Nationalist emotions have greatly hampered our appraisal and understanding of the Ottoman heritage in most nineteenth- and twentieth-century history literature. Biases emerge from a variety of sources. Until the late seventeenth century, West and central Europeans were understandably concerned about Ottoman imperial expansion. Surprisingly, these historical worries have continued to the present day and, in some cases, have been turned into cultural biases, such as those directed against Turkey, an Ottoman successor state, being a full member of the European Union.
Furthermore, nationalist histories have discounted the historical significance of multi-ethnic, multi-religious political formations. Furthermore, the Ottomans have had to submit to Japan's manufacturing, exporting, and highly productive success story as a paradigm of economic transition in a developing European-dominated international economy.
The Ottoman history has been largely neglected and/or seen in severely unfavorable terms in the more than thirty countries that today exist in lands originally occupied by the Ottoman Empire. With a few exceptions, this is still the case throughout the former Balkan regions today. Scholarly publications on the Ottoman period, on the other hand, have recently blossomed in a number of Arab governments. In Israel, there is a long-standing Ottoman studies tradition, which is frequently related to Zionism and its rationale. Finally, in Turkey, scholarly and popular knowledge of the Ottoman heritage is expanding, and there is an active public discussion over its meaning. Given the Ottoman Empire's involvement in several of these successor republics for five to six centuries - an incredibly lengthy span of time – the lack of public knowledge and discussion seemed astonishing at first.
Let's start with the Ottoman language legacy's scarcity. During the pre-independence nineteenth century, Ottoman Turkish had a significant influence on the various languages; for example, Turkish terms accounted for one-sixth of total Rumanian lexicon. Only a few terms exist today, however other Balkan languages, such as Greek, Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian, have a greater number of Turkish components. Little of the Ottoman language survived in the former Anatolian and Arab areas, and it is rapidly disappearing.
Part of the reason may be found in the Ottoman literary elite's size and nature, which was both tiny and predominantly Muslim. As a result, when the successor republics began their literacy campaigns after obtaining independence, they were mostly working with an illiterate population and so had few literary norms to overcome. Furthermore, with the triumph of the breakaway movements in the Balkan regions, the Ottoman administrative elites left, leaving few live linkages to the Ottoman literary tradition. These characteristics, however, only account for a portion of the lack of Ottoman language legacy.
We must also remember that all post-Ottoman administrations conducted linguistic purges, which were long-term efforts to eradicate Ottoman usages from the successor states' growing national languages. As a result, Turkish government initiatives eradicated Arabic and Persian terms (more than half of the total) that had seeped into Ottoman, while Syrian and Bulgarian states – otherwise so unlike — deleted Turkish words from Arabic and Bulgarian, respectively.
The linguistic purges stemmed from policymakers in virtually all of the successor republics' unfavorable views of the Ottoman past, as a result of their desire to completely exclude Ottoman features from the national identities they were forming. That is, the enmity stems from these countries' post-Ottoman histories, particularly their state-building processes, rather than real Ottoman policy. The vilification of the Ottoman past accompanied state creation in all of the successor states, from Serbia to Bulgaria to Turkey to Syria and Iraq.
For each group, the Ottomans were the "other" – what they weren't – and the oppressor of long-held "national" beliefs that had been buried over the Ottoman ages. As a result, the successor republics of the Balkans, Arabs, and Anatolians have all rejected the Ottoman heritage in their quests for post-Ottoman identity for decades. It's crucial to remember that the imperial system that was rejected just expired a few years ago, barely over seventy-five years ago. As a result, the process we're watching is in a constant state of flux. Some nationalists in the former imperial regions continue to wax eloquent about the Ottomans' cultural damage. This is paradoxical, because the wide range of cultures, customs, and languages that now exist in the successor nations is a striking testament to the Ottoman state's light touch on society. That example, the fact that individuals who spoke Bulgarian or Greek and professed Christianity at the time of the Ottoman conquest still spoke those languages and practiced Christianity several centuries after the Ottomans left speaks to Ottoman tolerance of linguistic and theological diversity. Nonetheless, many authors, politicians, and intellectuals in Balkan countries such as Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia harbor a deep hatred for the Ottomans, sometimes known as "Turks." The "Turkish" yoke remains the darkest and most horrible moment in Bulgarian history for many Bulgarians.
The Ottoman period, which lasted six centuries and is included in most Bulgarian (and Greek) history courses, hardly merits a chapter, and then only in the most gloomy terms. It's as if recounting the history of the United States without mentioning the British conquest of eastern North America. Similarly, historical literature in Arab nations remained mute or antagonistic to the Ottomans for decades. Nationalists bemoaned the Ottomans' dead hand in their efforts to foster a feeling of Arab community. They claimed that Arab national rights were lost during the Ottoman Empire (1516–1917). They overlooked the Ottomans in their search for a basis for the rising new nations, instead returning to the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258) for Arab history, or to the pharaohs or kings of Babylon for more secular foundations.
