Mobile Actors, Mobile Slaves: Female Slaves from the Black Sea Region in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul

DIYÂR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Veruschka Wagner

This contribution aims to investigate mobility in the context of Ottoman slavery. Mainly on the basis of seventeenth-century Istanbul court records, the study deals with the question of mobility by focusing on female household slaves in Ottoman Istanbul who originated from the Black Sea region. With a look at the actors who surrounded them, female slaves are analysed at different stages in their lives. These stages were marked by changes related to mobility. The entry as well as the exit from slavery meant a spatial and social mobility for the slave women. But even in the time in between, slave women remained mobile through aspects such as conversion and resale. This paper further shows that Ottoman slavery and the slave trade were part of the Transottoman context: it can be seen that spaces of interaction were created through the connections and exchanges of actors beyond the Ottoman Empire.

Author(s):  
Vodotyka S. ◽  
Robak I.

The article is devoted to reviewing the book by the well-known Turkish historian İlber Ortaylı "Ottomans on Three Continents". The authors consistently analyze the main postulates of the work in the history of Ottoman possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, focusing on the role of the Ottoman Empire in the interaction of Black Sea civilizations in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.The authors prove that the history of the Ottoman Empire is essential for understanding the history of Ukraine. Ottoman influences significantly impacted the history of the Ukrainian people and other indigenous peoples of Ukraine – Crimean Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks, Crimean Greeks.The authors agree with the thesis of the Turkish researcher about the significant and sometimes decisive influence of the Ottomans on the situation in the Black Sea region in the XV–XVIII centuries. Furthermore, the authors express their views on certain statements of the book. In particular, İlber Ortaylı proves that the Ottoman Empire was a "state of the Middle Eastern Islamic type". Its presence in the Black Sea resulted in the interaction of Islamic Mediterranean civilization with Eastern European Orthodoxy and Ukraine were at the centre of this interaction. However, the authors cannot agree with the historian's statement about the primary basis of the empire – the system of the state, especially military, slavery (devshirme). It allowed to creation of a vast empire, The Sublime or Ottoman Porte. However, slavery could not create social mechanisms of progress. The civilizational basis of the Ottoman Empire was its steppe, Turkic-steppe, essence.In the Ottoman Empire, Western modernization borrowings were superficial, served utilitarian-pragmatic purposes, and did not change the foundations of civilization. Such selectable reforms were the reason why the Omans lost their possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region to the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Significantly, both empires claim the imperial, not civilizational, heritage of the Roman Empire. The intelligence emphasizes that these claims are not sufficiently substantiated.Key words: İlber Ortaylı, Ottoman Empire, heritage, history of Ukraine, Northern Black Sea Coast, Crimea. Стаття присвячена огляду-рецензії книги відомого турецького історика Ільбера Ортайли «Османи на трьох континентах». Автори послідовно проаналізували основні постулати праці в координатах історії османських володінь в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, приділивши головну увагу ролі Османської імперії у взаємодії цивілізацій Чорномор’я у періоди пізнього середньовіччя і раннього модерного часу.Доведено, що історія Османської імперії має важливе значення для розуміння історії України. Османські впливи відіграли значну роль в історії українського народу та інших корінних народів України – кримських татар, караїмів і кримчаків, кримських греків.Автори погоджуються з тезою турецького дослідника про значний, а часом визначальний, вплив Османів на ситуацію у Чорномор’ї у ХV–ХVІІІ ст. та висловлюють свої міркування щодо окремих положень праці. Зокрема, І. Ортайли кваліфіковано доводить, що Османська імперія була «державою близькосхідно-ісламського типу» і її присутність у Чорномор’ї мала наслідком взаємодію ісламської середземноморської цивілізації зі східноєвропейською православною, причому Україна знаходилась у центрі цієї взаємодії. Однак, не можна погодитись з твердженням історика щодо головної основи імперії – системи державного, передусім військового, рабства (девшірме). Вона дозволило створити величезну імперію, Сяючу Порту, але рабство не може створити суспільних механізмів поступу. Цивілізаційною основою Османської імперії стала її степова, тюрксько-степова, сутність. В Османській імперії західні модернізаційні запозичення були поверховими, служили утилітарно-прагматичним цілям і не змінювали цивілізаційних основ. Власне це і стало основною причиною того, що у ХVІІІ ст. Омани втратили свої володіння в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, які дістались Російській імперії. Показово, що обидві імперії висувають претензії на імперську, а не цивілізаційну, спадщину Римської імперії. У розвідці наголошується, що ці претензії не є достатньо обґрунтованими. Ключові слова: І. Ортайли, Османська імперія, спадщина, історія України, Північне Причорномор’я, Крим.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Vanessa R. de Obaldía

Abstract Santa Maria della Purificazione was the first Latin Catholic church built by the Friars Minor Capuchin in the Black Sea region during the post-Tanzimat period. It was an example of the order settlement after it sought refuge in the region due to its expulsion from Russian Georgia, where it was based since the mid-seventeenth century. Furthermore, this study analyzes the history of Capuchins at the time of their arrival in Trabzon in 1845, with the establishment of their church, friary, school, and cemetery, the latter intended to meet the needs of the local and foreign Latin Catholic residents of the city. The topic is also historically dealt with in terms of demography and urban planning. All these aspects are examined in the wider context of the legal impact of the Tanzimat on church building.


