“Buyurdum ki….” – The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Claudia Römer 9004516514, 9789004516519

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gisela procházka-eisl, Ph.D. (1992) in Turkology, University of Vienna, is Associate Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Studies. She has published several monographs and many articles, mainly on Ottoman literature and culture. Her most recent book is Enverīzāde Saʿdullāh Enverī Efendi’s “Treatise on Austria” (Risāle-i Avusturya) (EBVerlag, 2022). isbn 978-90-04-51651-9

*hIJ0A4|VRWVRz issn 1380-6076

This book is volume 78 in the series th e ot t om an e m p ir e and it s he r it ag e

oeh 78

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“Buyurdum ki….” The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond studies in honour of claudia römer

the ot toman empir e and it s herit age

“Buyurdum ki….” – The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond

yavuz köse, Ph.D. (2011), in History and Culture of the Near East and Turkology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, is Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Vienna. His most recent publications include the edited volume (together with Onur İnal) İktidar Tohumları. Osmanlı Çevre Tarihi Üzerine İncelemeler (İletişim Yayınları, 2022).

ç el ik, kö s e and pr o c h á zka -eis l ( Eds.)

hülya çelik, Ph.D. (2016) in Turkology, University of Vienna, is Juniorprofessor of Ottoman and Turkish Literature and Culture at the Ruhr University Bochum. Her most recent publications include “Introducing Transcription Standards for Armeno-Turkish Literary Studies”, in Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies 3,2 (2022), (together with Ani Sargsyan).

This book is dedicated to Claudia Römer and brings together 33 contributions spanning a period from the 15th to the 20th century and covering the wide range of topics with which the honouree is engaged. The volume is divided into six parts that present current research on language, literature, and style as well as newer approaches and perspectives in dealing with sources and terminologies. Aspects such as conquest, administration, and financing of provinces are found as well as problems of endowments and the circulation of goods in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Another main topic is dedicated to minorities and their role and situation in different provinces and cities of the Ottoman Empire, as represented by various sources. But also topics like conversion, morality and control are illuminated. Finally, the volume provides an insight into the late Ottoman and early republican period, in which some previously unpublished sources (such as travel letters, memoirs) are presented and (re)discussed. The book is not only aimed at scholars and students of the Ottoman Empire; the thematic range is also of interest to linguists, historians, and cultural historians.

edi ted b y hülya çeli k , yavuz k ös e and gi s ela pr ocház k a-ei s l

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“Buyurdum ki….” – The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond

The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage POLITICS, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY Edited by Boğaç Ergene Suraiya Faroqhi Hakan Karateke Derin Terzioğlu Founding Editor Halil İnalcık† Advisory Board Fikret Adanır – Antonis Anastasopoulos – Idris Bostan Palmira Brummett – Amnon Cohen Jane Hathaway – Klaus Kreiser – Hans Georg Majer Ahmet Yaşar Ocak – Abdeljelil Temimi

Volume 78

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/oeh

Photo by Elif Ülker

“Buyurdum ki….” The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond Studies in Honour of Claudia Römer Edited by

Hülya Çelik Yavuz Köse Gisela Procházka-Eisl In collaboration with

Julia Fröhlich

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566) to Peter Haller: Order to send the tribute (1553). Copyright: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv: Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien. Signature: TUK 63. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Çelik, Hülya, editor, author. | Köse, Yavuz, editor, author. | Procházka-Eisl, Gisela, 1961– editor, author. | Römer, Claudia, honouree. Title: “Buyurdum ki....” - the whole world of Ottomanica and beyond : studies in honour of Claudia Römer / edited by Hülya Çelik, Yavuz Köse, Gisela Procházka-Eisl, in collaboration with Julia Fröhlich. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2023] | Series: Ottoman empire and its heritage, 1380–6076 ; volume 78 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023026043 (print) | LCCN 2023026044 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004516519 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004545809 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288–1918. Classification: LCC DR486 .B89 2023 (print) | LCC DR486 (ebook) | DDC 956.1/015—dc23/eng/20230607 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026043 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026044

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1380-6076 isbn 978-90-04-51651-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-54580-9 (e-book) Copyright 2023 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Abbreviations xiii List of Figures and Tables xiv Contributors xvi Publications by Claudia Römer xix Notes on Names, Terms, and Transliteration xxx Introduction 1 Hülya Çelik, Yavuz Köse and Gisela Procházka-Eisl

Part 1 Language, Literature and Style 1

Bu neyiki? “What on Earth Is That?!” The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle iki in Unresolvable Questions 15 Helga Anetshofer

2

Questions, Answers, and Knowledgeable Ladies in an Ageless Turkic Textual Genre 43 Ingeborg Baldauf

3

More of the SAME: Is There a Standard Average Middle Eastern? 60 Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Stephan Procházka

4

Coffee’s Elegy on the Death of Tobacco, 1636–1637 by Vardarlı Fazli An Ottoman Social Parody and its Linguistic Particularities 106 Edith Gülçin Ambros

5

Alexandros Karatheodoris and His Philological Articles on the Ottoman/ Turkish Language 125 Peri Efe

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Contents

Part 2 Sources and Terminologies: New Readings, New Perspectives 6

Some Remarks on Marginal Notes in Ottoman Manuscripts 157 Marinos Sariyannis

7

Ottoman Sofia through the Eyes of Its Denizens and Visitors Late 14th–First Half of 16th Century 184 Rossitsa Gradeva

8

Réflexions sur le processus de rédaction des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa 216 Nicolas Vatin

9

Peacemaking between the Ottoman Empire, the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy 239 Sándor Papp

10

Traces of the Captive Copyist Derviş İbrahim in Sebastian Tengnagel’s (d. 1636) Notebooks 270 Hülya Çelik

11

Learning the Language of Things: Glimpses into Ottoman Inventories of the 16th and 17th Centuries 294 Hedda Reindl-Kiel

12

Ottoman History Viewed from the “Periphery”: Al-Isḥāqī’s 1623 Chronicle of Egypt 313 Jane Hathaway

13

Time-Related References and Markers in the Kadı Court Registers of Kandiye (Heraklion) 336 Antonis Anastasopoulos

Part 3 Conquering, Administering and Financing Ottoman Provinces 14

On the Administration of the Ottoman ‘One-Fifth Tax’ on Prisoners of War (15th to 17th Century) 355 Pál Fodor

Contents

15

ix

Exchange Rates, Pay Years and Prebends in 17th–18th Century Ottoman Europe as Reflected in Taxation and Funding the Military Some Key Examples 383 Nenad Moačanin

16

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces A Study On Provincial “Budgets,” the Income Side 393 Linda T. Darling

17

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century 424 Géza Dávid

18

Paths of Glory: The Rise of the Köprülüs and the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi (1663) 451 Özgür Kolçak

Part 4 Founding Mosques, (In-)alienable Waqfs, and Circulating Goods 19

Reflections on the Problem of Identifying the Founder of the Mosque of Ferhad Beg in Pécs 479 Nedim Zahirović

20 “A Man You Do Not Meet Every Day” The Waqf Founder as a Benevolent Employer and the Waqf as a Sinecure for the Founder’s Retainers 493 Kayhan Orbay 21

Sorge und Vorsorge Das Testament (vasiyetname) eines osmanischen Kavallerieoffiziers vor dem Feldzug 1664 und die Fromme Stiftung (vakıf) eines Oberstallmeisters vor einer Dienstreise nach Mekka im Jahre 1681 521 Hans Georg Majer

22

The Place of Egypt and Syria in the Circulation of Goods in the Eastern Mediterranean The Abiding Importance of the Ottoman Domestic Market as a Key Dimension of Overall Maritime Trade in the Mid-18th Century 542 Rhoads Murphey



x

Contents

Part 5 Minorities, Moral and Control 23

Die politische Balkandiaspora im Abendland des 15. Jahrhunderts 567 Oliver Jens Schmitt

24 Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des Ahdname von Fojnica 599 Michael Ursinus 25

Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments Sultanic Rescripts in Favour of Metropolitans and Bishops from the 17th Century 628 Eleni Gara

26 Living Together in the Quarters of a City Non-Muslims in the Judicial Registers (Şerʿi Mahkeme Sicilleri) of Trabzon in the Second Half of the 17th Century 653 Kenan İnan 27

İbrahim Efendi (d. 1697), an Ottoman Scribe Turned Dominican Monk, and His Library between Constantinople and Venice 681 Tijana Krstić

28 Becoming a Master Artisan in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire Central Provinces, Late 1500s to Early 1800s 719 Suraiya Faroqhi 29 Nightlife in Istanbul: Sex Crimes and Social Control from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries 737 Fariba Zarinebaf

Part 6 The Empire at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century and Beyond 30 Strolling around Vienna Unarmed. Rıza Nur and His “Letters from Vienna” (1911) 763 Yavuz Köse

Contents

31

Some Remarks on the Hitherto Unpublished Memoirs of a Member of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Sanjak of Alexandretta/Hatay 789 Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi

32

Making the Best of It. The Graduates of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere, 1911–1916 805 Maria A. Stassinopoulou

33

Heritage Discourse in Early Republican Turkey: The Journal Ülkü (1933–1950) Re-Examined 834 Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth Index 867

xi

Abbreviations A Arabic AR Standard Arabic BK Bayezit Kütüphanesi BNM Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana BOA T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi CA Classical Arabic EA Egyptian Arabic EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition HHStA Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien IA Iraqi Arabic İA İslâm Asiklopedisi İSAM Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi K Kurdish KA Kriegsarchiv, Wien KK Kurmanji Kurdish ÖNB Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wien ÖstA Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Wien OeStA Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Wien OTAM Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi P Persian PA Palestinian Arabic SA Syrian Arabic SAE Standard Average European SAME Standard Average Middle Eastern T Turkish TAH Turkish Archive of Heraklion TarS XIII. Yüzyıldan Beri Türkiye Türkçesiyle Yazılmış Kitaplardan Toplanan Tanıklariyle Tarama Sözlüǧü TDVİA Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi TSMA Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi TSMK Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi T.Ş.S. Trabzon Şeriye Sicilleri TTK Türk Tarih Kurumu

Figures and Tables

Figures

10.1 ÖNB, Cod. 15161, fol. 17r 288 10.2 ÖNB, Cod. 15165, fol. 7v 289 10.3 ÖNB, Cod. 15161, fol. 26r 289 10.4 ÖNB, Cod. 15165, fol. 14r 290 14.1 Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No. 33 372 14.2 Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No. 35 372 14.3 BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 3 374 14.4 BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 5 374 14.5 BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 2, No. 9 374 14.6 BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 13 374 15.1 Document 1, T.C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), MAD.d. 03774_00127 384 15.2 Document 2, T.C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), D.CMH.d.26578/2 387 Document 3, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti (Zagreb), 15.3 Orijentalna zbirka (The Oriental Collection of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), doc. nr. 46. 391 21.1 Testament Süleyman Ağas 524 21.2 Hatt-ı hümayun Sultan Mehmeds IV. 535 24.1 Siegel, “Unterschrift” und Funktionsbeschreibung des Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed als Generalinspekteur der Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Klis, Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 14 613 24.2a Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 85 (recto) 624 24.2b Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 85 (verso) 625 29.1 BOA, DE EUM Adliye, 48/13 (1335/1919) 752 29.2 Shops and people on narrow uphill street of steps in Pera (Yüksek Kaldırım) 753 32.1 Graduation class 1915 with director, teachers, and the metropolitan of Caesarea 812 32.2 Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou in the autumn of 1911 with her first pupils in Zincidere 814 32.3 Efthalia Kazazoglou, née Frengoglu (class 1914) in Kermira (Germir) in 1922 with her husband 818 32.4 Eleni Arzoumanidou, Kindergarten Lavrio 1953 824 33.1 Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü I Seri, 1 (Feb. 1933), cover page.) 860

Figures and Tables

xv

Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü Yeni Seri, 16 (May 1942), cover page.) 860 33.3 Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü III. Seri, 25 (May 1949), cover page.) 861 33.4 The sebil of Mimar Sinan’s mausoleum, Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Anıtları Kirletenler,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947), p. 37 861 33.2



Tables

1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 13.1 16.1 16.2 22.1 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 25.5 30.1

Spelling variants in 56 instances of iki / -(y)iki 21 Old Anatolian Turkish *i- forms 24 CI-words showing the same meaning in all investigated languages 65 Hypocoristic suffixes 67 Interrogative adverbs 70 Distribution of entries in Cemaziyelevvel 1083 339 Destination of revenues of Şam, 977 and 986–7 403 Sixteenth-century averages, Syrian treasuries 404 Exports of cotton thread from Acre, 1700–1786 543 List of documents 639 Dates of election and appointment 641 The hierarchs’ grievances 642 The sultan’s orders 644 The standardised rescript of the 1620s compared to an earlier form 647 “Viyana mektūbları” and their subheadings 773

Contributors Edith Gülçin Ambros Lecturer in Ottoman and Turkish literature, University of Vienna Antonis Anastasopoulos Associate Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete Helga Anetshofer Lecturer in Turkish and Ottoman, University of Chicago Ingeborg Baldauf Professor Emeritus of Central Asian Studies, Humboldt University Berlin Hülya Çelik Junior Professor of Turkish Studies, Ruhr University Bochum Linda T. Darling Professor of History, The University of Arizona Géza Dávid Professor Emeritus, Department of Turkic Studies, Eötvös Loránd University Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth Assistant, PhD candidate, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi Ph.D., Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna Peri Efe Ph.D., Department of Byzantine and Neo-Greek Studies Suraiya Faroqhi Professor of Ottoman Studies, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul Pál Fodor Director general of the Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest

Contributors

xvii

Eleni Gara Assistant Professor, Department of Social Anthropology and History, University of the Aegean Rossitsa Gradeva Professor of History, American University in Bulgaria Jane Hathaway Professor of History, The Ohio State University Kenan İnan Professor of History, Karadeniz Technical University Özgür Kolçak Lecturer in History, Department of Literature, University of Istanbul Yavuz Köse Professor of Turkish Studies, University of Vienna Tijana Krstić Professor of History, Central European University, Vienna Hans Georg Majer Professor Emeritus of Ottoman Studies, Ludwig-Maximilian’s University Munich Nenad Moačanin Professor of History, Croatian Academy of Science and Arts Rhoads Murphey Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Department of History, University of Birmingham Kayhan Orbay Professor of History, Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara Sándor Papp Professor of History, University of Szeged Gisela Procházka-Eisl Associate Professor of Turkish Studies, University of Vienna

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Contributors

Stephan Procházka Professor of Arabic Studies, University of Vienna Hedda Reindl-Kiel Professor Emeritus of Ottoman Studies, University of Bonn Marinos Sariyannis Research Director, Department of Ottoman History, IMS/FORTH, Rethymno Oliver Jens Schmitt Professor of Southeast European History, University of Vienna Maria A. Stassinopoulou Professor of Modern Greek Studies, University of Vienna Michael Ursinus Professor Emeritus of Ottoman Studies, University of Heidelberg Nicolas Vatin Research Director, Collège de France, CNRS, EPHE, Paris Fariba Zarinebaf Professor of History, University of California, Riverside

Publications by Claudia Römer

Books

Osmanische Festungsbesatzungen in Ungarn zur Zeit Murāds III., dargestellt an Hand von Petitionen zur Stellenvergabe. Schriften der Balkan–Kommission, Philologische Abteilung, Bd. 35 (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995), 236 pp. Klaus Schwarz: Osmanische Sultansurkanden Untersuchungen zur Einstellung und Besoldung osmanischer Militärs in der Zeit Murāds III., aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von Claudia Römer, Freiburger Islamstudien XVII (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1997), 483 pp. with Markus Köhbach and Gisela Procházka-Eisl: Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, Akten des 13. CIEPO–Symposiums (Comité International des études Pré–Ottomanes et Ottomanes vom 21. bis 25. September 1998 in Wien) (Wien: Selbstverlag des Instituts für Orientalistik, 1999). with Gisela Procházka-Eisl: Osmanische Beamtenschreiben und Privatbriefe der Zeit Süleymāns des Prächtigen aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien. Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.–hist. Kl., Bd. 357 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), 227 pp. with Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi: Herrschaft und Staat. Politische Terminologie des Osmanischen Reiches der Tanzimatzeit. Schriften der Balkan–Kommission. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch–Historische Klasse 49 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008), 275 pp. Supervision of Andreas Tietze, Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati, Cilt 2 F–J. Sprachgeschichtliches und Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Türkei–Türkischen. Band 2 F–J. (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 440 pp. Meninski’s Grammar Simplified: Thomas Chabert’s Manual ‘Kurze Anleitung zur Erlernung der türkischen Sprache für Militär Personen’, Vienna 1789 – Otto Spies Memorial Lectures, vol. 3, eds. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen (Berlin: EB-Verlag, 2018), 63 pp.



Contributions to Books

“Eine Sultansurkunde zum Feldzug gegen Wien 1683.” In Festgabe an Josef Matuz. Osmanistik – Turkologie – Diplomatik, eds. Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz (†), (mit einem Vorwort von Bert G. Fragner), Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 150 (Berlin: Schwarz, 1992), 225–237.

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Publications by Claudia Römer

“A propos d’une lettre de Soliman le Magnifique à Federico II Gonzaga (1526).” In Soliman le Magnifique et son temps. Actes du Colloque de Paris. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 7–10 mars 1990 (Paris: La Documentation française, 1992), 455–463. “On Some Hass-Estates Illegally Claimed by Arslan Paša, Beglerbegi of Buda, 1565– 1566.” In Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Imber and Colin Heywood (Istanbul: ISIS, 1994), 297–318. “Widerrechtlicher Soldbezug in einer ungarischen Festung im Jahr 979 (1571–72).” In Festschrift A. Tietze, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi et al. (Prag: Enigma–Verlag, 1994), 169–176. “Eine osmanische gereimte Bearbeitung von Mirẖvānd’s Raużatu s-safā,” in Beläk Bitig. Sprachstudien für Gerhard Doerfer zum 75. Geburtstag, eds. Marcel Erdal and Semih Tezcan (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995), 141–157. “Zur Bestellung eines Müʾez̲z̲in and Devr–ẖvān an einer Moschee in Buda im Jahr 971/ 1564.” In Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnificent, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (Budapest: Lorand Eötvös University, 1994 (1995)), 161–170. “The Language and Prose Style of Bostan’s Süleymanname.” In Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East. Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff, eds. Asma Afsaruddin and A.H. Mathias Zahniser (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 401–418. “Vier hüccet–Urkunden zur cizye–Einhebung in Slawonien aus den Jahren 994 und 995/1585–6 und 1586–7.” In Das Osmanische Reich in seinen Archivalien und Chroniken. Nejat Göyünç zu Ehren, eds. Klaus Kreiser and Christoph K. Neumann, Beiruter Texte und Studien 65, Türkische Welten 1 (Istanbul/Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1997), 191–210. “Marked and non–marked direct objects in 16th century Ottoman documents.” In The Mainz Meeting, eds. Lars Johanson et al. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 124–134. “An Ottoman Copyist Working for Sebastian Tengnagel, Librarian at the Vienna Hofbibliothek, 1608–1636.” In Proceedings of the XIIth congress of CIEPO, Archív orientální, Supplementa VIII (Prag: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 1998), 330–349. “Eine Bestallungsurkunde für eine Frau aus dem Jahr 1885.” In Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, Akten des 13. CIEPO–Symposiums (Comité International des études Pré–Ottomanes et Ottomanes vom 21. bis 25. September 1998 in Wien) (Wien: Selbstverlag des Instituts für Orientalistik, 1999), 311–318. “Marked and unmarked genitive constructions in 16th century Ottoman documents.” In Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Lincoln College, Oxford, August 12–14, 1998, eds. Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000), 103–112. “Latin Extracts from Naima’s History translated by students at the ‘K.K. Akademie orientalischer Sprachen’, Vienna 1796.” In Pax Ottomana, Studies in memoriam Prof.

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Dr. Nejat Göyünç, ed. Kemal Çiçek (Haarlem/Ankara: SOTA & Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2001), 581–588. “The Fox in Turkic Proverbs.” In Der Fuchs in Kultur, Religion and Folklore Zentral– und Ostasiens, Bde. 1, Asiatische Forschungen 141, ed. Hartmut Walravens (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001), 179–186. “Die Übungsbücher der Zöglinge der K.K. orientalischen Akademie.” In Auf den Spuren der Osmanen in der österreichischen Geschichte, Wiener Osteuropa Studien 14, eds. İnanç Feigl et al. (o.O.: Peter Lang Verlag, 2002), 155–160. “Quelques remarques sur la langue journalistique ottomane d’avant 1876 selon des textes tirés des journaux Takvim-i vakayi, Ceride-i havadis̱, Ruzname-i ceride-i havadis et Tasvir-i efkâr.” In Aspects of the political language in Turkey (19th–20th centuries), ed. Hans–Lukas Kieser (Istanbul: ISIS, 2002), 53–60. “Bemerkungen zum Schicksal von Jovanka Černović (1563–1566).” In Frauen, Bilder und Gelehrte. Studien zu Gesellschaft und Künsten im Osmanischen Reich – Arts, Women and Scholars. Studies in Ottoman Society and Culture – Festschrift Hans Georg Majer, eds. Sabine Prätor and Christoph K. Neumann, 2 Bde., Bd. 1 (Istanbul: Simurg, 2002), 139–157. “Edition osmanischer Quellen des 16. Jahr-hunderts.” In Umgang mit Quellen heute. Zur Problematik neuzeitlicher Quelleneditionen vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, eds. Grete Klingenstein et al. (Wien: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), 56–59. “Die osmanische Wiedergabe tschagataischer Verbalformen im tschagataisch  – osmanischen Wörterbuch Abušqa (16. Jh.).” In Mīr ʿAlīšīr Nawā’ī, eds. Barbara Kellner-Heinkele and Sigrid Kleinmichel, Istanbuler Texte und Studien 1 (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2003), 59–76. “Neues zu den von der Orientalischen Akademie 1865 herausgegebenen ‘Osmanischen Sprichwörtern’.” In Festschrift 250 Jahre. Von der Orientalischen zur Diplomatischen Akademie in Wien, ed. Oliver Rathkolb (Innsbruck/Wien/München/Bozen: Studien Verlag 2004), 65–75. “An Unknown 16th Century Mühimme Defteri at the Austrian National Library.” In CIÉPO XIV: Sempozyumu Bildirileri. 18–22 Eylül 2000, Çeşme, ed. Tuncer Baykara (Ankara: TTK, 2004), 639–654. “Bemerkungen zu dem auf Herrschaft und Staat bezogenen Wortschatz in O. v. Schlechta–Wssehrds Manuel terminologique français–ottoman (Wien 1870).” In ‚Herrschaft’ und ‚Staat’. Untersuchungen zum Zivilisationswortschatz im südosteuropäischen Raum 1840–1870. Eine erste Bilanz, Hg. Radoslav Katičić (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004), 185–194. “Kulturelle Hochblüte in kriegerischem Umfeld. Türkisch–islamische Kulturen vor 1800 in Zentralasien.” In Zentralasien 13. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Geschichte und

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Gesellschaft, (Edition Weltreligionen), eds. Bert Fragner and Andreas Kappeler (Wien: Verlag Promedia, 2004), 61–79. “Right–branching vs. left–branching subordinate clauses in 16th century Ottoman historical texts: haphazard use or stylistic device?.” In Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion. Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, eds. Éva Ágnes Csató et al. (London/New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005 (2004)), 317–333. “Topicalization in constructions with gerunds.” In Advances in Turkish Linguistics, eds. Semiramis Yağcıoğlu and Ayşen Cem Değer in cooperation with Özgün Koşaner and Aytaç Çeltek (İzmir: Dokuz Eylül Yayınları, 2006), 249–254. “Die totale Sonnenfinsternis vom 20. August 1514  – dunkle Vorbedeutung für die Schlacht von Çaldıran.” WZKM 97 (2007), 443–452. “A Medjidi Order Granted to an Austrian Member of the “Danube Commission,” 1874.” In Enjeux politiques, économiques et militaires en mer Noire (XIVe–XXIe siècles), études à la mémoire de Mihail Guboglu, eds. Faruk Bilici et al. (Braïla: Musée de Braïla – Editions Istros, 2007), 343–352. “Osmanische Staatsämter und ihr Wandel nach Mehmed Süreyyas Sicill-i ʿosmani (1308/1890–91).” In Herrschaft, Staat und Gesellschaft in Südosteuropa aus sprach– und kulturhistorischer Sicht. Erneuerung des Zivilisationswortschatzes im 19. Jahr­ hundert. Akten des Internationalen Symposiums 2.–3. März 2006, ed. Gerhard Neweklowsky (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), 257–267. “Contemporary European translations of Ottoman documents and vice versa (15th– 17th centuries).” In Festschrift Gyula Káldy – Nagy. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 61, ed. Géza Dávid (2008), 215–226. “Griechische Untertanen des Osmanischen Reiches im ‚Osmanischen Registerbuch der Beschwerden’.” In Griechische Kultur in Südosteuropa in der Neuzeit. Beiträge zum Symposion zum Gedenken an Gunnar Hering, Wien, 16.–18.12.2004, eds. Maria A. Stassinopoulou and Ioannis Zelepos, Byzantina et Neograeca Vindobonensia, Bd. XXVI (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008), 129–134. with Gisela Procházka–Eisl: “Raub, Mord und Übergriffe an der habsburgisch– osmanischen Grenze: Der diplomatische Alltag der Beglerbege von Buda abseits von Zeremonien.” In Diplomatisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im mittleren Osten in der frühen Neuzeit (Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 141, Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch–historischen Klasse 796, Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik 52), eds. Jan–Paul Niederkorn et al. (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 251–264. “16. yy. Arap harfleriyle yazılmış Almanca dinî ve dünyevî metinler ile Evliya Çelebi’nin Seyahatname’sindeki Almanca örnekler  – bir karşılaştırma.” In Çağının Sıradışı

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YazarıEvliyâ Çelebi, ed. Nuran Tezcan, Özel Dizi (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2009), 365–372. (= “German religious and other texts in Arabic characters (c. 1588) as compared to Evliya’s German samples”). “Gerunds in the Old Turkic and Mongol versions of ‘The Hungry Tigress’.” In Transeurasian verbal morphology in a comparative perspective: genealogy, contact, chancem eds. Lars Johanson and Martine Robbeets, Turcologica 78 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 141–152. “Savaş Ganimeti Olarak Arşiv Belgeleri. Osmanlı – Habsburg İlişkilerinin Olağanüstü Bir Veçhesi.” In Harp ve Sulh, Avrupa ve Osmanlılar, ed. Dejanirah Couto (İstanbul: Kitapyayınevi, 2010), 237–242 (http://books.openedition.org/ifeagd/1650). (= “Documents d’archives en tant que butin de guerre: un aspect insolite des relations ottomano – habsbourgeoises.” L’Empire ottoman et l’Europe: interactions politiques et translations culturelles (XVIe–XIXe siècles). Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, 24–25 novembre 2009). with Heidemarie Doganalp–Votzi: “Tanzimat, Meşrutiyet, Cumhuriyet – Schlüsselbegriffe der politischen Entwicklung des ausgehenden Osmanischen Reiches und der Türkei.” In tanzimat. Ausstellung. Augarten Contemporary, 21.1.–16.5. 2010, ed. Agnes Husslein – Arco, Belvedere, Wien 2010, 15–22, English translation by Tim Jones and Jamie Searle (Zaimoglu), “Tanzimat, Meşrutiyet, Cumhuriyet – Key Concepts in the Political Development of the Late Ottoman Empire and Turkey.” ibid., 84–87. “Trouvailles inattendues: un Mühimme defteri de la Bibliothèque nationale d’Autriche (ÖNB Mxt. 270).” In École Pratique des Hautes Études. Section des sciences historiques et philologiques. Résumés des conférences et travaux. 141e année. 2008–2009 (Paris, à la Sorbonne, 2010), 46–49. with Lars Johanson, Éva Csató, Heidi Stein, Bernt Brendemoen: “The Linguistic Landscape of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century.” In The Urban Mind. Cultural and Environmental Dynamics, eds. Paul J.J. Sinclair et al. (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2010), 415–439, online access: http://www.lingfil.uu.se/digitalAssets/68/68045_3urban _mind-17.pdf (accessed on 24 May 2021). “Seyahatname’deki Halk Hikayeleri ile Avusturya Halk Hikayelerini Karşılaştırma.” In Doğumunun 400. Yılında Evliyâ Çelebi, eds. Nuran Tezcan and Semih Tezcan, T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü 3323. Anma ve Armağan Kitaplar Dizisi 35 (Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2011), 291–296. “On some peculiar datives in colloquial Middle Ottoman texts.” In Balkanismen heute – Balkanisms Today, Балканизмы сегодня, eds. Thede Kahl et al., Balkanologie  – Beiträge zur Sprach– und Kulturwissenschaft Bd. 3 (Wien/ Berlin: LIT Verlag 2012), 185–194.

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“Legends about Vienna in the Seyahatnâme and their Austrian Counterpart.” In Evliyâ Çelebi. Studies and Essays Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of his Birth, eds. Nuran Tezcan et al (Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2013), 290–295. “Bāqī nedėmek lāzımdur – zur alttürkischen/tocharischen Wurzel einer osmanischen Briefabschlußformel.” In Deutsch–türkische Begegnungen. Alman Türk Tesadüfleri. Festschrift für Kemal Beydilli, Kemal Beydilli’ye Armağan, Hgg. Hedda Reindl–Kiel und Seyfi Kenan, Bonner Islamstudien, Band 30 (Bonn: EB Verlag, 2013), 358–365. “La langue européenne nommée Talyan chez Evliya Çelebi et ailleurs,” Référence papier: Claudia Römer, « La langue européenne nommée Tâlyân chez Evliyâ Çelebi et ailleurs », Cahiers balkaniques 41 (2012/2013), 117–128. – Référence électronique: Claudia Römer, « La langue européenne nommée Tâlyân chez Evliyâ Çelebi et ailleurs », Cahiers balkaniques [En ligne] 41 (2013), mis en ligne le 19 mai 2013, consulté le 04 juin 2013. URL : http://ceb.revues.org/3977 ; DOI : 10.4000/ceb.3977. “The Turkish gerund diye as an attribute.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 66,3 (2013), 289–296 (online/print). “Cultural Assimilation of a 16th-Century New Muslim – the mecmua ÖNB A.F. 437.” In CIÉPO 19, Osmanlı Öncesi ve Dönemi Tarihi Araştırmalar, eds. İlhan Şahin et al., cilt II (İstanbul: İstanbul Esnaf ve Sanatkarlar Odaları Birliği Yayını, 2014), 607–620. “A Late 16th-Century Persian–Turkish Phrase Book.” Türkische Sprache im iranischen Umfeld.” In Turkic Language in Iran, Past and Present, ed. Heidi Stein, Turcologica 100, Mainz, 6.–7.9.2008 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 183–201. “Le cadi en tant que müfettiş de mukâta‌ʾa.” In New Trends in Ottoman Studies. Papers presented at the 20th CIÉPO Symposium, Rethymno 26 June–1 July 2012, eds. Marinos Sariyannis et al. University of Crete  – Department of History and Archaeology. Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas  – Institute for Mediterranean Studies. (Rehtymno, 2014), 162–163. “La fonction des couleurs dans les textes historiques ottomans du 16e siècle.” In Voir et concevoir la couleur en Asie, eds. Filliozat, Pierre–Sylvain and Michel Zink, Actes du colloque international organisé par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles–Lettres, la Société asiatique et l’Inalco à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles–Lettres (Palais de l’Institut) et à l’Inalco les 11 et 12 janvier 2013 (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles–Lettres, 2015 (2016)), 39–51. with Lars Johanson, Éva Csató, Heidi Stein, Bernt Brendemoen: “The Linguistic Landscape of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century.” In Spoken Ottoman in Mediator Texts, eds. Éva Csató et al., Turcologica 106 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016), 1–33. with Nicolas Vatin : « Faux, usage de faux, faux témoignage, accusation mensongère et usurpation d’identité à la fin du règne de Soliman le Magnifique », in Osmanische Welten: Quellen und Fallstudien. Festschrift für Michael Ursinus, ed. Johannes Zimmermann et al., Bamberger Orientstudien 8. (Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, 2016), 509–561.

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“An attempt at reconstructing the Ottoman correspondence during Grand Vizier Ibrahim Paşa’s 1525 mission to Wegypt” In The Mamluk–Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilād al–Shām in the Sixteenth Century, eds. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, Ottoman Studies/Osmanistische Studien 2 (Bonn: V&R unipress, 2016), 115–126. “Zum Geleit/Statements.” In Süd–Arabien / South Arabia. A great “Lost Corridor” of Mankind. A Collection of Papers Dedicated to the Re–establishment of South–Arabian Studies in Austria, ed. Roswitha Stiegner, Wiener Offene Orientalistik, Band 10,1 (Wien: Ugarit–Verlag, 2016), XXV–XXVII. “Early transcription methods at the K.K. Akademie Orientalischer Sprachen in Vienna according to students’ exercise books.” En route to a shared Identity. New or unknown sources on the history and Cultural Heritage of Central Europe in the digital Age 15–16 February 2016, Vienna (Adelheid Krah), https://dighist.hypotheses.org/1171 (accessed on 15 September forthcoming). “16ncı yüzyıl Osmanlı vesikalarının bazısına nesir şaheseri denilebilir mi?” In Klasik Edebiyatımızın Dili (Bildiriler), ed. Mustafa İsen (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı. Grafiker, 2017), 421–429. “Thomas de Chabert et sa pièce de théâtre franco–osmanlie de l’année 1810.” In Turqueries et regards croisés entre l’Orient et l’Occident 12–13 Mai 2016, Colloque international, 12–14 mai 2016, Université d’Ankara, faculté de langues et d’histoire–géographie, département de langue et littérature françaises. Actes. Textes réunis et publiés par Arzu Etensel İldem et al., Dil ve Tarih–Coğrafya Fakültesi Yayınları No 421 (Ankara: Dil ve Tarih–Coğrafya Fakültesi Yayınları, 2017), 143–150. “Comets as Bringers of Evil in 17th-Century Ottoman Belief.” In The Role of Religions in the Turkic Culture held on 9–11 September 9–11, 2015 in Budapest, eds. Éva Csáki et al. (Budapest: n.p., 2017), 123–140. “Zur Rhetorik von Macht und Legitimität, Gerechtigkeit und Freundschaft in osma­ nischer Korrespondenz mit den Habsburgern des 16. Jahrhunderts.” In Gerechtigkeit und gerechte Herrschaft vom 15.–17. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur historischen Gerechtigkeitsforschung, ed. Stephan Plaggenborg (München/Wien: de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), 177–190. with Nicholas Vatin: “The Lion that was only a Cat: Some notes on the last years of Arslan Pasha, Bey of Semdendire and Beylerbeyi of Buda.” In Şerefe. Studies in Honour of Prof. Géza Dávid on his Seventieth Birthday. 21st-Century Studies in Humanities, eds. Pál Fodor et al. (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2019), 159–182. with Nicholas Vatin: “The Hungarian Frontier and Süleyman’s Way to Szigetvár according to Ottoman Sources.” In The Battle for Central Europe. The Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnificent and Nicholas Zrínyí (1566), ed. Pál Fodor (Leiden/ Boston/ Budapest: Brill, 2019), 341–358.

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“Networks of witnesses of the 16th-century cadi court of Siklós, Hungary?” In Quellen, Nachbarschaft, Gemeinschaft. Auf dem Weg zu einer gemeinsamen Kulturgeschichte Zentraleuropas, ed. Adelheid Krah (Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019), 47–56. “‘Faḳīr olub perākende olmaġa yüz ṭutmışlar’  – the Ottoman Struggle against the Displacement of Subjects in the Early Modern Period.” In Ottomans  – Crimea  – Jochids. Studies in Honour of Mária Ivanics, ed. István Zimonyi (Szeged: Innovariant Ltd, 2019), 269–279. with Simon Brenner, Federica Cappa, Bernadette Frühmann, Ernst-Georg Hammerschmid, Manfred Schreiner: “Recovering a 16th-century Ottoman document damaged by spilled ink.” In Digital and Analytical Approaches to the Written Heritage. Proceedings of the 7th international conference El’Manuscript, “Textual Heritage and Information Technologies,” 2018, eds. Anisava Miltenova et al. (Sofia: Gutenberg Publishing House, 2019), 220–239. “Andreas Tietze and His Approach to Ottoman Prose.” In Avusturya Türkolojisi Sempozyumu, 14–15 Ocak 2021, Ankara. “A firman of Selim II concerning the water supply of Soqollu Mehmed Pasha’s house (1567).” In eds. Nejat Göyünç (+), Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Özer Ergenç. Festschrift for Halil İnalcık (forthcoming).



Encyclopedia Articles

“Tughra.” Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters, Facts on File Library of World History (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 572–573. “Language and script.” Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Gábor Ágoston  – Bruce Masters, Facts on File Library of World History (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 322–323. “Baldırzāde Meḥmed Efendi.” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition, Part 2015–1, 57–58. “Hammer Joseph.” In Dictionnaire de l’Empire Ottoman, Dirigé par François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein et Elisabetta Borromeo. Fayard, Paris 2015, eds. François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein.



Journal Articles

“Der Einfluß der Übersetzungen aus dem Persischen auf die Entwicklung des Osma­ nischen im 14 und 15. Jahrhundert.” WZKM 73 (1981), 89–114. “šöyleki als Einleitungspartikel im Osmanischen.” WZKM 76 (1986, Festschrift A. Tietze), 239–245.

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“Eine persisch–türkische Version der Geschichte von Qais und Lubnā mit glücklichem Ausgang.” WZKM 78 (1988), 161–187. “Die osmanische Belagerung Bagdads 1034–35/1624–25. Ein Augenzeugenbericht.” Der Islam 66 (1989), 119–136. “Zu Formular und Sprache des ‘Registerbuchs der Beschwerden’.” WZKM 80 (1990), 167–183. “Einige Urkunden zur Militärverwaltung Ungarns zur Zeit Süleymans des Prächtigen.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 43 (1989/1991), 23–80. “‘Verbalnomen’ oder ‘Partizip’? Bemerkungen zu einigen türkischen deverbalen Nomina.” Der Islam 68,2 (1991), 304–319. “Drei Urkunden Murāds III. zu Timarangelegenheiten.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 12 (1992), 289–306. “Bostan historiographe ottoman en tant que poète.” Anatolia moderna 3 (1992), 237–246. “Eine Freilassungserklärung Bali Pašas von Ofen aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien.” WZKM 82 (1992), 309–324. “‘List turecki’ reconsidéré. Quelques remarques sur la relation entre une lettre originale de Soliman le Magnifique et sa translittération contemporaine.” Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 2 (1994/1996) (Festschrift Drimba), 151–161. “Eine handschriftliche Quelle der 1865 in Wien herausgegebenen Osmanischen Sprichwörter.” WZKM 86 (1996) (Festschrift Hans Hirsch), 369–377. “A propos de quelques demandes de permission de soldats ottomans en Hongrie (16e siècle).” Turcica 29 (1997), 399–412. “Zu Verlassenschaften und ihrer fiskalischen Bearbeitung im Osmanischen Reich des 16. Jhs..” WZKM 88 (1998), 185–211. “Egy, a 15 éves háborúból származó oszmán sírko Steyersbergben, Alsó Ausztriában.” Aetas 4 (1999), 66–70. “A firman of Süleyman the Magnificent to the King of France preserved in an exercise book of the ‘K. u. K. Akademie Orientalischer Sprachen’ in Vienna, 1831.” Turcica 31 (1999), 461–470. “Zu widersprüchlichen Beurteilungen eines Rechtsstreits durch die Kanzlei des Beglerbegi von Buda, Arslan Paša, im Jahr 1565.” Mitteilungen der Grazer Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 8 (1999), 29–41. “The Sea in Comparisons and Metaphors in Ottoman Historiography in the 16th Century.” The Ottomans and the Sea, Oriente Moderno XX (LXXXI), n.s. 1–2001, 233–244. with Gilles Veinstein und Nicolas Vatin (Paris): “Un mühimme defteri de 1563–1564: le manuscrit Mxt 270 de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Vienne. Étude préliminaire accompagnée d’un dossier de six documents concernant les relations entre Soliman le Magnifique et Ferdinand de Habsbourg.” Archivum Ottomanicum 28 (2011), 5–48.

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“Mustafa Ali’nin Eserlerinde Aliterasyon.” Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî Çalıştayı Bildirileri, ed. İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak (Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu, 2013), 53–65. with Nicolas Vatin: “Aceh et la Porte dans les années 1560.” Turcica 46 (2015), 63–111. “Tallissiman and He vel aqueur  – Charles Tessier’s (ca. 1550–after 1604) Chansons turquesques decoded?” In Çekirge Budu. A Festschrift in Honor of Robert Dankoff, eds. Nuran Tezcan and Semih Tezcan, Journal of Turkish Studies  – Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları 44 (2015/2016), 363–372. “Andreas Tietze and his Tape Collection.” Jahrbuch des Phonogrammarchivs der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 8 (2017), 109–115. “Determining the origin of some marginal notes of ms. ÖNB H.O. 42a through ink analysis.” Session “From Analogue Death to Digital Rebirth. Reconstructing Written Heritage.” CHNT, Visual Heritage 2018, Vienna, 12–14 November 2018. “Double Clause Conjunction in 15th- and 16th-Century Ottoman Documents: The Case of -Ub ve.” Turkish Historical Review 11 (2020), 188–198. https://brill.com/view /journals/thr/thr-overview.xml “Entre l’amitié et le mépris – émotions réelles et idéologiques à travers la correspondance ottomane avec les Habsbourg au temps de Soliman le Magnifique.” Turcica (forthcoming).



Assistance

Anton C. Schaendlinger: Die Schreiben Süleymans des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.–hist. Kl., Bd. 163 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1983). Hans G. Majer, Das osmanische Registerbuch der Beschwerden (Šikayet Defteri) vom Jahre 1675, Bd. I (Faksimile, Register) (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984). Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymans des Prächtigen an Beamte, Militärbeamte, Vasallen und Richter aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.–hist. Kl., Bd. 183 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986). Edith Gülçin Ambros et al.: “Von Dichtern, Elefanten und Oliven.” WZKM 88 (1998), 51–64. Edith G. Ambros et al.: “Viyana‌’da Muhibbi Divanına ufak bir ek ile imal övgü sanatına ilginç bir örnek.” Journal of Turkish Studies/Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları 26,1 (Essays

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in Honour of Barbara Flemming/Barbara Flemming Armağanı I, eds. Şinasi Tekin and Gönül Alpay Tekin, Guest Editor/Yayına Hazırlayan Jan Schmidt) (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 1–20. “Der ganze Orient: Zur Geschichte der orientalistischen Fächer am Beispiel einer internationalen orientalistischen Zeitschrift: Die Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZKM)  – VII. Die Turkologie in der WZKM.” Orientalische Landschaften. WZKM 100 (2010), 29–35. “Zu Hans Dernschwams Betrachtungen über Gartenbau und Landwirtschaft bei den Osmanen (1553 und 1555).” Orientalische Landschaften. WZKM 100 (2010), 159–176.

Reviews in: Der Islam, OLZ, Orientalia Suecana, Turcica, Die Welt des Islams, WZKM.

Notes on Names, Terms, and Transliteration Given the thematic, disciplinary and linguistic range of sources used, the text contains a variety of different spellings and transcriptions. However, as a rule, where possible, all Ottoman Turkish terms and short sentences as well as normalized proper names are rendered in modern Turkish to facilitate the flow of reading (e.g. paşa, kadı). Arabic, Persian terms follow the transcription standards of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Quotations from Ottoman sources or book titles are usually been transliterated according to the İslâm Ansiklopedisi standard. Despite the standardizations, specific spellings of terms and names as well as transcriptions are present in a number of contributions, following the rules of the respective discipline (e.g. linguistics).

Introduction Hülya Çelik, Yavuz Köse and Gisela Procházka-Eisl 1

The silsile of Ottoman Studies in Vienna

The silsilenāme of Ottoman studies in Vienna has yet to be written. Certainly, Claudia Römer is a key link in the Viennese silsile of scholars interested in the whole world of Ottomanica. The following overview is intended to provide an insight into the “genealogy” of research on Ottoman sources in Vienna and to locate Claudia Römer’s work within it. Her contributions fit well into the wideranging research of her predecessors, on whom she has repeatedly presented erudite studies,1 but Claudia Römer’s work goes far beyond this. Her interest in Turkish and Ottoman was aroused when she was at school, so much so that she attended an Ottoman seminar taught by her teacher Andreas Tietze in her very first semester. Languages are her great passion, especially Classical Latin and Greek. Long before a chair of Turkology was established in 1923, Vienna was already a centre of “Ottoman studies.”2 The establishment of Turkology at the University of Vienna – founded as early as 1365 – lagged behind the long history of relations between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. Naturally, the Habsburg Court had to deal with the “Turks” nolens volens. In 1541 Hans Gaudier 1 See for instance Claudia Römer, Meninski’s Grammar Simplified: Thomas von Chabert’s Manual Kurze Anleitung zur Erlernung der türkischen Sprache für Militär Personen, Vienna 1789. Otto Spies Memorial Series, edited by Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, vol. 3 (Berlin: EB Verlag, 2021) or her “Hammer Joseph,” in François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein et Elisabetta Borromeo, eds., Dictionnaire de l’Empire Ottoman (Paris: Fayard, 2015), 548. 2 On the history of Turkish studies in Vienna see Ernst Dieter Petritsch, “Die Wiener Turkologie vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert,” in Germano-Turcica. Zur Geschichte des Türkisch-Lernens in den deutschsprachigen Ländern, ed. Klaus Kreiser, Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Bamberg 4 (Universitätsbibliothek: Bamberg, 1987), 25–40; Sibylle Wentker, Das Studium der Orientalistik an der Universität Wien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophischen Fakultät, Bericht (Wien 2003); Helga Anetshofer, “‘Long Live Ottoman Studies’. Erinnerungen an Andreas Tietze (1914–2003),” TUBA 30,1 (2005): 315–50; Wolfdieter Bihl, Orientalistik an der Universität Wien. Forschungen zwischen Maghreb und Ost- und Südasien. Die Professoren und Dozenten (Wien et al., 2009); Claudia Römer, “Der ganze Orient: Zur Geschichte der orientalistischen Fächer am Beispiel einer internationalen orientalistischen Zeitschrift: Die Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZKM)  – VII. Die Turkologie in der WZKM,” WZKM 100 (2010), Orientalische Landschaften, 29–35, and Gisela Procházka-Eisl, “Viyana’da Türkçe öğretiminin tarihi, dünü-bugünü-yarını,” Orhon Yazıtlarının Bulunuşundan 120 Yıl Sonra Türklük Bilimi ve 21. Yüzyıl (Ankara 2011), 681–89.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_002

2

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(d. 1579) took over the newly created post of a “turkischen Tulmätschen” – it is unclear where Gaudier had acquired his knowledge of Arabic, Persian and Turkish (presumably as a prisoner of war). Sebastian Tengnagel (d. 1636), who became court librarian from 1608, is likewise to be counted among the “marginal figures”3 of Ottoman studies, yet his preliminary work was central to the far more famous Franciscus à Mesgnien-Meninski (1624–1698). Franciscus à Mesgnien-Meninski was appointed to Vienna by Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705) in 1661, where he worked as chief interpreter at the imperial court from 1671 and published his five-volume Turkish-Arabic-Persian-Latin dictionary “Thesaurus linguarum orientalium” between 1680 and 1687, which is still a useful source. Many European rulers, above all the Venetians, had understood, from early on, that personnel with language expertise were needed for diplomatic and also economic disputes with the Sublime Porte.4 The Republic of Venice founded a language school for Oriental languages in Istanbul as early as 1551, and in 1621 the Polish Institute for Interpreters followed. The Habsburg monarchy in 1644, instigated by Ferdinand III (1637–1657), also founded a “Sprachknaben-Institut” (“École des Jeunes de Langues”) in Constantinople.5 The title-page vignette of a small Turkish dictionary from 1788 nicely sums up the advantages of the knowledge of Turkish, although not in a genderappropriate way: “Ein Glück für jeden Fremden Mann, der selbst mit Türken sprechen kann” (“A happiness for every foreign man, who can speak with Turks”).6

3 On Tengnagel see Hülya Çelik and Chiara Petrolini, “Establishing an « Orientalium linguarum Bibliotheca » in 17th-century Vienna: Sebastian Tengnagel and the trajectories of his manuscripts,” Bibliothecae.it 10,1 (2021): 175–231. 4 See the recent study E. Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance. Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2021). 5 Cécile Balbous, Das Sprachknaben-Institut der Habsburgermonarchie in Konstantinopel (Berlin: Frank und Timme, 2015), 57. 6 Joukova Alexandra, “‘Ein Glück für jeden fremden Mann, der selbst mit Türken sprechen kann‘. Zur Sprachausbildung vor und kurz nach Etablierung der Orientalischen Akademie,” in 250 Jahre. Von der Orientalischen zur Diplomatischen Akademie in Wien, ed. Oliver Rathkolb (Innsbruck et al.: Studienverlag, 2004), 29–46. On Ottoman proverbs published by the Oriental Academy see Claudia Römer, “Neues zu den von der Orientalischen Akademie 1865 herausgegebenen „Osmanischen Sprichwörtern“,” in 250 Jahre. Von der Orientalischen zur Diplomatischen Akademie in Wien, ed. Oliver Rathkolb (Innsbruck et al.: Studienverlag, 2004), 65–76.

