Full Albanian translation of the interview with Tahir Pasha’s biographer, Doğukan Oruç, with 27 chapters
In the photo: riflemen, mostly from the sultan’s own country (Yildiz Palace guards), archived in the Library of Congress
(This document contains the entire spoken dialogue in chronological order of the YouTube interview, not a summary. The translation was prepared from the Turkish automatic transcript stored with the video page. The boundaries of short fragments have been merged into readable paragraphs; only filler words, immediate repetitions, and obvious transcription breaks have been normalized. Names or wordings that the source does not clearly provide are not invented, but are marked as uncertain. Speaker labels are inferred from the flow of the conversation. Historical claims belong to the speakers and do not constitute independent verification)
Terminological note: tüfekçi is given as rifleman; “Tüfengiyân-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî” as His Majesty’s riflemen; ser-tüfengî-i şehriyârî as His Majesty’s chief rifleman; müşir as the highest Ottoman military rank, approximately marshal.
content
01 Introduction and introduction of the guest 0:05
02 Orientation towards history and interest in the Albanian space 3:18
03 Introduction to Albanian Riflemen: why is the topic important? 13:31
04 The Silahşors of Abdylaziz’s time and their background 19:31
05 Abdylhamit’s Riflemen: structure, differences and functioning 27:15
06 Why did the number increase? Abdylhamit’s policy of distrust 30:01
07 Modernization, autocracy and Palace security 33:55
08 How were riflemen selected? 37:46
09 The case of İslam Bey from Delvina and the riflemen network 41:52
10 The Rise of Tahir Pasha and His Influence on the Palace 45:10
11 Crime, disorder and impunity 54:12
12 Memories and the image of fear in Istanbul 1:00:03
13 Violence, abuse and the reporting system 1:10:17
14 Rifleman Bilal’s Letter: Capturing a Voice in the Archive 1:18:48
15 Gani Bey Toptani: prostitution, politics and murders 1:26:23
16 Halil Aga from Kolasin and Hamidian politics on the border 1:37:49
17 Internment, forced residence and networks from the province to the center 1:45:01
18 Locals, cafes and connections between fellow citizens 1:54:56
19 The Wealth, Inns and Daily Life of Tahir Pasha 2:00:01
20 Tahir Pasha’s habits and power in the Palace district 2:05:00
21 Investigations after March 31 and the ruins of Yıldız 2:10:02
22 The Internment in Mytilene and the Story of the Lost Sword 2:18:57
23 Viewers’ Questions 2:24:19
24 The double-headed eagle, intelligence and the image of the Albanian 2:25:22
25 Religion, Catholicism, Islamization and Regional Differences 2:35:00
26 Final questions, recommended resources and closure 2:39:43
27 Book presentation / trailer 2:44:56
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01 Introduction and introduction of the guest
0:05–0:43
Host: We are here with another recording of this series. As you know, in this series we invite guests who are specialists in their fields and talk to them about the work they do. Honestly, this has become a very useful series for me. I hope you enjoy it too. Our guest today is Doğukan Oruç. He is a very dear friend of mine—I can say that our friendship is approaching ten years—and at the same time a very valuable academic colleague. Welcome, brother.
Doğukan Oruç: Nice to meet you. Thank you very much for the invitation.
Presenter: Thank you. In such broadcasts, it is usually asked: “How are you?”, but we talked earlier about how we are; therefore the question seems a bit pretentious.
0:44–1:40
Presenter: With your permission, professor, I will start like this: I usually read the biography first. There are probably viewers who know you, but let’s introduce you for those who are not yet familiar with your work and, at the same time, show what you have done so far. Our esteemed guest, Doğukan Oruç, graduated from the Department of History of Istanbul University. In 2025, he completed his master’s studies at the Institute of Social Sciences of 29 Mayıs University, in the Department of History, with the thesis “Tüfengiyân-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî and the Albanian Rifleman Tahir Pasha”, prepared under the supervision of Professor Dr. Ali Akyıldız. He currently works as a research assistant at the Department of Modern History, Faculty of Sciences and Literature of Kırklareli University, where he is also pursuing his doctorate. He mainly deals with late Ottoman history, the history of the Balkans and, especially, the Albanian space. We will talk about this choice in a moment.
1:40–3:17
Presenter: His articles have attracted my attention and I have benefited from them. The first is “An Ottoman Bureaucrat from the Cham Dynasty: Abidin Pasha and the Question of Southern Albania”. In 2024, he published “Understanding and Interpreting Buddhism in the Late Ottoman World: Şemseddin Sami and Ahmet Mithat Efendi”; this is the one that attracted me the most. He does not follow a single thematic line; this is even more beautiful—according to his curiosity and passions. Also in 2024, he published “A Local Albanian Dynasty in the Era of Bureaucratic Reform: The History of Three Generations of the Asllan Pashals of Libohova” in the journal Istıranca Tarih Araştırmaları; while “The Film Society and Tobacco Smuggling in Shkodër”—especially interesting for smokers like us—was published in 2023 in the Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies. There is also “The Andalusian Pretender to the Albanian Throne, Don Aladro Kastrioti”, also in 2023; this, in my opinion, deserves a separate program. The article “Uğursuz Çölen: a common motif from Dede Korkut to Tolkien” was published in 2021 in the journal Kültür Araştırmaları. In addition to these, there are conference papers and book chapters. For example, with the study “From Ottoman Diplomacy to the Albanian Prime Ministership: Turhan Hüsnü Pasha” he participated in the Fourth International Congress of Balkan Studies in 2025. So, we are faced with a researcher with a very rich productivity.