2019 ◽  
pp. 24-58
Author(s):  
Peter McMurray

McMurray’s chapter argues that law is a profoundly sonic medium, acting in, through, against, and modeled on sound—and more particularly, voice. Legal and cultural reforms in Islamicate societies in the Black Sea region during and around the time of the Crimean War illustrate these dynamics especially well. The first part of the chapter compares the legal reforms of the Caucasian Imamate (in North Daghestan and Chechnya) and the Ottoman Empire, showing how sound played a central role in negotiating new meanings of Islamic shari‘a law within those societies. Law thus becomes a critical archive for histories of sound, vocality, and listening. The latter part then reflects on the ontologies of law as a medium, considering both its sonic qualities—a recurring motif in both Anglo-American and Islamic jurisprudence—and its relation to the telegraph in particular, as a communications technology that simultaneously facilitated and challenged extant legal regimes.


Author(s):  
BURCU ÖZGÜVEN

This chapter examines military building activity in the region in the light of Ottoman sources preserved in the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archive in Istanbul and memoirs written by the senior bureaucrats of the Empire. It aims to assess whether the military building programme of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries continued in later periods in the same spirit as in the earlier time of conquests and expansion, or if the empire only supported repairs of existing strongholds. The issue was noted by numerous Ottoman writers as early as the Koçi Bey Risalesi in the seventeenth century. This chapter examines four frontier areas of the Ottoman Empire: the Hapsburg borderland in Croatia; the frontier between Montenegro and southern Herzegovina; the fortress line on the banks of the Danube in Wallachia; and the Danube Delta region near the Black Sea.


2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Kizilov

AbstractThe Crimea, a peninsula on the border between the Christian West and the Muslim East, was a place where merchants from all over the Black Sea region, East and West Mediterranean, Anatolia, Turkey, Russia, and West European countries came to buy, sell, and exchange their goods. In this trade "live merchandise"—reluctant travellers, seized by the Tatars during their raids to adjacent countries—was one of the main objects to be negotiated. Numerous published and archival sources (accounts of European and Ottoman travellers, letters and memoirs of captives, Turkish defters [registers], Russian and Ottoman chronicles to mention some of them) composed by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish authors provide not only a detailed account of the slave trade in the region in the Early Modern times, but also a discussion of some moral implications related to this sort of commercial activity. While most of the authors expressed their disapproval of the Tatar predatory raids and cruel treatment of the captives, none of them, it seems, objected to the existence of the slave trade per se, considering it just another off shoot of the international trade. Another issue often discussed in the sources was the problem of the slaves' conversion.


Author(s):  
K.A. Panchenko

Abstract The article highlights certain aspects of Alexey Veshnyakovs (17001745) residence as a Russian diplomatic envoy in Istanbul in the 1740s. Apart from his main goals (intelligence duties), A. Veshnyakov on his own initiative prepared vast political and historical papers for analysis in Saint-Petersburg examining the fates of the Ottoman Empire and the strategical goals of Russia in the Black Sea region. The article examines papers by A. Veshnuakov, written during the last 6 months of his life. In his focus was the catastrophic condition of the Ottoman Empire, which according to the residents viewpoint, could be defeated by Russia in a single strike. Such an attitude was created by his informers from the Greek Orthodox clergy who dreamed about the liberation of Greek people from Ottoman rule. A. Veshnyakov highly-advised to support and protect the Orthodox Church under the Ottoman Empire and Orthodox people Greeks, South Slavs and Moldavians who always sympathized with Russia. Desiderates made by the authorities of that time have never been carefully considered by the authorities in Saint-Petersburg, who were oriented to the integration of Russia to the European political system and never thought of supporting the Orthodox Balkans.Аннотация Статья посвящена некоторым аспектам деятельности российского дипломатического представителя (резидента) в Стамбуле в 30-х 40-х гг. XVIII в. Алексея Вешнякова (17001745). Помимо текущей работы, связанной прежде всего с разведывательной деятельностью, А. Вешняков по собственной инициативе составлял для своего петербургского начальства целые трактаты политологического и историософского характера, рассуждения о судьбах Османской империи и задачах российской стратегии на балкано-черноморском направлении. В статье рассматриваются аналитические записки А. Вешнякова, составленные в последние полгода его жизни. В центре внимания резидента было катастрофическое положение Османской империи, которую, как он считал, Россия сможет добить одним ударом. Соответствующие представления создавали у дипломата его информаторы из среды греческого духовенства, мечтавшие об освобождении своего народа от османского владычества. А. Вешняков настойчиво призывал российское руководство оказывать покровительство Православной Церкви Османской империи, а также единоверным народам грекам, южным славянам и молдаванам испытывающим традиционную симпатию к России. Пожелания резидента не находили понимания у петербургской правящей элиты, ориентированной на интеграцию России в европейскую политическую систему и далекой от идей поддержки балканских единоверцев.


Paléorient ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-182
Author(s):  
Bleda S. Düring ◽  
Bernard Gratuze

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-185
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Podolak

Views on the institution of direct democracy have changed during the period of democratic transition. The various advantages and positive effects of direct democracy have been confirmed by the practice of some democratic countries. Its educational and political activation value for society was also noted, without which civil society cannot form. The referendum is especially treated as the purest form of correlation between the views of society and the decisions of its representatives. In a situation where two representative bodies are present – the parliament and the president – a referendum is considered a means of resolving disputes between them in important state affairs. The referendum is nowadays becoming more than just a binding or consultative opinion on a legislative act, especially a constitution. First and foremost, it is important to see the extension of the type and scope of issues that are subject to direct voting. Apart from the traditional, i.e., constitutional changes, polarising issues that raise considerable emotion have become the subject of referenda. Problems of this type include, in particular, moral issues, membership in international organisations, and so-called ‘New Policy’. This article presents the role and importance of the referendum as an institution shaping the democratic systems of the Black Sea Region.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document