KONGRE BİLDİRİLERİ
ottoman rule over Bosnia (415 years) and a poor preservation of ottoman sources in Bosnian archives.
The reason for such bad state of ottoman sources in Bosnia was due to various historical circumstances
and the fact that ottoman archive sources had continuously suffered damages. There were some events
in the past where records of ottoman period in Bosnia had suffered irreparable damage. With incursion
of Eugene of Savoy in 1697 Sarajevo as the center of the province was entirely burnt down. At that
time the provincial archive was also devastated. Besides, many cities had suffered occasional fire
devastations throughout their history. One part of archive sources originating in 18th or 19th century
were transferred to Istanbul by Omer-pasha Latas in 1851.2 The last big destruction of ottoman archive
sources occurred on 17th of May 1992 in brutal aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina when the
Oriental Institute was struck by a rocket and burnt down.3 It is important to emphasize that the Oriental
Institute had held in their possession the most important (by their quantity, content and importance)
sources and manuscripts for the period from 15th to 19th century on area of southeastern Europe. The
entire archive records as well as copies of ottoman sources collected throughout four decades from
archives from Ankara to Vienna were devastated at that occasion. What we have today in Bosnia is
not remotely sufficient for studying of over four centuries long history of Bosnia under Ottoman rule.
same time, to cover such a long period of time and to provide information on all of the questions at the
same time. There are many other questions raised by studying these sources, such as questions from
agrarian history, history of the towns and other settlements, toponomastics, onomastics, demography,
confessional conditions and changes in the sphere of spirituality, which is very important for the area
of Balkans, especially for areas where huge confessional changes occurred. With the shortage of other
sources that would allow us to consider these questions in Bosnia, the importance of these ottoman
sources is evident. The above specified sources represent only a small part of ottoman sources that
we had an insight into. However, it is beyond doubt that many of other unexamined sources will offer
new possibilities of studying later periods and answering new questions of 17th 18th or 19th century.
Even though all kinds of archive records are significant, the results of the historiography so far have
announced some different kind of sources for Bosnian history that are very important as well. Those
are Aʻşar and Yoklama defters for Bosnia.5 For researching of agrarian history and relations in 19th
century the Tapu Zabit Defteras are very important. They cover the entire area of Bosnian vilayet of
the last decades of ottoman rule.
Some of the results so far
General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü
Kuyud-i Kadime Arşivi) in researching of Bosnian history
The most important and most numerous archive records for Bosnian history from middle 15th
till middle 19th century are kept in Republic of Turkey. Two are of the most importance: Archive of
Presidency of the Government (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşıvı) in Istanbul and General Directorate of
Land Registry and Cadastre (Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü) in Ankara. The archive records
from the archive in Istanbul had been used for researching of Bosnian history intensively right after
the World War Two, while the records of General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre in Ankara
were used sometime later. The use of Istanbul archive and the results made on basics of their records
were motivating element for scientists in Bosnia to expand their work further, on General Directorate
of Land Registry and Cadastre. It occurred in 70s of the 20th century. The use of that archive now is
inevitable for researching of any period or question from four centuries of Bosnian history. On the
basics of brief overview we know that the archive contains sources from 16th century till the end of
ottoman rule in 1878. Along with the fact that the time period to be researched through those records
is very long, one other advantage of the archive is the area that is covered by the sources. The area
covered in the sources is different and depends on administrative and governing organizations of the
particular time period. Even though we have only partial insight into archive sources from General
Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre, we will try to emphasize some of their characteristics
and importance of their content. A few sources cover the entire area of Bosnia and Herzegovina and
even broader, areas of Dalmacia and Lika in Croatia, in 16th and 17th century as they were part of one
administrative unit that is Bosnian Eyalet. Those are sources that originate in the end of 16th and
beginning of 17th century. They refer to following sanjaks: Bosna, Hercegovina, Zvornik, Klis, Krka.
No matter whether those were summary or individual census defters, they hold a huge importance for
studying of administrative, military, economic conditions and ag Ʌɥ