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burden on the peasantry.

Widespread usury and growing peasant indebted-

ness are believed to have been the principal avenues of land appropriation,

chieﬂy by the members of the ruling elite, such as governors or janissary

ofﬁcers in the provinces.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the

situation worsened still further. Growing discontent in the countryside as well

as dire ﬁnancial necessity compelled the central government to seek remedy in

new ﬁscal measures. Thus the cizye (poll-tax payable by non-Muslims), a levy

traditionally imposed – at least in the Balkans – on households, was converted

in 1691 into a personal tax incumbent on every able-bodied adult non-Muslim

male.

Even more important in the long run was the introduction of tax-farming

on a life-lease basis in 1695, the so-called malik

ane mukataa. Under this sys-

tem, the tax-farmer undertook to make annual payments to the treasury in

addition to a lump sum paid at the beginning that served as surety. As long

as the conditions of the contract were observed, the malik

ane had the bene-

ﬁt of full immunity from state intervention. Moreover, on the death of the

tax-farmer the heirs enjoyed preferential rights of bidding, so that the trans-

fer of the tenure within the family was more or less ensured.

Not surpris-

ingly, the lion’s share of the malik

ane revenues accrued to a limited number

of households controlling the high ofﬁces at the imperial centre or to per-

sons associated directly with the palace. At the same time, these circles were

connected, as it were, in a symbiotic relationship with non-Muslim (chieﬂy

47 Avdo Su

ceska, ‘Die Entwicklung der Besteuerung durch die Av

arız-i d

ıvan

ıye und die

Te k

ıf-i

orf

ıye im Osmanischen Reich w

ahrend des 17.und18. Jahrhunderts’, S

udost-

Forschungen 27 (1968), 89–130, esp. pp. 97ff.; Bistra Cvetkova, Izv

anredni dan

aciid

zavni

povinnosti v b

algarskite zemi pod turska vlast (Soﬁa, 1958), pp. 1–39, 67–75;L

utﬁ G

uc¸er,

XVI.–XVII. asırlarda Osmanlı Imparatorlu

gunda hububat meselesi ve hububattan alınan vergiler

(Istanbul, 1964), pp. 69–135.

48 Cf. Halil Inalcik, ‘Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700’,

Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980), 283–337,atpp.307–9; Abdul-Karim Rafeq, ‘Changes in

the Relationship between the Ottoman Central Administration and the Syrian Provinces

from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries’, in Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic

History, ed. Thomas Naff and Roger Owen (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1977), pp. 53–

73, esp. pp. 58f.; Eleni Gara, ‘In Search of Communities in Seventeenth Century Ottoman

Sources: The Case of the Kara Ferye District’, Turcica 30 (1998), 135–62; Eleni Gara, ‘Kara

Ferye 1500–1650. Menschen, Lokalgesellschaft und Verwaltung in einer osmanischen

Provinz’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Vienna (2000).

49 See Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe,pp.80–5. Cf. also Hamid

Had

zibegi

c, Glavarina u Osmanskoj dr

zavi (Sarajevo, 1966), pp. 41ff.

50 On the malik

ane system, see Mehmet Genc¸, ‘Osmanlı maliyesinde malik

ane sistemi’, in

urkiye iktisat tarihi semineri, ed. Osman Okyar and

Unal Nalbanto

glu (Ankara, 1975),

pp. 231–96; Ahmet Tabako

glu, Gerileme d

onemine girerken Osmanlı maliyesi (Istanbul, 1985),

pp. 129–35;C¸ izakc¸a, Comparative Evolution,pp.159–78. Cf. also Avdo Su

ceska, ‘M

alik

ana

(do

zivotni zakup dr

zavnih dobara u Osmanskoj dr

zavi)’, Prilozi za orijentalni ﬁlologiju

8–9 (1958–9), 111–42.

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Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia

Armenian) banking interests.

However, contrary to the initial expectations of

the government, most malik

ane-holders avoided investing capital in their semi-

hereditary domains, preferring to remain an Istanbul-based absentee class of

rentiers. Tax-farms were thus divided into smaller units and subcontracted to

lesser entrepreneurs or managed in the name of the lessees by local agents.

