The Arabs did not conquer the Byzantine Empire, but another Islamic people, the Ottoman Turks, did. The Turks came out of Central Asia and settled in Asia Minor, and under their ruler Osman I (1259-1324) they slowly began taking over Byzantine territory. By the mid-15th century, the Turks’ rule extended into the Balkans, and in 1453 they captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire. The Turks renamed the city Istanbul and made it the capital of their Ottoman Empire. After their victory, they rampaged through the city, destroying many Greek documents, including the only surviving copies of ancient Greek works, such as plays by Euripides.
Once again, the Greeks were under foreign control, and they would remain part of this new Islamic Ottoman Empire for almost 400 years. The Turks, however, let the Greeks practice Christianity, and a class of educated Greeks served in the Ottoman government. Greeks also played an important role as traders, and Greek priests and monks had ties with Orthodox Christian leaders across Eastern Europe.
Educated Greeks in the Turkish empire kept alive the memory of ancient Greece, and they also fueled calls for independence. Many Europeans, who had rediscovered Classical Greek literature and philosophy, saw how important Greece had been in shaping Western culture. Some writers and intellectuals believed the people who had given the world so much should once again have their own nation.
In 1821, a group of Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman Empire. That revolution failed, but by 1830, with help from other European nations, Greece became an independent nation-this time a unified one. Two years later, the Greeks crowned a Bavarian prince, Otto, as their first king, in the hopes that his connections would help bind the new country to the more established nations in Europe.
World History
