Ottoman Studies

Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Fatih devrinin kapanmasından üç yüz yıl sonra bile hâlâ bir ortaçağ devlet sistemiyle yönetilmekteydi. Osmanlı devlet adamları ortaya çıkan problemlerin nasıl giderileceğine dair çeşitli önerilerde bulunmaya 17. yüzyılda başladılarsa da sorunların kaynağının teşhisi ve çözümünde istenilen başarı elde edilemedi. 18. yüzyıla gelindiğinde özellikle askeri alanda olmak üzere Avrupa devletlerinin üstünlüğü açıkça kabul edilmeye başlandı. Osmanlı padişahları, 18. yüzyıldan itibaren de devletin hızla çöküşe sürüklendiğini ve mevcut durumu sürdürme lükslerinin olmadığını anladı. III. Selim ve ardından II. Mahmud’un sistemli modernleşme çabaları bu kavrayışın sonuçları olarak görülmelidir. Osmanlı modernleşmesiyle ilgili bu kitap, alanında uzman dokuz akademisyenin modernleşme sürecinin değişik safhalarıyla ilgili çalışmalarından oluşuyor. Uğur Kurtaran, Osmanlı Devleti’nde 18. yüzyılın ilk yarısında gerçekleştirilen yeniliklerin genel özellikleri ve Osmanlı Devleti’nde değişen Batı algısı üzerinde duruyor. Necmettin Alkan, 18. yüzyılda Osmanlıların zihninde Avrupa algısının değişimini çalışmasının merkezine oturtuyor. Mehmet Alaaddin Yalçınkaya, lale devrinden Tanzimat’a kadar geçen sürede Osmanlı Devleti’nde yabancı uzman istihdamını kapsamlı olarak ele alıyor. Sezai Balcı, Tanzimat döneminde Babıâli Tercüme Odasını ve yenileşme çalışmalarındaki etkilerini inceliyor. Şükriye Pınar Özyalvaç, Tanzimat dönemi reformlarında mekân sorununu çalışmasının merkezine alıyor ve Osmanlı yöneticilerinin bu probleme çözüm bulma gayretleri hakkında ayrıntılı bilgiler veriyor. Adil Calap, Kırım Savaşı sonrası imzalanan Paris Barış Anlaşması ve Islahat Fermanı arasındaki bağlantıları çok yönlü biçimde tartışıyor. Ahmet Dönmez, uzun yıllar Trabzon ve Erzurum konsolosluğu yapmış James Brant’ın Osmanlı devlet ve toplum yapısı, özellikle de Osmanlılarda reform sorunu üzerindeki düşüncelerini Osmanlı ve İngiliz arşiv belgelerine dayanarak açıklıyor. Mahmut Akpınar, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Islahat Fermanı sonrası gayrimüslim istihdamı konusu özelinde Osmanlı hükümetinde görev yapan Ermeni nazırları ele alıyor. Yaşar Semiz ise, 2. Meşrutiyet döneminde Osmanlı iktisadi düşüncesindeki gelişmeleri ele alıyor.

Partners of the Empire offers a radical rethinking of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Over this unstable period, the Ottoman Empire faced political crises, institutional shakeups, and popular insurrections. It responded through various reform options and settlements. New institutional configurations emerged; constitutional texts were codified--and annulled. The empire became a political theater where different actors struggled, collaborated, and competed on conflicting agendas and opposing interests. This book takes a holistic look at the era, interested not simply in central reforms or in regional developments, but in their interactions. Drawing on original archival sources, Ali Yaycioglu uncovers the patterns of political action--the making and unmaking of coalitions, forms of building and losing power, and expressions of public opinion. Countering common assumptions, he shows that the Ottoman transformation in the Age of Revolutions was not a linear transition from the old order to the new, from decentralized state to centralized, from Eastern to Western institutions, or from pre-modern to modern. Rather, it was a condensed period of transformation that counted many crossing paths, as well as dead-ends, all of which offered a rich repertoire of governing possibilities to be followed, reinterpreted, or ultimately forgotten.

