How come the Balkans' history has been such a massive shit show?

Ragusa

Ottomans were fine in 15th and 16th century.

They still treated their Christian subjects, who were the majority in the Balkans, like shit.

Singidinum.
Thesalloniki

It's nowhere. But it's on the way to everywhere.

The peasantry being treated like shit didn't mean the place wasn't great.
Fact: peasantry was treated like shit for most of human history.

>majority of population treated like shit
>doesn't mean it's not great
T*rkroach logic: Not even once

>modern day USA
>majority of population wage slaves treated like garbage
>its a great country

?

Where did I say it was?

Everyone knows it is.

The majority of the population everywhere is treated like shit. Then and now.

It isn't

I guess thats why your countrymen come to live here, because driving a taxi in USA is better than being president of Albania.

And the majority of the world is shit.

What a coincidence

well it was all fine and good, until the turks came and raped the nice christians

Fools always think the grass is greener on the other side

This.
>It was great during ottoman times.
Not so much, but you cleared it up with the sentence after.
Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Salonika, Constantinople, Athens.
The Balkans were, especially in antiquity, very vibrant. And up until the Ottoman decline were an OK place.
And then the Balkans were stuck between a rock and a hard place ever since.

Grass is mathematically proven to be greener in the USA compared to the Balkans.

...

And in some European countries peasantry of different religion was treated even worse.

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

Then why single out the Ottomans from that post?

You're being retarded.

they treated anyone who was against them like shit

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet_(Ottoman_Empire)

The Balkans, well, Illyricum, actually, was kinda shit towards the late Roman to early Byzantine period. Place just got ravaged over and over again. It did, however, recover.

Modern day Romania got khan'd, modern day Croatia got goth'd. The rest was fine until the bulgars came, and they quickly became a roman kingdom under another name, settling down and adopting local culture.

Speaking of balkan history, I made this video about the battle of Kosovo if you are interested

youtube.com/watch?v=0TpYfuj6ZQ4

De donde éres y cuáles son tus fuentes?

Pan-Slavism killed the Balkans. Thank Russia.

It's more complex than that. Pan-Slavism would be a uniting force, if it weren't for the fact that the influence of 3 (three) "Romes" in extreme proximity to each other tore the whole region apart into different spheres of influence, creating a separating force that conflicts with Pan-Slavism's uniting force.

And then you have the destabilizing factors of both Islam and Communism.

at the end of the video you can see the webpages that I used. the kosovo.net in particulary is very extensive. And I am guatemalan btw

Because he himself said the Ottomans were great?
Durrr

Religion itself destabilised it. Russian sponsored Pan-Slavism is inherently Orthodox and put Serbia in a Catch 22 that killed unification. Yugoslavia was a 49 year experiment people think had long term viability

Yeah, I noticed when I finished it. Thanks m8.

I knew you were either Guatemalan, Honduran or Salvadoran, but I guess you killed you accent a bit for the video, so I couldn't really tell from where with certainty. I'm Salvadoran by the way.

He said the Ottoman times were great, and he mentioned 4 other times you mongoloid. You singled out Ottomans and then backpedalled like a complete faggot.

Religion is only part of the larger cultural baggage the surrounding spheres of influence injected into the region, but you're right. Still, it got volatile only because of the desire for ethnic cohesion and it went to shit because of gommies.

Yugoslavia had a hard life.

>Modern day Romania got khan'd, modern day Croatia got goth'd. The rest was fine until the bulgars came
Forgetting the Avars there? Because of them the Roman population was largely forced to retreat to fortified cities on the coast after Salona was razed and Dalmatia pillaged and ruined.

I'm a Serb dingus, I know exactly what they did. Doesn't change the fact that while rest of Europe put a sword at your neck and said convert, the Ottomans simply treated you better if you converted.

If Hungarians managed to push back the Ottomans they would've took control of Serbia and we would all probably be Catholic today.

Let's not even mention how many high ranking officials in the Ottoman empire came out of the Blood Tax.

But that ain't me

Okay, but your stance still doesn't make sense.

There's no time in history except in modern liberal democracies (and only the ones with better standards of living and least income inequalities at that) where the "peasantry" wasn't treated like shit.