02 Orientation towards history and interest in the Albanian space
3:18–3:50
Presenter: Let’s start with a question that I like to ask, because I believe it can inspire others. How did your interest in these topics begin? We can talk about both your general interest in history, and, in particular, about the Albanian space and these interesting and narrow topics—for example, how Buddhism was received in Ottoman writings. How did these interests arise?
3:51–5:11
Doğukan Oruç: So I’m starting a little earlier, with how my interest in history in general arose. When I look back at my childhood, I don’t have a story like the ones that singers tell: “I was singing since I was eight years old,” and so on. When I was little, I wanted to become something in the exact sciences. Then I got to know them, realized that they required certain skills, and discovered that I didn’t have those skills. I believe that my basic inclination—which would also influence my later path—was literature. Therefore, until I chose a university major in high school, my path ran either through literature or through history. I can’t really explain why, but history came to the fore, perhaps at the last moment, when I was filling out the list on that orange and yellow page of ÖSYM. However, the clash between the two continued.
5:12–6:20
Doğukan Oruç: Later I began to understand a little bit about the reason; I also mentioned it in the introduction to the thesis. My maternal family is a family of immigrants. When I look back, I see that listening to their stories had begun to create in me a desire for history. You were born in the 1990s, and in front of you are people who show you the world of the 1940s and 1950s—a completely different world, a place, and a life that you are not at all familiar with—and you enjoy listening to them a lot. Then you feel early on that classic principle of the historian: not to judge the past by today’s values. You feel that, somewhere, another world existed, a way of life that you have not experienced. That is why I dedicated this text to my maternal grandmother; that woman’s stories formed in my mind the feeling of the past. And, by the way, I feel sorry for today’s children who grow up without grandparents: grandparents can add such things to a person.
6:21–7:46
Doğukan Oruç: After I entered the Department of History, my interests changed a lot during the process. I remember that for a while I wanted to become a Byzantinologist; for this reason I have a library without much thematic unity, with books purchased from different periods. Then I thought about dealing with the history of Sufism and other topics. In the middle of my bachelor’s studies I came to the conclusion that I wanted to study the late period. There is a sting among historians: “After 1789 it is history, before it is legend.” Within this tendency I returned from the Albanian space. Let’s be honest: first of all, there is an emotional motivation here. At the Institute of Balkan Studies in Tekirdağ there is a professor Behçet Loklar, who from time to time complains that “you don’t enter this job with emotional motivation”. I agree with him in this sense: you cannot deal with a field just for that reason and call your background a sufficient qualification. For example, your family may have come from Bosnia and you study Bosnian history, but you can’t help but take the trouble to learn Bosnian, another Slavic language, or the literature of the region, simply saying, “I’m from there.” That’s problematic. On the other hand, for myself, I value the emotional connection to the subject.
7:47–8:42
Doğukan Oruç: Secondly, if you look at it only from an academic perspective, this is actually a topic that does not enjoy much interest. The history of the Balkans, perhaps, attracts some attention; but, if you notice, the studies focus mainly on the migrations of the Turks, the losses and suffering that followed, or the birth of nationalisms. Literature seems to be concentrated in these directions. Albania remains somewhat aside. Albanian became a written language very late; therefore, people do not find it very useful to learn it. Debates about the alphabet are a separate story. When writing starts so late, the historian asks: “What am I going to read?”
8:43–9:14
Presenter: I’m interjecting here. I was talking to an Albanian friend from Kosovo and I said to him: “Your language is really difficult. When I listen to it, all I can hear are sounds like…”—it sounded like a continuous murmur. “How many letters are there in the alphabet?” I asked. “Forty,” he said; I may be remembering wrong. It sounded like a lot of “oh, my, my.” Of course it’s not like that, but I said: “You can’t learn this language; it’s like they just made it so Albanians can speak among themselves.” It’s really a difficult language.
9:15–10:06
Doğukan Oruç: Yes, it is a difficult language. You can sort out the pronunciation, one way or another; the endings are a bit similar to Arabic, but the grammar is quite complicated. As I said, if you learn Bosnian, at least you have the opportunity to write on your CV that you know a Slavic language: you write that you know Bosnian, you can also write that you know Montenegrin. Whereas learning Albanian, in a practical sense, does not take you to many places. Resources are limited. If you do not want to become an Albanologist—and why would someone in Turkey have such a desire?—these jobs are mostly done abroad. That is why it seems to me that the field has been left in the corner. I, as much as I could, used this skill; I do not have many other things that I can use, except for chatting.
10:07–11:15
Doğukan Oruç: So the work was directed from that direction. The basis is emotional motivation and the fact that the field attracts me. One does not always understand why one feels more interested in certain things. This space attracted me and I wanted to use what I had at hand. From the family, apparently, I had a base of Albanian—something that was heard and known at home—and it was useful to use it. In our country, there is not much multilingual research or research that goes beyond the borders of Turkey. We are very closed in this regard: when we investigate something, we tend to read Albania only from the Ottoman Archives here. This had also caught my attention when I was talking to Mehmet Berk Yaltık. The figures we are talking about still live in the folklore there: Toptanas, Skanderbeg and others. It is very useful to go there and see how they are told and how they are received; but for this, first of all, you need the language.
