The social reflection of the loyalty and merit consepts in the Tanzimat Period

The concepts of loyalty and merit have been important in every culture throughout history. These concepts have been the subject of philosophical, political, and academic studies with their various functions that will take a place in the social memory and their constructive missions that spread to both the theological and secular fields. In this study, the social manifestation of the concepts of Loyalty and Merit in the Tanzimat Period has been tried to be investigated. The meanings of these concepts today and their meanings in the Tanzimat period were compared and the words in which they were mentioned and in which areas they existed were evaluated in this study. The policies implemented by the state-centered perspective on the establishment of loyalty and merit according to time and conditions and the reflections of these policies on the military-civil bureaucracy and the public were examined. The response of the concepts of loyalty and merit has been discussed especially in terms of civil service. The efforts of state officials to obtain personal benefits are exemplified through corruption such as nepotism, and bribery-embezzlement in terms of conflicting with the principles of loyalty and therefore merit. In addition, the reaction of the people to military service, which is defined as a national debt by the state, is also discussed within this framework. The institutionalization ideal of the Tanzimat brought new principles, and the problem of creating a new civil servant model on the axis of old traditions and ways of thinking was assessed with the perspective of the aforementioned concepts.