Abkhazia in Ottoman Historiography, by Roin Agrba
The following is a translation of the opening chapter of Roin Agrba's Abkhazia and the Sublime Porte: Essays on the History of Abkhaz-Turkish Relations, 15th–18th Centuries (ed. Viacheslav Chirikba, Sukhum: Academia, 2025), pp. 7–12. The book examines the history of Abkhazia in the late medieval period, tracing how the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of Ottoman control over the Black Sea transformed the region's political and commercial life, and how these shifts bore upon the Abkhazian Principality and its relations with the Ottoman Empire. In this introductory chapter, the author surveys the Ottoman documentary and narrative sources, and the historians, geographers and travellers who produced them, that underpin the study of Abkhazia's past.
Ottoman sources, both documentary and narrative, provide a valuable foundation for the study of many questions in the history of Abkhazia. The Ottoman Empire maintained close political and economic ties with the various regions of Abkhazia from the very founding of the Ottoman state right through to the fall of the monarchy and the rise to power of the Young Turks under Kemal Pasha (Atatürk).
Documents of every kind reflecting Abkhazia's relations with the Turkish world were drawn up exclusively in Ottoman Turkish. Unlike many other countries, the Ottoman Empire upheld a tradition of preserving its documents, which were registered in Istanbul at the sultan's court; to this day, almost all the records produced in Turkey's central government departments or in the provinces are held in Turkish archives.
The archive of the Council of Ministers in Istanbul, the Başvekâlet arşivi, is known to us today and is of particular interest for the history of medieval Abkhazia. The Ankara archive, the Başbakanlık arşivi [Translator's note], is likewise of considerable importance. Both remained inaccessible to Soviet orientalists owing to the strained political relations between the USSR and Turkey. A significant portion of Ottoman documents was also kept in the archives of Cairo, since Egypt long formed part of the Ottoman Empire (from 1517 until the end of the nineteenth century). The Ottoman government proved unable to store all the documents accumulating within the state, and so they were dispatched to Cairo. Today Cairo is considered the largest repository of Ottoman documents after the Istanbul archive.
Thousands of exceedingly rare documents are also held in Bulgaria. In the Sofia archive, a number of intriguing documents have been set apart in various collections, among them the Sukhum Fund 312a.[1] The Batumi collection of "Ottoman sources" is divided into the narrative and the documentary.
It is difficult to imagine any period in the history of the Ottoman Empire that was not chronicled in the writings of official historiographers. One should also note that the Ottoman state maintained the office of official historiographer at every level, from the sultan's court down to the provincial governors. It is only natural that the accounts and individual passages found in the works of Ottoman authors, particularly where they concern relations with subjugated lands, did not always reflect the true picture of the Ottoman state's historical development. Official historiography, seeking to furnish ideological justification for the policies pursued by the Porte, defended the interests of its state and its sovereign, and this is a circumstance that must be borne in mind when studying these sources.
Alongside the official historians there was a whole constellation of unofficial scholars, historians, geographers and travellers whose writings touch upon matters of compelling interest in the history of the Ottoman state and the lands bordering it. Among them were Aşık Paşazade, Neşrî, Idris Bitlisi, Mustafa Âlî, Ibrahim Peçevi, Kâtib Çelebi, Cenabi, Kara Çelebizade Abdülaziz, Solakzade, Mehmed Hemdemi, Fındıklılı Mehmed and many others.
As noted above, from the very inception of the Ottoman state, men of historical learning gathered around the sultans alongside the servants of religion and culture, for instance, Aşık Paşa and his grandson Aşık Paşazade in the thirteenth century. Among the representatives of Ottoman historiography in the fourteenth century one may count Tâcеddin Ahmed Ibrahim Ibn Herir, whose work, the İskender-nâme, belongs to the formative period of Ottoman historical writing.
Among the historians of the fifteenth century, Ibn Arabshah stands out. From those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the narrative works of Idris Bitlisi are of particular interest to us.
