Abstract:

Tuna Newspaper which can be regarded as forerunner of the Ottoman Provincial Press in the framework of Official publication, started its publication as a result of process of modernization that aimed to include provinces in the reformation and also efficiently using of press in development efforts modeled the West. Tuna/Dunav newspaper appeared on March, 1865 as bilingual Turkish and Bulgarian and in the first year as weekly on Wednesday and later on twice in a week -Wednesday and Sunday- and with a press run of 1,500 copies. Some of the topics of the newspaper were as follows: provincial reforms, activities of Midhat Pasha, news on other provinces of the empire, educational information on a wide variety of subjects, foreign politics, proclamations and commercial announcements as well as Bulgarian nationalism and prevention of political activism of Russia in the region. Tuna newspaper contributed to the development of Turkish language by adopting plain language and also paid special attention to developments of liberalism, democracy, science, education and industrialization in the Europe, as well as paved the way for spread of provincial newspapers which were important elements of press-publication and cultural life in the Ottoman provinces.

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