Çorum in the Republican Archives Catalogue

The Cumhuriyet Arşivi Çorum Belgeleri Kataloğu (Republican Archives Çorum Documents Catalogue) is the sequel to the Ottoman Archives Çorum catalogue, also compiled by İrfan Yiğit and published by Çorum Municipality Culture Publications in 2017. It catalogues the Republican-era share of a two-year digitisation project covering 41,000 pages of Çorum-related documents at the General Directorate of State Archives (32,000 from the Ottoman era, 9,000 from the Republican era). Its entries are mostly Council of Ministers (İcra Vekilleri Heyeti / Bakanlar Kurulu) decisions and correspondence from the Prime Ministry and various ministries; each gives a fond-file-folder number sequence, a date (already Gregorian in this period), and a short summary.

This page summarizes only the entries on public works, education, health, industry, disasters, administrative changes and excavation permits, leaving aside off-topic sections of the catalogue such as its political-party and “Vatan Cephesi” telegram collection; records concerning debts, crimes or lawsuits involving named private individuals have been omitted. For a general overview of Çorum’s Republican-era history, see History and Çorum’s Magazines and People’s House Publications; for the excavation history of Hattusa, see Boğazkale History; for district-founding stories, see the relevant district-history pages (Laçin, Sungurlu, Mecitözü, Alaca, Kargı). This page does not repeat that material; it summarizes the catalogue’s records by theme instead.

Public Works and Infrastructure

• The contract and its amendments for the second phase of construction of the Çorum Government House (Hükümet Konağı) were handled by the Public Works Ministry and its contractor across several sessions in 1954-1956 (30-11-1-0-257-16-3, pp. 182-183).
• A grant of 15,000 liras was allocated to make the Dutluca Bridge, over the Kızılırmak, passable again (30-18-1-2-108-27-16-1, 18/05/1945, p. 224).
• 20,000 liras from the Public Works Ministry budget were allocated to the Çorum Special Provincial Administration for building the Çorum-Osmancık road (30-18-1-2-110-29-2-1, 18/04/1946, p. 225).
• With no bidder for the tender, construction of an arched bypass on the Çorum-Çerikli highway was carried out directly by the state (30-18-1-2-99-67-20-1, 01/08/1942, p. 220).
• The tender for building the Çorum-İskilip Government House was accepted in 1974 (30-18-1-2-325-6-6, 24/01/1974, p. 256).
• A second-phase drinking-water project for Çorum, running from 1969 to 1972 with a total budget of 11,200,000 liras, was placed on the government’s investment programme (30-18-1-2-238-56-5, 06/08/1969, p. 252).

Education

• Part of the compensation paid for the expropriated Piribaba Cemetery was allocated to fund a Teachers’ College (Muallim Mektebi) to be built in Çorum (30-18-1-2-6-58-9-1, 27/11/1929, p. 210).
• A 5,000-square-metre municipal plot in Çorum was allocated to the Education Ministry for a Girls’ Institute (Kız Enstitüsü) building (30-1-0-0-117-743-7-46, 1955, p. 65).
• The tender for the ironwork workshop of the Çorum Regional Trade School was accepted as valid despite a procedural shortfall, given the urgency of the work (30-18-1-2-102-60-12-1, 16/08/1943, p. 222).
• The tender for building a dormitory at the Çorum Teacher Training School (İlköğretmen Okulu) was accepted (30-18-1-2-145-113-11-1, 19/02/1957, p. 236).
• The village headman’s office in Sarta was asked to cover the contractor’s payment for a school building (30-10-0-0-144-29-19, 1946, p. 98).
• Cultural activities of the Çorum People’s House (Halkevi) recorded in the archive include a 1943 art exhibition and the theatre branch’s 1948 season; the Halkevi’s magazine and newspaper publishing is covered separately on Çorum’s Magazines and People’s House Publications (490-1-0-0-975-775-3 and 490-1-0-0-1022-933-2, p. 316).

Health

• A permit for 6,450 liras’ worth of foreign-currency purchases of quinine, syphilis medicine and surgical instruments was issued for the Çorum Memleket Hastanesi (public hospital) and Health Office (30-10-0-0-191-309-8-6, 27/06/1932, p. 101).
• The Çorum Anti-Tuberculosis Association was recognised as an association serving the general public interest (30-18-1-2-129-59-7-1, 11/08/1952, p. 229).
• A supply contract for the Çorum Chest Diseases Hospital’s 1956 food needs was approved (30-18-1-2-144-69-19-1, 18/08/1956, p. 234).
• A supply tender for the Sungurlu State Hospital’s 1972 needs — food, fuel, cleaning supplies and medicine — was accepted (30-18-1-2-292-98-13-1, 24/12/1972, p. 255).
• A second specialist was to be appointed to the Çorum Tuberculosis Hospital alongside its serving physician, Dr. Abdurrahman Öztürk (30-1-0-0-117-743-7-21, 05/12/1955, p. 62).

