Local Reforms - Horizontal Modernization: Quarantine in the Early Tanzimat Ottoman Salonica

Abstract

By taking the the example of the implementation of quarantine in Mahmud II’s Salonica, this paper aims to demonstrate that the genesis of Ottoman modernization of the Early Tanzimat period was horizontal. So far, the modernization of the Ottoman Empire has been seen as the endings of Ottoman State’s modernization policy. Consequently, there is no lack of carefully carried out and comprehensive research literature. However, this doesn’t alter the notion that the Ottoman modernization was not only a state policy but also a process. Having said this, modernization as a process must involve the questions of what was and who has modernized.

One of the modernization areas of the Early Tanzimat was the implementation of quarantine. Ottoman State could implement this Western rooted modern measure only very late, in 1838. Having plague threaten areas like port cities in mind which must have necessitated preventive measures, the implementation of quarantine in Salonica before that date arose the question whether it resulted as central or local government’s initiative. The present paper seeks to answer this question in two steps: first, by verification of this measure in Salonica and second, by examination of the initiative behind it.