Ottoman History Podcast - Ottoman Passports

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

with İlkay Yılmaz hosted by Sam Dolbee | Passports are objects at once momentous and mundane. How did they come about in the late Ottoman Empire? In this episode, İlkay Yılmaz discusses the history of this technology, and how the state effort to manage information about identity and control people's movement emerged alongside international police efforts to control anarchist and revolutionary subjects between different empires in the late nineteenth century. With this new technology, the ability to control people's movement also became contingent on the photograph and connected to late Ottoman politics of migration and ethnicity. She also discusses how these state efforts to limit people's movement through the technology of the passport have echoes in the present, even in her own life.         « Click for More »

It's the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Sam Dolby. Today's guest, Ilkay Yilmaz. So yeah, in 2016, I and my colleagues, we signed a petition called We Will Not Be Part of This Crime. Back then, I was working at Istanbul University. And in my university, we were 72 scholars who signed the petition. We started to receive these phone calls from the Istanbul Police Department. The police informed us that a judicial investigation had been opened against us and we were invited to the Terror and Organized Crime section of the Chief Prosecutor's Office in Istanbul. And after the failed coup d'état, the state of emergency was declared.

And it's lasted for two years. And over this period, with the state of emergency decrease, a lot of colleagues, they lost their jobs, they lost their permit to work in higher education, and they also lost their passports. I got a scholarship from Germany, so I was lucky enough. So I resigned from my job and then I moved to Germany. But then, when I was in Germany, I mean, something happened and I had to go to the consulate. And then I learned that in my passport register, it was actually tagged as suspect in the Turkish

Post Digital Database. I was also invited to give a talk in the United States, so I had to travel. But I didn't know what happened. This was only in the internal database, or if they also put a mark in the international database. I didn't know. Anyways, I just went to the conference, and I was just thinking, it's so funny. Now I could also become a suspect or, I don't know, a victim of those technologies, while trying to travel for an academic talk about the Ottoman passports. Ilkay Yilmaz is a senior researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. In this episode, we discuss her book, Ottoman Passports, recently published with Syracuse University Press. The book explains how passports became instruments of structural violence in the late Ottoman Empire. But as Ilkay's story suggests, this history has implications for the present and the way people's movement continues to be controlled.

To start, I asked her what kinds of papers were required to move around in 1875 in the Ottoman Empire. In 1875, actually, we see the regulation of 1841. It was about the passport chamber office. So, you know, it was also a passport regulation, but a different one. So according to legal institutions, bureaucratic practices, the fundamental conditions of recognition of individuals by the state, of course, I mean, by the Ottoman state, they were local belonging to a religion or a neighborhood. And they were directly affected the post-pass passport regulations afterwards.

The Ottoman state was trying to use a population register, and it was composed of the information of the village or neighborhood registers that had included the millet affiliation, I mean the nation affiliation, and also a daily basis register that included births, deaths, and sometimes migration data. And of course, you know, after Tanzimat, we also see those regulations about neighborhood heads, meaning muhtars. And according to this new system, actually, these head of the villages or neighborhoods, or sometimes the religious leaders like imam or, you know, the priest and so on, of the villages or neighborhoods or sometimes the religious leaders like imam or the priest and so on of the neighborhood had to register the standardized identity information and send that

information to the local registration office. So without these registers actually from the point over of the Ottoman central states it was quite difficult to travel. But of course in practice it was totally different. And the most significant oral keeping practice was the Surreta system. So I mean the Ottoman Empire actually during this era, both mid 19th century, later, I mean the late 19th century, actually the state bureaucracy, they were trying to use both traditional mechanisms and new modern state mechanisms together. And yes, I mean the most significant practice was the Sureti system, which was based on

grantor ship. So this system was mainly aimed at controlling peasants' mobility. And in that sense, actually it was very similar to the Russian system of internal passports and mobility restrictions. And it was generally used alongside the, I mean, this kefalet system, surete system. It was mostly used with internal passports,

muri-teskeres, which can be actually tracked back to 16th century in the Ottoman Empire. But it was not regulated until 1840s. And if someone had to prove his or her identity or that she or he had to leave the residence for an acceptable reason, had to prove his or her identity or that he or she had left a residence for an acceptable reason and they should find