Industry

• A permit was granted for the founding of the Çorum Cement Industry Corporation, set up to manufacture cement and lime with its headquarters in Çorum (30-18-1-2-134-120-14-1, 15/02/1954, p. 231).
• An amendment to the articles of association of the Çorum Flour Mill Corporation was approved — confirming the mill was already operating by 1936 (30-18-1-2-67-68-5-1, 10/08/1936, p. 215).
• Turkey’s Sugar Factories Corporation proposed building a sugar refinery in Çorum (30-1-0-0-117-743-7-1, 31/05/1957, p. 60).
• The governor of Çorum was recorded relaying requests connected with the opening of a particle-board factory (30-1-0-0-120-761-4-5, 11/03/1967, p. 69).
• A four-million-lira feed-manufacturing joint venture in Manisa, Çorum, Malatya and Maraş received a capital contribution from the state Feed Industry Corporation (30-18-1-2-232-23-14-1, 12/04/1969, p. 252).

Disasters

• A series of telegrams from the Çorum governor’s office reported the damage from an earthquake in Çorum-Osmancık on the night of 21 November-2 December 1942 (30-10-0-0-120-849-7, 04-14/12/1942, pp. 94-96).
• Following the same earthquake sequence, free timber from state forests was authorised for villagers rebuilding houses, barns and hay barns (30-18-1-2-104-3-21-1, 03/01/1943, p. 223).
• Continuous rain caused a flood in the village of Hamamlı, in Çorum, that destroyed homes and swept away livestock (30-1-0-0-121-770-4-2, 05/01/1940, p. 70).
• Families affected by a fire in the village of Kunduzlu, Bayat, were resettled at Mantarlık (30-18-1-2-200-74-14-1, 16/07/1963, p. 244).
• Families affected by flooding in the village of İnceçay, Kargı, were resettled within the same village, at Karaardıç (30-18-1-2-218-26-12-1, 08/04/1968, p. 250).
• Discounts on the cost of state-built housing were granted to 104 families whose homes were destroyed by a 1959 flood in Dereköy, Kargı (30-18-1-2-301-54-11-1, 1959/28/06/1973, p. 255).

Administrative Changes

• Two sub-districts, Yeniçamlıca and Kızılviran, were established within Çorum province, along with a third, Yekbaş, within Sungurlu district (30-11-1-0-53-2-20, 19/01/1930, pp. 111-112).
• The centre of the Yeniçamlıca sub-district, in the central district, was moved to the village of Laçin, and the sub-district was renamed “Laçin” accordingly — a record showing the name in administrative use decades before the district gained its own status in 1990 (30-11-1-0-94-10-11, 16/04/1935, p. 125).
• A decree was prepared to establish a new sub-district centred on the village of Seydim (30-11-1-0-171-32-5-6, 31/10/1944, p. 144).
• Telegrams from Çorum reported the public’s satisfaction with a government decision to establish a sub-district at Hacıhamza, in Kargı (30-1-0-0-19-108-1, 1950s, pp. 49-50).
• The villages of Çıkhasan, Miyanesultan, Koyunoğlu and Mazıbaşı, part of the Cemilbey sub-district of Mecitözü, were transferred to Alaca district (30-11-1-0-77-11-17, 19/04/1933, p. 120).

Excavation Permits

• Permission was given to continue the Alacahöyük excavation that the Turkish Historical Society had conducted since 1935, and to gradually expropriate the 80-household village sitting atop the mound — considered highly significant to world scholarship as the site of the oldest known Anatolian culture (30-10-0-0-146-42-24, 1939, p. 99).
• The German Archaeological Institute of Istanbul was granted permission to continue, under Dr. Kurt Bittel, the excavation it had conducted since 1931 at “Boğaz Köyü,” in Sungurlu (30-18-1-2-67-64-9-1, 27/07/1936, p. 215).
• The same institute was again permitted to continue its excavation under Dr. Bittel, this time in a location referred to as “Boğazkale Nahiyesi” (Boğazkale sub-district) — showing the settlement’s 1936 name change already in official use (30-18-1-2-87-46-19-1, 25/05/1939, p. 218).
• Because of the Turkish Historical Society’s research at Alacahöyük, the relocation of the village atop the mound to a gently sloping site a kilometre away was approved (30-18-1-2-74-32-10-1, 20/04/1937, p. 216).

Sources

• Cumhuriyet Arşivi Çorum Belgeleri Kataloğu (Republican Archives Çorum Documents Catalogue), ed. İrfan Yiğit, Çorum Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, Çorum 2017, ISBN 978-605-82689-5-1. https://www.corum.bel.tr/public/uploads/2023/05/orum-belgeleri-cumhuriyet-arsivleri.pdf