The Transformation of Urban Space before and after the Greek Revolution The Case of Mega Revma (Arnavutköy)

HTML PDF
Published: Dec 29, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.23469
Keywords:
Greek Revolution Transformation Respatialization Islamization Confiscations Exile
Esra Ansel
Bilkent University
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-0920
Abstract

This article aims to uncover the links between the 1821 Greek Revolution and the transformation of the social topography and landscape in Mega Revma (Arnavutköy), a Bosphorus village with a large Greek Orthodox population. In the eyes of the sultan, the Phanariots were the ones who “misled the loyal Greek reaya to rebel against their rightful sovereign”. Thus, it is not surprising that Mega Revma, as a centre of Phanariot life, was a place transformed by the crisis of 1821. The processes of social and religious restructuring of Mega Revma took place in two main phases. While the first phase (1821–1828) consisted of more violent and immediate responses to the revolution, the second phase was a long process that aimed to Islamise the village using conciliatory measures and building projects.

Article Details
  • Section
  • ARTICLES
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use (with the exception of the non-granted right to make derivative works) with proper attribution for non-commercial uses (licence Creative Commons 4.0). EKT/NHRF retains the worldwide right to reproduce, display, distribute, and use articles published in Historein in all formats and media, either separately or as part of collective works for the full term of copyright. This includes but is not limited to the right to publish articles in an issue of the Journal, copy and distribute individual reprints of the articles, authorize reproduction of articles in their entirety in another EKT/NHRF publication, and authorize reproduction and distribution of articles or abstracts thereof by means of computerized retrieval systems.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Esra Ansel, Bilkent University

Esra Ansel completed her undergraduate and master studies at the Department of History of Boğaziçi University. The present article was produced with an updated corpus from her master’s thesis (2016) entitled “Continuity and Change on the Bosphorus: Arnavutköy Before and After the Greek Revolution of 1821”. During her MA studies, she worked as a teaching assistant and research assistant at the history department of Boğaziçi University. During her PhD studies at Bilkent University History Department, she offered HIST 209 History of Turkey courses to international students between 2020 and 2022. She recently received her PhD for her dissertation entitled “The Global History of the Ottoman and Turkish Tea Trade” (June 2023). She is the author of the article “Bureaucrats into Merchants: Tea, Capitalism and the Making of the Republican Bourgeois” (Middle Eastern Studies, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2023.2205134). Her academic interests include global history, social, economic and cultural history during the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Periods, consumption, commodity history, inter-confessional relations, and migration studies.

References
Ansel, Esra. “Continuity and Change on the Bosphorus Shore: Arnavutköy Before and After the Greek Revolution of 1821.” MA diss., Boğaziçi University, 2016.
Baer, Marc David. “The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36, no. 2 (2004): 159–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074380436201X.
Beydilli, Kemal. Recognition of the Armenian Catholic Community and the Church in the Reign of Mahmud II (1830). Harvard: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Harvard University, 1995.
Çiftçi, Aynur. “The Military Structures of Mahmud II in Istanbul,” II. Mahmud: Yeniden yapılanma sürecinde İstanbul/Istanbul in the Process of Being Rebuilt, edited by Coşkun Yılmaz. Istanbul: Avrupa Kültür Başkenti, 2010.
Eldem, Edhem. “Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital.” In The Ottoman City Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, edited by Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman and Bruce Masters, 135–206. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Ilıcak, Şükrü. “The Revolt of Alexandros Ipsilantis.” In The Greek Revolution of 1821: A European Event, edited by Petros Pizanias, 225–39. Istanbul: Isis Press, 2011.
İncicyan, Gugios V. Boğaziçi Sayfiyeleri. Istanbul: Eren Yayıncılık, 2000.
Karabıçak, Yusuf Ziya. “Ottoman Attempts to Define the Rebels during the Greek War of Independence.” Studia Islamica 114, no. 3 (2020): 316–54. https://doi.org/10.1163/19585705-12341403.
Philliou, Christine M. Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
Şanizade, Mehmed Ataullah Efendi. Şânî-zâde târîhî: 1223–1237/1808–1821. Istanbul: Çamlıca Basım Yayın, 2008.
Sözen, Zeynep. Fenerli beyler: 110 yılın öyküsü (1711–1821). Istanbul: Aybay Yayınları, 2000.
Türker, Orhan. Mega Revma’dan Arnavutköy’e: Bir Boğaziçi hikayesi. Istanbul: Sel Yayıncılık, 1999.
Wharton, Alyson. The Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture. London: IB Tauris, 2015.
Zallony, Marc-Philippe. Essai sur les fanariotes, où l’on voit les causes primitives de leur élévation aux hospodariats de la Valachie et de la Moldavie, leur mode l’administration, et les causes principles de leur chute; suivi de quelques réflexions sur l'état actuel de la Grèce. N.p.: Kessinger, 2010. Fist published Marseille: A. Ricard, 1824.