About Istanbul

“If I were told to look at the world one last time, I would want to do it from Çamlıca Hill in Istanbul.” – Lamartine

In its nature and its cultural and historical wealth, Istanbul is one of the most important cities not only of Türkiye but of the world. Geographically a bridge between

and

, it brings the cultures of East and West together.

Istanbul has been the capital of two of history’s great empires. When the Roman emperor Constantine I moved his capital from Rome to Istanbul, the Roman Empire divided into East and West (AD 330). Before that, from the 680s BC, the Megarians who came from Greece lived in the city. The city’s oldest known name, “Byzantion”, was given in that period in honour of the Megarian king Byzas. Constantine named his new capital “Nova Roma” (New Rome), but after his death it became known as Constantinople, “the City of Constantine”. The Edict of Milan, issued in 313, gave Christians legal status, but this met with a backlash from the Romans. This conflict between Christians and pagans was one of the main reasons for the division of polytheistic Rome. Accordingly, Constantine declared that founding the new capital was “God’s command”, though he himself would be baptised only on his deathbed.

Istanbul had every quality a new capital needed. Constantine truly saw the city he called “New Rome” as a place where Rome could be rebuilt. An interesting detail is that, like Rome, Istanbul is built on seven hills. And so the building of the city began. Without doubt, building Istanbul was one of the most important decisions in history; Constantinople was the creation of a single man. The area known today as the historic peninsula marks the boundaries of Istanbul in Constantine’s time. Even under Turkish rule, the city grew only sparsely beyond these limits.

The Eastern Roman Empire was never called the Byzantine Empire in its own time. That name was given in the 16th century by the German historian Hieronymus Wolf. The Eastern Roman Empire had its most brilliant period under Justinian (527–565).

In later centuries, Arab raids and the Crusades did great damage to Eastern Rome, and the conflict between Catholics and Orthodox set it against Western Europe. When the sailing ships of the Fourth Crusade reached the Bosphorus and saw Constantinople, they were astonished and coveted the city. On 12 April 1204 the Crusader armies entered the city, looted it and set it on fire. Steven Runciman, author of the three-volume A History of the Crusades (1951–54), describes it like this (translated here from the Turkish edition):

“…[Constantinople] was full of works of art left from ancient Greece and masterpieces made by its own superb craftsmen. The Venetians knew the worth of such things; wherever they found a treasure, they carried it off to adorn a square, a church or a palace in their own city. But the French and the Flemings burned with a desire to destroy. Shouting, they fell upon the streets and houses, seized everything that shone and smashed whatever they could not carry, stopping only to kill or rape someone, or to loot the wine cellars to drink. Neither monasteries nor churches nor libraries escaped the plunder. Even in Hagia Sophia you could see drunken soldiers trampling holy books and icons, tearing the silk curtains and breaking up the silver iconostasis. While soldiers got drunk drinking from the altar vessels, a prostitute sat on the patriarch’s throne singing a bawdy French song. Nuns were raped in the convents, and every dwelling from palace to hovel was broken into and plundered… The horrifying scenes of looting and slaughter went on for days, until this vast and beautiful city lay in ruins.”

After the sack, a Latin Empire was set up in the city in 1204. When the “Latin dogs”, as the Byzantines called them, left after 57 years of a wretched existence, what remained was a ruined country: its lands had shrunk, central power had weakened and the people had grown poor. Meanwhile in Anatolia the Turks had reached the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. When Thrace too passed to the Turks, Byzantium was surrounded on all sides, and after a long resistance the ailing empire fell to Mehmed the Conqueror (Fatih Sultan Mehmet) in 1453.

Mehmed II entered the city with great joy and granted the Orthodox population wide privileges in their worship and daily life. Some churches, above all Hagia Sophia, were converted into mosques. Yet Mehmed was disappointed when he entered the city, because the city of his dreams had been plundered by the Crusaders, and many buildings, Hagia Sophia among them, had been stripped. One of Mehmed the Conqueror’s greatest achievements was to bring this ruined city back to life. And so the capital moved from Edirne to Constantinople.

Some sources say the name Istanbul comes from “Islambol”. This is nothing but a fallacy. In fact, the name used for the city today is Greek. The phrase “eis tin polin”, used in Greek in Byzantine and Ottoman times, means “to the city”. It was used for the road leading to Istanbul, and today’s name derives from it.

Source: https://gezimanya.com