IN a project that promises to shed light on the socio-economic and ethnic origins of the island’s population, two historians at the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) in the occupied north have begun transcribing Ottoman census data compiled between 1831 and the start of British rule.
Dr Gul Barkay – originally from Izmir on Turkey’s Aegean coast – and Turkish Cypriot Mustafa Kemal Kasapoglu are co-ordinating a project which last August began sifting through piles of data provided by the ‘national archive’ in Kyrenia.
“The aim of the project is to create our own archive here at the university translated from 65 original Ottoman ledgers,” says Dr Barkay.
“The ledgers contain a lot of information accompanying each entry, including place of origin, eye and skin colour, profession and physical disabilities,” adds Kasapoglu, adding that a lot could be learned about the population of the island from the names recorded.
But strangely, despite this wealth of information, one vital thing is omitted from the ledgers – female names.
“The Ottomans did not think women were so important,” says Kasapoglu.
Both Dr Barkay and Kasapoglu insist it is too early to draw any conclusions from the data so far processed, but they say the variety of names they have so far come across suggest the island possessed a diverse cultural and ethnic mix.
“A lot of the what we have seen so far suggests many came to the island from southern Anatolia, especially during Ottoman times,” says Kasapoglu, adding that there were two basic reasons for the migration.
“Often people were banished here following uprisings against their Ottoman overlords. The other way people were brought in was through the importation of craftsmen the Ottomans believed there was a lack of.”
Again, while emphasising the need not to jump to conclusions, the researchers say the names of some entries suggest the existence of a phenomenon known as Linovambaki.
Linovambaki are Greek Cypriots who converted from Christianity to Islam during Ottoman times in order to reap certain socio-economic benefits.
“We can make certain assumptions about this happening because after British rule began, the number of Cypriots identifying themselves as Muslim suddenly dropped,” says Kasapoglu.
But it is also the use of certain names – which could be described as Islamised Christian names – that provide clues as to the existence of the Linovambaki practice.
The two researchers emphasise that the dynamics involved in the Cypriot population during Ottoman times was in no way exclusive to the island.
“The same things occurred in the Balkans and in Istanbul,” says Barkay, explaining that Christians converted back from Islam following the numerous tanzimat, or reforms, introduced by the Ottomans that gave greater freedoms to non-Muslims living in the empire.
The research is still in its early days, say the two academics.
“So far we have transcribed seven of the 65 ledgers shown to us by the Kyrenia archive. We might find out that the 65 only represent a proportion of the total. We just don’t know yet,” says Kasapoglu, adding that if this is the case, they will have to continue their research in the archives stored in Istanbul.
Barkay adds that the work currently taking place is just the beginning of a long-term project, and that their remit is simply to transcribe the ledgers – something they say could take up to five years.
The Eastern Mediterranean University team plans to expand the study island-wide in the near future and say they hope to forge links with Greek Cypriot academics in the south.
“This island is one,” says Dr Barkay, adding that census data is also held in archives of the Orthodox Church – and that this data is recorded in Ottoman Turkish.
“We can help them to transcribe the data, if they wish,” she adds.
“At the moment we [the north and south] are working separately, but we will be calling on them [Greek Cypriot academics] to help us set up joint studies”.
Dr Barkay says her department’s mission goes beyond teaching and research and believes the work will go some way to reform history teaching on the island.
“At present, history books simply seek to instil a national identity in the students,” she says, adding that the ‘ministry of education’ in the north was already involved in a project seeking to improve the way history was taught in Turkish Cypriot schools.
Dr Barkay and Kasapoglu will be heading a workshop on the History of the Eastern Mediterranean between May 28 and June 2 at the university in conjunction with Germany’s Erfurt University. They hope to organise part of the workshop to take place at the Ledra Palace Hotel so that academics from both sides of the Green Line can attend.
