THE KOCABAŞIS AS INTERMEDIARIES?: THE LOCAL AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION IN IMVROS/İMROZ AND LEMNOS IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY FERYAL TANSUĞ* Studies concerning center-periphery relations and the Ottoman rule of the Mediterranean islands of Crete and Cyprus have been well debated. The particular experience of the smaller Aegean islands, ilke Chios, Samos, Patmos, Andros and Rhodes, under the Ottoman rule also began to be analyzed by scholars. Studies about these smaller Aegean islands demonstrated communication of the islanders with the central government through Muslim local authorities.' Contributing to such discussions, this paper focuses on the relationship between local intermediaries/ civil community leaders and islanders in Imvros2 and Lemnos,' two small northem Aegean islands. It hopes to give voice to the overlooked ordinary insular lives under the Ottoman rule in the middle of the 19th century. Assistant Professor, Faculty of Arts and Science, Bahçeşehir University, İstanbul/TURKEY,
[email protected] Gilles Veinstein, "Les documents &mis par le kap udan paşa dans k fonds ottoman de Patmos," Do- ceuments de Tiavail du CETOBAC, no. 1, Les archives de l'insularite ottomane, ed. Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, CETOBAC, Paris 2010, pp. 13-19; Michael Ursinus, "I iı lPatinians in Their Qııest for Justice: Eighteenth Century Examples of Petitions Subrnitted to the Kapudan Paşa," in ibid., pp. 20-23; Elia% Kolovos, "Ottoman Documents from the Aegean Island of Andros: Provincial Administration, Adaptation and Limitations in the Case of an Island Society (late 16th - early 19th century)," in ibid., pp. 24-7; Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein, Insularits ottomans, Maisonneuver & Larose, Institue Français d'etudes anatolien- nes, Paris 2004; Ali Fuat örenç, Takm Dönem Tarihimizde Rodos ve Oniki Ada [Rhodes and the Dodecanese], Doğu Kütüphanesi, İstanbul 2006.