1.
Jean Baptiste Vanmour
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Jean Baptiste Vanmour or Van Mour was a Flemish-French painter, remembered for his detailed portrayal of life in the Ottoman Empire during the Tulip Era and the rule of Sultan Ahmed III. Van Mour was a native of Valenciennes, a Flemish town that at the time of his birth belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, but since 1678 to France. He studied art in the studio of Jacques-Albert Gérin, and his work attracted the attention of an aristocrat and statesman of the time, Van Mour was invited to go to Constantinople when De Ferriol was appointed there as the French Ambassador in 1699. De Ferriol commissioned van Mour to do one hundred portraits of the local people, in 1711 De Ferriol returned to France and van Mour worked for a variety of other diplomats. In the meantime De Ferriol published a series of one hundred engravings in Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes nations du Levant, the book had a great influence in Western Europe and was published in at least five languages. Painting audiences with the Sultan became van Mours speciality, he only had to change the setting, Van Mour worked with assistants to fulfill all his obligations. In 1725 he was granted the title of Peintre Ordinaire du Roy en Levant in recognition of both his and the Levants importance to the French government. In 1727 the Dutch ambassador Cornelis Calkoen asked Van Mour to record his audience with Sultan Ahmed III on canvas, Calkoen took many paintings of Jean Baptiste Vanmour with him, when he was appointed as ambassador in Dresden for the Dutch Republic. In his will of 1762 the bachelor Calkoen forbade his heirs to sell the paintings and it is said Van Mour was buried next to Baron de Salagnac in the graveyard of the Jesuit Church of St Louis in the district of Beyoglu. Media related to Jean Baptiste Vanmour at Wikimedia Commons The Rijksmuseum on Vanmour Friends of Vanmour
2.
Ottoman dynasty
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The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans also claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II also took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states. Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
3.
Albanians
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Albanians are an ethnic group, native to Albania, Kosovo and neighboring countries. The term is used to refer to the citizens of the Republic of Albania. Ethnic Albanians speak the Albanian language and more than half of ethnic Albanians live in Albania, a large Albanian population lives in the Republic of Macedonia and Italy, with smaller Albanian populations located in Serbia and Montenegro. The majority of Albanians are nominally Muslims, and a minority are nominally Christians, during the 17th and 18th century Albanians in large numbers converted to Islam, often to escape higher taxes levied on Christian subjects. As Muslims, some Albanians attained important political and military positions within the Ottoman Empire, Albania gained its independence in 1912 and between 1945–1992, Albanians lived under a repressive communist regime. Between the 11th and 18th centuries, sizable numbers of Albanians migrated from the area of contemporary Albania to escape either various socio-political difficulties and/or the Ottoman conquest. Another population, who became the Arbëreshë settled in southern Italy and form the oldest continuous Albanian diaspora producing influential, smaller populations dating to migrations during the 18th century are located on Croatias Dalmatian coast and scattered communities across southern Ukraine. The Albanian diaspora also exists in a number of other countries, one of these is located in Turkey. Due to the Ottoman legacy, smaller populations of Albanians also exist in Egypt, in Western countries, a large and influential Albanian population exists in the United States formed from continuous emigration dating back to the 19th century. The Albanians and their country Albania have been identified by many ethnonyms, from these ethnonyms, names for Albanians were also derived in other languages that were or still are in use. The term for a people located in the area of contemporary Albania is first encountered in the works of Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates. He referred to them as Albanoi having taken part in a revolt against the Byzantine Empire in 1043 and these references have been disputed as to whether they refer to Albanians in an ethnic sense. A later reference to Albanians from the same Attaliates regarding the participation of Albanians in a rebellion around 1078 is undisputed. In later Byzantine usage, the terms Arbanitai and Albanoi with a range of variants were used interchangeably, the first reference to the Albanian language dates to the latter 13th century. The ethnonym Albanian has been hypothesized to be connected to and stem from the Albanoi, linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, of which other words such as alps is derived from. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the Albanian language was referred to as Arbnisht and Arbërisht. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym, one, derived from the etymology from the Albanian word for eagle, in Albanian folk etymology, this word denotes a bird totem, dating from the times of Skanderbeg as displayed on the Albanian flag. The other is within scholarship that connects it to the verb to speak from the Latin excipere, in this instance the Albanian endonym like Slav and others would originally have been a term connoting those who speak
4.
