An office responsible for the affairs of the town existed in Amasya long before it came to be called a municipality. Records that speak of a şehremini (town intendant) in the reign of Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), of a town steward (şehir kethüdası) at the end of the sixteenth century who saw to the town's taxes and its guests, and of an ihtisab ağa supervising the guilds in the mid-nineteenth century show that the town was accustomed to having its affairs managed by its own notables. The municipality in the modern sense, however, was a product of the new administrative thinking brought by the Tanzimat. In Amasya the municipal office was founded in 1864, within the building programme that the district governor (mutasarrıf) Ziya Paşa carried out in the town; this institution, which brought together cleaning, lighting, market regulation and infrastructure under one roof, assumed its present form under the Republic with the Municipal Law of 1930. Since the general framework of the institutions the Tanzimat brought to the town and the formation of the Helkıs square, where the municipal building stood, are treated in other articles, the subject here is municipal government itself: who governed the town, with what powers and against what difficulties.

Before the Municipality: Şehremini, Town Steward and Ihtisab

The classical Ottoman town had no municipality in today's sense. The kadı (qadi), who was both the town's judge and its civil authority, controlled the fixing of prices, the order of the market, the supervision of pious endowments (waqfs) and public security, assisted by officials such as the subaşı, the market inspector (muhtesip) and the stewards of the guilds. Those who might be regarded as representatives of the people stepped in when taxes were apportioned, when prices were fixed or when state officials visiting the town had to be lodged. In describing this order, İlber Ortaylı stresses that although one can speak of waqfs, communal organisations and notables in the towns, it is not possible to speak of a permanent institution like a municipality before the Tanzimat.

Amasya's town historian, Abdizâde Hüseyin Hüsameddin, regards these earlier administrators as the forerunners of the municipal presidents. In his view, the officials called "şehr emini" in the age of the princes were later given the title of "şehir kethüdası", and the town steward was the person who handled all the affairs belonging to the town of Amasya. Some links of this chain appear in Hüsameddin's biographies. Memizâde Receb Çelebi, one of the town's merchant notables, served among the officials of Sultan Mehmed I and became defter emini around 1414 and şehremini around 1422. In 1589-1590, when the sanjak was shaken by the disturbances of the sûhte (madrasa students), the town steward was el-Hac Mansur Çelebi. Towards the end of the seventeenth century el-Hac Mehmed Çelebi, known as "Zanbak Dede" and descended from Büyük Çeribaşı, held the same office, while his son served for a time as clerk of the ihtisab and, in Hüsameddin's words, worked "to settle the affairs of the municipality". Saatçizâde Hacı Salih Efendi was town steward several times from 1780 onwards and also sat on the council of hacis and notables.

Hüsameddin's treatment of the şehremini and the town steward as two names for the same office does not fully agree with current research. According to Şenol Çelik, town stewards were usually chosen from among the town's notables and took office with the kadı's recommendation and a warrant from the capital; their main tasks were to apportion and collect customary taxes among the townspeople, to meet the needs of the post stations and couriers, and to lodge officials passing through. They differed in origin and authority from the şehremini of Istanbul. Even so, because they came to office by election and were regarded as the people's deputies, they have sometimes been likened to today's mayors. That Amasya's town stewards were mostly men titled "ağa" or "çelebi", of merchant and notable background, fits this general picture. With the rise of the ayan in the eighteenth century the weight of this office declined.

When the abolition of the Janissaries in the first half of the nineteenth century removed the kadı's assistants, the reign of Mahmud II tried to carry out urban supervision through the ihtisab administration and its ihtisab ağas. The last ihtisab ağa of this period in Amasya was el-Hac Halil Ağa, son of Kafadar Ahmed Ağazâde el-Hac Mehmed Ağa, a name remembered among the town's Janissary commanders. Halil Ağa, who had fought in the Russian war as a soldier of the new regular army and risen to the rank of major, retired around 1860 and returned home; in 1862-1863, as ihtisab ağa, he looked after the order of the guilds and of municipal affairs. According to Hüsameddin's brief note, he was dismissed in 1864-1865 when Ziya Paşa established the municipal office, became a member of the administrative council a few years later, and died in 1870-1871. This entry is one of the rare documents that shows, through a single person, the moment at which the town passed from the old ihtisab system to the new municipal office.

