The distant land of the Byzantine Holy Golden Cross in early modern Ottoman Istanbul : from the Istavros Waqf-Village and Royal Garden to the Beylerbeyi neighbourhood on the shores of the Bosphorus

Abstract

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Ottoman Istanbul gradually expanded into its hinterland along the shores of the Bosphorus with new constructions orchestrated by the sultans and the ruling elite. By the end of the century several small-scale settlements along the waterway had transformed into new neighbourhoods of a type unique to the Bosphorus with a semi-urban and semi-rural character in changing ratios. Through this process the landscape of the Bosphorus became more diverse and heterogeneous as each of the different settlements along its shores followed a different trajectory. This research examines the dynamic and context-specific transformation of one of these settlements, Istavros-Beylerbeyi, which was located on the grounds of the Byzantine Holy Golden Cross, Stauvros, on the Asian shores of the Bosphorus. Composed of the Istavros waqf-village, mostly populated by non-Muslims, and the Istavros royal garden, occupied by the royal dynasty and the high-ranking ruling elite, in the sixteenth century, by the end of the eighteenth century Istavros-Beylerbeyi had transformed into a new neighbourhood of Ottoman notables. The three-century-long transformation of this settlement reveals the social and spatial hold of the sultans and the ruling elite on the lands at the periphery of the imperial capital city. By focusing on the relationship between land and political power this case study sheds light on a long-ignored topic in the Ottoman studies: the politics of urban space. In the wake of the spatial, material, and environmental turns in history writing, this case study reveals how and why the settlement policies and property holding dynamics changed because of changing land utilisation and distribution policies and spatial preferences due to the changing patterns of sociability and mobility of the sultans and the ruling elite. This research demonstrates that the 1760s corresponds to a critical date for the history of the Bosphorus, when new settlement policies emerged with the emergence of the nuclei of new neighbourhoods on the dissolved royal gardens along the Asian shores of the Bosphorus, after which the territorial control and socio-cultural, religious, and moral surveillance of Istanbul society gradually increased.