Hayrullah Efendi was a Muslim priest from the highest ranks of the priesthood (ulema). Besides classical religious studies in a medrasa, he also studied medicine. He reformed the Ottoman school system, wrote reports on the subject of the state of medicine and education, and was always an ardent adherent of taking from European models in order to modernise the teaching programmes in Turkey. He spoke fluent French, which allowed him to keep up-to-date with the academic and cultural achievements of the West. He was a keen poet and historian, the author of the eminent work A History of the Ottoman State. His son, Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan, was to become one of the greatest Turkish poets and playwrights; his daughter Fahrünnisa was also a poet. The subject of the article is A Book of Travels around Europe, written by Hayrullah from 1863 to 1864. As a result of the premature death of the author it was not published during his lifetime, survived in a manuscript form until our day and was finally printed and released in 2004 by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. The paper examines the image of Europe presented by an Ottoman traveller. In 1863 Hayrullah arrived in Europe with the aim of treatment in a number of health resorts. An additional aim was the visiting and description of the most important places in Europe from the viewpoint of tourism, science and culture. During this journey of several months he drew up detailed notes so that upon his return to Turkey he would be able to write a guidebook on Europe. Besides this he also wrote while travelling reports on European science and the schooling systems in the countries visited. Hayrullah’s A Book of Travels is not only a work of reminiscences (of the ‘accounts from a journey’ type) but also something like a guidebook. Ottoman Turkey did not have any tradition of writing guidebooks to foreign countries, consequently Hayrullah’s work was a completely new phenomenon. Hayrullah gives various variants for the journey from Istanbul to western Europe: through the Black Sea, the Danube, Austria, Germany or through the Mediterranean to Trieste or equally to Marseille. He gives exact information on the subject of ticket prices for ships, for the railway, the stagecoach. He describes hotels and restaurants. In the most important metropolises (Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Paris) he concentrates his attention on questions such as: the economic condition of the city and its inhabitants, the topography, the level of cleanliness on the streets, monuments, museums, industry, the state of schooling and higher education, the health service, places of entertainment. Hayrullah also talks here with much concern on the state and condition of the Ottoman economy and expresses hope that his homeland will also sometime achieve just such a level of development. It is clear that the writer during the course of creating the book took care that it was not merely a travel guide around Europe but also a guide for Turks on the route to reforms, Europeanization and civilizational progress. A source for research into the social history of Turkish Cypriots: the autobiography of Fadıl Niyazi Korkut. Fadıl Niyazi Korkut (1887-1975) was a Turkish-Cypriot lawyer who initially studied in Cyprus and then took a degree in law at Istanbul University. Besides working as a lawyer he conducted social, cultural and political activities. He is remembered by Turkish Cypriots as a press publisher, a playwright and one of the founders of KATAK (The Cypriot Turkish Minority Organisation). We present in the paper the most important questions dealt with in Fadıl Niyazi Korkut’s Recollections, written in 1963, yet published only in 2000. The work is a source of valuable information on the subject of the most recent history of Cypriot Turks and broadens our knowledge about their social life from the 1890s to the middle of the twentieth century. The main themes dealt with in the paper are: the structure of the traditional Turkish Cypriot family, health problems, the situation of women, the problem of education during British rule, the relation of the British towards the Turks, the repercussions of the First World War on Cyprus, the Karagulo prisoner-of-war camp with its Ottoman prisoners-of-war, the problems of Turkish Cypriots wishing to study in Istanbul (as a result of them being treated as foreigners in Turkey), the development of a Civil Code for Turkish Cypriots, the campaign for the eradication of the shariat, the activities of the Turkish clubs: Terakki, Birlik i Kardeş. Presented in the paper are the most important facts from the life of Fadıl Niyazi Korkut, next discussion centres on the reflection of these facts in Recollections, while in a synopsis we give an analysis of the influence of this most eminent of men on his nation as well as generally we analyse the role of the intelligentsia as a social stratum within the life of society.