Ziya Paşa and the Founding of the Municipal Office

The legal starting point of modern municipal organisation in the Ottoman provinces was the Provincial Regulation (Vilayet Nizamnamesi) of 1864. This regulation provided for municipal councils of elected members in the centres of districts and sub-districts. The founding of the municipal office in Amasya falls in the same year, 1281 of the Hijri calendar. Hüsameddin writes that when the mutasarrıf Ziya Paşa built the government house in place of the mansion he had bought in Helkıs, he turned the pasha's reception wing (selamlık) into the "municipal office". The town's first municipal building thus stood right beside the new government house, in a converted part of an old mansion. According to Nurcan Yazıcı's study based on Ottoman archival documents, the wooden government house was begun at the end of 1864 and completed in 1865; in later years a separate building was erected for the municipality, and this municipal building, built in the early twentieth century, also stood next to the government house.

The setting in which the municipality was born was far from calm. Ziya Paşa's term as mutasarrıf between 1863 and 1865 was a period of public works remembered in the sanjak for a bridge, a market, a bedesten, government houses, schools, a prison and roads. Hüsameddin also records that when a new road was opened in the town, part of an old madrasa was absorbed into it. The money for these works, however, did not come from the central treasury. Assessing the archival documents published by Kenan Akyüz, Halil İnalcık explains that the pasha tried to meet the costs of public works through local levies, placing this burden first on the town's leading families, notables and ulema and then on the people, and that his real struggle was with these local notables. Behind the opposition led by Lütfullah Efendi, the mufti of Zile, and Hacı Hasan Ağa, one of the notables of Zile, stood Amasya's principal families, ulema and merchants. When their complaints reached the Sublime Porte, Ziya Paşa was transferred to the governorship of Canik.

This conflict matters for understanding the early years of the Amasya municipality. As İnalcık points out, the new councils that the Tanzimat set up in the provinces fell in most places under the influence of the old ayan and notables. The municipal council was no exception. The municipal office founded by Ziya Paşa soon became an institution run by men from the town's established families, and for the next half century the presidency of the municipality was one of the offices in which the balance of power between the governors and the local notables can be traced most clearly.

The Provincial Municipal Law of 1877 and the Working of the Provincial Municipality

The decisive measure that gave provincial municipalities legal personality was the Provincial Municipal Law (Vilayat Belediye Kanunu), debated in the first Ottoman Parliament of the First Constitutional Era and put into force on 5 October 1877. The law provided for municipalities in the centres of provinces, sanjaks and districts, for a council of six to twelve members elected for four years according to the town's population, and for half of the members to be renewed by lot every two years. The president of the municipality was appointed by the government from among the elected members. Advisory members such as a physician, a veterinarian and an engineer could also join the council. To become a member one had to be over twenty-five, an Ottoman subject, pay at least 50 kuruş a year in property tax and know Turkish.

The law gave the municipalities a long list of duties: the regulation and control of building, public works, lighting, cleaning, the management of municipal property, the supervision of markets and trade, health measures, the slaughterhouse, the fire brigade and the collection of municipal revenues were among them. In practice, however, provincial municipalities were institutions with meagre revenues and inadequate staff. Water remained in the hands of the waqfs and roads in the hands of the Ministry of Public Works, and the municipality had to enter into long correspondence with the central bureaucracy for even the smallest task. Twice a year the provincial municipal councils met together with the administrative council of their province, sanjak or district to prepare the budget. This joint meeting, called the cemiyet-i belediye, shows the weight of central tutelage over the municipality. As Ortaylı observes, elections in the provinces sometimes amounted to no more than the governor or mutasarrıf appointing members to the council, and municipal presidents were mostly chosen from the local notables. Despite all these shortcomings, from the 1880s onwards municipal presidents took their place in official protocol, and some municipal service, however modest, could be felt in almost every town.

