The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  The Armenian community differed from the Orthodox not only in certain beliefs, rituals, and customs, but also in that its members were all from one ethnic group and the majority lived far from the urban centers of empire in eastern Anatolia and the south Caucasus. These two regions came under direct Ottoman rule during the reign of Selim I (r. 1512–1520) (McCarthy: 129). The devastating wars between the Ottoman Empire and Iran, however, partitioned Armenian-populated territory. The south Caucasus, including the seat of the Armenian patriarch, the Catholicos at Echmiadzin, was incorporated into the Iranian state, while eastern Anatolia remained under Ottoman rule. During the Ottoman-Iranian wars the Armenian population suffered. Armenian towns and villages were destroyed, the harvest was burned, and water wells were filled in by the Iranians, who forcibly moved entire communities and resettled them in the interior of their territory to prevent them from supplying the Ottoman forces with food and shelter. Many Armenians were never allowed to return. Others helped the Safavid monarch, Shah Abbas (r. 1588–1629), and his successors divert the silk trade from a land route, which would have benefited the Ottomans, to a sea route, which would skip Ottoman territory and establish a direct link between Iran and the Christian powers of Europe. The Armenian population living under Ottoman rule was depleted not only because of repeated wars with Iran, but also because of the anarchy caused by the celāli (jelāli) revolts in the 17th century and emigration out of the region. The vacated lands and villages of the Armenians were occupied and repopulated by various Kurdish tribes from eastern Anatolia. Because the central government in Istanbul viewed the borderland between western Iran and eastern Anatolia as strategically vital, Ottoman sultans rewarded the Kurds, who fought against Iran, by dividing the region into administrative units called sancāks (sanjāks) and appointing loyal Kurdish tribal chiefs as hereditary governors (sancāk beys/sanjāk beys), responsible for collecting taxes and maintaining order. Thus, while Ottoman rule restored peace and tranquility, it forced the Armenians to live under the rule of their traditional enemies, the Kurds. As long as the central government could protect Armenian communities through its local officials, a certain balance was maintained between the Kurds and the Armenians. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the power of the central government waned, Kurdish tribal chiefs had matters all their own way and the Armenians suffered accordingly.

  The demand for an independent Armenian state began in the 19th century, when the Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus experienced a cultural revival (Payaslian: 117–119; Shaw: 2:202). The study of Armenian language and history became increasingly popular, the Bible was published in the vernacular, and Armenian intellectuals developed a new literary language that made their works accessible to the masses (Shaw: 2:202). Wealthy families began to send their children to study in Europe, where a new class of young and educated Armenians became fluent in European languages and imbued with modern ideologies of nationalism, liberalism, and socialism.

  Inspired by the rise and success of the 19th-century nationalist movements in the Balkans, a small group of Armenian intellectuals began to question the leadership of the Armenian Church and called for the introduction of secular education (Shaw: 2:202). Some went one step further and joined the Young Ottomans in their demand for the establishment of a constitutional form of government that would grant all subjects of the sultan equal rights and protection under the law. When in 1878 the Congress of Berlin granted independence to Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, a small group of Armenian officers who served in the Russian army began to advocate the creation of an independent Armenian state, with support from Russia (Payaslian: 119–120). Two Armenian organizations—the Hunchak (Bell), founded by Armenian students in Switzerland in the summer of 1886, and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks), created in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the summer of 1890—played a central role in advocating Armenian independence (Payaslian: 119–120).

