Köprülü Mehmed Pasha

The future great vizier was born in the city of Köprülü at the end of the 16th century. As a child, under the devshirma system, he was taken from his parents and sent to a Muslim school. Making a career in the administrative system, in 1644 he became the Baylerbay of the Trabzon Vilayat , in 1647 - Eger , in 1648 - Karaman , in 1650 - Anatolia . In 1652, he became the vizier of the sofa for one week, but due to constant changes in the political situation, he was forced to leave his post and retired to the town of Köprü received from his father-in-law in Anatolia.

In 1656, the situation in the Ottoman Empire was critical. The Cretan war continued, in May 1656 the Maltese-Venetian fleet defeated the Ottoman fleet at the Dardanelles and blocked the strait, making it impossible to supply the army fighting in Crete . Domestic was also turbulent. To restore the prestige of the position of the great vizier and to distance him from the palace intrigues, at the instigation of the Valide Sultan Turhan Khatija, they decided to look for a new grand vizier outside the palace environment. On September 15, 1656, Sultan Mehmed IV appointed Keprül Mehmed the Great Vizier.

Immediately after his appointment, Mehmed Pasha had to act against the reviving sect of Kadizadeli, whose spiritual leader, Justywani Mehmed-effendi, was a respected preacher and had, due to his popularity, the right to enter the palace. A week after taking office Köprülü Mehmed Pasha raided the leaders of the movement and sent them (including Justywani Mehmed Effendi) to Cyprus .

With the others accused of fomenting unrest, the new great vizier cost much more brutally. The execution by hanging of the Orthodox patriarch on the grounds that he encouraged the Wallachian Christians to rebel against Ottoman rule was completely unprecedented. Sadie Ahmed Pasha was removed from the post of chief admiral , received by him for repelling the attack of the Venetians on the Dardanelles in late summer 1656, and sent by the governor to Bosnia. The sultan gave the great vizier the authority to punish the rebellious, a curfew was imposed. With the help of the Janissaries, the riot of cavalry regiments recruited in Anatolia was suppressed, some of the top commanders of the cavalry were executed. As the Sultan chronicler Abdurahman Abdi Pasha put it, the corpses of many troublemakers "became food for sea creatures."

In 1657, the Ottoman fleet broke into the Aegean Sea . After several months of fierce naval battles, during which Köprülü Mehmed himself commanded a land army camped on the Anatolian coast of the Dardanelles, the Turks took the islands of Tenedos and Lemnos and executed those whom they considered violating their duty during the military campaign. The defeat of the Venetians allowed the resumption of the supply of the Turkish army, which led the siege of Kandia .

At this time in Transylvania rose Gyorgy II Rakoczi . In the spring of 1657, the local governor Melek Ahmed Pasha began to act against him, in the autumn the forces of the Crimean Khan joined him, and in 1658 the army led a campaign against Transylvania under the command of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha himself, and several thousand people joined his forces sent by the Commonwealth . Rakoczy was forced to flee.

When the great vizier returned from a campaign in Transylvania, he faced a riot, which was organized by some of the governors of Asian provinces. The uprising ended in the fact that about thirty Pasha were killed with particular cruelty (most of whom had long been in the public service). This put an end to the practice of frequent rebellion that shook Asia Minor in previous decades.

Sensing the approach of death, Köprül Mehmed called on his son Fazyl Ahmed , who at that time was the governor of Damascus, and made him his deputy. On October 31, 1661, Köprül Mehmed Pasha died after a serious and prolonged illness in Edirne , and Fazyl Ahmed became the new great vizier.

• The era of Köprülü

• Caroline Finkel . History of the Ottoman Empire. Vision Osman. - M. :, AST, 2010 .-- ISBN 978-5-17-043651-4 .

• Ga ́bor A ́goston, Bruce Alan Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781438110257 , 2009, page 313