The conquest of Istanbul in 1453 was not merely a military victory; it was also the reconstruction of an imperial city that had been emptied, exhausted, and had largely lost its population and economic vitality. For Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, the city was not simply a captured fortress, but a center that had to be brought back to life.
For this reason, one of the first great challenges after the conquest was to restart life within the city walls: to fill its neighborhoods, bazaars, ports, places of worship, crafts, and palace surroundings with people once again. Among the communities brought to Istanbul during this process were people from Anatolia, Thrace, Balkan towns, the Aegean islands, Jewish communities, Greek Orthodox elements, and various groups of craftsmen.
The arrival of Albanians in Istanbul should also be understood as part of this broader settlement policy: the repopulation of the Ottoman capital and its transformation into the center of an empire. Here, the word “brought” does not refer only to forced relocation. At times, it meant state-directed resettlement known as sürgün; at times, a relationship of military service; at times, the need for craftsmen and labor; and at times, the incorporation of Balkan aristocracy and local elites into the Ottoman center.
- The Language of the Sources: Who Were the “Illyrians”?
One of the most important contemporary sources describing the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror is Kritovoulos’ History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Although Kritovoulos came from the Byzantine world, he entered the service of Mehmed the Conqueror and recorded events from a position close to the Ottoman center. For this reason, his text must be read both carefully and critically.One of Kritovoulos’ notable features is his use of ancient names instead of contemporary ethnic names.
In many places, he refers to the Albanians as “Illyrians.” This preference is not merely a form of literary classicism; it is also a continuation of the Byzantine historiographical tradition of referring to Balkan peoples through ancient geographical names. Therefore, when the term “Illyrians” appears in his text, it can be understood in most contexts as referring to Albanians.
This point is important because Mehmed’s Albanian campaigns, his agreements with Albanian notables, hostages, military obligations, and tax arrangements belonged to the same historical period as the reconstruction of Istanbul. The question of the relocation of Albanians to Istanbul remains incomplete without this military and political background.
2. Istanbul after the Conquest: An Empty City, a New Capital
When Istanbul was taken in 1453, the city was far from the former splendor of Byzantium. Long sieges, economic contraction, the legacy of the Latin occupation, population loss, and political isolation had weakened the city. Mehmed’s aim was not merely to seize the old Byzantine capital, but to turn it into the center of the Ottoman world empire.
For this reason, in the first years after the conquest, population was transferred to Istanbul. Numerous families, craftsmen, merchants, religious figures, and members of different communities were settled in the city, especially from Anatolia and Rumelia. This settlement was sometimes carried out through incentives, sometimes through the granting of property, and sometimes by state order. In Ottoman terminology, the word sürgün does not mean only punitive exile in the modern sense; it also refers to state-directed population transfer and settlement.
Mehmed treated the revival of Istanbul as a whole: empty houses, plots of land, buildings converted from churches or transferred to the treasury, the waqf system, and neighborhood organization were all part of this reconstruction. In the sources of the period, the rebuilding of the city appears almost as a jihad-i akbar — a great struggle: the reordering of stone, water, bazaar, neighborhood, and human life.
3. The Albanian Front: Resistance, Agreement, and Incorporation into the Center
Albania was one of the most difficult fronts for the Ottomans during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror. Because of its mountainous geography, local lords, tribal bonds, coastal fortresses, and relations with Venice, the region was not an area that could be easily controlled. Kritovoulos states that the Albanians lived in high mountains, difficult passes, deep valleys, and regions protected by forests. This narrative shows that Albania was resistant not only militarily, but also geographically.
The figures whom Kritovoulos refers to as “Arianos and Alexander” are historically associated with Arianites Komnenos and his son-in-law Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg. These names are symbolic figures of Albanian resistance against Ottoman advance. In his Albanian policy, Mehmed used different methods at different times: direct campaigns, tribute or taxation, the taking of hostages, military service, and the incorporation of local elites into the imperial center.
This background is essential for understanding the arrival of Albanians in Istanbul. The Ottoman capital was not built only by Muslim Turks from Anatolia, but also by the military and social energy of the Balkans. Albanians were among the important elements of this energy: warriors, mountain people, craftsmen, guards, servants, young men taken into the palace environment, groups working on sea and land routes, and families who, over time, rose within the central administration.
4. Being Brought to Istanbul: Punishment, Settlement, or Imperial Construction?
The bringing of Albanians to Istanbul should not be read as a one-dimensional event. It is not as simple as “the forced uprooting of a people,” yet it cannot be described merely as “voluntary migration” either. Early modern Ottoman settlement policy moved between these two poles: state need, security, reconstruction, military service, economic revitalization, and population engineering.
What Mehmed needed for Istanbul was not only population in numerical terms. The city required stonemasons, road builders, gardeners, sailors, butchers, bakers, merchants, religious figures, guards, palace servants, young men to be incorporated into the military class, and neighborhood populations capable of production. For this reason, the arrival of Albanians may also be interpreted as the addition of Balkan manpower to the reconstruction of Istanbul.
In particular, the name Arnavutköy on the shores of the Bosphorus became one of the strongest traces of Albanian presence in Istanbul’s memory. Yet caution is necessary here. In popular narratives and some later sources, it is said that Mehmed the Conqueror brought Albanians to Istanbul and settled them in this area. By contrast, in the tradition of the Istanbul Encyclopedia, it is stated that the exact date when the name Arnavutköy was given is not known; that Pierre Gyllius did not mention this name in 1546; but that a decree dated 1568 refers to the vineyards of Arnavutköy. This suggests that the name Arnavutköy became established around the middle of the sixteenth century.
