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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Candice Keener, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Hey, Jane,

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Speaker 1: I really hope that you have a lot of time

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Speaker 1: on your hands because I thought I would cover the

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Speaker 1: entire history of the Ottoman Empire today. Let me get

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Speaker 1: some coffee. I know, yeah, I'm just kidding. We're not

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Speaker 1: going to do that. Um, there are a couple of

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Speaker 1: highlights we need to go over in order to put

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Speaker 1: into context this crazy, crazy idea that Jane has written about,

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Speaker 1: and that is why were people actually vying to become

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Speaker 1: slaves and the Ottoman Empire. When I first heard the assignment,

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Speaker 1: I had no idea, but it actually ended up being

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Speaker 1: really fascinating development that happened in the Ottoman Empire, and

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Speaker 1: and it actually came from one of our podcast listeners

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Speaker 1: that's right here, right to us, and he sort of

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Speaker 1: challenged us to research this and answer the question why

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Speaker 1: why would anyone wants to be a slave? And it's

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Speaker 1: just so ludicrous And he was really helpful as well

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Speaker 1: with the research many things. So it all dates back

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Speaker 1: to the fourteenth century and at this time, the Ottomans

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Speaker 1: had this. They went by this Muslim law. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure the pronunciation, so please excuse me, ghana mat. And

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Speaker 1: this law stated that the Saltan could basically take one

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Speaker 1: fifth of the booty his soldiers collected in battle. And

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Speaker 1: usually this has to do with like material goods, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: that the soldiers collected. But one ruler, orhan, actually adapted

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Speaker 1: this law to apply to people in addition to things,

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Speaker 1: and so he started taking one out of five captured

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Speaker 1: people that his soldiers took over, and he took them

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Speaker 1: in sort of his slaves, but not just normal slaves.

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Speaker 1: He made it sort of his personal army, and they

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Speaker 1: became a very elite corp known as janissaries. That's right.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like a remarkable idea, having slave soldiers

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Speaker 1: essentially manufactured from the spoils of war. And this is

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Speaker 1: not a concept that stuck just under this One sultan,

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Speaker 1: his son actually followed the same principle, and you're at

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Speaker 1: the first actually wanted to increase the number of his troops,

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Speaker 1: so he started going into conquered Christian territories and taking

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Speaker 1: young boys between the ages of eight and eighteen and

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Speaker 1: picking the very very best ones to make this incredibly

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Speaker 1: prestigious corps of soldiers that would serve the Sultan exclusively.

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Speaker 1: And one important distinction that Murad had to deal with

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Speaker 1: was the fact that he wasn't as as acquiring as

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Speaker 1: many lands as his dad did, though according strictly due

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Speaker 1: to a Muslim law, at least from what I read,

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Speaker 1: it was okay for Orhand to do what he was doing,

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Speaker 1: But what his son was doing was a little bit

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Speaker 1: more shady because he was going into lands that were

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Speaker 1: previously conquered, not freshly conquered, and so these were maybe

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Speaker 1: descendants of conquered people, and so they tried to um

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Speaker 1: rationalize what they were doing by saying it was okay

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Speaker 1: but um But even Muslims at this time argued against

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Speaker 1: this practice of taking these boys. And at this point,

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Speaker 1: I think it might be helpful to know a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the Ottoman Empire and its principles of expansion

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Speaker 1: and how it maintained pockets of Christian people throughout what

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Speaker 1: was ostensiblyah a Muslim empire. The Ottoman Empire actually lasted

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Speaker 1: a remarkably long time, from thirteen o one to nineto.

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Speaker 1: It didn't really crumble into pieces until after World War

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Speaker 1: One in the Balkan Wars. And what's so interesting about

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empires that it sort of picked up where

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Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire left off. And when they conquered the

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Speaker 1: Christians from the Byzantine Empire, they actually maintained the same

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Speaker 1: capital city, only they changed the name, so instead of Constantinople,

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Speaker 1: Istambule became the seat of the Ottoman Empire. So if

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Speaker 1: you ever heard that song about the Istanbul and then Constantinople,

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Speaker 1: you'll know that this is why, because different people would

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Speaker 1: take over and rename it. And according to some history books,

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Speaker 1: when the Sultan rode into Constantinople to take it over,

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Speaker 1: he came in on a on a white horse, sort

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Speaker 1: of this crowning moment of the Constantinople going by the

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Speaker 1: wayside and Istanbul becoming established. And it was run by

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Speaker 1: Muslim principles, religious principles and military principles, and they were

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Speaker 1: very rigid, but one of the codes actually dictated that