Introduction

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Accordingly, so-called “language boys” (Sprachknaben) were sent directly to the embassies at the Sublime Porte for language training. Soon, however, institutes for language boys were also founded in Europe, for example in Paris in 1669/70. In 1754, Empress Maria Theresa established the “Kaiserlich-königliche Akademie für Orientalische Sprachen” (“Imperial and Royal Academy of Oriental Languages” also known as “Orientalische Akademie”), whose most famous and enigmatic graduate was the diplomat and Orientalist Joseph Freiherr Hammer von Purgstall (1774–1856), the founding president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.7 From the very start, the institution (subsequently called the “Oriental Academy”) and the University of Vienna had close ties, both in terms of space and personnel. Even though the scholarly study of the Turkish language was already being pursued in the 17th century  – Sebastian Tengnagel deserves special mention here – Hammer-Purgstall is considered the founder of Ottoman studies. Thomas von Chabert (1766–1841), who in 1780 was sent to the “Orientalische Akademie” in Vienna to study Oriental languages, became a professor there only five years later; among his most famous students was Hammer-Purgstall, with whom he maintained a long, friendly relationship.8 Numerous lectures on the Ottoman-Turkish language can be traced back, sporadically, to the last third of the 17th century, but more clearly to the 1840s, as well as many Turkology-related articles in the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZKM), since its inception, in 1887,9 at the Oriental Institute. However, the discipline of Turkology at the University of Vienna was not established until the start of the 20th century. One undeniable reason for this was the existence of the “Orientalische Akademie,” which was

7 On the students’ Ottoman exercises see Claudia Römer, “Latin Extracts from Naima’s History translated by students at the ‘K.K. Akademie orientalischer Sprachen’, Vienna 1796,” in Pax Ottomana, Studies in memoriam Prof. Dr. Nejat Göyünç, ed. Kemal Çiçek (Haarlem/Ankara: SOTA & Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2001), 581–88, and Claudia Römer, “Early transcription methods at the K.K. Akademie Orientalischer Sprachen in Vienna according to students’ exercise books,” En route to a shared Identity. New or unknown sources on the history and Cultural Heritage of Central Europe in the digital Age 15–16 February 2016, Vienna (Adelheid Krah), https://dighist.hypotheses.org/1171 (accessed on 24 August 2021). 8 Claudia Römer, Meninski’s Grammar Simplified: Thomas von Chabert’s Manual Kurze Anleitung zur Erlernung der türkischen Sprache für Militär Personen, Vienna 1789. Otto Spies Memorial Series, edited by Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, vol. 3 (Berlin: EB Verlag, 2021). 9 Römer, “Der ganze Orient”, 29–35.

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renamed “The Consular Academy” in the 19th century and, since its closure by the National Socialists, has continued as the “Diplomatic Academy.”10 It was to take until the 1920s for Ottoman-Turkish Studies to become permanently established in the university context, through the foundation of a chair. Friedrich von Kraelitz-Greifenhorst (1876–1932), who was court librarian at the Hofbibliothek (1903–1917) and responsible for the Oriental manuscripts, had taught at the Oriental Institute since 1915/16, which had already been founded in 1886.11 Kraelitz-Greifenhorst became the first full professor of Turkish Studies in 1923/24, a position he held until 1932.12 Kraelitz-Greifenhorst was a specialist in Turko-Tatar, the Armenian language, and Turkish philology, but particularly focused his attention on the editions and utilisation of Ottoman documents. He may be considered the founder of Ottoman-Turkish diplomatics. His main contribution is Osmanische Urkunden in türkischer Sprache aus der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur osmanischen Diplomatik (“Ottoman Documents in Turkish from the Second Half of the 15th Century: A Contribution to Ottoman Diplomatics”), published in 1921. It is also worth mentioning that Paul Wittek, who became well known for his “Ghazi thesis,”13 contributed to the establishment of Ottoman Studies in Vienna during this period and up to 1924.14 Together with Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, he published the first Western academic journal on Ottoman history Mitteilungen zur osmanischen Geschichte, which was discontinued after only two issues, due to the weak economic situation.

10

Oliver Rathkolb (ed.). 250 Jahre. Von der Orientalischen zur Diplomatischen Akademie in Wien (Innsbruck et al.: Studienverlag, 2004). 11 https://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_K/Kraelitz-Greifenhorst_Friedrich-Joh_1876 _1932.xml (accessed on 25 August 2021). 12 The fact that Kraelitz-Greifenhorst was part of a well-organised antisemitic network at the University of Vienna in the interwar period, which, to quote Klaus Taschwer here, “expelled Jewish researchers,” should not go unmentioned. Klaus Taschwer, “Geheimsache Bärenhöhle. Wie eine antisemitische Professorenclique nach 1918 an der Universität Wien jüdische Forscherinnen und Forscher vertrieb,” in Alma Mater Antisemitica. Akademisches Milieu, Juden und Antisemitismus an den Universitäten Europas zwischen 1918 und 1938, eds. Regina Fitz, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Jana Starek (Wien: new academic press, 2016), 221–42. 13 Colin Heywood, “A Subterranean History: Paul Wittek (1894–1978) and the Early Ottoman State,” Die Welt des Islams, New Series 38 (1998): 386–405, and Colin Heywood, “‘Boundless Dreams of the Levant’: Paul Wittek, the George-“Kreis”, and the Writing of Ottoman History,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1989): 32–50. 14 Colin Heywood, “Wittek and the Austrian tradition,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1988): 7–25.

Introduction

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There is no doubt that Andreas Tietze plays a central role in this Viennese silsile and his influence on the following generation of students cannot be overestimated. After decades in Turkey and the United States, he finally returned to the University of Vienna in 1973 as a professor of Turkology, replacing Herbert W. Duda.15 Serving as faculty member at the Department of Near Eastern Studies until his retirement in 1984, his research interests and work were wide-ranging and included linguistic-historical aspects of Turkish, Ottoman-Turkish and Armeno-Turkish literature, nautical vocabulary, and Ottoman-Turkish historiography. The core of his research in Vienna was the large-scale project of the etymological dictionary of Turkish (Tarihi ve etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi lugatı), the first volume of which he was able to publish during his lifetime (2002).16 Claudia Römer’s doctoral thesis, “Der Einfluß der Übersetzungen aus dem Persischen auf die Entwicklung des Osmanischen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert,” was supervised by Tietze. As with Tietze, her research interests can be broadly located in the fields of (social and economic) history, administrative history, and philology and linguistics, with a special focus on Ottoman diplomatics. Shortly after receiving her PhD, Claudia Römer delved into the rich collection of Ottoman-Turkish documents of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, where she assisted Anton C. Schaendlinger in editing 36 letters of Sultan Süleyman in two volumes, which Klaus Kreiser considers as “Meilenstein in der Geschichte der diplomatischen Beiträge zur Osmanistik.”17 Another major Ottoman diplomatics project to which Claudia Römer and Andreas Tietze belonged was the transcription of the “Record book of complaints,” from 1675, which was edited by Hans Georg Majer under the title Das osmanische Registerbuch der Beschwerden (Šikayet Defteri) vom Jahre 1675. Claudia Römer received her venia docendi (habilitation) in 1992 with her thesis Osmanische Festungsbesatzungen in Ungarn zur Zeit Murāds III., dargestellt an Hand von Petitionen zur Stellenvergabe. In the same year she became associate professor at today’s Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Vienna. As early as the 1980s she established close contacts with Hungary, where a small but well-trained group of students worked on the Ottoman period of Hungary using Ottoman-Turkish sources. Since 1992 she has 15

On Duda see Andreas Ekkehard Ellinger, Deutsche Orientalistik zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus 1933–1945. (Edingen-Neckarhausen: deux mondes Verlag, 2006). 16 Helga Anetshofer, “‘Long Live Ottoman Studies‘. Erinnerungen an Andreas Tietze (1914– 2003),” TUBA 30,1 (2005): 315–50. 17 Klaus Kreiser, “Die Schreiben Süleymans des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien,” Südost Forschungen 44 (1985): 523–24.

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been a board member of the Comité International de Études Pré-ottomanes et Ottomanes (CIÉPO), of which she has been general secretary since 2002. It is not surprising that she is also a member of the board of the International Association for Ottoman Social and Economic History (IAOSEH) since 2008. A year later she became an associate member of the Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques (CETOBaC) based in Paris. Together with the late Gilles Veinstein, and with Nicolas Vatin, she began to work on the damaged manuscript ÖNB mxt. 270, a work that is still ongoing. Her close collaboration (and friendship) with Nicolas Vatin is not only exemplified in articles they produced together for the wonderful edition and translation of Ottoman sources into French, recently published (2020) in Paris under the title Les Ottomans par eux-mêmes, but also in other collaborative articles they have published over the last decades. Looking at Claudia Römer’s impressive list of publications, one immediately sees that she worked on quite a lot of articles and book projects with colleagues. Reading, rereading and discussing illegible words or phrases is what Ottomanists normally do when dealing with handwritten texts. Clearly, Claudia Römer does not leave it at that; she apparently considers research results as the outcome of collaborative work and has therefore produced numerous publications with colleagues. Here are just two examples: Osmanische Beamtenschreiben und Privatbriefe der Zeit Süleymāns des Prächtigen aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien (“The Edition of Ottoman Official Letters and Private Letters from the Time of Süleyman the Magnificent from the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv”) and Herrschaft und Staat. Politische Terminologie des Osmanischen Reiches der Tanzimatzeit (“The Study on Rule and the State. Political Terminology of the Ottoman Empire of the Tanzimat Period”).18 Given the complexities of Ottoman sources, their study increasingly demands an interdisciplinary approach, in order to get answers to pressing questions. In view of the recent theoretical and methodical developments within the humanities, interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches are also imperative for future Ottoman Studies. Claudia Römer’s recent work

18

Together with Gisela Procházka-Eisl, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben und Privatbriefe der Zeit Süleymāns des Prächtigen aus dem Haus–, Hof– und Staatsarchiv zu Wien. Denk­ schriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.–hist. Kl., Bd. 357 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007); together with Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi, Herrschaft und Staat. Politische Terminologie des Osmani­ schen Reiches der Tanzimatzeit. Schriften der Balkan–Kommission. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch–Historische Klasse 49 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009).

Introduction

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(especially in the field of digital humanities and heritage sciences)19 shows how the symbiosis of philologically grounded Ottoman Studies can be productively combined with new approaches and open up fresh perspectives on research and teaching Ottoman-Turkish in Vienna, thus adding new branches to the silsile of Ottoman studies that reach far beyond Vienna. 2

“Buyurdum ki”: The Volume

Claudia Römer has never spoken in the imperative, even though many of the documents she has examined include the formula “buyurdum ki …” (“I have commanded that …”). The sheer number of contributors, as well as the diversity of topics in this volume, wonderfully reflect Claudia Römer’s research interests and working methods. The contributions are divided into six chapters. In Part 1, “Language, Literature and Style,” Helga Anetshofer focuses on the Turkish enclitic discourse particle (y)iki which, according to its expression of wonder, uncertainty, surprise, etc., she identifies as being a mirative particle. With a wealth of examples from a large number of Old Anatolian Turkish sources, she demonstrates the particle’s use in various contexts  – a most welcome contribution to a hitherto little-studied and little-documented grammatical phenomenon. Ingeborg Baldauf discusses the history of a genre in Turkic and Persian literature in which knowledgeable ladies and tricky questions hold a central position. Based on the introduction of a number of early Turkic and Persian texts with the title of Sirāj al-Qulūb, and their common basic plot of “question – answer,” Baldauf goes into the sub-genres which have developed from this, elaborating on the story of “The One Thousand Questions of Malīka/the Princess, and the Learned Man.” Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Stephan Procházka explore the question of whether there is a “Standard 19

Claudia Römer (together with S. Brenner, F. Cappa, B. Frühmann, E.-G. Hammerschmid, M. Schreiner), “Recovering a 16th-century Ottoman document damaged by spilled ink,” in Digital and Analytical Approaches to the Written Heritage. Proceedings of the 7th international conference El’Manuscript, “Textual Heritage and Information Technologies”, 2018. Дигитални и аналитични подходи към писменото наследство Материали от 7-мата международна конференция El’Manuscript ,,Писменото наследство и информационните технологии“, eds. Anisava Miltenova et al. (Sofia: Gutenberg Publishing House, 2019), 220–39; Claudia Römer, “Determining the origin of some marginal notes of ms. ÖNB H.O. 42a through ink analysis.” Session “From Analogue Death to Digital Rebirth. Reconstructing Written Heritage”. CHNT, Visual Heritage 2018, Vienna 12–14 November 2018. CHTN 23, 2018 proceedings: https://www.chnt.at/proceedings-chnt-23/ (accessed on 08 January 2020).

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Average Middle Eastern” (SAME) and point out certain hitherto obscure features by using data mostly from Turkish, Persian and (Levantine) Arabic, but partly also from Armenian, Kurmanji, or Aramaic. Basically, the authors take into account common phraseology, including courtesy formulas, because these “in their widest sense reflect the cultural convergence of the area very well.” Edith Gülçin Ambros presents a disputation text (münazara) written by the poet Vardarlı Fazli in 1636–1637. This long mesnevi involves several intoxicating and addictive substances, including an elegy recited by coffee on the death of tobacco – a substance strictly prohibited in this period. Ambros shows how the language of this text combines features of spoken language, folk poetry and divan poetry. Finally, Peri Efe’s contribution sheds light on the Phanariot bureaucrat and intellectual Alexandros Karatheodoris (d. 1906), who, among many other activities, published, in 1883, in the magazine Ο Κόσμος, several articles devoted to Ottoman Turkish language and lexicography. Part 2, “Sources and Terminologies: New Readings, New Perspectives,” starts with a contribution by Marinos Sariyannis, who reflects on the marginal notes in Ottoman manuscripts and examines them “not only as potential sources for the history or audience of a manuscript, but also as a structural feature of the Ottoman book culture.” His survey ends with a set of questions illustrating that there are many desiderata to be explored. Rossitsa Gradeva uses a collection of descriptions of Sofia from the late 14th to the first half of the 16th centuries, given both by residents and visitors to the city, to reconstruct the image of early Ottoman Sofia. This allows her to take a closer look at the transitional period of the city, and to follow “how the process of Ottomanisation of the space affected” these images, as well as enabling her to identify how this process was perceived by the diverse observers. Nicolas Vatin presents his reflections on the process of writing Ġazavât-ı Ḫayr ed-Dîn Paşa, the famous biography of Hayreddin Barbarossa, and also sheds light on Ottoman naval history and the early days of the Ottoman presence in Algiers. Sándor Papp reports, in his contribution, on the project he is conducting with the Ottoman period research group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Szeged, regarding the discovery, processing and translation of peace treaties, armistice documents, temporary agreements, and commercial treaties. Hülya Çelik’s contribution “Traces of the Captive Copyist Derviş İbrahim in Sebastian Tengnagel’s (d. 1636) Notebooks” deals with the second court librarian of the Imperial library in Vienna, Sebastian Tengnagel, and two of his personal notebooks which are part of today’s Austrian National Library’s Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books (Cod. 15161 and 15165). A considerable part of these two notebooks contains also notes, records and poems of the captive copyist Derviş İbrahim, who was first presented by Claudia Römer in

Introduction

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1998. In the mentioned notebooks of Tengnagel we come across poems obviously written down by Derviş İbrahim, which will be presented here in facsimile, transcription and translation. Hedda Reindl-Kiel explores the Ottoman material culture through inventories from the 16th and 17th centuries, demonstrating that the names of things provide and confront the researcher with a variety of problems of lexicography, as well as symbolic meanings. She uses selected terms such as keremün, kaknus or minder to illustrate and discuss the problems that cannot easily be resolved with dictionaries. Jane Hathaway revisits al-Isḥāqī’s 1623 chronicle of Egypt and offers a reappraisal of the work that is “a provincial source with a distinctive world view.” Hathaway argues that this chronicle is not “simply a provincial chronicle,” but shows exemplarily that, in provincial chronicles, “the local and the imperial are intertwined, even inextricable” and allow a critical view from a well-connected periphery. Antonis Anastasopoulos examines the kadı court registers of Kandiye (Heraklion) for time-related information and seeks to identify temporal references and markers. He shows that these corresponded to the needs of the legal process and were “in harmony with the wider sense of time, as well as with the timekeeping practices of the state and society with which the court was associated.” In Part 3, “Conquering, Administering und Financing Ottoman Provinces,” Pál Fodor discusses the pencik resmi (“one-fifth-tax”) levied on prisoners of war. This kind of tax was based on Islamic law; it ceased as a valuation-based tax in the 17th century, to be finally abolished in mid-19th century. In relation to several documents, Fodor reconstructs the administration of this tax from the 15th to the 17th century for three areas: the pencik collection in Ottoman Hungary, the tax-farm collection in the Ottoman capital, and during the imperial campaigns. Nenad Moačanin assesses the Ottoman financial bureaucracy and its various measures of taxation and funding of the military during the 17th and 18th centuries, by giving key examples. Linda Darling, in her study, surveys the income and expense summaries (icmal-i muhasebe, known as “budgets”) of the Ottoman Empire, with a focus on provincial budgets of 16th-century Syria. Darling’s study on the provinces’ income illustrates how rewarding further and comparative studies could be. Géza Dávid presents the sancakbeyis in charge of Hatvan – “a fairly insignificant fortress in Heve county” (in today’s Hungary) during the 16th century. He shows that they were mostly appointed regionally and that very few of the 31 identified examples were sent from distant locations such as Istanbul. Özgür Kolçak ends this part with the discussion of a critical moment in the rise of the Köprülü family in 1663, when Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed was close to losing his grand vizierate. He describes the attempts of his opponent,

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Şamizade Mehmed Efendi, the re’isülküttâb (chief of clerks), to secure the grand vizierate for his son-in-law, Kadızade İbrahim, in the same year. Kolçak discusses whether these two figures were part of a larger factional rivalry in the imperial court. Part 4, “Founding Mosques, (In-)alienable Waqfs, and Circulating Goods,” begins with an article by Nedim Zahirović that attempts to shed light on the problem of identifying the founder of the Mosque of Ferhad Beg in Pécs – not an easy task, as Ottoman dignitaries such as Ferhad Beg appear only with their names and titles in Ottoman sources, and people with the same names thus can easily be confused with each other. However, Zahirović is sure that he has identified the right Ferhad Beg from a register preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Kayhan Orbay writes on waqf founders as benevolent employers and the waqf as a sinecure for the founder’s retainers. He stresses that the overemphasis of the pious, religious, aspect of the waqf institution by many waqf historians is misleading; and has a closer look at how the image of founders as benefactors and altruists was constructed. With a focus on the large groups of stipend- and food-receivers, Orbay offers “glimpses of the waqfs’ multifaceted and multi-layered activities in several fields of patronage.” Hans Georg Majer presents and discusses the cases of two Süleyman Ağas who both were in the service of the Ottoman state – one as an Ottoman cavalry officer and the other as an Ober-Stallmeister (imrahor)  – in the late 17th century. What they both had in common was that, due to their positions, their lives could be in danger and, in the face of imminent danger, they recognized the obligation to act in the interest of their fellow men and their relatives. Majer traces how both accomplished this. Finally, Rhoads Murphey discusses the role played by Egypt and Syria in the Ottoman Empire’s general economic prosperity by comparing quantitative data provided by Andre Raymond in his Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle with al-Jabarti’s History of Egypt. This allows him to reveal that global influences played much less of a role than “the degree to which local conditions effected local markets in the pre-industrial era.” Part 5 is devoted largely to minorities in the Ottoman Empire, but also to the question of moral concepts and the control of transgression. Oliver Jens Schmitt’s contribution explores the question of whether Balkan political diaspora communities emerged in 15th-century Catholic Europe as a consequence of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. He groups together a large number of works on the individual groups – limited to Christian exiles – in order to provide a common view of the actors and to gain an understanding of the behaviour of the Balkan political elites in this time period.

Introduction

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In his contribution, Michael Ursinus deals with the complicated history of the transmission of the Ahdname of Fojnica, which for some is an expression of Islamic tolerance towards Christians in general and for others an expression of Franciscan privilege over other Christian subjects. Others have doubted the authenticity of this document, even though the wording of the Ahdname is considered to be authentic. Eleni Gara discusses a hitherto unrecognised type of sultanic rescript in favour of metropolitans and bishops, which, in her view, were not produced within the framework of Ottoman grievance administration but were routinely issued and renewed alongside the berat after the enthronement of a new sultan. They served as an accompanying document to the ecclesiastical berats and were probably in use from at least the last quarter of the 16th century and well until the 1660s. Kenan İnan, in his contribution, analyses several judicial registers (şer’i mahkeme sicilleri) of Trabzon in the second half of the 17th century, with the focus on the city’s non-Muslims. With a wealth of examples from his sources he sheds light on their daily life, property transfers and trading, as well as on the religious institutions concerning them. One sub-chapter is devoted to the Armenians, who were the leading group for trade with the East and the South. Tijana Krstić introduces İbrahim Efendi (d. 1697), an Ottoman scribe, who converted to Christianity and became a Dominican Monk. She argues that İbrahim Efendi’s “spiritual journey to Christianity was a long process that may have lasted for almost three decades, from the late 1660s to the early 1690s, and unfolded in several stages.” Krstić, by analysing the given documentary evidence and the manuscript collection of İbrahim/Abraham, follows him along the complex routes that took him to Venice. The main protagonists in Suraiya Faroqhi’s contribution are Ottoman apprentices. Faroqhi gives a preliminary overview of the education and training of Ottoman artisans in the central provinces of the Empire with a special focus on Istanbul from late 1500s to early 1800s. Since male apprentices formed the majority, Faroqhi pays special attention to female apprentices who occasionally appear in the sources. Given the fact that official Ottoman documents focus mainly on Muslims she stresses the need to consider also sources from Orthodox and Jewish milieus. She finishes her study with a discussion of the transformation the Ottoman governmental elite faced in the late 1700s and early 1800s, “paying special attention to the reactions of artisans-in-spe.” Fariba Zarinebaf, in her article, offers an insight into the underworld of Istanbul by looking at the growth of sex crimes and the ways in which the Ottoman state responded to these developments, imposing political, social and moral discipline from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Part 6, the final section of the festschrift dedicated to Claudia Römer, highlights the phase of the slowly fading Ottoman Empire and offers an outlook into

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post-Ottoman Turkey. Yavuz Köse strolls through Vienna in 1911 with Rıza Nur, presenting his previously unpublished manuscript, which the author entitled “Letters from Vienna.” After a short introduction to its author, and the circumstances of his journey to Vienna, Köse discusses the manuscript and its special features. He addresses Rıza Nur as a tourist against his will, together with his description of the city of Vienna, its inhabitants, and their preference for and appreciation of coffee and coffee houses. Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi presents a piece of history “from the bottom” – the memoirs of a minor member of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Sanjak of Alexandretta/Hatay, an unpublished typescript that she received privately from a relative of the author. After a short overview of the historical events that took place in this region after World War I, up to its incorporation under the name Hatay into the Republic of Turkey, she focuses on linguistic and orthographic peculiarities such as interpunctuation, capitalisation, vocalisation, and the author’s use of loan words from European languages. Maria A. Stassinopoulou, in her contribution, presents the graduates of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere, 1911–1916. By reading different types of sources through a micro-historical lens, she puts the focus on female lives at the intersection of the history of education, migration and professional emancipation. Further, she aims to understand why the women discussed “still remain today on the margins of the history of education and labor, the history of displacement and migration, and the history of social group formation both in relation to the Ottoman Empire and to Greece.” In the last paper, Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth re-examines the journal Ülkü (1933–1950), in order to reconstruct the discourse on Turkey’s heritage. Dilsiz Hartmuth argues, that throughout the 1930s and 1940s, this “authorized heritage discourse” was far from being fixed, but dynamic, “with different emphases and motivations even in its relatively short period of publication.”

Part 1 Language, Literature and Style

∵

1 Bu neyiki? “What (on Earth) Is That?!”

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle iki in Unresolvable Questions Helga Anetshofer

The Old Anatolian Turkish (OAT) enclitic discourse particle1 iki (bound variant -(y)iki) expresses the speaker’s wonder, surprise, counter-expectation, uncertainty, or disbelief in formally interrogative sentences. Thus, I am calling it a mirative particle.2 OAT iki is scarcely documented, understudied and therefore still not generally known in Turkic studies. It is the continuation of Old Turkic (OT) erki, which is abundantly documented in Old Uigur, but also lacks a thorough study. Numerous examples from Old Uigur texts are attested in Röhrborn’s Uigurisches Wörterbuch (lemma “ärki”).3 OT erki occurs in interrogative and declarative sentences, and is usually described in the Turcological literature as a modal particle with various epistemic meanings, including wonder, doubt, speculation, scepticism, disbelief, uncertainty, certainty, probability, hope, etc.4 However, only the Old Turkic erki-structures in interrogative sentences have equivalents in Old Anatolian Turkish or Modern Turkish. 1 Discourse particles are also called discourse markers or pragmatic markers. Modal particles like German denn, wohl, nur – which are often suitable translations for Old Anatolian Turkish -(y)iki – are sometimes called a subclass of discourse particles. 2 DeLancey has presented mirativity as a cross-linguistic category for marking new and unexpected information (Scott DeLancey, “Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information,” Linguistic Typology 1 (1997): 33–52; Scott DeLancey, “The mirative and evidentiality,” Journal of Pragmatics 33, 3 (2001): 369–82; Scott DeLancey, “Still mirative after all these years”, Linguistic Typology 16 (2012): 529–64). The definition of mirative elements and the relationship between mirativity and evidentiality is still contested (Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, “The Essence of Mirativity,” Linguistic Typology 16 (2012): 435–85). I am using the term “mirative” in a semantic (and not grammatical) sense, including the meanings unprepared mind, counterexpectation, uncertainty, and disbelief. 3 Klaus Röhrborn, Uigurisches Wörterbuch. Sprachmaterial der vorislamischen türkischen Texte aus Zentralasien. Neubearbeitung. II: Nomina  – Pronomina  – Partikeln. Band 2: aš  – äžük (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2017): 262–67. 4 Klaus Röhrborn, “Zur Etymologie der uigurischen Partikel ärki,” Materialia Turcica 19 (1998): 1–4; Lars Johanson, “Turkic Indirectives,” in Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and Neighbouring Languages, eds. Lars Johanson and Bo Utas (Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), 61–87; Lars Johanson, “Turkic Indirectivity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality, ed.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_003

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The continuations of OT erki in modern Turkic languages have been studied in depth for Uzbek ekan and -kin,5 and briefly for Nogai eken.6 The modern Turkish continuation of OAT iki is ki. Initially, the identification of Modern Turkish ki with OT erki was solely based on the comparison of Modern Turkish with Old Uigur and other historical and modern Turkic languages – without knowledge of the intermediary OAT form iki; e.g. Çağatay makes the right etymological assumption,7 but only a very small portion of the Turkish ki-sentences she provides as examples do in fact feature the continuation of the OAT mirative iki, the majority has the Persian conjunctor ki instead. The formal merging of the OAT � mirative iki (‫ ِاكى‬or ‫��ه‬ ِ ‫ > ) يا� ك‬Turkish ki with the Persian conjunctor or general complementizer ki (‫��ه‬ ‫) ك‬, which is used in various functions in Modern Turkish, has made it very difficult to differentiate between the two. Modern Turkish grammars often give minimal information on the usages of ki, and/or do not mention the function (of the Turkic ki < iki) of expressing wonder and doubt at all.8

5

6

7

8

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 510–24; Marcel Erdal, Old Turkic Word Formation: A Functional Approach to the Lexicon (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), 321; Marcel Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2004), 275–76, 350. Sigrid Kleinmichel, “Zu экан und -кин im Usbekischen,” in Studia Ottomanica: Festgabe für György Hazai zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Barbara Kellner-Heinkele and Peter Zieme (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 103–26. Aziz Merhan, “Özbekçede mikin İlgeci,” Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 17 (2007): 221–28. Birsel Karakoç, Das finite Verbalsystem im Nogaischen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 25–31. For examples of sentences with the form irgi cited from Tuvan literature see Birol İpek, “Tuva Türkçesinde Pekiştirme Edatları,” Teke Uluslararası Türkçe Edebiyat Kültür Eğitim Dergisi 5, 5/4 (2016): 1627–50, here 1638, 1642–43. Saadet Çağatay, “Türkçede ki < erki,” Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı Belleten (1963): 245–50. Röhrborn dismisses Çağatay’s correct etymological identification of “Ottoman ki” with OT erki as unlikely (Röhrborn, “Zur Etymologie,” 2; Röhrborn, Uigurisches Wörterbuch, II, Band 2, 263). Karakoç hypothesizes that the denominal Turkish suffix +ki, e.g. yarınki “tomorrow’s” (the OAT form of the suffix is +GI) and OT erki (OAT -(y)iki) have developped from the same assumed pre-OT form (Birsel Karakoç, “Mutmaßungen über die Etymologie des türkischen Suffixes {KI},” in Turcology in Mainz, eds. Hendrik Boeschoten and Julian Rentzsch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 155–66, here 163–64. E.g. Underhill calls ki a “relative conjunction”, “borrowed from Persian”, describes approximately three (all Persian-based) usages of ki, and concludes with “We shall not attempt to cover all the many uses of ki here” (Robert Underhill, Turkish Grammar (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976), 433–35). Modern Turkish dictionaries generally collect all functions of ki together in one entry, call ki a conjunction (bağlaç) and give Persian ki as the general etymon. A standard entry includes between six and fourteen functions of ki, one of them would be the mirative Turkish ki – presented as “adding doubt and concern/fear (şüphe, endişe, or kuşku, korku) to questions” with an example without context such as Acaba ister mi ki? [“I wonder, would she want that?!”].

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

17

Németh was the first scholar to take notice of the sentence-final particle iki in an Old Anatolian Turkish narrative poem, Ibn Ḫaṭīb’s Feraḥ-nāme, composed in 1425, although he listed it as “question particle” ‫[ ِكى‬ki] in his glossary.9 In this article I will give several examples of the usage of the mirative ki in Modern Turkish in order to set questions with ki apart from standard questions and questions with the indirective copula imiş (which is known to also have secondary mirative connotations),10 and to demonstrate the entanglement of the Turkish mirative ki with the Persian conjunctor ki. I will then give a brief analysis of the orthography and morpho-syntax of the Old Anatolian Turkish form iki. In the main part, I will demonstrate the usage of the OAT mirative iki in texts originating from the 14th and 15th centuries. I will provide new examples, mostly from prose texts, with their narrative context, and add the missing context to previously discovered examples. Since iki is a pragmatic particle, its content and function cannot be understood without providing sufficient context. I argue that the most important characteristics of the OAT mirative particle iki are that it only occurs in informal speech and in lively and highly emotional short interrogative utterances, which are unresolvable questions and express surprise, counter-expectation, wonder or uncertainty vis-à-vis an unexpected or (yet) unknown display or scenario. Among the formally interrogative expressions, especially the wh-questions can often be interpreted as exclamations rather than questions. The fact that the mirative iki only occurs in spontaneous, emotional direct speech, and that it is easily confused with the Persian conjunctor ki, is the reason that it has been, and still is, rather elusive in earlier forms of Anatolian Turkish (and even more so in classical Ottoman), although it survives in the form ki in Modern Turkish.

9

J. (Gyula) Németh, “Das Feraḥ-nāme des Ibn Ḫaṭīb: Ein osmanisches Gedicht aus dem XV. Jahrhundert,” Le Monde Oriental 13 (1919): 145–84. 10 Ever since Aksu-Koç and Slobin’s original account on the evidential/indirective verbal form -mIş (and the indirective copula imiş) conveying surprise as “pragmatic extension” of the evidential functions inference and hearsay (Ayhan A. Aksu-Koç and Dan I. Slobin, “A psychological account of the development and use of evidentials in Turkish,” in Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, eds. Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1986), 159–67), Turkish examples with -mIş have been cited as a pillar of the concept of mirativity. Johanson certainly acknowledges that Turkic indirectives, like -miş and imiş, can convey mirative connotations, but asserts that mirativity is not “their central meaning from which the other uses may be derived” (Johanson, “Turkic Indirectivity,” 520).

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Anetshofer

The Mirative Particle ki in Modern Turkish

The Turkish mirative ki is used as a sentence-final particle in wh-questions or polar questions (i.e. yes-no questions). These are primarily self-addressed questions, but can also be hearer-addressed. The examples in (1)–(4) give a basic (and incomprehensive) picture of the pragmatic content of ki on the spectrum of “surprise, wonder, uncertainty, doubt.” The ki utterances are often accompanied by facial features of surprise or disbelief, like eyebrow raising, eye widening; or of doubt or uncertainty, like lowering the eyebrows. (1a) Bu ne? “What is this?” (1b) Bu ne ki? “What IS that? What is THAT? What the hell is that?!” (perplexity and wonder) (Context: The speaker is unwrapping a gift her friend gave her. She discovers an object she has never seen before. She is trying to make sense of it, directing the question either to herself, or to her friend).11 (2) is another example of the usage of bu ne ki as a self-addressed question, with the addition of the adverb of wonder, acaba: (2) […] ile […] işletim sistemli cihazlarda oynanabilir durumda olan oyunda dört tane resim ve bir tane kelime bulunmaktadır ve oyunu oynarken kendinize soracaksınız acaba Ne Ki Bu?12 In the game [i.e., 4 Pics 1 Word (What’s The Word?] that can be played on devices with the operating systems […] and […] there are four pictures and one word, and while you are playing you will ask yourself: What (the heck) Is That? (emphatic wonder)

11 12

I would like to thank Ali Emre Özyıldırım for providing this scenario as well as ki-examples from OAT and Ottoman literature, and discussing ki-related questions with me. In German (1b) can be translated as “Was ist denn das?” or “Was ist das denn?”. While the standard word order is bu ne ki [what this ki], the inverted utterance ne ki bu [this ki what], with the nominal predicate preceding the subject, adds extra emphasis on what the speaker is wondering about. A German translation of acaba bu ne ki could be “Was ist das bloß?”.

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

19

Examples (3)–(4) show the mirative ki in polar questions. (3) is taken from a real-life situation, witnessed in Alanya in 2018. A mother is standing in the aisle of a supermarket with her toddler daughter sitting next to her in a stroller. The mother is wondering what kind of drink she should buy for her picky daughter, addressing herself with an unresolvable question: (3) Elma suyu içer mi ki? “Would she drink apple juice?” (wonder and uncertainty) The mother is expressing some degree of doubt that the daughter would drink apple juice. The same utterance “Elma suyu içer mi ki?” in a hearer-addressed situation where the speaker knows the daughter’s preferences well could mean “Why are you offering her apple juice? There is no way she would drink apple juice.” Example (4) demonstrates how the usage of the indirective copula imiş (-ymIş) versus the mirative marker ki, can change the content of a regular Turkish polar question marked with the question particle mI. (4a) Ali Türk. “Ali is a Turk.” (4b) Ali Türk mü? “Is Ali a Turk?” (4c) Coca Cola’nın CEO’su Türk müymüş? [mI + imiş] “O wow, so the CEO of Coca-Cola is a Turk?” (surprise) (Context: This question is an entry heading in an online collaborative dictionary; followed by a user’s comment: normal bir soru. çünkü beklendik bir durum değil … “this is a normal question because that’s not something to be expected …”). (4d) Cengiz Han Türk mü ki? [mI + ki] “Why, is Genghis Khan even a Turk?” (doubt) (Context: On an Instagram account dedicated to the glorification of the Central Asian Turkic past, claims about the ideal leadership of Genghis Khan are made. In a comment a user asks the question above, and afterwards responds politely but unconvinced: Hmm teşekkürler “Hmm, thanks”).

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Anetshofer

(4e) Bunlar Türk mü ki biri yahudi biri ermeni [mI + ki] “(Why are you talking) as if they are Turks?! One is a Jew, and the other is an Armenian” (said pejoratively) (Context: On a Twitter account someone complains that no Turkish flag was displayed when two major Turkish politicians visited a foreign country. A user polemically comments on the two Turkish politicians). Neither of the formally interrogative sentences in (4c)–(4e) are informationseeking questions to a specific addressee. While the indirective copula imiş in (4c) is used in its mirative function, expressing surprise over newly learned unexpected information; the mirative ki’s in (4d) and (4e) represent a high emotional involvement of the speaker, and add different degrees of uncertainty and doubt. In (4d) the user is actually saying “I didn’t know that Genghis Khan was a Turk,” or “I don’t think that Genghis Khan is a Turk,” etc. Example (5) shows how the Persian conjunctor ki could merge with the Turkish mirative ki in the mind of the speakers. The Persian conjunctor or general complementizer ki (‫��ه‬ ‫ ) ك‬is not a sentence-final particle in Persian or Ottoman. Its basic function is to conjoin two clauses in various semantic relations (or to join a modifying clause to a head nominal). Many of these Persian structures are still used in modern Turkish albeit in more or less adapted ways. However, Persian ki has undergone a (not yet sufficiently explained) diachronic development within the Anatolian Turkish system, and can in Modern Turkish occupy the position of a sentence-final particle. See the Persian conjunctor ki, regularly conjoining two clauses in (5a), and – due to the suppression of the second clause – in sentence-final position, creating an exclamation (5b). (5a) O kadar güldük ki, gözlerimizden yaş geldi. “We laughed so much (that) tears came from our eyes.” (5b) O kadar güldük ki! “We laughed SO much!” This sentence-final usage of Persian ki is a still poorly studied Turkish-internal development. Several prominent scholars have explained the structure in (5b) as an elliptic variant of the linked Persian-type sentences in which the second clause is elided.13 However, many scholars still regard this ki as identical with 13

Muharrem Ergin, Türk Dil Bilgisi (İstanbul: Bayrak Basım / Yayım / Tanıtım, 171988), 341; Éva Á. Csató and Lars Johanson, “Turkish,” in The Turkic Languages, eds. Lars Johanson

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

21

the mirative Turkish ki in interrogative sentences, and the two are commonly treated together in grammars of modern Turkish – which may be reasonable from a synchronic perspective.14 2

Orthography and Morpho-Syntax of the Old Anatolian Turkish Form iki

In my OAT material of 56 instances15 the mirative particle occurs rarely in its free form iki, but rather in its bound form -(y)iki. (see Table 1). Table 1.1

1 1

Spelling variants in 56 instances of iki / -(y)iki

‫ِاِكى‬

‫��ه‬ ‫يا� �ك‬

Free form iki

Bound form -(y)iki 33 20 1

‫�ـ �ـ �ـ ِكى‬

‫��ه‬ ‫�ـ �ـ �ـ ِك‬ ‫�ـ �ـ �ـ ِك‬

The spellings with appear to be modelled on the Persian conjunctor ki ‫��ه‬ ‫ك‬, since a final sound -i is not represented by an otherwise.16 Especially the ‫��ه‬ ‫ ِك‬spellings of the mirative particle have often been misread and misinterpreted in editions of OAT texts. However, even my limited OAT data has

and Éva Á. Csató (London; New York: Routledge, 1998), 203–35, here 229; Andreas Tietze, Tarihî ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati, vol. 4, ed. Semih Tezcan (Ankara: TÜBA Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi, 2016), 306–7, lemma “ki IX”. 14 E.g. under the heading “Adversative Conjunctions” Göksel and Kerslake call the Turkish pragmatic markers ki and ya “adversative connectives,” that “challenge the previous statement or question, or the presupposition of the previous speaker.” The adversative connective ki is said to occur in “negative statements and in questions,” but no example of ki in questions is provided (Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake, Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar (London; New York: Routledge, 2005), 519, 522–23). 15 This number includes frequent recurrent forms (e.g. 22 times ne iki/neyiki) and manuscript variants. 16 It also has to be mentioned that in OAT the Pe. conjunctor ‫��ه‬ ‫ ك‬ki is often replaced by Tu. ‫ك‬ kim; and, albeit rarely, the Pe. ‫��ه‬ ‫ ك‬ki is spelled ‫ كى‬ki.

‫م‬

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Anetshofer

cases where it is debatable whether the Turkish mirative particle iki or the Persian ki was intended.17 One of the two examples that display the free form iki is ‫��ه‬ twenty times in the ‫ ن��ه يا� �ك‬ne iki, “What IS this?” The same phrase َ َ appears َ َ َ bound form neyiki in five spelling variants (‫��ه‬ ‫ ن��ه ي� ك‬, ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن�ي� ك‬, ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن�اي� ك‬, ‫�ى‬ ‫) ن�ا ي�ي�ِ ك‬. The ‫ ن�ي� ِ�ك‬, ‫�ى‬

ِ

َْ

ِِ

ِِ

ِِ

ِ

variant neyki (‫�ى‬ ‫ ) ن�ي�ِ ك‬which occurs in a verse is motivated by the meter (which

requires two instead of three syllables).18 When the form iki is bound to words ending in a consonant, usually, only vocalized manuscripts explicitly show the reading -iki versus *-ki, a fact that also caused misreadings in OAT texts. Examples for bound -iki spellings from 15th century manuscript copies are: َ َ a) -iki attached to nominals: ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه ح�اِ�لِ ك‬ne ḥāliki “What (the hell) is going on?!”

َ‫َ ُ ْ ت‬

َ‫َ ُ ْ ت‬

‫ ن��ه �ك‬and ‫��ه‬ ‫( ن��ه �ك‬where an inserted clarifies the (example 10); ‫�ى‬ ‫�����س���ا ِ�خ ِ ك‬ ‫�����س���ا خِ�ي�� ِ�ك‬ reading -iki) ne küstāḫiki/küstāḫiki “What impertinent person is this (I wonَ‫َ َ ق‬ der)?!” (FBŞ (B) 48b, FBŞ (L) 69a, FBŞ (H) 42a); ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه �م�����ا �ِمِ ك‬ne maḳāmiki “What place is THIS?!” (example 9); the unvocalized phrase ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه �م�ا �ه ك‬ne māh[i]ki “What kind of moon is this (i.e. the cheeks of the beloved)?!” appears in poetry, as part of a wordplay (cinās) with iki “two,” and is thus confirmed to be read as ne māhiki (AP); and b) -iki attached to a 1st person imperative (voluntaَ tive) predicate: ‫�ى‬ ‫ نِ��د ي�ِن� ك‬nėdeyiniki “(God,) what am I supposed to do (now)?” ِِ (example 8).

17

Tangrı taʿālā kitābında uşbu āyeti

18

ْ ُ َ ‫ُ ُق‬ ‫��ه‬ ‫ ا �و�م�دڭ ِك‬oḳumaduñmı ki wa-man yaʿšu ʿan ḏikri ‫ِم‬

See the following example which, after some thought, I discarded from my OAT iki data: r-raḥmāni … [Q 43:36]. Maʿnāsı budur ki tangrı taʿālā aydur … “Did you not read this verse here in God’s book: wa-man … Its meaning is: God says: …” (YH, 204). The ki in oḳumaduñmı ki is not the sentence-final mirative particle iki but the Persian conjunctor which introduces the verse in the meaning of “that is/which is” or a colon. Even though my data is too small in polar questions with iki to be decisive, it is noteworthy that there is no example with a second person predicate. Sporadic occurences of neyki besides neyiki, and double vocalizations in the same word (thus, readable as neyiki or neyki) in 15th century manuscripts show that the process of syncopating the first vowel of iki, in its bound form, was already underway. Neyiki is not a lexical item, nevertheless  – since it is the most frequently encountered bound form of iki  – it was included as an entry with the definiton “why, (I wonder) why (is this)” in some glossaries of OAT text editions or data bases (e.g. Türk Edebiyatı Bağlamlı Dizin ve İşlevsel Sözlük, ed. İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak, URL: http://www.tebdiz.com/ (accessed on 1 September 2020): neyiki, “neden, hangi sebepten”; Özkan Ciğa, Süheyl ü Nev-bahâr (Metin-Aktarma, Art Zamanlı Anlam Değişmeleri, Dizin), Unpublished Graduate (Yüksek lisans) thesis (Diyarbakır, 2013): neyiki and neyki, “acaba neden, nedendir”).

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

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OAT iki is the regular development of OT erki. However, OT erki itself is not entirely morphologically transparent. The first part er- is apparently the regular OT copular verb er- “to be” which is freely used with various finite and non-finite verbal suffixes in Old Turkic,19 but remains – as the defective verbal stem *i- – only in certain OAT (and later Turkish) copular particles or forms. For the opaque deverbal suffix -ki (in OT erki) there is no generally accepted conclusive etymology. Erdal proposed to derive the particle erki from a newly described nominal suffix -gI, and called erki “an idiosyncratic fusion[s] already at an early date” at the same time.20 Table 1.2 demonstrates 1) how OT erki > OAT iki fits into the regular development of certain OT er- forms into OAT *iforms, and 2) how the palatal glide -y- is regularly inserted in all forms of this group when bound to a word ending in a vowel.21

19 Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, 322. 20 Erdal, Old Turkic Word Formation, 321–22. See also Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, 120–21, 350. The proposals by Röhrborn and Karakoç are unconvincing (Röhrborn, “Zur Etymologie;” Karakoç, “Mutmaßungen,” 163). Schönig analyzes the “modal” Chaghatay form ėkin (OAT iki), which is used in declarative and interrogative sentences in a “präsumptivdubitativ” function, within his large chapter “Perspektivische Einheiten”, i.e. verbal finite forms and copular forms that signal the ideas past-terminal versus intra-terminal and directive versus indirective. However, he asserts that ėkin, albeit derived from er- “to be”, is to be called a particle rather than a copular form (Claus Schönig, Finite Prädikationen und Textstruktur im Babur-name: (Haiderabad-Kodex) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 351–55). 21 In Old Anatolian Turkish the palatal glide is also regularly inserted when the postpositions ile “with” and içün “for” are cliticized to a word ending in a vowel, resulting in the

َ ُ ‫ُ ْ ُ ْ ِي‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ ك‬göñliyiçün “for his heart, -(y)çün (> Turkish için, without a bound variant), e.g. �‫�و‬ � ‫�و‬ ‫كِ�لِ��ي�� چ‬

bound OAT forms -(y)IlA (> Turkish -(y)lA), e.g. ‫ ��سو�لا‬suyıla “with water,” and -(y)içün/

i.e. in order to please him.”

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Table 1.2

Old Anatolian Turkish *i- forms

Old Turkic Old Anatolian Turkish

Turkish

free

bound

free

bound

erdi

idi

-(y)IdI

idi

-(y)dI

past copula

ermiş

imiş

-(y)ImIş

imiş

-(y)mIş

indirective copula

erse

ise

-(y)IsA

ise

-(y)sA

erdöki/ ertökia

idügi

-(y)IdUGIb

–

erken

iken

-(y)iken

iken

erki

iki

-(y)iki

ki

conditional copula copular verbal noun + possessive suffix temporal converbial mirative particle

-(y)ken

a In Old Uigur, object complement clauses are attested with both the perfect participle form -mIş and the perfect participle form -dOk (er-miş-i and er-dök-i/er-tök-i both mean “his/her being”); e.g. esenin [e]d[gün] erdökin ėšidip “hearing that he is well” (Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, 452–54), and kök kalıkta yapşınu asılu ermişin  … “[one must imagine that … musical instruments] are suspended in the ether” (Röhrborn, Uigurisches Wörterbuch, I: Verben. Band 1: ab- – äzüglä- (2010), Spalte 88, “asıl- (II)”, URL: https://woerterbuchnetz .de/?sigle=UWB&bookref=1,88,15#0 (accessed on 1 September 2020). I am indebted to Peter Zieme for this reference. b This form is lesser known among the group, it was replaced by olduġu in Classical Ottoman

َ‫نج‬

� and subsequently Modern Turkish. Here are two OAT examples: Daḫı beyān ėdüñ, ṣıfatın ‫��ه‬

ِ ‫ُ ن‬ � ‫ك‬ ‫�د‬ nėceyidügini söyleñ! “Tell me more, tell me about her character, what kind of person � � ‫يِ ِِى‬ she is (lit., how she is)!” (FBŞ (B) 199a). Aña ḫod bundań evvel bennādań ḫaber gelmişidi, َ ‫�َ ش ْ َ ُ �غ‬ ‫خُ ش ُ غ‬ � ‫ه‬ � ‫ا‬ ‫�د‬ ‫د‬ �� �� � ‫ كو ِ ير يِ ِى‬Gevāşīrdayıduġı, köşk yapduġı, pādişāh ḳatında ‫ �و�ِ���دِ��ى‬ḫoşıduġı maʿlūm

olmışdı “She had already earlier received news from the architect, so she knew already that he was in Gavashir, that he had built a palace and that he was well liked by the Padishah” (FBŞ (B) 21b).

It has to be noted that the Ottoman dictionary Redhouse 1890 cites the form ikin for our mirative iki: “T[urkish] �‫�� ن‬ ‫ يا� ك‬ikin interj. Eh! (Follows the question.) ‫�� ن‬ �‫[ ا و�لورمى يا� ك‬olurmu ikin] Will it do? Eh!”22 Redhouse’s source is unknown, and 22

James Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon (Constantinople: Printed for the American mission by A.H. Boyajian, 1890).

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

25

the entry was removed in the new Redhouse 1968 edition.23 In the Turkish dialect material that Giese collected from the Konya Province in the early 20th century, he notes the phrase bu ne iken “What (the hell) is that?” in a fairy tale told by an informant from Beyşehir.24 Giese himself points out that the speaker also consistantly uses kin for standard (Persian) ki (O memleketda bir Yāhūdi varımış, üryasında demişlerkin … “In that city [İzmir] there was a Jew. In his dream they have told him that …”).25 The Anatolian Turkish dialectal variants ikin and iken are not attested in OAT sources.26 As mentioned, the glide -y- is inserted when the mirative particle iki is bound to a word that ends in a vowel. My data has examples with the question words َ‫ن� ج‬ �, ne and nėce, and the nominal nesne: neyikiَ “What IS this?!”, nėceyiki (‫�ى‬ ‫��اي� ك‬ ِ ‫ِي‬ َ ‫ن‬ ْ َ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ِ ‫ن‬ �‫“ ) �ي‬HOW is this?!”, ne nesneyiki ( � ‫��ه ي�ي� ك‬ ‫�ى‬ ‫“ ) ��ه ���س��ي� كى‬What thing is this?!”.27 ‫ج‬

ِِ

However, the -y- glide is not observed in the following combinations: 1) mI + iki > mIki, when the particle iki is combined with the question particle mI in polar questions the combination results in mIki (‫��ه‬ ‫�ِمِ ك‬, �‫ك‬ ‫�ِم ِ�ك‬, ‫�ى‬ ِ �‫�ِم‬, ‫مى ي‬, ‫ك‬ � � � � ‫م‬ � �� ‫م‬ � �� ‫�ه‬ ) – the question particle mI is usually cliticized in OAT spell, , � �� ‫م‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ي ى ي ِ يِى‬ ing (note that Uzbek has the parallel form -mikin).28 My data has the following examples: mIki attached to a nominal predicate (or adverb) in nominal َْ ُ َْ ُ sentences: ‫��ه‬ ‫�و�ي�ل�ِمِ ك‬,‫ك� ب‬ ‫�و�ي�ل�ِم ِ�ك‬,‫�ى ب‬ ‫ ب�و�ي�ل�مى ي‬böylemiki [böyle-mi-ki] “Is he … like that

َ‫ج‬

ُ

(I wonder)?”, ‫ك‬ ‫ ب�و ِا ِك ِ�ڭ‬bu iki gėcemiki [gėce-mi-ki] “Is he [… like that …] ِ �‫���ي����ه �ِم‬ in these two nights (I wonder)?” (example 13); mIki attached to a 3rd person ٰ َْ َ aorist -(V)r predicate: ‫�ى‬ ‫ي�ا ر ر�ِمي�� ك‬, ‫��ه‬ ‫ ي�را ر�مي�� �ك‬yararmıki ol? [yarar-mı-ki] (the subject ِ of the interrogative sentence, ol “she”, is in a non-standard position, following the predicate + sentence-final mirative ki) “Is she suitable … (I wonder)?”

