Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810)

İrfan Kokdaş

The Vidin region has attracted much scholarly attention, particularly due to the bloody uprisings in the area around the middle of the nineteenth century. For a long period, Balkan historians have understood this mid-nineteenth-century crisis as an inevitable consequence of a Bulgarian national awakening. Although the recent scholarship challenges the nationalist narrative, it continues to ignore the complexities of the socio-legal structures in the Vidinese hinterland, which had developed in the course of the eighteenth century, and reduces all conflict lines to the duality of interests between peasants and proprietors. Going beyond the dualistic narratives of exploitation, this study aims to historicize the land question in the Balkans by presenting the Janissaries both as actors of the Ottoman military establishment in the Vidin region and as rural investors who enjoyed benefits from and shaped the workings of the area’s land regime thanks to their own networks and the state’s policies. By doing so, it contextualizes the ruptures and continuities in landholding patterns, and also highlights the rural entrepreneurship of the Janissaries, who in Ottoman/Middle Eastern scholarship have generally been portrayed as active historical agents of city-based riots and urban-centered commercial activities.

Cihannüma TARİH VE COĞRAFYA ARAŞTIRMALARI DERGİSİ JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY STUDIES CİLT / VOLUME VIII SAYI / ISSUE 1 Temmuz / July 2022 İZMİR KÂTİP ÇELEBİ ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL VE BEŞERİ BİLİMLER FAKÜLTESİ Cihannüma TARİH VE COĞRAFYA ARAŞTIRMALARI DERGİSİ JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY STUDIES P-ISSN: 2149-0678 / E-ISSN: 2148-8843 Sahibi/Owner İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Sosyal ve Beşeri Bilimler Fakültesi adına Prof.Dr. Turan GÖKÇE Editör / Editor Prof.Dr. Cahit TELCİ, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Sorumlu Yazı İşleri Müdürü / Responsible Editor Doç. Dr. Beycan HOCAOĞLU, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Arş. Gör. Arslan KILIÇ, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Yayın Kurulu / Editorial Board Doç. Dr. Yahya ARAZ, Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Dr. Elisabetta BENIGNI, Universitá degli Studi di Torino Dr. Zaur GASIMOV, Orient Institut Istanbul Prof. Dr. Vehbi GÜNAY, Ege Üniversitesi Assoc. Prof. Barbara S. KINSEY, Universty of Central Florida Dr. İrfan KOKDAŞ, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Assoc. Prof. Kent F. SCHULL, Binghamton University Assoc. Prof. Nabil Al-TIKRITI, University of Mary Washington Doç. Dr. Haydar YALÇIN, Ege Üniversitesi Yayın Türü / Publication Type Hakemli Süreli Yayın / Peer-reviewed Periodicals Yazışma Adresi / CorrespondingAddress İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi Sosyal ve Beşeri Bilimler Fakültesi, Balatçık-Çiğli/İzmir Tel: +90(232) 329 35 35-8508 Faks: +90(232) 329 35 19 e-posta: ikccihannuma@gmail.com Web: http://dergipark.gov.tr/cihannuma Basımevi / Publishing House Meta Basım Matbaacılık Hizmetleri 87 sk. No:4/A Bornova/İzmir Basım Tarihi / Publication Date Temmuz / July 2022 Cihannüma yılda iki sayı yayımlanan hakemli bir dergidir / Cihannüma is a peer-reviewed journal published twice a year Yazıların yayın hakkı İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi’ne aittir / © Izmir Katip Celebi University Yazıların bilimsel ve etik sorumlulukları yazarlara aittir / Scientific and ethical responsibilities of the articles belong to authors Tarandığımız ve Dizinlendiğimiz İndeksler / Abstracted and Indexed in: Ulakbim TR Dizin, European Reference Index for the Humanities (ErihPlus), Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ), Biefeld Academic Searh Engine (BASE), Open Academic Journal Index (OAJI) Insights into Janissary Networks, 1700-1826 Edited by Yannis Spyropoulos This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 849911). Cihannüma TARİH VE COĞRAFYA ARAŞTIRMALARI DERGİSİ JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY STUDIES Danışma Kurulu / Advisory Board Prof.Dr. Muhsin AKBAŞ İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Kemal BEYDİLLİ Prof.Dr. Ömür CEYLAN 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi, Türkiye İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Mevlüt ÇELEBİ Prof.Dr. Şenol ÇELİK Ege Üniversitesi, Türkiye Balıkesir Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Şaban DOĞAN İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Mehmet ERSAN Prof.Dr. Ersin GÜLSOY Ege Üniversitesi, Türkiye Uludağ Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. İlhan KAYAN Prof.Dr. Leandro Rodriguez MEDINA Ege Üniversitesi (Emekli), Türkiye Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Meksika Prof.Dr. Ertuğ ÖNER Prof.Dr. Yahya Kemal TAŞTAN Ege Üniversitesi, Türkiye İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Abdullah TEMİZKAN Prof.Dr. Anıl YILMAZ Ege Üniversitesi, Türkiye İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Prof.Dr. Ersel ÇAĞLITÜTÜNCÜGİL İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Doç.Dr. Mikail ACIPINAR İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Doç.Dr. Fatma AKKUŞ YİĞİT İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Assoc. Prof. Maria BARAMOVA Doç.Dr. Nejdet BİLGİ Sofia University, Bulgaristan Manisa Celal Bayar Üniversitesi, Türkiye Doç.Dr. Cengiz ÇAKALOĞLU Manisa Celal Bayar Üniversitesi, Türkiye Doç.Dr. Muhammet ERTOY İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Türkiye Doç.Dr. Can NACAR Assoc. Prof. Shelley Elizabeth ROSE Koç Üniversitesi, Türkiye Cleveland State University, ABD Assist. Prof. David GUTMAN Manhattanville College, ABD ELIAMEP, Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, Yunanistan Dr. Kalliopi AMYGDALOU Dr. İlker KÜLBİLGE Dr. Marinos SARIYANNIS Manisa Celal Bayar Üniversitesi, Türkiye FORTH, Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Yunanistan Cihannüma TARİH VE COĞRAFYA ARAŞTIRMALARI DERGİSİ JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY STUDIES Cilt / Volume: VIII Sayı / Issue: 1 Temmuz / July 2022 İÇİNDEKİLER / CONTENTS MAKALELER / ARTICLES Yannis Spyropoulos Introduction / Giriş ........................................................................................................ 1 Yannis Spyropoulos & Aysel Yıldız Pseudo-Janissarism (Yeniçerilik İddiası) in the Ottoman Provinces (with Special Reference to Adana): Its Emergence and Its Geographic and Socio-Economic Aspects / Osmanlı Taşrasında Yeniçerilik İddiası ve Adana Örneği: Ortaya Çıkışı, Coğrafi Dağılımı ve Sosyo-Ekonomik Yönleri ............................................... 9 Yahya Araz A General Overview of Janissary Socio-Economic Presence in Aleppo (17001760s) / Yeniçerilerin Halep’teki Sosyal ve Ekonomik Varlığına Dair Genel Bir Değerlendirme (1700’den 1760’lara) ...........................................................................55 Abdulmennan M. Altıntaş Being a Comrade of the Ciddavis: The Security of the Cairo Pilgrimage Caravan and Its Economic Dimensions in the Eighteenth Century / Ciddavilerin Yoldaşı Olmak: On Sekizinci Yüzyılda Kahire Hac Kervanının Güvenliği ve Bunun Ekonomik Yönleri .........................................................................................................79 İrfan Kokdaş Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) / Vidin’de Yeniçeriler ve Toprak Kavgaları (1730-1810) ........................................ 101 Anna Sydorenko Using the Ukrainian Archives for the Study of Janissary Networks in the Northern Black Sea: Research Perspectives and Challenges / Kuzey Karadeniz’deki Yeniçeri Ağlarını Çalışırken Ukrayna Arşivlerini Kullanmak: Araştırma Perspektifleri ve Zorluklar ...................................................................... 129 Mehmet Mert Sunar Chasing Janissary Ghosts: Sultan Mahmud II’s Paranoia about a Janissary Uprising after the Abolition of the Janissary Corps / Yeniçeri Hayaletlerini Kovalamak: Yeniçeri Ocağı’nın Kaldırılmasından Ardından Sultan II. Mahmud’un Yeniçeri İsyanı Paranoyası ................................................................. 145 Cihannüma Tarih ve Coğrafya Araştırmaları Dergisi Sayı VIII/1 – Temmuz 2022, 1-8 Doi: 10.30517/cihannüma INTRODUCTION Yannis Spyropoulos* This special issue is a small collection of essays devoted to the history of the Janissaries, intended to be the first of a series of publications investigating the processes which made the Janissary Corps a formidable political and socioeconomic power both at the Ottoman center and in the provinces. The papers included here were originally presented in a workshop which took place at İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University in September 2021, organized within the framework of the ERC-funded project “JANET: Janissaries in Ottoman Port-Cities: Muslim Financial and Political Networks in the Early Modern Mediterranean”, a project dedicated to examining the functioning of Janissary networks in the Ottoman Empire, conceiving of them as inextricably connected to Muslim political and economic networks across a large part of the Mediterranean.1 The Janissary Corps, one of the most influential and fascinating – yet difficult to fathom – institutions of the Ottoman Empire, has attracted the attention of many historians throughout the years. Thanks to this interest, from the mid twentieth century onward a number of groundbreaking works have been produced which have started to move away from considering the corps exclusively as a military institution in a state of decline, whose performance on the battlefield was destined to drag the Ottoman state into a downward spiral.2 Instead of * 1 2 Dr. Yannis Spyropoulos, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Department of Ottoman History, Melissinou & Nik. Foka 130, Rethymno / Greece, spyropoulos@ims.forth.gr, Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3199-7347. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 849911). The literature on the subject is vast. For a small sample of some of the most important contributions which helped change our view of the institution’s history, see Mustafa Akdağ, “Yeniçeri Ocak Nizamının Bozuluşu”, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 5/3, (1947), p. 291-312; Cemal Kafadar, “On the Purity and Corruption of the Janissaries”, The Yannis Spyropoulos focusing on the corps’s military effectiveness, this revisionist literature started to pay attention to the important contribution of its members in the gradual development of new economic practices and increased popular participation in Ottoman imperial politics. In this framework, Janissary protection and the benefits it provided were viewed as a crucial factor which helped the corps’s affiliates challenge the structural hierarchies of the long-established state-controlled guilds and eventually shape a new economic reality, which until 1826 functioned to prevent an unchecked invasion by European industries into the Ottoman market.3 At the same time, the new literature’s examination of the increasing association of large segments of the empire’s Muslim society with the Janissary Corps, and the latter’s extended and active participation in mobilizations which challenged the dominance – especially in Istanbul – of the empire’s leading power holders, gave rise to a fruitful debate over the emergence of processes which could have led to “limited government” or even the “proto-democratization” of the Ottoman political scene.4 Along these lines, various historians have also started to underline the importance of cultural and social phenomena such as the spreading of coffeehouses, shadow theater, and itinerant storytelling, and the increase of lowersocial-strata migration to Ottoman cities, for the diffusion of political ideas among the Ottoman Muslims related to the corps.5 2 3 4 5 Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 15/2, (1991), p. 273-280; Idem, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff of Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels Without a Cause?”, International Journal of Turkish Studies, 13/1-2, (2007), p. 113-134; Donald Quataert, “Janissaries, Artisans and the Question of Ottoman Decline, 1730-1826”, 17th International Congress of Historical Sciences. I: Chronological Section, Madrid1990, (eds. E. B. Ruano and M. Espadas Burgos), Madrid 1992, p. 197-203. See, for instance, Deniz T. Kılınçoğlu, Economics and Capitalism in the Ottoman Empire, London and New York 2015, p. 51-52; Mehmet Mert Sunar, “‘When Grocers, Porters and Other Riff-Raff Become Soldiers:’ Janissary Artisans and Laborers in the Nineteenth Century Istanbul and Edirne”, Kocaeli Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 17/1, (2009), p. 176, 185-192; Quataert, “Janissaries, Artisans and the Question of Ottoman Decline”, p. 202-203. For some of the works