Abstract
This study is an examination of the relationship between migration and politics, focusing on the case of Georgian immigrants settled in the central Black Sea districts of Ottoman Turkey during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Based on the extensive use of Ottoman and British archival material as well as interviews conducted in the region, the study reveals insights into the intriguing power politics behind migration in the Ottoman Empire. Scrutinizing certain characteristics of the settlement process, it also demonstrates the complex imperial network of power that linked the most distant border districts of the Batum-Çürüksu (modern Kobuleti) region of Ottoman Caucasus directly to Istanbul via the Black Sea region of Ordu. The central argument of the study is that the leader of the immigrant group, namely Çürüksulu Ali Pasha, not only successfully managed the settlement process of his fellow Georgians but also masterfully manipulated all the stages of migration and settlement, making use of the conditions in his fierce power struggle against the appointed Ottoman governors as well as the native Muslim nobility of the region. The study thus shows how the personal agenda and the central position of a local Pasha in such a struggle for domination can dangerously destabilize life in an Ottoman province and sow the seeds of animosity between the immigrant community and the natives that eventually accelerated into warfare in the 1890s, creating a serious ‘Immigrant Problem’, the legacy of which lasted up to the early Republican period.
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