiled affectionately at this wondrous, "sparkling" man with happiness and nodded his head, as if confirming her words: - This is true. I've been looking for them for ages, but it turned out that all I had to do was open the right "door". So she helped me. I stared at Stella for an explanation. This girl, without realizing it, continued to amaze me more and more. - Well, yes, - Stella said a little confusedly. “He told me his story, and I saw that they were simply not here. So I looked for them ... Naturally, I did not really understand anything from such an explanation, but I was ashamed to ask again, and I decided to wait, what she would say next. But, unfortunately or fortunately, it was not so easy to hide something from this smart little girl ... Sly glancing at me with her huge eyes, she immediately suggested: - Do you want - I will show you? I just nodded in the affirmative, afraid to frighten off, as I was expecting something yet another "amazingly incredible" from her ... Her "colorful reality" disappeared somewhere once again, and an unusual landscape appeared ... Apparently, it was some kind of very hot, possibly eastern, country, since everything around was literally blinded with a bright, white-orange light, which usually appeared only in very hot, dry air. The land, as far as the eye could catch, was scorched and colorless, and, except in the blue haze of the visible distant mountains, nothing diversified this sparingly monotonous, flat and “naked” landscape ... the circle was surrounded by a dilapidated stone wall. Surely, no one attacked this city for a long time, and locals they were not very worried about the "renovation" of the defense, or at least the "aged" surrounding city wall. Inside, narrow snake-like streets ran through the city, joining in a single wider, with unusual small "castles" that stood out on it, which looked more like miniature white fortresses, surrounded by the same miniature gardens, each of which was shyly hiding from prying eyes behind a high stone wall. There was practically no greenery in the city, from which the sun-drenched white stones literally "melted" from the scorching heat. The evil, midday sun furiously brought down all the power of its burning rays on the unprotected, dusty streets, which, already gasping for breath, piteously listened to the slightest breath of fresh breeze that did not appear. The hot air "swayed" with hot waves, turning this unusual town into a real stuffy stove. It seemed like it was the hottest day of the hottest summer on earth ... This whole picture was very real, just as real as my favorite fairy tales once were, into which, just like here, I “fell headlong”, not hearing or seeing anything around ... Suddenly a small, but very “homely” fortress emerged from the “general picture”, which, if not for two funny square turrets, would have looked more like a large and rather cozy house. On the steps, under a large olive tree, a little blond boy of four or five years old was playing. And behind him, under an old apple tree, a plump, pleasant woman who looked like a sweet, caring, good-natured nanny was picking fallen apples. A very beautiful, fair-haired young lady and ... my new acquaintance, the knight Harold, appeared in the yard. The woman was dressed in an unusual, but apparently very expensive, long silk dress, the folds of which gently swayed, repeating every movement of her light, graceful body. A funny, beaded blue silk cap peacefully rested on the fair hair of a beautiful lady, perfectly emphasizing the color of her large light blue eyes. Harold, in spite of such incinerating, hellish heat, almost suffocating, “honestly tormented” in his red-hot knightly armor, mentally cursing the crazy heat (and immediately asking forgiveness from the “merciful” Lord, to whom he had been so faithfully and sincerely for so many years served) ... Hot sweat, greatly annoying, poured hail from him, and, covering his eyes, heartlessly spoiled the quickly fleeing minutes of their next "last" goodbye ... Apparently, the knight was going somewhere very far away, because the face of his lovely lady was very sad, despite the fact that she honestly, tried her best to hide it ... - This is the last time, my love ... I promise you, this is true for the last time, - the knight said with difficulty, affectionately touching her tender cheek. I heard the conversation in my head, but there was a strange feeling of someone else's speech. I understood the words perfectly, and yet I knew that they spoke in some other language. - I will never see you again ... - the woman whispered through her tears. - Never again ... For some reason, the little boy did not react in any way either to the imminent departure of his father, or to his farewell to his mother. He calmly continued to play, not paying any attention to the adults, as if it had nothing to do with him. This surprised me a little, but I did not dare to ask anything, but just watched what would happen next. - Won't you say goodbye to me? - turning to him, asked the knight. The boy shook his head without looking up. - Leave him, he is just angry with you ... - the woman asked sadly. - He, too, believed you that you would never leave him alone. The knight nodded and, climbing onto his huge horse, galloped down the narrow street without turning around, very soon hiding behind the first bend. And the beautiful lady looked sadly at his trail, and her soul was ready to run ... to crawl ... to fly after him no matter where, just to see once again, at least for a moment, at least for a short moment to hear! .. But she knew that this will not happen, that she will remain where she is, and that, by a capricious whim of fate, she will never see and hug her Harold ... disappeared into the dusty ground like sparkling drops ... - God save him ... - the woman whispered bitterly. - I will never see him ... never again ... help him, Lord ... She stood motionless, like a mournful Madonna, not seeing or hearing anything around her, and a blond baby huddled at her feet, now bareing all his sadness and looking longingly to where, instead of his beloved dad, the empty dusty road was only lonely white ... ... - How could I not say goodbye to you, my affection? .. - Suddenly a quiet, sad voice sounded nearby. Harold was not looking up at his sweet and so sad wife, and a deadly longing, which, it seemed, could not be washed away even with a waterfall of tears, splashed in his blue eyes ... But he looked like a very strong and courageous man, whom, most likely , it was not so easy to cry ... - Do not! Well, don't be sad! - little Stella stroked his huge hand with her fragile fingers. - Do you see how much they loved you? .. Well, do you want us not to watch any more? You have seen this and so many times! .. The picture disappeared ... I looked at Stella in surprise, but did not have time to say anything, as I found myself in another "episode" of this alien, but so deeply touched my soul, life. An unusually bright, cheerful, pink dawn, strewn with diamond dew drops, woke up. The sky flashed for a moment, coloring the edges of curly, blond clouds with a scarlet glow, and immediately it became very light - an early, unusually fresh morning came. On the terrace of an already familiar house, in the cool shade of a large tree, three of us were sitting - the already familiar knight Harold and his friendly little family. The woman looked amazingly beautiful and completely happy, similar to the same morning dawn ... Smiling affectionately, she said something to her husband, sometimes gently touching his hand. And he, completely relaxed, quietly rocked his sleepy, disheveled little boy on his knees, and with pleasure sipping a soft pink, "sweaty" drink, from time to time lazily answered some, apparently already familiar to him, questions of his lovely wife. .. The air was "ringing" in the morning and surprisingly clean. The neat little garden breathed freshness, moisture, and the scent of lemons; my chest was bursting with the fullness of flowing directly into the lungs, intoxicatingly clean air. Harold wanted to mentally "fly up" from the quiet happiness filling his tired, tormented soul! ... He listened to the birds that had just awakened singing in thin voices, saw the beautiful face of his smiling wife, and it seemed that nothing in the world could disturb or take away he has this wonderful moment of bright joy and peace of his little happy family ... To my surprise, this idyllic picture suddenly separated from Stella and me with a luminous blue "wall", leaving Knight Harold alone with his happiness. And he, forgetting about everything in the world, with all his soul "absorbed" these wonderful, and so dear to him moments, not even noticing that he was left alone ... “Well, let him watch it,” Stella whispered softly. - And I'll show you what happened next ... A wonderful vision of quiet family happiness disappeared ... and instead of it appeared another, cruel and frightening, not promising anything good, let alone a happy ending ... It was still the same white-stone city, and the same house, already familiar to us ... Only this time everything around was blazing on fire ... The fire was everywhere. Roaring, all devouring flames burst from the broken windows and doors, and engulfed the people rushing in horror, turning them into screaming human torches, which created a successful living target for the monsters pursuing them. Women screechingly grabbed the children, trying to hide with them in the basements, but they did not escape for long - after a short time, the laughing monsters dragged them, half naked and screaming desperately, outside to rape them right on the street, next to the still warm corpses of their young children. .. From the soot spreading everywhere, almost nothing was visible ... The air was "clogged" with the smells of blood and burning, there was nothing to breathe. Mad with fear and heat, the old men hiding in the basements climbed out into the courtyard and immediately fell dead under the swords of the terrifyingly whooping, wild animals rushing around the city on horseback. Around there was the rumble of hooves, the sound of iron, and wild screams, from which the blood froze in my veins ... Before my eyes, like in a movie, scary, heart-chilling pictures of violence and brutal murders flashed through ... I could not look at all this calmly, my heart literally "jumped" out of my chest, my forehead (as if I were in a physical body !. .) was covered with cold sweat, and I wanted to run where my eyes were looking out of this terrifying, monstrously merciless world ... But, looking at Stella's seriously concentrated face, I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I forced myself to look further.

