Ottoman Lands Research Articles

“If it is not too paradoxical”: archaeology in İstanbul under occupation as a window into understanding the creation of a post-war cultural heritage regime

Abstract This article studies how Allied archaeological activities in Ottoman lands between 1918 and 1923 were part of the post-war negotiations over those territories. It uses the occupation of İstanbul as a reference point to understand the larger reconstruction of the Middle East through the inspection of practices and policies used by the Allies in the realm of cultural heritage. It explores the changes that World War I brought to this realm and asks what kind of practices were used and why. Using archival documents and archaeological literature, it argues that the Allies used institutions like museums and schools of archaeology, scholarly activities such as excavations and publications, and laws and regulations on cultural property to make geopolitical claims in the region and legitimize their occupation while acquiring as many antiquities as possible. By comparing the motivations, practices, and results of Allied archaeological activities in the capital to those elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, this study shines a light not only on the making of the post-war cultural heritage regime but also on the emerging geopolitical system in the Middle East.

THE TRUE NATURE OF ARMENIAN MIGRATION ON THE EASTERN FRONT: THE CASE OF BİTLİS PROVINCE (1914-1922)

On 28 July 1914, when the First World War started, the Russian Caucasian army attacked the Ottoman lands in November 1914 and many Armenians adhere the Russian army. Taking advantage of this rebellion, Russian troops occupied Van on 20 May 1915 and dominated the region. With the occupation of Van, the Ottoman Government enacted the Law on Relocation and Resettlement on 27 May 1915 and relocated some Armenians in the war zones to the southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire for military reasons. In July 1915, the Russians, were forced to migrate the Armenians in the zone of occupation to the Caucasus. With the Russian occupation of Eastern Anatolia in 1916, the Armenians who had migrated returned. In 1917, with the withdrawal of the Russian Caucasian army, these Armenians had fled with the Russians. With the signing of the Armistice of Mudros, some Armenians came to Bitlis. In 1922, with the success of the Turkish War of Independence, Armenians who did not want to stay in Anatolia migrated to Istanbul and various Western countries. With the outbreak of the First World War, Armenians experienced a continuous migration movement due to the war conditions. Bitlis was one of the provinces where this migration movement took place. One of the main reasons for choosing Bitlis as a sample is that it is a province with a high Armenian population density. Secondly, the occupation of Bitlis by the Russians. It is assumed that the Armenian migrations in Bitlis were political in nature rather than war related. In this respect, it was determined that the Armenian population mobility in Bitlis took place eight times. As a result, it is possible to say that the main reason for such frequent mobility was that the Armenians acted with the Allies.

Ahmed Cevdet Pasha’s Printed Quranic Manuscript in the Ottoman Empire: a Critical Study

Abstract This article discusses a discovery made by the author involving the wrong manuscript of calligrapher Şekerzâde being printed by the Ottoman Empire. It was initially illegal to sell printed copies of the Qurʾan in Ottoman lands, as cutting letters of the verses was deemed disrespectful. After foreign-printed copies began circulating, the position of the Ottoman government was forced to change. Thereby, the Ministry of Education, led by Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, was commissioned to produce a printed Qurʾan. However, the governmental body accidentally printed a manuscript that Şekerzâde wrote in Istanbul, while indicating it was the Qurʾan he wrote in Medina. Through careful examination, including translations of the inscriptions, this error was noticed for the first time. This paper presents an introduction to Ottoman reverence for the Qurʾan, a history of the printing process, background information of Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, and evidence regarding the mistake made when printing the manuscript.

EXAMINATION OF CONSTITUTIONALIST MOVEMENTS AND CONSTITUTIONS IN TERMS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Constitutionalism involves curbing state power, protecting fundamental rights, and defending citizens' rights against the state. Aligned with democratic theory, it's grounded in the concept of human dignity, advocating for the autonomy and participation of vulnerable individuals in community governance. Democratic theory emphasizes the crucial right of citizens to influence the selection of lawmakers in a free society. Constitutionalism insists on honoring human dignity and values, affirming citizens' right to democratic participation while ensuring clear constraints on their governments, even when in line with the majority's preferences. Originating with the Magna Carta in 1215, constitutionalism reached Ottoman lands about six centuries later. Ottoman constitutional movements, commencing with the 1808 Sened-i Ittifak and progressing through the 1839 Tanzimat Edict, the 1856 Islahat (Reform) Edict, and the 1876 Constitution, were influenced by both internal and external factors. These movements, despite lacking public demand, played a pivotal role in introducing democratic values and institutions in Ottoman history, including the country's first parliamentary election.