contributing to this ongoing debate, see Ali Yaycioğlu, “Guarding Traditions and Laws, Disciplining Bodies and Souls: Tradition, Science, and Religion in the Age of Ottoman Reform”, Modern Asian Studies, 52/5, (2018), p. 1542-1603; Baki Tezcan, “Lost in Historiography: An Essay on the Reasons for the Absence of a History of Limited Government in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire”, Middle Eastern Studies, 45/3, (2009), p. 477-505; Idem, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, New York 2010; Hüseyin Yılmaz, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Batılılaşma Öncesi Meşrutiyetçi Gelişmeler”, Dîvân, 13/24, (2008), p. 1-30; Şerif Mardin, “Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective”, State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, (eds. M. Heper and A. Evin), Berlin 1988, p. 23-35. Indicatively, see Cengiz Kırlı, “Coffeehouses: Leisure and Sociability in Ottoman Istanbul”, Leisure Cultures in Urban Europe, c. 1700-1870. A Transnational Perspective, (eds. P. Borsay and J. H. Furnée), Manchester 2016, p. 161-181; Ali Çaksu, “Janissary Coffee Houses in Late EighteenthCentury Istanbul”, Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, (ed. D. Sajdi), London and New York 2007, p. 117-132; Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”; Marinos Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Some Remarks on Ottoman Social Vocabulary”, International Journal of Turkish Studies, 11/1-2, (2005), p. 1-15. Introduction In spite of this significant progress made by the Janissary-related historiography, the economic and political functions of the Janissaries have yet to be studied in their collective and imperial dimensions, and for good reason. The sheer size of the Janissary Corps, the complexity of its organization, and from the seventeenth century onward its increasing decentralization make any attempts at understanding its history at a holistic level an extremely arduous task. In view of this difficulty, it is only natural that many of the studies which treat the corps as a coherent sociopolitical entity tend to build their analyses by focusing on the case of Istanbul. By the same token, the – few, given the Janissary organization’s extensive proliferation in the provinces – analyses which are related to the political and economic history of the corps’s peripheral units usually underestimate the latter’s contact with the rest of the Janissary organization. As a result, Janissary provincial units are yet to be examined as interconnected and interacting components of a single large corporate imperial establishment. Another problem is related to the Janissaries’ perception by scholars as a predominantly urban element, a view which does not account for the corps’s increasingly decentralized recruitment procedures and manner of operation from the seventeenth century onward. This fact, in turn, has led to an unbalanced examination of the Janissaries’ socio-economic role, which revolves mostly around their city-related economic activities – the guilds being at the center – and leaves their connection with the empire’s rural hinterland largely outside of the literature’s scope. Last but not least, the Janissaries’ nonmilitary activities are to this day still being examined outside of their institutional framework. They are, instead, being treated either as the by-products of private initiatives fueled by the interests of individuals, or as symptoms of the corps’s straying from its single “true” path, i.e. being an effective war machine; yet such an approach fails to address its multifunctional role in the Ottoman administration and economy. JANET opts for a different analysis; it underlines the institutional aspects of such processes, and – without excluding Istanbul from the picture – shifts the current research’s center of attention from the Ottoman capital to the empire’s provinces. According to our thesis, from the late seventeenth century onward, the Janissary Corps became a largely decentralized multifunctional organization with built-in institutional characteristics that facilitated its entanglement in the economic and political life of Ottoman provinces. This entanglement was destined to become for various Muslim social strata one of the main channels for the amelioration of their socioeconomic position by enabling their advantageous participation in the empire’s credit market, commercial life, and agricultural economy, as well as a gateway for their involvement in local and imperial politics. Moreover, the Janissary Corps not only became an essential means of popular participation in and transformation of Ottoman state institutions, but also a platform for the exchange of people, goods, and ideas between different localities covering a vast geographical area. When examined from a Mediterranean perspective, this thesis allows us to look beyond the information provided by 3 Yannis Spyropoulos 4 Europe-centered sources and to drastically redefine the sociopolitical and financial role of Muslims in the region, an approach which historical analysis sorely lacks. Although the project is still in its early stages, the tentative results published in this issue of Cihannüma demonstrate the potential of the research undertaken by the members of the JANET team. Our goal with this publication is not to address all the thematic axes and regions examined by the project, but to add a few new pieces to the puzzling history of the Janissary Corps, doing so by introducing new analytical concepts, bringing unexplored case-studies to light, revisiting old ones, and using archival material – old and recently discovered – in novel ways which can disclose hitherto uncharted aspects of the corps’s history. In geographical terms, the cases studied here run through a vertical axis which starts from Crimea in the north, passes through Bulgaria, Istanbul, Anatolia, and Syria, and reaches Egypt and the Holy Cities in the south. Although the years covered are approximately 1600-1826, our emphasis is on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a period which coincided with the apogee of Janissary networking: the corps’s opening up to popular participation in the provinces becomes noticeable in the first half of the seventeenth century, sky-rockets throughout the last two decades of that century, and continues to steadily grow from that point on, reaching its peak by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In order to analyze a factor which played an important role in the corps’s increasing popularity, in a joint paper with Aysel Yıldız we investigate the phenomenon of “pseudo-Janissarism” or “the claim of being a Janissary” (yeniçerilik iddiası), as it is usually referred to in Ottoman sources. By introducing the concept of pseudo-Janissarism we intend to bring to light a crucial, yet almost completely unexplored, aspect of Janissary networking, namely the unofficial or semi-official affiliation of individuals with the corps, as opposed to the full Janissary identity attributed by the state to permanently enrolled/salaried Janissaries. Instead of interpreting this fluid and often illicit affiliation as a sign of the corps’s institutional decline, as the Ottoman historiography has traditionally seen it, we explore its various features seen as direct results or by-products of the empire’s military and socioeconomic transformation which “pushed” or “pulled” the Ottoman Muslim populations toward claiming a military identity. With an eye to explaining the rise and expansion of the phenomenon during its formative period (1600-1735) we follow its evolution through space and time. We do so by tracing the central Ottoman administration’s references to it and analyze the particular historical circumstances, large-scale events, and institutional mechanisms which determined its course. Subsequently, we delve into a case-study of the Anatolian town of Adana in order to examine the socioeconomic factors which prompted certain parts of its population to participate in the corps’s networks as pseudo-Janissaries. In this vein, we elaborate on the way factors such as war, taxation, migration, and local politics created incentives and imperatives which led Muslims to pursue shady Janissary affiliations, and try to trace the identity of some of these individuals through the use of sources produced both locally and at the imperial center. Introduction Yahya Araz’s article attempts to revisit the history of the Janissaries of Aleppo by using archival material which further illuminates the corps’s relation with other power groups in the region, as well as its members’ relation with the guilds and the ethnic and urban elements of the city. Aleppo was an area with a significant number of Janissaries but no Janissary regiments, where the political and economic clout of the larger Damascene unit was preeminent. Yet, as Araz explains, the Aleppine Janissaries would eventually manage to break away from the Damascene unit’s sphere of influence and to impose themselves both as an interest group that set the pace for the functioning of the local market and as agents of socioeconomic advancement for the city’s lower social strata and the immigrants coming from Aleppo’s hinterland. This fact was, in turn, destined to lead to conflicts with the area’s established elite, mainly represented by the local eşraf. Although the Janissaries were not involved in the city’s international trade, by controlling Aleppo’s linkages with its countryside, investing in large estates, and acting as vakf administrators or guild and community representatives, they managed to assert themselves as a political and economic force to be reckoned with. It is interesting to note that, in many ways, Araz’s observations concerning the rural connections of Janissaries as a source of economic and political authority match the ones presented in the case of Adana, analyzed in the previous paper: in both cases, for the poorest rural inhabitants of various ethnic and tribal origins, affiliation to the Janissary Corps seems to have acted as one of the mechanisms connecting them with the region’s urban centers, through protection and representation. By the same token, this mechanism seems to have facilitated the intervention of urban Janissary elements as investors in the economic life of the area’s rural hinterland. Abdulmennan Altıntaş’s article deals with the Ciddavi Unit of Egypt, the military force in charge of securing the annual pilgrimage caravan which departed from Cairo each year for a one-month journey to Mecca. The Ciddavis comprised soldiers from various corps based in Egypt, but Janissaries held the most prominent position among them. Altıntaş reveals a complicated picture of the region’s trading activities – the most significant being the lucrative Red Sea coffee trade – and the profitable economic niches they created for the soldiers of the above-mentioned unit. In the eighteenth century, the history of the Ciddavis became increasingly interlaced with that of the powerful Janissary household of the Kazdağlıs, who aimed at controlling Egypt’s rural tax farms and pilgrimage route, using the title of serdar-ı kitar (military commander of the pilgrimage caravan) as a foothold for achieving their goal. Such alliances seem to have opened the way for the unit’s soldiers and their local protégés to control the area’s trade, by taking advantage of institutionalized privileges such as their jurisdictional autonomy and tax exemptions, and illegally extending them to facilitate a multitude of financial activities and networked connections. Altıntaş’s paper demonstrates the similarities between the economic practices – legal or illegal – employed by the members of the autonomous Janissary unit of Egypt and those of their comrades in other units 5 Yannis Spyropoulos 6 around the empire. The Janissaries of Egypt, like those based in the North African Regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, were administratively detached from the rest of the imperial (kapıkulu/dergah-ı ali) Janissary Corps and had developed a localized and largely autonomous organization, which remained, however, symbolically associated with that of Istanbul, having similar privileges and a similar remit. By underlining the existence of some of these common features, Altıntaş’s paper proves that the shared institutional characteristics of different Janissary units – regardless of the extent of their administrative interdependence – allowed the members of even the empire’s most autonomous Janissary structures to follow networking patterns similar to those which were to be found all around the Ottoman imperial space in the eighteenth century. The next article featured in this issue broaches the question of Janissary involvement in rural investments in the frontier area of Vidin, which represented one of the most important centers of Janissary activity in the Ottoman Empire, hosting over 6,000 officially recorded