Captive wild animals as visual commodities in the Ottoman Empire: a historical review

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Gary Johnson, staff of the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA, for his kindness in providing me with a digital version of the Levant Herald and Eastern Express of 31 March 1900, and Orçun Nalezen for translating the Ottoman archival document dated 21 October 1681, which I used in my study. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of MES for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am grateful to Dimitri (Vafiadis) Daravanoğlu, the editor of the 2mi3museum project, for sharing his valuable knowledge of G. H. Koch with me. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Aytek Sever for his assiduous proofreading and critical reading of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 ‘Hikmet-i Hayvanat’ [Wisdom of Animals], Mecmua-i Edebiyye Vol.I (20) (2 Nov 1899), pp.1–2.

2 J. London, Michael, Brother of Jerry (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1917), p.iv.

3 Ahmet Haşim, Bize Göre ve Bir Seyahatin Notları [To My Mind & Notes of a Journey], N. Tonga (ed.) (Istanbul: Kırmızı Kedi, 2021), p.114 (original manuscript published in 1928).

4 H. Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); R. J. Hoage and W. A. Deiss (eds), New Worlds, New Animals: From Menageries to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); N. Rothfels, Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); S. Nance, Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2013); S. Nance, Animal Modernity: Jumbo the Elephant and the Human Dilemma (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); L. Simon, The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus (London: Reaktion Books, 2014); P. Tait, Fighting Nature: Travelling Menageries, Animal Acts and War Shows (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2016); H. Cowie, Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Empathy, Education, Entertainment (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

5 Since the 2010s, some historians have included animals as historical actors in their studies: S. Faroqhi (ed.), Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: Eren, 2010); A. Mikhail, ‘Animal as Property in Early Modern Ottoman Egypt’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol.53(4) (2010), pp.621–52; A. Mikhail, ‘Unleashing the Beast: Animals, Energy, and the Economy of Labor in Ottoman Egypt’, The American Historical Review Vol.118(2) (2013), pp.317–48; A. Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); A. Mikhail, ‘A Dog-Eat-Dog Empire: Violence and Affection on the Streets of Ottoman Cairo’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Vol.35(1) (2015), pp.76–95; C. Gündoğdu, ‘The Animal Rights Movement in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Republic: The Society for the Protection of Animals (Istanbul, 1912)’, in S. Faroqhi (ed.), Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: Eren, 2010), pp.373–95. C. Gündoğdu, ‘The State and the Stray Dogs in Late Ottoman Istanbul: From Unruly Subjects to Servile Friends’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.54(4) (2018), pp.555–74; C. Gündoğdu, ‘Dogs Feared and Dogs Loved: Human-Dog relations in the Late Ottoman Empire’, Society & Animals Vol.1-22 (2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-BJA10008; S. Çelik, ‘“It’s a Bad Fate to Be Born Near a Forest”: Forest, People and Buffaloes in Mid-Nineteenth Century North-Western Anatolia’, in O. İnal and Y. Köse (eds), Seeds of Power: Explorations in Ottoman Environmental History (Cambridgeshire: White Horse Press, 2019), pp.111–33; O. İnal, ‘One-Humped History: The Camel as Historical Actor in the Late Ottoman Empire’, International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol.53(1) (2021), pp.57–72. Among these, only Mikhail, in his pioneering work on the history of animals in the Ottoman Empire, examined the transformation of wild animals into commercial commodities after the 1860s in Egypt, nominally an administrative part of the Ottoman Empire at that time; see, The Animal in the Ottoman Egypt, pp.162–76.

6 The first public zoo in Turkey opened in İzmir with a collection of twenty-five wild animals. Before that in 1933, the Directorate of Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara had started exhibiting a group of animals ‘dangerous to agriculture and humans’, including jackal, bear, fox, wild boar, eurygaster, and pests, which would be transformed into a zoo in 1940. D. Acuner, ‘Kafesin İki Tarafı: Atatürk Orman Çiftliği Hayvanat Bahçesi’nin Hafızası’ [Both Sides of the Cage: The Memory of Atatürk Forest Farm Zoo], in A. Alkan (ed.), Şehir ve Hayvan [City and Animal] (Istanbul: Patika Kitap, 2020), p.166.

7 H. Kean, ‘Challenges for Historians Writing Animal–Human History: What is Really Enough?’, Anthrozoös Vol.25 (sup1) (2012), p.66.

8 Nance, Entertaining Elephants, p.10.

9 E. Fudge, ‘A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals’, in N. Rothfels (ed.), Representing Animals (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p.7.

10 R. J. Hoage, A. Roskell, and J. Mansour, ‘Menageries and Zoos to 1900’, in R. J. Hoage and W. A. Deiss (eds), New Worlds, New Animals: From Menageries to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.8–16.

11 BOA, Y‥PRK.MF‥1/11 (30 July 1880); BOA is an abbreviation for the Turkish Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives. Subsequent letters and numerals indicate sub-catalogues and document numbers.

12 Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.113.

13 S. Faroqhi, ‘Exotic Animals at the Sultans’ Court’, in S. Faroqhi (ed.), Another Mirror for Princes: The Public Image of the Ottoman Sultans and Its Reception (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2009), pp.87, 101; H. Reindl-Kiel, ‘Dogs, Elephants, Lions, a Ram and a Rhino on Diplomatic Mission: Animals as Gifts to the Ottoman Court’, in S. Faroqhi (ed.), Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: Eren, 2010), p.282.

14 D. L. Simēon, The Travel Accounts of Simēon of Poland (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2007), pp.37–38 (original manuscript written in 1619-1635).

15 Ibid, p.37.

16 Faroqhi, ‘Exotic Animals’, pp.93–96; R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi [The Encyclopaedia of Istanbul], Vol.2 (Nurgök Matbaası, 1959), p.1060.

17 F. Günergun, ‘Türkiye'de Hayvanat Bahçeleri Tarihine Giriş’ [Introduction to the History of Zoos in Turkey], in A. Özen (ed.), I. Ulusal Veteriner Hekimlig˘i Tarihi ve Mesleki Etik Sempozyumu Bildirileri [Proceedings of the 1^st National Symposium on the History of Veterinary and Professional Ethics] (Elazığ: Fırat Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2006), pp.191–92.

18 M. M. Sunar, ‘Hayvanlar’ [Animals], Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Çevre ve Şehir [Environment and City in the Ottoman Empire] (Istanbul: İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi, 2015), pp.208–10.

19 Faroqhi, ‘Exotic Animals’, p.101.

20 R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.11 (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1971), p.5792; BOA.AE.SMMD.IV. 94/11118 (21 October 1681).

21 R. Worringer, A Short History of the Ottoman Empire (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021), p.348.

22 Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.11, p.5792.

23 M. And, ‘Circus Arts among the Ottomans’, Turkish Cultural Portal (2017). http://www.turkishculture.org/performing-arts/circus-arts-94.html (accessed 3 March 2021):; Faroqhi, ‘Exotic Animals’, p.90.

24 J. Chesneau, Le Voyage de Monsieur d'Aramon, Ambassadeur pour le Roy en Levant (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1887), pp.35–37 (original manuscript written in 1566); A. H. Wratislaw, Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (London: Bell and Daldy,1862), p.70 (original manuscript written in 1599).

25 Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.125; Chesneau, Le Voyage, pp.35–36.

26 Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.136.

27 M. And, Kırk Gün, Kırk Gece: Osmanlı Düğünleri, Şenlikleri, Geçit Alayları [Forty Days and Forty Nights: Weddings, Festivals and Pageantry in the Ottoman Empire] (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2020), p.183.

28 Ibid, p.187.

29 Ibid, p.185.

30 E. Sevinçli, ‘Festivals and Their Documentation: Surnames Covering the Festivities of 1675 and 1724’, in S. Faroqhi and A. Öztürkmen (eds), Celebration, Entertainment and Theatre in the Ottoman World (London: Seagull Books, 2014), p.194.

31 I. Ben-Ami, ‘Emotions and the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Carnival of Animals’, in S. Cockram and A. Wells (eds), Interspecies Interactions: Animals and Humans between the Middle Ages and Modernity (London: Routledge, 2017), p.19.

32 Ibid, pp.19–21; Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, pp.125–36.

33 Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.120.

34 Sunar, ‘Hayvanlar’, p.210.

35 Ibid, p.211; BOA, Y‥PRK.UM‥17/31 (9 June 1890); BOA, Y‥PRK.ZB‥9/77 (3 March 1892); BOA, Y‥PRK.ZB‥10/61 (21 September 1892).

