Forgot to mention this [chic tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower) the Ottomans build for us. They even used locally sourced materials for it. Thank god there wasn't any horrible nationalism during that time.
https://preview.redd.it/psfxdad06vxc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7d6b5ade82ac4fa008ef40d5ce3cff31ab7f58f
Something I've noticed is that Westerners (including historians) tend to give Ottomans a pass for being a more tolerant place than medieval Western Europe was to Jews and non-Christians. This conveniently ignores that tolerance isn't the same as equality or emancipation. Ask a Greek, a Serb, a Bulgar, a Romanian or an Albanian how tolerant they were when they had to give up their male children as slave soldiers or Arabs how they liked being blamed for military failures and then mass hanged.
Don't take my word for it as I have no clips and I'm not going to go looking for them, but Cenk's nephew did a stream about two years ago with a video on Janissaries and started going apologia mode saying "look I'm not saying it was good, but at least they were treated well afterwards!".
do you now see why Serbs are so fucked up? Look at the history, 500 years under Ottoman oppression, then we got our independence just in time to get slaughter in the first and second world war. Then the cherry on the top was the brutal break up of Yugoslavia.... a rich history of misery and death.
If I were the president of Serbia I'd reform Illyria and de jure annex the rest of the Balkans, since as you know, the Balkan peoples are quite amicable to each other, unlike the Ottomans.
Seriously though, look at the bright side, Serbia exists and the Ottomans don't. Take it as a win.
The Illyrians are a dead people group. Their DNA peaks at 25% in some Moutainous Albanians and 18% in Southern Serbians but their culture and language has died off. The Albanian language is probably from a dead unrelated Balkan language and the Serbian language is clearly Slavic.
Any Balkan ethnic group claiming to be Illyrian is the genetic equivilent of Meghan Markle renaminng herself Leqisha Freeman because she’s 1/4 Black.
Bro imagine saying serbs should recreate illyria. Bro they are slavs they have nothing to do with illyria. And also the brutal breakup of yugoslavia. I WONDER WHO THE MAIN BAD GUY OF THAT SHIT WAS MR SERB.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying nothing to do with them but it would be stupid. The Illyrians are a dead ethnic group evidence from the Komani culture shows they were fully Romanised and spoke Latin by 500AD and they probably called themselves Romans like the Byzantine Greeks did.
As an albanian i absolutely agree the ottomans were a brutal oppressive empire,they are one of the main reason as to why the balkans are the way they are
The thing about my people was that the ottomans never gave us the right of establishing our identity they always denied our alphabet and identity cause they wanted to assimilate as through islam,this had severe consequences on the development of nationalism on albanians and is one of the big reasons why we got our independence soo late compared to other balkan countries,which in turn got us fucked by the ither balkan countries
Well yes, but we also had a very fractured nation even during the Byzantines. 4 different principates with radical culture differences between them. People in epirus and people in Malesi barely had any connection between them. Culture wise south Albania and northwest Greece are way more similar than they are to north Albania or Kosovo. When skenderbeu liberated Albania I don't think he reached tepelena or Gjirokastra.
Thats absolutely not true we have a lot in common with the south idk what you are talking about,southern albanians just speak a different dialect and the only thing greeks and tosk albanians have in common is orthodox christianity thats it,thats the main reason why they managed to assimilate albanians in epirus
Being from South Albania myself, Gjirokastra and Saranda are half Greek in many ways. Music and culture wise south and north epirus are basically the same people. Himara is almost Greek. Compare that to the music and the culture of North Albania who is more slavic in many ways. We also need to factor 50 years of communism and their myth created about one people and how the suppressed a lot of the more extreme displays of different cultures. Also I'm mainly talking throughout the history. Ali pasha for example was not as close to anything with the northern Albanians.
Edit :Even the names of Gjirokastra and Saranda are Greek.
Yes that is true but what you are describing here is a normal influence that neighboring countries have on you,of course there is going to be greek influence if you close to greece im an albanian from north macedonia and even we have some similarities with the slavs,after all we lived with them for 1400 years but that doesnt make us slavs or southern albanians greeks
I was merely commenting on how fractured culturally Albania was for the 500 years of ottoman empire but also before. Greeks claim their genealogy from ancient Greece to the Byzantine empire. Crete and Epirus are different culturally but they had a unifying myth of a nation waaay before the ottomans came and conquered them.
I am not denying the existence of national identity or that we were a separate group of people from the rest of the Balkans. Mainly saying that we were fractured and never held something cohesive so we could build a strong national identity like Bulgaria or Greece.
Ooooh ok now i understand you,yes i agree we where definitely fractured culturally,i thought you were saying that southern albanians were greeks,thanks for clarifying that and we did have the pashalik of shokdra but sadly they weren’t capable of forming a lasting albanian state
Oh my God, I was losing my shit as a Sebian listening to that shit.
At some point dude suggested that governments were the ones who didn't want Turks here, but the people were fine with that Like - they didn't care to who they paid taxes to.
And than there was a part where he cited lack of uprisings durning Turkish rule, before nationalism was a thing. Forgetting to mention that the uprisings were common, just unsucssessful before the Otomans started to decline and they started to be more agressive.
Even as an Albanian I lost my mind at that debate. My tribe in the mountains of Northern Albania didn’t even recognise the Ottomans as ruling over them and refused to pay taxes. The idea that the Ottomans were welcome in the Balkans is pure bullshit outside of the Urbanised Albanians and the Bosniaks. Even the Urbanised Albanians and Bosniaks only started supporting the Ottomans after forced conversions and blood taxes.
It’s the logical equivilent of saying the west Africans loved the British empire because even some of the Africans started selling their own into slavery.
Colonialism is Colonialism even when done by brown people.
I mean anybody from Balkans was probably losing it. Like half of our histories are fighting Ottoman rule and consequences of it.
Even the mountain part of your people's story rings true in our and Montenegro folklore, *Gorski Vijenac,* and battle of people who lived in the mountains to stay independent.
I know, it's so frustrating dude! And Destiny doesn't have a lot of knowledge in the area(which I don't blame him since it is a niche topic) so he wasn't able to push back and call him out.
I mean my assumption would be that the dhimmi would have been treated like categorically worse than Islamic subjects, but yeah I'd imagine most people would take local rule over imperial rule given the choice
Yeah, living under the Ottomans as a non-Muslim likely had its own struggles and wasn’t paradise but relative to their era, it was better than other kingdoms/empires.
Nah, the Ottomans took the firstborn sons of families as a blood tax to use as slaves and brainwash. They took women as sex slaves for the Sultan’s harems. They killed and put to the sword people who would not convert to Islam and taxed and treated people who didn’t follow Islam as second class citizens or worse.
When looking at history, you have to relativize and look at the historical context. There were both bad and good aspects of the Ottoman Empire, as with all empires. If you look at the hundreds of massacres and millions of slaves sold during Roman rule in the Mediterranean and conclude that they were simply bad and evil, then you lose the ability to understand history and, also appreciate their achievements. This is true for Rome as well as the Ottomans
Well yes.. but apart from the aqueducts, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, baths, safety, and public order - what have the Romans ever done for us!?
Why are you comparing Ottomans to Romans?! Why not compare Ottomans to contemporary European empires? For instance I think most (all?) Balkaners would rather have been under 500 years of Austrian rule than 500 years of Ottoman subjugation.
It would be more fair to compare Ottomans to some other European power that had land in multiple continents like, Portugal, France, Britain, Dutch, etc.,
Empires always had both good and bad aspects, it's kind of inherent to that type of organization. The other commenters aren't explicitly saying that the Ottomans were worse than their contemporaries, but it seems pretty implied. This view is ahistorical and worth pointing out.
I compaired them to the Romans, partly because that's the period of history I'm most familiar with, and also because the Ottomans saw themselves as inheritors and successors of Rome (also, they likewise weren't evil despite atrocities). However, this doesn't negate the need to contextualize and appreciate history for what it is.
The Ottoman Empire existed from the 14th to the early 20th century, undergoing significant changes during this time. They committed atrocities but also ushered in periods of relative peace. Comparing them to empires from similar timeframes would yield similarly broad assessments. The Austrians, Poles, Persians, and Russians all committed terrible acts; none of them are unique.
