Ağır2013 - Evolution of Grain Policy

The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman Experience
Author(s): Seven Ağir

Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History , Spring 2013, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Spring
2013), pp. 571-598
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43829898
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Journal of Interdisdplinary History, xliii:4 (Spring, 2013), 571-598.
Seven Agir
The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman

Experience Recent debates about the "great divergence" be-
tween Western Europe and the rest of the world have brought
comparative analysis to the forefront of research. Yet, the Otto-
man Empire, with its history spanning six centuries and three con-
tinents, has found litde place in this literature. The nature of Otto-
man institutions and institutional change, more specifically the
ways in which the motives and the tools of the Ottoman eco-
nomic policies were shaped, have scarcely been examined. This
study attempts to help fill this gap by studying the changes in the
Ottoman grain policies against the background of grain-market
liberalization in Europe.1
Understanding how grain policies evolved in the Ottoman
Empire is important for two reasons. First, the subsistence of the
masses in the Ottoman Empire, as in many other places, depended
Seven Agir is Assistant Professor of Economics, Middle East Technical University. She is the
author of "Empires Looking Seawards: The Benefits and Costs of Foreign Seaborne Trade,"
Journal of Mediterranean Studies, VI (2006), 1-18.
The author thanks Timothy Guinnane, Naomi Lameroux, Michael Cook, and Alex
Balistreri for their helpful comments and suggestions.
© 2013 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, Inc.
i Douglas C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (New York,
1990); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modem
World Economy (Princeton, 2000); Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and R. Bin Wong, Before and Be-
yond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe (New York, 201 1);
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence,
1600-1850 (New York, 201 1); Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail:
The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York, 2012).
Kivanç K. Karaman and Çevket Pamuk's study of the Ottoman fiscal centralization rela-
tive to that of other European states - "Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective,
1500-1914," Journal of Economic History, LXX (2010), 593-629 - represents a remarkable ex-
ception to the dearth of comparative analysis involving the Ottoman Empire. By studying the
evolution of the Ottoman taxation in a comparative framework, their study offered a fertile
ground for discussing the limits and potentials of Ottoman institutional change. Another ex-
ception is Timur Kuran's study of Islamic law - The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held
Back the Middle East? (Princeton, 2010) - which elaborated the observed differences in West-
ern and Islamic forms of economic organization. Although Kuran's work has spurred a well-
deserved interest among social scientists for Islamic legal institutions, many of its broad argu-
ments have not yet received critical examination. His claim that Islamic law was too rigid to
allow the emergence of corporations and accumulation of wealth, in particular, needs to be
scrutunized through both case studies and explicitly comparative works.

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572 I SEVEN AČIR
mostly on grain and grain products. Therefore, the nature and suc-
cess of redistributive policies concerning grain were directly tied
to the resilience of the political structure and the institutional ar-
rangements through which a multitude of interests interacted.
Hence, attention to Ottoman grain policies helps us to explore
particular characteristics of the Ottoman polity and how they
shaped its redistributive institutions. Furthermore, the centrality of
grain for subsistence and political stability implies relative homo-
geneity across different cases regarding corporate interests and in-
formation problems, making the grain sector a suitable subject to
explore in comparative perspective.2
Second, grain production was the backbone of agriculture,
and the role of government in grain markets has important impli-
cations for agricultural production and economic growth. Hence,
the interaction between the rules and regulations and the geo-
political and cultural context is pertinent to broad discussions
about the relationship between institutional change and economic
growth. More specifically, examining the evolution of govern-
mental regulation of the grain trade, with reference to both the
motives of policymakers and the effectiveness of the policies in a
particular historical context, sheds light on the different, and
sometimes contradictory, factors underlying the specific form and
degree of intervention.3
2 Edward P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth
Century," Past & Present, 50 (1971), 76-136; Louise A. Tilly, "The Food Riot as a Form of
Political Conflict in France ," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, II (1971), 23-57; Charles Tilly,
"Food Supply and Public Order in Modern Europe," in idem (ed.), The Formation of National
States in Europe (Princeton, 1975), 380-455; Boaz Shoshan, "Grain Riots and the 'Moral
Economy': Cairo, 13 50-1 5 17," ibid., X (1980), 459-478.
3 Robert Fogel, The tscape Jrom Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: hurope, America, ana
the Third World (New York, 2004); Karl G. Persson, Grain Markets in Europe 1300-1900: Inte-
gration and Deregulation (New York, 1999); Randall Nielsen, "Storage and English Govern-
ment in Early Modern Grain Markets, "Journal of Economic History, LVII (i997)> I- 33; Andrew
B. Appleby, "Grain Prices And Subsistence Crises in England and France, 1 590-1 740," ibid,.
XXXIX (1979), 865-887. Although this literature mosdy emphasized the "uniformity of the
European experience," it also instigated an interest in the development of grain markets in
other places, such as China and India (Persson, Grain Markets, xv). Lillian M. Li, "Integration
and Disintegration in North China's Grain Markets, 1739-19 11 "Journal of Economic History,
LX (2000), 665-699; Roman Studer, "India and the Great Divergence: Assessing the
Efficiency of the Grain Markets in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century India," ibid.,
LXVIII (2008), 393-436; Carol H. Shiue and Wolfgang Keller, "Markets in China and Eu-
rope on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution," American Economic Review, XCVII, 1189-1216;
Enrique Llopis Agelán and Miguel Jerez Mendez, "El mercado de trigo en Castilla y León,
1691-1788: arbitraje espacial e intervención," Historia Agraria, XXV (2001), 13-68.

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OTTOMAN GRAIN ADMINISTRATION | 573
During the second half of the eighteenth century, most gov-

ernments in Europe attempted to remove age-old restrictions on
their grain trade and to establish free domestic markets. Although
policymakers did not necessarily concur about what would consti-
tute the appropriate degree and timing of liberalization, a general
re-orientation among those who wrote about the issue is clearly
noticeable: They presented a free domestic grain market as both a
better alternative to traditional policies in meeting the needs of the
urban masses and a necessary condition for agricultural growth and
international competitiveness. Ottoman grain markets, however,
remained mostly outside this literature. In line with the conven-
tional view that the Ottoman rulers had priorities different from
those of their European counterparts, traditional scholarship on
Ottoman grain markets in the eighteenth century has primarily fo-
cused on the increased involvement of government, arguing that
the policy changes were merely a response to the strains on the old
system of provisioning, driven by military and fiscal challenges.
This article presents a more complete account of Ottoman reforms
regarding the grain trade not only by using a larger range of
sources but also by focusing on a broad realm of ideas accompany-
ing the reforms.4
4 For the attempts at deregulation in the French grain trade (1763-1764), see Steven L.
Kaplan, Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV (The Hague, 1976); in the
Austrian grain trade (1765-1786), Alexander Grab, "The Politics of Subsistence: The Liberal-
ization of Grain Commerce in Austrian Lombardy under Enlightened Despotism, " Journal of
Modem History, LVII (1985), 185-210; in Tuscany (1767), Mario Mirri, La lotta politica in
Toscana intomo alle 'riforme annonarie' (Pisa, 1972); in Sweden (1775), Karl Âmark, Spannmal-
shandel och spannmâlspolitik i Sverige, 1719-1830 (Stockholm, 191 5); in Spain, Jose U. Bernardos
Sanz, "Libertad e intervención en el abastecimiento de trigo a Madrid durante el siglo XVIII,"
in Brigitte Marin and Catherine Virlouvet (eds.), Nourrir les cités de Méditerranée: antiquité -
temps modernes (Paris, 2003), 367-388.
In this article, liberalization refers to policies aiming to reduce the direct involvement of
the state in the economy, such as abolishing trade barriers and price controls. In this sense, the
term implies neither an overall reduction in state activity nor the emergence of a " spontane-
ous w market order but an administered process best described as "(the) introduction of free
markets, [which,] far from doing away with the need for control, regulation, and interven-
tion, enormously increased their range" (Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation [New York,
1944], 140-141).
The traditional historiography portrayed Ottoman political economy as fundamentally
different from that of its European counterparts. Recent historians, however, revised this bi-
nary view by underlining the parallels. For instance, Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and
Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (New York, 1993), pointed to the "economic
intentionality" of the Ottoman state and the involvement of the Ottoman notable class in na-
val warfare. Kate Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of
Genoa and Turkey (New York, 1993), demonstrated the Ottomans' capacity and willingness to