a person, they should provide a guarantor to witness their identity or to ensure that they would continue to fulfill public obligations like paying taxes and so on. And it's also another proof of their good behavior to find, quote unquote, a guarantor. And generally, it was implemented as a systematical chain. Like generally, it was for the men. And as men in a village would act as guarantors for one another, and the ketuda generally,

the chamberlain, would be the guarantor of them all. And as part of the millet system, the local religious leader, you know, imam, priest, rabbi, would serve as the guarantor of the chamberlain before the local judge. Generally, it was the qadr. If I, Samuel, I want to go from Harput to Istanbul to work as a Hamal in 1875, do I need a Murur Tezkerese and I need a guarantor either in Harput or Istanbul? Maybe it's a Muhtar, maybe it's a religious leader. Yeah, I mean, if you want to go to Istanbul from Harput as a Hamal, which means a seasonal worker, right?

Or a Bekkar in that sense. So first, you have to find a guarantor in your village that, you know, he would say that, OK, this person, quote unquote, is a good person, and he would continue to pay his taxes. And with this person you should go to the neighborhood head or your local church to the priests and then ask for a document to show that you are eligible to go to Istanbul. And most probably, in 1875, this person will issue or will write a letter, which would be later on, which would be called an Ilmuhaberj.

And with this letter, you have to go to your administrative center. Generally, it was the town or Nahie, but in some cases you have to go to the city center to have this internal passport and you also need those stamps both in your Ilm-i-Haber and also in your internal passport. But then you know at the same time you have to pay fees for those as well. So for the ordinary peasants actually it was a bit complicated. So you have to pay for your travel to the city center or to the town,

you have to find the means and then you know you have to pay for the legal documentation and when you have them then you have all your documents, right? But it's not enough, especially for the mirror test case, the internal passport. You have to show where will you go and if you have a guarantor in that destination. So you have to find another guarantor in Istanbul and you have to show that you will go there to work in this or that place, you will stay in this or that place and you also have a guarantee in this or that place. So generally they want a guarantee in the neighbourhood that you will reside.

If the authorities or the officer in that desk is convinced that it's okay. There is no danger, you can go. You are a honest person, you will pay your fees. You didn't have any prior criminal records and so on. So you can travel. You mentioned the internal passport. And I think as soon as we use the word passport, there's a way that people will imagine what we imagine as passports or what we know as passports today.

How is that document different in 1875 than the one we're familiar with today? Is there a photograph? Like what kinds of information is there in that internal passport and when is it used? I mean, in Ottoman Turkish, they are called mürür teskeresi. I mean, in Ottoman Turkish, they are called Mürür Tezkeresi. The correct translation can be like certificates for the right to passage, to pass. But I thought like it would be a bit complicated for the English readers. So I wanted to translate it as an internal passport. And in this document, you can find the information about the personal identity, the name,

the family information, like mother, father, or if you are married, then you can find this information about married single, and also the information about the know Marriott's single and also you know the information about the physical appearance. You know the color of the hair, what kind of hair do you have or you know do you have a mustache or not, shape of the eyes, if there is something very like like a wound, if there's something something very characteristic in your face or in your body, they're all noted down. So I mean, in 1870s, we don't see photographs

in the internal passports or mirror test cases. So these are the information. And of course, your religious background, of course, regarding to the Milets. So, you know, Armenian, Gregorian, I don't know, like Orthodox Greek, those kind of information also part of the, because I mean, it was based on this understanding

of administrating the nations or midlets in a way. So they were all very well connected to this midlet system and also, you know, this administration of internal passports. And people are using these papers anytime they interact with the authorities. I mean, they're not they're not necessarily being stopped at provincial borders, but whenever these these papers are summoned, that's that's when they are used. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, for example, you are going to Istanbul to work as a Hamal,

so you have to register to the lodge, right? And you have to find a place to stay like a Han or a bachelor room or you know. Then you need those documents. You have to show to the employers and also to the Oda Boshis, maybe I can say to the Hanan administrations that you came to Istanbul with those legal documents so that you are, quote unquote, again, a legal person. You are not fugitive or you are not a mechhul ul-ahwal, like a person from unknown circumstances. Maybe I can translate it like that.