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Speaker 1: they were to respect other religions. And it really behooved

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Speaker 1: the Sultan to allow the Christians and the Empire to

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Speaker 1: continue practicing their religion because first of all, there were

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Speaker 1: so many of them that if he tried to get

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Speaker 1: them to convert, it would resort to an awful uprising,

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Speaker 1: and rather than oppress the people, he just decided to

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Speaker 1: sort of live along with them. Yeah, but this caused

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Speaker 1: problems because he saw the one if he were to

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Speaker 1: um when he wanted to boot to his janissary uh Core,

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Speaker 1: he he would have taken Muslim kids. But the problem

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Speaker 1: with that is that he reasoned that if they grew up,

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Speaker 1: they would remain faithful to their family, and their family

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Speaker 1: their relatives would just assume that they wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: pay taxes because they had these friends and high places.

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Speaker 1: So the as Sultan reasoned that if he took Christian

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Speaker 1: boys instead and converted them to Islam, that they would

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Speaker 1: grow to hate to their Christian families and the Christian

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Speaker 1: religion in general, so that they would not have any

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Speaker 1: loyalty to their old families their old life, and they

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Speaker 1: would be loyal to the Sultan alone. And the practice

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Speaker 1: of collecting these Christian boys was called the dev Strum system,

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Speaker 1: and it essentially gave the sultan the right to go

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Speaker 1: in and to inspect all the Christian boys from a

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Speaker 1: certain village and to essentially pick them over and deem

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Speaker 1: which ones were well behaved enough and untrained in any

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Speaker 1: sort of combat, and handsome enough and desirable enough for

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Speaker 1: him to to essentially have living in his palace under

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Speaker 1: him one day. Yeah, and these were really fascinating um

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Speaker 1: things that would go on. The the officials would be

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Speaker 1: sent into these conquered territories right now we'd know them

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Speaker 1: as as Greece, Austria, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, all all these places,

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Speaker 1: and the officials would go in and to these villages

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Speaker 1: there and they would tell their father the fathers to

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Speaker 1: bring out their sons of the right age and bring

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Speaker 1: out the baptism certificates to make sure they fit some

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Speaker 1: of this criteria. For instance, they couldn't be orphaned, uh,

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Speaker 1: they couldn't be only sons, etcetera. And is estimated that

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Speaker 1: about one in forty families in a village had to

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Speaker 1: sacrifice a boy to the Janissary Corps. And once the

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Speaker 1: boy was selected, they'd be taken to Istanbul and for

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Speaker 1: three to seven years they would undergo rigors training. First

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Speaker 1: they would learn Turkish and then they'd be schooled in

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Speaker 1: combat and depending on the type of talent they showed

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Speaker 1: and their potential, they'd be put on different paths. So

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Speaker 1: some went direct to labor in the fields or to

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Speaker 1: serve as assistants two different government officials. And then there

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Speaker 1: were some who were deemed intelligent enough to be scold

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Speaker 1: and academic subjects such as math, law, theology, and horsemanship

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Speaker 1: and military strategy. And these were going to be the

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Speaker 1: really really great elite soldiers. Yeah, so you really aspired

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Speaker 1: if you were Jannis, are you really aspired to be

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Speaker 1: a part of the standing army at the Sultan's palace?

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Speaker 1: And that's where these people on the highest these soldiers

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Speaker 1: on the highest track would end up going. And uh,

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Speaker 1: I think the most prominent one would actually be a

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Speaker 1: personal servant of the Sultan. And um, they basically had

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Speaker 1: such great prospects ahead of them. They once they proved themselves,

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Speaker 1: they could go on to have administrative posts and have

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Speaker 1: so much power involved. Even though they were always technically

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Speaker 1: slaves and personal slaves of the Sultan, they were able

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Speaker 1: to attain amazing amounts of power. And to sort of

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Speaker 1: give you a visual image, they were pretty elaborate uniforms too.

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Speaker 1: They had fancy how huts and really ornately embroidered cloaks,

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Speaker 1: and I think that the sultan gave each boy a

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Speaker 1: particular cloak or there was some unique aspect to each

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Speaker 1: of their attire. And um, they were celibates. They couldn't marry,

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Speaker 1: at least until the sixteenth century. The rules was a

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Speaker 1: little bit. It was a big issue, and they were

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Speaker 1: upheld to very very rigorous standards. They had to follow

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Speaker 1: all the rules and if they broke any of them,

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Speaker 1: there was well, you know, there was you know what

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Speaker 1: to pay. Yeah, I mean yeah, the cases like they

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Speaker 1: would be whipped with a thin cane on the soles

