Within the framework of the master’s level seminars conducted under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mehmet Mercan, a faculty member of the Department of History, scientific presentations were delivered by the department’s graduate students.

The seminar program, held on Friday, 23 January, starting at 09:30, featured a presentation by master’s student Merve Turkak entitled “The Establishment of the Telegraph Line to Konya and the Telegraph Administration.” In her presentation, Turkak examined the process of establishing modern communication infrastructure in the Ottoman Empire from historical, administrative, and technical perspectives. Focusing on the period from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the study evaluated the implementation of the telegraph network in Konya, which was established to strengthen the centralized state structure and to accelerate administrative, military, and economic communication between the center and the provinces. The presentation analyzed in detail the process of laying the telegraph line to Konya, the route of the line, the administrative and financial challenges encountered during its construction, and the provincial organization of the telegraph administration. In addition, the contribution of the telegraph to making state authority more visible in the provinces, accelerating decision-making processes in both crisis and ordinary periods, and facilitating the establishment of modern bureaucratic practices was emphasized. Thus, the study aimed to demonstrate the transformative impact of communication technologies on provincial administration during the Ottoman modernization process through the case of Konya.

Within the same program, master’s student Hatice Oğuz presented a paper entitled “The Saray Quarter of Ermenek According to the 1830 Population Census.” In her presentation, Oğuz addressed the 1830 Ottoman population census conducted during the reign of Mahmud II within the framework of early modern demographic practices and assessed the opportunities this census offers for local historical research. Focusing specifically on the Saray Quarter of the district of Ermenek, the presentation analyzed household structures, the age distribution of the male population, occupational groups, and socio-economic indicators based on population registers. Furthermore, the methodology of the census, shaped by military and fiscal objectives, was discussed, and the role of census data in understanding the social structure, demographic dynamics, and neighborhood-scale settlement patterns of provincial society was highlighted. In this context, the study aimed to demonstrate that early Ottoman population censuses constitute fundamental primary sources for microhistory and urban history research, using the example of the Saray Quarter of Ermenek.

The seminars, conducted in an academic setting, were concluded with question-and-answer and evaluation sessions attended by faculty members and students. The presentations proved to be productive in terms of enhancing the research skills of graduate students and contributing to historiography.