Tag: history

HP Features
Turkey adopts European time and calendar, 26 December 1925

The founders of the Republic of Turkey took steps to make people’s lives easier and to modernise the country in line with Western standards. One of the measures was to adopt European time and calendar. There were a few different systems used to decide the time in the Ottoman Empire: under the Alaturka system, sunset […]

Books
A talk on ‘Martial Law in the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey’

Turkey is no stranger to martial law. Its roots are steeped in the late Ottoman Empire, when İdare-i örfiyye first appeared as a neologism in the 1876 Ottoman constitution. While the term referred to the sultan’s authority in the Ottoman-Islamic legal tradition, its definition was inspired from the French “état de siège” in the 19th century. […]

Culture
Lecture: Why did Piri Reis call Christopher Columbus a ‘munajjim’?

  For history lovers, and in particular those interesting in naval exploration, the latest in Yunus Emre Institute’s Arts and Culture lecture series is a fascinating look at two of the early modern world’s leading navigators. In his Book of Navigation (Kitāb-ı Baḥriye), Piri Reis, the famous sixteenth-century Ottoman cartographer and naval captain, introduced Christopher […]

News - Features
We Remember: the anniversary of Atatürk’s abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate

  Today, 93 years ago on 3 March 1924, under the leadership of President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s Grand National Assembly passed three bills that would change the country irreversibly. Of these, the first abolished the Ministry of Religious Law and Pious Foundations, the second established a single education system, and the third—the most revolutionary […]

Film
Tamer Hassan’s new film Bitter Harvest in UK cinemas from today

  British actor Tamer Hassan stars alongside Terence Stamp, Barry Pepper, Samantha Barks and Max Irons in a new period drama about one of the most overlooked tragedies of the 20th century. Bitter Harvest is a powerful story of love, honour, rebellion and survival as seen through the eyes of two young lovers caught in […]

News - Features
We remember: Turkey’s accession to NATO 65 years ago today

Feeling the chill of the Cold War, Turkey signed the Washington Treaty and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, commonly referred to as NATO, on 18th Feb. 1952 – exactly 65 years ago. Twelve founding members, among them the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Belgium, Iceland, France, and Italy, had originally signed the Washington or […]