The Exile and the Sultan: Nikolas Kefalas and His Maritime Reform Proposal to Mahmud II

The Exile and the Sultan: Nikolas Kefalas and His Maritime Reform Proposal to Mahmud II

In this book, Yusuf Ziya Karabıçak examines the remarkable life of Nikolas Kefalas (1763-1847), an Ottoman Greek sailor, cartographer, merchant, pirate, writer, and reformer who transcended the borders of empires in the turbulent Mediterranean in the Age of Revolutions. By tracing documents scattered across various archives, the work pieces together Kefalas’s story, offering a window into the vast Mediterranean world during the Age of Revolutions, where loyalties were fragile and sovereignty was constantly redefined. The book includes a lengthy introductory essay in English that examines Kefalas’s life and activities within their historical context, as well as a transliteration and the English translation of a treatise Kefalas wrote shortly after the Greek Revolution and presented to Sultan Mahmud II in 1830. This treatise opens up discussions on many issues that would later shape the Tanzimat period. Kefalas’s thoughts on issues such as the nationality of non-Muslims, social privileges, justice, governance, and the protection of foreign states offer clues to the fundamental tensions that would shape the reforms implemented in the Ottoman Empire in later years.