Abstract:

What are the similarities and differences between the wealth of the bureaucracy elites who served in the center and the provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century? Or, did the people working in the bureaucracy in the Ottoman Empire have an impact on their wealth, whether they worked in the center or in the provinces? This article, derived from the doctoral thesis, was written to answer this basic questions. These questions will be asked by examining and comparing the inheritance records of 60 bureaucrats (30 of whom worked in the center (Istanbul) and thirty of whom worked in the provinces (Balkans, Anatolia and the Middle East)) who were included in the BOA. D.BŞM. MHF. (Presidency Ottoman Archives, Bab-ı Defteri, Chief Accountant, Muhallefat Caliphate) and D. BŞM. MHF. d. (notebook) Ottoman records and whose property was confiscated. From these estate records created in two groups, the duties of the bureaucrat groups in the bureaucracy, their wealth values, the property groups that make up their wealth, and the distribution of wealth within each group will be calculated (Gini coefficient) and compared. The reasons for the results obtained will be interpreted and determined as the subject of another study. The result obtained is that the bureaucrats working in the provinces are richer, the income distribution is more equal among the central bureaucrats and more unequal among the provincial bureaucrats, but the groups of goods consumed are similar to each other.

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