Capital of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. Ottoman Empire

About US payments of tribute to the Turks
Akhmad Salpagarov January 2016

The victory of the United States of America over the British Empire ended the war between them in 1783. The USA achieved full recognition of its independence. But the future world power began its independent path of development by paying tribute to the Muslim Turks. This fact of world and Turkic history is practically unknown to the Russian-speaking reader. And it is worth talking about it at least briefly.

Beglerbeks and deys of Algeria - from Hayreddin Barbaros to Hasan Pasha

Territory of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th-18th centuries with dates of annexation.

Ottoman capture of American ships in the Mediterranean

Recognition of US weakness and agreement with the Algerian vilayat

US President George Washington had to ask the Algerian vilayat for a truce and sign an agreement with its representative.

Thus, according to the agreement of (21 Safar al-Khair 1210 AH) respectively 09/05/1795, composed of several articles in Turkish, America signed the following:

« The United States will immediately pay the Algerian Vilayat of the Ottoman Caliphate the amount of 642 thousand gold dollars,and will also pay 12 thousand Ottoman gold liras annually in exchange for the release of American prisoners in Algeria and non-aggression of the Algerian vilayat on American ships, neither in the Atlantic Ocean nor in the White Sea ».

The Turkic name for the Mediterranean Sea is “Ak Tengiz (Ak deniz)”, which is why the contract contains a translation from Turkic - White Sea. The treaty was signed and ratified by George Washington and Hasan Pasha, the beglerbek and daya of the Algerian vilayat. Here beglerbek or beylerbey is an Ottoman and Golden Horde title meaning “prince of princes.” Materials on American-Ottoman relations, incl. The agreement with the Algerian Vilayat exists in the American state archive “National Archives of the United States” and translated into English “Hunter mi l er Treaties of the United States (276-317. 1. 1939: Washington)”.

This is the only agreement that America, throughout its history, has signed in a language other than its own, as well as the only agreement in which it has agreed and committed itself to paying an annual tax, which is essentially a tribute to a foreign country for sailing on international seas.
Even more interesting is the content of Article 11 of the treaty. I quote the Turkish text "ABD yönetimi hiçbir anlamda Hıristiyan dini üzerine kurulmuş olmadığından – ki hükümet kendi içinde hiçbir şekilde Müslüman kanunlarına, dinine ve düzenine düşmanlık beslemez – ve ı geçen Devletler hiçbir zaman bir İslam devleti ile bir savaş ve husumet halinde bulunmadıklarından, ilân ederler ki dinî görüşler hiçbir zaman iki ülke arasında hüküm süren uyumun bozulmasına meydan vermeyecektir"
( )
“The US government, although formed on a Christian understanding, on its own initiative will not show hostility towards Muslim laws, religion and order, will never fight with the Islamic State and show hostility towards it, the parties declare that religious opinions will not be found a place to disturb the harmony between them."

• However, judging by this article of the treaty and taking into account the seizure of an American ship in Kadish off the coast of Lebanon in the very heart of Ottoman possessions, it can be concluded that the seizures of ships and the subsequent treaty were of a protective and defensive nature on the part of the Ottomans against uninvited intruders into their territorial waters guests.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson came to power in the United States, and immediately after his inauguration, another vilayat, the vilayat of Libya, led by Yusuf Karamanly (Tripoli Pasha) demanded 225 thousand dollars. Jefferson finally had the chance to refuse these demands, which immediately led to a declaration of war. There was no formal exchange of declarations; Karamanly declared war in the traditional way - he cut down the flagpole with the American flag at the embassy. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia soon joined their ally. The American merchant fleet in the Mediterranean was under threat of attack by the Algerian vilayat and its allies and the capture of American ships.

The greatly deteriorated situation: the economy exhausted by a long blockade and raids, the immediate danger looming over Tripoli after the capture of Derna, and the claims to the throne of the previously deposed Hamet Karamanli forced the Pasha of Tripoli Yusuf Karamanli to sign a treaty on the cessation of hostilities on June 10, 1805. The First Barbary War ended here, although the US Senate approved the treaty only in 1806.....

However, the main problem - piracy - remained unresolved. Already in 1807, Algeria resumed attacks on US merchant ships and taking American citizens hostage. The rapidly escalating international situation did not allow us to respond to the provocations.
It was only in 1815, during the Second Barbary War, that this problem was solved and attacks on American ships stopped. In 1830 The French conquest of Algeria began. The Ottoman Empire was weakening and could not prevent the growing European empires. Libya was lost to the Ottomans in 1911.

But the weakening Ottoman Empire, not even in its own person, but in the person of its provinces-wilayats of Algeria and Libya, exacted a tax (tribute) from the future hegemon of world history from the United States of America for sailing their ships in the Mediterranean Sea for 17 years, from 1795 to 1812.

A few additional facts

about the connections of the Alan-Karachaybalkars with the Mediterranean

1. In the Middle Ages, the Ottoman army included many people from the territory of modern Karachay and Balkaria. American professor Kennedy. He claims to have found documents in Spain that show Karachays from the Ottoman army were captured by the Spanish in the 15th century, and from there immigrated to the United States with Columbus's crew and became a major component of the American Melungeon ethnic group. Modern Melungeons consider themselves descended from the Karachais and study Karachay-Balkar dances. At the beginning of the article, I reported that Arouj Barbarossa conquered Algeria from the Spaniards.

Flag of Hayreddin Barbarossa (16th century)
3. On the flag of the main pirate of the Mediterranean, who later became the admiral of the Ottoman fleet, Hayredin Barbarossa, a hexagonal star is drawn. Karachaybalkars and noble Russian Ukrainian, Polish noble families used this symbol along with the crescent. The Karachaybalkars engrave this ancient Turkic symbol on their gravestones, and the noble families of Eastern Europe on their coats of arms.

4. In Italy, the genera Caraccioli and Caracciolo have been known since the 15th centuries. Caraccioli, Caracciolo, Сaracioli, Caraciolo, which come from the geographical self-name “Karachaily”. These were Alan-Karachais who fled after Tamerlane’s destruction of Alania in 1395-1396. It was the name Caraccioli that the Italian missionary A. Lamberti named the Karachais in his book “Description of Colchis and Mingrelia” at the beginning of the 16th century.
3. And finally, in the 13th-16th centuries, Egypt was ruled by the Mamluk Turks. And after the loss of power, they remained an influential force in Egypt until the 19th century. The bulk of the Mamluks, incl. Mamluk-Circassians were of Kipchak origin, originally from southern regions modern Russia.

Socio-economic and political situation in the second half of the 17th century
At the beginning of modern times, the Ottoman Empire had already begun to lose its former power. At the end of the 16th century, a period of stagnation began, since most of the reigning sultans were insolvent as rulers. During the time of Sultan Ibrahim (1640-1648), corruption reached unprecedented proportions, and many capable statesmen were executed. Sultan Mehmet IV (1648-1687), who was enthroned at the age of seven, entrusted all affairs to the vizier. Vali, treasury and other officials who received high positions through patronage or through bribes robbed the people.
The military system weakened during this period. Heavy taxes, including ashar, ruined the people. The army began to lose its former strength. The Janissaries started families, engaged in trade, got involved in politics and even rebelled in order to replace the Sultan on the throne. For example, in 1651, the commander of one of the Janissary corps, Bektaş Agha, rebelled in order to bring Mehmet IV’s brother, Prince Suleiman, to power, but Mehmet IV’s supporters suppressed this rebellion. In 1656, a rebellion broke out again and Mehmet IV was even forced to partially fulfill the demands of the Janissaries.
The fleet was not in better condition. Since the conquest of the island of Crete, the fleet was completely forgotten. Long wars, irregularities in tax collection, and rising costs of maintaining the courtyard led the state treasury to a deplorable state.
Back in 1535, a “Capitulation” was concluded with France, giving the French tax benefits and customs discounts.
The shift in world trade routes also had a negative impact on the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire.
At the instigation of Austria, Venice, the Vatican and Russia, Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians regularly rebelled, and groups of robber Haiduks arose. In such a difficult situation, 75-year-old vizier Koprulu Mehmet Pasha was tasked with leading the country out of the crisis. He suppressed the uprisings, again conducted a census of the owners of timars - conditional land grants, at their expense increased the number of feudal militias, filled the treasury, income from waqf lands and part of the income from the Sultan's lands he transferred to the benefit of the state. These measures made it possible to strengthen the army and navy.
Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 18th century
In 1703, as a result of an uprising, Ahmet III (1703-1730) came to power, who set himself the goal of returning the territories of the Ottoman Empire lost in the 17th century and carrying out new reforms. Unlike the reforms of the 17th century, the transformations of the early 18th century were aimed not at strengthening existing orders, but at updating social life.
These reforms are associated with the name of the chief vizier Ibrahim Pasha. Recognizing the military superiority of the European powers, Ibrahim Pasha tried not to spoil relations with Russia and Austria until a European-type army was created. In 1727, the first printing house was opened, printing books in Turkish.
Resistance from the clergy and Janissaries made the reforms short-lived. The appointment of Ibrahim Pasha to positions of his people, the increase in taxes on trade and the fact that in 1730 Nadir Khan Afshar took Tabriz from the Ottomans overflowed the patience of the residents of Istanbul. Military defeats, deteriorating economic conditions, and bribery led to an uprising in Istanbul in September 1730 under the leadership of the Janissary Patron Khalil.
Ibrahim Pasha was killed. Ahmet III abdicated in favor of his nephew Mahmud I, new taxes were abolished. But by order of Mahmud I, Patron Khalil was executed, and in 1731 the uprising was suppressed.
Although there was a relative improvement in economic life, Turkey was clearly lagging behind European countries. The goods of artisans could not withstand competition with foreign ones.
In 1740, under the Treaty of Capitulation with France, new trade concessions were made to the French, and a 10% customs duty was adopted. If previously such an agreement applied only to the reign of the Sultan who concluded it, now the agreement had an unlimited validity period. Subsequently, preferential rights were given to merchants of England and Holland.
Ottoman-Austrian wars
Austria's attempt to rule alone in Hungary led in 1664 to a war with Turkey (1664-1699). Chief Vizier Fazil Ahmed Pasha moved troops into Hungary and captured the fortified fortress of Uyar. Austria requested help from the Vatican and European countries. France sent 6 thousand soldiers to Austria. The Austrian army was defeated, but at the Rab River near Saint-Gothard the Austrians took revenge. By agreement between the Ottoman Empire and Austria, the Austrian fortresses conquered by the Turks were returned.
A few years later, the Ottomans started a war with Poland over spheres of influence in Ukraine and won. The Poles recognized the Ottomans' right to rule Ukraine.
In 1681, war with Austria began again. The Emperor of Austria, himself a Catholic, wanted to forcibly convert Protestant Hungarians to the Catholic faith. In response, the Hungarians, led by Tekeli Imre, rebelled and turned to Turkey for help. In 1683, the army of Kara Mustafa Pasha besieged Vienna.
In 1684, Austria, Poland, Venice and Malta created the "Holy League". In 1686, Russia joined this League, but France did not.
In 1686, the troops of the Holy League captured Budapest. In 1687, Ottoman troops under the command of Suleiman Pasha near Mohacs were defeated. After this defeat, the Janissaries rebelled and returned to Istanbul. Sultan Mehmet IV was overthrown and Suleiman II took the throne. Koprulu Mehmet Pasha's son, Koprulu Fazil Mustafa Pasha, was appointed chief vizier. He carried out reforms and improved the financial situation of the country. Ottoman troops retook Belgrade and pushed the Austrians north of the Danube. But in 1691, in the battle near the town of Salakalin, the Turks were defeated and retreated to Belgrade.
In 1695, Sultan Mustafa II ascended the throne and organized three campaigns against Austria. The first two were successful, but in the third (1697) the Turks lost. In 1699, in the village of Karlovitsy, Turkey signed agreements separately with Austria, Venice and Poland for a period of 25 years, and with Russia for three years. By agreement with Austria, all of Hungary, as well as part of Croatia, passed to Austria. By agreement with Poland, the Podolsk region and Ukraine were given to Poland. Poland's annual tribute to the Crimean khans was cancelled. By agreement with Venice, the Morea peninsula and the shores of Dalmatia were transferred to Venice. Under the Karlowitz Agreements, the Ottoman Empire lost large territories for the first time.
In 1715, finding the international situation favorable, Türkiye began a war with Venice over the Morea and Dalmatia. Damad Ali Pasha's troops captured Morea and Crete. The Austrian government was concerned about the successes of the Turks, and in 1716 a new war began. The Austrians entered Belgrade. Damad Ali Pasha died. Through the mediation of England and France, the Požarevac Treaty of 1718 was signed. Under the terms of the treaty, the northern regions of Serbia and Bosnia passed to Austria, but the Morea remained in the Ottoman Empire.
Wanting to capture new territories, all of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria began an unsuccessful war with the Ottomans in 1735-1739. In 1739, the Peace of Belgrade was concluded between the two empires, according to which Austria was forced to return the northern parts of Serbia and Bosnia, as well as the city of Belgrade. Because France supported the Ottomans, the capitulation privileges given to it were further expanded in 1740.
Russian-Ottoman wars.
Russian-Ottoman wars in the 30s of the 18th century
In 1736, Russia invaded Crimea, citing that the Crimean Khanate posed a threat to Russia's southern borders and that Turkey was providing assistance to the Khanate. Russia captured the capital of the Khanate - Bakhchisarai. Subsequently, Russia returned Bakhchisarai, but retained Ochakovo, Azov, and Kinburn.
Russia's ally Austria lost in the war of 1735-1739, Russia's relations with Sweden worsened. This forced Russia to enter into negotiations with the Ottoman Empire. According to the peace treaty of 1739, concluded in Belgrade, only the Azov fortress remained with Russia. Russian ships were prohibited from sailing in the Azov and Black Seas. In trade transportation, only Turkish ships should be used. Russia received the right to open an embassy in Istanbul.
Russia's attempts to seize the Black Sea coast and annex part of the Polish lands again led to a clash with the Ottoman Empire. In 1768, the Sultan demanded from the Russian ambassador to withdraw troops from Poland, but was refused. With support from Austria and France, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia in 1768. England was also on Turkey's side. Among the causes of the war were the reprisal of Russian troops against the Turkish population of one of the Crimean villages, and the subversive activities carried out by the Russians among the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire.
The Russian-Turkish War of 1768-1774 unfolded on three fronts - the Danube, Crimean and South Caucasus. Despite the fact that Turkish troops advanced deep into Russia, the 1769 campaign was unsuccessful. The main military actions took place in 1770-1771. Commander-in-Chief of the Russian troops P.A. In the summer of 1770, Rumyantsev achieved victory in the battle of the Larga and Cahul rivers and reached the right bank of the Danube, capturing Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachia. In June 1770, the Russian fleet won a victory in Chesme Bay.
Austria did not want Russia to strengthen in the Balkans. Therefore, threats from European countries and the uprising of E. Pugachev forced Russia to enter into negotiations. In 1774, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Turkey in the Bulgarian village of Kuchuk-Kainardzhi. The territories between the Bug and the Dnieper, the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikala in the Crimea, as well as the lands up to the Kuban went to Russia. The Crimean Khanate emerged from Turkey's vassalage and became independent. Russia received the right to strengthen Azov. Russian merchant ships received the right of free passage through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. For the first time, Russian ships received the right to sail in the Black Sea. The Ottomans were forced to pay reparations in the amount of 4.5 million rubles. Wallachia and Moldova came under the “protection” of Russia. The Ottomans were obliged to comply with the conditions (conditions) for governing these principalities.
Russian conquest of the Crimean Khanate
Not limiting itself to the results of the war of 1768-1774, Russia in the second half of the 70s of the 18th century put forward a plan developed by Prince Potemkin, called the “Greek Project”, according to which the Ottoman Empire was expelled from its European possessions, the Greek Empire and the Danube principalities of Wallachia and Moldova were recreated turned into “Dacia”, independent from Ottoman Turkey.
The Kuchuk-Kainardzhinsky peace greatly facilitated Russia's seizure of the Crimean Khanate, which had weakened and was torn apart by internal strife. Now Ottoman Türkiye could no longer provide him with military assistance. In 1779, Russia removed all Christian merchants and artisans from Crimea, dealing a crushing blow to the socio-economic development of the Khanate.
Taking advantage of the difficult situation of the Crimean Khanate, Russia annexed its lands in 1783, giving them a new name - Taurida. The fertile Black Sea steppes also fell into Russian hands, becoming "Novorossiya". To strengthen Russian rule on the shores of the Black Sea, the cities of Kherson, Nikolaev, and Sevastopol were built, and the Black Sea Fleet was created.
Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1791
The annexation of Crimea to Russia became the reason for a new war with Turkey. Austria became an ally of Russia in exchange for its consent to the first partition of Poland. Türkiye hoped for the support of Prussia, Holland and England and hoped that Sweden and Poland would also declare war on Russia. But in vain. Incited by France and other European countries, Turkey sent Russia an ultimatum of 7 demands in July 1787. Having received no response, the Ottoman government declared war in August 1787. The war began with an attempt to take the Kinburn fortress, but it was unsuccessful for the Turks. The garrison under the command of A.V. Suvorov repelled the landing attack. In 1788, Russian troops took Ochakov. In 1789, Austria also entered the war against the Ottoman Empire. Although Austria lost the Battle of Banat, Russian troops, with the help of the Austrians, defeated the Ottomans in the battles of Focsani and Rymnik. Austria also captured Belgrade, but, having concluded a separate peace with Turkey, withdrew from the war. Russia continued the war, and in 1790 Suvorov's troops took the Izmail fortress. In this battle, commander M.I. Kutuzov was wounded and lost an eye.
Left without an ally, Russia made peace with Sweden, and in 1791, under pressure from Western countries, made peace with Turkey in Iasi. According to the terms of peace:
Russia received the lands between the Southern Bug and the Dniester.
The Dniester River became the border between Russia and Turkey.
All Black Sea lands from the Dniester to the Crimea passed to Russia.
The Turks renounced their claims to Crimea and recognized it as belonging to Russia.
Russia has finally established itself on the Black Sea. Turkey's position in the Balkans and the Caucasus has weakened.
"Eastern Question"
The main reason for the defeat of the Ottomans in the wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was economic backwardness. During this period, the separatism of large feudal lords intensified. In the Bulgarian city of Vidin, Osman Pazvand oglu even minted coins with his name. European states, taking advantage of the crisis situation in the Ottoman Empire, wanted to dismember its territory. Russian Empress Catherine II initiated a policy called the “Eastern Question.” In reality, this was part of the unrealized “Greek Project”. The "Eastern Question" included:
liberation of the Christian peoples of the Balkans from Ottoman rule;
achieve their autonomy or independence through uprisings;
take Istanbul from the Turks;
carry out reforms in favor of Christian minorities living in different parts of the Ottoman Empire;
crush Anatolia and expel the Turks from there.
Reforms of Sultan Selim III
At the end of the 18th century, Sultan Selim III (1789-1807) began reforms to bring the country out of the crisis. Reformers saw the reasons for the defeats in the disorganization of the army. Therefore, the issue of army formation was at the center of the reforms. Before the reform, the basis of the army was the feudal cavalry and the Janissaries. The Janissaries did not obey any laws or regulations. Sultan Selim III's reforms are known as Nizam-i-Jadid (i.e. new order), which included 72 articles. In 1791, Selim III gave instructions to create an army on a European model. In 1792-1793 they actively began to implement reforms. According to the firman of Selim III: 1) those who did not fulfill their military duty were deprived of timars and ziamets; 2) a military corps was created according to the European model; 3) to ensure financing of reforms, a special cash fund was established and the collection of some taxes was transferred to this cash office. The reforms were carried out under the leadership of the Swedish and French military. The fleet was created anew. To keep abreast of European affairs, embassies were opened in London, Paris, and Vienna. The military engineering school, opened under Mahmud I, expanded significantly. But the conservatives and the Janissaries resisted the implementation of reforms, and Selim III showed indecisiveness. The main reason for the failure of Selim III's reforms was that, while trying to create an army on the model of the bourgeois states of Europe, he did not affect the feudal foundations of the Ottoman Empire. A progressive feature of the reforms was their orientation against the military-feudal system.
The growing rivalry between England and France at the end of the 18th century caused a deterioration in international relations. Initially, hostile relations developed between Napoleon I and Selim III. When Napoleon I marched into Egypt in 1798, Türkiye declared war on France. Failures in Egypt and Syria forced Napoleon I to return to France. The aggressive policy of Napoleon I brought Russia and Turkey closer together. In January 1799, an agreement on an alliance between Russia and Turkey against France was signed in Istanbul. Türkiye concluded the same agreement with England. Türkiye joined the anti-French coalition.
Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 19th century
At the beginning of the 19th century, demand for Turkish agricultural products increased in Europe, but the country's economy was in crisis. Conservatives, with the support of the Janissaries, continued to slow down reforms. When Selim III tried to send some of the Janissaries to the front, they rebelled in 1805. Selim III, showing weakness, canceled his firman and dissolved the newly formed corps. The rebels deposed Selim III and installed Mustafa IV on the throne.
In such a difficult situation, Napoleonic wars of conquest brought Russia and Turkey closer together, who entered into an agreement in 1805, and Russian warships received the right of passage through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. However, the activation of the Russians in Wallachia and Moldova, and the British in Egypt and Syria led to the fact that after the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Selim III became closer to France. The invasion of Wallachia and Moldova by Russian troops in 1806 caused Turkey to declare war on Russia. Turkey's attempt to return Crimea with the help of France failed, and on May 16, 1812, the Peace of Bucharest was concluded, under the terms of which: 1) Bessarabia passed to Russia; 2) the right of Russian ships to sail along the Danube was confirmed; 3) Moldova and Wallachia remained with Turkey, and Serbia received the right of self-government.
In 1821, the Greeks launched an anti-Turkish uprising in Morea. Russia, England and France took advantage of this and demanded autonomy for Greece. Having been refused, the fleets of England and France defeated the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Navarino in October 1827. Diplomatic relations with England and France were interrupted. And in 1828 a new war with Russia began. The Russians captured Edirne. This war ended on September 2, 1829 with the conclusion of peace in Edirne, under the terms of which: 1) Greece gained independence; 2) the islands in the Danube delta went to Russia; 3) Wallachia, Moldova and Serbia received internal autonomy; 4) a number of fortresses in Anatolia were reassigned to Russia; 5) Russian merchant ships received the right of passage through the straits.
The attempt by the Egyptian governor Muhammadali in 1831 to turn Egypt into an independent state became a cause for conflict. In December 1832, the Turks lost in a battle near Konya. On May 9, 1833, a treaty was concluded between the Ottomans and Egypt in Kütahya. Under its terms, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Cilicia came under the rule of Muhammad.
Unexpectedly, Russia stood up for Turkey. In July 1833, an agreement on military cooperation for a period of 8 years was concluded between Turkey and Russia in Unkar-Iskelesi.
In 1838, a new conflict occurred between Turkey and Egypt. In 1839, the Turks lost again at the Battle of Nisib. This conflict ended with the Treaty of London in 1840. The treaty was more in line with the interests of England, Russia, Austria and Prussia and prohibited warships of all countries from entering the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Muhammadali remained only the hereditary ruler of Egypt and paid tribute to the Ottomans. England won more than anyone else in this conflict. She gained the opportunity to influence Turkish politics.
The progressive forces of Turkey were aware of the country's backwardness, and therefore fought for reforms. In this way they tried to stop European interference in Turkey's internal affairs and get out of the crisis. A commission led by Mustafa Rashid Pasha prepared the "Hatti Sherif Gülhane" (great firman) of Sultan Abdülmecid, which was promulgated in November 1839 at the Gülhane Palace. The firman provided for: 1) the safety of all citizens; 2) fair assignment of taxes; 3) abolition of the tax farming system; 4) reduction of military service; 5) management of regions based on new laws; 6) equality of all citizens of the country, regardless of religion. Following the Gülhanı firman, other reforms were carried out, which in the history of Turkey were called “Tanzimatihairiye” (useful reforms). In 1840, a firman was published on the rules for collecting taxes, and in 1843 on reorganization in the army. The length of military service was reduced from 15 years to 5 years. These reforms were bourgeois in nature.
Türkiye in the second half of the 19th century
On February 18, 1856, the Sultan issued a firman (“Hatti-humayun”), according to which: 1) non-Muslims were given rights on an equal basis with Muslims; 2) the safety of all citizens was guaranteed, regardless of religion; 3) all concessions were subject to a single tax. Thus began the second stage of the Tanzimat (1856-1870). And these reforms did not bring tangible benefits. Those who could not stand the hard life and decided to overthrow the Sultan were put in Gyulali prison. Therefore, the events of 1859 were called “Operation Gyulali.”
In the 19th century, there were intellectuals in Turkey who saw the salvation of the nation in its enlightenment, in the creation of a constitutional form of government. At this time, the organizations “Ottoman Education Society” and “Book Society” arose. The founders of these societies were Ibrahim Shinasi and Namig Kemal. They called themselves "New Ottomans". In 1865, a secret society of “New Ottomans” arose in Istanbul. The main task society was the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the country.
To strengthen the fight against the opposition, Sultan Abdul Aziz abandoned the tanzimat policy, taking a course towards open reaction, and in 1871 appointed Mahmud Nedim Pasha as chief vizier. To facilitate control over the opposition, members of the New Ottomans organization were granted amnesty. However, in 1876, the New Ottomans achieved the resignation of Mahmud Nedim Pasha. A member of the Midhat Pasha organization entered the government of the new vizier Muhammad Rüşti Pasha.
In 1876, supporters of Midhat Pasha first overthrew Abdul Aziz and installed Murad V in his place, then brought Abdulhamid II to power. In 1876, the Sultan accepted the Constitution prepared by Midhat Pasha. The Constitution proclaimed: 1) The Ottoman state became a constitutional monarchy. The creation of a bicameral parliament was envisaged; 2) the entire population of the empire was now called “Ottomans”; 3) the entire population, regardless of ethnicity and religion, was equal before the law; 4) the lower house was elected on the basis of property qualifications; the upper house (Senate) was appointed by the Sultan for life; 5) Islam was declared the state religion.
Later, Abdulhamid II sent Midhat Pasha into exile and did not allow the New Ottomans to participate in parliamentary elections. In 1877, parliament began its work, held 20 meetings and was dissolved. The Constitution again remained only on paper.
In the 70s of the 19th century, the international image of the Ottoman Empire faded even more. But England, France and Austria, not wanting Russia to strengthen in the Balkans, forced the Russians to reconsider the terms of the San Stefano Peace Treaty. For this purpose, the Berlin Congress was convened in July 1878, at which: 1) Bulgaria was divided into 3 parts, and only Northern Bulgaria gained independence; 2) Southern Bulgaria received autonomy within the Ottoman Empire; 3) Serbia, Montenegro and Romania received full independence; 4) Kars, Ardahan, Batum went to Russia; 5) Macedonia and Eastern Bayazid were returned to Turkey; 6) Bosnia and Herzegovina came under the protectorate of Austria.
Progressive intellectuals continued to fight against the Sultan's regime. In 1889, cadets of the Istanbul Military Medical School created the Union and Progress society, thereby marking the beginning of the bourgeois-democratic movement. Members of the society were called "Young Turks". Their main demand was the restoration of the 1876 Constitution. In 1891, foreign sections of this organization were opened.
Türkiye at the beginning of the 20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the economy of the Ottoman Empire was in in crisis, dependence on foreign countries has increased. Foreigners received the greatest profit from Turkish railways. In 1903, an agreement was signed with Germany on joint construction railway Berlin - Baghdad. Russia and England, who considered Germany their enemy, reached an agreement in Reval (Tallinn) on the division of the Ottoman Empire. To prevent this, the Young Turks decided to move ahead of the time determined at the congress in Paris in 1907. On July 3, 1908, Niyazi Bey, the commandant of a small town in Macedonia, spoke first. Enver Bey's group joined him. Thus began the “Young Turk Revolution” (1908-1909). The organization “Unity and Progress” on July 23, 1908 in the city of Monastyr presented an ultimatum to Abdulhamid II, demanding the restoration of the Constitution. The Sultan accepted the ultimatum and on the same day ordered the restoration of the Constitution and the convening of parliament. The Ottoman state became a constitutional monarchy.
The government, formed with the consent of the “Young Turks,” was led successively by Said Pasha, Kemil Pasha, and Suleiman Pasha in 1908.
On November 2, 1908, the first meeting of the Turkish Parliament took place. Of the 230 members of parliament, 150 were Young Turks. In 1909, Abdulhamid II, relying on the British-supported Ahrar party (liberals) and the religious organization Ittihadi Muslims (Muslim society), with the help of the Istanbul garrison, carried out a counter-revolutionary coup and regained power. In response, in April 1909, the Young Turks brought Macedonian troops under the command of Şevket Pasha into Istanbul and proclaimed Mehmet V Reşad Sultan.
The Young Turk revolution was victorious, but did not change the political structure of the empire. It was a superficial revolution.
Noticing the weakness of the Young Turks, foreign states again returned to the plan for dividing Turkish territories. The biggest failure of that time was the Trablis War. Based on the Russian-Italian Racconigi Agreement of 1909, Italy recognized Russian interests in the Balkans, and Russia recognized Italian interests in Trablis. In September 1911, Italy demanded that Turkey hand over Trablis to it. Having received a negative answer, the Italians went on the offensive and won. The voluntary squads of Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal Pasha were not effective. On October 18, 1912, an agreement was concluded in Lausanne, according to which Trablis and Cyrenaica, under the general name Libya, were transferred to Italy. This treaty further weakened the Ottoman Empire.
In October 1912, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro, forming the “Balkan Union”, declared war on Turkey. The First Balkan War (1912-1913) began. The Turkish troops, not ready for war, were defeated. In May 1913, a peace treaty was signed in London, according to which Turkey ceded territories in the Balkans, most of the islands in the Aegean Sea; Albania, which gained independence in 1912, was declared a principality.
Bulgaria, seeking supremacy in the Balkans, encouraged by Austria-Hungary and Germany, declared war on Serbia and Greece in 1913. The Second Balkan War began. In this war, Montenegro and Romania supported Serbia and Greece, and Türkiye entered the war against Bulgaria. The war began on June 30, 1913 and ended on August 10 with a heavy defeat for Bulgaria. The Young Turks took advantage of this and returned Edirne and the surrounding territories.
The Balkan Wars further complicated the internal situation in Turkey. Then, at the beginning of 1914, the Young Turks created the dictatorship of the “Young Turk Troika” in the country. It included Minister of War Enver Pasha, Chairman of the Union and Progress Party, Minister of Internal Affairs Talat Pasha and Vali of Istanbul Jamal Pasha.
During the reign of the Young Turks, a number of important events were carried out in state building. In the economic field, the most important thing was the elimination of the capitulation regime since 1914.
In 1914, the first women's university was opened in Istanbul. In subsequent years, it was specified that correspondence in government institutions should be conducted only in Turkish. Instructors and advisers were invited from Germany to reorganize the army.

