Istanbul Porters in the Ottoman Period

The city of Istanbul, whose settlement date dates back to four thousand years before Christ, became an important trade center with the Conquest. Porters, which we can call the backbone of the commercial structure, also play an important role in the commercial life of Istanbul.

A book in which you will find the historical adventure of porters, especially Istanbul porters, whom we can call "people who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders", from the Ottoman Empire to the present day. Their hometowns, names, places of residence, monthly incomes, effects on social events... A meticulous study prepared based on primary sources on the institution of "portership", which largely maintains its vitality today...


The internal order of tradesmen's groups, the relationships of each group with other tradesmen groups and other layers of society present important snapshots from history, and each frame carries something from the part of the whole to which it belongs. Determining the relationships and identities of these groups is a tool that introduces the structure and therefore makes the whole and history meaningful. The statistical information provided in research has difficulty expressing itself when taken alone, but when evaluated together with other data, it completes the whole. Therefore, when the starting point is to describe humanity with minimal interpretation, without restricting it to a linear time process, without interfering with the internal order of the periods, and to make itself and the society it lives in more understandable by simply trying to understand what happened, perhaps the history of individual people and groups will be able to make the history of the whole meaningful. .

The book in your hands, prepared for this purpose, is a first study in the examination of Istanbul porters, a group of tradesmen who fulfilled an important function in their period, were always in the spotlight, but whose contributions to social life have not been studied much until now. On the one hand, it deals with the origins, livelihoods, institutional structures and working styles of the hammal tradesmen, and on the other hand, it also reveals the social relations of a period by following the archives of the period.



Number of Pages: 368

Year of Printing: 2008


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Timaş Publications

First Printing Year: 2008

Language: Turkish