Info Nuggets

Eastern Question

The Eastern Question, in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including instability in the European territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

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The Eastern Question is normally dated to 1774, when the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) ended in defeat for the Ottomans. As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was believed to be imminent, the European powers engaged in a power struggle to safeguard their military, strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. Imperial Russia stood to benefit from the decline of the Ottoman Empire; on the other hand, Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom deemed the preservation of the Empire to be in their best interests. The Eastern Question was put to rest after World War I, one of whose outcomes was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, which lasted from July 27, 1299, to October 29, 1923, is one of 16 Turkish empires established throughout history. The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history. It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

At the height of its power, in the 16th and 17th centuries, it controlled territory in southeast Europe, western Asia, and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.^]

With Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) as its capital city and vast control of lands around the eastern Mediterranean during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries.

The Ottoman Empire came to an end, as a regime under a monarchy, on November 1, 1922. It formally ended as a de jure state on July 24, 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne. The Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, became one of the successor states of the Ottoman Empire as part of the treaty.

Breakup of Yugoslavia

The breakup of Yugoslavia refers to a series of conflicts and political upheavals resulting in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was a country that occupied a strip of land stretching from Central Europe to the Balkans – a region with a history of ethnic conflict.

The country was a conglomeration of six regional republics and two autonomous provinces that was roughly divided on ethnic lines and split up in the 1990s into several independent countries. These eight federal units were the six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and two autonomous provinces within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina.