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Church Bells, Cannons, and Talking Machines:
Sounding Devices and the “Modernization” of Late Ottoman Istanbul

Over the past few years, I have been greatly supported by a number of people. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those who enriched this experience with their extensive knowledge, enthusiasm, love, and laughs.
I am eternally grateful to my advisor Nina (Ergin) Macaraig for her belief in my abilities. This dissertation would have been unimaginable without her academic support and guidance. I entered the Ph.D. program at the Koç University mainly because I was interested in auditory history, and I was drawn by the richness of her published work. She took the time to guide me throughout the whole process with enthusiasm, kindness, patience, and positivity. Thanks to her directions, engagement with my work, and meticulous eye for detail, I am a better writer and researcher. I am forever in her debt.
I also wish to express my deepest gratitude to the core-committee members, Lucienne Thys-Şenocak and Ahmet Ersoy, who have been instrumental in shaping this study by reading early drafts with great care and attention. Lucienne Thys-Şenocak’s support has been crucial throughout my graduate career. She opened my eyes to the value of different perspectives and challenged me to extend myself in multiple ways with her encouragement. I am also profoundly grateful to Ahmet Ersoy for his deep knowledge of the period, critical remarks, and enthusiasm for my work. His ideas, advice, and thought-provoking conversations have been essential for this dissertation. Without their insight and generosity, I would have never been able to finish this study.
I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the other members of the committee, Yonca Köksal, and Nazan Maksudyan, for their invaluable insights and genuine interest. As attentive readers, they opened my eyes to my inconsistencies, offered constructive criticisms, and extended the scope of my work with their careful examination, helpful comments, and challenging questions. I have learned so much from them.
My time at the Koç University has been truly special. I owe special thanks for their generous support of my research. The opportunity to devote years to academic research was a rare gift. I also sincerely appreciate all of the administrative support provided by the staff, and in particular by Tuğçe Şatana, at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.
There are many people and institutions to whom I owe a great deal of thanks for their support: Professors in ARHA, my Ottoman language instructors, Dilek Koçak and Ali Emre Özyıldırım, Anamed personnel, The Library of Boğaziçi University, Ottoman Archives, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Ottoman History Podcast, and Rahmi Koç Museum.
On a personal note, I also would like to thank my friends, Selen Akçalı, Emrecan Çakır, Fatma Coşkuner, Burak Doğruöz, Federico Ferrone, Pınar Galip, İlker Kopan, Mehmet Şükrü Kuran, Bleda Kurtdarcan, Francesco Ragazzi, Öncel Seçgin, Alp Şeber, Gökşin Varan, Koray Yarış, and Cumhur Zümrüt for their support and positivity over the years.
Finally, this thesis would not be here without the incredible support, patience, and encouragement of my mother Hatice Selma Engin, my father Nazif Engin, my sister Gözde Kayacan, her husband İlkay Kayacan, and my partner Hande Doğuoğlu. Thank you for your laughs and love. This dissertation is dedicated to you.
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Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Scope ............................................................................................................................................... 4
Time Period ................................................................................................................................. 4
Research Questions and Hypothesis ........................................................................................... 6
Theoretical Background .................................................................................................................. 9
Constructing the Sonic Past: The Semiotics of Sound and Auditory History .......................... 15
Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 20
Outline........................................................................................................................................... 25
Chapter I - Sleeping Angels on Domes: The Church Bells of the Late Ottoman Empire ............. 27
Church Bells in Sound Studies ................................................................................................. 28
The History of Church Bells in the Ottoman Empire ............................................................... 31
The Ottoman Policy Towards Church Bells ............................................................................. 39
Bell-Related Conflicts ............................................................................................................... 43
Image to Imagination: Two Photographs from the Hamidian Albums..................................... 49
Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 55
Chapter II - Echoes over the Bosphorus: Cannon Shots of Late Ottoman Istanbul ..................... 57
Echoes over the Bosphorus ....................................................................................................... 61
For Whom the Cannons Thunder? Sacral, Imperial, Diplomatic, and Other Functions of Cannon Shots ............................................................................................................................ 69
“Flashes of Joyous Peals”: Sacral Uses of Cannon Salvos ................................................. 69
Imperial Self-Image: Aural Manifestations of Sultanic Representation ............................... 82
Communicating with Salvos: The Diplomatic Uses of Cannons ........................................ 112
Other Uses of Cannons ....................................................................................................... 128
Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 143
Chapter III - “Fennî Bir Ucube - A Scientific Oddity”: The Phonographs and Gramophones of Late Ottoman Istanbul................................................................................................................. 146
The Talking Machine in Istanbul: The Arrival of the Phonograph ........................................ 150
“Buzzing like Bees”: The Growing Popularity of the Gramophone ....................................... 164
The Emergence of the Gramophone and the Recording Industry in Istanbul ......................... 168
“Fonograf Meraklılarına Müjde”: The Recording Industry in Development ........................ 175
“Inappropriate” Recordings .................................................................................................... 194
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Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 201
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 203
Figures......................................................................................................................................... 212
References ................................................................................................................................... 239
Appendix 1 - List of Abbreviations for Archival Categories ..................................................... 254
Appendix 2 - List of Archival Documents Cited in Footnotes ................................................... 256
Appendix 3 - List of Major Stores Selling Records and/or Talking Machines in Istanbul ........ 285
Appendix 4 - Map of Major Stores Selling Records and/or Talking Machines in Istanbul ....... 286
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Abstract
This dissertation investigates how the Ottoman state and the inhabitants of late Ottoman Istanbul understood and dealt with several sounding devices found in the city: church bells, cannons, and talking machines (the gramophone and the phonograph). Focusing on their legal, political, and cultural status and examining how the state and its inhabitants perceived, used, and regulated these sounding objects, this study argues that the Ottoman capital’s modernization was an auditory as well as a visual phenomenon.
Based on three case-studies of sounding devices as organizing principle, the chapters provide a history of Istanbul’s modernization between 1826 and 1923 from an auditory perspective. This study observes people’s sensorial experiences, perceptions of modernization, as well as the Ottoman state’s multifaceted mediation between numerous institutions to control the sounds that these devices made, and in doing so investigates how the changing auditory environment altered the culture of hearing and signified a shift in power balances for the state.
By combining political, legal, and cultural backgrounds with personal narratives, this dissertation also shows how the existing body of data, both written and visual, can be employed from an auditory perspective and contribute to our understanding of Ottoman modernization, culture, and politics.
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Kilise Çanları, Toplar, ve Konuşan Makineler (Gramofon ve Fonograf): İşitsel Araçlar ve Geç Osmanlı İstanbul’unun “Modernleşmesi” Özet: Bu doktora tezi, kilise çanları, toplar ve konuşan makinelerin (gramofon ve fonograf) hukuki, siyasi ve kültürel statülerine odaklanarak, Osmanlı devletinin ve son dönem Osmanlı İstanbul'u (1826-1923) sakinlerinin bu işitsel nesneleri nasıl algıladığını, kullandığını ve düzenlediğini incelemektedir. Çalışma bu doğrultuda Osmanlı başkentinin modernleşmesinin görsel olduğu kadar işitsel bir fenomen olduğunu savunmaktadır. Yukarıdaki üç farklı obje etrafında şekillenen bölümler, İstanbul'un 1826 ve 1923 arasındaki modernleşme tarihini işitsel bir perspektiften sunarken, insanların duyusal deneyimlerini, modernleşme algılarını ve Osmanlı devletinin bu cihazların çıkardığı sesleri kontrol etmek için nasıl çeşitli kurumlar arasında çok yönlü bir bürokratik mekanizma oluşturduğunu gözlemlemektedir. Bunu yaparken değişen işitsel ortamın ses kültürünü nasıl şekillendirdiğini ve aynı zamanda Osmanlı devlet için politik güç dengelerinde bir kayma unsuru olduğunu da sorgulamaktadır. Aynı zamanda bu tez, siyasi, hukuki ve kültürel geçmişleri kişisel anlatılarla birleştirerek, hem yazılı hem de görsel kaynakların işitsel bir perspektiften nasıl kullanılabileceğini ve bu işitsel objelerin Osmanlı modernleşmesi, kültürü ve siyasetini anlamamıza nasıl katkıda bulunabileceğini de göstermektedir.
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Introduction
How did the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century residents of Istanbul experience the sounds they heard in their rapidly modernizing environments? How did they perceive the ringing of church bells in such a multi-cultural environment? In what ways did they perceive cannon shots and their changing modes of usage? And how did they react to the introduction of modern sound technology, such as the phonograph and the gramophone?
During the long period of 1826-1923, Istanbul underwent significant changes. Like most major cities in Europe, the Ottoman capital experienced numerous problems, such as great fires and an increasing population. First steps of civic reforms had been taken during the era of Mahmud II (1808-1839) to overcome the empire’s economic and military weaknesses. The subsequent reforms of the Tanzimat period (1839-1976) were intended to modernize urban management to re-establish strict control over society, slow population growth by migration, and prevent revolts. Urban regulations included a model similar to Haussmann’s radial plan and intended to organize municipal functions, streets, transportation, education, public health, and living conditions. After the Crimean War of 1856, Istanbul began to acquire a European appearance, and these commercial, socio-economic, and cultural changes attracted people from the provinces. Zeynep Çelik (1993) argued in her historical portrait of the Ottoman capital, The Remaking of Istanbul that the city’s social organization, population, and physical appearance changed radically during this period. In her words, “the change in Istanbul’s urban form resulted in a patchy and eclectic regularity” (p. xvi). This integrated system created a fragmented social life of various ethnic and religious communities in different residential zones. During Abdülhamid II’s (1876-1909) autocratic and Islam-grounded rule, European-based reforms, and urban redevelopment continued well alongside new surveillance mechanisms, censorship, imperial pomp, and
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religious ceremonies. In the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) and Occupation periods, Istanbul’s change even accelerated between 1908 and 1923. According to Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, “in the fifteen years between 1908 and 1923 [Istanbul] completely lost its old identity. The Young Turk Revolution, three major wars, a whole series of fires large and small, financial crises, the dissolution of the empire, and finally, in 1923, our complete acceptance of a civilization whose doorstep we had been occupying, scratching our heads for a hundred years, completely effaced [Istanbul’s] old identity” (Duben & Behar, 1991, p.27). Although this is an overstatement, it gives us a general impression of how locals experienced radical changes.
The emergence of urbanization—street lighting, bridges, pavements, canalization, new public venues (café-chantants, clubs, theatres), and new energy sources (electricity, gas, steam)—led to essential changes in people’s attitudes and daily practices. Many existing historical studies on the urban transformation of Ottoman Istanbul provide detailed descriptions of these physical, cultural, and socio-economic changes, especially in “arenas of modernity” such as Pera and Şişli.
In her 2013 book Soundscapes of the Urban Past, Karin Bijsterveld (2013) states that “past sounds and the perception of these sounds by historical actors can inform us about the changing character and identity of cities” (p.14). There exist important historical studies that explore the soundscapes of numerous cities in Europe and the United States. However, besides recent studies by Nina Ergin and Nazan Maksudyan, historians have been relatively quiet on the sounds of Ottoman Istanbul. Therefore, this study aims to give a new auditory perspective to Istanbul’s urban past, where the politics of sounds and the culture of hearing provide an alternative story of modernization.
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Indeed, there exist numerous debates and theories that discredit the term modernization. However, scholars use the concept in a variety of ways. In his 2000 book, Questions on Modernity, Timothy Mitchell problematizes the auto-centric picture of modernity as the expression of a universal certainty. According to Mitchell (2000), the history of modernity has always wrongfully claimed to be a universal one. Portraying itself as a global phenomenon, the history of modernity inevitably attempts to homogenize other histories as aspects of the emergence of the West. Auditory historian Jonathan Sterne (2003) also notes that “modernization can too easily suggest a brittle kind of universalism, where the specific historical developments referenced by modernity are transmogrified into a set of historical stages through which all cultures must pass” (p.9). Therefore, as a grey area with contradictions, modernity cannot offer helpful analytical methods or categories. However, its investigative value can help us to observe how sound evolved together with Ottoman Istanbul’s expanding urban fabric, emerging industries, Europeanized commerce, increasing population, massive demographic changes, new temporal order, public transportation, state bureaucracy, transforming social decorum, and new forms of communication, culture, entertainment, and consumerism. Moreover, with its privileged status, the Ottoman capital offers numerous auditory paths, transformations, regulations, and multi-cultural encounters that can be employed to interpret people’s attitudes towards sounds and construct an auditory base upon which modernization took place. On a broader level, a more complex version of modernity can be observed when questioning how sounds were perceived, politicized, and regulated.
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Scope
Time Period
According to Sterne (2003), “as there was an Enlightenment, so too was there an “Ensoniment.” A series of conjunctures among ideas, institutions, and practices rendered the world audible in new ways and valorized new constructs of hearing and listening. Between about 1750 and 1925, sound itself became an object and a domain of thought and practice” (p.2). However, the historical periodization that I use in this study slightly differs from other studies since it focuses on the transformation of the Ottoman Empire’s capital through political and physical changes. I reconfigure my timeline from an auditory point of view and prioritize how sound carried meaning for the Ottoman state and its citizens. Letting sound drive chronology, I choose my time period beginning in 1826 when Mahmud II closed around 2,500 coffeehouses in the capital and abolished all mehter ensembles alongside the Janissary forces to establish a modern Imperial band.
Being at the “very center of male public life,” the coffeehouses of Ottoman Istanbul served an essential function (Quataert, 2005, p.160). As indicated by Kırlı (2016), in the absence of newspapers and an extensively literate public, information, especially in the form of rumors and gossip, was disseminated around the city by word of mouth. In his words, “it was in the coffeehouse, more than anywhere else, that the pervasive experience of modernity in the nineteenth century was negotiated, interpreted and contested” (p.176).
Moreover, class dimensions were also at work. As places “of ignorance and idleness for intellectuals, a site of subversion and debauchery for the state,” these “sites of assembly” were never independent of control. In brief, considered a threat to public order and morality, the coffeehouses were repeatedly closed not only as a measure to “prevent the sheltering of the
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remnants of Janissaries,” but also an attempt to temporarily silence an extensive network of information (p.169).
Mehter ensembles played to rally troops, inspire soldiers, or intimidate the enemy on the battlefield. As Catherine Schmidt-Jones (2010) states, “they played in parades during the preparations for going to war, at festivals, at weddings, at the births of the sultan’s children, at diplomatic events and state receptions, and the striking of the watch at the gates of the castle. The royal mehter even played while the sultan was being shaved.” Moreover, there existed many mehter ensembles. Jones continues: “The Sultan’s royal mehters, the sadrazam (prime minister), the Beylerbeyleri (governors-general), Sancakbeyleri (district governors), and the commander of the Janissaries each had their own ensemble.” Although the dissolution of the mehter ensembles has often been considered a natural result of the transformation of the military forces, for the Ottomans their abolition symbolizes a radical detachment from their sonic ways of legitimization. Replacing these ensembles with a Western-style band run by Giuseppe Donizetti,1 Mahmud II not only attempted to westernize the imperial military band tradition, but also to consolidate the right to make noise for sultanic purposes. The famous French writer, poet, and politician Alphonse de Lamartine (1835) experiences a performance of this military band during the Friday procession of Mahmud II: “[Mahmud II] entered the mosque. He stayed there only twenty minutes. During all this time the military band played opera pieces of Mozart and
1 In order to replace a centuries-old military band tradition with a Western-style band, the first Imperial Academy of Music (Muzıka-ı Hümayun) was founded. Giuseppe Donizetti, the elder brother of the famous Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, was invited to Istanbul in 1828 as the court musician. Composing Mahmudiye, the first imperial march and national anthem of the Ottoman Empire, starting a military band in 1828, and later an imperial orchestra in 1831, Donizetti, in Deringil’s (1999) words, “established a pattern” which will make “part of the iconography of neotraditions,” p.9.
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Rossini” (p.333). Implementing European music during his Friday processions, Mahmud II’s unprecedented policy signifies his strong will to emphasize the sultanic power through any auditory means necessary.
The period under investigation ends in 1923, when the foundation of the Turkish Republic in Ankara resulted in a dramatic decline of Istanbul’s population. As Darling (2002) states, “whatever periodization we finally accept must be based on the internal rhythms of the empire, on what the Ottomans themselves were doing or attempting to do” (pp.20-21). Therefore, rather than keeping my focus on external events or questioning what happened to the Ottomans, I prioritize what they did about the whole new world of “Ensoniment.”
Research Questions and Hypothesis
How did sound carry meaning for the late Ottoman state and inhabitants of Istanbul? How did the Ottomans perceive these sounding devices? In what ways and effects did their emergence and transformation reflect modernization patterns? How did they affect sensibilities and perception of modernity? Why did the Ottoman state regulate these devices?
Based on three case-studies of church bells, cannon shots, and modern sound technology, respectively, I argue that Istanbul’s modernization in the nineteenth century was not only a visual phenomenon but also an auditory one – in fact, that sound had great agency when it came to shaping and promoting modernity. This period’s political, cultural, and technological changes created a new auditory culture by altering existing sounds and bringing new sounds to the city’s eclectic, dynamic, and transforming urban fabric. Heightening people’s interest in the sounds surrounding them, this new auditory culture shaped people’s sensorial experiences and perceptions of modernization. Signifying a shift in power balances, this sonic modernity also
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affected the Ottoman state’s identity, control, religion, and legitimization practices while creating political awareness and an expanded culture of hearing.
My dissertation employs an auditory approach to advance a more complex and nuanced understanding of the Ottoman capital’s modernization. The common aim of each chapter is to question how these sounding devices reflect the changing auditory culture in the capital. It is important to note that this auditory culture was not only about newly emerging sounds; rather, it was also about sounds that remained the same in terms of their sonic quality, but changed in terms of their meanings. Thus, my study focuses on the transformations in sound as well as on how people listened to those sounds. Moreover, it demonstrates how the power structure conditioned the ways of listening to these sounding devices. Birdsall (2012) wrote that “the pace of modernity, and its effects on selfhood in the decades around 1900, was also intertwined with the auditory realm” (p.16). Therefore, because they actively shaped auditory pathways and modern sensibilities, the Ottoman state’s politics of sound and sonic practices in the urban context can also offer us novel perspectives on the modernization of Istanbul.
My argument in connection to church bells develops on the basis of two complementary facts. First, the Ottoman state took an important step in terms of the audibility of the religious other, by giving Christians the right to ring church bells. Second, this was balanced by various sets of control, prevention, and sanction mechanisms employed by a complex organization of bureaucracy. Both systems worked in subtle and interconnected ways, and these mechanisms were greatly shaped by various conditions such as political perspectives, financial dependency, religious sentiments, and demographic structures. The presence of 1,600 official documents regarding church bells, issued by more than twenty institutions, demonstrates the utmost
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importance given to this new religious soundscape and the governmental ability of a modern state.
The second chapter demonstrates how cannons responded to the demands of modernity by providing communication between different parts of the city in case of fires and announcing noontime in the new temporal order. Serving as a crucial source of information, cannons’ semiotic system held significance in the inhabitants’ spatial and temporal orientation. Moreover, cannons articulated the Ottoman state’s new identity, especially in the diplomatic context. Changes in their functions symbolized the shift in power from an imperial to constitutional regime. The rise and spread of nationalist sentiment under the CUP regime were powerful enough to change people’s tolerance thresholds toward cannons’ thunder. As communication technologies contributed to the transformation of their functions, this auditory system started to fade away, decisively replaced by other sources of information. Their virtual absence in today’s contemporary urban soundscape signifies how urban sound functioned on different levels and how our sensitivity to noise has changed.
While the first two chapters look at sounding devices primarily through state-generated documents (and travel accounts), my third chapter on talking machines offers a more “bottom-up” perspective since most Istanbulites had easy access to these modern sounding devices. Their introduction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created a whole new sensorial world and novel cultural practices. The modern consumer quickly developed a culture of music and auditory perception. Generating new artistic, technical, and commercial practices, these technologies led to the emergence of multi-cultural networks and a dynamic music industry in Istanbul. Music listening became a personal and direct cultural practice, and listeners began to recognize differences between devices. These increased aesthetic and technical sensibilities led
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the record companies and stores to emphasize the sound quality of their products in their advertisement.
In answering the research questions outlined above, as well as in presenting my investigations into church bells, cannons, and talking machines, this dissertation will contribute to scholarship in two ways: on one hand, it adds a novel dimension to the cultural history of the Ottoman Empire of the nineteenth and twentieth century; on the other hand, its focus on Ottoman Istanbul provides the fields of soundscape studies and auditory history with a case-study that falls outside the more commonly encountered geographical scope of Europe and North America.
Theoretical Background
Ever since the term “soundscape” was first created by Canadian composer and environmentalist R. Murray Schafer in the 1970s, there has been a trend in the social sciences to encourage the study of sounds. Dedicating his life to combatting the harmful effects of industrial sounds on humans, Schafer, in the early 1970s, started the World Soundscape Project as an international project that aimed to find solutions for a harmonious and balanced soundscape. In his seminal 1977 book, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and The Tuning of the World, Schafer set the stage for sound studies and argued that the Industrial Revolution, with its countless machines and intensive noises, negatively affected our sonic world. Before industrialization, Westerners lived in a “hi-fi” sonic environment where single sounds could be heard and identified easily. After the Industrial Revolution, the “hi-fi” sonic environment was transformed into a “lo-fi” one, in “which signals are overcrowded, resulting in masking or lack of clarity” (Schafer, 1977, p.272). He also outlined the components of the soundscape, such as the keynote (background sounds that are heard continuously), sound signals (foreground sounds that are meant to attract
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attention), and the soundmark (unique sounds that are regarded as special by the community). Schafer’s emphasis on how industrialization and new technologies affected soundscapes has inspired many historians.
After the early 1990s, auditory history—a newly developing field that “engages with the past in its many sonic varieties,” including music, noise, and (near) silence—began to play a crucial role in cultural history (Bijsterveld, 2015, p.10). Since the early 2000s, the so-called “sensory turn” towards sound and smell has expanded the Humanities. Sound studies are now a well-established and interdisciplinary field of research, with methods related to acoustic ecology, sound design, media, art history, urban studies, everyday history, musicology, and cultural studies. The dramatic explosion of sound studies in readers, journals, edited collections, courses, and research grants validate its significance.
Today, numerous studies consider “occularcentrism”— the privilege of the eye over the ear—as one of the essential issues of the sound studies field.2 A key question concerns when, exactly, Western culture privileged sight over the hearing.3 According to Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Peter Bailey, this shift occurred with the rise of print. However, in their book Auditory History Reader, Bull and Back (2003) argue that “visually based epistemology [is] both insufficient and often erroneous in its description, analysis and thus understanding of the social
2 Attali, Jacques. 1985. “Listening” in Noise: The Political Economy of Music; Bailey, Peter. 1996. “Breaking the Sound Barrier”; Bull, Michael, and Les Back. 2003. The Auditory Culture Reader; Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape; Kahn, Douglas. 2004 Art and Sound. Voegelin, Salomé. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence.
3 Attali, Jacques. 1985. “Listening” in Noise: The Political Economy of Music; Bailey, Peter. 1996. “Breaking the Sound Barrier”; Bull, Michael, and Les Back. 2003. The Auditory Culture Reader; Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape; Kahn, Douglas. 2004 Art and Sound. Voegelin, Salomé. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence.
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word” (p.3). According to the authors, narratives on sound should be traced from cross-cultural and cross-national perspectives because sound creates multiple perspectives for different versions of any particular event and invites listeners to seek multiple meanings. Thus, they argue that sound studies can help us approach social and power relations from a different critical perspective. In The Ethical Soundscape, Charles Hirschkind (2006) also heavily criticizes the West’s “occularcentric epistemology” that considers listening and orally based societies inferior (p.18).
Influenced by Don Ihde’s 1973 study Listening and Voice, in Listening to Noise and Silence, Salome Voegelin (2010) extends the borders of anti-occularcentric discourse with phenomenology and creates new modes of communication and approaches to listening. In her study, Voegelin considers the preexisting modes of listening as hierarchies of knowledge. Accordingly, phenomenological listening is crucial because it renews our understanding and critical perspective on sound and leads to new discourse forms. Therefore, it gives us a new understanding of aesthetics, politics, humanities, and economics. Other thinkers such as Douglas Kahn and Trevor Wishart have also criticized these preexisting modes of listening since they privilege music as the art of sound; instead, they encourage us to think about sound outside of preexisting metaphors. Today, the new technologies of sound have a dramatic impact on the arts, and as a resonant and fleeting structure, sound can have infinite meanings that can only be understood by involving different modes of listening.
Providing us with new tools to explore different aspects of the past and broadening our imagination, scholars of auditory history have established numerous links between sonic environments and various socio-cultural aspects. Studies in auditory history show us how sound, noise, and silence can be crucial in various times, contexts, and locations. They have
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demonstrated how sound has served as a source of information, location, identity, time, prestige, order, conflict, and power. Questioning how sound has carried meaning for individuals and political power, urban historians have mainly focused on the modernization and industrialization of numerous European and North American cities (such as London, New York, Paris, Amsterdam) from an interdisciplinary sonic perspective.
Scholars such as Karin Bijsterveld, Alain Corbin, Jonathan Sterne, Bruce R. Smith, John M. Picker, Mark. M Smith, Richard Cullen Rath, and Daniel Morat have published several relevant readers and collections on auditory history. Corbin’s well-known study on the soundscape of French rural areas, Village Bells (1998), demonstrates how bells and bell-ringing reflected various social, political, and ideological aspects. As a unique contribution to the field, his study emphasizes how bells shaped local communities’ habits and daily rhythms. Bruce R. Smith’s (1999) study The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-Factor recreates the soundscapes of Shakespearean England. Drawing on a wide range of sources and case studies, he emphasizes the importance of hearing to understand the cultural history of early modern England. According to Smith, what we hear and the way we interpret it are pre-determined by our own culture and history. Similar to the work of Smith, Picker’s study Victorian Soundscapes (2003) offers a detailed account of the particularities of urban soundscapes during the Victorian era, with a focus on London. It emphasizes the desire to find silence from the deafening noise in the British capital. He also argues that the new technologies of sound created a sonic awareness that led Victorians to develop Victorian self-awareness. In his book, How Early America Sounded, Rath (2003) argues that Early America may have been quieter than ours but that the cultural meanings of their auditory environment were more complex than today. Mark M. Smith’s numerous studies also mainly focus on North America
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and demonstrate how auditory history can open new storylines to find new explanations for historical problems.
Another key aspect to understand urban sounds of the past is noise. Numerous books and articles explore how the perception of noise, as an expressive and communicative resource, offers a better understanding of cultural history from a political, social, and individual perspective. Aimée Boutin’s eclectic study City of Noise (2015) focuses on the sounds of nineteenth-century Paris, especially Cris de Paris’s perception. Emily Cockayne’s (2007) book, Hubbub: Filth, Noise, & Stench in England 1600-1700 questions how some noises became necessary and attractive (such as industrial ones), while others became a source of complaint (such as those generated by servants, street musicians, and the poor). These two studies successfully demonstrate how the perception of certain noises shifted with traffic, industrialization, trade, and social life in cities. Peter Payer’s (2007) study “The Age of Noise: Early Reaction in Vienna, 1870-1914” examines noise abatement societies and the movement’s social background in Vienna. As a signifier of low culture, social disorder, and immorality, noise became a middle-class concept that indexed the quality of urban life. Thus, its regulation became a symbol of state control. The rise of capitalism, literacy, and modernity shaped the limits of noise and turned it into an expressive and communicative source for the writing of urban history.
Other studies have focused on the emergence of musical sensibility and questioned how the homogenization of music culture through opera halls and gramophone technology affected listening. As demonstrated by James H. Johnson (2004) in Listening and Silence in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century France,” since the 1750s, audiences became more engaged in the emotional aspects of musical expression. This emergence of musical sensibility created its practice and codes of silence during performances. As also argued by Sven Müller (2014) in
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“The Invention of Silence: Audience Behaviour in Berlin and London in the Nineteenth Century,” silence emerged as cultural practice in the evaluation of musical taste, and music became a bourgeois “religion of art.” As a result, these habits and changes in cultural norms led to public self-discipline and affected the soundscapes of the streets through the emergence of noise abatement societies. Street music and the “noise” of the lower orders of society came under attack.
Modern developments—such as urbanization, democratization, industrialization, communication technologies, and the emergence of a consumer society—affected the distribution of new sound technologies. As argued by Sterne (2003) in The Audible Past, the history of sound in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries cannot be written without considering the reproducibility of sound. The meanings ascribed to these technologies changed through various technical, social, and cultural processes. Their values were shaped through commercialization and entertainment among different groups, such as consumers, engineers, producers, and organizations.
As we have seen so far, auditory history can enrich urban history from numerous perspectives. Urban sounds, as signs of a complex semiotic system, have always shaped identity, power, relationships, and control mechanisms. The meaning of noises and sounds differs according to place, time, class, gender, and identity. Helping us integrate gender studies, musicology, and class into urban history, these shifting meanings are essential sources to understand the auditory history of modernity. Allowing us a deeper appreciation of the texture, meaning, and human experience of the past, auditory history tells us how people understood and appreciated sounds. In the following subsection, I will briefly discuss the role of semiotics in auditory history and question how it can extend our perspective on perceived sounds.
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Constructing the Sonic Past: The Semiotics of Sound and Auditory History
“How does language manage when it has to interpret music? Alas, it seems very badly.” Roland Barthes, 1977 - Image, Music, Text
Questioning the poverty of language in his book Image, Music, Text, Roland Barthes (1977) states that writing is the only semiotic method to interpret another semiotic system. He also rightfully points out that, in the musical description, we are limited to “the poorest of linguistic categories: the adjective” (p.179). Following Barthes’ criticism, I will observe how semiology can help us reinterpret sounds and expand our understanding of history in this subsection.
As part of our physical environment, sounds constitute soundscapes in which we live. Sounds’ pervasive nature continually exposes us to endless social meanings. Beginning with Peirce and Schaefer’s theories on semiology and soundscape, I will explore how we can reinterpret sounds and attribute new meanings to these “sonic forms of knowledge” through semiology (Cobussen, Schulze, & Meelberg, 2013).
Using language as a primary system, Peirce (1955) defined his model of sign in semiotics as “is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity” (p.99). Helping us understand how people experience and connect, he developed his triadic model to define the sign. For Peirce (1955), the semiotic process of signs consists of three elements. Sign or representamen (the form of the sign), object which is “something else” (it could be abstract or concrete), and interpretant (the effect created by the sign and object in mind). What makes Peircean semiosis helpful for this research is that it involves a type of chaining process. The interpretant can evolve into the sign for another object and create another interpretant, “ad infinitum until that trains of thought are interrupted by another chain of thought or by arriving at
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a belief or conclusion” (Turino, 1999, p.23). This method makes meaning-making continuous and unending rather than fixed and limited to a specific moment in time.
In line with Peircean semiosis, R. Murray Schafer established four categories of sound in his 1977 seminal book The Soundscape: Tuning of the World: Acoustics (physical characteristics), psychoacoustics (how they are perceived), semiotics and semantics4, and aesthetics (emotional and affective qualities). However, according to anthropologist Constance Classen (1993), the historical exploration of the senses should exceed the mere description of the range of specific
4 Opening doors to endless social, personal, scientific, and artistic meanings in multiple fields, the semiotics of sounds support various disciplines by attributing new values and meanings to sounds. Some of the scholarly research that explore its potential are: Augoyard, Jean François; Torgue, Henry (2005): Sonic Experience. A Guide to the Effects of Sound. Montréal, Chesham: McGill-Queen's University Press; Blasi, Damian E.; Wichmann, Soren; Hammarstrom, Harald; Stadler, Peter F.; Christiansen, Morten H. (2016): “Sound-meaning Association Biases Evidenced Across Thousands of Languages.” In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 113 (39), pp. 10818–10823; Bijsterveld, Karin; van Dijck, José (Ed.) (2009): Sound Souvenirs. Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; d’Orsi, Giuseppe; Tinuper, Paolo (2006): “I heard voices…: From semiology, a historical review, and a new hypothesis on the presumed epilepsy of Joan of Arc.” In Epilepsy and Behavior 9, pp. 152–157; Erlmann, Veit (Ed.) (2004): Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. Oxford; Farina, Almo; Pieretti, Nadia (2014): “From Umwelt to Soundtope. An Epistemological Essay on Cognitive Ecology.” In Biosemiotics 7 (1), pp. 1–10; Feist, Jim (2013): “Sound symbolism” in English. In Journal of Pragmatics 45, pp. 104–118; Feld, Steven (1990): Sound and Sentiment. Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. University of Pennsylvania Press; Gell, Alfred (1995): “The Language of the Forest: Landscape and Phonological Iconism in Umeda.” In The Anthropology of Landscape; Kramer, Gregory; Walker, Bruce (2004): “Ecological Psychoacoustics and Auditory Displays: Hearing, Grouping, and Meaning Making.” In Ecological Psychoacoustics; Krishnan, Vijaykumar; Kellaris, James J.; Aurand, Timothy W. (2012): “Sonic Logos: Can Sound Influence Willingness to Pay?” In Journal of Product & Brand Management 21 (4), p. 275; Nuckolls, Janis B. (1999): “The Case for Sound Symbolism.” In Annual Review of Anthropology 28 (1), pp. 225–252; Pinch, Trevor (Ed.); Bijsterveld, Karin (Ed.) (2012): The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies: Oxford University Press.
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sounds and smells that existed at any particular time and place. It should also focus on the meanings that sounds or sonic experiences carried for people. The French historian Alain Corbin (1998) also stressed on bells in the nineteenth-century French village that the task of cataloging historical sounds for their descriptive particularities is in vain. According to Corbin, one should study how the past sounds were perceived and valued by contemporaries. In this task, “modalities of attention, thresholds of perception, and configurations of the (in)tolerable sounds should be taken into account” (Bijsterveld & Krebs, 2013, p.8). In line with Classen and Corbin, this subsection reflects on the role of semiotics in auditory history and explores how various studies in cultural and literary history defined the role of sounds and silence.
James H. Johnson’s (1996) book, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History, demonstrates how the audience gradually became silent in Parisian Operas. According to Johnson, the bourgeoisie linked being silent to social distinction and civilization, while noise symbolized the vulgar and uncivilized. Attaching particular emotions to the genius of music composers, the Parisian elites shaped the social norms of today’s civilized societies with their obsession with silence. Emphasizing the importance of hearing to understand cultural history, Bruce R. Smith’s (1999) The Acoustic World of Early Modern England questions how life in early modern England sounded and people heard sounds differently. Establishing strong links between history and sound, Smith argues that what we hear and the way we interpret it are pre-determined by our culture and history. Rath (2003) also stresses how colonial elites in the early American churches arranged social order through acoustic particularities. According to Rath, the cultural meanings of their auditory environment were more complex than today. He demonstrates how noise, reverberation, and unwanted sounds were associated with society’s lower orders and reinforced class stereotypes. Reverberation and noise also become the topic of Emily Thompson’s (2002)
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study The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America 1900-1933. In her book, she shows how the architectural acousticians of the major American cities defined reverberation as noise, inefficient, and “not” modern. Thompson also demonstrates how the shift happened with modernity, and “scientists and engineers discovered ways to manipulate traditional materials of architectural construction to control the behavior of sound in space” (Thompson, 2004). Thus, modernity was not only to be seen but also heard.
In the same vein, Mark M. Smith’s (2007) book, Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History, also briefly explains how “economic development could be heard as well as seen in sixteenth-century London” (p.45). In his 2001 study Listening to Nineteenth-Century America, Mark Smith tries to understand what it meant to be northern or southern, slave or free, for antebellum Americans. He explores how they perceived sound associated with industrialization, market expansion, and abolitionism. In his words, “in northern modernization, southern slaveholders heard the noise of the mob, the din of industrialism, and threats to what they considered their quiet, orderly way of life; in southern slavery, northern abolitionists and capitalists heard the screams of enslaved labor, the silence of oppression, and signals of pre-modernity that threatened their vision of the American future” (Smith, 2001).
In “Sounds of the City: The Soundscape of Early Modern European Towns,” Garrioch (2003) stresses how sound played a crucial role in daily life in the countryside. In his words, sound “formed part of people’s way of navigating in time, space and in the social world of the city. […] Whereas today we try to escape city noise, for the inhabitants of early modern towns, sound served as a crucial source of information. It formed a semiotic system, conveying news, helping people to locate themselves in time and space, and making them part of an ‘auditory community’” (p.5). Some sounds (such as bells and drums) had different meanings for different
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people, depending on their rank, gender, or origin. He argues that this particular system gradually vanished due to diverse sources of information (e.g., newspapers, telegraph) and different uses of sound. He concludes his article by mentioning that analyzing modern cities for the semiotics of sound is a vain attempt. Jacobs (2014) opposes Garrioch’s latest argument and argues that “a rising sound level may mask all kinds of sounds and thus erase parts of the semiotic system. But this does not imply the complete disappearance of the system. New sounds with new meanings may emerge in (certain parts of) the city” (p.311). In addition, she focuses on how noise and silence had different meanings in Amsterdam during the war. She explains how “the unexpected absence of the sounds of war and traffic conjure up an eerie hush” and how “the changed sounds of the city, its residents, and its traffic triggered memories of bygone days.” Consequently, after years of frightening silence, “neighborly noise was no longer reason for complaining. It rather served as a reassuring sign of the neighbors’ presence […] or as a major source of information” (Jacobs, 2014, p.5). In Amsterdam, many people started to complain about their neighbors’ noise only long after the end of World War II, once “they had become used to more silence in daily life.”
In City of Noise, Boutin (2015) investigates the sounds of nineteenth-century Paris, focusing on Cris de Paris, a traditional term used to describe the cries of street peddlers. Excluding other street noises, such as bells, trains, horses, and quarrels, Boutin observes the modernization of Paris through the various perceptions of Cris de Paris, which were often represented as anti-modern. Contextualizing the conflicts between bourgeois and working-class, Boutin demonstrates how different classes heard noisy peddlers and hawkers differently.
As we have seen so far, semiotics helps us reinterpret and attribute new meanings to sound. It also incites us to rethink our modern concepts of hearing while observing the sounds of the past.
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In order to emphasize the importance of semiotics in auditory history, it is essential to indicate that noises were not always unwanted. Richard Cullen Rath, Mark Smith, David Garrioch, Annelies Jacobs, and Aimée Boutin clarify how semiotics can be applied to the auditory environments of the past. As Emily Thompson (2015) rightfully states, the perception of sound as immaterial and ephemeral could also be why it captured historians’ attention so late (Thompson, 2015). In any case, we need to look at auditory historians’ works to better perceive the limits and opportunities of the field. Alain Corbin’s interest in the historical and cultural perceptions of hearing, R. Murray Schafer, and Karin Bijsterveld’s research on the social and political aspects of sounds, Emily Thompson’s take on modernization and technology, and Mark M. Smith’s studies on “the role of the senses in shaping people’s experiences in the past” all demonstrate the importance of semiotics in auditory history. In his words, “[the] attention to the sensate and auditory past allows us a deeper appreciation of the texture, meaning, and human experience of that past and that this in itself sometimes helps us to reinterpret in modest but important ways what we already know [and] expand our understanding of the human experience” (Smith, 2015, pp.133-134).
Methodology
My project faces several difficulties, not only because so little work has been done on this topic but also because studying sounds of the pre-recording era requires a certain degree of imagination. Considering the interdisciplinary nature of the area, one can easily empathize with the discouraging difficulties of documentation, classification, and interpretation. In their 2017 study, Ian Biddle and Kirsten Gibson (2017) state that “the complexity of thinking aurality in the pre-phonographic era is always about a certain gap between an imagined plenitude that the historian brings to soundscapes’ past and the partiality (and dispersed nature) of materials and
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discourses that enable any such thinking” (p.1). Bringing together a wide array of auditory stories related to noise, soundscapes, human voice, and music without a well-accepted and consistent scholarship requires us to employ an open-ended approach. Therefore, methodological self-reflection is key to managing the gap between scholarly historical methods and this alternative auditory history of sound and silence.
Over the past three decades, auditory history has employed methodologies from sound studies in which sound, space, and the act of listening became central to modern modes of cultural and political construction. In her groundbreaking study, Thompson (2002) conceives of the soundscape as “simultaneously a physical environment and a way of perceiving that environment; it is both a world and a culture constructed to make sense of that world” (p.1). Rather than defining the urban soundscape only as an environment constructed by listening norms, Thompson also considers societal, subjectivity, and culture changes. Therefore, historians must consider how sounds and their modes of usage were perceived, regulated, hierarchized, and manipulated. Thus, it is essential to question how contemporaries listened and understood their surroundings and what was audible in a particular period and place.
Due to the lack of recordings of everyday life before 1900, our knowledge of auditory history mainly depends on regulations of sounds and historical texts in which people described their auditory environment and what these sounds meant to them. The historical production of sound can be traced through numerous other sources, and this multidisciplinary aspect of auditory history constitutes its greatest strength. Along these lines, some of my primary sources consist of memoirs, literature, travel writings, journals, legislative documents, and archival documents. Fortunately, a detailed reading of these written sources, especially travel writings, often presents numerous rich and hitherto unexplored accounts. This is because, once a sound becomes
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ubiquitous in daily life, citizens of the city are no longer aware of its presence unless it is either in abundance or absent. Comparing the sounds of Istanbul with those of their place of origin, travelers listened with fresh ears and emphasized sounds that they considered typical of Istanbul. According to Edhem Eldem (2018): “Sometimes it is foreigners who best give facts that culture either adopts, forgets, or is embarrassed of, or for some reason not recorded. Because they tend to see and convey what is different, interesting, or surprising from their own culture. In doing so, they may be wrong, distort the truth, or not understand the matter, but at least they make and leave a mark” (p.105).
Ottoman archival and legislative documents also form the primary sources of this auditory take on Istanbul’s modernization. Especially the first two chapters include an abundance of archival documents issued to regulate church bells, church towers, cannons, and related conflicts. The existence of over 2,300 official documents, orders, requests, reports, and decrees issued by more than twenty-five official institutions demonstrates the multifaceted aspects of concerns within the Ottoman bureaucracy.5 A detailed look at these official documents gives us significant clues about how the Ottoman state controlled these sounding devices and how it formulated a politics of sound according to the conditions of each unique situation. Sound and silence have intricate, organic, and dynamic meanings related to each listener. In order to engage in critical dialogue, I also refer to key scholarly literature to minimize neo-Ottomanist, nationalist, Islamist, and cosmopolitan fantasies about the city’s past. Paying close attention to these studies provide resources for further questioning and offer insights to rule assumption-based approaches.
5 See the appendices for the archival documents I referred to in this study.
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One might easily argue that it would be easier to survey modern sounds—such as gramophones, train noises, car horns, train whistles, and jazz—and suggest that only modern sounds define the modernization of Late Ottoman Istanbul’s auditory environment. Even though this method has its merits, it would be an oversimplification since it neglects the entirety of urban modernization’s sonic aspects. Changing trends, religious culture, technology, gender roles, and complex auditory politics of the Ottoman state regularly intervened in the auditory life of the city. Thus, to better analyze the dynamism and modernization of the auditory environment in Late Ottoman Istanbul, my study focuses on three specific sounding devices that emerged from my research questions. Exploring church bells (“soundmark”), cannons (“sound signal”), and talking machines as unique devices that radically altered sound’s ephemeral character gave me a methodological advantage to shape the scope of my research according to the key components of R. Murray Schafer’s soundscape, while creating a boundary from the complexities, richness, and uniqueness of human voice.6 Studying the sounds of mechanical devices also offers a more suitable background for comparing and enriching the findings of future studies investigating the same types of sounds in different locations, contexts, or disciplines. It is essential to acknowledge that carrying great importance for digital heritage professionals, semiologists, cultural heritage researchers, archivists, curators, artists, and historians sound has an interdisciplinary dimension and that its meaning and value differ according to each discipline.
6 Although this research emphasizes sounding devices and does not concentrate on the sonic dimension of the human voice, the obvious need to discuss the call to prayers that reinforced local identities and public affirmations in late Ottoman Istanbul arose in the second chapter. According to numerous historical narratives, firemen cries, street sellers, and polyglot voices also formed a diverse and unique sensorial composition in the streets.
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Another key difficulty of this study was to gain access to related narratives. In order to read and review a large body of primary sources, including prose literature, journals, and archival documents, I have used a series of text analysis and archiving tools. After I compiled my sources, either printed or digital, Abbyy FineReader, an optical character recognition application, allowed me to convert all my full-text documents and books into searchable PDF format. These data were organized and structured in a multi-layered category system under various tags using Citavi, a reference management and knowledge organization software. This database was then used to extract, and categorize related information based on a specific year, the keyword(s), author, location, type, or title. Enabling me to explore and analyze a large corpus of collected texts, these two software applications helped me draw valuable insights for historical interpretation and discover connections that I might not have established looking at the texts through classical methods. Taking listening as a cultural and subjective approach, I explored how people heard these devices on their terms. In order to make sense of the interplay between their perception of sounds, cultural changes, and political power, I investigated how their stories were staged and how they interacted with the Ottoman State’s politics of sound.
As argued by Mark M. Smith (2015), auditory history “is largely about texturing, deepening, and complicating issues with which we are already familiar, but that nevertheless require deeper interrogation and understanding” (p.133). The auditory history of Istanbul, as an immense field of research, has scarcely been touched. The time has come to deal with this cacophony, listen to the past carefully, and complicate things with which we are already familiar.
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Outline
Each chapter of my dissertation focuses on a specific sounding device arising from the research objectives and complementing various components of the urban soundscape, as defined by R. Murray Schafer.
My first chapter reveals the hitherto unknown policy of the Ottoman authorities towards church bells (“soundmarks”), with a heavy emphasis on Istanbul. Observing the sonic ways of legitimization and control that the Ottomans used to regulate church bells, bell towers, and bell-related conflicts, I demonstrate how the regime approached these highly symbolic objects as physical artifacts to control and display power. Leading to numerous conflicts and diplomatic crises, this chapter also demonstrates how bells required a multifaceted mediation between numerous Ottoman institutions.
The second chapter concentrates on cannon shots (“sound signals”) that reigned supreme in late Ottoman Istanbul’s soundscape. Like church bells in Europe, cannons in late Ottoman Istanbul, both as signals and salutes, had a well-defined language. Investigating its many functions, which varied from one occasion to another, this chapter reveals how cannons functioned for sultanic, religious, diplomatic, communicative, temporal, and other practical purposes in late Ottoman Istanbul. It also explains how these highly symbolic objects that manifested imperial power and hierarchy were greatly desacralized and de-monarchized after the Young Turk revolution, the Balkan wars, World War I, and the Occupation period of 1919-22.
Unlike the two previous chapters, the third and last chapter shifts the focus on two modern devices of the era that altered the human perception of sound: the phonograph and the gramophone. Gaining enormous popularity towards the end of the 1890s, talking machines generated sets of practices, habits, and tensions via a dynamic capitalistic market in Istanbul.
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Demonstrating the ways in which they generated novel listening modes and fashioned a public form of sensorial modernity through a multi-cultural entertainment network, I investigate how talking machines led to the emergence of a “sound culture” in Istanbul. Similar to church bells and cannons, as these technologies became popular, a series of questions, regulations, and restrictions aimed to control their messages.
Comparing the findings of the three chapters, the conclusion of my dissertation discusses my hypothesis, offers alternative research questions, and examines how these changes in political, cultural, and technological constructs of sound shaped and reflected the “Ensoniment” of late Ottoman Istanbul.
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Chapter I - Sleeping Angels on Domes: The Church Bells of the Late Ottoman Empire
“This chapel once had a bell which was destructed in the last century, under the pretext that it awakened the angels who slept on the dome of a nearby mosque.” Joseph Louis Michaud, Correspondance d'Orient: 1830-1831. Paris: Ducollet, 1833.
Similar to what happened in other European cities, the population of Istanbul increased in the nineteenth century. According to figures quoted by Çelik (1993), in 1844, the city’s population was around 391,000 but reached approximately 851,500 in 1885 (p.37). The 1885 census of Istanbul shows that only 44 percent of the population was Muslim. The remaining ethnic distribution was as follows: Greek Orthodox, 17.4 percent; Armenian Gregorian, 17.1 percent; Jewish, 5 percent; Catholic, 1.1 percent; Bulgarian, 0.5 percent; Latin, 0.1 percent. Foreigners made up the remaining 14.7 percent. In the 1906-7 census, Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians increased to 50 and 20.4 percent, respectively, while Armenian Christians decreased from 17 to 7 percent. The remaining percentages of the city population stayed very similar to the figures of the 1885 census. During the Balkan Wars, the population of Istanbul hit the one million mark but then decreased rapidly to the 700,000s in the late 1920s (Keyder, 1999, p.17). As these numbers demonstrate, people of different cultures, origins, and religions shaped Istanbul’s “patchy and eclectic regularity” (Çelik, 1993, p.xvi).7 As a result, this mixture constructed its acoustic communities specific to particular areas, cultural, ethnic, and religious groups. Different languages and accents reinforced collective identities. Sensitivity and responses to specific sounds differed. Although one may argue that cohabitation helped
7 The 1882 Stolpe map reveals how these ethnic groups were living in relatively intermixed neighborhoods. (Figure 1)
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inhabitants to develop familiarity with the sounds of other religious ceremonies and practices, we have very little knowledge of the Ottoman policy towards church bells.
Church Bells in Sound Studies
In Sound Studies, church bells are considered “soundmarks,” one of R. Murray Schafer’s key concepts meant for unique and historically important sound signals of an acoustic community (Truax, 1984). According to Schafer (1977), the church bell is “the most salient sound signal in the Christian community. It defines the community, for the parish is an acoustic space, circumscribed by the range of the church bell. […] It attracts and unifies the community in a social sense” (pp.53-54). Using the term “sacred noise,” Schafer also questioned the right to make noise without censure or punishment. According to him, the presence of an “immunity from human intervention” can be found in the right to make sacred noise (p.76). For centuries, churches and their bells assumed this sacral function just as “the gods with their thunder and lightning” (Bijsterveld, 2001, p.40).
This phenomenon was also explored in greater detail by the Annales historian Alain Corbin. In his 1998 book Village Bells, Corbin observed the great significance of church bells in a nineteenth-century French rural area, the Brienne. Embodying both secular and sacred functions, he convincingly argued that bells shaped the habits and daily rhythms of the local community. They announced the times for daily prayer, called the faithful to mass, and signaled moments of weddings, funerals, and baptism. Additionally, they were a warning sign for danger, oriented travelers in fog, announced the arrival of notables, and served as clocks for community members. Church bells also contributed to villagers’ spatial orientation and time perception by marking
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territorial boundaries. In brief, establishing social and political hierarchy, church bells were a source of communal identity for the local community.
As a source of “noise,” bells and their semiotic system were later studied by many Western historians such as Bruce Smith, Richard Cullen Rath, Mark M. Smith, and David Garrioch.8 Bruce Smith (1999) noted that people in the past experienced sounds differently from today simply because their auditory and cultural environments differed. Approaching the complex meaning of bells, Rath has followed in Corbin’s footsteps and argued that these expensive objects were used to regulate subjects by summoning, warning, celebrating, and creating order during the antebellum era of America. Mark M. Smith and David Garrioch also questioned how bells established a sense of community and defined authority by arranging social hierarchies.
Although bells were a source of order, they also led to conflicts in European countries. As Corbin (1998) demonstrated, after the French revolution of 1789, “the leaders of the First Republic had sought to desacralize these instruments, to limit their strictly religious uses, to curb their sensory ascendancy, and to monopolize their solemnity” (p.3). Even though this was met with resistance, church properties were first nationalized, later de-Christianized, and then the number of bells was limited to one per church. According to Corbin, this struggle between church and state to control bells led to the subordination of the sacred to profane power and the framework of citizenship. Those who controlled sound also controlled power.
About a century later, another conflict over church bells erupted during the October revolution of 1917. As observed by Hernandez (2004), after the Bolshevik coup d’état, “the conflict between
8 Smith (1999), Rath (2003), Smith (2004), Garrioch (2003)
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villagers and the regime’s rural activists over collectivization became increasingly violent” (p.1487). The villagers rapidly learned how the bell, as a political weapon, could serve counter-revolutionary purposes. Symbolizing more than religious sensibilities, bell-ringing reinforced social identity and made the “Old Way of Life” present in villages’ soundscapes (p.1477). Since bell-ringing arranged villagers’ daily routines around the Christian liturgy, it disrupted the regime’s new conception of time. Considering these ancient instruments as a threat, Bolsheviks took the bells’ control from the church, gave it to local authorities, and ordered them to halt their now illegal sounds.
As these studies have demonstrated, controlling sacred noise and silencing the religious other became effective ways of maintaining order and altering “the prevailing pattern” (Corbin, 1998, p.3). They have also confirmed how these prolonged conflicts over bell-ringing can enrich our understanding of social, political, and cultural change. However, the history of church bells in the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman policy toward church bells have so far drawn little attention. Therefore, I will explore the topic from a broader perspective while questioning how church bells were “heard” in the capital. Focusing on memoirs, images, and a wide range of archival documents, my first chapter will reveal the hitherto unknown policy of the Ottoman authorities towards church bells. Observing how the Ottomans regulated church bells, bell towers, and bell-related conflicts, I will question bells' complex functions and meanings in Ottoman auditory culture and explore how the regime approached bells as physical artifacts to control and display. Finally, I will evaluate the church bells’ overall importance for the Ottoman state, with a heavy emphasis on Istanbul.
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The History of Church Bells in the Ottoman Empire
The origin of many churches in Istanbul goes back to the late Byzantine era. After capturing Constantinople, Mehmed II issued an imperial decree (ahdname) to the Genoese of Galata (which declared their neutrality before the battle) and gave them the right to keep their property, churches, and religious practices (Belin, 1894). As mentioned by Goffmann (2002), “in the early modern period, the Ottoman government did not conceive of such capitulations as treaties between equals. Rather, the Ottomans imagined the foreigners as members of a particular group, living within their polity” (p.183). Being exempt from all extraordinary taxes and forced conversion, the Genoese inhabitants were free to trade and travel in the Ottoman domains. Also seen as the prototype of the first capitulation, this decree was the first official document that prohibited the use of church bells (Figure 2).
Prohibiting bell ringing in 1453, the Ahdname of Galata proves how early the Ottomans were aware of the significance of church bells and their audible environment.9 The control of bells’ sacred noises was an effective way to establish power hierarchies through sonic practices. As claimed by Nina Ergin (2015), “the absence of the sound of church bells demonstrated Ottoman control and authority” (p.127). Formulating their organizational strategy based on Islamic tradition and reinforcing an unequal relationship with the Christian millet, the Ottomans could produce silence as a sign of respect. Forbidding to make any sound that could compete with the call to prayers, the Ottomans assigned a great deal of power to control religious differences.
9 In his article on semantrons and church bells in Byzantium, Miljkovic (2018) notes: “According to a Russian eye-witness of the fall of Constantinople, before and during each of the onslaughts of Turkish troops at the capital walls, bells rang from all city churches. Their sound called the defenders to the walls, encouraging them in their clash with the conquerors,” p.294.
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Bells were only allowed by special permission of the sultan, helping to define and extend his political and religious authority. As early as 1836, the Irish clergyman, writer, and historian Robert Walsh (1836) noted in his memoirs one of these special permissions given to the British Palace in Pera:
In this garden stood our chapel. It was a small octagon temple, which my congregation just filled. A bell stood at the palace gate to announce the approach of visitors to the ambassador, whose rank was declared by the number of strokes given. The Turks hold bells in religious service as an abomination, so no sects were allowed to use them for their place of worship. The Mahomedans call their congregations together by a human voice, sounding from the top of a minaret, and the Christians make use of other expedients; the Greeks announce the hour of prayer by rattling a mallet on a board. It occurred to me, however, that the same bell which rang at our gate for the honour of man, might be also allowed to do so for the service of God, and his Excellency, to whom I mentioned the idea, thought so too. He accordingly applied for permission to have it tolled on Sunday, to announce our time of service, and it was granted; so that our congregation, I believe, was the first that was permitted in Turkey to assemble by tolling a bell. The sound of a bell on Sunday, and divine service, are so associated together in our minds in England that even this little privilege in a foreign country is felt as a grateful favour (p.234).
Before the Reform edict of 1856, permission requests to receive permission to ring bells for Orthodox churches were often denied. As Sokolov (2013) notes, the Greek Patriarch was hesitant to submit an official request to the Porte, stating that “the permission would not be granted because it would be unusual; Christians are only allowed to beat the semantron” (p.356).
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However, with the assistance of the Austrian and Russian consuls, the Patriarch submitted to the Porte the local archbishops’ petitions to ring bells for some monasteries in Cyprus (1840) and Smyrna (1842). Yet, according to Sokolov, no such permissions exist in the archives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The construction of new churches was not officially allowed in the Ottoman Empire until the Reform edict of 1856. Additionally, the reconstruction or repair of churches could only occur with the sultan’s approval. In Girardelli’s (2005) words, “permissions for the construction, reconstruction, and repair of Catholic churches [were] requested by ambassadors and granted with firmans until the era of Abdülhamid II” (p.240). The enlargement of the church’s prayer hall or bell towers was also strictly forbidden. However, as observed by Koyuncu (2014), despite strict rules, new churches and synagogues were constantly (re)constructed in the rural areas of the Balkans between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries without official permissions (p.36). Although many of these churches acquired de facto legitimacy over time, they did not obtain the right to ring metal bells easily.10 In line with the permission requests of the Greek Patriarchate, wooden clappers, a semantron, or small handbells were occasionally allowed by the mid-nineteenth century.11 English poet, novelist, and traveler Julia Pardoe’s 1836 memoir gives us an auditory description of an iron semantron used in the Eastern Orthodox Church of St. Mary of the Spring in Istanbul (Balıklı Meryem Ana Rum Ortodoks Manastırı):
10 DH.HMŞ. 19/23, OA. See Appendix 1 for more information on archival documents cited in footnotes.
11 A.DVN. 89/21; A.DVN.MHM 8/62, 8/86; C.ADL. 51/3096, OA. See also, Sokolov (2013), p.356.
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I went to examine the machine which in all the principal Greek churches acts as the substitute for a bell, whose use is not permitted by the Turks. It is a very inartificial instrument, being merely a bar of iron resting lightly between two perpendicular pieces of timber, which, on being struck with a short bar of cypress-wood, emits a clear ringing sound that may be heard to a considerable distance. In the smaller churches, two sticks are beaten together, but this signal avails only when the congregation is nestled near the walls of the temple (Pardoe, 1837, pp.443-444).
