How much of the Balkans's backwardness can be blamed on the Ottomans

[Faeelin]

Something of a national topic, but I'm curious.

Obviously, by 1800, let alone 1900, the Balkan states were much weaker and less developed than Western and Central Europe. But how much of this was due to the Ottomans, and how much of this was due to preexisting conditions in the region?

In other words, if you replace the Ottomans with a Byzantine rump state in Greece, a Bulgarian Empire, etc., would the region have been more developed?

 

[SvoHljott]

Most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans's weaknesses go back to the Mongols. Remove the Mongols and all of Orthodox Europe (and Hungary) will be as modern as western Europe, assuming no other catastrophic event occurs.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Well, Eastern Europe wasn't in a position to do much colonisation, so they wouldn't have been able to take much advantage of the wealth of the New World and Far East. Plus, of course, the Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa in 1499 resulted in east-west trade shifting from its traditional routes through the Middle East, which would have been a blow to the Byzantines/Greeks in particular. That said, countries likes Germany and Switzerland managed to keep up with France, Britain et al., so the lack of colonies needn't prove an insurmountable difficulty for Eastern Europe.

 

[TRH]

Most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans's weaknesses go back to the Mongols. Remove the Mongols and all of Orthodox Europe (and Hungary) will be as modern as western Europe, assuming no other catastrophic event occurs.

Is it really that simple? I was under the impression that the Balkans have always been sparsely populated, and just don't have the same quality agricultural land that, say, France does.

 

[Mikestone8]

Is it really that simple? I was under the impression that the Balkans have always been sparsely populated, and just don't have the same quality agricultural land that, say, France does.

Also, Spain and Southern Italy were also poor and backward until very recently, without either of them ever having been ruled by either Turks or Mongols.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Ottomans had two faults :

1) They were muslim ruling over christians, thus hated by the entire Europe which sought to crush them.

2) They failed to abolish Janissary at the right time, postponing the needed reform to withstand 19th century imperialism

Perhaps 3.

3) They felt arrogantly confident enough to create a set of arrangement that would later become the basis of capitulations.

Without those three, they'd have a much smoother 19th century. Or at least much less bumpy. Even with OTL challenges they could've gotten through with a bit more luck. An Ottoman Empire that retains the Balkans and controls all the oil from Mosul to Rub Al Khali will become first world. As a muslim country, which will might annoy some people.

Balkans will be first world. And muslim-dominated, which will annoy some people, legitimately so for slavic christian immigrants and descendants in the Americas. While Ottoman oppression upon christians there are often exaggerated, official equality under the law after Tanzimat didn't successfully contain unofficial discrimination and prejudice against christians suspected as fifth columns of the great powers. And also, secularization extended draft towards christians. This will drive many balkan christians to emigrate.

 

[Cloudy Vortex]

A lack of strong, stable states. This was the mutual desire of the Houses of Hapsburg, Romanov, and Osman. Serbia, Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria were, I believe, granted independence by Ottoman Turkey with the full intent to reconquer them when Turkish society had been successfully reformed and modernized. Austria also wanted weak states that were easy to conquer as part of their own long term goals of expansion, especially since their efforts to dominate Germany had failed. This drive to the southeast goes all the way back to pre-Mongol Hungary, which sought to replace the Byzantine Empire almost from the beginning. Russia also sought to rule the Balkans. Their absurd pretensions as "Third Rome" is the central peace to their very national identity. Controlling the Balkan Peninsula (and Anatolia for that matter) is their Manifest Destiny. Far more so than Siberia at any rate. Using poor, weak, backwards, and thus easily manipulated puppet states leading up to eventual annexation is also a big part of Russia's historic MO. Thankfully for the people of this area, all three of these powers have lost. The EU may be an annoying overlord, but at least they are capable of giving a damn about Southeast Europeans, even if they don't always as they should.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

An Ottoman Empire that retains the Balkans and controls all the oil from Mosul to Rub Al Khali will become first world.

Oh, I don't know about that. The experience of present-day oil countries suggests that having large oil reserves is at least as likely to foster corruption and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few as it is to lead to generally increasing standards of living.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

The logic of 19th century OE was a combination of defending territorial integrity and avoid adding christians into the empire.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Oh, I don't know about that. The experience of present-day oil countries suggests that having large oil reserves is at least as likely to foster corruption and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few as it is to lead to generally increasing standards of living.

Iunno. US is first world regardless how unequal it is. By retaining Balkans means retaining it as the center of the empire, so it will get most priority. And by retaining Balkans, OE will be in stronger bargaining position vis a vis the Arabs.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Iunno. US is first world regardless how unequal it is. By retaining Balkans means retaining it as the center of the empire, so it will get most priority. And by retaining Balkans, OE will be in stronger bargaining position vis a vis the Arabs.

