Imperial Governance and Refugee Agency in the Late Ottoman Empire the Batum–Akçaabat (Trabzon) Migration after the Russo-Ottoman War (1877–1882)

Abstract

This article reconceptualizes the 1877-1882 Batum-Akçaabat (Trabzon) migration not merely as a humanitarian emergency but as a political and spatial project that reshaped late Ottoman governance. Drawing on Ottoman archival sources and British diplomatic reports, the study shows that refugee resettlement operated through two interlinked dynamics: spatial governance and refugee participation in administrative processes. Land records reveal that wealthier Batum households received larger and more fertile plots, indicating that the Ottoman state reproduced existing social hierarchies even as it reorganized provincial space. Petitionary evidence further shows that refugees were not passive recipients of state assistance but active claim-making actors who negotiated land, protection and legal recognition. The cases of Halime Hatun, a widowed migrant who contested the reassignment of her inherited land, and Nokta Hanım, who directly petitioned provincial authorities for legal protection, highlight gendered patterns of participation that complicate male-centred narratives in Ottoman migration historiography. Local resistance, fiscal constraints, and Russian diplomatic intervention reveal a triangular arena shaped by imperial priorities, provincial power struggles, and cross-border pressures. By conceptualizing forced migration as a relational and negotiated process, this micro-historical and empirically grounded analysis offers new insights into refugeedom and late Ottoman governance within global forced migration debates.