IIN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY, the governing elites in the Russian and Ottoman Empires strongly opposed representative government and national independence for ethnic minorities, concentrating on absolutist rule and competition with other Great Powers. For both states, however, relentless power politics led to serious trouble. Their leaders recognized that they had to embrace the process of modernization, defined narrowly as the economic, military, and social-political reforms that might enable a country to compete effectively with leading European nations.