Zeybeks , sometimes spelled as Zeibeks ( Greek : Ζεϊμπέκοι Zeibekoi ; Ottoman Turkish : زیبك , romanized : zeybek ), were irregular militia and guerrilla fighters living in West Anatolia from late 17th to early 20th centuries.
93-607: The origins of Zeybeks are debated with most Turkish sources supporting that they are Turkic. One Turkish source states the Zeybeks first appeared in the 13th century and were Turkomans who settled into the Aegean Region . Another Turkish source links them to the Turkmen- Celali rebels in the 16th century, while a different Turkish writer claims that Zeybeks were light infantry troops made of Turkmen tribes loyal to
186-852: A Greek victory in 449 BCE, and the Ionian cities regained their independence. By the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), which ended the Corinthian War , Persia regained control over Ionia. In 334 BCE, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the Anatolian peninsula from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence. Following
279-499: A Turkmen Qizilbash tribal confederation. By the 10th century A.D, Turkmens were predominantly Muslim. They later found themselves divided into Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. Medieval Turkmens markedly contributed to the expansion of Islam with their extensive conquests of previously Christian lands, specifically those of Byzantine Anatolia and the Caucasus . Turkmens primarily spoke languages that belong or belonged to
372-470: A bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes , Persians , Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon , the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar . Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire , with
465-938: A foreign and non-muslim force. An English report about the Zeybeks and Yörüks states; "Those people hate the Greeks, and are known for their heroism." Zeybeks have a dance called the Zeybek dance . The Zeibekiko dance in Greece is a different and special of Greek style dance. There are different Zeybek dances in Turkey. There is the "Avşar Zeybeği" (The Afshars were an Oghuz Turkic tribe.), Aydın Zeybeği, Muğla Zeybeği, Tavas Zeybeği, Kordon Zeybeği, Bergama Zeybeği, Soma Zeybeği, Ortaklar Zeybeği, Pamukçu Zeybeği, Harmandalı Zeybeği, Sakız Zeybeği, Tefenni Zeybeği, Kadıoğlu Zeybeği, Kocaarap Zeybeği (Koca = Big, Arap = Arab ), Abdal Zeybeği (Turkmen Bektashi dervishes were often called " Abdal ", there
558-728: A peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey . It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from
651-676: A sizeable Armenian population before the Armenian genocide ) an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region (also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands ) is Mount Ararat (5123 m). The Euphrates , Aras , Karasu and Murat rivers connect
744-552: Is ol in modern Turkish . The Book of Dede Korkut is considered an Oghuz masterpiece. Other prominent works of literature produced during the High Middle Ages also include the Oghuzname , Battalname , Danishmendname , Köroğlu epics, which are part of the literary history of Azerbaijanis, Turks of Turkey, and Turkmens. The Book of Dede Korkut is a collection of epics and stories bearing witness to
837-581: Is not well understood how the Osmanlı, or Ottoman Turks , came to dominate their neighbours, as the history of medieval Anatolia is still little known. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum ) from the Knights of Saint John . With the acceleration of the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of
930-681: Is probably a Medieval Latin innovation. The modern Turkish form Anadolu derives directly from the Greek name Aνατολή ( Anatolḗ ). The Russian male name Anatoly , the French Anatole and plain Anatol , all stemming from saints Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 283) and Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458; the first Patriarch of Constantinople ), share the same linguistic origin. The oldest known name for any region within Anatolia
1023-418: Is related to its central area, known as the "Land of Hatti " – a designation that was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians , but later became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule of ancient Hittites . The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, though not particularly popular at the time, was Ἀσία ( Asía ), perhaps from an Akkadian expression for
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#17327919851681116-706: The Aeolian , Ionian and Dorian colonies situated along the eastern coasts of the Aegean Sea , but also encompassing eastern regions in general. Such use of Anatolian designations was employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian ( r. 284–305 ), who created the Diocese of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Diocese, but completely unrelated to the regions of Asia Minor. In their widest territorial scope, Anatolian designations were employed during
1209-661: The Anatolian languages , the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BCE. The earliest historical data related to Anatolia appear during the Bronze Age and continue throughout the Iron Age . The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians , up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in
1302-973: The Arab invasion of the Levant (634–638). In the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia migrated over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the northwestern rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In
1395-635: The Balkans . The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region. Another Indo-European people, the Luwians , rose to prominence in central and western Anatolia c. 2000 BCE. Their language belonged to the same linguistic branch as Hittite . The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa ( Troy ),
1488-489: The Battle of Manzikert , the Oghuz extensively settled throughout Anatolia and Azerbaijan . In the 11th century, Turkmens densely populated Arran . The 12th-century Persian writer al-Marwazi wrote about the arrival of Turkmens to Muslim lands, portraying them as people of noble character who are strong and persistent in battle because of their nomadic lifestyle, and calling them sultans (rulers). "Turkoman" entered into