11:16–12:22
Presenter: In fact, only through Albanian folklore can you understand something of the difficulties of the Tanzimat under Sultan Mahmud and the reason why these people rebelled. When you look at it from the center, you can’t go much beyond the idea that “some troublemakers came out and didn’t want the reform,” because that is the point of view of the state and, of course, that is how they will read the issue. But from folklore you can learn why the resident of the area didn’t want to register as a soldier, what difficulties he had and what the problems of the land system were. That is why I also think that these studies are important. In time, they will spread. In Turkey, institutionalization is also lacking: everything is developed through academic jobs. If you are going to join a university as a historian, you have to have an education in a recognized branch of history. Regional studies institutes—Balkan studies or whatever; tomorrow it could be biography or Byzantium—have not progressed much, because such problems arise there too.
12:23–13:30
Doğukan Oruç: I believe that this will change. I think that the younger generations are becoming more prepared every day. Contrary to popular belief, the quality of historians in Turkey is constantly increasing. The young people we have invited here are also very excellent: they have started to research and ask about things that were not even thought of before. I think this is very beautiful. The same applies to the Balkans. Until now, this space was simply passed by with the classic formula “evlad-ı fatihan”, the descendants of the conquerors; now it is important to gradually have a look from within, to see what is happening there. We do not know our surroundings well. This is a significant problem—I do not know if it is an imperial remnant complex or something else. Even in recent events, compatriots in Azerbaijan or South Azerbaijan know us better than we know them; we talk about them a lot on the air. Therefore, it is extremely important to know this geography and your neighbors; history plays a big role here. In this sense, these studies are important.
03 Introduction to Albanian Riflemen: why is the topic important?
13:31–14:08
Presenter: Then let’s gradually get to the topic: especially the riflemen of the Court, the Albanian riflemen. When you read the thesis, you see that these men are really very fascinating figures; they did very strange things, which we will talk about now without spoiling the surprise for the viewers. Why did you put them at the center of the thesis? Who were they? How did they differ from the silahşors of the period of Sultan Abdylaziz? Were they an elite unit? And why are they particularly useful for understanding the period of Abdylhamit?
14:09–15:10
Doğukan Oruç: I’m trying to start from the beginning. Last week you talked about weapons, missiles and countries; the week before that about the Silk Road. When the title becomes “Tüfengiyân-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî and the Albanian rifleman Tahir Pasha”, people can rightly ask: “What is this?” But those who have read memoirs from the time of Abdylhamit have occasionally come across the motif of his Albanian riflemen—Albanian riflemen also appear in the verses of Mehmet Akif. He is a figure that is found in sources, but very little has been written about him and the information is mixed. For this reason, I wanted to deal with the topic. I was also attracted to him because these are very simple people; they are not statesmen with high education and careers. We will talk about their profile in a moment.
15:11–16:09
Doğukan Oruç: The so-called Albanian riflemen—not all of them were Albanian, but the vast majority were—can be defined, in the most general sense, as the guards that Abdülhamit kept in the Yıldız Palace. This definition remains very incomplete and we will expand it during the conversation. It can create the impression that they were people who understood a lot about weapons, skilled soldiers, guards or bodyguards with extraordinary skills to protect the sultan’s life. We are not talking about something like that exactly; but they were not like the old zülüflü baltacı either. We should not start from clichés. They were not elite units in the military sense, however, their main responsibility was related to the defense services.
16:10–17:22
Doğukan Oruç: The importance of the topic—and my main thesis—is this. Abdülhamid is undoubtedly a very important sultan, especially for the late Ottoman period, because he had dramatic impacts and transformed some institutions in a profound way. But almost all the known institutions or titles of his period were inherited. For example, there is a special type of Abdülhamid grand vizier, distinguished especially by his limited powers—or, more precisely, the lack of powers. He differs from the grand vizier before and after him; but the position of grand vizier existed before Abdülhamid and continued after him. The same can be said for Mabayn: under Abdülhamid it went through another phase, but it existed before and after. Abdülhamid created institutions like the Imperial School of Tribes, but he created it at a certain point in his reign; there was a period when he was sultan without that school existing.
17:23–18:16
Doğukan Oruç: With the riflemen, the situation is different. There are people who were registered as riflemen on the very day that Sultan Abdülhamid ascended the throne. The day he was overthrown, they were finished. So, we are talking about a group that existed in exactly the same time frame as Abdülhamid’s rule. Before that, there was no corps known as “Tüfengiyân-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî”. The word tüfekçi had long been used in various meanings—from a master who produced rifles to an honorary title in military units—but, in the specific sense we are dealing with, the rifleman appears when Abdülhamid ascended the throne and disappears when he is overthrown. If we use “Abdülhamidian” as an adjective, this corps is perhaps the most Abdülhamidian institution of all.
18:17–19:30
Presenter: Mention Akif’s poem about the riflemen; let’s not skip it. When he describes the Friday greeting, he begins roughly: “The situation is so bad, the affairs are so complicated; unless that owl in Yıldız dies…” Then he continues: “Hamit was hiding behind the cage like the ladies; His mighty Majesty, in truth, would not have expected this. Perhaps Yıldız was surrounded by forty or fifty thousand soldiers; those gunmen, those men without religion were countless. Look at how much one prayer of this man costs: at least sixty thousand people were left without prayer.” With this he describes the appearance of Abdülhamit; the gunmen complete the scene.
