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Job title

Sefaret 3. Kitabeti

Group of job titles: Correspondence and registry

1 official held the job title Sefaret 3. Kitabeti. Its 6 annual entries run from 1901 to 1907 (AH 1319 to 1324). The median of the 6 recorded monthly salaries is 2,300 kuruş, against 475 kuruş for the whole collection in the same years. The entries name 1 place, Istanbul.

Officials
1
Years on recordAH 1319 to 1324, 6 years with an entry
1901 to 1907
Median monthly salaryfrom 6 recorded salaries
2,300 kuruş
Places with officials
1

Profile of the group: Correspondence and registry

No source read describes Sefaret 3. Kitabeti by itself, so this is the profile of its group of job titles.

Offices that drafted, copied, registered and kept official papers: correspondence offices (tahrirat), whose regulations of 1869 at the Foreign Ministry name a chief clerk, drafters, copyists and registrars (mukayyit),1 the offices of a corresponding secretary (mektubi), who handled incoming and outgoing correspondence,2 and records offices (evrak), such as the Records Office of the Sublime Porte, which by 1861 supervised the flow of papers between the Porte and the other offices in Istanbul and kept records so that papers could be found when needed.3

Hard skills

  • official writing (kitabet), composition (inşa) and the kinds of script, learned in the offices until just before the Tanzimat4
  • official and private letter writing (kitabet-i resmiyye ve hususiyye) and the method of official writing (usul-i kitabet), taught at the Mekteb-i Maarif-i Adliyye from 1839 and at the Darülmaarif from 18495

History

Until just before the Tanzimat, clerks were trained on the job in the offices (kalem), each of which served as a school, mostly for the children of officials and dignitaries. Children began to attend an office at twelve, sometimes at seven or eight, learned official writing there from the senior clerks, drew no salary at first, and after three to five years became supernumeraries (mülazım) on a small salary.4

Notes

  1. Findley, Carter V. (1980). Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 199.
  2. Findley (1980), p. 78.
  3. Findley (1980), pp. 171-172.
  4. Akyıldız, Ali (2019). Mekteb-i Maârif-i Adliyye. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, supplement vol. 2 (revised third printing), 236-238, paragraph beginning ‘Osmanlı devlet bürokrasisi için’. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
  5. İpşirli, Mehmet (2001). Kalemiye. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, 248-249, paragraph beginning ‘Bu sınıfın yetişmesi’. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).

Each statement above ends with the number of its note, which gives the work and the page or paragraph it comes from.

Places

Places of Sefaret 3. Kitabeti, the place with most officials first
PlaceProvinceOfficialsAnnual entriesYears
Istanbul (Dersaadet)Istanbul (Dersaadet) province161901 to 1907

Ottoman officials recorded

Officials of Sefaret 3. Kitabeti
OfficialYearsAnnual entriesKuruş a monthBirthplace
Mehmet Said Bey1901 to 190762,300Istanbul (Dersaadet)

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

Subjects