Visit of Sultan Resad to Rumeli in the İsmail (Tuncu) Bey's Travelogue (Hâtıra-i Seyahât): Kosova

Abstract

Domestic travels of Ottoman Sultans, in order to provide multiple benefits, had started with Mahmud II and continued until the end of the period, except Abdulhamid II. In this context, Abdulmajid and Abdulaziz, had quite a long period or several short trips, containing various regions of the country. The latest example of this serie was Sultan Rashad's Rumeli visit between 5 to 26 June 1911. On this trip, the grand vizier of the period (sadrazam) and senior officials accompanied Sultan Rashad. Core and periphery regions of Çanakkale, Thessaloniki, Skopje, Pristina and Manastir had been visited with this crowded committiee and aimed to strengthen the loyalty of the people to the Ottoman administration. The most important part of this trip, that had realized just before the separation of the management of Rumelia from Ottoman Empire, was the visit to Murat Hudavendigar's mouseloum and Juma'a prayer with a wide participation. In our presentation, we tried to analyze especially the part of the Sultan Murat's mousueloum, which is also called Mashad-i Hudavendigar, visit and Juma'a prayer. This analyze is based on unpublished travel notes, called "Hâtıra-i Seyahât" of Ismail (Tuncu) Bey, who was without a doubt, a careful observer and took part in Sultan Rashad's delegation. Thus, we aimed to put forth the features of Sultan Reshad, according to another person.