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574 I SEVEN AGIR
The incipient liberalization that occurred almost simulta-

neously in various parts of Europe resonated with Ottoman re-
formers' ideas about (de)regulation of the grain trade. Along with
their establishment of a centralized administration to finance and
control a larger portion of the grain trade in 1790s, Ottoman
policymakers adopted a more liberal attitude toward price forma-
tion in grain markets and considered removing the pre-emptive
privileges held by government agents and licensed merchants. The
emergence of this more liberal attitude was not simply a result of
the Ottoman state's formal provisionist or fiscalist attempts to deal
with strains on the pre-existing supply network. Ottoman
policymakers also considered a relatively free interplay of market
forces in the grain trade to be a necessary condition for agricultural
growth and international competitiveness. Furthermore, as was
the case in the less-developed countries of the European conti-
nent, arguments for these policy changes reflected an attempt to
emulate more developed states.5
grain redistribution and price control Istanbul's grain sup-

ply was always an important concern for the Ottoman court.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the administration had already
adopted a variety of instruments along the commodity chain to
use their economic assets to strengthen their political position. Giancarlo Casale, "The Otto-
man Administration of the Spice Trade in the Sixteenth-Century Red Sea and Persian Gulf,"
Journal of the Economic and Sodai History of the Orient, XLIX (2006), 170-198, discussed the in-
novative strategies the Ottomans used to challenge the Portuguese monopoly over the spice
trade in the Indian Ocean. Similarly, by focusing on the relationship of the empire with the
fiscal elite, two works by Ariel Salzmann - "Privatizing the Empire: Pashas and Gentry during
the Ottoman 18th Century," in Kemal Çiçek (ed.), The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation
(Ankara, 2000), II, 132-139, and Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modem
State (Boston, 2004) - pointed to a similar transformation in Ottoman and French fiscal prac-
tices and its accompanying changes in governance during the eighteenth century. All of these
studies attempt to place the Ottoman or Asian Empires within a broader framework that raises
comparative questions without assuming an essential difference between European and non-
European categories.
Rhoads Murphey, "Provisioning Istanbul: The State and Subsistence in the Early Mod-
ern Middle East," Food and Foodways (1988), II, 217-263; Tevfik Güran, "ístanbuTun
Ìa§esinde Devletin Rolii, 1793-1839," ístanbul Üniversitesi íktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi, XLIV
(1988), 15-42; Lynn T. Çaçmazer, "Provisioning Istanbul: Bread Production, Power and Polit-
ical Ideology in the Ottoman Empire, 1789-1807," unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Indiana Univ., 2000).
5 For the Spanish case, see Agir, "From Welfare to Wealth: Ottoman and Castilian Grain
Policies in a Time of Change," unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Princeton Univ., 2009); for the Italian
case, John Robertson, "The Enlightenment above National Context: Political Economy in
Eighteenth-Century Scodand and Naples," The Historical Journal, XL (1997), 667-697.

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ensure that the city's 400,000 inhabitants, a hotbed of social and

political upheaval, had access to an affordable and abundant food
supply. The key component of this redistribution was a system of
forced purchases - known as the comparative quota assessment
(mukayese nizamt) - in the zones designated as the official hinter-
land of Istanbul. This system was introduced to control the move-
ment of surplus grain from these regions. Through an investiga-
tion of Kapan (Istanbul's central grain market) registers, which
contained data about the amount of grain sent to the capital in
previous years, the authorities tried to determine how much sur-
plus each district was able to produce in normal years. According
to these estimates, each district was assigned a quantity to be deliv-
ered to a designated dock for sale to government agents or
officially authorized private merchants. The procedure for this lo-
cal distribution was vaguely defined; local agents were to assess and
collect the assigned quota for all of the households according to
"their condition and endurance capacity."6
Merchants could make purchases from the official hinterland
of Istanbul if they held long-term collective contracts with the
Kapan, which they acquired by providing a guarantee (kefalet) for
other merchants. These merchants of the Kapan enjoyed pre-
emptive privileges in the designated docks. The state also hired in-
dependent merchants or assigned its own requisition agents (muba-
yaact) to purchase grain to be stored at the Arsenal (Tersane), and it
sought to prevent entry of unauthorized intermediaries into the
grain trade by designating official docks for grain exchange and by
requiring local officials to keep registers about the quantity and
quality of the grain and the name of each ship owner.7
Various studies about the Ottoman control of the grain trade
reveal three broad features of the mid-eighteenth-century quota
system that paved the way for the subsequent policy changes: First,
6 For various estimates of Istanbul's population, see Giiran, "istanbul'un iaçesinde," 16, 20;
Engin Akarli, "Ottoman Population in Europe in the Nineteenth Century: Its Territorial,
Ethnic and Religious Composition," unpub. M.A. thesis (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1972). Lütfi
Giiçer, "XVIII. Yüzyil ortalannda ístanbul'un iaçesi için lüzumlu hububatin temini meselesi,"
istanbul Üniversitesi iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi, XI (1952), 397-416 (405-407 for the redistribu-
tion system); Salih Aynural, istanbul deģirmettleri ve finttlari (Istanbul, 2002), 5.
7 Gûçer, "XVI. Yüzyil Sonlannda Osmanli ímparatorlugu Dahilinde Hububat Ticaretinin
Tabi Olduģu Kayitlar," istanbul Üniversitesi iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi , XIII (1951/52), 1-20;
idem , 'istanbul'un ia§esi için lüzumlu hububatin temini,' 400, 403-404. The Grain Registers
(Zahire Defterleri) are located in the Prime Ministry Archives, Istanbul (hereinafter zd).

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576 I SEVEN AGIR
Istanbul's grain supply was procured primarily from regions within

the political realm administered by the Ottoman government. Ex-
amining the accounts of grain purchased and distributed from the
Kapan and the Tersane between 1755 and 1762, Aynural showed
that 85 percent of the grain sold at the Kapan was bought from the
Black Sea and the Danubian coasts. An investigation of the Grain
Registers, which contain a large number of orders sent to the
provinces, and various studies about Istanbul's provisioning cor-
roborate the primacy of the northwest littoral of the Black Sea and
the Danubian region in the grain provisioning of Istanbul during
this period. Second, according to the Kapan and Tersane records
summarized by Aynural, 93 percent of purchases were made by li-
censed merchants with their own capital. This finding is in line
with an earlier study by Giiçer, which shows that less than 9 per-
cent of grain was delivered to Istanbul using state funds. Third, the
negotiations between grain owners and intermediaries about the
price of grain were subject to official control, which aimed pri-
marily to ensure a low bread price in Istanbul.8
These three features of grain-trade organization in the mid-
eighteenth century had vanished by the last decade of the eight-
eenth century. But an understanding of how the main features of
the grain provisioning changed requires an understanding of how
the Ottoman administration tried to control the purchase prices.
The Ottoman government used two kinds of price control. The
miri (official) price was used in obligatory transactions between
grain-producing regions and the government. Each jurisdictional
unit was asked to deliver a certain amount of grain all at once, re-
gardless of the specific amounts that producers and grain holders
held. The miri price was much lower than the standing market
price. It was not adjusted according to the vicissitudes of supply -
8 Aynural, istanbul degirmenleri, 63-64; ZD 11, 13. See also Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca,
"L'approvisionnement d'Istanbul par les Principautés roumaines aux XVIIIe siècle: commerce
ou réquisition," Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Mediterranée, LXVI (1992), 73 - 7^; Eyüp
Özveren, "Black Sea and the Grain Provisioning of Istanbul in the Longue Durée," in
Brigitte Marin and Catherine Virlouvet (eds.), Nourrir les cités de Méditerranée: antiquité - temps
modernes (Paris, 2003), 223-250, 228; Robert Mantran, XVII. Yiizyihn ikinci Yartstnda istanbul:
Kurumsal, îktisadi, Toplumsal Tarih Denemesi (Ankara, 1990), 175, 182; Giiçer, "Hububat
ticaretinin tâbi olduģu kayitlar," 87; Bruce McGowan, "The Middle Danube cul-de-sac," in
Huricihan Ìslamoglu-Ìnan (ed.), The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy (New York,
1987), 13; Feridun Emecen, "XVI. Asnn ikinci yansinda istanbul ve saraym ia§esi için Bati
Anadolu'dan yapilan sevkiyat," Tarin boyunca istanbul semineri (Istanbul, 1989), 197-230, 199;
Giiçer, "istanbul'un ia§esi için liizumlu hububatin temini," 410; Mantran, istanbul, 174.

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no bargaining was involved - and the price remained constant for

long stretches of time.9
The other type of price set in the grain trade was the rayic -
literally, "current price" - which was supposed to be adjusted reg-
ularly according to supply conditions. For each locality in which
licensed merchants or requisition agents bought grain that was in-
tended ultimately for Istanbul, the rayic price was set through a
bargaining process in which local administrators could intervene
to keep prices at acceptable levels and to prevent delays in deliv-
ery. Although price setting between grain owners and officially
authorized intermediaries was based on a principle of "mutual
consent," the fact that grain owners could sell only to agents au-
thorized by the central administration invalidated the principle in
practice. Numerous official documents in which authorities ex-
plicitly mentioned the gap between the rayic price and that offered
by smugglers substantiate the supposition that the rayic price was
set below the market price.10
Price controls in the quota system functioned as an in-kind
tax on grain owners, exercised through monopsonistic control
over the grain supply. By controlling the sale price of grain in Is-
tanbul, however, the administration tried to restrict the monop-
sony rents of the licensed merchants by transferring these rents
from the merchants to the consumers and thereby gaining a lower
price for consumers. This result emanated from the regulation of
the baking/milling sector and the designation of the bakers' guild
as the sole customer for the grain brought to the city. The licensed
merchants had to deliver the grain that they had purchased to the
9 Various documents in the Kamil Kepeci collection (hereinafter kk) and the Mevkufat col-
lection (hereinafter d.mkf) in the Prime Ministry Archives, Istanbul, provide information on
the purchasing price of grain. In both kk 5577 (1809-11) and d.mkf 30528 (1770-73), miri
price per kile was recorded as 60 para (1.5 guru§)' rayic price (see next paragraph) was around 2
to 3 guru§. The kile was an Ottoman unit of volume. As a measure of weight, the standard kile
was equivalent to 25.65 kg. Gurus was the Ottoman silver coin.
10 See ZD 19 (158/1) (1795) for a case of bargaining over rayic price. See also Osman Nuri
Ergin, Mecelle-i umur-t belediyye (Istanbul, 1995), 380; Ahmet Akgündüz, Osmanli
kanunnâmeleri ve hukukí tahlilleri (Istanbul, 1990), 371. zd 13 (1778); zd 19 (1745(95). See also
Giiçer, "Istanbul'un iaçesi için lüzumlu hububatin iemini," 401; zd 19 (i 794-1 795); Aynural,
istanbul deģirmenleri, 40-42; Ceyhun Orhonlu, "Osmanli teçkilatina aid kiiçûk bir risale:
Risale-i Terceme," Beigeler, IV (1965), 39-48. The documents do not usually specify who the
smugglers were; they report only that the smugglers were active in certain regions and paid
such and such a price. Usually, smugglers bought the grain in coastal areas that were less su-
pervised and sold it mosdy to foreign ships, which offered a higher price. Smuggling was in-
deed dependent on an arbitrage window