Ottoman Empire. State formation

Sometimes the birth of the state of the Ottoman Turks can be considered, of course, conditionally, the years immediately preceding the death of the Seljuk Sultanate in 1307. This state arose in an atmosphere of extreme separatism that reigned in the Seljuk state of Rum after the defeat that its ruler suffered in the battle with the Mongols in 1243 The towns of Bei Aydin, Germiyan, Karaman, Menteshe, Sarukhan and a number of other regions of the Sultanate turned their lands into independent principalities. Among these principalities, the beyliks Germiyan and Karaman stood out, whose rulers continued to wage a struggle, often successful, against the Mongol rule. In 1299, the Mongols even had to recognize the independence of Beylik Germian.

In the last decades of the XIII century. in the north-west of Anatolia, another practically independent beylik arose. He went down in history under the name Ottoman, after the leader of a small Turkic tribal group, the main component of which were the nomads of the Oghuz tribe Kayy.

According to Turkish historical tradition, part of the Kayy tribe migrated to Anatolia from Central Asia, where the leaders of the Kayy were for some time in the service of the rulers of Khorezm. At first, the Kayy Turks chose the land in the Karajadag region to the west of present-day Ankara as a nomadic place. Then some of them moved to the regions of Akhlat, Erzurum and Erzinjan, reaching Amasya and Aleppo (Aleppo). Some nomads of the Kayy tribe found refuge on the fertile lands in the Chukurov region. It was from these places that a small kayy unit (400-500 tents) led by Ertogrul, fleeing the Mongol raids, went to the possession of the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I. Ertogrul turned to him for patronage. The Sultan granted Ertogrul uj (the outskirts of the Sultanate) on the lands captured by the Seljuks from the Byzantines on the border with Bithynia. Ertogrul assumed the obligation to defend the border of the Seljuk state on the territory of the ujj that was granted to him.

Uj Ertogrul in the region of Melangia (Tur. Karajahisar) and Shogut (north-west of Eskisehir) was small. But the ruler was energetic, and his soldiers willingly participated in raids on the neighboring Byzantine lands. Ertogrul's actions were facilitated by the fact that the population of the Byzantine border regions was extremely dissatisfied with the predatory tax policy of Constantinople. As a result, Ertogrul managed to somewhat increase his uj at the expense of the border regions of Byzantium. It is difficult, however, to accurately determine the scale of these aggressive operations, as, incidentally, and the initial size of the ujja Ertogrul himself, about whose life and activities there is no reliable data. Turkish chroniclers, even early ones (XIV-XV centuries), recount many legends associated with the initial period of the formation of the Ertogrul beylik. These legends say that Ertogrul lived for a long time: he died at the age of 90 in 1281 or, according to another version, in 1288.

Information about the life of Ertogrul's son, Osman, who gave the name to the future state, is also legendary in no small measure. Osman was born in about 1258 in Shogut. This mountainous, sparsely populated area was convenient for nomads: there were many good summer pastures, and there were plenty of comfortable winter nomads. But, perhaps, the main advantage of the Ujj Ertogrul and Osman, who succeeded him, was the proximity to the Byzantine lands, which made it possible to enrich themselves through raids. This opportunity attracted representatives of other Turkic tribes who settled in the territories of other beyliks to the detachments of Ertogrul and Osman, since the conquest of territories belonging to non-Muslim states was considered a sacred deed by the followers of Islam. As a result, when in the second half of the XIII century. the rulers of the Anatolian beyliks, in search of new possessions, fought among themselves, the warriors of Ertogrul and Osman looked like fighters for the faith, ruining the Byzantines in search of prey and for the purpose of territorial seizures of land.

After the death of Ertogrul, Osman became the ruler of the ujj. Judging by some sources, there were supporters of the transfer of power to Ertogrul's brother, Dundar, but he did not dare to oppose his nephew, because he saw that the majority supported him. A few years later, a potential rival was killed.

