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on 10 July the Turkish Council of state issued a formal decision relating to the change of status of the Hagia Sophia: the decision of the Council of Ministers of 1934, converting the Hagia Sophia into a Museum was Turkish judges unanimously cancelled. Literally after this was published the decree of President Erdogan on the transfer of St. Sophia at the disposal of the office for religious Affairs. And finally, in 20 hours 53 minutes on all TV channels of Turkish television had shown the appeal of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the country’s citizens, accompanied by “spontaneous” prayer rejoicing of Turkish citizens on the square in front of the now former Museum, simultaneously became the mosque of St. Sophia.

speech by President Erdogan was chosen. It says a lot about the worldview and the motives of the Turkish leader: there is a certain numerological connection with 20.53 1453 the year of the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. In Turkey the fall of Constantinople as the end point of the Byzantine Empire and as a starting point of the Ottoman Imperial state, annually on the 29th of may is celebrated magnificently with the historical reconstruction of the storm and the light show at the preserved fortifications of the city.

Despite the fact that immediately after the capture of Constantinople, but only in 1511, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, this Orthodox Cathedral is to the Turks almost a sacred meaning of “keys” not just from the city, even such as Constantinople and the whole Empire.

Our readers are accustomed to think in the categories of family ties between Byzantium and Russia, might seem at least strange, but in Turkey, namely the Ottoman Empire is perceived as not only territorial, but also civilization the successor of the Byzantine Empire. Even despite the difference in faiths.

So televised Erdogan was not only about the fact that the first prayer is done at the Hagia Sophia mosque on July 24 and access to it is unlimited and free to all comers, including tourists. And not even about the fact that the image of St. Sophia will not undergo major changes, as the Cathedral is a world heritage site, UNESCO, and Turkey must fulfill its international obligations.

Remarks by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accomplished about a long-term dream of the Muslims of Turkey once again to pray in a place that is a symbol of the beginning of the Ottoman Empire. This performance was about the numerous victories of the past of the Ottoman Turks and about the current victory of their descendants, who finally corrected admitted in 1934, the historic injustice and returned to a sacred place for itself. And returned, despite the fact that the Christian world opposed ��reversine of Hagia Sophia into a mosque either categorically, as Greece and Cyprus, or, as in the case of the United States, Germany, France and Russia expressed their concerns taken by the country’s leadership decision.

the Current change status of St. Sophia in speech, Turkish President looked almost like a second fall of Constantinople, and, if such a comparison is relevant, was about “the return of Hagia Sophia to home port” after a few decades of “free floating” in a Museum. Neither more nor less in this came the reminder about the Imperial grandeur of Turkey.

of Course, the return of Hagia Sophia mosque status is not about the fact that in Istanbul the Muslims have enough mosques to perform religious rites. In the end, facing Hagia Sophia, in Sultanahmet square, is the equally famous Blue mosque. And, like in Istanbul mosques?

Here’s another: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, not only has your Outlook on the future of the Turkish Republic, but also just in front, with his hands writes her story and writes in her name. And Sofya is a significant part of a larger plan of Erdogan, which was started in 2002, when the authorities in Turkey came to his Party of justice and development.

If outline is extremely compact this plan, persistently implemented by a Turkish leader for nearly two decades, we get the following.

First of all, we are talking about the return of the Turks are full of historical memory — procenjivanja of the nation’s history from 1923, when it was declared the new Turkish Republic, and the entire depth of the historical process — starting with the first invasions of the Turks on the territory of Anatolia. One of the milestones, in particular, was the battle of Manzikert in 1071, as well as the capture of Constantinople is celebrated annually in Turkey event.

the Administrative boundaries of the Turkish Republic, of course, not those that were from the Ottoman Empire. However, the impact in the modern world realized not what it was — the formal accession has become a matter is not required. In the end, in a global world, is sufficient to project political and economic influence on the regions of their interests. And the interests of modern Turkey’s much wider than the borders of the Ottoman Empire even at its peak.

for traditional Turks habitats (the Balkans, North Africa, black sea region, the Caucasus, middle East), for example, you should add and Western Europe, where, due to a number of reasons in recent decades, abundantly settled by the Turks, forming a Diaspora of several million people.

If you look at the so-called map of the Turkic world in Turkish school history textbooks (reprinted in the book by the author of “Russia — Turkey��: 500 years of a troubled neighbourhood”), the Turkic world, according to the Turkish Ministry of education, stretches from West to East through the whole territory of Eurasia.

In 2011, Erdogan and the Party of justice and development was introduced to Turkish citizens plan, which according to the 100-anniversary of the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the country will enter the top ten world economies by GDP. Today it became clear that the plan in this period was not destined to be realized. And the country is not a simple economic situation due to external and internal properties.

However, it is difficult to argue with the fact that the potential of the Turkish Republic, scientific-technological, industrial, and human resources in recent years has grown significantly.

Illustrations that set, and one of the most striking is the development of “milli ve yerli”, as they say in Turkey, that is, “national and local” military-industrial complex.

For example, you can specify on the Turkish drones that already fly under the Syrian and the Libyan sky. And, moreover, Turkey is a direct party to the civil wars in Syria and Libya. Turkey has gained psychological confidence in their own abilities, acting abroad alone, not being supported by the West / NATO.

note that the entire last century, with the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, the country, through its foreign policy, tried to rely primarily on diplomacy in the Eastern skillfully maneuvering between leading global players. Today it is not so — the Turkish leadership has added to his Arsenal in addition to the tools of soft power and even force hard and became willing to resort to it in Syria, Libya and, more broadly, in Mediterranean and Aegean regions.

In a sense you can say that with the current Turkish leadership, Turkey has been overcome an important psychological barrier.

And the last step of the Turkish leadership to change the status of Hagia Sophia, the decision in spite of the many, not the last countries in the world and the opinions of influential politicians and public figures, is the clearest proof. To a large extent this step is a challenge, designed to unite the Turkish population around their leader, who returned them an important “artifact”.

we Emphasize that legally, Turkey is acting in his full right of a sovereign state and can use any monument in the country on your own — and no it is in this sense not a decree.

However, the case of Hagia Sophia, still far from ordinary observers to appreciate it in a detached only from the formal legal point of view and do not remember about other aspects. Too large a value of Hagia Sophia, not only for Turkish Muslims, for whom she was throwingd 1511 and 1934, but for the Christian world, mindful of almost a thousand years, when Saint Sophia was an Orthodox Cathedral.

Today, who have a mosque, who is still the Museum, and who initially and for all, the Hagia Sophia, instead of staying “neutral territory”, which carries the traces of the two world religions, it suddenly becomes a bone of contention. The Russian leadership expressed at the expense of the Turkish decision very carefully, which is understandable as from a formal, legal point of view, and taking into account the mutual interests of our two countries and joint economic projects and political initiatives — ie, not wanting to aggravate the situation. But here like the old joke about a missing person and found a silver spoon: from the Turkish decision “the precipitate remained” the number of Russian-Turkish divergence of views is added to another, and civilization scale.