Whatever the arrangement, local notables were well placed to proﬁt from this

system, not only because they often functioned as tax-collectors in the name

of the absentee contractors, but also because they controlled the apportion-

ing of the tax load among the liable households. The latter role was to gain

in importance, as the soaring costs of provincial administration – for exam-

ple, taxes collected by governors to meet emergencies such as imdad-ı seferiye

and imdad-ı hazariye – were also shouldered by the local population.

As the

economic and political connections between urban centres and their rural

hinterlands became stronger, acquisition of landed property became easier,

and the provincial elites were able to establish themselves as a new gentry,

controlling a signiﬁcant portion of the arable land as c¸iftlik farms – that is to

say, private or quasi-private property.

With the peace concluded at Karlowitz in 1699, the empire entered a new

phase of change, characterised not only by further commercialisation of the

economy, but also by a mental shift away from the combative spirit of a frontier

society to a more civilian culture with intensiﬁed interaction across social,

ethnic and religious divides.

Increased visibility of non-Muslim populations

in urban life was a distinct tendency of the period, as these people experienced

a considerable demographic growth and also an upsurge in the volume and

51 Hagop Barsoumian, ‘The Dual Role of the Armenian Amira Class within the Ottoman

Government and the Armenian Millet (1750–1850)’, in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman

Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, 2 vols., ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis

(New York and London, 1982), vol. I, pp. 171–84, esp. pp. 172–4; Salzmann, Tocqueville in

the Ottoman Empire,pp.110–18.

52 Yavuz Cezar, Osmanlı maliyesinde bunalım ve de

gis¸im d

onemi (XVIII. yy’dan Tanzimat’a

mali tarih) (Istanbul, 1986), pp. 53–64; cf. also Evgenij Radu

sev, ‘Les d

epenses locales

dans l’empire ottoman au XVIII si

ecle selon les donn

ees des registres de cadi de

Ruse, Vidin et Soﬁa’, Etudes balkaniques, 16, 3 (1980), 74–94; Christoph K. Neumann,

‘Sel

anik’te onsekizinci y

uzyılın sonunda masarif-i vil

ayet defterleri: merkez

ıh

umet,

tas¸ra idaresi ve s¸ehir y

onetimi

uc¸geninde mal

ıis¸lemler’, Tarih Enstit

u Dergisi 16 (1998),

69–97.

53 Gilles Veinstein, ‘On the C¸ iftlik Debate’, in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in

the Middle East, ed. C¸a

glar Keyder and Faruk Tabak (Albany, 1991), pp. 35–53; Adanir,

‘Ottoman Peasantries’, esp. pp. 298ff.

54 Rifa‘at Ali Abou-El-Haj, ‘The Formal Closure of the Ottoman Frontier in Europe: 1699–

1703’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 89 (1969), 467–75; Rifa‘at Ali Abou-El-Haj,

‘Ottoman Attitudes Toward Peace Making: The Karlowitz Case’, Der Islam 51 (1974),

131–7.

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ﬁkret adanir

diversity of artisanal production.

Interestingly in most of the Balkans by the

1720s, conversion to Islam either had come to an end or was about to do

so.

Christians and Jews as members, along with Muslims, in confessionally

mixed craftsmen’s guilds had become a familiar aspect of urban life during

the previous centuries.

The eighteenth century saw also the ascendancy of a

non-Muslim merchant class eager and ideally situated to take full advantage of

opportunities offered in the decades following the treaty of Passarowitz (1718),

when new trade routes through the Danubian basin and further south, along

the valleys of Morava and Vardar, supplemented the traditional arteries of the

Levantine trade through the Mediterranean.

Provincial elites played a crucial

role in this process; for example, their involvement in export trade facilitated

the reorientation of the producers towards demand patterns of Europe. They

promoted the cultivation of cash crops such as cotton, tobacco and maize,

organised transport to the port cities and negotiated with foreign merchants

in the name of their regions. Consequently, as the century progressed, the

economic foundation of their socio-political inﬂuence grew ever stronger.

