Were the Ottomans Turks? Was there really a ruling class who

>>1907716
bump for interest

>>1907716

>It sounds like fantasy novel shit

That's precisely the point. Almost every national myth is romantic.

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The devilish system really did make the majority of the powerful men in the Empire non-Turkish but it really did not matter for the Ottomans. As a side note the final sultan of the Ottoman Empire was not even 1 percent Turk so I can agree with you on some aspects.

see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ottoman_Grand_Viziers

many of them were of balkan descent, there were even five italians.some armenians and georgians. which makes it funnier when these people shits on the ottoman empire nowadays even when theyre the one who runs the empire along with turks

basically europeans roleplaying as turks

>>1909043
also see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dev%C5%9Firme

basically Ottoman eugenics

>>1909016
>not 1 percent Turkish

I'm incredibly skeptical. How could this be possible? Wasn't Turkish his first language?

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>>1907716
>Was there really a ruling class who saw themselves as ethnically distinct from the population?
Doesn't sound that outlandish to me.

>>1907716
actually ruling class wasnt turkish the general population in anatolia was
most people under ottoman rule didnt think themselves as belonging to a nation though, they were just another group living under ottoman rule, the moment they started thinking themselves as a nation is the moment ottoman empire started to crumble

>>1909850
2^(-n), where n is the number of out-married generations, estimates the percentage of turkish blood. For this to be .01, we need
n ~ 7
They certainly outmarried more than that, so yeah his estimate is reasonable...

>language
yes he spoke turkish. but ethnically was mostly greek, georgian, etc.

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>>1909043
>>1909047
>Muh race
>Muh eugenics
>basically europeans roleplaying as turks
The Ottoman Empire was never about being fucking Turkish to fucking begin with.


It was what it fucking was. the OTTOMAN Empire. An Empire ruled by the house of Osman. As for the ruling class, they considered themselves not by race but by identity- Ottoman subjects- an Imperial identity. They saw themselves as refined Muslim gentlemen and brave warriors of Islam, blabbering in Persian or Classical Arabic.

>"in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages." (Lewis 1968: 1)
>"The surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Londoner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended."(Davey 1907: 209)

The assumption of Imperial identities by Central Asians is fucking common- they were seen as barbarians by the civilized world and sought to emulate the civilized. You saw this all the fucking time in Persia and in China. The The Ruling Class Manchus themselves literally dropped their language and culture and assumed the identity of Qing Subjects of the Chinese Empire: Confucian, loyal to the state, and blabbering in Classical Chinese or Mandarin.

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>>1909864
>the eternal Hindu

>>1907716
>implying the ottoman empire is not a fantasy empire become real

Anyway being turkish isn't about genetics anymore now its more of an cultural identity with the language being the strongest pillar of that identity.

>>1909881

That quote is disputed, because it's anecdotal evidence.

The term "Turk" was used by soldiers and elite in territories such as North Africa and Balkans as a self-identifier. It was used even by devshirme bureaucracy and Janissaries. Of course if you went to Constantinople and asked a Greek if he was Turkish he would react like if you asked a Londoner if he is cockney, because he would take it as an association with Turkish speaking nomadic peasantry in Anatolia. Yet military class and feudal class all identified as Turks, even when they were not, because it became a cultural and class definer.

So Ottoman Empire was not a Turkish Empire, it was an Imperial structure not concerned by ethnicity like Roman Empire, that much is right but the term "Turk" denoted more than just Turkish peasants in Anatolia. Because it was main identifier of military caste and bureaucracy in conquered territories. Especially of Spahi and Janissaries (Which identified as "Turks") but also because when ruling elite replaced locals in North Africa and Balkans they identified as "Turkish" because they represented the Ottoman state and spoke Turkish.

>>1909881
A turkroach will always be a turkroach my friend

>the ottoman EMPIRE
>EMPIRE

Not nation state, EMPIRE. A group of nations, ethnicities, etc. Empires are multiculty by default.
If your "empire" only has one nation, its not an empire, its a large country. Thats why people say Egypt never had an empire, because they arguably never subdued another people and conquered them to rule them. It was just the large kingdom of the egyptians.

So no, not all of the ottoman EMPIRE administrators and leaders were turkish. Some came from other imperial subject nations.

Also see Persia, Austro-Hungary or USSR, the other essential empires.

>>1910171
Timariot Sipahis were Turcomen iirc.