1 00:00:06,520 --> 00:00:10,880 These are the gardens of the Topkapi Palace of Istanbul, 2 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:16,680 the imperial residence of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. 3 00:00:16,680 --> 00:00:20,360 Just as Henry VIII was dazzling England, 4 00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:24,320 two boys might have been seen walking here amongst the pavilions 5 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:26,040 and the courtyards. 6 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:31,360 The two boys were Prince Suleiman, the son and heir 7 00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:36,480 of the reigning Sultan, and Ibrahim, his favourite companion, 8 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:38,880 his slave, a Christian boy 9 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:41,560 bought in the slave markets of Europe converted 10 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,880 to Islam and brought here to be trained in the palace school. 11 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:52,000 Ibrahim had been given to Suleiman, 12 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,320 and they became best friends, inseparable allies. It was 13 00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:00,440 a friendship that would ultimately end in betrayal and murder. 14 00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:05,960 Ibrahim was the bumptious and confident one. 15 00:01:05,960 --> 00:01:10,800 His master more enigmatic and reticent. 16 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:15,040 These two boys would one day rule a global empire 17 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:18,000 from this, their imperial capital, 18 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,120 but whatever the name of this city, and it had variously been Byzantium, 19 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:25,840 Constantinople and now Istanbul, 20 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:30,920 this place was always the essence of its power. 21 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,960 Once, it had been the site of the palace of the Roman Caesars, 22 00:01:34,960 --> 00:01:39,040 and now, it was the seat of the Ottoman emperors 23 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:42,840 and from here, they ruled the greatest empire on Earth. 24 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:49,120 I come here as historian 25 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:53,640 and traveller, to tell the story of how this city rose to become 26 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:58,680 the cosmopolitan world capital of a vast empire that stretched 27 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:05,360 from Iraq to the Balkans, and also a sacred epicentre of Islam. 28 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:10,840 It's always been a city built and made to rule the world. 29 00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:16,760 I'm fascinated by its secrets, the world under its streets, 30 00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:21,760 the hidden councils of power, the dark recesses of the imperial 31 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:26,680 palaces, the intrigues behind the grilles of the Harem. 32 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,480 In this last film, we will travel from the fearsome 33 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:33,360 brilliance of Sultan Selim the Grim 34 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:38,560 and the rule of the female Sultanas, all the way up to the 35 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:43,080 First World War and finally, the rise of a new Turkey under 36 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:49,640 the command of a visionary secular leader, the extraordinary Ataturk. 37 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,200 When the Ottoman conquerors poured through the walls of this 38 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:15,680 city in 1453, the first thing they did was convert the ancient 39 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:21,120 church of St Sophia into a mosque. Constantinople, 40 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:26,600 in ancient times Byzantium, was then rebuilt and repopulated 41 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:30,760 and they called it Istanbul. 42 00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:34,600 The Ottomans had a vision of the city as world capital, 43 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:38,160 with all other faiths, Christians and Jews tolerated, 44 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:41,960 providing they recognised the supremacy of Islam 45 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,000 and the Ottoman Sultan. 46 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:47,520 Strangely, the Ottomans had conquered 47 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:52,400 south-eastern Europe before they conquered Asia. At the start 48 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:58,080 of the 16th century, the Ottoman sultans ruled most of the Balkans. 49 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:01,000 Alongside their own Turkish horsemen, 50 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,080 their armies and their administrators, the viziers, 51 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:08,080 were mainly made up of Christian converts, forcibly taken 52 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:13,440 as a tax from families in today's Serbia, Greece, and Bosnia. 53 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:17,920 It was very much a European empire. 54 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:22,600 But all that was to change because of just one man. 55 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:32,160 This is the tomb of Selim the Grim. 56 00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:37,320 He was probably the greatest warrior emperor of the Ottoman dynasty. 57 00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:41,160 As those boys walked in the Topkapi gardens, the Prince's 58 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:45,120 father was conquering a new empire. 59 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:50,680 Selim was a terrifying and ferocious warrior Sultan. He was also 60 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:55,320 talented, highly educated, an accomplished poet, trained 61 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:56,400 and raised in the vicious snake pit of the Ottoman court. 62 00:04:56,640 --> 00:05:00,360 and raised in the vicious snake pit of the Ottoman court. 63 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,680 Selim didn't spend much time in Istanbul, he was always at war. 64 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:06,040 He spent most of his eight-and-a-half-year reign 65 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:11,440 in the saddle. First he defeated the Shiite Shahs of Iran 66 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:15,360 and then he destroyed the entire Mamluk Empire, 67 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:19,280 conquering all of the Middle East, including the holy cities of Mecca, 68 00:05:19,280 --> 00:05:21,880 Medina and Jerusalem and henceforward, 69 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:25,840 he proudly called himself Guardian of the Holy Places. 70 00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:33,320 But there was more. Selim was now the proud possessor 71 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:36,160 of the most important holy relics of Islam, 72 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:40,000 the swords of the Prophet Mohammed. 73 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:47,600 And these cases, containing his mantle and his sacred banner. 74 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:51,880 These were the treasures he brought back to the Topkapi Palace. 75 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:55,320 The palace of the Ottoman emperors 76 00:05:55,320 --> 00:06:00,480 was situated on a high peninsula guarding the Bosphorus, 77 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:06,040 the narrow straits dividing Europe from Asia. This city commanded 78 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:11,120 the strategic crossroads between east and west, the Mediterranean 79 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:15,840 and Black Seas, and now it was the capital of the Muslim world. 80 00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:22,320 When Selim the Grim died, it was here that his son Prince Suleiman 81 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:27,160 came to take the reins of power. Topkapi was like no other 82 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:32,440 palace on Earth. Its many pavilions are arranged more like the 83 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:38,560 campaign tents of a monarch on the march. It was a place of intrigue 84 00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:41,320 and shadows, where business was conducted 85 00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:44,960 in almost complete silence. 86 00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:49,040 I was just looking at a portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent. 87 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:53,600 Looking at the face of this exceptional man. 88 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:57,720 He was very thin-faced. He was just 25 years old, 89 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:02,800 haughty, majestic, enigmatic. 90 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:03,120 Always totally mysterious. 91 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:05,040 Always totally mysterious. 92 00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:08,480 He was capable of running wars, 93 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:12,040 of commanding complex architectural projects, 94 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:15,720 of thinking about ideology of religion, 95 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:19,840 but he also was deeply paranoid and suspicious. 96 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:23,680 This was a man of great friendship and loyalty, 97 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:27,840 but he was also capable of the darkest vengeance 98 00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:30,000 on family and friends. 99 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,240 This is the Divan, the Cabinet chamber of the empire. 100 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:41,000 Suleiman soon made his friend Ibrahim his Grand Vizier 101 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:42,760 or Prime Minister. 