Prior to the Ottoman Reforms (Tanzimat) and the Reform Edict (Islahat Fermanı) of 1856, the right to use bells was rarely given to churches.12 According to the French historian and journalist Jean-Henri Ubicini (1855), the Catholic churches in Pera had a privileged status regarding the right to ring bells:
The city does not offer anything remarkable. Here and there were a few groups of Turkish women parking in front of French fashion or novelty stores. You could imagine yourself in some Italian city of the second or third degree. Churches almost at every step, images of the Blessed Virgin hanging on the walls, all the outward signs of Catholicism, the sound of bells, processions, burials; priests of all rites, religious of all orders; Jewish and beggar strength; but nothing Turkish, neither manners nor costume or language. Annexed to Stamboul, Pera is as independent from this capital as Beijing or Calcutta could be (p.443).
12 A rare permission was given to the church in Kichevo in 1822. See: HAT 1652/46, OA.
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Preceding the Paris Treaty that made the Ottoman Empire a member of the European concert by one month, the 1856 Reform Edict sought to protect the right of all Ottoman religious minorities and gave an improved status to non-Muslims. Permission to ring bells was now implicitly given by lifting the restrictions on religious rites in areas with only one religious sect.13 As a result, the number of permission requests to ring bells would gradually increase until World War I.14 The religious soundscape of the Ottoman capital began to change in the same year, primarily due to the permissions given to select Catholic (Latin) churches in Pera and Galata.15 Bells were also heard in other districts. The British judge Edmund Hornby (1858) portrayed the change in Ortaköy:
March 28th, 1856: At daybreak, every morning, you hear the summons of the Greek and Armenian churches. Their masters, the Turks, will not allow them to use bells, so they strike an iron bar with another piece of iron and make a noise somewhat like them, but very curious to the ear at first. […] Then comes our Sunday, but we have no sweet-sounding church bells. May 7th, 1856: Ramazan began yesterday, and the minarets were illuminated in the evening with wreaths of light. […] The little Protestant church here [Ortaköy], on the other hill, was opened last Sunday. It is a very simple and pretty Gothic building, all of wood. The altar was wreathed with wildflowers, and a very impressive service was read
13 “Bir mezhebin cemaati yalnız olarak sâiriyle karışık olmayarak bir mahalde bulunur ise o yerde ‘ayine müteallık husûsât-ı zâhiren ve alenen icrâda bir türlü kuyuda düçâr olmayıp” Gümüş (2008), p.222.
14 The Ottoman Şeriye Registers include over 300 bell-related permissions issued between 1890 and 1914.
15 See HR.MKT. 132/57; HR.MKT. 143/88, OA.
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by the chaplain of the “Queen.” The bells sounded so sweetly, ringing for the first Protestant service on the shores of the Bosphorus (pp.308-309).
Although the negotiations between the Catholic powers and the Sublime Porte resulted in religious equality in 1858, according to the French theologian Charles Berton (1860), some Greek-Orthodox churches were still denied permission to ring bells in Pera and Galata. In his words:
The buildings devoted to worship are sometimes quite rich inside, but outside they have no appearance. Those of the Latins are distinguished from others only by the tiny bell on top. The Greeks replace the bell by striking two bars of iron, one against the other, and the Turks, by shouting from the top of the minarets (p.95).
Even after the 1869 Ottoman civil code that secularized Ottoman citizenship, restrictions on bell ringing were still imposed. According to the German historian, archaeologist, and future director of the Imperial Museum, Philipp Anton Dethier, apart from the Catholic churches in Pera and Galata, twenty-two other, mostly Greek-Orthodox, were permitted to have bells in 1873.16
16 “Si parmi les églises chrétiennes, grecques, arméniennes et catholiques qui aujourd'hui ont des cloches nous mentionnons l'église patriarcale grecque, avec le monastère de St. George du St. Sépulcre, celle de St. Jean Baptiste du Mont Sinaï, celle du Vlach-Séraï, celle de St. George Potiras, celle de l'archange Michaël à Balata, celle de St. Dimitri de Xyloporta, celle de St. George d'Edrineh-capou, bâtie après que la princesse Mirmah en 1556 eut occupé le terrain de l'ancienne par la mosquée érigée d'elle, puis la Mugoliotissa, St. Nicolas à Top-capou, le Palais Taxiarchis arménien, près de Balat-capou: la Hagios kyriaki grecque à Koum-capou; la Pangia Elpidos tout près de la précédente, celle dite aujourd'hui Exi-Marmara, qui cache aussi l'ancien nom d'Exokion, près d'Avret bazar, l'Hagia Paraskéve nommée d'après une Sainte Constantinopolitaine dont les reliques se trouvaient à Haskeuï et à.Jassy, l'Hagios Nicolaos et Hagios Polycarpos près de Sept Tours: non loin de là Soulou Monastir, enlevé aux Grecs par les Arméniens, celle de la vierge de Belgrade, bâtie sous Solyman I, le conquérant de Belgrade, pour
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Although Dethier, Ubicini, and Berton’s notes lack specifics, they reveal that Catholic churches were more privileged in terms of bell usage. French author and politician Joseph Reinach (1879) also stated: “Every year, at Fete-Dieu, Catholic processions circulate in the streets of Constantinople. The houses are decked out with flags; altarpieces are erected at the corners of the streets; the clergy make the air resound with their songs; the bells are ringing full blast” (pp.213-232). Thus, as a result of political developments, financial dependency, and the local demographic structure, the “religious equality” of millets, at least for a while in Pera and Galata, seemed to be in favor of the Catholic community. Even though churches were allowed to use bells in Istanbul, they were far from competing with the call to prayer. In 1875, the English translator George Tyler Townsend (1875) was “surprised at the curious silence, which prevails throughout so large a city from the absence of bells and clocks.” According to him, “at Constantinople, he [the visitor] will fail to hear any pleasant tones from either tower or steeple. The music of the bells and the chime of the clock are supplied by […] the muezzin five times a day mount the minarets and announce with loud voices the appointed hours of prayer” (pp.167-168).
It is important to note that clock towers were a rarity in the Ottoman Empire until the mid-nineteenth century. As a consequence, the bell-ringing’s time-related function was more than a necessity for foreigners. According to the British military officer and author Charles White (1846), “from the absence of bells and clocks to indicate the hours, there is no city where
les Servions transportés à Constantinople dans ce quartier et au village de Belgrad près de l'aqueduc des Bends et que nous ajoutons que les églises catholiques sont surtout à Galata-Pera, nous avons tout dit” Dethier (1873), p.39.
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watches are more requisite than in Constantinople” (p.29). After its completion in 1848, the Nusretiye clock tower in Tophane became the first clock tower of Istanbul.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, especially during the Hamidian era, clock towers, as symbols of modernization and sovereignty, began to spread a new socio-temporal order in Istanbul. As “specifically secular monumental architectures,” these towers functioned according to standard (alla franca) time and brought a novel auditory layer similar to churches alongside a novel temporal structure (Deringil, 1999, p.29). If built close to mosques and shorter than minarets, clock towers were accepted as contemporary versions of timekeeper houses (Uluengin, 2010, pp.21-22). Wishnitzer (2015) recognized the auditory dimension of these structures and mentioned how their ringing raised concerns. Referring to the long correspondence on the bells of the clock tower at the German Dormition church, he stated that “governors referred not only to the visual effect of the clock towers but to the audial dimension too” (p.182). In order to address these concerns, in 1901, “the Ottoman government passed a decree ordering the construction of a nonstriking clock tower in every big city of the empire” (Atabaki, 2007, p.4). However, as Hakkı Acun’s (2011) book demonstrates, the bells of clock towers, many of which are now defunct, were an essential component. Thus, one might rightfully ask the following question: Why were clock towers equipped with bells and appropriate architectural qualities if they were not allowed to strike?
Although the chimes of clock towers fall outside the scope of my dissertation, the following pages might provide an auditory insight into these structures, which carry similarities to church towers in their architectural and sonic characteristics.
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The Ottoman Policy Towards Church Bells Across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, church bells were heard less and less often, and they meant less to a considerable percentage of the population in Europe (Garrioch, 2003). In Corbin’s (1998) words, “their meaning seemed to fall away, modes of attention collapsed, the uses and the rhetoric of bells grew narrower so that a whole range of auditory messages were increasingly disqualified” (p.305). However, the situation was the opposite in the Ottoman Empire. Before the mid-nineteenth century, publicly audible church bells were few, and as one can imagine, despite strict measures, the new multi-ethnic religious soundscape of the Reform Edict was not always well received in the rural areas. Although church bells created bonds and a sense of belonging, they also led to numerous local conflicts and diplomatic crises. The Ottoman archives contain many documents concerning bell-related conflicts, and each case requires a contextualized approach to understand how bells played critical roles by reinforcing local identity and village uprisings in the Ottoman Empire.
As Corbin stated, the sounds of church bells were evaluated according to a specific system of values and affects. Initially used to announce the beginning of religious services, they assumed specific civic responsibilities such as warning against imminent dangers, calling men to arms, honoring the dead, signaling public ceremonies, celebrating victories, or announcing the visit of a ruler. Although every soundscape is distinctive, one could argue that a typical pattern of meaning and function existed behind church bells. The Ottoman state was aware of the bells’ territorial effect that reinforced social and religious divisions between different ethnic communities. Establishing sets of control, prevention, and sanction mechanisms, the Ottoman state used a complex, flexible and pragmatic organizational scheme to control these sounding devices.
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The permission to use bells was subject to an elaborate and complex organization of bureaucracy equipped with effective mechanisms of permission, control, prevention, and sanction. Regulating church bells, towers, and conflicts over bell-ringing, the presence of 1,600 official documents, orders, requests, reports, and decrees issued by more than twenty official institutions demonstrates the multifaceted aspects of sonic concerns within the Ottoman bureaucracy.17
A quick look at these official documents gives us significant clues on how the Ottoman state regulated and controlled church bells. As mentioned above, not every church was eligible to ring bells. It had to be built with the official permission (irade-i seniyye) of the sultan.18 Bell towers should not be built nearby sacred sites (emakin-i mukaddes) or Muslim quarters (mahallat-ı İslamiye).19 In 1858, it was prohibited to ring bells in areas where Muslims and Christians were living together.20 Later in the century, following the local authorities’ judgments, the Ottoman Council of Ministers (Meclis-i Vükela) was to decide whether a specific region or church could obtain permission to ring bells.21 These decisions were made in accordance with the Ministry of Justice (Adliye Nezareti).22 If local authorities expressed a negative opinion, permission requests were often denied.23 Many local authorities continued to deny permission to ring church bells
17 Some of these institutions, government offices, and the numbers of issued documents are: Bab-ı Asafi (27), Babıali Evrak Odası (352), Cevdet Adliye (4), Dahiliye Nezareti (392), Hatt-ı Hümayun (7), Hariciye Nezareti (60), İrade Dahiliye (245), Meclis-i Vükela (15), Meclis-i Vala (7), Şura-yı Devlet (350), Rumeli Müfettişliği (40), Yıldız Sadaret (21).
18 BEO 1361/102050, 3852/288831, 3870/290199, 3975/298118; DH.MKT. 1710/125, 2877/16, 2895/31; DH.ŞFR. 301/14, OA.
19 BEO 2289/171630, OA.
20 A.MKT.MHM. 130/75; DH.MKT. 1628/25; DH.ŞFR. 177/54; HR.MKT.199/1, OA.
21 DH.MKT. 804/64, 812/63, 992/63, OA.
22 DH.MKT. 2773/100, OA.
23 DH.MKT. 944/84; HR.TH. 112/96; TFR.I.KV. 195/19471, OA.
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rather than the traditional semantron or dull wooden clappers (Hanioğlu, 2010, p.85). In a rare case dated 1903, contrary to the local authority’s decision in Vlöre (Avlonya), permission to ring bells was issued after six years of official correspondence between several administrative divisions and under the condition of not using them during the call to prayer and prayer times.24 The church also ended up paying more tax than usual.25
The reconstruction of destroyed bell towers and the repair of damaged bells were also subject to permission.26 These were “requested by ambassadors and granted with firmans until the era of Abdülhamid II. […] In some cases, the issues of repair and reconstruction were included in capitulatory treatises” (Girardelli, 2005, p.240). Occasionally, the approval of local governors or the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs (Adliye ve Mezahib Nezareti) was also needed.27 Raising money for reconstruction or repair was strictly prohibited if done by force.28 The destroyed bell towers could be rebuilt only under the condition of not exceeding their previous heights.29 However, a few months after the CUP Revolution, a rare permit was given to a French Catholic church in Dedeağaç for the construction of a higher tower.30
24 BEO 1121/84037, 1196/89657, 1211/90782, 2229/167110; DH.MKT. 804/64, 2095/99, 2115/32, 2146/4, 2420/20; DH.ŞFR. 224/75, 252/31; H.MKT. 2345/158; İ.HUS. 64/52; ŞD. 2106/1, 2685/43, OA.
25 DH.MKT. 2668/27, OA.
26 BEO 1015/76116, 3813/285965, 3889/291616, 4077/305744, 4333/324933; DH.İD. 114/14; DH.MKT. 772/66, 1672/83, 2374/44, 2683/36, 2775/15, 2858/95; DH.TMIK.M. 142/47; ŞD. 2029/8, 2053/22, 2564/19, 2597/44, OA.
27 DH.MKT. 1852/25, 2650/51, OA.
28 DH.MKT. 771/20, 916/60, 1226/90, OA.
29 DH.MKT. 1427/61, 1857/10, 2505/3; DH.MK.1122/91, OA.
30 DH.MKT. 2665/81, OA.
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As mentioned above, it was prohibited to construct and use bell towers without an irade-i seniyye; yet, we see numerous permissions granted to those churches, mainly after the CUP Revolution.31 If the construction of a bell tower was causing a disturbance in the local Muslim community, regardless of whether the church had received permission, its tower was demolished, or construction was halted to be reconsidered.32 Since clock towers presented architectural and auditory similarities with church towers, they were sometimes built in their place to circumvent restrictions. In a document dated 1886, the Ministry of the Interior warned the mayor regarding the newly built church of the Armenian Sulu Monastery (Surp Kevork Ermeni Kilisesi), as the community may have wanted to hang a bell in the future, following the granting of the request for building a clock tower.33 Three years later, a series of documents issued between the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, and the municipal police demonstrates that the Armenian Patriarchate was finally permitted to ring bells in their monastery in Samatya.34
Central to numerous disturbances, church bells’ place, size, weight, number, and circulation were also restricted. In 1903, a church in Leskovik, Albania, needed permission to hang its bell on a tree.35 Hanging heavier or bigger bells was often prohibited under the pretext of disturbing the local Muslim community.36 In 1908, the request to use a specific bell that could be heard within a one-hour walking distance (approximately 5-6 km) was rejected.37 In rural areas, the number of
31 DH.MKT. 2628/78, 2864/41; DH.MUİ. 100/5, 163/52; İ.AZN. 58/7, 98/37, 99/18, 108/9, OA.
32 DH.ŞFR. 150/5; DH.TMIK.M. 145/50; TFR.I.SL. 120/11922, OA.
33 DH.MKT. 1384, OA.
34 DH.MKT. 1703/112, 1718/22, 1724/14, 1769/131, OA.
35 DH.MKT. 746/5, OA.
36 DH.MKT. 78/6, 1407/145, 1415/108, 1673/77, 1846/10, 1982/16; DH.ŞFR. 243/108; HR.MKT. 153/9, OA.
37 TFR.I.M. 22/2191, OA.
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bells, similar to the First Republic in France, was usually limited to one per church.38 In addition, importing or acquiring bells without permission was also restricted.39 In some cases, bells could be held in customs (Rüsumat Dairesi) for two to three years.40 However, if bells were acquired with the means of the local community or imported with permission, they were often exempted from the export tax.41
Bell-Related Conflicts
As one can imagine, despite these strict measures, the new multi-ethnic religious soundscape that emerged with the Reform Edict was not always well received in the rural areas of the Ottoman Empire. “Altering the prevailing pattern of the culture of the senses,” church bells led to numerous local conflicts and diplomatic crises (Corbin, 1998, p.3). The archives contain an enormous number of documents concerning bell-related conflicts, and each case requires a comprehensive approach to understand better how bells played a critical role in reinforcing local identity and instigating village uprisings in the Ottoman Empire. Here, I will only cover the general characteristics of these conflicts, as the minute details exceed the scope of my dissertation.
In his study, Corbin meticulously demonstrated the correlation between the significance of churches and the loudness of their bells. It was, as stated by Corbin (1998), “as if the powerful ringing of the bell represented a victory over chaos and, for a community, a symbol of cohesion
38 DH.MKT. 1585/53; HR.MKT. 201/67, OA.
39 A.MKT.UM. 429/84; BEO 993/74432, 966/72406, OA.
40 ŞD. 2647/26, 2650/10, OA.
41 BEO 3383/253658, 4302/322610; DH.MKT. 1696/65; DH.TMIK.M. 185/22; İ.RSM 31/63, OA.
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regained” (p.290). One of the most common problems in the Ottoman Empire was unpermitted bell-ringing. Numerous priests42 and occasionally diplomats43 were hanging bells over their dwellings or in their churches. Symbolizing Christian identity, the bell’s audible authority intruded into the life of the Muslim community, and bell-related local conflicts emerged.44 Being aware that bells could reinforce religious and communal identity, state authorities considered these cases as provocative acts (fesad).45 Local governors often consulted central authorities about “measures to be taken.”46 In some cases, they halted unpermitted bell-ringing to prevent the Muslim community from revolting47 and called reservist soldiers (ihtiyat askeri) to establish order.48 Those responsible were held accountable and imprisoned.49 If the church or the priests in question were French or American, first their consuls were contacted and warned.50 Assuming an intermediary role between the Sublime Porte and the churches in question, the Armenian and Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople also functioned as local authorities in bell-related conflicts.51
42 BEO 196/14656; DH.MKT. 1738/38, 1828/97, 1999/50, 2000/31, 2002/58, 2146/4 DH.TMIK.M. 254/54; HR.TH. 45/64, 145/103, 196/98, 198/58, 214/45; İ.DH. 1226/95991, OA.
43 DH.MKT. 1565/55, 2406/14; BEO 1121/84037; MV. 67/81, OA.
44 A.DVN. 9/15; DH.ŞFR. 150/5, 184/57, 223/18, 274/2, 282/94, 307/131; DH.TMIK.M. 145/50; TFR.I. KV. 38/3793; Y.EE. 50/32, OA.
45 BEO 2311/173297; DH.MKT. 1982/16; DH.ŞFR. 181/45, OA.
46 DH.MKT. 1480/40, 1499/10, 1762/57, 2288/129; DH.ŞFR. 147/51; DH.TMIK.M. 151/47; TFR.I.A. 38/3712; ŞD. 1799/21, OA.
47 TFR.I.KV. 82/8102; DH.MKT. 2004/22, 2191/49; DH.TMIK.M. 145/50, OA.
48 HR.MKT. 185/84; Y.EE. 50/32, OA.
49 DH.ŞFR.277/7; MVL 590/94, OA.
50 DH.MKT. 30/25, 1394/19, 1408/68, OA.
51 HR.MKT. 283/69; DH.MKT. 1724/14, 1778/68; Y.PRK.UM. 49/28, OA.
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Church bells also carried revolutionary significance for the Ottomans. In many cases, the pealing of church bells was heard along with gunfire and shouts, signaling uprisings against the imperial authority and generating specific modes of behavior in both parties, with momentous semiotic changes.52 As the documents about local riots reveal, the Ottoman state had every reason to be alarmed about the threat to their authority posed by the revolutionary significance of church bell and took every measure to control church bells’ communicative and informative qualities. Their transformative and ideological weight that could break the complex harmony of the empire represented a significant challenge to authorities. Even if permission was granted, local authorities could ignore and apply restrictions due to local Muslim oppositions. A notice dated 1872 and given by the French government to the Sublime Porte reveals how such oppositions led to strong diplomatic reactions:
The tendency of Bosnia’s Muslim population to deprive the Christians of the benefits granted by the sultan’s decrees (Hats et Firmans) is manifested in every way. The old narrow-minded animosity is revived, especially against the use of church bells. Even worse is that it only satisfies the inspirations of blind fanaticism and the enemy of all progress and civilization. Regrettably, the Ottoman authorities have already stopped using bells in Sarajevo and forced the Christians in Bercka (Brčko) to turn in to customs the two bells that they had brought for their church. Also, in Bihacs (Bihać), they stopped, for alleged military reasons, the construction of a church already permitted by an imperial decree. As we know, this permission is granted only after examining the vicinity
52 A.MKT.MHM. 628/30; DH.EUM.VRK. 4/8; DH.ŞFR. 204/5, 310/68; BEO 2338/175319; Y.EE. 50/32, OA.
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(localités). So, the disadvantages, if there were any, could have been recognized in advance. At the moment, one simple order of the Sublime Porte would suffice to repress these rising intolerances contrary to the enlightened and generous ideas of the sultan’s government. It is certain that evil passions, once unleashed, do not stop halfway and always go much further than one thinks at first. The movement in Bosnia among the masses seems today to be directed only against the Christians. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that feeling encouraged by the indulgence of the authorities, [local] leaders may seek to return also in other respects to the old state of things in Bosnia, the suppression of which cost so much blood and effort in 1850 (OA, 1872).
A series of archival documents dated 1909-1914 also demonstrates that the bells on the clock tower of the newly constructed Abbey of the Dormition (1910) in Jerusalem posed a complex diplomatic and religious issue for the Ottoman state. Circulating between the Grand Vizierate, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs, the relevant documents bring to light that, similar to the case in Bosnia, the pealing of bells constituted a problem for the local Muslim and Jewish communities.53 Built with “the permission of the Ottoman Imperial Government” on a piece of land that Wilhelm II bought from Abdülhamid II, this neo-Romanesque abbey was located next to the Jewish and Muslim sanctuary of David’s tomb on Mount Zion. Reflecting the state style of the new Imperial Germany, it was also an important symbolic step for Wilhelm II’s imperial foreign policy, his weltpolitik (world policy), and German expansion to the East (Drang Nach Osten, the drive towards the East).54
53 BEO 3721/279062; 3726/279391; 3737/280224; DH.MUI. 1/52, OA. 54 For more information, see: Deren van het Hof, Secil. (2002). From Pan-Islamism to Turkish Nationalism Modernisation and German Influence in the Late Ottoman Period.
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A glance at the documents reveals that, in 1909, the Committee of the Dormition Church made an official permission request to hang bells on the abbey’s clock tower, which was not officially given to the German Association of the Holy Land (Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande). Due to the opposition of the local Muslim community and the attendants of David’s Tomb, situated right next to the Dormition Church, the local authority refused to consent to the request. It announced that “only the competent department in Constantinople could authorize the suspension of bells” (OA, 1914). According to the verbal note given to the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Relations by the German ambassador, such an installation could not “present any inconvenience, especially in a city like Jerusalem where the population is accustomed to hearing the sound of bells” (OA, 1914). As reported by the local Muslim leaders, hanging bells on a 47-meter tall clock tower would be “against the rule of not ringing bells near mosques. […] They are likely to cause various effects on the Muslim population” (umum-ı ahali-i Müslimece bir çok tesiratı badi olacağı) (OA, 1914). In brief, a long diplomatic mediation between Germany and the tomb-keepers of David was required. Although permission was not granted, the official visit of the German royal family to the church led to an occasional permit in 1910.55 Finally, German influence and mutual interests in the wake of the Great War resulted in converting the abbey’s clock tower into a bell tower in 1914.56
Bells were also a source of diplomatic crises. In 1887, the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Dahiliye Nezareti) received “conspicuous” information about two church bells ordered by the Russian consul for a Greek Orthodox Church in Homs (Hama), Syria.57 Two years later, before
55 DH.ID. 123/1, OA.
56 HR.SYS. 410, OA.
57 DH.ŞFR. 136/104, OA.
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the bells were hung, the local authority approved the church’s permission request by limiting the number of imported bells to one.58 A few months later, the Sublime Porte rewarded some notables in Homs for their efforts in preventing a local bell-related conflict.59 However, the disturbances in Homs continued, and an investigation began in the same year, in 1889.60 Following the local authority’s decision, the usage of bells in Homs was prohibited by the Sublime Porte.61 In 1891, another Russian request to ring bells in Homs was rejected.62 Seven years later, bringing up the bells of the Catholic Church in Homs, the Russians claimed that the same rights should be given to the Orthodox community.63 Paying attention to express their decision diplomatically, the Ottomans reported that rejecting the Russian request would be uncustomary and a reason for objection (mani-i ittirad ve bais-i itiraz).64
Another diplomatic crisis emerged in 1890 between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottomans over the unpermitted bell-ringing of a Catholic Church in Skopje. Continuing for more than three years and involving diplomatic warnings, compromises, local riots, murder, and the suicide of the Austrian consul, the bells of the Ottoman Empire arguably offer an appealing richness for the cultural historian.65
58 DH.MKT. 1585/5, OA.
59 DH.MKT. 1553/86, OA.
60 DH.MKT. 1565/55, OA.
61 DH.MKT. 1885/69, OA.
62 HR.TH. 112/96, OA.
63 BEO 996/74665, OA.
64 BEO 1023/76700, OA.
65 DH.ŞFR. 153/23; DH.MKT. 1823/115, 1911/110; HR.TH. 108/36; HR.SYS. 122/24; İ.DH. 1226/95991, 1229/96220; Y.A.HUS. 245/84, 246/20, 256/55; Y.MTV. 49/102; Y.PRK.MYD. 10/52; Y.PRK.UM. 21/121, OA.
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These examples demonstrate how bells, even in small cities such as Bihać, Homs, and Skopje, were used as instruments of rapprochement for foreign governments and served as a diplomatic pressure tool and a destabilizing element that required the utmost bureaucratic and administrative attention of the Ottomans.
Image to Imagination: Two Photographs from the Hamidian Albums
Here, I have primarily described the general characteristics of the Ottoman policy on church bells based on textual resources. At this point, I will shift my focus from text to visual imagery and emphasize how the semantic virtues of a picture can enrich my argumentation. Although an argumentation based on images is quite different from and more open-ended than words, the multi-layered nature of images can also carry us into the auditory realm. The meanings invested in them can extend our imagination and lead us to establish and inquire into deeper connections. One might ask: What is the sound of an image, and how can we use it for a historical purpose? Since they are able to provide “thick descriptions,” pictures can enrich and embed certain narratives and deliver a broader sense of the real situation through its communicative virtues (Geertz, 1973). As explained by Kjeldsen (2013), these communicative virtues make visual argumentation possible “because argumentation is performative communication action; and since pictures can perform the role of enunciation and communicative action, they can also perform argumentation” (p.3). In addition, as noted by Roland Barthes (1977), pictures with their “analogical plenitude” signify something different from what is shown. This analogical plenitude “is so great that the description of a photograph is literally impossible” (p.18). In other words, “the photograph is not a final and closed image; it should be addressed as an ‘inconstant’ medium that can be reproduced in different contexts, producing different meanings and creating distinct conditions in every encounter” (Ersoy, 2017). Thus, we can argue that, through the
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historicization of a space, object, and situation, an image can facilitate argumentative reasoning about multi-sensorial experiences. Such a semiotic perspective can be usefully applied to the image entitled Ayasofya’s Bell in the Weapons Museum (see Figure 3), taken in 1880 by the Abdullah Frères’ photographic studio, a professional photography studio active between 1858 and 1899 and appointed as photographers to the court in 1874, carrying “the title ‘photographers to the sultan’” (Ersoy, 2016, p.339). Although the studio produced copious commercial Orientalist imagery for a growing demand in Europe, they also constructed visual legitimacy during the Hamidian era, a crisis period in which radical social, economic, political, and cultural changes occurred. As demonstrated by Selim Deringil, Wendy Shaw, Edhem Eldem, and Ahmet Ersoy, Abdülhamid amassed nearly 35,000 photographs, commissioned roughly 800 photography albums, and employed different representation strategies in various forms of media; in doing so, he successfully interacted with local parties and engineered the visual strategy of the empire at home and abroad through the political power of images.66 In order to portray the empire as a “leader of the Islamic world, yet a member of the civilized community of nations,” the images in the Hamidian albums obsessively demonstrated examples of success in the modernization of various Ottoman institutions and infrastructures. These had to contribute to the “theoretical imperative of the modern Ottoman state […] that was to achieve modernity” (Makdisi, 2002, p.771). In his memoirs, Tahsin Paşa, the chief secretary to Abdülhamid, recalls Abdülhamid telling him: “Every picture is an idea. One picture can evoke political and psychological significance, which a hundred written pages could not convey. I, therefore, gain more benefit from photographs than from written papers”
66 See Waley (1991); Deringil (1999); Ersoy (2016); Shaw (2003); Eldem (2012).
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(Waley, 1991, p.114). Highly aware of the medium’s open-ended nature, Abdülhamid employed this modern medium to transmit multi-layered “ideas” for state propaganda. Thus, the image of a church bell among ancient weapons was also an idea that might lead to imagination.
Taken in a highly symbolically charged place, this picture shows the church bell of Hagia Sophia lying dormant on display in the vestibule of the tenth-century Basilica of Hagia Irene. It is positioned in front of a fence of muskets and flanked on both sides of its swinging direction by two spiked mace balls. As claimed by Wendy Shaw (2003), this tenth-century Byzantine Church of Hagia Irene—which had been turned into an armory in 1453, a collection of arms and archaeological antiquities in the 1840s, and then a museum in 1869—played a significant role in the construction of nationalist myth-making. The museum was a place where narratives were constructed, and it established a “mode of resistance to European domination” (p.29). In her words, “the use of the former church served as a constant physical reminder of Ottoman dominion over the formerly Christian city” (p.32). Not passively copying the Europeans, the objects and display strategies functioned as strong symbols of dynastic power and control. Being closed to visitors, this place symbolized the sultans’ power, control, and self-identification for occasional foreign travelers allowed to enter. For the Ottomans, as Shaw puts it, “the museum thrust the public representation of the Ottoman Empire into a modern time frame defined by the very act of collection and the strategies of display” (p.81). The museum used artifacts to tell different stories; in the case of the church bell, its performance through an undisputable didactic display transmitted the contemporary need and aspiration to keep non-Muslim presence under control.
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French archaeologist Albert Dumont’s 1868 article “Le Musée Sainte-Irène à Constantinople” gives us the first detailed perspective on the museum’s display strategies.67 However, this comprehensive article does not mention the display of a church bell in Hagia Irene. I could locate the first mention in an Itinéraire Descriptif written by the French doctor Emile Isambert, published in 1873, a year after “ambiguous” German historian and archaeologist Philipp Anton Dethier was hired as museum director by Ahmet Vefik Pasha.68 In his book, Isambert (1873) noted: “Under the vestibule, the timpani and pots of the Janissaries, bundles of halberd visels, a Persian metal arch, old canons of singularly shaped sleepers, and the ancient bell of Hagia Sophia are piled up” (p.535). Twenty-two years later, in 1895, the former attorney of the United States, Edvin Grosvenor (1895), wrote that “in the vestibule, in suggestive proximity and equally mute, are the bell of Sancta Sophia and the kettles of the Janissaries” (p.478). Comparing the Janissaries to the dormant bell, Grosvenor’s interpretation could be seen as a reflection of this mode of myth-making and resistance toward European dominance in an appropriated museum display. Featured in the Hamidian albums that were presented as gifts to the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the British Museum in 1893, the bell of Hagia Sophia symbolized not only Ottoman control over the Great Church but also an agenda of participation in European culture through possession, as rightfully argued by Shaw. Moreover, the image itself, published and distributed between 1880 and 1893 by the Abdullah Brothers who were often hired by the palace, served to construct a myth of control over bell-ringing and imperial unity in the “well-
67 See Dumont, Albert (1868): Le Musée Sainte-Irène à Constantinople. In Revue Archéologique 18, pp. 237–263.
68 See Eldem, Edhem. 2012. “The Archaeology of a Photograph: Philipp Anton Dethier and his ‘Group for the History of Greek Art’.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 127: 499–530.
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protected domains” during an era of nationalist upheavals.69 Pushing us to inquire about deeper auditory connections in a visual mode of experience, this silenced and still presence of a sounding and swinging instrument also captures a moment of absent sound and movement. However, this is not a nostalgic remembrance of things past that aimed to fill the lacking sonic register or sacred moment with the imagination; it portrays a desirable and non-existent present through a symbolic demonstration of authority. Aiming to keep this non-Muslim audibility (and visibility) under control, the particular positioning of the spiked mace balls and the fence of muskets produces a subordination of religious other under the surveillance of a Western-style Ottoman institution. Calling our attention to the stillness of a threateningly flanked bell, it also suggests a mode of silence and control that might portray aspects of a consolidated and modern nation-state.
In another image taken by the Abdullah Brothers (see Figure 4), probably right after the picture mentioned above, four smaller church bells in various sizes stand closely on display among numerous weapons.70 Numerous striking resemblances to the previous image are present, such as the bells’ still and silenced positioning in front of a fence of muskets, the placement of a mace
69 In The Well-protected Domains, Deringil (1999) states: “As Abdülhamid himself dictated to his private secretary: ‘Most of the photographs taken [by European photographers] for sale in Europe vilify and mock Our Well-Protected Domains. It is imperative that the photographs to be taken in this instance do not insult Islamic peoples by showing them in a vulgar and demeaning light’, p.156. 70 In his memoir, the British historian, and priest of the Church of England William Holden Hutton (1900) noted: “There are five fine bells, two with dates 1600 and 1658, one dedicated “ Vero Deo Patri Filio Spiritui Sancto”, p.234. In 1925, Ada Goodrich-Freer (1925), an English medium, clairvoyant, and author, also recalled: “The Church of S. Irene: There are two bells which may have belonged to S. Sophia, and five bearing dates from 1600 to 1658, showing that Church bells were not only in use, but that new ones were still hung, two hundred years after the Conquest,” p.41.
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ball, and the absence of free space. Torn from their communicative quality and inscribed in an enclosed environment, the bells’ historicization was formulated through a mise-en-scene that added invested meaning to this premodern display. The lack of a taxonomic or scientific focus in this museum facilitated a historical narrative through images that accentuate the antiquity of an item still in use, such as church bells, alongside military spolia that dated back to the thirteenth century.71 This attribution of historical value forms part of a display strategy that intends to serve as a powerful marker of long-lasting ownership, careful balance, the peaceful co-existence of items and their related communities. However, the intimidating positioning of an eye-shaped ancient hand cannon toward the viewer adds another layer to the complexity of picture and place, which both were primarily formulated to represent the state to foreigners. Producing a sense of subjugation to imperial power, the conscientious reconstruction of this display through the eyes of Abdullah Brothers not only suggests a simple sense of appreciation concerning the possession of bells. Instead, the image ingeniously creates a mode of expression through a threatening inverted gaze implying that the bells have been kept in silence for centuries and cannot be taken back without any noise from “our well-protected domains.”
According to Eldem (2012), these albums were in line with the Ottoman desire to impress Western audiences with whatever they were willing to accept as a positive image of the empire. Aiming to create a suggestive version of history using the modern medium of photography, the
71 According to Dumont (1868), “The statues, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs' in the halls of Sainte-Irene are displayed without order; some of these, hidden by objects that have no connection with archeology, can only be imperfectly examined, others suffered a lot, the little care taken and even the humidity, and get worse every day. At the same time, and nothing is more regrettable than the provenance of each monument is not indicated by any trustworthy testimony. Easy to move labels often use vague terms to describe objects’ origins, such as outside of Constantinople”, p.237.
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task itself, as one part of more significant projects and programs dealing with imperial aims and minority issues, could be considered an expressive sign of modernism. Overcoming the chasm of difference, carrying us into the realm of the audible, and pointing to signs of modernism, the Abdullah Brothers’ meticulously constructed images also bridge the gap between seeing and hearing.72 Bearing equal weight, its visual and audible modes signify the empire’s political aspirations, optimistic approach, and conceptual relationship to its Christian community and Europe.
Chapter Conclusion
As we have seen so far, the Ottomans did not underestimate the significance of church bells. They were aware of how bells—as symbolic objects of resistance, hope, and trauma—functioned as hubs through which common emotions, sentiments, and political perspectives were shared. Used as instruments of rapprochement for foreign governments, they symbolized a disruption in the authority’s hierarchal power mechanisms, which determined who could make what sorts of noises. Regardless of the difficulties, the Ottoman reforms gradually dissolved the monopoly of the call to prayer in the soundscape of religiously mixed areas. While non-Muslim communities tried to maintain the sound of their bells, the Ottoman state also busied itself to produce sonic ways of legitimization and control. Leading to numerous conflicts and diplomatic crises, church bells required a multifaceted mediation between numerous institutions. However, despite all the attempts at modernization, the negative undertones of ringing bells remained intact even after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish poet, novelist, and Islamist ideologue Necip Fazıl
72 Traces in the dust accumulated on the museum display clearly demonstrates that the bell has been carefully repositioned and staged for this image.
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Kısakürek’s (1924) synesthetic poem Bell Sound depicts these anxieties and fears with an almost apocalyptic scenery:
Odamda yanan mumu üfledi bir çan sesi. Gözlerim halka halka gördü bu uçan sesi. Önümden bir hız geçti, aktı ateşten izler; Açıldı kıvrım kıvrım toprak altı dehlizler. Şimşekler yanıp söndü, şimşekler sönüp yandı; Derindeki sarnıçta durgun sular uyandı. Sağa sola sallanıp, dan, dan, dan, çaldı çanlar, Durmadan çaldı çanlar, durmadan çaldı çanlar, Sular ürperdi, eşya ürperdi, tunç ürperdi; Çanlar, kocaman çanlar, korkunç korkunç ürperdi. Gördüm ki, adım adım, gölge gölge keşişler. Ebedi karanlığın mahzenine inmişler...
A bell sound blew out the burning candle in my room My eyes followed this waving sound in rings. It passed hastily before me; fire traces streamed Underground tunnels were opened in curls. Lightning flashes, flash lightning; Still waters awoke in the deep cistern Bells swinging back and forth, twang, twang, twang Bells rang nonstop, bells rang nonstop Water trembled, objects trembled, bronze trembled, Bells, giant bells, dreadfully trembled. I saw, step by step, monks in shadows descending into the cellar of eternal darkness…
This overview of church bells based on archival documents and a discussion of the semantic virtues of images can give us reliable departure points for further in-depth studies on bells’ various aspects. The present chapter merely scratches the surface of the whole story. As I have tried to demonstrate, photography, archival documents, and personal memoirs can provide a superb opportunity for scholars to analyze the auditory environment in the Ottoman Empire.
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Chapter II - Echoes over the Bosphorus: Cannon Shots of Late Ottoman Istanbul
“Kulak bazen gözden evvel görür.” [Sometimes the ear sees before the eye.] Servet-i Fünun, No.1039 p.583 - May 4, 1911.
As seen in the previous chapter, the relationship between sound, space, and power has interlocking aspects that illustrate the complexity of listening to the past. Sound is powerful in itself, and the constant quest to make noise has strong connections that help us trace shifts in power relations. As Schafer (1977) explains, authorities make noise with impunity through “sacred noises.” Having the right to “make the loudest noise without censure” brings the power to change the rhythms of urban life, overpower other sounds, expand territorial space, and establish authority through auditory events (pp.90-91). Accordingly, whoever has the right to make the loudest sound possesses not only a significant symbol of power but also a medium of communication. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated that sound often manifested power and enlarged its territorial area.73 From human cries to military bands and marches, sound has always expressed unity, sacrality, and legitimization in numerous ways.
73 Bijsterveld, K. 2001. “The Diabolical Symphony of the Mechanical Age: Technology and Symbolism of Sound in European and North American Noise Abatement Campaigns, 1900-40.” Social Studies of Science 31 (1): 37–70; Birdsall, C. 2012. Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945. Amsterdam University Press; Corbin, A. 1998. Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the Nineteenth-Century French Countryside. Columbia University Press; Fisher, A. J. 2014. Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria. Oxford University Press; Garrioch, D. 2003. “Sounds of the City: The Soundscape of Early Modern European Towns.” Urban History 30 (1): 5–25; Goodman, S. 2010. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. MIT Press; Hahn, P. 2015. “The Reformation of the Soundscape: Bell-ringing in Early Modern Lutheran Germany.” German History 33 (4): 525–45; Hernandez, R. L. 2004. “Sacred Sound and Sacred Substance: Church Bells and the Auditory Culture of Russian Villages during the Bolshevik Velikii Perelom.” The American Historical Review 109 (5): 1475–1504; Keightley, K. 1996. “‘Turn it
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In her groundbreaking study, The Soundscape of Modernity, Emily Thompson asserts, “any exploration of a soundscape should ultimately inform a more general understanding of the society and culture that produced it” (Sterne, 2012, p.124). Subject to personal judgment, one person’s “noise” may be pleasant to another. The results differ since the forms of auditory experience depend on the interpreters. As Corbin (1998) wrote, before the “continuous noise of the internal combustion engine, electric motor, or amplifier […] people liked being sporadically deafened primarily by the ringing of bells, but also by the sound of cannon” (p.97). Bijsterveld (2001) also rightfully claims that “loud sounds, if positively evaluated, have been attributed with characteristics such as power, strength, progress, prosperity, energy, dynamics, masculinity and control. Yet, the very same sounds have, in cases where they were unwanted and therefore labeled as ‘noise,’ been continually thought of as a sign of a deliberate disruption of societal order, often by those lower in the hierarchy” (p.60).
Some recent publications in sound studies have paid attention to these changes in the meaning of sound and modes of listening.74 Even when it happened in the background, these sounds
down!’she shrieked: Gender, Domestic Space, and High Fidelity, 1948–59.” Popular Music 15 (02): 149–77; Mansell, J. G. 2017. “New Histories of the Urban Soundscape.” Journal of Urban History; Morat, D., ed. 2014. Sounds of Modern History: Auditory Cultures in 19th- and 20th- Century Europe. Berghahn Books; Payer, P. 2007. “The Age of Noise: Early Reactions in Vienna, 1870--1914.” Journal of Urban History 33 (5): 773–93; Pennanen, R. P. 2017. “Cannons, Church Bells and Colonial Policies: The Soundscape in Habsburg Bosnia-Herzegovina.” In Cultural Histories of Noise, edited by Biddle, I. D. and Gibson, K. 152–66: Routledge; Polk, K. 2013. “Gretchen Peters, The Musical Sounds of Medieval French Cities: Players, Patrons, and Politics.” Early Music History 32:317–23; Rath, R. C. 2003. How Early America Sounded. Cornell University Press.
74 Attali, J. (1985): Listening. In Jacques Attali: Noise. The political economy of music. University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3–20; Barthes, R. (1991): Listening. In The Responsibility of Forms. University of California Press; Damousi, J.; Deacon, D. (Eds.) (2007): Talking and Listening in the Age of Modernity. Essays on the History of Sound. ANU E Press; Erlmann, V.
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provided a remarkable variety of information. As Sophia Rosenfeld (2011) has pointed out, “what scholars agree upon is that these traces, considered collectively, provide a window onto their subjects’ passions, social relations, means of establishing and conveying knowledge, conceptions of time and space, distribution and marking of power, even senses of body and self” (p.319). Thus, this chapter addresses another “loud” auditory event of late Ottoman Istanbul, an event that existed in most empires: cannon shots.
Since the intensity of sound often reflects the grandeur of the power that produces it, cannons were generally used for royal and religious purposes in political entities with strong leadership structures. Having a much larger acoustic reach than drums, gun salvos, muezzins, church bells, or military bands, the explosive sound of cannon fire led to absolute supremacy over the urban soundscape in the nineteenth century. However, with few exceptions, there exists a large gap in academic studies on the general history of cannon salutes.
The consensus on its origins points out the rising importance of the British Navy during the sixteenth century. Aiming to strengthen the United Kingdom’s claims over “the British seas” —
(Ed.) (2004): Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Oxford; Ihde, D. (2007): Listening and Voice. Phenomenologies of Sound. 2nd ed. State University of New York Press; Johnson, J. H. (1996): Listening in Paris. A Cultural History. University of California Press; Mansell, J. G. (2017): The Age of Noise in Britain. Hearing Modernity. University of Illinois Press; Smith, M. M. (2001): Listening to Nineteenth-Century America. University of North Carolina Press; Smith, M. M. (Ed.) (2004): Hearing History. A Reader. University of Georgia Press; Smith, M. M. (2007): Sensing the Past. Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History. University of California Press; Prochnik, G. (2010): In Pursuit of Silence. Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise. Anchor Books; Voegelin, S. (2010): Listening to Noise and Silence. Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art. Continuum; Voegelin, S. (2014): Sonic Possible Worlds. Hearing the Continuum of Sound: Bloomsbury.
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the maritime space surrounding the British Isles, such as the Channel, the North Sea, and the Northwest Atlantic — they forced all foreign vessels, including warships, to fire salutes and lower their flags when crossing the route of a British warship (Pancracio, 1997, pp.177-178). First started as a requirement of homage and precedence to the King of England in “the British seas,” over time the main aim of these salutes became to “honor royalty, representatives of another country or an important person, or to celebrate special events by rendering the ship powerless for a short period” (Konstam, 2010, p.29).
The history of cannon salutes in Istanbul goes back farther than the nineteenth century. According to Bahri Noyan, Şakir Batmaz, and Murat Yıldız’s descriptive studies, Ottomans used cannons for religious holidays, royal processions, and military celebrations since the seventeenth century.75 Emphasizing the sultan’s “visibility,” the recent articles by Darin Stephanov offer the most valuable and detailed information on this topic.76 However, lacking the perspective of sound, these studies either focus on periods before the nineteenth century or ignore cannons’ sonic dimension, employed by the local authorities and foreign powers in Istanbul for various purposes. Thus, one needs to raise questions about the nature of sound production and its reception from a historical perspective.
75 See Noyan, B. S. (1969): Tarihimizde Topla Selamlama. Hayat Tarih Mecmuası (58), pp. 80–84. Batmaz, Ş. (2007): Osmanlı Devleti’nde Bir Merasim Kaidesi Olarak Topla Selamlama (1800-1919). Bilimname 12 (1). Yıldız, M. (2009): Osmanlı Devleti’nde Topun Savaş Dışında Bazı Kullanım Alanları. Türk Dünyası 180.
76 See Stephanov, D. N. (2019): Salvos and Sovereignty. Comparative Notes on Ceremonial Gunfire in the Late Ottoman and Russian Empires. In Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6 (1). Stephanov, D. (2014): Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) and the First Shift in Modern Ruler Visibility in the Ottoman Empire. In Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 1 (1-2), pp. 129–148.
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Over the past three decades, auditory history has employed methodologies from sound studies in which sound, space, and the act of listening have become central to the modern modes of cultural and political construction. According to anthropologist Stephen Feld (1996), soundscapes are dynamic, and sonic events are alive. The audible part of these events reflects vigorous activities that might produce relevant information. Phenomenologist Steven Connor (1997) complements it with another dimension: “[S]ound is time. A sound is a temporal phenomenon, an event in time.” Once we recognize the spatial and temporal dimensions of these “alive” events, we begin to understand better the intimate and embodied aspects of soundscapes that have shaped the history of perception. Without essentializing the senses, one must find the right balance between a rigorous historical methodology and the cultural framework of sound studies. Therefore, before investigating the complex meanings of cannon shots and changes in their modes of usage, I will, in the following section, initially focus on one unique aspect of their sonic agency that is enlarging territorial space. Exploring how these loud events interacted with the surrounding environment, I aim to inquire in greater depth into how the soundscape was perceived by contemporaries. In this context, volume, time, and the unique topography of the Bosphorus reveal to us a unique acoustic phenomenon hitherto unexplored: echoes.
Echoes over the Bosphorus
Until the twentieth century, cannons were the only objects that created sounds close to thunder.77 Due to the geographical characteristics of the city, their sounds were able to cover longer
77 “Allah! Here is the Sultan! The palace, the gardens, the sky ablaze with a brighter fire. The cannon thunders like a great storm.” Loti (1990), p.31.
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distances over open water and create echoes between the hills.78 Although the number of cannon shots and places differed for each occasion, the echoes of repetitive shots made from ships, castles and, most importantly, the different locations that face one another alongside the Bosphorus – such as Tophane and Üsküdar, the Kız Kulesi and Sarayburnu – led to creating a powerful shared experience for the public. Depending on the occasion, other locations, artilleries, and warships also participated in these ceremonies.79 As result of a unique connection between topography and soundscape, these loud auditory experiences surmounted any obstacles in the terrain, permeating the city and beyond.
The lack of a suitable measure for the unique auditory characteristics of the Bosphorus presents an obstacle to our efforts to explore such unique sonic events. However, the impact of these auditory messages can be traced, to some degree, by observing people’s reactions. Since
78 This is called the effect of refraction. The difference between water and air temperatures causes a refraction/bending of sound waves. If the water is calm, reflecting sound waves also add to this amplification effect. Therefore, the sound’s sphere expands and travels farther over water.
79 Scottish writer Charles Macfarlane (1829) gave a detailed account of these locations: “About a mile farther, or near to Buyukdere, there is a strong battery protected with earthen banks, and epaulements of earth and fascines, with another similar battery opposite to correspond; at the distance of another mile, or near to Therapia, is another battery with fourteen long guns, and a battery on the Asiatic bank corresponds to it; a mile and a half farther there are two other heavy batteries; two miles farther, the European and Asiatic castles of Mahomet the Second; thence to Constantinople, a distance of four or five miles, there is no artillery, but at Tophana Point I generally observed from fifty to sixty guns en batterie. There is a battery on the opposite side by Scutari, and a strong battery on Serraglio Point, which with Tophana Point, commands the entrance of the port of Constantinople, and the Golden Horn may moreover be raked longitudinally by a battery of a few but very heavy guns on a rock in the Bosphorus, opposite to the Golden Horn. At this part, the Bosphorus is not more than half a mile in breadth, and at the time of Admiral Duckworth’s expedition, the activity of the Turks in the immediate presence of an enemy brought, on the very first day of his appearance, three hundred pieces of cannon to bear upon him from different points,” p.374.
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newspaper reporters and the local population over time took cannon salutes and signals for granted, travel accounts, once again, are among one of the essential sources for examining the soundscape that contemporaries experienced. Although filled with orientalist clichés, many of these travel accounts successfully describe the sudden and drastic changes in Istanbul’s soundscape and capture unique noises recurring in their narrative structure and style.
In 1828, Scottish writer Charles Macfarlane (1829) briefly described these opposing cannon shots during the Friday procession of Mahmud II: “At about twelve o’clock the roaring of the cannon at Tophane announced that the Sultan had left the palace of Beşiktaş; to these the artillery at the opposite point of the Seraglio responded; and as the imperial barge ascended the Golden Horn, the arsenal and other batteries fired their salutes” (p.250). It is essential to underline that these echoing shots made from opposite points were not solely auditory proclamations of royal authority and a political tool to affirm legitimacy. Assuming a spatial dimension, they also disseminated information to the public and created communication between the imperial fleet concerning arrival and departure points. In this context, signaling the stages of the royal procession by taking shots from locations nearby the sultan, they informed whether he was leaving the palace, entering the mosque, or returning homewards. Julia Pardoe (1837) also noted the informative aspects of these cannon shots: “Hark! to the booming of the loud cannon, which announces his departure from the coast of Europe, for his delicious summer-palace of Beylerbeyi” (p.144).
Much like in other empires, a wide array of pomp and ceremonies was staged in the Ottoman capital on numerous occasions. During the reign of Mahmud II, these imperial ceremonies grew
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and became more regularized alongside other military and administrative reforms.80 Consequently, the visibility and active participation of the sultan in public events increased towards the 1830s (Stephanov, 2014). As the Friday processions gradually turned into an official public ceremony, they became more popularized and incorporated European marches (Karateke, 2004). In these new types of pomp, symbols, and rituals, cannon shots strengthened the imperial legitimacy as an aural power mechanism. In 1837, French historian Baptiste Poujolat (1841) encountered one of these “pompous” salutations held for the return of Mahmud II from his twenty-five-day long journey to Varna, Silistra, and Nikopol: “Mahmud returned to Istanbul on June 6. He was pompously greeted by four hundred cannon shots fired from ten flagships and arranged in line in the strait” (p.118).
The roar of cannon shots continued to attract more people to these processions. Parisian architect Marchebeus (1839) gave an auditory account of Mahmud II’s departure (göç-i hümâyun) to his summer palace in Beylerbeyi, located on the Asian side of the city: “I have never seen a more imposing and more animated spectacle. […] the cheers (les vivats et les hourras) of the sailors, the roll of drums and cannon shots multiplied by the marvelous echoes of the Bosphorus: this whole procession had a simple, but also noble and large air, and these two features are too often lacking in our public festivals” (p.155). Materializing the imperial authority that mostly remained hidden to the eye, this multi-directional auditory environment placed the sultan at the center of “sacred noise.” For Marchebeus, the ephemeral and “simple” nature of echoes recharged the
80 To replace a century-old military band tradition with a Western-style band, the first Imperial Academy of Music, Muzıka-ı Hümayun, was founded. Giuseppe Donizetti, the elder brother of the famous Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, was invited to Istanbul in 1828 as the court musician with a yearly salary of 8,000 francs. Araci (2002), p.49.
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surrounding environment. Amplifying, reinforcing, and “multiplying” other sounds, echoes brought together multiple sounds into one distinctive soundscape. These powerful emotive effects led him to experience something “imposing” and “noble.”
The ceremonial roar of cannons continued to grow and draw the attention of more crowds during the reign of Abdülmecid. Although these sounds were produced at a certain distance from the listener, they still oriented one’s position towards power. They penetrated the parts of the city that had hitherto been relatively autonomous. In some cases, they were “extraordinarily” heard on Prince’s Islands, located about 20 km southeast of the center of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara. British author and military officer Charles White (1846) wrote: “When the Sultan embarks in state, which is the case almost every Friday during summer, ships of war of all nations dress out in colors, and they and the batteries on either side of the Bosphorus fire salutes. The roar of the cannon, multiplied by the echoes reverberating along the coast and flung back in an extraordinary manner by the prince’s islands” (pp.50-51). French naturalist Gabriel Rogeron (1899) indicated that the echoes of the cannon shots reached Bebek, a historic neighborhood on the Bosphorus located about 9 km north of the center: “Today is the anniversary of the birth of Muhammad. Constantinople is celebrating. Repeated echoes of the cannon of joy reach us to Bebek” (p.199). The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Samuel S. Cox (1887) also stated: “The Sultan dismounts from his charger before the mosque and enters. There is a hush in all the streets. The air seems full of the solemnity of prayer. At the end of a half-hour, the bugles sound. The artillery thunders. Its echoes resound from hill to hill” (p.507). In brief, the Bosphorus’s unique topography facilitated the central authority to draw more attention by expanding its sonic presence.
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In some cases, the roar of cannons was perceived differently. “Repeated by the echoes of Bosphorus,” cannon shots gave French theologist Charles Berton (1860) “the idea of a battle.” He complained in 1850, “this noise, moreover, is renewed with each birth of a prince, a fairly frequent event” (p.221). French poet, novelist, and orientalist Théopile Gautier (1854) also recognized “the roar of cannon [that] resounded continually in all directions.” He was “disturbed, at each moment, by the earthquake breath of artillery, [...] and bursting of bombs” during the Ramadan feast in 1852 (pp.217-218).
Allied with France, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia, the Ottoman Empire entered the Crimean War against Russia in 1853. The same year French traveler Louis Bunel (1854) placed himself in a “canoe” a few meters from the door of the palace of Çırağan to “enjoy the embarkation of the Sultan” and noted:
When the sultan appeared at the gate of his park, a brass band played the Marseillaise and some other poorly executed marches. As soon as he took his place, two ministries ranged by his side, the 28 oars lowered themselves at a given signal, and in a second, the boat had crossed an incredible distance. At the same instant, the Bosphorus resounded with an artillery salvo, repeated in the distance by its admirable echoes. Each warship of all flags stationed in the harbor fired twenty-one cannon shots. There were a dozen. It was a magnificent sight to see the imperial procession cut through the waters and disappeared in the midst of the noise and a thick cloud of smoke” (p.389).
Participating in the generation of echoes, “each warship of all flags” brought a more nuanced connection to place. While enforcing the military nature of the imperial power, these echoes were also an enriched auditory proclamation of this international entente. For Bunel, highlighted
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by the topography of the Bosphorus, these “admirable echoes” were undoubtedly more powerful than the French military anthem. In the same year, in 1853, the French archaeologist Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes (1855) briefly noted some of the origin countries of these warships and attached these military instruments a representative characteristic: “The number of warships or commercial vessels moored at the Golden Horn and Scutari had increased even more since the day before. The nations interested in the question of the East are represented here by their canons. I recognize the French, English, American, Austrian, Neapolitan pavilions, etc. All the talks on board are about politics; the word war is in everyone’s mouth” (p.246).
