“Gurbet Istanbul”: Being an Immigrant in the Ottoman Capital, 1500-1800

Denise Klein
The aim of this project is to produce a monograph dealing with the experience of immigration to Istanbul between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. During that period, the capital of the Ottoman Empire was one of the most vibrant and diverse cities of the world, attracting newcomers not only from the provinces, but also from beyond the borders of the empire. Unlike existing scholarship that tends to discuss how the Ottoman state and the society of Istanbul dealt with the large influx of people in this period, this study adopts, for the first time, the perspective of the immigrants to investigate how those who came to the city seeking work or a better life experienced their moving to and settlement in a new place. While profiting from the scholarship on Ottoman immigration and the history of Istanbul, this book also makes extensive use of the results achieved in historical research on migration in other regions and eras. The book develops in six chapters tracing the journey of the immigrant from 1) the time he or she left home to 2) their first encounters within the city and 3) their reception by the locals. It then examines 4) the process of homemaking and 5) the ties that immigrants kept with their places of origin, finally investigating 6) the emotional impact of immigration on the individuals. The work is based on a large array of literary and archival sources, many of which are little known or studied. Most significant are sources with a pronounced personal character such as diaries, letters and poems, as well as biographical dictionaries. Histories, political and medical treatises provide additional information as do court decisions and imperial decrees.