Your thoughts on the Ottoman Empire?

[Joe McCarthy]

I just finished Suraiya Faroqhi's The Ottoman Empire: a short history. I imagine most everyone has a negative view of the Ottomans, but I'm curious what any of you may think of them in terms of military technology, art, statecraft, administration, economics, etc., as well as any other general-historical assessments.

[Loddfafner]

Just about every part of the former empire from Libya to the Balkans to the Caucasus to Mesopotamia to Palestine are much messier than necessary. I suspect that the expectations people in ex-Ottoman provinces have of their states can be attributed to Ottoman administrative practices.

[Bard]

I suppose that the ottomans achieved a certain level of excellency in all the fields you mentioned.
Just an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary

[Joe McCarthy]

I suppose that the ottomans achieved a certain level of excellency in all the fields you mentioned.
Just an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary

Yes, their military acumen is generally what carried them, even against more culturally advanced opponents. Many of the janissaries though were taken from Christians. Suleiman the Magnificent put a lot of Serbs into his corps because he regarded them as durable and strong.

[The Lawspeaker]

Very negative of course despite the fact that the Ottomans did support us (for pragmatic reasons) in our fight for independence. They hated the Spanish and we hated them.. so.

But my overall feelings for them is of course very negative: A non-European empire with a religion that is not just alien but also incredibly hostile to us.

No self-respecting person could respect such an empire.

[Pallantides]

They were allies of Sweden in the Great Northern Wars and thus our enemies at the time. Charles XII of Sweden was a great admirer of the Turks, he even spent some years in exile in Turkey, also one Swedish national dish 'Kåldolmar' is of Turkish origin.




Their music was pretty cool though
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[Kanasyuvigi]

Да им еба майката рязана турска, семето им да изсъхне, чумата да ги тръшне всички до един.
In the history of the Balkan Christian nations the Ottoman rule is an era of political, cultural and economical decline, demographical catastrophe and total genocide.
Just one single example. At 1400 (the time of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans) the Bulgarian population was estimated to be around 3 million or almost the same as England.
600 years later, the British and their descendants in the USA, Canada, Australia... are more than 200 million. Bulgaria is less than 7 million, with 1 million of the population being Turks and Gypsies

[Joe McCarthy]

Arguably the Ottomans' greatest legacy, at least for Europe, was to insure it was not exposed to Western currents such as the Enlightenment, which means the Orthodox world grew even more alienated from the West than it already was. This means that things like capitalism and industrialism never took off there - which is probably seen as a good thing by various fringers.

[Svanhild]

Once foe, always foe. No sympathy, no respect.

[Марко Краљевић]

Positive opinion of Ottomans only surfaced among people who have never been enslaved by them. It was an islamic horde which used unifying position of sultan as caliph to unite muslims into conquests. In the middle ages when most other nations were fractured by feudal landlords, this ability created possibility of medieval version of blitzkrieg's concentrated assault.

Since Ottoman's main finance came from military conquests, without any other meaningful development of economy on the lands which it controlled, when those conquests seized the Ottoman's downfall was fast and unavoidable.

Balkan nations were in 14th, 15th century when they were conquered by the Ottomans, and they were still in 15th century, as well as their lands and economy, when they reinstated their independence in 19th century.

As for the apricity's resident imperialist comments aimed at Serbs as durable Ottoman soldiers, entire Janissary elite corps were from non muslims, preferable Balkan Christians, who were taken as children to Istanbul through "taxation in blood" and made into elite soldiers who would fight and die for sultan.