A Semiotic Analysis of the Socio-Economic Structure of the Province of Trabzon at the End of the Nineteenth Century Based on Photographs

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period in which economic, social, and spatial changes and transformations accelerated throughout the Ottoman Empire, particularly in port cities. In this context, Trabzon, as a significant Black Sea port city, served as a transitional hub with a multi-layered socio-economic structure shaped by its commercial ties between inland regions and the wider international world.This study analyzes the photographs of Trabzon found in the collection of Fahreddin Pasha, a military photographer, as primary sources reflecting the socio-economic landscape of the period through a semiotic approach. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the study is grounded in Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic model of signs. Within this framework, photographs are examined as multi-layered signs: at the iconic level, they reflect the physical reality of space; at the indexical level, they reveal traces and indicators of socio-economic relations; and at the symbolic level, they convey culturally constructed meanings grounded in social conventions. Employing semiotic analysis and signification methods, the study aims to render visible the socio-economic structure of Trabzon as shaped and articulated through port trade, caravan transportation, transhumance (highland pastoralism), the central square of Trabzon, rural production, and urban-based commercial relations. Consequently, photographs are regarded not merely as relics of the past, but as dynamic signs that reveal the transforming economic and social fabric of the city through multi-layered processes of meaning production.