Osmanlı Kimliği Üzerine Bazı Düşünceler

Authors : Aşkın Koyuncu

Pages : 203-212

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Publication Date : 2004-12-01

Article Type : Research

Abstract :The Ottoman Empire was a symbiosis of the Turkish-Islamic  and the Byzantine-Balkan traditions. It is more realistic to ention  Ottoman identities than a singular Ottoman identity. In the classical  period the term Ottoman referred to the ruling class. In fact, the  Ottomans did not try to create a common identity, since the political  and geographycal unity was in principal more important for them.  Although, Islamic e1ements were the basis of the Ottoman ethos, they  did not compel non-muslim subjects to convert to the Islam. On the  contrary, the Ottomans gave them religious freedom and organized  them through the millet system. So each millet (Rum or Greek  Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish millet) had its own identity separately.  Ethnic groups in the Rum millet in the Balkans, especially Slavic  Peoples, were inclined to be Hellenized; similarly there was a  tendency among the Balkan converts to Turkifization. In the 19th  century the Ottomans tried to form an Ottomanizm ideology against  the dangers of nationalism, but it did not work. Consequently this  effort did not prevent the disintegrarion of the empire.
Keywords : The Ottoman identity, the Turks, the millet system, Islamization, co-existense