Bursa
Bursa is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. It is the fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region after Istanbul. The province has a population of 3,238,618 while the city has a population of over 2.2 million. Bursa is one of the centers of Turkey's automotive production, becoming an industrial center of the country. The city provides various places of interest.
Historically, Bursa was known as Prusa or Prousa, or Prusa near Olympus or Prusa under Olympus. The city became the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1335 until the 1360s.
A more recent nickname is Yeşil Bursa referring to the parks and gardens located across the city, as well as to the vast, varied forests of the surrounding region. Bursa has a rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, and the city's main landmarks include numerous edifices built throughout the Ottoman period. Bursa also has thermal baths, old Ottoman mansions, palaces, and several museums. Mount Uludağ, known in classical antiquity as the Mysian Olympus or, alternatively, Bithynian Olympus, towers over the city and has a ski resort.
The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat, according to some stories, are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa in the 14th century.
History
Antiquity
The earliest known human settlement near Bursa's current location was at the Ilıpınar Mound in. It was followed by the Ancient Greek city of Cius, which King Philip V of Macedon granted to King Prusias I of Bithynia after they both captured and razed the city. Prusias later rebuilt the city and renamed it Prusias. The city was also referred to as Prusa ad Olympum after its location at the foot of the Bithynian Olympus. One of the known characteristics of Prusa at that time was its hot springs that's dubbed as the "royal waters". In 75/74 BC, Nicomedes IV, the last king of Bithynia, bequeated his entire kingdom to the Roman Republic in his last testament before he died.According to a letter that's written to Roman Emperor Trajan by Roman author Pliny the Younger, then the Imperial Governor of Bithynia and Pontus, constructions of baths took place in Prusa after a permit by the reigning emperor.
An early Roman artifact was found in Bursa. It was composed of woman's silver toiletry articles. It is currently reserved in the British Museum since 1913.
Middle Ages
suggests that, when Bursa was under Byzantine rule, The city prospered after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I built a palace there. the city then became a garrison city in 562, where imperial guards were stationed. Already by the mid-6th century, Bursa was known as a famous silk textile manufacturing centre.Bursa became the capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. During the Ottoman rule, the city witnessed a considerable amount of urban growth, such as the building of hospitals, caravanserais, and madrasas, with the first official Ottoman mint established in the city. After conquering Adrianople in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new capital city in the 1360s. No longer a capital city, Bursa still retained its spiritual and commercial importance in the Ottoman Empire. In Bursa, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid I Complex between 1390 and 1395 and the Grand Mosque of Bursa between 1396 and 1400. After the defeat and capture of Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara by the forces of Emir Timur in 1402, the latter's grandson, Muhammad Sultan Mirza, had the city pillaged and burned. Timur then assigned the administration of Bursa to his protégé, a son of Savcı Bey. Bursa was later put under the control of contender Îsâ Çelebi during the Ottoman interregnum following the death of Bayezid in captivity. On May 1403, Bursa was annexed by Mehmed Çelebi in the aftermath of the Battle of Ulubad. Bursa remained as the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa was 45,000 in 1487.
During the Ottoman period, Bursa was a hub of the Ottoman silk trade. The city housed the distributions of silk and other luxury commodities from the east, particularly Ming China, to the rest of the Mediterranean region and to the Italian city-states, particularly Genoa and Florence. Bursa was also known for its numerous hammams built during the reign of Sultan Suleiman I such as the Yeni Kaplıca. The Devshirme system was also implemented in Bursa and its surroundings where it was negotiated between the authorities and the locals. Sometime during a levy in 1603-4, the villagers of Eğerciler, a Christian village in Bursa and also a provider of sheep to Istanbul, declared that the children of the village were very much needed as shepherds. They also asserted that even though they were not obliged to give any children to the army, the officers took some anyway, and that they should be returned. The villagers' claim of tremendous need of future shepherds was taken seriously by the Ottoman, and a decree commanded the return of the children. From 1867 until 1922, Bursa was the capital of Hüdavendigâr vilayet. As it was a significant cultural and trade hub, traders, most of whom were Armenians, became very wealthy.
Modern Era
In July 1915, thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians sought refuge in Bursa after having been forced out of their coastal villages by orders of the Young Turk government. This worsened the situation of the native Greeks of Bursa, who had managed to survive through the attacks and boycotts of 1914. A short time later, deportation orders came for Bursa's Armenians. Protestant Armenians were initially spared from deportation, yet the villagers that lived outside of the city that tried to resist were massacred. Most of the deportees would perish in what became known as the Armenian genocide. Subsequently, large numbers of Kurds and Circassians, as well as Syrians from the south, were settled in the homes and towns of the deported Christians, radically altering the demographic composition of the town and region. According to Mustafa Zahit Oner, in the last days of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, the Greek Army attempted to burn the center of Bursa however they were stopped by the allied commanders and were only able to burn the train station together with Turkish civilians in it. The Cretan artilleryman Vasilios Moustakis describes the event with the following words: "The Infantry had come through and set fire to the station. We saw an English general on horseback, who ordered the fire to be put out because if Bursa were burned, it would be harming Greece".Following the proclamation that founded Republic of Turkey in 1923, Bursa became one of the industrial centres of the country. The economic development of the city was followed by population growth, and Bursa became the fourth most populous city in Turkey.
The city has traditionally been a pole of attraction, and was a major centre for refugees from various ethnic backgrounds who immigrated to Anatolia from the Balkans during the loss of the Ottoman territories in Europe between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most recent arrival of Balkan Turks took place between the 1940s and 1990s, when the People's Republic of Bulgaria expelled approximately 150,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. About one-third of these 150,000 Bulgarian Turkish refugees eventually settled in Bursa. With the construction of new industrial zones in the period between 1980 and 2000, many people from the eastern provinces of Turkey came and settled in Bursa.
Jewish community
Bursa, initially home to a small Romaniote Jewish community, underwent a demographic shift with the arrival of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century. The Sephardic majority quickly absorbed the Romaniotes, leading to a cultural and numerical dominance. Judaeo-Spanish became the daily language, and the community paid its poll tax through the representative, the kahya.Throughout the Ottoman period, most Jews resided in Kuruçeşme, Bursa's Jewish quarter, home to three synagogues. Etz Chaim, the oldest, predated the Ottoman conquest, while the Gerush and Mayor synagogues were established by Sephardic newcomers. Despite the 1851 fire destroying Etz Chaim, the other two remain, along with the Berut synagogue. Bursa also had a Jewish cemetery until recently.
Though never a major center, Bursa's Jewish population fluctuated. Dubious data suggests 683 families in 1571/72, dropping to 141 by 1696/97. By 1883, there were 2,179 Jews, with an influx of 400 from Akkerman in 1887. Pre-World War I, the population reached 3,500, but emigration reduced it to 140 by the early 21st century.
Engaged in the local economy, Bursa's Jews were shop owners and involved in guilds. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they excelled in textile manufacturing, silk trade, goldsmithing, and finance. Despite economic struggles in the 18th and 19th centuries, a 1886 report highlighted poverty.
Bursa faced blood libels in 1592 and 1865. Despite its size, the community produced renowned halakhic scholars across centuries. Modern schooling arrived in 1886 with Alliance Israélite Universelle, but it closed in 1923 during the secularization program. Jewish children then attended Turkish schools for a modern education.
As of 2021, there are 60 Jews left in Bursa, one active synagogue and one Jewish cemetery.