Sign-In
Cart
Slaves of the Throne: The Rise, Power and Destruction of the Ottoman Janissaries
Paperback
Turkey & Ottoman Empire History
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Ivo Vichev
Pages: 268
Weight: 0.62
Height: 0.61 Width: 5.25 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
For nearly five centuries, the Janissaries stood at the centre of Ottoman power.
They began as the sultan's dependent infantry: boys drawn from Christian communities, converted to Islam, trained for imperial service and placed inside a system designed to give the Ottoman ruler soldiers whose careers depended entirely upon the throne. They helped conquer Constantinople, fought from the Balkans to Persia and Egypt, adopted firearms early, and became one of the most recognisable military institutions of the early modern world.
But the institution did not remain what its founders had created.
Over generations, the Janissaries became more than soldiers. They built families, entered trades, lent money, formed neighbourhood connections and embedded themselves in the economic and political life of Istanbul. Their pay certificates circulated far beyond the barracks. Their regimental cauldrons became symbols of corporate identity and rebellion. Their commanders could influence government. Their collective action could help determine who occupied the Ottoman throne.
The same system created to make soldiers dependent on the sultan eventually produced an institution powerful enough to challenge him.
Slaves of the Throne traces that transformation from the Ottoman frontier of the fourteenth century to the destruction of the Janissary corps in 1826.
It follows the development of the devşirme, the levy that brought thousands of Christian boys into Ottoman service; the rise of the Janissary barracks and the culture of the ocak, or hearth; the corps at Constantinople, Chaldiran, Rhodes and Mohács; its role in succession crises, uprisings and palace politics; and its gradual expansion into the commercial and social world of the Ottoman capital.
The story is not a simple decline from disciplined warriors into corrupt soldiers.
The Janissaries were changing because the empire around them was changing. Recruitment altered. Pay lost value. Military technology changed. Soldiers became householders, craftsmen and merchants. Political influence expanded. Reforming sultans repeatedly discovered that an institution deeply rooted in the capital could not simply be ordered out of existence.
Selim III tried. He lost his throne.
Mahmud II prepared differently.
In June 1826, after years of political and military preparation, the final confrontation came at Istanbul's Etmeydanı. Artillery was turned against the Janissary barracks. The Yeni Odalar burned. Captured Janissaries were executed, exiled or hunted down. Their organisation was abolished, their symbols attacked and their place in Ottoman life deliberately dismantled.
The Ottoman government called it the Auspicious Incident.
For the men inside the barracks, it was annihilation.
Drawing on Ottoman records, chronicles, diplomatic reports, court documents, registers and modern scholarship, Ivo Vichev reconstructs the Janissaries as they actually developed: not merely as battlefield troops, palace conspirators or symbols of Ottoman decline, but as a military, political, economic and social institution whose history became inseparable from the empire itself.
Slaves of the Throne: The Rise, Power and Destruction of the Ottoman Janissaries is the story of how the Ottoman state created an army to serve the throne, how that army learned to defend its own interests, and why, in the end, the throne decided it could survive only by destroying it.
Also from
Vichev, Ivo
The Invisible Empire Israel's AI Warriors and the Algorithmic Future of Warfare
Vichev, Ivo
Paperback
The Holy Network: Espionage, Assassination, and the Vatican's Hidden War 1939-1945
Vichev, Ivo
Paperback
Also in
Turkey & Ottoman Empire History
From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan
Hansen, Suzy
Hardcover
The Shortest History of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic
Fortna, Benjamin C.
Paperback
The War That Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire
Aksakal, Mustafa
Hardcover
A Peace to End All Peace, 20th Anniversary Edition: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
Fromkin, David
Paperback
The Great Siege, Malta 1565: Clash of Cultures: Christian Knights Defend Western Civilization Against the Moslem Tide
Bradford, Ernle
Paperback
Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine
Campos, Michelle U.
Paperback
Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe
Timisoara, Osman Of
Paperback
Crescent Dawn: The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age
Sheppard, Si
Hardcover
Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide
Bogosian, Eric
Paperback
Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood
Çelik, Mehmet
Hardcover
Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization
Brownworth, Lars
Paperback
Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions That Forged Modern Europe
Norwich, John Julius
Paperback
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance
Thompson, Elizabeth F.
Paperback
Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire
Peirce, Leslie
Hardcover
Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe
Morrison, Robert G.
Paperback
Smyrna, September 1922: The American Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century's First Genocide
Ureneck, Lou
Paperback
Indigenous Judaism in Colonial Algeria: French-colonial Policy, Rabbis and Halachic Writing
Sakal, Vered
Hardcover
The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire
Akçam, Taner
Paperback
Empire by Law: The Ottoman Origins of the Mandate System in the Middle East
Genell, Aimee M.