Doğukan Oruç: Exactly. Abdylhamit is usually an invisible man. The occasion when he appears most prominently is the Friday prayer. Akif tries to describe that scene, and the Albanian riflemen, with their lively appearance, stand out very much. They are very visible men—the ones our viewers are now seeing in the background. But this story has a precursor. Sultan Abdylaziz, Abdylhamit’s uncle, was known for his great interest in the military.
04 The Silahşors of Abdylaziz’s time and their background
19:31–20:44
Doğukan Oruç: Abdylaziz decided to create a body of elite soldiers who would protect the ruler with their lives—in the sense that we give to a court guard and as we see it in Western palaces. The unit was called the Silahşorân-ı Hassa Bölüğü. The plan was this: we have a huge empire, made up of different peoples and spread over a very wide geography. The members would be chosen from the sons of the nobility, ayans and prominent families in different regions. “Prominent” does not mean only the rich, but families that society knew, respected and saw as leaders in a paternalistic order. The boys had to know how to use weapons well, be young and volunteer. They would be gathered, brought to Istanbul, appointed with the title of silahşor, and their basic duty would be to protect the nafs-i hümayun, that is, the sultan’s own person.
20:45–21:40
Doğukan Oruç: This created great enthusiasm throughout the Ottoman geography. Cevdet Pasha was in Bosnia for an inspection just when the silahşors were being secured and he tells how much the Bosniaks rejoiced: “The great father in Istanbul, the sultan, has trusted us; he will take our sons to the Palace and they will protect him there.” This was seen as a great honor and even caused rivalry between families. Unlike the European aristocracy, the titles of our nobility were not guaranteed. The acceptance of the son by the sultan was also a kind of seal: “These are truly the leaders of this province.”
21:41–22:54
Presenter: If we were to go back to the early modern period, all regional leaders would try to avoid this. We are talking about Albanians: Skanderbeg grew up with Mehmet II in the Palace of Edirne, because his father was a vassal of Sultan Murad and he was taken, essentially, as a hostage. He was a hostage of a deal, like Vlad Țepeș, the Ottoman princes left in Byzantium or Xem Sultan held somewhere else. In the past, you didn’t want a member of your family to be in the hands of your master or the enemy, because he could be used as a tool against you.
Doğukan Oruç: But times had changed. Now the question was the future of these sons. It was clear that if they remained in the province as landowners, they would not have the same prospects. For the family to maintain influence, the sons had to be in Istanbul, near the sultan, enter the administration or the army and receive titles. It was an era when regional power required constant approval from Istanbul and the connection with the center had to be tightened.
22:55–24:31
Doğukan Oruç: The Silahşors were divided into nine teams, each with a regional name. I have noted: Urba—the interior of Arabia—Tripoli in Libya, Kurdistan, Anatolia, Circassia, Gegheria, that is, Northern Albania, Shkodra and some places that today remain in Montenegro; then Toskeria, Southern Albania up to near Ioannina; Bosnia and Syria. Each team had about ten or eleven people, a total of about ninety to a hundred.
Presenter: It caught my attention that Albania was divided into two: Gheg and Tosk.
Doğukan Oruç: This is also a very interesting topic: Albania in the mind of the Ottoman center. It never emerged as a political entity and this would become a fundamental concern of Albanian nationalists: “Don’t call us Shkodra and Janina; create a vilayet called Albania, autonomous or at least not necessarily autonomous.” The Ottoman mind constantly maintained the Gheg–Tosk division, attributed different characteristics to both sides and, I believe, this came partly from the period when in the north were the Bushatlins of Shkodra, while in the south were the pashaliks of Janina; for a time they went in very different directions politically. Even today this lives on in popular culture. In Bayrampaşa you can hear: “Are you Gheg or Tosk? These are tall, those are shorter.” Even within Albania it is said that southerners see northerners as rude, while northerners see southerners as slightly effeminate. So, the distinction was also accepted in the Ottoman world and continues in today’s narratives.
24:32–25:41
Doğukan Oruç: However, people from many different regions were brought along a line from Arabia to Bosnia. The entire imperial geography was included and it is clear that this was a policy towards the nobility. How would the center relate to the periphery and to the groups under rule? Taking their sons was an honor and reward: “I will assign you to the Sultan’s Palace with a sacred duty.” On the other hand, the center brought these families closer to itself. After the Tanzimat, the position of the ayans and the Ottoman nobility and their relationship with the center also changed; all of these had an impact. A Tanzimatist mindset is seen in this initiative.
25:42–27:14
Doğukan Oruç: The project envisaged that these boys would behave, serve three to five years as gunners and then become civil servants; if the army recalled them, they would enter the Military School exams and continue their careers there. They would not remain gunners forever. You cannot keep a man who is important in his province as a court guard until the end. Where would his career go? From a guard, he could become, at most, a policeman. That is why the transition to civil administration was foreseen. This is an important part of the project and we will no longer encounter the people we call Abdylhamit’s gunners. Through this distinction we also see how Abdylhamit’s mind functioned for the protection of the Palace. Abdylaziz’s gunners were disbanded after about four or five years; the project and the institution disappeared, but the name remained and continued to be used for gunners as well.
