On Mediterranean Encounters

This is a fascinating work that examines the port city—now neighborhood of Istanbul—called Galata. Although Galata has a long history, it is perhaps best known for its position as a Genoese colony during the high and late Middle Ages, and I thought that this book would be a study of Genoese-Turkish relations. I was wrong, and Zarinebaf’s book is something even more interesting.

Instead, it is a study of the development of Galata, making it partially an urban history, as the result of Ottoman policies. Notably, Galata had to be virtually reconstructed from the ground up in the late-16th and early 17th centuries. It was regularly destroyed by fire, disease was common, as was crime, etc. However, there was much continuity with earlier periods, as the Ottomans took Galata largely through peaceful means. As Constantinople was being taken by Ottoman Turks, Mehmet II made a point of preventing looting, rape, and slavery wherever possible, and this allowed for a much favorable transition to Ottoman rule.

Once in Ottoman hands, the Sublime Porte fostered positive relationships with a variety of European peoples, especially the French, through the promulgation of ahdnames (capitulations) that eased contacts between the multitude of groups involved. For instance, the Ottoman Empire developed laissez-faire commercial policies towards Europeans accessing Galata through the Mediterranean, while it developed more restrictive tariffs towards those who came from the Black Sea. The reason for this is that the Ottoman Empire needed open trade with Mediterranean powers—Mediterranean countries had incredibly restrictive policies against merchants coming from the Ottoman Empire (and Muslim merchants in particular), and development of the same level of restriction towards Mediterranean countries would have meant no trade at all. In contrast, Ottoman merchants were welcomed on the Black Sea, meaning that they could have more flexibility in their own policies at home.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is Zarinebaf’s coverage of Franco-Ottoman relations. Although the French were granted the status of most favored nation, French merchants faced difficulties on the local level, largely stemming from competition from local merchants and restriction by bureaucratic officials. To resolve these challenges, the the French ambassador had to directly petition the Imperial Council or individual French merchants were forced to go through Galata’s Islamic courts. Yet, in spite of these restrictions, many French merchants and officials developed new identities as “Levantines” by the amount of time they spent in Ottoman ports (of which many spent decades); by marrying Ottoman subjects, whether they be Greeks, Armenians, or perhaps even Jews or Turks; or by wholly becoming Ottoman subjects themselves. The amount of mobility the French had in Galata, however, was limited out of local fears of sexual relations between different religious faiths (which, of course, did happen) and the possibility that Muslims or Jews would convert to Christianity. In the end, there were ethno-religious tensions that could, occasionally, devolve into open hostility.

France’s close relationship with the Ottoman Empire came to an end with the 1789 French Revolution and subsequent invasion of Egypt. After the emergence of the French Revolution, Galata’s French community became split on political lines—most traders were monarchists (largely due to the decline in trade experienced by revolutionary France rather than any ideological compulsion), but many other residents donned the cockade and planted “liberty trees.” Initially, Ottoman authorities were ambivalent on the French Revolution—it seemed distant and without relevance to Ottoman practices, although Habsburg and Russian officials attempted to pressure the Sublime Porte into banning revolutionary expression. When French revolutionary authorities imprisoned the Ottoman ambassador in Paris and invaded Egypt, Ottoman authorities reacted quickly; they imprisoned the French chargé d’affaires and put much greater restrictions on French people within the port. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire signed ahdnames with Britain and other European countries, opening up non-French markets and marginalizing them within the larger framework of Ottoman international relations.

Altogether, this book offers a new way of seeing Ottoman-European (esp. French) relations during the early modern period while giving the reader a microhistory of a trading community just outside of Istanbul. While the emphasis on Franco-Ottoman relations was welcome, I would have liked to see a bit more comparison with other Mediterranean peoples—perhaps a bit more information on post-1453 Venice and Genoa, a discussion of the Sublime Porte’s relationship with Spanish residents (if there were many at all), etc. Nevertheless, this is a must-read for further understanding the early modern Mediterranean.