Ottoman History

Ottoman History

The square Mosque with its single great dome and four slender minarets, dominates the skyline of the former Ottoman capital of Edirne. Sinan, the most famous of Ottoman architects in the 16th century, considered the complex, which includes madrasas (Islamic schools), a covered market, clock house, outer courtyard and library, to be his best work. The interior decoration using Iznik tiles from the peak period of their production testifies to an art form that remains unsurpassed in this material. The complex is considered to be the most harmonious expression ever achieved of the Ottoman külliye, a group of buildings constructed around a mosque and managed as a single institution.

Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis

The Art of the Ottomans after 1600 and architecture remained traditional. The court scriptorium continued to produce its established series of texts—biographies, travel accounts, genealogies, and geographies—many of which were illustrated or illuminated. The Mosque of Ahmed I in Istanbul (1609–16), also known as the “Blue Mosque” because of the interior tile scheme, continues in the vocabulary of the great architect Sinan (1539–1588).

Later in the century, a weakening Ottoman economy began to affect the arts. An influx of gold and silver from the New World caused inflation and the treasury shrunk without military victories and booty to refill the coffers. The sultans were forced to reduce the number of artists they employed in the nakkaşhane (royal scriptorium) to ten from the high of over 120 in the time of Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), and for many years did not increase the set prices they paid for ceramics, paintings, and carpets.

The reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I and his love life were the inspirations for the Turkish TV soap opera Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Magnificent Century), which ran for four seasons starting in 2011, and came to a close this year. Hundreds of millions of viewers watched the show, not only in Turkey but also in Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, China and other countries, including several in the Arab world (where it was called The Sultan’s Harem and dubbed in Arabic). This month it began airing in the United States on MundoFox, dubbed in Spanish.
The show begins with Prince Suleiman’s ascension to the throne as sultan. This is the beginning of his reign, and also the beginning of many complicated palace intrigues that would end with him ordering the killing of his own son. Many of the dramas of his life as sultan are planned carefully by the feisty Ukrainian slave Alexandra with whom he falls in love and later marries.

France is an important trade and economic partner as well as one of the leading allies of Turkey, based on our long-standing relationship and hosting a Turkish community of more than 650 thousand.

Diplomatic relations between Turkey and France date back to 1483, when Sultan Bayezid II. sent an envoy of Greek origin from Limni island to Louis the XIth in order to get information about his brother Cem Sultan in France. Jean de la Forest, the first French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, took office in 1535. With the capitulations in 1535, France became the most privileged state at the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire appointed its first ambassador Yirmisekiz Mehmet Çelebi to France in 1721.

The Treaty of Ankara, signed on 20 October 1921, during the Turkish War of Independence, is the basis for Turkey-France bilateral relations.

By the 16th century, the vast empire of the Ottomans had reached the top of its power. The lands under Ottoman rule stretched from the heart of Central Europe to the deserts of Arabia. In nearly every respect, the Ottoman Empire was strong and well organized. As such, it comes as no surprise that the people under Ottoman rule were organized in a neat power stricter as well. From the royal Sultan, to the villagers in the Rayyah class, the people of the Empire each had a unique position in Ottoman society.

At the very top of the pyramidal societal structure were the Sultan, absolute commander of all, and executor of decisions concerning politics and state wealth. A step below the Sultan were a small group of wealthy, higher leaders, who were given a special status because they were basically 1` the Sultan’s “slaves”.

Russia–Turkey relations (Russian: Российско–турецкие отношения, Turkish: Rusya–Türkiye ilişkileri) is the bilateral relationshipbetween the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey and their predecessor states.

Abdülhamid I, Abdul Hamid I or Abd Al-Hamid I (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد اول‎, `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i evvel; Turkish: Birinci Abdülhamit; 20 March 1725 – 7 April 1789)[1] was the 27th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning over the Ottoman Empire from 1774 to 1789.

Birth and early life
He was born in Constantinople, a younger son of Sultan Ahmed III(reigned 1703–1730) by his consort Rabia Şermi Sultan. Ahmed III abdicated in favor of his nephew Mahmud I, who was succeeded by his brother Osman III, and Osman by Ahmed's elder son Mustafa III.

As a potential heir to the throne, Abdül Hamid was imprisoned in comfort by his cousins and older brother, as was customary. This lasted until 1767. During this period, he received his early education from his mother Rabia Şermi, who taught him history and calligraphy.
When his brother Mustafa III died, Abdül Hamid succeeded him on 21 January 1774.
Reign

The Ottomans inherited a rich mixture of political traditions from vastly disparate ethnic groups: Turks, Persians, Mongols, Mesopotamian and, of course, Islam. The Ottoman state, like the Turkish, Mongol, and Mesopotamian states rested on a principle of absolute authority in the monarch. The nature of Ottoman autocracy, however, is greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted in the West, particularly in world history textbooks.

The grand tradition of Ottoman architecture, established in the 16th century, was derived from two main sources. One was the rather complex development of new architectural forms that occurred all over Anatolia, especially at Manisa, Iznik, Bursa, and Selçuk in the 14th and early 15th centuries. In addition to the usual mosques, mausoleums, and madrasahs, a number of buildings called tekke s were constructed to house dervishes (members of mystical fraternities) and other holy men who lived communally. The tekke (or zeviye) was often joined to a mosque or mausoleum. The entire complex was then called a külliye. All these buildings continued to develop the domed, central-plan structure, constructed by the Seljuqs in Anatolia. The other source of Ottoman architecture is Christian art.

Relations between Turkey and Russia have been fraught ever since the Turkish air force downed a Russian bomber that briefly violated its air space in November. But the tensions between the two countries had been escalating for months before that, first over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and then over Syria. As a result, in the span of two years, the two countries have largely undone the entente they had built over the past 15.

Built on economic cooperation, shared discomfort with a Western-dominated international order, and the personal chemistry of their semi-autocratic leaders, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Russo-Turkish entente was, in many ways, a historical anomaly. The drivers of the latest confrontation are far deeper than the loss of a single warplane, and likely herald a return to the geopolitical rivalry that has been the norm for Russo-Turkish relations throughout history.

In this article relationships of Turkey and Germany will be researched from historical, cultural and social aspects. We will also analyze the communication and interaction aspects of these two cultures having different cultures.

When the we examine the relations between Germany and Turkey, we ca observe that the fundaments of the relations between two countries in fact have been laid centuries before and keeps continuing until today. It is observed that the relations between Germany and Turkey have started in political means back during the years when Ottomans have reached out to Europe. In 16th and 17th centuries when the Ottoman have been most powerful and most wide spread over Europe, in addition to the fact that there has not been a border neighborhood between two countries, it is known that in the unification of Europe against Ottoman, Political Societies of Germany have taken their place among such European Countries with caution and presented an amicable approach.

A long history of tension underlies Turkey's downing of Russian jet
The downing of an SU-24 jet by Turkey will go down as the first time since the start of the Cold War that a Nato member has shot down a Russian military aircraft. Yet it is but the latest twist in centuries of tangled, and frequently tense, relations between two countries which geography, history and religion have made rivals.

That rivalry took concrete shape from the 16th century with the emergence of two great empires. Moscow saw itself as the third Rome, bulwark of Eastern Christianity after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans in turn were expanding their own empire into the Middle East and the Balkans, populated by Orthodox Slavs of whom Orthodox Russia was a protector.