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

205 eral writers dwelt on the incapacity of the “Turks” (Turkish-speaking Mus- lims, residents of Anatolia) in commerce and banking. These generalizations about the Muslim subjects were diametrically opposite to portrayals of the Greeks and Armenians. In 1859 the renowned British economist, Nassau W. Senior, published A Journal kept in Turkey and Greece, 1 which included his impressions of the city of Izmir. The book acquired a wide readership and was cited many years after its appearance. Senior related that in the course of his visit to Izmir he met Y., an English physician resident in the city. Their conversation focused on the causes of the empire’s weakness and on the reforms ( tanzīmāt ) initi- ated by the central government in the 1840s and 1850s: “It is a fact,” said Y., “that while their [the Ottoman] institutions have improved, their wealth and population have diminished. Many causes have contributed to this deterioration. The first and great one is, that they are not producers. They have neither diligence, intelligence, nor forethought… His [the Turk’s] only professions are shop-keeping and service. He cannot en- gage in any foreign commerce, as he speaks no language but his own. No one ever hears of a Turkish house of business, or of a Turkish banker, or mer- chant, or manufacturer. If he has lands or houses, he lives on their rent; if he has money, he spends it, or employs it in stocking a shop… The only consid- erable enterprise in which he ever engages is the farming of some branch of the public revenue.” 2 Another book, Turkey in Europe , that gained a wide readership and was extensively quoted, was written by Charles Eliot 3 between 1893 and 1898, when he served as a secretary at the British Embassy in Istanbul. Eliot de- votes numerous pages to a description of the character and qualities of the osmanlı. 4 With regard to their professional dispositions, he wrote: “In fact, all occupations except agriculture and military service are dis- tasteful to the true Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant: he may keep a stall in a bazaar, but his operations are rarely conducted on a scale which merits the name of commerce or finance. It is strange to observe how, when 1 Nassau W. Senior, A Journal Kept in Turkey and Greece in the Autumn of 1857 and the Beginning of 1858, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1859. 2 Ibid., pp. 210-11. 3 Odysseus (Charles Eliot), Turkey in Europe, 2nd ed., London: Edward Ar- nold, 1900. 4 In the late 19th century the term osmanlı denoted all subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Eliot, however, referred in the chapter discussed above to Turkish- speaking Muslim subjects only.