The Longue Durée: Village Life through the Ages (original) (raw)

A View from the Field in Van, Turkey: The Case of 'Ayanis

Sociology and Anthropology, 2017

The following paper evaluates some of the sociological data collected during the field work in Van, Turkey in 2007-2009, as part of an ethno-archeological study of a village located in an area known as "Ayanis" (Agartı), previously part of the Urartian Kingdom (third and second millennium BC). The field work is exploratory and ethnographic in nature, documenting the socioeconomic characteristics of the villagers, spatial patterns of inhabitants, material cultural artifacts, and belief systems and attitudes about social institutions. The village of Ayanis has become a focus for inquiry due to its geographical location and sociological characteristics as it gives important indicators to understand a village in transition. Thus, the data presented in this article contribute to village studies as well as village survey monograph tradition, which represent a major methodological tool as well as a tendency in rural studies in Turkey.

Forming the Rural Settlements in Early Republican Turkey

SHS Web of Conferences , 2019

In the early Republican period of Turkey transformation of the rural areas occurred in a development programme that involved peasants. On the one hand, rural lifestyle was idealized in the national and cultural context. Also, the Turkish peasantry was considered as a significant labour resource for the agriculture-based economy. On the other hand, policies aimed to control the rural population in the new settlements, which were forms of internal colonization practiced especially during the second half of 1930s. Starting from this point of view, the new rural settlements, built from 1934 to the end of 1930s, emerged significant examples to explain the Republican programme to modernize the village community under a united Turkish identity, even in completely diverse localities. This paper aims to reopen the discussion of Turkey's nation-building and modernization process from a perspective projected to the rural ideals, specifically to the Turkish village. It seeks to demonstrate how the policies of early Republican authority controlled rural Turkey in economic and socio-cultural terms, and altered the environment of the village community. It particularly focuses on the elaboration of ideas in architectural implementation during the early Republican period of Turkey. Consequently, this paper introduces the new rural settlements, emerging in the late 1930s in Turkey, pointing to their values as the historical monuments in Turkey's architectural culture.

AGRICULTURE, VILLAGES AND PEASANTS IN THE STATE OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY (FROM THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE YOUNG REPUBLIC)

Livre de Lyon, 2022

Introduction The Republic of Turkey was established in conditions where more than 90% of the people were illiterate and nearly 80% lived in villages. The manpower, infrastructure and capital accumulation trained in the country were almost non-existent. The majority of the population that lived in the village used primitive agricultural technology, lived behind the times,2 and in most of the arable land in the country, cultivation could not be done. Also, there wasn’t a functioning nor directive bureaucracy present within the country. The picture depicted a country that suffered financial losses during the long war, a country that was indebted to foreign countries, a country that did not have the capital and manpower to establish its industry, and a country with an underdeveloped private enterprise. Although agricultural production was

E. Kolovos (ed.), Ottoman Rural Societies and Economies, Halcyon Days in Crete VIII, A Symposium Held in Rethymno, 13-15 January 2012 (Rethymno, Crete University Press, 2015)

For 20 years now peasants have been almost completely absent from Ottomanist historiography. Since 1996 almost no major monograph has been devoted to Ottoman peasant history. This is in sharp contrast with the importance given to the study of Ottoman rural society and economy by earlier Ottomanist historiography. In his classic History of the Ottoman Empire, published in 1973, the doyen of Ottoman studies, Halil İnalcık, described the Ottoman Empire as a ‘peasant empire’. However, for the Ottomanist historiography of the beginning of the twenty-first century, it looks as though the Ottoman Empire was rather an ‘empire of difference’. This volume follows an initiative aimed at putting the peasants back on the agenda of Ottoman history. However, we do not seek (how could we?) to reinstate the historiographical status quo ante nor to attack the many achievements of contemporary historiography. Moreover, unlike the earlier approach of some ‘classic’ works on this subject, which focused on the state as a central actor in rural societies, our symposium sought to investigate economic and social relations in the countryside of the Ottoman Empire not only from the viewpoint of the central administration, but also from that of rural societies. In the present volume, our aim is to highlight themes that are still today unexplored or deserve revision, and throw light on the diverse trajectories of rural economies and societies in the long history and vast lands of the Ottoman Empire.

RURAL SETTLEMENTS FROM OTTOMAN ANATOLIA: THE CASE OF THE DISTRICT OF KIRELI OF KONYA OF 1845

KARADENİZ ARAŞTIRMALARI

This research article is based mainly on Ottoman archival data of 1845. They are manuscripts, written in Ottoman Turkish. Ottoman government needs cash in the years of 1820s due to wars with Russia and Iran. To achieve this, the state demands extra taxes from all peasants of Anatolia. In this study, the economic situation of 22 small Muslim villages of the district of Kıreli of Konya of Anatolia was examined in outline. Agriculture and livestock were the main means of livelihood for the Muslim peasants. However, with the increase of the population, the economic resources were not enough for the Muslim peasants and the nomads (Yörük) living in this region. Many men had to leave their villages and went to the large cities to earn struggle for life. Ottoman administration founds them there and also taxes the labor. This was a very heavy practice for them. In the region, most villages were abandoned. The peasants had to be content with only rural resources. The vacant agricultural lands were immediately planted by the surrounding peasants.

Village Studis Are Still Important for Modern Turkey

2015

Modern Turkey, an inheritor of the former Ottoman State, was an agrarian country from the very beginning. The country is in fast transition since a few decades; but its peasant origins are to be detected everywhere. Rural sociology, for that matter, is especially beneficial as an academic field of study for this changing country with the undeniable peasant roots and ways. Besides the economical agrarian basis, the strong traditions still leave their marks upon collective behavior patterns.

The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia

The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia, 2016

Acknowledgements ix List of Figures and Tables xi Notes on Spelling xii 1 Introduction 1 The Subject 1 The Sources (mufassal [= detailed] avârız Registers) 8 On the "Decline" Literature 12 2 Geography and Politics 20 Amasya: Making of an Ottoman Province 20 Rural Society: Limitations and Relational Matrix 39 3 Land, Society, and Empire (Through 1576) 44 Peasants and Nomads 44 Notables (mâlikâne Holders) 62 Timariots 76 4 The Collapse of Rural Order: A Comparison (1576-1643) 89 Settlement Patterns 92 Population 110 Society 120 5 What Happened? An Assessment 134 The Context Reviewed 136 Nature and Climate at Work 146 The Celâlîs 150 The Consequences 166 1643 Recontextualised 177 6 Conclusion 182 contents viii Appendix I: Tahri̇r and Avârız Registers of Amasya 191 The Sources 191 Survey Orders for the avârız Register of 1643 197 Appendix II: Revenue Holders and Revenue Distribution 205 [Timarhâ-i] Eşkincüyân in c. 1480 and their Situation in Subsequent Registers 205 Mâlikâne Holders, 1520-1576 (According to TT 387 and TK26) 210 Pious Foundations (vakıfs or waqfs) and the Revenues Allocated to them in 1520 216

The Land That Time Forgot: Five Millennia of Settlement at Çadıt Höyük

From Households to Empires, 1993

The archaeological search for the "true picture" of what life was like in villages, towns, and cities long ago and far away is fraught with the danger of misinterpretation and misrepresentation. This was certainly the case in the early years of archaeological exploration of the Ancient Near East when museum curators were starry-eyed over the arrival of statues and imperial luxury goods from excavations at places such as Nineveh,