Precisely 570 years ago today, on May 29, 1453, the Turks sacked and transformed the ancient Christian kingdom of Constantinople into Muslim Istanbul. And, as they do every year, Turks—beginning with their president—are saber rattling in commemoration of that “glorious” event.
No doubt, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—who, “coincidentally” enough, timed his latest presidential victory to coincide with this date—is today saying the same sorts of things he says every year. Last May 29, for example, he said, “As our ancestors buried Byzantium, let us hope that today, by building our vision for 2053 [the 600th anniversary of the sack of Constantinople], we also manage to put in the time warp of history the current Byzantines who are plotting against us.”
In order to understand the significance of this otherwise cryptic remark—most Westerners are today totally unaware of the history between Muslim Turkey and Christian Byzantium—some background is necessary.
Towards the end of the first millennium, the Turks, whose origins lay in the eastern steppes of Asia, had become Muslim and began to raid and conquer portions of Asia Minor, which was then and had been for a millennium Christian. By the end of the fourteenth century they had conquered it entirely and began eying Constantinople, just across the Bosporus. Although generations of Turks repeatedly besieged it, it would fall to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II (pronounced “Mehmet”), Erdoğan’s hero.
No doubt, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—who, “coincidentally” enough, timed his latest presidential victory to coincide with this date—is today saying the same sorts of things he says every year. Last May 29, for example, he said, “As our ancestors buried Byzantium, let us hope that today, by building our vision for 2053 [the 600th anniversary of the sack of Constantinople], we also manage to put in the time warp of history the current Byzantines who are plotting against us.”
In order to understand the significance of this otherwise cryptic remark—most Westerners are today totally unaware of the history between Muslim Turkey and Christian Byzantium—some background is necessary.
Towards the end of the first millennium, the Turks, whose origins lay in the eastern steppes of Asia, had become Muslim and began to raid and conquer portions of Asia Minor, which was then and had been for a millennium Christian. By the end of the fourteenth century they had conquered it entirely and began eying Constantinople, just across the Bosporus. Although generations of Turks repeatedly besieged it, it would fall to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II (pronounced “Mehmet”), Erdoğan’s hero.
