Turahan Bey

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Turahan Bey , also Turakhān Beg ( Turkish Turahan Bey ; Albanian  Turhan Bej ; Greek Τουραχάν μπέης ; * in the 14th or 15th century; † 1456 ) was an Ottoman military commander and governor of Thessaly from 1423 until his death in 1456 . He took part in numerous Ottoman campaigns in the second quarter of the 15th century, fought against the Byzantine Empire and in the Battle of Varna against an army of crusaders. His repeated raids on Morea brought the Byzantine despotate into Ottoman dependency and paved the way for its conquest. At the same time, his administration of Thessaly, the establishment of the city of Tyrnavos, and the revitalization of the economy laid the foundation for Ottoman rule in the region for centuries to come.

Life

Turahan was born the son of Pasha Yiğit Bey, the conqueror of Skopje and the first Ottoman governor of Bosansko Krajište (later Sanjak Bosnia ). Little more is known about childhood and adolescence.

Turahan was first mentioned as governor of Vidin in 1413 and then in 1422 when he fought against the Byzantine governor of Lamia . During the Ottoman Interregnum he supported Prince Mustafa Çelebi against his opponents and brothers Mehmed I and Murad II. He became governor of Thessaly in 1423 and undertook his first campaign in May / June of the same year on the Peloponnese . His cavalry broke through on 21/22. May the recently rebuilt Hexamilion Wall and plundered and devastated the interior of the peninsula unhindered. Turahan attacked Byzantine cities and settlements such as Mystras , Leondari , and Anavryto . Aside from the looting, the campaign was also likely a reconnaissance mission ultimately directed against the possessions of the Republic of Venice in the region, as Venice made attempts to unite the various Christian rulers of Greece against the Ottoman advance. Soon after, the Byzantine historian Dukas reported Turahan's presence on the Black Sea coast. At around the same time he also fought in Epirus , defeating local Albanian clans and making them tributaries to the Ottoman state. In the 1430s he fought with Ali Bey and Ischak Bey against the uprising of Albanian princes led by Gjergj Arianiti and Andreas Thopia .

Despite the devastation in the Peloponnese, Turahan's campaign of 1423 was just a raid, and the Byzantine despotate of Morea was able to restore its position and gradually bring the entire peninsula back under control over the next few years. In 1431 Turahan and his troops were able to conquer the Hexamilion again, destroy it and bring Thebes under his control in 1435, thus preventing it from falling under the control of the Byzantine despot of Morea. The despotate Morea was now in constant danger of a renewed Ottoman invasion and could only maintain its independence by continuously paying tributes to Turahan.

Map of Southeast Europe (ca.1444)

In November 1443 Turahan took part in the battle of Niš against Johann Hunyadi , which ended in an Ottoman defeat. During their retreat from Niš, Turahan Bey and Kasim Pasha burned down all the villages between Niš and Sofia. Turahan persuaded Sultan Murad II to leave Sofia as well and to pursue a consistent scorched earth strategy against the Hungarian advance. Although the Hungarians were badly hit in the Battle of Zlatitsa , they were able to capture Mahmud Bey, the Sultan's son-in-law, in a subsequent action on Mount Kunovica and give the impression of an overall victorious campaign. Contemporary Ottoman sources blame the rivalry between Kasim and Turahan for the defeat at Kunovica, while some claim the Serbian despot Đurađ Branković bribed Turahan not to participate in the battle. As a result, Turahan fell out of favor and was exiled to a prison in Tokat by the Sultan .

Even so, he was soon restored to his position as he took part in Murad's campaign against Morea in 1446. Murad was reportedly discouraged by the Hexamilion's strength, but Turahan insisted on attack. With the help of artillery, the Ottomans broke through the Byzantine defenses again and devastated the Peloponnese at will. As a result, the Despotate of Morea now officially became an Ottoman vassal state. At the beginning of October 1452 Turahan and his sons Ahmed and Ömer led a large troop in the Peloponnese. Sultan Mehmed II ordered them to stay there during the winter to prevent the despots Thomas and Demetrios from giving their brother, Emperor Constantine XI. came to the rescue during the attack on Constantinople in 1453. Turahan overcame the Hexamilion again and invaded Morea, marching from Corinth via Argolis and Arcadia to Messenia . The Byzantines put up little resistance, although Turahan's son Ahmed was captured in an ambush in Dervenakia and imprisoned in Mystras.

The fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453 had a major impact on Morea. The two despots, the brothers Demetrios and Thomas, loathed each other and were unpopular among their own subjects. In the fall, an uprising broke out against them, supported by both Albanian immigrants and local Greeks, and it spread quickly. As the sultan's vassals, the despots called on the Ottoman Empire for help, and Turahan's son Ömer arrived in December. After some military successes, he left after securing his brother's release from captivity. But the uprising did not subside and in October 1454 Turahan had to intervene himself. After conquering some fortresses, the rebellious population surrendered. Turahan advised the two Palaiologoi to end their differences and rule sensibly, and then left the peninsula. But the two brothers could not reconcile, soon quarreled again and conspired with Western powers against the Sultan. In retaliation, Mehmed II moved back into Morea in 1458 and conquered the northwestern half of the country, which became an Ottoman province under Ömer. The rest of the despotate followed in 1460.

