Mount Athos is a peninsula in northern Greece (in the geographical region of Macedonia). It is home to 20 Orthodox Christian monasteries and administratively it is an autonomous polity, governed by a Holy Community consisting of representatives of those monasteries. Civil authority is represented by a Civil Governor appointed by the Foreign Ministry of Greece.
A fresco with Saint Mercurius and Artemius of Antioch.
In terms of culture, however, Mount Athos retains many Byzantine traditions & items and indeed some commentators have stated that it is like a place ‘frozen in time’. The Mount operates under a charter granted by Emperor Ioannes Tzimisces in 972. Byzantine cultural and religious practices are retained in those monasteries, most of which were built between the 10th and 15th centuries and are scattered over the heavily forested, hilly peninsula. They posses many medieval art treasures, including liturgical objects and vestments, Christian texts, Byzantine imperial chrysobulls (decrees), icons and holy relics. As such, one can say that Mount Athos is still Byzantine in a way.
Yes, Romania was part of the Ottoman Empire for a significant portion of its history. The region that is now Romania was under Ottoman rule for several centuries, starting in the late 14th century and lasting until the 19th century.
The Ottoman Empire began to expand into the Balkans in the late 14th century, and by the early 15th century, it had established control over various territories in what is now Romania. Wallachia and Moldavia, two of the three historical regions that make up modern Romania (the third being Transylvania), came under Ottoman suzerainty, meaning they had to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire and were subject to Ottoman influence.
While Wallachia and Moldavia were technically under Ottoman control, they also retained a degree of autonomy and had their own local rulers (voivodes) who governed with a degree of independence, provided they paid tribute and maintained loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan.
Transylvania, on the other hand, was not directly ruled by the Ottomans but was often caught in the struggle for influence between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy.
Although Romanians will deny this information saying that they were never Ottoman citizens and they had their own citizenship even before their independence, their claim was not recognized by the Ottoman Empire and neither by any state as a matter of fact.
During the XIXth century, when modern diplomacy did not recognize any relationship of vassality and suzeranity between states as in the Middle Ages, Moldavians and Wallachians were considered as special subjects (citizens) of the Ottoman Empire. As far as international and Ottoman law was concerned, this means that they had Ottoman citizenship and the Ottoman Law of citizenship of 1869 applied to them. Any child born from a Moldavian or Wallachian father and mother or just from the father was by jus sangvinis also considered an Ottoman citizen and was issued an Ottoman passport. Any foreigner naturalized on Moldavian or Wallachian soil also became Ottoman citizen. All this till Romania gained its independence in 1878.
When a Romanian was traveling within the Ottoman Empire outside of the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, in their own minds they were a foreigner, but as far as Ottoman authorities were concerned, they were an Ottoman national travelling in their own country, even if they were in Constantinople, Damascus or Tunis. Romanians also like to call their country before their independence as United Principalities but again, they had no international status as “principalities” and officially they were just provinces (memalik-i mahruse) of the Ottoman Empire.
Discover the centuries-old conflict between Greece 🇬🇷 and Turkey 🇹🇷! Territorial disputes, historic rivalries, and access to resources fuel this tension. Could it lead to Europe’s next war? Find out now!
Did you understand what your Italian friend meant when he/she told you: “Am I speaking Turkish here?”
When in Italy during a conversation a person can’t get their point across they attribute ironically the resistance of the interlocutor to lack of understading of what has been said, and Turkish here stands for an incomprehensible language. The origin of the idiom is clearly due to the contacts among people around the Mediterranean and the difficulties often arising in the practices of trade (particularly in the Levant). This clearly shows when the sentence is heard in the same context but Turkish is replaced by Greek and Arabic (other languages commonly spoken in the Levant).
Notable exception is the phrase “Do I speak Ostrogoth?”, which means the same but is clearly suggestive of the disconcert and confusion of the Italians after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Germanic populations began to spread uninvited in the country.
Turkey is the European Union’s oldest candidate member. Since 1999, the EU and Turkey have been in talks to allow the country to join and redefine the borders of Europe. 24 years on, and it still doesn’t look like their accession is likely. Why? In this video, we cover what’s stopping Turkey from joining the EU and whether anything is likely to change soon.
Sweden harshly reacted to Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch which targeted the terrorist orga- nization in 2018. In this context, former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström canceled an official visit to Turkey.
PKK/YPG supporters can freely conduct their activities and carry out terrorist propaganda in Sweden without encountering any restrictions. PKK/YPG sympathizers wave PKK/YPG flags ex- plicitly without any intervention by local security forces. Moreover, PKK/YPG members can even meet the country’s Foreign Minister.
The Swedish government provide massive state of the art technology arms to the terrorist group. These weapons are used in terrorist attacks against Turkish security forces.
Sweden, refusing to extradite PKK/YPG members, also safeguard members of Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) being harbored in the country. Concrete Evidence Regarding the Relations Between the Swedish Government and the PKK/YPG Terrorist Organization
Concrete Evidence Regarding the Relations Between the Swedish Government and the PKK/YPG Terrorist Organization
SWEDISH DEFENSE MINISTER Peter Hultqvist met with Mazloum Kobani, one of the so-called commanders of the PKK/YPG. After the meeting, Kobani made a statement expressing that Sweden will closely cooperate with the terrorist organization.
SWEDISH FOREIGN MINISTER ANN LINDE met with PKK/YPG members many times and declared some of such meetings on social media explicitly. The Turkish Foreign Ministry reacted to these meetings repeatedly, yet the Swedish side refused to cooperate.
THE PKK/YPG RECEIVES MASSIVE ANTI-TANK weapon support from Sweden. Hence, the terrorist organization has a huge amount of AT4s, a Swedish Saab production anti-tank weapon, in its hands. During the operations conducted in rural Hakkari in southeastern Turkey in September 2021, and Operation Claw and Tiger which started on 17 June 2021, scores of AT4S were captured in caves and shelters of the terrorist organization by Turkish security forces.
ORSAM
As a region that shares deep-rooted historical, cultural and neighborhood ties with Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa region is going through a process of serious political and social changes. Therefore, it became necessary to follow these complex and dynamic developments as well as to interpret them. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM) was established in January 2009 to inform the general public and the foreign policy community on the Middle East. ORSAM is a nonpartisan and non-profit research center based in Ankara.
ORSAM provides information on Middle Eastern affairs and exposes the Turkish academia and political circles to the perspectives of researchers from the region. ORSAM, by facilitating the visits of Middle Eastern statesmen, bureaucrats, academics, strategists, businessmen, journalists, and NGO representatives to Turkey, seeks to ensure their knowledge and ideas are shared with the Turkish and international community. To that end, ORSAM carries out research on social, economic and political developments in the Middle East and shares these with the public. Striving for a healthier understanding and analysis of international politics and the Middle Eastern affairs, ORSAM produces stimulating and policy-relevant information for the general public and decision-makers.
For that purpose, ORSAM offers projections that suggest alternative perspective on regional issues as well as analyzing regional developments. In order to provide comprehensive and solution-oriented analyses, ORSAM takes advantage of geographical proximity to pressings issues and hands-on research by competent researchers and intellectuals from diverse disciplines. ORSAM has a strong publishing line that transmits meticulous analyses of regional developments and trends to relevant audiences. Our center that is also in the process of re-organization is expanding its cadre and areas of research focuses on publication and teaching activities such as seminars on Middle East affairs and Arabic courses.
