Abstract:

Throughout history, people, earthquakes, floods, landslides… etc. had to deal with natural disasters such as one of these natural disasters that threaten human existence and civilizations is famine, which is the subject of this study. Famine; Migration brought along a series of socio-economic events such as epidemics, price increases in food products, deaths due to hunger, people's search for food and the emergence of security problems due to this. In the historical process, famine has been experienced in different parts of the world due to drought, wars, epidemics, locust invasions. Since its establishment, the Ottoman Empire had to struggle with the famine caused by drought in different time periods. The region where the most drought was experienced in the Ottoman geography today is the Central Anatolia Region, which consists of the provinces of Eskişehir, Ankara, Kayseri, Yozgat, Kırşehir, Konya, Niğde, Sivas, Kırıkkale, Aksaray, Karaman, Nevşehir and Çankırı. The high summer temperatures in the Central Anatolian Region caused a decrease in water resources. Because of this, cultivated agricultural products were left without water. This situation brought great consequences for the Ottoman Empire, which was an agricultural country. The villagers, who made their living from agriculture, had to migrate to different parts of Anatolia. Many farmers left their land empty, interrupting their agricultural activities. Since the beginning of the 19th century, significant droughts occurred in fifteen different regions of the Ottoman geography. One of the regions where famine occurred was Kırşehir Sanjak, which was the subject of the study. The long-lasting famine that took place between 1873 and 1875 had a heavy impact. In this study, the socio-economic effects of the famine disaster that took place in 1873 and which also affected Kırşehir, on the people, the measures taken by the government regarding the famine and the assistance of foreign states in this regard were evaluated in the light of archival documents and newspapers of the period.

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