soldiers in the second half of the eighteenth century.6 İrfan Kokdaş’s contribution revisits the discussion over the nature of the gospodarlık regime and the role of Janissaries in the formation of large landed estates (çiftliks) in the region. As Kokdaş explains, the development of Janissary rural estate ownership was supported by the adoption by the Ottoman government of specific land policies which, following the wars with the Holy League (1683-1699), prompted a great number of soldiers to claim the vacant/deserted lands in Vidin’s hinterland. By studying the formation and evolution of these landed properties, Kokdaş proceeds to challenge two established views which see Janissary estates as having contributed to the demise of miri lands and as being the source of an intense Janissary-reaya rivalry over land possession in the region. According to Kokdaş, Janissary estates were controlled though a combination of freehold ownership and usufruct rights over state lands, which did not lead to the gradual illegal privatization of state demesnes. Instead, the Janissaries seem to have been largely abiding by the existent land regulations, which offered them more than enough opportunities to expand their rural investments, even without breaching the legal framework which defined the status of miri areas in the empire. Kokdaş also observes that the land claims of the Vidin Janissaries played an equally – if not more – important role in the emergence of intra-Janissary disputes than of conflicts between Janissaries and reaya. In this framework, he also reveals that many of the networks which supported the various Janissary claims over lands in Vidin were built on the basis of common regimental affiliations and solidarity displayed in the form of credit transactions involving both private individuals and regimental funds. This institutionalized role of regimental funds as pillars of the Janissaries’ private entrepreneurial activity has been confirmed in the case of other 6 For the importance attributed by the Ottoman central administration to the Janissary unit of Vidin, see Ignace Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’empire othoman, Volume 7, Paris 1824, p. 316. Introduction Ottoman frontier regions as well,7 and its study may hold the key to our better understanding of Janissary economic predominance in a number of Ottoman provinces. Going further to the northern extremes of the Ottoman Empire, Anna Sydorenko’s paper treats the unstudied subject of the establishment and function of Janissary economic networks in the northern Black Sea, with an emphasis on the relations that Janissaries developed with the inhabitants of the Christian states which neighbored this frontier region. She does so by employing two archival collections which have never been used before for writing Ottoman history, namely the archives of the Kosh of the Zaporozhian Sich and of the Office of the Gubernia of Kyiv, preserved at the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv. Sydorenko’s goal is to underline the potential for research on the subject offered by this untapped material, while presenting, at the same time, a number of cases which illustrate the type of interactions that Janissaries were involved in on the above-mentioned frontier zone. In doing so, she demonstrates how the Janissaries based in the fortresses of the northern Black Sea were in direct contact not only with the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, but also with a number of other ethnic groups of the region, such as Cossacks, Ukrainians, Russians, Greeks, and Armenians. Sydorenko’s article sheds light on the way in which the Janissaries used their inter-provincial imperial connections to further their trading activity, showing that they actively engaged in the economy of the Black Sea steppe as merchants and rural entrepreneurs, while constantly walking a fine line between collaboration and conflict with the other frontier communities. Finally, Mehmet Mert Sunar’s article deals with the after effects of the abolition of the Janissary Corps in 1826 and the efforts made by Janissaries and their followers in Istanbul and the provinces to take action against Sultan Mahmud II in order to reinstate the corps. In his analysis, Sunar underlines the profound impact that Mahmud’s past negative experiences with the Janissaries seem to have had on him and the ways in which his fears led to a ferocious manhunt which aimed at annihilating any possible reaction – real or unfounded – against his regime. Based on summary accounts of the interrogations of former Janissaries, and other literary and archival sources, Sunar’s paper traces the zealous efforts of Mahmud’s men to unveil various Janissary conspiracies, by way of torture and intimidation, in an attempt to appease him and gain his favor. Through an in-depth examination of these conspiracies, the article illustrates the foundations on which the alleged networks of the plotters were formed, underscoring the relations that ex-Janissaries could develop with the newly founded Asakir-i Mansure Corps and broaching the question of the extent to which the old Janissary networks remained 7 Yannis Spyropoulos, Κοινωνική, Διοικητική, Οικονομική Και Πολιτική Διάσταση Του Οθωμανικού Στρατού: Οι Γενίτσαροι Της Κρήτης, 1750-1826 [Social, Administrative, Economic and Political Dimensions of the Ottoman Army: The Janissaries of Crete, 1750-1826], University of Crete, Department of History and Archaeology, Ph.D, Rethymno 2014, p. 198-221. 7 Yannis Spyropoulos in place after 1826. In doing so, Sunar not only discloses various aspects of the identities of those whom the central government suspected as plotters, but also the political motives – and, sometimes, even supernatural beliefs – which guided the sultan and galvanized him and his administrators into action, as they did those who conspired against them. Before letting the contributors’ papers speak for themselves, I wish to thank all the JANET team members whose support made this special issue possible. I would also like to thank İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University for hosting our second JANET workshop and Cihannüma’s editorial board for their support. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to İrfan Kokdaş for his tremendous help during the editing process. I thank Abdulmennan Altıntaş for designing some of the maps included in the issue and Ben Young for copy-editing the texts with meticulousness and consistency. Finally, I am grateful to the anonymous referees who contributed greatly with their insightful comments and remarks and, of course, to the contributors themselves for their participation and for gladly responding to my challenging requests. 8 Cihannüma Tarih ve Coğrafya Araştırmaları Dergisi Sayı VIII/1 – Temmuz 2022, 101-127 Doi: 10.30517/cihannuma.1131055 JANISSARIES AND CONFLICTS OVER RURAL LANDS IN THE VIDIN REGION (1730-1810) İrfan Kokdaş* Abstract The Vidin region has attracted much scholarly attention, particularly due to the bloody uprisings in the area around the middle of the nineteenth century. For a long period, Balkan historians have understood this mid-nineteenthcentury crisis as an inevitable consequence of a Bulgarian national awakening. Although the recent scholarship challenges the nationalist narrative, it continues to ignore the complexities of the socio-legal structures in the Vidinese hinterland, which had developed in the course of the eighteenth century, and reduces all conflict lines to the duality of interests between peasants and proprietors. Going beyond the dualistic narratives of exploitation, this study aims to historicize the land question in the Balkans by presenting the Janissaries both as actors of the Ottoman military establishment in the Vidin region and as rural investors who enjoyed benefits from and shaped the workings of the area’s land regime thanks to their own networks and the state’s policies. By doing so, it contextualizes the ruptures and continuities in landholding patterns, and also highlights the rural entrepreneurship of the Janissaries, who in Ottoman/Middle Eastern scholarship have generally been portrayed as active historical agents of citybased riots and urban-centered commercial activities. Keywords: Janissaries, land disputes, rural networks, Ottoman land law, rural investments * Assistant Professor, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, History Department, Izmir, Turkey, irfan.kokdas@ikc.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0002-4858-6018. Presented at the Second JANET Workshop, in Izmir September 10-12, 2021, this paper is based on the database of the project “JANET: Janissaries in Ottoman Port-Cities: Muslim Financial and Political Networks in the Early Modern Mediterranean (2020-2025)”, European Research Council Starting Grant StGr2019 no. 849911 Makale Geliş Tarihi / Received Date: 02.11.2021 Makale Kabul Tarihi / Acceptance Date: 24.12.2021 İrfan Kokdaş Vidin’de Yeniçeriler ve Toprak Kavgaları (1730-1810) Öz Vidin bölgesi özellikle 19. yüzyılın ortasındaki kanlı isyanlardan dolayı birçok araştırmacının dikkatini çekmiştir. Balkan tarihçileri uzun bir süre boyunca 19. yüzyılın ortasındaki bu krizi Bulgar milliyetçiliğinin kaçınılmaz bir sonucu olarak yorumladı. Son dönemde tarih yazımı bu milliyetçi anlatıyı eleştirirken Vidin kırsalında 18. yüzyıl boyunca oluşan karmaşık sosyo-hukuki yapıları ise görmezden gelmeye ve tüm çatışma hatlarını köylü-toprak sahibi ikilemine indirgemeye devam etti. İkiliğin ve sömürü anlatısının ötesine geçen bu çalışma, Balkan coğrafyasında toprak meselesini tarihsel bağlama oturtmayı amaç ediniyor. Bunu yaparken de yeniçerileri hem bölgenin askeri unsuru hem de toprak rejiminin işleyişini belirleyen ve ondan faydalanan kırsal yatırımcılar olarak tanımlıyor. Bu sayede çalışma toprak sistemindeki devamlılıkları ve kırılmaları ortaya koyarken aynı zamanda Osmanlı ve Ortadoğu çalışmalarında kent ayaklanmalarının ve ticari faaliyetlerin aktörleri olarak resmedilen yeniçerilerin kırsal yatırımcı rollerinin altını çiziyor. Anahtar Kelimeler: yeniçeriler, arazi kavgaları, kırsal ağlar, Osmanlı arazi hukuku, kırsal yatırımlar 102 Introduction The Vidin region has already attracted much scholarly attention, particularly due to the bloody uprisings in the area around the middle of the nineteenth century. Attempts were made to ease the protracted struggles in Niş, Lom, Belgradçık, and Vidin through the unceasing efforts of the Ottoman state – up until the end of its rule in the region – to reach a compromise between the disputing groups, namely Christian sharecroppers1 and the powerful landholding military. The latter had only begun to consolidate its presence during and after the war with the Holy League in the 1683-1699 period.2 For a long period, Balkan historians have understood this mid-nineteenthcentury crisis as an inevitable consequence of a Bulgarian national awakening, since the ethno-religious demarcation between landless Christian cultivators and Muslim landholders was a profound factor in contributing to the peasant discontent.3 1 2 3 In fact, there were also several landless Muslim peasants in the Vidin-Niş-Lom area who appear as tenants in records. See, for instance, Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Maliye Nezareti Temettuat Defterleri (ML.VRD.TMT.d) 814:6-25 (29 Z 1261/December 29, 1845). Rossitsa Gradeva, “War and Peace along the Danube: Vidin at the End of the Seventeenth Century”, Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie 20 (81)/1, (2001), p. 153-156. For a survey of these points on the Vidin Uprising, see Atti̇la Ayteki̇n, “Peasant Protest in the Late Ottoman Empire: Moral Economy, Revolt, and the Tanzimat Reforms”, International Review of Social History, 57/2, (2012), p. 197-201. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) Studies by İnalcık and Gandev, however, have revisited this nationalist thesis from different perspectives, both sharing the assumption that the functioning of the gospodarlık regime4 in rural Vidin, which dated back to the eighteenth century, was the root cause of the uprisings, as the system involved heavy peasant exploitation and corvée labor.5 Gandev acknowledges that the Vidinese entrepreneurs, drawn mainly from Janissary rank-and-file and officers, acquired land with title deeds, but emphasizes that the key element for the development of the Vidinese land tenure system was the unauthorized appropriation of common lands by investors as they established large “freehold” estates (çiftliks) in these areas.6 Though İnalcık also depicts the exploitative character of the land-tenure system in the region, particularly underlining the personal abuses by large military Muslim landlords, he does not push his analysis further.7 However, their analyses ignore the complexities of the socio-legal structures in the Vidinese hinterland, which came into being during the eighteenth century, and reduce all conflict lines to the duality of interests between peasants and proprietors. In this interpretation, the competition over rural resources is seen as a sign of land privatization and a deterioration in the Ottoman land regime, or somehow as a deviation from a well-working miri regime hinging on the “protection of small peasantry”. This study, however, maintains that land possession or land holding in eighteenth-century Vidin was a result neither of privatization nor of the loss and corruption of state control; quite contrary to this, it was a new modality of land regime dependent upon the tangled rights on miri land and freehold properties. 