TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/102990/1029600.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.5 KB | 116 lines

                                                                                HISTORY, Page 93

Shaky Empires, Then and Now


The Kremlin and the West would both do well to study what
happened to the Ottoman Turks at the beginning of the century

By MICHAEL MANDELBAUM


    From Estonia on the Baltic Sea to Tadzhikistan in the Pamir
mountains of Central Asia, the Soviet Union is coming apart at
the seams. The U.S.S.R. as such might soon cease to exist. In
its place may be a smaller, though still vast, country, perhaps
called simply Russia, while Estonia and Tadzhikistan could be
two of a dozen or more Soviet republics that become independent
countries. If that happens, the world will have lost not only
its first communist state but also its last great multinational
empire.

    Earlier in this century, imperial rulers in London, Paris
and the Hague saw subject peoples demand and win their freedom.
Now it seems to be Moscow's turn. It was relatively easy for
the British, French and Dutch to give up colonies that were far
from home and scattered around the globe. By contrast, the
Soviet empire, although enormous, is concentrated on the
Eurasian landmass. In debating whether the U.S.S.R.'s
rebellious regions can become its peaceful neighbors, Western
policymakers and analysts are turning to a historical parallel:
the vanished domain of the Ottoman Turks.

    The Ottomans -- whose name came from the founding chieftain,
Osman -- governed many of the same territories the Kremlin
sought to dominate when Joseph Stalin expanded the bounds of
Soviet power after World War II. At the zenith of the empire,
in the reign of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in the 16th
century, the Turks controlled most of present-day Hungary,
Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia. Parts of the U.S.S.R. were
also Ottoman possessions: the Crimean peninsula on the Black
Sea, as well as the Caucasus, which include the strife-torn
Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

    The similarity between the Ottoman and Soviet empires is
more than a matter of geography. For nearly 300 years the Turks
were in almost constant conflict with the great powers of
Europe. That struggle, like the cold war, involved a clash not
just of political ambitions but also of creeds. Much as the
Soviet Union has embodied a communist ideology committed to
world revolution, Ottoman Turkey posed to Christian Europe the
challenge of militant Islam.

    Moreover, much as the survival of the Soviet Union in its
present form is threatened by unrest among its non-Russian
minorities, the Ottoman Empire ultimately could not withstand
the nationalist aspirations of its non-Turkish peoples. The
Greeks, aided by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron, were the
first to break away in the 1820s. The last to revolt were the
Arabs. Inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, they broke free of
Ottoman dom ination during World War I, only to come under
British and French rule soon afterward.

    Like the Turkish empire, the Soviet Union suffers from
economic backwardness, which has fueled resentment of central
authority and, in the past several years, secessionism. Seeking
the fruits of technology and commerce, restive nationalities
turn away from Moscow and toward the outside world.

    The outside world looks back with a combination of
encouragement for the independence movements and wariness of
the consequences if they push their cause too far too fast.
Here too there is a parallel with the fate of the Ottomans. The
Eastern Question, as the political dangers and opportunities
of Ottoman decline were collectively known in the 19th century,
provoked decades of diplomatic maneuvering and espionage, along
with occasional bloodletting. In 1854 the British and French
joined forces to prevent Russia from seizing Turkey's European
provinces. The result was the Crimean War, which gave the world
Florence Nightingale, the charge of the Light Brigade and the
first modern war correspondents. Fearing the consequences of
such entanglements for his own country, the German leader Otto
von Bismarck declared that the Eastern Question was "not worth
the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier."

    Ultimately the Ottoman decline cost Germany and the rest of
Europe a great deal more than that. In June 1914 a Serbian
nationalist, angry that the Austrian Habsburgs had replaced the
Ottomans as the rulers of the Balkans, assassinated the
Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo, triggering the
unprecedented death and destruction of World War I.

    Western intervention in the collapse of the Soviet Union
could also be disastrous, since it could drag the U.S. and its
allies into shooting wars between Moscow and rebellious
nationalist groups. Partly for that reason, Western countries
have chosen to stand aside from Soviet internal upheavals. When
Moscow squeezed Lithuania earlier this year, the U.S. and its
European partners held back -- and held their breath. In
principle they all support self-determination for the
Lithuanians and the other non-Russians. But none is prepared
to risk the bones of a single NATO infantryman.

    For the last century of its existence, Ottoman Turkey was
so feeble that it was known as the "sick man of Europe."
Today's Soviet Union is none too healthy itself, but the
Kremlin still has at its disposal one of the largest armies on
earth and about 26,000 nuclear weapons. The end of this empire,
if it touches off wider conflict, could make the carnage of
World War I seem modest by comparison.