An Ottoman Imperial City in Transition: Transformation of Urban Governance in Edirne (18th -19th Centuries)

Abstract

There is a massive body of research in modern historiography dealing with different aspects of Ottoman modernization in the Tanzimat period. One such aspect is urban transformation in the Tanzimat era that has received considerable scholarly attention. However, how urban governance took new forms in different Ottoman cities still await to be scrutinized. Evidently, the Ottoman central authorities paid special attention to some cities that needed much care due to their historical and political statuses. The Ottoman imperial cities like Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul are of this sort. The present paper analyzes the transformation of urban governance in Edirne during the eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries. A highly venerated urban center that was the second imperial seat of the Ottoman sultans prior to the conquest of Istanbul, Edirne was administered differently and given special attention due to its different status acknowledged both by the royal family and higher echelon of the state. Modern historiography has a consensus over the city’s well-established socio-spatial and political position reached its peak during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In this period, the city gained a de facto capital status as consecutive Ottoman sultans permanently resided in Edirne that witnessed the existence of high-ranking state officials and representatives of various European powers. As far as the social composition and administration in the imperial city of Edirne in the eighteenth century are concerned, the urban governance did not change much that would be altered significantly in the nineteenth century. In this period, the state applied a wide range of reform attempts to reorganize urban structures in the city of Edirne expressing in different forms of imperial manifestation. While the physical presence of the Ottoman sultans and imperial institutions in Edirne brought about a spatial and demographic stability of the city until the late eighteenth century, Edirne witnessed major alterations through new imperial implementations throughout the nineteenth century. As far as the city governance is concerned, the “imperial garderner” (bostancıbaşı) located in the New Imperial Palace of Edirne (Saray-ı Cedîd) secured the public order in and around Edirne until the abolition of the Janissary corps in 1826. Within a decade or so, a new phase began in the city’s political life as provincial governors would be responsible in its administration. Furthermore, the new reforms brought about the proportional participation of city dwellers in the city’s governance including the non-Muslims. The paper suggests that the Edirne of the nineteenth century was not the same imperial city governed in a more autonomous way in the eighteenth century anymore, although it never lost its importance. Nevertheless, through the centralization policies that brought military, administrative and financial matters together within the same province, now the provincial center, Edirne maintained its pivotal position in the Tanzimat era when a more participatory system in this ethno-religiously diverse city formed.