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578 I SEVEN AGIR
Kapan, where they collectively negotiated with the bakers' guild

under the official supervision of a judge and Kapan officials. Guild
regulations forbade any new bakeries and mills from opening
without the permission of the administration. Furthermore, most
bakeries had their own mills; those that did not were assigned to
specific mills in their proximity. Because the import of flour to Is-
tanbul was forbidden, most of the grain brought to Istanbul ar-
rived unprocessed rather than as flour or bread.11
This formal organization of the baking industry served two
purposes: First, it enabled easier supervision of bread prices and
thus bakers' profits. Second, it improved bakers' bargaining posi-
tion with merchants by allowing them to haggle collectively over
input prices, thereby preventing the merchants from raising prices
to monopoly levels. Under these regulations, the bread price
could be officially determined according to the price of grain at
the Kapan, which depended on the local purchasing prices and
transportation costs. This maintenance of low purchasing prices
through monopsonistic control over the grain supply ensured the
affordability of bread in Istanbul.12
The effectiveness of this vertically integrated chain of controls
depended on the government's capacity to enforce barriers to en-
try. Purchasing prices lower than the market price would naturally
encourage smuggling and reduce the quantity of grain transported
to Istanbul below the amount that would be supplied without
price controls. The loss to smuggling would depend on the actual
capacity of the Ottoman administration to prevent smuggling. As
long as the effect of smuggling on Istanbul's supply and price of
grain was minimal, the controls could serve their purpose. Al-
though it is impossible to measure the exact effectiveness of price
controls as a spatial redistributive tool without information about
the quantities smuggled and the gaps between the market price
and the legal price, it is possible to discuss how the potential effec-
tiveness of the controls might have changed over time.
The effectiveness of the Ottoman controls over the grain
trade began to diminish toward the end of the eighteenth century
because of conjunctural changes in the grain market. Even though
li Ergin, Mecelle; Aynural, istanbul deģirmenleri, 59, 63-64, 88.

12 Keeping input prices low was one of the primary motives for instituting monopolies in
other markets as well. See Ergin, Mecelle, 649-650; Gabriel Baer, "The Administrative, Eco-
nomic and Social Functions of Turkish Guilds," International Journal of Middle East Studies, I
(1970), 28-50.

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Ottoman economic historians are familiar with these changes,

they have made no attempt to assess their quantifiable effect on
grain markets. The quantitative and qualitative evidence to follow
complements existing studies, showing how the pressures on the
old system of provisioning affected the grain markets.
SUPPLYING ISTANBUL WITH GRAIN
In the middle of the eigh

tionally advantageous seab
importandy, to a vast reg
outside the Ottoman cor
Plain and the Black Sea co
plains of the Balkans, but
the peninsula served as barr
West. Moreover, the Ott
trade on the Black Sea; the shores of the Black Sea and the
lower Danube could be kept relatively safe from foreign demand
through controls on the Bosphorus Straits. Accordingly, the
northwest littoral of the Black Sea and the Danubian coasts were
the preferred sources for provisioning Istanbul. The coasts of west-
ern Anatolia were considered a secondary option. Only when the
shortage was severe did such farflung places as Kefe, Tripoli, the
eastern provinces, and Egypt (Istanbul's former grain depot) re-
ceive orders for grain dispatches.13
The political domination over a large surplus-producing re-
gion (the legal capacity to enforce export bans and internal barri-
ers) and the abundance of waterways and coasts (the cheapest way
to transport grain in the pre-industrial era) enabled the Ottoman
administration to create a large redistributive network that would
guarantee to Istanbul an affordable supply of grain. In order to
function, however, this redistributive mechanism necessitated an
elaborate network of intermediaries - including brokerage and pa-
tronage relations between different social actors - to control the
grain flow from the provinces to Istanbul. The rationale for policy
change was not founded on a simple state-society binary.14
13 Özveren, "Black Sea," 225, 228; Beydilli, "Karadeniz'in kapaliliģi," 687; McGowan,
"Middle Danube," 13, 14-15; Mantran, istanbul, 175, 182; Giiçer, "Hububat ticaretinin tabi
olduģu kayidar," 87-88; Alexandrescu-Dersca, "L'approvisionnement d'Istanbul"; Emecen,
"ístanbul ve sarayin ia§esi," 199; Kiitükoglu, "Osmanli íktisadi Yapisi," 569.
14 Overland transportation of grain for a distance of around 200 to 300 miles was more than
enough to double the price of grain, whereas overseas transportation accounted for 15 to 25%
of the purchase price of the grain shipped. See Giiçer, XVI-XVIIL Astrlarda Osmanli

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58o I SEVEN AGIR
Local intermediaries were needed, first and foremost, for their
knowledge of local precedures. Yet, the relationship that these in-
termediaries had with the central administration, as well as with
various local groups that did not share their social interests or bar-
gaining power, was not without friction. The incentives for the
officially assigned intermediaries to favor certain groups in the al-
location process and to collaborate with the local grain owners and
the merchants to misrepresent the volume of production and ship-
ment are obvious.15
Because it lacked a centrally organized and financed bureau-
cratic network in the provinces, the administration had to assign
local notables as the requisition agents with an active role in quota
allocation. Since many of these notables were themselves tax farm-
ers and landholders, their compliance with the official regulations
was in conflict with their interests as grain owners. Not surpris-
ingly, ample evidence suggests that they used their prerogatives to
further their own ends. In the context of this large network of in-
termediaries, controls could be effective only if the cost of smug-
gling (that is, the legal and natural deterrence of smuggling) ex-
ceeded the returns to smuggling (the gap between the official
price and the external price).16
The demographic and geopolitical changes of the last quarter
imparatorlugu'nda hububat meselesi ve hububattan altnan vergiler (Istanbul, 1964), 29; Aynural,
istanbul deģirmenleri, 25-26.
In one of the first environmental histories of the Empire, Alan Mikhail, Nature and Empire
in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (New York, 201 1), demonstrates how imperial
initiative and a "coordinated system of local autonomy" interactively shaped the management
of natural resources in Ottoman Egypt. Particularly interesting is Mikhail's discussion of how
the emergence of a more centralized and authoritarian regime caused a decrease in Egyptian
rural autonomy during the late eighteenth century. The reform attempts discussed below at-
test to similar trends in the Ottoman central bureaucracy's relation to the Balkan provinces.
15 82 Numarah Mühimme Defteri 1026-1027/1617-1618 (Istanbul, 2000), 37; 05 rsumarali
Mühimme Defteri 1040-1041/1630-1631 (Istanbul, 2002) 134; ZD 19, 9, 82; Michael A. Cook,
Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, 1450-1600 (New York, 1972), 55 Emecen, "istanbul ve
sarayin iaçesi," 203-204; Suraiya Faroqhi, "istanbul'un ia§esi ve Tekirdaģ-Rodoscuk limam,
16-17. yüzyillar," METU Studies in Development (1979/80), 139-154.
16 For the rise of ay an as provincial notables, see McGowan, The Age ot Ayans, 1699-
1812," in Halil inalcik and Donald Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Otto-
man Empire, 1300-1914 (New York, 1994); Robert W. Zens, "The Ayanlik and Pasvanoģlu
Osman Pa§a of Vidin in the Age of Ottoman Social Change, 1791-1815," unpub. Ph. D. diss.
(Univ. of Wisconsin, 2004); Ali Yaycioglu, "The Provincial Challenge: Regionalism, Crisis,
and Integration in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1792-1812," unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Harvard
Univ., 2008). ZD 19, C. BLD. 841. See also Güran, "State Role," 24, 39; Aynural, istanbul
deģirmenleri, 24, 39; Yaycioglu, "Provincial Challenge," 250.

