What I Am Reading: "Osman's Dream" by Caroline Finkel

“Osman’s Dream” by Caroline Finkel is a single-volume history of the Ottoman Empire, intended by the author(a scholar of Turkish history) to be primarily informed by Ottoman historical sources instead of letting the empire be defined by their western, Christian enemies. A multiethnic empire that lived for six hundred years and stretched across three continents has an extensive history, and the book is very dense. Anyone looking for the history itself can go to the book or to Wikipedia, but I came away very opinionated about the Ottomans.

The Ottomans consistently demonstrated a failure to develop healthy governmental systems. Despite considerable and long-running successes in conquering territory, their history from the beginning is a recitation of internecine conflict and failures to adapt. The main Ottoman method for determining succession was not through primogeniture, but was instead the result of seizure of power by whichever of the Sultan’s sons were able to declare themselves to be the new Sultan with the most force behind them. This often resulted in a fratricidal bloodbath, sometimes even prior to the succession as a Sultan tried to advantage a chosen successor. The economic and feudal social system was largely agricultural, fueled by land and loot awarded to the victors of conquest. As territorial expansion slowed and halted by the late seventeenth century, this meant that social unrest and a troubled economy set in as there were a great mass of men-at-arms with nothing to do and nowhere to settle.

Sultans were deposed by coups on several occasions; but for most of Ottoman history these uprisings were reactionary. As problems manifested, intellectuals and leaders retreated into visions of past grandeur, and political efforts were geared toward restoration of a golden age and not progress into a new system. Rebellious officials were essentially bought off by the central government, and systematically shuffled off to govern a different part of the empire. This effort to keep elite malcontents in the fold did not seem to have reduced the frequency of rebellions.

After the Empire’s defeat at the battle of Vienna in 1683, there was some level of economic reform. This served largely to increase the economic and political power of provincial elites, decentralizing power in the empire. A feedback loop was thus created, whereby the central authority relied on provincial powerbrokers to defend the empire and accomplish other policy goals; funneling them money, troops, and political authority that increased their power as part of the bargain.

I spent the entire book waiting for some kind of successful reform effort to break the cycle of corrupt officials, bloody foreign wars, and broken tax systems. I eventually started to assume that any reforming figure would end up being executed within a page or two. Reform finally, fitfully comes in the latter part of the 19th century. This is largely at the behest of foreign powers: the Russians serve as an aggressive rival for territory and influence, and the British act occasionally to prop up the status quo, to stop the Russians from threatening their interests. As some governmental reforms are forced by foreign treaties, Ottoman society retreats into Islamic conservatism, in an effort to preserve some element of their traditions and cultural identity as they try to adapt to the modern world. Governmental reforms are promised and then reneged upon, and when the Sultan is finally forced to accept constitutionalism at the beginning of the 20th century, his replacements are conservative economic and military elites, with no interest in democratization. This shift comes just in time for World War One, where the Ottomans side with the other fundamentally conservative and authoritarian powers. The rest is history.

Thus are my notes on the Ottoman Empire. This book was very interesting and very thorough and makes sure to pay close attention to shifting ideas of cultural identity. It was not until late in the Ottoman years that the Turks started thinking of themselves as such, a century after nationalist uprisings had begun to contribute to the Empire’s dissolution. Other ethnic groups: Arabs, Jews, Kurds, Armenians, and various Balkan Europeans, had their sense of identity shaped by the benevolent or repressive policies that the Ottomans took toward them over the centuries. The Ottoman Empire is very relevant to the modern geopolitical landscape, and this book was a good primer on their lifespan.

(It also greatly enhanced my enjoyment of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations).