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⁴ Hanioglu, A Brief History, 142–3.

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⁹ In fact, an assassination was attempted on Abdülhamid II at Yildiz Mosque on 21 Jul. 1905.

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²² Çelik, The Remaking of Istanbul, 39: ‘Pera, located on the hill to the north of the walled city of Galata, had its population concentrated along the Grande Rue de Pera, the city's main artery.’

²³ For an interesting approach to street lighting, see N. Ileri, ‘Landscaping the uses and the production of urban space: crime, security and night life in fin-de-siècle Istanbul’ (unpublished paper, 10th Conference of the European Association of Urban History, Ghent, 1–4 Sep. 2010).

²⁴ Hanssen, J., ‘Public morality and marginality in fin-de-siècle Beirut’, in Rogan, E. (ed.), Outside In. On the Margins of the Modern Middle East (London, 2002), 183–211, at 190Google Scholar.

²⁵ S. Zandi-Sayek, ‘Public space and urban citizens: Ottoman Izmir in the remaking (1840–1890)’, University of California Ph.D. thesis, 2001, 111.

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²⁸ The existence of a number of decrees dealing with vagrants and vagrancy suggests that the Ottoman government recognized it as a serious social problem. See Deal, R.A., Crimes of Honor, Drunken Brawls and Murder. Violence in Istanbul under Abdulhamid II (Istanbul, 2010), 57–9Google Scholar.

²⁹ Cezar, M., Osmanlı Başkenti Istanbul (Istanbul, 2002), 338–9Google Scholar.

³⁰ N. Lévy, ‘Une institution en formation: la police ottomane à l'époque d'Abdülhamid II’, European Journal of Turkish Studies (online), 8 (2008), online since 2 Dec. 2009, accessed on 8 Mar. 2013, http://ejts.revues.org/2463.

³¹ Ergin, O.N., Mecelle-i Umur-i Belediyye (Istanbul, 1995)Google Scholar, cited in Lévy, ‘Une institution en formation’, §11.

³² Lévy, ‘Une institution en formation’, §21.

³³ Ibid., §17.

³⁴ Baktiaya, A., ‘19. Yuzyil Sonlarinda Anarsist Teror, “Toplumun Anarsistlere Karsi Korunmasi Konferansi (1898)” ve Osmanli Devleti’, Bilgi ve Bellek, 4, 8 (2007), 43–55Google Scholar.

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³⁶ Irtem, S.K., Abdülhamid Devrinde Hafiyelik ve Sansür (Istanbul, 1999), 23Google Scholar; Karakışla, Y.S., ‘Sultan II. Abdülhamid'in Istibdat Döneminde (1876–1909) Hafiyelik ve Julnalcilik’, Toplumsal Tarih, 19 (119) (2003), 12–21Google Scholar.

³⁷ Jürgen Habermas asserted that in the eighteenth-century bourgeois society of Europe, a universal public sphere, a locus of rational public discussion emerged based on an assumption of abstract individuality. See Habermas, J., The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Enquiry into a Category of Bourgeios Society (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar.

³⁸ Cengiz Kırlı observed that, owing mainly to the ambivalence in Habermas’ original use of the term ‘public sphere’ which referred at the same time to an existing historical reality and a normative ideal, the concept of public sphere has recently been used more and more in the context of the Middle Eastern (and in other non-western) historiographies, to attain certain normative ideals. See Kırlı, ‘Surveillance and constituting’, 284.

³⁹ See Eley, G., ‘Nations, publics, and political cultures: placing Habermas in the nineteenth century’, in Calhoun, Craig (ed.) Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 291Google Scholar. In his analysis of the public sphere, Eley drew attention to ‘the prior transformation of social relations’ and ‘the institutional reform of the overall context of social communication’ as the conditions of existence for the public sphere.

