Taxation In The Ottoman Empire Puns

So I was doing some research about the Armenian genocide for a project and I came across something quite peculiar. In the wikipedia page about the Armenian genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide#Armenians_under_Ottoman_rule the portrayal of Ottoman treatment of the Armenians (prior to the conflicts) is quite bleak. It says they were overtaxed by Turkish and Kurdish neighbours, constantly attacked by Turkish and Kurdish citizens with no interference of the Ottoman government, they were forced to convert to Islam, could not even ride the backs of horses, and that the majority of Armenians lived in poor and dangerous neighbourhoods.

But in the page about Armenians under Ottoman rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenians_in_the_Ottoman_Empire#Armenian_village_life it paints a very different picture. It says Armenians lived quite comfortably living in well-built homes and neighbourhoods, enjoyed autonomy, were exempt from military and were quite prosperous. It even mentions them riding horses despite it being supposedly illegal. There is no mention of forced conversions or overtaxation. In fact, it states that the taxes were collected by Armenian officials themselves, not Turks or Kurds.

IDK I just thought that was weird so I wanted to share. Wikipedia is... pretty horrible.

Am I missing something here? Or is this a fabrication designed to make this plot more dramatic, but I don’t think they’d do this on this show because it’s attempting to portray the situation as it was historically. I feel like maybe I understood what the narrator was trying to get at.

I'm specifically curious about during the height of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1520-1566. The Byzantine Empire fell when Constantinople was defeated in 1453; as the years passed, would Christian groups from Europe (either Catholic or Orthodox) have attempted to send any priests, missionaries, or monastic orders such as Franciscans or Jesuits to the Ottoman Empire? Would this have even been allowed? I know that Christians and Jews were given protected status, but were still considered inferior to Muslim citizens.

During this time (1531-32) was also when the Church of England broke away from the Catholic church and that in 1571 is when Pope Pius V completes the formation of the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. I believe that during this time priests were traveling as far as the Americas, China/Japan, and India; would they have ignored the Ottoman controlled lands or not been allowed in?

Thanks!

Be creative about your point of divergence. An equivalence of 2 world wars could take place before this but obviously would involve very different parties.

One of the key aspects of The Witcher universe is the law of surprise. It basically means an Witcher can ask for the firstborn of someone they helped. This person is then taken to become a Witcher. This law was most likely inspired by the Ottoman practice of Devshirme which literally means lifting or collecting. The Ottoman Empire was a vast empire that ruled over the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe for hundreds of years. A big part of the Ottoman Empires success was its elite class of warriors and intelligent administrative body. The Ottomans wanted warriors that were royal to the Empire before anything else. Therefore they implemented the Devshirme system. Depending on the needs of the empire at the time Ottomans would descend into villages of Eastern Europe. It would happen announced and many times in the middle of the night so that families could not hide their kids. They would knock on doors and then take the first born child of the family. The children were then taken to the Ottoman schools in Anatolia. There they would be converted to Islam then trained in one of the 7 schools of Endurun.

After their initial training they would be moved into the military schools where they would become Janissaries, elite soldiers who lived and trained in castles. There they would be sworn allegiance to the empire and the emperor himself. They were banned from ever getting married or starting a family. They would fight by the emperors side collecting bounty for enemies they killed. Those that made it old age would eventually retire either moving to the country side to paint write poetry and relax with their vast wealth or become teachers in the castles for a new generation of recruits. There was also a chance that an exceptionally smart child would be moved to the palace schools where they would be trained to advisors to the emperor and were responsible for governing large sections of the empire. Since most of these people were taken at a young age and were not allowed to have a family their loyalty always came to the state first and foremost.

Eastern European history including that of Poland where the Witcher writers are from is full of tragic tales of families getting their young kids taken away to become warriors and never seen again. I believe the law of surprise and many aspects of being a