The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  The defeat and capture of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) at the hands of the Turkic conqueror Timur in July 1402 allowed Wallachia to regain its independence for a short interval, but once the Ottomans reunified their dismembered empire under Mehmed I (r. 1413–1421), Wallachia was forced once again to accept the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan, in 1417. As a vassal of the Ottoman sultan, the ruler of Wallachia paid an annual tribute to him. He also provided his Ottoman overlord with significant amounts of agricultural goods, including foodstuffs. As the bread basket of the empire, Wallachia and Moldavia supplied Istanbul with meat and grain and commanded the important commercial routes of the Black Sea and the Danube River, which were used by the Ottomans to transport their armies against the Habsburgs (Shaw: 1:184). Furthermore, the prince of Wallachia could not assume power until he was confirmed by the sultan (Sugar: 121). In return for these important concessions, the Ottomans allowed the governor of Wallachia to act as the independent ruler of his principality, administering the internal affairs of his domain without interference from Istanbul. The Ottomans also agreed not to station any garrisons, settle any Muslims, or construct any mosques on the territory of Wallachia (Sugar: 121). Thus, in theory Walachia was allowed to retain its own dynasty and religion. It was, however, compelled to pay tribute and grant trade concessions to the Ottoman Empire; to become a major supplier of agricultural goods to the Ottoman sultan; to plan its foreign policy in accordance with Ottoman political, military, and economic objectives; and to submit to the sultan’s choice of ruler. The Ottoman pledges were not always kept. Thus, during the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) the Ottomans invaded and occupied Kilia and Akerman on the Black Sea coast, built fortresses on the territories of Moldavia and Wallachia, forced Prince Rareş of Moldavia (r. 1541–1546) to accept a unit of janissaries as his bodyguards, and settled Muslims in Dobrudja (Sugar: 121).

  Through the four centuries of Ottoman rule, several princes of Wallachia fought for the independence of their principality. For example, the 15th-century ruler, Vlad III the Impaler (r. 1448, 1456–1462, 1476–1477), who is believed by some to have inspired the fictitious Dracula, fought the Ottomans, his own brother, and the Wallachian nobility to impose his rule over the principality. For a brief period at the start of the 17th century, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania were united briefly by Michael the Brave (r. 1593–1601).

  Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia (r. 1593–1601) and Moldavia (r. 1600), is considered one of Romania’s greatest national heroes for bringing the Romanian people under one unified rule. (The Print Collector/Getty Images)

  Michael, known in Romanian as Mihai Viteazul, ascended the throne of Wallachia in 1593. To throw off the Ottoman yoke, Michael submitted in May 1595 to the suzerainty of the prince of Transylvania, Sigismund Báthory. He then marched against the Ottomans, defeating them at Călugăreni in present-day southern Romania in August 1595, and at Giurgiu, again in southern Romania, in October 1595. In 1598 he took an oath of fealty to the Habsburg emperor Rudolf II and also concluded a peace with the Ottomans. In 1599 he attacked his new Transylvanian suzerain, Andreas Báthory, and defeated him at Şelimbăr in present-day central Romania in October 1599. Having declared himself the prince of Transylvania, Michael next invaded and captured Moldavia in May 1600, thus unifying Walachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia under his rule. The unification of the three principalities under Michael’s rule was short-lived. In September 1600 Rudolf II sent his armies against Michael and seized Transylvania. A month later the Poles invaded and occupied Moldavia. Michael had no other choice but to reconcile his differences with the Habsburg emperor and assist him in his campaign to crush a rebellion of Magyar nobles in August 1601. Michael was killed a short time later in 1601. Though short-lived, Michael the Brave was used by Romanian nationalists in the 19th century as the symbol of Romanian resistance against foreign domination and of their desire for a strong, independent, and unified Romanian state.

  In the 18th century the rise of Russia as a major power with imperial designs in the Balkans had a profound impact on the relationship between Wallachia and the Ottoman state. In 1711 the Russian czar, Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725), attacked the Ottoman Empire, by first invading Moldavia and Wallachia. In his campaign against the Ottomans, Peter had sought and received commitments of support from the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia. As the news of Peter’s military plans reached Istanbul, hostilities became unavoidable, and the Ottoman government declared war on Russia in December 1710. Fortunately for the Ottomans, the Habsburgs did not provide any support to Peter. Having recognized the threat from an aggressive Russia, the Tatars and Cossacks came together with the goal of coordinating their raids against Peter’s army. With his rear threatened and the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia reneging on their promise to provide support for his troops, Peter, who had crossed the Pruth (Prut) into Moldavia in July 1711, was forced to retreat. As the Russian army was about to cross the Pruth on its return journey, however, the Ottoman forces struck and surrounded the czar and his troops. The founder of modern Russia and his army were at the mercy of the Ottoman grand vizier, who could have annihilated them in one blow. Recognizing the severity of his situation, Peter promised to surrender his cannons, return the Ottoman-held territories he had occupied, and remove the forts he had built along the frontier with the Ottoman Empire. In return, the Ottomans allowed Russian merchants to trade freely in their territory and agreed to mediate a peace treaty between Russia and Sweden (Shaw: 1:231).

  One of the most important implications of the Russo-Ottoman war was the change in the political structure of the Principalities. The secret negotiations between the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia and the Russian government convinced the sultan that he should remove the native princes and have governors appointed directly by the Porte (Jelavich: 102). The new governors were selected from the Greek Phanariote families of Istanbul, who had played an important role within the Ottoman state as the dragomans of the sultan (Jelavich: 102; Jelavich and Jelavich: 10, 84; Quataert: 47–48). With the rise of these new governors to power, the population in the two Principalities began to develop a deep resentment toward the ascendancy of the Greek language and culture in their administrative system (Shaw: 1:231).

  Despite the change in the administrative structure of the Romanian-populated principalities, Russian power and influence in Walachia increased during the 18th century. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (Kuchuk Kaynarja), signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire on July 21, 1774, gave the Tatars of Crimea their independence and granted the Russian czar the right to protect the “Christian religion” in the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the treaty granted pardon to all inhabitants of Wallachia and Moldavia who had assisted the enemy, namely Russia. Russia also received the right to establish consulates in the principalities wherever it desired (Sugar: 140). Though Wallachia and Moldavia remained under the nominal rule of the Ottoman state, Russia received “the right to make representations in Istanbul on behalf of the principalities” (Sugar: 140). This “stipulation and the establishment of Russian consulates in Iaşi and Bucharest” gave Russia enormous power and prestige in the eyes of Wallachians and their leaders.

  VLAD III DRACULA (1431–1477)

  Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Ţepeş), was the prince of Wallachia for various periods between 1448 and 1462. His cruelty and use of torture gained him notoriety throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is thought to have been based on the personage and life story of Vlad.

  Born in Transylvania in present-day Romania, Vlad was the second son of Vlad II Dracul. Vlad III’s moniker, Dracula (“Son of Dracul”), derived from the Latin draco (“dragon”), his father having been inducted into the Order of the Dragon by Emperor Sigismund. In 1442 Vlad and his younger brother were sent to the Ottoman court as hostages to ensure the loyalty of their father. In 1448, after the murder of his father and older brother by Wallachian nobles, Vlad returned t
o Wallachia as prince, but was deposed two months later.

  He regained the Wallachian throne in 1456 after defeating his brother, who was supported by the sultan and a faction of the Wallachian nobility. During the civil war Vlad committed the horrendous atrocities that made him infamous throughout Christendom. His proclivity for impaling his enemies on stakes and leaving them to die secured him the name Vlad the Impaler. In 1462 Vlad III left thousands of impaled bodies on a battlefield as a warning to the Ottoman army that was tailing him. Through these shocking and ghastly tactics, Vlad escaped defeat at the hands of the Ottomans. He eventually was captured and imprisoned by the king of Hungary, but regained his throne in 1476, only months before dying in battle. Despite his atrocities, Vlad was celebrated as a hero by some for leading Wallachia’s resistance against Ottoman expansion in the Balkans.

  The success of the Serbian revolution of 1804, followed by the victory of the Greek revolution of 1821, which culminated with the establishment of an independent Greece in 1832, inspired a growing number of educated Romanians to demand independence for their country. In 1821 an uprising in Wallachia forced the Ottomans to end the unpopular Greek Phanariote regime. The Treaty of Edirne, signed in September 1829, forced the sultan to recognize the independence of Greece and the autonomy of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia. With encouragement and support from Russia, a number of political reforms were introduced, including a constitution in 1831. As Wallachia and Moldavia broke away from Istanbul, the Ottoman trade monopoly was abandoned, providing lucrative opportunities for Wallachian landowners to establish direct trade and commercial ties with western Europe while increasing the labor burden on Wallachia’s peasants, who did not receive their full freedom until 1864.

  The Russian power and prestige in the two Romanian principalities suffered a setback after the conclusion of the Crimean War in 1856. The Treaty of Paris, signed on March 30, 1856, after the end of the Crimean War, forced Russia to withdraw its forces from Wallachia and Moldavia, which along with Serbia were to regain their autonomy under Ottoman rule. However, the Ottoman government could no longer exercise any real authority over Wallachia and Moldavia, which were for all practical purposes run as independent political entities. In 1859 Wallachia’s ruling assembly, which was influenced by the growing popularity of Romanian nationalism, voted to unite with Moldavia to form the independent state of Romania. Romania achieved its formal independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin.

  See also: Battles and Treaties: Congress of Berlin; Peoples and Cultures: Moldavia; Sultans: Abdülhamid II; Mehmed I; Murad I; Murad II

  Further Reading

  Alderson, A. D. The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

  Davies, Brian L. The Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

  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.

  Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

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

  Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Vol 1. Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Jelavich, Charles, and Barbara Jelavich. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.

  Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History. New York: Picador, 2005.

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

  Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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

  Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

  Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.