05 Abdylhamit’s Riflemen: structure, differences and functioning
27:15–28:16
Doğukan Oruç: Abdülhamit’s riflemen were also selected for a similar service: protecting the Palace, guarding certain points, and other security duties. But fundamental differences emerged. First, none of them were required to be noble, the son of a well-known family, or the son of an important figure. On the contrary, with the exception of one or two figures like Gani Toptani, whom we will talk about, they were almost all peasants, workers, and migrants from the middle and lower classes. They were not expected to be distinguished by their skill with weapons, nor to have a certain appearance or physique. They were not expected to be given training. There was no project of “we will take them, educate them, and make them civil servants.” They would remain there until death.
28:17–29:15
Doğukan Oruç: Silahşorân-ı Hassa Bölüğü, as the name suggests, was a military company, part of the Ottoman army. However, there is no clear explanation of what kind of institution the Tüfengiyân-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî, the riflemen of the Yıldız Palace during the time of Abdülhamit, was. They were in no way dependent on the army or the Ministry of War. Today, if you hear the word “riflemen” and see the weapons in the photograph, you might think that it is a military institution; but it is not. From time to time some of them received military ranks or other types of ranks, but again they did not enter military subordination.
29:16–30:00
Doğukan Oruç: The administrative hierarchy was also strange: a peasant or worker entered the Palace as a rifleman; his superior was the chief rifleman, while the chief rifleman’s superior was directly the sultan. A vali, for example, would have to go through many more hoops to address the sultan with an official letter.
Presenter: Would it be an exaggeration to call it a somewhat paramilitary structure? Armed men, mostly from Albania, mobile guys who were directly dependent on the sultan.
Doğukan Oruç: No, definitely not. Fierce boys—really fierce. At the beginning of the reign, or rather in the first years, there were approximately thirty people.
06 Why did the number increase? Abdylhamit’s policy of distrust
30:01–31:06
Doğukan Oruç: After 1878–1879, their number began to increase dramatically. From about thirty-five people, they reached 324 within twenty years—an increase of about eight hundred percent. There were several underlying reasons for this. Let’s not forget that Abdülhamit was very insecure when he ascended the throne. He came after a coup and was accepted on the condition that he open the parliament. If you think about the psychology of a sultan, the very idea of a conditional throne could weigh heavily on him: he saw the rule as a blood right and could not be sure whether he would be crowned if he opposed it or sought other ways. These circumstances aroused anxiety in him.
31:07–32:05
Presenter: The story is well-known that Mithat Pasha carried a document with the constitutional conditions and that Sultan Hamit tried for a long time to get his hands on it, even after sending Mithat into exile in Taif—the story of “Mithat Pasha’s suitcase.” He wanted to take it and disappear from that envelope. Even after years, it remained in his mind: “My Sultanate is based on a condition.” Moreover, he did not fulfill the condition and did not fully implement the Kanun-i Esas. He felt under an ontological threat—as they like to say today.
Doğukan Oruç: Yes. Then this ontological threat turned into concrete dangers. The Ali Suavi affair happened. The very existence of Murad V was a threat, because a former sultan was still alive.
32:06–33:17
Doğukan Oruç: Then came Ali Suavi’s attempt to restore Murad V to the throne; during this process, Abdülhamid was moved to Yıldız. Murad V, it must be said, had recovered. The man who had been deposed by fatwa as “permanently insane”, five months later was quite well in Çırağan, engaged in music and no longer had the condition that had been used as a reason for his dethronement. If the fatwa were rewritten, it would have to be annulled. Therefore, we must understand why Abdülhamid felt so insecure and why he was increasingly pushed towards a security policy; he was naturally inclined to do so. After these events, the number of riflemen began to increase steadily. He also worked in other areas of domestic politics to strengthen his authority. From the 1890s, it can be said that what we call Abdülhamid’s regime was fully established: the Sublime Porte was almost excluded from decision-making; the sultan had his own alternative bureaucracy and his own alternative security. He didn’t trust himself even with the army, at least not with the innermost defense circle.
33:18–33:54
Doğukan Oruç: Abdylhamit also had a Dagestan cavalry company, led by the Dagestan Mehmet Fazıl Pasha. But he disbanded that too, because he thought that the members would stage a coup and overthrow him. Another security vacuum was created in the Palace, and he filled it with riflemen. So the riflemen remind me of a broader contradiction of his rule.
07 Modernization, autocracy and Palace security
33:55–35:21
Doğukan Oruç: Niyazi Berkes said that Abdülhamit was a Tanzimat sultan, but sometimes he turned into a caricature of the Tanzimat. He increased the number of schools and hospitals, and during his reign, very important developments took place; however, he did not like the ideas that could come with these institutions. He loved the school, but not the ideas that could arise within it. There was tension between him and the ideas of the Tanzimat. If you do not want to hear about the republic, liberté, égalité and so on, you can say: “It is better not to send people to France; let’s close ourselves off a bit.” The classic reaction of an autocratic regime would be to close ourselves off from the outside world, because it fears the influence and ideas that it brings. But for Abdülhamit, this imbalance continued throughout his life. The poet Eşref presented the complete opposite: “O sultan of the world, are you an enemy of intelligence? Every time you see a capable person, you attack him. Thanks to you, the nation was left without teachers and without books; I fear that soon you will also remove the Quran.” But the reality was not quite like that: Abdülhamit opened many schools and sent people for education.
