New Facts concerning the First Turkish Press

Abstract

In spite of his importance, our knowledge regarding İbrahim Müteferrika, the founder of the first Turkish press, publisher, statesman, and an Ottoman intellectual is quite insufficient. For the most part, studies on İbrahim Müteferrika draw on information contained in travel books, diplomatic reports, and chronicles. Because no thorough archival study has been conducted on his life, no new information has been made available. Hence, the same facts are reiterated in almost every study, with only slight changes in the wording. As a consequence of the failure to exploit the Ottoman archives-aside from some records concerning the first press and a few notices in regard to İbrahim Müteferrika's activities-no new facts regarding his life have been turned up. The results of the author's archival research presented here include a number of new facts about his life in the Ottoman state. These include information pertaining to his occupational life (such things as position as a cavalryman in the imperial Inner Service, the date of his promotion to the honored position of müteferrika, or the sultan's Privy servant, the period he served as a clerk in the regiment of gun-carriage transport, or the period in which he acted as the historian for the Imperial Council of State) and the date of his death-not, as it turns out, the year H. 1158/1745 but H.1160/1747.