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Study Sheds New Light On Ottoman Blood Tax
"Becoming a devshirme was not like winning a Harvard scholarship"
by Talin Suciyan . .
YEREVAN – Artak Shakaryan, 27, is a Turkish studies scholar at Armenia's Academy of Sciences. Mr. Shakaryan is fluent in Turkish and reads Ottoman. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation last year and published it as a book, Devshirme: Blood Tax in the Ottoman Empire. The book is in Armenian with an English language summary in the back, and it focuses on the Ottoman system of recruitment of children from subject non-Muslim communities.
Question: How did you decide to focus on Turkey? Shakaryan: That was not my intention initially. I was interested in history and languages. I wanted to study the Middle East. Arab studies in Armenia are very fashionable. So, I too, wanted to study the Arab world. But that did not work out and instead I enrolled in Turkish studies. But now I am very happy to have done that.
Q: How did you arrive at the subject of devshirme for your dissertation? Shakaryan: I was interested in medieval Ottoman history and was looking for a less-studied subject. In the process, I came across the subject of devshirme and my adviser, who is also the head of Turkish studies at the Academy, Dr. Ruben Safrastyan, encouraged me to work on that issue. Until then, there was only one article written by an Armenian scholar on that subject.
Q: In your book, there are criticisms of historians like Stanford Shaw and Halil ?nalcik. Can you explain the reasons? Shakaryan: Becoming a devshirme was not like winning a Harvard scholarship. By and large, it was not such a great or even a good thing.
Q: Did those authors present devshirme as a positive institution, providing its recruits with good opportunities? Shakaryan: Both ?nalcik and Shaw have made that argument. According to them, the institution of devshirme provided a "chance to the son of a shepherd to become a vizier." But that was an extremely rare occurrence. The majority of devshirme children were either sold as slaves or became "yenicheri" soldiers to fight in wars. The arguments of Inalcik and Shaw can be found in their respective books, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (with Donald Quataert, 1994) and Histo-* ry of the Ottoman Empire and Mod-* ern Turkey (with Ezel Kural Shaw, 1978).
Q: How did the devshirme system work? Shakaryan: Yenicheri soldiers together with doctors would come to rural settlements and would draft recruits from among children six to sixteen years of age. The age range was so big because physical appearance was more important than the actual age. A devshirme child had to be healthy, not too tall or too short and not too fat or too thin. Children already engaged to be married would not be recruited. It was in part for this reason that so many families would get their children engaged at very early ages. Another important rule was that the children should not be able to speak Turkish. Children who were collected and brought to Istanbul would be shown to "experts" who based primarily on their physical characteristics would suggest in which realm they would be most useful. There were verbal tests too. The best looking and smartest were sent to the palace; others were sent to the yenicheri to be soldiers; and the rest would be sold as slaves.
Q: Are there any estimates on what share of these chosen children were going to the palace, or becoming soldiers or slaves? Shakaryan: Exact statistics have not been available. But from available sources one can approximate that 60 per cent would be enslaved, 30 percent become yenicheri, and the remaining 10 percent would end up at the palace.
Q: With which sources did you work? Shakaryan: I studied the "muhimme" notebooks in Damascus. They provided the backbone for my study. In addition, there are "fermans" (orders) of the sultan that are available, where you can find orders concerning the devshirme.
Q: Why did the state feel that this institution was needed? Shakaryan: Soon after its establishment, the Ottoman state had expanded very quickly and it did not have enough personnel. Therefore, at first a system was introduced to recruit Christians as paid mercenary soldiers.
Q: Was not this practiced by the Byzantines as well? Shakaryan: There are quite a few historians who think that the Ottoman state adopted that system from the Byzantines. A devshirme-like system also existed among Arabs. But Arabs would recruit not from among their own subjects, but from among slaves and enemy soldiers taken as prisoners. Collecting children as tax from their own subjects was first introduced by the Ottoman state and the main reason was the shortage of personnel. Prior to that there was already the custom known as "pencik". This was part of the sultan's army that consisted of every one of five captured enemy soldiers. In the 16th century the empire's expansion slowed down. Consequently, the number of pencik available also decreased. In order to create new resources the system of devshirme was introduced.
Q: Why were only Christians drafted? Shakaryan: If Muslims were also included they might have had powerful parents or acquaintances, and many of them spoke Turkish. There are also records prohibiting drafting from among the Jews and Roma. No specific reasons are stated, but there was also a rule that children should not come from the cities and most Jews lived in cities. The argument was that city children were smarter and could escape more easily.
