The Ottoman Empire - forgotten reallity

What is you knowledge of the Ottoman empire and its presence in Europe?

According to different countries, the Ottoman empire was nothing more but a military union which replaced the broken Byzantine empire and ensured the continuous growth and prosperity of the region. The religious fights were minor and most people had religious freedom although Christians had to pay higher taxes. The empire was not that different from the Austro-Hungarian empire or the Russian empire.

According to the history of my own country, the Ottoman empire was a tool for human genocide. The words which best describe the Ottoman actions against native Bulgarians are: slavery, deprivation, slaughter, massacre, butchery, ...., incineration, cruelty, brutality, ferocity, and inhumanity. From the largest town to the smallest village there are horror stories from the process of Bulgarian revival and upraising against the Ottoman Empire - the so called ''Eastern Question''.

Recently, the foreign politics of Bulgaria changed and the country is no more supporting the theory of ''human genocide'', instead the period of five centuries Ottoman Rule is referred as Ottoman Presence.

Some claim that the communist period and Russo-Turkish political conflict created a nationalistic view which deliberately exaggerated the events during Ottoman times and the upraising against the empire. As a result, the national movements of the newly formed Balkan countries were vastly anti-Turkish and created the foundations for unreasonable hate against the Turkish people. The Russian empire was called the savior of Balkans, whereas Turkey played the enemy. Every child in Bulgaria was raised in environment which promoted hate and discrimination against Turks starting from the very first history lesson in schools.

What is your point of view? Do you trust more the horror stories of the recent past, the history lesson in schools, or the claims modern political parties make? What do you believe was the reality inside the Ottoman empire 150 years ago?

Spatar said:

Sonrisa, I think we have a few topics on the Ottoman Empire in this forum. My opinion is that a foreign occupation, where a distinct group of people were second rate citizen (the rayah) lasting five centuries cannot be described as benign.

This of course does not mean that there were five centuries of genocide. People were living and interacting even in those times.

Speaking on experience of my people, Wallachia and Moldavia (roughly, the south and east of Romania and the Republic of Moldova) were not directly ruled but were under the Ottoman influence for roughly 350 years. This regime spared us of the worse excesses the other countries in the region went through but still these were centuries of stagnation.

In the XIXth century the Ottoman influence waned earlier than in Bulgaria and, comparing it to the troubled relation we had with Russia or the treatment of Romanians in Austria (and Austria-Hungary) many Romanian historians tended to regard the Ottoman period with more indulgence.

In a nutshell, I consider that the Ottoman influence was not benefitial for the subjected people, at least in South Eastern Europe. This does not have to be the view of every member of the forum, of course...

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Thank you for sharing your opinion.

I know that there are other topics about the Ottoman empire but I could not find one which talks specifically for the effects of Ottoman rule on the Balkan nations. I was just curious what other people think and what is their perception of the empire. I know that Turks speak with nostalgie about their past and regard the empire as a great power which brought prosperity for many. On the other hand, they do not even know about the horror stories which I studied in school, their history lessons must have been different. And to be honest, I am not even sure if other nations such as Western Europe accept our history. History Channels show the life in the Ottoman Empire much different than what I know and kind of skip talking about the subjugated.

Spatar said:

I don't think that there is a "Western European" look on this. However I did notice the "political corectness" related to Ottoman Empire; for instance you will find a lot of authors who write that the devsirme (i.e. the kidnapping of Christian boys and their training as Ottoman soldiers) system was afterall not that bad .

Another failure of the historiography is to understand the conditions in the Ottoman Empire in the XIXth century. The crumbling Ottoman state could not commend any loyalty from its' Christian subjects. The Tanzimat reforms came too late and I doubt that the Ottoman elite was really eager to accept the former rayah as equals.

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Yes, this is one controversy. On history channel is explained that the best boys are selected to become mercenaries of the Ottoman empire and for their loyalty they are heavily rewarded, some of them reach government positions that otherwise is impossible, they are also given control of their home lands so they can develop their home district and make it prosperous. To be such a mercenary is a proud for the boys and their families.

On the opposite, in Bulgarian history we studied that the so called ''blood tax'' ranked the worst one of all taxes not because the children were kidnapped from their families but because they were latter sent to kill their own families and sometimes slaughter entire villages. We call them ''enichars'' and most Bulgarians accept that they were a tool for mass destruction and murder. The main purpose was to reduce the power of slaves by depriving them of their right to produce a generation which can potentially become strong and threaten the empire. Because the male children was exceptional even in young age the empire took them and trained them so that they can protect it and of course make sure that the slaves will never regain their control. Bulgarians have old saying that you should be more afraid of your own son more than ordinary Ottomans because this child is no longer human, he is transformed and brainwashed into a machine for murder and brutality.

Bihop Odo said:

Hello.
The view from Western Europe (or at least my view, in England) is one of little actual knowledge.
The spread of Islamic forces into Eastern Europe and the battles that took place (such as the Siege of Vienna) are known of by few. Even less understand that under Elizabeth 1st (1558-1603) England had a treaty with the Ottomans against Spain and the mighty Catholic Alliance - This ensured that Spain's new Americas wealth was offset by the Muslims in the Eastern Med and the Protestants in the Western.
The atrocities of Vlad the Impaler are known of (Wallachia) and I remember reading he was raised as a captive in Istanbul after being left as a hostage by his father.

