Lords of the Horizons

by Jason Goodwin

  1913 Edirne falls to Serbo–Bulgarian forces. Balkan League falls apart over division of spoils. Bulgaria defeated by Greece and Serbia; Turkey regains Edirne.

  1914 Turkey enters World War I on German side.

  1915 Defence of Gallipoli against Allied landing.

  1918 Armistice. CUP junta flees. Allies plan dismemberment of Turkey between Italy, France and Greece.

  1918–21 Civil war, then Greek War; Mustafa Kemal secures boundaries of a Turkish state.

  1922 Deposition and exile of last sultan.

  1923 Turkey proclaimed a republic.

  Glossary

  aga military commander, leader

  akinci mounted raiders

  armatole policeman

  asper small coin

  ayan notable, local leader, in the later empire

  baba (lit. father) holy man

  bailio Venetian ambassador to the Porte

  besa Albanian given bond, or promise of loyalty

  bektashi an order of dervishes, linked to janissary corps

  bey, beg commander/general

  beylik estate of a bey

  beylerbey (lit. lord of lords) a provincial governor

  chaush equerry

  deli mad

  derbendci people guarding a mountain pass

  dervish member of a sufibrotherhood, following a defined spiritual path

  divan (lit. a low couch) council

  dragoman interpreter

  emir chieftain, greater than bey

  fatwa judgement of a mollah, i.e. legal ruling

  firman imperial decree

  futuwwa Muslim chivalric brotherhood, cross between a guild and a masonry, with emphasis on chivalric conduct

  gazi warrior of the faith

  Haj annual pilgrimage to Mecca

  Hajji someone who has performed the pilgrimage

  hammam bath

  han inn

  harem (lit. forbidden) the private family quarters

  hass revenues of a great official

  heyduck Balkan irregular, usually in Habsburg service

  hospodar ruler of one of the principalities, Moldavia or Wallachia

  imam leader of prayer

  ixarette signed language, which became court language

  janissary (lit. new troop) the empire’s crack infantry corps

  kadi Muslim judge

  kafes the so-called Cage, or group of harem apartments, reserved for heirs to the sultancy

  kanun imperial law

  kapudan pasha (lit. captain pasha) Admiral

  kisilbas (lit. red-head) Shi’ite heretics known by their distinctive red head-dress khan lord

  kapikulu, pl. kapikullari slave(s) of the Porte

  kulliye complex of educational and charitable institutions surrounding a mosque

  klepht Balkan bandit

  Mahdi (lit. the rightly guided one) supposed to rule before the end of the world

  Mameluke (lit. slaves) rulers of Egypt

  meydan, maidan, atmaidan rough piece of open ground

  millet religious community

  mufti Islamic juror

  mullah Islamic dignity, scholar

  nargile pipe

  nedrese Islamic college, usually attached to a mosque

  otak tent

  pasha high civic or military official

  pashalik territory under a provincial pasha’s rule

  reaya (lit. flock) the non-government subjects of the sultan

  sekban military auxiliaries

  sancakbey commander of a sancak, or district

  saray palace

  selamlik men’s apartments

  saraglio from saray, palace

  sipahi imperial horseman

  tanzimat restructuring

  tekke dervish lodge or monastery

  timar military stipend

  timariot horseman holding a timar

  tughra imperial cognomen, an elaborate signature

  ulema doctors of religious law, the sharia

  uskok Dalmatian bandit

  vakif charitable endowment

  valide Sultan Queen Mother

  vizier royal minister

  voivode Hungarian governor

  Bibliography

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7

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  Acknowledgements

  The illustrations on pages 58, 104, 108, 127, 191 and 276 are reproduced from Thomas Hope (1769–1831): Pictures From Eighteenth-Century Greece (Athens, 1985), with kind permission of the Benkai Museum and the British Council.

  I would like to thank Norman Stone, the K. Blundell Trust, Jenny Uglow and Alastair Langlands, whose dining-room table was sequestered by the Ottomans for a year, like Toulon in 1543.