150 caroline finkel and victor ostapchuk CAROLINE FINKEL AND VICTOR OSTAPCHUK

OUTPOST OF EMPIRE: AN APPRAISAL OF OTTOMAN BUILDING REGISTERS AS SOURCES FOR THE ARCHEOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTION HISTORY OF THE FORTRESS OF ÖZ~

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF NEJAT GÖYÜNÇ

In this study we aim to explore the utility as sources for the straits through which the Sea of Azov debouches the building history and archeology of the Özi fortress into the Black Sea; and, finally, Azaq (Azov) where complex of a little-used corpus of Ottoman archival the Don River debouches into the Sea of Azov. Aside materials from the late seventeenth and eighteenth from acting to maintain local order and safety on centuries, which we provisionally refer to as “new-style the northern steppe frontier, in the sixteenth and building registers.” We sample the earliest period for seventeenth centuries the strongholds defended the which such registers are extant for Özi as a test case Ottoman Black Sea and its shores from the depreda- for their wider applicability and as a starting point tions of the Cossacks and potential attack from their for a more thorough building history of this complex. then generally less aggressive suzerains—Poland-Lithu- In addition, we begin to assess the potential of these ania to the northwest and Muscovy to the northeast; materials for the study of Ottoman building technol- finally, in the eighteenth century, they stood against ogy and terminology. the ever more southward-expanding Russian Empire. The Danubian castles/fortresses to the west of the HISTORICAL SETTING river delta, such as Vidin and Belgrade, constituted the defense line against the Habsburg Empire, while Before embarking on our evaluation of the “new- important sites far up the great rivers of the Black style building registers,” we offer an overview of Sea basin, such as Hotin (Khotyn) on the Dniester the historical context in which successive stages of and Ya×i (Ia×i) on a tributary of the Prut, and others the fortification of the site of Özi took place. The such as Anapa on the Black Sea coast to the southwest once-formidable complex of castles and, eventually, of Taman, also at times played a crucial part in the fortresses1 at Özi (Ukrainian: ; also Polish: defense of the Ottoman realm. From the sixteenth Oczaków; Russian: Ochakov) in present-day century until their final loss to the armies of Catherine was for two centuries of its three-century-long exis- the Great after the war of 1787–92 and the Treaty of tence a massive and vital link in a chain of strongholds Ya×i that concluded it, these fortifications were the guarding the Ottoman frontier against the incursions man-made expression of a frontier on which the Otto- of hostile neighbors around the northern rim of the man heartland was already protected in some degree Black Sea and beyond—from the Danube to the Sea by sea and steppe. of Azov and into the Caucasus (fig. 1). From west Fortifications are one of the most enduring signs to east the most significant castles/fortresses in this of empire. The northern Black Sea strongholds are chain were: ~bra}il (Brýila), ~saqcı (Isaccea), ~sma{il today in various states of preservation, but of the for- (Izmajil), Tulça (Tulçea), and Kili (Kilija) in or near tress complex at Özi little remains. Looking out from the Danube delta; Bender (Bendery) on the Dniester the shore, the visitor is overwhelmed by the watery and Aqkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyj) at the river expanses of the wide estuary and the Black mouth; Özi on the Dnieper; Or (Perekop) at the isth- Sea (fig. 2); behind and high above, the vast steppe mus of the Crimean peninsula and Kefe (Feodosija) on that extends to the north towers on sandstone bluffs. the south Crimean coast; Ker× (Kerch) at the mouth Hot in summer, the climate in winter could be so frigid of the Sea of Azov, Yeniqal{e (Jenikale, today within that the locals described it, according to the Ottoman the northeastern city limits of Kerch) on the eastern traveler Evliya Çelebi, who visited the area in 1657, as salient of the Crimean peninsula, and Taman across “a hellish cold” (soÚuq-i cehennem). Evliya claimed that the archeology and construction history of the black sea fortress of özi· 151 Fig. 1. The Black Sea Region in the early eighteenth century.