539

 Tax Revolts in the Late Ottoman Empire:
Conflict, Negotiation, Pacification 1876-1908

Declaration of Originality
The intellectual content of this dissertation, which has been written by me and
for which I take full responsibility, is my own, original work, and it has not
been previously or concurrently submitted elsewhere for any other examination
or degree of higher education. The sources of all paraphrased and quoted
materials, concepts, and ideas are fully cited, and the admissible contributions
and assistance of others with respect to the conception of the work as well as
to linguistic expression are explicitly acknowledged herein.


This dissertation examines the reactions of the Ottoman society against the
new taxes implemented in the beginning of the 20th century and the provincial
governors during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II by focusing on the various
repertoires of the society. The dissertation analyzes the centralization reforms
of the central bureaucracy from Tanzimat to 1908 and traces the reactions
of the urban society as the negotiation practices with the state
bureaucracy to define the limits of central power in the provinces. Furthermore
it analyzes how the dynamics of urban politics were shaped in the Ottoman
borderlands during the late Ottoman Empire. Based on Ottoman and
British sources this study demonstrates that the fiscal and political centralization
of the empire was not a top-down process but a result of the bargaining
process between various actors of the empire. This study illustrates this point
by focusing on the resistance against the new taxes, the problems caused by
social, economic and climate conditions and centralization reforms of the local
bureaucracy in Kosovo, Erzurum, Bitlis provinces and the cities around
them. In that sense, this study is a contribution to the Ottoman social, cultural
and economic history of the Ottoman borderland.
72.000 words
vii
Özet
Geç Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Vergi İsyanları: Çatışma, Müzakere,

Bu çalışma Osmanlı kent toplumunun 20. yüzyıl başında uygulamaya konan
yeni vergiler ile birlikte Sultan II. Abdülhamid döneminin yerel yönetimlerine
karşı reaksiyonlarını incelemektedir. Çalışma, Tanzimat Fermanı’nın
ilanından 1908 yılında kadar gerçekleşen merkezileşme reformlarını analiz
ederken kent toplumunun bu reformları desteklemek ya da değiştirmek için
geliştirdiği farklı repertuarlara odaklanarak, bu pratikleri devletin yerel
üzerindeki iktidarının sınırını belirleme ve pazarlık pratikleri olarak
tanımlamaktadır. Ayrıca, bu çalışma kent hayatının geç Osmanlı döneminde
değişen dinamiklerini açıklamaya çalışmaktadır. Osmanlı ve İngiliz arşiv
kaynaklarına dayanarak bu çalışma imparatorluğunun mali ve siyasi
merkezileşme çabalarının yukarıdan aşağı şekillenen yapılar olmadığını, kent
hayatının aktörleri ile gerçekleşen müzakere politikaları sonucu belirlendiğini
idda etmektedir. Tez, bu meseleyi Kosova, Erzurum, Bitlis vilayetleri ve bu
vilayetlerin etrafındaki şehirlerde yeni vergiler, sosyal, ekonomik ve iklim
kaynaklı şartların neden olduğu problemler ve yerel bürokrasinin
merkezileşme adımlarına karşı gerçekleşen direniş hareketlerine odaklanarak
örneklendirmektedir. Bu anlamda bu çalışma Osmanlı sınır bölgelerinin
sosyal, kültürel ve ekonomik tarihine bir katkı olmayı da amaçlamaktadır.
72.000 kelime

University
2011-2013 Formations of Modern Turkey I-II (UNI 201-202) Istanbul
Şehir University (Teaching Assistant)
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
2020-present Research Consultant in the “Freedom Delayed” project
2019-2020 Research Assistant at Yale Law School in the project of “Freedom
Delayed”
2014-2015 Research Assistant “Black-Sea History” project in Bogazici
University
2011-2013 Research Assistant in Istanbul Şehir University / History Department
ix
PUBLICATIONS / CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
-Tobacco Smuggling in the Black-Sea Region of the Ottoman Empire 1883-
1914. Istanbul: Libra, 2016.
-“The Rising of a Muslim Merchant Family: Nemlizades” ed. Edhem Eldem,
Vangelis Kechriotis, Sophia Laiou in The Economic and Social Development
of the Port-Cities of the Southern Black Sea Coast, late 18th – Beginning of
the 20th century, Black Sea History Project Working Papers,Volume 5, 2015.
(with Şahika Karatepe)
-“ Dynamics of Contention: Analyzing Mass Protests in Erzurum and Bitlis
1906-1908” in MESA 2019 Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting,
2019, New Orleans, USA.
-“The Anatomy of and Uprising: Mass Protests in Erzurum 1906-1907” in
Turkologentag 2018 Third European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and
Turkish Studies.
-“The Relationship between the Régie and the Tobacco Producers in Trabzon
during the Late Ottoman Empire” Interdisciplinary workshop on Transnational
Smuggling Networks: Historical Perspectives & Contemporary Narratives
about Illicit and Black Markets in the Black-Sea and Southeastern Europe,
2017
-“The Contentious Taxes: Prizren Uprising 1904-1906” 13th International
Congress of Ottoman Social and Economic History ICOSEH, 2017
GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
-Fox International Fellowship at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for
International and Area Studies at Yale University
-TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey)
2211 E-National Scholarship (2013-2017)
2211 National Scholarshio (2011-2013)
2205 National Scholarship (2006-2011)
x
To my family
xi
Table of Contents
List of Tables xiii
List of Figures xiii
Abbreviations and Acronyms xiv
Note on Transliteration xiv
Acknowledgements xv
1 INTRODUCTION: WRITING THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE LATE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE 1
1.1 Agency and Tax-Revolts in the Late Ottoman Empire 7
1.2 Historicizing Mass Movements 24
2 GOVERNMENT, TAXES AND ACTORS IN THE OTTOMAN FRONTIERS 33
2.1 Image and Practice: Government in the Provinces 33
2.2 Administrative Reforms in the Ottoman Provinces 1839-1876 37
2.3 Provincial Administration and the Power-Holders 1876-1908 41
2.4 Reform in Taxes and Tax-Farming 48
2.5 Difference in Image and Practice: Tax Collection in Kosovo Province
62
2.6 Conclusion 73
3 NOTHING TO GIVE OTHER THAN SHIRTS: ERZURUM IN 1906 77
3.1 Erzurum in the Early Years of the Twentieth Century 77
3.2 Protest Wave on March 1906 81
3.3 Legitimization the Mass Movement 105
3.4 Second Wave in Protest: October 1906 114
3.5 A New Hope for Revolutionaries 129
3.6 Conclusion 138
4 FAMINE, COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND TAXES 143
4.1 Famine in the Ottoman East 148
4.2 The Invention of a Collective Memory 158
4.3 Remember to Forget, Forget to Remember 167
xii
4.4 Defining the Limits of Powerholders: Third Protest Wave in Erzurum
in 1907 174
4.4.1 Taking Back the Authority: Government in the Scene 182
4.5 Conclusion 190
5 DYNAMICS OF CONTENTION 193
5.1 Petitioning the Sultan 196
5.2 Organizing Mass Meetings 207
5.3 Closing the Shops 214
5.4 Violence 219
5.5 In Lieu of Conclusion: Bitlis in 1907 226
5.5.1 Legitimizing the Movement: Reports on the Events and State’s Re
sponse 240
5.5.2 Conclusion 248
6 CONCLUSION 251
BIBLIOGRAPHY 257
xiii
List of Tables
Table 2.4.1 The Village of Arkavank 54
Table 2.4.2 The Village of Erishter 54
Table 2.4.3 The Income Tax 58
Table 2.5.1 Selected Taxes in Skopje (1905) 64
Table 2.5.2 Selected Taxes in Prishtine (1904) 65
Table 2.5.3 Selected Taxes in Seniçe (1905) 67
Table 2.5.4 Selected Taxes in Taşlıca (1905) 68
Table 2.5.5 Selected Taxes in İpek (1905) 68
Table 2.5.6 Selected Taxes in Prizrin (1905) 68
Table 2.5.7 Selected Taxes in the Province of Kosovo (1905) 70
Table 2.5.8 Domestic Animal Taxes in the Selected Districts (1905) 72
Table 4.1.1 Distribution of Cultivated Area in Eastern Provinces 151
Table 4.1.2 Total Production of the Cereals in Eastern Provinces 152
Table 4.1.3 Collected Taxes in Erzurum Provinces in selected years
153
Table 4.1.4 Total Tax Revenues of Erzurum Province 1880-1904 153
Table 4.2.1 The Amount of Cereal in Erzurum 163
Table 4.2.2 The Distribution of Cereal in the Region 164
Table 4.3.1 The Amount of Wheat and Flour in Istanbul 168
Table 4.3.2 Wheat and Flour Price in the Bergos Porte 169
List of Figures
Figure 3.1 The Map of the Province of Erzurum 78
Figure 3.2 Erzurum’s Map prepared by Fuad Bey in 1904 79
Figure 4.4.1 The List of Urban Coalition in the Court 189
xiv
Abbreviations and Acronyms
BOA Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri (Ottoman Archives for the
Ministry)
F.O Foreign Office (The National Archive of the United Kingdom)
ARF Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Hay Heghap’okhaganneri
Tashnagts’ut’iwn)
CUP Committee of Union and Progress (İttihad ve Terakki
Cemiyeti)
A Note on Transliteration
All translations in the dissertation are mine, unless stated otherwise. I followed
the Ottoman transliteration rules while mentioning the specific documents
in the footnotes. However, I did not translate the original sentences to
the English in the footnotes. Instead, I chose to mention the original statement
from the documents. The dates of archival documents provided in according
to
The grammatical mistakes in the consular reports stayed as same as the
original document. I did not change the grammar or the words of the original
documents even it includes mistakes.
xv
Acknowledgements
This dissertation is a product of long journey. I have become indebted to many
people who became my teachers, friends and students along this journey. First
and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor,
Professor Cengiz Kırlı for a wonderful research experience. His suggestions,
sophisticated comments, critical readings of my work and most importantly
his ever-avaliable support provided me with the main motivations of this scientific
endeavour. I would also like to thank the committee members; Professors
Nadir Özbek, Alp Yücel Kaya, Yonca Köksal and Tolga Cora for their
insightful comments and suggestions. Nadir Özbek helped me right from the
beginning, with his valuable literature suggestions that provided me the intellectual
material to create a much more sophisticated work than it otherwise
would have been. Tolga Cora read the early versions of some of the chapters
and with his critical comments and suggestions I identified new directions to
flesh out this dissertation. Among others, the works of Yonca Köksal and Alp
Yücel Kaya served as the main inspirations of mine while I trying to conceptualize
the late Ottoman history.
The journey started in 2013 at the Atatürk Institute. The Institute provided
me the best atmosphere possible for intellectual development, as well
as learning and teaching processes. I would like to thank all faculty members
of the Institute for providing such an amazing environment for the students. I
thank to Professors Şevket Pamuk, Zafer Toprak, M.Asım Karaömerlioğlu,
Berna Yazıcı, Duygu Köksal, Çağlar Keyder, Aydın Babuna, Seda Altuğ, Z.
Umut Türem and Ramazan Öztan. The Atatürk Institute did not only give me
a chance to learn from these distinguished Professors but also provided me
with a job. As a teaching assistant of the Institute, it was an honor to transmit
my learnings to the undergraduate students. Gamze Canlı became a great
friend, Seda Özdemir was not only a colleague but also a mentor who was
always there whenever I needed. Özkan Akdemir not only provided his
friendship during my doctoral education, but he also read the early versions
of some of the chapters and made valuable comments. Önder Uçar became
my best friend, or something even closer than a friend, during this journey.
We shared a lot. I am indebted to him for his brotherhood and camaraderie. I
xvi
also thank Alp Kanzik, Can Gümüş İspir, Kerem Mert İspir, Zeynep Berra
Dodurka, Şebnem Gelmedi, Canan Balkan and Seval Gülen. I am grateful to
Emrah Irzık who made detailed recommendations with regard to the format,
grammar and syntax of this dissertation. Any remaining errors are my responsibility.
A scientific journey in history requires friends who become the research
and writing partners during the library and archive visits. On this note,
I would first like to thank Erdal Bilgiç. He was the person who made the
research days in the Aptullah Kuran library so much more productive for me.
I thank Uğur Bayraktar and Tuna Başıbek. They were great friends who always
supported me and suggested alternative readings for my research. I also
thank Şahika Karatepe, Meltem Ünel, Alperen Topal, Mustafa Akay, Yener
Koç, Duygu Coşkuntuna, Onur Öner, Hümeyra Bostan Berber, Hayri İnce,
Esra Ansel, İsmail Kayapınar, Emel Türker and Güneş Ertaş, Akif Berber,
Adil Fide, Metin Demir, Bilal Ayan and Cevahir Taner Derinbay.
In 2015, I stayed at the Leiden University as an exchange student
longer than an academic semester. Faruk Yalçın and Turan Keskin became
great friends during my study in Leiden. Our conversations motivated me a
lot. I am grateful to Leonardo, Francesco and Philippe for becoming the best
housemates.
The Fox International Fellowship at Whitney and Betty MacMillan
Center at Yale University provided me the best fellowship I have ever received.
At Yale, I spent the most unforgettable part of this journey. First, I
would like to thank Professor Emily Erikson and Julia Muravnik in that context.
They organized great discussion sessions for the development of our intellectual
capacity. Alan Mikhail not only accepted me to his lectures, but he
also made valuable comments and suggested many critical readings for my
research. During my stay at Yale, I learned a lot from Professor Timur Kuran.
I am grateful to him for accepting me to his course and choosing me as the
research assistant to his project. Thanks to his suggestions, I read deeper on
the Middle East and he provided with me a more sophisticated background to
compare the modernizations of the Middle East. I also thank Samuel Dolbee,
Bayan Aboubakr, Sharon Mizbani, Özgen Felek, Mustafa Yavaş, Yusuf
Magiya, Akif Yerlioğlu, Tomasso Stefini, Nazım Serbest, Carlos Inclan
xvii
Fuentes, Felix Pal, Paolo Sosa Villagarcia, Lei Shi, Meihong Jia, Samah Rafiq
and Yoav Raskin.
All journeys end where they begin. My journey began in 2013 in the
doctoral programme of the Atatürk Institute and continued in three countries
with many friends made along the way. However, Professor Engin Akarlı who
was my first advisor during my M.A education was always ready to provide
insightful comments whenever I wrote to him. I would like to thank Professor
Akarlı. I am also grateful to Professor Coşkun Çakır, Abdülhamit Kırmızı, the
late Mehmet Genç, the late Yavuz Selim Karakışla and the late Vangelis Kechriotis.
The financial support of the Scientific and Technological Research
Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), National Directorship of Supporting Program
of Scientists (BIDEB) made this study possible.
I would like to thank Engin and Çağdaş at Aptullah Kuran Library,
Dilek Tecirli, Kadriye Tamtekin and Leyla Abla at Ataturk Institute.
Last but not least, I thank my family who always supported this academic
journey, “Nezih” who always stayed calm in the face of my offensive
jokes and comments, my students who helped me understand the new styles
of thinking and Şeyma whose love made this journey more cheerful.
NOTE: The in-house editor of the Atatürk Institute has made detailed recommendations
with regard to the format, grammar, spelling, usage, syntax, and
style of this dissertation.
xviii
1
1
Introduction: Writing the Social History of the Late Ottoman
Empire
his study is an attempt to clarify the reactions of the Ottoman society
following the announcement of the new taxes during the reign of the
Sultan Abdulhamid II. The thesis focuses on the eastern and western Ottoman
provinces where the central authority was weak and local powerholders had
enough political and economic power to challenge the decision-making process
of the Ottoman central bureaucracy. Thus, my aim is to shed light on the
motives behind the political participation of the various actors in the eastern
and western Ottoman provinces. In other words, this study is about how various
actors in the Ottoman borderlands created a political discourse and contentious
politics to reject the decisions of the central and local bureaucracies.
While creating a narrative on various actors' participation in daily politics,
this study will not accept a theorization of the state and society as entirely
independent entities. Instead, it will focus on the role of the society in the
decision-making processes of the Ottoman central and local bureaucracies.
To this end, it will investigate the economic and political role of the ulama,
artisans, merchants and the peasants to understand their relationships with the
Ottoman bureaucracy. In addition, the study will focus on the time of crisis
which the Ottoman populace faced when social, political and economic
T
MUSTAFA BATMAN
2
problems such as the price inflation, the drought, ethnic conflict and natural
disasters came to the fore, to understand how the society identified its daily
problems and how it created political movements for forcing the local bureaucracy
to find solutions. By researching on those political movements, my
study aims to contribute to the social and economic history of the Ottoman
Empire.
The Ottoman Empire experienced a series of incredible societal reactions
at the beginning of the 20th century after the announcement of two new taxes:
the personal income tax (vergi-i şahsi) and the domestic animal tax (hayvanatı
ehliye vergisi). The dissertation will investigate the nuances of those reactions.
I will argue that these protests which happened throughout many urban
centers were dependent on three major historical trends. These were; first, the
imperial center's goal to emphasize its fiscal reform from top to bottom; second,
the changing role of artisans, merchants and religious leaders in the provinces'
daily politics; third, the economic, social and environmental problems
peasants and the urban populace experienced during the time of crises. These
historical trends created a new generation who was affected by the revolutionary
wave and raised their voices in multiple forms, forged a public opinion
to convince the central power to accept their demands in the decision-making
process.
More specifically, the dissertation uncovers the reactions of the Muslim
population in the Ottoman provinces. In that sense, the opposition of the Muslim
populace to the fiscal reforms of Sultan Abdulhamid II also symbolizes
the end of Abdulhamid’s reign. The reason for this was twofold. First, Muslims
and mostly Turkish society that lived under the Abdulhamid II regime
did not attempt to criticize the decisions of the Sultan and his bureaucracy in
public until the first years of the 20th century. Second, the Sultan’s Islamic
political discourse did not produce a passive populace that obeyed whatever
the regime offered to them. Thus, the reactions of the Muslim and mostly
Turkish society of the Empire symbolizes the collapse of the Abdulhamid’s
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
3
despotic regime despite its reliance on an Islamic discourse. For this reason,
the dissertation also argues that the regime of the Sultan Abdulhamid II collapsed
before the 1908 Revolution. The collapse took place not because these
protests were organized by revolutionaries, as the literature argued, but because
they raised the motives of the revolutionaries and brought the social
and economic problems of the society to the surface of the political arena.
This interpretation rests on Charles Tilly's following influential arguments:
“We shall know that a new era has begun not when a new elite holds power
or a new constitution appears, but when ordinary people have begun contending
for their interests in new ways.”1 Furthermore, after the reactions of the
Muslims to the new taxes, the revolutionary opposition movement understood
that the regime was not only unpopular among the non-Muslims but that the
Muslim and Turkish society also disfavored it. Despite Namık Kemal’s statement
that “it was the image of thousands of Janissary corpses in the Golden
Horne that prevented people from expressing their thoughts after Vaka-i Hayriye”
2 during the mid-19th century, this study proves that the society was not
afraid to express its thoughts when its members believed they could convince
the central bureaucracy or forced the local bureaucrats to act in accordance
with public interests. In the context of late Ottoman history, the new era did
not start after the 1908 Revolution; it rather began when the society developed
new tools to negotiate with the state for its demands.
While exploring these trends, the dissertation will not focus on how the
Muslim society of the provinces proclaimed their opposition to the Sultan.
Instead, it will argue that they used a political language which distinguished
them not only from the non-Muslims of the regions but also from the revolutionary
opposition movements. This political discourse was designed by the
Muslim notables, ulama and mudarrisses of the regions and provided a shield
1 Charles Tilly, The Contentious French Four Centuries of Popular Struggle (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1986), 9.
2 Namık Kemal “Usul-u Meşveret Hakkında Mektuplar” in Hürriyet September 14, 1868, 6.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
4
for the Ottoman urban society to reject certain centralization reforms that
could dislocate their political and economic power in the provinces. The study
will denote the problem as the conflict, the creation of conscious, careful political
discourse as the negotiation and the solution as the pacification.
This study does not discuss the political history of Abdulhamid II’s regime.
Instead, it focuses on the mass movements of a specific time in the
certain places during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II. Although urban protests
and refusals of tax payment were widespread, I will only focus on the
Ottoman eastern and western frontier provinces where rather transitional and
maintained closer relationships with other states. The study refers these places
as borderlands not only because these provinces were on the frontiers of the
Empire but also because they symbolize the regions where the state desired
to extend its centralization reforms.3 There are two crucial reasons of focusing
the borderland areas. First is the practical reason. Despite there were many
tax-related reactions in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, the borderlands
provided more archival sources. It was an anomaly because Ottoman borderlands,
especially the eastern provinces, were known as the black hole of the
Ottoman history and most of the studies mention the lack of documents as it
will be seen in chapter 2. However, in the case of tax revolts, the documents
of the Ottoman and the British archives provided day-by-day narratives. Second
reason was conceptual and directly related with the main argument of the
study. Despite there were many tax-related reactions of the society in many
urban provinces of the Empire, the reactions that happened in Erzurum and
Kosovo were long-lasted. The long-lasting events helped to understand the
power relations and state formation in the urban centers of those provinces.
Therefore, one could understand the changing dynamics of the Ottoman urban
life by focusing on these events because they provided a mirror for the daily
3 For a discussion on the use of terms such as frontier and borderland see: Sabri Ateş, Osmanlı
– İran Sınır Bölgeleri: Bir Sınır Yapmak, 1843-1914 (İstanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2013), 28-31.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
5
lives of the Ottoman society. The provinces of Kosovo, Erzurum and Bitlis,
and the cities near these provinces will be examined to understand how the
Ottoman borderland society understood the fiscal and political reforms of Sultan
Abdulhamid II and how they responded to the changes. It will also show
how the Muslim, (mostly Turkish, Kurdish and Albanian) population of the
Empire came to define their understanding of the Sultan Abdulhamid II’s regime
and his centralization reforms.
Despite significant efforts made to write the history of provinces, the populace
and the provincial actors for years, the Ottoman historiography still
needs more works on the crises of the provinces. Prior to the 19th century, the
actors in the urban centers of the provinces were generally the local notables.
Furthermore, the works on their relationship with the state and society continue
to assume central focus.4 The urban populace became subjects of history
when they achieved to make their voices audible after the state dislocated the
local notables in the provinces. However, eliminating the dignitaries did not
mean a space was created where the urban populace could act freely, because
new actors such as artisans, merchants and religious leaders continued to
dominate the new social space. Still, the populace found more ways to communicate
with the Imperial center and local powerholders for negotiating their
demands in the 19th century by making use of the state’s centralization reforms.
In that sense, I will argue, the development of public opinion was not
directly related with the dislocating of the local notables but related with the
4 Most works on the provinces and the provincial elites had been developed with such a backgrounding.
For the well-known examples, see: Ali Yaycıoğlu, Partners of the Empire: The
Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2016); Necdet Sakaoğlu, Anadolu Derebeyi Ocaklarından Köse Paşa Hanedanı (İstanbul:
Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998); Yuzo Nagata, Tarihte Ayanlar: Karaosmanoğulları Üzerine
Bir İnceleme (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1997). Works of Suraiya Faroqhi and
Oktay Özel were among the exceptions. See, for example: Suraiya Faroqhi, Coping with the
State: Political Conflict and Crime in the Ottoman Empire 1550-1720 (İstanbul: The ISIS
Press, 1995); Oktay Özel, The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia: Amasya 1576-
1643 (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
6
centralization reforms of the Ottoman Empire because the infrastructural attempts
for centralization provided alternative ways for the urban society in
bargaining with the central bureaucracy.
Mass movements are among the foremost phenomena by which one can
follow the creation of a public opinion and its evolution over time. The protest
meetings that took place in the first years of the 20th century provide the necessary
materials. Ottoman historians who wrote about those events identified
the reactions of multiple actors as “tax revolts” because those movements
happened after the state announced the personal income tax and domestic animal
tax. However, Ottoman historiography needs further research on each of
those movements to decide if those movements could properly be deemed tax
revolts. In this manner, a series of protest wave that encompassed in
Kastamonu, Sinop, Mosul, Basra, Erzurum, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Prizren, İpek,
Priştine, Taşlıca, Seniçe, Beirut, and Bayburt, at the beginning of the 20th century
cannot be specifically identified as tax revolts because each of them was
caused by a plethora of social, economic, cultural, military, environmental
and security problems of the provinces. Singular-focus historiography misses
the opportunity to produce rich accounts of the provinces by flattening the
social movements that embodied multiple dynamics.5 Hence, regardless of
Ottoman archival sources defining those movements as mere protests against
taxation, a more comprehensive perspective can help identify the true dynamics
of ordinary life in the provinces and their relationship with the Imperial
bureaucracy. Even though this dissertation also refers to these protests as tax
related reactions, it aims to clarify the rich accounts of the everyday life in
those provinces by focusing on the social, cultural and economic factors that
led the coalitions of the urban centers to raise their voice against the powerholders.
5 Yonca Köksal made similar critics on the center based Tanzimat studies: See, Yonca Köksal,
The Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Era: Provincial Perspectives from Ankara to Edirne.
(London / New York: Routledge, 2019), 3.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
7
This dissertation discusses how the collective actions developed in order
to clarify why they happened. In Tilly’s words: “Banding together has its own
history. As people’s grievances, hopes, interests, and opportunities for acting
on them change, so do their ways of acting collectively.”6 For this reason, this
dissertation aims to investigate the change in the organization of social life,
powerholders, interests of urban society, development of collective action,
techno-politics of the state, and rituals of the populace. From a historiographical
perspective, the ultimate goal is to write the history of the provinces' everyday
life in a specific moment shaped by the urban movements. Hence, it is
important to clarify how the protests developed in the provinces and how the
politics of elites, religious leaders, artisans, and peasants changed over time
by explaining the importance of local dynamics in the provinces of the Empire
and the resistance of localities to the center's specific policies. Therefore, describing
the political movements of multiple actors will provide potential
tools to conceptualize an alternative history of the late Ottoman Empire.
§ 1.1 Agency and Tax-Revolts in the Late Ottoman Empire
The power of the Sultan and the role of other actors such as the janissaries,
the ulama and the local notables were among the most studied subjects of the
Ottoman history. Despite the modernist conceptualization of oriental despotism,
which implies that the Sultan is the sole authority in the Empire, the
Ottoman historiography clearly defined the institutional role of other actors
as the checks and balances system of the Ottoman central bureaucracy.7 These
6 Tilly, The Contentious French Four Centuries of Popular Struggle, 3.
7 For the dominant paradigm about the roles of the various actors in the classical and early
modern Ottoman Empire, see: Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social
Transformation in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2010); Rifa’at Ali Aboue El Haj, 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics (Leiden:
Nederlands Historicsh-Archeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1984); Cemal Kafadar,
MUSTAFA BATMAN
8
efforts also provided a new kind of understanding of Ottoman centralization
that started with the reform packages in the 19th century.8
However, the relationship between the transformation of the Empire’s actors
and changes in the local politics in the 19th century is still waiting to
enlighten.9 The scope of the historians who aimed to investigate the continuity
of the state’s transformation was generally about role of the internal dynamics
for the change.10 On the other hand, another version of Ottoman historiography
created a sub-field that examined the bureaucratic transformation but it
did not build a dialogue with the early modernity. Instead, this kind of historiography
tended to explain the transformation of the Ottoman Empire in the
19th century with a focus on the growing centralization process of the state
“Janissaries and Other Riffraff of Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels Without A Cause” in International
Journal of Turkish Studies volume 13, (2007): 113-134; Hüseyin Yılmaz, “Containing
Sultanic Authority: Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire before Modernity” in The Journal
of Ottoman Studies, volume XIV, (2015): 231-264; Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference,
The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
197-262; Aysel Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire, The Downfall of a Sultan
in the Age of Revolution, (London, New York: I.B.Tauris, 2017).
8 It is important to note that, Rifa’at Aboue el Hajj played the role of what Gogol did for the
Russian Literature. His works deeply affected many young scholars and those young scholars
developed the idea of transformation, centralization and check and balances systems under
the coat of el Hajj. See: Rifa’at Aboue el Hajj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman
Empire Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Albany, NY: Suny Press, 1991).
9 There are of course some detailed analyses of local actors and local politics. See; Köksal, The
Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Era: Provincial Perspectives from Ankara to Edirne; Isa
Blumi, Reinstating the Ottomans: Alternative Balkan Modernities, 1800-1912 (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Fatma Sel Turhan, The Ottoman Empire and the Bosnian Uprising:
Janissaries, Modernization and Rebellion in the Nineteenth Century (London: I.B. Tauris,
2014); Marinos Sariyannis, “Unseen Rebels: The ‘Mob’ of Istanbul as a Constituent of
Ottoman Revolt, Seventeenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries in Turkish Historical Review
volume 10, (2019): 155-188.
10 For example, see: Butrus Abu Manneh, “The Islamic Roots of the Gulhane Rescript” in Die
Welt Des Islams volume 34, issue 2, (1994): 173-203.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
9
bureaucracy.11 Yet, during the 19th century the reform packages of the Ottoman
central bureaucracy transformed the practices of the urban society in the
provinces in their bargaining not only with the local bureaucracy but also with
each other. Moreover, the development of revolutionary movements during
the last quarter of the century made the puzzle about the political participation
of the various actors more complex.
This study aims to enlighten the roles of various actors in the Ottoman
provinces by focusing on the transformation of political participation and the
changes in the resistance practices of the urban society. Hüseyin Yılmaz states
that “resistance came to be the most effective weapon in the hands of opposition
to achieve political demands or to hold the sultan accountable because
there was no legal procedure in sharia law or Ottoman kanun to subject the
sultan a judicial process” when he analyzes the form of oppositions in the
classical and early modern Ottoman Empire.12 Aysel Yıldız adds that “rebellions
or revolutions are direct manifestation of social psychology”13 and for
this reason, the reactions of the urban society can be seen as the participation
of the masses to the political arena.
Yet, the narrative that is written above is mostly related with the reactions
of the urban actors in the central of the Empire before the Tanzimat. During
the long 19th century, nationalist movements and then a revolutionary wave
redefined the actors of rebellions. Historians focused the transnational relationship
of the agencies after the revolution wave led to collapse the absolute
11 Many works can be seen as examples. See for some examples: İlber Ortaylı, İmparatorluğun
En Uzun Yüzyılı (İstanbul: Hil Yayınları, 1983); Carter Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the
Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte 1789-1922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980); Eric Jan Zurcher, Turkey, A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
12 Yılmaz, “Containing Sultanic Authority: Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire before
Modernity” 240.
13 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire, The Downfall of a Sultan in the Age of
Revolution, 9.
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10
regimes of Russia, Iran and the Ottoman Empire.14 In addition, the revolutionary
wave also changed the actors of the political arena. Historians, whose
goal is to enlighten the roles of the new actors, focused on the opposition
parties. While they created thought-provoking works on the role of opposition
movements in the late 19th century, they neglected the urban rebellious culture
of the Ottoman Empire. In other words, despite those works shed light on the
political chaos and the legitimacy crisis during the late Ottoman Empire, they
decreased the role of the traditional ways of various actors’ political participation
as it happened in the early modern era and the early 19th century.15
This dissertation aims to close this gap in the literature. Thus, it will try to
combine the social movement literature with the traditional bargaining policy
of the Ottoman society without underestimating the role of political processes
14 For examples, see: Houri Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected
Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds, (California: University of California
Press, 2019); Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire
and Iran (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Hasip Saygılı, “1905 Rus
Devrimi’nin Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Etkileri,” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation. Istanbul
University, Ataturk Ilkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü, 2002.
15 For examples, see: Aykut Kansu, 1908 Devrimi (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1995); M. Şükrü
Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001); Garabet Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime: Armenian-
Young Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,” Unpublished Ph.D
dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012; H. Zafer Kars, 1908 Devrimi’nin
Halk Dinamiği, (İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, 1997); Ivar Sector, The First Russian Revolution.
Its Impact on Asia (Washington: Englewood Cliefs, 1962); A.M. Valuyskiy, “Vosstania
v Vostoçnoy Anatolii nakanune mladoturetskoy revolyutsii (Po materialam moskovskix arxivov),”
48-65. There are exceptions: Nadir Özbek, “İkinci Meşrutiyeti Hazırlayan Koşullar,
Rumeli’de Vergi Tahsilatı ve Jandarma” in Toplumsal Tarih no: 183 (2009); 46-50. Özbek
enlightens how the tax collection system in the late Ottoman Empire caused the social conflict
between various groups and created a suitable atmosphere for the cooperation of the opposition
parties and the society. For another article that underlines the importance of local dynamics
in those movements. Gökhan Çetinsaya II. “Abdulhamid’in İç Politikası: Bir Dönemlendirme
Denemesi” in Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies XLVII
(2016): 398.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
11
and frames which led the urban reactions in the Ottoman provinces during the
late Ottoman history.
The dynamics of rebellions were much more complex than how the revolutionary
organizations conceptualized them. The Ottoman society had
stepped on to the stage of history in multiple forms and with various patterns
because they negotiated with the powerholders for centuries by creating alliances
with each other, using the power of the law, and making use of the customs
of their regions.16 The populace chose to utilize their tribal relationship,
religious ties, or the cultural and ethnic identity to wrestle with each other and
the powerholders on different occasions. For this reason, crowds in Ottoman
history have generally been identified in other studies such as the works on
heterodox groups, Celali rebels, peasant studies, and revolutionary movements.
17 Apart from those studies, tax-revolts also managed to reserve a place
for themselves in the works of economic history. The convergence of
16 Rifa’at Ali Aboue El Haj, 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics is the perfect
example of how a coalition in the Ottoman center developed discursive and political strategies
to dislocate the Sheik-ul-Islam and the Sultan Mustafa II.
17 For the Celali rebellions, see; Mustafa Akdağ, Türk Halkının Dirlik ve Düzenlik Kavgası:
Celali İsyanları (İstanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1995); Suraiya Faroqhi, “Political Tensions in the
Anatolian Countryside Around 1600. An Attempt at Interpretation” in Turkische Mizselen
(Istanbul: Editions Divit Press, 1987), 119-121; Halil İnalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation
in the Ottoman Empire 1600-1700” Archivum Ottomanicum, (1980): 297-298; Sam
White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Studies in Environment
and History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). For the relationship between
the state and society before Tanzimat, see: Dina Rizk Khouri, “Political Relations Between
City and State in the Middle East 1700-1850” In The Urban Social History of the
Middle East 1750-1950 ed. by Peter Sluglett (New-York: Syracuse University Press, 2011),
67-104; Sami Zubaida, “Urban Social Movements 1750-1950” in The Urban Social History
of the Middle East 1750-1950 ed. by Peter Sluglett (New-York: Syracuse University Press,
2011), 224-256; Ariel Salzman, Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern
State (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2004), particularly chapter three; Albert Hourani, “Ottoman
Reform and the Politics of Notables,” in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East:
The Nineteenth Century, ed. William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1968), 41–68.
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12
economic and social history took these studies a step further. These movements
gained more importance in the literature because most of them had
economic reasons and caused a social conflict between the Empire's various
actors.
Indeed, tax revolts were the easiest way to mobilize different classes
against the authority, and for this reason, they were ubiquitous in all parts of
the world. The collapse of the Spanish Empire was related with the six unstoppable
tax revolts, the Netherlands lost its power after the reactions to too
much taxation, the land of French Kingdom was like a hometown for tax rebellions.
18 The revolt of thirteen colonies in the British North America was
the most crucial example of the tax-related reactions.19 Hugh Borton's study,
Peasant Uprisings in Japan of the Tokugawa Period, describes the peasant
uprising against unfair taxes in the 19th century.20 In 1828, Russia faced noble's
tax opposition due to the reaction of the Russian nobility to a progressive
tax on the income from landed property.21 In France, Income Tax Opposition
was a well-known debate in the assembly in 1895. The tax ultimately resulted
in Leon Bourgeois' dismissal from his office.22 According to Burg's comprehensive
study, during the 19th century, fifty-six tax revolts occurred in different
regions of the world. Some of these revolts became well-known because
they dislocated the local officials of the regions. Some others’ effects were
18 Charles Adams, For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (New
York: Madison Books, 2001) 279.
19 Ibid., 297.
20 David F. Burg, A World History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts
and Riots from Antiquity to the Present, (New York: Routledge, 2004), 326-328. The Takeda
Rising in 1811 and Echigo Rising in 1812 were the two main revolts and around 15,000 people
raised their voices against officials who were taxing the farmers mercilessly. The comprehensive
study of David F. Burg includes many details about tax revolts from different
geographies.
21 Ibid., 334.
22 Ibid., 376.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
13
limited. Yet, Burg left out the tax revolts in the early 20th century Ottoman
Empire.
Since this dissertation has case studies, which are tax-related collective
reaction of the society in the Ottoman provinces, it also aims to shed light on
the changing taxation practices of the Empire during the late 19th century. The
reason of this attempt is not to conceptualize the changing taxation practices
of the Ottoman bureaucracy as the only framing process that cause the rebellions
rather the goal is to define how the society conceptualized their bargaining
practices when they experienced economic crises. John Chalcraft states
that many of the rebels identified the motivation behind their protest as being
in the interest of the country in the Mount Lebanon. According to him, “it was
a transgressive move, aggregating the commoners the right to judge the interest
of the country.”23 As Edward P. Thompson's ideas on the moral values
about Britain's people, Chalcraft identified on the discourse of the protestors
in their bargaining with the state by focusing on the concepts such as comfort,
welfare, rights and custom.24 Joel Beinin criticizes historians who wrote about
peasants of the Middle East, including Haim Gerber and Gabriel Baer, because
they utilized a Eurocentric perspective by defining peasant movements
with reference to Europen norms. He states that, many historians identified
the Kisrawan uprising that the rebels proclaimed a republic during their revolt
against the tax-farming system known as iqta as the exceptional case in the
collective movements of the Middle East because of Lebanon’s more
23 John Chalcraft, Popular Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016) 68. Chalcraft’s work is an impressive effort that analyzes more
than seventy cases by concentrating on the examples of contentious politics from the late 18th
centuy up to the Arab Spring. In addition, it includes a brief review of the well-known works
on the social movements in the Middle Eastern Studies; Maslaha is an Islamic legal concept
that simply defines the act for the public benefits. For details, see: Nada Moumtaz, God’s
Property: Islam, Charity and the Modern State (California: University of California Press,
2021) 196-197.
24 Ibid., 119.
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14
European social formation.25 Beinin depicts the peasants' efforts as their utilization
of the weapons of the weak to create a different perspective on peasants’
actions. Both scholars clarify how the society conceptualized the change
in taxation practices of the Empire and how they reacted. Most importantly
they accepted the crowds as the agents of the history as Beinin argues “the
working people who constitute the majority of any society deserve to be historical
subjects.”26
The crowds developed many tactics to show their reaction due to the social,
economic and political chaos they experienced during the first years of
the 20th century. They were called as tax-revolts because the most important
reactions were related with the wealth tax. Taxing the wealth was one of the
main symbols of the modern, central states. It was also a clear victory of the
liberal understanding of taxation. As Charles Adams stated, “the wealth of a
nation can best be measured by its income, not its land because land ignores
commerce, money, personal property, income from labor and services.”27 This
kind of income tax was designed in the Great Britain during the war against
Napoleon. In other words, the war provided efficient tools for the state to
centralize its taxation by blocking the popular reactions. Hence, when one
defines the “state building process of the 19th century as the increasing the
administrative, fiscal and institutional capacity of governments”28 the role of
personal income tax was to help the state to create its form. Moving the taxcollection
from the cultivated land to the income, in other words, attempting
to transform the tax collection from rural to urban centers had shapen this
form. Within this perspective, the story of Ottoman Empire was not different
25 Joel Beinin Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001) 62.
26 Ibid., 1.
27 Adams, For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization, 357.
28 Deborah A. Brautigam, “Introduction, taxation and state building in developing countries” in
Taxation and State Building in Developing Countries (ed) Deborah Brautigam, Odd-Helge
Fijeldstad, Mick Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
15
than many European countries. The attempts to tax the wealth such as
temettuat, property tax, domestic animal tax or the personal income tax were
the results of the fiscal centralization in the 19th century. This fiscal centralization
symbolized a new deal between various actors in the Ottoman Empire
and the new actors of the provinces developed new tools to defend the traditional
rights of the society. These traditional rights were also shaped under the
umbrella of the classical fiscal system of the Empire.
In the classical era, the Ottoman Empire collected the most important part
of its taxes from the cultivated land and those cultivated lands belonged to the
Empire.29 The Ottoman Empire organized the population by re-settling them
to these lands, bestowing certain privileges like tax-exemptions for a limited
time period, to create a tax base of subjects who earned their daily stay from
the land. As it was called the process of şenlendirme which means to enliven
again, rendered the land a stable source of tax income had for the state. Hence,
one of the most crucial tasks of the Empire was to provide safety to the society
that cultivated its land. The taxes claimed by the Empire were mostly traditional.
For example, tithe (A’şar) was the main tax revenue of the state from
the cultivated land and it was designed as a traditional tax whereby the state
collected 10% of the total product for centuries.30 This fiscal deal between the
29 Ömer Lütfü Barkan. “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Kuruluş Devrinde Toprak Meseleleri I” in
Türkiye’de Toprak Meselesi 1 (İstanbul: Gözlem Yayınları, 1984), 289.
30 Traditional taxes were related with the Islam’s most important tax known as “zakat”. Although
it was created by pre-Islamic Middle Eastern societies, zakat played the role of first
social contract between the state bureaucracy and the taxpayers during the first century of
Islam. However, it later lost this role because of two changes. First, it was transformed into
an agricultural tax because the third Caliph Uthman redefined zakat as a tax to be collected
from livestock and crops. Second, it turned into a personal ritual after the long debates between
the Muslim jurists. The Middle Eastern empires which were governed in according to
Shari’a, however, did not stop collecting zakat. Instead, certain agricultural taxes were redefined
as part of zakat. The tithe (A’şar) was such an example. The jurists claimed that A’şar
was part of the social contract, by citing the relevant verse of the Qur’an and the hadith of
Prophet Muhammad. See: Timur Kuran, “Zakat: Islam’s missed opportunity to limit
MUSTAFA BATMAN
16
state and the subjects known as traditionalism depended on a behavior in line
with a traditional constitution (kanun-i kadim).31 Kanun-i kadim did not only
allow the bureaucracy to create a stable fiscal regime but also helped the society
to raise their objections at times when the bureaucrats acted in ways that
contradicts the deal. The traditional deal was also observed in the concept of
circle of justice. It was firstly developed by ancient near eastern city states
and firstly attested in the 10th century.32 Ibn-i Khaldun and Ottoman writer
Kınalizade Ali mentioned it as the soul of the social contract. The full version
of it is as follows:
The world is a garden, hedged in by sovereignty
Sovereignty is lordship, preserved by law
Law is administration, governed by the king
The king is a shepherd, supported by the army
The army are soldiers, fed by money
Money is revenue, gathered by the people
The people are servants, subjected by justice
Justice is happiness, the well-being of the world.
The circle of justice provided the discursive tool to build a legitimate form
of tax-collection. It promised to raise the productivity of the peasants by
predatory taxation” in Public Choice (2020) 182: 395-416, 398, 399,403-405. For more information
also see, Wael B. Hallaq, The Impossible State, Islam, Politics and Modernity’s
Moral Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 311-312; Mehmet Erkal,
“Öşür” in TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi, (2007), 34: 97-100. The Turkish translation of the verse
and hadith quoted from Erkal.
Bakara 267 “Sizin için yerden çıkardıklarımızdan infak edin.” Buhari (Zekat, 55) “Toprak
mahsullerinden yağmur ve nehir suyu ile sulananlardan onda bir, el emeği sulananlarda
yirmide bir zekat vardır.”
31 Mehmet Genç states that the classical Ottoman financial doctrine relied on three crucial aspects
that were provisionism, traditionalism and fiscalism. See: Mehmet Genç, Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu’nda Devlet ve Ekonomi (İstanbul, Ötüken Yayınları, 2000), 94-96.
32 Linda T. Darling, A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The
Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization (London, New York: Routledge, 2013)
32. I quoted English translation of the Circle of Justice from Darling’s passage.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
17
providing safety, securing the society against invasions. The peasants were
ready to pay the taxes as long as the bureaucracy acted in accordance with the
circle of justice. Yet, the misuse of any of these articles in the circle of justice
could also provide a legitimate way for the cultivators to raise their voice
against the central power. In such an atmosphere, acting by reference to traditionalism
was not only the way of the Sultan and his bureaucracy. The society
was also accustomed to live unders the umbrella of traditional rights.
For example, Oktay Özel wrote that the peasants of Amasya petitioned the
Palace many times in the first half of the 17th century about the tyranny of the
local officials during the tax collection. He also rightly argued that, after the
crisis and rebellions in the 16th century, the Anatolian society -especially in
Amasya- did not consider the governor-generals to be the source of security.33
Instead, they were seen as the direct threats because they acted against the
traditional deal.
The repertoires of the various actors in bargaining with the state changed
as the social contract between the central bureaucracy and local actors had
changed. The repertoires had been shaped not only with the traditional discourse
as Özel, Chalcraft and Beinin stated but also the discourse of Tanzimat
was taken by the society. Atilla Aytekin’s study on peasant protests in the late
Ottoman Empire argues that the concept of “subsistence ethics, a notion of
justness and valorizing labor” were the main frames that motivated the protests.
34 He also states that there were common features in peasant revolts
across different parts of the Empire. The first reason for common features
such as “the well-organized groups, no significant outside support, engaging
with the refusal of tax-paying” was a shared moral economy. The second
33 Özel, The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia: Amasya 1576-1643. 155-157.
34 Atilla E. Aytekin, “Peasant Protest in the Late Ottoman Empire: Moral Economy, Revolt and
the Tanzimat Reforms,” in International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IRSH) 57
(2012): 191-227, 211.
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reason was the Tanzimat's effect on the ordinary man; Tanzimat was a manifestation
of new taxation reforms, conscription, the concept of equality, and
so on.35 A similar attempt can be seen in Cengiz Kırlı’s research: The people
of Ottoman Vranje petitioned against the tyranny of Governor Hüseyin Pasha
by including the illustrations of the torture as the evidence of sufferings they
experienced. While claiming the illegal behaviors of Hüseyin Pasha during
the tax collection they aimed to convince the Sultan that they were demanding
the proper implementation of ‘the new law’ that Tanzimat promised for the
provinces.36
Nationalist and revolutionary movements diversified the tools of society
in the second half of the 19th century. The answer of “what constituted rights”
was not only identified with the traditional concepts but also the concept of
equal citizenship helped the agencies of the provinces while creating their
repertoires. The development of new middle class that consisted of
35 Ibid., 227. Also see; Atilla E. Aytekin, Land, Rural Classes and the Law: Agrarian Conflict
and State Regulation in the Ottoman Empire, 1830s-1860s Unpublished Ph. D Dissertation,
Binghamton University, State University of New-York, 2006. Aytekin’s dissertation covers
same series of documents with Halil Inalcık’s well-known study about the NS revolt and
Vidin revolt. Aytekin criticizes İnalcık because İnalcık accepted the state bureaucracy as a
just locus of rule and blamed the local elites for the revolts. Aytekin, on the other hand, argues
that the land regime (gospodarlık) that caused the tension was the real problem. Aytekin,
Land, Rural Classes and the Law: Agrarian Conflict and State Regulation in the Ottoman
Empire, 1830s-1860s, 46-60. See for the main studies on those revolts: Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimat’ın
Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkiler” in Tanzimat: Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu
ed. by. Halil İnalcık, Mehmet Seyitdanoğlu (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür
Yayınları, 2017), 169-197; Ahmet Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler (İstanbul: Eren Yayınları,
2002); Coşkun Çakır, Tanzimat Dönemi Osmanlı Maliyesi (İstanbul: Küre Yayınları,
2001).
36 Cengiz Kırlı, “Tyranny Illustrated: From Petition to Rebellion in Ottoman Vranje.” in New
Perspectives on Turkey (2015): 53, 3-36. It is important to underline that, those similarities
can be observed in various parts of the world. For example, Stephen P. Frank observes a
similar pattern in his research on the Russian peasantry in the 19th century. He states that the
law “should be a force for equity and ‘true’ justice in peasant eyes” by showing the laws
mentioned in the petitions of serfs. See: Stephen P. Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict and Justice
in Rural Russia, 1856-1914 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999) 93.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
19
merchants, artisans and ulama provided this transformation. This middle class
became new representors of the society in the provinces, but they also forced
the central bureaucracy to share the power with them. The creation of opposition
parties in the late 19th century was also the result of this transformation
and international revolutionary wave.
The tax-related reactions of the society during the early 20th century had
been developed in this background. The crowds created repertoires to participate
political arena and to claim their demands. Historians wrote on those
reactions but their focus was generally related with the relationship between
the revolutionary movements and the reactions. In other words, the Committee
of Union and Progress, The Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation covered the main part of the agencies,
and the reactions were mostly seen as one of the various tactics of revolutionaries.
The ultimate goal in this kind of historiography is to reach the 1908
Revolution and for this reason many works defined the tax-related reactions
without conceptualizing the transformation of the local agencies and the
change in the tacit agreement between various facts of the society.37 For example,
Aykut Kansu identifies the role of Young-Turks, Garabed Moumdjiyan
accepts the Armenian Revolutionary Movement as the real authority, Şükrü
Hanioğlu investigates the role of Prince Sebahaddin’s branch and Dashnaks
in their researches about the tax-revolts in Erzurum.38 The impact of
37 For the concept of tacit agreement, see: Şerif Mardin “Osmanlı Zımni Sözleşmesi” in Türk
Modernleşmesi Makaleler 4 (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1991), 108-123.
38 It is important to underline that despite my criticism about those works, many of those studies
aimed to show the importance of the local society against the literature that only focused the
role of soldiers in the 1908 Revolution. Thus, most of these works are thought-provoking.
My criticism is related with their conceptualization of the local agencies because those works
also condemned the crowds to silence unintentionally. See for examples: Aykut Kansu, 1908
Devrimi; Garabet Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime: Armenian-Young
Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,”; M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation
for a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 81-124. For an important critique of Aykut
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revolutionary wave led some other scholars to find the effects of Russian Revolution
in the Ottoman Empire. Ivan Sector, Yuri Asatoric Petrosyan and
Zafer Kars were among the examples.39 By doing this, they reinforced their
belief that Russia was the primary country that exported revolutionary ideas
to its neighbors.
The literature on social movements provides a new perspective to understand
crowd’s mass movements in the late Ottoman Empire. “Social
Kansu’s book, see: Mete Çelik “1908 Devrimi ve Meşrutiyet Nostaljisi” in Birikim vol.82
(February 1996): 77-84. Thre are two exceptions: First one was the descriptive work of
Muammer Demirel. Despite his sources -especially the memoirs - include errors, his study
provides detailed analysis of local actors who were active during the mass protest in Erzurum.
See: Muammer Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907)
(Ankara, Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1990). Second, Atilla E. Aytekin, “Tax Revolts During
the Tanzimat Period (1839-1876) and Before the Young Turk Revolution (1904-1908): Popular
Protest and State Formations in the Late Ottoman Empire and Peasant Protest in the Late
Ottoman Empire” in The Journal of Policy History, Cambridge University Press, volume 25
No. 3 (2013): 308-333.
39 Ivar Sector, The First Russian Revolution. Its Impact on Asia, chapter 4; Yuriş Asatoviç Petrosyan,
Sosyalist açıdan Jön-Türk Hareketi (İstanbul: Yordam Kitap, 2015); H. Zafer Kars,
1908 Devrimi’nin Halk Dinamiği. Indeed, the most important source of Petrosyan and Kars
was A.M. Valuyskiy who was the first historian to focus on the rising of the Turkish merchant
bourgeoisie after the 1894-96 massacres against Armenians. In addition, Valuyskiy had
clearly shown the importance of the local actors during the mass protests without underestimating
the role of the Russian Revolution of 1905. According to him, although the Russian
Revolution affected local actors' ideas, the main problem was the Sultan's tyranny and his
despotic attitudes towards the population of the Eastern provinces. See; A.M. Valuyskiy,
“Vosstania v Vostoçnoy Anatolii nakanune mladoturetskoy revolyutsii (Po materialam moskovskix
arxivov),” 48-65. Zafer Kars’s study includes a perfect translation of this article from
Russian to Turkish. For an important critique of Kars, see: Cemil Koçak “Zafer Kars’ın Kitabı
Vesilesiyle Tarih Çalışmalarında Yöntem Üzerine” in Toplumsal Tarih vol. 25 (January
1996): 62-64. There is an exception: Hasip Saygılı argues that it was clear that the mass
movements in the Ottoman Empire that occurred between 1905 and 1908 were not related to
the Russian revolution. According to him, they were rather the result of the taxation policy,
economic problems and governing practices. See: Hasip Saygılı, “1905 Rus Devrimi’nin Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu Üzerine Etkileri,” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation. Istanbul University,
Ataturk Ilkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü, 2002, 195.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
21
movements are one of the principal social forms through which collectivities
give voices to their grievances and concerns about the rights, welfare, and
well-being of themselves and others by engaging in various types of collective
action such as protesting in the streets.”40 While the first generation of
social scientists had been working to understand why collectivities created
demonstrations next generation who contributed to social movement and contentious
politics literature investigated how the collectivities decide to create
those forms and in what ways they organized the movement.41 The existing
literature on the tax-revolts were mainly related with the Resource Mobilization
Theory. According to this theory, there is always tension between the
classes in society. The important thing is a spark to move the crowds. Professional
movement organizations had collected data, spread their ideas to society,
and created movements.42 The leaders in Resource Mobilization Theory
are political entrepreneurs whose supporters follow them as rational behavior.
43 However, the Resource Mobilization Theory did not accept the ordinary
40 David A. Snow, Sarah Anne Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds., The Blackwell Companion to
Social Movements, Blackwell Companions to Sociology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub,
2004), 3.
41 For a literature review on social movement studies, see: Doğan Çetinkaya, “Tarih ve Kuram
Arasında Toplumsal Hareketler,” in Toplumsal Hareketler, Tarih, Teori ve Deneyim ed. by
Doğan Çetinkaya (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2018); İhsan Kurtbaş, Toplumsal Hareketler
Siyasasi: Teori-Oluşum-Dönüşüm (Ankara: Detay Yayıncılık, 2017). For the examples of the
first generation, see: Gustove Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (New York:
Dover Publications, 2001); Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and
the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965). For the latter, see: Doug
Mc Adam, Sidney Tarrow, Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2012); James M. Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography and
Creativity in Social Movements (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002) This work
also includes a review of social movement studies.
42 Çetinkaya, “Tarih ve Kuram Arasında Toplumsal Hareketler,” 33; Gerald F. Davis, ed., Social
Movements and Organization Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 6.
43 Aldon D. Morris, Suzanne Staggenborg, “Leadership in Social Movement” in The Blackwell
Companion to Social Movements ed. by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, Hanspeter Kriesi,
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 173.
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22
person as the agent of history. Agency in resource mobilization theory is rather
located at the leadership and organizations. Crowds became objects
which were controlled by their organizations. In other words, historians did
not take the populace's actions and ideas, their role in history and their collective
behaviors such as rebelling against the order or protesting the ruler as
natural elements of history. Instead, the natural factor is the resources that
mobilize crowds against the order. This kind of perspective on history has
created teleological historiography. When the leadership attempts to write its
history, social protests are taken to be fully conscious movements, planned
right from the beginning, acting concertedly to reach its own goals.44 In such
historiography, challenges in history are assumed to be in a striking internal
harmony, that incidentally, directly provides answers to historians' inquiries.45
The criticism to the existing literature does not deny the role of crowds in
the 1908 Revolution. Rather it rejects the political organizations’ roles in the
creation of tax revolts in the early 20th century. Rosa Luxemburg argues that
“just by themselves, mass actions as a disorganizing tactic are a Hangar to
absolutism. Not only do they disorganize the ruling system, but they also organize
at the same time the political forces which will overthrow absolutism
and create a new order.”46 Within this perspective, the repertoires of the
masses which were shaped under the centralization reforms of the Empire and
were affected both by the traditional rights and revolutionary wave motivated
the political forces that achieved to defeat absolutism.
The contentious interaction which helps to examine the role of various
agencies in late Ottoman history was also the result of the framing process.
“Framing was a collective process of interpretation, attribution and social
44 Peter Burke, Tarih ve Toplumsal Kuram, 97.
45 There are also fascinating studies that point directly at the revolutionary crowds as the agents
of history. For an example, see; George Rude, The Crowd in the French Revolution (United
States of America: Oxford University Press, 1959).
46 Paul Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010), 99.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
23
construction.”47 The framing process also includes that people feel miserable
and aggrieved due to the changes in their lives but at the same time they still
believe that creating repertoires to act collectively can reverse the social
change.48 For example, the drought conditions, which caused starvation in the
Ottoman East during the early years of the 20th century resulted with completely
different picture than the famine conditions of the previous years. The
result was the entering of various actors to the contentious politics of the urban
life because the new Muslim generation felt aggrieved, but they were also
optimistic for a change. They were the group who controls the economic and
social life of the cities after the state decreased the power of non-Muslims in
the Ottoman East. They filled the bureaucratic positions in the local councils
and took profit from the infrastructural attempts of the Empire. Their children
had more chance to enter a new school and to fill the new bureaucratic seat.
Yet, the price inflation, the ethnic and religious tension, the natural disasters
and the changing international context were threats for their earnings. In addition,
they were well-informed about the revolutionary movements and looking
for the new opportunities. The situation was not different in the Balkan
provinces. The Young-Turk movement was even stronger among the new
Muslim generation in the Balkans.
More importantly, most of them were well-informed about the rebellion
culture for the political participation. This cultural framing included rituals,
symbols, slogans, victimizing acts. It was not only created by capturing the
streets but also collective actions such as refusal of the certain tax-payment
or sending collective petition to the Palace fed this culture. This dissertation
examines the cultural attitudes of the society by combining cultural framing
process with the Shahab Ahmed’s criticism of Clifford Geertz’ thick description
theory: “I do not imagine that ‘to understand culture is to interpret its
47 Mc Adam, Tarrow, Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, 41.
48 Ibid., 17, 41.
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24
symbols’ by virtuoso free association, but is rather to engage closely and attentively
with the native’s statements of self-conceptualization, their languages,
lexicons and logics of argumentation.”49 I rely on Ahmad’s point
while writing on the collectivities repertoires during the time of crisis because
that kind of perspective in Ottoman history enlightens the role of rebellion
culture in the contentious politics of the various actors. It also provides tools
to prove that state of emergency in which the Ottoman society lived during
the early 20th century was not the exception but the rule and this rule led the
ambivalent position of the new -mostly Muslim- generation of the Ottoman
Empire.
§ 1.2 Historicizing Mass Movements
This study will be an attempt to rewrite the historical account of tax-related
reactions of the Ottoman populace especially in the eastern provinces of
the Empire between 1903 and 1908. Even though some chapters include examples
from the Kosovo province, the dissertation mostly focuses on Erzurum,
Bitlis, Van, and Diyarbakır at the beginning of the 20th century. The existing
literature on these mass meetings was mainly a product of the studies
about the Young-Turk Revolution of 1908. Historians, whose studies were
criticized above, concentrated on these protests as the motivations for the
Young Turks or the movements that were directly organized by the opposition.
In this sense, their point was mostly similar to that of Resource Mobilization
Theory. However, all of these studies failed to explain the local dynamics
of the protests, such as the environmental changes, the ethnic tensions, the
state's infrastructural attempts, the rising power of the religious leaders, artisans
and merchants, the changing of the tax collection system and the land
question in the provinces.
49 Shahab Ahmad, What is Islam: The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2016), 249.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
25
Moreover, protests in urban centers did not enter the Ottoman Empire's
political agenda in the 20th century. Throughout Ottoman history, the clashes
between elites, the army, and the Imperial bureaucracy had occurred in the
many provinces of the Empire. Istanbul, as the imperial capital of the Empire,
was also the capital of the contentious politics of various actors such as Janissary
revolts, guilds' protest meetings and religious leaders’ reactions. The
clashes between various social forces had been observable until the 19th century.