THE EAST PERCEIVED THROUGH WESTERN PERSPECTIVE: FAUSTO ZONARO AND ISTANBUL

For many centuries, Istanbul, as a city of culture, has been a source of inspiration for artists from many different countries. Italian artists were especially influenced by the Eastern world and reflected this influence in their work in almost every era. When we talk about "Western Orientalists on Ottoman lands", we doubtlessly first think of Italian Orientalists such as Gentile Bellini, Fausto Zonaro, Leonardo de Mango, Amadeo Preziosi, Salvatore Valeri, Luigi Acquarone, Raimondo D'Aronco, whose paths crossed through the Ottoman Empire, and who built bridges between these foreign cultures by depicting these exotic lands in their works. During the reign of Sultan Abdulhamit the Second, Fausto Zonaro (1854 – 1929) assumed the title of “Palace Artist” after the Italian artist Luigi Acquarone. Zonaro, as well as being recognized for his realistic depictions, became well known for introducing the newly emerging Western art movements in the Ottoman art circles during its initial stages and became influential by nurturing a new generation of young Ottoman artists by providing training. The way Zonaro perceived Istanbul and the local culture through an Italian perspective, and his difference from other Orientalist artists are crucial in making him a pioneering figure in the history of Turkish painting.

Artificial Neural Network-based robust technique for period prediction of Ottoman minarets in Türkiye

Minarets are crucial as symbolic and indispensable elements in mosques across religious communities worldwide. Beyond architectural culture, hazardous conditions have shaped the minaret structural formations in Islamic geography. Among these, masonry minarets built during the Ottoman Empire faced significant vulnerability to lateral forces due to their slender design, brittle materials, and distinctive shapes. After many earthquakes experienced in the 20th and 21st centuries, the collapse of numerous minarets highlights the urgent need to preserve the remaining structures in high seismicity regions of the historical Ottoman lands, moreover, identifying and fortifying the most vulnerable ones takes precedence. This study proposes an innovative approach, departing from previous research that solely focused on the correlation between geometrical and material properties such as height, cross-section area, moment of inertia, Young’s modulus, and material density using approximate formulas to predict the fundamental periods. Instead, it introduces a novel technique based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to predict the first three periods of Ottoman masonry minarets. Accurate measurements from 18 minarets located in Bursa City, Türkiye, were meticulously collected under ambient conditions, serving as the foundation for the neural network's comprehensive output database. The distinct parameters (geometrical and material properties) of these minarets form the input dataset. To mitigate the influence of random measurement noise, an effective averaging scheme was implemented. As a result, the proposed ANN technique demonstrates its robustness and holds great promise for practical applications, as it enables accurate estimation of the desired modal information for both the 18 minarets used to train the networks and the remaining three minarets, achieving high levels of accuracy.

Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands By Helen Pfeifer

<i>Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands</i> By <scp>Helen Pfeifer</scp>

Conversion of War Captives in the Ottoman Lands During the Eighteenth Century: Rules, Applications and Abuses

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the issue of conversion among war captives in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century and examines the release process of captives in relation to religious conversion. Starting from the Treaty of Carlowitz, the article first discusses the changes in the release process of captives based on treaties. Since conversions were considered as exceptional cases in which the converted captives were excluded from release, methods and procedures to detect conversion, as well as manipulative and pragmatic practices in the application of conversions, are studied in detail. Hence the issue of whether conversions were made voluntarily or by force is evaluated with examples. Finally the study focuses on the issue of conversion among child captives.

