The fall of the city in Ottomanic hands shook the Christian world. Thessaloniki was considered by the Ottomans a rose that Murat cut under the orders of God. Literally speaking, the Ottomanic command in Thessaloniki enhanced their power in the wider territory of the Balkans and prepared their way to the beleaguerment of Constantinople. The era that begins with these facts and will last to the end of the 15th century is rather a dark period, equivalent to the medieval ages. Several of the citizens who survived the fall of the city, immigrated. The city counted barely 2000 inhabitants. The port was utterly abandoned and the financial life was almost dead. The destructions were uncountable. The Ottomans turned all the Christian temples into Muslim temples, leaving to the Christians two churches, Agion Agelon and Agia Sofia, destroyed the monasteries, used every important marble work to decorate the sultan’s palace and allowed to the Urukus – a small com-munity of Muslims who lived outside the city walls – to inhabit the acropolis of Thessaloniki, terrifying with all kinds of acts the Christian and Jew citizens who remained inside the walls. In 1478 6.000 Christians, 4300 Muslims and 300 Jews lived in the city. However, the Ottomanic domination – especially after the beleaguerment in Constantinople in 1453 – brought a weird stability in the south section of the Balkans which may had a tyrannical character, but was also a stability that those territories lacked for centuries. The violent immigration of Jews all over Europe (Spain, Hungary, Germany) led them to Thessaloniki. By 1519 the city counted 29000 inhabitants, half of which were Jews. Trade was revived and more particularly Jews revived it. The financial rejuvenation was followed by the cultural. Schools and libraries were founded and religious seminars were organised. But though the city was towards a flourishing course, the hygiene was far away from ideal. During the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century epidemic diseases lessened the population of the city. Also, the materials used for the building of houses were highly flammable and the breaking of serious fires troubled the citizens quite often. Round 1666 the first attempts of resistance to the Ottomanic domination started to show, but nothing was yet organized. Worth to be mentioned is the fact that in Thessaloniki and the wider territory there was never a strong resistance movement against the Ottomans as in southern Greece and that was because of the cosmopolitan way of life the trade offered and the importance of the port for the Turkish grounds. Still, there were martyrs and small groups that acted against the domination. An attempt against the Ottomans with the help of the Venetians through the port in 1688 was unsuccessful as it lacked help from the inside. But the reluctance of resistance was replaced up to a point by a serious effort for cultural resurrection of the greek element. Greek schools started offering knowledge in Christian temples and at the end of the 16th century education was boosted, Greek texts were common and literature was gradually a fact. Writers were forced to immigrate, but their existence and the existence of books was very important. Trade slowly came to the hands of the Greeks, when Crete came to the hands of the Ottomans and the Venetians were devastated, moving away from the port of Thessaloniki and breaking their partnerships with the Jews. By the end of the 18th century Thessaloniki was a multi- cultural trade center. Still, the desire for liberation was bigger than any cosmopolitan way of life and the Revolution in 1821 reached the city of Thessaloniki. The Ottomans started arresting people and when the rebels took over Agion Oros and Halkidiki, the Ottomans slaughtered a number of innocent people to terrify the citizens. The movement of the Revolution couldn’t be stopped and that obviously had an effect on the financial life. Piracy was favored by the circumstances. In August of 1823 Melmet Abdul Abut left Thessaloniki and was replaced by Hebraim who was rather a diplomat than a tyrant. The liberation and the existence of an utterly independent Greek nation was finally a fact. The first Balkan war began in October of 1912 and the Ottoman general Hasan Taxin signed the protocol which handed Thessaloniki to the Greeks and King George the first. His assassination was the seed for the second Balkan war. During the 23 centuries of existence, one could say for Thessaloniki that is in fact several cities that happened to co- exist in the same geographical location. And this geographical location and its importance defined the part that this city had in the course of world history. History emerges in every corner of this place and past is combined with present in the most magical way in this city.
