Documenting Document Distress

Dear Friends, Family, and Interested Observers,

After a two-week hiatus, I’m back with another entry. Not all good news to report. Yesterday I was hit with some particularly disappointing news. I have been cut off for the moment from copying the Tokat court records en masse. Apparently, not only do foreigners have to pay twice the rate to make copies of the microfilm in the National Library, they also have to get their embassies to petition the Turkish Foreign Ministry for permission to copy more than ten pages or so of each notebook (defter). For Tokat in the second half of the nineteenth century, the average court register contains 200 pages or so. Ten pages per defter is not going to cut it. Fortunately, I had already acquired eight full defters before the bureaucrats caught up with me, so I have plenty of material to occupy my time until I receive my new permit. This tactic of limiting access to the court records prior to state approval is clearly designed to “protect” the archives from proscribed researchers. I should have no problems in this regard. The U.S. Embassy responded immediately to my inquiry and has promised to do everything necessary to get me back into the Microfilm Department.

Fortunately, I have other “outs” as well. First, I have some possible connections in the Ministry of Culture. Second, many of the nineteenth-century court records for Tokat have already been copied by a team of researchers from Gaziosmanpaşa University, who are conducting an E.U.-funded research project into the “Armenian Question” and instances of amicable relations among the ethnic minorities in the Tokat region. Zekeriya Başkal, and old friend and colleague from Wisconsin who is part of the project, has suggested the possibility of sharing materials. Third, there is always the Istanbul alternative. The original court records have been sent to the Prime Ministry Archives and that institution’s resources are much more readily accessible. If and when they digitize these records, Istanbul will be the place to go to do this type of research. However, due to my lease, my good Ottoman support network in Ankara, and the sheer volume of copying that needs to be done, I plan to stick it out in National Library and go through the permit process.

The weather here has taken the autumnal turn. For the last week, we have had cool conditions and brief thundershowers every day. Sinan and I have both had to get over brief but severe colds. After a glance at my closet I wished I had brought more long-sleeve casual wear, but I should be fine.

Ramazan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, began last Sunday. From sunrise to sunset, fasters do not ingest anything – water, food, or cigarette smoke. Many Turks do not fast; it’s a matter of religious observance rather than law. No fast for me – oruç tutmuyorum. Ramazan in Turkey has come to incorporate many rich cultural traditions. The most obvious of these are the warm gatherings of family, friends, or strangers to break the fast at the evening meal (iftar). The wonderful sesame pide bread that is baked during this month is not to be missed. I enjoy watching the purposeful shopping and frantic movements of workers shooting home to break the fast in the evening. During this month, businesses make hay when the sun doesn’t shine, and I am impressed how skillfully they market their products to potential customers. Just my opinion, but Pope Benedict could learn a thing or two from their marketing savvy. He’s due to arrive in Ankara in late November. That should be interesting. Before this latest comment he had said that the European Union should remain a predominantly Christian entity and Turkey should not be allowed to join.

I also have to give a shout out to Professor Ali Fuat Bilkan (left, center with students) and TOBB Ekonomik ve Teknoloji University. Ali Fuat Bey, who I came to know a couple years ago while he was a visiting research fellow at Wisconsin, has been extremely generous with his time and his expertise in helping me delve into the court records. His Ottoman is impeccable, and I am pleased that he has taken a genuine interest in my research. And, irony of ironies, TOBB University is situated in the very same campus where I once taught middle school students English at Yükseliş Koleji ten years ago (!). They gutted the old concrete Stalinesque architecture of the school compound and refurbished its plumbing, exteriors, and grounds.

The transformation of Söğütözü, TOBB’s neighborhood, has been incredible. When I came to Ankara ten years ago, Söğütözü was no more than a pot-holed street lined by an empty military reserve, a few unappealing concrete office blocks, and a quaint aspen-lined extralegal residential area (derisively, in Turkish, gecekondu mahallesi; derisively, in English, squatter city). Now, Söğütözü is a complex of glassy, ultra-modernist skyscrapers, intricate overpasses, and TOBB. On the one hand, the development speaks well of the economic prosperity Turkey has enjoyed under the center-right, mildly Islamist governance of Prime Minister Tayyıp Erdoğan and his Adalet ve Kalkınma (Justice and Development Party; AK, for short) Party.

On the other hand, I wonder what happened to the residents of the gecekondu neighborhood, most of which has disappeared in favor of a large, heavily irrigated green belt and a national TV station complex. I know that the residents of some Ankara demolished gecekondu neighborhoods received new accommodation from the city government, as was the case in the condemned neighborhoods that trellised the steep stony hills along the airport expressway.

Stay tuned for more later. Go Packers!

jkbinturkey
P.S. I'll probably update my blog only on a bi-weekly basis from now on, as I am busy with research and nothing much happens in Ankara.

A Long Period of Adjustment and Readjustment

Dear Family, Friends, and Interested Observers,

I’ve finally made time to update my website. I will spend the next six months doing research in Ankara, the Turkish capital, at the National Library (Milli Kütüphane, below) and other places. I will continue to study Ottoman under the tutelage of Professor Ali Fuat Bilkan of TOBB University. Actually, we will probably spend most of our time together sampling excerpts from the court records. The Microfilm Department in the National Library, where the Tokat court records are housed, is closed until Thursday for major repairs. In the meantime, so I have been writing up a research bibliography for possible secondary sources to be found there.