4 5 6 7 Under the gospodarlık regime, large estates (çiftlik) were owned by the “landlords” (“gospodar”, Bulgarian for “master”) consisting of Janissaries and local notables, while peasants on the gospodar lands had to pay double dues: taxes to the state and rents to the masters. For the details on the system, see Mehmet Safa Saraçoğlu, Letters from Vidin: A study of Ottoman Governmentality and Politics of Local Administration, 1864-1877, The Ohio State University, Ph.D, Ohio 2007, p. 10-14. At the heart of the Vidin and Niş uprisings lies the çiftlik question, whose origins dated back to the early eighteenth century. The evolution of large çiftliks, their capitalistic and feudal natures, and the transition from state to private property prior to the nineteenth century are the key themes in historiography that link the nineteenth-century land problems to the dynamics of the earlier period. For a snapshot of these debates, see Attila Aytekin, “Historiography of Land Tenure and Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Empire”, Asian Research Trends New Series, 4, (2009), p. 6-10. See also Halil İnalcık, Tanzimat ve Bulgar Meselesi, Istanbul 1992, p. 75-107; Christo Gandev, “L’apparition des rapports capitalistes dans l’économie rurale de la Bulgarie du nord-ouest au cours du XVIIIe siècle”, Etudes Historiques, (1960), p. 211-212. Gandev’s observations are discussed within a broader geographical concept by McGowan in his study on the çiftlik formations along the Danube; Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600-1800, Cambridge 1981, p. 57-73. For a similar analysis, see Ayteki̇n, “Peasant Protest”, p. 198. Although small peasants enjoyed the protection offered by the Ottoman miri land regime, the spread of tax-farming practices, wrote İnalcık, deteriorated their position and state–peasant relations, since the tax-farmers, usually prominent local men, sought to satisfy their own interest. İnalcık, Bulgar Meselesi, p. 85-94. 103 İrfan Kokdaş 104 The legal status of çiftliks, farms, hayfields, gardens, mills, and apiaries was formalized with a miri–mülk distinction, but in a way that was very permeable in market transactions, and which left a discernible imprint on the nineteenth-century property disputes in the centralizing Ottoman state. Going beyond the narratives of exploitation and dualities, the study aims to historicize the land question in the Balkans by presenting the Janissaries as both actors in the Ottoman military establishment in the Vidin area and rural investors8 who enjoyed benefits from and shaped the workings of Vidin’s land regime thanks to their own networks and the Ottoman state’s policies in the region. In doing so, this study not only contextualizes the ruptures and continuities in landholding patterns, but also highlights the rural entrepreneurship of the Janissaries, who in Ottoman/Middle Eastern scholarship have generally been portrayed as active historical agents of city-based riots and urban-centered commercial activities. By focusing on the conflicts over land and rural properties, this study investigates the Janissaries’ investments in the eighteenth-century Vidinese hinterland, specifically in the 1730-1810 period, and their pivotal role in shaping the land tenure system in the area where they acted as litigants. With their wide range of investments in rural immovables, the Janissaries were influential actors in the system and shaped the contours of the land regime in Vidin. The study sheds light on the alleged enmeshment of legal statuses in the area, primarily stemming from the general nature of Janissary investments, as the blurry physical boundaries between freehold properties and state lands strengthened the emergence of hybrid property and usufruct rights. It also maintains that bundling different property rights to different immovables into a single unit and the frequent transfers of miri lands triggered contention, though not so much between peasants and Janissaries but mainly between Janissaries themselves, as the interweaving of ownership and usufruct became more and more subject to inheritance, transfer, and sale. General overview: Janissary properties in the Vidinese countryside As early as the 1700s an imperial order sent to Vidin demanded the destruction of around 200 animal çiftliks (kışlaks) established by Muslim entrepreneurs, including Vidinese Janissaries, along the southern side of the 8 It should be noted, however, that on the southern side of the Danube there were also several Janissaries residing in the villages and holding small lands. See, for instance, Bab-ı Asafi Divan-ı Hümayun Sicilleri Özi ve Silistre Ahkam Defterleri (A.DVNS.AHK.ÖZSİ.d) 4:133, order no. 519 (evasıt-ı Ra 1160/March 22-April 1, 1747); 5:112, order no: 461 (evasıt-ı Ra 1162/February 28March 10, 1749). See also Evgeni Radushev, “‘Peasant’ Janissaries?”, Journal of Social History, 42/2, (2008), p. 453-461. Interestingly, Vidinese court records are silent on the Janissaries’ settlement in the villages, and thus the overwhelming majority of entrepreneur Janissaries in this study were city-dwellers. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) Danube.9 Up until the 1760s, these Janissaries had been able to establish an exceptionally high number of large estates and always had a keen interest in expanding their investments in Wallachia. This early decree in itself is revealing of the fact that, just fifteen years after the Ottoman war with the Holy League and the subsequent penetration of the Janissaries into Vidin, they had attained extraordinary economic capacity as rural entrepreneurs on the other side of the Danube. The rapid political-military changes in the late seventeenth century turned Vidin into an “El Dorado” for Janissaries, as many of them came to settle and find lucrative investment opportunities in its hinterland. The region was devastated during the wars against the Holy League, the havoc culminating in the occupation of Vidin, which inevitably caused massive peasant flight. When the imperial center reorganized the frontier defenses along the Danube and facilitated the establishment of Janissaries in fortresses and palankas, the Janissaries found vacant fertile lands in Vidin. Fatma Gül Karagöz cited two important imperial orders that perfectly illustrate the dynamics behind the rise of the Vidinese Janissaries as rural entrepreneurs. 10 For instance, the first order, dated 1707, cites the presence of abundant vacant lands around the Vidin fortress after the Habsburg occupation in 1689. Referring to the fact that the inhabitants had fled into neighboring districts due to the occupation, it states that following the reconquest of the city by the Ottoman forces, these areas and their title deeds (tapu temessükü) were given to new claimants. Some Janissaries were among those who eagerly sought and took these lands. Undoubtedly, this might reflect not only a process of sending Janissary units from other areas, but also enrolling locals into the Janissary Corps. In any case, with this order the center recognized the Janissaries’ integration into the countryside by issuing official certificates. In 1714 the imperial center sent another order for the management of vacant vakıf lands, entitling all fugitive villagers or deed holders to return and retake their own properties. This order, however, stipulates that they could claim their lands only within four years of its issuance. By authorizing the local judges not to hear cases against new property holders, including Janissaries, the first order closed the doors to the old landholders’ claims and fully secured the new economic position of Janissaries on state lands. Although the second decree granted rights to the old titleholders, by setting a prescription period it did not entirely block the Janissaries’ and other entrepreneurs’ access to extensive vakıf lands. These imperial policies thus created a dazzling diversity of Janissary rural investments around 9 10 Mahir Aydın, “On the Shores of Danube: Neighbourhood between Wallachia and Vidin”, Turkey & Romania: A History of Partnership and Collaboration in the Balkans, (eds. Florentina Nitu et al.), Istanbul 2016, p. 155-156. Fatma Gül Karagöz, 1700-1750 Yılları Arasında Osmanlı Devleti’nde Arazi Hukuku Uygulamaları: Vidin ve Antakya Örneği, Istanbul University, Ph.D, Istanbul 2018, p. 125-132. 105 İrfan Kokdaş 106 Vidin, and they acquired land, gardens, and vineyards, and erected rooms, underground cellars (zir-i zemin), animal barns, and storehouses. Janissary investments in the Vidinese countryside evince a high degree of continuity in terms of their diversification throughout the eighteenth century; by the 1730s they typically owned a mixed portfolio, particularly consisting of cultivable land, gardens, vineyards, pastures, and mills. An inquiry into court records, for instance, indicates that out of 147 identified cases of property sales, the granting or ceding of usufruct rights, and conflicts that involved Janissaries as litigants, 56 cases contain transfers or disputes over vineyards and gardens, 39 over mills, 30 over çiftliks, 44 over arable fields (tarla), 61 over pastures (çayır), and 43 over rural buildings.11 Such a hybrid outlook regarding their investments is more visible in the recorded sales and renouncing of rights. For instance, among 25 of all 43 cases of sales of vineyards or gardens, the Janissaries were at the same time engaged in transactions for other properties, such as cultivable fields, çiftliks, or grasslands.12 This was also true for the handing over of mills: in 12 out of 19 cases referring to the sale of mills the Janissaries also sold other properties at the same time. Moreover, in 8 of all 25 transfers of pastures, the Janissaries sold a mill. Similarly, almost one third of all transactions of arable fields and lands (10 out of 30) also contain the sale of a mill. This means that in most of these legal cases the litigation or property registration revolved around the transfer of or a dispute over at least two rural properties. The figures, thus, attest to the fact that the Janissaries usually held more than two rural properties in the same area, quite often attached to each other. This wide range of Janissary investments in Vidin was influenced by many factors, one of which was the geoclimatic patterns that had the most enduring and long-lasting impact on the mode of rural property holding. With rich water reserves and large grasslands, the deep hinterland of Vidin offered the Janissaries the opportunity to possess pasturelands and arable fields together with watermills, gardens, or vineyards. The travelers and Ottoman inspectors often admired this agricultural richness in the Danube area and underlined the potential of animal husbandry and apiculture, while the Janissaries made very rich and diverse investments in both Wallachia and the Vidinese countryside. 13 11 12 13 Nacionalna Biblioteka “Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodij” (NBSKM), Vidin Sicils (VS) 6; 9; 11; 39; 41; 44; 46; 47; 48; 53; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 68; 69; 70; 71; 74; 77; 78; 79; 80; 82; 160; 163; 167; 169; 307; 310; 346; 159A; 25A. The author is in the process of preparing a paper on the extent to which other segments of Vidinese society developed a similar investment portfolio in the eighteenth century. Preliminary findings suggest that the military, administrative, and fiscal roles of the Janissaries and their credit capacity gave them an edge in the rural market vis-à-vis other groups such as merchants and religious dignitaries. İrfan Kokdaş, “Habsburglar Kara Eflak’a Gelirse: Vidin’de Hayvancılık Sektörünün Dönüşümü (1695-1740)”, Cihannüma: Tarih ve Coğrafya Araştırmaları Dergisi, 5/2, (2019), p. 92-93. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) Map 1-A: Geographical Distribution of Janissaries’ Rural Properties around Vidin 107 Map 1-B: Geographical Distribution of Janissary-Involved Disputes over Rural Properties İrfan Kokdaş Map 1-C: Geographical Distribution of Janissaries’ Rural Transactions 108 Two reports prepared in 1753 and 1760 on the investments of Janissaries and military men in Wallachia reveal that they held pasturelands, storehouses, apiaries, and mills.14 Unlike Fethülislam (Kladovo), which was devoid of large arable lands, a fact that from the very beginning led its residents to establish their agricultural investments in Wallachia, Vidin had a very rich hinterland.15 As Map 1 also illustrates, the hybrid character of these investments went hand in hand with their very dense geographical distribution. The rural properties of Janissaries were scattered in a roughly triangular area with a base along the northern drainage zones of the Timok and Lom Rivers and with a southern vertex around Belgradçık. It is very instructive to underline that this triangular area almost overlapped with the conflict zone that witnessed a series of uprisings, land disputes, and reform projects from the 1840s onwards. The concentration of Janissary investments in this triangular zone is neither exceptional nor surprising given the fact that in the Ottoman world urban entrepreneurs often made investments in the waterabundant areas in the vicinity of towns and bought mills, orchards, and vineyards. Together with these rural estates, they held arable fields and pastures.16 14 15 16 For the details of these reports, see Aysel Yıldız and İrfan Kokdaş, “Peasantry in a Wellprotected Domain: Wallachian Peasantry and Muslim Çiftlik/Kışlaks under the Ottoman Rule”, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 22/1, (2020), p. 175-190. BOA, Cevdet Hariciye (C.HR) 35/1733 (evasıt-ı Ş 1173/May 26-June 4, 1760). James A. Reilly, “Status Groups and Propertyholding in the Damascus Hinterland, 1828-1880”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 21/4, (1989), p. 517-518; idem, “The End of an Era: PreReform Damascus in the 1820s”, Bulletin Détudes Orientales, 61, (2012), p. 213-214; Hülya Canbakal, Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town: ‘Ayntāb in the 17th Century, Leiden 2007, p. 38-39; Suraiya Faroqhi, Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) The banks along the Topolovetz, Vidbol, and Musumane rivers, for instance, were popular investment outlets for water-mill construction among the Janissaries. Even a cursory look into the boundaries of rural properties specified in court records indicates that valuable rural real estate such as mills and vineyards were located in the midst of vast rangelands that often bore the name of their current or past holders.17 The Topolovetz, Arçar, Vidbol, and Voynishka rivers and their tributaries provided extensive water reservoirs, and this turned the area into an ideal space for rich agricultural investments, especially for animal husbandry.18 The pastures thus appear as the most cited property in the dealings and struggles that involved Janissaries. For instance, among 66 cases of Janissaryinvolved property sales or cessions, 25 contain deals for pastures, while almost half of the identified conflicts (37 out of 81) contain a dispute over grazing areas. In most of these cases, the litigation or transfer involves not only grazing areas, but also other lucrative rural properties. The concurrent contracts for land and immovables in the same location and the conflicts over them indeed created a multiplicity of legal status and demands over rural properties. For example, in one record on the transfer of land and çiftlik buildings (çiftlik ebniyesi), among them a watermill, between the relatives of Süleyman Ağa and the guardian of Janissary İslam Beşe’s minor son, the çiftlik buildings, having a legal status of freehold property, changed hands with the consent of the timariot (literally: official master or overseer of the land, sahib-i arz) through granting and cession (tefviz and ferağ).19 These wordings are of crucial importance, because the terms tefviz and ferağ were employed for the dealings on state lands whose transfer was approved only with the consent of the master of the land. Such a formulation in this case suggests that the legal status of fields as state lands encapsulated the status of the buildings of the large estate. However, there are also cases in which fields and grasslands attached to the çiftliks were legalized altogether as freehold property. Following the death of yamak Osman Beşe from the 5th Bölük of the Janissary Corps, who died indebted around 1764, his heirs vehemently defended the inherited çiftlik against the deceased’s Janissary creditors, who intended to sell the grange and its 17 18 19 Ankara and Kayseri, Cambridge 1987, p. 54-97; Beshara B. Doumani, Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History, Cambridge 2017, p. 224-51. For examples, see NBSKM, VS.11:75-77 (13 Ş 1188/October 19, 1774); 160:108 (15 R 1207/November 30, 1792); 6:164 (7 B 1208/February 8, 1794); 46:143 (17 R 1189/June 17, 1775); 78:233-234 (5 Ş 1179/January 17, 1766). In other parts of the empire, geography and peasant flight (mobility) were decisive factors behind the rise of military investments in animal husbandry; and the Vidin region witnessed widespread peasant mobility in the eighteenth century. Zafer Karademir, İmparatorluk Ekonomisinin Can Damarları: Osmanlı Ülkesinde Hayvancılık İşletmeleri (1500-1800), Istanbul 2016, p. 73-79, p. 115-132. See also Kokdaş, “Habsburglar”, p. 83-103. NBSKM, VS.63:221 (9 Za 1186/February 1, 1773). 109 İrfan Kokdaş 110 surrounding lands to them in order to clear his debts.20 The representatives of the heirs insisted that the çiftlik could not be sold to pay the debts. Although they did not present any documented proof, their allegations drew upon the miri status of the çiftlik secured with a title deed (tapu temessükü), which forbade the sale of an estate for debt payment. The çiftlik, consisting of several structures, including a house, storehouse, animal barn, mill, garden, and vineyard, had the fields and pasture coterminous with them. The creditors now demanded the sale of half the share of both the buildings and the encompassing area of the çiftlik, suggesting that fields and pasture were held as freehold property. None of the parties at the courtroom proved their claim with any sultanic grant of ownership of public estates (mülkname), court warrant, or title deed. The creditors instead buttressed their position with witnesses, who testified that the conflicted land was a freehold çiftlik with its buildings. Essentially, the naming of the land as garden, vineyard, or çiftlik did not fully determine the characteristics of a property. In an example of a gift contract between the Janissary Elhac Mustafa from the 41st Bölük and the children of another Janissary, Seyyid Ahmed Ağa, from the 15 th Cemaat, the property was termed a garden (bahçe), but had quite a resemblance to a çiftlik, as it had rooms, a mansion, an animal barn, and peasant rooms (reaya odaları).21 In the case of the property inherited from yamak Osman Beşe, the creditors probably used the witnesses to prove the cultivable lands belonged to the çiftlik. Their claim was primarily built on a legal opinion (fetva), which for debt payments sanctioned the selling of çiftlik held as freehold property and all the appurtenant lands “belonging to it since the former times” (ona kadimden beri tabi olan). Not blurred but interwoven: private property and usufruct rights The term “appurtenant land” is a key concept that appears repeatedly in the Janissary-involving rural transactions that recur among the many property disputes in Vidin. In not a few instances, the appurtenant lands were certainly designated as an extension of freehold properties. In most cases, however, the appurtenant land and hayfields belonging to the rural properties were classified as state land, in line with the Ottoman land law. For instance, in a dispute among heirs over the control of the çiftlik of a deceased woman, Fatma, the estate and lands attached to it were described simply as çiftlik and appurtenant lands (çiftlik ve ona tabi). Both were transferred to Süleyman Ağa from the 31 st Bölük with the approval of the voyvoda 20 21 Some of the creditor Janissaries in this case were again identified with their bölük affiliations. A half share of the çiftlik was ultimately sold to Halil Ağa for 1,211 guruş; NBSKM, VS.61:256 (25 Ra 1178/September 22, 1764). The legal dispute emerged after the heirs of Elhac Mustafa denied the gift deal and seized the property. NBSKM, VS.74:180 (gurre-i B 1181/November 23, 1767). Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) of Sahra mukataası, the sahib-i arz in that case.22 In another case, the representative of Fatma, the daughter of the deceased Elhac Ahmed Ağa, the serdengeçdi ağa of the 41st Bölük, transferred her share in the mill around Musumane to Mustafa Alemdar from the same bölük. This transfer also included the appurtenant pasture (asiyab ve ona tabi çayır) attached to it, the transaction again being subject to the permission of the sahib-i arz.23 Ebubekir Ağa, again one of the Janissary serdengeçdis serving at Vidin, came to court to validate his land acquisition from Hace Kadın who inherited the rural properties from her brother Mehmed Ağa. He claimed that the area, including a mill, vineyard, buildings, and pasture, had been transferred to him through a legal cession (ferağ) with the permission of the sahib-i arz and Hace Kadın’s consent.24 The crucial point in these transactions is the fact that the cession implemented for the miri lands with the approval of the master of the state lands does not actually mention any value for the transfer of the freeholding vineyard and mill although they were certainly transferred to the new owner. This means that the legally binding and critical part of this transfer was the pasture, whose transmission required the overseer’s approval, and when the parties got it, the consent of the holders of the miri pasture or fields involved the sale of freehold real estates as well. One might indeed hypothesize that this vineyard and mill could be miri, but in Vidinese court records I have not seen any mills or vineyards described as miri. Moreover, in other examples, scribes, implicitly or explicitly, made a distinction between the miri status of lands and other rural freeholding properties attached to them. In 1810, when serdengeçti Salih Ağa came to the court to sell his çiftlik, including arable fields, grasslands, gardens, and other buildings, the scribe recorded two kinds of transfers, namely ferağ for the miri properties and bey-i bat for the freeholding properties, but did not explicitly distinguish between the properties of different statutes.25 He, however, highlighted these different statutes by inserting a formula stating that although there was only one transaction fee in this case, this fee included both the transfer value and purchase price. This implies that the former was set for the miri properties and the latter for the freehold. In another case, in which Zeyneb Hatun proceeded against Elhac İbrahim Beşe from the 43 rd Cemaat, the latter proved his possession rights to çiftliks with honorable witnesses who stated that she had earlier sold the çiftlik and its land to him.26 To show the different status of the çiftlik buildings and appurtenant lands, in this example the testimony of the witnesses was carefully inserted into the court record. As the çiftlik buildings and lands had different legal statuses, the sale of the çiftlik with its land 22 23 24 25 26 NBSKM, VS.74:56 (11 B 1180/December 13, 1766). NBSKM, VS.68:8 (15 Z 1204/August 26, 1790). NBSKM, VS.68:167 (11 S 1206/October 10, 1791). NBSKM, VS.47:96 (gurre-i R 1225/May 6, 1810). NBSKM, VS.46:170-171 (20 B 1189/September 16, 1775). 