The Ottoman empire, but not Japan, joins the global north.

The fact that the Western view to the Ottoman intelligentsia was prejudiced and generally disinterested does not mean that people like Said Nursî, Muḥammad 'Abduh, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Nigâr Hanım, Muhammad Rashid Rida and many others did not exist, or that they did not contribute "cultural output."
Could you name more people closer to the cultural centre of the Empire. You name three arabs, one kurd (who may have worked in Istanbul, ) and a woman poet. Muhamad Abduh has never been in Constantinople and had as far as i know no contacts there.
 
Huh.

But wouldn't the Ottomans be able to do that better, as they where literally in Europe?

Ottoman culture, by contrast, is notable for being one of the most open to European innovations. The Ottomans were very willing to buy European technology, hire European advisers and trade openly with Europe (indeed, the Ottomans before 1800 were perhaps the most economically open power in the world). That their culture "didn't support or want modernization" is twaddle.
Japan was never entirely isolated. Western science books were imported through Decima the entire period from 1641 to 1853, and there was a permanent school of translators sponsored by the shogun. It is not my impression that the Ottoman Empire had such schools. Translations in this period were mostly unique occasions.
 
Significantly less likely. The West has centuries of antagonistic relations with the Middle East/Islamic world. For this reason, it would be much harder for an Islamic Nation to join the “first world countries” than it was for Japan.

Same reason that Cyprus will never really be seen as belonging to the same group as other Middle Eastern countries - because it’s Greek and Christian.
 

Germaniac

Donor
Significantly less likely. The West has centuries of antagonistic relations with the Middle East/Islamic world. For this reason, it would be much harder for an Islamic Nation to join the “first world countries” than it was for Japan.

Same reason that Cyprus will never really be seen as belonging to the same group as other Middle Eastern countries - because it’s Greek and Christian.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would disagree with you...

Even with its moniker of the sick man of Europe, the Ottomans were still seen as a Great Power, the weakest maybe, but they were absolutely seen as part of the established order. Progress and development of the empire was in Europe intrest for the most part. Europe including Russia would have far prefered a peaceful Ottoman Balkand to a mess of nationalist christian states arguing over whether a village spoke macedonian bulgarian or macedonican serbian.
 
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would disagree with you...

Even with its moniker of the sick man of Europe, the Ottomans were still seen as a Great Power, the weakest maybe, but they were absolutely seen as part of the established order. Progress and development of the empire was in Europe intrest for the most part. Europe including Russia would have far prefered a peaceful Ottoman Balkand to a mess of nationalist christian states arguing over whether a village spoke macedonian bulgarian or macedonican serbian.

I don’t want to get into current politics with regards to Cyprus, but I will just say that there is only one officially recognized Cypriot state and leave it at that.
 
heartland of Ottoman empire was in Anatolia not in the Balkans!
Please give/list your source?

As already has been said, Anatolia was just where the Turkish peasants lived. It hadn't been the heartland of the Ottoman empire since Timurlane's time (in large part because of Timurlane's invasion). And in any case, the Ottoman empire may have started as a "Turkish" empire but it certainly wasn't very Turkish by 1800. (Though the loss of most of the heartlands in the 19th Century meant it was more Turkish in 1900.)

As to sources, pretty much any half decent history of the Ottoman empire will illustrate where the political and economic power was. I would recommend the two volume "Economic & Social History of the Ottoman Empire" from the Cambridge University Press.

Or potentially having Turks and other groups move to Ukraine, which had been so depopulated by the Crimean Tartars on their slave raids.

The Ottomans didn't have enough people to settle all of the land they already held. Settling people in the Ukraine could only come at the cost of more established regions and the taxes those regions supplied... And there's no way the Ottomans are taking the Ukraine with a post 1900 PoD! Not if the Ottoman leadership is halfway sensible!

I have read before that the people of the Balkans were referred to a state sheep at times, as the Ottomans had no desire to convert them when they could instead charge them extra taxes and take their children as slaves. If perhaps there had been more of a Muslim population in the region there would have been a greater chance to...