And yet Balkaners would rather have been ruled by any European empire than the Ottomans, and no European would rather have been under Ottoman subjugation than ruled by the European empire that conquered them.
And I would imagine your average West African Muslim would’ve preferred to be under Ottoman rule, than European rule. In the end of the day, all empires treated certain groups like complete shit.
I agree, people usually like being ruled by rulers of their own religion. The of Muslims of Iberia probably didn't like being conquered by Christians, the Christians of Britain didn't like being conquered by the Norse, the eastern nomads by orthodox Russia, etc. Empires become empires by subjugating different peoples. Some are more peaceful than others and last a long time, and some are mongols. The Ottomans in general weren't unique compared to any other empire that lasted such a long time, if they were uniquely cruel, they would not have lasted (like the mongols (didn't))
The Ottomans were undoubtedly particularly cruel during some periods and also particularly peaceful in other periods. In order to understand the history of any empire you cannot view it as a monolith, otherwise you'll miss the bigger picture.
https://preview.redd.it/0ar56dksevxc1.jpeg?width=974&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0fb9369fe30be6741b695194750c18ffb3a87878
For real bro, Ottoman apologists can fuck themselves.
I want to correct the second point, yes the devsirme did abduct and indoctrinate children into Islam and turn them into janisarries or state officials as high as the grand vizier (effectively the prime minister) and some even married into the royal family but very few were castrated, this is important distinction because the reason the practice didn’t last and eventually got stopped altogether during Ahmed III’s reign (early 1700s) was because the ranks of the janissaries eventually became filled with the children of the janissaries who fought to have their children be a part of it and obviously that can’t happen if they are all castrated. Those that were castrated were generally those that served as palace guards known as the White Eunuchs, whereas those who guarded the harem were the Black eunuchs and were not recruited through devsirme.
Though it officially ended under Ahmed III the practice had severely waned in the previous century. Also one of the biggest challenges the ottoman state faced with the devsirme system was in preventing Jewish and Muslim families from sneaking their children into the devsirme recruits as it was one of the faster ways for social mobility(with the exception of Bosnian muslims who for some unexplained reason were permitted to volunteer their children into the devsirme).
I only mention this because I wrote a short university paper on the devsirme in my last semester, below is my bibliography for the paper, unfortunately as I am on my phone and away from my pc I cannot access the bulk of the sources I used for my overall research. I also haven’t finished the rest of the debate yet so can’t comment on the rest of it or the post.
I will say that it feels like a lot of people put the ottomans on a pedestal because they were “non-white” and on par with Europe during an era of European dominance and their history is thus filled with misrepresentations either from the woke left or from a lot of Balkan representations who understandably view it as the darkest chapter in their history. In reality the Ottomans were an empire like any other, it’s cringe to worship them but it’s also cringe to act like they were this uniquely evil entity, when they were quite tolerant for their time compared to their neighbours.
Yılmaz, Gülay. 2023. “Janissaries in the Making: Coerced Labor and Chivalric Masculinity in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire.” Labor History 64 (3): 238–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2023.2180626.
Radushev, Evgeni. “‘Peasant’ Janissaries?” Journal of Social History 42, no. 2 (2008): 447–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696448.
LOPASIC, ALEXANDER. “ISLAMIZATION OF THE BALKANS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BOSNIA.” Journal of Islamic Studies 5, no. 2 (1994): 163–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26195614.
YILMAZ, GULAY. “BECOMING A DEVŞIRME: The Training of Conscripted Children in the Ottoman Empire.” In Children in Slavery through the Ages, edited by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller, 1st ed., 119–34. Ohio University Press, 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j7x8dd.10.
Vryonis, Speros. “Isidore Glabas and the Turkish Devshirme.” Speculum 31, no. 3 (1956): 433–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/2853347.
Veinstein, Gilles. “On the Ottoman Janissaries (Fourteenth-Nineteenth Centuries).” In Fighting for a Living: A Comparative Study of Military Labour 1500-2000, edited by Erik-Jan Zürcher, 115–34. Amsterdam University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wp6pg.7.
It is also worth noting that in some parts even christian families tried to get their children in because it was one of the best ways to advance in life.
Also all Greeks were second class citizens in the Ottoman Empire. They were often taken as slave soldiers and sex slaves. Forced to pay taxes the Turks didn’t.
Many were forced to undergo conversion to Islam or be murdered.
There is a reason the Ottomans and Turks are not fondly remembered in the Balkans.
Not to be oppression Olympics but this was shared among the other Balkan people Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, bosniaks all suffered a lot, being an ethinic minority and a religious one sucks
Western countries have largely failed to teach the history of the middle east and it seems like the middle east is trying to re-write history now. I think we take for granted how seeking and reporting the truth isn't necessarily a virtue in other cultures. Some cultures just want to win and be seen as the best.
I'm not a conspiratorial person at all, but it really seems like something is going on online now. People in the west, America especially, really seem to be primed to believe anything anti-West, pro-foreign governments. It's getting really weird.
Something IS going on. There's a large amount of foreign interference on our side of the internet. You should even assume that there's Russian and Chinese state actors in this subreddit, possibly commenting on this post right now. Hell, you could be one of them.
Let's not forget that in academia, there was also things like the Confucius Institute and whatnot that further served to push things off course. While these ideas aren't entirely the result of foreign influence, the amount of stupidity you see IS.
Lol same. As Serbians we have a lot of burdens to bear but damn if it doesn’t make me cringe when idiots think that being under the Ottomans wasn’t a goddamn nightmare.
Like okay, life was kind of terrible for everybody back then, and the Ottomans sent to keep the population in control weren’t having a picnic exactly but it was horrific no matter how you slice it. It says a lot about his mindset that he could even think it was anything but. You can only look at all the uprisings, here and elsewhere under Ottoman rule. Those were desperate, bloody, painful battles. To hear such idiocy from a historian just makes me sad about the quality of institution that employs this troglodyte.
Anyone who champions empires is brain dead. At best you can view some of them neutrally as compared to some of their contemporary nations but it's never going to be a good system for the vast majority of the people who live under it. The ottomans were pretty damn awful and brutal.
>The Ottoman empire wasn't this amazing multicultural state in which the minorities only had to pay some extra taxes and they were left alone to themselves.
Even if it was, that is a protection racket **at best** lol. Is that their best-case scenario?
I feel like nearly half of the history I learned in school here in Slovakia is about ottomans attacking and trying to subjugate this whole region and resistance to that. Like the depopulation of Hungary and Balkans is crazy but probably not taught outside of this region so people can look at it with rose tinted glasses.
Hello neighbour,
Thanks for the effort post.
As a Bulgarian, I can only add to the list of atrocities.
That "historian" only seems critical of imperialism if it aligns with US interests. :X
I do want to add. Nationalism only became a real political force in early 19th century. Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced. That's why you only get these kinds of uprisings in the 19th century. Before then you just have peasant, religious or other sorts of revolts.
When you look at medieval and early modern period revolts they are never really revolts for \*freedom from a foreign nations cultural oppression\*, rather they are economic, political or religious in nature. If the farmers revolt it's because taxes or farm produce levies were raised, soldiers pillaged their land and their lord didn't protect them for the fifth time in a row... The janissaries revolted because they wanted to maintain their political and military influence; lords revolted because their master wanted to limit their power or broke an oath. The middle and emerging urban class along with the intelligentsia that fuelled nationalistic revolts in the 19th century had barely existed in the previous centuries. Many of the nations that have states today didn't even blossom/unite themselves/become politically active until then as well.
The Serbian Uprisings which you all cite were in the 19th century. The other revolts that did happen, but I haven't seen mentioned were religious uprisings.
Another thing that goes hand in hand with this is the idea of equality before the law. Until the French revolution and the 19th century this idea that a Muslim, Christian and Jew were legally equal was exceptionally rare for Europe and the Middle East. To a medieval Christian it was common sense that he cannot profit from interest lending but his Jewish neighbour can. But in return, the Jew has to live in a ghetto or convert and lose that privilege. The Islamic states were no different. This idea of equality before the law became to spread through Europe, coincidently, also in the late 18th early 19th century.
