FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (May 29, 1453)
Fall of Constantinople (1453) - the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Turks, which led to its final fall.
Day May 29, 1453 is undoubtedly a turning point in human history. It means the end of the old world, the world of Byzantine civilization. For eleven centuries, a city stood on the Bosporus, where a deep mind was an object of admiration, and the science and literature of the classical past were carefully studied and cherished. Without Byzantine researchers and scribes, we would not know very much about the literature of ancient Greece today. It was also a city whose rulers for many centuries encouraged the development of a school of art that has no analogy in the history of mankind and was an alloy of unchanging Greek common sense and deep religiosity, which saw in the work of art the incarnation of the Holy Spirit and the sanctification of the material.
In addition, Constantinople was a great cosmopolitan city, where, along with trade, a free exchange of ideas flourished and the inhabitants considered themselves not just some kind of people, but heirs of Greece and Rome, enlightened by the Christian faith. There were legends about the wealth of Constantinople at that time.
Beginning of the decline of Byzantium
Up to the XI century. Byzantium was a brilliant and powerful state, a stronghold of Christianity against Islam. The Byzantines courageously and successfully fulfilled their duty until, in the middle of the century, from the East, along with the invasion of the Turks, a new threat from the Muslim side approached them. Western Europe, meanwhile, went so far that, in the person of the Normans, they themselves tried to carry out aggression against Byzantium, which was involved in a struggle on two fronts just at the time when it itself was experiencing a dynastic crisis and internal turmoil. The Normans were repulsed, but the cost of this victory was the loss of Byzantine Italy. The Byzantines also had to forever give the Turks the mountainous plateaus of Anatolia - the lands that were for them the main source of replenishment of human resources for the army and food supplies. In the best times of its great past, the prosperity of Byzantium was connected with its dominance over Anatolia. The vast peninsula, known in antiquity as Asia Minor, was one of the most populated places in the world during Roman times.
Byzantium continued to play the role of a great power, while its power was actually undermined. Thus, the empire was between two evils; and this already difficult situation was further complicated by the movement that went down in history under the name of the Crusades.
Meanwhile, deep old religious differences between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, fanned for political purposes throughout the 11th century, steadily deepened until, towards the end of the century, a final schism occurred between Rome and Constantinople.
The crisis came when the crusader army, carried away by the ambition of their leaders, the jealous greed of their Venetian allies, and the hostility that the West now felt towards the Byzantine Church, turned to Constantinople, captured and plundered it, forming the Latin Empire on the ruins of the ancient city ( 1204-1261).
The Fourth Crusade and the Formation of the Latin Empire
The Fourth Crusade was organized by Pope Innocent III to liberate the Holy Land from the Gentiles. The original plan of the Fourth Crusade provided for the organization of a sea expedition on Venetian ships to Egypt, which was supposed to become a springboard for an attack on Palestine, but then it was changed: the crusaders moved to the capital of Byzantium. The participants in the campaign were mainly French and Venetians.
The entry of the crusaders into Constantinople on April 13, 1204. Engraving by G. Doré
April 13, 1204 Constantinople fell . The city-fortress, which withstood the onslaught of many powerful enemies, was first captured by the enemy. What turned out to be beyond the power of the hordes of Persians and Arabs, the knightly army succeeded. The ease with which the crusaders took possession of the huge, well-fortified city was the result of the most acute socio-political crisis that the Byzantine Empire was experiencing at that moment. The circumstance that part of the Byzantine aristocracy and merchants was interested in trade relations with the Latins also played a significant role. In other words, there was a kind of "fifth column" in Constantinople.
Capture of Constantinople (April 13, 1204) troops of the crusaders was one of the landmark events of medieval history. After the capture of the city, mass robberies and murders of the Greek Orthodox population began. About 2 thousand people were killed in the first days after the capture. Fires raged in the city. Many monuments of culture and literature that had been kept here since ancient times were destroyed in the fire. The famous library of Constantinople suffered especially badly from the fire. Many valuables were taken to Venice. For more than half a century, the ancient city on the Bosphorus cape was dominated by the Crusaders. Only in 1261 did Constantinople again fall into the hands of the Greeks.