History of the Ottoman Empire

History of the Ottoman Empire dates back more than one hundred years. The Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 to 1923.

Rise of an Empire

Expansion and fall of the Ottoman Empire (1300–1923)

Osman (reigned 1288–1326), son and heir of Ertogrul, in the fight against the powerless Byzantium annexed region after region to his possessions, but, despite his growing power, recognized his dependence on Lycaonia. In 1299, after the death of Alaeddin, he accepted the title "Sultan" and refused to recognize the power of his heirs. After his name, the Turks began to be called Ottoman Turks or Ottomans. Their power over Asia Minor spread and strengthened, and the sultans of Konya were unable to prevent this.

From that time on, they developed and rapidly increased, at least quantitatively, their own literature, although it was very little independent. They take care of maintaining trade, agriculture and industry in the conquered areas and create a well-organized army. A powerful state is developing, military, but not hostile to culture; in theory it is absolutist, but in reality the commanders to whom the Sultan gave different areas to control often turned out to be independent and reluctant to recognize supreme power Sultan. Often the Greek cities of Asia Minor voluntarily placed themselves under the protection of the powerful Osman.

Osman's son and heir Orhan I (1326–59) continued his father's policies. He considered it his calling to unite all the faithful under his rule, although in reality his conquests were directed more to the west, to countries inhabited by Greeks, than to the east, to countries inhabited by Muslims. He very skillfully took advantage of internal discord in Byzantium. More than once the disputing parties turned to him as an arbitrator. In 1330 he conquered Nicaea, the most important of the Byzantine fortresses on Asian soil. Following this, Nicomedia and the entire northwestern part of Asia Minor to the Black, Marmara and Aegean Seas fell into the power of the Turks.

Finally, in 1356, a Turkish army under the command of Suleiman, son of Orhan, landed on the European shore of the Dardanelles and captured Gallipoli and its environs.

Bâb-ı Âlî, Haute Porte

In Orhan’s activities in the internal management of the state, his constant adviser was his elder brother Aladdin, who (the only example in the history of Turkey) voluntarily renounced his rights to the throne and accepted the post of grand vizier, established especially for him, but preserved even after him. To facilitate trade, coinage was regulated. Orhan minted a silver coin - akche in his own name and with a verse from the Koran. He built himself a luxurious palace in the newly conquered Bursa (1326), whose high gates gave the Ottoman government the name “High Porte” (literal translation of the Ottoman Bab-ı Âlî - “high gate”), often transferred to the Ottoman state itself.

In 1328, Orhan gave his domains new, largely centralized administration. They were divided into 3 provinces (pashalik), which were divided into districts, sanjaks. Civil administration was connected to the military and subordinated to it. Orhan laid the foundation for the Janissary army, which was recruited from Christian children (at first 1000 people; later this number increased significantly). Despite a significant amount of tolerance towards Christians, whose religion was not persecuted (even though taxes were taken from Christians), Christians converted to Islam in droves.

Conquests in Europe before the capture of Constantinople (1306–1453)

• 1352 - capture of the Dardanelles.
• 1354 - capture of Gallipoli.
• From 1358 to Kosovo field

After the capture of Gallipoli, the Turks fortified themselves on the European coast of the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles and the Sea of ​​Marmara. Suleiman died in 1358, and Orhan was succeeded by his second son, Murad (1359-1389), who, although he did not forget about Asia Minor and conquered Angora in it, moved the center of gravity of his activities to Europe. Having conquered Thrace, he moved his capital to Adrianople in 1365. Byzantine Empire was reduced to one to Constantinople with its immediate surroundings, but continued to resist conquest for almost another hundred years.

The conquest of Thrace brought the Turks into close contact with Serbia and Bulgaria. Both states went through a period of feudal fragmentation and could not consolidate. In a few years, they both lost a significant part of their territory, obliged themselves with tribute and became dependent on the Sultan. However, there were periods when these states managed, taking advantage of the moment, to partially restore their positions.

Upon the accession of successive sultans, starting with Bayazet, it became customary to kill close relatives to avoid family rivalry over the throne; This custom was observed, although not always, but often. When the relatives of the new Sultan did not pose the slightest danger due to their mental development or for other reasons, they were left alive, but their harem was made up of slaves made infertile through surgery.

The Ottomans clashed with the Serbian rulers and won victories at Chernomen (1371) and Savra (1385).

Battle of Kosovo Field

In 1389, the Serbian prince Lazar began a new war with the Ottomans. On Kosovo Field on June 28, 1389, his army of 80,000 people. clashed with Murad's army of 300,000 people. The Serbian army was destroyed, the prince was killed; Murad also fell in the battle. Formally, Serbia still retained its independence, but it paid tribute and pledged to supply auxiliary troops.

Murad Murad

One of the Serbs who took part in the battle (that is, from Prince Lazar's side) was the Serbian prince Miloš Obilic. He understood that the Serbs had little chance of winning this great battle, and decided to sacrifice his life. He came up with a cunning operation.

During the battle, Milos snuck into Murad's tent, pretending to be a defector. He approached Murad as if to convey some secret and stabbed him. Murad was dying, but managed to call for help. Consequently, Milos was killed by the Sultan's guards. (Miloš Obilic kills Sultan Murad) From this moment on, the Serbian and Turkish versions of what happened began to differ. According to the Serbian version, having learned about the murder of their ruler, the Turkish army succumbed to panic and began to scatter, and only the taking of control of the troops by Murad's son Bayezid I saved the Turkish army from defeat. According to the Turkish version, the murder of the Sultan only angered the Turkish soldiers. However, the most realistic option is the version that the main part of the army learned about the death of the Sultan after the battle.

Early 15th century

Murad's son Bayazet (1389-1402) married Lazar's daughter and thereby acquired the formal right to intervene in the resolution of dynastic issues in Serbia (when Stefan, Lazar's son, died without heirs). In 1393, Bayazet took Tarnovo (he strangled the Bulgarian king Shishman, whose son saved himself from death by accepting Islam), conquered all of Bulgaria, obliged Wallachia with tribute, conquered Macedonia and Thessaly and penetrated into Greece. In Asia Minor, his possessions expanded far to the east beyond the Kyzyl-Irmak (Galis).

In 1396, near Nicopolis, he defeated a Christian army gathered for a crusade by the king Sigismund of Hungary.

The invasion of Timur at the head of the Turkic hordes into the Asian possessions of Bayazet forced him to lift the siege of Constantinople and personally rush towards Timur with significant forces. IN Battle of Ankara in 1402 he was completely defeated and captured, where a year later (1403) he died. A significant Serbian auxiliary detachment (40,000 people) also died in this battle.

The captivity and then death of Bayazet threatened the state with disintegration into parts. In Adrianople, Bayazet's son Suleiman (1402-1410) proclaimed himself sultan, seizing power over the Turkish possessions on the Balkan Peninsula, in Brousse - Isa, in the eastern part of Asia Minor - Mehmed I. Timur received ambassadors from all three applicants and promised his support to all three, obviously wanting to weaken the Ottomans, but he did not find it possible to continue its conquest and went to the East.

Mehmed soon won, killed Isa (1403) and reigned over all of Asia Minor. In 1413, after the death of Suleiman (1410) and the defeat and death of his brother Musa, who succeeded him, Mehmed restored his power over the Balkan Peninsula. His reign was relatively peaceful. He tried to maintain peaceful relations with his Christian neighbors, Byzantium, Serbia, Wallachia and Hungary, and concluded treaties with them. Contemporaries characterize him as a fair, meek, peace-loving and educated ruler. More than once, however, he had to deal with internal uprisings, which he dealt with very energetically.

The reign of his son, Murad II (1421-1451), began with similar uprisings. The brothers of the latter, in order to avoid death, managed to flee to Constantinople in advance, where they met with a friendly reception. Murad immediately moved to Constantinople, but managed to gather only a 20,000-strong army and was therefore defeated. However, with the help of bribes, he managed to capture and strangle his brothers soon after. The siege of Constantinople had to be lifted, and Murad turned his attention to the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula, and later to the south. In the north, a thunderstorm gathered against him from the Transylvanian governor Matthias Hunyadi, who won victories over him at Hermannstadt (1442) and Nis (1443), but due to the significant superiority of the Ottoman forces, he was completely defeated on the Kosovo field. Murad took possession of Thessalonica (previously conquered three times by the Turks and again lost to them), Corinth, Patras and a large part of Albania.

His strong opponent was the Albanian hostage Iskander Beg (or Skanderbeg), who was brought up at the Ottoman court and was Murad’s favorite, who converted to Islam and contributed to its spread in Albania. Then he wanted to make a new attack on Constantinople, which was not dangerous for him militarily, but was very valuable due to its geographical position. Death prevented him from carrying out this plan, carried out by his son Mehmed II (1451-81).

Capture of Constantinople

Mehmed II enters Constantinople with his army

The pretext for the war was that Konstantin Paleolog, the Byzantine emperor, did not want to hand over to Mehmed his relative Orkhan (son of Suleiman, grandson of Bayazet), whom he was saving to stir up troubles, as a possible contender for the Ottoman throne. The Byzantine emperor had only a small strip of land along the shores of the Bosphorus; the number of his troops did not exceed 6,000, and the nature of the administration of the empire made it even weaker. There were already quite a few Turks living in the city itself; The Byzantine government, starting in 1396, had to allow the construction of Muslim mosques next to Orthodox churches. Only the extremely convenient geographical position of Constantinople and strong fortifications made it possible to resist.

Mehmed II sent an army of 150,000 people against the city. and a fleet of 420 small sailing ships blocking the entrance to the Golden Horn. The armament of the Greeks and their military art were somewhat higher than the Turkish, but the Ottomans also managed to arm themselves quite well. Murad II also established several factories for casting cannons and making gunpowder, which were run by Hungarian and other Christian engineers who converted to Islam for the benefits of renegadeism. Many of the Turkish guns made a lot of noise, but did no real harm to the enemy; some of them exploded and killed a significant number of Turkish soldiers. Mehmed began preliminary siege work in the fall of 1452, and in April 1453 he began a proper siege. The Byzantine government turned to Christian powers for help; the pope hastened to respond with a promise to preach a crusade against the Turks, if only Byzantium agreed to unite the churches; the Byzantine government indignantly rejected this proposal. Of the other powers, Genoa alone sent a small squadron with 6,000 men. under the command of Giustiniani. The squadron bravely broke through the Turkish blockade and landed troops on the shores of Constantinople, which doubled the forces of the besieged. The siege continued for two months. A significant part of the population lost their heads and, instead of joining the ranks of the fighters, prayed in churches; the army, both Greek and Genoese, resisted extremely courageously. At its head was the emperor Konstantin Paleolog, who fought with the courage of despair and died in the skirmish. On May 29, the Ottomans opened the city.

Conquests

The era of power of the Ottoman Empire lasted more than 150 years. In 1459, all of Serbia was conquered (except Belgrade, taken in 1521) and turned into an Ottoman pashalyk. Conquered in 1460 Duchy of Athens and after him almost all of Greece, with the exception of some coastal cities, which remained in the power of Venice. In 1462, the islands of Lesbos and Wallachia were conquered, and in 1463, Bosnia.

The conquest of Greece brought the Turks into conflict with Venice, which entered into a coalition with Naples, the Pope and Karaman (an independent Muslim khanate in Asia Minor, ruled by Khan Uzun Hassan).

The war lasted 16 years in the Morea, the Archipelago and Asia Minor simultaneously (1463-79) and ended in victory for the Ottoman state. According to the Peace of Constantinople of 1479, Venice ceded to the Ottomans several cities in the Morea, the island of Lemnos and other islands of the Archipelago (Negropont was captured by the Turks back in 1470); Karaman Khanate recognized the power of the Sultan. After the death of Skanderbeg (1467), the Turks captured Albania, then Herzegovina. In 1475, they waged war with the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray and forced him to recognize himself as dependent on the Sultan. This victory was of great military importance for the Turks, since the Crimean Tatars supplied them with auxiliary troops, at times numbering 100 thousand people; but later it became fatal for the Turks, as it pitted them against Russia and Poland. In 1476, the Ottomans devastated Moldavia and made it a vassal state.

This ended the period of conquest for some time. The Ottomans owned the entire Balkan Peninsula to the Danube and Sava, almost all the islands of the Archipelago and Asia Minor to Trebizond and almost to the Euphrates; beyond the Danube, Wallachia and Moldavia were also very dependent on them. Everywhere was ruled either directly by Ottoman officials or by local rulers who were approved by the Porte and were completely subordinate to it.

Reign of Bayazet II

None of the previous sultans did as much to expand the borders of the Ottoman Empire as Mehmed II, who remained in history with the nickname “Conqueror”. He was succeeded by his son Bayazet II (1481-1512) in the midst of unrest. The younger brother Cem, relying on the great vizier Mogamet-Karamaniya and taking advantage of Bayazet's absence in Constantinople at the time of his father's death, proclaimed himself sultan.

Bayazet gathered the remaining loyal troops; The hostile armies met at Angora. Victory remained with the older brother; Cem fled to Rhodes, from there to Europe and after long wanderings found himself in the hands of Pope Alexander VI, who offered Bayazet to poison his brother for 300,000 ducats. Bayazet accepted the offer, paid the money, and Cem was poisoned (1495). Bayazet's reign was marked by several more uprisings of his sons, which ended (except for the last one) successfully for the father; Bayazet took the rebels and executed them. However, Turkish historians characterize Bayazet as a peace-loving and meek man, a patron of art and literature.

Indeed, there was a certain halt in the Ottoman conquests, but more due to failures than to the peacefulness of the government. The Bosnian and Serbian pashas repeatedly raided Dalmatia, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and subjected them to cruel devastation; Several attempts were made to take Belgrade, but without success. The death of Matthew Corvinus (1490) caused anarchy in Hungary and seemed to favor Ottoman designs against that state.

The long war, waged with some interruptions, ended, however, not particularly favorably for the Turks. According to the peace concluded in 1503, Hungary defended all its possessions and although it had to recognize the Ottoman Empire’s right to tribute from Moldavia and Wallachia, it did not renounce the sovereign rights to these two states (more in theory than in reality). In Greece, Navarino (Pylos), Modon and Coron (1503) were conquered.

The first relations of the Ottoman state with Russia date back to the time of Bayazet II: in 1495, ambassadors of Grand Duke Ivan III appeared in Constantinople to ensure unhindered trade in the Ottoman Empire for Russian merchants. Other European powers also entered into friendly relations with Bayazet, especially Naples, Venice, Florence, Milan and the Pope, seeking his friendship; Bayazet skillfully balanced between everyone.

At the same time, the Ottoman Empire waged war with Venice over the Mediterranean, and defeated it in 1505.

His main attention was directed to the East. He started a war with Persia, but did not have time to end it; in 1510, his youngest son Selim rebelled against him at the head of the Janissaries, defeated him and overthrew him from the throne. Soon Bayazet died, most likely from poison; Selim's other relatives were also exterminated.

Reign of Selim I

The war in Asia continued under Selim I (1512–20). In addition to the usual desire of the Ottomans for conquest, this war also had a religious reason: the Turks were Sunnis, Selim, as an extreme zealot of Sunnism, passionately hated the Shia Persians, and on his orders, up to 40,000 Shiites living on Ottoman territory were destroyed. The war was fought with varying degrees of success, but final victory, although far from complete, was on the side of the Turks. In the peace of 1515, Persia ceded to the Ottoman Empire the regions of Diyarbakir and Mosul, which lie along the upper reaches of the Tigris.

The Egyptian Sultan of Kansu-Gavri sent an embassy to Selim with a peace offer. Selim ordered to kill all members of the embassy. Kansu stepped forward to meet him; the battle took place in the Dolbec Valley. Thanks to his artillery, Selim achieved a complete victory; The Mamelukes fled, Kansu died during the escape. Damascus opened the gates to the winner; after him, all of Syria submitted to the Sultan, and Mecca and Medina came under his protection (1516). The new Egyptian Sultan Tuman Bey, after several defeats, had to cede Cairo to the Turkish vanguard; but at night he entered the city and destroyed the Turks. Selim, not being able to take Cairo without a stubborn fight, invited its inhabitants to surrender with the promise of their favors; the inhabitants surrendered - and Selim carried out a terrible massacre in the city. Tuman Bey was also beheaded when, during the retreat, he was defeated and captured (1517).

Selim reproached him for not wanting to obey him, the Commander of the Faithful, and developed a theory, bold in the mouth of a Muslim, according to which he, as the ruler of Constantinople, is the heir of the Eastern Roman Empire and, therefore, has the right to all the lands ever included in its composition.

Realizing the impossibility of ruling Egypt solely through his pashas, ​​who would inevitably eventually become independent, Selim retained next to them 24 Mameluke leaders, who were considered subordinate to the pasha, but enjoyed a certain independence and could complain about the pasha to Constantinople. Selim was one of the most cruel Ottoman sultans; besides his father and brothers, besides countless captives, he executed seven of his great viziers during the eight years of his reign. At the same time, he patronized literature and himself left a significant number of Turkish and Arabic poems. In the memory of the Turks he remained with the nickname Yavuz (unyielding, stern).