This collection of essays derives from the 1989 Princeton Conference on 'The Social and Economic History of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire: The Greek Millet from the Tanzimat to the Young Turks'. Organised jointly by the Program in Hellenic Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, this gathering brought together for the first time ever leading neohellenists and ottomanists, as well as younger scholars of modern Greek history and Ottoman history, from Greece, Turkey, the United States, and Western Europe. The authors explore several themes: the multifaceted achievements of Ottoman Greeks as they gained prominence in the political, economic, and social life of the Ottoman Empire during its last phase; the tenuous relationship of Ottoman Greeks to the newly established kingdom of Greece; and the development of a Hellenic national identity in the context of the national revolutions in the Balkans. Drawing parallels with the comparative experiences of other ethnic groups in the empire, such as the Jews and the Armenians, this volume contributes to our understanding of modern Greek and Ottoman history and will appeal to scholars of eastern Mediterranean peoples and cultures in the nineteenth century.

This vividly detailed revisionist history opens a new vista on the great Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century, a key period often seen as the eve of Tanzimat westernizing reforms and the beginning of three distinct histories--ethnic nationalism in the Balkans, imperial modernization from Istanbul, and European colonialism in the Middle East. Christine Philliou brilliantly shines a new light on imperial crisis and change in the 1820s and 1830s by unearthing the life of one man. Stephanos Vogorides (1780-1859) was part of a network of Christian elites known phanariots, institutionally excluded from power yet intimately bound up with Ottoman governance. By tracing the contours of the wide-ranging networks--crossing ethnic, religious, and institutional boundaries--in which the phanariots moved, Philliou provides a unique view of Ottoman power and, ultimately, of the Ottoman legacies in the Middle East and Balkans today. What emerges is a wide-angled analysis of governance as a lived experience at a moment in which there was no clear blueprint for power.

How did the late Ottoman Empire grapple with the challenge of modernity and survive? Rejecting explanations based on the concept of an Islamic empire, or the tired paradigm of the Eastern Question, the author argues that far richer insights can be gained by focusing on imperial ideology and drawing out the striking similarities between the Ottoman and other late legitimist empires like Russia, Austria and Japan.

Extensively documented and updated since its first publication in 1962, this volume provides a detailed study of the men and events that have shaped Turkey's modern political ideologies. Contemporary documents, letters, and newspapers are quoted extensively.

From the author's preface: Sublime Porte--there must be few terms more redolent, even today, of the fascination that the Islamic Middle East has long exercised over Western imaginations. Yet there must also be few Western minds that now know what this term refers to, or why it has any claim to attention. One present-day Middle East expert admits to having long interpreted the expression as a reference to Istambul's splendid natural harbor. This individual is probably not unique and could perhaps claim to be relatively well informed. When the Sublime Porte still existed, Westerners who spent time in Istanbul knew the term as a designation for the Ottoman government, but few knew why the name was used, or what aspect of the Ottoman government it properly designated. What was the real Sublime Porte? Was it an organization? A building? No more, literally, than a door or gateway? What about it was important enough to cause the name to be remembered? In one sense, the purpose of this book is to answer these questions. Of course, it will also do much more and will, in the process, move quickly onto a plane quite different from the exoticism just invoked. For to study the bureaucratic complex properly known as the Sublime Porte, and to analyze its evolution and that of the body of men who staffed it, is to explore a problem of tremendous significance for the development of the administrative institutions of the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic lands in general, and in some senses the entire non-Westerrn world.

