Galatasaray High School (, ), established in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

in 1481, is the oldest and highly selective

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. It is also the second-oldest Turkish educational institution after

Istanbul University Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...

, which was established in 1453. The name ''Galatasaray'' means ''Galata Palace'', as the school is located at the far end of

Galata Galata is the former name of the Karaköy neighbourhood in Istanbul, which is located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn. The district is connected to the historic Fatih district by several bridges that cross the Golden Horn, most nota ...

, the medieval Genoese enclave above the

Golden Horn The Golden Horn ( or ) is a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. As a natural estuary that connects with the Bosphorus Strait at the point where the strait meets the Sea of Marmara, the waters of the ...

in what is now the district of

Beyoğlu Beyoğlu (; ) is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 9 km2, and its population is 225,920 (2022). It is on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey, separated from the o ...

. Admission to Galatasaray High School is determined through nationwide entrance examinations, with successful candidates representing the top 0.03% of students. The institution integrates elements of Turkish and French educational curricula, providing instruction in both languages and upholding a longstanding tradition of academic rigor. The

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

club Galatasaray S.K. was formed by and named after the institution, with the footballers in the club's formative years consisting entirely of pupils from the school. Galatasaray High School is the progenitor of the

Galatasaray Community Galatasaray Community () is the organization of Galatasaray institutions which were derived from Galatasaray High School, which cooperate under the one umbrella. It was established on 11 October 1988, when the organization was created under the ...

, which includes the football club, its parent Galatasaray Sports Club, and

Galatasaray University Galatasaray University (, ) is a public university established in Istanbul, Turkey in 1992, following an agreement signed in the presence of President François Mitterrand of France and President Turgut Özal of Turkey during a ceremony at Gala ...

. Galatasaray has been the

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

of numerous prominent figures in art, literature, diplomacy, politics, and other fields, with many Galatasaray

alumni Alumni (: alumnus () or alumna ()) are former students or graduates of a school, college, or university. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for groups of women, and alums (: alum) or alumns (: alumn) as gender-neutral alternatives. Th ...

making notable contributions to their respective areas.

History

Origins (1481–1830)

Sultan

Bayezid II Bayezid II (; ; 3 December 1447 – 26 May 1512) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Bayezid consolidated the Ottoman Empire, thwarted a pro-Safavid dynasty, Safavid rebellion and finally abdicated his throne ...

founded the ''Galata Sarayı Enderun-u Hümayunu'' ( English: Galata Palace Imperial School) in 1481. The sultan often roamed the city, disguised as an ordinary citizen and legend has it that on one of these rambles he found a garden in

filled with beautiful red and yellow roses. In this garden, he met ''Gül Baba'' ( English: Father Rose) of the

Bektashi Order Bektashism (, ) is a Sufi order of Islam that evolved in 13th-century western Anatolia and became widespread in the Ottoman Empire. It is named after the ''walī'' "saint" Haji Bektash Veli, with adherents called Bektashis. The Bektashi co ...

. The Sultan asked the wise man about how to improve the

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

and the city as they filled with immigrants. ''Gül Baba'' explained that he was happy with the city, his rose garden and the reign of the Sultan, but he would be even happier if there was a school which would educate students from this diverse range of backgrounds, as this would train the wise men needed to serve such a large Empire. He told the Sultan he would be proud to serve as a teacher in this school in order to create a generation of valuable subjects for the Empire. Bayezid II took ''Gül Baba'' at his word and returned to the garden weeks later with the edict which established the Ottoman Imperial School in the grounds next to the rose garden, with ''Gül Baba'' as its headmaster. ''Gül Baba'' became the first headmaster of Galatasaray and administered the school for many years. He died during the Ottoman raid on

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and his tomb is located in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. When the Ottoman army went to war,

dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from ) in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage is found particularly in Persi ...

es and

minstrel A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist enter ...

s accompanied it to provide prayers and entertainment but also armed themselves and joined in the fighting when necessary. ''Gül Baba'' was one of these dervishes.

Interim period (1830–1868)

Galata Palace Imperial School remained open until the 1830s, when the Tanzimat movement for reform and reorganisation drastically altered the Ottoman Empire's old establishment. Sultan

Mahmud II Mahmud II (, ; 20 July 1785 – 1 July 1839) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. Often described as the "Peter the Great of Turkey", Mahmud instituted extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms ...

replaced the Imperial School with the Ottoman Medical School, staffed largely by French professors with most courses taught in French. The Medical School was based in the Galatasaray (''lit.'' Galata Palace) buildings for some thirty years. The initial French name was ''Lycée Imperial Ottoman de Galataserai''.

