Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Istanbul University Faculty of Letters Journal of Turkish Language and Literature, cilt.60, sa.2, ss.747-760, 2020 (Hakemli Dergi)
Mehmed Rauf, who visited many cities across Europe, described his travel impressions in The Travelogue of Europe (1851). Although the work holds a special place among the travelogues written by Tanzimat intellectuals and statesmen, questions concerning the identity of its author remained unanswered for a long time. We have had the opportunity to access the author's autograph, and while examining various pages, it became clear that the author Mehmed Rauf was the son of Sadik Rifat Pasha, one of the leading government ministers of the Tanzimat period. In the second part of the text of the same manuscript, in a short unpublished text titled, "The Discourse of Europe," he recounts the social, political, and economic conditions of European societies. He held high-level positions in government offices when he became a member of Meclis-i Vala "the Counsel of State," specifically as an undersecretary and a governor between 1860 and 1883. He also wrote a biographical work on the lives of state officials and important personalities of the period as well as a work on the Crimean War, neither of which have been placed and published as yet.