⁴⁰ Suggested in ibid., 298. For discussion of the emergence of the ‘voluntary society’ in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century western Europe as a phenomenon which played a role in the transition from the estates to the class society, see Nipperdey, T., ‘Verein als soziale Struktur in Deutschland im späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert’, in Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Göttingen, 1976), 174–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ For the emergence of the theatre as a central organ in the formulation and dissemination of radical leftist ideas in the nineteenth-century eastern Mediterranean, see Khuri-Makdisi, I., The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2010), 60–93, at 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁴³ Aracı, E., Naum Tiyatrosu.19. Yüzyıl İstanbul'unun Italyan Operasi (İstanbul, 2010)Google Scholar, cited in Mestyan, A., ‘Cultural policy in the late Ottoman empire? The palace and the public theatres in nineteenth-century Istanbul’, in Ther, P. (ed.) Kulturpolitik und Theatre. Die kontinentalen Imperien in Europa im Vergleich (Vienna, 2012), 127–49Google Scholar. The Naum Theatre was repaired after a fire in 1847 and its new pompous building was reopened in 1848. The Italian theatre groups were the most popular performers of this theatre. For more about the Naum Theatre, see Akın, N., 19. Yüzyılın Ikinci Yarısında Galata ve Pera (Istanbul, 1998), 257–9Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Mestyan, ‘Cultural policy’, 140.

⁴⁵ For the group of bureaucrats and intellectuals, the Young Ottomans, who demanded constitutional regime, see , Ş, The Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought. A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton, 1962)Google Scholar.

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⁴⁸ Plumb, J.H., ‘The public, literature, and the arts in the eighteenth century’, in Marrus, M.R. (ed.), The Emergence of Leisure (New York, 1974), 11–37Google Scholar, cited in Eley, ‘Nations, publics, and political cultures’, 301–2.

⁴⁹ For discussion of the expansion of the ‘public sphere’ in nineteenth-century Ottoman empire, see Özbek, N., ‘Philanthropic activity, Ottoman patriotism, and the Hamidian regime 1876–1909’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37 (2005), 59–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁵¹ After the Hamidian era, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government whose ideological base was fed by a nascent Turkism strengthened its restrictions on lotteries and charity concerts. As suggested by Nadir Özbek, the increased control over the public sphere under the new circumstances might have been connected to ‘the desire for a strict control over the social beneficiary activities in view of a tendency to channel these social resources in a centralized manner towards national aims’. See Özbek, N., Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet. Siyaset, Iktidar ve Meşruiyet, 1876–1914 (Istanbul, 2002), 294Google Scholar.

⁵² Özbek, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet, 258–9. Özbek also argued that an imperial circular which was issued in 1906 imposed even more control and restrictions on the organization of lotteries.

⁵³ Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivi (Ottoman Archives, Istanbul, hereafter BOA) DH. MUİ 7 Zilkade 1327 (20 Nov. 1909). After the April 1909 military uprising in Istanbul, a new regulation (issued 6 Sep. 1909) authorized the municipalities to inspect and strictly watch over public entertainments such as concerts and theatre performances, and other activities like charity bazaars. Özbek, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet, 293.

⁵⁴ The Taksim Public Park was constructed between 1864 and 1869 on the area previously occupied by Christian cemeteries, as part of the general restructuring of the city undertaken by the commission for the ordering of urban space. See Çelik, The Remaking of Istanbul, 69.

⁵⁵ BOA DH. MKT 258/3 ves. no. 11, 3 Muharrem 1312 (7 Jul. 1894). Tepebaşı Theatre or Théâtre des Petits Champs was owned by the municipality and was rented to private Italian, Ottoman Armenian or French impresarios seasonally or yearly. Mestyan, ‘Cultural policy’, 143.

⁵⁶ BOA DH. MKT 258/3, 5 Muharrem 1312 (9 Jul. 1894).

⁵⁷ Özbek, ‘Philanthropic activity’.

⁵⁸ Özbek, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet, 262–3.

⁵⁹ Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens (AMFA), 1893, 29/2, from the chairman of the Philharmonic Society Spyridon Spathis to the Greek foreign minister, No. 310, 12 Mar. 1893.

⁶⁰ AMFA, 1893, 29/2, from N. Mavrokordatos (Constantinople) to the Greek foreign minister, No. 656, 18 Mar. 1893.