Modern period (1868–1923)

Sultan

Abdülaziz Abdulaziz (; ; 8 February 18304 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was 1876 Ottoman coup d'état, overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother ...

was the first Ottoman sultan to travel to Europe and, while in France, was impressed by the French educational system. On his return to Istanbul, he announced the Edict on Public Education which established a free compulsory education system for children under twelve. In September 1868, the ''Lycée Impérial Ottoman de Galata-Sérai'' ( Turkish: ''Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanisi'') was established based on the ''lycée'' model. French was the main language of instruction, and many teachers were European. The students included members of all the religious and ethnic communities of the Ottoman Empire. From 1868 to 1878, most of the students were non Muslims, many of whom were Bulgarian.Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor). ''Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule'' (Volume 18 of Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Routledge, 7 July 2016. , 9781317118442.

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

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Since this period, the district where the school stands has been known as Galatasaray. In 1905, the Galatasaray Sports Club was founded by

Ali Sami Yen Ali Sami Yen, born Ali Sami Frashëri (20 May 1886 – 29 July 1951) was an Albanian-Turkish sports official best known as the founder of the Galatasaray SK, Galatasaray Sports Club. Life Ali Sami Yen was born in Üsküdar, Constantinople v ...

and his friends in one of the school's classrooms, Literature 5B. In 1907 a fire broke out in the school and burnt its wooden buildings to the ground. The library, museum and archive were all lost; only some stones of the external walls survived. The school was briefly relocated to

Beylerbeyi Beylerbeyi is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Üsküdar, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 5,168 (2022). It is located on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, to the north of the Bosphorus Bridge. It is bordered on the ...

but in 1909 the students were able to return to a new stone building on the site.

Establishment of the Republic of Turkey to Integrated Education System (1923–1992)

With the abolition of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and the proclamation of the

Republic of Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

in 1923, the school's name was changed to ''Galatasaray Lisesi'' ( English: Galatasaray High School or French: Lycée de Galatasaray). Instruction was conducted in Turkish and French, and the school consisted of an Elementary School for five years and a Lycée for seven years, with French Language and Literature, Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, English, and German taught selectively in the final four years. The school became co-educational in 1965, and female students now constitute at least 40% of the school's pupils. One of the main buildings of the

Feriye Palace The Feriye Palace () is a complex of Ottoman imperial palace buildings along the European shoreline of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, the buildings host educational institutions such as a high school and a university. Histo ...

on the

Bosphorus The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait ( ; , colloquially ) is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul, Turkey. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental bo ...

, in the

Ortaköy Ortaköy (, ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 9,121 (2024). It is on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing villag ...

district, was given to the school when it needed to expand. Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, visited Galatasaray three times: on December 2, 1930; January 28, 1932; and July 1, 1933.

Integrated Education System (1992–present)

In the 1990s, Galatasaray High School entered another period of transformation. The signing of the Turkish-French Bilateral Agreement of 1992 led to the foundation of

which essentially grew out of the ''Lycée''. With the addition of a new primary education school, the three units emerged as autonomous components of an integrated education system under the aegis of the university. Admission to the High School (or ''Lycée'') is by selective examinations and about one hundred children a year are admitted. Many graduates of the High School continue their education at Galatasaray University, where 25 percent of the enrolment quota is reserved for them. Until 1997, the High School provided eight years of education. After children had completed the five-year compulsory primary school course, they undertook two years of preparatory, three years of junior high, and three years of senior high school education. In the 2003–2004 academic year Galatasaray High School became a five-year senior high school, with the introduction of the eight-year compulsory primary education system in Turkey, including one year of preparation. Galatasaray Museum2-Sultaniman

Galatasaray has a diverse student body, with students coming from every part of the country. The current curriculum consists of a blend of Turkish and French curricula, plus a number of additional language courses and elective subjects. Courses on Turkish literature, geography, history, ethics, and art are taught in Turkish, while French Literature, philosophy, sociology, mathematics, and science courses use French as the language of instruction. In addition, English is taught in the primary school from the sixth grade, while Italian and Latin are taught in the high school. There is also some exposure to

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

through literature and religion classes, as well as

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

through French classes. The students set up an English Club in 1997, which also started to participate in the Harvard Model United Nations Conferences and the

European Youth Parliament The European Youth Parliament (EYP) is the youth parliament for Europe. Legally an independent educational charity, it is a politically unbound non-profit organisation, which encourages European youth to actively engage in citizenship and cultur ...

