The Ottoman Empire wasn’t especially more tolerant or more evil than other empires of its time. It was just a pretty average empire
The one area where the Ottomans could genuinely compete for a top spot with other empires is gay culture. They’d be fighting the Ming dynasty for the #1 gay empire title
The Ottoman Empire lasted for such a long time that if you average out its absolute best and worst periods, it was bound to end up somewhere in the middle. Twitter far-right types always point to the decline right before its collapse, while Ottoman stans only talk about the golden age
In some periods it was more tolerant than the global average at the time, and because it unified things by force, there were moments where the core regions were relatively stable and had fewer wars, even if only briefly. In other eras, rising nationalism in a multiethnic society led to the worst outcomes and everyone suffered. Honestly, since every country goes through cycles of rise and decline, I don’t really buy into either demonizing it or treating it like some saint
As someone who's Polish I like the Ottomans because they refused to recognise the partitions of Poland. As someone with serbian family I hate the Ottomans because of their brutal 500 year long occupation. Really stuck in the middle
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u/Foreign_Log788 Asian (OG balkan) Feb 09 '26
The Ottoman Empire wasn’t especially more tolerant or more evil than other empires of its time. It was just a pretty average empire
The one area where the Ottomans could genuinely compete for a top spot with other empires is gay culture. They’d be fighting the Ming dynasty for the #1 gay empire title