  Beginning in the 1890s the tension between the Armenian and Muslim communities in eastern Anatolia intensified, as Armenian nationalists and Ottoman forces clashed. Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) ordered a crackdown on the wealthy Armenian families in Istanbul and organized the Hamidiye regiment, which included Kurdish tribal units. From 1890 to 1893 the Hamidiye regiments were unleashed against Armenian communities in eastern Anatolia, with devastating results. Thousands of Armenians living in Sasun in southeastern Anatolia were murdered in the summer of 1894. The attacks and mass killings continued in “Trebizond, Urfa, and Erzurum in autumn 1895, and Diarbekir, Arabkir, Kharpert, and Kayseri in November 1895” (Zürcher: 114). In response, the Hunchaks organized demonstrations in Istanbul and appealed to European powers to intervene. Similar protests were organized in towns across eastern Anatolia. The situation worsened in 1895 and 1896, as clashes between the Hamidiye regiments and Armenian nationalists intensified. In August 1896 a group of armed Armenians seized the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul, threatening to blow it up. Other terrorist attacks against government buildings and officials followed. The sultan himself was attacked when bombs were set off as he walked to Aya Sofya for his Friday prayers. Some 20 Ottoman policemen were killed in the attack. Throughout the conflict with the Ottoman government the Armenians pinned their hopes on intervention by the European powers, particularly the British and the Russians. Czar Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917), however, opposed British intervention in the region, which he viewed as a sphere of Russian influence. He also feared the establishment of an Armenian state led by revolutionaries who could infect his own Armenian subjects with such radical ideas as nationalism and socialism.

  As World War I began in 1914 and fighting erupted in eastern Anatolia, many Armenian officers and soldiers serving in the Ottoman army defected, joining the Russians in the hope that the defeat and collapse of the Ottoman state would lead to the establishment of an independent Armenian state (Zürcher: 114–115). The defections were followed by an uprising of Armenians in the city of Van in April 1915. The Ottoman authorities responded by adopting a policy of forcibly relocating the Armenian population to the Syrian desert (Zürcher: 115). Starting in May 1915, virtually the entire Armenian population of central and eastern Anatolia was forcibly removed from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished from starvation, disease, and exposure, and many more were brutalized by Ottoman army units and irregular Kurdish regiments, who robbed, raped, and killed the defenseless refugees.

  Today, after the passage of over a century, the plight of the Armenian people continues to ignite intense emotional debate between Armenians and Turks, centering on the number of casualties, the causes for the deportations, and the intent of the perpetrators (Zürcher: 115). Armenians claim that nearly a million and a half people lost their lives in a genocide designed at the highest levels of the Ottoman government. Turks counter with claims of “disloyalty” and “traitorous activities” by many Armenians, who defected from the Ottoman state and joined the enemy, namely the Russian armies, which had invaded the Turkish homeland. They also claim that the majority of Armenian deaths were caused by irregular armed Kurdish units, who felt threatened by the prospect of living as a minority community under a newly established Armenian state (Zürcher: 115). According to this argument, the Ottoman government can be held responsible for failing to prevent the inter-communal violence between the Kurds and the Armenians, but it cannot be blamed for atrocities that were committed by the local Muslim population during the fog and agony of civil war. There is little doubt that a small inner circle within the Ottoman government, known as Teşkilat-i Mahsusa (Teshkilat-i Mahsusa) or Special Organization, operating under the ministry of defense since January 1914, designed and implemented the plan for relocating the Armenian population in order to affect a “permanent solution” to the question of Armenian nationalism in Ottoman lands (Akçam: 143–145, 158–175; Lewy: 82–89). This eviction plan caused the deaths of over one million Armenians.

  Armenian orphans board barges bound for Greece at Istanbul in 1915. The m
ass killings of Armenians during World War I left hundreds of thousands of orphans, many of whom left the Ottoman Empire through humanitarian aid programs. (Library of Congress)

  See also: Beys and Pashas: Cemal Pasha; Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha; Rebels: Young Turks

  Further Reading

  Akçam, Taner. From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 2004.

  Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.

  Lewy, Guenter. The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005.

  McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923. London and New York: Wesley Longman Limited, 1997.

  Payaslian, Simon. The History of Armenia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

  Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

  Sykes, Sir Percy. History of Persia. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1951.

  Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.

