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The fall of Constantinople, which happened on may 29, 1453, was the last phase of the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars (1265-1453) and the darkest page in the history of Greece and the orthodox church.
The day of may 29, 1453 is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of humanity. It means the end of the old world, the world of Byzantine civilization. During the eleven centuries on the bosphorus there was a city where the deep mind was the subject of admiration, and the science and literature of the classic past was carefully studied and kept.
Without Byzantine researchers and censuses, we would know now not much about the literature of ancient Greece. It was also a city whose rulers have been promoting the development of the school of art, which has no analogy in the history of humanity for many centuries, and has been an alloy of the immutable Greek common sense and deep religiosity, which has seen the embodiment of the Holy Spirit and the consecration of material.
In addition, Constantinople was a great cosmopolitan city, where together with trade flourished free exchange of ideas and residents considered themselves not just some people, but the heirs of Greece and Rome, enlightened by Christian faith. Legends went on the wealth of Constantinople in that time.
The beginning of the fall of byzantine
Up to the éōs xi in. Byzantine was a brilliant and powerful power, a Christian of Christianity against Islam. The Byzantine people were brave and successful in their duty until the end of the century from the east, together with the invasion of the Turks, had a new threat from Muslim. Western Europe, meanwhile, has come so far that, in the face of the Normandy, it has attempted to implement aggression against Byzantine, which has been involved in the fight on two fronts just at a time when it itself was experiencing a dynastic crisis and internal turmoil. The Normandy were abandoned, but the price of this victory was the loss of Byzantine Italy. The vizantijcam also had to give the Turks the mountainous plateau of anatolia – the lands that were the main source of human resources replenishment for the army and food reserves. In the best times of his great past, the well-being of Byzantine was associated with her domination over anatolia. The vast peninsula, known in antiquity as small Asia, in the times of Romans was one of the most populated places in the world.
Byzantine continued to play the role of the great power, while its power was already in fact damaged. So the empire turned out to be between two evils? And that’s her already difficult situation was even more complicated by the movement that entered history called Crusades.
Meanwhile, the deep old religious differences between the eastern and Western Christian churches, designed for political purposes during the xi of the in, were steadily deepening, until the end of the century between Rome and Constantinople was a final split.
The crisis came when the army of the crusaders, who was passionate about the ambition of their chiefs, the jealous greed of their Venetian Allies and the hostility that in the west was tested now against the Byzantine Church, returned to Constantinople, captured and robbed it, forming on the ancient city of the Latin Empire ( 1204-1261).
The fourth crusade was organized by Pope Innocent III for the liberation of the holy land from the foreigners. The initial plan of the fourth crusades included the organization of a maritime expedition on the Venetian Courts to Egypt, which was to become a springboard for the attack on Palestine, but then was changed: the crusaders moved to the capital of Byzantine. The participants of the hike were predominantly french and venetians.
On April 13, 1204, Constantinople fell. The City-Fortress, which was held before the onslaught of many powerful enemies, was first captured by an enemy. What turned out to be not under the power of the regiments of Persians and Arabs, was managed by the knight’s army. The ease with which the crusaders had a huge, well-fortified city was the result of the acute socio-political crisis that the Byzantine Empire was experiencing at that time. The fact that part of the byzantine aristocracy and kupečestva was interested in trade ties with the Latin people was a significant role. In other words, in Constantinople there was a peculiar “fifth column”.
The capture of Constantinople (13 April 1204) by the troops of the crusaders was one of the epic events of medieval history. After the takeover of the city, mass looting and killing of the Greek-Orthodox population began. About 2 thousand. The man was killed in the first days after the capture. Fires in the city. Many monuments of culture and literature were destroyed on fire, stored here from antique times. The Famous Constantinople Library was especially affected by the fire. A lot of values have been brought to Venice.