A widening gap between centre and periphery

To what extent the Ottoman state contributed to the economic and social

upswing of the eighteenth century is difﬁcult to determine. On the one hand,

55 Zdenka Vesel

a-P

renosilov

a, ‘Quelques remarques sur l’

evolution de l’organisation

urbaine en empire ottoman’, Archiv orient

alni 42 (1974), 200–24; Edhem Eldem, Daniel

Goffman and Bruce Masters (eds.), The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir

and Istanbul (Cambridge, 1999).

56 Anton Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahası Petitions and Ottoman Social

Life, 1670–1730 (Leiden, 2004), p. 60.

57 See Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moiti

e du XVIIe si

ecle: essai d’histoire institu-

tionelle,

economique et sociale (Paris and Istanbul, 1962), pp. 349–423; Cohen, TheGuildsof

Ottoman Jerusalem, passim; Eunjeong Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul:

Fluidity and Leverage (Leiden, 2004), pp. 65–70.

58 Nicholas Svoronos, Le Commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe si

ecle (Paris, 1956), pp. 180–5; Traian

Stoianovich, ‘The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant’, Journal of Economic History

20 (1960), 234–313; Apostolos E. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia 1354–1833 (Salonika,

1973), pp. 387–425;Vir

zinia Paskaleva,Sredna Evropai zemite po dolnijaDunav prezXVIII–XIX

v. Socialno-ikonomi

ceski aspekti (Soﬁa, 1986), pp. 50–79.

59 Gilles Veinstein, ‘Ayan de la r

egion d’Izmir et le commerce du Levant (deuxi

eme moiti

du XVIIIe si

ecle)’, Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la M

editerran

ee 20, 2 (1975), 131–46;

Elena Frangakis-Syrett,‘The Trade of Cotton and Cloth in

Izmir: Fromthe Second Half of

the Eighteenth Century to the Early Nineteenth Century’, in Landholding and Commercial

Agriculture in the Middle East, ed. C¸a

glar Keyder and Faruk Tabak (Albany, 1991), pp. 97–

111. Cf. also Svoronos, Le Commerce de Salonique,pp.245–55; Traian Stoianovich, ‘Le Ma

ıs

dans les Balkans’, Annales Economies Soci

es Civilisations 21, 5 (1966), 1026–40; Aleksandar

Matkovski, ‘Auftreten und Ausbreitung des Tabaks auf der Balkanhalbinsel’, S

udost-

Forschungen 28 (1969), 48–93; McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe,pp.43–4.

170

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Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia

the early decades of the century experienced a state-sponsored industrialisation

that utilised skill, manpower and capital, especially of the urban segments of

society, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

On the other hand, however, the

early eighteenth century saw also intense inter-elite conﬂicts that at times

bordered on civil war. Thus already the Edirne Incident of 1703 was indicative

of an imminent realignment in the political life of the empire. The rise of the

s¸eyh

ulislam Feyzullah Efendi during the reign of Mustafa II (1695–1703) brought

into focus the increased importance of politicking among Istanbul grandees,

whose fortunes were commensurate with their capabilities to squeeze out

proﬁts from every bidder for a tax-farm or a government ofﬁce. Consequently,

not only members of the traditional military and civilian bureaucracy but also

merchants and urban craftsmen were alienated. The success of their protest,

marked bythe deposition of a sultan and theexecution of a s¸eyh

ulislam, signiﬁed

the dawn of a new era.

Efforts to reassert imperial rule during the subsequent decades hardly eased

tensions. Quite to the contrary, disturbances caused by pastoral groups in

Anatolia and Syria, who deﬁed enforced sedentarisation, or rebellions in the

Balkans by semi-military groups such as martolos, voynuk and derbendci,who

feared the loss of ﬁscal privileges, contributed greatly to insecurity in the coun-

tryside.

Social discontent deepened especially during the Tulip Era (1718–30)

when military methods and innovations were imported from the West, accom-

panied by novel habits of consumption and foreign lifestyles.

It has been

rightly pointed out that ‘the widening of the gap between the center and the

periphery’ during this period was paralleled by disputes at the centre where

60 Mehmet Genc¸, ‘Entreprises d’

etat et attitude politique dans l’industrie ottomane au

XVIIIe si

ecle’, in L’Accession de la Turquie

a la civilisation industrielle. Facteurs internes et

externes, ed. Jacques Thobie and Jean-Louis Bacqu

e-Grammont (Istanbul, 1987), pp. 5–

12; Mehmet Genc¸, ‘Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth Century: General Framework,

Characteristics, and Main Trends’, in Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey,

1500–1950, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany, 1994), pp. 59–86.

61 Rifa‘at Ali Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics (Istanbul

and Leiden, 1984).

62 Ahmet Reﬁk Altınay, Anadolu’da T

urk as¸iretleri (966–1200) (Istanbul, 1930), pp. 127–202;

Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı

Imparatorlu

gunda as¸iretleri isk

an tes¸ebb

u(1 691 –1 696) (Istanbul,

1963), pp. 91–5; Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı

Imparatorlu

gunda derbend tes¸kil

atı, 2nd edn.

(Istanbul, 1990), pp. 94–6; Aleksandar Matkovski, Otporot vo Makedonija vo vremeto na

turskoto vladeenje, vol. IV: Buni i vostanija (Skopje, 1983), pp. 570–606.

63 Ariel C. Salzmann, ‘The Age of Tulips: Conﬂuence and Conﬂict in Early Modern Con-

sumer Culture (1500–1730)’, in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire,

1550–1922: An Introduction, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany, 2000), pp. 83–106. Cf. further

John Carswell, ‘From the Tulip to the Rose’, in Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic His-

tory, ed. Thomas Naff and Roger Owen (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1977), pp. 328–55;

Fatma M

uge G

oc¸ek, East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth

Century (Oxford and New York, 1987).

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individual members of the elite might at times side with rebellious mercenar-

ies and townsmen.

Nor were the disputes in Istanbul or Edirne unconnected

with provincial discontent: the craftspeople of Istanbul, including many janis-

saries, who were the moving force behind the Patrona Halil rebellion of 1730,

had countless sympathisers in the provinces.

The intense urban conﬂict in Sarajevo in the middle years of the eighteenth

century, also known as the Mori

ci uprising, displayed features characteristic

of the era.

Its starting-point was a riot of the lower classes in the city in

protest against excessive taxation. Other social groups, including the janis-

saries, incensed because of arrears in their pay, joined the movement. In the

eyes of the rebels, the governor of the province was responsible for the whole

evil. But when the janissaries and their auxiliaries began to roam about in

search of plunder, the civilian population found itself the victim of violence.

What the people were protesting against was not actually so much the polit-

ical system as such, but rather the outgrowths of a corrupt administration.

Therefore when the central authority intervened with the purpose of restor-

ing order, it could count on a remarkable degree of support by the populace.

The social dynamics that had brought about the resistance movement against

the provincial authorities remained, however, effective, and in the long run the

prestige of Ottoman rule suffered. The series of military defeats in the sec-

ond half of the eighteenth century, in particular, along with the inability of

the central government to suppress the banditry of marauding deserters or

unemployed soldiers, plunged the empire into a crisis of political legitimacy.

In such times of trouble, the local notables (ayan) distinguished themselves

as responsible leaders of their communities, not least because the populace

did not trust persons sent by the Porte and preferred instead to follow the

guidance of local men, especially if these were able to offer some protection

64 Ahmet Evin, ‘The Tulip Age and Deﬁnitions of Westernization’, in Social and Economic

History of Turkey, ed. Osman Okyar and Halil

Inalcık (Ankara, 1980), pp. 131–45,at

p. 142; Robert W. Olson, ‘The Patrona Halil Rebellion and Ottoman–Persian Wars and

Eighteenth Century Ottoman Historiography’, in Turkic Culture. Continuity and Change,

ed. Sabri M. Akural (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 75–82.

65 Robert W. Olson, ‘The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730: A Realignment in

Ottoman Politics’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17 (1974), 329–44;

Matkovski, Otporot vo Makedonija,pp.618–30.

