Athens from 1456 to 1920: The Town Under Ottoman Rule and the 19th-century Capital City

292 Pages·2014·32.597 MB·English

by  Dimitris N. Karidis

ATHENS FROM 1456 TO 1920
The Town under Ottoman Rule and the 19th-Century Capital City
To Alex, Io and Nikos

ATHENS FROM 1456 TO 1920
The Town under Ottoman Rule and the 19th-Century Capital City
Dimitris N. Karidis
Tale of a City
or,
An Essay on Urban History
Archaeopress
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Oxford OX2 7ED
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ISBN 978 1 905739 71 4
© Archaeopress and D N Karidis 2014
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Preface i
PART ONE
Athens under Ottoman rule 1
Introduction to Part One
The town-country relationship within the Ottoman feudal system 3
- Urban development during the apogee of Ottoman power
- Ibn Khaldun, Naima and the ‘Circle of Equity’
- Signs of deepening malaise.
Chapter One
Athens and its countryside under Ottoman rule 23
- An urban historian defines sub-periods of development.
- 1456-1640: a prospering and expanding town
- 1640-1760: the town heads towards decline
- 1760 -1830: the profile of a provincial town
Chapter Two
The physical aspects of development in Ottoman Athens 55
- The town expands under the Ottomans,
contrary to what some historians believe(d)
- The passage from a small town to a larger urban entity
- The urban quarters (‘mahalles’) and parishes:
aspects of social and functional integration and segregation
- Concrning the Fethiye Cami
- A visit to the Bazaar: daily, weekly and yearly market activity
PART TWO
The nineteenth-century capital city 85
Introduction to Part Two
The making of a new state.
From tradition to modernity: Oriental versus Western life styles 87
- The ambitious national irredenta
- The formative years under the reign of King Otto:
the slow process of feudal dissolution
and the steady steps towards a capitalist economy
- Planning the Greek towns
Chapter Three
The adventures of the new city plan 101
- Time for a new plan in Athens
- Reading the geometry of the Kleanthes-Schaubert Plan
- The Plan is rejected: Leo von Klenze steps in
- Karl-Friedrich Schinkel offers advice on the layout of the new Athens Plan
Chapter Four
The process of social division of space between 1830 and 1920:
the search for urban identity 115
- Athens is growing. the seminal forms of social segregation
- Domestic architectural forms and the social division of space
- The production of the built environment:
the laissez-faire (or, ‘build-as-you-please’) attitude in planning
- Public space acquires its own identity
- Athens ‘appears’ to be a modern city:
E.Hébrard, L.Hoffmann and Th.Mawson offer advice on the city plan
- Walikng in Athens in the company of ‘Thomas Hayton Mawson from London and Lancaster’
- In the absence of Th.Mawson, we stand contemplating his plan
Bibliography I
Illustration Credits XVI – List of Tables XIX – Index of Names XX

