The ‘Conquering’ Soldier-Merchants of the Balkans: Colonization, State Interventionism and Separatist Claims in the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (18th-19th Centuries) Balkanların “Yayılmacı” Tüccar Askerkeri: Kolonileşme, Devlet Müdahalesi and Tuna Prensliklerinde Ayrılıkçı Eğilimler (18-19. Yüzyıl)
Abstract
This article studies the questions of self-rule and state intervention in the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and the socio-economic life of a late frontier society against the backdrop of the eighteenth-century wave of internal colonization by Ottoman Muslims, mostly of Janissary background. It aims at revealing complex relations between agents on three levels: local (voivodes, boyars, commoners), the regional (Janissaries and other soldiery) and the imperial; while also examining the influx of Muslims into the Principalities and its consequences as an interplay between various claims of trading rights, provisionist policies implemented by the imperial centre and the autonomous desires of the native nobility. The paper contends that the tributary status of the Principalities provided a major advantage in protecting the local population against Muslim penetration, as manifested in the ensuing direct intervention of the Porte and consequent trade restrictions. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the policy of keeping the Muslim-Ottoman presence and activities in the region at a minimum and obtaining full liberty of trade became an important component in the struggle for economic detachment from the Ottoman orbit, which in the long run contributed to the nation-state formation in Romania.
Bu makale, Eflak Boğdan’daki özerklik ve devlet müdahalesi sorunsalıyla geç bir sınır bölgesindeki sosyo-ekonomik hayatı, on sekiz yüzyıldaki çoğu Yeniçeri kökenli Müslüman Osmanlı tebasının önayak olduğu bir iç kolonileşme süreci üzerinden irdemekte ve bu sürece müdahil (voyvoda, boyar ve sıradan ahali), bölgesel (Yeniçeriler ve diğer askeri sınıf) ve merkezi aktörler arasındaki karmaşık ilişkileri gözler önüne sermeye çalışmaktadır. Müslümanların, Memleketeyn’de fiziki olarak yayılması ve sonuçlarını inceleyip, bu meseleyi farklı ticari haklara yönelik talepler, merkezin iaşe politikaları ve yerel asilzadelerin özerklik kaygıların temeline oturtmaktadır. Çalışmada, Eflak Boğdan’ın özel statüsünün yerli halkı Müslümanların bölgedeki yayılma çabalarına karşı, hemen sonrasında gerçekleşen doğrudan devlet müdahelesi ve ticari kısıtlamalarla da kanıtlandığı üzere, önemli bir engel teşkil ettiğini iddia edilmektedir. On sekizinci yüzyıl ortalarından itibaren, Osmanlı Müslümanlarının bölgedeki mevcudiyetiyle iktisadi ve diğer faaliyetlerini minimuma indirmek ve tam bir ticari özgürlük elde etmek gayesi, bölge halkının Osmanlı’nın ekonomik yörüngesinden çıkmak yolundaki mücadelelerinin önemli bir parçası olduğu iddia edilen makalede bu mücadelenin de uzun vadede Romanya’da ulus-devlet oluşumuna katkı bulunduğu savunulmaktadır.
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