The Case of Ezine Orman Katibi Mehmed Efendi

In June 1907, after he had been reported of donning a hat while watching a theater play, an Ottoman official, Mehmed Efendi, a scribe at the state forestry administration (orman katibi) got into trouble. Subsequently he got arrested and dismissed from his office.⁴⁴ The case took place in the district Ezine in the Marmara region, part of the historical Province of the Archipelago (Vilâyet-i Cezair-i Bahr-i Sefid) and the contemporary province of Çanakkale. It is recorded in an exchange of letters between the Grand Vizier and the ministry of the Interior, as well as the interrogation records of witnesses who had been questioned on the case. Mehmed Efendi had filed a petition in order to retain his office, and the whole procedure had been passed on by the head of the district (kā’immakām) to the central government for them to decide if the matter should be entrusted to a court or rather dealt with administration internally.⁴⁵

The scene took place at the hostel where Mehmed Efendi lived and at he same time the theater play was staged.⁴⁶ The men interrogated on the case were Rasım bin Mustafa

43 On the tasks and composition of the Istanbul municipality see Kemal H. Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays, Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East. - Leiden : Brill, 1971- 94 (Leiden [u.a.]: Brill, 2004), 286-287.

44 BOA BEO 3109/233116.

45 BOA BEO 3109/233116, June 4^th, 1907. The seal is illegible.

46 According to the records reporting on the case the owner of the ḫān was Arslan Efendi, son of Yaşar Aġa, others say the owner was Yaşar Aġa himself.

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Efendi,⁴⁷ a reserve head sergeant (redif serçavuşu), Arslan Efendi, son of of the owner of the hostel, a person called Ibrahim, then Aşıkzade Rüşdi Efendi, officer at the financial administration, Süleyman Efendi, son in law of financial inspector Osman Nuri, and the kahveci (coffee maker) İsmael Çavuş (sergeant).

Rasım bin Mustafa Efendi, when asked to describe the scene and if he saw Mehmed Efendi wearing a hat, he testifies that he had seen Mehmed Efendi wearing a night gown and the mentioned hat.⁴⁸ He desginated the mentioned hat as “rum şapkası”, literally an Ottoman Greek Orthodox hat. During the play, that he watched with his friends, he had heard people say, that Mehmed Efendi donned a hat so, he, Rasım Efendi, had turned around to look at him. He states that he saw him - first holding the hat in his hand, then putting it on his head, walking around with it among the crowd while taking it off and putting it back on frequently. After a while the financial director's son in law, Süleyman Efendi had approached Mehmed Efendi and asked him: “What are you doing? The crowd is watching you! Aren't you ashamed?⁴⁹ Mehmed Efendi had not reacted and remained silent, however, and turned away, as did Süleyman Efendi.

Arslan Efendi, son of of the owner of the hostel, testified he had talked to Mehmed Efendi and asked him “don't you feel ashamed to wear a hat just like that, is this compatible with Islam?⁵⁰” whereupon Mehmed Efendi had replied: “It is.”⁵¹ Arslan Efendi claims, that this hat, had not been not Mehmed's own, but that of merchant Alexander that he had borrowed. After being approached by Arslan Efendi, Mehmed had returned the hat to Alexander. But later, Arslan Efendi had heard, that Mehmed donned the hat again.⁵²

In his second interrogation Rasım Efendi expounds that the crowd's attention arose when Mehmed Efendi had entered the room and that he obviously did not bother about it. The interrogators asked him, what the hat was made of: “was it felt or straw or not?⁵³ They asked what colour it was, and what might have been the reasons of Mehmed Efendi

47 Rasım Efendi was interrogated two times: On June 2^nd, 1907 and June 5^th, 1907. It seems that the interrogation was conducted by different persons because questions and answers are similar. The second interview provides a few more details.

48 The following witnesses confirm this information: Rüşdi Efendi, scribe at the financial administration (mali kalemi mülazimlerinden), Hüseyin Efendi, assistant head secretary of the district governor (tahrirat katibi muavini), Süleyman Efendi, reserve head sergeant (redif serçavuşu), and another Süleyman Efendi, son in law of the financial inspector (mali müdiri).

49 ”Ne yapıyorsun ahāli sana baḳıyor ʿayb değilmidir?” BOA BEO 3109/233116.

50 “Utanmazmısınız böyle şabka giymekten, islām'a yakışıyor mu?” BOA BEO 3109/233116.

51 “Olur!” BOA BEO 3109/233116, page 4, line 12-13.

52 He said he had heard it from an official called Hassan Fehmi and adjutant Hüsni Efendi.

53 “Ürme, ḥasir midir değilmirdir?” BOA BEO 3109/233116.

