Figure 1.-- Here we see a cabinet card portrait of an unidentified family in Ottoman Constantinole, probably in the 1890s. Note the Western dress includiing wide-brimmed hats. They look to be a Greek family. Constantinople had a substantial Greek community at the time. The studio was Th. Servantis..

The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans (14th-15th centuries) was a major change in European history. The Balkans were tumultuous region, with the various Christian kingdoms fighting among themselves. They were this ill prepared to resist growing Ottoman power in Anatolia. The Ottomans began the conquest at Adrianople, modern Edirne (1362), It would take more than a century for the Ottoman Sultans to complete the conquest. The important Serbian kingdom fell with the Battle of Kosovo (1389), Bulgaria (139). The millennia long Greek Byzantine Empire collapsed with the fall of Constantinople (1453), Bosnia (1463), Herzegovina (1482), and Montenegro (1499). The Muslim Ottomans were aided by rifts in Christianity. There were divisions among Orthodox peoples. And the fundamental split in Christianity--the Great Schism which separated the western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church (1054). The great Christian power in the East resisting Islamic onslaughts for centuries had been the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines had been significantly weakened by the Fourth Crusade leading to the Sack of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders (1204). Constantinople's massive walls protected the Byzantines for two more centuries, but it never fully recovered. Ottoman com quest into the Balkans preceded ed that of Greece. But with the fall of Constantinople there was no Greek power to resist the Ottomans. Although having only small populations, the islands were not unimportant. It would be in the Ionian Islands that modern Greek nationalism was born. The Greek were conquered, but the Ottomans allowed a degree of autonomy and accorded them some privlidges. As a result, the Greeks became an important part of the Christian minority within the Ottoman Empire. Even before the expansion of in to the Balkans, there was a Greek minority in western Anatolia. And over the centuries there was a dispersion of ethnicities throughput the Empire, so Greeks did not just live in Greece and western Anatolia, although this was where most lived. The landowning aristocracy was destroyed, but Greeks remained important if not dominant in commerce and business. Ottoman power made the eastern Mediterranean safe for Greek shipping (15th-16th centuries). Greek shipowners had skills and technology and they became Empire's maritime carriers earning enormous profits. There were incidents of conversion by the sword, but this was not the general Ottoman practice. Thus the population of Greece and th rest of the Balkans remained primarily Christian. The Ottoman authorities seldom exerted pressure on Christians to convert to Islam, though there were fiscal and legal benefits in doing so. Ottoman rule led to the creation of a Greek diaspora. There were two major waves of Greek migration. The first was dominated by intellectuals which would be a factor in the Renaissance. This was a process began earlier by the Fourth Crusade. 【Treadgold】 Another wave involved the common Greek population which fled from plains and best agricultural area of the Greek peninsula. moving into rugged mountain area where it was more challenging for the Ottomans to establish military and administrative control. 【Vacalopoulos, p. 45.】 The Orthodox Church during the Ottoman era was a major factor in the survival of Greek heritage. The Orthodox faith became a mark of Greek nationality. The Ottoman Sultan saw the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople as a kind of Greek leader. There was an important Greek community in Constantinople. The religiouis divide was a factor in maintaining the ethnic separation.

Sources

Treadgold, Warren. History of Byzantine State and Society (Stanford University Press: 1997.

Vacalopoulos, Apostolis. The Greek Nation, 1453–1669 (Rutgers University Press:).

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Turkish pages:
[Return to the Main Ottomon Empire ethnic group page]
[Return to the Main Greek Ottoman era page]
[Return to the Main Ottomon Empire page]
[Return to the Main Turkish chronology page]
[Return to the Main medieval European country page]
[Return to the Main Middle Eastern page]
[Turkish choirs] [Turkish folk costumes] [Turkish movies][Turkish royals][Turkish schools] [Youth groups]

Created: 6:07 PM 7/28/2024
Last updated: 6:07 PM 7/28/2024