A natural disaster, such as an earthquake or a flood, sometimes followed by a second disaster, such as fire or an epidemic, constitutes an unforeseen event which has an impact on a society’s economy or demography and often on the relations of the individual with the state or the religious authorities. Nevertheless, the role of natural disasters in historical developments is ambiguous. The nineteen studies included in this volume deal with methodology for the study of natural disasters and with the problems mentioned above.
ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΕΝΑ
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
Gy. Hazal, Quelques pensees sur le role des catastrophes naturelles dans l’ histoire ottomane
Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Natural disasters: Moments of opportunity
PART ONE: OF EARTHQUAKES
Jean Vogt, Sismicite historique du domaine ottoman: types de sources occidentales et exemples de temoignages
Rossitsa Gradeva, Ottoman and Bulgarian sources on earthquakes in central Balkan lands (17th-18th centuries)
Paola Albini, Venetian documents on earthquakes within and at the western borders of the Ottoman Empire (17th-18th centuries)
N.N. Ambraseys – Caroline Finkel, Unpublished Ottoman archival information on the seismicity of the Balkans during the period 1500-1800
Florentia Evangelatou-Notara, Earthquakes and other natural disasters from minor Greek sources (14th-19th centuries)
Constantia Kiskira, The Missionary Herald on earthquakes in 19th century Anatolia
Donald P. Little, Data on earthquakes recorded by Mamluk historians: An historiographical essay
Anthony Luttrell, Earthquakes in the Dodecanese: 1303-1513
Nicolas Vatin, Les tremblements de terre a Rhodes en 1481 et leur historien, Guillaume Caoursin
Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Tribulations of an Ottoman kadi in Crete
Iris Tzachili, A description of a 17th century eruption of the Santorini volcano
Tom Sinclair, Two problems concerning the Van region: Arakel of Tabriz on the earthquake of 1646 and the evidence for the rise in the level of the lake
John C. Alexander (Alexandropoulos), Gilding the Lily? Thessaly, “Hellas”, “Vlachia” and the earthquake of 1544
Pinelopi Stathi, The Seismologia and their diffusion during the Ottoman period
PART TWO: OF FLOODS AND DROUGHTS
Suraiya Faroqhi, A natural disaster as an indicator of agricultural change: Flooding in the Edirne area, 1100/1688-89
Michael Ursinus, Natural disasters and tevzi: Local tax systems of the post-classical era in response to flooding, hail and thunder
Gilles Veinstein, La grande secheresse de 1560 au nord de la Mer Noire: Perceptions et reactions des autorites Ottomanes