However, with the elimination of the powerholders such as A'yan and
Janissary by Sultan Mahmud II, the repertoire of the local dynamics had
changed. While the opposition movements developed secret organizations
due to the Imperial bureaucracy's pressure, despite it being the years of reform,
the reforms movements in the provinces opened new branches for the
provinces' urban coalitions. The coalitions were not of the local powers in the
provinces who acted against the Imperial bureaucracy, but the actors who
were eager to define the limits of the central authority in the provinces. Hence,
they made themselves into the groups with more privileges than others. While
they became the natural leaders of society, they also lived under the threat of
the populace, as the scapegoats that could be targeted whenever society faced
a social and economic problem in their daily life. Under such circumstances,
each Ottoman province had developed various repertoires of contention to
bargain with the state, as well as with each other in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Those repertoires had some similarities with the repertoire of the
social forces who had challenged the powerholders in Istanbul for centuries,
the last time in 1808, but it also included differences because each Ottoman
provinces had its own socio-cultural background. Thus, those movements
were not referred to as the extensions of the reactions of İstanbul’s social
forces to the provinces. However, it is essential to underline that the movements’
repertoire was much more closely related to the Ottoman traditional
rhetoric on protests than to a political party’s or secret revolutionary organization’s
opposition to Sultan Abdulhamid II.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
26
In this sense, this study's core aim will be to write the history of the local
actors and focus on the ways that the urban people created contentious politics.
In other words, this study will focus on the repertoires of contention,
which denotes that “people engage in contentious collective action.”50 Instead
of analyzing the collective action of the urban population in the Ottoman borderlands
as the symptom of the Young Turk opposition, this study tends to
accept those movements as the sign of a negotiation politics of the Ottoman
society. Analyzing contention politics as the form of negotiation practice in
the 20th century is also an attempt to contribute to the works that explain the
conflicts between the Sultan, the janissaries, and the ulama in İstanbul, since
most of those studies focus on the events that occurred before Tanzimat. The
dissertation also discusses the dynamics of provinces after the Empire created
an infrastructural power in the borderlands.
My final aim in this study is to explain the existential aspect of everyday
life by creating a narrative of a single story and its implications.51 As Lawrence
Stone stated, “Narrative is taken to mean the organization of material
in chronologically sequential order and the focusing of the content into a single
coherent story, albeit with sub-plots. It, therefore, deals with the particular
and specific (events) rather than the collective and statistical.”52 I will follow
Stone's schema, but with one difference. I will try to add the tools of economic
history such as financial reports and budgets and employ cultural history’s
tools such as the documents about the daily life of the society that were provided
by urban societies, missionaries, consulates, and the local bureaucracy.
Thus, the dissertation analyzes the collective events by using statistics while
creating a narrative.
50 McAdam, et al, “Dynamics of Contention,” 41.
51 Lawrence Stone, "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," in Past and
Present, 85, (1979): 3-24.
52 Ibid., 3-4.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
27
I will keep in mind Ranajit Guha's famous suggestion that historians need
a ‘code of pacification’ to clarify the subjectivity of the ordinary people in the
uprising.53 He argues that the state documents from the time of colonial power
were examples of ‘counter-insurgency’. Hence, a researcher should read these
documents ‘against the grain.’ Although whether the Ottoman Empire had a
colonial perspective or not is still a controversial topic, reading the documents
against the grain helps to recognize to create a comprehensive definition of
urban movements in the Ottoman eastern and western provinces. Therefore,
while I plan to explain the dynamics behind the rising power of local agents,
my aim will be to write the symbols, rituals and forms of the dynamics by
taking actors of the protests as the history-makers, because “banding together
has its own history.”54
This study discusses these issues in six separate chapters, including the
introduction and a conclusion. The introduction aimed to provide a brief survey
of the literature on tax revolts and the new directions in Ottoman historiography.
It also explains in what ways this study will contribute to the literature
on tax related reactions and social movements in the Middle East.
Chapter 2 aims to explain the effects of the first trend mentioned in the
beginning of the introduction. The chapter will clarify the changes and the
reform packages in governance and taxation practices of the Empire during
the long 19th century by focusing on the examples from the eastern and western
Ottoman provinces. It will also focus on the existing works on state and
society relations and analyze their perspectives. The chapter aims to show the
liminalities instead of focusing on the clear-cut examples of who the state and
the society were. After explaining the Tanzimat reforms and their implications
in the provinces, I use the budgets of the Kosovo province to question the
capacity of the state's techno-politics in the provinces which constitute the
53 Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency,” in Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South
Asian History and Society, ed. Ranajit Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 27.
54 Tilly, The Contentious French Four Centuries of Popular Struggle, 3.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
28
most important purpose of the chapter. I also evaluate the possibility of tax
collection through implementation of top-down decisions and without negotiation
with the society. The chapter therefore compares the taxpayers’ relative
eagerness to pay the traditional versus the new taxes. In this manner, I conceptualize
the new taxes as the invention of Ottoman bureaucracy without
taking the consent of the populace and its representatives, and I take the traditional
taxes that were established with the consent of the society to be the
custom of the people. Thus, the chapter argues that Ottoman society was wellinformed
about how to bargain with the state. Even though the people displayed
outright reactions against taxation in many districts, the chapter will
analyze the overall tax payment behavior as an example of a more nuances
politics of contention. In this manner, the chapter will constitute an example
of using provincial budgets to write a social history of Ottoman provinces.
Despite there was a huge collection of the documents about the tax-related
protests in the province of Kosovo, I chose to use provincial budgets to provide
quantitative data because I analyzed the qualitative data were used for
Erzurum and Bitlis. Instead, I used the examples from the revolts in Kosovo
in chapter 5.
Chapter 3 is a case study of a tax-related social movement at the beginning
of the 20th century. Thus, it relies on the second trend that was the rising power
of the certain actors in the borderlands. It explains how the urban society of
Erzurum raised their voice against new taxes and the local bureaucracy, and
how they negotiated for their demands. This chapter presents a comprehensive
account of an example of the protest waves that occurred throughout the
Empire between 1903 and 1908. Another goal of the chapter is to clarify the
role of the artisans, merchants and religious leaders in the urban centers, and
it focuses on their relationship with the local bureaucracy. It analyzes the protests
that took place in Erzurum in 1906 month by month to shed light on the
changing dynamics of the urban life. After providing details on Erzurum, the
chapter focuses on the protests that happened in March 1906 and October
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
29
1906. In addition, it aims to show how the representatives developed strategies
to convince the Imperial center about the rightfulness of their movements.
The last issue explored in the chapter is how the Imperial center and
the local bureaucracy defined those movements. In that section, I discuss the
revolutionary movements’ chance of success in the eastern provinces. This is
also a way of analyzing the possibility of resource mobilization and political
process theories in the contentious politics of the Ottoman Eastern frontier.
To that end, it conceptualizes the local elites as the people who mobilize the
resources, instead of accepting the revolutionary opposition movement as the
actors.
Chapter 4 aims to elaborate on the roles of the ecological changes in the
mass movements. I discuss the relationship between the urban movements
and famine conditions in the Ottoman East during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid
II by relying on the statistics and archival sources on the food shortages,
the drought, and the price inflation. In this manner, the chapter depends
on the third trend. The economic and social crisis which the Ottoman populace
experienced in the last quarter of the 19th century created a state of emergency
for the society. The chapter analyzes those events as the triggering
frames that caused the populace to resolve to act against the representatives
and the local bureaucracy. Therefore, while chapter three focuses on the role
of the artisans, merchants and religious leaders in the mass movements, this
chapter directly analyzes the role of the populace in the protest waves. It also
aims to clarify the changing dynamics of leadership during the time of crisis.
The chapter ends with another case study; the third mass movement that broke
out in Erzurum in 1907. After explaining the events of 1907, it also aims to
show the state’s reaction and the name list of the urban coalition who created
three consequential mass movements in two years. For this reason, the case
study of chapter 4 plays a follow-up role for the events that are clarified in
the previous chapter.
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30
Chapter 5 discusses the dynamics of contention. Thus, it will focus on the
time of crisis. It aims to explain the strategic decisions of the society to shed
light on how the collective action developed in the borderland. The chapter
discusses the petitioning practices, the closing of shops, the creation of mass
meetings in the urban centers, and violence against the specific people by
citing examples from Kosovo, Erzurum, Diyarbakır and Bitlis provinces. In
this manner, it aims to clarify the dynamics of the Ottoman frontier provinces.
In the chapter, I argue that all tactics and strategies that is developed by the
urban coalitions had been carefully chosen and that the society followed a
well-determined path to define the limits of the state in the borderland. Moreover,
the chapter conceptualizes those dynamics as the ways to force the Imperial
center to make the urban coalitions into the partners of the Empire in
the region. Within such a perspective, the chapter aims to contribute to the
existing works on provincial society; it shows the role of contentious politics
as a way to determine the actors of the urban centers. The chapter ends with
another case study. After it focuses on the most important tactics and strategies
developed by the society during the movements, it focuses on the mass
movement that emerged in Bitlis in 1907. It also aims to discuss how the Imperial
center and the foreign representatives identified the reasons for and the
actors of the protests.
The dissertation will not focus on the long-term changes in order to analyze
these trends. Instead, it will investigate the moments of danger to grasp
the memory of multiple actors in the Ottoman provinces.55 In other words, it
will analyze the borderland society’s reactions at the beginning of the 20th
century to the many fateful crises faced by the Ottoman Empire, when society
had to live under extra-ordinary conditions in the provinces. Following Walter
Benjamin, this dissertation researches in what ways the crisis affected the
55 Walter Benjamin, “Tarih Kavramı Üzerine” in Pasajlar translated by Ahmet Cemal (İstanbul:
Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2018), 41.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
31
content of the customs and their receivers. I argue that the moment of dangers
faced by the society in the provinces was a signal flare for identifying the
changing dynamics of Ottoman provinces. The concluding chapter of the dissertation
briefly summarizes the findings relying on the examples from the
previous chapters.
In this respect, I will re-conceptualize these revolts from the bottom up.
Relying on the Ottoman archival documents such as petitions, reports on the
Ottoman eastern provinces and Kosovo, financial statistics, the consular reports,
the newspapers, biographies and the extant studies, my goal is to find
out the voices of the urban society during the mass movements. I believe this
will also be a contribution to the studies on the Young Turk Revolution of
1908.

33
2
Government, Taxes and Actors in the Ottoman Borderlands
§ 2.1 Image and Practice: Government on the Provinces
his chapter investigates the centralizing reforms of the Ottoman Empire
after Tanzimat and analyzes in what ways the society in the borderland
acted against some of them. Although the narrative of reforms was informed
by many provinces -including the eastern provinces of the empire- the case
study will be the refusal to pay certain taxes in the Kosovo province. While
other chapters will shed light on the different faces of the protests in the eastern
parts of the Ottoman Empire, this chapter will focus on how the Ottoman
society accepted paying some taxes while consciously rejecting to pay others.
My aim is to explain how the administrative and fiscal reforms became the
tools of the society for defending the customs.
The established wisdom among social scientists is to argue that different
relations between the state and the masses had prevailed in the Empire over
the centuries. Modern states formed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
however, established immense domination over their subjects via their
T
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34
infrastructural power. In Weber’s words, “the modern state is a compulsory
association that organizes domination.”
56 Yet, the attempt to dominate society has not only aimed to secure the
coercion of the state; it also increased transitivity within social forces and
classes. As Pierre Bourdieu says, nothing is more surprising than “how the
minority governs the majority and how minorities give up their demands in
the name of majorities.”57 According to him, the real issue is the lack of problematization
of the legitimacy of the governments outside of emergency situations.
58 Bourdieu identifies the reason for this absence in the cultural reproduction
of the dominant class via the institutions.59 It implies well-organized
modern states wherein the dominant class controls the society, creates policies
to maintain its hegemony, and uses the education system to reproduce its
elites. In states where the central power was weak, there was always a tension
between social forces trying to gain more power to dominate others. Yet, this
was not a simple zero-sum game. In this respect, the state is always something
more than how Weber defined or Bourdieu classified it. Joel Migdal focuses
on the image and practices to provide a more sophisticated definition of the
state. He argues that despite states creating the image of a coherent, controlling
organization in a territory, the actual practices of multiple actors neutralize
this image, and for this reason, “the state is a contradictory entity that acts
against itself.”60
56 H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Milss, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1958), 82.
57 Pierre Bourdieu, Akademik Aklın Eleştirisi Pascalca Düşünme Çabaları translated by Burcu
Yalım (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2019), 211-212.
58 Ibid., 212.
59 Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture
(London: Sage Publications, 1990), 54.
60 Joel Migdal, State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute
One Another (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 17.
35
Ottoman studies focusing on the governance practices of the state have
mainly fallen under the categories of studies that focused on the practices and
the studies based on the image.61
In other words, instead of analyzing the practice and the image in singular
coherent researches, historians tended to examine the state either by analyzing
its image or through the practices of the multiple actors within it.62 Without
downplaying the importance of such studies, this chapter will attempt to rewrite
the narrative on the governance of the empire by focusing on the image
and practices of the state together. This will be carried out through examining
the eastern provinces, but some statistics from Balkan provinces will also be
used. In this line of approach, the province of Erzurum and the province of
Kosovo are among the most suitable regions to test how the state's image was
organized and how multiple actors' practices neutralized state control in the
region.
61 For well-defined critics of this kind of historiography, see: Meltem Toksöz “Reform ve Yönetim:
Devletten Topluma Merkezden Bölgeye Osmanlı Modernleşmesi” in Tanzimat: Değişim
Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu edited by Halil İnalcık, Mehmet Seyitdanoğlu (İstanbul:
Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2017), 211-212; Yonca Köksal, The Ottoman
Empire in the Tanzimat Era: Provincial Perspectives from Ankara to Edirne, particularly the
Introduction.
62 I would like to mention two thought-provoking works on the image of the state and three
influential studies on the practices of the state. For the image, see: Selim Deringil, The Well
Protected Domains: Ideology and Legitimation of the Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-
1909 (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999); Heather Ferguson, Proper Order of Things, Language,
Power, and Law in Ottoman Administrative Discourses Stanford: (Stanford University Press,
2018). For the practices, see: Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli: Osmanlı’da Vergi, Siyaset
ve Toplumsal Adalet (1839-1908) (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2015); Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu’nda Sosyal Devlet: Siyaset, İktidar ve Meşruiyet 1876-1914 (İstanbul:
İletişim Yayınları 2002). Noemi Levy-Aksu, Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Asayiş 1879-1909 (İstanbul:
İletişim Yayınları, 2017); Michael E. Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy
of Turkish Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) For a fascinating
example of a study on both the image and practice: Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
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36
As Tolga Cora, Dzonavir Derderian, and Ali Sipahi have convincingly
shown, the Ottoman East, which encompassed the area between the southern
part of the eastern Black-Sea region and northern side of the province of Mosul,
constitutes an epistemic void in late Ottoman historiography. This is because
the society of the region, which was in the main free of the state control
and which lived under tribal confederations until the mid-19th century, left
fewer documents behind for historians to study.63 However, even in the case
of the 19th century, the Ottoman eastern borderland was mainly studied under
the researches of ethnic tensions and the history of cities.64 The provinces'
daily dynamics and the urban networks between various classes and ethnic
groups have been generally neglected. Despite the lack of studies on the practices
of various actors in the region until recent decades, practices that aimed
to forge an image of the state such as the creation of the Hamidian Light Cavalries,
65 and infrastructural investments like the Trabzon-Bayezid Road,66 as
well as the efforts of the revolutionaries, land and property questions and how
the state reacted to them67 have been among the best-studied subjects. These
63 Yaşar Tolga Cora, Dzovinar Derderian, Ali Sipahi, The Ottoman East in the Nineteenth Century:
Societies, Identities, Politics (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 5.
64 The new generation of the Ottoman historians are tended to challenge this understanding by
writing well-organized dissertations on the politics, culture and economy of the Ottoman
East. It is my contention that some dissertations, written by Yaşar Tolga Cora, Samuel Dolbee,
Yener Koç, Ali Sipahi and Uğur Bayraktar, are among a group of thought-provoking works
and they need to be mentioned in a special footnote as acknowledgement of their efforts to
write on the Ottoman East in a broader context.
65 Fulya Özkan, “A Road in Rebellion, A History on the Move: The Social History of the Trabzon-
Bayezid Road and the Formation of the Modern State in the Late Ottoman World,” Unpublished
Ph.D dissertation in State University of New York at Binghamton, History Department,
2012.
66 Janet Klein, The Margins in the Ottoman Tribal Zone: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal
Zone (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011).
67 Uğur Bayraktar, “Yurtluk Ocaklıks: Land, Politics of Notables and Society in Ottoman Kurdistan
1820-1890,” Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish
History & Centre d’Etudes Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques in Boğaziçi
University &Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2015.
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works shed light on the background of the Ottoman East in the 19th century
and help to create a narrative on the image of the state and the practices of the
multiple actors.
§ 2.2 Administrative Reform in Ottoman Provinces 1839-1876
The Tanzimat Edict (1839) was the most crucial milestone in creating a modern
image of the state because through it the state did not only declare the
intention to transform its fiscal relationship with its subjects but also reconfigured
its relationship with the society by reforming its military, bureaucratic,
educational, and legal apparatus. Although the Tanzimat period ended
when Sultan Abdulhamid II dislocated the power of the Sublime Porte and
the reform initiative shifted back to the Palace, the regime continued to develop
its influence in the provinces by creating a centralized image in the
region.
The reorganizations of the state had started with the edict of Gülhane in
1839. Under the direction of Grand Vizier Mustafa Reşid Pasha, new regulations
were implemented. The Sultan declared that he would respect the law,68
the state’s law would apply to all communities of subjects without any privileges
given to any religious or ethnic community, and the taxes would be replaced
with a new, more appropriate tax.69 The reform period continued with
the declaration of the penal code (1840) that abolished all patronage relations
by designating accepting gifts by officials a criminal act, the Reform Decree
(1856) that provided equality between all subjects, the land code (1858) that
guaranteed individual property and the provincial administration reforms of
68 Selim Deringil, The Well Protected Domains, 45.
69 Carter Findley, “Tanzimat” in Cambridge History of Turkey, Volume IV Turkey in the Modern
World edited by Reşat Kasaba (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 18.
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1864 and 1871. The period reached its zenit with the establishment of the first
Ottoman central assembly in 1876.70
Among a wave of reforms to create a central state image, the conscription
began under Mahmud II's reign,71 the education system was reformed and
new schools were erected. All of these reforms were the main symbols of a
standardization of a way of living. The reforms were a clear manifestation of
a particular line of thought: The Ottoman Empire had limited control over its
territory, and the state was poor not because it lacked resources but because
of the mismanagement of the provinces. The Empire lacked the infrastructure
to govern the land efficiently. Hence, Tanzimat was an attempt to reconquer
the state’s land by creating a well-designed government with an assembly that
was capable of managing the resources from the imperial central by operating
infrastructural power.72 Therefore, the Ottoman Empire created an image
through which the Empire attempted to colonize the periphery, “transforming
it into a fully governed, fiscally fertile zone”73 by operating imperial projects
such as modern roads and railroads, a telegraph system, institutions for surveillance
and education and engaging in codifications to standardize the people's
lives. In practice, most of these attempts remained a fantasy of the Imperial
capital because the state has lacked the technology for effective
70 For a detailed account of Tanzimat reforms, see: Roderic Davison Reform in the Ottoman
Empire 1856-1876 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963).
71 Gültekin Yıldız, Neferin Adı Yok: Zorunlu Askerliğe Geçiş Sürecinde Osmanlı Devleti’nde
Siyaset Ordu ve Toplum (1826-1839) (İstanbul: Kitabevi, 2009), 139.
72 Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, Transjordan 1850-1921,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 5.; Butrus Abu Manneh, “The Establishment
and Dismantling of the Provinces of Syria 1865-1888,” in Problems of the Modern Middle
East in the Historical Perspective: Essays in Honor of Albert Hourani, edited by John Spagnolo
(Beirut: Ithaca Press, 1992), 8-9.
73 James Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia
(New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2009), 10. Timothy Mitchell’s Colonizing
Egypt is the perfect example of how this process was developed in Egypt during the 19th
century.
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implementation, and the various urban dynamics in the borderlands precluded
the state from imposing an infrastructural power structure on society.74 For
example, in the context of the province of Kurdistan, eliminating the Kurdish
notables known as Mir did not provide full control of the region by the state.
Instead, petty Kurdish Beys, as Bayraktar called them, became new powerholders
who strengthened their role in the urban centers.75
It is essential to underline that, the reform period did not start in the same
year in all provinces. The Sublime Porte decided to practice reforms in the
chosen provinces, which were closer to the center, and later enlarged the
scope of reforms to the eastern and western frontiers and certain Arab provinces.
The provinces where the reform packages were practiced were referred
to as “core regions” (Dahil-i Tanzimat). Different provinces became part of
the core regions in different years. For instance, the reform package was
promulgated in Erzurum and Diyarbakır provinces in 1845.76 Among these
reforms, the most important attempt was the changing of administrative roles
in the provinces with the provincial reforms of 1864 and 1871.
After the provincial reform ushered in the rising power of the state in the
Danube Province via the efforts by Midhad Pasha, the Sublime Porte decided
to implement the Provincial Reform Law throughout most of the Ottoman
74 This new ‘enclosure’ of state is an explanation which I borrowed from James C. Scott and I
have added to this, Michael Mann’s terms known as ‘despotic power’ and ‘infrastructural
power’ respectively. See, James C Scott. The Art of Not Being Governed, An Anarchist History
of Upland Southeast Asia, 10-11; Michael Mann. “The autonomous power of the state:
its origins, mechanism and results” in European Journal of Sociology, vol 25 No 2, (1984):
pp.185-213.
75 Uğur Bayraktar, “Yurtluk Ocaklıks: Land, Politics of Notables and Society in Ottoman Kurdistan
1820-1890,” 180.
76 Cevdet Küçük, “Tanzimat Devrinde Erzurum’un Nüfus Durumu,” in Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi
İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi no 7-8. (1976-77): 190; Bayraktar, “Yurtluk Ocaklıks:
Land, Politcs of Notables and Society in Ottoman Kurdistan 1820-1890,” 163, 179.
Bayraktar rightly argues that the Tanzimat state became visible in the province of Kurdistan
after the 1860s with the establishment of Tanzimat institutions.
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provinces. The law was implemented first in Bosnia, Erzurum, and Damascus
as the pilot lands on different margins of the Empire and was later implemented
in most of the remaining provinces. Jun Akiba and Abdulhamit
Kırmızı have shown that, after the implementation of the law in 1867, the
provinces were classified either as “normal provinces” where the Provincial
Reform Law was set or “privileged provinces” (eyalet-i mümtaze) as in the
cases of Tunisia, Mount Lebanon and Bosnia where special autonomous administrations
were preferred.77 The law assumed its final form in 1871 with
the announcement of İdare-i Umumiyye-i Vilayet Nizamnamesi.
Although the state’s goal was to control the resources and subjects of its
territories, the reform package did not provide a significant change in the status
of the state in the borderlands. In theory, the land was divided into provinces
(vilayet) led by a governor; sub-provinces (liva/sancak) that were governed
by a mutasarrıf; districts (kaza) controlled by a kaymakam; and villages
(nahiye) governed by a mudir, while a mukhtar commanded the smallest unit
known as karye.78 In practice, the creation of smaller provinces in which the
governor ruled in the name of the Sultan resulted in rising conflicts between
the urban coalitions and the new governors, because influential people of the
region were able to capture local advisory councils.79 The confrontations
77 Jun Akiba, “Preliminaries to a Comparative History of the Russian and Ottoman Empires:
Perspectives from Ottoman Studies,” in Imperiology: From Empirical Knowledge to Discussing
the Russian Empire, ed. Kimitaka Matsuzato (Sappora: Slavic Research Center, 2007),
5; “The Local Councils as the Origin of the Parliamentary System in the Ottoman Empire,”
in Development of Parliamentarism in the Modern Islamic World, edited by Tsugitaka Sato
(Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 2009), 178-179. See also; Abdulhamit Kırmızı Abdülhamid’in Valileri
Osmanlı Vilayet İdaresi 1895-1908 (İstanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2007), 28.
78 Abdulhamit Kırmızı, Abdülhamid’in Valileri Osmanlı Vilayet İdaresi 1895-1908, 31. The final
version of administrative reform in the Ottoman East took its final form in line with the
reform proposal of Ahmed Şakir Pasha after 1895.
79 Gökhan Çetinsaya, The Ottoman Administration of Iraq 1890-1908 (London and NewYork:
Routledge, 2006), 6; Meltem Toksöz, “Reform ve Yönetim: Devletten Topluma Merkezden
Bölgeye Osmanlı Modernleşmesi” in Tanzimat: Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu,
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between various social forces vying to control the power in urban centers had
continued during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II on the Ottoman eastern
and western provinces.
§ 2.3 Provincial Administration and Power Holders 1876-1908
The Provincial Reform Law was designed during the reign of Sultan Abdulaziz
and was implemented in many provinces after 1864, but it was primarily
practiced with some revisions during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid
II. Each of the Ottoman provinces was ruled by a governor appointed by the
Imperial center. Governors were instructed to carry out the Empire's laws,
they were responsible for maintaining public safety by exercising general supervision
over the province, and for administering the police forces and the
prisons.80 A mektubcu, who was a principal secretary, provided communication
between the province and the center, was also responsible for preparing
an official annual. A defterdar who was the head of finance had the duty to
make a list of capable officials for his bureau; and advisory administration
councils whose members were partly elected and partly appointed were other
vital bureaucrats in the provinces. The Alaybeyi, who commanded the gendarmes
and the police forces, was the assistant of the governor but was directly
responsible to the Minister of Police. Other posts included Vice-Governors,
The Privy Purse, Justice, Land Records, Post and Telegraphs, Public
Instruction, Religious Endowments, Customs, the Public Debt Administration
222. Even before the announcement of the Provincial Reform, there was a tension between
officials who were sent from the center and the urban coalitions. For a fascinating example,
see: Cengiz Kırlı, Yolsuzluğun İcadı 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi (İstanbul: Verita
Yayınları, 2015).
80 F.O. 414/106 Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson to Mr. Gorschen. Inclosure in No: 270 Report on
the Administration of Justice in Anatolia. (June 30, 1880)
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and the Tobacco Régie.81 For instance, according to a survey on the annual of
Erzurum that was published in 1900, the governor, Mehmed Rauf Pasha, the
Naib, Hayreddin Efendi, the vice-governor, İbrahim Selim Soha Efendi who
belonged to the Greek Catholic population of the province, the defterdar,
İbrahim Edhem Bey, and the Mektubcu, Ali Rıza Efendi constituted the core
of the administration in the province. All of them were also appointed as
members of the advisory council of the province. The Mufti Elhac Lütfullah
Efendi, the Marhasa of Catholics, Karabet Efendi, and The Marhasa of Armenian
millet, Zaven Efendi were among the other appointed members of the
council. Akif and Ahmed Celil Beys were the elected Muslim members,
whereas Artin and Zakar Efendi had been selected as the non-Muslim members
of the board.82
Governors represented the Sultan in the region, and for this reason, the
central bureaucracy showed great effort to assign the most qualified people to
be the governors of the provinces. When a governor was appointed to the
Ottoman East, he usually chose to take a tour of the province. The goal in this
was not only to write reports on the provinces' social and economic conditions
but also to understand the power relations for the purpose of providing efficient
governance.83 However, none of the governors achieved to practice the
laws in the eastern provinces for longer than five years. Between 1895 and
1908, Erzurum and Bitlis knew five different governors, while six different
81 Çetinsaya, 15; Yakup Karataş, “Sultan II. Abdulhamid Döneminde Erzurum (Sosyal, Ekonomik,
İdari ve Demografik Yapı),” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation in History Department of
Social Sciences Institute at Ataturk University, 2010, 16-17.
82 Salname-i Vilayet-i Erzurum, 1900, 225. Compared to the members of the year 1897, 3 out
of 4 elected members were different. In 1897, the Muslim elected members were Mehmed
Derviş and Tevfik Bey and the non-Muslim elected members were Felbos and Artin Efendis.
See; Karataş, “Sultan II. Abdulhamid Döneminde Erzurum (Sosyal, Ekonomik, İdari ve Demografik
Yapı)” 20.
83 For examples of governor reports, see: BOA. DH.MUİ. 42/52, 7. Teşrinisani 1325 (December
20, 1909).; BOA. Y.MTV.222/116 20, Teşrinievvel 1317 (November 2, 1901).
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governors were appointed to Mamuratulaziz and Van. Nine different governors
led Diyarbakır, and the province of Mosul held the record because none
of the governors achieved to occupy the governor's house for more than three
years; it was governed by ten different governors between 1895 and 1908.84
There were a variety of reasons behind the frequent change of governors. The
most crucial problem was the clashes between the local notables, religious
leaders, army commanders and the provincial governors.85 In some cases, natural
leaders of districts such as artisans, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders
were more influential than Sultan Abdulhamid’s governors. One of the most
famous examples of this was the powerful chief Musto Katu who proclaimed
himself governor, and the people chose to obey him instead of the official
governor of the Sultan.86 The provincial governors who were in the borderlands
frequently stated that the regions' climatic conditions caused health
problems and that for this reason, they inquired about the possibility of appointment
to different province.87 In most cases, this was just an excuse to
conceal the weakness of the governors in the regions; because the central
84 Kırmızı, Abdülhamid’in Valileri, 68.
85 For an example of such clashes in the province of Diyarbakır, see: Abdülhamit Kırmızı “Kıbrıslı
Halit Bey’in Diyarbakır Valiliği (1896-1902)” in Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Diyarbakır
edited by Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, Kerstin Tomenendal vol. 1, 265-275 (Ankara: Diyarbakır
Valiliği Türk Kültürü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 2008)
86 S. Aslıhan Gürbüzel, “Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia (1878-1890)” Unpublished master
thesis in Department of History, Bilkent University, Ankara, 2008, 58.
87 Kırmızı, Abdülhamid’in Valileri, 57. The most interesting example was the requests of Governor
Rauf Pasha of Erzurum. First, he kindly asked his appointment to Hüdavendigar province
because of the bad weather conditions has aggravated his rheumatism. When the Palace
rejected his request, he asked about the possibility of his appointment to a coastal province.
His request was rejected because he knew the local dynamics of Erzurum very well. In his
third request, he offered to become General Inspector of Anadolu Vilayeti Şahanesi on condition
to serve in Erzurum only during summers. For the documents, see: Muammer Demirel,
Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid ile Erzurum Vilayeti Arasındaki Yazışmalar (1894-1904 (İstanbul:
Çamlıcam Basım Yayın, 2007), 77-133-167-177- 183.
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power was weak in the borderlands.88 For example, in the province of Monastır
a bandit, Bilal Balanza had not refrained from issuing a threat to the governor
of Monastır:
I am on the Ochridian Mountains, and am not afraid of you; come and
attack me if you can: Kemal, you are Governor of the vilayet of
Monastır in name only: the real one is myself. You are Governor only
in Monastır, while I am Governor throughout the length and breadth
of the vilayet.89
Therefore, it was not possible to govern the provinces without acquiring
the support of the local powerholders and religious leaders. As Yücel Terzibaşoğlu
stated, the provincial councils' actual role went beyond what was
defined in the law. In theory, the councils were responsible for recording the
land, determining the amount of taxes, deciding how to use the province's
income, and solving the land and property problems. In practice, these roles
formed a political atmosphere where the artisans, religious leaders and tribal
chiefs became key actors in the politics of the provinces because, on the one
side, these people worked to protect their benefits, and on the other side, they
were responsible for transmitting the demands of the locality to the center.90
For example, Hamdi Özdiş mentions that an account of the Empire's image
written based on the annuals and official reports did not cohere with the local
88 Martin Van Bruinessen states that by the mid-19th century “officially, Kurdistan was from
then on ruled directly by Ottoman governors, -in practice, however, direct Ottoman rule was
to prove very ineffective indeed. Near the cities, the governors had some power; nowhere did
they have authority” See: Martin Van Bruinessen Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and
Political Structures of Kurdistan (London: Zed Books, 1997), 176. Gürbüzel also underlines
the same problems. See, Gürbüzel, “Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia (1878-1890),” 56.
89 The Times, September 12, 1887 “Brigandage in the Turkish Empire” 13.
90 Yücel Terzibaşoğlu, “Eleni Hatun’un Zeytin Bahçeleri: 19. Yüzyılda Anadolu’da Mülkiyet
Hakları Nasıl İnşa Edildi?” in Tarih ve Toplum - Yeni Yaklaşımlar, volume 4, (2011): 137.
Also see; Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimat’ın uygulanması ve sosyal tepkileri,” 365; Yener Koç, “Nomadic
Pastoral Tribes at the Intersection of the Ottoman, Persian and Russian Empires,
(1820s-1890s),” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation in Boğaziçi University, History Department,
2020, 139.
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practices. According to him, although the provincial councils were known as
merely advisory councils, it had been difficult to choose someone for a seat
without the powerholders' consent in the councils.91 British Consul Lieutenant-
Colonel Wilson described the councils as an organ “the members of which
sought only to enrich themselves, and advance their own interests and those
of their friends.”92
Faced with such a situation, the governors worked to co-operate with
some of the artisans, merchants and tribe leaders, and showed great respect
towards religious leaders and the customs of the local populations.93 For example,
Governor-General of Yemen, Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, banned the production
and sale of alcohol throughout the province and ordered the provincial
officers to adopt the dress code of the local ulama.94 Without defining the
local ulama as the imperial projects' partner by displays of great respect towards
them and acceptance of their social status, it was exceedingly difficult
to govern a city peacefully. The danger lurking in urban politics, in this context,
was the potential cooperation of ‘losers’ against the people who were in
the circle of a governor. In such conditions, the provinces' problem was not
only a state-society clash but also the clashes between various actors vying to
91 Hamdi Özdiş, “Taşrada İktidar Mücadelesi: II. Abdulhamid Döneminde Trabzon Vilayetinde
Eşraf, Siyaset ve Devlet (1876-1909),” Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in History Department
of Social Science Instıtute at Hacettepe University, 2008, 45.
92 F.O. 414/106 Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson to Mr. Gorschen. Inclosure in No: 270 Report on
the Administration of Justice in Anatolia (June 30, 1880)
93 For instance, Meeker argues that most of the bureaucratic seats such as kaimakam and mubaşir
in the province of Trabzon were under the control of the families known as district
chiefs and valley lords. In this manner, local powerholders transformed themselves in Accord
with Tanzimat reforms. See: Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish
Modernity, 197. For the clashes between the local powerholders and the provincial governor
in Trabzon, see: Meeker, 260. For a similar argument for the case of Eastern Anatolia, see: S.
Aslıhan Gürbüzel, “Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia (1878-1890),” 53-54.
94 Thomas Kuehn, Empire, Islam and the Politics of Difference: Ottoman Rule in Yemen 1849-
1919 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 148.
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gain more power. Another danger facing the governors of the provinces was
the clashes within the state, among the officers who held seats in the provincial
bureaucracy. Even though the governors held the highest bureaucratic
seat in the provinces, certain other officials such as defterdar and mufti or the
army commander were not under the umbrella of the governor. As Çetinsaya
has shown, in the examples of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, a defterdar was
“partly responsible to the Vali but chiefly responsible to the Ministry of Finance
in Istanbul.”95 The army commanders in eastern provinces were organized
under the commandership of the IV. Army.
On the other hand, the clerics were not only responsible towards Istanbul
but were also natural leaders of the society via their links to the Nakshibandiyya
Qadiri lodges. The mosques were under the control of religious
leaders such as Mufti and Imams, therefore, they had considerable social status.
Although Tanzimat reforms succeeded to sweep away a large share of the
clergy with the establishment of The Ministry of Justice and The Ministry of
Education,96 the clerics did not lose their social status, because they either
succeeded to become officers in the new institutions or they continued to control
education and public space via unregistered madrasas and mosques in the
urban centers. Sultan Abdulhamid II created new establishments like the
Council of Sufi Sheiks (Meclis-i Meşayih) to centralize these lodges as the
state had also tried with the establishment of the office of Sheik-ul Islam
(Bab-ı Meşihat). However, most of the Sufi Sheikhs did not choose to create
close ties with the state bureaucracy.97 As a result, the clerical notables' role
in society and politics increased in the 19th century as it happened also in
95 Çetinsaya, The Ottoman Administration of Iraq 1890-1908, 16.
96 Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 36.
97 Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Traditions
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 7-9.
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Qajar Iran.98 When the governors did not achieve cooperation with a defterdar,
a mufti or an army commander, a clash was the inevitable result. Two
critical examples describe the need for cooperation for peaceful governance
in the provinces. When Emin Efendi, the former defterdar of the Trabzon
province, was appointed to the Erzurum province in 1896, some city merchants
protested this appointment during their visit to the governor. According
to a well-known notable of the city, Emin Efendi was famous for his corruption
in Trabzon. The governor Rauf Pasha sent a telegraph to the Imperial
center after listening to the merchants’ criticisms and asked about the possibility
of sending another officer who was not known by the city's dignitaries
because it could prove impossible to govern with a defterdar who had notoriety
in the urban center.99 Second, when Rauf Pasha failed to create a good
relationship with Commander Mehmed Ali Pasha, he tried to eliminate his
power in the urban center by working to banish his commanders. As the governor
of Erzurum, Rauf Pasha had many problems with Zeki Pasha, who was
the General of the IV. Army,100 and for this reason, he was well aware of how
his position could be in danger if he allowed a military officer to increase his
influence in the city. Therefore, he criticized Commander Şevki Pasha, who
98 Unfortunately, the role of the clerics in local politcs in the context of Middle East was not
studied well. The Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran had many similarities in the rising power
of the clerics and the changing understanding of the Islamic concepts such as umma, shura
and millet in the late 18th and long 19th centuries. For Iran, see; Abbas Amanat, “The Age of
Usuli Mujtahids” in Iran A Modern History, (New Haven, London: Yale University Press,
2017); Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of the God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political
Order and Societal Change in Shi’ite Iran From the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1984), 229. There is only one exception: Nader Sohrabi, Revolution
and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, 20-21.
99 BOA. İ.ML. 18/29, 1. 8 Haziran 1312, (June 21, 1896); BOA. BEO 799/59916 10 Haziran
1312, (June 23, 1896); Demirel, Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid ile Erzurum Vilayeti Arasındaki
Yazışmalar (1894-1904), 41.
100 Demirel, Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid ile Erzurum Vilayeti Arasındaki Yazışmalar (1894-1904),
72-73.
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was working under Commander Mehmed Ali Pasha, by arguing that Şevki
Pasha made speeches against Russians in the urban bazaar.101 As seen in these
examples, the conflict was not only in the state-society relationship but also
expressed a fight within the bureaucracy and an inter-class conflict within the
petty-bourgeoisie and clerical notables vying for more power.
§ 2.4 Reform in Taxes and Tax-Collection
The early modern era heralded the decrease in the rate of the tax revenues that
were sent to the capital due first to the iltizam and then the malikane system.
Iltizam was the selling of tax-farming rights with a fixed price for 1-3 years
to a person who knew the region. During the 18th century, the iltizam system
turned into malikane in which the people who had the right to collect taxes
from the region broadened their rights to collect and control the tax revenues
for their lifetime.102 Intermediaries were not the only reason for the decrease
in the tax income that reached to the center. The proliferation of waqf foundations
was another cause. Ottoman society used the waqf system to spend
the money for the localities, to guarantee who would be the next inheritor of
a property, to protect it from the state intervention and to create a social patronage.
103 While the iltizam system aimed to increase agricultural production
101 Ibid., 186. “Binbaşı Şevki Efendi’nin çarşı pazarda bir taburla Petersburg’u fethederim, Rusları
şöyle tepelerim, böyle ezerim yolunda sözler söyleyen…”
102 K. Kıvanç Karaman, Şevket Pamuk, “Ottoman State Finances in European Perspectives,
1500-1914” in The Journal of Economic History vol. 70 /3 (2010), 593-629, 602.
103 Three different types of waqf were created in the Ottoman Empire. These were waqfahli/
dhurri (family waqf), waqf-khayri (charitable waqf) and waqf-mushterek (mixed waqf).
See: Randi Deguilhem, “The Waqf in the City” in the City in the Islamic World ed by Salma
Khadra Jayyusi, Renata Holod, Anitilia Petruccioli and André Raymond (Leiden: Brill,
2008), 929-956; Timur Kuran, The Long Divergence, How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle
East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 110; Gabriel Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop
for the Social System (Sixteenth-Twentieth Centuries) Islamic Law and Society vol. 4 No 3
(1997): 264-297; Kayhan Orbay classifies waqfs from different perspective. His
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
49
by ordering the malikane holder to provide credit for the peasants and to distribute
seeds, it did not allow the central government to increase its tax revenues.
The tax revenues that were sent to the capital did not increase much
from the 16th to the end of the 18th century.104 However, it is important to note
that the decrease in the tax revenues sent to the center did not indicate a decline
of the Ottoman Empire. Instead, Ottoman bureaucracy operated a new
fiscal system that aimed to amalgamate the various local leaders to the Ottoman
politics. This did not simply cause the dislocation of the central power
in the provinces but rather led to the Ottomanization of the various political
actors in the regions.105
When the Ottoman finance would face trouble, the Empire would operate
policies such as the debasement of the money, the confiscation of Ayan’s
properties, borrowing from the local moneylenders, selling the taxable product
for life-time and collecting extraordinary (avarız) taxes to transfer the surplus
to the center.106 Yet, most of these attempts did not amount to an effective
fiscal policy for centralizing Ottoman finance until the late 19th century.
Moreover, the obstacles such as difficult terrain, vast distances to the capital,
low urbanization rates were the other reasons behind the state’s fail to create
a new fiscal system.107
The most important fiscal reform in the 19th century involved the transformation
of the surplus of the provinces to the center. The central
categorization includes cash waqfs, ordinary waqfs and imperial waqfs. See: Kayhan Orbay,
“Imperial Waqfs within the Ottoman Waqf System” in Endowment Studies volume 1 (2017):
135-153, 138.
104 Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli: Osmanlı’da Vergi, Siyaset ve Toplumsal Adalet (1839-
1908) (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2015), 23.
105 Dina Rizk Khoury, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Devlet ve Taşra Toplumu: Musul 1540-1830
trans. By Ülkün Tansel (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1999), 86.
106 For some of these policies such as Esham and external borrowing see: Yavuz Cezar, Osmanlı
Maliyesi’nde Bunalım ve Değişim (İstanbul: Alan Yayıncılık, 1986), s. 79, 90.
107 Karaman and Pamuk, “Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500-1914”, 59
MUSTAFA BATMAN
50
bureaucracy investigated the basic obstacles faced by Ottoman finance. The
problem was the stagnation in the collected taxes that were transferred to the
center. As noted, the tax revenues of the central bureaucracy had not increased
much from the late 16th century to the late 18th century. During these years,
local çiftlik holders who controlled the malikane seized the surplus of the
peasants instead of the central bureaucracy.108 Hence, the centralization of the
fiscal policy of the Empire provided the central bureaucracy a chance to collect
a greater share of the collected taxes. As Nadir Özbek rightly noted, the
total income of the central treasury increased fivefold between 1841/42 and
1911/12.109 The statistics of the increasing revenues provided by Karaman
and Pamuk also support this argument.110 Although the aim of the center was
to operate an efficient form of tax collection system that increased the tax rate
of the urban society rather than the peasants, Tanzimat did not achieve to
eliminate the yokes around the peasants’ necks. Tanzimat abolished all taxes
other than traditional taxes such as A’şar and Ağnam, as a radical solution and
created a new tax that was called as vergü. This would be collected according
to the wealth of the taxpayers.111 Moreover, the Tanzimat bureaucrats first
created the Meclis-i Muhasebe-i Maliye to decide on the new tax system and
solve the conflicts that were to emerge during the tax collection. Then
108 Although the Gülhane Decree symbolizes a milestone for the reform period, attempts to eliminate
the notables from the tax collection process had begun prior to the decree. For instance,
Şevket Pamuk mentions the bureaucratic efforts to discard the Karaosmanoğlu family
from tax collection in Western Anatolia in 1813. See: Şevket Pamuk, Türkiye’nin 200 Yıllık
İktisadi Tarihi: Büyüme, Kurumlar ve Bölüşüm (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları,
2017), 129.
109 Nadir Özbek, “Tax Farming in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire: Institutional
Backwardness or the Emergence of Modern Public Finance?” in Journal of Interdiscciplinary
History, volume XLIX no 2 (2018): 219-245, 227.
110 Karaman and Pamuk, “Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500-1914”, 622.
111 Coşkun Çakır, Tanzimat Dönemi Osmanlı Maliyesi (İstanbul, Küre Yayınları, 2001), 23.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
51
Ministry of Finance (Umur-u Maliye Nezareti) had been established112 and
the first modern and well-organized state budgets were planned to this end
during the mid-19th century.113
The wealth of the people would be determined after muhassıls recorded
their cultivated land, properties and the animals. Muhassıls, who were the new
tax collectors, were sent from the center, and they were also forbidden from
claiming the provisions of the community as their needs.114 They symbolized
a new deal between the state and the society because the goal was to challenge
the power relations in order to end the misdeeds in tax collection and to decrease
the financial autonomy of the local power-holders.115 Although the system
was abolished before the Tanzimat reform managed to encompass the
Ottoman borderlands, the Empire's goals survived. The central bureaucrats
desired to create a new tax system that covered all men from villages to cities
instead of giving privileges to the notables of the provinces. It is important to
112 Yavuz Cezar, Osmanlı Maliyesi’nde Bunalım ve Değişim Dönemi. (İstanbul: Alan Yayınları,
1986), 286; Abdüllatif Şener, “Tanzimat ve Osmanlı Maliyesi” in Hacettepe Üniversitesi İktisadi
ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi vol. 6 no.2. (1990): 49.
113 Abdüllatif Şener, “Osmanlı Bütçeleri ve Bütçe Hakkının Ortaya Çıkışında Cumhuriyet
Öncesi Gelişmeler” in Tanzimat: Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ed. by Halil
İnalcık and Mehmet Seyitdanlıoğlu (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2017),
747.
114 Despite many regulations, Tax-collectors continued to claim the provision of the community
as their need. The following passage written by the missionaries of the region is an example
from Van province. “The manner of collecting is quite great an outrage as the measure. The
collector comes to the village with from one to ten zaptiehs... For days, and perhaps weeks,
their horses must be fed and cared for, the sheep or chickens must be killed, even when there
is food enough in the whole village to keep its population till harvest.” Papers of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M) Unit 5: Item (ABC 16.9.7) Reel
703 Microfilm 386. Van, (December 24, 1905). It is also crucial to note that The Regulation
for the Tax-Collectors who were employed in the Vilayet-i Sitte strictly forbid the assistance
of asakir-i zabtiye during tax collection but many examples includes details about the role of
asakir-i zabtiye in tax collection.
115 Cengiz Kırlı, Yolsuzluğun İcadı 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi (İstanbul: Verita
Yayınları, 2015), 32.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
52
underline that, as Nadir Özbek stated, decreasing the financial autonomy of
the local power-holders did not include bypassing their joining the tax collection,
instead “granting them positions in newly established local assemblies
to coordinate the allocation and collection of taxes.”116 Attempts to collect
immovable property tax and dividend tax were among such examples.117 Despite
huge expectations of the peasantry that tax collection would expand
from the countryside to the cities, these attempts failed until the end of the
19th century.118 Starting with the last quarter of the 19th century, state officials
proposed detail reports to change tax-collection practices of the Empire in the
provinces.
The most important change to tax-collection in the eastern provinces was
designed after Ahmed Sakir Pasha visited the provinces and prepared a reform
package in 1895.119 When Ahmed Şakir Pasha presented the reform package
for the Ottoman eastern provinces in 1896, he proposed to devolve the tax
collection of the villages to the peasants who lived there instead of giving the
rights to collect taxes to notables of the region. For this reason, he offered to
place the tithe (A’şar) in a tender village by village tender and provide priorities
for the villagers to win tenders.120 As Tanzimat bureaucrats worked to
116 Özbek, “Tax Farming in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire: Institutional Backwardness
or the Emergence of Modern Public Finance?”, 233.
117 Alp Yücel Kaya, Yücel Terzibaşoğlu, “Tahrir’den Kadastro’ya: 1874 İstanbul Emlak Tahriri
ve Vergisi ‘Kadastro Tabir Olunur Tahrir-i Emlak’ in Tarih ve Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar 249,
9 (2009): 7-56, 13.
118 Kırlı, Yolsuzluğun İcadı 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi, 40.
119 For the power struggles over tax collection, see: Engin Deniz Akarlı, “The Problems of External
Pressures, Power Struggles, and Budgetary Deficits in Ottoman Politics under Abdulhamid
II (1876-1909): Origins and Solutions,” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation in Princeton
University, History Department 1976.
120 Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli: Osmanlı’da Vergi, Siyaset ve Toplumsal Adalet (1839-
1908), 75; Ali Karaca, Anadolu Islahatı ve Ahmet Şakir Paşa 1838-1899 (İstanbul: Eren Yayınları,
1993), 222. “Aşar iltizam tarikiyle tahsil ve istifa edilecektir. Toptan ihale-i aşar usulü
mülga kalub, yerine karye be karye ahali namına müzayede kaidesi vaz olunmuştur. Bir karye
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
53
abolish the iltizam system, Şakir Pasha aimed to displace the role of multezims
in the Ottoman East. However, as Nadir Özbek has shown, the percentage of
the villages which achieved to eliminate multezims were no higher than
20%.121 Moreover, removing the multezim did not equate to providing justice
during tax collection for the Ottoman East. For example, the report of Vice-
Consul Heard clarifies the practice in the province of Bitlis in 1907. Heard
argued that the tithe was formerly collected through multezims in the region,
but a new Irade of the Sultan ordered it to be paid by the villagers themselves.
He defines the situation in Muş as follows:
At first sight, this appears an admirable measure, as the irregularities
of the “multezims” will thus be put a stop to. On examination, how
ever, it will be seen that the incidence bears heavily on the majority of
villages, where the number of farmers has steadily decreased during
the last five years.122
The Vice-Consul supported his arguments by researching on many villages
of the province of Bitlis. According to him, while the number of inhabitants
decreased year by year, the tithe amount did not decrease at the same
level. The examples from the two villages, among many others, clarify the
misdeed during the tax collection.
aşarına talib zuhur etmez veyahut bedel-i layıkını bulmaz ise Aşar nizamnamesi mucibince
emaneten idare olunur.”
121 Özbek calculates the percentage of the villages which achieved to eliminate the powerholders
by researching on approximately 10 thousand villages from 10 different provinces. He adds
that the situation in the Ottoman East was not different. See: Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli,
80-81.
122 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No. 95 Vice-Consul Heard to Sir N. O’Conor. Bitlis (August 16,
1907).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
54
Table 2.4.1 The Village of Arkavank123
Year Houses Farmers Tithes (Kurushes)
1903 53 50 12,000
1904 53 50 10,800
1905 10 7 8,700
1906 10 7 6,500
1907 10 6 9,500
Table 2.4.2 The Village of Erishter124
Year Houses Farmers Tithes (Kurushes)
1903 60 60 15,000
1904 55 45 13,000
1905 35 30 12,000
1906 25 20 24,000
1907 21 7 19,000
Source: F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No. 95
There were various reasons for the decreasing number of peasants, such
as the raids by some Kurdish tribes and Circassians, the food shortage, a
search for new jobs in the urban centers, the activities of Armenian revolutionaries,
and emigration to abroad in search of a new life. Among them, the
most crucial one was the failure of the Ottoman bureaucracy to solve the land
and property questions of the region. The strong opposition of the Kurdish
Beys and petty-notables in the region caused the oppression of the peasantry
to continue, including Muslims and non-Muslims.
The opposition of the petty-notables to the change in the taxation system
was not only related to the attempts to decrease the power of multezims. Indeed,
during the last quarter of the 19th century, most of the lands were seized
by notables, and peasants lost their limited property rights to the cultivated
123 Ibid. Arkavank is the former name of Umurca village of Hasköy in Muş. See: https://nisanyanmap.
com/?y=arkavank&lv=&t=&u=1&ua=5
124 Ibid. Erishter is the former name of Eşmepınar village of Hasköy in Muş. See: https://nisanyanmap.
com/?y=e%C5%9Fmep%C4%B1nar&lv=&t=&u=1&ua=5
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
55
land. For this reason, attempts to dislocate multezim were very distant to the
historical facts of the region. According to Özbek’s research, although the
community in Van's province gained the right to collect their taxes, this was
not a victory for the small peasantry because most of the cultivated land in
the region was under the control of the tribal chiefs.125 This process of this
transformation in property relations lay behind the credit system between the
peasants and the petty-notables of the urban centers.
The most common credit relationship between the peasants and the pettynotables,
tribal chiefs of the region was called as Selem. It was widely used
in Islamic fiqh to define the sale of a future product with a determined price.126
When the peasants of the region needed cash to buy seed for their land, pay
their taxes, or for their daily stay, they made a contract with the Beys and
petty-notables, who were mostly merchants of the region. According to the
contract known as selem, peasants sold their products before the harvest season
at a determined price. The crucial point in the contract was the assumption
of all risks by the seller.127 If a peasant who signed a selem contract with a
merchant did not provide enough product after the harvest season due to the
conditions such as drought or a locust invasion, he had to pay the arrears with
interest. In such a situation, “selemdarlık was a kind of usuary by which the
peasants raise money to pay their taxes by mortgaging their crops or livestock.”
128 Under the system, as the consuls observed, a kile of wheat was sold
for around 30-40 kurushes, even though it would be worth at least 100 kurushes
after the harvest. The profit of the purchaser was high enough to ruin
peasants who contracted with them. Apart from the selem system, the
125 Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli, 81.
126 Bilal Aybakan, “Selem” in TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi vol. 36, 402-405.
127 Tevfik Güran, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Zirai Kredi Politikasının Gelişmesi, 1840-1910”
in Uluslararası Midhat Paşa Semineri: Bildiriler ve Tartışmalar, (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu
Basımevi, 1986), 102.
128 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No:95 Vice Consul Heard to Sir N.O’Conor. Bitlis (August 16,
1907).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
56
Agricultural Bank also provided loans to the peasants of the Ottoman East.
However, small peasants who cultivated the land lived far from the center,
and they could not contact the Agricultural Bank whenever they desired.
When they did manage to reach the bank, they had to assess the value of the
land pledged as security at half the actual amount. In addition, consuls often
accused the officers in the bank offices for being corrupt; people who would
not process the applications without taking their own shares.129 Hence, when
the tax collectors came to the villages, the peasants were forced to apply to
the selemdars. In 1907, Vice Council Heard listed thirty-two villages where
the lands were in the hands of the selemdars most of whom were the notables
of Muş.130 Although the vice-consul of Bitlis mentioned that selem was introduced
to the region by Circassian immigrants and adopted by local Kurdish
Beys,131 it was common practice not only in the region but also in the many
provinces of the Empire even before the arrival of the new immigrants.132 It
129 Ibid.
130 Ibid.
131 Mehmet Polatel, “Armenians and the Land Question in the Ottoman Empire, 1870-1914,”
Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in Ataturk Institute For Modern Turkish History at Boğaziçi
University, 2017, 137.
132 For a well-detailed account of selem practices in the Ottoman East, see: Dikran M. Kaligian,
“The Agrarian Land Reform and the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire” in The Armenian
Review, Volume 48 No 3-4 (2003): pp. 25-45. For the examples of the practice of selem in
various parts of the Empire, see: Alp Yücel Kaya, “19. Yüzyıl İzmir’inde Tüccarlar ve Esnaflar
veya ‘Haciağalar’, Beyler ve Frenkler” in Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Esnaf ve Ticaret
eds by Fatmagül Demirel (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2012) pp.79-105. ; Kenneth
M. Cuno, “Salam Contract and the Transformation of the Agricultural Sector in Ottoman
Egypt” in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales Vol. 61, Issue 4, (2006): pp.925-940; Beshara
Doumani “The Salam Contract and Urban-Rural Relations in Ottoman Palestine” in Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales Vol. 61, Issue 4, (2006): pp. 901-924;Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering
Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus 1700-1900, chapter 4; Mehtap
Özdeğer, Emine Zeytinli, “Ottoman Credit System and Usurers in Agriculture in the Nineteenth
Century: Practices of Usury Contracts (Selem) in Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern
Studies, vol. 21, Issue 5 (2019), pp. 549-612; Tevfik Güran “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Zirai
Kredi Politikasının Gelişmesi, 1840-1910; Umut Gündoğdu “19. Yüzyıl Osmanlı
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
57
provided many advantages for the selemdars; because they achieved in keeping
peasants permanently indebted and secured their potential incomes. Furthermore,
as Atilla Aytekin stated, selemdar also used selem contracts as an
opportunity to discipline the cultivators who had no choice but to obey the
rules of them.133
Another crucial change to taxation was the introduction of new taxes on
personal income and domestic animals. As the Ottoman Empire had been trying
to eliminate the powerholders from the tax-collection process for at least
a century, it had also been aiming to transform them into taxable subjects of
the provinces. Among many such attempts during the Tanzimat period and the
reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the last institutional change was the introduction
of these taxes; the Imperial bureaucracy announced that taxes would,
from then on, be calculated according to the daily incomes and the number of
domestic animals of the communities.
These efforts by the Ministry of Finance had symbolized the continuity in
the financial reforms from temettuat tax to personal income tax. It was also
in step with similar efforts in many European countries; many continental
powers had introduced income-based taxes starting with the second half of
the 19th century. After many attempts, a personal income tax system was permanently
established in Great Britain in 1894, in Russia during World War I,
and in Prussia in 1891.134 The Ottoman Empire, first, worked to create a tax
system based on the personal incomes of the communities in the selected
İmparatorluğu’nda Kırsal Borçluluk Bağlamında Emek ve Mülkiyet İlişkilerinin Dönüşümü”
Unpublished master thesis in Social Science Institute at Ege University, 2019.
133 Atilla Aytekin “Cultivators, Creditors and the State: Rural Indebtedness in the Nineteenth
Century Ottoman Empire” in The Journal of Peasant Studies 35:2, (2008), 295.
134 For a well-detailed account of personal income tax in the Ottoman Empire and its European
counterparts, see: Nadir Özbek, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Gelir Vergisi: 1903-1907 Tarihli
Vergi-i Şahsi Uygulaması” in Tarih ve Toplum, Yeni Yaklaşımlar vol. 10 (2010): 43-81.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
58
provinces during the war against Greece in 1897 and decided to create a permanent
income tax on August 20, 1903.135
The regulation of personal income tax divided all men older than 18 years
old in the Ottoman Empire into eight different categories based on their income.
According to those categories, 50% percent of the taxpayers who were
in the lowest income group needed to pay five kurushes, 20% of the taxpayers
were required to pay ten kurushes, 12% were required to pay 20 kurushes, 8%
had to pay 40 kurushes, 5% had to pay 60 kurushes, 2% needed to pay 80
kurushes and 2% were required to pay 100 kurushes. The last 1% needed to
pay more than others depending on their income. The people at the lowest
rung, blind people, the people who were older than 70 years old in the first
and second categories, and the men in the military service were exempted
from the tax payment.136 The Empire aimed to collect one and a half million
liras a year with the personal income/poll tax.137
Table 2.4.3 The Income Tax
Taxpayers Income Tax
(kurushes)
Taxpayers
in 1%
Income Tax
(kurushes)
50% 5 30% 150
20% 10 20% 200
12% 20 20% 300
8% 40 15% 400
5% 60 10% 500
2% 80 3% 75
2% 100 2% 1000
1% 150 to 1000
Sources: Vergi-i Şahsi Hakkında Nizamname, Article 3.
135 Vergi-i Şahsi Hakkında Nizamname” Düstur 1. Tertib, c.7 pp.1064-1067. 7 Ağustos 1319,
August 20, 1903.
