Central to late Ottoman history is a series of events that marks a milestone in the emergence of modem forms of political thought and revolutionary action in the Islamic world. The sequence opened with the rise of the Young Ottoman ideologues (1865) and the constitutional movement of the 1870s. It continued with the repression of these forces under Abdiilhamid 11 . It culminated with the resurgence of opposition in the Young Turk movement of 1889 and later, and especially with the revolution of 1908. Studied so far mostly in political and intellectual terms,1 the sequence seems well understood. The emergence of the Young Ottomans-the pioneers of political ideology, in any modem sense, in the Middle East-appears to result from the introduction of Western ideas and from stresses created within the bureaucracy by the political hegemony of the Tanzimat elite (ca. 1839-71).2 The repression under Abdiilhamid follows from the turmoil of the late 1870s, the weaknesses of the constitution of 1876, and the craft of the new sultan in creating a palace-dominated police state. The emergence of the Young Turks shows that terror ultimately fostered, rather than killed, the opposition. Too, their eventual revolutionary success shows how much more effective than the I Ernest E. Ramsaur, Jr., The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution Young Ottomans they were as political mobilizers.3 Finally, international political forces played a part, as indicated by the role of refugees from the Russian Empire in the development of Turkish nationalism, and by the excitement that the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian revolution of 1905 roused in the Ottoman Empire, as elsewhere in Asia.4No doubt, this political-intellectual interpretation covers many of the most important points. Yet, it remains to ask whether analysis of additional linkages between the sequence-ferment-repression-revolution-and its historical context would not add significantly to understanding of the sequence. This essay answers the question positively by showing that the sequence was linked to economic, as well as intellectual and political, developments.5 In fact, as 1908 approached, the economic situation evolved into a variation on a well-known theory that seeks the origins of revolution in a "sharp reversal" following a "prolonged period . . . of economic and social development."6 Evidence for the interpretation offered here emerges from comparison of two sets of quantitative data: the salaries recorded in the personnel dossiers of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, and the commodity prices published in Istanbul newspapers of the period 1851-1914. The method of analysis is to produce time series, of salary statistics in the one case, and commodity prices in the other, and then, by comparing these series, to arrive at conclusions about changes over time in the economic position of a key sector of the bureaucratic intelligentsia.7 3 Since I have treated problems of ideology and political mobilization in another study, discussion of these topics here will be schematic. . Some ...