The Russian traveler, who was in the city at this moment, wrote: ” the sun, with the sunrise, broke into the holy Sofia, and overtook the doors and smashed them, and the amon, all the silver, and the twelve pillars of silver and four kivotnyh? And the tâblo destroyed, and the twelve crosses that were above the altar, and between them – the cones, like trees, above the human growth, and the wall of the altar between the pillars, and all that was silver. And they cut off the wild altar, cut off the precious stones and pearls, and the unknown where delhi… “
For more than half a century, the ancient city on the bosphorus cape was in the power of the crusaders. Only in 1261 Constantinople was again in the hands of the Greeks.
This fourth crusade (1204), which turned from the “path to the coffin of the Lord” to the Venetian Commercial Enterprise, which led to the looting of Constantinople by Latin, put the end of the Eastern Roman Empire as a supranational state and definitively unearthed the western and Byzantine Christianity.
Actually, Byzantine after this hike ceases to exist as a state for more than 50 years. Some historians are not without reason to write that after the disaster of 1204, there were actually two empires – Latin and Venetian. Part of the former imperial lands in small Asia was captured by celery, in the balkans – Serbia, Bulgaria and Venice. However, the byzantine people have been able to hold a number of other territories and create their own states: the epic kingdom, the nikejskuû and the trapezundskuû empire.
Having settled in Constantinople as masters, the venetians have increased their trade influence throughout the territory of the fallen Byzantine Empire. The Capital of the Latin Empire for several decades was the place of the most significant lords. Konstantinopolʹskie palaces they preferred to their castles in Europe. To know the empire quickly mastered the Byzantine Luxury, changed the habit of constant festivities and fun applications. The consumer character of the life of Constantinople in the Latin region has become even more pronounced.
The Crusaders came to these edges with a sword and in half a century of their own power never learned to create. In the middle of XIII, the Latin Empire came in full decline. Many cities and villages, devastated and plundered during the conquest conquest, have never been able to recover.
The population was suffering not only from the weak taxes and beatings, but also from the anger of the strangers, with the view of the popiravših culture and customs of the Greeks. The Orthodox Clergy led an active sermon on the fight against the enslavers.
In the summer of 1261, the emperor of nickel, Mikhail Viii Palaiologos, managed to defeat Constantinople, which led to the restoration of the byzantine and the destruction of Latin Empires.
Byzantine In XIII-XIV centuries.
After that, Byzantine was no longer a dominant power in the Christian East. She kept only a glimpse of her former mystery prestige. During The XII-XIII CENTURIES, Constantinople seemed so rich and magnificent, the imperial yard is so lush, and the marinas and bazaars of the city are so full of goods, that the emperor was still treated as a powerful ruler. However, in reality, he was now only a state among the equal to him or even more powerful. Some other greek rulers have already appeared. To the east of Byzantine, there was a trebizond empire of great komninov. In The Balkans, Bulgaria and Serbia were alternately claiming to be hegemony on the peninsula. In Greece – on the mainland and islands – small-Scale Frankfurt feudal principalities and Italian colonies arose.
The whole xiv century was for the byzantine period of political failures. The Vizantijcam were threatened from all sides – serbs and bulgarians in the balkans, the Vatican is in the west, Muslims are in the east.
The situation of Byzantine by 1453
Byzantine, which has existed for more than 1000 years, has been in decline for the 1000th century. She was a very small state, whose power was distributed only to the capital – the city of Constantinople with the suburbs – several Greek islands off the coast of small Asia, several cities on the coast in Bulgaria, as well as on Morey (Peloponnese). This state could only be considered conditional, because even the rulers of several klochkov of sushi remaining under its control were in fact not dependent on the central power.
At the same time, founded in 330 Constantinople on the length of the entire period of its existence as a byzantine capital was perceived as a symbol of the empire. Constantinople has long been the largest economic and cultural center of the country, and only in the XIV-XV BB. Began to come in decline. His population, which is in the XII of the in. Together with the surrounding residents about a million people, now there are no more than a hundred thousand, continuing to gradually decrease and further.
The Empire was surrounded by the lands of its main enemy – the Muslim state of the Turks-ottomans, who saw in Constantinople the main obstacle to spreading their power in the region.
