A History of Turkey

❁ Assalamualaikum ❁

⌦ Hello earth-living! It's so nice to see you again in my new entry. As I promised, I am going to share all the good things about Turkey but before we get further, I am so glad to share with you guys about the history of Turkey. It is so common that when we really want to know about one particular place, especially the place that we love the most, we need to know if not much but at least a bit of the history behind the wall. I am so happy if you have the same feelings as me to really get to know Turkey from the beginning until what Turkey has become now. For a such beautiful place like Turkey, I believe that there must be many amazing histories behind it whether it is nice or not, those flaws make the country flawless. I'm going to explain briefly about the ancient times of Turkey.

⌦ Based on my reading, Turks (Turkish people) has been living on this earth for more than 4000 years. These Turks first lived in Central Asia around 2000 BC before some of them left the Central Asia and spread around and established their own states and empires in the vast area of Asia and Europe. The intersection of their independent empire and state has 3 continents; Asia, Europe and Africa. On that time, their economy was basically on shepherding and stock-breeding, especially sheep and horse. Both of the animals have their own importance in the Turkish social and culture life. The Anatolian Seljuk was their very first state during the early 11th century in Anatolia and was sometimes called The Konya Sultanate. They had started to live in Anatolia on that time through continual migration and incursions.

⌦ However the Seljuk State was rapidly declining by the caused of Mongolia invasion of Anatolia which started in 1243. During the time of the declining of the Seljuk State and after the state had disappeared, many Turkoman leaders were established in Anatolia towards the end of the 13th century. One of the Turkoman leaders was Ottoman (Uthmaniyyah) Beylik (leader). The Ottoman was named because of the founder, Osman, a Turkish ruler in 1299. Uthmaniyyah Beylik was expanding fast throughout the 14th century, thus has produced the Ottoman Empire and controlled a huge territory on 3 continents and successfully lasted for 623 years until the end of the First World War. "...the Ottoman Empire is perhaps both the easiest and hardest empire to compare in world history." Mikhail & M. Philliou (2012). This followed with the statement made by them as well, "It is somewhat paradoxical then that the Ottoman Empire has only recently become a focus of students of empires as historical phenomena." It brings the meaning that Ottoman Empire can be a good example for its achievement in the ancient times and so far there is no other Empire that can be compared with this Empire. Ottoman Empire made a huge phenomena during the early days and they have shown that any other Empire needs to imitate their achievement and make them as the role model. Though whatever it is, this history just became the focus of students to study about it during this present days.

This is the flag of Ottoman Empire

♞However, starting from the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire slowly loses its power in the economy and military superiority compared to Europe, which had developed positively with the Renaissance. The Europe had conquered the territories and easy to access to raw materials and with the Industrial Revolution. In addition, Ottoman Empire find the difficulties in adapting with the new developments. Thus, the overall power has change and unstable whereas it is more on the European States. This slowly brings the Ottoman Empire a decline.

♞Hi people! Are you still with me? Well, I hope so. So the next part is I'm going to tell you on the more interesting facts about Turkey' history background. Let's begin with the very amazing and precious little adventure time during the World War 1!

Army of the first World War in 1914  - 1918

♖World War 1 (1914-1918): The decreasing of the Empire doesn't stop there, in fact it continued until the World War 1, The Ottoman Empire entered the first war in 1914 on the side of allied powers and unfortunately lose from the war in 1918. This Empire then has been forced to sign the Mondros Armistice on October 30, 1918. Under the rules and regulation in the Mondros Armistice, the territories of the Ottoman Empire were lived by Britain, France, Russia and Greece. Sad to be told, this was where the Ottoman Empire is officially ended.

♟ A national resistance and liberation movement revealed as the reaction to this working and Mustafa Kemal, the commander of Ottoman military was the leader under this. This has been mobilized by the Anatolia in the effort for Turkish self-determination and national independence. Similar to any other country, Turkish also has the dream and come out with a very strategic plan to free themselves and to make their country can stand on its own feet without being invaded and ruled by any other powers from the outside. Fortunately, the plan went smoothly and under the Mustafa Kemal's leadership himself that was named by the last name of Ataturk, or "Father of Turks" and the Turkish managed to fight the war for national liberation.

♟The Turkish National Liberation War was an attempt for them to establish new country after the declining of the Ottoman Empire, which had complete its life. It lasted for four years (1919-1922) whereby a small army volunteer to fight and had won against the leading powers of this time. The winning of Ataturk was not only military, but it was diplomatic as well. The Turkish military's victory was closed with the diplomatic success with the signing of the Lausanne Peace Treaty on July 24, 1923. It was signed with the Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, and others. The Treaty or the Agreement recognized the creation and international borders of a Turkish State and they had guaranteed for their complete freedom or independence.

Turkish army led by General Musfata Kemal Atatürk 

♣ REPUBLIC OF TURKEY: The Republic of Turkey was affirmed on October 29, 1923. For the very first time in the centuries, the Turkish were enjoying their self-rule. Right after that, Mustafa Kemal was elected as the president for the Republic of Turkey.

♣ Mustafa Kemal was the leader of the Republic of Turkey for about 15 years until his death in 1938. During his leadership, he had introduced a broad range of reforms in the political, social, legal, economic, and cultural spheres that were undoubtedly cannot be compared with any other countries.

♣ As for the final touch for the history of Turkey, the first Grand National Assembly that was under the leadership of Ataturk implemented a new political and legal system based on the principles of parliamentary democracy, human rights, national sovereignty and powers division, private ownership and secularism, and the separation of religion and state affairs. Moreover, a new secular education system was well-established where the Arabic alphabet was changed into the Latin alphabet. Furthermore, the new civil and criminal codes were adapted based on the European models. While Turkish women received equal rights under the law. For instance, the right to vote and be elected to public office. This kind of rights given to the women had put Turkey ahead of many Western nations in terms of women's rights. It is because it was a revolution and superior even up until today. Thus, this made the country that consist of Muslims as the majority to be in lined with any other Western civilization and universal values.

⌦ Okay people, that was a little bit of briefly summary of the background of the country named Turkey. I really hope that you enjoy your reading and if there is any question or anything you would like to say regarding this entry, you can freely put your comments in the comment box below. Thank you so much for spending your time reading this. See you in my next entry, people! Till then, bye ☺