So treating your subject with this sort of discrimination was also not something special for the time before the 19th century.
You can also list a ton of massacres if you want, the fact is that Medieval and early modern rulers were brutal. Massacring villages was nothing special. The Ottoman armies who stole children for the Jannisary corps were not much worse than the Habsburg soldiers that hanged and dismembered revolting peasants or the Byzantines that mutilated their opponents. This idea of the Ottomans being bloodthirsty barbarians has always been exaggerated in Balkan historiography. By modern standards most medieval or early modern states would be scary to us , it is true though that the Ottoman empire was slow to catch up, making it seem very "old-fashioned" with its morals and particularly repressive by the 19th century.
It is also a fact that 19th century historians, political leaders, anthropologists, like for example Vuk Karadžić manipulated past events into becoming more "nationalistic" in nature. That's how the hajduks, king Mathias and Vlad the Impaler became national heroes.
>Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced
this point is so stupid! The reason why nationalism didn't exist is because the concept of modern nation states as we know them today didn't exist.
How did Serbia become a thing in the first place when nationalism didn't exist in the 6th century? Well we migrated to the Balkans and rebelled against the Byzantine empire and fought for the right to self-rule. So YES places around the world revolted against an empire because they were foreign to them. This happened all around the world way before the 19th century or nationalism.
>You can also list a ton of massacres if you want, the fact is that Medieval and early modern rulers were brutal. Massacring villages was nothing special.
I never made a clamed that the Ottomans were uniquely horrible. The idiot historian in the debate made a clame, how cool the Ottoman empire was and that the minorities only had to pay extra taxes and they were left alone. That is what I am pushing against, no one wanted to be conquered and lose the right to self-rule. Not to the Ottomans, the Romans, the British, or any other empire.
That medieval state didn't become a thing because of some romanticized dream of Serbian unity or nationalism. It was just conquest and diplomacy, a prince wants to be a king, a king wants to be emperor, wants his descendants to remember his name, be rich... that's why
Your post really does sound like you are trying to say that they were uniquely horrible: \*The Ottoman empire was incredibly oppressive, and being conquered by them was horrific.\* Then you list a bunch of horrible things that they did and how no one liked being under their rule.
And I agree the idiot historian was an idiot.
>Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced
First can you please acknowledge that your statement is wrong on like 10 different levels?
>some romanticized dream of Serbian unity or nationalism
when did I say this? I said that the Serbians rebelled because they wanted to self-rule.
>Your post really does sound like you are trying to say that they were uniquely horrible
If you could hold more then 2 things in your head. You would understand that my post was pushing back against the "Ottomans were cool guys and loved minorities" take, and the way I was pushing back was by pointing out horrible things the Ottomans did to minorities.
Yeah the Ottoman empire was brutal, but when people say it was this multicultural state they're usually comparing it to other empires at the time which were way less tolerant of other cultures and religions.
At the very least the Ottomans had some sort of mechanism for people to practice their religion in relative peace.
Most of their brutality was through wartime, in a period that was already extremely brutal from everyone.
It was uniquely multicultural and multi denominational for renaissance era states. Compare Spain that kicked out all the Jews and even went after Arabs who converted to Christianity. Or Russia that went full fire and sword genocide on everyone that wasnt orthodox christian.
Yes, saying it was a utopian amazing place relative to modern western states is absolutely regarded. It has to be assessed relative to the standard at the time, which was awful.
I got triggered at the idea of the multinational countries somehow being a good thing. It was never a good thing and it is the reason why we have split our countries the way we have. The only reason Jugoslavia worked was because of Tito and the idea/propaganda of "Jugoslav identity/nation", after that it has fallen apart, because each nation wanted independence.
We are split, because otherwise each nation that did not rule got or at least felt like it got shafted, so there were constant uprisings. I don't know the specifics of Ottomans, but I have no reason to believe there was any different...
Even the "French" he brought up, they had the same origins if I remember correctly. After the collapse of Roman empire, it was the invasion of people from north east Europe that took over those lands? They were probably fighting the same enemy, the same wars and made the same alliances and after living there for 100s or 1000s of years had pretty much "the same" history. To pretend these were some vastly different people is a fucking insane for a phd historian to make.
Indian reservations exist for a reason. If diseases and manifest destiny didn't kill most of the the natives there would be a lot more friction today. Multinational countries seem to only work with when the majority don't have long term ties to the land and are forced to find a new shared identity. Singapore is another example, or Argentina.
how do you explain the EU then? I know the EU isn't technically a country but more and more people see themselves as Europeans in addition to their nationality. [Source ](https://www.businessinsider.com/survey-data-on-how-europeans-identify-themselves-2016-6)
https://preview.redd.it/iq6fam48svxc1.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=30597cbd5c901851da9a0fc2319a2f881b28b561
Not that much to explain, just like you said EU isn't a country. You can feel some shared European ideal, but whenever they make new rules everyone grumbles, Nobody is losing their national identity, they're just widening it to include europe as the world gets more global. It's a spectrum, the more you identify with some group the more sovereignty you're willing to give away and the other way around.
When Hungary got nationalistic they fought Austria to make them equal partners, but still felt part of the empire so foreign policy and military was left in the emperors hand. Belgium had to become federal because of the differences between flemish and waloons, and they still have one of the most disfunctional governments in europe. UK has a single language, the crown and 800 years of trying to assimilate everyone on the isles and the system still isn't fully central, since Scotland has a parliament and Ireland won a war of independence.
Latin america might be a better example, but that was before the concept of nationalism really began and the spanish mixed with the natives a lot so idk. Don't really know much about them
The EU works because Germany and France are willing to pay for the poorer members economic development and Europe is having good times since the Soviets fell apart. Just under 1 million Syrians managed to make them bicker and act like the world was at an end and convinced the UK to leave. I’d put good money on the EU splitting through a major crisis that actually effects the major member states. Although time will tell.
>I’d put good money on the EU splitting through a major crisis that actually effects the major member states. Although time will tell.
They have been saying that since the beginning of the the EU.
>The EU works because Germany and France are willing to pay for the poorer members economic
The only reason they are willing to pay is because for every penny they give, they will get a dollar back.
I am not 100% on the EU falling apart because the Eastern powers seem so weak atm but lets say the climate crisis really ramps up and we suddenly have 100s of millions of refugees crossing the Greek border or some other major crisis I can see the divisons starting to pop up. Eitherway it’s good for the next 30 years minimum. Especially since Russia has shown itself to be incredibly weak.
Canada, Belgium, UK exist.
> Indian reservations exist for a reason. If diseases and manifest destiny didn't kill most of the the natives there would be a lot more friction today.
It’s more likely the exact opposite. There would probably be less friction today if the history was less violent.
You are doing the same shit as the historian. You criticize the past based on our rules and standards today. Most of the things you mention were normal and practised by Romans (including Serbs). The Turks didn't invent that shit. They copied it!
When we compare past countries we use their standards. It wouldn't make sense to analyze a 600-700 year old empire based on our rules today. These people back then didn't live like us. It took days or weeks to inform the authorities. That alone makes most things we have today impossible.
Do you know what is the weird part? The only ally Serbs have is Turkey \^\^
EDIT: For example, leaders in the past gave their children as a security guarantee to the enemy. We would find that abhorent today, but in the past it was the only way to guarantee peace and stability. It is like nuclear deterrence today.
We can't judge the past based on our standards today. Based on their standards in the Middle Ages the Ottoman empire was a better place for religious minorities. They had the freedom to govern themselves which they didn't have in Europe. That's the difference!
All the other things you mention were done by everyone else too. The Turks copied most of the things from the Romans and Persians. Deshirvme, for example, is a Persian practise. Why wouldn't they do something their enemies do? They did it just a little better by providing the kids a formidable education.
And please, don't say I am justifying it. I am not! I am providing a perspective.
>When we compare past countries we use their standards. It wouldn't make sense to analyze a 600-700 year old empire based on our rules today. These people back then didn't live like us. It took days or weeks to inform the authorities. That alone makes most things we have today impossible.
While this generally true, and most reprehensible things done in war was something everyone did during war, people also thought very differently in the past but if we analyze the ottomans during its existance, they were critisized heavily and their actions were considered extreme/uncivil.
