Professional Documents
Culture Documents
section one
Edited by
volume 158/1–2
Volume 1
Edited by
H. Şükrü Ilıcak
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Volume 1
Foreword vii
Acknowledgements x
Notes on the Ayniyat Registers xii
Notes on the Translations xiv
Transliteration Systems Followed in This Book xvi
List of Figures xix
Notes on Contributors xx
Introduction 1
Documents 31
1821 31
1822 230
1823 513
1824 704
1825 754
1826 893
Volume 2
Transliterations 931
Ayniyat 573 931
Ayniyat 574 1003
Ayniyat 575 1079
Ayniyat 576 1162
Ayniyat 577 1216
Ayniyat 578 1277
Ayniyat 579 1344
Ayniyat 1713 1397
Ayniyat 1769 1463
Ayniyat 580 1513
Ayniyat 580–1 1556
Ayniyat 581 1580
Ayniyat 582 1609
Appendices 1645
Glossary 1645
Short Biographies of the Important Individuals Mentioned in the
Documents 1649
Bibliography 1661
Index 1670
beginning and a conclusive end, with one part acting in a certain way, while
the other part acted differently. The sources suggest, however, that such a sche-
matic presentation does not do justice to what really happened. The Greek War
of Independence was a particularly complicated series of events of multiple
dynamics, all of which, intentionally or not, proclaimed self-determination,
the various connotations notwithstanding, as the ultimate reason against any
source of power. Self-determination is thus the concept that intermediated the
entry of “Greece” into modernity: a province of the Ottoman Empire becomes
an independent state; or, more accurately in the case of Greece, a state regains
its independence, with reference, of course, to Antiquity.
The complexity of the Greek Revolution, the key concepts that emerged and
which the Greek Enlightenment polished, the various dynamics, and the place
of the Greek War of Independence in the international framework are issues
that have been sufficiently addressed by modern scholarship. Disentangling
the study of the Greek War of Independence from traditional perceptions
that invariably attempted to promote the heroic nature of the Greek partici-
pants alongside the evil Ottomans, modern scholars have revised the narra-
tive. For one, they have abandoned ideological conceptualizations and have
returned to sources to make sense of the events and their aftermath. Instead of
marginalized presentations, recent scholarship approaches the Greek War of
Independence within multiple frameworks and from various angles, always in
accordance with current trends and theoretical milieus. Even national histori-
ography has shifted the discussion of the Greek Revolution into more polymor-
phic and complicated approaches.
We still lack, however, one of the most important components regarding
the study of the Greek War of Independence: that of the Ottoman view. One
cannot but wonder, what did the Ottomans think about the Greek War of
Independence? In fact, what did they call it? Did they react instantly? And
then, how did they record the massive events of 1821 onwards? These are all
questions this book aims to address. Including more than 600 unpublished
documents directly from the imperial cabinet, a task that has never been
undertaken before, this publication sheds light on the Ottoman view of the
Greek Revolution. Meticulously commented upon and carefully indexed and
analyzed, this set of documents, which covers today’s Greece, but not only,
brings to scholars fresh information and insight.
It must be said from the outset that this book does not challenge our over-
all perception of the Greek War of Independence. Yet that was not our initial
concern. To make such a statement would mean to fall into the same fallacy
that scholars of previous years have fallen into, that is, to ignore and under-
or overestimate the value of the sources. On the contrary, our concern was to
Panagiotis C. Laskaridis
President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation
This was not an easy project. The vast number of documents we set out to
translate notwithstanding, it took a great deal of time and resources to find the
right people with the necessary skills to bring the project to fruition. The team
members have changed several times, and eventually none of the members of
the initial team survived the project.
I am indebted to many people who have all contributed in significant ways
to this book. First and foremost, I am most grateful to Panagiotis C. Laskaridis,
President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, for having the vision
to sponsor this rather unusual project. I would like to thank Konstantinos
Mazarakis-Ainian for facilitating matters at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foun
dation. I am also indebted to Konstantinos Thanasakis for tirelessly coordinat-
ing every aspect of this project.