The US would almost certainly be first world even without the oil, as would Norway and Britain. Having large oil reserves doesn't seem to have made life noticeably better for the average inhabitants of the Arab oil-producing states.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

The US would almost certainly be first world even without the oil, as would Norway and Britain. Having large oil reserves doesn't seem to have made life noticeably better for the average inhabitants of the Arab oil-producing states.

Yes, it's not the oil alone. It's feeding the already existing and progressing Balkan infrastructures and economic modernization of the Balkans before 1878 with oil money that will eventually make it first world after capitulations are lifted. If Ottomans could've managed it even without oil imagine what they can do with oil.

 

[Gurroruo]

Something of a national topic, but I'm curious.

Obviously, by 1800, let alone 1900, the Balkan states were much weaker and less developed than Western and Central Europe. But how much of this was due to the Ottomans, and how much of this was due to preexisting conditions in the region?

In other words, if you replace the Ottomans with a Byzantine rump state in Greece, a Bulgarian Empire, etc., would the region have been more developed?

In the southern portion the backwardness is mostly the fault of the Ottomans

In the northern its the fault of the changing of hands and warfare

Let's say the Ottomans don't cross the Bosporus, you have an up to date and strong Byzantine empire

Is it really that simple? I was under the impression that the Balkans have always been sparsely populated, and just don't have the same quality agricultural land that, say, France does.

Actually in Ancient times Greece was overpopulated and had a population bigger then its current one. But the opression under the Romans and Ottomans hurt them bad.

Also, Spain and Southern Italy were also poor and backward until very recently, without either of them ever having been ruled by either Turks or Mongols.

Southern Italy was underdeveloped do to the climate (political and weather)
Spain was the scene of many wars and internal divisions plus the climate

 

[Ridwan Asher]

I will reiterate it again. Pre 1878 OE was a Balkan Empire, had been so since they crossed the Marmara, and it couldve remained so by not losing so badly to Russian invasion at that time. Their rule indeed contained christians at the lower stratum of development but the solution is not to purge the muslims. It is to save the Ottoman state.

 

[Halagaz]

Something of a national topic, but I'm curious.

Obviously, by 1800, let alone 1900, the Balkan states were much weaker and less developed than Western and Central Europe. But how much of this was due to the Ottomans, and how much of this was due to preexisting conditions in the region?

In other words, if you replace the Ottomans with a Byzantine rump state in Greece, a Bulgarian Empire, etc., would the region have been more developed?

The Ottoman Empire was more tolerant and flexible than it's sometimes given credit for...but only to a certain degree. The consequences of its conquest and rule of the Balkans were very negative.

First of all, the natives had huge demographic losses to pillaging and enslaving during the conquest. It's not like the Ottomans invented pillaging, but they did incorporate plunder as a method of warfare in a major way (with the Akinjis and all). And slavery had barely even existed in the Balkans before the Ottoman Empire brought it in big time.

The other thing is how the upper classes and most of the middle classes of the (Christian) natives were wiped out, practically reducing entire peoples to an oppressed, 99% peasant, underclass.

The Ottoman Empire (assuming you live in the interior and not on the front lines with all the slave raids) wasn't that bad at first - there were "special" social categories through which quite a few Christians could acquire tax exemptions and other benefits, and some lesser nobles were even allowed to keep their position within the new system; the Empire frequently appointed Christian intermediaries between the local population and the ruling Muslim class, which helped limit discrimination.

But, while some empires get more tolerant and open as time goes on the Ottoman Empire lost much of its (relative) tolerance in the 1500s.
Fewer and fewer Christians were given the "special" rights and benefits, the lesser Christian nobility was ousted in favor of a fully Muslim ruling/administrative class, and the system of intermediaries was gradually reduced or abolished outright, exposing more and more Christians to discriminatory laws they might have previously been barely aware of. The central government accepted less and less petitions and was eventually completely supplanted by the rise of the privately owned Chiftliks and strong local governors who had much less scruples about exploiting and mistreating the local Christians.
The Tanzimat was a decent effort to re-centralize the Empire and bind the Christian natives to it with social reforms, but by that point the discrimination was so ingrained in the administrative structures that the reforms rarely managed to push their way further than the immediate vicinity of Konstantiniyye.


