National Awakenings In The 19th Century Essay

The rise of national awakenings, national movements, and nationalism had a humongous affect on the Balkans from the 19th century to to the end of World War One. Changes that resulted from these impacts were political change, and economic change. The causes of these movements, and awakenings were many different issues. The first cause could be considered the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire for many years was very strong to begin with it had, strong sultans and a working millet system. After the 1699 defeat however by the Hapsburg Empire (Britain) the empire goes into decline. The treaty signed after the defeat, Treaty of Karlowitz, prevents the Ottoman Empire from expanding. The decline of the Ottoman Empire created weak and incompetent
This led to the Ottomans engaging in battles/wars they had no chance of winning, it was defeat after defeat from that point on. One example was in 1774 when the Ottomans were engaged in a war with Russia, the Ottomans nonetheless were defeated, the defeat led to the signing of the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774. This treaty led to the Russians returning Wallachia and Moldavia to the Ottomans, it seemed like a good thing for the Ottomans but it wasn't. The Russians were now allowed to now protect Christians living in the Ottoman Empire, also were allowed to intervene if any misrule took place by the Ottomans. What this did was in certain aspects weaken the Sultan, as the Sultan was know restricted, when it came to Russians protecting Christians especially in certain areas. The problem with this treaty was that it would eventually turn to Russians protecting all Christians in the Ottoman Empire. This would have future disastrous consequences, among those were future wars such as the Crimean War, and future nationalistic movements and the intervention of the “great powers”. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire a “big” problem emerged, and that problem was how to deal with the huge power vacuum created by