Essays on Ottoman Modernization

The reforms initiated by the Ottoman Empire in the 1820–30s and the changes it triggered in the political-administrative and social sphere and economic system are topics that deserve special attention of both Balkan and foreign scholars.The comparison of numerous researches shows, that social-economicprocesses induced in this period in the Empire offered opportunity for interpretations and analyses on broadened, deepened basis, which can lead even to new theses sometimes. This opens new fields and aspects securing new arguments to answer important questions – namely, to what level the modernization of the Empire advanced, how efficient the reforms of institutions and administrative system were, how the reforms changed the living standard of different layers, whether the economic development decreased the distance between the Empire and the West, what perspectives these changes offered to the local population and how these triggered new social movements leading to the further transformation of the Empire. And these are only some of the numerous questions, which broaden the topic of modernization in the Ottoman Empire. Among the numerous relevant literature dealing with such questions, we have to mention the book of the young Hungarian scholar Gábor Demeter.