Therefore, the most balanced formulation is this: within the post-conquest settlement of Istanbul, Albanian elements were brought into the city, and Albanian memory became permanent in some parts of Istanbul as a place name. However, linking the foundation of Arnavutköy to a single date and a single group of relocated people requires caution.
5. Arnavutköy: More Than the Name of a District
Located on the Rumelian side of the Bosphorus, Arnavutköy is an old settlement area known throughout history by names such as Hestai, Horasmota, and Mega Revma. Pre-Christian layers, the Byzantine period, holy springs, churches, vineyards, fishing, and Bosphorus life formed the multi-layered identity of this area. In the Ottoman period, the name “Arnavudköy” created a new layer in the memory of the district.
The emergence of this name is not merely an ethnic marker; it is also a trace of Istanbul’s transformation after the conquest. The name of a neighborhood sometimes lives longer than official registers. Arnavutköy is a vessel of memory that preserves the Albanian presence in Istanbul within the multicultural world of the Bosphorus, which, over time, became intertwined with Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, and Levantine elements.
Indeed, in later centuries, the population structure of Arnavutköy largely bore a Greek and Jewish character, while the Muslim population remained limited for a long time. This reminds us of an important reality: not all Albanians who came to Istanbul were Muslim. Albanian identity in the Ottoman world did not correspond one-to-one with religious identity. Orthodox Albanians, Catholic Albanians, and Muslim Albanians became attached to different social environments at different times. Some were absorbed into the Greek Orthodox milieu, some rose within the palace and military structures, and some left their mark on craft and neighborhood culture.
6. Between the Center and the Balkans: The Contribution of Albanians to Ottoman Istanbul
During the Ottoman period, Istanbul was not merely a center toward which the Balkans were directed; it was also a stage on which Balkan people reconstructed themselves. Albanians became visible on this stage through their military abilities, palace services, stonework and road labor, culinary and guild culture, bureaucratic advancement, and, over time, the statesmen they produced.
In the Ottoman system, the center did not merely govern the provinces; it also absorbed the elites and capable elements of the provinces into itself. This mechanism operated at times through the devshirme, at times through hostages, at times through voluntary service, and at times through migration and settlement. The recruitment of Albanian youths into palace and military structures, and the incorporation of the children of local lordly families into the center, were part of the Ottoman strategy for governing the Balkans.
For this reason, the Albanian presence in Istanbul is not merely the story of “an immigrant community.” It is also the practice of an empire binding the provinces to the center, transforming resistance into service, turning frontier people into people of the capital, and redefining different identities within a shared Ottoman order.
7. Later Waves: Balkan Upheavals and New Arrivals in Istanbul
The settlement of the age of Mehmed the Conqueror was only the first historical layer of Albanian arrival in Istanbul. In later centuries, Albanians continued to come to Istanbul for military, administrative, economic, and cultural reasons. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, uprisings in the Balkans, the Ottoman-Russian wars, the Greek independence process, Muslim refugees from the Morea, the War of 1877–1878, and finally the Balkan Wars turned Istanbul once again into a crossroads of major migrations.
Not all of these migrations can be classified as “Albanian migration,” because in Ottoman documents identity was often recorded through religion, place of origin, district, community, or legal status. Yet Albanians continued to be one of the important elements arriving in Istanbul within the multifaceted mobility of Balkan Muslims and Balkan Christians.
For this reason, in Istanbul’s memory, the Albanian name became attached not only to a district but also to a character: expressions and cultural traces such as Arnavut ciğeri — Albanian liver, Arnavut kaldırımı — cobblestone pavement, and Arnavut inadı — Albanian stubbornness — belong to a sphere where historical reality and urban folklore are intertwined. These are sometimes less documentary certainties than signs of social memory.
8. Conclusion: Istanbul’s Albanian Memory
The bringing of Albanians to Istanbul is not a simple event that can be contained within a single sentence. It stands at the intersection of post-conquest capital-building, Balkan resistance, Ottoman settlement policy, the need for craftsmen and military manpower, palace centralization, and urban memory.
Mehmed’s policy of reconstructing Istanbul moved not only stones and walls, but also people. This displacement sometimes meant pain, sometimes opportunity, sometimes necessity, and sometimes ascent. For Albanians, Istanbul was not only a place of exile; it was also a gate opening into the heart of the empire. Some who passed through this gate gave their name to a neighborhood; some became part of the palace, the army, and the crafts; some were absorbed into Greek, Jewish, Muslim, and Ottoman urban life.
Today, the name Arnavutköy on the shores of the Bosphorus is not merely a place name. It is the silent trace of a long historical road stretching from the Balkan mountains to the walls of Istanbul, from the passes of Albania to Mehmed’s new capital. In this sense, Istanbul is not only the capital of the Ottoman Empire; it is a great book of memory rewritten together by the peoples of the Balkans — Albanians, Greeks, Jews, Bosniaks, Turks, and many other communities.
Source Notes within the Chapter
[1] Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror, trans. Charles T. Riggs.
[2] Halil İnalcık’s studies on Ottoman methods of conquest and settlement.
[3] Studies on the 1455 survey of Istanbul, post-conquest settlement, and population policies.[4] Istanbul Encyclopedia, entry “Arnavudköyü.”
[5] Mehmed the Conqueror’s Albanian campaigns, in the context of Arianites Komnenos and Skanderbeg.
[6] Literature on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Balkan migrations and refugees arriving in Istanbul.