Osman directed his efforts towards the conquest of Bithynia. The regions of Brusy (tur. Bursa), Belokoma (Bilejik) and Nicomedia (Izmit) became the zone of his territorial claims. One of the first military successes of Osman was the capture of Melangia in 1291. He made this small Byzantine town his residence. Since the former population of Melangia partly perished, and partly fled, hoping to find salvation from the troops of Osman, the latter settled in his residence with people from Beylik Germian and other places in Anatolia. At the behest of Osman, the Christian temple was turned into a mosque, in which his name began to be mentioned in khutbahs (Friday prayers). According to legends, around this time, Osman, without much difficulty, obtained the title of bey from the Seljuk sultan, whose power had become completely ghostly, having received the corresponding regalia in the form of a drum and a bunchuk. Soon Osman declared his uj to be an independent state, and himself an independent ruler. It happened around 1299, when the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad II fled from his capital, fleeing from the rebellious subjects. True, having become practically independent from the Seljuk Sultanate, which nominally existed until 1307, when the last representative of the Ruman Seljuk dynasty was strangled by order of the Mongols, Osman recognized the supreme power of the Mongolian dynasty of the Hulaguids and annually sent to their capital part of the tribute that he collected from his subjects. The Ottoman beylik was freed from this form of dependence under Osman's successor, his son Orhan.

At the end of the XIII - beginning of the XIV century. The Ottoman beylik expanded its territory significantly. Its ruler continued to raid the Byzantine lands. Actions against the Byzantines were facilitated by the fact that his other neighbors did not yet show hostility to the young state. Beylik Germian fought first with the Mongols, then with the Byzantines. Beylik Karesi was simply weak. Beylik Osman was not bothered by the rulers of Chandar-oglu (Jandarids) located in the north-west of Anatolia, since they were also mainly engaged in the struggle with the Mongol governors. Thus, the Ottoman beylik could use all his military forces for conquests in the west.

Having seized the Yenisehir region in 1301 and built a fortress-city there, Osman began to prepare the seizure of Brusa. In the summer of 1302, he defeated the troops of the Byzantine governor Brusa in the battle at Vafei (Tur. Koyunhisar). This was the first major military battle won by the Ottoman Turks. Finally, the Byzantines realized that they were dealing with a dangerous enemy. However, in 1305, Osman's army was defeated in the battle of Leuke, where Catalan squads, who were in the service of the Byzantine emperor, fought against them. In Byzantium, another civil strife began, facilitating further offensive actions of the Turks. Osman's warriors captured a number of Byzantine cities on the Black Sea coast.

In those years, the Ottoman Turks also made the first raids on the European part of Byzantium in the Dardanelles region. Osman's troops also captured a number of fortresses and fortified settlements on the way to Brus. By 1315, Brusa was practically surrounded by fortresses in the hands of the Turks.

Brusu was captured a little later by Osman's son Orhan. born in the year of the death of his grandfather Ertogrul.

Orhan's army consisted mainly of cavalry units. The Turks did not have siege engines either. Therefore, the Bey did not dare to storm the city, surrounded by a ring of powerful fortifications, and set up a blockade of Brusy, cutting off all her communications with the outside world and thereby depriving her defenders of all sources of supply. Turkish troops used similar tactics later. Usually they captured the outskirts of the city, expelled or enslaved the local population. Then these lands were settled by people who were resettled there by order of the bey.

The city found itself in a hostile ring, and the threat of starvation hung over its inhabitants, after which the Turks easily took over it.

The siege of Brusa lasted ten years. Finally, in April 1326, when Orhan's army was at the very walls of Brusa, the city capitulated. This happened on the eve of the death of Osman, who was informed about the taking of Brusa on his deathbed.

Orkhan, who inherited power in the beylik, made Bursa (as the Turks began to call it), famous for crafts and trade, a rich and prosperous city, his capital. In 1327, he ordered the minting of the first Ottoman silver coin - akche - in Bursa. This indicated that the process of turning the beylik Ertogrul into an independent state was nearing completion. Further conquests of the Ottoman Turks in the north became an important stage on this path. Four years after the capture of Brusy, Orhan's troops captured Nicaea (Tur. Iznik), and in 1337 - Nicomedia.

When the Turks moved to Nicaea, a battle took place in one of the mountain gorges between the troops of the emperor and the Turkish troops led by Orhan's brother, Alaeddin. The Byzantines were defeated, the emperor was wounded. Several assaults on the powerful walls of Nicaea did not bring success to the Turks. Then they resorted to the tried and tested blockade tactics, capturing several advanced fortifications and cutting off the city from the surrounding lands. After these events, Nicaea was forced to surrender. Exhausted by disease and hunger, the garrison could no longer resist the superior forces of the enemy. The capture of this city opened the way for the Turks to the Asian part of the Byzantine capital.

The blockade of Nicomedia, which received military aid and food by sea, lasted nine years. To capture the city, Orhan had to organize a blockade of the narrow bay of the Sea of ​​Marmara, on the shores of which Nicomedia was located. Cut off from all sources of supply, the city surrendered at the mercy of the victors.

As a result of the capture of Nicea and Nicomedia, the Turks took possession of almost all the lands north of the Izmit Bay up to the Bosphorus. Izmit (this name was now given to Nicomedia) became a shipyard and a harbor for the nascent Ottoman fleet. The exit of the Turks to the shores of the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Bosphorus opened the way for them to raid Thrace. Already in 1338 the Turks began to ravage the Thracian lands, and Orhan himself with three dozen ships appeared at the walls of Constantinople, but his detachment was defeated by the Byzantines. Emperor John VI tried to get along with Orhan, marrying his daughter to him. For some time Orhan stopped raiding the possessions of Byzantium and even provided military assistance to the Byzantines. But Orhan considered the lands on the Asian coast of the Bosphorus as his own. Arriving to visit the emperor, he placed his headquarters on the Asian coast, and the Byzantine monarch with all his courtiers was forced to arrive there for a feast.

In the future, Orhan's relations with Byzantium again aggravated, his troops resumed raids on the Thracian lands. Another decade and a half passed, and Orhan's troops began to invade the European possessions of Byzantium. This was facilitated by the fact that in the 40s of the XIV century. Orkhan managed, taking advantage of the civil strife in the Karesi beilik, to annex to his possessions most of the lands of this beilik, which reached the eastern shores of the Dardanelles.

In the middle of the XIV century. the Turks strengthened, began to act not only in the west, but also in the east. Beylik Orhan bordered on the possessions of the Mongol governor in Asia Minor Erten, who by that time had become an almost independent ruler due to the decline of the Ilkhan state. When the governor died and turmoil broke out in his possessions, caused by the struggle for power between his sons-heirs, Orhan attacked the lands of Erten and significantly expanded his beylik at their expense, capturing Ankara in 1354.

In 1354 the Turks easily captured the city of Gallipoli (Tur. Gelibolu), the defensive fortifications of which were destroyed as a result of an earthquake. In 1356, an army under the command of Orhan's son, Suleiman, crossed the Dardanelles. Having captured several cities, including Dzorillos (Tur. Corlu), Suleiman's troops began to move towards Adrianople (Tur. Edirne), which was, perhaps, the main goal of this campaign. However, around 1357 Suleiman died without fulfilling all his plans.