111 İrfan Kokdaş 112 did not validate the transfer of the land, so they added that for çiftlik lands of miri status – certainly not for the buildings – İbrahim Beşe had also got permission from the master of the land. In another case, dated 1775, when Molla Hasan Beşe from the 82nd Cemaat bought a çiftlik and the appurtenant lands attached to it, the scribes first listed real estate in the çiftlik, such as an underground cellar, a storeroom, vineyards, and a garden, and explicitly formulated their transfer as an irrevocable sale (bey-i bat-ı sahih). Then, they categorized the transaction of grasslands and arable fields as ferağ and inserted the permission of the sahib-i arz for these appurtenant lands.27 In all these transactions, another key point is the continuation of the legal status of appurtenant zones. All seem to have been conducted in accordance with the legal requirement of the miri regime, but all buildings and land surrounding them were treated as a single and inseparable commodity in the market. The de jure usufruct and property rights were so well embedded into the eighteenth-century practices in Vidin that the distinction between miri and mülk properties were often, if not always, recorded at the times of granting or renouncing of usufruct rights. Despite this legal formulation, in all cases of land transaction under study which explicitly mention any value, all buildings and land changed hands with a lump sum value without setting different prices for the buildings and appurtenant lands. This is true particularly for the çiftliks not only in Vidin but also in the whole of Rumelia and Anatolia. As portrayed by the studies of Aysel Yıldız and Sophia Laiou on the land tenure system in Thessaly, the legal status of buildings and other cash-producing structures in the çiftlik zones was considered separately from that of the arable fields attached to them.28 These authors rightly highlighted the coexistence of state lands and private property with different legal status in the çiftliks. Drawing upon the probate inventories listing only the private property as a rule of inheritance law, Papastamatiou noted that in eighteenth-century Salonika the so-called core of a çiftlik in the dominant inventory methodology consisted of peasant huts and the land itself.29 He added, however, that the latter is not explicitly stated in inventories and that the çiftlik’s periphery comprised accessories, vineyards, gardens, animals, tools, and other buildings. All these observations allude to a hybrid semantic meaning of rural properties and their legal statutes, especially in large estates, a phenomenon parallel to the situation in Vidin. In the 27 28 29 NBSKM, VS.46:201-202 (3 Ş 1189/September 29, 1775). Sophia Laiou, “Some Considerations Regarding Çiftlik Formation in the Western Thessaly, Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries”, The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek Lands: Toward a Social and Economic History. Studies in Honor of John C. Alexander, (eds. Elias Kolovos et al.), Istanbul 2007, p. 269-270; Aysel Yıldız, “Politics, Economy, and Çiftliks: The History of Four Çiftliks in Larissa (Yenişehir-i Fener)”, Turkish Historical Review, 11, (2020), p. 45-52. Demetrios Papastamatiou, “The Structure, Content and Development of Large Estates in the Environs of Salonica during the Period 1697-1770”, Festschrift in Honor of Ioannis P. Theocharides. II. Studies on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, (eds. Evangelia Balta et al.), Istanbul 2014, p. 385-386. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) probate of Janissary Ahmed Alemdar from the 82 nd Cemaat, the court scribes, for instance, recorded only çiftlik buildings (çiftlik ebniyesi) together with beehives, but in the probate of Elhac Mustafa Alemdar from the 41 st Bölük the estate is articulated simply as çiftlik without providing any further detail.30 In the inventory of another Janissary, Ahmed Beşe from the 19 th Cemaat, scribes listed the çiftlik together with buildings (çiftlik maa ebniye).31 All these convoluted uses, at first glance, show the ambiguity of the Ottoman land regime and a transformation of miri property to quasi-mülk property, i.e., privatization of land. This argument is systematically put forward in an oftcited study by Özer Ergenç, who advocated that the frequent land transactions with title deeds and the permission of the master of land overseer, the ability of city dwellers to acquire land and keep it for a long period under their usufruct, and the use of terms like mülk or mülk-i müştera, turned state demesnes into quasiprivate property.32 However, in Vidin the various terms used interchangeably for the çiftlik properties mirrored the existence of multiple property and usufruct claims over landed properties. Indeed, in Vidin the court scribes were generally, if not always, cautious and took the separation between the mülk and miri properties quite seriously; and this practice was not only limited to the çiftlik areas. In 1775 a woman named Meryem delivered her shares in a water mill, vineyard, and hayfield to the Janissary Ahmed Beşe from the 12th Bölük.33 In this particular transaction, lands including a hayfield (çayır), categorized as the appurtenant lands of the mill and vineyard, were treated separately in a legal manner as mülk-i müfevvez, namely state land subject to transaction.34 While the mill and vineyard were sold as private property with an irrevocable sale (bey-i bat-ı sahih), her land was delivered to the Janissary with a standard protocol through the permission of the sahib-i arz. Together with this distinction, this deal also underscores the bundling of different rural properties subject to different legal statuses into a single alienable commodity in the land market.35 Around the same time, when the Janissary Ahmed Alemdar 30 31 32 33 34 35 NBSKM, VS.81:12-13 (25 C 1159/July 15, 1746); 53:26 (gurre-i Za 1220/January 21, 1806). NBSKM, VS.77:16-17 (17 B 1190/September 1, 1776). Özer Ergenç, “XVII. ve XVIII. Yüzyıl Anadolusu’nda Toprak Tasarrufu ve Mülkiyeti Üzerine Değerlendirmeler”, Şehir, Toplum, Devlet: Osmanlı Tarihi Yazıları, Istanbul 2012, p. 215-45. NBSKM, VS.46:142-143 (17 R 1189/June 17, 1775). For the use of mülk-i müfevvez in defining property rights and status of transactions, see Fatma Gül Karagöz, “18. Yüzyıl Şeriye Sicili Örneklerine Arazi Üzerinde Mülkiyet ve Tasarruf Haklarını Tanımlayan Terimler”, Türk Hukuk Tarihi Araştırmaları, 16, (2013), p. 45-51. The fetva collections emphasize the different legal status of land and trees planted on it. Although they categorically banned the sale of the two as a single alienable commodity in the market, it seems that the bundling of land and trees in the market by the master of land was a quite common practice, which found its echo in the fetva texts. See, for instance, H. Necati Demirtaş, Açıklamalı Osmanlı Fetvâları: Fetâvâ-yı Ali Efendi-Cild-i Sâni Çatalcalı Ali Efendi, Istanbul, 2014, p. 560. 113 İrfan Kokdaş 114 from the 37th Bölük delegated the rural buildings in the çiftlik, such as a storehouse, vineyard, garden, and cellar, and the appurtenant lands to his fellow Molla, Hasan Beşe from the 82nd Cemaat, the court scribe followed the same procedure in distinguishing between the private estates and miri property.36 All parties, including the court officials, however, regarded these properties as an inseparable tradable bundle in the land market. This utmost care in recording is surely not groundless. As elsewhere, the legal status of rural buildings, gardens, and planted trees often brought contested parties into the Vidinese courtroom. One case, involving the Janissary officer serdengeçdi ağası İbrahim Ağa from the 48th Bölük and the heirs of the deceased Janissary İbrahim Beşe from the 31 st Cemaat, is revealing on this point.37 Around 1774, the serdengeçdi accompanied the heirs to court, asserting that after İbrahim Beşe passed away without children he had acquired the çiftlik from the official overseer of land after it became vacant. The serdengeçdi first argued that there were planted trees within the çiftlik but not on the appurtenant fields and pastures. He indicted the heirs for usurping his usufruct rights over the çiftlik, which, according to his statement, had passed to him categorically with a title deed. Despite the title deed, the heirs opposed his rights to the çiftlik by stating that, alongside rural buildings such as a water buffalo barn, stove rooms, and an underground cellar, as well as a garden, there were more than 300 plants on the ranch and pasturelands around them. In legal history, too, the issue of the status of trees and inheritance law were always popular themes in legal opinions (fetvas) on land.38 In inheritance division, the heirs to demesne land were not identical to the legal heirs designated in the Islamic law applied to private holdings. According to Ottoman land regulations formalized in the early sixteenth century, only the son of the deceased could inherit the usufruct rights without paying resm-i tapu. Although the son continued to be favored in the transfer of miri land, regulations after the early seventeenth century broadened the number and rights of heirs in these transfers. These new regulations were indeed not a rearticulation of the old Ottoman miri regime through fetvas, legal codes (kanunnames), and imperial orders, and they culminated in the promulgation of a new land code (Kanunname-i Cedid), which was gradually formulated throughout the century, probably until 1674.39 In addition to the 36 37 38 39 NBSKM, VS.46:201-202 (1 N 1189/October 26, 1775). The date is given as 30 Şaban, but it indeed refers to the first day of the next month, Ramazan, due to the functioning of the Hijri lunar calendar. NBSKM, VS.71:164-165 (gurre-i Z 1187/February 13, 1774). See, for instance, H. Necati Demirtaş, Açıklamalı Osmanlı Fetvâları, p. 559-561; Süleyman Kaya et al. (eds.), Neticetü’l-Fetâvâ Şeyhülislam Fetvaları, Istanbul, 2014, p. 448-449. Fatma Gül Karagöz, The Evolution of Kânûnnâme Writing in the 16th and 17th Century-Ottoman Empire: a Comparison of Kânûn-i ‘Osmânî of Bayezid II and of Kânûnnâme-i Cedîd, Bilkent University, MA Thesis, Ankara 2010, p. 90-149; Bünyamin Punar, Kanun and Sharia: Ottoman Land Law in Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) expanding number of legal heirs to the miri land, one provision of the law code (kanunname) of Ahmed III also recognized and approved the rights of legal heirs to occupy planted lands, according to the Sharia.40 The provision in the kanunname is an old imperial order dated 1628, which was dispatched to the judge of Skopje.41 After listing the persons who could inherit the miri land in sequence, including sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers, it states that: if the deceased has no partner in the possession of land and there are trees planted on arable fields and pastures, the land is transferred to the legal heirs, who inherit privatively owned trees according to the Islamic law. In the aforementioned dispute, the heirs’ legal narrative was, thus, very strategically worded: it directly referred to the revised Ottoman land regulations that enabled the heirs to take the planted lands with the payment of tapu so the land in question could not be deemed vacant and should not be leased to someone else.42 In this example, once again one may get the impression that the miri regime and its regulatory codes were strong reference points in eighteenth-century Vidin. It should still be noted that a rich matrix of agrarian interactions in the countryside was transplanted into the legal norms on property and usufruct rights through the complex interplay of social relations. An imperial order sent to the local authorities in 1718, for instance, mentions that the vacant farms, hayfields, shops, and houses had passed into other hands among the Vidinese inhabitants without a title deed, which had damaged the fiscal revenues of the Vidinese administration (Vidin nezareti).43 In this decree, the imperial administrators themselves emphasize that land transactions were not fully recorded within the purview of the court system. Nor did all land struggles spill over into the official or legal domain. For instance, in a series of orders issued throughout the eighteenth century, the Ottoman government reminded the military Muslim entrepreneurs on the southern side of the Danube that they were to settle all legal disputes originating in Wallachia, including those over land, at the Yergöğü court.44 These 40 41 42 43 44 Şeyhülislam Fatwas from Kanunname of Budin to the Kanunname-i Cedid, Istanbul Şehir University, MA Thesis, Istanbul 2015, p. 53-113. Karagöz, Arazi Hukuku Uygulamaları, p. 46. Oğuz Ergene, III. Ahmet Dönemi Osmanlı Kanunnamesi (İnceleme-Metin-Dizin), Mersin University, MA Thesis, Mersin 1997, p. 109-111; Karagöz, Arazi Hukuku Uygulamaları, p. 46. In the fetva collections, it is clearly stated that the heirs to the trees had the privilege to take the appurtenant land by paying a title deed. See, for instance, Süleyman Kaya et al. (eds.), Neticetü’lFetâvâ, p. 447. NBSKM, VS.67:150 (25 Ş 1130/July 24, 1718). Karagöz also analyzes this important imperial order; Karagöz, Arazi Hukuku Uygulamaları, p. 129-130. See, for instance, BOA, Bab-ı Asafi Divan-ı Hümayun Düvel-i Ecnebiyye Defterleri-Romanya Eflak Defteri (A.DVNS.DVE) 77:44, order no. 133 (evahir-i Za 1157/December 25, 1744January 3, 1745); 77:52, order no. 150 (undated), 77:120, order no. 284 (evasıt-ı N 1169/June 919, 1756); 77:121-122, order no. 287 (evasıt-ı Za 1169/August 7-17, 1756); 77:147-148, order no. 336 (evahir-i Muharrem 1172/September 23-October 3, 1758). 