176.235.136.130 on Sun, 24 Mar 2024 12:11:13 +00:00
of the eighteenth century caused the incentives for smuggling to

increase during this period. On the demand side, the international
grain price was on the rise, creating upward pressure on the price
of grain smuggled from Ottoman lands to Western Europe. At the
same time, Istanbul's population was escalating as a result of migra-
tion from rural provinces struggling with social and economic
problems. The forced purchases, justified on the grounds of sus-
taining Istanbul's high population, were also a source of discontent
in the Balkans. As contemporaries observed, the growing pop-
ulation of Istanbul, induced by rural problems, augmented the
pressure on the traditional hinterland, further exacerbating rural
conditions and reinforcing migratory trends. The endogenous re-
lationship between redistributive policy and agricultural produc-
tion implied a gradual decrease in grain from the hinterland.17
Parallel to the changes in the demographic structure, the ca-
pacity of the government to enforce controls was decreasing be-
cause of political and military troubles in the regions providing
grain to Istanbul. Since the seventeenth century, the administra-
tion's gradual reorganization of state finances had been leading to
the spread of the tax-farming system and the rise of local notables,
complicating fiscal and administrative control over local resources.
Furthermore, the needs of the army had to be met by a frequent
recourse to emergency taxes, as well as such new fiscal instruments
as esham (a form of internal borrowing), which rendered rural in-
vestment unattractive. These long-term, incremental changes
might have had an adverse effect on both crop yields and domestic
market integration. Yet, without an analysis of long-term price se-
ries for a sufficient number of localities, it is not possible to deter-
mine the extent to which the institutional changes of the long
eighteenth century affected the Empire's supply base.18
Continuous wars on several fronts since 1768, however, had a
17 Ernest Labrouisse, Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus en France au XVI I le siecle
(Paris, 1932), 598-603; Pierre Vilar, "Histoire des prix, histoire générale," Annales ESC, i
(1949), 29-45; McGowan, Economic Life, 121, 148; Süleyman Penah Efendi (transliterated by
Aziz Berker from the original, written c. 1769), "Mora ihtilali tarihçesi veya Penah Efendi
Mecmuasi," Tarih Vesikalart, II (1942/43), 230.
18 Inalcik, "Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600- 1700,"
Archivům Ottomanicum, VI (1980), 283-337; Cezar, Osmanli maliyesinde bunalim ve deģiļim
dönemi (Istanbul, 1986); Linda Darling, Revenue-raising and Legitimacy: Tax-collection and Finance
Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1360-1660 (Leiden, 1996). Mehmet Genç, Osmanli
imparatorluģu'nda devlet ve ekonomi (Istanbul, 2000).

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582 ļ SEVEN AČIR
distinct effect on Istanbul's grain supply. Territories in the Danu-

bian principalities were occupied by Austria and Russia for five-
year periods from 1769 to 1774 and from 1787 to 1892, causing the
disruption of the traditional grain routes feeding Istanbul. Further-
more, after military defeats led to the loss of Crimea and the partial
detachment of Wallachia and Moldavia, the Ottoman government
was deprived of its exclusive control of the Black Sea. The open-
ing of trade there saw the Ottoman and Russian grain produced
along its coasts inundate western Mediterranean markets. This de-
velopment was formally acknowledged in 1802 when the Otto-
man government began granting trade permits to foreign ships un-
der certain conditions.19
As a result of this severe geopolitical loss, the Mediterranean
coasts became more important for the provisioning of Istanbul.
Numerous official documents ordering substantial purchases from
southern Mediterranean ports after the 1790s demonstrate the sup-
ply zone's expansion southward. According to the 1794/9$ Grain
Registers, 70 percent of the wheat purchases for Istanbul - com-
pared to 1$ percent in the mid-eighteenth century - came from
the Mediterranean coasts. The accounts of the Grain Administra-
tion from 1795 to 1800, summarized by Güran, indicate that
66.4 percent of all grain coming to Istanbul was purchased from
the Mediterranean region. Since smuggling grain was much easier
from the Mediterranean coasts through the archipelago than from
the Black Sea area of present-day Bulgaria and Romania - in other
words, since the net incentives for not complying with the court's
orders were higher there - pre-existing policy tools would not be
as effective. The changing geopolitical context of Istanbul's grain
provisioning and the problems that it implied were also acknowl-
edged by Tatarcikzade Abdullah Efendi (d. 1797), one of the well-
known reformers of the period.20
19 A. Üner Turgay, "An Aspect of Ottoman-Russian Commercial Rivalry: Confiscation of
Ottoman Merchant Ships in the Black Sea," in Heath W. Lo wry and Ralph S. Hattox (eds.),
Proceedings of the II Congress on the Social and Economic History of Turkey (Istanbul, 199°)» 59~~
65 (60, for the implications of the Kûçiik Kaynarca Treaty for the grain trade); Gelina Harlaftis
and Sophia Laiou, "Ottoman State Policy in Mediterranean Trade and Shipping, c.1780-
C.1820: The Rise of the Greek-owned Ottoman Merchant Fleet," in Mark Mazower (ed.),
Networks of Power in Modem Greece : Essays in Honor of John Campbell (New York, 2008), 9- 11;
Kemal Beydilli, "Karadeniz'in kapalihgi karçisinda Avrupa kûçiik devletleri ve miri ticaret
te§ebbüsü," Belleten, LV (1991), 691-693.
20 The collections of Hatt-i Humayun (hereinafter hh), Cevdet Iktisat (hereinafter c. ikt),
and Cevdet Belediye (hereinafter c. bld) in the Prime Ministry Archives abound with docu-

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Along with the shift in Istanbul's traditional hinterland, two

redistributive pillars of the quota assessment system - price con-
trols and forced purchases - became not just useless but counter-
productive. The government promulgated several decrees be-
tween 1774 and 1783 to abolish the quota system, claiming to
"end the oppression of the poor." The removal of the quota sys-
tem did not mean that exporting grain from these regions was al-
lowed; grain owners and producers were ordered to send their
surplus grain to Istanbul. Now, however, the quantities to be pro-
cured were bought direcdy from the grain owners, not assigned to
each administrative region. By abolishing the quota system, the
administration probably expected to reduce the role of the nota-
bles in the allocation process, prevent abuses, reduce corruption,
and thereby increase the amount of grain sent to Istanbul.21
The grain owners did not find these purchase prices accept-
able. In 1788, when requested to ascertain the reasons for scarcity
in Istanbul, the highest judge pointed to the price differentials be-
tween the supply zones and Istanbul's city market. The purchasing
price in Istanbul, he maintained, was much lower than the price in
the places where the grain was bought; this differential discour-
aged grain owners from bringing their grain to Istanbul. He sug-
gested that the purchasing price in the locations where the grain
was bought be raised. Likewise, a decree promulgated in 1789/90
attributed the low quality of bread to the scarcity of grain, which
also was considered the result of low purchasing prices. Eventually
in 1793, to encourage producers and grain owners to deliver more
grain to the authorized buyers, the Imperial Council ordered pur-
chasing prices to be set at the rayic price.22
ments concerning wheat smuggling along the Mediterranean coasts, hh 15/620, 29 Z

1203 [1789]; c.iKT 14/656, 18 C 1205 [22 02 1791]; c. BLD 4/177, 20 S 1209 [September 15,
1794]; C. BLD 38/1882, 19 S 1209 [15 09 1794]; C. BLD 28/1367, 20 Ç 1209 [l2 03 I795]; C. BLD
66/3256, 10 S I2I0 [2608 I795]; C. BLD 38/1887, 10 N I209 [31 03 I795]; C.IKT I3/638, 29 N
I2I0 [07 05 1796]; c. BLD 71/3527, 16 Ca 1217 [14 09 1802]; c.BLD 4/180, io S 1219 [May 20,
1804]; c.BLD 7/305, i R 1225 [May 5, 1810]; c. bld 58/2892, 10 Ca 1209 [03 12 1794]; c. bld
82/4097, 06 Za 1 22 1 [15 01 1807]; ZD 19. Güran, "Ìstanbul'un ia§esinde," 31. For Tatar-
cikzade's opinion of the grain trade in the Mediterranean region, see Ergin, Mecelle, 739.
21 ZD 13 (dated 1776), transcribed in Ergin, Mecelle, 739. Aynural, istanbul deģirmenleri, 11,
suggests that the system was abolished in 1783, and Alexandrescu-Dersca 'L'approvisionne-
ment d'Istanbul,' 76, in 1774. This confusion about when the quota system ended can be at-
tributed to the fact that the forced purchases continued even after the quota system was
removed. ZD 19 (1 794-1 795).
22 hh 23/1158, 1202 [1788]; hh 266/15437, 1204 [1790]. Güran, "State Role," 31. The

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584 I SEVEN AGIR
Table 1 Official Bread Prices in Istanbul, in Real Values
NUMBER OF
OBSERVATIONS AVERAGE PRICE
(FOR AVAILABLE PER KILOGRAM

YEARS PRICE DATA) (SILVER GRAMS)
1530-1642 (112 years) 37 0.524
1651-1724 (74 years) 8 0.508
1775-1819 (45 years) 33 0.638
I793~I8o5 (13 years) 9 0.782
source Values generated from the data compile
Wages (Ankara, 2001), 69-74, 102,106, no, 114, 1
of bread with the silver content of akçe and then
by dividing the price given in the Ottoman unit
kilograms). Data grouped according to the num
The increase in grain-purchase p

of the eighteenth century is also
fluctuations in bread and flour pr
they show that the average price o
significantly higher than the averag
vious century (see Table 1). Furthe
ratio for this period seems to be h
eighteenth century than the avera
the seventeenth century (see Table
the increase in the price of bread
bakers' profit margins. Thus, the i
pears to reflect an increase in grai
When the run-up in prices was n
supply in certain years, as was the c
Egypt, the Ottoman administratio
illegal grain imports by the baker
end of Ottoman-controlled self-suf
allowing higher prices in official
ports, the government took a mo
trade toward the end of the eight
was abolished in that same year wh
of policy, established the Grain Ad
sense of rayic in this context is "current," referrin

set through mutual consent in the marketplace.
not just any price emerging in the market.

