Turkey - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
200
Turkey - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
200eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781787023192 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Kuperard |
| Publication date: | 08/30/2022 |
| Series: | Culture Smart! |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Turkey
By Charlotte McPherson
Bravo Ltd
Copyright © 2016 Charlotte McPhersonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85733-694-8
CHAPTER 1
LAND & PEOPLE
GEOGRAPHICAL SNAPSHOT
Situated at the southeastern corner of Europe, Turkey straddles the straits that divide Europe and Asia — the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus. Three percent of its landmass lies in Europe, giving it borders with Greece and Bulgaria, while 97 percent lies in Asia. The enormous Asian part, known as Anatolia, shares borders on the east and south with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The country is bounded on three sides by water: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Mediterranean to the south, and the Black Sea to the north.
European Turkey is the most densely populated part of the country. In Anatolia, the population is densest in the west, in urban centers such as Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir, and Izmit, and decreases steadily toward the east. In the interior the population is concentrated along the paths of rivers and in towns such as Ankara, Eskisehir, Konya, Erzurum, Malatya, and Kayseri. Most of the Central Anatolian Highlands consist of undulating hills and broad, high plateaus from which mountains occasionally rise. The population of the south coast is massed on the fertile plains of Antalya and Adana, as well as in the province of Hatay, with its port of Iskenderun. There is a steady trend of people moving into the cities from rural areas However, in the past decade the Turkish government, in order to prevent further migration to urban centers has been working hard to mix historic preservation and urban revitalization with community development and sustainable tourism in eastern Turkey.
Enclosing the Central Anatolian Highlands are two great mountain ranges: the Pontus Mountains in the north, and the Taurus range to the south. The most famous mountain is Mount Ararat in the east, where Noah's ark is reputed to have come to rest. Turkey is rich in water, the lifeblood of the Middle East. The most important rivers of the region, the Tigris and the Euphrates, each have their source here.
CLIMATE
Turkey's latitude would lead one to expect a broadly temperate or Mediterranean climate. Owing to its topography, however, the country's climate varies according to region. Turks claim that all four seasons can be experienced in any one day, albeit in different parts of the country.
The Black Sea coast has a predominantly mild summer and winter. It is the area with the heaviest rainfall (pack an umbrella for a trip here!) and is famous for its tea plantations.
The Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have a typical Mediterranean climate, with long, hot, dry summers and mild winters.
The Marmara coast is a climatic transitional zone between the first two. It is hot, but does not have such dry summers. The winters are cool, with occasional frosts and outbreaks of snow.
Central Anatolia has a markedly continental climate, with hot summers around 86°F (30°C), and bitterly cold, snowy winters, sometimes down to -22°F (-30°C). There are large temperature swings between day and night and even in summer the nights can be surprisingly cool.
A BRIEF HISTORY
When the Turks entered Anatolia in the eleventh century they encountered a cosmopolitan civilization that was itself the product of many earlier traditions. Turkish tolerance, pluralism, and openness to new ideas led to a cultural exchange that resulted in an extraordinary flowering of Islamic humanism. They created a great inclusive empire that transformed the societies they absorbed and lasted nearly a thousand years. Turks are proud not only of their own remarkable achievements, but of the fact that the ancient civilizations of their homeland are part of the inheritance of mankind.
Early Anatolian Civilizations
Sophisticated Neolithic (8000–5000 BCE) settlements with religious shrines, decorated houses, and pottery dating to the seventh and sixth millennia BCE, have been found at Hacilar and Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia.
In the Bronze Age (3000–2000 BCE) two remarkable civilizations arose: the Mesopotamian-influenced Hatti in central and southeastern Anatolia, and the Mycenean settlement of Troy in northwestern Anatolia.
At the beginning of the second millennium BCE, an Indo-European people, the Hittites, entered Anatolia via the Caucasus and gradually absorbed the Hatti. Their powerful empire, with its capital at Hattusas (Boghazkoi), vied with Egypt for domination of the Near East in the thirteenth century BCE.
Roughly contemporary with the Hittites were the Mitani, who spoke Hurrian, in eastern Anatolia, and the civilization of Troy VI, the great walled Ilion of Homer's Iliad that commanded the Hellespont (the Dardanelles).
Around 1200 BCE, invasions by Indo-European tribes from Thrace utterly destroyed Troy and Hattusas, and a dark age followed. By the Iron Age (c. 1000 BCE) Anatolia was divided into numerous principalities of different size, ethnicity, and culture. They included the Late Hittites in southeastern Anatolia and north Syria, the Urartians in the region of Lake Van and parts of Iran, the Phrygians in central and southeastern Anatolia, the Lydians, Carians, and Lycians in the west and southwest, and, on the western coastal fringe, the Ionians.
One of these invading tribes, the Phrygians, became a major power and established its capital at Gordion, between Ankara and Eskisehir. The last Phrygian king, Midas (c. 715 BCE), was recognized by the court of Sargon II of Assyria. His monuments still remain around Eskisehir.
