RECEPTION OF ABDUL AZIZ, SULTAN OF TURKEY, TO THE CITY OF LONDON WYON, Joseph Shepherd & Alfred Benjamin: Turkey, 1867, Bronze, 76 mm Abdul Aziz (1830-1876) was the second son of Sultan
Mahmud II. He succeeded his brother Abdul-Mejid and became Sultan of Turkey
in 1861. In 1870 he created the Bulgarian exarchate (an administrative
district of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire), thus
separating the Bulgarian church from the Greek church at Constantinople. He
acquired great wealth but squandered it extravagantly; he built, for
example, the Beylerbeyi Palace, a fantasy in white marble amid magnolia
filled gardens, on the Bosphorus's Asian shore. Used as the Sultan's summer
residence and hunting lodge, it was offered to the most distinguished
foreign dignitaries during their visits. Empress Eugenie of France was among
its residents. The sultan's incapacity and extravagance in Turkey led to an
outbreak of Moslem discontent and fanaticism and culminated in Bulgarian
atrocities. Abdul Aziz was deposed in 1876 by a group of prominent
politicians. His death is attributed to suicide. Abdul Aziz was the first
Ottoman sultan to travel to western Europe, an important part of which was
his visit to the City of London in 1867, the event commemorated by this
medal. The photograph used as a model for this medal was provided by Bahattin Öztuncay. LINK to photo of Mosque of Sultan Ahmed (from GreatBuildings.com) |
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