23

James Redhouse, Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük = New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary, ed. by U. Bahadır Alkım, Sofi Huri, Andreas Tietze et al. (İstanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi, 1968). 24 Friedrich Giese, Materialien zur Kenntnis des anatolischen Türkisch: Erzählungen und Lieder aus dem Vilajet Qonjah, gesammelt, in Transkription, mit Anmerkungen und einer Übersetzung der Lieder herausgegeben (Halle a. S.: R. Haupt, 1907), 28. 25 Giese, Materialien, 27. 26 Demirtaş cites various Turkish dialectal variants like mikin, mikine, neyikin, etc. from Kütahya and Uşak; however, his article also contains many examples that do not feature the Turkish mirative ki, but Persian ki (Ahmet Demirtaş, “Şüphe ve Tereddüt Bildiren ki Edatının Türkiye Türkçesi Ağızlarındaki Kullanımları Üzerine,” in 7. Uluslararası Dünya Dili Türkçe Sempozyumu Bildirileri: Fırat Üniversitesi/Elazığ, 16–18 Ekim 2014, eds. Ahmet Buran et al. (Elazığ: Fırat Üniversitesi, 2015). In Khorezmian Turkic the variant erkin is attested alongside regular erki (Merhan, “Özbekçede mikin İlgeci,” 209). َ ْ َ‫َ ن‬ 27 Manuscript variants also have the following spellings: the free form in ne nesne iki ‫ن��ه �����سن���ه‬

َ ْ َ‫َ ن‬ ‫ ن��ه �����سن���ا ِك‬. ‫ ;ِاِكى‬and irregular or progressive ne nesne ki ‫��ه‬

28 Kleinmichel, “Zu экан und -кин im Usbekischen,” 105; Merhan, “Özbekçede mikin İlgeci.”

26

Anetshofer

َْ ُ

(example 15); mIki attached to a 1st person optative -(y)Am predicate: ‫�ى‬ ‫�و�ل�م �ِمِ ك‬,‫ب‬ ٰ ‫ ب�ولا �مي�� ك‬bulam miki “Will I (ever) find [his mercy]?” (example 12). ‫�ى‬ ‫م‬ For the purpose of topicalization OAT mIki can also be separated, as in modern Turkish. In one OAT example the question particle mI is moved from the post-predicate position to another part of the sentence in order to emphasize what is specifically being asked about, while the mirative particle iki remains َُ َ َ ْ ‫�َ � م َ ُل‬ �‫د �م ك‬, ‫ك‬ � �‫��ا ك‬ in the post-predicate position: ‫ك�لوركى‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ د م ڭ‬dėmegemi gelürki “Is � � ِ ‫ِ ِي� رِ ي� ِ ِم‬ he coming o tell me (I wonder)?” (The speaker is not questioning if the other person is coming or not, which gelürmiki would indicate; he has seen the other person coming and wonders if he will tell him something or do something else, example 14).29 It is also noteworthy that the 3rd person aorist -(V)r predicate gelür is followed by -ki and not iki in this instance. Since we do not have any other example for aorist + iki we cannot draw any conclusions from this. 2) -dI + iki > -dIki (and -dIyiki), the combination of iki with the 3rd person past tense suffix -dI only occurs in five variants of noldıki/oldıki in my data, four of those have -dıki (‫��ه‬ ‫) ِدي� ك‬. Note that ‫)ِد ِك‬, one manuscript copy has -dıyiki (‫�ى‬

ِِ

Kleinmichel also mentions the spelling variants -diykin and -dikin for Uzbek.30 ْ ُ‫ن‬ ُْ ْ ُ‫ن‬ The examples in my data are: ‫��ه‬ ‫�و�ل ِ�د ِك‬, ‫��ه‬ ‫ ن��ل ِ�د ِك‬, ْ‫��ه‬ ‫ �و�ل ِ�د ِك‬noldıki “(I wonder) what hapْ ُ ‫�د‬ pened? Whatever happened?” (FBŞ (B) 24a, FBŞ (L) 34b, FBŞ (H) 22a); ‫��ه‬ ‫ك‬ ِ ِ ‫ا و�ل‬, ْ ُ ‫ ا و�ل ِ�دي� ك‬neden melūl oldıki/oldıyiki “Why is she sad (I wonder)?” (example 7). ‫�ى‬ ِِ The syntactic patterns ʿacab neyiki, hay neyiki, yā Rab neyiki: On the sentential level, OAT iki frequently combines with the sentence-initial particle of wonder ʿacab resulting in the syntactic pattern ʿacab + question word/question particle mI + iki.31 A little more than half of all examples have ʿacab, e.g. ʿAcab bu ne nesne iki? “(How strange/I wonder), what is THAT thing?”, uttered by a pleasantly surprised young girl, who has never seen another human before, at the sight of a beautiful young boy (example 6). In OAT ʿacab could also be interpreted as an exclamation “How strange!” rather than a lexicalized particle. Note that, only in verse, we find twice the variant ėy ʿacab “Oh, (how) strange!” with the vocative particle ėy, e.g. ėy ʿacab bundan ḫaber 29

A Khorezmian Turkic example from Ḳuṭb’s Ḫusrev ü Şīrīn with similar structure is cited in Merhan, “Özbekçede mikin İlgeci,” 208: ġalaṭ mu kördüm erki … “Could I have seen this wrong?”. This example has the exact Turkish equivalent yanlış mı gördüm ki?. 30 Kleinmichel, “Zu экан und -кин im Usbekischen,” 106. 31 ʿAcab is an Arabic noun meaning “wonder; i.e. a deeming strange, extraordinary, or improbable, etc.,” classical Arabic also has the phrase yā li-l-ʿajab “oh case of wonder!”, involving the vocative particle yā. In classical Ottoman the adverbial Ar. form ʿacabā replaced OAT ʿacab in the function of a particle of wonder, acaba is also the form that is used in Modern Turkish.

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

27

nėceyiki “(I wonder) what does this tell us?” (FN (B) 128a, FN (K) line 2997). ʿAcab does not add semantic content to iki-utterances but merely emphasizes the sense of wonder. Some manuscript copies have the variants bu neyiki versus ʿacab bu neyiki in the same passages. My material does suggest, though, that ʿacab is not used when the surprise over an unexpected encounter provokes overwhelmingly negative feelings such as shock, disgust, or fear. Two more combinations of iki with an interjection and an exclamation are attested: iki with the Turkish interjection hay “Hey!, Oh!, Ah!”, hay + question word + iki, e.g. hay ne iki “Hey, what is THAT?” (in the only original Turkish source, the epic romance Ṣalṭuḳnāme);32 and iki with the exclamation yā Rab, lit. “Oh God!”, yā Rab + question word + iki. In an OAT gazel (lyrical poem) the phrase yā Rab is used – far from being an invocation of God in prayer – as a lexicalized marker of intense emotion like astonishment, frustration or disbelief, just like modern Turkish aman ya Rabbi!, aman Allahım!, aman Tanrım!, or English “Oh my God! Gosh!” The poet-lover is addressing his absent beloved in the unresolvable question: Gözlerüñ ḳana şitāb ėtdügi yā Rab neyiki “Oh my God! Why are your (the beloved’s) eyes trying to shed my blood?!” (lit., What is it, oh God, that your eyes are rushing to (my) blood, HH 37b). 3

The Mirative Particle iki in Old Anatolian Turkish Narrative Contexts

Németh 1919, Çağatay 1963, Korkmaz 1968, Küçük 1987, and Tietze 2016 have made important contributions to the discovery and understanding of Old Anatolian Turkish iki.33 Németh and Tietze have supplied and/or discussed a small number of OAT examples from two narrative sources (FN, FBŞ), and Küçük from lyrical poetry from 15th and 16th century poets (AP, ʿAṭāʾī (ʿİvażpaşazāde 32 The dervish-warrior Ṣarı Ṣalṭıḳ is on an epic journey over the ocean to reach Mount Qaf. They land on what they believe to be an island but it turns out to be an enormous ocean turtle: Ol dem cezīre ḥarekete geldi, bir yanı ṣuya batdı. ‫��ه‬ ‫ �ه�ا �ى ن��ه اي� �ك‬Hay ne iki, dėyüb gelüb tėz gemiye bindiler. Cezīre bir uġurdan ṣuya revān oldı batdı gitdi “At that moment the island started to move, one side sank into the water. They said, ‘Hey, what is THAT?’, and quickly boarded the ship. The island submerged into the water altogether and was gone” (SN 65a). 33 Németh, “Das Feraḥ-nāme des Ibn Ḫaṭīb;” Çağatay, “Türkçede ki < erki;” Sabahattin Küçük, “Türkçede Şüphe Bildiren ki Edatı Üzerine,” Türk Dili 426, Haziran (1987): 367–72; Zeynep Korkmaz, “Türkiye Türkçesinin ki Bağlama ve Şüphe Edatları Arasındaki Yapı ve Görev Ayrılığı,” in Necati Lugal Armağanı (Türk Tarih Kurumu yayınlarından; seri 7, sayı 50), (Ankara: Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1968), 389–95. [Reprinted in Türk Dili Üzerine Araştırmalar, vol. 1 (Ankara: TDK Yayınları, 1995), 620–24]; Tietze, Tarihî ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati, vol. 4, 306–7, lemma “ki IX–X.”

28

Anetshofer

Aḫi Çelebī), ʿAmrī, et al.). Özkan 2007 points to Küçük’s important study, and three other studies34 that in total provide six iki-examples – all of them in wh-questions – from two narrative sources (FBŞ, SÜN), and concludes that the OAT “dubitative particle” (şüphe edatı) iki is “well-documented.”35 The commonly used name “dubitative particle” for OT erki and its continuations in the Turcological literature is probably owed to the pioneer of Turkic linguistics himself, Maḥmūd al-Kāşġarī, who in his encyclopedic lexicon of the Turkic dialects (probably completed in 1077) calls erki a “particle of doubt” َْ ُ ْ َ ُ (Ar. ḥarfu šakkin), furnished with the Karakhanid Turkic example ‫ا لك�ِلر �مو ا ركى‬ ِ ol kelir mü erki, translated as Ar. ʾa yaḥḍuru huwa am lā “Is he coming or not?”. Kāşġarī also says that erki “takes the place of an interrogative” (Ar. wa-huwa yanūbu manāba l-ʾistifhāmi) which is not exactly clear since erki certainly does not substitute a question word or the question particle mI. Maybe this was supposed to mean that erki only comes in interrogative sentences.36 Since my OAT iki-data are overwhelmingly wh-questions that occur in surprise contexts conveying “wonder, counter-expectation, uncertainty,” I chose to use the term “mirative.” My data has 24 separate contexts with questions with iki, only four of which are polar questions. The examples are drawn from several manuscript copies of five narrative sources from the 14th and 15th centuries, including prose and poetry, and two exemplary gazels (lyrical poems) from the 15th century. I did not generally include lyrical poetry in my corpus, since the wh-questions with iki in lyrical poetry are not spontaneous speech acts but set in a formal pattern of the poet-lover asking himself rhetorical or unresolvable questions about the cruel actions or dazzling appearance of his beloved. The narrative sources are broadly from the ḥikāye genre, i.e. tales, stories, anecdotes and epic or heroic romances that have engaging and adventurous plots with lively speech from daily life. Only one source is an original Turkish work (SN), all others are direct translations or adaptations from Persian

34 Kâmil Tiken, “Eski Anadolu Türkçesinde Edat ve Zarf-fiillerin Fonksiyonları,” (PhD diss., İstanbul Üniversitesi, 1993), 174–75; Korkmaz, “Türkiye Türkçesinin ki Bağlama ve Şüphe Edatları,” 394; Mustafa Koç, El-Ferecü Baʿdeʾş-Şidde, PhD diss., İstanbul Üniversitesi, 1998). 35 Mustafa Özkan, “Eski Türkiye Türkçesinde ki / kim Bağlaçlarının Kullanılışı Üzerine,” in IV. Uluslararası Türk Dili Kurultayı Bildirileri II (24–29 Eylül 2000) (Ankara: TDK Yayınları, 2007), 1405–16. 36 Compendium of the Turkic Dialects = Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk / Maḥmūd al-Kāšγarī, part 1, eds. Robert Dankoff, and James Kelly (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Printing Office, 1982), 57, ms. 77. Dîvânü lûgatiʾt-Türk: Tıpkıbasım = Facsimile / Kaşgarlı Mahmud (Kültür Bakanlığı yayınları; 1205: Klâsik eserler dizisi; 11) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1990), 77, fol. 39a.

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

29

(SÜN, FBŞ) or Arabic (YH, FN).37 Also, the imagery and ideas in lyrical poetry are generally modeled on Persian poetry. It still remains to be studied if certain lexical or grammatical items in the Persian or Arabic model texts might trigger the usage of iki in the OAT translations. 4

Surprise Contexts and Unresolvable Questions

Questions with the mirative particle iki generally do not have an addressee and do not prompt an answer. They express the speaker’s surprise, wondering, or counter-expectation about a certain issue. For various Turkic languages, these questions with forms of erki have been called rhetorical questions or self-addressed questions by scholars. They could also be called conjectural questions. Drawing on Celle’s research on expressing surprise and specifically surprise in questions,38 I adopted the term unresolvable questions. According to Celle, unresolvable questions imply that no resolution can be found, they are speaker-oriented, like exclamatory utterances; unlike rhetorical questions, the speaker does not know the answer to the question. 5

Surprise, Counterexpectation, and Wonder in Expressive wh-Questions with iki

My OAT material explicitly shows that iki in wh-questions occurs in contexts of surprise and wonder, and that there is no addressee, or rather that the speaker is addressing herself/himself. See examples (6)–(8) where the expressions of surprise and wonder, marked by iki, are introduced by phrases such as göñlinde eydür, “she says in her heart”, or gendözümde eyitdüm “I said to myself.” The narrative context also includes surprise lexemes which describe

37

Note that Ḫaṭīboġlı’s Feraḥ-nāme (1425–26), FN, is a versified adaptation of Ḍarīr’s Hundred Ḥadīth and Hundred Stories, (1394?), YH. 38 Agnès Celle et al., “Expressing and Describing Surprise,” in Expressing and Describing Surprise, eds. Agnès Celle and Laure Lansari (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2017), 215–44. Agnès Celle, “Questions as Indirect Speech Acts in Surprise Contexts,” in Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality: Crosslinguistic Perspectives, eds. Dalila Ayoun and Laure Lansari (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2018), 213–38. Agnès Celle, “Surprise in Storytelling,” in L’expression des sentiments: De l’analyse linguistique aux applications, eds. Raluca Nita and Freiderikos Valetopoulos (Rennes: PUR Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018), 227–48.

30

Anetshofer

surprise and wonder, whereas the mirative iki expresses surprise.39 The OAT surprise lexemes include derivations based on Ar. ʿacab, that is, ta‌ʿaccüb ėt- “to be baffled; to wonder”, ʿacabla- (+ acc) “to wonder about, to be mind-boggled about sth.”; ʿacabla- (intrans.), müteḥayyir ol- (based on the Ar. root ḥ-y-r), and Tu. dañla-, all meaning “to be surprised, perplexed, dazzled, bewildered”; the Persian-based phrase dil ü cānı be-hem ol-, lit. “one’s heart and soul get all mixed up” describes strong emotion and confusion. To describe that the speaker is witnessing something she/he has never seen or experienced before, the OAT verbal structure -dUGI yoḳ is often employed (e.g. gördügi yoḳ “she has never before seen”). (6) Nāgāh bu ḳız aşaġa baḳdı gördi bir şaḫṣ yatur ki anuñ gibi heykel gördügi yoḳ. Teʾemmülile gördi ki durdı oturdı, gördi ki durdı yüridi. Ta‌ʿaccüb ėtdi. Hem-cins-lik odı, yigitlik odı muḳtażāsı tañrınuñ ḳażāsına muvāfıḳ َ ْ َ‫َ ن‬ düşdi. Dil ü cānı be-hem oldı. ʿAcab bu ‫ ن��ه �����سن���ه ِاكى‬ne nesne iki, dėdi. ِ Zīrā ol yėrden ayruḳ yėr gördügi yoġıdı, Sīmurġı ana sanurdı. Ḳızuñ göñli şehzāde-dinyaña ḍalabıdı. (FBŞ (B) 195b)40 Suddenly the girl looked down [from the tree where she was sitting in her bird’s nest] and saw that someone was lying there, a figure that she had never seen before. She looked carefully and saw that he got up and sat down, and got up and walked. She was baffled. The fire stoked from seeing someone of the same species as her and the fire of youth necessarily turned out favorable for God’s decree [i.e. the union of the two]. Her heart and soul got confused. She said, Why, what (in the world) is that thing? 39 For the distinction between expression and description of surprise see Celle et al., “Expressing and Describing Surprise.” 40 The Hazai-Tietze edition erroneously reads ėki here (György Hazai and Andreas Tietze, Ferec baʿd eş-şidde = Freud nach Leid: ein frühosmanisches Geschichtenbuch (Berlin: K. Schwarz, 2006), vol. 1, 530). The manuscript copies FBŞ (H) 161b and FBŞ (L) 299b spell

َ‫نَ ْ ن‬ َ‫نَ ْ ن‬ ‫ ���س��ي� ك‬nesneyiki and ‫�ى‬ ‫ ���س��ي� ك‬nesneyiki respectively. A Persian original for the stories in FBŞ ‫�ى‬ ِِ ِِ

which predates the OAT translation has not been found, only later versions of some of the 42 stories are known. An anonymous Persian manuscript from Mashhad, dating from the 17th or 18th century, has this wording: ātash-i ʿishq u maḥabbat dar junbush āmad va tīz ʿishq bar dilash jāy girift va bā ḫud guft ki āyā īn chi chīz ast chun dukhtar har giz dukhtarī va pisarī ādamīzādī-rā na-dīda būd “The fire of love and affection was stirred up and love quickly took place in her heart, and she said to herself: “What is that thing?” Because the girl had never seen girls, boys, or any human beings before” (Roxane Haag-Higuchi, Untersuchungen zu einer Sammlung persischer Erzählungen: Č ihil wa-šiš ḥikāyat yā ǧāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1984), 543). OAT ʿacab bu ne nesne iki is a literal rendition of Pe. āyā īn chi chīz ast.

31

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

Because she had never seen a place other than that one. She thought the (bird) phoenix was her mother. Her heart beat wildly for him. (Context: The girl had been raised by the phoenix since birth and did not know that she was human and that there were other humans in the world. The motive for secluding her was to prevent the very encounter with the boy that is happening in the passage, when they are both 15 years old.) (7) Ammā cün ḫaber Bānūya Düstūra yėtişdi, zārī vü ġırīv ėtdiler. ʿAyş-ları münaġġaṣ oldı. Bānūnuñ ْmelāleti ḫaberini anasına dėdiler. Taʿaccüb ُ ėti, ʿAcab neden melūl ‫��ه‬ ‫ ا و�ل ِ�د ِك‬oldıki, dėdi. Zīrā Bānūnuñ ḥālinden āgāh degüldi. Durdı, Bānū ḳatına geldi, Bānūya dilḫoşlıḳ vėrdi. Ana eyle ṣanur ki bu er sevmez-idi, er adı cıḳduġına melūl oldı. Bilmedi ki Bānū bir kimseyile daḫı sarḫoşdur, gėce gündüz anuñıla ʿayşda-dur. (FBŞ (B) 237a)41 But when the news [of the wedding] reached Bānū and [her lover] Düstūr, they cried and wailed. Their life became miserable. Her mother was told that Bānū was sad. She was surprised and said: “(I wonder) why would she be sad?” Because she was not aware of Bānū’s situation. She got up, came to Bānū, and comforted her. The mother thought that she didn’t like men, and that she was sad because this was about getting a husband. She didn’t know that Bānū was drunk on her love with another man, and that she was enjoying herself with him day and night. (Context: Bānū’s mother is happily making preparations for her daughter’s wedding, arranged by Bānū’s father. She expects her to be excited about the wedding because she has no clue that Bānū loves another man.) (8) Urviyye dañlar, göñlinde eydür: Ne ʿacab. Üşbu gişi hīc evümde eski َ ḥaṣīr bıraġub oturduġı yoġıdı, dėr. Evrādum oḳımaġa māniʿ düşdi. ‫�ى‬ ‫نِ��د ي�ِن� ك‬

ِِ

Nėdeyiniki, dėr. Āḫir eyitdi: Ė yigit, ne coḳ oturduñ! Benüm vaẓīfelerüm vardur; teşvīş vėrme! İşüñ varısa, var gör; oturub neylersin, dėdi. (FBŞ (B) 174a)42 Urviyye was baffled and said in her heart: “How strange! This man has never before rolled out his mat and sat down in my house. He is keeping ْ ُ

ْ ُ

41 Hazai and Tietze (Ferec baʿd eş-şidde, vol. 1, 620) erroneoulsy transcribe oldıₒ ki here. FBŞ (H) 193a and FBŞ (L) 364b spell ‫�ى‬ ‫ ا و�ل ِ�د ي� ك‬oldıyiki and ‫��ه‬ ‫ ا و�ل ِ�د ِك‬oldıki respectively.

ِِ

َ

42 FBŞ manuscript variants: L 265b has ne ʿacabdur (B: ne ʿacab), ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه ي� ك‬neyiki “(I wonder)

ِِ

what is it?” (B: nėdeyiniki). H 146b has ʿacablar (B: dañlar), and nėdeyin without the mirative particle iki: Üşbu er evümde hīc eski ḥaṣīr bıraġub oturduġı yoġıdı. Bugün bu ne çoḳ oturdı, dėdi. Ben gerekdür ki virdlerümi oḳıyam. Bu baña māniʿ düşdi. Nėdeyin, dėdi.

32

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me from reciting my prayers. What am I supposed to do (now)?” Finally, she said: “Young lad, you have been here a while! I have duties to fulfill. Don’t make me uncomfortable! If you have got to do something, go and do it. Why would you be sitting around?” (Context: The chaste Urviyye has been entrusted to her brother-inlaw while her husband is traveling. The brother-in-law regularly stops by to bring her food and leaves right away, anything else would be inappropriate. That day he lingers around, with the intention to sexually assault her). In the following two stories, examples (9)–(10), a person finds himself in a place he has never seen or been before. At first, he is alone or thinks he is alone and wonders to himself what that place is, or what is happening, using the mirative particle iki. The man in (9) is wondering with neutral or even admiring curiosity, but the emotions of the man in (10) are anxiety and anger. Although formally interrogative utterances, the iki phrase is instead an exclamation in both cases. As soon as other people show up, the men ask them the same or a similar question as before – using the neutral copula -dur – in order to get information. (9) Gördi kim ol yörede bir yüce ḳaṣr var. Çīnī būlāddan ḳapusı var, muḥkem َ‫َ َ ق‬ berkinmiş. Yöre-sinde deyyār yoḳ. Bu ‫��ه‬ ‫ ن��ه �م�����ا �ِم ِ�ك‬ne maḳāmiki, dėdi. Bu endīşede-yiken bir gişi gördi kim yėr deberdür. Ḳatına vardı selām vėrdi, Bu ne maḳām-dur, dėdi. Ol gişi, Ġarībmisin, dėdi. Cūlāh eyitdi, Ġarībem. Ol gişi eyitdi, Bu ḳaṣrı ʿUmmān pādişāhı yapub-dur …, dėdi. (FBŞ (L) 118a)43 He saw that there was a lofty castle. It had a door made of Chinese steal, that was tightly closed. No one was around. He said: “(Wow,) what place is this?!” While pondering this he saw a man tilling the soil. He went over to him, greeted him and said: “What place is this?” The man said: “Are you not from here?” The weaver said: “No, I am not from here.” The man said: “The padishah of Oman has built this castle.”

43 FBŞ manuscript variant – H 69b with the ʿacab … iki pattern: Gördiَ‫َ ق‬anda َ bir yüce ḳaṣr var. Çīnī pūlāddan ḳapusı var. Yöresinde kimse görmedi. ʿAcab bu ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه �م�����ا �ِمِ ك‬ne maḳāmiki, dėdi. Bu endīşedeyiken bir gişi gördi, ḍopraḳ deberdür. Ḳatına vardı, selām vėrdi. Ol şaḫṣ cevāb vėrdi. Cūlāh ṣordı ki, Bu ne ḳaṣr-dur, dėdi. Olgişi eyitdi, Bu ḳaṣrı bunda ʿUmmān pādişāhı yapmışdur …, dėdi. (The story is missing in B).

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

33

(10) Zen-i bennā vu kenīzek-ü ḫidmetkār vezīr-i sivümi ol miḥnet-ābāda bıraḳdılar ve ḳapuyı muḥkem َ َ‫ن‬baġladılar, döndiler. Cün ṣabāḥ oldı, gen� dözini ol ḥālde gördi. ‫�ى‬ ‫ ��ه ح�اِلِ ك‬Ne ḥāliki, dėyü gümürdendi. Bucaḳdan baḳan yārenler baḳdılar, yoldaşlarını bildiler, ḳatında geldiler. Bu ne maḳāmdur, dėdi. Aḥvālı aña bildürdiler. Dilteng oldı. (FBŞ (B) 25b)44 The architect’s wife, the slave girl and the servant put the [drugged] third vizier in that miserable [underground] room, locked the door tightly, and went back. When morning came, he found himself in that situation. “What (the hell) is going on?!”, he muttered to himself in anger.45 The friends that were peeking from the corner of the room took a closer look, recognized their companion, and came to him. He said: “What place is this?” They told him what had happened to them. He became distressed. The passage in example (11) shows how the mirative particle iki and the indirective copula imiş are used correspondingly in the same context of counter-expectation or unpreparedness of the mind. A qadi (judge) who is a womanizer is tricked into marrying a grotesquely hideous girl instead of the young beauty that he was presented before. When he discovers the hideous bride, he exclaims in shock and disgust “What (the hell) is that?!” using the expressive mirative ki, unable to make sense of what he is looking at. On closer inspection he recognizes certain body parts – the narrator of the third-person narrative describes this acknowledgement using the indirective copula imiş (“(it turns out) or (apparently), it was  …”), which carries no connotation of surprise here. (11) Andan ilerü geldi, maḥafa yüzindeń bir şuḳḳa götürdi. Gördi ki َ‫ ن‬bir yumruḳ ḳadar deriye dolanmış kemük yatur. Bu ‫�ى‬ ‫ �ي� ك‬neyiki,46 dėdi. Gördi başımış.

ِِ

َ َ

44 FBŞ manuscript variants – L 36a: … ‫��ه‬ ‫ ن��ه ح�اِ�ل ِ�ك‬Ne ḥāliki [the is vocalized both with َ aَ kasra, i.e. ḥāliki, and a sukūn, i.e. ḥālki] … Bu maḳām ne maḳām-dur … H 23a: … ‫�ى‬ ‫ن��ه ح�اِ�لِ ك‬ Ne ḥāliki … Bu ne maḳām-dur. FBŞ ms. Ankara, Türk Dil Kurumu Kütüphanesi, Yazmalar Bölümü, nu: A 64, B 17: Vezir-i süvüm gendözini ol halde gördi. Ne hal ola, deyü gümrendi (see TarS = XIII. Yüzyıldan Beri Türkiye Türkçesiyle Yazılmış Kitaplardan Toplanan Tanıklariyle Tarama Sözlüǧü (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1963–1977) URL: https://sozluk.gov.tr/?kelime= (accessed on 1 September 2020), (lemma “gümürdenmek”). 45 The reflexive suffix -(I)n- in the OAT onomatopoeic verb gümürden- attests that his utterance is self-directed. TarS gives the variants gümürdenmek, (gümürdemek, gümrenmek, gümremek) with the meaning “homurdanmak” (to grumble, murmur, mutter, growl); one reference is to the early 16th Persian-Turkish dictionary Şāmil al-luġat, where gümürdenmek translates Pe. dandīdan, to mutter to oneself in anger; to boil with rage. 46 Between and is both a kasra and a sukūn, thus readable as neyiki or neyki.

34

Anetshofer

Bir ürülmiş yiyir ḳoḳar tulum yatur. َ Bu ‫�ى‬ ‫ ن��ه ي� ك‬ne-yiki, dėdi. Gördi ḳarınmış. ِِ Bir aşaġa gecmiş dam bacası gibi delük gördi. [question missing here] Gözimiş. (FBŞ (B) 16b)47 Then he [the fooled qadi] stepped forward and lifted a piece of the cloth that covered the camel-litter [to get a first glance at his bride]. He saw there was a bone that was wrapped into a fist-sized piece of skin. He said: “What (the hell) is that?!” (Then) he saw it was a head. There was a bloated smelly stinky skin-bag. He said: “What (the hell) is that?!” (Then) he saw it was a belly. He saw a hole that looked like a collapsed chimneystack. That was an eye. 6

Wonder, Uncertainty and Doubt in Polar Questions with iki

Examples for the particle iki in yes-no or polar questions are much less frequent in my OAT material. My data has only four examples in two sources. However, the structure is as much alive and in use in Modern Turkish as the wh-questions with ki. Three of the four examples are self-addressed questions of the pattern ʿacab … mIki, and the primary meaning is wonder about a matter or circumstance that cannot be known by the speaker (or anyone else). Surprise and counter-expectation play a secondary role in the polar questions with iki, as in examples (13) and (14), or no role at all, as in examples (12) and (15). Example (15) is the only OAT example that clearly demonstrates the dubitative meaning of the particle ki, as Kāşġarī’s example for Karakhanid Turkic did and as it is frequently used in Modern Turkish. Example (15), from a story of Ḫaṭīboġlı’s rhymed Hundred Hadith collection, Feraḥ-nāme, is also the only example that has an addressee, the prophet Muhammad, who responds to the question the speaker raises in wonder and doubt.

47 FBŞ manuscript variants – L 24a: … Bu neyiki, dėdi. ُ Gördiki başımış. (Note that the spelling

َ ِ

ْ َ‫ن‬ ing here] Gördiki ḳarınmış. … Bu ‫��ه‬ ‫ �ي� ِ�ك‬neyiki, dėdi. Gördi gözimiş. H 16a: Gördi ki üstuḫwān ِ

‫ ك‬gördiki is identical). … [question missof the final syllable /ki/ in ‫��ه‬ ‫ ن�ي� ِ�ك‬neyiki and ‫��ه‬ ‫�ور ِد ي� ِ�ك‬

pāre yatur yumruḳ ḳadarı deri pāresine ḍolanmış, [question missing here] yaʿnī başımış. Bir yėl ḍolmış tulum, [question missing here] yaʿnī ḳarınımış. Bir ḍam bacası gibi aşaġa geçmiş delük, yaʿnī gözimiş. The Pe. Mashhad manuscript has a different discourse structure here, but at the end, there is the corresponding question to Tu. bu neyiki: ḳāżī chun ān shakl u haybat ba-dīd ba-tarsīda va guft: āyā īn chi nauʿ ast “When the qadi saw this frightful creature he was scared and said: What kind of creature is this?! ”.

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

ٰ

35

(12) Ėy ḫudādan raḥmetin ḳılan ṭaleb / Raḥmetin ‫�ى‬ ‫ ب�ولا �مي�� ك‬bulam miki ‫م‬ dėyen ʿacab. Gey saḳın raḥmete münkir olmaġıl / Ġaflete maġrūr oluban ḍalmaġıl. Raḥmetinden kesme ümidüñ ėy kibār / Gendözüñ ḳıl zinhāra ümīd-vār. (FN (K) line 4305)48 Oh (you), who are asking God for his mercy / Who are saying: “I wonder, will I (ever) find his mercy?” Beware, do not repudiate (his) mercy / Don’t get haughty and be careless! O great men, don’t give up hope on his mercy / Truly, keep up your hopes!

َْ ُ

(13) Ben ayıtdum, ‫ ب�و�ي�ل�ِم ِ�ك‬böylemikĭ yoḫsa ancaḳ َ‫ج‬ ُʿAcab dāyım bu gişi ‫��ه‬ ‫ ب�و ِا ِك ِ�ڭ‬bu iki gėce-miki, dėdüm. Gözedeyin, göreyin, dėdüm. ‫ك‬ ِ �‫���ي����ه �ِم‬ (YH p. 238, fol. 101a)49 I said: “I wonder, is this person always like that, or has he just been (like that) for these past two nights? Let me watch him and see.” (Context: A man has observed Ebū Ḥanīfe for two days and two nights, in which Ebū Ḥanīfe has been teaching in the Masjid from dawn until dusk and praying all night.) (14) Sulṭān eyitdi, Ḫoca Ḥasan bu düşüñ taʿbīri nedür, dėdi. Ḫoca Ḥasan-ı Meymendī eymendi eyitdi, Şāh-ı ʿālem buyursun: düşde vėrdügümüzi uyanuḳlıḳda daḫı vėrelüm, dėdi. Buyurdı, vėrdi. Alub biraz yėr gitdüginُ ْ َ‫�َج‬ َ ُ ُ َ َ‫ن‬ ‫ع‬ �‫� د ْو ش�����نْ���دًا ���ْ��سن�����مِى ا ون�تْ� ِ�د �ى ِد �َم ك‬ den ṣoñra gėrü döndi. Sulṭān eyitdi, ‫��ا‬ ‫�� ب‬ ِ

‫ِم‬ َُ ‫ك‬ ‫�ل‬ ʿAcab düşindeń nesnemi unutdı dėmegemi gelürki, dėdi. (FBŞ ‫ك‬ � ‫ورِى‬

(B) 233a)50 The Sultan [Maḥmūd of Ghazna] said, “What is the interpretation of this dream?” [His vizier] Khoja Ḥasan Maymandī felt uneasy and said: “The King of the World should say: Let’s give him what we gave him in his dream when he is awake also!” He (the sultan) ordered it and gave [the trickster the money and gifts he allegedly received from the sultan in his َْ ُ

48 FN manuscript variant – B 184a: ‫�ى‬ ‫ ب�و�ل�م�ِمِ ك‬bulam miki. 49 Corresponding passage in FN manuscript variants – B 220a: Ben dėdüm kim, Ėy ʿacab işbu

َْ ُ ِ‫ي‬

gişi / Dāyimā ‫�ى‬ ‫ ب�و��ل�ِم ك‬böylemiki bunda işi “I said: I wonder, is that what this person always does here?”. K line no. 5155: … / Dāyimā �‫ ب�و��ل�مى ك‬böylemi-ki bunuñ işi “I said: I wonder, is

‫ي‬

‫ي‬

َ‫َج‬ ‫ �ع ْ ُ ش نْ َ نْ نَ ْ نَ ُ نُت‬ʿAcab �‫�� ب� د ِ��������د � �����س�����ِمي� ا و�� ِ�د �ي‬ ْ َ‫�َعج‬ düşindeń nesnemi unutdı dėmegemi gelürki. H 190a without the mirative particle ki: �‫�� ب‬ ْ ُ َ ‫نَ ْ نَ اُ ن�تْ ُ �شْ َ نْ �َم ك‬ � ‫ �����س�����مِى ِ� ِ�د د ���د � ِد‬ʿAcab nesnemi unıtdı düşden dėmegemi gelür. ‫�مِىك�لر‬

this what this person is always doing?”. ُ َ ْ �‫ِد �َم ڭ‬ 50 FBŞ manuscript variants – L 358a: �‫��ا م�ك�لرك‬

‫ِي‬

‫ِي‬

36

Anetshofer

dream]. The man took it and after he had gone a short distance he came back. The sultan said: “I wonder, did he forget some part of his dream and is he (now) coming back to tell me about it?” (15) Bir gişi geldi resūle dėr ḫaber / Yā resūlallāh ėy şāh-ı muʿteber. ‫خ‬ �) / Līkin oġlan eyleBir nisā buldum aṣīl hem ḥüsni ḫūb (ms. �‫ح����س ن� �و ب‬ mez dėrler üşüb. ٰ Ne buyurursız ḳılayınmı ḳabūl / ʿAvrat ėdinmege ‫��ه‬ ‫ ي�را ر�مي�� �ك‬yararmıki ol? Alma dėr peyġamber aña ʿavratı / Ḳılma anuñ gibilere daʿveti. (FN (K) line 1348)51 A man came and told the prophet: / “Oh prophet of God, oh esteemed King! I found a woman, well-born and beautiful. / But the people criticize her and say: She cannot bear children. What do you say? Should I accept her? / Is she (really) a suitable woman to marry?” “Don’t marry the woman!,” says the prophet. / “Don’t ask for women like her.” In conclusion, the OAT mirative particle iki is only used in formally interrogative utterances, always in sentence-final position and does not take suffixes of any kind.52 İki expresses wonder in unresolvable questions, generally there is no addressee, and the answer cannot be known. Wh-questions with iki occur in contexts of surprise and counter-expectation, and can often be read as exclamations. Polar questions with iki express uncertainty and doubt as part of the feeling of wonder. More OAT material is needed to ascertain that iki cannot come with a second-person predicate, as my limited material suggests. In two examples of the OAT translation work FBŞ (examples 6 and 11), the Turkish wh-questions with iki correspond to Persian self-addressed wh-questions introduced with the question particle āyā. َْ َ

51 FN manuscript variant – B 59b: ‫�ى‬ ‫ ي�ا ر ر�ِمي�� ك‬yararmıki ol. Different wording and no miraِ tive particle ki in the original prose text: Bir ʿavrat buldum, gökçek hem aṣlı ḫoş illā oġlan eylemez. Evlenürin, ne buyurursın, dėdi. Resūl ḥażreti buyurdı ki ol ʿavratı alma “He said: ‘I found a woman, she is pretty and well-born, but she cannot bear children. I will marry her, what do you say?’ The noble prophet said: ‘Don’t marry that woman’” (YH, 206, fol. 58a). 52 Cf. the (honorific) plural suffix -lar attached to mirative -kin in an Uzbek unresolvable question: Otam meni unga berarmikinlar? deb o’yladi. “She thought: (I wonder) Will my father give me to him (in marriage)?” (Kleinmichel, “Zu экан und -кин im Usbekischen,” 117).

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

37

The OAT texts, translated from Persian, point to a relationship between the mirative OAT particle iki, the OAT third-person optative ola (derived from ol- “to be”), and the Pe. third-person subjunctive ‫ ب�ا �ش���د‬bāshad, both lit. “it shall/may/might/could be.” The nature of this relationship needs further investigation. My preliminary observations are the following: FBŞ has two examples of wh-questions where ola is used interchangeably with iki; see example (10), where three manuscript copies have ne ḥāliki, and one ne ḥāl ola in the same passage; in another FBŞ example two copies have ʿacab bunuñ ḥāli … ne ola, and one has ʿacab bunuñ ḥāli … nedeniki.53 Modeled on Pe. clause types with the subjunctive bāshad, OAT ola is used as a lexicalized modal particle, e.g. in the structure (şāyed) … -dI ola, which expresses probability and assumption in the past, e.g. şāyed yolda giderken öldi ola “maybe he died on the way, he may have died on the way.”54 A similar Chaghatay example reads şāyad kim miñ, miñ bėş yüz Özbek öldi ėkin “maybe a thousand or fifteen hundred Özbeks have died”.55 In a separate paper I will address the modal OAT structure şāyed geldi ola “he may have come”, together with its Pe. model ‫�ش���ای��د‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ � �م�د ه ب�ا �ش���د‬shāyad āmada bāshad, and the corresponding forms keldi bolġay in Khorezmian Turkic, and şāyad(kim) keldi ėkin in Chaghatay Turkic.56 The usage of Chaghatay ėkin (which morphologically corresponds to OAT iki) as an equivalent for Pe. bāshad may be an argument for the classification of ėkin as a copular form rather than a particle, at least in Chaghatay Turkic. In classical Ottoman Turkish texts, the mirative particle iki > ki is even more elusive than in Old Anatolian Turkish. In high-register written language ola seems to have widely replaced iki. More data from OAT and Ottoman sources are needed to understand the functional development of OT erki within the Turkic languages, and of OAT iki into the mirative Modern Turkish ki. Primarily

53 Context: One night a gang of thieves enters a tomb in order to divide up the loot. They discover a young man who was badly beaten and buried alive. They save him, sit around him and wonder: ʿAcab bunuñ ḥāli, ḥikāyeti, renci şikāyeti ne ola “What could be the situation, the story, the affliction and grievance of this one?” (FBŞ (B) 6b and (L) 10a), ʿAcab bunuñ ḥāli ḥikāyeti, renci şikāyeti nedeniki “What could be the reason for the situation, story, affliction and grievance of this one?” (FBŞ (H) 7b). 54 FBŞ (B) 237b: … er vardı gitdi. Şimdi Āẕeribaycān vilāyetinde-dür, yāḫud şāyed yolda giderken öldi ola. [Said in order to comfort]: “… The man left. He is probably in Azerbayjan by now, or he may have died on the way.” FBŞ (L) 365b: … şimdi Āẕirbiycān vilāyetinde-dür, yā yolda giderken öldi ola. FBŞ (H) 193b: … şimdiₒ Āẕerbiycānda-dur, ya şāyed yolda öldi ola. 55 Julian Rentzsch, “Modality in the Baburname,” Turkic Languages 15 (2011): 78–123, here 105; also see Julian Rentzsch, “Modality in the Dede Qorqud Oġuznameleri,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 64, 1 (2011): 49–70, here 66–67. 56 Schönig, Finite Prädikationen, 353–54.

38

Anetshofer

ḥikāye-type sources are likely to provide examples from the period of classical Ottoman for the usage of iki.57

Primary Sources and References

AP Aḥmed Paşa (d. 1496–1497), ġazel, Dīvān, ms. Ankara Milli Ktp. 06 Mil Yz A 783 undated, fol. 70a (Ali Nihat Tarlan, Ahmed Paşa Divanı (İstanbul: M.E.B. Devlet Kitapları Müdürlüğü, 1966), p. 316, gazel no. 297) FBŞ (B) Ferec baʿde ş-şidde, ms. Budapest, between 1350–1400 (?), copied Edirne, 855/1451 (György Hazai and Andreas Tietze (eds.), Ferec baʿd eş-şidde = Freud nach Leid: ein frühosmanisches Geschichtenbuch (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2006), fols. 6b (ola instead of iki); 16b; 24a; 25b; 48a; 144a; 174a; 195b; 227b (-dur instead of iki); 233a; 237a) FBŞ (H) Ferec baʿde ş-şidde, ms. İstanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Hamidiye, 1173, copied 1492–93 (fols. 7b; 22a; 23a; 42a; 69b; 121b; 132b; 161b; 146b (iki dropped); 185b; 190a (iki dropped); 193a) FBŞ (L) Ferec baʿde ş-şidde, ms. Leiden, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod.Or. 12.407, copied 896/1491 (fols. 10a (ola instead of iki); 24a; 34b; 36a; 69a; 118a; 215b; 265b; 299b; 348b (-dur instead of iki); 358a; 364b) FN (B) Ḫaṭīboġlı, Feraḥ-nāme, 829/1425–26, copied 928/1521–22, rhymed (J. (Gyula) Németh, “Das Feraḥ-nāme des Ibn Ḫaṭīb: Ein osmanisches Gedicht aus dem XV. Jahrhundert,” Le Monde Oriental 13 (1919), 145–84: fols. 59b; 128a; 169b; 184a; 220a) FN (K) Ḫaṭīboġlı, Feraḥ-nāme, copied 990/1582–83, rhymed (Hatice Şahin, Hatiboğlu, Ferahnâme: (Dil Özellikleri-Metin-Söz Dizini), (PhD dissertation, İnönü Üniversitesi, Malatya, 1993), lines no. 1348; 2997; 3975; 4305; 5155) HH Ḥamdullāh Ḥamdī (d. 1503–4), ġazel, Dīvān, ms. İstanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi-Esad Efendi 2626, copied 999/1591, fol. 37b (Ali Emre Özyıldırım, Hamdullah Hamdî ve Divanı (Ankara, 1999, p. 221), gazel no. 181) 57 E.g. the recently published 16th century ḥikāye-collection Ḫar-nāme has the phrase ʿacabā ḳanḳı ḍaġda ḳurd ‫�ى‬ ‫ ا و�ل�د و�ي ك‬öldüyiki, lit. “I wonder, on what mountain has a wolf died?” (Mertol Tulum, Har-nâme: Kanuni Devri İstanbul’unda Çingeneler ve Çingene Kültürü / Hüsâm-ı Sahrâvî (İstanbul: Ketebe Yayınları, 2020), 59). This idiom is well-known today in the form Hangi dağda kurt öldü?, meaning “Whatever has happened (that you are now doing nice and unexpected things that you have never done before)?” I am grateful to Ali Emre Özyıldırım for this reference.

The Old Anatolian Turkish Mirative Particle İKİ

39

Ṣalṭuḳnāme, ca. 1480, copied 1000/1592 (The Legend of Ṣarı Ṣaltuḳ: Collected from Oral Tradition by Ebūʾl-Ḫayr Rūmī, ed. Fahir İz, [Cambridge]: Harvard University Printing Office (1974–1984): fol. T 65a) SÜN Mesʿūd b. Aḥmed, Süheyl ü Nevbāhār, pre-1401, ms. Berlin, copied 830/1427(?) (Johann H. Mordtmann, Suheil und Nevbehâr: Romantisches Gedicht des Mesʿūd b. Aḥmed (8. Jhdt. d. H.) (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung Lafaire, 1925): fols. 158; 159; Özkan Ciğa Süheyl ü Nev-bahâr (Metin-Aktarma, Art Zamanlı Anlam Değişmeleri, Dizin), Unpublished Graduate (Yüksek lisans) thesis (Diyarbakır, 2013): lines 2389; 2400) YH Ḍarīr, Hundred Hadith and Hundred Stories, 1394 (?), copied 846/1442 (Mustafa Sarı, Yüz Hadis Yüz Hikâye: Türk Dilinde Art Zamanlı Değişmeler (Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu, 2016): p. 207, fol. 59b; p. 227, 87a; p. 238, 101a

SN

Bibliography Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. “The Essence of Mirativity.” Linguistic Typology 16 (2012): 435–85. Aksu-Koç, Ayhan A. and Slobin, Dan I. “A psychological account of the development and use of evidentials in Turkish.” In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, eds. Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols, 159–67. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1986. Celle, Agnès et al. “Expressing and Describing Surprise.” In Expressing and Describing Surprise, eds. Agnès Celle and Laure Lansari, 215–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2017. Celle, Agnès. “Questions as Indirect Speech Acts in Surprise Contexts.” In Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality: Crosslinguistic Perspectives, eds. Dalila Ayoun and Laure Lansari, 213–38. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2018. Celle, Agnès. “Surprise in Storytelling.” In L’expression des sentiments: De l’analyse linguistique aux applications, eds. Raluca Nita and Freiderikos Valetopoulos, 227–48. Rennes: PUR Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018. Ciğa, Özkan. “Süheyl ü Nev-bahâr (Metin-Aktarma, Art Zamanlı Anlam Değişmeleri, Dizin).” MA thesis, Dicle University, Diyarbakır, 2013. Compendium of the Turkic Dialects = Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk / Maḥmūd al-Kāšγarī, part 1, eds. Robert Dankoff and James Kelly. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Printing Office, 1982. Csató, Éva Á. and Johanson, Lars. “Turkish.” In The Turkic Languages, eds. Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató, 203–35. London; New York: Routledge, 1998.

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Çağatay, Saadet. “Türkçede ki < erki.” Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı Belleten (1963): 245–50. DeLancey, Scott. “Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information.” Linguistic Typology 1 (1997): 33–52. DeLancey, Scott. “The mirative and evidentiality.” Journal of Pragmatics 33, 3 (2001): 369–82. DeLancey, Scott. “Still mirative after all these years.” Linguistic Typology 16 (2012): 529–64. Demirtaş, Ahmet. “Şüphe ve Tereddüt Bildiren ki Edatının Türkiye Türkçesi Ağızlarındaki Kullanımları Üzerine.” In 7. Uluslararası Dünya Dili Türkçe Sempozyumu Bildirileri: Fırat Üniversitesi/Elazığ, 16–18 Ekim 2014, eds. Ahmet Buran et al., 518–32. Elazığ: Fırat Üniversitesi, 2015. Dîvânü lûgatiʾt-Türk: Tıpkıbasım = Facsimile / Kaşgarlı Mahmud (Kültür Bakanlığı yayınları; 1205: Klâsik eserler dizisi; 11). Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1990. Erdal, Marcel. Old Turkic Word Formation: A Functional Approach to the Lexicon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991. Erdal, Marcel. A Grammar of Old Turkic. Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2004. Ergin, Muharrem. Türk Dil Bilgisi. 17th ed. İstanbul: Bayrak Basım / Yayım / Tanıtım, 1988. Giese, Friedrich. Materialien zur Kenntnis des anatolischen Türkisch: Erzählungen und Lieder aus dem Vilajet Qonjah, gesammelt, in Transkription, mit Anmerkungen und einer Übersetzung der Lieder herausgegeben. Halle a. S.: R. Haupt, 1907. Göksel, Aslı and Kerslake, Celia. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London; New York: Routledge, 2005. Haag-Higuchi, Roxane. Untersuchungen zu einer Sammlung persischer Erzählungen: Čihil wa-šiš ḥikāyat yā ǧāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1984. Hazai, György and Tietze, Andreas. Ferec baʿd eş-şidde = Freud nach Leid: ein frühosmanisches Geschichtenbuch. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2006. İpek, Birol. “Tuva Türkçesinde Pekiştirme Edatları.” Teke Uluslararası Türkçe Edebiyat Kültür Eğitim Dergisi 5, 5/4 (2016): 1627–50. Johanson, Lars. “Turkic Indirectives.” In Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and Neighbouring Languages, eds. Lars Johanson and Bo Utas, 61–87. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000. Johanson, Lars. “Turkic Indirectivity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality, ed. Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, 510–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Karakoç, Birsel. Das finite Verbalsystem im Nogaischen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. Karakoç, Birsel. “Mutmaßungen über die Etymologie des türkischen Suffixes {KI}.” In Turcology in Mainz, eds. Hendrik Boeschoten and Julian Rentzsch, 155–66. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.