Soon, Turkish military operations in the Balkans resumed under the leadership of Orhan's other son, Murad. The Turks managed to take Adrianople after the death of Orhan, when Murad became ruler. This happened, according to various sources, between 1361 and 1363. The capture of this city was a relatively simple military operation, not accompanied by a blockade and a protracted siege. The Turks defeated the Byzantines on the outskirts of Adrianople, and the city was left practically without protection. In 1365 Murad moved his residence here from Bursa for some time.

Murad took the title of Sultan and went down in history under the name of Murad I. Wanting to rely on the authority of the Abbasid caliph, who was in Cairo, Murad's successor Bayezid I (1389-1402) sent him a letter asking for recognition of the title of Sultan Rum. A little later, Sultan Mehmed I (1403-1421) began to send money to Mecca, seeking recognition by the sheriffs of his rights to the Sultan's title in this holy city for Muslims.

So in less than a hundred and fifty years, the small beylik Ertogrul was transformed into a vast and militarily strong state.

What was the young Ottoman state like at the initial stage of its development? Its territory already covered the entire northwest of Asia Minor, extending to the waters of the Black and Marmara Seas. Socio-economic institutions began to take shape.

Under Osman, social relations inherent in tribal life still dominated in his beylik, when the power of the head of the beylik was based on the support of the tribal elite, and its military formations carried out aggressive operations. The Muslim clergy played an important role in the formation of Ottoman state institutions. Muslim theologians, the ulama, performed many administrative functions, in their hands was the administration of justice. Osman established strong ties with the dervish orders of the Mevlevi and Bektashi, as well as with the ahi - a religious guild brotherhood that enjoyed great influence in the artisan strata of the cities of Asia Minor. Relying on the ulema, the elite of the dervish orders and ahi, Osman and his successors not only strengthened their power, but also justified their aggressive campaigns with the Muslim slogan of jihad, "struggle for the faith".

Osman, whose tribe led a semi-nomadic lifestyle, still possessed nothing but herds of horses and flocks of sheep. But when he began to conquer new territories, a system arose for distributing lands to his entourage as a reward for service. These awards are called timars. The Turkish chronicles set out Osman's decree regarding the conditions of awards:

“Timar, which I will give to someone, may not be taken away for no reason. And if the one to whom I gave the timar dies, then let him give it to his son. If the son is small, then all the same, let them give him over, so that during the war his servants go on a campaign until he becomes fit. " This is the essence of the timar system, which was a type of the military-fief system and became, over time, the basis of the social structure of the Ottoman state.

The Timar system took on a complete form during the first century of the new state. The supreme right to grant timars was the privilege of the Sultan, but already from the middle of the 15th century. Timars also complained to a number of higher dignitaries. Land plots were given to soldiers and military leaders as conditional holdings. Subject to the fulfillment of certain military duties, the holders of the timar, the timariots, could pass them on from generation to generation. It is noteworthy that the Timariots, in fact, owned not the lands that were the property of the treasury, but the income from them. Depending on these incomes, properties of this kind were divided into two categories - timars, which brought in up to 20 thousand acce per year, and zeamets, from 20 to 100 thousand acce. The real value of these amounts can be presented in comparison with the following figures: in the middle of the 15th century. the average income from one municipal economy in the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman state ranged from 100 to 200 akce; for 1 acche in 1460 in Bursa one could buy 7 kilograms of flour. In the person of the Timariots, the first Turkish sultans strove to create a strong and loyal support for their power - military and socio-political.

In a historically relatively short period of time, the rulers of the new state became the owners of large material values. Even under Orhan, it happened that the ruler of the beylik did not have the means to ensure the next invasion raid. The Turkish medieval chronicler Husein gives, for example, the story of how Orhan sold a captive Byzantine dignitary to the archon Nicomedia in order to equip an army with the money obtained in this way and send it against the same city. But already under Murad I, the picture changed dramatically. The sultan could support the army, build palaces and mosques, spend a lot of money on festivities and receptions of ambassadors. The reason for this change was simple - since the reign of Murad I, it has become a law to deduct a fifth of the military booty, including prisoners, to the treasury. Military campaigns in the Balkans became the first source of income for the Ottoman state. Tribute from the conquered peoples and war booty constantly replenished his treasury, and the labor of the population of the conquered regions gradually began to enrich the nobility of the Ottoman state - dignitaries and military leaders, clergy and beys.

Under the first sultans, the system of government of the Ottoman state began to take shape. If under Orhan military affairs were resolved in a close circle of his close associates from among the military leaders, then under his successors the vezirs - ministers began to participate in their discussion. If Orkhan ruled his possessions with the help of his closest relatives or ulema, then Murad I from among the vezirs began to single out a person who was entrusted with the management of all affairs - civil and military. This is how the institution of the great vizier arose, who for centuries remained the central figure of the Ottoman administration. The general affairs of the state under the successors of Murad I, as the supreme deliberative body, were in charge of the Sultan's council, consisting of the great vizier, the heads of the military, financial and judicial departments, and representatives of the highest Muslim clergy.

During the reign of Murad I, the Ottoman financial department received its initial design. At the same time, the division of the treasury into the personal treasury of the Sultan and the state treasury, which had been preserved for centuries, arose. There was also an administrative division. The Ottoman state was divided into sanjaks. The word "sanzhak" means "banner" in translation, as if reminding that the rulers of the sanzhaks, sanzhak-beys, personified civil and military power in the localities. Concerning judicial system, then it was entirely under the jurisdiction of the ulema.

The state, developing and expanding as a result of wars of conquest, showed special concern for the creation of a strong army. Already under Orhan, the first important steps were taken in this direction. An infantry army was created - yaya. The infantrymen during the period of participation in the campaigns received a salary, and in peacetime they lived by cultivating their lands, being exempted from taxes. Under Orhan, the first regular cavalry units were created - musell. Under Murad I, the army was strengthened by the peasant infantry militia. The militias, the Azap, were recruited only for the duration of the war and during the period of hostilities they also received a salary. At the initial stage of the development of the Ottoman state, it was the Azap that constituted the main part of the infantry army. Under Murad I, a corps of janissaries began to form (from "eni cheri" - "new army"), which later became the striking force of the Turkish infantry and a kind of personal guard of the Turkish sultans. He was recruited by forced recruitment of boys from Christian families. They were converted to Islam and trained in a special military school. The Janissaries were subordinate to the Sultan himself, received a salary from the treasury and from the very beginning became a privileged part of the Turkish army; the commander of the janissary corps was one of the highest dignitaries of the state. Somewhat later, the Janissary infantry formed the Sipahi cavalry detachments, which were also directly subordinate to the Sultan and were on a salary. All these military formations ensured sustainable successes for the Turkish army at a time when the sultans were increasingly expanding their conquest operations.

