Eastern Question First coined at the Congress of
Vienna (1815) by the Russian delegates to describe the
growing tensions between the Ottoman sultan and his
Greek subjects, this phrase gained popularity during the
19th century as diplomats debated the fate of the declin-
ing Ottoman Empire. Simply put, the Eastern Question
revolved around the question of how to eliminate the
power vacuum in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the
modern Middle East that emerged with the decline of
the Ottoman Empire and the partitioning of the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland) without harming
the delicate balance of power in Europe.
There is no consensus among historians as to when
the Eastern Question emerged, or whenor even ifit
was resolved. The diplomatic circles of the 19th cen-
tury understood it as a matter of contemporary politics
and tried to find the best solution by improvising vari-
ous reforms. However, the Great Powers of Europe were
never in agreement about what to do with the Ottoman
Empire, that is, whether to try to sustain it or let it die.
Each power changed its position regarding the Sublime
Porte based on that powers ambitions in the eastern
Mediterranean.
Although it first came into use in 1815, the term
Eastern Question is now used by historians to identify
issues of imperial stability dating to the second siege
of Vienna (1683), which ended Ottoman expansion in
Europe; some historians even see the question as going
back to the 14th century when Turks first set foot on
the Balkan Peninsula. Conventional history now dates
the issues of the Eastern Question in this sense as having
been born out of the 1774 Treaty of Kk Kaynarca,
which marked the emergence of Russia as a Great Power.
191
E
There is also significant controversy as to the final
date of the resolution of the Eastern Question. Loaded as
it is with imperialist ambitions, the Eastern Question was
not resolved with the final dismemberment of the Otto-
man Empire in 1918; rather, it paved the way for a new
set of political problems in the Balkans and the Middle
East that continue into the 21st century.
Acting to further their own strategic interests, the
Great Powers all attempted to create their own zone of
influence in the Ottoman Empire by claiming the status of
protector of a particular Christian subject people and urg-
ing the Sublime Porte to undertake political reforms. The
Ottomans, however, viewed all attempts to advance the
rights of particular Christian subject peoples through such
diplomatic pressures as an encroachment on the rights of
their sovereignty. They viewed European intervention
in internal Ottoman affairs as a smokescreen that hid the
Great Powers ambitions to dismantle the empire. Thus the
Eastern Question has a legacy in shaping contemporary
public opinion of some in modern Turkey toward the Euro-
pean Union (EU); they fear that EU demands that Turkey
enhance the political and cultural rights of ethnic and reli-
gious minorities, and reconsider the Armenian deportation
in 1915, might simply be a pretext to dismember Turkey.
The Eastern Question also became a code to cover
a number of other questions, including dissension and
political unrest over the Romanian principalities (1774
1878); the Serbian revolt (1790s1828); the French inva-
sion of Egypt (17991801); the Greek revolt (1820s);
the revolt of Mehmed Ali of Egypt (1830s); the problem
of the straits on the Sea of Marmara (1830s); the prob-
lem of the Polish and Hungarian refugees (1848); the
Crimean War (185356); the Bulgarian revolt (1870s);
192 economy and economic policy
the Russo-Ottoman War (187778); the war with Greece
(1897); the Armenian question (18781915), the question
of Macedonia (1880s1912); the War with Italy (1911);
the Balkan Wars (191213); and finally World War
I (191418). A glance at this list reveals that the Eastern
Question has been stretched to its limits in an attempt to
explain the entire history of the relations between Europe
and the Ottoman Empire. Contemporary historians gen-
erally avoid the term, considering the Eastern Question
to be a Eurocentric reduction of the Ottoman Empire
and its peoples to passive recipients of the power politics
of the Great Powers.