66 Avdo Su

ceska, ‘Selja

cke bune u Bosni u XVII i XVIII stolje

cu’, Godi

snjak Dru

stva istori

cara

Bosne i Hercegovine 17 (1966–7), 163–207; Muhamed Had

zijahi

c, ‘Bune i ustanak u Bosni

sredinom XVIII stolje

ca’, Historijski zbornik 33–4, 1 (1980–1), 99–137; Djenana Buturovi

Mori

ci (od stvarnosti do usmene predaje) (Sarajevo, 1983).

67 MarkusKoller, Bosnienan der Schwellezur Neuzeit.Eine Kulturgeschichteder Gewalt(Munich,

2004), ch. 7.

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Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia

from rapacioustax-collectors.

Economicallypotent enough to advance credit

to needy peasants, they assumed in due course the role of ‘ﬁscal protectors’

(deruhdeci) of whole communes, thus establishing, at least in some parts of the

Balkans, a certain control over village ﬁnances.

Even the central government

seems to have appreciated their ad hoc leadership in the provinces. Especially

in periods of war, when the countryside became easy prey for bandits or

marauding deserters,the population wasurgedto participatein policemissions

under the command of local notables, and consequently, as more and more

ayans distinguished themselves during such operations, ‘ayanship’ (ayanlık)

gained widespread acceptance as a quasi-ofﬁcial position. However, exactly

when the institution was established cannot be ascertained. Yet it seems that

from 1726 onwards the Porte was obliged to confer such important ofﬁces

as that of a sancakbeyi (governor), a voyvoda (ﬁnancial agent in a district), a

muhassıl or m

utesellim (intendant of a provincial treasury) on members of local

families, even appealing, as in 1743, to leading ayans of Anatolia to attend the

Persian campaign with their armed retinues.

The socio-political inﬂuence that came with the ayanlık made it a coveted

instrument in the hands of local families aspiring to establish their rule over

whole provinces. Struggles for supremacy led often to violent feuds between

ayan factions, ultimately prompting government intervention for the sake

of public order.

Those who defeated their rivals were expected to pay a

substantial sum in order to receive the ofﬁcial conﬁrmation (ayanlık buyrul-

dusu) by the provincial governor. Once successfully installed in ofﬁce, they

could hope to recover their outlay through a surcharge called ayaniye, apart

from attaining control over additional sources of revenue in the form of new

Ozkaya, ‘Adalet-n

ameler’, 447;Y

ucel

Ozkaya, ‘XVIII. y

uzyılın ilk yarısında yerli ailelerin

anlıkları ele gec¸iris¸leri ve b

uk h

aned

anlıklarin kurulus¸u’, Belleten 42 (1978), 667–723,

at p. 671.

69 McGowan, ‘Age of the Ayans’, 662; McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe,

pp. 168–70; Michael Ursinus, ‘Zur Geschichte des Patronats: patrocinium, him

aya und

der’uhdecilik’, Die Welt des Islams 23–4 (1984), 476–97; Michael Ursinus, ‘M

afc¸i Ah

med

und seinesgleichen: zur Bedeutung des Der’uhdecilik in Manastir im 18. Jahrhundert’, in

Prou

cvanija v

cest na Profesor Vera Mutaf

cieva/Studia in honorem Professoris Verae Mutaf

cieva,

ed. by Evgenij Radu

sev et al. (Soﬁa, 2001), pp. 351–74.

70 Y

ucel

Ozkaya, Osmanlı

Imparatorlu

gunda

anlık (Ankara, 1977), pp. 117–28. Cf. also Avdo

ceska, Ajani. Prilog izu

cavanju lokalnevlasti u na

sim zemljama za vrijema Turaka (Sarajevo,

1965), pp. 79–97. See also Jean Deny and Metin Kunt, ‘San

djak

’, EI 2; Carter V. Findley,

‘Muh

ıl’, EI 2; Fikret Adanir, ‘Woywoda’, EI 2.

71 M

ucteba

Ilg

urel, ‘Balıkesir’de

anlık m

ucadelesi’, Tarih Enstit

u Dergisi 3 (1972), 63–74;

Antonis Anastasopoulos, ‘Lighting the Flame of Disorder: Ayan Inﬁghting and State

Intervention in Ottoman Karaferye, 1758–59’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 8,

1–2 (Spring 2002), 73–88.

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tax-farms or malik

anes.