The Lydian kingdom (750–300 BCE) was the first to invent a system of coinage, which revolutionized commerce. Sardis, the capital, was reputedly the richest city in the ancient world because of its gold mines. The wealth and might of its last king, Croesus, became proverbial.
Ionian Greeks began colonizing the western coast of Anatolia in around 1050 BCE. Their city-states included Miletus and Ephesus. In their most brilliant period, in the sixth century BCE, they gave the world philosophy and free scientific thought and became the center of poetry and the arts.
After the defeat of Croesus of Lydia by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 546 BCE, Anatolia came under Persian rule. For the first time in its history it served as a bridge between Asia and Europe — the Royal Road built by the Persians joined Iran to the Aegean coast.
The Hellenistic Age (333–30 BCE)
Alexander the Great's victory over the Persians at the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE restored the independence of Anatolia's Hellenistic cities, which regained their cultural supremacy. After Alexander's death the western Anatolian kingdom of Pergamum rivaled Alexandria in cultural, scientific, and artistic achievement.
The Roman Age (30 BCE–395 CE)
Through a combination of inheritance, conquest, and alliances, Rome began to establish provinces in Anatolia from the second century BCE. Pergamum became the western province of Asia. Other provinces were Bithynia and Pontus, Galatia, Pisidia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia. Julius Caesar reportedly uttered the words "I came, I saw, I conquered" when announcing his victory over Pharnaces of Pontus at Zela, near modern-day Tokat, in 47 BCE. Anatolia prospered within the Roman Empire. Luxurious new cities were built using the latest Roman design and technology. By the second century CE, Anatolia's cities rivaled Rome itself.
Byzantine Civilization (330–1453 CE)
In a real sense, Anatolia was the cradle of Christianity: Saint Paul was born in Tarsus in Cilicia. Many of his missionary journeys in the first century CE were to Anatolian cities — Ephesus, Konya, Troas, Miletus, Colossae. Followers of Christ were first called "Christians" in Antioch, near the Syrian border. Many of Paul's epistles, and those of Peter, were written to believers in Anatolia. The Seven Churches of the Book of Revelation were all in western Anatolia. In 325 CE the first general council of the Church met in Nicea (Iznik), where it proclaimed the doctrine of the Trinity and established the Nicene Creed.
In 330 CE Constantine the Great made the ancient city of Byzantium the eastern capital of the Roman Empire and renamed it Constantinople. After the fall of Rome in the fifth century, the eastern Empire — which continued to consider itself Roman — presided over a civilization that lasted a thousand years, spanned the Middle Ages, and played a vital role in the interchange of ideas between East and West. Constantinople became one of the most important intellectual and cultural centers in the world.
The Arrival of the Turks
The ancestors of the modern Turks were nomadic tribesmen who lived on the steppes of Inner Asia in the sixth century CE. Over the next thousand years, after a series of conquests, different Turkic clans created a succession of multicultural, polyethnic empires that stretched from China to the Mediterranean. The Oghuz Turks moved west to Transoxiana (roughly, modern-day Uzbekistan and southwest Kazakhstan), where they settled and embraced Islam, before migrating south to Iran. There they founded the Great Seljuk State, which created an inclusive Turkic, Arab, and Persian culture. Waves of breakaway tribes from the Oghuz confederation started entering Anatolia, where each would establish a kingdom, only to fall to the next Turkic group to come their way.
By 1000 CE the Byzantine Empire was fading away. The seat of the Empire, Constantinople, was on the European shore of the Bosporus. The last successful Emperor, Basil II (976–1025 CE), was succeeded by weak rulers who failed to maintain the city's defenses.
In the eleventh century, the Caliph of Baghdad, the supreme religious leader of Islam, recruited Seljuk mercenaries to help him maintain his position. As a result, their leader, Tughrul, was made Sultan of Sunni Islam. The Seljuks assumed control of Baghdad, and soon their empire covered most of modern Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.
In 1071 CE the Byzantine army of Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was utterly defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert, near Lake Van in the east. Six years later the Seljuks founded a new state in Rum, which is what the Muslims called the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Seljuk Sultanate
Following a major defeat during the First Crusade in 1097 CE, the Rum Seljuks set up their capital at Konya, formerly Iconium, in central southern Anatolia. This city stood at a crossroads and had long served as a conduit for the ideas and influences of nations of diverse ethnicity, language, and culture. There the Seljuks presided over a cultural renaissance, building magnificent mosques, academies, and centers of trade.
Ruins and ancient mosques testify to the splendor of Seljuk architecture. The period is famous for developing the use of brickwork, which enabled buildings to be decorated with reliefs. The Seljuks took full advantage of the strong sunlight in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq to create an elaborate interplay of light and shade, with the use of large portals, processional courtyards, vivid color, and intricate masonry. Their literature includes the mystical works of the great Sufi poets Rumi and Yunus Emre.
In the twelfth century CE the Byzantine Empire was shrinking, but the Seljuks were also in trouble, under pressure from Crusaders in the west and the Mongols in the east. In the 1190s invasions and civil war gradually brought the Seljuk Empire to near collapse, and in 1243 CE the Mongols defeated the Seljuks at Kösedagh. Seljuk power was completely broken by 1261.
