Problems in Procuring and Editing Turkish Sources in the Work Program of the Institute of Oriental Studies

Abstract

This is a summarized survey of the efforts made so far by the Institute of Oriental Studies in Sarajevo in the field of gathering and editing of Turkish historical sources. It is a well-known fact that these sources, which are kept in the archives of Istanbul and Ankara, have a special importance for the history of the Yugoslav peoples. Beginning with 1936, the Yugoslav historical scholarship came to realize and emphasize with increasing attention the importance of these sources, which led to the founding of the Institute of Oriental Studies in 1950.

The Institute immediately began working on systematic acquiring of these sources. This systematic work was especially fruitful between 1952-1956, when 21.000 photocopies, or 42.000 pages of text, were made. This search activity concerned the sources relating to all the lands of the present-day Yugoslav territory.

Special attention was paid to the microfilming of a large number of defters dating from the 15^th and 16^th centuries, but other sources were also included. The Institute continues to work in that direction, though on a somewhat reduced scale. There are still a large number of various sources in the archives of Istanbul and Ankara which Yugoslav scholars have not used at all. The acquisition of these important sources should be one of the Institute's principal future tasks.

The Institute has published several Turkish historical sources so far, but this kind of work is full of difficulties, due, largely, to the lack of trained people. At the present time, the Institute plans to prepare 9 voluminous sources for publication before the end of 1977.

As far as the method of editing is concerned, no uniform system has been yet adopted in this respect.