The Ottoman East what is also called Western Armenia, Northern Kurdistan or Eastern Anatolia compared to other peripheries of the Ottoman Empire, has received very little attention in Ottoman historiography. So-called taboo subjects such as the fate of Ottoman Armenians and the Kurdish Question during the latter years of the Ottoman Empire have contributed to this dearth of analysis. By integrating the Armenian and Kurdish elements into the study of the Ottoman Empire, this book seeks to emphasise the interaction of different ethno-religious groups. As an area where Ottoman centralization faced unsurpassable challenges, the Ottoman East offers an ideal opportunity to examine an alternative social and political model for imperial governance and the means by which provincial rule interacted with the Ottoman centre. Discussing vital issues across this geographical area, such as trade routes, regional economic trends, migration patterns and the molding of local and national identities, this book offers a unique and fresh approach to the history and politics of modernization and empire in the wider region."

Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the path to the birth of Arab nationhood. Through extensive archival research, Mestyan examines the collusion of various Ottoman elites in creating this nascent sense of national belonging and finds that learned culture played a central role in this development. Mestyan investigates the experience of community during this period, engendered through participation in public rituals and being part of a theater audience. He describes the embodied and textual ways these experiences were produced through urban spaces, poetry, performances, and journals. From the Khedivial Opera House's staging of Verdi's Aida and the first Arabic magazine to the 'Urabi revolution and the restoration of the authority of Ottoman viceroys under British occupation, Mestyan illuminates the cultural dynamics of a regime that served as the precondition for nation-building in the Middle East. A wholly original exploration of Egypt in the context of the Ottoman Empire, Arab Patriotism sheds fresh light on the evolving sense of political belonging in the Arab world.

This innovative study of modern Turkey is the result of many years of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research. Michael Meeker expertly combines anthropological and historical methods to examine the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic in a major region of the country, the eastern Black Sea coast. His most significant finding is that a state-oriented provincial oligarchy played a key role in successive programs of reform over the course of more than two hundred years of imperial and national history. As Meeker demonstrates, leading individuals backed by interpersonal networks determined the outcome of the modernizing process, first during the westernizing period of the Empire, then during the revolutionary period of the Republic. To understand how such a state-oriented provincial oligarchy was produced and reproduced along the eastern Black Sea coast, Meeker integrates a contemporary ethnographic study of public life in towns and villages with a historical study of official documents, consular reports, and travel narratives. A Nation of Empire provides anthropologists, historians, and students of Eastern Europe and the Middle East with a new understanding of the complexities and contradictions of modern Turkish experience.

Nineteenth-century Ottoman politics was filled with casual references to public opinion. Having been popularised as a term in the 1860s, the following decades witnessed a deluge of issues being brought into 'the tribune of public opinion'. Murat R. Şiviloğlu explains how this concept emerged, and how such an abstract phenomenon embedded itself so deeply into the political discourse that even sultans had to consider its power. Through looking at the bureaucratic and educational institutions of the time, this book offers an analysis of the society and culture of the Ottomans, as well as providing an interesting application of theoretical ideas concerning common political identity and public opinion. The result is a more balanced and nuanced understanding of public opinion as a whole.

This book aims to reveal communal relations in İzmir/Smyrna through the lens of Greek-Turkish relations during the age of Ottoman reforms. The primary sources used in this book, Ottoman-Turkish archival material and Greek newspapers of the period, demonstrate that these reforms did not disturb the social cohesion of İzmir, a city with a unique vibrancy that had been produced over many centuries. The historical evidence also indicates that the Ottoman Empire did not attempt to mould social relations in İzmir, instead benefited from the city's pre-existing socio-cultural and economic norms, which were well suited to its modernization program. It uncovers the dynamics of coexistence and communal relations before being brought to an abrupt halt by the formation of the modern nation-states.

Son yıllarda, refah devletinin krizi ve yoksulluk sorunu, dünya gündeminde önemli bir yer tutuyor. Refah rejimi, sosyal devlet, sosyal siyaset, sosyal yardım vb. kavramlar yeniden daha geniş bir tarihsel perspektifle ele alınıyor. Osmanlı tarihçiliğinde ise bu meselelere odaklanan ve daha çok monografik nitelik taşıyan çalışmalar, kuramsal ve kavramsal perspektif yoksunluğuyla malül. Nadir Özbek'in İkinci Abdülhamid ve İkinci Meşrutiyet dönemi sosyal devleti üzerine olan çalışması bu anlamda önemli bir boşluğu dolduruyor. Son dönem Osmanlırefah sistemini modern devletin oluşumu çerçevesinde değerlendiren Özbek, böylelikle Abdülhamid iktidarı ve İkinci Meşrutiyet7i tek bir paradigma içinde bütünleştirmiş oluyor.

When Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in April 1877, it was the fifth time during the nineteenth century that hostilities had broken out between the two empires. On this occasion the other Great Powers had done all they could to prevent it, although public opinion in the West had been shocked by Turkey's brutal repression of the Bulgarian uprising. The war was to be fought in two distinct theaters. In Europe, as on previous occasions, the Russian objective was to cross first the Danube and then the formidable Balkan Mountains before striking for Constantinople. In Asia, over territory also contested many times before, the Russians aimed to seize Kars and then Erzerum. At first all went well for the invaders, the Turks making no serious attempt to hold the line of the Danube, while a thrust south by General Gourko succeeded in crossing the Balkans by a pass not previously considered practicable. At Plevna, however, the Russian advance stalled in the face of the determined defense of the place by the redoubtable Osman Pasha. In Asia, meanwhile, after initial success, the Russian advance was halted by defeat at Zevin. Poor strategic judgment on the part of the Turks led to their failure to take advantage of the opportunity provided by Osman, even after the Russians had suffered three bloody defeats at Plevna. Eventually, after the town was closely invested, it fell to the besiegers. In Asia, the Turks suffered a major defeat in the battle of God's Mountain, and were driven back to Erzerum, while Kars fell to a brilliant assault by the Russian forces. These defeats marked the beginning of the end for the Turks. By January 1878 the Russians were over the Balkans in force, and the last viable Turkish army was surrounded and captured at Shenovo. Armistice negotiations led to a suspension of hostilities and to the treaty of San Stefano. The other Great Powers had watched the conflict with mounting anxiety and were determined to moderate the terms of San Stefano which had imposed harsh conditions on the Ottoman Empire. This, following tortuous diplomatic negotiations, they succeeded in doing at the Congress of Berlin in July 1878. This book, the first military history of the war in English for over a century, traces the course of the campaigns, examining the many occasions on which the outcome of a battle might have gone the other way, and the performance of the combatants, both leaders and led. The book considers the extent to which the parties applied the lessons of recent wars, as well as the conclusions that could be drawn from the experience of combat with the latest weapons. It also explores the complicated motives of the Great Powers in general, and Britain in particular, in bringing about a final settlement, which postponed the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The author's detailed text is accompanied by an extensive number of black and white illustrations, an impressive color plate section containing reproductions of paintings by artists such as Vereshchagin, plus black and white and color battle maps. Extensive orders of battle are also provided. This is the latest title in Helion's ground-breaking series of 19th Century studies, and will again appear in hardback as a strictly limited edition printing of 1,000 copies, each individually numbered and signed by the author on a decorative title page.

This book argues that the periodic ceremonial intrusion into the everyday lives of people across the Ottoman Empire, which the annual royal birthday and accession-day celebrations constituted, had multiple, far-reaching and largely unexplored consequences. On the one hand, it brought ordinarysubjects into symbolic contact with the monarch and forged lasting vertical ties of loyalty to him, irrespective of language, location, creed or class. On the other hand, the rounds of royal celebration played a key role in the creation of new types of horizontal ties and ethnic group consciousnessthat crystallized into national movements and, after the empire's demise, national monarchies.

