“Janissary Politics on the Ottoman Periphery (18th-Early 19th c.)” (original) (raw)

2019, M. Sariyannis (ed.), Halcyon Days in Crete IX: Political Thought and Practice in the Ottoman Empire, Crete University Press, Rethymno

This article’s main thesis is that, towards the end of its lifespan, the Janissary corps became an increasingly decentralized institution, a fact that redefined its political stance vis-à-vis the Ottoman government, its own central administration, and its involvement in provincial politics. In the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, its political power passed mainly into the hands of low-ranking officers who, following a series of reforms, took the opportunity to create strong bonds with local societies. Such bonds were defined by ‘bottom up’ networking processes which allowed the regiments in the provinces to follow a trajectory of increased administrative and financial emancipation from Istanbul. The result was the creation of various different organizational structures inside the corps, which developed their own distinct characteristics, but remained, at the same time, organically connected to one another through a common institutional and legitimizing frame of reference. By taking a close look at the case of the Janissaries of Crete, I thus argue that in order for us to understand the political role of the Janissaries in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we have to start looking away from Istanbul and examine their history mainly from a provincial perspective.