Ottoman legal organization laid the basis for modern Balkan ethnicity

Evidence

The Ottoman empire ruled over much of the Balkans from the late Middle Ages until the early twentieth century, and it was the Ottoman system that laid the basis for modern ethnicity and nationality in the Balkans. The Ottoman empire was organised on the basis of different legal statuses for Muslims and non-Muslims, in which Muslims were the dominant and privileged group, but Christians and Jews nevertheless enjoyed a degree of communal autonomy. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1026

Categorization

• XREF: Millet-system communal autonomy resonates with the diamond bourse’s extralegal community governance and ‘Opting out of the Legal System.’ — connects to: Twentieth-century Balkan revolutionary situations were overwhelmingly national in character — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1040