Foreign Post Incident in European Journals: The Approach of the Universal Postal Union and Analysis of News Content on the Ottoman Postal Administration
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.16947/fsmia.1408479Keywords:
European press, information dissemination, postal critics, Ottoman Post, Universal Postal UnionAbstract
As a multifaceted fact the foreign post incident had a great repercussion throughout
the world until the early parts of the 20th century. Foreign post offices, an integral
component and consequence of the expansionist policies of European states, had a significant
impact on the Ottoman Empire. Western postal administrations conducted operations
within Ottoman settlements for an extended period. The Ottoman Empire also
came to the fore as a country where European postal administrations competed among
themselves. Foreign post offices, initially established on the basis of commercial and social
considerations, eventually gained a political dimension. The Ottoman Empire, which
adopted a Western-style postal system in 1840, prioritized the development of its domestic
postal infrastructure as a matter of institutional policy. However, this initiative was
met with resistance from European postal administrations who sought to maintain their
presence within Ottoman territory. Despite objections to the perceived lack of structural
transformation and operational competence within the Ottoman Postal Administration,
the Empire’s participation in the inaugural international postal congress in Bern in 1874
marked a significant turning point. Becoming a founding member of the Universal Postal Union enabled the Ottoman Empire to provide international postal services within
two years, fulfilling a critical requirement for membership that had been leveraged by
European States. Nonetheless, this did not resolve all of the Empire’s issues related to
foreign postal services, which continued to be a source of political, economic, and social
contention. Although the European press extensively covered this topic, a comprehensive
academic study has yet to be undertaken. In addition, little attention has been given in
foreign literature to alternative perspectives on the issue of foreign postal services in the
Ottoman Empire. This article aims to point out the gap in the literature by examining the
foreign press’s coverage of the Ottoman Empire’s postal system and exploring alternative
approaches to this topic.
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