***
|
The Ottomans were one of a number of nomadic Turkish tribes originating in the vast Eurasian steppe. They were not the first to emerge from the Steppe preceeded by other fierce warrior people like the Huns. The first Turkic people to enter the Mideast were the Selejuk Turks. The Turkic tribes followed a primitive shamanistic religion. Once in contact with settled populations they accepted Islam and under Islamic influence, the Seljuks played a key role in the development of the Mideastern Turko-Persian tradition. They helped bring Persian culture to Anatolia. It also led to the settlement of other Turkic tribes in the northwestern peripheral parts of the empire. This played the strategic purpose of fending off invasions from other Steppe tribes and neighboring states and resulted in the Turkicization of the area. The Selejuks wre weakened by wars with the Crusaders. The Ottoman rose out of one of the various Turkic tribes that had been drawn into the Mideast, the Oguz Turks, Their time came as the Mongols devestated the major states of the Mideast. Led by Osman, they began a spectacular rise in the power vacuum created as the Mongols fell back to Central Asia. by the The Turks were the core of the Ottoman Empire, but as they conquered other people, primarily the Christian Balkans and Arab lands, they became a minority in their own empire. Ethnic data on the Ottoman Empire is not known with any precession until the final years of its existence. The Empire functioned for nearly six centuries. The first official census was a major undertaking (1881–1893) and by that time the Christian Balkans had been lost. And even the Census that was compiled had some weaknesses because it relied heavily on tax data and there are major problems wth useing taxation system for census purposes. The ethnic groups composing the Ottoman Empire has varied over time as the Empire first expanded and than declined. These people have included besides the core Turkic popultion: Albanians, Arabs, Armenians, Bosnians, Bulgars, Croats, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Serbs, Slovenes, Ukranians, Tartars, and others.
Ethnic Arabs were tribes from the Arabian Peninsula. After the Islamic outburst Arabs armies conquered most of the Mideast and North Africa. Except for Anatolia and Persia, the population of these areas were Arabized. This means that they became during the Caliphate culturally Arab, spolke Arabic, adopted Islam, and identified themselves as Arabs. Ethnically they were, however, not Arab and varied substantially from place to place. These people becme the largest cultural group of the various people conquered by the Ottomans. The Ottoman conquered most of the Arab lands (16th century). Control over the Levant and Mesopotamia was well enforced, but more limited and varied over time for the more far-flung areas like the Persian Gulf and Arabian emirates as well as North Africa beyond Egypt.
The Ottomans after finally taking Constantinople (1453) turned eastward an added Armenia to their growing empire. The Islamic Ottomans were relatively tolerant to religious diversity, at least in comparison to contemporary Christian practices. The Ottomans created the Armenians as a millet, meaning a civil-religious minority governed by the Armenian Church within the overall authority of Empire. Although the Ottoman were an advanced civilization in the 15th century. The Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and for a time threatened Western Europe. Armenians and Turks for several centuries lived in relative harmony. Armenians became known as the "loyal millet". Although Armenians because they were Christians were not equal and, as a result, were subject to certain restrictions. They were generally acceptd as loyal subjects of the Empire. There was very little ethnic violence. In part because of Islam, the Ottomans never experienced the modernizing movements (Renaissance, Enligtenment, Reformation, or Industrial Revolution) which transformed European civilization. As a result, by the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire had become a backwater of Europe. As the Ottoman Empire declined, Imperial rule became increasingly oppresive. After the French Revolution, Western ideals of liberal constitutional government, individual rights, national self determination, began to influence the Armenians and other national groups within the Ottoman Empire. These groups became increasingly disturbed by autocratic, backward Ottiman rule. Most Christian minorities within the Ottoman Empire were located in the Balkans. Befinning with the Greeks, these groups assisted by Russia and European powers gradually achieved independence. The Armenians by the 1880s were increasingly isolated as the only important Christian minority left in the Empire. The only other Christian group of importnce were the Greek communities in western Anatolia. Growing Armenian nationalism increasingly separated thm from Turks about future political strucures. Armenians demanded increasing autonomy, even independence. Some Turks began to envision a new Pan-Turkic empire extending from Turkey into central Asia where there were also Turkish popultion. Separating The Turks in Anatolia from the Turks in Central Asia were the Armenians in eastern Anatolia and the Caususes. Turkish nationalist began to see the increasingly nationlistic Christian Armnians as an impediment to their pan-Turkish empire.