's International Sessions and other events through the year. The school itself started to organize its own Model United Nations conference, albeit the club itself is closed indefinitely. The ''Lycée de Galatasaray'' diploma is equivalent to the French ''Baccalaureate'', and graduates of Galatasaray are admitted to universities in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

without further examinations.

Education

The school years break down as follows: French Prep (One year) Lyceum (Four years) — Admission through the National Secondary Education Institutions Entrance Exam University (Four years) — Admission through the National University Entrance Exam In 2003, an eight-year primary school system which integrated the previous five years of elementary school and three years of junior high under a single body was introduced. Under this new system, the one year prep and four-year junior high education were transitioned into the primary school.

Sports

Clubs

* GSL Biology Club * GSL Soccer Team (Both Men's and Women's) * GSL Rugby Club * GSL English Club (Closed indefinitely) * GSL Music and Polyphonic Choir Club * GSL Intelligence Games Club * GSL Press Club * GSL Culture and Literature Club * GSL Theatre Club * GSL Arts Club * GSL Art History Club * GSL Social Sciences Society * GSL Folklore Club * GSL French Club * GSL Travel Club * GSL Gastronomy Club * GSL Sports Club * GSL Mathematics, Science & Technology Club * GSL Sport Management & Analysis Club * GSL Photography Club * GSL English Drama Club * GSL Tango Club * GSL Civil Protection Club * GSL Cinema Club * GSL Natural Sports Club * GSL Philosophy Club * GSL Permaculture Club * GSL Animal Welfare and Ecology Club * GSL Computer Club * GSL Robotics Club - #9020 FRC Team * GSL Terimistic Thought Club * GSL Chess Club * GSL Board Games Club

Notable people

File:Tevfik Fikret.jpg,

Tevfik Fikret Tevfik Fikret () was the pseudonym of Mehmed Tevfik (December 24, 1867 – August 19, 1915), an Ottoman educator and poet, who is considered the founder of the modern school of Turkish poetry. Biography Family Mehmed Tevfik was born in Is ...

, Ottoman-Turkish poet and educator File:Daron Acemoglu at 2024 Nobel Prize Conference 3.jpg, Daron Acemoğlu, Nobel-winning Turkish-Armenian economist Nobel_prize_medal

File:Nihat Erim in Washington D.C (cropped).jpg,

Nihat Erim İsmail Nihat Erim (30 November 1912 – 19 July 1980) was a Turkish politician and jurist. He served as the 13th prime minister of Turkey for almost 14 months after the 1971 Turkish military memorandum. He was assassinated by the Revolutionary ...

, Prime Minister of Turkey File:Fatin Rüştü Zorlu.jpg, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Former

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F017259-0001, Bonn, Empfang für Außenminister der Türkei erkin (cropped).jpg, Feridun Cemal Erkin, Former

File:Ali Sami Yen (portrait).jpg,

, Founder of Galatasaray S.K. File:Feza Gürsey.jpg,

Feza Gürsey Feza Gürsey (; April 7, 1921 – April 13, 1992) was a Turkish mathematician and physicist. Among his contributions to theoretical physics, his work on the chiral model and on SU(6) symmetry of the quark model are the most well-known. Early l ...

, Turkish physicist

Notable faculty

Şevket Dağ Şevket Dağ (1876, Istanbul - 1944, Istanbul) was a Turkish painter, art teacher and politician. Although he painted in a wide variety of genres, he is perhaps best remembered for his interior portraits of major historical structures. Biogra ...

— Turkish painter, art teacher and politician * Konstantinos Photiadis — Former headmaster,

Prince of Samos The Principality of Samos (, ; ; ) was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire from 1834 to 1912. The island of Samos had participated in the Greek War of Independence since 1821 and successfully resisted several Turkish and Egyptian a ...

, and translator of the ''

Mecelle The Mecelle-i Ahkâm-ı Adliye (), or the Mecelle in short, was the civil code of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is the first Codification (law), codification of Sharia law by an Islamic nation. Name The Ottoman ...

'' into Greek
info page on book
at

Martin Luther University Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

) - Cited: p. 32 (PDF p. 34)

References

External links

Galatasaray High School