In C XIX the British public was enraged by an Ottoman massacre of Albanians that was widely reported in the UK newspapers but, not long afterwards, Britain allied with the Ottomans (and France) to stop the spread of the Russian Empire in the Crimea.

By the time of WW1 the Ottoman Empire was all but dead and it's siding with Germany finished it off. If not for the political genius of Ataturk the country of Turkey would have been carved up and shared as colonies - like much of the mid-east.

As for 'the political correctness' in my country - this often leads to apologists excusing the worse excesses of any Islamic civilisation on a far grander scale than for others. And many non-Turkish Muslims seem to have a fondness for the Ottoman Empire without fully considering that many Arabs hated being ruled by the Turks even more than by the secular European colonialists of France and GB.

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I am aware of something like a recent propaganda in my country which claims that this union between the Ottoman empire and England played the worst role for Balkan population. Basically, they explain that the Ottoman empire was already too weak prior to the Russo-Turkish war and therefore it was England who supported and commanded the military actions. In simple words, the English commanded how many of the ''protesters'' (Balkan people) must be slaughtered so that the revolution is put down and they become too scared to ally with Russian armies. This has kind of happened because a lot of the revolutions happened prior to Russian occupation of the Ottoman empire, and of course all the ''protesters'' were murdered.

I know how this sounds, but taken the history of English occupations and what it did to the enslaved nations it sounds very likely to have happened. To be honest I heard from a proper English man for the first time that the Concentration Camps used by Germans against the Jews were invented by the English who used them much earlier in Africa for slave's punishment.

koseku said:

I heard that chiristians under Ottoman Empire had to pay more taxes, but didn't have to join military so this led them grow their economy better then muslims. And also the taxes they paid was a safety warranty for them, when Ottoman Empire couldn't defend these chiristians in war, the goverment paid their taxes back.

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I know that for the Bulgarians there were about 32 different types of taxes plus the ''blood tax'' which allowed the empire to take the best male children every 2-3 years and use them as mercenaries.

The problem was not with government which imposed taxes but the regional chiefs who determined how much tax they take from the slaves. As far as I understand, the Muslim region did not allow property of the land, so the government rented out the land to wealthy people who in term would pay a small tax. So the middleman who controlled both the land and the slaves put their own taxes on people and the difference of what they take and how much they give to government was placed into their pockets - corruption we call it today.

Because Bulgarians did not owned anything the taxes were taken in kind, such as animals and grains which deprived them of their basic right to properly feed their families. As a result people were starving especially in winter when temperature falls dramatically, although they were working hard during all year they still did not have enough to eat. Not to talk about others human rights. As far as I know the females had the worst faith because they were often sold on markets just like chicken hold in cages; the males were usually chained not to escape and did not have proper clothing or shoes, nor were given water so in hot days some of them would die walking under the hot sun.

Belfaborac said:

While some Balkan nations have made the Ottomans into their national bogeymen, never to be gotten over, in reality they were no worse overlords than any others for the first few hundred years and considerably better than some. Like all expansionist empires they punished would-be revolutionaries harshly in order to discourage repeat performances, but that was just par for the course at the time. Other than that and the extra taxation of non-Muslims (common to all Muslim areas of the day), they were in fact almost scrupulously fair in their treatment of their subject populations.

Anyone who reads up a little on the history of the Balkans itself will fast come to see that the those who treated the local populations worst were their own semi-barbaric warlords and would-be kings. Few, if any, European rulers had as little regard for human lives and suffering, and yet now they have been made national heroes and defenders of the faith and people in order to prop up their respective national psyches.

Oh well.

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Okay, but when have this happened what is the average time period of human mass murder and brutality in Europe?

In 1876, one small town in Bulgaria called Batak was completely burned down and all the people living there were slaughtered. Actually the lucky ones were slaughtered, and the others have a little different faith. There were little man left in the town because all of them them were part of the revolution and sent on the battlefield. So the town was full of women and children. The woman and little ..... were first ..... on the town square by as many Ottomans they were and later they were chopped into peaces and their bodies disassembled. The pregnant women were opened alive and their fetus taken and impaled on spikes and carried around the town as flags to escalate the horror. The ones who survived hided into the forests but later died of their wounds and starvation. Officially, about 5000 were killed in a single military action. If you go to the city you can visit a small church where all the bones are collected and preserved. This is a horror story from just a single town in Bulgaria about 137 years ago.

The grandparents of my parents remembered the revolutions and used to tell such horror stories, this happened about 3-4 generations ago.

mighty bear said:

Sounds like utter nonsense to me. England had no jurisdiction over Ottoman territories. It was an alliance, not a puppet system.

Regarding concentration camps, it's a common misconception in Britain that they were a British invention. Their first use was actually by the United States against captured Natives. Britain did borrow the concept in South Africa to lock up troublesome rebels but neither the US nor UK had built them as death camps like the Nazis did.

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I don't say that it was true, but there is certainly such a speculation going on. Maybe it was not a pupet system but more like a consultation for the Ottoman empire or unofficial approval to continue the military actions. Anyway, the non-actions of the Western World speaks for their compassion towards other people - today and in the past.