Turkey In Photos - Bursa

With the decline of Byzantium, Bursa’s location near Istanbul drew the interest of new conquerors, including the Arab armies (circa 700 AD) and the Seljuk Turks.  The Seljuks, having conquered much of Anatolia by 1075, took Bursa with ease that same year and planted the seeds of the great Ottoman Empire to come.

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With the arrival of the First Crusade in 1097, Bursa reverted to Christian hands, though it was to be conquered and reconquered by both sides for the next hundred years.  When the rapacious armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked Istanbul in 1204, the Byzantine emperor fled to Iznik and set up his capital there.  He succeeded in controlling the hinterland of Iznik, including Bursa, until moving back to Istanbul in 1261.

Ever since the Turkish migration into Anatolia during the 11th and 12th centuries, small principalities had risen here and there around Turkish military leaders.  One such prince was Ertugrul Gazi (died in 1281) who formed a small state near Bursa. Succeeded by his son Osman Gazi (1281-1326), the small state grew to a nascent empire and took Osman’s name (Osmanli, ‘Ottoman’).  Bursa was laid siege by Osman’s forces in 1317, and was finally starved into submission on 6 April, 1326.  It immediately became the Ottoman capital.

After Osman had expanded and enriched his principality, he was succeeded by Orhan Gazi (1326-1361) who, from his base at Bursa, expanded the empire to include everything from Ankara in Central Anatolia to Thrace in Europe. The Byzantine capital at Istanbul was thus surrounded and the Byzantine Empire had only about a century to live.  Orhan took the title of Sultan (lord), struck the first Ottoman coinage, and near the end of his reign was able to dictate to the Byzantine emperors. One of them, John VI Cantacuzene, was Orhan’s close ally and later even his father-in-law (Orhan married the Princess Theodora).

Even though the Ottoman capital would be moved to Edirne (Adrianople) in 1402, Bursa remained an important, even revered, Ottoman city throughout the long history of the empire. Both Osman and Orhan were buried in Bursa, and their tombs are still proud and important monuments in Turkish history.

With the founding of the Turkish Republic, Bursa’s industrial development began. What really brought the boom was the automobile assembly plants, set up in the 1960s and 1970s. Large factories here assemble Renaults and Fiats.

An important place to visit in Bursa, completely Seljuk in style, the Ulu (Great) Mosque is a big rectangular building with immense portals and a forest of supporting columns inside. The roof is a mass of twenty small domes.  Notice the fine work in the mimber (pulpit) and the preacher’s chair; also the calligraphy on the walls.

The Bedesten was originally built in the late 1300s by Yildirim Beyazit but the earthquake of 1855 brought it down. The reconstructed Bedesten retains the look and feel of the original, though it is obviously much tidier.  Most of the shoppers of the Bedesten are local people.