The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans (14th-15th centuries) was a major change in European history. The Balkans were tumultuous region, with the various Christian kingdoms fighting among themselves. They were this ill prepared to resist growing Ottoman power in Anatolia. The Ottomans began the conquest at Adrianople, modern Edirne (1362), It would take more than a century for the Ottoman Sultans to complete the conquest. The important Serbian kingdom fell with the Battle of Kosovo (1389), Bulgaria (139). The millennia long Greek Byzantine Empire collapsed with the fall of Constantinople (1453), Bosnia (1463), Herzegovina (1482), and Montenegro (1499). The Muslim Ottomans were aided by rifts in Christianity. There were divisions among Orthodox peoples. And the fundamental split in Christianity--the Great Schism which separated the western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church (1054). The great Christian power in the East resisting Islamic onslaughts for centuries had been the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines had been significantly weakened by the Fourth Crusade leading to the Sack of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders (1204). Constantinople's massive walls protected the Byzantines for two more centuries, but it never fully recovered. Ottoman com quest into the Balkans preceded ed that of Greece. But with the fall of Constantinople there was no Greek power to resist the Ottomans. Although having only small populations, the islands were not unimportant. It would be in the Ionian Islands that modern Greek nationalism was born. The Greek were conquered, but the Ottomans allowed a degree of autonomy and accorded them some privlidges. As a result, the Greeks became an important part of the Christian minority within the Ottoman Empire. Even before the expansion of in to the Balkans, there was a Greek minority in western Anatolia. And over the centuries there was a dispersion of ethnicities throughput the Empire, so Greeks did not just live in Greece and western Anatolia, although this was where most lived. The landowning aristocracy was destroyed, but Greeks remained important if not dominant in commerce and business. Ottoman power made the eastern Mediterranean safe for Greek shipping (15th-16th centuries). Greek shipowners had skills and technology and they became Empire's maritime carriers earning enormous profits. There were incidents of conversion by the sword, but this was not the general Ottoman practice. Thus the population of Greece and th rest of the Balkans remained primarily Christian. The Ottoman authorities seldom exerted pressure on Christians to convert to Islam, though there were fiscal and legal benefits in doing so. Ottoman rule led to the creation of a Greek diaspora. There were two major waves of Greek migration. The first was dominated by intellectuals which would be a factor in the Renaissance. This was a process began earlier by the Fourth Crusade. 【Treadgold】 Another wave involved the common Greek population which fled from plains and best agricultural area of the Greek peninsula. moving into rugged mountain area where it was more challenging for the Ottomans to establish military and administrative control. 【Vacalopoulos, p. 45.】 The Orthodox Church during the Ottoman era was a major factor in the survival of Greek heritage. The Orthodox faith became a mark of Greek nationality. The Ottoman Sultan saw the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople as a kind of Greek leader. There was an important Greek community in Constantinople. The religiouis divide was a factor in maintaining the ethnic separation.
Jewish communities were established throughout the Roman Empire after the failure of the Jewish revolt and the Roman supression of the Jews. Several of the communities were established in Anatolia (often referred to as Asia Minor). Other Jewish communities were established in the Balkans and Levant which for a time were controlled by Byzantium. Generally these communities did not experience the severe repression that the Roman Catholic Church directed at the Jews. Gradually Byzantium was overwealmed, first by the Arabs and than by the Ottoman Turks. As the Ottomans occupied Anatolia and other areas formerly controlled by Byzantium, Jews came under their control. The great Byzantine capital, Constantinople, finally fell (1453). More Jews entered the Empire when the Ottomans offered refuge to the Jews expelled by Spain and Portugal--the Sephardic Jews. As the Ottoman Empire expanded, Turks became a minority in an Empire populated by Balkan Christians and Muslim Arabs. The Ottomans also held people from these areas with some suspicion, fearing the development of nationalist movements. The Jews on the other hand were a small minority. Thus they were often favored by sultans who often placed great trust in them. Ottoman rule in many cases help protect Jews from sometimes antagonistic local populations. Thus the situation of Jews in the Ottoman east was very different than in the Christian west.
After the Mongol period, several Kurdish principalities were for a time independent, but the Kurds were unable to unite. They soon found themselves caught between the Safavids and Ottomans with the Ottomans finally prevailing. Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeated Safavid Shah Ismail I (1514), allowing him to annexed Armenia and Kurdistan. Selim entrusted the organisation of the newly conquered territories to Idris, a Kurd of Bitlis. Idris divided the territory into sanjaks (districts). He sought to integrate the Kurds seemlessly into the Ottoman Empire. He did not to interfere with the established principle of heredity. He appointed the reining local chiefs as Ottoman governors. He also reorganized the productive pastoral country between Erzerum and Erivan. The population had been desvestated by Timur's Mongol army. He moved Kurds from Hakkari and Bohtan into the area.
The Ottomans were one of a number of nomadic Turkish tribes originating in the vast Eurasian steppe. They were not the first to emerge from the Steppe preceeded by other fierce warrior people like the Huns. The first Turkic people to enter the Mideast were the Selejuk Turks. The Turkic tribes followed a primitive shamanistic religion. Once in contact with settled populations they accepted Islam and under Islamic influence, the Seljuks played a key role in the development of the Mideastern Turko-Persian tradition. They helped bring Persian culture to Anatolia. It also led to the settlement of other Turkic tribes in the northwestern peripheral parts of the empire. This played the strategic purpose of fending off invasions from other Steppe tribes and neighboring states and resulted in the Turkicization of the area. The Selejuks were weakened by wars with the Crusaders. The Ottomans rose out of one of the various Turkic tribes tht had been drawn into the Mideast, the Oguz Turks, Their time came as the Mongols devestated the major states of the Mideast. Led by Osman, they began a spectacular rise in the power vacuum created as the Mongols fell back to Central Asia. by the The Turks were the core of the Ottoman Empire, but as they conquered other people, primarilt the Christian Balkans and Arab lands, they became a minority in their own empire.
Treadgold, Warren. History of Byzantine State and Society (Stanford University Press: 1997.
Vacalopoulos, Apostolis. The Greek Nation, 1453–1669 (Rutgers University Press:).
Navigate the Children in History Website:
[Return to the Main Ottoman Empire page]
[Introduction][Animals][Biographies][Chronology][Climatology][Clothing][Disease and Health][Economics][Ethnicity][Geography][History][Human Nature][Law]
[Nationalism][Presidents][Religion][Royalty][Science][Social Class]
[Bibliographies][Contributions][FAQs][Glossaries][Images][Links][Registration][Tools]
[Children in History Home]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Turkish pages:
[Return to the Main Turkish chronology page]
[Return to the Main Greek Ottoman era page]
[Return to the Main medieval European country page]
[Return to the Main Middle Eastern page]
[Turkish choirs] [Turkish folk costumes] [Turkish movies][Turkish royals][Turkish schools] [Youth groups]