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> The whole text, starting from the title, is "making it nice" in the modern tendency of some of implying that what was actually bad was good. The thing is, it

> The whole text, starting from the title, is "making it nice" in the modern tendency of some of implying that what was actually bad was good. The thing is, it's neither "bad" nor "good", it's just history. And in that context, the Janissaries are quite an interesting case because their history is filled with very extreme ups and downs. > "Beyond ‘slave soldiers’" "Essentially, they displayed their ‘slave’ status with pride" --- oh, that makes it OK then? If you'd read the whole Wiki article, instead of just quoting the passages that support your notion, you'd also realized that their position immensely changed over the centuries. Yes, they started out as a "slave soldier" unit in the thousands, made up of forced converts. But their efficiency on the battlefield quickly made them a very renowned unit, so renowned that over time even Muslim families tried to get their children to be recruited. This went on for a while until the Janissaries became such a powerful institution that they dominated the Ottoman government and could literally dethrone the Sultan, which they actually did, even killing Osman II in 1622. Until in 1826, after centuries of Janissaries running wild, the Sultan Mahmud II decided "enough is enough" and "disbanded" the Janissaries corps in what is nowadays known as the Auspicious Incident [0]. So, while they started out as a forced conversion soldier group, they ultimately turned into something very different. Heck, I'd like to think them destabilizing the Ottoman empire like they did, was their form of revenge. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auspicious_Incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auspicious_Incident

acqq 8y ago
> so renowned that over time even Muslim families tried to get their children to be recruited. Being "renowned" and having a pair of examples of some who actually gave away their sons (for whatever benefit they expected, these were hard times) doesn't mean that forcibly taking the boys "as a tax" away from their families makes it less vile. Compare: "I'm sure" that some black Africans "gave" their sons to be slaves to the Western men, so there was "more to the forced slavery of blacks" than our "modern sensitivities" say to us. See? In reality the children were "collected" regularly, by force, by the soldiers coming to the villages and taking the 8-10 year old boys away. And researching the subject, there are also stories among the Christians who were the target that the mothers had to harm their own children, making them disabled and unsuitable for being soldiers only to manage to keep them from being taken away.
- freeflight 8y ago
  But we are not just talking about "a pair of examples": "In response to foreign threats the Ottoman government chose to rapidly expand the size of the corps after the 1570s. Janissaries spent shorter periods of time in training as acemi oğlans, as the average age of recruitment increased from 13.5 in the 1490s to 16.6 in 1603. This reflected not only the Ottomans' greater need for manpower, but also the shorter training time necessary to produce skilled musketeers in comparison with archers. However, this change alone was not enough to produce the necessary manpower, and consequently the traditional limitation of recruitment to boys conscripted in the devşirme was lifted. Membership was opened up to free-born Muslims, both recruits hand-picked by the commander of the Janissaries, as well as the sons of current members of the Ottoman standing army. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the devşirme had largely been abandoned as a method of recruitment." "In 1449 they revolted for the first time, demanding higher wages, which they obtained. The stage was set for a decadent evolution, like that of the Streltsy of Tsar Peter's Russia or that of the Praetorian Guard which proved the greatest threat to Roman emperors, rather than an effective protection." [0] That's why comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. How often did you see black African slaves successfully revolt to increase their wages, among other privileges? How often did black African slaves manage to kill their "slaver leader" and survive to tell the story? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries
  - acqq 8y ago
    > comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. So, boys 8-10 years old, forcefully taken away from their Christian families by the Muslims to be the Muslim soldiers eventually "get influential" to "demand higher wages" should somehow make the fact that they were taken away "as a tax" less bad? Or that the eventually "recruitment" was allowed "from the Muslims" too and that the structure changed in the army that counted hundreds of thousands? Of course it's not comparable to the black African slaves, but only because the black African slaves weren't taken away to be the soldiers. That's the major difference, and there's nothing less revolting there. The whole logic of having the soldiers made from the 8-10 year enslaved children was to have the the "pure soldiers" with no "real past" (they were "educated" so) and no "family to care about." Eventually those who organized that army managed to use them for some political influences, so the structure of that army was changed through the history to reduce the chances of them being used for the political influences. But these happened still from time to time, by the very position of being the top army force in the whole system. But the enslaved were enslaved, that didn't change that fact. That's the whole story there.
watwut 8y ago
> The thing is, it's neither "bad" nor "good", it's just history. And in that context, the Janissaries are quite an interesting case because their history is filled with very extreme ups and downs. History as is being interesting does not mean you cant make it sound better or worst then it was. > Yes, they started out as a "slave soldier" unit in the thousands, made up of forced converts. But their efficiency on the battlefield quickly made them a very renowned unit, so renowned that over time even Muslim families tried to get their children to be recruited. It is kidnapping out of original family that lost a son. The fact that kidnapped kid becomes valued soldier due to training and ideologization in isolation from original family and culture does not changes anything on that. The unit leadership having a lot of power later on still changes nothing on loss of the original family, the boy being kidnapped and brainwashed/forced to be soldier.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >The fact that kidnapped kid becomes valued soldier due to training and ideologization in isolation from original family and culture does not changes anything on that. It's trivial to point out the converse: The fact that a soldier became valued due to training and ideologization is not changed by the fact that they were kidnapped.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Thankfully, no one in this thread nor whole discussion claimed that they were not useful army. Just like in discussion of slavery most people agree that slaves earn money to master. The original discussion was about whether article was in favor of some country or agenda. Answer is yes, the point of view of people who find institution beneficial to them and don't care about damage done to those kids nor to their families nor to their original societies.
ivanche 8y ago
> The thing is, it's neither "bad" nor "good", it's just history. And in that context, the Janissaries are quite an interesting case because their history is filled with very extreme ups and downs. Let me guess, your country / nation luckily never had anything to do with the Ottoman empire?
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  When Irish people are anti-British it’s boring. When Serbs are anti-Turkish or anti-Ottoman it’s boring. If your country won before you were born you you should get over it. History is not worth learning about and studying for the propaganda victories it can be useful for today but for what it can teach us about humanity. Better that we forget everything than that we remember only to nurse grievances and pass them on to our children and theirs.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  I'm sure those Christians around the Balkans would have much rather been a part of the Holy Roman Empire that were nothing but kind to the Orthodox.
  - dragandj 8y ago
    When you mention it, parts of Serbia that were under Austria-Hungary are noticeably more urbanized and developed than the parts that were under the Ottoman Empire, despite them being in the same state for exactly one century. Turkish slavery/occupation is perceived as much, much worse in folk memory than the Austrian. Of course, both of these are foreign empires, so neither of them is good, but one is clearly worse than the other...
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      >When you mention it, parts of Serbia that were under Austria-Hungary are noticeably more urbanized and developed than the parts that were under the Ottoman Empire, despite them being in the same state for exactly one century. ... The parts of Serbia that Austria-Hungary didn't conquer by force about a hundred years ago were more developed than the parts they did conquer by force? Clearly the Ottoman's fault.
jessaustin 8y ago
If anything would cause us to suspect the motives behind a monarch killing some of his previously-favored subjects, surely that would be the propaganda campaign behind a goofy term like "Auspicious Incident". Calling a voluntary violent act an "incident", that's like calling automobile collisions "accidents". How fared the careers of Ottoman historians who didn't adopt this judgmental term for the event?