  Bosnia and Bosnians

  Country situated in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. The expansion of Ottoman rule into Bulgaria and Macedonia during the reign of Murad I (r. 1362–1389) convinced the Christian states of the Balkans, including Bosnia and Serbia, to form a coalition to block further Ottoman expansion (Sugar: 21). Prince Lazar of Serbia, King Tvrto I of Bosnia, and John Stratsimir of Vidin agreed to join a Christian alliance, which defeated an Ottoman army in August 1388 at Pločnik (Ploshnik) west of Nish in present-day southeastern Serbia (Sugar: 21).

  Recognizing the threat posed by the alliance, Murad I marched against Serbia and its allies with a large force. The decisive battle took place on June 28, 1389, at the Kosovo Polje (Field of the Blackbirds) near Pristina. Although Murad was killed on the battlefield, the Ottomans managed to achieve a victory. Prince Lazar was killed during the battle, and the devastating defeat forced Serbia to accept Ottoman suzerainty.

  After the death of Tvrtko I in 1391, a civil war erupted in Bosnia. The chaos and anarchy caused by the civil war allowed Hungary, Serbia, and Herzegovina to interfere in the internal affairs of Bosnia. In 1415 the contenders for the throne of Bosnia appealed for Ottoman support. The Ottoman sultan Mehmed I (r. 1413–1421) used this golden opportunity to interfere in the internal affairs of the country by appointing an Ottoman governor for Bosnia. For the next five years this Ottoman governor ruled parts of Bosnia from Vrhbosna (Sarajevo). In 1436 the Ottomans were back, attacking and capturing Vrhbosna and forcing Bosnia and Herzegovina to pay tribute to the Ottoman sultan Murad II (r. 1421–1444, 1446–1451).

  The death of the Hungarian monarch Sigismund in 1437 allowed the Ottomans to carry out further attacks against Bosnia, Serbia, and Transylvania between 1438 and 1439. Ottoman forces captured the important fortress of Semendria, which had been built by the Serbian king Djordje (George) Branković, and forced the Serbs and the Bosnians to pay annual tribute to the Ottoman sultan. A year later the Ottomans attacked Belgrade but failed to capture it (Sugar: 28–29; Shaw: 1:50). By 1439 Ottoman raids had reached Jajce in present-day central Bosnia, which served as the capital of the country.

  In 1463, during the reign of Mehmed II, the Ottomans established their rule over Bosnia (Shaw: 1:50–52). Direct Ottoman rule over Bosnia continued until 1878. In sharp contrast to other Christian areas of southeastern Europe, in Bosnia there were massive conversions to Islam following the Ottoman conquest (Jelavich: 32). As mosques and religious schools transformed the urban landscape, Islam gradually penetrated the Bosnian countryside. The newly converted Bosnian nobility retained its Slavic language and culture and gradually emerged as a close ally of the Ottoman state, which rewarded it with political and economic power (Jelavich: 32).

  For the next four centuries the Ottomans and Habsburgs fought over control of the western regions of the Balkan Peninsula, including Bosnia. In the 18th century, as Habsburgs became the dominant military power in the Balkans, Bosnia was invaded repeatedly by Austrian forces. For example, in October 1789 the Habsburgs captured Bosnia, parts of Moldavia, and eventually Belgrade. However, they agreed to a new peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, signed in Sistova on August 4, 1791. According to this treaty, the Habsburgs returned Bosnia and Serbia in exchange for the Ottoman promise of fair treatment of the sultan’s Christian subjects and the recognition of the Habsburg emperor as their protector.

  In the 19th century Serbia and Montenegro emerged as the centers of Pan-Slavic agitation. The Serbs provided support to the protests against Ottoman administrative mismanagement in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, directing them toward a more Pan-Slavist agenda. When Christian peasant uprisings erupted against the predominantly Muslim landowning class in 1853, 1860–1862, and 1875, Serbia and Montenegro supported the rebels. Serbia hoped to overthrow Ottoman rule and cleanse the area of Muslim presence and influence, thus creating a greater Serbian state (Zürcher: 56).