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Table 2 Flour Price-Bread Price Ratios in Istanbul
YEARS FLOUR PRICE / BREAD PRICE (%)

1623-1696 (9 observations) 64.69
1776-1829 (27 observations) 78.71
1793-1805 (8 observations) 77-47
source Values generated from the data compiled in Çevket Pa
Wages (Ankara, 2001), 69-74, 102,106, no, 114, 118, 122, 126, 1
of flour is used to make 1 km of bread and that the price data
medium quality of flour, whereas the bakers generally mixed
flour into bread. The percentage of the cost of flour used in mak
bul's grain supply. What motivated this pecu

problems, as opposed to the alternative solut
formers?23
reform of the public purchasing system D

of his reign, Sultan Selim III (r. 1789-180
council of dignitaries to discuss the future of
More than 200 members of the ruling class a
some of whom later submitted memoranda to the sultan contain-
ing their analyses of the Empire's main problems together with
their proposals for reform. The inherent drawbacks of the forced
purchasing system, specifically the abuses of the centrally autho-
rized intermediaries with their pre-emptive privileges, were among
the common themes. Tatarcikzâde Abdullah Efendi (d. 1797), one
of the high-ranking officials in the Ottoman judiciary, identified
the illicit acts of the requisition agents as the main source of the
trouble. He argued that these intermediaries tormented the peas-
antry to such an extent that the peasants had to abandon cultiva-
tion and migrate to other places.24
Despite his strong criticisms, Abdullah Efendi devoted para-
graphs to explain why, in spite of all its problems, the public pur-
chasing system had to be retained. He argued that its removal
would make it impossible to monitor and constrain the actions of
merchants, leading to an increase in profiteering. For instance,
merchants would be able to mix the high-quality grain produced
23 C. BLD 72/3551, 18 Za I2I2 [04 05 1798].

24 For a brief summary of Abdullah Efendi's memorandum, see Besim Özcan, "Tatarcik
Abdullah Efendi ve ìslahadarla ilgili layihasi," Türk Kültürü Ara§tirmalan) XXV (1988), 55-64.
Ergin, Mecelle, 739-742.

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586 I SEVEN AGIR
in the Mediterranean region with the lower-quality grain from the

Black Sea region and sell it for the higher price. His suggestion was
to set separate prices for grain purchased from each region - in
other words, to introduce price differentiation according to an
officially designated market segmentation. But he acknowledged
that the imposition of price controls for Mediterranean grain
would be difficult since smuggling from there was relatively easy.
But the alternative, the rescinding of all price controls, would gen-
erate a considerable rise in bread prices, which, in Abdullah
Efendi's view, was intolerable.25
The idea that the removal of price controls would lead to a
rise in bread prices indicates that price control was still considered
a feasible redistributive tool. But why did Abdullah Efendi believe
that the government-authorized agents were easier to control,
given that they, too, as he was well aware, engaged in smuggling
and hoarding? He might have assumed that the purchasing agents
were less inclined to violate the regulations because their assign-
ment as officially recognized agents included a host of local privi-
leges that they would not want to lose. Or, the center desperately
needed the locally acknowledged power and prestige of these in-
termediaries to determine and collect the surplus and thus prevent
the emergence of a black market, especially at a time when the ca-
pacity for central monitoring was limited.
Abdullah Efendi was not against price controls per se, but he
fervendy advocated an increase in purchasing prices. The low
prices, he maintained, threatened producers' livelihoods and
forced them to abandon their land, resulting in a perilous decline
in agricultural production. Accordingly, he proposed that all of the
grain coming to Istanbul should be purchased at the rayic price, set
through "free bargaining" and "mutual consent."
In his report, the Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pa§a also focused
at length on the abuses of the requisition agents assigned for grain
procurement. Supported by powerful political figures in Istanbul
and in the provinces, these agents took advantage of their privi-
leges by forcing the peasants to contribute more than their "just"
share or by paying them less than the "just" value of their grain.
Like Abdullah Efendi, however, Yusuf Pa§a did not consider abol-
ishing their agents' preemptive privileges as a viable strategy. In-
25 Ergin, Mecelle, 739-742.

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stead, he described in detail how these agents should be chosen

and which rules and regulations should govern their actions.26
Yusuf Pa§a argued that if rules for the storage and transporta-
tion of grain could be imposed appropriately, grain could be
bought for a price even below the official price. To support his ar-
gument, he added, falsely, that the rayic price of grain produced in
the Black Sea littoral was already lower than its miri price and that
the rayic price in the Mediterranean zones could also be low if
smuggling could be prevented. Despite the feet that the Black Sea
rayic price was actually much higher than the miri price, the well-
known difference in quality between the Black Sea and the Medi-
terranean grains could have been a legitimate source of price
disparity, to which Yusuf Paja seemed oblivious. Furthermore,
frequent complaints about the reluctance or inability of the grain
owners in the Black Sea region to deliver the assigned quota
amount stand in contrast to his rosy portrayal of the purchasing
system.
Why would Yusuf Pa§a argue that prices could be easily
brought down if profiteering by public and private agents could be
prevented? As grand vizier, did he genuinely imagine that profi-
teering could actually be suppressed by supervisory measures,
without raising prices (or lowering incentives for smuggling)? His
solution might have reflected more a concern with the power of
the local notables who acted as intermediaries in the grain trade
than a realistic evaluation of the factors underlying the gap be-
tween real and desired price levels. Responding to the predica-
ment in which the Ottoman central administration found itself in
this era - the desire to curb the military and financial power of the
local notables while being unable to rule without their assent and
assistance - Yusuf Paça had no choice but to envision ways to
command purchasing agents.
The memoranda submitted by other Ottoman reformers to
the sultan also point to the intermediaries' abuses as one of the
main problems of the public purchasing system. Nevertheless,
only Mehmed Çerif Efendi suggested ending the entire practice of
public purchasing in grain market - after a one-time purchase for
emergency storage - on the grounds that eliminating the requisi-
26 Ibid, 739; Ergin Çagman, III. Selim' e takdim edilen layihalara göre Osmanli Devleti'nde
iktisadi deģi$me, unpub. M.A. thesis (Marmara Univ., 1995), 21.

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588 I SEVEN AGIR
tion agents would improve the links between the center and the
producing provinces, thereby stimulating agricultural production.
§erif Efendi's subde emphasis on the significance of unhindered
commercial linkages between the provinces and the center for the
development of agriculture is remarkably similar to the Physio-
cratic view that domestic free trade in grains would benefit
agricultural production. Yet Çerif Efendi stood alone among the
Ottoman ruling elite in his unreserved critique of the public
provisioning system.27
Most reformers seem to have believed that removing the
abuses in the system would be sufficient to ensure the well-being
of the peasants and eliminate disincentives for agricultural produc-
tion. Insistence on the forced purchases implied that the center
would continue to authorize use of the local allocation mechanism
to prevent the free movement of grain. The assumption was that
when merchants operated freely according to their economic in-
centives, grain prices would rise even above the levels that were
sufficient to sustain agricultural producers.
The trade-offs faced by the Ottoman reformers, as they per-
ceived them, were not different from those faced by their Euro-
pean counterparts. Like Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campo-
manes (d. 1802), in Spain or Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron
de Laune (d. 1781), in France, Ottoman bureaucrats such as Ab-
dullah Efendi and §erif Efendi viewed systems based on either
private merchants or officially authorized intermediaries as "im-
perfect alternatives. " The rationale behind the administration's de-
cision to retain the public purchasing system, albeit reluctandy, has
to do with the peculiar institutional characteristics of economic
organization along the Ottoman commodity chain. At first glance,
however, the inability of the central Ottoman administration to
manage provisioning without involving local notables seems to be
one of the reasons for the requisition agents' continued presence
in the provisioning network.28
27 Ahmet Ögreten, Nizam-i Cedid'e dair islahat layihalart, unpub. M.A. thesis (Istanbul
Univ., 1989); Çagman, "Osmanli devletinde iktisadi degi§me," 217-233.
28 The question of how different interest groups (merchants and agricultural producers)
might have influenced the positions of the authorities and their reform proposals is also
significant for understanding the dynamics of Ottoman institutional change, engaging with
recent literature about the relationship between institutions' characteristics (extractive or
efficiency-enhancing) and political power. See North, John J. Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast,
Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (New