Municipal Presidents of Amasya in the Ottoman Period

The richest information on the Ottoman-era municipal presidents of Amasya lies scattered through the biographical volumes of Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi. Read together, these notices show that over some fifty years the office passed among the town's notable families, the ulema and retired officials. Since the dates are mostly given in the Hijri calendar and do not always agree from one entry to another, the sequence below should be read as a record of what the source says and not taken as a definitive list.

One of the first known names is Halis Mehmed Efendi, who had risen through the financial bureaus and served as ihtisab ağa and as a member of the administrative council. Brother of Nüzhet Ömer Efendi, one of the senior clerks of the imperial council, Halis Mehmed Efendi became municipal president in 1871-1872, was removed in 1874, was appointed a second time in 1876 and died in office towards the end of 1877. In 1874 the presidency passed to Yörgüç Paşazâde Hüseyin Bey. The son of a former mütesellim (deputy governor) of Amasya, who in his youth had risen to major thanks to the policy of training officers from the sons of notable families, Hüseyin Bey was trustee of the Yörgüç Paşa waqf together with his brother Ali Bey; after the presidency he became a member of the administrative council and died in 1878. Yeğenzâde Said Mehmed Bey, for his part, had entered the administrative council after serving as a correspondence clerk and as district director of Köprü and Ünye; he became municipal president in 1875-1876 and left the post in 1879.

The longest and most turbulent presidency of the period belongs to Topçuzâde el-Hac Halil Efendi. The son of Topçuzâde Salih Ağa, a notable of the Gümüşlüzâde quarter, Halil Efendi became a member of the municipality after his father's death, was elected president in 1883-1884 and was kept in office in 1888 with the third civil rank. The following year he was dismissed because of the anger of the mutasarrıf Cafer Sadık Paşa and the tension created by Armenian activities, and shortly afterwards he joined the administrative council. In the autumn of 1895 he became president again with the support of the mutasarrıf Çerkes Bekir Sıtkı Paşa, but in the summer of 1896, during the Armenian disturbances, he was removed once more through the same governor's anger. After the dismissal and exile of the mutasarrıf Mehmed Kemal Bey he returned to the presidency for a third time at the end of 1903. In the spring of 1905, on the arrival of the new mutasarrıf Kıbrıslı Ahmed Cevdet Bey and following complaints from the townspeople, he was dismissed for the last time and died soon after. Hüsameddin describes him as a pious, mild-tempered and agreeable member of an established family who could neither read nor write. Halil Efendi's story shows clearly what the provision of the 1877 law leaving the appointment of the municipal president to the government meant in practice in Amasya: the presidency depended largely on the goodwill of the mutasarrıf.

Among those who held the office at the turn of the century, Cemaleddin Mehmed Efendi, sheikh of the Mevlevi lodge, stands out. The son of the Mevlevi sheikh Ahmed Efendi, Cemaleddin Efendi became sheikh in 1887-1888 and rebuilt the Mevlevi lodge, which had burned in the fire of 1894-1895, more handsomely than before. According to Hüsameddin he became municipal president "in the elections of 1322", gained great influence and withdrew from the presidency early in 1324; if these years are Hijri, his term falls between 1904 and 1906, but its overlap with Topçuzâde Halil Efendi's last presidency suggests that one of the dates may have been given in the Rumi calendar. Cemaleddin Efendi later sat on various administrative councils and, after the closure of the dervish lodges in 1925, lived occupied with his own affairs.

Other municipal presidents also appear in Hüsameddin's biographies. Hacı Yusufzâde Ahmed Rıza Efendi, who rose from recording clerk of the court of first instance to member and examining magistrate, became municipal president after serving on the administrative council, acted as deputy district governor of Köprü in 1902-1903 and died in 1907-1908. Abdullah Efendizâde Hafız Mehmed Nuri Efendi was a member of the ulema and a master of Qur'anic recitation (şeyhü'l-kurra). Mustafa Sıdkı Bey, brother of Ahmed Nafiz Bey, deputy for Amasya, also served for a time as municipal president. Es-Seyyid Mehmed Arif Efendi, from a family of dervish sheikhs, died in office as municipal president in 1915-1916, during the First World War. In the years when Hüsameddin was writing his work, the presidency was held by Celal Bey, son of the Mevlevi Cemaleddin Efendi.

