Sentences in official Ottoman documents tend to be very long and verbose. In fact, a random document in this book would consist of two to three sentences at most. Hence, we dissected the Ottoman sentences into the smallest possible parts to produce smoother translations in English. Also, in order to improve readability, we opted to omit the extremely ornate and convoluted wording, endlessly repetitive statements, bombastic titles, praises, and prayers. In short, the translations are not literal; however, there is no loss in meaning for the events recorded in this edition.
A peculiarity of the documents in these registers is that they summarize the incoming letters first. This is very fortunate for historians, because it is only occasionally possible to locate the incoming letter at the Ottoman State Archives. Until the section that begins with the formula “The contents of Your Excellency’s correspondence have thus become known to us,” the grand vizier summarizes the incoming correspondence to which the response is written. Then, very often, he states that the documents were also presented to the sultan and dictates his or the sultan’s orders repeatedly, so as to emphasize their importance.
The historical terminology, toponyms, and short biographies of important people can be found in the footnotes at their first occurrence; a glossary and short biographies comprise the appendices.
For the toponyms we used the standard English variant whenever available. Thus, Athens instead of Athina; Dardanelles instead of Çanakkale Strait; Thebes instead of Thiva; Sidon instead of Saida; Via Egnatia instead of Rumeli Sol Kol; Belgrade instead of Beograd. Otherwise, we provided the standard national variant. Thus, Izmir instead of Smyrna; Thessaloniki instead of Salonica. For places which lie outside of Greece and Turkey, we provided the standard national variant and, whenever available, provided in the footnotes the Turkish and Greek names. Thus, Shkodër instead of Scutari or Shkodra; Iaşi instead of Yaş or Iasio.
Whenever available, we used the standard English translation or the exact English equivalent of an Ottoman title/office and historical terminology. Thus, we used grand vizier, grand admiral, chief bombardier, etc. However, we used the Turkish versions of such titles and concepts as kadı, kaymakam, reaya, and mutasarrıf that cannot be translated into English in one or two words.
We used modern spelling for the Turkish words, unless it is a universally known concept. Thus, sancak instead of sanjak; reaya instead of rayah; but fatwa instead of fetva and janissary instead of yeniçeri.
We used the UN/ELOT 743 system for the transliteration of the Greek words and proper names. Thus, Vogoridis instead of Bogorides; Fanariot instead of Phanariot.
Lastly, we used anno Domini [AD] dates in the headings. If an anno Hegirae [AH] date is mentioned in a document, we included the AD date in brackets.