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Ultimately, the government elected to retain the purchasing

system but sought to support producers and stimulate agriculture
by allowing the rayic price to prevail in purchases. Price controls
were lifted in the same year as was the license requirement to sell
grain in Istanbul. Grain owners could then bring grain wherever
they wanted and ask any price that they wanted and that the mar-
ket would bear.Transactions could take place outside of the
officially designated marketplace. Meanwhile, the government be-
came more active in the grain trade, in 1793 abolishing the miri
price and establishing the Grain Administration to regulate Istan-
bul's grain supply. Its aim was to keep at least 2,000,000 kile
(51,308 tons) of grain in state storage. Given an estimate of Istan-
bul's annual grain requirement at that time as around 4,000,000
kile (102,617 tons) per year, the government's intended supply
would have accounted for half of it. Given that the state was able
to store only a forty-day supply in its granaries at the start of the
century, its plan represented a major increase in its capacity for
storage.29
It took almost two years before the administration had the
fiscal capacity to pursue its goal. In 1795, an independent budget
(Zahire Hazinesi) was designed to finance the operations of the
York, 2009); Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson "Persistence of Power, Elites, and In-
stitutions," American Economic Review, XCVIII (2008), 267-293.
29 HH 225/12550B, I212 [1798]; HH 7/1853» 29 Z I215 [13 05 1801]; HH 7906 (1210)
[1795/6]. Yavuz Cezar, "Osmanli Devleti'nin mali kurumlanndan Zahire Hazinesi ve 1795
(1210) tarihli nizamnamesi," Toplum ve Bitím, VI (1978), 119, refers to hh 13951. Güran,
"State Role," 29, refers to mad (Maliyeden Müdewer Collection), no. 8591, 4-5, 19 03 1208
[25 10 1793]. Both documents are marked "in repair," and not currently open to researchers
in the Prime Ministry Archives. The tasks of the Grain Administration as defined by the by-
laws issued in the same year were summarized by Güran, "ístanbul'un iaçesinde," 17-18.
Aynural, ìstanbul deģirmenleri, 4, bases his estimate of the annual amount of grain needed in Is-
tanbul on the grain distributed from Kapan and state storages to bakers between 1756 and
1762. He supports it with reference to the number of milling stones in the city. Güran,
"Istanbul'un iaçesinde," 16, however, estimates Istanbul's annual wheat consumption to be
3.6 million kile (92,400 tons), based on the assumptions of each person requiring 8 kile
(201 kg) of wheat per year, and the population of Istanbul being 450,000 in the 1830s. He sup-
ports this estimation with an account from Cevdet Pa§a, who records the grain requirement of
the city at around 3 million kile when the Grain Administration was established. See Cevdet-i
Tarih (Istanbul, 1891/92), VI, 95. The estimate of 4 million kile takes into consideration that
Istanbul's population rose significantly between 1750s and 1790s and that Aynural overesti-
mates the grain need of the city by assuming that milling/baking facilities operated at full
capacity. Murphey, "Provisioning Istanbul," 231. Based on Aynural's data in Ìstanbul deģir-
menleri, 63-64, the average amount of grain distributed from the state storages between 1755
and 1762 was around 7% of the total.

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590 I SEVEN AČIR
Grain Administration. From 1795 to 1800, the average annual

amount of grain distributed by the Administration was approxi-
mately 1,000,000 kile (27,987 tons), almost one-third of the city's
annual grain consumption. Although this amount was below the
officially stated objective, it was three times the annual average
amount distributed by the state granaries from 1755 to 1762. As
such, the Administration became the major grain merchant in the
capital, selling the largest portion of the grain needed for Istanbul
at fixed prices to bakers.30
The Grain Administration statute book reconfirmed the abo-
lition of the official price of grain and ordered all purchases to be
made at the rayic price, the preference for which, along with the
earlier decrees abolishing the quota system, implied that grain
would be bought directly from grain owners. Archival evidence,
however, shows that the Administration continued to assign
lump-sum quantities for some regions despite ending the quota
system. It also undertook a more active role in the local allocation
process, especially in Macedonia, where smuggling was more
difficult to prevent for geographical reasons. Numerous orders in
the Grain Registers during this period instructed requisition agents
to purchase grain at the rayic price, specifying the names of the
wealthy grain owners and the amounts assigned to each of them.
Furthermore, the administration tried to increase its control over
requisition agents by auditing accounting registers and replacing
in-kind payments with salaries, which would allow it to forge a
long-term financial relationship with intermediaries.31
Although some of these policy changes were reversed during
the turbulent reign of Selim III in second half of the eighteenth
century (the quota assessment system was reintroduced in 1807,
along with purchases made at the miri price), Ottoman policy-
makers increasingly emphasized the benefits of higher prices and a
less coercive attitude in setting prices, as well as tighter regulation
and supervision of the grain-trade network and a more direct in-
30 Cezar, "Zahire Hazinesi," 122, 125; Giiran, "Istanbul' un ia§esinde devletin rolli," 31;
Aynural, ìstanbul deģirmenleri, 63-64.
31 Cezar, "Zahire Hazinesi,' 141, 149. For a few examples of these lump sums, see ZD 19,
orders 27/1, 29/1, 108/2, 109/1; ZD19, orders 19/1, 43/1, 54/1, 58/1; Antonis Anastaso-
poulos, " Karafery e (Veroia) in the 1790s: How Much Can the kadi sicilleri Tell Us?" in idem
and Elias Kolovos (eds.), Ottoman Rule and the Balkans, 1760-1850: Conflict, Transformation, Ad-
aptation (Rethymno, Crete, 2007), 45-59 (52, for the local judicial registers that demonstrate
how the system worked in Karaferye). kk 2959 confirms this policy change.

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volvement in the grain market. These seemingly contradictory

policy changes could conceivably be explained, at least in part, by
(1) the expansion of the supply zone toward the Mediterranean
coasts, which implied higher purchasing prices because of the
steeper transportation costs; (2) the government's greater invest-
ment in policing; and (3) the increased prices offered to grain
owners in these regions. A concern that these higher prices would
elevate bread costs could have motivated the government to con-
trol a larger share of grain trade destined to Istanbul. This theory,
however, does not fully capture the forces shaping the changing
attitudes of the Ottoman administration. The newly emerging
concern for improving the productive base of the country and the
willingness to emulate policies in Europe were also involved in
these policy proposals.32
EUROPE AS A MODEL FOR THE OTTOMAN POLITICAL ECONOMY In

the last quarter of the eighteenth century, agricultural production
was becoming an increasing economic concern among the Otto-
man reformist elite, who were eager to emulate "more devel-
oped" states. The emergence of a position that was more tolerant
of higher consumer prices should also be seen within this context.
Reformers observed that a multitude of economic, politi-
cal, and military factors - including forced purchases and price
controls - were causing the impoverishment of the peasants, the
emigration of former proprietors, and the desolation of the lands
in the Ottoman Balkans. To encourage rural re-population and
agricultural output, which were considered the basis of political
32 Güran, "istanbul'un iaçesinde devletin rolü," 21. The Administration continued to use
pre-emptive privileges and miri prices, albeit with reserve, until after the Ottoman-British
Commercial Treaty of Baltalimam (1838). Evidence about how the city's population reacted
to these manipulations in the grain price is sketchy. Although few references to grain riots ex-
ist in the Ottoman context, the scarcity and low quality of bread probably constituted a threat
to public order. Indeed, Sultan Selim III, who established the Grain Administration to deal
with the problems surrounding the grain supply, lost his throne after a popular revolt that in-
cluded among its grievances the low quality of bread. See Aysel Danaci Yildiz, "Vaka-yi
Selimiyye or the Selimiyye Incident: A Study of May 1807 Rebellion," unpub. Ph.D. diss.
(Sabanci Univ., 2008), 723, which refers to one of the riot's leaders displaying a loaf of low-
quality bread as a symbol of the gap between the poor and the elite. Although the records fail
to show any incidents in which the rural population opposed the movement of grains out of
their communities, local unrest (to which the frequent complaints about purchasing agents
may well testify) could have played a role in the redesign of the grain policy, indicating paral-
lels with the French case that Charles Tilly discussed in The Vendée: A Sociological Analysis of
the Counter-Revolution of 17Ģ3 (New York, 1976).