Reign of Suleiman I

Tughra Suleiman the Magnificent (1520)

Selim's son Suleiman I (1520-66), nicknamed the Magnificent or Great by Christian historians, was the direct opposite of his father. He was not cruel and understood the political value of mercy and formal justice; He began his reign by releasing several hundred Egyptian captives from noble families who were kept in chains by Selim. European silk merchants, robbed in Ottoman territory at the beginning of his reign, received generous monetary rewards from him. More than his predecessors, he loved the splendor with which his palace in Constantinople amazed Europeans. Although he did not renounce conquests, he did not like war, only on rare occasions personally becoming the head of an army. He especially highly valued the art of diplomacy, which brought him important victories. Immediately after ascending the throne, he began peace negotiations with Venice and concluded an agreement with it in 1521, recognizing the Venetians' right to trade in Turkish territory and promising them protection of their safety; Both sides pledged to hand over fugitive criminals to each other. Since then, although Venice did not keep a permanent envoy in Constantinople, embassies were sent from Venice to Constantinople and back more or less regularly. In 1521, Ottoman troops took Belgrade. In 1522, Suleiman landed a large army on Rhodes. Six month siege The main stronghold of the Knights of St. John ended with its capitulation, after which the Turks began to conquer Tripoli and Algeria in North Africa.

Battle of Mohacs (1526)

In 1527, Ottoman troops under the command of Suleiman I invaded Austria and Hungary. At first, the Turks achieved very significant successes: in the eastern part of Hungary they managed to create a puppet state that became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, they captured Buda, and ravaged vast territories in Austria. In 1529, the Sultan moved his army to Vienna, intending to capture the Austrian capital, but he failed. Started on September 27 siege of Vienna, the Turks outnumbered the besieged by at least 7 times. But the weather was against the Turks - on the way to Vienna, due to bad weather, they lost many guns and pack animals, and illnesses began in their camp. But the Austrians did not waste time - they strengthened the city walls in advance, and Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria brought German and Spanish mercenaries to the city (his older brother Charles V of Habsburg was both the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Spain). Then the Turks relied on blowing up the walls of Vienna, but the besieged constantly made forays and destroyed all Turkish trenches and underground passages. Due to the approaching winter, disease and mass desertion, the Turks had to leave just 17 days after the start of the siege, on October 14.

Union with France

The closest neighbor of the Ottoman state and the most dangerous enemy Austria was hers, and entering into a serious fight with her without enlisting anyone’s support was risky. France was the natural ally of the Ottomans in this struggle. The first relations between the Ottoman Empire and France began in 1483; Since then, both states have exchanged embassies several times, but this did not lead to practical results.

In 1517, King Francis I of France proposed to the German Emperor and Ferdinand the Catholic an alliance against the Turks with the aim of expelling them from Europe and dividing their possessions, but this alliance did not take place: the interests of these European powers were too opposed to each other. On the contrary, France and the Ottoman Empire did not come into contact with each other anywhere and they had no immediate reasons for hostility. Therefore France, which once took such an ardent part in crusades, decided to take a bold step: a real military alliance with a Muslim power against a Christian power. The final impetus was given by the unfortunate Battle of Pavia for the French, during which the king was captured. Regent Louise of Savoy sent an embassy to Constantinople in February 1525, but it was beaten by the Turks in Bosnia despite [source not specified 466 days] the Sultan's wishes. Not embarrassed by this event, Francis I sent an envoy from captivity to the Sultan with a proposal for an alliance; the Sultan was supposed to attack Hungary, and Francis promised war with Spain. At the same time, Charles V made similar proposals to the Ottoman Sultan, but the Sultan preferred an alliance with France.

Soon after, Francis sent a request to Constantinople to allow the restoration of at least one Catholic church in Jerusalem, but received a decisive refusal from the Sultan in the name of the principles of Islam, along with a promise of all protection for Christians and protection of their safety (1528).

Military successes

According to the truce of 1547, the entire southern part of Hungary up to and including Ofen became an Ottoman province, divided into 12 sanjaks; the northern one came into the hands of Austria, but with the obligation to pay the Sultan 50,000 ducats of tribute annually (in the German text of the treaty, the tribute was called an honorary gift - Ehrengeschenk). The supreme rights of the Ottoman Empire over Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania were confirmed by the peace of 1569. This peace could only take place because Austria spent huge sums of money bribing Turkish commissioners. The Ottoman war with Venice ended in 1540 with the transfer to the power of the Ottoman Empire of the last possessions of Venice in Greece and the Aegean Sea. In the new war with Persia, the Ottomans occupied Baghdad in 1536, and Georgia in 1553. With this they reached the apogee of their political power. The Ottoman fleet sailed freely throughout the Mediterranean Sea to Gibraltar and often plundered the Portuguese colonies in the Indian Ocean.

In 1535 or 1536, a new treaty “on peace, friendship and trade” was concluded between the Ottoman Empire and France; France now had a permanent envoy in Constantinople and a consul in Alexandria. Subjects of the Sultan in France and subjects of the king in the territory of the Ottoman state were guaranteed the right to travel freely throughout the country, buy, sell and exchange goods under the protection of local authorities at the beginning of equality. Litigations between the French in the Ottoman Empire were to be dealt with by French consuls or envoys; in case of litigation between a Turk and a Frenchman, the French were provided with protection by their consul. During the time of Suleiman, some changes took place in the order of internal administration. Previously, the Sultan was almost always personally present in the divan (ministerial council): Suleiman rarely appeared in it, thus providing more space for his viziers. Previously, the positions of vizier (minister) and grand vizier, and also governor of the pashalyk were usually given to people more or less experienced in administration or military affairs; under Suleiman, the harem began to play a noticeable role in these appointments, as well as monetary gifts given by applicants for high positions. This was caused by the government's need for money, but soon became a rule of law and was the main reason for the decline of the Porte. Government extravagance has reached unprecedented proportions; True, government revenues also increased significantly due to the successful collection of tribute, but despite this, the Sultan often had to resort to damaging coins.

Reign of Selim II

The son and heir of Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II (1566-74), ascended the throne without having to beat his brothers, since his father took care of this, wanting to ensure the throne for him to please his beloved last wife. Selim reigned prosperously and left his son a state that not only did not decrease territorially, but even increased; for this, in many respects, he owed the mind and energy of the vizier Mehmed Sokoll. Sokollu completed the conquest of Arabia, which had previously been only loosely dependent on the Porte.

Battle of Lepanto (1571)

He demanded the cession of the island of Cyprus from Venice, which led to a war between the Ottoman Empire and Venice (1570-1573); the Ottomans suffered hard naval defeat at Lepanto (1571), but despite this, at the end of the war they captured Cyprus and were able to hold it; in addition, they obliged Venice to pay 300 thousand ducats of war indemnity and pay tribute for the possession of the island of Zante in the amount of 1,500 ducats. In 1574, the Ottomans took possession of Tunisia, which had previously belonged to the Spaniards; Algeria and Tripoli had previously recognized their dependence on the Ottomans. Sokollu conceived two great things: connecting the Don and Volga with a canal, which, in his opinion, was supposed to strengthen the power of the Ottoman Empire in Crimea and again subordinate it to Khanate of Astrakhan, already conquered by Moscow, - and digging Isthmus of Suez. However, this was beyond the power of the Ottoman government.

Under Selim II took place Ottoman expedition to Aceh, which led to the establishment of long-term ties between the Ottoman Empire and this remote Malay Sultanate.

Reign of Murad III and Mehmed III

During the reign of Murad III (1574-1595), the Ottoman Empire emerged victorious from a stubborn war with Persia, capturing all of Western Iran and the Caucasus. Murad's son Mehmed III (1595-1603) executed 19 brothers upon his accession to the throne. However, he was not a cruel ruler, and even went down in history under the nickname Fair. Under him, the state was largely controlled by his mother through 12 grand viziers, often replacing each other.

Increased deterioration of coins and increased taxes more than once led to uprisings in various parts of the state. Mehmed's reign was filled with war with Austria, which began under Murad in 1593 and ended only in 1606, already under Ahmed I (1603-17). It ended with the Peace of Sitvatorok in 1606, marking a turn in the mutual relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. No new tribute was imposed on Austria; on the contrary, she freed herself from the previous tribute for Hungary by paying a one-time indemnity of 200,000 florins. In Transylvania, Stefan Bocskai, hostile to Austria, and his male offspring were recognized as the ruler. Moldova, repeatedly trying to get out from vassalage, managed to defend during border conflicts with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Habsburgs. From this time on, the territory of the Ottoman state no longer expanded except by short term. The war with Persia of 1603-12 had sad consequences for the Ottoman Empire, in which the Turks suffered several serious defeats and had to cede the Eastern Georgian lands, Eastern Armenia, Shirvan, Karabakh, Azerbaijan with Tabriz and some other areas.

Decline of the Empire (1614–1757)

The last years of the reign of Ahmed I were filled with rebellions that continued under his heirs. His brother Mustafa I (1617-1618), a protege and favorite of the Janissaries, to whom he made gifts of millions from state funds, after three months of control, was overthrown by the mufti's fatwa as insane, and Ahmed's son Osman II (1618-1622) ascended the throne. After the unsuccessful campaign of the Janissaries against the Cossacks, he made an attempt to destroy this violent army, which every year became less and less useful for military purposes and more and more dangerous for the state order - and for this he was killed by the Janissaries. Mustafa I was re-enthroned and again dethroned a few months later, and a few years later he died, probably from poisoning.

Osman's younger brother, Murad IV (1623-1640), seemed intent on restoring the former greatness of the Ottoman Empire. He was a cruel and greedy tyrant, reminiscent of Selim, but at the same time a capable administrator and an energetic warrior. According to estimates, the accuracy of which cannot be verified, up to 25,000 people were executed under him. Often he executed rich people solely in order to confiscate their property. He again conquered Tabriz and Baghdad in the war with the Persians (1623-1639); he also managed to defeat the Venetians and conclude a profitable peace with them. He pacified the dangerous Druze uprising (1623-1637); but the uprising of the Crimean Tatars almost completely freed them from Ottoman power. The devastation of the Black Sea coast carried out by the Cossacks remained unpunished for them.

In internal administration, Murad sought to introduce some order and some economy in finances; however, all his attempts turned out to be impracticable.

Under his brother and heir Ibrahim (1640-1648), under whom state affairs again in charge of the harem, all the acquisitions of his predecessor were lost. The Sultan himself was overthrown and strangled by the Janissaries, who elevated his seven-year-old son Mehmed IV (1648-1687) to the throne. The true rulers of the state during the first time of the latter’s reign were the Janissaries; all government positions were filled by their proteges, management was in complete disarray, finances reached an extreme decline. Despite this, the Ottoman fleet managed to inflict a serious naval defeat on Venice and break the blockade of the Dardanelles, which had been held with varying success since 1654.

Russo-Turkish War 1686–1700

Battle of Vienna (1683)

In 1656, the post of grand vizier was seized by an energetic man, Mehmet Köprülü, who managed to strengthen the discipline of the army and inflict several defeats on the enemies. Austria was supposed to conclude a peace in Vasvara that was not particularly beneficial for it in 1664; in 1669 the Turks conquered Crete, and in 1672, by peace in Buchach, they received Podolia and even part of Ukraine from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This peace caused the indignation of the people and the Sejm, and the war began again. Russia also took part in it; but on the side of the Ottomans stood a significant part of the Cossacks, led by Doroshenko. During the war, the Grand Vizier Ahmet Pasha Köprülü died after ruling the country for 15 years (1661–76). The war, which had been going on with varying degrees of success, ended Bakhchisarai truce, concluded in 1681 for 20 years, at the beginning of the status quo; Western Ukraine, which was a real desert after the war, and Podolia remained in the hands of the Turks. The Ottomans easily agreed to peace, since they had a war with Austria on their agenda, which was undertaken by Ahmet Pasha's successor, Kara-Mustafa Köprülü. The Ottomans managed to penetrate Vienna and besiege it (from July 24 to September 12, 1683), but the siege had to be lifted when the Polish king Jan Sobieski entered into an alliance with Austria, rushed to the aid of Vienna and won near it brilliant victory over the Ottoman army. In Belgrade, Kara-Mustafa was met by envoys from the Sultan, who had orders to deliver him to Constantinople the head of an incapable commander, which was done. In 1684, Venice, and later Russia, also joined the coalition of Austria and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Ottoman Empire.

During the war, in which the Ottomans had to defend rather than attack on their own territory, in 1687 the Grand Vizier Suleiman Pasha was defeated at Mohács. The defeat of the Ottoman forces irritated the Janissaries, who remained in Constantinople, rioting and plundering. Under the threat of an uprising, Mehmed IV sent them the head of Suleiman, but this did not save him: the Janissaries overthrew him with the help of a fatwa from the mufti and forcibly elevated his brother, Suleiman II (1687-91), a man devoted to drunkenness and completely incapable of governing, to the throne. The war continued under him and under his brothers, Ahmed II (1691–95) and Mustafa II (1695–1703). The Venetians took possession of the Morea; the Austrians took Belgrade (soon again falling to the Ottomans) and all the significant fortresses of Hungary, Slavonia, and Transylvania; the Poles occupied a significant part of Moldova.

In 1699 the war was over Treaty of Karlowitz, which was the first according to which the Ottoman Empire did not receive either tribute or temporary indemnity. Its value significantly exceeded the value World of Sitvatorok. It became clear to everyone that the military power of the Ottomans was not at all great and that internal turmoil was shaking their state more and more.

In the empire itself, the Peace of Karlowitz aroused awareness among the more educated part of the population of the need for some reforms. Köprülü, a family that gave the state during the 2nd half of the 17th and early 18th centuries, already had this consciousness. 5 great viziers who belonged to the most remarkable statesmen of the Ottoman Empire. Already in 1690 he led. vizier Köprülü Mustafa issued the Nizami-ı Cedid (Ottoman: Nizam-ı Cedid - “New Order”), which established the maximum standards for poll taxes levied on Christians; but this law had no practical application. After the Peace of Karlowitz, Christians in Serbia and Banat were forgiven a year's taxes; The highest government in Constantinople began from time to time to take care of protecting Christians from extortions and other oppression. Insufficient to reconcile Christians with Turkish oppression, these measures irritated the Janissaries and Turks.

Participation in the Northern War

Ambassadors at Topkapi Palace

Mustafa's brother and heir, Ahmed III (1703-1730), elevated to the throne by the Janissary uprising, showed unexpected courage and independence. He arrested and hastily executed many officers of the Janissary army and removed and exiled the Grand Vizier (Sadr-Azam) Ahmed Pasha, whom they had installed. The new Grand Vizier Damad Hassan Pasha pacified uprisings in different parts of the state, patronized foreign merchants, and founded schools. He was soon overthrown as a result of intrigue emanating from the harem, and viziers began to change with amazing speed; some remained in power for no more than two weeks.

The Ottoman Empire did not even take advantage of the difficulties experienced by Russia during the Northern War. Only in 1709 did she accept Charles XII, who had fled from Poltava, and, under the influence of his convictions, began a war with Russia. By this time, in the Ottoman ruling circles there already existed a party that dreamed not of a war with Russia, but of an alliance with it against Austria; At the head of this party was the leader. vizier Numan Keprilu, and his fall, which was the work of Charles XII, served as a signal for war.

The position of Peter I, surrounded on the Prut by an army of 200,000 Turks and Tatars, was extremely dangerous. Peter's death was inevitable, but the Grand Vizier Baltaji-Mehmed succumbed to bribery and released Peter for the comparatively unimportant concession of Azov (1711). The war party overthrew Baltaci-Mehmed and exiled him to Lemnos, but Russia diplomatically achieved the removal of Charles XII from the Ottoman Empire, for which it had to resort to force.

In 1714-18 the Ottomans waged war with Venice and in 1716-18 with Austria. By Peace of Passarowitz(1718) The Ottoman Empire received back the Morea, but gave Austria Belgrade with a significant part of Serbia, Banat, and part of Wallachia. In 1722, taking advantage of the end of the dynasty and the subsequent unrest in Persia, the Ottomans began religious war against the Shiites, with which they hoped to reward themselves for their losses in Europe. Several defeats in this war and the Persian invasion of Ottoman territory caused a new uprising in Constantinople: Ahmed was deposed, and his nephew, the son of Mustafa II, Mahmud I, was elevated to the throne.

Reign of Mahmud I

Under Mahmud I (1730-54), who was an exception among the Ottoman sultans with his gentleness and humanity (he did not kill the deposed sultan and his sons and generally avoided executions), the war with Persia continued, without definite results. The war with Austria ended with the Peace of Belgrade (1739), according to which the Turks received Serbia with Belgrade and Orsova. Russia acted more successfully against the Ottomans, but the conclusion of peace by the Austrians forced the Russians to make concessions; Of its conquests, Russia retained only Azov, but with the obligation to demolish the fortifications.

During the reign of Mahmud, the first Turkish printing house was founded by Ibrahim Basmaji. The Mufti, after some hesitation, gave a fatwa, with which, in the name of the interests of enlightenment, he blessed the undertaking, and the Sultan Gatti Sherif authorized it. Only the printing of the Koran and holy books was prohibited. During the first period of the printing house’s existence, 15 works were printed there (Arabic and Persian dictionaries, several books on the history of the Ottoman state and general geography, military art, political economy, etc.). After the death of Ibrahim Basmaji, the printing house was closed, a new one arose only in 1784.

Mahmud I, who died of natural causes, was succeeded by his brother Osman III (1754-57), whose reign was peaceful and who died in the same way as his brother.

Attempts at reform (1757–1839)

Osman was succeeded by Mustafa III (1757–74), son of Ahmed III. Upon his accession to the throne, he firmly expressed his intention to change the policy of the Ottoman Empire and restore the shine of its weapons. He conceived quite extensive reforms (by the way, digging channels through Isthmus of Suez and through Asia Minor), openly did not sympathize with slavery and set free a significant number of slaves.

General discontent, which had not previously been news in the Ottoman Empire, was especially strengthened by two incidents: by an unknown person, a caravan of the faithful returning from Mecca was robbed and destroyed, and a Turkish admiral's ship was captured by a detachment sea ​​robbers Greek nationality. All this testified to the extreme weakness of state power.

To settle finances Mustafa III started from saving in his own palace, but at the same time he allowed the coin to be damaged. Under the patronage of Mustafa, the first public library, several schools and hospitals were opened in Constantinople. He very willingly concluded a treaty with Prussia in 1761, which granted Prussian merchant ships free navigation in Ottoman waters; Prussian subjects in the Ottoman Empire were subject to the jurisdiction of their consuls. Russia and Austria offered Mustafa 100,000 ducats for the abolition of the rights given to Prussia, but to no avail: Mustafa wanted to bring his state as close as possible to European civilization.

Attempts at reform did not go any further. In 1768, the Sultan had to declare war on Russia, which lasted 6 years and ended Peace of Kuchuk-Kainardzhiy 1774. Peace was already concluded under Mustafa's brother and heir, Abdul Hamid I (1774-1789).

Reign of Abdul Hamid I

The Empire at this time was almost everywhere in a state of ferment. The Greeks, excited by Orlov, were worried, but, left by the Russians without help, they were quickly and easily pacified and severely punished. Ahmed Pasha of Baghdad declared himself independent; Taher, supported by Arab nomads, took the title of Sheikh of Galilee and Acre; Egypt under the rule of Muhammad Ali did not even think of paying tribute; Northern Albania, which was ruled by Mahmud, Pasha of Scutari, was in a state of complete rebellion; Ali, Pasha of Yanin, clearly sought to establish an independent kingdom.

The entire reign of Adbul Hamid was occupied with pacifying these uprisings, which could not be achieved due to the lack of money and disciplined troops from the Ottoman government. This has been joined by a new war with Russia and Austria(1787-91), again unsuccessful for the Ottomans. It's over Peace of Jassy with Russia (1792), according to which Russia finally acquired Crimea and the space between the Bug and the Dniester, and the Treaty of Sistov with Austria (1791). The latter was comparatively favorable for the Ottoman Empire, since its main enemy, Joseph II, had died and Leopold II was directing all his attention to France. Austria returned to the Ottomans most of the acquisitions it made during this war. Peace was already concluded under Abdul Hamid's nephew, Selim III (1789-1807). In addition to territorial losses, the war brought one significant change to the life of the Ottoman state: before it began (1785), the empire entered into its first public debt, first internal, guaranteed by some state revenues.

Reign of Selim III

Sultan Selim III was the first to recognize the deep crisis of the Ottoman Empire and began to reform the military and government organization of the country. By energetic measures the government cleared the Aegean Sea of ​​pirates; it patronized trade and public education. His main attention was paid to the army. The Janissaries proved themselves almost completely useless in war, while at the same time keeping the country in a state of anarchy during periods of peace. The Sultan intended to replace their formations with a European-style army, but since it was obvious that it was impossible to immediately replace the entire old system, the reformers paid some attention to improving the position of traditional formations. Among the Sultan's other reforms were measures to strengthen the combat capability of the artillery and navy. The government was concerned with translating the best foreign works on tactics and fortification into Ottoman; invited French officers to teaching positions at the artillery and naval schools; under the first of them, it founded a library of foreign works on military sciences. Workshops for casting guns have been improved; military ships of a new type were ordered from France. These were all preliminary measures.

Sultan Selim III

The Sultan clearly wanted to move on to reorganizing the internal structure of the army; he established a new form for her and began to introduce stricter discipline. He hasn’t touched the Janissaries yet. But then, firstly, the uprising of the Viddin Pasha, Pasvan-Oglu (1797), who clearly neglected the orders coming from the government, stood in his way, and secondly - Egyptian expedition Napoleon.

Kuchuk-Hussein moved against Pasvan-Oglu and waged a real war with him, which did not have a definite result. The government finally entered into negotiations with the rebellious governor and recognized his lifelong rights to rule the Viddinsky pashalyk, in fact on the basis of almost complete independence.

In 1798, General Bonaparte made his famous attack on Egypt, then on Syria. Great Britain took the side of the Ottoman Empire, destroying the French fleet in Battle of Aboukir. The expedition did not have any serious results for the Ottomans. Egypt remained formally in the power of the Ottoman Empire, in fact - in the power of the Mamluks.

The war with the French had barely ended (1801) when the uprising of the Janissaries began in Belgrade, dissatisfied with the reforms in the army. Their oppression sparked a popular movement in Serbia (1804) under the leadership of Karageorge. The government initially supported the movement, but it soon took the form of a real popular uprising, and the Ottoman Empire was forced to take military action (see below). Battle of Ivankovac). The matter was complicated by the war started by Russia (1806-1812). Reforms had to be postponed again: the Grand Vizier and other senior officials and military personnel were at the theater of military operations.

Coup attempt

Only the kaymakam (assistant to the grand vizier) and deputy ministers remained in Constantinople. Sheikh-ul-Islam took advantage of this moment to plot against the Sultan. The ulema and janissaries took part in the conspiracy, among whom rumors were spread about the Sultan’s intention to distribute them among the regiments of the standing army. The Kaimaks also joined the conspiracy. On the appointed day, a detachment of Janissaries unexpectedly attacked the garrison of the standing army stationed in Constantinople and carried out a massacre among them. Another part of the Janissaries surrounded Selim's palace and demanded that he execute people they hated. Selim had the courage to refuse. He was arrested and taken into custody. Abdul Hamid's son, Mustafa IV (1807-1808), was proclaimed Sultan. The massacre in the city continued for two days. Sheikh-ul-Islam and Kaymakam ruled on behalf of the powerless Mustafa. But Selim had his followers.

