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Job title

Muhabere Odasi

Group of job titles: Telegraph service

1 official held the job title Muhabere Odasi. Its 7 annual entries run from 1868 to 1875 (AH 1285 to 1291). The median of the 7 recorded monthly salaries is 1,250 kuruş, against 550 kuruş for the whole collection in the same years. The entries name 1 place, Istanbul.

Officials
1
Years on recordAH 1285 to 1291, 7 years with an entry
1868 to 1875
Median monthly salaryfrom 7 recorded salaries
1,250 kuruş
Places with officials
1

Profile of the group: Telegraph service

No source read describes Muhabere Odasi by itself, so this is the profile of its group of job titles.

The telegraph service of the Ottoman state, a government monopoly from the start. Its offices grew from 52 in 1863 to 320 in 1869, and the postal guide of 1892 lists 679.

Duties

  • take in, send, receive and deliver telegrams for the state and the public, state telegrams first
  • keep the lines and the apparatus working

Tools and technology

  • Morse apparatus in most offices and Hughes printing telegraphs in some
  • batteries
  • lines on poles and submarine cables
  • apparatus made from 1869 in the ministry's own factory

Hard skills

  • the science of the telegraph, accounts, and correspondence in Turkish and French, the subjects in which the ministry found its trainees weak in 1871

Requirements for entry

  • entry as an unpaid trainee (mülazım) in an office, with examinations before appointment
  • from 1881 also from Darüşşafaka
  • from 1911 by competitive examination to the ministry's new school

History

The first lines were built in 1855 during the Crimean War, and the Telegraph Directorate was founded the same year. Telegrams in Turkish were sent from 1856 with a Turkish Morse code. In 1869 the service had 3,607 employees by one count. The telegraph was joined with the post in 1871.

Sources

  1. Bektaş, Yakup (2000). The Sultan's messenger: cultural constructions of Ottoman telegraphy, 1847-1880. Technology and Culture 41 (4), 669-696.Pages or part: 688-689. Used for: tools and technology.
  2. Davison, Roderic H. (1990). The advent of the electric telegraph in the Ottoman Empire. In Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923, 133-165. Austin: University of Texas Press. Read in the Turkish translation by Durdu Mehmet Burak, OTAM 14 (2003), 347-386; pages are those of the translation.Pages or part: 361-362, 365, 368, 375. Used for: summary, duties, tools and technology, history.
  3. Güneş, Mahir Melih (2026). Anadolu'da Telgrafın Toplumsal Tarihi (1856-1908). Doctoral thesis, Hacettepe University. Online copy (read 11 October 2026).Pages or part: 108, 113-122. Used for: duties, tools and technology, requirements for entry.
  4. Okan, Ayşegül (2003). The Ottoman postal and telegraph services in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. MA thesis, Boğaziçi University, Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History.Pages or part: 26-28, 30, 99, 102-103. Used for: summary, tools and technology, history.
  5. The school and the office: training, entry and pay in the Ottoman Post and Telegraph service, 1870-1905. Working paper, 2026 (the paper behind this collection; its Section II reports Akyıldız 2024, Ata 2022 and Ayhan and Maviş 1994).Pages or part: Section II. Used for: hard skills, requirements for entry, history.

Places

Places of Muhabere Odasi, the place with most officials first
PlaceProvinceOfficialsAnnual entriesYears
Istanbul (Dersaadet)Istanbul (Dersaadet) province171868 to 1875

Ottoman officials recorded

Officials of Muhabere Odasi
OfficialYearsAnnual entriesKuruş a monthBirthplace
Mehmet Hayri Bey1868 to 187571,050 to 1,550Istanbul (Dersaadet)

How to read these records: years and calendars, what first recorded means, gaps between annual entries, and salaries.

Subjects