acqq 8y ago

> so renowned that over time even Muslim families tried to get their children to be recruited. Being "renowned" and having a pair of examples of some who actually gave away their sons (for whatever benefit they expected, these were hard times) doesn't mean that forcibly taking the boys "as a tax" away from their families makes it less vile. Compare: "I'm sure" that some black Africans "gave" their sons to be slaves to the Western men, so there was "more to the forced slavery of blacks" than our "modern sensitivities" say to us. See? In reality the children were "collected" regularly, by force, by the soldiers coming to the villages and taking the 8-10 year old boys away. And researching the subject, there are also stories among the Christians who were the target that the mothers had to harm their own children, making them disabled and unsuitable for being soldiers only to manage to keep them from being taken away.

freeflight 8y ago
But we are not just talking about "a pair of examples": "In response to foreign threats the Ottoman government chose to rapidly expand the size of the corps after the 1570s. Janissaries spent shorter periods of time in training as acemi oğlans, as the average age of recruitment increased from 13.5 in the 1490s to 16.6 in 1603. This reflected not only the Ottomans' greater need for manpower, but also the shorter training time necessary to produce skilled musketeers in comparison with archers. However, this change alone was not enough to produce the necessary manpower, and consequently the traditional limitation of recruitment to boys conscripted in the devşirme was lifted. Membership was opened up to free-born Muslims, both recruits hand-picked by the commander of the Janissaries, as well as the sons of current members of the Ottoman standing army. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the devşirme had largely been abandoned as a method of recruitment." "In 1449 they revolted for the first time, demanding higher wages, which they obtained. The stage was set for a decadent evolution, like that of the Streltsy of Tsar Peter's Russia or that of the Praetorian Guard which proved the greatest threat to Roman emperors, rather than an effective protection." [0] That's why comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. How often did you see black African slaves successfully revolt to increase their wages, among other privileges? How often did black African slaves manage to kill their "slaver leader" and survive to tell the story? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries
- acqq 8y ago
  > comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. So, boys 8-10 years old, forcefully taken away from their Christian families by the Muslims to be the Muslim soldiers eventually "get influential" to "demand higher wages" should somehow make the fact that they were taken away "as a tax" less bad? Or that the eventually "recruitment" was allowed "from the Muslims" too and that the structure changed in the army that counted hundreds of thousands? Of course it's not comparable to the black African slaves, but only because the black African slaves weren't taken away to be the soldiers. That's the major difference, and there's nothing less revolting there. The whole logic of having the soldiers made from the 8-10 year enslaved children was to have the the "pure soldiers" with no "real past" (they were "educated" so) and no "family to care about." Eventually those who organized that army managed to use them for some political influences, so the structure of that army was changed through the history to reduce the chances of them being used for the political influences. But these happened still from time to time, by the very position of being the top army force in the whole system. But the enslaved were enslaved, that didn't change that fact. That's the whole story there.

watwut 8y ago

> The thing is, it's neither "bad" nor "good", it's just history. And in that context, the Janissaries are quite an interesting case because their history is filled with very extreme ups and downs. History as is being interesting does not mean you cant make it sound better or worst then it was. > Yes, they started out as a "slave soldier" unit in the thousands, made up of forced converts. But their efficiency on the battlefield quickly made them a very renowned unit, so renowned that over time even Muslim families tried to get their children to be recruited. It is kidnapping out of original family that lost a son. The fact that kidnapped kid becomes valued soldier due to training and ideologization in isolation from original family and culture does not changes anything on that. The unit leadership having a lot of power later on still changes nothing on loss of the original family, the boy being kidnapped and brainwashed/forced to be soldier.

BeetleB 8y ago
>The fact that kidnapped kid becomes valued soldier due to training and ideologization in isolation from original family and culture does not changes anything on that. It's trivial to point out the converse: The fact that a soldier became valued due to training and ideologization is not changed by the fact that they were kidnapped.
- watwut 8y ago
  Thankfully, no one in this thread nor whole discussion claimed that they were not useful army. Just like in discussion of slavery most people agree that slaves earn money to master. The original discussion was about whether article was in favor of some country or agenda. Answer is yes, the point of view of people who find institution beneficial to them and don't care about damage done to those kids nor to their families nor to their original societies.

ivanche 8y ago

barry-cotter 8y ago
When Irish people are anti-British it’s boring. When Serbs are anti-Turkish or anti-Ottoman it’s boring. If your country won before you were born you you should get over it. History is not worth learning about and studying for the propaganda victories it can be useful for today but for what it can teach us about humanity. Better that we forget everything than that we remember only to nurse grievances and pass them on to our children and theirs.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
I'm sure those Christians around the Balkans would have much rather been a part of the Holy Roman Empire that were nothing but kind to the Orthodox.
- dragandj 8y ago
  When you mention it, parts of Serbia that were under Austria-Hungary are noticeably more urbanized and developed than the parts that were under the Ottoman Empire, despite them being in the same state for exactly one century. Turkish slavery/occupation is perceived as much, much worse in folk memory than the Austrian. Of course, both of these are foreign empires, so neither of them is good, but one is clearly worse than the other...
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    >When you mention it, parts of Serbia that were under Austria-Hungary are noticeably more urbanized and developed than the parts that were under the Ottoman Empire, despite them being in the same state for exactly one century. ... The parts of Serbia that Austria-Hungary didn't conquer by force about a hundred years ago were more developed than the parts they did conquer by force? Clearly the Ottoman's fault.

jessaustin 8y ago

If anything would cause us to suspect the motives behind a monarch killing some of his previously-favored subjects, surely that would be the propaganda campaign behind a goofy term like "Auspicious Incident". Calling a voluntary violent act an "incident", that's like calling automobile collisions "accidents". How fared the careers of Ottoman historians who didn't adopt this judgmental term for the event?