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592 I SEVEN AČIR
and military stability as well as the only remedy for the overpopu-
lation of Istanbul, they advocated policy measures such as raising
grain prices and reducing compulsory procurement quotas.33
The suggestions of the memoranda writers, however, were
not limited to removing such disincentives to agricultural produc-
tion as forced purchases or low purchase prices. Ebubekir Ratib
Efendi - ambassador to Vienna in 1791 and, later, the first head of
the Grain Administration - depicted the lamentable state of agri-
culture in the Ottoman regions relative to what he saw in Europe.
In his view, the problems did not arise from natural conditions of
agricultural production; the Ottoman lands were more fortunate
in their natural resources than other places. He gave a detailed ac-
count of how Austria's emperor and the local authorities encour-
aged agricultural production by distributing land and equipment
to farmers and granting them temporary tax exemptions. He also
noted that Austria had no official purchasing agents who could
force owners to sell their grain at low prices or confiscate their
grain, thus removing the motivation for hoarding; consenting
producers and grain owners sold their entire surplus for the cur-
rent price. Describing how freedom in grain trade ensured abun-
dance in Austria, Ratib Efendi linked the ease with which the state
agents were able to procure goods and collect taxes to the welfare
of the subjects and the freedom that they had over the use of their
commodities: "No one intervened with what they produced or
consumed. "34
Ottoman concern with the economic policies of other states
was by no means confined to the agricultural realm. Economic
factors underlying the wealth and power of other states became
the subject of intense interest and purposeful inquiry among the
Ottoman elite during this period. In a treatise submitted to the
Sultan in 1803, Behic Efendi devoted a chapter on creating indus-
try in Ottoman realms, in which he used the notion of balance
33 For this issue, see Özcan, "Tatarcik Abdullah Efendi ve ìslahatlarla ilgili layihasi," 55-64;
Ergin Çagman, "III. Selim'e sunulan bir ìslahat raporu: Mehmet Çerif Efendi Layihasi," Di-
van, VII (1997), 217-233. See also Penah Efendi, "Penah Efendi Mecmuasi," 230.
34 Ebubekir Ratib Efendi (ed. and transliterated by S. Ankan from the original, written in
1793), "Nizâm-i Cedîd devri kaynaklanndan Ebubekir Ratib Efendi'nin büyük layihasi,"
unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Istanbul Univ., 1996), 412, 413-415. The reference to European practices
in the proposals concerning agricultural production goes back to Penah Efendi. See Penah
Efendi, "Penah Efendi Mecmuasi," 339. Fatih Yeçil, "III. Selim döneminde bir Osmanli
Biirokrati: Ebubekir Ratib Efendi," unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Hacettepe Univ., 2002), 162, 197.

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of trade to underline the significance of domestic production

for wealth creation: "Promoting various crafts to ensure self-
sufficiency is a condition for the augmentation of state power.
Producing an excess over domestic consumption to be exported,
on the other hand, enhances the glory and grandeur of the state.
Having recognized the importance of these principles, all Euro-
pean and Asian states try to produce as great a number of com-
modities as possible - even though they themselves do not need
these commodities - just in order to attract the wealth of other
countries and hence to make themselves wealthy."35
Wealth in this context seems to have been understood as "a
measure of relative might," an idea that resonates with the devel-
opmental discourse emerging in other national contexts. Although
Behic Efendi takes self-sufficiency as given, neglecting to differen-
tiate between countries by their divisions of labor and ranges of
manufactured goods, he demonstrates a robust understanding of
how less-developed industries could be promoted by government
policies. For instance, he argued for the protection of domestic
crafts from foreign competition until they were able to compete
themselves. Focusing especially on Russia, the Empire's primary
military rival, he offered specific ideas regarding how to encourage
the production of such skill-intensive commodities as textiles,
clocks, and paper. He advocated the importation of technological
expertise from Europe through such incentives as rewards and
patents.36
35 Beydilli, "Kiiçûk Kaynarca'dan Tanzimat'a ìslahat diiçiinceleri," ilmi Araçtimalar VIII

(I999)> 50-52, is the first to note Behic Efendi's emphasis on domestic industry and trade.
Behiç Efenci (ed. and transliterated by A. O. Çinar from the original, written in 1803),
Sevânihii'l-Levâyih, in Çinar, "Es-Seyyid Mehmed Emin Behic'in Sevanihíi'l-levayihi ve
Deģerlendirmesi," unpub. M. A. thesis (Marmara Univ., 1992), 67.
36 For an insightful study that demonstrates how the idea of economic emulation served as
a prism through which eighteenth-century ideas and reforms were shaped, see Sophus A.
Reinert, Translating Empire : Emulation and Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge, Mass.,
201 1). For other studies discussing the role of emulation played in Enlightenment economic
thought, see Gabriel Paquette, Enlightenment , Governance, and Reform in Spain and Its Empire
1759~ iSoS (Houndmills, 201 1); Hamish M. Scott, Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers
in Later Eighteenth- Century Europe (Ann Arbor, 1990); Keith Tribe, Governing Economy: The
Reformation of German Economic Discourse, 1750-1840 (New York, 1988). An excerpt from
François Veron de Forbonnais, Elements du commerce (Paris, 1754), known to have influenced
German cameralism, bears a striking similarity to Behic Efendi's comments: "The real wealth
of a state is the greatest degree of independence from other states with respect to its needs,
and the greatest superfluity with which it can export to them." Tribe, Governing Economy, 81,
67-71.

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594 I SEVEN AGIR
Behic's use of Russia as a comparative model attests to the

Ottoman elites' increasing concern with economic competition.
The rapid transformation of the Russian economy and society
during the reign of Peter the Great was not only remarkable but
also, in Behic 's view, imitable: The tsar examined the policies of
other states before encouraging skilled experts in the sciences and
crafts to come to Russia and train locals. If even the Russians, who
were as uncivilized as "wild animals" in Behic's view, could pros-
per "in less than a hundred years," the Ottomans could do even
better.37
Mustafa Rasih Efendi, the Ottoman ambassador to Russia,
had expressed similar ideas ten years earlier. The fact that Russia
could improve its international position through military and eco-
nomic reform within a short period of time (a "latecomer phe-
nomenon," as it would be defined in the literature of modern
development) should have made it a suitable model for the Otto-
man bureaucrats. These various examples indicate that emulation
itself - that is, a willingness to recognize and adopt the successful
policies and institutions of rival nations - became the object of
emulation for Ottoman reformers during this period. In this sense,
emulation does not simply mean copying. Like that of other coun-
tries with fledgling developmental agendas, the Ottoman's search
for models entailed both choice and synthesis, without doing away
with traditional political formulas. For instance, the fact that Aus-
tria and Russia, both regarded as threats to the Empire, rather than
France, its main political ally, constituted primary models for agri-
cultural and industrial policy indicates the extent to which the de-
sired reforms were implicated in the survival of state. Further-
more, as Behic Efendi emphasized, the precedent of Russia
proved that learning from more developed states within a short
period was both feasible and advisable.38
37 See Çinar, "Es-Seyyid Mehmed Emin Behic," 67- 68.
38 Y. Karakaya (transliterator from the original, written in 1793;. Mustata Kasin
Efendi'nin 1793 Tarihli Rusya sefaretnamesi," unpub. M.A. thesis (Istanbul Univ., 1996),
no- 112. For an earlier argument for emulation in the military realm, see Virgina H. Aksan,
"Ottoman Political Writing, 1768-1808," International Journal of Middle East Studies, XXV
(1993), 56, which refers to íbrahim Müteferrika's Usui ül-Hikem (173 1). Miiteferrika (d. 1745)»
the first Muslim to run a printing press in the Empire, cited the reforms of Peter the Great and
underlined the necessity to model the army after the organization of successful nations. The
emulative inclinations of the Ottoman bureaucrats can be traced back to the early eighteenth
century when the military superiority of rival states, in particular Russia, became a subject of
concern. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964), 42-43; Ber-

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Although most of these ideas could not be put into practice

during the early years of reform, the concern with protecting the
revenues accrued from industry and a heightened emphasis on the
establishment of a transportation infrastructure within the Empire
reveal a prototypical conception of a national market and of pro-
tectionism. As the idea of international rivalry expanded to in-
clude productive performance, the strength of the state came to
be identified with the wealth of its subjects. Hence, the notion
of "wealth" (zenginlik), in addition to "service to faith and Em-
pire," gradually became a feature of Ottoman political rhetoric.
The willingness to follow the examples of more developed
nations started to become one of the currents of Ottoman eco-
nomic thought, and a more Uberai attitude toward pricing policy
emerged.39
The current state of research in eighteenth-century Ottoman
studies does not allow us to determine whether the Ottoman re-
formers were acquainted with, or influenced by, European writ-
ers, or whether they received information about economic ideas
in Europe through channels other than published material. None
nard Lewis, The Emergence of Modem Turkey (London, 1961), 47. Ahmed Resmi Efendi
(d. 1783), one of the first military reformists, argued for a pro-active policy of emulation in
military organization. For a stimulating study of Ahmed Resmi's ideas and the milieu in
which they emerged, see Aksan, An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace : Ahmed Resmi Efendi,
1700-1783 (Leiden, 1995).
Although the contemporary treatises seem to have restricted their reform proposals to the
military realm, those of the later period ventured into the economic and fiscal realm. For in-
stance, K. Çakul, "An Ottoman Global Moment: War of Second Coalition in the Levant,"
unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Georgetown Univ., 2009), 22, wrote, "The principle of due reciprocity
(mukabele bi'l-misl), the Islamic formula justifying the adoption of Western military techniques,
became a more general principle for the transfer of knowledge from Europe. The traditional
scholarship had emphasized the role of French ideas in early reform attempts." See Lewis,
Emergence of Modem Turkey, 55. For the point about how the survival of the state connected to
emulation of Russia, see Fatih Yeçil, Aydtnlanma Çagtnda bir Osmanli Kâtibi, Ebubekir Ratib
Efendi (1750-1799) (Istanbul, 2010).
39 Joshua M. Stein, "An Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Ambassador Observes the West:
Ebu Bekir Ratib Efendi Reports on the Habsburg System of Roads and Posts," Archivům
Ottomanicum, X (1985), 219-3 12 • For how Ratib Efendi viewed Austrian financial practices as
a model to be imitated, see idem, "Habsburg Financial institutions Presented as a Model for
the Ottoman Empire in the Sefàretname of Ebu Bekir Ratib Efendi," in Andreas Tietze (ed.),
Habsburgisch-Osmanische Beziehungen (Vienna, 1985), 233-241. Penah Efendi, Penah Efendi
mecmuast, 476; Behic Efendi, Sevaniü 'l-levayih, 67. Aksan, "Ottoman Political Writing," 63,
traces the slow erosion of the notion "circle of justice" and its eventual replacement with that
of "service to faith and Empire" during the interval of peace from 1740 to 1768, primarily due
to continuous defeat in the battlefield and the ascendancy of scribal bureaucracy in adminis-
trative affairs.

