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HBC at this times has no information on historic Turkish boys' clothing. The Ottoman Turks of course were only the most recenbt arrivals in Anatolia. The Anatolian Peninsula is one of the most ancient location of Human society. Impoertant civilizations developed in anatolia well before the arrival of the OIttomans. We do note that the warm Mediteranean climate of Turkey is an imprtant factors as was centuries of rule by the Ottoman Turks. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the modern secular state after World War I, European fashions began tohave greater influence. We have little information on fashion trends in the 19th century. Nor do we have any information on early 20th century clothing. Two things that one must consider when it come to boys clothing in Greece during the 1940s is that climate and economics. The climate was (and still is) very warm especially in the southern part of Greece. Turkey was also a very poor country at the time.
The Hittites were one of the major civilization of the ancient world and presented a major challenge to the Egyptian New Kingdom. These rose in Anatolia on the perifery of Mesopotamia from mysterious origins. Despite their historical importance, they are one of the least studied ancient civilizations. With a Anatolian heartland the Hittite kingdom stretched from Mesopotamia into Syria and Palestine which it contested with Egypt. It was with Egypt that the Hittites fought the first well-recorded battle of history--Qadesh (1274 BC). Ancient Troy seems to have been influenced by Hittite culture. They spoke an Indo-European language. They conquered Mesopotamia, but were strongly influenced by Mesopotamian culture. The Hittites adopted the laws, religion, and the literature of Babylonian thus represented a continuation of Sumerian culture. The Hittites civilization was at its peak (1600-1200 BC). They lost control of Mesopotamia to Assyria, but continued on for many centuries. Their Anatolian capital finally fell (717 BC). It is believed the Hittite Empire was weakened by internal divisions. The Hebrews say little about the Hittites, but the Canaanites are believed to have been a surviving Hittitite people. The Hittites were a trading empire. Their importance lies primarily in transmitting Sumerian culture through its far-flung empire and even wider trading contacts to the Aegean/ Mediterranean world--the cradel of Western civilization.
The Persian Empire was vast. Like the Ottomans, it was formed by tribal people from the Steppe. Anatolia was one of the Persan Empires major continuent parts. The core of the Empire was in waht is now western IIran on the borders of Anatolia. And it was in Analolia that Alexander fought his great battles with the Emperor Darius II.
The Greeks, led by Alexander the Great, conquered most of the then known world and proceeded to Hellenize large areas of the eastern Mediterrean, including Anatolia..
The Romans finally conquered Greece (146 BC). Large numbers of Greeks were enslaved in the process . Many wealthy Greeks used learned Greek slaves to teach their children. Anatolia proved to be the only major part of the Roman Empire that did not fall in late antiquity. It survived under Roman (Byzantium)rule through the 11th century. Anatolia was divided into several provinces. Western Anatolia was the provibce of Asia. was an administrative unit added to the late Republic. It was a Senatorial province governed by a proconsul. The arrangement was unchanged in the reorganization of the Roman Empire in 211. Other provinces were Bithynia et Pontus, Galatia, Lycia et Pamphylia, Galatia, Cilicia, and Cappadogia.
Emperor Constantine moved the Capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople (330 AD). This wa essentially the founding the Eastern Roman Empire which was to become known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium. One of Byzantium's many achievements was to transform the linguistic and cultural heritage of Ancient Greece into a vehicle for the new Christian civilization. The Roman province of Asia or Asiana in Byzantine times was called Phrygia.
The image of the Empire founded by Othman in the 13th century is not a popular one in the modern mind. There are no romantic images as surround many other great empires such as those of Greece and Rome. The images that are most in the public mind are those of a war-like, uncivilized people conquering the great jewl of Christianity--Constaniople, the enslavement of Christian children, the titilating stories of harems, the asault on Christain Europe, and the supression of the Greeks in the 19th century. The geocide of the Armenian people is also often blamed on the Ottomans, although it seems more the result of the rise of Turkish nationalism and the modern secular Turish state. The image of the Ottomans is generally that of the declining Ottoman state of the 19th century when it had become the backward, coruption-ridden Sickman of Europe. This is very different than the state of the Empire at it height. Art and education flowered under the Ottomans at a time when it was many Christain kingdoms that were backwards. Much of the neagative evaluation of the Ottomans comes from the application of 20th century standards which of course is inappropriate.
The Ottoman Empire coninied into World War I (1914-18). The War proved a disaster for the Empire which had been teering as the Weak Man of Europr for more thana century. The Allies after the War occupie Istanbul/Constantinpole (1918) and Izmir (1919). The resulty was the Turkish National Movement. Before the War, the Ottomans had lost most of their Christian subjects in the Balkans. During the War, they murdered most of the Christian Armenians--the Armenian Genocide. As a result of the War, the Ottomans lost the large Arab populatin in the Levant and Mesopotamia. This left only two major non-Turkic people, the Greeks in the west and the Kurds in the east. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, an Ottoman military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli and now known as Atat�rk launched the Turkish War of Independence (1919�23). The Ankara-based Young Turks declared itself the legitimate government of the country before the Republic was actyally deckared (1920). Their major goal was to reverse the Treaty of S�vres between the Allies and Ottoman Empire, formally ending World War I. Part of this effort was the Greek-Turkish War. Christian Greeks were expelled from Western Turkey. The Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, meaning the cend of the Ottoman Empire (1922). This ended 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Young Turks with a stronger bargaining position, nehotiate sith the allies again to end Wold War I. The Treaty of Lausanne led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed Turkish Reppublic (1923). It became the recognized successor state of the Ottoman Empire. The republic was officially in Ankara which became the new capital (1923). The Lausanne Convention stipulated a one sided population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The Turkish victory in the Greco-Turkish War mean that 1.1 million Greeks were expelled rom Western Turkey. Some 0.4 millio Muslim Turks were expelled rom the area till min Greek hands. As a result, the Turkish Republic was not longer an ethically diverse state, although there were till Kurds in the east. Attaturk persued a secular path. Turkey became the irst Muslim majority state establihing a secular government. Turkey in the modern era is struggling with its identity, torn between the Islamic fundamentalist revival sweeping the region and the modern secularism that Atat�rk made the cornerstone of the modern Turish state (1920s).
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