{{Short description|Daily newspaper in the Ottoman Empire (1869–1879)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2023}} {{Infobox newspaper | logo = | image = | caption = | type = Daily newspaper | format = | owners = | founder = Ali Efendi | publisher = | president = | editor = | chief_editor = Ali Efendi | founded = 1869 | political_position = {{ubl|Pan-Islamist | Pan-Turkism}} | language = Ottoman Turkish | ceased_publication = 1879 | relaunched = | headquarters = Constantinople | publishing_city = | publishing_country = Ottoman Empire | circulation = | circulation_date = | circulation_ref = | readership = | sister_newspapers = | ISSN = | eISSN = | oclc = | RNI = }} '''''Basiret''''' (Ottoman Turkish: ''Insightfulness'') was an Ottoman daily newspaper which was published in Constantinople in the period 1869–1879. It was one of the most read newspapers of that period and had a pan-Islamist approach.<ref>{{cite book |author=Kasuya Gen|editor=Stéphane A. Dudoignon|display-editors=et. al.|title=Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World. Transmission, Transformation and Communication|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|location=London; New York|page=80|isbn=9780415549790|archive-date=18 April 2021|chapter-url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/0b2c707b-6582-4ae1-9761-8ca53b510504/1005915.pdf|chapter=The influence of al-Manar on Islamism in Turkey: The case of Mehmed Âkif|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418132915/https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/0b2c707b-6582-4ae1-9761-8ca53b510504/1005915.pdf}}</ref>
==History and profile== ''Basiret'' was established by Ali Efendi, a journalist, in 1869,<ref name=onur>{{cite journal|author=Onur İşçi|title=Wartime Propaganda and the Legacies of Defeat: Russian and Ottoman Newspapers in the War of 1877-78|issue=2|journal=Russian History |year=2014|volume=41|pages=190–191|doi=10.1163/18763316-04102005}}</ref> and the first issue appeared on 23 January 1870.<ref name=tdsas>{{cite journal|author1=Tuba Demirci|author2=Selçuk Akşin Somel|title=Women's Bodies, Demography, and Public Health: Abortion Policy and Perspectives in the Ottoman Empire of the Nineteenth Century|journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality|date=September 2008|volume=17|issue=3|page=410 |doi=10.1353/sex.0.0025|jstor=20542700|s2cid=7721368|pmid=19263614}}</ref> He was also the publisher of the paper and began to be known as Basiretçi Ali Efendi due to the popularity of the paper.<ref name=tdsas/> He was financed by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in getting printing machines to launch the paper.<ref>{{cite web|author=M. Kayahan Özgül|title=Periyodiklerin İstanbul Kültürüne Etkileri|publisher=İstanbul Tarihi|url=https://istanbultarihi.ist/251-periyodiklerin-istanbul-kulturune-etkileri|access-date=28 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105032218/https://istanbultarihi.ist/251-periyodiklerin-istanbul-kulturune-etkileri|archive-date=5 November 2021|language=tr}}</ref><ref name=musg>{{cite journal|author=Mustafa Gencer|title=The Congress of Berlin (1878) in Context of the Ottoman-German Relations|journal=Tarihin Peşinde|year=2014|volume=12|page=298|url=http://www.tarihinpesinde.com/dergimiz/sayi12/M12_12.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127110412/http://www.tarihinpesinde.com/dergimiz/sayi12/M12_12.pdf|archive-date=27 November 2020}}</ref>
''Basiret'' sold 40,000 copies in the first year.<ref name=onur/> Then it enjoyed both high levels of circulation and of influence among the Turks living in the Empire.<ref name=mcan>{{cite journal|author=Murat Cankara|title=Rethinking Ottoman Cross-Cultural Encounters: Turks and the Armenian Alphabet|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|year=2015|volume=51|doi=10.1080/00263206.2014.951038 |issue=1|page=6|s2cid=144548203}}</ref> The readers of the paper were mostly conservative Muslims.<ref name=tdsas/> Major contributors included Ali Suavi, Namık Kemal and Ahmet Mithat.<ref name=mcan/> ''Basiret'' covered critical articles about the bureaucratic structure of the Ottoman Empire.<ref name=tdsas/>
''Basiret'' had links to the Young Ottomans movement.<ref>{{cite book|author=Howard Eissenstat|editor1=Stefan Berger |editor2=Alexei Miller|title=Nationalizing Empires|year=2015|publisher=Central European University Press|location=Budapest|isbn=978-963-386-016-8|page=448|jstor=10.7829/j.ctt16rpr1r|chapter-url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt16rpr1r|chapter=Modernization, Imperial Nationalism, and the Ethnicization of Confessional Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire}}</ref> During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871 the paper supported the Germans.<ref name=musg/><ref>{{cite journal|author=Cevat Fehmi Baskut|title=Prominent Figures in Turkish Journalism|volume=10 |journal=International Communication Gazette|date=February 1964|issue=1|page=85|doi=10.1177/001654926401000113|s2cid=144350383}}</ref> It became a platform for the pan-Islamist and pan-Turkist figures leaving its objective approach at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.<ref name=onur/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Basiret}} Category:1869 establishments in the Ottoman Empire Category:1879 disestablishments in the Ottoman Empire Category:Daily newspapers published in Turkey Category:Defunct newspapers published in the Ottoman Empire Category:Defunct Turkish-language newspapers Category:Newspapers published in Istanbul Category:Pan-Islamism Category:Newspapers established in 1869 Category:Publications disestablished in 1879 Category:Defunct daily newspapers