Anastasopoulos, Antonis (ed.), Provincial Elites in the (: University Press, 2005), xxviii + 367 pp., ISBN 9 60524 216 8.

The volume includes 18 articles, presented in the course of the Fifth ‘Halcyon Days in Crete’ Symposium, held in Rethymno, 10-12 January, 2003. The introduction of the book, by Antonis Anastasopoulos, is dedi- cated to the notion and definitions of elite in historiography. The author raises some methodological issues such as whether researchers should refer to a single or to several provincial elites in the Ottoman case and the nature of the particular primary (defining) and secondary charac- teristics of Ottoman provincial elites. The first part of the volume, “Aspects of elite identity and culture”, starts with a communication by György Hazai dealing with the different linguistic attitudes adopted by the Ottoman state in the different regions of the Empire varying according to the specific ethnic, administrative, political and social conditions, which influenced the behavior and the degree of bilingualism or multilingualism of the local elites. Nicolas Vatin analyzes the spatial mobility of Ottoman Muslim elites on the basis of a study of tombstone inscriptions and stresses the growing importance attached by members of the elite to their place of origin and family descent. Jane Hathaway’s contribution focuses on the phenomenon called “bilateral factionalism”, a political culture dominated by two rival blocs with no third alternative, fundamentally different from multi-factional and multi-party systems. The author demonstrates that rivalries between two factions (membership in which was not exclusive to elites) were prevalent in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the Iranian plateau from antiquity through Ottoman times. Hülya Canbakal examines some aspects of elite identity and of the relationship between the state and provin- cial notables through the study of claims to descent from the Prophet Muhammad. The questions of central control over the distribution of the noble title in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and of the official significance of becoming a seyyid/sharif are discussed. The topic of Alexandar FotiÆ’s study is cultural life in Belgrade in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to him, its main characteristic was the lack of intellectual communication between the different religious communi- ties and their respective elites. In her article, Pinelopi Stathi considers

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 JEMH 11,6 Also available online – www.brill.nl/jemh 550 book reviews the representatives of Christian Orthodox senior clergy as members of the Ottoman elite (from an administrative, social and intellectual point of view) and provides evidence of the erudition of some provincial met- ropolitans. The second part of the volume is dedicated to provincial elites in the 15th and 16th centuries. Melek Delilba{ı traces the presence of Christian sipahis in the Tırhala tax-registers from that period, a presence which decreased over the years due to gradual Islamisation, and recon- structs the family trees of two of the notable families. Through the life- story of a local notable from Ayntab, Leslie Peirce studies the origins of power and social influence of a member of the provincial elites based on his rural and urban properties, economic activities, his seyyidship and fabled family origins, local networks, as well as in the successful adap- tation to the new presence of the Ottoman regime in the region. Eight articles—case-studies from both the Rumelian and the Anatolian provinces of the Empire—compose the third part of this volume and are dedicated to the consolidation and heydays of Ottoman provincial elites. Eleni Gara discusses the different approaches and the limitations for the study of the composition of urban Muslim elites in the 16th and 17th centuries and, on the basis of empirical research in the sharia court registers of Karaferye, presents an example of local elite which included office-holders, the group of the ayan ve e{raf, persons bearing honorific titles, major landowners and moneylenders. Based on inventories of estates (tereke defteri), the article by Rossitsa Gradeva portraits the economic elite, “the rich”, of another Balkan city—Sofia in the late 17th century. Svetlana Ivanova analyzes the varo{ institution in Rumeli towns and the social profile and various functions of its leaders, the elite of the reaya, acting as a collective body in intra-communal affairs as well in repre- senting the whole corporation before the authorities. Their role is fur- ther compared to that of the ayans as leaders of the Muslim community. On the basis of çiftlik survey registers Michael Ursinus studies another case, the çiftlik sahibleri of Manastır, as a local elite in the period from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries. Antonis Anastasopoulos draws our attention to some difficulties in defining provincial elites due to lim- itations of the source material (which gives more visibility to political elites) and explores the important questions—to what extent religion was a crucial factor in determining the character and alliances of the elite and whether Muslim and Christian elites should be treated as a unified or two independent power groups. Taking as a case-study the Karaosmano