35:22–36:31
Doğukan Oruç: Despite this modernizing effort, the Palace administration turned into something reminiscent of the kapı halkı, the old house of a dignitary. Why weren’t the musketeers noble? Precisely so that they had no other place to go, no other source or authority to rely on. Their only benefactor had to be “Our Caliph, His Majesty.” Without the post at Yıldız, these people would have stayed in the countryside or worked as laborers, without any bright future. Everything they knew and every fortune they acquired they owed to the sultan’s gifts. This created a very strong bond. If you educated them, they could leave that circle; therefore, they didn’t have to be educated, so that they would always remain there. All of this created a structure like the old gate family.
36:32–37:45
Doğukan Oruç: There was another difference from the Silahşors: the number of peoples represented was reduced. There were mainly Albanians, then Bosniaks and some from Anatolia, so also Turks. But the vast majority were Albanians and, therefore, everyone was known by that name.
Presenter: I wanted to ask why there was such a large Albanian majority.
Doğukan Oruç: It also has to do with visibility. Albanians were more numerous and more visible; the commander was Albanian and most of the well-known figures were Albanian. No one developed sensitivity: “There are also Bosnian riflemen, let’s keep the nuance and not call them all Albanians.” The name “Albanian riflemen” remained. In fact, it was a structure with a majority of Albanians, but there were Bosnians and Turks. The Arabs and Circassians that we mentioned in the silahşors were no longer there; nor were there people from Tripoli. The change was entirely related to Abdylhamit’s personal need for security and the way he administered the Palace. Naturally, the question arises: where did these people come from?
08 How were riflemen selected?
37:46–38:48
Doğukan Oruç: At first there was a small group, which over time grew from thirty-five to 324 men. Who joined them? There were several ways. There was a regiment called Fesli ve Sarıklı Zuhaf—Zouaves with a fez and a turban—which in textbooks on the subject is often confused with the riflemen. The Zouaves with a fez were made up entirely of Albanians and wore fez. The model of the unit had passed from the French army to the Ottoman army. But they were soldiers within the hierarchy of the Ministry of War, regular officers and soldiers, not Palace guards. Many people passed from them to the riflemen; there were also transitions from other military units.
38:49–39:48
Doğukan Oruç: When a rifleman died, his son was called from his hometown: “Come, take your father’s place.” A brother could be called or a relative who was in Istanbul could be brought. So, family inheritance of the place was practiced. The Sultan could also give the position as a reward. A man in Istanbul pulled a child out of front of a tram and saved him from being crushed. The event attracted a lot of attention and was talked about in the city; the news reached the Palace and they said: “Okay, let’s make this rifleman too.” The man, probably happy to find a salary, entered the service. A soldier named Kazım Bey, in Serez, fought with thieves and was wounded; while he was being treated in the hospital in Istanbul, the public showed sympathy for him and the Palace did not leave this sympathy unanswered: Kazım also became a rifleman.
39:49–41:08
Doğukan Oruç: Ayşe Sultana tells that her father, Abdylhamit, saw two children working in the summer heat. I don’t know where he saw them and how far he had gone—perhaps during a walk or when he was going swimming in the Beykoz area. He asked them their names. The eldest said: “My name is Mecit”; the younger: “My name is Hamit too.” One bore the name of the sultan’s father, the other his own. He liked this and registered them both as riflemen. So, there were also riflemen’s children. There were even riflemen from the dynasty. Abdylhamit made Abdylaziz’s nephew, Prince Cemaleddin Efendi, a rifleman when he was six years old: he ordered a small rifle to be found for him and a palaska, a belt of cartridges, prepared for him, according to his height, so that he could enter the imperial army. Thus the position began to turn into a kind of honorary title granted by the imperial treasury.
41:09–41:51
Presenter: It works a bit like the story of the adjutants: you give them to people you love or to those who become well-known in Istanbul. If you made Abdylaziz’s nephew a rifleman, who else could it be?
Doğukan Oruç: Even the servants and gardeners of the Palace became riflemen. A man had worked as a gardener for a long time and, to make himself a little more comfortable, they appointed him a rifleman. It was like the Ottoman Order of Compassion that was given to almost every elderly woman who appeared before Abdülhamit. The order, the title of adjutant and the position of rifleman were inflated. We know that the position was in high demand from the case of İslam Bey from Delvina, which I followed with pleasure.
09 The case of İslam Bey from Delvina and the riflemen network
41:52–42:39
Doğukan Oruç: Delvina is a small town in Albania, which is still called Delvinë today. İslam Bey was among the somewhat wealthy people of the country. We know all the details because the case was made into a detective story—it’s good that sometimes things take that form and leave us information. For some reason he met a certain Ali Bey. Ali told him: “I have many connections and acquaintances in Istanbul. Give me money and I will make you a consul somewhere—in Poti or some other suitable place.” İslam, apparently, dreamed of a state position and gave him some money.