This Fourth Crusade (1204), which turned from a "road to the Holy Sepulcher" into a Venetian commercial enterprise that led to the sack of Constantinople by the Latins, ended the Eastern Roman Empire as a supranational state and finally split Western and Byzantine Christianity.
Actually Byzantium after this campaign ceases to exist as a state for more than 50 years. Some historians, not without reason, write that after the catastrophe of 1204, in fact, two empires were formed - the Latin and the Venetian. Part of the former imperial lands in Asia Minor were captured by the Seljuks, in the Balkans - by Serbia, Bulgaria and Venice. Nevertheless, the Byzantines were able to keep a number of other territories and create their own states on them: the Kingdom of Epirus, the Nicaean and Trebizond empires.
Latin Empire
Having settled in Constantinople as masters, the Venetians increased their trading influence throughout the territory of the fallen Byzantine Empire. The capital of the Latin Empire for several decades was the seat of the most noble feudal lords. They preferred the palaces of Constantinople to their castles in Europe. The nobility of the empire quickly got used to Byzantine luxury, adopted the habit of constant festivities and merry feasts. The consumer character of life in Constantinople under the Latins became even more pronounced. The crusaders came to these lands with a sword and for half a century of their rule they never learned how to create. In the middle of the 13th century, the Latin Empire fell into complete decline. Many cities and villages, devastated and plundered during the aggressive campaigns of the Latins, could not recover. The population suffered not only from unbearable taxes and requisitions, but also from the oppression of foreigners, who contemptuously trampled on the culture and customs of the Greeks. The Orthodox clergy led an active preaching of the struggle against the enslavers.
Summer 1261 Emperor of Nicaea Michael VIII Palaiologos managed to recapture Constantinople, which led to the restoration of the Byzantine and the destruction of the Latin empires.
Byzantium in the XIII-XIV centuries.
After that, Byzantium was no longer the dominant power in the Christian East. She retained only a glimpse of her former mystical prestige. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Constantinople seemed so rich and magnificent, the imperial court so magnificent, and the marinas and bazaars of the city so full of goods that the emperor was still treated as a powerful ruler. However, in reality, he was now only a sovereign among his equals or even more powerful. Some other Greek rulers have already appeared. To the east of Byzantium was the Trebizond Empire of the Great Komnenos. In the Balkans, Bulgaria and Serbia alternately claimed hegemony on the peninsula. In Greece - on the mainland and islands - small Frankish feudal principalities and Italian colonies arose.
The entire 14th century was a period of political setbacks for Byzantium. The Byzantines were threatened from all sides - the Serbs and Bulgarians in the Balkans, the Vatican - in the West, the Muslims - in the East.
The position of Byzantium by 1453
Byzantium, which had existed for more than 1000 years, was in decline by the 15th century. It was a very small state, whose power extended only to the capital - the city of Constantinople with its suburbs - several Greek islands off the coast of Asia Minor, several cities on the coast in Bulgaria, and also to Morea (Peloponnese). This state could be considered an empire only conditionally, since even the rulers of several patches of land that remained under its control were actually independent of the central government.
At the same time, Constantinople, founded in 330, throughout the entire period of its existence as the Byzantine capital was perceived as a symbol of the empire. Constantinople for a long time was the largest economic and cultural center of the country, and only in the XIV-XV centuries. began to decline. Its population, which in the XII century. amounted, together with the surrounding inhabitants, to about a million people, now numbering no more than a hundred thousand, continuing to gradually decrease further.
The empire was surrounded by the lands of its main enemy - the Muslim state of the Ottoman Turks, who saw in Constantinople the main obstacle to the spread of their power in the region.
