TURCHIA

TURKEY. - The Turkish Republic, proclaimed on 31 Oct. 1923, is the state that emerged from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the national revival promoted by Mustafa Kemal following the Treaty of Sèvres (10 Aug. 1920). Reduced to a territory almost exclusively Asian, with a European appendage (Eastern Thrace, slightly larger than Lombardy), which preserves for it Constantinople (Istanbul) and thus
TURKEY — 1) State Frontiers; 2) Railways; 3) Armenian Rite; 4) Chaldean Rite; 5) Chaldean Patriarchal Vicariate; 6) Byzantine Rite; 7, 8, 9) Syriac Rite; 10) Melkite Patriarchal Vicariate.

The Straits, however, have not relinquished their function as a bridge between Europe and Asia, for which they mark the passage from the Mediterranean to Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau.

I. GEOGRAPHY

Its territory, which in total measures 776,727 sq. km. (of which 23,975 in Europe), brings it into contact with Bulgaria, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Soviet Union, but the borders almost never constitute a clear and solid frontier; indeed, they have left behind disputes and claims that are far from settled. This territory consists essentially of a vast plateau, whose average elevation (700 m.) increases from west to east, crossed by various mountain ridges and generally made up of closed basins; two series of parallel or nearly parallel ranges along the northern (Black Mts.) and southern (Mediterranean) coasts isolate it from maritime influences, creating a clear contrast between coastal regions and the interior. While the former benefit from abundant or moderate (in the south) rainfall and are therefore covered with lush vegetation or maquis, the interior plateau and the mountains of the east (Armenia) are arid and steppe-like, except for the narrow strips near rivers, which, however, are few and all of a torrential nature. There is also a strong thermal contrast between the mild climate, especially in winter, of the coasts and the harsh, typically continental climate of the plateaus, where the ground is covered with snow for several weeks.

Almost half (47.2%) of the land surface is pasture, about one-seventh is forest, and a little more than one-quarter is devoted to ancient and woody crops. The interior is the domain of pastoralism: but livestock raising is essentially directed toward sheep (26 million head) and goats (19 million); there are, however, 10 million head of cattle and 3 million of equines. In Anatolia, silkworm breeding is notable. Cereal crops are expanding with artificial irrigation and yield good quantities of grain. In the maritime regions, tobacco, maize and hazelnuts prevail along the Black Sea; cotton, vines, olive trees, citrus fruits and fruit trees along the Mediterranean. The mineral reserves are varied and substantial, though knowledge of them is still imperfect and exploitation is in its early stages, with the exception of coal, which is extracted in the Ereğli region (4-5 million tons in recent years). As for chromite (central Anatolia), Turkey ranks second in the world; copper, iron, sulfur, manganese, lead and zinc production are also notable. Mercury, molybdenum and antimony are also being exploited. However, industry is still far from realizing its potential; yet it has made great progress since 1923: in some sectors (cement) it already meets national demand, while for others facilities are being significantly expanded (textiles, glassworks, ceramics, paper, leather, chemicals) and output is becoming more substantial, even in heavy industries.

The population (20.9 million inhabitants, 27 per sq. km. in 1950) is fairly homogeneous from the national and religious point of view. Of the ethnic minorities, the most considerable is the Kurdish one (1.5 million souls); there are also, among others, more than 150,000 Arabs, more than 100,000 Greeks (Constantinople), and perhaps as many Armenians, besides smaller groups of Circassians, Lazes, Georgians, Israelites, etc.

Of the urban centres, Istanbul (1 million inhabitants), although the most populous and important, has ceded to Ankara (287,000 inhabitants), in the heart of the plateau, the function of capital of the State (1923). Smyrna (Izmir) has 230,000 inhabitants, Adana 118,000 and Bursa 100,000.

I. The Ottoman Empire and its origins

In the second half of the 13th century the Byzantine Paleologi family (since 1261) held from Constantinople the last outposts on the Asian continent, reduced to little more than the borders of Bithynia; another Byzantine dynasty, that of the Comneni, reigned in Trebizond. All the rest of Anatolia (except for the coastal Cilicia still in the hands of the last kings of Lesser Armenia) was in the hands of Muslim Turks who had invaded it since the 11th century.

But there was no unitary Turkish state; the Seljukids, who from Konya had predominated for about a century and a half, had been reduced to vassalage by the Mongols, who had conquered Persia, overthrown the Caliphate of Baghdad (1258) and occupied eastern and central Anatolia. On the marginal territories of the Seljukid state of Anatolia many Turkish emirates had formed: of Qaramân in the south (in Cappadocia), which around 1300, with the extinction of the Seljukid state, aspired to assume the inheritance; of Mentese (Caria), of Ajdin (region of the Meander), of Sàrùhân (Magnesia), of Girmijân (Phrygia), of Qarasi (Troas), of the Gandar (Paphlagonia) and others smaller. Of these emirates one, which took its name from its founder 'Osman, in Bithynia, on the border with the Byzantine Empire, prevailed in a struggle lasting more than a century, giving rise to the Ottoman Empire. It was the 'Osman' emirate (Arabic 'O'man, in Byzantine chroniclers Othoman, from which the name 'Ottoman') the first to give considerable consistency to the emirate and to extend it as far as Bursa (in 1326, which is also considered the year of his death). His successor Orhan (1326-62) occupied the rest of Bithynia: Nicaea (İznik) in 1321, Nicomedia (İzmit) in 1337, and crossed into Europe conquering the Gallipoli peninsula in 1354.

