The Solitary Female Refugees and the Widows’ Asylum (Kırmızı Kışla) in Late Nineteenth-Century Istanbul

Abstract:This article examines the short-lived asylum, Kırmızı Kışla (Red Barracks), established to offer shelter and protection to the women forced to migrate to the Ottoman capital as the result of the 1877–78 Russo-Ottoman War. The main Ottoman policy toward the refugees was to settle them in the underpopulated parts of the imperial territory. However, women who lost their families were not seen suitable for the Ottoman settlement policy unlike the male refugees who offered the twin benefits of cultivating land and paying tax. But what the solitary female refugees would do in the Ottoman capital, where they were going to stay, or how they would earn their bread was not clear. Moreover, the bureaucrats as well as the middle classes of the city feared that protracted poverty and misery might draw especially women without male guardians to immoral ways. The asylum in Istanbul was established in such a context and with the concern to offer relief and control to refugee women. In sum, this article focuses on the specific case of Kırmızı Kışla as an opportunity to discuss the experiences of the otherwise invisible female refugees and search ways of making them agents of research.