Okmeydanı Atıcılar Tekkesi Örneğinde Sosyo-Kültürel Yönleriyle Osmanlı Okçuluğu_XVIII. ve XIX. Yüzyıllar
Özet
The bow and arrow are one of the oldest weapons used by humankind throughout history. This tool, which has been utilized to meet people's needs for defense, shelter, and nutrition, has been seriously affected by the geography they live in. That is why Turkic communities, which have adapted to the nomadic lifestyles, used the composite bow as the Central-Asian Steppe, where they live, required them. Composite bows providing many facilities to their shooters either in mounted or on pedestrian archery have become identified with Turkish communities. It is seen that archery has spread to many different areas in Turkic cultures, such as not only military activity but also from sociological classification to law and diplomacy. When the oldest written and oral sources of archery in Turkic culture are examined, it is seen that the words arrow and bow are used in some metaphorical meanings in Turkish political philosophy beyond their fundamental meanings. Hence, archery is one of the most unique activities of Turkic culture. This is one of the reasons why archery is discussed in this thesis.
Traditional Turkic Archery was included in UNESCO's "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" list in 2019. While this situation increased the tendency against traditional Turkic archery in Türkiye, it also proliferation of academic work in this field. Since the mentioned year, a significant increase has been observed in the number of academic studies on Traditional Turkic Archery. Despite the fact, it is seen that academic studies on this field in Türkiye generally focused on the cultural and technical backgrounds of archery. These studies, which are prepared based on the place and importance of archery in Turkic culture, generally proceed on the axis of cultural and sports history studies, referring to the above-mentioned metaphorical meanings of archery. Hereunder, the metaphors that the terms arrow and bow correspond to in the first written sources and various epics before Islam are the most frequently discussed topics. Likewise, there are many studies dealing with the religious aspect of archery since Islam praises shooting. In addition, technical issues such as arrow and bow production stages, manufacturing techniques, stance, grip, and shooting positions are subjects that are studied over and over again. Furthermore, many publications demonstrate that the milestones that were erected in various parts of Istanbul, together with Okmeydanı and the Archery Lodge located here, should be preserved as a historical value.
This thesis is based on the notion that archery, which is apart from the above-mentioned areas and therefore creates a important lacunae in the literature, is an industrial and institutional activity. Archery will be issued and examined as a social and economic subject from a holistic point of view both as an industrial activity in terms of being a collective business line and as an institutional activity in terms of being a functioning institution.
In this context, the aim of this thesis is to examine the historical sources, producers, and institutions of Ottoman archery, to try to understand what the perspective towards sports in the Ottoman Empire was, how it changed, how a sports club was run and how the manufacturer lived in the archery centre. Thus, archery will be defined as a matter of business for the first time and the social, economic, and institutional life around this business line will be brought to light. It is expected that the study carried out in line with this goal will be an example for the studies to be carried out in other secondary fields such as archery of Turkish historiography.
