Turkey in the Great Exhibition of 1851

Abstract

Introduction The nineteenth century international exhibitions were “great new rituals of self-congratulation”1 celebrating economic and industrial progress.2 They were important showcases for modernization and industrialization advances, and served to display the riches and luxury of certain countries beyond the realm of the industrial revolution. Exhibitions on an international level evolved gradually as a cultural phenomenon.3 National exhibitions have been held in Paris since the end of the eighteenth century. In 1847 and 1848 in England, a series of national exhibitions including the first “Great Exhibition” were held under the patronage of key figures such as Prince Albert and Sir Henry Cole. The evolution of exhibitions from the national scene into the international area was a by-product of the internationalization of modernization. The Crystal Palace itself, where the first international exhibition was held in London in 1851, has been described as the first embodiment of a commodity culture and the first modern building, marking the origin of industrial design and even the advent of modernity.4 The Royal Committee decided that the 1851 Exhibition was to be at an international level embracing foreign production. The eastern half of the Crystal Palace was given to foreign countries,5 and the western half to Britain and the British Empire. The Turkish court was in the eastern part of the palace, in the north transept on the ground floor, next to Egypt, Persia, and Greece. Since the second half of the eighteenth century, Turkey was undergoing a phase of new structural development in terms of military, monetary, and governmental systems. As a result of the reformations of 1839, known as “Tanzimat,”6 and the commercial treaties of the first half of the nineteenth century, “change” rapidly replaced “inertia” in the industrialization and commoditization of Turkey in the modern Western sense.7 Many of the new central institutions of the second half of the nineteenth century led the way to the establishment of the Turkish Republic, and still are impacting on the social institutional structure. At the end of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the nineteenth century, commercial trade with Middle and Eastern Europe in Turkey was more important than with Western Europe.8 Footnotes for this article begin on page 77.