18. Yüzyılda Vidin Şehrinin Sosyo-Ekonomik Panoraması (1790-1808)

Abstract

The object of this study is to analyze the administrative, social and economic structure of the city of Vidin in the 18th century in the light of provincial court registers (şeriye sicilleri). The 18th century represents a period in which the wars against Austria and Russia, and their consequences causing military, fiscal, administrative and social changes the Ottoman Empire faced with. The wars against the European states, seeking to dominate the Ottoman Balkans with colonial aims, constitute a factor that enforced the Ottoman military system into a transformation. Making the military system effective in warfare and training its actors in a similar manner as their European counterparts did was one of the crucial problems for the Ottoman statesmen. Nevertheless the efforts for modernization of military system entailed some measures first in fiscal and then provincial administrations as well as the social structure of the Empire.