‘Public Benefit’ Funds as a Result and an Instrument of Ottoman Мodernization

In: Transforming Southeast Europe During the Long 19th Century
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Hristiyan Atanasov
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Abstract

The chapter focuses on a relatively well-researched topic – the ‘public benefit’ funds founded by the Ottoman reformer Midhat Pasha in the 1860s in order to offer cheap credit to the agricultural producers. The institution has often been compared to the Western cooperatives created at the same time. The Ottoman version of the funds has many features that make it different from its counterpart institutions in Western Europe. In the Ottoman Empire they were established by the initiative of an administrator and implemented through tools available only to the state – taxes, administratively imposed regulations and control, etc. In this sense, I believe that it is highly possible that these were the first state credit cooperatives in the world.

The ‘public benefit’ funds were not only established by the state, but they were also used to exert a policy of modernization of agriculture. Their capital was used by the Ottoman administration to buy agricultural machines, cover infrastructural expenses, etc. The funds were a state tool that the Ottomans used (whether to actually implement an idea or only plan for it) as a model for carrying out other initiatives as well, such as accumulation of capital for the construction of the harbour in Varna and for the construction of modern schools.

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Transforming Southeast Europe During the Long 19th Century

Persons and Personalities as Agents of Modernization in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Space

Series:  Balkan Studies Library, Volume: 35
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