All the Privileges of Citizenship without its Burdens

Buṭrus al-Bustānī (1819-83) is a key figure of the nineteenth-century nahḍa ("Renaissance"). His twenty-plus-year career as the first dragoman (translator and interpreter) at the US Consulate in Beirut, however, is largely overlooked in academia. This article on his dragomanship unearths his close connection to the US-Ottoman political scene and his protected status as a US protégé. Using untapped records held at the US National Archives, this study examines his vital consular work; the political and economic privileges and social advantages he enjoyed, thanks to the Capitulations; his understanding of emergent US power; his resilience to xenophobic accusations unleashed during his unofficial consulship; his reward of an honorary dragomanship for loyalty; and his forced resignation in 1872. This article complicates al-Bustānī's legacy and calls for future research on other privileged Ottoman subjects from the nahḍa

Citizenship · Connection (principal bundle · Politics · Psychological resilience · Resilience (materials science · Islamic Studies and History · Media Discourse and Social Analysis · Turkey's Politics and Society