This book explores an event described by the Times as 'one of the greatest and most sensational political conspiracies of modern times'. On 21 July 1905, just after the Friday Prayer at the Yıldız Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul, a car bomb exploded and left 26 dead with another 58 wounded. Sultan Abdülhamid II, the target of the attack, remained unscathed. The Ottoman police soon discovered that Armenian revolutionaries were behind the plot and several people were arrested and convicted, among them the Belgian anarchist Edward Joris. His incarceration sparked international reaction and created a diplomatic conflict. The assassination attempt failed, the events faded from memory, and the plot became a footnote in early twentieth-century history. This book rediscovers the conspiracy as a transnational moment in late Ottoman history, opening a window on key themes in modern history, such as international law, terrorism, Orientalism, diplomacy, anarchism, imperialism, nationalism, mass media and humanitarianism. It provides an original look on the many trans- and international links between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world at the start of the twentieth century. c dsc ds

What are the roots of murderous ethnic cleansing, extreme nationalism and the re-invention of historical myths in the modern Balkans? This study of socialism among the Ottoman communities of Macedonians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks and Jews of Salonika, in the late-Ottoman and early Turkish period (1876-1923), seeks to lay bare these origins.

It all happened in 1876, during “the Year of the Three Sultans” when a Bulgarian girl named Stephana made a journey to Salonika to convert to Islam and was subsequently abducted by a group of Christians. This event stoked tensions, and stirred outrage within the Muslim community. Public protests ensued, culminating in the murder of the French and German consuls by a Muslim mob on May 6, 1876. This ‘Salonika Incident’ would consequently trigger a wave of hysteria throughout the West and among the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire. There was fear of an ‘impending massacre of the Christians’ which would never take place. A diplomatic war of words between the Sublime Porte and the Great Powers, which held the former accountable for this double crime, directly followed the incident.Through a detailed and meticulous account of this neglected episode of Ottoman-Balkan history, this book aims to cast light on an often distorted and highly misunderstood event which is a manifestation of Western attitudes toward the Ottoman Empire during the climactic years of the Eastern Question.

Istanbul ¿ Kushta ¿ Constantinople presents twelve studies that draw on contemporary life narratives that shed light on little explored aspects of nineteenth-century Ottoman Istanbul. As a broad category of personal writing that goes beyond the traditional confines of the autobiography, life narratives range from memoirs, letters, reports, travelogues and descriptions of daily life in the city and its different neighborhoods. By focusing on individual experiences and perspectives, life narratives allow the historian to transcend rigid political narratives and to recover lost voices, especially of those underrepresented groups, including women and members of non-Muslim communities. The studies of this volume focus on a variety of narratives produced by Muslim and Christian women, by non-Muslims and Muslims, as well as by natives and outsiders alike. They dispel European Orientalist stereotypes and cross class divides and ethnic identities. Travel accounts of outsiders provide us with valuable observations of daily life in the city that residents often overlooked.

Tanzimat Fermanı, Osmanlı ve Türk modernleşmesinin en önemli tarihsel dönemeçlerinden biridir. Bu ferman, anayasal tarihimizin başlangıcı olarak kabul edilir. Ayrıca modern hukuk devletinin kuruluşu ve buna bağlı olarak yeni idari yapıların doğuşunun temelleri de Tanzimat dönemine uzanır. Toplumsal ve zihinsel değişim açılarından da bu dönemin taşıdığı önem yadsınamaz. İşte tüm bunlardan dolayı da Tanzimat dönemi, üzerinde sürekli düşünülmesi ve tekrar tekrar yorumlanarak değerlendirilmesi gereken tarihsel bir evredir.
Bu eser, bu yorumlama ve değerlendirme sürecine bir katkı olarak, çağımızın
tarihçi ve sosyal bilimcilerinin çalışmalarından derlendi. Hem Türkiye’den hem dünyadan üç kuşaktan 32 akademisyenin 36 makalesi, Tanzimat’ı farklı bakımlardan ele alırken, bu süreçteki üç temel belge de çevriyazı olarak eserin girişinde yer alıyor: Sened-i İttifak, Tanzimat Fermanı ve Islahat Fermanı.