42:40–43:17
Doğukan Oruç: The event took place in Ioannina. İslam Bey started telling everyone: “I will soon become consul. I gave money to Ali Bey; he went to secure the post for me.” He spoke in cafes and boasted to his acquaintances. He spread it so much that finally the governor expelled him from Ioannina and sent him back to Delvina: “Go back where you came from,” because he was spreading empty words and presenting the state as frivolous. He returned, but did not hear from Ali Bey again.
43:18–44:20
Doğukan Oruç: İslami was furious. He said: “I will go to Istanbul myself. At least I will not give money here to someone else to arrange my work there; I will solve the matter myself.” His desire itself is strange: no one had pushed him to become a consul. He could have pursued, for example, the post of mytesarif in his own province, but he liked the idea of a consul. He came to Istanbul and saw that you did not become a consul simply by talking to someone. Then he started to connect with the riflemen. He probably had provincial acquaintances and that solidarity between fellow countrymen worked: everyone had come from abroad to Istanbul and was making progress by talking to the people of his own country.
44:21–45:09
Doğukan Oruç: This time İslami was more careful, because he had been burned once. He talked to a rifleman named İbrahim Aga and they drew up two receipts. The first one stated that İbrahim Aga would employ İslam Bey from Delvina in the service of the Palace riflemen, in exchange for 300 mejidi. The second one—apparently, the memory of Ali Bey still hurt him—stated that if he failed to name him, İbrahimi would return the 300 mejidi. He did not leave the job without a guarantee. Then they started trying to make him a rifleman.
10 The rise of Tahir Pasha and his influence on the Palace
45:10–46:30
Doğukan Oruç: During the attempt, the agreement came to light. The chief gunner Tahir Pasha understood and the Palace began to suspect: “Why is this man willing to pay for a position that brings him closer to the sultan? Is he planning an assassination? Why is he trying to get close to him?” This is precisely why we know the story. İslam Bey was brought in and questioned; so was İbrahim Aga: “Why are you doing this and why did you take money from him?” There was also a poor man, Salih Aga. In his testimony, he said: “They spoke something in Albanian; I didn’t understand anything. I just came with them.” Beyond the comical side, the case shows that the position was also sought with money, in complete contradiction to the purpose of the institution. If you can enter a body created by security anxiety with bribes and gifts, then you can also organize an assassination. If he had not been discovered, İslam Bey could really have been included. However, he did not seem to have had any bad intentions. Under interrogation, he explained: “When the governor expelled me, my honor was broken; Ali Bey also stole my money. I wanted to go to Istanbul, take up a civil service position, and serve my sultan.” Apparently, there was no other choice.
46:31–47:53
Doğukan Oruç: As you can see, you could get in in different ways. Sometimes teams were sent to the provinces and asked: “Is there anyone who wants to be a rifleman?” They would gather candidates, a bit like when in a strategy game you click on a province to bring out soldiers. When they gathered people in Peja, Kosovo, they mentioned three conditions: to know the religion and the state, to serve the sultan well, and to have good morals. “Good morals” meant, essentially, not to have any obvious vices; it was not required to be a perfect dervish. Not to be openly given to drinking, gambling, and debauchery. They were very standard conditions: loyalty to the religion, the state, and the sultan, and good behavior. There were no high demands or criteria for an elite military unit. And, since there was no career advancement, if you lived to be seventy, you remained a rifleman. In the lists of 1908 you see people sixty-five years old: unschooled, still in the Palace, still in Istanbul, and still protecting the Sultan.
47:54–49:04
Presenter: It’s clear that the sultan trusted them. At one point he said: “These people do this work.” Previously, it was mostly the Circassians who were also connected through the imperial family; suddenly this group came to the fore. I think the Yıldız trials, their blind courage and what was called the “Rumelia torture” also had an impact. Can you elaborate on that a little? It seems that they were extremely zealous in protecting the sultan.
Doğukan Oruç: Yes, they were very diligent, precisely because of the situation I described. They had little choice. They were indebted to the sultan for their livelihood, their income, and everything. What we might call the lack of system—the hierarchical chaos—was deliberately built in. When steps were taken to fix it, they were deliberately obstructed. This allowed Abdülhamit to use the musketeers when he needed them for specific issues.
49:05–50:27
Doğukan Oruç: İsmail Müştak Mayakon, who had worked in the Yıldız Palace and left fond memories, often talks about them. Although he served for years in Mabeyn, he says that it was not clear whether the riflemen had a separate task or were supporting an already existing service. They could be sent for any job: from extinguishing fires to raiding houses, from guarding to the sultan’s secret affairs. It was precisely the unclear system that brought them to the forefront so much.
Mention Rumelia. Fahri Bey, a former employee of Abdylaziz’s Mabeyn, has a memoir, İbretnüma. Believing that Abdylaziz had been murdered, Sultan Abdylhamid, during the Yıldız trials, Mithat Pasha’s arrest, and the Taif exiles, began to punish—by legal or other means—anyone he thought had a hand in it. Fahri Bey was also suspected. His memoirs seem credible, because the names he gives from the Palace, their duties, and their birthplaces match the sources, even though he himself was not part of Abdylhamid’s court.
50:28–51:39
Doğukan Oruç: When the trial began, a rifleman secretly took Fahri Bey from his house and took him to the Yıldız Palace. There they told him: “You know that Abdylaziz was killed; you helped in the murder. Admit it.” He tried to deny it: “No, I am not guilty.” Then the sultan himself came and said: “I know you did it.” Fahri again said he was innocent. The language of his memoirs is very sweet: because it is about the sultan, he constantly uses imperial expressions, almost as if he were saying: “He hit me with his blessed hands.” Abdylhamit hit him several times with a stick; then the riflemen beat him.
