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I think you view is too simplistic. I've talked with Albanian friends about the persecutions/humiliations endured during the ottoman domination. They mentione
by grumpydba 8y ago
I think you view is too simplistic.
I've talked with Albanian friends about the persecutions/humiliations endured during the ottoman domination. They mentioned catholic people who had to live in the mountains, far from the rivers and in absolute poverty to keep their religion.
Let's also not forget the genocidal behavior of the ottoman empire against the Lebanese Christians, the Serbs and the Greeks (mostly in the 19th century).
- netcan 8y agoI think you might be misunderstanding me. I'm not claiming that empires (or the ottoman empire specifically) was good, or that persecutions didn't hapoen. All sorts of awful ethnic persecutions happened within empires. American slavery was initially a British imperial institution. The word pogrom comes from the Russian empire. But, it is also true that empires tended to be pluralistic, in that different cultures lived within them for very long periods. Nation states value cultural cohesion and national homogeneity, and pluralism has, in many cases, ceased when nations succeeded empires politically. Compare nearly any central or austrian european capital in 1900 or 2000. They became far more homogeneous. Take ottoman cities (Cairo, Istanbul, bagdad...), pluralism reversed. It some cases (eg Istanbul), it receded fast and hard. In others, it took longer.
- grumpydba 8y agoWell my point was that some nations were victim of genocide and disappeared under the ottoman empire. So the culture of the minority was under constant assault there