Osmanlı İmparatorluğu tarihi ele alınırken üzerinde en çok tartışılan sultanlardan birisi kuşkusuz II. Abdülhamid’dir.
“Ulu Hakan” ya da “Kızıl Sultan” olarak sıfatlandırılıp, tarihyazımı ekollerinin kahramanı ya da düşmanı sayılmıştır. François Georgeon bu kapsamlı eserinde, kendi döneminin ve imparatorlukların ulus-devletlere dönüştüğü sürecin bir aktörü olarak II. Abdülhamid’i anlatıyor. Hafiyeler ve jurnallerle iktidarını otoriter bir biçimde korumaya çalışan Abdülhamid’le, muhafazakâr modernleşmeci bir padişahın imparatorluğu eski gücüne kavuşturma telaşına eşzamanlı olarak bakıyor. Georgeon, bu süreçte yaşanan siyasal ve diplomatik gerilimler kadar II. Abdülhamid’in kişiliğini etkileyen faktörleri de inceliyor. İmparatorluğun ihtiyaçları ile padişahın bu ihtiyaçları nasıl karşılamaya çalıştığını tarihçi titizliği ile ince ince işliyor. Klişelere itibar etmeyen bir bakışla, kanlı canavar ya da paranoyak hükümdar çizgilerine indirgenemeyecek bir portre çiziyor.

Combining international and domestic perspectives, this book analyzes the transformation of the Ottoman Empire over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It views privatization of state lands and the increase of domestic and foreign trade as key factors in the rise of a Muslim middle class, which, increasingly aware of its economic interests and communal roots, then attempted to reshape the government to reflect its ideals.

Throughout the 'long 19th century', the Ottoman and Russian empires shared a goal of destroying one another. Yet, they also shared a similar vision for imperial state renewal, with the goal of avoiding revolution, decline and isolation within Europe. Adrian Brisku explores how this path of renewal and reform manifested itself- forging new laws and institutions, opening up the economy to the outside world, and entering the European political community of imperial states. Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires tackles the dilemma faced by both empires, namely how to bring about meaningful change without undermining the legal, political and economic status quo. The book offers a unique comparison of Ottoman and Russian politics of reform and their connection to the wider European politico-economic space.

The complex political and cultural relationship between the German state and the Ottoman Empire is explored through the lens of the Ottoman Railway network, its architecture, and material culture With lines extending from Bosnia to Baghdad to Medina, the Ottoman Railway Network (1868-1919) was the pride of the empire and its ultimate emblem of modernization--yet it was largely designed and bankrolled by German corporations. This exemplifies a uniquely ambiguous colonial condition in which the interests of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were in constant flux. German capitalists and cultural figures sought influence in the Near East, including access to archaeological sites such as Tell Halaf and Mshatta. At the same time, Ottoman leaders and laborers urgently pursued imperial consolidation. Germany and the Ottoman Railways explores the impact of these political agendas as well as the railways' impact on the built environment. Relying on a trove of previously unpublished archival materials, including maps, plans, watercolors, and photographs, author Peter H. Christensen also reveals the significance of this major infrastructure project for the budding disciplines of geography, topography, art history, and archaeology.

In 1807 the reformist Sultan Selim III was overthrown in a palace coup enacted by the elite special forces of the day-the Janissaries. The Ottomans were bankrupt and had been forced to make peace with Napoleon after Austerlitz, but it was Selim III's efforts to reform an empire that had suffered successive military defeats, and to reform along the lines of modern principles-with an end to the privileged 'feudal' position of many in elite Ottoman civil-military society-which sealed his fate. This book seeks to situate Turkey's reactionary revolutions of 1807 into a wider European context, that of the French Revolution and the outbreaks of revolutionary activity in the German states, Britain and the US. The Ottoman Empire was an interconnected and crucial part of this early-modern world, and therefore, Aysel Yildiz argues, must be analyzed in relation to its European rivals. Focusing on the uprising, and the socio-economic and political conditions which caused it, this book re-orientates Ottoman history towards Western Europe, and re-situates the late-Ottoman Empire as a key battle-ground of political ideas in the modern era.