Bitola
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Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. It is located in the part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže. It has been known since the Ottoman period as The City of The Consuls, Bitola is one of the oldest cities on the territory of The Republic of Macedonia, having been founded as Heraclea Lyncestis in the middle of the 4th century BC by Philip II of Macedon. The city was the last capital of Ottoman Rumelia, from 1836–1867, According to the 2002 census, Bitola is the second-largest city in the country. Bitola is also the seat of the Bitola Municipality, the name Bitola is derived from the Old Church Slavonic word ѡ҆би́тѣл҄ь as the city was formerly noted for its monastery. When the meaning of the name was no longer understood, it lost its prefix o-, the name Bitola is mentioned in the Bitola inscription, related to the old city fortress built in 1015. Modern Slavic variants include the Macedonian Bitola, the Serbian Bitolj, in Byzantine times, the name was Hellenized to Voutélion or Vitólia, hence the names Butella used by William of Tyre and Butili by the Arab geographer al-Idrisi. During the ruling of Radomir Gavril Bitola is mentioned under the name of Buteliu, the Greek name for the city, also meaning monastery, is a calque of the Slavic name. The Turkish name Manastır is derived from the Greek name, as is the Albanian name, Bitola is located in the southwestern part of Macedonia. The Dragor River flows through the city, Bitola lies at an elevation of 615 meters above sea level, at the foot of Baba Mountain. Covering an area of 1,798 km2. and with a population of 122,173, Bitola is an important industrial, agricultural, commercial, educational and it represents an important junction that connects the Adriatic Sea to the south with the Aegean Sea and Central Europe. Bitola has a continental climate typical of the Pelagonija region, experiencing warm and dry summers. The Koppen classification for this climate is Cfb, Bitola is very rich in monuments from the prehistoric period. Two important ones are Veluška Tumba, and Bara Tumba near the village of Porodin, from the Copper Age there are the settlements of Tumba near the village of Crnobuki, Šuplevec near the village of Suvodol, and Visok Rid near the village of Bukri. The Bronze Age is represented by the settlements of Tumba near the village of Kanino, the area of the town is located in ancient Lynkestis, a region of Upper Macedonia, which was ruled by semi-independent chieftains till the later Argead rulers of Macedon. The tribes of Lynkestis were known as Lynkestai and they were a Greek tribe and belonged to the Molossian group of the Epirotes. There are important metal artifacts from the ancient period at the necropolis of Crkvishte near the village of Beranci, a golden earring dating from the 4th century BC is depicted on the obverse of the Macedonian 10 denar banknote, issued in 1996. Heraclea Lyncestis was an important settlement from the Hellenistic period till the early Middle Ages and it was founded by Philip II of Macedon by the middle of the 4th century BC, and named after the Greek hero Heracles
5.
Janissaries
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The Janissaries were elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultans household troops, bodyguards and the first standing army in Europe. The corps was most likely established during the reign of Murad I and they began as an elite corps of slaves made up of conscripted young Christian boys, and became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries, forbidden to marry or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Sultan was expected. By the seventeenth century, due to a increase in the size of the Ottoman standing army. Civilians bought their way into the corps in order to benefit from the socioeconomic status it conferred upon them. Consequently, the corps gradually lost its character, undergoing a process which has been described as civilianization. The corps was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 in the Auspicious Incident in which 6,000 or more were executed, the formation of the Janissaries has been dated to the reign of Murad I, the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire. From the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the system which was abolished in 1638. This was the taking of non-Muslim boys, notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians, Jews were never subject to devşirme, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in early days, all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately. Later, those from Albania, Bosnia, and Bulgaria were preferred, the Janissaries were kapıkulları, door servants or slaves of the Porte, neither freemen nor ordinary slaves. They were subjected to strict discipline, but were paid salaries and pensions upon retirement, as such, they became one of the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire, rivalling the Turkish aristocracy. The brightest of the Janissaries were sent to the palace institution, through a system of meritocracy, the Janissaries held enormous power, stopping all efforts at reform of the military. These boys were taken from their parents and given to Turkish families in the provinces to learn Turkish language and customs. The recruits were indoctrinated into Islam, forced into circumcision and supervised 24 hours a day by eunuchs and they were subjected to severe discipline, being prohibited from growing a beard, taking up a skill other than soldiering, and marrying. As a result, the Janissaries were extremely well-disciplined troops, and became members of the askeri class, most were non-Muslims, because it was not permissible to enslave a Muslim. The Janissary system was introduced in the 14th century, the Janissary Corps was a trained and loyal group of slaves to the sultan. In the late 16th century, a sultan gave in to the pressures of the Corps and permitted Janissary children to members of the Corps. They also became rent-seeking and sought protection of their special rights, according to paintings of the era, they were also permitted to grow beards
