Political and economic transition of Ottoman sovereignty from a sole monarch to numerous Ottoman elites, 1683–1750s

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to reveal the transformation of the Ottoman Empire following the debacles of the second siege of Vienna in 1683. The failures compelled the Ottoman state to change its socioeconomic and political structure. As a result of this transition of the state structure, which brought about a so-called “redistribution of power” in the empire, new Ottoman elites emerged from 1683 until the 1750s. We have divided the above time span into three stages that will greatly help us comprehend the Ottoman transition from sultanic authority to numerous autonomies of first Muslim, then non-Muslim elites of the Ottoman Empire. During the first period (1683 –1699) we see the emergence of Muslim power players at the expense of sultanic authority. In the second stage (1699–1730) we observe the sultans’ unsuccessful attempts to revive their authority. In the third period (1730–1750) we witness the emergence of non-Muslim notables who gradually came into power with the help of both the sultans and external powers. At the end of this last stage, not only did the authority of Ottoman sultans decrease enormously, but a new era evolved where Muslim and non-Muslim leading figures both fought and co-operated with one another for a new distribution of wealth in the Ottoman Empire.