Vincent Thérouin

"Gezi Notları" - Mimarlık Tarihi ve Restorasyon Birimi seminleri (İTÜ Çevre ve Şehircilik Uygulama Araştırma Merkezi)

Tax registers (tahrir defterleri) are valuable sources for the study of early Ottoman societies, as well as for the space they inhabited and used. Although rarely systematic, mapping the tax register data gives an original look at the sources, from a spatial perspective. In the case of towns ‘founded’ in Bosnia between the 15th and 17th centuries, this enables to trace the steps in the making of urban spaces in an Ottoman context. To this end, it is ‘only’ necessary to associate demographic data with geolocated neighbourhoods, generally identified through their mosques. Therefore, it is also a question of carrying out a study of each mosque’s history, revealing the role of various patrons in the urban construction process. Based on the case of Sarajevo, this communication proposes therefore to introduce these questions.

Şehir Tarihi Konuşmaları, 6 March 2024 (Marmara Üniversitesi, Dijital Beşeri Bilimler Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi | İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Fakültesi – Tarih bölümü | Mimarlık ve Tasarım Fakültesi) (https://dbb.marmara.edu.tr/etkinlikler/yuvarlak-masa-toplantilari/sehir-tarihi-konusmalari)

En Islam, les fondations pieuses (ar. waqf) assurent le fonctionnement de structures à l’usage de la communauté par le biais de revenus provenant de diverses propriétés, parfois disséminées à travers un territoire. La gestion de ces institutions s’est souvent accompagnée de la production d’une documentation dédiée, notamment en contexte ottoman. Malgré la richesse de ces sources, l’ancrage géographique des waqf demeure généralement trop imprécis pour être saisi par le biais d’outils tels que les Systèmes d’Information Géographique (SIG). La modélisation de réseaux et le recours à Gephi semblent toutefois ouvrir des perspectives nouvelles quant à la visualisation de l’assise territoriale de ces institutions. Dans le cadre de cette présentation, il s’agira de revenir sur la démarche heuristique adoptée lors de la manipulation sous Gephi des données d’un corpus de sources textuelles se rapportant aux waqf de la Bosnie ottomane (XVIe – XVIIe siècles).

Turkologentag 2023, Panel: “DH 3: Digital Humanities and Ottoman Studies II”

As Hütteroth and Abdulfattah already pointed out in their 1977 work, mapping the tahrir defter data implies a fastidious and barely recognised work of place identification. However, this work allows an original look at the sources: by permitting simultaneous visualization of various data sets, all geographically anchored, a map doubtlessly contributes to a better understanding, compared to the usual lists and tables associated with the tahrir defter editions. The few number of studies which followed Hütteroth and Abdulfattah's approach reveals the limits to a more systematic production of maps from the tahrir defter-s. These limits were of two kinds: on the one hand, a technical limit, as the scholar was for a long time not autonomous in computer graphics. On the other hand, a semantic limitation often prevented the establishment of links between Ottoman registers places and later known places through toponymy. Although the current accessibility of geographic information systems (GIS) allows Ottoman history scholars to produce their own maps, associating places with geographic coordinates remains unavoidable.

Identifying places over several centuries is one of archaeology’s main objects of study. By determining, layer after layer, their presence through a wide range of typologically and chronologically distinct documents (e.g. textual sources, maps, material remains), it is possible to render the location of many places mentioned in the tahrir defter-s. This presentation proposes to introduce this method, its systematisation and its limits based on the context of Ottoman Bosnia, and more specifically on the case of Sarajevo. Indeed, Sarajevo has the specificity of being a city built almost ex nihilo during the Ottoman period, thanks to numerous pious foundations (vaḳf) and following a sprawl of residential areas (maḥalle).

