Editing Constantinople (section)

== Culture ==
[[File:Istanbull - palasset - 13.jpg|right|thumb|''Eagle and Snake'', 6th century mosaic flooring Constantinople, [[Great Palace of Constantinople|Grand Imperial Palace]]]]
[[File:Reife Konstantinopeler Quitten aus dem Vogelsberg.jpg|thumb|left|[[quince|Constantinople apple quinces]]]]
Constantinople was the largest and richest urban center in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Eastern Roman Empire, mostly as a result of its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek-speaking empire for over a thousand years and in some ways is the nexus of [[Byzantine art]] production. At its peak, roughly corresponding to the Middle Ages, it was one of the richest and largest cities in Europe. It exerted a powerful cultural pull and dominated much of the economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular the [[Hagia Sophia]], or the Church of Holy Wisdom. According to Russian 14th-century traveler [[Stephen of Novgorod]]: "There is much that amazes one there, which the human mind cannot express".{{sfn|Harris|2017|pages=177–178}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Majeska |first1=George P. |title=Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries |date=1984 |publisher=Dumbarton Oaks |isbn=978-0-88402-101-8 |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=teyNhL3AuGEC |language=en |quote=...There are many other marble stone columns standing around the city with many large inscriptions carved on them from top to bottom. There is much that amazes [one there, much] which the human mind cannot express. [For example,] iron cannot [cut] this stone...}}</ref>

It was especially important for preserving in its libraries manuscripts of Greek and Latin authors throughout a period when instability and disorder caused their mass-destruction in western Europe and north Africa: On the city's fall, thousands of these were brought by refugees to Italy, and played a key part in stimulating the Renaissance, and the transition to the modern world. The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years. Many languages were spoken in Constantinople. A 16th century Chinese geographical treatise specifically recorded that there were translators living in the city, indicating it was multilingual, multicultural, and cosmopolitan.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chen |first=Yuan Julian |date=2021-10-11 |title=Between the Islamic and Chinese Universal Empires: The Ottoman Empire, Ming Dynasty, and Global Age of Explorations |url=https://www.academia.edu/59068575 |journal=Journal of Early Modern History |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=422–456 |doi=10.1163/15700658-bja10030 |issn=1385-3783 |s2cid=244587800 |access-date=28 March 2022 |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417192653/https://www.academia.edu/59068575 |url-status=live }}</ref> 
[[File:Basilica_Cistern_after_restoration_2022_(11).jpg|thumb|[[Basilica Cistern]] was built in the 6th century. It is the largest cistern found in Istanbul.]]

===Women in literature===
{{further|Armenians in the Byzantine Empire|Armenian newspapers}}
Constantinople was home to the first known Western [[Armenian literature|Armenian]] journal published and edited by a woman (Elpis Kesaratsian). Entering circulation in 1862, ''Kit'arr'' or ''Guitar'' stayed in print for only seven months. Female writers who openly expressed their desires were viewed as immodest, but this changed slowly as journals began to publish more "women's sections". In the 1880s, Matteos Mamurian invited [[Srpouhi Dussap]] to submit essays for ''Arevelian Mamal''. According to Zaruhi Galemkearian's autobiography, she was told to write about women's place in the family and home after she published two volumes of poetry in the 1890s. By 1900, several Armenian journals had started to include works by female contributors including the Constantinople-based ''Tsaghik''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rowe |first=Victoria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mOvE4Ec-_oEC&pg=PA132 |title=A History of Armenian Women's Writing, 1880–1922 |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Press |isbn=978-1-904303-23-7 |access-date=2018-11-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028204626/https://books.google.com/books?id=mOvE4Ec-_oEC&pg=PA132 |archive-date=2020-10-28 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Markets===

Even before Constantinople was founded, the markets of [[Byzantion]] were mentioned first by [[Xenophon]] and then by [[Theopompus]] who wrote that Byzantians "spent their time at the market and the harbour". In [[Justinian]]'s age the ''Mese'' street running across the city from east to west was a daily market. [[Procopius]] claimed "more than 500 prostitutes" did business along the market street. [[Ibn Batutta]] who traveled to the city in 1325 wrote of the bazaars "Astanbul" in which the "majority of the artisans and salespeople in them are women".<ref name="dalby">{{Cite book |last=Dalby |first=Andrew |title=Tastes of Byzantium: The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire |publisher=I.B. Tauris |pages=61–63}}</ref>

=== Architecture and coinage ===
{{Main|Byzantine architecture}}
[[File:Hagia_Sophia_(15468276434).jpg|right|thumb|Columns of the [[Hagia Sophia]], currently a Mosque]]
The Byzantine Empire used Roman and Greek architectural models and styles to create its own unique type of architecture. The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in the copies taken from it throughout Europe. Particular examples include [[St Mark's Basilica]] in Venice,<ref>{{Cite web |title=San Marco Basilica &#124; cathedral, Venice, Italy |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/San-Marco-Basilica |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206093006/https://www.britannica.com/topic/San-Marco-Basilica |archive-date=2021-02-06 |access-date=2018-10-15 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> the basilicas of [[Ravenna]], and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th-century Italian [[Italian coin florin|florin]], the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the [[Solidus (coin)|solidus]] of [[Diocletian]] becoming the [[bezant]] prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its [[Theodosian Walls|city walls]] were much imitated (for example, see [[Caernarfon Castle]]) and its urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping alive the art, skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire. In the Ottoman period Islamic architecture and symbolism were used. 
Great [[Bath House|bathhouses]] were built in [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine centers]] such as Constantinople and [[Antioch]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium |year=1991 |editor-last=Kazhdan |editor-first=Alexander |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-504652-6 |editor-link=Alexander Kazhdan}}</ref>

=== Religion ===
Constantine's foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople|Ecumenical Patriarch]], and made it a prime center of Christianity alongside Rome. This contributed to cultural and theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity eventually leading to the [[East-West Schism|Great Schism]] that divided [[Roman Catholic Church|Western Catholicism]] from [[Eastern Orthodoxy]] from 1054 onwards. Constantinople is also of great religious importance to [[Islam]], as the conquest of Constantinople is one of the signs of the [[Islamic eschatology|End time in Islam]].

=== Education ===

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There were many institutions in ancient Constantinople such as the [[University of Constantinople|Imperial University of Constantinople]], sometimes known as the University of the Palace Hall of Magnaura ({{langx|el|Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας}}), an [[Eastern Roman Empire|Eastern Roman]] educational institution that could trace its corporate origins to 425 AD, when the emperor [[Theodosius II]] founded the Pandidacterium ({{langx|grc-x-medieval|Πανδιδακτήριον}}).<ref>"The Formation of the Hellenic Christian Mind" by [[Demetrios Constantelos]], {{ISBN|0-89241-588-6}}: "The fifth century marked a definite turning point in Byzantine higher education. Theodosios ΙΙ founded in 425 a major university with 31 chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects. Fifteen chairs were assigned to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university was reorganized by Michael III (842–867) and flourished down to the fourteenth century".</ref>
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In 1909, in Constantinople there were 626 (561+65) primary schools and 12 (11+1) secondary schools. Of the primary schools, 561 were of the lower grade and 65 were of the higher grade; of the latter, 34 were public and 31 were private. There was one secondary college and eleven secondary preparatory schools.<ref name="Reportp570">"Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ended June 30, 1912." Whole Number 525. Volume 1. Washington Government Printing Office, 1913. In: ''[[Congressional Edition]]'', Volume 6410. [[U.S. Government Printing Office]], 1913. p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ONlGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA570 570] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200326213825/https://books.google.com/books?id=ONlGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA570|date=2020-03-26}}.</ref>

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=== Media ===
{{expand section|date=July 2019}}
{{see also|Media of the Ottoman Empire|Cinema of Turkey}}

==== Film ====
The first film shown in Constantinople (and the [[Ottoman Empire]]) was, ''[[L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat]]'', by the [[Lumière Brothers]] in 1896.

The first film made in Constantinople (and the Ottoman Empire) was, ''[[Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı]],'' by [[Fuat Uzkınay]] in 1914.

==== Newspaper ====
In the past the Bulgarian newspapers in the late Ottoman period were ''Makedoniya'', ''Napredŭk'', and ''Pravo''.<ref name="Straussp267">Strauss, Johann. "Twenty Years in the Ottoman capital: the memoirs of Dr. Hristo Tanev Stambolski of Kazanlik (1843–1932) from an Ottoman point of view." In: Herzog, Christoph and Richard Wittmann (editors). ''Istanbul – Kushta – Constantinople: Narratives of Identity in the Ottoman Capital, 1830–1930''. [[Routledge]], 10 October 2018. {{ISBN|1351805223}}, 9781351805223. p. 267.</ref>

Between 1908 (after the [[Young Turk Revolution]]) and 1914 (start of [[World War I]]) the "[[Kurdistan (newspaper)|''Kurdistan'' Newspaper]]" was published in Constantinople by [[Mikdad Midhat Bedir Khan|Mikdad Midhad Bedir Khan]], before that it was published in exile in [[Cairo]], [[Khedivate of Egypt|Egypt]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nikitin |first=Vasiliĭ Petrovich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ywxAAAAIAAJ |title=Les Kurdes: étude sociologique et historique |publisher=Impr. nationale |year=1956 |location=Paris |pages=194 |language=fr |author-link2=Basil Nikitin}}</ref>