Kahraman akul
Further reading: Virginia Aksan, Ottoman Wars 1700-
1870: An Empire Besieged (Longman, 2007); M. S. Ander-
son, The Eastern Question, 17741923 (New York: St. Martins,
1966); M. S. Anderson, ed., The Great Powers and the Near
East, 17741923 (New York: St. Martins, 1970); Selim Derin-
gil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitima-
tion of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 18761909 (London:
I.B. Tauris, 1998); Caroline Finkel, Osmans Dream: The
Story of the Ottoman Empire, 13001923 (London: John
Murray, 2005); Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire,
17001922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000);
F. A. K. Yasamee, Ottoman Diplomacy: Abdulhamid II and the
Great Powers, 18781888 (Istanbul: Isis, 1997).
economy and economic policy Ottoman economic
history can be divided into two main periods: the first,
or classical, period from the beginning of the empire in
the 14th to the end of the 18th century, which witnessed
little change with regard to the basic institutions, values,
objectives, and tenets; and the second period, character-
ized by modernization and reform, from the second half
of the 19th century.
PRINCIPLES OF OTTOMAN ECONOMIC POLICY
Ottoman economics in the classical period was centered
on the concept of need and was motivated by three main
principles, provisionism, fiscalism, and traditionalism.
Provisionism was the policy of maintaining a steady sup-
ply of goods and services, which had to be cheap, plentiful,
and of good quality. Fiscalism was the policy of maximiz-
ing treasury income. Traditionalism was the tendency to
preserve existing conditions and to look to past models
when changes occurred. These three policies created the
referential framework of the Ottoman economic system.
The first principle was that of provisionism. Because
the early Ottoman economic atmosphere was character-
ized by low productivity and because it was difficult to
increase productivity while transportation costs were
high, the Ottomans built an extensive network of produc-
tion and exchange facilities in the fields of agriculture,
artisanship, and trade. Family-run farms of between 60
and 150 acres were thought to be the most productive
landholding pattern in agriculture, and the state, as the
owner of the land, protected these units so that holdings
would not be broken into smaller units through inheri-
tance. While the state would allow the transfer of land
between individuals to prevent potential setbacks in pro-
duction, it restricted peasants from abandoning villages
and leaving land untilled.
The basic economic, fiscal, and administrative unit
in the empire at this time was the kaza, or judicial dis-
trict, overseen by a kad or judge with extensive powers.
The kaza usually consisted of a town with a population
of 3,00020,000 and a number of villages varying from
20 to 200 with a total area of 2001200 square miles.
Small-scale artisanship was the norm in the kaza as was
the small-scale landholding pattern in the village, and it
was the responsibility of these small farmers to market
their own agricultural produce in the town. Marketing of
produce and goods out of the kaza was prohibited unless
the demand within the town was already satisfied. Excess
goods were offered first to the army and the palace, then
to the city of Istanbul, followed by other regions. Export
was an option only after domestic demands were satisfied.
Export was not an objective of provisionist Ottoman
economic policy, which aimed at satisfying domestic
demand. The state regularly intervened in export, forc-
ing quotas and special customs taxes on export goods.
Imports, by contrast, were fostered. This economic
approach differs considerably from the export-oriented
mercantilist policies pursued in Europe at that time. For
this reason, Ottoman capitulations, or trade privileges
offered to foreigners who sold goods within the empire,
were not restricted until the end of the classical period.
Although provisionist policy always took priority
in this period, another economic policy followed dur-
ing this era was fiscalism, which may be defined as the
policy of maximizing treasury income and trying to pre-
vent its level from falling. Like increases in production
capacity, increases in treasury income were difficult and
slow to achieve, especially when transportation costs
were so high and gold and silver stocks were very lim-
ited. The reliance on provisionism was considered indis-
pensable for social welfare, but this policy actually made
any attempt to grow the economy both risky and costly,
creating a situation in which any growth in revenues was
difficult to achieve, which is evidenced by the budgets
or treasury balance sheets from the 1550s to the 1780s.
Also falling within this period, though not arising
until provisionism and fiscalism had come into matu-
rity by the mid-16th century, was the economic policy of
traditionalism. This may be summarized as the tendency
to preserve existing conditions, to look to past models
instead of searching for a new equilibrium when changes