orphans and destitute children as actors of social, economic, and political hist

486 Pages·2008·11.93 MB·English

HEARING THE VOICELESS – SEEING THE INVISIBLE:
ORPHANS AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN AS ACTORS OF SOCIAL,
ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL HISTORY
IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
NAZAN MAKSUDYAN
SABANCI UNIVERSITY
JANUARY 2008
HEARING THE VOICELESS – SEEING THE INVISIBLE:
ORPHANS AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN AS ACTORS OF SOCIAL,
ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL HISTORY
IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
by
NAZAN MAKSUDYAN
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History
in the Institute of Social Sciences
Sabancı University
2008
© Nazan Maksudyan 2008
All Rights Reserved

To my Great Grandmother, Antaram,
who resisted wilting in a cruel world that orphaned her,
and who had the courage and strength to start life anew
v
ABSTRACT
HEARING THE VOICELESS – SEEING THE INVISIBLE:
ORPHANS AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN AS ACTORS OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC,
AND POLITICAL HISTORY
IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Nazan Maksudyan
History, PhD Dissertation
Supervisor: Selçuk Akşin Somel
January 2008, xvii + 469 pages
This dissertation is on the orphans and destitute children of the late Ottoman
Empire and their role in various aspects of social, economic, and political history. The
attempt is to see and hear these essentially invisible and voiceless actors, since the
testimony of children provide an alternative gaze to different and unnoticed discourses
and developments of Ottoman reform period. In the nineteenth century, unprotected
children attracted the attention of the state, provincial governments and municipalities,
the non-Muslim communities, and the missionaries. The motivation and discourse, on
the one hand, was related to the desire to save children from the dangers to which they
were prey, such as losing or being alienated to one's ethno-religious identity, being sold
into slavery, sexual abuse and exploitation, juvenile criminality, prostitution, health
problems, death, conversion, and apostasy. More importantly, these threats were
targeting the public, political, and economic order of the society. The attention towards
orphans and destitute children was also related to the opportunities they offered: these
children were seen as candidates to become laborious workers, ardent
nationalists/citizens, or staunch converts/believers. It was this hidden potential that
placed the orphans at the center of significant social and political controversies of
nineteenth century. The dissertation, taking a different group of destitute children as
the protagonist in each chapter – foundlings, foster daughters, inmates of industrial
orphanages (ıslâhhanes), and orphans of an ethnic conflict – elaborates upon various
aspects of Ottoman modernization, such as urbanization, welfare policies, growth of
urban child labor, imagined statehood and nationhood, from within the agency of
children.
Keywords: Orphans, orphanages, welfare policies, child labor, modernization
vi
ÖZET
SESSİZİ DUYMAK – GÖRÜNMEZİ GÖRMEK:
GEÇ OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞU'NDA TOPLUMSAL, EKONOMİK, VE
SİYASİ TARİHİN ÖZNELERİ OLARAK YETİMLER VE KİMSESİZ ÇOCUKLAR
Nazan Maksudyan
Tarih, Doktora Tezi
Danışman: Selçuk Akşin Somel
Ocak 2008, xvii + 469 sayfa
Bu doktora tezi Geç Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda yetimler ve kimsesiz çocuklar ve
onların toplumsal, ekonomik ve siyasi tarihteki çeşitli rolleri üzerinedir. Amaç, esasında
görünmez ve duyulmaz olan bu aktörleri görmek ve duymaktır, zira çocukların tanıklığı
Osmanlı yenileşme döneminin farklı ve gözden kaçmış söylemlerine ve gelişmelerine
alternatif bir bakış açısı sağlar. On dokuzuncu yüzyılda, korunmasız çocuklar devletin,
yerel yönetimlerin ve belediyelerin, gayri-müslim cemaatlerin ve misyonerlerin ilgisini
çekmiştir. Motivasyon ve söylem, bir yandan çocukları kolayca yem olacakları, etnik-
dini kimliklerini kaybetmek, köleleştirilmek, cinsel istismar ve sömürü, çocuk
suçluluğu, fahişelik, sağlık sorunları, ölüm, ihtida ve irtidad gibi tehlikelerden kurtarma
arzusuyla ilintiliydi. Ancak daha da önemlisi bu tehditler toplumun kamusal, siyasi ve
ekonomik düzenini hedef alıyordu. Yetimlere ve kimsesiz çocuklara yöneltilen ilginin
diğer bir sebebi çocukların sunduğu fırsatlardı: yetimler, çalışkan işçiler, gayretli
milliyetçiler/vatandaşlar, sadık mühtediler/inananlar olmaya aday olarak görülmekteydi.
İşte bu gizli potansiyelleri yetimleri on dokuzuncu yüzyılın önemli toplumsal ve siyasi
çatışmalarının ortasına yerleştirmişti. Her bölümde farklı bir kimsesiz çocuk grubunu –
terk edilmiş çocuklar, beslemeler, ıslâhhanelerdeki çocuklar, etnik çatışma yetimleri –
baş oyuncu olarak ele alan bu doktara tezi, Osmanlı modernleşmesinin çeşitli
cephelerini çocukları özne kabul ederek değerlendirmektedir.
Anahtar sözcükler: Yetimler, yetimhaneler, yardım politikaları, çocuk işgücü,
modernleşme
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, S. Akşin Somel,
for his invaluable guidance and encouragement in helping me out transforming an
interesting subject matter into a dissertation and for his inspiring and enlightening
advices in organizing my data into a meaningful whole. This dissertation could not have
been possible without his support and direction. I am also indebted to my dissertation
committee members, Hülya Adak, Hakan Erdem, Cemil Koçak, and Nadir Özbek, for
their useful comments and criticisms, which definitely increased the substantive quality
of the final work. Professors of the History Program at Sabancı University have also
been determining in shaping the overall direction of my PhD studies. I want to thank
especially to Halil Berktay, Metin Kunt, and Pablo Sánchez León for their intellectually
rich courses and stimulating discussions.
Sabancı University has partially funded my PhD study during research and
writing, and, thus had been helpful in the realization of the dissertation. More
importantly I am grateful the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey
(TÜBİTAK), Scientific Human Resources Development (BAYG) Program, for granting