And these were all, interestingly also, these were all legal categories of people who were mobile. Or you should prove that you are not as vagrant. And for that, you need this mirror test case. In your book, you talk about the political conditions that shape these changes in the Hamidian period to control of mobility. One of those political conditions that you talk about is the emerging global anarchist threat and how nations and empires responded to that. So could you talk about what anarchists are up to in the late 19th century and why it's so concerning for state

regimes of mobility? From mid-19th century on, starting with Orsini's attempt on Napoleon III, I mean the assassination attempt, it becomes such a huge issue in Europe for the European states. And you know this started with Orsini's attempt but it continued like all over Europe and also Russia. Like you know numerous dynasty members, high ranking bureaucrats, they faced assassination attempts whose alleged perpetrators were people from the anarchist movement. And of course, the most famous one maybe was the attempt on the life of Alexander II in Russia

by the activists of Narodnaya Volya in 1881. And Narodnaya Volya, yeah anyways, I mean it's another issue. And at the end, again, you know, nearly at the end of the century, we see another assassination, the assassination of famous Sisi, you know, the Empress of Austria-Hungary, Elizabeth. She was assassinated in Genoa in 1898 by an Italian anarchist, Luigi Lucciani. And then we see this call for institutionalization, transnational institutionalization of security cooperation

by the Italian government. So Italian government invited European governments, Russia and also Ottoman Empire to discuss further attempts on policing in the transnational level. And this conference was, I mean, the conference of Rome, it was actually a milestone in the standardization of policy techniques and the establishment of Rome. It was actually a milestone in the standardization of Polish technics and the establishment of international Polish cooperation.

And also the uses of new techniques, standardized procedures, like passports, extradition treaties, certificates of residence, the new ways of sharing the information about quote unquote suspects, you know, between the, between the governments. So what is happening in the Ottoman Empire in relation to anarchism, the Armenian question, the Macedonian question. And again, how, how does that manifest in terms of attempts to control movement?

Yeah, I mean, after the Ottoman Russian war, the Burdent Redi came to deeply dominate the Ottoman perspectives of security and their practices as well, especially in two frontier regions, Macedonia and the six provinces in the Ottoman East. The thing is, in both regions, Ottoman Empire was in a way forced to enact administrative reforms, security reforms under the great power surveillance to improve living conditions of the Christian populations. From the eyes of the Ottoman government, the main problem was the security of the state. And you know, it comes with this long term securitization of the both the Armenian issue

and also the Eastern Anatolia and so on. And for Macedonia, I mean, it was also this threat perception towards nationalist independence movements, and also a possible intervention of the foreign powers, especially the so-called great powers. But of course, there were also these organizations or revolutionary circles, revolutionary groups in the field as well. In the Macedonian question, it started really early, but afterwards, especially late 1880s, 1890s,

we also started to see Armenian revolutionary groups as well. And they were active in the Ottoman Empire. And those people who were connected with those revolutionary groups, they were also mobile in a way. So first Armenian revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire, actually they were Russian subjects. And for Macedonians, Macedonian revolutionary organizations, so there were Bulgarians, Greeks. It was so diversified in a way. And those people, it also shows that those people are very mobile with their ideas as well.

And also, it was easier to target people or label people with using this concept of anarchism or anarchist. And again, when you look at the actions, of course, I mean, there were some actions in the means of propaganda deed in the Ottoman Empire, especially like by the early 1890s, the situation was increasingly tense. I mean, it had grown increasingly tense, both in Istanbul and also in the eastern provinces. And Hamidian massacres of Armenians in 94, 96, generated a new level of violence.

And then we see these new actions from those revolutionary parties, the Armenian revolutionary parties, and they also started to use violence as a revolutionary method and a strategy of resistance, in a way, like to change the status quo for the Armenian poor. And of course, you know, we started to talk about this interesting case, you know, a peasant wants to be a Hamal in Istanbul, you know, he travels and so on.

