Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi

Öz

The Ottoman Empire in the 17th century spent a substantial amount of its time and strength on dealing with many insurgents who had somehow rejected Ottoman authorities. One of them was Katırcıoğlu Mehmed who started his career as a bandit and but later succeeded in getting himself accepted into the state apparatus. Eventually, he lost his life as a notable pasha while fighting during the Ottoman-Venetian wars in the Crete. On the contrary, having been raised as an Ottoman officer in the central government system of the empire, Abaza Hasan Agha became quite successful against bandits of his time at the outset and was consequently rewarded for his achievements. However, the same Abaza deceased as a rebel while waging war against the Ottoman state in the end. It is quite significant to analyze possible reasons for the Ottoman state on the one hand to integrate bandits like Katırcıoğlu into Ottoman administrative system successfully and on the other hand to incite statesmen like Abaza to operate outside this system in the long run. In general, the aim of this article is to investigate and to examine different methods of the Ottoman Empire as getting rid of Celali rebellions in the examples of these two contemporary figures of the time. In particular, however, by investigating them we have attempted to find out answers to the question what really made a subject rebellious or obedient as far as Ottoman ruling elites of the time are concerned.