Thus, by the middle of the XIV century. the initial nucleus of the state was formed, which was destined to become one of the largest empires of the Middle Ages, a powerful military power, which in a short time subjugated many peoples of Europe and Asia.

For the history of the Turkish people, as well as the countries of South-Eastern Europe, the formation of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire had very great consequences. The Ottoman state was formed in the process of the military expansion of the Turkish feudal lords in Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula. The policy of conquest led by the Ottoman state led to the centuries-old struggle of the population of the South Slavic countries, the peoples of Hungary, Moldavia and Wallachia against the Turkish conquerors.

Asia Minor by the beginning of the XIV century Ottomans

With the invasion of the Mongol conquerors on Central Asia the nomadic union of the Oghuz Turks from the Kayy tribe in only a few thousand tents, migrated to the west together with the Khorezmshah Jelal-ad-din and then entered the service of the Seljuk sultan Rum, from whom the leader of the Oghuz-Kayy Ertogrul received in the 30s of the XIII century ... a small feudal possession along the Sakarya River (in Greek Sangaria), on the very border of the Byzantine possessions, with a residence in the city of Shogud. These Oguzes became part of the Turkish nationality that was developing in Asia Minor under the Seljukids.

By the beginning of the XIV century. The Ruman Sultanate of the Seljukids split into ten emirates, including the Ottoman Emirate. Most of the possessions of Byzantium still remaining in the northwestern part of Asia Minor were conquered by Ertogrul's son and successor Osman I (approximately 1282-1326), who made his capital the city of Bursa (in Greek, Brusa, 1326). Osman gave his name to the dynasty and his emirate of the Asia Minor Turks, who became part of the Ottoman state, were also called the Ottomans (Osmanli).

Formation and growth of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Turks from the very beginning directed their conquests against the decaying and extremely weakened Byzantium. Many volunteer warriors of various ethnic origins from other Muslim countries entered the service of the Ottoman state, and most of all Turkish nomads from the emirates of Asia Minor. The feudalized nomadic nobility with its militias was attracted by the possibility of easy conquests, the seizure of new lands and military booty. Since among the nomads all men were warriors, and the light cavalry of the Turks, like all nomads, had great mobility, it was always easy for the Ottoman state to concentrate large military forces at the necessary moment for an attack. The stability of patriarchal-feudal relations among nomadic tribes made their militias, distinguished by their high fighting qualities, more united and stronger than the militias of Byzantium and its Balkan neighbors. The Turkish nobility, receiving from the Ottoman sovereign a significant part of the newly conquered lands into fief, helped the Ottoman Emirate to make extensive conquests and strengthen. Under the son and successor of Osman I - Orhan (1326-1359), who took Nicaea (1331), the conquest of Byzantine possessions in Asia Minor was completed.

On the possessions of Byzantium on the Balkan Peninsula (Rumelia ( Rumelia - in Turkish "Rum eli", or "Rum or", that is, the country of the Greeks.), as the Turks said), the Turks at first made only raids for the sake of war booty, but in 1354 they occupied an important stronghold on the European coast of the Dardanelles - the city of Gallipoli and began to conquer the Balkan Peninsula. The success of the Turks was facilitated by the political fragmentation of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, feudal strife within these states and their struggle with each other, as well as with Genoa, Venice and Hungary. After Orhan's death, his son Murad I (1359-1389), who already bore the title of Sultan, conquered Adrianople (1362), and then almost all of Thrace, Philippopolis, the valley of the Maritsa River, and began to move rapidly westward. Murad I moved his residence to Adrianople (Turkish Edirne). In 1371 the Turks won the battle on the banks of the Maritsa. On July 15, 1389, they won an even more important victory in the Kosovo field.

The conquests of Murad I were facilitated by the large numerical superiority of his militias over the scattered forces of the Balkan states and the transfer to his side of a part of the Bulgarian and Serbian feudal lords who converted to Islam in order to preserve their possessions. The invasive campaigns of the Ottoman state were conducted under the ideological cover of the "war for the faith" of Muslims with "infidels", in this case with Christians. The wars of conquest of the Ottoman sultans were distinguished by great cruelty, plundering of the occupied territories, taking civilians into captivity, devastation, fires and massacres. The population of the conquered cities and villages was often completely driven into slavery. Greek historian of the 15th century. Duka reports that due to the mass deportation of the population by the Ottoman troops and the massacre, "the whole of Thrace until Dalmatia became deserted." The Bulgarian author, the monk Isaiah Svyatorets, wrote: “... Some of the Christians were killed, others were taken into slavery, and those who remained there (ie, in their homeland) were mowed down by death, for they were dying of hunger. The land emptied, lost all benefits, people died, cattle and fruits disappeared. And truly then the living envied those who had died earlier. "

Tribute was imposed on the feudal lords of the conquered countries, who remained Christians, but recognized themselves as vassals of the Sultan, but it did not always save their possessions from raids. Local feudal lords who converted to Islam, and sometimes even remained Christians, were included in the ranks of the Turkish military feudal nobility as Lenniks (Sipahs). The son and successor of Murad I-Bayazid I (1389-1402), nicknamed Yildirim ("Lightning"), completed the conquest of Macedonia (by 1392), with the capture of Vidin (1396), he completed the conquest of Bulgaria, begun in the 60s years of the XIV century, and imposed a tribute on Northern Serbia. Bayezid also conquered all of Asia Minor, except for Cilicia and the Greek Kingdom of Trebizond, annexing the lands of the former emirates of Asia Minor to the Ottoman state, although the nomadic feudal lords of Asia Minor did not want to put up with the loss of their independence for a long time, and sometimes rebelled against the Ottoman sultan. Despite the fact that the Byzantine emperors John V and Manuel II had paid tribute to the Sultan and sent him auxiliary militias since 1370, Bayezid still took Thessalonica from Byzantium (1394) and blockaded Constantinople, seeking its surrender.

By the time of Bayezid's reign, the Turkish military-feudal elite, having seized new lands and huge riches, switched to a sedentary lifestyle and replaced the simple and harsh life of the nomadic horde with refined luxury and splendor. At the same time, there were contradictions between the sedentary and nomadic military nobility. The latter - mainly in Asia Minor - was relegated to the background. Among the mass of the Turkish population who settled on the newly acquired lands, especially in Rumelia, the process of transition to settled life also took place. But in Asia Minor, this process took place much more slowly.

