Millet System and National-Cultural Autonomy: A Distance Dialogue
Millet System and National-Cultural Autonomy: A Distance Dialogue

Summary/Abstract: In Ottoman history, the term Tanzimat identifies a period of ‘reorganization’ of the socio-political Ottoman order and of the institutional and administrative apparatus of the Sublime Porte. Though the Tanzimat is recognized in the literature as the period framed by the 1839 Hatt-i Sherif (Nobel Rescript) of Gulhane and the 1876 first Ottoman Constitution, the Reform Era belongs to a broader path of reforms, the origin of which goes back to the XVIII century and which brought the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. In Berkes’ words, “the emergence in the early eighteenth century of the idea that it would be necessary to reform the existing organization by introducing new methods marked a turning point and the beginning of the modern era in Turkish history.” In general, this implied a profound change of attitude from the part of the Ottomans vis-а-vis Western civilization. This new approach is clearly visible in the new forms of dress and social mores introduced during the so-called Tulip Era (1718–1730). It is at the beginning of the XVIII century that the volume of exchanges between the Ottoman and European Worlds increased considerably, causing the progressive ‘westernization’ of the Ottoman society. A growing number of writers, geographers, explorers and diplomats found themselves moving between Europe and the Ottoman lands. In 1793, Selim III wanted the Ottoman Empire to open its diplomatic representations in Europe as part of the ‘New Order’, the aim of which was to systematize the functioning of the Empire by referring to the European experience. Among the many possible examples, we recall Yirmisekiz Mehmet Зelebi, who was sent as special envoy to the French Court of Louis XIV with the task of seeking an alliance with France and studying its costumes and ways of living.

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