During the coup of Kabakçı Mustafa (Turkish: Kabakçı Mustafa isyanı), Mustafa Bayraktar(Alemdar Mustafa Pasha - Pasha of the Bulgarian city of Ruschuk) and his followers began negotiations regarding the return of Sultan Selim III to the throne. Finally, with an army of sixteen thousand, Mustafa Bayraktar went to Istanbul, having previously sent there Haji Ali Aga, who killed Kabakci Mustafa (July 19, 1808). Mustafa Bayraktar and his army, having destroyed a fairly large number of rebels, arrived in the Sublime Porte. Sultan Mustafa IV, having learned that Mustafa Bayraktar wanted to return the throne to Sultan Selim III, ordered the death of Selim and the Shah-Zadeh's brother Mahmud. The Sultan was killed immediately, and Shah-Zade Mahmud, with the help of his slaves and servants, was freed. Mustafa Bayraktar, having removed Mustafa IV from the throne, declared Mahmud II sultan. The latter made him sadrasam - grand vizier.

Reign of Mahmud II

Not inferior to Selim in energy and in understanding the need for reforms, Mahmud was much tougher than Selim: angry, vindictive, he was more guided by personal passions, which were tempered by political foresight, than by a real desire for the good of the country. The ground for innovation was already somewhat prepared, the ability not to think about the means also favored Mahmud, and therefore his activities still left more traces than the activities of Selim. He appointed Bayraktar as his grand vizier, who ordered the beating of the participants in the conspiracy against Selim and other political opponents. The life of Mustafa himself was temporarily spared.

As the first reform, Bayraktar outlined the reorganization of the Janissary corps, but he had the imprudence to send part of his army to the theater of war; he only had 7,000 soldiers left. 6,000 Janissaries made a surprise attack on them and moved towards the palace in order to free Mustafa IV. Bayraktar, who locked himself in the palace with a small detachment, threw out Mustafa’s corpse, and then blew up part of the palace into the air and buried himself in the ruins. A few hours later, an army of three thousand, loyal to the government, led by Ramiz Pasha, arrived, defeated the Janissaries and destroyed a significant part of them.

Mahmud decided to postpone the reform until after the war with Russia, which ended in 1812. Peace of Bucharest. Congress of Vienna made some changes to the position of the Ottoman Empire or, more correctly, defined more precisely and confirmed in theory and on geographical maps what had already taken place in reality. Dalmatia and Illyria were assigned to Austria, Bessarabia to Russia; seven Ionian Islands received self-government under an English protectorate; English ships received the right of free passage through the Dardanelles.

Even in the territory remaining with the empire, the government did not feel confident. An uprising began in Serbia in 1817, ending only after Serbia was recognized by Peace of Adrianople 1829 as a separate vassal state, with its own prince at its head. An uprising began in 1820 Ali Pasha of Yaninsky. As a result of the treason of his own sons, he was defeated, captured and executed; but a significant part of his army formed cadres of Greek rebels. In 1821, an uprising that developed into war of independence, started in Greece. After the intervention of Russia, France and England and unfortunate for the Ottoman Empire Navarino (sea) battle(1827), in which the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were lost, the Ottomans lost Greece.

Military losses

Getting rid of the Janissaries and Dervishes (1826) did not save the Turks from defeat both in the war with the Serbs and in the war with the Greeks. These two wars, and in connection with them, were followed by the war with Russia (1828–29), which ended Treaty of Adrianople 1829 The Ottoman Empire lost Serbia, Moldavia, Wallachia, Greece, and the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

Following this, Muhammad Ali, Khedive of Egypt (1831-1833 and 1839), broke away from the Ottoman Empire. In the fight against the latter, the empire suffered blows that put its very existence at stake; but she was saved twice (1833 and 1839) by the unexpected intercession of Russia, caused by the fear of a European war, which would probably be caused by the collapse of the Ottoman state. However, this intercession also brought real benefits to Russia: around the world in Gunkyar Skelessi (1833), the Ottoman Empire granted Russian ships passage through the Dardanelles, closing it to England. At the same time, the French decided to take Algeria from the Ottomans (since 1830), which had previously, however, been only nominally dependent on the empire.

Civil reforms

Mahmud II begins modernization in 1839

The wars did not stop Mahmud's reform plans; private reforms in the army continued throughout his reign. He also cared about raising the level of education among the people; under him (1831), the first newspaper in the Ottoman Empire that had an official character (“Moniteur ottoman”) began to be published in French. At the end of 1831, the first official newspaper in Turkish, Takvim-i Vekayi, began to be published.

Like Peter the Great, perhaps even consciously imitating him, Mahmud sought to introduce European morals among the people; he himself wore a European costume and encouraged his officials to do so, prohibited the wearing of a turban, organized festivities in Constantinople and other cities with fireworks, with European music and generally according to the European model. He did not live to see the most important reforms of the civil system conceived by him; they were already the work of his heir. But even the little he did went against the religious feelings of the Muslim population. He began to mint coins with his image, which is directly prohibited in the Koran (the news that previous sultans also removed portraits of themselves is subject to great doubt).

Throughout his reign, Muslim riots caused by religious feelings incessantly occurred in different parts of the state, especially in Constantinople; the government dealt with them extremely cruelly: sometimes 4,000 corpses were thrown into the Bosphorus in a few days. At the same time, Mahmud did not hesitate to execute even the ulema and dervishes, who were generally his bitter enemies.

During the reign of Mahmud there were especially many fires in Constantinople, some of them caused by arson; the people explained them as God's punishment for the sins of the Sultan.

Results of the board

The extermination of the Janissaries, which at first damaged the Ottoman Empire, depriving it of a bad, but still not useless army, after several years turned out to be extremely beneficial: the Ottoman army rose to the level of European armies, which was clearly proven in the Crimean campaign and even more so in the war of 1877-1878 and in the Greek war of 1897. Territorial reduction, especially the loss of Greece, also turned out to be more beneficial than harmful for the empire.

The Ottomans never allowed Christians to serve in military service; regions with a solid Christian population (Greece and Serbia), without increasing the Turkish army, at the same time required significant military garrisons from it, which could not be put into action in a moment of need. This applies especially to Greece, which, due to its extended maritime border, did not even represent strategic benefits for the Ottoman Empire, which was stronger on land than at sea. The loss of territories reduced the state revenues of the empire, but during the reign of Mahmud, trade between the Ottoman Empire and European states somewhat revived, and the country's productivity increased somewhat (bread, tobacco, grapes, rose oil, etc.).

Thus, despite all external defeats, despite even the terrible Battle of Nisib, in which Muhammad Ali destroyed a significant Ottoman army and was followed by the loss of an entire fleet, Mahmud left Abdülmecid a state strengthened rather than weakened. It was also strengthened by the fact that from now on the interest of the European powers was more closely connected with the preservation of the Ottoman state. The importance of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles has increased enormously; The European powers felt that the capture of Constantinople by one of them would deal an irreparable blow to the others, and therefore they considered the preservation of the weak Ottoman Empire more profitable for themselves.

In general, the empire was still decaying, and Nicholas I rightly called it a sick person; but the death of the Ottoman state was delayed indefinitely. Beginning with the Crimean War, the empire began to intensively make foreign loans, and this gained it the influential support of its numerous creditors, that is, mainly the financiers of England. On the other hand, internal reforms that could raise the state and save it from destruction became increasingly important in the 19th century. It's getting more and more difficult. Russia was afraid of these reforms, since they could strengthen the Ottoman Empire, and through its influence at the court of the Sultan tried to make them impossible; Thus, in 1876-1877, she destroyed Midhad Pasha, who was capable of carrying out serious reforms that were not inferior in importance to the reforms of Sultan Mahmud.

Reign of Abdul-Mecid (1839-1861)

Mahmud was succeeded by his 16-year-old son Abdul-Mejid, who was not distinguished by his energy and inflexibility, but was a much more cultured and gentle person in character.

Despite everything Mahmud did, the Battle of Nizib could have completely destroyed the Ottoman Empire if Russia, England, Austria and Prussia had not entered into an alliance to protect the integrity of the Porte (1840); They drew up a treaty, by virtue of which the Egyptian viceroy retained Egypt on a hereditary basis, but undertook to immediately cleanse Syria, and in case of refusal he had to lose all his possessions. This alliance caused indignation in France, which supported Muhammad Ali, and Thiers even made preparations for war; however, Louis-Philippe did not dare to take it. Despite the inequality of power, Muhammad Ali was ready to resist; but the English squadron bombarded Beirut, burned the Egyptian fleet and landed a corps of 9,000 people in Syria, which, with the help of the Maronites, inflicted several defeats on the Egyptians. Muhammad Ali conceded; The Ottoman Empire was saved, and Abdulmecid, supported by Khozrev Pasha, Reshid Pasha and other associates of his father, began reforms.

Gulhanei Hutt Sheriff

At the end of 1839, Abdul-Mecid published the famous Gulhane Hatti Sheriff (Gulhane - “home of roses”, the name of the square where the Hatti Sheriff was declared). This was a manifesto that defined the principles that the government intended to follow:

• providing all subjects with perfect security regarding their life, honor and property;
• the correct way to distribute and collect taxes;
• an equally correct way of recruiting soldiers.

It was considered necessary to change the distribution of taxes in the sense of their equalization and abandon the system of farming them out, determine the costs of land and naval forces; publicity was established legal proceedings. All these benefits applied to all subjects of the Sultan without distinction of religion. The Sultan himself took an oath of allegiance to the Hatti Sheriff. All that remained was to actually fulfill the promise.

Gumayun

After the Crimean War, the Sultan published a new Gatti Sherif Gumayun (1856), which confirmed and developed in more detail the principles of the first; especially insisted on the equality of all subjects, without distinction of religion or nationality. After this Gatti Sheriff, the old law on the death penalty for converting from Islam to another religion was abolished. However, most of these decisions remained only on paper.

The highest government was partly unable to cope with the willfulness of lower officials, and partly itself did not want to resort to some of the measures promised in the Gatti Sheriffs, such as, for example, the appointment of Christians to various positions. Once it made an attempt to recruit Christian soldiers, but this caused discontent among both Muslims and Christians, especially since the government did not dare to abandon religious principles when producing officers (1847); this measure was soon cancelled. The massacres of Maronites in Syria (1845 and others) confirmed that religious tolerance was still alien to the Ottoman Empire.

During the reign of Abdul-Mecid, roads were improved, many bridges were built, several telegraph lines were installed, and postal services were organized according to European models.

The events of 1848 did not resonate at all in the Ottoman Empire; only Hungarian revolution prompted the Ottoman government to make an attempt to restore its dominance on the Danube, but the defeat of the Hungarians dispelled its hopes. When Kossuth and his comrades escaped on Turkish territory, Austria and Russia turned to Sultan Abdulmecid demanding their extradition. The Sultan replied that religion forbade him to violate the duty of hospitality.

Crimean War

1853 -1856 were the time of a new Eastern War, which ended in 1856 with the Peace of Paris. On Paris Congress a representative of the Ottoman Empire was admitted on the basis of equality, and thereby the empire was recognized as a member of the European concern. However, this recognition was more formal than actual. First of all, the Ottoman Empire, whose participation in the war was very large and which proved an increase in its combat capability compared with the first quarter of the 19th or the end of the 18th century, actually received very little from the war; the destruction of Russian fortresses on the northern coast of the Black Sea was of negligible significance for her, and Russia’s loss of the right to maintain a navy on the Black Sea could not last long and was canceled already in 1871. Further, consular jurisdiction was preserved and proved that Europe was still watching on the Ottoman Empire as a barbaric state. After the war, European powers began to establish their own postal institutions on the territory of the empire, independent of the Ottoman ones.

The war not only did not increase the power of the Ottoman Empire over the vassal states, but weakened it; the Danube principalities united in 1861 into one state, Romania, and in Serbia, the Turkish-friendly Obrenovichi were overthrown and replaced by those friendly to Russia Karageorgievici; Somewhat later, Europe forced the empire to remove its garrisons from Serbia (1867). During the Eastern Campaign, the Ottoman Empire made a loan in England of 7 million pounds sterling; in 1858,1860 and 1861 I had to make new loans. At the same time, the government issued a significant amount of paper money, the value of which quickly fell sharply. In connection with other events, this caused the trade crisis of 1861, which had a severe impact on the population.

Abdul Aziz (1861–76) and Murad V (1876)

Abdul Aziz was a hypocritical, voluptuous and bloodthirsty tyrant, more reminiscent of the sultans of the 17th and 18th centuries than of his brother; but he understood the impossibility under these conditions of stopping on the path of reform. In the Gatti Sherif published by him upon his accession to the throne, he solemnly promised to continue the policies of his predecessors. Indeed, he released political criminals imprisoned in the previous reign from prison and retained his brother's ministers. Moreover, he stated that he was abandoning the harem and would be content with one wife. The promises were not fulfilled: a few days later, as a result of palace intrigue, the Grand Vizier Mehmed Kibrısli Pasha was overthrown and replaced by Aali Pasha, who in turn was overthrown a few months later and then again took the same post in 1867.

In general, grand viziers and other officials were replaced with extreme speed due to the intrigues of the harem, which was very soon re-established. Some measures in the spirit of Tanzimat were nevertheless taken. The most important of them is the publication (which, however, does not exactly correspond to reality) of the Ottoman state budget (1864). During the ministry of Aali Pasha (1867-1871), one of the most intelligent and dexterous Ottoman diplomats of the 19th century, partial secularization of waqfs was carried out, and Europeans were granted the right to own real estate within the Ottoman Empire (1867), reorganized state council(1868), a new law on public education was issued, formally introduced metric system of weights and measures, which, however, did not take root in life (1869). The same ministry organized censorship (1867), the creation of which was caused by the quantitative growth of periodical and non-periodical press in Constantinople and other cities, in Ottoman and foreign languages.

Censorship under Aali Pasha was characterized by extreme pettiness and severity; she not only forbade writing about what seemed inconvenient to the Ottoman government, but directly ordered the printing of praises of the wisdom of the Sultan and the government; in general, she made the entire press more or less official. Its general character remained the same after Aali Pasha, and only under Midhad Pasha in 1876-1877 was it somewhat softer.

War in Montenegro

In 1862, Montenegro, seeking complete independence from the Ottoman Empire, supporting the rebels of Herzegovina and counting on Russian support, began a war with the empire. Russia did not support it, and since a significant preponderance of forces was on the side of the Ottomans, the latter fairly quickly won a decisive victory: Omer Pasha’s troops penetrated all the way to the capital, but did not take it, since the Montenegrins began to ask for peace, to which the Ottoman Empire agreed .

Revolt in Crete

In 1866, the Greek uprising began in Crete. This uprising aroused warm sympathy in Greece, which began hastily preparing for war. European powers came to the aid of the Ottoman Empire and resolutely forbade Greece to intercede on behalf of the Cretans. An army of forty thousand was sent to Crete. Despite the extraordinary courage of the Cretans, who waged a guerrilla war in the mountains of their island, they could not hold out for long, and after three years of struggle the uprising was pacified; the rebels were punished by executions and confiscation of property.

After the death of Aali Pasha, the great viziers began to change again with extreme speed. In addition to the harem intrigues, there was another reason for this: two parties fought at the Sultan’s court - English and Russian, acting on the instructions of the ambassadors of England and Russia. The Russian ambassador to Constantinople in 1864-1877 was Count Nikolay Ignatiev, who had undoubted relations with the dissatisfied in the empire, promising them Russian intercession. At the same time, he had great influence on the Sultan, convincing him of Russia’s friendship and promising him assistance in the change of order planned by the Sultan succession to the throne not to the eldest in the clan, as was the case before, but from father to son, since the Sultan really wanted to transfer the throne to his son Yusuf Izedin.

Coup d'etat

In 1875, an uprising broke out in Herzegovina, Bosnia and Bulgaria, dealing a decisive blow to Ottoman finances. It was announced that from now on the Ottoman Empire would pay only one half of interest in money for its foreign debts, and the other half in coupons payable no earlier than in 5 years. The need for more serious reforms was recognized by many senior officials of the empire, led by Midhad Pasha; however, under the capricious and despotic Abdul-Aziz, their implementation was completely impossible. In view of this, the Grand Vizier Mehmed Rushdi Pasha conspired with the ministers Midhad Pasha, Hussein Avni Pasha and others and Sheikh-ul-Islam to overthrow the Sultan. Sheikh-ul-Islam gave the following fatwa: “If the Commander of the Faithful proves his madness, if he does not have the political knowledge necessary to govern the state, if he makes personal expenses that the state cannot bear, if his stay on the throne threatens with disastrous consequences, then should he be deposed or not? The law says yes."

On the night of May 30, 1876, Hussein Avni Pasha, putting a revolver to the chest of Murad, the heir to the throne (son of Abdulmecid), forced him to accept the crown. At the same time, a detachment of infantry entered the palace of Abdul-Aziz, and it was announced to him that he had ceased to reign. Murad V ascended the throne. A few days later it was announced that Abdul-Aziz had cut his veins with scissors and died. Murad V, who was not quite normal before, under the influence of the murder of his uncle, the subsequent murder of several ministers in the house of Midhad Pasha by the Circassian Hassan Bey, who was avenging the Sultan, and other events, finally went crazy and became just as inconvenient for his progressive ministers. In August 1876, he was also deposed with the help of a fatwa from the mufti and his brother Abdul-Hamid was elevated to the throne.

Abdul Hamid II

Already at the end of the reign of Abdul Aziz, uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia, caused by the extremely difficult situation of the population of these regions, partly obliged to serve corvee in the fields of large Muslim landowners, partly personally free, but completely powerless, oppressed by exorbitant taxes and at the same time constantly fueled in their hatred of the Turks by the close proximity of free Montenegrins.

In the spring of 1875, some communities turned to the Sultan with a request to reduce the tax on sheep and the tax paid by Christians in return for military service, and to organize a police force from Christians. They didn't even get an answer. Then their residents took up arms. The movement quickly spread throughout Herzegovina and spread to Bosnia; Niksic was besieged by rebels. Detachments of volunteers moved from Montenegro and Serbia to help the rebels. The movement aroused great interest abroad, especially in Russia and Austria; the latter turned to the Porte demanding religious equality, lower taxes, revision of real estate laws, etc. The Sultan immediately promised to fulfill all this (February 1876), but the rebels did not agree to lay down their weapons until the Ottoman troops were withdrawn from Herzegovina. The ferment spread to Bulgaria, where the Ottomans, in response, carried out a terrible massacre (see Bulgaria), which caused indignation throughout Europe (Gladstone's brochure about atrocities in Bulgaria), entire villages were massacred, including infants. The Bulgarian uprising was drowned in blood, but the Herzegovinian and Bosnian uprising continued in 1876 and finally caused the intervention of Serbia and Montenegro (1876-1877; see. Serbo-Montenegrin-Turkish War).

On May 6, 1876, in Thessaloniki, the French and German consuls were killed by a fanatical crowd, which included some officials. Of the participants or accomplices of the crime, Selim Bey, the chief of police in Thessaloniki, was sentenced to 15 years in the fortress, one colonel to 3 years; but these punishments, which were far from being carried out in full, satisfied no one, and the public opinion of Europe was strongly incited against the country where such crimes could be committed.

In December 1876, at the initiative of England, a conference of the great powers was convened in Constantinople to resolve the difficulties caused by the uprising, but it did not achieve its goal. The Grand Vizier at this time (from December 13, 1876) was Midhad Pasha, a liberal and Anglophile, the head of the Young Turk party. Considering it necessary to make the Ottoman Empire a European country and wanting to present it as such to the authorized representatives of the European powers, he drafted a constitution in a few days and forced Sultan Abdul Hamid to sign and publish it (December 23, 1876).

Ottoman Parliament, 1877

The constitution was drawn up on the model of European ones, especially the Belgian one. It guaranteed individual rights and established a parliamentary regime; Parliament was to consist of two chambers, from which the Chamber of Deputies was elected by a universal closed vote of all Ottoman subjects, without distinction of religion or nationality. The first elections were held during the administration of Midhad; its candidates were almost universally chosen. The opening of the first parliamentary session took place only on March 7, 1877, and even earlier, on March 5, Midhad was overthrown and arrested as a result of palace intrigues. Parliament was opened with a speech from the throne, but was dissolved a few days later. New elections were held, the new session turned out to be just as short, and then, without the formal repeal of the constitution, even without the formal dissolution of parliament, it no longer met.

Main article: Russian-Turkish War 1877-1878

In April 1877, the war with Russia began, in February 1878 it ended Peace of San Stefano, then (June 13 - July 13, 1878) by the amended Berlin Treaty. The Ottoman Empire lost all rights to Serbia and Romania; Bosnia and Herzegovina was given to Austria to restore order in it (de facto - for complete possession); Bulgaria formed a special vassal principality, Eastern Rumelia - an autonomous province, which soon (1885) united with Bulgaria. Serbia, Montenegro and Greece received territorial increments. In Asia, Russia received Kars, Ardagan, Batum. The Ottoman Empire had to pay Russia an indemnity of 800 million francs.

Riots in Crete and in areas inhabited by Armenians

Nevertheless, the internal conditions of life remained approximately the same, and this was reflected in the riots that constantly arose in one place or another in the Ottoman Empire. In 1889, an uprising began in Crete. The rebels demanded that the police be reorganized so that it would not consist only of Muslims and would protect more than just Muslims, new organization ships, etc. The Sultan rejected these demands and decided to act with weapons. The uprising was suppressed.

In 1887 in Geneva, in 1890 in Tiflis, the political parties Hunchak and Dashnaktsutyun were organized by Armenians. In August 1894, unrest began in Sasun by the Dashnak organization and under the leadership of Ambartsum Boyadzhiyan, a member of this party. These events are explained by the powerless position of the Armenians, especially by the robberies of the Kurds, who made up part of the troops in Asia Minor. The Turks and Kurds responded with a terrible massacre, reminiscent of the Bulgarian horrors, where rivers flowed with blood for months; entire villages were slaughtered [source not specified 1127 days] ; many Armenians were taken prisoner. All these facts were confirmed by European (mainly English) newspaper correspondence, which very often spoke from positions of Christian solidarity and caused an explosion of indignation in England. To the representation made on this matter by the British ambassador, Porta responded with a categorical denial of the validity of the “facts” and a statement that it was a matter of the usual pacification of a riot. However, the ambassadors of England, France and Russia in May 1895 presented the Sultan with demands for reforms in areas inhabited by Armenians, based on the resolutions Berlin Treaty; they demanded that the officials administering these lands be at least half Christian and that their appointment depend on a special commission in which Christians would also be represented; [ style!] The Porte replied that it saw no need for reforms for individual territories, but that it had in mind general reforms for the entire state.

On August 14, 1896, members of the Dashnaktsutyun party in Istanbul itself attacked the Ottoman Bank, killed the guards and entered into a shootout with the arriving army units. On the same day, as a result of negotiations between the Russian ambassador Maksimov and the Sultan, the Dashnaks left the city and headed to Marseille, on the yacht of the general director of the Ottoman Bank, Edgard Vincent. The European ambassadors made a presentation to the Sultan on this matter. This time the Sultan considered it necessary to respond with a promise of reform, which was not fulfilled; Only new administration of vilayets, sanjaks and nakhiyas was introduced (see. Government of the Ottoman Empire), which changed the essence of the matter very little.

In 1896, new unrest began in Crete and immediately took on a more dangerous character. The session of the National Assembly opened, but it did not enjoy the slightest authority among the population. Nobody counted on European help. The uprising flared up; Rebel detachments in Crete harassed the Turkish troops, repeatedly causing them heavy losses. The movement found a lively echo in Greece, from which in February 1897 a military detachment under the command of Colonel Vassos set off for the island of Crete. Then the European squadron, consisting of German, Italian, Russian and English warships, under the command of the Italian admiral Canevaro, assumed a threatening position. On February 21, 1897, she began to bombard the rebel military camp near the city of Kanei and forced them to disperse. A few days later, however, the rebels and the Greeks managed to take the city of Kadano and capture 3,000 Turks.

At the beginning of March, there was a riot in Crete by Turkish gendarmes, dissatisfied with not receiving their salaries for many months. This revolt could have been very useful for the rebels, but the European landing disarmed them. On March 25, the rebels attacked Canea, but came under fire from European ships and had to retreat with heavy losses. In early April 1897, Greece moved its troops into Ottoman territory, hoping to penetrate as far as Macedonia, where minor riots were occurring at the same time. Within one month, the Greeks were completely defeated and Ottoman troops occupied all of Thessaly. The Greeks were forced to ask for peace, which was concluded in September 1897 under pressure from the powers. There were no territorial changes, other than a small strategic adjustment of the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire in favor of the latter; but Greece had to pay a war indemnity of 4 million Turkish pounds.

