(The Göktürk Empire in 600) The name Turk (Chinese: 突厥, pinyin: tū jué; Jyutping: duk kyu) was first applied to a clan of tribal chieftains (known as Ashina) who overthrew the ruling Rouran confederacy and founded the nomadic Göktürk Empire ("Celestial Turks"). These nomads roamed in the Altai Mountains (and thus are known as Altaic peoples) in northern Mongolia and on the steppes of Central Asia. The Göktürks were ruled by Khans, whose influences extended during the sixth to eighth centuries from the
Aral Sea to the Hindu Kush in the land bridge known as Transoxania. In the eighth century, some Turkic tribes, among them the Oghuz, moved south of the Oxus River, while others migrated west to the northern shore of the Black Sea.
Türk spread as a political designation during the period of Göktürk imperial hegemony to their subject Turkic and non-Turkic peoples. Subsequently, it was adopted as a generic ethnonym designating most, if not all, of the Turkic-speaking tribes in Central Asia by the Muslim peoples with whom they came into contact. The imperial era also provided a legacy of political and social organization (with deep roots in pre-Türk Inner Asia) that, in its Türk form, became the .common inheritance of the Turkic groupings of Central Asia.
( The Seljuk Empire at its zenith upon the death of Malik Shah I in 1092)
The Seljuks (Turkish Selçuklular) were a Turkish tribe from Central Asia. In 1037, they entered Persia and established their first powerful state, called by historians the Empire of the Great Seljuks. They captured Baghdad in 1055, and a relatively small contingent of warriors (around 5,000 by some estimates) moved into eastern Anatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks engaged the armies of the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert (Malazgirt), north of Lake Van. The Byzantines experienced minor casualties even though Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was captured. The Seljuks took control of most of Eastern and Central Anatolia with no potent Byzantine force to stop them. They established their capital at Konya and ruled what would be known as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum.
The success of the Seljuk Turks stimulated a response from Latin Europe in the form of the First Crusade. A counteroffensive launched in 1097 by the Byzantines with the aid of the Crusaders dealt the Seljuks a decisive defeat. Konya fell to the Crusaders, and after a few years of campaigning, Byzantine rule was restored in the western third of Anatolia. Although a Turkish revival in the 1140s nullified much of the Christian gains, more significant damage was done to Byzantine security by dynastic strife in Constantinople in which the predominantly French contingents of the Fourth Crusade and their Venetian allies intervened. In 1204, these Crusaders conquered Constantinople and installed Count Baldwin of Flanders in the Byzantine capital as emperor of the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople, dismembering the old realm into tributary states where West European feudal institutions were transplanted intact. Independent Greek kingdoms were established at Nicaea (present-day Iznik), Trebizond (present-day Trabzon), and Epirus from remnant Byzantine provinces. Turks allied with Greeks in Anatolia against the Latins, and Greeks with Turks against the Mongols. In 1261, Michael Palaeologus of Nicaea drove the Latins from Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire. Seljuk Rum survived in the late 13th century as a vassal state of the Mongols, who had already subjugated the Great Seljuk sultanate at Baghdad. Mongol influence in the region had disappeared by the 1330s, leaving Gazi emirates competing for supremacy behind. However, from the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the Middle East, a new power was to emerge in Anatolia, the Ottoman Turks.
Anatolian Beyliks (Turkish: Anadolu Beylikleri, Ottoman Turkish: Tevâif-i mülûk) were small Turkish principalities governed by Beys, founded across Anatolia at the end of the 11th century. Political unity in Anatolia was disrupted from the collapse of the Anatolia Seljuk State at the beginning of the 14th century until the beginning of the 16th century. Each region in the country fell under the domination of beyliks (principalities). Eventually, the Ottoman principality, which subjugated the other principalities and restored political unity in the more significant part of Anatolia, was established in the Eskişehir and BilecikBursa areas. On the other hand, the area in central Anatolia east of the Ankara-Aksaray line, as far as the area of Erzurum, remained under the administration of the Ilhani General Governor until 1336. The infighting in Ilhan gave the principalities in Anatolia their complete independence. In addition, new Turkish principalities were formed in the localities previously under the Ilhan occupation. and
During the 14th century, the Turkomans, who made up the western Turks, re-established their previous political sovereignty in the Islamic world. Rapid Turkish language and cultural developments occurred during the Anatolian principalities' time. In this period, the Turkish language began to be used in the sciences and literature, becoming the official language of the principalities. New dresses were established, and progress was made in the medical sciences during this period. Ottoman era
Main article:
The Ottoman Empire (Old Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu), was a Turkish state. The state was known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries. Starting as a small tribe whose territory bordered the Byzantine frontier, the Ottoman Turks built an empire that, at the height of its power (16th–17th century), spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
As the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum weakened in the late 1200s, warrior chieftains claimed the lands of Northwestern Anatolia along the Byzantine Empire's borders. Ertuğrul Gazi ruled the lands around Söğüt, a town between Bursa and Eskisehir. Upon his death in 1281, his son, Osman, from whom the Ottoman dynasty and the Empire took its name, expanded the territory to 16,000 square kilometers. Osman I, who was given the nickname "Kara" (Turkish for black) for his courage, extended the frontiers of the Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire. He shaped the early political development of the state and moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa.