I. SÜLEYMAN’IN OĞULLARININ SÜNNET DÜĞÜNÜNDEKİ TATAR HANZADESİNİN KİMLİĞİ ÜZERİNE

One of the homelands of the Turks in the world is the plains north of the Black Sea. The Crimean Khanate, which has existed in these plains for about 350 years, is the last of the independent Turkic states that dominated in the north of the Black Sea. Since its establishment, the Crimean Khanate established political, social, cultural and economic relations with other states and communities in and around the Black Sea. One of the main features that distinguishes the Crimean Khanate, which was one of the heirs of the Golden Horde State like the Kazan Khanate and the Astarhan Khanate, from other khanates is that the fact that this state endured longer. The most important factor for this is that the Khanate accepted the Ottoman Empire's subordination from its early period. All the Tatar Khanates that emerged from the Golden Horde State continued the tradition of their rulers being descended from Genghis Khan. Being of Genghis lineage ensured that all hanzades had a say in the state administration. Unable to ascend to the throne on their own, the hanzades needed the support of various states, which were their enemies. These states supported the hanzades in line with their own interests, and groupings emerged within the khanates. These groupings led to internal conflicts in time and Tatar Khanates did not last long. In the early period of the Crimean Khanate, as in other khanates, internal conflicts threatened the state with collapse soon after its foundation, but the state was prevented from collapse when it came under Ottoman rule in 1475. The Crimean khans, with the exception of Mehmet Giray Khan I, began to sit on the throne with the approval of the Ottoman sultan. However, in time, the Crimean khans desire for independence from the Ottoman Empire emerged. In order to prevent possible independence attempts, the Ottoman Empire implemented the tradition of having a hanzade of the Giray dynasty reside in their territory as a pledge.&#x0D; The splendid circumcision ceremony held for the şehzades in the Ottoman Empire have found a place in the works of Ottoman authors. In addition to the state officials, representatives of the states affiliated to the Ottoman Empire also attended these magnificent ceremonies. The Crimean hanzade living in the Ottoman lands also took their places in the protocol at official state ceremonies. One of these ceremonies was the circumcision ceremony of Süleyman I's sons in June-July 1530. The works of Celâlzâde Mustafa Çelebi's Tabakâtü'l Memâlik ve Derecâtü'l Mesâlik, Nişancızâde Mehmet Efendi's Mir'âtü'l Kâinât, Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali's Künhü'l Ahbâr, Peçevi İbrahim Efendi's Peçevi Tarihi contain valuable information about this circumcision ceremony. In our study, we think that the Crimean hanzade, who participated in the circumcision ceremony held in 1530 and was named as the son of Tatar Khan according to the authors, is a name contrary to what is written in Turkish sources. As a result of the researches conducted by us, it has been seen that the hanzades claimed in Turkish sources were not in Istanbul at the date of the circumcision ceremony. In this study, we have tried to determine the name of the hanzade, whose name could not be determined in Ottoman sources, based on Russian sources, and it was understood that Himmet Giray and Baba Giray could have been in Istanbul on the days of the circumcision ceremony. However, as a result of the analysis of the existing sources, it is stated that Himmet Giray may have died at a date before Baba Giray's arrival in Istanbul.

Anti-Black Racism, British Orientalism, and the Ottoman Empire: Rereading The Turkish Embassy Letters

This essay reads Mary Wortley Montagu’s The Turkish Embassy Letters (1763) as an entry point for an investigation of the entwinement between the British anti-Black racial consciousness and orientalist rhetoric concerning the Ottoman Empire. Montagu’s racially marked depictions of women in Ottoman lands not only reveal the limits of her capacity to identify and sympathize with the oriental other, but also prompt a wider scrutiny of the anti-Black racial rhetoric that percolates through eighteenth-century British orientalist narratives about the Ottoman Empire.

Amerikan Misyonerlerinin Yayınlarında İkna İlkelerinin Tezahürü: Yunan Alfabesiyle Yazılmış Türkçe Çocuk Dergisi Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün Örneği

IIn the 19th century, many missionary organizations effectively infiltrated Ottoman society through their missionary activities. Among these organizations, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which has been active in Ottoman lands since 1820, stands out as an important missionary institution. Within the framework of its missionary activities, the ABCFM meticulously gathered information about the daily life of Ottoman society and sought to establish meaningful ties with them through educational, health and especially publishing initiatives. The ABCFM primarily focused on non-Muslim communities in Ottoman society, including the Karamanli Orthodox community, which was perceived as Greek due to their religious affiliation. The ABCFM aimed to succeed by converting all target groups, including the Karamanlides, to the Protestant faith. However, achieving this goal depended on their persuasiveness. Therefore, this study focuses on the compliance of ABCFM publications with the principles of persuasion. For this purpose, Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün (The Messenger for Children), an illustrated children's magazine that ABCFM missionaries began publishing in Istanbul as the Greek-lettered Turkish equivalent of the Armenian-lettered Turkish Avedaper, was selected as a case study. The study analyzed the first volume of Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün in 1872 in terms of the principles of persuasion. The findings show that the ABCFM largely adhered to the principles of persuasion in Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün. The findings show that ABCFM adhered to persuasive principles to a great extent in Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün. This result can be interpreted as an indication that ABCFM was very meticulous in their publications and that their success was not accidental.