1581-868: The Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta . Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles , and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe . During the Neolithic , Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent . Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there
1674-523: The Black Sea , coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau . This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary . Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands , and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia . To the southeast, it is bounded by
1767-752: The Byzantine commanders, could not be distinguished from their cognates on the opposite front. According to some historians , Pecheneg culture has a great influence on Zeybek-Seymen culture. However, according to other sources, mostly Greek, the Zeybeks were of Greek origin. According to Greek historian Kostas B. Spanos, the Zeybeks were Greeks who migrated from Thrace and settled in Bursa , Aydin and Sakarya . They were Islamized but not Turkified . According to another Greek historian, Georgios Skalieris, they were of Greek and Phrygo - Pelasgian descent. Greek historian Thomas Korovinis, in his detailed study of
1860-467: The Eastern Anatolia Region , which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia (named as such after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman / Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia ( Eastern Armenia ) in 387 AD). Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia (which had
1953-768: The Greek and Roman eras. During the 6th century BCE, all of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire , the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty of Persia . In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt , as it became known, though quelled, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars , which ended in
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#17327919851682046-538: The Greek landing at Smyrna they fought against the Greek occupation of western Turkey . Following the formation of a Turkish national army , during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, most of them joined the regular forces and continued their resistance. During and after the Turkish War of Independence they were no longer seen as bandits and outlaws, but as heroes, nationalist forces fighting against
2139-665: The Hellenic world . He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey , brought all of Anatolia under Roman control , except for the southeastern frontier with the Parthian Empire , which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BCE – 217 CE). After
2232-659: The Later Roman Empire . Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the Pilgrim's Road that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the Christian hagiographies of the 6th-century Nicholas of Sion and 7th-century Theodore of Sykeon . Large and prosperous urban centers of Byzantine Anatolia included Assos , Ephesus , Miletus , Nicaea , Pergamum , Priene , Sardis , and Aphrodisias . From
2325-522: The Paleolithic . Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük , Çayönü , Nevali Cori , Aşıklı Höyük , Boncuklu Höyük , Hacilar , Göbekli Tepe , Norşuntepe , Köşk Höyük , and Yumuktepe . Çatalhöyük (7.000 BCE) is considered the most advanced of these. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with
2418-681: The Persian suffix -mānind , with the resulting word meaning "like a Turk". While formerly the dominant etymology in modern scholarship, this mixed Turkic-Persian derivation is now viewed as incorrect. The first-known mention of the term "Turkmen", "Turkman" or "Turkoman" occurs near the end of the 10th century A.D in Islamic literature by the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi in Ahsan Al-Taqasim Fi Ma'rifat Al-Aqalim . In his work, which
2511-723: The Roman Republic ; western and central Anatolia came under Roman control , but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Mithridates VI Eupator , ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia, waged war against the Roman Republic in the year 88 BCE in order to halt the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean Sea region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars ) to break Roman dominion over Asia and
2604-574: The Seljuks . According to Aşıkpaşazade , an Ottoman Turkish Historian from the 15th century, Zeybeks were Muslim Gazis protecting the borders in Anatolia . In the Turkish society the Zeybeks and Yörüks are seen as the same people. Many famous Zeybeks like Yörük Ali Efe and Demirci Mehmet Efe belonged to Yörük tribes. Ottoman Turkish author Osman Hamdi Bey supports that they were descendants of
2697-845: The Terekeme , a sub-ethnic group of the Azerbaijani people . Today, a significant percentage of residents of Azerbaijan , Turkey, and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks (Turkmens), and the languages they speak belong to the Oghuz group of the Turkic language family. As of the early 21st century, this ethnonym is still used by the Turkmens of Central Asia , the main population of Turkmenistan, who have sizeable groups in Iran, Afghanistan and Russia, as well as Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens ,
2790-690: The Trallians and unrelated to the Turks. In addition, information about the similarities of the Pecheneg costume with the Zeybek-Seymen costume, as determined in the Byzantine chronicles, Claude Cahen explained this case in his article titled Battle of Manzikert According to Islamic sources, with the statements that the clothes of the paid Pecheneg soldiers under the command of Alyatte, one of
2883-436: The Vallahades from Greek Macedonia ), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia. A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinople and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece , and also towards the United States , the southern part of the Russian Empire , Latin America, and