The Ottoman Empire entered into close political and economic relations with Abkhazia from the sixteenth century onward, and it is precisely from this period that Abkhaz themes begin to occupy a definite place in the works of certain historians. Among the Ottoman historians of the sixteenth century, mention should be made in this regard of Şemseddin Ahmed bin Süleyman, as well as of the renowned scholar Kemalpaşazade, also known as Ibn Kemal.
The manuscript of the eighth register of Ibn Kemal's work, together with its Latinised transcription, was published by Şerafeddin Turan. The author gives a detailed account of the Ottoman state's wars of conquest, furnishing information on the Turkish campaigns into Transcaucasia and noting that, having seized a number of fortresses, the Ottomans pressed on into Circassia.[2] Among the sixteenth-century historians one ought also to mention the celebrated Şeyhülislam and Mehmed Sadeddin Hoca Efendi.
For the history of the Caucasus, the works of Mustafa Âlî — his Nusret-nâme, still unpublished and preserved in the archives of Vienna, London, Paris, Istanbul and Cairo — are of inestimable value. In these works Âlî describes, in detail and in chronological order, the events he himself lived through and witnessed at first hand. He took part directly in Lala Mustafa Pasha's campaign into Transcaucasia and recorded all its significant moments. With each fresh success of the Ottoman army, Âlî dispatched reports to Istanbul, composing dispatches that he then incorporated into his own work. The events described by Mustafa Âlî constitute a valuable source for the study of a range of questions in the history of the Transcaucasian lands in the 1580s.
A brilliant representative of Ottoman historiography in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was Ibrahim Peçevi. His history covers the events of 1520 to 1640 and stands as the finest source on the history of the Ottoman state and its neighbouring countries.
A special place in the Muslim world belongs to the great geographer and historian of the seventeenth century, Kâtib Çelebi (1609–1657). His Cihannümâ ("Description of the World") and Fezleke ("Chronicle of Events") occupy a position of singular importance in Ottoman culture. In his writings, Kâtib Çelebi characterises all the lands neighbouring the Ottoman state in their every aspect, appending maps of the individual countries. He covers Transcaucasia in considerable detail. His map sets out the territories of Georgia, Circassia and Abkhazia, and marks the summit of Elbrus. The Cihannümâ draws upon a multitude of primary sources available to Kâtib Çelebi.[3]
Among the Ottoman historians and travellers of the seventeenth century, a special place belongs to the eminent scholar Evliya Çelebi (1611–1679). He was born in Istanbul on 25 March 1611, into the family of the chief court jeweller. His mother was an Abkhaz woman of the Hamış tribe, and it is not impossible that the author himself had command of the Abkhaz language. Living in the sultan's palace, he received an excellent education: he knew the Qur'an by heart (a hafiz), studied philosophy and law, carved stone with great skill, and was versed in music, grammar and Greek, and he wrote verse. In a dream there came to him an understanding of his life's true purpose — to be a traveller. His travel notes, the Seyahatnâme ("Book of Travels"), were the fruit of two journeys through Transcaucasia and are an absorbing source for the study of the history, geography, economy and linguistics of many lands. The Book of Travels holds particular significance for the study of the Abkhaz language. Evliya Çelebi was the author of the first recorded account of Abkhaz, for, as noted above, he must himself have spoken it. His writings are of further interest in that, during his first journey in the company of the sultan's envoys (1640–1641), he described the regions stretching from Trabzon to Anapa, including the "Land of Abaza," which extended "from the River Fasha to the fortress of Anapa." The account of this journey forms the substance of Chapters I, II and III of the volume.
The information concerning Transcaucasia is gathered in the second volume of Evliya Çelebi's Book of Travels, the complete Georgian translation of which was published by Academician G. V. Puturidze in 1971.
