[edit]
See also: Timeline of Bursa and Prousa
Antiquity[edit]
Athena, bronze, 2nd century AD, at Bursa Archaeological Museum
The earliest known human settlement near Bursa's current location was at the Ilıpınar Mound in c. 6000 BC. It was followed by the Bithynian city of Prusa, which was built by King Prusias I of Bithynia. The city was also referred to as Prusa ad Olympum after its location at the foot of the Bithynian Olympus (present day Mount Uludağ). One of the known characteristics of Prusa at that time was its hot springs that's dubbed as the "royal waters". In 75/74 BC, Nicomedes IV, the last king of Bithynia, bequeated his entire kingdom to the Roman Republic in his last testament before he died.
According to a letter that's written to Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98–117) by Roman author Pliny the Younger, then the Imperial Governor of Bithynia and Pontus, constructions of baths took place in Prusa after a permit by the reigning emperor.
To Trajan.
When I was looking about, Sir, for a place upon which to build the baths which you have graciously allowed to be erected at Prusa, I was pleased with a site on which there once stood, I am told, a beautiful mansion which is now in a ruinous and unsightly condition.
— Epistulae, book X.70
An early Roman artifact was found in Bursa. It was composed of woman's silver toiletry articles. It is currently reserved in the British Museum since 1913.
Middle Ages[edit]
Encyclopædia Britannica suggests that, when Prusa was under Byzantine rule, the city prospered after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I built a palace there. Prusa then became a garrison city in 562, where imperial guards were stationed. Already by the mid-6th century, Prusa was known as a famous silk textile manufacturing centre.
Ottoman architecture in Bursa
Bursa became the capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. During the Ottoman rule, the city witnessed a considerable amount of urban growth, such as the building of hospitals, caravanserais (including the Koza Han), and madrasas. The first official Ottoman mint was established in the city. After conquering Adrianople (later Edirne) in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new capital city in the 1360s.
No longer a capital city, Bursa still retained its spiritual and commercial importance in the Ottoman Empire. In Bursa, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid I Complex (which contains the Bayezid I Mosque) between 1390 and 1395 and the Grand Mosque of Bursa between 1396 and 1400. After the defeat and capture of Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara by the forces of Emir Timur in 1402, the latter's grandson, Muhammad Sultan Mirza, had Bursa pillaged and burned. Timur then assigned the administration of Bursa to his protégé, a son of Savcı Bey. Bursa was later put under the control of Ottoman co-ruler and pretender Îsâ Çelebi during the Ottoman interregnum following the death of Bayezid in captivity. On May 1403, Bursa was annexed by Mehmed Çelebi in the aftermath of the Battle of Ulubad. According to a folio, Bursa is recorded to have a total of 174 quarters which was inhabitated by 6,457 tax-paying heads of households in 1487.
Historical populationYearPop.±%192761,451—     194077,598+26.3%1955 128,875+66.1%1980487,604+278.4%2000 1,184,144+142.8%Bursa was a hub of the Ottoman silk trade. The city housed a dockyard for many cargo ships and became a place of distribution of silk and other commodities from the East, particularly Ming China, to the rest of the Mediterranean world, which included the Italian city-states, particularly Genoa and Florence. Bursa was a part of the land route of the Armenian trade networks. Bursa also became a resort town with many springs, centered in an area named Cekirge, such as the Ottoman hammams Eski and Yeni Kaplıcas. Sometime during a Devshirme levy in 1603-4, the villagers of Eğerciler (later called Eğerce), a Christian village in Bursa and provider of sheep to Istanbul, declared that the children of the village were very much needed as shepherds. They also asserted that even though they were not obliged to give any children to the army, the officers took some anyway. The Ottoman government responded by issuing a decree that commanded the return of the children. In 1827, bursa was set as the capital of Hüdavendigâr Eyalet until, following the Vilayet Law, the Hüdavendigâr Vilayet from 1867 to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.