Who were these Turks gathered around the family of 'Osman'? When the Ottoman sultans in the 15th century took pleasure in hearing the origins of their dynasty and kingdom recounted, legends and genealogies were formed which were then accepted into Ottoman court historiography. Among these, the most widely credited later became the one that traced the story of 'Osman' back to Ertoğrul and him to a Suleimân, a Turcoman prince of the Oguz tribe and specifically of the Qajî clan, who came to Anatolia from Mahan (Central Asia) at the beginning of the 13th century to escape Mongol pressure. The family of 'Osman' would have settled on the borders of Bithynia in the 13th century as vassals of the Seljuk sultan of Konya. This version is largely legendary; there are no reliable accounts of the ancestors of 'Osman', and it must be ruled out that they came from Central Asia in the manner described in the 13th century. Rather, it is more plausible that, in any case, a frontier emirate, which around 1300 was under the command of 'Osman', formed in the 13th century on the borders with Bithynia, and that the organization of the nascent state was not that of a homogeneous Oguz tribe, but rather of a military lordship composed of Turks who had long since penetrated into Anatolia (the Oguz, i.e., Seljuk, invasion of the 11th century) and of native Turkish converts, animated by the chivalric and religious spirit of the Muslim conquerors (the ghazi, or holy warriors), natural antagonists of the akritoi and frontier soldiers stationed by the Byzantines on their borders. In this context, the Ottomans, heirs to the traditions of armed conquest of Islam, completed in Anatolia and the Balkan peninsula the conquest that Muslim Arabs had attempted in Asia Minor in the 7th–9th centuries and that the Byzantines and later the Crusades had halted, thus establishing a state of equilibrium in the 11th–13th centuries.

The conquest of Adrianople (the date is uncertain but can be placed around 1361) and the transfer of the capital there from Bursa in 1368 under Murâd I (1360–89) gave the Ottomans dominance in Thrace. The Byzantine Empire was reduced to the capital, Constantinople, and its immediate surroundings; the kingdoms of Serbia and Bulgaria became vassals of the Ottomans, who pushed their incursions even into the Morea and Albania. The successor of Murâd, Bâyezîd Yıldırım (1389–1402), became master of much of the Balkan peninsula and besieged Constantinople in the spring of 1391 and again in 1395. The united forces of Christian princes, led by King Sigismund of Hungary, were defeated at Nicopolis on the Danube (1396). In Anatolia, too, the Ottoman Empire expanded, absorbing some of the Turkish emirates and subjugating others, such as the realm of Karaman.

At this point the invasion by Tamerlane from the East halted Ottoman expansion and delayed its development by almost half a century. Bayezid was defeated at Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity. Once Tamerlane had withdrawn, the Turkish emirates he had restored to power were able to maintain themselves for a time amid the discord among Bayezid’s three sons. Constantinople enjoyed a period of relief; but soon Mehmed I, having established himself on the Ottoman throne, resumed conquests in Anatolia and Europe, and his son Murad II (1421–44 and 1445–51) consolidated Ottoman power by taking Thessalonica (1430) and much of Albania. His son Mehmed II (1451–81) conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453, thereby ending the Byzantine Empire. With the political and cultural tradition of which it had long been the center almost entirely extinguished, Constantinople (Istanbul) became one of the principal religious, political, and cultural centers of Islam; Orthodox Christianity survived in a state of subjection under the sultans, increasingly detached from Christian Europe, to whose spiritual union it had adhered too late and without great enthusiasm (Council of Florence, 1439).

With the capture of Trebizond (1461) and the Genoese colonies of Caffa and Tana, the Ottomans secured control of the Black Sea; in the Adriatic as well the Turks occupied important bases and in 1480 threatened the Italian peninsula with a landing at Otranto.

2. Peak development and decline. The greatest expansion of the Ottoman Empire was achieved by Selim I (1512–20) and his son Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66). The conquest of Syria and Egypt (1516–17), of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Arabia, of Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522), Hungary (1526), and Mesopotamia, the creation of a fleet that dominated the eastern and central Mediterranean, and the taking of Algiers (1516), Tunis (1533), and Tripoli (1551) gave the Ottoman sultans control of southern Europe as far as the Danube, of Asia Minor and Arabia, and of nearly all of North Africa, and they assumed—and in fact exercised—the title of caliph and emperor of the Muslims. Their antagonists in the East were the Ṣafavid rulers of Persia, in the West the Austrian Empire and Venice, later Poland and Russia, and at times the union of Christian states. Venice was worn down in defending its Levantine possessions, successively losing Cyprus (1571) and Candia (1645–69) while managing to save the Ionian Islands and Dalmatia. The Austrian Empire saw Vienna threatened first in 1529 and again in 1683. From this last failed attempt against Vienna the decline of the Empire is usually dated, although its capacity for expansion had already been checked in other clashes, such as at Malta in 1565 and at Lepanto in 1571.

At the end of the 17th and in the 18th centuries the Empire lost its first territories: Hungary, northern Serbia, and the Crimea. In the 19th century the collapse occurred on a larger scale because external attacks, especially by Russia, were accompanied by internal revolutions and national movements. Serbia, Greece (1821–30), Romania, and Bulgaria reconstituted themselves as independent states, while Egypt obtained (1841) complete autonomy and Tunisia loosened its ties with Constantinople.

From the beginning of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was no longer the architect of history; perhaps overwhelming pressures pressed at its borders. Austria aimed at the Aegean, Russia at Constantinople and the Straits; the preservation of the Ottoman Empire was for a long time assisted by states interested in countering those ambitions. In the Crimean War (1854–55) and in the war of 1877–78 the Russian advance was halted by European intervention. The reforms (tanzîmât) begun in 1839 did not succeed in reviving the Ottoman Empire; the Balkan War of 1912–13 cost it most of its European territory; defeat in the First World War deprived it of the Arab countries and jeopardized even the independence of the territory that was purely Turkish. The valor and sagacity of Atatürk (1919–22) saved, in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish State, which, after the abolition of the sultanate (2 Nov. 1922), became the Republic of T. (29 Oct. 1923). The last sultan, Mehmed VI, left Istanbul on 17 Nov. 1922.

