OTTOMAN COSSACKS IN ISTANBUL ACCORDING TO THE 1857 CENSUS DATA FROM THE BAŞBAKANLIK OSMANLI ARŞIVLERI

During the Tanzimat period, the Ottoman Empire underwent reforms in various fields, and the modernisation of state institutions also affected the modernisation of social relations. The non-Muslim 'milets' of Ottoman society were given new rights and opportunities, including the little-known 'Cossack milets'. Quite small in number throughout the empire – in Istanbul, for example, 163 representatives of this milet with their families were registered in 1857 – the Cossacks at the same time had another unique privilege: their served at the armed forces. The Cossack regiments were reintegrated into the Ottoman army in 1853 and existed until their reformation in 1877–1883. An analysis of the 1857 register of taxed Cossacks from the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri reveals the range of occupations, age categories and social ties of the Cossacks. The multi-ethnicity of the Cossacks is striking: not only representatives of Slavic peoples are listed, but also Greeks, Jews, Vlachs and others. Among the Cossacks, the craft trades typical of early modern Ottoman cities prevailed, demonstrating the economic adaptation of the military social group as a whole to urban conditions in peacetime, a kind of urbanisation of the Cossack population in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire.