„Oszmán összeírások gyűjteménye” a Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár honlapján
by Szepesiné Simon Éva, National a Hungary
The database "Collection of Ottoman censuses", available at Adatbázisok Online of the National Archives of Hungary, provides an insight into the Ottoman period and the struggling daily life of the Ottoman-Hungarian border region. The database, which currently contains some 26 300 records, primarily focuses on income and property records obtained from the Ottoman tax registers (tapu defterleri) covering the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary and makes them accessible to all, but the structure of the database is suitable for displaying all administrative units of the Ottoman Empire in the future. The collection, which offers both easy and quick access and comparative research, is recommended not only for historians, but for those interested in military history or the past of their localities, too.
For some, it was a miraculous century (Muhteşem Yüzyıl), for others, the 16th century was a time of suffering and constant war.
Since 2014, researchers of the collaborative research project of National Archives of Hungary and HUN-REN RCH Institute of History, supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, have been collecting digital copies of Ottoman-language sources (written in Arabic letters) for Hungarian territories, prepared by the tax-collectors (muharrir) of the Ottoman Empire. In addition to the registers sent to the Ottoman Porte – kept now in the Directorate of State Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey of Ottoman Archives (BOA) in Istanbul –, a large number of documents have survived in the provinces which were dispersed after the recapture of Buda (1686), often becoming spoils of war for Christian armies, and therefore are now found in many places around the world, from Vienna to Copenhagen, from Sofia to Paris. Members of the research team are making the relevant data of the defters available in Latin transcription and visualise derived data on maps in the database "Collection of Ottoman censuses".
Pest és Buda a XVI. század derekán (Pest and Buda in the mid-16th Century), available at http://dka.oszk.hu/html/kepoldal/index.phtml?id=00...
The introduction of Ottoman administration in the Hungarian territories began after the capture of the capital, Buda, in 1541. That time the Ottomans established their second province in Europe, the vilayet of Buda with more than half a dozen sanjaks (subprovinces), whose first surveys were carried out some years later. These defters were built up in a specific, logical sequence: the Ottoman conscriptors first systematically surveyed the territory and recorded the names of the settlements, listed their taxpayers by name and gave details of the taxes to be paid. Neither uninhabited villages or wastelands were overlooked. As a result, the data that can be extracted from these sources considerably enrich our knowledge of the medieval period which is characterized by the scarcity of surviving sources. In the years between the detailed censuses of the sanjaks (mufassal defteri), poll-tax registers (cizye defteri) were compiled, in which demographic changes were recorded: some people fled, others moved in, sometimes the whole village moved to an empty wasteland. Comments reveal, who were unable to pay the tax (the poor, the crippled) and who were exempted (the judge, headmen of the village, military peasants etc.).
Based on the census of the sanjak, timar defters (icmal defteri) were prepared, in which the new acquisitions were distributed: the most profitable market towns, villages, etc., were selected for the sultan, followed by the estates of the sanjakbeys. The remainder were distributed among the military leaders of various ranks and their subordinates (ziamet-holders and common soldiers). Then, the changes in the allotted estates were recorded in hundreds of daybook registers (timar ruznamçe defteri), which provide a significant amount of information for posterity: place of origin, rank, career, and often kinship of the beneficiaries, as well as give details on various Ottoman military actions, raids and campaigns in the region concerned.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München - BSB Cod. Turc. 138.
The database, which is constantly evolving and broadly follows the pace of Ottoman expansion, currently contains records of 151 defters from the period 1546-1619. The processed sources do not yet cover the entire territory of the Hungarian conquest, neither in space nor in time. At the moment, the uploaded records refer to 11 sanjaks of the vilayet of Buda (Fülek, Görösgal, Hatvan, Koppányi, Mohács, Pécs, Simontornyai, Szeged, Szekcső, Szekszárd, Szigetvár). The completion and visualisation of the entire material of the vilayet is expected by 2026, and the material of the subsequently established vilayets of Temesvár (1552), Eger (1596), Kanizsa (1600), Várad (1660), Érsekújvár (1663) will be added in mass afterwards.
Although the SQL Oracle relational database displayed on MNL AdatbázisokOnline is basically in Hungarian, the titles of individual defters, Ottoman offices and some terminus technicus can be searched in Turkish, while field names in English. Spatial orientation is facilitated by maps with Hungarian and English titles extracted from the database records and linked to each entry, while names of the administrative units in Arabic letters make it easier to compare with the sources. All the principal data of the defters, recorded in the database, are browsable. To support the work of researchers and other interested parties, a user’s guide in English and Hungarian has been prepared for each type of defter.
Changes in tax/hane values around the castle of Eger 1546-1591 (still unoccupied by Ottoman forces)
The database also allows us to investigate processes, based on the comparative studies of the defter series and the map sections from different time-horizons, that can be superimposed. We can gain a more precise picture on the location of the administrative boundaries of the Ottoman Empire vis-à-vis the Habsburgs and their changes over time, on the multiple (administrative, military) system of borders in the empire, on changes in the methods and intensity of tribute, on the consequences of local responses to central financial measures etc. Changes in the functions of sub-regions are made visible: how peripheral areas were transformed into cenral areas of the Ottoman Empire. Demographic processes, like the infiltration and settlement of foreign ethnic groups (e. g. eflaks) are demonstrated. The fluctuation and changes over time of the military personnel in the area could be examined by the records of the ruznamçe defters.
In parallel with the processing of the defters, the National Archives of Hungary is also processing the war tax censuses (Conscriptiones portarum) of the surviving Hungarian administration in a similar database-like way, which will allow researchers to compare Ottoman and royal Hungarian data and answer further questions, like the precise definition of the area of the Ottoman-Hungarian condominium and the monitoring of its changes over time; the relationship between Ottoman and Hungarian taxes and tax-bases and their differences in the periphery and central areas. This enhanced research will also help us understand the extent of deterioration and depopulation of rural areas.
Scientific researchers: Sz. Simon Éva, Hegyi Klára, Fóti Miklós, Dorogi Ilona, Sudár Balázs.
IT-expert: Záros Zsolt
GIS-aided data visualization: Demeter Gábor, Nagy Béla, TÉRINFO Bt., Németh Gábor, Gyula Gergő
Scientific contributors: Pánya István, Szatlóczki Gábor, Boris Stojkovski, Miroslav Pavlović, Pálmai Balázs
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