Lyman Bartlett’ın Kayseri İstasyonu Raporu, 1877-1878

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the essential topics that came to fore in the 1877-1878 Kayseri Annual Report, which was written by one of the prominent missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Lyman Bartlett. Apart from those subjects which other missionary reports had usually dwelled on (such as detailed and quantitative information about the missionary schools, the pupils who were attending these schools, education, missionaries’ native laborers both in Kayseri and its out-stations), subjects such as the architectural design of their recently built worship place, the extraordinary developments that took place in the Protestant church of Yozgat, and the country’s deteriorated economic situation caused by the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878 were also pointed out. In addition to these, the formation of the Protestant congregation in Ankara (which would become modern Turkey’s capital city), and the British Consulate’s support came to the fore among the important topics mentioned. Evaluation also demonstrates that some events which were touched upon in Bartlett’s report were reflected in a different way in other missionary sources of the period.