Preface 

From an urban historian’s point of view Athens is a aspect of development of areas under the Ottomans. The
unique town. This is so, not because of her glorious past prophecy of Bruce McGowan, who, in the early 1980s,
and its ancient monuments (which, anyway, is true), or, had stated on behalf of these Ottoman sources that
perhaps, because of an amiable contemporary urban ‘archival research will provide most of the new facts and
environment (which, definitely, is not the case), but by most of the surprises in the decades to come’, came true.
virtue of the fact that, from the time she came under So it is highly unfortunate that Greek scholars were for
Ottoman rule well into the first century after being long unable to take cognizance of that precious archival
nominated capital city of the Greek state, its urban and material. Should that lack of information be attributed to
cultural development has been an invigorating adventure a purposeful reluctance of the Greek national
through the meandering routes of history. It is really historiography to move even one step further the
astonishing how quickly prosperity and decline, ‘boundaries’ set by nineteenth-century ideological
development and recession, glory and contempt changed constraints? It seems that one must relinquish this option.
places in the case of Athens. This book intends to explore At least since 1974, modern Greek historiography,
at least a part of this adventurous, and relatively little represented mainly by a generation of un-prejudiced
known, process of development. younger scholars, has given clear signs of its intention to
Almost thirty years ago, when I first embarked upon proceed to a fresh re-evaluation of its subject matter,
the research of Ottoman urban history in Greece, trying repudiating a series of, mostly nineteenth-century,
to find my way among books of paralysing dullness, dangerous clichés, which, having become fossilized,
Greek historiography could not by any stretch of the pertained to the panoply of a culture almost defeating
imagination be considered to have even scarcely common sense.
approached the subject. Towns were, most of the time, In 1985, in collaboration with Dr Machiel Kiel, our
absent form the bulk of historical research, whereas study on the Egriboz Sanjak, 1466–1570, was published
villages were given a privileged position, unthoughtfully (in Greek), based on this category of archival sources,
considered to ‘fit’ best in a supposed backward-looking providing valuable insight into a poorly documented area
Ottoman feudal context. Confusion cast its shadow over of Greece during that period. Kiel and I had met for the
an understanding of the process of urban development, first time in mid-1980. By that time, I had completed my
whereas a veil of ignorance covered, in particular, the Ph.D. thesis on the urban structure of Athens under
period of the early Ottoman years. As a result, what was Ottoman rule indicating, for the first time in Greek urban
written, but for a few exceptions, was marred by an historiography, the importance of (published) Ottoman
inadequacy of approach. On that occasion I had raised registers. M. Kiel, on the other side, had already made
critical and polemical arguments against a specific extensive use of unpublished Ottoman material, focusing,
historian’s view that ignored the importance of towns. It however, almost exclusively on the field of the history of
should also be reminded that Ottoman archival sources architecture. Thus, our 1985 publication was the first, at
were as yet unknown, or inaccessible, to Greek scholars. least within the borders of Greek historiography, to
One refers mainly to the series of fifteenth- and portray the relationship between urban Ottoman history
sixteenth-century tax registers (tahrir defters), on which and unpublished Ottoman archival sources. The next
Omer Lutfi Barkan had based his pioneering works on work we concluded in common, once again in the field of
Ottoman demographic history, ever since the 1940s. urban history, came in 2000, with an urban and regional
During the last three decades, amidst growing debates study of the island of Lesvos and the urban development
among scholars on the hermeneutic character of of its capital town, Mytilene. I dare say that in both
‘Defterology’, a genre emerged, as Colin Heywood put studies the importance of towns within the Ottoman
it, ‘a fully-fledged sub-discipline of Ottoman historical feudal system was well documented and the role of even
studies’, a profusion of valuable new approaches came medium-sized urban centres in the development process
into being, mostly related to the economic and social was established on a sound basis.
i
Notwithstanding the advancement of Ottoman studies, seen against its vast cultural background, either as a town
both in Greek and foreign historiography over recent under the Ottomans or as the capital city of Greece, the
years, urban studies do not seem to be the favourite quest for this order is of primary importance. Then, I
research-field of scholars within the realm of these should point to the fact that Ottoman Athens and the
historiographies, since socio-economic and political nineteenth-century capital, a feudal town and a capitalist
studies take pride of place. Usually, it is only in the (or, better, a capitalist-like) city respectively, are set
context of demographic studies that an understanding of under the same roof – I mean co-examined – in the
urban development, either within the macro- or micro- present volume.
historical level, has been attempted. But even on that Against the conventional dichotomy juxtaposing a
occasion, scholarship was mostly reserved for historians small pre-capitalist urban settlement to a large modern
(by profession), and not for architectural or urban capital-city, I prefer to examine the passage from one
historians. It is also my belief that modern Greek stage of development to the other, where ethno-religious,
historiography has not truly overcome the erroneous economic and political parameters defined the realm of
assumption of the negligible role assigned to urban urban transformations that took place. Indeed, throughout
centres under Ottoman rule, of urban development and urban history, there have been many towns that marched
feudalism being mutually exclusive, even though, by from feudalism to capitalism, but, it must be
now, a firm grasp of the overall history of the Ottoman acknowledged, it is an almost unique situation for a town
Empire seems to have been established. I must confess of the past to become transformed into a modern city, by
that these parameters dictated the incentives for writing overthrowing its political regime, by introducing an
the present book. altogether different ethno-religious social structure, not
If the intention, at this juncture, is to give a bird’s eye least by being nominated capital city of a new-born state.
view of the contents of the book in hand and its own To become aware of the vicissitudes inscribed in this