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Kleinmichel, Sigrid. “Zu экан und -кин im Usbekischen.” In Studia Ottomanica: Festgabe für György Hazai zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Barbara Kellner-Heinkele and Peter Zieme, 103–26. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. Koç, Mustafa. “El-Ferecü Baʿdeʾş-Şidde.” PhD diss., İstanbul University, 1998. Korkmaz, Zeynep: “Türkiye Türkçesinin ki Bağlama ve Şüphe Edatları Arasındaki Yapı ve Görev Ayrılığı.” In Necati Lugal Armağanı (Türk Tarih Kurumu yayınlarından; seri 7, sayı 50), 389–95. Ankara: Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1968. [Reprinted in Türk Dili Üzerine Araştırmalar, vol. 1, 620–24. Ankara: TDK Yayınları, 1995. Küçük, Sabahattin. “Türkçede Şüphe Bildiren ki Edatı Üzerine.” Türk Dili 426, Haziran (1987): 367–72. Merhan, Aziz. “Özbekçede mikin İlgeci.” Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 17 (2007): 221–28. Németh, J. (Gyula). “Das Feraḥ-nāme des Ibn Ḫaṭīb: Ein osmanisches Gedicht aus dem XV. Jahrhundert.” Le Monde Oriental 13 (1919): 145–84. Özkan, Mustafa. “Eski Türkiye Türkçesinde ki / kim Bağlaçlarının Kullanılışı Üzerine.” In IV. Uluslararası Türk Dili Kurultayı Bildirileri II (24–29 Eylül 2000), 1405–16. Ankara: TDK Yayınları, 2007. Redhouse, James. A Turkish and English Lexicon. Constantinople: Printed for the American mission by A.H. Boyajian, 1890. Redhouse, James. Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük = New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary, ed. by U. Bahadır Alkım, Sofi Huri, Andreas Tietze et al. İstanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi, 1968. Rentzsch, Julian. “Modality in the Baburname.” Turkic Languages 15 (2011): 78–123. Rentzsch, Julian. “Modality in the Dede Qorqud Oġuznameleri.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 64, 1 (2011): 49–70. Röhrborn, Klaus. “Zur Etymologie der uigurischen Partikel ärki.” Materialia Turcica 19 (1998): 1–4. Schönig, Claus. Finite Prädikationen und Textstruktur im Babur-name: (HaiderabadKodex). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. Şahin, Hatice. “Hatiboğlu, Ferahnâme: (Dil Özellikleri-Metin-Söz Dizini).” PhD diss., İnönü University, Malatya 1993. Tarlan, Ali Nihat. Ahmed Paşa Divanı. İstanbul: M.E.B. Devlet Kitapları Müdürlüğü, 1966. Tietze, Andreas. Tarihî ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati, vol. 4, ed. Semih Tezcan. Ankara: TÜBA Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi, 2016. Tiken, Kâmil. “Eski Anadolu Türkçesinde Edat ve Zarf-fiillerin Fonksiyonları.” PhD diss., İstanbul University, 1993. Tulum, Mertol. Har-nâme: Kanuni Devri İstanbul’unda Çingeneler ve Çingene Kültürü / Hüsâm-ı Sahrâvî. İstanbul: Ketebe Yayınları, 2020. Underhill, Robert. Turkish Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976.

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Internet Sources

XIII. Yüzyıldan Beri Türkiye Türkçesiyle Yazılmış Kitaplardan Toplanan Tanıklariyle Tarama Sözlüǧü. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1963–1977. URL: https:// sozluk.gov.tr/?kelime= (accessed on 1 September 2020). Röhrborn, Klaus. Uigurisches Wörterbuch. Sprachmaterial der vorislamischen türki­ schen Texte aus Zentralasien. Neubearbeitung. II: Nomina – Pronomina – Partikeln. Band 2: aš – äžük. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2017. URL: https://woerterbuchnetz.de /?sigle=UWB&bookref=1,88,15#0 (accessed on 1 September 2020). Türk Edebiyatı Bağlamlı Dizin ve İşlevsel Sözlük, ed. İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak. URL: http:// www.tebdiz.com/ (accessed on 1 September 2020).

2 Questions, Answers, and Knowledgeable Ladies in an Ageless Turkic Textual Genre Ingeborg Baldauf Sage and knowledgeable ladies have always been subjects of irritation  – particularly so if they chose to live their lives independently of husbands, brothers, fathers or professional male advisors. Quite a few such ladies stand out as heroines in the realm of turkophone islamicate literature. At least one of them, the notorious daughter of the Emperor of China (“Turandot”) who would have her suitors decapitated if they failed to answer her questions, has since the 14th century made it into whatever new genre emerged in narrative, performative or media culture. Together with Claudia Römer we enjoyed reading about an early Ottoman Turandot’s resilience and nastiness and were disenchanted by the ultimate taming of the shrew. It is in dear remembrance of those shared student days that I have set out to inquire into the history of a genre in which knowledgeable ladies and tricky questions hold a central position – a genre that is found in Turkic and Persian literatures from the mid-14th century until today. 1

Questions-and-Answers

Among the most widespread and timeless examples of Western and Eastern Turkic literature are lengthy manual-type texts of limited literary merit but high didactic quality, texts that are known by such names as Sirāj al-Qulūb, Qïrq Suʾāl, Suʾāl-Javāb, Hazār savāl-i Malīka, and some relatives of these which bear only generic titles, or no titles at all, and have therefore not received too much scholarly attention. At the core of these texts is a long series of “problems” (masʾala / mesʾele) presented in a questions-and-answers format and loosely held together by a frame story. From the trivial to the subtle and from the basic to the elaborate, the ocean of knowledge out of which these literary texts arise stretches from the 14th to the 21st century and comprises the Islamicate Turcia and its Persianate twin from Rumeli to Eastern Turkestan. While knowledge taken from the Qurʾān and the Islamic hagiographic tradition feeds into one of its gulfs, gnosis nurtures another. Spilling into yet further gulfs of that ocean are © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_004

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astrology, all sorts of etiology, items of Muslim ritual practice and vernacular religion, and last but not least all kinds of roadside ethics and banal wisdom (much of it misogynic, no doubt). Like any ocean, this one is a fluid medium. Wherever you scoop out a concrete volume of text, it will contain elements from all tributaries in variable proportion. The prototype of this genre was most probably an Arabic-language Sirāj al-Qulūb authored by a certain Abū l-Maḥāmīd at-Tabrīzī, of which some 17th-century and later copies have been identified. Since these lack the conspicuous question-and-answer format, Tabrīzī’s work is so far not considered the immediate forerunner of the Persian or Turkic versions.1 However, some Arabic prototype must have existed, since a 961/1554 Khwarezmian Turkish Sirāj al-Qulūb version preserved in Moscow explicitly mentions it,2 and an undated Persian copy preserved in Leipzig mentions the original title and explains that “sirāj al-qulūb means rūšnāyī-i dilhā.”3 An irritating characteristic of the Sirāj al-Qulūb genre is the fact that from its earliest representatives onward there seem to exist two slightly different clusters known by the same name, while some obviously congruent versions do not share that same title. Andrew Peacock postulates that “there is no direct relationship between the Persian and Turkish texts, as can be seen from a comparison of the Kütahya [Persian] manuscript with the Konya Turkish version published by Karasoy.”4 He is right that these two particular versions, regardless of their identical title, do not coincide in all items of form and content. However, a broader comparison that includes other versions yields stunning parallels. The Khwarezmian Turkish Sirāj al-Qulūb from the mid-14th century preserved at Topkapı Palace5 is strikingly similar to some versions of the 11/12th century Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb by al-Ġaznavī.6 So too is the famous 16th century 1 See Andrew Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society in Mongol Anatolia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), chapter 5 “Vernacular Religious Literature: Tales of Conversion, Eschatology and Unbelief” (188–217); Peacock’s suggestion (fn. 14) not to think of Abū l-Maḥāmīd Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ašʿarī at-Tabrīzī’s text as the prototype at all may on closer investigation need revision. The questions-and-answers structure is indeed a striking feature of this genre, but it may not be the single determining feature of all sub-types. 2 Yakup Karasoy, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb ve Eserdeki Hayvan Tespihleri,” Selçuk Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 19 (2006): 27–52, here 30. 3 Leipzig University Library, Ms. Gabelentz 63–02, fol. 1a (digital copy available at URL: https:// www.islamic-manuscripts.net/rsc/viewer/IslamHSBook_derivate_00003670/ms_gabelentz _63_125.jpg) (accessed on 21 April 2021). 4 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 195. 5 Istanbul, Topkapı Palace (Ms. Koğuşlar 1057), see Ümran Yaman, “Doğu Türkçesi ile Yazılan Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb (Gramer-Metin-Çeviri-Dizin),” (PhD diss., İstanbul Üniversitesi 2016). 6 For example, two Istanbul manuscripts described by Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society 192, fn. 13, and the Leipzig Ms. Gabelentz 63–02.

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Ottoman Turkish Qïrq Suʾāl by ʿAbdurraḥmān Čelebi Firāqī/Firāṭī,7 which coincides with the Persian versions down to the most subtle items of content and details of wording. These are but a few examples which I have so far been able to compare.8 The textual witnesses known to us resemble a fleet of vessels of various types on the above-mentioned ocean, buffeted by the winds of the centuries, rather than an archipelago of fixed islands. In some of the Persian-language Sirāj al-Qulūb manuscripts the author is named as one Abū Naṣr Saʿīd b. Muḥammad Qaṭṭān al-Ġaznavī, who flourished in the second half of the 11th/first half of the 12th century.9 The oldest manuscript known so far was completed in 737/1331 and is kept at Kütahya Vahid Paşa Library.10 Out of the Turkic language adaptations, none mentions the name of an author. The earliest known manuscript, which is kept at Topkapı Palace (Ms. Koğuşlar 1057), is a Khwarezmian Turkish version from 763/1362.11 Early Anatolian Turkish versions also seem to have been composed in the later 14th to early 15th centuries.12 2

Plot and Content, Frame and Format

Altogether roughly a dozen Persian and Turkic texts from this early period13 bear the title of Sirāj al-Qulūb and share the same basic plot:14 an unbeliever asks a Muslim of the highest authority a number of questions (suʾāl) and is 7 8

9

10 11

12 13 14

See Chapter 3 of Yücel Önen, “Kırk Suʾal (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük),” (MA thesis, Kütahya Dumlupınar Üniversitesi, Kütahya 2009). Clauson, after a cursory comparison of the British Library Chaġatay Ms. Or. 8391 from 1431/32 and Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb versions (e.g. BL Ms. Or. 1231, dated from 1519), also assumed that al-Ġaznavī’s work “formed the foundation” of the Turkic text (“Hitherto Unknown Manuscript,” 117). Namir Karahalilović, “O rukopisnim primjercima i metodu pripreme kritičkog izdanja djela Svjetiljka srcima autora Qattāna Ġaznawīja,” 1391/2012, published online: https:// www.ibn-sina.net/o-rukopisnim-primjercima-i-metodu-pripreme-kritikog-izdanjadjela -svjetiljka-srcima-autora-qattna-aznawja-namir-karahalilovi/ (accessed on 6 November 2022). Yaman, Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb, 9. Karasoy, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb,” 29; Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 194. According to Yaman, Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb, 15 and Yaman, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb’un Dili,” 93, the year is 736/1335, although in the transcription, which is part of her dissertation on that Ms., her rendering of the Arabic date in the colophon is “763” (Yaman, Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb, 168). Cf. Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 194. For overviews see Karasoy, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb,” 28–30; Yaman, Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb, 9–14; Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 191ff. See Yaman, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb’un Dili,” 94, and in particular Clauson’s detailed remarks in “Hitherto Unknown Manuscript,” 117ff.

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given more or less elaborate answers ( javāb / jevāb). The number of “problems” (masʾala / mesʾele) raised that way can be anything between twenty and eighty, but since many manuscripts are incomplete the intended full score is often hard to know. When all problems are solved, the texts come to a rather abrupt end. The frame story is simple: the Jews and Christians of Medina and Yemen, irritated by the masses of new believers flocking to Prophet Muḥammad, dispatch some of their learned men to examine the Prophet on problems they have derived from the Bible. With God’s mercy, and supported by Gabriel, the Prophet manages to answer all questions correctly and the interrogators embrace Islam.15 Many of the questions are about the creation, details of cosmogony, pious etiology, and hagiography, which suggests a reading of the Sirāj al-Qulūb as a downsized relative of the monumental Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ and Nahj al-Farādīs. As Peacock remarks,16 the questions asked in the Sirāj al-Qulūb do not particularly emphasize issues of ritual practice. However, a certain element of didactics on these basics is included, which recalls earlier didactic works such as the Muʿīn al-Murīd. The Sirāj al-Qulūb may be the result of merging a “best of” the great narrative tradition with some strictly didactic, non-literary genres into an informative yet digestible and aesthetic text. The question-and-answer format is an ingenious device that allows for highlights to be picked out from a universe of pious and secular knowledge ad libitum while still making the selection appear meaningful. The questioner is presented as being interested in exactly these issues out of epistemological and spiritual needs. This is why they are raised, even if they may not exhaust any particular field of knowledge, let alone scrutinize the topics in a systematic way. Some of the problems raised recur in almost all texts while others are less widely spread or indeed even singular, as Yakup Karasoy demonstrates when comparing six Turkic versions all bearing the name of Sirāj al-Qulūb.17 The questioner-respondent constellation is not necessarily that of a Jewish learned man versus Muḥammad. In the Ta‌ʾrīx-i Ṭaberī Terjemesi, which relates a similar questions-and-answers story as that told in the Sirāj al-Qulūb, the Jewish learned men instruct Abū Jahl and a group of infidels to go and interrogate the Prophet.18 In at least one Anatolian Turkish version it is not the 15

See also Sertkaya, “Türkçenin tarihi gelişimi,” 263 (no sources specified); Yaman, SirâcüʾlKulûb, 8f. (obviously building on the preface of Topkapı Ms. Koğuşlar 1057). 16 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 198. 17 Karasoy, “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb,” 31–41. 18 Ibid., 30; in his above-mentioned collation of “problems” Karasoy includes the relevant part of the Terjeme, which consists of 28 questions.

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Prophet alone at whom all questions are directed; some are answered by Hż. ʿAlī.19 The Persian version from Leipzig first mentions both the Prophet and ʿAlī as respondents, but then focuses on the amīr al-muʾminīn ʿAlī. The person who asks him questions is the Emperor of Byzanz, the Malik-i Rūm.20 In an interesting twist of the plot, in another sub-type it is the daughter of the Kaysar (Ġassār) of Rūm, Malīka or Malak, who poses the problems to learned men who aspire to her hand in marriage. Hż. ʿAlī plays a minor yet decisive role in that type, too: it is with reference to ʿAlī’s purported saying “Those who don’t know their limitations (qadr) will face their fate” that the Princess convicts to death all suitors who fail to answer her questions.21 We will return later to another representative of this sub-type. The questions-and-answers format is put into practice in different ways. The typical kind of peritext that guides the reader or performer through the story is “Suʾāl: The Jew asked  … – Javāb: The Prophet answered‚ Ey Jew, know this (ey juhūd bilgil) …” or “They asked (suʾāl qïldïlar) … – The Prophet responded (payġambar javāb aydï)…..”22 The most terse peritext consists of no more than “Suʾāl: … – Javāb: …;” this feature occurs in one Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb from Kütahya23 and also in the splendid London Uyġur-script Chaġatay Sirāj al-Qulūb from 1431/32, where the peritexts are highlighted by gilding.24 In the Chaġatay version from Istanbul the question is introduced as “Suʾāl qïldïlar …,” while the answer follows without any peritextual marking.25 Firāqī’s Ottoman version of the Kitāb-i Qïrq Suʾāl tags every problem with a lengthy phrase like “Make … known to us, oh Muḥammad, they said, and the Prophet deigned to 19 Ibid., quoting from the Anatolian Turkish Ms. Konya, İzzet Koyunoğlu Museum Nr. 12861. 20 Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb (Leipzig University, Ms. Gabelentz 63–02, fol. 1a). 21 Cf. an early 20th century Central Asian Turki lithograph from Tashkent, Hazār savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand (p. 3), and its equivalent, Ms. Suppl. Turc 1005 of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Française (probably from Eastern Turkestan); in these versions, the king has no name and his daughter is known as “the Princess.” Compare also John Walsh, “The Turkish manuscripts in New College, Edinburgh,” Oriens 12,1/2 (1959): 171–89, here 178, and a majmūʿa kept at Lund University (Collection Jarring Ms. Prov. 54), which name one “King ʿAṣṣār of the šahr-i Rūm” and his daughter Jamīla; further versions are quoted in Jarring’s “Handlist” available at URL: https://uyghur.ittc.ku.edu/manuscripts/index.xhtml (accessed 21 April 2021). 22 Examples from the Moscow Sirāj al-Qulūb and a version from Ufa; cf. Sertkaya “Türkçenin tarihi gelişimi,” 366ff. 23 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 196. 24 Gerard L.M. Clauson, “A Hitherto Unknown Turkish Manuscript in ‘Uighur’ Characters,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1928): 99–130, here 117. 25 Sertkaya, “Türkçenin tarihi gelişimi,” 366.

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answer….” This echoes the respective peritexts of another Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb attributed to al-Ġaznavī.26 Andrew Peacock points out the “wide applicability of various versions of [the Sirāj al-Qulūb] text to introducing Islam to the newly converted, or the only nominally Muslim,” or to asserting Islam’s veracity in conversation with non-believers.27 Indeed, the early Turkic Sirāj al-Qulūb versions are rich in illustrative examples and repetitive explanations, all in plain language, and were probably most suitable for oral performance. The slimmed down text and slightly more “bookish” character of the later Qïrq Suʾāl made that work applicable as a textbook for madrasas28 and has secured its enduring presence in the Ottoman and even contemporary Turkish book market. The updating of the Sirāj al-Qulūb seems to have been discontinued after the Timurid period, or by the mid-16th century at the latest.29 3

The Genre Fans Out

The catch-all character of the Sirāj al-Qulūb, which was obviously what first brought it into being, may also have been the reason for its ultimate disappearance from the sphere of literary creation. In the Ottoman and Central Asian Turkic environment of the 16th century and later, where Islam was no longer contested or ill-known, a piece would have to cater to more specific needs and tastes in order to intrigue audiences. The literary device of conveying religious knowledge in a question-and-answer format did not lose its appeal, but the genre fanned out into a number of sub-genres. While their principal grounding in the Sirāj al-Qulūb is evident, in detail they vary quite significantly from the early texts. 26 I come to this conclusion through comparison of Firāqī’s text (Ms. from 1782, edited by Önen, Kırk Suʾal) with Sirāj al-Qulūb, Leipzig Ms. Gabelentz 63–02. I had no access to Kütahya Vahid Ali Paşa Kütüphanesi Ms. 1415 (extensively used by Peacock in Islam, Literature and Society) or another one of the Kütahya Persian manuscripts, which would be most interesting to compare since Firāqī spent much of his lifetime in Kütahya. 27 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 199. 28 Cf. Sertkaya, “Türkçenin tarihi gelişimi,” 365. 29 For a discussion on the 1431/32 Uyġur-script Chaġatay Sirāj al-Qulūb from Yazd, the most recent Eastern Turkic version safely dated so far, see A.M. Ščerbak, “Rukopisnïy sbornik Or-8193 i ego značenie dlya uzbekskoy filologii,” Sovetskaya Tyurkologiya 3 (1983): 72–77. For a terminus ante quem non of the late Sirāj ul-Qulūb preserved at Budapest, see Yakup Karasoy and Arife Ece Tombul, “Peygamberler tarihinde bir kurt hikâyesi,” Millî Folklor 30,117 (2018): 131–35, here 133. Although they date the text to the “15th century,” since Ebūssuʿūd Efendi is mentioned in the copy, 16th century would be more plausible.

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One sub-genre, which reads like a manual of proper Muslim ritual and everyday practice, had an early representative in the 16th century Qïrq Suʾāl by Firāqī/Firāṭī. A later example of the same trend is the post-classical Chaġatay Qïrq Farż which employs the time-honored “if they ask …, we will respond … (agar sorasalar … javāb ayturmïz …)” format. Its structure is very simple, and it uses mnemonic numbers in many of the problems (“How many farż are there? – There are in five in islām, seven in īmān, twelve in namāz, three in ġusl” etc.). Reduced to brief questions and answers, the text amounts to no more than four or five folios.30 Qïrq Farż enjoyed wide popularity in Central Asia31 and has even been versified to further enhance its mnemonic qualities.32 As a series of about 40 to 50 questions and answers, this short type of text often accompanies other, more elaborate sub-genres of the question-and-answer genre. Its recent representatives are included in cheaply produced majmūʿa-type lithographs from the 1890s and 1900s which were later re-distributed through reprography down to the end of the 20th century.33 While the Qïrq Farż branch of the genre tends toward reduction and develops into brief primer-like texts, another didactic branch takes the opposite path, namely that of elaboration in terms of both quantity of information and literary quality. This sub-genre conveys exactly the kind of practical knowledge missing in the Sirāj al-Qulūb: the texts give detailed guidance on whatever practical problems a Muslim may or may never have to solve in everyday life. They are imbued with a mystic worldview while holding a strictly legalist stance. One example of that sub-genre is a work almost as dry in character as the Qïrq Farż, but twenty times more voluminous: a piece of 158 folios by the generic name of Takmīl al-īmān. The linguistic setup of that text suggests that it might be, at least in parts, a translation from an (Arabic?) original into a post-Chaġatay idiom from southern Central Asia or India.34 The text 30 A Qïrq Farż Ms. from Balochistan, dated 1236/1820, is preserved at British Library, EAP766/ 1/25 [available at Endangered Archives Project URL: https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP 766-1-25) (accessed 21 April 2021)]. 31 For a number of copies see, for example, Lyudmila Vasilyevna Dmitrieva, Katalog tyurkskix rukopisey Instituta vostokovedeniya Rossiyskoy akademii nauk (Moscow: Vostočnaya Literatura, 2002), 376f. 32 Ibid., no. 1591, early 19th century, from the Volga region. 33 From 1978 to 2004 I have purchased in Afghanistan several reprints of the undated Nusxa-i sūdmand mašhūr ba-Savāl-ū Javāb musammā Hazār Savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand, Kagan n.d. (ca. 1900), in which a set of 53 Qïrq Farż questions-and-answers (pp. 102–115) are included as an untitled appendix to the main story. 34 The manuscript from 1820 is available at British Library, EAP766/1/25; provenance: “Dr. Brāhvī Collection,” obviously from Balochistan.

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opens with the masʾala, “[Is it correct] that if a person does not know their twenty-six-and-a-half pīrs, everything they do will be ḥarām?” In “answer to that question” it enumerates the respective four pīrs of šarīʿat, ṭarīqat, ḥaqīqat, and maʿrifat (the latter actually being five, namely Šams-i Tabrīzī, Rūmī, Jāmī, Šāh Qāsīm-i Anvār and ʿAṭṭār) and the “pīrs” of the four maẕhabs. It adds that “one [more] pīr is your father/master, the person who has taught you ʿilm; half a pīr of yours is the one who gave you a virgin; half a pīr is the one who had you circumcised; half a pīr is the one who will wash and shroud you when you die.” The ensuing text is arranged, albeit somewhat unsystematically, in “books” (kitāb) and “chapters” ( faṣl), mainly on issues of cleanliness and ritual purity and on how to perform everyday and lifecycle rituals in the proper way. All topics are treated in an exhaustive manner, and the questions-and-answers format pops up unsystematically throughout the text. Another example of this exhaustive and exhausting sub-genre, which has already been briefly mentioned above, comes with a title that tells all: “The One Thousand Questions of Malīka/the Princess, and the Learned Man.”35 This work, which enjoyed great popularity in the Eastern Turkic hemisphere, echoes the version of the frame story of the Sirāj al-Qulūb in which the Emperor of Byzanz (Malik-i Rūm) interrogates the Prophet or Hż. ʿAlī, but turns the plot upside down. Here it is the Emperor’s daughter, the Malīka-i Rūm, who asks the questions, and she does so in order to examine and later put to death suitors who pose as learned men but overrate themselves, and by so doing “will face their fate.” When at last one true scholar by the generic name of Dānišmand turns up and answers all her questions, she acknowledges the correctness of some of his answers using the Arabic phrase ṣadaqta “You are right.” In the Persian Sirāj al-Qulūb scrutinized by Peacock, this phrase confirms each of the responses.36 In the end Malīka approves of Dānišmand’s performance. When at last she asks about his pedigree, and he responds that his forefather is Hż. ʿUmar, Malīka laughs and says, “and mine is Iskandar Ẕū-l-Qarnayn,” on which ironic note the story finds a happy end. This sub-genre, in which the omniscient protagonist is not an authoritative person from early Islam but a lady unwilling to give her hand in marriage to a male who is not her match, forms an intriguing bay of the questionsand-answers ocean. The pious but dull didactic genre joins with a truly literary motif that touches upon a much more universal issue, namely, the uneven distribution of knowledge and power among the sexes. The motif, which is known 35 Hazār savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand; almost literally the same text is the untitled Ms. Suppl. Turc 1005 of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Française. 36 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 198.

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as no. 851 in the Aarne and Thompson index (“The Princess Who Cannot Solve the Riddle”37), has been elaborated in numerous pieces in the Persian and Turkic literatures. Among these, Niẓāmī’s Persian Haft Paykar from 1197 is the oldest versified text,38 while the earliest known Turkic version, included in the early Ottoman Turkish collection Ferej baʿde š-šidde, is in prose and has been dated to the 1380s or slightly later.39 In these narrations the series of questions and answers is only a minor element of a much richer plot. In the Ferej, the female protagonist is the Daughter of the Emperor of China who in later versions came to be known as Turandot, who lusts after the wealth of her otherwise unwelcome suitors and fends them off with difficult questions from cosmogony, astrology and, towards the end, the tradition of the prophets and other religious issues. This story is framed as a section in the adventures of a Prince whose parents have lost their empire, must be sold into slavery and are ultimately restored to rule by their son who wins the unwilling bride.40 Many of the questions overlap with those known from the Sirāj al-Qulūb, but the share of non-religious ones is much bigger in the Ferej, which gives that text a less didactic and more entertaining character. 4

An Unknown Early Version

An untitled maṯnavī from 1368 combines the emotional frame story of the Prince (here known simply as igit) with a long and rich questions-and-answers element like that of the Sirāj al-Qulūb. The piece is an immediate contemporary of the earliest Sirāj al-Qulūb of 1362 in Khwarezmian Turkish, and almost a century older than the hitherto earliest safely dated Ferej. It is included in a majmūʿa preserved in Kazan which has so far not received much attention due to its uninformative description as a “collection of old works by various 37

In some versions, after having asked her suitor many riddles the princess is outsmarted by him through an unfair riddle whose answer nobody else can know but the person who asked it. For the motif, see Christine Goldberg, Turandot’s Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993). 38 See the Introduction to Youssef Moqtader and Gregor Schoeler, Turandot. Die persische Märchenerzählung. Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2017). 39 See Helga Anetshofer’s discussion in Temporale Satzverbindungen in altosmanischen Prosatexten. Mit einer Teiledition von Behcetüʾl-Ḥadāʾiq (1303 und 1429), Muqaddime-i Quṭbeddīn (1433) und Ferec baʿdeʾş-şidde (1451) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 23ff. 40 A transcription of the “Story of that Heir-Apparent (Khalaf) and his parents” following the 1451 manuscript from Budapest, together with a full German translation, is included in Anetshofer, Temporale Satzverbindungen, 286ff.

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authors.”41 In this version, the questions are asked by the daughter of the malīk of Qīlqi42 and neither Rūm nor China are mentioned. Here is not the right place to scrutinize the language or contents of this interesting early forerunner of two sub-genres, but a few lines from the beginning of the questions-andanswers element may give some impression of its character: vėr ṣalavāt ʿišq eyle Muḥammede ḥaqq yārī qïla meger ol igide qïz dėdi avval savāl budur saŋa ne ičinde durarsïn eytgil baŋa igit eydür ezberüm dur bu mėnim donïm ičinde duraram ey jānïm Recite the ṣalavāt and love Muḥammad. May God help that young man! The girl said, ‘The first question to you is this: In what are you standing – tell me!’ The young man said, ‘That is something I know by heart! I am standing in my garments, my dear.’ In this passage the maṯnavī has more in common with the entertaining story from the Ferej, in which the young man also mocks the princess with exactly this response,43 than with later versions of the above-mentioned Malīka story type, in which the same question would find an answer as solemn as, gūristānda “in the graveyard.”44 Yet, the maṯnavī has the young man exhort the girl not to trespass against the šarīʿa when she tries to lure him into losing his mind by uncovering her pretty face, a scene which the Ferej passes over in silence,45 while in the Hazār savāl-i Malīka, Dānišmand in his turn, 41

42 43 44 45

The untitled story is part of a multi-textual manuscript: No. 330 (= Ms. Kazan 330) of the Galimjan Ibrahimov Center of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Tatar Academy of Sciences. It is followed by another maṯnavī, the oldest known version of the Kitāb-i Jumjuma, whose colophon includes the date (770/1368). The name Ibrāhīm, which could refer to the author or copyist, appears at the end of the “Turandot” story. The manuscript is available at http://miras.info/projects/mirasxane/manuscript/330-sbornik -drevnih-proizvedenii-raznyh-avtorov.html (accessed 21 April 2021). The texts are catalogued as “old Tatar,” which suits the Kitāb-i Jumjuma well, whereas the language of the “Turandot” story is basically an Oghuz Turkic idiom with some Qïpchaq elements. The “city” is in the text called Qīlqi, Qilʿa and other names (a contraction of “Kilikia” and qalʿa qïpč. “town”?). Anetshofer, Temporale Satzverbindungen, 314f. Hazār savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand, 6. The motif is, on the other hand, prominent in the story of Alexander and Semiramis, which was well-known in the whole Black Sea area in the period under consideration here (cf. Die Erzählung von Alexander und Semiramis. Kritische Ausgabe mit einer Einleitung, Übersetzung und einem Wörterverzeichnis, ed. Ulrich Moennig (Berlin; New York: Walter de Greuter, 2004), 35); the whole “Turandot” story could have come into the Turkic realm from there.

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spontaneously recites an allusive couplet in praise of her candle-like beauty by which he is turned into a moth. These are only a few preliminary observations on the complex relation of these stories. The questions of the princess of the maṯnavī from 1368 foreshadow those of the early Sirāj al-Qulūb versions particularly in the fields of cosmology, etiology and the traditions of the prophets. Hardly any issues derived from the šarīʿa and the sunna of the Prophet, which are so typical of the “legalist” Qïrq Suʾāl and Qïrq Farż and the scrupulous Takmīl al-īmān, are raised here. The sufic overtones which predominate in the Hazār savāl-i Malīka type are totally absent from this early text. The frame narrative of the maṯnavī celebrates the beauty of the princess, but even more than that it lauds her sublime knowledge: ʿālime dur kimse anï yeŋemez

mesʾelesiniŋ jevābïn vėremez

She is a learned woman, no one can subdue her or answer her problems.46 Indeed, the princess is praised in much the same terms as Quṭb lauded the Golden Horde princess of the early 1340s, Tinibek’s wife, the “malīka-i marḥūma Xan Malik,” in his Xosrow-ū Šīrīn.47 Along with posing difficult problems, killing unwelcome males, and accumulating tremendous wealth, the heroine of the maṯnavī did not fail to use unfair tricks in order to outwit her suitor and gain the upper hand.48 It would be interesting to know if she was modelled on one of the notorious females in power in the Chingizid courts, or the other way round. Perhaps the real-life lady Xan Malik was praised in terms that had first been laid down in literary imagination? 5

Compilations

The entire questions-and-answers genre seems to stand at the meeting point of fiction and real life. No matter if we talk about the mid-14th century “Turandot” maṯnavī, the Uyġur-script Sirāj al-Qulūb from Yazd (1431), the post-classical Chaġatay Takmīl al-īmān, or quite a few more representatives of the genre, 46 Ms. Kazan 330, 5. 47 See Quṭb’s text in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Turc 312, fol. 6b ff. 48 When the igit, after having answered all her questions, at last in his turn asked the princess a miṯāl about his own life, which of course nobody else but himself knew, the princess got him drunk and gleaned the information she needed (Ms. Kazan 330, 23ff.; the same motif is in the Ferej story, see Anetshofer, Temporale Satzverbindungen, 330ff.).

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whenever these more literary texts are included in multi-textual manuscripts, they coexist with a series of matter-of-fact masʾala elements, typically introduced by the generic headline Masʾala/Mesʾele (kitābï). These are short pieces that read like legal statements on cases that, if not concrete, are at least more or less imaginable. The 1431 Uyġur-script Sirāj al-Qulūb from Yazd,49 which has received much scholarly attention because of its extravagant physical appearance (script as well as design), is in fact just one part of a multi-textual manuscript. The manuscript, which has been described in detail by Sir Gerard Clauson, contains first the Sirāj al-Qulūb, followed “most abruptly” by the Masʾala Kitābï, again followed by “a few stories selected from the book named Rāḥat ul-Qulūb.”50 Among the latter there is a short version of “Turandot” and a few poems which are not relevant here. The Masʾala Kitābï,51 whose introductory part is missing, consists of a series of 43 quasi-legal statements on actions which, if performed by a Muslim, would make that person a kāfir: masʾala kiši biregügä ayïtsa kim nä üčün qurʾān oqïmazsan tep ol javāb ayïtsa kim men qurʾān oqïmaqtïn toyup tururmän tesä kāfir bolur52 Problem: If a person asks someone, ‘Why do you not recite the Qurʾān?’, and that one responds ‘I am fed up with reciting the Qurʾān’, he will be a kāfir. This piece bears strong resemblance to the Khwarezmian Turkish Iršād al-Mulūk va-s-Salāṭīn (copied in 1387),53 a work that irrespective of its promising title is no more than a very simple treatise on what is kufr and what is not.54 The Sirāj al-Qulūb and Masʾala Kitābï complement one another. As Peacock puts it, the Sirāj evokes a “religious environment in which belief was tested and demonstrated through one’s understanding of God’s creation and the 49 London, British Library Ms. Or 8391, available at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Full Display.aspx?index=0&ref=Or_8193 (accessed 21 April 2021). 50 All quotes are from Clauson, “Hitherto Unknown Manuscript,” 119ff. 51 See the edition by Osman F. Sertkaya, “Uygur harfleri ile yazılmış bazı mensur parçalar I (Mesʾele Kitabı),” Türkiyat Mecmuası 18 (2010): 245–80. 52 From fol. 130b (see Sertkaya, “Uygur harfleri,” 248). 53 The Iršād is an interlinear translation of an unknown Arabic original, copied by Berke Faqīh (cf. Recep Toparlı, Kıpçak Türkçesi (Erzurum, 1989), 13); it discusses many “problems,” but does not apply the term masʾala. 54 The Iršād and the Masʾala Kitābï from Yazd read like unequally ambitious adaptations of a shared prototype. The above-cited masʾala from the Yazd manuscript is also found in the Iršād, see Toparlı, Kıpçak Türkçesi, 107.

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names one used to describe it,” while the Masʾala Kitābï stands for a component of Muslim life to which the Sirāj does not speak, namely, the “rigid creed expressed through a catechism based on the acceptance or rejection of given theological concepts.”55 The desire to complement a more contemplative, perhaps philosophically inspired sub-genre treating important questions with a more sober one that brings out the legalist face of these issues persists throughout the long lifetime of the questions-and-answers genre. The Moscow Sirāj from 1554 is bound together with a Šarāyiʿ al-Aḥkām and its copyist makes a point of the relevance of the two texts to one another, explicitly writing that the work he produced actually “consists of two books.”56 Firāqī/Firāṭī’s Qïrq Suʾāl is directly followed by a “Mesʾele: excerpted from the Xulāṣa.”57 The Hazār savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand text is complemented with two pages of masʾala, after which follows a series of 53 savāl-javāb and then another six masʾala and another six savāl-javāb, as if the compiler could not get enough of tricky questions. The Takmīl al-īmān, which is more practical than the Malīka book, also consists of two different question-and-answer elements: After the colophon of an introductory five folio Qïrq Savāl there follows, most abruptly, the long “masʾala part,” which is in fact the core of the majmūʿa and obviously the part to which the title of the book refers. It consists of thoroughly discussed problems but does not equal the literary qualities of, say, the Malīka story. The earliest antecedent of all these question-and-answer compilations is the multi-textual manuscript from Kazan (1368). In that majmūʿa, the long “Turandot” maṯnavī58 is followed by several versified learned riddles such as: Ol nädür kim qanġa beŋzer qanï yoq / jümle boyun qan alubdur jānïnï [sic] yoq / ḥelālï yoq jüfti yoq oġlanlarïnïŋ ṣanï yoq What is this: Looks like blood but has no blood / [is] bloody throughout but has no soul / has no wife nor partner [but] has countless children?59

55 Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society, 199. 56 Iki kitāb dur, cf. Ė.N. Nadžip, Issledovaniya po istorii tyurkskix yazïkov XI–XIV vv. (Moscow: Nauka, 1989), 151. 57 I suggest this interpretation of the headline against Önen’s reading as “Mesele-i Hulâsa adlu kitâbdan ihrac olmuşdur” in Yücel Önen, Kırk Suʾal, 115. The copy used by Önen dates from 1196/1782 (see p. 20). 58 The text consists of 28 pages of 12–14 lines each. 59 This riddle – the answer “watermelon” is not given here – is contained in popular and academic Kazakh riddle compilations from the late 19th century, where it counts as a “folk riddle.”

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Then follows another maṯnavī, the famous Kitāb-i Jumjuma, whose colophon (which contains the dating of the copy) is immediately followed by another riddle like the one quoted above. Furthermore, there follows a calculation table for the weekdays of one given year of the 12-year animal cycle and, finally, a carefully drawn maze. The person who created that majmūʿa apparently enjoyed tricky issues in many different manifestations  – a passion he shared with the compiler of the multifaceted 1431 Uyġur-script majmūʿa from Yazd. However, the two compilations differ in one important aspect. The 1368 majmūʿa, which bears a learned but literary and entertaining character, consists of the “Turandot” story with two thirds of the questions related to nonreligious topics, a number of versified secular riddles, and some other tricky secular problems. The 1431 compilation also contains a short “Turandot” version, but its Sirāj al-Qulūb part clearly emphasizes religious knowledge and the Masʾala part is dedicated to religious issues altogether. 6

Conclusion

The entertainment-oriented “Turandot” story seems to have completely separated from the later branches of the question-and-answer genre and majmūʿas that contain representatives thereof. It made its way into the Ottoman storybook Ferej baʿde š-šidde and from there took a long journey to Europe (“1001 Days”) and back across Asia,60 but in the realm of didactics the witty and wicked princess had to yield to the learned but more gender-conformist Malīka. The questions-and-answers format initiated in the early Sirāj al-Qulūb split up into a number of sub-genres catering to different epistemic needs and literary tastes: firstly, a more refined literary, mystically inspired sub-genre out of whose recent representatives only the Malīka Kitābï has been discussed here;61 secondly, the elaborate Takmīl al-īmān type which conveys meticulous practical advice grounded in the šarīʿa as well as sufic doctrine, and in which literary features recede into the background; and thirdly, the sober, šarīʿa-centered primer-like Qïrq Farż / Qïrq Suʾāl sub-genre, which employs a limited set of literary devices for mnemonic purposes. Some representatives oOsman F. these 60 The “Turandot” story and its extensions into various narrative and performative arts is pursued in Ingeborg Baldauf, “Zentralasien,” forthcoming. 61 Another representative, which approximates the mystic epic genre and is best known in northern Iran and all over Turkic Central Asia, is Gul-Ṣanavbar, which like Malīka is still alive today. In that dāstān the questions-and-answers motif is still central to the plot, but significantly reduced in length; the questions are asked by a non-human (parī or other phantom) while the mystic seeker is a prince/young man intoxicated with the love of that being.

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sub-genres appear in majmūʿas combined with one another, and all of them appear in combination with artless sets of brief statements on legal “problems” (masʾala). The sage and cunning lady questioner “Turandot,” who used the questionsand-answers game as a device to outwit knowledgeable but drab and unwanted males, made only a short appearance on the ocean of Sirāj al-Qulūb and then set sail for more sparkling and shallow waters. Other female protagonists took over who were ready to assume the ancillary role of the object of mystical love (Malīka …). As for the sober primers and masʾala collections, they discontinued to personalize the questions and answers: Their questions are universal, and belief is the compass. Bibliography

Primary Sources British Library, London

EAP766/1/25.



Istanbul, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul



İzzet Koyunoğlu Museum, Konya



Leipzig University Library



Lund University



Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris



Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Tatar Academy of Sciences, Galimjan Ibrahimov Center

Ms. Koğuşlar 1057.

Ms. Nr. 12861.

Ms. Gabelentz 63–02.

Collection Jarring Ms. Prov. 54.

Ms. Suppl. Turc 1005. Ms. Turc 312. Nusxa-i sūdmand mašhūr ba-Savāl-ū Javāb musammā ba Hazār Savāl-i Malīka va Dānišmand, Kagan n.d. (ca. 1900).

Ms. Kazan 330.

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Secondary Sources

Anetshofer, Helga. Temporale Satzverbindungen in altosmanischen Prosatexten. Mit einer Teiledition von Behcetüʾl-Ḥadāʾiq (1303 und 1429), Muqaddime-i Quṭbeddīn (1433) und Ferec baʿdeʾş-şidde (1451). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. Baldauf, Ingeborg. “Zentralasien.” In Weltliteratur 8, eds. Vittoria Borsò & Shamma Shahadat, forthcoming. Clauson, Gerard L.M. “A Hitherto Unknown Turkish Manuscript in ‘Uighur’ Characters.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1928): 99–130. Die Erzählung von Alexander und Semiramis. Kritische Ausgabe mit einer Einleitung, Übersetzung und einem Wörterverzeichnis, ed. Ulrich Moennig. Berlin; New York: Walter de Greuter, 2004. Dmitrieva, Lyudmila Vasilyevna. Katalog tyurkskix rukopisey Instituta vostokovedeniya Rossiyskoy akademii nauk. Moscow: Vostočnaya Literatura, 2002. Goldberg, Christine. Turandot’s Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993. Karahalilović, Namir. “O rukopisnim primjercima i metodu pripreme kritičkog izdanja djela Svjetiljka srcima autora Qattāna Ġaznawīja.” 1391/2012. Published online: https://www.ibn-sina.net/o-rukopisnim-primjercima-i-metodu-pripreme-kriti kog-izdanjadjela-svjetiljka-srcima-autora-qattna-aznawja-namir-karahalilovi/ (accessed on 6 November 2022). Karasoy, Yakup. “Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb ve Eserdeki Hayvan Tespihleri.” Selçuk Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 19 (2006): 27–52. Karasoy, Yakup and Tombul, Arife Ece. “Peygamberler tarihinde bir kurt hikâyesi.” Millî Folklor 30,117 (2018): 131–35. Moqtader, Youssef and Schoeler, Gregor. Turandot. Die persische Märchenerzählung. Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2017. Nadžip, Ė.N. Issledovaniya po istorii tyurkskix yazïkov XI–XIV vv. Moscow: Nauka, 1989. Önen, Yücel. “Kırk Suʾal (İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük).” MA thesis, Kütahya Dumlupınar University, 2009. Peacock, Andrew. Islam, Literature and Society in Mongol Anatolia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Ščerbak, A.M. “Rukopisnïy sbornik Or-8193 i ego značenie dlya uzbekskoy filologii.” Sovetskaya Tyurkologiya 3 (1983): 72–77. Sertkaya, Osman F. “Uygur harfleri ile yazılmış bazı mensur parçalar I (Mesʾele Kitabı).” Türkiyat Mecmuası 18 (2010), 245–80. Toparlı, Recep. Kıpçak Türkçesi. Erzurum, 1989. Walsh, John. “The Turkish manuscripts in New College, Edinburgh.” Oriens 12,1/2 (1959): 171–89. Yaman, Ümran. “Doğu Türkçesi ile Yazılan Sirâcüʾl-Kulûb (Gramer-Metin-Çeviri-Dizin).” PhD diss., İstanbul University, 2016.

Questions, Answers, and Knowledgeable Ladies



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https://uyghur.ittc.ku.edu/manuscripts/index.xhtml (accessed on 21 April 2021). https://www.islamic-manuscripts.net/rsc/viewer/IslamHSBook_derivate_00003670 /ms_gabelentz_63_125.jpg (accessed on 21 April 2021). https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP766-1-25) (accessed on 21 April 2021). http://miras.info/projects/mirasxane/manuscript/330-sbornik-drevnih-proizvedenii -raznyh-avtorov.html (accessed on 21 April 2021).

3 More of the SAME: Is There a Standard Average Middle Eastern? Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Stephan Procházka 1

Introduction

During the last three decades we have witnessed a renewed interest in the fields of areal linguistics and language contact. This has brought with it the publication of an ever-increasing number of special studies and reference books, some of which also cover aspects of the languages of the Middle East. The Middle East is extremely attractive to those who are interested in language contact because languages belonging to three unrelated language families have been spoken in this region over a considerable period of time. Various Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European languages have coexisted in the Fertile Crescent for millennia, and Altaic Turkic languages have also been part of this linguistic mix for more than a thousand years. There are significant typological differences between the languages of the three main families.1 Our esteemed colleague and decades-long friend Claudia Römer is among the few scholars in the field to have thoroughly studied all three main languages of the Middle East, i.e. what the Ottomans called the elsine-i s̱elās̱e: Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. In her dissertation she investigated the influence of Persian on the development of Ottoman Turkish and – along with many other aspects – analysed lexical calques. Though open-minded and well-connected to international academia, Claudia Römer has always maintained a very special relationship to the University of Vienna. Likewise, we have always had a very special relationship to her: In the 1980s we were undergraduate students when Claudia had just begun her career as an academic teacher. We became colleagues in the 1990s and since then have shared highs and lows as collaborators at the Institute of Oriental Studies, which has seen many changes during that time. We hope that our friend Claudia will like our modest contribution 1 See also Geoffrey Haig, “Linguistic Diffusion in Present-Day East Anatolia: From Top to Bottom,” in Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics, eds. Robert Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 195–224, here 199.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_005

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to the idea of a Middle Eastern Sprachbund – a term that was first coined with regard to the Balkan languages by Nicolai Trubetskoj in 1928 – then Professor of Slavic Philology at our Alma mater. 2

Aims and Limitations

Some areas of the region, Anatolia in particular, have already been investigated with regard to Sprachbund phenomena. G. Haig convincingly argues that there are two linguistic areas which overlap in Anatolia: The first is central and northern Mesopotamia with its centre in northern Iraq and SE-Turkey. It is dominated by Kurdish but is also the home of Arabic and various Neo-Aramaic speaking communities. The second is the Caspian-Caucasian region that exhibits a remarkable mix of different languages.2 From this it can be seen that the Middle East as a whole is not traditionally considered to be a linguistic area.3 Our aim is to point out certain hitherto less-considered features that may allude to the existence of a kind of Standard Average Middle Eastern (SAME).4 In our analysis, we will not only take into account phonological, morphological and syntactical features but also lexical features, first and foremost common phraseology including courtesy formulas. We assume that phrases in their widest sense reflect the cultural convergence of the area very well. The large number of languages and their spoken varieties makes it impossible to present a detailed picture for every feature that is discussed. Though more grammatical data is increasingly available, this is not the case for the lexicon in general and phraseology in particular. Therefore, data from Armenian and Neo-Aramaic as well as Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish are not systematically included. Thus, our focus is on Turkish (mainly the standard variety), Persian and Arabic. As regards the latter, we mainly refer to the numerous dialects that are spoken not only within the borders of Arab countries but also in parts of Turkey and Iran (mainly Mesopotamian, Levantine and Egyptian dialects).5 2 Geoffrey Haig, “Western Asia: East Anatolia as a Transition Zone,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, ed. Raymond Hickey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 396–423, here 416. 3 See, for instance, the list of proposed language areas in Lyle Campbell, “Why is it so Hard to Define a Linguistic Area?” in The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, ed. Raymond Hickey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 19–39, here 20–21. 4 We define Middle East roughly as the region covered by Turkey, Iran, the Arab countries of Western Asia and Egypt. 5 Written Arabic has a unique status and since its phonology and morphology have been ‘frozen’ for many centuries it shows far fewer contact-induced influences from neighbouring languages.

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Particularly with regard to shared lexical elements, we agree with Bruce Ingham who stated: The history of the exchange of linguistic and other cultural elements between Arabic, Persian and Turkish is in general well known, but the details of it can still be investigated usefully, particularly as regards the colloquial dialects.6 A thorough investigation of the lexical similarities found in the languages covered would certainly be an interesting enterprise but is beyond the scope of this article. One need only think of shared social concepts reflected in the languages of the region. E.g., the existence of two words for ‘honour’: A: šaraf, T: şeref, P: šaraf, which can be won by a person through special deeds including hospitality, and A: ˁirḍ, T: namus, P: nāmus, which has to be preserved by all means as its loss brings dishonour to the whole family. Another topic worth investigating would be similarity in collocations. However, as mentioned before, within our lexical analysis we will only deal with selected topics of phraseology. 3

State-of-the-Art

Hitherto the most intensely studied Middle Eastern region with regard to areal linguistic features is Eastern Anatolia. The question of a Sprachbund in that area has been thoroughly discussed in numerous publications by Geoffrey Haig.7 Overviews that cover a larger area are found in the introductory chapters of Haig and Khan.8 Studies with a wider geographical scope are found in Linguistic convergence and areal diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic.9 Kapeliuk is a short but thought provoking study on the influence

6 Bruce Ingham, “Persian and Turkish Loans in the Arabic Dialects of North East Arabia,” in Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case Studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, ed. Éva Ágnes Csató (London; New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 173–80, here 173–74. 7 Among them Haig, “Linguistic Diffusion”; Geoffrey Haig, “East Anatolia as a linguistic area? Conceptual and empirical issues,” in Bamberger Orientstudien, ed. Lale Behzadi et al. (Bamberg: Bamberg University Press, 2014), 13–35; Haig, “Transition Zone,” 396–423. 8 Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan, The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia, eds. Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2018). 9 Csató et al. Linguistic Convergence.

