The paper deals with the history of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922. As a result of the defeat in the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the country became the object of the division of the Entente countries and their satellites. The Turkish sultan became a puppet of the leadership of the British Empire. In May 1919, a large-scale Greek intervention in Anatolia began. In 1920, the Sultans government recognized the imposed humiliating Treaty of Sevres, which divided the territory of Turkey between neighboring states and great powers. However, a powerful patriotic movement arose in Anatolia, led by Mustafa Kemal. Playing on the contradictions between the Entente countries and at the same time on their confrontation with Soviet Russia, M. Kemal led Armenia out of the war, deprived the Greeks of support from France and Italy, re-equipped the Turkish army and gained time to prepare for the defeat of the Greek military forces. The successive victories of the Turks in 1921-1922 near the village of Inonu, the Sakarya River and the town of Dumlupinar caused the final collapse of the idea of Great Greece. The results of the national liberation struggle of the Turkish people were fixed by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. The final results of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 determined the geographical boundaries and political system of the modern Turkish Republic.

In the 1950s, the Democratic Party came to power in Turkey, relying on the provincial bourgeoisie and clericals. The charismatic leader of democrats Adnan Menderes became the prime-minister. The Democratic government pursued an active foreign and domestic policy. In particular, abandoning its traditional neutrality, Turkey joined NATO and CenTO military blocs. Concessions were made to religious circles. The government also carried out large-scale reforms, for which the society was not ready, due to which an economic crisis erupted in the country, the most characteristic manifestation of which was high inflation. By introducing repressive laws against dissidents, attempts to isolate the opposition, in particular the leaders of the Republican Peoples Party (RPP), the Democrats pushed the latter to search for allies in the army. In the ranks of the latter, under the influence of Western agents and the dissatisfaction of the officers themselves with the situation in the country, the idea of a military coup came about on May 27, 1960. As a result of the coup, the National Unity Committee came to power, consisting of representatives of the generals and leaders of the Republican Peoples Party. In 1961, a new constitution was adopted at a referendum, reforming the system of legislative power in the country, after which power again passed to civilian political institutions. The leader of the military who carried out the coup, General Jemal Grsel, became the prime minister, while the chairman of the Republican Peoples Party Ismet İnnbecame became the president of Turkey.

The paper examines the confrontation between the army, which supported the inviolability of the principles of a secular state, and the supporters of the Islamic way of development. The authors provide a short course on the history of the military coups of 1960, 1971 and 1980. Based on the analysis of actions and public statements of the event participants themselves, researchers come to a conclusion that the fight against clerical tendencies played a role in the preparation of military coups no less than the fight against left radicals. The 1970s in the history of Turkey is an extremely unstable political period when weak coalition governments were in power. Aggravated by the end of the 1970s party contradictions gave the military a pretext for another coup, which led to the fall of the Second and the formation of the Third Republic in the political history of Turkey. By the end of the 20th century Islamic proponents, having accumulated vast experience of confrontation with the army elite, had developed a new political strategy, becoming the locomotive of the struggle for democratic changes, which allowed them to win elections in 1996 and then in 2002. Having finally taken power in the country, the Islamic Justice and Development Party began largescale reforms of the army, which are still ongoing.

The paper discusses the confessional principles of the territorial structure of Syria during its stay in the status of a French mandated territory. The authors prefaced their analysis with a description of the process of establishing a French colonial administration in Syria, in particular, the conclusion of the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot agreement on the division of the Middle East and, in particular, Greater Syria, into spheres of influence that determined the modern borders of the Middle Eastern states. The instrumental role of confessional differences in the struggle of the French authorities in Syria with the popular idea of pan-Arabism in the region is shown. Predominantly according to the confessional principle, the territory of Syria was fragmented by the French into 5 regions-states, which, firstly, determined the subsequent loss of control by Damascus over Lebanon and the Alexandretta Sanjak, and secondly, laid the foundation for the emergence of separatist tendencies and future domestic instability. However, as the authors of the paper show in the short term, the policy of the French imperialists failed. Paris failed to use Christians to put down the Druze and Sunni uprisings. However, after the French left the territory of Syria, there was a conflict between large ethno-confessional groups (Sunnis, Alawites and Druzes), the consequences of which were especially sharply exposed already in the 2010s.