History of education in the late Ottoman Empire

One of the most controversial issues about education in Turkey and around the world is inspection of education. Some countries conduct educational auditing through inspectors. Some countries, such as Finland, consider that there is no need for a mechanism such as an inspectorate, but instead consider public scrutiny. Inspectional Regulations in the Latest Period Of Ottoman Time1 aims to shed light on the history of educational inspection in Turkey and to expose the history of the inspectors' duties and authorities and audit areas. In this scope, documents older than about a century were found and translated from the Ottoman Language. Document analysis method was used in this study. When the documents were evaluated as a whole, it was stated that the religious dimension of education was no longer inspected by the Republican regime founded in 1923 and secularization, but especially that bureaucratic control continues in different forms; the quality of education is still a matter d...

From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards the Turcophony of the majority of the Orthodox population of Anatolia became to be treated gradually as an anomaly that has to be corrected. The ecclesiastic leadership of the Orthodox millet and the secular leadership of the Ottoman Greeks became increasingly more sensitive and anxious towards the dominance of Turkish in the Anatolian Orthodox
communities. The present study claims that just like the Ottoman state authority, the leadership of the Ottoman Greek millet adopted a siege mentality. In this specific historical context modern education acquired an adversarial nature and educational competition fueled both state led and the non-Muslim educational endeavors.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century a new language hierarchy emerged and consolidated. According to this new linguistic hierarchy Greek started to represent progress, advancement, prosperity and a break away from the existing backwardness. The plain Turkish that is spoken is despised and is treated as an oriental sign of backwardness and poverty.
The present study attempts to demonstrate the complex interrelationships between different actors in shaping the educational and communal affairs of Turkish speaking
Anatolian Orthodox. Rather than a homogenous entity what we find is a socially, economically, culturally, linguistically and ideologically fragmented community in which different actors tries to assert themselves and to direct this process through
factional politics.
This study claims that education stopped and reversed the process of social and cultural integration of the Turkish-speaking Anatolian Orthodox to their Muslim compatriots and created a sense of Greek national identity and feeling among the younger generations. Despite the occasional expression of a local or Anatolian Orthodox conscience inside the Ottoman Greek millet, most of the time in response to defamatory arguments concerning their Turcophony, a political and cultural program that will emphasize their ethnic distinctiveness from the Rum millet in the sense of Bulgarian or Albanian examples never took hold. Until the “exchange of populations” the cultural and ideological program of integration to the Greek Orthodox millet/nation retained its hegemonic position and remained as the most
convincing program for achieving progress and prosperity.

The enactment of the Regulations of Public Education law in 1869 ushered in a new era in Ottoman educational history. It was a composite of ideas borrowed from several previous educational reforms, and served as a basis for subsequent reforms. But the participants that drafted this legislation have been misreported for nearly ninety years, dating back to a study by Kansu. This paper will correct that misreporting based on the meeting minutes from the Council of State’s Department of Education, which drafted the law. The findings reveal some interesting participants, including representatives from non-Muslim communities, two ulamas who were previously said to not have participated, members who supported and implemented educational reforms in the Danube Vilayet, and persons familiar with the educational systems of France and Prussia.

Osmanlı Devleti’nin ilk Maârif Umûmiye Nazır’ı olan Abdurrahman Sami, 1794 yılında Mora’da doğmuş ve 1882 yılında İstanbul da ölmüştür. Dönemin şartlarına göre oldukça iyi bir eğitim hayatı geçiren Abdurrahman Sami, tahsilini babasından ve bölgedeki diğer âlimlerden dersler alarak tamamlamış ve genç yaşta Arapça, Farsça, Fransızca, Yunanca, İbranice ve Latince öğrenmiştir. 1821 yılında çıkan Rum isyanı sırasında Mora'nın Tropoliçe Kasabası'nda ailesiyle birlikte Rumlara esir düşmüş ve altı aylık bir esaretten sonra serbest bırakılmıştır.
Abdurrahman Sami 1849 yılında I. Abbas’ın Mısır Hıdivi olması üzerine İstanbul’a gelerek Bâb-ı Ali hizmetine girmiştir. Onun Osmanlı hizmetindeki ilk görevi Tırhala mutasarrıflığıdır. Bu görevindeki gayretleri Bâb-ı Ali yönetimince takdir edildiği için, iki sene sonra kendisine vezirlik rütbesi verilerek, Rumeli Müfettişi olmasını sağlamıştır. Daha sonra Bosna, Trabzon, Vidin ve Edirne valilikleri görevlerinde de bulunmuş olan Abdurrahman Sami Paşa, 1856 yılında ise Meclis-i Tanzimat üyeliğine seçilmiştir. Abdurrahman Sami Paşa, eğitim yönetiminin tek çatı altında toplanıp daha düzenli yürütülebilmesi amacıyla, 17 Mart 1857 yılında kurulan Maârif-i Umumiye Nezaretine atanarak, Osmanlı Devleti’nin ilk Maârif Nazırı olmuştur.

