Having written my own “epic” on precisely the same subject, I am curious to see the film and to see the response to it both in Turkey and outside Turkey. Once it comes out, we can all start to form our own opinions. Stay tuned.

The taking of Constantinople was a watershed event. It extinguished the eastern Roman Empire, also called Byzantium, and in much of southeast Europe supplanted Orthodox Christianity with the Sunni Islam of the Ottoman Sultanate. A great deal of the discourse relating to the often contentious relationship between Christians and Muslims in today’s world centers on “traumas” in Islamic history inflicted by Christians. The crusader conquest of Jerusalem, the abolition of the caliphate, European colonialism, and the embedding of American troops in the Middle East are a few of the more common examples. Constantinople’s fall, however, stands at the other end of the spectrum–an Islamic triumph over Christianity and a turning point in Christian-Muslim relations whose effects remain with us today. The world lives with its consequences in the identity of modern Turkey, in the often contentious relationship between Greeks and Turks over the past two centuries, and, not least, in the form of the heterogeneous Balkan states that experienced catastrophic religious fueled violence as recently as the 1990s.

The city’s fall represented the realization of an eight hundred year old Islamic dream. Muhammed’s followers had been turned back from the city scarcely a generation after his death. Successive Muslim rulers attempted to take the city and failed. Muslim chroniclers exhorted their rulers to take the city. As one twelfth century Muslim visitor wrote: “Constantinople is a city greater than its reputation proclaims. May Allah in his generosity and wisdom deign to make it the capital of Islam.” For the Turks, who appeared on Byzantium’s border in the middle of the 11^th century, conquering Constantinople was a primary objective. No Turkish Sultan was more obsessed with this than Mehmed II, who came to the throne in 1451 just before his nineteenth birthday. When he succeeded at the age of only twenty-one, he immediately made Constantinople the capital of his empire.

The events of 1453 sent shockwaves throughout the Christian world. Pope Nicholas V called for a crusade–almost two centuries after the end of the crusading movement–to recapture the city. None materialized and Byzantium vanished. There were a number of reasons for this apparent disinterest. Most Latin states had pressing commitments closer to home based on local rivalries and internal politics. The Ottoman state was powerful, and most Western Christian rulers believed that cooperation with the new order would be less expensive than conflict. At the same time, the Orthodox Byzantine Empire was separated by several differences of form and substance from the western Catholic (or Latin) church. In 1453these differences in dogma provided an excuse for Catholic lethargy to send support to the city. Once the city fell, the Western powers grumbled but accepted the new reality.

Their inability and unwillingness to act to prevent the city’s fall removed a great obstacle to the Ottoman expansion into Europe and set the stage for a century of Islamic conquest. For many European states, attempts at self preservation proved illusory. Venice, after prevaricating over sending a relief force for weeks while the city was besieged, found itself at war with the sultan only a few years later. Mehmed continued his wars of conquest against the Latin West. Under his command, Islamic armies conquered much of the Balkans and southeast Europe. He overran Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Greece, and even took the city of Otranto on the Italian mainland. With Constantinople removed, it seemed as if nothing could stop Mehmed’s armies.

The unwillingness of the Christian powers to organize a counterattack seemed to ignore Constantinople’s historical significance. After all, Constantinople was not just an important Christian city. It was, with Rome, one of the two most important Christian centers in the entire world. It had been rechristened by the emperor Constantine (famous for legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire) as the capital of his new imperial order. Constantinople’s defining monuments would be churches, monasteries, and holy icons rather than the temples and amphitheatres of the eternal city on the Tiber. It became a center of Christian learning and theology, as well as a fount of literature, art, and philosophy. The Byzantine Empire viewed itself as a genuine continuation of the glories of Rome. Geographically and linguistically Greek, it also embraced the learning of classical Athens. Above all, it was Christian. Thus, Byzantium perpetuated Aristotle while engaging with Aquinas. This was the culture conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

Byzantium, like most states, had numerous faults. Its nobles waged constant civil wars for control of the state. It sometimes persecuted sects of heretical Christians and often demanded high taxes from its subjects. Its court politics were characterized by intrigue, brutality, venality, and corruption. Its leaders were Machiavellian before Machiavelli; they were “Byzantine.”

The Ottomans rushed to fill the vacuum left by the end of Byzantium. The expansionary policy of Mehmed the Conqueror, as he became known, represented the beginning of a golden age for the Ottoman sultanate–the Muslim superpower of its age. The Ottoman Empire was richer, more powerful, and larger than any single power in Christian Europe at the time. Equipped with the latest technologies, its armed forces were able to wage successful wars against maritime republics like Venice and Genoa and continental powers like Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominant on land and at sea, the Ottoman state represented a high point in Islamic power vis-à-vis the Christian world. This state of affairs persisted until the Ottoman failure to take Vienna in 1527. Only then, during the later 16^th and especially during the 17^th century, did Ottoman power decrease and Christian Europe begin to retake the initiative.

