Tahir Pasha Bibezić

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Tahir Pasha Bibezić
Personal details
Born1848 (1848)
Krajë, Vilayet of Shkodër, Ottoman Empire
Died1913 (aged 64–65)
Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Parent
  • Haci Ali Efendi Bibezić (father)
Military service
AllegianceOttoman Army
RankMirliva

Tahir Pasha Bibezić (Albanian: Tahir Pashë Bibezi Krajani, Arabic: طاهر باشا بن بزيك الكرياني , Turkish: Tahir Paşa Belbez) was an Ottoman Brigadier General (mirliva) and prominent bureaucrat of Albanian origin from the region of Krajë, now in modern Montenegro.[1] Born into a notable family from Podgorica, he began his career in 1868 and held various significant administrative positions throughout the Ottoman Empire, including chief secretary of Scutari, and governor of Mosul, Bitlis and Van. Known for his ability to restore public order and mediate local disputes, he played a key role in the Ottoman-Iranian Border Commission and was a crucial figure during the turbulent years of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work exemplified the mobility and influence of Ottoman officials in shaping imperial policy across diverse regions..[2][3][4]

Early Life and Career[edit]

Tahir Pasha was born into a family from Podgorica, the son of Haci Ali Efendi Bibezić (known in Turkish as Bilbez). He commenced his career in 1868 in Podgorica as a prominent Ottoman official in the Chamber of the City (Podgoriçe Kazası Tahrirat Odası) and became the secretary of the Podgorica Land Registry (Podgoriçe Tapu Kitabeti) in 1872.[5]

Career During Ottoman Reforms[edit]

Following significant changes in the Ottoman Empire, such as the Great Eastern Crisis and Montenegro's independence in 1878, Tahir Pasha was expelled from Podgorica to the Shkodra Province. Due to his prior experience with Ottoman administration in Podgorica, he was immediately appointed as the chief secretary of the Scutari Province. In 1880, after temporarily serving as chief secretary in Thessaloniki (Selânîk Mektûbçuluğu), he was transferred to several locations, including Bitlis, Mosul, and Van (1898-1906), briefly in Trabzon (1907), and then again in Bitlis (1907-08), Erzurum (1908-10), and Mosul (1910-12).[6]

Frontier Administration and Conflict Resolution[edit]

Tahir Pasha was a prominent frontier official (serhad memurları) and a significant policy implementer, often tasked with mediating and investigating local disputes. His extensive governance experience, spanning thirty-three years in the eastern provinces, was central to his reputation for restoring public order and calming social unrest. As a committed bureaucrat, he was appointed as the commission chairman for the Ottoman-Iranian Border Commission (1905-08).[7] This appointment came during a period when the dispute escalated in 1905, with Iran supporting tribal chiefs in the frontier zone who interfered with pro-Ottoman tribes in Urumiah. Tahir Pasha was tasked with resolving this border conflict. In a pamphlet, he criticized the Ottoman centralization efforts towards Kurdish tribes as a failure that allowed Iranian interference in the region.[8]

Impact of the Young Turk Revolution[edit]

In 1908, with the outbreak of the Young Turk Revolution, the new government established by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) deemed it unnecessary to alert Ottoman troops regarding the status quo line with Iran due to the critical financial situation. Although the issue remained unresolved for several years, this example illustrates how an ascendant local from the Ottoman-Montenegrin borderland became a mobile subject at the Ottoman-Iranian border, demonstrating the agency of migrants who shaped Ottoman policy. Scholars often overlook the mobility of trans-regional biographies within the Ottoman Empire and its former territories, despite multiple examples connecting vastly different (post) Ottoman regions and communities.[9]

Cevdet Bey's Political Career[edit]

Tahir Pasha's first son, Cevdet Bey, is another example of trans-regional mobilization. Emerging in the post-Berlin regime (after 1878), he adapted to the new conditions of the time. Distrusting the Hamidian regime, he joined the CUP and participated in the Young Turk movement. He served as governor (mutasarrif) of Jerusalem (1911-12)[10] and district governor (kaymakam) of Nevrokop (present-day Gotse Delchev in Bulgaria). In these positions, he witnessed ethnic tensions and conflicts from Jerusalem to the Balkans. After the Balkan wars (1912-13), the fear of losing Arab provinces and Ottoman Anatolia grew among CUP members, leading to violence beginning in 1914 against subjects in six vilayets (vilayet-i sitte) known as Ottoman Armenia.[11]

Role in the Armenian Massacres[edit]

During this period, Cevdet Bey served as the governor of Van, succeeding Hasan Tahsin Üzer in 1914.[12] His experiences in Jerusalem and the Balkan wars shifted his approach away from cooperation with heterogeneous groups, transforming the Ottoman space into a zone of violence during the Great War. The last decade of the Ottoman Empire was marked by a lack of negotiation with locals, and nuances were no longer tolerated.[13] The Ottoman administrative goal during this political turmoil was the extradition of people with strong Ottoman links in the past. Cevdet Bey and his brother-in-law Enver Pasha (Minister of War since January 4, 1914, and de facto Commander in Chief)[14] bear responsibility for the Armenian massacres (1915) through the Deportation Law issued on May 27, 1915. The Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa) played a key role in the massacres against the non-Muslim population, directed by Eşref Kuşçubaşı's group, which included a migrant from Montenegro named Ömer.[15]