102 00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:44,960 But while Ibrahim sat with his ministers, 103 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:49,760 Suleiman listened to their plans unseen from behind a grille he'd had 104 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:53,920 installed halfway up the wall. 105 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:57,960 The sultans often executed their grand viziers 106 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:01,120 and even Ibrahim had begged his master 107 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,000 not to raise him too high. 108 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:10,480 Suleiman didn't see himself just as a Sultan. 109 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,960 He was Caesar and Khan, Lord of the Horizon, 110 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:16,960 Emperor of the Two Seas, 111 00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:20,960 but now he had the holy cities and the holy relics, 112 00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:24,720 he added another title - that of Caliph. 113 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:29,040 The Successor and Viceroy of Mohammed on Earth. 114 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:34,360 Suleiman now set about building a city worthy of that title. 115 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,840 Up here, on the rooftops, among all these famous minarets, 116 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:44,160 and these great domes, I'm at the centre of one of the holiest cities 117 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:49,160 in the world, and I'm about to hear any minute the call to prayer, 118 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:51,880 from the muezzins in these minarets. 119 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:58,840 CALL TO PRAYER It's starting over there. 120 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:07,920 CALL TO PRAYER CONTINUES 121 00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:10,120 The sound of a holy city. 122 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:18,440 Suleiman the Magnificent built many mosques 123 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:21,360 here in the capital, but there's one that's bigger 124 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:26,080 and more stately than all the rest, one that even rivals 125 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:29,680 the church turned-mosque of Hagia Sophia. 126 00:09:29,680 --> 00:09:33,760 And it bears his name, the Suleimaniye. 127 00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:38,760 This is the masterpiece of Suleiman the Magnificent's architect, Sinan. 128 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:43,560 Together, theirs was probably the most successful partnership 129 00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:48,160 of monarch and architect in all of history. He was the 130 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:51,600 Christopher Wren of Istanbul and much, much more. 131 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:54,440 They changed the skyline of the city 132 00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:58,480 more than anyone since Justinian had built Hagia Sophia. 133 00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:02,040 The foundations alone 134 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:05,280 of this great mosque took three whole years to build. 135 00:10:06,680 --> 00:10:12,240 Inside, no expense was spared. Sinan even fitted its vast dome 136 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:17,360 with special resonators to help improve the acoustics. 137 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:20,640 THEY CHANT AND PRAY 138 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:26,480 I'm with art historian Nina Ergin to explore what Suleiman had in mind. 139 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:28,360 Suleiman had a very long reign, 140 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:33,800 46 years, and he was a very successful military leader as well, 141 00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:37,040 and with the money from his conquests, 142 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:40,520 he was able to build a mosque of this size. 143 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:42,680 Suleiman the Magnificent, 144 00:10:42,680 --> 00:10:46,080 he picked for himself the Padishah of Islam, the Emperor of Islam, 145 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:50,240 so really, the Caliph, the ruler of the entire Islamic world. 146 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:55,120 Part of his mission was to bring the law of the Ottoman countries more in 147 00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:59,600 line with the Sharia and put more emphasis on the Orthodox practice 148 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:03,360 of religion, and this is very much emphasised in this building. 149 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:05,960 For example, the inscriptions that you can see 150 00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:09,480 all over the mosque, they are almost exclusively drawn 151 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:12,840 from the Koran and they are almost exclusively verses 152 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:16,720 that emphasise how you should pray, how often you should go to pray, 153 00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:19,240 the timing of the prayer and so on. 154 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,760 But it's outside, at his mausoleum, that I discover how Suleiman really 155 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:31,720 saw himself. He was emulating the greatest king of the Bible. 156 00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:36,120 Suleiman, the name itself actually means Solomon, 157 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,120 and he styled himself as the Solomon of his age. 158 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:42,080 So for example, he had a very special connection to 159 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:46,440 Jerusalem, where the temple built by Solomon is also located and 160 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:49,360 on top of that is the Dome of the Rock. Suleiman the Magnificent 161 00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:53,400 actually renovated the Dome of the Rock and following that, he 162 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:59,320 built his own mausoleum to reflect the shape of the Dome of the Rock. 163 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:06,480 Suleiman, law-giver and conqueror, was answerable to no man. 164 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,200 And yet, within the cold haughtiness, 165 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,480 there was a surprising warmth, 166 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:17,720 and it came from the most secret part of the Imperial Palace. 167 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:22,040 This gate led to the harem, 168 00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:25,720 and a special purpose of the harem was only indirectly concerned 169 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:29,960 with sex. It was really all about power and the imperial 170 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:36,440 bloodline, and forget the cliche of black-eyed B-list belly dancers, 171 00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:40,120 these rooms behind me contained the most beautiful 172 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:45,560 women in the world. This was a breeding machine for the sultans. 173 00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:50,560 The idea was that no wife or her family would ever become powerful. 174 00:12:50,560 --> 00:12:53,920 They were just there to provide multiple heirs 175 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:56,960 for the Ottoman Empire. That was all. 176 00:12:56,960 --> 00:12:59,240 At least, that was how it was MEANT to work. 177 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:08,440 These girls, the concubines of the harem, were Christians, 178 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:13,200 often captured by pirates, bought by slave traders for the markets 179 00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:17,920 of the city. Slavic blondes and redheads 180 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:20,000 were particularly prized. 181 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,920 They were converted to Islam and educated in the Sultan's harem. 182 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:30,120 One Russian girl attracted Suleiman's special attention. 183 00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:38,960 Ottoman emperors didn't traditionally marry 184 00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:43,400 their concubines, but Suleiman obviously absolutely loved Roxelana. 185 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:48,240 He renamed her Hurrem Sultan, the joy the delight of the Sultan. 186 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:51,760 They had children together, they had sons and daughters 187 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:55,520 and she became increasingly part of his life 188 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,520 and of the politics of the Ottoman court. 189 00:13:58,520 --> 00:14:02,480 Their love letters, which they exchanged and also the poems 190 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:07,120 they wrote to each other, are some of the most romantic exchanges 191 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:10,760 in all of Turkish literature and I think in world literature. 192 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,280 He called her, "The queen of my heart's realm. 193 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:18,640 "Oh, my black-haired love 194 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:21,200 "with bow-like eyebrows, 195 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:24,920 "with languorous, perfidious eyes. 196 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:27,560 "If I die, you are my killer. 197 00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:29,880 "Merciless infidel woman." 198 00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:32,120 Her letters are passionate too... 199 00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:32,680 Her letters are passionate too... 200 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:37,120 "If the seas become ink and the trees become pens 201 00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:40,200 "when could they write of our parting?" 202 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:45,960 And sometimes she writes of... "The pity and lonely separation from the 203 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:48,280 "Lord of the Worlds." 204 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:53,720 But behind the sweet words was a grimmer reality. 205 00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:57,880 Roxelana was not the only woman to bear the Sultan's children and 206 00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:00,640 she was up against a brutal convention 207 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:04,920 set up by Suleiman's great-grandfather. 