ANKARA AND ITS PROPERTIES OF ART AND CULTURE.

HISTORY:

      Under the orders of Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the first President, in the archaeological excavations made in Ankara and its environs, the finding of works belonging to the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras revealed that Ankara was a very old settlement place. Concerning the establishment date of the city, more informative ruins are belonging to the Hittite period (4000-1200 B.C.). It has been understood that the Keep of the Citadel section of the Ankara Citadel was a settlement place in the Hittite period. After the Hittites, the Phrygians became sovereign over Ankara. According to a legend, the famous Phrygian King Midas founded Ankara. It has been determined with excavations that in the Phrygian period there had been settlements at the citadel in the surroundings of the Hacıbayram Mosque of today and in the flat areas. Gordium, the capital city of the Phrygians was at a distance of 105 km from Ankara. When the Phrygian state was toppled, the Lydian’s took over the region. Because of the “King’s Road” that passed through Gordium and passed by Ankara, the city in this period preserved its importance as a military and commercial center. In 547 B.C. the Persian King Cyrus defeated the Lydian King Croesus and added the lands of Ankara together with all of Anatolia. The Persian sovereignty continued until the defeat of the Persians during the Asia campaign of the Macedonian King Alexander the Great. In 333 B.C. Alexander the Great came from Gordium to Ankara and stayed in the city for a period of time. With his death at Babel in 323 B.C., Ankara and its environs fell into the share of Antigonus. As of 281 B.C. the Galatians made raids on the Balkan Peninsula and starting from 278 B.C. they occupied Ankara. They made the city their own headquarters and settled to the west of the citadel. Ankara’s organized history based on documents starts as of the Galatians. Ankara developed a lot in the Galatian period. There became an element of balance among the states of Galatia, Bithynia and Pergamum and they were able to remain independent. Later, with the strengthening of the Roman Empire, Ankara entered under the protection of Rome. Upon the occupation of Anatolia by the Roman Emperor Augustus, Galatia was attached to Rome (25 B.C.).
     Four years later, the region became a province of Rome. The Romans made Ankara the capital city of the region. Emperor Augustus gave permission for a temple to be constructed in the city bearing his own name. On the walls of the temple completed in A.D. 10 were copies written in Latin and Greek of the Emperor’s will in Rome. In the Roman period, the city was equipped with military and civilian structures. In the second and third centuries Ankara experienced one of the most radiant periods of her history. The Romans, just as in the other Roman cities, divided Ankara into twelve quarters. The first five quarters had formally been at the citadel and its environs. The sixth quarter was established by Augustus around the Çankırı Gate between 25 B.C.-A.D. 14. Besides the development and construction of public facilities of the city, great advances were obtained in the fields of the production of grains, the raising of sheep and goats and in the textile industry.
In the third century, as a result of the raids of the Persians and Goths, the Roman Empire lost its former strength. Most of the structures in Ankara became demolished. Famine broke out in the city. After the Roman Empire was separated in half, Byzantine sovereignty continued up until 1073 in Ankara and its surroundings.
The Keep of the Citadel ramparts of the Ankara Citadel that have lasted up until the present and the Outer Citadel ramparts that have been destroyed were constructed to a significant degree by the Byzantines. In this period, for short periods, though Ankara passed to the hands of the Sassanids (622) and the Arabs (654 and 839), the Byzantines once again established their sovereignty.

