{"id":1274,"date":"2013-05-26T08:21:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T13:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=1274"},"modified":"2025-06-04T19:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T00:45:03","slug":"its-istanbul-not-constantinople","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2013\/05\/26\/its-istanbul-not-constantinople\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Istanbul not Constantinople"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you who have followed my blogs over the years know how fond I am of noting that Xi\u2019an in China was the capital for over 1000 years, most recently 1000 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0Imagine my joy in being in Istanbul, which for over 1000 years was the new \u201cRome\u201d (under the name Constantinople), and for the next\u00a0\u00a0nearly 500 years, as Istanbul, was home to the \u201cScourge of Europe.” It\u2019s pretty obvious that whoever wrote the song which gave the title to this blog entry was drawing on the creation of the Turkish Republic from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.\u00a0\u00a0All three parts of this brief history are apparent in this city of 15 million that spans two continents (East of the Bosphorus is Asia Minor, which as I told a student is like Asia Major, but with 4 fewer classes; that\u2019s an IWU joke).<\/p>\n

The efforts of Kemal Ataturk, who fought to reverse the Allied partition of Turkey after World War I, are obvious in his efforts to secularize a Muslim state.\u00a0\u00a0He abolished the Caliphate when the last religious leader of the Muslim world died in the early 1920s, and as we walked the city today, while some were in traditional garb, most Turks wore more European dress; also, it was Sunday, the day of rest in Turkey, but not much of the Muslim world.\u00a0\u00a0Many of the churches, which Mehmet the Conqueror (the 21 year old Sultan who led the troops that captured Constantinople in May 1453) turned into mosques (including Hagia Sophia, which we\u2019ll see in the next few days) became museums.\u00a0\u00a0And people smoke and drink (though the pastry shops far outnumber the bars), which again is not common in the Middle East.\u00a0\u00a0Turkey is a secular Muslim country.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Byzantine period lasted over 1000 years, from Constantine, the Roman Emperor who founded it early in the 4th<\/sup> century, through 1453, when Constantine XI Palaeologus died fighting the Turks.\u00a0\u00a0The remains abound, and one of the purposes of my aftertour is to visit the Byzantine remains.\u00a0\u00a0One of them is obvious from the ride in from the airport\u2014much of the massive fortification is still present.\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, the conquest of the city required a major siege, some subterfuge (the Byzantines chained the river to prevent the Ottoman navy from joining the battle; Mehmet hauled the ships overland and bypassed the chains); and some strange behavior (a Christian cannonier offered his services in making a huge cannon to the Byzantines).<\/p>\n

Broke\u2014partly because\u00a0\u00a0of the fourth crusade, when the overzealous crusaders sacked and occupied Constantinople\u2014the source of much of Venice\u2019s wealth, including the famous horses in St. Mark\u2019s,\u00a0 Byzantium never recovered. By 1453, the Eastern Roman Empire had pretty much been reduced to the city of Constantinople and its environs. Rejected by the Byzantines, the Christian cannon builder offered his services to Mehmet, who thus acquired the firepower needed to breach the walls.<\/p>\n

Many of the churches and mosaics remain from the Byzantine period, and I am especially eager to see the Chora Church and the Archeological museum (the Hittites were here, too), and the underground cistern system.\u00a0\u00a0The old aqueduct still stands\u2014a testimony to Roman engineering.\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, one of the major accomplishments of the Byzantine Empire was in keeping the barbarians out of Europe, with the exception of the Mongols; Greek scholars also kept alive Greco-Roman philosophy and literature at a time when Europe was in the Dark Ages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When the Turks actually bore down on Constantinople, the Emperor offered to convert to Catholicism if the European countries would send troops.\u00a0 Perhaps if there\u2019d been an EU in 1450, it\u2019d still be Constantinople!\u00a0\u00a0I saw another reminder of the cosmopolitan nature of the city under the Byzantines\u2014the Galata Tower and the Yoros Castle (at the end of the Bosporus\u2014more later on that) which were defended by the Venetians and Genoans who lived in the city, and whose trade was so important to the Byzantines and to the West.\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, Constantinople at one time was one of the termini of the Silk Road to China.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Entrnce to the Black Sea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The role of the Osman family (Ottoman) is the most pronounced in terms of tourist sites, and the history and culture of contemporary Turkey.\u00a0\u00a0At varying times cosmopolitan (the Ottomans welcomed Jews driven from\"\" Spain, and the physicians to the Sultans were usually Jewish), it\u2019s sometimes difficult to remember how rich the country was\u2014though it is easily remembered how powerful it was.\u00a0\u00a0Suleyman\u2019s defeat at the gates of Vienna marked the westward limits of Turkish conquests, but I\u2019ve seen battlefields in Poland and Russia, and indications of the occupation of the Balkans, Greece, and Hungary that are neither forgotten nor forgiven.\u00a0\u00a0We will be seeing the Topkapi Palace tomorrow, which should give our students some insight into what being rich meant in the 16th<\/sup>\u00a0and 17th<\/sup>\u00a0centuries. It helped Professor Pana and I to understand it when we went to a \u201ctraditional restaurant\u201d whose recipes were based on the cookbook of Mehmet II.\u00a0\u00a0As we sat in the shadow of Hagia Sophia, we ate like a king for a night.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019ve set up a \u201cfarewell dinner\u201d in a similar restaurant tomorrow, near the Chora Church with its world famous mosaics.<\/p>\n

We got a look at the city and the Bosporus on a tour today, a four hour ferry \"\"ride to the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

The importance of\u00a0Constantinople\/Istanbul, economically, is that it links the Russian breadbasket and the Mediterranean worlds.\u00a0\u00a0The progression of the summer palaces north of the city\u2014built by Sultans and grand viziers, mostly\u2014showed the increasing wealth of the country.\u00a0\u00a0The forts along the way revealed the importance to Turkey (and the Ottomans and the Byzantines) of guarding this \u201ccompetitive advantage.\u201d Russia\u2019s quest for open ports to the south framed much of Russian history, certainly from Catherine the Great (who captured the Crimea from Muslims, thereby depriving the Ottoman armies of the best cavalry in the world) to Putin today.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Russia (and the EU), Putin, when asked whether Russia would join the EU, reputedly said, \u201cThe EU should join us.\u201d\u00a0 We hope to get more information on Turkey tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you who have followed my blogs over the years know how fond I am of noting that Xi\u2019an in China was the capital for over 1000 years, most recently 1000 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0Imagine my joy in being in Istanbul, which for over 1000 years was the new \u201cRome\u201d (under the name Constantinople), and for … Continue reading “It\u2019s Istanbul not Constantinople”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-term-2013"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9473,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions\/9473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}