Saturday, January 6, 2024
Grand Ballroom (Hilton Union Square)
The concept of Anthropocene invites us to rethink human animal interactions. This presentation focuses on how animals, mainly sheep and cattle, their owners, drovers, merchants and state authorities responded to epidemics and epizootics in late Ottoman Empire. Focusing on 1879-1894 period, I present examples of animal diseases and cholera outbreaks among humans to study how these challenges led to changes in the way humans and animals interacted using documents from Ottoman and British archives. The devastating effects of 1877-78 Ottoman Russian War both in Rumelia and Eastern Anatolia led to economic hardship and insufficient food and diseases both for animals and humans. Animal diseases after the war were very common in many regions of the empire. In 1892, the wide scale cholera outbreak from Central Europe to Russia infected several regions in the Ottoman Empire. I present analysis of how measures taken to fight with these diseases such as quarantines affected the way animal trade was conducted between Anatolia and Istanbul. Cholera was a human disease but influenced how animals were treated and traded. There was a discussion about whether animals could transmit cholera, and when decided that this was not possible, shepherds and drovers became the new concern. Merchants and shepherds of animals who marched from Anatolian provinces such as Erzurum and Ankara spread the virus to other regions. Therefore, state authorities discussed changing shepherds with healthy ones in quarantines on the way to Istanbul. Cholera outbreak and animal diseases also led to changes in trade routes and new transportation mediums too. The poster presentation visualizes the effects of animal and human diseases on livestock trade using topographical maps of trade routes and graphics showing the change in the number of livestock in various parts of Anatolia before and after these diseases. In addition, comparative graphics of volume of trade in major livestock trade regions such as Ankara, Erzurum, Bursa and İzmir will be in the visuals to display varying effects of human and animal diseases in different parts of Anatolia.
The presentation also discusses how these animals which were bought, sold, fed and slaughtered were treated when they arrived Istanbul using some photographs from late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their stay in Istanbul could cause sanitation problems. From meadows sheep stayed temporary to slaughterhouses, hygiene problems concerned Istanbul authorities especially in times of animal and human diseases. Precautions taken to prevent spread of these diseases tell us how human and animals co-lived in Istanbul. Third, animal trade was a crucial economic activity for many actors including traders, moneylenders, drovers, tribal members and butchers. Meat prices were vulnerable to wars, epidemics and climate conditions. The presentation also displays how animal and human diseases led to increase in meat prices with graphics and effects of these increases on actors involved in animal trade.
The presentation also discusses how these animals which were bought, sold, fed and slaughtered were treated when they arrived Istanbul using some photographs from late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their stay in Istanbul could cause sanitation problems. From meadows sheep stayed temporary to slaughterhouses, hygiene problems concerned Istanbul authorities especially in times of animal and human diseases. Precautions taken to prevent spread of these diseases tell us how human and animals co-lived in Istanbul. Third, animal trade was a crucial economic activity for many actors including traders, moneylenders, drovers, tribal members and butchers. Meat prices were vulnerable to wars, epidemics and climate conditions. The presentation also displays how animal and human diseases led to increase in meat prices with graphics and effects of these increases on actors involved in animal trade.