Agrarian economy and primary education in the Salonican countryside in the Hamidian Period (1876-1908)

Abstract

Beginning from the nineteenth century, the rulers of Ottoman Empire realized the importance of education in centralizing the administration. The Ottoman subjects would be educated in accordance with the basic principles of the ruling mentality for the development of the empire. In this manner, for the rulers, education created on the one hand a way to form the subjects and on the other, a way to control them through the knowledge given by education. In the Hamidian era, such developmental features of education came to be observed more obviously. Primary education, being the first step in the formation, was spread to create loyal and productive subjects who would espouse the principles of rulers as their own and then provide and carry on the necessary developments in the empire. However, could a central program be effective in spreading education in the countryside? In the countryside of the Ottoman Empire the conditions were much more different than the cities. In the villages the most crucial issue was to produce enough for the next years, therefore everything about agricultural production dominated people’s lives. Hence, the spread of education in the villages was determined by agrarian economy; by the financial and social conditions that it created and by the actors who benefited from these conditions. Most of the time, such conditions in the villages conflicted with the central policies. Therefore, the spread of education in the countryside is the story of the struggle between central efforts and the agrarian economy. And the understanding to the history of the education will be incomplete without a deep observation of the countryside, and an analysis of this struggle. Salonika was on the one hand a region of agricultural prosperity and diversity on the other its city center was one of the developed places in terms of education. Therefore, the region of Salonika presents a perfect example to observe different conditions than the cities and also to see the struggle between central efforts and agrarian economy in the countryside.