36 BOA, Y‥PRK.UM‥17/31.

37 BOA, Y‥PRK.ZB‥10/61.

38 Sunar, ‘Hayvanlar’, p.211.

39 F. Georgeon, Sultan Abdülhamid (Istanbul: Homer, 2006), p.324.

40 Ibid, pp.317–24; S. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), pp.150–65.

41 BOA, Y‥A…RES. 27/13 (4 January 1885). A comparison of this sum with another project of the time is helpful in providing economic context. In April 1890, bureaucrats began submitting plans for the Darülaceze (Poorhouse). According to the initial reports, the total amount for the establishment of the Darülaceze was about 40,000 Ottoman liras. Since there was no budget for this initiative, the state elites decided to raise the income from donations. Apart from the Abdülhamid II’s personal contribution to the founding budget of 17,000 Ottoman liras, the rest of the sum was to be raised through donations. N. Birol, ‘II. Abdülhamid Dönemi Hayır Kurumlarından Darülaceze’nin Yapımı ve Halil Rıfat Paşa’nın Çalışmaları’ [The Costruction of the Darülaceze, One of the Philanthropic Institutions of the Abdülhamid II Period, and the Works of Halil Rıfat Pasha], AKRA Kültür, Sanat ve Edebiyat Dergisi Vol.13(5) (2017), pp.37–38; R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.8 (Istanbul: Koçu Yayınları, 1966), p.4243.

42 BOA, Y‥A…RES. 27/13 (4 January 1885).

43 E. Eldem, ‘Ottoman Financial Integration with Europe: Foreign Loans, the Ottoman Bank and the Ottoman Public Debt’, European Review Vol.13(3) (2005), pp.440–43.

44 In the Ottoman archival documents, the name of the foreign entrepreneur is written as ‘Koh’, as it is pronounced in Turkish. Moreover, the documents do not mention his first name. However, further research revealed that ‘Monsieur Koh’ was most likely the German citizen Georg Heinrich Koch (1829–1912), who had emigrated to Istanbul in 1852 as a planner and gardener for the imperial palace after completing a three-year vocational training in horticulture in Germany. Around the turn of the century, he and his two sons, Ludwig Georg Koch and Heinrich Koch, were among the gardeners responsible for the design, layout and maintenance of the imperial gardens, especially the Yıldız Palace. In the early 1890s, Monsieur Koch opened his own commercial nursery in Ortaköy under the name of G. H. Koch. For more information, see B. Singer, ‘Discovering the Diversity of a Levantine Family: Multiple Branches of One Istanbul Family’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGrm6NT4AOg; P. Göker, ‘Landscape Design Principles of Yildiz Palace Gardens, Istanbul’, American Journal of Engineering Research Vol.7(10) (2018), p.66; on Monsieur Koch’s tree trade with the imperial palace, see BOA, Y‥PRK.M… 4/76 (18 October 1899).

45 BOA, İ‥DH‥1194/93423 (24 September 1890).

46 BOA, İ‥DH‥1202/94051(21 November 1890); BOA, HH.İ…223/66 (31 December 1890).

47 R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Anisklopedisi, Vol.9 (Istanbul: Koçu Yayınları, 1968), p.4878.

48 BOA, İ‥DH‥1214/95046 (07 February 1891).

49 M. DeMello, Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), p.102.

50 S. G. Kohlstedt, ‘Reflections in Zoo History’, in R. J. Hoage and W. A. Deiss (eds), New Worlds, New Animals: From Menageries to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.3–4.

51 Tait, Fighting Nature, p.xiii; Rothfels, Savages and Beasts, p.9; Nance, Animal Modernity, p.13.

52 DeMello, Animals and Society, p.102; Tait, Fighting Nature, p.249; Nance, Entertaining Elephants, pp.219–20.

53 S. S. Cox, Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey, (New York: C.L. Webster, 1887), pp.436–37.

54 R. E. Bieder, Bear (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), p.106.

55 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi [Travelogue, by Evliya Çelebi], Vol.1, R. Dankoff, S. A. Kahraman, and Y. Dağlı (eds) (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2006), p.521 (original manuscript written in the seventeenth century).

56 R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.3 (Istanbul: Nurgök Matbaası. 1960), p.1536; R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.7 (Istanbul: Neşriyat Kolektif Şirketi, 1965), p.3994.

