"Edict of the Rose Palace: First Steps of Modernization of the Ottoman Empire"

Abstract

The centuries-old history of the Ottoman Empire knows many stages of rise and fall. The constantly changing, dynamic reality, polit­ical context, and confrontation with ambitious rivals placed the cou­ntry's rulers in front of the most difficult challenges. It was of key im­portance to care for renewal, to enter vitally important changes into domestic and foreign policy, and to implement well-thought-out and res­ult-oriented reforms so that the empire's influence on current eve­nts in the world politics would not weaken and the Ottoman Empire would preserve a strong political entity. This circumstance became pa­r­­ticularly relevant in the 19th century, when it became clearly evi­dent that the leading European countries had easily adapted to the new social formation, capitalism, which replaced manufa­cturing ind­ustry with factories and plants, making it much more flexible and high-quality. In order for the Ottoman Empire not to lag behind the general processes of the world politics, thinking about reformist ideas began as early as during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839), but the era of large-scaled modernization in the vast empire became associated with the name of Mahmud's successor, Sultan Abdulmejid I (1823-1861). The changes had an impact on the legislation, education, the military sphere, industry, the financial sector, railway com­mu­ni­cation, banking, the tax system, land ownership, the status of the har­em, and the new residence of the Padishah. The goal of the reforms was to take into account the rich experience of developed European countries and adapt existing resources to the needs and characteristics of the Ottoman Empire.