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2976-437: The first division of the Roman Empire , Anatolia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire , otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium . In the 1st century CE, Anatolia became one of the first places where Christianity spread , so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. Byzantine Anatolia was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in
3069-430: The migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived most of their ancestry from local Anatolian hunter-gatherers , suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region. Anatolian derived Neolithic Farmers would subsequently spread across Europe, as far west as
3162-462: The "sunrise" or possibly echoing the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The Romans used it as the name of their province , comprising the west of the peninsula plus the nearby Aegean Islands . As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to the vaster region east of the Mediterranean, some Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrà Asía ), meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia, whereas
3255-447: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Of the remainder, most have left Turkey since then, leaving fewer than 5,000 Greeks in Anatolia today. According to Morris and Ze'evi, 4 million christians were ethnically cleansed from Asia minor by the Turks from 1894 to 1924. Anatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs , covered by recent deposits and giving
3348-462: The 6th century BCE. The earliest historically attested populations of Anatolia were the Hattians in central Anatolia, and Hurrians further to the east. The Hattians were an indigenous people, whose main center was the city of Hattush . Affiliation of Hattian language remains unclear, while Hurrian language belongs to a distinctive family of Hurro-Urartian languages . All of those languages are extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of
3441-850: The Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh , these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The English-language name Anatolia derives from the Greek Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ) meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. The Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from ἀνατέλλω anatello '(Ι) rise up', comparable to terms in other languages such as " levant " from Latin levo 'to rise', " orient " from Latin orior 'to arise, to originate', Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine', Aramaic מִדְנָח midnaḥ from דְּנַח denaḥ 'to rise, to shine'. The use of Anatolian designations has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to
3534-544: The Assyrian colony of Kanesh , use an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, whose Anatolian trading posts were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia , the Hittites were centered at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) in north-central Anatolia by the 17th century BCE. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language , or nesili (the language of Nesa) in Hittite. The Hittites originated from local ancient cultures that grew in Anatolia, in addition to
3627-411: The Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory. From the late 8th century BCE, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians . The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia , before both were finally checked by the Assyrians. The north-western coast of Anatolia
3720-527: The Caucasus have been proposed, but are not generally accepted. The region became famous for exporting raw materials. Organized trade between Anatolia and Mesopotamia started to emerge during the period of the Akkadian Empire , and was continued and intensified during the period of the Old Assyrian Empire , between the 21st and the 18th centuries BCE. Assyrian traders were bringing tin and textiles in exchange for copper, silver or gold. Cuneiform records, dated c. 20th century BCE , found in Anatolia at
3813-399: The Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territory in these regions. After 1180 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittite Empire disintegrated into several independent Syro-Hittite states , subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians , another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from
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3906-400: The Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles, as well as to the Maghreb . Most modern Europeans derive a significant part of their ancestry from these Neolithic Anatolian farmers. Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family , although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that
3999-408: The Karluks' equivalent of the Göktürks' political term Kök Türk. Later during the Middle Ages, the term was extensively employed for Oghuz Turks, a western Turkic people, who established a large tribal confederation called Oghuz Yabgu in the 8th century A.D. This polity, whose inhabitants spoke Oghuz Turkic, occupied an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia. The Seljuqs appeared in
4092-503: The Oghuz branch of Turkic languages , which included such languages and dialects as Seljuq , Old Anatolian Turkish , and old Ottoman Turkish . Kashgari had cited phonetic, lexical and grammatical features of the language of Oghuz-Turkmens; he also identified several dialects and presented a couple of examples displaying the differences. Old Anatolian language, introduced to Anatolia by Seljuk Turkmens who migrated westward from Central Asia to Khorasan and further to Anatolia during
4185-411: The Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. From the 9th century BCE, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia , Caria , and Lycia , all of which had Hellenic influence. Arameans encroached over the borders of south-central Anatolia in the century or so after
4278-540: The Seljuk expansion in the 11th century, was widely spoken by Turkmens of the area until the 15th century. It is also one of the known ancient languages within the Oghuz group of Turkic languages, along with old Ottoman. It displays certain characteristics peculiar to eastern Oghuz languages such as modern Turkmen and Khorasani Turkic languages, rather than western Oghuz languages such as Turkish or Azerbaijani . Such Old Anatolian Turkic features as bol- "to be(come)", also present in modern Turkmen and Khorasani Turkic,