Kitapçı Karabet Keşişyan Efendi (1850–1911) Osmanlı matbuatına büyük katkılarda bulunmuş Ermeniler arasında başat bir isimdir. Üretken ve girişimci bir isim olan Karabet, II. Abdülhamid (1876–1909) döneminin en meşhur yayıncıları arasındadır. Bu alandaki faaliyetleri, on dokuzuncu yüzyılda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda tedricen meydana gelen sosyokültürel değişimleri büsbütün yansıtır. Özellikle Osmanlı merkeziyle kurduğu ihtiyatlı ilişkiler ve merkezin imtiyazları sayesinde akranlarından ayrışmaktadır. Türk askeri ve mülki okullarının kitap tedarikçiliğini yapmaktayken ağırlıkla Türkçe ders kitapları yayımladı ve kendi adına tesis ettiği matbaasıyla 1889’dan yirminci yüzyıl başlangıcına kadar bu alanda tekel sahibi oldu. Faaliyetleriyle Mecidiye ve Osmaniye nişanlarına layık görüldüğü gibi uluslararası ödüller de aldı. Ancak bu özgün yanlarına rağmen doğrudan kendisini konu edinen bir araştırma yapılmadı ve Osmanlı matbuatına katkıları ile yayımladığı kitap katalogları herhangi bir çalışmada dikkate alınmadı. Bu araştırma onun matbuat alanındaki faaliyetlerini nicel verilerle ortaya koyarak, etrafındaki yayın dünyasıyla, çalışma ve üretim biçimleri ekseninde çevresiyle olan ilişkilerini aydınlatarak, literatürdeki bu boşluğu doldurmayı hedeflemektedir.

en: Ottoman-Armenian bookseller, publisher, and printer Karabet Keşişyan Efendi (Garabed Keshishian, 1850–1911), is an influential name among the Armenians who left important marks in the history of Ottoman printing. As a prolific and enterprising figure, he was one of the most famous printers of the Hamidian Era (1876–1909). His contributions in this field reflect the sociocultural changes that occurred gradually in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. Thanks to his prudent relations with the Ottoman center and his privileged position, he is distinguished from his peers. He was the book supplier of Turkish military and civil schools. His printing house published mostly Turkish language textbooks and became the sole provider for the Turkish military and civil schools from 1889 until the beginning of the twentieth century. He was decorated with many international awards as well as the orders of the Mecidiye and the Osmaniye. Despite these unique features, he was not subjected to a comprehensive research, and his contributions to Ottoman printing as well as his book catalogues were not studied. This research aims to fill this gap in the literature by unearthing his printing activities through quantitative data, exploring his methods of work and connections with his circles.

Satı Bey is one of the most remarkable people in the history of Turkish education. He has worked on many subjects including education, society, politics, and science and has produced many works. Among these works, he has given a special place to citizenship education. Satı Bey has underlined the fact that citizenship education is related to morality and has associated homeland love to mother love. According to him, loving the homeland is affection. But in order that this love is formed, the child must first know his/her homeland well. Thus, first the history and geography, than the process of government with Ma‘lûmât-ı Medenîyye courses and the factors necessary for them and their importance shall be taught. But since during this teaching most of the subjects are discrete, we have to make them concrete and give examples from the environment of the child. The most important point here is to select the appropriate examples for children living in villages and cities.

Franz Schmidt and His Report on German Scholars to be sent to Dar
al-Funun.
The relationship between Turkey and Germany dates back to late
19th century. This common history, which features intense financial
exchanges, political agreements, military alliances and consequently
cultural interactions, has reached its peak in the Second Constitutional
Era.
After the Second Constitutional Era, during World War I, Turkey was
undergoing a cultural reformation. Concurrently, German side did not
confine their relations with Turkey to the fields of military and economy
but extended to education and culture. Dar al-Funun from which Istanbul
University originated, is one of the centers the education branch of this
interaction took place.
This article is the first Turkish work to provide information on the
report about the activities of German scholars sent to Dar al-Funun
and its rapporteur, Franz Schmidt. To be able to know the innovations
arrived at Istanbul University with the first and second wave of German
scholars, the historical sequence should be observed. Thus one can add a
historical perspective to their knowledge on the education held in Istanbul
University. This fact makes the report of Franz Schmidt so crucial.