The Turkish state, which was rapidly gaining power and successfully fighting to expand its borders both in the west and in the east, had long sought to conquer Constantinople. The Turks attacked Byzantium several times. The offensive of the Ottoman Turks against Byzantium led to the fact that by the 30s of the XV century. from the Byzantine Empire, only Constantinople with its environs, some islands in the Aegean Sea and Morea, an area in the south of the Peloponnese, remained. As early as the beginning of the 14th century, the Ottoman Turks captured the richest trading city of Bursa, one of the important points of transit caravan trade between East and West. Very soon they took two other Byzantine cities - Nicaea (Iznik) and Nicomedia (Izmid).
The military successes of the Ottoman Turks became possible thanks to the political struggle that took place in this region between Byzantium, the Balkan states, Venice and Genoa. Very often, rival parties sought to enlist the military support of the Ottomans, thereby ultimately facilitating the expanding expansion of the latter. The military strength of the growing state of the Turks was demonstrated with particular clarity in the Battle of Varna (1444), which, in fact, also decided the fate of Constantinople.
Battle of Varna - the battle between the crusaders and the Ottoman Empire near the city of Varna (Bulgaria). The battle marked the end of an unsuccessful crusade against Varna by the Hungarian and Polish king Vladislav. The outcome of the battle was the complete defeat of the crusaders, the death of Vladislav and the strengthening of the Turks in the Balkan Peninsula. The weakening of the position of Christians in the Balkans allowed the Turks to take Constantinople (1453).
The attempts of the imperial authorities to get help from the West and the conclusion of a union with the Catholic Church for this purpose in 1439 were rejected by the majority of the clergy and people of Byzantium. Of the philosophers, the Union of Florence was approved only by admirers of Thomas Aquinas.
All the neighbors were afraid of the Turkish reinforcement, especially Genoa and Venice, which had economic interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Hungary, which received an aggressively powerful enemy in the south, beyond the Danube, the Knights of St. John, who feared the loss of the remnants of their possessions in the Middle East, and the Pope Roman, who hoped to stop the rise and spread of Islam along with Turkish expansion. However, at a decisive moment, Byzantium's potential allies found themselves in thrall to their own intricate problems.
The most likely allies of Constantinople were the Venetians. Genoa remained neutral. The Hungarians have not yet recovered from their recent defeat. Wallachia and the Serbian states were in vassal dependence on the Sultan, and the Serbs even allocated auxiliary troops to the Sultan's army.
Preparing the Turks for War
The Turkish Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror declared the conquest of Constantinople the goal of his life. In 1451, he concluded an agreement beneficial for Byzantium with Emperor Constantine XI, but already in 1452 he violated it by capturing the fortress of Rumeli-Hissar on the European shore of the Bosporus. Constantine XI Paleolog turned to the West for help, in December 1452 he solemnly confirmed the union, but this only caused general discontent. The commander of the Byzantine fleet, Luca Notara, publicly stated that he "would prefer the Turkish turban to dominate the City than the papal tiara."
In early March 1453, Mehmed II announced the recruitment of an army; in total, he had 150 (according to other sources - 300) thousand troops, equipped with powerful artillery, 86 military and 350 transport ships. In Constantinople, there were 4973 inhabitants capable of holding weapons, about 2 thousand mercenaries from the West and 25 ships.
The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who swore to take Constantinople, carefully and carefully prepared for the upcoming war, realizing that he would have to deal with a powerful fortress, from which the armies of other conquerors had retreated more than once. The walls, unusual in thickness, were practically invulnerable to siege engines and even standard artillery at that time.
The Turkish army consisted of 100 thousand soldiers, over 30 warships and about 100 small fast ships. Such a number of ships immediately allowed the Turks to establish dominance in the Sea of Marmara.
The city of Constantinople was located on a peninsula formed by the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn. The city blocks overlooking the sea and the bay were covered by city walls. A special system of fortifications from walls and towers covered the city from the land - from the west. The Greeks were relatively calm behind the fortress walls on the coast of the Sea of Marmara - the sea current here was fast and did not allow the Turks to land troops under the walls. The Golden Horn was considered a vulnerable spot.