Thus, the quasi-feudal derebe

gi dynasties ruling Ana-

tolia, still quite obscure in the early 1700s, could by the second half of the

eighteenth century rely on the huge fortunes necessary to keep a paid ret-

inue, ﬁnance a public postal service or, occasionally, even to provision an army

in the ﬁeld.

Their Christian counterparts, the kocabas¸ıs in the Balkans, had

managed by this time to bring all sorts of revenue under their control. They

too tended, once installed, to hold on to their positions, which prompted a

contemporary Ottoman bureacurat to propose in respect to the Peleponnese

that the kocabas¸ıs should be elected for one year only. A second term of ofﬁce

was to be allowed only after a lapse of ﬁve years.

The central government, traditionally committed to protecting the tax-

payer, could react only by issuing ever more ‘justice decrees’ which warned

against abuses of public authority. Firmans sent to the districts in Anatolia in

the mid-eighteenth century threatened that kadis, ofﬁcers and the ayan would

be held responsible for the damages incurred by brigands or the marauding

soldiery; other decrees demanded, along with a reduction of retinues, more

rigorous measures against oppressive acts, especially with a view to prevent-

ing the eviction of peasants from the land.

In the second half of the century,

the Porte took more practical steps towards improving the situation in the

provinces, not only out of concern for the difﬁcult lot of the peasantry, but

also with a view to curbing the inﬂuence of provincial magnates. Imperial

rescripts of 1765 (for Rumelia) and 1766 (for Anatolia) stipulated that thence-

forth honest and capable persons were to be suggested as candidates for the

position of ayanlık, and that the grand vizer would appoint one of the pro-

posed persons to the position. The incumbent was to risk the death penalty

if he attempted to raise illegal fees. Indeed, in 1766–7 two ayans in Macedonia

were executed under such charges.

But the outbreak of the war with Russia in 1768, and especially the 1769

campaign, during which the empire had ‘great difﬁculty in adequately feeding

Inalcık, ‘Centralization and Decentralization’, pp. 46–7.

Ozkaya, ‘Yerli aileler’, 667–723; Necdet Sakao

glu, Anadolu derebeyi ocaklarından K

ose Pas¸a

hanedanı (Ankara, 1984), pp. 46–56; Johannes H. Mordtmann and Bernard Lewis, ‘Dere-

bey’, EI 2; Bernard Lewis, ‘

ıkli H

adjdji ‘Al

ı Pasha’, EI 2; Cengiz Orhonlu, ‘K

‘O

thm

an-Oghli’, EI 2. Cf. also Deena R. Sadat, ‘Rumeli Ayanları: The Eighteenth Cen-

tury’, Journal of Modern History 44 (1972), 346–63.

74 S

uleyman Penah Efendi, ‘Mora ihtil

ali tarihc¸esi’, ed. by Aziz Berker, Tarih Vesikaları 2

(1942–3), p. 396,quotedinYuzoNagata,Muhsin-z

ade Mehmed Pas¸a ve

anlık m

uessesesi

(Tokyo, 1976), p. 44.

75 Nagata, Muhsin-z

ade Mehmed Pas¸a,pp.31–6;

Ozkaya, ‘Adalet-n

ameler’, pp. 460–5.

76 Bekir Sıtkı Baykal, ‘A‘yanlık m

uessesesinin d

uzeni hakkında belgeler’, Belgeler 1, 2 (1964),

221–5,atpp.221f.

174

Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia

the army’,

compelled the central government to revert to a more conciliatory

attitude. Given the need to mobilise, transport and supply the ﬁeld army, it

was deemed counter-productive to insist on the conﬁrmation of an elected

ayan by the central government. Thus a ﬁrman of 1769 speciﬁed that whoever

was elected to represent the inhabitants of a town or district would be installed

as ayan by the mediation of the local kadi.

The regional role of the ayan gained further importance when in 1770 a

revolt broke out in the Peleponnese, led, among others, by Panayote Benakis,

the kocabas¸ı of Kalamata, who personally recruited an insurgent force of

more than 400 men.