4371-422: The Zeybeks, summarizes 7 of the main theories on their origins. These posit that the Zeybeks are the descendants of: Traditionally, the Zeybeks acted as protectors of village people against landlords, bandits, and tax collectors. A leader of a Zeybek gang was called Efe and his soldiers were known as either Zeybeks or Kızan . The term "Efe" was used for the leaders of Zeybek groups, while the "Kızan" were beneath
4464-630: The Zeybeks. According to the Armenian-Turkish linguist Sevan Nisanyan , the origin of the term "Efe" is either of Greek ( efevos , 'young man with courage') or Turkic ( eğe , ece , ebe , "big brother" in old Turkic) origin. The origin of the term "Zeybek" is according to Nisanyan also not clear. According to Nisanyan, it is either of Turkic or Arabic origin Some sources claim that it evolved from sübek , sü meaning "army, soldiers" and bek meaning "lord ( bey )" in old Turkic. According to Onur Akdogu, it evolved from saybek , meaning "strong guardian" in old Turkic. According to Paul Wittek it may evolve from
4557-475: The administration of the Empire preferred the description Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ; lit. ' the East ' ). The endonym Ῥωμανία ( Rōmanía "the land of the Romans, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire") was understood as another name for the province by the invading Seljuq Turks , who founded a Sultanate of Rûm in 1077. Thus (land of the) Rûm became another name for Anatolia. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia . During
4650-421: The ancient and familiar name " Turk " ( türk ), and tribal names such as " Bayat ", " Bayandur ", " Afshar ", and " Kayi ". By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling Oghuz Turks as Muslim Turkmens, as opposed to Shamanist or Buddhist Turks. It entered into the usage of the Western world through the Byzantines in the 12th century, since by that time Oghuz Turks were overwhelmingly Muslim. Later,
4743-407: The appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River , the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and
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#17327919851684836-466: The arrival of Indo-European languages. Attested for the first time in the Assyrian tablets of Nesa around 2000 BCE, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland , however, the Hittites (along with the other Indo-European ancient Anatolians ) were themselves relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia from
4929-500: The beginning of the 11th century in Mawarannahr . Muslim Oghuz people, generally identified as Turkmens by then, rallied around the Qinik tribe that made up the core of the future Seljuq tribal union and the state they would create in the 11th century. Since the Seljuk era, the sultans of the dynasty created military settlements in parts of the Near and Middle East to strengthen their power; large Turkmen settlements were created in Syria , Iraq , and Eastern Anatolia . After
5022-401: The bulk of the area of modern-day Turkey. Nonetheless, a variety of non- Turkic languages continue to be spoken by ethnic minorities in Anatolia today, including Arabic , Kurdish , Neo-Aramaic , Armenian , the North Caucasian languages , Laz , Georgian , and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to
5115-399: The coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia ( Pre-Socratic philosophy ). In Classical antiquity , Anatolia was described by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus and later historians as divided into regions that were diverse in culture, language, and religious practices. The northern regions included Bithynia , Paphlagonia , and Pontus ; to
5208-404: The control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk sultans. The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids . The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s; they bear the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugrul". Since the minting of coins
5301-439: The death of Alexander the Great and the subsequent breakup of the Macedonian Empire , Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids , the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BCE. In 133 BCE the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to
5394-405: The decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335 to 1353, the Mongol Empire 's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381. By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks . Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under
5487-418: The defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BCE, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria , and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians , a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of
5580-457: The early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire ). During World War I, the Armenian genocide , the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus ), and the Assyrian genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian , Greek , and Assyrian populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 , most remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during
5673-503: The early 21st century, the ethnonyms "Turkoman" and "Turkmen" are still used by the Turkmens of Turkmenistan , who have sizeable groups in Iran , Afghanistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan , as well as Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens , descendants of the Oghuz Turks who mostly adhere to an Anatolian Turkish heritage and identity. Most Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens are descendants of Ottoman soldiers, traders, and civil servants who were taken into Iraq from Anatolia during
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#17327919851685766-409: The era of classical antiquity (see Classical Anatolia ), the Anatolian languages were largely replaced by the Greek language , which came to further dominate the region during the Hellenistic period and the Roman period . The Byzantine period saw the decline of Greek influence throughout the peninsula as the Byzantine–Seljuk wars enabled the incoming Seljuk Turks to establish a foothold in
