" Population Politics " at the End of Empire: Migration and Sovereignty in Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, 1877–1886 (original) (raw)

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the old multi-ethnic and multiconfessional Eurasian empires-the Ottoman, the Russian, and the Austro-Hungarian-had to contend with grave challenges to the dynastic order of things from modernizers and nationalists espousing ideas of popular sovereignty and representative government. 1 By the century's end, imperial reforms, geopolitical rivalries, nationalism, and ideas of representative government had forced the Ottoman Empire to regard its subjects through a political lens that proved to be the precursor to national identity, one of corporate, ethno-religious identification. Ottoman reforms had the unintended consequence of prompting non-Muslims to seek equality and rights as groups and in relation to Muslims, and increasingly, by the end of the century, to Turkish Muslims. The integrity of the Ottoman Empire seemed to rest on the government's ability to control the competing claims of ethno-religious groups, and, by demonstrating the success of reforms, to prevent Great Powers from intervening on behalf of its Ottoman Christian subjects. 2 In Acknowledgments: The research and writing of this article was supported by the Max Weber Postdoctoral Programme and the Summer Fellowship Research Program (Old Dominion University). Parts were presented at ASEEES and ICOSEH, where I benefited from questions and suggestions. I am truly grateful to Eran Livni, Brett Bebber, and the anonymous CSSH reviewers for their comments and criticisms. Andrew Shryock offered invaluable support from the beginning, and David Akin graciously guided me in the last stage.