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At its height, the Ottoman Empire was
one of the
world’s great powers, controlling much
of
southeastern Europe, North Africa, and
the
Middle East. The roots of the Ottoman
Empire
can be traced back to the migration of
Turkic
tribes from Central Asia into Anatolia.
Expert
horsemen, fierce and highly mobile,
these armies
encountered little resistance as they
moved
westward and settled, eventually uniting
under
the banner of the Seljuk Empire. Back in
the East,
the rise of the Mongols sent progressive
waves of
Turkic refugees fleeing the armies of
the Khan.
The turmoil created by this influx of
people, as
well as direct confrontations with the
Mongols
themselves, eventually resulted in the
dissolution
of the Seljuk Empires into several
fractured
independent states. One of these states,
ruled by
Osman I, from whom the word Ottoman is
derived, would become the Ottoman
Empire.
The next few centuries were marked by a
period
of expansion. The boundaries of the
Empire
spread from eastern Anatolia to
encompass the
Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean,
including
much of the lands of the weakened
Byzantine
Empire. In fact, at its height under
Suleiman the
Magnificent, the territorial holdings of
the
Ottoman Empire mirrored those of the
Byzantines at their apogy under
Justinian the
Great nearly a millennium prior.
However, it was
not until 1453 that the Ottomans finally
captured Constantinople after a long
siege,
renaming it Istanbul and establishing
their
capital there. While Ottoman military
power was
due in large part to the famed Janissary
soldiers
who were originally drawn from prisoners
of war
and slaves and later from mostly
Christian
youths, their economic might was derived
in
large part from their control of trade
routes
linking the Middle East with the West.
Over time, the Empire began to stagnate
as a
series of weak Sultans were unable to
compete
with the military and scientific
advances
revolutionizing the West. The discovery
of the
New World and the opening up of maritime
trade
routes between Europe and the Americas,
India,
and the Far East diluted the economic
might of
the Ottomans. A series of failed reforms
were
unable to reverse the decline, resulting
in huge
losses of territory on all fronts. The
rise of
nationalism during the 19th century
further
exacerbated this problem as numerous
ethnically
distinct provinces declared their
independence
and the Turks themselves began to clamor
for
reform. To some degree, during the late
stages,
the Ottoman Empire was propped up by
European powers such as Britain and
France as a
bulwark against Russian expansion
towards the
Eastern Mediterranean. World War I
effectively
resulted in the end of the empire as the
remaining territory of defeated Ottomans
was
partitioned by the Allies. The Turkish
War of
Independence erupted in 1919,
culminating with
the abolition of the Sultinate in 1922
and the
declaration of the modern Republic of
Turkey in
1923.
At its height, the Ottoman empire
stretched from
Austria to Persia, from Russia to Egypt.
Within
the dictates of Islamic law, daily life
in the
Ottoman world was famous for its
opulence and
luxury. Every gentleman of substance
enjoyed a
pipe in his leisure moments. This superb
bowl of
molded clay is typical of those produced
during
the flowering of the Ottoman age. It
offers only a
small, tantalizing clue to a vanished
world and
the lives that filled it. As we hold it
in our hands
today, we can imagine the conversations
that
might have taken place over this pipe.
Our
imagination takes us back across the
bridges of
time, to an exotic and mysterious place.
- (PF.2151)
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