208 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,720 The breeding machine of the harem worked far too well. 209 00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:12,960 Now, there were so many heirs and they all wanted power, 210 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:17,360 but Suleiman's great-grandfather Sultan Mehmed II had 211 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:21,080 instituted a ruthless solution to this problem. 212 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:24,440 They would kill all their brothers, 213 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,120 and some of their sons even, 214 00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:29,960 on their accession. And this is how they did it. 215 00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:33,160 With the bowstring. The Turks believed it was forbidden 216 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:35,800 to shed royal blood, so they had to find a way 217 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:38,640 to kill their brothers without shedding any. 218 00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:40,280 And this is how they did it... 219 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:42,120 They sent deaf-mutes, 220 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:45,240 their special bodyguards, to strangle them like this. 221 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:52,480 Roxelana would have to fight for her own children's survival 222 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:56,960 in a merciless contest. She would have to wield power herself. 223 00:15:56,960 --> 00:15:58,240 But how? 224 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:02,840 The only way was to gain the Sultan's exclusive ear. 225 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,000 To do that, she would have to get rid 226 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:08,640 of his great friend and minister Ibrahim. 227 00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:19,520 This is the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, built for him 228 00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:23,120 by Suleiman the Magnificent himself. By this time, 229 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,840 Ibrahim was the richest and most powerful man in the empire 230 00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:28,320 after the Sultan himself. 231 00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:33,160 When Suleiman was away at the war, Roxelana wrote him 232 00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:37,320 letters warning him of plotting and intrigue by Ibrahim. 233 00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:42,280 When Suleiman got back, he invited his old friend over to the 234 00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:47,840 Topkapi Palace to spend an evening together like they always used to. 235 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:51,400 Ibrahim went over there for dinner. It was to be their last 236 00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:55,600 evening together. It was to be Ibrahim's last evening, full stop. 237 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:02,000 In the morning, his strangled and bloodied body was found 238 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:03,680 outside the palace gates. 239 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,680 With Ibrahim gone, Roxelana was able to take total control. 240 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:15,720 She married her and Suleiman's daughter to 241 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:20,240 a Grand Vizier of her choice, Rustem, and together they plotted 242 00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:23,160 against Suleiman's eldest son, Mustafa. 243 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:30,160 This is Rustem's Mosque, also built by Sinan. 244 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:36,880 It's one of the most beautiful in Istanbul with the most 245 00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:43,040 stunning Iznik tile work, but behind the beauty is the story of how 246 00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:47,960 Roxelana put her own son in line for the throne. 247 00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:53,280 She played on Suleiman's suspicions of his elder son, which were perhaps 248 00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:58,280 justified. Either way, Suleiman invited his son Mustafa to his tent 249 00:17:58,280 --> 00:18:03,480 where he was strangled in front of him. Roxelana had won. 250 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:10,280 She's buried in a glorious tomb next to her master 251 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:12,680 at the Suleimaniye Mosque. 252 00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:17,000 It was her son Selim II who succeeded his father. 253 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,160 He was fat, he was indolent and he was cheerful and he was 254 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,280 so fond of wine that westerners called him Selim the Drunk. 255 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:33,680 The Ottoman conquests hadn't been just on land. Their admirals, 256 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:38,120 like the famous Barbarossa, had ensured that this city dominated 257 00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:43,440 the entire Mediterranean, and by Suleiman's time, 258 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:48,160 Istanbul had entered a golden age as trading entrepot. 259 00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:51,160 There were spices and perfumes 260 00:18:51,160 --> 00:18:55,880 from Egypt, meat from Anatolia and the Balkans, butter and salt from 261 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,520 the Crimea. Silks from the Far East. 262 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:02,960 Fish from the Black Sea. Istanbul was 263 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:07,400 an orderly and peaceful place, due as one visitor noted, 264 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,920 to the salutary vigour of frequent acts of execution. 265 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:19,160 But one minority of traders had a special reason to feel grateful. 266 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:25,320 I've come to the old Jewish quarter of Haskoy. 267 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:31,000 These days, there's only a few Jews left in Istanbul, 268 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,680 but they once were a powerful community. 269 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:38,000 THEY SPEAK LADINO Hola! 270 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,680 Straightaway, you hear something. 271 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:44,960 A language that gives you a clue about how they got here. 272 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:47,600 THEY SPEAK LADINO 273 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:49,040 Gracias. 274 00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,560 I didn't realise they were still speaking this special Jewish 275 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:56,560 dialect of Spanish. It's amazing to find out that they still are. 276 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:59,560 MAN SPEAKS LADINO 277 00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:00,800 Gracias. 278 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,840 Wow, what a lovely synagogue, 279 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,400 and I'm very happy to be here. 280 00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:17,440 This synagogue, founded in 1525, is one of the oldest in Istanbul. 281 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:21,840 A beautiful place, as you can see, and it tells a story here. 282 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:26,600 In 1492, the repressive and intolerant Christian rulers 283 00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:30,760 of Spain, and then followed by the whole of western Europe, 284 00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:36,440 expelled their Jews and the Ottoman emperors gave them refuge, invited 285 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:40,160 them to settle and they did so in large numbers. They made 286 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:45,560 themselves so at home here that they spoke a special language, Ladino, a 287 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:50,560 mixture of Spanish and Hebrew, with a little bit of Turkish thrown in. 288 00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:55,320 And even today, the Jews who look after this Synagogue, 289 00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,640 speak that special Ottoman Jewish language. 290 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:05,160 But I'm really here to tell the story of one remarkable man. 291 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:11,000 Joseph Nasi came here with his aunt, a regal retinue 292 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:15,840 and an international banking fortune that he leant to his new sovereign. 293 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:22,880 Joseph Nasi became companion, advisor and best friend 294 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:27,560 almost of the heir to the throne, Prince Selim, and when 295 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:32,560 he succeeded as Selim II, he became his chief consularie 296 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,320 almost and he prospered enormously. 297 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:40,080 Joseph was enriched by monopolies granted to him, 298 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:44,160 especially in wine, which he enjoyed drinking with the Sultan. 299 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:45,720 He was so powerful, 300 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,440 that Europeans who called the Sultan "The Great Turk", 301 00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,120 dubbed Joseph "The Great Jew". 302 00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:54,880 He built a palace overlooking the Bosphorus 303 00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:56,600 where he lived like a king, 304 00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:00,960 patronising artists and protecting his fellow Jews. 305 00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:07,120 This is really the most important part of any synagogue. It's the ark 306 00:22:07,120 --> 00:22:14,400 and it's where the scrolls of the law, the Tora are kept and 307 00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:17,200 it's always a very exciting moment and a rather lovely moment for a 308 00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:20,080 Jewish person to look at these, so I'm going to open it. 309 00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:23,720 I've got the golden key here. So let's see. 310 00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:27,560 Open the doors... 