In the fall of 1897, the uprising on the island of Crete also ceased, after the Sultan once again promised self-government to the island of Crete. Indeed, at the insistence of the powers, Prince George of Greece was appointed governor-general of the island, the island received self-government and retained only vassal relations with the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century. in Crete, a noticeable desire was revealed for the complete separation of the island from the empire and for annexation to Greece. At the same time (1901) fermentation continued in Macedonia. In the fall of 1901, Macedonian revolutionaries captured an American woman and demanded a ransom for her; this causes great inconvenience to the Ottoman government, which is powerless to protect the safety of foreigners on its territory. In the same year, the movement of the Young Turk party, headed by Midhad Pasha, appeared with comparatively greater force; she began intensively publishing brochures and leaflets in the Ottoman language in Geneva and Paris for distribution in the Ottoman Empire; in Istanbul itself, many people belonging to the bureaucratic and officer class were arrested and sentenced to various punishments on charges of participating in Young Turk agitation. Even the Sultan's son-in-law, married to his daughter, went abroad with his two sons, openly joined the Young Turk party and did not want to return to his homeland, despite the Sultan's persistent invitation. In 1901, the Porte attempted to destroy European postal institutions, but this attempt was unsuccessful. In 1901, France demanded that the Ottoman Empire satisfy the claims of some of its capitalists and creditors; the latter refused, then the French fleet occupied Mytilene and the Ottomans hastened to satisfy all demands.

Departure of Mehmed VI, last sultan Ottoman Empire, 1922

• In the 19th century, separatist sentiments intensified on the outskirts of the empire. The Ottoman Empire began to gradually lose its territories, succumbing to the technological superiority of the West.
• In 1908, the Young Turks overthrew Abdul Hamid II, after which the monarchy in the Ottoman Empire began to be decorative (see article Young Turk Revolution). The triumvirate of Enver, Talaat and Djemal was established (January 1913).
• In 1912, Italy captured Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (now Libya) from the empire.
• IN First Balkan War 1912-1913 the empire loses the vast majority of its European possessions: Albania, Macedonia, northern Greece. During 1913, she managed to recapture a small part of the lands from Bulgaria during Inter-Allied (Second Balkan) War.
• Weak, the Ottoman Empire tried to rely on help from Germany, but this only dragged it into First World War which ended in defeat Quadruple Alliance.
• October 30, 1914 - The Ottoman Empire officially announced its entry into the First World War, the day before actually entering it by shelling the Black Sea ports of Russia.
• In 1915, the Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.
• During 1917-1918, the Allies occupied the Middle Eastern possessions of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, Syria and Lebanon came under the control of France, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq came under the control of Great Britain; in the west of the Arabian Peninsula with the support of the British ( Lawrence of Arabia) independent states were formed: Hijaz, Najd, Asir and Yemen. Subsequently, Hijaz and Asir became part of Saudi Arabia.
• On October 30, 1918 it was concluded Truce of Mudros followed by Treaty of Sèvres(August 10, 1920), which did not come into force because it was not ratified by all signatories (ratified only by Greece). According to this agreement, the Ottoman Empire was to be dismembered, and one of the largest cities in Asia Minor, Izmir (Smyrna), was promised to Greece. The Greek army took it on May 15, 1919, after which it began war of independence. Turkish military statesmen led by Pasha Mustafa Kemal They refused to recognize the peace treaty and, with the armed forces remaining under their command, expelled the Greeks from the country. By September 18, 1922, Türkiye was liberated, which was recorded in Treaty of Lausanne 1923, which recognized the new borders of Turkey.
• On October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed, and Mustafa Kemal, who later took the name Ataturk (father of the Turks), became its first president.
• March 3, 1924 - Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Caliphate was abolished.

1. Decline of the Turkish military-feudal state

By the middle of the 17th century. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, which began already in the previous century, was clearly visible. Turkey still controlled vast territories in Asia, Europe and Africa, had important trade routes and strategic positions, and had many peoples and tribes under its control. The Turkish Sultan - the Grand Seigneur, or the Great Turk, as he was called in European documents - was still considered one of the most powerful sovereigns. The military power of the Turks also seemed formidable. But in reality, the roots of the former power of the Sultan's empire were already undermined.

The Ottoman Empire had no internal unity. Its individual parts differed sharply from each other in ethnic composition, language and religion of the population, in the level of social, economic and cultural development, and in the degree of dependence on the central government. The Turks themselves were a minority in the empire. Only in Asia Minor and in the part of Rumelia (European Turkey) adjacent to Istanbul did they live in large compact masses. In the remaining provinces they were scattered among the indigenous population, which they never managed to assimilate.

Turkish domination over the oppressed peoples of the empire was thus based almost exclusively on military violence alone. This kind of domination could last for a more or less long period only if there were sufficient means to carry out this violence. Meanwhile, the military power of the Ottoman Empire was steadily declining. The military-feudal system of land tenure, inherited by the Ottomans from the Seljuks and at one time one of the most important reasons for the success of Turkish weapons, has lost its former significance. Formally, legally, it continued to exist. But its actual content has changed so much that from a factor in strengthening and enriching the Turkish feudal class, it turned into a source of its ever-increasing weakness.

Decomposition of the military-feudal system of land tenure

The military-feudal character of the Ottoman Empire determined its entire domestic and foreign policy. Prominent Turkish politician and writer of the 17th century. Kocibey Gomyurjinsky noted in his “risal” (treatise) that the Ottoman state “was won with a saber and can only be supported with a saber.” Receiving military booty, slaves and tribute from conquered lands was for several centuries the main means of enriching the Turkish feudal lords, and direct military violence against the conquered peoples and the Turkish working masses was the main function of state power. Therefore, from the moment the Ottoman state emerged, the Turkish ruling class directed all its energy and attention to creating and maintaining a combat-ready army. The decisive role in this regard was played by the military-feudal system of land tenure, which provided for the formation and supply of the feudal army by the military fiefs themselves - sipahi, who for this purpose received from the state land fund on the basis of conditional ownership rights large and small estates (zeamet and timar) with the right to collect a certain part rent-tax in your favor. Although this system did not apply to all territories captured by the Turks, its importance was decisive for the Turkish military-feudal state as a whole.

At first, the military system operated clearly. It directly resulted from the interest of the Turkish feudal lords in an active policy of conquest and, in turn, stimulated this interest. Numerous military fiefs - loans (owners of zeamets) and timariots (owners of timars) - were not only military, but also the main political force of the Ottoman Empire; they constituted, in the words of a Turkish source, “a real fight for the faith and the state.” The military-feudal system freed the state budget from the bulk of the costs of maintaining the army and ensured the rapid mobilization of the feudal army. The Turkish infantry - the Janissaries, as well as some other corps of government troops, were paid in cash, but the military-female system of land tenure indirectly influenced them, opening up for commanders and even ordinary soldiers the tempting prospect of receiving military fiefs and thereby becoming sipahi.

At first, the military-feudal system did not have a detrimental effect on the peasant economy. Of course, peasant paradise ( Raya (raaya, reaya) - common name tax-paying population in the Ottoman Empire, “subjects”; subsequently (not earlier than the end of the 18th century), only non-Muslims began to be called paradise.), deprived of any political rights, was in feudal dependence on the sipahi and was subject to feudal exploitation. But this exploitation at first was predominantly fiscal and more or less patriarchal in nature. As long as Sipahi enriched himself mainly through military spoils, he viewed land ownership not as the main, but as an auxiliary source of income. He usually limited himself to collecting rent-taxes and the role of a political overlord and did not interfere in the economic activities of the peasants, who used their land plots as hereditary holdings. With natural forms of farming, such a system provided peasants with the opportunity for a tolerable existence.

However, in its original form, the military system did not operate in Turkey for long. The internal contradictions inherent in it began to appear soon after the first great Turkish conquests. Born in war and for war, this system required continuous or almost continuous warfare of aggressive wars, which served as the main source of enrichment for the ruling class. But this source was not inexhaustible. The Turkish conquests were accompanied by enormous destruction, and the material assets extracted from the conquered countries were quickly and unproductively wasted. On the other hand, conquests, expanding feudal land ownership and creating for the feudal lords a certain guarantee of unimpeded exploitation of the acquired estates, raised the importance of land ownership in their eyes and increased its attractive power.

The greed of the feudal lords for money increased with the development of commodity-money relations in the country and especially foreign trade relations, which made it possible to satisfy the growing demand of the Turkish nobility for luxury goods.

All this caused the Turkish feudal lords to strive to increase the size of their estates and the income received from them. At the end of the 16th century. The ban on the concentration of several fiefs in one hand, established by previous laws, ceased to be observed. In the 17th century, especially from the second half, the process of concentration of land ownership intensified. Vast estates began to be created, the owners of which sharply increased feudal duties, introduced arbitrary exactions, and in some cases, though still rare at that time, created lordly cultivation on their own estates, the so-called chiftliks ( Chiftlik (from the Turkish “chift” - pair, meaning a pair of oxen, with the help of which the land is cultivated) in the period under review - a private feudal estate formed on state land. The Chiftlik system became most widespread later, at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, when landowners - Chiftlikchi - began to seize peasant lands en masse; in Serbia, where this process took place in especially violent forms, it received the Slavicized name of veneration.).

The very method of production did not change because of this, but the attitude of the feudal lord towards the peasants, towards land ownership, towards his responsibilities to the state changed. The old exploiter, the sipahi, who had war in the foreground and was most interested in military spoils, was replaced by a new, much more greedy for money feudal landowner, whose main goal was to obtain maximum income from the exploitation of peasant labor. New landowners, unlike the old ones, were actually and sometimes formally exempted from military obligations to the state. Thus, at the expense of the state-feudal land fund, large private-feudal property grew. The sultans also contributed to this by distributing vast estates for freehold ownership to dignitaries, provincial pashas, ​​and court favorites. Former military captives sometimes also managed to turn into landowners of a new type, but most often the timariots and loans went bankrupt, and their lands passed to new feudal owners. Directly or indirectly, usurious capital was also included in land ownership. But, while promoting the disintegration of the military-feudal system, he did not create a new, more progressive method of production. As K. Marx noted, “under Asian forms, usury can exist for a very long time, causing nothing other than economic decline and political corruption”; “...it is conservative and only brings the existing mode of production to a more miserable state” ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. III, pp. 611, 623.).

The decomposition and then the crisis of the military-feudal system of land tenure entailed a crisis in the Turkish military-feudal state as a whole. This was not a crisis of the mode of production. Turkish feudalism was then still far from the stage at which the capitalist structure emerges, entering into a struggle with the old forms of production and the old political superstructure. The elements of capitalist relations observed during the period under review in the urban economy, especially in Istanbul and in general in the European provinces of the empire - the emergence of some manufactories, the partial use of hired labor in state enterprises, etc. - were very weak and fragile. In agriculture there were no even weak germs of new forms of production. The disintegration of the Turkish military-feudal system resulted not so much from changes in the method of production, but from those contradictions that were rooted in it itself and developed without going beyond the framework of feudal relations. But thanks to this process, significant changes occurred in the agrarian system of Turkey and shifts within the feudal class. Ultimately, it was the disintegration of the military-feudal system that caused the decline of Turkish military power, which, due to the specifically military nature of the Ottoman state, was decisive for its entire further development.

Decline in Turkish military power. Defeat at Vienna and its consequences

By the middle of the 17th century. The crisis of the military-feudal system of land tenure has gone far. Its consequences were manifested in the strengthening of feudal oppression (as evidenced by numerous cases of peasant uprisings, as well as the mass exodus of peasants to the cities and even outside the empire), and in the reduction in the number of the Sipahi army (under Suleiman the Magnificent it numbered 200 thousand people, and by the end of the 17th century - only 20 thousand), and in the disintegration of both this army and the Janissaries, and in the further collapse of the government apparatus, and in the growth of financial difficulties.

Some Turkish statesmen tried to delay this process. The most prominent among them were the great viziers from the Köprülü family, who carried out their activities in the second half of the 17th century. a series of measures aimed at streamlining management, strengthening discipline in the state apparatus and the army, and regulating the tax system. However, all these measures led to only partial and short-term improvements.

Türkiye was also weakening relatively - in comparison with its main military opponents, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In most of these countries, although feudalism still dominated them, new productive forces gradually grew and the capitalist structure developed. There were no prerequisites for this in Turkey. Already after the great geographical discoveries, when the process of primitive accumulation was taking place in advanced European countries, Turkey found itself on the sidelines of the economic development of Europe. Further, in Europe, nations and national states took shape, either single-national or multinational, but even in this case, led by some strong emerging nation. Meanwhile, the Turks not only could not unite all the peoples of the Ottoman Empire into a single “Ottoman” nation, but they themselves were increasingly lagging behind in socio-economic, and therefore in national development, from many of the nationalities under their control, especially the Balkans.

Unfavorable for Turkey in the middle of the 17th century. The international situation in Europe has also developed. The Peace of Westphalia raised the importance of France and reduced its interest in receiving help from the Turkish Sultan against the Habsburgs. In its anti-Habsburg policy, France began to focus more on Poland, as well as on small German states. On the other hand, after the Thirty Years' War, which undermined the position of the emperor in Germany, the Habsburgs concentrated all their efforts on the fight against the Turks, trying to take Eastern Hungary from them. Finally, an important change in the balance of power in Eastern Europe occurred as a result of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Turkish aggression now met much more powerful resistance in Ukraine. Polish-Turkish contradictions also deepened.

The military weakening of Turkey and its growing lag behind European states soon affected the course of military operations in Europe. In 1664, a large Turkish army suffered a heavy defeat at Saint Gotthard (Western Hungary) from the Austrians and Hungarians, who were joined this time by a detachment of French. True, this defeat has not yet stopped Turkish aggression. In the early 70s, the troops of the Turkish Sultan and his vassal, the Crimean Khan, invaded Poland and Ukraine several times, reaching the Dnieper itself, and in 1683, Turkey, taking advantage of the struggle of part of the Hungarian feudal lords led by Emerik Tekeli against the Habsburgs, undertook a new attempt to defeat Austria. However, it was this attempt that led to the disaster near Vienna.

At first, the campaign developed successfully for the Turks. A huge army of more than a hundred thousand, led by the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, defeated the Austrians on the territory of Hungary, then invaded Austria and on July 14, 1683 approached Vienna. The siege of the Austrian capital lasted two months. The position of the Austrians was very difficult. Emperor Leopold, his court and ministers fled Vienna. The rich and nobles began to flee behind them until the Turks closed the siege ring. Those who remained to defend the capital were mainly artisans, students and peasants who came from the suburbs burned by the Turks. The garrison troops numbered only 10 thousand people and had an insignificant amount of guns and ammunition. The city's defenders weakened every day, and famine soon began. Turkish artillery destroyed a significant part of the fortifications.

The turning point came on the night of September 12, 1683, when the Polish king Jan Sobieski approached Vienna with a small (25 thousand people), but fresh and well-armed army, consisting of Poles and Ukrainian Cossacks. Near Vienna, Saxon troops also joined Jan Sobieski.

The next morning there was a battle that ended in the complete defeat of the Turks. Turkish troops left 20 thousand dead, all the artillery and convoys on the battlefield. The surviving Turkish units rolled back to Buda and Pest, losing another 10 thousand people when crossing the Danube. Pursuing the Turks, Jan Sobieski inflicted a new defeat on them, after which Kara Mustafa Pasha fled to Belgrade, where he was killed by order of the Sultan.

The defeat of the Turkish armed forces under the walls of Vienna was the inevitable result of the decline of the Turkish military-feudal state that had begun long before this. Regarding this event, K. Marx wrote: “... There is absolutely no reason to believe that the decline of Turkey began from the moment when Sobieski provided assistance to the Austrian capital. Hammer's research (Austrian historian of Turkey - Ed.) irrefutably proves that the organization of the Turkish Empire was then in a state of disintegration, and that already some time before this, the era of Ottoman power and greatness was quickly coming to an end" ( K. Marx, Reorganization of the English War Department. - Austrian demands. - Economic situation in England. - Saint-Arnaud, K. Marx and F. Engels. Soch, vol. 10. ed. 2, p. 262.).

The defeat at Vienna ended the Turkish advance into Europe. From this time on, the Ottoman Empire began to gradually lose, one after another, the territories it had previously conquered.

In 1684, to fight Turkey, the “Holy League” was formed, consisting of Austria, Poland, Venice, and from 1686, Russia. Poland's military actions were unsuccessful, but Austrian troops in 1687-1688. occupied Eastern Hungary, Slavonia, Banat, captured Belgrade and began to move deeper into Serbia. The actions of the Serbian volunteer army opposing the Turks, as well as the Bulgarian uprising that broke out in 1688 in Chiprovets, created a serious threat to Turkish communications. A series of defeats were inflicted on the Turks by Venice, which captured the Morea and Athens.

In the difficult international situation of the 90s of the 17th century, when Austrian forces were distracted by the war with France (the War of the League of Augsburg), the military actions of the Holy League against the Turks became protracted. Nevertheless, Türkiye continued to suffer setbacks. The Azov campaigns of Peter I in 1695-1696 played an important role in the military events of this period, which facilitated the task of the Austrian command in the Balkans. In 1697, the Austrians completely defeated a large Turkish army near the city of Zenta (Senta) on the Tisza and invaded Bosnia.

Turkey was greatly assisted by English and Dutch diplomacy, through whose mediation peace negotiations opened in Karlovice (Srem) in October 1698. The international situation was generally favorable to Turkey: Austria entered into separate negotiations with it in order to ensure its interests and avoid supporting Russian demands regarding Azov and Kerch; Poland and Venice were also ready to come to terms with the Turks at the expense of Russia; the mediating powers (England and Holland) openly opposed Russia and generally helped the Turks more than the allies. However, the internal weakening of Turkey went so far that the Sultan was ready to end the war at any cost. Therefore, the results of the Karlowitz Congress turned out to be very unfavorable for Turkey.

In January 1699, treaties were signed between Turkey and each of the allies separately. Austria received Eastern Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia and almost all of Slavonia; only Banat (province of Temesvar) with fortresses was returned to the Sultan. The peace treaty with Poland deprived the Sultan of the last remaining part of Right Bank Ukraine and Podolia with the Kamenets fortress. The Turks ceded part of Dalmatia and the Morea to Venice. Russia, abandoned by its allies, was forced to sign not a peace treaty with the Turks in Karlovitsy, but only a truce for a period of two years, which left Azov in its hands. Subsequently, in 1700, in development of the terms of this truce, a Russian-Turkish peace treaty was concluded in Istanbul, which assigned Azov and the surrounding lands to Russia and canceled Russia’s payment of the annual “dacha” to the Crimean Khan.

Rise of Patron-Khalil

At the beginning of the 18th century. Turkey had some military successes: the encirclement of the army of Peter I on the Prut in 1711, which resulted in the temporary loss of Azov by Russia; capture of the Seas and a number of Aegean islands from the Venetians in the war of 1715-1718. etc. But these successes, explained by opportunistic changes in the international situation and the fierce struggle between European powers (the Northern War, the War of the Spanish Succession), were fleeting.

War of 1716-1718 with Austria brought Turkey new territorial losses in the Balkans, fixed in the Pozarevac (Passarovic) Treaty. A few years later, according to the 1724 treaty with Russia, Turkey was forced to renounce its claims to the Caspian regions of Iran and Transcaucasia. At the end of the 20s, a powerful popular movement arose in Iran against the Turkish (and Afghan) conquerors. In 1730, Nadir Khan took a number of provinces and cities from the Turks. In this regard, the Iranian-Turkish War began, but even before its official announcement, failures in Iran served as the impetus for a major uprising that broke out in the fall of 1730 in Istanbul. The root causes of this uprising were related not so much to the foreign as to the internal policies of the Turkish government. Despite the fact that the Janissaries actively participated in the uprising, its main driving force were artisans, small traders, and the urban poor.

Istanbul even then was a huge, multilingual and multitribal city. Its population probably exceeded 600 thousand people. In the first third of the 18th century. it further increased significantly due to the massive influx of peasants. This was partly caused by what was then happening in Istanbul, in the Balkan cities, as well as in the main centers of Levantine trade (Thessaloniki, Izmir, Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria) and the well-known growth of handicrafts and the emergence of manufacturing production. Turkish sources of this period contain information about the creation of paper, cloth and some other manufactories in Istanbul; attempts were made to build a faience manufactory at the Sultan's palace; Old enterprises expanded and new enterprises emerged to serve the army and navy.

The development of production was one-sided. The domestic market was extremely narrow; production served mainly foreign trade and the needs of the feudal lords, the state and the army. Nevertheless, the small-scale urban industry of Istanbul had an attractive force for the newcomer working population, especially since the capital's artisans enjoyed many privileges and tax breaks. However, the vast majority of peasants who fled to Istanbul from their villages did not find here permanent job and swelled the ranks of day laborers and homeless beggars. The government, taking advantage of the influx of newcomers, began to increase taxes and introduce new duties on handicraft products. Food prices rose so much that the authorities, fearing unrest, were even forced to distribute free bread in mosques several times. The increased activity of usurious capital, which increasingly subordinated handicraft and small-scale production to its control, had a heavy impact on the working masses of the capital.

Beginning of the 18th century was marked by the widespread spread of European fashion in Turkey, especially in the capital. The Sultan and the nobles competed in inventing amusements, organizing festivals and feasts, and building palaces and parks. In the vicinity of Istanbul, on the banks of a small river known to Europeans as the “Sweet Waters of Europe,” the luxurious Sultan’s palace of Saadabad and about 200 kiosks (“kiosks”, small palaces) of the court nobility were built. Turkish nobles were especially sophisticated in growing tulips, decorating their gardens and parks with them. The passion for tulips manifested itself in both architecture and painting. A special “tulip style” emerged. This time went down in Turkish history as the “tulip period” (“lyale devri”).

The luxurious life of the feudal nobility contrasted sharply with the growing poverty of the masses, increasing their discontent. The government did not take this into account. Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730), a selfish and insignificant man, cared only about money and pleasure. The actual ruler of the state was the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha Nevshehirli, who bore the title of Damada (son-in-law of the Sultan). He was a major statesman. Having taken the post of Grand Vizier in 1718, after signing an unfavorable treaty with Austria, he took a number of steps to improve the internal and international situation empires. However, Damad Ibrahim Pasha replenished the state treasury by brutally increasing the tax burden. He encouraged the predation and wastefulness of the nobility, and he himself was a stranger to corruption.

Tension in the Turkish capital reached its climax in the summer and autumn of 1730, when, on top of everything else, the Janissaries' dissatisfaction with the government's apparent inability to defend the Turkish conquests in Iran was added. At the beginning of August 1730, the Sultan and the Grand Vizier set out at the head of an army from the capital, supposedly on a campaign against the Iranians, but, having crossed to the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, they moved no further and began secret negotiations with Iranian representatives. Having learned about this, the capital's Janissaries called on the population of Istanbul to revolt.

The uprising began on September 28, 1730. Among its leaders were Janissaries, artisans, and representatives of the Muslim clergy. The most prominent role was played by a native of the lower classes, a former small trader, later a sailor and janissary, Patrona-Khalil, an Albanian by origin, who gained great popularity among the masses with his courage and unselfishness. The events of 1730 were therefore included in historical literature under the name “Patron-Khalil uprising.”

Already on the first day, the rebels destroyed the palaces and keshki of the court nobility and demanded that the Sultan hand over to them the Grand Vizier and four other high dignitaries. Hoping to save his throne and life, Ahmed III ordered the death of Ibrahim Pasha and the handing over of his corpse. Nevertheless, the very next day, Ahmed III, at the request of the rebels, had to abdicate the throne in favor of his nephew Mahmud.