136 Ibid., article 1-2.
137 F.O.424/205 No:101 Sir N. O. C’onor to the Marquess of Landsdoune (September 10,1903).
The council wrote estimated numbers
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
59
The amount of the state expected from personal income tax was diminished
to 811,500 liras in 1905, 511,500 liras in 1906 and only 150,000 liras
for the budget of 1907.138 The reasons for this decrease in the expected
amount were not only the reactions of the population during the tax collections
but also the changes in the regulation. The first group, who made up
50% of the total taxpayers, were exempted from the tax with the regulation
of 1905. The 1905 regulation also announced that men between 20 and 70
years of age had to pay personal income tax, but the people who lived in the
cities and districts while working as peasants, the students, and the religious
leaders were exempted from the tax.139
The Ministry of Finance designed another tax too and announced it at the
same time as the personal income tax. This was called the “domestic animal
tax.” The Empire aimed to collect taxes from domestic animals such as cows,
oxen, horses, camels, and donkeys. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire had a cattle
tax known as ağnam for centuries. Yet, the domestic animals were counted
while the officials worked to collect ağnam tax in only some provinces. Most
of the provincial administrations had not been succeeding in collecting any
tax from the owners of these animals until 1903. For this reason, ağnam tax
was known as the tax that was collected from sheep owners. According to the
new tax regulation, the officers, who were also responsible for collecting
ağnam tax, would collect ten kurushes for each cow, ox, horse, mare, little
horse, camel, and mule. These animals' offspring, which were under two years
old, would not be counted for taxation purposes. The owners of donkeys were
ordered to pay three kurushes for each donkey as well.140
138 Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli, 120.
139 Vergi-i Şahsi Hakkında Ta’limat” Düstur 1. Tertib, c.8 pp.259-263. 6 Temmuz 1321 (July 19,
1905).
140 “Hayvanat-ı Ehliye Rüsumunun İhdasına Dair İrade-i Seniyye” Düstur 1. Tertib, c.7 pp.1060-
1066. 6 Ağustos 1319 (August 19, 1903); Yakup Akkuş, “Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Reform:
Merkez-Taşra Arasındaki İdari-Mali İlişkiler ve Vilayet Bütçeleri (1864-1913),”
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The announcement of these taxes created a domino effect of discomfort
across the Ottoman society - especially among the urban people due to the
economic conditions of the provinces. Society in the provinces of the eastern
and western borderlands like Erzurum and Kosovo, as well as the people of
Mosul and Basra showed a massive reaction against paying these taxes. The
urban population of the cities on the Black-Sea coast where the artisans and
merchants integrated themselves to the capitalist market system refused to
pay as well. In a short time, the domestic animal tax and personal income tax
turned into a symbol of misdeed in the provinces' governance, and the society
used the reactions against these taxes as a tool to legitimize their opposition
to the local and imperial government. Although Ottoman historiography defined
all of these reactions as the tax revolts, the response to these new taxes
was in fact only the yearning of society for partnership against a central government
that aimed to dislocate them. In this sense, it was also a well-designed
response of the petty-bourgeoisie, tribal chiefs, artisans, and peasants which
manifested their authority by defining the limits of the state's infrastructural
power in their provinces. Therefore, these reactions were not merely tax revolts
or agitation of the revolutionaries but a politics of contention by the
Ottoman provincial society. It should be underlined that there did not emerge
an opposition and reaction against all taxes. The community rejected the new
governmental apparatus that had taken decisions without people’s consent, by
reacting against the new taxes. At the same time, they continued to pay most
other taxes that were known as a’şar (tithe) and ağnam (cattle tax).
The Acting Consul of Erzurum wrote that after only 20 days of the announcement
of the domestic animal tax that, “considerable dissatisfaction is
evident at the heavy taxation, the tax of 10 piastres per head on cattle and
Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in Social Sciences Institute of Economics Department at Istanbul
University, 2011. 350; F.O. 424/205 Inclosure 1 in No:1118 Extract from the ‘İkdam’,
(September 24, 1903).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
61
horses falling especially hard on the peasant classes.”141 The consul in Trabzon
also stated that “a villager seems willing enough to pay for himself five
piastres a year but objects strongly to pay for his cow, horse, or mule 10 piasters
a year.”142 Although the consul focused on the heavy taxation falling on
the peasants, both of these taxes had also been targeting the urban population
of the Empire. Among them, merchants and butchers who were prominent in
the cattle trade, petty-notables known as agniya of the region, the contractors
who provided goods for the army, and artisans and shop-owners mobilized
the society of the region by activating their relations, because the taxes aimed
to diminish their income. The first reactions occurred in the province of Kosovo
and Monastır. The protestors mostly showed their discontent against the
domestic animal tax in those regions because most of the population had been
earning their living by raising cattle. However, most of the petitions sent from
the region also aimed to abolish the military exempt tax and personal income
tax. On the other hand, the protestors in the cities of Black Sea region directly
focused on the personal income tax. The people of Kastamonu dislocated the
governor, the secretary, and the treasurer from their seats. The community of
Sinop forced the mutasarrıf of the city to leave the city.143 The most important
mass movement that will be analyzed next chapter had been held in Erzurum.
141 F.O.424/205 Inclosure 2 in No:1118 Acting Consul Hampson to Sir N. O’Conor, Erzurum
(September 15, 1903).
142 Ibid. Inclosure in No: 144 Consul Longworth to Sir N. O’Conor, Trebizond (October 1,
1903).
143 F.O. 424/210 No:9 Sir N. O’Conor to Sir Edward Grey, Constantinople (February 13, 1906).
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§ 2.5 Difference in Image and Practice: Tax-Collection in Kosovo
Province
The society did not only react by capturing the seats of the local bureaucracy
and forcing them to leave the provinces.144 The state did not achieve to create
a well-designed tax collection system for the new taxes because the society
refused to take the inventory of their property and to pay taxes. The statistics
of the Kosovo province prove this situation. The officials in the province of
Kosovo and Monastır worked hard to count the domestic animals to achieve
efficient taxation. The Imperial center ordered the district governors to send
the total amounts collected from their district month by month. For example,
the kaimakam of Yenipazar stated that the domestic animal tax collected in
the region, in a limited time, was 591 kurushes while the ağnam was 9,245
kurushes with other taxes, the total amount reached 23,082 kurushes and 15
paras. The kaimakam of Orhaniye mentioned that they achieved to collect
2,768 kurushes in the domestic animal taxes. In the Köprülü district, the accumulated
amount of ağnam reached 10,577 kurushes, whereas the domestic
animal tax was 8,528 kurushes for the year. The kaymakam added that they
also collected 727 kurushes in arrears for the previous year.145 An annual report
and later petitions of the treasurer of Kosovo province indicated the difference
between the image and the practice and how the society revealed its
dissatisfaction with new taxes.
144 Depite this part of the dissertation aims to use financial statistics, there are many documents
to follow the mass movements of people against taxation in Kosovo province. For examples,
BOA.TFR.I.KV 154/15380; BOA.TFR.I.KV 155/15460; BOA. TFR.I.KV 156/15583;
BOA.TFR.I.ŞKT 75/7450; BOA.TFR.I.ŞKT 75/7466; BOA. Y.MTV 284/121.
145 Almost all districts of the Kosovo Province prepared report on the amounts of collected taxes
in 1904. See, BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8354, 281, 343-345 16 Mayıs 1320, (May 27, 1904).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
63
The actual tax revenue in the province of Kosovo (except the domestic
animal and personal income tax) was 41,917,113 kurushes in 1905.146 When
the amount of the domestic animal tax for 1904 was added, this rose to
43,826,585 kurushes. According to this account, the domestic animal tax
amounted into 0,043% of the total actual taxes. The treasurer of Kosovo had
prepared a list that showed the actual and expected figures for all revenues in
the province for the years of 1905.147 In the annual, the local bureaucracy
calculated the possible amounts for each district in the province, however, as
it will be seen, the actual collected amount was very different than the expectations.
The vilayet of Skopje was the center of the Kosovo province, and it had
ten districts. The taxes of 1905 and 1906 had been collected in those districts
without facing a massive backlash against taxation. One of the most important
elements in the backgrounds of this success was the infrastructural power of
the Empire. Skopje had the advantages compared to other cities of the province
because it hosted the most important infrastructural developments such
as the schools, military barracks, telegraph lines and trade routes. That is why
tax collectors did not face great discontent in the community. However, while
the government assumed it could collect ağnam and canavar taxes with a very
little difference from the actual amount, it aimed to collect the hayvanat-ı ehliye
tax with a minimum 7% difference between the actual and expected
146 Hilmi Bayraktar “Meşrutiyet Dönemi Kosova Vilayeti Mali Verileri Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme”
Muhasebe ve Finans Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi, sayı. 10 (2016): 80.
147 BOA.TFR.I.KV.84/8390, 3 Mart 1321, (March 16, 1905). The treasurer defined amounts in
three different categories as actual (aslı) expected to collect (tahsili) and difference (bakaya).
Although tahsili means the taxes that were collected I took those numbers as to be ‘expected
to collect’ because of two reasons. First, it was impossible to collect all taxes at the beginning
of March because the tax season would only start in March and would continue until the end
of August. Second, other reports sent by the treasurer later show the amount of taxes collected
in the region and those numbers are quite different than those in this statistic. Most probably,
the treasurer had prepared this list before the tax collection started.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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amount. Furthermore, the government assumed it could collect the A’şar tax
with a minimum 15,71% difference between the actual and expected amount,
the difference for emlak and akar tax was 21,05% and it was 17,85% for the
temettü tax. Besides, as the province was under international surveillance in
those years, the difference between actual and expected military exemption
taxes was %17,39 in the vilayet.148
Table 2.5.1 Selected Taxes in Skopje (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
As seen in the table, the actual amount from ağnam was 3,948,000 kurushes,
while the tax-collectors aimed to collect 3,893,000 kurushes. The difference
was only 55,000 kurushes, equal to 1.39% of the actual amount. Compared to
other taxes, it was clear that the tax collectors assumed to create a perfect
harmony with the taxpayers. The Canavar tax that was collected from the pig-
148 I did not add the statistics for the military exemption revenues because the tables cover the
taxes. However, the actual number for military exemption was 8,473,728 kurushes while the
expected amount was 6,999,679 kurushes and the difference was 1,474,049 kurushes.
Skopje Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
(Üsküb) Skopje 500.000 450.000 50.000 22.000 17.000 5.000 220.000 200.000 20.000
İştib (Stip) 600.000 600.000 0 20.000 18.000 2.000 200.000 180.000 20.000
Köprülü 540.000 540.000 0 20.000 18.000 2.000 170.000 150.000 20.000
Kratova 400.000 400.000 0 20.000 18.000 2.000 110.000 100.000 10.000
Radovişte 250.000 250.000 0 7.000 7.000 0 70.000 68.000 2.000
Palanka 280.000 280.000 0 22.000 22.000 0 100.000 90.000 10.000
Kumanova 530.000 530.000 0 45.000 45.000 0 200.000 190.000 10.000
Koçana 375.000 375.000 0 20.000 20.000 0 150.000 145.000 5.000
Osmaniye 450.000 450.000 0 24.000 24.000 0 170.000 160.000 10.000
Orhaniye 23.000 18.000 5.000 0 0 0 15.000 12.000 3.000
Total 3.948.000 3.893.000 55.000 200.000 189.000 11.000 1.405.000 1.295.000 110.000
% 1,39% 5,50% 7,83%
Skopje Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
(Üsküb) Skopje 870.000 700.000 170.000 250.000 170.000 80.000 1.600.000 1.400.000 200.000
İştib (Stip) 560.000 440.000 120.000 140.000 100.000 40.000 2.000.000 1.750.000 250.000
Köprülü 380.000 260.000 120.000 250.000 220.000 30.000 1.700.000 1.400.000 300.000
Kratova 200.000 150.000 50.000 75.000 70.000 5.000 650.000 550.000 100.000
Radovişte 180.000 150.000 30.000 45.000 37.000 8.000 520.000 400.000 120.000
Palanka 220.000 200.000 20.000 85.000 80.000 5.000 480.000 390.000 90.000
Kumanova 500.000 400.000 100.000 70.000 60.000 10.000 2.000.000 1.670.000 330.000
Koçana 380.000 300.000 80.000 100.000 90.000 10.000 130.000 105.000 25.000
Osmaniye 300.000 235.000 65.000 80.000 73.000 7.000 700.000 580.000 120.000
Orhaniye 26.000 20.000 6.000 6.000 4.500 1.500 73.000 60.000 13.000
Total 3.616.000 2.855.000 761.000 1.101.000 904.500 196.500 9.853.000 8.305.000 1.548.000
% 21,05% 17,85% 15,71%
Emlak ve Akar (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
Ağnam (Small Cattle Tax) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
65
owners had also been aimed to be harmonious. When it came to the hayvanatı
ehliye, however, the tax collectors assumed it would reach only 1,295,000
kurushes out of 1,405,000. That difference was equal to 7.8% of the actual
amount. Among the taxes on animal owners, the hayvanat-ı ehliye was the
most difficult to collect from the animal owners. Furthermore, the tax collectors
expected to collect A’şar with a 15,71% difference between the actual
and expected amount. Although the percentage of difference was higher, the
expectation of tax collectors was normal because the total amount of A’şar
was the highest. On the other hand, the collectors did not expect to collect
taxes in a perfect harmony when the cases were the taxes collected from the
urban people. The difference for emlak ve akar taxes was 761,000 kurushes,
equal to 21,05% and it was 196,500 kurushes for temettü tax, equal to 17,85%
Table 2.5.2 Selected Taxes in Pristine (1904)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
The vilayet of Prishtine showed a massive reaction to the new taxes. The communities
of all districts sent petitions calling for the abolishment of the taxes
ans mounted demonstrations. They also did not hesitate to attack tax
Priştine Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Priştine 500.000 450.000 50.000 22.000 17.000 5.000 220.000 200.000 20.000
Preşova 415.000 415.000 0 71.000 71.000 0 170.000 140.000 30.000
Gilan 432.000 432.000 0 29.000 29.000 0 135.000 95.000 40.000
Vulçitrin 137.000 137.000 0 2.000 2.000 0 47.000 30.000 17.000
Mitroviçe 68.000 68.000 0 1.000 1.000 0 27.000 17.000 10.000
Yenipazar 110.000 110.000 0 1.000 1.000 0 135.000 100.000 35.000
Total 1.662.000 1.612.000 50.000 126.000 121.000 5.000 734.000 582.000 152.000
% 3,01% 3,97% 20,71%
Priştine Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Priştine 470.000 375.000 95.000 53.000 43.000 10.000 1.950.000 1.580.000 370.000
Preşova 262.000 200.000 62.000 32.000 26.000 6.000 1.070.000 870.000 200.000
Gilan 312.000 247.000 65.000 14.000 12.000 2.000 1.540.000 1.240.000 300.000
Vulçitrin 183.000 140.000 43.000 7.000 5.000 2.000 1.200.000 1.000.000 200.000
Mitroviçe 117.000 94.000 23.000 26.000 21.000 5.000 330.000 265.000 65.000
Yenipazar 207.000 165.000 42.000 20.000 16.000 4.000 725.000 585.000 140.000
Total 1.551.000 1.221.000 330.000 152.000 123.000 29.000 6.815.000 5.540.000 1.275.000
% 21,28% 19,08% 18,71%
Ağnam (Small Cattle Tax) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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collectors and dislocate the local officers.149 The reactions mostly occurred in
Mitroviçe and Yenipazar. However, as it was the case in the vilayet of Skopje,
the officials did not anticipate significant differences between the actual and
expected amounts of ağnam and canavar. The discrepancy between the actual
and expected taxes did not reach 4%. On the other hand, the officials were
well aware of the reactions in the districts, and for this reason, they anticipated
huge differences in hayvanat-ı ehliye and military exemption revenues. 20%
of hayvanat-ı ehliye tax and 19% of military exemption were presumed not
to be collectable. The percentages were the highest within the province: The
officials anticipated leaving 37% of hayvanat-ı ehliye in Mitroviçe and 25%
of the same in Yenipazar on the table. Furthermore, the expected amount of
467,000 kurushes in 1904 did not reach the desired amount of the previous
year which was 531,835 kurushes.150 On the other hand, the tax collectors did
not assume to collect the property tax and temettü tax with a minimum difference
as it happened in Skopje. The difference between the actual and expected
amounts were around hayvanat-ı ehliye.
149 BOA.TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 11 Şubat 1322, (February 14, 1907). The protests in various districts
of the province started with the announcement of the new taxes and continued until the
abolishment of the taxes, dislocation of the kaimakams and treasurers and many other local
officers. The document constitutes only one example from Yenipazar and Mitroviçe.
150 BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390, 3 Mart 1321, (March 16, 1905). The most crucial point was that
the annual report of the treasurer for the year of 1905 did not include the taxes in the vilayet
for 1905. While he had been reporting up-to-date the amounts of 1905 for the other vilayats,
he wrote down the amounts of 1904 for Priştine. Furthermore, when he reported ağnam and
hayvanat-ı ehliye for the years of 1905 and 1906 in the selected vilayets of the province he
provided the statistics for ağnam but he did not provide any record that would prove that the
Empire achieved to collect hayvanat-ı ehliye in all districts of Priştine for the year of 1905.
See, BOA. TFR.I. KV. 148/14762, 22 Teşrinisani 1322, (December 5, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
67
Table 2.5.3 Selected Taxes in Seniçe (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
The actual amounts for hayvanat-ı ehliye were counted 4,000 kurushes
more than in 1903. Bedel-i askeriye was estimated 4,335 kurushes higher than
in 1903 as well. However, the expected amounts were lower than the actual
amounts of the previous years. The tax collectors aimed to get 276,789 kurushes
for 1905, whereas the actual amount of 1903 was 302,789 kurushes.
Similarly, the expected amount of bedeli askeriye was 336,179 kurushes,
whereas the actual amount of 1903 was 452,844. In other words, while the
actual numbers were rising, the expected amounts decreased due to various
problems. Among these problems, the most important one was the reaction of
the society to the new taxes.151
151 Akkuş, “Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Reform: Merkez-Taşra Arasındaki İdari-Mali İlişkiler
ve Vilayet Bütçeleri (1864-1913),” 321.
Seniçe Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Seniçe 160.447 154.947 5.500 0 0 0 199.293 177.293 22.000
Akva 46.722 46.722 0 0 0 0 45.583 45.583 0
Yenivaroş 52.307 52.307 0 370 370 0 47.073 45.073 2.000
Kolaşin 68.992 61.492 7.500 0 0 0 14.840 8.840 6.000
Total 328.468 315.468 13.000 370 370 0 306.789 276.789 30.000
% 3,96% 9,78%
Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Seniçe 134.031 110.031 24.000 13.275 12.275 1.000 603.750 521.750 82.000
Akva 119.272 92.272 27.000 3.482 2.982 500 338.104 268.104 70.000
Yenivaroş 39.929 33.929 6.000 3.457 2.957 500 182.415 142.415 40.000
Kolaşin 45.572 25.572 20.000 0 0 0 101.390 89.390 12.000
Total 338.804 261.804 77.000 20.214 18.214 2.000 1.225.659 1.021.659 204.000
% 22,73% 9,89% 16,64%
Ağnam (Small Cattle) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
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Table 2.5.4 Selected Taxes in Taşlıca (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
Table 2.5.5 Selected Taxes in İpek (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
Table 2.5.6 Selected Taxes in Prizren (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
Taşlıca Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Taşlıca 209.435 203.020 6.415 3.090 2.500 590 4.000 4.000 0
Prepol 116.390 116.390 0 1.410 1.310 100 0 0 0
Total 325.825 319.410 6.415 4.500 3.810 690 4.000 4.000 0
% 1,97% 15,33%
Taşlıca Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Taşlıca 163.000 140.000 23.000 29.128 25.128 4.000 510.000 480.000 30.000
Prepol 93.000 80.000 13.000 7.335 6.500 835 402.278 385.000 17.278
Total 256.000 220.000 36.000 36.463 31.628 4.835 912.278 865.000 47.278
% 14,06% 13,26% 5,18%
Ağnam (Small Cattle) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
İpek Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
İpek 85.000 42.000 43.000 8.000 6.000 2.000 0 0 0
Brana 52.000 47.000 5.000 7.000 5.000 2.000 0 0 0
Gosina 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tergovişte 32.000 28.000 4.000 0 0 0 26.000 19.000 7.000
Yakova 100.000 10.000 90.000 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 269.000 127.000 142.000 15.000 11.000 4.000 26.000 19.000 7.000
% 52,79% 26,67% 26,92%
İpek Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
İpek 160.000 80.000 80.000 12.000 6.000 6.000 840.000 600.000 240.000
Brana 11.500 8.000 3.500 0 0 180.000 130.000 50.000
Gosina 10.000 2.000 8.000 0 0 0 60.000 30.000 30.000
Tergovişte 75.000 35.000 40.000 0 0 0 150.000 110.000 40.000
Yakova 140.000 40.000 100.000 5.000 2.500 2.500 550.000 320.000 230.000
Total 396.500 165.000 231.500 17.000 8.500 8.500 1.780.000 1.190.000 590.000
% 58,39% 50,00% 33,15%
Ağnam (Small Cattle Tax) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
Prizren Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Prizren 217.179 125.000 92.179 3.200 2.500 700 0 0 0
Kalkandelen 243.145 215.000 28.145 43.150 41.000 2.150 152.437 130.000 22.437
Gostivar 136.813 130.000 6.813 3.250 2.100 1.150 83.862 80.000 3.862
Luma 45.054 10.000 35.054 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 642.191 480.000 162.191 49.600 45.600 4.000 236.299 210.000 26.299
% 25,26% 8,06% 11,13%
Prizren Vilayet Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Prizren 567.894 358.000 209.894 39.797 39.797 0 1.122.313 980.000 142.313
Kalkandelen 456.783 385.000 71.783 20.235 20.235 0 1.329.451 920.000 409.451
Gostivar 169.792 112.000 57.792 0 0 0 617.449 211.000 406.449
Luma 77.777 25.000 52.777 0 0 0 71.570 50.000 21.570
Total 1.272.246 880.000 392.246 60.032 60.032 0 3.140.783 2.161.000 979.783
% 30,83% 31,20%
Ağnam (Small Cattle Tax) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
69
The differences between actual and expected amounts of ağnam, emlak
ve akar and a’şar taxes were the highest in İpek and Prizrin. The collectors
assumed that the state was not capable to collect more than 50% of the most
taxes in İpek. The situation was similar in Prizrin. The state officials only
assumed to get around 70% of the actual amounts. Furthermore, the districts
in Taşlıca and İpek provided evidence of another problem that the tax collector
faced in the region. As seen in the table, many districts did not allow the
counting for the purpose of new taxes. Hence, the officials did not have the
actual and expected amounts for those places. Among the districts of the İpek
vilayet, the officials achieved to calculate the amounts only in the İpek district.
In light of this, it is possible to argue that the difference between the
actual amount and the collected taxes were higher than the official’s expectations.
The example of Taşlıca attests to this argument. While the actual number
for Taşlıca had reached 65,260 kurushes in 1903, the exact number was
assumed to be only 4,000 kurushes in 1905.152 The case of Prizren and Luma
were examples unique to the province. Because the total actual and expected
numbers for 1903 and 1905 were the same, it was evident that the communities
of Luma and Prizren did not allow the tax collectors to do the counting
for and collecting of the hayvanat-ı ehliye from the very beginning.153
152 BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390, 3 Mart 1321, (March 16, 1905).
153 Ibid. The amount for 1903 was 236,005 kurushes.
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Table 2.5.7. Selected Taxes in the Province of Kosovo (1905)
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 84/8390
Under such circumstances, the government in Kosovo assumed a %13
loss in hayvanat-ı ehliye, 24,6% loss in emlak ve akar and 17,37% loss in
temettü taxes. It is important to note that, the difference between actual and
expected amounts for A’şar was also 19,56%. The officials expected to collect
2,276,789 kurushes for hayvanat-ı ehliye, whereas the actual number for 1903
was 2,883,429 kurushes. Yet, the collected taxes for the year offer an alternative
reading of all these tables. On October 14, 1906, the treasurer of Monastır,
Salonica, and Kosovo revised the actual amounts of hayvanat-ı ehliye.
They also reported the amount of collected hayvanat-ı ehliye tax for 1905.
Rıfat Bey, who was the treasurer of Salonica, noted that even though the actual
amount was 3,008,421 kurushes, they achieved to collect 933,470 kurushes
for the year 1905 and 263,628 kurushes for the liabilities from previous
years. The total collected amount was 1,197,098 kurushes, and the deficit
reached 1,811,360 kurushes.154 The treasurer of Kosovo Province, Sabit Bey,
revised the actual number from 2,617,088 kurushes as reported in the annual
to 2,137,631 kurushes. He reported that the officials achieved to collect
947,560 kurushes for the year and 160,102 kurushes for the liabilities from
154 BOA. TFR.I.UM. 15/1426, 1. 1 Teşrinievvel 1322, (October 14, 1906)
Kosova Vilayat Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Üsküb 3.948.000 3.893.000 55.000 200.000 189.000 11.000 1.405.000 1.300.000 105.000
Priştine 1.477.000 1.477.000 0 115.000 115.000 0 639.000 467.000 172.000
Seniçe 328.470 315.470 13.000 370 370 0 306.789 276.789 30.000
Taşlıca 325.825 319.410 6.415 4.500 3.810 690 4.000 4.000 0
İpek 269.000 127.000 142.000 15.000 11.000 4.000 26.000 19.000 7.000
Prizren 642.191 480.000 162.191 49.600 45.600 4.000 236.299 210.000 26.299
Total 6.990.486 6.611.880 378.606 384.470 364.780 19.690 2.617.088 2.276.789 340.299
% 5,42% 5,12% 13,00%
Kosova Vilayat Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference Actual Expected Difference
Üsküb 3.616.000 2.855.000 761.000 1.101.000 904.500 196.500 11.023.000 9.250.000 1.773.000
Priştine 1.551.000 1.221.000 330.000 152.000 123.000 29.000 6.815.000 5.540.000 1.275.000
Seniçe 338.804 261.804 77.000 20.215 18.215 2.000 1.225.660 1.021.660 204.000
Taşlıca 256.000 220.000 36.000 36.463 31.628 4.835 912.278 865.000 47.278
İpek 396.500 165.000 231.500 17.000 8.500 8.500 1.780.000 1.190.000 590.000
Prizren 1.272.246 880.000 392.246 60.032 60.032 0 3.140.781 2.161.000 979.781
Total 7.430.550 5.602.804 1.827.746 1.386.710 1.145.875 240.835 24.896.719 20.027.660 4.869.059
% 24,60% 17,37% 19,56%
Ağnam (Small Cattle Tax) Canavar (Tithe Pig) Hayvanat-ı Ehliye (Domestic Animal)
Emlak ve Akar Vergisi (Property Tax) Temettü (Income Tax) A'şar (Tithe)
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
71
previous years. He also added that the tax collectors succeeded in collecting
61,956 kurushes later. In sum, the total collected amount was 1,169,618,
while the deficit was 968,013 kurushes.155 Zihni Bey, who was the treasurer
of Monastır, reported that they succeeded in collecting 761,192 kurushes,
whereas the actual amount was 1,718,432 kurushes. Among the collected
amount, 204,082 kurushes belonged to the tax of the year, and 57,710 kurushes
were collected for the liabilities from previous years.156
The reports make it clear that the difference between the actual numbers
and the collected amounts reached astronomic levels. While the treasurer had
assumed a 13% difference in hayvanat-ı ehliye before the tax collection, when
the tax collectors finished their job, the difference between the revised actual
amount and the collected amount was %45. The discrepancy reached %55 in
the Salonica province and 60% in the province of Monastır. It should also be
underlined that as in the cases of the military exemption tax and the domestic
animal tax, the personal income tax (vergi-i şahsi) also caused great distress
in the society, as mentioned. Yet, the annual of the financial department in the
province of Kosovo did not provide any statistics about the personal income
tax. In addition, the treasurers recalculated the amounts when the central bureaucracy
announced certain changes in the domestic animal tax. The Empire
declared that a pair of cattle used for agriculture and the animals used for the
needs of municipalities would be exempted from taxation.157
When the treasurer of Kosovo prepared another list to report the hayvanatı
ehliye and ağnam taxes of the province in 1905 and 1906, he did not only
revise the actual amount in accordance with the inventory of 1905 but also
reported the actual amounts (tadad olan) for the years of 1906. It is highly
noteworthy that the treasurer reported the amounts for ağnam in many districts
of the provinces while for the hayvanat-ı ehliye, he only mentioned the
155 Ibid., 2.
156 Ibid., 3.
157 BOA. İ.KAN. 3/1322, 17 Kanunuevvel 1320, (December 30, 1904).
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districts of Skopje and some others. The tax collectors had failed to determine
the taxpayers and the amounts due in districts such as İpek, Yenipazar, Mitroviçe,
Luma and Brana, where the people organized demonstrations against
not only taxes but also the governance practices of the Empire.
Table 2.5.8. Domestic Animal Tax in Selected Districts (Kurushes)
District ()*+ ((-.() ()*0 ((-..) Difference
Yenivaroş +,,./0 .1,/+, -/,00 (-/,04)
Kalkandelen :.+,/.1 :/;,;// -0,1.:
Yakova? :=+,10+ :0/,=0/ -::0,4 (-::1=;)
Preşova :4,,,;: :,4,==. -:1,;1 (-4,,,;1)
Akva .:,,4= /4,1+/ -0,41; (-0,1:.)
İşAb :0:,1;: :+:,1./ -/,,,:0
Köprülü :/1,10: ::0,0/4 -:0,=.= (-:0:.=)
Kratova 01,+=/ 1;,:01 -::,.,; (-::.,=)
Radovişta +0,=+0 +;,;4: -4,//1
Palanka 1;,1== ;;,0++ -==.. (-==.=)
Koçana :;1,,11 :.:,.== -4+,+0.
Kumanova :41,:+0 ::;,/14 -:,,10; (-:1,:0;)
Osmaniye :/+,,,0 :,0,11/ -4;,4/+
Üsküb :10,.+. :+,,,=0 -40,/+;
Orhaniye :4,4=4 :,,+44 -:,11, (-:114)
GosAvar 04,41/ 0/,;:+ +:/.4
Seniçe :.0,/;1 :/1,:/4 -::,4/+
Total (,)90,(:( (,;.(,)0. ..9,.+.
Source: BOA.TFR.I.KV. 148/14762. 23 Teşrinisani 1322 / December 6,
1906. 158
158 The differences presented parenthetically in the table, were written by the treasurer. Moreover,
the amounts were different than the annual records of the treasurer provided in table 2.1.
I accepted the numbers to be revisions of the annual report.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
73
§ 2.6 Conclusion
The relationship between the local intermediaries such as artisans, tribal
chiefs and religious leaders of the cities on one side, and the state bureaucracy
on the other, had changed in various ways over the long 19th century. The
workers and farmers who made up the subaltern sections of the provinces
sought the help of the central authority when they faced a threat by artisans
and religious leaders, but they also co-operated with these same groups of
people when they desired to increase their influence in the cities. The notables
of the provinces, on the other hand, endeavored to become the partner of the
Empire during the promulgation of reforms, but they also did not hesitate to
engage in inter-class conflicts among each other. All actors insisted on defining
the limits of the infrastructural power of the state over their daily lives.159
The actors on the Empire's margins did not simply act against the government's
imperial projects. They fought to save their established rights or
worked to acquire more power while the state instituted centralist reforms in
the provinces. As the administrative reforms opened new spaces for the powerholders
of the urban centers to contest in, the fiscal arena came to dominate
the politics of provinces as well.
The state’s attempts to govern the borderlands can be classified according
to three different dimensions. First, the government worked to increase individualization
by breaking the tribal bonds; second, it attempted to create commercial
ties through developing trade activities and defining the private property
with the land code of 1858; and third, the institutionalization in the
159 Among the many examples, for a fascinating one that involved the competition for bureaucratic
positions, inter-class conflict, taxation and property problems of the peasants, see:
Martha Mundy, Richard Saumarez Smith, Governing Property, Making the Modern State:
Law, Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria (London-New York: I. B. Tauris,
2007), 80-96.
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provinces aimed to make people into loyal subjects of central rule. 160 However,
as mentioned, most of these infrastructural attempts had failed in the
Ottoman east and west until the late 19th century. In such a position, the margins
of the Empire provided many advantages for some of the actors in the
provinces. Within a context of limited state authority, customs that were based
on the ‘Ottoman tacit agreement’ became the dominant in ensuring the cooperation
of various factions in the cities. Borderlands of the empire became
transformed spaces in which various factions fought for their demands, not
by rejecting the centralist policies but by defining their limits. Hence, Kosovo's
population, for example, did not hesitate to refuse payment of the new
taxes and the taxes which were collected from the urban society while they
continued to pay some of the other, traditional tax, like ağnam. The urban
society blocked the counting of their properties, refused to pay property tax,
income tax and most importantly the domestic animal tax because all of those
taxes were organized without making the actors of the urban as the part of the
decision-making process. In that sense, refusing to pay these taxes was not a
zero-sum game but a fight over the process of becoming a part of centralization.
Also, this was not a political movement organized by the Ottoman revolutionaries.
The urban society who was well informed about their traditional
rights relied on the customs and found new ways to bargain with the state via
the technological developments that occurred after the mid-19th century. For
this reason, the centralist policies and new taxes of Abdulhamid II were contradictory
elements that acted against each other. While the modern state desired
to enlarge its tax collection capacity from rural to urban centers, the
urban society used the infrastructural attempts of the state better than rural
communities against this move of the bureaucracy. As the most important fiscal
attempt of the modern state, taxing the urban society in according to their
160 Eugene Rogan explains these three dimensions in three different chapters. See: Rogan, Frontiers
of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire Transjordan 1850-1921.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
75
properties, their domestic animals and their income faced a strong resistance
not only while counting the actual amounts but also while the collecting the
taxes. Next chapter analyzes how the local actors created a political movement,
to complete the picture that emerges from the eastern borderland of the
Ottoman Empire.
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TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
77
3
NOTHING TO GIVE OTHER THAN SHIRTS:
ERZURUM in 1906
§ 3.1 Erzurum in the Early Years of the Twentieth Century
he new taxes had not been accepted in the province of Erzurum, as was
the case in the province of Kosovo. The province's urban populace had
faced many social and economic problems during recent years, and they used
those problems as the grounds for legitimizing their reaction against the tax
payment. With such a background, the city officials worked to solve the problems
to provide efficient governance, but the central government failed in the
province of Erzurum between 1906 and 1908. During these years, the Empire
appeared as a failed state; it did not achieve governing its land without accepting
the demands of the urban populace's representatives. Under such circumstances,
the officials lived in danger, the governors were forced out of
cities, and in some cases, the police officers and some merchants were even
killed. What happened in Erzurum between 1906 and 1908 was a striking
T
MUSTAFA BATMAN
78
example of how collective action in the Ottoman borderlands developed and
how the populace defined the limits of the central power.
Figure 3.1 The Map of the Province of Erzurum. SOURCE: Osmanlı Atlası, XX. Yüzyıl
Başları, edited by Rahmi Tekin & Yaşar Baş (İstanbul: OSAV, 2003), 76.
The Province of Erzurum was in the east of the Anatolia, neighboring the
Province of Trabzon, as well as Russia on the northeast, Iran on the east,
Bitlis, Van and Mamurat-ul Aziz on the south and the vilayet of Sivas was on
the west. According to the annual of 1900, it had 4 sancaks namely, Erzurum,
Erzincan, Bayezid and Hınıs. These four sancaks contained 2,762 villages in
the beginning of the 20th century. 161 The population distribution was 442,671
Muslims, 101,119 Armenians, 12,029 Catholics and Protestants and 3,356
Greeks. The total population of the province including other small ethnic and
religious groups totaled 558,659 in the province in 1909.162
The urban center of the province had more than 40 quarters, 23 mosques
and madrasas, 11 churches and monasteries, schools for Muslims and non-
161 Rahmi Tekin, Yaşar Baş, Osmanlı Atlası, XX. Yüzyıl Başları, (İstanbul: OSAV 2003), 75.
162 BOA. Y.EE. 33/53, 1. 8 Eylül 1325 (September 21, 1909). According to the Annual of Erzurum
in 1900, the population in city center was 40,192. See; Salname-i Vilayet-i Erzurum
(SVE), 1900, 270. The French sources stated the total population of the province was 828,120
in 1903. See; Bayram Kodaman “Fransız Arşiv Belgelerine Göre Erzurum-Sivas-Van Vilayetlerinde
Ermeni Nüfusu” A.T.A.D 3 no. 6 (1988): 7.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
79
Muslims, 5-6 drapers, 12 mills and fountains, more than 200 storehouses and
many shops.163 According to the map prepared by Fuad Bey in 1904 the city
was built within city walls as a typical feudal city. It had eight gates namely
İstanbulkapı, Gürcükapı, Harputkapı, Karskapı, Tebrizkapı, Kilise kapı, Yenikapı
and Kavakkapı. Five of them were operational in the beginning of the
20th century. The center of the city had two military barracks, namely,
Firdevsoğlu and Süvari barracks. Çifte Minareli Medrese, the most famous
building, was in the center of the city and the marketplace had been erected
on the streets around it.
Figure 3.2 Erzurum’s Map prepared by Fuad Bey in 1904. SOURCE: Hüseyin Yurtaş ,“Fuat
Bey’in Erzurum Haritası” A.Ü Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi (2000) no: 15, 61.
Nazım Pasha was appointed to the province in September 1901 as governor
with a monthly salary of 22,500 kurushes. He was born on June 25, 1862
and remained in charge until he was dismissed from his seat due to the endless
protest meetings of the populace in April 1906.164 Later, he was chosen as the
governor of Diyarbakır, and after a month he was appointed as the Governor
163 Salname-i Vilayet-i Erzurum, 1900, 270. For a detailed analysis of Erzurum based on the
temettuat records, see: Haydar Çoruh “Erzurum A Border City of East Anatolia” in The Ottoman
State and Societies in Change: A Study of the Nineteenth Century Temettuat Registers
ed. Hayashi Kayako and Mahir Aydın (London and New York: Routledge: 2004), 173-211.
164 BOA. DH.SAİD. 25/72, 141-142.
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of Kastamonu but he was also dismissed from that job and sent to Iraq as the
Heyet-i Islahiye Reisi. After the 1908 revolution, his new position became the
Governor of Yanya but he refused to serve in that position. Then, in the same
year, he was appointed as the Minister of Justice. He was killed by the rebels
in 1909, during the 31 March revolt.165
Erzurum faced an earthquake that caused a considerable damage in the
city center in October 1901. 21 people (18 Muslims and 3 Christians) died
while 100 houses were destroyed and 400 were rendered unsafe for habitation.
166 The governor was very unlucky; he was working to find a solution for
the populace of the urban center who now lived in the tents under conditions
of heavy rainfall due to fear of another earthquake. Many public buildings,
including the government office, the private residence of the governor, some
mosques and churches were also destroyed too. He appointed six technical
commissioners to investigate the situation of the people and the private and
public houses. He also achieved to collect 7,009 kurushes within a short time
as relief money.167
The governor’s attempts to provide quick solutions to the problems in the
city created peace in two years. The British Consul described Nazım Pasha in
September 1903 as follows:
Nazım Pasha, the Vali of Erzeroum, has undoubtedly gained much in
authority and reputation during the past months. It is realized that,
under a somewhat hesitating and very quiet manner, he conceals a
strong will and firm determination to maintain order; and I think that
there can be no doubt of his desire to administer the province in a just
and enlightened manner.168
165 Erkan Cevizlier, Ali Servet Öncü “Erzurum Valisi Mustafa Nazım Bey’in Vilayetteki Çalışmalarına
Dair Raporu” in History Studies, International Journal of History vol.5, issue 1, pp-
71-88. (Jan. 2013): 72.
166 F.O. 424 /202 Inclosure in No:87 Consul Lamb to Sir N. O’Conor. Erzurum, (November 15,
1901).
167 Ibid., Inclosure 2 in No:95 Consul Lamb to Sirn N. O’Conor. (Erzurum, December 1, 1901).
168 F.O. 424/205 Inclosure in No. 139 Quarterly Report Erzurum, (September 30, 1903).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
81
Nazım Pasha had been very successful in coordinating with the foreign
representatives, and for this reason, he was favored by British and Russian
consuls in their dispatches. For example, the British Vice Consul stated that
despite the absolute lack of finances in the province, “the governor with military
officers were working day and night with a view to keeping so strict a
watch on the income and expenditure of the vilayet.”169 Indeed, the province's
expenditure reached 450,000 Liras while the income was only 250,000 Liras,
and the consul was nervous because if the central government did not bridge
the difference, the provincial government would turn to collecting it from the
population in illegal ways.170
§ 3.2 Protest Wave on March 1906
The mass protests against the new taxes occurred over such a background.
The governor Nazım Pasha believed he had a good reputation and authority
in the city and desired to close the gap in the finance through operating the
collection of new taxes without effecting an efficient counting first. The central
government redefined the personal income tax and the domestic animal
tax in 1905 due to the reactions of the society against those taxes. However,
Nazım Pasha did not find sufficient time to operate a new inventory and determine
the class of taxpayers. Furthermore, there was serious opposition to
the new taxes; the populace was simply unwilling to pay. Firstly, at the end of
February 1906, a group of people from the Pasinler district sent a petition to
the governor inquiring about the possibility of waiving the taxes for 1906.171
169 F.O. 424/208 Inclosure in No: 62 Vice Consul Shipley to Sir N. O’Conor. Erzurum, (June 8,
1905).
170 Ibid.
171 Mehmed Nusret, Tarihçe-i Erzurum Yahud Hemşehrilere Armağan (İstanbul: Ali Şükrü Matbaası,
1922), 57.
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Nazım Pasha contacted the capital on March 2, 1906, and stated that these
people were working to gather more people to their cause in the city, but that
he quickly assumed to control of the situation.172 The capital trusted the governor
and requested him to control all activities against the collection of taxes.
However, the petty-notables of the city had continued to make visits to the
governor to find a way to postpone the taxes. Nazım Pasha sent another letter
to the Palace on March 11, 1906, arguing that the city's Muslim society was
preparing a movement against the tax collection. Some people had obstructed
the calculation of the taxes in one or two districts of the city. Upon that, the
governor invited the petty-notables of the city to the government and ordered
them to stop the opposition against taxation.173 Although Nazım Pasha argued
that many people stopped protesting after his words, a mass movement did
occurr when the tax collectors were seen in the districts of Erzurum.
Despite the opposition to the payment of new taxes, the government announced
that the collection of taxes was deemed possible and would proceed
as usual for Erzurum in a telegraph on March 12, 1906.174 The first protest
broke out when Uzun Osman Efendi, the tax collector, began collecting the
personal income tax and domestic animal tax of the city. He began his job in
the Lala Pasha district. There is no exact date of when the process started, but
according to the archival sources, it happened around the 13th or 14th of
March, 1906. While Uzun Osman Efendi had been working to collect the personal
income tax, Hasan Ağazade Faruk, who was responsible for providing
victuals to the army, asked for the forgiveness of the tax payment.
172 Ibid., 57.
173 BOA, Y.PRK.UM. 78/53, 1. 26 Şubat 1321 (March 11, 1906). “Erzurum’da bu aralık
hayvanat-ı ehliye rüsumuyla vergi-i şahsiye dair ahali-i İslamiye beyninde bais-i heyecan …
cereyan ettiği hatta 1-2 mahalde vergi-i şahsi defterlerinin talikine muvafakat olunmadığı
haber alınarak ulema-yı belde ve mütehayyizan-ı mahalliyeden bazılarına ayrı ayrı nezd-i
çakeraneme celb ile..”
174 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 22.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
83
Nevertheless, Uzun Osman Efendi refused his request and continued tax collection
without recounting the income of people. Thus, Hasan Ağazade Faruk
co-operated with two other petty-notables of the city, namely Şamlızade Ahmed
and Akif Efendi, who disagreed with the governor’s activities in the city
and they petitioned to the Palace asking for the annulment of the tax for that
year.175
During the same day, tax collectors had been continuing to collect taxes
in the city's other districts. While they were trying to collect these taxes in
Hasan Basri, the most populated district of the city,176 a person named
Moloğlu Ali requested that the collection of the taxes be delayed. Uzun Osman
Efendi rejected his request as well. Afterwards, Mologlu Ali went to
other populated and poor districts, namely Kasımpaşa and Mumcu Sufla, and
met with two other people who had been refusing to pay these taxes. They
were Tahsin Efendi from Kasımpaşa and Küçük Efendi from Mumcu Sufla.
They organized a movement against the new taxes, and about 200 people had
joined them in a day.177
175 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29 Lef 5, 1. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). Barutçuzade Şevki Bey,
Mehmed Nusret Bey and Kazım Yurdalan were the people who witnessed the events and
wrote it in their works. They stated that the artisans and merchants of the city organized a
meeting in an important person’s house on that day to decide on their movement against the
taxes. However, both of them described different meetings without providing any source. I
did not find them reliable and instead relied on the Ottoman archival sources and Consular
reports to create a new narrative.
176 According to the temettuat records, Hasan Basri quarter was the most populated district of
Erzurum in mid19th century. Ali Paşa, Emin Kurbu and Mumcu Süfla and Yeğen Ağa districts
were the other populated districts of the city. See: Çoruh, “A Border City of East Anatolia,”
177.
177 Orhan Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II” in Türk Kültürü vol. 256.
499. The number of the protesters was taken from the report of Muş’ mutasarrıf. Also see;
Demirel, page 23-24; Mehmed Nusret, Tarihçe-i Erzurum, 59-60. According to Kazım Yurdalan,
30 people attended to the meeting including the 8 zabtiehs. See: İsmail Eyüpoğlu,
Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Bir İttihatçı Kazım Yurdalan (1881/2- 1962) (Erzurum: Atatürk
Üniversitesi, Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Yayınları, 2009), 30.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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The first group from the Lala Paşa district signed a cooperation aggrement
with the others, and the people of these districts started to assemble in front
of the office of the governor.178 Köroğlu from Gez and Şükrü who worked for
Faruk Bey had been organizing the meeting.179 Those at the head of the protesters
were Hasan Ağazade Faruk Efendi, Şevki Efendi, Fazıl Efendi, Güli
Bey, Şamlızade Ahmed Efendi, Hacı Akif Efendi, and Hacı Sabri Efendi.180
All of them were the well-known artisans of the city. According to this committee,
if the governor did not accept their request, two men of the Faruk Bey
would organize a mass protest meeting in front of the telegram office, and all
notables of the city would close their shops during this meeting.181
Governor Nazım Pasha aimed to stop the protest by asking for the help of
the gendarmerie, but he did not find any support from Alaybeyi. Besides,
Alemderzade Tevfik, a member of the provincial advisory council, and Abdulhamid
Efendi, the chief clerk, convinced Nazım Pasha to dismiss Tevfik,
who was the head of the police station, Osman Zeki who was the tax collector
and Şerif Efendi who was the mayor. When the populace was informed about
the dismissal of these people the protests spread, and later culminated in a
rejection to live under the governorship of Nazım Pasha.182
178 BOA. DH.MKT.1066/29, 1. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906).
179 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 499.
180 BOA. DH.MKT.1066/29 Lef 5, 1. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). According to the memoir
of the Barutçuzade Şevki and Mehmed Nusret’s Tarihçe-i Erzurum, there were two other
people in the committee namely Hacı Mehmed Efendi and Tahsin Bey, and the committee
organized a meeting in the house of Hacı Akif Efendi in March 14, 1906. See: Turkdogan,
“1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 499, Mehmed Nusret, Tarihçe-i Erzurum Yahud
Hemşehrilere Armağan, 60.
181 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 499.
182 According to Russian Consul, Skyrabin, the Canverir committee requested the dismissal of
the mayor. However, the memoir of Barutçuzade and the report of the British consul argued
against this claim by explaining the discomfort of society as born of the dismissal of the
mayor. See: Valuyskiy, “Vosstaniya v Vostoçnoy Anatolii nakanune mladoturetskoy revolyutsi”
48-65
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
85
The British Consul Shipley sent a report to the center on the 20th of March
to explain what had happened during the recent days.183 Shipley stated that
the chief of the Erzurum municipality and the head of the Veterinary Department
had links with the protesters;
Sir, I have the honour to report to your excellency that the announcement
of Shakhsi Verghi is provoking serious torment among the
Mussulmans of Erzurum. The latter, I learn, have even gone so far as
to sound two or three of the leading local Christians as to the possibility
of organizing a mass meeting of Christians and Mussulmans in
front of the government building is a protest against the new burden
about to be imposed on them. As was, however, to be expected the
Christians very prudently declined to give any countenance to a proceeding
the consequences of which would be likely to fall chiefly on
themselves pointing out instead that a better plan for their musulman
friends would be to bring their grievances to the notice of the governor
general, Nazim Pasha, by means of a representative deputation. This
advice would seem at first to have been adopted by the mussulmans
but the latter being apparently not satisfied with their reception by His
Excellency insisted on sending a telegram direct to the Palace at Constantinople
and in the meantime proceeded on Sunday last by the more
open expression of their dissatisfaction by making a demonstration in
front of the former’s house and by tearing down during the night the
placards which had been posted up by the government giving public
notice of the imposition of the new tax. The chief of the Erzurum Municipality
and the head of the veterinary department would also appear
to have come in for a share of their displeasure the former, as far
as I can gather, an account of the octroi duties which are felt to be
vexatious by the population, the latter owing this connexion [sic] with
the tax on cattle.
One of the grievances felt by both Musulmans and Christians
alike against the new tax might, I cannot help thinking, have been
avoided by the exercise of a little care on the part of the government.
The particular grievance in question is that the amount to be paid under
the new tax has been fixed at four hundred, two hundred and thirty
five piastres or in English currency about three pounds thirteen shillings
and four pence, one pound sixteen shillings and six pence and
five shillings and ten pence sterling respectively according to the category
under which each person may be placed and it is generally considered
that while, under this method of assessments, the burden of the
183 F.O. 195/2222 No: 6 83-86, “Poll Tax.”
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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incidence will fall heavily on the poor, the sum to be paid by the rich
is ludicrously small as compared with the latter’s means. There is considerable
truth in this contention bearing in mind the state of living to
which the poorer class of artisans in this part of the country has been
reduced and while the Turkish government may not have at its disposal
the machinery necessary to assess each individual according to
his ability to pay it is felt that, failing the exemption of the poorer
classes altogether, a somewhat more elastic and less arbitrary system
should have been devised. But, however this may be, and whether the
musulmans presevere in their present opposition or not there can be
no doubt that the feeling of… discontent among them produced by this
latest addition to the burdens already imposed is so very deep and
widely spread as to merit the serious attention of the government.184
It is important to note that, Consul Shipley was focusing on the same problems
as the committee which deployed the populace against these taxes. The
committee had argued that the tax collector Osman Zeki Efendi had been dismissed
because the governor was looking for a scapegoat to conceal his own
culpability.185 Governor Nazım Pasha was aware of most of these problems,
but because he claimed that he provided order in the city in his telegraph on
the 20th of March, the government in Istanbul did not take an interest in the
petitions of the populace and ordered the governor to collect taxes and to investigate
the agitators.186
184 Ibid., No: 6 p. 83-86. “Poll Tax” For a shorter version of the letter see; F.O. 424/210 12149
no.20, 17, (March 20, 1906)
185 BOA. DH.MKT.1066/29, Lef 4, 14. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). “refik-i denaeti olan
müdde-i umumi Osman Zeki efendi ile kendisinin ısrar-ı denaetini ifşa eder korkusuyla hiç
bir güne tahkikat icrasına meydan vermeyip müstantik-i muma ileyhi istifaya mecbur etti.”;
BOA. Y.A.HUS 501/32, 3-6. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906). The documents contains the
telegrams of the local bureaucrats about the events in Erzurum until 28th of March, 1906.
Osman Zeki Efendi also signed the document as the judge on the court of appeals. Most
probably, the governor dismissed the tax collector whose name was also Osman Zeki.
186 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 70. “Vergi-i
şahsinin ve hayvanat-ı ehliyye rüsumunun afvı maksadıyla ahaliden ba’zılarının ne suretle
isti’tafda bulunduklarına dair Erzurum vilayet-i celilesinden alınan telgraf-name ledel-arz
mezu-i ali buyurularak mezkur virgüler (Erzurum vilayetine şifre cevap 7 Mart 322 şahsi
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
87
The Sublime Porte also sent a decree to the city to explaining the need for
the expected amount of new taxes on the 20th of March 1906.187 Furthermore,
the 7th division of the 4th Army was also alerted about the situation, and Marshal
Zeki Pasha, who was the commander of the 4th Army, ordered the 7th
division to assist the governor in stopping the protests and organizing gendarmes
for tax collection.188 These efforts pacified the reactions of the city.
However, Nazım Pasha misinterpreted the silence in the city. He stated that
the efforts taken by civil and military administrators had stopped the movement.
189 Indeed, Nazım Pasha invited twenty influential people of the city,
including Mufti Lütfullah Efendi, some mudarrises, and petty-notables, including
the committee members, to find a way to provide a long-lasted order
in the city on the 22nd of March, 1906.190 While these people had been
vergi ve hayvanat-ı ehliyye rüsumu) mahallinin muhafaza ve a’da’e karşı müdafaası içün
tezyid-i kuvvet-i devlet maksadıyla mürettib olmasıyla bunların afvı hakkında isti’tafda
bulunmak hüsn-u hamiyyetle kabil-i te’lif olmadığından ahaliye bu bab da nesayih-i müessire
icrasıyla dağıtılmaları esbabının istikmal ve bu iş de ön ayak olanlar hakkında muamele-i
kanuniye ifa kılınmak üzere elde edilmelerine i’tina’ kılınması”
187 BOA. İ.HUS. 139/102, 1. 7 Mart 1322 (March 20, 1906). “vergiler memleketin muhafaza ve
i’danın müdafası için tezib-i kuvvet devlet maksadıyla müretteb olmayla bunların afvı
zımmında istitafda bulunmak hüsn hamiyetle kabil-i sa’lif olmadığından ahaliye bu babda
nesaih-i müessere icrasıyla”
188 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 237/120, 9 Mart 1322 (March 22, 1906). “merzi-i ali-i cenab-ı hilafetpenahiye
mugayir ahval tahaddüsüne katiyen meydan ve imkan bırakılmaması esbabının
istikmali zımnında mezkur fırka kumandanlığına tebligat”
189 BOA, BEO 2786 / 208909, 1. 7 Mart 1322 (March 20 1906). “İttihaz olunan tedabir ve icra
olunan nesaih üzerine laelhamd saye-i kudretlü cenabı padişahide ahali-i İslamiye arasında
hiddet eden heyecan mündefi olarak elyevm sukun tam mevcud olunduğu”
190 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29, Lef 5, 1. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). Şükrü Hanioğlu, according
to the BOA.VGG. 129/208456 document, argued that the meeting between the Governor
Nazım Pasha and the committee occured on March, 12 1906. I focused on the report of the
Mutasarrıf of Muş and as the first inspector of the event, he wrote that, the meeting occured
on 22 March 1906.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
88
discussing the situation with the governor, the populace continued to send
petitions against the ill-treatment of the officers and the unjust taxes. The
governor asked the representatives to stop the movement, but they refused the
requests. In such a situation, Nazım Pasha decided to stop them by forcing
them to leave the public spheres. Thus, he ordered the arrest of the committee
members by depending on the decree of Sultan. The grocery Hacı Sabri
Efendi as a committee member was interned in the governor’s office.191 After
this event, the number of protesters raised, and they declare that they would
protest in front of the governor’s office until Hacı Sabri Efendi was released.
192
From the 23rd of March onwards, the protestors occupied the telegraph
office and sent petitions to the Palace requesting a solution for a week. The
petitions were signed by at least 200 people in a day. The language of the
petitions was also different than in previous petitions. Protestors did not only
criticize the taxes but also began to focus on Governor Nazım Pasha's corruption.
193 The number of protestors increased day by day, reaching around 400-
500 people on the 28th of March, a Wednesday.194 A news piece in the journal
–Times- on March 26, 1906, stressed that;
In several districts, notably in Albania, Erzerum and Kastamonu, the
Musulman population not only refused to pay the new taxes, but
“…Müfti Efendi ile ulema-ı mahalliye ve eşraf ve mutehayyizan memleketden 20 kadarını
mart dokuzuncu günü hükümete bi-l celb tekalif-i mezkurenin meşruiyetini ve vücubu
hakkında tafsilat ve izahat vermekle beraber lazıme-i sadakat ve diyanet-i ve icabat ve
hamiyet ve ubudiyyet teşrihi ve nesayih-i mukteziyeyi ifa…”
191 Ibid. The name of Hacı Sabri only appears in the memoirs of the Barutçuzade Şevki.
192 Referring to the memoir of Barutçuzade Şevki, Muammer Demirel argued that the governor
only invited Hacı Sabri Efendi to discuss the situation. See: Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi
Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 23.
193 BOA. BEO.2793/209436, 11. 11 Mart 1322 (March 24 1906). “Allah ve Resulu aşkına
müşarun ileyhten görmüş olduğumuz zulüm”
194 Ibid., 1.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
89
clamored for the abolition and insisted on the dismissal of the unpop
ular Valis and other officials.195
Moreover, the provincial military commander argued in his report to Marshal
Zeki Pasha on 27th of March that the city's gendarmes did not command
enough force to stop the protests because most of them had stashed away their
weapons due to the problems in they payment of their salaries. In addition,
the vital point in the report was the definition of the actors in the event. The
commander described the protestors, in clear words, as the people who normally
obeyed the tax payment rules but who were exhausted due to their mistreatments
at the hands of the governor. According to military commanders,
Nazım Pasha was the sole reason for the protests because he had planted the
seed of hatred in every man of the city. He also added that the new gendarmeries
were the relatives of the protestors, and for that reason, it was impossible
to stop the crowd via the help of gendarmeries. According to the commander,
the quickest solution would be to dismiss the governor as soon as
possible.196
Munir Pasha, who was the military commander of Erzurum, also argued
in his report to Marshal Zeki Pasha that the protestor's real goal was only to
dismiss Nazım Pasha. According to him, governor Nazım Pasha had asked
for the help of the army on the 24th of the March, but their help was not enough
to stop the protestors. They advised the leaders of the protests to stop meeting,
but the advice did not change the situation in the city. Furthermore, they failed
to arrest the leaders of the protestors.197
195 Times, “Internal Taxes in Turkey”, Constanople, (March 26, 1906).
196 BOA. Y.MTV.285/75, 3. 14 Mart 1322. (March 27, 1906). “Ahali-i mahalliyenin her nev’i
rüsum-ü tekalife münkad ve fakat vali paşa hazretlerinin muamelesinden bizar bulunduklarından
naşi peyderpey tafsilat arz olunan teşebbüsata şuru eyledikleri ve erbab-ı
teşebbüsün nasihat ve hatta tehdid ile dahi tasavvur ve kararlarından nükul etmeleri imkansızlığı
malum ve muhakkaktır”
197 BOA, Y.PRK.ASK. 238/2, 9-11. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
90
Against such a background, Marshal Zeki Pasha was convinced by the
reports of military officials. As the commander of the 4th Army, he sent a report
to Istanbul on the 28th of March to explain how the governor had misled
them about the situation in Erzurum. According to Zeki Pasha, the governor
had argued that he stopped the chaos in the city via the support of the military
power a week ago, but that was not valid. Instead, the protests spread to almost
all districts of the city, and the number of protestors reached thousand.198
Zeki Pasha’s report also contained two letters from the protestors. Both letters
were written by Tevfik Bey, Ahmed Bey, Hacı Şevket Efendi, and Faruk
Bey.199 These people argued that the number of protestors was around twentythousand.
In actual fact, the number of people who joined the mass movement
never reached twenty thousand, but the petitioners wanted to alert the Palace
by exaggerating the numbers.
While the telegraph of Munir Pasha stated that the gendarmeries failed to
stop the crowd by talking to the leaders, the protesters' petition included details
about what had happened when they had faced the soldiers. The governor,
during the previous week, had not managed to find any solution, and
therefore, he decided to stop the protest by using military power once the
protestors occupied the telegraph office. He first visited the Army Commander
Munir Pasha on Saturday, 24th of March, 1906, and requested the help
of the military for controlling the protests as mentioned above. Munir Pasha
sent a military troop under the leadership of Mustafa Agha. Mustafa Agha was
the battalion commander and squadron leader in the IV. Army corps in Erzurum.