View of Constantinople
The Greek fleet defending Constantinople consisted of 26 ships. The city had several cannons and a significant supply of spears and arrows. Fire weapons, like soldiers, were clearly not enough to repel the assault. In total, there were about 7 thousand fit Roman soldiers, not including the allies.
The West was in no hurry to provide assistance to Constantinople, only Genoa sent 700 soldiers on two galleys, led by the condottiere Giovanni Giustiniani, and Venice sent 2 warships. The brothers of Constantine, the rulers of the Morea, Dmitry and Thomas, were busy quarreling among themselves. The inhabitants of Galata, an extraterritorial quarter of the Genoese on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, declared their neutrality, but in reality helped the Turks, hoping to maintain their privileges.
Beginning of the siege
April 7, 1453 Mehmed II began the siege. The Sultan sent parliamentarians with a proposal to surrender. In case of surrender, he promised the urban population the preservation of life and property. Emperor Constantine replied that he was ready to pay any tribute that Byzantium could bear and cede any territories, but refused to surrender the city. At the same time, Constantine ordered the Venetian sailors to march along the city walls, demonstrating that Venice was an ally of Constantinople. The Venetian fleet was one of the strongest in the Mediterranean basin, and this must have had an effect on the resolve of the Sultan. Despite the refusal, Mehmed gave the order to prepare for the assault. The Turkish army had high morale and determination, unlike the Romans.
The Turkish fleet had its main anchorage on the Bosphorus, its main task was to break through the fortifications of the Golden Horn, in addition, the ships were to block the city and prevent allied assistance to Constantinople.
Initially, success accompanied the besieged. The Byzantines blocked the entrance to the Golden Horn Bay with a chain, and the Turkish fleet could not approach the walls of the city. The first assault attempts failed.
On April 20, 5 ships with the defenders of the city (4 - Genoese, 1 - Byzantine) defeated a squadron of 150 Turkish ships in battle.
But already on April 22, the Turks transported 80 ships by dry land to the Golden Horn. The attempt of the defenders to burn these ships failed, because the Genoese from Galata noticed the preparations and informed the Turks.
Fall of Constantinople
Defeatist moods reigned in Constantinople itself. Giustiniani advised Constantine XI to surrender the city. Defense funds were squandered. Luca Notara concealed the money allocated for the fleet, hoping to pay them off from the Turks.
May 29 started early in the morning final assault on Constantinople . The first attacks were repulsed, but then the wounded Giustiniani left the city and fled to Galata. The Turks were able to take the main gate of the capital of Byzantium. Fighting took place on the streets of the city, Emperor Constantine XI fell in battle, and when the Turks found his wounded body, they cut off his head and put him on a pole. For three days in Constantinople there were robberies and violence. The Turks killed in a row everyone they met on the streets: men, women, children. Streams of blood flowed down the steep streets of Constantinople from the hills of Petra to the Golden Horn.
The Turks broke into the male and female monasteries. Some young monks, preferring martyrdom to dishonor, threw themselves into wells; the monks and elderly nuns followed the ancient tradition of the Orthodox Church, which prescribed not to resist.
The houses of the inhabitants were also plundered one by one; each group of robbers hung a small flag at the entrance as a sign that there was nothing left to take in the house. The inhabitants of the houses were taken along with their property. Anyone who fell from exhaustion was immediately killed; so did many babies.
There were scenes of mass desecration of shrines in the churches. Many crucifixes, adorned with jewels, were taken out of the temples with Turkish turbans famously pulled on them.
In the temple of Chora, the Turks left the mosaics and frescoes intact, but destroyed the icon of Our Lady Hodegetria - her most sacred image in all of Byzantium, executed, according to legend, by St. Luke himself. She was transferred here from the Church of the Virgin near the palace at the very beginning of the siege, so that this shrine, being as close as possible to the walls, would inspire their defenders. The Turks pulled the icon out of its frame and split it into four pieces.
And here is how contemporaries describe the capture of the greatest temple of all Byzantium - the Cathedral of St. Sofia. "The church was still full of people. The Holy Liturgy had already ended and Matins was underway. When a noise was heard outside, the huge bronze doors of the temple were closed. Those gathered inside prayed for a miracle, which alone could save them. But their prayers were in vain. Not much time passed, and the doors collapsed under the blows from outside. The worshipers were trapped. A few old people and cripples were killed on the spot; the majority of the Turks tied or chained to each other in groups, and shawls and scarves torn from women were used as fetters. Many beautiful girls and young men, as well as richly dressed nobles, were almost torn to pieces when the soldiers who captured them fought among themselves, considering them their prey. The priests continued to read prayers at the altar until they were also captured ... "
Sultan Mehmed II himself entered the city only on June 1. With an escort of selected detachments of the Janissary guard, accompanied by his viziers, he slowly drove through the streets of Constantinople. Everything around, where the soldiers visited, was devastated and ruined; churches were desecrated and plundered, houses - uninhabited, shops and warehouses - broken and torn apart. He rode a horse into the church of St. Sophia, ordered to knock down the cross from it and turn it into the largest mosque in the world.
Cathedral of St. Sophia in Constantinople
Immediately after the capture of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II first issued a decree on "giving freedom to all who remained alive", but many residents of the city were killed by Turkish soldiers, many became slaves. For the speedy restoration of the population, Mehmed ordered the entire population of the city of Aksaray to be transferred to the new capital.
The Sultan granted the Greeks the rights of a self-governing community within the empire, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, responsible to the Sultan, was to be at the head of the community.
In subsequent years, the last territories of the empire were occupied (Morea - in 1460).
Consequences of the death of Byzantium
Constantine XI was the last of the Roman emperors. With his death, the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. Its lands became 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 Konstantinie, and then Istanbul (Istanbul)).
Most Europeans believed that the death of Byzantium was the beginning of the end of the world, since only Byzantium was the successor to the Roman Empire. Many contemporaries blamed Venice for the fall of Constantinople. (Venice then had one of the most powerful fleets). The Republic of Venice played a double game, trying, on the one hand, to organize a crusade against the Turks, and on the other hand, to protect its trade interests by sending friendly embassies to the Sultan.
However, one must understand that the rest of the Christian powers did not lift a finger to save the dying empire. Without the help of other states, even if the Venetian fleet arrived on time, this would allow Constantinople to hold out for another couple of weeks, but this would only prolong the agony.
Rome was fully aware of the Turkish danger and understood that all Western Christianity could be in danger. Pope Nicholas V urged all the Western powers to jointly undertake a powerful and decisive Crusade and intended to lead this campaign himself. Even from the moment the fatal news came from Constantinople, he sent out his messages, calling for active action. On September 30, 1453, the Pope sent out a bull to all Western sovereigns announcing the Crusade. Each sovereign was ordered to shed the blood of his and his subjects for a holy cause, and also to allocate a tenth of their income for it. Both Greek cardinals - Isidore and Bessarion - actively supported his efforts. Bessarion himself wrote to the Venetians, at the same time accusing them and imploring them to stop the wars in Italy and concentrate all their forces on the fight against the Antichrist.
However, no crusade ever happened. And although the sovereigns eagerly caught messages about the death of Constantinople, and the writers composed sorrowful elegies, although the French composer Guillaume Dufay wrote a special funeral song and sang it in all French lands, no one was ready to act. King Frederick III of Germany was poor and powerless, because he did not have real power over the German princes; neither politically nor financially he could participate in the Crusade. King Charles VII of France was busy restoring his country after a long and devastating war with England. The Turks were somewhere far away; he had better things to do in his own house. England, which had suffered even more than France from the Hundred Years' War, the Turks seemed an even more distant problem. King Henry VI could do absolutely nothing, as he had just lost his mind and the whole country was plunging into the chaos of the wars of the Scarlet and White Roses. None of the other kings showed their interest, with the exception of the Hungarian king Vladislav, who, of course, had every reason to be worried. But he had a bad relationship with his army commander. And without him and without allies, he could not venture on any enterprise.
