The Black and White and Red All Over Guinea Pig

Samuel Dolbee, New York University

Sam Dolbee, New York University

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Abdülhamid II ruled the Ottoman domains as sultan during the pivotal period of 1876-1909.  He oversaw the convening of the first Ottoman parliament and, as conflict with Russia concluded in 1878, he suspended the representative body.  While he initially weathered the political tumult that accompanied the reinstatement of the constitution and parliament in 1908, he eventually was forced to capitulate.  In the interim, the sultan invigorated the Ottoman state – much like his counterparts atop other European empires like the Russian and Habsburg domains - in an effort to craft a form of imperial citizenship that would live up to the challenges of a world increasingly composed of nation-states.  In the process, the Ottoman state crafted what Deringil has called a “national monarchy.” (5)  Particularly under Abdülhamid, the Ottoman state utilized Islamic symbols to consolidate these feelings of togetherness. 

While Abdülhamid has garnered considerable attention for his involvement in these watershed developments, he has also generated interest on a more personal level.  We know that as a young man he took up the trade of carpentry and as an old man after he was deposed from the throne, he spent his days engaged in this activity.  We also know that as sultan Abdülhamid loved foreign detective novels so much that he charged an aide with reading their Ottoman translations aloud before bed.  To the titles of sultan, carpenter, and detective fiction lover, this document adds another: guinea pig owner. 

The above piece contains the rough translation into Ottoman of the below document from German.  In them, we learn of a certain Frau Marie Gericke, hailing from Leipzig, who seems to have had if not an audience then at least a rather involved postal relationship with the sultan in 1900.  On this occasion, Frau Gericke wished to present , according to the Ottoman text, “two small rats which we call guinea pigs (hint domuzu)”.  The text goes on to note that one of the guinea pigs is “black, white, and red like the German flag.  The other is completely white.”  

While the thought of finding a proper place in Yıldız Palace for these German nationalist creatures might be reason enough for looking at this document, it also resonates with broader shifts occuring in international relations of the day.  The British and French fought alongside the Ottomans against the Russian Empire during the 1850s in the Crimean War.  But by 1878, they were less interventionist, acquiescing, albeit under great public pressure catalyzed by press accounts of Ottoman actions in the Balkans, to Russian expansion of influence on the Ottoman borders.  Between these developments and continued tensions over Ottoman debts to European banking houses, the sultan found himself seeking a new ally in Europe.  And Emperor Wilhelm of Germany proved to be just this person.  In addition to sharing the “II” appelation with Abdülhamid, the German kaiser was also eager to cooperate on various  infrastructural projects, most notably the Istanbul to Baghdad railway.  The German head of state visited Abdülhamid twice in 1888 and 1898.  Of course, a critical outcome of this political alignment was Ottoman participation in World War I on the side of the Central Powers, which ultimately led to the empire’s territorial dismemberment. 

BOA Y-PRK-AZJ 41/25 (24 B 1318)

Hat tip to Bruce Burnside for help with the German

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