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wearing it.⁵⁴ Rasım Efendi replies that the hat was of black colour, that he had also heard it was merchant Alexander's hat, and that he had no idea of Mehmed Efendi's motivations. Asked what he new about Alexander, Rasım said he just knew he was a merchant and also stayed at the hostel.

The next witness is the financial officer Aşıkzade Rüşdi Efendi, who, like all other witnesses, affirms he had no enmity with Mehmed Efendi and knew him because he came to his office once in a while. He also describes the hat as black, but claims he did not recognize of what material or shape it was.

Another witness, Süleyman Efendi, son in law of financial inspector Osman Nuri, narrates his encounter with Mehmed Efendi that evening as follows:

“I was watching the play, leaning against the railing on the upper floor. Mehmed Efendi came and stood by my side, wearing his antari, his night gown, ⁵⁵ and hat and watched the play. When he turned to me, I realized he was wearing a hat. I asked him: 'what is it on your head, aren't you ashamed?' He said nothing, turned his head away, and continued watching the play.”⁵⁶

Finally, Mehmed Efendi is interviewed himself.⁵⁷ The interrogators first asked him where he generally was spending his evenings. Whereupon he replies that ususally his stayed in his room in Arslan Efendi's hostel. The interrogator then want to know from him if he usually changed his dress immediately when he came home in the evenings or later when he went to bed. In reply Mehmed Efendi declared that he sometimes changed when coming home and sometimes when he went to bed. Then they want to know if he commonly put on a fez when he got changed. He answered that sometimes he put on a fez and other times the kalpak of the people of Kaşgar.⁵⁸

On the respective evening he had put on the mentioned kalpak. He was asked to show this headpiece, which he did and confirmed that it was the one he had worn that

54 “Ne maḳṣada buni giymiş?” BOA BEO 3109/233116.

55 Loose robe, in this case probably a kind of night gown.

56 “ḫānin üst katında ki gezinti maḥallinde parmakliğa dayanarak oyun seyrediyorum Meḥmed efendi gecelik antarisiyle ve başında şabka olduġu ḥālde yanıma geldi ve oyuna bakıyor idi, kendisine toğru cevirerek diḳḳat eyittiğimde başında şabka olduğunu gördüm. Ona başındaki nedir ʿayb değilmidir diye su'āl eyitdim sükūt ederek ve başını çevirerek seyre devām eyitdi.” BOA BEO 3109/233116

57 According to the record his age was 28.

58 Kashgar is the westernmost city in China, located near the borders of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

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night.⁵⁹ Upon this Süleyman Efendi is interrogated a second time in order to confirm that the mentioned kalpak was the headpiece worn by Mehmed Efendi he saw, which Süleyman denies. He says the concerned headpiece had been of grey color and not black as the one he was shown now. When asked if the mentioned headpiece had a brim he provides a closer discription, that is as follows:

“Its crown was indent, the material of the fringe put outwards, and its brim roled up.”⁶⁰

Also the other witnesses do not recognized the kaşgar kalpak as the piece donned by Mehmed Efendi that evening. According to the witness İsmael:

“The mentioned hat was somewhat dark-colored with a brim. I realized that it was timber merchant Alexander's hat when I saw him the other day.⁶¹

The kind of hat described by the witnesses might have been a homburg or fedora hat, both having “a central crease on the top and a slightly turned brim.”⁶² While the homburg is made of stiffened felt, the fedora's material is softer. Both types had become popular in the late nineteenth century.

The fedora emerged in 1880s, and according to Beverly Chico, in her encyclopedic account on hats and headwear, represents a shift in the spread of headwear styles.

Instead of adopting aristocratic and royal styles, expanding middle classes embraced fashions which were made popular by stage productions and actors.⁶³ It inhabited a niche between formal and casual headwear and won out as a the more comfortable alternative over the bowler hat. Along with the growing popularity and acceptance amongst higher classes of cloth caps, Beverely Chico regards the popularity of the fedora as a demise of Victorian rigidity.

59 I could not find a depiction or description of a Kaşgar/Kasghar kalpak, but I imagine it was similar to what is known as Khirgiz kalpak, since it has a brim and thus could be confused with a European brimmed hat.

60 “Tepesi çıḳur kenarları da'ir madda ḫārice toġri koyuverilmiş ve şemssiper ḫaddını ḳıvırcuḳ ṣūretde idi.”

BOA BEO 3109/233116 page 6, line 10-11.

61 “Mezkūr şabḳa kenarlı sıyāhi gibi bir şey' olub ağac tüccarı Aleksanderinin giydiği şabḳa olduğunu ertesi güni gördüğümde anladım.” BOA BEO 3109/233116, page 7, line 10-11.

