Excellent documentary,
Do not listen to people telling this documentary do not tell the whole story. All episodes take an hour to watch which is long in terms of TV story telling. Still the aim of the documentary is to give a glimpse of the Ottoman history and their importance in power politics rather than telling a historical story. And they do it perfectly. As the documentary states without knowing the Ottoman millennium nobody can really understand the Middle East and the Balkans truly.
Ottomans as the Muslim emperor's of Europe has became a sign of the "evil" for the other part of the continent, defined by brutality etc. The memories of a Muslim power challenging Christian Europe is so fresh and unforgettable that people generally put all bad things on them. This approach is not history, but pure Eurocentrism. The reality is Ottomans were an Empire, who acted like an empire which had sheer force but also good aspects like the Romans. You can not see a soul, blaming the Romans for their brutality (kiling 700 thousand people just for fun, even killing Jesus himself) but just thankful thoughts claiming them to be their father. Because they are the good figure in the contemporary ordinary Western mind. Ottomans and their descendants are the ultimate "OTHER" for the Westerners, thus what ever they do and did in the past will accepted as bad. A biased view, but a social reality. This is why people easily play the "anachronism" card, blaming the Ottomans not to be democratic enough, not giving the Jews to wear beautiful and colorful hats, where in the contemporary Europe people were burning each other because of the religion. And while everybody is talking about the poor Christian slaves of the time, where Europeans take slave trade to an industrial level putting tens of millions people on boats just for profit. The comments becomes pure fun, when we hear about Ottomans converting Kurds to Islam. It is not important for the ordinary mind that Kurds have been Muslims almost 500 years before the Ottomans. Since Islam is bad and the Ottomans are savages, what option is left to see poor Kurds to be converted to that backward religion other than those savages. This documentary is a simplified version of a 600 years of power politics and culture that everybody can easily understand if all prejudices are left aside. If not as Einstein said "breaking prejudices is harder than breaking atoms."
Do not listen to people telling this documentary do not tell the whole story. All episodes take an hour to watch which is long in terms of TV story telling. Still the aim of the documentary is to give a glimpse of the Ottoman history and their importance in power politics rather than telling a historical story. And they do it perfectly. As the documentary states without knowing the Ottoman millennium nobody can really understand the Middle East and the Balkans truly.
Ottomans as the Muslim emperor's of Europe has became a sign of the "evil" for the other part of the continent, defined by brutality etc. The memories of a Muslim power challenging Christian Europe is so fresh and unforgettable that people generally put all bad things on them. This approach is not history, but pure Eurocentrism. The reality is Ottomans were an Empire, who acted like an empire which had sheer force but also good aspects like the Romans. You can not see a soul, blaming the Romans for their brutality (kiling 700 thousand people just for fun, even killing Jesus himself) but just thankful thoughts claiming them to be their father. Because they are the good figure in the contemporary ordinary Western mind. Ottomans and their descendants are the ultimate "OTHER" for the Westerners, thus what ever they do and did in the past will accepted as bad. A biased view, but a social reality. This is why people easily play the "anachronism" card, blaming the Ottomans not to be democratic enough, not giving the Jews to wear beautiful and colorful hats, where in the contemporary Europe people were burning each other because of the religion. And while everybody is talking about the poor Christian slaves of the time, where Europeans take slave trade to an industrial level putting tens of millions people on boats just for profit. The comments becomes pure fun, when we hear about Ottomans converting Kurds to Islam. It is not important for the ordinary mind that Kurds have been Muslims almost 500 years before the Ottomans. Since Islam is bad and the Ottomans are savages, what option is left to see poor Kurds to be converted to that backward religion other than those savages. This documentary is a simplified version of a 600 years of power politics and culture that everybody can easily understand if all prejudices are left aside. If not as Einstein said "breaking prejudices is harder than breaking atoms."