In areas like Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, there are some signs of progress (and in pre-occupation Iraq as well). Scholars in and from these nations are increasingly examining the Ottoman period in Arab territories, rather than vilifying it, and are beginning to include the Ottoman years into their own histories. Many people have moved away from too simple negative portrayals of the Ottoman history and recognize its significance in the Arab present. As part of this debate, there is a growing body of evidence indicating most Arab subjects did not agree to or assist in the Ottoman empire's demise.
Turkish nationalists working to establish their new state in Anatolia hoped to promote a shared sense of Turkish identity through linking to pre-Ottoman Anatolia. Like the pharoahs and Babylonians in contemporary Egypt and Iraq, they constructed the Hittites as their national forebears and attempted to dismiss the Ottoman period as unimportant to modern Turkish identity. Similarly, the last Pahlevi Shah in Iran sought legitimacy from the ancient Achaemenids in Persepolis. They also claimed that the Ottoman state was corrupt, decadent, and weak, and that the Turkish nation state deserved to take its place.
However, counter-trends existed from the beginning of the Republic and grew over decades. Some prominent Turkish academic publications examined the Ottoman past's true relevance for the Turkish present as early as 1940. In 1953, the Republic commemorated the 500th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople with a massive ceremony honoring Sultan Mehmet II as a national hero.
During the 1960s, residents in several provinces began donning Ottoman costumes at historical commemorations, demonstrating that the imperial past had no hold on current allegiance. The rejection of the Ottoman past has largely given way to its utilization since the 1980s, but there is still much dispute over the nature and significance of that history. By the 1990s, a best-selling Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk (and others), was often using the Ottoman period as a setting for his writings, indicating how popular Ottoman themes had become.
Ottoman architectural monuments gleam anew after restoration, and Ottoman relics are popular items of display in the Turkish middle classes' houses. They collect Ottoman copper cookware, coins, stamps, clothes, and furniture, as well as Ottoman novels they can't read. These Ottoman antiquities have a sizable market, and television series with Ottoman themes and locations abound. In the same way, Ottoman sultans and heroes are increasingly common in cartoons, frequently replacing pre-Ottoman Turkic warriors from previous decades. Despite this, there is much dispute in Turkey over the significance of these Ottoman events, antiquities, and figures. Some nationalists represent the Ottoman Empire as a Turkish state, attempting to transform this cosmopolitan empire into what it was never: a nation state. Some proclaimed secularists are beginning to look to the empire's vastness as a model for Turkish military development, which runs counter to Turkey's decades-long foreign policy trajectory. Others, as part of an Islamist movement that has grown politically prominent, appeal to the Ottoman era as a model for the adoption and observance of Islamic ideals. These hold Sultan Abdulhamit II in high regard for his pan-Islamic plans and emphasize his role as the caliph of Islam. On the one hand, this perspective distorts history by downplaying Ottoman governmental attempts to keep all subjects loyal, regardless of religion or race. Sultan Abdulhamit's support, on the other hand, is complex and perilous because he presided over the genocide of Armenians in 1895.
Another remnant of the Ottoman history may be seen in west European antipathy against current Turkey. In nations like Germany, mistrust, hate, and dread of modern-day Turks exist, as seen by the European Union's initial rejection of Turkey's candidacy for membership in 1998. Certainly, economic factors played a role in the rejection: the repercussions of a vast migration of Turks into Europe and Turkish industrial rivalry. Other reasons that contribute to rejection include contemporary Turkey's dismal human rights record in general and Greece's disagreements with Turkey over Aegean oil and Cyprus in particular.
However, history has a part in instilling dread of Turkey in western Europe, even though it is generally unrecognized. Old memories of Ottoman military victories over European powers are still active. Western Europeans perceive Turkey as if it were the sole Ottoman successor state, rather than only one among several. This attitude stems in part from various causes, including the Ottoman Empire's roots in Anatolia and Turkish immigration into the region, as well as the fact that, in the end, Anatolia remained the empire's most populated region, with ethnic Turks constituting the biggest single population.
The existing Ottoman administrative borders were largely ignored in the Anatolian and Arab provinces' state-making choices following World War I. Current political borders in the Balkans, on the other hand, are based on ancient Ottoman province administrative boundaries. However, little administrative practices or institutions were transmitted from Ottoman to post-Ottoman Balkan governments. The fundamental explanation appears to be that practically all of the Muslim administrative classes emigrated or were expelled after independence.