5859-523: The era of the Ottoman Empire , many mapmakers referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia . Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan . Geographers have used East Anatolian plateau , Armenian plateau and the Iranian plateau to refer to the region; the former two largely overlap. While a standard definition of Anatolia refers to the entire Asian side of Turkey, according to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, this difference in terminology "primarily result[s] from
5952-529: The expansionist policies of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus , many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians , Tatars , Azeris , Lezgis , Chechens and several Turkic groups left their homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars , much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims ( Bosniaks , Albanians , Turks , Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as
6045-478: The fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Syro-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states . From the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, much of Anatolia (particularly the southeastern regions) fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire , including all of the Syro-Hittite states , Tabal , Commagene , the Cimmerians and Scythians , and swathes of Cappadocia . The Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed due to
6138-418: The following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm , with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced. In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara . After
6231-486: The history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt , Assyria and the Mitanni . The Ancient Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left to battle over control of eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria . The Assyrians had better success than
6324-470: The language, the way of life, religions, traditions and social norms of the Oghuz Turks. In Anatolia in the late Middle Ages , the term "Turkmen" was gradually supplanted by the term "Ottomans". The Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans until the 19th century. In the late 19th century, as the Ottomans adopted European ideas of nationalism , they preferred to return to a more common term Turk instead of Turkmen , whereas previously Turk
6417-399: The latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. According to Richard Hovannisian , this changing of toponyms was "necessary to obscure all evidence" of the Armenian presence as part of the policy of Armenian genocide denial embarked upon by the newly established Turkish government and what Hovannisian calls its "foreign collaborators". Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to
6510-401: The mid-5th century onwards, urbanism was affected negatively and began to decline, while the rural areas reached unprecedented levels of prosperity in the region. Historians and scholars continue to debate the cause of the urban decline in Byzantine Anatolia between the 6th and 7th centuries, variously attributing it to the Plague of Justinian (541), the Byzantine–Sasanian War (602–628), and
6603-505: The name "Salpakis Mantachias" used by the Byzantine historian Pachymeres for Mentesh Bey, who founded the Beylik of Menteşe in southwestern Anatolia. The term "Kızan" is of Turkic origin and means "boy". Kızan was generally used for newly recruited or inexperienced Zeybeks. There was generally a tribe democracy within a group. Decisions were made in a democratic way and after the decision was made, Efe had an uncontroversial authority. They followed definite rituals for all actions; for example,
6696-591: The north. However, they did not necessarily displace the population genetically; they assimilated into the former peoples' culture, preserving the Hittite language. The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script . In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom ( c. 1650 BCE ) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BCE after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and
6789-693: The northwest, the Galatian variant of Gaulish in Galatia until the 6th century CE, Cappadocian in the homonymous region, Armenian in the east, and Kartvelian languages in the northeast. Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BCE in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during
6882-747: The only remaining part of the Byzantine East , and thus commonly referred to (in Greek) as the Eastern part of the Empire. At the same time, the Anatolic Theme ( Ἀνατολικὸν θέμα / "the Eastern theme") was created, as a province ( theme ) covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region , centered around Iconium , but ruled from the city of Amorium . The Latinized form " Anatolia ", with its -ia ending,
6975-512: The other descendants of Oghuz Turks. The current majority view for the etymology of the ethnonym Türkmen or Turcoman is that it comes from Türk and the Turkic emphasizing suffix -men , meaning "'most Turkic of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks.'" A folk etymology , dating back to the Middle Ages and found in al-Biruni and Mahmud al-Kashgari , instead derives the suffix -men from
7068-636: The promotion of a kızan to zeybek was very similar to Ahi rituals. From the 17th to 19th century, the Zeybeks evolved to outlaws and bandits terrorizing the Aegean Region. Before the Treaty of Lausanne and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey , larger concentrations of Zeybeks could be found on the Aegean coast of western Anatolia , near the city of İzmir (Greek: Smyrna) and Magnesia . After
7161-618: The ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide , Western Armenia was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly established Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into
7254-646: The region. Thus, the process of Anatolia's Turkification began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century, when the Ottoman dynasty collapsed in the aftermath of World War I . Between 1894 and 1924, millions of non- Turkic peoples and Christians were suppressed and removed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities from
