Brief Ancient Turkey History, Ottoman

The Turks have a long tradition that spans more than 4000 years. Approximately 2000 BC, Turks arrived in Central Asia. Later, some of them left Central Asia and dispersed across Asia and Europe, founding numerous states and empires that were independent of one another. The Great Hun Empire (founded in the 3rd century B.C. ), the Göktürk Empire (552-740), and the Ottoman Empire (founded in the 7th century B.C.) were among these empires.

Turk people in Asia Minor

Through continuous migrations and incursions, Turks began to settle in Asia Minor in the early 11th century. The Malazgirt victory over the Byzantines in 1071 eventually opened the gates of Anatolia to the Turks. Following this date, the Turks fully conquered Anatolia and founded the Anatolian Seljuk State there (1080-1308). This was Anatolia’s first Turkish state, and it was known as the Konya Sultanate after its long-time capital city.

Ottoman Age

With the Mongol attack of Anatolia in 1243, the Seljuk State quickly deteriorated. Many Turcoman kingdoms were founded in Anatolia towards the end of the thirteenth century, during the collapse of the Anatolian Seljuk state and after its disappearance. One of these was the Ottoman (in Turkish Osmanli) Beylik (similar to a Republic) established in 1299 in the environs of Sogut in Eskisehir (Turkish city) in the northwest region of the peninsula by a Turkish ruler named Osman. During the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Beylik rapidly spread, giving rise to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over a massive area on three continents for over 500 years.

The Republic of Turkey

On October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was named. The Turkish people had self-rule for the first time in recorded history. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was elected as the Republic of Turkey’s first president.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who held the position for 15 years until his death in 1938, established a wide range of reforms in the political, social, legal, economic, and cultural spheres that were literally unseen in any other country.