The Ottoman Empire ... Turkey
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The Trojan War … Troy
The Celtic peoples … Galatians
St Paul’s epistle to the Galatians
Lygos, Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul
Ottoman Empire: c. 1299-1922 … Turkey 2023
“The New Ottoman”
Hagia Sophia: May 29th, 1453 … May 29th, 2023
Yugoslavia 1918-1992 … 1963
Serbia and Kosovo … June 2023
See:
Israel
Israel protests, June 10, 2023
Variation within a nation: Israel (January 2023)
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“The New Ottoman” was how The Times editorial greeted President Erdogan’s recent re-election in Turkey. This and other items have led me to reflect on the history and geography of the Ottoman empire – and some of the events which came before it some which came after it. (My selection of events is somewhat haphazard.)
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The Trojan War … Troy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War
Troy 3600BCE to 500CE … was located near Çanakkale in Turkey on the Dardanelles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87anakkale
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The Celtic peoples … Galatians
The Celts are a set of peoples who have had a presence in various parts of Europe and Anatolia since at least 600BC. The details are unclear. Genetic markers provide some evidence of their geographic distribution.
[Anatolia: ‘Asia Minor’; a peninsula in Western Asia, corresponding to modern Turkey.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia#/media/File:Celts_in_Europe-fr.svg;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia ;
The Galatians were a Celtic people living in Galatia, a region in central Anatolia, centred around modern-day Ankara. In 25BC, Galatia became a province of the Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatians_(people)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia
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St Paul’s epistle to the Galatians
[All this comes about because my sister Margaret is in her local group up in Scotland discussing this book of the bible, and my friends down here are telling me what they know! A key question at the time apparently was how Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews) relate to one another and to Christianity.]
Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew from Cilicia in Asia Minor, a Roman citizen and a Pharisee. He initially persecuted Christians but later was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus. He wrote epistles to a number of groups, one of which was the Galatians. Paul lived from possibly 4BCE to around 62 CE.
“It is possible that Paul believed [prior to his own conversion to Christianity] that Jewish converts to the new movement were not sufficiently observant of the Jewish law, that Jewish converts mingled too freely with Gentile (non-Jewish) converts, thus associating themselves with idolatrous practices, or that the notion of a crucified messiah was objectionable. The young Paul certainly would have rejected the view that Jesus had been raised after his death—not because he doubted resurrection as such but because he would not have believed that God chose to favour Jesus by raising him before the time of the Judgment of the world.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle ;
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Galatians;
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Lygos, Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Istanbul
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Ottoman Empire: c. 1299-1922 … Turkey 2023
See map for 1481, 1566, 1683, 1739, 1914AD in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
In 1683, the empire was just short of Vienna and just short of Kiev. …
In 1853-1856 the Crimean War involved Russia versus the Ottoman Empire and others … there had been a dispute between Catholic and Orthodox Christians in Palestine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War
In 1914, the empire continued to include a small region across the Bosphorus; and it extended down through modern Israel and all down the west coast of the Red Sea; all down the Tigris and the Euphrates; and all along the south coast of the Black Sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#/media/File:OttomanEmpireMain.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#/media/File:OttomanEmpire1914.png
It lost much of its territories in the First World War … including Palestine.
Modern Turkey, created in 1922, is bordered by Greece and Bulgaria … and by Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia … and by the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Map_of_Middle_East.png
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“The New Ottoman”
“How Turkey’s second century is being shaped by Erdogan. … The Islamist president has thrived on exploiting religious and ethnic fault lines. Victory tomorrow would further bury the country’s secular roots and raise question about its future as a western ally …” 27, 34-35
“Nationalism set to win in Turkey today, whoever gains most votes. … The anti-immigration message is the focus of both campaigns before the runoff vote.” 28, 26-27
“This is the century for Turkey, Erdogan declares. … Analysis: … the real winner of this election is a xenophobic and often conspiratorial brand of nationalism that has set a new political paradigm.” 29, 28-29
“The New Ottoman. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s victory in Turkey’s presidential election promises more uncertainty for the country’s democracy, economy and foreign relations.” 30, 25
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The results were as follows:
Erdogan: 49.5% in first round; 52.1% in second round
Kilicdarogiu: 45% in first round; 47.9% in second round
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkish_presidential_election
The map shows Erdogan losing in all the Mediterranean coastal areas, in Istanbul and Ankara, and in the south east.