The Turkish State, which quickly nabiravšee the power and successfully fought for the expansion of its borders and in the west, and in the east, has long sought to conquer the Constantinople. A few times the turks attacked the byzantine. The offensive of the ottomans on the Byzantine River LED to the fact that by 30 m years xv the. From The Byzantine Empire there is only constantinople with the surroundings, some islands in the Aegean Sea and morey – the area in the south of peloponnese. At the beginning of the th century, Turks-ottomans captured the richest shopping city of bursa, one of the important points of transit trade between the east and the west. Very soon they were taken by two other byzantine cities – nikeâ (Iznik) and nikomidiâ (Izmid).
The military successes of the ottomans have become possible thanks to the political struggle that took place in this region between Byzantine, Balkan States, Venice and genoa. Very often, rival parties sought to enlist military support for ottomans, thereby ultimately facilitating the expansion of the latter. The Military Force of the stronger state of the Turks with special supervision was demonstrated in the battle of Varna (1444), which has decided, in fact, also the participation of Constantinople.
Battle of varna – battle between the crusaders and the ottoman empire in the city of Varna (Bulgaria). The Battle was the end of a failed crusades to the varna of the Hungarian and polish king vladislav. The outcome of the battle was the full defeat of the crusaders, the death of vladislav and the strengthening of the Turks on the Balkan Peninsula. The weakening of the positions of Christians in the balkans allowed the Turks to take Constantinople (1453).
Attempts by the authorities of the empire to obtain assistance from the west and conclusion to this end in 1439 with the Catholic Church were rejected by the majority of the clergy and the people of Byzantine. From the philosophers, the Florence was approved only by fans of Thomas Thomas.
Turkish Amplification was feared by all neighbors, especially genoa and Venice, who had economic interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Hungary, which received in the south, for the danube, the aggressively configured powerful enemy, the knights of the ioannity, who feared the loss of the remnants of their possessions in the middle east, and dad The Roman who hoped to stop the strengthening and spread of Islam together with the Turkish expansion. At the decisive moment, however, potential allies of byzantine have been captured by their own complicated problems.
The most likely allies of Constantinople were venetians. Genoa kept neutrality. The Hungarians have not yet recover after the recent defeat. The Czech Republic and the serbian states were in a huge dependence on the sultan, and the serbs even allocated auxiliary troops to the sultan army.
Preparing a turk for war
Turkish Sultan Mehmed II Conqueror the purpose of his life announced the conquest of Constantinople. In 1451 he concluded a contract with the Emperor Konstantin Xi, which was profitable for Byzantine, but already in 1452 violated him, capturing the fortress of rumeli-Hissar on the European shore of the bosphorus. Konstantin Xi Palaiologos turned to the west for help, in December 1452 solemnly confirmed the union, but this caused only general discontent. The Commander of the Byzantine Fleet, Luca Notara, publicly stated that “it would be preferable to have a Turkish daughter in the city rather than a papal tiara”.
At the beginning of March 1453, Mehmed II announced the recruitment of the army? He had 150 (according to other data-300) thousands of troops equipped with powerful artillery, 86 military and 350 transport ships. In Constantinople there were 4973 people capable of holding weapons, about 2 thousand mercenaries from the west and 25 ships.
Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who vowed to take constantinople, carefully and carefully prepared for the upcoming war, understanding that he will have to deal with a powerful fortress, from which the army of other invaders has been retreating once again. The extraordinary walls of the wall were practically invulnerable to the siege machines and even the standard in the times of artillery.
View of Constantinople
The Turkish army consisted of 100 soldiers, over 30 warships and about 100 small fast ships. This number of ships immediately allowed the Turks to establish domination in the marble sea.
The City of Constantinople was located on the peninsula, which is formed by the marble sea and the gulf of the golden horn. The City blocks, which went on the shore of the sea and the coast of the gulf, were covered by the city walls. A special system of strengthening from walls and towers covered the city with sushi – from the west. For the fortress walls on the shore of the marble sea, the Greeks were relatively calm – the maritime course here was fast and did not allow the Turks to sit the paratroopers under the walls. The Golden Horn was considered a vulnerable place.
