ABSTRACT
Karpat argues in his chapter not only that the nation-state is a specifically Western and European invention, but so is "the ethnic problem" itself, which arises because of the establishment within each state of one dominant language and ethnic group. The European nation-state form contrasts with the Ottoman system that specifically recognized the cultural and religious rights of the various ethnoreligious groups, as a consequence of which ethnicity did not become an issue until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when it was forced upon the Ottomans by the European states. In the Ottoman state, religion not language or ethnicity was the principal differentiating social criterion. Although the ruling elite was Muslim and the administrative language Turkish, Turks did not become the dominant ruling elite, which was, rather, recruited from many groups. The masses, for their part, "remained attached to their ethnic identity and language" which, however, had no "political significance." It was only with the rise of a capitalist system from the late eighteenth century onward, supported by the pressures from European powers to establish spheres of influence in the Ottoman-ruled areas, that new Christian merchant and intellectual elites arose promoting new ethnic and ethnoreligious identifications. These changes did not, however, affect until the end of the Ottoman system Muslim groups whose attachment remained primarily to the Muslim community as a whole and not to particular ethnic groups within it. Ultimately, of course, the Ottoman state was destroyed by Christian European powers and replaced by a European state system in which ethnicity became primary. However, the long persistence and success of the Ottoman system suggests that there is nothing natural about the rise of a state system with ethnicity at its core. Moreover, some of the principles of the Ottoman system might yet have relevance to contemporary developing multi-ethnic states, particularly the principle of recognition of the cultural rights of groups and the abjuring of ethnicity as a basis for rule.
