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The Question of Âli Paşa's Political Testament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Roderic H. Davison
Roderic H. Davison
Affiliation:
The George Washington UniversityWashington, D.C.
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Extract

Mehmed Emin âli Paşa (1815–1871), one of the leading Ottoman statesmen of the Tanzimat period, was the purported author of a political testament that was published in 1910, though said to have been written just before his death. When finally published, it was in French rather than in Turkish. The “Testament politique,” with the signature “Aali” at the end, appeared in two sections in successive issues of the Revue de Paris. In the same year it also appeared as a separate brochure.1 Its authenticity has, ever since, been a question. Discussions of the point have reached no satisfactory conclusion.2 Now that the papers in the Basbakanlīk Arsivi in Istanbul are available to research, there is opportunity for a new judgment. Several documents in the Yīldīz collection there pertain to Âli Pasa's political testament.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 209 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

NOTES

1 “Testament politique,” Revue de Paris 17:2(1 April 1910), 505–524, and 17:3 (1 May 1910), 105–124;Google ScholarAali-Pacha, , Testament politique (Coulommiers: Imprimerie Paul Brodard, 1910), 40 pp. Âli Paşa himself always signed his name “Aali” in French, to indicate that it was not the usual Ali, but spelled with a double “a” (originally a nickname).Google Scholar

2 Galib, Mehmed, “Tarihten bir sahife–Âli ve Fuad Paşalarin vasiyetnameleri,” Tarih-i osmanî encūmeni mecmuasi 1:2 (1329), 70–84, is the first published discussion I know;Google Scholar see also Davison, Roderic H., Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, 1963), Appendix C, pp. 415–418.Google Scholar

3 Seref, Abdurrahman, Tarih musahabeleri (Istanbul, 1339), p. 90.Google Scholar

4 Inal, Ibnülemin Mahmud Kemal, Osmanli devrinde son sadriazamlar (Istanbul, 1940–1953), I, 27.Google Scholar

5 Osmaniye, Devlet-i Âliye-i, Hariciye Nezaret-i Celilesinin Salnamesi, 2nd ed. (Istanbul, 1306), pp. 67–71.Google Scholar

6 On Âli Pasa's life see further Ongunsu, A. H., “Âli Pasa,” Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 1940– ), I, 335–340, which in the absence of any thorough biography is the best sketch.Google ScholarFuad, Ali, Rical-i mühimme-i siyasiye (Istanbul, 1928), pp. 56–140,Google Scholar and Inal, , Son Sadriazamlar, 1, 1–58, are full of information but less well coordinated.Google ScholarŞeref, Abdurrahman, Tarih musahabeleri, pp. 88–97, paints a good anecdotal portrait of Âli. For further references see Davison, Reform, p. 88, n. 22. For the place of Âli among men of the Tanzimat period seeGoogle ScholarShaw, Stanford J. and Shaw, Ezel Kural, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge, 1976–1977), II, chapter 2, especially pp. 61–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Fuad, Ali, Rical-i mühimme, pp. 118–127, gives the text of the 1867 memorandum. It is also in Başbakanllk Arşivi, Istanbul, Yildiz tasnifi, Kisim 33, no. 1507; this is a copy, not the original.Google ScholarMordtmann, A. D., Stambul und das moderne Türkenthum (Leipzig, 1877–1878), I, 75–90, gives a German translation.Google Scholar

8 Testament politique, p. 15 (Coulommiers edition).Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 18.

10 Şeref, Abdurrahman, Tarih musahabeleri, pp. 92–93; Inal, Son sadriazamlar, I, 54.Google Scholar

11 The preface, pp. 1–2 in the Coulommiers edition, also contains half a dozen errors in date when sketching Âli's career, including giving 1872 as the year of his death. It also says erroneously that Fuad Paşa died in 1867, whereas 1869 is correct. These errors are made much later than Âli's time, and do not in themselves prove the document to be false.Google Scholar

