Sultan Abdülhamid II in the eyes of the witness of the era

This study, based on the memories of the people who have served as state officials during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II, examines the 31 March Case, which is the most important case of Sultan Abdulhamid II's private life, the way of administration and the period and which caused great changes in the character of Sultan Abdülhamid II's. In this study, it is aimed to determine how Sultan Abdulhamid's private life and the way of administration as a sultan and as a sultan are subjected to criticism and how he is qualified by these qualities of the Sultan. Memories are seen as important sources of subjective and social structure of the 19th and 20th century from the monarch state structures to the nation-state process. These sources, which contain important information about people's lives, society and the period during which the tradition of memory writing became more frequent, provides the researcher with the information that the archive documents cannot reveal in order to reach the political and social life of the period. Sultan Abdulhamid II has a special importance because it was the sultan who had been reigned for a long time as 33 years. The Sultan's characteristics and political maneuvers were influential on the Ottoman government and its people. One part of the society has seen itself as "Kızıl Müstebit" an other part of society has seen itself as "Ulu Hakan". This study examined the direction in which the people of many levels of the state described the Sultan and how they tried to perceive the period.