The Municipal Council and the Daily Work of the Municipality

The members of the municipal council were also well-known figures of the town. In Hüsameddin's biographies, membership of the municipality appears as an ordinary position among notables, tradesmen and ulema. Şeyh Ahmedzâde el-Hac Ahmed Efendi, of the grocers' guild, died in 1898 while a member of the municipality, having bequeathed a third of his property to the rebuilding of the Benderli Madrasa, which had burned in the fire of 1894-1895. Yumuk Osmanzâde Raşid Mehmed Efendi died in 1894-1895 while a member of the municipal council, and Seyyid Abdullah Efendi, son of Seyyid Necib Ahmed Efendi, in 1898-1899. Mustafa Efendi, who shared the professorship of the Kapancızâde and Torumtay madrasas with his brother, became a member of the municipality in 1906-1907. A copy of the register of the descendants of the Prophet (sâdât) of Amasya was found in the house of Şeyh Alizâde Seyyid Abdullah Efendi, another member of the municipality. That members of the learned class, dervish sheikhs and market tradesmen sat side by side in the council shows that the municipality served as a bridge between the town's traditional notables and the new administrative order.

The work the municipality took on concerned matters that touched daily urban life directly. The cleaning and order of the streets, the supervision of the tradesmen in the market and the control of weights and measures were among its first duties; street lighting was at first provided by gas lamps, and the fire brigade was regarded as a vital unit against fire in a town full of wooden houses. The municipal council was a body attended by the town's notables, in which local matters were decided through consultation. Hüsameddin's notes add concrete examples to this general picture. In 1894-1895 a municipal pharmacy was opened beside the clock tower. The Mağdenus Bridge, which Ziya Paşa had renewed in 1864-1865, was repaired by the municipality many times thereafter. The muzzle-loading cannon in Harşena Castle was fired only on official and religious days, its sound reaching villages two hours away; the gunners who fired it from the beginning of Ramadan to the end of the feast and the drummers who beat the drums were paid by the municipality.

The municipality's building work sometimes brought it into conflict with the town's old monuments. Hüsameddin relates that a Seljuk-period tomb came very close to being demolished by the municipality on the grounds that it belonged to Christians and that its pointed conical roof had become ruinous and might collapse onto the quarter, and that he himself prevented the demolition by explaining the matter to the mutasarrıf Kemal Bey. This small episode shows that the tension between preserving old monuments and public safety was already on the agenda in Amasya at the end of the nineteenth century. Municipalities had also been established in the districts of the sanjak. In Merzifon, when the government house and the centre of the town burned during the disturbances of 1893-1894, the government house, the barracks and the municipal office were rebuilt with the help of the notables and the townspeople. In Havza a notable descended from Bayram Bey, who administered the Seljuk endowments as trustee, served several times as municipal president, and in Köprü membership of the municipality was likewise among the positions held by notable families.

The Early Republic and the Municipal Law of 1930

The Republic inherited 389 municipalities from the empire. When Amasya became a province in its own right, the town's municipality became that of a provincial capital; Hüsameddin's records also mention a "chief clerk of the municipality of Amasya province" from this period. According to the list the municipality publishes today, the first municipal president of the Republican period was Rasim Yörgüç, who served in 1924-1925. He was followed by Veysibeyzâde Sıtkı Bey (1925-1926), Alişanzâde Nafiz Bey (1926-1927), Arpacızâde Hürrem Bey (1927-1929), Alişanzâde Nafiz Bey again (1929-1930) and, for a short time, Rasim Yörgüç again (1930). These names show that the weight of the Ottoman-era notable families in municipal government continued into the first years of the Republic. Among those Hüsameddin thanks while having the fourth volume of his work printed in the 1930s is the People's Party chairman "Bay Sıdkı, son of Veysi Bey"; this name very probably belongs to Veysibeyzâde Sıtkı Bey.