No episode captured the nature of this changing order better than the Greek Revolution during the early 19^th century. The Greeks, more than any other people conquered by the Turks, stalwartly retained their Christian faith. In 1821, they began the last of a series of rebellions against Turkish rule that won them back a country of their own. They did not succeed, however, in reclaiming the capital that had been theirs. Constantinople, once the pride of Christian civilization, remained in Ottoman hands.

Visiting modern Istanbul, it is hard to imagine that the bustling modern city–thoroughly Turkish and almost entirely Muslim–was once a Christian center comparable to Rome. Signs of its Christian past exist only as ruins. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the great cathedral, Hagia Sophia. Once the center of Orthodox Christianity, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmed and restored in 1935 as a museum by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Outside, four minarets rise above what was once the largest dome in the world. Inside, the painted icons of the Jesus, Mary, and Christian saints flake and chip away. Many have been painted over in accordance with Islam’s prohibition against graven images. Some Greeks and Christians may look at this with longing; most accept that it was lost too long in the past to be recovered. Constantinople is not Jerusalem, and Christians lay no further claim to what was perhaps their third holiest site. Until the early 1960s more than a quarter of a million Greeks still lived, worked, and worshiped in Istanbul. They too, however, fell victim to the politics of their age and were forced out. In today’s city, fewer than 4,000 Greek Christians remain.

Byzantium, corrupt, divided, isolated, and abandoned by the Latin powers, could hardly have survived. In 1453, its mighty walls–walls that had protected it for a thousand years–were blasted apart by powerful new cannon. Outside help arrived too little or too late, and the city’s 7,000 defenders, who stood for two months against 80,000, were finally defeated. On that day in May–still celebrated by Turks and mourned by Greeks–the monuments of one world were torn down to become the foundations for another. Islam triumphed in Constantinople and the Turkish sultans reigned there for five hundred years over courts of artisans, poets, philosophers and scientists.

The clash between Christianity and Islam remains a feature of our world. The memories of crusades, conquest, and conflict are sadly, and, sometimes unproductively, strong. Looking back then at Constantinople, it is important to remember not only that it fell, but why it fell and, most importantly, how it once stood.

Living History

“Bravo to Andrew Novo! His debut novel is impeccably researched and vividly written. He brings to life the exotic and tumultuous Byzantine world and a dark, tragic chapter in human history, full of drama and colorful characters–must reading for diplomats and statesmen dealing with the still tumultuous Middle East, as well as for students and all lovers of historical fiction. Novo combines the best of Barbara Tuchman and a (might have been) Verdi opera!”

Students’ Reading List

“Queen of Cities should be on the reading list of all high school seniors and college students. So little is written about this time and so little is known by the average American of Constantinople. History in the US is slanted too much to the West and keeps students in the dark about the historical significances of the East. Queen of Cities is beautifully written and is a true jewel of a read for all ages whether one loves history or not.”

Meet the people who were there

“Queen of Cities is a dynamic, explosive novel that presents history as it happened. Intrigue, betrayal and loyalty, heroes and villains all pull the reader into this world changing conflict. Experience the desperate hopes of the defenders as they repel repeated attacks against the city walls. Mourn with them for the loss of human lives and of a civilization brought to a shattering end. Be inspired by the strong, dedicated leaders who gave all for the people entrusted to their care. I recommend this for all who love a great book.”

Tremendously Exciting!

“The book was awesome. I read it in about 3-4 chunks. What was neat about it was that even though I knew the ending from real-life, the book was so well written and exciting that I kept thinking the defenders might hold on! Reading the book made me want to read all I could in the future regarding the history of Constantinople both before and after the events depicted in the book. The author is a master of both detail and drawing the reader deep into the events as if he were actually taking part. My guess is that this will be the first of many successes for the talented Mr. Novo.”

When is the movie coming out?

“Yes, the history buff will love this book. All the complaints about history being dry and uninteresting are dispelled by this story, from the Middle Ages no less. Yes, I am recommending it to my son, the high school history teacher but it is a great entertaining and current read for the ordinary reader. It’s the kind of book you miss when you finish and say, ‘Why didn’t I read more slowly.’ Bravo, Mr Novo on your first attempt. Please give us more.”

What you’ve always wanted to know!

What a find! Mr. Novo’s book is an exhilarating step into a world of exotic lives and tormented struggles. He tells of the conflict and fate of Constantinople How very thrilling to peer behind the curtains into a world of Pashas and passions! History comes alive in a most accurate and spellbinding way. I can’t put this one down for a minute. Finally, a creative storyteller!

Accurate and engrossing

“Queen of Cities is a terrific historical novel about the siege of Constantinople in 1453. It goes into impressive detail about every aspect of the months-long battle and the eventual collapse of the great city of Constantinople. The book will appeal to anyone who loves adventure fiction but is going to be loved by military history buffs. I recommend it highly.”