Modern Era[edit]
In July 1915, thousands of the Orthodox Christian populations took refugee in Bursa under the order of the Ottoman government under the political party Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) after being forced out of their coastal villages. This mass-migration worsened the conditions of the Greek population of Bursa, who have previously managed to survive the attacks and boycotts of 1914. Deportation orders later came to the Armenian population of Bursa after a series of deportations in Adapazari. Many of the Protestant population of Armenian descent in Bursa were initially spared from deportation. Killings even occurred in Çengiler, a village outside of Bursa, after some villagers tried to resist deportation. During the Greco-Turkish War, the Greek troops of Asia Minor captured Bursa in the early July of 1920 after clashes with Turkish forces around the city. On 11 September 1922, the Turkish Nationalist Army recaptured Bursa during the Great Offensive.
Picture from the von Hallwyl family's journey through Asia Minor and Turkey 27 April - 20 June 1901. Bursa - Hallwyl Museum.
Bursa, Turkey, ca. 1895.
Picture from the von Hallwyl family's journey through Asia Minor and Turkey 27 April - 20 June 1901. Bursa - Hallwyl Museum.
Picture of the Irgandı Bridge from the von Hallwyl family's journey through Asia Minor and Turkey 27 April - 20 June 1901. Bursa - Hallwyl Museum.
Bursa's industry, which was based off of foreign-owned silk factories since the 19th century, was accelerated and improved by the production of other industrial sectors, such as textile production, automotive manufacturing, and agriculture-based industries. Public factories and private industrial enterprises are also enstablished in the city later during the Turkish Republic.
Entrance to the building of the Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BTSO), a Bursa-based professional association that focuses on commerce and industry since 1889.
Immigrations to Bursa happened as early as 1877, when many of the Ottoman population migrated from Rumelia, Romania, and Bulgaria fleeing the Russo-Turkish War. The immigrants in Bursa later settled in neighborhoods enstablished by the then-serving Vali, Ahmed Vefik Pasha. A major part of the Muslim immigrants of Turkish descent also settled in Bursa after forced migration from Bulgaria in between 1950-51 and also in 1989. Bursa became an immigrant city due to its status as a large city alongside Istanbul, İzmir, and Ankara due to its industries and bussinesses, which increased employment opportunity. The city was also more preferred to other larger cities by the immigrants from the northeast provinces of Turkey due to perceived similarity of culture, climate, and geography with their home provinces.
Jewish community[edit]
Bursa was initially the home to a small Romaniote Jewish community that settled there before the Ottoman conquest in 1326. The Jewish community later underwent a demographic shift with the arrival of Sephardic Jews who arrived in the city after the expulsion from Spain after the Alhambra Decree in 1492, with Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) overtaking the Judeo-Greek as the community's main language.
Mayor Synagogue in Bursa
Throughout the Ottoman period, most Jews in Bursa resided in Kuruçeşme, the city's Jewish quarter. Etz Chaim (Eṣ Ḥayyim), the oldest synagogue in Bursa, predated the Ottoman conquest, while the Gerush and Mayor synagogues were established by Sephardic newcomers. Despite the 1851 fire destroying Etz Chaim, the other two remain, along with the Berut synagogue. Bursa also had a Jewish cemetery until recently.
Though never a major center, Bursa's Jewish population fluctuated. Dubious data suggests 683 families in 1571/72, dropping to 141 by 1696/97. By 1883, there were 2,179 Jews, with an influx of 400 from Akkerman in 1887. Pre-World War I, the population reached 3,500, but emigration reduced it to 140 by the early 21st century.
Engaged in the local economy, Bursa's Jews were shop owners and involved in guilds. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they excelled in textile manufacturing, silk trade, goldsmithing, and finance. But the community periodically struggled both economically and with antisemitism; an 1886 report highlighted poverty, and Bursa faced blood libels in 1592 and 1865.
Despite its size, the community produced renowned halakhic scholars across centuries. Modern schooling arrived in 1886 with Alliance Israélite Universelle, but it closed in 1923 during the secularization program. Jewish children then attended Turkish schools for a modern education.
As of 2021, there are 60 Jews left in Bursa, one active synagogue and one Jewish cemetery.