51:40–52:52
Doğukan Oruç: Fahriu says: “I was exhausted, I had no strength left.” Then they came out. Two riflemen put him in a very small hut, so that he could not sleep, lie down or sit, but had to stand upright. When he regained his senses a little, he wanted to talk to them; but they did not understand his language. There were many among the riflemen who did not know Turkish, even after having lived in Istanbul for a long time, because they were in the Yıldız ghetto and spoke among themselves.
Presenter: So they did the “coffin” torture.
Doğukan Oruç: Yes. In another interrogation, there was a rifleman from Konica, Seyfullah. He said: “They would boil eggs and, as soon as they took them out of the water, they would put hot irons under their armpits. This was called the Rumelian torture.” So, torture with boiled eggs under their armpits was known as the Rumelian method. These men, truly people from Rumel, were also used in such work.
52:53–54:11
Presenter: The Sultan’s trust and their use in, let’s say, illegal or “deep” work, apparently began to spoil them. The process would reach the resignation of a German pasha who had been brought in to reform the army. Let’s move on from there. Yes, they solved all the Sultan’s affairs, but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Although they were taken to the Palace on the condition of “good morals”, a lot of behavior began to be seen that did not match it.
Doğukan Oruç: Yes, it was seen enough. But I’m starting with a small historiographical remark. The state does not produce a document where it writes: “Our rifleman Mustafa Efendi did not fight with anyone today and behaved excellently.” When he fights, a document is produced. That is why violent practices are recorded a lot, because it is precisely those that the state records.
11 Crime, disorder and impunity
54:12–55:36
Presenter: This is very important and we are often asked. In reading history, rare things are usually recorded. When we say “cases X in the Ottoman Empire”, this does not necessarily mean that they happened often; they may have been recorded precisely because they were rare. When we present a selection, we may not give the full picture.
Doğukan Oruç: Exactly. Having studied these people, I don’t want to lose my sense of justice. Documents and memoirs constantly present them as thugs who commit crimes, but there were definitely people among them who were not; good behavior simply wasn’t recorded. No one writes that a person “did not get involved in crime.” That’s one side. But we shouldn’t be too defensive either. When the same picture appears even in memoirs, there is a real problem: as a result of privileges, a group did get involved in debauchery, money dealings and corruption, violence and the underworld.
55:37–56:57
Doğukan Oruç: Colmar von der Goltz Pasha came to Istanbul in 1882, initially as an advisor to a German delegation, then entered the Ottoman service. He had an office in the Yıldız Palace, where several people went regularly; the sultan asked their opinions when he needed them and they drafted reports. Goltz was mainly asked for opinions on military matters. His misfortune was that nothing he proposed was implemented. They asked for reports, probably so that he would not be without work; he gave opinions and they were never implemented. Therefore, almost every five years he tried to resign, but in the end he did not leave. He retired around 1908 or 1909, after twenty-seven years of active service.
He also dealt with the riflemen, because he lived in Yıldız, and thought: “This work cannot continue like this.” He said that the guards should be regulated, everyone should receive ranks, be integrated into the Ministry of War and do training, at least shooting. In case of danger, it was not even known how well a person knew how to use the rifle he was given; trying to load it, he could shoot himself. He also proposed that the elderly should retire after a certain age with a certain salary.
56:58–58:18
Doğukan Oruç: They were the most normal and humane proposals: retirement, training, even literacy lessons. It was widely said that about ninety percent of the riflemen were illiterate, starting with their commander Tahir Pasha. Goltz Pasha presented the most elementary things, but they were not paid attention to, because their implementation contradicted the reason why the corps was created in this way. The palace wanted them exactly in that state; Goltz offered something that was not required—a modern standard guard unit. This had the opposite reaction. Neither the riflemen nor Tahir Pasha wanted the reform. When we talk about Tahir as a leader, we will see that he was probably the most comfortable superior in the world. The proposals were rejected and Goltz Pasha tried to resign for this too. They reassured him: “Don’t go, thank you, we will take care of the work.” Only the guard took a little discipline.
58:19–59:19
Doğukan Oruç: Three or four years after Goltz’s report, a small fire broke out in the Palace and was not noticed quickly because the rifle guards were distracted or were moving elsewhere. If there had been a man on guard, the fire would have been noticed immediately. As a punitive measure and to establish some discipline, the guard changing system was adjusted and third persons were added to check whether the task had been handed in. They tried to somehow collect it from this side.
The people of Istanbul during the time of Abdülhamit often compared the riflemen to the Janissary corps; consciously or instinctively they used expressions related to the Janissaries for them. One reason was their origin from Rumelia, which was reminiscent of the devshirma. They were the sultan’s special men and “captives” and were involved in various jobs. Thus emerged the story of a corrupt Janissary corps—not of its glory days, but of its decaying phase.
59:20–1:00:02
Presenter: So the similarity immediately comes to mind: people from Rumelia, connected to the sultan, who get into every job.
Doğukan Oruç: Yes. No one even points to an uncorrupted period of these riflemen; these friends seem to have been born into this state. I have brought some quotes.
