Anadolu'da Telgrafın Toplumsal Tarihi (1856-1908)

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of the Anatolian population in the development and use of the telegraph in Anatolia between 1856 and 1908. Moving away from the traditional bureaucracy-centred narrative, the thesis argues that the telegraph was not simply an instrument serving central government in its attempts to strengthen its hold over society, as is often argued, but that, on the contrary, it provided the Anatolian population with an instrument with which to expose and to complain about the failings of local administrations to the central government. The development of telegraphy in Anatolia began with a series of projects launched by British entrepreneurs at the end of the Crimean War of 1853-1856, as a part of the British intercontinental telegraph project to connect London and Bombay. The construction of telegraph lines throughout the entire Tanzimat period (1839-1876) and the reign of Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) was based on the project created by these British initiatives. Viewed as a necessity by foreign entrepreneurs and as an economic burden by the Ottoman government, the spread of the telegraph in Anatolia was largely shaped by and the costs borne by the Anatolian population. Throughout the 1860s, the Ottoman central government supported the expansion of the telegraphic network, provided that the public covered infrastructural costs. The enthusiastic adoption of the telegraph by the Anatolian population gradually set state and society against each other as the population’s use of the telegraph uncovered an administrative crisis in Anatolia, highlighting the failures of the Tanzimat and Islahat reforms. During the Hamidian Era, aware of the dangers posed by the telegraph, the regime tried to keep the telegraph under its control to prevent opposition and the dissemination of discontent. Nevertheless, controlling the telegraph did not mean controlling society. Consequently, throughout this period, administrative problems continued to emerge via the telegraph system and ultimately the telegraph became instrumental in bringing about the end of the Hamidian regime in 1908.