Text by Mustafa Armağan
Edited by Halit Eren
İstanbul, 2011 (in English, Arabic and Turkish)
ISBN 978-92-9063-234-4
west of Turkey, has been for millennia a settlement area at the intersection of travel and trade routes. From 1335 to 1363 it was the capital of the Ottoman State. Today a major industrial zone, it is importantant as a center of tourism, arts and archaeology. IRCICA has published a deluxe album of photographs of Bursa dating from the period of Sultan Abdulhamid II, i.e. from the end of the 19th-beginning of the 20th century. The photographs were selected from the collections contained in the archives of IRCICA namely the Yıldız Palace Archives, the collections of Fahreddin Pasha, Sabiha Darga, Salih Keramet Nigar, İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal İnal, Hidayet Yavuz Nuhoğlu,Tevfik Bıyıklıoğlu, Talip Mert and Hikmet Öğüt. Great importance was attached to Bursa during the reign of Abdulhamid II; this city which used to be the capital of the Ottoman State was rehabilitated later not only with a nostalgic approach but with public works and investments. The album contains photographs of districts, gates, mosques, tombs, fountains, roads, bridges, ceremonies, personalities. There is also a section on “Photographers and Photograph Studios”. This album appeared in the 2011 Evliya Çelebi Year declared by UNESCO, since for Evliya Çelebi (1611-1684) Bursa was of special importance. It was the first city that he visited outside İstanbul and one of the very few he traveled to specifically to learn about it.