The Greek fleet, which defended Constantinople, consisted of 26 ships. There were several guns in the city and a significant stock of copies and arrows. Fire Weapons, as well as a soldier to reflect the assault, clearly missed. All the soldiers, not including allies, were about 7 thousand.
The West was not in a hurry to help Constantinople, only genoa sent 700 soldiers in two galleries headed by Kondotʹerom Giovanni Giustiniani, and Venice-2 military ships. The brothers of Constantine, the rulers of Morey Dmitry and Thomas were busy with a quarrel between themselves. The residents of Galatians – the extraterritorial quarter of the genoese on the Asian Shore of the bosphorus – announced their neutrality, and actually helped the Turks, hoping to preserve their benefits.
The beginning of the siege
On April 7, 1453, the siege of mehmed ii started. The Sultan sent the parliamentarians with the offer to surrender. In the case of surrender, he promised the urban population to preserve life and property. Emperor Constantine replied that he is ready to pay any tribute, which will be able to withstand the byzantine, and to yield to any territory, but refused to surrender the city. At the same time Constantine ordered the venetian sailors to marching through the city walls, demonstrating that Venice is an ally of Constantinople. The Venetian Fleet was one of the strongest in the Mediterranean pool, and it had to act on the determination of the sultan. Despite the refusal, mehmed gave the order to prepare for the assault. The Turkish Army has a high moral spirit and determination, unlike the romeev.
The Turkish fleet had the main parking lot on the bosphorus, its main task was the breakthrough of the golden horns, in addition, the ships had to block the city and prevent the help of the constantinople from the allies.
Initially, success was accompanied by besieged. The vizantijcy blocked the chain entrance to the golden horn bay, and the Turkish fleet could not get close to the walls of the city. The first attempted assault failed.
On April 20, 5 ships with the defenders of the city (4-Genuézskih, 1-Byzantine) smashed a squadron of 150 Turkish ships in battle.
But on April 22, the turks transported 80 ships to the golden horn. The attempt of defenders to burn these vessels was not successful, T. K. Genoese from Galatians noticed the preparations and reported to the Turks.
The fall of Constantinople
In the most constantinople there was a striking mood. Giustiniani Advises Konstantin Xi to pass the city. The funds for defense were broken. Luca Notara kept the money on the fleet, hoping to buy them from the Turks.
29 máios early in the morning began the last storming of Constantinople. The first attacks were cut off, but then the wounded giustiniani left the city and fled to galata. The main gate of the capital of Byzantine Turks was able to take. The fights were walking on the streets of the city, the Emperor Konstantin Xi fell in the battle, and when the Turks found his wounded body, he was cut off his head and vodruzili on the pole. Three days in Constantinople were looting and violence. The Turks killed in a row everyone who was greeted in the streets: Men, women, children. The streams of blood went down the steep streets of Constantinople from the hills of the sand in the golden horn.
The Turks have entered the men’s and women’s monasteries. Some young monks, preferring by the indignity of martyrdom, were thrown into the wells? Monks and elderly nuns followed the ancient tradition of the orthodox church, which prescribed not to provide resistance.
Residents of the residents were also subjected to looting one by one? Each group of the robbed took a small flag at the entrance in a sign that there is nothing to do in the house. The inhabitants of the houses were taken together with their property. Anyone who fell from the exhaustion was killed immediately? Also received with many babies.
In the churches there were scenes of mass abuse over the saints. Many Crucifix, decorated with jewels, were brought out of temples with a leaf covered with Turkish turbans.
In the temple of the choir, the Turks left untouched mosaics and frescoes, but destroyed the icon of the mother of odigitrii – the most sacred image of her in all byzantine, fulfilled, by betrayal, by the holy onion itself. She was moved here from the church of the virgin near the palace at the beginning of the siege, so that this sanctuary, being as close as possible to the walls, inspired their defenders. The Turks pulled the icon out of the salary and split into four parts.