When Mustafa Agha’s troop arrived at the post-office on the 28th of
March, 1906, a rumor spread throughout the city. According to the rumor,
Mustafa Agha ordered his troops to use firearms without any hesitation
198 Ibid., 1-3.
199 Ibid., 7-9. “Yirmi bin kişiden mütecaviz ahali-i bendeleri”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
91
against the populace of the city.200 This was not fabricated news because Haydar
Bey, who belonged to the 26th regiment, and who was the soldiers' acting
commander in front of the post-office, had indeed ordered his soldiers to use
their weapons against the crowd with the order of Mustafa Agha.201 Two people
get injured during the clashes with the soldiers.202 The event was heard in
the Palace on the same day via the petition of Müfti Lütfullah Efendi.203
According to the memoir of Barutçuzade Şevki Bey, while Mustafa Agha
was ordering the crowd to stop their protest, a man whose name was Canbaz
Vehbi204 insulted Mustafa Agha. In the same moment, five people left the
crowd, and each travelling to different bazaars of the city and shouting that
soldiers had been killing innocent people in front of the post-office. Abdioğlu
Mehmed went to Tebrizkapı bazaar, Dede went to Gürcükapı bazaar, Hacı
Mustafa went to Gölbaşı bazaar, Hacı Kahramanoğlu Agha went to Erzincankapı
bazaar, and Mehmet of the Dere district went to the remaining bazaar.205
After they informed all the shop owners in the bazaars, the shops were closed,
and the social and economic life of the citycame to a halt.206
200 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29, Lef 5, 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). “müfreze-yi nizamiyenin
telgrafhane önüne vusûlüyle ifâ-yı vazifeye mübâdereti ʻasâkir-i şâhânenin ahâliyi cerh ve
katl etmekde olduğuna dâ’ir şâyiʻa devrânını ve bi’n-netice beş on dakika içinde çarşu ve
pazardaki mağaza ve dükkânların kapanmasını mûcib olarak”
201 Ibid., 14.
202 Ibid. “ahaliden yaralanan iki kişi (padişahım çok yaşa) bağırıyordu. Onları kanlar içinde çamurlardan
kaldıranların (padişahım çok yaşa) sedası göklere çıkıyordu.”
203 BOA. Y.PRK.MŞ. 8/33, Lef 2, 1. 15 mart 1322 (March 28, 1906).
204 Cattle traders called as Canbaz in the region.
205 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 501. According to this memoirs,
the event occurred 16 Şubat 1320. (March 1, 1905, Monday -sic-). According to the documents
in the Ottoman Archive and Foreign Office, it is important to note that, this date was
not reliable because firstly the event occurred in the year of 1906 and more importantly
March 1, 1905 was not a Monday. It was a Wednesday.
206 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29 Lef 5, 1. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906). It is important to note that,
according to the Russian Consul Skyrbin, soldiers refused to use their guns against the people.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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It was a turning point in the development of collective action. The number
of protesters reached ten-thousand in one hour. Many people, including the
civil officers, had joined the protests in front of the post-office. Moreover, the
demand of the committee changed sharply at that point. Until that time, despite
most of the committee members being opposed to Nazım Pasha's governorship,
the primary demand had been about the postponement of tax collection.
The committee firstly asked for the dismissal of Nazım Pasha on the
23rd of March. After that day, they raised their voice louder against the governor.
With the support of the thousands of people in the streets outraged by
the use of firearms against the populace, the crowd directly targeted the governor’s
seat by focusing on the fecklessness of the governor and the corruption
of the state officials.207 From that time on, in addition to the requests for
the abolishment of taxes, they also mentioned that they would continue their
protests until they witnessed a decree which dismissed Governor Nazım Pasha
and certain officials, including some district governors.208 For example, a
petition signed by İsmail, Refik, Faruk, Sevket, and Ahmed mentioned that
twenty-thousand people joined the movement, and that they would not stop
until they see a decree that dismissed the governor would materialize.209 The
telegraph of Mufti Lutfullah, Faruk Bey, Sabri Bey, and their 428 fellows followed
this example by explaining the reasons for their gievances regarding
Nazım Pasha.210
The committee also appointed a person for each bazaar, to control the social
and economic life of the city. They also organized a meeting that night in
the residence of the Şevki Efendi of the Kasımpaşa district. According to the
memoirs of Barutçuzade Şevki, the decision to call for the dismissal of Nazım
207 Ibid., 2.
208 Ibid., Lef 4, 14. ; Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 501.
209 BOA. Y.PRK.MŞ. 0008/33, Lef 4, 1. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906).
210 BOA. Y.PRK.AZJ. 51/80, 1-3. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
93
Pasha was reached at that meeting. Güli Bey, one of the committee leaders,
made a speech arguing for the dismissal of the Governor. Mehmet Efendi and
Türbedar Yusuf, who were not in the core of the committee, disagreed with
Güli Bey. Other people, however, accepted his position. Later, the committee
learned that all of the petitions sent from the post-office were being observed
at the governor’s office because the telegraph line was controlled by Nazım
Pasha. In a short time, they cut down the telegraph line of the governor’s office
and began to send their petitions to the Palace directly.211 This was a wellknown
tactic that they had learned from the Armenian revolutionaries. From
that day on, the urban center came under the committee's control until the 31st
of March, 1906. Within these three days, the committee members organized
mass meetings, sent petitions to the Palace, and requested the dismissal of the
many local officers. The change in the committee’s requests is also observed
in the British Consul’s report. Consul Shipley mentioned the changes as follows:
I should point out that the agitation was not at the outset directed in
any way against Nazım Pasha personally. The first protests, … was
made by the Mussulmans on or about the 18th of that month, and was
followed up by them by numerous telegrams to the Palace, asking for
the remission of the tax complained. As however, no satisfactory an
swer would appear to have been vouchsafed to any of these telegrams,
the demand for the recall of the Governor-General, coupled with the
closing of the shops, was at length on the 28th …. Resorted to by
them.212
The change in the requests of the committee also excited the Armenian
population of the city. From the beginning of the revolt until the end of March,
the Armenian community of the city sought to support the protest. However,
the Armenian delegate and some Armenian notables of Erzurum had a close
relationship with Governor Nazım Pasha, and they did not allow the
211 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 502.
212 F.O. 424/210 No:7, 34. Consul Shipley to Sir N. O’Connor. (April 12, 1906) F.O 195/2210
“Demonstration against Ex-Vali of Erzeroum, Nazım Pasha” (April 12, 1906).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
94
Armenian population to join the protests in the first days. Neverteheless, beginning
with the 20th of March, the Armenian revolutionaries worked to secure
advantages via this revolt. While the protestors were also looking for the
support of their Armenian neighbors, the committee members opposed any
collaboration with the Armenian revolutionaries due to the advice of the
Müfti, Lütfullah Efendi.
The leaders of the Armenian revolutionaries in the city, Asaduryan Ohannes
and Haçatur the moneylender, who had spent the recent years in jail for
supporting the Armenian revolutionary movement, met with four other members
of Armenian revolutionary movement, whose names were Çilingiryan
Asadur, Arkanyan Kalust, Antranik and Arsen, and they had visited Seyfullah
Efendi, İmamzade Vefik Efendi, and Şevki Bey to declare their support for
the protests in return for the dismissal of the Armenian delegate in the city
because the delegate had not allowed them to join the protests.213 Although
the committee did not accept their request, the General prosecuter of the court
of appeals, Osman Zeki Efendi, sent a telegraph to the Ministry of Justice and
claimed that the committee had close ties to the Armenian revolutionary
movement.214 When the rebels closed all shops and blocked all the main avenues
and streets of the city on March 29, 1906, the Armenian committee also
prepared a manifesto and posted it up in the Muslim neighborhoods:
Our Armenian delegate from Erzurum gave his approval for the col
lection of the taxes recently levied, stating that our community could
pay these (taxes). Our community, however, craves money for bread.
We do not recognize this delegate. Never.215
213 BOA. DH.MKT 1066/29, Lef 5, 2. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906).
214 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 28.
215 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 111. BOA. BEO. 2793/209436, Lef 8, 1. 16 Mart
1322 (March 29, 1906).
“Bizim Erzurum’un Ermeni murahhası(marhasası) yeniden ihdas olan vergüler için imza eylemiş
bizim millet verebilir (diye). Halbuki bizim millet dahi nan paraya muhtaç ve biz marhasayı
kabul etmiyoruz. Ahali.” The English translation of the document is quoted from
Şükrü Hanioğlu.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
95
During these three days, Governor Nazım Pasha first sent reports to the
Palace and stated the activities of the committee in the city. According to him,
the local officials had worked hard to stop the protests by discussing with the
committee members, ulemas, and Mufti of the city, but they had failed. In the
final stage, a document which was signed by all the military and civil officials
of the city -including Nazım Pasha- stated that they had not manage to quell
the protests.216 However, according to Mufti Lutfullah Efendi, these officials
were the reason for the protest because the urban populace had decided to
reject their governorship of the city. Hence, the palace ordered Marshal Zeki
Pasha to visit the city. The Palace also advised Nazım Pash to announce to the
urban society that until the investigation by Marshal Zeki Pasha was complete,
the Palace requested the urban populace to stop their movement and go
back to their daily routine.217 Nazım Pasha responded that the society of the
city was not eager to close their shops, and that they were ready to go back to
their daily routine, but the committee members had forced them to close their
shops.218
Faced with that situation, the bureaucrats in Istanbul repeated their first
address to the society by announcing that it was impossible to delay tax collection
because these new taxes were already being collected in all the
216 BOA. Y.A.HUS 501/32, 3-6. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906). this document was signed by
Governor Nazım Pasha, the commander of central army in Erzurum, Mirliva Akif, the commander
of the troops in Erzurum, the judge of the court of appeals Osman Zeki, the head of
the financial department, İsmail, the head of commerce Şefik and the mektubcu Husnü.
217 BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 78/72 Lef 4, 1. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906) Her nevi tebadir-i sakine
ittihaz ve kü lliyat ile gönderilen ulema ve mü ttehayyizan vasıtasıyla nesaih icra edilmiş
ise de bir tesiri gö rü lmemiş ve bu gün mü fti efendi dahi bu işin buraca tesviyesi kabil
olamayacağını ifade eylemiş olub”; F.O. 195/2222 p. 87 “poll tax” “…Sultan announcing
that Mushir of Erdzincan had been directed to proceed to Erzurum as a special commisioner…”
218 BOA.Y.PRK.UM.78/72 Lef 6, 1. 16 Mart 1322 (March 29, 1906); Ibid., Lef 5, 1. bir şahsın
dükkanı açmağa başlaması ü zerine beş-altı şahsın gelerek ……. kapatdırdıklarını gö rmesi…”
MUSTAFA BATMAN
96
districts of the Empire.219 The position of the state was the same as its prior
position on the 11th of March despite the collective action of the populace
having created anarchy in almost all districts of the city.
On the 29th of March, the petty- notables of the city replied to the capital
by explaining why they refused to pay the taxes. Interestingly, while almost
all documents after the 23rd of the month had also been focusing on the cruelty
of Nazım Pasha, in this document, the petty-notables stated that their main
goal was to postpone the tax collection for the year. They directly focused on
what happened in Erzurum during the recent years and the effect of these
events on their daily lives. For instance, Erzurum had faced two great earthquakes
that had destroyed the economic life of the city. Besides, they wnt
through a Russian invasion and lost about 900 men in the war against Russia.
In such a situation, the petty-notables concluded that the only way to pay these
taxes would be to give their shirts to the tax collectors.220
The petitioning practice was a political game. While many petitions requested
the dismissal of the governor, they also continued to demonstrate to
the Porte the incapability of the protestors to pay the taxes until Marshal Zeki
Pasha arrived in the city. What happened in Erzurum over the previous fifty
years was the legitimization of their opposition to new taxes. Moreover, what
happened during the tax collection also became a tool to legitimize the protests
against the governor and certain local officers. The protestors politically
used these facts politically while looking for clues to legitimize their mass
movements against the governor and the Palace’s bureaucrats.
219 BOA. BEO 2793/ 209436, 1. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28, 1906).
220 BOA. BEO 2787/209018 Lef 2, 1. 16 Mart 1322 (March 30, 1906). “ahali-i Erzurum bendeleri
ise vilayet-i şahane-i sairece mukayyes olamayub az bir zaman içinde iki muharebe
ile zedelenmiş ve iki defa vukubulan tezelzelat-ı arzıye tesiratıyla iktidar maliyetleri
mahvolmuş ve mes’ele-i zailede dü şman tarafından zabt edilen istihkamatı ahaliden
dokuz yü z nefer şüheda vererek”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
97
The Grand Vizier replied to all of these telegraphs on the 29th of March
and reiterated the state’s view that it was impossible to annul the taxes on the
29th of March.221 Nevertheless, he also included the opinion of the state regarding
the future of the governor Nazım Pasha. He mentioned that it was
impossible to dismiss a governor based only some petitions of the populace
without operating an investigation. Nevertheless, because of the severity of
the problems between the populace and the governor in the city, the governor
would indeed be replaced by another after a certain amount of time.222
The bureaucrats in Istanbul sent another telegraph on the 3rd of April that
ordered the city's petty-notables and religious leaders to control the populace
and stop the protests. According to this telegraph, the state guaranteed them
that a group of investigators had been dispatched to Erzurum and that they
would investigate the matter. The governor would be dismissed if the investigators
found the claims to be justified. On the other hand, the state warned
the dissidents by asking the mufti and ulama to inform the notables and dignitaries
of the town that the shops should be opened and that every man should
occupy himself with his own work, cease engaging in rebellious activities
against the orders and directions of the government, and become obedient and
acquiescent without delay; and that otherwise, it was decided that the state
would take strong action against the leaders of the movement.223
221 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 501/32 Lef 1, 1. 15 Mart 1322 (March 28,1906) “Erzurum valisi ve fırka
ve merkez kumandanları paşalar hazretleriyle meclis idare ve heyeti adliye tarafından
varid olan telgrafnamelere lef’en arz ve takdim kılınmak ve karar-ı devlet-i mü stezid ve
‘umuma aid olan işbu hayvanatı ehliye rusumuyla vergü -yi şahsinin Erzurumca avfı yolunda
bir muameleyi istişane’yi icrası kabul olamayacağından”
222 Ibid., Lef 2, 1.
223 BOA. BEO. 2798/209800 Lef 1, 1. 22 Mart 1322 (4 Nisan 1906) “….işin kendi hakikati
anlaşılmadıkça şikayet-i mücerrede üzerine bir valinin azl ve ted’ibi caiz olamayacağından…”
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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Indeed, as mentioned above, Governor Nazım Pasha insisted on the possibility
of dispatching Marshal Zeki Pasa to Erzurum as soon as possible. The
palace had ordered Zeki Pasha to solve the problem the previous week. According
to the governor, although the Palace's advice dampened the will of
the protestors, they were still in front of the telegraph office, and there was no
other way than sending Zeki Pasha to Erzurum.224 On the 31st of March, a
telegraph was sent from Zeki Pasha to Münir Pasha, who was the commander
of the city. According to the report of Mutasarrıf of Muş, the telegraph was
concerning the dismissal of governor Nazım Pasha, which was publicized the
following day via announcement in the marketplace.225 There was no mention
of a decree to dismiss the Governor, Nazım Pasha, however. Instead, there
was only a request by the governor himself asking about the possibility of a
change in his position on the 31st of March.226 Following the announcement
on the first day of April, the shops were reopened, but when the committee
found out that Governor Nazım Pasha still occupied his seat, all shops were
closed again. The British Consul Shipley had observed the situation in the
city on the 3rd of April as follows:
The delay in the departure of the Mushir and the absence of any offi
cial statement from the capital seem to be producing an impression
among the Moslems that the authorities do not intend to keep faith
with them and the bazaars have again been closed. The attitude of the
Moslems towards the Christians is reassuring and friendly as hitherto,
and they continue to show great self-restraint and regard for public
order, but the situation is anomalous (there is always a risk of compli
cations). The position of the Vali is unstable – he has now no author
ity; and in the interest of both Moslems and Christians it is most de
sirable that definite orders should be sent from Constantinople, either
for his dismissal or for the immediate departure of the Mushir. The
troops continue to show marked friendliness towards the population.
224 BOA. Y.PRK.BŞK.76/3, 1. 17 Mart 1322 (March 30, 1906).
225 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29, Lef 5, 2. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906).
226 BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 78/70, 1. 18 Mart 1322 (March 31, 1906). “Ahval-i mahalliye defaa’tle
arz edilmiş olmagla memuriyeti hazire-i cakeranemden afvıma”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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The Palace sent an order to Zeki Pasha on the 3rd April 1906. The order
briefly clarified the position of the Governor and the situation in the city.
Then, Zeki Pasha was ordered to send in troops to provide security in the
city.227 At the same time, Governor Nazım Pasha sent a telegraph to the Palace
by arguing that the telegraphs that were sent from Erzurum were not valid
because the telegraph office was occupied by the protestors.228 The protest
meetings spread to the districts of Erzurum, such as Hasankale, Bayburt, and
Namervan. Similar to Erzurum, shop owners refused to obey the rule of the
district governors and closed their shops in Hassankale.229
During these days, one of the main concerns of the Palace was the Armenian
issue. Due to the problems between the Armenian revolutionaries and
the state, the Palace officials feared the possible spread of the revolutionary
ideas in the city. Zeki Pasha’s telegraph also mentioned that although the Muslim
population’s problem was with the new taxes, Armenians of Erzurum had
been working to take advantage of the situation to spread their revolutionary
ideas. Hence, Muslim society would be warned about the political attitudes
of Armenians. This concern was the other reason of why Zeki Pasha was ordered
to send the troops into the city. If the gendarmes and the police of Erzurum
did not achieve to stop the crowd, the troops would quickly assume
control of the situation. Moreover, the commander of the army in Erzurum
was advised to be careful about using firearms. The army would use firearms
only if they were to face an armed conflagration involving the protestors.230
227 BOA. BEO.2798/209798 Lef 1, 1. 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906); BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 238/11
1. 21 Mart 1322 (April 3, 1906).
228 BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 78/73, 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906).
229 BOA. Y.MTV. 285/60, 1. 21 Mart 1322 (April 3, 1906).
230 Ibid., 1.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
100
In brief, on the one hand, thousands of people gathered together around
the telegraph office demanding the dismissal of governor Nazım Pasha and
postponement of the tax collection. On the other hand, the Armenian revolutionaries
had been looking for opportunities for their political movement. Besides,
the police and gendarmeries of the city did not achieve to stop the protests.
Responding to the chaos in the city and the request of the Nazım Pasha,
the Palace sent Zeki Pasha to investigate the events. Zeki Pasha did not manage
to visit the city however, because he was engaged in a military operation
against the rebels in Dersim. He sent troops to Erzurum to control and investigate
the situation instead.
Zeki Pasha’s first report following the investigation, was crucial for the
decision making process in Istanbul. On the 2nd of April, Zeki Pasha learned
that the committee would soon force the Governor to leave the city.231 According
to him, if the protestors succeeded to force a Governor to leave a
province, the protests could provide motivation for all opposition movements.
Additionally, he understood that most of the police and gendarmeries of the
city were dismissed from their offices during the protest, and only military
power remained in the city.232 He concluded that because the protests spread
to almost all districts of the city, it was impossible to stop the chaos via military
power.
The position taken by Marshall Zeki Pasha did not satisfy the bureaucrats
in Istanbul. The Palace argued that because the military officials advised dismissing
the governor, the crowd’s faith in their righteousness of their cause
raised the protests to a whole new level and further motivated the populace of
231 BOA. Y.MTV. 285/75 Lef 2, 1. 20 Mart 1322 (April 2, 1906). “bir takım ahalinin Erzurum’u
terke çakerlerini icbar edecekleri anlaşılmış olup bunun ne derece vahim olacağı”
232 BOA. Y. PRK.ASK. 238/11 15 Mart 1322 (March, 28, 1906); BOA.Y. MTV. 285/75 Lef 2,
1. 21 Mart 1322 (April 3, 1906) “tahkikata bakılır ise ortada polis ve jandarma bulunmadığı
gibi vali mü şir hazretlerine de muhafaza-i sükun ve asayiş emrinde bir gune tedbir
ve çare gö rü lemediği ve ortada askerden başka bir kuvvet kalmadığı anlaşılmaktadır.”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
101
the city. In other words, the committee felt they had the implicit support of
the Army. The Grand Vizier Ferid Pasha sent a telegram to the Interior Ministry
on the 3rd of April stating that because the crowd felt the military was on
their side, they raised their voice higher with each day. In addition to this, it
was impossible to change the governor without conducting an investigation.
It was also impossible to delay tax collection. The Palace chose two inspectors
as special commissioners who were composed of a State Council Court
of Appeals judge, Mustafa Bey, and the former sub-governor of Muş, Hüsni
Bey.233 Until the arrival of two inspectors, Zeki Pasha’s man from Erzincan
was ordered to go to the city and arrest the protests' leaders.234
It is important to note that the central bureaucracy insisted on maintaining
his position without any change. The government insisted on seeing the protests
as a security problem and worked to handle this problem by counseling
the crowd and ordering the commander to arrest the leaders of the protestors.
From the beginning of the first telegraph, when it was sent at the beginning
of March until the 4th of April, the position of the Palace was stable. However,
because the local powerholders demonstrated their failure to stop the protest
meetings, the Palace accepted to send inspectors.
Zeki Pasha responded on the 5th of April to the accusation that the military
gave implicit support to the protestors, by stating that all orders of the Sultan
had been followed carefully. However, Nazım Pasha had jeopardized the daily
lives of the people, and the only solution was his dismissal. He also argued
that because his advice did not produce any change, his reliability was now
questioned by the sixty thousand people of the Erzurum province. He also
added the petitions of the populace to his reply. According to those petitions,
the shop owners would not open their shops until they saw a decree to dismiss
the governor. They stated that if the Sultan were to lay low thousands of lives
233 BOA. BEO. 2798/209799, 21 Mart 1322 (April 3, 1906).
234 BOA. Y. PRK.ASK. 238/17, 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
102
for the governor's grace, there was nothing to do.235 Mufti Lütfullah Efendi,
Abdurrezzak Efendi, and his 23 fellows, and Mehmed Hamid Bey sent another
petition on the 4th of April. They clarified one more time what had happened
in the previous 20 days and argued that they suffered under the cruelty
of Nazım Pasha. According to them, they never thought to threaten the security
in the city. They went to the telegraph office because that was the place
where the commoners could make the Sultan hear about their situation. The
Governor forced them to close their shops and put pressures on the pettynotables
of the city by utilizing military power on the 28th of March. Their
intention was more innocent than of sheep. They had risked death to save the
law, the orders of the Quran, and the glory of the Ottoman Empire. They were
sixty thousand people ranging from twenty-five to seventy-five years old, and
all of them believed they were innocent. Their shops were closed, and they
would not open the bazaar until the dismissal of the governor.236
The central government was on the ropes after it did not find support
among the military commanders. Under the circumstances, Grand Vizier
Ferid Pasha changed his vision and decided to appoint Nazım Pasha to another
seat in such a situation. On the 5th of April, Nazım Pasha was swapped
with Ata Bey, who was the Governor of Diyarbekir.237 Nazım Pasha was now
appointed as the Governor of Diyarbakır, and Ata Bey was now appointed to
Erzurum.238 Since Nazım Pasha had left the city before the arrival of Ata Bey,
235 BOA.Y.PRK.ASK. 238/18, 2-4. 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906).
236 BOA. Y.PRK.MŞ. 08/38, 1. 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906). “Masumuz. Hasılımız merhamete
şayan… OIlü rü z de adaletle emr eden Kur’an-ı Kerim’in, Şeriat-ı Ahmediyenin, Devlet
Ebed Müdded Osmaniye’nin şan ve şereNini muhafazadan geri durmayız Padişah adaletpenah
efendimiz hazretlerinin vekalet-i karyesi namına zulmü ‘adet edinen valiyi
kabul eylemeyiz”
237 BOA. İ.DH.1444/24, 1. 23 Mart 1322 (April 5, 1906); Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi
Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 26. According to the report of the inspector- the
governor left the city on the 7th of April.
238 BOA. İ.HUS.140/117 Lef 2, 1. 31 Mart 1322 (April 13, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
103
Governor-General Şevket Pasha was appointed as acting governor until Ata
Bey arrived in the city. Ata Bey did not reached his post until May 1906.239
Furthermore, with a decree of the Palace, the tax collection was paused for a
limited time.240 The British consul Shipley stated the situation as follows;
Vali has been transferred to Diarbekir. Governor-General of latter
place appointed here. …. Neşed Pasha action temporarily pending the
arrival of General of division from Erzincan. Vali leaving tomorrow
morning. Town quiet and business, it is expected, will be resumed tomorrow.
241
The dismissal of the governor was a victory for the committee. The next
day, they opened all the shops in the bazaar, and social life was normalized.242
The mufti and his companions also expressed their gratitude to the Palace in
their message on the 7th of April.243 Nevertheless, the celebration of the protestors
was cut short for three reasons. First, the committee had been refusing
to pay the new taxes, but there was no ultimate change in the Empire's position.
Second, although they forced the governor to leave, they were well
aware that they would face the same problems when the new governor arrived.
Third, two inspectors were on the way to Erzurum. The leaders of the
protestors needed to persuade these inspectors about their rightfulness of their
cause.
While the inspectors and the new governor were on the way to the city,
Şevket Pasha governed the city as acting governor. He informed the Palace
that the protestors had opened their shops, but that there were many requests
239 F.O. 424/210 No:372 p.39
240 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri. 27.
241 F.O. 195/2222, 102. “Erzurum Poll Tax” (April 6, 1906) Also see: BOA. Y.A.HUS.501/92,
24 Mart 1322, (April 6, 1906).
242 Ibid., “Poll Tax” “Ex-Vali left this morning. Shops are now open and demonstration at an
end.” (6 April 1906).
243 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 501/11, 1. 25 Mart 1322 (April 7, 1906). “Vali-i sabıkın oradan kaldırılmış
olmasından dolayı atebe-i aliyye-i mü lükaneye arz-ı teşekkü rat ve kapanmış olan dükkanlar
açılarak”
MUSTAFA BATMAN
104
to dismiss certain provincial officers from various districts of Erzurum. He
concluded that the movement became a motivation for all the populaces of
the districts, and that he would act against the leaders of the movement according
to the inspectors’ report.244
The leaders of the protest meetings understood that the dismissal of Nazım
Pasha was not as a big victory as they initially thought. They knew that they
were going to be targeted if they did not succeed in convincing the inspectors.
However, it is important to note that their movement influenced the British
Consulate. The Consul Shipley magnified the protests by framing the meetings
as the outspoken freedom of criticism. He also added that, “nor were
references wanting to recent events in Russia, while hopes were openly expressed
that the financial control established in Macedonia might be extended
to Erzurum.” He also reinforced the relationship between the Muslims and
Christians during the protests by stating that the Muslim population of the city
had maintained the public order, and even though there was no cooperation
with the Christians, the relationship between these groups had remained positive
except for two isolated individual incidents.245
Nazım Pasha did not desire to govern Diyarbakır and asked the Palace
about the possibility of appointing him to another position. He was appointed
as the Governor of Kastamonu after a short time. Yet, his career in Kastamonu
did not last long because of the effects of the reports of the investigators on
the Porte. A decree stated that although the central government had not dismissed
an officeholder by relying on the populace's petitions, the governor
Nazım Pasha was nevertheless guilty because he had not understood the significance
of the reactions in time and had caused chaos to unfold in Erzurum.
244 BOA. BEO. 2811/210786, 3. 7 Nisan 1322 (April 19, 1907)
245 F.O 424/210 No:7 April 12, 1906 Consul Shipley to Sir N. O’Conor; F.O 195/2222 pp.113-
118. “Demonstration against Ex-Vali of Erzurum, Nazım Pasha, closing of shops by Musulmans”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
105
Nazım Pasha rejected all claims against him and asked about the possibility
of delaying the decree that dismisses him.246 However, Nazım Pasha did not
succeed in convincing the Porte. His career continued and be held various
seats until he was killed during the 31st March revolt.
§ 3.3 Legitimization of the Mass Movement
Until the end of April 1906, the inspectors interrogated the petty-notables, the
provincial officials, and religious leaders from Erzurum about what happened
during the prior month. The committee came together more than once during
this month and developed a strategy to convince the inspectors. As a result of
the decision in the meetings, the ulema of the city, muderris, mufti Lütfullah,
and the petty-notables created a report which explained the events and the
reasons for the protests from the perspectives of the protestors. The report was
signed by Müderris Nurizade Süleyman, Müderris İbrahim Paşa Hamid,
Müderris-i gümrük Receb er-Raci, Müderris-i fıkıh Süleyman, Nakibü’l-eşraf
Es-seyyid Abdürrezzak Galib, Müftü Lütfullah Vehbi, Müderris Kağızmanlı
İsmail Hakkı, Müderris Mehmed and their 1050 fellows.247
The report is a very-well, organized text. It is divided into sections, and
all sections include a fresh claim about the misdeeds of the government.248
All claims in all sections cite examples. In this sense, the report clarified how
the protestors conceptualized the government and what they expected from it.
In the introduction part, the report announces that the main aim of the
report was to explain why the people of Erzurum showed opposition to the
domestic animal and personal income taxes. They mentioned what happened
in Erzurum during the prior 50 years to clarify their position and argued that
246 BOA. BEO. 2840/212995, 1-2. 19 Mayıs 1322 (June 1, 1906).
247 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29, 4. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8,1906).
248 It is important to note that, the report contains 5 sections but the writers s with jump to section
4 after section 2. Hence the report ends with section 6.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
106
the city went through two great wars against Russia that destroyed the economic
and social life of Erzurum. The city lost seventy to eighty thousands of
people during these wars. Moreover, the populace was forced to live under
famine conditions, fed themselves in a manner befitting animals due to the
food shortages. Two great earthquakes also destroyed the houses and shops
of the city. Two cholera epidemics caused further destruction that killed thousands
of people. The Armenian revolutionary movement launched two great
revolts in the city. According to the report, despite the people of Erzurum being
forced to live under such conditions that destroyed the populace's social
and economic lives, they remained loyal to the Sultan and continued to feed
the Imperial Army.249
After the introduction, the protestors begin to criticize the Ottoman Government
for its attempt to collect the same tax without focusing on the extraordinary
conditions of the provinces. They argue that Erzurum’s peasants
who lived under harsh winter conditions were being forced to pay as much as
the peasants of the provinces where good weather conditions guaranteed better
harvests.250 In addition to the bad weather conditions, they also focus on
the absence of infrastructure in the city. For instance, because of the lack of
roads to the port, and because of the lack of security on the roads, the trade of
249 Ibid., Lef 5,1. ““Hayvanatı ehliye ve vergi-yi şahsi rü sümunun afvı hakkında edilen tazarruatın
menba’ı ihtiyacdır. Uzaklardaa nakl-i eNkara ihtiyac yok. ST senelik bir zamanı
tahlil etmek kifayet eden bu ST sene zarfında bu vilayet Rusya’ya karşı edilen iki muharebenin
ateşleri içinde yandı. VT-WT bin şehid verdi. Bu vilayet Y şedid kaht u gulanın
tesirat-ı müdhişesiyle mahvolur bir dereceye geldi hayvanat gibi ot otladı. Açlıkdan binlerce
adam telef oldu. Bu vilayet ortalığı bulgur gibi kaynatan iki büyük zelzele gö rdü .
Asar-ı harabesi hala yangın yerine benzeyen bu şehr-i seNilin her taşından anlaşılabilir.
Bu vilayet Ermenilerin çıkardığı Y iğtişaş sebebiyle birçok şeyler kaybetti. Ermeni çetelerinin
hala taarruzuna maruz bulunuyor. Bu vilayet zuhur eden muharebeler kadar ibraz-
ı şiddet eyleyen Y büyük koleraya cevelangah oldu. Bu vilayet asırlardan beri ordular
besledi.”
250 Ibid., 1.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
107
the city did not develop to the extent it did in the port cities. Thus, the shopowners
of Erzurum became the local serfs of the European traders or the shopowners
of Istanbul.251 Citing these issues, they directly criticized Governor
Nazım Pasha and the local officers because these people were seen as the
reason for their poor conditions.252 After the authors paint the local bureaucrats
as the symbol of corruption in the city, they stated that their main aim is
to show the Sultan the situation in which they lived in. To that end they first
sent petitions to Governor Nazım Pasha, but he refused to help. Only then did
they decide to send petitions to Istanbul.253
The protestors also argued that they did not think to mount a protest by
closing all the shops and organizing meetings until that direst of times. When
Mustafa Agha’s troops attacked them with Governor Nazım Pasha's order,
only then did they resort to shut down the city’s daily life.254
The authors of the report asked for their exemption from the looming punishment,
due to these issues. They explained what happened in March and
why they refused to pay these taxes from their perspective. As a conclusion,
they claimed governor Nazım Pasha and his officials were the true reason for
the rising protests against the government.255 Hence, their other demand is
also punishment of the governor.
After these explanations, they turned their sights on Nazım Pasha through
focusing on the relationship between the governor and other notables, his attitudes
towards the religious leaders, the corruption in the government, the
251 Ibid., 2. “intizamsızlığı harablığı hasebiyle bir çok kazalara meydan veren kışı öyle yazı
böyle bulunan bir yoldan artık ne beklenebilir günde dö rt saat ancak kat edebilen ökü z
arabalarından sürat nokta-i nazarından ticaret ne istifade edebilir.”
252 Ibid., 2.
253 Ibid., 3. “gece yarılarında polis ve jandarmalarla ahaliden bazılarını konağına celbedib
bu mü racaatta devam ederseniz sizi …. ederim asarım keserim gibi sö zlerle tehdide başladı.”
254 Ibid., 4.
255 Ibid., 4.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
108
corruption in the finance of the government, and the governor’s attitude
against the court of law’s bureaucrats in the city. Most of their claims are not
valid, but they try to legitimize their protest with these claims. By doing this,
the protestors also aimed to respond to the accusations of some officials directed
at them. During the revolt, the local officials worked to persuade the
Imperial center by claiming that these protests had been the result of the revolutionary
ideas developed within Muslims and Armenians. However, the authors
of the report reject having a relationship with the revolutionaries, and as
a reply, they criticized these officials by defining them as the revolutionaries.
256
The first claim against Nazım Pasha is that his support to the Armenian
notables and Armenian revolutionaries. They accuse Nazım Pasha because he
cooperated with the Armenians and supported the rights of Armenian notables
such as Pastırmacıyan Setrak, Ohannes, and Dikran. Matatyan, who was the
director of the Sanasaryan Armenian school, and two other teachers of the
school, whose names were Onikyan and Apolyon, are defined as the best
friends of the governor. Due to the cooperation with Matatyan, the governor
is alleged to have a hidden sympathy for the Armenian revolutionary movement
in the city. For example, they focused on the toleration of revolutionaries
who visited Erzurum’s villages as doctors but who actually labored to raise
revolutionary ideas in Armenian villages. These revolutionaries were arrested
by Hüsnu Bey, who was the mutasarrıf of Muş and the inspector of the
events.257 This was the first attempt of the protestors to persuade the inspector
Hüsnü Bey by aiming to demonstrate and underline the difference between
him and the governor.
In actuality, Matatyan, as the best friend of the governor, never supported
the Armenian Revolutionary Movement. He was among the most famous
256 Ibid., 3. “acaba Vali bir Nikr-i ihtilalin menhusu lekeleriyle bu mübarek memleketi lekedar
etmek mi istiyordu.”
257 Ibid., 3.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
109
Armenians of the city who opposed the activities of the revolutionaries. As
the report aimed to prove the relationship between the governor and the revolutionaries,
the protestors tended to interpret all relationships between the
Armenians and the governor as proof of his support for the Armenian Revolutionaries.
Moreover, they also stated that the governor desired a clash between
the army and the Armenian villagers, and that for this reason, he forced
the soldiers to loot the properties of Armenian villages by not providing food
for the army on time.258 This claim was also not valid, but they managed to
define the governor as a person who sympathized with the revolutionary non-
Muslims through such examples.
The authors’ second claim involves the supposed insult of the governor
directed at the ulama and Islam. According to them, one of the city's wellknown
mudarris, Hacı Süleyman Efendi was removed from his table to secure
chairs for the Armenian Marhasa during an event. The authors argued that
Nazım Pasha did not only insult Süleyman Efendi because of his fatwa against
drinking wine and attending balls but also that this was an act against Islam
because the hadith said the ulama were the representatives of the prophet.259
258 Ibid., 6-7. “Oğullarımızdan karındaşlarımızdan aldığımız mektupları işittiğimiz sö zleri
yazacak olursak en sengin kalpleri eritecek enva-ı sefalet meydana gelir. Hudud boyunda
dü şman-ı dine karşı gece gündüz uykusuz kalan, istirahat nedir unutan asakir-i
şahaneyi, mücahidin-i I[slamı bu hain senelerce aç bıraktı. Ramazan … çavdar unundan
ziyade çamurlu topraklı bulunan ekmeklerle oruç tuttular. ENkarlarına iç yağı ile su ile
yapılmış lapa karın açtılar kendi tıynetinde meknuz olan hıyanet kadar onlar da sadakat
bulunduğunu ümit etmiyordu. Silah terk etsinler silaha sarılanlar Ermeni köylerine saldırsınlar
gibi hülyalara dü ştü . Niyat-ı hainanesinin meydana gelmediğini gö rdükçe kö -
pü rdü . Bizzat Erzurum’da –Aşağıda arzedilecektir- Asakir-i Şahane hakkında yapmadığı
hıyanet kalmadı. Vali-i sabık binlerce askerin hayatına kıymış dehşetli bir canidir.”
259 Ibid., 8-9. “…Ermeni marhasası ve rü fekası bir parça geç geldi sandalye dahi güya bulunamaz
olduğu için Hacı Sü leyman Efendi, o timsal-i ilm ü din ve bazı ulema kaldırttırılarak
sandalyeleri marhasa efendi ve rü fekasına verildi. Hacı Sü leyman Efendi, bir marhasa
ile değişildi: (el-ulema veraset-ül el-enbiya) hadis-i şeriNi şirke hü rmet etmekle
haşa tahkir edildi. Valinin hiç olmazsa bu aleni kabahatin ü stünü ö rtmek için faillerini
MUSTAFA BATMAN
110
They also criticized the Governor because he failed to rebuild certain
mosques in the city that were destroyed in the last earthquake, one of the ruins
of which became a house for prostitutes. The most important target of criticism
was the decision of Nazım Pasha to organize a feast during the first day
of Muharrem. From the protestors' perspectives, the governor’s decision to
organize a ball and a feast while they were weeping because of the killing of
Husein, who was the grandson of prophet Muhammad, in Kerbela, was a direct
attack on Islam. They also added that the governor changed the order of
names in the ceremonies. According to them, the governor replaced the seat
of ulama with non-Muslim religious leaders' seats and greeted them before
the Muslims.260
The third chapter of the report mentions corruption in the provincial government
and the municipal council. They focus on the lack of infrastructure.
Due to the lack of infrastructure, the water-wells of the city contained foul
water. While people of Erzurum were getting sick because of the foul water,
the governor was accused of hiring a man to transport clean water from
Paşapınarı to his residence. They also claim the governor had been involved
in corruption during the building of a new hospital,261 and that he refused to
pay salaries on time. Besides, while the former office had been enough for a
governor, he erected a new residence. He also did not allow people to receive
bir parça mesul tutması icab etmez miydi? Yoksa vali şerik-i mefesedetlerine karşı
rü tbe-i celile-i vezaretten ne tü rlü istifadeler edileceğinin numunesini gö stermek mi istiyordu?
Bir belediye çavuşunun alacağı meşru mahsusattan daha noksan mahsusata
kanaat ederek elli altmış seneden beri medrese-nişin bulunan, ifa ve ala-yı diyanet için
belki dö rt beş bin alim ve fazıl yetiştirmiş olan Hacı Sü leyman Efendiyi şarab-ı hamr
aleyhinde idare-i lisan eylediğinden, balolardan anlamadığından, raksetmek bilmediğinden
dolayı yad u ağyara karşı hem insaniyet namına olsun bu tahkire hedef etmemeliydi.”
260 Ibid., 10.
261 Ibid., 10.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
111
their alimony.262 Furthermore, the governor favored nepotism and handed out
district seats to his men. When these people engaged in graft, the governor
fired them and announced his unawareness of the ongoing corruption.263 They
also stated that the governor spent most of his time out of the city, and he was
not interested in the problems of society.
The accusations about the governor and some officials continued throughout
the report. The authors mentioned that the governor had refused to enforce
the law and did not allow the officials to put some criminals in jail.264 In addition
to this, the governor provided bureaucratic positions to some of those
people who were known as murderers and criminals. These people became
the oppressors of the peasantry in the province.265
The mudarrises concluded their report with a warning. They believed
their movement was righteous because of these issues, which they clarified.
Hence, they finished with the sentence: Their protests against the officers
would continue until they saw the resolution of their problems.266
The report of the protestors and the tour of the inspectors in the city influenced
the inspectors, and they began to investigate the accusations about the
former governor. On the 13th of May, Husnü Bey, the former mutasarrıf of
Muş, wrote an inspector’s report to the center about the mass movement.
262 Ibid., 10.
263 Ibid., 13. “Baytariye idaresi evamir-i nizamiyeyi mektum tutup usul ve nizama muvafık
olmayarak ahaliyi istedikleri gibi soymakta idi artık canı da boğazına çıkan ahali mü racaat
ettiler vali mü racaatın önünü almak için inNisalinden birkaç gün evvel rüsumat muhasebecisi
Abdü lhamid Efendi ile Kö rükçü oğlu Rıza Efendiyi tahkik ve tetkike memur
etti. Bu dairenin yediği içtiği kaçırdığı … ettiği paralardan sarf-ı nazar hatta hilaf-ı kanun
rü sumlar alındığı tebeyyün etti. Vali ne dese ne yapsa beğenirsiniz? “Böyle bir rüsum
alındığından haberim yoktu.” Dedi, halbuki alanların birisi kendi hademesinden idi. ve
o işi dahi kapattı. “Niçin haberin yoktu?” sualine karşı bilmeyiz ki ne cevap verebilecek?
Cevabı mı yok. Bir yalan daha söyleyecek.”
264 Ibid., 14.
265 Ibid., 15-16.
266 Ibid., 16.
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During the investigation, many rumors had spread around the city due to the
chaotic atmosphere, but the inspectors did not accept all the rumors as facts
behind the protest. Even after they left the city, many people fabricated news
about the reason for the movement. For instance, Cennetzade Cemil Bey, as
one of the well-known townsmen of the city, argued that Osman Zeki Efendi,
who was one of the judges in Van, told him that an essential document of the
protestors had reached to him in the Ilıca district. Nevertheless, the inspectors
did not get any information from Osman Zeki until they left the city. When
the Sublime Porte wanted to see this document, Osman Zeki Efendi rejected
the claims and said it was about an unrelated illegal book that was sold in
Erzurum.267
In their report, the inspectors provided details about the tax collection process
in Erzurum. The main point in this issue was similar to that of the protestors.
Accepting the protestors' starting point, inspectors claimed that the
populace had organized in the Lala Pasha district due to the miscalculation of
the real incomes of the people and the collector’s attitudes of forcing people
to pay more money.268 In addition, Hasan Ağazade Faruk, Şamlızade Ahmed,
and Akif Bey, as the city's dignitaries, had called for opposition against the
new taxes. Besides, Hasan Ağazade Faruk was also against the governor because
the government had fallen into arrears to Faruk Bey, who was responsible
for providing goods to the military in Erzurum. The government had
failed to pay back its debt for four years, the value of which was about 15,000
Ottoman Liras.269
Inspectors also stated that at the same time, the Hasan Basri district which
was the poorest district of the city refused tax payment. The inspectors also
accepted that the police and gendarmeries of Erzurum had not worked to resolve
the problem because of their salaries were late. Since the governor
267 BOA. BEO. 2829/212168, 1 Ağustos 1322 (August 14, 1906).
268 BOA.DH.MKT. 1066/05, 1. 13 Mayıs 1906 (May 26, 1906).
269 Ibid., 1.
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Nazım Pasha did not find any support among the city's security forces, he
resorted to dismissing some officials, as stated, to relieve the protests. The
report continued referencing the same claims as the protestors, that first the
ulama and notables and then the military officials were summoned to the government.
Finally, as the protestors had claimed, the inspector also accepted
military intervention to be the turning point in the uprising.270 However, the
inspectors differentiated between the notables and ordinary people in the uprising.
They argued that while the notables were also working to dismiss the
governor, the populace's primary aim was to ensure the delaying of tax payment.
The inspectors also searched for the validity of the claims in the letter of
the mudarrises. The collected amount from hayvanat-ı ehliye tax in the center
of Erzurum was 1,316,000 Ottoman kurushes in 1905. However, it was only
291,000 kurushes in 1906. According to them, the reason for the decrease was
the weather of the city, as the protestors had claimed. Husni Bey stated that
Erzurum was a high-altitude city; 1400-2500 meters above sea level. For this
reason, people fed animals in the sheep pens for six-seven months a year. The
feed of the beasts of burden were the crops that were already excised as A’şar.
As opposed to the provinces by the sea, the people did not have weather conditions
favorable enough to feed their animals in meadows. Inspectors had
accepted the claims of the protestors about the weather conditions by citing
these same issues as one of the reasons behind the uprising.271 Moreover, in
the personal income tax, the problem behind the uprising was the corruption
of officials. Although a major part of the populace who did not have enough
income had been exempted from the personal income tax with the 1905 regulations,
the tax collectors forced the people of the poorest districts such as
Hasan Basri to pay these taxes. For this reason, the inspector also stated, the
270 Ibid., 1.
271 Ibid., 4.
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new governor would be warned about misdeeds in the tax collection process.
Since the crowd had been waiting nervously, the new governor was to delay
the tax collection.272
Lastly, the inspectors compared the province's revenues between 1900 and
1906 to assess the validity of the claims about the corruption of the governor
and other officials. Erzurum’s revenue was around 297,000 Ottoman liras in
1900, while the revenues did not reach 275,000 Ottoman liras in the following
years.273 In addition to this, although the expenditures were around 195,000
Ottoman liras in these years, the inspector had confirmed that the government
expenditure in 1905 was 333,000 Ottoman liras. Husnu Bey claimed that
many people received their salaries without showing up to their job because
of the nepotism in the Erzurum municipality.274 The report ended by explaining
the leader of the mass movement to be Hasan Ağazade Faruk, who was
responsible for providing victuals to the military and the poor conditions of
gendarmes and police officers in the province.
§ 3.4 Second Wave in Protest: October 1906
Ata Bey came to Erzurum on the 5th of May Saturday.275 He promised to provide
forgiveness in tax payments depending on the report of the inspectors.
However, he did not sign any documents to back his words. After a short time,
daily life in Erzurum was normalized. Nevertheless, the tranquility in daily
life was not only about the displacement of Nazım Pasha, but also it was about
272 Ibid., 4.
273 Ibid., 3. In 1905, the revenue was around the amount of 1900, but the inspector explains this
increase as the result of the rise in the commutation fee.
274 Ibid., 3.
275 F.O 195/2222. No: 11, 163 “Ata Bey new governor of Erzeroum” It is important to note that,
according to another document in Foreign Office, the Grand Vizier stated that the new governor
of Erzeroum had not yet reached his post on the 29th of May. See: F.O 424/210 No:
372 Sir No. O’Conor to Sir Edward Grey.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
115
the delay of tax collection. Since the Imperial center did not provide any decree
to abolish the collection of these two new taxes, the tranquility was
feigned. Consul Shipley explained the situation on the 15th of July as follows:
… the town has to all appearance resumed its normal aspect, the situation
cannot be considered as altogether satisfactory. The Mussulmans
it is true, are now quietly pursuing their usual occupations, nor
have I observed any sign whatever of a desire on their part to renew
the conflict with the Government. I would, however, venture to point
out that the present tranquility is more apparent than real, and is
largely discounted by the fact that no attempt is being made by the
Government to collect any of the obnoxious special taxes…276
After a while, the Porte advised Ata Bey to organize a tour of the districts
of Erzurum to find the reasons for problems and to convince the society to
pay the taxes. Consul Shipley stated that Ata Bey did not start his tour until
the mid of October due to health problems.277 However, it was easy to find
the leaders of the movement because these petty-notables defined themselves
as the city's authority by handing a list that includes the names of the ‘personas
non grata’ to Ata Bey. The protestors identified these people as the
people who co-operated with Nazım Pasha and worked to repress the populace
during the protests. These were Şevket Efendi, who was the mayor, Asım
Efendi and Akif Efendi, who were in charge of financial affairs, the head inspector
Ahmet Efendi, Şevki Efendi, Gani Bey who were the police officers
and Laz Ali Efendi.278 The governor promised to dismiss these people from
276 Ibid., No. 12 Consul Shipley to Sir N. O’ Connor “General Situation at Erzeroum”; also, in
F.O 424/210 No. 12 (Inclosure in No:57) Erzeroum, (June 15, 1906).
277 F.O 195/222, 317 “Tour of the Vilayet, Vali has not yet made”
278 Turkdogan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 503; Valuyskiy, “Vosstaniya v
Vostoçnoy Anatolii nakanune mladoturetskoy revolyutsi,” 48-65. According to Valuyskiy, the
Russian consulate’s report included details about the personas non grata in Erzurum. Canverir
decided to meet Ata Bey in Ilıca while he was on the road to Erzurum to request the dismissal
of these people. If the governor did not accept Canverir’s request, they would not allow him
to enter Erzurum. However, the Russian consul argued that, the governor general Şevket
Pasha forbade the people of Erzurum to leave the city until Ata Bey arrived at the city center.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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their seats, but he did not. Instead of those names, Ata Bey dismissed the head
clerk of the tax office and vice-chief of tax collectors and one of the lieutenants
of gendarmes for the misdeeds during the recent events.279
In June, the tax collector of Erzurum tried to collect the taxes again, but
the reaction against the new taxes did not stop. The peasants of Namervan
petitioned the Palace asking for forgiveness or a delay in the tax payment. The
response came on June 9, 1906. The Palace repeated its argument emphasizing
that the taxes had been collected in other provinces. The bureaucrats also
defined this petition as a suspicious because no one from the district of
Namervan had put their signatures on it.280 Nevertheless, the governor had no
desire to face another protest movement before establishing full authority
over the city, so tax collection was delayed for a while.
Moreover, the Ottoman bureaucracy did not forget about the committee
and waited for the right time to eject these people from the city. Ata Bey investigated
the petty-notables and ulama in the urban center who held positions
of influence. He sent a letter to İstanbul on the 3rd of September stating that
the leaders of the uprising in March remained in power in the center. Ata Bey
proposed the exile of these leaders because they grown accustomed to using
the power of rumors to mobilize the society whenever they felt their authority
came under threat. He argued that he provided order and peace with the help
of military officers and the police, but because had not been any punishment
of the people who had mobilized the protests in March, the leaders remained
as powerful authorities in the eyes of the populace.
He organized a meeting with Nuri Pasha, who was the military commander
of the 7th division, the Regent Hilmi Efendi, Brigadier Neş’et Pasha,
and Salim Efendi as the head of the court of appeals to discuss in what ways
279 BOA. DH.MKT 1124/76, 23 Eylül 1322 (October, 7 1906). The names of these people were
Şakir Efendi, Mustafa Efendi, and Timur Agha.
280 BOA. BEO. 2846/213417, 1. 27 Mayıs 1322 (June 9, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
117
the state would respond to those people. Relying on the support of these officials,
he decided to arrest ten people and exile all of them from Erzurum. The
Mufti of Erzurum was on the list, but the officials asked the center about the
possibility of providing a monthly salary to the Mufti as token of respect.281
After they decided on the action of the provincial government, Ata Bey petitioned
to the Sublime Porte on 14 September 1906 for legitimation. According
to this telegraph, the member of society who joined the mass movements
in March were ignorant. They had decided to join because the petty-notables
had forced them to protest. However, the populace woke up to the depravity
of those notables once they saw them using coercion in the marketplace and
spreading rumors against the government. Thereby, the dignitaries who had
organized the movements also earned the hatred of the ordinary people.282
The committee was still provoking the populace against the government in
the urban center.283 Hence, Ata Bey was expecting for a decree that would
allow him to arrest and exile these people. He convinced the Sublime Porte
to do so; the Porte requested of Ata Bey to investigate the leaders of the movement.
Ata Bey had already made his investigation and replied to the request
by denouncing the committee members name by name after two days.284 According
to him, the committee consisted of eleven people. These were Mufti
Lütfullah Efendi, Şeyh Şamlı Hasanağazade Faruk Bey, Çulkıran Akif Agha,
Refik Efendi of the Ayaspaşa İmamizade district, Şevket Efendi of the ulama,
Pulcu Yusuf, Mevlud of the Mezararkası district, Hacı Sabri of the Hasanbasri
district, Tahsin Bey, Butcher Fehim, and Butcher Kurban.285
281 BOA. BEO. 2928/219569, 6-7. 21 Ağustos 1322 (September 3, 1906).
282 Ibid., 5; BOA. DH.ŞFR. 379/29, 1-3; BOA. İ.DH.1448/53, 2 Eylül 1322 (September 15,
1906).
283 Demirel. İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 32.
284 BOA. BEO. 2928/219569 ; BOA.İ.DH. 1448/53, 2 Eylül 1322 (September 15, 1906).
285 Önder Göçgün provided further information about the coalition relying on Mehmed Nusret’s
Tarihçe-i Erzurum. In the book, Mehmed Nusret classified the coalition according to the
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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The names symbolized a coalition of Muslim merchants, artisans, and
ulama of the city. Making sense of this coalition is crucial to understand the
nature of the power holders for two reasons. First, the butchers and merchants
had led the movement in March because the new taxes directly targeted the
incomes of those artisans. For instance, butchers had to pay the tax for the
animals they had as well as for the profit after they sold the meat of those
animals. This amounted to double taxation for the butchers; the animal traders
known as canbaz. Second, the domestic animal tax aimed to effectively tax
the sheep owners known as celeb. These butchers were not simply artisans
who had a small shop in the bazaar. Instead, they had been operating the entire
animal trade in Erzurum. The role of the ulama was complex. Mufti Lütfullah
Efendi had taken center stage during the protests. First, Nazım Pasha aimed
to use his social influence to stop the movement, but he failed because the
Mufti was on the side of the protestors. Moreover, the artisans, merchants,
and mudarrises accepted the Mufti as the wise man of the city, and they led
the movement under his supervision. The failure to form a coalition with the
Armenians was the most prominent symbol of this issue. Lütfullah Efendi
rejected mounting a combined reaction of Muslims and non-Muslims against
the government. The Mufti’s career was also critical in the process. He came
to Erzurum from the Kosovo's province,286 where the first protest against the
provincial rulers and the new taxes observed. Moreover, the dynamism of
report of police officer Sabri Efendi: The first rank criminals were Mufti Lütfullah, Hacı Akif,
Abdi Beyzade, Tahsin Bey, Durak Bey, Hasanağazade Faruk, Kirlizade Yusuf, Hacı Şevket,
Hacı Şamizade Şeyh Efendi, Mezararkalı Mevlüd, Seyfullah, Fazıl Bey, Fehmi and Mehmed
Efendi; the second rank criminals were Nazım Bey, Dede Bey, Yusuf, Maranci Tevfik, Çeltikoğlu
Hacı, Kavutzade Hafız, Hacı Halilefendizade Şevki Bey; the third rank criminals were
Hacı Sabri, Malyemezzade İzzet. Although the memoir of Barutçuzade Şevki Bey cited these
names as criminals Ottoman and British archival sources did not include the name of all these
people. See: Önder Göçgün, II. Meşrutiyet’e Öncülük Eden Bir Hareket: Erzurum İhtilali ve
Ona Dair Bazı Belgeler in Türk Kültürü Araştırmaları,(1985): 253-281. Also see: M. Nusret,
Tarihçe-i Erzurum Yahud Hemşehrilere Armağan, 63-64.
286 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/12 Lef 5, 2. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25,1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
119
revolutionaries in daily politics had been more visible than in Erzurum.
Hence, despite there being no sign showing the relationship between the
Young Turk movement and the mass movements in Erzurum, the state officials
thought Mufti could have developed a relationship with them during his
duty in the province of Kosovo. The coalition of ulama, petty-notables, and
artisans was also a reason why the military officials preferred wait and see
politics during the protests. This was the coalition of the people who controlled
the city's social and economic life, and the military officials refrained
from causing the dissolution of daily lives in the city.
On the evening of the 23rd of October 1906, Governor Ata Bey ordered
the exiling of the committee's most important members in accordance with
the Sultan’s order.287 The head clerk Tahsin Pasha ordered the exile of four
people to Sivas, Diyarbakır and Aleppo. The governor was also informed that
Mufti Lütfullah would be exiled to Ankara with a 500 kurushes salary. The
first targets were Müfti Lütfullah Efendi, Pulcu Yusuf Efendi and Kasımpaşalı
Tahsin.288 They were arrested around 19:00 and expelled from Erzurum. The
British Consul Shipley described the event as, “the prisoners being hurried
off in a carriage with a small escort of zabtiehs.”289 The investigation was not
only concerning these people. All of the eleven people were targeted, and after
the exile of the first group, two influential petty notables came next. They
were Hacı Akif Efendi and Faruk Bey. However, they resisted the gendarmeries
and attempted to organize a meeting against these orders.290 According to
287 BOA. İ.DH. 1448/53, 5. 7 Eylül 1322 (October 20, 1906).
288 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 503; BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/57.
1. 29 Teşrinievvel 1322 (November 11, 1906)
289 F.O. 195/2222, No: 25368/378 Erzurum (October 27. 1906).
290 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/57 Lef 3, 1. The British Consul stated that the arrest of the mufti and
his companions was applied about two o’clock in the morning or possibly a little later. See;
F.O. 195/2222 No: 25, 368-378. Erzurum (October 27, 1906). Skyrabin also argued that 5
people were exiled during the event. See: Kars, 1908 Devrimi’nin Halk Dinamiği, 134. (From
Valuyskiy’s article.)
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Ata Bey’s telegraph to Marshal Zeki Pasha, while the police officers were
arresting the Mufti, the lieutenant Raif Bey who was the brother of the Mufti,
had declared he would do everything in his power to save the Mufti.291 It was
the fifth of Ramadan and people who were on the street heading for the
mosque, learned of the event quickly.
While the police officers went to the houses of the petty-notables, the men
of Faruk Bey, who were Hacı Hamdi, Kör Ali, and Sabri, clashed with the
officers to save Faruk Bey.292 Shipley also clarified their escape in his report.
While one of these two people “escaped by menacing the police with his revolver
the other had escaped by barricading his house and refusing to obey
the commend to (given to) them.”293 After the spread of the news around the
marketplace, a group of people came to the governor’s office and attacked the
residence, injuring the gendarmeries who were responsible for its protection.
294 The crowd around the governor's office swelled to about 300-400 people
within thirty minutes. The gendarmeries who were responsible for protecting
the governor’s office had been on standby because the governor did
not allow the use of firearms against the crowd. The crowd was informed that
they would be arrested if they did not leave. Ata Bey also mentioned that
people chose to target the governor’s office because they thought the Mufti
was there. However, when they learned of the exile of the Mufti, they proceeded
to the residence of the governor.295 Since there was no reaction from
291 BOA. İ.HUS. 147/30 Lef 4, 1; BOA. DH.ŞFR 372/26, 11 teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24,
1906).
292 Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II” 504. Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, 56.
Relying on the news of the Pro Armenia Journal, Aykut Kansu stated that the number of
people who were exiled was 60.
293 F.O. 195/2222 No: 25, 368-378 Erzurum (October 27. 1906).
294 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/57; BOA. Y.A.RES. 139/53, 1-2. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25,
1906).