So, I mean, those people, especially, you know, during the massacres, although there was this censorship, like, you know, different kinds of oppressive strategies of the government, but the thing is, like, you know, especially the Hamas in Istanbul, they were mostly coming to Istanbul from the eastern provinces, so their families were there. They knew what was happening in the region. They were part of this quote unquote Armenian question. They were suffering from it, right? So it was interesting to see how Armenian seasonal workers

who came to Istanbul from the provinces, how they became the members of revolutionary groups. And how they pursue this, I mean, the idea of quote unquote justice, equality, and peace in a way. So it was not like white and black, because in the historiography of the Hamidian era, it was too easy to talk about these issues. So there was this rebellion and then this violence. I mean, it was, of course, you know, sometimes we can say it like, I mean, we can see it as a facet circle, but it was much more complicated than this.

So it has like very different layers. It was more complicated. And of course, you know, the effects of the violence in every level, it was very diversified as well. And when you look at the Balkans or Macedonia, then although the guerrilla warfare was continuing in the Balkans, so it was the main, how can I say, it was the main thing maybe,

the Serres Revolutionary Section or District of the IMRO, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, they also decided to practice the methods of propaganda by deed, to weaken the Ottoman government, to attract international attention to the Macedonian question and so on. So I mean various actions in the Ottoman Empire were inspired actually by the Russian revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. And such instances which attracted international attention included the occupation of Ottoman bank, attempted assassination of Armenian patriarch Ashikyan, Kumkapa demonstration,

maybe we can put the Kumkat demonstration in this way as well. Thessaloniki assassinations and of course the assassination attempt on Abdulhamid himself. There were also different kinds of railway bombings and attacks to civil servants and so on. But it's interesting to see when there was this kind of political, because there were even bans in travels, there was this hard censorship. And also the parliament was also eliminated in the very beginning of this era, during the war. So these actions emerged amid popular demands for justice

and the constitution that would grant a greater scope for public involvement in a way, and also national autonomy, and also deeply affected the threat perceptions of the Ottoman government. And of course, the Ottoman government then And of course, you know, the Ottoman government then, you know, started to employ the new techniques of the European policy administrations and started to use the concept of anarchists to target the revolutionaries, or even ordinary people, the ordinary people who could have, or who could possibly have some connections with the revolutionary circles.

So on the one hand we had this very complicated historical frame, but on the other hand when you look at the ordinary people, I mean from the perspectives of ordinary people, they were also the targets of these regulations and practices. There's also a huge shift in this period in terms of how mobility is controlled through the technology of the passport. We started by talking about what a journey from Harput to Istanbul would look like in terms of regulations, in terms of the paperwork that needed to be in order. What does it look like, let's say, in 1897? How is it different? What kinds of papers are necessary in new ways?

What's included in those papers in new ways? In 1880s, there is a new development, so the certificate of passage or internal passport, it was actually codified. So on the one hand the Ottoman government started to use this new, how can I say, modernized internal passport. And on the other hand, both in 1884 and 1894, we see this new international passport regulations. And then, of course, the bureaucratic process also changed. So I mean, the most important thing for the Ottoman Empire was to avoid the possibility of misinformation in the means of identity.

So I will talk about the bureaucratic structure and then I'll come back to your question again. So I mean on the one hand we have all these like you know bureaucratic regulations and you know the papers and so on. So the Ottoman subjects they need an ilmuhabj, you know, this certificate or register, maybe I can say, and they have to get an internal passport. But they also need a teskere-i Osmani, an Ottoman identity card. But because of the fact that most of the peasants, they don't have an identity card, they were just using this ilmuhaberj paper as a proof of identity because it was easier to get. And then you know they should apply for a passport, they should also explain why they You know, it depends, again, who you are.

If you are a Sunni Muslim trying to travel, then it's a bit different. If you are an Armenian, after 1894-96, I mean after the massacres, then it's quite different. So, you know, authorities were increasingly implementing new practices of control of the geographical mobility of the Armenians during and after the massacres. So mass migration of the Armenians, it was actually a big thing back then.

And mass migration was also, I mean, to Europe and to Russia. It was also a way of, how can I say, I mean, it was also a survival strategy. So, and those people, they escaped from the massacres, they migrated to Russia and Europe, but their return was prohibited by government decrees, especially after the massacres. Because of course, you know, during the massacres, people could not get those papers, right?