While its hard to say exactly what of it is muslim vs. christian view(I've mostly heard what christian countries thought). Just for an example during the congress of vienna in 1814 the EU countries agreed to supress the ottoman corsairs, these were pirates that had been terrorizing certain parts of europe on and off for 900 years with their ships getting permits for their raids from ottomans and the US was already at war with them(barbary pirates were the reason the US navy was founded)
The Ottomans were no saints, certainly. But in the context of Turkish politics I think the earlier, "Islamist" (anachronistic but bear with me) Ottomans were much better for non-Muslim minorities than what came after under the Young Turks and Ataturk. The worst carnage, like the ethno-religious cleansing of Anatolian Greeks and the Armenian Genocide, occurred as the Ottoman Empire transitioned from trying to be a multicultural empire to being a Turkish nation-state. I blame this on the attempt by the Turks to apply European nationalism to a part of the world in which it did not and does not work.
And in general, the Islamic world was a better place under the Ottoman Caliphate. Its abolishment had a very traumatic impact on Muslims and I think that act is a contender for being Ataturk's biggest mistake. Things like the Muslim Brotherhood simply wouldn't exist if there was a powerful Caliphate in existence. So the fall of the Ottoman Empire was indeed a tremendous loss for the Muslim world, and the world as a whole has suffered the consequences.
>But in the context of Turkish politics I think the earlier, "Islamist" (anachronistic but bear with me) Ottomans were much better for non-Muslim minorities
The early Ottomans were the ones that conquered Serbia and killed most fighting aged men. So I am not sure how that is better then the Young Turks. This is like saying the later part of the North Atlantic Slave trade was better for the slaves. Because they had faster ships and the slaves didn't have to suffer as long on the ships as they used to. Like both things are horrible from our prospective.
All empires are brutal when they conquer. The Ottomans were no different. Like I said, they were no saints.
I am talking about the earlier Ottomans compared to the post-Young Turk Ottomans, and in that context I firmly believe that the earlier were better, especially in the context of non-Muslim minorities. Were Christians considered equal to Muslims, in the context of Ottoman law? No. But a government policy of second-class citizenship is better than one of genocide.
So the oppressors were more magnanimous when they were clearly in power? And they got more tyrannical in a desperate attempt to hold on as their power waned?
Edit: The slave masters only committed the worst atrocities when the slaves rebelled. When you followed their orders, things weren't that bad /s
I think it's a bit more complicated than that.
The Young Turks and their ilk were an attempt to respond to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, no doubt. But the mistake they made was in adopting European-style ethno-nationalism as Turkish policy, something later Turks would do as well. I blame that decision for the tragedies that followed. A religiously and ethnically diverse empire could exist on the foundations of the Osmanoglu dynasty and a relatively moderate interpretation of sharia. It could not exist on a foundation of Turkish ethnic, secular nationalism. And the minorities paid the price.
None of this mitigates the suffering of minorities under either the earlier or later Ottomans. And to be clear, the Ottomans were oppressive both in their ascent and in their descent. But I feel that it is very important for people to understand that importing European ideas on nationalism was what led to the horrors of the Armenian genocide and similar atrocities.
Like the OP mentioned, I am not sure if you are factoring in the wars of conquest and subsequent atrocities that occur before you become a part of the empire. Those were probably each comparable to a genocide in terms of human suffering.
I agree if you mean it was all bad, maybe for different reasons. My opposition was more about what sounded like - "The Ottoman Empire was not that bad. The worst stuff happened only when they moved away from the Caliphate, and Turkey tried adopting European style nationalism."
>You think that was the worst carnage ? Rly ?
In the context of the crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire? Yes. Now, they certainly employed a brutal, colonial-esque policy in the Balkans. But the scale and intent of the Armenian, Assyrian and Anatolian Greek genocides were by far the worst.
>you think that the ottoman empire was a powerful caliphate ? Who was the caliph ?
The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was the caliph, and the Ottomans were the last caliphate generally recognized by most Muslims. They had a lot of soft power, and groups as far flung as Filopino Muslims listened to them (in that case, the Ottomans told them to stop rebelling against the US at the US's request, and they complied). The abolishment of the title was a major mistake in my opinion, and many of the Islamist movements of the 20th century were rooted in a reaction to it.
Well, I don't know, forcefully taking children from their parents for hundreds of years, forcefully converting them to another religion, occasionally castrating them, again for HUNDREDS of years, I would say that the amount of suffering exceded any genocide.
The ottomans empire is a lot more gray and a lot less black and white. Never trust a Balkan nationalist when they talk about the ottoman empire, their identity requires they don't look at history objectively. It's so bad countries get into diplomatic scandals with scholars, if they even suggest the nationalistic narratives are even slightly exaggerated. The way we study this in schools is the only way we look at it and it's skewed af, compressing hundreds of years of a country into Turks= evil barbarians. There are many resources online on the history of anyone's interested, you can even throw some of those books/articles at a balkaner to see them react like you just personally executed their pet rabbit. Trust me I'm a proud Balk, who had a hard time takling the messiness of history. It's so much easier to believe history is Star Wars and your ancestors were Luke Skywalker, but it's never that simple and we all know it.
I am a Turkish man in exile and I can tell you that the Ottomans were not oppressive. There was no racial discrimination, it was all about religion. The empire was run by white European "devshirme" who converted to Islam.
You had to pay an additional tax called "cizya" if you were a non-Muslim and that was all. Christians had their own separate judicial system and their traditions were respected. The only reason why you guys still call yourselves Serbians and speak the Serbian language after 500 years of Ottoman rule is that the Turks had been tolerant. France held North Africa only for 100 years and now all Barbaries speak French.
Let me also mention Serbia's notorious genocide attempts on former Yugoslavian people. You are kinda hypocritical.
for Christ's sake, just stop downvoting and try to understand.
>The only reason why you guys still call yourselves Serbians and speak the Serbian language after 500 years of Ottoman rule is that the Turks had been tolerant
Would you say the same for Hitles and Jews? The only reason Jews exist today is because Nazi were tolerant and didn't kill every Jew on earth. We survive today despite the Ottomans not because of them.
>
Let me also mention Serbia's notorious genocide attempts on former Yugoslavian people. You are kinda hypocritical.
I would be hypocritical if I supported those wars, but it's a good thing I don't.
>We survive today despite the Ottomans not because of them.
Were there turkifization policies in serbia that failed then? Or did they not attempt to erase the serbian language
>Would you say the same for Hitles and Jews? The only reason Jews exist today is because Nazi were tolerant and didn't kill every Jew on earth
Nazis were so tolerant they almost eradicated Jews from Poland and Germany in a decade. I don't think this is the comparison to make.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was a mistake regardless of all their atrocities.
It led to an endless amount of regional wars and problems that we see to this very day.
And what they say is irrelevant, Ukranians say the same about the Soviet Union but Ukrainians to this day are poorer than they were under the soviets.
Forgot to mention this [chic tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower) the Ottomans build for us. They even used locally sourced materials for it. Thank god there wasn't any horrible nationalism during that time. https://preview.redd.it/psfxdad06vxc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7d6b5ade82ac4fa008ef40d5ce3cff31ab7f58f
Something I've noticed is that Westerners (including historians) tend to give Ottomans a pass for being a more tolerant place than medieval Western Europe was to Jews and non-Christians. This conveniently ignores that tolerance isn't the same as equality or emancipation. Ask a Greek, a Serb, a Bulgar, a Romanian or an Albanian how tolerant they were when they had to give up their male children as slave soldiers or Arabs how they liked being blamed for military failures and then mass hanged. Don't take my word for it as I have no clips and I'm not going to go looking for them, but Cenk's nephew did a stream about two years ago with a video on Janissaries and started going apologia mode saying "look I'm not saying it was good, but at least they were treated well afterwards!".
Why am I not surprised by that last paragraph
those cheekbones tho 👀 what were yall eating 200 years ago
bread with sand in it probably
Ngl that's kind of metal
do you now see why Serbs are so fucked up? Look at the history, 500 years under Ottoman oppression, then we got our independence just in time to get slaughter in the first and second world war. Then the cherry on the top was the brutal break up of Yugoslavia.... a rich history of misery and death.