The Ottoman Empire (1299 – 1923)
By 1452 the Ottomans controlled almost all of the former Byzantine lands except Constantinople. On May 29, 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror captured Constantinople after a 53-day siege and proclaimed that the city was now the new capital of his Ottoman Empire. Captured prisoners were freed to settle in the town. At the same time, provincial governors in Rumelia and Anatolia were ordered to send four thousand families to pay in the city, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jew, to form a uniquely cosmopolitan society. Sultan Mehmet's first duty was to rejuvenate the city economically, creating the Grand Bazaar and inviting the fleeing Orthodox and Catholic inhabitants to return.
During the growth of the Ottoman Empire, Selim I extended Ottoman sovereignty southward, conquering Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He also gained recognition as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; he accepted the title of The Servant of The Two Holy Shrines.
Suleiman I was known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as the Lawgiver (in Turkish Kanuni; Arabic: القانونى, al‐Qānūnī), for his complete restructuring of the Ottoman legal system. The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent is known as the Ottoman golden age. The brilliance of Sultan's court and the might of his armies outshone those of England's Henry VIII, France's François I, and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. When Suleiman died in 1566, the Ottoman Empire was a world power. Most of the great cities of Islam (Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad) were under the sultan's crescent flag. After Suleiman, however, the empire's power gradually diminished due to poor leadership; many successive Sultans depended on their Grand Viziers to run the state affairs.
The Ottoman sultanate lasted for 624 years, but its last three centuries were marked by stagnation and eventual decline. By the 19th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. Reformist Sultans such as Selim III and Mahmud II succeeded in pushing Ottoman bureaucracy, society, and culture ahead but could not cure all of the empire's ills. Despite its collapse, the Ottoman empire left an indelible mark on Turkish culture and architecture. Ottoman culture has given the Turkish people a splendid legacy of art, architecture, and domestic refinement, as a visit to Istanbul's Topkapi Palace readily shows. The Republic of Turkey
Republic of Turkey
The Republic of Turkey was born after the disastrous World War I defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman war hero, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (who was later given the surname Atatürk by the Turkish Parliament with the Surname Law of 1934), sailed from Istanbul to Samsun in May 1919 to start the Turkish liberation movement; he organized the remnants of the Ottoman army in Anatolia into an effective fighting force and rallied the people to the nationalist cause. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged to revoke the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. By 1923, the nationalist government had driven out the invading armies; replaced the Treaty of Sèvres with the Treaty of Lausanne and abolished the Ottoman State; promulgated a republican constitution; and established Turkey's new capital in Ankara.
During a meeting in the early days of the new republic, Atatürk proclaimed:
To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.
To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.[80]—Mustafa Kemal
Chronology of Major Kemalist Reforms:
| November 1, 1922 | Abolition of the office of the Ottoman Sultan. |
| October 29, 1923 | Proclamation of the Republic of Turkey. |
| March 3, 1924 | Abolition of the office of the Caliphate held by the Ottoman Caliphate. |
| November 25, 1925 | Change of headgear and dress |
| November 30, 1925 | Closure of religious convents and dervish lodges. |
| March 1, 1926 | Introduction of the new penal law. |
| October 4, 1926 | Introduction of the new civil code. |
| November 1, 1928 | Adoption of the new Turkish alphabet |
| June 21, 1934 | Law on family names. |
| November 26, 1934 | Abolition of titles and by-names. |
| December 5, 1934 | Full political rights to vote and be elected women. |
| February 5, 1937 | The inclusion of the principle of laïcité in the Constitution. |
The Kemalist revolution aimed to create a Turkish nation-state (Turkish: ulus delete) on the territory of the former Ottoman Empire that had remained within the boundaries of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The meaning of Turkishness (Turkish: Türklük) implies a "citizenship" (of the Republic of Turkey) and "cultural identity" (speaking the Turkish language and growing up with the mainstream Turkish culture) rather than an ethnic-genetical background. The Turkish-speaking Muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire had been called "Turks" for centuries by the Europeans, and the Ottoman Empire was alternatively called "Turkey" or the "Turkish Empire" by its contemporaries. However, the Devşirme system and intermarriages with people in the former Ottoman territories of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa ensured a largely heterogeneous gene pool that makes up the fabric of the present-day Turkish nation. The Turks of today, in short, are the descendants of the Turkish-speaking Muslims in the former Ottoman Empire.
