Coping with Life’s Challenges in Ottoman Sarajevo: Freed Slaves and Agency in an Early Modern Borderland Society

Öz

This paper aims to fill in the gaps in the social history of the Ottoman borderlands by exploring the social integration and agency of freed slaves in Early Modern Ottoman Sarajevo. Recent scholarship has made considerable advances in evaluating the agency of freed slaves in the Ottoman Empire by using the collective biography approach. However, with few exceptions, attention has mostly been paid to materials relating to the inner parts of the Ottoman world, particularly to the Sharia court protocols of the Istanbul Region. The author argues that if we are to come a step closer to writing a social history of the Ottoman borderlands, as well as to the prosopography of freed slaves in the Ottoman Empire, archival materials from various regions should be taken into account. To achieve the above-said goals, this paper focuses on analysing the information on freed slaves found in the records of the Sharia court in Sarajevo, as well as in the cadastral surveys and endowment deeds. Using such sources, the author shows the interplay between social structure and agency in the examples related to the freedmen and freedwomen.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Ottoman Empire
• Bosnia
• Slavery
• Manumission
• Freedmen
• Borderland Society
• Social History

Osmanlı Saraybosna’sında Hayatın Zorluklarıyla Başa Çıkmak: Erken Modern Dönem Sınır Toplumunda Azat Edilmiş Köleler ve Eylemlilik

Öz

Bu makale, erken modern Osmanlı dönemi Saraybosna’sında azad edilmiş kölelerin sosyal entegrasyonunu ve eylemliliğini inceleyerek Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun toplumsal tarihindeki boşlukları doldurmayı amaçlamaktadır. Son zamanlardaki çalışmalar, kolektif biyografi yaklaşımını kullanarak Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda özgürleştirilmiş kölelerin eylemliliğini değerlendirmede önemli ilerlemeler kaydetmiştir. Ancak, birkaç istisna dışında, çoğunlukla Osmanlı dünyasının iç kısımlarıyla ilgili arşiv materyallerine, özellikle İstanbul Bölgesi’nin kadı sicillerine dikkat edilmiştir. Yazar, Osmanlı sınır bölgelerinin toplumsal tarihini ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’ndaki azad edilmiş kölelerin prosopografisini yazmaya bir adım daha yaklaşmak istiyorsak, çeşitli bölgelerden arşiv kaynaklarının dikkate alınması gerektiğini savunmaktadır. Yukarıda belirtilen hedeflere ulaşmak için, bu makale Saraybosna’daki Şeriat mahkemesi kayıtlarında ve ayrıca tapu tahrir defterlerinde ve vakıf belgelerinde bulunan azad edilmiş kölelerle ilgili bilgileri analiz etmeye odaklanmaktadır. Yazar, bu tür kaynakları kullanarak, özgürleştirilmiş erkekler ve özgürleştirilmiş kadınlarla ilgili örneklerde toplumsal yapı ve eylem arasındaki etkileşimini göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Osmanlı İmparatorluğu
• Bosna
• Kölelik
• Azat Etme
• Azatlılar
• Sınır Toplumu
• Sosyal Tarihi

Kaynakça

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