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of Iranian and Turkic on Arabic and Neo-Aramaic dialects.10 Gazsi deals with Arabic-Persian language contact but is mainly restricted to lexical issues.11 General issues of language contact that include data from the Middle East are dealt with by Matras.12 The recently published collective volume Arabic and contact-induced change13 contains many articles relevant for this study (particularly chapters 1–7 and 29). There are studies on phraseology in the languages covered by our article but the themes of mutual borrowing and the role of language contact for the development of idiomatic expressions are only infrequently addressed. Intradialectal Arabic convergence and the role of contact between Nigerian Arabic and Kanuri is dealt with in Ritt-Benmimoun et al.14 Phrases common to Turkish and Syrian Arabic are briefly discussed by Halasi-Kun;15 idioms shared by Turkish and Persian are listed by Tokmak.16 4

Shared Grammatical and Phraseological Features

4.1 Phonology It seems that the languages of the Middle East do not show considerable convergence regarding phonological features – as is the case for Standard Average European.17 This does not mean that mutual influence on the level of phonology is completely absent. Quite the contrary, it is widely found, e.g., the 10 Olga Kapeliuk, “Iranian and Turkic Structural Interference in Arabic and Aramaic dialects,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 29 (2004): 176–94. 11 Dénes Gazsi, “Arabic-Persian Language Contact,” in The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, eds. Stefan Weninger et al. (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), 1015–21. 12 Yaron Matras, “Contact, Convergence, and Typology,” in The Handbook of Language Contact, ed. Raymond Hickey (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 66–85. 13 Christopher Lucas and Stefano Manfredi, eds., Arabic and Contact-Induced Change (Berlin: Language Science Press, 2020). 14 Veronika Ritt-Benmimoun et al., “Three Idioms, Three Dialects, One History: Egyptian, Nigerian and Tunisian Arabic,” in Tunisian and Libyan Arabic Dialects: Common Trends – Recent Developments  – Diachronic Aspects, ed. Veronika Ritt-Benmimoun (Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2017), 43–84. 15 Tibor Halasi-Kun, “The Ottoman Elements in the Syrian Dialects,” Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969): 14–91. 16 A. Naci Tokmak, Farsça-Türkçe Ortak Deyimler Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Çantay, 1995). 17 Martin Haspelmath, “The European Linguistic Area: Standard Average European,” in Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook, eds. Martin Haspelmath et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), 1492–1510.

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spread of pharyngeal consonants from Arabic to some Iranian languages like Kurdish,18 or the adoption of the phonemes č, g, p, and v from Turkish and Kurdish into the phonetic inventory of many Arabic dialects spoken in Anatolia, Iraq and in the northern parts of Syria.19 However, phonological borrowings like those mentioned above can hardly be seen as diagnostic traits of a language area since they are (1) not peculiar to this area alone and (2) often restricted to geographically limited regions. A morphophonological feature that is potentially common to the region is the peculiar stress pattern in negated structures. Ingham points to the tendency found in Turkish, Persian and the Arabic dialects of NE-Arabia to put the stress in negative structures either on the negative particle itself or on the preceding syllable.20 The same phenomenon is also attested in Anatolian Arabic21 as well as in Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish.22 The details of this feature deserve further investigation. 4.2 Morphology Morphological borrowing is in general a relatively rare phenomenon23 and usually requires a very high degree of bilingualism. The most successful morpheme in the region is doubtless the Turkish agent marker -CI. In Turkish and other Turkic languages, this suffix indicates professions, relations to a thing, habitudes and attributes, beliefs and ideologies. From Turkic it has spread to almost all languages of the region and even beyond (as far as Algeria and Morocco). A survey of the existence of this feature in the Arabic dialects has shown that there is an impressive volume of evidence for CI-words and that

18 19

20 21 22

23

Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan, “Introduction,” in The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia, eds. Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2019), 1–29, here 10–11. Haig and Khan, “Introduction,” 10–11. Stephan Procházka, “Arabic in Iraq, Syria, and Southern Turkey,” in Arabic and Contact-Induced Change, eds. Christopher Lucas and Stefano Manfredi, Contact and Multilingualism 1 (Berlin: Language Science Press, 2020), 83–114, here 91–92. Ingham, “Persian and Turkish Loans,” 178–79. Otto Jastrow, “Anatolian Arabic,” Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. Kees Versteegh (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1:90. Wheeler M. Thackston, Kurmanji Kurdish: A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings (Harvard: University Press, 2006), 4; Ernest N. McCarus, A Kurdish Grammar: Descriptive Analysis of the Kurdish of Sulaimaniya, Iraq (New York: American councel of Learned Societies, 1958), 69. Francesco Gardani et al., eds., Borrowed Morphology (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 1.

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these words are not restricted to direct borrowings from (Ottoman) Turkish but that this suffix has become a productive morphological device.24 Likewise, this suffix has also gained the status of a productive nominal morpheme in Kurdish and Persian. As for spoken Arabic varieties, three groups can be distinguished: (1) CIwords with the same meaning in Turkish and Arabic, (2) words which occur in Turkish and Arabic but with a different meaning and (3) words that have been coined internally. An analysis of lexemes containing the suffix -či in Persian and Kurdish25 suggests that only group (1) and (3) are found. Table 3.1

CI-words showing the same meaning in all investigated languagesa

Turkish

Persian

Kurdish (Kurmandji)

Arabic Dialects

Meaning

topçu

topči

topçî

ṭobǧi (all dialects)

kahveci

qahveči

qaweçî, qehweçî

gümrükçü hamamcı

gomrokči ḥammāmči

arabacı

arabači

tulumbacı

tolombeči

ˀahwagi (EA) gahawči (IA) qahwaǧi, qahwanǧi (PA) gumrukǧi (PA) ḥammamgi (EA) ḥammamǧi (PA) ˁarabanǧi, ˁarbaǧi (PA) ˁarbagi (EA) ˁarabanči (IA) ṭulumbagi (EA)

artillerist, cannoneer (one) who serves coffee, owner of a coffee house

hemamçî

customs officer ‘operator of a Turkish bath’ driver, carter

firefighter

a Numerous additional references can be found in Procházka-Eisl, “Suffix on the Move”.

24 See Gisela Procházka-Eisl, “A Suffix on the Move: The History and Development of the Turkish Suffix -Ci in Arabic,” Mediterranean Language Review 25 (2018): 21–52. 25 Collected from Michael L. Chyet, Kurdish-English Dictionary. Ferhenga Kurmancî-Inglîzî (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003) and https://abadis.ir (Persian, includes among other dictionaries Dehkhodā’s Loġatnāme).

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Ad (3): Forms that have developed internally in each language and for which there is no evidence in Turkish or Ottoman include, for example, KK nivîsarçî ‘writer’ and falikçî ‘fortune teller’, P tablīġātči ‘propagandist’, P balebaleči and EA aynaˁamgi both meaning ‘yes-man’,26 IA fītarči ‘tool repairman’ and nasči ‘one who loves people’, PA akalanǧi ‘overeater’ and baṣṭaǧi ‘street vendor’. Semantically, the CI-words mostly describe professions and occupations. In the case of the Arabic dialects, some of them denote habitual actions and features in a pejorative, sometimes humorous way: alcoholics, smokers, drug addicts, womanizers, chatterers and gamblers. Within the Kurdish and Persian material we could not find evidence for this – excluding the Persian ‘yes-man’ balebaleči – but an analysis of spoken, casual speech would probably yield a different result. In Iraqi Arabic and Kurdish and, to a lesser extent in Palestinian Arabic as well, the suffix -CI is also added to nouns which already designate a profession due to its typical Arabic or Kurdish pattern. Examples are IA ṭayyārči ‘pilot’, mṭayyirči ‘bird-raiser’, mbayyiḏ̣či ‘tin plater’, bawwābči ‘door keeper’, PA ḥaṭṭabǧi ‘wood collector, scandalmonger, machinator’,27 K celatçî ‘executioner’, baxvançî ‘gardener’, and hedadçî ‘blacksmith’. This phenomenon may be due to the fact that the original meaning of the word as an occupational title is no longer recognized and is therefore enhanced by -CI. The reasons for the ‘popularity’ of this suffix throughout the region could be its simple handling, the possibility of using it to form new nouns easily, even spontaneously. This is particularly relevant in the case of Arabic, as it enables the integration of new words into the lexicon without adhering to the noun patterns for professions (patterns CaCCāC, CāCiC, and muCaCCiC). However, in Persian and Kurdish it is not particularly problematic to ‘invent’ new titles for professions with the help of morphemes (like -kār, -gar, -dār, -vān) and this probably explains why we have less evidence in these two languages than in Arabic.28 4.2.1 Hypocoristic Morphemes Diminutive formation in the languages treated here is rather divergent, but there is a certain overlapping in the use of some suffixes found in hypocoristic forms of personal names and kinship terms. The most widespread of these 26 The literal meaning of both words is ‘yes-yes-CI’. 27 For more examples see the lists for IA and PA in Procházka-Eisl, “Suffix on the Move”. 28 Chyet in his Kurdish-English dictionary offers an alternative term (nobedçî > nobetdar, nivîsarçî > nivîskʾar) for almost every Kurdish noun ending with -çi. As for Persian, Majidi subsumes -či under the productive suffixes; see Mohammad-Reza Majidi, Strukturelle Grammatik des Neupersischen (Fārsi) 2: Morphologie: Morphonologie, grammatische und lexikalische Wortbildung, Abriß der Syntax (Hamburg: Buske, 1990), 392.

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is -o/-u. The first is found in Turkish, Armenian, Kurmanji Kurdish, the Arabic dialects of Syria and in Neo-Aramaic, the latter in Persian and in the Iraqi dialects. As for kinship terms, its use in Iraqi Arabic is restricted to male persons, whereas for females -a is used. The morpheme -u may, however, be attached to both male and female proper names. In Armenian, -o may also be used for females in addition to -a. In Kurmanji Kurdish the feminine -ê is also attached to masculine proper names. The only language in which -o and -e can be attached to both male and female names is Neo-Aramaic (dialect of Barwar). Table 3.2 Hypocoristic suffixesa

Suffix

Gender

Turkish Persian Armenian

Kurmanji Syrian

Iraqi

Aramaicb

o/u

m

İbo

pesaru

Rammô

ˁammo

Mixo

e/a

f f m

Fato ∅ ∅

doxtaru Naro ∅ Mara ∅ ∅

∅ Fatmê Rammê

ˁammto ∅ ∅

ˁammu Faddu Dallu ˁamma ∅

Peto

Mayyo Məlle Xaye

a Meanings (per column from left to right): hyp of İbrahim, Fatima; hyp of ‘son/daughter’; hyp of Peter, Narine, Mariam/Marjana; hyp of Ramadan, Fatima; hyp of ‘uncle/aunt’ (Syrian and Iraqi Arabic); hyp of Fady and Dālya (Iraqi); hyp of Mixayil, Maryam, Məryam, Mixayil. b See Geoffrey Khan, The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar (Boston: Brill, 2008), 349–52, who explicitly states (p. 20) that these morphemes are taken from Kurdish.

The most obvious explanation for these suffixes is that they constitute an areal feature that originates in the Kurmanji Kurdish vocative endings -ô (m) and -ê (f), e.g., kúrô! ‘boy!’, kéçê! ‘girl!’.29 The Persian suffix -u also forms affective diminutives but is relatively rare.30 This makes Persian influence for the Iraqi forms less likely.31 What is puzzling, however, is the fact that hypocoristic -u is widely attested in other Arabic dialects as far away as Morocco. Similar endings in Ethiopian suggest a possible common Semitic origin for the u-ending.32 29 Thackston, Kurmanji, 26. In Sorani, the suffix -ə/-wə is used; it is invariable for gender (McCarus, Sorani, 48–49). 30 See John Perry, “Persian Morphology,” in Morphologies of Asia and Afrika, ed. Alan S. Kaye (Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 975–1020, here 1011, and Majidi, Neupersisch, 404. 31 In the Iraqi dialects the vowel is -u, e.g. ˁammu, xālu and ǧiddu; see Abu-Haidar, Farida, “Vocatives as Exclamatory Nouns in Iraqi Arabic,” in Arabic Grammar and Linguistics, ed. Yasir Suleiman (Richmond: Curzon, 1999), 144–60, here 145. 32 For details see Procházka, “Arabic in Iraq, Syria, and Southern Turkey,” 95–96.

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Nevertheless, we think that there are good reasons for the suffix-o that is found in so many non-related languages of the region to be regarded as an areal feature. As for Arabic, an autochthonous development cannot be excluded, but it was likely reinforced and influenced on the phonological level by the adjacent languages, particularly Kurdish. Another, less widespread suffix, is Turkish -Iş/-ş,33 e.g., Aliş and Fatoş, hypocoristic forms of Ali and Fatma respectively. This morpheme is occasionally attested for Iraqi Arabic (combined with the diminutive pattern CaCCūC, e.g., ˁAllūši for ˁAli). 4.2.2 Interrogative Adverbs The majority of the languages and dialects spoken in the Middle East exhibit a mix of both simplex and compound forms of the four interrogative adverbs ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘how many’, and ‘how’. As regards the compound forms, which are diachronically seen mostly innovations, it is striking that the interrogative element is (1) in many cases identical or at least derived from the interrogative pronoun ‘what’ and (2) that this element comes in front of the second element that is in most cases a former noun. As Table 3.3 shows, Modern Persian possesses compound forms for all four interrogatives (only ‘where’ is not based on ‘what’). The same is true for Turkish, although nasıl (< ne asıl) is a simplex form on the synchronic level. Kurmanji Kurdish and Armenian exhibit compound forms showing ‘what’ as the first element only for ‘how many’ and ‘how’. In Classical Arabic, the interrogative adverbs are all simplex forms and semantically more or less opaque. In the contemporary dialects a large variety of compound or ‘transparent’ interrogatives is found – both in the Middle East and in North Africa.34 In most dialects of the region investigated, the local interrogative has not changed except in a few minority dialects spoken in Turkey (see Table 3.3). As for the temporal interrogative, compound forms consisting of ‘which’ and the original interrogative *matā are widely found. However, the further north or east we go, the more we find forms based on ‘what’ and a noun meaning ‘time’: Baghdad: š-wakit, Mosul/Mardin: aš-waqt, Hasankeyf: ˀəč-čax (the second element is the Kurdish noun for ‘time’). Also widespread are new compound forms for ‘how’ consisting of ‘what’ and different nouns, particularly lawn ‘colour’ (š-lōn, aš-wan). This innovation is even attested for Egyptian Arabic: izzayy < *iš-zayy. Compounds based on ‘what’ and the original interrogative ‘how’ are worthy of note. They are 33 34

Nihan Ketrez and Ayhan Aksu-Koç, “The (scarcity of) diminutives in Turkish child language,” in The Acquisition of Diminutives: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective, eds. Wolfgang U. Dressler and Ineta Savickienė (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007), 279–93, here 283. For an overview see Kees Versteegh, “What’s Where and How’s What? Interrogatives in Arabic Dialects,” Estudios de Dialectología Norteafricana y Andalusí 8 (2004): 239–51.

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restricted to some north-western dialects that all show significant influence of Turkish (spoken in Hatay and Cilicia). The most interesting development is found with regard to the interrogative ‘how many’. In all dialects of Mesopotamia and northern Syria we come across reflexes of ‘what’ and qadd ~ qadr ‘amount’ – exactly like their equivalents in Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Armenian and Neo-Aramaic. The most striking argument for assuming an areal feature is that in Syria there is a clear isogloss running from Latakia to Homs. All dialects south of that line have also developed a new word for ‘how many’ that is based on qadd. However, in those dialects the interrogative element is placed behind the word, e.g., Damascus ˀadd-ēš. In a transitional zone around Tartous we even find mixed forms with two interrogative elements circumfixed: š-ˀadd-ēš.35 As has been mentioned above, innovative compound interrogatives are a very widespread phenomenon in Arabic dialects36 and we do not claim that this is a development only induced by contact to Turkic and Iranian languages. However, we think that there is good reason to assume such an influence for those forms that have the structure what + noun. Dialects outside of our region either exhibit which + noun, e.g. Yemen ˀayya-ḥīn and similar forms,37 or they show compounds of the structure noun + what – a feature mainly found in the Maghrebinian dialects, e.g. Tunis waqt-āš ‘when’, qadd-āš ‘how many’, kīfāš ‘how’. It is difficult to determine from which language this tendency toward compound interrogatives has spread. Turkic would be a potential candidate because similar forms are already attested for its oldest layers. However, we assume that internal developments, particularly in Arabic and Persian, have also played a role. Otto Jastrow claims that the compound forms for ‘when’, ‘how much’ and ‘how’ are old features of Mesopotamian Arabic and were a model for the Persian forms.38 This is not impossible, especially considering the fact that the Middle Persian forms are simplex forms throughout. However, the clustering of what + noun interrogatives in the area and their absence in Arabic dialects spoken outside of it are relatively clear indications of linguistic convergence.

35 For details see Peter Behnstedt, Sprachatlas von Syrien. I: Kartenband. Semitica Viva 17. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), map 288. 36 Only in Arabia proper; most dialects still use simplex forms, though š-gadd is occasionally found along the Gulf coast, i.e. close to Iraq and Iran; see Clive Holes, Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia, vol. 1: Glossary (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 261. 37 Behnstedt, Sprachatlas, map 078. 38 Otto Jastrow, “Wie Arabisch ist Uzbekistan-Arabisch?” in Built on Solid Rock. Studies in Honour of Professor Ebbe Egede Knudsen on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday April 11th 1997, ed. Elie Wardini (Oslo: Novus, 1997), 141–153, here 150–53.

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Table 3.3 Interrogative adverbsa

When?

Where?

How many?

How?

Turkish

ne zaman

nerede

ne kadar

Old Turkic Middle Persian Persian Kurmanji Kurdish Sorani Kurdish Armenian Turoyo

kaçan (rare) kay če-vaqt = če-zamān ~ key kengê ~ kengî kəy jerb ema

kanta ~ kanı kū koǧā (< ku-ǧa) ku kwê ~ kwâ wortʾekh ay-ko

NENA

ˀiman

ˀɛka

Classical Arabic Najdi Arabic Sanaa (Yemen) Baghdad Mosul Mardin Hasankeyf Daragözü Hatay Cilicia Damascus Amman Cairo Tripoli Tunis

matā mita ayyaḥīn š-wakit aš-waqət ~ ēmeti aš-waqt ~aymat ˀəč-čax čī-čax ay-mat etc. ˀē-mtan ˀē-mta matta ˀimta ˀāmta waqt-āš ~ fi-āma waqt

ˀayna wēn ayn wēn wēn ayn angəs əm-ma ay-naḥall wēn wēn wēn fēn wēn fīn

näçä ~ kaç čand če-qadr (~ čand) çiqas čənd inč-kan məqqa (accessed June 2018). Emphasizing the loyalty exposed not only by Karatheodoris himself, but also by his wife and his wife’s family, this article focuses on just one aspect of Karatheodoris’s life, while it is only his articles in Turkish that are mentioned – though incompletely – with exaggeration as his “scholarly endeavors.” 7–8. 47 Maria Georgiadou, “Expert Knowledge between Tradition and Reform. The Carathéodorys: a Neo-Phanariot family in 19th Century Constantinople,” in Médecins st Ingénieurs Ottomans a l’age des Nationalismes (Paris: Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes, 2003), 276. 48 Katerina Gardika Alexandropoulou, Αρχείο Στ. Αλέξανδρου Καραθεοδωρή. Κατάλογος και Ευρετήρια (Athens: Κέντρο Νεοελληνικών Ερευνών, 1981), 18–19. Katerina Alexandropoulou

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historiography ignores the origins of the perceptiveness that made the style and attitude in his articles possible.49 Descriptions of some Christian and Jewish Tanzimat-era bureaucrats such as Karatheodoris, or publishers such as Teodor Kasap (after fulfilling the loyalty requirement!) as being committed to the Ottoman ideology, fail to notice the context of Ottoman modernization, which determined the behavior and attitudes of the bureaucrats as well as the formation and content of an Ottoman ideology and commitment to it. Karatheodoris’s articles in O Kosmos as a whole can contribute to shedding light on the position and cognitive map of this man as an actor in the social life of the Ottoman capital. 3

Some Sources Mentioned and Used by Karatheodoris in His Articles50

Abdurrahman Fevzi Efendi, Miḳyāsüʾl-lisān ḳısṭāsuʾl-beyān (Istanbul, 1300/ 1882). *Adamantios Korais, Άτακτα. Ήγουν παντοδαπών εις την Αρχαίαν και την νέαν Ελληνικήν γλώσσαν αυτοσχεδίων σημειώσεων, καί τίνων άλλων υπομνημάτων, αυτοσχέδιος συναγωγή, vols. 1–5 (Paris, 1828–1835). Adolphe Pictet, Les origines indo-européennes ou les Aryas primitifs, 3 vols. (Paris 1859–1863). Ahmed Vefik Pasha, Lehce-i ʿOs̱mānī (Istanbul, 1293). *Alexandre G. Paspati, Études sur les Tchinghianés ou Bohémiens de l’Empire Ottoman (Istanbul 1870). *Andreas David Mordtmann, “Über die Keilinschriften der zweiten Gattung,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 1/2, 24 (1870), 1–85. Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, Grammaire Arabe I–II (Paris, 1810).

49

50

Gardika, “Αρχείο Αλέξανδρος Καραθεοδωρή,” in Ρωμοί στην Υπηρεσία της Υψηλής Πύλης, ed. H. Patrinelis (Athens: Εταιρεία Μελέτης της Καθ’ Ημάς Ανατολής, 2002), 135–43. Studies on Christian or Jewish figures in Ottoman bureaucracy or cultural life often refer to these figures not by their original names but by their Turkified names in Ottoman documents. For example, Nurdan Şafak, “Bir Tanzimat Diplomatı Kostaki Musurus Paşa (1807–1891)” (PhD diss., Marmara Üniversitesi, Istanbul 2006). Karatheodoris gives bibliographic information of some of the sources he uses, but often he is content with solely naming the author or describing the passage he refers to, without giving the title of the book. I found most of the titles. Where it is uncertain which edition was used by Karatheodoris, the titles of the books are marked with an asterisk. He also refers to Edwin Norris, Franz Bopp, Frederick L.O. Roehrig, Heymann Steinthal, Otto Donner, Szende Riedel, but I found no hint as to which works by these scholars he used.

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August Treboniu Laurian and Ion C. Massim, Dicționarul limbii române (Bucuresti, 1871–75). Avraam Malliakas, Λεξικόν τουρκο-ελληνικόν (Istanbul, 1876). Barbier de Meynard, Dictionnaire Turc-Français I–II (Paris, 1881–86). *Cevdet ve Fuad Efendi, Ḳavāʾid-i ʿOs̱mānīyye (Istanbul, 1851). Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis (1688). Ebuishakzade Esad Efendi, Lehcetüʾl-luġāt (Istanbul, 1795/96). Ebülgazi Bahadır Han, Histoire genealogique des Tartares d’Abulgasi-BayadurChan et enrichie d’un grand nombre de Remarques Authentiques (The Hague, 1726). Eduard Sachau, ed., Ǵawâlîḳî’s Al Muʿarrab nach der Heydener Handschrift (Leipzig, 1867). Eduard William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863–1893). Ellious Bochtor, Dictionnaire Français-Arabe, 2 vols. (Paris, 1828–1829). François Lenormant, La langue primitive de Chaldée et les idiomes touraniens (Paris, 1875). Franz Miklosich, “Die slavischen, magyarischen und rumänischen Elemente im türkischen Sprachschatze,” Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch historische Classe CXVIII (Vienna, 1889). Friedrich Christian Diez, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen (Bonn, 1853). Georg Rosen, Über die Sprachen der Lazen (Berlin, 1844). Georg Wilhelm Freytag, Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, 4 vols. (Halle, 1837). Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, Grammatik der lebenden persischen Sprache, nach Mirza Mohammeds Ibrahim’s Grammar of the Persian Language (Leipzig, 1875). Herrmann Vámbéry, Ćagataische Sprachstudien (Leipzig, 1867). Herrmann Vámbéry, Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku-Bilik (Innsbruck, 1870). Herrmann Vámbéry, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der turkotatarischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1878). *Hesychios Alexandreus, Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, ed. Friderico Ritschelio (1864). *İbrahim Peçevi, Tārīḫ-i Peçevī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-i ʿĀmire, 1281/1864). Jacobus Golius, Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, Lugduni Batavorum (Leiden, 1653). Johann Augustus Vullers, Lexicon Persico- Latinum Etymologicum, 2 vols. (1855–1864). Louis Marcel Devic, Dictionnaire étymologique des mots français d’origine orientale: arabe, persan, turc, hébreu, malais (Paris, 1876).

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Max Müller, Letter to Chevalier Bunsen on the Classification of the Turanian Languages (London, 1854). Mesgnien Meninski, Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, 4 vols. (Vienna, 1780). *Müneccimbaşı Ahmed Dede, Müneccimbaşı Tarihi (Tercüme-i Sahāifüʾl-ahbār) (Istanbul, 1285/1868). Otto von Böhtlingk, Über die Sprache der Jakuten (Saint Petersburg, 1851). Pavet de Corteille, Dictionnaire Turc-Oriental (1870). *Pierre François Viguer, Éléments de la langue turque, ou tables analytiques de la langue turque usuelle, avec leur développement (Istanbul, 1790). *Rashīd ad-dīn Faḍlullāh, Jāmīʿ at-tawārīkh. Şeyh Süleyman Efendi, Luġat-i Çaġatayi ve Türkī-i ʿOs̱mānī (Istanbul, 1298 / 1881). Skarlatos Vizantios, Λεξικόν της Ελληνικής Γλώσσης (Athens, 1852). *Solakzade Mehmed Hemdemî, Ṣolaḳzāde Tārīḫi (Istanbul, 1297/1880). Stanislas Julien (tr.), “Documents Historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs),” Journal Asiatique 6, 3&4 (Paris, July–December 1864), 200–41. Stefanos Koumanoudis and S. Konstantinos Ksanthopoulos and I. Dimitrios Mavrofridis, Φιλίστωρ: Σύγγραμα Φιλολογικόν και Παιδαγωγικόν (Athens, 1862). *Theodoros Prodromos, Πτωχοπροδρομικά. Vladimir Vladimirovich Veliaminof-Zernof, Dictionnaire Djagatai-Turc (Petersbourg, 1869).

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge the valuable contribution of Harun Özgür Turgan for the preparation of this manuscript. Bibliography

Published Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Misailidis, Evangelinos. Tamaşa-yi Dünyâ ve Cefakâr-u Cefakeş, ed. Robert Anhegger, Vedat Günyol, Peri Efe, Istanbul: YKY, 2021.

Akpınar, Mahmut. “Bir Tanzimat Bürokratı ve diplomatı olarak Aleksandır Karatodori Paşa (1833–1906).” PhD diss., University of Selçuk, Konya, 2010. Antoniadis, Georgios. θεία Κωμωδία. Athens 1881.

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Armaos, Dimitris. “Ελληνικές Μεταφράσεις της Θείας Κωμωδίας.” Comparison 16 (2005): 60–82. Bağdemir, Abdullah. “Osmanlıca Sözlüklerde Harfler İçin Kullanılan Terimler.” Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 12 (2002): 35–70. Böhtlingk, Otto von. Über die Sprache der Jakuten. Saint Petersburg: Buchdr. der K. Akademie der Wissenschaften. 1851. Cange, Charles du Fresne du. Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis. 1688. Charrel, Louis. Études philologiques sur la langue turque. Constantinople: Imprimerie de l’Orient Illustre, 1873. Corteille, Pavet de. Dictionnaire Turc-Oriental. Paris: A l‘Imprimerie impériale, 1870. Efe, Peri. “Ein Bürokrat und Gelehrter aus Millet-i Rum im Osmanischen Reich des 19. Jahrhunderts: Alexandros Karatheodoris.” MA thesis, University of Vienna, 2007. Eideneier, Hans, ed. Πτωχοπρόδρομος. Irakleio: Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης, 2012. Erdem, İlhan. “Mikyâsuʾl-Lisân Kıstâsuʾl-Beyân’daki Dil Bilgisi Terimleri.” Turkish Studies/Türkoloji Araştırmaları 2,2 (Spring 2007): 192–216. Etker, Şeref. “Salih Zeki Bey. Üç Boyutlu Bir Biyografi İçin.” Osmanlı Bilimi Araştır­maları 7,1 (2005): 137–54. Gardika-Alexandropoulou, Katerina. Αρχείο Στ. Αλέξανδρου Καραθεοδωρή. Κατάλογος και Ευρετήρια. Athens: Κέντρο Νεοελληνικών Ερευνών, 1981. Gardika-Alexandropoulou, Katerina. “Αρχείο Αλέξανδρος Καραθεοδωρή.” In Ρωμοί στην Υπηρεσία της Υψηλής Πύλης, ed. H. Patrinelis, 135–43. Athens: Εταιρεία Μελέτης της Καθ’ Ημάς Ανατολής, 2002. Georgiadou, Maria. “Expert Knowledge between Tradition and Reform. The Carathéodorys: a Neo-Phanariot family in 19th Century Constantinople.” In Médecins st Ingénieurs Ottomans a l’age des Nationalismes, ed. Méropi Anastassiadou-Dumont, 243–294. Paris: Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes, 2003. Julien, Stanislas. “Document Historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs).” Journal Asiatique 6,4 (July–Decembre 1864): 200–41. Kuneralp, Sinan. “Karatheodori.” Yaşamları ve Yapıtlarıyla Osmanlılar Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, ed. Ali birinci and Necdet Sakaoğlu, Istanbul: YKY, 2008. Laurian, August Treboniu, and Ion C. Massim. Dicționarul Limbii Române. Bucuresti 1871–75. Lenormant, François. La langue primitive de Chaldée et les idiomes touraniens. Paris 1875. Millas, Herkül. Türkçe Yunanca Ortak Kelimeler, Deyimler ve Atasözleri. Istanbul: İstos Yayınları, 2017. Mordtmann, Andreas David. “Über die Keilinschriften der zweiten Gattung.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 1/2,24 (1870): 1–85. Musurus Pacha, Dante’s Inferno. London: William and Norgate, 1882.

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Pekarski, Edouard. Yakut Dili Sözlüğü, vol. 1. Istanbul: Ebüzziya Matbaası, 1945. Philliou, Christine M. Biography on an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution. Berkeley: California University Press, 2011. Rosen, Georg. Über die Sprachen der Lazen. Lemgo, Detmold: Meyer, 1844. Şafak, Nurdan. “Bir Tanzimat Diplomatı Kostaki Musurus Paşa (1807–1891)” PhD diss., Marmara Üniversitesi, Istanbul 2006. Salan, Erkan. “Aydın İli Ağızlarında ne … ne … Bağlacının Farklı Bir Kullanımı Üzerine.” Gazi Türkiyat Türkoloji Araştırmaları Dergisi 16 (Spring 2015): 43–50. Tietze, Andreas. Tarihî ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati, vol. 6. Ankara: Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi, 2018. Tsilenis Savvas E., and Kallirroi Dafna. “Senyor Momars’ın Vosporomaxia Adlı Yunanca Eserinde Türkçe Kelimeler ve 18. Yüzyıl İstanbul Tasviri.” In Osmanlı İstanbulu, eds. Feridun Emecen et al., 69–96. Istanbul: 29 Mayıs İstanbul Üniversitesi, 2018. Vambery, Armin. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der turko-tatarischen Sprachen. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1878. Vullers, Johann Augustus. Lexicon Persico- Latinum Etymologicum, 2 vols. Bonn: Adolph Marci, 1855–1864. Zenker, Julius Theodor. Türkisch-Arabisch-Persisches Handwörterbuch, vol. 1. Hildesheim/ New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1979.

Journals

Mecmūʿa-i Fünūn, n. 16, n. 18 and n. 19. Istanbul 1864. Ο Κόσμος. Istanbul 1882–1884.



Internet Sources

Işık, Mehmet. “Aleksandır Karatodori Paşa,” https://www.academia.edu/3260959/Alek sand%C4%B1r_Karatodori_Pa%C5%9Fa (accessed June 2018).

Part 2 Sources and Terminologies: New Readings, New Perspectives

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6 Some Remarks on Marginal Notes in Ottoman Manuscripts Marinos Sariyannis This short paper has no ambition of presenting a complete survey of marginal notes in Ottoman manuscripts. There are numerous experts on Ottoman books, diplomatics and palaeography, and I do not count myself among them; the present survey will be of an impressionistic nature, based on my experience with Ottoman manuscripts and documents (not a very great one, to be sure, and moreover limited to Ottoman Turkish language sources mainly of history, political advice and geography). Still, there is an ambitious side: I will try to examine margins and marginalia not only as potential sources for the history or audience of a manuscript, but also as a structural feature of the Ottoman book culture.1 1 Literature on Ottoman book culture has grown considerably during the last decade. See, among others, Frédéric Hitzel, ed., “Livres et lecture dans le monde ottoman,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 87–88 (1999): 19–38; Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms) (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003); Christoph K. Neumann, “Üç tarz-ı mütalaa: Yeniçağ Osmanlı Dünyasında kitap yazmak ve okumak,” Tarih ve Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar 1 (Spring 2005): 51–76 (now also available in English as “Three Modes of Reading: Writing and Reading Books in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” Lingua Franca 5 (2019), URL: https://www.sharpweb.org/linguafranca/issue-5-2019 -ottoman-print-culture/ (accessed in December 2020) ; Tülün Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur? Osmanlı’da okurlar ve okuma biçimleri üzerine bazı gözlemler,” Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar 13 (2011): 7–43, now also available in English as “A Book is Read by How Many People? Some Observations on Readers and Reading Modes in the Ottoman Empire,” Lingua Franca 5 (2019), URL: https://www.sharpweb.org/linguafranca/issue-5-2019-ottoman -print-culture/ (accessed in December 2020); İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlılarda kütüphaneler ve kütüphanecilik (Istanbul: Timaş, 2015); İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlılarda sahaflık ve sahaflar (Istanbul: Timaş, 2013); İsmail E. Erünsal, “Osmanlılarda kadınlar ne okuyordu (XVI–XVII. asırlar),” in İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlı kültür tarihinin bilinmeyenleri: şahıslardan eserlere, kurumlardan kimliklere, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Timaş, 2019), 69–94; Henning Sievert, “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon: Usual and Unusual Readings of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Bureaucrat,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 41 (2013): 159–95; Berat Açıl, ed., Osmanlı kitap kültürü: Cârullah Efendi kütüphanesi ve derkenar notları (Ankara: Nobel, 2015); Tobias Heinzelmann, Populäre religiöse Literatur und Buchkultur im Osmanischen Reich. Eine Studie zur Nutzung der Werke der Brüder Yazıcıoğlı (Würzburg:

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To start with, Ottomans were very keen on keeping wide margins in their writing. Book manuscripts followed the usual practice of Islamic manuscripts, with the use of borders and the occasional note on the first word of the next page at the verso, so as to facilitate bookbinding. Apart from allowing for notes, wide margins were useful for rebinding books and notebooks, as in this case the edges of the pages were trimmed to match; if the marginalia were considered worth preserving, the bookbinder would cut around the note and fold the

Ergon, 2015); Nir Shafir, “The Road from Damascus; Circulation and the Redefinition of Islam in the Ottoman Empire, 1620–1720,” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2016); Erol Özvar, “Osmanlı dünyasında yazma eser üretkenliği,” in Sahn-ı Semân’dan Dârülfünûn’a: Osmanlı’da ilim ve fikir dünyası (âlimler, müesseseler ve fikrî eserler)  – XVII. Yüzyıl, eds. Hidayet Aydar and Ali Fikri Yavuz (Istanbul: Zeytinburnu Belediyesi, 2017), 17–44; Elif Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers in Early Modern Istanbul: Manuscript Notes of Janissaries and Other Riff-Raff on Popular Heroic Narratives,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 9 (2018): 109–31; Sami Arslan, “Bilgiyi istinsahla çoğaltmak: Osmanlı ilim kamuoyunda bilginin dolaşımı (İznik medresesi  – Süleymaniye medreseleri dönemi)” (PhD diss., Fatih Sultan Mehmet Üniversitesi, Istanbul 2019) (I had no access to the published form: Osmanlı’da Bilginin Dolaşımı – Bilgiyi İstinsahla Çoğaltmak. Istanbul: Ketebe, 2020); Ahmet Tunç Şen, “Authoring and Publishing in the Age of Manuscripts: the Columbia University Copy of an Ottoman Compendium of Sciences with Marginal Glossing,” Philological Encounters 5 (2020): 353–77. A concise and comprehensive introduction can be found in “Catalogue for the Exhibition ‘Wonders of Creation – Ottoman Manuscripts in Hamburg Collections’ at the State and University Library Hamburg 16 September to 30 October 2016”, eds. Janina Karolewski and Yavuz Köse, manuscript cultures 9 (2018, 2nd ed.), URL: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publi cations/mc/mc09.html (accessed in December 2020). I did not have access to two recent PhD dissertations, Meredith Quinn, “Books and Their Readers in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul” (PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge Ma. 2016), and Yavuz Sezer, “Architecture of Bibliophilia: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Libraries” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Ma. 2016). On marginal notes in pre-Ottoman Islamic manuscripts, see Emilie Savage-Smith, “Between Reader and Text: Some Medieval Arabic Marginalia,” in Scientia in margine. Etudes sur les marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du Moyen Age à la Renaissance, eds. Danielle Jacquart and Charles Burnett (Geneva: Droz, 2005), 75–101; Adam Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers (Leiden: Brill, 2009), s.v. “Glosses and scholia,” “Notabilia and finger tabs,” “Study and reading notes”; Andreas Görke and Konrad Hirschler, eds., Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources (Beirut: Ergon Verlag, 2011); Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 9 (2018) [Special Issue: The History of Books and Collections through Manuscript Notes]. Among studies on Byzantine and West European marginalia, see Paolo Odorico, “… Alia nullius momenti. A proposito della letteratura dei marginalia,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 78 (1985): 23–36; Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Heather J. Jackson, Marginalia. Readers Writing in Books (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Danielle Jacquart and Charles Burnett, eds., Scientia in Margine: Études sur les Marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Hautes Études médiévales et modernes 88 (Geneva: Librairie Droz S.A., 2005).

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extra bit into the book.2 Administrative documents, for their part, were aso quite generous in keeping wide space with no writing. Typically, scribes kept a very wide margin on the right side of the document, whereas the left side would be exploited up to the edge, with the lines bending upwards to accommodate whole words (Ottomans were rather reluctant to split words, although we occasionally see this as well).3 1

Administration

Apart from aesthetic reasons for such space accommodations (which are not at all to be neglected), there were also very practical ones. In administrative practice, margins played the role of attachments or bureaucratic follow-ups; this practice must have started in the mid-16th century and it grew following the growth and elaboration of the bureaucratic apparatus, to culminate throughout the 18th century – a more precise periodisation is certainly worth elaborating but needs a much closer study. A judge would validate a document in the top (or the right) margin, often above another judge’s validation,4 and a governor would sign in the right margin, imitating the Sultan’s imperial tuğra.5 Furthermore, a court register (sicil) would often contain short notes on the content of each document copied.6 More importantly, as documents were referred from one office to another, bureaucrats, officers, governors, viziers or even sultans either noted their observations or full answers in various parts of these margins (in some cases in the verso as well). These notes were so widespread and formulaic that they were themselves noted der-kenar, meaning literally “in 2 I wish to thank Nir Shafir for this information. 3 Cf. Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts, s.v. “Line management and justification.” 4 Asparouch Velkov, “Signatures-formules des agents judiciaries dans les documents ottomans à caractère financier et juridique,” Turcica 24 (1992):193–240; Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı belgelerin dili (diplomatik) (Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür ve Sanat Vakfı, 1994), 351–52; Nicolas Vatin, “Ḥüccet à signatures multiples dans le fonds ottoman des archives du Monastère de Saint-Jean à Patmos,” abstract published in New Trends in Ottoman Studies. Papers presented at the 20th CIÉPO Symposium, Rethymno, 27 June–1 July 2012, ed.-in-chief Marinos Sariyannis (Rethymno: University of Crete  – Institute for Mediterranean Studies, 2014), 164–65; Phokion Kotzageorgis, “The Multiple Certifications in Ottoman Judicial Documents (Hüccets) from Monastic Archives,” Archivum Ottomanicum 31 (2014): 117–28. 5 İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, “Tuğra ve pençeler ile ferman ve buyuruldulara dair,” Belleten 5 (1941): 101–57; Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı belgelerin dili, 76–83; Elias Kolovos, “Early Ottoman Diplomatics Revisited: An Order of the Beglerbegi of Rumeli Hace Firuz ibn Abdullah in Favour of the Athonite Monastery of Vatopedi (1401),” Turcica 45 (2014): 187–207 esp. at 196–97. 6 E.g. Herakleio, Vikelaia Municipal Library, Turkish Archive of Herakleio, 1/63.

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the margin.” Various registers, enumerating from tax-payers to revenues and houses, were systematically filled over and over with such der-kenar. The Sultan (or whoever was the top official in the bureaucratic circle of the document, a Grand Vizier, a defterdar or – more rarely – a beylerbeyi) might write a simple formula, mucebince amel oluna, meaning “proceed as described”, or more extensive remarks on a decree or a report (telhis);7 a bureaucrat would note the consecutive tenants of a revenue or of a house in a register (ruznamçe);8 and various offices would add their own der-kenars in answer to a petition or a report. Such documents, with follow-ups written on their margins, were said to have been “acted upon” or to have seen an “operation” (muamele).9 An intriguing question would be whether the use of such notes in the muamele procedure corresponds to a certain spatial representation of hierarchy. The protocol of documents often contains such a representation: God’s name (hüve), the invocatio, is located at the top of imperial orders and diplomas, followed by the Sultan’s tuğra, before we reach the main text; perhaps even more indicative is the case of letters or petitions, where the word padişahım or sultanım in the address is slightly raised above the line.10 In general, petitions of various kinds were written at the bottom left-hand side of the paper, allowing for der-kenar notes to fill the upper and sometimes the lower left space as well. However, in documents with multiple der-kenar additions, it is difficult to clearly discern any top-down hierarchy corresponding to the hierarchy of the offices and posts involved. 2

In the Process of Writing

As in all manuscript cultures, in fact as in every pre-word processor writing process, it is only too natural that marginal notes played a major role during 7

Lajos Fekete, Einführung in die osmanisch-türkische Diplomatik der türkischen Botmäs­ sigkeit in Ungarn (Budapest: Königliche Ungarische Universitätsdruckerei, 1926), XLVII– XLVIII. See e.g. Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı tarihine ait belgeler: Telhisler (1597–1607) (Istanbul Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1970), 32–34. 8 Elias Kolovos, “An Ottoman Register of Venetian Candia,” in Venetians and Ottomans in the Early Modern Age, Studi Turchi e Ottomani 6, ed. Anna Valerio (Venezia: Edizioni Ca Foscari, 2018), 75–85. 9 See Asparouch Velkov, “Les notes complémentaires dans les documents financiers ottomans des XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles,” Turcica 11 (1979): 37–77; Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı belgelerin dili, 142–43 and especially 308–15. 10 Fekete, Einführung in die osmanisch-türkische Diplomatik, LIX; Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı belge­ lerin dili, 307.

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tḥe composition of ā text. Private texts, such as diaries or personal notes, tended to use all the available surface of the paper. There are neatly written examples, with relatively little use of marginal space, but most surviving diaries have densely written additions;11 of course, these are not exactly what we would call marginal notes, since they mostly concern events that the author initially forgot to write down. On the other hand, texts composed for a wider audience were usually written with wide margins to allow later emendations and corrections by the author. The same, of course, applied to copied manuscripts, and occasionally smaller or larger pieces of the original text show that the copyist had originally skipped and then added them as a note.12 An interesting case of corrected copy is the manuscript of the last two books of Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname: according to Dankoff’s interpretation, there is a 1742 copy which, after its very low quality was realised, was recopied much more carefully in 1751.13 Few working copies of Ottoman authors are known to have been preserved (although this statement reflects our current knowledge, as undoubtedly, many autographs have simply not been yet identified), but among these few belong a couple of monumental works by two outstanding personalities, namely Kâtip Çelebi (d. 1657) and Evliya Çelebi (d. after 1683); and we are lucky enough to already have detailed studies on the manner in which they composed their autographs. For the former, Gottfried Hagen offers a splendid analysis of how the author read and kept marginal notes on previous geographies, as well as how he rewrote his magnum opus, the Cihannüma: Kâtip Çelebi wrote careful notes and made corrections to his sources and, when he decided to abandon the first version of Cihannüma, having found it outdated, he used the fair copy of a professional scribe to correct, amend and rewrite the work, using the margins of the manuscripts. Apart from extensive notes and additions, these marginalia included maps that he copied from various works, mostly of European 11 For an example of a neatly written diary see the facsimile pages in Süleyman Göksü, Müellifi meçhûl bir rûznâme: Osmanlı-Rus harbi esnâsında bir şâhidin kaleminden İstanbul (1769–1774) (Istanbul: Çamlıca, 2007); for examples of denser writing see the facsimile pages in Halil Çeçen, Niyazî-i Mısrî’nin hatıraları (Istanbul: Dergâh, 2006) or Selim Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve günlüğü: Sadreddinzâde Telhisî Mustafa Efendi günlüğü (1711–1735) üstüne bir inceleme (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2012). 12 See for instance a long emendation in Halil İnalcık  – Mevlûd Oğuz, Gazavât-ı Sultân Murâd b. Mehemmed Hân. İzladi ve Varna savaşları (1443–1444) üzerinde anonim Gazavâtnâme (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1978), facsimile p. 6. 13 Robert Dankoff, “‘Shall We Tear Down That Observatory:’ Evliya Çelebi and Philology,” in From Mahmud Kaşgari to Evliya Çelebi: Studies in Middle Turkic and Ottoman Literatures (Istanbul: Isis, 2008), 329–51, here 339–42.

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origin. The result was the unfinished second version.14 Actually, it seems that the first version originated from a copy of Sipahizade’s geography, which Kâtip Çelebi had annotated extensively and tried to arrange in alphabetical order, resulting in an index of regions and cities. Similarly, Kâtip Çelebi uses marginal notes in copies of his other works, presumably planning to rewrite them at a later date: such is the case with Tuḥfetüʿl-kibār, the history of the naval exploits of the Ottomans.15 As for Evliya Çelebi, the numerous studies by Richard Kreutel, Pierre MacKay and Robert Dankoff show that the manuscript considered as an autograph must in fact have been written by an amanuensis, working under Evliya’s direction.16 Part of it was the “initial fair-copy stage” (to use Dankoff’s terminology), and another part (most of the first five books) the “final fair-copy,” where Evliya seems to have inspected and corrected the initial copy, adding diacritics and vowel markings, but also interlinear and marginal emendations and additions. Still, the situation is more complex as, according to Dankoff’s expert opinion, some marginal notes (subtitles, for instance) belong to Evliya’s scribe (under the author’s supervision and instruction), rather than to himself.17 It is not always easy to understand if the marginalia of a manuscript belong to the author or a reader. Normally an author would have explanations or comments, usually marked with the Arabic minhu (“by the [author]”), which would play the role of footnotes and would occasionally have been copied either as marginal notes or integrated into the main text;18 this is the case, for instance, 14

Gottfried Hagen, “Kâtib Çelebi and Târîh-i Hind-i garbî,” Güney-Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 12 (1982–1998), 101–15; Gottfried Hagen, Ein osmanischer Geograph bei der Arbeit: Entstehung und Gedankenwelt von Katib Celebis Gihannüma (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2003), 288–91 and passim; Gottfried Hagen, “Katib Çelebi and Sipahizade,” in Essays in Honour of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, vol. 1, eds. Mustafa Kaçar and Zeynep Durukal (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2006), 525–42. See also the meticulous study of the autographs and fiches of Kâtip Çelebi’s encyclopedic works by Eleazar Birnbaum, “Kātib Chelebi (1609–1657) and Alphabetization: A Methodological Investigation of the Autographs of His Kashf al-Ẓunūn and Sullam al-Wuṣūl,” in Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen-Orient, eds. François Déroche and Francis Richard (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France 1997), 236–63. 15 Orhan Şaik Gökyay, “Kâtip Çelebi; hayatı, şahsiyeti, eserleri,” Kâtip Çelebi: hayatı ve eserleri hakkında incelemeler (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1957), 3–90, here 47. 16 Richard F. Kreutel, “Neues zur Evliyā-Çelebī-Forschung,” Der Islam 48 (1972): 269–79; Pierre A. MacKay, “The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi, Part I: the Archetype,” Der Islam 52 (1975): 278–98; Dankoff, “‘Shall We Tear Down That Observatory’”. 17 Robert Dankoff, “Where is Evliya Çelebi in the autograph manuscript of the Seyahatname?,” URL: https://www.academia.edu/12820485/Where_is_Evliya_%C3%87elebi_in_the_auto graph_manuscript_of_the_Seyahatname (accessed in December 2020). 18 On this practice, and the fact that minhu notes or minhiyat do not always belong to the author, see Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche, “Minhīyāt  – Marginalien des Verfassers in

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witḥ the numerous notes inserted by Uşşakizade İbrahim Efendi (d. 1724) in his famous collection of scholars’ biographies, Zeyl-i Şakayık: they were reproduced in several of the later copies.19 On their part, copyists might add corrections or remarks on doubtful readings, the so called ṣaḥḥa annotations.20 An anonymous work entitled Kitabu mesalihiʿl-müslimin ve menafiʿiʾl-müʾminin (“Book on the Proper Course to be Followed by Muslims and on the Interests of the Faithful”) and composed almost certainly in the mid-16th century by someone who had worked in the financial bureaucracy,21 provides examples of emendations and additions, some of which were certainly made by the author and others that could have been made by a colleague of his, as they are clearly written – if not by a different hand, then surely in a different script (one peculiar to financial bureaucracy to boot).22 Among these are notes praising Selim I’s politics, corroborating the author’s proposal or suggesting more precise measures.23 Remarkably, all these notes seem to be concentrated in a specific, small part of the work. Would the author have a colleague cast a second look on matters of his specific expertise? A note implying that this “second eye” did not know the name of the author either (“if the author of this book would read the above …”) seems to lead to the conclusion that these marginal notes belonged to a later reader.24 A most peculiar (and relatively late) case is an autobiographical memoir of an irregular soldier, Kabudli Vasfi Efendi, who had taken part in various battles in the Caucasus and especially in the Peloponnese and Euboea (Eğriboz) during the Greek Revolution, covering his experiences from 1801 or 1802, when he left his village, accompanying his father on various campaigns, until 1825. His manuscript, which probably was dictated to a scribe, is full of interlinear

19 20 21

22 23 24

arabischen Manuskripten,” Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques 60,4 (2006): 987–1019; Şen, “Authoring and Publishing,” 356–57 and 368–69. See the analysis of the manuscripts by Hans Georg Majer, Vorstudien zur Geschichte der ilmiye im Osmanischen Reich: I. zu Uşakizade, seiner Familie und seinem Zeyl-i şakayık (München: Dr.-Dr.-Rudolf-Trofenik, 1978), 65–76. See Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts, s.v. “Transcription marks.” Yaşar Yücel, Osmanlı devlet teşkilātına dair kaynaklar: Kitâb-i müstetâb – Kitâbu mesâlihiʾlmüslimîn ve menâfiʿiʾl-müʾminîn  – Hırzüʾl-mülûk (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1988), 49–142; facsimile follows. On the date and authorship, see Marinos Sariyannis, with a chapter by Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 149–50. Yücel (Osmanlı devlet teşkilâtına, 63–64) argues that all emendations belong to the author, who had probably dictated the text to some scribe. Ibid., 113 (facs. 90), 115–17 (facs. 94–98). Ibid., 115 (facs. 95): bu kitabı teʾlif eden bunlarun üzerine nâzir olsa belki muhtesibin onat gözü açılurdu.

