Communities on the Verge: Unraveling the Phanariot Ascendancy in Ottoman Governance

摘要

Phanariots were an Ottoman Christian elite which, despite structural impedi-nments, imperial ideology, and religious doctrine that would preclude their par-nticipation in Ottoman governance, ascended to power in multiple politicalnarenas between the 1660s and 1821. Their rise came about just as the largernimperium was undergoing profound military and political crises precipitatednby both internal threats and periodic invasions by the Russian and HabsburgnEmpires. While some Phanariots were stalwart servants of the sultan, othersnexacerbated these crises, allying with Russian officials and planning a secessio-nnist uprising that would later unfold into the GreekWar of Independence. Theirnascendancy, however, is an Ottoman story—a specific outcome of Ottomannresponses to the dilemmas of empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenthncenturies.