ONSEKİZİNCİ YÜZYIL OSMANLI BAŞKENTİNDE TAŞÇI ÖRGÜTLENMESİ

Eighteenth century coincides an era of change, in which the stonemasons and the construction craftsmen in general gave priority to accumulation of capital and personal benefits. In the Ottoman Empire, it was inevitable for the general rules, which arrange the operation methods of the craftsmen guilds and which are required to be valid for each craftsman, to change as a result of the problems in the organization of the stonemason craftsmen. The demand for change relevant to the operation method of the organization was due to the disagreement between the groups that work under the guild system and the group called “stonemason craftsmen”. This case considerably required the review of the general rules imposed by the guild system and caused the emergence of a new point of resistance between the state and the stonemason groups. The field of specialization in the internal organization of the stonemason craftsmen and indirectly the construction craftsmen, had a nature of interlocked chains which include but also limit the areas of each other, monopoly in the field of construction did not easily apply for craftsmen who were dependent on stone as a material. As a result, the struggle with monopoly was possible for construction craftsmen working at various branches within the organization since the transfer in the fields of professional specialization was relatively easier. This case facilitated cooperation of the construction craftsmen who were faced with heavy taxes. Cooperation is the reason of unanimity regarding the elimination of monopoly. Share holders working with people possessing gedik (monopoly of trade rights) were also obliged to conduct a joint work with groups which were called ‘stonemason craftsmen’. This was a method of operation formed by the tolerance of state beside the rules of the guild. The traditional system in the organization, although under control exceeded from time to time. On the other hand, the significance of the material-subject relation regarding the production in the field of construction was creating an important starting point for promotion of the stonemason master builders, or resulting in their remaining as master builders possessing gedik. In other words, it was possible to award a stonemason master builder by making him a possessor of gedik within the direction of the obligations undertaken by him, while working in the construction of a state building and outstanding successes were achieved. It is seen that the positive aspects of the transfer of the task definition within and from the borders of the work areas of the construction groups which worked with stone as material directly or indirectly,, was used by the state: the tasks not being discriminated clearly, led to cases where the stonemason craftsmen were permitted to work as carpenters and where the carpenters were permitted to work as stonemasons. These changes resulted in ‘stone traders’ in the following century owing to the accumulation of capital and in the transfer of the work of stonemasonry to private bodies mainly. The documents that belong to the end of the eighteenth century provide significant information relevant to the organizational problems of the stonemason craftsmen. In the article, the transfer between the specialization areas of the stonemason craftsmen based on the professional dynamism experienced by the stonemasons, the positions and the responsibilities of the chief stonemasons, the determination of the stonemasons’ identity (samples of the stonemason signs in the late period), their efforts for changing the form of organization and the effect of their ethnic origins on this effort, their penetration in the field of construction by working as carpenters, stonemasons, even joiners and the process of being the first professional representatives of entrepreneurship in the field of construction were examined with the support of documents.