The following section will demonstrate that cannons echoed across the Bosphorus not only to manifest Ottoman power. Since diplomatic salutes started to be heard often according to reciprocity etiquette, the need to organize them around the principles of modern diplomacy also emerged towards the mid-nineteenth century. The Ottoman state was no longer the “monopolizing noise emitter” (Attali, 1985, p.7). Connected to policies and international politics, cannon signals boomed over the Bosphorus as sonic signifiers. Although they were rarely on a larger ceremonial scale, the salutes made by foreign nations began to represent their respective countries. As foreign powers increased their control over the empire, so grew their role in the auditory hierarchy. The politicization of cannon shots led the Ottoman state to reaffirm its legitimacy in the city’s power structure. Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II’s excessive employment of cannons in ceremonies could also be seen as an ongoing search to amplify their status and state reputation by raising the perception threshold. Contrary to the decline in the state’s military power, the echoes of cannon shots began to increase as part of the “spectacle.”
In 1884, American author and clergyman Henry Martyn Field (1884) attended the Friday ceremonies of Abdülhamid II and noted: “It is indeed a brilliant pageant, not to be overlooked by
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those who would see an exhibition of Oriental pomp and magnificence. […] All the ships of war lying in the Bosphorus fire salutes, making the shores ring with their repeated thunders.” However, for Field, the whole procession was only “one of the spectacles of Constantinople,” and Abdülhamid was “an actor [who] is often very different behind the scenes.” He added, “when he retires into his palace [he] is found to be only a man, and a very weak man” (pp.321-323). The echoes of cannon salutes also captured the attention of Cox (1887) during the bayram procession in Dolmabahçe Palace:
The artillery thunders. Its echoes resound from hill to hill. This is the signal that his majesty has ended his devotions! He is about to enter the palace! The grand reception ensues! This is the jocund occasion of the year. The vociferous greetings of the troops and people are wildly joyous! […] Is this Turkey in decrepitude? The fervor of the reception accorded to the sultan does not indicate the sick man (pp.506-507).
As these two sources demonstrate, cannon shots still constituted an essential part of the elaborate ceremonial strategy towards the end of the century. Producing loud events through cannon salutes, the Ottoman state employed a more nuanced approach to expand their “acoustic horizon.” Creating a unique auditory experience, the aural reflections of these events strongly impacted the public. As stressed by Schafer, those who controlled “sacred noise” also made the “biggest noise” without censure. Reverberating cannons functioned as the sole rivals of thunder and signified the authority of imperial power.
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For Whom the Cannons Thunder? Sacral, Imperial, Diplomatic, and Other Functions of Cannon Shots
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, the modes of usage of church bells in late Ottoman Istanbul were limited. Therefore, this chapter argues that cannon shots assumed church bells’ sacral, secular, and informative functions. Surpassing all other sounds, they dominated the urban soundscape within which residents listened to their messages regularly. They were among the most useful mediums of communication. Calling people to religious and national celebrations, serving as clocks for the community, announcing coronations, celebrating military victories, the birth of heirs to the throne, and official visits by notables, the cannon shots of late Ottoman Istanbul assumed some of church bells’ functions. One might rightfully ask if they carried subtle, practical, and symbolic meanings in addition to those they carried in Europe. Questioning the functional similarities between the cannon shots of late Ottoman Istanbul and church bells, as observed by Alain Corbin, this chapter explores these complexities under the following four headings: sacred, imperial, diplomatic, and other functions.
“Flashes of Joyous Peals”: Sacral Uses of Cannon Salvos
Embodying an essential role in Islam, sound, and especially the human voice, is central to Islamic rituals and ceremonies. The first verse of the Qur’an starts with the word “Recite!” While emphasizing the importance of recitation to spread the divine truth, the Qur’an also requires its believers to listen and attune their bodies accordingly.
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As one of the most important sensory activities of Islam, listening opens believers’ hearts to its divine message through various non-musical forms of human voice such as the call to prayer,81 Qur’anic recitations, sermons, sama (spiritual audition), and zikr (rhythmic repetition of the name of God). The auditory space that Qur’anic recitation creates not only permeates the divine message but also shapes its aesthetic through melodic characteristics. Like Qur’anic recitation, the call to prayer reinforced local identities in late Ottoman Istanbul, which had more than 340 mosques in 1828.82
Although this research emphasizes “sounding objects” and does not concentrate on the sonic dimension of the call to prayer, nor more serious devotional genres, such as Qur’anic recitations and sermons, it is still important to question cannons’ roles alongside these sacred voices. Carrying a central position in the urban soundscape, the call to prayer set the daily rhythm of the city and shaped the ethical background for Muslims. Fortunately, the scholarly interest in Islamic sonic practices has contributed to our understanding of auditory practices in the urban context over the past fifteen years. Some researchers have focused on the relationship between Islamic sounds, urban space, and locality,83 while others questioned the relationships between voice,
81 Announcing the five prayer times, the call to prayer is mostly recited in the Arabic language in different styles. It can be translated as: “God is Great. I testify that there is no God but God. I testify the Mohammed is his Prophet. Come to prayer. Come to salvation. God is Great. There is no God but God.”
82 In 1828, French Comte Antoine-François Andreossy (1828) stated that: “There are three hundred and forty-six mosques in Constantinople, of which two hundred and seventy-two are small and seventy-four are large”, p.124. Hafız Ali Ayvansarayı’s The Garden of the Mosques listed over 530 mosques in 1838. See Ayvansarayı (2000).
83 Jouili, Soufiane; Moors, Annelies (2014): “ Islamic Sounds and the Politics of Listening.” In Anthropological Quarterly 87, pp. 977–988; Lee, Tong Soon (1999): “Technology and the production of Islamic space. The call to prayer in Singapore.” In Ethnomusicology 43 (1), pp. 86–100; Eisenberg, Andrew J. (2013): “Islam, sound and space.” In Georgina Born (Ed.):
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recitation, and Islamic sermons.84 Cultural and social historians have also examined the acoustic space of historic mosques.85 However, the intermingled dynamics between cannons and the call to prayer remains unexplored.
The sacredness of prayer was often extended into a larger space through cannons’ noises. Elevating ezan’s emotional message, cannon shots accompanied and intensified prayers on numerous occasions. Stimulating collective emotion, they set contemporaries in collective motion for religious purposes. Since they could be heard from afar, they assumed an instantaneous communicative value, defining religious space and political belonging. As cannon shots permeated urban space, they also carried religious and imperial claims. In brief, minarets make Islam heard, but the cannon shots amplified it with an amalgamation of militaristic and monarchic meanings.
In his studies, Corbin (2004) talks about the regularity of church bells in the “sacral recharging of the surrounding space” (p.185). Besides summoning people to religious services, “it was the bell that announced festivals on the eve of their celebration, and that proclaimed collective rejoicing” (Corbin, 1998, p.xi). Similar to church bells in Europe, the thundering sounds of
Music, Sound and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience. Cambridge University Press, pp. 186–202.
84 Eisenlohr, Patrick (2018): Sounding Islam. Voice, media, and sonic atmospheres in an Indian Ocean world. University of California Press; Hirschkind, Charles (2006): The Ethical Soundscape. Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. Columbia University Press.
85 Elkhateeb, Ahmed; Ismail, Mostafa (2007): “Sounds from the past the acoustics of Sultan Hassan Mosque and Madrasa.” In Building Acoustics 14, pp. 109–132; Ergin, Nina (2008): “The Soundscape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul Mosques. Architecture and Qur’an Recital.” In Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, 2008 (2), pp. 204–221; Sü, Zühre; Yilmazer, Semiha (2011): “The Acoustical Characteristics of the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, Turkey.” In Architectural Science Review 51 (1), pp. 21–30.
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cannons changed the rhythms of urban life in late Ottoman Istanbul. Accompanying Islamic festivals, holy days, the Friday processions, and the departure of pilgrims and monetary aids for the Hajj, cannon shots functioned as indispensable instruments for “sacral recharging.” Lord Byron (1835) employed a brilliant analogy in one of his poems that connected these celebratory salutes to bell-ringing during the fasting month of Ramadan (p.198):
The crescent glimmers on the hill, The mosque’s high lamps are quivering still: Though too remote for sound to wake In echoes of the far tophaike The flashes of each joyous peal Are seen to prove the Moslem’s zeal. To-night, set Rhamazani’s sun; To-night, the Bairam feast’s begun.
As an “old custom (adet-i kadime),” cannons were discharged to announce the beginning and end of Ramadan.86 Assuming both informative and sacral meanings, cannon shots signaled the ending of fasting time,87 and the time for sahur, the meal consumed slightly before sunrise before fasting.88 They were also fired twenty-one times in the Night of Qadr (Kadir Gecesi) – the
86 BEO 3766/282429; A.MKT.MHM. 223/60, 431/83 223/60, OA. See also, Mestyan, Adam (2017): “Upgrade?” In Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 37 (2).
87 French writer and politician Joseph Reinach (1879) noted: “As soon as the sun has gone down behind the tip of the Seraglio, the cannon of Tophane announces the end of the fast,” p.108.
88 BEO 3932/294874; DH.MTV. 37/5, OA; French professor of theology, Guillaume Martin (1821) wrote: “Every evening, the minarets of the mosques were illuminated, and twice a day there was a salvo of cannon from the Serail, Tophane, the arsenal and other places in the city where there is artillery”, p.176. According to WhiteWhite (1846): “a gun is fired from each of
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twenty-seventh night of Ramadan, accompanying the five daily prayers until the afternoon of the following day.89 A memoir by the American statesman Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin (1867) demonstrates how and to what extent the different sensory modalities worked together:
In celebration of this event, the sultan repaired in the evening to the elegant mosque of Tophane. Most of the Ottoman fleet had been brought out of their winter quarters in the Golden Horn and moored in the Bosphorus in anticipation of the occasion. As night came on, illuminations became visible from shore to shore; the men-of-war were lighted up with battle-lanterns from stem to stern, from deck to masthead, and the mosque of Tophane and its pair of lofty and graceful minarets were a blaze of glory; when the sultan set out from his palace the artillery of frigates and line-of-battleships rent the air with long-reverberating peals that rumbled up the steep, winding shores of the Bosphorus like a thunderstorm in mountain gorges; then fireworks were sent into the sky, and night was turned into day (p.74).
Undoubtedly, exploring the embodied impact in these sites provides a fruitful area for understanding the cultural dimension of sensory experiences. Mutually reinforcing, the visual
the principal batteries upon the Bosphorus, at dawn and sunset, to warn the population of the exact time for commencing and terminating their daily fast,” p.216. British archaeologist Charles William Wilson (1893) noted: “The moment of sunset—the signal for the iftar, or breaking of the fast—is eagerly looked for by everyone; it is announced by the firing of cannon,” p.10. According to a note by Durand de Fontmage (1902): “Turkish houses remain open and illuminated all night long. A second meal precedes the cannon of the dawn; suddenly, everything calms down,” p.197. H.G. Dwight (1915) also wrote: “The last meal of the night also has a name of its own, sohour, which is derived from the word for dawn. Watchmen patrol the streets with drums to wake people up in time for it, while another cannon announces when the fast begins again,” p.266.
89 BEO 4477/335732, OA; See also, Batmaz, Şakir (2007): “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Bir Merasim Kaidesi Olarak Topla Selamlama (1800-1919).” In Bilimname 12 (1).
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and auditory apparatus of the cannon enabled a multisensorial experience and targeted the citizens in a sophisticated way. For Hornby (1858), these “wonderful” effects rendered the city “more like a dream than reality” (p.360).90 Irish historian Robert Walsh (1836) also noted that “at the sound of [the cannon] a general illumination burst from the minarets of the mosques and the rigging of the shipping, so that the whole surface of land and sea, as far as the eye can reach, is one glow of artificial light” (p.455).
Linking various aural and visual stimuli to the sultan’s appearance, these spectacles contributed to the imperial authority’s sacrality through intersensoriality. Emphasizing each other, illuminations, fireworks, and cannon shots created an echoing and lightning “thunderstorm” with the sultan in its eye. These sudden changes in the sensory environment aimed to expand and legitimize the sultan’s embodiment of spiritual and worldly power while generating a strong sensory and bodily experience. Carrying “the voice of authority,” thundering cannons functioned as demonstrations of Islamic piety (Corbin, 1998, p.x). The production of the cannon’s image and sound were employed together in this representation. Contributing to the sacrality of the instruments, lights strung between minarets occasionally depicted a cannon. The French archaeologist Eugène Flandin (1851) noted in 1840: “Above all the mosques, the minarets shone with the fires of a thousand lanterns. Between them swung, suspended from invisible ropes, innumerable quantities of small lamps forming various designs which represented a cannon, a
90 “Yesterday was the last of Ramazan, and the sultan went in procession to the old palace at Seraglio Point to take the yearly Ottoman oaths of empire. Cannon thundered, drums rolled, and streets and windows were crowded to see the procession. The minarets were beautifully illuminated last night, with wreaths of pale gold lamps and words strung from one minaret to another, on this and the opposite shore; […] The effect is wonderful, and the golden words appear to hang suspended in the air; in fact, this place is more like a dream than reality just now” Hornby (1858), pp.359-360.
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star, or a ship, or even verses from the Koran” (p.23). A similar depiction was also found in Tophane during Ramadan. According to Théophile Gautier (1854), “in front of the foundry, the illumination was composed of a gigantic cannon, with its carriage and wheels, forming the insignia of the Turkish artillery with striking exactitude” (p.100).
The location of the smoke of a cannon was also a good indicator for contemporaries to understand where the firing took place. In his memoir on the CUP revolution of 1908, Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay (1909) noted from the Asian side:
It was a glorious morning, and the view was entrancing. […] but from the midst of which at first clouds of black smoke rolled up into the sky— the smoke of cannon whose sound every now and then came booming across the water. It was difficult to tell by the sound where the firing was taking place, but the smoke was rising both from Stamboul and Pera, and the distance was too great for the movement of people to be seen with the naked eye (p.95).
Changes in their frequency and volume also disseminated some practical information. Hornby (1858) wrote: “So closed to me the last night of the Mussulman Old Year. Before daybreak the next morning, cannon announced the Feast of Bairam or the New Year. […] We knew when this ceremony was over because our poor little kiosk trembled visibly at the roar of cannon which follows it” (pp.363-364). Gautier (1854) also noted: “Here and there the brilliancy begins to fade; the powder explodes at longer intervals” (p.219). Although challenging, incorporating similar narratives may help explore how this military instrument’s auditory impact shaped the human sensorium. Thus, common people’s sensorial perspectives may be more convincingly connected to historical narratives and create a fruitful ground for further studies.
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After a month of punctuating various religious moments and “affording no quiet,”91 cannon shots also announced the beginning of the Bayram on the eve of the feast.92 These shots had a relatively different effect on the community, even in northern neighborhoods such as Bebek.93 Summoning people for celebration, they changed the rhythm of the streets. According to the French Baronne Durand de Fontmagne (1902), “the cannon that announces the end of the fast is the magic wand which revives movement and life in Constantinople” (p.196). On the first morning of the Ramadan feast, “the thundering of cannon from the ships and forts” accompanied the sultan’s visit to the mosque for Eid prayer.94 Salvos continued for three days after each daily
91 “The cities of Constantinople and Pera were illuminated brilliantly for rejoicings, in addition to the lighting up of all the mosques, which, however, during the whole month of the Ramazan, have their towers and minarets covered with a profusion of lamps. […] Besides the myriads of illuminated buildings, a constant succession of guns fired from the batteries, ships, and steamers, during the day, afforded no quiet, by any chance, in the twenty-four hours.” Londonderry (1842), pp.255-256.
92 Hornby (1858) noted: “Two hours after sunset the cannons fire again, for joy that the Fast is ended”, pp.361-362. According to traveler Anna-Alnutt Brassey (1890), “all afternoon and evening, the cannon thundered, and the music played to announce the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Baïram. As we are anchored in the midst of warships, we must resign ourselves to hearing at any time, for three days, salvos of artillery; we get it even at night”, p.88. “On the first day of the month of Shawwal, a cannon shot announces the Bayram” Chantal (1836), p.191.
93 Rogeron (1899) wrote,“we go down to the edge of the Bosphorus to see what is happening there in this evening of the great Muslim festival. […] While we stroll along the waterfront, the night arrives. On our side, the palace of Arnaout-Keuï, the villa of the minister of foreign affairs, and the villa of the grand vizier in Bebek are illuminated. On the other side, there are also many illuminations. On the strait, the boats travel in all directions with bonfires lit. Rockets launch from time to time from different sides, while the cannons occasionally thunder from the ships anchored in the middle of the Bosphorus” p.201.
94 Fontmagne (1902) noted: “We were very curious to see the procession that takes place on the occasion of this festival, the biggest of the Turkish year (la plus grande de l’année turque). As the Sultan had to go to the mosque at sunrise to get to Constantinople, we had to get up two hours before dawn in order to get to the procession in time. So, at three o’clock, we woke up to the distant sound of cannon and candlelight. […] Then the music started again and continued until the end of the procession of ulema, which was very long and closed the ceremony. The
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prayer until the afternoon of the Ramadan feast’s last day.95 Cannon shots were also employed during the yearly Festival of the Sacrifice, Kurban Bayramı. Similar to the Ramadan feast, they accompanied daily prayers for four days.96
The earliest archival documents I have been able to locate in the Ottoman archives regarding these celebratory salvos go back to 1720.97 Locations that hosted most artillery salutes were: Maiden’s Tower,98 Topkapı Palace,99 Tophane-i Amire,100 and Tersane-i Amire,101 Rumeli
Sultan returned to his palace, the crowd fell back, and the cannons thundered again”, pp.212-216. British military officer Charles Colville Frankland (1829) noted: “On the first Friday of this festival, the Sultan goes in immense state, amid the thundering of cannon from the ships and forts, to mosque”, p.218.
95 British politician Charles William Vane Londonderry (1842) stated in 1839: “During this period, the cannon at Constantinople and Pera roar from morning to night, shops are all closed, eating and smoking go on all day, and no one thinks of any other object”, p.331. According to White White (1846), these cannon salutes “from all the ships and batteries that were repeated daily, throughout the empire, at the five hours of prayer, causing an immense consumption and waste of powder”, p.217. See also, A.MKT.NZD. 11/98, OA.
96 A.MKT.MHM. 403/71, A.MKT.NZD. 11/98, OA.
97 AE.SAMD.III 120/11833, 141/13670, OA.
98 French traveler Frédéric Lacroix (1839) wrote, “the cannons placed there are just as harmless as those in battery at Sarayburnu. They only serve to fire salutes,” pp.155-156; See also, AE.SMHD.I. 154/11508; AE.SAMD.III 141/13670; AE.SMST.III 278/22302; C.AS.1118/49509, OA.
99 E.SMHD.I.179/13941; AE.SMST.III 269/21572; C.SM. 46/2327, 168/8442, OA.
100 According to the French journalist and author Louis Enault (1855), “the canon of Tophane gives the signal for a new sleep (sommeil) and a new fast,” p.363. Gerard de Nerval (1867) also wrote, “a battery of six pieces is on the quay [in Tophane]. It is used to greet the vessels entering the Golden Horn and announce the sunrise and sunset to the three parts of the city separated by the waters: Pera, Stamboul, and Scutari”, p.61 (Figure 20). See also, AE.SMHD.I.180/14000; AE.SABH.I.295/19847, OA.
101 AE.SMHD.I. 29/1735; C.BH. 144/6912, 194/9110, OA.
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Castle,102 Anadolu Castle,103 Yedikule Castle,104 Anadolu Kavağı Castle,105 Dolmabahçe Palace’s garden,106 Sarayburnu,107 and the Cannon Gate (Topkapı).108
Deringil (1993) claims that Ottoman sultans’ religion-based legitimization policies were continuously redefined to administer and regulate the Ottoman state. As mentioned above, the changes in the sultanic representation had already begun during the reign of Mahmud II. Particularly under Abdülhamid II’s rule, new ways of hearing were prioritized to emphasize
102 AE.SSLM.III; C.AS. 1175/52377; C.BLD. 86/4258, 104/5153, OA.
103 AE.SABH.I. 305/20479, OA.
104 C.AS. 241/10161; C.BLD. 20/956, 86/4258, OA.
105 C.BLD. 52/2564; AE.SABH.I. 225/14923, OA.
106 Auldjo (1835) wrote, “It being arranged that the steam-boat should make an excursion into the Black Sea, some of the officers and myself went down to Stamboul this morning. […] On approaching the new kiosk, the Francesco stopped to salute the Sultan, who was sitting in one of the bow-windows with several of his suite about him, watching us through an English spyglass; and we could discern that the apartment was fitted up in the Parisian style. A battery near the palace answered our salute, and the Sultan having retired, we started again,” p.168; See also, Y.PRK.ASK. 191/48, 224/102, OA.
107 “We reach the point of the Seraglio or Sérai-Bournou, on which a battery is placed to fire salutes. The grand seigneur’s kiosk is next to that battery, pointed toward Scutari on the Asian coast, and right after Sérai-Bournou, we enter into the port, where the waters are calmer.” Mettais, Montémont, and Walsh (1855), p.10; “At the point of the Serai, one will see the hangars with cannons to announce the beginning of the Bayram and the birth of the sultan’s children; these pieces are Swedish” Blanchard (1855), p.399; “The outside of the Seraglio towards the port has nothing worth notice, but the kiosk or pavilion right against Galata, which is supported by a dozen pillars of marble; […] All these quays are covered with artillery without carriages; most of the cannons are planted level with the water. […] This artillery is what the Mahometans rejoice to hear, for, when they are fired, it is to notify that Lent (Ramazan) is at an end. They are likewise fired on public rejoicing days” Murray (1854), p.64.
108 American professor of European history at Amherst College Edwin A. Grosvenor Grosvenor (1895) noted: “Under the Ottomans, the gate became Top Kapou, the Cannon Gate. Here discharges of artillery always announced the birth of a prince, the accession of a sultan, an Ottoman victory, and the chief festivals of the faith,” p.563.
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Islamic identity, strengthen imperial legitimacy, and exercise firm control over citizens.109 A memoir by the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Samuel S. Cox (1887) demonstrates an eclectic amalgamation of these new types of pomp, ceremonies, and auditory constructs during a Bayram procession in the Dolmabahçe Palace:
Is this Turkey in decrepitude? The fervor of the reception accorded to the sultan does not indicate the “Sick man.” The weather is perfect. The morning is fresh. The scene is charming. The sultan dismounts from his charger before the mosque and enters. There is a hush in all the streets. The air seems full of the solemnity of prayer. At the end of a half-hour, the bugles sound. The artillery thunders. Its echoes resound from hill to hill. This is the signal that His Majesty has ended his devotions! […] The Sheik-ul-Islam is the most conspicuous of those who attend this ceremony. He is dressed in his white caftan; his turban of white is crossed in front by a band of gold. He is next to the sultan in religious rank, and when he undertakes to make the salutation which is usual, the sultan prevents the performance of the homage and meets him halfway. All this goes on while the band plays airs from some delightful opera and the cannon thunders from fort to fort, and amid shouts of “Long live the Sultan!” How long this ceremony occupies, it is impossible to recall; perhaps two hours (pp.506-509).
109 One may claim that the history of Abdülhamid II’s surveillance methods is auditory history. Abdülhamid’s spies (hafiyes) had watchful eyes and open ears that recorded, measured, and shaped the self-regulating citizen. In Ersoy’s (2016) words, “surrounding himself with a multimedia environment” in the Yıldız Palace, he was at the center of an autocratic, almost panopticon-like watching, listening, and silencing regime (p.339).
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Spreading the echoes of the imperial power, the cannon shots of the Hamidian era continued to link the power center to its subjects even more often. Their echoes were deeply intermingled with an auditory and verbal rhetoric that has its own communicative and informative varieties. The standardized acclaim of “Long Live the Sultan!” shouted by civilians and soldiers led to an affirmation of the sultan’s sacral presence. Repeated on every occasion, since “the person of the Sultan was made to acquire a certain aura of sacrality,” the auditory recharging of the surrounding space functioned both ways, sacral and imperial (Deringil, 1993, p.11).
Cannons were also fired occasionally for the departure of pilgrims110 and the monetary aid (Surra Alayı)111 to Mecca and Medina. Representing the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, Mawlid ceremonies were equally one of the fundamental practices of the state protocol that used cannon salvos. They were discharged to accompany the five prayer times during the Mawlid day.112
110 Their placement in the garden of the Procession Kiosk, a sixteenth-century building on the outer walls of the Topkapı Palace used by the Ottoman sultans to receive salutes, demonstrates the amalgamated nature of cannon’s use. White (1846) noted: “The moment fixed upon by the müneccimbaşı having arrived, and each person being marshaled in his place by the master of ceremonies and conductor of the caravan, a salute of twenty-one guns was fired from a field battery stationed in the gardens of the Gulhana/Procession kiosk (Alay Köşkü), and the procession moved forward in the following order,” p.230. Enault (1855) also observed the departure of pilgrims to Mecca: “The Mecca pilgrimage is supremely meritorious. It is almost an obligation imposed on the pious Muslim to do it at least once in his life. Finally, the day arrives. A cannon shot warns Constantinople, an immense crowd throngs the plains of Scutari,” p.304.
111 See, Y.PRK.BŞK. 58/24, OA.
112 Istanbul-born author Harrison Griswold Dwight (1915) noted: “On Mohammed s birthday, to be sure — known as Mevloud, from a celebrated panegyric of the Prophet read in the mosques on that day — the hours of prayer are announced by cannon”, p.287. According to Durand de Fontmagne (1902): “The cannon rang all day long for the feast of the birth of Muhammad”, p.270. See also, A.MKT. 237/66; A.MKT.NZD. 24/101, 200/2; BEO 2083/156156, 4698/352317; DH.MKT. 719/9, 2503/117; Y.PRK.ASK. 76/77, 153/29, OA.
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On April 24, 1908, the city woke up to the bombardment of the revolutionary Young Turk Army.113 Shots were heard from the Asian side.114 Although the cannonade was limited and continued for a few hours around key buildings, such as the Taşkışla barracks and the Topkapı Palace, the CUP Revolution of 1908 led to a heavy shift in the cannons’ modes of usage (Figures 5-9).115 Starting in 1910, cannons functioned only on the eve of the Festival of the Sacrifice,116 yet were also fired for the new official holiday of July 10.117 Although a strict division between secular and religious salvos was never implemented, false rumors spread regarding the
113 A letter published in The Ovosso Times indicated: “Saturday morning I was awakened very early by the reports of guns and some cannonading. […] I thought that one ought to see what they had done to the Sublime Porte and public debt buildings, but when we got next to the high wall that surrounds the public debt, cannon commenced to go off right near, and glass commenced to fall” Carson (1909). British barrister, author, and historian Edwin Pears (1916) wrote: “The army marching upon Pera let us know that it meant business by the movement of its cannon and the rattle of its machine guns. […] The longest resistance was made at the Tashkisla barracks, which were bombarded by a battery of field guns from the parade ground of the military school, which almost adjoins the Harbia. Between nine and ten o’clock in the morning, a sortie took place from Yildiz, but by noon all firing had ceased,” p.279.
114 Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsey (1909) noted: “[…] from the midst of which at first clouds of black smoke rolled up into the sky—the smoke of cannon whose sound every now and then came booming across the water,” p.95.
115 The San Francisco Call reported: “Soldiers from Saloniki unexpectedly attacked Stamboul on three sides and were met by firing from troops in the Sublime Porte. The Macedonians cannon tore a hole in the gate of the Sublime Porte and another in the wall through which you could drive a horse and cart. At 5 o’clock this morning, the enveloping movement on the Yildiz kiosk began. Several outlying barracks had first been reduced. The principal one was at Taxim, near the German embassy. The fighting there lasted five hours. The Macedonians’ canon tore holes in the barracks, which were riddled like a sieve. The barracks were finally taken at 10 o’clock” (“Constantinople Falls 'Mid Toll of 6000 Deaths,” 1909), p.1.
116 BEO 4433/332472; DH.MTV. 34/22, 34/7, 34/46, 34/72; MV.237/66, OA.
117 ZB.604/41, OA.
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cancellation of “ancient ceremony” (merasim-i kadime) during Ramadan and religious holidays.118
As the following sections will cover in detail, the gradual shift in cannons’ meanings diminished their significance as sacred and imperial echoes in late Ottoman Istanbul. The development of communication technologies and industrial modernization —combustion engines, motors, sound reproduction devices— also contributed to this transformation. In Corbin’s (1998) words, “aerial sounds have been desacralized. Since the dawn of the twentieth century, bell and cannon have ceased to be the sole rivals of the mighty thunderbolt” (p.97). As with the church bells, the sultanic and sacral meanings of cannon salutes also started to fade away.
Imperial Self-Image: Aural Manifestations of Sultanic Representation
In their 2007 study, Blesser and Salter (2007) point out that “sound sources engage in a kind of Darwinian combat; loud sounds claim more area for their areas than soft sounds” (p.22). Being aware of this spatial dimension of sound, the auditory hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire, like most other empires, was born from this Darwinian combat. As the state’s real power declined during the nineteenth century, the importance of sounds gained new complexities and nuances. While imposing silence as a control mechanism, sign of authority, and mark of respect, the Ottoman state strove to position itself as a monopolizing noise emitter.
As we have seen earlier, cannons called upon the public to gather for various occasions and announced significant events. The echoing voice of the imperial authority functioned as a symbolic tool to reconstruct legitimacy within the boundaries of their audible territory. Cannon
118 BEO 3763/282190, OA.
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fire constantly pierced the entire soundscape of the city as demonstrations of piety and imperial propaganda. Like Corbin’s bells, the cannons of late Ottoman Istanbul created an auditory dominance over the soundscape and served as a manifestation of power and transmitter of information. Similar to church bells, cannon shots had a well-defined language, which varied from one occasion to the next. As aural manifestations of sultanic representation, the intensity of these sonic events changed the rhythms of everyday life for numerous occasions. However, to better understand these manifestations and the sultans’ sensitivity toward diplomatic reciprocity and recognition, it is essential to focus initially on their historical aspect and demonstrate how they were structured around the principles of modern diplomacy as auditory signs of imperial reputation and representation.
History of Diplomatic Salutes
Although scholars have largely neglected the history of cannon salutes, these sounds were the first among ones organized by modern diplomacy. Treaties of commerce and friendships adopted and regulated salutes between the ships of maritime powers. One of the earlier – if not the first – Ottoman agreements regarding cannon salutes goes back to 1535. The first capitulation document between Suleiman I and François I indicated that “if the private ships of the subjects of above-mentioned lords meet, they must raise their lord’s banner and salute each other with an artillery shot, answering truly, if they have asked who they are” (Noradounghian, 1897, p.86).
As mentioned above, firing cannons harmlessly out to sea was considered a sign of friendship, respect, and trust since it rendered the ship ineffective for a short while. Imbued with important communicative values, this diplomatic tradition was also a required sign of recognition of hierarchy and sovereignty. The customs laid down in the treaties of commerce and friendships
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give us essential insights into their nature. According to Article 23 of the Treaty of Passarowitz, signed in 1718 after the Venetian-Turkish War, between “the Republic of Venice and the Emperor of Ottomans, Ahmed III,”119
The merchants and other subjects of the Republic of Venice, arriving in the Ottoman Empire, must not enter unexpectedly with their fleets or other vessels into the port of Constantinople, Galata, […] but they must, before entering, salute the castles’ commanders and obtain their permission, unless the storm or the pirates endanger them […]; in such a case, they will be able to enter, but, if possible, they must first announce themselves, and not advance, with an apparatus of war, in contravention of what is allowed to them (Aristarchi Bey, 1874, p.244).
It is important to note that the first contact was not made in person but through auditory means. As permission requests, these symbolic greetings constituted an essential aspect of international law: freedom of passage through territorial waters. Article 5 of the 1757 Treaty between Denmark and the Sublime Porte indicated that:
The Danish merchant ships which will meet either the vessels of the Imperial fleet or merchant ships carrying the flag of the Sublime Empire, after having made the greeting amicably according to the custom, will not be prevented from continuing their voyage and will not be moored by any exaction or plunder (p.128).
Also, according to the first article of the 1737 Treaty of Navigation and Commerce with Sweden:
119 In the early modern period, the diplomatic actors were (for the most part) not nation-states. Thus, the diplomatic relationship was mainly between individual units, empires, kingdoms, principalities, and the like.
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Swedish merchants coming with ships into the territory of the Ottoman Empire under the protection and flag of the King of Sweden, […] will always be able to navigate the seas of the empire, freely enter its ports, and remain there without being mistreated in any way. They will be able, where necessary, to disembark their ships to obtain water and food. If they come across Ottoman vessels, it will suffice to fly the Swedish flag and make the customary friendly salutes not to be exposed to any act of violence. (p.399)
Article 3 of the 1761 Treaty of Commerce and Friendship between Prussia and the Ottoman Empire also detailed their function:
When the warships of the powers meet, the ceremony of salutes will be done in the usual manner with other powers’ warships. However, when Prussian merchant vessels encounter Ottoman warships and merchants, they will greet them in a friendly manner, as is customary. They will not be hindered in their journey, nor will they demand or take anything from them with violence, and the Prussian ships will not be forced to carry troops, cannons, ammunition – of war and –similar things (p.27).
In some cases, treaties focused on the customary salutes between warships.120 The 1799 Treaty of Defensive Alliance with England is especially valuable to understand the importance of
120 Article 10 of 1782 treaty of commerce and friendship between Spain and the Ottoman Empire indicated: “Whenever the warships of S. M. C. (Sa Majesté Catholique) encounter warships of the Porte, they will put up their flag and salute them as a sign of friendship; those of the Sublime Porte will return them salutes”, p.152. According to article 14 of the 1833 treaty of commerce and friendship between Tuscany and the Ottoman Empire: “when the warships of the two sovereigns meet at sea, they will greet each other and show each other signs of friendship, refraining from any offense.” Aristarchi Bey (1874), p.264.
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ceremonial salutes in a diplomatic context. The evidence clearly shows that ceremonial salutes were defined with careful attention to represent the hierarchy between parties:
The two High Contracting Parties have agreed and decided that, when their fleets, squadrons, vessels, and other warships meet, they will greet and observe each other, to begin the salute according to the superiority of the rank of the Commanders, indicated by the Command flag; and if there is an equality in rank, they will not salute each other. The salute will be answered by the same number of shots. Consequently, when they meet, they will send each other longboats to understand each other and avoid misunderstanding (Noradounghian, 1900, p.28).
Six years later, the Ottomans used this carefully formulated celebratory practice almost word-by-word in the 1805 Treaty of Defensive Alliance with Russia. A standardized celebratory form was now well-received by rulers in the early nineteenth century. The intention behind this elaborate body of rules was to reduce the possibility of sending or receiving a wrong message:
The two Contracting States have agreed that, when their fleets or large vessels or other warships meet, the ranks of the commanders shall be taken into consideration in the salute, which shall be ascertained by the flag flown for that purpose by both parties. If the commanders of both parties have the same rank, they must not exchange salutes. The one who receives the salute will respond by firing an equal number of cannon shots. In the event of a meeting, the boats must be sent to avoid any error or misunderstanding. (Noradounghian, 1900, pp.72-73).
One of the critical issues in exploring the international relations of this era is to understand the relative positions of states between each other. William Roosen (1980) states that “as societies
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within states were presumed to be hierarchically organized, so too ‘international society’ in the early modern period was held to be hierarchical” (p.460). However, as the norms of diplomatic reciprocity between “unequal” powers were transformed during the nineteenth century, so did celebratory salutes. They were altered by shifting political situations in international relations. Changes in the context and pattern of celebratory salutes went hand in hand with the relations toward any given state.
The 1855 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the Greeks and the Ottoman state heavily emphasized the rules of diplomatic reciprocity. According to Article 10, “maritime salute will take place and will be reciprocal upon rendering, as a demonstration of friendship, between the warships of the two high contracting parties, on the same occasions, forms, and rules as is generally practiced, in peacetime, between ships of the military navy of the European powers” (Aristarchi Bey, 1874, pp.225-226).
The agreements mentioned above demonstrate that, starting from the mid-sixteenth century, the monarchs wished their honor to be upheld in these celebratory salutes that functioned as auditory signs of reputation and representation abroad. Functioning as a measure of status, these auditory patterns participated in the politicization of sound between maritime powers. As the following section will demonstrate, they became an indispensable tool of diplomatic communication, affected by shifting sensibilities and political conditions.
The Sultan’s Accession to the Throne (Cülûs-i Hümâyûn)
One of the imperial occasions in which these sonic signifiers took an essential role was the sultan’s accession to the throne (cülûs-i hümâyûn). Although cannon salutes were used earlier
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during the accession ceremonies of Mahmut I in 1730121 and Abdülhamid I in 1774,122 accession day became an annual celebration in 1836 (Stephanov, 2014).123 In his last years on the throne, Mahmud II became the first sultan to celebrate his accession day annually (Podeh, 2011). Growing during the reigns of Mahmud II’s successors, these ceremonies extended the auditory reach of sultanic presence and sovereignty. In 1839, Abdülmecid ordered cannons to be fired for his accession ceremony (Boyar & Fleet, 2010). The accession of Abdülaziz was also projected to the public with cannon salvos in 1861.124 Twenty-one cannon salvos accompanied prayers in various provinces.125 Navy, castles, and foreign ships also participated in his accession ceremony with their cannons.126
Although sultans grasped the extraordinary power of cannons and used it to ensure that no part of the territory remained isolated from their sovereignty, they could not hold on to the monopoly over their signals. The political and economic crises of the imperial reign led to a shift in absolute authority over cannons. Similar to the announcements of the 1839 Edict of Gülhane
121 C.SM. 110/5529, OA.
122 AE.SABH.I. 247/16521, OA.
123 According to Elliot, F.M. (1893), “before night, the cannon of the Seraglio announced that his brother Mustafa had ceased to reign and that he himself was Commander of the Faithful,” p.289.
124 A.MKT.UM. 481/22, 483/98, OA.
125 A.MKT.UM. 486/53, 486/82, 516/61, OA.
126 A.MKT.UM. 419/77, 554/12, OA.
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(Tanzimât Fermânı)127 and the 1856 Reform Edict (Islahat Fermanı),128 101 cannon salvos from the fleet woke up the city to a coup d’état at 6 am on May 30, 1876, and announced Abdülaziz’s dethronement.129 According to the French doctor P. A. Desjardin, who published under the pseudonym Paul de Régla (1891), the importance of these salvos was not apparent and caused a panic until the town criers disseminated the news:
127 A travel account indicates: “As we were walking home through the Pera burying-ground, the fashionable promenade, we heard very loud cannonading, which proceeded evidently from the Seraglio Point, and only learnt, when it was too late to profit by the information, that it was in honour of the promulgation of the Hatti Scheriff of Goulane, on an occasion of no less importance than the young Sultan’s presenting his people with a new and liberal constitution.” Dawson Damer (1841), p.129; Ottoman politician Ahmed Saki (1917) wrote, “Avrupa süferasının huzuruyla ve 101 pare top atışıyla istikbal edilen Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayun'un kıraati merasimini icra ettirmeği bütün kuvve-i iknaiyesini sarf ederek, akıbet, saltanat- ı Osmaniyi Meşrutiyet yoluna koymağa muvaffak olmuş idi.”
128 “One hundred and one cannon shots unexpectedly announced to the population that the sultan had just read the Hatti-Humayoun proclaiming a new era for the empire at the pavilion of Gul-Hané. English diplomacy had won one of its most noble victories that day” Kyriakides (1918), p.7.
129 Turkish composer Leyla Hanım (1879) wrote: “On the morning of May 30, the sun had scarcely reddened the hilltops and gilded the domes of Hagia Sophia when a hundred and one cannon shots announced to Turkey that it had changed its sultan without a drop of blood being shed or a shot being fired. No one would have guessed this coup d'état, unprecedented in the annals of the empire.” (pp.221-222). Elliot (1893) also wrote: “May 30, 1876, is still fresh in the memory of thousands. No sooner had the summer sun tinged the summit of the Asiatic hills, and touched with gold the cupola of St. Sophia, than the discharge of a hundred cannon announced to the world that a new Sultan reigned”, p.363. American author and traveler Clara Erskine Clement (1895) also wrote: “While the Sultan was being conveyed to his prison, Murad was released from his long confinement and conveyed to the Seraskierate; and in the rosy dawn of May 30, 1876, a hundred cannon announced that a new Sultan reigned at Constantinople”, p.167. George Washburn (1911), president of Robert College, noted in his memoirs: “A little more than two weeks after this, the city was roused in the morning by the roar of cannon which announced the advent of a new Sultan, Murad. Abdulaziz had been dethroned in the night”, p.105.
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On May 30, 1876, our brave Constantinopolitans were suddenly awakened by artillery salvos at six o’clock in the morning. As a consequence, panic reached its peak! Think the vessels anchored in the Bosphorus and in the Golden Horn, and the batteries on earth fired at the same time! Allah! Allah! Was it all going to end like this? Had the last day arrived? Was it the end? Had the supreme hour of the great settlement struck? Jehovah! Dios! God! And everyone trembled for their skin and their crowns. Fortunately for the brains of our brave people, town criers running and galloping their good little horses, the others on foot, dispel the great worries and crazy terrors raised by this cannonade, announcing, urbi et orbi, the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz and the accession of his nephew Mourad V. The revolution, feared by some, desired by others, was a fait accompli (p.73).
Signifying the increasing control of the bureaucrats at the Porte, this abduction of cannons also redefined “who could make what sort of noise and when” (Garrioch, 2003, p.13). The inevitable conflict over constitutionalism became audible. The sultan lost his cannons for the first time, alongside some of his powers.130 Three months later, on August 31, 1876, due to Murad V’s mental incapacity, cannons were fired another 101 times to announce his brother Abdülhamid II’s ascension to the throne.131 Towards the end of the year, they roared once again to announce
130 American author and clergyman Henry M. Field (1884) described Abdülaziz’s departure: “The Sultan had often descended thereto his splendid caique to go to the mosque, when all the ships in the harbor fired salutes in honor of his majesty. Now not a gun spoke. Silently he embarked with his mother and sons, and fifty-three boats soon followed with his wives and servants. And thus, in the gray of the morning, they moved across the waters to Seraglio Point, where Abdul Aziz, but an hour ago a sovereign, now found himself a prisoner,” p.345.
131 Elliot (1893) wrote in her diary: “At length, even his objections gave way, in the face of the decided insanity of Murad, and on August 31 the thunder of the cannon at break of the day
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and celebrate the first Ottoman parliament and constitution.132 Ottoman statesman and reformer Saffet Paşa’s speech at the beginning of the First Constitutional Era is particularly significant for comprehending the importance that the Young Turks ascribed to cannons. The American educator and president of Robert College, George Washburn (1911), stated in his memoirs:
December 23, [1876]. The Conference was formally opened and discussions about to begin when it was interrupted by the roar of cannon; and the Turkish president of the Conference, Safvet Pasha, rose and declared that “these guns announced the promulgation of a constitution, a change in the form of government which had lasted six hundred years and inaugurated a new era of prosperity for the Ottoman people” (p.117).
Thundering for the first time for the parliament and constitution, cannons underlined the shift in power. However, the Young Turks would have to wait more than thirty years to alter the cannons’ modes of usage and employ them in a monumental visual communication. Abdülhamid II, although a reformist in the Tanzimat sense, sought to undermine the liberal and constitutional ideas to secure absolute power during his long reign (Çelik, 1993). To harness that power, he
announced to the world that the Sultan Murad had ceased to reign,” p.376. American author and traveler Clara Erskine Clement (1895) also noted: “At length, however, when he was convinced of the hopeless insanity of Murad, he consented to take his place, and on August 31, the cannon again announced the installation of a new Sultan,” p.164.
132 French politician and diplomat Victor Bérard (1913) noted in his memoirs: “On December 29, 1876, […] the salvos and the music shook the windows: the Constitution was proclaimed,” p.267. Pierre Loti (1893) also wrote: “December 24, 1876 - Suddenly we heard the cannon sound, an artillery salvo from the Seraskiérat; the elderly exchanged intelligent and ironic smiles. ‘Hail to the constitution of Midhat-pasha,’ said one of them, bowing mockingly. ‘Deputies! A chart!’ muttered another old man with a green turban. ‘The old caliphs did not need the representations of the people.’ […] This artillery salvo announced to the Muslims that the sultan granted them a constitution, more comprehensive and liberal than all the European constitutions; and these old Turks welcomed this gift of their sovereign very coldly,” pp.376-377.
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merged an autocratic and Islamic administration with Western-based reforms. Although he was responsible for the erosion of the Ottoman defense, the number of cannon salutes reached a peak during his long reign due to the increasing importance of diplomatic reciprocity and imperial self-image (Grant, 2002, p.35). Consequently, the 1879 Navy Code of Law (Bahriye Kânûnnâme-i Hümâyûnu) emerged to define and standardize ceremonial practices. The document aimed to establish a protocol to organize diplomatic salutes around the principles of modern diplomacy as laid out at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. Additionally, according to Article 9, twenty-one salutes were to be fired on the day of the accession ceremony, accompanying the five daily prayers.
As power relations and hierarchies radically changed under the new liberal parliamentary rule, so did the cannons’ modes of usage and meanings. A regulated soundscape signified obedience and submission to authority. Like church bells, cannons “made manifest the power of the constituted authorities” (Corbin, 2004, p.200). The ability to make the loudest noise also brought the ability to control the silence. Once the sultan lost his right to control cannons, his right to impose silence was also gone. Istanbul-born author Harrison Griswold Dwight (1915) noted the speech of Abdülhamid in the re-opening of the parliament in 1908:
The silence was suddenly broken by the voice of the Sultan [Abdülhamid II]’s secretary, who began to read, beside the steps of the tribune, the speech from the throne. My Turkish is too small and too colloquial to take in much of so high-flown a document, but I caught references to the perfidy of Austria and Bulgaria and to the author’s satisfaction in being able to open again the assembly for which thirty years ago the country had not been ripe. Twice the house broke into applause, which the sultan acknowledged with a military salute. At the close of the reading, a green-robed mollah offered prayer. […]
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When the prayer came to an end, with a fervent responsive amin, the sultan did a thing that no one had expected. He made a brief speech. But the signal had already been given, according to program, for bands and cannon to announce the inauguration of the new era. The consequence was that few heard even the sound of his majesty’s voice. In a moment more, he was gone (pp.422-423).
Similar to church bells, cannons made more noise for more important events. As an extension to this, 101 cannon fires announced Abdülhamid’s dethronement and the accession of Mehmed V in 1909.133 A note by Dwight (1915) demonstrates once again how the numerology of cannon salvos was essential to disseminate information to the public – on this occasion, to dispel doubts entirely and confirm the rumors of Abdülhamid’s dethronement:
Returning to Galata, I found the approaches of the Bridge guarded by soldiers, who kept the center of the street clear. The sidewalks were packed with people who waited — they did not know for what. More soldiers passed, with flags and bands. It began to be whispered that a new sultan was going over to Istanbul that afternoon. The rumour was presently confirmed by an extra of The Osmanischer Lloyd, an enterprising Franco-German paper, which was the first in Constantinople to publish the news of Abdülhamid’s dethronement and the accession of his brother. But still people could not believe the news they had been expecting so long. They continued to wait to see what would happen. […] In front of us, a wide paved space sloped down to the Bosphorus, pleasantly broken by fresh-leaved trees and a stucco clock tower. To the left ran a tree-shaded perspective cut off from the water by the white mass of Dolmabahçe. Before long,
133 HR.SFR.04. 835/33, OA.
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we saw three steam launches pass close in front of us, making for the harbour. A few minutes later, a cannon banged. Another banged after it, another, and another, till we could doubt no longer that what we had been waiting for had really happened at last (pp.448-449).
Blaming the ancien regime for all problems, the constitutional revolution of 1908 was presumed to render things radically different. After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the emergence of a significant number of newspapers and magazines brought to their readers new symbols and stories in serial form. Palmira Brummett (1995) states: “Pens, once silenced by the sultan’s rigid censorship, produced over 200 new gazettes in Istanbul alone for the first nine months of the revolution. The revolution provided these gazettes with an opportunity to imagine, present, critique, and create for their readers a new set of icons and symbols of sovereignty” (p.433). Along these lines, the cover of Şehbal’s first issue set the tone in 1909 (Figure 14). As audible signals of authority, they began to roar to celebrate the new official holiday of July 10 (Figures 10-13).134 The shift in control over sound was unmistakable. According to the Ottoman-Turkish writer Raif Necdet (1909), “the cannons that were fired to report the sovereignty change also declared that the centuries of despotism, cruelty, ignorance, and superstition were torn apart.” Cannon Sounds —a poem by writer, poet, and politician İbrahim Alaaddin (Gövsa)— also brilliantly highlights this drastic shift in cannons’ semiotic meanings (İbrahim Alaaddin, 1910):
Sen ey gönülleri tedhiş eden sadâ-yı vegâ! Sen ey sükûn-ı temeddünde bûm-ı istihzâ!
O you, the noise of war that gives fear to the hearts
O you, the subject of ridicule in the silence of civilization!
O you, fumes have risen on the horizons of war
134 BEO 4198/314804, DH.MKT. 2877/50, OA.
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Sen ey dumanları âfâk-ı cenge yükselmiş Semâ-güzîn, mütekâsif inen pür-nâliş! Sen ey girîvi bunaltan sımâh-ı edvârı. Gününde tarih-i dehrin figân-ı bîdân! Bugün sesinde ne hissi bir âşinâlık var, Sürûr-ı millete nağmen ne talkı mûsikâr Ruûd-ı kahr u felâketti eski avâzın Bugün safa verir aheng-i teselliyet-sâzın Ufuk ki aksini âtiye eyliyor temdîd Vurur bu hâl ile maziye darbe-i tehdid.
Great moaning descending intensely from the beautiful sky!
O you, choking the times with its cries,
A scream on the day of eternal history.
There is a kind of familiarity in your voice today
Your tunes a birth pain to the joy of the nation
Your old noise was the compelling thunder of the disaster.
The soothing harmony of your instrument gives happiness today.
Horizon carries your echoes furiously
And strikes the past with a threatening coup.
Although such sources present the subjective and aesthetic values of the writers and poets themselves, they are very rewarding to evaluate the structure of the social imagination and perception. The first half of the poem underlines the growing unwillingness toward cannon noises that symbolize a past filled with wars, backwardness, and pain. However, for Gövsa, the rise and spread of nationalist sentiment were powerful enough to change tolerance thresholds. Transforming the “old noise” into “soothing harmonies of happiness,” the emotional power of these musical “instruments” continued to rearticulate the Ottoman state’s new identity. However, the motif of the cannons also proved essential in this shift.
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In 1911, the Monument of Liberty (Abide-i Hürriyet), a monument in the shape of a cannon pointed upwards with an embedded tomb, emerged on the “hill of freedom” in Şişli.135 Commemorating the soldiers killed while defending the Ottoman parliament during the 1909 countercoup against monarchist forces, this highly symbolic monument functioned as an important visual tool to re-appropriate and recode the cannons’ symbolism (Figures 16-17). The press also used it to represent the fundamental change in political sovereignty and sultanic authority (Figure 15). A novel representation was adopted with this monument, with its iconography present on a stamp, medal, and commemorative coin (Figures 18-19). As visible expression of the shift in power, the monument was intended to alter the cannons’ audible and visual traces in collective memory. Symbolizing the rising Turkish/Islamic nationalism, it was later turned into a memorial by hosting the graves of the four key bureaucrats of the period: Midhat Pasha, Mahmud Şevket Paşa, Talat Paşa, and Enver Paşa.
Five years later, on April 20, 1916, another cannon-shaped wooden monument, Hatıra-ı Celâdet (The Memory of Bravery), was raised in front of the war office in Beyazıt to support the civil initiative of the Society of Assistant Ladies to the Ottoman Soldier Families (Figures 20-22). Like German nagelmänner memorials, this monument aimed to commemorate those martyred and injured on war fronts and collect financial aid for their families through donations. Once again, Corbin’s (1998) analysis proves relevant. In his words, “the aim was to turn them [church bells] into instruments of citizenship, to make them messengers of the nation” (p.14). Thus, the leaders of the First Republic in France needed to put these objects to a different use. Corbin
135 It is important to note that Muzaffer Bey’s design was selected as result of an architectural contest in which also renowned architects, Vedat Bey (Tek) and Alexandre Vallaury competed. See, DH.MKT. 2814/73, OA.
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continues: “The metamorphosis of bells into cannon, a symbolic fusion testifying to the resoluteness of the nation, was seen as a patriotic offering, a purification, and an act of reparation” (p.13). Similar to the leaders of the First Republic in France, the CUP attempted to subordinate cannons to the nation (p.3). The period after the 1908 revolution witnessed the disposal of a considerable number of cannons “that have no artistic or historical value (kıymet-i sanatkarane ve tarihiyesi olmayan)” through auction or direct sale.136 However, it is essential to note that this initiative was short-lived, and unlike the leaders of the First Republic in France, the CUP did not take this ambition to the lengths of an obsession. Instead of imposing a strict division between secular and religious uses of cannon, the CUP aimed to reduce cannons’ religious and sultanic uses by conflating its aural and visual symbolism to formulate a novel collective identity.
In the years up to the occupation period of 1919-1922, the Balkan Wars and World War I brought with them traumatic listening experiences in the capital. Before, the distant roar of cannon shots had been experienced as a threat during the Crimean137 and Russian138 wars. There is no doubt that the psychological and physical damages of the Balkan War and World War I radically altered the perception of cannon sounds.139 In 1912, due to the financial, political, and
136 BEO 3506/262902, 3529/264664, 3541/265561, 3563/267173; DH.MKT. 2886/47; MV. 126/30; ML.EEM. 772/39, OA.
137 Since some unexpected cannon shots of the British Navy caused trouble and panic during the Crimean War, their use during military drills was subject to permission. See MB.İ. 50/3, OA.
138 “Official notification for lighthouses. April 7/19, 1877: In view of the state of war, the Imperial Government adopted the following measures, which will be strictly observed from April 29, 1877 until the reestablishment of peace: […] 3. The use of cannon fire in foggy weather, as an alarm signal, is absolutely canceled.” Noradounghian (1902), p.497.
139 Dwight (1915) noted: “But direr changes still have the people of Constantinople witnessed since their revolution night — fire, pestilence, earthquake, mutiny, war. They have even lived to
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psychological tensions of the Balkan Wars, cannon shots were limited during Ramadan only to those areas where there was a fort or full battery.140 The distant booming of the military engagement between the Bulgarian and Ottoman troops in Çatalca was heard in 1912 and 1913.141 In 1917, artillery fired from Tophane on a British submarine that, in turn, fired off two torpedoes and caused panic in Galata.142 After the disastrous results of the Balkan War and
hear, from streets of something less than sweet security, the nearing thunder of cannon, and to ask themselves if the supreme change were at hand, and Constantinople itself was to go,” p.404.
140 DH.MUİ. 163/23; DH.MB.HPS.M. 7/29, OA.’
141 The Ward County Independent reported in 1912: “All through the day the sound of the heavy guns, booming distantly was heard in Constantinople. It ceased only with darkness. The Turkish batteries replied vigorously. The Turkish ships in the sea of Marmara shelled the Bulgarian positions. In the afternoon, the wind shifted, and it seemed for a time as though the battle had ended, but again the booming was heard, and the movement of troops could be observed not far from the very gates to the capitol. Several members of the legations and other foreign residents witnessed the artillery duel, which they describe as magnificent, and the shelling from height to height across Büyükçekmece lake and over the plains towards the north. The flashes of the guns on both sides were visible to observers over miles of the low country” (“Battle Close to Turkey’s Capital,” 1912). The Daily Ardmoriete reported on 5 February 1913: “A sharp engagement was begun late today on the Çatalca lines, according to a dispatch from Constantinople. The roar of the cannon is said to be plainly audible in the Turkish capital.” (“Continue Fight on Adrianople,” 1913); The San Francisco Call reported on 18 November 1912: “Stamboul Hears Cannon All through the day the sound of heavy guns, booming distantly, was heard in Constantinople. It ceased only with darkness” (“Sublime Porte Sees Flash of Tchatalja Cannon,” 1912).
142 According to a memoir by the American diplomat and historian Lewis Einstein (1917), “the day’s excitement has been provided by an English submarine. […] The submarine came up at twenty minutes to one o’clock about 300 yards from where the Scorpion lay moored and was immediately fired at by the shore batteries. It shot off two torpedoes. The first missed a transport by about fifty yards, the second struck the Stamboul fair, passing under a barge moored alongside, which blew up. The Stamboul had a gap of twenty feet on her waterline but did not sink. She was promptly towed toward Beshiktash to lie at the bottom in shallow water. The submarine, meanwhile, under a perfect hail of fire which passed uncomfortably close to the Scorpion, dived, and got away, steering up the Bosphorus. At Galata, there was a panic, everyone closing their shops. The troops, who were already on two transports, were promptly disembarked, but later reembarked, and still later landed once more. The total damage was inconsiderable, but the moral effect very real” (pp.66-67).
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World War I, the soundscape of Ottoman Istanbul was transformed radically during the Occupation period. American diplomat and historian Lewis Einstein (1917) wrote on August 12, 1915: “This morning at three o’clock, a violent cannonading shook the house. Helene asked if it was the signal for a massacre, for one’s nerves are on edge, but fortunately, I remembered it was Bairam. We shall be treated to the same kind of celebration during the next three days” (p.232). On February 8, 1918, cannons announced the arrival of the Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Franchet d’Espèrey, as the supreme commander of the occupation forces (Eldem, 2018, p.244). His visit to Hatıra-ı Celâdet (The Memory of Bravery) demonstrates that cannons, as audible and visual instruments, signified the power shift during the Occupation period (Figure 23). As an extension, they were not discharged between 1919 and 1921 to celebrate the sultan’s accession to the throne.143
Royal Birthdays
Similar to church bells in Europe, cannons of late Ottoman Istanbul also announced joyful events, such as royal birthdays. Although the birthday of the sultan (veladet-i padişahi/padişahın doğum günü/padişahın doğduğu gün) was relatively small in significance when compared to royal births (veladet-i hümayun), these sonic signifiers contributed to satisfy the thirst for royal prestige.