For about two months, power in the capital was actually in the hands of the rebels. Sultan Mahmud I (1730-1754) initially showed full agreement with Patron-Khalil. The Sultan ordered the destruction of the Saadabad Palace, abolished a number of taxes introduced under his predecessor, and, at the direction of Patron Khalil, made some changes in the government and administration. Patrona-Khalil did not occupy a government post. He did not take advantage of his position to enrich himself. He even came to Divan meetings in an old, shabby dress.

However, neither Patron-Khalil nor his associates had a positive program. Having dealt with the nobles hated by the people, they essentially did not know what to do next. Meanwhile, the Sultan and his entourage drew up a secret plan for reprisals against the leaders of the uprising. On November 25, 1730, Patrona-Khalil and his closest assistants were invited to the Sultan's palace, allegedly for negotiations, and were treacherously killed.

The Sultan's government returned entirely to the old methods of governance. This caused a new uprising in March 1731. It was less powerful than the previous one, and in it the masses played a smaller role. The government suppressed it relatively quickly, but unrest continued until the end of April. Only after numerous executions, arrests and the expulsion of several thousand Janissaries from the capital did the government take control of the situation.

Strengthening the influence of Western powers on Turkey. The emergence of the Eastern Question

The Turkish ruling class still saw its salvation in wars. Turkey's main military opponents at this time were Austria, Venice and Russia. In the 17th and early 18th centuries. the most acute were the Austro-Turkish contradictions, and later the Russian-Turkish ones. Russian-Turkish antagonism deepened as Russia moved towards the Black Sea coast, as well as due to the growth of national liberation movements of the oppressed peoples of the Ottoman Empire, who saw their ally in the Russian people.

The Turkish ruling circles took a particularly hostile position towards Russia, which they considered the main culprit of the unrest of Balkan Christians and, in general, almost all the difficulties of the Sublime Porte ( Brilliant, or Sublime Porte-Sultan government.). Therefore, the contradictions between Russia and Turkey in the second half of the 18th century. increasingly led to armed conflicts. France and England took advantage of all this, strengthening their influence on the Sultan’s government at that time. Of all the European powers, they had the most serious trading interests in Turkey; the French owned rich trading posts in the ports of the Levant. On the embankments of Beirut or Izmir one could more often hear French spoken than Turkish. By the end of the 18th century. France's trade turnover with the Ottoman Empire reached 50-70 million livres per year, which exceeded the turnover of all other European powers combined. The British also had a significant economic position in Turkey, especially on the Turkish coast of the Persian Gulf. The British trading post in Basra, associated with the East India Company, became a monopoly on the purchase of raw materials.

During this period, France and England, busy with colonial wars in America and India, did not yet set themselves the immediate task of seizing the territories of the Ottoman Empire. They preferred to temporarily support the weak power of the Turkish Sultan, which was most beneficial for them from the point of view of their commercial expansion. No other power and no other government that would have replaced Turkish rule would have created such wide opportunities for unhindered trade for foreign merchants, would have placed them in such favorable conditions in comparison with their own subjects. This resulted in the openly hostile attitude of France and England towards the liberation movements of the oppressed peoples of the Ottoman Empire; this also largely explained their opposition to Russia’s advance to the shores of the Black Sea and the Balkans.

France and England alternately, and in other cases jointly, encouraged the Turkish government to act against Russia, although each new Russian-Turkish war invariably brought Turkey new defeats and new territorial losses. The Western powers were far from providing Turkey with any effective assistance. They even benefited further from Turkey's defeats in the wars with Russia by forcing the Turkish government to grant them new trade benefits.

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1735-1739, which arose largely thanks to the machinations of French diplomacy, the Turkish army suffered a severe defeat near Stavuchany. Despite this, after Austria concluded a separate peace with Turkey, Russia, according to the Belgrade Peace Treaty of 1739, was forced to be content with the annexation of Zaporozhye and Azov. France, for the diplomatic services provided to Turkey, received a new capitulation in 1740, which confirmed and expanded the privileges of French subjects in Turkey: low customs duties, exemption from taxes and fees, non-jurisdiction of the Turkish court, etc. Moreover, in contrast to previous letters of surrender The capitulation of 1740 was issued by the Sultan not only on his own behalf, but also as an obligation for all his future successors. Thus, the capitulation privileges (which soon extended to the subjects of other European powers) were permanently secured as an international obligation of Turkey.

The Russian-Turkish War of 1768-1774, which was triggered by the question of replacing the Polish throne, also owed much to the harassment of French diplomacy. This war, marked by the brilliant victories of Russian troops under the command of P. A. Rumyantsev and A. V. Suvorov and the defeat of the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Chesme, had especially dire consequences for Turkey.

A striking example of the selfish use of Turkey by European powers was the policy of Austria at this time. She in every possible way incited the Turks to continue the unsuccessful war for them and pledged to provide them with economic and military assistance. For this, when signing an agreement with Austria in 1771, the Turks paid the Austrians 3 million piastres as an advance. However, Austria did not fulfill its obligations, even refusing diplomatic support from Turkey. Nevertheless, she not only kept the money she received from Turkey, but also took Bukovina from her in 1775 under the guise of the “remainder” of compensation.

The Kuchuk-Kaynardzhi Peace Treaty of 1774, which ended the Russian-Turkish war, marked a new stage in the development of relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers.

Crimea was declared independent from Turkey (in 1783 it was annexed to Russia); the Russian border advanced from the Dnieper to the Bug; The Black Sea and the straits were open to Russian merchant shipping; Russia acquired the right of patronage to the Moldavian and Wallachian rulers, as well as the Orthodox Church in Turkey; capitulation privileges were extended to Russian subjects in Turkey; Türkiye had to pay Russia a large indemnity. But the significance of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace was not only that the Turks suffered territorial losses. This was not new for them, and the losses were not so great, since Catherine II, in connection with the division of Poland and especially in connection with the Pugachev uprising, was in a hurry to end the Turkish war. Much more important for Turkey was that after the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace the balance of forces in the Black Sea basin radically changed: the sharp strengthening of Russia and the equally sharp weakening of the Ottoman Empire put on the order of the day the problem of Russia's access to the Mediterranean Sea and the complete elimination of Turkish domination in Europe . The solution to this problem, as Turkey's foreign policy increasingly lost its independence, acquired an international character. Russia in its further promotion to the Black Sea, to the Balkans, Istanbul and the straits was now faced not so much by Turkey itself, but by the main European powers, who also put forward their claims to the “Ottoman inheritance” and openly interfered both in Russian-Turkish relations and in the relations between the Sultan and his Christian subjects.

From this time on, the so-called Eastern Question began to exist, although the term itself began to be used somewhat later. The components of the Eastern Question were, on the one hand, the internal disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, associated with the liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples, and on the other hand, the struggle between the great European powers for the division of territories falling away from Turkey, primarily European ones.

In 1787, a new Russian-Turkish war began. Russia openly prepared for it, putting forward a plan for the complete expulsion of the Turks from Europe. But this time the initiative for the break belonged to Turkey, which acted under the influence of British diplomacy, which was trying to create a Turkish-Swedish-Prussian coalition against Russia.

The alliance with Sweden and Prussia brought little benefit to the Turks. Russian troops under the command of Suvorov defeated the Turks at Focsani, Rymnik and Izmail. Austria took the side of Russia. Only due to the fact that the attention of Austria and then Russia was diverted by events in Europe, in connection with the formation of a counter-revolutionary coalition against France, was Turkey able to end the war with relatively small losses. The Peace of Sistova in 1791 with Austria was concluded on the basis of the status quo (the situation that existed before the war), and according to the Peace of Jassy with Russia in 1792 (according to the old style of 1791), Turkey recognized the new Russian border along the Dniester, with the inclusion of Crimea and Kuban into Russia, renounced claims to Georgia, confirmed the Russian protectorate over Moldova and Wallachia and other conditions of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty.

The French Revolution, having caused international complications in Europe, created a situation favorable for Turkey, which contributed to delaying the elimination of Turkish domination in the Balkans. But the process of collapse of the Ottoman Empire continued. The Eastern question became even more aggravated due to the growth of national self-awareness of the Balkan peoples. The contradictions between the European powers also deepened, putting forward new claims to the “Ottoman inheritance”: some of these powers acted openly, others under the guise of “protecting” the Ottoman Empire from the encroachments of their rivals, but in all cases this policy led to the further weakening of Turkey and the transformation her into a country dependent on the European powers.

Economic and political crisis of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 18th century.

By the end of the 18th century. The Ottoman Empire entered a period of acute crisis that affected all sectors of its economy, armed forces, and state apparatus. The peasants were exhausted under the yoke of feudal exploitation. According to rough estimates, in the Ottoman Empire at that time there were about a hundred different taxes, duties and duties. The severity of the tax burden was aggravated by the tax farming system. High dignitaries spoke at government auctions, with whom no one dared to compete. Therefore, they received the ransom for a low fee. Sometimes the ransom was granted for lifelong use. The original tax farmer usually sold the farm-out at a large premium to the moneylender, who resold it again until the right to farm-out fell into the hands of the immediate tax collector, who reimbursed and covered his costs by shamelessly robbing the peasants.

Tithes were collected in kind from all types of grain, garden crops, fish catches, etc. In fact, it reached a third and even half of the harvest. The best quality products were taken from the peasant, leaving him with the worst. The feudal lords, in addition, demanded that the peasants perform various duties: building roads, supplying firewood, food, and sometimes corvée work. It was useless to complain, since the wali (governor-general) and other senior officials were themselves the largest landowners. If complaints sometimes reached the capital and an official was sent from there to investigate, then the pashas and beys got off with a bribe, and the peasants bore additional burdens of feeding and maintaining the auditor.

Christian peasants were subjected to double oppression. The personal tax on non-Muslims - jizya, now also called kharaj, sharply increased in size and was levied on everyone, even infants. Added to this was religious oppression. Any Janissary could commit violence against a non-Muslim with impunity. Non-Muslims were not allowed to have weapons or wear the same clothes and shoes as Muslims; the Muslim court did not recognize the testimony of “infidels”; Even in official documents, contemptuous and abusive nicknames were used towards non-Muslims.

Turkish agriculture was being destroyed every year. In many areas, entire villages were left without inhabitants. The Sultan's decree in 1781 directly recognized that “the poor subjects are scattering, which is one of the reasons for the devastation of my highest empire.” The French writer Volney, who traveled to the Ottoman Empire in 1783-1785, noted in his book that the degradation of agriculture, which had intensified about 40 years earlier, led to the desolation of entire villages. The farmer has no incentive to expand production: “he sows exactly as much as he needs to live,” this author reported.

Peasant unrest spontaneously arose not only in non-Turkish regions, where the anti-feudal movement was combined with the liberation movement, but also in Turkey proper. Crowds of destitute, homeless peasants roamed across Anatolia and Rumelia. Sometimes they formed armed detachments and attacked the estates of feudal lords. There were unrest in the cities as well. In 1767, the Kars Pasha was killed. Troops were sent from Van to pacify the population. At the same time, there was an uprising in Aydin, where residents killed a tax farmer. In 1782, the Russian ambassador reported to St. Petersburg that “confusion in various Anatolian regions is making the clergy and ministry more and more worried and despondent day by day.”

Attempts by individual peasants - both non-Muslims and Muslims - to quit farming were suppressed by legislative and administrative measures. A special tax was introduced for abandoning agriculture, which strengthened the attachment of peasants to the land. In addition, the feudal lord and the moneylender kept the peasants in unpayable debt. The feudal lord had the right to forcibly return the departed peasant and force him to pay taxes for the entire time of absence.

The situation in the cities was still somewhat better than in the countryside. In the interests of their own safety, the city authorities, and in the capital the government itself, tried to provide the citizens with food. They took grain from the peasants at a fixed price, introduced grain monopolies, and prohibited the export of grain from cities.

Turkish crafts during this period were not yet suppressed by the competition of European industry. Still famous at home and abroad were the satin and velvet of Brus, the shawls of Ankara, the long-wool fabrics of Izmir, the soap and rose oil of Edirne, Anatolian carpets, and especially the works of Istanbul artisans: dyed and embroidered fabrics, mother-of-pearl inlays, silver and ivory items , carved weapons, etc.

But the economy of the Turkish city also showed signs of decline. Unsuccessful wars and territorial losses of the empire reduced the already limited demand for Turkish handicrafts and manufactures. Medieval workshops (esnafs) slowed down the development of commodity production. The position of the craft was also affected by the corrupting influence of trade and usurious capital. In the 20s of the XVIII century. The government introduced a system of gediks (patents) for artisans and traders. Without a gedik it was impossible to even take up the profession of a boatman, peddler, or street singer. By lending money to artisans to purchase gediks, moneylenders made the workshops enslavingly dependent on themselves.

The development of crafts and trade was also hampered by internal customs, the presence of different measures of length and weight in each province, the arbitrariness of the authorities and local feudal lords, and robbery on trade routes. The lack of security of property killed artisans and merchants from any desire to expand their activities.

The government's destruction of the coin had catastrophic consequences. The Hungarian Baron de Tott, who was in the service of the Turks as a military expert, wrote in his memoirs: “The coin is damaged to such an extent that counterfeiters are now working in Turkey for the benefit of the population: no matter what the alloy they use, the coin is still minted by the Grand Seigneur. lower in cost."

Fires, epidemics of plague and other infectious diseases raged in the cities. Frequent natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods completed the ruin of the people. The government restored mosques, palaces, and Janissary barracks, but did not provide assistance to the population. Many moved to the position of house slaves or joined the ranks of the lumpenproletariat along with the peasants who fled from the villages.

Against the gloomy background of popular ruin and poverty, the wastefulness of the upper classes stood out even more clearly. Huge sums were spent on maintaining the Sultan's court. Titled persons, wives and concubines of the Sultan, servants, pashas, ​​eunuchs, and guards totaled more than 12 thousand people. The palace, especially its female half (harem), was the center of intrigue and secret conspiracies. Court favorites, sultanas and among them the most influential - the sultana-mother (valide sultan) received bribes from dignitaries seeking lucrative positions, from provincial pashas who sought to conceal the taxes they received, from foreign ambassadors. One of top places in the palace hierarchy he was occupied by the chief of the black eunuchs - kyzlar-agasy (literally - the chief of the girls). He had in his charge not only the harem, but also the personal treasury of the Sultan, the waqfs of Mecca and Medina and a number of other sources of income and enjoyed great actual power. Kyzlar-agasy Beshir had a decisive influence on state affairs for 30 years, until the mid-18th century. Formerly a slave, bought in Abyssinia for 30 piastres, he left behind 29 million piastres in money, 160 luxurious armor and 800 watches decorated with precious stones. His successor, also named Beshir, enjoyed the same power, but did not get along with the higher clergy, was removed and then strangled. After this, the leaders of the black eunuchs became more careful and tried not to openly interfere in government affairs. Nevertheless, they retained their secret influence.

Corruption in the ruling circles of Turkey was caused, in addition to deep reasons social order, also by the obvious degeneration that befell the Osman dynasty. Sultans have long ceased to be commanders. They had no experience in government, since before their accession to the throne they lived for many years in strict isolation in the inner chambers of the palace. By the time of his accession (which could not have happened very soon, since succession to the throne in Turkey did not proceed in a straight line, but according to seniority in the dynasty), the crown prince, for the most part, was a morally and physically degenerate person. This was, for example, Sultan Abdul Hamid I (1774-1789), who spent 38 years imprisoned in the palace before ascending the throne. The great viziers (sadrasams), as a rule, were also insignificant and ignorant people who received appointments through bribes and bribes. In the past, this position was often occupied by capable statesmen. They were like this, for example, in the 16th century. the famous Mehmed Sokollu, in the 17th century. - Köprülü family, at the beginning of the 18th century. - Damad Ibrahim Pasha. Even in the middle of the 18th century. The post of Sadraz was occupied by a major statesman, Raghib Pasha. But after the death of Raghib Pasha in 1763, the feudal clique no longer allowed any strong and independent personality to come to power. In rare cases, grand viziers remained in office for two or three years; mostly they were replaced several times a year. Almost always, resignation was immediately followed by execution. Therefore, the great viziers rushed to use a few days of their lives and their power to loot as much as possible and just as quickly squander the loot.

Many positions in the empire were officially sold. For the position of ruler of Moldavia or Wallachia, it was necessary to pay 5-6 million piastres, not counting offerings to the Sultan and bribes. Bribery became so firmly established in the habits of the Turkish administration that in the 17th century. There was even a special “bribe accounting” at the Ministry of Finance, which had as its function the accounting of bribes received by officials, with the deduction of a certain share to the treasury. The positions of qadis (judges) were also sold. In order to reimburse the money paid, the qadis had the right to charge a certain percentage (up to 10%) of the amount of the claim, and this amount was paid not by the loser, but by the winner of the lawsuit, which encouraged the filing of obviously unfair claims. In criminal cases, bribery of judges was openly practiced.

The peasantry especially suffered from judges. Contemporaries noted that “the primary concern of the village residents is to hide the fact of the crime from the knowledge of the judges, whose presence is more dangerous than the presence of thieves.”

The decomposition of the army, especially the Janissary corps, reached great depths. The Janissaries became the main stronghold of reaction. They opposed any reforms. Janissary revolts became a common occurrence, and since the Sultan had no other military support other than the Janissaries, he tried in every possible way to appease them. Upon ascending the throne, the Sultan paid them the traditional reward - “julus bakhshishi” (“gift of accession”). The size of the reward increased if the Janissaries took part in the coup that led to the change of the Sultan. Entertainment and theatrical performances were organized for the Janissaries. A delay in the payment of salaries to the Janissaries could cost the minister his life. Once, on the day of Bayram (a Muslim holiday), the master of ceremonies of the court mistakenly allowed the chiefs of the artillery and cavalry corps to kiss the Sultan's robe earlier than the Janissary aga; The Sultan immediately ordered the execution of the master of ceremonies.

In the provinces, the Janissaries often subjugated the pashas, ​​held all administration in their hands, and arbitrarily collected taxes and various levies from artisans and merchants. The Janissaries often engaged in trade themselves, taking advantage of the fact that they did not pay any taxes and were subject only to their superiors. The lists of the Janissaries included many people who were not involved in military affairs. Since the salary of the Janissaries was given upon presentation of special tickets (esame), these tickets became the subject of purchase and sale; a large number of them were in the hands of moneylenders and court favorites.

Discipline in other military units also declined sharply. The number of Sipahi cavalry decreased by 10 times over 100 years, from the end of the 17th to the end of the 18th century: with difficulty it was possible to gather 2 thousand horsemen for the war with Russia in 1787. The feudal sipahi were always the first to flee the battlefield.

Embezzlement reigned among the military command. Half of the money intended for the active army or fortress garrisons was stolen in the capital, and the lion's share of the rest was appropriated by local commanders.

Military equipment froze in the form in which it existed in the 16th century. Marble cores were still used, as in the time of Suleiman the Magnificent. Casting cannons, making guns and swords - the entire production of military equipment by the end of the 18th century. lagged behind Europe by at least a century and a half. The soldiers wore heavy and uncomfortable clothes and used weapons of different calibers. The European armies were trained in the art of maneuver, but the Turkish army acted on the battlefield in a continuous and disorderly mass. The Turkish fleet, which once dominated the entire Mediterranean basin, lost its former importance after the Chesme defeat in 1770.

The weakening of central power and the collapse of the government apparatus and army contributed to the growth of centrifugal tendencies in the Ottoman Empire. The struggle against Turkish domination was constantly waged in the Balkans, in Arab countries ah, in the Caucasus and other lands of the empire. By the end of the 18th century. The separatist movements of the Turkish feudal lords themselves also acquired enormous proportions. Sometimes these were well-born feudal lords from old families of military captives, sometimes representatives of the new feudal nobility, sometimes just successful adventurers who managed to plunder wealth and recruit their own mercenary army. They left the subordination of the Sultan and actually turned into independent kings. The Sultan's government was powerless to fight them and considered itself satisfied when it sought to receive at least part of the taxes and maintain the appearance of Sultan sovereignty.

Ali Pasha of Tepelena rose to prominence in Epirus and Southern Albania, who later gained great fame under the name Ali Pasha of Yanin. On the Danube, in Vidin, the Bosnian feudal lord Omer Pazvand-oglu recruited an entire army and became the de facto master of the Vidin district. The government managed to capture him and execute him, but soon his son Osman Pazvand-oglu opposed the central government even more decisively. Even in Anatolia, where the feudal lords had not yet openly rebelled against the Sultan, real feudal principalities had formed: the feudal family of Karaosman-oglu owned lands in the southwest and west, between Greater Menderes and the Sea of ​​Marmara; the Chapan-oglu clan - in the center, in the area of ​​​​Ankara and Yozgad; the Battal Pasha clan is in the northeast, in the area of ​​Samsun and Trabzon (Trapezunt). These feudal lords had their own troops, distributed land grants, and collected taxes. The Sultan's officials did not dare to interfere with their actions.

Pashas appointed by the Sultan himself also showed separatist tendencies. The government tried to combat the separatism of the pashas by frequently moving them, two to three times a year, from one province to another. But even if the order was carried out, the result was only a sharp increase in extortions from the population, since the pasha sought to reimburse his costs for the purchase of a position, bribes and travel in a shorter period of time. However, over time, this method also ceased to produce results, since the pashas began to raise their own mercenary armies.

Decline of culture

Turkish culture, which reached its peak in the 15th-16th centuries, began already from the end of the 16th century. is gradually declining. The poets' pursuit of excessive sophistication and pretentiousness of form leads to the impoverishment of the content of their works. The technique of versification and play on words begin to be valued higher than the thoughts and feelings expressed in the verse. One of the last representatives of the degenerating palace poetry was Ahmed Nedim (1681-1730), a talented and brilliant exponent of the “era of tulips”. Nedim’s creativity was limited to a narrow circle of palace themes - glorification of the Sultan, court feasts, pleasure walks, “conversations over halva” in the Saadabad Palace and the keshki of aristocrats, but his works were distinguished by great expressiveness, spontaneity, and comparative simplicity of language. In addition to the divan (collection of poems), Nedim left behind a translation into Turkish collection “Pages of News” (“Sahaif-ul-akhbar”), better known as “The History of the Chief Astrologer” (“Munejim-bashi Tarihi”).

The didactic literature of Turkey of this period is represented primarily by the work of Yusuf Nabi (d. 1712), the author of the moralistic poem “Hayriye”, which in some of its parts contained sharp criticism of modern mores. The symbolic poem of Sheikh Talib (1757-1798) “Beauty and Love” (“Hüsn-yu Ashk”) also occupied a prominent place in Turkish literature.

Turkish historiography continued to develop in the form of court historical chronicles. Naima, Mehmed Reshid, Chelebi-zade Asim, Ahmed Resmi and other court historiographers, following a long tradition, described in an apologetic spirit the life and activities of the sultans, military campaigns, etc. Information about foreign countries contained in reports on Turkish embassies sent abroad (sefaret-name). Along with some correct observations, there was a lot of naive and simply fictitious things in them.

In 1727, the first printing house in Turkey opened in Istanbul. Its founder was Ibrahim Agha Müteferrika (1674-1744), a native of a poor Hungarian family who was captured by the Turks as a boy, then converted to Islam and remained in Turkey. Among the first books printed in the printing house were the Arabic-Turkish dictionary Vankuli, the historical works of Katib Chelebi (Haji Khalife), Omer Efendi. After the death of Ibrahim Agha, the printing house was inactive for almost 40 years. In 1784 it resumed its work, but even then it published a very limited number of books. The printing of the Koran was prohibited. Works of secular content were also copied mostly by hand.

The development of science, literature and art in Turkey was especially hampered by the dominance of Muslim scholasticism. The higher clergy did not allow secular education. Mullahs and numerous dervish orders entangled the people in a thick web of superstitions and prejudices. Signs of stagnation were found in all areas of Turkish culture. Attempts to revive old ones cultural traditions were doomed to failure, the development of new ones coming from the West was reduced to blind borrowing. This was the case, for example, with architecture, which followed the path of imitation of Europe. French decorators introduced a distorted baroque style to Istanbul, and Turkish builders mixed all styles and constructed ugly buildings. Nothing remarkable was created in painting either, where the strict proportions of geometric patterns were violated, now replaced, under the influence of European fashion, by floral patterns with a predominance of tulips.

