Le Moniteur ottoman was a newspaper written in French and first published in 1831 on the order of Mahmud II. It was the first official gazette of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Alexandre Blacque at the expense of the Sublime Porte. Its name perhaps referred to the French newspaper Le Moniteur Universel. It was issued weekly. Mahmud II wished to influence Europeans. Takvim-i Vekayi was published a few months later, intended as a translation of the Moniteur into Ottoman Turkish.
The Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerifi ("Supreme Edict of Gülhane") or Tanzimât Fermânı ("Imperial Edict of Reorganization") was a proclamation by Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1839 that launched the Tanzimât period of reforms and reorganization in the Ottoman Empire. It is named after Gülhane Park, where the edict was first proclaimed. The 125th anniversary of the edict was depicted on a former Turkish postcard stamp.
The proclamation was issued at the behest of reformist Grand Vizier Mustafa Reşid Pasha. It promised reforms such as the abolition of tax farming, reform of conscription, and guarantee of rights to all Ottoman citizens regardless of religion or ethnic group. The goal of the decree was to help modernize the empire militarily and socially so that it could compete with the Great Powers of Europe. It also was hoped the reforms would win over the disaffected parts of the empire, especially in the Ottoman controlled parts of Europe, which were largely Christian. At the time of the edict, millets (independent communal law-courts) had gained a large amount of religious autonomy within the empire, threatening the central government. This edict, along with the subsequent Imperial Reform Edict of 1856, was therefore an early step towards the empire's goal of Ottomanism, or a unified national and legal Ottoman identity. It was published in the Takvim-i Vekayi in Ottoman Turkish. In addition, it was published in Greek and French, the latter in Le Moniteur ottoman, and François Alphonse Belin, a dragoman, created his own French version, published in the Journal Asiatique.
Takvîm-i Vekâyi (Ottoman Turkish: تقویم وقایع, meaning "Calendar of Events") was the first fully Turkish language newspaper. It was launched in 1831 by Sultan Mahmud II, taking over from Le Moniteur ottoman as the official gazette of the Ottoman Empire. With the beginning of the Tanzimat reform period, Takvim-i Vekayi produced versions in multiple language editions. It ceased publication in 1878, resuming in 1891–2, before being closed again. It resumed in 1908 until around 1922. Between 1831 and 1878, it published a total of 2119 issues – an average of slightly less than one a week.
In addition to the Ottoman Turkish, it had versions in French, Armenian, and Greek. The Greek version had a title derived from the French Moniteur Ottoman, Othōmanikos Minytōr (Οθωμανικός Μηνύτωρ). Johann Strauss, author of "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages," stated that "some writers" stated that versions in Arabic and Persian existed.