Q: Were there any regional privileges? Shakaryan: Most devshirme are known to have come from the European parts of the empire, from Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and other Slavic areas. At the time, the empire was trying to spread westward. For this reason, some scholars suggested that Armenians may not have been included in the devshirme system. But from the 15th century you can see that even from Kutahya, Armenians were taken as devshirme. Later, when the Ottomans consolidated their control of the eastern provinces, more Armenians were drafted.
Q: Did the family factor play any role? Shakaryan: It did. The state favored taking the kids of religious and feudal leaders. This was well thought out. These were the leaders of their respective communities. And by taking their children, they left them with no immediate successors. In that period there were no universities in the empire, so professions would typically pass on from fathers to sons. Thus, a son of a shepherd would probably become a shepherd. And if you take a son of a religious leader, that village could be soon left without a religious leader [and disintegrate].
Q: But a local leader could probably bribe the authorities or find another way to keep his son. Shakaryan: There have been such cases. But most Armenians in that period were not very rich. (The rich ones were mostly Muslims.) [If they knew in advance of the draft], they would sometimes send their children away and try to cheat the officials. But the Ottoman officials, the yenicheri, could check the local baptismal records.
Q: Was there any resistance? Shakaryan: There was. When the yenicheri would arrive, the locals would alert neighboring villages that they were coming. Or once the children were collected and start the journey to Istanbul, villagers sometimes raided the yenicheri groups and took their children back.
But in the popular mindset of those times, once a child became Muslim, his family would not take him back. The children's original names were related to Christian saints, and once changed, according to beliefs of the time, they lost the protection of the saint. And since there were no surnames at that time, children would also be called by their father's name. Sarkis, the son of Hovannes, for instance. Yenicheri would give them names related to their birth place, such as Mehmet from Filibe or Abdullah, meaning servant of Allah. A child would thus be separated from his kin.
If you are taken from home at the age of seven, your religion, name and environment are changed, you in fact become rootless [and a different person].
On the other hand, to become a yenicheri soldier had its benefits, like exemption from taxes. Many Turks wanted their children to become yenicheri. Some devshirme could even enter the palace and, on rare occasions, even become vizier. So some Turks tried to pretend that their children were Christians and to have them qualify as devshirme and some historians use this point to argue how attractive the system was.
Among Muslims, Albanians were an exception in that they too were drafted as devshirme. Since they were newly Islamized, devshirme was used as a control mechanism among Albanians since they were seen as strategically important for the Ottomans.
For yenicheri it was prohibited to get married, to have a family or engage in trade. But toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, they began doing all of that. And as the devshirme system began to fall apart, that coincided with the unraveling of the empire itself.
Q: Were any girls taken? Shakaryan: There is not much information on that. In the 17th century that was done, mostly by Persians. At the Matenataran in Yerevan, there are several records stating that "Ottoman officers came and collected good-looking girls."
Q: And what was their role? Shakaryan: Girls were used both in the palace and [as concubines] by the yenicheri. Some girls were sent to the sultan's harem; later on some would be married to yenicheri, at least those who ended up away from Istanbul.
Q: Were there any accounts of these children going back to their families or families trying to trace their children? Shakaryan: There are records in "muhimme defterleri". For instance, there is a sultan's order from 1564 in Sis in Cilicia that mentioned devshirme who escaped, went back to their villages and were rebaptized. In the Ency-* clopedia of Islam, there is a mention that older children would escape. Both in Uzunçar??l?'s records and in twelve numbered "muhimme" records there is information about devshirme who escaped after having served seven years. If devshirme was indeed like a Harvard scholarship, these children would not have escaped.
Q: Were there older devshirme who kept relations with their families? Shakaryan: The best example was Mehmet Sokullu. He was from a renowned Serb family of Sokolovich. He entered the palace as devshirme, and eventually became vizier. He appointed his brother as the Serbs' religious leader, which implies that he kept in touch with his family.
Among Armenians, there is Halil Pasha and Mehmet Do?anc? ("do?anc?" means the one who takes care of hawks of the palace). Mehmet was among the do?anci and his younger brother Halil Pasha was a very prominent name among yenicheri in the 17th century. They were from Malatya and they supported each other. There are few examples like this.
Q: What impact did this system have on the communities? Shakaryan: Devshirme as a system met the need for personnel in the empire, but it had very negative repercussions for Slavs, Greeks, and Armenians. Many of the smartest, the best-looking, the most intelligent boys and sometimes girls could not enrich their own communities for centuries. This resulted in genetic differences and undermined the richness of those groups. Of course, over time the situation improved.
