Children and Childhood in the Ottoman Empire

Gülay Yilmaz is Associate Professor at Akdeniz University. She is author of articles in The Journal of Ottoman Studies, Belleten and Studies of the Ottoman Domain and of chapters in Bread from the Lion’s Mouth: Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in Ottoman Cities (Berghahn Books, 2015) and Children in Slavery Through the Ages (Ohio University Press, 2009). Fruma Zachs is a Professor at the University of Haifa. She is author of The Making of a Syrian Identity: Intellectuals and Merchants in 19th-Century Beirut (Brill, 2005), co-author of Gendering Culture in Greater Syria: Intellectuals and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Period (I.B. Tauris, 2015) and co-editor of Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration: Studies in Honour of Prof. Butrus Abu-Manneh (I.B. Tauris, 2005).

Gülay Yılmaz and Fruma Zachs’s edited volume is a welcome contribution to the field of history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire [...] The prominence of the early modern era (with nine chapters) in the volume’s chronological focus is worth stressing, as the research on Ottoman children to date has been confined mostly to the nineteenth century. By the same token, wide geographic coverage of the book, going beyond the Balkans and Anatolia to Wallachia, Crimea, Palestine, and Egypt, has the added value of facilitating comparisons.

• ForewordSuraiya FaroqhiIntroductionGülay Yılmaz and Fruma Zachs1. Ottoman Childhoods in Comparative PerspectiveColin HeywoodPart I: Concepts of Childhood2. Childhood in the Peasant Militia Registers and the Age Boundaries of AdolescenceCahit Telci3. An Ottoman Boyhood: Child Life in the Late Eighteenth Century through the Lens of Panayis Skouzes’ AutobiographyEleni GaraPart II: Family Interrelationships4. Preliminary Observations on the Demographic Roots of Modern Childhood in the Ottoman Empire: Wealth, Children and Status in Ruse, Vidin and Sofia, 1670–1855İrfan Kokdaş5. The Emotional Bond between Early Modern Ottoman Children and Parents: A Case Study of Sünbülzade's ‘Ideal’ Child (1700–1800)Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik6. A World of Conflicts: Youth and Violence towards Parents in the Family in Rural Wallachia, 1716–1859Nicoleta RomanPart III: Children Outside Family Circles7. Born and Bred in Seventeenth-Century Crimea: Child Slavery, Social Reality and Cultural IdentityFırat Yaşa8. Rural Girls as Domestic Servants in Late Ottoman IstanbulYahya Araz9. Muslim Orphans and the Shari‘ah in Nineteenth Century Palestine: Cases from NablusMahmud YazbakPart IV: Children’s Bodies10. Body Politics and Devşirmes in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: The Conscripted Children of HerzegovinaGülay Yılmaz11. Pastimes for Child Breadwinners: The Sanitisation and Recreation Facilities of the Hereke Factory CampusDidem Yavuz Velipaşaoğlu12. Beating is Heaven-Sent: Corporal Punishment of Children in the late Ottoman and Early Republican EraNazan ÇiçekPart V: Children and Education13. Childhood and Education in Ottoman Bosnia during the Early Modern Period (mid-Fifteenth to Late Eighteenth Century)Elma Korić14. Children’s Education in Ottoman Jewish Society (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)Ruth Lamdan15. Women as Educators towards the End of the Nahda Period: Labiba Hashim and Children’s UpbringingFruma ZachsGlossaryList of ContributorsIndex