295 BOA. İ.HUS. 147/30 Lef 4, 1. 10 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 23, 1906). According to the
memoir of Kazım Yurdalan, Durak Bey, Mezararkalı Mevlüd, Fehim Bey and Halil Bey were
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
121
the officers, the populace started to attack the residence, breaking its windows
and doors.296 After a while, two gendarmeries opened fire into the air to disperse
the crowd, but they failed because the crowd had already broken
through the governor’s residence door. The protestors eventually captured
both the governor’s office and residence. Ten people, who were mostly belonged
to the governor's family members, fled to the military post. The crowd
proceeded to attack the barracks hoping to capture the governor’s family, but
the soldiers stopped them. The crowd also looted the governor’s house and
office.297 Shipley observed that, “a large crowd of mussulmans assembled in
front of the Vali’s house, broke down the doors and windows, and forced their
way in the Vali himself with his family escaping to a neighboring house.”298
The movement was a direct reaction to Ata Bey’s order to exile the Mufti
and his fellows. When the protest began, governor Ata Bey and the city's
judge hid in a house near his office, but the crowd found out him and attacked
the house. The crowd also attacked the gendarmeries, who worked to protect
the governor, and injured some of them. After a while, the governor yielded
in order to save a gendarme from the hands of the populace.299 Ata Bey mentioned
that, after the crowd took him, he was beaten by 40 men.300 His medical
reports proved that the contusion on his shoulder was 6 cm wide and he had
the leaders of the protests in front of governor’s residence. See: İsmail Eyüpoğlu, Osmanlı’dan
Cumhuriyet’e Bir İttihatçı Kazım Yurdalan (1881-2-1962), 32.
296 BOA.Y.A.HUS. 507/53; BOA.Y.A.RES. 139/52 Lef 2, 1-2. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October
25, 1906).
297 Ibid.
298 F.O. 195/2222 No: 25, 368-378 Erzurum (October 27, 1906.)
299 BOA.Y.A.HUS. 507/53, 2. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906).
300 BOA. İ.HUS. 147/30 Lef 4, 1. “Çakerleri ferik fT elli kadar erazilin ortasında kaldığından
bunlar biraz değnek ile urub bir taş ile de başımdan yaralamış oldukları halde bir izbeye
girdim” Barutçuzade stated that a man whose name was Tellal Mustafa attacked the governor.
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pus and panicula on his neck due to pounding by an axe. Doctors gave him
an incapacity report for 20 days.301
Simultaneously, the judge of the city was captured by the crowd and he
was injured like the governor. Then, the judge and the governor were imprisoned
in the İbrahim Pasha mosque.302 When the crowd did not stop their
movement, the commander of the riflemen ordered his soldiers to open fire
into the air, and this attempt dampened the chaos.303 In addition to this, because
the governor was injured, the committee allowed doctors to patch Ata
Bey up while he was imprisoned in the mosque.304 The same day, an Armenian
newspaper, Yerkir from Tbilisi reported the events as the uprising in Erzurum.
According to Yerkir, the uprising did not end with the incarceration of
the governor in the İbrahim Pasha Mosque.305 Shipley reported “the gates of
301 BOA.Y.PRK.ASK. 242/6 Lef 4, 1. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24,1906).
302 BOA.Y.A.HUS. 507/53 Lef 3, 1; BOA.Y.A.RES. 139/53 Lef 1-2. The name of the person
who attack the governor was mentioned in the memoir of Barutçuzade Şevki Bey. See; Türkdoğan,
“1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması II,” 504; Consul Shipley argued, the governor
was injured from a stone thrown by somebody whose identity is not known. See: F.O.
195/2222 No: 25, 368-378 Erzurum /October 27, 1906).
303 Ibid.
304 BOA.Y. MTV. 290/131 Lef 3, 1. “…vali beyin cerhasının tedavisi için etıbbaca ihtimamatı
evveliyede bulunulmuştur ledelhamd şimdilik iade-i aNiyet etmiş gibi gö rünüyorsa da
henü z cami-i mezkurda mukimdir...”
305 BOA. HR.SYS. 1331/76. The translation of news in Yerkir: “Yerkir reports the details of the
new unrest that began in the city of Erzurum. According to the order from Constantinople,
the Governor was to capture the instigators of the last strike and send them to Constantinople.
The chief of police, together with policemen and gendarmes, managed to capture the mufti
and other representatives of the people secretly from the society. The people became indignant,
began to gather in masses and demand the extradition of those arrested. Volleys were
fired into the crowd, many were wounded. Despite this, the chief of police with his son and
one policeman were killed in front of the troops. The mob then attacked the Governor’s residence,
arrested him and imprisoned him in a mosque, demanding the extradition of their
arrested representatives and threatening death if they refused. But without the Governor’s
order, they were already released. The convoy leading them was followed by a chase, which
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
123
the mosque closely watched by the crowd until at sunset the arrival of Mufti
with his two companions.”306 Also, another group of people attacked the gendarmes
outside the city, hoping to save Mufti Lütfullah Efendi, Pulcu Yusuf
and Kasımpaşalı Tahsin. When the crowd attacked the governor’s residence,
the governor’s wife was forced to write a telegraph to the district governor of
Aşkale asking the Mufti and his two fellows to be sent back. They also forced
Ata Bey to write a petition, but he promised to send the order after they allowed
him to return back to his office. He also stated that if the committee
planned to kill him, they should know that the Ottoman Government would
not leave the province without a governor, and that they would face the consequences
of their actions.307
The crowd was not affected by his threat and forced him to send an order
to the district governor of Aşkale for the return of the Mufti and his companions.
308 Indeed, the event was heard in Aşkale because the governor contacted
the district governor while he was in his residence. The governor did not mention
about his petition because he desired to use it as a weapon against the
crowd, but he failed because the Mufti and two other fellows were released
within a short period of time. As Shipley stated, the governor was not allowed
to return his office until the arrival of the Mufti and his two fellows. The governor
was released when the crowd met Mufti Lutfullah Efendi at the gate of
the city.309
The uprising immediate target was the governor, but the rebels attacked
some police officials and gendarmes as well. The police officers who were
responsible for arresting the committee members were targeted. During the
caught them up after 8 hours of pursuit, skirmished with the soldiers and brought the people
back. The Governor was beaten and suffered a head wound. The strike continues.
306 F.O. 195/2222 No: 25, 368-378 Erzurum (October 27, 1906).
307 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/53, 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906).
308 BOA. Y.MTV. 290/131 Lef 2, 1. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906).
309 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/53.
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event, the crowd attacked the Gürcükapı police station and killed the chief of
the police, Tevfik Efendi, because the Mufti had been treated with gross indignity
by the police officers charged with the duty of arresting him. Shipley
stated that, “Mufti had been dragged from his head to the carriage and that a
gag had been forced into his mouth. This report, whether true or not, seems
to have excited the crowd.”310 A telegraph sent by the commander of Erzincan
confirmed the misconduct against the committee during the investigation by
stating that the Mufti was manhandled by the police officers, and the doors of
houses of the others were chopped up, and police officers entered their bedrooms
without any permission.311 The military officers had blamed the attitudes
of the police during the event. Barutçuzade Şevki added the name of the
murderers by stating that “Hamal Şamil, Kürt Hasan and Abacı Mehmed
killed the chief police Tevfik Efendi.” They also killed Tahir Efendi, who was
Tevfik’s son and also a police officer. He was 25 years old. Both of them were
killed in the police station of Gürcükapı, and their bodies were displayed on
the streets of the city center. When Tahir’s wife saw his husband's dead body,
she was also torn and died soon after.
Another policeman on the list, the Second Commissary of the Tebrizkapı
police station, Gani Bey, was killed in his police station at 23:30.312 Kürt Hasan,
Bezzaz Şükrü and Kasap Hüseyin (Hasan) killed Gani Bey.313 The committee
had performed the same procedure to the body of Gani Bey, dropping
his corpse of at his house. The committee also planned to kill the regimental
310 F.O. 195/2222 No: 25, 368-378 Erzurum (October 27, 1906).
311 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 242/6 Lef 4, 1. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906).
312 BOA. Y.MTV. 290/131 Lef 4, 1. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906).
313 The names of the murderers were taken from the memoirs of Barutçuzade. However, Ottoman
archival sources mentions the names of the people who murder someone during the
events of 1906 and 1907 as Kürdoğlu Yusuf, Asker Fazıl, Adil, Bezzaz Şükrü, Kürdoğlu
Mehmed, Çakmakcı Mehmed, Rıza and Celil. We do not know how many of those people
attacked the police officers and how many of them were responsible for the events of 1907.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
125
commander and major of the military, Alaybeyi, but they hid in the military
office.314 It is crucial to point out that, the major of the city was the person
who ordered his soldiers to attack the crowd in front of the post office in the
March uprising. In addition to all of these events, two commissars and a gendarmerie
were heavily wounded and a soldier was scotched by the protestors.
315 Some police officers fled the city,316 and the gendarmerie commander
and the lieutenant of the central army sheltered themselves in the barracks.317
While the crowd was attacking the police stations, the commander of Erzurum,
Muharrem Agha, did not try to stop the revolt.318 Ata Bey confirmed the
attitudes of Muharrem Agha. According to Barutcuzade’s memoir, one can
conclude that Muharrem Agha co-operated with the committee.319
At around 01.00, Mufti Lütfullah Efendi and other members of the committee
returned to the city. Hundreds of people welcomed them in front of the
city gate. It was a celebration for the crowd, and they chanted as ‘long live
the sultan!’ Then, the committee went to the İbrahim Pasha Mosque and released
the judge and the governor.320
Ata Bey petitioned Istanbul on the 25th of October to explain what had
happened after the police officers enforced his order two days prior. He mentioned
that, the military commanders had given him a guarantee to provide
security in the city before he ordered the exile of these people. They also discussed
to exiling these people after Ramadan, but he ultimately decided to act
314 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/57 Lef 3, 1. 29 Teşrinievvel 1322 (November 11, 1906).
315 BOA. Y.MTV. 290/131 Lef 4, 1. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906).
316 For an example of a police officer who fled Erzurum, see: BOA. ZB. 98/24 16 Kanunuevvel
1322 (December 29, 1906).
317 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 242/6, 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906).
318 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 507/53, 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906); BOA.Y.A.RES. 139/53
319 Consular Shipley also mentions the name of Muharrem Agha as Muharrem Bey. For Ata
Bey’s confirmation concerning Muharrem Agha, see: BOA. İ. HUS. 147/30 Lef 4, 1.
320 BOA. Y.MTV. 290/131 Lef 4, 1. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906); BOA.Y.A.HUS.
507/53
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immediately. Even thoug people had reacted to his order by killing police officers
and though he remained in custody in the İbrahimpasha Mosque where
was right across the military command center, there was no sign of the military’s
intention to stop the chaos in the city.321 Sleepless for 40 hours and
hungry for 24 hours, he was nevertheless eager to solve the problem. His suggestion
was to declare martial law in Erzurum, arrest all the people who attended
the protests and change the position of some of the military officials.322
Furthermore, he pointed out that all the shops in the bazaar were closed except
the bakeries during the events. The protestors tried to force the shopkeepers
to keep the shops closed, but nobody listened to them, and all the shops were
reopened on the 25th of October. Later, protestors had asked the army to hand
them the commander of the gendarmerie, but because of the killing of the
police officers, the army commander ordered his soldiers to use firearms if
the protestors attacked the barracks. This order brought about security in the
city.323
Zeki Pasha sent three telegraphs to the imperial capital during these days.
He briefly explained what happened in Erzurum during the prior days, and he
also suggested some regulations regarding the military offices. Unlike Ata
Bey, he mentioned that similar to the uprising in March, the artisans had
closed their shops immediately, and the city's economic life was shut down.
In addition, the police officers were afraid to go out in the city. Zeki Pasha
suggested replacing holders of certain positions in the military commandership
to provide security in the city. He suggested replacing the regimental
commander, who was the target of the protestors, with the commander of the
28th regiment, Mehmed Bey. Moreover, Zeki Pasha informed the capital that
two commanders who were hiding in the military office were transported to
321 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 372/28, 1-6. 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906).
322 Ibid., 1-6.
323 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 372/29, 1-3. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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the barracks in Morgof via the order of Ata Bey, and they had thus saved their
lives.324 Ata Bey believed Zeki Pasha's ideas could solve the problem and replaced
the regimental commander with Mehmed Bey two days later.325
The bureaucrats in Istanbul discussed the events by focusing on the telegraphs
which were sent by the governor, the protestors and the military officers.
On the 25th of October, the Sublime Porte requested the suspension of the
governor and military commander from their offices for the following specific
reasons: Ata Bey was found guilty because he wrote articles in newspapers to
convince the population instead of working to solve the problems. In other
words, although the governor understood the reason for the problems in the
city, he did not sufficiently strive to solve them. Therefore, the governor Ata
Bey was dismissed from his seat. Ata Bey was expecting such a decree; he
had mentioned in his telegraph that it was impossible to provide order in the
city under his governorship after recent events.326 Moreover, the military
commander who visited Ata Bey, while he was injured in the İbrahimpasha
Mosque was also dismissed from his seat for not ordering his soldiers to stop
the protestors.327 Tahsin Pasha sent the order of the Sultan to dismiss these
people from their positions on the 25th of October.328 In the order, the real
reason for the dismissals was announced as the lack of authority caused by
the incompetence of these officials. It focused on two problems. The first was
the possibility of riot spreading to Armenians which could cause political
problems between the government and other countries. The second was the
324 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 242/6, 11 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 24, 1906); BOA. İ.HUS. 147/30
10 Teşrinievvel 1322 (November 23, 1906).
325 Ibid.
326 Ibid.
327 BOA. Y.A.HUS 507/12, 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906). Also see: BOA. İ.DH
147/27. October 25, 1906
328 BOA. İ.HUS. 147/30, 11. 12 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 25, 1906).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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possibility of uprising spreading to the other provinces, which could spark a
movement of total resistance against the government.329
Ata Bey left the city at the end of October. Nuri Bey, who was the Governor
of Mamuratu’l-Aziz, was appointed as the new governor of Erzurum on
October 29, 1906. Nuri Bey was an experienced governor because he was the
former governor of Mosul and Diyarbekir.330 Since Ata Bey left the city, Brigadier
Neş’et Pasha was appointed as acting governor until Nuri Bey arrived.
331 Ahmed Pasha, the Imperial Commissioner of the Russo-Turkish
frontier, was also replaced with Munir Pasha who was in command of the
Erzurum Garrison.332 The committee won its second fight against the governor
and the bureaucrats. The committee members increased their power in the
city, and they would become one of the most influential groups in the city’s
social, economic, and political life.
§ 3.5 A New Hope for Revolutionaries
A Little while ago, the inhabitants of Kastamonu removed from office
a governor who considered injustice and wrongdoing to be a requirement
of rule, and they sent a telegram to Yıldız Palace that said: “We
dismissed the governor! Send an honest person in his place!” The inhabitants
of Kastamonu are the voice of masses and the cry of truth…
The Palace, being compelled to carry out this Sublime Decree (issued)
by the public, dismissed the governor immediately. Recently,
with a peculiarly unyielding Turkish quest for justice, the inhabitants
of Erzurum also forced the return of their banished muftis from exile.
After removing the governor from his mansion and jailing him in the
mosque, they expelled him (and) brought upon the police their
329 Ibid.
330 F.O. 195/2222 No. 26, 379-381 Consul Shipley’s telegram. Erzurum (November 3, 1906).
331 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 37.
332 F.O. 195/2222, 361 Consul Shipley’s telegram of October 29 “Vali has informed me that
Nouri, Governor General of Kharput has been appointed here and that Ahmed Pasha the Imperial
Commisioner of Russo-Turkish frontier replaces Munir Pasha in command of Erzurum
Garrison”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
129
(deserved) punishment. This is how justice is gotten. The entire world
congratulates the inhabitants of Kastamonu and Erzurum
Şurayı Ümmet 106, 15 December 1906 “Bir Nümune-i İmtisal”333
The dismissal of two governors in six months amplified everyone’s interest
in Erzurum. The Young Turk Party was among the groups who aimed to understand
the dynamics of the events in Erzurum because the opposition of the
Muslim-based crowd raised their hopes in their fight to re-open the parliament.
Although the Ottoman historiography defines the events as the movements
controlled by the political oppositions, the leaders of Young Turks
learned of the movement through newspapers. After they did, Bahaeddin Şakir
Bey sent a letter to the office of CUP (Committee of Union and Progress)
in Lazistan on December 8, 1906, to ask about the possibility of creating an
alliance with the protestors. He also mentioned the name of the committee as
Canverir because the newspapers and Russian consul had defined it as such.
It is crucial to underline that the CUP had absolutely no ties with this
committee. As Hanioğlu stated, “Even as late as February 1908, the CPU central
committee in Paris was still trying to obtain the names of influential individuals
in Erzurum, Van, and Diyarbekir.” Since they did not know the local
dynamics very well, they congratulated Zeki Pasha for leading the protests in
the province.334 Furthermore, the Revolutionary Federation of Armenians
(Tashnaksutiun Organization) also had no idea about the leaders of the movements.
As Garabet K. Moumdjiyan mentioned, the local ARF’s report about
the events in early 1907 mentioned, “we are not sure where these anti-government
secret meeting will lead. They have been around for almost a year
333 The Passage is quoted from Nader Sohrabi. See: Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, 85.
334 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 115.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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now.”335 Mehmed Rauf Bey, who was the governor of Salonica and one of the
former governors of Erzurum, also defined Zeki Pasha as the leader of the
protests in his petition to the Palace. According to him, it was impossible to
provide order in the city without accepting Zeki Pasha's authority and the reason
behind the dismissal of the governors was their inclinations towards trying
to create their own authority in the province. As an example, Rauf Bey
mentioned that when he was the governor of Erzurum, there was a military
commander whose name was Mehmed Bey. He dismissed Mehmed Bey from
his seat because Mehmed Bey accepted Zeki Pasha as the only authority and
refused to obey his orders. He argued that the return of Mehmed Bey as a
regimental commander was a political ploy by Zeki Pasha to establish his
control over all officials in the city. He suggested that the Sublime Porte could
send Zeki Pasha as the officer of reforms.336
Nevertheless, Tahsin Pasha wrote a detailed analysis of the events during
the same days and identified the uprising as the idea of the Young-Turk movement.
Although he did not explain their roles during the protests, he blamed
the people who were in exile in Erzurum. According to him, the people who
had gotten fired from Mekteb-i Tıbbiye and Mekteb-i Harbiye and been exiled
to Erzurum engendered the movement.337 The implication of the claim was
twofold: On the one hand, the revolutionary movement had been searching
among the leaders of the protests to find possible partners and representatives.
On the other hand, the new governor would directly attack them as scapegoats.
In such an atmosphere, the petty-notables, artisans, ulama and the populace
who benefitted from cooperating with each other increased their influences
in the urban center. In other words, the Imperial center’s inability to
335 Turk Sharzhumi Norutyunnere (Latest News from the Turkish Movement), Troshag, no. 2
180 (February, 1907): 19-20 Quated from Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime:
Armenian-Young Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,” 243.
336 BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 79/28, 14 Teşrinisani 1322 (November 27, 1906).
337 BOA. İ.HUS. 147/28, 14 Teşrinievvel 1322 (October 27, 1906).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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comprehend the reality provided greater space in the politics of the city for
the actors of the protest.
The Sublime Porte also did not accept Rauf Bey’s critics as valid and the
commander who was suggested by Zeki Pasha was accepted as an eligible
person. The Grand Vizier also asked Zeki Pasha to send a list of people who
could be eligible to govern Erzurum.338 In addition, the Sublime Porte decided
to exile some officials to Erzincan due to their ineffectiveness during the
events. The new governor and new commander of the city would be allowed
to declare martial law and exile the Mufti and his companions after they
stopped the revolutionaries. For this reason, the Sublime Porte decided to
choose a well-known, authoritative person as the new governor of the city.
The options were the mutasarrıf of Bayezid, the former mutasarrıf of Muş
and the governor of Van. Husnu Bey, as the former mutasarrıf of Muş, was
the most eligible person but he was in Istanbul and the government desired to
send someone quickly. The mutasarrıf of Bayezid, Ahmed Pasha, was the
brother of Marshall Zeki Pasha. He was also a good candidate but because
there were many complaints from the Russian consulates about Ahmed Pasha,
he was eliminated. Under the circumstances, the Sublime Porte decided to
send Tahir Pasha, who was the governor of Van as the acting governor to provide
order in the city.339 However, the decision was then changed, and Nuri
Bey, the governor of Mamuratu’l Aziz, was appointed as the new governor.
Although the opposition did not have close ties with the local powerholders
of Erzurum, the resistance provided motivation for them. They send
komitadjis to Erzurum for transforming the reaction into a total resistance
against the Imperial Government. The komitadjis would work to co-operate
with the Mufti and the artisans of the city because the coalition of the ulama,
townsmen and merchants was the most powerful party in the city after they
338 Ibid.
339 Ibid.
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had forced two governors to leave the city and punished the police officers.
While these komitadjis were concentrating on the discomfort between the ordinary
people of Erzurum to create a consciousness for a revolutionary resistance
movement, they concealed their identities because they desired to
avoid a possible investigation. They also aimed to form a relationship with
the city through creating fake jobs to would make them partf of the now influential
artisan class of the city. The exact date of when the komitadjis arrived
in Erzurum for this purpose was not known but the first was Hüseyin
Tosun Bey who was a former member of the army.340 He joined the central
committee of Prens Sabahaddin’s organization and was tasked with the organization
of the opposition movement in Anatolia.341 He came as an immigrant
who had a Russian passport and became a grocer in the city. After a
short time, he communicated with Durak Bey and Sıdkı Efendi who were
known as the supporters of the opposition movement and requested them to
inform him of the protestors' leaders. During those days, Durak Bey was
working to find trusty soldiers in the army who had sympathy for the opposition.
After they established a small secret branch, they decided to prepare bulletins
and manifests to transform the protest wave into a revolutionary
340 BOA. BEO. 3238/242782, 3. 27 Kanunievvel 1322 (January 9, 1907); BOA. Y.A.HUS.
507/20, 2.
341 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 116-117. Indeed, none
of the historians provide a clear date for the arrival of Huseyin Tosun Bey. Husamettin Erturk
who was the military-based person on the Russian frontier stated in his memoir that he was
the first person to arrest Huseyin Tosun while Tosun was trying to enter the city. Yet, Erturk
mentioned that the governor was Abdulvahhab Pasha at that time. In addition to that, Orhan
Turkdogan stated that Huseyin Tosun Bey joined the first and second Young Turc Congresses
in 1902 and 1907 but this is out of question because before the second congress, Tosun was
arrested in Erzurum. Furthermore, Kazım Yurdalan argues in his memoir that Tosun used a
nickname, that was Ali, and he had visited Erzurum years prior. Barutçuzade Sevki Bey and
Mehmed Nusret Bey also mentioned him in connection of the events of 1907. Hence, it is
possible to say that Huseyin Tosun Bey came to the Erzurum in spring of 1907 but because
he had a Russian passport it was also possible to say that he traveled to Erzurum many times
before 1907. See: Orhan Türkdoğan, “Hüseyin Tosun: Bir İhtilalcinin Profili” in Türk Dünyası
Araştırmaları (1987): 69-83; Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime:
Armenian-Young Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,” 352.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
133
movement. Some of the religious leaders and artisans also supported their
ideas, but in general, their movement became estranged from the resistance
of the city’s coalition due to their different expectations. They distributed very
important manifestos in 1907.342 One of them was a declaration for the soldiers,
and the other addressed the Muslim community of the city.343 The second
one proclaimed the following statement:
O our brothers in religion! . . . We have appealed to you on many
occasions; however, we could not discern even a little bit of your patriotism.
Is this what the union of Muslims is all about? If you do not
know, ask the muftis and hocas and learn. If our action is in accordance
with the decree of God, then you, too, [should] join us. . . . This time,
in order to put an end to this maladministration, and to secure that
administration through consultation which is prescribed in divine statutes,
Muslim practices, and rules derived from the Prophet’s own habits
and words, we demanded the acceptance of a constitutional regime
and formation of a national assembly. . . . If the foreigners once intrude
among us and intervene in our affairs, they will undoubtedly work for
342 Quated from Zafer Kars 1908 Devrimi’nin Halk Dinamiği, 122 “Asker evlatlarımız, biz sizin
ana-babalarınız ve kardeşleriniziz. Biz sizin askerlik görevinde iki seneden, olağanüstü durumlarda
üç seneden fazla kalmamanızı, bu sürenin sonunda da yedeğe ayrılarak evinize dönüp
ailelerinizle birlikte yaşamanızı istiyoruz. Kışlalarınızda her şeyin düzenli olmasını, hastanelerde
ilaçsızlıktan, yataksızlıktan ölmemenizi, öldüğünüz zaman da kefensiz
gömülmemenizi istiyoruz. İyi yemenizi, içmenizi, giyinmenizi, sınırlarda bir serseri yaşantısı
sürmemenizi arzuluyoruz. Her ay maaşınızı düzenli olarak almanızı, kısacası sizin rahatınızı
ve mutluluğunuzu arzuluyoruz. Maaş alamadığınız için bizim, yani sizin baba, kardeş ve
akrabalarınız olan bizlerin, size para yollamak amacıyla ineğimizi, öküzümüzü ve toprağımızı
satmak zorunda kaldığımızı biliyorsunuz. Sizi askerde beslerken biz 8-9 yıl içinde
yıkılıyor, iflas ediyoıuz. Yedeğe ayrıldığınızda ise size resmi bonolar veriliyor. Ama tükenmemize
rağmen resmi memurlar bu bonoları ödemeyi kabul etmiyorlar. Bizim sizin rahatınızı
düşündüğümüz gibi, siz de yeri gelince size, vur’ emri verdiklerinde subaylarınıza ve amirlerinize
itaat etmeyiniz. Vatanimizin, dinimizin ve şerefimizin kurtulmasını istediğimiz için
bize yardımı reddetmeyiniz. Aksi takdirde hakkımızı helal etmeyeceğiz. Biz, girişimlerimizin
Allah’ın emrine karşı olmadığına ve Peygamberimizin buna rıza gösterdiğine dair müftü ve
hocalardan fetva aldık.” Also see: Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri
(1906-1907), 38.
343 Quoted from Zafer Kars 1908 Devrimi’nin Halk Dinamiği 123. Also see; Demirel, İkinci
Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 39. Hanioğlu, Preparation for
a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 120. The English translation of the declaration
quated from Hanioğlu
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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the interests of their own countries.344
The opposition parties did not only aim to influence the soldiers and the
Muslim population of the city. During the last months of 1907, when another
protest wave ended with the dismissal of the new governor, another manifest
was published taking advantage of the lack of authority in the city which
called on all subjects of the Empire to form a revolutionary movement by
announcing our need is a Constitution, -liberty, justice- a Parliament.345
The Committee of Union and Progress also used those movements as a
tool to develop its influence by defining these resistances as uprisings organized
by their members who were exiled to those cities in question by the
Sultan. Halil Halid’s famous article namely A Pacific Revolution in Turkey,
published in January 1908, defined all the protest waves in the distant
344 Quated from Hanioğlu, 120. Hanioğlu also mentioned about another manifest which was
prepared for not only Muslims but also Jews and Christians of the Ottoman society.
345 F.O. 4244/213 Inclosure in No: 136.
An “Appeal” to the Inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. November 19, 1907. The limited part
of the manifest was as follows:
“Brotherhood in the Ottoman Empire:
O Mussulmans, Christians, Jews- all of you Ottomans! Our native land, beloved mother of
us all, is fast sinking under oppression. Wearied out by the tyranny of an autocratic Government,
she stretches out her hands and cries for our help. With gentle voices she cries, “Oh!
my dear children be not divided one from the other; do not desert one another; fall not intro
discord and strife. Unite and be one,” she says; and she repeats her cry. Ottomans, brother
in the soil! You are even as a family dwelling in one house; and is it not right to exhort the
members of such a household to look to the ordering of their affair and to labor together in
unity? It is right! In such case, love of country, humanity, zeal, compel us to devote ourselves
to the common weal. Brothers, we cannot help but hear the agony of our land, which cries to
Heaven and pierces our hearths like a dagger. Let us hold out the hand of comradeship to
one another; let us love one another like brothers, and work together for the happiness of our
country. Our Government, as it now is, pays no heed to law, recks nothing of the general
condition of the people; and until it is freed we shall see nor happiness, nor wealth, nor
peace. Far from it; this Government will make hell for us, will rack us with the cruel tortures,
and like a herd under the goad, they will drive us and use us for their own advantage…
O brothers in the soil! You are all children of one land and one State. You are bound to rescue
it from the tearful grasp of the tyrant, to order its affairs even as the civilized nations do, and
to promote its good. The happiness, safety, freedom of our country, our motherland, our State
depend on our working tohether with a single hearth. Our need is a Constitution-Liberty,
justice, a Parliament. Shout till you are hoarse, Make your voices heard on all sides and
publish it in all the land.
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provinces as the resistances “planned entirely by the Young Turkish exiles, of
whom each government center in the distant provinces Turkey possesses
many.”346 The opposition movement started to offer seats to the coalition instead
of sending komitadjis after 1908 but most of the members who managed
to take seats in the Assembly left the Committee of Union and Progress in a
short time due to the differences in their political and ideological thoughts.
These attempts did not change the dynamics of the province because the
new governor quickly investigated these people and exiled most of them. In
addition to this, the coalition of the committee decided neither support nor
blocked the opposition movement even though some of them cooperated with
the Committee of Union and Progress after the 1908 Revolution. The attempts
of Huseyin Tosun Bey and other exiled members of the opposition movement
was an opportunity for them because the governor focused on their activities
as the Sublime Port had requested and tried to arrest some of them as the
scapegoats.
The new governor identified two people who were active in the opposition
movement and had joined the protests of March and October. These were Muhiddin
and Ali Faik both of whom were dismissed from the army.347 Hence,
he planned to exile them to Erzincan and Hınıs.348 Muhiddin and Ali Faik
were known as the members of the opposition movement but there was not
any proof of their role in the events.349 For instance, Ali Faik sent a petition
346 Halil Halid “A Pacific Revolution in Turkey” in The Orient Review 18-29 (January 1908):
27.
347 BOA. DH.MKT. 1093/39, 3-6; BOA. DH.ŞFR. 375/18, 9 Kanunisani 1322 (January 22,
1907); Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution. The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 112
348 Ibid.
349 Ali Faik who was sent from Salonica, was the regimental order in Kastamonu. He was exiled
to Diyarbakır then to Erzincan and then to Erzurum on 5th of April, 1904. See; BOA. İ.AS
50/60, 1-4. He sent a telegraph to the Porte on June 2, 1906 arguing that he was in possession
of very valuable knowledge but that he was not in a position to declare it in Erzurum. Hence,
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asking about the possibility of leaving Erzurum in June 1906. In addition,
there was not any relationship between the Mufti and the petty-notables who
were seen as the natural leaders of the city and Muhiddin and Ali Faik. The
only so-called proof about their cooperation was Mufti's speech against the
government and his former career in the province of Kosovo where the Young
Turk movement was very active.350 As the scapegoats of the events, Muhiddin
and Ali Faik were exiled to Erzincan and Hınıs districts.351 Nuri Bey identified
a third person from the military as the leader of the protest and named
him in another telegraph that was sent on the 22nd of January, 1907. He argued
that, in addition to Ali Faik and Muhiddin, the commander of the 25th regiment,
Savfet Bey was responsible for the protests. He asked about the possibility
of exiling both of them somewhere outside of the Erzurum Province
instead of Hınıs or Erzincan which were the parts of the Erzurum province.352
The new governor’s tactic secured order in the city. The protest came at
the cost of the dismissal of certain military-based people from the center of
Erzurum. Yet, they still resided in the periphery of the province despite the
governor asking them to be exiled to another province. Indeed, the dismissal
of Ali Faik and Muhiddin Efendi did not affect the protests negatively because
they did not have any clear role in the leadership of the protest movements.
In addition to these people, a townsman, Sıdkı Efendi, who also did not have
any role in the events of October and March 1906, was also arrested because
he had distributed the revolutionary bulletins in the city.353 Since Nuri Bey
he asked to be dispatcheds to another city. See: BOA. BEO. 2863/214664; BOA. BEO.
2864/214772.
350 BOA. DH.MKT. 1093/39; BOA.DH.ŞFR. 375/48 18 Kanunisani 1322 (January 31, 1907)
351 Ibid.; BOA. DH. ŞFR 375/8 8 Kanunisani 1322 (January 21 1907); F.O. 195/2254 no:4 From
Consul Shipley to Constantinople (January 28, 1907).
352 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 375/18, 9 Kanunisani 1322 (January 22, 1907); Also see, BOA. Y.PRK.UM.
79/69, 25 Şubat 1322 (March 10, 1907).
353 F.O. 195/2250, 100. From Consul Shipley to Constantinople (March 5, 1907) Skyrabin cited
the name as Sıdkı Naci. This was not accurate because Naci Bey was another important
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desired to establish peace in the city, while he was asking for the general amnesty
for the protestors, he chose Ali Faik and Muhyiddin as objects of ounishment,
bot of whom the Grand Vizier and the former governor had argued
were active in the protest meetings. He also included the names of the Sıdkı
Efendi and Savfet Bey as the revolutionaries. While exiling these people, Nuri
Bey had inhibited the creation of a new protest and people who were in the
crosshairs of the former governor stayed in the city. This was another show
of tolerance by the Ottoman provincial governor, even though there was a
threat to exile the protestors to Trablusgarp if the city were to face another
protest wave.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation also followed the same path to
try to transform the reaction into an opposition movement of the Armenian
districts’ opposition against the Armenian Marhasa. During those days, one
of the problems within Armenians was the conflict between Armenians and
the Armenian delegate (Marhasa) of the Patriarchate in the city. While the
Mufti was the leading figure of the protests against the taxes in March, the
Armenian Marhasa Zaven Efendi had accepted to pay the taxes in the name
of the Armenian community. Thus, both the Armenian populace of the city
and the fedais of ARF refused to obey him and worked to dislocate him. Since
the Muslim community did not accept the coalition request of the Armenian
community, the Armenians did not achieve the dismissal of the delegate during
the protests of March. Yet, after the second wave of the protests, The ARF
aimed to influence the populace in the same way as the CUP. Indeed, ARF
was more successful than CUP in cooperating with the Armenian society of
the city. In a short time, they targeted the seat of Zaven Efendi through sending
petitions to Istanbul against him, and by creating bulletins and manifestos
to reject his rule. By the first months of 1907, Zaven Efendi had decided to
person in the opposition movement. Zafer Kars translated Naci as ‘Hacı.’ See: Kars, 136; see
also. F.O. 424/212 Inclosure in No. 40 Consul Shipley to Sir N. O’Conor Erzurum (March 5
1907).
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resign. He sent a telegraph to the Patriarchate to describe the situation between
him and the Armenian community. According to him, it was impossible
to talk in the name of the Armenians in the city because many of them were
under the influence of the ARF. Hence, he kindly requested his appointment
to Istanbul. He also added that, after his telegraph, he would leave Erzurum
and wait in Bayburt for the decision of the Patriarchate and the Sublime Porte.
Both the Patriarchate and the Grand Vizier refused his request in February
1907. Yet, since he had been in Erzurum for eight to nine years, he was allowed
to come to Istanbul until the situation was normalized.354
§ 3.6 Conclusion
1906 was among the most chaotic years in the history of Erzurum. Two governors
were dislocated, many officers were forced to leave the city, and some
others were killed. The protest wave began in march and did not end until
1908. Although the initial reaction had developed against the taxation, as it
happened in the province of Kosovo, Kastamonu, Sinop, Kerbela and Mosul,
the urban coalition which consisted of the petty-notables, religious leaders
and the populace used the misdeeds in taxation practices as a tool to expose
the misdeeds in government and demonstrate their influence in the province.
In that sense, the events of 1906 were examples of clashes between powerholders
in the city. The populace mostly chose to act on the side of the natural
leaders such as ulama and artisans as had happened during the uprisings
around Tanzimat, the rebellion of janissaries throughout the 18th century and
in the protests that occurred in other provinces. Therefore, the protest wave
was another evidence of the system of checks and balances developed by the
Ottoman society against the policies of the state. Just as in the Kosovo province,
the populace of Erzurum did not refuse to pay ağnam and a’şar while
354 BOA. A.MKT.MH. 699/23, 1-10. 10-18 Şubat 1322 (February 25/March 3 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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they refused to pay the new taxes. The powerholders did not reject the Ottoman
government and its all apparatus but reacted against the governors and
certain officials. They never cut the dialogue with the Sublime Porte. Hence,
this was a clear negotiation practice of the society, aiming to determine the
limits of the state and decide on in what ways the reforms could be implemented
in their province. While chapter two aims to show the negotiation
practices of the society in Kosovo by focusing on the budgets, taxation practices
and the development of collective action for not paying specific taxes,
this chapter directly focused on how the collective action developed day by
day and how the powerholders fought to make themselves the partner of the
Empire by eliminating not only the decisions but also the people that aimed
to diminish their influence in the city.
Nevertheless, the protest wave of 1906 has symbolized a clash between
various powerholders in the center of a province because the role of the crowd
was very limited. Even though the populace became the main force in motion,
their voices were not heard due to the negotiation attempts of the powerholders
in the name of the city. In such a situation, the populace began to differentiate
themselves from the petty-notables and ulama in the coalition. They
insisted on a general amnesty for themselves because they had killed police
officers, injured a governor and attacked the army barracks. They also desired
the abolishment of the new taxes, dislocation of some other officers and solutions
for the price inflation in the city.
Governor Nuri Bey chose a moderate path to provide order in the city
after he realized that the exile of revolutionaries did not diminish the influence
of the coalition in the province. He sent a telegraph to the Porte in a month
which underlined the cooperation between the tradesmen, merchants and protestors.
In the face of this reality, he asked for time to prepare a report.355 First,
355 BOA. BEO. 2966/222391, 16 Tesrin-i sani 1322 (November 29, 1906); BOA, DH. ŞFR 372/
158, 12 Teşrini Sani 1322 (November 25, 1906).
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he announced that there would be a new tax regulation. Then he investigated
the uprising and wrote his report at the end of 1906. According to Nuri Bey,
the people who joined the uprising formed an alliance between them that
guaranteed the eruption of another uprising if the government were to investigate
these people. Because of this touchy situation, although there were
many people who were active in the protest meetings, he was not willing to
arrest them. Furthermore, he added that the crowd had closed their shops once
again at the end of the year and visited him to ask about the possibility of
being pardoned because most of them were afraid of potential punishment.
For this reason, Nuri Bey asked for the general amnesty for the protestors by
suggesting it be combined with the announcement that if they were to organize
another protest, they would be exiled to Trablusgarb. Moreover, the new
taxes would be collected after the government finalized the new regulations
on the tax rates. The protestors would be obliged to pay taxes and blood
money for the killing of the police officers.356 Furthermore, Nuri Bey and
Ahmed Pasha desired the replacement of the gendarmes and a group of soldiers
because these people were the relatives of the populace. Zeki Pasha sent
another telegraph to Istanbul to confirm the ideas of Nuri Bey.357 The idea of
a general amnesty was not accepted by the Sublime Porte but the tax regulation
was.358 Moreover, Nuri Bey was also closely interested in the families of
the police officers who were killed during the last protest. He provided these
family members with salaries. The families of Tevfik and Tahir Bey were
gifted 2.000 Ottoman kurushes from atiyye-i seniyye. In addition, the government
gave the children and the wife of Gani Bey 250 Ottoman kurushes as a
356 BOA. DH.MKT. 1093/39, 4. 18 Kanunisani 1322 (January 31, 1907) Also see: BOA. DH.
ŞFR 375/8, 9 Kanunisani 1322 (January 21, 1907)
357 BOA.Y.MTV. 294/53 Lef 2, 1. 25 Kanunisani 1322 (February 7, 1907).
358 BOA. Y.MTV. 292/63, 12 Kanunisani 1322 (January 25, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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salary from muhtacin. This amount was distributed to the 4 children and the
wife of Gani Bey.359
Although the idea of a pardon was rejected in the first response of the
government, it was accepted after Nuri Bey argued that a general amnesty
was the only way to provide order in the city.360 Amnesty was granted for the
events of October 1906 but the decree to exile Mufti and his fellows for the
events of March 1906 was still in effect.361 According to Nuri Bey, although
many people desired to send letters of gratitute to the Sultan to show their
gratitude after the announcement of the general amnesty,362 the coalition had
been planning to organize another series of protests to abolish the new taxes.
The protest was planned as a meeting of all the people of Erzurum, and because
the taxes were the spark for the first protests in the beginning of 1906,
many people supported the idea. Nuri Bey did not allow this meeting but instead
invited three religious leaders and two petty-notables as the representatives
to the government. After Nuri Bey discussed the situation with them, he
asked the Porte about the possibility of delaying to collection of the domestic
animal tax and the possibility of abolishing the personal income tax for the
majority of the populace.363 The British Consul observed the position of the
state as follows on the 25th of March:
The government caved in against popular demands. However, still
keeping with the old ways of doing thing, it was masterful enough to
represent the changes as something promulgated by the good will of
359 BOA. DH.MKT. 1093/39, 12-15. 11 Kanunisani 1322 (January 25, 1907).
360 BOA. DH ŞFR. 376/87, 17 Şubat 1322 (March 2, 1907) ; BOA. İ.DH.1452/30, 25 Şubat 1322
(March 10, 1907).
361 F.O. 195/2250, 103-105. From Consul Shipley to Constantinople. (March 16, 1907). Shipley
argued that 50 people were invited to the Government.
362 Demirel, İkinci Meşrutiyet Öncesi Erzurum’da Halk Hareketleri (1906-1907), 93.
363 BOA. BEO 3012/225854, 8. 3 Mart 1323 (March 16, 1907). Valuyskiy argued that there were
mass protest movements during these days, based on Skyrabin’s reports. However, neither
the Ottoman nor the British consular reports mentioned mass protest like those in the March
of 1906.
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the sultan, who hearing the plea of his subjects, instituted reforms.
Thus, the sultan states that he would: pardon persons for crimes they
committed during last October; pardon those who had been exiled; …
order that personal taxes be collected only from the rich. The sultan
was under the impression that once his orders were informed to the
populace through the local government they would be satisfied. But
that was not so. The people dealt with the sultan’s reform as something
unimportant. They believe that what they have acquired was because
of their firm stance. They further believe that what they got should be
the right of everybody in the Empire.364
The effect of the protests against these taxes in many provinces of the
Empire, including Erzurum, ultimately resulted in the Porte having to cancel
both of them on the 25th of March 1907.365 The British Consul explained the
victory of the protestors as follows on the 28th of March:
Authorities announce demission of poll tax (personal income tax) and
domestic animal tax. Regulation also withdrawn. Great satisfaction is
felt among population.366
It was the most significant victory of the Ottoman society during the reign
of Sultan Abdulhamid II. However, neither the exile of revolutionaries nor the
announcements of a general amnesty and abolishment of the taxes managed
to end the protest wave, because it was not merely a protest but a negotiation
practice for the various classes of the Ottoman provinces. Although the populace
and the coalition managed to abolish the new taxes, they would soon
force the state to take measures during a new crisis. A new series of protests
would be their movement when they faced a considerable price inflation and
a food shortage in 1907. During the event, most of the petty-notables who
thought themselves to be the most powerful actors of the city would flee from
the city. Hence, 1907 would prove just as chaotic as 1906 for Erzurum as it
will be explained in the next chapter.
364 F.O. 424/210, 46. (Quated from Moumdjiyan, 244).
365 Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, 70; F.O. 195/2250 138; Also see: BOA.Y.PRK.UM.79/78, 16 Mart
1322 ( March 29, 1907).
366 F.O. 195/2250 138.
143
4
Famine, Collective Memory and Taxes
Men make their own history, but they do not make
it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances
chosen by themselves, but under circumstances
directly encountered, given and transmitted
from the past.
– Karl Marx The 18th Brumaie of Louis Bonaparte
espite numerous studies on the natural disasters such as the droughts,
famines, and earthquakes that caused the deaths of thousands in the
19th century, Ottoman historians still need to be explained the relationship
between the natural disasters and contentious interaction. Natural disasters
had created social traumas and collective memories for the societies when
their cities infrastructural needs were unmet. This chapter aims to investigate
how natural disasters have turned into one of the most important legitimization
tools of the populace during the negotiation practices between various
actors. It follows Alan Mikhail pointing out that the important thing in
D
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environmental studies is understanding “the dialectical relationship between
human beings and environment.”367
In other words, my goal is to show how the food shortage in the frontier
provinces transformed the contentious interaction of the society who aimed
to define the limits of the central authority in their daily lives. This process
was also a clash within various classes vying to overcome each other to become
the new elites of the provinces. This chapter will be “the result of the
necessity to view environment and society as mutually constituted in the
realm of culture through investigating this process.”368 As Chris Graten has
shown, environmental history in this sense became a form of cultural history.
When the American consulate, Mr. Young, observed Muslim women's reaction
to the earthquake,369 he also observed a deep-rooted cultural behavior of
Anatolian societies; accepting the natural disaster as God’s punishment for
deeds of cruelty towards innocents. True or not, whether it was an orientalist
perspective of a foreigner toward an eastern society or not, we know that these
kinds of cultural-religious explanations of natural disasters were widespread
in various parts of the world.370 It illustrates the effects of macro-political
events at the micro-level and shows how the various people in the provinces
conceptualized natural disasters.
Various regions of the world have experienced great famines that caused
the starvation of millions. Jürgen Osterhammel defined starvation as
367 Alan Mikhail, Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 5.
368 Chris Gratien, “The Mountains are Ours. Ecology and Settlement in Late Ottoman and Early
Republican Cilica 1856-1956” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation in Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences of Gerogetown University, Washington DC, 2015, 4.
369 F.O. 424/210, Mr. E.Young to Mr. J.Leishman “During the recent earthquake shock in this
vicinity, several Turkish women are known to have cried out “that the earthquake was a punishment
sent by God on account of the present plan to massacre all Armenians.”
370 For examples from Czarist Russia, France, Italy and England, see: Samuel Kline Cohn Jr.
“Cholera Revolts, A Class Struggle We May Not Like” in Social History 42:2, 162-180.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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something more than a shortage of food and stated that “the distinction between
a chronic starvation and acute famine is a high-level of mortality.” He
argued that starvation is a culturally constructed, and for this reason, many
sub-questions should be involved in defining starvation. These are:
The quantity of food- that is, the minimum of calories- necessary for
people differentiated by age and gender; the quality of nourishment
required to ward off dangerous deficiencies; the regularity and dependability
of food grown at home or supplied through public distribution
or the market; the actual form and level of distribution according
to social stratum; the claims and entitlements to food associated
with various positions in society; and the famine relief institutions,
whether governmental or private-philanthropic, that can be mobilized
in an emergency.371
Apart from his definition, it is important to note that climatic changes in
a specific part of the world could dramatically decrease the size of populations,
destroy the daily lives of the agents who provided the products to the
markets, and cause great chaos. One example to this was the effect of the Laki
Volcano eruption on the social and economic life of Egypt.372 Egypt lost onesixth
of its total population, and the drought caused a decrease in the agricultural
production via the decline in the water level of the Nile, and diseases
resulted in the rise of local elites who took the lands of the poor.373 It was the
late Victorian holocaust, as Mike Davis defined it in his comparative study
about the effect of the El Nino Famine in the world.374 Approximately 30 million
victims were affected by the El-Nino Famine in various parts of the world
371 Jürgen Osterhammel The Transformation of the World: A global History of the Nineteenth
Century translated by Patrick Camiller (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press,
2014), 484.
372 Alan Mikhail, Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 225.
373 Ibid., 226.
374 Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World.
(London: Verso, 2000), 8.
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when its “labor and products were being dynamically conscripted into a London-
centered world economy.”375 Although the Ottoman Empire was not
among the empires which were directly affected by El-Nino in contrast to
India, China and Brazil, it still experienced the dramatic outcomes of the famine
and drought between 1870 and1880 in Anatolia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Ottoman society also became the victims of earthquakes, droughts, and
famines in the eastern provinces during the 1880s and in Lebanon during the
First World War.376
Ottoman historiography has a well-built body of the literature on the effects
of natural disasters.377 The shortcoming is in the cultural history of the
traumas experienced by the society. Almost all of the existing studies focus
on the moment when people faced the disasters in acute form. However, these
problems also created a collective memory that helped communities act
quickly when they felt threatened again later. To illustrate this point; the famine
in the Volga region produced a long-term change in the social and political
life of Tsarist Russia. When the 1891-92 famine caused the loss of approximately
800,000 lives, due to the bad weather conditions, a ‘reactionary period’
began. This continued with the assassination of Tsar Alexander and continued
with social unrest that led to the revolution of 1905.378 I will argue that
although the drought and the food shortages did not cause massive starvation
in the Ottoman east during the price inflation of 1906-1908, one of the most
crucial elements of people’s reaction to the local governors was that they felt
the threat of famine which their parents had experienced. In the Ottoman case,
375 Ibid., 9.
376 Yener Bayar, “1873-1875 Orta Anadolu Kıtlığı,” Unpublished master thesis in Türkiyat
Araştırmaları Instıtute of Marmara University, Istanbul, 2013, 133.
377 One good example: Yaron Ayalon Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire, Plague, Famine
and Other Misfortunes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
378 Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World, 491. Osterhammel gives a detailed account
of natural disasters and famines from various parts of the World in the 19th century. See: 474-
506.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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this reaction was not a part of a revolutionary movement but an attempt to
negotiate their local demands in a contested space between the society and
the state. In other words, Ottoman urban people were well informed about
how to force the state to take measures quickly. The demand was mainly based
on the rejection of a liberal market economy, elimination of certain actors by
blaming them as profiteers, taking advantage of the chaos if present, and legitimation
of their reactions by a focus on the concept of public benefit.
This chapter will focus directly on the role of the food shortage and
drought during the mass movements on the Ottoman eastern borderland in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. I will focus on the petitions, military, and
bureaucratic reports, local newspapers, annuals of the provinces, and missionary
and consular reports to understand how famine and drought caused a social
trauma for the people of the region. Also, I will try to shed light on how
societies defended maslaha as a public good against the raison d’etat. From a
historiographical perspective, my main goal is to write on the customs and
commoners of the Ottoman borderland as Edward P. Thompson has done for
British society by focusing on the invention of customs. In that sense, natural
disasters that caused dramatic deaths of the thousands were crucial in recalling
the collective memory when support from the authorities was not
forthcoming. In such instances, the commoners had created their own rituals
and hidden transactions to bargain with the state via public opinion. In other
words, natural disasters were the real motifs of the commoners employed to
do contentious politics. To analyze this hypothesis, I will write on the effect
of famine during the mass movements, and I will focus on specific examples
from the eastern Ottoman provinces in the late 19th century to illustrate its
impact on the commoners' reactions to the state.
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§ 4.1 Famine in the Ottoman East
Most of the population of the Ottoman Empire were living in the countryside
and villages where the farm crops were the mainstay.379 As Mike Davis defines
it, drought is “the recurrent duel between natural rainfall variability and
agriculture’s hydraulic defenses”380 that significantly impacted agricultural
societies’ culture and economy because people were dependent on the soil.
The locusts could destroy the crops,381 the fall in food availability could cause
a famine that causes the led to the deaths of thousands. Death, in such scenarios,
was not solely a phenomenon of the countryside. The total destruction
could engulf the urban spaces too if provisions normally provided by the
countryside would be lacking as well as due to the collapsing of local economies.
The Ottoman population experienced this scenario in the late nineteenth
century. According to Yaron Ayalon, “drought beset locations in the empire in
seventeen of the forty-two years from 1838 to 1880, and locusts destroyed
extensive crops in at least nineteen of the seventy-eight years from 1802 to
1880.”382 The people of central Anatolia faced starvation because of famine
between 1873 and 1875; the Bosnian community revolted under the harsh
conditions of the drought, the peasants of Vidin only harvested one-fifth of
the expected output, the province of Adana lost 90% of total production,383
and some local notables increased their influence among society in the Ottoman
east after the 1880s by eliminating their rivals and taking advantage of
379 Onur İnal, Yavuz Köse, “The Ottoman Environments Revisited” in Seeds of Power, Explorations
in Ottoman Environmental History ed. By Onur İnal and Yavuz Köse (Cambridgeshire:
The White Horse Press, 2019), 2.
380 Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 18.
381 Samuel Dolbee, “The Locust and the Starling: People, Insects and Disease in the Ottoman
Jazira and After, 1860-1940,” Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in Department of Middle Eastern
and Islamic Studies and Department of History, New York University, 2017.
382 Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire. 199.
383 Güran, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Zirai Kredi Politikasının Gelişmesi, 1840-1910,” 131.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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the lack of authority. Ottoman authorities investigated the conditions and possible
solutions through creating reports and giving orders to local governors.
Their attempt was successful concerning the state’s infrastructural power but
in the borderlands, they failed to solve the problems effectively. Instead, certain
actors forced the state to make them into its partners by taking action and
drawing the limits of central power, as explained in previous chapters. Famine
began rather quietly, but all the events that caused the famine created shock
waves in these regions. Due to the different climatic factors affecting the land,
however, it is impossible to write a history that accounts for all the Ottomans
at the same time. For instance, during the drought of 1906-1908 that profoundly
affected Erzurum, the governor of Hudavendigar claimed the agricultural
product was good due to the excellent weather conditions.384 For this
reason, I will focus on the Ottoman eastern provinces, including Erzurum,
Bitlis, Diyarbakır, and Van.
Missionary Clerk and Missionary Andus described Ottoman East in their
dispatch to the center in 1904 as follows: “take a large map of Turkey in Asia
and place your thumb upon Mardin, your index finger upon Harpoot, the middle
finger upon Erzeroom, the third finger upon Bitlis and the little finger
upon Van.”385 They obviously made this description for different reasons, but
it was also an illustration of how the social and economic life is interconnected
across these cities.
The region lacked the infrastructure for the transportation of the goods.
The roads were mostly consisting of narrow pathways on which a tumbrel
transported the goods. Some parts of the pathways between the cities were
not even suitable for tumbrels, and the goods and people were transported on
384 BOA. DH.MKT. 1194/1, 25 Ağustos 1323 (September 7, 1907) “Hüdavendigar: havalar
müsaid gittiğinden sene-i atiye mahsulatında feyz ve bereket memuldür.”
385 Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.M.F) Unit 5:
ITEM (ABC 16.9.7) Reel 703 (Feb 29 1904).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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the back of an animal in those parts of the roads.386 As an alternative, river
transportation was commonly used, but it was impossible to connect the provinces
of the East via river transportation. There were two main roads for the
trade and transportation network. The first one connected Trabzon to Bayburd,
Erzurum, Bayezid and finally Persia. The second route connected Samsun
to Nusaybin, following Sivas, Harput and Diyarbakır.387 The primary cultivation
of the region was of cereals. Almost all of the peasants were growing
cereals because the cultivated land was very productive.
In Erzurum, 98.87% of the total production consisted of cereals. 60% of
the land was used for wheat, 24.35% for barley, 4.85% for rye, 7.3% for millet,
2.14%for rice, and the corn only was produced in 1.35% of this land.388
94.80% of the cultivated area in Bitlis, 81.17% of the cultivated area in Diyarbakır,
and 95.14% of Van's cultivated land were used to produce cereals.389
Relying on the statistical information provided by Faik Sabri, it is possible to
estimate that the mainstay of the region was the self-production of cereals.390
As an agrarian society that was very dependent on the soil, a small climatic
change could significantly impact daily life. The drought had such an effect
on the cultivated area and caused famines. During the years of droughts, the
total production from the cultivated land decreased, and the society faced food
386 Karaca, Anadolu Islahatı ve Ahmet Şakir Paşa (1838-1899), 79.
387 Fulya Özkan, “The Role of the Trabzon-Erzurum-Bayezid Road in Regional Politics and Ottoman
Diplomacy, 1850-1915” in Cora, Derderian and Sipahi, (ed) The Ottoman East, in the
Nineteenth Century: Socieites, Identities and Politics London&NewYork (I.B. Tauris, 2016),
19-41. Also see, Mehmet Polatel, “Armenians and the Land Question in the Ottoman Empire,
1870-1914,” 171.
388 Faik Sabri, Osmanlı Coğrafya-i İktisadiye. Dersaadet: Kanaat Matbası, 1331(h) 204.
389 Ibid., 204-205
390 As Mehmet Polatel has shown us by analyzing Faik Sabri’s statistics, although the area cultivated
for cash-crops was very limited, the region has a significant cash crop production of
cotton, sesame seeds, olive and especially tobacco. See Polatel “Armenians and the Land
Question in the Ottoman Empire, 1870-1914,” 172.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
151
shortages, the state revenues diminished sharply, and the society forced the
state to provide extra cereals, to fix the price of wheat and to stop the exporting
of the products.
Table 4.1.1. The Distribution of Cultivated Area in Eastern Provinces391
Cereals Legumes Cash Crops Gardens Vineyards Total
Province % Km2 % Km2 % Km2 % Km2 Km2
Erzurum 98.99
(98.87)
2,966 0.90
(1.03)
31 0.04
(0.03)
1 0.07
2 3,000
Bitlis 94.63
(94.80)
2,370 0.73
(0.60)
15 1.21
(1.20)
30 3.43
(3.40)
85 2,500
Diyarbakır
81.08
(81.17)
2,435 3.55 105 2.86
(2.67)
80 12.51
(12.67)
380 3,000
Mamuratülaziz
73.58
(73.33)
1,100 2.83
(3.33)
50 9.02
(10)
150 14.56
(13.33)
200 1,500
Van 95.37
(95.14)
666 0.42
(0.43)
3 2.72
(2.86)
20 11.49
(1.57)
11 700
Total 89
(89.13)
9,537 1.9
(1.91)
204 2.7
(2.63)
281 6.4
(6.34)
678 10,700
Source: Faik Sabri, Osmanlı Coğrafya-i İktisadiye (Dersaadet, Kanaat Matbaası
1331), 204.
Wheat was the most important agricultural product in the region. According
to the statistics provided by Faik Sabri, the total wheat production of Erzurum
was around 10,000,000 kile per year. Diyarbakır produced 7,700,000
kile while Bitlis trailed them, producing 6,500,000 kile of wheat in a year.
391 I quoted the numbers provided by Faik Sabri, but the bracketed numbers in the table is the
result of my calculations due to the miscalculations in the original table of Faik Sabri. I accepted
the total km2 of the cultivated area and areas of each products as accurate and recalculated
the percentages of areas in according to this system. For instance, while Faik Sabri
calculated that the 98.99% of the total are consisted of cereals, I wrote 98.87% because 2,966
km2 is the 98.87% of 3000 km.2
MUSTAFA BATMAN
152
Rice cultivation in the region was very limited. Only the province of Diyarbakır
produced 862,000 kiles of rice in a year, which was more than ten times
greater than Mamuratulaziz, the second biggest rice producer of the region.
Also, Mamuratulaziz was an exception when it coame to corn production in
the area. It produced 575,000 kiles of corn in a year while Van, the second
biggest corn producer, produced 40.000 kiles.
Table 4.1.2. Total Production of the Cereals in Eastern Provinces
Wheat
Barley Rye Millet Corn Rice Total
Province Kile Kile Kile Kile Kile Kile Kile
Erzurum 10,000,000 5,240,000 1,430,000 600,000 22,000 3,800 17,295,800
Bitlis 6,500,000 2,260,000 450,000 1,500,000 14,000 41,000 10,765,000
Diyarbakır 7,700,000 2,270,000 2,500 1,000,000 6,000 862,000 11,840,500
Mamüret’
ül Aziz
3,150,000 1,500,000 110,000 250,000 575,000 80,000 5,665,000
Van 1,350,000 390,000 330,000 145,000 40,000 34,400 2,289,400
Total 28,700,000 11,660,000 2,322,500 3,495,000 657,000 1,021,200 47.855.700
Source: Faik Sabri, Osmanlı Coğrafya-i İktisadiye (Dersaadet, Kanaat
Matbaası 1331), 205.
Faik Sabri’s statistics rely on the estimated numbers from the years 1914-
1915. Although the cultivated land for cereals was the most important factor
in the provinces' economic and social life, the state did not succeed in collecting
sufficients amounts of taxes from the producers. Based on the annuals of
the Erzurum Province, it is obvious to argue that the total amount of the taxes
did not reach a sufficient level. Although there was an increase in the total
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
153
amounts thanks to the development of infrastructural power, the rate of inflation
was mostly higher than this nominal rate of increase.
Table 4.1.3. Collected Taxes from the Erzurum Province in Selected Years
Table 4.1.4.Total Tax Revenues of Erzurum Province 1880-1904392
Sources: Erzurum Vilayet Salnameleri. 1880-1904
392 The data for both charts is taken from the Annual of the Provinces, and the dissertation written
by Yakup Akkuş: See; Yakup Akkuş, “Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Reform.” The data of
1894-1895 is quoted from the report of Ahmed Şakir Pasha. Despite the annual of the year
expecting 32,677,000 kurushes income, Şakir Pasha argued that there was a mistake because
the local officers estimated the amount based on the taxes collected in the year of 1893. See:
Ali Karaca, Anadolu Islahatı ve Ahmet Şakir Paşa (1838-1899), 87-89.
1881/18
82
1888/18
89
1891/18
92
1894/18
95
1898/18
99
1899/19
00
Total Income 20.739.273 24.307.393 25.646.037 25.268.040 26.428.234 29.136.375
Asar 10.597.083 11.872.585 11.805.855 11.251.843 12.699.146 15.196.661
Agnam 3.178.074 4.674.044 4.883.905 5.128.884 5.280.364 5.097.396
0
10.000.000
20.000.000
30.000.000
40.000.000
50.000.000
60.000.000
Agnam Asar Total Income
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
30000000
35000000
1880/1881
1881/1882
1882/1883
1883/1884
1884/1885
1887/1888
1888/1889
1889/1890
1890/1891
1891/1892
1892/1893
1893/1894
1894/1895
1896/1897
1897/1898
1898/1899
1899/1900
1900/1901
1901/1902
1902/1903
1903/1904
Total Tax Revenue of Erzurum Province
Total Tax Revenue of Erzurum Province
MUSTAFA BATMAN
154
The total tax revenues of Erzurum Province did not increase despite the
infrastructural attempts of the state. All the endeavors such as constructing
the Trabzon-Bayezid Road, opening schools for the education of peasantry
and improving of trade, providing seeds to the villagers, and attempting to
create state control over the peasantry via the Hamidiye Light Cavalries did
not fulfill the ultimate goal: to colonize the periphery, and “transforming it
into a fully governed, fiscally fertile zone.”393
The reason for the decrease in the tax revenues in certain years is made
evident by the tax statistics.394 As seen in the chart, the tax collected in the
Erzurum province decreased from 25,241,615 kurushes in 1880 to 19,152,696
kurushes in 1884. One of the most important reasons for this was the drought
that affected Erzincan, Refahiye, and İliç and Kemah.395 Agnam tax decreased
from 3,789,182 kurushes in 1880 to 3,178,074 kurushes in 1881-1882 and the
A’şar decreased from 16,534,385 kurushes in 1880 to 10,597,083 kurushes in
1881-1882.396 The second drought in Erzurum happened in 1889, and the tax
revenues of the state diminished again. The drought resulting from a lack of
rainfall was compounded by a locust invasion that destroyed the cereals of
the peasant. Compared to other regions, the drought in Erzurum was small,
but the locust’s damage was very high.397 The most painful famine in the
393 James C Scott. The Art of Not Being Governed, An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast
Asia, (New Haven: Yale University Press 2009), 10-11. I quoted the italic part of the sentence
from Scott.
394 For an analysis of the finance of Erzurum see; Yakup Akkuş Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Reform:
Merkez Taşra Arasındak İdari-Mali İlişkiler ve Vilayet Bütçeleri (1864-1913), 529-538.
395 BOA.Y.PRK.AZJ. 8/87; See; Abdulkadir Gül, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kuraklık ve Kıtlık (Erzurum
Vilayeti Örneği: 1892-1893 ve 1906-1908 Yılları)” in Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar
Dergisi/ The Journal of International Social Research, Volume 2/9 Fall 2009
396 BOA. MAD.d-13421
397 Gül, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kuraklık ve Kıtlık (Erzurum Vilayeti Örneği: 1892-1893 ve 1906-
1908 Yılları),” 146.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
155
region happened in 1892-1893.398 According to the investigation in the province,
it was recorded that the tax arrears reached huge amounts. Arrears were
3,102,007 kurushes for the ağnam tax and 4,508,700 kurushes for A’şar.399
Between 1885 and 1895, the total tax arrears of the province reached
21,642,135 kurushes. Drought, the clashes between Armenian revolutionaries
and the state, the emigration of the peasants, and tax collectors’ misdeeds
were among its major causes.400
The region was also famous for its animal traders called ‘Celeb’s. The
city had 1,250,000 sheep, and the number of cows and oxes was at least
300,000 in 1899.401 Most of these celebs carried out the animal trade from
Erzurum and Van to Aleppo, from which the animals were distributed to Damascus
and Cairo.402 In the mid-19th century, the animal trade from Erzurum
to Aleppo and Cairo became massive amounts due to Egypt's urgent need after
an animal disease spread within the sheep in the region.403 The British Consul
at Aleppo stated in 1855 that two hundred thousand sheep from Erzurum were
brought into the city. Their total value was ten million piasters.404 The sheep
trade of celebs in Van reached a hundred thousand in the 1900s.405
398 Ibid.
399 Akkuş, “Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Reform: Merkez-Taşra Arasındaki İdari-Mali İlişkiler
ve Vilayet Bütçeleri (1864-1913),”530.
400 Ibid., 531.
401 Karaca, Anadolu Islahatı ve Ahmet Şakir Paşa (1838-1899), 84-85.
402 Tolga Cora, “Transforming Erzurum/Karin: The Social and Economic History of a Multi-
Ethnic Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century,” Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in the Department
of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago, 2016, 243;
Polatel, “Armenians and the Land Question in the Ottoman Empire, 1870-1914,” 175
403 Can Nacar, Yonca Köksal “Ali Ağa’nın Koyunları ve Borçları: Erzurum-Şam-Mısır Hattında
Hayvan Ticareti” in Toplumsal Tarih November (2020):61.
404 Quoted from Cora, “Transforming Erzurum/Karin,” ; F.O. 76/1221, Report from Mr. Acting
Consul Barker on the Trade of Aleppo with Europe and Turkey for the Year 1855” (1 March
1856).
405 Polatel, Armenians and the Land Question in the Ottoman Empire, 1870-1914, 175.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
156
The good fortunes did not last however, as Tolga Cora has shown us, the
sheep trade between İstanbul and Erzurum weakened over the years. In the
1860s, the total number of animals sent from Erzurum to İstanbul was 20,000.
Until the mid-1870s, the economic zone was between Erzurum and Aleppo
functioned very well. However, the great famine of Anatolia between 1873-
1875 disrupted this trade very dramatically. The center of the drought was
central Anatolia, with which the eastern Anatolian cities constituted a trade
zone. Erzurum was one of the provinces that provided cattle for central Anatolia.
406 It was not a huge amount, but nevertheless, the weakening of trade
ties effected some changes in both cities. The mass deaths of sheep in central
Anatolia during the famine made a considerable difference in this local trade
network.407 According to Levant Herald, the fall in the number of sheep and
goats effectively finished the local trade. The total number of animals in selected
villages decreased from 58,000 to 3,735 only in just two years.408
The crisis in central Anatolia was solved by the great effort of the government
and a change in the weather fortunes. With the coming of the seasonal
rain, the improvement of potato production, distribution of seeds for different
crops, and distribution of relief money to the peasants, starvation was averted
after two years, but the effects of the famine lived on the people’s memories.
One of the sharpest memory was regarding profiteers who had hidden all the
crops in the storehouses before the famine and demanded higher prices for
their crop during the extraordinary times. They also worked to sell their crop
to the British merchants who were searching for products to send to India
because the simultaneous famine in India was one of the worst disasters of
the century. Dr. Zitterer, who was sent to central Anatolia by the Ottoman
406 Bayar, “1873-1875 Orta Anadolu Kıtlığı,” 19. Bayar gives details about the trade between
Erzurum and Ankara provinces.
407 Bayar made a crucial point by showing that the sheep that starved because of the famine were
mainly not the property of the poor but of the merchants. See: Ibid., 69.
408 Ibid., 157.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
157
government to research the famine, stated that although the famine had been
destroying the social life of the villages for two years, crops were presented
in the storehouses of some merchants.
The reason for hoarding crops was to engage in speculation about the
prices. Many merchants moved to maximize their profits while people were
starving. Moreover, when the government began to distribute crops in the city
centers as aid, most merchants got luckier than the people of the villages. As
the cities' natural actors, they controlled the distribution of the goods and took
most of the crops for themselves. Zittler stated that merchants’ activities aggravated
the impact of the disaster.409 The price of corn reached 800 kurushes
while it was around 20 kurushes in previous seasons.410 These kinds of behaviors
created tension between the lower classes and the merchants of the
cities.
People of the lower classes stole corn from merchants’ storehouses, petitioned
the government about their actions, asked the government about the
possibility of export prohibitions, and directly attacked these people when
they could not find any other solution. More importantly, they created sympathies
among the new artisan and ulama coalition, who postured as acting
for the public good by dislocating the local and mostly non-Muslim merchants.
Research on these strategies support Karl Polanyi’s ideas on famine
he presented in The Great Transformation:
Failure of crops was, of course, part of the picture, but despatch of
grain by rail made it possible to send reliefs to the threatened areas;
the trouble was that the people were unable to buy the corn at
409 Ibid., 183. Zittler argues that the speculators expected a rise of the corn prices from 20 to 200
kurushes for a kile. Indeed the prices shot even higher than this in across the region. I followed
the activities of Zittler from Yener Bayar’s thesis.
410 Ibid., 76. Bayar mentions that the daily-wage of a worker was 7.5 kurushes in central Anatolia
during the famine years. This was almost the same with the daily wage of a skilled laborer in
the Ottoman East.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
158
rocketing prices, which on a free but incompletely organized market were
bound to be the reaction to a shortage.411
The term “free but incompletely organized market” is a very useful term
to understand how a liberal understanding of trade caused the deepening of
the food shortage. For this reason, all activities of the lower classes depended
on the rejection of the liberal economy whenever they felt the effects of crises
-a legacy of the collective memories of 1873-1875.
§ 4.2 The Invention of A Collective Memory
The famine in the eastern provinces dislocated the notables who controlled
the trade routes that ran from the Ottoman East to Aleppo and İstanbul. With
the Crimean War and the Islahat Edict, the Armenian notables became more
prominent in Erzurum. Many Armenian families operated trade routes and
created networks in the cities until the war of 1877-1879 with Russia. Between
1854 and 1879 Erzurum transformed from an “elite-dominated society
into a broader network of coalition between different groups.”412 The coalition
was challenged by non-Muslim artisans and merchants, those “known by
the state, experienced leaders, prominent members of the society.”413 Muslim
artisans took advantage of another crisis to take over the roles of non-Muslims.
First, the famine of central Anatolia created a moment of opportunity by
destroying the existing trade routes. Second, the war with Russia resulted in
the rising power of Muslim artisans and the ulama. When the second famine
occurred due to a lack of human resources, and the traumatic disasters of the
earthquakes and epidemic cholera opened a new chapter in the eastern
411 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
(Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2001), 167; Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 9.
412 Cora, “Transforming Erzurum/Karin,” 398.
413 Ibid., 130.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
159
borderland where the Muslim artisans and the religious leaders increased their
power by becoming the new local partners of the state.
After the Ottomans’ defeat in the 1877-79 war, the Ottoman Empire lost
many of its cities, including Erzurum. The Russian army reached Ayastefanos,
located 8 km. away from Istanbul. Although the Empire lost Erzurum with
the Ayastefanos Agreement, Ottomans retook it back at the Berlin Conference.
However, the Berlin Treaty challenged all the actors of the city once
again. The sixty-first article stipulated “the improvements and reforms demanded
by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians”
414 which amounted to the internationalization of the Armenian Question
in the Ottoman Empire.415
Abdulhamid’s response to the internationalization of the Armenian Question,
which transformed the Armenian peasantry into a revolutionary movement,
was to create the Hamidiye Light Cavalry in 1890 drawn from selected
Kurdish tribes.416 The purpose was not only to provide border security but
also to prevent the development of revolutionary ideas among Armenians.
The Cavaliers repressed Armenian peasants, seized their properties, and
joined the massacres of Armenians in 1894-1896. Yet, it is important to note
the dislocating of the non-Muslim merchants and peasantry had started ten
years prior to the state's official response. One of the blind spots in Ottoman
historiography is the reaction of the local artisans and ulama coalition of Muslims
and even non-Muslims who did not enjoy the rising power of certain
actors in the cities. The war and the famine of the 1880s caused by the lack
of wheat and by war conditions provided the main legitimization of the
414 Jacob C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record (Princeton:
Van Nostrand, 1956), 190.
415 Owen Robert Miller, “Back to the Homeland (Tebi Yergir): or, how Peasants became Revolutionaries
in Muş” in Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 4, No.2
(November 2017): pp. 287-308. 288.
416 Janet Klein, The Margins of Empire, Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone, 4.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
160
actions against these actors. The Armenian revival in the Ottoman East that
started with the Crimean War had reached an end with another war; most of
them lost their influence in the society while Muslim notables now controlled
the new resources. This was the creation of a new, broader network of a coalition
between various, mostly Muslim dominated groups.
The famine of the 1880s is crucial to understand this transformation.
Compared to the previous famine that affected central Anatolia, the famine in
the 1880s was less harsh, but the eastern provinces of the Empire were affected
specifically. In addition, due to the workforce shortage, the dramatic
results of the war such as emigration and the collapse of the trade relations
between the cities, and the severe winter conditions, the food supply in those
cities sharply decreased. Although the local bureaucracy took measures rapidly,
providing food remained a challenge because of the undevelop infrastructural
power of the state in the region. A riot that targeted the provincial
council members in the Diyarbakır province in 1880 was a clear result of such
problems. The Muslim and non-Muslim community of Diyarbakır petitioned
the Imperial center and other influential seats of the city about the reason for
the food shortage which they faced:
To the attention of the Porte, to the attention of Russian, Prussian,
British, Italian, French and Austrian Consuls, to the attention of Armenian
and Greek Patriarchs, the Chief Rabbinate and the newspaper
Masis; All the food including wheat, sheep and our needs of subsistence
are seized by the forestallers such as Kazazyan Oseb from Mardin
and Çerçiszade Hacı Mehmed. Our people have fallen into misery
because of this. People who have cash cannot find provisions. People
who do not have cash are in utter destitution. The poor have applied
to the Vali Pasha and the council; no reply arrived yet! For God‟s
sake, either find a solution to relieve our people or allow for our immigration.
417
417 BOA. Y.A HUS. 164/122 4 Haziran 1296 (16 June 1880) quoted from Özge Ertem. See: Özge
Ertem, “Eating the Last Seed: Famine, Empire, Survival and Order in Ottoman Anatolia in
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
161
In her thought-provoking study, Ertem describes the disturbances in Diyarbakır
by focusing on the petition mentioned above as “a last attempt (of
the society) to attract the attention of authorities to the ongoing devastation
caused by high prices and scarcity of bread.”418 As I will explain in the next
chapter, the petitioning phase was the first attempt of the people to legitimize
their further movement before acting against the ‘established rule’. They petitioned
and defined certain people as ‘criminals’ because they decided to act
against these profiteers, as had happened in other regions for almost a century.
As mentioned in the petition, the community had also sent requests to the
governor of the province. In their petition, they blamed the members of the
advisory council, who were the contractors for the supply of bread in the city.
Therefore, the community asked for the removal of Kazazyan Efendi, Haci
Mehmed Efendi, Jerghis Agha, Minassian Ohannes Efendi, and others from
the council. The community did not stop at petitioning and attacked Kazazyan
Efendi, pelting him with stones and driving him to the bidayet court. His house
was also attacked, and the bazaar of the city was closed during the events.
The riot ended with the eliminating non-permanent members from the advisory
council, erasing their contracts of them for the supply of bread to the
province, and providing wheat for the people who suffered from the food
shortage and price inflation.419
A couple of months prior, British consuls and American missionaries
of the region had warned their governments about the increasing effects of
famine in the area. They had prepared reports for each city of the Ottoman
East in which the tension could be observed clearly. The report of an American
missionary of Mosul describes the famine in Mosul and towns around it.
the Late Ninetenth Century,” Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation in European University Insititute,
2012, 252.
418 Ibid., 253.
419 F.O. 424/107 Inclosure I in No:18 Acting Vice-Consul Barnham to Major Trotter. Diyarbakır
(June 19,1880), 18-22.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
162
He stated that Deyrez Zor lost half of the sheep and three-fourths of the cattle,
Nehrwan lost half of the sheep and cattle, Karatepe lost three-fourths of the
sheep and seven-eighths of the cattle, Kerkuk lost four-fifths of the sheep and
almost all cattle, and Mosul lost four-fifths of both animals. Moreover, 6000
people were living under famine conditions, and the number of deaths from
starvation was above 1,300, while it was above 1,500 in Erbil. More than
1,000 people lived under acute famine conditions, and 5 to 15 people were
starving every day. The prices of wheat were not very high compared to the
1873-75 famine of central Anatolia. It reached 3.5 piastres in some districts
while 8 piastres in other regions. The problem more critical than the price was
to find the bread at all.420
The situation in the province of Van was similar. A couple of months
prior, when the winter conditions sharply decreased food provision in the region,
British consuls wrote about the great distress caused by famine. Like in
Mosul, society complained about the interception of grains by a group of profiteers
before it could reach the public. Hence, surrounding the bakeries became
a daily routine of the people of Van.421 After a couple of months, other
reports came out mentioning that 138 people had died due to the famine in
Bashkale, one of the central districts of the city.422 Captain Everett added the
starvation of 109 people in the province of Erzurum to the toll in April
1880.423 In another report, he disclosed the total amount of grain in the province
and argued that if the situation did not change, the catastrophe of the
upcoming year would be as grave as had occurred in Kayseri in 1872.424 The
tables provided by Captain Everet were prepared for the governor of Erzurum.
420 F.O. 424/106 Inclosure in No:177 Diyarbakır, (April 17, 1880).
421 Ibid., Inclosure 1 in No:13 Captain Clayton to Major Trettor, Van, (November 15, 1879).
422 Ibid., Inclosure 3 in No:161 Captain Clayton to Major Trettor, Van, (March 17, 1880).
423 Ibid., Inclosure 3 in No:152 Captain Everet to Sir A.H.Layard, Erzeroum, (April 3, 1880).
424 Ibid., Inclosure 2 in No:171 Captain Everet to his Excellency the Governor-General Erzeroum,
Erzeroum, (April 16, 1880).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
163
More importantly, İstanbul's order was to distribute 500 somars of wheat in
Passin plain before the sowing season was to pass. On the last day of April,
while Captain Everet was criticizing the governor of Erzurum for not distributing
the relief on time, the Governor-General replied that he and the city
council were well aware of the catastrophe and that they would make every
effort to save people’s lives.425
Table 4.2.1.The Amount of Cereal in Erzurum (Somar: Approx. 307 kg)
Source: F.O. 424/106 Captain Everet to his Excellency the Governor-
General Erzeroum, Inclosure 2 in No:171 Erzeroum, the 16th of April,
1880.
425 Ibid., Inclosure 1 in no:182 Captain Everet to Major Tretter; Inclosure 2 in no:182 The Governor
General of Erzeroum to Captain Everett, Erzeroum, (April 30, 1880).
900
0
1440
300
1500
2500
1380
300 200
400
150
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Bayburt Erzincan Erzurum Hınıs Tercan Pasin Eleskird
Barley Wheat
MUSTAFA BATMAN
164
Table 4.2.2.The Distribution of Cereal in the Region
Source: F.O. 424/106 Captain Everet to his Excellency the Governor-General
Erzeroum, Inclosure 2 in No:171 Erzeroum, the 16th of April, 1880.
In such a situation, the life of urban poor in Erzurum was the poverty
in the midst of plenty because the urban poor were unable to pay the prices of
flour, which had accumulated in the hands of the speculators. For example,
according to Harry Lynch, who visited the province in 1898, the one kile of
the wheat cost 50 kurushes, and for an okka of bread, a person needed to pay
2 kurushes. He stated that the daily wage of a skilled laborer was 8 kurushes,
whereas hundreds of people were ready to work for 1.5 kurushes a day.426 For
this reason, between 1879 and 1893, the people of Erzurum faced with a food
shortage and price inflation. The state officials showed a serious effort to
solve the problems caused by the drought. The central government sent
60,000 kiles of wheat as a relief in 1893 through Trabzon port, and paid
300,000 kurushes for the transportation of 10,000 kiles of wheat from Diyarbakır.
A year prior, an investigation had concluded that at least 10,000 people
were living under conditions of starvation and the central government
426 Harry F. Lynch, Armenia: Travels and Studies II, 218. Quoted from Murat Küçükuğurlu, Erzurum
Belediye Tarihi 1 Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e (1866-1930) (İstanbul: Dergah Yayınları,
2008), 70.
2400 2500
2820
600
200
400
150
2400
200
839
0 2,8
2300
839
5
400
150
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Bayburt Erzincan Erzurum Hınıs Tercan Pasin Eleskird
Amount in Hand For the use of Troops Left for Sowing
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
165
organized the distribution of 1,000,000 kurushes of relief for these people.427
The central government also used the storehouses of the military to store the
relief material. The plan was to prevent profiteers from hoarding the relief
grain using their social and economic networks in the region. However, this
attempt did not effect to huge amounts. A petition sent from Erzurum mentioned
that the loss in the cereals reached more than 40% of the total amount.
Therefore, the Agricultural Bank was ordered to buy 200,000 kiles of wheat
to distribute as a relief.428 Living under the drought conditions had become
the daily reality of Erzurum for years. Although the harvest season was unusually
good in 1900,429 Mehmed Rauf Pasha described the situation as some
people having to feed themselves with grass due to the food shortage before
the harvest season.430
The effect of famine was even worse in Diyarbakır than Erzurum. According
to British observers, the causes of the catastrophe in the region were
seven:
1- The late war
2- The failure of harvest
3- The unsettled state of the country and raids of the Kurds
4- The call for arrears of taxes hitherto allowed to remain unpaid
5- The depreciation of the currency
6- The arrival of large bodies of destitute refugees from Lazistan, and
Circassians and others from Bulgaria and Roumelia431
427 Gül, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kuraklık ve Kıtlık (Erzurum Vilayeti Örneği: 1892-1893 ve 1906-
1908 Yılları),” 148. BOA.DH.MKT. 2054/58.
428 Ibid., 149. BOA. DH.MKT 2013/65.
429 F.O. 424/200 Inclosure in No:247 “Report on the Condition of the Vilayet of Erzurum During
the Quarter Ended” (September, 30 1900).
430 Muammer Demirel, Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid ile Erzurum Vilayeti Arasındaki Yazışmalar
(1894-1904), 179. “killet-i mahsulat ve fakr-u ihtiyacat mülabesesiyle bir kısım ahalinin
adeta ot yemekle sedirmek derecesine geldikleri halde…”
431 For example, The Illustrated Missionary News published an article on the arrival of emigrants
in 1879 and argued that more than 60,000 people, who were from lower and upper Adscharia,
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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7- The mismanagement of the grain stores by the local authorities.432
The Armenian question had developed within such a background. The
state's lack of infrastructural power allowed the development of another coalition
which controlled the relief works, and the grain distribution. They also
formed a relationship with the religious leaders of the regions. The artisan and
ulama coalition became the new central power of these regions. Other powerful
actors such as the Kurdish tribes and Circassian immigrants were often
blamed for plundering the Armenian villagers after the destructive effects of
the famine. One important example was the petition of the peasants from Van
province. They contacted the British consul who visited the region about their
misery by saying, “we do not wish to go into foreign country; we only ask for
a place within the Turkish Empire where we could find security of life, honor,
and property.”433 This was only a part of the subaltern's discursive strategy;
simultaneously, certain other Armenians signed a secret document to secure
Russian support against the looting of their properties in the region.434
When the ecological changes came on top international political problems,
the outcome became more pronounced. The result was the fight over a
piece of bread for a limited daily stay. In such a situation, the changing dynamics
of the state provided advantages for the Muslim artisans and the religious
leaders. The rising effect of Islamic discourse among the local bureaucracy
and the internationalization of the Armenian problem opened the way
for the handover of the power in city centers. While the local non-Muslims
lost their trade relations and profit-making jobs, Muslim artisans filled the
would be provided with land upon their arrival in the province of Erzurum, Van and Diyarbakır.
See: Illustrated Missionary News August 1, 1879, 91.
432 F.O. 424/106 No:186 Memorundum by Lord Tenterden on the Distress in Asiatic Turkey.
433 Ibid., Inclosure 2 in No:9 Armenians of Ardamed to Captain Clayton, Van (November 18,
1879).
434 Ibid., Inclosure 2 in No:13 Captain Clayton to Major Trotter, Van (November 22, 1879).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
167
gap. The Armenian uprisings in the regions and the Armenian massacres in
1894-1896 were deeply connected to this change. However, a more fateful
result of the famine was the creation of a collective memory; attitudes regarding
speculators, the ineffectiveness of the local bureaucracy, the deaths of
domestic animals, the war, the uprisings, and the starvation caused by the
drought, dramatically changed the character of the next generation. When
they felt a similar threat later, they had brought their collective memory to the
fore.
§ 4.3 Remember to Forget, Forget to Remember
During the eighteen months preceding the July 1908 Revolution, the
Ottoman population confronted a series of domestice and interna
tional economic crises. The crises began with a severe winter in early
1907 which raised the price of practically every comestible and made
“the existence of the laboring class very difficult.” By March, 1907,
the Istanbul price of meat and staples such as legumes were double
normal levels. Firewood was up up 250 per cent over normal and
charcoal had as much as tripled in price.435
After the dissolution of traditional actors in the region due to the reasons
mentioned above, Muslims became the real actors in the city’s social life.
However, with the rising of another crisis, society remembered what they experienced
in the previous years to create a discursive strategy to defend their
social positions and eliminate possible new agencies from arising in the region.
The drought between 1905 and 1908 triggered intolerable inflation in
wheat and flour prices. The area affected by the drought was limited.436 However,
the price inflation affected almost all the provinces. Although the total
435 Donald Quataert, “The Economic Climate of the ‘Young Turk Revolution’ in 1908,” in The
Journal of Modern History, vol. 51, No 3 (September 1979): 1149.
436 BOA. DH.MKT. 1194/01, 6. 25 Ağustos 1323 (September 7, 1907)
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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amount of flour and wheat sent to İstanbul was higher than the previous year,
there was a lack of products in the market. The problem was similar to the
earlier famines. The profiteers were not eager to sell their crops due to the
rumors about the price inflations and the drought in some cities.437
Table 4.3.1. The Amount of Wheat and Flour in Istanbul
:=,; (March-August) :=,1 (March-August) Deficit Surplus
Wheat Flour Wheat Flour Wheat Wheat Flour
Kg Kile Sack Kg Kile Sack Kile Kg Sack
, ./,.,/ :;,.0+ , :,,;+/ /1,:/1 /4,1+, , 4,,;+4 Provinces
4,;/;,:4;4 , :0,,==+ .,./+,+.=/ , 41;,;40 , :,1==,.4/: =+,;// From
Abroad
Source: BOA.DH.MKT.1194 / 01
Although İstanbul’s cereal need was provided by importing wheat and
flour, the drought conditions caused starvation in the Ottoman East. Even in
late 1908, the petition sent from Erzincan mentioned 32 people facing hunger
due to famine. That was followed by another petition stating that 7 people had
starved, and that peasants had begun to eat animal corpses due to the lack of
provisions in Hınıs.438 Under such conditions, famine and the associated price
inflation became part of society's daily agenda in the Ottoman East. Thus,
many petitions were sent to the government to ask for help and to criticize the
local profiteers. The Ministry of Foreign Office had been researching the
prices of wheat and flour in the foreign ports to find a solution for the price
inflation.
437 Ibid., 9.
438 Gül, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kuraklık ve Kıtlık (Erzurum Vilayeti Örneği: 1892-1893 ve 1906-
1908 Yılları),” 154; BOA. DH.MKT. 2770/102; BOA. DH.MKT. 2738/6.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
169
Table 4.3.2. Wheat and Flour Prices in the Bergos Porte
Wheat (Assumed to be 100 kg)
For Lira Frank Santim
57 22
58 22 35
58,5 22 20
59 22 30
59,5 22 40
60 22 50
61 22 70
Flour (100 kg sack)
1 A. Product 31 Frank 15 Santim
3 A. Product 30 Frank 25 Santim
5 A. Product 28 Frank 50 Santim
Flour (74.400 kg sack)
1 A. Product 23 Frank 20 Santim
3 A. Product 22 Frank 50 Santim
5 A. Product 21 Frank 20 Santim
Source: BOA. DH.MKT. 1194 / 01
More importantly, the problem was not limited to the province of Erzurum.
People in the other provinces applied to the local governors for the help
of the government as well. For instance, the governor of Trabzon and Sivas
asked about the possibility of the delay in the tax payment of the society and
the possibility of lending interest-free money to the people in late 1907.439
According to the British Consul, all prosperity depends on agriculture, and in
1904 the harvest was small and inadequate in Trabzon. For this reason, the
439 BOA. DH.MKT. 1194/01, 61-78-82. 25 Eylül 1323, (October 8, 1907).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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province’s revenues had decreased by 11 percent in a year.440 People in Bitlis
and Muş petitioned their government for the prohibition of crop exportation,
and they worked to control trade routes by attacking caravans that transferred
crop from Diyarbakır to Van.441 The governor of Mamuretü’l Aziz asked
about the possibility of sending 600 kiles* of wheat and 500 kiles* of bran
for the Çemişgezek district of Dersim and 100 kiles of grain and 50 kiles of
bran for just one village of Harput. He sent various petitions in the same week
to inform the central government about some other town’s needs as well.442
The drought and the associated food shortage caused price inflations in
1907, and the peasants of the region were very nervous about their future. As
the most obvious result of the food shortage, during the spring of 1907, hundreds
of the Armenian villagers from different districts of the province had
applied to the Russian consulate to migrate to Russia.443 The food shortage
was not the sole reason for this; the Armenians also blamed the Hamidian
Light Cavaliers and the Circassian emigrants who looted their properties as
the reason for their concern, but the drought was still the main reason for the
chaos in the region.444 The Russian Consul stated that at least 80,000 people
who were from the different districts of the eastern provinces had applied to
440 F.O. 424/208 Inclosure in No: 105 Summary of consular reports on the conditions prevailing
in the various Vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople, (December 5, 1905).
441 BOA. İ.DH. 1459/24, 1 Teşrinievvel 1323 (October 14, 1907).
442 BOA. DH.MKT. 1238/72, 1-11. 1 Teşrinievvel 1323-12 April 1324 (October 1907- April
1908).
443 During the last months of 1906, the Sultan issued an order to allow Armenians to emigrate to
Russia. Until this order, Emigration to United States was legal after an Armenian who wants
to leave the country pays all his debts and taxes, and renounces the Ottoman nationality. At
the end of the 1906, Armenians were allowed to emigrate to Russia on the same conditions
with America.
444 For the documents about these problems that continued until 1910, see: F.O. 195/2250 No:32.
382-385. (June 1907) From Mr. Shipley to the British Consulate in Istanbul; BOA. DH.MKT.
1194 / 01; BOA. DH.MKT. 1219/77, (the documents under BOA. DH.MKT. 1219/77 are
concerned with the same issue between 1908 and 1909.)
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
171
migrate. At the same time, the governor of Bitlis explained that the number
of petitions for immigration was around 100,000. All these problems caused
a remarkable decrease in the harvest of the year.445
The government refused many of the migration requests because the Armenian
peasantry was crucial for providing cereal in the region. Moreover,
Nuri Bey and the Envar-ı Şarkiyye newspaper defined those applications as
product of the relationship between the Russian consulate and the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation. According to them, the consul of the Russian Empire
motivated the Armenian peasants via the help of revolutionaries to increase
Russia's influence in the region. While the Russian consulates were
accepting the immigration requests, they were also assisting revolutionaries
in spreading their revolutionary bulletins to various parts of the Empire. The
government also accused the consulate of helping komitadjis and fedais to
enter the Empire, as had happened in the case of Hüseyin Tosun.446
445 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure I in No:51 Vice-Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor. Bitlis, (July 6
1907). Moumdjiyan argued that the immigration requests were the project of ARF. Although
there was evidence of the effect of ARF, the attacks of Hasananlı and Cebranlı tribes on the
Armenian peasants were among the more important reasons for emigration. See: BOA.
Y.PRK.UM. 79/97, 22 Nisan 1323 (May 5, 1907).
446 BOA. A.) MKT.MHM. 644/11. The document also contains the copies of Envar-ı Şarkiyye
Newspaper, and the telegraphs between Nuri Bey and The Ministry of Interior March 1907
and April 1907. In addition to these, Garabed Moumdjiyan argued the famous leader of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation namely Ruben Ter Minasian and Kevork Chavus were
the men who encouraged Armenian peasants to the ‘terk-i tabiyet’ in Bitlis. They got the
signs of hundreds of Armenian villagers to request the immigration. Both of the Brtish and
Ottoman archival sources also underlined the role of the Kevork Chavus and his fellows.
However, it is my contention that, focusing on the role of the revolutionaries could condemn
the ordinary Armenian villages to silence. In such a perspective, people cannot raise their
voice without the support of revolutionaries against the problems that they faced with in their
daily lives. See: Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime: Armenian-Young
Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,” 332; F.O. 424.215 51. Dickson to
O. Conor, Bitlis, (July 6, 1907); BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 2125/47-48.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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Despite the conceptualization of the problem as an agitators' movement,
the local governors aimed to save people from dying under famine conditions.
As the governor of Erzurum, Nuri Bey petitioned to ask for the possibility of
the prohibition of crop exportation from Erzurum. Besides, he also requested
more cereals from other provinces, such as Sivas, in the autumn of 1907.447
Indeed, the ban on crop exportation was widespread in the late Ottoman Empire
whenever the provinces faced climatic changes or a locust invasion that
ruined the year's harvest. Erzurum, for instance, succeeded in prohibiting the
exportation of cereal for the year 1906.448 However, the drought between
1906-1908 was much more destructive than in previous years. Even after Nuri
Bey, the new governor of Erzurum, Abdulvahhab Pasha prepared a list of total
amounts of crops needed in Bayburt, Kemah, Refahiye, Pülümür, Bayezid,
Pasinler, Tercan, Keskim, Hınıs, and Namervan in 1908.449
Another significant problem was the lack of infrastructural power in the
region. As American missionaries and the British consul in Van and Bitlis had
observed, although there was wheat in the country, it was impossible to
transport it to the center of Van due to the winter conditions. People had been
threatened by famine for years because roads were closed.450 The local governors
decided to distribute money for seeds, and missionaries organized relief
campaigns, but neither of them succeeded in finding a straightforward
solution to the destructive effect of famine in the provinces.451 Another issue
was the diminishing of the land under cultivation. Due to the actions of the
Hamidiye Light Cavalries, political chaos and anarchy were routine, and the
447 Ibid, 38.
448 BOA, İ.DH. 1458/10, 7. 27 Ağustos 1323 (September 9, 1907).
449 BOA.DH.MKT 1219/77, 1-24.
450 F.O. 424/208 No:38 Sir N. O’Conor to Marques of Lansdourne Constantinople (April 18,
1905).
451 F.O. 424/208 No:43 (also see No:45-46) Dr. Raynolds to Women’s Armenian Relief Fund
Van, (April 3, 1905).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
173
revolutionary movement of Armenians had been organizing the migration requests
of the Armenians. The Vice-Consul of Heathcote argued that “the distress
among the Armenian peasantry is greater than at any period for years
and that many villages will give greatly reduced crops, owing to the impossibility
of providing seed corn” in 1905.452 The missionary accounts supported
the argument as follows:
(Some) villages in the plains are in a desperately poor condition.
Sheikh Yakoob in the Bulanık- one of our stations is a fair sample.
There used to be 200 families now reduced to 80-100. (But the taxes
are as of old). Fifteen families left last year to go and live among the
Kurds. Others plan to do so this year. No crops were sowed the last
spring and none this autumn. The population is perhaps 600. The majority
of the people have not enough food to last more than a month.
The same tale is told wherever I go.453
The urban poor were distressed by the food shortage; they were afraid to
live under the conditions of the 1890s that had caused massive starvation. A
petition signed by the people of Kuruçay, a district of Erzurum, shows the
understanding of the situation in the city. This particular petition was signed
by the people of Kuruçay and two people who lived in Istanbul. These were
Ahmed, a porter in the Tophane port of Istanbul, and Suleyman, who has a
shop in Istanbul. It is possible to say that Ahmed could be responsible for
transporting the wheat in the district to Suleiman’s shop in Istanbul. Ahmed
and Suleyman could also be among the people who had more of an opportunity
to reach the central government compared to people in the village. Although
the motive behind the petition is not clear, it is obvious the drought
disrupted their network, and Ahmed began to criticize other merchants who
were hoarding the wheat in their storehouses due to the price inflation. He
argued that although they had been working far away from their family to
make money and pay their taxes on time for years, the people of their district
452 F.O. 424/208 No:66 Vice-Consul Heathcote to Sir N. O’Conor Bitlis, (June 27, 1905).
453 American Board office of the Treasurer Transfer 194 From H.E. Underwood to W.W. Peet
Trees, 55 Erzurum (February 28, 1905).
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were desperate for two reasons. First, they did not have enough wheat for
their daily stay. Second, if the government were to provide them relief in the
form of money or grain, these merchants would seize the product and would
refuse to sell.454 As a solution, he asked the possibility of distributing the
wheat already in the storehouses of the profiteers to the people of Kuruçay.
The petition had a discursive strategy similar to the petitions of the 1880s’
crises; aiming to force the state to be more active in preventing the price inflation
in cereals. Nuri Bey would focus on the same idea when seeking for
the Porte's help in October 1907.455 When the city faced the price inflation in
cereals after the villagers finished the harvest before October, the ordinary
people in the city showed their reaction. This reaction was different from the
attempts of Nuri Bey. While the villagers had been continuing to send petitions
to Nuri Bey to find a solution for the price inflation and food shortage,
many people in the city centers organized another series of protests. As distinct
from the previous attempts, the governor was not the direct target. Instead,
a group of people who were mainly of the urban poor targeted the merchants
among the townsmen. One of these townsmen was a well-known
merchant who was not in the coalition, and the urban poor criticized him for
being in control of all profiteering activities in the city.
§ 4.4 Defining the Limits of Powerholders: Third Protest Wave in
Erzurum in 1907
In 1907, Erzurum became notorious for ejecting two governors and many
local officers, including the military commanders and police officers within a
single year, as explained in chapter three. The moderate Nuri Bey had been
appointed as the new governor after the coalition of ulama and artisans
454 BOA. DH.MKT. 2669/16, 2 Teşrinisani 1322 (November 15, 1906).
455 BOA. DH.MKT. 1194/01, 36. 18 Eylül 1323 (October 1, 1907) “Mazallah-ı teali (1)308’de
olduğu gibi kaht-ı azimi vuku’uyla telef-i nüfus-u mucib olmamak için”
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
175
dislocated Ata Bey from the government office. Moreover, as the personal
income tax and domestic animal tax were abolished, a general amnesty covering
the events of 1906 was announced and therefore, the city was quiet.
Since Nuri Bey did not expect a protest movement of the coalition’s urban
poor, he refused the request for the prohibition of crop exportation without
the Irade of the Sultan by thundering ‘do not meddle in the government’s job!’
As a governor, he had shown tolerance towards many activities of the city’s
ulama and artisan coalition and their urban poor supporters. Yet, Nuri Bey’s
position on this issue was complicated by the fact that one of the most important
merchants of the city, Malyemezzade Tevfik, had become a scapegoat
for the coalition due to his role in the crop exports. Because of that, he did not
choose a side between the coalition and the rest of the city, and decided to
wait for the order of the Sublime Porte. Furthermore, he did not presume a
movement would be mounted against him or other merchants of the town by
the coalition because Malyemezzade Izzet was Tevfik’s brother and also one
of the prominent members of the coalition. However, the reaction to the food
shortage and the price inflation came from the urban poor of the city.
The urban poor took action when the governor refused their request. They
prepared another petition, which was signed by ulama and townsmen as well,
on the 8th of September, 1907, on Sunday. They requested the prohibition of
the cereal exportation and determining of the bread price by a committee. At
the same time, they decided to act against the profiteers and created a list of
their names. Malyemezzade Tevfik Efendi, Ohanyan Kirkor Efendi, Mustafa
Efendi, and Balasariyan Ohannes (Haço), the well-known banker of the city,
made it to this list. After a day, about 200 people met in the city center between
8:00 and 9:00 to organize a mob action against these people. First, they
went to the place of Malyemezzade Tevfik Efendi, but they failed to catch
him. Tevfik had found out about the mob earlier than the rest and managed
to escape to the military barrack. The crowd did not stop and targeted one of
the men of Malyemezzade Tevfik’s men instead, an Armenian Protestant
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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merchant, Ohanyan Kirkor. Kirkor was from the Kığı district, and he was
known in the city as the merchant who collected the cereals in order to sell
them in other provinces. The community found him in the city center. He was
accused of being a profiteer, and his crime was loudly proclaimed to him. The
crowd began to lynch him and dragged him to Tebrizkapı. Simultaneously,
some people in the group also captured Mustafa Efendi, who was another
merchant on their list. He was gravely wounded by the mob but managed to
escape with his life after the community left him for dead. Other merchants
who learned about the mob mobilizing against them, Balasariyan Ohannes
and Nemlizade Sabri fled the city when they heard of the events. Nevertheless,
the crowd also had plundered the houses of Balasariyan Ohannes.
During the mob action, many people had joined the crowd, prompting
Nuri Bey to inform the army commander. When the army commander of the
city, Colonel Mehmed Bey, and the vice-chief of the police went to the city
center, the crowd had reached around four thousand people. The urban poor
killed Ohanyan Kirkor in front of the eyes of Colonel Mehmed and the vicechief
of the police. According to the British Consul, when Colonel Mehmed
saw the scene, he said ‘İsh bitti. Gidelim!’ which means, “The deed is done.
Let’s go!”456 During the event, the community also wounded a student because
he went against the crowd by crying ‘Allah’dan korkmaz mısınız!’
which means ‘Do you have no fear of Allah!’. More importantly, as Zeki Pasha
stated, during the blood bath, many people warned the mob to cease their
activities, but they replied as ‘We will do whatever we want against the
456 F.O. 195/2251 No:58 and 59, 223-240 (September 11, 1907); Barutçuzade Şevki’s thought
were along the lines of the British Consul, implying Colonel Mehmed ordered the murder of
Ohanyan Kirkor. See: Göçgün, “II. Meşrutiyet’e Öncülük Eden Bir Hareket: Erzurum İhtilali
ve Ona Dair Bazı Belgeler,” 275: Türkdoğan, “1906-1907 Erzurum Hürriyet Ayaklanması III
505.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
177
profiteers because we applied to the governor Nuri Bey first.’457 The British
Consul Shipley explained the event in his report:
Mohamedans and Christians alike vouch for, and condemn, the dis
graceful conduct of Colonel Mehmet Bey, Commanding the 28th Regiment
– who is also Commandant de la Place (Merkez Commandan)-
and who witnessed the murder and is accused by some of having actually
given a signal for the final blow. Of the six or seven murderers,
it is common, and undisputed gossip in the town that, three are Hammals
employed at the Custom House and three are Coldjis in the ser
vice of Régie.458
Although both the Consular report and the memoir of Barutçuzade stated
that Colonel Mehmed ordered the crowd to kill Ohanyan Kirkor, it is also
possible that the Turkish words of Colonel Mehmed, which was “ish bitti,
gidelim!” were misinterpreted, because the sentence can also mean to “it’s
over, let’s go!” According to the Ottoman archival sources, Colonel Mehmed
did not give the order for the murder of profiteers with these words. Instead,
he stated that it was too late to save Ohanyan Kirkor; the crowd had already
killed him. Still, he was criticized for not sending a battalion to stop the
crowd.
When the protest started, Nuri Bey had sustained his moderate stance. He
informed Abuk Ahmed Pasha, one of the commanders in Erzurum, and waited
for the military officials to take action against the crowd. However, before the
military commander’s attempt, the community passed by three police stations
while insulting the profiteers. None of the police officers attempted to stop
the crowd. Furthermore, the military commander, Colonel Mehmed, did not
order the gendarmeries to reign in the movement. Instead, he went to the city
center along with the vice-chief of the police department to reason with the
457 BOA. İ.DH. 1458/10, 1-27. 27 Ağustos 1323-5 Eylül 1323 (September, 1907); See: F.O.
195/2251 No:58 and 59, 223-240. (September 11, 1907).
458 The name of the murderers were Yusuf, Rıza, Celil, Fazıl, Adil, Şükrü, Mehmed and Mehmed.
See: BOA. DH.TMIK.M. 270/71, 3. 20 Mayıs 1324 (June 2, 1908).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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crowd. The stances of the police officers and the gendarmes were criticized
in Nuri Bey’s report. He argued that because both were unwilling to stop the
chaos, the number of protesters had swollen to four or five thousand. This was
also why Ohanyan Kirkor was able to be murdered.459 The police and gendarmes
of Erzurum knew what had happened to the police officers during the
events in October 1906. It is possible to say that they were afraid of the crowd
because police officers who had attempted to exile the coalition members,
were killed in their own stations during the events of the prior year.
Moreover, the security forces and the governor, Nuri Bey, were well-informed
about what the former governors experienced when they ordered that
the protest wave in the city be brought under control. Hence, after he criticized
the stance of the military in the city, he kindly asked for the possibility of his
appointment to Kastamonu on the 10th of September, 1907. In other words,
he did not desire to experience the destiny of the former governors in Erzurum.
460 The Consul O’Conor described the position of the governor as follows:
Nouri Bey is an astute Cretan, and – as I have already had the honour
to report to your Excellency- his desire is to be transferred from
Erzeroum: and, until he can arrange this, I think the first consideration
with him is to avoid fiction with all parties and save himself from
worry and possible danger by a masterly inactivity.461
In his other criticism, Nuri Bey argued that the harvest season had not
started yet, and the reason for the panic in the city was the incitement of the
urban poor via the rumors. These led to the killing of Ohanyan Kirkor and
wounding of others on the list, and they also targeted many merchants and
millers of the city. Although there were ten thousand soldiers in the province,
the government faced mobs multiple times a year. He added that the most
459 BOA. İ.DH. 1458/10, 4. 28 Ağustos 1323 (September 10, 1907).
460 Ibid., 10. “Kastamonu vilayetine nakl-i memuriyet-i acizaneme delalet-i samiye-i
fehimanelerini istirham eylerim. Ferman.”
461 F.O. 195 / 2251 no: 58, 225. From O’Connor to the Mr. Wilkie Young (September 11, 1907).
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recent event did not directly target the government. Since the soldiers did not
attempt to secure order in the city, people creates mob whenever they desire
to show their problems. If the government did not manage to fix this problem,
neither the ordinary people nor the consulates of the city would be able to live
with a feeling of peace. Moreover, according to him, the next step would be
a revolt against the Armenians, which would be a cause for foreign power
intervention. Therefore, Nuri Bey concluded that a new commander who had
the capability to govern the soldiers under the command of Zeki Pasha should
be sent to Erzurum.462
Zeki Pasha, the most powerful military-based man who was responsible
for sending Colonel Mehmed to the city, rejected the claims of Nuri Bey directed
at the military forces in the city. He argued that because Nuri Bey gave
tolerated the coalition during his reign in the city, its power increased. Although
Nuri Bey argued that the committee that had organized the prior two
protests in the city had not join last protest,463 Zeki Pasha was disagreed with
him by arguing that governor indulged the coalition.464 Besides, Zeki Pasha
explained what the military commander did during the event step by step to
demonstrate the innocence of the security forces in the city. According to him,
during the event, the governor sent them a postman to ask for the help of the
military and police forces. After that, Colonel Mehmed Bey ordered the military
to prepare to defend the governor and his house because the protestors
had looted the governor’s house during the prior event. He also aimed to protect
the consulates, banks, and innocent people by ordering the gendarmes to
462 Ibid., 2. For the all critics of Nuri Bey, also see; BOA. BEO. 3178/238322, (9 Eylül 1323)
(September 22, 1907).
463 Ibid., 10. “İşbu şer zümre’i erazil arasında evvelki hadiseden zi-medhal olanlardan kimse
olmayub”
464 Ibid., 6. Also see: BOA.Y.MTV. 302/28, 2; BOA.Y.PRK.ASK. 250/89, 4-5; F.O. 195/2251
No: 58 From O’Connor to Mr. Wilkie Young (September 11, 1907).
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patrol in the city. Also, he protected Malyemezzade Tevfik Efendi in the
Firdevsoğlu barrack.
Zeki Pasha did accept, however, that the city's police and gendarmes did
not manage to provide order.465 According to him, the protestors were the
brainless people who had engaged in immoral behaviors in the city.466 Despite
the faults of the security forces, Zeki Pasha claimed that the mob was organized
because Nuri Bey failed to take action, despite a piece of information
emerging two months prior that pointed to the possibility of such an event.467
Pasha prepared another detailed report when the serasker Rıza Pasha criticized
him by arguing that the rebels had been able to increase their power
since 1906 because the military officials did not enforce order.468 In his report,
Zeki Pasha also mentioned that both Nazım Pasha and Ata Bey saved their
lives with the help of the military. In addition, during the latest event, the
military officials had concentrated on stopping the chaos. However, because
Nazım Pasha did not attempt to solve the problems of the people in Pasinler,
and because Ata Bey had ordered the exile of the influential people in the city,
protests were organized by the ordinary people of the city.469 Thus, according
to him, the governor’s attitude was the reasons of the movements.
The protestors, during those days, governed the city by oppressing the
merchants and townsmen. They stopped targeting people on the death list as
a result of pieces of advice given by the ulama, but they worked to control the
oil trade by menacing the oil traders. Moreover, they inhibited the trade of
cereals to Damascus and Aleppo by arguing that if they lost their cereals, the
price of cereals would rise to match the price of meat. They also forced the
465 Ibid., 7, 10, 14, 15.
466 Ibid., 8. “yağları dahi buradan ihraç etmemek için teşebbüsat ve müracaatde bulunan beyinsiz
bir takım.”
467 Ibid., 13.
468 BOA. Y. MTV. 302/79, 3. 6 Eylül 1323 (September 19, 1907).
469 BOA. Y.MTV. 302/152, 2. 15 Eylül 1323 (September 28, 1907)
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government to fix the price of the bread at forty to thirty para in depending
on its kind.470 According to the British consul, some of the protestors attempted
to extract money from certain people. Muhsin Efendi was one of
these who was targeted for a shakedown of 25 pounds, but he managed to get
out of it by giving 10 pounds.471 Besides, Zeki Pasha decreased the number
of the cavalry and infantry to appease the crowd at the behest of reaction of
Nuri Bey.472Amounting to a clear victory of the protestors, Nuri Bey sent an
order to the district of Pasinler to abolish cereal exportation due to the fear of
another bloodbath in the city.473
In short, it was obvious that for certain reasons, the civil and military authorities
were not acting in unison. However, both of them asserted that they
had petitioned İstanbul for instructions, and that they agreed that no steps
could be taken until the instructions arrived.474 The bureaucracy in İstanbul
criticized the attitudes of the civil and military authorities during the mob action.
According to them, the governor should have announced a state of emergency.
Then, he should have ordered the arrest of those responsible for the
event, and they should have been sent to the courthouse as soon as possible.
Both the governor and the military commander were criticized for labeling
each other as the reason for the event. According to the central bureaucracy,
that was unacceptable. As a rule of Ottoman governorship, during such
events, first of all, the government should take precautions through providing
order with the help of gendarmeries and police, but if facing a counter-attack
during the arrests of the responsible people, the governor should ask for the
help of the army. Hence, Nuri Bey was wrong in the eyes of İstanbul’s
470 Ibid., 11, 14. Also see: BOA. BEO. 3144/235764, 2-5; BOA. DH.TMIK. 254/4, 1-4.
471 F.O. 195/2251 No:61 225. From Milkie Young to O’Connor (September 22, 1907).
472 BOA. Y.MTV. 302/79, 2. 5 Eylül 1323 (Septermber 18, 1907).
473 Ibid., 12.
474 F.O. 195/2251 No:59, 240. From O’Connor to the Mr. Wilkie Young (September 15, 1907).
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bureaucracy because he had not taken necessary precautions before the
events. The military commander was also responsible for the emergence of
the mob because he did not organize the military forces as quickly as possible.
475 The bureaucrats also noticed that there was a sign of the ethnic clashes
between Armenians and Muslims in Erzurum because both the governor and
Zeki Pasha had provided information about the tension between these groups.
Hence, İstanbul ordered the city's military and civil bureaucrats to stop the
chaos in the city. Nevertheless, it was impossible to provide safety, as the
British Consul argued; “the civil authority would seem to be powerless, and
the military is in unquestionable sympathy with the bulk of the population.”476
While the bureaucrats in Istanbul focused on the issue, the head clerk
Tahsin Pasha wrote a letter to the Sultan and argued that the government
would replace Nuri Bey with an effective governor in a few days.477 Hence,
Nuri Bey was appointed as the governor of Ankara, while Reşad Bey, the
governor of Ankara, was planned to be sent to Erzurum on the 3rd of October.
478 Nuri Bey desired to leave the city as soon as possible after the decree,
but the government did not allow him to leave Erzurum before the arrival of
the new governor.479 The Sultan changed his mind a week later and chose
Abdulvahab Pasha as the new governor of Erzurum.480
4.4.1 Taking Back the Authority. Government in the Scene
Abdulvahhab Pasha took the governor’s seat in October 1907. Unlike the former
governor, Nuri Bey, he did not desire to solve the problems by tolerating
the committee. Instead, he created a two-stage plan to provide order in the
475 BOA. Y.A.RES. 149/78, 1-3. 1-3 Eylül 1323 (September, 14-16, 1907).
476 F.O. 195/2251 No: 58, 225. From O’Connor to the Mr. Wilkie Young (September 11, 1907).
477 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 515/43, 1. 6 Eylül 1323 (September 19, 1907).
478 BOA. BEO. 3161/237027, 20 Eylül 1323 (October 3, 1907); BOA. BEO 3160 / 236891
479 BOA. BEO. 3161/237034, 22 Eylül 1323 (October 5, 1907); BOA. DH.MKT. 1206/23; BOA.
BEO. 3165 /237375.
480 BOA. İ.HUS. 159/15, 1. 29 Eylül 1323 (October 12, 1907).
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city. In the first stage, he would declare a state of emergency in the city. Then,
he would arrest all the people who were active in the past events with the help
of the army. Yet, it was Ramadan when he arrived at Erzurum. Since he was
well-informed about what happened to Ata Bey when he attempted to exile
the leaders of the coalition during the previous Ramadan, he decided to wait
until the end of the month.481 During Ramadan, he made an investigation to
prepare a list of the coalition members.
After the Ramadan feast, Governor-General Abdulvahhab Pasha began
his job by ordering the cavalry and infantry troops to patrol the streets. Then,
he announced the state of emergency for the province of Erzurum in the second
week of November. Following his plan, the police and gendarmes of Erzurum
arrested a group of people who were active members of the committee.
They first arrested thirty-two men, seven of whom were the murderers of
Ohanyan Kirkor. The others were accused of organizing the last protest as
well on the 24th of November.482
During the investigation, the governor had invited many people to the
governor's house to prevent them from joining another protest meeting. In the
first wave, there were only two important people; the attorney Seyfullah
Efendi and the butcher Fehim Efendi of the committee. Others were mainly
related to the urban poor in the committee. A day later, Mezararkalı Mevlüd
was the targeted by the police officers. As one of the most important committee
members, he resisted the police and gendarmes using a gun. Unlike in the
previous events, the soldiers in Erzurum responded to the people who disobeyed
the orders. The soldiers surrounded the house of Mezararkalı Mevlüd,
481 BOA. Y. PRK.ASK. 250/89 Indeed, the government asked to wait until the end of the Ramadan.
482 BOA. DH.TMIK. 254/4, 7. 11 Teşrinisani 1323 (November 23, 1907); BOA.YPRK.UM.
80/85; BOA. DH.ŞFR. 390/08, 390/16; BOA. DH.ŞFR. 390/20; BOA. İ.HUS. 160/59, 12
Teşrinisani 1323 (November 24, 1907).
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and he was arrested along with his men. Other important members of the
committee, such as Faruk Bey, Uzun Osman Efendi, Hacı Akif Agha, Marancı
Abdullah, and Malyemezzade İzzet Bey, were also arrested by the security
forces on the 25th of November.483 The governor-general Abdulvahhab Pasha
broke the good news to İstanbul by sending another telegram which stated
that Hoca Şevket, Durak Bey, Kavutzade Hafız and his three men were also
arrested on the same day.484 Zeki Pasha added four other names, who were
Şamlızade Şeyh Ahmed, Tahsin Bey, Cemal, and Güli Ahmed Bey to the list
when he gave a detailed report about how the soldiers arrested these people.485
The British consul verified the names by sending a telegraph that explained
the jobs and offenses of the arrested people to the consulate in Istanbul.486
Most of the apprehended people were belong to the urban poor, shopkeepers,
ulama and artisans and all of them were jailed via the efforts of Governor-
General Abdulvahhab Pasha and Marshall Zeki Pasha. The expansion of the
investigation had started when Huseyin Tosun Bey was arrested due to the
483 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 390/ 09; BOA. DH.ŞFR. 390/20; BOA. DH.TMIK. 254 /4, 6. 12 Teşrinisani
1323 (November 25, 1907).
484 Ibid.; BOA.Y.A.HUS. 516/151, 12 Teşrinisani 1323 (November 25, 1907)
485 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 251/105, 13 Teşrinisani 1323 (November, 26, 1907). Kansu, 1908 Devrimi,
83-84.
486 F.O. 424/213 No:70 Shipley to O’Conor, (December 2, 1907). Among those arrested were
“..Seifullah Efendi: A wealthy and leading lawyer of Erzeroum; Hadji Shevket (from the
Ulema class): Alleged to have made violent attacks on the Government in the mosque during
Ramazan and of inciting the rebellion; Faroukh [Farouk] Bey: Formerly an army contractor
who was accused of being implicated in the murder of Kirkor Efendi, the details of which
were given by Mr. Young in his dispatch No. 58 of the 11th September last; Dourak Bey: A
member of the Erzeroum Municipality; (Uzun) Osman Efendi: Late Mudir of the Agricultural
Bank: Accused of want of respect towards the Government; Hadji Akif Efendi: Alleged to
have taken a leading part in the movement of last year; Sheikh Ahmed Efendi: A large exporter
of sheep and other domestic animals. Accusation against him similar to that against
Osman Efendi; Izzet Efendi: Accused of directly instigating murder of Kirkor and of desiring
to compass the death of his brother Tewfik Bey, the partner of Krikor. His (Izzet Efendi’s)
father is said to be the wealthiest man in Erzeroum.”
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use of a fake passport.487 Tosun confessed that he had bought a Russian passport
for 40 manats, which were equal to 480 Ottoman kurushes, from a Russian
citizen named Şeyhoglu Ali in Tbilisi.488 The government decided to
search for the relationship between the committee and Huseyin Tosun. Hence,
he stood trial with the committee.489 However, once the real identity of Tosun
was revealed, two problems emerged. First, the Russian consulate worked to
get involved in the case because Tosun had a Russian passport. Second, the
bureaucrats in Istanbul asked the governor to send Huseyin to Istanbul for
another case because Tosun was a well-known revolutionist who worked to
abolish the regime. In such a situation, the governor sent Huseyin Tosun to
Istanbul. Although the governor failed to shed light on the relationship between
the committee and the opposition movement, one example clarifies
both sides' position. During the trial in Erzurum, when Mezararkalı Mevlüd
saw Huseyin Tosun in a tortured state, he shouted ‘Vah zavallılar, sizi de mi
dövdüler?’ which means ‘poor fellows! did they beat you too?’ Mezararkalı
Mevlüd, as one of the leaders of the committee was surprised to see a
487 Almost all of the written sources (except Garabet Moumdjiyan) accepted Huseyin Tosun Bey
to be the most influential figure behind these protest movements based on the studies of Barutçuzade
Şevki Bey, and Mehmed Nusret Bey and Kazım Yurdalan. However, Huseyin Tosun
Bey did not succeeded in leading these movements. He came Erzurum to lead the opposition
movements via publishing bulletins and manifestos which he provided the distribution
of the bulletins in the spring of 1907. However, the opposition movement was not powerfull
in the city because three important names were previously exiled. The Committee was more
powerful than Tosun’s little movement. Hence, Tosun was not the person who led the committee,
rather he was the person who was allowed to work in Erzurum by the Committee
because of his initiatives that weakened the local government. For the documents about
Huseyin Tosun Bey, see, BOA. BEO.3227/241981; BOA. BEO. 3230/242179; BOA. BEO.
