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Tahsin Pasha (civil servant)

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Hasan Tahsin Pasha
Mabeyn-i hümayun başkatibi
MonarchAbdulhamid II
In office
1894–1908
Succeeded byCevad Pasha
Personal details
Born1845
Ottoman Empire
Died1930
Istanbul, Turkey
NationalityOttoman, Turkish

Hasan Tahsin Pasha (1845 – 1930) was an Ottoman bureaucrat and pasha. He served as First Secretary of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II between 1894 and 1908.[1]

Biography

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He was appointed to this role on 26 November 1894[2] and became an influential figure in the politics of the Sublime Porte. According to Tevfik Bey's (Biren) testimony, he played a key role in the appointment of Mehmed Ferid Pasha to the post of the Grand Vizier, in an attempt to diminish the influence of Ahmad Izzat al-Abid over the Sultan. This political alliance was not long-lasting, Ferid Pasha's son recounts that his father nicknamed Tahsin Pasha "Kara Tahsin" (lit. "Black Tahsin"), in part due to his complexion, but also because "this man, who was fearful for his position and who had unlimited ambitions, was hostile to [his] father".[1] Tahsin Pasha himself accused Mehmed Ferid Pasha of hypocrisy and incompetence in his memoirs. He had his own competing faction, vying for influence at the Porte during this period. His faction included prominent members of the Bedirhani family, such as Ali Şamil Pasha and Rıdvan İsmail Pasha.[3]

He was nicknamed "Serhafiye" ("the Chief Informant", a reference to the Umur-u Hafiye, the domestic intelligence organisation) by the Young Turks.[4] In the wake of the rise of the Committee of Union and Progress to power with the Young Turk Revolution, Abdulhamid was forced to dismiss Tahsin Pasha of his position, replacing him with Cevad Pasha on 4 August 1908.[5]

He was of ethnic Turkish descent and only spoke Turkish.[6] His memoirs, titled Abdülhamid ve Yıldız Hatıraları ("Memories of Abdülhamid and the Yıldız Palace") serve as an important primary source detailing the court life under Abdulhamid II.[4]

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Between 2017 and 2021, he was played by actor Bahadır Yenişehirlioğlu in TRT's Payitaht: Abdülhamid series.

References

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  1. ^ a b Boyar, Ebru; Fleet, Kate, eds. (2021). Making a living in Ottoman Anatolia. Leiden: BRILL. pp. 184–185. ISBN 9789004466975.
  2. ^ Akyıldız, Ali (2004). Osmanlı bürokrasisi ve modernleşme. İletişim Yayınları. p. 168. ISBN 9789750502552.
  3. ^ Henning, Barbara (2018). Narratives of the History of the Ottoman-Kurdish Bedirhani Family in Imperial and Post-Imperial Contexts. University of Bamberg Press. ISBN 9783863095512.
  4. ^ a b Çağalı-Güven, Gül (1991). II. Abdülhamid'in sadrazamları Kamil Paşa ve Said Paşa'nın anıları polemikleri : belgelerle Mısır, Ermeni-Kürt, Doğu Rumeli meseleleri (in Turkish). ARBA. p. 401.
  5. ^ Özbek, Nazif (2018). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet: Siyaset, İktidar ve Meşrutiyet 1876-1914. İletişim Yayınları. p. 117. ISBN 9789750525971.
  6. ^ BOA, HH. SAİD.d, no:1, s. 201.