Could the Hapsburgs or the Ottoman Turks could have built a modern unified nation from their multinational empires?

Answer 1

Of course, everyone's view is going to be different on this question, so take my view into consideration, but do not necessarily brand it as the right answer.

I would say that it would be possible, but highly unlikely.

Both could have become federal republics in much the same way that Switzerland is a federal republic or similar to the European Union structure, i.e. a united government with numerous highly autonomous and distinctive parts. A singular nation-state, a la Germany, would be impossible with so many different ethnic cultures and languages. However, the implementation of such a policy of creating a federal republic would have to come rather early in the timeline of both empires, such as in the 18th century, following a strict policy of increasing liberalization and recognition of ethnic distinctions and historical territories. For example, the recognition of an Austro-Hungarian federation only in 1867 as the result of several Hungarian uprisings against the Austrian Imperial Authorities, was far too late to be anything substantial. Or in the Ottoman Empire, the passage of the minimally effective Edict of Gulhane in 1839 and the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856, were similarly too little too late.

They would have needed to be forward thinking and innovative long before protests had reached such a fever pitch that tens of thousands of commoners became nationalists arguing for the dismantling of these empires. It would require the Austrians to grant Hungarians autonomy in the mid-1700s, the Rumelians and Romanians in the late-1700s, to support the Polish Liberation movement in opposition to Czarist Russia and Absolutist Prussia, to engage Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Czechs, and Slovaks in the empire and create local administrations that would provide local information in their language. The Ottomans would be required to do the same for Non-Turkish Ottomans, such as Greeks, Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, Georgians, Jews, and Lebanese Christians. Both regimes would have to become open quickly to religions other than the official religion, treating them all equal. The Austrian Empire would have to embrace Protestantism, Judaism, and Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Catholicism. The Ottoman Empire would have to embrace the various flavors of Christianity, Judaism, Yazidi, Yarsanism, Druze, Alawite, Alevi, Shiite Islam, Baha'i, and numerous other religions throughout the empire as opposed to exclusively Sunni Islam.

In contrast to this imagined reality, the Austrian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were ultra-conservative states that made little political progress towards liberalization that was not forced on them by the more powerful and liberal Western European States.

Answer 2

i think the hapsburg emire could have became a modern nation because they like chicken and they weren't tolerant.