Abstract

The title of the article is ‘The provincial administration of the Ottoman empire in the XVI century on the ground of the kanunname’. The purpose of the article is to characterize the structure of the provincial administration of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI century on the ground of the sultans’ kanunname. The administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire has been studied in the article: the largest ottoman provinces - eyalets were divided into two types: timarli, in which the system of sanjaks, ottoman law, timar system were established; and salyaneli, where timar system was absent, all taxes were gathered and distributed to local needs; the second administrative-military territorial units were sanjaks, the subdivisions of sanjak were kazas and kadiluks, then – nahiyes. Moreover, outside this system there were various types of vassal and tributary states. The governance of such large territory, control over the execution of orders, establishment of relations between different groups of multi-ethnic population of the empire, which lived mostly not in the metropolitan area, but in the provinces, needed the constant functioning of local authorities. The main task of the provincial administration was to organize and to strengthen the communications between the province and the center. Special attention has been given to the description of the place and role, rights and duties of beylerbey, sanjakbey, qadi, defterdar and other local managers at the system of the Ottoman provincial administration. In conclusion it is necessary to point out that the system of local authorities was formed by representatives of the military-administrative, judicial, kazaskers, sheikh-ul-Islam) and financial branches of the Ottoman government. Legal prohibitions and mutual cooperation supported sustainable balance between these executive power branches.