An Ottoman Imperial City in Transition: Transformation of Urban Governance in Edirne (18th -19th Centuries)

Abstract

Modern historiography has a consensus over Edirne’s well-established socio-spatial and political position that reached its peak during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In this period, the city gained a de facto capital status as consecutive Ottoman sultans permanently resided in Edirne. While the physical presence of the Ottoman sultans and imperial institutions in Edirne brought about a spatial and demographic stability to the city until the late eighteenth century, Edirne witnessed major transformations through new imperial implementations throughout the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the new reforms brought about the proportional participation of city dwellers in the city’s governance, including the non-Muslims. Based on Ottoman archival sources and Muslim court registers of Edirne, the present paper investigates how the reforms of the nineteenth century transformed this “imperial city” vis-à-vis its urban governance. The paper suggests that in the nineteenth century Edirne was not the same imperial city governed in a more autonomous way in the eighteenth century anymore. However, while centralization efforts meant that military, administrative and financial responsibilities in the administration of provinces were converged, now as a provincial center, Edirne maintained its position in the Tanzimat era when a more participatory system in this ethno-religiously diverse city formed.