‘Der sehleehteste Staat’: Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913) on Byzantine institutions

Abstract

AbstractJust as Karl Marx, in 1842, called the Byzantine empire ‘der schlechteste Staat’, so did Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913), the protagonist of Ottomanism and at the same time the first Ottoman ‘to make a strong and clear case for the Turkish ancestry of the Ottomans’ (David Kushner), a few decades later. Byzantine history stands, according to Midhat, for the Dark Ages, and the Byzantine empire for corruption, lawlessness, extravagance and frivolity. By contrast, the picture drawn by him of the early Ottomans is one of a community based on high moral values such as decency, concord, obedience and mutual esteem. In his view, the rise of the Ottomans heralds the dawning of the Modern Age. His identification of the Ottomans as the liberators from the Dark Ages of all the peoples previously under Byzantine rule is the central element in his concept of the ‘enlightened and liberating Ottomans,. His Detailed History of Modern Times (Mufassal Tarih-i Kurun-i Cedide), with its section on Byzantine history an...