12 Sertoglu, Midhat, Muhieva bakimindan Başvekâlet Arşivi (Ankara, 1955), pp. 74–78, lists the categories in this classification and indicates that the work of putting the documents in order was at that date at best 60 percent completed.Google ScholarShaw, Stanford J.. The Yildiz Palace Archives of Abdülhamit II,” Archivum Ottomanicum 3 (1971), 211–237, puts the category titles into English, with explanations, and then lists selected groups of documents with brief descriptions.Google Scholar

13 Midhat Paşa and others had been tried for the assassination and convicted: Shaw, and Shaw, , Ottoman Empire, 2, 216.Google Scholar

14 p. 78.Google Scholar

15 The underlining is in the manuscript. At the * is written a marginal note: “in the month of November 1871.”Google Scholar

16 On Mahmud Nedim see Inal, , Son sadriazamlar, 1, 264–321;Google ScholarShaw, and Shaw, , Ottoman Empire, 2, 153–55; Davison, Reform, pp. 280–86. It might be surmised that the preface was written to introduce the publication of the document in the Levant Herald, but that Roc instead gave it to Bonin. But there is no proof that this was so.Google Scholar

17 One passage on p. 4 seems to refer vaguely to the Bulgarian annexation of Eastern Rumelia, which took place only in 1885, but the reference is so indirect that there can be no certainty.Google Scholar

18 This copy of the article is in a large handwriting, on 23 big pages stitched together to form a sort of pamphlet. The paper is watermarked “Smith & Meynier, Fiume Austro-Hungarian manufacture,” which may or may not be helpful in identifying the document's provenance.Google Scholar

19 The watermark on the paper is “Leykam-Josefsthal, Graz,” which may or may not be significant.Google Scholar

20 I am grateful to Prof. Nejat Gōyünç, who in 1964 assisted me in deciphering this document.Google Scholar

21 Mismer, Charles, Souvenirs du monde musulman (Paris, 1892). Mismer left La Turquie in the fall of 1870 and wrote for the Courrier d'Orient and the Levant Times of Istanbul, but apparently he left Istanbul in 1871, whether before or after Âli's death I am not sure.Google Scholar

22 Paşa's, Said letter of 18 zilhicce 1293 (1 January 1877) to Midhat Paşa,Google Scholar in Midhat, A. H., ed., Midhat Paşa: Hayar-i siyasiyesi, hidemati, menfa hayati… (Istanbul, 1325), 1: Tabsira-i ibret. p. 398. There Said Paşa refers to “Mismerin layihasi” as something Sultan Abdülhamid would not like to see published. My own feeling is that the “Mismer memorandum” may be a name used by Abdūlhamid's palace entourage for Âli Paşa's famous memorandum of 1867, sent from Crete, which Mismer may have drafted or may have influenced. There was at least one other Mismer memorandum, “The Cause of Oriental Immobility,” submitted to Âli; Pasa, but this appears to be a proposal for alphabet reform. It is published inGoogle ScholarMismer's, Soirées de Constantinople (Paris, 1870), pp. 341–63, but I have not seen this and have relied on the mention byGoogle ScholarAlgar, Hamid, Mirza Malkum Khan (Berkeley, 1973), pp. 7–8 and n.29.Google Scholar

23 Galib, Mehmed, “Tarihten bir sahife,” p. 70. He does not indicate what periodical the “testament” appeared in, or in what language, or the date. Âli Pasanin vasiyetnamesi is listed as published in Istanbul, without date, in the bibliography of Tanzimat, Yūzüncü yildönömü münaseberile, I (Istanbul, 1940), p. 982, but no modern scholar appears to have seen or used such a publication of the “testament” in Turkish.Google Scholar It is not listed in Koray, Enver,. Türkiye Tarih Yayintari Biblioyografyasi, 2 vols. (Ankara 1952, Istanbul 1971). On Mehmed Galib seeGoogle ScholarGövsa, Ibrahim Alaettin, Türk meşhurlari ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, n.d.), p. 148.Google Scholar

24 Galib, Mehmed, “Tarihten bir sahife,” pp. 72–74.Google Scholar

25 On Malkum, see the full biography by Algar, Malkum Khan.Google Scholar

26 ibid., p. 77. Algar, of course, has seen only the final published French version, but his conclusion probably holds for the original 226-page manuscript. Charles Mismer knew Mirza Malkum Khans: Mismer, Souvenirs, pp. 132–43. A wild conjecture might imagine Malkum as the author of the 226-page tract and Mismer as the pencil-wielding editor.

