256 | Living in the Ottoman Realm
restructuring the empire and transforming itself on all levels—administratively,
fiscally, economically, socially, and politically—into a modern imperial nation-
state from 1839 to 1918 met with various levels of accommodation and resistance.
These reform programs became increasingly aggressive over the course of the
nineteenth century, culminating in the Second Constitutional Period (1908–
1918). These reforms should be understood as internally formulated responses to
both internal and international factors and not as simplistic Westernization. The
overriding goal of these reforms was to preserve the empire through transforma-
tion. In so doing, it profoundly altered Ottoman state practice by redefining what
it meant to be an Islamic polity.
These transformations had an immense effect on state-society relations, par -
ticularly as affected by European imperialism and with respect to how local
responses shaped the relationship between various elements of the Ottoman pop -
ulace and the state. It was during this period that the Ottoman state and seg-
ments of the empire’s population adopted and adapted the concept of national-
ism to fit their particular aspirations as sovereignty became vested in both the
state and the populace. Religion, ethnicity, and gender became nationalized and
played a major role in nation building during this period by acting as unifying
and polarizing agents among the empire’s diverse populations. These develop-
ments engendered mass political activity that led to a simultaneous push for con-
stitutionalism, local autonomy, and secession by different groups.
While segments of the Ottoman population attempted to fulfill their aspira-
tions regarding their relationship with the Ottoman state, the state itself aimed
to transform society into a more cohesive, loyal, and national unit through social
engineering, indoctrination, integration, and homogenization. These policies
included mass education, sedentization of seminomadic groups, demographic
engineering, land reform, military conscription, population censuses and re-
locations, and new criminal laws, among others. These policies had intended
and unintended consequences. Some groups used them to assimilate and adopt
Ottoman national identity, while others rejected them and created organizations
to further their agendas, such as literary heritage societies, schools, and defense
leagues. When policies of integration failed or offended, violence often ensued,
resulting in horrific consequences.
The final fifteen years of the empire were particularly violent as the Ottomans
went through a constitutional revolution, massive territorial loss, two coups
d’état, a counter coup d’état, a war with Italy, the Balkan Wars, World War I,
and subsequent uprisings and wars of independence. By the end of this period,
all southeastern European, Arab Middle Eastern, and North African territories
were severed from the empire, and the empire itself ceased to exist. The pop-
ulation, economy, infrastructure, and political system of the former Ottoman
Empire were devastated as a result of wars, disease, famine, ethnic cleansings,