The Municipal Law No. 1580, adopted on 3 April 1930, abolished the names şehremaneti and şehremini, united all such bodies under the name of municipality and assigned to municipalities wide duties concerning building, health, cleaning, water, lighting and the urban economy. After the elections held under this law, which for the first time recognised women's right to vote and stand for office, Topçuzâde Hilmi Bey (1930-1933) became municipal president of Amasya; his name recalls the family of Topçuzâde Halil Efendi, three times president in the Ottoman period. He was followed by Dr. Refet Tunca (1933-1934) and by Celal Eren, who remained in office for six years (1934-1940). The presidents of the 1940s were M. Şevket Laçin (1940-1942 and 1943-1946) and Sadrettin Eren (1942-1943). Hüsameddin records the sons of the Mevlevi sheikh Cemaleddin Efendi as Celaleddin and Sadreddin Beys and says that Celal Bey was municipal president in his own day. It is very probable that Celal Eren and Sadrettin Eren in the list are these two brothers, who took the surname Eren after the Surname Law; however, no document directly confirming this has been found.

In these years the municipality was organised within the framework set by the law in such fields as urban planning, water and sewerage, parks and gardens, marketplaces, the slaughterhouse and food inspection. The regulation of traffic within the town and the creation of squares and parks made the town more liveable. The municipal council discussed the town's needs, set priorities and directed resources accordingly. Yet for a long time the means at the municipality's disposal remained limited in relation to all these duties, and the town's infrastructure could develop only step by step.

Electricity and the Lighting of the Town

One of the most visible services the municipality took on in the Republican period was electricity. According to the information compiled by Hüseyin Menç, electricity was first used in Amasya in 1936. The German firm Siemens installed a 100-kilowatt generator driven by a steam turbine in the square beside today's Örnek Hotel. A German named Hans Mayer set up wooden poles from the turbine outlet towards the İhsaniye quarter, Ahırönü and the Station Bridge and strung copper lines on them; a street lamp was fitted on every tenth pole. The limited number of people who wished, and could afford, to have electricity connected to their homes applied to the Electricity Works set up within the municipality. Because demand was low, the generator ran only for half an hour at midday, when the radio news was broadcast, and in the evenings between 20.00 and 23.00 depending on the season.

As demand grew, the generator's capacity became insufficient, and each house was limited to three lamps and one socket. In 1944 a second generator of 60 horsepower was added; in 1949 the power station building was enlarged and diesel engines of 225 horsepower were installed, followed in 1951 by one of 175 horsepower, bringing the town's electric capacity to 280 kilowatts. In 1947-1949 the lighting of the town had become the first item on the agenda of the municipal council. Work begun in late 1948 aimed to raise the number of subscribers above one thousand and to supply electricity day and night. On 19 November 1948 the local newspaper Yeşilyurt reported that the Dere quarter had received electricity, noting that the municipal president had made this his goal from the day he was elected, and it praised as a fine gesture the placing of a light bulb above the quarter's only fountain. When the Durucasu Hydroelectric Plant was completed in 1955, the town began to be supplied from it for the first time. In the following years the network was extended through cooperation between the Bank of Provinces (İller Bankası) and the municipality, and from the 1970s it was connected to the national grid.

From the Multi-Party Era to the Present

The year 1946 was a turning point in Amasya's administrative life. On the morning of 19 December 1946 the wooden government house built by Ziya Paşa burned down completely in a fire that broke out on its lower floor; the cut-stone government house still in use today was built in its place and opened in 1949. Ziyaettin Türem, who was briefly municipal president that same year, and Reşat Arpacıoğlu, who served from 1946 to 1950, were the presidents of the years in which work on lighting the town intensified. In the local elections of 3 September 1950 the Democrat Party won about 57 per cent of the vote across the province, and the newly formed Amasya Municipal Council elected Hadi Kitapçı as mayor. In those years the mayor was elected by the municipal council; the direct election of mayors by popular vote began with the local elections of 1963.