Armenian Reporter
June 2, 2007
"Becoming a devshirme was not like winning a Harvard scholarship"
by Talin Suciyan . .
YEREVAN – Artak Shakaryan, 27, is a Turkish studies scholar at Armenia's Academy of Sciences. Mr. Shakaryan is fluent in Turkish and reads Ottoman. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation last year and published it as a book, Devshirme: Blood Tax in the Ottoman Empire. The book is in Armenian with an English language summary in the back, and it focuses on the Ottoman system of recruitment of children from subject non-Muslim communities.
Question: How did you decide to focus on Turkey? Shakaryan: That was not my intention initially. I was interested in history and languages. I wanted to study the Middle East. Arab studies in Armenia are very fashionable. So, I too, wanted to study the Arab world. But that did not work out and instead I enrolled in Turkish studies. But now I am very happy to have done that.
Q: How did you arrive at the subject of devshirme for your dissertation? Shakaryan: I was interested in medieval Ottoman history and was looking for a less-studied subject. In the process, I came across the subject of devshirme and my adviser, who is also the head of Turkish studies at the Academy, Dr. Ruben Safrastyan, encouraged me to work on that issue. Until then, there was only one article written by an Armenian scholar on that subject.
Q: In your book, there are criticisms of historians like Stanford Shaw and Halil ?nalcik. Can you explain the reasons? Shakaryan: Becoming a devshirme was not like winning a Harvard scholarship. By and large, it was not such a great or even a good thing.
Q: Did those authors present devshirme as a positive institution, providing its recruits with good opportunities? Shakaryan: Both ?nalcik and Shaw have made that argument. According to them, the institution of devshirme provided a "chance to the son of a shepherd to become a vizier." But that was an extremely rare occurrence. The majority of devshirme children were either sold as slaves or became "yenicheri" soldiers to fight in wars. The arguments of Inalcik and Shaw can be found in their respective books, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (with Donald Quataert, 1994) and Histo-* ry of the Ottoman Empire and Mod-* ern Turkey (with Ezel Kural Shaw, 1978).
Q: How did the devshirme system work? Shakaryan: Yenicheri soldiers together with doctors would come to rural settlements and would draft recruits from among children six to sixteen years of age. The age range was so big because physical appearance was more important than the actual age. A devshirme child had to be healthy, not too tall or too short and not too fat or too thin. Children already engaged to be married would not be recruited. It was in part for this reason that so many families would get their children engaged at very early ages. Another important rule was that the children should not be able to speak Turkish. Children who were collected and brought to Istanbul would be shown to "experts" who based primarily on their physical characteristics would suggest in which realm they would be most useful. There were verbal tests too. The best looking and smartest were sent to the palace; others were sent to the yenicheri to be soldiers; and the rest would be sold as slaves.
Q: Are there any estimates on what share of these chosen children were going to the palace, or becoming soldiers or slaves? Shakaryan: Exact statistics have not been available. But from available sources one can approximate that 60 per cent would be enslaved, 30 percent become yenicheri, and the remaining 10 percent would end up at the palace.
Q: With which sources did you work? Shakaryan: I studied the "muhimme" notebooks in Damascus. They provided the backbone for my study. In addition, there are "fermans" (orders) of the sultan that are available, where you can find orders concerning the devshirme.
Q: Why did the state feel that this institution was needed? Shakaryan: Soon after its establishment, the Ottoman state had expanded very quickly and it did not have enough personnel. Therefore, at first a system was introduced to recruit Christians as paid mercenary soldiers.
Q: Was not this practiced by the Byzantines as well? Shakaryan: There are quite a few historians who think that the Ottoman state adopted that system from the Byzantines. A devshirme-like system also existed among Arabs. But Arabs would recruit not from among their own subjects, but from among slaves and enemy soldiers taken as prisoners. Collecting children as tax from their own subjects was first introduced by the Ottoman state and the main reason was the shortage of personnel. Prior to that there was already the custom known as "pencik". This was part of the sultan's army that consisted of every one of five captured enemy soldiers. In the 16th century the empire's expansion slowed down. Consequently, the number of pencik available also decreased. In order to create new resources the system of devshirme was introduced.
Q: Why were only Christians drafted? Shakaryan: If Muslims were also included they might have had powerful parents or acquaintances, and many of them spoke Turkish. There are also records prohibiting drafting from among the Jews and Roma. No specific reasons are stated, but there was also a rule that children should not come from the cities and most Jews lived in cities. The argument was that city children were smarter and could escape more easily.