3. Organization. The Ottoman Empire established itself in the conquered territories with an administration that was primarily military, living off the labor of the subject peoples and drawing from them the core of its troops. The revenues of the lands were assigned to the sultanate, to his family, to ministers, to military leaders, and to the territorial troops under the system known as timâr and zi‘âmet (revenues tied to military obligations). The Janissaries, who extended and then defended the conquests, were sons of Christians reduced to slavery and raised for war; from their ranks came governors, generals, and ministers. No aristocracy existed, no Ottoman bourgeoisie formed; only the offices
TURKEY — Dardanelles Strait. Engraving by G. De Rossi (Rome 1699).

Iqtaʿ were the appanage of the educated Muslim class, which gave the Empire its physiognomy as a theocratic Muslim State. A. J. Toynbee (*A Study of History*, Abridgment, London 1948, p. 177) includes the Ottoman Empire among the “arrested civilizations,” as an example of civilizations established on conquered territory and incapable of pushing beyond a certain limit the exploitation of their capacities. The formation of large European States on its borders and the rise of national movements made it unsustainable to maintain an organism in which neither a cultural unity nor a sense of state solidarity had formed, and the various ethnic elements (millet, “community”) received external impulses or awakened to the voices of their past. The dissident nationalists of the Serbs, Greeks, Romei, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Arabs anticipated by more than half a century the Turkish nationalism of the dominant class.

From a religious point of view, the formation and duration of the Ottoman Empire signified an expansion of the Islamic faith into Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula; here two-thirds of Albania, large parts of Epirus and Macedonia, and parts of Bulgaria (Vido, Rhodope), Romania (Dobruja) adhered to Islam not so much as a result of persecution as through local interests and the immigration of Turkish elements. With the fall of the Empire, after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey (1923–24), the Muslim element was reduced to Albania and Thrace, with small minorities in Romania and Bulgaria and on Cyprus. The Latin Catholic rite was maintained in Istanbul and on the islands.

4. Contemporary history

Born from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of T. (in the new Turkish-Latin alphabet *Türkiye Cumhuriyeti*) was proclaimed by the Grand National Assembly of Ankara on 19 Oct. 1923. The first ten years of the Republic were marked by a succession of revolutionary reforms according to the doctrine of *kaimism* embodied by its president, Mustafa Kemal, who, in introducing sweeping changes that shook the foundations of the State and society, drew on the great prestige derived from his victorious conduct of the War of Independence. The abolition of the sultanate (1 Nov. 1922) was followed by the abolition of the caliphate (3 Mar. 1924); the Constitution of 20 Apr. 1924 recognized Islam as the religion of the State, but an amendment in 1928 removed this provision; the secular orientation was more explicitly enshrined in the subsequent constitutional amendment of 1937. The new Civil Code (a nearly complete translation of the Swiss Civil Code), which entered into force in 1926, meant the abandonment of Muslim personal status law, with the consequent abolition of polygamy and the equalization of women with men in matters of inheritance. The revolutionary innovations affected not only outward life (abolition of the fez and the mandatory wearing of the European hat, prohibition of traditional garments for men of religion) and long-standing secular customs (abandonment of the Muslim calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar in 1925, Sunday as a holiday instead of Friday), but also struck at the cultural heritage of the Turks, who were abruptly steered toward rapid Westernization. This was profoundly aided by the abolition of the Arabic script and the introduction of the Latin Turkish alphabet (*“new Turkish alphabet” yeni türk harfleri*), ordered by law on 3 Nov. 1928. This amounted in the end to turning one’s back on the past, ignoring centuries of Arab-Turkish-Persian culture, a heritage of ideas expressed in a script that would soon become undecipherable to future generations. Even this reform was carried to its extreme conclusions, and while it caused a deep cultural crisis, it cannot be said to have been without positive results, since it promoted the spread of elementary education and sparked a movement of linguistic reform—one that went to excesses and oddities but helped renew the original Turkish patrimony of written language.

The Kemalist regime also successfully laid the foundations of a national economy essential for effective political independence. Freed from the Capitulations by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, T. developed its own banking system, fostered national industry, built roads and railways, and settled debts incurred

With the rise of the Democratic Party, which developed rapidly from 1945 onward and in May 1950 won a strong majority in the political elections and took power, the Democratic Party pursued the same national and foreign policy objectives as its predecessor but found greater support in the country due to a more democratic and liberal stance. This has already led to a softening of some of the extreme Kemalist revolutionary provisions, including those of a religious nature, such as the now-repealed ban on reciting the call to prayer in Arabic and the reopening of certain historical mausoleums that had been closed since 1925.

The Catholic Church could in ancient T. carry on its activity quite freely, first of all in numerous schools, thanks to the protection of the great powers, in particular of France. Outside Constantinople missionary activity has almost entirely collapsed. The coming to power of the Kemalists cost the lives of more than 200,000 Christians who perished in deportations or massacres. The Treaty of Lausanne signed on 24 July 1923 decreed for the Greeks the exchange of populations: all Greeks, except those domiciled before October 1918 in Constantinople and its environs, had to leave T., while Turks were obliged to emigrate from Greece. The Treaty of Lausanne offered no real guarantees for Christians, who consequently began after its signature to leave T. in large numbers. Already before 170,000 Christians had left Constantinople after the Kemalist victory at the end of 1922.