Venice and Genoa saw the Ottoman conquests as a great threat to their possessions and their commercial dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean. Many other Western European states, in turn, were thoroughly afraid of the invasion of Ottoman troops into Central Europe. In 1396, a crusade was undertaken against Ottoman Turkey with the participation of Hungarian, Czech, Polish, French and other knights; from the French, the author of the famous memoirs about this campaign, Marshal Busico, the son of the Burgundian duke John the Fearless, and others, took part in it. King Sigismund and disagreements between the "crusader" leaders were the reason that their army suffered a severe defeat at Nikopol on the Danube. Up to 10 thousand crusaders were captured, the rest fled. Bayezid killed almost all the captives, except for 300 noble knights, whom he released for a huge ransom. After that, the Ottoman troops invaded Hungary (1397), which they then began to systematically devastate, taking tens of thousands of people out of it into slavery.

But the crusade of 1396 and the soon following invasion of Timur's troops into Asia Minor prevented Bayazid from capturing Constantinople. A decisive battle between the troops of Bayazid and Timur took place at Ankara on July 20, 1402. During the battle, the militia of the former Asia Minor emirates, seeing their former emirs in Timur's camp, betrayed the Ottoman Sultan and suddenly struck the center of his troops. The Ottoman army was defeated, Bayezid himself was captured while fleeing and soon died in captivity. Timur devastated Asia Minor and left, restoring seven of the former ten emirates of Asia Minor. The Ottoman Empire was weakened for a while. The death of Byzantium was delayed; it regained Thessalonica.

Feudal relations in the Ottoman state

In Turkish society, the development of feudalism continued, which took place in Asia Minor already under the Seljukids. Almost the entire land fund in Asia Minor and in Rumelia was seized by the conquerors. There were four types of feudal land ownership: state land (miri); lands of the sultan family (khas); lands of Muslim religious institutions (waqf) and private lands, such as allod (mulk). But most of the state lands were distributed as a hereditary conditional award to the military ranks of the mounted feudal militia (sipakhi). Small flaxes were called timars, large ones - ziamet. Lenniks-sipakhi were obliged to live in their possessions and, by order of the sultan, appear in the militia of the sanjak-bey (chief of the district) with a certain, depending on the profitability of the len, the number of armed horsemen from the subordinate people. This is how the Ottoman military-fief system developed, which largely contributed to the military successes of Turkey.

Some of the sultan's domains were distributed into the possession of large military and civil dignitaries for the duration of a certain post. Such awards were called, like the sultan's domains, hass and were assigned to certain positions. Large feudal ownership of land and water in the Ottoman state was combined with small peasant holdings. The peasants of paradise ( The Arabic term "raaya" (plural from rayat) in Turkey, as in other Muslim countries, denoted the tax-paying class, especially peasants, regardless of religion, later (from the 19th century) only non-Muslims began to be called that way.) were attached to their land plots (in Asia Minor, attachment has been noted since the 13th century) and, without the permission of the feudal lord, the owner of the land, did not have the right to transfer. A ten-year period was set to search for fugitive peasants. Feudal rent was levied partly in favor of the state, partly in favor of the landowners, in a mixed form (in products, money and in the form of forced labor). Muslim farmers paid tithes (ashar), and Christians from 20 to 50% of the harvest (kharaj). Non-Muslims (Christians and Jews) also paid a capitation tax - jizya, which later merged with the kharaj. Many other taxes gradually appeared.

Wars of conquest created an abundant influx and cheapness of captive slaves. Some of them were used as servants, servants, eunuchs, etc., but slave labor was also used in production - in nomadic and semi-nomadic cattle breeding, in arable work, in horticulture and viticulture, in the Sultan's mines, and from the 15th century. also in military galleys - hard labor (in Turkish kadyrga), where the rowers were slaves. The sultan's power, in order to ensure the interests of the military-feudal nobility, waged constant predatory wars with non-Muslim states, going on until the 16th century. only for temporary truces.

State Organization of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was a military feudal despotism. The hereditary sultan from the Ottoman dynasty with unlimited secular power combined in his hands the spiritual power (imamate) over the Muslims of Turkey. The first dignitary of the Sultan was the great vizier. Since the XV century. other viziers also appeared. Together with the great vizier, they made up the sofa - the supreme council. During the campaigns, the great vizier had the right to issue firman (decrees) on behalf of the sultan, appoint dignitaries and distribute military fiefs. Of the other most important dignitaries, the defterdar was in charge of the collection of taxes and finances, and the nishanjy-bashy prepared decrees on behalf of the sultan and drew a tughra on them - a code with the monogram of the sovereign. The great vizier applied the big state seal to the decrees. No matter how great the power of the great vizier was, the sultan could remove and execute him at any moment, which often happened.

The court, with the exception of litigation between gentiles, was in the hands of Muslim spiritual judges - qadi. Qadi was judged according to the Hanefi Muslim Sunni law, and partly also by the customary law of the Oghuz nomads, the ancestors of the Turks. Two kadi-askers (one for Rumelia, the other for Anatolia, that is, Asia Minor), originally military spiritual judges, in the 15th century. in charge of all the affairs of the Muslim clergy and their waqf property. The districts were ruled by the sanjak-beys, who at the same time commanded the local feudal militias, collecting them by order of the Sultan and coming with them to the gathering place of the troops of the entire empire. The Ottoman army consisted of three main parts: a mounted feudal militia, a cavalry - akinjy and a corps of regular infantry - janissaries (yeni cheri - "new army").

Akyndzhi constituted the irregular equestrian vanguard of the army; they did not receive fiefs, but only a share of the spoils of war, which is why they gained a reputation as fierce robbers. The janissary corps arose in the 14th century, but received a solid organization in the second quarter of the 15th century. The ranks of the Janissaries were at first recruited from captive youths, but from the 15th century. Janissary troops began to be replenished by compulsory recruits (devshirme), first every 5 years, and later even more often, from the Christian population of Rumelia - Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians and Greeks, sometimes from Armenians and Georgians. At the same time, the most physically complete boys and unmarried boys were selected. All janissaries were brought up in the spirit of Muslim fanaticism and were considered dervishes of the Bektashi order; up to the XVI century. they were forbidden to marry. They were divided into companies (orts), fed from a common cauldron, and the cauldron (cauldron) was considered a symbol of their army. The Janissaries enjoyed a number of privileges and received generous handouts, and many of the Janissary commanders were promoted to the highest military and administrative positions of the empire. Legally, the janissaries were considered slaves of the Sultan, like the Gulyam (Mamluk) guard in Egypt and in other Muslim states. The capture of many people into slavery and the recruitment of boys and youths into the janissaries served as a direct means of forcible assimilation of the conquered population. The high taxation of non-Muslims - the giaurs, their inequality and the regime of arbitrariness served as indirect means of the same assimilation. But this policy ultimately failed.