Former Ottoman elites, on the other hand, directed affairs or had significant influence in numerous Arab governments, including Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. The instance of Iraq is instructive; before the revolution of 1958, a tiny number of former Ottoman military commanders and bureaucrats completely ruled the state and society. Distinguished families from the eighteenth century and prior continue to be important in other countries, such as Syria and Egypt. Former Ottoman generals served as presidents of the Republic of Turkey until 1950, and the Turkish bureaucracy employed a considerable number of Ottoman civil and military employees.
Turkey, more than any other successor state, inherited the largest number of Ottoman employees.
Modern patterns are sometimes incorrectly ascribed to an Ottoman legacy. Some academics suggest that the Ottoman heritage is responsible for the predominance of huge bureaucracies and the dominance of public over private economic direction in Turkey and the Arab world. However, because similar patterns can be found all over the world, they are most likely attributable to other sources. Others, for example, blame Ottoman influences for the reportedly methodical and careful approach of Arab politics, which pits one power against another in an attempt to neutralize them all, giving the opponent time and space to commit self-destruction.
While Ottoman diplomacy had similar characteristics, so did Machiavelli's Florence and Ming China's. However, there may be some similarities between Ottoman and current Turkish administrative traditions of a powerful central state. In many ways, the Ottoman legacy in landholding is seen as a key to comprehending the present. The interplay of capitalism, colonialism, and Ottoman land regulation shaped landholding in twentieth-century Iraq in an unusual fashion.
Tribal leaders exploited the Land Law of 1858, grew to be powerful landowners, and ruled until the revolution of 1958 overthrew them. The relatively free peasants and lack of a landed aristocracy is thought to be a fundamental holdover from Ottoman periods in most other Arab and Anatolian communities. The assertion appears to be true in certain cases: tiny plots do predominate in modern Turkey. However, it's possible that the point has been overstated. Many of the dynasties who presently control political and economic power in Anatolia and the Arab world have done so for generations. During the 1960s, for example, in northeastern Turkey, the local elites were virtually invariably derived from families who had been influential in the empire. In the Balkans, however, Ottoman-era economic patterns were obliterated: independent governments frequently embarked on land distribution schemes that overturned Ottoman-era landholding patterns. The previous Ottoman economic and political elites were thereafter completely destroyed by Communist governments.
When we look at a variety of population distribution patterns, however, the Ottoman heritage shines out. The Ottoman imperial system forced people to migrate inside the empire, with consequences that may still be seen today. Turkish Cypriots originate from Anatolian settlers who arrived in the sixteenth century, whereas Circassians arrived in Jordan in the nineteenth century. Serbs and Croats moved northward to avoid invaders or subsequently relocated when they allied with the Habsburgs. These demographic legacies may be found all throughout the world, but with post-Cold War immigration reducing their significance. The failings of Ottoman policy have reverberated down to our own day. First, during the late nineteenth century, the Ottomans' inability to keep Great Britain out of the Persian Gulf led to the foundation of a British client state in Kuwait, which had previously been part of the Ottoman province of Basra in Iraqi territories. This Ottoman political failure may thus be traced in part to Saddam Hussein's invasion and the Gulf War of the early 1990s to recapture Kuwait.
Similarly, the Ottomans attempted but failed to block Jewish immigration into Palestine, allowing Zionism to establish a demographic foothold in the region, an event that continues to reverberate today.
Furthermore, as is well known, the ongoing Turkish–Greek tensions are directly related to the Greek subject peoples' secession, while Armenians and Turks continue to feud over the events of 1915. Popular sentiments and government actions in contemporary Turkey, Syria, pre-occupation Iraq, Lebanon, and other Arab states are occasionally colored with a Turkish feeling of imperial supremacy and an Arab sense of colonization. The word "arap" has a pejorative meaning in Turkey, for example.
Conclusion
The past returns to haunt the present on a regular basis. Intervention by the Turkish state during the Bosnian conflict was denounced and resisted across the Balkans as a modernized version of Ottoman imperialism. Here, too, we find the frequent but inaccurate propensity to regard Turkey as the Ottomans' sole successor state. To summarize, the Ottoman legacy is mixed, both in the areas that the empire previously occupied and abroad. For some, it is still a source of resistance, ridicule, disdain, and even hatred, while others on the opposite end of the spectrum regard the Ottoman past as unimportant to their own present. Admirers of the Ottoman legacy, on the other hand, are split. They can't agree on whether the Ottoman state and society they want to mimic is secular, nationalist, or Islamist. In this article, I've argued that the Ottoman legacy is one of a non-national, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic political and social system for a world increasingly divided by nationality, religious belief, and ethnicity.