One of the most controversial issues about education in Turkey and around the world is inspection of education. Some countries conduct educational auditing through inspectors. Some countries, such as Finland, consider that there is no need for a mechanism such as an inspectorate, but instead consider public scrutiny. Inspectional Regulations in the Latest Period Of Ottoman Time1 aims to shed light on the history of educational inspection in Turkey and to expose the history of the inspectors' duties and authorities and audit areas. In this scope, documents older than about a century were found and translated from the Ottoman Language. Document analysis method was used in this study. When the documents were evaluated as a whole, it was stated that the religious dimension of education was no longer inspected by the Republican regime founded in 1923 and secularization, but especially that bureaucratic control continues in different forms; the quality of education is still a matter discussed in Turkey; it is understood that the inspectors' school-related duties are still continuing and this situation continues to be a problem that is gradually diminishing in Turkey.

This article explores the relations between European Zionists, Sephardim, and Oriental Jews in late Ottoman Palestine by narrating the story of A. Yehudai, a Bulgarian Jewish teacher in the Sephardi community of Gaza in 1913. Reading through Yehudai’s ambitions, deliberations, and frustrations, the article makes two main arguments: First, it challenges the inclusivity often attributed in scholarly literature to the category of “Sephardi,” suggesting that as a practical category used by historical figures, especially in the context of national discourses, it was regarded as much more bounded and rigid. Second, the article points to the period before European Zionist domination over Middle Eastern Jews. Through the case of late Ottoman Gaza, the article shows that Jewish communities in Palestine were essential for institutional Zionist bodies, were aware of their situation, and even used this power structure for their own gain. Taken together, both arguments testify to the fact that communal demarcations are essential for human society in the sense that the crossing of boundaries always entails the delineation of new ones.

In the late 19th century the French-Jewish Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) established and administered primary schools for Jewish communities throughout the Muslim world, with a focus on North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.  The AIU’s actions in the territories that later became Iraq have been seldom studied compared to the schools in other geographic areas and have been almost totally ignored with regard to Basra.  This article utilizes the letters of the Archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AAIU) and other select primary sources to explore the AIU’s relationship, and to a lesser extent its sister organization’s, the Anglo-Jewish Association (AJA), relationship with the Jewish community in Basra in the 1890s and early 1900s leading to the AIU takeover the Basra Jewish School in 1903.  In doing so it provides a foundation for future scholars to more fully examine both the AIU’s subsequent work in the city and also the history of Basra’s Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century.

This paper appeared in Balkan Nationalism(s) and the Ottoman Empire, vol.3: The Young Turk Revolution and Ethnic Groups. It argues that the Albanian Vilayets were a contested region between the Ottoman State, Balkan Nationalists, and the Great Powers.

The Hisousian School was founded in 1830, on the initiative of Sharan Bek Sharanian, a merchant from Van. The school was named Hisousian in 1847-1848, as part of the reorganization of the city's neighborhood schools, becoming the main or "mother" school of Van. [1] The school was housed in a building located in the courtyard adjacent to the Holy Virgin Church of downtown Van. The building was entirely renovated in 1881-1882. The old building was replaced by "a more elegant, exceptional two-story structure … with new and suitable classrooms." [2] On the year of its reorganization, total enrollment at the school stood at 100 pupils. The headmaster was Manouel Ardamedtsian (who would later be ordained as a priest and styled as Father Dionysius). [3] English Հայերէն Türkçe Home Introduction Maps Themes ODA Voices Support us Shop Houshamadyan's column Miscellaneous articles Locale Religion Local characteristics

Hisusyan ve Şuşanyan Birleşmiş Karma Okul (Şehir Merkezi-Kağakameç-) Hisusyan Okulu 1830'lu yıllarda Vanlı tüccar Şaran Bey Şaranyan'ın girişimi ile kurulmuştur. İsa'ya adanmış olan Hisusyan Okulu, Van şehrinin merkez okulu olduğu için, adını 1847-48 yıllarında Van şehrinde mahalli mektepler sisteminin kuruluşu zamanında almıştır [1]. Kağakameç, yani şehir merkezinde bulunan S. Diramayr (Meryem Ana) kilisesinin bitişiğinde bulunan avluda faaliyet göstermekteydi. Okul binası 1881-82 yıllarında baştan aşağı yeniden inşa edilmiş. Eskisinin yerine "daha zevkli, iki katlı, muhteşem bir bina [inşa edildi]... yeni ve uygun sınıf ayrımları ile" [2]. Okulun yeniden kuruluş döneminde öğrenci sayısı 100 idi. Orada görev yapan öğretmenin adı ise Manuel Ardamedtsyan'dı (ilerde papaz takdis olmuş ve Dionisyos adını almıştır) [3].

International Workshop "Islam, Europe, & the Secular – Religious Divide. Transformations, Genealogies, Interactions", organized by the NWO Research Group "The Sacred & the Secular; Genealogies of Self, State & Society in the Modernizing Islamic World" (21.-22. Dezember 2009, Universiteit van Amsterdam).