Turahan himself was called back to Adrianople in October 1455 and probably died in August 1456. He was buried in Kırkkavak near Uzunköprü in Thrace, but his Türbe is still in the city today. His descendants, the Turahanoğlu, were wealthy landowners in Thessaly until the end of Ottoman rule in the late 19th century. With the exception of his sons, however, they were of no great importance.

legacy

Turahan Bey was one of the great semi-autonomous Ottoman "margraves" ( uc beyi ) of the Balkans in the 15th century. He was instrumental in establishing Ottoman rule in Thessaly and central Greece. Apart from his campaigns of conquest, he brought 5,000 Turkish settlers ( Yörüken and residents of Konya ) who he settled in twelve villages across the province in order to strengthen the Ottoman military control. According to Turahan's Arabic-language biography, which, according to the Scottish traveler David Urquhart, still existed in Tyrnavos in the 1830s, he was also the first to set up a Greek militia for the lawless mountain regions of central Greece, the forerunners of the later Armatolen , which in the 19th century as Rebels fought against Ottoman rule in the Arvanites' freedom struggle.

Turahan also took various measures to restore order and prosperity to his province, notably the establishment (or re-establishment) of the city of Tyrnavos, which had previously been a small settlement. In order to attract and protect the Greek Orthodox population, he granted them special privileges, such as the special administrative status of Waqf of the Sherif of Mecca , tax exemptions and the ban on Ottoman troops from crossing the city. He also gave the city a mosque (destroyed after the Greek annexation of Thessaly in 1881) and a church, St. Nicholas Turahan, which has been preserved to this day. Turahan also donated many other public institutions in the province such as mosques, monasteries, madrasas, schools, caravanserais, bridges and baths. He also took care of the maintenance and promotion of the Thessalian cotton, silk and wool textile industry, so that the introduction of new dyeing techniques on the basis of yellow berries, madder and potash brine were attributed to him later . From there these coloring materials spread all over Rumelia and from there to Western Europe.

family tree

According to Franz Babinger in the Encyclopedia of Islam :

 
 
 
 Pasha Yiğit Bey
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ishak Bey
 
 
 
 
 Turahan Bey
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Isa Bey Isaković
 
 Ahmed Bey
 
 
 Ömer Bey
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hasan Bey
 
 
 Idris Bey
 

reception

In the Turkish television miniseries Fatih about the life of Mehmed II, Dağhan Külegeç plays Turahan Bey in a leading role. In the series, Turahan Bey falls in love with a daughter of the sultan.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Babinger : Turakhān Beg . In: Martijn Theodoor Houtsma: EJ Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam . Volume 8, BRILL, Leiden 1987, ISBN 90-04-09794-5 , pp. 876-878, p. 876
  2. ↑ a b c Erich Trapp, Hans-Veit Beyer, Sokrates Kaplaneres, Ioannis Leontiadis: 29165. Τουραχάνης . In: Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit . Volume 11, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7001-3003-1
  3. ^ Yaşar Yüce, Ali Sevim: Türkiye Tarihi . Volume II, AKDTYKTTK Yayınları, Istanbul 1991, pp. 92, 100
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Babinger (1987), p. 877
  5. ↑ Kenneth M. Setton: The Fifteenth Century . (= Volume 2, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) ), The American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia 1978, ISBN 0-87169-127-2 , pp. 15f., 38
  6. ^ John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest . University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor / Michigan 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , p. 535
  7. ^ Colin Imber: The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45 . Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot 2006, ISBN 978-0-7546-0144-9 , p. 6
  8. ↑ Donald M. Nicol: The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 978-0-521-43991-6 , p. 346
  9. ↑ Setton (1978), pp. 17-19
  10. ↑ Setton (1978), pp. 51f.
  11. ↑ Setton (1978), p. 36
  12. ↑ Imber (2006), p. 16f.
  13. ↑ Imber (2006), p. 51
  14. ↑ Imber (2006), p. 17
  15. ↑ Setton (1978), pp. 96f.
  16. ^ Franz Babinger: Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time . Princeton University Press, Princeton / New Jersey 1992, ISBN 0-691-09900-6 , p. 80
  17. ↑ Nicol (1993), p. 381
  18. ^ Setton (1978), p. 146
  19. ↑ Babinger (1992), p. 125
  20. ↑ Nicol (1993), p. 396
  21. ↑ Setton (1978), pp. 148f.
  22. ↑ Nicol (1993), pp. 397f.
  23. ↑ Setton (1978), pp. 196-198
  24. ↑ Babinger (1992), p. 159
  25. ↑ Babinger (1987), pp. 876-877
  26. ↑ Babinger (1987), p. 878
  27. ↑ Halil İnalcık: The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy . Variorum Reprints, London 1978, ISBN 978-0-86078-032-8 , p. 121
  28. ↑ Apostolos E. Vakalopoulos: Ιστορία του νέου ελληνισμού, Τόμος Α ′: Αρχές και διαμόρφωσή του (Έκδοση Β ′) . Emm. Sfakianakis & Sons, Thessaloniki 1974, pp. 274-276
  29. ↑ Vakalopoulos (1974), pp. 265f.
  30. ^ Arnold J. Toynbee: The Greeks and Their Heritages . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1981, ISBN 978-0-19-215256-5 , p. 213
  31. ↑ Vakalopoulos (1974), pp. 279f.
  32. ↑ Iστορική αναδρομή. City of Tyrnavos, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Vakalopoulos (1974), p. 280
  34. ↑ Vakalopoulos (1974), pp. 280f.
  35. ↑ Dağhan Külegeç, Turahan Bey Rolüyle "Fatih" te , Posta , October 7, 2013, accessed on April 15, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Turahan Bey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ottoman commander and governor
DATE OF BIRTH 14th century or 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 1456