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Υπήρχαν πολιτικές πρωτοβουλίες «από τα κάτω» στην Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, δηλαδή ένα κράτος στο οποίο -τουλάχιστον μέχρι τα τελευταία χρόνια του μακραίωνου βίου του- ο ηγεμόνας, ο σουλτάνος, είχε απόλυτη εξουσία επί του «ποιμνίου» του (ρεαγιά, ραγιάδες) και στο οποίο δεν υπήρχαν πολίτες με κατοχυρωμένα πολιτικά δικαιώματα με τη σύγχρονη έννοια του όρου; Με αφετηρία τον τίτλο ενός πρωτοποριακού άρθρου της Σουράγια Φαρόκι, δημοσιευμένου το 1986, το 7ο Διεθνές Συμπόσιο «Αλκυονίδες Ημέρες στην Κρήτη», που διεξήχθη το 2009, απέβλεπε στην επιστημονική διερεύνηση της φύσης και των μορφών πολιτικής συμμετοχής στην Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία με κατεύθυνση «από τα κάτω προς τα πάνω». Προϊόν του συμποσίου αποτελούν οι 19 μελέτες του παρόντος τόμου, οι οποίες πραγματεύονται το θέμα από διάφορες σκοπιές, δίνοντας στον αναγνώστη το ερέθισμα να προβληματιστεί γύρω από την έννοια και τη χρήση τριών όρων-κλειδιών, «πολιτικός», «πρωτοβουλία» και «από τα κάτω», στο πλαίσιο του οθωμανικού κράτους, των θεσμών και της κοινωνίας του.

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Were there political initiatives ?from the bottom up? in an empire where the sultan ruled over his ?flock? (reaya) rather than governing citizens with formal civil and political rights in the modern sense of these terms? Taking as its point of departure the title of the ground-breaking article of 1986 by Suraiya Faroqhi, the aim of the 7th Halcyon Days in Crete Symposium, held in 2009, was to explore the nature and forms of political participation in the Ottoman Empire with an emphasis on a ?bottom-up? direction. The result of this project is the 19 papers in this volume, which deal with the matter from various angles and perspectives, thus encouraging the reader to reflect on the meaning and uses of three key concepts: ?political?, ?initiative?, and ?bottom up?, all in the context of the Ottoman Empire, its institutions and society.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations ? Note on Transliteration    
Introduction    


PART ONE
STARTING IN THE PROVINCES
LESLIE PEIRCE, Talking Back to Tyranny: The People of Harput and the Cavalryman Halil
H?LYA CANBAKAL, Preliminary Observations on Political Unrest in Eighteenth-Century Ayntab: Popular Protest and Faction
ELIAS KOLOVOS, Riot in the Village: Some Cases of Peasant Protest around Ottoman Salonica
EYAL GINIO, Coping with Decline: The Political Responses of the Jewish Community to the Eighteenth-Century Crisis in Salonica
SOPHIA LAIOU, Political Processes on the Island of Samos prior to the Greek War of Independence and the Reaction of the Sublime Porte:  The Karmanioloi-Kallikantzaroi Conflict
ANDREAS LYBERATOS, ??elebis? and Guildsmen in Pre-Tanzimat Plovdiv: Breaking through the Orthodox Ancien R?gime


PART TWO
THE RIGHT TO PETITIONING
NICOLAS VATIN, Comment disparut le cimeti?re de Kasimpasa (1582-1592) : un difficile arbitrage du sultan entre ses sujets juifs et musulmans
ROSSITSA GRADEVA, From the Bottom Up and Back Again until Who Knows When: Church Restoration Procedures in the Ottoman Empire,  Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries (Preliminary Notes)
DEMETRIOS PAPASTAMATIOU, The Right of Appeal to State Intervention as a Means of Political Mobilisation of the Reaya in the Ottoman Provinces: Some Preliminary Remarks on the Eighteenth-Century Morea (Peloponnese)
EVTHYMIOS PAPATAXIARCHIS, Reconfiguring the Ottoman Political Imagination: Petitioning and Print Culture in the Early Tanzimat


PART THREE
CLOSER TO THE SEAT OF POWER
DIMITRIS KASTRITSIS, The Seyh Bedreddin Uprising in the Context of the Ottoman Civil War of 1402-1413
BAKI TEZCAN, Who Gets to Write History? Contemporary Texts on the Regicide of Osman II and their Impact on Ottoman Historiography
MARINOS SARIYANNIS, The Kadizadeli Movement as a Social and Political Phenomenon: The Rise of a ?Mercantile Ethic?? 
AYSEL YILDIZ, The Anatomy of a Rebellious Social Group: The Yamaks of the Bosporus at the Margins of Ottoman Society


PART FOUR
CONTRIBUTING A ?TOP-DOWN? PERSPECTIVE
SURAIYA FAROQHI, Controlling Borders and Workmen, All in One Fell Swoop: Repairs to the Ottoman Fortress of Hotin (1716)
SVETLANA IVANOVA, The Ottoman Decrees ?Up? in Istanbul and What the Rumelia Subject Perceived at the ?Bottom? (Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries)


PART FIVE
GOING MACRO
BOGA? ERGENE, Legal History ?From the Bottom Up?: Empirical and Methodological Challenges for Ottomanists
ELENI GARA, Patterns of Collective Action and Political Participation in the Early Modern Balkans
ANTONIS ANASTASOPOULOS, The Ottomans and Civil Society: A Discussion of the Concept and the Relevant Literature