I am genuinely obliged to Kahraman Şakul, who joined the project at a later
stage and fastidiously retranslated and edited a good number of the docu-
ments from scratch. Without his support, this book would not have been com-
pleted in time.
Particular thanks are due to my young colleague Çağrı Erdoğan, who amazed
me with his knowledge of Ottoman paleography and undertook the hefty job
of placing the diacritical marks on the transliterations, as well as transliterat-
ing several registers.
I would like to thank Aysel Yıldız, Mehmet Savan, and Nikola Rakovski most
sincerely for taking this project seriously and working around the clock on the
transliterations and translations.
I warmly thank Alexandra Pel for meticulously editing the English text on a
tight schedule and preparing the final manuscript for publication. My special
thanks to Lydia Papageorgiou-George for preparing the maps and the bibliog-
raphy and to Efi Andrikopoulou for preparing the index.
Candan Badem, Mehmet Mennan, Yusuf Şafak, Himmet Taşkömür,
Ilias Kolovos, Paraskevas Matalas, Alidost Numan, Hara Nassiki, Despoina
Pavlidou, Sinan Kuneralp, Ali Can Batmaz, and Gelina Harlaftis all made
valuable contributions at different stages of the project, and my special
thanks go to them.
I would also like to thank Abdurraouf Oueslati, Acquisitions Editor for
Middle East and Islamic Studies at Brill, and the Brill production team for their
assistance at the final stage of this book.
Last but not least, I am grateful to my wife, Olga Antonea, for handling vari-
ous graphic design issues and also for her patience and support throughout
the project.
H. Şükrü Ilıcak
The archivists at the Ottoman State Archives [BOA] catalogued the registers
[defters] produced by the office of the grand vizier that comprise the copies
of the outgoing documents under the umbrella name Ayniyat Defterleri. As of
2019, some 1,875 registers were catalogued under this classification, the first
being dated 1812.
Thirty-three registers compiled between June 1821 and April 1835 are on the
Greek War of Independence, consisting of the “exact” (hence the word ayni-
yat, from Turk. aynı: exact) copies of the letters dispatched for the quelling of
the uprising, although none of the registers bear the title Ayniyat Registers.
The registers begin with the title “Rum milleti beyninde tahaddüs iden fesadın
indifaına dair Anadolu ve Rumili taraflarına yazılan tahrirat-ı seniyyenin
defteri,” namely, “The register of the imperial dispatches sent to Anatolia
and Rumelia regarding the quelling of the sedition that occurred among
the Greek millet.” In this book we are publishing the English translations
of selected documents from the first thirteen registers of this thirty-three-
volume series, as well as their transliterations.
Unfortunately, several registers—and most regrettably the first one—of the
series are missing. Also, no registers have survived to the present day cover-
ing the period between late January 1824 and late November 1824. On the title
page of Register no. 1769, which is the ninth volume available in the series,
it is written that the particular register is the “fifteenth defter on the Greek
sedition.” Thus, six registers are missing for the period between June 1821 and
December 1824.
Several months before the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, there were
news items in the Turkish press revealing that several thousand new registers
were found in the depots of the Ottoman State Archives. The cataloguing of the
registers has begun; however, the current state of the process is unknown. We
sincerely hope to find the missing volumes on the Greek War of Independence
among these newly discovered registers.
We used the UN/ELOT 743 system for the transliteration of the Greek
words and proper names. Thus, Vogoridis instead of Bogorides; Fanariot
instead of Phanariot.
Lastly, we used anno Domini [AD] dates in the headings. If an anno Hegirae
[AH] date is mentioned in a document, we included the AD date in brackets.
Ottoman Turkish
�ج
c c
�چ
ç ç
ح
ḥ h
خ
�
ḫ h
د
�ذ
d d
z̲ z
ر r r
�ز z z
�ژ j j
��س s s
���ش ş ş
�ص ṣ s
��ض ż, ḍ z, d
ط ṭ, ḏ t, d
�ظ ẓ z
ع
�غ
ʿ -
ف
ġ g, ğ
��
ق
f f
� ḳ k
ک
گ
k k
� g g
(cont.)