Paperback
They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide
Suny, Ronald Grigor
Paperback
Israeli-Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War: The Geopolitics of Denying the Armenian Genocide
Ben Aharon, Eldad
Hardcover
Confessions of Monuments: Commemorating and Representing the Turkish Nation-State in the Early Twentieth Century
Ozguner, Emin Artun
Hardcover
The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul
Yildiz, Murat C.
Hardcover
The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History
Fox, Margalit
Paperback
Defenders of the Faith: Christianity and Islam Battle for the Soul of Europe, 1520-1536
Reston, James
Paperback
Purist Pursuits: Language, Global Ideas, and the Creation of Western Armenian in the Ottoman Empire
Manoukian, Jennifer
Hardcover
The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924
Ze'evi, Dror
Morris, Benny
Paperback
The Deys and Beys of Tunis, 1666-1922: From Military Power to the Monarchy
Blili, Leïla Temime
Hardcover
Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century
Grehan, James
Paperback
The Great Siege of Malta: The Epic Battle Between the Ottoman Empire and the Knights of St. John
Allen, Bruce Ware
Paperback
Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War
Dannies, Kate
Hardcover
Hittites: A Captivating Guide to the Ancient Anatolian People Who Established the Hittite Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia
History, Captivating
Hardcover
Arabs, Turks, and Persians: Geopolitics and Ideology in the Greater Middle East
Cornell, Svante E.
Paperback
The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923
McMeekin, Sean
Paperback
The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Rogan, Eugene
Hardcover
The Armenian Genocide: A Captivating Guide to the Massacre of the Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire
History, Captivating
Hardcover
Performing Public Confessions: Avowal and Disavowal of State Violence in Turkey
Yıldız, Yeşim Yaprak
Paperback
The Armenian Genocide: A Captivating Guide to the Massacre of the Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire
History, Captivating
Paperback
God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
Mikhail, Alan
Paperback
Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe
Morrison, Robert G.
Hardcover
From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry, and Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire
Feldman, Walter
Paperback
Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State
Hamed-Troyansky, Vladimir
Paperback
They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide
Suny, Ronald Grigor
Hardcover
Turkey's Drone Force: The Operational History of Turkey's Drone Programs, 1995-2022
Mevlutoglu, Arda
Paperback
Isaac Barrow's on the Turkish Religion: A Latin Poem on Islam from Ottoman Istanbul
Vozar, Thomas Matthew
Hardcover
Roman History: An Enthralling Guide to the Republic, Empire, and Legacy of Ancient Rome and Byzantium
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
Fairs, Festivals, and State-Society Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1908
Gökatalay, Semih
Hardcover
The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond
Kalman, Julie
Paperback
Hittites: A Captivating Guide to the Ancient Anatolian People Who Established the Hittite Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia
History, Captivating
Paperback
Copyright Consciousness: Musical Creativity and Intellectual Property in Turkey
Fossum, Dave
Paperback
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
Akcam, Taner
Paperback
When the War Came Home: The Ottomans' Great War and the Devastation of an Empire
Akın, Yiğit
Paperback
The Interpreters: British Internationalism and Empire in Southeastern Europe, 1870-1930
Giannakopoulos, Georgios
Hardcover
Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power
McMeekin, Sean
Paperback
Forgotten Experts: Astrologers, Science, and Authority in the Ottoman Empire, 1450-1600
Şen, A. Tunç
Hardcover
Grit and Grace in a World Gone Mad: Humanitarianism in Talas, Turkey 1908-1923
Elliott, Wendy
Paperback
The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War
Aksakal, Mustafa
Paperback
Empire from the Margins: Early Modern Jewish Historians on the Spanish and Ottoman Expansion
Jacobs, Martin
Hardcover
Temptations in Ruin: Sovereign Accumulation and the Making of Post-Genocide Turkey
Bieberstein, Alice Von
Hardcover
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, 1914: A Geographic and Demographic Gazetteer
Karayan, Sarkis Y.
Paperback
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance
Thompson, Elizabeth F.
Hardcover
Göbekli Tepe: The History and Mystery of One of the World's Oldest Neolithic Sites
Charles River
Paperback
The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz
Minawi, Mostafa
Paperback
The Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: From Refugee Crisis to Renaissance in the 17th Century
Shapiro, Henry R.
Paperback
The Kurdish Movement in Turkey: Nationalism, Social Movements and Recurring Cycles of Conflict
Sen, Elsa Tulin
Hardcover
The Life and Memoirs of Fakhri Al-Barudi: The Renaissance Man of Syria, 1887-1966
Al-Barudi, Fakhri
Moubayed, Sami
Hardcover
Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine Volume 5
Sheehi, Stephen
Tamari, Salim
Nassar, Issam
Paperback
The Crescent in the West: the Invasions of Europe by the Ottoman Turkish Empire, 1250-1699
Creasy, Edward S.
Paperback