From castle to city: the historical transformation process of Rize in the Ottoman Period

The main subject of this thesis is the transformation of Rize, which was incorporated into Ottoman territory with the conquest of Trabzon in 1461, into a Turkish city over time throughout the historical process. Here, the demographic, social and religious structure of Rhizaion, which was a part of the Greek State of Trebizond when it was first taken over as a district of the province of Trabzon after the Ottoman conquest, its situation with its lands and income, the course of Islamization and Turkification during the process of the district turning into a town, and the districts and neighborhoods of the town that expanded with the mosques and masjids built in Rize from the 16th century to the 18th century are discussed. In this context, archival sources such as tahrir registers, jizya records, sharia registers, and muhimme and ahkam registers were evaluated; an approach based on documents but not ignoring the context was adopted. Social continuity was followed through analyses based on place names and family names, and the form that local settlement structure and public space took over time was attempted to be understood within historical conditions. Thus, not only the administrative organization but also the dynamics that shape the memory and identity of a town are addressed with a multi-layered perspective.