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596 I SEVEN AGIR
of the memoranda mentioned in this article explicitly cites any

European writer or source; nor does any available evidence at this
point indicate that the main European texts on political economy
had entered into the Ottoman realms during this period. Although
Ratib Efendi reported that, in his visits to the libraries in Austria,
the officials of the host government were astonished to see that he
knew authors such as Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) and Mont-
esquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondât) he might not have actually
read their books.40
The lack of explicit references to European sources during
this period should not imply, however, that the Ottoman reform-
ers had no access to the new ideas emerging in Europe. The re-
formers' acquaintance with actual practices in other countries
through various formal and informal channels might have been
sufficient to stimulate their proposals. One of the primary reasons
for the Ottomans' establishment of permanent embassies in Euro-
pean capitals during this period was to allow the study not only of
military but also of social and economic institutions. Awareness of
contemporary European grain policy in particular is well docu-
mented in these reports, as well as in other material produced by
the Ottoman bureaucrats.41
Ottoman policies aiming to ensure abundant and affordable supply

of grain in Istanbul were the result of political and social concerns
40 Aksan, "Ottoman Political Writing," 63, provides a general survey of the possible Otto-
man sources of information on Europe in the eighteenth century. Beydilli, Türk Bilim
Tarihinde Mühendishane, Mühendishane Matbaasi ve Kiitiiphanesi, 1776-1826 (Istanbul, 1995)»
284-286, 374-375, listed the contents of Ratib E fendi 's library using the records of the Engi-
neering School's Library, which housed these items after Ratib Efendi's death. According to
this list, Ratib Efendi owned 117 books, most of which were contemporary foreign texts on
military technology and geographical knowledge.
41 For a general survey of Ottoman ambassadors and their reports, see Falk R. Unat,
Osmanli Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ankara, 1968). For an updated list and a discussion of am-
bassadorial reports as models for reform, see Mehmet A. Yalçinkaya, "The First Ottoman-
Turkish Embassy in Europe: The Embassy of Yusuf Agah Efendi to London, I793_I797>"
unpub. Ph. D. diss. (Univ. of Birmingham, 1993), 5, 10-12, 161. For reference, at a later date,
to a report written by the voyvoda of Wallachia about protests in Britain about the rise of
grain prices due to import bans, see hh 1273/49348A, 21 R 1230 [02 04 1815]. An investiga-
tion of the similar documents in the Ottoman Archives could reveal further evidence about
the Ottoman elite's state of knowledge of European practices.
The French copy of a narrative of the Ottoman reforms, written by Mahmut Raif Efendi
in 1798, indicates that the removal of forced purchases at the official price aimed to favor pro-
ducers and agriculture. This copy, translated from Ottoman Turkish into French for the sake

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about the subsistence of the urban population. A quota-allocation

system, along with export bans and price controls, implemented
through a vertically integrated chain of intermediary economic ac-
tivities, was designed to ensure transfer of grain from various sur-
plus-producing regions of the Empire to Istanbul. The effective-
ness of these policies depended on the government's capacity to
enforce barriers to trade, which was ensured by its exclusive con-
trol over the Black Sea until the late eighteenth century.
During this period, geopolitical changes in the Black Sea re-
gion, exacerbated by demographic pressure, rendered the tradi-
tional quota policy impractical. The pre-existing price system be-
came not just ineffective but counterproductive. Under these new
conditions, Ottoman authorities developed adaptive measures and
new strategies to minimize corruption and to cope with the ex-
panding sphere of smuggling in the supply regions. While the
government took a more proactive role in the grain trade, estab-
of the European elite circles, has an emphasis on the "promotion of agriculture" different
from that of the original, indicating that the reformers were aware of the objectives of Euro-
pean policies: "The price of the grain fixed by the Miry was formerly very low in most areas
of the Empire, that the farmers who were forced to sell their grain for that price were ag-
grieved and that the Collectors did not lack a pretext for ignoring the people. The Imperial
Majesty (. . .) abolished this compulsory and orderly annuity so that the grains would be af-
fordable in the future at current price. This wise arrangement generated abundance in the
Military Fronts, in the Capital, in a word in the whole extent of the Empire. Especially the
farmers will not cease to bless a monarch who deigns to protect and promote agriculture. " See
"Pour les approvisionnemens des armées et de la capitale" (orig. pub. as Tableau des nouveaux
règlemens de l'Empire ottoman, 1798), in Arslan Terzioģļu and Hüsrev Hatemi (eds. and trans.),
Osmanli imparatoluģu'nda yeni nizamlann cetveli (Istanbul, 1988).
Undoubtedly, the writings of the Ottoman reformers during this period were still imbued
with the rhetoric of tradition and imperial superiority, which might have precluded an out-
right borrowing of foreign institutions. Yet attachment to traditional rhetoric did not neces-
sarily inhibit the indigenous emergence of quasi-Physiocratic ideas in the Ottoman context or
a domestic preparedness for their reception. After all, in many cases, innovations and improvi-
sations were justified as pragmatic responses to the exigencies of the times rather than as re-
forms per se. What may be more important than the Ottoman reformers' access to foreign
ideas was their unprecedented willingness to emulate, albeit selectively, more developed
states. Such was the context within which an incipient notion of wealth and international
competition started to replace religious and moral precepts that hitherto legitimized the per-
vasive use of price controls in the grain trade. Use of the term quasi-Physiocratic does not imply
a strict adherence to all doctrinal aspects of Physiocratic thought but a generic concern for ag-
ricultural development that seems to have justified removal of domestic barriers to grain trade
in various countries toward the end of the eighteenth century. See Uriel Heyd, "The Otto-
man Ulema and Westernization in the Time of Selim III and Mahmud II/ in Albert Houráni,
Philip S. Khoury, and Mary C. Wilson (eds.), The Modem Middle East: A Reader (New York,
1993), 37, 48, 53-

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598 ļ SEVEN AČIR
lishing the Grain Administration to supervise intermediary agents

more effectively, it also adopted a less coercive price policy aimed
at reducing incentives for smuggling. Price controls on wholesale
grain were gradually relaxed, and, although barriers to internal
trade were not removed, a system based on a network of private
merchants was considered a viable alternative to the public pur-
chasing system.
An analysis of the texts in which the reformers discussed
grain-trade policies shows that the new policy was not only a re-
sponse to the strains on the old system of provisioning, driven by
new geopolitical conditions, but also a consequence of an in-
creased willingness among the Ottoman elite to emulate the eco-
nomic policies of successful rival states. In this sense, the formation
of both a centralized bureaucracy and a political economy within
the Ottoman Empire during the late eighteenth century was not
unlike developments in such European states as France and Spain.

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Ağır2013 - Evolution of Grain Policy

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The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman Experience

Author(s): Seven Ağir

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The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman

© 2013 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary

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During the second half of the eighteenth century, most gov-

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The incipient liberalization that occurred almost simulta-

grain redistribution and price control Istanbul's grain sup-

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ensure that the city's 400,000 inhabitants, a hotbed of social and

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Istanbul's grain supply was procured primarily from regions within

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no bargaining was involved - and the price remained constant for

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Kapan, where they collectively negotiated with the bakers' guild

li Ergin, Mecelle; Aynural, istanbul deģirmenleri, 59, 63-64, 88.

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Ottoman economic historians are familiar with these changes,

SUPPLYING ISTANBUL WITH GRAIN

In the middle of the eigh

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of the eighteenth century caused the incentives for smuggling to

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distinct effect on Istanbul's grain supply. Territories in the Danu-

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Along with the shift in Istanbul's traditional hinterland, two

ments concerning wheat smuggling along the Mediterranean coasts, hh 15/620, 29 Z

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OBSERVATIONS AVERAGE PRICE

(FOR AVAILABLE PER KILOGRAM

The increase in grain-purchase p

sense of rayic in this context is "current," referrin

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YEARS FLOUR PRICE / BREAD PRICE (%)

bul's grain supply. What motivated this pecu

reform of the public purchasing system D

23 C. BLD 72/3551, 18 Za I2I2 [04 05 1798].

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in the Mediterranean region with the lower-quality grain from the

25 Ergin, Mecelle, 739-742.

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stead, he described in detail how these agents should be chosen

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Ultimately, the government elected to retain the purchasing

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Grain Administration. From 1795 to 1800, the average annual

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volvement in the grain market. These seemingly contradictory

EUROPE AS A MODEL FOR THE OTTOMAN POLITICAL ECONOMY In

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of trade to underline the significance of domestic production

35 Beydilli, "Kiiçûk Kaynarca'dan Tanzimat'a ìslahat diiçiinceleri," ilmi Araçtimalar VIII

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Behic's use of Russia as a comparative model attests to the

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