311 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:32,000 ..and... 312 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:37,160 ..draw aside the curtain and there they are. 313 00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:38,960 Very beautiful, aren't they? 314 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:46,200 Selim made Joseph the Duke of Naxos, an island in the Aegean, 315 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,480 where ironically, this Jewish prince found himself 316 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:51,720 ruling over Christians. 317 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:54,440 It just tells you something about this extraordinary 318 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:58,560 time in Ottoman history and the history of Istanbul, when this 319 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:03,880 great Jewish figure could actually be best friends and confidant with 320 00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:10,000 the Caliph of Islam and the Islamic Emperor of the greatest Muslim 321 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,160 empire in the world. 322 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,200 It wasn't just the Jews that prospered. The Christian 323 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:23,480 Greeks that had been here since before the Ottoman conquest thrived. 324 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,440 The Sultan appointed Greek princes to rule his Christian 325 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:29,440 provinces in today's Romania. 326 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,160 But the Armenians were the Christians 327 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,280 who really blossomed in Istanbul. 328 00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,520 They too had their own quarter of the city. 329 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,600 All of them swore loyalty to the Emperor. 330 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,240 They were the Sultan's Christian subjects. 331 00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:48,960 Any threats that came to the city 332 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,280 came not from them, but from the instability of 333 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:57,920 its Ottoman rulers. As their empire got bigger, the sultans spent less 334 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,160 time in the saddle and more time enjoying 335 00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,040 the pleasures of the palace. 336 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:09,360 Selim II died after falling over drunk in the harem. If his vice 337 00:24:09,360 --> 00:24:12,320 was alcohol, that of his successor was lust. 338 00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:17,320 Murad III fathered 102 children, 339 00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,480 which required a massive culling of princes 340 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:25,560 when his son Mehmed III succeeded him in 1597. 341 00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:27,520 The day after his accession, 342 00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:31,400 the policy of fratricide reached its brutal 343 00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,160 and heart-rending climax. 344 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:38,040 This place bears witness to the tragedy 345 00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:43,920 of that day where 19 brothers were killed, some as young as five. 346 00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:52,640 Their tombs are here alongside their father's at Hagia Sophia. 347 00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,800 One of the little ones asked if he could 348 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:02,920 finish his roasted chestnuts before he was strangled. 349 00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,400 Even the hardened courtiers of the Topkapi wept 350 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,320 as they saw the procession 351 00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:16,520 of 19 tiny coffins wend its way from the palace to rest right here. 352 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,520 This was fratricide gone mad, and even public opinion was outraged, 353 00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:27,800 so the brothers of future sultans 354 00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:31,080 were kept in luxurious rooms in Topkapi, 355 00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,880 known ironically as the cage, 356 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,480 where they spent the rest of their lives in isolated splendour. 357 00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:48,240 In 1616, a new showpiece of Ottoman power arose in the city, 358 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,520 a landmark that still defines the skyline of Istanbul. 359 00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,680 The Blue Mosque had an unprecedented six minarets, 360 00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,800 but its building tells us much about the state 361 00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:07,840 of the empire outside and the positions of the sultans here. 362 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,840 There's something a little gaudy, perhaps a little kitsch, 363 00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:23,920 certainly very Baroque about this place. It's got these vast, 364 00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:28,480 elephant-leg columns and above, a cascade of multiple domes. 365 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,000 It wasn't built like the other mosques on the trophies 366 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,920 of victory over the Christians. 367 00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,520 This one is really a statement of vanity of the Sultan 368 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,240 Ahmed I, but I like it. I like it a lot. 369 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,240 Ahmed I was a pious Sultan, but he didn't live long enough 370 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,000 to enjoy the delights of his foundation. 371 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:56,120 He died aged 27, having half bankrupted the empire to build it. 372 00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,160 Sultan Ahmed built the Blue Mosque, 373 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,440 but the most interesting thing about him is the intelligent 374 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:09,000 and beautiful Greek woman who became the love of his life - Kosem. 375 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,320 She and Ahmed are both buried over there. She became the most 376 00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:18,140 powerful woman in all of Istanbul's history. She was the wife 377 00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:22,160 and mother, the ruler and the killer of sultans. 378 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:29,160 Ahmed's immediate successors weren't Kosem's sons, 379 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,760 but she watched and waited as Ahmed's brother Mustafa went insane 380 00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,120 and was dethroned by the palace eunuchs. 381 00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:42,560 His son Osman suffered an even worse fate when he dared to cross 382 00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,440 his elite troops, the Janissaries. 383 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,440 The Janissaries had been mainly Slavic boys, 384 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:55,000 given to the Sultan as a tax on his Christian subjects. 385 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,320 They were converted to Islam, and trained into the best 386 00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,360 troops in Europe. 387 00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:06,160 But now, they had become a bloated Praetorian Guard, hereditary 388 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,480 and over-mighty with the power to dominate the sultans themselves. 389 00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:18,160 The boy Sultan Osman was imprisoned in the Castle of the Seven Towers. 390 00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,160 When they came to kill him, he resisted violently 391 00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:25,520 until he was stopped by Pahlavan the Oil Wrestler, who killed him 392 00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:27,880 by constriction of his testicles. 393 00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:31,720 Imagine the agony. 394 00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:39,520 Whether Kosem was directly involved or not, we don't know. 395 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:43,080 But it was now that Kosem helped raise her own young son 396 00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:44,800 to the throne. 397 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,320 Murad IV was an Ottoman cross between Julius Caesar 398 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,520 and Caligula, one of the most victorious sultans, but also 399 00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:58,760 the most blood-spattered. He was an enormous giant of a man who could 400 00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,280 lift up two of his courtiers in each arm above his head. 401 00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:06,000 He led victorious campaigns that retook Armenia 402 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,600 and Baghdad, and when he returned to Topkapi, 403 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,240 he did so in a Roman-style triumph wearing a lion skin. 404 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:18,760 He celebrated his victories 405 00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:23,760 by building the majestic Baghdad Pavilion at Topkapi Palace, 406 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,960 but this victorious and meteoric showman had a dark side. 407 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:34,680 Obsessed with re-imposing political authority and religious conformity, 408 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,600 he presided over the executions of as many as 20,000 people. 409 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,760 Now, he would leave the palace at night and prowl the streets. 410 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,560 He was both a sadist and increasingly an alcoholic. 