Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı: Araştırma İmkân ve Esasları

Abstract

The Institution, which was built formerly under the name of Hazine-i Evrak in 1846 and carried out its mission and services under different names as depicted within the changes in related legislations throughout our history, has been finally renamed as Presidency of The Republic of Turkiye, Directorate of State Archives with Presidential Decree No. 11 in 2018. The Directorate consists of 9 heads of departments and conducts its tasks on 2 different campuses in Ankara and Istanbul. The Presidential Decree No.11, holds, with the exception of the Grand National Assembly of Turkiye and Presidency of the National Intelligence Organization, all the public establishments, organizations and institutions which are subject to the Public Finance Management and Control Law No. 5018, dated 10/12/2003 and its related registrations, the Turkish General Staff and the Service Commands, local administrations (except villages) and its affiliates, all public organizations and establishments registered under the title of corporation, institution, establishment, union, fund, founding, all professional organizations with public institution status, tax-exempt foundations and public benefits associations, responsible for devolution of their archives to Directorate of State Archives. The organizations have presently started devoluting their archival materials to the Directorate of State Archives, who has immediately initiated the proceedings for classification, opened them for research on a digital platform and keeps the procedure in progress. The official website of the Directorate of State Archives provides its services at https://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr and in the top menu, under Document System, open 4 main sections, The Republic Archive, The Ottoman Archive, The Turkish Diplomatic Archive, and Ministry of Defense Military History Archive, respectively. These documents are open to public use on a digital platform where the researches are given their passwords in a few minutes and acquire the privilege of browsing millions of documents they need. Our digital archive covers the official correspondence between the Ottoman State Organisations and those between the state and provence, starting with the founding of the Ottoman Empire until the establishment of the Turkish Republic, and documents about the history of 40 different states that existed within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, documents of political and commercial relations between Ottoman state and other countries, legistlative documents of law enforcements, regulations and directories, documents pertaining to historical, legal, legistlative, financial, scientific and cultural aspects of the Turkish State and Turkish society, documents of appointments, promotions, depositions, pensions, establishing counties, changes in administrative governances signed by the Prime Minister and the related ministries, all sorts of written documents from nationals and foreigners to Prime Minister and Prime Ministry offices and documents of people who immigrated to Anatolia at different times and ways.