Abstract:

The multi-national structure of the Ottoman State has begun to disrupt with the weakness of the power of the state. With this disruption, the great states have begun to create religious, political and economic interests over the non-Muslim nations of the Ottoman State. The topics that the Western forces stand on in this context were the Armenian issue. Under the Berlin Treaty (Article 61) under the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War (93 War) and the "Armenian Question" included in political literature, the Ottoman administration was agreed to relieve the places where the Armenians lived intensely. This topic was formed in the framework of the concept of "Anadolu Islahati". The work, which was drawn up by the French traveler and writer Ludovic de Contenson under the title "Les Reformes en Turquie d'Asie: La question Armenienne, La question Syrienne", is related to the aforementioned "Anadolu Islahata". The author Contenson visited the areas where the Armenians lived intensely in Anatolia, observing the socio-cultural characteristics of the Armenians, drawing out the population statistics of the "Sangî Anadolu" provinces of Ottoman. This French work was translated into Turkish by Ragıb Rıfkı in 1913. By analyzing this work, which has not previously been used as a source in an academic study, the subject of "Anadolu Islahata" in the context of the Armenian issue will be tried to be viewed by the eyes of a foreign historian and traveler. Thanks to the statistical data contained in the work, the status of the population of the Armenian and other non-Muslim communities in the Ottoman geography will be identified in the process of the emergence of the Armenian issue. In addition, the statistics of the population of the general Ottoman geography in the work are analyzed by XIX. At the end of the century, the existing information on the regional distribution of Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman elements will be provided.

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