Россия и Арабский мир: к 200-летию профессора Санкт-Петербургского университета Шейха ат-Тантави (1810–1861)

204 In 1854, a work by the French historian and journalist, Jean-Henri- Abdolonyme Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, 1 appeared and within a short time became an authoritative source of current developments and everyday life in the Ottoman major urban centers during the first half of the 19th cen- tury. Writing about the times of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807), Ubicini dis- cussed the authorities’ attempt to curb the allocation of berat s (imperial deed of grant) by foreign embassies ― mainly the Russian, British and French ― to Greek subjects and members of other minority groups. Since berat s ac- corded significant economic and judicial privileges to their holders, the de- mand was great, and the feeling in the upper echelons of the Ottoman gov- ernment was that the state was losing control over those of its subjects who were engaged in foreign trade. Selim III decided to change the system of is- suing berat s, and from 1802 onwards, the berat s were to be granted to non- Muslim Ottoman merchants ( avrupa tüccarları ) engaged in international trade by the sultan himself. 2 Ubicini quotes a contemporary Greek historian, Rizos Neroulus, who wrote about the effects of the new licensing system on the status of the Greek merchants: “The [Greek] merchants, having found the advantages of this [new] sys- tem…joined themselves to this corporation which increased and prospered till the rich commerce of the Levant became almost entirely at its disposal.” 3 Ubicini gave a number of additional reasons that explain the great suc- cess of the Greek merchants in foreign trade, and also why the foreign com- munity in Istanbul began to perceive Greek predominance over this branch, forcing both Muslim merchants and European trading houses aside. 4 Mention of the predominance of both Greeks and Armenians in Otto- man commerce and finance repeatedly appeared in books written by Euro- pean travelers and diplomats in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Alongside praise for the commercial and financial talents of the Greek and Armenian subjects as accounting for their business success, sev- 1 Jean-Henri-Abdolonyme Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, 2 vols. Paris: Guil- laume, 1851-54. For an English translation see: Letters on Turkey: An Account of the Religious, Political, Social and Commercial Conditions of Ottoman Em- pire, 2 vols. Trans. by Lady Easthope. London: John Murray, 1856. 2 Ali İhsan Bağış, Osmanlı Ticaretinde Gayri Müslimler, Kapitülasyonlar, Avrupa Tüccarları, Beratlı Tüccarlar, Hayriye Tüccarları, Ankara: Turhan Kita- bevi, 1983, pp. 39-70; Bruce Masters, “The Sultan’s Entrepreneurs: The Avrupa Tüccaris and the Hayriye Tüccari in Syria,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 579-97. 3 Ubicini, Letters on Turkey, vol. 2, p. 75, n. 3. 4 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 73-74, 216-17.