     In 1071 after the Seljuk Sultan Alparslan defeated the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, the Turks started to conquer Anatolia. Even though for the first time in 1073 Ankara was captured by the Turkish raiders, this domination was brief. In the years following 1073, Ankara changed hands a number of times among Byzantines, the Danişmens and Seljuks. Finally in 1143, it was definitely joined to the Turkish country by the Seljuk Sultan Mesut I. When Mesut died, his son Şahinşah acquired Ankara. In 1169 Sultan Kılıçarslan II put an end to the Şahinşah administration and ensured unity in Anatolia.
       The Seljuk Turks placed great importance on Ankara. The city, with its citadel from the military aspects and because of its formation on the trade route extending from the harbor cities on the Aegean to Mesopotamia and the eastern countries, aroused the interest of the Turks from an economic point of view. The Seljuk sultans repaired the keep of the citadel and outer ramparts. They added the Akkale section in the northeastern part of the keep of the citadel. Of the structures constructed in the Seljuk period the Alaaddin Mosque, the Arslanhane Mosque, the Ahi Şerafeddin Mosque, the Saraç Sinan Small Mosque and the Akköprü have lasted until the present day.
      As a result of the occupation of the Mongols and the İlhans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Ankara experienced difficult years. There were frequent changes of administration among the Seljuks, the İlhans and the İlhan Governors, the Eretnaoğuls and the Akhis. The Akhis developed mohair cloth making and leather working. They revived commerce. In 1354 in the period of one of the Ottoman Sultans, Orhan Gazi, with the attachment of Ankara to the Ottoman state by Süleyman Pasha, a new period commenced. It is stated in the Ottoman histories that the city was taken from the Akhis without a war.
      In 1402 in the Ottoman period the Ankara war was engaged in between Tamerlane and Sultan Beyazid close to Ankara. Sultan Beyazid whose nickname was Yıldırım (Lightning) was defeated in the war and imprisoned for a period of time at the Ankara Citadel. After the death of Yıldırım Beyazid and the withdrawal of Tamerlane from Anatolia, a power struggle started among Yıldırım Beyazid’s sons. In 1411, Çelebi Mehmet took Ankara and put to an end a complicated situation. In the period of Murat II, the public facilities of the city were developed. In the period of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, Ankara became a frequented place where the army gathered. In the period of Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver (sixteenth century), when the state system was being established, although Ankara became the center of the Anatolian state for a period of time, when the center of the state was transferred to Kütahya, it was transformed into a sanjak center. At the time of the Ottomans, Ankara became a well known commercial center with its mohair cloth making, hide tanning and shoe production. The Citadel preserved its importance in regard to the military. The Ankara woolen cloth, just as it was sold in İstanbul, Bursa and Aleppo, it was exported to distant places with Venice, Poland and England in the lead. The public facilities of the city continued to be developed. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century new quarters were established in Ankara. In 1140, the Karacabey mosque complex composed of a mosque, large domed tomb, fountain and double Turkish bath and in 1427-1428, the Hacıbayram Mosque was constructed. According to the Title Deed Register in 1522, around the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ankara was separated into two sections, the Citadel and the City. In the Citadel section there were five Moslem and one Christian quarter. In the City section outside the Citadel there were 81 quarters. Of these, the people in 69 quaters were Moslem and the people in 12 quarters were Christian and Jewish. In 1522, the population of the city was estimated to be 12,000-16,000. In the sixteenth century mohair cloth making and hide tanning developed even more. As a result of the developing commercial life between the fifteenth centuries, the Kurşunlu Han, the Mahmut Pasha Bazaar (for the sale of antiquities and other valuable goods), the Çengel Han, the Pilavoğlu Han, the Sulu Han, the Çukur Han, the Kıbrısoğlu Han, the Yeni Han and the Zafran Han were constructed in Ankara. Around the beginning of the seventeenth century, the number of quarters at the citadel had risen to 9, the number of quarters outside the citadel to 85 and the population of the city to 23,000-29,000.
     Ankara’s radiant years in the Ottoman period, left in its place difficult times together with the Celali rebellions as of around the beginning of the seventeenth century. To protect against the Celalis, the people were forced to construct a rampart that encircled the city (1604-1608). As of around the middle of the nineteenth century, because the English raised Angora goats in South Africa and mechanization of the textile industry, a regression was seen in the mohair cloth and angora trade. Between 1873-1875, due to bad weather conditions, a famine occured in the city. A total of 18,000 people died and a portion of the people migrated. In 1892, with the arrival of the railroad in Ankara, a slight revival came to the city. Ankara gradually transformed from a large city to a town and in 1917 there was a disastrous fire. The quarters to the northwest of the Citadel burned down.
Ankara’s destiny that was going badly changed on 27 December 1919 when Mustafa Kemal and his friends came from Sivas to Ankara. In opposition to the victorious state in World War I that had shared the lands of the Ottoman Empire after the Mudros Armistice on 30 October 1918, Mustafa Kemal organized the independence struggle started in Anatolia at the congresses he gathered in Erzurum and Sivas and by ensuring the opening of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 23 April 1920, he succeeded in laying the foundation of a new Turkish state. The Ankara of the 1920s was not an attractive place with its arid, treeless marshes that were a nest for mosquitoes. Despite this negative environment, the Turkish War of Independence was concluded with victory. The Lausanne Peace Treaty was signed on 24 July 1923. Ankara, the administrative center of the Turkish War of Independence, was the scene of active times with the families who had migrated from the provinces under occupation, with the civil servants and the military, the foreign observers and the diplomats. During these years the Turkish National Anthem was written in Ankara by poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy and was accepted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 12 March 1921. At the end of the war, the importance of the city increased even more. As a matter of fact, the capital city status of the new Turkish state that had been continuing since 23 April 1920, was accepted with a law and officially registered on 13 October 1923. A very short period after Ankara was established as the capital city, the Republic was proclaimed as well on 29 October 1923. Mustafa Kemal Pasha was chosen as the first President. Thus, the Republic of Turkey was founded in all respects.
With the founding of the Republic of Turkey, a rapid development was observed in the capital city of Ankara. In 1924 the Ankara Municipality Law was promulgated and the Ankara Municipality was established. The city attained an administration similar to Istanbul. Buildings were constructed for the state organizations. One by one the embassies took their places on the avenue extending to Çankaya. New districts and quarters appeared.
      The city, within the course of its historical development was named in various forms by the nations that were dominant in the area. These names from the oldest to the newest are: Ankyra, Ancyre, Enguriye, Engürü, Angara, Angora and Ankara.
At present, Ankara with its modern buildings, broad avenues, its parks ornamented with flowers, its infrastructure that is being renewed and its green hills, has a distinguished place among the capital cities of the world.