3230/242210; BOA. BEO. 3238/242782 27 Kanunievvel 1323 (January 9, 1908).
488 Ibid., 3.
489 BOA. BEO. 3230/242210, 21 Kanunievvel 1323 (January 3, 1908) “fesede-i saire ile muhakemesi
derdest bulunan malum Hüseyin’in…”
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revolutionist in the court.490 Apart from Huseyin Tosun, who was not an active
member of the committee, 90 people stood trial due for their crimes, which
were the disrupting the order by organizing committees against the Ottoman
Government, the incarceration and wounding of Ata Bey through attacking of
the former governor’s house, forcing the governor to sign a petition, killing
the police officers, attacking the house of Nuri Bey to force the government
to cancel the domestic animal tax and personal income tax, dragging across
the ground and murdering Ohanyan Kirkor, forcing some merchants to give
money to the committee, forcing the merchants to close the shops and threatening
the civil officials in Erzurum.491
According to the court's verdict, 69 people were found guilty, and 19 people
were acquitted in February 1908. The criminals were classified in accordance
with their involvements in the crimes. 8 people received the death penalty,
18 people received kalebend for life-sentence, 11 people received
kalebend for 15 years, 13 people received kalebend for 10 years, 1 person
received kalebend for 4 years, 1 person received hard labor (kürek) for 5
years, 3 people received imprisonment for 3 years, and 12 people received
imprisonment for a year.492
490 M. Nusret named Tosun as the person who got arrested during the investigation, Barutçuzade
Şevki Bey gave details about the trials although there was a validity problem with his memoir.
Ottoman, British and Russian archival sources also mentioned Tosun as a person who were
in the trial.
491 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 390/20, 14 Teşrinisani 1323 (November 27, 1907).
492 BOA. Y.A.HUS 518/25, 2. 28 Kanunisani 1323 (February 10, 1908). Although there were 69
people accepted to be criminals, Abdulvahhab Pasha provided the names of 65 criminals in
this document. He explains that the criminals whom the court sentenced the death were 6
people. I found two others’ name from another document in the Ottoman Archive. See: BOA.
DH.TMIK.M. 270/71, 3. However, two people’s name are still still missing. The important
one is the lack of Mufti Lütfullah Efendi on the list. Most probably, the Mufti lost his life or
was appointed to another city. Moreover, the Russian Consulate Skyrabin stated that there
were 92 people on trial and 8 people were sentenced to death. 19 people were acquitted.
However, the names whom Skyrabin mentioned were different from the names that were
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187
The court's decision resulted in the death of the coalition because the leaders
of the committee were sentenced to the kalebend for a lifetime. In addition,
the people who killed the police officers and the merchant, and wounded
the former governor were sentenced to death. The city’s population was unsatisfied
with the outcome of the court because the most important people of
Muslim society in Erzurum were losing their privileges. In addition, the people
who were of the ulama were also on the list of the court. Hoca Şevket
chose to flee the city instead of becoming a life-time kalebend. He had written
a farewell letter before he left the city.493 The Governor-General Abdulvahhab
Pasha did not succeed in getting the court to complete the trials speedily,
because many prisoners claimed that the police officers had tortured them
during interrogation. In addition, the crowd of Erzurum and the gendarmes
were opposed to the death sentences given to those of the urban poor in the
coalition. Hence, while the city’s ordinary people were organizing another
protest movement in the autumn of 1908, Abdulvahhab Pasha asked the Porte
about the possibility of changing his seat as had the former governor. Since
the 1908 revolution had opened a new era for the Ottoman society, the government
relocated him to the central office.494
These people would return to Erzurum via the new government's general
amnesty after the declaration of the Second Constitution in 1908. However,
they continued to send telegraphs about the torture that they faced during the
investigation. According to them, the former Governor-General Abdulvahhab
Pasha, the vice-chief of the police officers Celal Efendi, and the commissar
mentioned in the Ottoman archival sources. In addition to this, although Skyrabin mentioned
that Mezararkalı Mevlüd was killed during torture, he was alive and sentenced to life-time
kalebend by the result of the court. See, Kars, 1908 Devrimi’nin Halk Dinamiği, 144; Kansu
1908 Devrimi, 85-86.
493 BOA. Y.MTV. 308/35, 24 Mart 1324 (April 6, 1908). Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, 86.
494 BOA. BEO. 3373/252903, 25 Temmuz 1324 (August 7, 1908).
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Alaaddin Efendi were responsible for the torture during the investigation.495
Since the general amnesty included the alleged crimes of these people, the
government did not allow the court to open a case about the abuse of bureaucratic
power. However, the people had the right to apply the court for personal
action.496
495 BOA. DH.MKT 2824/85; BOA. DH.MKT 1281/50: BOA. DH.MUI. 41/2, Lef 23. 9 Nisan
1325 (April 22, 1909).
496 BOA. DH.MUİ. 41/2 Lef 23, 4-5. 9 Nisan 1325 (April 22, 1909).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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Figure 4.4.1. The List of Urban Coalition in the Court
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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§ 4.5 Conclusion
The most important result of the natural disaster was the creation of a new
generation who was very well informed about the effects of drought, food
shortage, and starvation via the oral tradition. As an invention of custom, people
knew that their shares of the cake would diminish sharply during a bad
season, and they had to defend their shares in the economy of the cities. The
lack of wheat caused by a dry season would cause a famine. An earthquake
could destroy the social and economic life of ordinary people. What they built
over the last fifty years could be demolished in a moment. In such contexts,
the society on the borderlands lived under extraordinary rules. When extraordinary
conditions became the norm for society, some of the agents sought to
maximize their own shares by eliminating others. The result was also the creation
of the new agencies as well, which would be able to organize public
opinion and act in the name of society.
When the Ottoman revolutionary movements such as the Committee of
Union and Progress and Armenian Revolutionary Federation had tried to play
this game, they had failed. The result was an increase in the power of the local
actors such as the artisans and the religious leaders owing to their two advantages.
First, they were local people who were very well informed about
the impacts of natural disasters in the frontier regions. For this reason, they
were the natural allies of the peasants and urban poor. This alliance did not
rule out conflicts within them, however. Second, while the revolutionaries
worked to create a conscious society for a structural change to take place in
the long dureé, they did not present themselves with their revolutionary identities.
Instead, they pretended to be an imam or an artisan and aimed to gain
the support of a religious leader. The result was the strengthening of the roles
of these groups rather than of revolutionary ideas. Hence, these agents were
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191
able to use their social capital during the natural disasters to prove their leadership
in the cities, make themselves the ally of the central authority, and negotiate
with the state by mobilizing resources to organize mass movements
based on the customs of the provinces.
Once a mob action was organized however, none of the actors could estimate
what would happen in the end. During famine conditions, the urban poor
within the coalitions had the power to dislocate all the networks. At this point,
the negotiation practice with the state changed. People chose to make their
daily lives extraordinary, and living under extraordinary conditions became
the norm for society, turning the social hierarchy upside down.497 To turn order
on its head also helped the ordinary people to claim agency in the governing
of their own city.
What happened in Erzurum in 1907 was very different than the two important
mass movements that had occurred in march and october 1906. Although
Abdulvahhab Pasha ordered to purge all the actors of the three events,
the mob action in 1907 was directly related to the price inflation, the attitudes
of profiteers, the food shortage, and the drought. The protests that were analyzed
in previous chapters provided inspiration for the society this time
around, because they had achieved to dislocate bureaucratic powerholders
twice within a year. However, as an agent of the history, the crowd aimed to
define the limits of the market economy and the limits of central bureaucracy
over their daily lives. They failed in the short dureé, but they won in the long
dureé by creating a horizontal centralization and making themselves the Empire's
partners in the provinces.
497 For a very well example of this: See; Zeinab Abul-Magd “Rebellion in the time of Cholera:
Failed Empire, Unfinished Nation in Egypt, 1840-1920” in Journal of World History, Vol.
21, No. 4 (December 2010): 691-719.
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193
5
Dynamics of Contention
The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the
‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the
exception but the rule. We must attain to a
conception of history that is in keeping with this
insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our
task to bring about a real state of emergency
– Walter Benjamin - On the Concept of History.
rotest meetings are generally accepted as the ‘weapons of the weak’
against the authority because the weak have the power to challenge
powerholders in extraordinary periods by upending the bureaucratic
hierarchy. People from different ethnic, cultural, and economic backgrounds
come together and raise their voices when authorities threaten them. During
the protests/riots, the ordinary people can voice various demands and employ
different tactics but as the most crucial part of the event, mounting together
opens the road for these people to realize their expectations. The Ottoman
Empire had faced many social protests at the beginning of the twentieth
century after the ordinary people faced the traumatic results of drought,
earthquake, famine, revolutionaries’ activities, and the heavy taxation in
Anatolia and the Balkan peninsula. While the ordinary people were fighting
P
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for their daily bread, the failure of the government to solve the problems
resulted in the protests and uprisings of thousands of people in the city
centers.
The protests that occurred throughout the Empire between 1906 and 1908
were well-known examples of these kinds of mass movements. My goal is to
analyze how urban society in the borderlands of the Ottoman Empire had
developed collective action to bargain with the state by focusing on their daily
activities during the riots. To present an example of the contention politics,
their first attempt was always to negotiate with the local governor and then
with the Sultan. Yet, their language against them was very different. While
they saw the provincial governors as the symbol of the maligned central government
in the region and for this reason did not hesitate to threaten him, they
behaved very respectfully towards the Sultan because he was the only ruler
who symbolized justice and was capable of making them the partner of the
Empire. Their second attempt was to acquire control of the city using three
different tactics. Those were, organizing the daily meetings in the city centers,
patrolling the city by creating protests meetings; bringing the city’s social and
economic life to a halt by closing all the shops, transforming sacred places
into prisons for local governors; using violence as a tool against the center’s
representatives through threatening their life, looting their possessions,
torching their houses and sometimes patrolling the city with their dead bodies.
It is my contention that each of these rituals and symbols should be clarified
carefully for two reasons. First, it helps us understand the demands and the
culture of Ottoman people in the provinces. Secondly, and more importantly,
it is the only way to identify the masses as the real agents in creating a collective
action.
The state-society relationship in the Ottoman Empire is a well-studied
subject. Historians have analyzed how the states controlled the crowds or how
the crowds acted against the Empire's policies in different eras by focusing on
the social, economic, and political changes of the specific moments in history.
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Some preferred to look from the center, by searching the ideas of the bureaucracy,
to analyze how this relationship emerged and developed. In contrast,
some others focused on the provinces by accepting the local actors as the history
makers, to stress how people dealt with the authority. This study, in this
sense, will be one of the examples belonging to the second group. Although
there were many thought-provoking works on the Ottoman subjects, historians
who studied the late 19th century did not focus sufficiently on the ordinary
Ottoman people as the history makers. Instead, Ottoman people became the
study subject for historians when they were relevant to agrarian studies, class
struggle, or revolutionary movements. In other words, many historians silenced
the ordinary people and made them into mere subject material for their
meta-narratives. In contrast, this chapter aims to clarify the ways that provincial
people spoke.
How did the reaction happen? The provinces' urban society employed certain
tactics from a list of various forms and contentious interaction in their
daily lives to negotiate with the state, as mentioned in the beginning. They
generally turned up the heat in situations where they failed to establish the
boundary of the power of the central administration. Although Ottoman civil
society in general was accustomed to various tactics, some of these were most
commonly employed in attempts in the eastern and western borderlands of
the empire during the protest waves in 1904-1908. In this chapter, I will
search for the collective practices of the Ottoman provincial communities during
the crisis. These practices provided them a way to become active participants
in the decision-making process in the provinces. 498
498 There are many important studies on Ottoman people’s participatory politics but among them,
Ali Yaycıoğlu’s crucial work provides a fresh look at the Ottoman historiography. See: Ali
Yaycıoğlu Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions.
118.
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§ 5.1 Petitioning the Sultan
O, Representatives of the Sublime!
Our beloved Sultan sent you here to relieve the tears, reinstate the
rights of 600,000 people, and mend their wounds. Here, you can find
our tears, the proofs of the governor’s un-justice acts, and of our injuries…
Our outcry will not end until you tend to our wounds.499
Petitioning the ruler, is not a practice foreign to the Ottomans. People had
been sending various types of requests to the rulers to get what they called
‘justice’ since the invention of the written forms.500 Petitioning practices created
a way for the ruled to reach the ‘just ruler’ and gave them an opportunity
to voice their daily issue. On the other hand, accepting petitions to hear the
commoners' complaints also provided the legitimacy of the ruler over the society.
It was a well-defined image making practice of the state for Abdulhamid
II to always order his particular officials to collect petitions from the people
after Friday prayer sermons.
Moreover, while opening the petition channel to the Palace directly, the
Sultan did not only give the people a right to bypass the local governors but
also created a way to double-check the attitudes of the actors who had power
in the provinces.501 For this reason, petitioning practices were very common
in Ottoman history.502 In some cases, petition holders had been punished by
the authorities, but that was generally seen as an affront to the idea of justice
499 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29, 4. 25 April 1322. (May 7, 1906).
500 Ben Bassat Petitioning the Sultan, 22. For a good examples of petitioning practices of various
groups in different places see: Halil İnalcık, Osmanlı’da Devlet Hukuk Adalet, (İstanbul: Eren
Yayınları, 2005), 49-57.
501 Lex Heerma van Voss, “Introduction, Petitions in History,” Special Issue of International
Review of Social History, 46, Supplemet 9 (2001): 4-5.
502 As an important example of petitioning practices in the late Ottoman Empire see; Çiğdem
Oğuz, Negotiating the Terms of Mercy: Petitions and Pardon Cases in the Hamidian Era
(İstanbul: Libra Kitapçılık, 2013).
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because collecting petitions symbolized listening to the problems of people
for the maintenance of the circle of justice. For instance, the grand vizier’s
order to execute two bakery-owners during a mass movement of shop owners
for petitioning the Sultan has been recognized as an unjust order by legal historians
because that attempt damaged the circle of justice.503 To historians,
petitions are also the sources that help them include the voice of the subaltern
in the center of their study rather than accepting ordinary people as mere objects
who were shaped by the policies from the top-down.504
However, uncritically accepting petitions as a direct source representing
the subaltern's voice cannot be valid without comparing them with other
sources. It was not easy to determine who was the real author of any particular
text in a society with a high rate of illiteracy.505 In such a situation, the religious
leaders, teachers, and middle-upper class of the community who were
capable of reading and writing became the natural leaders of the small societies
by providing writing service in a schematic manner. In time, writing petitions
became a professional occupation for the people who learned how to
read and write. However, most of the supplicants spoke from the bottom up506
by using the language of the top. For this reason, historians heard the speech
of the ruling class while searching for the voices of the subaltern, but by
‘reading the documents against the grain’ and adding the analysis of other
daily activities to these petitions, we can bring out and hear the true voices of
urban society.
503 Engin Deniz Akarlı, “Maslaha: From ‘Common Good to ‘Raison d’etat’ in the Experience of
Istanbul Artisans, 1730-1840.” in Hoca, Allame, Puits De Science: Essays in Honor of Kemal
Karpat (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2010), 96.
504 Yiğit Akın, “Reconsidering State, Party and Society in Early Republican Turkey: Politics of
Petitioning,” in International Journal of Middle East Studies, no.39 (2007): 437.
505 Van Voss, “Introduction, Petitions in History,” 8.
506 Andreas Würgler, “Voices from Among the ‘Silent Masses’: Humble Petitions and Social
Conflicts in Early Modern Central Euope” in IRHS 46 (2001): Supplement, 12.
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With the development of the telegraph system in the 19th century, while
the central government created an infrastructural tool to surveil the provinces,
the ordinary people in turn quickly learned how to get their voices heard by
the central government. In other words, the technological development intended
as means of surveilling the people opened the way for the commoners
to bargain with the states' internal colonization. As Ben Bassat stated, the
change in time-space also changed the Ottoman society. They were no longer
a reaya that literally means unspecified mass, but instead, they became teba’a,
which is basically people identified as the ruled by a ruler.507 The petitioning
practices of sending complaints to the center increased rapidly, although the
central bureaucracy had aimed for the opposite. In John Chalcraft's words, the
petitioning practices constituted a “sophisticated engagement and negotiation
with state practice and discourse.”508 As a result of this infrastructural development,
petitioning was accepted as one of the Ottoman society's legal rights
of Ottoman society in the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire in 1876.509
Furthermore, sending petitions to the Imperial center in the late 19th century
did not only imply an engagement and negotiation with the state, but also
clarified the power holders in the provinces because the urban elite was also
promoting their influences in the city centers by sending petitions. For this
507 Yuval Ben Bassat, “Mass Petitions as A Way to Evaluate ‘Public Opinion’ in the late nineteenth-
century Ottoman Empire? The case of internat strife among Gaza’s elite” in Turkish
Historical Review 4 (2013): 139.
508 John Chalcraft, “Engaging the State: Peasants and Petitions in Egypt on the Eve of Colonial
Rule,” in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 37 (2005): 304. Despite not being
directly related to the petitioning practices, I would like to mention a rather fruitful study of
discursive resistance of Ottoman subalterns by formulating complaints: Milen Petrov, “Everyday
forms of compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864-1868,” in
Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 46, no: 4 (Oct, 2004): 730-759.
509 Article 14 in 1876 Kanun-i Esasi “Tebaa-i Osmaniye’den bir veya bir kaç kişinin gerek
şahıslarına ve gerek umuma müteallik olan kavanin ve nizamata muhalif gördükleri bir maddeden
dolayı işin merciine arzuhal verdikleri gibi meclis-i umumiye dahi müddei sıfat ile
imzalı arzuhal vermeğe ve memurinin ef’alinden iştikâye selâhiyetleri vardır.”
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reason, the practices of petitioning provided a glimpse into the main forces in
the cities, and their ties with the others, their trends, and expectations for the
future.510 In conclusion, As Yuval Ben Bassat wrote, “to a great extent petitioning
became a tool in the hands of the urban population to conduct its affairs
with the government and negotiate with it, convey messages, and leverage
its interests.”511
The petitions sent from the eastern borderland of the Ottoman Empire
during the crisis were examples of such ideological views. Who were sending
the petitions? How did they define what they fought for? How did they behave
after sending a petition? In what ways, did they gain a right to speak in the
name of the population? The answers to these questions shed light on the
power relations and the anatomy of a series of protests in the early 20th century.
Petitions were the first method of the Ottoman provincial people for communicating
their grievances to the governors. The developing sophisticated
engagement with the state always started by sending petitions because the
people of the provinces were very conscious of their legitimate limits. This
conscious preference did not change even in the time of the crises. For instance,
during the mass deportation and killing of Armenians between 1894-
1896, the Ottoman Armenian community of the Ottoman East used petitions
very actively. For instance, 1250 Armenians from the Kığı district of Erzurum
who had been living in Istanbul during the 1894-1896 crisis were expelled
from the city. Those people who managed to return Kığı were about 850, and
they sent petitions to the governor of Erzurum to get permission to return to
510 The petitions of Bedirhan Bey, who was exiled from Diyarbakır to Edirne, were among the
well-known examples of the petitioning practices of urban elites. See: Uğur Bayraktar, “Yurtluk-
Ocaklıks: Land, Politics of Notables and Society in Ottoman Kurdistan, 1820-1890,”
222-223.
511 Yuval Ben Bassat, “Mass Petitions as A Way to Evaluate ‘Public Opinion’ in the late nineteenth-
century Ottoman Empire? The case of internat strife among Gaza’s elite” 140.
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İstanbul or to go to İzmir because the mass violence in their district caused a
lack of security and employemnt in the district. As the British Consul argued,
300 of them achieved to get such permission after the petitioning practices.512
In another examples, the people of Livane fought for their land that was occupied
by Russia after the war. The villagers requested of the Sublime Porte
by sending petitions to defend their rights because Russian authorities had not
been permitting them to access their grassland, claiming the new frontier ran
between their houses and their grassland.513
Sending a petition was not only the communication method of the ordinary
people. All people from all sectors of the bureaucracy and military also
used it effectively. One of the most important examples was soldiers' petitions
asking for the payment of their salaries.514 There was also the fascinating petitions
of peasants addressed to foreign consulates asking the help of the Refugee
Committee during extreme conditions such as famines. In one example,
Tahir, as the representatives of Muslims in the Dumanli village of Koyuntepe
district in Filibe, asked for the help of Mr. President because they were living
under a very miserable conditions, without food and clothes. Twenty-six petitions
were sent by Muslims of the various villages of Filibe to the Central
Refugee Relief Committee in January 1880, when the clashes between the
multiple groups caused massive starvation in the region.515 In another
512 F.O. 424/196 No 27 Consul Grated to Sir P. Currie Erzeroum (April 7, 1898).
513 BOA. HR. SYS. 1342/93, (February 10.1894).
514 Efrad-ı mustebdele is a term that referred the people who served as a part of the army and
returned to their districts. These people sent many petitions to claim their payment or to ask
forgiveness for their borrow to the state. They also raised mobs in Beirut, Bayburt, Mosul
and the province of Kosovo. As an example of a petition of efrad-ı mustebdele, see; BOA.
TFR.I KV. 77/7666, 18 Teşrinisani 1322 (December 1, 1906).
515 F.O. 424/95 No:232 Mr. Mitchell to the Marquis of Salisbury (February 6, 1880). One of the
26 examples:
“Inclosue 1 in No. 232. Petition from the Village of Eyriler
Mr. Le President.
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example, 9,780 villagers from various villages of Mush petitioned the British
Consulate to find an end to the cruelty against them and corruption in the
region.516
Despite sending a petition to a foreign representative or foreign institutions
being common, İstanbul did not look favorably upon such petitioning
practices and kinds of attitude implied society had developed its own understanding
of who the real power holders were in the region. Petitioning a foreign
consulate instead of making demands of the Porte, came to be interpreted
as an attempt to stir the chaos. In one example, the people of Trabzon’s Of
district chose a representative whose name was Saatçi İsmail Kemal to become
their voice in their fight with the tax collector Hafız Mesud Efendi in
1893. İsmail Kemal petitioned various ministries demanding they put an end
to the oppressive attitudes of Hafız Mesud Efendi. However, when the state
bureaucrats investigated the issue, they also decided to exile İsmail Kemal for
also sending petitions to the German consular.517
Nous Soussignés, habitant Musulmans du village de Eyriler, district de Conoushe relevant du
départment de Philippopoli, avons l’honnuur de porter a votre connaissance ce qui suit:-
Nous sommes 230 families composées de 836 personnes, adlutes et enfants.
Toutes nos maisons sont en ruines et nous demeurons sous des hangars et dans des huttes.
Nos compatriotes Musulmans se trouvent reduits dans une trés-grande misére a cause du
manque de nourriture et de véetements; derniéerement nous avons eu plus de vingt-deux personnes
mortes de faim, et vous pouvez vous informer ne notre état en envoyant quelqu’un
pour examiner notre situation. Si avant peu nous ne recevouns pas de secours nous mourrons
tous.
Nous vous exposons, M. Le Président, notre malheuruse situation, confiant que vous viendres
a notre aide. Car autrement deuz ou trois jours nous serons tous perdus.
En attendant vos orders, veuillez. Les representants Musulmans du village Eyriler, Iman,
Mouhtar, Rachid, Mahmoud, Hassan, Ali Tchaouch, Mahmoud Hodja, Nassouhoglou Ali,
516 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No:95 Vice Consul Heard to Sir N. O’Conor Bitlis. (August 16,
1907).
517 The clash between the tax collector, the district governor and the people in Of was among the
well known examples of the taxation problems in the late 19th century. For more information,
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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A typical petition starts with common praise for the Sultan like most Ottoman
archival sources addressed to the Palace. Then it explains the problems
of the petitioner and the demands from the ruler. These Petitions were sent to
the Sultan despite there are not being any proof that Sultan actually read them.
Hence, the writers follow a schema in which they start with the praise, continue
with the explanation of the problems and accusation against certain
people, and end with requesting a solution from the top. If the document was
not an arz-ı hal but a mahzar, the writers generally chose to explain their demands
instead of following a schema. A petition could be written for any purpose,
such as for criticizing a district governor,518 for finding a solution between
a company and the merchants in conflict,519 for threatening the
authorities, for forgiveness for the tax payment520 or for resolving the property
dispute cases.521 If the local governors were deemed able to solve the problems,
most of the petitions would be sent to them before the Sultan. In other
words, petitions sent to the local governors were the legalized way to of rejecting
the governance of the local bureaucracy when the district governors
failed to find a peaceful way to solve the daily problems of the petitioners. In
one of the examples, the Muslim and non-muslim community of Diyarbakır
jointly petitioned the Palace about the attitudes of black marketeers whose
names were Kazazyan and Hacı Mehmed. They argued that these people and
their fellows collected all the daily stay of the people such as corn and oil.
They could not procedure food even when they had money, and the local
see: Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli Osmanlı’da vergi, siyaset, Toplumsal Adalet p.
107-112..
518 BOA. DH.MKT. 1284-89, 13 Ağustos 1324, (August 26, 1908).
519 BOA. BEO. 3384/ 253731, 12 Kanunisani 1324 (January 25, 1909).
520 BOA. TFR.I.ŞKT. 75/7466, 12 Teşrinisani 1321 (November 25, 1905).
521 BOA. HR.SYS. 1342/93, 29 Kanunisani 1309 (February 10, 1894).
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governors had not attempted to solve the problem despite they sent petitions.
They kindly requested a solution or permission to migrate from Diyarbakır.522
Before the mass protests took place in Erzurum, peasants of Pasinler sent
petitions to explain their daily problems that caused a decrease in the harvest
of the crop. Then, they kindly asked for the postponement of the tax collection.
At the same time, from the northern part of the province, the Mufti of
Kiskim (Yusufeli) had been criticizing the corruption and cruelty of their district
governor in his petition sent in the name of the people.523 As an unwritten
rule of the petitioning practices, the demands were addressed to the provincial
governors prior the Imperial Porte. For this reason, the well-known people of
Erzurum’s society had also sent a petition to the governor of Erzurum before
the tax collection. As argued above, tax collection issue was an arena of contestation
where the various agencies demonstrated their influence in the time
of the crisis. In this arena, the religious leaders, the artisans, and the mayor of
the city played crucial roles because they were the natural representatives of
society. On the other side, the governor and other people who had been appointed
to the bureaucratic positions represented the state. The society was
not only giving consents to the well-known people of the city, but they also
played an active role by sending petitions in private capacity and by helping
the representatives. It is essential to note however, that the ordinary people of
the city were the people who were affected most yet who also won least during
these negotiating practices.
Despite what the society gained by petitioning the Sultan being unclear,
the representatives had never given up sending petitions during the crisis because
petitioning was the legitimate way of showing maslaha for the commoners
against the state. Thus, the petitioners used flawless and well
522 Özge Ertem, “Fiyatı Alidir!, Diyarbakır’da Kıtlık Yokluk ve Şiddet, 1879-1901” in Diyarbakır
Tebliğleri, Diyarbakır ve Çevresi Toplumsal ve Ekonomik Tarihi Konferansı ed. by Bülent
Doğan, (İstanbul: HDV Yayınları, 2013), 74.
523 BOA. DH.ŞFR. 366/120, 23 Haziran 1322 (July 6, 1906).
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organized language against the regime as petitioning practices were the strategic
manipulation of the society with respect to the common good. By forming
this discourse, the protestors responded to the position of the state apparatus
who defined them as fitne-i fesad as they in turn described the attitudes
of the state bureaucracy or the tax collector as the source of the zulm. In such
context, as Heather Ferguson stated, “justice was a hybrid and fluid category”
524 where the various power holders contested to claim their action as
the necessary attempt to recreate justice in the face of disorder.
The language of the petitions was determined within this contestation. In
the following example, the artisan of Erzurum, Hacı Emin the ulama, Hacı
Şevki and Şaban as the representatives of the people, along with 98 others
signed a petition wherein they argued for their rejection to pay taxes due to
the decrease of their income by focusing on the natural disasters and the war
with Russia. At the same time, they insisted that their action would not call
into question their loyalty to the Sultan;
Our city was demolished by two earthquakes that decreased our income
sharply, we had also lost 900 people from Erzurum whose people
were always ready to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the Ottomans,
and their beloved Sultan. We attempted to reject tax payment
because we have nothing other than our shirts to pay taxes with. Since
we are loyal to the Sultan, we could pay, but then we would have to
ask for the subsistence.525
The discourse of such petitions symbolized a well-organized conceptualization
of society’s custom because while the government was blamed for not
resolving the problem of the city, the petitioners had never been tried to use
offensive language. Instead, they used petitions to legitimize their actions by
524 In her thought-provoking study, Heather Ferguson brought to light how the textual forms and
their discourse as an archiving apparatus became the source of the Ottoman Sovereignty. This
study conceptualizes the petitioning practices in the same way as Ferguson. See: Heather
Ferguson, Proper Order of Things, Language, Power, and Law in Ottoman Administrative
Discourses.
525 BOA. BEO. 2787/209012, 2. 16 Mart 1322 (March 29, 1906).
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depending on the justice and custom of society. This was not the only way.
Another way was the use of Islamic discourse. The Mufti of Erzurum stated
as follows:
We never thought to threaten the security in the city. We went to the
telegraph office because it was the place where the people could send
their request to the Sultan. However, the governor oppressed the people
of the city and forced us to close our shops by ordering the use of
a deadly force in the form of firearms on the 28th of March. We risked
of our lives to protect the law, the orders of the Quran, and the glory
of the Ottoman Empire. We are sixty-thousand of people from twentyfive
to seventy-five years old, and we all believe that we are innocent.
526
The Islamic character of their reaction in the petitions was twofold: First,
it was a political discourse geared towards Sultan Abdulhamid II's conservative
regime. The society of the frontiers knew how they affected the Sultan,
its bureaucracy, and public opinion. The references to the Quran and the hadith
literature symbolized the weapons of the petitioners in that contested area.
Second, the petitioners depended on the concept of maslaha as a custom of
the society. They conceptualized maslaha as a reason to put up a fight for the
common good.
Another tactic for framing state actions as disorder (zulm, gayr-i hakkaniyet,
or gayr-i ahlak) was to focus on the relationship between the powerholders
and the district governors. The Greek society of the Katrin district in Salonika
sent a well-organized petition to the inspector of Rumelia in November
1905. They stated that despite the fact that they had asked for the forgiveness
for the tax payment because their income was only sufficient for the subsistence,
the district governors had demanded them to pay more than rich people
who had çiftliks in Katrin.
The government levied 400 kurushes income tax which was the same
amount demanded of us, for Suleyman Efendi who has three çiftliks,
Tahir Agha, who was the father in law of the kaimakam and had three
or four ciftliks and many shops in Katrin, Fazıl Bey and another fellow
526 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 238/18, 22 Mart 1322 (April 4, 1906).
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who also had a huge amount of income and a number of çiftliks. After
they requested forgiveness for tax payment, the district governor decreased
their amount due from 400 to 70 kurushes. However, our similar
request was not accepted by the same authorities. We kindly request
to that justice is recovered in respect to the maslaha.527
The non-Muslim community of the Empire had also depended on the
maslaha. The crucial point was that the discourse on maslaha was not fueled
by Islamic tradition but by class differences, corruption of the district governors,
and the unequal application of law to different classes which became a
source of disorder. Through creating that discourse, the Rum society of Katrin
proclaimed the bureaucracy and the power holders as the source of the corruption
and destruction of maslaha as that took place during the reactions
against Tanzimat reforms. In that sense, petitioning practice were another crucial
element that allowed people to claim defending their customs was for the
glory of the Ottoman rule.
Such various discourses in petitions were not only the beginning of the
contestation between different actors of the provinces but also symbolized the
dynamism of the various actors because the discourse had been determined
by the reactions of the other power holders. Hence, petitioning practices cannot
be conceptualized as merely a stepping stone towards more advanced
forms of negotiating with the state. It was the overture of a repertoire of negotiation,
but during the evolution of such negotiations, while the agencies
developed this repertoire, they never give up sending petitions because it was
the best way to defend their actions in a legitimate manner.
527 BOA. TFR.I.SKT. 75/7450, 1. 9 Teşrinisani 1321 (November 22, 1905).
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§ 5.2 Organizing Mass Meetings
Power springs up whenever people get together and act in concert, but
it derives its legitimacy from the initial getting together rather than
from any action that then may follow528
On the 15th of July 2016, a failed coup attempt took place in Turkey. One
of the government's most important reactions to suppress the coup attempt
was reviving a certain tradition: using Imams to call people to action from
minarets against the coup.529 People were called to the city centers by President
Erdoğan. Then, all Imams in the country called on people to rally at the
city-centers in an Islamic way: First, they recite an Islamic invocation known
as sela, and then summoned people to the city centers in accordance with the
call of the president. It was resource mobilization process for a social movement
aiming to suppress the coup attempt. For the majority of society, the
more significant trigger for mobilization was the actual symbolic moment in
which people decided to defend their rights. Erdoğan’s speech and the sela
became the motivation of conservatives in Turkey to suppress another socalled
Islamic coup attempt. During the Gezi movement in 2013, millions had
mobilized after watching a group of people's fights to save a park from a government
which decided to destroy one of the well-known parks in the city
center. For the Arab Spring, the trigger was a moment in which millions of
Tunisians watched a peddler self-immolate. Public opinion can be mobilized
by such activities as well as by symbolic actions. The most significant element
in all these examples was the occupation of the specific places, mainly city
centers, by the protestors. As David Harvey pointed out, it was the refilling
528 Hannah Arendt On Violence (San Diego, New York, London: HBJ Book 1969), 52.
529 There are many studies that argue the importance of mosques and minarets as well as the
ulamas and imams during the social movements in the Middle East. For one example: see;
Sami Zubaida, “Urban Social Movements 1750-1950,” 236.
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of the most significant places of the state authority in the cities, transforming
them into political spaces for the common.530
The capture of the city centers through mass mobilizations was not a new
phenomenon. Like petitioning practices, it was common for the people of various
empires. Mass mobilization, in that sense, does not only refer to protests
against the authorities. It can be brought about in various ways, such as protests,
festivals, celebrations, mourning, etc. These different ways of capturing
the city centers bestowed people with new agencies because they could now
decide on the roles of the various classes within the society. As Natalie Davis
pointed out;
The festivals as practices in the Late Middle Ages and early modern
Europe involved a double inversion. There was topsy-turvy within the
community: men cross-dressed as women and women as men; students
cross-dressed as their rabbinical teachers; and parodies were
written of Esther and other biblical and talmudic text.531
The protest is only one example of this kind of discursive strategy of the
people, who protested in various ways. Some create hidden transcripts such
as by playing dumb, performing tasks in a very shoddy way, while others
define the street as a contested arena between them and the rivals.532 Organizing
mass movements was one of the most effective forms of contentious
politics of Ottoman society during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II. As Natalie
Davis has shown, the broader effect of mass meetings was the novel determination
of the power during the protest because it provided the upsidedown
inversion of the social hierarchy in the spaces, as in the festival times
530 James C. Scott, Tahakküm ve Direniş Sanatları Gizli Senaryolar, trans. by. Alev Türker, İstanbul:
Ayrıntı Yayınları, 1995), 74-75. David Harvey, Asi Şehirler: Şehir Hakkından Kentsel
Devrime Doğru, transl. by. Ayşe Deniz Temiz, (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2013), 223.
531 Natalie Zemon Davis “Rabelais among the Censors (1940s, 1540s)” in Representations,
No.32 (Autumn, 1990): 1-32.
532 James M. Jasper, Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2014), 57-62.
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of early modern Europe. Through patrolling the city centers, protestors
proved their leading position in the cities. Therefore, demonstrations became
the symbols of the extra-ordinary conditions in the Ottoman frontiers. People
mobilized themselves under the leadership of district leaders such as Imam
and mukhtars.533
The difference between societies’ behavior in the late 19th century vs the
period of 17th to 19th centuries was the importing of negotiation practices to
the provinces of the Empire. In other words, what many social scientists studied
regarding relations of various dynamics in İstanbul for the early modern
and modern period had now extended to the areas distant from the center.
Indeed, the cycle of protest was not a new phenomenon for the societies of
the distant regions, but the form of the protest became more similar to the
reaction of the urbanites in the cities close to the Sublime Porte. Amina
Elbendary pointed out that the creation of a demonstration in the urban centers
was a mirror to understand the imagination of social order in the eyes of the
various actors.534 It is also important to note that the fight for the traditional
rights of the society was also common in medieval times, as Elbendary noted.
A demonstration generally happened as an unorganized, simultaneous initiative
of the crowds, but it was transformed into an organized movement in
a very short period of time. The catalyst of such a quick changes were not the
powers who mobilized the resources but the attendees who knew the power
of organized movement and who became eager to act under the leadership of
their natural leaders. The demonstrations rarely began as organized, well-prepared
movements. In such examples, the state officials managed to stop the
533 Ferdan Ergut “Surveillance and the transformaion of public sphere in the Ottoman Empire”
in METU Studies in Development 34, (2007): 178. Ergut clarified the roles of the Imams and
muktars as “the people who were responsible for organizing the community for maintaining
order.” However, these people were also responsible to be the voices of the society against
the order.
534 Amina Elbendary, Crowds and Sultans. Urban Protest in Late Medieval Egypt and Syria
(Cairo, New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2015), 157.
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disturbances by dislocating the power of the crowd. The Kumkapı demonstration
and the Sublime Porte demonstration of the Ottoman Armenians were
among such well-known examples. In both cases, the Sublime Porte was wellinformed
that mass meetings were being organized by the revolutionary powers,
and therefore the Sublime Porte was ready to surveil and to suppress the
crowds. In another example, the district governor of Yenipazar in the Kosovo
province sent a telegraph to inspector Şemsi Pasha to inform that people were
gathering in the district center to protest against the personal income tax and
domestic animal tax, and the expectation was that they would capture the telegraph
office in an hour. The district governor was well aware of the possible
outcome of the mass meetings, and for this reason, he was aiming to learn
how to deal with this before the possible seizing of the telegraph office.535
Şemsi Pasha replied quickly by arguing that if the government accepted the
demands of the masses, it could serve as a motivation for all the people in the
Empire to refuse tax payment.
Nevertheless, in general, the mass meetings or demonstrations were the
reactions of the people as they were simultaneously petitioning the Sultan. As
a testament to the power of the demonstrations, the Sublime Porte generally
learned of the demonstration against the order by the petitions of the protestors
themselves. Even in the case of the Yenipazar, the local officers were
criticized because they were not aware of the meeting being organized until
the bazaar had been shut down and the urban people invited the peasants to
the city center.536
The triggering causes of demonstrations were various, but in most of the
cases, a rumor was enough to mobilize people. The mobilization process
would start in the different districts of the cities and would aim to conquer the
city-centers. Protestors always sought to show themselves in front of the two
535 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/153880, 87. 28 Kanunisani 1322 (February 10, 1907).
536 Ibid., 83. 28 Kanunisani 1322 (February 10, 1907).
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important places in the city. These were the telegraph office and the governor’s
office. The goal was twofold. First, protestors demonstrated their power
of control to the urban society and officials through seizing the telegraph office
and capturing the space around it. It is important to note that telegraph
offices were generally erected in the centers of the cities. Hence, demonstrations
happened during the negotiation phase. Second, during these negotiations,
the governor’s office was always under the pressure of the society because
when the people began gathering together around the critical places, it
also implied that the hope to solve the problems through negotiating with the
urban governors had reached a dead. During most of the demonstrations, the
protestors generally chanted as “Long Live the Sultan” as proof of expressing
their loyalty to the Sultan while they negotiate for their rights.537
The state reaction to the masses depended on the identity of these people.
When peasants of Yenipazar had arrived in the city center to join the urban
protest, Şemsi Pasha as the inspector of the region wrote, “despite the fact
that they were advised to stop the movement if it is up to me, the state should
not indulge these people by giving any response”538 However, when the soldiers
who returned from the Yemen campaign to Beirut demonstrated against
the government due to delays in the payment of their salaries, the government
scrambled to produce said payment.539 In another example, when the soldiers,
537 Deringil, The Well Protected Domains, 22. Selim Deringil rightly pointed out how Abdulhamid
II replaced the image of the ruler by standardizing this slogan in public occasions. He
also mentions the opposition movement refused to perform this. However, as mentioned in
chapter II, Ottoman ordinary society were more informed than the nature of the government
when they negotiate for their rights and they always neutralized the image of the state via
their practices.
538 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/153880, 82. 28 Kanunisani 1322 (February 10, 1907) “Bendegana
kalırsa bunlara hiç yüz verilmeyerek müracaatlarının da cevabsız bırakıldığı halde…”
539 The demonstration of “efrad-ı mustebdele” in Beirut was among one of the most crucial protest
meetings in last years of the Hamidian regime. For details, see: BOA. Y.PRK.ASK.
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known as efrad-ı mustebdele, who returned from the campaign joined a protest
in front of the governor’s office in Bayburd, Rıza Pasha, the commander
of the army, advised them to stop their action by dispatching the artisans and
notables of the city as intermediaries.540 Indeed, negotiating with the protestors
by sending in notables of the town was among the well-known tactics of
the state bureaucracy, but the difference in the state’s reaction against an ordinary
peasants and soldiers became visible during the remainder of the
events. When the crowd of soldiers did not obey the rules and continued to
threaten the district governor, the Grand Vizier sent in the battalions under
orders to only fire a single shot in the air to end the demonstration.541
The urban society of the Ottoman borderlands chose to play a dumb in
such a position. Since sending petitions and organizing mass meetings in front
of the telegraph offices happened simultaneously, they did not view their
movement as a protest against the government. Although Ottoman archival
sources called these movements as iğtişaş or nümayiş, like it was referred in
British sources as disturbances, the people who were gathering together in the
city centers never formulated their movement as a protest or disturbance. Instead,
they argued their aim was only to become audible subjects of the Sultan.
For instance, during the mass protest in Yenipazar district of the Kosovo
province, Ramazan and Salih from the ulama, mayor Mehmed Akif, district
mudir Ahmed Hamdi, Abdulcelil and their fellows replied to the accusations
about their movement by arguing that their attempt did not amount to a protest
against the authority, but it was the only way to reach the Sultan.542 As mentioned
in the “Petitioning the Sultan,” the Mufti of Erzurum put forth a similar
223/14; BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 245/85; BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 245/89; THE TIMES, Wednesday,
September 4, 1907, 6.
540 BOA. BEO. 3156/236654, 9. 18 Eylül 1323 (October 10, 1907) “eşraf ve ayan taraflarından
icra kılınan nesaih.”
541 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 515/19, 20 Eylül 1320 (October 12, 1907) “üç müfreze-i askeriye tarafından
yalnız bir el ateş edilerek cümlesinin dağılması ve sükun ve asayişin iade kılınması.”
542 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 79. 29 Kanunisani 1322 (February 11, 1907).
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explanation for their movement. Hence, it is important to note that the petitioning
phase and mass meetings in the city centers fed into each other. It was
a contestation between the local bureaucracy and the urban people over who
would become the active agents in these places. The discursive strategies of
both parties were determined in such a context. Therefore, the explanation of
artisans, the mayor, and ulama of Yenipazar did not convince Şemsi Pasha.
He replied that because they captured the city center and closed the shops, it
was impossible to accept their movement as a benign attempt to request redress
from the top.543
Despite the negative reactions of the bureaucracy, the urban coalitions always
used mass meetings to threaten the authorities and describe themselves
as the real actors of the provinces. In an extreme case, they felt confident
enough to refer the movement as a revolution instead of a disturbance. For
instance, the people of fourteen villages in the Peşter district had arrived at
Seniçe to protest the attitudes of some local officers and rejected the payment
of the domestic animal tax in December 1906. The crowd had threatened the
authorities by giving a ten day ultimatum. They announced that if the central
government did not remove five selected officers from their seats, they would
organize another mass meeting.544 Their movement was referred as a revolution
by a person whose code name was Sadık. Sadık described the officials
who were the reasons for the mass protest by stating that Şemsi Pasha was the
most oppressive person who controlled certain local officers and artisans. Although
the petition listed the names of the other people, such as the mayor, it
was clear that the report singled out Şemsi Pasha to blame for the people’s
suffering. As Aysel Yıldız put it, “once a rebellion was under way, state officials
were no longer accepted as intermediaries but became scapegoats and
543 Ibid., 63. 1 Şubat 1322 (February 14, 1907).
544 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 146/14570, 12. 12 Eylül 1322 (September 24, 1906).
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potential victims.”545 Furthermore, in this context, the revolution did not imply
a positive meaning, framed the protests as the last ditch attempt of the
society to show their grievances.546 More importantly, by defining the movement
as a revolution due to the attitudes of local military and civil bureaucracy,
the people who organized the meetings or their sympathizers were able
to inform the Sultan that the hatred against these officers could possibly trigger
an actual revolution in the Empire as it would happen in Frizovik with the
assassination of Semsi Pasha in front of the telegraph office in June 1908.
§ 5.3 Closing the Shops
When the Kurdish Question became the top agenda item of Turkish daily politics
in the 1990s, one of the most characteristic moves of the Kurdish artisans
in the region was to close the shops during the conflicts between the various
actors of the region. State officials blamed the rebels for oppressing the shopkeepers,
for forcing them to shut down the economic life of the city in such
situations. In fact, neither the closing of the shops nor the officials' reaction
was unique to 1990s of Turkey. As a part of the negotiation practice closing
the shops or blocking the roads to the center were among the most common
actions taken by the society in various parts of the Ottoman territory. Even
under the reign of the Mamluks, merchants would refuse to trade by closing
the shops when they negotiated with the state for their rights.547 The practice
545 Aysel Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire, The Downfall of a Sultan in the
Age of Revolution, (London, New York: I.B.Tauris, 2017), 19.
546 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 146/14570, 65. 1 Teşrinisani 1322 (December 14, 1906) “arz ve beyandan
müstağni olduğu üzere bulunduğum Seniçe sancağındaki ihtilalin esbabı ve esbabına
müsebbib olanlarından ve teşvikçibaşları arz edeceğim. vallahi ve billahi hiç birisine garezim
yokdur.” “…şevketmehab efendimiz bizzat rey-i taayyün göreydi Şemsi Paşayı ve Erkanı
Harb Feyzi beyi ve damadı Süreyya efendiyi yaveriyle beraber kurşuna dizdirirdi.”
“…kurşuna dizilecek adem ihsana nail oldu.”
547 Elbendary, Crowds and Sultans: Urban Protest in Late Medieval Egypt and Syria, 28, 137.
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aimed to convince the authorities of the urgency of the situation in which
people found themselves. In this respect, grinding the social and economic
life of the city to a halt by closing the bazaar was as crucial as petitioning
practices and organizing demonstrations.548
A bazaar was a place where the city’s traditional actors formed a corporate
entity. It was erected in the centers, close to the grand mosque or a church of
the city, and consisted of many shops, as well as public spaces like coffeehouses,
public baths, fountains, and tekkes. Many of these places bore the
name of a famous public space like the mosque, fountain, church, etc.549
Thus, the bazaar of a city was not only a place where people simply went for
their shopping needs but also a place where public opinion developed. In other
words, it was the place where one might see social forces crystallize as a class
in the sense of E.P. Thompson.550
Therefore, an attempt to close down the shops created an extraordinary
situation for the authorities. The mutasarrıf of Prizren argued that whenever
the society was asked to pay, they replied, ‘if we accept the terms now, more
will be asked tomorrow; however, our society is poor.’ Hence, closing down
548 For one of the early examples of this kind of negotitation practice, see: Eunjeong Yi, Guild
Dynamics in Seventeenth Century Istanbul, Fluidity and Leverage, (Leiden, Boston: Brill,
2004), 213.
549 Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman İstanbul, Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the
Kasap İlyas Mahalle (NewYork: State University of New York Press, 2003), 4; Stefanos Yerasimos,
“Tanzimat’ın Kent Reformları Üzerine” in Tanzimat: Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu, 519-520.
550 For a throrougly detailed analysis of the bazaar in an Islamic society, see: Arang Keshavarzian,
Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 39-127. I am not using the concept of public space and public
opinion in the way Habermas conceptualized them because unlike Habermas, this study focuses
on the particularity of all subjects instead of conceptualizing the contentious politics as
a clash between the state and society. For a crucial critique of the use of the concept of public
space in Ottoman studies, see: Cengiz Kırlı, Sultan ve Kamuoyu Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde
Havadis Jurnalleri (1840-1844) (İstanbul: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2009), 13-45.
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the bazaar became a routine whenever the state announced a request.551 When
the shops were closed, the bazaar as a corporate entity began to raise its voice
to influence the ordinary people in the city. By halting the social and economic
life of a city, the actors who negotiated with the state would create an
implicit transaction. The state officials learned the closing of shops when they
experienced it as it happened in the case of organizing mass meetings.552 Although
not all the shop owners were ready to close their shops on every occasion,
there was no evidence to suggest that some people refused to obey the
rules on the bazaar. In this respect, it can be argued that when an emergency
situation began to unfold, the actors would become the governors of their cities.
For this reason, closing the shops always prompted the state officials to
respond. It was more effective than petitioning the ruler and creating demonstrations
because closing the bazaar affected almost all people from various
sectors in the city.
Shutting down the bazaar of a city had also aimed to disrupt the surveillance
practices of the state bureaucracy. As Cengiz Kırlı pointed out, the
places where the commoners gathered, such as coffeehouses and public baths,
provided information about what the society had thought about the actors, the
politics, and the state apparatus. In other words, it was the place where the
state had collected information to control and lead the public discourse and to
turn the ordinary people into the subjects who were statistically counted.553
When the bazaar was closed, the state lost its surveillance power over its subjects.
551 BOA. TFR.I.ŞKT. 110/11000, 27 Mart 1323 (April 9, 1907) “Şimdi mumavaffakat eder isek,
yarın daha başka şeyler bizden taleb olunur, halbuki ahali fukaradır.”
552 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 79. 28 Kanunisani 1322 (February 10, 1907) “…çarşu kapanıncaya
kadar memuriyet-i mahalliyenin içtima-i hakkında istihsal-i malumat edememeleri…”
553 Kırlı, Sultan ve Kamuoyu Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde Havadis Jurnalleri (1840-1844),
23-24.
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In such situations, the local officers asked for the help of the central government,
arguing that authority had fallen through the floor.554 The point of
the local officers’ argument was tounderline the potential incapacity of the
local actors when they faced an emergency situation, preempting the state
officials’ kneejerk attempts to use the power of the religious leaders and artisans
to stop chaos in the cities. In other words, when the local officers said
the authority had fallen through the floor, they were stating that even the actors
in the bazaar could fail to control the possible outcomes of the developing
events. It was a competition between local intermediaries and the local officials
sent from the center to prove each other’s ineffectiveness in the city.
Furthermore, the closing of the bazaar was a sign that the actors, who had
decided to demonstrate were searching for the support of all classes in the
city. When the military commander had ordered to use of firearms against the
people who demonstrated in front of the telegraph office in Erzurum, some
people had left the crowd and went to various city districts to announce that
soldiers had attacked innocent people.555 The event not only led to the closing
of all shops, but it also provided legitimate grounds for the people to follow
the protestors, who were holding on to a wait and see tactic until that time.
Since he tbazaar was a corporate entity greater than any bureaucracy or social
class in a city, the society chose to obey the rules of this entity; it was impossible
to live in peace without a well-functioning, efficient market system in a
classical Ottoman town. Thus, when the bazaar shut down, almost all people
of various ages, sexes, classes, and nationalities decided to act by supporting
demonstrations, petitioning practices, or engaging in violence. In this respect,
the most crucial outcome of closing the shops was to force the whole society
to support a movement. Despite various groups having different goals, they
554 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 16. 12 Şubat 1322 (February 26, 1907) “söz ayağa düştüğünden.”
555 BOA. DH.MKT. 1066/29 Lef 5, 2. 25 Nisan 1322 (May 8, 1906).
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behaved like a singular entity due to the power of bazaar over their social and
economic lives.
The state officials did not hesitate to threaten the society against such activities.
When the people of Yenipazar closed their shops, Şemsi Pasha had
threatened them with their children if they did not reopen the bazaar.556 However,
threatening the protestors was not the standard practice during the negotiation.
In most cases, the officials worked to solve problems by persuading
artisans to reopen their shops.557 The artisans and the religious leaders, as the
local intermediaries in this context, became the natural representatives of society,
and also they had a chance to be the state’s voice in the eyes of the
society. The power of the bazaar during a contestaion with the state came from
such change. When local intermediaries did not achieve their goals, they refused
to play negotiator between the state and the ordinary people. As a result,
they took the risk of losing their power because they could be exiled from the
city.558
As a second reaction, the military officers would be asked to help the civil
bureaucracy. The army was generally ordered to patrol the city during the day
and night. In most of the cases, the local officers refrained from using the
local police and gendarmeries due to their relationship with the city’s people.
Instead, the governors invited the Ottoman army into the city. Nevertheless,
the effect of patrolling the city depended on the capacity of the military power.
When Şemsi Pasha rejected all requests and sent two battalions into Yenipazar,
the district governor Hilmi Bey stated in his petition that the bazaar
had not reopened and the demonstrations were not coming to an end because
556 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 4. 14 Şubat 1322 (February 28, 1907) “…ahaliye dağılmalarını
ve dükkanlarını açub işleriyle meşgul bulunmalarını ve aksi takdirde çoluk çocuklarının duçar-
ı perişan olacağını şimdiden düşünmelerinin tebliğini…”
557 As an example see, BOA. TFR.I.A. 33/3250, 22 Şubat 1322 (March 7, 1907).
558 BOA. TFR.I.A. 35/3443, 19. 9 Temmuz 1323 (July 22, 1907).
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two battalions were not enough to send a strong warning to the people.559 In
another case, the villagers of Peşter, who demonstrated in the center of Seniçe
and suppressed the artisans for the closing of all shops, returned to their villages
when two battalions were sent from Yenipazar.560 As Nadir Özbek
pointed, despite all attempts to civilize the tax collection during the reign of
Sultan Abdulhamid II, the gendarmeries or even the army were often invited
to the cities when the officials felt a threat.561 However, these kinds of attitudes
were far from adequate to the task of creating a peaceful space for Ottoman
society. Instead, living under the coercion of despotic power became
the people's routine, and the society reacted to the situation by creating its
own violence against the state violence. Instead of accepting the ruler’s justice
through negotiating with him by petitioning, creating demonstrations, and
shutting down the social and economic life of the cities, they also created
alternative authority after they eliminated their rivals.
§ 5.4 Violence
All politics is the struggle for power, the ultimate kind of power is violence.
George Sorel
In his thought-provoking book, Frantz Fanon states, “when militarist Germany
decides to settle its frontier disputes by force, we are not in the least
surprised; but when the people of Angola, for example, decide to take up
arms, when the Algerian people reject all means which are not violent, these
are proof that something has happened or is happening at this very moment.”
562 He shows the attitudes of colonized societies as a routine during an
559 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 48. 5 Şubat 1322 (February 19, 1907) “…askerin iki bölük olması
gözlerini doldurmadığından halen çarşu açılmadığı gibi köylerden gelen esra dağılmadıktan
başka..”
560 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 155/15460, 2. 26 Şubat 1322 (March 11, 1907).
561 Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli, 214.
562 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963), 73.
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extraordinary situation. Hannah Arendt’s famous article, “On Violence” contains
one of the qunitessential passages on the concept of violence. She rightly
argues, “no one reacts with rage to an incurable disease or to an earthquake
or, for that matter, to social conditions that seem to be unchangeable. Only
where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not
does rage arise”563 She adds “violence, under certain circumstances, is the
only way to set the scales of justice right again.”564 Similarly, Byung Chul
Han rightly argues that while the government establishes a continuity by relying
on hierarchical relationships, violence destroys these relations.565 Despite
large debates on the nature of violence, these quotes are enough to shed
light on the violence during the negotiation practices of the masses.
The concept of violence was analyzed in the context of ethnic tensions,
state violence, revolutionary violence, and rebellions in the Ottoman studies.
Instead, violence should be understood as a contestation between various
forces, including Muslim society, against the state bureaucracy and its collaborators.
In this respect, it is important to state that the lack of studies on the
clashes between Ottoman Turkish-Muslim society and Ottoman officials
within the Ottoman studies brough the conceptualizations of the colonial
mind to the surface.566 Violence was seen as researchable when the powers in
563 Arendt, On Violence, 63.
564 Ibid., 64.
565 Byung-Chul Han Şiddetin Topolojisi translated by Dilek Zaptçıoğlu (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları,
2016), 72. Apart from this, Han’s book is a composition of the critiqs of the works on
the concept of violence.
566 This perspective was not only reserved for the concept of violence. Even in the studies on the
Ottoman colonial discourse, social scientists neglected to analyze the state discourse targeting
the Turkish or Muslim society of the Empire. For example, the works on “Ottoman Orientalism”
mainly focused on the Muslim but nonTurkish or non-Muslim subjects of the Empire.
Edip Gölbaşı, rightly criticizes the works of Usama Makdisi on Ottoman Orientalism as it
implies that Turkish and Muslim subjects were exempt from the power discourse of the Ottoman
intellectuals targeting the lifestyles of the others. See: Edip Gölbaşı, “19. Yüzyıl
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İstanbul such as the Janissaries decided to depose the Sultan, when non-Muslim
or Muslim but non-Turkish subjects of the Empire joined revolutionary
violence, when different ethnoreligious groups attacked each other, and when
the state decided to brutally suppress a movement.567 While writing this kind
of history, historians tended to conceptualize the Turkish-Muslim society of
the Ottoman Empire as a subject that never raised its voice, did not created
anarchy, and always remained loyal to the Sultan and its representatives in the
region. Even in the case of Muslim oppositions to the Sultan, authors chose
specific geographies where the population was mainly non-Turkish. In other
words, by changing Fanon’s analysis, when a non-Muslim or Muslim but non-
Turkish society of the Ottoman Empire had decided to settle up its disputes
by violence, we are not in the least surprised because we are accustomed to
defining them as the revolutionaries, but when the Muslims of Erzurum, for
example, decided to take up arms, when the Muslim society of Prizren rejected
all means which are not violent, historians tended to not to see the colonial
perspective of Ottoman state over Turco-Muslim subjects. Historians
were eager to conceptualize these movements as proof that something extraordinary
had happened at that moment or someone, in most cases the revolutionaries,
had mobilized them against their state.
Nevertheless, violence became an operational instrument in the hands of
the Muslim protestors as well when they decided to contest the local officers,
as well as each other. Some of them chose to block the strategic locations,
Osmanlı Emperyal Siyaseti ve Osmanlı Tarih Yazımında Kolonyal Perspektifler” in Tarih ve
Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar, vol. 13 (2011): 210.
567 There are numerous works on the concept of these kinds of violence in late Ottoman History.
For a fascinating example of a violent event see the edited book; Houssine Alloul, Edhem
Elden and Henk de Smaele To Kill A Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdulhamid
II (1905), (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Furthermore, the book covers
Toygun Altuntaş’s article which is among the most impressive accounts of the revolutionary
violence.
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some others decided to destroy the houses of local officers and loot their possessions.
In most of the cases, the scapegoats were killed. When the protestors
of Erzurum looted the house of governor Ata Bey and captured him, they kept
him in the central mosque of the city after he was beaten because he had ordered
the exile of the Mufti and some influential artisans of the city.568 An
attempt to eliminate the powerholders, collect the taxes, or the attitudes of
local officers, was reason enough to use violence. On the 23rd of January,
1904, an Albanian crowd from Gjokova demonstrated against the domestic
animal tax. They organized a meeting that Ottoman officials referred to as
şenlik which means a festival, outside of Gjokova.569 As reported, during the
festival, more than 500 people had been planning to destroy officials' houses
and to kill certain non-Muslim people of the city. The government reacted to
their demonstration by sending one battalion from İpek and two others from
Prizren. A cannon was also sent from Skopje, and the inspector Şemsi Pasha
commanded the army. When the army arrived at Gjokova, they faced around
a thousand people who were ready to join a clash with them. While the clash
had been continuing, a group of protestors entered the city and burned down
the house of the fiscal director, and they also attempted to burn the houses of
two Christian city officials. They finished their work by destroying the telegraph
line and a strategic bridge between Prizren and Gjokova. During the
clashes, the state officials had been blaming the former district governor and
a commander of the army as the people who mobilized the society against the
taxation and the local officers.570 The mutasarrıf of Prizren, in another case,
claimed that three people came from Priştine to co-operate and lead the
568 Details of the account were given in chapter three.
569 The place of the şenlik is “nowhere” outside of the city center as Ozouf Mono argued “the
space (for festival) must be invented, sometimes reshaped, both marked out and emptied,
figures drawn upon it, ways made through it.” See: Mona Ozouf and Alan Sheridan Festivals
and the French Revolution (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1988), 127.