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Hagia Sophia: May 29th, 1453 … May 29th, 2023
“[Ultra-nationalist] Suleyman Solyu, President Erdogan’s interior minister, joined prayers in the Hagia Sofia yesterday on the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Supporters met in the Hagia Sophia to mark President Erdogan’s poll victory.” 30, 26-27.
Hagia Sophia was built in the sixth century in Constantinople as the seat of eastern Christianity.
It was converted into a mosque after Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror seized Istanbul from the Byzantines on May 29th 1453.
In 1934 Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish republic deconsecrated it and turned it into a museum.
In 2020 it was turned back into a mosque enraging Greek Orthodox Christians.
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Yugoslavia 1918-1992 … 1963
Serbia gained its independence from the Ottoman empire in 1815, first a principality 1815-1882 and then a kingdom 1882-1918.
In 1914 Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb by a member of a group that wanted an independent Yugoslav state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand
At the end of the First World War the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire led to the creation of Yugoslavia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia
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A personal note. Back in 1963 the rest of the sixth form skived off to come to Waverley to see me off on the train. I met up with the others in London and we got the train to Zagreb (now Croatia) and then flew in a small plane landing on a grass strip just outside Budva (Montenegro). When the chess was all over, we went inland by bus(?) to Kosovo(?) or Macedonia(?) (for more chess). Finally we got the train to Ljubljana (Slovenia), and because we were in different sections of the split train, some of us returned via Vienna and the others went through Italy. I smuggled David Smith’s suitcase through customs on our return home.
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“During 1990, the socialists (former communists) lost power to ethnic separatist parties in the first multi-party elections held across the country, except in Serbia and Montenegro, where Milošević and his allies won. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated. Between June 1991 and April 1992, four constituent republics declared independence (only Serbia and Montenegro remained federated). Germany took the initiative and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, but the status of ethnic Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and that of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained unsolved. After a string of inter-ethnic incidents, the Yugoslav Wars ensued, first in Croatia and then, most severely, in multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. The wars left economic and political damage in the region that is still felt decades later.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
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Serbia and Kosovo … June 2023
The history of Kosovo is complex, variously the core of the Serbian empire then part of the Ottoman empire for five centuries until 1912 … later part of Yugoslavia and after Word War II, an autonomous province within the republic of Serbia within Yugoslavia.
“Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008,[16] and has since gained diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state by 101 member states of the United Nations.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo
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Kosovo religions: 95.6% Muslim; 2.2% Roman Catholic (Rome); 1.5% orthodox (Constantinople); 0.7% others.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Kosovo/Religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church
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“Kosovo is a frontier society where two Balkan nations, Albanian and Serb, as well as two religions, Islam and Christianity, clash. This rift has often been perceived as a hard and fast line of division, but the area also has a history of co-existence across these boundaries, through cultural contact, religious exchange and conversion. The tension between conflict and symbiosis lies at the core of this text, which contains seven case studies of various ethnic and religious groups, each of which examines how religion — Islam, Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox — shapes their efforts to construct or reconstruct their identities. Although the focus is on Kosovo, the scope is much wider, covering developments in Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia and Serbia as well. The author challenges the idea that Balkan conflicts are evolving around clear-cut and fixed ethno-religious groups. The ethnographic evidence shows that Balkan identities are full of ambiguities, caused by processes of conversion, dissimulation and other forms of manipulation, which are seen as important survival strategies in conditions of endemic violence and insecurity.”
https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/religion-and-the-politics-of-identity-in-kosovo/
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Kosovo, June 2023
“Zvecan, May 29: Masked men fight heavily armed UN peacekeepers.” 3, 38
“West calls for calm over Kosovo.” 1, 2
“US rebukes Kosovo over border clashes.” 1, 30-31
“Mayor* in the middle of Balkan stand-off. A local official’s choice could ignite, Kosovo, Bosnia and even Europe …Nato peacekeeping troops are guarding Zvecan’s town hall.” 3, 38
*197 votes with 6% turnout, boycotted by local Serbs.
“Albanian Kosovans blame Belgrade for Serbs’ post-election violence.” 4, 26-27
“Europe’s other conflict. Heavy rioting in Kosovo, fanned by Serbia and Russia, is a challenge to Nato and threatens to plunge the continent’s youngest state into renewed bloodshed.” 5, 23.
“I won’t appease friends of Putin, says Kosovo PM.” 5, 25.
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THE END