  The threat posed to Ottoman rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not, however, confined to agitation from Serbia. Inside Bosnia the old landowning families (former timār holders as well as former sipāhis and janissaries), who had settled in the province after being forced out of Hungary by the Habsburgs, exercised a great deal of power and influence. Although they viewed themselves as the first line of defense against attacks by the Habsburgs, they also resented the centralizing reforms of the Ottoman government, particularly during the Tanzimat period, which extended from 1839 to 1876. They would have preferred a looser system, which would allow them to maximize the taxes they collected without the expectation of increasing their contribution to the central treasury in Istanbul.

  Beginning in 1850 with the arrival of Ömer Pasha as the new governor, the Ottoman forces embarked on a sustained drive to impose central government authority over Bosnia-Herzegovina. Three years later Ömer Pasha attacked Montenegro in a successful campaign, which was brought to an end only after Austria intervened and delivered an ultimatum to the Ottoman government (Jelavich: 252). The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina erupted again in 1874 and 1875, allowing Serbia and Montenegro to intervene and declare war on the Ottoman state in 1876.

  In July 1875 several uprisings erupted in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which the Ottoman government failed to suppress, providing the justification for the Three Emperors’ Alliance (Russia, Germany, and Austria) to intervene and demand the implementation of fundamental reforms. The Ottomans accepted the first reform proposal in December 1875, but the rebels rejected it. A second proposal, submitted in May 1876 as the Berlin Memorandum, was rejected by the Ottoman government. With chaos and uncertainty reigning in Istanbul and the revolt and instability spreading to the rural communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia began to encourage military intervention by Serbia and Montenegro. This Pan-Slavic project, designed by Russia and implemented by Serbia, failed when Ottoman troops struck back, defeating the Serbs and forcing them to sue for peace on July 24, 1876.

  The Congress of Berlin (June 13–July 13, 1878) granted Austria the right to occupy and administer Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the sancāk (sanjāk) of Novi Pazar, a strip of land that separated Serbia from Montenegro (Jelavich: 252). Although Bosnia-Herzegovina nominally remained part of the Ottoman Empire, it was for all practical purposes permanently lost (Jelavich: 361). Until 1878 “the Muslims were the ruling class of Bosnia-Herzegovina, controlling the provinces’ feudal economy and sclerotic administration,” their “privileges guaranteed by the primacy of Islam within the Ottoman Empire” (Glenny: 268). When the Austrians occupied Bosnia, however, the Muslim landowners began to lose their power and prestige. A new system, which claimed to treat all religious groups as equals and was intended to free the Christian serfs, created competition for the free Muslim peasants. It is not surprising, therefore, that as Austrians imposed their highly bureaucratic rule over the country, a
“widespread sense of alienation and fear” spread “among the Bosnian Muslims,” many of whom emigrated “to Istanbul and other parts of the Ottoman Empire” (Donia: 182).

  The Young Turks, who seized power in 1908, had convinced themselves that the restoration of the parliamentary regime would secure the support of the European powers for the preservation of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire (Jelavich: 361). They were wrong. Shortly after the victory of the revolution, the Austro-Hungarian Empire formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had maintained its nominal affiliation with the empire by accepting the suzerainty of the sultan (Jelavich: 215–216). Ironically, it was the assassination of the Austrian crown prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, that served as the immediate cause for the eruption of World War I.

  See also: Battles and Treaties: Congress of Berlin; Rebels: Young Turks; Sultans: Mehmed I; Mehmed II

  Further Reading

  Aščerić-Todd, Ines. Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia: Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

  Carmichael, Cathie. A Concise History of Bosnia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  Donia, Robert J. Islam under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina, 1878–1914. East European Monographs. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

  Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.

  Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers 1804–2011. London: Penguin Books, 2012.