KAZAcirc; OF TULÇA (TULCEA) UNDER OTTOMAN RULE: DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURE ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL SOURCES

Abstract

It is known that the settlement of Tulcea came under Ottoman rule at the beginning of the 15th century. In the seventeenth century, it was already a kaza. Its strategic location and proximity to the river brought the port of the settlement to the forefront and its development was mostly economic. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, a direct academic study on the city of Tulcea under Ottoman rule has not yet been conducted in Turkey and has not received the attention it deserves. The city was repeatedly subjected to Cossack attacks and looting, and in wars it was overrun and destroyed by Russian armies. During each war, the inhabitants of the city were partially displaced and returned to their settlements after each war. This situation disrupted the demographic and economic structure of the city, as well as the Ottoman financial resources. Nevertheless, the central government tried not to offend both the Muslim and non-Muslim inhabitants and facilitated the payment of taxes by developing various formulas. This article attempts to understand the historical development of the city of Tulcea under Ottoman rule by directly referring to official sources and to studying the history of this historical city with a monographic method. In this sense, tahrir and jizya registers, contemporary documents, and especially the population and dividend registers of the nineteenth century, which allow us to analyze the demographic and socio-economic structure of the city, have been evaluated together to a great extent.