Popular movements at the beginning of the 15th century.

The son and successor of Bayezid I Mehmed I (Muhammad, 1402-1421), nicknamed Chelebi (“Noble”, “Knightly”), had to wage wars with his brothers - claimants to the throne, with the Seljuk emirs restored by Timur in their domains, especially with the emir of Karaman, who robbed and burned Bursa, as well as with the Venetians, who defeated the Ottoman fleet at Gallipoli (1416). On the other hand, Mehmed I made an alliance with Byzantium, returning some of the seaside cities to it.

These wars ruined the small fiefdoms and caused an increase in the tax burden on the peasants. As a result, an uprising of small Lenniks broke out, joined by peasants and artisans, which grew into a real civil war(in 1415-1418, but according to other data - in 1413-1418). The movement was headed by the dervish sheikh Simavia-oglu Bedr-ad-din, who expanded his activities in Rumelia. The dervishes Berkludzhe Mustafa (in the Izmir region, in Greek Smyrna) and Torlak Kemal (in the Manisa region, in Greek Magnesia), acting on his behalf in Asia Minor, relying on artisans and peasants, demanded the establishment of social equality of all people and the community of all property , "Except for wives", namely: "food, clothing, harness and arable land", and first of all - the community of land ownership. The rebels introduced the same simple clothes and common meals for everyone and proclaimed the principle of equality of the three monotheistic religions - Muslim, Christian and Jewish.

Through his friend, a Christian monk from the island of Chios, Berkludzhe Mustafa called on the Greek peasants to rebel together with the Turkish peasants against the common oppressors - the Ottoman feudal nobility led by the Sultan. Indeed, the peasants of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, both Turks and Greeks, rebelled almost without exception. They defeated the feudal militia gathered in the western part of Asia Minor. Only two years later, having gathered sipahis from all over the state, the sultan finally suppressed the movement and inflicted a bloody massacre on the rebels. After that, by the end of 1418, the militia of Sheikh Bedr-ad-din was defeated in Rumelia.

At the beginning of the 15th century. among the urban lower strata of Turkey, which emerged at the end of the XIV century, was widely spread. in Khorasan, the heretical teaching of the secret Shiite sect of the Hurufites, with antifeudal tendencies and the preaching of social equality and community of property. There were also uprisings among the non-indigenous peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, who did not reconcile with Ottoman rule (the uprising in the Vidip region in Bulgaria in 1403, etc.).

Turkey in the first half of the 15th century. Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks

Under Murad II (1421-1451), the Ottoman Empire strengthened and resumed its policy of conquest. A formidable danger loomed over Constantinople again. In 1422 Murad II laid siege to the city, but to no avail. In 1430 he took Thessalonica. In 1443, the participants of the new crusade(Hungarians, Poles, Serbs and Wallachians) under the leadership of the King of Poland and Hungary Vladislav and the famous Hungarian commander Janos Hunyadi twice defeated the army of Murad II and occupied Sofia. But the following year, the crusaders suffered a heavy defeat at Varna from the forces of Murad II, which outnumbered their army. After this, the attempts of the popes to organize a new crusade against Turkey no longer met with sympathy in Western Europe. However, the victories of the troops of Janos Hunyadi in 1443 nevertheless facilitated the struggle for the independence of Albania, which had already been almost conquered by the Ottoman troops. The Albanian people, under the leadership of their illustrious commander and prominent statesman Skanderbeg, fought successfully against the Turkish conquerors for more than twenty years.

The successor of Murad II was his young son Mehmed II (Muhammad, 1451-1481), nicknamed Fatih ("Conqueror"). The personality of Mehmed II is vividly depicted in Greek and Italian sources. He received a good education, knew five languages, was familiar with Western culture, shunned religious fanaticism, but at the same time was a capricious and cruel despot. Turkish historiography glorified him as a talented military leader. In fact, the conquests of Mehmed II were mainly victories over weak feudal states, which most often had already paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire earlier. Mehmed II was defeated more than once by the Hungarians, Albanians and Moldovans.

The siege of Constantinople by the Turks took about two months (April - May 1453). After the capture and three-day robbery of Constantinople, Mehmed II entered the city and, proceeding to the church of St. Sofia, got off his horse and performed in this temple the first muslim prayer... As a result of the massacre and the removal of the population into slavery, the city was almost completely depopulated. In order to repopulate it, Mehmed II transferred all the inhabitants of the Asia Minor city of Aksaray there, but since the Turkish population was still not enough, he resettled many Greeks from Morey and other places, as well as Armenians and Jews, to Constantinople. The Genoese colony of Galata, founded shortly after 1261 on the outskirts of Constantinople, was also forced to surrender. At the same time, the Genoese retained personal freedom and property, but lost their autonomy, and Galata has since been ruled by the Turkish administration. The capital of the Ottoman Empire was transferred from Adrianople to Constantinople (Istanbul, more precisely Istanbul) ( The name “Istanbul” comes from the modern Greek expression “istin polin” - “to the city” and was used by both the Greeks and the Arabs, Persians and Turks already in the XII-XIII centuries.).

Domestic politics of Mehmed II

Mehmed II issued in 1476 a set of laws ("Kanun-name"), which determined the functions of state dignitaries and the amount of their salaries, established the organization of the Muslim Sunni clergy (more precisely, the estates of theologians), the regime of military fiefs, etc. Mehmed II also established a statute for non-Muslim religious communities, approving the Orthodox (Greek) and Armenian patriarchs and the Jewish chief rabbi in Constantinople. All Orthodox peoples (Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, some of the Albanians, Georgians, Vlachs and Moldavians) were henceforth regarded as one "Greek community" - the Rum Milleti, over which the Patriarch of Constantinople used not only ecclesiastical but also judicial power. The patriarch and bishops could pass judgments on the Orthodox, including exile to hard labor (galleys). But if an Orthodox was suing a Muslim, then the case was examined by a Muslim spiritual judge, a qadi. The patriarch and bishops had control over the schools and books of the Orthodox peoples, and they were given some personal privileges. The Armenian patriarch and the Jewish chief rabbi received the same rights over their communities.

