Devchirmé

The devchirmé who means change (with the direction removal) into old Turkish, was the system of recruitment of teenagers on the Christian populations of the lately conquered territories. The recruited young people were intended to belong to the Othoman Elite: they were formed to occupy of the high responsibilities within the Othoman official apparatus. Some belonged to the Othoman troops of elite: the Janissary S ( Yeni Ceri : “new troop” - 12.000 at the time of Soliman the Magnificent the, 48.000 pennies Murad III and 140.000 at the 19th century).

It was acted in fact at the beginning of not giving high responsibilities to the children resulting from the rival families for Osmanli. Therefore these young people were recruited mainly among the Christian families. Each year during more than three centuries, of the children their families gave up thus to be formed at the court of the Sultan. The teenagers were not to be too young, to be able to support long displacements, and not too old, so that they can be converted with the Islam and be replaced in Turkish families. It was interdict to recruit a boy if he were the single boy of his family.

However, certain families voluntarily sent their children to it because it was the insurance of a fast social rise. Thus Skanderbeg, Albanian national hero, will be sent by its family to the court of the Sultan. It is also advisable to stress that once promoted within the official apparatus, the children thus removed did not forget their origins, nor their culture: one can quote the example of Sokullu Mehmed pasha which recreates the orthodoxe patriarchate of Peć to the Kosovo in 1557.

Thus, on twenty-six large the Vizier S of which we know the origin, eleven were Armenian, six Greek, others still Circassiens, géorgiens, Serbes, or even Italy NS and only five Turks. Several of them will mark their period, among which Sokullu Mehmed pasha, large Vizier of three successive sultans and Serb origin, Ali Pasha, of Albanian origin, or Ibrahim Greek Pasha, of Kavala.

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