Thus, although Western Europe was shaken by the fact that the great historic Christian city was in the hands of the infidels, no papal bull could move it to action. The very fact that the Christian states failed to come to the aid of Constantinople showed their obvious unwillingness to fight for the faith, if their immediate interests were not affected.
The Turks quickly occupied the rest of the territory of the empire. The Serbs were the first to suffer - Serbia became a theater of war between the Turks and the Hungarians. In 1454, the Serbs were forced, under the threat of force, to give part of their territory to the Sultan. But already in 1459, all of Serbia was in the hands of the Turks, with the exception of Belgrade, which until 1521 remained in the hands of the Hungarians. The neighboring kingdom of Bosnia, the Turks conquered 4 years later.
Meanwhile, the last vestiges of Greek independence were gradually disappearing. The Duchy of Athens was destroyed in 1456. And in 1461, the last Greek capital, Trebizond, fell. This was the end of the free Greek world. True, a certain number of Greeks still remained under Christian rule - in Cyprus, on the islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas and in the port cities of the continent, still held by Venice, but their rulers were of a different blood and a different form of Christianity. Only in the south-east of the Peloponnese, in the lost villages of Maina, into the harsh mountain spurs of which not a single Turk dared to penetrate, a semblance of freedom was preserved.
Soon all the Orthodox territories in the Balkans were in the hands of the Turks. Serbia and Bosnia were enslaved. Albania fell in January 1468. Moldova recognized its vassal dependence on the Sultan as early as 1456.
Many historians in the 17th and 18th centuries considered the fall of Constantinople a key moment in European history, the end of the Middle Ages, just as the fall of Rome in 476 was the end of Antiquity. Others believed that the exodus of Greeks to Italy caused the Renaissance there.
Rus' - the heir of Byzantium
After the death of Byzantium, Rus' remained the only free Orthodox state. The Baptism of Rus' was one of the most glorious deeds of the Byzantine Church. Now this daughter country was becoming stronger than its parent, and the Russians were well aware of this. Constantinople, as believed in Rus', fell as a punishment for its sins, for apostasy, agreeing to unite with the Western Church. The Russians vehemently rejected the Union of Florence and expelled its supporter, Metropolitan Isidore, who had been imposed on them by the Greeks. And now, having kept their Orthodox faith unsullied, they turned out to be the owners of the only surviving state from the Orthodox world, whose power, moreover, was constantly growing. “Constantinople fell,” wrote the Metropolitan of Moscow in 1458, “because it apostatized from the true Orthodox faith. But in Russia this faith is still alive, the Faith of the Seven Councils, which Constantinople handed it over to Grand Duke Vladimir. There is only one true The Church is the Russian Church".
After his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor from the Palaiologos dynasty, Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow declared himself heir to the Byzantine Empire. From now on, the great mission of preserving Christianity passed to Russia. “Christian empires have fallen,” the monk Philotheus wrote in 1512 to his master, the Grand Duke, or Tsar, Vasily III, “only the power of our lord stands in their place ... Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and the fourth will not happen ... You are the only Christian sovereign in the world, ruler over all true faithful Christians."
Thus, in the entire Orthodox world, only Russians benefited in any way from the fall of Constantinople; and for the Orthodox Christians of the former Byzantium, groaning in captivity, the realization that there still exists in the world a great, albeit very distant sovereign of the same faith with them, served as consolation and hope that he would protect them and, perhaps, someday come save them and restore their freedom. Sultan the Conqueror paid almost no attention to the fact of the existence of Russia. Russia was far away. Sultan Mehmed had other concerns much closer. The conquest of Constantinople, of course, made his state one of the great powers of Europe, and from now on he was to play a corresponding role in European politics. He realized that the Christians were his enemies and he had to be vigilant to see that they did not unite against him. The sultan could have fought Venice or Hungary, and perhaps the few allies the pope could muster, but he could only fight one of them in isolation. No one came to the aid of Hungary in the fatal battle on the Mohacs field. No one sent reinforcements to Rhodes to the Knights of St. John. Nobody cared about the loss of Cyprus by the Venetians.
Material prepared by Sergey SHULYAK
