I knew a certain poster from Rumelia Bulgaria would dominate this thread the second I saw it.
Gets a worse rap than it deserves, though I'm certainly no apologist for it.
Why do you think that an Empire which abducted children to turn them into soldiers, which encouraged enslaving raids against most of Europe, which caused a demographic catastrophe whenever it arrived and which spent most of the last decades of its existence in ethnically cleansing all Christians doesn't deserve its reputation?
The Ottomans, up until their final century, were much more tolerant of Christians (and Jews) within their borders than their Christian neighbors like the Habsburgs were of Protestants living within their borders. The millet system was surprisingly advanced for its day.
The Janissaries were, of course, a blight on their record that is far too large to ignore, but the Janissaries themselves were one of the most powerful factions within Ottoman society and had a good deal of influence. While obviously not condoning the kidnapping, a Serbian kid kidnapped into the Janissaries would be a great deal more powerful and probably have a much more high-status life than his brothers and sisters who remained.
Granted, in the 1800s, the Ottomans started getting much more oppressive, and by the rule of the Young Turks and especially World War I they were just plain horrible. But early on? One should compare the Ottomans to the Malmuks, Safavids, and their other such rivals, not to today's nations. They come off pretty well against them.
Poll
