The archivists at the Ottoman State Archives [BOA] catalogued the registers [defters] produced by the office of the grand vizier that comprise the copies of the outgoing documents under the umbrella name Ayniyat Defterleri. As of 2019, some 1,875 registers were catalogued under this classification, the first being dated 1812.
Thirty-three registers compiled between June 1821 and April 1835 are on the Greek War of Independence, consisting of the “exact” (hence the word ayniyat, from Turk. aynı: exact) copies of the letters dispatched for the quelling of the uprising, although none of the registers bear the title Ayniyat Registers. The registers begin with the title “Rum milleti beyninde tahaddüs iden fesadın indifaına dair Anadolu ve Rumili taraflarına yazılan tahrirat-ı seniyyenin defteri,” namely, “The register of the imperial dispatches sent to Anatolia and Rumelia regarding the quelling of the sedition that occurred among the Greek millet.” In this book we are publishing the English translations of selected documents from the first thirteen registers of this thirty-three- volume series, as well as their transliterations.
Unfortunately, several registers—and most regrettably the first one—of the series are missing. Also, no registers have survived to the present day covering the period between late January 1824 and late November 1824. On the title page of Register no. 1769, which is the ninth volume available in the series, it is written that the particular register is the “fifteenth defter on the Greek sedition.” Thus, six registers are missing for the period between June 1821 and December 1824.
Several months before the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, there were news items in the Turkish press revealing that several thousand new registers were found in the depots of the Ottoman State Archives. The cataloguing of the registers has begun; however, the current state of the process is unknown. We sincerely hope to find the missing volumes on the Greek War of Independence among these newly discovered registers.