115 İrfan Kokdaş 116 repeated decrees suggest that the Muslim entrepreneurs from the southern Danube, including Janissary commanders and yamaks, frequently found ways to skip court procedures and registration in land transactions and disputes. In this way, the Janissaries, like others, could avoid paying the tapu fee; and as shown below, in many cases they could prove their possession rights through the oral testimony of their fellows. Despite this shortcoming, however, court records on property transactions and confrontations enable us to bridge the gap between the eighteenth-century rural realities and the nineteenth-century Agrarproblem in the Ottoman Balkans. Referring to several rural buildings on state lands, several articles in the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, for instance, recognized that the land and buildings could be subject to different usufruct and property rights.45 However, this law at the same time stipulates that the overseer of the state land should give priority to the holder of private structures when planning to lease land in the same location. By bundling enmeshed usufruct and property rights into the buildings and land, the code itself represents a continuation of the eighteenth-century miri regime in this regard. As early as the eighteenth century, there was a strong tendency, at least in local practice, to perceive the buildings and appurtenant lands together as a single and inseparable unit. This is why in the nineteenth century, not only in Vidin but also in other parts of the empire, the status of buildings and appurtenant lands in the same location became a serious headache for the Ottoman authorities, who strove to solve rural discontent by auctioning or selling lands to lessees or sharecroppers, respecting, at the same time, the legal status of property and usufruct rights. Yıldız, for instance, in her study on several çiftliks in Thessaly, noted that one of the main questions that concerned the state authorities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was whether çiftlik buildings belonged to the fields or vice versa.46 When the state put the çiftliks up for auction, they were first offered to sharecroppers, whose desire to buy only cultivable fields, not buildings, was rejected, in keeping with the cadastral regulation. This problem was not solved until as late as the early twentieth century, when the buildings were bound to the land, making them an inseparable unit in legal terms. The Land Code of 1858 ordered the collection of icare-i zemin, an annual fee for the places occupied by the rural buildings; it formulated it as an annual fixed payment, like a rent equivalent of tithe. In the 1870s, however, the Ottoman administration, aware of the difficulties in collecting fixed annual fees, attempted to assess the payment in accordance with the tithe collected from the appurtenant lands. Thus, almost fifteen years after the promulgation of the Land Code, the imperial center tried to 45 46 Abdullah Sivridağ et al. (eds.), Tanzimat Sonrası Arazi ve Tapu, Istanbul 2014, p. 108-111. Yıldız, “Politics”, p. 49-50. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) solve the ambiguity by giving priority to the agricultural potential of arable lands surrounding the buildings.47 When the central authorities invited the representatives of çiftlik holders and sharecroppers to Istanbul to prepare a charter for a solution of the land question in Bosnia in 1858-1859, one of the contested issues was the seizure of buildings such as storehouses and animal barns constructed by sharecroppers of the çiftlik holders, which actually belonged to the former.48 In a long-lasting dispute over the possession of çiftlik buildings in Parga in the 1850s, one may also observe similar conflicting claims made by villagers and çiftlik owners to the shops, mills, and houses in these estates.49 As in Bosnia, ownership and usufruct in Parga were not simply limited to the buildings because these immovables were directly intertwined with olive trees and were seen as constituent parts of agricultural production and the peasants’ moral economy. The brutality of the peasant revolt, the tactical use of violence, and the circulated codes of rural moral economy differentiated the Vidin uprising in 184950 from the discontent in Thessaly and Parga.50 During and after the uprising, lessees and sharecroppers disapproved not only of extra-legal corvée obligations, but also, and perhaps most significantly, the landholders’ claims to land, by rejecting the validity of title deeds. One of the major actions conducted by the peasants in this chaotic period was the burning of court warrants testifying to the proprietors’ usufruct and ownership. As documented by Halil İnalcık and Attila Aytekin, villagers’ demands to obtain the possession of their cultivated land from landholders were predicated on the peasant morality rather than on legal formulas.51 By doing so, Aytekin observed, they challenged the whole legitimacy of the existing land tenure system and the legal structures of which had been set down in the pre-Tanzimat period. Janissaries and disputes over rural properties Viewing the situation through the nineteenth-century lens and zooming in on the brutal land conflicts, the court records of the previous century thus offer an 47 48 49 50 51 BOA, Şûrâ-yı Devlet (ŞD) 2399/8 (14 Za 1290/January 3, 1874). However, the preparations for the new assessments of icare-i zemin started earlier, at the Ministry of Finance. Tevfik Güran and Ahmet Uzun, “Bosna-Hersek’te Toprak Rejimi: Eshâb-ı Alâka ve Çiftçiler Arasındaki İlişkiler (1840-1875)”, TTK Belleten, 70/259, (2006), p. 889; Yonca Köksal, “19. Yüzyılda Kuzeybatı Bulgaristan Sessiz Toprak Reformu”, Toplumsal Tarih, 29/170, (2008), p. 2627. Ali Onur Peker, 19. Yüzyıl Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Çiftliklerinde Üretim İlişkileri ve Hukuki Dönüşüm: Parga Çiftliği Kararnâmesi, Ege University, MA Thesis, Izmir 2019, p. 86-91, 97-103. Alp Yücel Kaya, “On the Çiftlik Regulation in Tırhala in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Economists, Pashas, Governors, Çiftlik-holders, Subaşıs, and Sharecroppers”, Ottoman Rural Societies and Economies, (ed. Elias Kolovos), Rethymnon 2015, p. 333-379. İnalcık, Tanzimat, p. 105; Ayteki̇n, “Peasant Protest”, p. 213. 117 İrfan Kokdaş 118 unexpected picture: the Janissaries, as the main carriers of the land regime in Vidin, disputed predominantly not with villagers but among themselves. I was able to identify 81 court cases in which one Janissary or a group of them appeared as an interested party in a legal dispute over rural property and land. In only 18 of these cases had villagers and their representatives filed charges against Janissaries, while in another 16 cases both the plaintiffs and defendants were Janissaries. In the majority of cases, 38 out of 81, the disputes over rural properties involved the relatives or heirs of Janissaries, which means that litigations over the Janissaryinvolved land conflicts arose mainly from inheritance disputes after the death of Janissaries. In 31 of these 38 cases one of the interested parties was a Janissary acting as defendant, plaintiff, or guardians at the courtroom. Lawsuits between Janissaries and villagers mainly concerned two types of allegations as made against the former: the seizure of villagers’ land with or without a title deed and the encroachment on common meadows (meras). Nevertheless, even in these conflicts the Janissary–reaya relations could not be classified simply as a unilateral attack on peasant lands; rather they contain a tangled web of interactions ranging from coercion and control to patronage and consensus. For instance, when Hüseyin Beşe and his partner Selim Ağa intervened in village lands around Belgradçık, several non-Muslim cultivators, together with the Janissary Mehmed Beşe from the 28th Bölük, proceeded against them.52 Mehmed Beşe seems to have acted as a patron of peasants from the Beloptiçene (?) village where he also held a garden and a çiftlik. In 1762, villagers from Gramada complained that Ali and Hüseyin Beşe assumed usufruct over village lands, particularly meadows, with no legal justification.53 In this litigation, the villagers’ representative, Halil Ağa, brought several Janissaries into the trial as witnesses to justify the villagers’ position on land possession. A similar strategy was deployed by the villagers of Borovitsa against three Janissaries from the 2 nd Cemaat, Ali Beşe, Memiş Beşe, and Ömer Beşe, who occupied some village lands and a communal meadow. Two other Janissaries, Mustafa Beşe and Ömer Beşe, acted as witnesses to prove the lands belonged to the village.54 From a legal perspective, defending the common lands was a relatively easy task, because the Ottoman codes prohibited the sale or exchange of these lands with a title deed.55 However, in their disputes against Janissaries, the villagers possibly had a strategy to use the legal power of prestigious Janissary witnesses at 52 53 54 55 NBSKM, VS.63:260-261 (5 S 1187/April 28, 1773). NBSKM, VS.63:97-98 (20 Ca 1176/December 7, 1762). NBSKM, VS.74:174-175 (3 B 1181/November 25, 1767). In the fetva collections, there are numerous references to the villagers’ rights on the common meadows. See, for instance, H. Necati Demirtaş, Açıklamalı Osmanlı Fetvaları, p. 553-555; Süleyman Kaya et al. (eds.), Neticetü’l-Fetâvâ, Istanbul 2014, p. 446-447; Süleyman Kaya, Fetâvâ-yı Feyziye, Istanbul, 2009, p. 484-485; Süleyman Kaya et al. (eds.), Behcetü’l Fetâvâ Şeyhülislam Yenişehirli Abdullah Efendi, Istanbul 2011, p. 662. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) the courtroom. This strategy was also tied to the legal procedure in the struggle over common lands, which fundamentally entailed a testimony or a court certificate rather than a title deed to set physical boundaries in the on-the-spot investigation.56 Amid the manifold claims over properties subject to different legal statuses, the confrontations involving Janissaries or the heirs of Janissaries generated a forum of witnesses, title deeds, fetvas, and on-the-spot investigations. In the strife over the land, arable fields, and pasture around the Timok River between Elhac Mehmed Ağa from the 38 th Bölük and Ömer Ağa from the 31st Cemaat, the former accused the latter of occupying the lands bequeathed by Abdullah Ağa to his son.57 Mehmed Ağa advocated that Abdullah had enjoyed possession rights on these lands with a title deed for a period of fourteen to nineteen years until his death and thereafter these lands were transmitted with the consent of the sahib-i arz to his son, Mehmed Ağa, who controlled them for the next fifteen years. Despite Mehmed Ağa’s legitimate land possession, however, Ömer Ağa’s father İbrahim Alemdar infringed upon Mehmed’s usufruct rights until his death and thereafter his son continued to commit this act of injustice. Mehmed Ağa submitted two title deeds to the court attesting his own and his father’s usufruct. Together with these title deeds, he presented a fetva at his disposal dictating that the hold over land without any legal excuse could not create inheritance rights; besides this, he mobilized the support of two groups of witnesses, to testify to the usufruct of Mehmed Ağa and Abdullah Ağa, respectively. Mehmed Ağa seems to have been well prepared for the court investigation, and this was not coincidental. The Janissaries recurrently competed with each other over rural properties; and not in a few cases even their family members found themselves at the court, which implies that they utilized as many legal tools as possible within the framework of the Ottoman land regime. In the absence of written evidence, a Janissary’s testimony was crucial to the conclusion of a trial. As discussed earlier, Janissary entrepreneurs often skipped registration of transactions and brought their fellows to the courtroom to prove their property claims. For instance, Ümmügülsüm, the wife of a deceased man, Halil Beşe, from the 83 rd Cemaat, filed a suit against the guardian of Halil Beşe’s minor son who had taken control of his father’s inherited çiftlik properties.58 The guardian was Halil’s brother, Ahmed 56 57 58 The appointment of an inspector for registering goods, demarcating the boundaries on the spot and resolving land disputes, was already a common practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it became more formalized and institutionalized in the Tanzimat period. Abdurrahman Atçıl, Procedure in the Ottoman Court and the Duties of Kadis, Bilkent University, MA Thesis, Ankara 2002, p. 61-62; Alp Yücel Kaya, “The Müvella and the Adjudication of Property Conflicts in the Ottoman Empire (1874-1914)”, in Forms and Institutions of Justice: Legal Actions in Ottoman Contexts, (eds. Işık Tamdoğan and Yavuz Aykan), Istanbul 2018, p. 76-92. NBSKM, VS.62:88-89 (20 Za 1172/July 15, 1759). NBSKM, VS.78:168 (10 Ra 1179/August 27, 1765). 