“Kızan kaymakam Tahsin Bey”:|bAn analysis of a young Turk administrator’s memoir within the scope of banditry and Ottoman administration in Macedonia (1897-1912)

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2748972_(Table of contents)

The Macedonian Question greatly impacted the last fifty years of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Macedonia, where the interests of the Great Powers and the Balkan states clashed, became a conflict zone that was terrorized by nationalist and separatist movements and waged a bloody fight for control since the last quarter of the 19th century. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire could not produce effective and permanent solutions, although it fought military and political struggles against the bandits in Macedonia. At a young age, first, being the district manager and then the district governor, aka Kızan District Governor Tahsin Bey, was one of the Ottoman bureaucrats who worked in risky areas during the most intense period of banditry activities. The memoir Tahsin Bey wrote years later is important in providing a better understanding of the different aspects of the banditry in Macedonia. This study examines the bandit activities in Macedonia, the lives of villagers and townspeople in the shadow of separatist-revolutionary committees, and the administration of the Ottoman Empire in the region through the memoir of a Young Turk, district governor. While examining the bandits and Ottoman rule in Macedonia through Tahsin Bey’s eyes, the elements that shaped Tahsin Bey and his narrative and the possible effects of these elements on Tahsin Bey’s Macedonia are discussed.