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Speaker 1: of their feet. That was one punishment for disobeying rules

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Speaker 1: and training. So historians aspect that over the course of

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Speaker 1: history and over the course of the different sultan's, nearly

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Speaker 1: five million Christian boys were taken from their homes to

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Speaker 1: become jannisaries and founding figure. It really is, and it's

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Speaker 1: very problematic for us today with our contemporary mindsets looking

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Speaker 1: at this idea of a foreign forest coming in and kidnapping, well,

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Speaker 1: kidnapping essentially, I guess that's a debatable term to years,

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Speaker 1: but taking children from their homes and repurposing them into slavery,

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Speaker 1: but the term slavery is yours sort of loosely. In

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire, and the idea of a slave was

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Speaker 1: comparable to that of a servant, and it was considered

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Speaker 1: more prestigious than that of a subject. So if you

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Speaker 1: were the sultan slave or the sultan servant, you had

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Speaker 1: a higher regard in society than on his subject. And

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Speaker 1: this had to do with the with the idea that

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Speaker 1: they had so many prospects ahead of them. As a

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Speaker 1: janissary um. Like I mentioned, they got a lot of power.

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Speaker 1: One there was at least one situation where uh, someone

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Speaker 1: rose from the ranks. He was originally taken into through

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Speaker 1: the Devsherm system as a boy and kidnapped, and he

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Speaker 1: rose to the ranks to the Grand Vizier, which basically

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Speaker 1: means the chief ministry. I think it is one of

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Speaker 1: the highest positions you get aside from all sultan. So

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Speaker 1: it's just as sound need to think that this technical

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Speaker 1: slave was like second in command in this empire. And

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Speaker 1: to put it in another type of perspective, the Ottoman

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Speaker 1: Empire was able to grow and flourish because it kept

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Speaker 1: expanding its lands. It was sort of like a health

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Speaker 1: of cards empire, it's, if you can say, a business model.

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Speaker 1: The business model of the Empire was entirely based on

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Speaker 1: the fact that I had to keep growing in order

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Speaker 1: to thrive, and once it stopped growing, empire collapsed. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like I know exactly what she's thinking, um. And

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Speaker 1: the reason that I had to keep growing was because

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Speaker 1: when it went into a territory, it would use up

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Speaker 1: all of the resources there and all of the people

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Speaker 1: virtually drained everything to the ground. And so if you

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Speaker 1: look at the territories that have been conquered and filled

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Speaker 1: with Christian people, if the Ottomans were coming in and

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Speaker 1: depleting their resources and working the people to their bones,

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Speaker 1: they had children, what could they really provide them with?

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Speaker 1: You know, it accepts life and stasis life in these

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Speaker 1: poor conditions. So for many Christian family ways, the idea

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Speaker 1: of giving up their child to the sultan for a

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Speaker 1: life and the palace and perhaps a very high administrative

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Speaker 1: position was a much better trade off than living in poverty. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So while at first you have the situation where some

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Speaker 1: Christian parents are trying to um to buy their children

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Speaker 1: out of the system and trying to switch out. I

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Speaker 1: read about a situation where Christian parents would try to

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Speaker 1: switch out their child for for someone else's early on

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Speaker 1: when the system was first starting, and then much later

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Speaker 1: when they saw the prospects that these kids would have,

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Speaker 1: they would actually try to bribe the officials into taking

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Speaker 1: their child into the system. Even I guess these must

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Speaker 1: not have been extremely devout Christians, because even though they

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Speaker 1: had to be converted to Islam uh, these parents were

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Speaker 1: willing to get their kids out of the penurin which

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Speaker 1: they lived. And according to some historical accounts, there were

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Speaker 1: some Muslim families that were trying to get the Sultan

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Speaker 1: to take their kids. Yeah, and that's understandable. I mean

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Speaker 1: if you're a Muslim and you see all these Christian

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Speaker 1: kids getting all these these opportunit duties, and you're like,

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Speaker 1: why can't I get that from my child? And that

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Speaker 1: was forbidden. No Muslim children had that opportunity. But a

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Speaker 1: question that I had for Jane when she originally wrote

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Speaker 1: this article about the Janis Aaries was what did the

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Speaker 1: Janis Saries themselves think of their lives? I mean, their

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Speaker 1: their parents were vying for them to become slaves, and

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Speaker 1: many instances and many people wanted into this system. But

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Speaker 1: once they were there, what did they think of their life? Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean that's a good question, but

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Speaker 1: you'd think because of all their prestige and you know

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Speaker 1: how they showed themselves off with their nice clothes and everything,

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Speaker 1: it seemed like you would have a pretty sweet life

