o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF AN OTTOMAN COMMERCIAL NETWORK
to explore the brothers’ immediate business environment both in the provinces and
in Istanbul 3 . These directories, which mainly contain data regarding business activity
in Istanbul and the provinces, can be thought of as the ‘yellow pages’ of the second
half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries 4 . As regards their
content, they are quite significant sources for business history. They were prepared
for the promotion of commercial activities actualized in and around trade centres of
the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic to both local and foreign entrepreneurs.
They are significant sources, especially for micro-studies of economic, commercial
and social life in Turkey from the 1850s until the 1940s 5 .
The Annuaire Oriental provides the richest data regarding the provinces of the Ottoman
Empire for the period covered. The provincial data consists of various categories
of prominent professions and the names of major figures engaging in these
trades in the provinces and provincial towns covered. The Istanbul data, which is
more detailed, provides three different kinds of data regarding business activities:
an alphabetical list of all the businesses with their addresses, a detailed list of professionals
and traders regrouped under professional categories, and a list of the
streets and hans of the three main business districts of the city –Galata, Pera and
Stamboul– with the addresses of all businesses and residents. Generally speaking,
the Annuaire Oriental tended to include the most prominent figures of their professions.
The present work also utilizes it to check the prominence of the collaborators
in the brothers’ network and their inclusion is considered as the affirmation.
The data collected from the provincial and Istanbul sections of the Annuaire Oriental
is utilized to understand the ethno-religious profile of the three brothers’ business
environment at that time. In order to accomplish this, the category of ethno-
3 I am grateful to my supervisor Professor Edhem Eldem for not only suggesting Annuaire
Oriental for the creation of the data for a broader picture but also for the generous offer of his
broad knowledge, time and patience regarding its specifics. Annuaire Oriental (Ancien
Indicateur Oriental) Du Commerce, De L’industrie, De L’administration Et De La Magistrature :
Turquie, Russie, Grèce, Roumanie, Serbie, Bulgarie, 1893-1894, (Constantinople: Cervati Frères &
Cie, 1894); Annuaire Oriental Du Commerce De L’industrie, De L’administration Et De La
Magistrature, 20me Edition (ed. R. Cesar Cervati, 1904); Annuaire Oriental (London: The
Annuaire Oriental & Printing Company, 1909); Annuaire Oriental: Commerce, Industrie,
Administration, Magistrature De L'orient, (Constantinople: The Annuaire Oriental Ltd., 1914).
4 I am grateful to Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center for providing a rich collection
of Annuaire Oriental. I am also grateful to Lorans Tanatar-Baruh, scientific manager of
the Center, and librarians for their generous support and always warm welcome.
5 Among works which exploited Annuaire Oriental data as one of their primary sources are
Edhem Eldem, ‘Nostaljiden Arındırılmış Bir Bakış. Galata'nın Etnik Yapısı', İstanbul, Üç Aylık
Dergi, no. 1 (1992); ibid; Lorans Tanatar-Baruh, ‘At the Turn of the Century, Textile Dealers
in an International Port City, Istanbul', Boğaziçi Journal 11, no. 1-2 (1997): 239-40; Edhem
Eldem, ‘Istanbul 1903-1918: A Quantitative Analysis of a Bourgeoisie', Boğaziçi Journal 11, no.
1-2 (1997); Ayhan Aktar, ‘Şark Ticaret Yıllıkları'nda “Sarı Sayfalar”: İstanbul'da Meslekler Ve
İktisadi Faaliyetler Hakkında Bazı Gözlemler, 1868-1938', in Türk Milliyetçiliği, Gayrimüslimler
Ve Ekonomik Dönüşüm (İstanbul: İletişim, 2006).
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