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depictions of landscapes and scenes tḥat are intended to illustrate, and sometimes to elucidate points of, the text.25 One can assume that after (or in the process of) having the text dictated, Vasfi drew his sketches to make the text more lively, to show details as he remembered them, or perhaps to imitate illustrated manuscripts (although it is difficult to imagine what experience of illuminated manuscripts he might have had). It seems that illustrating one’s manuscripts or copybooks became an increasingly common practice among the less-educated urban strata, following or accompanying the late 17th- and early 18th-century vernacularisation and “nouveau literacy” process (of which more later).26 3

Translations and Commentaries

There are notes made by readers, which in a way are the most interesting of all in this respect. However, let us first study an intermediary group, marginal notes made by translators or commentators. For one thing, the very common genre of commentary (şerh) was composed in the large margins to the left of the original, commented text; and there were even more complex forms, such as “super commentaries” (commentary on commentary, ḥaşiye alā şerḥ),27 such as the Haşiye alā şerḥi risaletiʾl-istiʿare of Veliyüddin Carullah Efendi (d. 1738), a major scholar and owner of a large library: the original text is positioned in the centre, a first commentary (şerḥ) runs its three borders,

25 See Jan Schmidt, “The Adventures of an Ottoman Horseman: The Autobiography of Kabudlı Vasfî Efendi, 1800–1825,” in Jan Schmidt, The Joys of Philology: Studies in Ottoman Literature, History and Orientalism (1500–1923), vol. 1 (Istanbul: Isis, 2002), 165–286, e.g. here 237–41; Ömer Koçyiğit, Kabudlu Mustafa Vasfi Efendi: Tevârîh (Analysis  – Text  – Maps – Index – Facsimile) (Harvard: Department of Near Eastern languages and civilization, Harvard University, 2016). 26 Cf. Tülün Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua: The Commoner’s Voice and the Iconography of the Court in Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Painting,” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 186–218; İsmail Kara, İlim bilmez tarihi hatırlamaz: şerh ve haşiye meselesine dair birkac not (Istanbul: Dergah, 2013); Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 123–26. On the wide dissemination of single-folio paintings produced by market artists, see Gwendolyn Collaço, “The Image as Commodity: The Commercial Market for Single-Folio Paintings in Ottoman Istanbul, 17th–18th C. (PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 2020). 27 On the tradition of commentaries of various kinds see Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts, s.v. “Glosses and scholia”; Asad Q. Ahmed – Margaret Larkin, “The Ḥāshiya and Islamic Intellectual History,” Oriens 41,3–4 (2013): 213–16; Sonja Brentjes, “Mathematical Commentaries in Arabic and Persian – Purposes, Forms, and Styles,” Historia Mathematica 47 (2019): 54–66.

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and a further, outer border zone contains comments (ḥaşiye), elaborating on the şerḥ.28 Closer to our subject are the marginal notes made by a translator or compiler to his translation/compilation. Let us take, for instance, the manuscript of Tarih-i Frengi, a translation of Johannes Carion’s chronicle, commissioned by Kâtip Çelebi.29 Kâtip Çelebi seems to have his collaborator, a convert named Mehmed İhlasi, dictating to him the translation from the Latin edition of 1548, although some parts must have been corrected according to the 1553 French edition.30 In a second stage, it seems that he checked the translation and made marginal notes explaining some terms and facts: there are explanatory notes, such as “the Chaldeans are Nimrud’s tribe,” “the Maccabeans are some judges of the Israelites;” “Magia (macya) is the ‘Arabic sciences,’ such as magic, letter magic or science of properties” (macya ʿulūm-ı ʿarabiyyedir, sihr ve simya ve ḫaṣṣ gibi); “Constantia is a city in the realm of Switzerland;” “the fraternity of Jesuits is a new fraternity among monks, meaning literally those of Jesus;” “the Salic law (Salika ḳānūnı) is a law whereby only males can become monarchs.”31 There are also notes on contemporaneous realities, for instance, “the present emperor, Ferdinand, is this one’s (Matthias’s) son.”32 Some notes are much longer than others: for instance, there is very long note on the ancient names Theos and Sibylla, narrating the story of the Roman Sibylla and the purchase of the Sibylline books by Tarquinius Superbus; a lexicological note on the meanings of the Greek words philos and sophia; an excursus on the story of Judith and Holofernes; a short note on Cicero as an orator, with numerous unrivalled works in Latin; an explanation of the word “metaphor” and another of the term “baccalaureate.”33 Finally, in a couple of cases, Kâtip Çelebi comments on the translated text, usually on religious issues: when narrating Arius’ heresy and condemnation, Kâtip Çelebi notes that “these words of that person were true, but according to the Christians view, they are an [evil] innovation”; he copies 28 Açıl, ed., Osmanlı kitap kültürü, 369. 29 İbrahim Solak, Kâtib Çelebi: Târih-i Frengî tercümesi (Konya: Palet, 2010); Haşim Koç, “XVII. yüzyılın ortasında Osmanlı coğrafyası’ndan antik dönemlere bir bakış: Kâtip Çelebi’nin eserlerinden seçmeler,” Doğu Batı 40 (2007): 257–82, here 269–71; Bernard Lewis, “The Use by Muslim Historians of Non-Muslim Sources,” in Historians of the Middle East, eds. Bernard Lewis and Peter Malcolm Holt (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 180–91, here 185. On this translation, see also Ayşe Kayapınar, “Johann Carion kroniğinin Kâtip Çelebi tercümesine dair,” in Uluslararası Kâtib Çelebi sempozyumu Bildirileri, eds. Turan Gökçe et al. (İzmir: Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, 2017), 191–207. 30 On this personality see Hagen, Ein osmanischer Geograph bei der Arbeit, 66–68 and 277–80. 31 Solak, Târih-i Frengî, 16, 18, 147, 180, 188. 32 Ibid., 212. See also 183 (on the enmity between Papacy and England), 221 and elsewhere. 33 Ibid., 29, 36, 43, 71, 195, 224.

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Carion’s contempt of the heresiarch, but remarks in the margin that “the author wrote this according to his own blasphemous religion; we wrote it according to Islam and reinterpreted these blasphemies in the same manner”.34 Similar notes are to be found in the translation of a chronicle of the Byzantine emperors, from a compilation of Byzantine chronicles, written down in the same manuscript as Carion’s chronicle.35 While subtitles of sections are also given in marginal notes (as well as at the end/start of the different Byzantine sources),36 there are explanatory ones as well: Kâtip Çelebi notes, for instance, that Leo (Africanus) means lion, that “Sevirna” (Smyrna) is Izmir, and that a certain “Terasya” “is a famous city, capital of Bithynia, which must be Nicomedia” (İznikmid olmaḳ gerek), and so forth.37 There are again some notes longer than others, as when Kâtip Çelebi gives information on the Danubian lands, the city of Ferrara, the genealogy of the emperors of Trabzon, Lesvos and Bosnia.38 He also transfers notes by the original authors, as in the case of the origin of the Bulgarians (“the author describes here the Bulgarians: their origin is Tatar” etc.).39 As in other similar instances, subtitles are aligned with the text, while notes and comments are directed toward the top left. More than half a century later, between 1725 and 1730, the şeyhülislam Pirizade Mehmed Sahib Efendi (d. 1749) made the first translation of Ibn Khaldun’s introduction (actually, a considerable part of it, as he left the large section on human knowledge untranslated) into Ottoman Turkish. It is interesting to study Pirizade’s additions and marginal notes to Ibn Khaldun’s text: for instance, he disagrees with Ibn Khaldun that the Muslim world may have two leaders (caliphs) because of geographical distances; he also has a few corrections to make on geographical issues, a token of the remarkable development of geography following Kâtip Çelebi’s efforts. Pirizade also comments on Ibn Khaldun’s consideration of the time-span of 120 years as obligatory for all dynasties, stressing the exceptionality of the Ottoman dynasty:40 34 Ibid., 83 (“şahṣ-ı mezbūruñ sözü yerindedir nihāyet Naṣrānī ʿaḳīdesine göre bidʿat add olunur”), 84 (“bu maḳāmda musannif kendi küfrü muḳtezāsınca yazmış, biz İslam muḳtezāsınca taḥrīr ėtdik her yerde küfriyātı bu uslûb üzre taʿbīr olunmuşdur”). 35 İbrahim Solak, Kâtib Çelebi: Târih-i Kostantiniyye ve Kayâsıre (Konya: Palet, 2009). 36 E.g. Solak, Târih-i Kostantiniyye, 51 (“Gregoras ẕeyli bu maḥalde tamām olub, aşağısını Atina‌’dan Ḳalḳondilas Türk tārīḫini ẕeyl eylemişdir”). 37 Ibid., 18, 47, 51. 38 Ibid., 56, 69, 89–90, 95, 96. 39 Ibid., 43. 40 Yavuz Yıldırım, “Mukaddime’nin Osmanlı dönemi Türkçe tercümesi,” Dîvân İlmî Araştır­ malar 21 (2006): 17–33, here 24–25 and 27–30; Pîrîzâde Mehmed Sâhib, İbn Haldun: Mukaddime osmanlı tercümesi, 3 vols., eds. Yavuz Yıldırım et al. (Istanbul: Klasik, 2008),

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Witḫ God’s āssistance and with the helpful bountifulness of God the omnipotent, the eternal Exalted State of the Ottomans – praised be its pillars! – has lasted for almost five hundred years, thanks to the divine favours, and rules in its spacious territories and its roads of distant regions, which are situated in the four cardinal directions of the inhabited world, enforcing the Holy Law and the principles of the monotheistic religion.41 Of course, the notes of both Pirizade and Kâtip Çelebi belong to the minhiyat category: far from being provisional comments for a future rewriting, or reading notes, they should be considered as an integral part of the text, the way footnotes work today, and subsequent copyists would usually copy them or even incorporate them into the main text. 4

In the Process of Reading

The use of marginal notes in the writing process is, in a sense, self-evident; marginalia become more interesting when we move to the reading and commenting process. A study of such notes may show how people read a text: what points they seemed to find more interesting; what comments they made. A systematic study of “reading notes” would perhaps be very fruitful in a quest for information about changes with time, especially if combined with recent discoveries or suggestions on the developments in Ottoman culture during the 17th and 18th centuries. I refer to what Khaled El-Rouayheb named “deep reading”, careful commentaries through which transfer of knowledge became a reading and writing process, rather than oral transmission from teacher to disciple (where the validity of knowledge emerged from the text itself, rather than the scholar with whom one studied),42 as well as the growing vernacularisation of scientific literature during the same period. Recent emphasis on bottom-up literacy (“artisan literacy”, according to Nelly Hanna, or “nouveau literacy”, in XXX–XXXV and 1:93 (on geography), 1:334 (on the life span of the Ottoman state), or 2:66 (on the caliphate). 41 Pîrîzâde, İbn Haldun: Mukaddime, 1:334 (“lillāhiʾl-ḥamdü veʾl-minne dest-yārī-i ʿavn-i Bārī ve meded-kârī-i feyż-i Kird-gârī ile Devlet-i ʿaliyye-i ebed-peyvend-i ʿOsmāniyye şüyyidet erkânuhā biʾl-ināyātiʾs-Samedāniyye beş yüz seneye karīb müddettir ki çār cihet-i rubʿ-i meskūnda vāḳiʿ memālik-i fesīhatüʾl-ercā ve mesālik-i baʿīdetüʾl-enhāda tenfīz-i ahkâm-ı dīn-i mübīn ve icrā-yı şerʿ-i Seyyidüʾl-mürselīn edip”). 42 Khaled El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 97–128.

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Dāna Sajdi’s work) helps us to reconsider the importance of printing for the emergence of a public sphere in premodern or early modern societies.43 Unfortunately, a major obstacle for the study of readers’ notes is the fact that they are almost never published in existing editions of the texts. Luckily, some scholars have meticulously studied the textual tradition of certain works, and such studies are quite helpful: here, I will use extensively Jan Schmidt’s study of Mustafa Ali’s (d. 1599) “Essence of Histories” (Künhüʾl-aḫbār), a compendium of universal geography and history.44 Another obstacle is the difficulty in dating marginal notes. Certainly, the composition of the text (or the date of copying, if known) is a certain terminus post quem, but very seldom can we identify and/or date the reader. Thus, we can deduce that a note with information about an artificial lake and a spring in Egypt, in the margins of an undated copy of Ali’s work, probably belongs to the 19th century, as it involves the term metre (“meter”) and is written in the riḳʿa script.45 But, the situation is more complex in another manuscript of the same work, copied in 1610, with ownership markings dated 1796/7, where marginal notes include content captions, corrections and computations, including a rough-draft map of China.46 One might think that the cheaper the copy, the more willing the reader would be to comment on the margins. However, to associate the existence of marginal reader’s notes with the quality (and, one infers, price) of the copy is no easy task.47 From the two Ali manuscripts mentioned above, the first seems 43 Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 185–91; Nelly Hanna, “Literacy and the ‘Great Divide’ in the Islamic World, 1300–1800,” Journal of Global History 2 (2007): 175–93; Nelly Hanna, “Literacy among Artisans and Tradesmen in Ottoman Cairo,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London: Routledge, 2012), 319–31; Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013); Timothy J. Fitzgerald, “Reaching the Flocks: Literacy and the Mass Reception of Ottoman Law in the Sixteenth-Century Arab World,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 2,1 (2015): 5–20; Mehmet Kökrek, “Müstensih Yeniçeriler,” Türk Dünyası Tarih-Kültür Dergisi 349 (2016): 22–24; Elif Sezer Aydınlı, “Osmanlı dönemi hikâye kitaplarında kolektif yazarlık”, Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 2 (2022): 47–64. 44 Jan Schmidt, Pure Water for Thirsty Muslims. A Study of Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī of Gallipoli’s Künhü l-aḫbār (Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut, 1991). 45 Schmidt, Pure Water, 366, 415. 46 Ibid., 368, 415. 47 On the fluctuations of paper and book prices see Özvar, “Osmanlı dünyasında yazma eser üretkenliği,” 31–40. Nir Shafir draws our attention to popular manuscripts that had little or no annotation, suggesting that they were used as either academic reference books or display copies: Nir Shafir, “How to Read Heresy in the Ottoman World,” in Historicizing

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more expensive (glossy pāper with gold frames), while the second (and more heavily annotated) cheaper (thin paper, no frontispieces or frames).48 Another rather expensive manuscript of the same text (glossy paper, gilt frames, frontispieces in gold) contains marginal coloured drawings (“in Western, 18th-century style”) of the globe of the earth (with ships and whales); there are two ownership markings, dated 1742/3 and 1776/7.49 A rich commentary, including additional information and “a long and indignant commentary … about Ali’s mistaken idea about the ancestry of Şemsi Pasha” (namely, that his ancestor Khalid b. Walid invented bribery), can be found in another rather luxurious manuscript (glossy paper, very fine script, red and gold frames), dated 1673/4:50 Let it be clear that Ali makes a stupid statement here, because my lord Khalid b. Walid belonged to the great companions of the Prophet … God forbid, but to take such a thing into your mouth … causes harm to the belief and the Islam of everyone … Ali … in his stupidity also caused the total deficiency, destruction and defeat of his own belief! Many marginal notes in Ali’s historical work assert that the reader has visited a particular saint’s grave referred to in the text.51 Let me end this second-hand survey of Ali’s manuscripts with the observation that certain marginal remarks add or rectify material based explicitly on other sources: for instance, a note drawn from a contemporary historian, Selaniki, or another (in a heavily annotated manuscript) from Latifi’s biographies of poets;52 in another instance, a reader might quote an early 18th-century fetva in the margins of a related chapter of Kâtib Çelebi’s Mizānüʾl-ḥaḳḳ.53 Such notes show a readership in possession of rich libraries, which moreover were read again and again,

48 49 50 51 52 53

Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750, eds. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 196–231, here 220–21. Many marginal notes, mostly on the contents, occur in another carelessly executed manuscript: Schmidt, Pure Water, 372. Ibid., 371. Similar drawings in another glossy copy: Ibid., 373. Ibid., 377–78 and 415. Another indignant reader crossed out a segment and noted “wrong! [this] is all senseless work” (Ibid., 415). For other cases of annotated manuscripts see Ibid., 379, 384, 387, 388, 389, 393, 395, 396, 398, 399, 401. Ibid., 415. Ibid., 382. See also 400, 415–16. Shafir, “The Road from Damascus,” 215. The chapter discusses the debate on the legitimacy of visiting saints’ tombs, and the fetva speaks of a tree regarded by pilgrims as holy.

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cross-referencing each other.54 However, similar notes can be found in more popular storybooks, of which more is to be said below.55 If we move to scientific literature, Thomas Goodrich and Gottfried Hagen have drawn our attention to the marginal notes added to geographical works.56 Hagen remarks, for instance, that notes on a manuscript of Sipahizade’s Awdah al-masālik “demonstrate that the reader was constantly trying to relate the geographical information not to actual data but to knowledge from philological and theological works”; another copy of the same work bears autograph notes by Kâtip Çelebi, which seem to add information and cross-references that were later used in his Cihannüma. This seems to be the manuscript that Kâtip Çelebi refers to in his bibliographical encyclopaedia, when he says that “the margins of this book have been annotated (tahşiye) with useful information acquired over several years. All of this has been inserted (i.e., into the Cihannüma).”57 It is possible that some of the marginalia in a copy of Tarih-i Hind-i Garbî, the history of the New World translated into Ottoman around 1580, belong to Kâtip Çelebi as well. Kâtip Çelebi seems to have corrected mistakes and annotated specific parts where the anonymous author tries to insert anecdotes of the acaib (or mirabilia) genre, in order to refute them or to use them in his own work.58 Other marginalia in manuscripts of the same work include comments on its content, some of them sceptical, explanatory notes on terms, names and events, information on further Spanish and Portuguese exploits, political advice of geopolitical and military content; plus a note on a personal experience:59 54

On the contents of Ottoman private libraries, see Neumann, “Üç tarz-ı mütalaa”; Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Kütüphaneler; Açıl, ed., Osmanlı kitap kültürü; Sievert, “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon.” 55 Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur?,” 42; Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 121. 56 Gottfried Hagen, “Some Considerations on the Study of Ottoman Geographical Writings,” Archivum Ottomanicum 18 (2000): 183–93, esp. at 190–91; Thomas Goodrich, “Marginalia – A Small Peek into Ottoman Minds,” Journal of Turkish Studies 29 (2005) [Festschrift in Honor of Eleazar Birnbaum]: 181–99. See also the study of medical-alchemical marginalia by Akif Ercihan Yerlioğlu, “‘May Those Who Understand What I Wrote Remember This Humble One’: Paratextual Elements in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Medical Manuscripts,” Yıllık: Annual of Istanbul Studies 2 (2020): 35–51. 57 Hagen, “Some Considerations,” 191; Hagen, “Kâtib Çelebi and Sipâhîzâde,” 532. 58 Gottfried Hagen, “Kâtib Çelebi and Târîh-i Hind-i Garbî,” Güney-Doğu Avrupa Araştırma­ ları Dergisi 12 (1982–1998) [Prof. Dr. Cengiz Orhonlu Hatıra Sayısı], 101–15. All marginalia to the copies of Tarih-i Hind-i Garbî have been published by Goodrich in his The Ottoman Turks and the New World: A Study of Tarih-i Hind-i Garbî and Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Americana (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), 349–67 and, revised, in his “Marginalia”, 185–98. 59 Goodrich, The Ottoman Turks and the New World, 366; Goodrich, “Marginalia,” 196.

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I the owner [of the book] have eaten the real plant named batat [potato]. Its taste exactly resembles the almond or chestnut. If it is mixed, no matter how much, it is thus. It has no seed. If one buries the young roots in the ground, it grows up in a month. Its leaf is like that of the ivy. It grew only in a sandy place in the land of Spain. We are lucky to possess not only the whole library of an early 18th-century scholar, professor and judge, Veliyuddin Carullah Efendi (1659–1738), but also a collection of detailed studies on the marginal notes in his books.60 It is difficult to say, at this stage, whether Carullah was an exceptional figure in his extensive annotation of his books. He made notes on the copyist or commentator of a text, he made notes in praise of certain authors, and he also used notes to make criticisms of the text and to cite poems (a common feature in a lot of Ottoman marginal notes).61 Of equal interest are the marginal reader’s notes on several manuscripts of Pirizade’s translation of Ibn Khaldun. These also contain criticisms of the text, as when an anonymous, very careful reader explains: Attention! Most of the interesting issues mentioned by Ibn Khaldun in his History have been deduced from experience. Thus, they apply with certainty only to the [events already] experienced, whereas they are altered with the conflicts of [these] times. Anyway [the author], points out so himself. Let [the reader] be careful!62 And, a reader corrects Latifi, the well-known biographer of poets, noting that he had to do so because “Latifi failed to understand this point”.63 However, not all readers were that confident. An undated manuscript of Ali’s history contains

60 Açıl, ed., Osmanlı kitap kültürü. 61 Berat Açıl, “Edebiyatın ilmi veya ilmin edebiyatı: Cârullah Efendi’nin edebiyat koleksiyonunu kenardan okumak,” in Osmanlı kitap kültürü. Carullah Efendie Kütüphanesi ve Derkenar Notlar, ed. Berat Açıl (Istanbul: İlem Kitaplığı, 2020), 339–69, here 357–66; Sami Arslan, “Der-kenar’ın gölgesinde: Cârullah Efendi’nin tasavvuf kitaplarına düştüğü notlar,” in Osmanlı kitap kültürü, ed. Açıl, 205–52. 62 Yıldırım, “Mukaddime’nin Türkçe tercümesi,” 25; Pîrîzâde, İbn Haldun: Mukaddime, 1: XXVIII (“Âgâh! İbn Ḫaldūn ḥazretleriniñ derūn-ı Tārīḫ’de ẕikr ėdeceği garāʾib-i mebāhis, ekseri tecrübeden alınmışdır. Bu sūretde sadece mücerribe yaḳīn ifāde edüb, ve ezminenin iḫtilāfı ile dahi muḫtelif olur. Nitekim kendisi dahi işāret eder. Diḳḳat oluna!”). 63 Oğuzhan Şahin, “Latîfî tezkiresini derkenardan okumak: tezkirenin Râşid Efendi nüsha­ sındaki notlar üzerinde bir inceleme,” Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 44 (2020): 161–80, here 172 (Latīfī bunı ıdrāḳ u żabt ėtmekde kāsır oldugıçün ḥaḳīr yazdum).

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ā draft letter, in which the owner tells his bookseller that “the contents of the book [were] beyond his grasp”.64 The notes mentioned so far concern corrections to, or additions of, the information mentioned in the texts. Of course, it was usual for a reader to note the date he had acquired a book, often with more details.65 A few marginal notes concern events occurring during the reader’s life time. Such a note reports a 1662/3 comet linking it to a comet story related by Ali; another (on the accession of Mustafa IV in 1807) is inserted in the last folio of another manuscript of the same work, a practice common for privately owned books.66 More common was the phenomenon of a reader noting events of their own life in marginal notes, usually with some link to the content of the text, for example, saying that they had visited a particular city or shrine.67 In stories meant to be read in public, a reader might note that their child was born during this performance;68 and a series of the immensely popular Hamzaname volumes have numerous notes on the date and place they were read (often also noting by whom).69 Another category of marginalia, whose study is very promising, concerns marginal notes explaining in Ottoman Turkish (or another of the “three languages,” elsine-i selase, namely Turkish, Arabic and Persian) a text written in another language – and vice versa: for instance, we know of commentaries on Persian poetry written in Turkish,70 and of marginal Turkish translations of Arabic pamphlets.71 Moving beyond the “three languages,” we know of Arabic 64 Schmidt, Pure Water, 400, 414. 65 Açıl, “Edebiyatın ilmi veya ilmin edebiyatı,” 344–52. 66 Schmidt, Pure Water, 396, 415. See another example from Carullah Efendi’s notes in Açıl, “Edebiyatın ilmi veya ilmin edebiyatı,” 361–62. 67 Sami Arslan, “Eserden müessire seyr ü sefer: Carullah Efendi’nin derkenar notlarının biyografisine katkıları,” FSM İlmî Araştırmalar – İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi 5 (2015): 67–83; Hagen, “Kâtib Çelebi and Sipâhîzâde,” 537; Claus-Peter Haase, “Marginal Notes from the Daily Work of an Anatolian Qadi in the Early 19th Century According to Ms. Ori Kiel 316,” in Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources, eds. Görke and Hirschler, 121–24; Nir Shafir, “In an Ottoman Holy Land: The Hajj and the Road from Damascus, 1500–1800,” History of Religions 60 (2020): 1–36. 68 Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 118. 69 Muhammet Yelten, “Hamza-nâme’nin yeni ciltleri ve okunma mekânları,” Turkish Studies 8,9 (2013): 151–65; same with the story of Firuzşâh: Elif Sezer Aydınlı, The Oral and the Written in Ottoman Literature: The Reader Notes on the Story of Firuzşah (Istanbul: Libra, 2015). 70 Murat Umut İnan, “Ottomans Reading Persian Classics: Readers and Reading in the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1700,” in The Edinburgh History of Reading: Early Readers, ed. Mary Hammond (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 160–81. 71 E.g. Shafir, “The Road from Damascus,” 175 fn. 26.

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manuscripts with Latin annotations, as well as Latin manuscripts with Arabic annotations and captions, all from the late Middle Ages.72 I am not aware of such notes in the Greek manuscripts copied at Mehmed II’s scriptorium, but Turkish captions were added to a richly illustrated Byzantine manuscript of Alexander’s romance, possibly after the capture of Trebizond by the same sultan in 1461. The captions were studied in an exemplary way by Dimitris Kastritsis, who suggested that they were created by a Turkish speaker through a Greek-speaking informant; they mostly explain the illustrations, adapting the text to the context of the Islamicate Alexander’s world.73 Intralingual marginalia overriding the elsine-i selase borders can be seen in some glossaries or dictionaries: for instance, there is the interesting case of a late 15th-century manuscript of Zamakhsharī’s Muqaddimāt al-adab, a 12th-century Arabic chrestomathy with interlinear Persian and Ottoman glosses, where a reader has also added Greek explanations in some pages.74 Finally, it is very important to mention a category of texts and readers that seems to have emerged together with the “nouveau literacy” mentioned above: collections of stories meant to be read aloud in public or private gatherings. This new trend, which is closely connected to a simultaneous boom in new forms of sociability,75 emerged throughout the second half of the 17th century and paved the way for the vernacularisation of the early 18th century. For this part, I rely on the pioneering work of Tülün Değirmenci and Elif Sezer Aydınlı, 72 Savage-Smith, “Between Reader and Text.” 73 See Dimitris Kastritsis, “The Trebizond Alexander Romance (Venice Hellenic Institute Codex Gr. 5): The Ottoman Fate of a Fourteenth-Century Illustrated Byzantine Manuscript,” Journal of Turkish Studies 36 (2011) [In memoriam Angeliki E. Laiou]: 103–31. On Ottoman representations of Alexander, see Dimitris Kastritsis, “The Alexander Romance and the Rise of the Ottoman Empire,” in Islamic Literature and Intellectual Life in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Anatolia, eds. Andrew C.S. Peacock and Sara Nur Yıldız (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2016), 243–83. 74 British Library, Or. 1174 (e.g. fols 4v, 10v, 11r, 93r, 93v, 94r, 97v, 101r, 101v, 102r). I wish to thank Michael Erdman who brought this to my attention and kindly answered my queries. On such dictionaries cf. Eleazar Birnbaum, “Interlinear Translation and the Case of the Turkish Dictionaries,” Journal of Turkish Studies 26,1 (2002): 61–80. 75 On this development see Shirine Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008); Cemal Kafadar, “How Dark is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early-Modern Istanbul,” in Medieval and Early-Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, eds. Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 243–69 and esp. at 244–46; Marinos Sariyannis, “Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum,” in A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, eds. Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 473–502. On the “nouveau literacy” see the literature quoted above, fn. 44.

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who have focused on marginal notes in such texts.76 Indeed, most of these notes refer to the public reading of the stories, noting that this book had been read in a particular neighbourhood, house and date, by a particular person. These notes were so numerous (pointing to the frequent public readings) that they were often seen as destroying the book, leading to other, indignant notes (“… do not ruin my book by writing something in the margin …”, or, even more indignantly, “How many people wrote on this book! I wish their dick would be on their ass, son of a bitch!”).77 Apart from such picturesque exclamations, readers would write their feelings generated from reading various episodes of the stories: usually poems, melancholy thoughts on the precariousness of fortune, but also whether and why they liked or disliked the story.78 As Sezer Aydınlı remarks, from these notes of ‘modest literary criticism’, we deduce that an Ottoman reader would dislike a story if it was unnecessarily detailed and confused the reader, if the events were inconsistent and if the deeds of characters were controversial to the beliefs and morality of the reader.79 Furthermore, readers would make sketches of the protagonists or of the insignia of their janissary regiments (often leading to denunciations by other readers, from other regiments);80 the importance of a detailed study of such marginalia for our knowledge of Ottoman urban life and culture is self-evident. To end this short survey, we should also mention notes made by owners of books who sought to have their manuscripts protected by inscribing their names; curses against potential thieves; magic squares to protect the copy or the well-known invocation to kebikeç (a demon, a jinn, or the king of moths – to prevent them from eating the book out of respect).81 Some of the notes we saw above, such as the angry janissary’s exclamation against those who would ruin his book by annotating it, may also be seen as belonging to this category. 76 Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur?”; Sezer Aydınlı, The Oral and the Written in Ottoman Literature; Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers.” 77 Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur?,” 25; Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 117. 78 Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur?,” 14ff.; Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 119ff. 79 Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers,” 120. 80 Ibid., 123–26. On such “visual commentaries” in Renaissance Europe (and in a higher cultural register) see Anthony Grafton, “The Margin as Canvas: A Forgotten Function of the Early Printed Page,” in Impagination – Layout and Materiality of Writing and Publication: Interdisciplinary Approaches from East and West, eds. Ku-Ming (Kevin) Chang, Anthony Grafton and Glenn W. Most (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 185–207. 81 Αdam Gacek, “The Use of Kabikaj in Arabic Manuscripts,” Manuscripts of the Middle-East 1 (1986): 49–53; Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts, s.v. “Kabīkaj” and “Magic squares.”

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Conclusions

To conclude, this survey provided merely a glimpse of what can be gained by studying Ottoman marginal notes. There are undoubtedly a lot of desiderata to be explored, and for the moment we can only suggest some questions for future research. For instance, were some copies more “available” for marginal notes than others? Our cursory survey of Ali’s manuscripts did not show any such preference according to the price of the copy, but much more systematic work is needed for a definitive answer. Regardless of the cost of the manuscript, there may also been other factors according to which a reader would avoid adding notes or not. For instance, the content of the book: were readers less inclined to add notes to Quran copies (and if so, was there a distinction between full copies and cüzʾ manuscripts)? Were private books more annotated than those found in vakıf libraries? What can we deduce from books that were circulated widely but which contained few, if any, marginalia? Were they display copies, as Nir Shafir suggested, the equivalent somehow of modern coffee-table books?82 The moral value of a book and even perceptions about property in Ottoman times may be elucidated by answering such questions. An interesting path can be followed from Tunç Şen’s recent remark that some readers’ glosses and comments were consequently copied as if they were authorial and belonging to the “original” work.83 Another category of questions concerns the density of marginalia. Browsing a corpus of manuscripts, and checking whether marginal notes are regularly scattered throughout the book or concentrated in some sections or pages, might show us whether Ottoman book owners read their books from beginning to end.84 In a similar vein, Roger Chartier’s distinction between intensive reading (few books, read over and over again) and extensive reading (more books, read more superficially)85 may be tested for the Ottoman case, diversified, of course, along social and cultural lines. And of course, perhaps the most important questions to be asked concern the content of Ottoman marginalia. What would readers comment on, and by what authority? Did they cross-reference other books, or did they rely mostly 82 Shafir, “How to Read Heresy,” 220–21. 83 Şen, “Authoring and Publishing in the Age of Manuscripts”. Cf. also Şahin, “Latîfî tezkiresini derkenardan okumak,” 163–65. 84 The manuscript of Muqaddimat al-adab referred to in fn. 75, for instance, has its Greek annotations in rather few and somehow scattered folios. 85 According to Chartier, the transition between the two modes took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Roger Chartier, “Du livre au lire,” in Pratiques de la lecture, ed. Roger Chartier (Marseille: Rivages, 1985), 62–88.

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on personal experience and individual reasoning? Did they mainly approve, corroborate, or expand on specific passages, or did they challenge the authority of the books they were reading? Answers to questions of this sort should surely take into account changes in time, but also socio-political and cultural differentiations, and they could be crucial to our understanding of changes in the intellectual landscape.86 The importance of such studies for Ottoman cultural and intellectual history is evident. A lot is known about translations of Arabic, Persian (or, less often, Greek) works into Ottoman Turkish; but less is known about the diffusion of these translations over time, which would show the fluctuations in the reading audience of various books. Much less, actually next to none, is known about their commentaries. To use the words of Sheldon Pollock, a historian of Sanskrit literature, The place of traditional commentaries in contemporary philological training illustrates one of the main things that has been wrong about the field  … How different my first experience of reading Virgil would have been had I read him through Donatus-Servius rather than through Conington-Nettleship.87 Indeed, this point is not confined to translations; on the contrary, it may well be expanded to original Ottoman texts as well. Thus, there is a serious lack of knowledge regarding the reception of both old and new texts among Ottoman audiences. Systematic research on marginal notes will undoubtedly contribute much to this aim.

Acknowledgements

I presented a first version of this paper during the workshop “History on the Margins. Marginalia in Early Modern Southeast Europe, 15th–18th Centuries”, organized by the University of Vienna, HEMSEE project (Vienna, 3 October 2019); I wish to thank Ovidiu Olar for inviting me and I thank all participants 86 Cf. Marinos Sariyannis, “The Limits of Going Global: The Case of ‘Ottoman Enlighten­ ment(s)’,” History Compass 2020; e12623, doi: 10.1111/hic3.12623. Some pioneering works toward this direction are Inan, “Ottomans Reading Persian Classics”; Değirmenci, “Bir kitabı kaç kişi okur?”; Arslan, “Bilgiyi istinsahla çoğaltmak”. 87 Sheldon Pollock, “Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World,” Critical Inquiry 35 (2009): 931–961, here 954–55. Cf. also Şen, “Authoring and Publishing in the Age of Manuscripts,” 374.

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(including Claudia!) for their useful remarks. I also benefited from the remarks and assistance of Michael Erdman, Dimitrios Giagtzoglou, Güneş Işıksel, Phokion Kotzageorgis and Nir Shafir; I thank them all. Bibliography

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Jacquart, Danielle, and Charles Burnett, eds. Scientia in Margine: Études sur les Marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Hautes Études médiévales et modernes 88. Geneva: Librairie Droz S.A., 2005. Kafadar, Cemal. “How Dark is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early-Modern Istanbul.” In Medieval and Early-Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, eds. Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz, 243–69. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Kara, İsmail. İlim bilmez tarihi hatırlamaz: şerh ve haşiye meselesine dair birkac not. Istanbul: Dergah, 2013. Karahasanoğlu, Selim. Kadı ve günlüğü: Sadreddinzâde Telhisî Mustafa Efendi günlüğü (1711–1735) üstüne bir inceleme. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2012. Karolewski, Janina, and Yavuz Köse, eds. “Catalogue for the Exhibition ‘Wonders of Creation – Ottoman Manuscripts in Hamburg Collections’ at the State and University Library Hamburg 16 September to 30 October 2016” (manuscript cultures 9 (2018, 2nd ed.)), URL: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mc/mc09.html (accessed in December 2020). Kastritsis, Dimitris. “The Alexander Romance and the Rise of the Ottoman Empire.” In Islamic Literature and Intellectual Life in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Anatolia, eds. Andrew C.S. Peacock and Sara Nur Yıldız, 243–83. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2016. Kastritsis, Dimitris. “The Trebizond Alexander Romance (Venice Hellenic Institute Codex Gr. 5): The Ottoman Fate of a Fourteenth-Century Illustrated Byzantine Manuscript.” Journal of Turkish Studies 36 (2011) [In memoriam Angeliki E. Laiou]: 103–31. Kayapınar, Ayşe. “Johann Carion kroniğinin Kâtip Çelebi tercümesine dair.” In Ulusla­ rarası Kâtib Çelebi sempozyumu Bildirileri, eds. Turan Gökçe et al., 191–207. İzmir: Kâtip Çelebi Üniversitesi, 2017. Koç, Haşim. “XVII. yüzyılın ortasında Osmanlı coğrafyası’ndan antik dönemlere bir bakış: Kâtip Çelebi’nin eserlerinden seçmeler.” Doğu Batı 40 (2007): 257–82. Kökrek, Mehmet. “Müstensih Yeniçeriler.” Türk Dünyası Tarih-Kültür Dergisi 349 (2016): 22–24. Kolovos, Elias. “An Ottoman Register of Venetian Candia.” In Venetians and Ottomans in the Early Modern Age, Studi Turchi e Ottomani 6, ed. Anna Valerio, 75–85. Venezia: Edizioni Ca Foscari, 2018. Kolovos, Elias. “Early Ottoman Diplomatics Revisited: An Order of the Beglerbegi of Rumeli Hace Firuz ibn Abdullah in Favour of the Athonite Monastery of Vatopedi (1401).” Turcica 45 (2014): 187–207. Kotzageorgis, Phokion. “The Multiple Certifications in Ottoman Judicial Documents (Hüccets) from Monastic Archives.” Archivum Ottomanicum 31 (2014): 117–28. Kreutel, Richard F. “Neues zur Evliyā-Çelebī-Forschung.” Der Islam 48 (1972): 269–79.

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Kütükoğlu, Mübahat S. Osmanlı belgelerin dili (diplomatik). Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür ve Sanat Vakfı, 1994. Lewis, Bernard. “The Use by Muslim Historians of Non-Muslim Sources.” In Historians of the Middle East, eds. Bernard Lewis and Peter Malcolm Holt, 180–91. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. MacKay, Pierre A. “The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi, Part I: the Archetype.” Der Islam 52 (1975): 278–98. Majer, Hans Georg. Vorstudien zur Geschichte der ilmiye im Osmanischen Reich: I. zu Uşakizade, seiner Familie und seinem Zeyl-i şakayık. München: Dr.-Dr.-RudolfTrofenik, 1978. Meredith Quinn, “Books and Their Readers in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul.” PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge Ma. 2016. Neumann, Christoph K. “Three Modes of Reading: Writing and Reading Books in Early Modern Ottoman Society.” Lingua Franca 5 (2019), URL: https://www.sharp web.org/linguafranca/issue-5-2019-ottoman-print-culture/ (accessed in December 2020). Neumann, Christoph K. “Üç tarz-ı mütalaa: Yeniçağ Osmanlı Dünyasında kitap yazmak ve okumak.” Tarih ve Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar 1 (Spring 2005): 51–76. Özvar, Erol. “Osmanlı dünyasında yazma eser üretkenliği.” In Sahn-ı Semân’dan Dârülfünûn’a: Osmanlı’da ilim ve fikir dünyası (âlimler, müesseseler ve fikrî eserler) – XVII. Yüzyıl, eds. Hidayet Aydar and Ali Fikri Yavuz, 17–44. Istanbul: Zeytinburnu Belediyesi, 2017. Paolo Odorico, “… Alia nullius momenti. A proposito della letteratura dei marginalia.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 78 (1985): 23–36. Pollock, Sheldon. “Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World.” Critical Inquiry 35 (2009): 931–961. Quiring-Zoche, Rosemarie. “Minhīyāt  – Marginalien des Verfassers in arabischen Manuskripten.” Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques 60,4 (2006): 987–1019. Şahin, Oğuzhan. “Latîfî tezkiresini derkenardan okumak: tezkirenin Râşid Efendi nüshasındaki notlar üzerinde bir inceleme.” Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 44 (2020): 161–80. Sajdi, Dana. The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Sariyannis, Marinos. “Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum.” In A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, eds. Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu, 473–502. Leiden: Brill, 2022. Sariyannis, Marinos. “The Limits of Going Global: The Case of ‘Ottoman Enlighten­ ment(s)’.” History Compass 2020; e12623, doi: 10.1111/hic3.12623. Sariyannis, Marinos, (and with a chapter by Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas). A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

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Savage-Smith, “Emilie. Between Reader and Text: Some Medieval Arabic Marginalia.” In Scientia in margine. Etudes sur les marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du Moyen Age à la Renaissance, eds. Danielle Jacquart and Charles Burnett, 75–101. Geneva: Droz, 2005. Schmidt, Jan. “The Adventures of an Ottoman Horseman: The Autobiography of Kabudlı Vasfî Efendi, 1800–1825.” In The Joys of Philology: Studies in Ottoman Literature, History and Orientalism (1500–1923), vol. 1, ed., Jan Schmidt, 165–286. Istanbul: Isis, 2002. Schmidt, Jan. Pure Water for Thirsty Muslims. A Study of Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī of Gallipoli’s Künhü l-aḫbār. Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut, 1991. Sezer, Yavuz “Architecture of Bibliophilia: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Libraries.” (Ph.D., diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Ma. 2016. Shafir, Nir. “How to Read Heresy in the Ottoman World.” In Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750, eds. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, 196–231. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Shafir, Nir. “In an Ottoman Holy Land: The Hajj and the Road from Damascus, 1500–1800.” History of Religions 60 (2020): 1–36. Shafir, Nir. “The Road from Damascus; Circulation and the Redefinition of Islam in the Ottoman Empire, 1620–1720.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2016. Sievert, Henning. “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon: Usual and Unusual Readings of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Bureaucrat.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 41 (2013): 159–95. Vatin, Nicolas. “Ḥüccet à signatures multiples dans le fonds ottoman des archives du Monastère de Saint-Jean à Patmos.” Abstract published in New Trends in Ottoman Studies. Papers presented at the 20th CIÉPO Symposium, Rethymno, 27 June–1 July 2012, ed. Marinos Sariyannis, 164–65. Rethymno: University of Crete – Institute for Mediterranean Studies, 2014. Velkov, Asparouch. “Signatures-formules des agents judiciaries dans les documents ottomans à caractère financier et juridique.” Turcica 24 (1992): 193–240. Velkov, Asparouch. “Les notes complémentaires dans les documents financiers ottomans des XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles.” Turcica 11 (1979): 37–77. Yelten, Muhammet. “Hamza-nâme’nin yeni ciltleri ve okunma mekânları.” Turkish Studies 8,9 (2013): 151–65. Yerlioğlu, Akif Ercihan. “‘May Those Who Understand What I Wrote Remember This Humble One’: Paratextual Elements in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Medical Manuscripts.” Yıllık: Annual of Istanbul Studies 2 (2020): 35–51. Yıldırım, Yavuz. “Mukaddime’nin Osmanlı dönemi Türkçe tercümesi.” Dîvân İlmî Araş­ tırmalar 21 (2006): 17–33.