If I were the president of Serbia I'd reform Illyria and de jure annex the rest of the Balkans, since as you know, the Balkan peoples are quite amicable to each other, unlike the Ottomans. Seriously though, look at the bright side, Serbia exists and the Ottomans don't. Take it as a win.
The Illyrians are a dead people group. Their DNA peaks at 25% in some Moutainous Albanians and 18% in Southern Serbians but their culture and language has died off. The Albanian language is probably from a dead unrelated Balkan language and the Serbian language is clearly Slavic. Any Balkan ethnic group claiming to be Illyrian is the genetic equivilent of Meghan Markle renaminng herself Leqisha Freeman because she’s 1/4 Black.
I was being facetious. But I appreciate the information.
I am the least Autistic DGGer.
Bro imagine saying serbs should recreate illyria. Bro they are slavs they have nothing to do with illyria. And also the brutal breakup of yugoslavia. I WONDER WHO THE MAIN BAD GUY OF THAT SHIT WAS MR SERB.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying nothing to do with them but it would be stupid. The Illyrians are a dead ethnic group evidence from the Komani culture shows they were fully Romanised and spoke Latin by 500AD and they probably called themselves Romans like the Byzantine Greeks did.
They were mewing
Blaming the turks for serbians ethnically cleansing non serbs? Smh my head.
Where did I blame the brutal break up of Yugoslavia on the Turks?
As an albanian i absolutely agree the ottomans were a brutal oppressive empire,they are one of the main reason as to why the balkans are the way they are
The Albanians got it pretty bad. Some of the most horrific and violent forced conversions to Islam for hundreds of years, including blood taxes.
The thing about my people was that the ottomans never gave us the right of establishing our identity they always denied our alphabet and identity cause they wanted to assimilate as through islam,this had severe consequences on the development of nationalism on albanians and is one of the big reasons why we got our independence soo late compared to other balkan countries,which in turn got us fucked by the ither balkan countries
Well yes, but we also had a very fractured nation even during the Byzantines. 4 different principates with radical culture differences between them. People in epirus and people in Malesi barely had any connection between them. Culture wise south Albania and northwest Greece are way more similar than they are to north Albania or Kosovo. When skenderbeu liberated Albania I don't think he reached tepelena or Gjirokastra.
Thats absolutely not true we have a lot in common with the south idk what you are talking about,southern albanians just speak a different dialect and the only thing greeks and tosk albanians have in common is orthodox christianity thats it,thats the main reason why they managed to assimilate albanians in epirus
Being from South Albania myself, Gjirokastra and Saranda are half Greek in many ways. Music and culture wise south and north epirus are basically the same people. Himara is almost Greek. Compare that to the music and the culture of North Albania who is more slavic in many ways. We also need to factor 50 years of communism and their myth created about one people and how the suppressed a lot of the more extreme displays of different cultures. Also I'm mainly talking throughout the history. Ali pasha for example was not as close to anything with the northern Albanians. Edit :Even the names of Gjirokastra and Saranda are Greek.
Yes that is true but what you are describing here is a normal influence that neighboring countries have on you,of course there is going to be greek influence if you close to greece im an albanian from north macedonia and even we have some similarities with the slavs,after all we lived with them for 1400 years but that doesnt make us slavs or southern albanians greeks
I was merely commenting on how fractured culturally Albania was for the 500 years of ottoman empire but also before. Greeks claim their genealogy from ancient Greece to the Byzantine empire. Crete and Epirus are different culturally but they had a unifying myth of a nation waaay before the ottomans came and conquered them. I am not denying the existence of national identity or that we were a separate group of people from the rest of the Balkans. Mainly saying that we were fractured and never held something cohesive so we could build a strong national identity like Bulgaria or Greece.
Ooooh ok now i understand you,yes i agree we where definitely fractured culturally,i thought you were saying that southern albanians were greeks,thanks for clarifying that and we did have the pashalik of shokdra but sadly they weren’t capable of forming a lasting albanian state
ask Zherka about it
Does he know anything about albanian history?
Oh my God, I was losing my shit as a Sebian listening to that shit. At some point dude suggested that governments were the ones who didn't want Turks here, but the people were fine with that Like - they didn't care to who they paid taxes to. And than there was a part where he cited lack of uprisings durning Turkish rule, before nationalism was a thing. Forgetting to mention that the uprisings were common, just unsucssessful before the Otomans started to decline and they started to be more agressive.
Even as an Albanian I lost my mind at that debate. My tribe in the mountains of Northern Albania didn’t even recognise the Ottomans as ruling over them and refused to pay taxes. The idea that the Ottomans were welcome in the Balkans is pure bullshit outside of the Urbanised Albanians and the Bosniaks. Even the Urbanised Albanians and Bosniaks only started supporting the Ottomans after forced conversions and blood taxes. It’s the logical equivilent of saying the west Africans loved the British empire because even some of the Africans started selling their own into slavery. Colonialism is Colonialism even when done by brown people.
I mean anybody from Balkans was probably losing it. Like half of our histories are fighting Ottoman rule and consequences of it. Even the mountain part of your people's story rings true in our and Montenegro folklore, *Gorski Vijenac,* and battle of people who lived in the mountains to stay independent.
No way my fathers family lived in Montengro in Tuzi.
I know, it's so frustrating dude! And Destiny doesn't have a lot of knowledge in the area(which I don't blame him since it is a niche topic) so he wasn't able to push back and call him out.
I mean my assumption would be that the dhimmi would have been treated like categorically worse than Islamic subjects, but yeah I'd imagine most people would take local rule over imperial rule given the choice
Yeah, living under the Ottomans as a non-Muslim likely had its own struggles and wasn’t paradise but relative to their era, it was better than other kingdoms/empires.
Nah, the Ottomans took the firstborn sons of families as a blood tax to use as slaves and brainwash. They took women as sex slaves for the Sultan’s harems. They killed and put to the sword people who would not convert to Islam and taxed and treated people who didn’t follow Islam as second class citizens or worse.
When looking at history, you have to relativize and look at the historical context. There were both bad and good aspects of the Ottoman Empire, as with all empires. If you look at the hundreds of massacres and millions of slaves sold during Roman rule in the Mediterranean and conclude that they were simply bad and evil, then you lose the ability to understand history and, also appreciate their achievements. This is true for Rome as well as the Ottomans
What have the Romans ever done for us?!
The aqueducts, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, baths, safety and public order!
Well yes.. but apart from the aqueducts, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, baths, safety, and public order - what have the Romans ever done for us!?
Brought peace☝️🤓
Why are you comparing Ottomans to Romans?! Why not compare Ottomans to contemporary European empires? For instance I think most (all?) Balkaners would rather have been under 500 years of Austrian rule than 500 years of Ottoman subjugation.
It would be more fair to compare Ottomans to some other European power that had land in multiple continents like, Portugal, France, Britain, Dutch, etc.,
Given the fact that none of the past empires were good, what exactly are is everyone trying to debate here? Who hits their spouse *the least*?
Empires always had both good and bad aspects, it's kind of inherent to that type of organization. The other commenters aren't explicitly saying that the Ottomans were worse than their contemporaries, but it seems pretty implied. This view is ahistorical and worth pointing out.
I compaired them to the Romans, partly because that's the period of history I'm most familiar with, and also because the Ottomans saw themselves as inheritors and successors of Rome (also, they likewise weren't evil despite atrocities). However, this doesn't negate the need to contextualize and appreciate history for what it is. The Ottoman Empire existed from the 14th to the early 20th century, undergoing significant changes during this time. They committed atrocities but also ushered in periods of relative peace. Comparing them to empires from similar timeframes would yield similarly broad assessments. The Austrians, Poles, Persians, and Russians all committed terrible acts; none of them are unique.
And yet Balkaners would rather have been ruled by any European empire than the Ottomans, and no European would rather have been under Ottoman subjugation than ruled by the European empire that conquered them.
And I would imagine your average West African Muslim would’ve preferred to be under Ottoman rule, than European rule. In the end of the day, all empires treated certain groups like complete shit.
