Director - Semra Sander
Producer - Semra Sander
Script - Ahmet Nezihi Turhan
Producer Asistant - Kurtuluş Zeydan
Music - Can Atilla
YIn 1595 there was an empire with borders from Vienna to Yemen and Galicia to
Caucasia.
This empire had many nations within its borders and lasted 624 years.
It had no name....
AN EMPIRE WITHOUT A NAME
Until the 19th century, the West called it the Turkish Empire as the Turks were
the ruling dynasty. The Turkish Republic, which inherited this empire after its
collapse, called it the Ottoman State.
What did this state call itself?...
Nothing. It was the Grand State with no official name.
The State had no name and still hasn't been fully understood as it has always
been perceived from the viewpoint of the present. History depicts the thirteenth,
fourteenth and seventeenth century Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians as though
they were the same as existing nations. It is forgotten that nationalism is a
product of the nineteenth century. The Ottomans aren't perceived within their
own period.
The Ottoman State was the second largest empire that ever existed. Its borders
were smaller than the Roman Empire and it had a shorter life span than the
Byzantine Empire.
This state has an exceptional place in history. The frontier beylic was founded
at Söğüt in 1299 by the Kayı branch of the Turkish Oghuz tribe. Besides the
Byzantine Empire around Istanbul, there were various Turkish beylics in Anatolia.
There wasn't the perception of a Turkish race. Ertuğrul's son Osman Bey lead
this new Turkish beylic.
According to legend, Osman Bey formed the state after a dream.
The success story was concluded with the extraordinary expansion of the lands
governed by Osman's descendants.
Following this expansion the Ottomans defended their territories in Macedonia,
Libya, Yemen and Caucasia until the start of the twentieth century.
This expansion wrote the history of part of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
An empire with multi-languages, cultures, religions and different ethnic origins
emerged with this expansion.
The Ottoman State was basically an Islamic state, but It also sheltered
Christians, Jews and other religious denominations and sects.
Everyone had freedom of language, religion and culture if they remained loyal to
the State. This freedom was very significant. About twenty-five national states
were founded on unity of religion, language and culture when the Ottomans
withdrew from these regions.
The Ottomans governed expertly without any great problems. Their withdrawal and
the founding of national states brought many problems to the Balkans and the
Middle East which still haven't been solved.
The Ottomans couldn't comprehend the new order formed, the industrial revolution
and the nationalistic movements. The Ottomans didn't care about innovations and
changes as they were victorious in wars. They didn't need this in the strong
position they held or thought they held. It was the Grand State and the only
State and didn't need a name for itself...
The revolts of the Serbs and Greeks in the Balkans started the process of
dispersal. The name "Ottoman" was used to unite the ethnic groups in the dynasty.
The terms "Ottoman" and "Ottoman State" were first used in 1876.
The Ottoman State had a multinational political structure. Most of the rulers
were Turks or Turkified Christian Janissaries, but no one was aware of this.
Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, said in a speech to young people
in 1923, "We realized who we are, or more accurately that we are separate and a
foreign people to them, when we were expelled from their midst with clubs due to
the nationalist movements".
The full awareness of being Turkish developed only when the Republic of Turkey
was founded. The Ottoman State cannot be comprehended within the nineteenth
century concept of nationalism.
The Ottoman State synthesized the Turkish, Islamic and Roman traditions.
Religious rules weren't openly infringed. The state functioned independent of
religion. The Ottomans formed a flexible system with a harmony between canonical
and customary law.
The Ottomans were an Islamic state but, no sultan ever went on a pilgrimage.
The Ottomans were an Islamic state, but except for one of the sultans, their
mothers were of Christian origin.
The state religious policy was based on the Hanafi school of Islamic law, the
denomination of most of the Moslems in the country, but various denominations
could also spread and develop. The Mevlevi order was different from the Sunni-Sufi
forms of worship. Dancing and music entered into the Islamic religion. The
Ottomans also made a unique contribution to Islam and the world with the
aesthetic beauty it attained.
The Ottomans were a very unpretentious beylic with an unadorned grandeur even in
their most brilliant period. Plain and simple lines were dominant in
architecture, reaching their zenith with Mimar Sinan. Discerning eyes perceive
the genius and skill of this simplicty. Sinan competed with the St. Sophia,
inherited by the Ottomans from the Byzantines. The dome of the Süleymaniye
Mosque, Sinan's pre-mastership period work, is smaller than the dome of the St.
Sophia. He fought against gravity in his design of the Süleymaniye Mosque. The
weight and pressure of these domes exerted on the ground are seen in domes much
smaller than the Sülemaniye. It looks like an invisible power is pushing up the
huge dome at the Süleymaniye. He was victorious in his fight against gravity at
the Süleymaniye. Sinan resolved his competition with the St. Sophia at the
Selimiye Mosque at Edirne, his masterpiece. The Selimiye's dome is larger than
the St. Sophia's dome. He fitted three staircases into these slender minarets
ascending in three directions without merging with each other. It has a great
elegance and was the feat of a great engineering genius.
At first the sultans' palaces were also plain and simple, but the public
appearances of the sultans and their entourages were ostentatious.
The state was supported by military power. The Janissary band played to boost
morale during wars. They terrified the enemies and the West, but the elegance of
the steps and details were dazzling. Terror and elegance coexisted side by side.
The Ottoman State was supported by military power, but it was also a refined
society which made lace-like fountains, elegant tombs and graves, ceiling and
wooden decorations and transformed the simple tulip into the period symbol.
Two or three story wooden houses were surrounded by greenery, harmonious with
nature and each other. The houses didn't obscure each other. They were built on
slopes and hilltops to protect agricultural areas.
Concentricity with nature is always observed from Istanbul's excursion spots to
the dervish lodges, the waterside mansions at the Bosphorus to the summer
palaces and the mosque courtyards to the frescoes.
The most important monuments of the cities are the mosques and the buildings
attached to them.
Istanbul, Constantinople, the empire's capital city, strained all the
innovations and foreign influences through its sieve, then disseminated them
after imprinting them with its own individual taste and special seal...
This state had neither a formal name nor was based on an ethnic foundation. It
was the Grand State. It still hasn't been fully comprehended in history. It has
been held responsible for all kinds of negative attributes despite its
conquests. Justice, equality and tax deductions were provided to Moslems and
non-Moslems alike. Even its termination was exceptional. An historian has
stated, "Perhaps even its waning was a more successful operation than its
advancing. There was a miraculous resistance". This was a tremendous power of
resistance when Europe was dominant in the world. The Ottoman state was a unique
empire and even its collapse lasted for about 200 years...