27 Compare, for example, Brunswik, Benoit, Etudes pratiques sur la Question d'Orient (Paris, 1869), pp. 53–87;Google ScholarLa Turquie a series of articles on vakif, 9 November to 2 December 1871. Brunswik lived in Istanbul and was an inveterate pamphleteer on European concerns. La Turquie's series was much based on work by Francois Adolphe Belin, the French dragoman and embassy secretary, published in the Journal asialique.Google Scholar

28 In a letter of Prince Murad to Napoléon III, 23 February 1867, reproduced from the Archives du Ministàre des Affaires Etrangères (Paris), Turquie 116 (1802–1868), no. 283,Google Scholar in Bilgegil, M. Kaya, Yakin Cag Türk kültür ve edebiyati Üzerinde araştirmalari, I: Yeni Osmanlilar (Ankara, 1976), p. 3.Google Scholar

29 Davison, Roderic H., “The Question of Fuad Pasa's ‘Political Testament’,” Belleten, 13:89 (01 1959), 122.Google ScholarA supposed “political testament” of Sultan Abdülaziz dated rebiülevvel 1293 (March/April 1876) was published in part inGoogle ScholarUlar, Alexander and Insabato, Enrico, Der erlöschende Halbmond: Türkische Enthüllungen (Frankfort, 1909), pp. 48–58. The authors say they copied only the last part from an Arab text owned by the son of the Sanusi founder, and they do not vouch for its authenticity or know where the Turkish original is. The document is an appeal to Muslim sentiment, to pan-Islam, and to Islamic law as the basis for reform. The authors have produced a sensation-mongering and rather unreliable book, and the so-called “testament” of Abdülaziz is probably a fraud. It would, however, be another example of the popularity of the “political testament” style of tract, and possibly was another entry in the game of documents in Istanbul.Google Scholar

30 On 1871 list in American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives (Harvard University Library), vol. 284, no. 317, Dwight, H. O. (Constantinople), 15 November 1871; On 1876, Augsburger Ailgerneine Zeitung, 5 July 1876 (dateline Constantinople, 28 June), quoting Ottoman government reports.Google Scholar

31 See Davison, Reform. pp. 202–05, on Mustafa Fazil's letter and its various editions. The Réponse à Son Altesse Moustapha Fazil Pacha au sujet: de sa lettre au Sultan (Paris, 1867) is signed “Un Impartial” at the end. Its text is reproduced in Bilgegil, Yakin çag türk kültür, pp. 84–105, and its title page in facsimile at the end of the volume. Bilgegil speculates (pp. 51–52) that Âli could have written the Réponse, but offers no definite proof.Google ScholarMardin, Şerif, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, 1962), p. 410, cites what appears to be a different edition, with title spelled differently; Mardin attributes authorship to Âli.Google Scholar So does Danişmend, I. H., Ízahli os manli tarihi kronolojisi, IV (Istanbul, 1955), pp. 214–15. The tone of this brochure does not sound at all like the tone of the supposed “testaments” of Âli Pasa, although there is some coincidence in views.Google Scholar

32 The Levant Herald, Levant Times, Phare du Bosphore, and La Turquie were among the papers which could be influenced by money, and there were undoubtedly others. Correspondence in the Preussjsche Geheime Staatsarchiv (Dahiem), for example, details the bargaining between La Turquie's editor and the Prussian ambassador on a subvention: Bressier (Constantinople) to Auswärtiges Amt of 22 January, 25 February, 20 March 1867.Google Scholar

33 Shaw and Shaw, Ottoman Empire, II, 211–16; Sertoglu, Başvekâlet Arşivi, p. 75.Google Scholar

34 This is quite aside from the reports-the jurnals-of the informers, most of which have apparently not survived; ibid.

35 Said Pasa to Midhat Pasa, 24 zilhicce 1293 (10 January 1877), in Midhat Pasa … Tabsira-i ibret, p. 397.Google Scholar