Koprulu Era (1656-1703): Grand Viziers Revive the Ottomans

The Koprulu era is the period from 1656 to the early 1700s when a single family of grand viziers, the Koprulus, steered the Ottoman Empire. Appointed in a moment of near collapse, Koprulu Mehmed Pasha restored central authority with ruthless purges, and his heirs led the empire to its widest extent in Europe. The era ended amid the defeats that followed the failed siege of Vienna in 1683.

Background: an empire in crisis

By the mid-1650s the Ottoman state was in trouble. Sultan Mehmed IV had come to the throne in 1648 as a boy of six, and power rested with palace factions, his mother Turhan Sultan and the soldiery of the capital. Grand viziers changed frequently, sometimes several times in a year.

The long war with Venice over Crete, begun with the Siege of Candia in 1648, was draining the treasury. In June 1656 the Venetian fleet defeated the Ottoman navy at the mouth of the Dardanelles and blockaded the strait, threatening grain supplies to Istanbul. Earlier that year, in March 1656, troops angered by payment in debased coin had rioted in the capital and forced the execution of palace officials.

Koprulu Mehmed Pasha takes power

In mid-September 1656 Turhan Sultan appointed Koprulu Mehmed Pasha grand vizier. He was a veteran administrator of Albanian origin, already in his seventies by most estimates, whose family name came from the town of Koprulu (Vezirkopru) in northern Anatolia.

According to Ottoman chroniclers, he accepted only on conditions: his proposals would be approved, appointments would be his to make, and the palace would not listen to his rivals. Whether or not the bargain was quite so formal, he governed with an independence few predecessors had enjoyed.

He used it harshly. Rebellious soldiers, suspect officials and dissident religious figures were executed, among them the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Parthenios III in 1657. Later accounts speak of thousands of executions; the exact number is unknown and was probably exaggerated, but contemporaries agreed that the purge was severe.

Restoring order and the army

In 1657 the Ottoman fleet broke the Venetian blockade and recovered the islands of Tenedos (Bozcaada) and Lemnos. In 1658 the grand vizier campaigned against George II Rakoczi, the prince of Transylvania, who had invaded Poland without Ottoman permission, and replaced him with more obedient rulers.

The greatest internal threat came from Anatolia, where Abaza Hasan Pasha led a revolt of provincial governors in 1658. Koprulu crushed it in early 1659, and the rebel leaders were killed. Steady pay for the Janissaries, tighter control of the provinces and better tax collection followed.

Koprulu Mehmed Pasha died in office on 31 October 1661. Before his death he secured the succession of his son, Fazil Ahmed Pasha.

Fazil Ahmed Pasha: the height of power

Fazil Ahmed Pasha, grand vizier from 1661 to 1676, was an educated man trained in religious law, and he governed with more restraint than his father. In 1663 he led a war against the Habsburgs, capturing the fortress of Ersekujvar (Nove Zamky). The next year his army was checked at the Battle of Saint Gotthard, but the Peace of Vasvar left the Ottomans their gains.

He then went to Crete in person. In September 1669 the Venetian garrison of Candia surrendered after a siege of more than twenty years, and Crete became Ottoman. In 1672 he campaigned against Poland, taking the fortress of Kamianets in Podolia; the treaties of Buchach (1672) and Zurawno (1676) left Podolia in Ottoman hands. At this point the empire reached its greatest territorial extent in Europe. Fazil Ahmed died in November 1676.

Kara Mustafa and the turn of fortune

Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, Fazil Ahmed’s brother-in-law and a product of the Koprulu household, followed as grand vizier. He fought Russia over the Cossack lands of Ukraine, capturing Chyhyryn in 1678, before turning on the Habsburgs. His siege of Vienna ended in disaster at the Battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683, and he was executed on the sultan’s orders in Belgrade that December.

The family still supplied grand viziers during the long war that followed. Fazil Mustafa Pasha, a younger son of Mehmed, reorganised the army and retook Belgrade in 1690, but he was killed at the Battle of Slankamen in August 1691. Amcazade Huseyin Pasha, a nephew of Mehmed, held office from 1697 and oversaw the negotiation of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. He left office in 1702, and the Edirne revolt of 1703, which deposed Mustafa II, is often taken as the end of the era.

Timeline

• 1656, June: Venetian fleet defeats the Ottomans at the Dardanelles and blockades the strait.
• 1656, September: Koprulu Mehmed Pasha becomes grand vizier.
• 1657: The Dardanelles blockade is broken; Tenedos and Lemnos are recovered.
• 1659: The Anatolian revolt of Abaza Hasan Pasha is crushed.
• 1661, 31 October: Koprulu Mehmed Pasha dies; his son Fazil Ahmed Pasha succeeds him.
• 1669, September: Candia surrenders and Crete becomes Ottoman.
• 1672: Kamianets and Podolia are taken from Poland.
• 1683, 12 September: Kara Mustafa Pasha is defeated at Vienna.
• 1699, 26 January: Treaty of Karlowitz, negotiated under Amcazade Huseyin Pasha.

Legacy

Historians once described the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire as simply declining, with the Koprulus as a brief interruption. Recent scholarship sees the period differently: the empire was adapting to new military and fiscal pressures, and the Koprulu viziers built a durable system in which the grand vizier’s household, rather than the sultan’s palace, ran the government.

The family’s buildings survive in several cities, including mosques, libraries and schools. The Koprulu library in Istanbul, founded by Fazil Ahmed Pasha, still holds important manuscripts.

Why it matters

The Koprulu era shows how a declining-looking empire could recover through strong central leadership. It also explains the circumstances of 1683: the confidence and resources built up by the Koprulus made Kara Mustafa’s bold march on Vienna possible, and its failure began the Ottoman retreat from Central Europe.