Tanzimat in the province: nationalist sedition (fesat), banditry (eşkiya) and local councils in the Ottoman southern Balkans (1840s to 1860s)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores the dynamics of the triangle between subordinate groups-local notables / local councils and the Ottoman sovereign during the period of the Tanzimat reforms, with a spatial focus on the Ottoman southern Balkans, that is, on the provinces of Selanik, Yanya, Manastir and Tuna. The focus is on the voices of subordinate Ottoman subjects, such as peasants, all kinds of artisans, local teachers and printers, and their interactions with the Ottoman state during the Tanzimat. To this aim, this thesis elaborates on the local councils, a novel institution founded during the Tanzimat in several provinces and provided with extensive administrative and judicial functions. Several penal cases of nationalist sedition (fesat) and banditry (eskiya) adjudicated by these courts are being analyzed, by focusing on the men sitting in these novel courts, on the final punishments inflicted upon the defendants through Sultanic decrees (irade), as well as, especially, on the testimonies made by ordinary people and passed on to us today through a valuable, yet still undiscovered, Ottoman archival source, that is, the istintakname (interrogation protocol). Overall it is being argued that despite claims of the Ottoman sovereign to increased forms of governmentality and centralization, state-subject relationships were based on patterns of negotiation still during the Tanzimat. Indeed, defendants were willing to distort and adjust their descriptions of their deeds in the courtroom, while the sovereign was willing to inflict diminished punishments on the defendants in lieu of winning their loyalty to the Ottoman Empire.