Communicating the Turkish Military Strength and Organisation after the Crusader Defeat at Nicopolis: Comparing Philippe de Mézières’s Une Epistre lamentable, Honorat Bovet’s L’Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun and Bertrandon de la Broquière’s Le Voyage d’Outremer

The outcome of the Nicopolis crusade (1396)—a crushing victory for the Ottoman Turks over a crusader army led by Franco-Burgundian knights—had particularly deep resonances in the Kingdom of France. This was reflected in several contemporary works that lamented and/or criticised the crusaders’ defeat. Among these, Philippe de Mézières’s Une Epistre lamentable (1397) and Honorat Bovet’s L’Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun (1398) are of special note because they contain not only remarkable reflections on the campaign but also interesting observations on the successful Ottomans. Their praise of the Turks, especially regarding their military organisation and discipline, served both to criticise the crusaders’ own lack of discipline but also to present an example for them to follow in order to avenge the defeat. As Nicopolis marked the beginning of a Burgundian claim to champion the crusading movement, these works were primarily addressed to the Duke of Burgundy, among other European princes and nobility. In the mid-fifteenth century, Duke Philip the Good would carry this claim to its zenith by several undertakings that included sending envoys to the East to gather information about the enemy. One of these envoys, Bertrandon de la Broquière, visited the Ottoman lands in 1432–1433 and some twenty years later wrote his Le Voyage d’Outremer to communicate the observations and intelligence gathered during his journey. The fact that this work, written almost six decades after Nicopolis, contains multiple allusions to the defeat, in addition to similar portrayals and comments on the Turks within the two earlier works, can be taken to suggest a continuity in Western military portrayals of the Turks from Nicopolis onwards.

War, Risk, and Gold: The Turkish War of Independence and Ottoman Empire

Abstract After the end of the First World War in November 1918, the Allies were involved in a military campaign in the Ottoman lands, leading to a national resistance by Turks that would end in 1923. It is relevant to provide actual information on the outcomes of the Turkish War of Independence, since it was a longlived event that paved the way for further problems on the belligerents’ economies. Using unique data for the value of the gold from 1919 to 1925 at the İstanbul bourse, our analysis complements the historical arguments as historians may find political risks difficult to quantify. We observe that in 1921 the Turkish victories created expectations on the part of traders that the war could end soon, as is manifested in exchange rate fluctuations. The Turkish economy would have experienced higher financial instability with the Allies’ occupation and resistance in 1920, creating a lower chance to return the pre-war gold content of the belligerents’ currencies.

Helen Pfeifer, Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands,

Soon to be published in Turkish translation (trans. Faruk Akyıldız and Abdul- lah Sami Sümer, Ketebe Yayınları), Pfeifer’s book is based on the author’s doctoral thesis.

A way with words: Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–1890) and the unexpected power of print

AbstractThe writings of Muhammad Siddiq Hasan well exemplify the argument of Francis Robinson's influential article on vernacular print publications that furthered a Protestant Reformation-like democratising of sacred knowledge. Both the number of his publications, and the personal empowerment enjoined by his Ahl-i Hadith jurisprudence, make him, in fact, an ideal exemplar of this kind of publication. He also, however, stands apart. First, his ‘vernacular’ included not only Urdu, but also Arabic and Persian. Second, beyond democratisation, print simultaneously enhanced scholarly authority, and it did so to an unusual extent for Siddiq Hasan because of his pioneering reach beyond India to the Ottoman lands, with Arabic works published and distributed from cities like Istanbul and Cairo. Third, Siddiq Hasan's publications served a diversity of purposes, like Persian publications that enhanced his princely status, and Arabic publications that not only forged transnational networks of like-minded scholars but also, in other hands, served modernist theologians and innovative literary scholars. Finally, in the end, the potential of print turned on him as officials used his publications to allege seditious intent. That denouement aside, the life of Siddiq Hasan's print publication points to a moment of rich intellectual life in the context of colonial rule, taking Robinson's insights on the potential of publication in unexpected directions.

