Ergenç, Özer. XVI. Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya: Osmanlı Klasik Dönemi Kent Tarihçiliğine Katkı. Ankara: Ankara Enstitüsü Vakfı, 1995, 247pp.
ABSTRACT
Sixteenth Century Ankara and Konya: A Contribution to the Urban Historiography of the Classical Ottoman Period
XVI. Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya: Osmanlı Klasik Dönemi Kent Tarihçiliğine Katkı
Written by a prominent historian of Ottoman socio-economic history, this book analyses two Ottoman cities in Anatolia, Ankara and Konya, in the sixteenth century. As the title suggests, this work is not only a study of these two cities, but also a contribution to Ottoman urban history, which the author maintains, can be contrasted in terms of its relatively limited output to the abundance of works on the Muslim city in the pre-Ottoman Middle East. Another merit of this book is that it focuses on the sixteenth century, a period for which it is difficult to find sijillat (court records), especially in combination with tahrir and vakfiye defterleri (tax, population and endowment registers), the major source for Ottoman social and economic history.
The book falls into three unevenly balanced chapters. The first compares the physical features of the two respective cities with a focus on their general appearance and major road systems, places of trade and art, administrative loci, religious and social buildings, and neighbourhoods.
The second offers a survey of demographic features of these cities, namely population and nutritional resources, and distribution of the population according to neighbourhoods, religious communities, and the tax status of their inhabitants. Here Ergenç makes comparative use of sijillat and tahrir and vakfiye defterleri.
The bulk of the work concentrates on chapter three, where the author analyses social relations in the Ottoman city with regard to administration, economy, and social life. He first explores the role of the city-dwellers in the administration vis-à-vis the legal and administrative officials. Next, he draws attention to the economic role of these cities in producing and marketing of certain goods. Finally, with respect to social life, he explains various social groups and daily life. Ergenç concludes that the Ottoman city had at least some distinct features from other Muslim cities. This work is indispensable for those interested in Ottoman urbanism and socio-economic history.
Hasan Çolak