But if the culture of the ruling class experienced a period of decline and stagnation, then folk art continued to develop steadily. Folk poets and singers enjoyed great love among the masses, reflecting in their songs and poems the freedom-loving people's dreams and aspirations, hatred of the oppressors. Folk storytellers (hikyaeciler or meddakhi), as well as the folk shadow theater "karagoz", the performances of which were distinguished by their acute topicality, became widely popular. and covered the events taking place in the country from the point of view of the common people, according to their understanding and interests.

2. Balkan peoples under Turkish rule

The situation of the Balkan peoples in the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire, the decomposition of the military-feudal system, the weakening of the power of the Sultan's government - all this had a heavy impact on the lives of the South Slavic peoples, Greeks, Albanians, Moldovans and Wallachians, who were under Turkish rule. The formation of chiftliks and the desire of Turkish feudal lords to increase the profitability of their lands increasingly worsened the situation of the peasantry. The distribution of lands that had previously belonged to the state into private ownership in the mountain and forest regions of the Balkans led to the enslavement of the communal peasantry. The power of the landowners over the peasants expanded, and more severe forms of feudal dependence were established than before. Starting their own farm and not being content with exactions in kind and money, the spahii (sipahi) forced the peasants to perform corvée. The transfer of spahiluks (Turkish - sipahilik, possession of sipahi) to the moneylenders, who mercilessly robbed the peasants, became widespread. Arbitrariness, bribery and arbitrariness of local authorities, qadi judges, and tax collectors grew as the central government weakened. The Janissary troops became one of the main sources of rebellion and unrest in Turkey's European possessions. The robbery of the civilian population by the Turkish army and especially the Janissaries became a system.

In the Danube principalities in the 17th century. the process of consolidation of boyar farms and the seizure of peasant lands continued, accompanied by an increase in the serf-dominated dependence of the bulk of the peasantry; only a few wealthy peasants had the opportunity to obtain personal freedom for a large monetary ransom.

Growing hatred towards Turkish domination on the part of the Balkan peoples and the desire of the Turkish government to squeeze out more taxes prompted the latter to carry out in the 17th century. a policy of complete subordination to the Turkish authorities and feudal lords of a number of mountainous regions and outlying regions of the empire, previously controlled by local Christian authorities. In particular, the rights of rural and urban communities in Greece and Serbia, which enjoyed considerable autonomy, were steadily curtailed. The pressure of the Turkish authorities on the Montenegrin tribes intensified in order to force them to complete submission and regular payment of haracha (kharaja). The Porte sought to turn the Danube principalities into ordinary pashaliks, governed by Turkish officials. The resistance of the strong Moldavian and Wallachian boyars did not allow this measure to be carried out, however, interference in the internal affairs of Moldova and Wallachia and the fiscal exploitation of the principalities increased significantly. Taking advantage of the constant struggle between boyar groups in the principalities, the Porte appointed its proteges as Moldavian and Wallachian rulers, removing them every two to three years. At the beginning of the 18th century, fearing a rapprochement between the Danube principalities and Russia, the Turkish government began to appoint Istanbul Phanariot Greeks as rulers ( Phanar is a quarter in Istanbul where the Greek patriarch had his residence; Phanariots - rich and noble Greeks, from among whom came the highest representatives of the church hierarchy and officials of the Turkish administration; The Phanariots were also engaged in large-scale trade and usury operations.), closely associated with the Turkish feudal class and ruling circles.

The aggravation of contradictions within the empire and the growth of social struggle within it led to the growth of religious antagonism between Muslims and Christians. Manifestations of Muslim religious fanaticism and the Porte's discriminatory policy towards Christian subjects intensified, and attempts to forcibly convert Bulgarian villages and entire Montenegrin and Albanian tribes to Islam became more frequent.

The Orthodox clergy of Serbs, Montenegrins and Bulgarians, who enjoyed great political influence among their peoples, often actively participated in anti-Turkish movements. Therefore, the Porte treated the South Slavic clergy with extreme distrust, sought to belittle its political role, and prevent its connections with Russia and other Christian states. But the Phanariot clergy enjoyed the support of the Turks. The Porta condoned the Hellenization of the South Slavic peoples, Moldovans and Vlachs, which the Greek hierarchy and the Phanariots behind it tried to carry out. The Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed only Greeks to the highest church positions, who burned Church Slavonic books, did not allow church services in a language other than Greek, etc. Hellenization was carried out especially actively in Bulgaria and the Danube principalities, but it met strong resistance from the masses .

In Serbia in the 18th century. The highest church positions were also seized by the Greeks, which led to the rapid breakdown of the entire church organization, which had previously played a large role in maintaining national identity and folk traditions. In 1766, the Patriarchate of Constantinople obtained from the Porte the issuance of firmans (Sultan's decrees), which subordinated the autocephalous Patriarchate of Pecs and the Archbishopric of Ohrid to the authority of the Greek Patriarch.

The medieval backwardness of the Ottoman Empire, the economic disunity of the regions, and cruel national and political oppression hampered the economic progress of the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula enslaved by Turkey. But, despite unfavorable conditions, in a number of regions of the European part of Turkey in the 17th-18th centuries. There were noticeable changes in the economy. The development of productive forces and commodity-money relations, however, occurred unevenly: first of all, it was found in some coastal regions, in areas located along large rivers and on international trade routes. Thus, the shipbuilding industry grew in the coastal parts of Greece and on the islands. Textile crafts developed significantly in Bulgaria, serving the needs of the Turkish army and the urban population. In the Danube principalities, enterprises for processing agricultural raw materials, textile, paper and glass manufactories based on serf labor arose.

A characteristic phenomenon of this period was the growth of new cities in some areas of European Turkey. For example, in the foothills of the Balkans, in Bulgaria, in areas remote from Turkish centers, a number of Bulgarian trade and craft settlements arose, serving the local market (Kotel, Sliven, Gabrovo, etc.).

The domestic market in the Balkan possessions of Turkey was poorly developed; the economy of the areas remote from large urban centers and trade routes was still largely subsistence in nature, but the growth of trade gradually destroyed their isolation. Foreign and transit trade, which was in the hands of foreign merchants, has long been of primary importance in the economy of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. However, in the 17th century. due to the decline of Dubrovnik and Italian cities, local merchants begin to take a stronger position in trade. The Greek trading and usurious bourgeoisie acquired especially great economic power in Turkey, subordinating the weaker South Slavic merchants to its influence.

The development of trade and trade-usurious capital, given the general backwardness of social relations among the Balkan peoples, did not yet create the conditions for the emergence of a capitalist mode of production. But the further it went, the more obvious it became that the economy of the Balkan peoples, who were under the yoke of Turkey, was developing independently; that they, living in the most unfavorable conditions, still outstrip the dominant nationality in the state in their social development. All this made the struggle of the Balkan peoples for their national and political liberation inevitable.

The liberation struggle of the Balkan peoples against the Turkish yoke

During the XVII-XVIII centuries. In various parts of the Balkan Peninsula, uprisings against Turkish rule broke out more than once. These movements were usually local in nature, did not arise simultaneously, and were not sufficiently prepared. They were mercilessly suppressed by Turkish troops. But time passed, the failures were forgotten, hopes for liberation were revived with renewed vigor, and with them new uprisings arose.

The main driving force in the uprisings was the peasantry. Often they also involved urban population, the clergy, even Christian feudal lords who survived in some areas, and in Serbia and Montenegro - local Christian authorities (princes, governors and tribal leaders). In the Danube principalities, the struggle with Turkey was usually led by the boyars, who hoped, with the help of neighboring states, to free themselves from Turkish dependence.

The liberation movement of the Balkan peoples assumed especially wide dimensions during the war of the Holy League with Turkey. The successes of the Venetian and Austrian troops, the joining of the anti-Turkish coalition of Russia, with which the Balkan peoples were bound by unity of religion - all this inspired the enslaved Balkan peoples to fight for their liberation. In the first years of the war, preparations began for an uprising against the Turks in Wallachia. Hospodar Shcherban Cantacuzino conducted secret negotiations on an alliance with Austria. He even recruited an army hidden in the forests and mountains of Wallachia to move at the first signal of the Holy League. Cantacuzino intended to unite and lead the uprisings of other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. But these plans were not destined to come true. The desire of the Habsburgs and the Polish king John Sobieski to seize the Danube principalities into their own hands forced the Wallachian ruler to abandon the idea of ​​an uprising.

When in 1688 Austrian troops approached the Danube, and then took Belgrade and began to move south, a strong anti-Turkish movement began in Serbia, Western Bulgaria, and Macedonia. The local population joined the advancing Austrian troops, and volunteer couples (partisan detachments) began to spontaneously form, which successfully conducted independent military operations.

At the end of 1688, an uprising against the Turks arose in the center of ore mining in the northwestern part of Bulgaria - the city of Chiprovts. Its participants were the craft and trade population of the city, as well as residents of the surrounding villages. The leaders of the movement hoped that the Austrians approaching Bulgaria would help them expel the Turks. But Austrian army did not arrive in time to help the rebels. The Chiprovets were defeated, and the city of Chiprovets was wiped off the face of the earth.

The Habsburg policy at that time had as its main goal the mastery of lands in the Danube basin, as well as the Adriatic coast. Not having sufficient military forces to implement such broad plans, the emperor hoped to wage war with Turkey using the forces of local rebels. Austrian emissaries called on the Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins to revolt, tried to win over the local Christian authorities (princes and governors), tribal leaders, baked patriarch Arseniy Chernoevich.

The Habsburgs tried to make Georgiy Brankovich, a Serbian feudal lord who lived in Transylvania, an instrument of this policy. Branković posed as a descendant of the Serbian sovereigns and cherished a plan for the revival of an independent state, including all South Slavic lands. Brankovich presented the project for creating such a state under the Austrian protectorate to the emperor. This project did not correspond to the interests of the Habsburgs, and it was not real. Nevertheless, the Austrian court brought Brankovic closer to itself, bestowing on him, as a descendant of Serbian despots, the title of count. In 1688, Georgiy Brankovich was sent to the Austrian command to prepare the population of Serbia against the Turks. However, Branković broke away from submission to the Austrians and tried to independently organize a Serb uprising. Then the Austrians arrested him and kept him in prison until his death.

Hopes for liberation with the help of the Habsburgs ended in grave disappointment for the southern Slavs. After a successful raid deep into Serbia and Macedonia, carried out mainly by Serbian volunteer troops with the assistance of the local population and Haiduks, the Austrians at the end of 1689 began to suffer defeats from Turkish troops. Fleeing from the revenge of the Turks, who destroyed everything in their path, the local population left after the retreating Austrian troops. This “great migration” became widespread. From Serbia at this time, mainly from its southern and southwestern regions, about 60-70 thousand people fled to Austrian possessions. In the subsequent years of the war, Serbian volunteer detachments, under the command of their commander, fought against the Turks as part of the Austrian troops.

During the war of the Venetians against the Turks in the mid-80s and early 90s of the 17th century. A strong anti-Turkish movement arose among the Montenegrin and Albanian tribes. This movement was strongly encouraged by Venice, which concentrated all its military forces in Morea, and in Dalmatia and Montenegro expected to wage war with the help of the local population. Shkodra Pasha Suleiman Bushatli repeatedly undertook punitive expeditions against Montenegrin tribes. In 1685 and 1692 Turkish troops twice captured the residence of the Montenegrin metropolitans of Cetinje. But the Turks were never able to hold their position in this small mountainous region, which fought a stubborn struggle for complete independence from the Porte.

The specific conditions in which Montenegro found itself after the Turkish conquest, the dominance of backward social relations and patriarchal remnants in it contributed to the growth of the political influence of local metropolitans, who led the struggle for national-political liberation and unification of the Montenegrin tribes. The period of reign of the talented was of great importance statesman Metropolitan Danila Petrovich Njegosh (1697-1735). Danila Petrovic fought hard for the complete liberation of Montenegro from the power of the Porte, which did not abandon attempts to restore its position in this strategically important area. In order to undermine the influence of the Turks, he exterminated or expelled from the country all Montenegrins who converted to Islam (non-Turkish). Danila also carried out some reforms that contributed to the centralization of government and the weakening of tribal enmity.

From the end of the 17th century. The political and cultural ties of the South Slavs, Greeks, Moldovans and Wallachians with Russia are expanding and strengthening. The tsarist government sought to expand its political influence among the peoples subject to Turkey, who could later become important factor in deciding the fate of Turkish possessions in Europe. From the end of the 17th century. The Balkan peoples began to attract increasing attention from Russian diplomacy. The oppressed peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, for their part, have long seen Russia as their patron of the same faith and hoped that the victories of Russian weapons would bring them liberation from the Turkish yoke. Russia's entry into the Holy League prompted representatives of the Balkan peoples to establish direct contact with the Russians. In 1688, the Wallachian ruler Shcherban Cantacuzino, the former Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius and the Serbian Patriarch Arseniy Chernoevich sent letters to the Russian Tsars Ivan and Peter, in which they described the suffering of the Orthodox peoples in Turkey and asked that Russia move its troops to the Balkans to liberate the Christian peoples. Although the operations of Russian troops in the war of 1686-1699. developed far from the Balkans, which did not allow the Russians to establish direct contacts with the Balkan peoples, the tsarist government already at this time began to put forward as a reason for the war with Turkey its desire to free the Balkan peoples from its yoke and acted in the international arena as a defender of the interests of all Orthodox Christians in general subjects of Porta. The Russian autocracy adhered to this position throughout its subsequent struggle with Turkey in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Setting as his goal to achieve Russia's access to the Black Sea, Peter I counted on help from the Balkan peoples. In 1709, he entered into a secret alliance with the Wallachian ruler Konstantin Brankovan, who promised in case of war to go over to the side of Russia, deploy a detachment of 30 thousand people, and also supply Russian troops with food. The Moldavian ruler Dimitri Cantemir also pledged to provide military assistance to Peter and concluded an agreement with him on the transfer of Moldovans to Russian citizenship, subject to the provision of full internal independence to Moldova. In addition, the Austrian Serbs promised their assistance, a large detachment of whom was supposed to unite with the Russian troops. Beginning in 1711 with the Prut campaign, the Russian government issued a letter calling to arms all peoples enslaved by Turkey. But the failure of the Prut campaign stopped the anti-Turkish movement of the Balkan peoples at the very beginning. Only the Montenegrins and Herzegovinians, having received a letter from Peter I, began to undertake military sabotage against the Turks. This circumstance served as the beginning of the establishment of close ties between Russia and Montenegro. Metropolitan Danila visited Russia in 1715, after which Peter I established the periodic issuance of cash benefits to Montenegrins.

As a result of a new war between Turkey and Austria in 1716-1718, in which the population of Serbia also fought on the side of the Austrians, Banat, the northern part of Serbia and Lesser Wallachia came under Habsburg rule. However, the population of these lands, freed from the power of the Turks, fell into no less heavy dependence on the Austrians. Taxes were raised. The Austrians forced their new subjects to convert to Catholicism or Uniateism, and the Orthodox population suffered severe religious oppression. All this caused great discontent and the flight of many Serbs and Vlachs to Russia or even to Turkish possessions. At the same time, the Austrian occupation of Northern Serbia contributed to some development of commodity-money relations in this area, which subsequently led to the formation of a layer of rural bourgeoisie.

The next war between Turkey and Austria, which the latter waged in alliance with Russia, ended with the loss of Lesser Wallachia and Northern Serbia by the Habsburgs in the Peace of Belgrade in 1739, but the Serbian lands remained within the Austrian monarchy - Banat, Backa, Baranja, Srem. During this war, an uprising against the Turks broke out again in Southwestern Serbia, which, however, did not become widespread and was quickly suppressed. This unsuccessful war halted Austrian expansion in the Balkans and led to a further decline in Habsburg political influence among the Balkan peoples.

From the middle of the 18th century. the leading role in the fight against Turkey passes to Russia. In 1768, Catherine II entered the war with Turkey and, following the policies of Peter, appealed to the Balkan peoples to rise up against Turkish rule. Successful Russian military actions stirred up the Balkan peoples. The appearance of the Russian fleet off the coast of Greece caused an uprising in Morea and the islands of the Aegean Sea in 1770. At the expense of Greek merchants, a fleet was created, which, under the leadership of Lambros Katzonis, at one time waged a successful war with the Turks at sea.

Croatian warrior on the Austro-Turkish border ("granichar"). Drawing from the mid-18th century.

The entry of Russian troops into Moldavia and Wallachia was enthusiastically greeted by the population. From Bucharest and Iasi, delegations of boyars and clergy headed to St. Petersburg, asking to accept the principalities under Russian protection.

The Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace of 1774 was of great importance for the Balkan peoples. A number of articles of this treaty were devoted to Christian peoples subject to Turkey and gave Russia the right to protect their interests. The return of the Danube principalities to Turkey was subject to a number of conditions aimed at improving the situation of their population. Objectively, these articles of the treaty made it easier for the Balkan peoples to fight for their liberation. The further policy of Catherine II in the Eastern Question, regardless of the aggressive goals of tsarism, also contributed to the revival of the national liberation movement of the Balkan peoples and the further expansion of their political and cultural ties with Russia.

The beginning of the national revival of the Balkan peoples

Several centuries of Turkish domination did not lead to the denationalization of the Balkan peoples. Southern Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, Moldovans and Wallachians have preserved their national languages, culture, and folk traditions; under the conditions of foreign yoke, elements of an economic community developed, although slowly but steadily.

The first signs of the national revival of the Balkan peoples appeared in the 18th century. They were expressed in the cultural and educational movement, in a revival of interest in their historical past, in an intensified desire to raise public education, improve the education system in schools, and introduce elements of secular education. The cultural and educational movement began first among the Greeks, the most socio-economically developed people, and then among the Serbs and Bulgarians, Moldovans and Vlachs.

The educational movement had its own characteristics for each Balkan people and did not develop simultaneously. But in all cases its social base was the national trade and craft class.

The difficult conditions for the formation of a national bourgeoisie among the Balkan peoples determined the complexity and inconsistency of the content of national movements. In Greece, for example, where trade and usury capital was the strongest and closely connected with the entire Turkish regime and with the activities of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the beginning of the national movement was accompanied by the emergence of great power ideas, plans for the revival of the great Greek Empire from the ruins of Turkey and the subjugation of the remaining peoples of the Balkan Peninsula to the Greeks. These ideas found practical expression in the Hellenizing efforts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Phanariots. At the same time, the ideology of the Greek enlighteners, the development of public education and schooling by the Greeks had a positive impact on other Balkan peoples and accelerated the emergence of similar movements among the Serbs and Bulgarians.

At the head of the educational movement of the Greeks in the 18th century. were scientists, writers and teachers Eugennos Voulgaris (died 1806) and Nikiforos Theotokis (died 1800), and later the outstanding public figure, scientist and publicist Adamantios Korais (1748-1833). His works, imbued with a love of freedom and patriotism, instilled in his compatriots a love for their homeland, freedom, and the Greek language, in which Korais saw the first and most important instrument of national revival.

Among the southern Slavs, the national educational movement first began in the Serbian lands subject to the Habsburgs. With the active support of the Serbian trade and craft class that had strengthened here in the second quarter of the 18th century. In Banat, Bačka, Baranje, and Srem, schooling, Serbian writing, secular literature, and printing began to develop.

The development of education among the Austrian Serbs at this time occurred under strong Russian influence. At the request of the Serbian Metropolitan, the Russian teacher Maxim Suvorov arrived in Karlovitsy in 1726 to organize school affairs. The Latin School, founded in 1733 in Karlovichi, was headed by Emanuel Kozachinsky, a native of Kyiv. Quite a few Russians and Ukrainians taught in other Serbian schools. The Serbs also received books and textbooks from Russia. The consequence of Russian cultural influence on the Austrian Serbs was the transition from the Serbian Church Slavonic language previously used in writing to the Russian Church Slavonic language.

The main representative of this trend was the outstanding Serbian writer and historian Jovan Rajic (1726 - 1801). The activity of another famous Serbian writer Zachary Orfelin (1726 - 1785), who wrote the major work “The Life and Glorious Deeds of the Emperor Peter the Great,” also developed under strong Russian influence. The cultural and educational movement among the Austrian Serbs received a new impetus in the second half of the 18th century, when the outstanding writer, scientist and philosopher Dosifej Obradović (1742-1811) began his activities. Obradović was a supporter of enlightened absolutism. His ideology was formed to a certain extent under the influence of the philosophy of European enlighteners. At the same time, it had a purely national basis. Obradović's views subsequently received wide recognition among the trade and craft class and the emerging bourgeois intelligentsia, not only among the Serbs, but also among the Bulgarians.

In 1762, the monk Paisiy Hilendarsky (1722-1798) completed “Slavic-Bulgarian History” - a journalistic treatise based on historical data, directed primarily against Greek dominance and the threatening denationalization of the Bulgarians. Paisius called for revival Bulgarian language and social thought. A talented follower of the ideas of Paisius of Hilendar was Vrakansky Bishop Sophrony (Stoiko Vladislavov) (1739-1814).

The outstanding Moldavian educator, Gospodar Dimitri Cantemir (1673 - 1723), wrote the satirical novel “Hieroglyphic History”, the philosophical and didactic poem “The Sage’s Dispute with Heaven or the Litigation of the Soul with the Body” and a number of historical works. The development of the culture of the Moldavian people was also greatly influenced by the prominent historian and linguist Enakits Vekerescu (c. 1740 - c. 1800).

The national revival of the Balkan peoples acquired wider scope at the beginning of the next century.

3. Arab countries under Turkish domination

The decline of the Ottoman Empire also affected the position of the Arab countries that were part of it. During the period under review, the power of the Turkish Sultan in North Africa, including Egypt, was largely nominal. In Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, it was sharply weakened by popular uprisings and rebellions of local feudal lords. A broad religious and political movement arose in Arabia - Wahhabism, which set as its goal the complete ousting of the Turks from the Arabian Peninsula.

Egypt

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. Some new phenomena are observed in the economic development of Egypt. Peasant farming is increasingly being drawn into market relations. In a number of areas, especially in the Nile Delta, rent-tax takes the form of money. Foreign travelers of the late 18th century. describe lively trade in the city markets of Egypt, where peasants delivered grain, vegetables, livestock, wool, cheese, butter, homemade yarn and bought fabrics, clothes, utensils, and metal products in return. Trade was also carried out directly at village markets. Achieved significant development trade relations between different regions of the country. According to contemporaries, in the middle of the 18th century. from the southern regions of Egypt, ships carrying grain, sugar, beans, linen fabrics and linseed oil went down the Nile, to Cairo and to the delta region; in the opposite direction there were cargoes of cloth, soap, rice, iron, copper, lead, and salt.

Foreign trade relations have also grown significantly. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. Egypt exported cotton and linen fabrics, leather, sugar, ammonia, as well as rice and wheat to European countries. Lively trade was carried out with neighboring countries - Syria, Arabia, the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), Sudan, Darfur. A significant part of the transit trade with India passed through Egypt. At the end of the 18th century. in Cairo alone, 5 thousand merchants were engaged in foreign trade.

In the 18th century in a number of industries, especially in export industries, the transition to manufacturing began. Manufacture enterprises producing silk, cotton and linen fabrics were founded in Cairo, Mahalla Kubra, Rosetta, Kusa, Kina and other cities. Each of these manufactories employed hundreds of hired workers; at the largest of them, in Mahalla-Kubra, from 800 to 1000 people were constantly employed. Wage labor was used in oil mills, sugar mills and other factories. Sometimes feudal lords, in company with sugar producers, founded enterprises on their estates. Often the owners of manufactories, large craft workshops and shops were representatives of the highest clergy and waqf administrators.

The production technique was still primitive, but the division of labor within manufactories contributed to an increase in its productivity and a significant increase in production.

By the end of the 18th century. in Cairo there were 15 thousand hired workers and 25 thousand artisans. Wage labor began to be used in agriculture: thousands of peasants were hired for field work on neighboring large estates.

