Turkey

Turkey

Geographically Turkey is a sort of gravitational centre between the West and the East, a point of junction between continental and peninsular Europe and the immense mass of the Afro-Asian continent.

From the dawn of civilization this age-old land has been a sort of symptomatic indicator in the complex delicate mechani... Read on

Turkey

Geographically Turkey is a sort of gravitational centre between the West and the East, a point of junction between continental and peninsular Europe and the immense mass of the Afro-Asian continent.

From the dawn of civilization this age-old land has been a sort of symptomatic indicator in the complex delicate mechanism of the precarious states of equilibrium which existed on the shores of the Mediterranean. Tourist literature often uses the terms "land of contrasts" and "Gate to the Orient" when speaking of Turkey, and while these phrases have a measure of truth to them, they are little compared with what the modern state of Turkey really is — an immense container of art, history and culture.

Stretching out towards the Mediterranean in the direction of the continental mass of Europe from which it is separated by the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, modern-day Turkey offers the tourist the picturesqueness of its enchanted shores, the spell and seduction of Istanbul (ancient Constantinople), treasures of art and nature in Cappadocia, the marvels of Pamukkale, the mystery of Nemrut Dağ and the boundless silences of Mount Ararat.

What once went by the name of Asia Minor offers an inexhaustible variety of things to see in the fields of art and architecture, ranging from the remains of the ancient Hittite and Urartean civilizations, to the archaeological ruins of the Hellenistic period, the remains of the Roman past, the manifest vestiges of the Christian-Byzantine age, and the manifestations of Seljuk and Ottoman art. Along the Aegean and Mediterranean shores and in the neighbouring hinterland archaeological sites abound and it is hard to choose between them. The enigmatic ruins of Homer's Troy, the Hellenistic splendor of Pergamum, the marvelous vestiges of Ephesus, and the spectacular allure of Aphrodisias are only the most evident and striking notes in an archaeological context one cannot help but marvel at and admire.

This incredible patrimony of art and culture is the stratification of historical events whose roots lie hidden in the mists of time. Inhabited since earliest times, Anatolia witnessed the passage of power from one civilization to another: the Hittites (18th-13th cent. B.C.), the Phrygians, the Lydians. While the Greek colonies were establishing their first settlements on the Aegean coast, the Persians were gaining control of the entire region (6th-5th cent. B.C.). In the second half of the 4th century B.C. Alexander the Great's expedition was a prelude to the advent of the Hellenistic kingdoms which were later assimilated by the Roman empire (1st cent. A.D.).

From 324 A.D. on, with the elevation of Constantinople to the rank of imperial capital, what is now Istanbul lived one of its periods of greatest splendor. The Byzantine empire gave way to the Seljuk Turks who were in turn replaced by the Ottoman Turks (15th cent.) until their vast empire disintegrated (18th-19th cent.). After a long period of conflicts on a European scale, during which the country was also occupied by foreign powers, the proclamation of the Republic (Oct. 29, 1923), thanks to Atatürk, marked the real beginnings of modern Turkey.

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