rationale, perhaps I should start by saying that I have passage from one stage to the other offers a better
avoided any a priori conceptualisation of Athens on the understanding of the problems associated with the
basis of broad cultural dichotomies. I am referring either implementation of the first plan prepared for the capital
to Pierre Pinon’s ‘Turko-Balkan’ and ‘Arabo-Ottoman’ of Greece – an issue examined in extenso in Part Two.
distinction (on the basis of architectural typologies and Yet, much earlier, Athens had gone through another
urban morphologies), or to the even broader bifurcation period of evolution. The physiognomy of the town had
of Ottoman civilization implied in the classical approach radically changed in the passage from the small cluster of
of Gibb and Bowen, who introduced the antithesis among houses, during the late Frankish period, protected by the
the Ottoman regions in Anatolia and the Balkans, on one Late-Roman fortification wall, to the vast unfortified
side, and the Arabic speaking provinces on the other. Nor town, under Ottoman rule, expanding well beyond that
have I attempted to identify similarities to, or variations wall. Few people are aware that during the apogee of
of a specific model or prototype town. On the contrary, I Ottoman power, early in the sixteenth century, Athens
have preferred to argue in favour of the singularity of was fourth in rank (!) in terms of the size of its population
Athens, as of any other Ottoman and Mediterranean among other Ottoman Balkan towns in the same period –
town, in accordance with what Edhem Eldem, Daniel almost 15,000 people. Contrary to what Travlos
Goffman and Bruce Masters described in The Ottoman maintained in the 1960s, and concurred with by most
City between East and West. I have also decided to look later historians, since 1456 the development of this town
for ‘the order that a given space – the space of the had been spectacular. I argue that the fifteenth-century
defence, or the commercial and production activities, and boom had been fuelled, as the result of conditions
the religious and social convictions of a given culture – favouring an advanced town to countryside division of
has imprinted on all preceding ones’, as Roberto Berardi labour, by the abundance of a labour force provided by
had once rightly remarked. For a town such as Athens, Albanian peasants that had settled in the area partly
ii
before the arrival of the Ottomans and partly after the in a specific part of the capital introduced a functional,
conquest, even by the numerous trade relationships and soon afterwards, social segregation – a pattern of
between wealthy Athenian merchants and Venice. At a social division of space between a ‘clean’ eastern and a
time when the English and the French were not yet ‘in’ ‘dirty’ western part of Athens, along a north–south axis.
Levantine trade these merchants provided La Serenissima Defiance of historical narrative is also present in (if
with acorns, a product that was in great demand by her not the result of) the adoption of both a macro- and
tanneries. One should also consider one additional factor, micro-historical analysis. It is assumed that the attempt to
namely the favourable political-economic conditions understand urban development on the local level
established in the wider area after 1456. Indeed, the necessitates a macro approach, implying an overview of
analysis of the structural characteristics of the early- the conditions of development in a wider geographical
Ottoman feudal regime provides the context by means of context, both at the onset of Ottoman administration and
which these favourable conditions of (urban) during the early years of capital-city life in a new-born
development are disclosed. The symbiotic relationship state. To serve the purpose of realignment of the two
established between early-Ottoman feudalism and the historical perspectives, two introductory chapters have
development of towns is firmly documented through been included in the present book, one for Ottoman
reliable archival sources throughout the Balkans. The Athens and another for the modern capital.
conditions of the appropriation of surpluses and the Let us leave aside such methodological assumptions
pattern of division of labour between the town and the and return to the early-Ottoman town. Strange though it
countryside were such that they allowed for a rural might appear, the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
production far above the level of subsistence, not least flourishing town was of a minor administrative
for an advanced trade and manufacturing activity. Early- significance. At that time only eleven Muslim families
Ottoman Athens shared such characteristics of lived within its borders, and one could hardly discern any
prosperity. This is part of the story told in Part One of Ottoman character on the spot. Typical Ottoman
this book. buildings were either very modest in appearance
But my intention is not to write the story of Athens. (mosques, hamams) or were altogether absent (bezestens,
What I mean is that I am strongly in favour of a history khans, medreses), and by no means had any large-scale
of structures, more or less along the Braudelian platform urban intervention taken place, as, for instance, those
of the ‘Annales’ school, than in favour of a narration of introduced in even medium-sized towns in the form of the
events (including dates, specific events, names of külliye urban complexes that had ushered in an
persons, etc.). In this sense, the fact that during the last invigorating aspect of public realm. Yet, by the early
quarter of the eighteenth century the voivod of Athens 1600s Athens’ heyday was over, the town having entered
pulled down one of the free-standing columns of the into a process of decay. As the power of the Ottoman
temple of Jupiter to build a mosque in the Athens bazaar feudal regime steadily diminished, the land-tenure
is not of interest to me in this context. What is of interest conditions and the administrative system in Athens
is the conception itself, established during that period, of underwent a substantial metamorphosis. As the superior
the sublime antique Athenian monuments and the way political coordination of wealthy Christian and Muslim
the rhapsodic European Enlightenment had declared its landowners outmanoeuvred any peasant resistance,
own understanding of the past – what defined the conditions resulted in an aggravation of the material
behavioural pattern pertaining either to the ‘civilized’ living conditions of the productive population, halting
European dilettanti, or to a ‘boorish’ Ottoman official. any further urban development. Well before the last years
On a similar level, the emergence of a huge silk of Ottoman rule, Athens had withdrawn into a small
factory (1850–1860), notwithstanding the intriguing provincial town of minor economic importance and its
details related to the process of construction and the population had decreased by almost 40% in relation to the
building itself, does concern me inasmuch as its presence era of Suleyman.
iii