The Balkans under the Ottoman Empire (in the centuries posted) were still "fine" (even "great") compared to other places when it came to standard of living, economic affluence, etc.

And no, I'm not that user (the one you're arguing in the screencap) and I'm not a Turk.

I know that, hence why I think it's all shit.

>The Balkans under the Ottoman Empire (in the centuries posted) were still "fine" (even "great") compared to other places when it came to standard of living, economic affluence, etc.

Not really.

If you don't believe me, compare post Ottoman Empire dissolution states with neighboring countries like Croatia

15th and 16th century mate. 18th-19th century is where everything goes to shit with the empire going to the sick man of europe phase with jannisaries cockblocking attempts at modernization,shitty sultans and nationalist revolt

You do realize there's centuries of rule nobody's claiming were "fine", right?

Even then it was shit, what with the Jizya and the blood tax

Even with the fucking jizya the ottoman peasants paid less than many western ones, and less than russian ones.
Even with the fucking blood tax, ottoman peasants saw less fighting per capita than western or russian ones.

Ottoman slavery is different with western slavery,
in devshirme, slaves were protected from abuse and enjoyed opportunities for responsibility and advancement as soldiers, statesmen and officials. Slaves were often given their freedom as a reward for service and their children were born free, not into slavery.

They werent used for the army alone: after growing up and being trained, they took on all kinds of roles in the ottoman courts. They were treated well and could aspire to power and wealth. They were educated in the law, foreign languages, the sciences, sports and administrative skills. Promoted on the basis of skill, they could grow up to be provincial governors, treasury officials, physicians, architects, judges and high officials, and helped to run the empire.

these positions were so desirable that sometimes rural Christian families bribed officials to select their sons. even some Muslim families also bribed officials to select their children illegally, in the hope of placing relatives in powerful offices. Some members of the "ulema", the religion-based legal and educational system, came from this background. So did members of the "divan" or council of ministers and its supporting scribes and officials, including governors appointed to run provinces.

in fact many of the ottoman grand viziers came from this system, with many of them having european descent

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagan_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_Pasha_Angelović
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Mehmed_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedik_Ahmed_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hersekzade_Ahmed_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishak_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pargalı_Ibrahim_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesih_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunus_Pasha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigalazade_Yusuf_Sinan_Pasha

slavs killed the balkans

Germany quite literally used pan-slavism to get Russia into fights with the Ottomans and keep them from reforming.
Pan-slavism is a german invention to destroy Russia, just like communism was later.
If you look at the most active pan-slavism movement members they are mostly not slavs, but germans, and the money comes from whatever Germany is called at the time. Communism is similar.

>these positions were so desirable that sometimes rural Christian families bribed officials to select their sons

And a lot mutilated their sons so they wouldn't be taken.

At the end of the day, they were still taking children from their families.

>these positions were so desirable that sometimes rural Christian families bribed officials to select their sons

I see this mentioned a lot, and there is only one single source of it, a western source of some guy who heard some other guy say a family in modern Bosnia was caught trying to bribe officials into taking their son for the academy rather than some other child.

Its a very bad case of interesting trivia being repeated over and over and blown out of proportion.

>And a lot mutilated their sons so they wouldn't be taken.
That's fanaticism and familial love for you, it can take any form depending on the spooks you subscribe to. In East Asia, people castrated their sons to send them as eunuchs to the Imperial court while castration and eunuchhood was a punishment for disloyal courtiers. In the West, some people used every trick to avoid the draft while others take pride in their veteran status.
Some people prettied up their daughters and sent them to the palace to seduce the local rulers, others hide them or disguised them as ugly old women so they wouldn't be noticed.

>It was great during ottoman times.

Its impressive how far slav mental gymnastics can go just so they can blame someone else for their own fuck ups.

Its impressive how much of a non argument your post is.
There are letters from Bismarck and other german officials showing that whenever Russia tries to sit and reform they will send money and agents to get the pan-slavic movement active and remind the public that there are slavs under Ottoman rule, orthadox christian slavs, and the tzar is wasting money on floating metal boxes instead of trying to free them.
Pan slavism wasn't evil Russia's tool of oppression, it was a shackle preventing it from westernizing and modernizing.