And this is how contemporaries describe the capture of the greatest temple of all byzantine – the cathedral of st. Sofia. ” the church was still filled with the people. The Holy Liturgy has already ended and was going on. When the noise was on the outside, the massive bronze doors of the temple were closed. Gathered inside praying for a miracle that one only could save them. But their prayers were in full. It’s been a little bit of time, and the doors under the blows outside have broken. The praying ones were in the west. Few old men and cripples were killed on the spot? The majority of Turks tied or chained to each other groups, and as a bullet went into the move of women’s scarf and scarves. Many beautiful girls and young men, as well as richly dressed nobles, were almost torn apart when the captured soldiers fought among themselves, counting their prey.
Sultan Mehmed ii himself entered the city only on June 1 With an escort from the selected units of the ânyčarskoj guard, accompanied by his vezirami, he slowly drove through the streets of Constantinople. All around where the soldiers visited was devastated and plundered? The churches were stood and plunder, at home – uninhabitable, shop and warehouses – broken and melted. He entered the horse in the temple of st. Sofia, commanded to knock off her cross and turn to the world’s largest mosque.
Right after the capture of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II issued a decree on “giving freedom to all who stayed alive”, however, many residents of the city were beaten by Turkish Soldiers, many became slaves. For the speedy recovery of the population, mehmed ordered to transfer to the new capital all the population of the city of aksaray.
The Greek Sultan has given the rights of the self-governing community inside the empire, in the head of the community was to stand patriarch Constantinople, responsible for the sultan.
In the following years, the last territories of the empire were occupied (Morey – at 1460).
Consequences of the death of byzantine
Konstantin Xi was the last of the emperors of romeev. With his death, the Byzantine Empire stopped its existence. Her lands were part of the ottoman state. The former capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, became the capital of the ottoman empire until its collapse in 1922 (first it was called a Constantine, and then Istanbul (Istanbul)).
Византия имела огромный авторитет как родина и опора Православия, восточной ветви христианской религии.
Most Europeans believed that the death of Byzantine was the beginning of the end of the world, as only byzantine was the successor of the Roman Empire. Many contemporaries accused Venice of the fall of Constantinople (Venice then had one of the most powerful fleet). The Venetian Republic Has LED a double game, trying on the one hand to organize a crusade against the Turks, and on the other – to protect its trade interests, sending to the SULTAN FRIENDLY EMBASSIES.
However, it is necessary to understand that the rest of the Christian powers and finger have not been your to save the flexible empire. Without the help of the rest of the states, if even the Venetian Fleet arrived in time, it would allow the Constantinople to hold a couple more weeks, but it would only prolong the agony.
Rome fully understood the Turkish danger and understood that all western Christianity could be in danger. Pope Nicholas v called on all western powers together to take a powerful and decisive crusade and intended to lead the hike himself. Even since the birth of Constantinople came from Constantinople, he sent his messages, calling for active action. September 30, 1453 The Pope sent to all western state the bull with the announcement of the crusades. Each state has been ordered to shed the blood of its own and its subjects for the holy cause, as well as to highlight the tenth part of its income. Both Cardinal-Greek – isidore and visarion – actively supported his efforts. Visarion Himself wrote to the venetians, at the same time accusing them and begging to stop the wars in Italy and concentrate all their forces on the fight against the antichrist.
No Crusades, however. And although the state authorities were greedy about the death of Constantinople, and the writers composed the bitter elements, although french composer William Dûfé wrote a special funeral song and was singing in all french lands, no one was ready to act. The King of Germany Friedrich III was poor and powerless, because he did not possess the valid power over the German princes? Neither the political nor the financial side could participate in the crusade. The King of France, Karl VII, was busy rebuilding his country after a long and devastating war with England.
The Turks were somewhere far away? He had things more important in his own house. England, which was affected by the years war even more France, the Turks seemed even more remote. King Henry vi could not do decisively anything, as he just lost his sanity and the whole country plunged into chaos wars of eloy and white rose. None of the kings have shown their interest, except for the hungarian king vladislav, who, of course, had all the reasons to worry. But he had a bad relationship with his army commander. And without him and without allies, he could not take care of any enterprise.