Influence of the Bibezić Family[edit]

In addition to the political connections between the Bibezić family and the central government, Tahir Pasha's nephews, Mustafa Nuri and Haydar Hilmi Vaner, also emerged as extensions of extensive family networks in the administrative development of the empire. They both began working with their well-connected uncle on projects that explicitly tied the Ottoman peripheries to the central government and the global world. Mustafa Nuri worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Hariciye Nezareti) as an important intermediary between Ottoman institutions and foreign capital projects. Consequently, the aforementioned migrants used their opportunities and capacities to penetrate the heart of the Ottoman bureaucracy and establish connections with the broader world.[16]

Contributions of Mustafa Nuri and Haydar Hilmi Vaner[edit]

The regions of Montenegro provided the Ottoman bureaucracy with numerous examples, including 'liberal' reformers such as Cevdet Bey, Mustafa Nuri, and Haydar Hilmi Vaner. The rise of the CUP gave new impetus to these 'liberals,' who advocated for state centralization modeled on European states and promoted the breakup of the 'conservative elite.' According to the Austro-Hungarian consul in Mitrovica, one such personality was Vaner, who was 'acting as a Young Turk or as an Albanian.'[17] He was born in Podgorica in 1875[18] and joined the Ottoman administration in the Van vilayet (1889) at a very young age. His positions as district governor of Mitrovica and Köprülü in Ottoman Macedonia provided him with several opportunities to promote liberal ideas within the Young Turk movement.[19] Together with CUP members Müşir Kazım Pasha and Haci Adil Bey (Minister of the Interior), he joined Sultan Reşid on his tour of Rumelia between June 5-26, 1911. During the Sultan's visits to several cities (Thessaloniki, Skopje, Prizren, Prishtina, Bitola), he served as the primary translator from Ottoman Turkish into Albanian.[20] Vaner was also known for maintaining contacts with his family members in the Scutari vilayet, enabling him to calm the revolts in the Malësia region in 1911.[21]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ DOHMAN, Ümmügülsüm; KARAVİN YÜCE, Harika (2022-10-29). "Türkçe, Rusça ve İngilizce Deyimlerde "Zaman" Konsepti". Iğdır Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (31): 243–254. doi:10.54600/igdirsosbilder.1126598. ISSN 2147-5717.
  2. ^ William Warfield (1916). The Gate of Asia: A Journey from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 147.
  3. ^ Sukran Vahide (16 February 2012). Islam in Modern Turkey: An Intellectual Biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-8297-1.
  4. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  5. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  6. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  7. ^ Ateş, Sabri (2013-10-21). Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-52249-6.
  8. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  9. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  10. ^ Büssow, Johann (2011-08-11). Hamidian Palestine. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-21570-2.
  11. ^ Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Öktem, Kerem; Reinkowski, Maurus (2015). World War I and the End of the Ottomans. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-7556-0909-3.
  12. ^ "Ömer kürkçÜoĞlu Türk-İngiliz İlişkileri (1919–1926) [Turkish-English Relations, 1919–1926]. (Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayinlari, number 412.) Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basimevi. 1978. Pp. 350. 40 TL". The American Historical Review. June 1979. doi:10.1086/ahr/84.3.818. ISSN 1937-5239.
  13. ^ Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Öktem, Kerem; Reinkowski, Maurus (2015). World War I and the End of the Ottomans. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-7556-0909-3.
  14. ^ KARAKUŞ, Sadık Emre (2023-07-31). "ENVER PAŞA'NIN TABUR MEKTEPLERİ DENEMESİ". Stratejik ve Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi. 7 (2): 357–373. doi:10.30692/sisad.1311443. ISSN 2587-2621.
  15. ^ Çiçek, Talha (2017-08-21). "Benjamin C. Fortna. The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent". Divan: Disiplinlerarası Çalışmalar Dergisi. doi:10.20519/divan.335631. ISSN 1309-6834.
  16. ^ Horel, Catherine; Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (2023-05-24). Population Displacements and Multiple Mobilities in the Late Ottoman Empire. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004543690_004. ISBN 978-90-04-54369-0.
  17. ^ "Barrett, Edwin Cyril Geddes, (15 Feb. 1909–8 Feb. 1986)", Who Was Who, Oxford University Press, 2007-12-01, retrieved 2024-05-22
  18. ^ "The Fiscal Year: Turki-Hijri Year Correspondences for the Reign of Amīr Ḥabīb Allāh Khān". History of Afghanistan. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
  19. ^ "Rampal Singh, Raja, (7 Aug. 1867–20 March 1909), Fellow of the Allahabad University; Taluqdar of Kori Sadauli; Dh. Rai Bareli", Who Was Who, Oxford University Press, 2007-12-01, retrieved 2024-05-22
  20. ^ Ferko, Beria Kafali (2022-01-30). "Isa Boletini (1864-1916): An Ottoman Albanian Figure of Twists and Turns". Journal of Balkan Studies. 2 (1): 27–49. doi:10.51331/a17. ISSN 2671-3675.
  21. ^ "The Inventor's Department". Scientific American. 105 (8): 173–180. 1911-08-19. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican08191911-173. ISSN 0036-8733.

Further reading[edit]

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