"So, we are gonna abduct your son, make him convert to our faith, and train him as an elite soldier to be used to conquer and pillage his own kin, with no chances for him to settle back here later, or have his own family or heirs(late period Jannies don't count). But don't worry, we got great dental :D:D:D"

Yes, marvelous system, roach.

>"GUYS COME WATCH MY SHITTY TOTAL WAR MACHINIMA! PLEEEEAAAAAASE!!!"

either you become another piss-poor peasant in the middle age or you become a judge, bureaucrat, doctor, architect or a jannisary warrior raping east european qts all the way to vienna. i'd choose the latter desu

t.albanian

also it led to the creation of the greatest albanian national hero of all time

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg

Serbia did literally nothing wrong.

Except for
>It was great during ottoman times.

this is a /thread post

>How come the Balkans' history has been such a massive shit show?

During the Upper Paleolithic they were God tier. Along with the Turks and some Frenchies.

O HOW THINGS CHANGE.

The Berlin Congress 1878 was the final nail in the coffin.

the balkans was always a shithole

>all these people triggered the moment you mention anything remotely good about the Ottomans.

Let it go. I know it might be shocking, but neither being Muslims nor Turkic makes them absolute evil. They were just a political entity like any other.

b-b-but muh remove kebap memes
serbia stronk and such ;____;

Shut up

no Austrian ever kidnapped me and made me kill my parents, everything I need to know about Ottomans I learned in 1453

>everywhere the Ottomans ruled is shit
>nah, the Ottomans were great you guys
>ur just raciss

The fall of Constantinople is a conquest like any other. The only reason 1453 happened is that the 4th crusade had already destroyed Byzantine infrastructure, with which it would have been unthinkable for Turkic rebels to take over the biggest city in Europe, so maybe that's what you would prefer turning your blame to.

And the Janissary issue always placed up as the epitome of malice because it's the only way to justify irrational hatred of the Ottomans over any other concurrent Empire. At the time, it wasn't in any way clear cut that it was an evil thing (nobody believes themselves to be evil), and moral standards have changed since then. What you should be doing is looking up the contemporary Ottoman justifications for the practices and arguing how they are wrong even within the context they were written in.

But you're just lazy band-wagoners eager to hate Turks (who aren't even Ottomans to begin with), so of course you won't do that when you can just say "THE OTTOMANS ARE EVIL".

The Ottoman Empire went through centuries of decline before finally dying out. You can't just look at the modern consequences and say it was all shit from the beginning, ignoring every other factor in a stupidly reductionist view of history.

By the way, all three of you (including ) are just spouting memes. If you want to do that you should go to /pol/ or /b/, high level of discourse is expected on this board.

How about this.

The Ottoman Empire should have collapsed a hundred years before it did.

It was a medieval anachronism.

>no Austrian ever kidnapped me and made me kill my parents
An Austrian killed like 12 million people

There are no "should"s in history, and medieval anachronism is awfully close to a >current year argument, but I (and pretty much everyone else) agree.

It's a mystery how it didn't collapse sooner. I guess you can chalk it up to the cohesive power of Islam to an extent.

Both the Ottoman and the Russian Empire suffered heavily from being left behind by Western Europe, and the consequences were disastrous in both cases, to their regions and the world at large alike.

Everywhere the Ottomans ruled is shit for the same reason that everywhere the Romans ruled went to shit when they fell.

The reason being when Empires fall, they take a lot of shit down with them.

The Ottomans were around for a very long time. They were very prosperous for most of their history. It's like saying "Look at the 90 year old, can barely walk and shits himself daily. his life must've been shit"

nope

I'd like to interject with this literacy census from 1931.

Isn't it fascinating how you can see the austrian-turkish border...

The Ottoman Empire did have issues with literacy. Ottoman Turkish was the lingua franca of the Empire, and while Turkish isn't particularly hard to learn, writing it with the Perso-Arabic script made the difficulty shoot through the roof because of how inadequate the script is for writing Turkish. This is why only government officials actually learned it.

That's why one of the first reforms Atatürk did was ditch the Perso-Arabic script.

As for the other languages, I guess they did not care to make the local population learn to write their own languages, because why would they?

...