This post contains my first attempt at a translation of the prologue to a work first published in 1947 in Athens by Georgios Georgiades Arnakis (as Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης Αρνάκης, Οι Πρώτοι Οθωμανοί: Συμβολή στο Πρόβλημα της Πτώσης του Ελληνισμού της Μικράς Ασίας). An earlier attempt at a full translation into English is available here. A PDF scan of this original text is available here. More information about Arnakis and his work is available via his obituaries, here in Greek and here in English.
The foundation of the Ottoman State in Bithynia, the subjugation by stages of this land, and the disappearance of the large part of its Hellenic population, which are topics that belong to the subject of Byzantine Studies, have not received the attention they deserve in Greece, although Byzantine Studies as a whole has taken great strides and made much progress. But in Turkey too the history of the first Ottomans has not been as adequately studied as we would have expected; since as soon as the science of history began to be systematically cultivated after the foundation of the Kemalist regime, the Turks turned primarily towards research of the prehistoric period, such that they have formulated certain very bold theories about the origin of European civilization. Within this general interest in prehistory, relatively few Turkish authors concerned themselves with the capital problems of the first Ottomans. Those works which have seen the public light in the last twenty years, are of course well worth paying attention to, but there is a lack of synthetic studies which, based upon recent research, would place the major problem of the foundation of the Ottoman State on an indubitably scientific basis. Thus even Turkey, despite the rich material which is scattered in its libraries, has not offered up to this point the expected contribution to the field of early Ottoman history. In the West, of course, many have worked on Ottoman topics in general and in specifics, but their works are generally considered today to be outdated, while the few modern studies that take up the first Ottoman period are by Turkologists, who with significant one-sidedness tried to portray the foundation of the Ottoman State as a clearly Turkish phenomenon. Under these conditions, it is possible to say that, despite the contributions of significant researchers to particular areas of it, the problem of the formation of the Ottoman State remains, to this day, unsolved.
With the work at hand we do not aspire to offer the final solution to this problem, which is just as complicated as it is unexplored. Our main purpose is to place it in the framework of scientific research, far from any heroic or nationalistic perception. The heroic perception of history and nationalism have reduced the value of many writings to such a degree that many of those who have so far written about the foundation of the Ottoman State have as a rule underestimated or elided the significance of the Byzantine factor. We think that this topic cannot be studied except in combination with the history of Byzantium and particularly that of Bithynia, the land where the Ottomans appeared and developed.
For this exact reason the current study — which on the one hand examines the foundation of the Osmanlis on ground which despite all the raids retained its Hellenic character, and on the other hand researches the fortunes of the last Byzantine regions of the East — may be considered as a contribution to the study of the Hellenism of Asia Minor in the Middle Ages. The problem of the fall of the Hellenism of Asia Minor is one of the most important historical questions which no scholar of Byzantine history may ignore.
As Paparrigopoulos wrote, Asia Minor enclosed in its bays the most dense and most homogenous Hellenic population of the Empire, such that it could withstand the invasions of Persians and Arabs without falling. Because of its rich natural resources and more so through its spiritual strength, Asia Minor gave life over many centuries to the embattled Byzantine Empire. It was the solid and stable mass upon which Byzantium was braced for all of the Middle Ages. “Without Asia Minor,” writes the respected professor Const. Amantos, “the Hellenism of Byzantium would not have been possible, and Hellenism too may have been lost.” Taking this into account, we are prompted to ask: how did it happen that the Helleno-Christian population of the Aegean — which according to some calculations (Foord, The Byzantine Empire, p. 415) amounted to 32 million in the year AD 395 and flourished, continuing to prevail in numbers, until the eleventh century — came to comprise only the one and a half million refugees who left for Greece in 1922?
To this question, which is of greatest importance both from a national and a more general perspective, the current study, having as it does to do with the last remnants of the Empire in the East, intends to give to the greatest extent possible an adequate answer, particularly insofar as it has to do with the land between the Rhyndacus and Sakarya rivers, extending to the shores of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus — that is, that land that usually takes the name Bithynia.
Lastly, I would like to express my warm thanks to all who have helped me bring a worthy conclusion to this work of mine, particularly to DA Zakythinos, professor of Byzantine History at the University of Athens, who has greatly contributed to the publication of this study in a complete form, and to the professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature and academician NA Bees, the publisher of the Byzantinisch–neugriechische Jahrbücher, who placed at my disposal valuable books which are otherwise unavailable in Greece, and included the First Ottomans in the supplement of this respected journal.
In Athens, 2 July 1941 – 21 June 1943
G. Georgiades Arnakis