Turkey

The Place

The Romans called it Asia Minor; to the ancient peoples who came before them, it was simply Anatolia - the Motherland; in 1923, under Atatürk - Mustafa Kemal - founder of the Turkish Republic, the country became Türkiye, the Land of the Turks. Since the dawn of time, this sprawling land of mountain ranges, high plateaux and fertile river valleys has been the dividing line between the Orient and the Occident. The Romans saw in Anatolia a granary and bulwark against their traditional enemies to the east.

Over the next 1,000 years, Anatolia became the nucleus of the Byzantine Empire, with its capital, Constantinople, undoubtedly the greatest, most powerful and magnficent city in the world. Anatolia remained one of the most politically and culturally influential places on the planet for at least 2,000 years.

Defeat during World War I, the ruthless carve-up of the empire, and the decision of the Turks under the leadership of Atatürk to regain Anatolia and remould themselves gave modern Turkey a very different role in the 20th century. Today, as the country struggles to embrace Western-style economics and liberalism within an Islamic, Eastern framework, the nation boldly looks forward to a new future, not as a dividing line or buffer zone between east and west, but as a bridge between them.