[Ana Sayfa]
ABSTRACT*
Kemal Gözler, Abdülfettah’ın Şikâyeti (1907) ve Yeniçiftlik Köyü – Kale-i Sultaniye Livası Davası (1914-1918): İki Örnek Olay Üzerinden Son Dönem Osmanlı İdarî Yargı Sistemi Hakkında Gözlemler, Bursa, Ekin Press, 2025, XVIII+382 pages.
ABDÜLFETTAH’S COMPLAINT (1907) AND THE CASE OF YENİÇİFTLİK VILLAGE vs. KALE-İ SULTANİYE PROVINCE (1914-1918)
Observations on the Late Ottoman Administrative Justice System through Two Case Studies
In 1895, 200 immigrant families from Bulgaria bought the 32 thousand decares of “Kayaaltı Farm”, now located in the Biga district of Çanakkale province (Turkey) from its owners, James William Whittall, a British citizen, and İsmail Zühtü Bey, an Ottoman citizen, for 5500 Ottoman Liras and founded a village on the farm. They named the village “Lofça-i Cedit”, meaning “New Lovetch”, to keep alive the name of the place they came from Bulgaria. The village was later renamed as “Yeniçiftlik”. Within the borders of the farm they purchased, there is also a lake called “Ece Lake”, which is 9000 decares in size.
The people of Lofça-i Cedit, also known as Yeniçiftlik village, soon realized that Lake Ece was an important source of income for them. There were plenty of high-quality eels in the lake. The village of Lofça-i Cedit started eel fishing. The eels caught in the lake were sold in the Biga district center.
That being the case, in August 1906, a person named İbrahim Bey, one of the notables of Biga, bought 2740 decares of land in the area called “Dalyanayağı”, to the north of Lake Ece, and in this way he became a neighbor to Lake Ece, which belonged to the village of Lofça-i Cedit.
After purchasing this land, İbrahim Bey prevented the people of Lofça-i Cedit village, with the help of Hasan Bey the district governor of Biga at the time, from selling the eels they caught in Lake Ece, and the eels were seized and confiscated while being taken to Biga. Ibrahim Bey claimed that the eels were caught on his own land, while the people of Lofça-i Cedit village claimed that the eels were taken from Lake Ece, which was in their property.
At this point, Abdülfettah, son of Muhsin, from the village of Lofça-i Cedit, submitted a petition to the Şura-yı Devlet (Ottoman Council of State), and complained about the District Governor Hasan Bey and İbrahim Bey. He requested that the Council of State decide in a way preventing the seizure and confiscation of the eels that they had caught in the lake
As a result, 274 people from the village of Lofça-i Cedit were forced to buy the land in question from İbrahim Bey in order to put an end to the dispute between them. In June 1907, İbrahim Bey sold this land, which he had purchased 10 months earlier in August 1906, to 274 villagers from Lofça-i Cedit for 1180 Ottoman Liras.
The land in question, which is 2740 decares in size and was purchased from İbrahim Bey by 274 villagers from Lofça-i Cedit, is located to the northern of Lake Ece, in the area called “Dalyanayağı”. This land is unsuitable for agriculture, partially submerged in water in the winter and occasionally swampy in the summer. The 274 villagers who purchased this land could not cultivate this land. For this reason, they did not share this land among themselves and instead used it as pasture.
However, the type of this land is registered as “crop field” and not “pasture” in the land registry. After purchasing the land and using it as pasture for seven years, the Council of Elders of Lofça-i Cedit Village submitted a petition to the Biga District Governor’s Office on May 16, 1914, to change the title deed of the land from “crop field” to “pasture”.
This request of the Council of Elders of Lofça-i Cedit Village was accepted approximately three years later (the First World War intervened) by the decision dated February 3, 1917 of the Biga District Administrative Council. However, upon the objection of the Land Registry Office of Kale-i Sultaniye (today's Çanakkale) Province, this decision of the Biga District Administrative Council was annulled by the decision dated August 19, 1917 of the Kale-i Sultaniye Province Administrative Council dated August 19, 1917. Moreover, the Province Administrative Council decided that the land in question was defunct, that is, that the land was transferred to the Treasury, because it had been abandoned and suspended from agriculture for three consecutive years. The village of Lofça-i Cedit was about to lose the land they had purchased from İbrahim Bey 7 years earlier.
The Council of Elders of the Village of Lofça-i Cedit, believing that their village was in the right and the Administrative Council of Kale-i Sultaniye Province was in the wrong, applied to the Council of State with a petition dated November 21, 1917, requesting that the decision of the Administrative Council of Kale-i Sultaniye Province be annulled and that the title of the land in question be changed from “crop field” to “pasture” in the land registry.
The Chamber of Interior and Education of the Council of State, which heard the case, found the request of the Council of Elders of Lofça-i Cedit Village justified with its decision dated March 23, 1918 and ruled that the decision of the Administrative Council of Kale-i Sultaniye Province was in violation of the law and therefore deemed null and void and that the qualification of this land, which was not suitable for agriculture, should be changed from “crop field” to “pasture”.
The book also examines the duties and powers of the Ottoman Council of State as well as its functioning and judicial procedures through the complaint filed by Abdülfettah and the annulment lawsuit filed by the Council of Elders of Lofça-i Cedit Village against the decision of the Administrative Council of Kale-i Sultaniye Province. It discusses the nature of the late Ottoman administrative justice system through these two case studies
.* Google Translate and DeepL Translate were used for the English translation. The final check of the translation was made by Yahya Berkol Gülgeç.
Book Home Page: www.kemalgozler.com/abdulfettah.htm
Editor: Kemal Gözler E-mail:
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Publication Date of This Page: 8 July 2025