411 00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,840 When he heard some women partying down by the river, he had them 412 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:54,960 all drowned in the water. 413 00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,520 When his singer at court sang a Persian song, 414 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,800 he chopped off his head. 415 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,160 At night, incognito and drinking heavily, 416 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,400 he would patrol the town with a group of friends wearing 417 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:09,880 a huge broadsword. 418 00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,360 He would burst into cafes and private houses 419 00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,040 and shops and any rules that were broken, 420 00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,320 he would draw his sword and personally chop 421 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:24,320 the heads off anyone who crossed him. He was becoming a monster. 422 00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:30,880 While Murad killed, Kosem would patrol the same streets tending 423 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,960 to the orphaned and the dispossessed. 424 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,720 The terror only ended in 1640 425 00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,160 when Murad IV died at the age of 29, 426 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,360 the last of the conquering sultans. 427 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:51,120 Kosem would rule in place of her last son, Ibrahim, who was insane. 428 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:52,840 But, mercifully for the city, 429 00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,760 he was confined to an existence within the palace walls. 430 00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,880 Ibrahim the Mad built this little pavilion to take his breakfast, 431 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,120 but actually his mind was very rarely on food. 432 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,320 He was a demented, fetishistic, 433 00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:14,320 erotomaniac priapist, who was obsessed with three fetishes, 434 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:21,560 amber scent, furs and gigantic women. He scoured the entire empire 435 00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,760 for larger and larger women. Such a woman was found, 436 00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:29,160 and this Armenian courtesan was brought to Istanbul 437 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,240 where he named her Sugar Cube and made her his absolute favourite. 438 00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,680 But he was becoming more and more demented. 439 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,960 He would find women walking here in the gardens at Topkapi 440 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,040 and ravish them in front of all his courtiers. 441 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,440 Soon, this was too much even for the eunuchs of the harem 442 00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:51,600 and his courtiers and they, along with the mufti, the religious leader 443 00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:56,600 of Istanbul, decided that Ibrahim the Mad had to go. 444 00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:58,840 His mother agreed. 445 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,960 While Ibrahim was being led away for strangulation, 446 00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:06,280 Kosem was already presenting her seven-year-old grandson to 447 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,080 the viziers. Here he is, she said. See what you can do with him. 448 00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:16,000 Kosem was the real ruler, giving orders to ministers from behind the 449 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,360 gilded grille in the Divan. 450 00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,440 Like the sultans before her, Kosem also built 451 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,880 charitable works on a grand scale. 452 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,480 Right in the heart of the city, 453 00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,560 there's a huge galleried courtyard, complete with its own mosque. 454 00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,480 One of the delights about researching 455 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,760 the history of a place like Istanbul 456 00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,320 is finding this sort of neglected jewel. 457 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,320 This was once a caravanserai to receive goods 458 00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,440 and camel trains from the east, from the silk route, from Persia, 459 00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,760 and you can imagine it in the 17th century thriving, bustling with 460 00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:09,280 camels and horses. There were hotels here and stables and workshops, 461 00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,440 markets. This huge place is all the work of one woman - 462 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,320 the Queen Mother, the Valide Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. 463 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:26,360 But inevitably, Kosem's turn came too in yet another palace coup. 464 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:31,000 Kosem was the Mrs Thatcher of the Ottoman Empire, which she 465 00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,200 dominated for 50 years, but when the intrigues of the harem 466 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,680 turned against her, they found her hiding in a cupboard. 467 00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,880 She fought so hard that the blood poured out of her ears and eyes. 468 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,760 And it was said she was strangled with her own hair. 469 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,200 Over the next two centuries, the fortunes of the city began to 470 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:57,200 stagnate just as the empire outside fell into torpor. 471 00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,160 But a recent discovery beneath this building 472 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,920 challenges our presumption that the Ottomans were obsolete. 473 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,880 I've come to see an extraordinary structure underneath 474 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,400 the 18th-century Nuruosmaniye Mosque. 475 00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:19,840 These pools are part of an elaborate system to limit the damage 476 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:24,760 from earthquakes, because the mosque above was built on soft ground. 477 00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:30,760 In the rainy season, the pools would overflow and the floodwater would 478 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,600 disappear down a steep channel into the Bosphorus. 479 00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,880 That way, these fantastic vaulted foundations 480 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,320 were kept dry, so that when earthquakes struck, 481 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,760 as they frequently do here, the mosque would stay up. 482 00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,040 So even in the 18th century, 483 00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,480 the middle of the 18th century, in the time 484 00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,800 when the Ottoman Empire was actually in eclipse and its power was 485 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,520 in serious decline, it's interesting that they were still capable 486 00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:05,880 of this very, very sophisticated and multipurpose piece of engineering. 487 00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,720 But away from the capital, the foundations of this great 488 00:35:11,720 --> 00:35:17,000 empire were now beginning to fracture. The problem was 489 00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,160 with the Sultan's Christian subjects. 490 00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,200 This is the Phanar District of Old Istanbul, 491 00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,280 the Greek Orthodox neighbourhood. 492 00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,080 And it's a vanished world now. You can see 493 00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:40,320 the mansions ruined of old Phanariot Greek merchant families. 494 00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,160 They were the fixers, the middlemen, they were wealthy 495 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:47,200 and their princes were potentates of Ottoman society, 496 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,880 descended from Byzantine emperors. But in 1821, something 497 00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:58,320 happened that broke for ever 400 years of tolerance and co-existence. 498 00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:02,240 The Greeks of mainland Greece rebelled against the Sultan. 499 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:13,200 The consequences for the Greek population of Istanbul were dire. 500 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,400 Their patriarch, Gregory V, the head of the Orthodox Church, 501 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:19,960 somehow became implicated in the rebellion. 502 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,520 The Sultan decided to make an example of him. 503 00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:31,320 On Easter Sunday 1821, the holiest day of the Greek Orthodox calendar, 504 00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:35,080 the Sultanic guards burst into this church. 505 00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,440 They rushed down the centre, grabbed the patriarch in front of his 506 00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:43,080 packed congregation, dragged him out and hanged him from a gibbet right 507 00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:47,160 on the gate of his own church. It took him hours to die. 508 00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,200 Elsewhere in the city, three archbishops were hanged 509 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,600 and any Greeks found on the streets were 510 00:36:55,600 --> 00:37:00,440 killed on the spot. Peace was soon restored in the capital, but the 511 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,520 centuries-old tradition of tolerance in the city had been broken. 