An Investigation on the Issue of Revision in Ottoman Yearbooks

Abstract

Yearbooks (salname) are documents that contain a whole year of events. The first of these annuals in Ottoman Empire, which are frequently used in historical studies, was published in 1847. Most of the official yearbooks are classified as governmental (general), province and ministry yearbooks. Official yearbooks were prepared by commissions including a number of officials. Since the information in the yearbooks had to be updated every year, the yearbook organization commissions would collect the information from the relevant institution and use them. Although the information was updated through the proofreading forms, most of the time infographical or typographical errors occurred in yearbooks. For this reason, revision and additional tables were added to the yearbooks. On the other hand, some corrections were made upon the requests or complaints of the civil servants or upon investigations, and these could contain information errors with a high degree of importance. Therefore, corrections were applied in two ways, ordinary and extraordinary. In this study, the correction methods applied in the Ottoman official yearbooks and the methods of their fulfillment were analyzed. In the examination, it was determined that the issue of correction was given great importance by the administrators. In the study, official yearbooks and Ottoman archive documents were examined. All of the governmental yearbooks were examined, and a sample was created from the provincial yearbooks. The corrections found in the yearbooks were also compared with the archive documents. The aim of the study is to provide a guide to researchers in writing the yearbook literature.