Suleiman the UNmagnificent

By Jirair Tutunjian

Keghart

The digest-size History Today, for what it’s worth, is a leading British history magazine. It also has a Turcophile editor attested to by the magazine’s frequent glowing articles about the notorious Ottoman sultans, their conquests, their palaces, and about dictator Mustafa Kemal who gave himself the title Ataturk (“Father of the Turks.”) although he had no children. In its June 2024 issue, the magazine reviewed two books (“Sea of Troubles” and “Damascus Events”) which are predictably “understanding” of Turkish failures.

To be fair to History Today, there is nothing unusual about the magazine’s Turkophilia: English writers and travelers have always, except during WWI, bend backwards to be “nice” to the Turk and to brush off the depredations of Ottoman Turkey and its successor republic. In 1603, Richard Knolles, in his Generall Historie of the Turkes, exalted the Central Asian marauders who plundered the Middle East and wrecked a dozen civilizations. Fifty years later, Francis Osborne (Government of the Turks) said Turkish ignorance of classical literature was a “positive boon” because it allowed them to focus on the business of sovereignty. Another English writer (Paul Rycourt) considered the despotic, violent, and corrupt Ottoman Turkish government a model form of rule. He believed Turks had been sent by God as a “chastisement of the sons and vices of Christians.” Yes, the killers of millions of Christians were sent by Providence. These fabulists also claimed Greeks welcomed the Turkish army when the sultan lay siege to Constantinople in 1453.

The English writers’ affinity to the Ottomans has been explained as English aristocracy’s envy/admiration of the militaristic lore of the Turks and absolute regime of the Ottomans. This affinity was strengthened in the 19th century when Britain rescued Ottoman Turkey from the clutches of tsarist Russia. As a result of the alliance, the British government and media often downplayed the barbaric behavior of the Turkish government as it tried to suppress the independence movements of the occupied nations. Independence movements were tagged rebellion by nationalists (latter a dirty word). They described Turkish invasion of the Middle East, Asia Minor, and the Balkans as migration. They minimized the barbarity of the Turks when the latter conquered Armenia, Asia Minor, Rhodes, Cyprus, Greece, and the Balkans. After the “misunderstanding” of WWI, Turks returned to the good graces of Britain and the West. Turkey’s membership in NATO further air-brushed their image.

Thus, it’s no surprise Turkey is handled with kid gloves in History Today’s review of “Damascus Events” and “Sea of Troubles.” The magazine predictably glorified the so-called Suleiman the Magnificent and underplayed the obscene man’s crimes and failures. The fact is there was nothing magnificent about Suleiman. His rule was plagued by brutality, infanticide, licentiousness, and over-the-top corruption financed by the plunder of lands he conquered and the slave trade. The latter were Christians who were nabbed by Barbary pirates whose masters were the Ottomans.

When Suleiman rose to the throne, he exiled hundreds of his predecessor’s odalisques (harem women) to an old palace known as “The Palace of Tears.”

Suleiman was the plaything of his second wife/lover Roxelana. Upon her urging, Suleiman had his eldest son from his first marriage killed in his presence so that his son from Roxelana would succeed him.

For a minor offense, he had Grand Vizier Ibrahim executed. The latter had been his life-long friend and probably lover.

Suleiman’s extravagance was legendary. He never wore the same clothes twice.

His siege of Vienna was a dismal failure.

At the Battle of Mohacs in Hungary, he ordered his soldiers not to take prisoners. As a result, 200,000 Hungarians were killed.

He failed to take Eger (Hungary) in 1552 although he commanded an army of 80,000 while the Hungarian defenders had 1,500 soldiers. A disgusted Suleiman gave up and left. Hungarians, outnumbered almost 50 to 1, had won.

True to form, the reviewer absurdly sides with the Turks against the people whose lands had been occupied by the Turks. Rather than assert the right of occupied people to throw out the brutal occupier, the reviewer describes them as separatists, Christian nationalists, and fifth columnists. The reviewer also says the Turks and the occupied Christians co-existed and lived together peacefully. There’s no point in listing the 500 years of Ottoman mistreatment of Christians and fellow Muslims…the millions who were massacred by the Turks…the 1.5 million Armenians who were subjected to genocide during WWI, the massacres of Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds…

History Today is not about factual history. It’s history as fashioned by current biases, interests, and the optics of the metropolis

“Magnificent” means splendid, striking, spectacular, superb, stately, and skillful. Ottoman Empire’s “greatest” ruler had none of these attributes and yet five centuries after his death he is still identified as “Magnificent”. Sultan Suleiman was “magnificent” if brutality, infanticide, licentiousness, corruption, greed, nepotism, sloth, and over-the-top extravagance are magnificent qualities.

Some historians believe Suleiman gained his reputation as a great legislator and builder because his achievements were set in contrast to the absence of any law-makers among his immediate predecessors. The empire began a sharp decline soon after Suleiman’s death. Of the twenty-seven sultans who succeeded him, two were murdered and twelve were deposed. Most of the sultans were drunkards, suffered from mental illness, spent far too much time in their harems, making peace among their competing concubines, eating Turkish Delight and gossiping with their African eunuchs.

History Today is not about factual history. It’s history fashioned by the biases, interests, and the optics of the metropolis.