Well, the Ottomans had no problem making their Muslim subjects pay Christian-only taxes. While being a member of the ruling class was for Muslims only, for peasants and ordinary city-dwellers, there wasn't a whole lot of difference. The real downside of trying to convert their Christian subjects was that it would cause unrest, and that wasn't good for business. And I am not sure that a greater Muslim preponderance in the Balkan population would have made much of a difference. Egypt was pretty solidly Muslim (more than 80% Muslim at that time), but that didn't stop it from being torn away.

Also the Ottomans wasn’t really integrated into the European intelligentsia, some Ottoman citizens was, but these also happened to be second class citizens. Try to compare the cultural output from the Ottomans and Russians in 18-19th century which are widely known in the West today. The Russians produced work of literature still admired today, they was famous for their ballets. The Ottomans...

Yeah. I don't think either side was terribly interested in the cultural output of the other.

Why was the Balkans the heartland? Aren't the western Levant and Mesopotamia also densely populated?

And if keeping the Balkans is nessecary, would it have been possible to Islamize the Balkans more? Like, set up certain industries in Rumelia and subsidize muslims to go live and work there?

The Balkans were the heartland because that's where the population density was highest, the forests most abundant and the lands most fertile. And no, the Levant and Mesopotamia were not densely populated. Ottoman Syria (a larger region than the modern country of Syria because the French and British cut the pie as they saw fit in 1919) wasn't the poorest region of the empire on a per capita basis, but population was sparse. Mesopotamia was a complete backwater, was severely underpopulated and may have been the poorest province in the empire. The Ottomans were a Mediterranean empire, so Iraq was poorly connected to the rest of the empire and being subject to regular Persian invasions for 200 years had done it no favours. By 1900, improvements in security from the 18th Century lows, successful efforts to force nomadic groups to settle, investment in agriculture (there were for example some very successful royal estates in Mesopotamia formed in the 19th Century that would in the last years of Ottoman rule provide much of the income for the royal family) and the construction of the Suez canal meant Mesopotamia had started to recover, but in 1914 it was still a very poor region.

And the Ottomans did set up industries in the Balkans. They of course lost these as they kept losing wars to their Christian neighbours and being obliged to allow nationalist revolts to succeed.

As for subsidizing migration for Muslims, well, the Ottomans did settle refugees coming from the lands the Russians had taken from them in the Balkans. These people would then have to move again (if they hadn't died in the chaos and violence of the independence wars) when the areas they'd settled in were taken by vengeful nationalists. Resettling from Muslims from the Asian side of the empire wouldn't have been terribly practical since there was no excess population to move anyways. And as I say to Clandango above, I don't think the Balkans having a Muslim majority would have helped much anyway.

How did Japan become so developed even before the industrialization?

Because Japan didn't have any major wars or plagues for centuries and the Tokugawa Shogunate was very effective at governing.

Japan is a very rare example of a region that stood on the brink of a deforestation crisis and was successfully pulled back from the brink. That the Tokugawa managed to do that is honestly pretty bloomin' amazing.

Japan was never entirely isolated. Western science books were imported through Decima the entire period from 1641 to 1853, and there was a permanent school of translators sponsored by the shogun. It is not my impression that the Ottoman Empire had such schools. Translations in this period were mostly unique occasions.

I am not sure how the Ottoman institutions would compare to the Japanese ones. Certainly they did have the Palace School for the training of the civil service, and their civil service was well supplied with translators. So far as I am aware, I don't think the Ottoman government was ever especially interested in science and technical books (not during the early 19th Century when Japan was still in the Tokugawa period). They tended to prefer hiring foreign advisers.

It perhaps bears saying that when I said that the Ottomans were very open to innovations, that's not to say that they were more open than Japan was. Rather, they were more open compared to other non-Western states, a field in which both they and Japan were leaders.

fasquardon
 
Significantly less likely. The West has centuries of antagonistic relations with the Middle East/Islamic world. For this reason, it would be much harder for an Islamic Nation to join the “first world countries” than it was for Japan.

Same reason that Cyprus will never really be seen as belonging to the same group as other Middle Eastern countries - because it’s Greek and Christian.
This is certainly not true for the 17th and 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire was a regular part of the european diplomatic circle and was also considered part of Europe by almost all. It was only in the 19th century that what was considered Europe narrowed to west and central Europe and the Empire was more and more portrayed as oriental.
 