However, the majority of the Christian notables of

the Morea remained loyal to Ottoman rule. Muhsinzade Mehmed Pas¸a, who

was entrusted with the suppression of the rebellion, appealed to the neigh-

bouring ayan for troops. The central government itself sent instructions to

Macedonia and Thessaly, ordering the local leaders to furnish troops. Indeed,

when the rebels besieged Tripolis in April 1770, about 10,000 relief troops,

mostly Albanian mercenaries, under the command of various ayans reached

the town; these irregulars, half bandits, half mercenaries, thus improved their

chances of employment for decades to come.

Not only was the attack on the

town thwarted, but the ayan were readily credited with the speedy suppression

of the whole revolt, which improved the image of the ayanlık considerably.

The institution was believed to have proved its worth, and the ayan received

generous rewards, some of them even being promoted to the rank of vizier.

Given widespread inability to pay the mercenaries, however, the suppression

of the rebellion soon turned into campaigns of organised plunder, and the

central government did not dare to interfere effectively as long as the Russian

war continued. Only several years after the peace of 1774 did the government

attempt once more to reorganise the ayanlık institution. A ﬁrman of 1779 rein-

troduced the reform of 1768, requiring that ayan elections should be once again

subject to central authorisation.

77 Virginia H. Aksan, An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi 1700–

1783 (Leiden, 1995), p. 138. See also Virginia H. Aksan, ‘The One-Eyed Fighting the

Blind: Mobilization, Supply, and Command in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774’,

International History Review 15 (1993), 221–38.

78 See Baykal, ‘A‘yanlık’, 222–4; Nagata, Muhsin-z

ade Mehmed Pas¸a,pp.36–8.

79 Gilles Veinstein, ‘Le patrimoine foncier de Panayote B

enakis, kocabas¸ı de Kalamata’,

Journal of Turkish Studies 11 (1987), 211–33,atpp.216f. Nagata, Muhsin-z

ade Mehmed Pas¸a,

p. 45; Andreas Bode, Die Flottenpolitik Katharinas II. und die Konﬂikte mit Schweden und der

urkei (1768–1792) (Wiesbaden, 1979), pp. 69–86.

80 Nagata, Muhsin-z

ade Mehmed Pas¸a,pp.53–5.

81 Ibid., pp. 60–3, 65f. 82 Baykal, ‘A‘yanlık’, pp. 224f.

175

ﬁkret adanir

But the central government’s dependence on the ayan continued to grow

duringthe last twodecades of the eighteenth century.On the one hand, the ayan

were expected to recruit troops so as to secure law and order in the provinces or

even replenish active units of the ﬁeld army, and such an ofﬁce required persons

with a military background, preferably associated with the janissary corps. On

the other hand, the ayanlık was the focus of intense inter-elite rivalries and

therefore a major cause of internal anarchy, not least because the ofﬁce was

highly remunerative, since it entitled the incumbent to ask for reimbursement

of his expenses, opening prospects for easy gains. The example of

Izaklızade

Ibis¸A

ga, who rose to the ayanship of Hacıo

glu Pazarcık (present-day Tolbuhin

north of Varna) in the last quarter of the eighteenth century illustrates well

the points made above.

A landowning family of north-eastern Bulgaria, the

Izaklızades had sought quite early to establish links with the janissary corps

in order to proﬁt from the latter’s political and administrative privileges. At

any rate,

Ibis¸A

ga had since 1774 been responsible for public security in the

district of Hacıo

glu Pazarcık. In the early 1780s, when the region experienced

ﬁerce political competition between a former ayan and his successor,

Ibis¸A

was able to improve his position further, recommending himself as a possible

candidate for the ayanlık. In the subsequent contest for local power he held

quite a few valuable trumps. For example, his responsibility for public security

enabled him to keep a large retinue of mercenaries as a police force which,

if used shrewdly, could easily tip the balance to his own advantage. He was

also charged with administering the menzil system of the district, procuring

horses, messengers and guides along the route from the imperial capital to

the Danubian principalities.

