A Lost Treasure...

One of the most tragic events to occur in Türkiye after the proclamation of the Republic happened in 1931, when around 30 to 50 tons of valuable documents written in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian were sold to Bulgaria to be used as “paper pulp.” The details of this incident are filled with absurdities and almost unbelievable negligence:

The archive, containing military, financial, political, legal, and literary documents from various far-flung regions once under the Ottoman Empire’s rule, was sold for a ridiculously low price—basically “a few pennies per okka” (a unit of weight)—to the Berger family, Swiss-Armenian owners of a paper factory operating in Sofia. The documents were removed in bales from the Ottoman Archives building in Sultanahmet, İstanbul, loaded onto train cars at Sirkeci station, and transported to Bulgaria.

The first person to expose this horrific crime was İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı, a journalist for the newspaper Son Posta. Some of the documents had even fallen onto the roads during transport, ending up in the hands of ragpicker children.

In his June 4, 1931 article, Konyalı described what he saw inside the archive building:

“The corridor was filled with heaps of scattered papers. They formed a circle. At the back, hundreds of sacks of paper were piled up so densely that it was impossible to enter. Bekir Ağa, the janitor, first climbed on top of the sacks and helped me up by holding my hand. In this section, many valuable documents and ledgers caught the eye. After inspecting this area, we moved downstairs. There, among the papers I managed to take, were pieces of gilded magazines, documents concerning the repair of forts in Silistra, Varna, and the Danube provinces, timar and zeamet registers, salary records, kitchen expense accounts, and many historic property deeds related to charitable foundations. These were not worthless scraps of paper but documents that could never be replaced, no matter how many tens of thousands of kuruş or liras were spent.”

Another figure closely involved in the matter, Muallim Cevdet, wrote to then-Prime Minister İsmet İnönü, sharing valuable details about some documents he had accidentally purchased from street children along the way:

“1) A military document from 350 years ago: a fragmented travel expense ledger from the 1096-1099-1101 Vienna campaigns. Which history book mentions this?

2) A key to the Uighur script: until now, it was unknown that any Turkish scholar had created a key to decipher Uighur texts. This document solves that mystery. How could this be sold?

3) Records relating to the first fortress we captured in Serbia, the Niš Fortress.

4) A record related to a foundation established by Gazi Mihal’s descendants in Plevna.

5) An extraordinarily important kitchen ledger from 1134, sent to the treasury bearing the seal of Hatice Sultan.

6) A decree granted to the children of Sheikh Gâlib... Pasha, even the titles of the documents I obtained are enough to ignite your patriotic heart!”

When other articles appeared in newspapers and the public outcry grew, the İnönü government was forced to intervene diplomatically. Only a small portion of the documents could be recovered because the Bulgarian government, closely following the debates in the Turkish press at the time, realized the archive’s value and confiscated the documents initially sent as “paper pulp,” ensuring they were registered in Bulgaria’s national archive.

Because of this 1931 crime, today, after İstanbul and Cairo, Sofia holds some of the most extensive Ottoman archival documents.

Last Friday (June 20, 2025), during my visit to Sofia, I had the chance to see a portion of these incredibly valuable documents housed in the historic building of the Bulgarian National Library. Nearly a century later, only the main sections of the archive have been catalogued by name. Countless documents still await discovery, reading, and research. With the librarians’ permission, who requested that the photos not be shared publicly, I was able to photograph and personally archive this lost treasure stretching along the protected halls and long corridors.

One sentence from a Bulgarian expert presenting the documents stuck with me: “The Ottoman Empire was a state of records, order, and bureaucracy. No detail was neglected; everything was written down and recorded.” To illustrate this, he showed us a detailed tax ledger from Crete in the 1700s. Seeing that ledger in person on the table was thrilling. If only we didn’t have to wonder how that ledger ended up here…