Another way the Ottoman Empire screwed things over were the way various ethnic groups were moved around during its conquest and rule over the Balkans, creating hotspots of conflict which persisted even after the Empire itself left.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Depends on which Ottoman Empire you're talking about. The Ottoman Empire more or less had two major incarnations, pre-Mahmud II and post-Mahmud II. The pre-Mahmud II was an extremely decentralized Empire. Despite having a superior population to France, the Ottoman state in the 18th century received perhaps one sixth to one tenth of French state revenue. This represented around a fifth of total Ottoman revenues. This raises some questions about the complicity of the central Ottoman government in any supposed Balkan decline. Though one can certainly say that the decentralised method of Ottoman rule enabled officials to run almost their own private fiefdoms, contributing to the decline of the Ottoman central state as well as, in some cases, a rather poor job of ruling their holdings. It should be remembered though that for all the talk of a privileged Muslim ruling class holding dominion over a mass of Christian peasants, segregation between Muslims and Christians in the Ottoman Balkans was far less strict than has sometimes been supposed.

The Ottoman Empire post-Mahmud II actually went some way toward improving economic conditions in the Balkans. While the industrial revolution never took off, there was nevertheless an improvement in agricultural productivity as well as small-scale manufacturing. The pattern that emerged in more or less all areas that fell out of Ottoman control was a partial depopulation of the towns (which had been disportionately Muslim) and a subsequent loss in industrial capability, though this was later recovered in Bulgaria.

The conclusion from this is that although the Ottomans were certainly responsible for the stagnation of the Balkans relative to Europe pre-1800, there has to be a distinguishment of how the Ottoman Empire ruled in different eras. I would also be highly skeptical of the claim that a revived Byzantine Empire would have done a better job. If I can remember rightly, even before the Ottomans seized Gallipoli, the Byzantines had long since lost control of trade in the Aegean and beyond, which was dominated by Italian merchant states such as Genoa and Venice. The economy of a surviving Byzantine Empire (with a POD in the 14th Century at least) would likely be reliant on agriculture as opposed to trade or manufacture, boding poorly for the chances of economic improvement.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

> Ottomans didn't pillage their own territory with Bashi Bazouks for 5 centuries straight. They just regularly managed/mismanaged their own long-held territory like any decadent empire. It's legitimate to ask how they should have improved the situation. I don't buy that their initial conquest wiped out even large minority of the natives at that time.

> Devshirme Blood Tax only lasted until late 1500s. Even then, I'm highly skeptical that even before it ended it accounted for most of the conversion of christian natives to Islam. There was a strong stream of conversion to Islam before Mehmed II conquered Constantinople and annexed Orthodox Church into Ottoman system. Even after both, there's still a steady rate of conversion of people avoiding extra taxes and seeking social mobility. Turks and muslims were maybe late comers in Balkan history compared to Christian slavs and greeks, but they stayed long enough to qualify as natives themselves.

> Preventing Ottomans from emerging serves the main purpose of keeping Balkans christian, while giving more breathing time and for the region to avoid becoming basket case it is today. But really, there's all there is to it: keeping it christian. Easier and more recent PoD to avoid backwardness is by maintaining Ottoman rule and having it avoiding partition by foreign powers. The current mess was their doing, not Ottomans'. Believe it or not, it's possible to be developed and Islamic. It's the constant undermining of muslim world by western powers that prevented that and even then, it wasn't inevitable that it would've succeeded.

 

[The Cosmonaut Cat]

Most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans's weaknesses go back to the Mongols. Remove the Mongols and all of Orthodox Europe (and Hungary) will be as modern as western Europe, assuming no other catastrophic event occurs.

Not sure about the Balkans but Kievan Rus was on the decline before the Mongols came. In fact, so far as I know even before the Tatar-Mongol Yoke Kievan Rus was more "backward" than Western Europe (e.g.: importing metalwork from west because local production wasn't as good, use of wooden fortifications instead of stone, etc.)

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans's weaknesses go back to the Mongols. Remove the Mongols and all of Orthodox Europe (and Hungary) will be as modern as western Europe, assuming no other catastrophic event occurs.

I'd say prevent the 4th crusade.

 

[The Cosmonaut Cat]

A lack of strong, stable states. This was the mutual desire of the Houses of Hapsburg, Romanov, and Osman. Serbia, Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria were, I believe, granted independence by Ottoman Turkey with the full intent to reconquer them when Turkish society had been successfully reformed and modernized. Austria also wanted weak states that were easy to conquer as part of their own long term goals of expansion, especially since their efforts to dominate Germany had failed. This drive to the southeast goes all the way back to pre-Mongol Hungary, which sought to replace the Byzantine Empire almost from the beginning. Russia also sought to rule the Balkans. Their absurd pretensions as "Third Rome" is the central peace to their very national identity. Controlling the Balkan Peninsula (and Anatolia for that matter) is their Manifest Destiny. Far more so than Siberia at any rate. Using poor, weak, backwards, and thus easily manipulated puppet states leading up to eventual annexation is also a big part of Russia's historic MO. Thankfully for the people of this area, all three of these powers have lost. The EU may be an annoying overlord, but at least they are capable of giving a damn about Southeast Europeans, even if they don't always as they should.