ID: 197

FURAT, Melhmet Fahri; KESKIN, Ishak
Curriculum	Dr. Mehmet Fahri Furat is an academician at Istanbul University and founder of Center for Turkish Studies in V.N. Karazina Kharkiv National University. Dr. Furat received his B.A in Sociology from Bosphorus University, M.A. in Archival Studies from İstanbul University, and his Ph.D. in History again from Istanbul University. He has published several articles and book chapters in national and international journals on archival studies and history. He has prepared several national and international archival exhibitions. All exhibitions were sponsored by Turkish Ministry of Culture and State Archives of Ukraine and Turkey and also Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey. He is also serving as the adviser to some mayors and Ukrainian Consul in Izmir.
	Dr. Ishak Keskin is an academician at Istanbul University. Dr. Keskin received his B.A in Archival Science from Istanbul University, M.A. and Ph.D. in History also from Istanbul University. He has published two books, ten editorial books, reports and several articles in national and international journals on archival studies, e-government, right to information and history. He is specifically concentrated on archival history, archival education, e-government, e-document management, right to information, archival legislation, local archives, archival exhibitions, relation between schools and archives, archive as a cultural heritage, ephemera collections, web sites and accessibility issues.

Title:	A(nother) Quest for Power: Photographic Documentation in the Ottoman Empire
Brief summary:	Abdulhamid II, succeeded in putting into place the technology and bureaucratic structures to amass an extensive body of official photographs. His photograph albums  are 'state-of-the-art propaganda' reflects the possibilities afforded by technology and the visual image.
Content:	Between the invention of photography in 1839 and the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, there is one significant period  photography was to find more practical and documentary applications. Sultan Abdulhamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1909, took a strong interest in the subject even before his accession, and grasped with some shrewdness the possible uses to which photography could be put. Abdülhamid II succeeded in putting into place the technology and bureaucratic structures to amass an extensive body of official photographs. The official photographic record includes compilations of photographs that document the activities of the government or of entities supported by the government, the sultan, and other official bodies. Sultan Abdülhamid II was a determined modernizer. His photograph donations to the British Museum and Library of Congress of what today might be named 'state-of-the-art propaganda' reflect the possibilities afforded by technology and the visual image. Illustrating sites from around the empire, such as schools, hospitals as well as military training and exercises, modern buildings, the grand palaces and possessions of the sultan, and monuments of the classical, Byzantine, and Ottoman pasts, albums claim a place for the Ottoman sultan as the leader of a progressive, imperial power embracing modernity. The photographs give viewers an excellent sense of the modernizing projects the Empire focused upon during its final decades, as well as the way that Abdülhamid II wanted Europeans and Americans to see his empire.
Scientific contribution:	Official photography works of Abdülhamit's reign, is one of the earliest uses of photographic documentation in  bureaucracy, governing  and international propaganda.
Keywords:	Ottoman Empire, Abdülhamid II, official photography, propaganda