Dating back to the eighteenth century, cannons were occasionally fired to celebrate the birthday of Mustafa III144 and Abdülhamid I.145 However, regular ceremonies were initiated during the
143 BEO 4581/343516, 4686/351425; DH.İ.UM 19/1, OA. See also Batmaz (2007b), p.193.
144 C.SM. 157/7893, OA.
145 AE.SABH.I. 303/20343; C.SM. 153/7665, 162/8123, OA.
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reign of Mahmud II. According to Darin Stephanov (2014)., “A report, dated May 8, 1836, by Mustafa Reşid Pasha, the Ottoman Ambassador to Paris, announced a recent decision made to initiate annual celebrations of the sultan’s birthday” (p.142). Thus, cannon salvos made sure that no place remained deaf to this ‘imported tradition’ that was newly made part of the culture of the senses.146 Mahmud II’s implementation of the Gregorian calendar for his birthday and accession day also demonstrates his desire to establish diplomatic reciprocity based on a similar dating system as that of the foreign powers. Although cannons continued to roar during the reigns of Mahmud II’s successors, the new dating system stopped functioning for celebrations.
During the reign of Abdülaziz, the birthday ceremonies became more systematic. Since his birthday coincided with Mid-Sha’ban (Berat Kandili), it was considered a “great day for the religion and state” (Olgun, 2018, p.114). Cannon salvos accompanied official birthday receptions at Dolmabahçe Palace, where foreign ambassadors, religious leaders, and visiting heads of state were among invitees (Demirel, 2014, p.262). His successor, Abdülhamid II, expanded the limits of these ceremonies, and they soon became a strictly defended tradition. According to article 10 of the 1879 Navy Code of Law (Bahriye Kânûnnâmesi), cannons were now to be fired twenty-one times, accompanying each of the five daily prayers for one day147 in various locations.148
146 See Stephanov, Darin (2012): Minorities, Majorities, and the Monarch. Nationalizing Effects of the Late Ottoman Royal Public Ceremonies, 1808 - 1908. Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Memphis.
147 The 1879 Navy Code of Law - Article 10: “Velâdet-i Hümâyûn gecesi akşam ezanından bed ile ertesi günü vakt-i asra kadar süfûn-u humâyûndan beş vakitte yirmi birer pare top atılacağı gibi seren ve sütun ve bordolar donatılıp ale’s-sabah alay sancakları keşide kılınacaktır.” Source: Batmaz (2007a), p.31.
148 According to Said Olgun (2018), these locations were: “Tophâne-i Âmire, Bâb-ı Vâlâ-yı Seraskeriye, Beyoğlu ve Selimiye Kışla-yı Hümâyunu, Dolmabahçe Karakolhanesi, Nakkaş Karakolhanesi, Karakol Sefinesi ve Bahr-i Siyah Boğazı”, p.117.
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Shouts of “Long Live the Sultan!” also accompanied midday prayer on the sixteenth day of Şaban, followed by a reception held in the Yıldız Palace. If the sultan’s birthday fells on Friday, it was customary to postpone celebratory cannon shots to the afternoon prayer time.149
The CUP coup of 1908 affected the sultanic birthday celebrations. Although celebratory events, illuminations, and gun salutes were canceled, cannon salvos around midday prayer continued as an audible custom of sultanic presence during the reign of Mehmed Reşad V.150 However, after World War I, most celebrations ceased under the Allied occupation, including celebratory cannon shots for sultanic birthdays. In 1918 and 1919, cannons were not discharged in Istanbul for Vahdeddin’s birthday but Kale-i Sultaniye (Sultan’s Castle) in Çanakkale.151 In 1922, these celebratory salutes were canceled entirely by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.152 Once again, the new political power employed the audible affirmations of sovereignty according to its needs.
Royal births – that is, the birth of princes and princesses (veladet-i hümayun) – were announced and celebrated by cannon salvos on a much larger scale. One of the earlier cannonades for the birth of a prince goes back to the eighteenth century. Thirty salvos were fired three days from Tophane and Tersane-i Amire for Ahmed III’s sons Selim (1715) and Mehmed (1717).153 According to the draft of a royal edict written on May 19, 1785, another three-day cannonade
149 The 1879 Navy Code of Law - Article 10: “Ve iş bu yevm-i mahsûs-ı padişahî cuma gününe tesâdüf eder ise merasim-i mezkûrenin icrasıyla beraber vakit toplarından müstesna olarak Cuma Selamlığı’na mahsus yirmi birer pare top endaht olunacaktır” Source: Batmaz (2007a), p.31. See also, BEO 2211/165783, OA.
150 BEO 3813/285969, 4371/327802; DH.İ.UM.EK. 94/61; DH.KMS. 34/8; MF.MKT. 1143/4; TS.MA.e 1057/48, OA.
151 DH.ŞFR. 626/141; DH.KMS. 51/55, OA.
152 DH.İ.UM 19/1, OA.
153 A.DVNSMHM.d. 123/2, 125/583, OA.
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was to be held for the birth of Mahmud II.154 Yet, a document issued by Military Affairs (Cevdet Askeriye) on July 23, 1785, three days after his birth, indicates that a royal edict peaked the prince’s cannonade procedure to ten-day, three hundred salvos in total.155 Although I have not been able to locate the edict, there is no doubt that the number of ceremonial salutes increased toward the nineteenth century. The birthday of princesses also began to shape Istanbul’s soundscape with three-day cannonades under Mahmud II.156
Stephanov (2019) discusses the numerology of these salvos: “The standard procedure […] for a boy grew from a higher value of a four-day cannonade, under Selim III in 1792, through a five-day cannonade (1814) for a repeated peak of a seven-day cannonade (1819, 1822, 1823, 1835) before reverting to a five-day festivity under Abdülmecid in 1844” (p.88). However, there were seven-day cannonades before 1812 (1802, 1803)157 and after 1844.158 The French writer and historian Jean Henri Ubicini (Ubicini, 1855) wrote:
On the birthday of a prince, after heralds have announced the happy news in the various districts of the capital, kızlarağası goes in great pomp to the Sublime-Porte and hands over le hat accoutumé to the great Vizier.159 Fleet vessels, decorated with flags, fire
154 AE.SABH.I. 197/13165, OA.
155 C.AS. 564/23695, OA.
156 C.SM. 115/5789; HAT 1642/7, OA. See also, Stephanov (2019), p.89.
157 C.SM. 104/5245, OA.
158 A.MKT. 140/44 Veladet-i Hümayun münasebetiyle yedi gün süreyle top atışı yapılıp kandillerin yakılacağının ilgililere tenbih ve tebliği. H-15-08-1264.
159 “My faithful Vizier! Thanks be to God, on the 25th of this month, Saturday night, a prince was born whom we gave the name of Mehmed Reşad. May God grant him long life and make his coming into this world be for us and all our subjects a guarantee of happiness and prosperity. We send you this hatti-sherif so that you make this happy event known to the officials of our Sublime-Porte and all our faithful subjects. You will give orders that, according to custom,
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salutes at canonical hours, day and night, for seven days. […] The ceremonial used for the birth of a princess is more or less the same. The only difference is, the grand treasurer makes the official notification, and celebrations last only three days instead of seven (pp.134-135).
At first sight, these celebrations might seem not as significant and regular as the sultan’s birthday. However, it is essential to underline that Mahmud II had forty and Abdülmecid had forty-four children during their thirty and twenty-two years of reigns.160 As aural manifestations of the imperial representation, these celebratory announcements dictated the evolution and growth of the sultanic family. However, accompanied by musicians and messengers, these celebrations were not always well received. Walsh (1836) was “startled by an explosion of the sound of a most discordant kind just within the chapel door.” In his words:
This we found proceeded from a band of Turkish musicians, who, with wind-instruments of most harsh and braying tones, had come from the sultan to announce to the English ambassador the birth of another child. From hence they went to the other mission; between every explosion of the musicians, an orator made a speech, declaring the name and sex of the child, and congratulating the ambassador on the event. This was accompanied by a discharge of artillery at daybreak, midday, and sunset, which shook the whole of Pera (p.239).
artillery rounds be fired five times a day, for seven days, and that public buildings and officials’ residences be illuminated as a sign of celebration.” Mentioned in Ubicini (1855), pp.134-135.
160 French theologian Charles Berton (1860) complained in his memories: “this noise is renewed each time a prince is born, a fairly frequent event”, p.221.
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Due to the political situations and timings of these salvos, misunderstandings happened occasionally. An informer reported in 1840:
Your humble servant has observed in the past month that the people’s dislike and hatred against Mehmet Ali have aggravated to such an extent that they are praying from the bottom of their hearts for his wretchedness. Even more, hearing the roars of cannons last night on the occasion of the birth in the palace, the people in coffeehouses and other places felt immense joy, for they assumed that “God willing! Egypt was conquered” or “Ibrahim Pasha was caught and brought to Istanbul” (ID 1210, November 13, 1840).” (Kırlı, 2004), p.84.
Friday Ceremonies (Selamlık)
Another occasion during which cannon salvos functioned as a voice of imperial authority was the Friday prayers. Western forms of popularization and theatricality already enhanced the main characteristics of these events during the reign of Mahmud II, including imperial marches, drum rolls, hurrahs, and gunfires (Karateke, 2004). Cannon shots complemented these celebrations with their roars while also serving to set temporal markers for the community. Announcing, accompanying, and affirming the ruler’s participation in public prayers on Friday, these ceremonies helped establish and expand the imperial propaganda on piety.
As I have briefly described in the section Echoes over the Bosphorus above, these shots heavily depended on the sultan’s physical presence on the Bosphorus.161 Although we cannot be sure
161 Lamartine Lamartine (1835) noted: “We heard the cannons of the fleet and the forts that announce every Friday to the capital that the sultan is going to the mosque. We also saw two imperial caiques detached from the coast of Asia and crossed the Bosphorus like an arrow”,
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how many times the cannons were fired, a memoir written by a French traveler in 1849 could give us a clue: “At noon, several cannon shots announced that the sultan left the Seraglio. Mounted on a galley with twelve pairs of oars, he came to Tophane by sea. This lightship […] crossed the harbor softly at the noise of artillery salvos. Each oar stroke seemed to be marked by a cannon shot” (Pitre-Chevalier & Vicente, 1849, p.47).
Piercing the city’s entire soundscape regularly, cannons had symbolic and informative value. Similar to church bells, the frequency of these regular shots formulated an intrinsic auditory
p.331. Hornby (1858) wrote: “It is Friday, and I have been down to the mosque to see the Sultan go to mid-day prayer. He came from his palace at Çırağan; English, French, and Turkish ships-of-war saluting him with a perfect roar of cannon as his beautiful gilded caiques floated by”, p.149. Henry M. Field (1884) noted one of Abdülaziz’s Friday ceremonies: “Sometimes the Sultan goes to the mosque by water, in a splendid barge covered with gold, and as soon as he takes his seat under a canopy, all the ships of war lying in the Bosphorus fire salutes, making the shores ring with their repeated thunders. At other times he goes on horseback, attended by a large cavalcade, as when we saw him last Friday”, p.321; English traveller and writer Baroness Anna Allnutt Brassey (1890) also wrote in her memoirs Abdülaziz’s Friday procession: “Around noon, five caiques lined up in front of the Dolmabahçe palace. The sultan took place in the first one which was blue. On the ground, soldiers and musics; men on the yards; shots of cannon and hurrahs accompanied the caiques”, p.73. Charles William Wilson’s (1893) travel guide gives a detailed description of these processions: “Every Friday the Sultan goes to one of the mosques in state, attended by dignitaries and a body of troops. This ceremony is called the Selamlik. The mosque selected is known about 10 a.m., and His Majesty usually sets out about 12. The square in front of the mosque is lined with troops, and a brilliant effect is produced by the great variety of the uniforms and costumes worn by the naval and military officers, and by the higher court, civil, and religious officials. […] The Sultan’s kaïk, 100 ft. long, white and gold, of elegant form, at the stern of which he sat under a canopy, flew through the water manned by twenty-six rowers, picked men. His suite and pashas followed in other kaïks. Salutes were fired from ships and batteries as soon as the procession started” (pp.11-12). Elliot (1893) wrote in her travelogue Abdülaziz’s departure from Dolmabahçe for the Friday procession: “Before the broad white steps in front of the palace bathed by the water the royal caique darted across the waves, and the artillery of Tophane and Scutari opened fire from their batteries” (pp.322-323). The famous French writer Gustave Flaubert (1910) noted: “Friday 29 - Saw the Sultan entering the Fındıklı mosque. […] The cannon of the forts announced the Sultan.”
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symbolism.162 While noises shaped the city soundscape and the inhabitants’ habitus at Friday noon, their absence caused rumors to spread among people. As the voice of the imperial authority, these important auditory messages were an imperial responsibility that affirmed the sultan’s well-being to the people. He had to take his role in this extravagant public spectacle. The French diplomat Charles de Moüy (1879) wrote in one of his letters:
Never on Friday would he fail to go to the mosque to take part in the prayer. He had to be seriously ill to be excused from this duty, and the rumor spread instantly in the city that he was at the end when the cannon shots announcing his departure from the palace and his arrival in the mosque were not heard. Abdul-Majid, almost dying, had himself carried there, supported on both sides on his horse by aides de camp. It is a spectacle awaited by a massive crowd at the usual time and a demonstration due to the multitude (p.186).
Friday salvos continued to be fired during Murad V’s short reign of three months. Since rumors about his health spread well before he was being deposed on the grounds that he was mentally ill, cannons assumed a different role. Régla noticed an unusual increase in the volume and frequency of these salutes in one of his Friday processions. According to Régla (1891), these roars were used as an auditory tool to confirm the sultan’s psychological well-being:
162 The British judge Edmund Hornby Hornby (1858) noted: “The different days here are quite perplexing. First comes our Christmas-day, and all the English ships dressed with flags; then the Greek Christmas; then the Armenian Christmas. Then the three different New Year’s days; then the Jewish Passover; then Mahomet’s birthday, and all the minarets glistening with lamps. On Fridays, you hear the cannon thundering that the Sultan has gone to the mosque: it is the Mohammedan Sunday, and the Turks shut up their shops and walk out, carrying their little children” (pp.271-272).
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The artillery of the ships anchored in the Golden Horn greeted the passage of the imperial caique to the Selamlık with a terrible noise. […] When the public later asked for the reason for these numerous cannon shots and all this unusual uproar, they were told that it was a test that had been tried by order of Doctor Liedersdorf. A test! A test on the nerves of the sick sultan! All this is very sad, in truth. Four days after this noisy selamlık, amid the most painful stupor, news, like a thunderbolt, announced the sultan’s deposition (p.392).
Similar to the coat of arms, tuğras, and other symbolic objects, the audible language of the sultanate and caliphate was also reinvented during the Hamidian era when the pomp and splendor became a form of competition between states. After Abdülhamid chose the Yıldız Palace as his administrative center, the Hamidiye Mosque became the central location for Friday processions. During his short travels on horseback, instead of cannon salvos, the imperial band’s Hamidiye March, shouts of “Long Live the Sultan!”163 and “Allah! Allah!”164 by soldiers and civilians accompanied him. Creating a unique auditory environment of Islamic orthodoxy, these Western-inspired marches and verbal expressions of loyalty became sonic affirmations of Abdülhamid’s sacral and imperial legitimization. They carried such a significance that silence meant opposition. As Deringil (1999) states, “verbal acclaims could also become a symbol of opposition. The Young Turk opposition to the sultan focused on the acclaim in a negative fashion: cadets at the Military Academy and the Imperial Medical School would refuse to perform it on public occasions, or mumble a rude version of it” (p.22). Considering the extensive
163 See Deringil (1993), p.16.
164 See Footnote No.6
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surveillance and control methods of his autocratic regime with spies on every corner, and even over publicly sung anthems, songs, and marches,165 there is little doubt that the lack of roaring cannons created a more suitable soundscape for such a performative and affirmative spectacle.
Imperial Migration (Göç-i Hümayun) and the Sultans’ Return to Capital
Ottoman sultans habitually moved with their families and households to secondary residences for the summer months. Cannon salvos were maintained to mark these seasonal imperial migrations, called göç-i hümayun, as early as 1734.166 The Maiden’s Tower,167 the Imperial Shipyard,168 and the castles along Bosporus169 were among the locations that hosted salutes. However, the arsenal of Tophane,170 which extended along Galata and its harbor, carried particular importance on this occasion. Cannons in the arsenal also marked the time of the sultan’s arrival to places he visited along the Bosphorus (Figure 24).171 Amplifying the “imposing” and “noble” nature of these
165 See Erol, Merih (2013): Surveillance, Urban Governance and Legitimacy in Late Ottoman Istanbul. Spying on Music and Entertainment during the Hamidian Regime (1876–1909). Urban History 40 (04), pp. 706–725.
166 AE.SMHD.I. 221/17568, OA.
167 C.SM. 10/525, OA.
168 AE.SMHD.I. 181/14115, OA.
169 C.AS. 377/15598, 511/21308, OA.
170 C.BLD. 58/2890, OA.
171 According to Nerval (1867), “a six-piece battery is visible on the quay; it is used to salute the vessels that enter the Golden Horn,” p.61. Régla (1891) also wrote: “M. de Blowitz wrote his book in 1883; there were then, he says, six large Krupp guns in the yard of Tophane. If he wrote it today, in August 1888 - he would find that these guns are always in the same place. […] in the courtyard of Tophane, there are six large Krupp guns,” p.135.
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processions,172 echoing cannons served, once again, as an informative173 auditory tool of sultanic legitimacy, which emphasized the “greatness” of the event.174
Cannon salutes also accompanied the sultans’ occasional visits throughout the empire.175 However, after the thirty-three-year reign of Abdülhamid, who rarely left his palace in Yıldız, the idea of a traveling sultan became a forgotten memory. For this reason, Mehmed Reşad’s three-week-long visit to Macedonia in 1911, only a year before the First Balkan War, is particularly interesting.
Although the 1908 Revolution created a sense of appeasement in ethnic communities, it was short-lived due to the CUP’s enforcement of military conscription. Small-scale guerilla warfare had begun, and the danger of European intervention in Macedonia had not passed. Aiming to increase its popularity, appease the Albanian Muslim community, and strengthen Ottomanism, “the committee decided on a campaign of counter-propaganda built around the most powerful symbol of national unity at their disposal: the figure of the Sultan himself” (Zürcher, 2006, p.27).
172 See the Parisian architect Marchebeus’s note on page 9.
173 Pardoe (1837) wrote: “Hark! to the booming of the loud cannon, which announces his departure from the coast of Europe, for his delicious summer-palace of Beylerbeyi.” Pardoe (1837), p.144.
174 British traveller and writer John Auldjo (1835) noted in his travelogue: “July 13: Today the Sultan crossed in the state caique to his new palace near Beylerbeyi. The frigates, and manned yards, were dressed in all their colours, and fired a royal salute. Unfortunately, this transferring of his sacred person from Europe to Asia was not previously made known, so that I did not witness the procession; but the thundering of the cannon announced that some great event was going forward,” p.163.
175 Mahmud II visited Çanakkale in 1830, Edirne in 1831, İzmit in 1833, and Rumelia in 1830, and 1837. Abdülmecit visited Izmir and Bursa in 1845 and Salonica in 1859. Sultan Abdülaziz visited Bursa in 1861, and Egypt in 1863. Mehmed Resad visited Bursa, Edirne, and Rumelia after he ascended to the throne.
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According to the travel program of Mehmed Reşad, twenty-one cannon salutes were carefully planned from fourteen different locations176 during his three-week-long journey throughout the Balkans, including at some key locations and the climax of his visit, a gathering of 100,000 to 150,000 at the Meşhed-i Mübarek, the tomb of Sultan Murad I on an old battlefield near Pristina. The frequency of these cannon salvos emphasizes, once again, how carefully the aural presence of the sultan was established. Although cannon shots had lost their significance as religious and imperial signals in Istanbul, as voices of authority, they were still needed to manifest the power and re-establish the control of the imperial center. Once again, Village Bells helps us locate some
176 Padişahın Rumeli'ye yapıcağı seyahat hakkındaki program (Program of the sultan’s travel in Rumelia) “8. Sefine-i hümâyûn Büyük Karaburun’dan geçerken yirmi bir pare top endahtıyla resm-i selâm ve ihtiram icra olunacaktır. 9. Sefine-i hümâyûnun Selanik limanına muvâsalatında Kuşaklı Kule, Beyaz Kule, Küçük Karaburun, Beşçınar mevkilerinden yirmi birer pare top endahtıyla merasim-i ta‘zimiyye ifâ olunacaktır. 28. Üsküb istasyonuna muvâsalat-ı hümâyûn şeref-vukûunda cihet-i askeriyece tayin olunan mahâll-i mahsûsadan yirmi birer pare top endaht ve asâkir-i şahâne tarafından resm-i selam ifâ olunacak ve mahall-i mahsusa sancak keşide edilecektir. 30. Taş köprü başından ikametgâh-ı hümâyûna teveccüh edildiği sırada kumandanlık dairesindeki mevki-i mahsusdan yirmi bir pare top atılacaktır. 40. Priştine kasabasına muvâsalat-ı hümâyûn şeref-vukûunda mahâll-i mahsûsadan yirmi birer pare top atılacaktır. 45. Ertesi Cuma günü arabalarla Meşhed-i Mübarek’e azimet buyurulacak ve mevkib-i hümâyûnun sahra-yı Meşhed’e teveccühünde mevâki-i mahsûsada bulunacak umum topçu bataryaları cânibinden tarafeynli yirmi birer pare top endahtıyla resm-i selam ifâ olunacak ve Meşhed-i Mübarek civarında rekz edilecek direğe sancak çekilecektir. 55. İstasyona muvasalat-ı hümâyûn şeref-vukûunda cihet-i askeriyyece tayin olunacak mahâll-i mahsûsadan yirmi birer pare top atılacaktır. 57. Kasabaya teveccüh buyuruldukta daire-i askeriyyece tayin olunacak mahâll-i mahsusadan yirmi birer pare top atılacak ve o gece el‘âb-ı nâriyye ile ızhâr-ı şâdmânî edilecektir. 65. Ertesi günü sefine-i hümâyûnun hareketinden mukaddem hükümet ve memleket namına gelecek heyetler tarafından merasim-i ta‘zimiyye ve teşyi‘iyye ifâ edildikten sonra sefine-i hümâyûn Kale-i Sultaniye’ye müteveccihen hareket edecek ve esnâ-yı harekette şehrin mahâll-i mahsûsasından ve hîn-i mürûrda Karaburun’dan yirmi birer pare top endahtıyla merasim-i ihtiramiyye icrâ kılınacaktır. 67. Sefine-i hümâyûnun azimet ve avdetinde Kale-i Sultaniye’ye muvâsalatında mevâki-i muayyeneden yirmi birer pare top atılacaktır. 68. Zât-ı hazret-i padişâhî karaya çıktıkları halde iskelede asâkir-i şahane tarafından resm-i ihtiram icra ve kezâlik mevâki-i muayyeneden yirmi birer pare top endaht olunacaktır” See, İ.MMS.139/8, OA.
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functional similarities between the cannons of the Ottoman Empire and the church bells of France. According to Corbin (1998), “Napoléon loved the sound of bells above all else. It is therefore not surprising to find the decree of 24 Messidor Year XII requiring all bells to be rung when the first consul, and subsequently the emperor, entered the territory of a commune” (p.150).
Cannon also reconstituted the imperial authority through celebratory salvos on the sultans’ arrival in Istanbul. According to the French historian Baptistin Poujolat, on his return from Rumelia in 1837, Mahmud II was celebrated by over four hundred salvos fired from ten flagships177 as well as other cannon salutes at the Hippodrome (At Meydanı).178 The participation of foreign vessels in these ceremonies was also a common practice.179 If the sultan arrived by way of the Black Sea, the castles marked the occasion with their cannons.180
177 “Mahmoud returned to Stamboul on June 6. He was pompously greeted by four hundred cannon shots fired from ten flagships and arranged in line in the strait.” Poujoulat (1841), p.119.
178 See Konuk (2016), p.151.
179 HR.SYS. 2920/58, OA.
180 According to English writer Frances Minto Elliot (1893), “long will July 24, 1867, be remembered by all who witnessed the return of Aziz, who passed into the Bosphorus by way of the Black Sea from the Danube. Salvoes of cannon rent the air from the turreted walls of the Castle of Roumeli Hissar in Europe answered across the narrow waters from the opposite castle of Anadolu Kavak in Asia” (pp.317-318). Turkish composer Leila Hanım (1879) also noted: “It was under a warm and bright July sun, at the sound of the salvos of hundred cannon shots from the forts of Roumeli Cavak and Anatolia Cavak, that His Majesty's arrival took place. In Buyukdere and Therapia, villages of Europe inhabited by ambassadors, the stationary Russian, English, French and Italian sailors, mounted on ship wires -haubans-, pushed tremendous cheers to which the Turkish soldier barracks in Beïcos, a village in Asia which faces Therapia, answered by ‘Yacha-Padicha.’ These greetings, repeated like an echo on each side of the banks of the Bosphorus, extended to Constantinople,” p.61.
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Communicating with Salvos: The Diplomatic Uses of Cannons
As we have seen so far, the cannon sounds of late Ottoman Istanbul were complex enough to represent sacral and imperial meanings. Embedded within the urban soundscape, cannons’ functions and numerology were organized, standardized, and hierarchized by the central authority. However, as mentioned above, they were not heard along the Bosphorus solely as an auditory representation of imperial power but also as part of modern diplomacy. Constituting a communication system with its reciprocity etiquette, diplomatic salutes were used increasingly towards the mid-nineteenth century. Thus, this historical aspect, continuously shaped by shifting sensibilities and political situations, should be explored from a broader perspective while questioning how they were “heard” in the capital by contemporaries.
The Arrival and Departure of Diplomats
Ceremonial salutes played an important role upon the arrival and departure of foreign diplomats. According to Roosen (1980), “[in the early modern period] it was generally recognized that only fully sovereign states could send and receive diplomats of the highest rank. The ceremonies surrounding ambassadors reinforced the claims of those rulers who received them” (p.475). Thus, the artillery salvos upon the arrival and departure of foreign ambassadors did not only function as a form of compliment and respect, but also as an auditory sign of political acceptance. Since ambassadors were considered representatives of their sovereigns,181
181 The French author and the director of the prestigious Parisian journal Gazette des Tribuneaux, Louis Bonneville de Marsangy (1898), wrote in his study on Charles Gravier de Vergennes, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1755-1769): “The representative of a monarch such as the King of France, near a distant court reputed to be semi-barbaric, and in the midst of a people with sensual imaginations and oriental habits, was bound to display great pomp exterior and to be accompanied by a magnificent apparatus, in order to strike the eyes and the minds and give
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ceremonies functioned according to the honor generally given to rulers. French archaeologist, writer, and journalist Gaston Deschamps indicated that 100 celebratory salutes were fired in Istanbul for the ambassador of Louis XIV in 1670.182 French author and director of the Parisian journal Gazette des Tribuneaux Louis Bonneville de Marsangy (1898) also noted that in 1755 the arrival of the ambassador of Louis XVI was saluted by the “four castles on the banks of the strait, as well as the Turkish caravels at this moment anchored in the port” (p.153). As the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815 introduced the notion of the relative equality among powers and regulated diplomatic ranks – which still constitutes the basis for modern diplomacy – diplomatic encounters became gradually based on such norms.183 The old sensibility about the rank and precedence between states was replaced with ceremonial equality and diplomatic reciprocity. As an extension of this, the practical significance of diplomatic customs was shaped around a formal system. Diplomatic ceremonials were not unusually important or no longer reflected imperial glory. Although the Ottoman Empire did not attend the congress, the principles of modern diplomacy dictated to the diplomatic corps eventually led to the regularization of ceremonial salutes.
According to an 1848 archival document issued by the office of the Grand Vizier, official permission of the highest rank was still needed to allow the advisor (müşir) of the Tersane-i
the impression of the prestige of the wealth and the power of his country and his sovereign” (p.122).
182 “On November 10, Marquis de Nointel [Charles Marie François Olier], the ambassador of France, made his entry into the capital of Sultan Mahomet IV. […] A hundred cannon shots greeted him with a salvo of tremendous detonations when his boat started boarding and his sailors threw the grappling hook on the banks of Fındıklı.” Deschamps (1913), pp.305-306.
183 See Oxford University Online: Public International Law: https://opil.ouplaw.com/page/vienna-and-the-codification-of-diplomatic-law
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Amire to issue a possible reciprocal salute.184 Since a slight misunderstanding or mistake could be significant and might cause great difficulties in diplomacy, only a year later, a royal edict (ferman) sought to regulate the celebratory salutes in line with European norms.185 It specified and limited the reciprocity protocol for visiting vessels and allied countries’ warships to twenty-one salutes (Noyan, 1969, p.83). Additionally, the document detailed the official procedures to follow for the special days of allied states, the foreign diplomats visiting an Ottoman ship (descending from nineteen by ranking), and the arrival of Ottoman officials of established rank.186 Ten years later, in 1859, a circular issued by the Ministry of International Relations to the provincial authorities restricted the use of cannon salutes to special days of allied sovereigns (such as accession days, birthdays, and name days) and canceled celebratory salvos upon the arrival of foreign diplomats at their post.187 However, the implementation of this “uniform measure” was not successful. An 1870 circular issued by the Ministry of International Relations to provincial authorities and allied countries stated that “their flag is saluted in certain places by
184 A.MKT. 134/50, OA.
185 Unfortunately, the author who explored the content of “Topla Selamlama Nizannamesi” did not indicate its archival number. Thus, I was not able to locate it. See Noyan, Bahri S. (1969): “Tarihimizde Topla Selamlama” Hayat Tarih Mecmuası (58), pp. 80–84.
186 “The sultan and castles: twenty-one salvos; the vezir (minister) and müşir (marshal) ranks: nineteen salvos; The Rumeli (European) and Anadolu (Anatolian) kazasker (military judge) rank: seventeen salvos; the Istanbul kadısı (judge) and beylerbeyi (governor-general) rank: fifteen salvos; the haremeyn-i Şerifeyn (the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina) and mirlivalık (major general) rank: thirteen salvos; Bilad-i hamse kadılıkları (judgeships of Edirne, Bursa, Damascus, Egypt, and Plovdiv) rank: eleven salvos; Mahrec mevleviyeti/ikinci sınıf kadılar (second-order judges) and miralaylık (colonel) rank: nine salvos; Kibar-i müderrisin (ulema grandees) and kaymakam (district head or lieutenant colonel) rank: seven salvos; Binbaşılık (major/navy commander) and başkonsolos (head consul) rank: five salvos; Between yüzbaşılık (captain) and binbaşılık (major), and konsolos vekili (deputy consul) rank: three salvos.” Source: Stephanov (2019), pp.97-98.
187 HR.MKT. 300/3, OA.
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cannon salutes. However, some other places refrain from doing so. Since no uniform measure regulates this custom, it causes misunderstandings and inconveniences” (Aristarchi Bey, 1874, p.24). Thus, the decision was “to submit this ceremony to a general and uniform rule. Consequently, henceforth, when a foreign consul, arriving at his post, would hoist the flag of his government, instead of shooting artillery salutes, it will suffice to salute by also hoisting the flag on the fortifications” (p.24).
Although it did not directly address the above-mentioned issue, the 1879 Imperial Naval Code (Bahriye Kânûnnâme-i Hümâyûnu) was the first serious attempt to codify and standardize celebratory practices (Figure 25). It also specified the highest number of salutes related to distinguished guests. According to Articles 19 and 20, when one of the emperors, kings, princes, or presidents of a foreign country arrived or left one of the Ottoman harbors from land or sea, twenty-one cannons were discharged from ships and fortresses or bastions in the vicinity. Before this date, cannons articulated foreign power, hierarchy, and relationship upon distinguished guests’ arrival and departure. For example, the French Empress Eugénie de Montijo’s arrival to Istanbul was celebrated by 101 salvos from a squadron of Ottoman steamers on 13 October 1868.188
Another significant example was the ceremony held for the return of Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov, the commander-in-chief of Russia and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. After
188 Elliot (1893) wrote: “As the imperial vessel l’Aigle steamed into the archipelago of the Sea of Marmara, salvoes of artillery thundered on all sides, and a whole squadron of advancing steamers formed an escort, each steamer bearing on the poop a silken tricolour studded with the imperial bees” (p.334). According to the French writer and journalist Albert Wolff (1884), “judging by the number of pieces, [these salutes] left nothing to be desired” (p.147); See also, “Milli Saraylar 1992” (1992), p.137.
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concluding the 1833 Treaty of Hünkar İskelesi – which closed the straits to foreign warships, except for Russia – his departure ceremony in Büyükdere was turned into a spectacle for Czar Nicholas I. The famous French poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1835) noted that “all day long the cannon of the Russian fleet, anchored at the foot of the gardens in front of our windows, sounded every minute” (p.362). A companion of his, the French doctor Jean Vaast Delaroière (1836), added: “The quays, covered with people of all nations and all costumes, were vibrated with such clamors that, probably, no ear has yet heard” (p.261). Lamartine (1835) continued: “Never can a more beautiful spectacle strike a glance of man’s sight. […] [Yet], it was the murder of a faltering empire, compelled to ask its enemies for support and protection against a rebellious slave, and witnessing their glory and its own humiliation” (pp.363-364). Delaroière (1836) wrote: “This European feast given for a sovereign other than the Sultan on this canal was a new and painful spectacle for old Osmanli sitting in silence in some corner away and pondering on the past glory and the future fate of the empire” (p.261). This shift in sonic and visual agencies of celebratory patterns ruptured the imperial authority and symbolized a radical change in political sovereignty. Making noise was a statement, and those who could make it seemed to hold great power.
The second chapter of the 1879 Imperial Naval Code also specified the salutes to be fired upon the arrival and departure of diplomatic representatives, varying on odd numbers from five to nineteen according to their ranks.189 Additionally, the maximum number of salutes was reduced to fifteen for the ambassadors visiting an Ottoman ship.
189 “Fevkâlâde elçiler ile murahhas elçilere 19, murahhas orta elçilere 15, küçük elçilere ve sefir müsteşarlarına 13, maslahatgüzarlara ve elçi vekili tayin olunanlara 11, sefaret başkâtiplerine ve
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As ceremonial behavior was codified, standardized, and conventionalized according to the needs of an increasingly dynamic and well-connected international system, the significance of diplomatic ceremonial became less important. Consequently, the auditory system of cannon salutes lost its usefulness in the twentieth century, and the number of salutes for the arrival and departure of diplomats was gradually reduced. In 1898, Louis Bonneville de Marsangy considered the salutes upon the entrance of the French consulate to Bosporus as time-consuming and expensive.190 In 1900, following a Russian diplomat’s request, the celebratory salutes for his arrival were canceled.191 An idea nearly unthinkable in the eighteenth century became a possibility by the end of the nineteenth century.
Special Days of Allied Countries
In diplomacy, saluting constitutes a tool to structure relationships and increase foreign recognition. Reinforcing rulers’ legitimacy, authority, and dignity, cannon salutes functioned as a political manifestation of central power. Thus, studying the occasion, frequency, and timeline of these sonic expressions back to 1810192 can clarify both long- and short-term relations between states.
başşehbenderlere 9, şehbenderlere 7, şehbender vekillerine 5 adet top atılır.” “Bahriye Kanunname-i Hümayunu” (1879/1880), p.10-11.
190 “Traditionally, when the French Ambassador enters the waters of the Bosporus, he was escorted by several warships saluting the Turkish flag with all their guns. The port’s artillery responded to these salvos. […] This might be salutary, but the mobilization of this small fleet required time and money. Time was running out, and money was sometimes lacking.” Bonneville de Marsangy (1898) (1), p.123.
191 HR.TH. 249/34, OA.
192 HAT 1295/50287, OA. Also mentioned in Stephanov 2019, p.92.
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A brief look at the dozens of relevant archival documents demonstrates that the special days of allied sovereigns (such as accession days, birthdays, name days) were among the occasions on which cannon salutes’ auditory symbolism was deployed.193 One cannot fail to notice that, between the years of 1810 and 1923, these celebrations were limited mainly to eight sovereign states, in alphabetical order: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire/Republic, the Kingdom of Prussia or German Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Russian Empire, and the United States of America (only after the 1908 Revolution).
The evidence clearly shows that cannon salvos functioned as part of the diplomatic hierarchy, as shaped by the states’ relative strength, status, and importance. Positioning themselves among major powers, Ottomans conducted selective auditory diplomacy. The special days of the “middle powers” or the countries carved from the Ottoman Empire (Bulgaria, Greece, or Serbia) did not take part in the diplomatic agenda of auditory politics. Although disruptions occurred due to political situations, wars, and economic crises, the celebrated states stayed the same. The politicization of sound functioned almost in the sense of early-modern diplomatic acceptance. Salvos not only gave special honors to respective states but also signified a sonic glorification of
193 (The descriptions of the following archival documents are not included in the Appendix 1.) A.MKT.164/36; BEO 3819/286417, 3846/288436, 3899/292367, 3910/293180, 3927/294521, 3929/294632, 3977/298227, 4056/304180, 4060/304437, 4068/305080, 4072/305352, 4110/308186, 4123/309184, 4135/310111, 4177/313201, 4187/313997, 4192/314341, 4199/314921, 4204/315284, 4287/321499, 4295/322124, 4297/322268, 4299/322364, 4305/322821, 4333/324940, 4395/329565, 4362/327117, 4363/327173, 4363/327200, 4395/329565, 4451/333790, 4681/351044; HR.İM.46/72, 46/80; HR.MKT.40/86, 62/36, 206/74, 283/44, 304/15, 407/48, 410/21, 548/41, 557/7, 614/73, 624/83, 628/57, 647/61, 684/84, 709/27, 715/52, 715/62, 739/46, 778/27, 786/76, 797/12, 823/47, 824/50, 824/63, 825/40, 847/92, 868/71, 887/93, 889/88; HR.TO.472/47; İ.HR.123/6134, 281/17362, 281/17363; İ.HUS.168/5; MV. 244/53; Y.PRK.ASK.7/19, 49/12, 50/1, 63/49, 70/41, 84/48, 88/100, 94/39, 157/111; Y.PRK.BŞK.63/21, 66/112; Y.PRK.PT.13/34; Y.MTV.247/119, 249/90, OA.
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the empire through reciprocity. However, Ottoman control over their use was continuously challenged by power relationships and changing political situations.
One of the first attempts to limit arbitrary cannon salutes by foreign powers dates back to 1790. According to Darin Stephanov (2019), “[the] document tried to limit their use only at the times when a foreign ambassador of was on his way to or from an audience at the Sublime Porte” (p.90).194 Before this date, cannons echoed in Istanbul for various reasons. Deschamps noted that, in 1672, cannons were fired to the “health” of King Louis XIV by a French diplomatic vessel in Istanbul195 or to celebrate the French victory in Holland.196 Istanbul born poet and historian Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan (1988) wrote in the second half of the seventeenth century: “Ships belonging to the Venetians, Genoese, French, British, Dutch and Livonians stand in rows from Kürkçükapı to Tophane. On the days of Corpus Christi, Easter, and fêtes, cannons are fired from all these ships. The sea and the city tremble with those violent roars” (p.35). Yet, the attempt in 1790 did not establish control over foreign parties. According to an 1812 permission
194 See also, HAT 277/16280, OA.
195 “Friday, March 18. His Excellency dined on the Diamond with M. de Preuilly. Sixty cannon shots were fired for the health of the King, His Excellency, and M. de Preuilly.” Deschamps (1913), p.321.
196 “The Diamant and all M. de Preuilly’s vessels were still anchored in the port of Constantinople when the ambassador received the official notification of the king’s victories in Holland. This good news led to great celebration in the palace and gardens of the embassy. […] At four o’clock in the afternoon, on Thursday, July 21, 1672 […], a discharge of twenty-eight ‘boxes’ gave the signal to the French ships, which responded with a detonation of nine pieces of artillery. This ‘noise,’ Galland told us, ‘astonished all the surroundings’ so that ‘the bostandji bachi’ (chief gardener of the sultan) and a few Turks nearby came to inquire about the subject of this joy” Deschamps (1913), p.322.
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request, a prince’s birth in Paris still presented an opportunity for the French ambassador to fire celebratory salutes in Istanbul.197
Disrupting military authority, political sovereignty, and established sonic patterns, such arbitrary celebrations posed a threat to the central authority. As a result, the first serious attempt to control and stylize allied sovereigns’ celebratory practices was implemented in 1859.198 According to this regulation, the celebration of special days was now to be held once per year – either on the name or coronation day. The regulation also restricted the number of states that could fire or receive salutes, by indicating that the respective state’s warship (beylik sefinesi) should be present in the port represented by its consul. In this case, Ottoman vessels with more than ten cannons answered celebratory salutes.199 If absent, land batteries were used.200 On such occasions, the ships of other countries in the port also participated in these ceremonies.201 If the respective country did not have a vessel present in the port and if the warship of another state
197 HAT 1295/50282, OA.
198 See, Instructions relatives au cérémonial à suivre par les bâtiments de guerre Ottomans et par les forts et forteresses de l'Empire les jours de fêtes des souverains amis, tracées conformément au règlement transmis en date du 29 Chaban 1275 et du 27 Rédjeb 1279, aux autorités civiles du littoral de l'Empire. Aristarchi Bey (1874), pp.22-24. See also, HR.MKT. 283/44, OA.
199 HR.MKT. 62/36, OA.
200 İ.HR.123/6134, OA.
201 Hornby (1858) wrote: “Constantinople, May 30th, 1856. The weather here continues most lovely, very hot in the sun, but always with a fresh breeze, so that indoors it is quite cool. The Queen’s birthday was splendidly celebrated on Thursday. I took a caique to see the shipping dressed with innumerable flags. The French and English men-of-war looked magnificent, and while the salvos of artillery were firing, one might almost imagine an action was being fought” (p.352). See also, A.MKT.NZD. 81/97; HR.MKT. 301/19, OA.
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obtained the permission to fire its cannons in honor of the respective sovereign, they also responded accordingly.202
Diplomatic Disagreements and Conflicts
As we have seen so far, tightly connected to international politics, cannons functioned as a popular auditory medium of communication and power. Yet, equipped with an incomparable sonic symbolism and intrinsic reciprocity etiquette, it was not easy to maintain control of the messages they emitted. Hence, diplomatic disagreements and disputes happened in cases of misunderstandings, unauthorized, or unequal numbers of cannon salutes.
As rightfully observed by Roosen (1980), “any scholar dealing with a specific negotiation or with relations between a set of rulers should study the standard ceremonial practice so that he will be able to judge the significance of changes” (p.465). Thus, a detailed investigation of disputes over cannon salutes can significantly enrich our understanding of the politicization of sound and the sonic reconstitution of sovereignty between various states. Yet, since such details fall outside the scope of this section, I will try to provide a broader insight into how diplomatic sensibilities were shaped around cannons in late Ottoman Istanbul.
Disputes over irregular salutes were among common problems of modern diplomatic ceremonial.203 Since they functioned as indicators of relationships between states, any mistake or
202 This diplomatic custom existed before 1859. In 1853, for the accession ceremony of Queen Victoria, British, French and Ottoman ships fired their salutes together in Istanbul. See A.MKT.NZD. 81/97, OA.
203 HAT 1164/46055; HR.TH. 39/71; MB.İ. 50/3; TS.MA.e 713/68, OA.
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change in the number of salutes could lead to misunderstandings and inquiries.204 The following note by the Canadian-British traveler John Auldjo (1835) provides insight into the highly sensitive nature of reciprocal practices in ceremonial actions:
Beyond the village of Yeniköy, [we] found the Russian headquarters established, and a Russian frigate occupying the berth in which the Actaeon had anchored twice before. We, therefore, passed on and dropped anchor a little a-head of a French frigate, opposite Therapia and close to the Russian camp. The usual firing immediately commenced, but, by some oversight, the Russian admiral’s salute was returned with two guns less than the usual number. In about an hour afterwards, he sent his flag lieutenant, who spoke English, on board the Actaeon, to inquire why we had only fired fifteen guns when he had paid the compliment of seventeen. The omission was immediately acknowledged, the two remaining guns discharged, and the gallant lieutenant rowed off again well satisfied. We soon ascertained that this sensitiveness proceeded from their anxiety to convince the Turks that no ill-will existed between England and Russia, and that no insult was meditated by our ship, more particularly as the British ambassador to the Porte was known to be on board. I doubt much, however, if the Turks, although quite au fait to all matters of ceremony, understood the firing of the two guns afterwards (p.45).
204 Fontmagne (1902) noted: “Pera, March 29, 1857. Here finally, the English fleet leaves Constantinople! With the Royal Albert in the lead, seven warships majestically leave the Golden Horn, all flags outside, men on the yards, soldiers on the deck. It is a beautiful sight seen from our windows of the French Palace, but why are the cannons of the Old Seraglio silent despite this former residence of great lords has just been honored by the British cannons? Mystery...” (p.176).
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As this example indicates, as long as the number of salutes was equal – typically twenty-one – supplementary shots had no derogatory meanings. Yet, sensitivity about the number of cannon salutes occasionally led to similar incidents in other parts of the empire.205 The issue was even more complicated if irregular or unauthorized shots were deliberate. In the mid-nineteenth century, such salvos emerged as highly significant diplomatic signals during times of crisis. In August 1858, unauthorized cannon shots made by France and Russia functioned as auditory signifiers of the diplomatic crisis. Acting conscientiously and engaging publicly, they announced their state’s – France, Prussia, Sardinia, and Russia – official position in the crisis over the unification of the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and broke off diplomatic relations with the Ottomans. The French Baron Durand de Fontmagne’s (1902) memoirs demonstrate how deliberate and non-reciprocal diplomatic salvos disrupted the auditory patterns of the central authority and functioned as audacious demonstrations of power:
August 4 - What a moving day! The Turks were given up to ten o'clock to decide to accept the Moldovan elections' outright cancellation. […] At eleven o'clock, all that remained was to carry out the emperor's orders. At midday, the Ajaccio was ready, in
205 Fontmagne (1902) wrote: “As we know, the etiquette of salutes in the navy is very rigorous. It caused a particular and rather burlesque incident in the port of Smyrna. After a French frigate anchored in the harbor, it fired twenty-one salvos according to custom. The fort responded, but only with twenty salvos. An officer went immediately to the pasha and presented, in the name of the commander, a respectful but firm claim that the Muslim official was obliged to respect. For additional safety and to put an end to these ‘French giaours,’ the pasha himself went to the battery, bringing his traditional rosary with amber grains to count salutes. After the twenty-first: ‘Fire one more so that they leave us in peace,’ he said. A twenty-second shot was fired. In any other circumstance, the extra shot would not have had any derogatory meaning. In this case, it was an impertinence; and after further negotiations, the Turks were forced to repeat the salute. This time, the number was exact” (pp.177-178).
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front of the Therapia Palace […]. We went up in silence, with heavy hearts, on the terrace where the sailors were to lower the tricolor, announcing the Ambassador’s presence solemnly. The whole embassy was there, along with a few friends. […] At Ambassador’s command, our three colors were hoisted one last time on the mainmast stuck in the ground. The Ajaccio sailors were standing on the deck and in the yards of the ship. They greeted our pavilion with the repeated cry of “Long live the Emperor!” and twenty-one cannon shots. Then our dear national colors abated. The scene was very imposing, but a sense of surprise, I can even say indignation, mingled with the solemn and sad feeling of the moment. […] August 6 - The Russians, Sardinians, and Prussians broke off their relations in their turn this morning, each in their way, that is to say that the small powers [Sardinia and Prussia] contented themselves with removing their weapons and their crests from their residences and return their credentials by notifying the rupture, while the guns of the Russian brig and the cries of its crew made a crash that stunned with sadness and admiration all the quay of Büyükdere (pp.244-247).
A restriction in the patterns of diplomatic salutes was also seen during the wartime period. According to a 1912 document issued by the office of document Sublime Porte, the diplomatic vessels were not allowed to fire their celebratory cannons on official days.206 Marie Lyster (2011) noted in her World War I diaries: “The ‘Scorpion’ had been disarmed some days ago. This was the British Embassy launch/yacht which had a cannon on board for firing ceremonial salutes; it had presumably been taken over by the US Embassy” (p.21).
206 BEO 4068/305061, OA.
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Cannons as Diplomatic Gifts
As we have seen so far, cannons were imbued with a plethora of regulations, restrictions, and permissions. However, they did not always affect diplomacy with their sonic symbolism. They were also favored diplomatic objects of gift-giving between European ambassadors and the Ottoman state. Especially after the mid-nineteenth century, innovation in military technologies and standardization of ordnance rendered a large number of cannons impractical to use.
Gift-giving has long been seen as crucial part of the cultural aspects of diplomatic encounters. Fortunately, the study of diplomatic gifts in the Ottoman context has produced enough scholarship to provide a perspective for reconstructing such practices.207 However, such an approach would require a shift from the auditory to the material to examine the varying terms of narrative for each gift within a specific context, such as convincing elements in the negotiations, informal offers aiming to build friendship, or commodities to demonstrate European military technology, and so on. Therefore, the scope of this sub-section will be limited only to establish
207 Harriet R.: The material culture of diplomacy: The impact of objects on the dynamics of Habsburg-Ottoman negotiations at the Sublime Porte (1530–1650), in Politische Kommunkation zwischen Imperien: Der diplomatische Aktionsraum Südost- und Osteuropa. Innsbruck 2013, 211–237; Hedda R.-K.: East is East and West is West, and sometimes the twain did meet: Gift exchange in the Ottoman Empire, Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, vol. 2. London 2005, 113–124; Komaroff, L. (2012): The gift tradition in Islamic art. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Muhanna, E. I. "The Sultan’s New Clothes: Ottoman-Mamluk Gift Exchange in the Fifteenth Century." Muqarnas 27 (2010): 189-207; Talbot, M. “Gift-giving.” In British-Ottoman Relations, 1661-1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul, 105-40. Boydell & Brewer, 2017; Açıkgöz, F.: Fransızların 1681 Sakız Saldırısında Verdikleri Zarar Karşılığında XIV. Louis tarafından IV. Mehmet’e Gönderilen Tarziye Hediyeleri, in Sosyal Bilimler 1, no. 1 (2011), 59–77.
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broader links between their material agencies in diplomatic gift-giving and the findings of the present study.
A brief look at the Ottoman archives demonstrates a clear connection between celebratory salutes and cannons as ceremonial gifts. The countries to which the Ottomans gave or from which they received cannons as diplomatic gifts were no different from those that received salutes on their special days. Although celebratory salvos were mainly limited to eight sovereign states and reciprocal, gift-giving happened with five states, and the reciprocity was not measured by the materiality of cannon itself.208 Those countries were the Austro-Hungarian Empire,209 the British Empire,210 the French Empire/Republic,211 the German Empire,212 and the Russian Empire.213
Among those gifts, one of the cannons stood out from others. The Cannon of Muhammad II –also referred to as “The Great Turkish Bombard” or “Dardanelles Gun,” cast in 1464, 5.2m in length, weighing 16.8 tons and capable of firing a shot of 363 kg – was given by Abdülaziz as present to Queen Victoria in 1866 (Figures 26-27). An 1868 article published in the
208 It is important to note that an exchange of cannons as gifts happened between Abdülhamid II and the German Emperor Wilhelm within one and a half years. According to The Salt Lake Herald, “Constantinople, Oct. 10 [1897]. The sultan has received an autograph letter from the emperor of Germany, in which the latter thanks the former for a number of cannon, captured from the Greeks during the recent war, which were recently presented to his German majesty by Abdul Hamid. The emperor in this letter praises the ‘wise moderation’ exhibited during Turkey’s negotiations for the conclusion of peace with Greece and assures the sultan that he enjoys the faithful friendship of Emperor William.” See also, Y.PRK.ASK. 148/20, OA.
209 İ.HR. 211/12233, 216/12569, OA.
210 HAT 1179/46579; HR.MKT. 598/51; İ.HR. 140/7352; TS.MA.e 534/27, OA.
211 C.HR. 95/4709; İ.HR. 229/13430, OA.
212 HH.İ. 107/98; Y.PRK.ASK. 148/20; Y.PRK.NMH. 7/48, OA.
213 A.MKT.UM. 499/75; HR.SYS. 1339/51; Y.MTV. 254/184, OA.
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Archaeological Journal gives us an insight into why these military objects continued to be part of the gift-giving diplomacy until the end of the Hamidian era:
[They] testify to the former energy and power of the Ottoman race, as no other military monument does, and remind us of an event which has had a greater influence on the politics of Europe than almost any other within the same period – the fall of Constantinople. Monuments of the military genius of Muhammad II, they remind us also of “the splendor and the havoc of the East” by their prodigious size, and cost and power. (Lefroy, 1868, p.261).
Referring to an “Ottoman race” and blurring the borders of “the East,” there is no doubt that the image cast by these military objects contributed to Hamidian Ottomanism, a nationalist ideology with Sunni-Ottoman expansionism toward the extraterritorial umma.
In Cultural Histories of Noise, Biddle and Gibson (Biddle & Gibson, 2017) state that “Europe emerges in the late medieval and early modern moments not simply as a political unit, but as a set of habituated rituals attaching to a (partially) shared imagination of power, autocracy, and citizenship. These rituals are enacted in looking, tasting, touching, smelling and, of course, listening, sound, noise and aurality constitute a key component in that emergence” (p.4). This section has demonstrated that, as auditory signs and symbols, cannon salvos represented a key component of diplomatic communication, political acceptance, and reconstitution of sovereignty. Ottomans excelled in elevating state reputation through the expansion, control, and use of cannons salvos according to the requirements of international political dynamics. Continuously piercing the urban soundscape, they functioned as “habituated rituals” with complexities, meanings, and significations complemented by a concern to affirm legitimacy and sovereignty.
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Other Uses of Cannons
Fire Alarm
Istanbul’s wooden urban fabric was a constant threat throughout its history, and it grew more significant as population density increased during the nineteenth century. Although an 1839 document proposed replacing timber with stone or brick (kârgir), 223 major fires occurred in the capital between 1853 and 1906 (Çelik, 1993, p.53). Some of these major fires, especially the 1856 Aksaray fire, the 1865 Hocapaşa fire, and the 1870 Pera fire, had devastating effects on the city’s urban fabric. Multiple memoirs demonstrate that, until the mid-nineteenth century, the cries of the fire-fighters (tulumbacıs) cries of fire alerted people regarding the affected location and shaped the urban soundscape.214
214 The following note by Julie Pardoe Pardoe (1838) describes how these cries informed but also put people into a panic in various parts of the city: “The fireman […] shouts at the pitch of his voice, ‘Yanguen var—There is a fire!’ adding, an instant afterward, ‘Scutari-a —Galata-a—Stamboul-da’ —as the case may be; thus indicating to his anxious listeners the scene of terror, in order to enable those who have friends or property in that neighbourhood to speed to their rescue. In a city of wood like Constantinople, where, save only the Mosques, the Khans, and the Tcharchi [Grand Bazaar], there are very few buildings of stone; conflagrations are of frequent and almost continual occurrence” (p.108).
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The Seraskier [Beyazıt] Tower and Galata Tower were also used to announce and monitor fires. Informing the public with flags,215 drums,216 and cries,217 they functioned as hubs that dispelled crucial information through messengers, bekçis, and tulumbacıs. Each mahalle had its tulumbacı unit numbering between thirty and seventy members. Although they were equipped with inefficient fire engines, they were a well-established group with their own style of dress, code of language, and cries (Boyar & Fleet, 2010, p.84).218
After the mid-nineteenth century, cannons were used as auditory instruments to mark the whereabouts of a fire. Théophile Gautier and Luis Bunel’s 1854 memoirs are among the earlier
215 “On our return, we saw the smoke of a fire in a distant part of the city and saw the fire signal hanging from the Seraskier’s tower.” Snow (1842), p.57.
216 “In case of a fire, Constantinople presents a spectacle that reveals the character and manners of the country; huge drums resound on high towers, the sinister voices of passavans announce disaster.” Michaud (1833), p.170; “On the appearance of a fire, they sound the alarm by beating gongs, and by dispatching messengers to various parts of the city. From the windows of this apartment, is a most perfect bird’s eye view of the whole capital and its vicinity.” Auldjo (1835), p.78.
217 “On our return from the valley, while approaching Galata, our ears were startled by a cry which here carries consternation to thousands. Vangenvar, the terrific cry of fire, rolled from the tower of Anastasius, and gathering volume and force as it went on, drowned all other voices and sounds in the tumultuous streets” Colton (1836), p.111.
218 Cox (1887) gives us a vivid auditory description: “Destoor! Yanghen Var!” “Make way! A fire— there is!” It is the warning of a fire; [...] All comparison fails before the long, wild shriek that goes up from the half-naked firemen, who with bare heads, hairy bosoms, and sweating bodies rush through the streets of these cities, bearing upon their shoulders the pump or syringe which is to play its baby part upon the fire, and play, alas! in vain; for it only provokes and does not extinguish. Yanghen Var! Far off that shriek is heard. It approaches nearer and nearer. Then come other pompiers, bearing long poles with hooks to them, and coils of rope, and then the axe-men; and every man of them on a yell, and all giving the cry “Yanghen Var! Allah! Allah!” with a lamentable length of syllabic agony for which there is no expression in the human lexicon”, pp.441-442.