The main reason for Kemalist T.’s hostility towards Christians lay in the fact that it wanted to be a national and independent State and therefore intended to eliminate as far as possible the minorities, whose protection had in the past often offered the Powers a convenient pretext for interfering in T.’s affairs. The position of the remaining Christian minorities changed radically in comparison with old T., since the new State was no longer a theocratic Muslim State, but a modern lay State. In a Muslim State the Christians

They necessarily have their own legislation regarding marriage and family, that is, their "personal statute." After the promulgation of the new civil law, equal for all, in 1925, the Government induced the Christian communities to renounce "spontaneously" the right to a personal statute still guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne (art. 42). An outward sign of the secular character of the State was to be the prohibition issued in 1934 against wearing ecclesiastical garb in public (except for the supreme heads of religious communities). Christians were heavily prejudiced in social life, which caused a continual decrease in the Christian population. In 1927, there were in T. 257,814 Christians, of whom 178,546 in Constantinople, out of a total population of 13,648,270, while in 1950 only 191,262 Christians remained out of approximately 19,000,000 inhabitants.

Catholics of all rites still number 21,950, mostly resident in Constantinople. The following ecclesiastical circumscriptions exist: the Apostolic Vicariate of Constantinople with 7,700 faithful, which also includes most of Asia Minor except the territories of Smyrna and Trebizond; then the Apostolic Vicariate of Asia Minor, with its seat in Smyrna, with about 1,000 Catholics and a territory of 171,606 sq. km.; finally, the Turkish Mission of Trebizond, erected in 1931, with 214 Catholics over a territory of 189,440 sq. km. For Catholics of the Eastern rite outside Constantinople (v. there are no proper circumscriptions. None of the numerous bishops who existed in Asia Minor in the time of old T. is still in office. There are still some Eastern Catholics and also dissidents in Cilicia, at Alexandretta, and in the south-eastern corner of T.: at Diyarbakir, Mardin, and in the Tur 'Abdîn. Armenians are found scattered in small groups in various cities.

In recent years, the Turkish government has somewhat modified its position toward religion. The return to more democratic forms of government after the death of Kemal Atatürk and the growing danger of communism have led the government to greater tolerance. In February 1949, optional religious instruction was introduced in state schools. Catholic schools have somewhat improved their conditions and enjoy the confidence even of Catholics. Symptomatic is the fact that the "Orthodox" Church was able, on the feast of Epiphany 1952, to perform once again the traditional ceremony of the blessing of the sea.

The Turks' most ancient homeland was in the mountainous region of the Tien-shan; from here, even in prehistoric times, they spread eastward to the borders of China and within its very territory, westward to the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, and southward into Iran and India. The Huns were Turks who pressed upon China in the 4th–3rd centuries B.C. and later founded a short-lived empire extending into Europe (4th–5th centuries A.D.). Subsequently, Chinese and Byzantine sources describe, in the 6th–8th centuries A.D., a vast empire of the Turks of Central Asia whose rulers are mentioned in inscriptions in the Turkish language found in present-day Mongolia, in the Orkhon valley, dated to the first half of the 8th century A.D., in which the ethnic name Türk (corresponding to T'uk'ü) appears for the first time in Turkish.
TURKEY - Hellenistic Sarcophagus, called the "Weepers" - Constantinople, Museum.

of the Chinese, Tööpxoi of the Byzantines). The Orkhon inscriptions, particularly in runic script, besides being the oldest linguistic monument of the Turks, are a notable literary document for their epic account of war deeds and the expression of human sentiments. The Türk or Göktürk worshipped a (Turkish) sky god called Tenri and other deities of the earth and waters. Their kingdom ended around 745 A.D. with the ascendancy of the likewise Turkic Uighurs, who ruled in what is now Mongolia until 860 A.D. and, even afterward, until the 13th century, formed ethnic and political groupings further west in what is today called Eastern or Chinese Turkestan.

The Uighurs, unlike the Göktürk, underwent the influence of the civilizations and religions of Asia, especially Buddhism, Manichaeism, and also Nestorian Christianity. From them comes the abundant "Uighur" literature discovered in manuscripts of Eastern Turkestan at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, in the Turkish language, with various alphabets, among which the Uighur script derived from Aramaic through Syriac predominated. This literature is not original; for the most part it consists of translations of Buddhist and Manichaean religious and moral texts; considerable effort was made to adapt the Turkish language to new concepts, but Chinese, Sanskrit, and Iranian terms are often encountered.

A new phase in the literary evolution of the Turks begins in the 10th century through contact with Muslims and with Arab-Persian culture, into which the majority of the Turks rapidly integrated following their conversion to Islam. The first Turkic people to enter Islam en masse in the 10th century were the mixed Qarluq, Türkmen, and Oguz tribes settled between Eastern Turkestan and present-day Russian Turkestan and dominated by the Karakhanid dynasty (10th-12th centuries). A ruler of theirs reigning in Kashgar in 1070 A.D. was the dedicatee of the poem *Kutadgu Bilik* ("The Science that Brings Happiness"), a lengthy compilation of political, moral, and religious teachings, the work of Jūsuf Hājib (Jūsuf the Vizier). Arabic and Persian vocabulary is found in it, but in reduced proportion; subsequently, Arab-Persian influence prevails, and even the Uighur script gives way to the dominant use of the Arabic alphabet.

Turkish literature inspired by Islam developed especially through the work of mystical brotherhoods in Turkestan. Aḥmad Yasawī (d. c. 1166) gave expression to religious sentiment in short poems collected in a *dīvān* that enjoyed wide diffusion in Central Asia until recent times. To the same Islamic religious current belong the short poem *Jūsuf ve Zu-

The scant literary activity of the Turks in Central Asia under Russian and Chinese rule now finds expression in modern varieties of Eastern Turkish (Uzbek, Tjurki).

2) In the region of the Caucasus and western Persia, the Southern Turkish known as Dzerî survives in many dialects (an Oghuz-Turkmen form of Turkish with Eastern influences). It also gained literary standing in the songbooks of Nesîmî, Habîbî (15th c.), Hatâ'î (poetic pseudonym of Ismâ'îl, founder of the Safavid state in Persia) and Fuzûlî (16th c.), and it exerted some influence on the early development of Anatolian Turkish literature. The so-called Book of Dede Qorqut, an anonymous collection of Oghuz or Turkmen heroic tales remarkable for their vigour and expressive power, rests on ancient traditions yet appears in the form known to us only in the 15th century; it belongs to Dzerî literature.