Giving some rights to the highest Christian and Jewish clergy, the Sultan's government sought to keep the gentiles in obedience with the help of their own clergy. The mass of the Gentiles was completely disenfranchised. They were deprived of the right to have weapons, they had to wear clothes of special colors, they did not have the right to acquire land, etc. However, some restrictions for the Gentiles were not always observed in practice. The practice of non-Muslim cults was surrounded by serious restrictions: it was impossible, for example, to build new religious buildings. Even worse was the situation of Muslim heretics - Shiites, of whom there were very many in Asia Minor. They were brutally persecuted and forced to hide their faith.

Further conquests of Mehmed II

In Asia Minor, Mehmed II conquered the weak Greek Kingdom of Trepezud (1461) and all the emirates of Asia Minor. In Crimea, his troops captured the Genoese colonies with the most important trading city Kafoy (now Feodosia) and subjugated the Crimean Khanate to Turkey (1475). This was a real disaster for Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and the Russian state, for the Crimean Tatars, with the support of Ottoman Turkey, almost every year began to carry out deep horse raids into these countries in order to seize war booty, especially prisoners, which were then resold to Turkey. Between 1459 and 1463 Mehmed II conquered Serbia, the Greek principalities of the Moray and the Duchy of Athens ( Founded after the fourth crusade in 1204; the duchy was consistently ruled at first by the French, from the beginning of the XIV century. - Spanish, and from the end of the XIV century - Italian feudal lords.), as well as the Slavic kingdom of Bosnia. At the same time, Turkey began a long war with Venice, which was supported by Uzun Hasan, the sovereign of Ak Koyunlu. The troops of Uzun Hasan were defeated by the Turks in 1473, while the war with Venice was fought with varying success.

The attempt of the Turks to take Belgrade, defended by Janos Hunyadi, ended in a heavy failure for them (1456). Ottoman troops also suffered a complete defeat in Albania during the siege of the fortress of Krui (1467), in Moldavia (1475) and in an attempt to seize the island of Rhodes, which belonged to the knights-Ioannites. Wallachia submitted only after long resistance, retaining its autonomy (1476). In 1479, after the death of Skanderbeg, the Ottoman army finally managed to occupy the territory of Albania, but the Albanians did not submit and continued for a long time. guerrilla warfare in the mountains. According to the Peace of Constantinople with Venice (1479), the latter ceded its islands in the Aegean Sea to Turkey and pledged to pay an annual tribute of 10 thousand ducats, but retained the islands of Crete and Corfu and received the right of extraterritoriality and duty-free trade for the Venetians in Turkey. In the summer of 1480, Mehmed II landed in southern Italy, planning to conquer it, and ravaged the city of Otranto to the ground. He died shortly thereafter.

The son of Mehmed II, Bayezid II Dervish (1481-1512), abandoned the plan to conquer Italy, although he waged a generally unsuccessful war with Venice. Wars were also fought with Hungary, the Austrian Habsburgs and Egypt. Moldova recognized the suzerainty of Turkey, securing autonomy for itself through diplomatic negotiations (1501). In 1495 the first Russian embassy arrived in Constantinople. The Sultan allowed Russian merchants to trade in Turkey. Later, formally remaining in peace with Russia, Ottoman Turkey systematically set the hordes of the Crimean Khan against it, not giving the Russian state the opportunity to strengthen its military power and striving to receive from there, as well as from Ukraine, prisoners for slave markets and for galleys.

The Ottoman conquest slowed down the development of the conquered Balkan countries. At the same time, the unbearable oppression caused the struggle of the peoples of these countries against the Ottoman Empire. The growth of feudal exploitation made the Sultan's government deeply alien to the mass of the Turkish people. Anti-popular policy of the sultans of the 15th century. had as its consequence large uprisings of Turkish peasants and nomadic poor in Asia Minor in the next century.

Culture

Having settled in Asia Minor in the 11th century, the ancestors of the Turks, the Seljuk Oghuz, were for a long time under the cultural influence of Iran and, to a lesser extent, Armenia and Byzantium. Many Persians settled in the cities of Asia Minor, and the New Persian language was for a long time the official and literary language of the Seljuk Asia Minor.

On the basis of the revised traditions of the art of Iran, Armenia and partly Byzantium, a "Seljuk" was formed in Asia Minor architectural style, the main features of the buildings of which were a high portal, richly ornamented with stone carvings, and a conical dome, probably borrowed from the Armenians. The best monuments of this style were the Chifte-minare madrasah in Erzurum (XII century) and monuments of the XIII century. in Konya - Karatay-madrasah, Syrchaly-madrasah and the Inje-minareli mosque with a wonderful carved portal and a slender minaret. This style was replaced by the so-called "Bursa style" under the Ottomans, which prevailed in the XIV-XV centuries. Its monuments are the Ulu Jami Mosque built in Bursa (at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries) and the Yesil Jami Mosque (Green Mosque), decorated with faience tiles glazed with turquoise and greenish glaze. The mosques of Sultan Mehmed II and Sultan Bayezid II in Istanbul mark the transition from the “Bursa style” to the “classical” Turkish style, created by assimilating the Byzantine traditions in a revised form (central domed mosques, built according to the plan of the Church of St. Sophia, with a round dome, apses, etc.).

The representatives of the oral folk poetry of the Oguz Turks of Asia Minor, heroic and love, were wandering singers - ozans and ashyks. Literature in the Turkish language emerging in Seljuk Asia Minor, using the Arabic alphabet, developed for a long time under strong Persian influence. The son of the famous poet of Asia Minor Jalal-ad-din Rumi, who wrote in Persian, Sultan Veled (died in 1312) began to write poetry in Turkish ("The Book of the Lute"). Major Turkish poets of the XIV century. there were Ashyk Pasha, a moralist poet, Yunus Emre, a Sufi lyricist who used motifs of Turkish folk poetry, and Burkhan ad-din Sivassky, a warrior poet.

In the XV century. Turkish fiction flourished. Its most prominent representative was the poet Necati (1460-1509), the best Turkish lyricist. The themes of his poems were spring, love, grief, separation of lovers, etc. Hamdi Chelebi (died 1509), the author of the poem "Leili and Majnun" and other works, was a brilliant poet. Poetess Mihri-Khatun (died in 1514) and poet Mesikhi (died in 1512) were singers of earthly love and fought for the secular nature of poetry, against Sufism. Until the XIV century. including historical works (albeit very few) were written in Persian. In the XV century. a descendant of the poet Ashyk Pasha, Ashyk Pasha-zade, and Neshri laid the foundation for historical literature in Turkish.