+ Sukhum and the Abkhazians in the Light of 16th Century Ottoman Documents, by Habat Şogan
+ The Caucasian language material in Evliya Çelebi's “Travel book” A Revision, by Jost Gippert
+ Hayreddin Pasha (1820-1890)
+ Western travellers to the Caucasus, by George Hewitt
+ The Abkhaz Principality in the Second Decade of the Nineteenth Century, by D. G. Tarba
A characteristic representative of Ottoman historiography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was Silahdar Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa. At the sultan's behest, Mehmed Ağa composed a history of the Ottoman Empire from 1654 to 1694, which he entitled the Hayli Fezleke; this was, in effect, a chronological continuation of Kâtib Çelebi's Fezleke. His contemporaries frequently drew upon Mehmed Ağa's writings, which give a detailed account of Transcaucasia. The work takes the form of a chronicle. In its second and third parts the author describes Transcaucasia, the principalities and kingdoms of the Eastern Black Sea littoral, and their relations both with the Ottoman frontier pashas and with the sultan.
The Nusret-nâme tradition is carried on by the historian Naima and his contemporary, the official historian Raşid. Raşid's account contains material of considerable interest for the history of the Caucasus. Raşid may be said to have been the first historian who, unlike his predecessors, was obliged to write of the Ottoman Empire's reverses, both external and internal. In his works Raşid devotes particular attention to the lands of the Eastern Black Sea coast, for interest in this region had grown sharply after Russia gained access to the Black Sea basin at the close of the seventeenth century. The significance of the Eastern Black Sea littoral for the Ottoman state rose dramatically. Raşid furnishes important information on the Ottoman Empire's relations with the rulers of the Eastern Black Sea region.
Raşid's History was continued in chronological succession by Çelebizade Ismail Âsım Efendi, who succeeded him in the office of chronicler from 1722 to 1729. His work contains important information on Turkish dominion in Western Georgia and, in particular, in Abkhazia.
Unlike his predecessor Raşid, Çelebizade supplies detailed information on Abkhazia, as well as on the trade in captives. Especially valuable are his data on the Transcaucasian lands and on Circassia, which constitute a substantial and reliable source.[4]
A brilliant representative of nineteenth-century Ottoman historiography was the celebrated statesman and historian Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822–1895), who carried forward the chronological history of his predecessors. His twelve-volume History covers the period from 1774 to 1825. Cevdet Pasha is regarded as a historian of broad learning for his time. He had access both to the documents preserved in the archives and to the works of the historians who came before him. It should be noted that the Tarih-i Cevdet assigns a special place to the ethnography of the Abkhaz and the Circassians. Cevdet Pasha holds the peoples of the Western Caucasus — and the Abaza in particular — to be the progenitors of the European, that is to say the white, race, citing their classical form of physique and cranial structure and their complexion and hair colour. The author offers an engaging description, rich in detail, of Abkhaz life at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The study of Cevdet Pasha's accounts of Abkhaz history is, beyond question, of great value to our scholarship.
Besides the official historians, the Ottoman Empire produced a whole succession of unofficial historians who left behind absorbing works on the history of the empire and the lands bordering it. Many of these Ottoman historians' works are known to us. They can scarcely fail to contain information on the Caucasus and, in particular, on Abkhazia. It may well be that these historians, in composing their writings, drew upon the works of their predecessors; even so, much that is of interest and value to our scholarship is to be found within them.
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[1] Shengelia N. Ottoman Documentary Sources of the 16th–18th Centuries. Tbilisi, 1987. P. 293.
[2] Shengelia N. Ottoman Documentary Sources of the 16th–18th Centuries. Tbilisi, 1987. P. 293.
[3] Shengelia N. Ottoman Documentary Sources of the 16th–18th Centuries. Tbilisi, 1987. P. 293.
[4] Shengelia N. Ottoman Documentary Sources of the 16th–18th Centuries. Tbilisi, 1987. P. 293.
Translator's note: The two institutions named here reflect older terminology. The Başvekâlet arşivi ("Prime Ministry archive") and the Başbakanlık arşivi are in fact one and the same body under successive names — the Ottoman archives administered by the office of the Prime Minister (Başvekâlet, later Başbakanlık), with their principal holdings in Istanbul rather than Ankara. Following the constitutional shift to a presidential system in 2018, the institution was placed under the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey and renamed the Directorate of State Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı); its Ottoman collections are now formally the Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı Osmanlı Arşivi.