3) In Anatolia and European Turkey, within the territory of the state that from 1300 expanded to form the Ottoman Empire—absorbing the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and the Mamluk sultanates of Syria and Egypt in 1516—six centuries of Turkish literature unfolded under the name Ottoman ('Othmânlî) Turkish. This literature is distinguished by its language (Southern Turkish evolved outside Eastern Turkish influences), its setting, and the mingling of cultural and ethnic elements.

Arabic and Persian models—especially in lyric poetry, romantic epics and short fiction—prevail in Ottoman literature, yet the tradition is not without originality. The polished lyric verse known as dūrūn edebiyâtı “chansonnier literature,” celebrated in the works of Bâqî (1526–1600), Nef'î (1582–1636) and Nedîm (1681–1730), comprises short poems called qasīde that describe spring or autumn, commemorate persons and events, and praise sultans and ministers who dispense favours; in the still shorter gazel form it treats love with refined conceits and rhetorical artifice, often veiling in symbols of love (wine, the cup-bearer, the beloved and her charms) a complex figuration of mystical love that, when sincere, appears in Fuzûlî (16th c.) and a few others, though it is not easily discerned amid the mass of imitators. The unadorned expression of religious feeling, stripped of metaphor and rendered more eloquent by a language close to the spoken idiom, is the hallmark of a few poets such as Jūnus Emre (13th–14th c.) and others who form a distinct current in Turkish literature, the so-called tekke edebiyâtı (convent or dervish-lodge literature); even this, however, over time degenerated into excesses and lost its sincerity. Another semi-learned current is that of the minstrels or folk-singers (the ‘āşıq), known as sāz şāirleri edebiyâtı, which draws near the people in language and is meant chiefly for song. Nor has the deep stratum of tradition ever lacked the vein of popular poetry, which offers genuine and true artistic inspiration.

Ottoman poems sing the same romantic subjects already treated by the Persians (the exploits of Alexander, the loves of Jûsuf and Zulejâb, of Meghnûn and Lejîlâ) or expound mystical teachings (the Garîbâme of 'Asîq Pasciâ) or exalt the life of the Prophet (the Risale-i mohammedijeh of Jazîgî-Ogû Mehmend, of the 16th century). A small masterpiece of this kind, simple and of heartfelt piety, is the Melvidî of Sulejmân Ćelebi (d. 1421), still recited in Turkey today. Almost the last fruit of the Persian mystical-romantic poetic tradition is the short poem Hûsn ve 'Asîq (“Beauty and Love”) by Šejb Gâlib (18th century).

Ottoman prose, highly artificial in language and style, includes historical works, a few political treatises (notable among them one by Qoû Bej of the 17th century), a bibliography by Kâtib Ćelebî, and a famous travelogue (sejâhat-nâme) by Evlîjâ Ćelebî (both from the 17th century).

The most recent Turkish literature, from the 19th century to the present day, is marked by an ever-closer engagement with Western sources of thought and art and, in a sense, passes through the same phases as the political evolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic that arose from its ruins. Around the mid-19th century, while the Ottoman Empire carried out reforms (tanşîmât) that nonetheless failed to save it from collapse due to the secession of subject peoples (Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Albanians, Arabs), the Turks learned foreign languages, first and foremost French, went to study in Europe, reformed their schools, developed printing, and gained awareness of their ethnic identity, once submerged within the broader Islamic or Ottoman community. The first champions of the new direction were Ahmed Vefik Pasha (1823–91), Sinasi (1826–71), Namiq Kemal (1840–88), and Semsuddin Sami Frašeri (1850–1904). Yet it was still a period of predominantly Eastern inspiration, at least in pure literature, whose most illustrious master at that time was 'Abd ul-Haqq Hamid (1852–1937).

In conjunction with the political revolution of 1908–1909, an additional step toward the renewal of sources of inspiration and means of expression occurred at the beginning of this century; its promoters were the philosopher and poet ZIJA GÖK ALP (1876–1924), the novelist ‘OMER SEIFUDDIN (1884–1920), the writer HÂLIDE EDIB, the novelists YA‘QUB QADRI and RESAD NURI, and the poet MEHMED EMIN (1869–1924). A Western-style literary form was introduced, attempts were made at dramatic works (unknown to the Turks, Arabs, and Persians a century ago) by imitation or adaptation of European models, and the language was renewed. The Kemalist revolutionary reform of 1923–38 brought Turkish culture to definitive Westernization, the abandonment of the Arabic alphabet in favor of the Turkish-Latin alphabet (1928), the abolition of the teaching of Arabic and Persian, and the secularization of education. Of the effect of these reforms, it can be said for now only that they have upended the literary field, precipitated a cultural and spiritual crisis, and do not seem to preclude reconciliation between the present and the imperishable values of the past.

V. Arte

For some time in T. there has been a reaction against the opinion, widespread in the Western world, that Turkish art is merely a marginal aspect of Islamic art (v.), having received more than it contributed to the centers of Muslim culture, variously identified for individual arts in Iran, Syria, Egypt, and even India. The sources of Turkish art have been traced to the very regions from which all other Central Asian civilizations of the modern world drew sustenance, and Turkish influences on the art of other Muslim peoples have been documented. It must nevertheless be acknowledged that specialized studies and knowledge of probative documents remain scarce, so that to this day it is not possible to express a definitive judgment on the subject.

