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Sultan Selim III
His Father's Name: Mustafa the Third
His Mother's Name: : Mikhrishah Sultana
Date of Birth : December 24th, 1761
Date of Death: July 28th, 1808
His Sultanate:1789-1807 (18 years)
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(b. Dec. 24, 1761, Constantinople, Ottoman
Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]--d. July 29, 1808, Constantinople),
Ottoman sultan from 1789 to 1807, who undertook a program
of Westernization and whose reign felt the intellectual and
political ferment created by the French Revolution.
A poet and an accomplished composer of Ottoman
classical music, Selim had enjoyed greater freedom prior to
his accession than the Ottoman princes before him. Influenced
by his father, Mustafa III (reigned 1757-74), Selim had acquired
a zeal for reform.
When Selim succeeded his uncle Abdülhamid
I (April 7, 1789), he attempted to end the social, economic,
and administrative chaos facing the empire. He set up a committee
of reformers (1792-93) and promulgated a series of new regulations
collectively known as the nizam-i cedid ("new order").
These included reforms of provincial governorships, taxation,
and land tenure. More significant were his military reforms:
in addition to new military and naval schools, he founded
new corps of infantry trained and equipped along European
lines and financed by revenues from forfeited and escheated
fiefs and by taxes on liquor, tobacco, and coffee. Finally,
to provide for direct contact with the West, Ottoman embassies
were opened in the major European capitals.
Selim, who came to the throne during a war
(1787-92) with Austria and Russia, was compelled to conclude
the treaties of Sistova (Svishtov; 1791) with Austria and
of Jassy (1792) with Russia. In 1798 Napoleon's invasion of
Egypt drove Selim into alliance with Great Britain and Russia.
After the French evacuated Egypt (1801), Selim, dazzled by
Napoleon's successes in Europe, not only recognized him as
emperor (1804) but also, under the influence of General Sébastiani,
Napoleon's ambassador in Constantinople, declared war (1806)
on Russia and Great Britain.
Selim's reorganizations and the increasing
influence of France evoked a strong reaction from the conservative
coalition of the Janissaries, the ulama (men of religious
learning), and others adversely affected by the reforms. Selim,
on the other hand, lacked the determination to enforce the
measures. In 1805, when he ordered the reorganization of troops
in the Balkan provinces, the Janissaries mutinied in Edirne
(in Thracian Turkey) and were joined by the ayan (local notables),
who hitherto had supported the sultan. Selim halted the reorganization
and dismissed his reformist advisers. Finally, in 1807, a
mutiny of the yamaks (auxiliary levies) compelled Selim to
abolish the nizam-i cedid reforms and culminated in his imprisonment.
In the ensuing months of confusion, the reformists rallied
around Bayrakdar Mustafa, pasha of Rusçuk (now Ruse,
Bulg.), who marched to Constantinople to restore Selim. Bayrakdar
took the city, but in the meantime Selim had been strangled
on orders from his successor, Mustafa IV.
["Selim III" Britannica Online.
<http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/536/49.html]
Selim was a poet who wrote, when the Crimea was invaded:
"Let us not remain under the swords,
it is not suitable.
Tartars have been forced to surrender –
should we do the same?
Let me take my revenge on those Russians
Or die for the sake of my country."
Selim had no children.
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