The 1950s passed with frequent changes of mayor. After Hadi Kitapçı came Macit Zeren (1952-1954), Kadir Şirin (1954-1955), Hüseyin Özbay (1955), Macit Zeren again (1955-1957), Ahmet Koçbaş (1957) and Mehmet Varinli (1958-1960). During the military administration that followed 27 May 1960, the municipality was run on behalf of the governor. In these years the former municipal president Ziyaettin Türem served as deputy mayor on behalf of the governor in the government offices, and in February 1961 he arranged a day of commemoration for the town's historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin. With the elections of 1963, M. Fatih Arabacıoğlu became mayor (1963-1968). Ethem Naci Altunay served two terms (1968-1977), A. Gündüz Türem from 1977 to 1980, Şerafettin Dağıstanlı from 1980 to 1984, Mustafa Hatipoğlu from 1984 to 1989, Ömer Kabakcı from 1989 to 1991, Süleyman Taşdemir from 1991 to 1994, Ahmet Çekin from 1994 to 1999 and Hüseyin Baş from 1999 to 2004.

In the 2000s the office was held by İsmet Özarslan (2004-2009), Cafer Özdemir, who served two terms (2009-2019), Mehmet Sarı (2019-2023) and Bayram Çelik (2023-2024). In the local elections of 31 March 2024, the lawyer Turgay Sevindi was elected Mayor of Amasya. In this period the municipality's responsibilities spread to almost every area of modern urban life. Services such as drinking water networks, electricity and natural gas infrastructure, solid waste management and public transport raised the quality of town life. The landscaping of green spaces, parks and picnic grounds gave the townspeople places to breathe. Soup kitchens, vocational training courses and cultural centres opened in the spirit of social municipalism directly touched the lives of low-income families. River improvement and regulation works carried out against the flood risk of the Yeşilırmak took account of both safety and the appearance of the riverbank.

The Municipality and the Town's History: Publishing the Amasya Tarihi

One of the Amasya municipality's most lasting contributions to the town's history is its effort to publish Hüseyin Hüsameddin's twelve-volume Amasya Tarihi, and the story of this effort contains within it almost half a century of municipal history. Hüsameddin had been able to print only four volumes of his work in his lifetime, and the remaining volumes stayed with his heirs after his death in 1939. Ziyaettin Türem, a friend of the author, was among those saddened that the work had not been published. When his son Gündüz Türem became mayor, he set out to realise what he had heard from his father. Talks were held with the family with the expert help of Haşim Nezihi Okay, a retired literature teacher who had grown up under Hüsameddin's protection. On 8 April 1980 the municipal council was asked to set up a commission, on 5 May 1980 it was decided to begin negotiations with the heirs, and under the publishing contract signed on 8 May 1980 all rights to the work passed to the Amasya Municipality for 500,000 lira. The printed and manuscript copies were entrusted for safekeeping to Muammer Ülker, director of the Süleymaniye Library.

This initiative was cut short by the coup of 12 September 1980. Mustafa Hatipoğlu, elected mayor in 1984, took up the matter again; the first volume, simplified by Ali Yılmaz and Mehmet Akkuş, was printed in 7,000 copies in 1986. In 1997 Ahmet Çekin commissioned Mesut Aydın to transcribe all the volumes into the modern alphabet, and the work, which took five years, was delivered to the municipality. Hüseyin Baş's attempt at publication in 2000 came to nothing. Under İsmet Özarslan the first five volumes were printed in 2007, but criticism of the errors in this edition led to the postponement of the remaining volumes. In 2015 Cafer Özdemir set up a new commission headed by Mehmet Arslan; the change of mayor and Arslan's death left this work unfinished as well. Through Mehmet Sarı's initiative and with the support of Amasya University, an editorial board was formed in 2020, and in 2022 all the volumes except the lost fifth were published in three large volumes. Alongside this work the municipality has also pursued cultural publishing, with books such as Hüseyin Menç's biography of Hüsameddin and the edition of the 1840 population register of Amasya.

Between Historic Fabric and Modern Services

One of the Amasya municipality's most particular responsibilities has been to bring modern services to the town while preserving its historic fabric. Providing services among the Yalıboyu houses on the banks of the Yeşilırmak, the Ottoman quarters, the historic markets and the old buildings called for balanced and careful management. Attention to old monuments when new roads were opened, and to the town's skyline when new buildings went up, shows that the municipality bore a responsibility that was both technical and cultural. The restoration of the Yalıboyu houses, lighting projects and riverside landscaping were concrete results of this effort. The municipality also sought to make the town's name known through festivals, commemorations and promotional activities; the growth of tourism was closely linked to its infrastructure and promotion work. The line that runs from a historian appealing to the governor to save a Seljuk tomb at the end of the nineteenth century to a municipality passing a council resolution a century later to save that historian's work is also the history of the relationship that municipal government in Amasya has built with the town's past.

