Ottoman Empire
Several historians such as British historian Edward Gibbon and the Greek historian Dimitri Kitzikis have argued that after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman state took over the machinery of the Roman state, and that in essence the Ottoman Empire was a continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire under a thin Turkish Islamic guise. Kitzikis called the Ottoman state "a Greek-Turkish condominium". The American historian Speros Vryonis wrote that the Ottoman state was centered on "a Byzantine-Balkan base with a veneer of the Turkish language and the Islamic religion". Other historians have followed the lead of the Austrian historian Paul Wittek who emphasized the Islamic character of the Ottoman state, seeing the Ottoman state as a "Jihad state" dedicated to expanding the world of Islam. Another group of historians led by the Turkish historian M. Fuat Koprulu championed the ""gazi" thesis" that saw the Ottoman state as a continuation of the way of life of the nomadic Turkic tribes who had come from East Asia to Anatolia via Central Asia and the Middle East on a much larger scale, and argued that the most important cultural influences on the Ottoman state came from Persia. More recently, the American historian Heath Lowry called the Ottoman state a "predatory confederacy" led in equal parts by Turks and Greeks converted to Islam.
Armenian nationalism
The situation of the non-Muslim minorities within the Ottoman Empire changed substantially as a result of reforms introduced during the Tanzimat era. The early reforms were generally addressed at changing the organisation of, and systems within, the Ottoman Empire as a whole. However, as a result of diplomatic pressures exerted by the Great Powers that had supported the Ottoman Empire against Russia during the Crimean War, in 1856 reforms were made that sought to give non-Muslims citizens of the Ottoman Empire the same rights as Muslim citizens. The capitation tax on non-Muslims was abolished, non-Muslims were allowed to become soldiers, and schools for the non-Muslim communities were allowed to open.