“An interesting document I found while arranging the archive!...
A telegram sent in Latin letters in Turkish by Armenian community in Bursa to the Istanbul Patriarchate in 1871
In summary; "there is a sectarianless blasphemer, get him out of here immediately or we'll take care of it ourselves" they say
Also a rare historical document in terms of the Turkish of the period
#tarih #TarihteBugün”
*image courtesy of Mr. Ceyhun İrgil @ceyhunirgil
Here’s the full script translated from phonetic Turkish to written Turkish by me. They must have used French phonetic.
“İstanbul’da Ermeni Patrikhanesine,
Mezhebsiz ve Küfürbaz Partho??? Helasemez için iki gün evvel tel ile beyan ederek ço?halinde badarak(?) edeceğini bildirmiştik.
Cevabına nail olamadık. Badarak(?) ettiğini kiliseye gidenler görmüşler.
Tekrar ve son olarak beyan ederiz, eğer bunun gün evvel buradan definin çaresi görülmeyecekse, gayri çaresini aramağa mecburuz.”
*Signed by notable and influential members of the Armenian community of Bursa, I believe.”
EDIT:
There is a background to this telegram and I summarized it from Can Simitus @cansimitus.
Helasemez is a father in the Bursa Armenian church and during the Sunday service (badarak => pazar), in his sermon he makes Protestant propaganda. The congregation was
agitated by this and they sent a telegram to Patriarchate in Istanbul to take care of this “mezhepsiz” and (in the sense not belonging to their mezhep, hence Protestan) “küfürbaz” (as in kafir (non believer)).
Another historical point is that during Talat Paşa’s time, a regulatory effort was made to standardize the telegraph communication. Until than, Ottoman characters were written in made up phonetic sounds, just like this telegram.
I find it really interesting and wanted to share with you.