Tulumbacilar : whatever happened to those firemen?

First Ottoman irregular fire brigades (‘tulumbacılar’) started their official activity in 1718 under the command of a Frenchmen known as Gerçek Davut or Davut Pasha. Their fire extinguishing equipment consisted of a hand operated pomp carried on arms of fireman. Until 1826 the fire brigades were a part of Janissary Corps. After its dissolution they had gone through some formal changes but their way of firefighting remained the same. Finally in 1870 the command of the ‘tulumbacılar’ was taken over by a Hungarian baron Ödön Széchenyi (1839-1922) who has started some broadly conceived reforms due to which the Ottoman irregular fire brigades transformed into professional ones. ‘Tulumbacılar’ can be perceived as an interesting social phenomenon by having their own way of living, code of honor, clothes and language. Their behavior and climate of coffee houses run by them had a big influence on the Ottoman society. The local irregular fire brigades competed against each other just like – than yet non existing – football teams. In fact it was more important to them to be the first team at the place where the fire was, than to fight the fire itself. Thus, their quick temper led them very often to fight the rival team physically, if necessary even to kill its members and capture their pomp instead of extinguishing the fire. Basing on this phenomenon professor Üstün Dökmen has formed an idea of ‘fireman syndrome’ (‘tulumbacı sendromu’) which can be defined as “giving up the originally chosen intention or aim in favor of dealing with something else”.