About Constantinople, which in Rus' was called Tsargrad

Now Istanbul, until 1930 Constantinople. In Rus', it was called Tsargrad. The amazing history of the city has more than one millennium. During this period, it has undergone many changes, having been the capital of three empires at once: Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. It is not surprising that he had to change names more than once. The very first name assigned to him in history is Byzantium.

This is one of the few cities in the history of mankind that have an exact date of birth: May 11, 330 (May 24, according to a new style) - on this day, the official ceremony of the so-called “renewal” (as we are currently translating), or consecration, of the city took place , which was headed by Emperor Constantine himself.

Constantinople - the city of St. Constantine - was originally conceived by the emperor as the eastern capital of a vast empire that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to Mesopotamia, as the capital of a state that was founded during the time of the Republic and from Emperor Augustus became an empire, a monarchical power that united a variety of peoples and very different cultures, but mainly based on two key elements: the Greek East and the Latin West.

First European settlement

Around 680 B.C. Greek settlers appeared on the Bosphorus. On the Asian coast of the strait, they founded the colony of Chalcedon (now it is a district of Istanbul, which is called "Kadikoy").

Three decades later, the town of Byzantium grew up opposite it. According to legend, it was founded by a certain Byzant from Megara, who was given vague advice by the Delphic oracle "to settle opposite the blind." According to Byzant, the inhabitants of Chalcedon were these blind people, since they chose the distant Asian hills for settlement, and not the cozy triangle of European land located opposite.

At first, the city was inhabited by fishermen and merchants, but the favorable geographical position led to the rapid growth of Byzantium, and soon it took a prominent place among the Greek policies.

In 196 BC. e. the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, after a three-year siege, took Byzantium and destroyed it, but soon, by his own order, the city was restored.

The city acquired its greatness when Constantine made it the capital of the Roman Empire and renamed it New Rome, Constantinople.

How was the place for the new capital determined?

Initially, the eyes of the emperor were turned to the shores of the Aegean Sea - to where Troy was located in ancient times. It was there that Constantine initially wanted to build a new capital. Troy in the history of Rome plays a special, unique role. But Troy had long since disappeared by that time, only ruins remained, and these ruins were located in a rather inconvenient place for political maneuvering.

According to legend, Emperor Constantine had a prophetic dream. Allegedly, it was in a dream that the emperor saw that the city should be founded right here, opposite the ancient and by that time already lying in ruins due to the earthquake, the capital of Nicomedia, and it was on the European coast of the Bosphorus.

The location for the city is in many ways very convenient. On the one hand, it is located at a strategically key point in the entire Eurasian system of trade routes, because it connects both land routes from Asia to Europe and the sea route from the Black Sea region to the Mediterranean. It is very well protected, this triangle, on which ancient Byzantium was located, after which, in fact, we call the Byzantine Empire.

Rise of Constantinople

At the direction of Constantine, the best sculptures, valuable manuscripts, church utensils, and the relics of saints were taken from Rome, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch and other cities of the empire to Constantinople.
Constantine's work was continued by his descendants. Marble and copper columns, which previously adorned Roman temples and squares, were delivered to Constantinople.

The legend says that 60 tons of gold were spent on the construction of the city. Subsequently, the city grew and developed so rapidly that already half a century later, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius, new city walls were erected, which have survived to this day, and included seven hills - the same number as in Rome.

During the reign of Emperor Justinian in 527-565, the largest Nika uprising broke out in the city. The city was substantially destroyed, the Hagia Sophia burned down.

After the brutal suppression of the rebellion, Justinian rebuilds the capital, attracting the best architects of his time. For Constantinople comes the "golden age". New buildings, temples and palaces are being built, the central streets of the new city are decorated with colonnades. A special place is occupied by the construction of the Hagia Sophia, which became the largest church in the Christian world and remained so for more than a thousand years - until the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome.

The city grows rapidly and becomes at first the business center of the then world, and soon the largest city in the world.

In Rus', the city was given its name - Tsargrad - the city where the king lives. And the very word "king" may have come from the name of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. The word "Caesar" became part of the title of Roman emperors.

The riches of the city aroused the envy of the peoples surrounding it. In the period from 666 to 950, the city was subjected to repeated sieges by the Arabs.

Capital symbols

Constantinople is a city of secret meanings. Local guides will definitely show you the two main attractions of the ancient capital of Byzantium - Hagia Sophia and the Golden Gate. But not everyone will explain their secret meaning. Meanwhile, these buildings appeared in Constantinople by no means by chance.

The Cathedral of St. Sophia and the Golden Gate vividly embodied medieval ideas about the wandering City, especially popular in the Orthodox East. It was believed that after ancient Jerusalem lost its providential role in the salvation of mankind, the sacred capital of the world moved to Constantinople. Now it was no longer the “old” Jerusalem, but the first Christian capital that personified the City of God, which was destined to stand until the end of time, and after the Last Judgment become the abode of the righteous.

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 give the Turks forever the mountainous plateaus of Anatolia.

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).

In the summer of 1261, the 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.

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.

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 death of the Byzantine Empire

At the end of May 1453, Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror took Constantinople after a siege that lasted 53 days. The last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, having stood for a prayer service in St. Sophia Cathedral, valiantly fought in the ranks of the defenders of the city and died in battle.

The capture of Constantinople meant the end of the existence of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman state and at first was called Constantine, and then was renamed Istanbul.

In Europe and Russia, the city is called Istanbul, which is a distorted form of the Turkish name.

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