The evaluation of the artistic genius of the Turks must first take into account the civilization they expressed before their migrations and their conversion to Islam. It is certain that in their early settlements in Central Asia they attained a high level of culture, with frequent exchanges and contributions to the civilization of the Scythians to the west and the Hindus and Chinese to the east. The cycle of the twelve symbolic animals representing the months of the year (rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, ram, monkey, bird, dog, and boar), and the theme so frequently found in carved friezes of the struggle between two wild animals, seem, for example, to be attributable to the primitive Turkish art: from this, varying the meanings, they then passed to all the figurative civilizations of Asia, including the Byzantine.

Naturally, after their conversion, the ideological content and the prescriptions of the Muslim religion determined new orientations for Turkish art as well. The prohibition against depicting living persons, for instance, forced sculptors and painters to abandon portraiture and figurative representations of human reality, confining themselves to purely decorative creations, and accentuated the process of abstract stylization of zoomorphic and phytomorphic symbols, and, in miniature painting, of the human type itself. Similarly, after the conquest of Asia Minor, contact with the advanced Byzantine architecture was not without consequences. There are no lack of examples of ancient Christian churches adapted as mosques (among the most interesting constructions, the Guez Han church near Antalya, whose primitive structure and plan are still identifiable, and the church of Kaleb near Alanya, with its typical Byzantine dome inserted into a system of coastal fortifications).

without consequences the contact with the advanced Byzantine architecture. There are no lack of examples of ancient Christian churches adapted as mosques (among the most interesting constructions, the Guez Han church near Antalya, whose primitive structure and plan are still identifiable, and the church of Kaleb near Alanya, with its typical Byzantine dome inserted into a system of coastal fortifications).

But civil architecture remained faithful, despite different functional solutions, to the tradition of the dwelling house with external loggias and overhangs; and even decorative art did not stray or allow itself to be drawn outside the orbit of tradition. Only in the period of Rococo, through infatuation with French culture, and in the 19th century, through a necessary opening toward the Western world determined also by political reasons, did the formal process of Turkish art deviate from its consistent and traditional line.

The positive contribution of the Turks to Islamic architecture appears substantial already in the Ghaznavid and Seljuk periods, in Persia (11th–12th centuries). The plan of the *medersa* (madrasah, *medrese* in Turkish, a building that housed the Muslim school with a central hall or courtyard and subsidiary rooms for teachers and students, generally constructed on a cruciform plan with four large *iwan*s, or others, usually placed at the ends of the main axes), was introduced by the Turks into Persia and Asia Minor, and then spread to all Muslim countries. The surviving *medersas* in Turkey, recently converted into mosques, feature, unlike those in other regions, large portals of carved marble. A typical example of Turkish influence in Egypt is the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo.

The group of mosques and *medersas* most noteworthy artistically dates from the 14th–16th centuries. Particularly interesting as Anatolian products (with courtyard) are the Ulu Giami of Ishak Bey in Manisa (c. 1402), the Feşil Giami of Antalya, the Ulu Giamis of Birgi and Tire; from these descend the giamis and mederses of Sivas, Niksar, Divriği, Akşehir, Van, Konya. The Isa Bey of Selçuk (1375) may instead be considered the most perfectly preserved example of a mosque without a courtyard. Variants of a more evolved type, which will determine the complex form with multiple *iwan*s and domes, are seen in the mosque of Aqsunqur (1346).

*lora*: the head of the religion; the *Efeaf*, a kind of administrative director; the heads of religious minorities, the authorities on whom depended the foreign schools, the representatives of individual institutions and, lastly, the Ministry.

The Republic immediately brought a breath of innovation. Already by 3 Apr. 1924, even before the Grand National Assembly approved the new Constitution (30 Apr. 1924), a fundamental education law enshrined the principle of free and compulsory primary education; in 1928 the second article of the Constitution, which recognized Islam as the state religion, was repealed, the use of the Latin alphabet was imposed, and the study of Arabic and Persian in secondary schools was suppressed, with Turkish alone to be taught; in 1931 Turks were forbidden to receive primary education in foreign schools; the Ministry moreover took upon itself the directive functions of the school organization and oversight of everything pertaining to culture and civilization (libraries, post-school institutions, publications and archaeological collections).

At present schools are divided into 7 types:

a) Kindergarten. — Established in 1908, it soon underwent substantial improvements, especially with the training of new and more numerous teachers better prepared for their duties.

b) Primary School. — 5 years. Those that already existed in cities and large centers were renovated, updated and multiplied; but special attention was given to villages and rural areas, where the rural population had been abandoned to itself. For this reason, rural schools were opened everywhere, intended to raise the level of the great masses of farmers and shepherds. It was even intended to give these schools a preeminent position, because the great majority of the Turkish population is rural. And to have, within a short time, a sufficient number of suitable teachers, the so-called “Village Institutes” were established in 1936, special 8-month courses to train rural educators. These educators must be chosen from among farmers who have completed military service with at least the rank of corporal, preferably landowners with the requisite qualities and aptitudes for the mission to be carried out. These graduates must be responsible for all kinds of instruction and agricultural work concerning the village where they teach, and must ensure that viticulture, gardening, etc. are carried out well by all, according to scientific methods, so as to truly procure the well-being of the population. The primary school also includes day and evening courses held in appropriate facilities for the state education of adults.

c) Middle School. — 3 years, whose curriculum includes: Turkish language, history and geography, mathematics, physics and chemistry with notions of natural sciences and hygiene, calligraphy, music, gymnastics and military culture. Other types of middle schools are specialized for the preparation in the exercise of arts and crafts, commerce, or for employment.

d) Lyceum. — 3 years: access is from middle school, subject to an examination. It includes: literature, philosophy, psychology, history and geography, mathematics, physics and chemistry, natural sciences, foreign languages, gymnastics and military culture. After the ordinance of 30 Nov. 1940, the study of Latin was introduced in middle school and lyceum to prepare young people for classical studies.

e) Normal School. — It runs parallel to the lyceum and trains future teachers for primary school. It also includes specialized types of schools for the training of teachers of music and drawing, manual work and gymnastics, both for primary and middle instruction.

f) Professional Schools. — They are placed directly under a special department of the Ministry of Public Education. Initially entrusted to foreign specialists, they are now run by Turkish teachers. The types and directions vary according to the importance of the professions.

g) University Education. — University education, now more or less established according to the model of Western countries and America, comprises several Institutes:

Established by sedentary farmers. In Chinese Turkestan there were the Uighur Turks, of whom only small groups (Yungur) survive today, their great medieval kingdom having been destroyed by the Mongols.