So you can, I mean, even if you have the Ilmuhaber, you couldn't most probably go to the administrative center to get an internal passport, or you know you didn't have the chance to have an international passport. So they were labeled as fugitives and yeah as I said before their return was prohibited by government decrees and the Ottoman Armenians who moved to other countries without any registration, they were deprived of the right to obtain Ottoman passports. So these documents reflected the aim of the policy in a way, like, you know, of getting

rid of the unwanted elements in the population through the use of travel restrictions or, you know, the travel documents. In another document, for example, for the Bulgarians, they started to put this sign of F as the first letter of façade to some of the Bulgarians' passports with the red ink. So, you know, all these technologies were also used by the government. So, you know, when you ask about, you know, how would it be, like, you know, for example, in 1897 to travel from Harput to, I don't know, message sets, then, you know, you have to find some smugglers most probably.

So this is also the time of the technology of the photograph. How does the photograph shape these documents and shape efforts to control people's mobility? We talked about the Conference of Rome before, so it was also an issue, the use of photographs as a tool of surveillance. And the efforts to practice police work based on scientific methods, which offered a connection between medical, anthropological, and criminal theories had become more commonplace. And actually, they were also pointing to a conflict concerning the use of photographs within the panel systems that incorporated these different, like, anthropology,

medicine, prisons, and the police. But anyway, so it looked a long while for the use of photographs to become a standard procedure with panel institutions. And it was definitely a very important problem in the conference of Rome. So these governments, they wanted to standardize these photographs with using the technique of Bertil and Nagy and so on. And Ottoman Empire was also, you know,

started to actually, Ottoman Empire started to use this technique before the conference. But interestingly, you know, these were very standardized photographs. But interestingly, you know, these were very standardized photographs. But interestingly, when you look at the photographs attached to the passports or, you know, travels, especially for the Armenians, they were really different than the photographs that were discussed in the conference of Rome. Because, I mean, with that kind of photographs, like those kind of standardised photographs using the

technique of Bertil Onage, you need to use some specific techniques and also you need to use some specific measurements and so on. The thing is, the Ottoman government during the late 1890s made another administrative regulation that added further complexity to passport practices toward Armenians, toward Armenian immigrants, immigrants gaining U.S. citizenship, would deprive them of their property, as I said before, their inheritance and so on. And if Armenians, if they want to leave, first they have to sign a document

and declare that they would never return to the Ottoman Empire and they should file two photographs with the document. And in return, they were issued a travel document, usually an internal passport, usually not an international, I mean, not a normal passport. In the very beginning, the Ottoman Empire or the Ottoman government, they appointed some photographers to some centers. But then it became such an issue, like, you, like there were so many people who wanted to leave and there were not enough photographers or there was not enough budget for that.

So they started to ask people to bring their own photographs. So most of those photographs in the files, they were like family photographs. I mean, in a way, it's also when you look at those files, it's so personal. Like, you know, they're not like those criminal photographs, or they're not the photographs that we know from today. So these photographs, they're putting their photographs with their bigger family sometimes, you know, their grandparents, grandchildren, you know, uncles, aunts. Sometimes, you know, they were also like

migrating as families. They were also like, you know, putting a family photograph and then, you know, like putting a family photograph and then on the other page or on the other page of the document or on the backside of the photograph, you can see the numbers and the names of the people in the photograph. It seems like such a kind of disjuncture between the perceived impersonality of these bureaucratic documents and the intimacy of these family portraits and handwritten names.

Yes, I mean, I used only one of them in my book. It belongs to a woman and her daughter. And it's, of course, every case is personal, but that one, I mean, you can see that when, you can see when her husband migrated to US. You can see, you know, the information about her wider family. You can see the information about the daughter, the girl. And in the photograph, it's just one mother and daughter, they're just standing together with their ordinary clothes and so on.

And in another one, I couldn't use another use another one unfortunately because of the limitations of the, you know, the publication and so on. Anyways, another one for example, a woman and her son, they were smiling. It was such a moment, like they were smiling, they were pausing. They were posing. Ilkay, thank you so much for talking with me and thanks so much for writing this book. I mean, it was such an honor to be part of Ottoman History Podcast. Yeah, thank you for inviting and thank you for those wonderful questions. Thank you for inviting and thank you for those wonderful questions. That's Ilkay Yilmaz. Her book Ottoman Passports is out now with Syracuse University Press. Of course, as always, you can check out our website for more information, including links

and a bibliography for further reading on these topics. That's it for this episode. Until next time, take care. you