The Rise of the Ottomans
As a result of the Mongol ascendancy in Iran, Asia Minor experienced a fresh influx of displaced Oghuz Turkic tribes in the thirteenth century. The Ottoman Turks, named after their leader Osman I (1270–1326), emerged as a local power on the Byzantine-Seljuk frontier in northwestern Anatolia. In the late 1200s, Osman established the Janissaries as an elite fighting force to expand his kingdom. The Ottoman state spread rapidly, occupying the entire Asian side of the Sea of Marmara by 1304. In 1326, Bursa became its capital. In 1350, the Ottomans crossed the Dardenelles. The capital was moved to Edirne (old Adrianapolis) in Western Thrace in 1361, and from there the Ottomans began to penetrate the Balkans. Strategically positioned, practically encircling Constantinople, they slowly sapped the remaining power of the Byzantine emperors.
The clash of empires was also one of religion. Byzantium was the Holy Eastern Roman Empire. The Ottoman state was Muslim. To the political title of Sultan, the Ottoman rulers would add the spiritual title of Caliph (in 1517, when Mameluke Cairo was added to their lands). Despite this, during the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries close economic and social ties had developed between Byzantium and Anatolia, particularly after the sack of Orthodox Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204.
Osman's grandson, Murad I, crushed a Christian coalition at Kosovo in 1389, gaining Serbia and the Balkans. The Byzantine Emperor was forced to acknowledge the Sultan as his overlord. Murad's successor, Beyazit I, defeated the last great crusade, led by Sigismund of Hungary, at Nicopolis in 1396. He then laid siege to Constantinople in 1397.
A new front opened up against the Ottomans in the east, however, when the Mongol threat resurfaced. Under the leadership of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), they defeated the Ottomans in a great battle on a plain near Ankara in 1402, capturing Beyazit and forcing him to raise the siege of Constantinople. This temporarily eased the pressure on the Byzantine Empire. However, the Tartars plundered Anatolia and moved on; their aim was to vanquish their enemies, not to expand to the west.
After internecine fighting among the sons of Beyazit, Murad II recovered the lost Ottoman lands and expanded their territory in southeastern Europe, paving the way for a fresh assault on Constantinople.
The Fall of Constantinople
Murad's successor, Mehmet II (1415–81), resolved to capture Constantinople for Islam. Although by now a weakened vassal state, Constantinople was home to Venetian and Genoese fleets that could cut the Turkish realm in two. In 1452, in just four months, Mehmet II built the fortress of Rumeli Hisar on the European side of the Bosporus north of Constantinople, thus closing the Bosporus to the city. The city walls were strong and fiercely defended, and access to the Golden Horn was barred by a great chain that stretched from shore to shore. Mehmet's masterstroke was to construct a huge causeway that enabled his army to haul their boats overland from the shore of the Bosporus into the Golden Horn, thus launching a naval attack from the north. The city walls were breached on May 29, 1453, and one glorious chapter in history came to a bloody end, to be succeeded by another.
This victory confirmed the Ottoman's European Empire. Mehmet II became known as Mehmet the Conqueror. He made Constantinople his capital, renamed it Istanbul, and settled it with people from different parts of his realm. In the years that followed he built palaces, markets, mosques, and religious colleges. An intellectual steeped in Western classical culture — he spoke six languages, including Latin and Greek — Mehmet employed Greek and Italian advisers, and commissioned works by Italian artists.
The Ottoman Empire
The Empire attained its greatest glory in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). This was a golden age in which magnificent palaces and mosques were built, including the Sülemaniye Mosque in Istanbul, designed by Süleyman's chief architect, Sinan. Süleyman is known to the Turks as Kanuni, "the lawgiver," and there were great advances in the process of government under him.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire grew by conquest, until it sprawled across North Africa, Arabia, Iraq, the Black Sea, and Ukraine, and into Europe as far as Hungary. Its advance was famously halted at the gates of Vienna in 1683, though not before the Ottomans had left their wonderful coffee behind.
Pressed back by Russian and Austrian armies, the Ottoman Empire experienced a decline in governance in the eighteenth century and neglected its foreign affairs. In the nineteenth century, it began to lose territories in the Aegean, the Balkans, North Africa, and Arabia.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Turkey by Charlotte McPherson. Copyright © 2016 Charlotte McPherson. Excerpted by permission of Bravo Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Cover,Title Page,
Copyright,
About the Author,
Map of Turkey,
Introduction,
Key Facts,
Chapter 1: LAND AND PEOPLE,
Chapter 2: VALUES AND ATTITUDES,
Chapter 3: CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS,
Chapter 4: MAKING FRIENDS,
Chapter 5: PRIVATE AND FAMILY LIFE,
Chapter 6: TIME OUT,
Chapter 7: TRAVEL, HEALTH, AND SAFETY,
Chapter 8: BUSINESS BRIEFING,
Chapter 9: COMMUNICATING,
Further Reading,
Acknowledgments,