French Citizen Visiting Istanbul 1860s

When I first came here in May 1861, Sultan Abdülmecid, the sultan of the period, was 39 years old and was struggling with tuberculosis. Later, when he was 39 years old, the following sentence was written in French in one of the newspapers of the period: He passed away on June 25, 1861, in the Ihlamur Pavilion (Küçük, 1988, p.262). According to what I heard from my French-speaking intellectual friends in the area where I live, the street called Grande Rue de Pera, Abdülmecid became allies with England and France in the war against the Russian Empire. Although the Ottoman Empire won the war, it was not like a state that won the war due to economic difficulties, such as loans given by Great Britain. In fact, according to what I read in the records of last year, in the second half of 1860, the government was constantly borrowing from Great Britain in order to pay its interest and principal payments (Pamuk, 2018, p.107). Apart from these, after the death of Abdülmecid, Sultan Abdülaziz ascended to the throne. The economic depression was dominant when he first came to power, but he improved the economic situation of the Ottoman Empire thanks to some sanctions he made in the palace and the state (Küçük, 1988, p.179). The Ottoman people were satisfied with Abdülaziz’s accession to the throne. I have been living here since Abdulaziz came to power, and the biggest problem Sultan Abdulaziz dealt with until now was financial affairs; apart from that, the second important issue was the internal upheavals in the Balkans. They are still trying to stop these internal uprisings to protect the state’s authority.