119 İrfan Kokdaş 120 Beşe, from the same cemaat. Against her claims, Ahmed stated that Halil Beşe had already given the çiftlik properties, animals, and grasslands to the minor four months before his death, due to his debt, and the çiftlik was thus in no way subject to inheritance division. Without presenting any written evidence, Ahmed Beşe was able to win the case with the testimony of witnesses, at least one of them being a Janissary from the same 83rd Cemaat. The use of witnesses and legal representatives from the same cemaat or bölük was a very common practice among Janissaries. In the early nineteenth century, Janissaries from the same profession tended to be concentrated in the same cemaat or bölük.59 In her study on the seventeenth-century economic world of the Janissaries, Gülay Yılmaz shows that Janissary lenders and borrowers in credit transactions were quite frequently affiliated with the same cemaat and bölük.60 Besides this, the regimental funds and cash vakfs appeared as significant institutions in the credit market, which not only collected capital from the Janissaries but also extended credits to them. This was exactly the case in Vidin. For instance, the çorbacı Hasan’s probate shows that he gave credit to the fund of the 50th Oda, although the record does not specify the cemaat or bölük to which this fund belonged.61 Similarly, the Janissary Elhac Mustafa Usta from the 49 th Bölük extended a loan to the fund of the same bölük.62 Another Janissary, İbrahim Ağa from the 73rd Cemaat, took credit from the collective fund of his own cemaat.63 An examination of Vidinese court records also shows that the rural market was indeed not under the monopoly of one cemaat or bölük, although the members of some regiments, especially the 12 th Bölük, 12th Cemaat, 31st Bölük, 31st Cemaat, 41st Bölük, 42nd Bölük, and 49th Bölük, more frequently appeared as interested parties in rural transactions and disputes.64 In Wallachia, most of the Janissary entrepreneurs from the Vidin fortress were also affiliated with the 5 th Bölük, 12th Bölük, 42nd Bölük, 31st Cemaat, and 64th Cemaat.65 This means that some regiments who were less visible in the Vidinese countryside, such as the 64 th Cemaat and 5th Bölük, carved out a strong niche in Wallachia, while others, including the 12th Cemaat, 31st Bölük, 41st Bölük, and 49th Bölük, were very active in the Vidinese hinterlands, but not so much in Wallachia. The 12 th Bölük, 31st Cemaat, and 42nd Bölük were very active in both areas. One might hypothesize that 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Mehmet Mert Sunar, Cauldron of Dissent: A Study of the Janissary Corps, 1807-1826, SUNYBinghamton, Ph.D, New York 2006, p. 54-77. Gülay Yılmaz, The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries in a 17th. Century Ottoman City: The Case of Istanbul, McGill University, Ph.D, Montreal 2011, p. 223-312. NBSKM, VS.37:59 (29 Z 1182/May 6, 1769). NBSKM, VS.39:121-122 (9 Ca 1182/September 21, 1768). NBSKM, VS.37:162 (6 L 1183/February 2, 1770). For the source of the database, see footnote 8. BOA, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi Defterleri (TSMA.d) 4222 (19 Z 1166/17 October 1753). See also Yıldız and Kokdaş, “Peasantry”, p. 188. Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) the size of the Janissary population of these regiments determined their influence in the rural areas. In a Janissary payroll register prepared for three-month payments (January 15-April 15) in 1763, the 12th Bölük with its 349 members, the 31 st Cemaat with 122 members, and the 42 nd Bölük with 184 members were among the most populous regiments in Vidin.66 However, the size of the Janissary regiments did not automatically determine their activities in the rural zones. The 97th Cemaat with its 166 members, 83rd Cemaat with 148 members, and 23rd Cemaat with 130 members were relatively less visible in the Vidinese and Wallachian hinterland. Thus it appears that these rural networks were set by an interaction of various factors, such as the date of the permanent settlement, the rural origins, and administrative and fiscal duties, as well as the credit capacities of the members of the Janissary regiments. There is no doubt that the Janissary affiliations and networks played a significant role in economic transactions and legal disputes across Vidin. For instance, in another case, Hadice, the daughter of Elhac İbrahim Beşe from the 31 st Cemaat, took a complicated dispute over the çiftlik lands to court and blamed the minor Ahmed’s guardian, İbrahim Beşe from the 16 th Cemaat, for his unjust occupation of half of the çiftlik lands without any certificate.67 Hadice and Ahmed’s fathers were both from the same cemaat and controlled the çiftlik around the Rayanovtsi Village in partnership. Hadice’s representative serdengeçdi, Osman Ağa, was also affiliated with the 31 st Cemaat and claimed in court that the partnership was in reality limited to the çiftlik properties, including storehouses, a storeroom, a cellar, animals, and a mill, but not the appurtenant land, which belonged fully to Hadice’s father with a title deed. Hadice’s claim was certainly based on a written proof, namely a title deed, not only elucidating the aforementioned differing status of the çiftlik and the land, but also confirming her usufruct rights. In 1775, Seyyid Ali Beşe from the 8th Bölük stood as a legal representative of Emetullah, the daughter of Elhac Mehmed, to nullify the deal for a one-dönüm hayfield on a demesne between her husband Ömer Beşe and another Janissary, Mehmed Beşe.68 The hayfield had been in the hands of Emetullah for almost 41 years, following the death of her father and its subsequent transmission to her with the permission of the sahib-i arz. Nevertheless, the representative protested that her husband had ceded her usufruct rights to Mehmed Beşe almost six years previously for 120 guruş, but without the permission of the sahib-i arz. The witnesses upheld her claims by testifying that she had held the land with a title deed for a long period without objection. This testimony surely played a decisive role in the proceedings, but the 66 67 68 Fortress names on some pages of the register are illegible. This register was prepared by Mert Sunar for the JANET Database. BOA, Maliyeden Müdevver Defter (MAD.d) 3946 (29 Z 1177/June 29, 1764). NBSKM, VS.11:30 (10 Ca 1188/July 19, 1774). NBSKM, VS.46:98 (20 Ra 1189/May 21, 1775). 121 İrfan Kokdaş 122 key legal element was the lack of permission from the sahib-i arz required for the authentication of the transactions on state lands. To sum up, all these confrontations and transactions point to two interconnected trends in the eighteenth-century Vidinese land regime. The first one is the institutionalization of the possession rights of the Janissaries. This process was fueled by dynamics created by the fact that land and rural structures remained in the hands of Janissary families for generations, and were subject to multiple transactions of exchange over a long period. The second is the deepening of both cooperation and competition between Janissaries and members of Janissary families in the local land markets. The Ottoman laws regulating the transmission of usufruct rights differed from the inheritance laws for the transmission of freehold property. With the introduction of new rules to increase the number of heirs to usufruct in the early seventeenth century, the Ottoman miri regime became more and more open to family disputes, which gained a strong momentum in eighteenth-century Vidin. Janissaries erected several structures on the land, planted trees, and established vineyards, as well as gardens categorized as private property. The ownership of these freehold structures not only linked two sets of transmission laws together, but also integrated many family members into the games of alliance and conflict for holding both freehold family investments and appurtenant lands. Therefore, the death of a patriarch in a Vidinese Janissary family, or in the household of a religious dignitary or someone belonging to an administrative elite, was a critical moment in Vidin that whetted the appetite of other Janissaries for rural properties, especially for land. Such a view of the multilayered property relations offers a more complicated picture of the Vidinese land market than the binary conceptualization of the peasant–landlord antagonism suggests. Conclusion This study is not an attempt to ignore the transgressions by the Janissaries in Vidin, which frequently limited the cultivators’ usufruct rights and their access to land. Nor does it praise the functioning of the legal framework of the miri land regime. In reality, from the very beginning of their penetration into the countryside, the Janissaries occupied vacant lands left by fugitive peasants and occasionally encroached upon common meadows. Moreover, the litigations over property disputes reflected the asymmetrical power relations in the local social fabric, as all parties sought to bring Janissaries as honorable witnesses in order to win a case. By focusing on the Janissaries’ activities in the Vidinese countryside, it rather seeks to complicate our understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic realities and the legal system of landholding, on the one hand, and the pattern of rural investments among Janissaries in the early modern period, on the other. In Ottoman scholarship, the debates on the nineteenth-century land question or the well-known 1858 Land Code have been so embedded into the Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810) duality between freehold property and demesnes that the land struggles and different usufruct claims have been understood in quasi-magical terms: the deteriorated legal system of the miri land regime. Such an alleged idealization of the miri regime involves the romanticization of small peasant farming and the egalitarian landholding patterns marked by the perfect balance between the interests of cultivators and state in the early modern era. This study, however, highlights that the eighteenth-century Vidinese miri regime itself gave birth to the consolidation of rural properties in the hands of Janissaries and their circulation among Janissary families for generations. Moreover, in almost all cases investigated in this study, the conflicting parties, court officials, and buyers and sellers of usufruct rights, as well as holders of freehold rural properties, respected the legal formulas, procedures, and protocols of the miri land regime. They solidified possession rights over land by turning them into dependency rights and trying to link the status of landed estates and freehold structures with each other without eradicating the distinction between miri and mülk status. This problem was not fully solved until the early twentieth century, but these hybrid legal practices mark the integration of eighteenth-century realities in Vidin into the legal system of landholding, rather than the shrinking of land laws and privatization of state lands. In her study on the evolution of usufruct rights in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, Sabrina Joseph shows that the deepening of possession rights in legal practice supported by local jurists went hand in hand with the merging of usufruct rights and ownership of trees, as well as buildings erected on the land.69 She notes that one key dimension of this process was the establishment of kirdar – trees and buildings erected on the land by the cultivator, which created strong usufruct claims to state lands. She thus wrote that continuity and evolution, rather than displacement and decline, characterize the development of the land regime in this period. In Syria, Cuno saw the rising of rural investments as the main engine of change in land possession, orchestrated successively by Janissaries and, then, merchants and ulema.70 What Joseph and Cuno observed for Ottoman Syria is very similar to the developments in eighteenth-century Vidin. Here the Janissaries acted as the dominant rural investors and were the avant-garde of the changes in property law, who not only triggered the interlinkages between freehold investments and state lands, but also, ironically, sustained the continuity in the legal system of the miri land regime. However, these interesting parallels between Vidin and Damascus hint at the existence of broader socio-economic dynamics in the eighteenth century, which stretch beyond the actions of the Janissaries and require 69 70 Sabrina Joseph, Islamic Law on Peasant Usufruct in Ottoman Syria: 17th to Early 19th Century, Leiden 2012, p. 106-142. Kenneth M. Cuno, “Was the Land of Ottoman Syria Miri or Milk? An Examination of Juridical Differences within the Hanafi School”, Studia Islamica, 81, (1995), p. 146-151. 123 İrfan Kokdaş further research. What makes the Janissary presence in the Vidinese countryside more interesting for future research is the fact that it took place through the institutionalized networks of regiments in the eighteenth century. The military and administrative duties and tax-farming practices of the members of Janissary regiments together with the workings of regimental funds might have had a certain impact on the Janissaries’ involvement in the countryside. As discussed in this paper, they were deeply involved in litigation processes over property disputes, which could also possibly be related to the role of regiments and their members as creditors or tax-farmers. 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Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810)

Janissaries and Conflicts over Rural Lands in the Vidin Region (1730-1810)

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