57 Cox, Diversions of a Diplomat, pp.436–37.

58 Bieder, Bear, p.106.

59 A. R. Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu? [How Did İstanbulites Enjoy Their Time?] (Istanbul: Alfa, 2014), pp.115–16 (original work published in 1927); M. Tokluca, ‘Ayıların Başına Gelenler’ [What Bears Have To Undergo], İST Dergi Vol.7 (2021): https://www.istdergi.com/tarih-belge/ayilarin-basina-gelenler.

60 Tokluca, ‘Ayıların Başına Gelenler’.

61 R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.5 (Istanbul: Neşriyat Kolektif Şirketi, 1961), p.2812.

62 BOA, İ‥DH‥268/16770 (25 March 1853).

63 Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu?, p.193.

64 BOA, YB.021. 78/191 (30 Nov 1883).

65 BOA, HR.SFR.04‥600/101 (16 Jan 1907).

66 P. Tünaydın, ‘Rescuing the Bears, Silencing the Bear Leaders: Bear Dancing in Historical Context and Its Abolition in Turkey’ (MA thesis, Sabancı University, 2014), pp.51–52. 

67 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, Vol.1, p.521.

68 O. N. Ergin, Mecelle-i Umur-ı Belediyye [The Book of Municipal Affairs], Vol.4 (Istanbul: İBB Kültür İşleri Başkanlığı, 1995), p.2127.

69 Bieder, Bear, p.110.

70 L. Lucassen and W. Willems, ‘The Weakness of Well-ordered Societies: Gypsies in Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and India, 1400-1914’, Review (Fernand Braudel Centre) Vol.26 (3) (2003), p.304.

71 BOA, ZB. 389/143 (16 February 1907).

72 BOA, DH.MKT. 731/71 (2 July 1903); BOA, DH.MKT. 1106/87 (7 August 1906)

73 Tait, Fighting Nature, p.153; H. Ritvo, ‘The Order of Nature: Constructing the Collections of Victorian Zoos’, in R. J.  Hoage and W. A. Deiss (eds.), New Worlds, New Animals: From Menageries to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.43.

74 BOA, YB.021. 86/78 (30 January 1890).

75 BOA, HR.H…508/15 (19 September 1892); BOA.İ‥HUS. 3/63 (4 September 1892).

76 BOA, İ‥HUS. 3/63.

77 Ibid.

78 Rothfels, Savages and Beasts, p.9.

79 Simon, The Greatest Shows, p.154.

80 BOA, İ‥HUS. 3/63.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 BOA, Y‥A…HUS. 264/82 (5 September 1892).

84 BOA, HR.H…508/15 (19 September 1892).

85 BOA, DH.MKT. 2022/52 (20 November 1892).

86 BOA, HR.H…508/15.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 ‘Dünkü Harik’ [Yesterday’s Fire Incident], Sabah (31 March 1900), p.2.

90 The Levant Herald and Eastern Express Vol.XXI (75) (31 March 1900), pp.1, 5.

91 BOA, DH.MKT. 1016/38 (13 October 1905); BOA, ZB. 373/53 (20 May 1906).

92 BOA, ZB. 385/108 (1 May 1906); BOA, ZB. 373/30 (30 April 1906).

93 F. M. Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of the Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

94 BOA, Y‥A…HUS. 294/56 (21 April 1894); BOA, YB.021. 86/159 (6 February 1890); ‘Dünkü Harik’, p.2; BOA, BEO. 2645/198305 (17 August 1905).

95 BOA, DH.MKT. 731/71 (2 July 1903).

96 BOA, DH.MKT. 629/62 (9 January 1903).

97 S. Durudoğan, ‘Halep Pasajı’ [Halep Arcade], Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.3 (Istanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı & Tarih Vakfı, 1994), pp.497–98; BOA, DH.MKT. 1016/38 (13 October 1905).

98 Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.5, p.2714.

99 BOA, BEO. 2645/198305 (17 August 1905).

100 BOA, ZB. 391/89 (8 October 1907).

101 BOA, HR.H…508/15 (19 September 1892); BOA, ZB. 373/53 (20 May 1906).

102 BOA, DH.MKT. 731/71 (2 July 1903).

103 BOA, YB.021. 86/159 (6 February 1890); ‘Dünkü Harik’, p.2.

104 ‘Dünkü Harik’, p.2.

105 Levant Herald and Eastern Express, p.5.

106 Dünkü Harik’, p.2.

107 R. E. Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, Vol.7 (Istanbul: Neşriyat Kolektif Şirketi, 1966), p.4087.

108 Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.136.

109 J. Simons, Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2019), p.5.