ک ñ n
ل l l
نم
m m
� n n
و v, ū, ü, o, ö v, u, ü, o, ö
�ھ h h
�ی y, ī y, ı, i
لا lā la
ء ʾ -
Modern Greek
Α, α a
αι ai
άι ái
αϊ aï
αυ av, af
Β, β v
Γ, γ g
γγ ng
γκ gk
γξ nx
γχ nch
Δ, δ d
Ε, ε e
ει ei
έι éi
εϊ eï
ευ ev, ef
(cont.)
Ζ, ζ z
Η, η i
ηυ iv, if
Θ, θ th
Ι, ι i
Κ, κ k
Λ, λ l
Μ, μ m
μπ b, mp
Ν, ν n
ντ d, nd, nt
Ξ, ξ x
Ο, ο o
οι oi
όι ói
οϊ oï
ου ou
Π, π p
Ρ, ρ r
Σ, σ, ς s
Τ, τ t
Υ, υ y
υι yi
Φ, φ f
Χ, χ ch
Ψ, ψ ps
Ω, ω o
H. Şükrü Ilıcak
pursued his studies in Turkey, Greece, and the USA, specializing in the so-
called Ottoman “Three Nations,” namely the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews.
He received his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 2011, with a disser-
tation entitled “A Radical Rethinking of Empire: Ottoman State and Society
during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1826).” His dissertation investi-
gates the Greek War of Independence as an Ottoman experience, exploring in
particular how Sultan Mahmud II (1808–39) and the central state elite tried
to make sense of and reacted to the rapidly changing world around them. He
has published broadly on the Greek War of Independence and the “Three
Nations.” He is currently a fellow of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies
in Rethymno, Crete.
Çağrı Erdoğan
is a research assistant at Çankırı Karatekin University. He received his BA and
MA degrees from the History Department of Ankara University. His MA the-
sis comprises a study of Mevlana İsa’s major work “Cami’ü’l-Meknunat.” His
research interests include Ottoman–Western relations in the Ottoman classi-
cal age and Turkish identity.
Nikola Rakovski
is a graduate student in the History Department of Koç University, Istanbul.
Kahraman Şakul
holds BA and MA degrees from the History Department of Boğaziçi University,
Istanbul (1994–2001). He received his Ph.D. degree from the History Department
of Georgetown University in 2009, with a dissertation entitled “An Ottoman
Global Moment: War of Second Coalition in the Levant, 1798–1807.” He was an
Associate Professor at Istanbul Şehir University, where he taught from 2010 to
2020, and has published several articles in Turkish and English on Ottoman
diplomacy, military technology, and the transformation of the Ottoman politi-
cal culture in the early modern era.
Mehmet Savan
obtained his BA at Bilkent University, Ankara, and his MA at Marmara University,
Istanbul. He is currently a research assistant in the Turkish Language and
Literature Department at Istanbul Medeniyet University, where he is pursuing
his Ph.D. studies. His research interests comprise the early attempts at lan-
guage reform in the Tanzimat era, the development of scientific nomenclature
in Ottoman Turkish, language policies in Turkey, and the teaching of Turkish as
a foreign language. His professional experience includes Ottoman paleography
and the translation of Ottoman documents into various languages.
Aysel Yıldız
received her Ph.D. from Sabancı University, Istanbul, in 2008. She is a political
and social historian of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ottoman
history, focusing on social movements, military history, and political culture, as
well as various dynamics of discontent and modernization in the same period.
She is the editor of Asiler ve Gaziler: Kabakçı Mustafa Risalesi (2007) and co-
editor with Georgios Theotokis of A Military History of the Mediterranean Sea:
Aspects of War, Diplomacy, and Military Elites (2018). She has also authored the
books Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire: The Downfall of a Sultan in
the Age of Revolution (2017) and Kenar Adamları ve Bendeleri: Ruscuk Ayanı
Tirsinikli İsmail Ağa ve Alemdar Mustafa Paşa’nın Adamları Manuk Mirzayan
ve Köse Ahmed Efendi (2018).