The Balkans were the heartland because that's where the population density was highest, the forests most abundant and the lands most fertile. And no, the Levant and Mesopotamia were not densely populated. Ottoman Syria (a larger region than the modern country of Syria because the French and British cut the pie as they saw fit in 1919) wasn't the poorest region of the empire on a per capita basis, but population was sparse. Mesopotamia was a complete backwater, was severely underpopulated and may have been the poorest province in the empire. The Ottomans were a Mediterranean empire, so Iraq was poorly connected to the rest of the empire and being subject to regular Persian invasions for 200 years had done it no favours. By 1900, improvements in security from the 18th Century lows, successful efforts to force nomadic groups to settle, investment in agriculture (there were for example some very successful royal estates in Mesopotamia formed in the 19th Century that would in the last years of Ottoman rule provide much of the income for the royal family) and the construction of the Suez canal meant Mesopotamia had started to recover, but in 1914 it was still a very poor region.

And the Ottomans did set up industries in the Balkans. They of course lost these as they kept losing wars to their Christian neighbours and being obliged to allow nationalist revolts to succeed.

As for subsidizing migration for Muslims, well, the Ottomans did settle refugees coming from the lands the Russians had taken from them in the Balkans. These people would then have to move again (if they hadn't died in the chaos and violence of the independence wars) when the areas they'd settled in were taken by vengeful nationalists. Resettling from Muslims from the Asian side of the empire wouldn't have been terribly practical since there was no excess population to move anyways. And as I say to Clandango above, I don't think the Balkans having a Muslim majority would have helped much anyway.
So are the high population densities of eastern Iraq and western syria/Lebanon recent developments? If so, could similar developments happen under the Ottomans which cause a boom in population in these areas and maybe could provide a source of people to settle the Balkans? Or maybe make Russia go MUCH harsher on its Muslim population causing more Muslim emigration from Russia into the Ottoman empire?

Because Japan didn't have any major wars or plagues for centuries and the Tokugawa Shogunate was very effective at governing.

Japan is a very rare example of a region that stood on the brink of a deforestation crisis and was successfully pulled back from the brink. That the Tokugawa managed to do that is honestly pretty bloomin' amazing.
Well, European countries developed fine while beating the shit out of each other.
 
This is certainly not true for the 17th and 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire was a regular part of the european diplomatic circle and was also considered part of Europe by almost all. It was only in the 19th century that what was considered Europe narrowed to west and central Europe and the Empire was more and more portrayed as oriental.

Europeans and Muslims have never seen themselves as belonging to the same civilization. Remember the Crusades?
 
Europeans and Muslims have never seen themselves as belonging to the same civilization. Remember the Crusades?
Is Russia considered part of Europe? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Is Spain considered part of Europe? In the 19th century a common saying was: Africa starts at the Pyrenees. These cultural borders were certainly not made of stone.
 
Is Russia considered part of Europe? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Is Spain considered part of Europe? In the 19th century a common saying was: Africa starts at the Pyrenees. These cultural borders were certainly not made of stone.
Those weren’t, but this one was. Theological divides like this are more significant than linguistic divides.
 

Germaniac

Donor
So are the high population densities of eastern Iraq and western syria/Lebanon recent developments? If so, could similar developments happen under the Ottomans which cause a boom in population in these areas and maybe could provide a source of people to settle the Balkans? Or maybe make Russia go MUCH harsher on its Muslim population causing more Muslim emigration from Russia into the Ottoman empire?


Well, European countries developed fine while beating the shit out of each other.

Well its interesting that you bring up Russian Muslim subjects as many did in fact resettle in the Ottoman empire and especially in the Balkans. Its possible that more may come under the right circumstances, though i don't believe muslim colonization is a solution. The only solution is compromise among the mixed populations of the Balkans.

The Ottomans had a tendency to prefer to purchase finished goods from outside the country instead of producing them thenselves, alot of that having to do with the extremely open trade deals made with Britian in the early 19th century. This greatly stalled industrial development.

The Levant specifically was nearly entirely a maritime trade based economy, with very few drivers to development. This began to change as rural and nomadic peoples began to settle.

Mesopotamia experienced reforms under Midhat Pasha, but since his death Mesopotamia had stagnated. The discovery of oil in the 1890s changed this, but Abdul Hamid kept it as a bargaining chip, never settling on a strategy so when the Young Turks arrived in 1908 there was a quick movement towards concession negotiations.