me their generous “Integrated PhD Program”, from 2005 to 2007. This scholarship has
supported my researches in Istanbul, financed my six-months-long stay in France, and
offered grants to participate in several international conferences.
I cannot thank enough to École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (ÉHÉSS,
Paris), for offering me a researcher position and also to François Georgeon, who
graciously accepted to be my supervisor during my studies in Paris and who, with his
impressive and inspiring knowledge and direction, helped me find my way in a
labyrinth of various sources, archives and libraries in France.
Many friends and colleagues has agreed to read the earlier versions of the chapters
of the dissertation and commented incredibly efficaciously on them. I am beholden to
Méropi Anastassiadou-Dumont, Vangelis Kechriotis, Malte Fuhrmann, Ferhunde
Özbay, Beth Baron, Anny Bakalian, Kathryn R. Libal, Iris Agmon, Oktay Özel, Ayşe
Gül Altınay, Marjatta Rahikainen, and Selim Deringil for sparing their time and effort
and for their incredibly sound suggestions for improving the dissertation.
viii
In the course of research, I have benefited greatly from the help of the librarians at
the Information Center of the Sabancı University. I am especially thankful to Mehmet
Manyas, who succeeded in providing almost all the sources that I needed until the very
last day.
During the painful process of writing, my family and friends have been
exceptionally encouraging and loving, which helped me to find the strength to finish
this dissertation. My dearest parents always showed their continuous appreciation, belief
and support for my work. Their happiness is my greatest comfort. My sister, Sibel, with
all her positive energy, vivacity, affection, shiny eyes, and sparkling smile, recharged
me with hope and stamina. My friends, Duygu Uygur, Fulya Apaydın, Biriz Berksoy,
Gizem Arıkan, Gökçe Akyürek, Tuba Demirci, and Zeynep Kutluata were always there
for me to discuss about an unresolved corner of my research or to take a little rest over
coffee. I thank them sincerely for their moral support and patience and for being with
me in this over-stressful process.
I have to acknowledge that what has smoothened everything and what has
motivated me to complete the whole work was the presence of an inexpressibly deep
and surrounding love in my life that has made everything more meaningful than ever.
My greatest debt is to my beloved, Rober.
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...........................................................................................viii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................xiii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.........................................................................................xiv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................xv
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................1
CHAPTER 1. A CONTESTED TERRAIN: ABANDONED CHILDREN IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY OTTOMAN EMPIRE
1.1. Introduction..............................................................................................................21
1.2. Reasons of Child Abandonment in the Ottoman Empire.........................................24
1.3. Patterns of Child Abandonment...............................................................................27
1.4. Survival of a Foundling............................................................................................31
1.4.1. “Kindness of Strangers”: Private Efforts for Saving the Foundlings...............31
1.4.2. State Provisions for Abandoned Children.........................................................36
1.4.3. Religious Differentiation of the Support Policy...............................................42
1.5. A Crucial Actress: The Wet-Nurse...........................................................................43
1.5.1. Reservations Concerning Wet-Nurses..............................................................48
1.6. Ottoman Foundling Asylums....................................................................................52
1.6.1. Biased View of Ottoman Intellectuals: “Bastard Homes”................................53
1.6.2. First Maternity of Istanbul: the Vilâdethane.....................................................57
1.6.3. Foundling Institutions of the Non-Muslims......................................................60
1.6.4. Asylum for Muslim Foundlings: Dar'ül-aceze Irzâhanesi...............................62
1.6.5. Mortality Rates of the Foundlings in Asylums.................................................67
1.7. Ethno-Religious Identity of a Foundling..................................................................72
1.7.1. Maternity Searches and Criminality of Child Abandonment...........................82
1.8. “Infant Abduction”: Threat of Catholic Missionary Philanthropy...........................86
1.8.1. Fears of Conversion..........................................................................................93
1.9. Civil Status and Nationality of the Abandoned Children.........................................99
1.9.1. Ottoman Efforts for Regularization of the Status of Foundlings....................105
1.10. Conclusion........................................................................................................ .. 107
CHAPTER 2. FOSTER CHILD OR SERVANT, CHARITY OR ABUSE: BESLEMES
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY OTTOMAN EMPIRE
2.1. Introduction............................................................................................................125
2.2. Candidates for a Besleme........................................................................................129
2.2.1. Orphans ..........................................................................................................129
2.2.2. Abandoned Children.......................................................................................135
2.2.3. Daughters of Poor Parents..............................................................................138
2.3. Legal Basis of Adoption.........................................................................................140
x