Hayreddin Barbarossa - Legacy

Legacy

Hayreddin Barbarossa established the Ottoman supremacy in the Mediterranean, which lasted until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, but even after their defeat in Lepanto, the Ottomans quickly rebuilt their fleet, regained Cyprus and other lost territories in Morea and Dalmatia from the Republic of Venice between 1571 and 1572, and conquered Tunisia from Spain in 1574. Furthermore, the Ottomans ventured into the northern Atlantic Ocean between 1585 and 1660 and continued to be a major Mediterranean sea power for three more centuries, until the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, when the Ottoman fleet, which had 21 battleships and 173 other types of warships, ranked as the third-largest naval force in the world, after the British and French navies.

However, during these centuries of great seamen such as Kemal Reis before him; his brother Aruj and other contemporaries Turgut Reis, Salih Reis, Piri Reis and Kurtoğlu Muslihiddin Reis; or Piyale Pasha, Murat Reis, Seydi Ali Reis, Uluç Ali Reis and Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis after him, few other Ottoman admirals ever achieved the overwhelming naval power of Hayreddin Barbarossa.

His mausoleum is in the Barbaros Park of Beşiktaş, Istanbul, where his statue also stands, right next to the Istanbul Naval Museum. On the back of the statue are verses by the Turkish poet Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, which may be translated as follows:

Whence on the sea's horizon comes that roar?
Can it be Barbarossa now returning
From Tunis or Algiers or from the Isles?
Two hundred vessels ride upon the waves,
Coming from lands the rising Crescent lights:
O blessed ships, from what seas are ye come?

Barbaros Boulevard starts from his mausoleum on the Bosphorus and runs all the way up to the Levent and Maslak business districts and beyond. He gave his name to Üsküdar and Eminönü port (before 10 January 2009, Kadıköy) in Beşiktaş.

In the centuries following his death, even today, Turkish seamen salute his mausoleum with a cannon shot before leaving for naval operations and battles.

Several warships of the Turkish Navy and passenger ships have been named after him.