Fariba Zarinebaf - Mediterranean Encounters: Trade and Pluralism in Early Modern Galata

Fariba Zarinebaf

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University of California Press

Oakland, California

2018 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zarinebaf, F. (Fariba), 1959- author.

Title: Mediterranean encounters : trade and pluralism in early modern Galata / Fariba Zarinebaf.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017055319 (print) | LCCN 2017058926 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520964310 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780520289925 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520289932 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH : Galata (Istanbul, Turkey)History.

Classification: LCC DR 737 (ebook) | LCC DR 737 .z37 2017 (print) | DDC 949.61/8dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055319

Manufactured in the United States of America

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The idea for writing this book was born when I was a graduate student in Istanbul and lived in a Bohemian neighborhood (Cihangir) in Pera in 1990s. Before the gentrification of Pera, Cihangir was the residence of Europeans as well as artists, professors, and expat communities. All the European cultural and research institutes were located there as well as some major bookstores and libraries. Pera was a museum of the Ottoman Empires European enclave since all the embassies had moved to Ankara when it became the capital during the Republican period. Back then, it was still possible to live, feel, and sense the traces of this once cosmopolitan port that had witnessed its own share of a glorious past during the Ottoman era as well as war and occupation at the end of the empire in the early twentieth century. But somehow, it was still a pole of attraction for European and American scholars and tourists, local artists, and businessmen as well as thousands of strollers from Turkey and all over the world who frequented Rue de Pera (Beyolu) every day, perhaps to experience the disappearing heritage of a cosmopolitan Ottoman port. I am often among them when I visit Istanbul.

My father used to visit me in Istanbul when I was a graduate student, and we would go on our own strolls in Pera. He brought with him my grandfathers account book and a box of business letters that had been exchanged between my grandfather, who had been a merchant in Tabriz, and his cousin, Haj Reza Jorabchi, who had represented the firm Jorabchi et Frres in Istanbul and had had a shop in Mahmud Pasha Suq. During the late nineteenth century, Istanbul had had a vibrant Iranian community of traders. My father took me on a tour of Istanbul while I was living in Pera and pointed out the importance of this place for Iranian intellectuals who had been exposed to Ottoman and European, particularly French liberal and modernist, ideas there during the late nineteenth century. Pera had been the window to Europe for Iranian and Ottoman intellectuals. I eventually coedited and coauthored a volume entitled Les Iraniens dIstanbul with Thierry Zarcone, a member of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies, which had a research project on the Iranian and other cemeteries in Istanbul. This research sparked my interest in the history of Galata.

I came into close contact with the French academic community in the French Institute of Anatolian Studies, which is located in the former Palais de France, or French Embassy, after the embassy was moved to Ankara. My interest in the history of Franco-Ottoman contacts in Galata and Pera also developed as result of my earlier academic interest in French history (the Enlightenment and the French Revolution) as well as my own encounters with the French community in Pera. My own position was that of an in-between person in a borderland between the East and the West, a situation in which I felt most comfortable and thrived intellectually and personally.

I am indebted to many individuals who have inspired and supported my intellectual journey, several institutions that have funded my research, and various archives and archivists who have provided me with access to sources as well as to many friends, colleagues, and family members in Istanbul, Chicago, and Riverside who never stopped listening and offering their insights, support, and love. First, I would like to thank the readers and editors of the University of California Press, particularly Niels Hooper, whose continuing confidence and interest in my scholarship have been a major driving force for me to complete this manuscript.

Without the financial support of several institutions, this dream would not have come true. I received a senior residential grant from the Research Center for Anatolian Studies at Ko University (201112) in Istanbul to start this project. This grant provided me with a rare opportunity to live in Pera with an international and interdisciplinary community of scholars and to share my findings and research with them. I thank Scott Redford, my fellows at RCAC, and the kind staff for their support. The Fulbright Scholars Program (201314) provided me with another grant to go back to Istanbul and continue my research and writing. During my RCAC and Fulbright grant periods, I was affiliated with Boazici University and benefited immensely from interacting with my colleague and friend Paolo Girardelli, whose insights, advice, and seminars on Ottoman ports were very important to me. I thank the Fulbright Commissions in Ankara and Istanbul for their warm support throughout the process and my Fulbright fellows for their friendship and intellectual support. At Boazici University, I would also like to thank Edhem Eldem, Nevra Necipolu, evket Pamuk, and Ahmet Ersoy.

In addition, the American Research Institute in Istanbul (ARIT) has been my intellectual home away from home in Turkey since I was a graduate student. I received several research grants in the past from ARIT. The director, Anthony Greenwood, and staff members like Glden Gneri and Brian Johnson have been very generous with their support and help throughout my academic career, research, and long stays there. Living in the village of Arnavutky along the Bosphorus also inspired me to write chapter 7.

The University of Chicago granted me a visiting researcher position during the last phase of my research and writing. I would like to thank my mentor, John Woods; Frank Lewis; Hakan Karateke; Holly Shissler; Orit Bashkin; Fred Donner; David Nirenberg; and Cornell Fleischer as well as many graduate students who offered their insights and critical perspectives as well as their enthusiastic support.

As well, my colleagues in the Department of History at the University of CaliforniaRiverside have been an important source of support at various stages of my project. I received several senate grants as well as a subvention from the Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS) for the book. I thank Randolph Head, Kiril Tomoff, and Dean Pena as well as my colleagues Georg Michels, Juliette Levy, Monte Kugel, Ray Kea, Jonathan Eacott, and Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, Ruhi Khan, Benjamin Liu, Susan Ossman, and Thomas Cogswell and my graduate students for their constant support and inspiration.