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mentions of cannon shots served as tocsins.219 Prior to this date, memoirs lack the mention of cannon sounds in their descriptions of fire announcements.220 Accompanied with lanterns, a high hill above Kandilli served as the leading site for cannon salvos as markings of a fire.221 Using red balls during the day and lanterns at night, towers functioned as beacons to inform Kandilli.222
219 “When the watchman perceives the outbreak of a fire, he hangs out, from the summit of his tower, a basket if by day, or a lantern by night, to indicate the quarter of the town in which it is situated; the cannon thunders out the alarm, and through the awakened streets rings, in sinister tones, the lugubrious cry of Stamboul hiangin var!” Gautier (1854), p.264. “This district [Galata] does not offer anything interesting than its high tower, the watchpoint for the firefighters who fire a specific number of cannon shots according to the location.” Bunel (1854), p.359.
220 “When a fire breaks out and is announced by the Paswans, all the guards are obliged to rush to the scene with their pumps.” Andréossy (1828), p.161; “Alarm cries do not attract criminals, with whom Constantinople is infested like other capitals.” Lacroix (1839), p.52; “However, certain precautions were taken by the Turks, especially for the night[…]: There are guards on the towers of Galata and on the opposite bank called Stambol Galèci, covering the entire city. Guards observe [the city] from all sides and give the alarm at the slightest situation.” Letellier (1840), p.182. “We then went to look round us once more in the Bazars, and whilst there we heard the report of “Fire in Pera!” Upon this we lost no time in making the best of our way homewards, together with a crowd of Jews, Armenians, and others, who closed their shops in the Bazars, and hurried away to save their property in their dwelling-houses. We got across the water in the midst of unusual bustle, and rushed up the hill of Pera, which is not the pleasantest or easiest ground in the world to hurry over. […] However, it was soon extinguished, and when all alarm had subsided, we re-crossed the water to the Bazars ; but on our way home we again heard the report of Fire this time at Constantinople.” Snow (1842), pp.61-62.
221 “As soon as a fire breaks out, a battery of seven cannons, placed on the heights towards the middle of the Bosphorus, announces it to the city, and town criers in each district announce the precise location of the disaster. A signal near the cannons indicates if the fire is in Stamboul or outside.” Berton (1860), p.109; “It is named Kandilli (with the lantern) because of the lantern used, with a cannon, to announce fires and signal where they are. This location has a complete panorama of the Bosphorus’ two sides.” Dethier (1873), p.73; “Kandilli, which means lantern, comes from the lantern situated on top of the hill of Idjadièh, above the village, where a signal and a cannon were used to announce [fires].” Isambert (1873), p.604.
222 “There are two fire-towers on the highest points on each side of the Golden Horn. One of these is an old Genoese fortification in Galata; the other is a Turkish structure, rather effective than otherwise, as it soars several hundred feet above the water. In the galleries of these towers, watchmen walk day and night, spyglass in hand. On the discovery of a fire a red ball is hoisted in
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Shots “at regular intervals of a few seconds” transmitted news from this central point to the various parts of the city where bekçis, messengers, and firefighters spread the information in the streets with their cries (Hornby, 1858).223 The number of shots indicated the geographically separated three main areas where fires occurred and made it easier for listeners to locate the site
the day-time, and a red lantern at night, from a flag-staff above.” Benjamin (1867), p.16. “These towers are used as beacons for the suppression of these conflagrations. Relays of watchmen night and day occupy the topmost chamber, or cabin, and if they see a fire, they hoist a signal, which is repeated by the watchmen placed for the same purpose on the opposite tower in Stamboul, called the Seraskier tower, as placed in the middle of the parade-ground attached to the War Office.” Townsend (1875), p.64; “No fire alarms exist here as we understand them. There is a cannon station on a mountain on the Bosporus and shots are fired when a fire is discovered. Signals, too, are at once put up on the two towers in Stamboul and Galata, being red balls during the day and lanterns at night, and fire runners are dispatched from these towers to notify the fire brigades.” (“How They Fight Fires,” 1893); “We are also warned by the fire lanterns used at the top of the towers of Galata and Séraskiérat. Their number indicates the district where the fire occurs.” Durand de Fontmagne (1902), p.141.
223 “[…] and guns are also fired from a battery on the Bosphorus. The alarm is then given to all the police stations, and runners are sent throughout the city and its suburbs who call attention by beating the pavement with iron-shod staves and follow this by crying “Yangun Var!” “There is fire!” giving out also the location of the conflagration.” Benjamin (1867) p.17; “Arrangements are made to give the earliest possible notice to all parts of the city when and where a fire has broken out. For this purpose, watchmen are stationed day and night on three commanding spots—the Galata tower, in Galata; the Serasker tower, in Stambûl; and the high hill below Kandili, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. Cannons are fired from the last-mentioned place to announce that a fire has broken out. A red balloon, lighted within, is raised at the same time to the top of a mast; at the Serasker Tower, balls, and at Galata Tower flags are hoisted, showing by their number in what quarter the fire is. At these two posts, there are firemen waiting, fast runners, who, the moment the fire is discovered, run to their different quarters to inform the regular watch, setting up the cry of fire, and the quarter where it has occurred. The fire-engines are in the hands of firemen who are paid by enjoying some special privileges; but the engines are small boxes, which are carried on the shoulders of four men; these run headlong, crying, Yangın Var, ‘Fire!’ at the top of their voices.” Wilson (1893), p.9; “Immediately afterward, the cannon began to thunder in a fort placed on the heights of the Bosporus; at the same time, runners roamed the various villages on its banks, announced by their cries the place where the disaster had just broken out.” Rogeron (1899), p.100.
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of danger: Seven shots for the northern band of the Golden Horn, five for the historical peninsula, and three for Uskudar.224 Once again, although their acoustical characteristics, frequency, and sound were entirely different, cannons functioned similarly to church bells in Europe in case of fires. Their function was to provide information and facilitate communication. Corbin (1998) states: “The bell ringers from the various parishes in which the fire had broken out would also ring, identifying the area affected by ringing the specified number of strokes” (p.193).
Cannon shots, especially in the middle of the night, led people to concentrate on the soundscape in ways they ordinarily did not.225 This multi-sensory warning system was mainly considered an elaborate solution to the challenging topography of the city. Durand de Fontmagne (1902) asked: “Is there a single city in Europe so well organized in this regard? How many times have we had
224 “The cannon immediately indicates the conflagration’s place by the number of shots. Guards descend from the tower of Galata and hastily go to the main streets, uttering the cries of ‘Jangour Var.’ Others spread the disastrous news of the threatening danger by repeating the same cries.” Wallace (1864), p.131; “On perceiving the signal, certain batteries erected for the purpose at different points discharge cannon three, five, or seven times, according to the number indicating the quarter in which the danger lies. At the same time the younger policemen, lightly clad, seize their dogspears, descend, and hasten with full speed through the streets, calling ‘Yanan Var!’ (Fire! Fire!) There is a similar tower and battery used for the same purpose above the steep of Candilli, which can be seen for miles.” Townsend (1875), p.64; “The tower from which all the fires in Constantinople are watched day and night, and signals given by the firing of cannon, the locality being decided by the number of times of firing.” Elliot (1893), p.285.
225 Hornby (1858) noted: “At night, just as I was going to sleep, the windows shook with the heavy report of a cannon. My first thought was of Russian ships having passed the entrance of the Bosphorus; but I soon recollected the fire-guns of which I had heard. The heavy crash of seven of them, at regular intervals of a few seconds, broke on the quiet night; and then the peculiar wailing cry of the watchmen, in different parts of the village, announcing fire, and the striking of their staves on the stones close by our door, effectually banished sleep for some time,” p.118.
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our ears on the watch, listening to the cannon and the voice of the Passavan? You always know what to expect, and you can fall back to sleep if the distance is far away” (p.141). However, this system was not always well-received by others. Rogeron (1899) saw “the signals of the Galata and Seraskier towers [as] functioning, but without understanding them.” For him, they were “like empty barrels, suspended by ropes in space, which one raises, or which one lowers” (p.190).
Furthermore, the system occasionally functioned with a delay. According to a diary note by the French writer Bertrand Bareilles (1918), “a fire [in Uskudar] was slowly dying out when the cannon thundered” (p.246). Moreover, “all these cries, [and] the noise of the cannon in the silence of the night” had a “grandiose and at the same time frightening” effect (Rogeron, 1899, p.100).226 Yet, Edmund Hornby (1858) remarked that “you soon learn to hear them with indifference” (p.235).
Announcing Noon Time
As we have seen so far, cannon shots carried with them many complexities, meanings, and conflicts. Linking them to the flow of time also reveals other issues that require an analysis of the temporal structure in the Ottoman Empire.
Although the study of time in the Ottoman Empire is not in its infancy and many studies have been published focusing on its various aspects,227 none have covered the role of sounds in a
226 Even so that “if a great fire broke out at night in Constantinople, he [Abdülhamid II] awoke at the first cannon shot that gave the signal, and from his window would follow its course with a lorgnette” (“Secrets of Yildiz Kiosk,” 1911).
227 Acun, Hakkı (2011): Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Saat Kuleleri. Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi; Altınışık, Işık Uçman (2012): “Osmanlı’da Zaman-Mekân Kavrayışının Değişimi; Edebi Metinler Üzerinden Bir İrdeleme.” Turkish Studies - International Periodical for The Languages 7 (4); Atabaki, Touraj (2007): “Time, Labour-Discipline and Modernization in Turkey and Iran”.
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detailed manner. When dealing with such a vague issue, one should be careful not to simplify the ambiguous nature linked to various auditory inputs, time-related practices, and changing socio-political order. Since such a comprehensive examination is beyond this section’s scope, I will demonstrate how cannon sounds contributed to the modern comprehension of time in late Ottoman Istanbul.
A brief look at the nineteenth-century Ottoman hour system reveals the co-existence of two completely different conceptions of time formulated due to a patchwork of regulations. Aiming to improve efficiency and regularity, European, or alafranga, time was implemented next to the local, on alaturka, hour system which counted hours from sunset to sunset. Muvakkithanes, small buildings for timekeepers in the mosques’ courtyards, assumed important roles for people to set their clocks according to each hour system. Although clocks had existed in the Ottoman Empire as early as in the eighteenth century, attaching the very notion of modernity to an efficient organization of daily time on a quotidian level became even more critical after the Tanzimat. Double-faced clocks showing both alaturka and alafranga hours were placed in public places to
In Touraj Atabaki (Ed.): The State and the Subaltern. Modernization, Society and the State in Turkey and Iran: I. B. Tauris; Dolcerocca, Özen Nergis (2016): Time Regulation Institutes. Time in Modern Literary and Cultural Imagination (1889-1954). Unpublished diss., New York University; Georgeon, François; Hitzel, Frédéric (2012): Les ottomans et le temps. Leiden, Boston: Brill; Singer, Sean R. (2013): Clock towers, blended modernity, and the emergence of Ottoman time: MA Thesis, Indiana University; Uluengin, Mehmet Bengü (2010): “Secularizing Anatolia Tick by Tick. Clock Towers in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic”. In International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2010 (1), p. 17; Verdeil, Chantal (2014): “Le temps des missionnaires. Calendriers et emplois du temps dans les établissements scolaires de l’Empire ottoman à la fin du xixe siècle”. In Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (136), pp. 89–108; Wishnitzer, Avner (2015): Reading clocks, alla Turca. Time and society in the late Ottoman Empire; Wishnitzer, Avner (2010): “Teaching time. Schools, schedules, and the Ottoman pursuit of progress,” In New Perspectives on Turkey 43, pp. 5–32.
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answer the temporal requirements of modernization. As time gained value for modernization, an increasing number of clock towers became one of the significant building projects of the Hamidian era. Still, religious time continued to persist as central point for a conservative Ottoman-Muslim identity. Although, after the 1908 CUP Revolution, the question of time took a well-defined shape according to notions of modernity and progress, as Wishnitzer (2015) argues, “these efforts were not enough to eliminate old temporal traditions, […] the alaturka hour system persisted down to the dissolution of the empire and beyond” (pp.8-9).
In this complex interaction between different time modes, cannon shots assumed the function to announce noon time in Istanbul. It is important to note that this had been a common practice almost everywhere in Europe since the eighteenth century (Pennanen, 2017, p.157).228 Like church bells or the call to prayers, cannon shots marked the rhythm of daily life. An 1840 chart showing what exact alaturka hour cannons announce high noontime demonstrates that precise timekeeping existed before the mid-nineteenth century (Figure 28). However, cannon shots were not always well-received or understood by the local community. The following letter by Basiretçi Ali Efendi (1871b) gives us important clues on how midday cannons were received on the quotidian level in 1871:
Tophâne Kırâathânesi - Meanwhile, Rasadhâne-i Amire's cannons thundered. Since their noise in nearby neighborhoods was too loud, one of the oddballs popped out and said,
228 Focusing on the soundscape in Habsburg Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pennanen (2017) states: “For instance, since 1735, a cannon has fired at noon in the Naryshkin Bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg. In Sarajevo, the artillery fired the midday gun and other signals as well as various salutes from the Yellow Bastion, an Ottoman fortification in the old part of the city” (p.157).
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“God damn it! This cannon scares thousands of people like me every day. Where did this trouble come from?” A person from the crowd said, “Dear, why do you say this? The people are adjusting their clocks according to this cannon.” “If that is the case, then I will set my clock.” He asked back: “What time is it now?” When he heard that it was twelve o clock, he said that “this will work only twenty days later. In Ramadan, there will be many who will curse this midday cannon. I cannot spoil my watch now!” As people were busy softly laughing at his strangeness, the other continued: “Do not take this lightly! It is noon, and it is not alaturka but alafranga! Rasadhâne-i Amire announces daily times via La Turquie and Courrier d'Orient every day. You do not give any importance to this. Yet, the state pays roughly ten thousand piastres per month for Kumbari Efendi’s salary, who is the director of this institution, and for other costs such as announcement fees.” He says: “Okay, so that means that we should learn French after all these years and buy a Kuryedoryan [Courrier d'Orient] amid this poverty to fix our watches.” “Well, dear sir, if the state spends so much on this, why can’t they fire cannons in Turkish instead of in French?” The other responds quickly, “Sir, they declared that they implemented these cannons so that the ships in the harbor can set their watches to alafranga time.” He replied, “If this is the case and these ships need cannons to correct their clocks, why don’t they fire their cannons at noon? Even those who do not have a battery can use a single gun. Why should the state have a two thousand piastres expense? Inshallah, the authorities will make necessary changes, and the state treasury of Muslims will get rid of this burden.
As the discussion above demonstrates, midday cannons as temporal markers did not significantly contribute to the habitus of the local Muslim community. Rather than a condition of progress and
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civilization, they were considered noise and financial burden. Empty of religious meanings, they were also a nuisance in Ramadan’s rhythm. Although charts showing the exact alaturka and alafranga hours at high noontime were published in the local press, the concurrent use of the dual hour system confused locals.
The duality of the hour systems was also problematic for foreigners. Author and scholar H. G. Dwight (1915) noted:
Another trait struck my transatlantic eye when I happened once to be at Fatih on the last day of Ba’iram. The barkers had all been shouting: “Come, children! Come! Tomorrow is not Ba’iram” Presently cannon banged to announce ikindi, the afternoon hour of prayer, which is both the beginning and the end of Ba’iram. I heard people saying: “Ba’iram is finished.” And Ba’iram was finished. It was only the middle of a sunny afternoon, and in any other country the merrymaking would have gone on till night (pp.296-297).
Midday cannons were eventually canceled sometime around the 1880s. According to Wishnitzer’s (2015) study, Reading Clocks, during the official discussion on the 1910 “clocks bill,” Ahmed Muhtar Paşa proposed the re-introduction of “the practice of firing a cannon at high noon which had been suspended for some thirty years,” so people can “set their timepieces.” Wishnitzer continues: “At first the bill was met with general approval, […] but some representatives had protested that the use of mean time ran counter to the teachings of Islam. […] opposition came mainly from ‘turbaned’ deputies who yelled that ‘to abolish our clock is to abolish the prayer’” (p.174).
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In brief, mainly judged as a political question, alafranga time did not function well in the time conception of the local Muslim community, and, as an auditory marker of this cultural and political shift, midday canons stood as auditory nuisance. Yet, as sonic symbols of sensorial selectivity, these unwelcome cannons are important for understanding the perception of noise between the shifting ideas and ideals of contemporaries in Istanbul.229 Like other daily urban practices, they offer an additional auditory perspective regarding discussions between modes of time and visions of modernity on the level of the everyday.
Militaristic Echoes of Cannons
To better understand the role of cannons in the auditory history of late Ottoman Istanbul, one should not neglect various militaristic aspects of these instruments. However, it is essential to underline that this section will not attempt to isolate these militaristic echoes from their previously mentioned significations or cover the history of Ottoman artillery. Since only a small percent of these instruments functioned in the urban environment, primarily for announcements, cataloging weapons, observing organizational changes, tracking technological modifications, or analyzing military doctrine will fall outside this section’s scope. Along the lines of the previous sections, keeping the focus exclusively on their auditory impact in Istanbul, the following pages will explore what militaristic forms of these echoes affected contemporaries.
One of the oldest uses of cannons for military purposes was to announce and celebrate victories. As part of martial pomp, cannon salutes were fired in the earlier periods of the empire to
229 See Maksudyan, N., “Modern Times, Modern Sounds: New Infrastructures and Noise in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” paper presented at 2019 Annual Meeting of The Middle East Studies Association.
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announce victorious sultans’ return. Ottoman historian Abdurrahman Hibri Efendi’s vivid description of Murad IV’s triumphal return from the 1639 conquest of Baghdad sets an excellent example to understand how cannons were employed to strengthen the sultanic presence:
[The sultan] repaired to his palace with splendor and magnificence which no tongue can tell, nor pen adequately illustrate. The balconies and roofs of the houses were everywhere thronged with people, who exclaimed with enthusiasm, “The blessing of God be on thee, O conqueror! Welcome, Mourad! May thy victories be fortunate!” The Sultan was sheathed in resplendent armor of polished steel, with a leopard skin thrown over his shoulders, and wore in his turban a triple aigrette, placed obliquely in the Persian mode. He rode a Nogai charger and was followed by seven Arab-led horses with jeweled caparisons, while trumpets and cymbals resounded before him, and twenty-two Persian Khans were led captives at the imperial stirrup. As he passed along, he looked proudly on each side, like a lion who has seized his prey, and saluted the people, who shouted Barık-Allah! [Praise be to God] and threw themselves with their faces to the ground. All the vessels of war fired constant salutes, so that the sea seemed in a blaze, and seven days and nights were devoted to constant rejoicings (“Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,” 1840).
The ceremonies celebrating the return of victorious sultans ended when they stopped participating in military campaigns after the late seventeenth century. However, for three230 to seven231 days, cannonades continued to accompany biniş, an official mounting ceremony
230 HAT 258/14846, 276/16229, 343/19616, OA.
231 C.AS. 418/17348; HAT 342/19577, OA.
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performed by the sultan and his entourage to celebrate victories.232 Cannons were also employed in the ceremonies held to present the keys of the conquered cities to sultans.233
According to Gabor Agoston (2011), after the eighteenth century, the Ottomans were behind in modernizing and standardizing their ordnance (p.39). As the success of the newly emerging Russian Navy led to the loss of Crimea and the Black Sea coastline, the northern frontier drew back into the sea during the eighteenth century (Yener, 2016, p.13). Thus, a strong need for change in the navy led to a series of ship-launching ceremonies, announced and celebrated by cannon salutes.234 The launchings of military vessels235 and sultan’s boats236 continued to be
232 A memoir by the French diplomat Comte Antoine-François Andréossy (1828) demonstrates how cannons were used in the celebrations held for the return of Mecca and Medina to Ottomans in 1810 and 1813: “The celebrations held in honor of the return of Mecca continued for seven days. The batteries of the Seraglio, those of Constantinople and the Bosporus, fired salvos in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, as for the capture of Medina, and the Grand-Seigneur went out every day to do Binich” (p.90).
233 Andréossy (1828) continued: “On January 30, 1813, at dawn, artillery salutes from Top-Khana and the Seraglio announced to the public the pleasant news of the arrival of the keys [of the Mecca]. […] The keys were put in a silver dish and covered with a rich cloth. This dish was carried by the Kahya-Beï (Minister of the Interior), who held it high in his hands and offered it to the respects of the immense population filling the streets, balconies, and windows of the houses from Eyüp to the Seraglio. During this march, the cannons of various batteries and fleet filled the air with the marks of the public joy” (pp.85-88).
234 Ottoman protocol registers (teşrifat defterleri) no.349 - 27 April 1754: “Teşrîf-i hümâyûn buyuruldukda kalyonlar ve çekdirmeler ve dîvânhâneden toplar atılup / sadr-ı aʽzam efendimiz hazretleri ve hâzır olan ricâlin cümlesi kalyonun nerdübanı iskelesinde / ve şeyhü’l-islâm efendi hazretleri bâlâ-yı nerdübanda istikbâle müheyyâ olurlar.” Mentioned in Keleş (2019), p.151.
235 C.BH. 53/2492; HAT 272/15987, OA.
236 C.BH. 263/12141, OA.
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accompanied by salvos in the nineteenth century. The imperial fleet also performed additional salutes between Beşiktaş and Kabataş before setting sail.237
Although unsuccessful, certain attempts aimed to restore the Ottoman military’s effectiveness during the Tanzimat era (Marble, 2016, p.173). According to the handbook prepared by the famous British publisher John Murray (1854), in December 1853, 486 cannons, “mostly 35-pounders,” were mounted in fifteen different locations, including forts and batteries along the Bosphorus (Figure 29) (p.97). Towards the 1870s, the Ottomans aimed to revitalize artillery forces by establishing a military academy and inviting a series of German advisors. Unable to produce cannons, they tried to fill the gap by purchasing from their German supplier Krupp during the reign of Abdülhamid II.238 According to an 1877 travel account, “the coast of Europe (the best defended) is furnished with ten batteries carrying seventy-five guns, and the coast of Asia with five batteries with sixty-nine guns, making a total of fifteen batteries and three hundred forty-four guns” (Tchihatchef, 1877, p.15).
This revitalization also affected the soundscape of the capital. According to Basiretçi Ali (1871a), “the cannon shots wake up the residents of Tophane and Üsküdar every morning. […] I asked a few people in the military service, wondering what these uninterrupted military drills
237 “Dolmabahçe This palace was erected in 1679. In those early days, as how, it was customary for the Imperial fleet, before setting sail, to anchor between Beshiktash and Kabatash and to salute the Imperial Palace.” Murray (1854), p.99. See also, Boyar and Fleet (2010), p.98; “Yevm-i mezbûrda baştarde-i hümâyûn flandra âvîze olunmağla muʽtâd üzere divânhâneden / ve baştardeden toplar atılmışdır. Ve yine yevm-i mezbûrda sofa kaplu semmûr kürk / fermân-ı hümâyûn buyrulmuşdur.” Keleş (2019), p.53.
238 Régla (1891) noted: “Here and there, on both shores of the Bosporus, forts more or less hidden; low batteries, formidably armed with Krupp cannons, of a high caliber and with a range of several kilometers...” p.16.
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were since they were thrown for hours every morning. I concluded by combining the answers and information I have received.” Being unable “to describe the extent to which he is satisfied,” Basiretçi Ali considered the noise of drills as a sign of technological progress and Ottoman modernization. Sympathetic to the overpowering function of noise, he found “happiness and pleasure” in these practices so that he did not “stop talking any other topic except to what extent the high Ottoman reign (Sultanate-ı Seniyye-i Osmaniyye) gave importance to a progressive military service.”239 Functioning as sign of modernity and sonic articulations of power, cannon shots rendered noise meaningful and linked subjects to the center.
Announcing the Beheadings of Muslims
Cannons assumed another intriguing function. Before the Tanzimat period, they were fired to announce the beheadings of Muslims. Macfarlane (1829) noted: “On common occasions, decapitation is, however, resorted to much less frequently than strangling, and for the Osmanlıs, the formula ought to be gone through, of firing a cannon for every head that falls” (p.451). He continued that “by an old regulation, a cannon is to be fired whenever a Moslemin’s head is cut off in an official manner” (p.311). At first, this might remind us, in Corbin’s (1998) words of “the bells of infamy” aiming “to summon the community to where a person was to be tortured or put on public display to bear witness to the public nature of the punishment” (p.191). Yet, executions were not particularly public. Walter Colton (1836) wrote “a quick ceremony, of very
239 “[…] Şu suret ne dereceye kadar memnûniyyeti mûcib olduğunu ta’rîf iktizâ etmez. Asabiyyet-i milliyyesi olan bir Osmanlı şu mektubu okur iken ne derece memnûn ve müfhir olacak ise, benim dahi o nisbette mesrur ve mübtehic olmuş olmaklığım tabî’îdir. Bu memnuniyyet üzerine rast geldiğim ümerâ-yı ‘askeriyye ile Saltanat-ı Seniyye-i Osmâniyye’nin terakkiyyât-ı askeriyyeye ne dereceye kadar ehemmiyyet vermekte olduğu keyfiyyetinden başka sohbet etmemeğe başladım.” Basiretçi Ali (1871a).
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frequent occurrence, and intimated to the public only by the discharge of a cannon. The Turks have no public executions; the sentence and its mortal pangs come like the secret spring of the serpent from the brake” (p.44). The famous French politician, novelist, travel writer, and ambassador in Istanbul, François-René de Chateaubriand (1862), also noted in 1806: “I arrived in Constantinople on the very day of a revolution: the rebels of Romelia had advanced to the gates of the city. Forced to give in to the storm, Selim had exiled and sent disagreeable ministers to the janissaries. We heard cannon sounds announcing the fall of condemned heads” (pp.109-110).
Creating an auditory environment of intimidation for listeners, cannons also embodied a sense of threat and authoritarian pressure. The French historian Joseph Louis Michaud (1833) expressed this in one of his letters in 1831: “The traveler looks only with horror at this castle of Roumeli-Hissar, also called the Tower of the Forgotten, because one does not get out once locked there. […] The Janissaries, devoted to recent torture, were subsequently locked up there. A cannon shot from the top of the towers announced that a head had fallen” (p.290). Although these intimidating shots ended in the 1830s, their resonances survived until the early twentieth century. Hermann Barth (1906) noted in his travel account: “What dismal memories evoke this old house [Topkapı Palace]! […] a cannon shot announced the fall of the victim and the joy of the executioners. Places of terror and darkness!” (p.124).
Chapter Conclusion
Exploring cannons’ sonic meanings, this chapter has questioned their complex roles in late Ottoman Istanbul’s auditory culture. Although multiple aspects of their auditory messages are
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lost or forgotten, this attempt to listen to cannons’ past has demonstrated how their firing, both as signals and salutes, assumed a preeminent position for multiple purposes.
Surpassing all other sounds in volume, cannon shots dominated the urban soundscape as a most useful medium of communication. Similar to church bells in Europe, they had a well-defined language, which varied from one occasion to the next. Shaping the perception of contemporaries and providing communicative values, cannons of late Ottoman Istanbul functioned for purposes of imperial self-image (announcing the sultan’s accession to the throne, royal birthdays, Friday ceremonies, imperial migration), modern diplomacy (celebrating the special days of foreign powers, saluting for diplomatic reciprocity, signifying diplomatic disagreements, announcing the arrival of diplomats and official visits), military exercises (noises of military drills, launchings of vessels, celebrating victories), and other practices (marking the whereabouts of fires, announcing noontime, and beheadings of Muslims).
Focusing on changing roles, regulations, and perceptions, this chapter has also revealed how cannon shots reflected the climate of the respective period. As result of the traumatic listening experiences of the Young Turk revolution, the Balkan wars, and World War I, their meanings were radically altered for the population. As the new liberal parliamentary rule changed the power hierarchies, “thundering” cannons were gradually desacralized, de-monarchized, and submitted to the nation with a new aural and visual symbolism to devise a novel collective identity. Although fluctuations happened in their use, regulations, and reception, cannons, unmatched by any other fabricated sound, assumed a preeminent position in the urban soundscape of late Ottoman Istanbul. Even after the Ottoman Empire dissolved in 1922 and the
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capital moved to Ankara in 1923, cannons continued to echo in Istanbul until the mid-twentieth century.240
240 “Tahtü’l bahirlerimizin Dolmabahçe pişgâhmda tevakkufu üzerine birçok hususi sandallar bunların etrafını çevirmiştir. Hamidiye 21 pare top endahât etmek suretiyle bu merasimi tes’id etmiş, şanlı sancağımız tahtü'l bahirlerimizde temevvüc ederken gerek sefâin-i harbiye ve gerek tahtü'l bahirdeki neferler bayrağımıza resmen selamı ifâ eylemişlerdir” Servet-i Fünun (1928); See, HR.İM. 22/57, OA. “The Yavuz remained the flagship of the Turkish navy for some time, and I recall seeing her firing welcome salutes to British and American visiting naval fleets arriving at Istanbul in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” Lyster (2011), p.xxiv.
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Chapter III - “Fennî Bir Ucube - A Scientific Oddity”: The Phonographs and Gramophones of Late Ottoman Istanbul
Some time ago [in 1911], in the “Sweet Waters of Europe” at the far end of the Golden Horn, I heard the whine of countless gramophones on the caiques splashing the water. And I reckoned that Abdülhamid was dead, the Young Turks had arrived, that the Bazaar was changing its signs and that the West was triumphing. And already today we have Ankara and the monument to Mustafa Kemal! Events move fast. The die is cast: one more century-old civilization goes to ruin. Le Corbusier, L’Art Decorative d’Aujourd’hui, 1925.241
Invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison for voice-recording, the phonograph radically altered sound’s ephemeral character. It was now possible to hear sounds without their source, from their copies. Although this detachment of sound from the time and place of its original production took on various forms, separating sound from its source and making it reproducible became the essential characteristic of sound-reproduction technologies such as the radio, the telephone, and the gramophone.
Leading to a novel form of listening and socio-cultural change, sound reproduction technologies brought various mediums, actors, interconnections, and practices into a life of modernity over the nineteenth century. In Sterne’s (2003) words: “As there was an Enlightenment, so too was there an ‘Ensoniment.’ A series of conjunctures among ideas, institutions, and practices rendered the world audible in new ways and valorized new constructs of hearing and listening” (p.2). In other words, listening was a “directed, learned” cultural activity, and just as other sensory faculties, it was shaped and rationalized historically (p.19). Auditory historian Smith (2007) also explains
241 Quoted in Bozdogan, S. (2002). Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic. University of Washington Press., p.3.
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how “hearing and sound remained critical to the elaboration of modernity” in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries (p.48). Before Sterne and Smith, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Friedrich Kittler questioned the crucial role of sound reproduction devices in media and communication in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.242 Many scholars in the social sciences today continue to interrogate the transformative role of sound reproduction devices.243
242 See Adorno, T. W. (1990). “The Form of the Phonograph Record”. October 55, pp. 56–61; Benjamin, W. (1969). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Illuminations: Schocken Books; Kittler, F. A. (1999). Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford University Press.
243 Bijsterveld, K. (2008). Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century. MIT Press; Bull, M. (2007). Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. New York: Routledge; Devine, K. (2014). “A Mysterious Music in the Air. Cultural Origins of the Loudspeaker”. In POMH 8 (1); Eisenlohr, P. (2018). Sounding Islam: Voice, Media, and Sonic Atmospheres in an Indian Ocean World: University of California Press; Goodman, S. (2010). Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear: MIT Press; Halliday, S. (2014): Sonic Modernity. Representing Sound in Literature, Culture, and the Arts. Edinburgh University Press; Katz, M. (2010): Capturing Sound. How Technology Has Changed Music.: University of California Press; Keightley, K. (1996). “‘Turn it down!’ she shrieked. Gender, Domestic Space, and High Fidelity”, 1948–59. Popular Music 15 (02), pp. 149–177; Lubinski, C., & Steen, A. (2017). “Traveling Entrepreneurs, Traveling Sounds: The Early Gramophone Business in India and China”. Itinerario, 41(2), 275–303.; Morat, D. (Ed.) (2014). Sounds of Modern History: Auditory Cultures in 19th- and 20th- Century Europe. New York: Berghahn Books; Pinch, T. & Bijsterveld, K. (Eds.) (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. New York: Oxford University Press; Suisman, D. (2009). Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music. Harvard University Press; Thompson, E. A. (2002). The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America (1900-1933). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; Volgsten, U. & Pontara, T. (2017): “Domestic Space, Music Technology, and the Emergence of Solitary Listening: Tracing the Roots of Solipsistic Sound Culture in the Digital Age”. Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning 99 (1), pp. 105–123; Weheliye, A. G. (2005). Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-modernity. Duke University Press.; Yasar, K. (2018). Electrified Voices: How the Telephone, Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868-1945 New York: Columbia University Press.
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Based on journals, archival documents, memoirs, and images, I will investigate how talking machines – the phonograph and the gramophone – shaped public memory, auditory perception, and the everyday experience of modernization in late Ottoman Istanbul. Unlike in the previous chapters, here, I focus on the cultural impact of novel technologies to explore how these machines, related practices, and institutions contributed to the discussions of modernity and the role of aural media within modernism. However, I should note that the scope of this study will not expand to include a whole array of “sound reproduction,” which consists of the telephone, radio, and other related technologies, nor limit itself to the emergence of the phonograph to comprehend the impact of talking machines. Emerging as a result of changing sets of practices, research, and innovation, sound reproduction technologies generated a whole set of novel habits for multiple actors, expanded listeners’ perceptive capacity, and created a larger cultural current filled with tensions and trends. Thus, I aim to contribute to the history of the senses by taking these transformations in sound, hearing, and listening as central to our understanding of late Ottoman Istanbul’s modernization.
Although the history of talking machines in the Ottoman Empire has previously been studied mainly along the lines of musicology – which took discographic research and recording companies as the basis of research to examine the development of the sound technology – none of these works investigated the socio-cultural impact of these devices from a sensory perspective.244 However, as Gauss (2014) explains, “a sense is produced from the various forms
244 Duygulu, Melih; Ünlü, Cemal (2000): 100 Yıllık Ses Kayıt Tarihimizde Müzikle Yolculuk. Ekinciler Holding, İstanbul; Işıktaş, Bilen (2016): “Tanburi Cemil Bey. Impact of Recording Technology Between Art and Mass Culture”. Recent Researches in Interdisciplinary Sciences, p. 236; Karabey, M. Muammer. 1999: “Müzik Piyasamizin Yüz Yili” Gönül Paçacı, ed., Cumhuriyet’in Sesleri. s. 168-173. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankasi Yayınları; Talu, Ercüment
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in which sound is created, processed, and made audible. It, therefore, seems appropriate to inquire into the historicity of practices based on listening to technically reproduced sounds” (pp.71-72). Indeed, feeling the need to convince their customers of their reproductions’ fidelity, record companies and stores heavily promoted the sonic particularities of novel media in their advertisements. They aimed to “minimize listeners’ awareness of any distinction between a live performance and its recording” (Leppert, 2015, p.128). Gradually leading to the emergence of a “sound culture” that reflected auditors’ sonic sensibilities, these technologies became more popular and, from the Yıldız Palace to the streets, were accepted by all classes. Consequently, like other aspects of the Hamidian media environment, they became the topic of a series of questions, regulations, and restrictions.
In her book The Soundscape of Modernity, Thompson (2002) states: “To those who lived through that transformation [from the late nineteenth century to the early 1930s], the change was dramatic and deeply felt. Some were energized, others enervated; all felt challenged to respond to the modern soundscape in which they now lived” (p.117). Focusing on the agencies, cultural practices, and sonic perceptions formulated around these devices, this chapter follows the overarching argument to examine the modernization of late Ottoman Istanbul from an auditory perspective. Although the term “modernity” cannot offer an analytical model, its investigative value could help us facilitate the imagination of these new modes of listening and challenges generated by the commodification of sound.
Ekrem (1943): “İstanbul'da İlk Sinema ve İlk Gramofon”. Perde ve Sahne (7); Ünlü, Cemal (2016): Git Zaman Gel Zaman. Fonograf - Gramofon - Taş Plak. Istanbul: Pan Yayıncılık.
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Generated through various technologies, companies, and actors, these new sensory and cultural practices present a challenge beyond their economic, media-archaeological, or musicology-related aspects. Although these are important in many respects, the main problem with recorded music history is that, once the companies went out of business, their recordings and documentation were not necessarily archived. As Gronow (2014) points out: “When records first appeared on the market, no country seemed to have considered the idea of collecting national record production systematically” (p.43). Only a few companies were able to preserve their releases and documentation.245 Consequently, most of the early recordings and discographies are either lost, undocumented, or in the hands of private collectors. Gronow (2019) argued that, since research on the recording industry's history and recorded music has been done by enthusiasts rather than academic historians, certain vital areas remain unstudied (p.445). Thus, concentrating on people’s accounts, official archives, journals, and business documents, this chapter aims, therefore, to shed light on the cultural impact of talking machines on public modes of auditory experience and practices during a period framed by the rise of nationalism, political crises, scientific discoveries, and industrial capitalism.
The Talking Machine in Istanbul: The Arrival of the Phonograph
The early history of the phonograph offers an exciting entry point to track sensorial changes in modernity. One of the earliest references to the phonograph in Istanbul dates as early as 1884/1885, by Ahmed Rasim. As an employee of the Ministry of Post and the Directorate of Telegraph (PTT), he published a booklet titled The Phonograph, One of the Most Remarkable
245 Based in London, EMI is the only record company with a well-organized archive that extends back to the late nineteenth century.
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Inventions of Mankind. This translated booklet mainly consisted of instructional and technical details regarding the device, including a picture of Edison and three other images of an early phonograph (Figures 30-31).
However, in his introduction entitled “Personal Opinion” (İfade-i Mahsusa), Rasim (1885) criticized the thoughts that still glorified medieval Islamic science and its technology transfer to Europe:
Some people take pride in the fact that foreign languages and science entered Europe through Arabs. These claims are very accurate. However, they also include scientists in foreign countries today. We say in response to them: […] Although it is the Arabs who introduced science to Europe, after the conquest of Andalusia, Europeans became observant by examining and discussing the books they captured, and they found the current perfection. It is not helpful for us to take pride in the memories of the past, as the expansion of education in our country will be realized by working (pp.2-3)
This introduction is essential to clarify a key question of the era, which was ceaselessly repeated: What caused the Ottoman underdevelopment in scientific and technological development? This technical booklet, for Rasim, is, therefore, a contribution to fill this gap. In his words, “because such works have still not been translated into our language. Since I want my brothers in my homeland to benefit as I have benefited, I translated some parts of this book and added some explanations” (p.3). However, Rasim still expressed his reservation in his concluding remarks: “Today, the phonograph is an ordinary machine with no admirable mechanical significance nor scientific function. […] [It] has no service in scientific research. Yet, it is a scientific oddity. It is also a first-degree wonder” (p.15).
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Although the idea behind phonograph recording is simple enough, it required precise engineering. Sounds received through the horn caused the diaphragm to vibrate. This diagram was attached to a stylus placed into a wax or tin foil-covered cylinder. When the handle was turned, the cylinder rotated, and the stylus began recording the vibrations from the diaphragm into it. The process ran in reverse to play the recorded sounds back. The stylus followed the pattern and translated vibrations into sound through the horn’s amplification, or in some earlier cases, through earphones.
The Ottoman author and journalist Ahmed Midhat also mentioned the phonograph in his 1885 novel Hayret. Besides being one of the earlier, if not first, mentions of the phonograph in Turkish literature, the following quote is significant for emphasizing the device’s sonic detail: “İsmail Azmi turned on the phonograph, and the cylinder of the machine started to rotate when he touched a spring. As if Sarpson was hidden in that drawer, he was talking with a feeble voice, as if he had suffered from malaria for six months” (Ahmet Midhat, 2000, p.498). As the following sections will explore in detail, lacking fidelity in reproducing the original sound, the phonograph continued to receive its fair share of criticism over the following decades.
A year after Rasim’s booklet, in 1886, news about the phonograph began to appear in various journals. However, since none of these accounts provided firsthand experiences, it is possible to argue that public experience of the phonograph in Istanbul was still very limited. Similar to Rasim, Hamiyet presented numerous instructional details regarding the phonograph’s functionality. Appreciating the abstraction of sound and its detachment from its source, it reported that “this device, which is one of the inventions of Americans who have reached the highest rank in the industrial world, is remarkable. […] The phonograph has a great function. It is simple to manufacture and use. In addition, it does not need electricity like the telegraph and
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telephone” (“Fonograf,” 1886, p.107). However, unlike Rasim, Hamiyet emphasized this novelty item as a speech recorder for offices: “It can notify both the officer and the shopkeepers regarding an important item or a necessary document – in a way that is more confident than to write in the pocketbook” (p.107).
Although the phonograph later became a tool for musical reproduction, the ability to reproduce spoken language carried particular interest for its early users. The shift from the personal recorder to a more popular and profitable entertainment machine would not be in effect until the mid-1890s. Designed and seen by Edison first as a labor-saving device for office use, in the 1880s, the phonograph’s primary function was still limited to speech recording. Accordingly, the first public appearances of the phonograph in Istanbul reflect that it was initially experienced as a “speaking machine.”246 Describing one of the earliest, if not the first, appearances of the phonograph in Istanbul, the American ambassador Cox (1887) shows that the defining figure of the earliest recordings was the human voice:
I have said that the Turk never shows surprise, even if he feels it. Dr. Washburn, president of the Robert (American) College, illustrates this point by an anecdote. He brought here from America one of Edison’s phonographs. He exhibited it to a company of Turks. He vociferates into its orifice. The machine grinds out of its vocal tinfoil much
246 Although Edison submitted his patent as “Speaking Machine” on December 24, 1877, he also proposed other uses: 1. Dictation and letter writing; 2. Books for the blind; 3. Educational tool to preserve explanations by a teacher or teachings on elocution; 4. Music recordings; 5. “Family recordings” to preserve sayings; 6. Music boxes and toys; 7. Clocks with a voice and time-related messages; 8. Preservation of languages through phonographic books; 9. Speech recordings of famous personalities; 10. Connection with the telephone to create records. Edison, T. A. (1878). “The Phonograph and Its Future”. The North American Review, 126 (262), 527–536.
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talk in English in its squeaky way. It is no marvel to the company. There is not an eyebrow raised in wonder, not a question asked. When it talks Turkish, ah! Then, how they marvel! How could it learn the Turkish language so soon! (p.555)
Accommodating “a multimedia environment for the collection and archiving of information,” the Yıldız Palace received reports about the phonograph relatively early (Ersoy, 2016, p.339). Translated from a Russian newspaper, an 1888 document issued by the Yıldız translation office of foreign papers and the palace (Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Tahrirat-ı Ecnebiye ve Mabeyn Mütercimliği) provided technical details as well as a particular interest in the reproduction of the human voice. According to this report, “the device named ‘Phonograph,’ which means sound/writing, is neither like a telephone nor a telegraph. As it has the characteristics of preserving the accent and voice of any person and re-declare it at any time, it is a trustworthy and awe-inspiring marvel. After the recording is made, it can be transferred like a letter and listened there again” (OA, 1888).
By the end of the 1880s, the torrent of accounts in the press had already spread the news across Istanbul. Servet-i Fünun reported on November 30, 1890: “The newspapers repeatedly informed and explained about Edison and his phonograph called akım-ı seda. Thanks to that information, everyone knows what the phonograph is” (“Fonograf,” 1890, p.76). However, the public experience of this “speaking machine” was still very limited. Although the Yıldız Palace made certain attempts in 1890,247 the first demonstration of the phonograph to Abdülhamid did not
247 The Sun reported on October 8, 1890: “While in Vienna, an invitation came from the Sultan, requesting Mr. Wangeman to bring the phonograph to the palace at Constantinople. But visitors to the Sultan’s palace are subject to the whims of a capricious ruler. They will be entertained sumptuously, but they may be obliged to wait for days before the caprice of his Oriental Majesty
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occur before March 1892. According to The Morning News, a Moroccan entertainer who performed throughout the United States brought the device to Abdülhamid:
Hassan Ben Ali, the Moorish chief of Chicago, who is in Turkey collecting exhibits for the fair, set a phonograph to work before the sultan the other day. It ground out ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the potentate was so overcome with fear and admiration that he ‘stood and delivered’ all the Chicagoan demanded, which was an escort for his expedition. The next African explorer may profit by this incident, take along a phonograph and return laden with honors and perquisites (“Daily News,” 1892).
Later in the same year, the writer and journalist Mahmud Sadık (1892) published his essay on the phonograph titled “Lakırdı Torbaya Girer mi? - Can you put the words/empty talk into a bag?”248 in the journal Servet-i Fünun. This essay mentioned one of the earliest, if not the first, semi-public appearance of the device taking place in Beyoğlu: “Visitors to the 1889 Paris exhibition had seen the phonograph, one of the masterpieces and passionate artistic discoveries of Edison’s. […] Some of our fellow citizens who did not go to Paris also gained this experience. Some have
will grant an audience. Mr. Wangeman knew this, and he had no time to waste. He said to the Minister who brought the invitation that if he would guarantee that the trip should not occupy more than two weeks he would go to Constantinople. The Sultan’s representative was unable to give any assurance on behalf of his capricious chief, and so the invitation was declined with thanks” (“In the Places of Kings,” 1890).
248 The author makes a wordplay of the popular Turkish proverb “Lakırtı/laf torbaya girmez - Words/empty talk cannot be put into a bag”. A similar example in the English language would be: You cannot unring a bell / Can you unring a bell?
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listened to famous Hungarian Vambiri’s249 recorded speech in Turkish from a phonograph brought to the Peşte Hotel in Beyoğlu” (p.70).250
This essay also emphasizes how the phonograph was initially perceived as an instrument of modernization before becoming a popular tool to produce music. For Sadık, the phonograph “has not yet gone beyond standing as an example in the corner of wealthy people’s houses and the living rooms of those with a special interest in scientific advancements” (p.70). Yet, he predicted that “it will have an effect on the habits of humanity such as telegraph and telephone and will be one of the household items necessary for living in the city” (p.70). As in previous accounts, Sadık saw the phonograph according to the practices of writing and reading. In his words, “instead of those cold, senseless pieces of paper called ‘letters’ that cannot reflect the feelings of friends, relatives or a loved one properly, a paraffin or tin-plated cylinder will be received. If put on the phonograph, our machine will caress our ears with the sweet words of our dear friend, with his/her excited and delightful voice. It will create an impact that a paper cannot provide” (p.71).
Contrary to Edison’s emphasis on recorded voices in office use, the early phonographs were not particularly well designed for this purpose. Lacking a start/stop mechanism, they were not practical as recording devices. Additionally, they produced a background noise251 and were
249 Ármin Vámbéry (1832-1913) was a Hungarian Turkologist and traveler.
250 Müftüzade (1899) wrote: “Those who could not go to the Paris exhibition were also able to see a phonograph brought to Beyoğlu here”, p.35.
251 Listen to the functioning sound of a phonograph with an empty cylinder on my 2016 digital collection project “Sounds of The Rahmi M. Koç Museum - Echoes of Industrial Legacy” hosted by Koç University Library: https://libdigitalcollections.ku.edu.tr/digital/collection/SRKM/id/81/rec/13
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difficult to listen to due to their low volume. Moreover, the early wax cylinders could not be easily copied for mass-production nor hold more than two minutes of recordings. As a result, it was initially perceived as a novelty item without daily applications. Yet, for Sadık, this “oddity of our time” (ucube-i zaman) carried further practical uses, similar to Edison’s proposed applications (p.71). According to Sadık, these devices were useful as an office tool (recording the decision made at a meeting using a phonograph, commercial letters), a form of long-distance communication, a home recording device, an education tool (recording heart palpitations and abnormal lung sounds; replacing instructors to repeat the course easily), an instrument or tool for the justice department (validating the will of a deceased person), an archival tool (recording the words of “great people”), and entertainment in the form of a doll.252 He also considered the phonograph as a permanent solution to prevent the noises of night-watchers and porters once combined with Edison’s other invention, the megaphone:
Possibly, instead of advertisements posted on the streets and walls, a voice cabinet (söz dolabı) will be placed to make the desired announcements by crying out loud. Thus, the porter who tries to attract customers by announcing the ferry movement in front of the customs will get rid of the trouble. […] If this discovery occurs, the guards will also avoid shouting at night to report the fire. A phonograph with a megaphone can scream all over the neighborhood. It will be powerful enough to call a few guards. (p.70).
The use and marketability of phonographs were not embedded in daily applications to successfully fulfill the functions mentioned above. However, towards the end of the 1890s, it
252 See “Edison’s Phonograph Doll” on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Phonograph_Doll
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would gain enormous popularity in Istanbul as a device to reproduce music. Once again, as an early and well-informed observer of sound-recording technologies, Sadık enthusiastically provided insight into the historical and sensory importance of the phonograph:
We held a piece of paper called a ‘note’ with some scrappy drawings (kargacık burgacıklar) on it. Whistling with pure joy in his eyes, a musician can read it as a song by Offenbach. A group of people like me admire him reading these joyful tunes written on a piece of paper. Now, thanks to the phonograph, even the most beautiful opera piece can be heard from the seductive voice of a prima donna when desired (p.71).
Comparing the practice of music listening to notation reading, Sadık successfully described a phenomenon that we take for granted today: the disconnection of visual and auditory environments made possible by recording technologies. Dislocating music from its written source, the early phonograph recontextualized it through a new set of aural features. The wide acceptance of these technologies for entertainment would also lead to a novel mode of listening and auditory sensibility involving the “fidelity” of the copies to the original.
For their early users, novel technologies did not only represent development in the sciences,253 but also functioned as signs of social progress. Questioning the “unpopularity of the phonograph in Europe,” Sadık heavily criticized the deep anxieties about the phonograph that resulted from “the science created by human abilities and talents” (p.70-71). As a modernist who adopted the idea, he denounced the French Academy of Science members for mistaking the phonograph
253 Maarif wrote in 1893: “Yalnız burada şu kadarını söyleyelim ki fonograf 1877 senesinde ihtira olunmuş ve 1888 senesine kadar bu ihtira-ı gariba adeta bir oyuncak gibi öylece terk edilmişti. Edison’un sem ve gayret-i mütemadiyesi fotoğrafın terakki ve i'tilâsına bahsolmuştur” (“Fonografın Derece-i Terakkisi,” 1893).
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technician for a ventriloquist when they first saw the device in 1878.254 Recognizing the phonograph’s essential role in scientific development, Sadık drew a line between the social constructions of modern sound in Europe and the United States:
It seems strange to them [the Europeans] that the phonograph repeats the sound. Since they consider this machine a prisoner of magic rather than a result of advancement in science, the people in Europe cannot get used to the phonograph. […] If the experts were caught in such suspicion and astonishment, it is justified for the people to be afraid and shy. […] Even though the phonograph is not widespread in Europe, it is so well-received in America that the factories under Edison’s command cannot complete orders on time. […] Although the uses mentioned above were well-received and applied in the United States, they were only briefly mentioned in Europe (p.70-71).
Five years later, the French journal Le Gaulois would criticize the Ottomans for the same reason by assigning a crucial role to religion in this shift toward novel sounds: “[You] know the severity of the Qur’an regarding the arts, whatever it is. And it is not only about the arts! A good Muslim should ignore all the conveniences or pseudo amenities of life imported from the land of giaours. Need I remind you that the telephone and the phonograph still do an apprenticeship in front of the Sublime-Porte today” (“Billet du Soir,” 1897, p.1).
Indeed, as the upcoming sections will discuss in detail, the Ottoman State controlled the distribution of talking machines and prohibited Qur’anic and “immoral” recordings since the
254 See the following letter published by The Thomas Edison Papers: http://edison.rutgers.edu/yearofinno/TAEBdocs/Doc1248_Enclosure_ParisAcademy.pdf?DocId=D7802ZDE2; See also: Basic Issues in Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1976 U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. p.199.
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early 1890s. Still, the Yıldız Palace manifested considerable interest in those technologies. An 1898 telegram sent from Galata to New York stated that Abdülhamid wanted the gramophone urgently.255 According to The New York Tribune report in 1899: “The Sultan of Turkey has ordered a gramophone for his Imperial palace at Constantinople so that there seems to be a legitimate reason for the company’s claim that ‘the fame of the gramophone is worldwide’” (“At the National Gramophone Company’s. No. 874 Broadway,” 1899, p.8). The French journal Le Ménestrel also reported in 1903:
Sultan Abdul-Hamid is, as we know, a great music lover and, at the same time, an excellent pianist. Foreign artists who give concerts in Constantinople seek the lucrative honor of performing in front of the sultan, and they are often successful. But the sultan cannot invite all the artists who are passing through Constantinople. Having already been the victim of bitter disappointments with the quality of the invited artists, he has found an excellent way to distinguish interesting artists from others. The palace marshal invites them to sing or play their program first in front of a phonograph, and if the experience is favorable to them, they are admitted to the palace (“Hamid et Le Phonographe,” 1903, p.79).
Thanks to the local agents, phonographs in Istanbul spread relatively rapidly. The decreasing costs of the machine made it available for widespread middle-class consumption.256 Symbolizing
255 See Y.MTV. 179/90, OA.
256 According to Ali İhsan Müftüzade (1899),“the price of a phonograph has dropped from thirty to forty liras to five hundred piastres today. This is due to the competition between factories,” p.35. A. N. (1899) also noted: “Phonograph, the machine that can be bought from two and a half liras to two or three hundred francs,” p.59.
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social progress for most people, the phonograph assumed a transformative power and began to shape auditory sensibility and music culture in Istanbul towards the 1900s (Figure 32). Ottoman journals regularly updated their users regarding the developments in the phonograph, which “confirms the high degree of human intelligence before the nineteenth-century” (“Ulûm ve Fünûn,” 1899, p.290). The public had more opportunities to experience the machine firsthand. According to the author and journalist Ercüment Ekrem Talu (1943),
before anyone else, the first phonograph was brought to Istanbul [in 1896-1897] by the famous chemist Dellasuda Faik Pasha, who had a pharmacy in Beyoğlu. One could go to the pharmacy and listen to a cylinder or two for a penny (kuruş). I will never forget that I first listened to an unclear speech of the French literary figure Emile Zola and a polka called L’Enclume. Because the phonograph was cheap and portable, it spread fast in our country (p.30).
Author and teacher Refik Halid Karay (2009) demonstrated in his memoir that these stores functioned as novel environments of collective listening and public entertainment:
I remember I was either ten or twelve years old [1897-1899]. [...] Hacı Hafız Efendi sat in his place [in the living room] with excitement and began to speak. […] He passed a while ago through Beyazıt Square and turned into Sahaflar Bazaar. As he was approaching Çarşıkapı, he saw fifty to sixty people that were gathered in front of a shop, watching inside. “Destur!” he said and cut through them. In the middle [of the store], he saw a tool like a sewing machine spinning a black cylinder. Six people with rubber tubes in their ears sat around it. They were listening to something and laughing, sometimes surprised. That is how Istanbul heard the phonograph for the first time. Then, they brought it to the
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store of the Makineci Salim in Vezneciler. Once again, it was the one with the earplugs. Cylinders consisted of things like the laughter of an Englishman, the speech of Abdülezel Pasha, the imitation of a Jew by Meddah Aşkın (pp.109-111).
Talu and Karay’s memoirs point out that the emphasis in the late 1890s, at least in places of collective listening, was still on the spoken voice. Lacking good sonic quality, the early phonographs brought recorded voice as a popular form of entertainment in the shape of a speech, monologue, joke, or poetry. Yet, the rise of a music market shifted the focus in Istanbul right before the turn of the century. The 1899 booklet Phonograph by the writer Ali Muzaffer noted that the phonograph “became popular everywhere” in Istanbul (“Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi,” 1993-1995, p.292). According to the writer and journalist Sermed Muhtar Alus, the phonograph became widely spread in 1898-99 and “entered from large mansions to small houses” (Ünlü, 2016, p.132). Ali İhsan Müftüzade (1899) also wrote:
Today many factories in Europe also manufacture phonographs. Thanks to this competition, phonograph machines can be purchased very cheaply today. It has become quite widespread in our city that those who do not have a phonograph are estimated at forty percent. It can be guessed that many of our most musicians, from the most famous to the worst, have come to the point where their throats are injured as they are busy filling cylinders. […] Some others, like those who collect stamps, search the cylinders of such famous musicians from morning to evening, and archive them in neatly manufactured drawers (p.36).
Although the phonograph’s main functions and popularity were formulated around recorded music and light entertainment, some still emphasized or fantasized about its office-related
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function in the late 1890s. According to the writer and politician Hüseyin Cavit Yalçın (1899), “phonographs can now replace scribes on numerous occasions. […] Nobody’s writing speed can keep up with the speed of thought and speech” (p.379).
Another essential context in the conceptualization of talking machines was education. These devices offered an alternate avenue for educational innovation. Like Sadık,257 Maarif glorified the educational purpose of the phonograph with a picture in the early 1890s: “Now it is possible to both teach and take lessons with the phonograph. No matter what the lesson is!” (“Fonografın Derece-i Terakkisi,” 1893, p.171) (Figure 33).258 Ahmet İhsan (1904) wrote: “Gramophones are made so perfectly that they can record and repeat any sound. Thanks to this excellence, it can also serve as a language teacher. Once the language’s pronunciation is successfully recorded with this, it is possible to convey the accent and the speech as if accompanied by someone who speaks it most beautiful and smoothly” (p.143). This educational purpose was manifested for some in music. According to Müftüzade (1899), “many people practice music by inserting famous musicians’ recordings into the phonograph. If it continues like this, it seems that there will be no need for music teachers” (p.36). Yekta (1906) also wrote: “If you think about it, the gramophone has worked best for music enthusiasts. A student who wanted to listen and imitate a famous musician’s style and unique taksims could hardly reach this goal before. […] Now, with
257 “Perhaps the phonograph will replace the teacher in the classroom.” Mahmud Sadık (1892), p.73.