Without the series of calamities following 1908 Iraq would soon become an more integrated and quickly developing province of the empire. Expect the Kurds to oppose this, more centralization is going to lead to rebellions on their part.
 

Germaniac

Donor
I don’t want to get into current politics with regards to Cyprus, but I will just say that there is only one officially recognized Cypriot state and leave it at that.

Fair enough, my only point in bringing that up was that there was considerable Turkish settlement in areas like Cyprus and Crete. Colonization didn't prevent those areas from falling away, and wouldn't elsewhere.
 
Without the series of calamities following 1908 Iraq would soon become an more integrated and quickly developing province of the empire. Expect the Kurds to oppose this, more centralization is going to lead to rebellions on their part
Why would it? As far as I understand, Kurdish nationalism wasnt really a thing until after the Ottomam collapse. Anyhow, centralization would bring more economic development and I don't see why they would oppose that.
 

Germaniac

Donor
Why would it? As far as I understand, Kurdish nationalism wasnt really a thing until after the Ottomam collapse. Anyhow, centralization would bring more economic development and I don't see why they would oppose that.

Because they ruled the region without any oversight. Brutal repression was encouraged on the empires extremities by the Hamidian regime and the arrival of centralization and greater connection to the empire threatened their control. Think tribal loyalty more than nationalism.

I haven't read as much on this specific topic but Janet Klein has a great book on the subject "The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone"
 
Could you name more people closer to the cultural centre of the Empire. You name three arabs, one kurd (who may have worked in Istanbul, ) and a woman poet. Muhamad Abduh has never been in Constantinople and had as far as i know no contacts there.
The Ottoman cultural sphere was much wider than their shrinking imperial borders.

If one includes Armenians - and why wouldn't they be included? - and the Turkic intellectuals who travelled between Russia and Ottoman Empire, the list grows even longer.

The point remains, though - as a rule these people were considered culturally inferiour and irrelevant by contemporary European intellectuals.
 
Or maybe make Russia go MUCH harsher on its Muslim population causing more Muslim emigration from Russia into the Ottoman empire?
Isn't there the notion that the resettlement of the Circassians in the Balkans worsened ethnic tensions in the region and anti-Muslim sentiments amongst the Balkan Christians, due to the inability of Ottoman authorities to properly accommodate the mass of refugees, the Circassians' habit of raiding for resources (since that's what they had to resort to when the Russians were pushing them out of their homeland), and the lack of resources (housing, food, medical care) that the refugees (jobless, homeless, and in poor health) caused or exacerbated? Simply settling more Muslim refugees from Russia seems like it would just worsen the situation in the Balkans and cause even more and earlier strife, which would compound every other issue the Empire was facing in the period.
 
Isn't there the notion that the resettlement of the Circassians in the Balkans worsened ethnic tensions in the region and anti-Muslim sentiments amongst the Balkan Christians, due to the inability of Ottoman authorities to properly accommodate the mass of refugees, the Circassians' habit of raiding for resources (since that's what they had to resort to when the Russians were pushing them out of their homeland), and the lack of resources (housing, food, medical care) that the refugees (jobless, homeless, and in poor health) caused or exacerbated? Simply settling more Muslim refugees from Russia seems like it would just worsen the situation in the Balkans and cause even more and earlier strife, which would compound every other issue the Empire was facing in the period.
So what would be the best way to have the Balkans stay loyal to the Ottomans?
 
So what would be the best way to have the Balkans stay loyal to the Ottomans?
One possible approach would be the attempt to placate the Albanians by arranging them an autonomous vilayet of their own through administrative reorgnanization, and by starting a conscious program to promote a separate Macedonian nationalism to counter the Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian and Romanian propaganda, offering proponents of this ideology increased say in the regional administration.
 
One possible approach would be the attempt to placate the Albanians by arranging them an autonomous vilayet of their own through administrative reorgnanization, and by starting a conscious program to promote a separate Macedonian nationalism to counter the Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian and Romanian propaganda, offering proponents of this ideology increased say in the regional administration.
So, with the most realistic means, what is the largest chunk of the Balkans the Ottomans can keep? I'm thinking all of thrace, Macedonia and Albania.
 
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