Living in the Ottoman Realm. Empire and Identity, 13th to 20th Centuries

(Grace) #1

168 | Living in the Ottoman Realm


the past to supply desperately needed revenue, new power groups arose among
local provincial notables. These ayans established households patterned after the
imperial dynasty and became, in many cases, the administrative arm of the dy-
nasty, thus acting as mediators between the central state and local populations.
The dynamic of these simultaneously cooperative and contentious relationships
between central Ottoman and local interests affected the empire on multiple lev-
els. In many cases it drew local powerbrokers closer to the central government
and facilitated greater imperial influence in the provinces. It also simultaneously
facilitated the growth in power of many local actors, some of whom chose to rebel
against the central state to carve out areas of autonomy, thus creating new oppor-
tunities and challenges to Ottoman imperial rule and identity.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries new spheres of sociabil-
ity became available in salons, coffee houses, taverns, garden parties, and neo-
Sufist movements and through mass consumption of coffee, tobacco, alcohol,
and tulips. Men and women, elites and nonelites, folks from diverse religious
backgrounds, and urban and rural groups all participated in this new and ex-
panding public sphere. This new sociability influenced Ottoman society in gen-
der relations, sexuality, and consumer culture. Entities from religious figures to
state officials reacted by attempting to define public morality and implement new
practices of social control and public discipline aimed at combating prostitution,
crime, riots, interconfessional conviviality, and public demonstrations.
As the eighteenth century came to a close new powers and threats to the
Ottoman Empire emerged on an internal and geopolitical scale. Areas in the
empire erupted in open rebellion, demanding greater autonomy from central
Ottoman rule. Additionally, European encroachment on Ottoman trade routes
and borders increased. The dynamics of these internal rebellions, needed reform,
and external pressures are clearly manifested by the empire’s catastrophic loss
to the Russians during the Russo-Ottoman War (1768–1774) and the humiliating
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. The Ottomans soon found themselves no longer the
dominant power in Eurasia but equals with several states, including the Russians,
Hapsburgs, French, and British. These losses in power and prestige from external
war and internal crises were a wake-up call to many within the Ottoman dynasty
and administration who saw the need for sweeping administrative, military, and
fiscal reforms. Many of these reforms find their roots in the end of the eighteenth
century and reached their height during the nineteenth century.
The chapters in part III investigate the transformation of being Ottoman
during this period of imperial upheaval and transformation, including all the
associated challenges, dislocations, failures, and successes. As a whole these
chapters demonstrate the contested and expanding notions of Ottoman identity
throughout the empire and abroad as individuals from outside the empire sought
to attach themselves to it, while others were forced to assimilate. Some Ottoman

Free download pdf