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How ottoman turks tortured children so they can manufacture slave-soldiers: The system relied on total separation and re-education to create loyal "kul" (slave-servants of the Sultan). Boys were forbidden from marrying early or maintaining family...
...etropolitan of Thessaloniki in the late 14th century) condemned it harshly as barbaric enslavement and forced Islamization, cursing the Sultan for kidnapping youths and turning them against their own people. Later, when Greeks finally managed to defeat the turks, the narratives amplified the horror, underlining the existential threat. But those abducted sons had a surprise for their torturers. t.me/
... contact, ensuring loyalty only to the Ottoman state. While physical torture was the primary conversion tool (beatings occurred for infractions during training), the trauma of abduction, forced rites, isolation, and indoctrination was profound. Some boys escaped and tried to revert to Christianity (documented cases exist, primarily Greeks), but most were successfully assimilated—many rose to high ranks as Janissaries, viziers, or officials. Greek sources (e.g., sermons by Isidore Glabas, M...