7 Ottoman Sofia through the Eyes of Its Denizens and Visitors Late 14th–First Half of 16th Century Rossitsa Gradeva Located at the intersection of trade and military roads, connecting the East and the West, the North and the South of the Balkan peninsula the site of modern Sofia has attracted settlers and conquerors since the beginning of the common era. Equally attractive were – and still are, some of the natural givens of the place. The proximity of the Vitosha Mountain and its fresh air, the abundance of water and multitude of creeks and small rivers, and, last but not least, its (hot) mineral springs, added value to life here. During the period from the Ottoman conquest until roughly the end of Sultan Süleyman’s rule (1520–1566), Sofia evolved from a fortified administrative provincial centre at the border between Bulgaria and Serbia, to a starting point for Ottoman expansion campaigns and the seat of the provincial governor of Rumeli, a trade hub that drew visitors of different provenance – merchants, religious and administrative officials, travellers, diplomats and spies. My goal here is to reconstruct the image of early Ottoman Sofia in this roughly a century and a half, on the basis of descriptions left by locals and visitors, occasionally reaching out to material which falls beyond the targeted chronological frame. This allows me to look into the different views on the city in this transitional period, to see how the process of Ottomanisation of the space affected these views, to identify its advantages and disadvantages in the eyes of its diverse observers and their different angles and foci. Although the evolution of Ottoman chronicles as a genre is not a special focus here, the analysis of some of the data with regard to Sofia contributes to the understanding of the unfolding of the historical narrative in them. In the first part I provide a brief overview of the history of Sofia during its first Ottoman century and a half. In the second, I look into the diverse images of Sofia in narrative texts of different provenance. My sources are as diverse as the people who lived in and visited Sofia – travel accounts, historical texts, vitae of new martyrs, Ottoman, Bulgarian, and West European. Sofia was finally incorporated in the Ottoman domains probably around 1385, as part of the Ottoman expansion westward against the Serbian Principality, before the fall of Nish. At that time the fortress was in all likelihood in the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_009

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possession of Tsar Ivan Shishman (1371–1395), the last ruler of the Bulgarian Turnovo Tsardom.1 Available written and archaeological sources are somewhat contradictory as to how the town was taken by the Ottomans – by conquest or surrender, accompanied by physical destruction or not.2 War and warfare 1 Bistra Tsvetkova (Бистра Цветкова, “София през XV–XVIII,” in София през вековете. 1. Древност, Средновековие, Възраждане, eds. Петър Динеков et al. (София: Издателство на БАН, 1989), 74–99, here 74–78) draws attention to Serbian involvement in the defence of Sofia and the region in Ottoman and Byzantine sources. Evliya Çelebi’s account of the conquest of Sofia (Seyahatname. Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 305 Yazmasının Transkripsiyonu – Dizini, vol. 3, eds. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (Istanbul: YKY, 1999), 221–22), and the travelogues of foreign visitors to the town such as Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1555) (Френски пътеписи за Балканите XV–XVIII в., ed. Бистра Цветкова (София: Наука и изкуство, 1975), 127); Reinhold von Lubenau (1587) (Немски и австрийски пътеписи за Балканите, XV–XVI в., ed. Михаил Йонов (София: Наука и изкуство, 1979), 492); and Gerard Cornelius Driesch (1718–1719) (Немски и австрийски пътеписи за Балканите, XVII–средата на XVIII в., ed. Михаил Йонов (София: Наука и изкуство, 1986), 242), say that prior to its fall in Ottoman hands it had belonged to the Serbian despots. Similarly, in the 17th century this appears in Ottoman chronicles: Хюсеин, Беда’и’ ул-Века’и’ (Удивительные события), Pt.1. Publication of the text, introduction, and ed. Анны С. Тверитиновой. Annotation and comment. Юрий А. Петросян (Москва: ИВЛ, 1961), f. 74a. Bulgarian translation of excerpts from Hüseyin’s chronicle on the conquest of Bulgarian territories is published in Христоматия по история на България. Т. 2, eds. Петър Петров, Васил Гюзелев (София: Наука и изкуство, 1978), 188–92 (Strashimir Dimitrov). 2 The conquest of Sofia becomes a special theme in the Ottoman chronicles only at the beginning of the 16th century, with the accounts of Idris-i Bidlisi, who had stayed in Dupniçe and Sofia for about a year (see Vural Genç, Acem’den Rum’a Bir Bürokrat ve Tarihçi İdris-i Bidlisi (1457–1520) (Ankara: TTK, 2019), 153–77), and Kemalpaşazade, who had spent a year in Skopje (Kemalpaşazade (İbn Kemal), Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. III. Defter. Ed. Abdullah Satun (Istanbul: Çamlıca, 2014), XXIII). The two authors who had lived in the region in the first years of the 16th century were probably exposed to local sources, be they written or orally transmitted. A striking example of this interaction between the thought world of the local Christians and the Ottoman authors can be seen in Kemalpaşazade’s inclusion of a narrative of local provenance that relates a version of medieval Bulgarian history. See Delyan Rusev, “Kemālpaşazāde’s History of Medieval Bulgaria: A Sixteenth-century Ottoman rendering of the Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle (Tale of the Prophet Isaiah),” in Laudator Temporis Acti Studia In Memoriam Ioannis A. Božilov, T. 1, ed. Ivan Biliarsky (Serdicae: Институт за исторически изследвания, MMXVIII), 435–510. The two Ottoman authors differ significantly in the rendition of the events leading to the successful conquest of Sofia. Bidlisi’s picturesque story of the fall of Sofia was adopted by the subsequent Ottoman chroniclers such as Hoca Sâdeddin, Koca Hüseyin, with further additions by Feridun Bey, and others. Kemalpaşazade, on the other hand, offers a different sequence of events and dating and suggests two conquests of Sofia. Finally, the narrative of Evliya Çelebi relates a compromise variant, where surrender and conquest go hand-in-hand (Seyahatnamesi, vol. 3, 221–22; Цветкова, “София,” 77–78). According to Magdalina Stančeva (“Nouvelles données sur la conquête de Sofia par les turcs ottomans,” Byzantinobulgarica, 6 (1980): 357–62) archaeological data (a breach in the wall and some burnt parts of it) corroborate a violent conquest rather than surrender. This view is confronted by Georgi Kozhuharov (Георги Кожухаров, „Архитектура и строителство през Възраждането,” in София през вековете. 1. Древност, Средновековие,

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continued to be an integral part of the life of people in the region until the end of the 15th century when the Ottoman rule was established in the whole peninsula.3 During the Crusade of 1443–1444 the town must have experienced considerable destruction, attested by both Ottoman and Western sources. According to a contemporary Ottoman source Sofia and the surrounding villages were set on fire by the Ottomans who applied the tactic of scorched land. In effect, “every part of Sofia and its surroundings” were put on fire and even its hot springs were destroyed. “In short, it was such that mothers forgot their children. Not a straw was left in Sofia or its surroundings”, and the Hungarians found the town in ruins, like “black charcoal.” Since local Christians and the high clergy had supported the invading army, when the Ottomans restored their control over the area the populace of Sofia and Radomir were crushed, men were killed while women and children were enslaved, the metropolitan was beheaded and his men were executed or blinded.4 Western sources, on the other hand, claim the demolition of the town as the crusaders’ deed. In his poem dedicated to the crusade of 1443 and 1444, Martin Beheim relates that King Vladislav III (1434–1444) conquered Sofia after a battle with the “Turks,” “burnt it all and had all the Turks he found inside slaughtered,” the countryside had a similar fate.5 Възраждане eds. Петър Динеков et al. (София: Издателство на БАН, 1989), 113–39, here 118). I discuss the conquest of Sofia and its representation in diverse sources at length in a forthcoming study. 3 On the progress of the Ottoman expansion and the military activities in this region in the first decades after its conquest see the exposé of Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire 1300–1481 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1990), 29–36, 69–73. 4 I have used the English translation: Colin Imber, The Crusade of Varna 1443–1445 (London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2006), 52–57, 62–63. Cf Gazavat-ı Sultan Murad b. Mehemmed Han. İzladi ve Varna Savaşları (1443–1444) üzerinde Anonim Gazavatname, eds. Halil İnalcık and Mevlud Oğuz (Ankara: TTK, 1978), 16–18, 24. All publishers of the source consider it contemporaneous to the events, produced by a member of Sultan Murad II’s (1421–1451) Chancery (Imber, The Crusade, 37) or a kul established in Rumeli, probably near Edirne, at the time of the events (Elizabeth Zachariadou et al., To hroniko ton ouggrtourkikon polemon (1443–1444) (Herakleio: University Publishing House, 2005), 24–25, 31). 5 Imber, The Crusade, 168. The ‘Serbian Janissary’ dates the destruction of Sofia after the battle at the Zlatitsa Pass. When King Vladislav of Hungary and Poland (1434–1444) realised that he could not winter his army in the town, he ordered it to be burned down, Konstantin Mihailovic, Memoirs of a Janissary. Transl. by Benjamin Stolz, Historical commentary and notes by Svat Soucek (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1975), 65. Sofia, ‘civitas famosissima thermarum populo et divitiis referta’, was plundered and set on fire by the crusaders also according to Thurocz (Fontes Bulgariae Historicae. T. XXXI. Fontes Latini. V.1. Fontes Hungariae. Narativi, eds. Ilija Iliev, Krasimira Gagova, Christo Dimitrov (Sofia: Aed. Acad. « Marin Drinov », 2001), 113). Colin Imber (The Crusade: 16, fn 41) draws attention to the controversy between the Ottoman and the Western versions of the events and adds that the Ottoman

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Even more puzzling is the fact that such a thorough destruction does not surface from the archaeological excavations so far.6 If we trust the written sources, we have to assume that after 1443 the town had been re-built, preserving only very few buildings from its pre-Ottoman layout. It is very difficult to judge whether this was entirely or only partly true since the first visual evidence of Sofia dates from the last years of the Ottoman rule (drawings of Felix Kanitz7), and the first decades after 1879 (for ex. Joseph Oberbauer8). Two buildings are sure to have survived all the commotions of the past several hundred years – the Rotunda and St Sophia churches.9 Unfortunately, archaeology remains silent on the issue and this leaves many unanswered questions about continuity and change in the town’s layout and infrastructure from the Middle Ages to its emergence as the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria in 1879. After the dramatic events of 1443 life in Sofia and its surrounding area quickly resumed its rhythm.10 Before the 19th century it would never again source’s description is confirmed by Chalcocondylas but does not offer explanation to the possible reasons for this contradiction. 6 I thank for this information Snezhana Goryanova, archaeologist, leading the excavations of medieval and Ottoman Sofia. 7 Felix Kanitz (1829–1904) visited the Balkans, and Bulgaria in particular, several times between 1860 and 1883. 8 Joseph Oberbauer (1853–1926), cartographer and painter, moved to Sofia in 1889 and stayed there working for various Bulgarian institutions. 9 On their fate through the Ottoman centuries see Rossitsa Gradeva, “Late Antique church buildings in Ottoman Sofia, fifteenth to beginning of nineteenth centuries,” in Christian Art under Muslim Rule, ed. Maximilian Hartmuth with the assistance of Ayşe Dilsiz and Alyson Wharton (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2016), 167–93, and Rossitsa Gradeva, “Sofia’s Rotunda and Its Neighbourhood in Ottoman Times,” in Osmanische Welten: Quellen und Fallstudien. Festschrift für Michael Ursinus, eds. Johannes Zimmermann et al. (Bamberg: The University of Bamberg Press, 2016), 177–207. 10 Opinions on the impact of the Ottoman conquest and the warfare in the first half of the 15th century on the countryside range from apocalyptic pictures of total destruction to sober evaluations. The former draw mainly on evidence in texts by Christian contemporaries such as Vladislav Grammatik’s Narratio about the Translation of St Ivan of Rila’s Relics: “Many regions and villages became entirely desolate and the holy monasteries and the divine temples were destroyed by fire …,” Стара българска литература, 4, Житиеписни творби, ed. Климентина Иванова (София: Български писател, 1986), 383–91, here 384. The fate of the Monastery of St Ivan/John, better known as Rila Monastery, some 120 km south of Sofia, to which he specifically refers, has often been used to illustrate the situation in Bulgarian lands during and shortly after the Ottoman conquest. As documents from the archive of the monastery reveal, similarly to many other Christian institutions of comparable importance (Elizabeth Zachariadou, “Early Ottoman Documents of the Prodromos Monastery (Serres),” Südost-Forschungen 28 (1969): 1–12, here 2–5; Nicolas Oikonomides, “Monastères et moines lors de la conquête ottomane,” Südost-Forschungen (1976): 1–10; John Alexander, “The Monasteries of Meteora during the First Two Centuries

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be taken by invading armies. Several times Sofia was attacked by bandits, Christians and/or Muslims, the most disastrous probably being during the Long War of 1593–1606 when in 1595 the town was ransacked by a band of hayduds who acted in collaboration with the Wallachian voyvode Michael the Brave (1593–1601). Towards the end of the 17th and in the early 18th century, when the Habsburg armies reached deep in the Western Balkans in 1688–1690, in 1715–1717 and in 1737–1738, Sofia came again in the immediate rear of the battlefield and this no doubt influenced the town.11 The frequent conflagrations, earthquakes and other natural disasters destroyed residential, business and public buildings and had a direct bearing on the urban landscape, contributing to the constantly changing layout of the town. Sofia’s strategic and central location was quickly appreciated by the Ottomans. By ca. 1430 it had already become the centre of a sancak.12 Probably during the incumbency of Mahmud Pasha Angelović as grand vezir and beylerbey of Rumeli (1456–1468) and certainly prior to 1474, Sofia was chosen as the seat of the governor-general of the most important Ottoman province, Rumeli.13

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of Ottoman Rule,” in XVI. Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress. Akten II/2, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 32 (2): 95–103), it had survived the storm of the conquest and had its privileges confirmed by the first Ottoman rulers (Борис Недков, Османотурска дипломатика и палеография, т. 2 (София: Наука и изкуство, 1972), 13–14). I would rather agree with Ivan Duychev (Иван Дуйчев, Рилският светец и неговата обител (София: Вяра и култура, 1990), 272–75) that the apocalyptic descriptions in 15th-century narratives (Vladislav Grammatik, Dimitur Kantakuzin) should be considered with greater caution. No doubt the crusaders’ campaign and the Ottoman counter-campaign had their impact, too, but as Tsvetana Georgieva (Цветана Георгиева, Пространство и пространства на българите XV–XVII век (София: Лик, 1999), 94–101) demonstrates on the basis of data from Ottoman tax registers, despite all cataclysms the village network in the district remained stable, very dense and well-populated. On the events in the 1680s see Джени Иванова: “А царят нареди нефириам срещу него да се бие …” (Османската историопис и една българска приписка за действията на султанската власт срещу Йеген Осман паша през 1688–1689 г.) in Collegium Historicum. T. 2, eds. Драгомир Драганов and Тодор Попнеделев (София: Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски”, 2012), 390–99; Срđан Катиħ, Jеген Осман-паша (Београд: Colorgrafx, 2001), 167–88. Elizabeth Zachariadou, “Lauro Quirini and the Turkish Sandjaks (ca. 1430),” in Raiyyet Rüsûmu: Essays Presented to Halil Inalcik on his Seventieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students, eds. Bernard Lewis et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 1–16, here 12. According to Bertradon de la Broquière, in 1433 the Rumeli governor’s seat was (still) in Edirne, The Voyage d’Outremer by Bertradon de la Broquière, transl. and ed., Galen Kline, (NY-Bern-Frankfurt a-Main-Paris: Peter Lang, 1988), 108. Tursun Beğ says that in the spring of 855 (1451) Dayı Karaca Beğ, the governor-general of Rumelia, was sent to Sofia on guard duty against possible attacks from Hungary (The History of Mehmed the Conqueror by Tursun Beğ, eds. Halil İnalcik and Rhoads Murphey (Minneapolis & Chicago: Bibliotheca

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Sofia quickly evolved into an Ottoman city. Its largest mosque and the largest bedestan in the Balkans (with the exception of Edirne), were built before the end of the 15th century, the former – by Mahmud Pasha (before 1474), the latter by Yahya Pasha (before 1499),14 both beylerbeys of Rumeli and vezirs, and with Balkan roots. Apart from Büyük Cami, the complex of Mahmud Pasha in Sofia included a school, an inn in the area of the marketplace and a public fountain by the mosque.15 Around 1452, Zaganos Pasha, another grandee of Sultan Mehmed II (1444–1446, 1451–1481)’s time, built public baths in Sofia.16 During the 16th century the town was endowed with several compounds including mosques and mescids, schools, zaviyes, hamams and caravanserais whose number continued to grow. The külliye of Sofu Mehmed Pasha,17 Islamica, 1978), 29b/ 32–33) and this implies that it was not yet his permanent place of residence. During the campaigns against Serbia and Bosnia Mahmud Pasha came to Sofia several times, in 1456, 1459, and 1464. He lost his life in 1474 (Theoharis Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), 187–92). In his treatise on the administrative system of the Ottoman state Iacopo de Promontorio de Campis (1475) calls Sofia ‘nobilissima provincia’ (quoted from Zachariadou, “Lauro Quirini,” 12). For a detailed argumentation of the date of construction of the Big Mosque in Sofia, and the related issue of the establishment of the seat of the beylerbey in Sofia see Maximilian Hartmuth, “Architecture, Change, and Discontent in the Empire of Mehmed II: the Great Mosoue of Sofia, Its Date and Importance Reconsidered,” in Osmanlı Mimarlık Kültürü. Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi’nin Hatırasına, eds. Hatice Aynur and Ayşe Hilâl Uğurlu (Istanbul: Kubbealtı, 2016), 337–50. Machiel Kiel (“Urban Development in Bulgaria in the Turkish Period: The Place of Turkish Architecture in the Process,” in The Turks of Bulgaria, ed. Kemal Karpat (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1990), 79–158, here 116–17) relates the rise of Sofia to the aftermath of the Crusade of 1443–1444. See also Halil İnalcik, “Rumeli, originally Rum-ili,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, eds., Peri Bearman et al. (2nd ed.), vol. 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 607b–611b. 14 Kiel, “Urban Development,” 117, dates it in 1506 – as the date of the vakıfname. See also the publication of Yahya Pasha’s vakıfname in Balkanlar’da Osmanlı Vakıflari, Vakfiyeler. Bulgaristan, Ct 2, ed. Halit Eren, (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2012), 503–4: “mahruse-i Sofya‌’da vakıf-i müşarun-ileyh atyeb-i emlakından kendisi yaptıdığı bezzazıstan içinde otuz altı bab dukkani ve sekiz bab hucurati ile  …” Recent publications of documents from the Dubrovnik archive move the date of its construction to before 1499 (Дубровнишки документи за историята на България и българите през XIII–XV век. Т. II (1407–1505 г.), eds, transl., and commentary, Васил Гюзелев, Елена Костова, Пенка Данова, Симеон Хинковски (София: Университетско издателство, 2018), doc. 110, 353), probably during his second incumbency as Rumeli beylerbeyi, 1488–1501/2. Mehmet Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmani, ct. 5 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996), 1675. Yahya Pasha’s endowment included, along with the bedestan, also a mineral (public) bath, and a caravanserai. 15 Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs, 279. 16 Ibid., 412. 17 Often confused with the famous Mehmed Sokolović, beylerbey of Rumeli around 1546 and grand vezir during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent but with no significant contribution to Sofia’s Ottomanisation as layout.

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beylerbey of Rumeli (1534/5–1537/38) and vezir, included a mosque, designed by Mimar Sinan, with (according to Kiel) the largest dome erected in the Balkans (beyond Edirne), a medrese, a library, a hamam, a caravanserai, a mekteb, an imaret, a hospital, a library, fountains and washing basins;18 Siyavuş Pasha’s, beylerbey (ar. 1570) and later grand vezir,19 included the church of St Sophia, already transformed into a mosque, and a caravanserai. Other military of higher and lower rank and several kadı also contributed to the Ottomanisation of the urban space, mainly in the 16th century.20 The trade and crafts infrastructure also took shape around that time. The town’s establishment as the administrative centre of the Ottoman European territories attracted considerable administrative personnel  – the household of the beylerbey himself, ulema and mystics, financial officials, a garrison, police and military officers. This, and Sofia’s importance as a commercial hub, brought there people of diverse background from near and far. The numbers of the major ethnic and confessional groups recorded by the Ottoman registers vary through the period, with the distinct tendency of steady growth of the Muslim component until 19th century, when it began to decline. About half a century after its fall in the hands of the Ottomans, Bertradon de la Broquière (1433) saw the town and the villages in the plain as predominantly Bulgarian and Christian,21 but by mid-16th century, the Muslims had by far outnumbered the other confessional components of the town’s population.22 By mid-15th 18

See on it Паулина Андонова, Османският елит и благотворителността в центъра на провинция Румелия: Имаретът на Софу Мехмед паша при Черната джамия в София, XVI–XIX век (София: ИК Гутенберг, 2020). 19 Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmani, ct. 5 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996), 1517. 20 Кожухаров “Архитектура и строителство”, 113–39; Kiel “Urban Development,” 117–20; Svetlana Ivanova, “Sofia,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), vol. 9, ed. Peri Bearman et al., CD-ROM ed., (Leyden: Brill, 1999), 702a–705b; Светлана Иванова, “Софиянецът през XV–XVII век,” in София 120 години столица, eds. Антон Попов et al. (София: Академично издателство Марин Дринов, 2000), 158–69, here 159–60; Rossitsa Gradeva, “On Kadis of Sofia, 16th–17th centuries,” in Gradeva, Rumeli under the Ottomans, 15th–18th Centuries: Institutions and Communities (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2004), 67–106, here 104–5. 21 Kline, ed., The Voyage d’Outremer by Bertradon de la Broquière, 129. This is also the impression one gets from the sources about the Crusade of 1443 referred to above. 22 The numbers provided by Ömer Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’Empire ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siècles,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 1,1 (1957): 9–36, here 34–35), Kiel, “Urban Development,” 116–17, and Ivanova, “Sofia,” 703, though based on (almost) identical sources, differ. All three studies, however, demonstrate the rise of the Muslim population at the expense of the non-Muslim. I am unable to reconcile the discrepancies in the data. See also Кръстьо Йорданов, “Православната общност на град София и неговите околности през

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century Ragusans had restored their colony in Sofia; during the 16th century several Jewish communities also (re-) settled there, followed, towards the end of the 16th century, by Armenians who served the Silk Route and engaged in inter-regional and international commerce. Shortly after their establishment these communities were allowed to set up and maintain houses of worship and their respective communal institutions.23 Sofia was not just the administrative centre of the vast Ottoman province of Rumeli. In fact, it had long held an important position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy; by the 4th century ce it had become a bishopric see; in 343 ce one of the Church Councils was convened there, with the purpose of resolving the doctrinal differences which had surfaced at the Council of Nicaea in 325.24 Despite the radical changes triggered by the Ottoman expansion and conquest, Sofia preserved its role as the centre of a metropolitanate. In the two millennia of its existence Sofia has been known under several names: Serdonpolis (Thracian), Serdica (in Roman and early Byzantine times), Triadica (during the Byzantine rule, 11th–12th centuries), Sredets (Bulgarian). In the 1370s, shortly before the Ottoman conquest, the name Sofia, probably after St. Sophia cathedral,25 began to appear in documents, alongside the official Sredets.26 During the 15th, 16th and even 17th centuries Sredets continued XV–XVI век,” Дзяло, е-списание в областта на хуманитаристиката, Х–ХХI в. год. VI, 2018, No 12, no page numbers. 23 On the various smaller religious and ethnic communities see Светлана Иванова, “Малките етноконфесионални групи в българските градове през XVI–XVII в.,” in Българският шестнадесети век, Сборник с доклади за българската обща и културна история през XVI век, editor-in-chief Боряна Христова (София: НБКМ, 1996), 49–82 passim; on Jews in particular, Rossitsa Gradeva, “Jews and Ottoman Authority in the Balkans: the Cases of Sofia, Vidin and Rusçuk, 15th–17th centuries,” in Gradeva, Rumeli under the Ottomans, 15th–18th Centuries, 225–83, here 237–43. 24 Leslie Barnard, The Council of Serdica, 343 A.D. (Sofia: Synodal Publishing House, 1983); Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 122–26. 25 The earliest instance in which I see direct connection being made between the name of the cathedral and that of the town is in one of the accounts of the Crusade in 1443–1444, by Antonius de Bonfinis (1427–1502). Bonfini wrote it some forty years after the crusade, in Hungary, and probably had access to local sources including direct participants in the campaigns. I have used the Bulgarian translation in Извори за кръстоносните походи от 1443–1444 година в българските земи, comp., ed. and commentary Васил Гюзелев (София: Изд. Захарий Стоянов, 2019), No 28, 171. 26 We see it in documents of Dubrovnik/Ragusan merchants. I have used the bilingual publication in Дубровнишки документи за историята на България и българите през XIII–XV век. Т. I (1230–1403 г.), ed., transl., and commentary Александър Николов, Васил Гюзелев, Елена Костова, Пенка Данова, Симеон Хинковски (София: Университетско издателство, 2017), No 34, 158–59, of October–December 1376. The name Sofia appears

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to be in use in the works of Orthodox Bulgarian men of letters. In the same way, mainly Catholics used interchangeably Sofia and Serdica as names of the town.27 The Ottomans, however, immediately adopted the name Sofia and this sealed it as the official, and later, the only name for the town. Below I shall use Sofia for all periods of its history and shall refer to its other names only when dictated by the sources.28 There are no known descriptions of Sofia from the pre-Ottoman period although it does appear in itineraries and other geographical descriptions.29 Other problems arise from the archaeological excavations on the site of what had to be medieval Sofia.30 No doubt this hinders our understanding of the development of the town in the transition period, the extent to which the conquest also meant transformation of the urban layout. In the course of time the number of the descriptions grew, especially as the traffic along the old Via Militaris/ Orta Kol intensified, the area was pacified and gradually integrated in various commercial and other networks. Starting around mid-16th century they become more detailed and include more diverse observations. In the following lines I identify the main themes that emerge in the descriptions of Sofia for the period under study, the different angles, perspectives and focuses in viewing the town on the basis of their authors’ different backgrounds and experiences. While these produced by its Orthodox Christian and Muslim inhabitants and visitors are few,31 those left by foreign visitors  – travellers, spies, members of diplomatic missions multiply through the centuries.

27 28

29 30 31

also in the so-called Vitosha charter of Tsar Ivan Shishman, usually dated between 1378 and 1385, Грамоти на българските царе. Увод. Текстове. Речник. Библиография, eds. Ангелина Даскалова, Мария Райкова (София: Академично издателство Марин Дринов, 2005), 47. See the bilingual publication of Petrus Deodatus, De Antiquitate paterni soli et de rebus bulgaricis, ed. transl. et comment. Tsvetan Vasilev (Serdica: Aedi. Univers. Serdicensis Sancti Clementis Achridensis, 2020), 204, 560, 562, and others. On the name of the town until 15th century, see Ани Данчева, История на средновековна София, IV–XIV век (София: Издателство Захарий Стоянов, 2017), 447–65. For the Ottoman period see Анна Чолева-Димитрова, Селищни имена в Югозападна България (София: Pensoft Publishers, 2002), 168–70. България е огромна област и многоброен народ. Земя на блажени. Средновековни географски съчинения за българските земи и българите (IV–XIV в.), comp.&ed., Васил Гюзелев (София: Парадигма, 2012), passim. One of the great enigmas is the literally missing remains of the medieval Bulgarian town, oral communication of archaeologist Snezhana Goryanova. Two of the most detailed and in-depth ones, which deserve special analysis (by Petrus Deodatus/ Petur Bogdan, Catholic bishop and then archbishop of Sofia and Bulgaria, and by the renowned Ottoman traveller, Evliya Çelebi, both from mid-17th century), are not included in my repertoire. Here I shall resort to them only for the sake of some clarifications.

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Sofia’s History and (Central) Location

Sofia’s past was referred to in the accounts of visitors and locals throughout the Ottoman period. Strangely enough, despite the increasing interest in the Antiquity, Sofia did not attract the travellers with its Roman past. During the 15th century nobody referred to the remnants of Roman structures; during the first half of the 16th century it seems that only Anton Vrančić (1553), a noble Dalmatian, who crossed the Balkans as Habsburg diplomatic envoy, wrote of numerous ruins, Roman coins, and of the still standing parts of the city walls.32 At the same time Hans Dernschwam (1553) – after a detailed description of his visit to the public baths, explains that he and his companions did not see any antiquities, which were entirely missing in the town.33 One of the puzzling peculiarities that crops up mainly in foreign visitors’ travelogues is that for their authors Sofia was Bulgaria’s ( former) capital,34 what it had never been before 1879.35 The frequency with which this statement appears and the nuances in sources of diverse background speak of a stable tradition rather than of the practice of borrowing information from predecessor travellers although such cases do exist. Whether this is something the authors learned in situ, in their contacts with Sofiots, or it derives from other sources, is difficult to judge. One of the earliest texts in which Sofia is presented as “metropolis Triballorum”36 is the description of the Balkans, its main roads and fortifications written by Bishop Martino Segono in 1480–1481. It is particularly interesting because the author can be considered at least partly local – a Serb from 32 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски пътеписи, XV–XVI в., 186. 33 Ibid., 239. 34 An interesting case of inventing history – or result of some misunderstanding, is the presentation of Nish as ‘la capitale de la Bulgarie’ in M. Adolphe-Jérôme Blanqui, Voayage en Bulgarie pendant l’année 1841 (Paris: W. Coqueber, 1845), 167. 35 Данчева-Василева, История на средновековна София, 86–93, discusses the only period in which Serdica/Sredets might have served as some sort of capital of Bulgaria, in the first years after the fall of the eastern parts of the tsardom under Byzantine rule in 971, when the Bulgarian patriarch temporarily established his seat in the town. In her view there is no solid data that it had served as a capital but that it was rather one of the residence towns of the Komitopouloi in the border area with the Byzantine empire. 36 Contrary to the established tradition of labelling peoples with ancient names in which Bulgarians were Moesians and Serbs – Triballi, in his text Martin Segono had swapped their names and Bulgarians became Triballi and Serbs  – Moesians. I have used the Bulgarian translation in “Бях в три страни, които и трите се казват България”. Географско-пътеписни съчинения за България и българите от XV век, ed., Васил Гюзелев (Пловдив: Фондация Българско историческо наследство, 2014), 219. Segono’s description, including this peculiarity, is reproduced literally by Felix Petantius, De itineribus Turciam libellous, Vienna 1522, following his journey in the Balkans in 1502.

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Novo Brdo who converted to Catholicism and rose to chair the bishopric of Dulcinj.37 In his description of the route of the crusaders in 1443 Michael Beheim (1416–1474) writes: “[…] The capital is called Soffia, situated in Bulgaria […]”.38 Similarly, for de Busbecq (1555), “Sofia is a big city well populated by locals and foreigners. Before it was the capital of the Bulgarians, and later, if I am not wrong, the seat of the Serbian despots,”39 for A. Vrančić (1567) it is “the capital city of Dardania or Bulgaria,”40 and Jacob Fürer von Haimendorf (1587) records: “We arrived in Sofia which is the capital of Bulgarian tsars.”41 These references probably stem in a combination of historical events and legends arising from them which circulated in and around Sofia. The memory of the visit of the last Bulgarian tsar in Sofia, when he endowed one of the monasteries in its vicinity (in the village of Dragalevtsi), and of the heavy battles against the Ottomans, described also by Kemalpaşazade,42 led by the Bulgarian tsar and/or his son/s was still living in the region during the first centuries of the Ottoman rule.43 At the beginning of the 17th century a beadroll with the names of Bulgarian tsars and queens and other members of the nobility was compiled in the Dragalevtsi monastery which later found its way to a neighbouring village (Boyana) and was used in its church. The church in Boyana where it was read at services keeps the portraits of a Bulgarian royal couple and of the family of the local lord, cousin of the tsar, of the mid-13th century. Maybe the vague memory of Sofia’s status of a ruler’s residence some four centuries earlier but even more the stories of Tsar Ivan Shishman’s presence in Sofia and in the region around 1378 had generated the identification of the town with Bulgaria’s capital city conveyed by local denizens to the foreign visitors? Another channel was the ongoing stream of converts who carried with them legends, beliefs, practices, in their new life as Muslims. It is quite possible that the crusaders of 1443 may have brought back home some of the

37 38 39 40 41 42 43

I have used the Bulgarian translation in Константин Иречек, “Стари пътешествия по България от 15–16 век,” Периодическо списание на Българското книжовно дружество в Средец, кн. IV, 1882–1883, 67–105, here 70. Гюзелев, ed., “Бях в три страни,” 226–27. Imber, The Crusade, 167. Цветкова, ed., Френски пътеписи, 127. He was wrong also about Sofia having been the seat of the Serbian princes. Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 186, 197. Ibid., 492. Kemalpaşazade, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. III. Defter, 38–40, 48–50. The folklore depiction of the epic battles that unfolded in the region have been analysed by Йордан Андреев, България през втората четвърт на XIV век (Велико Търново: Университетско издателство Св.Св. Кирил и Методий, 1993), 297–324, and Христо Матанов, Залезът на Средновековна България (София: Изток-Запад, 2017), 142–44.

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stories they heard in the lands they invaded and they were thus integrated in the historical narrative. Rather than calling Sofia the (former) capital of Bulgaria or of any other state, early Ottoman and Bulgarian sources emphasize its central and strategic location. At this stage of my work, chronologically the first time this appears in the Ottoman tradition is in Idris-i Bidlisi’s Heşt Bihişt, at the beginning of the 16th century: “Ez-cümle Sofya şehridir ki mecma‌ʾ-i asakir ve zaman-ı mülük-i küffar ve Islâm’da muasker içun makâm-ı muʾayyen ve mahall-i mukarrerdir.”44 This line was followed – and sealed, by Hoca Sadeddin Efendi’s Tac üt-Tevarih (1574), which acknowledged the strategic location of Sofia as justification for its conquest: “Rumeli diyarına hakim olan hükümdarların bu bölgeyi ele geçirmeleri şart olduğu gibi cephe komutanları için de bu, pek önemli bulunmaktadır …”45 And then, Koca Hüseyin: “Sofya müluk küfarın dernek ve cemaat edecek yerleri […].”46 Whether these were indeed the considerations that drove the Ottoman pressure or a post-factum explanation is difficult to judge. Probably the earliest in the Ottoman tradition to describe Sofia as “sabıka bu belde kûrsüü memleketi küffar iken …” is Katib Çelebi.47 I am very much inclined to believe that the narrative evolved in time under the impact and as a reflection of Sofia’s role as the seat of the Rumeli beylerbeyi and of further infiltration of local legends. As for the Bulgarian sources, the author of the vita of one of the Sofiot new martyrs, St Nicholas the New of Sofia (1555), Mathew (Mattei) the Grammarian included a long paragraph of eulogy of Sofia in which he proudly states that “it has correctly been named Sredets by the sages, because it is neither in the East, 44 Idris-i Bitlisi, Heşt Bihişt, ed. Mehmet Karataş et al., Ct. 1 (Ankara: BETAV, No 4, s.a.), 333. 45 Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, Tacüʾt- Tevarih, ed. İsmet Parmaksızoğlu (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1979), 159. 46 Хюсеин, Беда’и’ ул-Века’и’, f. 74a. I cannot tell whether this part of his narrative is related to sources which were used by Koca Hüseyin due to his knowledge of Slavic language(s), or whether it was part of the evolution of the Ottoman narrative of the conquest. There is no information pointing towards him ever spending any lengthy period in Sofia or around it. 47 See the bilingual publication of the excerpt in Гълъб Гълъбов, “Османотурски извори за историята на София,” Сердика, 1–2 (1942): 87–96, here 91: “former capital of the infidels.” Without specifying what each of the sources included, Diamandi Ihchiev published a potpourri on the conquest of Sofia based on the narratives of the Ottoman historians Hoca Sadeddin, Brusevi Çelebizade (1063 AH), Abu-Abas Ahmed Dimashqi (970 AH), Ahmed Rifat (1299 AH). The text includes a reference to Sofia having been the capital of the “küffar hakim tekfur-s” (sic!) and “küffar-ı haksar ve rical ve beylerbeyleri ve sipahsalârın ve ümera ve mirimiran daimi cay kararıdır” (sic!). Диаманди Ихчиев, „Материали за историята ни под турско робство. 1. Превземането на София от турците,“ Известия на Историческото дружество в София, кн. 2 (София, 1906), 91–97, here 92. I have been unable to find the texts of the latter three authors.

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nor in the West, but is somehow in the middle.”48 This, in his view, was one of the reasons for its learned and rank-and-file Orthodox Christian inhabitants to consider Sofia (Sredets) such an important and glorious city. Other reasons for pride remain very specific for the Christian community and are based on its past as an important centre of Christianity. One of these was the Church Council convened in Serdica/Sofia in 343 ce which aimed at condemning Arianism and resolving the differences that had begun to divide the Christian East and West. In Mathew the Grammarian’s view this had secured God’s grace for the town.49 Some of the Western travellers sought for the site of the council, which non-specified locals readily offered to show them. In their words the ruins of a church (or monastery) on a hill south of the city, identified as the site of the Council, were a locus of reverence in the region, whose destruction was often directly associated with the deeds of “Turks.” Seventeenth-century visitors suggest a variety of places, invariably outside the territory of Sofia – to the south of the road to Istanbul, in the mountain, or even in Urvich, some 13 km away from Sofia.50 One would expect that the two churches whose construction dates back to the Late Antiquity  – and which serve the city even today, would be distinct topoi in the narratives of the Orthodox authors, locals (Pop Peyo, 151551 and Mathew the Grammarian, 1555) and visitors (Vladislav the Grammarian, 1469). Yet there are only two mentions of these symbolic places of worship in the three works in question. While still the metropolitan church in Sofia, St George – the Rotunda served as temporary shelter for the relics of St John of Rila in 1469, described by Vladislav the Grammarian. St Sophia is mentioned only passim in Pop Peyo’s vita of St George the New of Sofia, as a landmark on the way to his Golgotha of this Sofiot new martyr. Their absence can probably be explained with the fact that by the beginning of the 16th century both had been taken away from the Christian community and converted into mosques. On the other hand, it seems that the two churches had been part of the thought world of Sofiot Christians and Muslims, who shared legends about them with visitors to the city. Some of these legends intertwine the history of the city with these churches and build the image of a stronghold of Christianity. Maybe the most telling in this respect are those reflected in Ottoman sources. 48

This is a play with the Slavic name of the town Sredets, which most probably derives from the word ‘sreda’, that is ‘middle’, Иванова, ed., Стара българска литература 4, 308–75, here 314–15. 49 Ibid., 316. 50 For more details see Gradeva, “Late Antique church buildings,” 190–91. The location of the premises of the Church council remains unknown to this day. 51 Иванова, ed., Стара българска литература, 291–308.

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One relates the foundation of the Rotunda to the time of Jesus Christ (“ḥażret-i ʿĪsā ʿaleyhi s-selām zamān-ı saʿādetlerinden beri binā olunmaḳ”).52 Different variants of a story about the foundation of St Sophia crop up in the travelogue of Evliya Çelebi. In his view Sofia’s St Sophia was one of the four most outstanding Aya Sofya church-mosques in the Ottoman Empire – along with those in Constantinople, Salonica, Trabzon. The latter three he attributes to the building activities of Yanko bin Madyan, while the one in Sofia – to those of his daughter.53 The foundation of the cathedral is usually related to the healing mineral springs and the emergence of the town. These legends circulated among the local educated Christians, as we read in Vrančić’s account (1553)54 and probably transcended the religious dividing lines via conversion and communication in common spaces. 2

Sofia and Its People

A stable line in the three texts by Orthodox authors associated with Sofia during the period in question and closely related to the Christian elite’s image of the past of Sofia as a Christian centre and even a holy place, is their focus on its “holy people” and the piety of its (Christian) inhabitants, built in opposition to the “Muslim mob”. In 1469, the Christian Sofiots “glorified and revered” the relics of St John of Rila, laid for six days by the side of those of another saint, the Serbian king Stefan Uros II Milutin (1282–1321), whose relics had been transferred to Sofia in the 1460s, after the Ottoman conquest of Trepča, and were kept in the metropolitan church.55 Valuable donations were made, and the Christian community accompanied the monks and the relics of St John at some three kilometers outside the city on the way to the Rila monastery. Against the image of the Christians is constructed that of the “Hagarenes” and their “jealousy,” who caused fear of unexpected and unprovoked attack. These images are further developed in the vitae of the three new martyrs who perished in Sofia in the first half of the 16th century. They reveal a complex picture 52 T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul, C.EV, 10602, f. 3, July–August, 1690. See in more detail: Gradeva, “Sofia’s Rotunda,” passim. 53 Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname. Topkapı Sarayı Bagdat 305 Yazmasının Transkripsiyonu  – Dizini, vol. 8, eds. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yüncel Dağlı (Istanbul: YKY, 2003), 68. On Yanko bin Madyan see Stéphane Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople et de Sainte-Sophie dans les traditions turques (Paris: IFEA, 1990), 62–72. 54 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 186. 55 Despite the vicissitudes of time his relics are kept and venerated as “Holy King” in a Sofiot church, St Nedelya.

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of the inter-confessional relations which cannot be painted in black and white. But the goal of their authors seems to be exactly that – a virtuous martyr, a believing and supportive Christian community, a Sofia of Christian virtue versus the Muslims who are not spared offensive attributes. Their authors Pop Peyo and Mathew the Grammarian take pride in the martyrs and the saints Sofia was associated with and diligently describe their deeds to prove the special place and grace of Sofia.56 A different image of Sofian Christians emerges in the travel accounts. Unlike the site of the Church Council, the relics and the local new martyrs were not of interest on the part of the foreign travellers. The exception is the Holy King (the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin). They are mentioned only by two religious functionaries, Stephan Gerlach (1578), a Protestant pastor, and Petur Bogdan, Catholic archbishop of Bulgaria (in the first half of the 17th century). Their professional occupation made them more attentive, interested and critical observers of the Christian religious life wherever they went. Neither of them is appreciative of the religiosity and virtues of the Sofiot Orthodox Christians; in fact, for Petur Bogdan, they were simply “schismatics” and he is quite suspicious of the holiness of the Holy King’s relics.57 On the other hand, only 50 years after Sofia came under Ottoman rule de la Broquière (1433) wrote that the majority of its population who were Bulgarians cherished “great desire to be out of bondage, if only they could find someone to help them,”58 an observation which would prove true only ten years later when “subjects and Voynuks” in and around Sofia supported the crusaders. As the author of the Gazavatname put it: Most of the people in fact submitted to these accursed men. Some began to bring provisions to sell. Some mounted their horses and acted as guides. In short, that year they paid their jizya to the infidels who are as 56 Иванова, ed., Стара българска литература, 4, 291–308, 308–82. On the religious confrontation in Sofia in the first half of the 16th century see Rossitsa Gradeva “Apostasy in Rumeli in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century,” in Gradeva, Rumeli under the Ottomans, 287–337. On the policies of the religious elites vis-à-vis the ‘other’ in Bulgarian milieu, see, Rossitsa Gradeva, “Turks and Bulgarians, Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in eds., Ildiko Beller-Hann and Kate Fleet, European Perception of the Ottomans, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, vol. 5, (1995), No 1: 173–87. 57 Стефан Герлах, Дневник на едно пътуване до Османската порта в Цариград. Translation and comment. Мария Киселинчева (София: Издателство на Отечествения фронт, 1976), 264; Божидар Димитров, Петър Богдан Бакшев. Български политик и историк от XVII век (София: Наука и изкуство, 1985), 128–53/154–79 (Relazione del Regno di Bulgaria/ Описание на Царство България). 58 Kline, ed., The Voyage d’Outremer by Bertradon de la Broquière, 129.

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low as the dust, and many of the subject infidels mounted their horses and joined Yanko’s army.59 The participation of the local Christians in support of the Crusaders is confirmed also by Western sources.60 In the following centuries, the position of the Christians changed. There were no significant conflicts that involved Sofians. Now the notes of the foreign visitors focus on the aspects of the Christians’ legal and de facto situation. Thus, we owe to St. Gerlach61 most valuable information about the number of the churches and religious service, about the education under the Sofia metropolitan and other details about the state of Christianity in the region. Other travellers offer anecdotal stories which are equally important to grasp the realities of the relations between the two major religious communities in the town. Jean Palerne, Foresien (1582), for example, tells the story of “une belle jeune Grecque” who had been tortured to reveal the hiding place of her eight-nine-year old son during the levy of the “enfans du tribut.”62 In 1634, the British traveller H. Blount noted that the doors of the houses of Jews and Christians in Sofia were only slightly over three feet (that is, less than one metre!) high to prevent Turks from using their houses as stables. Whether this was a peculiarity of Sofia we cannot tell, but Blount concludes that this was “a sign of greater slavery then (sic!) in other places.”63 Idris-i Bidlisi’s picture of Sofia’s populace is livelier and more cheerful. He does not distinguish between the different religious communities, rather in his verses Sofiots are “all enthusiastic for belief in a single god, fair minded, not dogmatic and no prejudice.” They have beautiful souls which reflect on their 59 Imber, The Crusade of Varna, 56. 60 See for ex. Гюзелев, ed., Извори за кръстоносните походи, No 21, 77: a letter of Enea S. Picolomini to the bishop of Passau of 28.10. 1445 in which he relates about the conquest of the “city of the Bulgarians Sofia and some other fortresses and castles surrendered by the local people”. 61 Стефан Герлах, Дневник на едно пътуване, 264. 62 Peregrinations du S. Jean Palerne, Foresien, Secretaire de François de Valois duc d’Anjou & d’Alençon & etc … : où est traicté de plusieurs singularités et antiquités remarquées és provinces d’Egypte, Arabie … Terre saincte, Surie, Natolie, Grece … (A Lyon par Jean Pillehotte). 1606, 502–3 URL: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k853130/f1.item.zoom (accessed on 21 March 2021). 63 A Voyage into the Levant. A brief Relation of a Journey lately performed by Mr Henry Blunt Gentleman, from England by the way of Venice into Dalmatia, Sclavonia, Bosna, Hungary, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace, Rhodes and Egypt, unto Gran Cairo. … (The Fourth Edition, London, Printed by R.C. for Andrew Crooke,…, 1650), 31. URL: https:// books.google.bg/books?id=WmpCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&hl=bg&source=gbs_toc_r&cad =3#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed on 19 March 2021).

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beautiful faces, and “the taste of love with people from that country [is] subtle as if milk and sugar”. “The angelic youth [are also] angel faced [and] all elder [are] kingly and mannered, noted for the good-nature and good-ways.”64 The latter words of the Ottoman chronicler resonate with the equally praising words of Henry Blount (1634): nor hath [Sofia] lost the old Grecian civility, for of all the cities I ever passed, ether in Christendom, or without, I never saw anywhere a stranger is less troubled either with affronts or gaping.65 Foreign travellers would normally register the different religious groups inhabiting Sofia. They noted the presence of Jews and Dubrovnik merchants and their contribution to commerce, Armenians would surface as of the mid-16th century (Dernschwam, 1555);66 some would see the town as majority Muslim (B. Ramberti, 1534);67 Pierre Lescalopier (1574)68 does not even mention Orthodox Christians, and some treated with equal disdain both Ottomans and Bulgarians (Rubigallus, 1544).69 3

Urban Layout and Structures

The works of the Bulgarian men of letters do not spare their superlatives for Sofia as a magnificent and important city. In his description of the translation of the relics of the Bulgarian national saint and guardian (St John of Rila) from Turnovo to the Rila Monastery in 1469 Vladislav the Grammarian calls Sredets/ Sofia a “glorious city.”70 Similar admiration  – and pride, transpire from the vitae of the new martyrs written by Pop Peyo and by Mathew the Grammarian. 64 Idris-i Bitlisi, Heşt Bihişt, ct. 1, 361–62. I wish to thank Maryam Niyazade for the translation of the verses from Persian. 65 A Voyage into the Levant. A brief Relation of a Journey lately performed by Mr Henry Blunt, 31. 66 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 265. 67 Снежана Ракова, Пенка Данова, Бенедето Рамберти и Даниело Лудовизи. Двама венецианцив Константинопол през 1534 г. (Пловдив: Фондация Българско историческо наследство, 2016), bilingual publication: 79/ 137. 68 Цветкова, ed., Френски пътеписи за Балканите, 152. 69 Paulus Rubigallus, Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani, Wittemberga 1544, n.p. URL: https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0005/bsb00051586/images/index.html?id=000515 86&groesser=&fip=yztswxdsydqrseayaqrsyztsen&no=9&seite=5 (accessed on 10.02.2021): “Turcae et Bulgarica turba.” I thank Penka Danova for the translation of the respective part from Latin. 70 Иванова, ed., Стара българска литература 4, 388.

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However, their foci are not in the material structures but rather in the holy aura of the city. The Ottoman authors, on the other hand, were mainly interested in the conquest and the description of the town does not fall in the genre of the chronicle. It is only in the 17th century that the works of the Catholic archbishop Petur Bogdan, of Katib Çelebi, and Evliya Çelebi would provide more or less detailed descriptions of the town. In fact, we owe most of the descriptions of the urban life and of the buildings in Sofia to Western visitors, which is not surprising bearing in mind that their accounts were meant to satisfy the growing curiosity for the foreign lands and in the customs of distant peoples, to provide information about the invincible  – at the time, Ottoman empire. Quite a few of the foreigners deliberately avoided crossing/ staying in Sofia due to frequent waves of raging plague but others spent several days there. When discussing the city layout the accounts make several main points, with the descriptions becoming more and more detailed as of mid-16th century. Often, they would reflect more general attitudes vis-à-vis the Ottomans, taking sometimes a very condescending, even hostile stance, from the point of view of their own cultural, building, and urban traditions. It is a pity that the letters and the relations of the Dubrovnik merchants who continued their operations in the Balkans and in Sofia throughout the 15th century,71 do not contain descriptions of the town, and include very few references to the physical layout of the city. Rather, individual urban structures (hans, kervansarays, bedestan) which fit in their business are only mentioned in passim. Their indirect evidence about the commercial importance of Sofia is confirmed more explicitly by other contemporaries. As early as 1461 Sofia is noted as an important market town in the Ottoman realm in a Description of the Balkan lands.72 Whether this reflects pre- or post-Crusade (1443) situation is not clear. We only know that its author Adalbertus de Dacia had spent some 18 years as an Ottoman captive in the first half of the 15th century. However, it is not clear whether during this lengthy period he had been to Sofia in person and whether he related what he had heard rather than seen while in captivity. Twenty years later Bishop Martino Segono also describes Sofia as a “famous emporium of his time.”73 Throughout the period under study travelers 71 See Volume 2 of documents from the Dubrovnik Archive, Гюзелев, Костова, Данова, Хинковски, ed., transl., and commentary, Дубровнишки документи за историята на България и българите през XIII–XV век, passim. 72 I have used the Bulgarian translation in Гюзелев, ed., “Бях в три страни,” 173. While there is no firm data, there is still possibility that the author had personally visited the town. The description is included in Leonhard Hefft’s chronicle Imago mundi. 73 Ibid., 219.

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give credit to the bustling life and commerce in Sofia and specially mention “ses beaux bazarts a la Levantine plein de diverses sortes de Marchandises” which attracted Dubrovnik merchants and Jews (Vrančić, 1553, Jean Palerne, Foresien, 1582).74 The earliest known description of Sofia as a town from the Ottoman times dates from 1433, written by Bertradon de la Broquière. For him, in the first place, “it is the best of Bulgaria” and “a large city.”75 This is a refrain that appears in the accounts of most of the Western visitors such as B. Ramberti (1534),76 de Busbecq and Hans Dernschwam (1553).77 Few of them would consider it beautiful (Pierre Lescalopier, 1574).78 Many of the features of Ottoman Sofia surprised the foreign visitors. De la Broquière is also the first to record the fact of the dismantling of Sofia’s fortifications,79 at the order of Sultan Murad I (ca. 1362–1389) shortly after the Ottoman conquest, as Evliya Çelebi explains around 250 years later.80 In his History of the Hungarians Bonfini vaguely provides the reasons for Sofia’s easy fall to the crusaders – its “exhaustion due to old age,” being vulnerable for lack of defences, and because of its location.81 The wall is the source of another puzzling controversy in the accounts of the Crusade. One of the otherwise reliable sources, Bernard Wapowski, describes Sofia prior to the crusaders’ attack as a “densely populated city, surrounded by a wall.”82 Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century travellers often mention the lack of a wall which was in striking difference to the West European towns and downgraded Sofia as an urban settlement in their eyes.83 Anton Vrančić (1553) in particular connects the lack of walls with the spaciousness of the town which, in his words, 74 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 185; Peregrinations du S. Jean Palerne, Foresien, 501. 75 Kline, ed., The Voyage d’Outremer by Bertradon de la Broquière, 129. 76 Ракова, Данова, Бенедето Рамберти, 78/137. 77 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 218, 237. 78 Цветкова, ed., Френски пътеписи за Балканите, 152. 79 Kline, ed., The Voyage d’Outremer by Bertradon de la Broquière, 129. 80 According to Evliya Çelebi, this was done by the Ottoman commander İnce Balaban and his soldiers within 40 days after the conquest of the city, Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatnamesi, vol. 3, 221. 81 Fontes Bulgariae Historicae. T. XXXI. Fontes Latini. V.1., Antonius de Bonfinis, Rerum Hungaricarum Decades V (ar. 1498), 146. 82 I have used the Bulgarian translation of the excerpts from his History of the Polish Kingdom and the Great Lithuanian Duchy, in Невян Митев, Кръстоносните походи на Владислав Варненчик от 1443–1444 година (по писмени и археологически данни) (Шумен: Университетско издателство „Епископ Константин Преславски, 2020), 237. 83 See for ex. Paulus Rubigallus (1544) Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani, no pagination; Peregrinations du S. Jean Palerne, Foresien (1582), 501.

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was stretching far and wide on the edge of Vitosha.84 The absence of walls is a recurring motive throughout the period in question. Apart from the lack of fortifications, the houses, usually one-storey, and even dug-in, made of wood, and hence vulnerable to conflagrations (Corneille Duplicius de Schepper, 1533)85 invariably impressed negatively foreign visitors. Almost none were of stone and even the better looking were made mainly of sundried bricks, covered with schindel. The windows looked on the courtyards, and only the artisanal workshops opened on the street (Vrančić, 1553, Dernschwam, 1553, Lescalopier, 1574).86 For Dernschwam the houses looked more like “pigpens” and built by slaves or war captives – with clay and without lime. The streets were narrow.87 P. Rubigallus (1544) concluded that the town of Sofia was suited for beasts rather than for human beings (“Digna magis brutis, quam subeunda viris.”).88 Most of the travellers who visited Sofia provide only sketchy information and would pay some attention to structures that stood out. Usually they would write about St Sophia, sometimes telling legends about its history and current state which they heard from local inhabitants – Christians and Muslims. Its majestic structure was an object of pride for the Christian Sofiots89 who would proudly share with the foreigners that local Muslims tried several times to dismantle it but with no success (de Schepper, 1533).90 Foreign travellers note the mosques as one of the most obvious signs of Sofia but very few give further information about them. Some, like H. Dernschwam, count their number but do not go further than that. On his way to Constantinople (1553) he writes about 15 mosques, of which some were wooden, but on his way back two years later counts 11 big ones, and a multitude of smaller ones, altogether around a hundred, a number that looks quite inflated.91 Against the backdrop of the general attitude to Muslim architecture the information provided by Vrančić (1553) looks more reliable and in-depth. During his first journey he counts 13 minarets, informs about the direction of the prayers in the mosque and of the minarets, and explains the role of the latter for the call to prayer. He goes on to explain the attitude of Ottomans to the 84 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 185. 85 Ibid., 162. 86 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 185, 237; Цветкова, ed., Френски пътеписи за Балканите, 152. 87 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 237. 88 Paulus Rubigallus, Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani, n. 89 See more details in Gradeva, “Late Antique,” 171–82. 90 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 162. 91 Ibid., 237, 265.

