The history of Belgrade during the period of Serbian autonomy (de facto, 1817-67) and Ottoman-Serbian dual administration has been dominated by the notions of Islamic city and Europeanization, supposed homogeneity and mutual exclusivity of “Turkish” and Serbian cultural, architectural and urban forms, an assumed total break with the past, and the teleological tendencies to project aspects of the nation-state into the past. On the other hand, numerous documents in the Ottoman, Serbian and British archives show that the dynamics of the dual administration Belgrade was much more complex in terms of local government, intercommunal relations, struggle over space, and the involvement of Ottoman and Serbian state structures in the development of the city. This paper inquires into such complexity through the account of Belgradi Rashid, who was from a notable family and had first-hand information about Ottoman administration as well as the daily affairs of the city. His work, “Tarih-i Vak’a-i Hayretnüma-i Belgrad”, was written in 3 volumes and an appendix, and narrates and discusses the important events that took place during the period of autonomy. In addition to providing information about the events, Rashid’s account embodies a very interesting perspective on the problems of the dual administration as they exist in urban space. While Rashid often adopts an elitist tone, he can also be seen vindicating Muslim lower classes. Moreover, he has sympathy for Serbian constitutionalists and even talks approvingly of the 1848 Revolutions. Although he laments the erosion of Ottoman control over the city and the eventual ejection of Muslims, he does not have a dualistic perspective that advocates Ottoman claims and blames only the Serbians. Rashid is critical of the Ottoman provincial officialdom and in general has a sophisticated sense of the political and how it affects ordinary people’s lives. The paper argues that this seemingly enigmatic combination of support for nobility, defense of urban middle classes, elements of liberalism, a sharp critique of bureaucracy, and critical history writing was brought together by a desire to defend a Muslim urban space that was under threat. It is therefore possible to consider Belgradi Rashid’s work as the expression of a supra-class urban consciousness, which, witnessing the impoverishment and disenfranchisement of the old landlord class with sadness, opted to defend the interests of the gentry as well as the urban bourgeoisie, and not necessarily those of the Ottoman state, in and through Belgrade’s urban space.

This paper deals with the person and legacy of Salih A?a of Pa?makl? within the context of the hotly disputed Pomak heritage in Bulgaria. Salih is the most famous, but “forgotten” Pomak governor of the small Ottoman province of Ah? Çelebi from the first half of the nineteenth century. Relying largely on orally transmitted ethnographic documentation, I reconstruct the life story of a fascinating ruler who registers in local memory as tough – indeed, often ruthless – but relentlessly evenhanded enforcer of justice. Most notably, he elevated the status of Christians to that of Muslims in Ah? Çelebi despite the religious discrimination inherent in Shari’a, the normative law of the Ottoman Empire. Historically speaking, Salih A?a is important in the rising discourse of Pomak heritage in Bulgaria. Because of the contentious nature of Pomak identity in the national narrative, the Muslim Rhodopean community has been stranded on a precarious crossroad with no real sense of self that is reflective of the people’s own understanding of past and present. Since the time of their first comprehensive Christianization of 1912-1913, the Pomaks have been consistently told to think of themselves as descendants of forcibly Islamized Bulgarians, whose primary patriotic duty is to return to their “true” identity. Challenges to any aspect of – what has become – the established history of the Bulgarian nation is likely to be met with overt hostility and aggression. Finding a way out of negative emotions and devising common grounds for the discussion of historical heritage, therefore, is paramount to a constructive public discourse. Salih A?a, the man who cared equally for the well-being of Muslim and Christian communities within his realm more than 170 years ago, may be able to offer just such shared platform. While the formal acknowledgement and celebration of Salih’s legacy in Smolyan would immensely please the local Pomak community, allowing them to develop a sense of historical continuity, it will also open the discussion of currently sensitive issues pertaining to the Ottoman past, including Pomak identity. This paper contributes to revitalizing the local Pomak heritage through the narrative of Salih’s life as reflected in oral history and recorded by Vassil Dechov, Nikolay Haytov, and Petar Marinov, among others. Albeit neglected by orthodox history, Salih of Pa?makl? is very much alive in vernacular memory and available to inspire the common grounds for a new, shared Rhodopean heritage.

The city of Ruse, now in northern Bulgaria, was the center of the Ottoman Danube province from 1864 to 1878, when the city came under Russian occupation. My research examines the dramatic transformations of Ottoman Ruse –political, social, cultural and demographic– following the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878. As the city was composed of a variety of religious and ethnic groups that were both socially separate and culturally intertwined, I will explore how people of these various backgrounds lived together in this time of change in a discreet urban environment. My study will also focus on the ways in which the Treaty of Berlin was implemented in the region, detailing the issues regarding property disputes, civil rights, ethnic tensions, disarmament and relations with Russia. Nihad Pasha was the Ottoman commissioner in charge of handling these issues with the Bulgarian government, and I will end my research in 1885, when his term ended. I will address the questions: How were the changes after liberation experienced by the various groups that lived in the city, did they upset the balance of ethnic relations, and how did they affect the ties or commercial relationships? My project has required extensive research in various archives and libraries in Turkey, Bulgaria and the US. Most of the sources that I have used for this research include Bulgarian, Ottoman and Western Newspapers, Ottoman Foreign Office documents, British and Russian consular reports, Bulgarian Orthodox Church documents, and travelers’ accounts. This study will allow for comparison with studies of Balkan cities which gained independence from the Ottoman rule, as well as contribute to the broader field of urban studies.

In the late summer of 1910, Hüseyin Kazim Kadri, the new CUP governor of Aleppo arrived in town to take up his post. His approximately one-year term would be a short and contentious one as local, landowning elites who felt threatened by his reforming zeal would eventually cause him to depart. In particular, they considered his ideas about agrarian reform to be at odds with their own interests. This paper proposes to use Kazim’s tenure as governor in the post-1908 period to explore how battles over land reform and changing agricultural practices encompassed conflicting claims to and notions of authority, expertise and justice. For almost two decades before Kazim became the governor of Aleppo, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture had been working to establish model fields and farms in the region and gradually encourage institutionalized agricultural education. These efforts actually tended to favor large landowners with capital and land on which they could experiment. Kazim himself was very much a proponent of these changes and had even been instrumental in trying to contribute to these developments more generally with the publication around 1900 of an extensive book on agriculture. As governor he continued to pursue this passion and took a very hands-on approach to his rule of the province—from locusts to farm machinery, he was keen to institute reforms and apply new techniques. Nonetheless, he found himself frustrated, despite support from large portions of the local population, by various obstacles, namely corruption and inability to exert his authority as governor over powerful local, landed interests. Using documents from the Ottoman Archives as well as published materials from the period, this paper will investigate how Kazim championed the cause of a number of discrete individuals whom he considered to have been unjustly treated in matters of land ownership or registration, particularly after efforts to improve their property. It will trace his attempts to apply the CUP’s ideals of freedom, equality, and justice to argue for these cases and demonstrate how local elites thwarted his attempts to exert his authority. Ultimately he found himself confronted with powerful, entrenched interests, whose control over the land would prove too tenacious even for his own tenacity. Nonetheless, the records he left paint a rich, colorful picture of his efforts as governor to negotiate and navigate this post-revolution moment in which he claimed so fervently to believe.