Contextualising the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Ottoman imperial transformation during the long 19th century (1789-1922) and provides a context for the politics of local administration in Vidin. The conventional historiography emphasizes the Tanzimat era (1839–76) in setting the chronological boundaries for Ottoman imperial transformation in the 19th century. This chapter argues that the long 19th century, including but not limited to the Tanzimat era, was part of a larger transformation that began with the crisis of the traditional social formation (starting in the seventeenth century) and culminated in a liberal-capitalist social formation. This chapter focuses on the broader changes in Ottoman political economy with an emphasis on control over the means of production as it explores the transformation of property regimes and tax collection methods. After outlining this larger transformation at the imperial and provincial level, the chapter analyses its reflection in the Ottoman official print by examining yearbooks (Salnames) and legal corpora (Düstur).