Thus, although western Europe was shocked by the fact that the great historical Christian City was in the hands of the unbelievers, no papal bulla could drive it to action. The fact that Christian states failed to help constantinople showed their clear reluctance to fight for faith if their immediate interests are not affected.
The Turks quickly took the rest of the empire. Serbs were the first to suffer – Serbia became a theatre of military action between Turks and hungarians. In 1454, serbs were forced to be threatened by the use of force to give the sultan part of their territory. But already in 1459, the Turks had all Serbia, with the exception of Belgrade, which until 1521 remained in the hands of the hungarians. The neighboring kingdom of Bosnia, the TURKS WON 4 years later.
Meanwhile, the last remnants of Greek independence have gradually disappeared. The Duchy of Athens was destroyed in 1456 And in 1461 the last greek capital was pala – trabizon. It was the end of the free Greek world. True, a number of Greeks still remained under the Christian rule – in Cyprus, on the islands of the aegean and the ionian seas and in the port cities of the continent, while held by Venice, but their rulers were another blood and a different form of Christianity. Only in the South-East of peloponnese, in the lost villages of Maya, in the harsh mountain Spurs of which no turk was dare to penetrate, the likeness of freedom was preserved.
Soon, all the orthodox territories in the balkans were in the hands of the Turks. Serbia and Bosnia have been worked out. In January 1468, Albania fell. Moldova has recognized its enormous dependence on the sultan in 1456
Many historians in 17-18 BB. The fall of Constantinople was considered a key moment in European history, the end of the middle ages, like the fall of Rome in 476-the end of antiquity. Others believed that the mass fleeing of the Greeks to Italy caused a revival there.
Rus is the heir of byzantine
After the death of Byzantine, rus remained the only free orthodox state. The Baptism of rus was one of the most glorious acts of the Byzantine Church. Now this daughter has become stronger than her parent, and the Russians have confessed it perfectly. Constantinople, as relied on rus, fell in punishment for its sins, for the apostasy, agreeing to association with the western church. The Russians violently rejected the Florence and banished its supporter – the metropolitan of isidora, imposed by the Greeks. And now, keeping the clean of their orthodox faith, they have become the owners of the only one who has survived the orthodox world, whose power has constantly increased. ” Constantinople has fallen, – wrote the metropolitan of Moscow in 1458-because he left the true orthodox faith. But in Russia, this faith is still alive, – the faith of the seven cathedrals, which constantinople gave it to the great prince Vladimir. There is only one true church on earth – the church is Russian “.
After marriage with the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor from the dynasty of palaiologan, the grand prince of Moscow Ivan III declared himself the heir of the Byzantine Empire. From now on, the great mission of the preservation of Christianity has moved to Russia. ” Christian empires have fallen,-wrote in 1512 The Monk of philology to his lord grand prince, or king, Vasily III, – instead of them stands only the state of our Lord… two Rome have fallen, but the third is worth, and the fourth is not to be… you are the only Christian State in the world, Lord over all True faithful Christians
So, in the whole orthodox world, only Russians have learned some benefit from the fall of Constantinople? And for the orthodox Christians of the former Byzantine, who are standing in the captivity, the consciousness of the fact that in the world still exists great, even though a very distant state of one with them faith, served comfort and hope that he will protect them and, maybe someday will come Save them and return them freedom. The Sultan-Conqueror almost did not pay attention to the fact of Russia’s existence.
Russia was far away. Sultan mehmed had other worries where closer. The Conquest of Constantinople has certainly made his state one of the great powers of Europe, and from now on he has to play an appropriate role in European politics. He confessed that Christians are his enemies and he needs to be watchful to ensure that they do not unite against him. The Sultan could fight with Venice or Hungary, as well as perhaps with those few of their allies who would be able to collect the Pope, but he could only fight with one of them separately. No one came to the help of Hungary in the fateful battle of the mohačskom field. No one sent the reinforcements to Rhodes Knights-Ioannitam. No one was worried about the loss of the venetians of Cyprus.
Source: https://1gr.tv
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