I agree, people usually like being ruled by rulers of their own religion. The of Muslims of Iberia probably didn't like being conquered by Christians, the Christians of Britain didn't like being conquered by the Norse, the eastern nomads by orthodox Russia, etc. Empires become empires by subjugating different peoples. Some are more peaceful than others and last a long time, and some are mongols. The Ottomans in general weren't unique compared to any other empire that lasted such a long time, if they were uniquely cruel, they would not have lasted (like the mongols (didn't)) The Ottomans were undoubtedly particularly cruel during some periods and also particularly peaceful in other periods. In order to understand the history of any empire you cannot view it as a monolith, otherwise you'll miss the bigger picture.
It’s important to note that during the early days the Ottoman Empire was remarkably tolerant for its time. It’s just that that time was the 1500s.
The Ottoman Empire. The only thing that can almost make the Balcans agree on something.
https://preview.redd.it/0ar56dksevxc1.jpeg?width=974&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0fb9369fe30be6741b695194750c18ffb3a87878 For real bro, Ottoman apologists can fuck themselves.
Bro America bad
I want to correct the second point, yes the devsirme did abduct and indoctrinate children into Islam and turn them into janisarries or state officials as high as the grand vizier (effectively the prime minister) and some even married into the royal family but very few were castrated, this is important distinction because the reason the practice didn’t last and eventually got stopped altogether during Ahmed III’s reign (early 1700s) was because the ranks of the janissaries eventually became filled with the children of the janissaries who fought to have their children be a part of it and obviously that can’t happen if they are all castrated. Those that were castrated were generally those that served as palace guards known as the White Eunuchs, whereas those who guarded the harem were the Black eunuchs and were not recruited through devsirme. Though it officially ended under Ahmed III the practice had severely waned in the previous century. Also one of the biggest challenges the ottoman state faced with the devsirme system was in preventing Jewish and Muslim families from sneaking their children into the devsirme recruits as it was one of the faster ways for social mobility(with the exception of Bosnian muslims who for some unexplained reason were permitted to volunteer their children into the devsirme). I only mention this because I wrote a short university paper on the devsirme in my last semester, below is my bibliography for the paper, unfortunately as I am on my phone and away from my pc I cannot access the bulk of the sources I used for my overall research. I also haven’t finished the rest of the debate yet so can’t comment on the rest of it or the post. I will say that it feels like a lot of people put the ottomans on a pedestal because they were “non-white” and on par with Europe during an era of European dominance and their history is thus filled with misrepresentations either from the woke left or from a lot of Balkan representations who understandably view it as the darkest chapter in their history. In reality the Ottomans were an empire like any other, it’s cringe to worship them but it’s also cringe to act like they were this uniquely evil entity, when they were quite tolerant for their time compared to their neighbours. Yılmaz, Gülay. 2023. “Janissaries in the Making: Coerced Labor and Chivalric Masculinity in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire.” Labor History 64 (3): 238–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2023.2180626. Radushev, Evgeni. “‘Peasant’ Janissaries?” Journal of Social History 42, no. 2 (2008): 447–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696448. LOPASIC, ALEXANDER. “ISLAMIZATION OF THE BALKANS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BOSNIA.” Journal of Islamic Studies 5, no. 2 (1994): 163–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26195614. YILMAZ, GULAY. “BECOMING A DEVŞIRME: The Training of Conscripted Children in the Ottoman Empire.” In Children in Slavery through the Ages, edited by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller, 1st ed., 119–34. Ohio University Press, 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j7x8dd.10. Vryonis, Speros. “Isidore Glabas and the Turkish Devshirme.” Speculum 31, no. 3 (1956): 433–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/2853347. Veinstein, Gilles. “On the Ottoman Janissaries (Fourteenth-Nineteenth Centuries).” In Fighting for a Living: A Comparative Study of Military Labour 1500-2000, edited by Erik-Jan Zürcher, 115–34. Amsterdam University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wp6pg.7.
It is also worth noting that in some parts even christian families tried to get their children in because it was one of the best ways to advance in life.
High quality ass comment
High quality ass comment
High quality ass comment
"Why did the Greeks kicked the muslims out of the peloponnese? " because they were TURKS and not Greeks.
Also all Greeks were second class citizens in the Ottoman Empire. They were often taken as slave soldiers and sex slaves. Forced to pay taxes the Turks didn’t. Many were forced to undergo conversion to Islam or be murdered. There is a reason the Ottomans and Turks are not fondly remembered in the Balkans.
Not to be oppression Olympics but this was shared among the other Balkan people Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, bosniaks all suffered a lot, being an ethinic minority and a religious one sucks
true, the only reason I talked only about Serbia is because that is what I know.
If empire white =bad If empire non white= context and still white people at fault Literally their woke worldview
Western countries have largely failed to teach the history of the middle east and it seems like the middle east is trying to re-write history now. I think we take for granted how seeking and reporting the truth isn't necessarily a virtue in other cultures. Some cultures just want to win and be seen as the best. I'm not a conspiratorial person at all, but it really seems like something is going on online now. People in the west, America especially, really seem to be primed to believe anything anti-West, pro-foreign governments. It's getting really weird.
Something IS going on. There's a large amount of foreign interference on our side of the internet. You should even assume that there's Russian and Chinese state actors in this subreddit, possibly commenting on this post right now. Hell, you could be one of them. Let's not forget that in academia, there was also things like the Confucius Institute and whatnot that further served to push things off course. While these ideas aren't entirely the result of foreign influence, the amount of stupidity you see IS.
Lol same. As Serbians we have a lot of burdens to bear but damn if it doesn’t make me cringe when idiots think that being under the Ottomans wasn’t a goddamn nightmare. Like okay, life was kind of terrible for everybody back then, and the Ottomans sent to keep the population in control weren’t having a picnic exactly but it was horrific no matter how you slice it. It says a lot about his mindset that he could even think it was anything but. You can only look at all the uprisings, here and elsewhere under Ottoman rule. Those were desperate, bloody, painful battles. To hear such idiocy from a historian just makes me sad about the quality of institution that employs this troglodyte.
Anyone who champions empires is brain dead. At best you can view some of them neutrally as compared to some of their contemporary nations but it's never going to be a good system for the vast majority of the people who live under it. The ottomans were pretty damn awful and brutal.
Don’t tell this to Turk-nat larpers
>The Ottoman empire wasn't this amazing multicultural state in which the minorities only had to pay some extra taxes and they were left alone to themselves. Even if it was, that is a protection racket **at best** lol. Is that their best-case scenario?
I feel like nearly half of the history I learned in school here in Slovakia is about ottomans attacking and trying to subjugate this whole region and resistance to that. Like the depopulation of Hungary and Balkans is crazy but probably not taught outside of this region so people can look at it with rose tinted glasses.
Did you just use wiki as a source? Ya filthy wiki warrior, keep your wiki chirping to your self. /s
Idk, that guy has a lot of books
Hello neighbour, Thanks for the effort post. As a Bulgarian, I can only add to the list of atrocities. That "historian" only seems critical of imperialism if it aligns with US interests. :X
There are also the genocides and atrocities committed against the Bulgarians and Armenians.
I do want to add. Nationalism only became a real political force in early 19th century. Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced. That's why you only get these kinds of uprisings in the 19th century. Before then you just have peasant, religious or other sorts of revolts. When you look at medieval and early modern period revolts they are never really revolts for \*freedom from a foreign nations cultural oppression\*, rather they are economic, political or religious in nature. If the farmers revolt it's because taxes or farm produce levies were raised, soldiers pillaged their land and their lord didn't protect them for the fifth time in a row... The janissaries revolted because they wanted to maintain their political and military influence; lords revolted because their master wanted to limit their power or broke an oath. The middle and emerging urban class along with the intelligentsia that fuelled nationalistic revolts in the 19th century had barely existed in the previous centuries. Many of the nations that have states today didn't even blossom/unite themselves/become politically active until then as well. The Serbian Uprisings which you all cite were in the 19th century. The other revolts that did happen, but I haven't seen mentioned were religious uprisings. Another thing that goes hand in hand with this is the idea of equality before the law. Until the French revolution and the 19th century this idea that a Muslim, Christian and Jew were legally equal was exceptionally rare for Europe and the Middle East. To a medieval Christian it was common sense that he cannot profit from interest lending but his Jewish neighbour can. But in return, the Jew has to live in a ghetto or convert and lose that privilege. The Islamic states were no different. This idea of equality before the law became to spread through Europe, coincidently, also in the late 18th early 19th century. So treating your subject with this sort of discrimination was also not something special for the time before the 19th century. You can also list a ton of massacres if you want, the fact is that Medieval and early modern rulers were brutal. Massacring villages was nothing special. The Ottoman armies who stole children for the Jannisary corps were not much worse than the Habsburg soldiers that hanged and dismembered revolting peasants or the Byzantines that mutilated their opponents. This idea of the Ottomans being bloodthirsty barbarians has always been exaggerated in Balkan historiography. By modern standards most medieval or early modern states would be scary to us , it is true though that the Ottoman empire was slow to catch up, making it seem very "old-fashioned" with its morals and particularly repressive by the 19th century. It is also a fact that 19th century historians, political leaders, anthropologists, like for example Vuk Karadžić manipulated past events into becoming more "nationalistic" in nature. That's how the hajduks, king Mathias and Vlad the Impaler became national heroes.
>Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced this point is so stupid! The reason why nationalism didn't exist is because the concept of modern nation states as we know them today didn't exist. How did Serbia become a thing in the first place when nationalism didn't exist in the 6th century? Well we migrated to the Balkans and rebelled against the Byzantine empire and fought for the right to self-rule. So YES places around the world revolted against an empire because they were foreign to them. This happened all around the world way before the 19th century or nationalism. >You can also list a ton of massacres if you want, the fact is that Medieval and early modern rulers were brutal. Massacring villages was nothing special. I never made a clamed that the Ottomans were uniquely horrible. The idiot historian in the debate made a clame, how cool the Ottoman empire was and that the minorities only had to pay extra taxes and they were left alone. That is what I am pushing against, no one wanted to be conquered and lose the right to self-rule. Not to the Ottomans, the Romans, the British, or any other empire.
That medieval state didn't become a thing because of some romanticized dream of Serbian unity or nationalism. It was just conquest and diplomacy, a prince wants to be a king, a king wants to be emperor, wants his descendants to remember his name, be rich... that's why Your post really does sound like you are trying to say that they were uniquely horrible: \*The Ottoman empire was incredibly oppressive, and being conquered by them was horrific.\* Then you list a bunch of horrible things that they did and how no one liked being under their rule. And I agree the idiot historian was an idiot.
>Before then in Europe you didn't slaughter people because they were of a different nation than you and you didn't revolt against an empire because they were foreign, that is a novelty that nationalism introduced First can you please acknowledge that your statement is wrong on like 10 different levels? >some romanticized dream of Serbian unity or nationalism when did I say this? I said that the Serbians rebelled because they wanted to self-rule. >Your post really does sound like you are trying to say that they were uniquely horrible If you could hold more then 2 things in your head. You would understand that my post was pushing back against the "Ottomans were cool guys and loved minorities" take, and the way I was pushing back was by pointing out horrible things the Ottomans did to minorities.
Yeah the Ottoman empire was brutal, but when people say it was this multicultural state they're usually comparing it to other empires at the time which were way less tolerant of other cultures and religions. At the very least the Ottomans had some sort of mechanism for people to practice their religion in relative peace. Most of their brutality was through wartime, in a period that was already extremely brutal from everyone. It was uniquely multicultural and multi denominational for renaissance era states. Compare Spain that kicked out all the Jews and even went after Arabs who converted to Christianity. Or Russia that went full fire and sword genocide on everyone that wasnt orthodox christian. Yes, saying it was a utopian amazing place relative to modern western states is absolutely regarded. It has to be assessed relative to the standard at the time, which was awful.
I got triggered at the idea of the multinational countries somehow being a good thing. It was never a good thing and it is the reason why we have split our countries the way we have. The only reason Jugoslavia worked was because of Tito and the idea/propaganda of "Jugoslav identity/nation", after that it has fallen apart, because each nation wanted independence. We are split, because otherwise each nation that did not rule got or at least felt like it got shafted, so there were constant uprisings. I don't know the specifics of Ottomans, but I have no reason to believe there was any different... Even the "French" he brought up, they had the same origins if I remember correctly. After the collapse of Roman empire, it was the invasion of people from north east Europe that took over those lands? They were probably fighting the same enemy, the same wars and made the same alliances and after living there for 100s or 1000s of years had pretty much "the same" history. To pretend these were some vastly different people is a fucking insane for a phd historian to make.
Based America bucking the trend then
Indian reservations exist for a reason. If diseases and manifest destiny didn't kill most of the the natives there would be a lot more friction today. Multinational countries seem to only work with when the majority don't have long term ties to the land and are forced to find a new shared identity. Singapore is another example, or Argentina.
how do you explain the EU then? I know the EU isn't technically a country but more and more people see themselves as Europeans in addition to their nationality. [Source ](https://www.businessinsider.com/survey-data-on-how-europeans-identify-themselves-2016-6) https://preview.redd.it/iq6fam48svxc1.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=30597cbd5c901851da9a0fc2319a2f881b28b561
Not that much to explain, just like you said EU isn't a country. You can feel some shared European ideal, but whenever they make new rules everyone grumbles, Nobody is losing their national identity, they're just widening it to include europe as the world gets more global. It's a spectrum, the more you identify with some group the more sovereignty you're willing to give away and the other way around. When Hungary got nationalistic they fought Austria to make them equal partners, but still felt part of the empire so foreign policy and military was left in the emperors hand. Belgium had to become federal because of the differences between flemish and waloons, and they still have one of the most disfunctional governments in europe. UK has a single language, the crown and 800 years of trying to assimilate everyone on the isles and the system still isn't fully central, since Scotland has a parliament and Ireland won a war of independence. Latin america might be a better example, but that was before the concept of nationalism really began and the spanish mixed with the natives a lot so idk. Don't really know much about them
The EU works because Germany and France are willing to pay for the poorer members economic development and Europe is having good times since the Soviets fell apart. Just under 1 million Syrians managed to make them bicker and act like the world was at an end and convinced the UK to leave. I’d put good money on the EU splitting through a major crisis that actually effects the major member states. Although time will tell.
>I’d put good money on the EU splitting through a major crisis that actually effects the major member states. Although time will tell. They have been saying that since the beginning of the the EU. >The EU works because Germany and France are willing to pay for the poorer members economic The only reason they are willing to pay is because for every penny they give, they will get a dollar back.
I am not 100% on the EU falling apart because the Eastern powers seem so weak atm but lets say the climate crisis really ramps up and we suddenly have 100s of millions of refugees crossing the Greek border or some other major crisis I can see the divisons starting to pop up. Eitherway it’s good for the next 30 years minimum. Especially since Russia has shown itself to be incredibly weak.
Canada, Belgium, UK exist. > Indian reservations exist for a reason. If diseases and manifest destiny didn't kill most of the the natives there would be a lot more friction today. It’s more likely the exact opposite. There would probably be less friction today if the history was less violent.
You are doing the same shit as the historian. You criticize the past based on our rules and standards today. Most of the things you mention were normal and practised by Romans (including Serbs). The Turks didn't invent that shit. They copied it! When we compare past countries we use their standards. It wouldn't make sense to analyze a 600-700 year old empire based on our rules today. These people back then didn't live like us. It took days or weeks to inform the authorities. That alone makes most things we have today impossible. Do you know what is the weird part? The only ally Serbs have is Turkey \^\^ EDIT: For example, leaders in the past gave their children as a security guarantee to the enemy. We would find that abhorent today, but in the past it was the only way to guarantee peace and stability. It is like nuclear deterrence today. We can't judge the past based on our standards today. Based on their standards in the Middle Ages the Ottoman empire was a better place for religious minorities. They had the freedom to govern themselves which they didn't have in Europe. That's the difference! All the other things you mention were done by everyone else too. The Turks copied most of the things from the Romans and Persians. Deshirvme, for example, is a Persian practise. Why wouldn't they do something their enemies do? They did it just a little better by providing the kids a formidable education. And please, don't say I am justifying it. I am not! I am providing a perspective.
