Talk:Bashi-bazouk

Mercenaries

i have written a little about mercenaries in ottoman empire. expansion of this article should also include about local/tribal light cavalry especially from mountinous (thus less fields, less fiefs, less feudal penetration, as well as obvious less central pentration) areas such as Albania (also mentioned in "War and Peace", commander pejoratively calling russian hussars "Arnauts!" (Arnavut = Albanian in turkish)), Kurdistan (till the collapse of the ottoman empire in WW1) etc.

Volunteers which were not paid, adventurers looking for plunder, or in the later era to defend their country etc. one interesting thing about the latter is the existence of quite young or quite elderly women leaders of volunteer troops (a la turca jean d'arcs?).

there are other details about the why of irregulars in ottoman army, but they should go in ottoman military article. duration of wars extending in 18th. marching from istanbul or even further east to say ukraine or poland took very long too. it is true even more so for the iran border which is some 1,5 times longer than western one. feudal soldiers should return home for supervising harvest and sowing. bringing anything including people from center meant more camels, pack horses, etc. compounded with little pasture in most of the year and war time prices for fodder (barley etc.) much offset.

as a last word, this is like a brainstorming, i'm not disgussing anything here

--Calm 13:39, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

PS:

• pls someone improve and correct Military of the Ottoman Empire article.
• as a reminder to future editors; people seems to be confusing başıbozuklar which has nothing to do with "mentally unsound" as some anonymus editor has claimed, with deliler which means just that. however the latter one was not irregular, adventurer, or lunatics out of the asylums, either. they were, if we use the buzzwords, "shock and awe" troops. they were like (or a subclass of, i dont know) Akıncı (raider) light cavalry, but they made their appearence as fearsome as possible.

--Calm 14:44, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Pictures

The article is illustrated with two paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Judging by the artist's other works - which feature lily-white Turkish people - these are presumably models hired in Paris, dressed in something approximating an idea of what real Turkish soldiers might have worn. Gérôme's biography here on Wikipedia states that he visited Turkey once, and he was a contemporary of the subject, but the paintings seem very New Romantic. Is there are more true-to-life pictorial record? -Ashley Pomeroy 22:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am a Turk and my skin is whiter than the ones in those paintings. Am I a model hired in Paris? 85.97.71.77 (talk) 23:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Ottoman propaganda images depicting the Başıbozuk

The painting “The Bulgarian martyresses” by Konstantin Makovsky is nothing but a propaganda peace in honour of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 – 1878. The painting in its self is grotesque attempt to portray the Turks (in the picture we actually see at least one or two African persons and one Indo-Caucasian) as raping murderers targeting women and children. The image of raped and killed Bulgarian women in an Orthodox Church setting has the pure intention to instigate hate in otherwise war atmosphere. Clear POV and it should be labelled as War Propaganda peace, does not depict a factual event but a hostile artistic impression. There are other bizarre peaces of artistic depiction imaging Turks such as the Antoni Piotrowski's painting titled "The Batak Massacre”, which was an artistic impression done 16 later after the April Uprising, by a painter who is of a Russo-Polish origin and later a volunteer in the Bulgarian army. One should use common sense and avoid using POV images or at least tag them as such. Hittit (talk) 20:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The only reason I'm not removing this irrelevant post is to express my disgust at your blatant attempt to censure and remake Wikipedia according to your whims (and without any sources, to boot). It might surprise, but the idea that the Ottoman Empire was some sort of peaceful utopia is not popular outside Turkey, so there is nothing particularly POV in portraying an alternative view. And in case usage of images in Wikipedia does not work this way, so try to read up on Wikipedia policy before making arguments on its basis. Kostja (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Kostja you disappoint me by not correctly citing the Russian source you have provided which states: "The Bulgarian martyresses" by Konstantin Makovsky, a painting depicting the killing of Bulgarian women by the Bashi-bazouk, who have bursted into an Orthodox church. The painting was intended to symbolise the suffering of Bulgarian Christians in the hands of the Turks". You should also look into my source that states the following for the painting: "The painter used for models his own wife, his own sister Kati and his young baby son Sergey". This is to say this picture is symbolic depicting suffering of Christians and unrelated to facts. The son of the painter Sergey called this a "a pathetic genre of military scene" with his other painting "A Bulgarian Women overloking a dead baby" Hittit (talk) 17:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't cited the source wrongly for the simple reason that I haven't cited it all. Your objections are ridiculous. Did you expect the painter to paint the picture while the Bazhi-bazouk were in action? Of course the picture is not a documentary portrait, but that applies to almost all pictures of historical topics. This does not prevent them from being used throughout Wikipedia, so first try to change the policy and then come again to remove the picture. Kostja (talk) 17:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The picture is there just cite the sources according to Wikipedia policy, it is a bit like current version of Bulgarian history, many paintings, but not much facts. What is myth and what is reality. Hittit (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would give a much clearer perspective if the history of the picture is made known. People already make several assumptions without thinking twice. Least we can do is help them not to. Sulmnz (talk) 16:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ottoman slap

The bashi-bazouk troops trained by slapping wet marble, thus the expression "Ottoman Slap". A slap from them would cause concussion or serve to break the receiving end's neck.

This is a common myth about the Janissaries. This is the first time I'm hearing it on the Bashi-bazouks who are certain not to have received extensive military training. Needless to say, it's unsourced. I'm choosing to remove it from the article. --Mttll (talk) 07:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

File:Gérôme-Black Bashi-Bazouk-c. 1869.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Gérôme-Black Bashi-Bazouk-c. 1869.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on September 15, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-09-15. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:15, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The bashi-bazouk were irregular soldiers of the Ottoman army who could originate from any part of the empire. Known for such a lack of discipline that they were sometimes forcibly disarmed and worked for plunder, they were formally abandoned by the end of the 19th century.

This painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was produced after he visited Asia Minor in 1868. According to the museum, "Gérôme's virtuosic treatment of textures provides a sumptuous counterpoint to the figure’s dignified bearing".

Textual changes

On this article 'small mercenary leaders' and on the main page text 'forcibly disarmed and worked for plunder' - both read differently, I presume to what is intended - should it be leaders of small mercenary forces and 'disarmed and then ...'? Jackiespeel (talk) 10:13, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Title

Think it would be more appropriate to rename the title to the original Turkish spelling, since it's a proper name and then maybe use the "bashi-bozhouk" version when we are talking about how to pronunce it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.225.196 (talk) 12:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"Bashi-bozhouk" appears in English references, and thus is the WP:COMMONNAME. This Wikipedia is in English. --A D Monroe III (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2014 (UTC)