⁶¹ AMFA, 1893, 29/2, from N. Mavrokordatos (Constantinople) to the Greek foreign minister, No. 742, 30 Mar. 1893. The letter noted that during the reception at the embassy, the Society played Greek and Ottoman hymns.

⁶² Akarlı, E.D., ‘The tangled ends of an empire: Ottoman encounters with the west and problems of westernization – an overview’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 26 (2006), 353–66, at 357CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶³ What I have in mind here is loyalty to the state and the government. I am not referring to the well-known emphasis on personal loyalty in the Hamidian regime and that employment in the civil service depended on loyalty to the sultan. For personal loyalty, see Hanioglu, A Brief History, 125.

⁶⁴ For the slippery ground on which the notion of loyalty operated and the existence of a range of multiple and competing loyalties in late and post-Ottoman regions of south-east Europe, see ‘Introduction’, in Grandits, H., Clayer, N. and Pichler, R. (eds.), Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans. The Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and Nation-Building (London, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ See Zandi-Sayek, S., ‘Orchestrating difference, performing identity: urban space and public rituals in nineteenth-century Izmir’, in Alsayyad, N. (ed.), Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment (Westport, 2001), 42–66Google Scholar.

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⁷¹ For instance, the inhabitants of Damascus experienced these symbols, which would later become part of the repertoire of their national rituals, during the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898 which was celebrated as a grand public occasion. See Hudson, L., Transforming Damascus. Space and Modernity in an Islamic City (London, 2008), 105–8Google Scholar.

⁷² For the practice of singing encomia to the Ottoman sultan at the annual examinations of the non-Muslim communities’ schools, see Anagnostopoulou, S., ‘The “nation” of the Rum sings of its sultan: the many faces of Ottomanism’, in Baruh, L.T. and Kechriotis, V. (eds.), Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean (Athens, 2010)Google Scholar.

⁷³ BOA Y. PRK. ZB 3/64, 22 Muharrem 1304 (2/20 Oct. 1886), the letter from the Police Ministry to the Palace containing the spy report written in French – signed by a ‘Bonnin’ – and its translation into Turkish.

⁷⁴ Riedler, ‘Wanderarbeiter (bekar) im Istanbul’, 153–4.

⁷⁵ BOA Y. PRK. AZJ 31/54 1312 (day and month unknown 1896).

⁷⁶ BOA ZB 334/94 23 Haziran 1325 (6 Jul. 1909).

⁷⁷ Chaniotis, A., ‘Rituals between norms and emotions: rituals as shared experience and memory’, in Stavrianopoulou, E. (ed.), Rituals and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World (Liege, 2006), 211–38, see 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁷⁹ BOA ZB 477/58, 5 Temmuz 1323 (18 Jul. 1907).

⁸⁰ Deringil, The Well-protected Domains, 18.

⁸¹ Lavrangas, Apomnimoneumata, 163. Xyndas’ opera composed in 1867 is known for its strong social critique, its theme of the dishonesty of politicians and the fact that it was the first melodrama which was composed by a Greek composer based on a Greek libretto.

⁸² It is not clear from Lavrangas’ memoirs whether the Ottoman authorities thought that it was what the librettist meant or whether they anticipated such an interpretation from the audience.

⁸³ For a relevant account of how the Soviet authorities problematized and dealt with the issue of polyseme in the 1930s, see Plamper, J., ‘Abolishing ambiguity: Soviet censorship practices in the 1930s’, Russian Review, 60 (2001), 526–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁴ Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, 25.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 27.

⁸⁶ Demirel, II. Abdülhamid Döneminde Sansür, 70.

⁸⁷ Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean, 74. The incident was reported in the daily Al-Muqattam, 8 Jul. 1910.

⁸⁸ ‘Sophocleous Philoctetes’, Mousiki (Feb. 1912), 38–9.

⁸⁹ BOA Y. PRK. AZJ 53/48 23 Şevval 1325 (29 Nov. 1907).

⁹⁰ For instance, the British authorities in post-Rebellion India believed the two were linked and posed extreme measures of clamping down on ‘obscene’ publications. See Bayly, C.A., Empire and information. Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge, 1996), 340Google Scholar.