Samsun
(2002 est. pop. 377,000). Samsun is the capital of Turkey's Samsun Province and is located on the Black Sea coast between the Kizel Irmak and Yesil Irmak Rivers. Originally called Amisus, it was ruled by the Greeks in the seventh century BCE and later came under Roman and Byzantine influence. The Seljuks gained control of the city in the eleventh century CE. Under Seljuk rule, the Genoese enjoyed trading privileges that continued until Samsun fell to the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I (1389–1402) in 1393. In protest, the Genoese chose to burn down the city rather than leave it to the Ottomans. This fire, as well as subsequent fires, account for the lack of surviving ancient monuments. According to the famous Turkish traveler Katip Celebi, in the seventeenth century there were four mosques, a few shop-lined streets, and a bathhouse in the town. Celebi does not mention any commercial activity. By the early nineteenth century, Samsun became an important trade center, and by the mid-nineteenth century, there was a covered market and a khan (rest house). The population in 1860, a combination of Turk, Armenian, and Greek inhabitants, was recorded at six thousand and grew to sixteen thousand by 1890.
After the end of World War I, the area saw tension between the Greeks and the Turks. On 19 May 1919 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881–1938), the founder of the Turkish Republic, landed at Samsun. He immediately began organizing the national resistance army (which he was originally sent to disband) that would eventually overthrow the sultanate and lead to the foundation of the republic in 1923. After the declaration of the Turkish Republic, 19 May was proclaimed a national holiday in honor of sports and the nation's youth.
The Samsun region was known for tobacco and hemp growing in Ottoman times (hemp was used to make rope for the army), and these continue to be its chief exports. The port of Samsun continues to be used, as it was in its early trading days, for agricultural imports and exports; tourism is not a major industry.
Further Reading
Faroqhi, Suraiya. (1960) "Samsun." In The Encyclopedia of Islam. 2d ed. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1052–1054.
(1999). Statistical Yearbook of Turkey, 1998. Ankara, Turkey: Devlet Istatistik Enstitusu.
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