Chris Gratien, Georgetown University
 |
| Apartments on the Tramway Street in Laleli, Ottoman Period |
One historian's trash can be another historian's dissertation. More often than not, it's precisely the other way around. But whatever the case, it is no secret that the historical value of a particular object or document can vary as widely as the price of a tulip bulb in the 1630s. Researchers are fond of spreading rumors about mountain peasants using centuries-old documents to light their wood-stoves, and we must then assume that peasants frequently joke in turn about the absurd cost and care expended on the preservation of the tiniest and most obscure scraps of official paper. Just the same, past historians have ignored mounds of rich documentation of issues that are considered very important today in favor of studying topics that have since fallen out of favor or relevance.
In the archive, looks can be deceiving. Take for example the picture above. It appears to be a nice little drawing of the Laleli Mosque area by the tramway (tramvay) in late nineteenth-century Istanbul. For me, that's what it was. But at the time that it was made, it was a small stock image added to the receipt involved with a fundraiser for fire victims in Istanbul for whom new apartments were to be built. The call for assistance indicates that over 20,000 homes had burned. If we are to believe the folder it was placed in within the files of the education ministry at the Ottoman archives, the document is from the 1890s. The earthquake and subsequent blazes in 1894 provide a likely date. This receipt came at the price of 1 Ottoman Lira and while I do not know how many were printed or sold, the serial number of this suggests that thousands were issued.
 |
| Fire Victim Resettlement Fundraising Receipt - BOA, MF-VRK 13/100 (1311) |
 |
| MF-VRK 13/100 (1311) |
Yet, before this sacred document was to arrive at its rightful home amid the files of the education ministry, it must have spent decades laying around the Topkapı Saray Museum offices, because on the reverse side, instead of finding more information about this fundraiser, we find that somebody has used the receipt for scrap-paper roughly half a century later. The note indicates that a member of the Topkapı Palace staff has taken 7 long planks of wood from the museum for use presumably in restoration of Sultan Mahmut's mausoleum, likely Mahmud II's 1840 mausoleum in Çemberlitaş also located on the tramway route.
Should this individual whose signature is exactly illegible enough for me to not read it be chastised decades after the fact for using this historical document to leave a note at the Topkapı Palace or be rewarded for an attempt at recycling in repurposing this useless receipt for a new function? Or is it me, the educated, able-bodied producer who should criticized for devoting almost an entire hour to presenting this document? I suppose the reader who has gotten this far down the page should share in the blame as well, but don't worry, your secret's safe with me, until our blog gets one of those intrusive social reading apps.
No comments:
Post a Comment