Tatiana A. Anikeeva and Ilya Zaytsev

Handwritten registers of the kadılık of Ahıyolu as the source for the
history of the late Ottoman Empire

(62nd Meeting, Friedensau 2019)

Several manuscripts that represent detailed registers of the kadılık of Ahıyolu (Анхиало, Αγχίαλος) at the Ottoman Empire were discovered during the work on the description of MSS collection of the library of the MGIMO University of the MFA of the Russian Federation and compiling its catalogue.

Kadi (judge-official dispensing judge on the base of the sharia) in the Ottoman Empire had judicial and administrative power, and, accordingly, the judicial district (kadılık) that was a small administrative unit within the Empire, located in the area of responsibility of kadi. The kadılık of Ahıyolu was located in Rumelia, with its center in the corresponding city, quite large for those times (now —Pomorie in Burgas region of Bulgaria).

These manuscripts are eight notebooks from 25 to 119 fols. and date from the 2nd half of the 17th to 18th centuries. They contain a large variety of records devoted to various (primarily financial) issues of kadılık management. These unique registers are a valuable source on the history of administration of the provinces in the late Ottoman Empire.