Publisher's Synopsis
One of the most obvious hallmarks of advanced societies, the level of development within the field of publication amongst the Rûms living in Turkey had captured this advancement, as proven by the available records of their newspapers and journals. After the then-developing printing press of Europe had made its way to Turkey, it is recorded that the first Rûm printing press in the country was founded in Istanbul in 1627, a hundred years prior to the founding of the Ottoman State's official printing press. It is also known that the first Rûm newspaper had begun publication in Izmir in 1831, a mere two years after the first one in Turkish had begun. The publication of provincial newspapers in Rûm in provinces where Rûms resided, alongside the publication of the Ottoman State's official Takvim-i Vekayi newspaper, had also significantly contributed to the development of the Rûm press in Turkey.
After Greece emerged as an independent state, they had shared a lifestyle with the Turks and Orthodox Rûms that had lived within the same state borders, and everybody had spoken in their own language, and had continued their lives according to their own religious beliefs. It was thus a natural situation that the freedom of expression, one of the greatest of liberty, was a part of the Orthodox Rûms that lived within the Ottoman State and published newspapers and journals in their mother tongue. In the process of using this natural right, it would be wise to not forget the Orthodox Rûms' level of development or their talents.
In addition to it being known that there was a very active Rûm press in the Ottoman Empire alongside the Turkish press, quite a bit of work must be done in order to reveal its true sphere of influence. As far as I have determined, in addition to several pieces of information come across concerning the Orthodox Rûm press within the history of the Turkish press, that no separate works on the topic have emerged.
It is beneficial in pointing out that there are several significant difficulties concerning the subject. First, according to what I have determined in my research, it is not possible to find any collections of publication branchs that exceed 100. The appeals for the publication licenses of the newspapers that were published during the years of 1864-1909 when central control over the press was excessive and information about several events can be accessed via the documents at the Ottoman Archives. A large portion of this work comprises of documents of this period. However, because the work of dissecting this period's documents results in gaps concerning the Orthodox Rûm press. The publications that were done putside of the monitoring of the central government before 1864 and the 1909-1922 declaration that only civilian administrations the right to publish newspapers-journals allowed thus makes it more diffcult to find documents in the Ottoman Archives. In addition to their being a chance that documetnd on the subject will emerge after the new dissections that will occur, there is a slim chance that the country document records' were able to be preserved as well as that of its central archive. Thus, either the collection before 1864 and after 1909 must be found, or the information must be determined from other sources.
