The Han in eighteenth- and early nineteenth- century Istanbul: a spatial, topographical and social analysis

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine the han in Ottoman Istanbul in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By thinking on history in its spatial dimensions, it attempts to analyze early modern Istanbul hans within the framework of four main concepts: space, construction, conviviality, and surveillance. Through the focus on urban hans, this thesis endeavours to offer new perspectives on a number of issues regarding the city. These issues include the spatial topography of the urban hans within the city, the construction of the urban commercial infrastructure, everyday interaction in public spaces, and the morality-centered surveillance mechanisms of the political power over these spaces. This thesis argues that the commercial spaces of the early modern Ottoman capital took their ultimate form in the eighteenth century. This process started with the closing of the market region with a roof in 1701, quickened by the construction of the Nuruosmaniye Complex near the Bedestan in 1755, and continued with the construction of Büyük Yeni Han in 1763 and multitude of others in the commercial district. By focusing on the new han projects in the eighteenth century with their transformative consequence on the landscape of Istanbul and their revitalized role, this thesis claims that the Ottoman sultan, by getting involved in the economic and spatial realms, reestablished the presence of the dynasty in the commercial district of the Ottoman capital. This thesis also attempts to make new contributions to the study of Istanbul hans particularly focusing on their use and the political authority’s control over them. In this manner, it spatializes the public realm within the context of early modern Istanbul, as a domain where conviviality, sociality, and theatricality are embedded. By analyzing the Ottoman political language that dealt with the public manifestations shaped in and around the han as mefasid (evils), it also examines the surveillance mechanisms of the political authority over the hans in the context of public order.