Üsküdar

views updated May 29 2018

ÜSKÜDAR

The oldest and largest district of Asian Istanbul.

Situated across the Bosporus from the walled city of Constantinople, Üsküdar was called Chrysopolis in ancient times and Scutari in the Byzantine era. In the period of Ottoman rule, Üsküdar became more integrated into the life of the capital city, as it became the center of several dervish orders and tekkes, military barracks, and, in the nineteenth century, textile and other factories. In the 1860s, it was formally incorporated into the municipal government of Constantinople (now Istanbul). It was in Üsküdar that Florence Nightingale set up her famed hospital during the Crimean War (18531856). And in the late nineteenth century, Russian Turks established the first center of Turkic studies in the empire in an Üsküdar tekke. The district, known for its fine gardens, in recent years has become a large residential quarter of the city with a population over 200,000.

see also tekke.


Bibliography


Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 18081975. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

elizabeth thompson