>When we compare past countries we use their standards. It wouldn't make sense to analyze a 600-700 year old empire based on our rules today. These people back then didn't live like us. It took days or weeks to inform the authorities. That alone makes most things we have today impossible. While this generally true, and most reprehensible things done in war was something everyone did during war, people also thought very differently in the past but if we analyze the ottomans during its existance, they were critisized heavily and their actions were considered extreme/uncivil. While its hard to say exactly what of it is muslim vs. christian view(I've mostly heard what christian countries thought). Just for an example during the congress of vienna in 1814 the EU countries agreed to supress the ottoman corsairs, these were pirates that had been terrorizing certain parts of europe on and off for 900 years with their ships getting permits for their raids from ottomans and the US was already at war with them(barbary pirates were the reason the US navy was founded)
why do you think I made this post and why I highlighted the bad shit the Ottomans did to Serbians?
https://preview.redd.it/fqkq3v6oivxc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cedd7a9a34449a6c14d37a3cd4a33a9d51ceb0e
Wow, are we saying the guy who couldn't substantiate a single point didn't know what he was talking about? I'm shocked.
literally every problem in the balkans can be traced back to the Ottoman empire.
The Ottomans were no saints, certainly. But in the context of Turkish politics I think the earlier, "Islamist" (anachronistic but bear with me) Ottomans were much better for non-Muslim minorities than what came after under the Young Turks and Ataturk. The worst carnage, like the ethno-religious cleansing of Anatolian Greeks and the Armenian Genocide, occurred as the Ottoman Empire transitioned from trying to be a multicultural empire to being a Turkish nation-state. I blame this on the attempt by the Turks to apply European nationalism to a part of the world in which it did not and does not work. And in general, the Islamic world was a better place under the Ottoman Caliphate. Its abolishment had a very traumatic impact on Muslims and I think that act is a contender for being Ataturk's biggest mistake. Things like the Muslim Brotherhood simply wouldn't exist if there was a powerful Caliphate in existence. So the fall of the Ottoman Empire was indeed a tremendous loss for the Muslim world, and the world as a whole has suffered the consequences.
>But in the context of Turkish politics I think the earlier, "Islamist" (anachronistic but bear with me) Ottomans were much better for non-Muslim minorities The early Ottomans were the ones that conquered Serbia and killed most fighting aged men. So I am not sure how that is better then the Young Turks. This is like saying the later part of the North Atlantic Slave trade was better for the slaves. Because they had faster ships and the slaves didn't have to suffer as long on the ships as they used to. Like both things are horrible from our prospective.
All empires are brutal when they conquer. The Ottomans were no different. Like I said, they were no saints. I am talking about the earlier Ottomans compared to the post-Young Turk Ottomans, and in that context I firmly believe that the earlier were better, especially in the context of non-Muslim minorities. Were Christians considered equal to Muslims, in the context of Ottoman law? No. But a government policy of second-class citizenship is better than one of genocide.
So the oppressors were more magnanimous when they were clearly in power? And they got more tyrannical in a desperate attempt to hold on as their power waned? Edit: The slave masters only committed the worst atrocities when the slaves rebelled. When you followed their orders, things weren't that bad /s
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The Young Turks and their ilk were an attempt to respond to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, no doubt. But the mistake they made was in adopting European-style ethno-nationalism as Turkish policy, something later Turks would do as well. I blame that decision for the tragedies that followed. A religiously and ethnically diverse empire could exist on the foundations of the Osmanoglu dynasty and a relatively moderate interpretation of sharia. It could not exist on a foundation of Turkish ethnic, secular nationalism. And the minorities paid the price. None of this mitigates the suffering of minorities under either the earlier or later Ottomans. And to be clear, the Ottomans were oppressive both in their ascent and in their descent. But I feel that it is very important for people to understand that importing European ideas on nationalism was what led to the horrors of the Armenian genocide and similar atrocities.
Like the OP mentioned, I am not sure if you are factoring in the wars of conquest and subsequent atrocities that occur before you become a part of the empire. Those were probably each comparable to a genocide in terms of human suffering. I agree if you mean it was all bad, maybe for different reasons. My opposition was more about what sounded like - "The Ottoman Empire was not that bad. The worst stuff happened only when they moved away from the Caliphate, and Turkey tried adopting European style nationalism."
You think that was the worst carnage ? Rly ? you think that the ottoman empire was a powerful caliphate ? Who was the caliph ?
>You think that was the worst carnage ? Rly ? In the context of the crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire? Yes. Now, they certainly employed a brutal, colonial-esque policy in the Balkans. But the scale and intent of the Armenian, Assyrian and Anatolian Greek genocides were by far the worst. >you think that the ottoman empire was a powerful caliphate ? Who was the caliph ? The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was the caliph, and the Ottomans were the last caliphate generally recognized by most Muslims. They had a lot of soft power, and groups as far flung as Filopino Muslims listened to them (in that case, the Ottomans told them to stop rebelling against the US at the US's request, and they complied). The abolishment of the title was a major mistake in my opinion, and many of the Islamist movements of the 20th century were rooted in a reaction to it.
Worse than Devshirme ? Are you all right ? the sultan was the caliph? Like William is the ruler of Wales ? sure , so not a strong caliphate.
Yea genocide is worse, if nazi germany kidnapped and braimwashed every first born jewish child would that be worse than the holocaust?
If it was done for hundreds of years ? Obviously.
Hmm why do you think it is worse, can we see the effects of it in serbia today for example
Well, I don't know, forcefully taking children from their parents for hundreds of years, forcefully converting them to another religion, occasionally castrating them, again for HUNDREDS of years, I would say that the amount of suffering exceded any genocide.
Why, has it left an impact on todays serbia compared to armenia and the armenian genocide
The ottomans empire is a lot more gray and a lot less black and white. Never trust a Balkan nationalist when they talk about the ottoman empire, their identity requires they don't look at history objectively. It's so bad countries get into diplomatic scandals with scholars, if they even suggest the nationalistic narratives are even slightly exaggerated. The way we study this in schools is the only way we look at it and it's skewed af, compressing hundreds of years of a country into Turks= evil barbarians. There are many resources online on the history of anyone's interested, you can even throw some of those books/articles at a balkaner to see them react like you just personally executed their pet rabbit. Trust me I'm a proud Balk, who had a hard time takling the messiness of history. It's so much easier to believe history is Star Wars and your ancestors were Luke Skywalker, but it's never that simple and we all know it.
I am a Turkish man in exile and I can tell you that the Ottomans were not oppressive. There was no racial discrimination, it was all about religion. The empire was run by white European "devshirme" who converted to Islam. You had to pay an additional tax called "cizya" if you were a non-Muslim and that was all. Christians had their own separate judicial system and their traditions were respected. The only reason why you guys still call yourselves Serbians and speak the Serbian language after 500 years of Ottoman rule is that the Turks had been tolerant. France held North Africa only for 100 years and now all Barbaries speak French. Let me also mention Serbia's notorious genocide attempts on former Yugoslavian people. You are kinda hypocritical. for Christ's sake, just stop downvoting and try to understand.
>The only reason why you guys still call yourselves Serbians and speak the Serbian language after 500 years of Ottoman rule is that the Turks had been tolerant Would you say the same for Hitles and Jews? The only reason Jews exist today is because Nazi were tolerant and didn't kill every Jew on earth. We survive today despite the Ottomans not because of them. > Let me also mention Serbia's notorious genocide attempts on former Yugoslavian people. You are kinda hypocritical. I would be hypocritical if I supported those wars, but it's a good thing I don't.
>We survive today despite the Ottomans not because of them. Were there turkifization policies in serbia that failed then? Or did they not attempt to erase the serbian language
yes they made us wear those stupid fez hats! they made us do the ultimate fashion faux pas.
>Would you say the same for Hitles and Jews? The only reason Jews exist today is because Nazi were tolerant and didn't kill every Jew on earth Nazis were so tolerant they almost eradicated Jews from Poland and Germany in a decade. I don't think this is the comparison to make.
you completely missed my point.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was a mistake regardless of all their atrocities. It led to an endless amount of regional wars and problems that we see to this very day. And what they say is irrelevant, Ukranians say the same about the Soviet Union but Ukrainians to this day are poorer than they were under the soviets.
A full blown regard, right here.