Dr. Alexander Antonov, TIME IS MONEY. THE OTTOMAN EXPRESS (ULAK) SERVICE IN THE LATE 17TH AND IN THE 18TH CENTURY

The lecture is based on Ottoman documents kept in Baş bakınlık Osmanlı Arşivi and the Oriental Department of the National Library in Sofia and tracing the development of the express (Ulak) service in the Ottoman Empire in the late 17^th and during the 18^th century. The lecture aims at presenting the mechanism of financing and the effectiveness of the express (Ulak) service during some of the most troublesome centuries for the Empire in military aspect.

The firmans through which in the 18^th century the authorities tried to regulate the menzil system as well as the information from the separate menzil defters show how difficult it was to reform the system because of the difference in the interests of the central authorities and the vilayet âyâns. The menzils (route stations) turned out to be a substantial source of wealth. The means from the by-the-hour payments were lost in them and the horses were used rather for private ends. The time for travelling was turned into money which was never returned into the system but catered for private interests. After 1696 the number of the menzil defters kept by the superintendents of the route stations and certified by the kadis grew substantially. This type of defters was kept as late as the 19^th century when Mustafa Reshid Pasha founded the Post khane system modeled after the modern European post office service.