| Publication |
2012.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article is based on a case file examining the allegedly corrupt behavior of the district governor (kaymakam) of Eregli, located in the Black Sea coal district of the Ottoman Empire, before the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. It paints a vivid picture of the cronyism, greed, and demands for justice that abound in the testimonies and petitions of a diverse array of local actors that were included in the case file. These documents provide the opportunity to shed light on, among other things, the growing nexus between state power and capital in the late Ottoman Empire within a little-studied peripheral context. As the article shows, prospects of control over the region's burgeoning coal economy led to abuses among officials at various levels of the local and imperial bureaucracy, the impacts of which were felt (to varying degrees) by a wide cross-section of Eregli society. The behavior of the district governor and his allies, along with the final decision made in the case, reveals much about power, wealth, and justice in the final years of the Abdülhamit regime.
|