512 00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:13,440 The Sultan who'd given the order was this man. 513 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:14,560 Mahmud II. 514 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,080 He believed that if he was to maintain power abroad, 515 00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,880 he would first have to assert himself in his capital. 516 00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:28,440 And that meant getting rid of his bodyguard, the Janissaries. 517 00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:32,040 They were out of control and becoming a plague on Istanbul. 518 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,200 The Janissaries had once been the Sultan's crack troops, 519 00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:45,600 but now they were incompetent, corrupt and technically obsolete. 520 00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,920 They were much more interested in trading in their little shops 521 00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,560 and making and unmaking sultans. 522 00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,480 And intriguingly, in a city of wooden buildings, 523 00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,480 they were the fire brigade. 524 00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:02,760 When fire broke out, as it frequently did in Istanbul, 525 00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,520 the Janissaries would pull down the houses 526 00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:11,000 in the path of the fire to stop it spreading. But more often than not, 527 00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:17,160 the contents would be looted by them and the owners left destitute. 528 00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:19,960 The Janissaries were hated by everyone. 529 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,320 They were a law unto themselves. 530 00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,080 Mahmud too had good reason 531 00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,760 to hate his own troops. The Janissaries had deposed 532 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:34,760 and murdered his own cousin Selim III in 1808 and he'd 533 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:39,320 only escaped by running across the rooftops of the Topkapi Palace. 534 00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,040 Now as Sultan, 535 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,160 Mahmud was determined to destroy the Janissaries 536 00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:51,040 and to do that, he would deploy one of the holiest relics in all Islam. 537 00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,040 On the 11th June 1826, the Sultan began to drill 538 00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,320 some of his soldiers in European fashion... 539 00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,480 ..wearing modern uniforms, 540 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,600 knowing the Janissaries would resent this 541 00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:13,480 new challenge to their age-old power. 542 00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,080 The Janissaries took the bait, they rebelled 543 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,680 and ran amok in the streets, hoping 544 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,920 to bully the Sultan as they always had before. But this time, 545 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:24,480 the Sultan was ready. 546 00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,200 He fetched the Holy Banner of the Prophet 547 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:33,080 from its box in the Topkapi Treasury and gave it to his Grand Vizier 548 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:37,920 to take to the Blue Mosque, saying either the Janissaries will 549 00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:43,200 all be murdered or cats will walk over the ruins of Constantinople. 550 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,640 The Holy Banner of the Prophet Mohammed 551 00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:49,480 was unfurled from this pulpit 552 00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:53,360 and the message went out to all true Muslims in the city, 553 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,880 come here and support your Caliph. 554 00:39:57,240 --> 00:39:59,800 But would the people come? 555 00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,320 And would the Sultan's other soldiers stay loyal? 556 00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,000 But come they did. 557 00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,320 Thousands of people converged on this mosque, bearing swords 558 00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:18,720 and pitchforks and guns, to support their Sultan against the hated 559 00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:22,760 Janissaries. This became military headquarters for this holy 560 00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:28,040 enterprise and at last, the Blue Mosque covered itself in holy glory. 561 00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,520 Outnumbered by the people of the city, the Janissaries retreated 562 00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,840 to their barracks. 563 00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,320 It was a fatal mistake, 564 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,280 because the Grand Vizier had the loyalty 565 00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,960 of the Sultan's artillery regiment. 566 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:50,000 He brought up cannon and started to bombard the place. 567 00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,120 It caught fire and, in a sort of sweet infernal irony, 568 00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,520 the Janissaries, the firefighters of Istanbul, 569 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,120 were consumed in their thousands 570 00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:04,320 in this vast and terrible conflagration. 571 00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:15,080 The Janissaries who escaped were butchered by the people of Istanbul. 572 00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,600 When they hid in the bathhouses of the city, they were dragged out 573 00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,960 for a month afterwards and torn to pieces, 574 00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,520 their bodies left for the dogs. 575 00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:34,840 There ended, after hundreds of years, the power of the Janissaries. 576 00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,880 The massacre was styled the Auspicious Event. 577 00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,320 Now, the sultans could turn their backs 578 00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:48,320 on the past and start to modernise. 579 00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,720 And it was clear what their model would be. 580 00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:00,320 Their inspiration 581 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,040 would be the imperial dynasties of the West. 582 00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:06,640 France, Austria, Britain. 583 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,480 And here it is, the new face of Empire. 584 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,640 This is the brand-new Dolmebache Palace, 585 00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,320 built in the mid-19th century. 586 00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:24,880 It's grand, it's gaudy, it's kitsch and it's bling. 587 00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,040 It's built to impress and it's really declaring 588 00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,560 that the Ottoman sultans are modern 589 00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:37,760 European monarchs in the grand age of Victorian empires. 590 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,960 Everything in here is the very best 591 00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,080 that Europe can offer. The chandeliers are 592 00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:49,200 from Britain, the gilded furniture is French. 593 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,480 The ceramics are Italian. 594 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,840 The Sultan who built this is really saying, 595 00:42:54,840 --> 00:43:01,200 "I am still the master of a thriving international empire." 596 00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:05,680 That's what it looks like, but in fact, the reality is very different. 597 00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,680 The bear skins on the floor are from Russia, 598 00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,400 and they tell us the other side of the story. 599 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,680 This is the Sultan's reception room, and this is where, in his 600 00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:22,000 customary magnificence, he received the ambassadors of the great powers. 601 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,480 But only two of these ambassadors really mattered - 602 00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,760 the Russians and the British. 603 00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:29,680 And it was they who were encouraging him to reform his army 604 00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:33,680 and to give his minorities the sort of rights they received in the West. 605 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,920 But actually, something very different was going on here, 606 00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,640 both the Russians and the British took turns to bully 607 00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:42,880 the Sultan into doing what they wanted him to do. 608 00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:45,720 Tsar Nickolas I called the Ottoman Empire 609 00:43:45,720 --> 00:43:47,640 "The sick man of Europe". 610 00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:52,520 And actually, both powers were really only interested in carving up 611 00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:55,160 the empire when it finally died. 612 00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,360 But it was the Russians who had the greatest 613 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,160 and most ancient ambitions. 614 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:09,400 Russia had wanted the city 615 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,720 ever since 1780, when Catherine the Great had 616 00:44:12,720 --> 00:44:17,600 initiated her Greek Project, the partition of the Ottoman Empire 617 00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:22,040 with the intention of creating a new Christian Byzantium. 