However, under the conditions then existing in Egypt, the sprouts of capitalist relations could not receive significant development. As in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, the property of merchants, owners of manufactories and workshops was not protected from encroachment by pashas and beys. Excessive taxes, levies, indemnities, and extortion ruined merchants and artisans. The regime of capitulations forced local merchants out of more profitable branches of trade, ensuring the monopoly of European merchants and their agents. In addition, due to the systematic robbery of the peasantry, the domestic market was extremely unstable and narrow.

Along with the development of trade, feudal exploitation of the peasantry grew steadily. New ones were constantly added to the old duties and taxes. The multazims (landlords) levied taxes on the fellahs (peasants) to pay tribute to the Porte, taxes for the maintenance of the army, provincial authorities, village administration and religious institutions, taxes for their own needs, as well as many other taxes, sometimes levied without any reason. A list of taxes collected from the peasants of one of the Egyptian villages, published by a French explorer of the 18th century. Esteve, contained over 70 titles. In addition to taxes established by law, all kinds of additional levies based on custom were widely used. “It is enough for the amount to be collected 2-3 years in a row,” wrote Esteve, “for it to then be demanded on the basis of customary law.”

Feudal oppression increasingly caused uprisings against Mamluk rule. In the middle of the 18th century. The Mamluk feudal lords were expelled from Upper Egypt by the Bedouins, whose uprising was suppressed only in 1769. Soon a large fellah uprising broke out in the Tanta district (1778), also suppressed by the Mamluks.

The Mamluks still firmly held power in their hands. Although formally they were vassals of the Porte, the power of the Turkish pashas sent from Istanbul was illusory. In 1769, during the Russian-Turkish War, the Mamluk ruler Ali Bey declared the independence of Egypt. Having received some support from the commander of the Russian fleet in the Aegean Sea, A. Orlov, he initially successfully resisted the Turkish troops, but then the uprising was suppressed and he himself was killed. Nevertheless, the power of the Mamluk feudal lords did not weaken; The place of the deceased Ali Bey was taken by the leaders of another Mamluk group hostile to him. Only at the beginning of the 19th century. Mamluk power was overthrown.

Syria and Lebanon

Sources of the XVII-XVIII centuries. contain scant information about the economic development of Syria and Lebanon. There is no data on internal trade, on manufactories, or on the use of hired labor. More or less accurate information is available about growth during the period under review foreign trade, the emergence of new trade and craft centers, increased specialization of areas. There is also no doubt that in Syria and Lebanon, as in Egypt, the extent of feudal exploitation increased, the struggle within the feudal class intensified, and the liberation struggle of the masses against foreign oppression grew.

In the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Of great importance was the struggle between two groups of Arab feudal lords - the Kaysits (or “reds”, as they called themselves) and the Yemenites (or “whites”). The first of these groups, led by emirs from the Maan clan, opposed Turkish rule and therefore enjoyed the support of the Lebanese peasants; this was her strength. The second group, led by emirs from the Alam-ad-din clan, served the Turkish authorities and, with their help, fought against their rivals.

After the suppression of the uprising of Fakhr-ad-din II and his execution (1635), the Porte handed over the Sultan's firman for the management of Lebanon to the leader of the Yemenites, Emir Alam-ad-din, but soon the Turkish protege was overthrown by a new popular uprising. The rebels elected the nephew of Fakhr ad-din II, the emir Mel-hem Maan, as the ruler of Lebanon, and the Porte was forced to approve this choice. However, she did not give up attempts to remove the Kaisites from power and put her supporters at the head of the Lebanese Principality.

In 1660, the troops of the Damascus Pasha Ahmed Köprülü (son of the Grand Vizier) invaded Lebanon. As the Arab chronicle reports, the pretext for this military expedition was the fact that the vassals and allies of the Maans, the emirs of Shihab, “incited the Damascenes against the pasha.” Acting together with Yemenite militias, Turkish troops occupied and burned a number of Lebanese mountain villages, including the Maan capital - Dayr al-Qamar and the Shihab residences - Rashaya (Rashaya) and Hasbeya (Hasbaya). The Kaissite emirs were forced to retreat together with their squads into the mountains. But popular support eventually ensured their victory over the Turks and Yemenites. In 1667, the Kaissite group returned to power.

In 1671, a new clash between the Kaysites and the troops of the Damascus Pasha led to the occupation and plunder of Rashaya by the Turks. But ultimately, victory again belonged to the Lebanese. Other attempts by the Turkish authorities to place emirs from the Alam ad-Din clan at the head of Lebanon, undertaken in the last quarter of the 17th century, were also unsuccessful.

In 1710, the Turks, together with the Yemenites, again attacked Lebanon. Having overthrown the Kaissite emir Haidar from the Shihab clan (the emir's throne passed to this clan in 1697, after his death last emir from the Maan clan), they turned Lebanon into an ordinary Turkish pashalyk. However, already in the next 1711, in the Battle of Ain Dar, the troops of the Turks and Yemenites were defeated by the Kaysits. Most of the Yemenites, including the entire family of emirs Alam ad-din, died in this battle. The Kaysit victory was so impressive that the Turkish authorities had to abandon the establishment of the Lebanese Pashalik; for a long time they refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of Lebanon.

The Lebanese peasants won the victory at Ain Dar, but this did not lead to an improvement in their situation. Emir Haydar limited himself to taking away inheritances (muqataa) from the Yemenite feudal lords and distributing them among his supporters.

From the middle of the 18th century. The feudal principality of Safad in Northern Palestine became the center of the struggle against Turkish power. Its ruler, the son of one of the Kaysites, Sheikh Dagir, gradually rounding out the possessions received by his father from the Lebanese Emir, extended his power to the entire Northern Palestine and a number of regions of Lebanon. Around 1750 he acquired a small seaside village - Akku. According to the testimony of the Russian officer Pleshcheev, who visited Akka in 1772, by that time it had become a major center of maritime trade and craft production. Many merchants and artisans from Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and other parts of the Ottoman Empire settled in Akka. Although Dagir imposed significant taxes on them and applied the usual system of monopolies and tax farming in the Ottoman Empire, the conditions for the development of trade and crafts were apparently somewhat better here than in other cities: feudal taxes were strictly fixed, and the life and property of the merchant and artisan were protected from arbitrariness. In Akka there were the ruins of a fortress built by the Crusaders. Dagir restored this fortress and created his own army and navy.

The de facto independence and growing wealth of the new Arab principality aroused the discontent and greed of the neighboring Turkish authorities. Since 1765, Daghir had to defend himself from three Turkish pashas - Damascus, Tripoli and Saida. At first, the struggle was reduced to episodic clashes, but in 1769, after the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war, Dagir led the Arab popular uprising against Turkish oppression. He entered into an alliance with the Mamluk ruler of Egypt, Ali Bey. The allies took Damascus, Beirut, Saida (Sidon), and besieged Jaffa. Russia provided significant assistance to the rebel Arabs. Russian warships cruised along the Lebanese coast, shelled Beirut during the Arab assault on its fortress, and delivered guns, shells and other weapons to the Arab rebels.

In 1775, a year after the end of the Russian-Turkish war, Dagir was besieged in Akka and soon killed, and his principality collapsed. Akka became the residence of the Turkish Pasha Ahmed, nicknamed Jazzar ("Butcher"). But the struggle of the people of Syria and Lebanon against Turkish oppression continued.

During the last quarter of the 18th century. Jazzar continuously increased tribute from the Arab regions under his control. Thus, the tribute collected from Lebanon increased from 150 thousand piastres in 1776 to 600 thousand piastres in 1790. To pay it, a number of new levies, previously unknown to Lebanon, were introduced - a poll tax, taxes on sericulture, and on mills etc. The Turkish authorities again began to openly interfere in the internal affairs of Lebanon; their troops, sent to collect tribute, robbed and burned villages and exterminated the inhabitants. All this caused continuous uprisings, weakening Turkey's power over the Arab lands.

Iraq

In terms of economic development, Iraq lagged behind Egypt and Syria. Of the previously numerous cities of Iraq, only Baghdad and Basra have to a certain extent retained the importance of large craft centers; Woolen fabrics, carpets, and leather goods were produced here. But transit trade between Europe and Asia went through the country, bringing in significant income, and this circumstance, as well as the struggle for the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf located in Iraq, made Iraq the object of an acute Turkish-Iranian struggle. Transit trade also attracted English merchants to the country, who in the 17th century. founded the East India Company trading post in Basra, and in the 18th century. - in Baghdad.

The Turkish conquerors divided Iraq into two pashalyks (eyalets): Mosul and Baghdad. In the Mosul Pashalik, populated mainly by Kurds, there was a military-feudal system. The Kurds - both nomads and settled farmers - still retain the features of tribal life, division into ashirets (clans). But their communal lands and most of the livestock had long become the property of the leaders, and the leaders themselves - khans, beks and sheikhs - turned into feudal lords who enslaved their fellow tribesmen.

However, the Porte's power over the Kurdish feudal lords was very fragile, which was explained by the crisis of the military-feudal system observed in the 17th-18th centuries. throughout the Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of the Turkish-Iranian rivalry, the Kurdish feudal lords often shirked their military duties, and sometimes openly sided with the Iranian Shah against the Turkish Sultan or maneuvered between the Sultan and the Shah in order to achieve greater independence. In turn, the Turkish pashas, ​​seeking to consolidate their power, incited hostility between the Kurds and their Arab neighbors and Christian minorities and encouraged strife among the Kurdish feudal lords.

In the Baghdad pashalik, inhabited by Arabs, a tribal uprising broke out in 1651, led by the feudal Siyab family. It led to the expulsion of the Turks from the Basra region. Only in 1669, after repeated military expeditions, did the Turks manage to reinstall their pasha in Basra. But already in 1690, the Arab tribes who had settled in the Euphrates valley rebelled, united in the Muntafik union. The rebels occupied Basra and waged a successful war against the Turks for a number of years.

Appointed at the beginning of the 18th century. The ruler of Baghdad, Hasan Pasha, fought for 20 years with the Arab agricultural and Bedouin tribes of southern Iraq. He concentrated in his hands power over all of Iraq, including Kurdistan, and secured it for his “dynasty”: throughout the entire 18th century. the country was ruled by pashas from among his descendants or his kulemen ( Kulemen is a white slave (usually of Caucasian origin), a soldier in a mercenary army made up of slaves, the same as the Mamluk in Egypt.). Hassan Pasha created a government and court in Baghdad based on the Istanbul model, acquired his own army, formed from Janissaries and Kulemen. He became related to the Arab sheikhs, gave them ranks and gifts, took away lands from some tribes and gave them to others, incited enmity and civil strife. But even with these maneuvers he failed to make his power lasting: it was weakened by the almost continuous uprisings of the Arab tribes, especially the Muntafiks, who most energetically defended their freedom.

A new large wave of popular uprisings arose in southern Iraq at the end of the 15th century. due to the intensification of feudal exploitation and a sharp increase in the size of tribute. The uprisings were suppressed by the Pasha of Baghdad, Suleiman, but they dealt a serious blow to Turkish dominance in Iraq.

Arabia. The emergence of Wahhabism

On the Arabian Peninsula, the power of the Turkish conquerors was never strong. In 1633, as a result of popular uprisings, the Turks were forced to leave Yemen, which became an independent feudal state. But they stubbornly held on to the Hejaz: the Turkish sultans attached exceptional importance to their nominal dominance over the holy cities of Islam - Mecca and Medina, which served as the basis for their claims to spiritual power over all “faithful” Muslims. In addition, during the season of Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage), these cities turned into grandiose fairs, centers of lively trade, which brought significant income to the Sultan’s treasury. Therefore, the Porte not only did not impose tribute on the Hijaz, but, on the contrary, obliged the pashas of neighboring Arab countries - Egypt and Syria - to annually send gifts to Mecca for the local spiritual nobility and provide generous subsidies to the leaders of the Hijaz tribes through whose territory the caravans of pilgrims passed. For the same reason, real power within the Hijaz was left to the Meccan spiritual feudal lords - the sheriffs, who had long enjoyed influence over the townspeople and nomadic tribes. The Turkish Pasha of Hijaz was essentially not the ruler of the country, but the Sultan’s representative to the sheriff.

In Eastern Arabia in the 17th century, after the expulsion of the Portuguese from there, an independent state arose in Oman. The Arab merchants of Oman had a significant fleet and, like European merchants, engaged in piracy along with trade. At the end of the 17th century. they took the island of Zanzibar and the adjacent African coast from the Portuguese, and at the beginning of the 18th century. expelled the Iranians from the Bahrain Islands (later, in 1753, the Iranians regained Bahrain). In 1737, under Nadir Shah, the Iranians tried to capture Oman, but the popular uprising that broke out in 1741 ended with their expulsion. The leader of the uprising, the Muscat merchant Ahmed ibn Said, was proclaimed the hereditary imam of Oman. Its capitals were Rastak, a fortress in the mountainous interior of the country, and Muscat, a commercial center on the sea coast. During this period, Oman pursued an independent policy, successfully resisting the penetration of European merchants - the British and French, who tried in vain to obtain permission to establish their trading posts in Muscat.

The coast of the Persian Gulf northwest of Oman was inhabited by independent Arab tribes - Jawasym, Atban and others, who were engaged in maritime industries, mainly pearl fishing, as well as trade and piracy. In the 18th century The Atbans built the Kuwait fortress, which became a significant trade center and the capital of the principality of the same name. In 1783, one of the divisions of this tribe occupied the Bahrain Islands, which after that also became an independent Arab principality. Petty principalities were also founded on the Qatar Peninsula and at various points on the so-called Pirate Coast (today's Trucial Oman).

The inner part of the Arabian Peninsula - Najd - was in the 17th-18th centuries. almost completely isolated from the outside world. Even the Arab chronicles of that time, compiled in neighboring countries, remain silent about the events that took place in Najd and, apparently, remained unknown to their authors. Meanwhile, it was in Najd that arose in the middle of the 18th century. a movement that subsequently played a major role in the history of the entire Arab East.

The real political goal of this movement was to unite the scattered small feudal principalities and independent tribes of Arabia into a single state. Constant strife between tribes over pastures, raids by nomads on the settled population of oases and on merchant caravans, feudal strife were accompanied by the destruction of irrigation structures, the destruction of gardens and groves, theft of herds, the ruin of peasants, merchants and a significant part of the Bedouins. Only the unification of Arabia could stop these endless wars and ensure the rise of agriculture and trade.

The call for the unity of Arabia was clothed in the form of a religious doctrine, which received the name Wahhabism after its founder Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This teaching, while entirely preserving the dogma of Islam, emphasized the principle of monotheism, severely condemned local and tribal cults of saints, remnants of fetishism, corruption of morals, and demanded the return of Islam to its “original purity.” To a large extent, it was directed against the “apostates from Islam” - the Turkish conquerors who captured the Hejaz, Syria, Iraq and other Arab countries.

Similar religious teachings arose among Muslims before. In Najd itself, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had predecessors. However, his activities went far beyond religious preaching. From the middle of the 18th century. Wahhabism was recognized as the official religion of the principality of Dareya, whose emirs Muhammad ibn Saud (1747-1765) and his son Abd al-Aziz (1765-1803), relying on the alliance of Wahhabi tribes, demanded from other tribes and principalities of Najd under the threat of a “holy war” "and the death of accepting the Wahhabi creed and joining the Saudi state.

For 40 years there were continuous wars in the country. The principalities and tribes, forcibly annexed by the Wahhabis, more than once rebelled and renounced the new faith, but these uprisings were severely suppressed.

The struggle for the unification of Arabia stemmed not only from the objective needs of economic development. The annexation of new territories increased the income and power of the Saudi dynasty, and military spoils enriched the “fighters for a just cause,” with the emir accounting for one fifth of it.

By the end of the 80s of the XVIII century. the whole of Najd was united under the rule of the Wahhabi feudal nobility, headed by the emir Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud. However, governance in this state was not centralized. Power over individual tribes remained in the hands of the former feudal leaders, provided that they recognized themselves as vassals of the emir and hosted Wahhabi preachers.

Subsequently, the Wahhabis went beyond Inner Arabia to spread their power and faith in other Arab countries. At the very end of the 18th century. they launched the first raids into the Hejaz and Iraq, which opened the way for the further rise of the Wahhabi state.

Arab culture in the XVII-XVIII centuries.

The Turkish conquest led to the decline of Arab culture, which continued during the 17th-18th centuries. Science developed very poorly during this period. Philosophers, historians, geographers, and lawyers mainly expounded and rewrote the works of medieval authors. Medicine, astronomy, and mathematics froze at the level of the Middle Ages. Experimental methods nature studies were unknown. Religious motifs predominated in poetry. Mystical dervish literature was widely distributed.

In Western bourgeois historiography, the decline of Arab culture is usually attributed to the dominance of Islam. In fact, the main reason for the decline was the extremely slow pace of socio-economic development and Turkish oppression. As for Islamic dogma, which undoubtedly played a negative role, Christian dogmas professed in a number of Arab countries had no less reactionary influence. The religious disunity of the Arabs, divided into a number of religious groups - especially in Syria and Lebanon, led to cultural disunity. Every cultural movement inevitably took on a religious imprint. In the 17th century A college for Lebanese Arabs was founded in Rome, but it was entirely in the hands of the Maronite clergy (Maronites are Christian Arabs who recognize the spiritual authority of the pope) and its influence was limited to a narrow circle of Maronite intelligentsia. The educational activities of the Maronite bishop Herman Farhat, who founded at the beginning of the 18th century, were of the same religious nature, limited by the framework of Maronite propaganda. library in Aleppo (Aleppo); The Maronite school, established in the 18th century, had the same features. at the monastery of Ain Barka (Lebanon), and an Arabic printing house founded at this monastery. The main subject of study at school was theology; The printing house printed exclusively books of religious content.

In the 17th century Antioch Patriarch Macarius and his son Paul of Aleppo traveled to Russia and Georgia. The descriptions of this journey, compiled by Pavel Aleppo, can be compared in the brightness of observations and artistry of style with the best monuments classical Arabic geographical literature. But these works were known only in a narrow circle of Orthodox Arabs, mainly among the clergy.

At the beginning of the 18th century. The first printing house was founded in Istanbul. On Arabic it printed only Muslim religious books - the Koran, hadith, commentaries, etc. The cultural center of Muslim Arabs was still the theological university al-Azhar in Cairo.

However, even during this period, historical and geographical works containing original material appeared. In the 17th century the historian al-Makkari created an interesting work on the history of Andalusia; the Damascus judge Ibn Khallikan compiled an extensive body of biographies; in the 18th century The chronicle of the Shihabs was written - the most important source on the history of Lebanon during this period. Other chronicles were created on the history of Arab countries in the 17th-18th centuries, as well as descriptions of travel to Mecca, Istanbul and other places.

The centuries-old art of Arab folk craftsmen continued to manifest itself in remarkable architectural monuments and handicrafts. This is evidenced by the Azma Palace in Damascus, built in the 18th century, the remarkable architectural ensembles of the Moroccan capital of Meknes, erected at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, and many monuments of Cairo, Tunisia, Tlemcen, Aleppo and other Arab cultural centers.

The Turks are a relatively young people. Its age is only a little over 600 years. The first Turks were a bunch of Turkmens, fugitives from Central Asia who fled to the west from the Mongols. They reached the Konya Sultanate and asked for land to settle. They were given a place on the border with the Nicaean Empire near Bursa. The fugitives began to settle there in the middle of the 13th century.

The main one among the fugitive Turkmens was Ertogrul Bey. He called the territory allocated to him the Ottoman beylik. And taking into account the fact that the Konya Sultan lost all power, he became an independent ruler. Ertogrul died in 1281 and power passed to his son Osman I Ghazi. It is he who is considered the founder of the dynasty of Ottoman sultans 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 soldiers

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 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 Ghazi, like the crusaders, declared a holy war, but only for the Muslim faith. He began to invite everyone who wanted to take part in it. And from all over the Muslim east, seekers of fortune began to flock to Osman. They were ready to fight for the faith of Islam until their sabers became dull and until they received sufficient quantity wealth and wives. And in the east this was considered a very great achievement.

Thus, the Ottoman army began to be replenished with Circassians, Kurds, Arabs, Seljuks, and Turkmens. That is, anyone could come, recite the formula of Islam and become a Turk. And on the occupied lands, such people began to be allocated small plots of land for farming. This area was called “timar”. It was a house with a garden.

The owner of the timar became a horseman (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 spahi did not pay taxes in the form of money, since they paid the tax with their blood.

With such 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. It's a stone's throw from Bursa to Constantinople, and the Byzantines lost control of the northern and western regions Anatolia. And in 1352, the Ottoman Turks crossed the Dardanelles and ended up in Europe. After this, the gradual and steady capture of Thrace began.

In Europe it was impossible to get along 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(yang - new, charik - army: it turns out to be Janissaries).

The conquerors forcibly took boys between the ages of 7 and 14 from Christian peoples and converted them 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 best infantrymen in all of Europe. Neither the knightly cavalry nor the Persian Qizilbash could break through the Janissaries' line.

Janissaries - infantry of the Ottoman army

And the secret of the invincibility of the Turkish infantry lay in the spirit of military camaraderie. 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, they were people of the same destiny. When they became adults, they got married and started families, but continued to live in the barracks. Only during vacations did they visit their wives and children. That is why they did not know defeat and represented the faithful and reliable force of the Sultan.

However, having reached the Mediterranean Sea, the Ottoman Empire could not limit itself to just the Janissaries. Since there is water, ships are needed, and the need arose for a navy. The Turks began to recruit pirates, adventurers and vagabonds from all over the Mediterranean Sea for the fleet. Italians, Greeks, Berbers, Danes, and Norwegians went to serve them. This public 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 did not care at all whether they were Christians or Muslims.

From this motley crowd they formed a fleet that was more reminiscent of a pirate fleet than a military one. He began to rage in the Mediterranean Sea, so much so that he terrified the Spanish, French and Italian ships. Sailing in the Mediterranean Sea itself began to be considered a dangerous business. Turkish corsair squadrons were based in Tunisia, Algeria and others Muslim lands that had access to the sea.

Ottoman navy

Thus, such a people as the Turks were formed from completely different peoples and tribes. And the connecting link was Islam and a common military destiny. During successful campaigns, Turkish warriors captured captives, made them their wives and concubines, and children from women of different nationalities became full-fledged Turks born on the territory of the Ottoman Empire.

The small principality, which 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 Ghazi. The Ottoman Turks also called their state the Sublime Porte, and called themselves not Turks, but Muslims. As for the real Turks, they were considered the Turkmen population living in the interior regions of Asia Minor. The Ottomans conquered these people 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. The Russian Empire played an important role in weakening the Turks. She always beat the warlike descendants of Osman I. She took the Crimea and the Black Sea coast from them, and all these victories became 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 disgraceful agricultural practices. Officials squeezed all the juice out of the peasants, and therefore they farmed in a predatory way. This led to the emergence large quantity 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 their debts, since after the victories of Rumyantsev, Suvorov, Kutuzov, and Dibich, the Turkish economy was completely undermined. The French then brought a navy into the Aegean Sea and demanded customs in all ports, mining concessions and the right to collect taxes until the debt was repaid.

After this, the Ottoman Empire was called the “sick man of Europe.” It began to quickly lose its 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, with him political crisis got even worse. In 1908, the Sultan was overthrown and imprisoned by the Young Turks (a pro-Western republican political movement).

On April 27, 1909, the Young Turks enthroned the constitutional monarch Mehmed V, who was the brother of the deposed Sultan. After this, 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 with a terrible massacre of Armenians, declaring that they were against the new regime. But they were really against it, since nothing had changed in the country. Everything remained the same as before for 500 years under the rule of the sultans.

After defeat in the First World War, the Turkish Empire began to die. Anglo-French troops occupied Constantinople, the Greeks captured Smyrna and moved deeper into the country. Mehmed V died on July 3, 1918 from a 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 arose in the distant mountainous provinces. It was headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He led the common people with him. He very quickly expelled 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, then last decades they live quite happily. They sing in the morning, dance in the evening, and pray during breaks. May Allah protect them!