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code notoriously made it a legal offense to "insult Turkishness" before its amendment in 2008.
"Turkishness" (citizenship of Turkey) is the cornerstone of the Republic of Turkey, according to the Turkish Constitution. Kemalist ideology defines the "Turkish people" as "those who protect and promote the nation's moral, spiritual, cultural and humanistic values." Kemalist doctrine defines the "Turkish nation" as "a nation of Turkish people who always love and seek to exalt their family, country, and nation; who know their duties and responsibilities towards the democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law and founded on human rights, and on the tenets laid down in the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Turkey."
Turkey is the only secular republic, with most of the Muslim population (99%). Turkish law is not based on Islamic law but is a republic modeled after the Swiss and French legal systems.
Turkey is the only secular republic, with most of the Muslim population (99%). Turkish law is not based on Islamic law but is a republic modeled after the Swiss and French legal systems.
| “ | Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyene (How happy is he/she who calls himself/herself a Turk). | ” |
—Mustafa Kemal Atatük | ||
Geographic distribution
Turks primarily live in Turkey; however, when the borders of the Ottoman Empire became smaller after World War I and the new Turkish Republic was founded, many Turks chose to stay outside of Turkey's borders. Since then, some of them have migrated to Turkey, but there are still significant minorities of Turks living in different countries such as Northern Cyprus (Turkish Cypriots), Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, the Dobruja region of Romania, Pakistan, the Sandžak region of Serbia, Kosovo, Syria, India, China, Countries of Central Asia and Iraq.
The three most critical Turkish groups are the Anatolian Turks, the Rumelian Turks (primarily immigrants from former Ottoman territories in the Balkans and their descendants), and the Central Asian Turks (Turkic-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus region, southern Russia, and Central Asia and their descendants).
Turks in Turkey
People who identify themselves as ethnic Turks comprise 80-88% of Turkey's population. Regions of Turkeyİstanbul (+12 million), Ankara (+4.4 million), İzmir (+3.7 million), Bursa (+2.4 million), Adana (+2.0 million), and Konya (+1.9 million). The largest populations are
The country's biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic, and cultural heart. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Kahramanmaraş, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 70.5% of the Turkish population lives in urban centers. In all, 18 provinces have people that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 21 areas have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two regions have populations of less than 100,000.
Turks in Europe
As a legacy of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, there are significant Turkish minorities in Europe, such as the Turks in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia.
The post-World War II migration of Turks to Europe began with ‘guest workers’ who arrived under the terms of a Labour Export Agreement with Germany in October 1961, followed by a similar agreement with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria in 1964; France in 1965, and Sweden in 1967. As one Turkish observer noted, ‘it has now been over 40 years, and a Turk who went to Europe at the age of 25 has nearly reached the age of 70. His children have reached the age of 45, and their children have reached the age of 20.’
Turkish in Germany is often used by members of its community and people with a non-Turkish background. Especially in urban areas, it functions as a peer group vernacular for children and adolescents. Due to the high rate of Turks in Europe, the Turkish language is now home to one of the largest groups of pupils after German speakers. The largest non-European language (Turkish originated in Asia Minor) is spoken in the European Union.
Turk in America
The US Census reported in 2006 that approximately 170,000 Americans identify as having at least partial Turkish ancestry, while the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History states that there is an estimated 500,000 Turks living in the United States; the most prominent Turkish communities are found in Paterson, New York City (i.e., Brooklyn and Staten Island), Long Island, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Washington D.C. (mainly in Northern Virginia), Boston (esp. the suburb of Watertown), Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Since the 1970s, Turkish immigrants have risen to more than 4,000 per year.
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