Pietro Della Valle: Christian pilgrimage, antiquarianism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the Baroque

The Roman aristocrat Pietro Della Valle, who defined himself as a pilgrim and as a citizen of the world, can stand as a paradigmatic case of the emergence of the modern curious traveller out of a religious tradition of pilgrimage. Della Valle did indeed travel to the Holy Land as a pious Catholic, in the second decade of the seventeenth century. However, his pilgrimage was from the start conditioned by antiquarian and romantic concerns, and he eventually extended his journey beyond Ottoman lands towards Persia and India. This article will elucidate how the pilgrim fashioned and transformed himself around a multi-faceted idea of travel in his letters at different stages of his journey, and as a member of a learned academy upon his return to Italy. Looking back at his visit to the Holy Land as part of a project of aristocratic self-fashioning, it will argue that the transformation of a religious pilgrimage into a complex experience involving religious and political schemes, scientific erudition and love did not open a chasm between piety and worldly learning, but instead widened the scope of curiosity in more exotic and cosmopolitan directions. The case of Della Valle exemplifies how early modern European Christian identities, in this respect often at odds with late antique and early medieval antecedents, were frequently built around the idea that religion and knowledge of the world were largely complementary, in a manner that facilitated new attitudes of cultural accommodation that placed increasing emphasis on the universality of learned civility over strictly religious experiences.

Sheikh Muṣṭafā Dagistānī (1824-1909)

The land of the Ottomans had witnessed many migration movements. Dagestan and the people of Dagestan are one of the most oppressed groups under the threat of Russia. In this article, I will touch upon the detailed biography of a Naqshī-Khālidī sheikh of Senirkent-Isparta who was separated from his family at a very young age. The short history of the lands of North and South Dagestan is also included in the article. He was one of the sheiks of Khālidī branch of Naqshbandiyya Sūfī order, which was established by Mawlānā Khālid al-Baghdādī and the most widespread Sūfī order at that time in the Ottoman lands. This article will further include Muṣṭafā Dagestānī`s connections with the renowned scholars and Sūfī masters of his time. While narrating his life story, I will demonstrate the relationships among the Sūfī masters and how the scholarly life of the intellects intertwined in the first quarter of the 19th century in Western Anatolia as well. Moreover, this article will encompass recently acquired family archives as sources of his biography and networks. . Keywords: Shaykh Muṣṭafā Dagestānī, Dagestan, Senirkent, Naqshbandiyya, Mawlānā Khālid al-Baghdādī

American Female Missionary Victims of Epidemics

Epidemics have always played an important role in human history and have deeply affected the individual, social and economic lives of states, communities and people. The communities located at the crossing point of civilizations and being on trade transition routes have been more affected by epidemics due to the intensity of interaction. This is probably why Anatolia has always faced epidemics from past to present. One of the time periods when these epidemics are intense is the process from 1820 to the end of the World War I. It is known that the American Board missionary organization was operating in the Ottoman lands during these epidemic times. For this reason, it is seen that the effects of the epidemic were voiced by missionaries, and even became the subject of American Board reports. &#x0D; This study is about the female missionaries (married or single) who worked on behalf of the American Board organization, who left their country for an ideal, came to the Ottoman lands and lost their lives due to some epidemics. First of all, the subject of the study will be revealed through the information in the documents of the American Board, the articles in the Board’s publication called "The Missionary Herald". In the light of the aforementioned documents, the aim of the study is to both reveal the identities of the women missionaries who lost their lives in the Ottoman lands due to some epidemic diseases and also to relate which disease they died from, and thus to make some contributions to the literature.

Pilgrimage, Precarity, and Pandemics

Pilgrimage, Precarity, and Pandemics

Under the Yoke of Ottoman Domination: Slavery and Central European Philhellenism During the Greek War of Independence

Slavery remained a problem for Central Europeans after the defeat of Napoleon. Concerns over White, Christian enslavement animated German-speaking European responses to the Greek Independence movement. As most antislavery advocates turned their attention to the increasing volume of the slaves traded between Africa and the New World, as well as the persistence and entrenchment of New World slavery, Central Europeans turned their attention to the Christian, Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The so-called ‘Barbary Problem’ ( Barbareskenfrage) became enmeshed with the Eastern Question as Greeks revolted in Ottoman lands. Central Europeans had long viewed the domination of Christians in Islamic North Africa as the central problem of slavery until increased German migration and involvement in the New World brought new tensions to the ideas surrounding slavery. Greek insurrectionists against the Ottoman Empire breathed new life into older ideas about Christians enslaved in Islamic portions of Europe and Africa. Greek Independence gave Germans a bête noir closer to Europe than that of slavery in the Americas. Much of this interest owes to an enduring German philhellenic tradition which has been seldom analysed. Indeed, as Sue Marchand has written ‘the obsession of the Schillerian German literary and scholarly elite with the ancient Greeks has become an accepted-if severely underanlaysed-cliché’. This paper uses archival documents to shed more light on how Central Europeans’ interest and participation in the Greek War of Independence helped to revive old ideas about Christian enslavement at a time when New World slavery became the central concern of a broader European humanitarian protest against servitude.