The stereotype in Balkan studies is that Ottoman conquest meant an immediate plunge into decline and barbarism, while the corresponding stereotype in Ottoman studies is that conquest drew the Balkans into a multilayered and prosperous civilization which they unfortunately failed to appreciate. One purpose of this collection of articles is to counter such views. Another is to bring theoretical and interpretive coherence to a mass of detailed research by Balkanists, Byzantinists, Ottomanists, Mediterraneanists, and national(ist) historians. A third is to make their work comparative; the ten contributors and one editor find in the field of Late Antique/Early Medieval studies a useful framework for studying the fall of one civilization at the hands of another. The fall of Rome provides competing models, a long history of detailed study, and comparative suggestions for numerous lines of investigation. This volume is conceived as a preliminary step, as a new approach to an old topic. The editor provides from Ottoman history a menu of issues with which to begin, including the role of religion in the conquest, the practice of accommodation as an integrating tool (and the debate between theories of continuity and rupture), and the demographic consequences of the conquest. The editor also criticizes the lack of cross-reading of sources and the disciplinary pride that keeps scholars penned in separate corners of the field, while pointing out obstacles facing them, such as problems of sources, languages, and the modern politics of the region. He proposes a massive research program encompassing the entire Balkan region and sets forth big questions that could lead to new interpretations of Ottoman conquest.
The subsequent chapters focus on raising new questions rather than reaching new answers. Maurus Reinkowski's chapter introduces the larger context of Islamic conquest and Islamization in order to overcome the exceptionalism that afflicts Ottoman studies. He is interested in the role of violence in contrasting models of religious warfare and peaceful expansion, and compares the conquest of the Balkans with that of the Arab lands as a fruitful way to raise new questions. A comparison with the early Islamic conquests might speak more directly to the gazi question. A chapter by Tony Filiposki considers non-Ottoman contributions to Ottoman conquest, particularly the Byzantine Empire and its relationships with the Turks, the Slavic kingdoms, and the western Christians. Such issues are widely cited in western historiography, which tends to lump all the Balkan countries together, but in the Balkan context they can be useful in springing local histories out of their national boxes.
An article by Mariya Kiprovska seeks to counter the ferocious modern image of the Turks by investigating the incorporation of Balkan military forces into the Ottoman army. Ottoman military registers show that the Ottomans adopted administrative methods from the conquered regions and incorporated their military personnel in large numbers. Although one of these incorporated elites (Skanderbeg) notoriously rebelled, most became Muslims and climbed the Ottoman career ladder. A chapter by Grigor Boykov examines the demographic consequences of conquest in Bulgaria. Unlike the more purely historiographical chapters, this one presents new research, finding from a study of over 200 Ottoman tax registers that the Bulgarian population, far from experiencing demographic crisis as a result of the Ottoman conquest, probably numbered about 550,000 in the fifteenth century and 1,110,000 in the sixteenth, falling off only in the seventeenth century due to climate change and conversion to Islam.
A sophisticated article on conversion by Tijana Krstić reconsiders methods, theories, and terminology for dealing with this fraught subject. She recommends considering conversion outside the frameworks of the nation-state, demography, and its socioeconomic consequences. Conversion needs to be investigated as a cultural and religious issue, an interdisciplinary topic, and with the use of new sources.
Andrei Pippidi's article on Wallachia separates the “facts” of conquest from the interpretations placed on them by historians. Conquest history in this region is conceptualized as the relationship between two entities, Wallachia and Moldavia, and their attempts to avoid being swallowed up by the Ottomans (or the Russians). Interpretation begins with the emergence of a national/Christian myth in the mid-nineteenth century, and from there Pippidi explains the changes in historiography over time that have recently made it possible to challenge the old framework of the territorial state in favor of a region of competition among princes, some with outside support from the Ottomans, and the flexible incorporation of the Wallachians into the Ottoman economic system. In the case of Moldavia, the article by Ştefan S. Gorovei and Maria Magdalena Szekely seeks to pinpoint the inception of the Ottoman-Moldavian relationship. Despite the political rhetoric of centuries, new sources permit the conclusion that the Moldavians were not ever subjects of the Ottoman Empire, but its tributaries; there was no Ottoman conquest of Moldavia.
The next chapter, by Dubravko Lovrenović, examines the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia through Franciscan chronicles and historiography. The stereotype holds that Bosnia fell due to its betrayal by the Bogomil (“Manichean”) population. Such stories arose centuries after the fact and represented the conquest as sudden, violent, and accompanied by demands for total conversion. The early twentieth century saw the introduction of the idea that the different groups of Christians (and Muslims?), rather than excoriating and betraying each other, might engage in dialogue. The war in Bosnia in the 1990s, however, revived old antagonisms, and the 530th anniversary of the fall of Bosnia occasioned widespread feelings of national tragedy. The final chapter, by Ovidiu Cristea, steps outside the Balkan and Ottoman context to look at the role of Venice. Although Venetian sources came from outside, their view was disturbed by distance, prejudice, and deliberate Ottoman disinformation. Changes in Venetian priorities, which favored the Terraferma, and in Ottoman priorities, focusing on control of the Black Sea and the Aegean, saved Venice from being overwhelmed by Ottoman strength.
No conclusion is provided to this series of studies, since they are seen as a first step toward conclusions that can only be reached through difficult rethinking and research. Together, however, they raise worthwhile questions and inspire new efforts. It is a stimulating book, one that should be taken seriously by everyone concerned with “the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.”