The Turks, who have preserved their language and much of their original culture, are the Turkic tribes of Central Asia, found north and south of the Altai Mountains and in the plains of the upper course of the Yenisei and its tributaries. They have been divided into four groups: 1) the Southern Altai Tatars, also called Telengut, with four subgroups; 2) the Northern Altai Tatars with five subgroups; 3) the Abam Tatars with seven subgroups; 4) the Sojoli or Sojoni-Caragassi, also called Tubai or Uriankhai, with six subgroups. The Turks who are linguistically the purest are the Telengut, who descend from the ancient Tuküe Turks and the Uighurs, including the blond Tingling and the Khakas Kirghiz. Some of these groups are Samoyedic or Yeniseian Turkicized, or hybrids of Turkic tribes with Yeniseians, such as the Abacara Turks; others are completely Russified, like the Tsolim Tatars, or Islamized, like the Barabba Tatars. Originally the Turks’ economy was based mainly on horse-breeding, from which they obtained milk, meat, hides, and transport; they did not know goat- or pig-breeding, nor agriculture. Today, however, a large herd of livestock, e.g. among the Kirghiz, may reach eight or ten thousand horses, twenty thousand goats and cattle, a thousand camels, and fifty thousand sheep.

The Turks, devoted to pastoralism, lead a nomadic life in the steppe, somewhat sedentary in the abundant pastures of the Altai Mountains, which are called the shepherds’ paradise. Their year is divided into two parts, summer and winter. Formerly they used, like the Indo-Europeans, to make large smoky fires to protect themselves and their livestock from insects (horseflies and mosquitoes) and disease. Their weapons were the reflex bow and arrow; later they developed cavalry and the war chariot, both of which were of great military and political importance. The house was at first the subterranean dwelling, but the tent soon also existed. The Turks in general attach little value to purely manual labor. Since their economy is mainly male-oriented and requires many people to manage large herds, it has led to the formation of the large family under a single head. After marriage, sons remain under their father’s authority, and on his death pass under the authority of the eldest brother or firstborn son; this is the so-called right of primogeniture. Many sons are desired; the woman occupies an inferior social, legal, and economic position, has no right of property, though her dowry cannot be disposed of without her consent.

There is an emphasis on paternal authority, which often becomes despotic and gives the patriarch a kind of majestic attitude within the family, even with regard to his wife. Marriage is monogamous, though not exclusively so today, but from the legends of the primitive heroes of the tribe it appears as the ideal form of marriage. This fully justifies the movement in modern Turkey to restore its people to this pre-Islamic ideal of monogamy. For marriage, the integrity of the bride is required, to the extent that proof of her virginity is also demanded. If the opposite is proven, the marriage is considered invalid, the family is believed to be dishonored, and the groom, for example among the Kirghiz, in anger kills his own horse, destroys the nuptial tent, and insults the family, but especially the parents of the bride. Marriage involves the purchase of the bride, but she receives a dowry from her family, which mitigates this aspect. Consanguineous kinship is highly developed and forms the basis of exogamy; for example, kinship by affinity can extend to the first collateral degree. The Yakuts, for instance, are grouped into clans (aga-usa), naslegs, and uluses. A clan sometimes consists of only a few individuals, at other times of several hundred. A nasleg comprises from one to more than thirty clans. An ulus is often formed by several naslegs. The entire clan is jointly responsible for a murder committed by one of its members; one is obligated to either blood vengeance or the payment of damages. Blood vengeance has sometimes been hereditary for many generations. An insult from one member of a clan to another of the same clan goes unpunished; however, when there is a murder, the killer is tied to a tree inside the forest and left to die of starvation. The order of precedence in kinship is highly regarded: the assembly, for example, of an ulus is composed of three circles. In the first circle sit the clan chiefs (bis-usa-toyons) and the sesiny; in the second, the nobles (toyons) and warriors (batirs); in the third, the common people and the youth. Each clan is grouped behind its representative from the first circle.

The Turks progressed from hunting to the raising of livestock; there are no traces among them of matriarchy or totemism. In Turco-Mongol nomadic society a division into ranks has been noted, called “white bones” and “black bones.” As long as the Turks remained nomadic, they showed no tendency toward state life or the formation of states, but remained organized in large families and clans (gentes).

Among the Turks of the Altai only has the initiation of youth been observed, though it is reduced to the rite of cutting the forelock of pubescent males and is of an individual character; nothing is done for young women. The Turks are very inclined to the narrative arts. They have heroic legends, rhapsodies and epic songs of great length.

Their religion is based on belief and worship of God, a supreme personal being, creator of heaven, earth, man and all things, called Tengri (God of Heaven) or Heaven, to whom animals, especially the horse, are consecrated or offered in sacrifice. In spring, which may be compared to the harvest season for nomadic herdsmen, the first-fruits sacrifice is offered to the God of Heaven; it consists in the offering of fresh mare’s milk and grass or fresh moss. The God of Heaven is held to be in special relation with the sun, the moon, thunder and lightning.

Today there is a white and black shamanism, but originally every form of shamanism was lacking, as was belief in chthonic deities (the Earth goddess). The dualism, which consists in belief in beneficent deities of light imagined above and malevolent deities of darkness placed below on earth, came from the south with shamanism.