570 BOA. Y.PRK.ASK. 226/57, 1-2. 10 Kanunisani 1319 (January 23, 1904).
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protests and violence in the city.571 However, the same story was experienced
in other districts of Kosovo, such as İpek, Luma, Frizovik, and Prizren, in the
following days.572
Destroying the house of the fiscal director and looting the possessions of
selected people was a practice of using violence as an operational instrument
during the bargaining process. The crowd targeted people who were seen as
responsible for their problems as well as people who had the power to diminish
their influence in the city. In such respect, the fiscal director was the person
who could potentially refuse to negotiate for their requests about taxation.
He could be seen as the person who was responsible for their poverty. Kosovo
was not a unique example. In many cases, such as Bitlis, Erzurum and Basra,
the fiscal directors were forced to leave their seats. non-Muslim artisans or
city officials were selected as scapegoats in these examples as well.
Ottoman officials would refer to people who joined in the violence as
“serkeş, şer zümre-i erazil, esafil-i nas, müsellah serseri.” Through defining
these words, they aimed not only to criminalized the people who bargained
with them but also to protect their seats. In other words, they described these
people as deplorables who disobeyed the Sultan's rule and caused the disintegration
of authority. They were also defined as rebels by nature. For instance,
when the society of Yenipazar stated they would leave behind their children
and go to the mountains if the government did not accept their requests such
as a reform in tax payments and the removal of certain officers, Şemsi Pasha
defined them as people who insisted in their treachery due to his governance
six years ago.573 In another case, Zelivko, in the name of Christians, and
Edhem, in the name of Muslims of Seniçe, claimed that the cadastral director
described them as murderers and gunslingers by nature, in front of the
571 BOA. TFR.I ŞKT. 110/11000, 27 Mart 1323 (April 9, 1907).
572 Ibid.
573 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 154/15380, 16. 12 Şubat 1322 (February 25, 1907).
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mutasarrıf when they negotiated with the Imperial center to remove him from
his seat.574 Before acting against selected people, petitioning practices were
generally used effectively, as mentioned earlier. While local officers had been
defining the protestors as rebels by nature, they were busy sending petitions
to negotiate for their demands. In one of these examples, Ahmed Hamdi from
medrese of Yenipazar, Hamdi, Abdulcelil, Ramazan, Salih, Mehmed Akif,
and Mehmed Murad stated that the people of the city asked for the removal
of the district governor, the lieutenant, and the tax clerk because those people
were responsible for their sufferings. They used the same rhetoric which was
to ask for a solution for the sake of their innocent children.575
Another rhetoric of the people was the criticism of local official at whose
hands they faced violence. Thirty-nine people from different neighborhoods
and villages of Yenipazar wrote a petition to the commander of Yenipazar to
legitimize their movement against the certain people. They argued that their
district governor Hilmi Bey had been working on his personal issues, such as
erecting his houses, and that he was keeping Circassian İbrahim, who was
removed from the governor's office as a close ally. Also, the lieutenant Dursun
Bey co-operated with a group of the murderer and corrupt people in oppressing
the society. Hence, they asked the Sublime Porte to send loyal officers.576
The crucial point in this petition was the definition of the local officials; the
574 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 146/15470, 16-19. 9-11 Eylül 1322 (September 22, 1906) “… bir kaç kişi
mutasarrıf paşanın nezdine geldik. Halimize arz etmekde iken tahrirat müdürü müşarünileyh
mutasarrıf paşa ve meclis idare huzurunda ben kendi nefsimle kalkmam, millet çıksın da
gelsin beni kaldırsın zaten bu millet silahşör ve katildirler deyüb…”
575 Ibid., 22. 12 Şubat 1322 (February 25, 1907) “…merhameten bunca sabi sübyanın beladan
muhafazası…”
576 Ibid., 66. In another version of the petition same document were signed by 55 people. See:
Ibid., 16. 16 Şubat 1322 (March 1, 1907).
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protestors described them as corrupt people who cooperated with fesad and
murderers.577
One of the typical reactions of the state bureaucracy in such a situation
was to wait until the protestors had attempted criminal activities. The military
officers would be ordered to merely counsel the crowds until they faced violence.
When the clash started, the military was advised to use firearms proportinate
to the protestors’ attempts. This situation was called mukabele-i bilmisl
(like-for-like) in Ottoman sources and implied the retortion of the violence
with state violence.578 For this reason, the people who disobeyed the
rule usually chose to wait until they legitimized their movement. Using a gun
could cause the total destruction of their movement. Instead of this, they
forced the local officers to accept their demands through creating a mere possibility
of violence. In the example of Seniçe, while the local officer was
taunting the crowd by saying, ‘remove me if you are powerful enough,’ the
mutasarrıf of Seniçe argued it was impossible to stop the crowd with a limited
number of gendarmeries. Hence, he asked about the possibility of changing
the positions of the fiscal director, cadastral director, and himself to save the
glory and honor of the state because the crowd had surrounded the city and
overpowered them.579 However, his request was not accepted because the
577 Hilmi Bey was dismissed after the events. See: BOA. I.DH. 1461/13, 4. 13 Teşrinisani 1323
(December 26, 1907).
578 The practice of retortion known as “Mukabele-i bil-misl”(like-for-like) is a concept that was
used to define the acts of the states when they acted against eachother during conflicts
between them. It was also used in Islamic law as an act to stop chaos in according to Islamic
limits of the violence. See: “Mukabele-i Bil-Misl” in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Islam Ansiklopedisi
İstanbul: volume 31, pp 103-107. Artice 15 of the regulations about they duty of police
and gendermery also involved about this concept. “15. Madde: …polis memurlarına ve Asakir-
i Şahane’ye karşı istimal-i silah edenler hakkında mukabele-i bil-misl kaidesiyle muamele
edilecektir.” Quoted from Ali Karaca Anadolu Islahatı ve Ahmet Şakir Paşa (1838-1899),
101.
579 BOA. TFR.I.KV. 146/15470, 23. 11 Eylül 1322 (September 24, 1906).
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central bureaucrats were well aware of the bargaining process that would render
criminal the group who used firearms first and legitimize the actions of
theother side in eyes of the society.
Despite the well-scripted agenda of both sides during a negotiation phase,
protestors did not hesitate to create anarchy in the city by attacking the local
officers. In those cases, the goal was to create an extraordinary situation as
was the principle behind the hosting of demonstrations and closing down of
the bazaars. They attacked the local governors and their fellows directly when
the bureaucracy decided to eliminate their power. For instance, the protestors
attempted to destroy and loot the notables’ houses when their seven friends
had been exiled from the city in Yenipazar.580 In the case of Erzurum, the
protestors captured the governor and killed three police officers due to the
attempt to exile the Mufti from the city. In Bitlis, the governor was forced to
leave the city after the crowd looted his house and killed his guard.581 The
crowds who created chaos to regain their influence in the city won against
local officers and their other rivals in the city in all of those examples because
they achieved to eliminate the others,582 ensured the return of their friends
who were exiled from the cities583 and rendered themselves the groups who
could cooperate with the central bureaucracy, and govern the city in the name
of Sublime Porte through defending the rights of society.
§ 5.5 In Lieu of Conclusion: Bitlis in 1907
On the 22nd of June 1907, on a Saturday morning, an extremely unexpected
protest that surprised the local authorities and consulates was held in the
580 BOA. BEO. 31425/235824, 9 Ağustos 1323 (22 August, 1907).
581 Both of the Erzurum and the Bitlis cases are explained with all details in other parts of this
dissertation.
582 BOA. I.DH. 1461/13, 4. 13 Teşrinisani 1323 (December 26, 1907).
583 BOA. BEO. 3145/235824, 2. 29 Ağustos 1323 (September 11, 1907).
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center of Bitlis. The protest targeted the governor Ferid Pasha. Thousands of
people were shouting in the streets and asking for his resignation as soon as
possible.584 It was a shock wave to the local bureaucracy because the day had
started in peace. The shop owners opened their shops as usual in the morning,
and there was a routine of silence in daily life. Then suddenly, shop owners
started to close their shops and people met in the city center as hurriedly as
possible. The sheiks of Bitlis, the shop owners, and many ordinary people
who were in the agricultural sector set on the road to the city center. They
divided into two groups once they reached the city center. The first group
captured the telegraph office while the second one went to the barracks of the
governor. The Vice-Consul of Britain, Safrastian, observed the situation as
follows:
Sheik Mehmed harangued the mob. At least 5000 men and youths,
armed with sticks and knives, and in a few cases with revolvers, proceeded
to the wooden baraque of the Vali having already destroyed the
young willow planted by Ferid Pasha.
At the sight of the furious mob the guards of the Vali, twenty gendarmes
and aides-de-camp escaped at once, leaving thus the Vali completely
defenseless. It is said that Ferid Pasha required the protection of
regular troops, but Military Commandant Djelal Pasha refused it, arguing
that with the few troops he possessed he was to defend the army depots
and the barracks.
The mob attacked soon the baraque of the Vali, led by Sheikh
Mehmed, of Kadri Sheikh İbrahim, and began to smash down the baraque.
A chief of Police of Pera, Armenak Zeki (Armenian Catholic), whom the
Vali had brought with himself three years ago was ruthlessly stabbed at
the door of the baraque and the corpse thrown under a bridge. Ferid Pasha
was then dragged out of the door, under … stones and sticks, very coarsely
insulted and tortured at the hands of the violent mob. In the riot which
followed, a Moslem was killed (the Vali is accused of this murder by the
mob.)
The Vali abandoned himself to the mercy of the sheiks and Djelal Pasha,
who had arrived already with some officers and soldiers. In view of
madness of the mob the life of the Vali was at stake; a Sheiks is said to
584 F.O. 424/213 No:27 Mr. Safrastian to Consul Shipley. Bitlis (25 June, 1907); BOA. Y. MTV.
299/134, (29 June 1907); Moumdjiyan, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime: Armenian-
Young Turk Relations in the Era of Abdulhamid II, 1895-1909,” 333-336.
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have untied his green turban and thrown it on the head of the Vali. From
the baraque to the barracks, a distance of 200 yards, the Vali was taken, in
the bedroom dress, almost half dead and unable to walk on the arms of
officers and followed by the furious mob, which made everything to insult
him as much as possible. In the barracks his blood-stained face was
washed, the two wounds on the head were attended to, and slightly dislocated
left arm cared for.
In ten minutes the baraque was entirely plundered 1000 Liras, obligations,
receipts of bank, precious furniture, uniform, provisions, and everything,
even the planks of the baraque were carried away-without any
quarrel among the mob.
The mob seized then the telegraph office, and telegraphed direct to the
Imperial Palace at Constantinople, requesting first removal of Ferid Pasha.585
The widespread discontent of the society was a well-known issue, but the
protest that targeted the governor’s seat was an unexpected event because
there were not massive complaints about Ferid Pasha earlier. He was criticized
by some officials at the end of 1906, but the people who complained
did not provide any evidence for their arguments. The only report that expected
a movement against the governor was written by the mutasarrıf and
the commander of Muş on the 10th of December 1906. They claimed that
Ferid Pasha would face a great reaction because of five issues. The first one
was the dismissal of influential officials such as district governors, police
chiefs, and some gendarmes. Second, the governor was blamed for protecting
some officials and well-known people who worked to capture the Armenians'
properties. Third, they stated, the governor misinformed the Palace by reporting
dead Armenian Fedais as still alive, which caused a motivation for the
other revolutionaries. The fourth issue was about the governor’s order to send
eight battalions from Bitlis to Muş, and the last one was the corruption of the
governor by means of misleading the Palace.586 These claims were signs of
the conflicts between the local officials because while they criticized Ferid
585 Ibid.
586 BOA. Y. MTV. 291/115, 1-2. 24 Teşrinisani 1322 (December 17, 1906).
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Pasha, the governor worked to prove his outstanding efforts to provide order
in the city. There were two important pieces of evidence for these claims in
other documents. The first one was the unending effort of the mayor, İbrahim
Edhem, to take back his position because Ferid Pasha dismissed and exiled
him from Bitlis,587 and the second one was the complaints of the Beşşar Çeto,
who was the leader of the Pencnar tribe. Beşşar argued that the governor had
taken his money and had not paid it back.588 However, all of these complaints
did not provoke the ordinary people of Bitlis against the governor. The only
attempt made was to close the shops as a warning to the governor in May
1907, but Ferid Pasha solved that problem on the same day of the attempt.589
The city’s people had been working to solve the problems such as the
‘money change’ case and the drought during these days. More importantly,
during these months, the government made significant progress towards capturing
one of the most famous Armenian Revolutionists, Kevork Chavus, who
was known as the lion of the mountains in the revolutionary movement because
of his efforts against both the gendarmeries and the light cavalries
firstly during the Sason uprising in 1894-95 and then, in different places of
the Ottoman East. The local army corps, gendarmeries, and zabtiehs made
many attempts during these years, but they failed to arrest Kevork. Finally, in
the last days of May 1907, the government forces succeeded in seizing
Kevork’s band in Soluk, a district of Muş, and captured the dead body of
Kevork during the clash.590 Hence, during June, the government in Bitlis was
in a state of alert against a possible response of the Fedais. No one predicted
any Muslim protest movement in such a situation. Ferid Pasha as the governor
587 The struggle of İbrahim Edhem for his seat can be followed in the Ottoman Archival sources.
See: BOA. DH.MKT. 1049/53, 19 Nisan 1322 (May 2, 1906).
588 BOA. DH.MKT. 2699/38, 20 Kanunuevvel 1324 (January 2, 1909); BOA.DH.MKT.
2900/61.
589 F.O. 424/212 Inclosure 4 in No:81 Mr. Safrastian to Consul Shipley, Bitlis (May 11, 1907).
590 The capture of the body of Kevork is contested issue because some Ottoman archival sources
mentioned that Kevork’s corpse was found later in a different place.
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of Bitlis, sent a telegraph to the Palace in the second week of June and criticized
the attitudes of the consul of Russia because, according to Ferid Pasha,
the consul had been working to provoke the Armenians of the city for a while.
He stated that because he was loyal to the Sultan, he went to all districts of
the city, even the mountains, and worked around the clock to provide order.
Also, as he was a good ruler, he had just collected 15,000 kurushes as the
taxes of the year from Muslims of the city despite the fact that the Muslim’s
tax delinquency was 259,000 kurushes, and 4,000 kurushes from non-Muslims
while their tax delinquency was 149,000 kurushes. However, the Russian
consul in the city had been provoking the Armenians, and while Ferid Pasha
criticized him, he also warned the state about the misbehaviors of the consul
and their possible results.591 Interestingly enough, Ferid Pasha’s previous telegraph
about the problems that Armenians faced was very different in spirit.
He argued that even though there was the influence of the revolutionaries, the
main reason for the terk-i tabiet was the pressure exerted by the Hasananlı
and Cebranlı tribes against the Armenians in Bulanık, Malazgirt, and Varto.592
It seems that Ferid Pasha changed his position after the clashes between the
Armenian revolutionaries and the Ottoman soldiers and put the action of the
consul and revolutionaries at the forefront instead of blaming the activities of
these Kurdish tribes.
During these days, the city’s daily agenda was very different. The drought
caused a great famine, and the prices of wheat had risen to 16 piastres for a
kilo while it was 10 piastres in 1905 and 4 piastres in 1903. Moreover, the
cash shortage of the people caused significant discomfort within various classes
of the city. The main problem occurred when the government announced
the changing of silver money. Ferid Pasha was ordered to change the worn
591 BOA. Y.PRK.BŞK. 77/33, 16. 1 Haziran 1323 (June 14, 1907). The report of the British
consul contradicted the amount of money which the governor cited in this document; BOA.
DH.TMIK.M. 246/34, 29 Mayıs 1323 (June 11, 1907).
592 BOA. Y. PRK.UM. 79/97, 22 Nisan 1323 (May 5, 1907).
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çeyreks -5 kurushes- in people's hands until the first day of March. According
to the rule, after that day, all the worn coins would be accepted but only for
their weight in silver. According to the vice-consul Safrastian, the Vali did
everything not to change these coins by announcing that new coins had not
arrived. After the 1st day of March, the governor announced 3.1 piastres would
be given for 5 piastres. In addition, many exchange officers cut the money in
half and returned it to the owner saying the office did not have any new coins.
Most of the shop-owners refused to take these coins. Hence, there was a small
amount of money in the bazaar that caused a cash shortage.593 Governor Ferid
Pasha sent a telegram to the Ministry of Interiors and explained that the government
worked hard to punish merchants who refused to accept these coins
and they announced in all districts of the city what the last day to change the
coins, but people did not achieve to carry this out because of the earthquake.
594
Before the day of the protest, Ferid Pasha invited many people to the government
for a session of the prayer for rain. However, the people of Bitlis had
already been organizing sessions to pray for rain for three days. They were
around the barracks of the governors two days ago, and some of them invited
the governor to the rain prayer. The governor appeared bareheaded when he
greeted people, which seemed disrespectful and refused to join them. However,
as the Vice-Consul stated, he invited many people for the next rain
prayer.595 This issue made apparent that the tension between the governor and
the local community was high.
593 F.O. 424 / 213 Inclosure I in No:51 Vice Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor, Bitlis (July 6,
1907).
594 BOA. BEO. 3037/227713, 2. 24 Nisan 1323 (May 7, 1907). The document also contains the
letter of the Minister of Interior. See: Ibid., 3.
595 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure I in No:51 Vice Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor, Bitlis. (July 6,
1907); BOA. Y.MTV. 299/134, 3. 16 Haziran 1323 (June 29, 1907).
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During the event, Ferid Pasha was confounded and said, “I do not understand
anything in this city, call these people, if they refuse to obey me, I will
figure that out.” The city commander, Celal Pasha, reported these words in
his telegraph to the Palace. He also added that, although he summoned all the
security forces, he just found ten people to command. The governor was in
his barracks in the Hamidiye street of the Köymeydanı district. The barracks
was besieged by thousands of men and women who carried sticks in their
hands. Celal Pasha had been working to stop the chaos while the protestors
bloodied the governor. When Celal Pasha shouted, “the Sultan has no consent
for this act”, The crowd replied: “we are obedient to the Sultan. Our purpose
was to dismiss the governor.” Although there were thousands of people behind
the leaders who achieved to toss Celal Pasha out of the door, he went the
governor out from that barracks and saved him from the hands of the protestors
as well, but the protestors continued to attack Ferid Pasha when Celal
Pasha transferred him to the government house. The governor was wounded
in his head, shoulder and left arm by the rocks and sticks that protestors had
used against him. Since the crowd did not leave from in front of the governors’
residence, Celal Pasha transferred him to the army barracks of through the
back door of the house.596
On the night of the mob action, the Armenian population of Bitlis attended
the protest by surrounding the house of the Armenian delegate -Marhasa- of
the city as had happened in Erzurum. Similar to Muslims, a group of Armenians
wielded sticks in their hands and began to shout as they refused to obey
the Marhasa. Celal Pasha went there with his two soldiers to transfer the Armenian
delegate. He succeeded to disperse the crowd. However, the Armenian
protestors also targeted some of the well-known Armenian people of the
city who had good relations with the governor, the next day. Haçik and his
596 Ibid. ; Danyal Tekdal, “1907 Bitlis Depremi ve İsyanında Bir Vali: Ferid Pasha” in Pamukkale
University Journal of Social Sciences Institute No 27 (May 2017): pp.94-116, 101-103.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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friends were taken from their houses, and the crowd beat them black and blue.
Celal Pasha stated that there were not any security guards in the city during
the first two days of the protests. The governor was not in his seat, the telegraph
office was seized by the Muslim protestors who refused to accept any
telegraph until they saw the decree of the Sultan dismissing Ferid Pasha,597
and some of the Armenians who were beaten were hiding in the military’s
barracks. Two people were killed. On the night of the second day, Celal Pasha
achieved to curb the sheiks' power by patrolling the city with the gendarmeries.
However, the Sheiks who controlled Bitlis’s daily life showed their influence
in the city.598 Furthermore, the protestors had intercepted the caravans
of a merchant who transferred cereals to Muş from Diyarbakır. They desired
to confiscate the goods because the drought had caused famine in the city.
However, when the protestors learned that the goods were transferred for the
needs of the army in Muş, they released the merchant and allowed him to
transfer his goods.599
Indeed, Marshall Zeki Pasha quickly heard of the protest via the telegraphs
of Celal Pasha when the crowd attacked the governor’s house. He replied
by asking these questions on the same day:
Is the group who demonstrated in front of the telegraph office a group
of rebels, or are there any ulama, sheiks, and the city’s dignitaries in
this group? If there are any ulama, sheiks, and the city’s dignitaries,
who are they? Are these complaints of theirs about the governor new
or coming from the past? What is the essence of these complaints?
Why did you not take the necessary measures to disperse them? Did
the police and gendarmeries do anything to disperse the demonstration?
Are they also unable to do their jobs? Why did you deliver the
public’s request instead of stopping them while making the governor
unable to do his job? Please answer these questions urgently! 600
597 BOA. Y. MTV. 299/102, 2. 11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1907).
598 Ibid., 3.
599 Ibid.
600 BOA. Y.MTV. 299/105, 3. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907).
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Celal Pasha’s detailed report that explains what happened during the
demonstrations was written after Zeki Pasha asked these questions. However,
the Palace bureaucracy was not convinced by Celal Pasha's words because
although he succeeded in saving the governor's life and some influential people,
he failed to command the security forces during the protest. In addition,
the protestors who captured the telegraph office began to negotiate with the
Palace bureaucracy by sending their telegraphs in rapid succession.
The first telegraph, which mentioning important news for the Sultan, was
sent at 13:40 by Sheik Abdulbaki in the name of the ordinary people.601 After
they called the Sultan to the central telegraph office, the second telegraph arrived
at 14:00. This telegraph was sent by Sheik Hacı Mehmed in the name
of the populace and stated that they had been loyal to the caliphate for centuries,
and that they had not hesitated to give their lives for the Sultan. However,
they were tired due to the corruption of the governor and his assistant. In addition,
their houses were destroyed by the earthquake, which had occurred
two months ago. Moreover, they complained about the immorality of a rise in
fornication in the city. For this reason, they claimed that they were afraid to
send their children to the school and their wives to the public bath.602 The
third telegraph was sent at 14:30 This time, the telegraph was signed by almost
all of the important sheiks of the city in the name of 231 people. They
wrote a more detailed telegraph to explain what they experienced after Ferid
Pasha began to govern the city. They argued the city was ruined due to the
tyranny of Ferid Pasha, and the lack of bread and housing, and for this reason,
people started to emigrate. The civil registry could not provide enough forms
601 BOA. Y. PRK.BŞK. 77/33, 12. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907) “Atebe-i felek-mertebe-i hazreti
tacdarı uzmaya, Bitlis meşaih ve ulema ve mütehayyiranı ile ahali-i umumiyesi bu dakika
makine başında mecud olduğumuzdan hakpay-ı hazreti hilafet penahiye gayet mühim bir
maruzatımız olmagla vucudu mukaddesi hazreti padişahinin şimdi makina başında bulunmasını
istirham eyleriz. Umum ahali namına. Şeyh Abdulbaki.
602 Ibid., 11. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22 1907); Tekdal, 1907 Bitlis Depremi ve İsyanında Bir Vali:
Ferid Pasha,” 102-103.
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of consent because hundreds of people had applied to emigrate. They also
stated that because they needed cereals, the rebels had encircled the city to
seize the crops that came from other places. They blamed the governor for not
providing new houses for the people whose houses were ruined in the earthquake
and showing aggression towards the populace of the city. Moreover,
according to them, the governor destroyed many other houses in the city center
due to the road work and gained all the people's hatred in the city. Hence,
the people of Bitlis asked for his dismissal as soon as possible.603 This letter
would be sent again at 17:00. They also sent another telegraph while another
group was looting the house of the governor and argued that the governor
opened fire on the crowd and murdered a commissar and another person.604
Members of the local bureaucracy, such as the mayor and the members of the
provincial council justified the crowd’s letter by sending another telegraph at
the same time.605
Zeki Pasha wrote a letter to the ulama and the elites of the city on the 23rd
of June in which he argued that the primary duty of the Caliph was to provide
order in the Empire. Thus, their movement would be suppressed, and he was
very upset. However, he had never heard of any action by them against the
caliphate for 22 years. Hence, Zeki Pasha would implore mercy for them if
they left from the telegraph office and ended their reaction against the caliphate.
606 Zeki Pasha focused on two points in his letter to the leaders of the
protest. He stated that there was a religious fellowship between Turks and
603 Ibid., 14. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907). Also see: BOA. Y.A.HUS. 512/46, 4. 9 Haziran
1323 (June 22 1907); Tekdal, “1907 Bitlis Depremi ve İsyanında Bir Vali: Ferid Pasha,”102-
103.
604 Ibid., 15. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22 1907).
605 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 512/46, 3-5. 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907).
606 BOA. Y.PRK.BŞK. 77/33, 7. 10 Haziran 1323 (June 23 1907).
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Kurds, and for this reason, he would not be happy to crush their movement,
although the Palace had asked him to provide order via the help of the army.607
The leaders of the movement replied to the letter by arguing that the loyalty
of the Kurds to the Sultan and the Caliphate was well-known for years
among all subjects of the Empire.608 Also, they would not create any opposition
movement against the Palace. However, as they had argued before, their
movement was a reaction to the unsecure conditions that they experienced.
Although there was an order brought by the Sultan in almost all parts of the
Empire, their city was lacked safety and order because of the misdeeds of
Ferid Pasha. Hence, they created this movement to ensure their voice reached
the Palace.609
When the protests were heard by İstanbul, the Seraskier Rıza Pasha was
warned about the situation because if the government did not find any solutions
to create order in the city, the protests could end up the same as in the
Erzurum events, which had led to the dismissal of two governors.610 Tahsin
Pasha also mentioned the same possible problem by focusing on the primary
demand of the mob: the resignation of the governor.611 Rıza Pasha found Celal
Pasha to be at fault, although Zeki Pasha asked for his promotion because he
attempted to save the governor during the protest.612 Yet, Rıza Pasha put up
Mahmud Pasha, who was the commander of Van as a commander of Bitlis
relying on the decision of the advisory commission of the army. Rıza Pasha
607 Ibid.
608 Infact, the Kurdish rebellions which were led by Sheiks were very common in the late Ottoman
history. It is my contention that the Sheiks insisted on the local reasons of their movements
because they wanted to differentiate their protests from the former rebellions. As an
example of a massive riot see; Sabri Ateş, “Şeyh Ubeydullah İsyanı” in Kürt Tarihi Dergisi
(August-September 2013): 9-15.
609 Ibid.
610 BOA. BEO. 3085/231364, 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907).
611 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 512/51, 2. 11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1907).
612 BOA. Y.MTV. 299/134, 16 Haziran 1323 (June 29, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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also suggested that one battalion and one troop from Van and Muş should be
placed under the commandership of Mahmud Pasha.613 In addition to Rıza
Pasha’s suggestions, the Sultan gave an order to recall the governor Ferid Pasha
and appointed the provincial treasurer, Asım Efendi, as the acting governor.
614 Furthermore, Tahir Pasha, who was the governor of Trabzon, had been
ordered to go to Bitlis to carry out an investigation as soon as possible. Tahir
Pasha replied to the telegraph by saying he took to the road the next day.615
Tahir Pasha was not the only person the Palace wanted to send as the investigator,
but he was the first one whom the Palace chose as the initial step
to stop the chaos.616 However, the bureaucrats also explored the possibility of
selecting the governors of Sivas, Van, and then Erzurum as the investigators.
Yet, because the governor of Erzurum, Nuri Bey, faced the same problems,
the governor of Sivas had an illness and the Palace did not want to govern
Van without a commander and a governor, Tahir Pasha appeared as the most
appropriate person to conduct an investigation.617
613 BOA. Y.MTV 299/89, 1. 12 Haziran 1323 (June 25, 1907); The second letter of Vice-Consul
also underlined the same issue. See: F.O. 424/213. Inclosure 2 in No: 31 From Mr. Safrastian
to Consul Shipley, (June 25, 1907). “I dare to state that Djelal Pasha (the Commandant) and
military authorities in general did not do what they ought to do for the protection of the Vali.
It is possible to say that the future inquiry of the case will lay one part of the responsibility
on the shoulders of the soldiers or their commandants. All higher officials took refuge in the
barracks. I forgot to say that the gendarmerie Major was beaten by the mob and hardly escaped
from their hands.”
614 BOA. İ.HUS. 155/94 21, Haziran 1323 (July 4, 1907); F.O. 424/213 Inclosure I in no:47 Mr.
Safrastian to Consul Shipley (July 2, 1907).
615 BOA. BEO. 3085/231369, 3. 12 Haziran 1323 (June 25, 1907); F.O. 424/213 Inclosure I in
no:47 Mr. Safrastian to Consul Shipley (July 2, 1907).
616 BOA. İ.HUS.155/26, 10 Haziran 1323 (June 23, 1907). The Irade prove that, the Palace chose
him as inspector before it sends telegrams to ask other governors whether they could go Bitlis.
617 For the documents about the chosing process of Tahir Pasha and elimination of other governors,
see: BOA. Y.A.HUS. 512/62, 11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1907); BOA. BEO.
3085/231365, 11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1907); BOA. Y.MTV 299/105, 11 Haziran 1323
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Marshall Zeki Pasha took the order of the Seraskier Rıza Pasha and sent
a telegraph to the Mahmud Pasha. However, his call was criticized by the
governor of Van because the clash between the soldiers and Armenian Fedais
had been continuing. The governor did not want to decrease the number of
soldiers in the city, but Zeki Pasha requested that they to manage the city with
the help of the police and gendarmeries until the government managed to stop
the mob in Bitlis.618 Yet, the news resulted in another bout of chaos in the city.
Sheiks of Bitlis called for the support of other Sheikhs in the region against
the military. Sheikh Seyyid Ibrahim sent another telegraph in the name of the
ulama, petty-notables, and merchants of the city, and argued that they had
seized the telegraph office because they did not believe anyone other than the
Sultan. Hence, sending the army to Bitlis would change the character of their
protest because it could cause chaos in the city.619 Moreover, the leaders of
the protest had informed Celal Pasha that if the battalions enter the city, other
Kurdish tribes around the city would come to help their movement.620 The
Vice-Consul Safrastian observed the situation as follows:
A telegram arrived on the 25th ultimo from Zeki Pasha the Commander
of the 4th Army Crops at Erzengan, announcing to the people of Bitlis
the Imperial Irade to the effect that, Ferid Pasha, the Vali of Bitlis, has
been recalled to Erzengan pending his trial, the defterdar of Bitlis appointed
Acting Vali, and that a Commission of Inquiry (Tahir Pasha,
of Trebizond, and Ferik Mahmoud Pasha of Van) is being dispatched
to Bitlis to investigate the reasons of the rising of the people and their
complaints against the Vali.
On the arrival of the tidings, the council of Sheiks ordered the
mob to disperse, to reopen the shops, and begin to works. The civil
authorities, which were nil for the four preceding days, reappeared in
their offices, and soon the conditions took their normal course in the
town as before. Ferik Mahmoud Pasha arrived from Van on the 28th
(June 24, 1907); BOA. Y.MTV. 299/102, 12 Haziran 1323 (June 25, 1907); BOA. İ. DH.
1456/21, 19 Haziran 1323 (July 2, 1907).
618 BOA. BEO. 3086/231435, 1-2. 10-11 Haziran 1323 (June 23-24, 1907).
619 BOA. BEO. 3085/231369, 2. 12 Haziran 1323 (June 25, 1907); BOA. DH.TMIK.M. 248/11,
11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1906).
620 BOA. Y.MTV. 299/105, 2. 11 Haziran 1323 (June 24, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
239
ultimo with one battalion of infantry. Another battalion has arrived
since from Mush and five others are reported to be already en route
from Erzeroum, Harpoot, and Mosul.
The Sheikhs seem to be quite nervous about events of the nearest
future: they are encouraged by the recall of Ferid Pasha, and have
received letters of congratulations and sympathy from the people of
Siirt, the Chiefs of Modku, the Sheikhs of Khizan who at the same
time assure the Mussulmans of Bitlis their moral and material assistance
in case of need to the people of Bitlis, and that thousands of
armed Kurds are ready to come to their help from every part of the
vilayet if the Sheikhs wanted them.621
Zeki Pasha found a compromise in such a situation. He argued that soldiers’
daily bread could not be provided by Bitlis, which would cause another
serious problem in the city. For this reason, he kindly asked the Palace to give
orders for cities that send the battalions to pay their salaries and not to allow
the soldiers to enter Bitlis. Instead of Bitlis, Zeki Pasha offered that soldiers
could wait in Başhan which was two hours away from the city center.622 The
Seraskier accepted his requests, and the troops were quartered in Başhan
while their salaries were sent from the central treasury.623
Although the army was not allowed to enter the city, sending four battalions
of soldiers near Bitlis had dampened the influence of the mob. First, Celal
Pasha and then the lieutenant governor Asım Efendi declared that safety and
the stability had been restored again in their telegraphs to the Palace. According
to them, the mob was finished and the tradesmen had reopened their shops
again.624
It was clear that both the government forces and the Kurdish tribes did not
look forward to raising the tension. The government’s attitude against the
Kurds was softer than the response of the government in Erzurum or in case
621 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No: 47 Mr Safrastian to Consul Shipley, Bitlis, (July 2, 1907).
622 BOA. Y.MTV. 299/106, 3. 12 Haziran 1323 (June 25, 1907).
623 Ibid., 1. 13 Haziran 1323 (June 26, 1907).
624 Ibid., 1-4 13-14 Haziran 1323 (June 26-27, 1907).
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of the movement of Armenians. In addition, although the British Vice-Consul
of Van, namely Captain Dickson stated, 15,000 Kurds under arms were ready
to respond to the movement of soldiers,625 the control of the Sheiks over the
ordinary people was limited, and most of the tradesmen did not desire to be a
part of a clash between the Sheiks and the army. The second issue was the
recall of the governor by the Palace. The people in the mob won their battle
against the governor Ferid Pasha. Like in Erzurum, now the protestors would
focus on influencing the inspectors to gain what they desired.
5.5.1 Legitimizing the Movement: Reports on the Case and State’s
Response
The Vice-Consul of Britain in Van, Captain Dickson, was very interested
in the events of Bitlis in the last week of June 1907. He went to Bitlis when
he heard the protests in the city. He arrived in Bitlis on the night of the 30th of
June when the protests ended, and Ferid Pasha left the city. He firstly met
with the Russian consul to learn the dynamics of the city. Then he made an
investigation in the city. After that, he wrote a report in which he analyzed the
social and economic problems of the city that resulted in the elimination of
the governor.
In his detailed report, Dickson firstly focused on the conception of the
people towards Ferid Pasha by arguing that the governor’s rule, or misrule
rather has been unpopular among Christians and Muslims alike: “his one aims
appears to have been to amass money, and his means were unscrupulous, and
in most cases hard on the people.”626 In addition, the governor’s attitudes differed
according to the ethnic backgrounds of the people. For instance, Dickson
argued while the governor “fostered the revolutionary movement among
the Armenians by his cruelty, some Kurdish tribes who in paid the Vali to
625 F.O. 424/213 No: 407 Sir N. O’Conor to Sir Edward Grey (July 4, 1907).
626 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No:51 Vice-Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor (July 6, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
241
allow the course of the law to run past without finding them.”627 Seyyid Ali,
who was the latter Sheik of Khizan and who had the power to move 3,000
men within the space of few hours, was an example of this because he paid
800 liras to Ferid Pasha to shield the misdeeds of his men.628
According to him, Mehmed Efendi was the tax collector in the city, had
collected more than the legal amount, and Ferid Pasha had taken 700 liras as
his share from that money.629 Moreover, Dickson reported that when the
earthquakes had destroyed the houses in the previous winter, the governor had
received 1,300 liras from the Palace for relief work and reconstruction of the
places that were damaged. He constructed a few wooden sheds which valued
40 liras and distributed 300 liras worth of bread. The rest of the money was
not distributed for the needs, but he sent a document signed by certain influential
people of the town, that purported to show that all funds had been distributed.
630 This point by Dickson point contradicts with the Ottoman documents
because the total amoun of the official relief of the state arrived after
Ferid Pasha was dislocated from his seat. The Palace sent some money as
soon as possible after the earthquake, but the amount was not enough to reconstruct
the houses of the poor. Hence, as suggested by the Ministry of
Treasury and Interior, Sultan Abdulhamid II sent 2,000 Ottoman liras to a
commission in the government of Bitlis, and the commission was charged to
distribute the money to the poor for reconstructing their houses.631 The reaction
against Ferid Pasha had appeared because of the insufficient effort of the
government to rebuild the houses prior to the protests. Even after Ferid
627 Ibid. No:51.
628 Ibid.
629 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No:51 Vice-Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor (July 6, 1907).
630 Ibid.
631 BOA. İ.DH. 1457/39, 1-3. 16 Ağustos 1323 (August 29, 1907).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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Pasha's dismissal, the new governor asked for 8,000 additional liras to use in
the relief works, but the government sent only 2,000 liras.632
The most important point made by Dickson was regarding the price inflation
that raised the price of corn three times a year in Bitlis. He argued that
while Bitlis produced 24,700 codes of corn, the total production was 256,900
codes in Bulanık, Malazgird, Akhlad, Mush, Kharzan, Siird, and Bohtan. According
to him, “all of this surplus might have been brought to Bitlis to lower
the price.” Yet, the supply of corn in the city was in the hands of a few merchants,
who had good relations with the governor. Although Dickson did provide
no evidence about the relationship between these merchants and the governor,
according to him, if the governor did not nurture such privileging
relations with these merchants, he could have worked to decrease the price of
the corn.633 When the effects of price inflation were added to the problem of
changing money, the results of earthquakes, and the heavy taxation over the
subjects, the Muslims of Bitlis refused to live under his rule.
Dickson also gave many details about the sentiments of the Kurds in the
districts. He mentioned that “the general feeling among the Kurds in these
districts is unfavorable to the government.”634 According to him, Kurds did
not accept any form of government, but this observation was the general feeling
of Dickson about the Kurdish tribes. What he gathered from his investigation
was that the main reason for the protests was the governor Ferid Pasha.
He also differentiated the Kurds who had ties with powerful tribes from poor
ones by arguing that while the poor Kurds like Ryah Kurds and Armenians as
well were oppressed by the governor and the powerful Asshirets, the powerful
clans made more money by seizing the properties of the weak and succeeding
632 Ibid., 2. 16 Ağustos 1323 (August 29, 1907).
633 Ibid.
634 Ibid.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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to escape the cruelty of the governor.635 In such a situation, Dickson concluded
that, “during the interval between the 22nd and 26th June, there was
every chance of the riot spreading to a general revolt of the Kurds in the district
against the government. Fortunately, the Palace gave way, and all these
growing clouds immediately evaporated, and now the sky is clear.”636
Dickson’s investigation provided a transparent background for the protest,
but his claims about the tax collections contradicted Ferid Pasha's arguments.
Other observations were mainly the same as what the protestors claimed.637
However, the Sheiks' role and the agents of the protests were not clear in the
reports. For instance, if the powerful tribes oppressed the weak, why did the
ordinary people create a mob under their commandership? Moreover, how did
the Sheiks become the leaders of the mobs?
Dickson did not provide any clue about how different classes and different
ethnic groups acted together, but he wrote a few sentences about the importance
of the Sheiks without providing any evidence for their role in the
mob. According to him, there were several powerful Kurdish tribes such as
Batoun, Shormaklı, Biro, Panjarani and Hiran, whom the government did not
have control over them. These tribes were mostly nomadic and well-armed,
and they were more religious than Turks. Hence, they had great respect for
the Sheiks of the region. That is why Dickson concluded that “Sheiks led the
mob, and ‘on the 8th of July, after Tahir Pasha arrived, they met together and
swore to stand by one another if there were any question of punishment for
the revolt.”638 Although Dickson was right about the position of the Sheiks in
the region, his argument was weak when it came to explain the leadership of
635 Ibid.
636 Ibid.
637 For an example of a document that contains the same complaints see; BOA. Y.A.HUS.
512/46, 9 Haziran 1323 (June 22, 1907); BOA. Y.MTV. 291/115, 4 Kanunuevvel 1322 (December
17, 1906).
638 Ibid.
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the Sheiks in the mob. The religious leaders were mainly the natural leaders
of the different classes in various regions of the Empire for diverse reasons,
as explained in the previous chapters through the cases of Kosovo and Erzurum.
Under the circumstances, Captain Dickson prepared a list of suggestions
for Tahir Pasha. First, he sent the list to the central-consulate in Istanbul to
take permission for suggesting each article. According to him, the problem
was not only a protest against Ferid Pasha. The city was in complete anarchy,
and the state needed to operate a reform package to provide order in the city.
He classified his suggestions into four columns. The first column was about
the problems between different ethnic groups, and he proposed;
1- Measures for the alleviation of position of Christian villagers
2- Protection of life and property from the Kurds and Circassians
3- Prevention of dispossession of Christians from their land to make
room for Muslim immigrants
4- Prevention of Muslims establishing themselves in Christian villages
5- Officials to listen to complaints of the people and of their religious
representatives and to give them protection in according to law.
6- Election of strong and honest Kaimakams holding such posts
7- Prohibition of irresponsible Acting Kaimakams holding such posts
8- Prevention of outrages by Kurds after troops have been sent to
search for revolutionaries.639
All these articles relied on the observations of Dickson when he visited
Muş and Jezirah. He was faced with a chaos in which Armenian peasants were
oppressed by the Kurdish tribes and Circassian emigrants, and decided to act
by proposing a new reform package to provide a new order. His second column
was about the economic situation and the tax-system of the city. He proposed;
1- Taxes to be collected according to law.
2- Clearly printed taxpayers receipts to be used.
639 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure I in No:32 Vice-Consul Dickson to Sir N. O’Conor. (Bitlis, July 9,
1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
245
3- Complaints of abuses to be investigated, and if correctly reported
culprits to be punished.
4- Poor people not to be maltreated and compelled to pay
taxes.
5- Articles of prime necessity not to be taken.
6- Articles given for relief not to be taken.
7- Prohibition of making poor people pay by system called ‘selef.’
8- If villager has not other means of paying, payment to be deferred
till after harvest.
9- Christian villages to buy their own taxes according to price of
last five years.
10- Officials to be held responsible for these suggestions being
carried out in their districts.640
In his third column, he proposed the punishment of the sixteen officials
and brigands mentioned each by name, and in the last part of his proposal, he
suggested the returning of women taken by Muslims and restoring goods stolen
by Kurds.641 Sir N. O. C’onor, who was the consul in İstanbul, suggested
him omit the articles which were covered by the existing laws. Hence, he
kindly asked to omit articles 1, 5, 6, 7 in part I, and articles 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 in part
II.642
When he visited Tahir Pasha with his Russian colleagues, he presented the
list of their suggestions after they omitted the articles that Sir N. O’ Conor
mentioned,643 and Tahir Pasha replied “it was the duty of the government to
attend to all these points” because their “demands were perfectly just and necessary
for the welfare of the vilayet.” However, he did not want to give any
guarantee because he was not the governor of the city, and he needed to make
a tour in the city to understand the reasons behind the protests. Another reason
for the tour was the effort to “collect evidences (especially from the
640 Ibid.
641 Ibid.
642 Ibid., Inclosure II in No:32. Sir N. O’ Conor to Vice-Consul Dickson (July 11, 1907).
643 Ibid., Inclosure III in No:32. Sir N. O’ Conor to Vice-Consul Dickson. (July 13, 1907).
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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Armenians) of complaints against Ferid Pasha.”644 Dickson observed that Tahir
Pasha did not want to govern the city and wished to return to Trabzon as
soon as possible.645 Hence, he was the man “who promises everything but
does not perform much.” For this reason, Dickson kindly asked the central
consulate to press the Porte “insisting on Tahir Pasha putting into action the
demands he had presented to him.”646
Tahir Pasha summarized these requests to İstanbul by stating that the consulates
asked him to govern according to law, save the villagers from the cruelty
of tax collectors, and remove the Kurds and emigrants from the Armenian
villages.647 In addition to this, after listening to the local elites’ criticisms,
Tahir Pasha suggested the appointment of a well-known person as the new
governor of Bitlis and desired to return to Trabzon.648 The Palace appointed
Tahir Pasha as the new governor of Bitlis, and Ferid Pasha was also appointed
as the lieutenant governor of Trabzon.649
Tahir Pasha’s appointment provided a calm in the city, but he did not find
enough time to establish an order according to the requests of the consular
and the requests of the Sheiks and merchants during the mob action because
the Grand Vizier had appointed him to the commission of the frontier which
needed to solve the political problems concerning the frontier between Iran
and Ottoman Empire. In such a situation, Sheiks, who operated the mob, became
the most influential group in the city. For example, one of the
644 Ibid., Inclosure I, IV in No: 53. Captain Dickson to Sir N. O’ Conor. Bitlis, (July 14, 1907).
645 Ibid.
646 Ibid.
647 BOA. BEO. 3100/232477, 8 Temmuz 1323 (July 21, 1907). In the final stage the consulars
suggested nine articles which were summarized by Tahir Pasha. See: F.O. 424/213 Inclosure
3 in No:53 Bitlis, (July 13 1907).
648 BOA. İ. HUS. 156/45, 12 Temmuz 1323 (July 25, 1907).
649 BOA. İ. DH. 1457/22, 17 Temmuz 1323 (July 30, 1907) F.O. 424/213 No:53 Sir N. O’ Conor
to Sir Edward Grey (No:467) (July 31, 1907); F.O. 195/2251 Bitlis (August 15, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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gendarmerie corporals was beaten in the bazaar during these days,650 and none
of the officials attempted to save him because of the fear of another mob under
the leadership of the Sheiks.
When the Grand Vizier inquired ‘in what way reforms are possible’ in
Bitlis, the treasurer forwarded the letter to Tahir Pasha, and he replied he
could not give any reply until he returned.651 Hence, Sheiks and notables had
continued to hold secret meetings, and they were accepted as the most effective
groups in the city because Tahir Pasha went to the frontier of Iran. Ferid
Pasha's dismissal was a victory similar to what the people of managed in Erzurum
twice, but the protestors did not achieve to solve any problem. In addition,
they were still afraid to be punished in accordance with the law.
Under such a position, the protestors sent a letter to Tahir Pasha. Thirtyfive
Armenian and Muslim notables and merchants petitioned the governor
on the 15th of September 1907:
The robbers (eshkiya) of our vilayet who have not met any severe
check or punishment from the government, continue their
raids and pillaging. They are troubling and ruining the people.
These robbers having remained without any punishment or investigation
for a great many years, have become very bold, so
that several times they have attacked Bitlis, the centre of the
vilayet, and carried away the cattle.
They have closed the roads. The city, which cannot be cultivated
and which more than all should be supplied with stores
of corn and other provisions, does not receive victuals for lack
of security. Prices are continually rising. No one can go out of
the city, and those who attempt it are robbed. The people are
filled with fear and horror for the coming winter.
This year nearly 1,000 families, who are not able to gain their
daily bread or make a livelihood have removed themselves to
other cities and emigrated to foreign lands and many are
preparing to follow their countrymen. The one and only cause
of these misfortunes is the carelessness of the officials in their
duties and their incapacity in looking after the wants and con-
650 F.O. 195/2251 From Vice-Consulate of Bitlis (August 15, 1907).
651 F.O. 424/213 Inclosure in No:127 Vice Consul Heard to Sir N. O’ Conor. Bitlis (September
30, 1907).
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dition of the country. For this the city is deprived of security
and peace. Murders and quarrels occur in the market. Because
we need deeds rather than words, and because the safety and
prosperity of the province has been committed to your hand
and care by the Sultan, we make bold to beseech you to make
an end of this ruinous state of affairs and to take steps towards
a practical reformation and to put it into execution rapidly. We
await your order.652
Sultan Abdulhamid II sent an order to all departments of Bitlis and asked
them to work in coordination to create order and capture the bandits. Besides,
instead of Tahir Pasha’s request to accept the mutasarrıf of Siird as an acting
governor until Tahir Pasha returns, a new person should be chosen because
Siird was in political instability.653
However, the political stability was lacking not only in Bitlis but also in
the cities such as Muş and Siird, because Tahir Pasha acted as the commissioner
in the border negotiations, and the province suffered from a lack of
authority of the state rule. In other words, after the dismissal of Ferid Pasha,
Bitlis fell into the hands of Sheiks and powerful Kurdish tribes.
5.5.2 Conclusion
The actors in the Bitlis province used the power of contentious politics
effectively to dislocate an unfavored governor. They came upon the scene
suddently, followed a well-determined strategy and created a moment of opportunity
to demonstrate their influence in the province. The crisis that they
experienced before the protest became a tool to legitimize their movement.
They followed a schema that involved the petitioning phase, creating mass
movements, closing all shops in the bazaar, attacking specific people of the
local bureaucracy, looting their possessions and ensuring order for the others
652 Ibid. Bitlis (September 30, 1907).
653 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 515/106, 2-3. 17 Eylül 1323 (September 30, 1907).
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
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in the province. It was a way to create an alternative order and alarming the
Imperial center about their situation.
The repertoire of the masses in Bitlis were not different from the reactions
of the society on the western frontiers during the times of crisis. Although
Bitlis had some specifities such as the leadership of sheiks and the presence
of Kurdish tribes, the way they followed to negotiate for their demands was
similar to the other reactions that emerged during the last years of Sultan Abdulhamid
II. Moreover, the reactions were the result of a deep custom that can
even be observed with some nuances, in socieity’ reactions during the crisis
times today.
The state bureaucracy and the foreign representatives were not eager to
conceptualize the movement as the urban politics of society, however. Instead,
while the foreign representatives researched the non-Muslims’ and non-
Turks’ role as the evidence of colonial perspective of the Empire towards its
Non-Turkish and Non-Muslims population, the state bureaucracy neglected
the role of the urban populace and focused on the role of leadership in the
events. Zeki Pasha’s letter about the events in Bitlis, Şemsi Pasha’s defitinion
of populace by in Kosovo were among the examples that lay bare the Empire’s
vantage points. Although they provided significant details on the social life in
the urban center and villages of the provinces, the foreign representatives’
reports tended to focus on the cruelty of the center, the misdeeds of the local
bureaucracy and the oppression that non-Muslim society of the Ottoman East
experienced. When the cases are the petitions, most of the examples were in
a way similar to Albert Hourani’s famous criticism: “The voice of an important
part of the population is scarcely heard in them, or heard only in
muted, indirect and even distorted form: that of the Muslim town-dwellers
and their traditional and “natural leaders, the urban notables.”654 Referring
back to Guha, it can be argued that this chapter aimed to read these documents
654 Albert Hourani, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” 44.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
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against the grain in order to counterbalance the document’s counter-insurgency
emphasis. Thus, even though the social and economic conditions of
Bitlis prepared the events, the strategies of the urban coalition broadcasted
the voices of Ottoman urban life, which one can could hear not only in Bitlis
but throughout the Empire.
251
6
Conclusion
his dissertation traced the negotiation practices of the Ottoman society
by analyzing tax related reactions and reactions against the governors in
the Ottoman provinces during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It revisited
the mass movements that occurred in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire
and explained them as the bargaining practices and discursive strategies
of the various social forces among themselves and in the face of provincial
bureaucracy during the reign of Abdulhamid II. Hence, the research focused
on the mass movements known as tax revolts, mobs against the governors and
the state’s capability of tax collection in the late Ottoman history. As a critique
of the tax revolts concept, the dissertation aimed to rewrite the history of these
movements as a contested space between multi-layered and multi-actoral networks
through focusing on the dynamics of the provinces rather than following
a unilateral analysis. Moreover, the dissertation followed statistics provided
by the local bureaucracy to clarify the decision-making process of the
society concerning tax payment as a hidden transcript of the contentious politics.
During the nineteenth century, known as the age of nations and nationalism,
the leaders in provincial politics were conceptualized as the people who
became the founding fathers of new nation states at the end of the Empire.
T
MUSTAFA BATMAN
252
This dissertation, however, refused to conceptualize those people who became
the leaders because of their attention to the political oppositions to the
monarchy while it accepted the rising power of the provincial people. The
provincial politics was based on the determination of the limits of central
power and the possibility of becoming the partners of the state even during
the collapse of an absolute regime. They chose to create nation-states not
when the nationalism became the new agenda of the era but when the negotiation
practices came to an end. When Hoca Şevket who was one of the leaders
in the protests that took place in Erzurum fled, he wrote, “it was a religious
duty for a person to search for the polity.”655 He chose to flee when all negotiation
practices were shot down by the Imperial center but returned to the
city and became the deputy of the Erzurum when the Assembly was opened
after the 1908 Revolution. In this manner, the 1908 Revolution was a restoration
of the negotiation practices of the society. Thereupon, the Ottoman society
showed significant examples of strike waves to achieve their demands
after the revolution.656 Yet, the Committee of Union and Progress decided to
follow a new path after the 31 March Incidents and they blocked the negotiation
practices of the society with the state. That was a turning point in the
Ottoman Empire because when the fight for the demands, as the established
customs, had been shot down, the representatives of the provincial societies
became the natural leaders of the new nation-states via the support of the
provinces’ populace. The Albanian movement during the period when
655 BOA.Y.MTV. 308/35 2. “İdaresini aramak insan için farz-ı ayndır. Beş guruş yevmiye bir
âlimin değil bir kahveci çırağının yevmiyesidir. Subhanallah subhanallah ne kader bilakis.”
656 For the strike wave after the revolution see; Yavuz Selim Karakışla, “The 1908 Strike Wave
in the Ottoman Empire,” in Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, vol.16 no.2 (September
1992): 153-177. Karakışla argues that the government passed a law aimed at preventing further
strikes even before the Parliament opened.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
253
Committee of Union and Progress controlled the Assembly, and the Kurdish
Question during the early Republican period were among the best examples.
This dissertation also focused on the success of Tanzimat reforms because
it argued that Tanzimat provided new channels for the populace to become
new partners of the Empire. Even though most of the seats had been taken by
the powerholders in the borderlands, the populace created new strategies to
eliminate the powerholders, to cope with the Imperial bureaucracy and to increase
their influence in the cities. The changing dynamics in the provinces
during the 19th century via the techno-political attempts of the empire provided
new opportunities for the people of the borderlands when negotiating
for their demands. In this sense, the dissertation discussed the role of contentious
politics in urban life instead of focusing on who took the seats in the
local bureaucracy because capturing the streets were more crucial than taking
the seats in the provincial government office.
When the new powerholders of the Ottoman provinces who a coalition of
local influential people and the central power657 decided to oppress the urban
populace, the populace also used the power of protest as a weapon. James
Grehan has shown the reactions of the society of Damascus against the qadi
as the reason for their hunger in the 1740s. He argued that “people had a fairly
consistent idea about what was right and wrong, legitimate and abusive, legal
and extortionate.”658 As this dissertation argued, the general perspective of
the Ottoman populace was similar to the cases Grehan illuminated. However,
the populace had more advantages in the 19th and 20th centuries due to their
efforts to reach the Imperial center. When they faced a moment of danger,
they remembered the tradition of rebellion to find a solution for their
657 Özbek, İmparatorluğu Bedeli, 214.
658 James Grehan, “Street Violence and Social Imagination in late-Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus
(CA.1500-1800) in International Journal of Middle East Stuudies 35 (2003): 215-
236, 229.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
254
problems. As Donald Quataert argued, the shortfalls of 1907-1908 did not
represent the unique examples because most of the problems the Ottoman society
experienced had also occurred before and it was within living memory,
as it explained in chapter four.659 Moreover, the repertoire of the borderland
society was not unique. Yet, as Linda Darling has argued, “during the nineteenth
century, Middle Eastern political discourse adopted and adapted the
terminology of the West but used it to describe the relationships encapsulated
in the Circle of Justice.”660 The dissertation discussed these dynamics of the
borderlands to clarify the changing dynamics of the provincial urban life and
how ideas circulated via the development of collective action. In this manner,
tax-related reactions of various actors, the reactions against local bureacrats
and the invention of the tradition that the society captured as it flared up during
the time of the crisis became the new political checks and balances system
of the Ottoman provinces. In other words, the protests marches, refusal of tax
payment, occupations of the public buildings such as telegraph and governor
offices, violence against local officers, struggle between various classes and
religious sects in the provinces of Erzurum, Bitlis, Van and Kosovo provinces
were elaborated in this thesis as the examples of how the Ottoman society
responded to the changes in the urban life.
As the dissertation argued, the Resource Mobilization Theory and the concept
of framing in social movement literature were not only useful concepts
to clarify the role of the opposition movements but also provided tools to understand
how the local actors mobilized the resources and became the scapegoats
(as those who oppress the society) when the political atmosphere
changed. Chapters three and four were written from such a perspective.
Hence, the dissertation also aimed to contribute to the social movement theories.
It also discussed the language of the protestors and the dissertation agrees
659 Donald Quataert, “The Economic Climate of the ‘Young Turk Revolution’ in 1908,” 1161.
660 Darling, A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of
Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization, 181.
TAX REVOLTS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMP IRE
255
with the arguments of Engin Akarlı about the role of Islam as a resource of
social solidarity. As Akarlı mentioned, Sultan Abdulhamid II “could not monopolize
Islam, try through he did. Others could resort to the same resource
to contest the interpretations and methods adopted by the Palace.”661 The use
of Islamic discourse against the changes implemented by the Imperial center
without negotiating with the society played an invented tradition role on the
Ottoman frontiers. The actors in the provinces were well-informed about the
rising role of Islam in the politics even though the reform period was labeled
as secularist. Hence, they used the Islamic discourse to persuade the Imperial
Palace and the local bureaucracy in the provinces about their rightousness.
Bedros Der Matossian argues that the use of symbols was a state enterprise
during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II and it was given to the public after
the revolution. Unlike Matossian, this dissertation tended to conceptualize the
use of symbols as an invented tradition that was used effectively both by the
Imperial Palace and the provincial urban society during the reign of Sultan
Abdulhamid II.662
In brief, the dissertation is an example of a micro-history: it focused on
the events in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The specific cases were
chosen from the events known as tax revolts but the dissertation conceptualized
those movements as the negotiation practices of the Ottoman borderlands.
Thus, the dissertation did not only accept those movements as the inspirations
for the revolutionaries but also aimed to clarify the cultural
background on which the revolutionary collective action depended on. The
political oppositions to Sultan Abdulhamid II were the liminalities of the
661 Engin Deniz Akarlı, “The Tangled Ends of an Empire:Ottoman Encounters with the West and
Problem of Westernization- an Overview,” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and
the Middle East vol.26, no:3 (2006): 353-366, 362.
662 Bedros Der Matossian, Parçalanan Devrim Düşleri: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Son Döneminde
Hürriyetten Şiddete translated by Renan Akman (İstanbul: İletişim, 2016), 80. Matossian
created this argument referring to Selim Deringil’s The Well-Protected Domains.
MUSTAFA BATMAN
256
society because while they had been educated in western schools, they also
experienced the traditional culture of protest in their provinces. The culture
of protest was important in the development of their arguments. The revolutionaries,
who had the political agenda of dismissing an authoritarian regime,
were also influenced by the traditional coalitions of the provinces. The coalitions
insisted on determining the role of the state over their daily lives and
forced the Imperial center to make themselves into the partners of the Empire.
The struggle for a constitutional monarchy included many similarities to the
movements in the provinces. For this reason, the people in the Ottoman borderlands
can be defined as defenders of customs because they created another
version of the checks and balances system in an authoritarian regime.
257
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