618 00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:27,360 She called Istanbul "Tsargrad", City of the Caesars, 619 00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:32,040 and she even named her grandson Constantine, designated future 620 00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,200 emperor of a new Byzantine Empire. 621 00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:38,200 Looking out here, you can really 622 00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:43,600 see why this little bit of water mattered so much to the Russians. 623 00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:47,960 Look at these cargo ships queuing up to get through the straits 624 00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:51,440 to export their grain from Odessa, on the north 625 00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,120 coast of the Black Sea, to the Mediterranean. 626 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:58,240 And that's why the Russian Tsars wanted to conquer Istanbul. 627 00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,720 In April 1877, Russia declared war 628 00:45:03,720 --> 00:45:06,520 and invaded the empire's Balkan provinces. 629 00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:12,120 Seven months later, they'd fought their way to the very 630 00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:14,080 gates of Istanbul. 631 00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:21,760 But on the 13th February 1878, six battleships anchored 632 00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,640 right off the coast here to take on the Russians. 633 00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,760 And this big gun tells the story of what happened next. 634 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,600 Those battleships were British battleships, 635 00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,920 and they were there with one purpose - 636 00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:42,320 to stop the advancing victorious Russians and to save Istanbul. 637 00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,680 And they succeeded. The Russians stopped in their tracks. 638 00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:51,920 Look at this nameplate here. 639 00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:57,400 It says "Vickers-Armstrong, Newcastle, 1869." 640 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,600 This was a gun given by the British to the Ottomans to help 641 00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:03,240 defend Istanbul. 642 00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,760 The guiding principle of British foreign policy throughout 643 00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:12,560 the 19th Century was to keep the Russians out of Istanbul 644 00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:16,640 and to maintain the Ottoman Empire until they decided otherwise. 645 00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,040 While the Russians and the British schemed, 646 00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:26,280 the new Sultan was enlisting help from other quarters. 647 00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,760 Help that would ultimately prove disastrous for the city. 648 00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,640 This is the Yildiz Palace. It's not really 649 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,480 a palace at all, it's actually a complex of different pavilions. 650 00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,880 And it's as weird, as eccentric, as eclectic 651 00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,480 and as sinister as the Sultan who built it, 652 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:46,520 Abdul Hamid II. 653 00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:50,600 For 30 years, he ruled the Ottoman Empire from here. 654 00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:56,920 As I'm sitting on the steps of his favourite house in his secret park, 655 00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,760 I've just been looking at the face of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. 656 00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,800 He has to be one of the strangest leaders of modern times. 657 00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:08,600 A bizarre mixture of the archaic and the modern. 658 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:14,000 Over there, he had his harem with 900 girls in it, his odalisques. 659 00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:18,040 In this house, he would go to the top floor and watch 660 00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:24,560 the Bosphorus through a telescope to monitor the comings and goings, 661 00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:26,640 and he was absolutely paranoid. 662 00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,200 He looked every day under his bed to see if there was an assassin. 663 00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:34,160 He was happiest sitting here in his park, on his island, 664 00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:35,800 watching his private zoo. 665 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:41,800 And yet, despite all these eccentricities, he was a ruthless 666 00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:47,440 politician with a singular idea of how to save the Ottoman Empire. 667 00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,640 As it lost more and more Balkan provinces, 668 00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:54,200 Abdul Hamid promoted himself as an Islamicist leader, 669 00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:58,720 as the Caliph of international Islam, by which he hoped to 670 00:47:58,720 --> 00:48:02,120 provide the glue to keep the empire together. 671 00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,800 He also was a fanatical moderniser. He built railways, 672 00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,120 and telegraphs and a modern army, 673 00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:16,000 and to do this, he had one backer and partner. 674 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,640 Kaiser Wilhelm II, of Germany, who visited him 675 00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:26,000 here at Yildiz twice and, as you can see, he built German buildings. 676 00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,040 The Kaiser would have felt right at home here. 677 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,320 But Abdul Hamid, ageing and isolated, 678 00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:39,640 was overthrown in 1909 by the Young Turks, idealistic army officers 679 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:43,080 who set up a parliamentary government. 680 00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,880 But in 1913, power was seized by one of them, 681 00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:50,080 Enver Pasha, a reckless 682 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:54,600 and flamboyant young general, who believed only harsh nationalism 683 00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,600 and victorious war could save the empire. 684 00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:03,200 On the 9th November 1914, backed by Germany, 685 00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:07,880 Enver declared war against Britain, France and Russia. 686 00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:13,600 His murderous repression and deportation of minorities 687 00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,200 destroyed the old cosmopolitanism of the capital, 688 00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:19,800 and his defeats brought catastrophe. 689 00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:24,560 Sean McMeekin studies the pivotal role 690 00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,000 played by Istanbul in the First World War. 691 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,320 Well, it put it right at the heart of the conflict. 692 00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:34,200 It was the great prize, if not the greatest prize to be won in the war. 693 00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,200 In a certain sense, it gave the war a purpose, it gave it a point. 694 00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:38,360 Not least for Russia, 695 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,240 the Tsar with his sovereign claim here on the city. 696 00:49:41,240 --> 00:49:43,480 Suddenly, the war had a point for the Russians, 697 00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,120 and it had an objective now for Russia's allies, 698 00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,040 Britain and France, wanting to open up the 699 00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:51,600 city so that they could help supply Russia by way of the Black Sea. 700 00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:55,160 So, the city really became the great prize that was fought over, 701 00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,240 with this claim actually negotiated between the powers 702 00:49:58,240 --> 00:50:00,200 during the Gallipoli campaign. 703 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:04,840 In fact, the city was literally to be divided in three between these 704 00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,800 allies, with the Russians getting most of the ancient 705 00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:09,800 city of Byzantium. 706 00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,320 How did Enver and the Ottomans do in World War One in fact? 707 00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,080 Well, not that badly. 708 00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,160 In some ways, the Ottomans actually surprised Europe 709 00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:21,800 with their performance in the war. In the end though, it wasn't enough. 710 00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,840 It's a largely forgotten episode in the West that the powers 711 00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:29,080 occupied the capital of the Ottoman Empire for four years from 1918 712 00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,840 to 1922, although it's not forgotten here. 713 00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,440 In 1918, Britain and France, 714 00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:42,200 the victorious allies, occupied Istanbul. 715 00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:46,000 The great capital that had resisted all comers for 400 years 716 00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,480 had finally fallen, 717 00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,920 and a resentful population awaited its fate. 718 00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:00,040 While plans for partition were being drawn up, it was here, at the 719 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:05,680 Pera Palace Hotel, that the British officers and diplomats stayed. 