The Catastrophic Success of the Armenian Tanzimat | Richard Antaramian

E527 | How did the Ottomans secure widespread buy-in for modernization projects across the empire's many geographies and communities? This episode explores that question through the experiences of Armenians in the Ottoman East. Our guest, Richard Antaramian, shares some of his research, which argues that Ottoman shared governance worked through networks of power that linked center to periphery and sustained relationships among notables of different confessions, classes, and locations. The Ottoman tax-farming system of the 18th century forged ties among central authorities, provincial notables, and Armenian financiers. As the Ottoman government embarked upon the modernizing reform projects of the late 1700s and 1800s, those forms of shared governence frayed. In the Ottoman East, the Armenian Patriarchate's attempts to enact new notions of reform saw major successes, with the establishment limited representative governance, a constitution, and new educational institutions. Yet, those successes came at the cost of weakening the ties between provincial Armenians and important power brokers like provincial notables and Kurdish tribal leaders. Ultimately, the Armenian Patriarchate's successes at reform translated into trouble for its newly-isolated flock in the empire's eastern borderlands. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/05/antaramian.html Richard Antaramian is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern California. His research interests include, among others, the history of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. Matthew Ghazarian is a Manoogian Research Fellow in the Center for Armenian Studies and the Department of History at the University of Michigan. His research examines the intersection of social, economic, and environmental history in the late Ottoman Empire. CREDITS Episode No. 527 Release Date: 4 May 2022 Sound production by Matthew Ghazarian "Um Pepino" by Blue Dot Sessions Images and bibliography courtesy of Richard Antaramian available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/05/antaramian.html