I have made the transition from the olive groves and cool waters of the Aegean to the arid steppe and thirsty mountains of the Ankara. The Cunda course sadly drew to a close on Friday, August 11. We shared one last meal together that night at the seaside, packed our bags the following morning, and parted ways. I’ll miss my new friends from Cunda, but I’m sure well cross paths in the future (Tahir, left, and his pet octopus, "Otty"; Yasmine and Michael, below right)



On Saturday morning I boarded a bus bound for Ankara. My mission for the following week was simple: find a furnished apartment to rent near the National Library. The following Saturday I planned to fly out for a two-week visit to the States, so I had contacted a realtor over the internet to speed up the process.

Upon my arrival to Ankara Saturday evening, I took a taxi to my hotel in Ulus, a working class neighborhood in the central city. The Otel Mithat was sweltering and seedy. And, although it was cheap and its staff was courteous, by Monday I was more than ready to move on.

It all happened so fast. Full furnished apartments are a rarity in Turkey, because one is expected to bring all their belongings into the move. An unfurnished apartment won’t even have light fixtures or curtains. Moreover, Ankara is a university town as well as the capital, so out of town students compete for the few furnished apartments. So I signed on the dotted line that very afternoon (my apartment is the corner one on the second floor, picture to the left).

Having accomplished my primary task, I looked up the airline ticket that I had purchased later in the week. I had applied for an e-ticket, as is the norm in air travel these days. However, I had not managed to open the email attachment containing my reservation and receipt while in Cunda. When I finally did open it up in Ankara, to my dismay, I found out that travelers from Ankara to international destinations could only travel with paper tickets in hand. As I had no paper ticket in hand, I immediately contacted my online ticket broker agency, Turkish Portal. They claimed that I had designated my American address as the destination for the ticket, although Jim told me that no ticket had arrived. On top of this, Turkish Portal’s sister agency in Turkey refused to send me a new ticket, and told me that the only way I could get a new ticket would be if my carrier, British Airlines, reissued me one. They then wrongly directed me to the Ankara airport. A forty dollar taxi ride later, I found out the B.A. had no ticket agency or staff to help me there. The airport staff did pass along a contact number in Istanbul. A flurry of faxes, surcharges, and desperate phone conversations later, I got B.A. to reissue me a ticket. However, B.A. put the wrong building number on the address of the parcel with the ticket, so I did not get the paper ticket until 7:00 pm of Friday. I flew out Saturday morning at 8:30 am! It was four days of perdition. Curse Turkish Portal, or as I now call it, T.P.

My two weeks in the States were blissful. Jim crafted a fun-filled itinerary. A special treat was the annual family camping trip in the Sylvania Wilderness in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Bucky is very fat now. He is going on a strict regimen of diet cat food and toy mouse retrieval.

I’ve been back for a week now, and I’m getting settled in. My apartment is two blocks away from the National Library, so I can walk there and back very easily. I am also only two blocks from Yedinci Cadde (Seventh Avenue), which is as my friend Zekeriya states, “a fun street.” That is, every Turkish city (or major district of a larger city) has a street where the people come to hang out, strut, and mingle. In Samsun, it was Çiftlik Street. In Istanbul, it was İstiklal Caddesi. In this part of town, it’s Yedinci Cadde. Zekeriya also mentioned that Bahçelievler, the district (semt) that I’m living in, was built some time after the foundation of the Republic as home to white-collar workers. Other parts of Ankara, such as Çankaya, might have more money, but Bahçelievler has “more education.” I don’t know how true that is, but from outward appearances Bahçelievler is a middle class Turkish bastion (as is evident by the presence of American grease dispensers such as Burger King, right. Okay, I've eaten there one. Maybe twice.) One thing is sure; I will never want for a haircut here. There must be twenty barbers within a three-block radius of my apartment. How do they all stay open?

Complaints, I have a few. First, I have found a wonderful mantı place close to home, but man cannot live on mantı alone. You know your getting east in Turkey when you go to the restaurants and can only find meat items on the menu. I’m not a big salad eater, so I’m going to have to cook my main vegetable courses at home. Second, my apartment has had some glitches. The hot water heater hasn’t been fixed yet, and I just managed to unclog a major back up in my bathtub drain pipe. However, all and all things are going well.

I can’t forget to mention that I’ve found a roommate, two. Müge, you’ll be happy to know that I reeled him in using that ad for an apartment I put up on the web! His name is Sinan (left). He’s very nice, although I cannot understand his low voice over my cell phone, either in English or Turkish. He’s from Istanbul, and I think he's a little perturbed that he will be in Ankara the next year-and-a-half doing some project at Middle East Technical University on the far west side.

By the way, for the record, my new address is:

Bahçelievler
7. Cadde, 24. Sokak 5/3
ÇANKAYA, ANKARA

I’m not sure about the zip code, but if you send something it should get here. And, special thanks to all of you who have written to me or posted comments on my blog.

Well, until next week …

jkbinturkey

P.S. Thanks for the pic, Radha.