258 According to Müftüzade (1899), “there is also the possibility that the phonograph could function as a schoolteacher. Such a service can be used at any time. Those who hire private teachers for their children will especially benefit from this,” p.36.
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the gramophone, we have the opportunity to listen to the songs of famous musicians exactly in the same way as we desire” (p.3).
“Buzzing like Bees”: The Growing Popularity of the Gramophone
As the popularity of phonographs increased, a whole set of new problems crystallized. Initial uses of phonographs met with skepticism. A brief look at the phonograph’s early auditors demonstrates that the reproduced sound’s quality did not reflect the original for some. A. N. (1899) wrote:
Phonograph! This screeching machine is so dull, so tormenting that it is impossible; I will not be able to keep my silence. [...] When the phonograph came to our city for the first time and started to appear occasionally here and there in Beyoğlu, who would have thought that this could one day be turned into an annoying, frustrating torture device that causes a headache? [Who would have thought that] many shops, small and large, public and private, from paper dealers, tobacco shops, to grocery stores, will work like hives because of this annoying machine that has no merit other than buzzing like bees? (p.59)
Indeed, the phonograph did not present an audio quality comparable to the gramophone. Although Edison (1878) argued that “a song sung on the phonograph is reproduced with marvelous accuracy and power,” those early mechanical recordings were flawed and full of substantial background noises (p.553). Moreover, early phonographs could record only a single wax cylinder at a time. Thus, performers had to repeat their performances for each copy. As a result, the phonograph and its cylinders did not deliver the sensory impression they promised. Yet, it is essential to underline that A. N. raised his concerns in 1899, a few years before the gramophone gained popularity and altered listeners’ taste and perception patterns. The mental
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representation of the phonograph that A. N. labeled was, therefore, shaped not only by technological progress but, as an extended form of sensory impression also by individual modes of auditory experience.
Some of the phonograph’s early auditors expressed their hesitations from a cross-cultural perspective. The following description of a Ramadan night in Şehzadebaşı by Sami Paşazade Sezai (1898) provides a good example: “The tea shops are on the opposite side of the ‘circus’! The Zuhurî branch! Phonograph five to ten steps ahead! Karagöz alongside ‘Cinematographer’! Edison was watching the Zuhurî branch, Karagöz was listening to Edison. Edison! Isn’t it a strange contrast that this magnificent creation, this new world, sits on the same chair with ancient Asia?” (p.3).259
The public use of phonographs also encountered some local oppositions.260 Despite these initial complications, the device had already begun to replace live music. Providing pre-recorded music, the phonograph replaced singing and playing at home. A. N. (1899) wrote:
259 Mentioned in: Çeliktemel-Thomen, Özde (2015): Hayal Hakikat Olursa. Osmanlı İstanbulu’nda Filmler, Gösterimler, İzlenimler (1896-1909). In Uluslararası Osmanlı İstanbulu Sempozyumu III.
260 According to an anecdote by the Turkish journalist Nurettin Rüştü Büngül (1882-1951), “recently, when the phonograph came out, a person rented a corner in the Bedesten to place a few phonographs and played them to attract customers. Those who did not like this called him to the guild and warned: ‘This place is opened with basmala and closed with prayer. Such instruments are forbidden here.’ But he did not listen to them. When they went to the police, they received the following answer: ‘Trade is free; what can we do?’ A tradesman called Crazy Mustafa said, ‘leave this to me. I will kick him out of the Bedesten.’ When the phonographer’s client arrived, he began thumping a drum so loud that the phonograph would be inaudible. And to those who asked, ‘What are you doing Mustafa?’ he answered back: ‘Is not trade free? I am auctioning the drum.’ Realizing that he would not be able to hold his place, the gramophonist left the Bedesten.” Büngül (1939), pp.53-54.
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I have a poet friend [...] He told me that his neighbors have a phonograph. Whenever he comes to his mansion [on Bosphorus] in the evenings and sits on his chair to take a breath from his window and to listen to himself, annoying wheezing starts from his neighbors: Yakomi’s zurna, like a squeaky garden closet, accompanied by occasional shouts: “Long live Yakomi!” Constantly repeating, this would continue for hours. [...] Imagine a mansion where its inhabitants are among the most elegant and delightful families of the Bosphorus, with few people to play the piano and oud. This family has all the elegance, nobility, and grandeur to make you listen to an imperious prelude from the piano every night or a warm (mahrur) and exciting (muharrik) oud taksim. Instead, they make you listen to a zurna through a sniveling (zırlak) phonograph. Whereas an abandoned and crippled piano stays in a despicable corner (p.59).
It is essential to note that A. N.’s criticism not only points out a well-known duality between high/folk music261 or the penetration of European music into Istanbul households. The music recording technologies created novel sensibilities of hearing and altered the cultural practice of listening. Generating a private listening space, these objects were also used for intensive listening. In the words of Gauss (2014): “From the listener’s point of view, the phono-object pluralized the possibilities of listening, in that it opened up entirely new interconnections in which listening could now take place” (p.83). Becoming more private and individualistic, listening began to be experienced more closely in the cultural life of modernity. The following
261 After the first half of the nineteenth century, music was no longer considered a form of popular entertainment but an inspirational and elevating art form good for the human spirit and mind. See Aikin, E. J. (2001). High Culture, Low Culture: The Singular Duality of the Library of Congress. American Studies, 42(3), 43–61. Retrieved from https://journals.ku.edu/amsj/article/view/3069
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excerpt from Mehmed Celal’s 1899 poem “To Phonograph” brilliantly demonstrates this direct connection on a personal level by articulating feelings through the sounds emitted from the phonograph:
Dinle.. dinle, fonograf ne diyor
Bütün avaze-i hazîniyle
Ah kalb harabi nakl ediyor
Ruhumun en hazin eniniyle
Dinle.., dinle, fonografı, ama
Seni göz yaşlarımla şad ediyor
Onu da sözlerinle aldatma
Şu zavallı Celâli yad ediyor
Ey ezberleyen sesler, gidip gör o periyi
Aheste inleyişinle biraz ruhumu incit
Göz yaşlarımı hatırlat, ahımı dinle
Gelecekteki garip esirliğimi arz et
[…]
Dinle.. dinle, fonograf ne diyor
Bütün hüzünlü bağırışıyla
Ah kalp haraplığını anlatıyor,
Ruhumun en hazin iniltisiyle
(Mehmed Celal, 1899, p.1)
Listen… Listen to what the phonograph says.
With all its sad loudness
Oh, it narrates a ruined heart
With the saddest groan of my soul
Listen… listen to what the phonograph says but
It beatifies you with my tears
Do not deceive it with your words either
It remembers this poor Celal.
O memorizing voices, go see that fairy
Hurt my soul a little with your quiet groans
Remind me of my tears, listen to my sigh
Present my strange captivity in the future
[…]
Listen… Listen to what the phonograph says
With all its sad shouts
Oh, it tells of a ruined heart,
With the saddest groan of my soul
These novel forms of recording technology generated not only new listening environments, practices, and legal restrictions but also a multi-cultural environment for musicians, local actors, recording companies, and audiences to cooperate. As new recording technologies led to the decline of the phonograph in the years following 1900, they also crystallized their presumed
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function: musical entertainment. Sets of inter-relations constructed between agents, institutions, musicians, consumers, and the Ottoman state, configured the modalities of this novel cultural environment shaped by the norms of capitalism. Especially after the foundation of Emile Berliner’s Gramophone Company in 1898, sound-recording devices had further consequences for their use, distribution, and marketability as part of the entertainment industry. As listeners became familiar with talking machines, they also emphasized sonic details between different machines. Listening, therefore, became a cultural process based on personal impressions and social modes of experience shaped by this multifaceted auditory modernization.
The Emergence of the Gramophone and the Recording Industry in Istanbul
According to Sterne (2003), “technologies had to be articulated to institutions and practices to become media” (p.25). Although the commodification of sound began in Istanbul in the 1890s, the emergence of a wider network of participation, production, distribution, and interaction began only after Emile Berliner’s gramophone gained popularity in the 1900s (Figure 34). This rise of popularity and profitability in sound reproduction technologies led to distribution networks, agencies, and various local actors, which eventually formed the borders of a global cultural phenomenon: recorded music. Generating a record consumption culture and changing the “patterns of music reception,” recorded music has secured the long-term existence of a fast-growing market that was mainly controlled by a dozen companies until the 1920s (Rempe & Torp, 2017).
Although Berliner invented the gramophone in 1887, he needed several years to experiment with the device. One of these early experiments was reported by Sadık (1892):
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Despite its miraculous feature, the phonograph stayed silent in front of a crowd. In other words, whoever wanted to benefit from the phonograph had to hold two pipes in his ear and listen calmly. Thanks to a new device developed by an inventor from Washington named Emile Berliner, the phonograph is no longer an instrument to be used only by placing it in the ear. He increased its voice loud enough for hundreds of listeners filling a theater hall to hear at the same time (p.37).
Indeed, using a rotating disk on a flat surface, the gramophone was considerably louder. First marketing the device in 1895, Berliner established the Gramophone Company in London in April 1898 (Sterne, 2003, p.203). Only three months after its foundation, the Yıldız Palace officially requested from New York the urgent delivery of a gramophone for Sultan Abdülhamid.262 Soon the company would become the market leader, with a German subsidiary to press its records, Deutsche Grammophon.
Despite the functional similarities with the phonograph, the gramophone lacked the phonograph’s sound recording function. Consumers could not make their recordings, but for most people, that did not matter. In Bowers’ (2007) words: “The consumer recording feature was actually a hindrance to the large-scale success of the machine. People did not enjoy hearing their voices ‘play back,’ and they did not see much purpose in making personal records. Therefore, the machine was viewed initially as a novelty item or modern marvel, capable of little more than demonstrating scientific advancement, and without practical applications” (p.7). The gramophone, however, was designed for popular use. It was considerably louder, less noisy, and instead of fragile wax cylinders, it used a mass-produced flat disk made of shellac. Disks were
262 Y.MTV. 179/90, OA.
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“easier to manufacture and handle, and their playing time was longer than cylinders” (Gronow, 2014, p.32). Since the playing speed was standardized at seventy-eight revolutions per minute (rpm), the gramophone was also easier to use. Consequently, it surpassed the phonograph’s popularity by 1904/5. Although the phonograph was still available to purchase, it remained a very specific device with a singular function.
As mentioned above, the developments in talking machines led to the emergence of listening practices linked to rationalization and hearing. Called the “audile technique” by Sterne (2003), “this type of listening shifted from attention to the sound qua speech or music or some other phenomenon to the sound qua sound” (p.157). Even in the earlier advertisements of the phonograph, one factor that was continually stressed was the recordings’ quality. According to Leppert (2015), “both Victor and Edison addressed the issue in their marketing of recordings and phonographs. Both companies claimed high levels of achievement in this regard, alongside increased dynamics as well. The companies’ very expensive advertising campaigns consistently engage sound fidelity, starting with the claim that objective listeners could not tell the difference between live performance and a recording” (p.122).
As the “perfect embodiment of industrial capitalism,” the gramophone redefined talking machines and generated a stable entertainment industry consisting of recording artists, engineers, companies, stores, customers, and competitive marketing strategies (Halevi, 2019, p.131). The emergence of an active music industry created a social organization comprised of numerous technical, musical, and commercial practices. Transcending religious, cultural, and national borders, sound technologies gradually turned into sound media and generated an industry hold in numerous countries at the same time. Especially strong in Berlin, London, Paris, and New York, the recording companies’ experts appeared in different geographical areas and in Istanbul as
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early as 1900. According to Pennanen (2007), “they had realized that without an impressive recorded repertoire of local music, it was impossible to sell equipment in each area” (p.112).
Thanks to various studies, we know that recording companies started sending their recording technicians to Istanbul as early as 1900 to broaden their discography and fulfill the demand with suitable recordings.263 The first recording company established in Istanbul was Berliner’s. According to Alan Kelly (2002), an assistant to Emile Berliner, William Sinkler Darby, came to Istanbul on behalf of Berliner’s Deutsche Grammophon on May 26, 1900 (p.15). Staying at the Pera Palace, he made 167 recordings. Over the next twelve years, except in 1908, Berliner’s technicians264 would make over 3,000 records in Istanbul (Strötbaum, 1992). However, this number includes every single recording session and, as argued by Cemal Ünlü, it is unlikely that every one of these recordings was actually released (Ünlü, 2016, p.142).
Since it was a mechanical process, the recording devices were relatively compact and easy to transport. However, recording was not a simple process. During the first decades of the twentieth century, recording studios only existed in the cities mentioned above. These experts had to expand the company’s repertoire by recording well-known songs, preferably with the most famous artist in every city. Recordings were not done in studios but mainly in hotel rooms. Musicians had to be arranged according to their instruments’ volume as close as possible to the horn to increase sound dynamics. Although the initial resistance toward talking machines gradually decreased, musicians’ anxiety and refusal persisted because of religious restrictions. A
263 “Yeni çıkan şarkıları dahi zabt etmek için şehrimize ayrıca bir zanaatkar gelmiştir” (“Gramofon,” 1901). See also: Strötbaum (1993), Kelly (1994b), Kelly (1994a), Kelly (2004).
264 Franz Hampe, Will C. Gaisberg, Max Hampe, C. Scheuplein, Fred Gaisberg, and Arthur S. Clarke.
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report by a German phonograph technician writing under the pseudonym “Tantris” 265 (1914) demonstrates the skeptical as well as enthusiastic reactions he encountered during an early recording session he held in his hotel room in Pera:
My short stay in the Turkish capital was quite a few years ago. It was my first trip to the Orient. […] I spent a few days in Constantinople and prepared for the first Turkish recordings. The repertoire traded there up to that point was Western European, French vocals, orchestra – primarily Austrian. Now we wanted to make the first Turkish recordings. Musicians were easy to find but getting singers in front of the horn was no small task. No matter how much I spent the evenings in Karagöz, the popular theaters, no matter how many of the people came to the hotel the following day, it was impossible to get them in front of the horn; they saw the whole story as something heretical, hostile to religion, and there was almost trouble with the high clergy. Only by the kind help of a doctor from the German hospital I reached my goal. But strangely, men were shy in the beginning, yet, after listening to the wax, they were as happy as children, desired to sing again and again. Finally, a whole group of singers gathered every morning to make recordings; women, however, were absolutely inaccessible (p.284).
Although Tantris did not provide the exact date, musicians’ responses and the type of recording correspond to 1900-1904. In his memoir, he also described the amazement and joy he encountered in the listening session of “the first Turkish record,” held in a record store in Pera:
265 This is a reference to Wagner’s famous opera Tristan und Isolde.
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For voice recordings, I used a street crier whom I got to know in the office. His bright-sounding voice echoed from the Yeni Cami to the War Ministry. A “scene in front of a mosque,” depicting a procession with prayer and singing, followed by a minor dispute, had to be recorded several times before it turned out to be satisfactory. As I was walking home through the main street in the evening, I quickly went into the store of an acquaintance who had been selling phonographs for a long time and, pointing to my package, showed him the first Turkish record. He was understandably very interested and asked me to make it possible to listen to the wax once, a request that I could easily comply with. I had a small record machine in my hotel room, which I always carried with me for such a purpose. In the meantime, all of his relatives and acquaintances gathered in the store; I was quite astonished to meet many people on my return, including Turkish women for the first time, masked and completely veiled. On the other hand, their husbands, who had permanent business relationships in Vienna and Paris, who visited the Leipzig Trade Fair almost every year, were educated men, free of prejudice, found it perfectly okay that their wives should return to the darkest corners in front of me; I saw nothing more of them than large, astonished eyes. I started. During the prayers and chants, the whole assembly listened devoutly, their heads bowed, their eyes turned away from me, directed towards the East. But as soon as the humorous part began, the whole audience was infected by the most unbounded exuberance. Roaring laughter filled the room. Especially the women completely forgot my presence. They screamed, giggled, and rolled over with pleasure. But only at the first reproduction, later they returned to their reserve. This was the first and only time I saw and heard living Turkish women; it
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was an outburst of merriment, serenity, and happiness that spontaneously broke the etiquette (pp.284-285).
As Tantris’ memoir points out, early talking machines led people to experience an unknown and strange idea and object simultaneously. Revealing basic emotions such as interest, surprise, fear, and joy, these devices engaged and entertained listeners in multiple ways. His memoirs also demonstrate that the recording “studios” and stores were essential multi-cultural and multi-gendered spots in Istanbul even in the early nineteenth century.
Creating an environment featuring human connection and relationships, as well as sensory experiences, talking machines generated numerous technical, musical, and commercial practices. Embedding social activity around music-making and listening, the gramophone’s emergence contributed to these multi-ethnic networks that transcended national, religious, cultural, institutional, and even linguistic boundaries. Since the city comprised several ethnic, cultural, and religious communities, each community’s particular music culture shaped the record stores and their discographies. Making recordings of Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Kurdish, Serbian, Bulgarian, Arabic, and Laz music, record companies experimented with “the promise of ethnic consumption” (Halevi, 2019, p.137; Ünlü, 2016, p.146).
Although there is no comprehensive list of early wax recordings produced in Istanbul, thanks to the above-mentioned discographic research, we have sufficient information to investigate the development of music culture in the early twentieth century. A detailed look at these recording lists, which have not yet been studied, might reveal critical information on how these records functioned as sonic representations of cultural exchange at global and local scales. Moreover, their stories can help us to reconfigure the social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire
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from a unique angle. As Pennanen (2007) points out, “national catalogs usually reflect the cultural position of each marketing area” (p.138). However, since this task requires the investigative paradigms and methodologies of musicology, it falls outside this chapter’s scope. Therefore, focusing on advertisements, archival documents, and memoirs, the next section will provide an auditory and cultural perspective on how the record industry and local actors emphasized fidelity in sound reproduction as a defining aspect of modern culture during the transition period from cylinder-playing machines to flat-disc players.
“Fonograf Meraklılarına Müjde”: The Recording Industry in Development
From the earliest years onwards, the recording industry of the twentieth century was a competitive international business. As the technology and industrialization of sound recording advanced, new machines’ costs steadily decreased and subsequently increased record consumption. As the principal exporter of recording equipment and records to the Ottoman Empire, Germany played an important role in Istanbul’s recording business. The most prominent German companies such as Odeon, Favorite, and Lyrophon were present in the city, and 148,000 discs were imported from Germany in 1912 alone (Gronow, 1981, p.283). These companies also provided engineering assistance, expertise, and supplies for the Blumenthal Brothers’ record factory for Orfeon records, founded in Feriköy in 1911 (O’Connell, 2017, p.50) (Figures 35-36). Before World War I, gramophone records were widely popular and accessible to most of the population (Gronow, 2014, p.33). Despite the interruption of the business during the war, various small or pirate companies –such as Hafız Achir Record, American Record, Turmaphone, Türkiyat Rekord, Perfectaphone, Jupiter Record-Premier, Chukri Record, Corana Record, Fabrication Ottomane (Figure 37), and Disque Odé— appeared in Istanbul (“Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi,” 1993-1995, p.263). Securing the continuation of the recording industry
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for an extended period, music consumption generated a good number of record companies and stores in various parts of the city (Appendices 3 and 4 for the map of the major stores selling records and/or talking machines).
A brief look at the list of record stores in Istanbul between 1901-1913 reveals that, unlike the photography studios of the era, many Muslim entrepreneurs were active in the earlier years of the phonograph. Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects, particularly Jewish and, to a lesser extent, Greek entrepreneurs, began to dominate the market after 1905 as the gramophone’s popularity increased. It is also remarkable that record stores were not clustered in the “western districts” of Istanbul, Pera, and Galata but blended in the urban space of neighborhoods such as Şehzadebaşı, Sirkeci, and Beşiktaş. My feeling is that these unresearched entrepreneurs made a significant impact on the auditory modernization of the city by contributing to the sensory shift and cultural interaction within their communal boundaries. However, since such a suggestion would require a closer investigation of these stores combined with each area’s cultural and urban history, it falls outside the scope of this chapter.
Since the recording industry focused heavily on their devices’ playback and entertainment potential, the dynamics and sound quality of the records carried essential importance for their marketing strategy. Once the industry focused on convincing their customers regarding the fidelity in sound reproduction, record stores followed them. Pre-recorded cylinders and discs turned into commodities with unique commercial values, sound quality being the most important.
Perhaps the first record store in Istanbul, Gülistan, was an earlier example of this (Figure 38). The store was established in Bahçekapı in 1895 by Hafız Aşir, his friends, and Sigmund Weinberg, a Polish Jew with German connections who would later open a store in Pera and
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represent Gramophone Records in Istanbul (Ünlü, 2016, p.84). 266 According to their 1901 advertisement, “in order to benefit most accurately from the phonograph in the art of music, the Gülistan Store gives importance to the precise representation of singers’ soul-caressing melodies with mastery and resourcefulness. As a result of these efforts exerted on this path for many years, Gülistan reached its present level and can prove it to the people who will visit the store” (“Gülistan,” 1901). Another store that made great efforts to address this issue for their cylinders was İsmail ve Necati. According to their 1901 advertisement in Ikdam,
İsmail and Necati’s store in numbers 5, 7, and 9 in Vezneciler focuses with attention and care on one product only: the phonograph and its cylinders. For this reason, phonograph enthusiasts and people with good taste (meraklılarının ve zevk salim eshamının) are familiar with the fact that the best cylinders are only available in this store. It attracted these enthusiasts’ attention that more than fifty Arabic cylinders offered for sale in our store were very silent and of poor quality (pek sönük ve adi) compared to the Turkish cylinders recorded by famous musicians and singers. In order to raise the quality of Arabic cylinders to the level of the Turkish ones, the owner of the store went to Egypt with two prominent people, opened a branch there, and contracted their most famous singers and musicians to record numerous excellent and exclusive cylinders (“Mısır’ın Arapça Kovanları,” 1901).
266 According to advertisements in İkdam, “mezkur Gramofon şirketinin Memalik-i Osmaniye için yegane vekili Beyoğlu’nda Cadde-i Kebir’de 474 numaralı mağazada Mösyö Vanberg’dir” (“Gramofon,” 1903a); “İşbu yeni usul gramofon makineleri ve plakları Memalik-i Osmaniye için yegane vekili Beyoğlu’nda masrfi Mösyö Vaynberg’in 474 numaralı mağazasıdır” (“Yeni Sistem Vaynberg Gramofonu,” 1903).
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This sensitivity towards sonic detail continued during the shift from the phonograph to the gramophone in Istanbul. Emphasizing fidelity in reproduction, manufacturers, record companies, and stores had to convince their listeners through advertisements. The same rhetoric on sound fidelity continued in early gramophone advertisements:
Everyone complained about the distorted and unnatural voice of the phonograph. A machine called the gramophone was created in America. […] Recorded songs are no different from the natural sound of live music. […] Turkish and Greek songs, jokes, and many European and Asian songs were recorded skillfully. A craftsman has also come to our city to record new songs. The only agency for Istanbul is the broker Konstantin Efendi Eksercioğlu in 35 in Ananiyadi Han in Istanbul. Sales of gramophones and cylinders in Bab-ı Ali street -Gramofon- numero 18 Hristo Eksercioğlu stores in Aşir Efendi Han in Sultan Hamam (“Gramofon,” 1901).
Combined with a small picture of the device, numerous advertisements utilized the same rhetoric over the next few years by claiming that the difference between their records and a human voice was unnoticeable.267 “The miraculous ability of accurately imitating the human voice” (sadâ-yı
267 “Recorded by the famous musicians and singers we are proud of, the cylinders containing a bright and smooth sound comparable to a live performance (saz fasılı) are only available in İsmail ve Necati Fonografhanesi, Vezneciler No.985” (“İsmail ve Necati,” 1900). “The phonograph cylinders that were recorded with clarity, smoothness, and fidelity by the famous singers and musicians of our time are sold in the Meşkhane-i Osmani of Kemani Zafiraki Efendi in Şehzadebaşı” (“Fonoğraf Heveskarane,” 1901); “Manufactured by The Gramophone Company, this phonograph machine is the perfect version of this type of singing machines. Even though other machines make few mistakes while transmitting the sound, this is not the case with this machine. When it sings, it reproduces the sound in its most natural form. It sings just like a person” (“Gramofon,” 1903b); “I would like to declare that I have been selling cylinders that were perfectly filled by famous singers and musicians at shop number 17 on the Nuruosmaniye
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insaniyi hakkıyla taklidde olan muvaffakıyye-i i’caznüma) became a sine qua non condition of high quality for musical records.268 Along the lines of advertising claims to sound fidelity, the Ottoman musician, musicologist, and writer Rauf Yekta (1906) underlined the aesthetic and practical importance of the gramophone for its growing popularity in Istanbul:
The popularity of gramophones has increased very much. Merchants have been trying hard for a while not to miss the opportunity to benefit from this demand. Every day a new gramophone store is opened on the street. […] One of the reasons for the gramophones’ popularity is undoubtedly the fact that they are louder and more accurate (hem daha çok ve hem daha fasîh), while the phonographs are more silent and muffled (daha az ve boğuk). One had to put rubber pipes in his ears to listen to the phonographs in our city. As a result of the developments in the phonograph business, there is no trace of this problem today. The volume of the gramophones reached a point that is not comparable to
gate on Kalpakçılarbaşı Street in Çarşıkebir” (“Fonografhane-i Şarkıyye,” 1903); “There are many musical instruments that repeat the human voice, songs, and lyrics. But the most perfect of these, the ones that record and naturally transmit the sound, are the gramophones sold only in the store of Mösyö Vaynberg. These are never like other machines. Those who wonder can see the difference between Vaynberg gramophones and similar ones once they visit this store” (“Mösyö Vaynberg,” 1904); “Excellent gramophone machines and records manufactured by the new Gramophone Company [are sold] at number 474 near the tunnel in Beyoğlu. A variety of Turkish alaturca and European music not available elsewhere are brought directly from the factory. These are the perfect ones among these machines and perform the song and sound in its most natural form” (“Yeni Sistem Vaynberg Gramofonu,” 1903).
268 “The success of imitating the human voice, which reminds of a miracle, is also now manifested in Odeon records. It has been observed that many people mistakenly think that it is a human voice.” Fonograf-ı Sabri Dördüncü Odeon Hususi Kataloğu, 1906. Mentioned in Ünlü (2016), p.112.
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the previous ones. One who hears a singer or musician from a distant gramophone hesitates to determine whether the sound comes from a singer or a gramophone (p.3).
Altering modes of listening and attention, the gramophone detached sound from materiality. However, as Thompson (1995) noted, “the problem of determining whether or not audiences truly mistook the record for the artist is of limited significance.” The point is that the “pinnacle of the technology of acoustical recording sounded far better than anything that had preceded them” (p.160). The development in sound technologies not only generated new devices, technical practices, and industrial expertise, but it also defined an auditory sensibility that deeply affected personal experience and customer preference. A novel listening practice was instituted with the gramophone. A 1904 advertisement indicated that “the phonographs turned into desolate objects with the advent of the gramophone” (“Fonograf Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1904). Since the gramophone was presented as the better version of the phonograph, listeners now had to face this sensory challenge. Ahmet İhsan (1904) asked:
How far can the developments in engineering (makine alemi) progress? The more one looks at this amazing and admirable machine, an American invention called ‘gramophone,’ the more he asks himself this question without help. […] There is a profound difference between those old machines that made the most crystalline, most sky-like (en billur, en asümani) sounds muffled, crackling, and unpleasant (boğuk, hışlak, nahoş) and today’s gramophone machines (p.13).
As each significant development in talking machines rendered the previous one obsolete, the listeners’ auditory taste and perception patterns were also altered. Once the shift was complete, previous devices became unsupportable. Karay (2009) wrote in 1939:
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The first name of the gramophone was the phonograph. However, it has changed more than its name. It has transformed like a frog. […] My brother had brought us a box from Paris.269 If a thousand-hole zinc cylinder was placed on it and turned by hand, it would make a tasteless sound (yavan). It annoyed all of us. It did not give us any pleasure or joy, but only pain and discomfort. It was a cheap device. We got rid of it by giving it to the Greek stonemason across from our house. […] As for the phonograph, no matter how hush, stuttering, stammering, squeaky, fuzzy, and utterly awful (hımhım, kekeme, pepeme, cıyırtılı, cazırtılı, hülasa berbat) it sounded, it astounded the world by making a human voice. […] It was a completely different instrument, from its cylinders to its sound, pipe, and box. It was a very inappropriate, ugly, screechy, and scratchy (münasebetsiz, sevimsiz, cırlak ve cızıltılı) object. It was also slowly becoming obsolete. Then the world became interested in dance, and the phonograph took the form of a portable gramophone and even entered the gardener and guard huts (pp.108-111).
As talking machines became affordable for the middle classes,270 the recording industry boomed in Istanbul. Yet, the sale of these devices depended mainly on the quality of available records. They were “complementary products with one depending on the other for success” (Lubinski, 2012, p.83). Ludwig Wild, head of the Vienna branch and representative of the “Orient” for the Gramophone Company, wrote to his managing director, Theodore Bernard Birnbaum: “The Constantinople recordings are extremely important because if we have a good repertoire, no
269 Karay probably mistook a cylinder music box for the phonograph. See: http://www.singaporemusicalboxmuseum.org/musical-box-history
270 According to an advertisement, “iki taraflı Odeon plakaları 20 kuruştur. Gramofon sistemindeki kayt-ı sağlam makineler 120 kuruştur. 9 lira Osmaniye’ye kadar bulunur” (“Mehmed Salim Efendi Mağazası,” 1905).
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competition can harm us. Besides, the business in Turkey is very good now” (Strötbaum, p.5). About a month later, Max de Sarter, agent of the Vienna Branch, informed Wild that they were able to hire “the seven best singers of Constantinople […] who are only allowed to sing in front of the Sultan”, and that probably they will “be able to record Turkish regimental music as well” (p.1). Yet, for Sarter, “it would be absolutely necessary that these new Turkish recordings would be put on the market before the ones made by Odeon, since all customers have been waiting for new records for a long time and it is quite natural that Odeon, when its new records appear, will necessarily do a good business with them, and after that, the demand will be significantly weakened” (p.1).
Indeed, aiming to answer the increasing demand, other companies had already begun representing a significant competition for the Gramophone Company. The real challenge for these Western record companies was to maximize their profit without a detailed understanding of the local music traditions that changed in each region. They tried to adjust their marketing strategy and musical repertoire by relying heavily on local agents and recording technicians. Ignoring “high” musical genres enjoyed by small audiences, they began discarding those records that did not sell well enough and replaced them with which artists and songs the customers were familiar, such as Tanburi Cemil Bey, Hafız Sami, and Hafız Osman. Consequently, contrary to Wild’s prediction, strong competition arose between active companies in Istanbul. The Blumenthal Brothers served as representatives of Zonophone (1902) and Odeon (1904). Working as Odeon’s agent, Jak Grünberg was another influential Jewish entrepreneur in the recording industry. The German companies Lyrophone (1906) (Figure 39) and Favorite (1907) also presented significant competition. In 1908, the local representative of the Gramophone, Sigmund Weinberg, wrote to the company’s headquarter:
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A while ago, I mentioned that we must make new recordings. You told me that you would be interested in this at a later date. This is not a good decision for our business. It seems to me that you do not understand the ruthless methods our competitors use to eliminate us. To give an example, the Odeon company has been making recordings here for a long time. They are about to release these recordings soon. The Favorite also makes recordings here, and I watch with my hands tied. I am trying to believe that everything will be okay with God’s hand. The truth is: Everyone leaves me and goes to our competitors (Strötbaum, 1993).271
Competition also existed between local record stores. Besides claiming that the new recordings closed the gap between live performance and playback, they employed other marketing strategies of the era. Some key elements that the advertisements between 1901 and 1911 emphasized were:
271 Also mentioned in Ünlü, Cemal (2016): Git Zaman Gel Zaman. Fonograf - Gramofon - Taş Plak. Istanbul: Pan Yayıncılık, p.162.
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Build quality,272 competitive prices,273 distribution service,274 exclusive content,275 latest technology,276 in-store experience,277 and technical support.278 A few stores with advanced
272 “Fonografın patlak ve gayr-tabii sesinden herkez müşteki idi. Amerika'da gramofon nam'ı ile bir makine ihdâs olundu ki zabt-ı sanatkarane yapıldığından ve sesi çıkaracak aleti dahi madenden olduğundan ne kırılır ne de bozulur” (“Gramofon,” 1901); “Heveskaran-ı musiki’nin takdiratına mazhar olmuş olan istantor büyük gramofon deposu […] asla bozulmak bilmeyen en mükemmel envai gramofon makineleri celb ettiğinden musikiye son zevk âşnâyân ahali başka yere müracaat etmeksizin mahzan, kendi istifadeleri namına İstantor büyük gramofon deposuna teşrif etmeleri hâlisâne tavsiye olunur” (“İstantor Gramofon Mağazası,” 1908a); “Herkesin rağbetini muceb olan gramofon makinelerinin Avrupa'dan birçoğu envai muhtelif fiyatlarla piyasada satılmakta ve bunların haylisi birkaç ay içinde bozularak matlub ve helak olup kullanılamamakta olduğundan Amerika'dan suret-ı mahsuse de celb ettiğimiz büyük küçük her cins gramofon makinelerimizin sada ve netice emsaline faik ve fiyatları son derece ehven olduğunu görüp anlamak üzere muhterem müşterilerimizin ve gramofon meraklılarının bir kere mağazamıza teşrif buyurmalarını rica eyleriz” (“Gramofon Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1909).
273 “Mezkur mağazada yarım lira Osmaniye'den itibaren muhtelif fiyatlarla her nevi fonograf makineleri ve teferruatı rekabet kabul etmeyecek derecede ehven satılır” (“İsmail ve Necati,” 1900); “Düzine ile alınan kovanlar yedi tanesi onbeş kuruş” (“Fonografhane-i Şarkıyye,” 1903); “Müminin memnuniyetini celb etmiş bir surette tenzil-i fiyat edilmiş olduğundan muhterem müşterilerimin bu tenzilattan istifade etmek üzere mağaza-ı acizhanemize teşriflerini […] tavsiye ederiz” (“Mösyö Vaynberg,” 1904); “Gramofon makinelerinin iştirası hususunda da mağazamızı lütfen bir kere ziyaretle göstermekte olduğumuz ehveniyyetten istifade etmeleri suret mahsusada rica olunur” (“Gülistan,” 1905); “[…] rekabet kabul etmez derecede ehvan fiyatlı füruht edilmekte […]” (“İstantor Gramofon Mağazası,” 1908b); “Fiyatlar gayet evhendir” (“Hafız Aşir Efendi'nin Gülistan Gramofonları Ticarethanesi,” 1911).
274 “[…] sipariş kabul olunur. Bir gün sonra sahiplerine teslim olunur” (“Fonoğraf Heveskarane,” 1901); “Bulunmayan bir kovanı dahi onbeş gün zarfında celb etmek üzere sipariş kabul olunduğu ilan olunur” (“Mısır’ın Arapça Kovanları,” 1901); “Memalik-i Şahanenin her tarafından sipariş kabul olunur” (“İsmail ve Necati Fonografhanesi,” 1901); “Taşradan sipariş kabul edilir. Üç günde teslimi postaya teslimi gerçekleştirilir” (“Fonograf Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1904); “Taşraden dahi sipariş kabul olunur” (“Mehmed Salim Efendi Mağazası,” 1905); “Taşradan vuku bulacak siparişler kemal suret ve suhuletle derhal ifa kılınır” (“Gülistan,” 1905); “Dışarıdan sipariş vukuunda gerek plak ve gerek makine ve her nevi alet ve edavat derhal gönderilir” (“Gramofon Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1909); “Siparişat derhal gönderilir” (“Hafız Aşir Efendi'nin Gülistan Gramofonları Ticarethanesi,” 1911).
275 “Gerek eski ve gerek yeni olarak arzu edilecek şarkılar için sipariş kabul olunur” (“Fonoğraf Heveskarane,” 1901); “Gramofon makineleri ve blakları ve hiçbir yerde bulunmayan alaturka ve
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technical capacity also attempted to expand the phonograph’s technical limits by modifying it,279 redesigning it as the gramophone,280 and in a unique case, by merging both devices into one (Figure 40).281 A dynamic mode of technical and marketing knowledge began to change sound media and customer experiences while creating a sound culture.
birçok alafranga muhtelif havaları […]” (“Yeni Sistem Vaynberg Gramofonu,” 1903); “Piyasada mevcut olmayan ve yalnız mağazamızda bulunan plakların en ahenkdar ve mu'tenâlarından büyük küçük plaklar ile aktör Burhaneleddin Bey’in Tarık Bin Ziyad rolü piyesi plaklara imla edilmiş olduğunu beyan oluruz” (“Gramofon Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1909).
276 “Gramofona mahsus kovan alet ve edevat vesairenin cümlesi son sistemdirler” (“Gramofon,” 1903b); “Bu kerre mağazaya en son system olmak üzere Amerikan makineleri iştira edilmiş” (“İstantor Gramofon Mağazası,” 1908b); “Çaresizim” vesaire havalar geldiği gibi en son sistem gramofon makinalarımız gelmiştir” (“Hafız Aşir Efendi'nin Gülistan Gramofonları Ticarethanesi,” 1911).
277 “Mûmâileyh mağazasında müşterilerinin celb-i rağbet ve suhuleti için gramofon istimâ'ne mahsus bir yer tahsis etmiştir” (“Gramofon,” 1903b); “Tahvili arzu buyuran muhterem müşterilerime numunesi gösterilir” (“Fonoğraf Makinelerinin Yeni Sistemi,” 1904).
278 “Her nevi fonograf tamiratı der'uhde olunur” (“İsmail ve Necati Fonografhanesi,” 1901); “Bozulan gramofon makineleri dahi tamir olunur” (“Yeni Sistem Vaynberg Gramofonu,” 1903). “Yeni satılan ve tamir edilen eşya bozulur ise iki seneye kadar meccânen tamirini der’uhde ederim” (“Fonoğraf Makinelerinin Yeni Sistemi,” 1904).
279 “Kesret-i isti’amalden sadâsı azalmış olan kovanların fevkâlade sadâlı dinlemek isteyen zevat-ı kirâma Hacı Süleyman Efendi nin ihtira gerdesi olup yalnız mağazamızda satılan ve camı kırılmak tehlikesinden azade bulunan diyaframı tavsiye ederiz.” Ünlü (2016), p.109.
280 “Gramofona Tahvil: Fonograf makinelerinin zenberekleri çift ve alet-i sairesi gramofondan daha metin olduğundan asla ... hal getirmeyerek herangi sûretle istimaale elverişli olarak gramofona ehven bir fiyatla tahvil ediyorum. Şöyle ki onbeş liraya albüm mübâyaa edilmekte olan mezkur gramofon makienlerinden daha ala sedayı nakil eder ve bir kuruşta üç plak çevirir” (“Fonoğraf Makinelerinin Yeni Sistemi,” 1904).
281 “Muhteraat-ı ahirenin en mühmillerinden olan fonograf makinelerinin elde bulunanları gramofonun zuhuri üzerine metruk bir hale gelmiştir. Esasen fonograf makineleri mükemmel olduğundan bu cihet nazar-ı dikkate alınarak tarafımızdan tadilat-ı icra ile bunların Gramofon halinde dahi isti’mal’i temin edilmiştir. Ta'dîl ettiğimiz fonograflardan arzuya göre plak ve kovan aynı zamanda yahut ayrı ayrı tahrîk edilerek -ikisinin ahenkliliğinden istifade olunabilir. Sadası gramofondan daha yüksek ve pürüssüzdür. Gramofonlar sanat ve metanet nokta-i nazarından fonografdan pek adi olduğunu cihetle bir kuruluşta bir plaka dinletebildiği halde ıslah
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Counterfeit records also began to appear on the market. Although the manufacture of records was a complex process, unauthorized copies were sold for lower prices as early as 1904. Max de Serter informed Ludwig Wild that “every imitation dealer has our Turkish records and therefore it is difficult to sell at the original prices” (Strötbaum, p.1). Sigmund Weinberg also recommended to his customers to “avoid imitations by paying attention to the factory brand” (“Mösyö Vaynberg Mağazaları,” 1904, p.4). Gülistan took a step further and invited their customers to listen to the original records before purchasing:
We have seen that some dealers […] are posting various advertisements selling two-sided gramophone records to increase their profits. Unlike those specially recorded for our store, these are the two-sided versions of the old one-sided records, usually copied from ours with less sound. As it can be easily understood that these cannot be compared with our “Edison” records, esteemed customers who wish to purchase are kindly requested not to buy any other records without listening to the records presented by Hafız Aşir once (“Gülistan,” 1905, p.4) (Figure 41).
As advertisements demonstrate, sound reproduction devices not only created a dynamic capitalist market and a novel type of consumerism but also generated a modern environment of media knowledge. Participating, renegotiating, and reproducing the modes of this cultural tendency, institutions, brokers, and informed local agents fashioned a public form of sensorial modernity.
edilen fonograflarda büyük plaka üçten dörde kadar tedvir ve istima’ edilir. Ta’dil masrafı makinelerin nev’ine göre muhteliftir. İki vazifeyi ifa edecek olan bu makineler ilave masraf [...] ve borusu dahil olduğu halde gramofondan çok daha ucuzdur. İmalathanemiz Vezneciler’deki Ticarethane ile Beşiktaş’ta Kadri Efendi’nin mağazasıdır” (“Fonograf Meraklılarına Müjde,” 1904).
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Music was no longer something that was listened to only collectively282 or in poor audio quality. As the social practice of music listening became more valuable, direct, and personal, listeners demanded better sound quality. Living rooms gradually turned into alternate venues where the recorded music was played and enjoyed. Consequently, sound reproduction devices created an in-home music culture and domestic entertainment.283 Positioned as a piece of furniture, they now constituted modernization objects in the domestic spaces of the middle and upper classes.284 Aiming to widen their musical audience, record companies rapidly recognized and marketed that role. In the foreword of Odeon’s 1906 record catalog, Eyüp Sabri (1906) wrote: “I advise the Odeon machine and its records (sadâ tabakları) to those who are tired of wasting life in coffeehouses and seek joy and happiness with their family.”285
Although Sabri tried to position the brand above coffeehouses with the promise of providing happiness and culture in family households, sound reproduction devices were already popular
282 See Volgsten, U., & Pontara, T. (2017). Domestic Space, Music Technology, and the Emergence of Solitary Listening: Tracing the Roots of Solipsistic Sound Culture in the Digital Age. Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning, 99(1), 105–123.
283 According to Ahmet İhsan (1904), “The gramophone is a machine that can entertain every family,” p.143. For a historical take on the music scene in an interwar Istanbul neighborhood: Jackson, M. (2010). The Girl in the Tree: Gender, Istanbul Soundscapes, and Synagogue Song. Jewish Social Studies, 17(1), 31–66.
284 Palmira Brumett (2000) explores the journal of Said Bey, an Ottoman official who also taught at Galatasaray College and the School of Commerce. In her words, “his entertainments, his purchases, and even the arrangement of his house indicate the penetration of European culture into Istanbul society. Although Said Bey’s house was divided along traditional lines between men’s and women’s sections, his furnishings reflected a Europeanization of the Ottoman household. They included a piano, purchased in 1902, canapés, armchairs, a piertable, a European bed (karyola), and also a sewing machine, a phonograph, a telescope, and many other objects,” p.201.
285 Mentioned in Ünlü (2016), p.113.
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tools for public entertainment. In Peter Bailey’s (1996) words, “together with mass production came mass entertainment. Greater numbers amplified the noise of public leisure in the great cities” (p.58). From their introduction to the public onwards, coffeehouses and taverns were the early adopters of these devices. As Yekta (1906) wrote, “everyone has benefited to some extent from the progress that came with the gramophone. Even the tenants of the musical coffeehouses have seen this as an opportunity to escape from musicians, of whom they are tired of their false snobbery and unwillingness. A small neighborhood tried to please their customers with the help of a gramophone” (p.3).
The gramophone’s popularity was not always considered a fact related to the “East.” The swift adoption of talking machines in coffeehouses surprised few foreign reporters. According to Dwight (1909), “the most usual [coffeehouse] is afforded by an instrument that we do not associate with the East. This is the gramophone which enjoys enormous popularity in Constantinople” (p.2). French traveler Jean Lavoix (1909) wrote that “this instrument of torture is the only product of the European civilization that Islam admires without reservation” (p.189). The Sun also reported in 1908:
It is nothing to remark that Turkey is behind the times. In methods of agriculture, in customs of commerce, in superstitions of medicine and of religion, in social intercourse, in the mode of dress, and a thousand other ways Turkey today presents to us the manner of life of a century ago – of the Middle Ages – or it may be in many instances of early Bible times. But all these relics of the past stand side by side with the productions of the twentieth century. Though the telephone has been tabooed in Turkey, the phonograph is heard squeaking away in every coffee shop (“The New Turkey,” 1908, p.4)
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Although we do not have exact numbers for how many talking machines were imported to the Ottoman Empire, we can easily argue that a profitable industry was active in Istanbul. Talking machines were becoming more accessible and popular in different parts of the city. However, their sale and distribution across the Ottoman Empire were not comparable to those in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, India, or Austria. According to a 1921 report that indicates the geographical turnover of the Gramophone Company between 1906-1914, the Ottoman Empire was behind Belgium, and Hungary, placed in the “Overseas” category with Australasia, Holland, Italy, South Africa, North Africa, Egypt, Holland, and Albania.
According to Jones (1985), the Gramophone Company was susceptible to the threat of competition since they were reluctant to produce “cheap” machines or records. They emphasized the quality of their product as their marketing strategy. In addition, the local manufacture of
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records gave them a considerable advantage, as in India. However, these do not describe the considerable difference between the Ottoman Empire and the European countries.286 Since various ethnic and religious communities formed a rich and diverse musical repertoire, a proper examination of this difference requires shifting our focus outside of Istanbul and questioning the role of these devices in cross-cultural and religious interactions. Besides the diversity of cultural preferences, the music business also faced religious opposition, even in the major port cities. Since technological progress has always been a controversial issue and new inventions were generally considered an infidel’s work (gavur işi), these devices provoked debate in Islamic circles and led to religious restrictions.
As explored by Melis et al. (2012), “talking machines” led to such discussions in the case of “the phonograph affair” in Al Hudayda, in Yemen. Although the city became a major port and attracted multi-ethnic foreigner residents after the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869, it was often perceived peripheral to the capital. The Hatmiyya, an Islamic brotherhood, functioned as the mediator of the Ottoman administration in the city. Examining the discussions between the different sects of Hanafi tradition and Sufi movements regarding new trends and different attitudes towards Ottoman authorities, Melis et al. (2012) demonstrates that the use of a talking machine was considered “unlawful” and “not permissible” by the Hatmiyya, since these devices “intended to amaze the believers” (p.127). As indicated in the translated text of a Hatmi sheik named al-Fawanis, “a voice transmitted from an inanimate object is like a miracle. However, this box uses gimmicks, unlike the miracles of the pious and the saints, which do not. (…) As a
286 It is also important to note that in some countries Pathé was notably stronger than the Gramophone Company.
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result, we can say that it is forbidden the listening of every sound like that, for it is like magic” (pp.130-131). Regardless, Bruzzi (2018) has argued that the phonograph gained popularity in Al Hudayda through Ottoman and European networks (p.141).
Although the introduction of the recording industry in Cairo presents similarities with Istanbul, its development was different. As Pennanen (2007) has demonstrated, the Egyptian ulema were not against talking machines and recorded Qur’anic recitation in Cairo (p.138). The acceptance of these devices increased its exposure to more people. According to Fahmy (2011), recorded music led to the democratization and homogenization of popular music culture. In his words, “as more Egyptian men and women from all social classes were exposed to the same music, an increasingly national taste was forming” (p.138). Following Fahmy’s footsteps, Lepp (2015) has focused on this democratizing effect and demonstrated how the marketization of musical culture homogenized the fragmented communities and culturally diverse population in Egypt. According to Lepp (2015), “the social networks created by popular song allowed Egyptians of all backgrounds to construct and participate in a public, national consciousness” (p.1). In addition, this democratization of music culture in Egypt significantly contributed to the participation of women in the music business. As mentioned in Ordinary Egyptians, before 1913, 83 per cent of all the taqtuqa, a standard Arabic song of a length of three to four minutes, were sung by women. This created “a number of renowned female singing stars” in Egypt (Fahmy, 2011, p.73).
Although music was an integral part of Ottoman cultural history, a brief look at the recordings made in Istanbul reveals a picture very different than Cairo. Alan Kelly’s detailed work on the Gramophone Company’s Istanbul recordings287 made by William Sinkler Darby, Franz Hampe,
287 See Kelly (1994a).
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F.W. Gaisberg, and W.C. Gaisberg between 1901 and 1921 hardly mention any Muslim women singers besides “Gülistan Hanem,” “Servet Hanem,” and possibly a third signer, “Female Turkish Voice.” The situation was similar for the non-Muslim women. Listed by their French honorifics, those singers were: “Mlle Simonides (Greek),” “Mme Vanda Guerini (Greek),” “Mme Mignon,” and “Mme Chamiram.” Although these recordings signaled a dynamic shift in female public audibility in Istanbul, religious boundaries prevented their participation in musical and theatrical performances. As demonstrated by Polat (2015), Dârü’l-Hikmeti’l Islâmiye, one of the late Ottoman institutions that functioned under the office of Sheikh ul-Islam as a moral board, “disapproved categorically of Muslim women’s singing before men and of other entertainment for mixed-gender audiences. […] [The council] continually appealed to the Ministry of the Interior and the police directorate, asking that they forcibly prevent such performances” (Polat, 2015, p.283). Although they could not eliminate Muslim women’s singing, real progress would not occur before mass consumerism and changes in communication during the Republican era.
While the emergence of the record industry allowed local artists and business owners to commodify sound, it also facilitated personal taste in music. The ability to define and discuss “great music” was now a modern virtue. Although Western companies were commercially successful, their discographies were not always welcomed by listeners. Referring to Hoca Abdülkadir, Itri, and Dede Efendi, Yekta (1906) thought that the phonograph would “enable the advancement of Ottoman music connoisseurs of which were dwindling day by day” and put “the true taste of music” into the ears of the masses (p.3). Yet, for Yekta, the majority of the local recordings that were advertised as “great music” (nefais-i musiki) were made by incapable musicians, were banal (asar-ı mübtezel), and did not represent classical Ottoman music. The
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local dance and folk genres, such as “kabak kantosu, çiftetelli, çingene kantosu” stood in no comparison to classical European music, and “the masters of our music cannot even tolerate listening to these recordings once” (p.3). The advertisements in the European journals demonstrated that “the gramophone records in Europe were made by literal geniuses, such as the first tenor of the Grand Opera de Paris, or the baritone of the Opera Comic Theater” (p.3). Criticizing foreign recording technicians who were unaware of “the marvelous features of the musical works (bedayi-i asar-ı musikiyye),” Yekta hoped that “the gramophone manufacturers advise their men in our city from now on to find someone who knows the experts of Ottoman music and record their songs” (p.3).
The popularity and technical improvement of talking machines also altered musicians’ performative aspects. Tanburi Cemil, a famous Ottoman virtuoso and composer, who had long been skeptical of talking machines due to their poor sound quality, accepted to make recordings only after 1910. According to accounts mentioned in Ünlü (2016), he was very meticulous in his recording sessions. Contrary to his contemporaries,288 some days, he spent a whole day in the studio and never recorded. He took detailed notes about his recordings, and his records could be released only with his approval (pp.199-206). Thus, following Sterne’s ‘audile technique,’ talking machines brought more possibilities and requirements for musicians. For Tanburi Cemil, they generated unique artistic needs. One could even argue that the popularity of his critically acclaimed recordings, besides his virtuosity and compositions, also depended on the modern sets of practices that he formulated in his recording sessions.
288 See Kelly (1994a).
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As gramophones reached a greater number of public places, their noise was dramatically amplified in the upcoming decades.289 Various sounds and voices were also circulated in different areas of the city.290 However, as mentioned above, the social arrangement of these technologies represented a key problem for the Ottoman state to resolve. Sound, now in the form of a mass-produced commodity, became a problem once again.
“Inappropriate” Recordings
As we have seen so far, the Yıldız Palace was aware of the potential impact of talking machines as early as 1888,291 and they initially approached the public use of these novelty items with traditional methods. As with church bells and canons, a series of restrictions and sanction mechanisms aimed to control the distribution and production of these talking machines and recordings to maintain the control of the messages they emitted.
One of the most significant issues was the recording and distribution of Qur’anic recordings. In line with the state monopoly on the reproduction of the Qur’an and other religious texts,292 the Ottoman religious-political establishment prohibited the production, sale, and distribution of
289 Karay (2009) wrote in his memoirs: “The American’s sound machine was so cheap that it drowned the world in music, voice, chatter, and noise. What was that in Istanbul? While I was passing through the streets where there were rows of coffeehouses, such as in Sirkeci or Galata, noisy, ugly, squeaky, and wheezy forty-fifty gramophones would gnaw my ear, scratch my heart, and explode my head all at once. I often chose the back streets because I could not tolerate that degree of vulgarity” (p.111).
290 Ahmet Haşim (1928/2020) wrote that “It was neither a bird nor a flower that I went looking for in Kağıthane. I just wanted to see a gypsy and listen to the zurna. Alas! Yesterday, the Kağıthane stream was dominated by the noisy phonograph sounds” (p.139).
291 Y.PRK.TKM. 12/45, OA.
292 See Deringil, S. (1993). The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1808 to 1908. In Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (01), p.3.
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Qur’anic recitations and prayers by private entrepreneurs. According to a notice sent by the Ministry of the Interior to the police, a written order (tezkire-i aliyye) dated July 25, 1899, stated that the police should inspect phonograph cylinders before being sold in stores, and by the customs if they are to be exported, to prevent the purchase and distribution of Qur’anic recordings (OA, 1899). The notice also reported selling unauthorized (neşri caiz olmayan) songs and discussion cylinders in Gülistan. Emphasizing the rites of purity, another notice issued in the same month by the Ministry of Education directed the police to the shop İstantor in Beyoğlu to stop the sale and distribution of “some mischievous speeches (muzır nutuklar), songs and discussions contrary to public manner and morals, and some Qur’anic verses recorded by famous hafızs” so that these objects cannot “circulate arbitrarily among children in households” (OA, 1899). Additional regulations and measures were also implemented in 1906 to prohibit importing Qur’anic disks293 and Islamic songs.294 Stating that “the transfer of the Qur’an to gramophone records does not comply with the honor and respect that a Muslim must show to the Qur’an,” a written order (tahrirat-ı aliyye) dated July 7, 1906, prohibited the sale and distribution of the Qur’anic recitations of Sheikh Said al-Mollavi, a key religious figure in the Kurdish region, from Europe and Cairo.295 The regulation also ordered the seizure of banned records and the punishment of the stores that sold them. In 1907, an intelligence report led the police to Vasilaki Papadopulo’s store, where they confiscated a record with the recitation of the Shahadah, another
293 The Sun reported on June 23, 1906: “The Sultan has forbidden the introduction into Turkey of gramophone disks which reproduce verses from the Koran” (“Condemn American Butter,” 1906). See also İ.HUS. 142/53; ZB. 590/91; ZB. 590/133, OA.
294 According to the French journal Le Matin on June 22, 1906: “Le sultan a défendu l’entrée en Turquie de disques de gramophones reproduisant des versets du Coran ou de tout autre chant religieux musulman” (“Le Sultan et le Gramophone,” 1906).
295 DH.MKT. 1092/10, OA.
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with the surah Al-Qiyamah and fifty-six others with “common eulogies” (OA, 1907a). Besides Qur’anic and “inappropriate” recordings, the distribution of talking machines,296 records,297 and even related booklets298 had also been under control since the 1890s.299 The permit fee to play music in coffeehouses and taverns was also increased in 1905.300
In his recent book, Leor Halevi (2019) explores the popular use of Qur’anic recordings in Egypt and a range of issues such as “profiting from operating a gramophone, concerns about the ritual status of Qur’anic wax cylinders, and the problem of audience prostrations during recorded performances” (p.145). Unlike in Egypt, the growing popularity of talking machines expanded the scope of restrictions in Istanbul. Boosting the acoustic impact of coffee shops, these devices were banned in coffeehouses situated nearby mosques for “disturbing the peace of the Muslim community” (OA, 1907c).301 In 1907, another coffeehouse in Vezneciler was reported for obstructing the lectures in the nearby madrasa by playing the gramophone “constantly, day and night” and degrading the moral values of seven young students who were “incapable of segregating good from bad” (tefrike muktedir olmayan) (OA, 1907b).
296 DH.MKT. 1258/92; DH.MKT. 1070/32; DH.MKT. 1097/50, OA.
297 Y.MTV. 290/95, OA.
298 DH.MKT. 1029/40, OA.
299 Y.A.HUS. 278/81, OA.
300 DH.MKT. 1033/36, OA.
301 Some of the reported coffeehouses were: “the one near the Mustafa Bey mosque, […] Giridli Mustafa’s coffeehouse in Laleli, the coffeehouse of Hasan Efendi across from Vefa Mosque, and the coffeehouse of Abdullah Efendi across Nuruosmaniye Mosque.” OA (1907c). Also, see ZB. 381/107, OA.
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The popularity of these recordings in Egypt also led to some discussion.302 In his essay entitled “Is It Appropriate to Record the Qur’an Using the Phonograph?” Ünyeli Ali (1911) heavily criticized the use of Qur’anic disks. Similar to books with Qur’anic text, the phonograph cylinders should be treated with veneration, and he was worried about the possible desecration of a sacred object. In his words, “once permitted, it is normal that the Qur’anic recordings will enter all kinds of taverns and coffeehouses […] Mediating the Qur’an to such a situation, and even attempting to do so, is not knowing the reason for its revelation?” (p.2253). Stressing the purity rules for handling the Qur’an, Ali stated that “it is unacceptable for the Qur’anic recordings to be in the same box with musical cylinders in such miserable places” (p.2254).