62 Beverly Chico, Hats and Headwear around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia: A Cultural Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2013), 245.

63 Ibid., 163-165.

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In contrast, the homburg⁶⁴ was made popular through its adoption by the later King Edward, then Prince of Wales, after his stay in Bad Homburg and by that turned into an expression of elite status by those who wanted to display wealth and class. Even though the top hat was the most prestigious expression of a high social status, the homburg became an accepted compromise between stiff uncomfortable headwear and the softer, more informal fedora. The spread of the homburg shows that the spread of styles through rulers and kings did not cease to exist entirely.

Back to Mehmed Efendi's case: confronted with all those witnesses who declared that he had been wearing a brimmed hat, Mehmed Efendi still insisted that he had worn the kaşgar kalpak instead. He blamed people's perception of him donning a hat on the darkness inside the hostel. By no means, he contends, had he held merchant Aleksander's hat in his hand nor put it on his head. Furthermore, he assesses that he had many witnesses to attest to it, but could not remember their names right now.

In the end the ministry of the Inner decided that it had been inappropriate to arrest Mehmed Efendi and that the matter should be dealt with administration internally.

This is in an example of the negotiation of identities and production of modern subjects in and through spaces such as the modern state and the theater. Performances on stage and the theater as a public space are of considerable significance here. The intervention against the hats on-stage might have taken place because of the play the actors performed, but the document does not mention the name of the play or anything which makes it possible to indicate the contents of the play.

In her analysis of Ottoman cartoons, Palmira Brummett notes that the theater amongst other forms of art had been a key symbol for social change.⁶⁵ That made it a vulnerable place for the construction of Ottoman identity in the tension between self and other. The theater, according to Brummett, had a special fascination in Ottoman society amongst Western arts that became popular in the Ottoman empire, and she explains it with the long history and tradition of Ottoman theater. She considers it a space for the constitution of Ottoman identity, also in respect of gender relations, since it was a space where men and women mixed. In post-revolutionary cartoons, Brummet notes that the

64 Named after the German spa Bad Homburg.

65 See Palmira Johnson Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908 - 1911 (Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2000), 205.

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theater stage appeared as a metaphor for the Ottoman Empire, which was situated in a period of transition between real and unreal, past and present.⁶⁶ It was a symbol of the modern, celebrated by Westernized elites, especially after 1908, when it was freed from the restriction (allegedly) imposed on it by Abdülhamid II. Yet the satire magazines also voiced critique of the elite and exclusive character of the modern theater and its adherents, who ignored the needs of other strata of the population.

The history of the modern theater can be dated back to the turn of the 19^th century, under Selim III. The first theater was constructed with active support of the sultan. Two more were built during the reign of Mahmud II. They held regular performances of European troupes, and from the mid-century on plays written by Ottoman authors were also brought on stage. In 1860 the Ottoman theater, also known as Gedik Paşa theater, was built in Istanbul. This too took place with the approval of the sultan, who regularly visited the performances.⁶⁷

Suraiya Faroqhi treats the Ottoman theater as a part of luxury consumption as it was a space that confirmed the social status through the display of people's wealth.⁶⁸ She argues that while Ottoman play writers aimed to educate their audience, the public itself rather enjoyed the entertainment and thus made the visiting of a theater a social event.

She also asserts that the theater was a space encountered by a highly heterogeneous crowd in terms of gender and ethno-religious background, which makes it important on the grounds of identity-building. Thus the theater became a space of affirmation of social status through interaction of the audience amongst each other and the actors and stage.

In that regard it was also a space of social control as the provided cases indicate. In Faroqhis words: “Socio-political hierarchy is indicated by the goods which a given group was or was not permitted to wear.”

What does, however, the banning of the hat for Muslim off- and on-stage indicate? It was the distinction of a distinct Ottoman bourgeois style, and in this special case an Ottoman Muslim style. In neither case - be it the ownership of a hat by merchant Alexander or the wearing of hats on stage by Ottoman non-Muslims – did the Ottoman

66 See Ibid., 205.

67 See Ibid., 206.

68 Suraiya Faroqhi, ‘Consumption and Elite Status in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century’, in Stories of Ottoman Men and Women: Establishing Status, Establishing Control (Istanbul: Eren, 2002), 50-51.

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authorities render the wearing of hats by Ottoman non-Muslims problematic. Accordingly, this incident provides another example of the selective and somehow arbitrary implementation of modern Ottoman dress codes, where divides along national and ethnic identity became relevant or stressed in varying degrees and for various purposes.