720 00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:09,320 They flirted in the bar with gorgeous Russian countesses 721 00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,360 turned courtesans, refugees from the Bolshevik revolution. 722 00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:18,040 Russia was now out of the running, 723 00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,840 and it was the British Prime Minister who had the big idea. 724 00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,920 But it was an idea from an old world. 725 00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,640 In the excitement of victory, the British Prime Minister 726 00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:36,320 Lloyd George was dazzled by dreams of classical empires. 727 00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,400 He encouraged the Greeks to go to war, 728 00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:45,680 to restore the Byzantine Empire, and recreate a Christian Constantinople. 729 00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:49,880 The Greeks began to dream of Orthodox services at the great 730 00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:51,320 church of St Sophia. 731 00:51:53,640 --> 00:52:00,200 But one man would change all that. In November 1918, 732 00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:05,480 an elegant and much-decorated Turkish General arrived here 733 00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:10,640 in the Pera Palace Hotel and booked into a suite on the second floor. 734 00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:13,800 One night, some British officers invited him 735 00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,200 for a drink at their table. 736 00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:19,920 He famously replied, "We are the hosts here, 737 00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:24,920 "you are the guests, you take drinks at my table." 738 00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:29,080 The occupation was unacceptable to most Turks, 739 00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:31,920 and his voice was the voice of history. 740 00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,040 His name was Mustafa Kemal Pasha, 741 00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,440 but he's known to posterity as Ataturk. 742 00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,200 This is where Ataturk stayed. He was altogether 743 00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:48,160 an exceptional character. 744 00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:50,920 He was one of the few Ottoman generals who'd actually 745 00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:52,640 defeated the British. 746 00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:58,200 He'd expelled the Anglo-French expedition at Gallipoli in 1915. 747 00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,840 He had the looks of a matinee idol, 748 00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,320 he was a man of veracious sensual appetites. 749 00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:08,600 He loved drinking, he loved womanising, but above all, 750 00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:14,480 he had a vision for himself as leader and for Turkey as a nation. 751 00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:22,200 When the Greek armies invaded Turkey at Lloyd George's instigation, 752 00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:28,400 Ataturk left Istanbul to lead the resistance from mainland Anatolia. 753 00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:32,400 He planned to mobilise what was left of the Ottoman army. 754 00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,640 The next time he'd return to Istanbul, it would be as conqueror. 755 00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:43,560 Ataturk made his base in Ankara to the east, and in a ferocious 756 00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:47,440 campaign, pushed the Greeks all the way back to the Aegean. 757 00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:54,240 The British plans collapsed and by September 1922, 758 00:53:54,240 --> 00:53:57,520 Ataturk's forces encircled the city. 759 00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:01,920 The British, now war-weary, wisely did not engage. 760 00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:07,200 In a year-long stalemate, the Turks took over the city from the inside, 761 00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,840 and in Britain, Lloyd George resigned. 762 00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:13,960 On 6th October 1923, 763 00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:19,880 the first infantry division of the new Turkish Army entered Istanbul. 764 00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,320 And the Turkish Republic was born. 765 00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:34,520 The victorious Ataturk had great plans for his country. 766 00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:38,680 He abolished the Sultanate, but the Ottomans remained as Caliphs, 767 00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,040 commanders of the faithful. 768 00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:43,920 But not for long. 769 00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:49,920 400 years after Selim the Grim had brought back the holy relics 770 00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:54,400 to Istanbul, the caliphate's days were numbered. 771 00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,240 On the 3rd March 1924, 772 00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:01,920 the Assembly in Ankara formerly abolished the caliphate. 773 00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:07,640 The next morning, at dawn, troops surrounded the Dolmabache Palace, 774 00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:12,160 and the Caliph, a small group of servants and family, gathered 775 00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,240 together their things and left the palace. 776 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,640 In the evening, the last Caliph boarded the Orient Express 777 00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:23,200 into exile. 778 00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:29,120 It was the end of 500 years of the Ottoman Dynasty's connection 779 00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,040 with Istanbul. 780 00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:44,480 Ataturk suppressed the city's religious establishments. 781 00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:46,200 Some became museums. 782 00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:51,200 Many shrines, religious schools and dervish lodges were closed. 783 00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:55,240 "No civilised nation could follow in the path of sheikhs, 784 00:55:55,240 --> 00:55:58,800 "dervishes and fortune-tellers," he said. 785 00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,040 Religion was a private matter. 786 00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:04,640 But it wasn't just that. 787 00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:10,120 He shunned the capital itself. This is Ataturk's yacht. 788 00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:14,840 It's moored here in Istanbul, a city he turned his back on, 789 00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:17,720 despising its perfidious history. 790 00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,520 He said, "Perhaps the Black Sea will flood the Bosphorus, 791 00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:25,840 "the Republic will make a man of Byzantium, 792 00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:29,080 "which by becoming habituated to filth, 793 00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:33,680 "lies and immorality, has lost its immeasurable value." 794 00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:39,400 He moved the capital away from Istanbul and 795 00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:43,200 the Turkish Republic is still governed from Ankara. 796 00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:50,600 90 years on, Ataturk's secular vision remains the only 797 00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:57,640 way for many Turks and Istanbul is now Europe's biggest megacity, of 798 00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:02,720 15 million, comfortable in its role as Turkey's modern, 799 00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:04,640 cultural, economic capital. 800 00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:11,800 But today's Turkish democracy is following a mildly Islamic path, 801 00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:16,240 accompanied by a revival of Ottoman prestige and ambition. 802 00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:20,800 There are head scarves in the streets 803 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,840 and pilgrims pray at the tombs of conquering sultans. 804 00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:29,640 Cosmopolitan Istanbul now seems divided as the pendulum 805 00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,200 swings towards stricter Muslim piety. 806 00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:40,280 I'm ending my story in one of the most wondrous 807 00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:45,280 buildings on Earth, Hagia Sophia. 808 00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:49,720 It's still the monument, the symbol, the centre of this 809 00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:55,080 crossroads between East and West, Islam and Christianity. 810 00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:01,800 For one and a half millennia, it has presided over Caesars 811 00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:06,720 and sultans, magnificence, massacre and mayhem. 812 00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:10,400 The tides of history, power and faith. 813 00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:21,720 More than any other, this building defines the sacred 814 00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:26,280 and imperial city with the three magical names. 815 00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:32,080 For 900 years, it was a church. For 500 years, it was a mosque. 816 00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:37,280 For the past 80, it's been a neutral, secular museum. 817 00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,520 And now, there's a campaign for it to be a mosque again. 818 00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:46,000 As ever, reflecting the drama of its times, 819 00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:50,040 this world city remains ever-changing.