Description

A rare well designed postcard map of the Scutari Vilayet, what is today Albania and parts of Montenegro, was printed in Istanbul on the eve of the Albanian independence in 1913 and before the start of WWI.

The region was a Vilayet, or an administrative division under the Ottoman Empire since 1867. In 1912 and beginning of 1913 it was occupied by members of Balkan League and in 1914 the territory of Scutari Vilayet became a part of Principality of Albania, established at the London Conference in 1913.

Military Press Tüccarzâde İbrahim Hilmi

İbrahim Hilmi Çığıraçan (d 1876, Tulçe town, Romania – June 12, 1963, Istanbul), born in Tulcea, today in Romania, was one of the first publishers in the Ottoman Empire. Opening his publishing shop in 1896 in Istanbul, under the name Kitaphane-i Islami (Islamic Library), Hilmi Bey started publishing mostly religious books.
Under the Young Turks regime, in the Second Constitutional Era, he became interested in military, geography and history, and changed the name of the press to Kitaphane-i İslam ve Askeri (Islamic and Military Library). Hilmi Bey published about 200 military books in 15 years. He was also publishing school books, which were during the war often sent for free to poor children in Anatolia.
The first big loss for Hilmi’s workshop was the governmental change of the Ottoman letters for the Latin ones and a law, that all the law and school books should be printed by the government. During his lifetime Hilmi published more than 1000 books on history, literature, politics, religion and social issues.