The idea of “writing” sound was essential for the discussions on Qur’anic reproductions. Meaning “sound writing,” the terms phonograph (phone, “sound” + graph, “that which writes”) and gramophone (gramma, “letter” + phone, “sound”) underlined that they were based on a kind of writing system. Although certain Turkish equivalents – such as “sadânüvis,” (sound writer), “rakım-ı sadâ,”303 (sound writer) and “muîd -i sadâ”304 (repeater of sound) – were suggested for the term phonograph, all were short-lived. Entering into the Turkish language as fonograf and gramofon, they became generic terms for all sorts of talking machines and even synonyms each
302 For recent studies focusing on early Qur’anic recordings, see Halevi, L. (2019). Modern Things on Trial. Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865-1935: Columbia University Press; Hirschkind, Charles (2006): The Ethical Soundscape. Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press; Witkam, Jan Just (2018): “Written in Wax. Qur’anic Recitational Phonography.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 138 (4), p. 807.
303 “Tasfiye-i Lisan-i Osmani,” 1896.
304 Rasim (1920).
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other according to the official Turkish dictionary of the Turkish Language Association (TDK).305 Quite interestingly, these terms even assumed discrediting implications as early as 1900, meaning “repetitive,”306 “repeating himself/herself thoughtlessly,”307 or “speaking without an original thought”308 (Figure 42).
In the Second Constitutional Era, censorship of the press decreased, leading to important steps in terms of media liberty. A 1909 archival document states that gramophone records should not be broken unless legally required (OA, 1909b). Although “the entire configuration of the Ottoman mediascape was transformed by relaxed measures of control, euphoria, and a flood of new publications,” this liberal environment was limited and temporary (Ersoy, 2016, p.339). The distribution and sale of Qur’anic recordings remained prohibited. 309 It was still “religiously impermissible to allow inappropriate places such as coffeehouses and taverns to play these
305 See Türk Dil Kurumu (1998). Türkçe Sözlük (Vol. 1). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. Also available at: https://sozluk.gov.tr/
306 “Düşünülsün, ki ne kadar fenâ, ne kadar bayağı, ne kadar zoraki eserler görünüyor... Hep birbirini andıran, ramazanda gece, ramazanda gündüz kâriini usandırmaz mı? Her gün için, her gece için yazılacak şeylerinizde, latif, nâşenîde olmalı, değil mi? Hep at canbazı, hep Manak Efendi, hep Vezneciler, hep fonograf! Bıkdık, gınâ geldi.” Celal (1900).
307 “Niçin? Biz insan değil miyiz? Biz de yeni hakikatler, yeni bedialar çıkaramaz mıyız, yaratamaz mıyız? Heyhat! Vaktiyle Çinlileşmiş âlimlerimiz, Acemleşmiş şairlerimiz Türklüğü temsil edemedikleri gibi bugün Avrupalılaşmış münevverlerimiz yine bir şey yapamıyorlar... Âlimlik gramofonluk, maymunluk, papağanlık değildir.” Yekta Bahir (1912).
308 “Rıza Tevfik Bey'e göre ilim garp kitaplarını okumak, anlamaktı. Eğer şâirlik husûsundaki fikrî istidâdını bir tarafa bırakırsak Rıza Tevfik Bey'in okuduğu kitaplar onun dimağına adeta yapışıp kalmış, onda hiçbir hareket uyandırmamıştı. Rıza Tevfik söylediği zaman bir kitabın bir sahifesini adeta okurdu. Ertesi gün başka bir kitabın başka bir sahifesini güya kendininmiş gibi size nakledirdi. Bunları güzel naklettiğini görenler Rıza Tevfik'i âlim, feylesof zannedenler, malûmâtma hayran olurlardı. Hakikatte bir basit fonoğraf, güzel bir müstensihti.” Mehmet Emin (1924), p.381.
309 Y.PRK.MBC. 11/140, OA.
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[Qur’anic records] since they will provoke the Muslim community” (OA, 1912b).310 Maintaining a strict prohibition on the use and distribution of Qur’anic records, the Ottoman state continued to apply controls on customs311 and kept a monopoly over sacred sounds.
The “inappropriate” recordings were another issue of the Constitutional era. In 1909, a song “insulting ilmiye class” was reported playing in some coffeehouses (OA, 1909a). According to the report, the record included lyrics such as “they take away fanatics, they will cut them” (“suhteleri [softaları] götürüyorlar, keseceklerdir”). Three years later, the same recording with “nefarious phrases” (cümel-i leimane) and “numerous infidel words meaning we will cut the fanatics” (“suhteleri keseceğiz lafz ve manasında birçok kelimat-ı kafirane”) was heard in a coffeehouse in Fatih. Yet, this time, it led to a fight between İta Efendi, a madrasa student who attempted to stop it, and the “enemies of ilmiye, ulama, and madrasa students.” The report requested the confiscation of the recording and the punishment of the people who “dared to beat İta Efendi” by “throwing plates at him” (OA, 1912a).
Nationalism also began to appear in discographies. A brief look at the 1909 recordings of the imperial band made for the Gramophone Company under the category Musique du Palais Imperiale presents an eclectic mixture of various musical genres such as polka, valse, gazel,
310 DH.İD. 108/3, OA.
311 According to a report by Connecticut Western News, “Considerable difficulty was encountered at first, however, in getting the packages containing the records through the Turkish custom house as the officers believed them to be infernal machines. It was only after positive assurance was forthcoming that the packages were perfectly harmless and legitimate that the authorities gave their consent for delivery” (“Messages Sent Across Puddle by Use of Phonograph Records,” 1908).
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Arabic, Albanian, Turkish folk songs, and even a Moorish march.312 However, the absence of Armenian and Greek songs in this repertoire is significantly noticeable. As a sonic representation of national differences, the medium began to assume a function for “national” interest, as well as for “musical art.” Criticizing the marketing strategy and discographies of other companies, the preface to Favorite’s catalog also demonstrates the signs of a rising nationalism:
When the gramophone was invented and transferred to Europe, some foreigners brought it to our country. These men, who do not think of anything other than their profits, did not know our nationality. As can be understood from their record catalogs, this science did not see its popularity in Europe in our country since some unpleasant voices and incompetent men made it.
In a short time, our nation got tired of the gramophone. Everyone wanted to escape when it was heard someplace. We brought an engineer from the factory named Favorite, one of the biggest factories in Europe, to spread this science again in our country and listen to our national songs and ghazals (milli vesaire şarkı ve gazelleri) with perfection (Ünlü, 2016, pp.159-160).
Although the Ottoman archives have a limited number of documents, the sources mentioned above make clear that the concerns were not only limited to the purity of the Qur’an and Islamic
312 Recordings of Musique du Palais Imperial on March 20, 1909, for the Gramophone Company: Valse Hedjaskian Charki Z.B. (Jouruk Lemaye); Hedjaskian Charki Ousoul (Tenghin Lemayi); Zribek Harasi No 221; Oman Ej, Kandja; Mebousan Marche; Milet Osmani Marche; Vatan Marche; Selamlik Resam Ihelchit Marche; Arabe Herase; Arnahaut Hanusi; Vernandte Leiben Polka; Turkish Fantasia; Ey Gazelle; Osman Pasha, Marche; Hamidis Marche; Hamidis Marche No 853; Musika bin Bade Tefrik Effendi, Marche; Moorish March; Chefrkat Marche Guallet Pasha; Vinel del Verdi, Marche; Four Trumpets, March. Source: Kelly (1994a).
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texts but also to the reproducibility of sound that began to manipulate, transform, and reconfigure the auditory hierarchy in the Ottoman state. As a monopolizing noise emitter, the Hamidian regime saw very early on, nearly a decade before the emergence of wartime propaganda, that sound reproduction devices could deconstruct the conventional ways of auditory hierarchy and endanger political stability by changing listening practices and communication rules.
Chapter Conclusion
As mentioned above, a detailed look at the discographies and the popularity of a specific recording may indicate music’s relationship to the rise of nationalism, political crises, and the socio-economic conditions deeply affected by the Balkan Wars and World War I. However, the lack of comprehensive discographies, aggregate information on their sales, and national sound archives remain critical methodological obstacles. Although the National Library of Turkey has cataloged various gramophone records under the “non-book” (kitap dışı) section of their website Kaşif,313 a complete list of archived records is lacking. Available records are only accessible via their catalog information. Since most early records have “1900?” as their release date, search results also contain newer releases; lastly, the archive does not include phonograph cylinders.
Shaping the role of aural media, sound reproduction devices changed the everyday experience of modernization in late Ottoman Istanbul. Gaining enormous popularity towards the end of the 1890s, these sounding objects generated sets of practices, habits, and tensions for multiple actors. As their primary functions were crystallized in recorded music and light entertainment, a dynamic capitalistic market began affecting Istanbul’s music culture towards 1900. Functioning
313 https://kasif.mkutup.gov.tr/
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as signs of progress, talking machines also generated novel modes of listening and created a multi-cultural network for multiple actors and institutions. The gramophone even further expanded the popularity of music consumption. As the cultural practice of music listening became more personal and direct, listeners’ perceptive capacity and musical taste were altered. Fidelity in sound was now the condition for sensorial modernity. The presence of an active music industry turned these devices into sound media that transcended borders and fashioned a public form of sensorial modernity. As with other media forms of the Hamidian government, a series of questions, regulations, and restrictions prohibited the production and distribution of Qur’anic and “immoral” recordings. In brief, talking machines were the objects of sensorial modernity in late Ottoman Istanbul.
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Conclusion
In letting sound drive chronology and using sounding devices as organizing principle behind the chapters, this dissertation has investigated the auditory modernization of late Ottoman Istanbul. Focusing on church bells, cannons, and talking machines, this study has argued that the Ottoman capital’s modernization was an auditory as well as a visual phenomenon. In has questioned how political, cultural, and technological changes transformed the meaning of existing sounds and brought new sounds to the city; furthermore, it has observed people’s sensorial experiences and perceptions of modernization. This dissertation has demonstrated that this new auditory culture also signified a shift in power balances and impacted the Ottoman state’s identity, control, religion, and legitimization practices while creating political awareness and an expanded culture of hearing.
Readers of this study will note that questioning urban modernization based on a limited research focus is somewhat of a speculative attempt. Moreover, sounds, due to their disembodied nature, are unpredictable, subjective, and fluctuating, and this poses problems for historical research. Despite these limitations, it is imperative to reflect back and address this dissertation’s objectives and research questions, as well as how it answered these questions.
As many of the works discussed in the literature review reveal, sounds are invested with unique and subjective undertones. The pioneers of sound studies—especially ethnomusicologists, cultural anthropologists, and historians—have also underlined the risk of abstracting sounds from their social contexts. Thus, my study has prioritized each sounding device’s moment of production alongside its reception by the state and its inhabitants. In order to make sense of the interplay between people’s perception, material culture, and political power, I have drawn upon a
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wide range of primary sources and established interconnections between narratives and official documents for each sounding device. Combining political, legal, and cultural backgrounds with related narratives helped me establish novel connections and understand how the emergence and transformation of these devices contributed to a complex mode of modernization, both on an urban or personal scale. Taking listening as a cultural and subjective approach, I also tracked changes in their meanings over time and espoused a subtle approach to the never-ending modernization of Late Ottoman Istanbul.
Due to their physical differences and the methodological requirements of their study, each sounding device required a slightly altered perspective to extract historical sensitivities and meanings from its sounds. For example, while archival records and diplomatic agreements proved essential for the first and second chapters, record store advertisements became essential in the last one. Additionally, church bells and canons had strong auditory and figurative symbolism which was employed relentlessly to strengthen imperial legitimacy. Thus, images assumed an even more important role for the first two chapters. Talking machines, functioning as signs of technological and cultural progress, fashioned a public form of sensorial modernity. In brief, each sounding device precipitated different modes of perception and interpretation. However, in all three chapters, one aspect that persisted was the Ottoman will to control and regulate their echoes. As this study demonstrated, the Ottoman state excelled in its auditory politics, and this specific characteristic proved itself useful to track the transformation of the auditory modernization of Istanbul. Although cannon shots or bells’ chimes of late Ottoman Istanbul did not alter listeners’ perceptive capacity or generated a listening culture such as talking machines, they perfectly reflected the changes in religious, bureaucratic, and political
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perspectives. Moreover, they led to novel modes of listening by assuming new practical and communicative functions.
The first chapter has investigated the historical context of church bells in the late Ottoman Empire. Revealing the hitherto unknown policy of the Ottoman authorities towards church bells, church towers, and bell-related conflicts, I demonstrated bells’ complex functions and meanings in Ottoman auditory culture. Since the mid-fifteenth century, controlling bells’ sacred noises and silencing the religious other effectively established power hierarchies for the Ottomans. The 1856 Reform Edict, which sought to protect the rights of all Ottoman religious minorities, lifted the restrictions on religious rites in areas with only one religious sect and led to changes in the religious soundscape of the Ottoman capital. Even though the number of permission requests to repair churches and ring bells gradually increased until World War I, the new multi-ethnic religious soundscape of the Reform Edict was not always well received in the rural areas. The Ottoman state was aware of the bells’ territorial effect that reinforced social and religious divisions between different ethnic communities. They regulated church bells, towers, and conflicts over bell-ringing by employing a complex, flexible, and pragmatic organizational scheme involving more than twenty institutions. Determining sets of control, prevention, and sanction mechanisms shaped by political perspectives, financial dependency, religious sensibilities, and demographic structures, the Ottoman administration employed all possible bureaucratic mechanisms to produce sonic ways of legitimization and control. This multifaceted mediation between numerous institutions was also implemented to establish a diplomatic agenda of auditory politics for bell-related diplomatic crises. Regardless of the difficulties, the Ottoman reforms dissolved the monopoly of the call to prayer in the soundscape of religiously mixed areas.
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As the Ottoman state’s real power declined during the nineteenth century, the importance of sounds gained new complexities and nuances. Expanded by the unique topography of the Bosphorus, cannons of late Ottoman Istanbul surpassed all other sounds and dominated Istanbul’s soundscape. Functioning as signals and salutes, cannons had a well-defined communicative language that varied from one occasion to another. Similar to church bells in Europe, they served as a manifestation of power, demonstration of piety, and transmitter of information complemented by a concern to affirm legitimacy and sovereignty. Accompanying religious feasts, holy days, Mawlid ceremonies, and the departure of pilgrims and monetary aids to the Hajj, cannon shots were fired as indispensable instruments for religious purposes. Another important occasion during which cannon salvos functioned was the Friday prayers. Cannon shots complemented these celebrations as temporal markers for the community and confirmed the sultan’s well-being to the people. Similar to church bells in Europe, the cannons of late Ottoman Istanbul also announced joyful events that contributed to satisfy the thirst for imperial prestige, such as accession ceremonies, sultans’ visits, royal births, and sultanic birthdays. After the mid-nineteenth century, they assumed novel functions as auditory instruments to announce noon-time and fires, much like Corbin’s bells.
The Ottomans also excelled in elevating state reputation through the expansion, control, and use of cannons salvos according to the requirements of international and diplomatic dynamics. Regulated as part of modern diplomacy by treaties of commerce and friendships since 1535, they were a required sign of recognition of hierarchy and sovereignty. Contrary to the contraction of the state’s military power, the echoes of cannon shots began to increase as part of this imperial pomp in the nineteenth century. Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II’s excessive employment of cannons in ceremonies may also be seen as an ongoing search to amplify their status and state
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reputation. The 1879 Imperial Naval Code was the first serious attempt to codify and standardize celebratory practices. However, as ceremonial behavior was standardized and conventionalized according to the needs of a well-connected international system, the significance of diplomatic ceremonial became less important. After the revolution of 1908, their modes of usage and meanings were radically altered alongside power relations and hierarchies. The CUP attempted to subordinate cannons to the nation by reducing religious and sultanic uses for a novel collective identity. Building two monuments, the Abide-i Hürriyet and the Hatıra-ı Celâdet, and selling a considerable number of cannons, they aimed to re-appropriate and recode the cannons’ symbolism. The Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Occupation period of 1919-1922 brought further traumatic listening experiences in the capital.
My third chapter has focused on the cultural impact of talking machines to track the sensorial changes and explore how these machines, related practices, and institutions contributed to the role of aural media within modernism. Creating a unique listening experience, sound reproduction devices changed the everyday experience of modernization in late Ottoman Istanbul. Gaining enormous popularity towards the end of the 1890s, these sounding objects generated sets of practices, habits, and tensions for multiple actors. As their primary functions were crystallized in recorded music and light entertainment, a dynamic capitalist market began affecting Istanbul’s entertainment culture towards 1900. Functioning as signs of progress, talking machines also generated novel modes of listening and multi-cultural networks for multiple actors and institutions. The gramophone expanded even further the popularity of music consumption. As the cultural practice of music listening became more personal and direct, listeners’ perceptive capacity and musical taste were gradually altered. The presence of an active music industry turned these devices into sound media that transcended borders and fashioned a public form of
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sensorial modernity. Fidelity in sound was now the condition for sensorial modernity. Feeling the need to convince their customers of their reproductions’ fidelity, record companies, and stores heavily promoted the sonic particularities of novel media in their advertisements. Leading to the emergence of a “sound culture,” these technologies became more popular and, from the Yıldız Palace to the streets, were accepted by all classes. Consequently, like other media forms of the Hamidian government, a series of questions, regulations, and restrictions prohibited the production and distribution of Qur’anic and “immoral” recordings.
As Eldem (2006) states, “instead of building spatial and social analyses on the most outstanding and readily available sources, one would have to consider the totality of the documentary evidence to attempt a comprehensive reconstruction of the urban environment” (p.26). Underlining the importance of aurality for the emergence of modernity, this study has attempted to demonstrate how transformations in sound, hearing, and listening can enrich our imagination of Istanbul’s urban history. With the help of a close-reading and comparison of archival documents with personal narratives, my thesis showed how the existing body of data, both written and visual, can be employed from an auditory perspective and contribute to our understanding of Ottoman modernization, auditory culture, and politics. However, this understanding has important limitations since the thesis had to leave out “the totality of the documentary evidence” due to methodological difficulties. Hence, I will lay out further questions to indicate future directions that may extend the findings of this study to a broader perspective.
According to Walter Benjamin (1935), “during long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence” (p.222). In line with this, it is essential to question the agency of sound within the socio-cultural structure of modernization. Does sound reflect a pre-existing reality, or does it have a constructive agency that shapes new
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modes of perception and listening? This research suggests that a middle way makes the most sense. Although sound, as an active agent, has a formative impact on the experience of modernization, its meaning varies and transforms along with social changes and according to personal perception. As indicated in the second chapter, the experience and meaning of sound are subject to its specific modes of production and reception. Thus, these reflective and constructive aspects of sound generate an information system that indicates changes in socio-political organization and modernization.
As underlined in the literature section, today, numerous studies approach the human sensorium as a cultural product. Alternative sensorial approaches to late Ottoman Istanbul can also be traced through these three chapters by establishing connections to other theoretical approaches and historical narratives. Along these lines, one of the questions that this thesis leaves out is the transformation, regulation, and perception of “noise” in late Ottoman Istanbul.
Kahn states that “noises are never just sounds. […] They are also ideas of noise” (Kahn, 1999, p.20). As I have demonstrated, not all loud sounds were a source of the disturbance. However, it is still unknown how people’s sensibilities toward noise changed alongside the Ottoman capital’s urban morphology, its economic, administrative, demographic, and cultural structures. Instead of using the term “modernity,” many Ottoman intellectuals such as Ziya Gökalp, Namık Kemal, or Ahmed Midhat used “civilization” to explain the profoundly changing urban life. Linking socio-cultural developments, cosmopolitanism, technology, scientific thinking, and particular worldviews and manners to an inevitable civilization on the “universal” level, they were challenged by the ambiguities and discrepancies of this transformation in the Ottoman lifestyle. When public sensibilities in cities such as London, Paris, Vienna, and New York increasingly concentrated around the negative effects of noise, the playwright and diplomat Abdülhak Hamid
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Tarhan noted in London that “civilization was never silenced, progress continued… cars worked, [and] chemin de fers were everywhere” (Meriç, 2007, p.90). Welcoming noise as a by-product of industrial progress, Kazım Karabekir Paşa also noted in 1922: “Hammer, scissors, hatchet, we work them—proud! Let the machines feed our souls with their sweet sound!” (Hafez, 2012, p.116). However, some of the sensory experiences of urban modernism in Istanbul were rejected as “decadent modern” (Woodall, 2008, p.xv). As demonstrated by Woodall, sounds of “decadency,” such as female laughter, Charleston music, or jazz, were considered a source of disturbance that threatened local cultural or moral values with their “pervading” and “outrageous” characteristics.
In my research, I have noticed that auditory encounters on the multi-ethnic streets of Ottoman Istanbul caused important gaps between people’s perceptions. According to place, time, and occasion, perceptions shifted and transformed in an intricate and organic manner, overlapping between various dichotomies, such as disturbing and exciting, dull and magnificent, deafening and musical. Using such dichotomies and noise-related theories, one may attempt to understand what was considered noise and how it constructs and reveals the “sounding other.” Other key questions would be: How and in what ways did “noise” in urban areas change over time? How did different political regimes deal with noise in Istanbul? How did the reformers and urban novelists express their doubts regarding noisy spaces? How did different minorities and European visitors perceive urban noise and position themselves accordingly? Were there any noise abatement societies in Late Ottoman Istanbul as in other big cities in Europe and United States? If not, why? In brief, noise, as a complex phenomenon, can contribute to our understanding of the evolving urban fabric, emerging nightlife, changing neighborhoods, gender roles, demographic structures, and household soundscapes.
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Further questions could also extend a “comprehensive reconstruction” to other key areas like urbanization, industrialization, households, gender, and cultural life: How did material structures and types of sounds produce change in the nineteenth century? How did Istanbul’s parceling alter the sounds of neighborhoods? Did unequal urban modernization (or the creation of “islands of modernity”) lead to an ambiguous sonic relationship between neighborhoods? How did commercialization affect the soundscapes of the streets? How did urban modernization affect private life and the soundscapes of households? How did increasing female visibility change the urban soundscape? How were women expected to make or repress certain sounds?
Ernst Hemingway (1922) wrote: “Constantinople is noisy, hot, hilly, dirty, and beautiful.” As one of the first pieces of the puzzle, this study has only begun to deal with Istanbul’s never-ending cacophony. Although hidden in literature, travel notes, poems, diaries, pictures, drawings, records, letters, and official archives, audible descriptions are plentiful. We only need to understand how to retrieve and decode them, how the Ottomans heard their world, and how our senses have changed over time.
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Figures
Figure 1. 1882 Stolpe Map of Istanbul.
High-quality version is available on: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:8608890
Figure 2. “Koruyam gayri memleketlerim gibi ve kilisalari ellerinde ola ayinlerince okiyalar amma çan ve nakus çalmiyalar ve kilisalarin alub mescid etmiyem bunlar dahi yeni kilisa yapmiyalar.” The Ahdname of Galata (Şakiroğlu, 1983).
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Figure 3. Ayasofya’s bell in the Weapons Museum / Abdullah Frères. Published between 1880 and 1893.
Source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b29000 Library of Congress Washington, D.C.
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Figure 4. Bells and old weapons in the Weapons Museum / Abdullah Frères. Published between 1880 and 1893
Source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003674874/ Library of Congress Washington, D.C.
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Figure 5. The cannons of the occupation army. Source: Necdet, May 11, 1909
Figure 6. Artillerie turque quittant Constantinople Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque Nationale de France
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Figure 7. The view of Taşkışla after the bombardment. Source: Necdet, May 11th, 1909
Figure 8. The damages caused by the bombardment in the Taksim Military Barracks. Source: Necdet, May 11, 1909
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Figure 9. Bab-ı Ali Sadaret Dairesi (modern-day Governorship of Istanbul) after the bombardment. Source: Necdet, May 11, 1909
Figure 10. The march of the artillery forces during the national celebration on Hürriyet Tepesi - Şişli. July 10, 1909. Source: Şehbal No.9, August 14, 1909.
Figure 11. The march of the artillery forces during the national celebration on Hürriyet Tepesi - Şişli. July 10, 1909. Source: Şehbal No.9, August 14, 1909.
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Figure 12. The National Holiday: Mesudiye parades the Imperial Yacht. Source: Servet-i Fünun No:999, July 15, 1910.
Figure 13. “Firing cannons to honor the sultan.” Source: Resimli Kitab No:10, July 28, 1909.
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Figure 14. Mesudiye Ironclad fires cannon salutes. Source: Şehbal No.1, March 14, 1909.
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Figure 15. Source: Kalem, No.97, October 13, 1910.
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Figure 16. The Monument of Liberty. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
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Figure 17. The Monument of Liberty on a post card. Souce: Wikimedia Commons
Figure 18. The Monument of Liberty memorial coin. Source: Salt Online.
Figure 19. The Monument of Liberty stamp.
Source: Salt Online.
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Figure 20. The opening ceremony of The Memory of Bravery (Hatıra-ı Celadet). April 20, 1916. Source: Servet-i Fünun.
Figure 21. The opening ceremony of The Memory of Bravery (Hatıra-ı Celadet). April 20, 1916.
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Figure 22. The opening ceremony of The Memory of Bravery (Hatıra-ı Celadet) April 20th, 1916.
Figure 23. General Franchet d’Esperey’s visit to The Memory of Bravery (Hatıra-ı Celadet), November 24, 1918. Source: Getty Images.
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Figure 24. Nusretiye Mosque and the Tophane Square - James Robertson, mid-nineteenth century. Source: Pera Museum.
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Figure 25. The 1879 Imperial Naval Code (Bahriye Kânûnnâme-i Hümâyûnu)
Source: TBMM Milli Saraylar Kütüphanesi, https://acikerisim.tbmm.gov.tr/xmlui/handle/11543/2158
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Figure 26. Cannon of Muhammad II / The Great Turkish Bombard / Dardanelles Gun. Source: Lefroy, J. H. (1868): The Great Cannon of Muhammad II. Archaeological Journal 25 (100).
Figure 27. Cannon of Muhammad II / Dardanelles Gun. Source: Royal Armouries Collections.
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Figure 28. Chart showing what exact alaturka hour cannons announce high noontime.
March 4, 1840. Source: TS.MA.e.1106/15, OA.
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Figure 29. Number of “Guns” mounted along the Bosphorus.
Source: Murray, J. (1854). A Handbook for Travellers in Turkey: Describing Constantinople, European Turkey, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Mesopotamia, p.97.
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Figure 30. Edison Source: Rasim, Ahmet (1884/1885): Beday-i Keşfiyât ve İhtiraât-ı Beşeriyeden Fonograf. In İstanbul: Matbaa-i K. Bağdadliyan.
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Figure 31. Şekil 1 - Fonograf Source: Rasim, Ahmet (1884/1885): Beday-i Keşfiyât ve İhtiraât-ı Beşeriyeden Fonograf. In İstanbul: Matbaa-i K. Bağdadliyan.
Figure 32. One of the earlier models of the phonograph in the Ottoman Empire. Source: https://www.zdergisi.istanbul/makale/iletilen-tasinan-ve-saklanan-bir-ses-ugruna-icatlar-426
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Figure 33. “Fonografla ders alan bir mekteb talebesi.” - A school student taking lessons with the phonograph. Source: Fonografın Derece-i Terakkisi (1893). Maarif 115, June 10, 1893, p.169.
Figure 34. Gramofon. Source: Servet-i Fünun, March 14, 1901, p.33
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Figure 35. Blumenthal record factory in Feriköy. Founded in 1911. Source: http://www.recordingpioneers.com/RP_BLUMENTHAL2.html
Figure 36. Marcel Blumenthal (third from left) in Blumenthal Brothers in Eminönü Katırcıoğlu, Hanı No:47-51. Source: http://www.recordingpioneers.com/RP_BLUMENTHAL3.html
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Figure 37. Fabrication Ottomane 76 - 1905 recording of the Muzika-i Hümayun. Source: https://www.recordingpioneers.com/labels.html
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Figure 38. Fonografhane-i Gülistan. Source: Servet-i Fünun, July 4, 1901, p. 159.
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Figure 39. The 1912 catalog of Lyrophon Record. Source: BOA DH.İD. 1331.R.2
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Figure 40. “Fonograf meraklılarına müjde.” – Good news for fonograph enthusiasts. Source: İkdam, June 10, 1904, p. 4.
Figure 41. Hafız Aşir (Second person from right) and his band with their Orfeon record. Source: Gökhan Akçura - Türkiye’nin İlk Plak Fabrikaları. www.zdergisi.istanbul/makale/turkiyenin-ilk-plak-fabrikalari-427
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Figure 42. Orateur automatique. Source: Kalem, No:46, September 24, 1908.
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254
Appendix 1 - List of Abbreviations for Archival Categories
A.DVN.
Bab-ı Asafi Divan-ı Hümayun Kalemi
A.DVN.MHM.
Bab-ı Asafi Divan-ı Hümayun Mühimme Kalemi
A.MKT.MHM.
Sadaret Mektubi Mühimme Kalemi Evrakı
A.MKT.UM.
Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi Umum Vilayat Evrakı
BEO
Babıali Evrak Odası Evrakı
C.ADL.
Cevdet Adliye
DH.EUM.VRK.
Dahiliye Emniyet-i Umumiye Evrak Odası Kalemi Evrakı
DH.HMŞ.
Dahiliye Nezareti Hukuk Müşavirliği Evrakı
DH.İD.
Dahiliye Nezareti İdare Evrakı
DH.MKT.
Dahiliye Nezareti Mektubi Kalemi
DH.MUİ.
Dahiliye Muhaberat-ı Umumiye İdaresi Evr.
DH.ŞFR.
Dahiliye Nezareti Şifre Evrakı
DH.TMIK.M.
Dahiliye Nezareti Tesri-i Muamelat ve Islahat Komisyonu
HAT
Hatt-ı Hümayun
HR.MKT.
Hariciye Nezareti Mektubi Kalemi Evrakı
HR.SYS.
Hariciye Nezareti Siyasi
HR.TH.
Hariciye Nezareti Tahrirat
İ.AZN.
İrade Adliye ve Mezahib
İ.DH.
İrade Dahiliye
İ.HUS.
İrade Hususi
İ.RSM.
İrade Rüsumat
MVL
Meclis-i Vala Evrakı
ŞD.
Şura-yı Devlet Evrakı
TFR.I.A.
Rumeli Müfettişliği Sadaret Evrakı
TFR.I.KV.
Rumeli Müfettişliği Kosova Evrakı
TFR.I.M.
Rumeli Müfettişliği Müteferrika Evrakı
TFR.I.SL.
Rumeli Müfettişliği Selanik Evrakı
Y.A.HUS.
Yıldız Sadaret Hususi Maruzat Evrakı
Y.EE.
Yıldız Esas Evrakı
Y.MTV.
Yıldız Mütenevvi Maruzat Evrakı
Y.PRK.MBC
Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Mabeyn Cetvelleri
255
Y.PRK.MYD.
Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Evrakı Yaveran ve Maiyyet-i Seniyye Erkan-ı Harbiye Dairesi
Y.PRK.TKM.
Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Tahrirat-ı Ecnebiye ve Mabeyn Mütercimliği
Y.PRK.UM.
Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Umumi
ZB.
Zabtiye Nezareti Evrakı
256
Appendix 2 - List of Archival Documents Cited in Footnotes
A.DVN.
9
15
Vodine'deki reayanın kiliselerini kanuna aykırı olarak genişlettikleri ve ezan okunurken çan çalarak kendilerini taciz ettikleri hakkında Müslüman ahalinin arzuhali.
09/01/1845
A.DVN.
89
21
Ayinlerde çan yerine tahta çalarak halkı davet etme işine karışılmaması.
24/05/1853
A.DVN.MHM.
8
62
Rum kiliselerinin bulunduğu mahallerde, kiliselerde çan yerine tahta çalınmasına engel olunmaması hakkında bazı vali, mutasarrıf, kaymakam ve naiblere hükümler
01/07/1850
A.DVN.MHM.
8
86
İstanbul ve tevabii Ermeni Patriği Agob Piskopos'a verilen berat gereği, ayin icra edileceği vakitte kiliselerde çan yerine tahta çalınmasına engel olunmaması hakkında Adana, Van, Kayseri, Harput, Eğin ve Maraş'taki mülki ve şer'i idarecilere hüküm.
17/10/1850
A.DVNS. MHM.d. 123 2 Asitane-i Saadet'te Sadaret-i Uzma ve vekalet-i kübra kaymakamı olan Vezir Mehmed Paşa'ya: Adının Sultan Selim konulan şehzadenin doğmunun ilanı için üç gün Tophane ve Tersane-i Amire'de top şenlikleri yapılması. 25/04/1715
A.DVNS. MHM.d. 125 583 İstanbul kaymakamına: Şehzade Sultan Mehmed'in dünyaya gelmesi sebebiyle Saray-ı Amire'de, Tophane'de ve Tersane-i Mamure'de top şenlikleri yapılması, doksan tane top atılması. 04/01/1717
A.MKT. 134 50 İngiltere elçisi Mösyö Kanin'in bindiği vapurun atacağı topa kıyıdan mukabele edilmesi saygı ifadesi olacağından, Tersane-i Amire Müşirine icrası hususunun bildirilmesini taleb eden Kaptan-ı Derya Mehmed Ali Paşa'nın tezkiresi. 15/06/1848
A.MKT. 140 44 Veladet-i Hümayun münasebetiyle yedi gün süreyle top atışı yapılıp kandillerin yakılacağının ilgililere tenbih ve tebliği. 17/07/1848
A.MKT. 237 66 Mevlid-i Şerif gecesinde kandil yakılıp top atılmasının adetten olduğuna dair tezkire ve derkenar. 15/11/1849
A.MKT.MHM.
130
75
Müslüman ve Hristiyanlar'ın karışık oldukları yerlerde kiliselere çan asılmasının yasak olduğu.
08/05/1858
A.MKT.MHM.
628
30
Dersaadet Feriköy'de çan çalınarak bir hayli Ermeninin kiliseye toplanmasının sebebi hakkında tahkikat yapılması.
29/08/1896
257
A.MKT.MHM. 403 71 Kurban Bayramı öncesi arefe gecesi bütün camii ve mescidlerin kandillerinin yakılması. Her sene olduğu gibi belirli yerlerde arefe günü ikindi vaktinden itibaren bayramın dördüncü günü ikindi vaktine kadar top atışı yapılması. 31/03/1868
A.MKT.MHM. 431 83 Ramazan bayramının perşembe günü başlayacağı ve kutlamaların eskiden olduğu gibi top atışlarıyla başlayıp bitirilmesi. 31/01/1869
A.MKT.NZD. 11 98 Ramazan Bayramı münasebetiyle Arefe günü ikindi vaktinde başlanarak bayramın üçüncü günü ikindi vaktine kadar her gün beş vakitte top atılarak sevinç izhar edilmesine dair Seraskerlik ile Tophane ve Tersane-i Amire Nezareti'ne ferman. 08/08/1850
A.MKT.NZD. 24 101 Mevlid gecesi münasebetiyle ahali kandilleri yakıp şenlik yapacağından ilgili makamlarından geremkenlere duyurması ve top atılması. 21/01/1851
A.MKT.NZD. 81 97 Varna ve Gemlik'ten Dersaadet Limanı'na iki vapur geldiği ve İngiliz kraliçesinin tahta oturuşu günü dolayısıyla İngiliz, Fransız ve Osmanlı gemilerinde top atışı yapıldığı. 29/06/1853
A.MKT.NZD. 200 2 Mevlid gecesi münesebetiyle evlerde ve sair yerlerde kandil yakılması ve top atışı yapılması. 08/11/1856
A.MKT.NZD. 223 60 Ramazan Bayramı münasebetiyle top atışı yapılması. 23/05/1857
A.MKT.NZD. 419 77 Veladet ve culüs-ü hümayun günlerinde donanma-yı hümayun ve ecnebi gemilerin yapacakları top atışları hakkındaki teklifin uygun olduğu. 19/05/1862
A.MKT.UM.
429
84
Tırhala'daki Kilise'ye asılmak üzere Yunanlı bazı şahısların gönderdiği çanın Hristiyan ahalinin israsına rağmen asılmasının doğru olmamakla beraber, bundan böyle bu gibi konulardal dikkatli olunması gerektiği.
01/10/1860
A.MKT.UM. 481 22 Sultan Abdülmecid'in vefatıyla yerine Sultan Abdülaziz'in geçtiğinin top atışı ile ilan edildiği. 05/07/1861
A.MKT.UM. 486 53 Cülus-ı Hümayun töreninin yapılarak yirmibir pare top atışının gerçekleştirildiği. 23/07/1861
A.MKT.UM. 486 82 Sultan Abdülaziz'in cülusu münasebetiyle gerekli ilan yapılıp yirmibir pare top atışının da icra edildiği. 25/07/1861
A.MKT.UM. 499 75 Fransa İmparatoru'na hediye edilen Rodos şövalyelerinden kalma oniki adet topun Rolan isimli vapurla gönderildiği. 16/09/1861
258
A.MKT.UM. 516 61
Cülüs-ı Hümayun için Dersaadet'te top atışı yapılıp fener alayların tertip edileceğinden taşrada da bunun gibi kutlamaların yapılması. 13/07/1861
A.MKT.UM. 554 12 Cülus-u Hümayun'un kutlandığı günlerde donanma ve kalelerden top atılması. 14/04/1862
A.MKT.UM. 483 98 Yeni padişahın cülusu sebebiyle isminin hutbede okunduğu ve kutlama için top atışı yapıldığı 13/07/1861
AE.SABH.I. 295 19847 Kurban Bayramı'ndaki şenliklerde Tophane önünde atılacak toplar için Cebehane-i Amire'den barut-ı siyah verilmesi. 03/02/1775
AE.SABH.I. 197 13165 1199 senesi Ramazan'ının 14. çarşamba günü Mahmud (2. Mahmud) ismi verilen bir şehzadenin doğduğu, üç gün üç gece top ve fişenk şenlikleriyle kutlandığı, cami ve mescidlerde dua edilmesi vs. hakkında yazılan ferman müsveddesi. 19/05/1785
AE.SABH.I. 225 14923 Ramazan Bayramı'nda Anadolu Kavakhisarı Kalesi'nde yapılacak şenlikte top atılması için Cebehane-i Amire'den barut gönderilmesi. 02/11/1776
AE.SABH.I. 247 16521 Cülus-ı hümayun şenliklerinde kullanılmak üzere Topkapı Sarayı önünde ve Sofa-i Hümayun ve Kurşunlu Mahzen'de bulunan toplar için Cebehane-i Amire'den iki kantar barut verilmesi. 11/02/1774
AE.SABH.I. 303 20343 Padişahın doğum günü dolayısıyla Kızkulesi'nden atılacak şenlik topları için gerekli barutun Cebehane-i Amire'den verilmesi. 16/01/1776
AE.SABH.I. 305 20479 Yenice-i Göksu Kalesi'nde Ramazan Bayramı şenliği için atılacak toplara Cebehane-i Amire'den barut-ı siyah verilmesi. 28/04/1785
AE.SAMD.III 120 11833 Iyd-ı şerif şenliğinde kullanılmak üzere Sarayburnu'nda ve Kurşunlu Mahzen'deki toplar için verilen barut kifayet etmediğinden iki kıntar daha barut-ı siyah itası. 08/08/1720
AE.SAMD.III 141 13670 Ramazan Bayramı şenlikleri için Kızkulesi'nden atılacak toplara gerekli barutun Cebehane'den verilmesi. 19/08/1720
AE.SMHD.I. 179 13941 1147 senesi Kurban Bayramı'nda Sofa-yı Hümayun önünde atılan şenlik toplarına Cebehane-i Amire'den barut-ı siyah verilmesi. 29/04/1735
AE.SMHD.I. 180 14000 Ramazan bayramı şenlikleri için Tophane-i Amire önündeki toplara barut-ı siyah itası. 04/10/1746
AE.SMHD.I. 29 1735 Kurban Bayramı'nda Tersane-i Amire Divanhanesi önünde atılması adet olan şenlik topları için 19/09/1748
259
belirtilen barutun Tersane-i Amire'den teslim alındığı;
AE.SMHD.I. 154 11508 Ramazan Bayramı şenlikleri için Kız Kulesi'deki toplarda istimal olunmak üzere Cebehane-i Amire'den yarım kantar siyah barut verilmesi. 05/09/1749
AE.SMHD.I. 181 14115 Tersane-i Amire önündeki toplara padişahın geçişi sırasından yapılan şenlikler için Cebehane-i Amire'den barut-ı siyah itası. 23/03/1746
AE.SMHD.I. 221 17568 Padişahın Boğaziçi'ne gittiğinde mutad üzere yapılan top şenliklerinde sarf edilen barutun yerine Cebehane-i Amire'den Yenice-i Göksu kalesine barut gönderilmesi. 18/07/1734
AE.SMST.III 269 21572 Kurban Bayramı şenlikleri için Topkapı Sarayı, sofa-i hümayun ve Kurşunlumahzen önünde atılan toplara Cebehane-i Amire'den gerekli barutun verilmesi. 13/03/1774
AE.SMST.III 278 22302 Ramazan Bayramı şenlikleri için Üsküdar'da vaki Kız Kulesi'nde endaht olunacak toplarda kullanılmak üzere bir kantar barut verilmesi. 23/03/1773
AE.SSLM.III 9 457 Ramazan Bayramı şenliğinde Boğazkesen Kalesi'nden atılacak toplar için Cebehane mevcudundan barut verilmesi. 18/08/1792
BEO
196
14656
Rum Katolik ve Maruniler tararından iki mahalle izinsiz olarak çan talikiyle kilise ittihazı ve Katolik papazlarının hanelerine Fransız bandıraları çekmeleri hadisesi.
09/05/1893
BEO
966
72406
Rusya'dan Humus'daki Ortodoks kilisesine gönderilen çanın asılmasının mahzurlu olacağının uygun bir şekilde sefarete açıklanması.
19/06/1897
BEO
993
74432
İşkodra vilayeti dahilindeki Zadrime ile Polati Katolik piskoposlarının Avurupa'dan celb etmiş oldukları beş aded çanın tesliminde mahalli Gümrük İdaresi kendilerine vermekten imtina ettiklerinden nizam ve emsaline göre gereğinin yapılması.
14/08/1897
BEO
996
74665
Rusya Sefareti, Humus'daki Katolik Kiliselerinde çan çalındığını ifade ederek Ortadoks Kilisesi için gönderilen çanın yerine takılıp çalınmasına müsade olunması iltimasında bulunduğundan konunun araştırılarak nezarete bilgi verilmesi.
23/08/1897
BEO
1015
76116
Büyük Langa'da vaki Ayatodori Kilisesi'nin harap olan Çan Kalesi'nin tamiri.
02/10/1897
260
BEO
1023
76700
Humus'daki Katolik kiliselerinde çan çalınmakta olduğunu Rusya Sefareti iddia etmekte olmasına nazaran iş bu rivayet doğru ise Ortodoks kilisesinde çan çalınmasının engellenmesi mani-i ittirad ve bais-i itiraz olacağı.
17/10/1897
BEO
1121
84037
Muharebeden evvel Yunan Konsolosluğu vekaletinde bulunmuş olan Aleksi Zerve'nin Avlonya'ya getirdiği çanın Rum kilisesine talikine teşebbüs eylediğinden bahisle bu misüllü mefasidin önü alınması lüzumuna dair.
10/05/1898
BEO
1196
89657
Ruhsat-ı resmiye istihsal etmeksizin kiliselere çan taliki mugayir-i nizam olmağla Yanya Avlonya kazasında konsolos vekaletinde bulunan Aleks Rejova'nın kiliseye çan taliki hakkında tahkikat icrasına dair.
19/09/1898
BEO
1211
90782
Avlonya'da Rum kilisesine çan talikinin caiz olamayacağı.
12/10/1898
BEO
1361
102050
Üsküb'deki Bulgar Kilisesi'ne çan takılması hakkında İrade-i seniyye sâdır olduğu.
27/08/1899
BEO
2229
167110
Avlonya Rum Kilisesi'ne takılacak çan hakkında.
01/12/1903
BEO
2289
171630
Eceabad kazası merkezi olan Maydos karyesindeki Hristos Kilisesi'ne mahallat-ı İslamiye'ye ve emakin-i mukaddeseye yakın olması gibi mahzurlardan salim olduğu takdirde çan kulesi inşasına ruhsat verilmesi ve aksi halde ruhsat-ı matlubenin ita olunmaması.
10/03/1904
BEO
2311
173297
Yunan Konsolosluğu Vekaleti'nde bulunmuş olan Aleksi Jerde'nin bir fesat çıkarmak maksadıyla Yanya'da İslam mahallesine yakın bulunan kiliseye asmak için getirdiği çanın asılmaması.
12/04/1904
BEO
2338
175319
Kiliselere çan talikinin resmi müracaat ve istida-yı ruhsat olundukdan sonra yapıldığı halde, Üsküb Bulgar Metropolidinin izinsiz cesim bir nakusu talike teşebbüs ettiği ve kilisede ikiyüz kişiyi tecemmü ve cebren talike kıyam eyledikleri bildirilerek dağıtılmaları için asker sevkedilmesi.
23/05/1904
BEO
3383
253658
İşkodra'da bulunan Aya Aleksandros namındaki kilise için Avrupa'dan getirilen çanın gümrük vergisinden muaf tutulması.
26/08/1908
BEO
3721
279062
Almanya imparatorunun Kudüs'e seyahatleri esnasinda, Hazret-i Davud Aleyhisselam'in makami civarinda inşa edilen kilisenin saat kulesine çan asilmasina müsaade olunmamasi hakkinda
21/03/1910
261
türbedarlar tarafindan gönderilen telgrafnamenin irsali.
BEO
3726
279391
Almanya imparatorunun Kudüs'e seyahatleri esnasinda Hazret-i Davud Aleyhisselam'in makam-i âlileri civarinda insa kilinan kilisenin saat kulesine çan talik edilecegini istihbar ettiklerinden bahisle mani olunmasi talebi.
31/03/1910
BEO
3737
280224
Hazret-i Davud Aleyhisselam'ın makam-ı âlileri civarındaki Katoliklere mahsus saat kulesine vaz olunan çanlar hakkında türbedarların müstediyyatını havi Meşihatpenahi'den varid olan tezkire.
21/04/1910
BEO
3813
285965
Ortaköy'deki Rum kilisesinin harap olan ahşap çan kulesinin müceddeden demirden inşası.
20/10/1910
BEO
3852
288831
Alasonya kazasının Dinişte karyesinde bulunan Rum Kilisesi için ruhsat alınmaksızın inşa edilen kargir çan kulesinin ibkasıyla çan takma ve kullanma ruhsatı verildiğine dair irade-i seniyye.
28/01/1911
BEO
3870
290199
Üsküb kazasının Katib Şahin Mahallesi'ndeki arsa üzerine Bulgar cemaatine mahsus kargir bir kilise ile çan kulesi inşası hakkında İrade-i seniyye sadır olduğu.
18/03/1911
BEO
3889
291616
Altımermer'de bulunan Meryem Ana Kilisesi'nin avlusundaki ahşap kulenin harap olması sebebiyle, yerine demirden bir çan kulesinin inşasıyla çan asılması.
02/05/1911
BEO
3975
298118
Manastır dahilinde Prespe nahiyesinin Peyla karyesinde bulunan Sveti Georgi Kilisesi'ne çan ta'liki ve Bulgar Cemaati'nin mevcudiyetinin tasdiki hakkında irade-i seniyye sadır olduğu.
13/12/1911
BEO
4077
305744
Manastır vilayeti dahilinde Esteroje karyesindeki Esveni Yovan namındaki Bulgar manastırının harap olmasına binaen hedmiyle yerine yeniden kargir bir manastır ile çan kulesinin inşaası.
27/08/1912
BEO
4302
322610
Musul'daki Süryani-i Kadim Cemaati'ne mahsus Martoma Kilisesi için Marsilya'ya sipariş edilmiş olan çanın gümrükten bila-resm imrarı için gerekenin icrası.
29/07/1914
BEO
4333
324933
Kerek kasabasında Rum Cemaatına ait harap kilisenin yıkılarak arsası üzerine müceddeden bir kilise ile çan kulesi inşası.
19/01/1915
BEO 2083 156156 Peygamberimizin doğum günü münasebetiyle malum mevkilerde top atışı yapılması. 02/06/1903
262
BEO 2211 165783 Padişahın doğum günü olan Şaban'ın on altıncı Cuma günü mutad olduğu üzere ikindi vaktinde top atışı yapılması. 04/11/1903
BEO 3506 262902 İşe yaramayan kar-ı kadim topların satılması hakkında bazı ifadat. 08/03/1909
BEO 3529 264664 Dersaadet ve vilayatta mevcut olup hiç bir işe yaramayan eski topların satılması. 06/04/1909
BEO 3541 265561 Eski ve kullanılmayan topların Tophane-i Amire'ce füruhtu. 05/05/1909
BEO 3563 267173 İstanbul ile vilayattaki atik topların satılması konusunda işar-ı sabık vechile bir komisyon teşkili ve Tophane Nezareti'nin mütalaasının tedkiki. 01/06/1909
BEO 3763 282190 Ramazan ve bayramlarda top atmak suretiyle vuku bulan merasim-i kadimenin lağvı cihetine gidileceği hakkındaki rivayetin asılsız olduğu. 13/06/1910
BEO 3766 282429 Ramazan-ı Şerif'te ve iyad-ı mübarekede top atılmasının adet-i kadimeden olduğu. 20/06/1910
BEO 3813 285969 Padişah'ın doğum gününde top atışıyla iktifa olunması ve ifa-yı tebrikin suret-i icrası. 21/10/1910
BEO 3932 294874 Ramazanda iftar ve imsakda endaht edilecek top ve fişek hakkında. 27/08/1911
BEO 4068 305061 Dersaadet'deki sefaret-i ecnebiye istasyonerlerinin Hükümet-i Seniyye ile kendi devletlerinin resmi günlerinde top atmak suretiyle selam icrasına yetkili olmadıklarından gerekli görülenlere tebligat yapılması. 04/08/1912
BEO 4198 314804 10 Temmuz milli bayramının yıl dönümünün kandiller yakılarak ve top atılarak kutlanılması. 22/07/1913
BEO
4371
327802
Veladet-i hümayun dolayısıyla vakt-i zuhurda birer nevbet top endahtıyla iktifa olunması.
30/08/1915
BEO 4433 332472 Kurban Bayramı arefesinde top endaht edilmesi. 07/10/1916
BEO 4477 335732 Kadir Gecesi ve Ramazan Bayramı'nda irade-i seniyye gereğince top endahtı. 14/07/1917
BEO 4581 343516 Cülus-ı hümayun gününde merasim düzenlenmesi ve top atılmasından vazgeçilerek yalnızca resmi tebriklerin kabul edilmesi ile iktifa edilmesi. 03/07/1919
BEO 4686 351425 Cülus-ı Hümayun gününde merasim düzenlenmesi ve top atılmasından vazgeçilmesi. 03/07/1921
BEO 4698 352317 Rebiülevvel ayının on ikinci gecesi mevlid-i Nebi olacağından, top atılarak şenlik yapılması. 09/11/1921
263
C.ADL.
51
3096
Nevrekop kazasının bazı köylerindeki kiliselerde ahalinin kiliseye daveti için çan yerine çalınan tahtalara mümanaat edilmemesi.
07/06/1836
C.AS. 1118 49509 Her sene şeker bayramlarında şenlik için Kız Kulesi'nden atılacak toplara lüzumu kadar barut verilmesi. 23/02/1767
C.AS. 241
10161 İd-ı fıtrda şenlik için Yedikule'de atılan toplara muktezi bir kantar siyah barutun verilmesi. 28/05/1790
C.AS. 377 15598 Rumelikavağı Hisarı'ndaki toplara padişahın gelip geçtiği zamanlar şenlik için atılmak üzere bir kantar siyah barut verilmesi. 13/02/1744
C.AS. 418 17348 Mısır ve İskenderiye'nin Fransızlardan Selim'i salisin feth ve zabtına binaen namına gazi kelimesinin ilavesi ile ve hutbede bu suretle yad olunması ve İstanbul'da yedi gün top şenlikleri yapılması hakkındaki emrin Eflak, Koniçe ve Kalkandelen mahkemelerinde okunduğu. 24/02/1802
C.AS. 511 21308 Padişahın gelip geçtiği zamanlar, bayramda ve şenlik zuhurunda Yenice-i Göksu önünde atılması mutad toplar için lazım olan manivela ve sair tophane mühimmatının gönderilmesi. 15/07/1816
C.AS. 564 23695 Bir şehzade doğduğunda on gün top şenliği yapılması ferman olunduğu cihetle yevmi otuz toptan 300 top atılacağından yeniden dökülen topların endaht tecrübesinin sürur münasebeti ile atılacak topa bedel olarak atılması için icap eden barutun verilmesi. 23/07/1785
C.AS. 1175 52377 Kurban bayramında Boğazkesen Kalesi'nde şenlik için atılacak toplar için siyah barut verilmesi. 11/09/1787
C.BH. 53 2492 Yeni yapılan kalyonların denize indirilmesi merasiminde atılan şenlik topları için siyah barut verilmesi. 27/05/1787
C.BH. 144 6912 Kurban bayramında şenlik için tersane önünden atılan toplar için barut verilmesi. 20/02/1776
C.BH. 194 9110 Kurban bayramı şenliğinde tersane önünde atılacak toplar için Cebhane-i Amire'den bir kantar siyah barut verilmesi. 06/11/1763
C.BH. 263 12141 Padişah için müceddeden yapılan sandal ile filikanın denize indirilmesi resminin icrasında atılacak şenlik topları için Cebehane'den barut verilmesi. 12/10/1772
264
C.BLD. 20 956 Bayram günlerinde Yedikule'den atılacak şenlik topları için barut verilmesi. 28/05/1796
C.BLD. 52 2564 Anadolukavağı kalesinde Kurban Bayramı'nın ilanı ve şenliği için atılacak toplar için barut verilmesi. 20/02/1773
C.BLD. 58 2890 Padişah geçerken ve şenlik yapılırken Tophane önünden atılan toplar için barut verilmesi. 03/06/1751
C.BLD. 86 4258 Kurban Bayramı şenliğinde Boğazkesen kalesiyle Yedikule'den atılacak toplar için barut verilmesi. 27/02/1773
C.BLD. 104 5153 Boğazkesen kalesinden her sene Ramazan Bayramı'nda şenlik için atılan toplara muktazi siyah barutun itası. 12/01/1804
C.HR. 95 4709 Fransa'nın İran nezdine tayin eylediği büyük elçisinin Erzurum'da kaldığı sırada hakkında gösterilen hürmet ve riayet Fransa Hükümeti'nce mucib-i memnuniyet olup muhtelif fabrikalar mamulatından nümune olarak bir ufak top ile on kadar tüfenk ve o kadarda kılıç hediye olarak İstanbul Sefareti tarafından Mösyö Toma vasıtasıyla kendisine gönderilmiş olduğuna dair Hafız Mehmed mühürlü tahrirat. 02/09/1840
C.SM. 10 525 Göç-i Hümayun'da mürur ve ubur esnasında Kız Kulesi'nden atılacak şenlik topları için siyah barut itası. 12/08/1760
C.SM. 46 2327 Yeni Saray'da vaki Topkapu'da, Safa-i Hümayunda ve Kurşunlu Mahzen önünde Kurban Bayramı'nda şenlik için atılan toplar için altışar kantar siyah barut verilmesi. 12/07/1793
C.SM. 104 5245 Şehzade Mehmed'in doğumundan dolayı şenlikler yapılarak beş gün kalelerde toplar atılması hakkında. 12/12/1814
C.SM. 110 5529 Mahmud-ı Evvel'in cülus münasebeti ile her yerde ilanı ve kalelerde top attırılarak şenlik icrası hakkında. 17/10/1730
C.SM. 115 5789 Saliha Sultan doğduğu için kalelerde üç gün top ve tüfek şenlikleri yapılması hakkındaki emir vechile hareket olunduğu. 04/09/1811
C.SM. 153 7665 Padişahın doğduğu günü şenlik için Kızkulesi'nden atılacak toplara barut verilmesine dair topcubaşının takriri. 11/03/1789
C.SM. 157 7893 Has Bahçe'de vaki Topkapı ile Sofa-i Hümayun'da ve Kurşunlu Mahzen'de padişahın doğduğu günü şenliklerinde atılacak toplar için Cebehane'den 09/05/1769
265
barut verilmesi hakkında hassa topçubaşısı tarafından.
C.SM. 162 8123 Padişahın doğduğu gün yapılacak şenliklerde Sofa-i Hümayun'da ve Kurşunlu Mahzen'de top atılmak üzere barut verilmesi. 02/07/1780
C.SM. 168 8442 Kurban bayramında Topkapı Sarayı önünde ve Sofa-yı Hümayun ve Kurşunlu Mahzen'deki topların şenlikte atılması için siyah barut verilmesine dair. 01/01/1778
DH.EUM.VRK.
4
8
Kozyatağı'nda Rum ahalinin ayin-i ruhanî toplantısından sonra kilise avlusunda çan kulesi yapmak maksadıyla açılan temelde Rumca Yaşasın Yunanlılar diye slogan attıklarının iş'ârı.
09/09/1910
DH.HMŞ.
19
23
İbadethane ittihaz olunacak binalar hakkında eski kanun hükümlerine göre işlem yapılması ve çan takılmasının ruhsatlı olarak yapılan kiliselere mahsus olduğu.
