Without the labor of the captives and slaves, the Ottoman empire could not have attained and maintained its strength in early modern times. With Anatolia as the geographic focus, Leslie Peirce ...searches for the voices of the unfree, drawing on archives, histories written at the time, and legal texts. Unfree persons comprised two general populations: slaves and captives. Mostly household workers, slaves lived in a variety of circumstances, from squalor to luxury. Their duties varied with the status of their owner. Slave status might not last a lifetime, as Islamic law and Ottoman practice endorsed freeing one’s slave. Captives were typically seized in raids, generally to disappear, their fates unknown. Victims rarely returned home, despite efforts of their families and neighbors to recover them. The reader learns what it was about the Ottoman environment of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that offered some captives the opportunity to improve the conditions of their bondage. The book describes imperial efforts to fight against the menace of captive-taking despite the widespread corruption among the state’s own officials, who had their own interest in captive labor. From the fortunes of captives and slaves the book moves to their representation in legend, historical literature, and law, where, fortunately, both captors and their prey are present.
The first full account of the historic change in Turkey between 2007 and 2011, and the only scholarly description of the new order in the immediate aftermath of the change from 2011.
The Balkans offer classic examples of how empires imagine they can transform themselves into national states (Ottomanism) and how nation-states project themselves into future empires (as with the ...Greek “Great Idea" and the Serbian “Načertaniye"). By examining the interaction between these two aspirations this volume sheds light on the ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Balkan nationalisms. With a balance between historical and literary contributions, the focus is on the ideological hybridity of the new national identities and on the effects of “imperial nationalisms" on the emerging Balkan nationalisms. The authors of the twelve essays reveal the relation between empire and nation-state, proceeding from the observation that many of the new nation-states acquired some imperial features and behaved as empires. This original and stimulating approach reveals the imperialistic nature of so-called ethnic or cultural nationalism.
New perspectives on ethnic relations, Islam and neoliberalism have emerged in Turkey since the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. Placing the period within its historical and ...contemporary context, Tahir Abbas argues that what it is to be ethnically, religiously and culturally Turkish has been transformed.
A study of migration, mobility control and state power in the late Ottoman Empire. Sheds light on the phenomenon of migrant smuggling from a historical perspective. Demonstrates the effects of ...different regimes of mobility control on the migration process. Examines the limits of citizenship and nationality in the context of global migration.
The Ottoman lands, which extended from modern Hungary to the
Arabian peninsula, were home to a vast population with a rich
variety of cultures. The Ottoman World is the first
primary source reader to ...bring a wide and diverse set of voices
across Ottoman society into the classroom. Written in many
languages-not only Ottoman Turkish but also Arabic, Armenian,
Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Persian-these texts, here translated,
span the extent of the early modern Ottoman empire, from the 1450s
to 1700. Instructors are supplied with narratives conveying the
lived experiences of individuals through texts that highlight human
variety and accelerate a trend away from a state-centric approach
to Ottoman history. In addition, samples from court registers,
legends, biographical accounts, hagiographies, short stories, witty
anecdotes, jokes, and lampoons provide exciting glimpses into
popular mindsets in Ottoman society. By reflecting new directions
in the scholarship with an innovative choice of texts, this
collection provides a vital resource for teachers and students.
Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman ...Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization," the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now uses to overturn the official narrative.
The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic.
By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.