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

  THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

  A Historical Encyclopedia

  Volume 2

  Mehrdad Kia

  Empires of the World

  POPULAR CULTURE

  Bektaşi (Bektashi) Order

  A mystical order that emerged as a powerful social and political force in Anatolia during the 14th century. The Bektaşi order would continue to play a prominent role in the empire’s daily life until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Some of the order’s prominence can be attributed to the fact that its leaders (bābās) acted as chaplains to the janissary corps. The brotherhood also recruited from among the various manufacturing guilds prominent in Istanbul and other large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire—a practice that greatly increased its public visibility. The alliance between the Bektaşi order and the janissaries was evident in various public events and parades. Typically, chaplains of the brotherhood marched behind the commander of the infantry corps, with their daggers drawn, reciting prayers and incantations (Rycaut: 149). The power of the Bektaşi order diminished, however, after Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) disbanded the janissary corps in 1826 and closed down many of the Bektaşi brotherhood’s centers.

  The Bektaşis traced their origins to the Persian Sufi master Haci Bektaş-i Veli (Persian: Haji Baktash-e Vali), who is believed to have lived in the 13th century. Born and raised in the city of Neyshabur in the Iranian province of Khorasan, Haci Bektaş most probably fled his homeland for Anatolia as Mongol invaders reached Central Asia and Iran. His teachings were influenced greatly by the beliefs, customs, and practices prevalent in Shia Islam, as well as by certain Sufi doctrines of the Hurufiyya movement, which spread from northeastern Iran to Azerbaijan and Anatolia in the 14th and 15th centuries. Bektaşi’s teachings were formalized by Balim Sultan, a 16th-century leader of the order.

  The Bektaşis recognized the 12 Shia imams and venerated the first Shia imam, Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad. The Bektaşis believed Ali to be joined in eternity with God and with Muhammad in one united entity. Many who studied and observed the brotherhood referred to this proposed unity as a belief in a triune god, or trinity, though the Bektaşis denied it (Tschudi: 1:1162). As the so-called Twelver Shia (Ithnā Asharis) did in Iran and elsewhere, the Bektaşis mourned the death of Hussein, the third Shia imam and the son of the first Shia imam, Ali, and his wife, Fatima (a daughter of the prophet Muhammad). Hussein’s martyrdom continues to be commemorated by the Shia faithful every year on the tenth of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. To share in Hussein’s suffering and that of his family, mourners beat their chests with fists and chains and cut and repeatedly struck their foreheads with swords and knives. From the first to the tenth of Muharram, the Bektaşis also observed the traditional nights of mourning for the Shia martyrs, especially those Shia figures who had perished in infancy.

  In their everyday practices the Bektaşis showed a general disregard for Muslim rituals such as daily prayers. In common with other Shia sects, they believed that the holy Quran contained two levels of knowledge and meaning: the first was the outer and exoteric level (zāhir), and the second was the inner and esoteric (bātin) level, which constituted the eternal meaning of the holy book (Tschudi: 1:1162). They believed that this inner meaning was only available to a select few.

  The Bektaşis also absorbed certain pre-Islamic and Christian practices and rituals, which explains the order’s acceptance, popularity, and success among many urban and rural communities of the Balkans, particularly in Albania. Bektaşis held no public worship services, concealed their
beliefs, and conducted their rituals in absolute secrecy. Using Holy Communion as a model, they served wine, bread, and cheese when new members joined the brotherhood. The members of the order also confessed to their sins and sought absolution from their spiritual guide. In sharp contrast to Muslims who prescribed strict separation between the two sexes, Bektaşi women participated in the order’s rituals without covering their faces. A small group within the order swore to celibacy and wore earrings as a distinctive mark. Their acceptance and incorporation of Shia, Christian, and Gnostic doctrines made the Bektaşis an easy target for attacks by the ulema, who denounced the sect as un-Islamic and heretical.

  Over the long period of Ottoman rule, Bektaşi leaders, known as bābās or dedes, introduced the teachings of their order into communities in the four corners of the Ottoman Empire. As the convents (tekkes) of the order spread throughout the Balkans, many Christians in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia converted to Islam through Bektaşi teachings. In his Book of Travels, the Ottoman author and traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that the Muslims of Gjirokaster in southern Albania were so devoted to the first Shia imam, Ali, that whenever they sat down or stood up, they uttered “Yā Ali” (“Oh Ali”). According to Katib Çelebi, these Albanians studied and read Persian and, in sharp contrast to Muslims who avoided alcohol and shunned public demonstrations of physical intimacy with the opposite sex, they “were very fond of pleasure and carousing” as well as “shamelessly” drinking wine and other intoxicating beverages (Evliya Çelebi: 85). The Bektaşis also celebrated weddings and observed the two Muslim feasts known as bāyrāms. They also celebrated Persian Zoroastrian and Christian festivals, such as Nevruz/Nowruz (the Persian New Year) and the days of St. George, St. Nicholas, and St. Demetrius, with dancing and drinking, behaviors that were denounced by the devout traveler and writer Katib Çelebi as shameless and characteristic of the infidels (Evliya Çelebi: 85).