Constantinople

:This article details the history of Constantinople before the Turkish Conquest of 1453. For details on the city since 1453, see ?stanbul.

Names

The name of Constantinople is an honorific reference to that of its founder, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Constantine established the Greek city of Byzantium as the second capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, AD 330, naming the city Nova Roma (New Rome). That particular name, however, enjoyed little common use, and it was as the 'City of Constantine' (Constantinopolis) that it lived through the subsequent centuries.

Related Topics:
Constantine the Great - Roman Empire - May 11 - 330 - Nova Roma

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A historical Slavic name for the city was Tsargrad. The word is an Old Church Slavonic translation of the Greek, presumably of ???????? ?????, "the city of the emperor ": combining the Slavonic words tsar for "Caesar" and grad for "city", it stood for "the City of the Emperor ". As fashions have changed the term has faded, and the word Tsargrad is now an archaic term in Russian, but is still used occasionally in Bulgarian.

Related Topics:
Slavic - Old Church Slavonic - Greek - Tsar - Caesar - Russian - Bulgarian

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The Ottoman Turks called the city Stamboul or ?stanbul, adopting a usage in Greek "eis tin Poli" (to or at the City). But they still used "Konstantiniyye" ("Constantine's City", or Constantinople) as the official name. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved to Ankara. Constantinople was officially renamed ?stanbul by the Republic of Turkey in 1930.

Related Topics:
Turks - ?stanbul - Turkey - 1923 - Ankara - 1930

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