7347-599: The reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I (306–337), who created the Praetorian prefecture of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Prefecture, encompassing all eastern regions of the Late Roman Empire and spanning from Thrace to Egypt . Only after the loss of other eastern regions during the 7th century and the reduction of Byzantine eastern domains to Asia Minor, that region became
7440-564: The rest of Europe. Following the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward its newly established Armenian provinces. Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until
7533-401: The rule of the Ottoman Empire. Turks of Israel and Lebanon , Turkish sub-ethnic groups of Yoruks , Manavs and Karapapaks (sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis) are also referred to as Turkmens. "Turkoman", "Turkmen", "Turkman" and "Torkaman" were – and continue to be – used interchangeably. Anatolia Anatolia ( Turkish : Anadolu ), also known as Asia Minor , is
7626-601: The shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century". Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two geographical regions of Turkey to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line, the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region , the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highlands,
7719-915: The southeast, while Galatian , a Celtic language , was spoken throughout Galatia in the central peninsula. Among the other peoples who established a significant presence in ancient Anatolia were the Galatians , the Hurrians , the Assyrians , the Armenians , the Hattians , and the Cimmerians , as well as some of the ancient Greek tribes , including the Ionians , the Dorians , and the Aeolians . In
7812-481: The term "Oghuz" was gradually supplanted by "Turkmen" among Oghuz Turks themselves, thus turning an exonym into an endonym , a process which was completed by the beginning of the 13th century. In Anatolia , since the Late Middle Ages , "Turkmen" was superseded by the term "Ottoman", which came from the name of the Ottoman Empire and its ruling dynasty . It remains as an endonym of semi-nomadic tribes of
7905-674: The usage of the Western world through the Byzantines in the 12th century. By the beginning of 13th century, it became an endonym among Oghuz Turks themselves. The Turkmens also included the Yiva and Bayandur tribes, from which the ruling clans of the states of Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu emerged. After the fall of Aq Qoyunlu, the Turkmen tribes—partly under their own name, for example Afshars , Hajilu, Pornak, Deger, and Mavsellu—united in
7998-417: The west were Mysia , Lydia , and Caria; and Lycia , Pamphylia , and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore. There were also several inland regions: Phrygia , Cappadocia , Pisidia , and Galatia . Languages spoken included the late surviving Anatolic languages , Isaurian , and Pisidian , Greek in western and coastal regions, Phrygian spoken until the 7th century CE, local variants of Thracian in
8091-763: Was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Europe , with their descendants coming to dominate the continent as far west as the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles . The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia , who were neither Indo-European nor Semitic , were gradually absorbed by the incoming Indo-European Anatolian peoples , who spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The major Anatolian languages included Hittite , Luwian , and Lydian ; other local languages, albeit poorly attested, included Phrygian and Mysian . The Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken throughout Mitanni in
8184-628: Was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign , it can be considered that the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks, had become formally independent from the Mongol Khans. Among the Turkish leaders, the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman I and his son Orhan . The Anatolian beyliks were successively absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. It
8277-642: Was a term for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin, widely used during the Middle Ages . Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people that, in the 8th century A.D, formed a tribal confederation in an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia , and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family . Turkmen , originally an exonym , dates from the High Middle Ages , along with
8370-615: Was also an "Abdal" tribe belonging to the White Huns ) and Bengi (Bengü meant "eternity" in old Turkic) Zeybeği.The Greek version of the dance was brought by Greeks from Izmir to Greece, which used to be called "Türkikos", but this name is not used anymore. Romantic songs about their bravery are still popular in Turkish and Greek folk music. The yatagan sword was their primary weapon, but most of them carried firearms as well. Turkoman (ethnonym) Turkoman , also known as Turcoman ( English: / ˈ t ə r k ə m ə n / ),
8463-564: Was completed in 987 A.D, al-Muqaddasi writes about Turkmens twice while depicting the region as the frontier of the Muslim possessions in Central Asia. According to medieval Islamic authors Al-Biruni and al-Marwazi , the term Turkmen referred to the Oghuz who converted to Islam. There is evidence, however, that non-Oghuz Turks such as Karluks also have been called Turkomans and Turkmens ; Kafesoğlu (1958) proposes that Türkmen might be
8556-541: Was inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean / Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BCE, related to the Greeks of southeastern Europe and the Aegean . Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks , usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks . Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on
8649-460: Was used to exclusively refer to Anatolian peasants. The term continued to be used interchangeably with other ethnohistorical terms for the Turkic people of the area, including Turk, Tatar and Ajam , well into the early 20th century. In the early 21st century, "Turkmen" remains as the self-name for the semi-nomadic tribes of the Terekime , a sub-ethnic group of the Azerbaijani people . In
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