Q: Were there any regional privileges? Shakaryan: Most devshirme are known to have come from the European parts of the empire, from Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and other Slavic areas. At the time, the empire was trying to spread westward. For this reason, some scholars suggested that Armenians may not have been included in the devshirme system. But from the 15th century you can see that even from Kutahya, Armenians were taken as devshirme. Later, when the Ottomans consolidated their control of the eastern provinces, more Armenians were drafted.
Q: Did the family factor play any role? Shakaryan: It did. The state favored taking the kids of religious and feudal leaders. This was well thought out. These were the leaders of their respective communities. And by taking their children, they left them with no immediate successors. In that period there were no universities in the empire, so professions would typically pass on from fathers to sons. Thus, a son of a shepherd would probably become a shepherd. And if you take a son of a religious leader, that village could be soon left without a religious leader [and disintegrate].
Q: But a local leader could probably bribe the authorities or find another way to keep his son. Shakaryan: There have been such cases. But most Armenians in that period were not very rich. (The rich ones were mostly Muslims.) [If they knew in advance of the draft], they would sometimes send their children away and try to cheat the officials. But the Ottoman officials, the yenicheri, could check the local baptismal records.
Q: Was there any resistance? Shakaryan: There was. When the yenicheri would arrive, the locals would alert neighboring villages that they were coming. Or once the children were collected and start the journey to Istanbul, villagers sometimes raided the yenicheri groups and took their children back.
But in the popular mindset of those times, once a child became Muslim, his family would not take him back. The children's original names were related to Christian saints, and once changed, according to beliefs of the time, they lost the protection of the saint. And since there were no surnames at that time, children would also be called by their father's name. Sarkis, the son of Hovannes, for instance. Yenicheri would give them names related to their birth place, such as Mehmet from Filibe or Abdullah, meaning servant of Allah. A child would thus be separated from his kin.
If you are taken from home at the age of seven, your religion, name and environment are changed, you in fact become rootless [and a different person].
On the other hand, to become a yenicheri soldier had its benefits, like exemption from taxes. Many Turks wanted their children to become yenicheri. Some devshirme could even enter the palace and, on rare occasions, even become vizier. So some Turks tried to pretend that their children were Christians and to have them qualify as devshirme and some historians use this point to argue how attractive the system was.
Among Muslims, Albanians were an exception in that they too were drafted as devshirme. Since they were newly Islamized, devshirme was used as a control mechanism among Albanians since they were seen as strategically important for the Ottomans.
For yenicheri it was prohibited to get married, to have a family or engage in trade. But toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, they began doing all of that. And as the devshirme system began to fall apart, that coincided with the unraveling of the empire itself.
Q: Were any girls taken? Shakaryan: There is not much information on that. In the 17th century that was done, mostly by Persians. At the Matenataran in Yerevan, there are several records stating that "Ottoman officers came and collected good-looking girls."
Q: And what was their role? Shakaryan: Girls were used both in the palace and [as concubines] by the yenicheri. Some girls were sent to the sultan's harem; later on some would be married to yenicheri, at least those who ended up away from Istanbul.
Q: Were there any accounts of these children going back to their families or families trying to trace their children? Shakaryan: There are records in "muhimme defterleri". For instance, there is a sultan's order from 1564 in Sis in Cilicia that mentioned devshirme who escaped, went back to their villages and were rebaptized. In the Ency-* clopedia of Islam, there is a mention that older children would escape. Both in Uzunçar??l?'s records and in twelve numbered "muhimme" records there is information about devshirme who escaped after having served seven years. If devshirme was indeed like a Harvard scholarship, these children would not have escaped.
Q: Were there older devshirme who kept relations with their families? Shakaryan: The best example was Mehmet Sokullu. He was from a renowned Serb family of Sokolovich. He entered the palace as devshirme, and eventually became vizier. He appointed his brother as the Serbs' religious leader, which implies that he kept in touch with his family.
Among Armenians, there is Halil Pasha and Mehmet Do?anc? ("do?anc?" means the one who takes care of hawks of the palace). Mehmet was among the do?anci and his younger brother Halil Pasha was a very prominent name among yenicheri in the 17th century. They were from Malatya and they supported each other. There are few examples like this.
Q: What impact did this system have on the communities? Shakaryan: Devshirme as a system met the need for personnel in the empire, but it had very negative repercussions for Slavs, Greeks, and Armenians. Many of the smartest, the best-looking, the most intelligent boys and sometimes girls could not enrich their own communities for centuries. This resulted in genetic differences and undermined the richness of those groups. Of course, over time the situation improved.
Armenian Reporter
June 2, 2007
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