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Speaker 1: and you would appreciate it. That's that's the impression that

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Speaker 1: I got from Janis series. And then along and eighteen

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Speaker 1: six came the Auspicious Incident. Yeah, this was a major

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Speaker 1: problem that, um, the power sort of went to their

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Speaker 1: head a lot. All throughout their history, Janis series would

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Speaker 1: revolt and they try to get more power than they had,

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Speaker 1: often like to get reform or to just get more

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Speaker 1: of a say into who became sultan. Yeah, in the

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Speaker 1: nineteenthentury twenty six, like you said, they revolted again, and

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Speaker 1: this time it was disaster. Yeah. The sultan was none

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Speaker 1: too happy. He essentially dissolved the janissary core and to

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Speaker 1: call the rebels, he fired cannons at them and most

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Speaker 1: of them actually died. It's pretty tragic. Yeah, And yeah,

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Speaker 1: those who didn't die were flinging from the cornage. So

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Speaker 1: it was I'm not sure what it's called the auspicious incident,

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Speaker 1: but but yeah, it's it's pretty nasty. Maybe the Jannis

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Speaker 1: Serius had a really good sense of irony. I'm not sure,

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Speaker 1: but that in itself, if if there's not a lot

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Speaker 1: of information about how the Danni Serius felt really about

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Speaker 1: being Janis Serius, I think that the Auspicious incident would

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Speaker 1: indicate that certainly they were pretty fed up with their conditions.

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Speaker 1: And it's important to note too that um the sultan,

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Speaker 1: that the office of sultan or the idea of sultan

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Speaker 1: had really evolved throughout the Ottoman Empire. And at first

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Speaker 1: there was um strict adherent to codes, and the sultan

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Speaker 1: was not a figure or to be messed with who

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Speaker 1: was very well regarded in public society. What is the

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Speaker 1: empire stretched on? The Sultan became less concerned about what

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Speaker 1: people thought about him, so he became a little bit

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Speaker 1: less popular. I think that the rules were relaxed and

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Speaker 1: there was some unrest brewing, and um there were other

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Speaker 1: cultures around the world who were looking at Turkey, uh

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Speaker 1: and Istanbul and they started calling Turkey the sick man

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Speaker 1: of Europe. And this is when the term Oriental, which

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Speaker 1: we consider now a disparaging term, and even back then

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Speaker 1: it was a disparaging term too. But this is when

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Speaker 1: it came into um conversation, I guess about what was

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Speaker 1: going on in the Ottoman Empire, and they were seen

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Speaker 1: as revelers, people who engaged in far too much to bashery.

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Speaker 1: It was associated with the Harem and this really sort

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Speaker 1: of strained and lazy lifestyle and the Janna series. It

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Speaker 1: was almost like an institution of decadence. Had once been

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Speaker 1: really great soldiers in high regard under the sultan, and

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Speaker 1: who wouldn't want to be in service to the sultan.

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Speaker 1: But as the Sultan became less popular and they were

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Speaker 1: serving this man who was sort of despised by other

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Speaker 1: countries and other cultures, I guess there wasn't that sense

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Speaker 1: of pride and honor anymore. Yeah, and it's such a

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Speaker 1: fascinating situation just thinking about how these they have this

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Speaker 1: you'd think very contrary terms. It seems like an oxymorn

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Speaker 1: to be, you know, a slave soldier in this elite,

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Speaker 1: very elite, powerful core. And I should mention um. When

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Speaker 1: I first got this assignment, it was pretty funny because

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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks beforehand, our colleague Molly Edmonds. You

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Speaker 1: might know from the Stuff Your Mom Never Told You podcast.

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Speaker 1: She actually was getting coming up with nicknames for everyone

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Speaker 1: around the office out of the dictionary, and she went

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Speaker 1: ran across the Janissaries and that became my nickname. And

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Speaker 1: then a couple weeks later I had to write about them,

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Speaker 1: so I had to mention that because she still called Eugenisara.

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Speaker 1: Yeah she does. I'll talk about that later. Meanwhile, if

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Speaker 1: you like the podcast, you will love our new stuff

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Speaker 1: you missed in History Class blog. Yeah, Candice and I

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Speaker 1: before own this blog once a Day and we've read

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Speaker 1: about history and the news and real with stuff that

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Speaker 1: interests us and we think we'll interest you too, So

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Speaker 1: be sure when you come to the website to look

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Speaker 1: at this article that Jane has written about why people

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Speaker 1: were vying to become slaves in the Ottoman Empire, that

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Speaker 1: you also check out blog on how stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Because at how stuff works dot com, let us know

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