This presentation aims to propose an overview of the evolution of architectural patronage networks between the 15th and the 16th centuries in Ottoman Bosnia. In this area, recently conquered by the Ottomans, patrons commissioned early on architectural structures of various kinds (cāmiʻ-s, mescid-s, ḥammām-s, caravanserais, bridges…), establishing vaḳf-s simultaneously. Theses vaḳf-s greatly contributed to shape the territory, to the point where large cities developed ex nihilo, such as Sarajevo, a very rare case for the Ottoman Empire. For this presentation, an archaeological approach has been used. Far from being limited to the study of ruins, archaeology traces history through material culture in a broader sense. Thus, it mobilises objects but also other sources relating to them (textual, photographic, cartographic…). Among objects, architectural structures (not necessarily monumental) constitute an important part as they tend to leave an imprint on landscapes over the long term (still-standing buildings, road & plot patterns, toponyms…). In the case of Ottoman Bosnia, architectural structures are often still standing. They are as well mentioned very soon in textual sources, such as vaḳf documentation (vaḳfnāme-s, vaḳf inventories…) and tax registers (taḥrir defter-s). By combining material, textual as well as cartographic documentation, it is possible to trace the longue durée evolution of these structures. Therefore, observations can be formulated regarding the links between economic sustainability and architectural evolution.

5th GIS MOMM Congress, Lyon, 11-13 July 2023 - Panel session: “Fortified Architecture in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: Material and Archaeological Approaches”

"The remaining fortresses were often destroyed by special order of the Sultan." It is in these terms that, in a 1954 article on Ottoman conquest methods, Halil İnalcık summarizes the fate of the fortified sites conquered by the Ottomans.

However, it should be noted that this observation introduces a brief guide on the use that can be made of Ottoman administrative sources related to forts and garrisons. Indeed, for a long time, the study of Ottoman authority establishment in conquered territories was predominantly based solely on textual sources. With a wealth of statistical data concerning the stationed troops, the study of the newly administered areas by the Sultan generally constitutes the first milestone of a long-term examination of Ottoman presence in a region. Thus, the situation of fortified sites after the period of conquest is often understood through a comparative approach, resolutely oriented towards later contexts.

However, what about the articulation between the contexts preceding, contemporary with, and following the "conquest," a polymorphic process often spread over several years? What about the phenomena of destruction or abandonment themselves, which may involve multiple realities (total, partial) and temporalities (immediate, progressive)? Lastly, what about the materiality of these destructions and abandonments? Indeed, the massive and enduring characteristics generally associated with late medieval fortified architecture raise questions about the conditions for the systematic destruction of forts and walls.

While textual sources (narrative or non-Ottoman) provide some answers, a material approach that uses documentation related to structures and building archaeology complements and refines the definitions of "destruction" and "abandonment." Based on a representative corpus of fortified sites along an expanding Ottoman frontier, this presentation aims to revisit the materiality of these phenomena in the context of Bosnia and Slavonia during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

5th GIS MOMM Congress, Lyon, 11-13 July 2023 - Panel session: “Written culture in the Ottoman Balkans - issues, approaches and perspectives”

By gaining an early foothold in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Northern Greece (during the 14th century), the Ottomans anchored the centre of the Balkan peninsula in a long-term relationship with the Islamicate world (and more precisely Anatolia), well before the establishment of their permanent authority over the neighbouring Balkan regions (Serbia, Albania, Greece, Bosnia).

The 14th and 15th centuries, marked, from a political point of view, by challenges to the stability of the dynasty and, from a written point of view, by the canonization of practices and styles, will be materially marked in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Northern Greece by the emergence of prestigious constructions (mosques, zaviye-s, fortifications, among others) with numerous dedicatory inscriptions.

Many of these inscriptions have been inventoried and translated several times by different generations of researchers, generally in reaction to the destruction that characterised the history of these structures during the 20th century. However, few of them have been interested in the stylistic and formal aspects of the inscriptions, limiting themselves to the acquisition of factual data tracing the history of individuals or sites.

This presentation intends to offer preliminary considerations concerning a specific corpus of Ottoman inscriptions from Bulgaria, Macedonia and Northern Greece, studied through the prism of art history. It will look at the contexts of production and insertion within the structure, the used materials and techniques, and the formal examination of the texts. Finally, the shared characteristics and links with the other Ottoman peninsula, Anatolia, will be examined.