Originally there were two mythological beings, similar to the Dioscuri of the Indo-Europeans, who were conceived as having special relations with the stars, the horse and the peg; the east was regarded as the sacred cardinal point; there was a particular cult of ancestors and heroes; the bear cult was lacking.

Among the Turks of the Altai it is customary to reproduce the Somo, which represent the souls of the nine ancestors charged with protecting their descendants.

The monotheistic religion of the God of Heaven was so strong and deep that among the present-day Yugur, descendants of the ancient Uigurs, it was not only not destroyed by Lamaist Buddhism but exercised a great influence upon II.

Turco-Mongols – Mongol women in their old costume.

The Mongols, from *mong-hol* (valiant?), a proper name of a horde of Genghis Khan, which in 1189 was extended to the entire nation, are divided into many groups based on kinship, the principal ones being the Buryats, the Khalka, the Sunud, the Chahar (in the Gobi steppes), the Olets (Eleuths, Oirats, Urots), the Torgut (Kalmyks), the Ordos, the Tangut (in the upper basin of the Koko-nor), and the Shara (in the Lop-nor). Mongol culture is similar to that of the Turks. Since the 13th century they have been Lamaists. There are some groups, especially those on the periphery, who are engaged in agriculture. Like the Turks, the ancient Mongols had a religion based on the belief and cult of the Sky God, but today it is observed that they lack the idea of a Supreme Being; they believe in multiple spiritual beings, which, for example among the Buryats, are divided into classes, each with its own chief. The highest spirits dwell in the heavens and are called *Tengeri*, *Tengeryn*. There are ninety *Tengeri*, each with its own name. Those of the west are called *Baruni*, those of the east *Zuni*. The *Baruni* are good and more numerous than the others, numbering fifty-five, and are called White *Tengeri* (*Sangani Tengeri*); the *Zuni* are evil, called Black *Tengeri* (*Kharun Tengeri*), and number forty-five. There are, however, still some Mongol groups that preserve the ancient faith in the Sky God.

III. The T

M. peoples have remained famous in history as strong, formidable, warlike peoples and founders of vast empires and great dynasties. In the Middle Ages they were united in Central Asia into a powerful nation by Genghis Khan, a fierce leader described as the scourge of humanity, born c. 1155–1156. They struck terror into Europe, advancing as far as Germany and Hungary; they invaded nearly all of Asia, reaching as far as Japan and dominating peoples of high civilization such as the Chinese and the Indians. Of particular note are the three khanates they founded in Persia, in Turkestan (Chagatai), and in southern Russia (Kipchak).

The T.-M. undoubtedly form a group of peoples related by language and culture (today a very complex culture), and are called the Altaic peoples. From the very beginning, however, the Turks, as has been said, are typical horse-breeders, while the Mongols appear in an intermediate position: on the one hand they are genuine breeders of horses and camels, on the other they possess a mythology in which the ox is deeply rooted; the Buryats, for example, recognize as their mythical ancestor a being in the form of a bull, called Bucha nojon baba. The Mongols thus present themselves as a compound of various racial and cultural elements.

Anthropologically, the T.-M. are two distinct races: the Turks belong to the Turanian race, which is part of the Europid group; the Mongols belong to the Tungid race of the Mongoloids, according to Biasutti’s anthropological classification. Von Eickstedt notes in the Turanian race some Mongolian traits, since it was located near the place where the races differentiated and close to the Paleomongoloids.

Linguistically, the Tungus and Manchus, the Koreans and Japanese, the Uralic peoples (Ugro-Finnic) according to Trombetti and others, and the Aleuts and Eskimos according to W. Schmidt, have also been classified with the T.-M. in the Altaic stock, thus forming the Uralo-Altaic group. Yet there are scholars who still do not consider the inner affinity of the Uralo-Altaic group, or even of the Altaic group itself, sufficiently proven, and do not regard the inclusion of Korean and Japanese within it as securely established.

of S. Apollinaris and in a miniature from the Sacramentary of Gellone, 8th c.). Simple forms, albeit sometimes more geometrically articulated, are also found in high medieval artifacts adorned with geometric decorations and repoussé engravings, compatible with the metal used, which is predominantly bronze.

In the Romanesque period, the use of noble materials (gold, silver) and complex decorations, including chasing, becomes more frequent. The type with four chains spreads, which will then prevail in the Gothic period. To this latter period belong the most precious artistic specimens preserved in the treasuries of basilicas and Italian collections (Anagni, Cathedral; Mozzanello, Parish Church; Francavilla a Mare, S. Franco; Mercatello, S. Francesco; Miletto, Cathedral; Padua, S. Antonio; Siena, Duomo). The inventiveness of Gothic goldsmiths manifested itself in architectural elements such as spires, pinnacles, and small loggias, which imitate tabernacles, towers, church facades, and palaces. The artifacts of the 16th c. instead bear witness to the approach to late Renaissance forms, such as the t. of S. Giovanni Peresti in Stilo, or another, which can be considered the masterpiece of the tabernacle type, from the cathedral of Borgo S. Donnino: its exquisite execution has led it to be attributed to the workshop of Cellini. Among the countless examples of Baroque silverware, the t. of the archpriest church of S. Pietro in Magisano and of the cathedral of Rossano, both from the 17th c., stand out for their sure taste and grace of ornamentation; and those of S. Maria Maggiore in Taverna; of S. Maria Maddalena in Norano Calabro, of the parish churches of Monchio and Bivongi, of S. Petronio in Bologna, all from the 18th c. Notable in the 19th c. are the t. of the cathedrals of Caulonia and Gerace. The finest specimens of our century belong to the art of the missions.

Closely related to the t. is the navicella, a small ship-shaped vessel of metal, rarely of wood or crystal, which holds the incense. Among the artistic navicellae, mention should be made, for example, of that in the Treasury of the Santo in Padua, which bears a fine