Chronology

1422: The year in which Memizâde Receb Çelebi appears as şehremini of Amasya (H. 825).

1589-1590: El-Hac Mansur Çelebi is town steward during the sûhte disturbances.

1780: Saatçizâde Hacı Salih Efendi begins the town stewardship he would hold several times.

1862-1863: Kafadaroğlu el-Hac Halil Ağa, as ihtisab ağa, oversees the order of the guilds and municipal affairs.

1864: The Provincial Regulation is issued; the mutasarrıf Ziya Paşa begins building the government house in Helkıs and converts its reception wing into the municipal office; the ihtisab ağa is dismissed.

1865: The wooden government house is completed; Ziya Paşa is transferred to the governorship of Canik.

1871-1872: Halis Mehmed Efendi is municipal president.

1874: Yörgüç Paşazâde Hüseyin Bey is municipal president.

1877: The Provincial Municipal Law comes into force on 5 October.

1883-1884: Topçuzâde el-Hac Halil Efendi is elected municipal president for the first time.

1894-1895: A municipal pharmacy is opened beside the clock tower.

1895-1896: Topçuzâde Halil Efendi's second presidency and dismissal.

1903-1905: Topçuzâde Halil Efendi's third presidency; his final dismissal in the spring of 1905.

1915-1916: Municipal president Seyyid Mehmed Arif Efendi dies in office.

1924: Rasim Yörgüç becomes the first municipal president of the Republican period.

1930: The Municipal Law No. 1580 is adopted (3 April); Topçuzâde Hilmi Bey becomes municipal president.

1936: The first power station in Amasya begins operating.

1946: The government house burns down on 19 December.

1948: The Dere quarter receives electricity.

1949: The new government house is opened; the power station is enlarged.

1950: Local elections of 3 September; the municipal council elects Hadi Kitapçı as mayor.

1955: The town begins to receive electricity from the Durucasu Hydroelectric Plant.

1961: On Ziyaettin Türem's initiative a commemoration day is held for Hüseyin Hüsameddin.

1980: All rights to the Amasya Tarihi are bought by the municipality on 8 May.

1986: The simplified first volume of the Amasya Tarihi is printed in 7,000 copies.

2007: The first five volumes of the Amasya Tarihi are published.

2022: All volumes of the Amasya Tarihi are published through cooperation between the municipality and Amasya University.

2024: Turgay Sevindi is elected mayor in the elections of 31 March.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Abdizâde Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar. Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4, 6-8, 9-12 (ed. Songül Keçeci Kurt, Recep Orhan Özel, Metin Hakverdioğlu). Amasya Municipality, Amasya 2022. https://amasya.bel.tr/sayfalar/amasyanin-tarihi
  • Menç, Hüseyin. Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Efendi: Hayatı, Eserleri Hakkında Yazılanlar. Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications, Amasya 2012. amasya.bel.tr
  • "Amasya'da 1950 Türkiye yerel seçimleri" (based on data from the Prime Ministry Republican Archives). Turkish Wikipedia. https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amasya'da_1950_Türkiye_yerel_seçimleri

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

  • Akyüz, Kenan. Ziya Paşa'nın Amasya Mutasarrıflığı Sırasındaki Olaylar, Belgeler I. Ankara University Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Ankara 1964.
  • Menç, Hüseyin. "Amasya'da Elektriğin İlk Kullanılmaya Başlandığı Vakit". 2011. http://huseyinmenc.blogspot.com/2011/01/amasyada-elektrigin-ilk-kullanlmaya.html
  • Ortaylı, İlber. Tanzimat Devri'nde Osmanlı Mahalli İdareleri (1840-1880). Turkish Historical Society, Ankara 2000.

Online sources