The Socio-Economic Situation Of Childir Provinces At The End Of The XVI Century: Aspindza Case

The XVI Century for Ottoman Geography meant a period of expansion and change of population and economy. The State Recordings are the most important resources that reveal the administrative, economic and social structure of the Ottoman Cities of that period. The administrative, economic and social situation of many Anatolian cities has been studied according to the State Recordings of Ottoman State, but some part of Georgian cities that ruled by Ottoman’s was the exception. Considering the lack of this situation, I concentrated on the examination of the socio-economic status of Aspindza city in the XVI Century. Nowadays, Aspindza city is the centre of Aspindza Municipality, Samtskhe-Javakheti region of the Republic of Georgia. Aspindza was situated inside the territory of Samtskhe Atabey’s for 312 years (1266- 1578) and 250 years inside the Childir Province of Ottoman Empire (1578-1928) and after the war of Childir, on 9th August, 1578 Ottoman’s gains control over it. According to the administrative arrangements of Ottoman State, Aspindza was the centre of Ahiska Sanjak of Aspindza Province of Childir Beylerbeyi. The main purpose of our study is to give information about the etymology, geographic location, brief history, population, people’s religious affiliation of Aspindza and afterwards, we analyse and evaluate the socio-economic life of the city based on the Ottoman State Recordings "Defter-i Mufassal Vilâyet-i Gürcistân" that was dated 1595. In the last 50 years a big attention was given to the State Recordings of Ottoman State, but the "Defter-i Mufassal Vilâyet-i Gurcistân" dated 1595 that is very valuable treasure containing a wealth information about language, history, geography, onomastics, was one of the exception. The research that we did based on the State Recordings gives us a general knowledge not only of Aspindza but also the whole cities of Childir Province at the end of XVI Century. Besides, we for the first time translated informations about Aspindza in modern Turkish and attached it at the end of our research.

Keywords

Ottoman State, State Recordings, The Republic of Georgia, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Aspindza.