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The Imperial Ottoman Bank
André Autheman
Translated from French by J.A. Underwood
Istanbul, 2002
ISBN 975-93692-1-4
General manager of the Ottoman Bank from 1975 to 1986 and
member of the Bank Committee from 1980 to 1990, André Autheman
traces the history of a banking institution, which has survived
more than a century. His contribution must be envisaged in
many ways. Combining systematically the archives of the Bank
in Paris, London and Istanbul, he reconstitutes, on the one
hand, its evolution from its earliest days (1856) to the 1924
agreement, where it lost its imperial privileges. "The
sum total of the sources at our disposal, principally the
business records (mainly of banks) […] enable us adequately
to outline the role of this important organisation, hoping
that it may one day become possible to give a full account
of its history […] from the inside" writes Prof. Jacques
Thobie in the preface of the book. In fact, the contribution
of André Autheman is in other respects his point of view of
a historian with the advantage of being from the "inside"
to unveil the history of the Bank through its triple role
in an disintegrated empire in the middle of westernization,
economic crisis and world war.
 Istanbul,
Imparatorluklar Baskenti
Stefanos Yerasimos
Publications of the Economic and Social History Foundation
of Turkey, Istanbul, 2000
ISBN 975-333-136-3
Published in collaboration with the Ottoman Bank (in Turkish)
Byzantion, founded initially as a Greek colony, was named
Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire and Istanbul under
the Ottoman rule. Capital city of two great empires covering
all the Eastern Mediterranean from the Balkans to the North
Africa, it reflected their glory in the course of sixteen
centuries. This book is recontructing, in the same built-up
area and in its permanence, the civilisation of the capital
taking shape during centuries.
 Voyvoda
Street From Ottoman Times to Today
Edhem Eldem
Published as the joint project of the Ottoman Bank Archives
and Research Centre and the Economic and Social History Foundation
of Turkey.
Istanbul,1999
ISBN 975-93692-0-6 (Bilingual edition)
Following the last two exhibitions; A-135-Year Old Treasure
and A History of Paper Money- Traces of History, our third
exhibition "Voyvoda Street from Ottoman Times to Today
was opened. One of the most important parts of the exhibition
is its monograph having the same title. Although the book
is based on a spatial and architectural setting, it tries
also to reflect economic and social dimensions of the street,
and, more, particularly of 33 buildings.
 A
History of the Ottoman Bank
Edhem Eldem
Published as the joint project of the Ottoman Bank Archives
and Research Centre and the Economic and Social History Foundation
of Turkey.
Istanbul,1999
ISBN 975-333-110-X
(Two different versions, in Turkish and in English)
With an exceptional longevity of almost 150 years, the Ottoman
Bank is one of the most fascinating banking institutions of
the modern era. Foreign yet at the same time Ottoman, private
yet holding the privileges and duties of a state bank, its
complex history is intimately linked to that of the Ottoman
Empire, but also to that of the Turkish Republic after the
collapse of the empire. Taking the bank's monetary role and
functions as its guideline, but without discarding its complex
and often ambiguous relation to the political, social and
economic context of the time, this book traces the history
of the institution from its foundation in 1856 to the transformations
it underwent during the first decade of the Republic.
 The
Ottoman Bank Lady Employees, (1911-1934)
Laurence Ammour, Lorans Tanatar Baruh
Tarih ve Toplum, March 1999, No : 183, Istanbul
(in Turkish)
Of the 6,000 classified and recorded personnel files of the
Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre for the period 1863-1934,
252 are those of lady employees, representing 4% of the total.
Studying these files allows us to collect many information
concerning the various nationalities-protectorates, the spoken
and written languages, the religions, the average age when
entering the bank, the cities and branches where the ladies
were employed, their wages and the departments and functions
they fulfilled.
Grouping some of this data into charts highlights some interesting
changes and some significant facts: the first lady employed
in the bank (1911), the first Muslim lady (1921), the arrival
of the White Russian refugees in Istanbul, the education level
and banking knowledge, the average number of years of employment
and the causes of absenteeism, the total number of employees
according to the period and the place of entry and the reasons
for leaving the job.
 Banknotes
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank (1863-1914)
Based on the Ottoman Bank Archives and
the Tahsin Isbiroglu Collection
Edhem Eldem
Copy editing Drew Batchelder
Ottoman Bank eds. Istanbul, 1999.
ISBN 975-7306-48-7
This book attempts to present all the banknotes and instruments
of circulation issued by the Imperial Ottoman Bank from 1863
to 1914, within the framework of its privilege. The main reason
behind this effort is to complete the patchy, or sometimes
altogether missing, information available to this day. Indeed,
even though some of the general features and figures of the
bank's issue were already known, this information still remained
extremely superficial. To give but one concrete example of
the limits and superficiality of this knowledge, it should
suffice to say that there was no clear information as to the
exact dates and numbers of each issue. Figures and dates relating
to the withdrawal, cancellation and incineration of these
banknotes were even harder to come by. In short, it was clear
that the only source likely to bring some clarity to the matter
was the bank's own records. The Ottoman Bank historical research
project, initiated in 1997 with the collaboration of the Ottoman
Bank and the Economic and Social History Foundation of Turkey,
made it possible to unearth, one after the other, all the
documents relating to the Imperial Ottoman Bank's role as
a bank of issue. Today, it is possible to study in great detail
every single issue of the bank, to the point of following
the fate of an individual banknote from issue to cancellation
and to incineration. This book consists, therefore, of a systematic
presentation of these sources and of the information that
can be derived from them.
(Edhem Eldem, p. 13)
 A
135-Year-Old Treasure.
Glimpses from the past in the Ottoman Bank Archives
Edhem Eldem
On occasions of the exhibition "Traces of History"
opened in December 1997 by the Centre, Istanbul, 1998
These pages should be considered as a journey into the memory
of the Ottoman Bank, using all kinds of material to illustrate
some of the points where this institution has met with history,
and to provide the reader with as many snapshots, be they
textual ar visual, of this historical process and legacy.
The hope lying behind this is to offer the reader the pleasure
of both a photograph album and a history book.
(p. 15-16)
 Banque
Impériale ottomane.
Inventaire commenté des archives
Edhem Eldem
Institut Français d'Etudes
Anatoliennes / Banque ottomane
Istanbul, 1994.
ISBN: 2-9060-5334-1
A catalogue of the archival documents of the Bulgur Palas
building, which covers the 1856-1933 period, was initiated
in 1989, through the common efforts of the Ottoman Bank and
the French Institute of Anatolian Studies. This resulted in
the publication of an archive inventory
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