06/12/1908
DH.İ.UM 19 1 Cülus-ı Hümayun nedeniyle şehr-i ayin icrasından ve top atışından vazgeçilerek cami ve mescidlerin ışıklandırılmaması. 01/07/1920
DH.İ.UM 19 1 Padişahın doğum günü kutlamaları dolayısıyla top atılması, mescid ve cami minarelerinde kandil yakılmasından vazgeçilmesi. 20/03/1922
DH.İ.UM.EK. 94 61 Padişah'ın doğum günü nedeni ile umumi şölen yapılmayıp sadece belirli mevkilerde birer nöbet top atılmasının yeterli olduğu. 30/08/1915
DH.İD.
108
3
İstanbul'da Sure-i Şeriye ve Ezan-ı Muhammedi'yi havi plakların furuht ve istimaline mani olunması.
11/3/1913
DH.İD.
114
14
Rakalar'ın Pogdova köyündeki harap Rum Kilisesi'nin yıkılarak yerine tevsian bir kilise birde çan kulesi inşasına ruhsat verildiği.
06/05/1911
DH.İD.
123
1
Kudüs'deki Alman Kilisesi saat kulesine Alman prens ve prensesinin ziyaretlerinden sonra kaldirilmak üzere konulan çanin kaldirilmasi.
17/05/1910
DH.KMS. 34 8 Padişahın doğum gününde yalnız top endahtı ile iktifa olunacağı. 31/08/1915
DH.KMS. 51 55 Padişahın doğum günü münasebetiyle top atışı ve merasim yapılmaması ile sadece Kale-i Sultaniye'de top atışına müsaade edildiği. 21/04/1919
DH.MB. HPS.M. 7 29 Top kullanmak mahzurlu ve tehlikeli olduğundan, Ramazan'da iftar ve imsak ilanı için tüfenk veya havai fişenk atılması gerektiği. 20/10/1912
266
DH.MKT.
30
25
Fransa tebeasından Katolik Papazı Cozope Kaspari'nin kendisine ait hanenin bahçesine ruhsatsız koyduğu çan ile penceresine astığı bandırayı (bayrağı) kaldırması hususunda Fransız Sefarethanesi tarafından kendisine ikinci kez tenbihat yapıldığı.
20/11/1893
DH.MKT.
78
6
Kastamonu Rum Kilisesi'ne takılan büyük çanın sesinin ahaliyi rahatsız ettiğinden, değiştirilip yerine takılan küçük çanın çalınmasına müsaade edilmesi.
04/07/1893
DH.MKT.
746
5
Leskovik Kazası'nın Bustan Karyesi'nde bulunan Aya Yorgi Kilisesi'nin bahçesindeki bir ağaca çan asılmasına izin verildiği.
01/08/1903
DH.MKT.
771
20
Nevrekop'ta bulunan Meryem Ana Kilisesi'nin çan kulesinin yeniden inşaasına cemaattan zorla para toplanmaması şartıyla izin verilmesi.
29/09/1903
DH.MKT.
772
66
Alasonya kazası Lotaros karyesindeki Rum Kilisesi'nin harap olan çan kulesinin yeniden inşasıyla bir çan asılmasına ruhsat verilmesi.
04/10/1903
DH.MKT.
804
64
Avlonya'da bulunan Rum cemaatinin kiliseleri için çan temin ettikleri ve bu çanı takarak muayyen zamanlarda çalmak için izin istedikleri, Müslüman ahalice hoş karşılanmayacağı sebebiyle mahalli idarenin buna izin vermek istemediği, çan seslerinin ezan ve namaz vakitleriyle çakışmadığı takdirde buna izin verilebileceğinin Yanya Vilayeti'ne bildirildiği.
31/12/1903
DH.MKT.
812
63
Seniçe'nin Yenivaroş Mahallesi'nde yeni inşa edilen kilisede çan çalınmasına, mahalli idarenin olumlu veya olumsuz görüşü alındıktan sonra müsaade edilip edilmeyeceğinin Kosova Vilayeti'ne bildirildiği.
23/01/1904
DH.MKT.
916
60
Nasliç Kazası Siçeste Nahiyesi'nin Kovihka Köyü'ndeki kiliseye çan kulesi inşaasına ruhsat verildiği, bu iş için halktan zorla para toplanmaması.
22/12/1904
DH.MKT.
944
84
Delvine'nin varoş mahallesinde bulunan Meryem Ana Kilisesi'ne bir çan kulesi yapılarak çan asılmasına ihtiyaç olmadığına ve bunun ayrıca mahzurlu olduğuna dair mahallinden gelen tahriratın Adliye ve Mezahib Nezareti'ne takdimi.
09/04/1905
DH.MKT.
992
63
Çan takılması için izin istenilen Berat sancağının Vakıf Mahallesi'ndeki Aya Dimitri Kilisesi'ne çan
30/07/1905
267
takılmasında bir sakınca olup olmadığına ilişkin Yanya vilayetinde görüş istenilmesi.
DH.MKT.
1029 40
Gramofon plakları listesini ruhsatsız olarak basan Levant Herald Matbaası hakkında kanunî muamele yapılması.
7/12/1905
DH.MKT.
1033 36
Fonograf, gramafon gibi çalgı aletlerine rağbetin artmasıyla, kifayet etmeyen eski çalgı ruhsatı tarifesiyle yeniden hazırlanan tarifenin icrasına müsaade edilmesi hakkındaki Şehremaneti tezkiresinin takdimi.
18/12/1905
DH.MKT.
1070
32
Alman teb'asından olup Beyoğlu'nda fotoğrafçılık yapan Vaynberg adına gelen kilişelerin gramofon ilanına mahsus olduğu, sahibine tesliminde bir sakınca olmadığı.
19/04/1906
DH.MKT.
1092
10
Şeyh Said el-Mollavi tarafından gramofon plaklarına Kuran okunarak Kahire ve Avrupa'da imal edildiği anlaşıldığından bu tür plakların satış ve kullanılmasına müsaade edilmemesi, satılanların müsadere edilerek bayilerin tedib edilmesi.
19/06/1906
DH.MKT.
1097 50
Gramofon plakları gibi sesin zabt ve hıfzına mahsus ve sonorin tabir olunan kartlar ile bunların imaline ait makinelerin Memalik-i Şahaneye girişleri yasak olduğundan bu gibi aletlerin geldikleri yerlere iade edilmeleri.
7/7/1906
DH.MKT.
1122
91
Yeniden inşasına ruhsat verilmesi taleb olunan Erzincan Rum kilisesi ile çan kulesinin inşaatına belirtilen ölçüleri aşmamak üzre izin verildiği.
09/10/1906
DH.MKT.
1226
90
Karyot adasındaki Perdiki karyesindeki Aya Matruma Rum Kilisesi'ne belirtilen ölçüleri aşmamak ve kimseden zorla para almamak şartlarıyla çan kulesinin inşaasına izin verildiği
25/01/1908
DH.MKT.
1258 92
Beyoğlu'nda Tünel Meydanı'ndaki İstantör ismindeki Gramofon mağazasında, haberleşmeye yarayan Fonopostal isimli fonoğraf nevinden yeni icat edilmiş makinalar bulunduğu ihbar edildiğinden gerekli tahkikatın yapılması.
5/6/1908
DH.MKT.
1259 66
Vafyadis'in Babıali Caddesi'ndeki mağazasında bulunan çinkograf ve gramofon makine ve aletlerini Beyoğlu'nda Kuledibi'ndeki eski Valas matbaasına nakletmesine izin verilmesi.
7/6/1908
DH.MKT.
1384
112
Samatya'da yeni inşaa olunan Sulumanastır isimli Ermeni kilisesinin üstüne büyük bir saat konulmak üzere kule yapılmasına müsaade edilmesi talebi
14/12/1886
268
üzerine ileride buraya çan asmak isteyebileceklerinden Şehremaneti'nce buna müsaade edilmemesi tebliği.
DH.MKT.
1394
19
Dört sene önce Adana'ya gelerek bir ev kiralayıp çocuk okutan Cizvit papazlarının işi aleniyete dökerek çan asmaları ve kilise gibi çan çalmaları ve bandıra asmaları ve Fransız Konsolosluğu'nun da buna sahip çıktığından buranın kapatılması ve bandıranın kaldırılması için Fransız Sefareti'ne tebligatta bulunulması.
21/01/1887
DH.MKT.
1407
145
Kosova'nın Taşlıca kasabasına yakın olan ve yeniden inşa edilen Esevti Torviçe Kilisesi'ne, müslüman ahaliyi rencide etmemek için eski ölçülerine uygun çan takılmasının daha uygun olacağının Sadaret'e arzı.
28/03/1887
DH.MKT.
1408
68
Adana ve Tarsus'ta Cizvit papazlarının bazı çocukları gizlice eğittikleri, kiraladıkları haneye çan taktıkları ve çevrede misyonerlik faaliyetlerinde bulunulduğunun bildirilmesi üzerine Hariciye Nezareti'nden konuyla ilgili Fransa ve Amerika sefaretlerinin uyarıldığı cevabı alındığı.
30/03/1887
DH.MKT.
1415
108
Taşlıca kasabasına yarım saat mesafede yeniden inşa edilen kiliseye yüzelli kiloluk çan asılması talebi uygun görülmediği, önceden inşa olunmuş kiliselere asılı olan çandan daha fazla kiloda çan asılamayacağı.
26/04/1887
DH.MKT.
1427
61
Edirnekapı'da bulunan Aya Dimitri kilisesinin harap olan çan kulesinin yeniden inşasına ancak eskisinin yüksekliğinde yapılmak şartıyla izin verilmesi.
28/06/1887
DH.MKT.
1480
40
Ceviz adlı mevkide Fransa Konsolosluğu Tercümanı Osmanlı tebasından Kolanderk Çope namına alınıp çan takılarak ayin yapılan evle ilgili olarak ne yapılması gerektiğini soran İşkodra Valiliği telgraf suretinin takdim olunduğu.
25/01/1888
DH.MKT.
1499
10
Evine çan takarak ruhsatsız ayin yapılan İşkodra Fransa Konsolos Tercümanı Osmanlı tebeası Folandecik Çobe hakkında nasıl muamele olunacağının vilayetçe sorulduğu.
05/04/1888
DH.MKT.
1553
86
Hama Rus konsolosunun Rusya'dan getirdiği çan ile bazı tasvirlerin Humus Rum Ortodoks Kilisesi'ne takılmasının söz konusu olduğu günlerde ahali arasındaki gerginliği yatıştıran ve aşar ihalesinde
11/10/1888
269
hizmetleri görülen eşraftan ve idare meclisi azasından bazı şahısların taltifleri.
DH.MKT.
1565
55
Humus'taki Rum Kilisesi ile Hama Kilisesi'ne Hama Rusya konsolosu ve Filistin Cemiyeti tarafından çan asılması ile ilgili tahkikat yapılması.
17/11/1888
DH.MKT.
1585
53
Rusya'daki Filistin Cemiyeti tarafından Hama Kilisesi'ne asılmak üzere gönderilen iki çandan birinin asıldığı, diğerine mutasarrıflıkça izin verilmediği.
19/01/1889
DH.MKT.
1628
25
Cuma kazasına bağlı İnadiye karyesinde Müslümanlar ve Hristiyanlar bir yerde yaşadıklarından kiliseye çan takılması talebinin reddi.
12/06/1889
DH.MKT.
1672
83
Bebek karyesinde bulunan Haralambos Kilisesi'nin harap olan çan mahalinin tamirine izin verildiği.
08/11/1889
DH.MKT.
1673
77
Mamuretülaziz'de Hüseynik karyesindeki Ermeni kilisesinde daha büyük bir çan İslam ahaliyi rahatsız edeceğinden çanın eskiden olduğu gibi kalması.
12/11/1889
DH.MKT.
1696
65
Palanka'daki Gradiç adlı Bulgar kilisesi ile aynı kazaya bağlı Osgova köyü manastırına ahali tarafından getirtilen çanların gümrük resminden muaf tutulmasına ve talikine dair lazım gelen muamelatın icrası.
08/02/1890
DH.MKT.
1703
112
Samatya'da Sulu Manastır Kilisesi'ne inşa olunan kuleye saat takılacağına dair senet verildiği halde çan takıldığı beyanıyla kaldırılması için icabının icrası.
27/02/1890
DH.MKT.
1710
125
Samatya'da Sulu Manastır Kilisesi üzerinde inşa olunan kuleye irade-i seniyye alınmadan asılan çanın kaldırılması.
25/03/1890
DH.MKT.
1718
22
Samatya'da Sulu Manastır Kilisesi'ne ruhsatsız olarak konulan Çan'ın kaldırtılarak yerine saat takılması.
16/04/1890
DH.MKT.
1724
14
Sulumanastır Kilisesi'ne asılan çanın indirilmesi için zabıtaya değil doğrudan Ermeni Patriğine tebligatta bulunulması.
03/05/1890
DH.MKT.
1738
38
Nevşehirli Protestan Karis'in, evini mabed haline getirip çan çaldırması olayıyla ilgili olarak ne yapılacağının sorulması üzerine söz konusu evin kilise ittihazıyla çan çaldırılmasının önlenerek evde yapılan ibadete karışılmamasının istenildiği.
02/07/1890
270
DH.MKT.
1762
57
Beylan'da Ermeni milletinin kilisesinde tahta yerine Çan çalınmak üzere bir bina inşa ettiklerinden, bu konuda vilayetce ne tür muamele yapılacağı.
18/09/1890
DH.MKT.
1769
131
Samatya'daki Sulu Manastır'a takılan çanın çalınması hususunda gerekli iznin, çıkan iradeyle verildiğinin Ermeni Patrikliği'ne Adliye Nezareti'nce bildirildiği.
12/10/1890
DH.MKT.
1778
68
Gece vaktinde sarhoşluk eseri kilisede çan çalıp ayin icra eden Arnavudköyü Kilisesi Papazı Haralambo hakkında Patrikhane'ye tebligat yapıldığı.
05/11/1890
DH.MKT.
1823
115
Üsküb Latin piskoposunun ikamet ettiği hanın bir tarafını ruhsatsız olarak kilise yaptığı ve hükümete haber vermeden bahçesine taktığı çanın alaybeyi vasıtasıyla kaldırıldığı ve Avusturya Konsolosunun devletin dahili icraatlarına müdahale etmemesi hususunun Avusturya Sefarethanesine tebliği.
01/04/1891
DH.MKT.
1828
97
Payas Kazası Çokmerzemin ve Üzeyrli karyeleri Protestan vaizlerinin kiliseleri olmadığı için mabet yaptıkları hanelerde çan çalmalarına izin verilmemesi.
15/04/1891
DH.MKT.
1846
10
Trabzon Tuzluçeşme Mahallesi'ndeki Rum Kilisesi'ne asılmak için celb olunan çanın yedi yüz elli kilogram ve eskiden mevcud olanın elli kilogram sıkletinde bulunduğu.
19/07/1894
DH.MKT.
1852
25
Bozcaada'daki Rum kilisesinin yeniden inşa edilecek çan mahalli için ruhsat talebinin Adliye ve Mezahib Nezareti'ne bildirildiği.
26/07/1891
DH.MKT.
1857
10
Bozcaada'daki Rum kilisesinin yıkılan çan mahallinin önceki yükseldiğini geçmemek üzere inşa edilmesinde mahsur olmadığından izin verilmesi.
07/08/1891
DH.MKT.
1885
69
Hama'daki kiliselerde çan çalınmasına izin verilmeyeceği.
04/11/1891
DH.MKT.
1911
110
Üsküp'de Latin milletinin ibadet ettikleri hanede ruhsatsız olarak asılıb indirilen çanın bu hane havlusunda tekrar asıldığı ve çalınmağa başlandığı, vefat eden latin piskoposunun da bu hanede görülmesiyle bu konularda nasıl muamele edileceği hakkında görüş istendiği.
15/01/1892
DH.MKT.
1982
16
Kastamonu Rum Cemaati'nin büyük bir çan çalmaları müslüman ahali arasında fesada sebebiyet vereceğinden bunun kullanılmasına ruhsat
03/08/1892
271
verilmeyerek patrikhaneye tenbihat ve tebligat icrası.
DH.MKT.
1999
50
Fransa tebasından olup, Beykoz'daki Yalıköyü Caddesi'ndeki evine çan asarak kilise haline getiren Çozabe Kaspari adlı papazın bu uygulamasına mani olunduğu, ayrıca izinsiz ve ruhsatsız böyle keyfi uygulamaların uygun olmadığı.
09/09/1892
DH.MKT.
2000
31
Cuseppe Kaspari adlı Katolik papazın yortu münasebetiyle evine Fransız Bandırası çektikten sonra çan çalıp ayin yapmaya kalkışması hususunda gerekenlerin yapılıp sonucun bildirilmesi.
12/09/1892
DH.MKT.
2002
58
Deyr kasabasında evini kilise haline getirip izinsiz çan asmak isteyen Ermeni ve Süryani rahib ve ahaliye müsaade edilmemesi.
16/09/1892
DH.MKT.
2004
22
Kastamonu Rum Kilisesi'ne asılması düşünülen çanın büyük olup ahaliyi rahatsız edeceğinden uygun olmadığı onun yerine daha mütevazi bir çanın asılmasının daha uygun olacağı bunun için gereken ruhsatın ifa ve inbası.
20/09/1892
DH.MKT.
2051
3
Tokad'ta, Merzifon'da ve Amasya'da Cizvit Kiliselerinde ve Amerikan misyoner mekteplerinde takılmış olup vakitli vakitsiz çalınan çanlar hakkında ne gibi muamele yapılacağının sorulduğu.
10/02/1893
DH.MKT.
2095
99
Avlonya'daki Cami-i Şerif kurbunda bulunan Rum kilisesine büyük bir çan takmak üzere ruhsat almak için müracaat olunacağı.
25/08/1898
DH.MKT.
2115
32
Muharebeden evvel Yunan konsolosluğu vekaletinde bulunmuş olan Aleksi Jerve'nin, Avlonya'ya gelerek yanında getirdiği çanı beşyüz senedir çansız olan Rum kilisesine asmak istediğinden bahisle ne şekilde muamele edileceği.
10/10/1898
DH.MKT.
2146
4
Avlonya'nın Muradiye mahallesinde yıllarca çansız duran Rum kilisesine Aleksi Jerve tarafından çan takma teşebbüsünün engellenmesi.
08/12/1898
DH.MKT.
2191
49
Üsküb Bulgar Kilisesi'ne çan takılması hakkındaki talebe cevap verilmediğinden Bulgar Metropolitliği'nce izinsiz olarak takılabileceği ihtimali bulunduğundan gereğinin yapılması.
17/04/1899
DH.MKT.
2288
129
İzin verilen küçük çanın çıkarılıp yerine daha büyük çan takılan Üsküdar'daki Bulgar kilisesi hakkında ne yapılacağının bildirilmesi.
25/12/1899
272
DH.MKT.
2345
158
Avlonya'da Rum Kilisesi'ne asılmak istenen çan için resmi ruhsat alınıncaya kadar çanın Yunan Manastırı'na naklinin mümkün olacağı.
16/05/1900
DH.MKT.
2374
44
Toyran kazasına bağlı Valandik karyesindeki Rum kilisesi avlusundaki harap çan kulesinin yeniden inşasına izin verilmesi.
16/07/1900
DH.MKT.
2406
14
Derne İngiltere Konsolos vekilinin izinsiz olarak kilise ve mektebe çevirdiği evi çan ve haç ile süslememesi ve mektebe gelen çocukları kabul etmemesi.
23/09/1900
DH.MKT.
2420
20
Avlonya Rum Kilisesi'ne asılmak üzere götürülen çanın, Romalılardan kalma Bedyan Manastırı'na nakli hususundaki talebin bazı mahzurları sebebiyle yerine getirilemeyeceği.
25/10/1900
DH.MKT.
2505
3
Katrin kazasına bağlı Limnoz köyündeki Ayanikola Rum kilisesinin yıkılan çan kulesinin masrafları kilisece karşılanmak ve eski şeklinde yapılmak şartıyla yeniden inşasına izin verildiği.
01/07/1901
DH.MKT.
2628
78
Bilecik Ermeni Katolik Kilisesi'ne ruhsatsız olarak çan kulesi inşa edildikten sonra gerekli iznin verildiği oysa bu gibi inşaatlar için önceden izin alınması gerektiğine dair Sadaret tezkiresinin Şehremaneti ve Hüdavendigar Vilayeti'ne bildirilmesi.
12/10/1908
DH.MKT.
2650
51
Pirlepe'de Sırplar tarafından yapılacak çan kulesine izin verilip verilmemesi hususunda Manastır Valiliği'nden yapılacak soruşturmaya göre gerekenin yapılması.
07/11/1908
DH.MKT.
2665
81
Dedeağaç kasabasında bulunan Fransız Katolik Kilisesi'nin tamamlanmayan çan kulesinin iki metre daha yükseltilmesinde mahzur olmadığının Edirne Vilayeti'ne tebliği.
22/11/1908
DH.MKT.
2668
27
Avlonya kasabasında miri arazi üzerine ruhsatsız olarak inşa edilen Rum kilisesinin arsasından, öşür bedelinin on misli fazla alınarak ruhsat verileceği ve kiliseye çan takılmasına izin verildiğine dair çıkan iradenin Yanya Vilayeti'ne tebliği.
24/11/1908
DH.MKT.
2683
36
Ahiçelebiye bağlı Karlıkova köyünde yanan Bulgar Kilisesi'nin arsasına yeniden bir kilise ile bir de çan kulesi inşasına müsaade edildiği.
15/12/1908
DH.MKT.
2773
100
Radovişte'nin köylerinde bulunan Bulgar kiliselerine çan takılmasının ruhsatla mümkün olabileceğine dair Meclis-i Vükela kararı
23/03/1909
273
bulunduğunu bildiren Adliye Nezareti tezkiresi üzerine mahallinden gelen tahriratın icrası için Adliye Nezareti'ne gönderildiği.
DH.MKT.
2775
15
Edirne'de Yıldırım mevkiinde Akmescid Mahallesi'nde yanan Bulgar kilisesi ile çan kulesinin inşasına ruhsat veren irade-i seniyyenin gereği için gönderildiği.
24/03/1909
DH.MKT.
2858
95
Demirhisar kazası dahilinde bulunan Hacıbeylik Çiftliği'ndeki kilisenin harap olan çan kulesinin yeniden inşasına izin verildiği.
28/06/1909
DH.MKT.
2864
41
Petriç kazasının Göreme nahiyesinin Ağraleşne karyesindeki kiliseye ilaveten ruhsatsız inşa edilmiş olan sundurma ile çan kulesine ait ruhsatın gönderildiği.
03/07/1909
DH.MKT.
2877
16
Petriç Kazası'nın İşence Karyesi kilisesine ilaveten bir çan kulesi inşasına ruhsat verilmesine irade-i seniyye ile izin verildiği.
15/07/1909
DH.MKT.
2895
31
Havza kasabasındaki Rum kilisesine çan asılması ile ilgili irade-i seniyyenin, gereğinin yapılmak üzere, gönderildiği.
09/08/1909
DH.MKT. 719 9 Kadir gecesi ve Resulullah Efendimizin doğum günü münasebetiyle cami ve mescid minarelerinin kandiller ile tezyini ve top atışıyla şehr-i ayin tertibine dair. 04/06/1903
DH.MKT. 2503 117 Peygamberimizin mevlidi munasebetiyle cami minareleri ve evlere kandil asılmasına ve top atışı yapılmasına izin verildiğinin tebliğ edildiği. 27/06/1901
DH.MKT. 2814 73 Hareket Ordusu Kumandanlığı'nın uygun görmesiyle Abide-i Şüheda-yı Hürriyet Komisyonu'nun Şehremaneti'nde kurulduğu. 17/05/1909
DH.MKT. 2877 50 Temmuz'un onuna tesadüf eden milli bayramda Dersaadet'de yirmibir pare top atılarak hususi merasim yapılacağı, ayrıca ayin icra edilmesi ve siyah elbise giyilerek sefirlerin davet edileceği, vilayet ve elviyelerde de aynı merasimin icra edilerek konsolosların davet edilmesi gerektiği. 17/07/1909
DH.MKT. 2886 47 Eski eserlerden sayılmayan ve kullanılmayacak durumdaki toplarla gülleler hakkında vilayetlerle görüşülerek Harbiye Nezaretine izahatta bulunulduğu. 28/07/1909
DH.MTV. 34 7 Kurban bayramında minarelerde kandil yakılması ve arefe günü top atılması. 11/12/1910
274
DH.MTV. 34 22 Kurban bayramı gecesi minarelerde kandil yakılması ve arefe günü top atışı yapılması 30/11/1911
DH.MTV. 34 46 Kurban bayramının başlangıcının tesbiti ve bayram gecesi minarelerde kandil yakılarak arefe günü top atılması 18/11/1912
DH.MTV. 34 72 Arefe günü çeşitli yerlerde top atılması ve bayram gecelerinde minarelerin kandillerle süslenmesi. 06/11/1913
DH.MTV. 37 5 Ramazanda, dini ve resmi bayramlarda top veya tüfek atılan yerleri gösterir cetveller 16/05/1912
DH.MUİ.
1
52
Kudüs'te Hazret-i Davud'un Türbesi yakininda insa edilen Alman Kilisesi'ne merbut saat kulesi'ne asilan çanlar ve bu çanlarin kaldirilmasi için türbedarlarin müracaati.
11/10/1909
DH.MUİ.
100
5
Berat kazasında ruhsatsız olarak inşa edilen kilise ve çan kulesinin kullanılmasına izin verilmesi.
02/06/1910
DH.MUİ.
163
52
Serfiçe'nin Paligerçan köyünde ruhsatsız olarak inşa edilmiş olan Aya Nikola adlı Rum Kilisesi'nin hayat denilen bölgesinde bir çan kulesinin inşaasına ruhsat verilmesi.
26/10/1912
DH.MUİ. 163 23 Ramazan ayında v.s. vakitlerde kullanılmak üzere talep edilen topların gönderilmesinin uygun olmayacağı, ancak kule veya tam batarya bulunmayan yerlerde iftar ve imsak için tüfekle havaya ateş açılması. 20/10/1912
DH.ŞFR.
136
104
Rusya tarafından Hama Rusya konsolosu marifetiyle Humus Rum Kilisesi'ne takılmak üzere bir çan ile Hama Kilisesi'ne de suret gönderildiğinden mahalli kaymakamlığına talimat verildiği ve konsoloslar tarafından bu gibi teşebbüsatta bulunulmasının dikkat çekici olduğu.
12/08/1888
DH.ŞFR.
147
51
Bayezid kasabasında Ermenilerin kiliselerine ruhsatsız olarak taktıkları çan hakkında ne gibi muamele yapılması gerektiği.
26/12/1890
DH.ŞFR.
150
5
Prizrin'deki Latin kilisesi avlusuna çan asmak için yapılan kuleye ahalinin engel olması üzerine, hükümetce müzakere edilmeden tekrar talikine müsaade edilemeyeceğinin bildirildiği.
04/06/1891
DH.ŞFR.
153
23
Üsküb'de Latin milletinin ibadet ettiği hanede asılı bulunduğu yerden daha önceki dönemlerde indirilmiş olan çanın, tekrar çalınmaya başlandığı ve vefat eden Latin piskoposunun da hane derununa gömüldüğü.
13/01/1892
275
DH.ŞFR.
181
45
Diyarbakır'ın Ermeni Kilisesi'nde vakitsiz çan çalarak efrad-ı millet celb edilmekte ve bunun fikr-i fesada mebni olduğunun hissedildiği.
09/10/1895
DH.ŞFR.
184
57
Ermenilerin çan çalınması ile harekete geçecekleri söylentisi üzerine, Çorum'da çan çalınmasından sonra dükkanlarını kapatan Ermenilere karşı, Müslümanların galeyana geldiği ve çıkan hadisede ölen ve yaralıların olduğu ve olayın daha fazla büyümeden önü alındığı.
21/11/1895
DH.ŞFR.
204
5
Girid'de Hano'nun güya Yunan eşkıyası ile gemilerine teslim olunduğu Yunanistan'da duyulmasıyla şehrayin icra edilmek üzere olduğu ve Narda kasabasında tüfekler atılarak kilisede çanlar çalmakta olduğu.
13/02/1897
DH.ŞFR.
223
18
Niğde'nin bir iki saat mesafesindeki Deneki köyünde Rumlar tarafından yapılan kilise ve çan kulesinin Müslümanlar tarafından taşa tutulduğu, buna benzer başka olaylar da olduğundan iki polis komiserinin oraya gönderildiği, asayişin sağlanması için gereğinin yapılması.
15/04/1898
DH.ŞFR.
224
75
Yeniden çan asılması resmi izne tabi olduğundan, Avlonya'ya götürülen çan hakkında yapılacak muamelenin sorulması.
04/06/1898
DH.ŞFR.
243
108
Üsküb'ün Varda cihetinde Bulgarlara mahsus kiliseye talikine müsaade buyurulan ufak çan çıkarılarak, bila-ruhsat ve irade yerine büyük bir çan konulduğunun bildirildiği.
21/12/1899
DH.ŞFR.
252
31
Avlonya'daki Rum kilisesine asılmak üzere hazırlanan çan için vaki olacak ruhsat talebinin dikkate alınmaması.
08/10/1900
DH.ŞFR.
274
2
Tiran Rum Kilisesi'ne çan asma meselesinden dolayı zuhur eden ihtilaf henüz bertaraf edilemediğinden, ahali arasında emniyet ve asayişin sağlanarak vukuata izin verilmemesi.
16/12/1901
DH.ŞFR.
277
7
Vakitsiz yere çan çalarak halkı galeyana getiren Hristo'nun Serfiçe'de yargılanması.
15/02/1902
DH.ŞFR.
282
94
Rusya tarafından gönderilen ve izin alınmadan Humus Rum Kilisesi'ne asılmak istenen çanın, Müslüman ahali tarafından iyi karşılanmayarak Hıristiyan ahaliye tehditlerde bulunulduğu ifade şikayeti üzerine durumun tahkik edilerek Humus kaymakamının tebdili ve gereken tedbirlerin alınması.
20/04/1902
276
DH.ŞFR.
301
14
Zonguldak'taki Fransızların mekteb inşa ettikleri mahalle izin almadan çan kulesi ve kilise inşa etmeleri üzerine konu hakkında gerekli tahkikata başlanıldığı.
15/01/1903
DH.ŞFR.
307
131
Ahalisinin çoğu Müslüman olan Yebrud karyesinde hilaf-ı adet kilisede çan çaldırılması üzerin Rum Katolik mektebine cühela tarafından tecavüzde bulunulduğu, Şam Fransız Konsolosluğu'nun bu çanı kiliseye takılmak üzere değil, Fransa himayesindeki mektebe talik edilmek üzere verdiği ancak bu konuda hükümeti bilgilendirmediğinin tahkik olunduğu.
17/06/1903
DH.ŞFR.
310
68
Kırkkilise Mutasarrıflığı dahilindeki bazı köylerde çan çalmak, silah atmak, telgraf telleri ve direklerini kesmek gibi hadiseler ile komiteler ve asakir-i şahane arasında meydana gelen müsademe.
19/08/1903
DH.ŞFR. 626 141 Padişahın doğum günü münasebetiyle Çanakkale'de top atılarak kutlamalar yapıldığı. 21/06/1919
DH.TMIK.M.
145
50
Nebek kazasının Beyrut karyesindeki Rum Katolik Kilisesi'ne ruhsatsız çan tesis edilmesi üzerine Müslüman ahalinin tepki gösterdiği ve mahalli hükümetin aldığı tedbirlerle tecavüzcülerin derdest edilip çanın söktürüldüğü.
10/06/1903
DH.TMIK.M.
151
47
Prizrin Katolik ve Ortodoks kiliselerine izin alınmaksızın çan takılması hususunda yapılacak muamelenin bildirilmesi.
26/08/1903
DH.TMIK.M.
185
22
Erzurum ve Keskin'de Ermeni kiliseleri için Rusya'ya sipariş edilen ve gümrük anbarına teslim olunan çanların gümrük resminden muaf tutulması.
28/10/1904
DH.TMIK.M.
254
54
Giresun Çınarlar Mahallesi'nde ikamet eden Katolik Mezhebi'nden Kapuçin papazlarının daha önce aldıkları bir haneyi mabed yaparak üzerine çan koydukları ve ruhsat olmadan mabed olarak kullanamayacaklarından haklarında gerekli muamelenin yapılması.
23/09/1907
HAT
1652
46
Kırçova kazasına bağlı Birişran karyesindeki kilisiye çan asılmasına izin verilmesi.
02/07/1822
HAT 258 14846 İskenderiye'nin zabtı müjdesini getiren iki kişiye kürk giydirilmesi, üç gün şenlik icrası, toplar atılması ve mehterhane takımının çalması hakkında. 02/05/1802
HAT 272 15987 Bir kıt'a çektirmenin denize indirileceği ve bir çektirmenin de inşasına başlanacağı cihetle, top 20/09/1789
277
şenlikleri yapılmasına müsaade irade edildiğine dair.
HAT 276 16229 Belgrad'ın fethi müjdesini getiren tatarlarla sairlerine verilecek esham ve çelenk ve kürk ve Atiyye-i Şahane Defteri'nin takdimine, üç gün top şenliği yapılmasına dair. 23/12/1813
HAT 277 16280 Rusya Elçisi'yle Babıali'de Huzur-i Hümayun'da kabulüne, merasim günü gemilerin güllesiz top atılarak şenlik yapılacağına dair. 23/12/1813
HAT 342 19577 Medine'nin Haricilerden zabtı ve Beytullah'ın anahtarının İstanbul'a gelmesi ve Eyyub Sultan Türbesi'nde merasim yapılıp, sarayda mahalline konması münasebeti ile yedi gün devam eden top şenliği icra olunduğuna dair. Hurşid Ahmed Paşa mührü iledir. 02/02/1813
HAT 343 19616 Der'iyye'nin zabtını bildiren müjdeli haber Salih Paşa'dan gelmişse de Mehmed Ali Paşa'dan gelecek mektubun akabinde üç gün, günde üç defa top atılarak şenlik yapılmasına dair. 09/11/1817
HAT 1164 46055 Hazreti İsa'nın semaya urucu gecesi Büyükdere'de bulunan Rus gemisinden top atılmasına Rusya sefiri müsaade talep etmiş ise de emsali olmadığı ve halkı telaşa düşüreceği cihetle muvafık görülmediği. 10/06/1831
HAT 1179 46579 İngiltere tarafından hediye edilerek boğaza kadar getirilmiş olan yirmi kıta top ve bir kıta kapan sefinesinin İstanbul'a celbi. 28/04/1835
HAT 1295 50282 Fransa maslahatgüzarı tercümanı Frankini Babıali'ye gelerek, Fransa imparatorunun bir erkek evladının dünyaya gelmesi cihetiyle İstanbul'da bulunan Fransa sefinelerinden top atılarak şenlik yapılacağını haber verdiği. 14/01/1812
HAT 1295 50287 Fransa imparatoru Napolyon'un tahta geçtiği gün, gece ve gündüz top şenliği yapılacağından 300 kıyye barut ile 20 kıyye güherçile verilmesi hakkında. 04/02/1810
HAT 1642 7 Samiye Sultan'ın doğumu münasebetiyle üç gün top atışı yapılması ve muhtelif mevkilerde kandiller yakılması. 23/02/1845
HH.İ. 107 98 Alman imparatoruna hediye edilen topların Berlin'e ulaştırılması hususunda gerekli masrafın Tophane-i Amire tarafından karşılanması. 17/05/1897
HR.İM. 22 57 Cumhuriyetin ilanı münasebetiyle limanlarımızda bulunan Müttefikin harp gemilerinin top atışı 30/10/1923
278
yaptıkları ve alay sancaklarıyla donanmak suretiyle bu bayrama iştirak ettikleri.
HR.MKT.
132
57
Galata'daki Sen Covani Kilisesi'nde çan çalınmasına engel olunmaması.
12/01/1856
HR.MKT.
143
88
Galata Ayayani Kilisesi'nde çan çaldırılmasına ruhsat verilmesi.
23/04/1856
HR.MKT.
153
9
Gelibolu Rum Kilisesi'ne konulması istenen çanın, büyük olmasından dolayı uygun görülmediği.
24/07/1856
HR.MKT.
185
84
Ziştovi'deki Hristiyanların kiliselerine çan asmak için bina inşa etmelerinden dolayı çıkan münazaa ortadan kaldırılıncaya kadar ihtiyat askerlerinin orada kalması ve durumun tahkiki.
08/04/1857
HR.MKT.
201
67
Golos'ta bulunan Cezair-i Seb'a ahalisi tarafından burada bulunan kiliseler için bir adet çan alınması için ruhsat verilmesi.
24/08/1857
HR.MKT.
283
69
Beşiktaş'daki Rum kiliselerine bazı şahısların mütevellilerin haberi olmadan çan takılması ve Babıali ile patrikhane arasında görüşülerek icabına bakılıncaya kadar çanların aldırılmadan olduğu gibi bırakılması.
06/04/1859
HR.MKT. 62 36 Fransa imparatorunun isim gününde Fransa gemileri tarafından top atıldığından mukabelede bulunulması. 13/08/1853
HR.MKT. 283 44 Hükümdaran-ı Ecnebiye'nin resmi günlerinde yapılacak top atışları ve merasimlerin bir usul ve nizama göre yapılması. 03/04/1859
HR.MKT. 300 3 Top atma törenlerinin sadece hükümdarların özel günlerinde yapılacağı bunun dışında yabancı devlet konsoloslarının geldiği yerlerde top atışı yapılmamasının bütün ilgilere tekraren tebliğe tenbih edilmesi. 10/08/1859
HR.MKT. 301 19 Avusturya imparatorunun yortu gününde limandaki gemilerin saygı olarak top atışında bulunmaları. 16/08/1859
HR.SFR.04. 835 33 Müteferrik: I- Padişah V. Mehmed Reşad'ın tahta çıkışı vesilesiyle yüzbir pare top atışı yapıldığı. 28/04/1909
HR.SYS.
122
24
Üsküp'te Latin piskoposunun evinin bahçesindeki dikili çanın Kosova mahalli idaresince kaldırılması Avusturya Sefareti'nin müdahelesi meselesinin büyümesi.
05/04/1891
HR.SYS.
410
2
Kudüs’de Hazret-i Davud’un makamı civarındaki Alman imparatoruna ait arsa üzerinde Almanlar tarafından inşa olunan saat kulesinin yapılan
19/02/1914
279
taahhüt ve fermân-ı âlî hilâfına çan kulesine dönüştürülmesi.
HR.SYS. 1339 51 Rusya: Bir dağ topunun Miralay Rüstem Bey'e teslim edilmesinin Avusturya Umur-ı Harbiyesi nazırı tarafından bildirildiği, Osmanlı Devleti'ne bir dağ topunun hediye edilmesinin Rus imparatoru tarafından emredildiği. 23/03/1865
HR.SYS. 2920 58 Haliç'te deniz yoluyla padişahın gelişi esnasında yabancı gemilerin top atışı yaparak selamlamaları. 09/04/1845
HR.TH.
108
36
Üsküb'deki Latin piskoposunun evinin bahçesine astığı çanın mahalli hükümet tarafından kaldırıldığına dair Avusturya Sefareti'nden yapılan şikayet üzerine bu konuda yapılması istenilenler.
04/04/1891
HR.TH.
112
96
Humus'ta inşaa edilen Rum kilisesine asılmak istenen çan vilayetçe mahzurlu görüldüğünden yerine konulmasına izin verilmemesi.
22/09/1891
HR.TH.
145
103
Gaziantep'te bulunan Fransiskan rahiplerinin ikamet ettikleri hanede ayin yaptıkları, gerçek dışı dersler verdikleri, çan çaldıkları ve birikmiş vergilerini vermediklerinden dolayı bunlara karşı yapılacak muamelenin bildirilmesi.
04/09/1894
HR.TH.
196
98
İzmid'de Dominik isimli Cizvit'in ruhsatsız olarak yaptığı mektebe çan takarak kiliseye çevirdiği için durumun İzmid Mutasarrıflığı'na bildirildiği.
08/07/1897
HR.TH.
198
58
İzmid'de Perdominin adlı Cizvit'in izin almaksızın idaresindeki mektebe çan kulesi dikerek çan çaldırdığı ve bandıra açtırdığı.
04/08/1897
HR.TH.
214
45
Konya'da Rusya Konsolosluğu himayesindeki Fransız Cizvit Papazları tarafından açılan Katolik mektebinin, bayrak açıp çan asmak suretiyle nizama uymadığı belirlendiğinden gereken uyarının yapılması.
16/07/1898
HR.TH. 39 71 Adalar açıklarında top atış talimi yapan Rusya Sefareti'ne memur Taman vapurunun bu davranışı nedeniyle uyarılması. 01/07/1881
HR.TH. 249 34 Rusya Sefiri'nin bindiği Sefaret koruma gemisi'nin talebi üzerine akşamleyin Boğaza gelişinde top atışı yapılmayacağı ve Boğaz'a geldiğinde bir istimbot gönderilerek durumun tesbiti ile bildirilmesinin İrade gereği olduğu. 19/11/1900
İ.AZN.
58
7
Sivas vilayeti Havza kasabasının İmaret Mahallesi'nde bulunan Rum Kilisesi için ruhsatsız
14/10/1904
280
olarak inşasına başlanmış olan çan kulesinin ikmaline müsaade olunması.
İ.AZN.
98
37
Kosova'nın Preşova kazasına tabi Şahince karyesi Rum Patrikhanesi'ne mensub Sırb cemaatine ait ruhsatsız inşa edildiği anlaşılan kilisenin tasdik-i mevcudiyetiyle çan talikine ruhsat itası.
27/12/1910
İ.AZN.
99
18
Alasonya'nın Vilteşte karyesindeki Rum Kilisesi'nde ruhsatsız inşa edilmiş olan çan kulesinin ibkasıyla çan talik ve istimaline tasdik buyurulan kararname gereği ruhsat ita olunduğu.
21/01/1911
İ.AZN.
108
9
Serfiçe'nin Balbığırcan karyesinde ruhsatsız inşa edilen Aya Nikola Rum Kilisesi'nin tasdik-i mevcudiyetiyle bir çan kulesi inşasına ruhsat verildiği.
07/10/1912
İ.DH.
1226
95991
Üsküb'de Latin piskopusunun hanesi bahçesine astığı çan.
21/04/1891
İ.DH.
1229
96220
Üsküb'de Latin piskoposunun hanesi bahçesine astığı çan.
16/05/1891
İ.HR. 123 6134 Fransa imparatorunun özel gününde, Tophane-i Amire'den top atışı yapılması. 13/08/1855
İ.HR. 140 7352 Tophane-i Amire'deki atik toplardan bir tanesinin hediye olarak Londra'ya gönderilmesi. 27/02/1857
İ.HR. 211 12233 Miralay Rüstem Bey'in Viyana'da silah mübayaasına ve taraf-ı imparatoriden Saltanat-ı Seniyye'ye hediye olunan top ve teferruatı keyfiyetleri. 07/03/1865
İ.HR. 216 12569 Avusturya Devleti tarafından hediye edilen dağ ve muharebe topları hususu. 29/11/1865
İ.HR. 229 13430 Kıbrıs'da Magosa Kalesi'nde bulunan yeşil tunçdan mamul bir aded antika topun Fransa Esliha Müzesi'ne hediye edilmesi. 09/12/1867
İ.HUS.
64
52
Avlonya'da Rum Kilisesi'ne kötü düşünce ile asılmak istenilen çanın asılmasına izin verilmemesi.
01/05/1898
İ.HUS.
142 53
Gramofon plaklarına Kuran'ın bazı surelerinin naklinin yasaklanması hususunun Meclis-i Vükela'ca karar altına alınarak arz ve istizan olunması.
12/6/1906 İ.MMS. 139 8 Padişahın Rumeli'ye yapıcağı seyahat hakkındaki program. 03/05/1911
İ.RSM.
31
63
Üsküb'ün Koçoyişne karyesi manastırına asılmak üzere getirtilen çandan gümrük resmi alınmaması.
24/07/1908
281
MB.İ. 50 3 Mesele-i harbiyenin ortaya çıkışından beri ortaya atılan yalan haberilerin İstanbul halkını huzursuz ettiği sırada İzmid Körfezi'nde bulunan İngiliz Donanması'nın ansızın top atışında bulunmasının ahaliyi tedirgin ettiği bu sebeple top atışlarının önceden bildirilmesi gerektiği. 07/02/1879
MF.MKT. 1143 4 Viladet-i hümayunun yıldönümü kutlamaları için sadece öğle vaktinde top atışı yapılmasının yeterli olduğu. 04/11/1909
ML.EEM. 772 39 Muhtelif yerlerde bulunup kullanıma elverişli olmayan top, humbara ve güllelerin satılması. 23/11/1909
MV. 126 30 Dersaadet ve diğer vilayetlerdeki eski model topların müzayedeyle satılması. 31/03/1909
MV. 237 66 Kurban Bayramı münasebetiyle cami ve minarelerin aydınlatılması ve arefe günü belli yerlerde top atışlarıyle ilan edilmesine dair. 25/10/1914
MVL
590
94
Eğin kazasında gayr-i müslimlerin kiliseye koydukları çan nizaından dolayı hapiste olan Hayalzade Hacı Emir Ağa'nın tahliyesi.
04/10/1859
ŞD.
1799
21
Gümüşhacıköy kazasının Rum karyesinde vaki kilisenin ahşab kulesi Metropolid Vekili Papaz Fota tarafından hükümete malumat verilmeksizin kargir olarak inşa ettirilerek çan asılması sebebiyle ne şekilde muamele olunacağının bildirilmesi.
29/02/1896
ŞD.
2029
8
Menlik kasabasının Metrepolid mahallesinde yanan kilisenin tamiriyle bitişiğindeki çan kulesinin inşası.
30/04/1898
ŞD.
2053
22
Katrin kazası muzafatından Pandelimon karyesinde vaki kilise çanının kırılmasına mebni yerine yeni bir çan takılmasına izin verilmesi.
26/05/1906
ŞD.
2106
1
Avlonya'daki Rum kilisesine çan takılmasının mezkur kilisenin camiye yüz metreden yakın olması hasebiyle mahzurlu bulunduğu.
17/11/1903
ŞD.
2564
19
Beşiktaş'ta Köyiçi'nde kain Rum Kilisesi'nin harap olan çan mahallinin tamiri hakkında istenilen ruhsat.
27/01/1891
ŞD.
2597
44
Katrin kazasına tabi Limnoz karyesinde yanan Rum kilisesinin icra-yı tamiriyle bir de çan kulesi inşasına ruhsat itası.
03/08/1892
ŞD.
2647
26
Görice sancağı dahilinde Drinova Karyesi Kilisesi için Bükreş'ten gönderilen bir adet çanın iki seneden beri Rüsumat Dairesi'nde
12/09/1895
282
alıkonulduğundan bahisle kilisenin imrarına müsaade olunması talebi.
ŞD.
2650
10
Menlik kasabasının Dere Mahallesi'nde vaki Rum kilisesi için üç sene mukaddem celp olunan çanın asılması ve çalınmasına dair ruhsat verilmesi.
12/09/1895
ŞD.
2685
43
Avlonya'ya gönderilen çanın kiliseye asılması düşünülmesine rağmen, irade-i seniyye olmadığı için çanın asılamayacağı anlaşıldığından bahisle mezkur çanın Romalılar asarından olan Boyan Manastırı'na nakli.
26/09/1898
TFR.I.A.
38
3712
Komanova'daki Bulgar Kilisesi'nin avlusuna ruhsatsız olarak konulan çan için bir kule inşa etme izni istendiğine ve bu durumda ne yapılacağının bildirilmesine dair Sadaret'e yazı ve ekleri.
06/05/1908
TFR.I.KV.
38
3793
Bir çan meselesinden Kifo'yu yaralayan, İştip Kiliseli köyünden fırıncı çırağı Sande'nin yakalandığına dair İştip Kaymakam Vekili Rıza'nın telgrafı.
03/10/1903
TFR.I.KV.
82
8102
Zum köyü Katolik kilisesine çan takılması halinde büyük bir fesad çıkacağının Has nahiyesi ahalisi tarafından bildirildiğine ve tedbir alınmasına dair Kosova Valiliği'nin telgrafı.
28/01/1905
TFR.I.KV.
195
19471
Lovnica'daki eski Bulgar Kilisesi'ne hıristiyanların çan takmalarına müslüman ahalinin muhalefeti üzerine tahkikata başlanıldığına dair Radovişte Kaymakamlığı'nın telgrafı.
28/04/1908
TFR.I.M.
22
2191
İpek'in İzlakogan köyünde kilise olarak kullanılan binadaki çanın sesinin bir saatlik yerden duyulduğu ve daha büyük bir çan getirilmesine mani olunması gerektiği hususunda Selanik Rüsumat Nezareti'ne yazı.
11/11/1908
TFR.I.SL.
120
11922
Dobranişte'de inşasına müsaade edilen Bulgar Mektebi'ne çan kulesi yapılmasının müsadeye mugayir olması hasebiyle kulenin yıktırıldığına dair Razlık Kaymakamlığı'nın tezkiresi.
15/09/1906
TS.MA.e 534 27 İngiliz kumandanı tarafından takdim olunan üç ambarlı gemi maketi ile bazı amiral tasvirleri ve hediye olarak getirdiği topların zat-ı şahaneye arzedildiği. 31/05/1839
TS.MA.e 713 68 Haliç'e gelen İngiliz gemisinin usulsüz attığı selam toplarının kaptanın usulü bilmemesinden kaynaklandığı bu konuda İngiliz Sefaret 31/05/1839
283
görevlilerinin uyarıldığı hakkında sadrazamın padişaha arzı.
TS.MA.e 1057 48 Padişahın doğum günü münasebetiyle resmi dairelerin ve hususi mekanların aydınlatılması ve silah atılması adetinin kaldırılıp sadece öğlen vaktinde top atışı yapılması için Hazine-i Hümayun Kethüdalığına tezkire yazılması. 01/11/1909
Y.A.HUS.
245
84
Üsküb'te Latin piskoposunun hanesinin bahçesine astığı çanın, Kosova Vilayeti tarafından kaldırılmasından dolayı Avusturya Sefareti'nin Meclis-i Vükela'da alınan karardan memnun kaldığı ve bunu Viyana'ya bildireceği.
06/04/1891
Y.A.HUS.
246
20
Üsküb'de çıkan çan meselesi üzerine Avusturya Hükümeti'nin katolikleri himaye etmek iddiasında bulunduğu yolunda
24/04/1891
Y.A.HUS.
256
55
Avusturya Sefareti'nin, Prizrin konsolosundan alıp gönderdiği bir telgrafnamede, Zeynî Müslümanlarının civar halkın yardımıyla Katolik Kilisesi'ne hücum ederek bir Hristiyanı katl, diğer birini cerh ve iki salibi tahrib ettikleri ve rahibin firar ettiği bildirildiğinden; hakikatın bildirilmesi, mütecasirlerin yakalanması ve kilise ile Katoliklerin tamamen muhafazasının Kosova Vilayeti'ne tebliğ edildiği.
13/03/1892
Y.A.HUS.
278 81
Gümrükte tevkif olunan bir fonografın iadesinin İngiltere Sefareti tarafından talep edildiği.
29/07/1893
Y.EE.
50
32
Yozgat kazasında kiliseden çalınan çan üzerine Hristiyan ahalinin kiliseye toplandıkları, çıkan karışıklıkta Necip isminde süvari zaptiyesinin öldüğü ve olayların büyümesi tehlikesi karşısında takviye kuvvet gönderilmesi.
12/11/1893
Y.MTV.
49
102
Üsküb'de Latin piskoposu tarafından asılan ve vilayetçe yasaklanan çan meselesi hakkında Kosova valisi tarafından gönderilen izahnamenin takdimi.
20/04/1891
Y.MTV.
179 90
Padişahın gramofonu acele istediğine dair Karni imzasıyla Galata'dan New York'da Kırbuvalk'a gönderilen telgraf.
2/7/1898
Y.MTV.
290 95
Postalarla Avrupa'dan gelen gramofon plakları hakkında icra olunacak muamele.
17/10/1906
Y.MTV. 254 184 Rusya Hükumeti tarafından Plevne Askeri Müzesine hediye edilen toplar. 16/01/1904
Y.PRK.ASK. 76 77 Hz. Muhammed'in doğum günü münasebetiyle minarelerden top atışında bulunulacağı. 15/10/1891
284
Y.PRK.ASK. 148 20 Almanya imparatoru tarafından hediye edilen topun takdimi. 21/03/1899
Y.PRK.ASK. 153 29 Mevlid-i Nebevî gecesi belirli mahallerden Evkaf-ı hamsede top atışı yapılacağı. 18/07/1899
Y.PRK.ASK. 191 48 Kurban Bayramı münasebetiyle Dolmabahçe Karakol-ı Hümayununda top atışı yapıldığı. 13/03/1903
Y.PRK.ASK. 224 102 Padişahın taht-ı hümayunlarının Dolmabahçe Sarayına nakledildiği ve bayram münasebetiyle top atışı için birkaç topçu neferin geldiği. 09/12/1904
Y.PRK.BŞK. 58 24 Surre-i Hümayun'un Beşiktaş İskelesinden vapura yüklenmesi esnasında yapılacak top atışı için top, zabit ve çavuş sevk ve izamı istizanına dair Tophane Müşiriyeti tezkiresinin hülasası. 26/12/1898
Y.PRK.MBC.
11
140
Postahanelerce yakalanan muzır gramofon plaklarının evrak-ı muzırra gibi takdimi hakkında Telgraf ve Posta Nezareti'nden.
11/1/1910
Y.PRK.MYD.
10
52
Prizrin'de Avusturya konsolosunun intiharı ve sebebi.
15/06/1891
Y.PRK.NMH. 7 48 Hediye edilen toplardan ötürü Almanya imparatorunun padişaha memnuniyet duygularını ifadeyle teşekkürü. 13/09/1897
Y.PRK.TKM.
12 45
Fonograf aleti hususunda izahat.
11/8/1888
Y.PRK.UM.
21
121
Üsküp çan meselesi ile Prizrin Avusturya konsolosunun intiharından sonra katoliklerin çıkardıkları taşkınlıklar.
19/06/1891
Y.PRK.UM.
49
28
Haber verilmeden iki Bulgar kilisesine takılmış olan çanların irade çıkıncaya kadar kaldırılması için Bulgar Metropolidliği'ne tebligatta bulunulduğu.
24/12/1899
ZB.
381 107
Vezneciler'de Kuyucu Muradpaşa Medresesi karşısında ve cami bitişiğindeki kahvehanede gramofon çalmanın yasaklanması.
26/09/1907
ZB.
590
91
Kuran-ı Kerim ayetleri ile doldurulmuş gramofon plaklarının satılmasına meydan verilmemesi.
18/06/1906
ZB.
590
133
Kuran-ı Kerim ayetleri ile doldurulmuş gramofon plaklarının satılmasının men'i.
28/06/1906
ZB. 604 41 On Temmuz Milli Bayramı'nda top atışı ve ışıklandırma yapılacağından gereklerinin icrasına dair Dahiliye'nin tezkiresinin gönderildiği. 20/07/1909
285
Appendix 3 - List of Major Stores Selling Records and/or Talking Machines in Istanbul
1. İsmail and Necati in Vezneciler No: 5, 7 & 9 (İkdam, June 30, 1900, p.4)
2. Hristo Ekserci Oğlu - Sultan Hamamı Aşir Efendi Hanı No: 18 (İkdam, January 29, 1901, p.4)
3. Kemani Zafiraki Efendi’s Meşk Hane-i Osmani in Şehzadebaşı No:112 Vezneciler (İkdam, October 23, 1901, p.4)
4. Mösyö Weinberg in Grand Street of Pera No: 474 (İkdam, September 12, 1903, p.4)
5. Kemani Memduh’s Fonografhane-i Şarkıyye in Çarşıkebir Kalpakçılarbaşı St. No: 17 (İkdam, October 29, 1903, p.4)
6. Makineci Kadri in Beşiktaş Yeniçeşme Tramvay Street (İkdam, January 27, 1904, p.4)
7. Mösyö Vaynberg (Weinberg) in Eski Zabtiye Street Kocaman Oğlu Hanı No: 45 (İkdam, December 6, 1904, p.4)
8. Hafız Aşir’s Fonografhane-i Gülistan in Sirkeci Tramvay Street No:18 (İkdam, December 13, 1905, p.45; Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
9. Mehmed Salim Ticarethanesi in Şehzadebaşı St. No:103-105 (İkdam, December 26, 1905, p.4)
10. Pappadopoulos (D.) in The Grand Street of Pera No:472 (İkdam, March 24, 1908, p.4; Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
11. Pazar-ı Gülşen in front of the Sirkeci Train Station No:16 (İkdam, November 8, 1909, p.4)
12. Yadigâr Mağazası in Tramvay Street No:79 (İkdam, October 1, 1911, p.4) / Mouradian Brothers, Hamidiye Street No:79 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.963)
13. Blumenthal Brothers (H. and J.) in Eminönü Katırcıoğlu Hanı No:47-51 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.963)
14. Remy Çobanyan, in The Grand Street of Pera No:543 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.963)
15. Vafiadis (Th.) in The Grand Street of Pera No:540 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.963)
16. Sigmund Weinberg in Grande Rue de Péra No:467 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.963)
17. Şükrü (A.) in Bahçekapı Street - Fatih No: 23 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
18. Kyriacopoulos (E.) in The Grand Street of Pera No: 419 and 515 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
19. Vassil Laski in Grand Street of Pera No: 683 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
20. Pappadopoulos (B. P.) and Sons, Hazzopulo Han No:39 in The Grand Street of Pera No: 300 (Annuaire Oriental 1913, p.893)
286
Appendix 4 - Map of Major Stores Selling Records and/or Talking Machines in Istanbul