These were enough to make

Ibis¸A

ga appear an

indispensable local ﬁgure in the eyes of the central government. Thus, in 1786

he was asked to lead a militia of his district against the brigands of Deliorman

who had once again interfered in the politics of the region, and the next year,

when a new war with Russia and Austria broke out, he was entrusted with

the implementation of a general mobilisation. Under conditions peculiar to

83 For the following see Stra

simir Dimitrov, ‘Istorijata na edin ajanin’, in V

cest na akademik

Dimitar Kosev: izsledvanija po slu

caj 70 godini ot ro

zdenieto mu, ed. Evlogi Bu

skietal.

(Soﬁa, 1974), pp. 65–79.

84 On the Ottoman courier (ulak) and posting-station (menzilhane) network in the Balkans,

see Colin J. Heywood, ‘Some Turkish Archival Sources for the History of the Menzilhane

Network in Rumeli During the Eighteenth Century’, Bo

gazic¸i

Universitesi Dergisi, Bes¸eri

Bilimler 4–5 (1976–7), 39–55; Colin J. Heywood, ‘The Ottoman Menzilhane and Ulak

System in Rumeli in the 18th Century’, in Social and Economic History of Turkey (1071–

1922), ed. Osman Okyar and Halil

Inalcık (Ankara, 1980), pp. 179–86; Milka Zdraveva,

‘The Menzil Service in Macedonia, Particularly around Bitolj, in the Period of Turkish

Domination’, Etudes balkaniques 31, 2 (1995), 82–8.

176

Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia

wartime, he was furthermore charged, in the early part of 1788, with the task

of transporting all the cereals kept in the depots of tax-farmers to the ports on

the Black Sea; in other words, he began to function as an agent that handled a

state monopoly within the framework of the Ottoman command economy.

In the summer of the same year,

Ibis¸ was entrusted with the organisation of

the defences of the whole coastal area against a Russian attack; he was even

expected to erect new fortiﬁcations. From 1789 onwards, however,

Ibis¸A

ga no

longer carried out the orders he received to the Porte’s satisfaction; moreover,

he seems to have acted, here and there, on his own account. He was therefore

asked to present himself before the grand vizier in S¸umnu, where, in July 1790,

he was executed, and soon afterwards all his property was conﬁscated.

The biographies of other provincial power-holders of the period, whether

of greater renown than

Ibis¸A

ga or of lesser standing, roughly conform to this

pattern. The ability to furnish troops or to provision the ﬁeld army, along with

considerations of internal security, always played a crucial role in the ayans’

relationship with the central government. Thus Canikli Ali Pas¸a was promoted

to the rank of vizier as a reward for services he had rendered in various com-

mand positions during the Russo-Ottoman warof 1768–74.

Similarly, the loyal

manner in which

Omer and Osman A

ga made themselves useful to the gov-

ernment during the next Russian war, of 1787–92, contributed to the entrench-

ment of the Karaosmano

glus as the most inﬂuential dynasty in western Ana-

tolia. In addition, members of this family ofﬁciated as m

utesellim of Aydın,

muhaﬁz (commander) of Izmir, m

ubayaacı (agent for the wholesale purchase

of grain) of the quay of Izmir or voyvoda of Turgutlu, Menemen and Bergama.

These ofﬁces were the bases for the dynasty’s inﬂuence, enabling its members

to encourage and organise the export of agricultural produce, the commis-

sions received from such trade representing apparently the chief source of

Karaosmano

glu economic might.

By contrast, poor military performance on

the front during the same war and some foot-dragging in carrying out the 1790

military draft in Anatolia cost the ayan K

ose Mustafa Pas¸a his position.

Inter-

estingly enough, the agents of the Porte who hurried to conﬁscate the fallen

pasha’s wealth were surprised to ﬁnd out that he was already bankrupt.

Ali of Tepelen, a provincial magnate and later the pasha of Janina, man-

aged to form a rather special relationship with the imperial government. This

Albanian, long a notorious rebel, coerced the Porte into rehabilitating him in

85 McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe,pp.11–15.

86 Lewis, ‘

ıkli H

adjdji ‘Al

ı Pasha’, pp. 446f.

87 Orhonlu, ‘K

a‘O

thm

an-Oghlı’, pp. 592–3; Veinstein, ‘Ayan de la r

egion d’Izmir’.

88 Sakao

glu, K

ose Pas¸a Hanedanı,pp.67–81.

177