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different structures: the square mosques, the baths, and the bridges are built of stone, covered with leaden domes and made to last. It is of them and of the caravanserais that they take care. Unlike them the houses do not deserve such attention and their main purpose is only to provide shelter from bad weather. His conclusion about the town in general is not favourable – due particularly to the tall tortile minarets which were rising far above “our flat churches” and made the town look ugly.92 This is in stark contrast with the view of H. Blount (1634) who particularly praised the many brave mescheetoes, especially the great one in the middle of the town and another one on the south side with a magnificent Colledge: it hath many stately Hanes or Kirevanserahes, and exquisite Bathes, the principal hath a hot Fountaine.93 H. Blount’s selection of magnificent mosques is not surprising. Most likely these are the above-mentioned and still standing mosques of Mahmud Pasha Angelović (today Archaeology Museum), and of Sofu Mehmed Pasha, built by Mimar Sinan (today converted into church). Sofia’s mineral springs were well known from the Roman times, some legends even connected the construction of St Sophia cathedral to their healing effect; the mineral water and the thermal baths attracted Roman emperors and Byzantine aristocrats, they continued to be a landmark of Sofia in the Ottoman period. For the period under study the earliest references to the hot springs and the public baths are included in narratives dedicated to the Crusade of 1443–1444. They are mentioned explicitly in the Ottoman Gazavat-i Sultan Murad, written shortly after the events94 and in Chronica Hungarorum by Johannes de Thurocz (1488),95 which could be considered a confirmation of their being functional in the years before and after the Ottoman conquest. The public baths were usually the object of – if not admiration, at least approval, with only Rubigallus disagreeing because Sofia might have had public baths but few prayer houses.96 The majority of the visitors, however, really praise 92 Ibid., 185. 93 A Voyage into the Levant. A brief Relation of a Journey lately performed by Mr Henry Blount, 32. Henry Blount’s praise for the Ottoman contribution to Sofia’s architecture gives grounds to Gerald MacLean to challenge the established view of Ottomans’ negligence regarding urban areas under their control. Gerald MacLean, The Rise of Oriental travel. English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580–1720 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 154. 94 Imber, The Crusade of Varna, 55. 95 Fontes Bulgariae Historicae. T. XXXI. Fontes Latini. V.1., 113–14: “… civitas illa famosissima terrarium Sophia denominate populo et diviciis referta,” also in the context of the crusade. 96 Rubigallus, Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani, n.p.: “Denique nil muris exstructum apparet in illa, Balnea si demas….”

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this valuable asset of the town. Detailed description of the interior, exterior, water supply and organisation of the central male bath in Sofia is included in Dernschwam’s (1553) account, based on his and his companions’ personal experience.97 A hundred and fifty years later, similarly entertaining and revealing is the account of the Lady Montagu (1717). Although – as with many other stories told by her, the goal far exceeds simple acquaintance with a peculiar experience and building, the description sounds accurate, and is highly appreciative.98 4

Location and Natural Environment

Maybe the only feature of Sofia that is eulogised by visitors and locals of all backgrounds without distinction is the natural environment of Sofia. Idris-i Bidlisi compares Sofia to Tabriz, for its beauty and for having the (Vitosha) Mountain99 in its immediate vicinity. He does not spare compliments for “that delightful city” of Sofia and even dedicates a 30-verse poem to its beauties and its people, likening it to Paradise and emphasising its central location: “[…] ve meyân-ı bukʾa-ı cennet-mekânda mumtaz-ı büldandır […]” In his words, “its air is from the holy abode,” and “its land is perfumed with the sweet smell of musk,” “its field is full of flowers;” “over that land … sky-like high is a summit permeating Jesus’ soul (sic!);” it is on the edge of mountains with plenty of food, excellent water and fresh air.100 These admiring words are replicated in the vita of St Nikolay the New of Sofia by Mathew the Grammarian, of mid-16th century. In his explanation of why Sofia is so “special” a city the author writes: This Sredets, […] is one of the famous large towns of Macedonia101 and it seems to me that there is no other like it in the whole of Macedonia. This 97 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 238–39. 98 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters (London: Virago Books, 2001), 57–59. 99 The name Vitosha referring to the mountain appears for the first time – so far, in the diaries of Anton Vrančić (1553), Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 167–68. 100 Idris-i Bitlisi, Heşt Bihişt, Ct. 1, 361–62. Idris-i Bidlisi’s praise for Sofia’s favourable natural conditions – moderate climate, attractive fields and marvellous places, abundant food, cattle and game – is being reproduced in most of the subsequent historical narratives which cover the conquest. See for example Hoca Sadeddin and Koca Hüseyin. 101 This is a somewhat enigmatic geographic definition of Sofia’s location. Macedonia has several historical locations none of which included Sofia:  1. The ancient Kingdom of Macedonia which emerged on the territory of mod. North Greece. Even in the peak of its expansion, however, it did not reach the site of Serdica. 2. Neither was it part of the Roman province Macedonia, which included mod. South Albania, Macedonia, Southwest

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has been confirmed by many and continues to be, by those who travel around the world. And they say that there is nowhere a place equal to this – not only within the boundaries of Macedonia, but also in Arabia, Palestine and Egypt; in the eastern, but also in the western lands – that is Illyric, the whole of Diocletia, and in the spacious Italian territories. It surpasses them not in largeness or with some big structure […] and continues: It is surrounded by very high mountains. They encircle it like a fortress and the sweet streams that flow out of them water it abundantly. The air is very fresh especially in harvest time; it marvellously cools the burden of heat and chases away the evil of disease from all living creatures. Not only that, from the foothills of its most glorious mountains alongside its cold springs abundant and hot waters gush out of it. Many a time those suffering from various diseases got cured, through Christ’s grace, as they immerse themselves in their waters. […] Such is the area, and right in the heart of it is the glorious and praiseworthy city of Sofia, called nowadays also Sardica or Sredets […].102 The similarity in the two descriptions is such that one might even think the two authors had spent some time together and engaged in sohbet discussing the city’s virtues. The symbiosis of city and mountain, the fresh water from the mountain, the hot mineral springs impressed most of Sofia’s visitors. An echo of the impression the mountain with its icy peaks and oak forests made on the Dubrovnik merchants surfaces in the epic poem Osman by Ivan Gundulić (written before Bulgaria, and North Greece, nor 3. the Byzantine thema of Macedonia, established in the 8th century with its centre in Adrianople/ Edirne. 4. The 19th–20th century region Macedonia also does not reach that far north (Петър Коледаров, Името Македония в историческата география (София: Наука и изкуство, 1985)). While the majority of the travellers define Sofia as part of Bulgaria, some attributed it as part of Macedonia, too: “Sophya, the chiefe City (after the Turkish division) of Bulgary but according to the other Geography, it stands in Macedonia upon the confines of Thessaly,” A Voyage into the Levant. A brief Relation of a Journey lately performed by Mr Henry Blount, 31. Evliya Çelebi (Seyahatnamesi. Topkapı Sarayı Bagdat 305 Yazmasının Transkripsiyonu – Dizini, vol. 1, eds. Robert Dankoff et al. (Istanbul: YKY, 1996), 49) uses exactly this expression: “Makedonya şehirlerinden Sofya şehrinde….” I cannot tell what caused this development. 102 Иванова, ed., Стара българска литература 4, 314–15.

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1638).103 Visitors in the 16th century often mention the nice meadows that surrounded Sofia, the gardens, and the natural (hot) springs. The latter were usually among the positive features of the town for example for de Schepper (1533)104 and Jean Palerne, Foresien, (1582).105 5

Conclusion

The narrative sources from the first two centuries reveal a rather disjointed and sometimes even contradictory image of the town of Sofia during this period. Few are its aspects that they agree upon, few are also their common foci. One thing they share, whatever the provenance of their authors is the appreciation for Sofia’s natural givens, which include the central geographical location, the beautiful environment, the positive effect of the mountain, its fresh air, the fertile land and abundance of food and (good) water. Praised are especially the mineral springs and their healing waters. These are present in many of the travel accounts of visitors of different backgrounds, but also in the works of Ottoman chroniclers. Maybe the result of the eulogy in Idris-i Bidlisi’s Heşt Bihişt, these assets of Sofia become a permanent component of the story of the conquest of Sofia. The nature around Sofia or elsewhere is not usually included in vitae of martyrs and saints, yet, one of the Lives of the Sofiot new martyrs (St Nicholas the New of Sofia) draws a beautiful picture of the natural surroundings of the town which resonates with the other sources in this respect. Common is also the attitude to Sofia’s past, although the sources show different foci. Its Roman past did not attract much interest, maybe it was not as interesting as a Roman town, or, it was other periods and aspects that were more important for the authors. Two are the themes that stand out with regard to Sofia – Sofia as an important centre (capital city or meeting point of rulers) in the pre-Ottoman period and Sofia as a Christian centre. The town is credited by foreign visitors and (later) Ottoman chroniclers as a former capital city of Bulgaria. The Church Council in 343 ce and the role of Sofia in the Christian Late Antiquity was a source of pride for local educated Christians and obviously 103 Ivan Gundulic, Osman (eLektire.skole.hr) URL: http://gimnazija-sb.com/portal/wp-con tent/uploads/2015/02/gundulic_osman.pdf 24, 78 (accessed on 8 February 2021). 104 Йонов, ed., Немски и австрийски XV–XVI век, 162. He praises the baths as nice and hygienic. 105 Цветкова, ed., Френски пътеписи, 170. See also Katib Çelebi, in Гълъбов, “Османотурски извори,” 91, who describes Sofia’s public baths.

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impressed the foreign (Christian) visitors. Much more important in the eyes of Bulgarian authors of the early Ottoman period, however, seems to have been the fact that Sofia was the place where new martyrs suffered to the Muslims, that the Christian community in Sofia was pious and opposing the Muslims’ pressure, that it housed important relics. The Christians’ spirit surfaces, though not frequently, in the travelogues of Western visitors and even in Ottoman sources. The Western sources, however, do not notice the new martyrdom; what is emphasised, is rather the (political) opposition to the Ottoman rule and the suffering caused by the Ottomans. For Idris-i Bidlisi the denizens of Sofia were all enthusiastic believers in the “single god”; he does not pay attention to the other communities. In general, all reviewed sources build an image of a divided city populace, which is not necessarily supported by other ones which shed light on everyday life in the town, and even by hints within the analysed texts. Neither Ottomans nor the Orthodox Christians pay much attention to the urban landscape. On the other hand, foreign travellers provide abundant information about various peculiarities of the town, mostly features that made it different from their personal experiences “back home” – the absence of fortifications, the high minarets and the numerous mosques, the low houses made of wooden planks and sundried bricks, covered with schindel, the caravanserais and the public baths. It is only the latter that win approval among the visitors. In general, the descriptions left by Western travellers reveal a decrepit residential area as opposed to the solid public structures associated with the Ottoman authority. The descriptions of Sofia reflect the intensive ongoing process of Ottomanisation of the city following the conquest, in the physical layout, in the population structure and the inter-religious confrontation, in the vision of the city. They also reflect a rarely discussed process of interaction of the local denizens – Muslims and Orthodox Christians, and of the two communities – with the visitors, which led to the emergence of a common understanding of the glorious past of Sofia. In its turn, this interaction  – be it through direct communication, or other channels of transmission, contributed to the enriching of the Ottoman historical narrative. Bibliography

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Blunt, Henry. A Voyage into the Levant. A brief Relation of a Journey lately performed by Mr Henry BLUNT Gentleman, from England by the way of Venice into Dalmatia, Sclavonia, Bosna, Hungary, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace, Rhodes and Egypt, unto Gran Cairo…. The Fourth Edition. London: Printed by R.C. for Andrew Crooke,…, 1650. https://books.google.bg/books?id=WmpCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&hl=bg&source =gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 19 March 2021). Gundulic, Ivan. Osman (eLektire.skole.hr) http://gimnazija-sb.com/portal/wp-content /uploads/2015/02/gundulic_osman.pdf. Peregrinations du S. Jean Palerne, Foresien, Secretaire de François de Valois duc d’Anjou & d’Alençon & etc … : où est traicté de plusieurs singularités et antiquités remarquées és provinces d’Egypte, Arabie  … Terre saincte, Surie, Natolie, Grece  … Lyon: Jean Pillehotte, 1606. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k853130/f1.item.zoom accessed 21.03.2021. Paulus Rubigallus. Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani. Wittemberga 1544, n.p. https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0005/bsb00051586/images/index.html?id =00051586&groesser=&fip=yztswxdsydqrseayaqrsyztsen&no=9&seite=5 (accessed on 10 February 2021). Йорданов, Кръстьо. “Православната общност на град София и неговите околности през XV–XVI век,” [Yordanov, Krustyo. “The Orthodox Community in the town of Sofia and its district during 15th–16th centuries”], Дзяло, е-списание в областта на хуманитаристиката, Х–ХХI в. год. VI, 2018, No 12, no page numbers, https://www.aca demia.edu/38224646 (accessed on 6 January 2021).

8 Réflexions sur le processus de rédaction des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa Nicolas Vatin Voici des années que je travaille, en historien, sur les Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa1, source de première main, pour qui les lit avec attention, sur Hayreddin Barberousse, l’histoire navale ottomane et les premiers temps de la présence turque à Alger. Je savais pouvoir me reposer, pour l’histoire et l’établissement du texte, sur le travail d’Aldo Gallotta, mais n’ignorais pas qu’il me faudrait un jour tenter d’y voir un peu plus clair, d’autant que j’avais repéré, au fil de la lecture, des indices chronologiques qui pouvaient se révéler instructifs sur le processus de composition. J’ai souvent évoqué mon travail auprès de Claudia Römer, vieille amie dont les remarques et les conseils ne font jamais défaut, et je me suis déjà essayé à rassembler mes connaissances et mes idées sur la rédaction d’un ouvrage dont je connaissais mieux le détail et le contexte politique. À chaque fois, cependant, je renonçai, déconcerté par la médiocrité des résultats et par l’aporie à laquelle me confrontaient maintes menues contradictions. L’aimable invitation à participer à ce volume, reçue en avril 2020 au milieu du bouleversement de nos certitudes et de nos habitudes, alors que j’étais confiné dans un appartement parisien, m’a amené à reprendre le métier, tel Paul Valéry poussé par la Grande Guerre à reprendre son métier de poète. Je n’ai pas la prétention d’avoir produit un chef-d’œuvre, même à ma modeste échelle. Mais que Claudia me permette de lui dire, comme Valéry l’écrivait à André Gide en lui offrant La jeune Parque : « essayant de m’y astreindre encore, j’ai fait cet exercice que je te dédie. » 1

Muradi et son œuvre

C’est aux recherches pionnières de Hüseyin Yurdaydın, puis aux travaux d’Aldo Galllotta qui les complétèrent et précisèrent magistralement, qu’on doit de 1 Je renverrai ci-dessous à ce texte, sous l’intitulé abrégé Ġazavāt, à partir du fac-similé accompagné d’un apparat critique publié voici près de quarante ans par Aldo Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », Studi Magrebini 13 (1981).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_010

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connaître de façon certaine le nom, l’œuvre et des éléments de la biographie de l’auteur des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa2. Ce personnage, Seyyid Murad, qui avait pris pour nom de plume Muradi3, était un écrivain professionnel et un expert en marine. Il fut en effet, dans un premier temps, l’auteur d’un Baḥırnāme en vers qui sert de préface au Kitāb-ı baḥriyye de Piri Reis, à la seconde version duquel il contribua peu ou prou. Ce travail, nous apprend-il, lui valut d’être intégré à la marine, moins sans doute comme marin que comme historiographe4. En tout cas, cette double compétence explique pourquoi quelques années plus tard, quand Soliman-le-Magnifique commanda à Hayreddin un texte consacré à sa vie et à celle de son frère Oruç, le grand marin se tourna vers Muradi. Les choses ici se compliquent, car l’œuvre consacrée à Barberousse par Muradi est foisonnante. La synthèse claire et complète d’Aldo Gallotta5 permet heureusement de s’y retrouver. Le sultan Soliman avait à l’origine fait une double commande : « Tu en feras deux livres détaillés, en vers et en prose, que tu enverras à mon seuil de félicité, en sorte qu’on l’ajoute à sa place, sans ajout ni lacune, aux histoires qui narrent ce qui s’est passé sous mon règne6. » De fait, le récit en prose, qui fut très populaire, est connu par un certain nombre de manuscrits et on possède également une version en vers, dûment signée de Muradi, fondée sur le récit en prose. L’un et l’autre couvrent une période qui va de la naissance des frères Barberousse à l’échec du siège d’Alger par Charles Quint en 1541. Le manuscrit de la version versifiée a appartenu au şehzade Mehmed décédé le 6 novembre 1543, ce qui confirme que la version versifiée et donc celle en prose dont Aldo Gallotta estime qu’elle en découle ne couvraient pas la fin de la vie de Hayreddin et s’arrêtaient à peu près certainement en 2 Aldo Gallotta, « Le Ġazavāt di Ḫayreddīn Barbarossa », Studi Magrebini 3 (1970) : 79–160 ; Aldo Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād » ; Hüseyin Yurdaydın, « Muradî ve Eserleri », Belleten XXVII, 107 (1963), 453–66. On trouvera dans ces études les références aux travaux de leurs prédecesseurs. Depuis les recherches de Gallotta, plusieurs transcriptions des Ġazavāt ont été publiées, mais c’est tout récemment seulement qu’est parue une transcription fondée sur les bons manuscrits : Abdullah Gündoğdu et al., Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa Gazavâtnâmesi ve Zeyli (Ankara : Panama, 2019). L’introduction sur le texte (13–28), due à H. Güngör Şahin, repose principalement sur les publications de Yurdaydın et Gallotta. 3 C’est par ce nom de plume que nous le désignerons désormais. 4 Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 12. 5 Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 13–25. 6 Ġazavāt, 3 r°–v° : aṣli ve ferʿi ile bu zamāna gelince daḫi berrde ve baḥirde ḳalīl ve kes̱īr her ne deñlü ġazālar ve ʿarbedeler kim eyledüñüz min evvelihi ilā āḫirihi anları heb bī-ḳuṣūr cemʿ ėdüb ʿalā-t-tafṣīl naẓm-ile ve nes̱r-ile iki kitāb ėdüb āsitāne-i saʿādetüme irsāl eyle kim anlar daḫi bilā ziyādetin ve lā noḳṣānin ʿalā-t-tertīb benüm zamānumda vāḳıʿ olub yazılan tevārīḫe bile ḳayd olsun.

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15417, d’autant que, comme on verra, Muradi eut d’autres tâches littéraires à partir de la fin de 1542. Il existe cependant un manuscrit unicum, conservé à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, signé de Muradi et achevé en receb 853 / août – septembre 1546, qui raconte la campagne navale franco-ottomane de 1543–1544 et les dernières années de Hayreddin. Aldo Gallotta, qui a découvert que ce manuscrit était la continuation du récit en prose et non un nouvel exemplaire de la version bien connue des Ġazavāt, a présenté ce texte comme la pars secunda de la biographie en prose de Barberousse par Muradi8. Les Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa ne sont cependant pas le seul ouvrage consacré par Muradi à la geste du grand marin. On connaît d’abord son Fetiḥnāme-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn9, poème signé de son nom, qui raconte les campagnes de 1537 et 1538, autrement dit les opérations menées dans les Pouilles à l’occasion de la « campagne de Corfou », suivies cette même année par une première campagne dans les Cyclades, puis par la campagne de 1538, qui vit Hayreddin achever la conquête des Cyclades, razzier la Crète puis gagner l’Adriatique où il remporta contre Andrea Doria la célèbre bataille de la Prévéza. Muradi précise lui-même avoir achevé en cinq jours son poème sur place, au lendemain de la bataille, dans le bateau d’un certain Durak Reis, sans doute un capitaine de la flotte impériale dont je n’ai pas retrouvé la trace10, donc dans les tout premiers jours d’octobre 1538. De fait, un des deux manuscrits conservés porte la date de 945 / 30 mai 1538–18 mai 153911. La campagne suivante, consacrée en août 1539 à la reprise de Hercegnovi, fit également l’objet d’un récit en vers intitulé Fetḥ-i ḳalʿe-i Nōva, portant lui aussi la signature de Muradi, rédigé au retour de la flotte à Istanbul12. Un point important est que ces deux poèmes ont été intégrés tels quels dans la version en vers des Ġazavāt qui pour le reste, selon Aldo

7 8

9 10

11 12

Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 23–24 ; Yurdaydın, « Muradî ve Eserleri », 462. Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 24–25 ; Gallotta, « Il “Ġazavat-ı Ḫayreddin Paşa” pars secunda e la spedizione in Francia di Ḫayreddin Barbarossa (1543–1544) », in Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V. L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood et Colin Imber (Istanbul : Isis, 1994), 77–89. Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 19–21. Son nom n’apparaît ni dans les Ġazavāt, ni dans l’index de l’ouvrage d’Emrah Safa Gürkan, Sultanın Korsanları. Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500–1700 (Istanbul : Kronik, 2018), ce dont on peut déduire qu’il n’était pas un corsaire important de la suite de Hayreddin. D’ailleurs il commandait une baştarda, ce qui donne en effet plutôt à penser qu’il appartenait à la flotte officielle. Le Caire, Dār al-Kutub, 107/8903. Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 21.

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Gallotta, est issue de la version en prose, aussi bien pour la période allant des débuts à 1537 que pour les dernières pages consacrées à l’année 154113. On conserve enfin un Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ-i Şiḳlōş Ustūrġūn ve Ustūn-i Belġrād14 dont Hüseyin Yurdaydın a montré qu’il fallait également l’attribuer à Muradi15, lequel y fait clairement allusion à la rédaction des deux versions de ses Ġazavāt, en prose et en vers16, et évoque leur commande par Soliman dans des termes très similaires à ceux des Ġazavāt17. Muradi y explique que, après la remise des Ġazavāt, les pachas peut-être un peu jaloux lui proposèrent d’abandonner Hayreddin et la mer pour suivre une campagne terrestre et consacrer son calame à rapporter les hauts faits du sultan18, qui partit en personne au début de 1543 pour une campagne de Hongrie. Leurs désirs étaient bien entendu des ordres et nous voyons Muradi quitter Istanbul avec le sultan le 16 şaʿbān 949 / 25 novembre 154219 et suivre désormais l’armée ottomane en Hongrie, ce qui l’empêchait évidemment d’être auprès de Hayreddin en France et en Italie. Sa mission était de travailler à la gloire du sultan, qui avait donc dû l’accepter, et la mention des pachas renvoie sans doute à une délibération du divan impérial, mais Muradi précise qu’il était désormais au service du vizir Rüstem Paşa20. Ces différents éléments amènent Aldo Gallotta à résumer à grands traits une biographie de Seyyîd Murâd, alias Muradi21. Sans doute né dans le dernier quart du xve siècle, il rédige son Baḥirnāme en 930 / 1523–24 et participe à la seconde version du Kitāb-ı baḥriyye achevée en 1526. Quelques années plus tard, il passe au service de Hayreddin, « sans doute en 1534, quand Hayreddin vient à Istanbul sur l’appel de Soliman ». Désormais, et pour plusieurs années, il participe aux campagnes navales du beylerbeyi des îles, ainsi qu’il l’écrit 13 Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 24 ; Gallotta, « Le Ġazavāt di Ḫayreddīn Barbarossa », 100. 14 J’ai consulté le manuscrit de Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Manuscrits, Turc 75, cité désormais sous la forme Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ. 15 Yurdaydın, « Muradî ve Eserleri », 461–62. On ne confondra pas cette chronique avec celle illustrée par Matrakçı Nasuh : cf. Naṣūhḥü’s Silāḥī (Maṭrāḳçī), Beyān-ı Menāzil-i Sefer-i ʿIrāḳeyn, Hüseyin G. Yurdaydın ed. (Ankara : TTK, 1976), 131–134. 16 Naẓm-ile ve ve nes̱r-ile cemʿ ėdüb ve derc eyleyüb ve tertīb ḳılub iki ḳıṭʿa kitāb-ı pür-ṣevābı bi-l-iltiḫāb-ı bī-ʿitāb ėtdüm (Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 8 r°–v°). 17 Berrde ve baḥirde ilā yevminā heẕā vāḳıʿ olan ġazālaruñuzı ḳalīl ü kes̱īr cemʿ ve derc ėdüb āsitāne-i saʿādetüme īṣāl ve erkān-ı devletüme irsāl eyleyesiz (Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 8 r°). 18 Ve ʿaceb nʾola bu defʿa daḫı bizüm-le ḳara seferin ėdüb ol pādişah (…) ḥażretlerinüñ daḫı bu sefer-i meʾāb-ı ʿadīl-i ẓafer-āyātında hele ḥāżır (…) olub ve ḥādis̱ olan ḥavādis̱-i külliyyeʾi daḫı nes̱r-ile ve cā-be-cā naẓm-ile cemʿ ü tertīb ėdüb … (Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 9 v°–10 r°). 19 Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 19 r°. 20 Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 14 v°. 21 Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 10–13.

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lui-même22. Il l’accompagne encore, comme nous avons vu, en 1537–1538 et en 1539. En 1541, probablement, il achève les Ġazavāt et en donne un exemplaire à chaque pacha. Il est alors recruté pour suivre et raconter la campagne de Hongrie du sultan. On le retrouve à Istanbul en 1546, où il achève la biographie de son héros, décédé dans la capitale en juillet de cette année. 2

Muradi au service de Hayreddin Paşa

Dans quelle mesure la critique interne des Ġazavāt en prose permet-elle de confirmer et préciser cette esquisse ? À la suite de la demande de Soliman, nous dit Muradi, Me conformant à cet ordre sacré de Son Excellence Hayreddin Paşa (que Dieu lui accorde ce qu’il désire), je voulus rassembler et composer [ce récit] dans la mesure de mes moyens véridique et honnête, en langue turque pour être plus accessible aux auditeurs. J’ai donc écrit [ce livre] en me fondant pour certains chapitres sur les propos bénis du [pacha] en personne, pour d’autres sur ses frères combattants de la foi qui l’avaient accompagné dans ses gaza, pour d’autres enfin sur ce que moi, cet humble individu, j’avais moi-même vu et appris alors que je l’accompagnais dans ses campagnes et gaza sur terre et sur mer, en sorte qu’il n’y ait pas trace de doute sur sa véracité23. La formule « J’ai écrit » implique que l’ensemble du manuscrit, et donc possiblement de la rédaction, se situe chronologiquement au moment de la remise de l’œuvre. Il sera donc difficile de tirer avec certitude parti d’éventuelles indications chronologiques pour tenter de dater la rédaction et la commande même. Ainsi, il est évident qu’elle est postérieure à l’arrivée de Hayreddin à Istanbul, ce que confirme le fait que, malgré une grande rigueur historique 22 Cf. le passage des Ġazavāt cité ci-dessous et le discours que les pachas lui tiennent dans la Ta ʿrīḫ-i fetḥ- Şiḳlōş : bunca zamān imiş kim sizler ol reʾīsü-l-mücāhidīn fī-l-baḥri aʿnī ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa-yı ẕī-l-ḳadir ve fī cihādi-l-baḥr bi iẕni-llāh ṣāḥibü-n-naṣri ile bile olub ve deryā seferin anlaruñ-la bile eyleyüb (Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 9 v°). 23 Bu uftāde daḫi ol emr-i şerīf[-i] ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa yessere Allāhu mā-yeşa‌ʾ mūcibince ʿalā ḳadari-ṭ-ṭāḳat ṣaḥīḥce ve ṣarīḥce elfāẓ-ı türkiyye ile müstemiʿine āsān olsun dėyü cemʿ ve tertīb ėtmek murād ėdindükde bu tafṣīlātuñ kimin kendülerüñ mübārek lafıẓlarından ve kimin anlarla bile ġazālarında vāḳıʿ olan mücāhid ḳarındaşlardan ve bir niçesin daḫi bu efkende anlarla seferlerde ve ġazālarda berr ve baḥirde bile olub ve kendümüz görüb ve müṭṭaliʿ olub kim hīç ṣıḥḥatında şāʾibe-i şübhe ḳalmaya ol vech-ile yazduḳ (Ġazavāt, 3 v°–4 r°).

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dans l’ensemble, on peut repérer quelques confusions chronologiques jusqu’au folio 201, ce qui nous amène aux années 1531–153224 : la mémoire de Hayreddin et de ses hommes, sur laquelle le chroniqueur est contraint de se fonder, a eu quelques défaillances. Par la suite, on ne constate plus d’inexactitudes de ce genre, ce qui confirme que Muradi pouvait désormais se reporter à sa mémoire ou à ses notes : le fait qu’il rédigea son Fetiḥnāme au lendemain même de la bataille de la Préveza pourrait être un argument en faveur d’une prise de notes au plus près des événements. C’était du reste la tâche qui lui incombait en tant qu’historiographe de la campagne, comme le montre cet ordre adressé en 1566 à Feridun par Sokollu Mehmed Paşa lors du siège de Szigetvár : « Il faut que tu sois présent sur le gabion avec ton écritoire et ton calame afin de rapporter au plus vite les événements, tels qu’ils se seront passés, au pied du trône refuge de la félicité du [souverain] maître des conjonctions et au seuil sublime du khan25. » Quoi qu’il en soit, un passage donne l’impression que Muradi visita Alger. En effet, après avoir décrit la destruction du fort du Peñon d’Alger et la construction de la digue rattachant l’ancienne île à la terre ferme, il ajoute : Le résultat est que nul ne peut reconnaître l’emplacement où se trouvait l’île autrefois ; qu’on ne le resitue à présent qu’en imagination ; que si nous ne l’avions pas connu et n’avions pas constaté de visu la présence d’un fort sur cette île, ou si nous n’en avions pas entendu parler en détail en y prêtant foi et créance, on pourrait dire cent mille fois à quelqu’un que la partie avancée de ce port était autrefois une île séparée sur laquelle il y avait un fort, mais qu’il a été détruit et abattu et mis dans son état actuel, cette personne ne pourrait en aucune manière le croire26. À l’évidence, Muradi parle comme un homme qui a vu l’état actuel du port et probablement doit être compté parmi les personnes à qui on en a décrit l’état 24 Ġazavāt 22 v°–23 v°, 39 v°, 52 v°, 56 v°–57 r°, 68 r°–72 v°, 86 v°–88 v°, 163 v°–164 v°, 189 v° sqq., 197 r°, 200 v°–201 v°. Il ne me paraît pas utile ici d’entrer dans ces détails, qui ne sont pas nécessaires pour prouver que Muradi n’entra au service de Hayreddin qu’après l’arrivée de celui-ci à Istanbul. 25 Nicolas Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey. Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár. Édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-aḫbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr (ms. H 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkapı Sarayı) (Vienne/Munster : LIT Verlag, 2010), 214. 26 Ol ecilden sābıḳā ol cezīre ḳanda idügin kimesne bilmez ve şimdiki ḥālde ancaḳ yerler taṣavvur ile bilürler ve eger biz bilmedük ve ol cezīrede ḳalʿe var idügin görmedük ve kemāli ile işidüb iʿtiḳād ve iʿtimād ėtmedük kimesneye yüz biñ kerre dėseler kim bu ṭuran līmānuñ öñi sābıḳā bir ayru cezīre idi ve üzerinde bir ḳalʿe daḫi var idi bozub ve yıḳub şimdiki ḥālde böyle oldı dėyü ḳaṭʿen ve aṣlen inanmaḳ iḥtimāli olmaya (Ġazavāt, 152 r°–v°).

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antérieur. Or le seul moment où il a pu voir Alger, nécessairement en compagnie de Hayreddin, est lorsque ce dernier s’y est rendu en fuyant Tunis reprise par les armées de Charles Quint en 1535. Il se trouvait donc déjà sur la flotte partie d’Istanbul en mai 1534. Peut-on être plus précis ? Un indice pourrait être fourni par le fait que dès son apparition dans le texte, Hayreddin recevant la commande de Soliman est désigné comme le « beylerbeyi des îles »27, dignité dont il nous est rappelé un peu plus loin qu’elle ne lui fut pas attribuée immédiatement : « Voilà pourquoi Hayreddin Bey vint des pays arabes pour recevoir la bénédiction de Son Excellence le padişah refuge du monde. Il vint, reçut sa bénédiction, et vois comment peu de temps après il fut gratifié de la charge de beylerbeyi28. » Il est possible que, rédigeant par la suite, Muradi ait tenu pour acquise cette promotion, mais le fait est qu’elle n’eut lieu que lors d’un séjour à Alep, le 2 février 1534. Avant cette date, on avait été un peu embarrassé sur le sort à faire au nouveau venu29. En outre le beylerbeyilik des îles impliquait des responsabilités dans l’Arsenal plutôt que le commandement de la flotte, commandement que Hayreddin obtint de Soliman au retour de son voyage de Syrie, non sans l’opposition plus ou moins larvée des pachas, lors de conversations privées au cours desquelles il sut séduire le sultan30. On peut émettre l’hypothèse que c’est à ce moment, vers la fin de mai 1534 quand il obtint pour la saison le commandement illimité de la flotte impériale, qu’il s’attacha les services de Seyyid Murad / Muradi, désormais son historiographe. 3

Quand et comment Muradi rédigea-t-il les Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa?

Si l’on peut ainsi fonder sur des bases un peu plus solides, et avec un peu plus de précision, l’hypothèse déjà formulée par Aldo Gallotta concernant le début de l’engagement de Muradi, la question reste ouverte de savoir quand et comment il rédigea la chronique telle que nous la connaissons et telle qu’il en fit hommage au sultan, sachant que, dans un premier temps, il lui fallut rassembler la documentation nécessaire à la narration des décennies déjà écoulées tout en se préoccupant du récit des événements dont il était désormais le témoin de 27 Ġazavāt, 3 r°. Voir de même un peu plus bas. 28 Ve Ḫayr ed-Dīn Beg daḫi diyār-ı ʿArabdan ol sebebden geldi kim pādişāh-ı ʿālem-penāh ḥażretlerinden bir ḫayır duʿā ala gelüb aldı yine az zamān geçmedin gör kim beglerbegilik vėrildi (Ġazavāt, 21 v°). 29 Cf. Nicolas Vatin, « Comment Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse fut reçu à Istanbul en 1533 », Turcica 49 (2018) : 119–51 (139–42). 30 Ibid, 143–47 ; Nicolas Vatin, « Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse : un pacha qui n’était pas du sérail », Turkish Historical Review 10 (2019) : 107–31 (122–25).

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première main. Si l’on se tourne à nouveau vers le texte, on peut recenser un certain nombre d’indices chronologiques. On note d’abord que le grand-vizir İbrahim Paşa, dès sa première mention à propos des événements de 1524 au f° 125 v°, et tout au long du récit, est présenté comme défunt (merḥūm), ce qui nous situe après la nuit du 14 au 15 mars 1536. Puis au f° 218 r°–v°, à un moment du récit qui se situe juste avant le départ de Hayreddin pour Istanbul en 1533, il est fait référence à la captivité chez les chrétiens de deux de ses compagnons : Salih Reis, emmené en Sicile, et Turgut (Ṭurġudca). L’allusion à une captivité de Salih Reis laisse à dire vrai perplexe, car elle ne semble attestée ni par d’autres sources, ni par un autre passage des Ġazavāt. À moins qu’il ne s’agisse d’une confusion, on peut supposer, à la lecture du passage en question, que la prise avait paru trop dangereuse et que le fidèle compagnon de Barberousse avait pu aisément se racheter, en sorte que sa captivité ne resta pas dans les annales. Celle de Turgut en revanche est historique : il fut pris le 2 juin 1540 et ramené à Gênes par Gianettino Doria31, pour être libéré en 1543 par Hayreddin lui-même durant son retour de France. On peut être tenté de voir dans ces deux jalons les indices d’une rédaction progressive. Néanmoins seuls des terminus ante quem nous y autoriseraient. Or je n’en ai trouvé aucun dans ces deux premiers tiers de la chronique, ce qui est d’autant plus remarquable qu’ils traitent de la période précédant la venue du héros à Istanbul, période dont le récit pouvait aisément être rédigé dans les premiers mois de l’engagement de Muradi. Il semble que tel n’ait pas été le cas et qu’il faille plutôt, en se souvenant du parfait « j’ai écrit » affiché dès les premières pages, considérer que Muradi entreprit de rédiger, à partir de ses notes et souvenirs, dans l’été 1540 au plus tôt. On repère cependant des terminus ante quem dans les cinquante derniers folios, mais ils semblent au premier abord compliquer l’analyse. Il s’agit d’abord des résultats de la double campagne de Hayreddin dans les Cyclades en 1537 et 1538. La chronique consacre un passage à la soumission en 1538 de l’île de Tinos, dont les Grecs durent accepter de livrer leur gouverneur franc : « Son Excellence le pacha leur donna donc son aman et désigna parmi eux comme bey du fort une personne idoine ; eux-mêmes s’engagèrent à verser un haraç annuel de 1 500 pièces d’or32. » Or il est bien connu que l’île revint sous la souveraineté vénitienne dès le printemps suivant et le demeura assez 31 Giacomo Bosio, Dell’istoria della sacra religione e illma militia di san Giovanni Gierosolimitano vol. II (Rome : Guglielmo Facciotti, 1602), 92 ; Alberto Guglielmotti, La Guerra dei pirati e la marina pontificia del 1500 al 1560 (Florence : successori Le Monnier, 1876) II, 88–93. 32 Paşa ḥażretleri daḫi anlara amān vėrüb ve içlerinden bir yarar kimesnesin yine ol ḳalʿeye beg naṣb ėdüb ve yılda devletlü pādişāha anlar daḫi biñ beş yüz altun ḫarāc vėrmesine mültezim olub (Ġazavāt, 281 v°).

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longtemps pour être demeurée jusqu’à nos jours de confession catholique. Deux pages plus loin, Muradi fait le bilan des deux campagnes dans l’Archipel et, sur 25 îles qui appartenaient à Venise, il en recense 12 payant désormais la capition et 13 ruinées33 : outre que ce décompte, si on reprend son propre récit, doit comprendre Tinos, la distinction entre territoires désormais sujets à l’impôt et territoires ruinés et laissés à eux-mêmes n’avait de sens que sur le moment, puisque le traité de 1540 fit passer tout l’archipel sous la souveraineté ottomane (Tinos exceptée). Ce passage, postérieur à ceux dont a déduit que leur rédaction ne pouvait être antérieure à 1540, doit donc avoir été rédigé avant 1540 et même avant 1539, ce qui paraît en contradiction avec ma première conclusion proposée ci-dessus. Un autre passage, au f° 170 v°–171 r°, semble fournir un élément de datation. Nous sommes au lendemain de la violente attaque contre Minorque effectuée par Hayreddin que Charles Quint venait d’expulser de Tunis, en 1535. Dans un récit d’ailleurs rempli d’inexactitutes sur la politique européenne, on y voit le Pape reprocher à Charles Quint de lui avoir menti – il avait prétendu avoir tué Barberousse – et lui intimer l’ordre de venger l’attaque contre Port-Mahon : Il lui fit de longs discours et l’autre s’engagea à ne pas abandonner tant qu’il n’aurait pas conquis Alger. Depuis ce temps, il ne cesse d’y travailler. Quand il aura pris sa décision, que Dieu (je Le loue, qu’Il soit exalté) mette sur sa face le noir de la honte ! Notre espoir est que désormais, à chaque fois [qu’il s’en prendra à] ce pays ou un autre qui soit aux musulmans, Son Excellence le Créateur noircisse sa face34. On sait que Charles Quint envisageait en effet très sérieusement, au lendemain de son succès à Tunis, de s’attaquer bientôt à Alger35 et qu’il dut y renoncer pour mener en Provence une campagne qui se révéla catastrophique36. Il n’y a 33 Ġazavāt, 282 r°–v°. 34 Ḫaylī çoḳ sözler söyledi ve ol da eyle ʿahd eyledi kim Cezāʾir almayınca ḳomaya ol zamāndan berü ol yėre çalışur dāʾimā niyyet eyledükde Ḥaḳḳ subḥānehu ve teʿālā yüzin ḳara ėde bu ümīd-dür kim yine bundan ṣoñra daḫi her zamānda kim ol diyāra ve diyār-ı ġayre ehl-i islāmuñ ola yine ol Bārī teʿālā ḥażretleri yüzin ḳara eyleye (Ġazavāt, 270 v°–271 r°). 35 Cf. la lettre de Charles Quint à la reine Isabelle datée de Naples du 1er février 1536, publiée par Manuel Fernández Alvarez, Corpus documental de Carlos V II (Salamanque : Universidad de Salamanca, 1975), 455–64, ou tel rapport envoyé de Bougie le 29 mars contenant des indications sur les effectifs de la garnison d’Alger et l’état des murailles écroulées à la suite des pluies, publié par Élie de La Primaudaie, « Documents inédits sur l’histoire de l’occupation espagnole en Afrique (1506–1574) », Revue Africaine 29 (1877) : 83–86. 36 Cf. James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War. Campaign, Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002), 158–59.

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donc pas à s’étonner de trouver à ce moment du récit la mention de pareils projets sans qu’il faille y voir une allusion anticipée à l’expédition qui eut lieu en 1541 et qui fut un coûteux échec. On peut penser que si Muradi avait souhaité évoquer la déconfiture de l’Empereur, il l’aurait fait de façon moins allusive. D’ailleurs l’emploi de l’optatif confirme que le lecteur est confronté à la crainte de voir le danger se réaliser à tout moment et non appelé à se réjouir avant l’heure d’un désastre déshonorant dont il saurait que l’ennemi l’a subi par la suite37. Bref, ce passage doit avoir été écrit avant le siège d’Alger en 1541. On est donc confronté à des contradictions internes. D’une part l’ensemble du manuscrit semble avoir été rédigé au plus tôt dans l’été 1540 d’après un passage du f° 218 r°–v°, mais avant 1540 et même avant 1539 d’après un passage postérieur du f° 281 r°–v°. D’autre part, on a de bonnes raisons de penser que l’auteur ignorait encore le siège d’Alger de 1541, alors que les derniers folios sont précisément consacrés à celui-ci. Ces contradictions pourraient cependant n’être qu’apparentes. On a vu en effet que les récits en vers des campagnes de 1537–1538 et de 1539, tels qu’ils avaient été rédigés dans un premier temps sous la forme du Fetiḥnāme-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa et du Fetḥ-i ḳalʿe-i Nōva, avaient été repris sans changement dans la version en vers des Ġazavāt. Même si l’on admet que, de façon générale, la version en prose est à l’origine de celle en vers, cela nous autorise à déduire l’existence d’une rédaction autonome du texte en prose consacré à ces trois années de la biographie du pacha, ajouté lui aussi tel quel aux parties précédentes des Ġazavāt. Donc, de la même manière, les pages consacrées au siège d’Alger qui suivent pourront avoir été ajoutées pour compléter une épopée qui, dans son état premier, ne comprenait pas cet épisode. Autrement dit, quand Muradi entreprit de composer la biographie qui lui avait été commandée, sans doute à partir de l’été 1540, il travailla à partir de ses souvenirs, de notes ou de textes déjà rédigés sur les événements allant de la naissance du héros à son retour de Tunis, via Alger et Minorque, en 1536. À cet ensemble déjà mûri, il ajouta les derniers folios (272 r°–321 r°) traitant des années 1537–1541, constitués de textes préparés indépendamment du précédent ensemble. À l’appui de cette hypothèse, on pourra noter que le récit des événements de 1541 succède brutalement à celui de la campagne de Hercegnovi de 1539, sans la moindre transition et en sautant deux ans : 37

Il faut cependant préciser qu’il y a une variante dans le texte, les manuscrits V, S et B portant ḳara ėder. Cet aoriste pourrait amener à comprendre que Muradi fait une remarque d’ordre général sur l’incapacité de l’ennemi à s’emparer d’Alger, ce qui pourrait impliquer une allusion au siège de 1541. Mais, outre que les travaux d’Aldo Gallotta l’ont amené à considérer le manuscrit E (un des deux plus anciens avec V, et qui a bien ėde) comme le meilleur, il faut remarquer que la phrase suivante est à l’optatif dans toutes les leçons, ce qui conforte le sentiment qu’il faut opter pour la leçon ḳara ėde.

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De son côté, un beau jour, Son Excellence de sublime gloire, dont les coupoles sont celles du sultanat, aux drapeaux exaltés, doté de justice, soutien des sultans fortunés, gloire des khans impériaux, gardien des territoires de la religion musulmane, celui qui est assisté de Dieu protecteur, mine des grâces de Celui qui est un, le padişah de saturnienne élévation, de rang salomonien, Sultan Soliman Gazi, maître du sultanat, se dressa à nouveau en 948/1541–42 et partit avec bonheur et prospérité en campagne contre Bude38. Selon Aldo Gallotta, cette lacune chronologique des Ġazavāt est naturelle, dans la mesure où le pacha avait été inactif pendant cette période39. L’argument ne me paraît pas suffisamment convaincant. Indépendamment du caractère curieux de cette solution de continuité, sans la moindre cheville littéraire, dans la trame narrative de la chronique, on peut souligner qu’il eût été facile d’écrire, comme Muradi ne manque pas de le faire à chaque retour à Istanbul du pacha, que celui-ci s’y consacra à ses devoirs (c’est-à-dire à la direction de l’Arsenal)40. Surtout, la remaque d’Aldo Gallotta ne tient pas compte du fait que ces dernière pages de la chronique ne concernent pas Hayreddin. Elles traitent en effet successivement de la politique de Soliman en Hongrie, puis des hauts faits du défenseur d’Alger en 1541 : non pas Hayreddin, mais son lieutenant sur place, Hasan Ağa. Enfin on est frappé par la mention d’une date, la première dans les Ġazavātnāme. C’est que celles-ci sont un texte de nature épique, où les dates n’ont pas leur place41 : signe probablement que dans une première mouture, ces dernières pages pourraient avoir été destinées à avoir une nature plus historique et donc à trouver leur place dans un autre contexte littéraire. 4

Le contexte politique

Pour mieux apprécier le bien-fondé et la signification de l’analyse qui précède, il n’est pas inutile de se reporter au contexte politique ottoman. En revenant en 1536 du Maghreb, où il avait été chassé de Tunis après s’en être emparé sans en 38 Yine bir gün ol ḥażret-i ʿālī-cenāb salṭanat-ḳıbāb rüfʿat-āyāt naṣfet-intisāb [iʿtiẓād]-ı selāṭīn-i kāmkār iftiḫār-ı ḫavāḳīn-i cihān-bānī ḥāris-i ḥavze-i dīn-i müsülmānī el-müʾeyyed min Allāhi-ṣ-ṣamad maʿdin-i elṭāf-ı ḥażret-i aḥad pādişāh-ı keyvān-rufʿat Süleymān-rütbet ve Sulṭān Süleymān Ġāzī ṣāḥib-salṭanat ṭoḳuz yüz ḳırḳ sekizinde yine ṭurub Budūn seferine devlet ve saʿādet ile ʿazm eyledükde (Ġazavāt, 307 v°–308 r°). 39 Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 21. 40 Vatin « Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse : un pacha qui n’était pas du sérail », 123–24. 41 Je remercie vivement Benjamin Lellouch, qui a attiré mon attention sur ce point.

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avoir référé au sultan42, Hayreddin avait trouvé la situation politique changée, son protecteur İbrahim Paşa ayant été démis du grand vizirat et exécuté. Il n’en fut pas moins bien reçu et continua à servir, mais contrôlé de plus près43, sous les grands-vizirats successifs de deux hommes avec qui ses relations ne furent pas bonnes : Ayas Paşa et, à la mort de celui-ci en juillet 1539, Lütfi Paşa jusqu’à la déposition de ce dernier en mai 1541. Lors de la campagne impériale de Corfou en 1537, Hayreddin et Lütfi s’opposèrent violemment. Dans son Ta‌ʾrīḫ, le second accuse le premier de couardise44. Les Ġazavāt répondent à l’accusation posément, mais non sans glisser une pique au passage45. L’année 1538 fut marquée par un débat houleux entre le grand-vizir Ayas Paşa et Hayreddin qui l’accusait d’incompétence dans la préparation de la flotte (plus précisément de la chiourme) et de mensonge, et vilipendait la lâcheté d’exécutants incapables de prendre des initiatives46. Hayreddin étant demeuré à terre en 1540 et 1541, Muradi avait le temps de mettre au point, à partir sans doute de l’été 1540, une biographie s’arrêtant à la fin de la saison de 1536. Il pouvait justifier par sa maîtrise du verbe et par le récit du brillant siège de Port Mahon le désastre de Tunis. Mais alors que Lutfi Paşa, l’ennemi de Hayreddin, était au sommet du pouvoir et que lui-même, semble-t-il, n’était pas aussi bien en cour qu’il l’avait été47, les années 1537–1539 étaient un sujet de polémique qu’il valait peut-être mieux pour l’instant aborder avec prudence48. 42 Cf. Nicolas Vatin, « Sur les objectifs de la première campagne navale menée par Ḫayre-ddîn Barberousse pour le compte de Soliman le Magnifique (1534) », Archivum Ottomanicum 35 (2018) : 173–91. 43 Cf. Vatin, « Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse : un pacha qui n’était pas du sérail ». 44 Ibid, 113. 45 « Il s’empara de plusieurs forts des mécréants, qu’il détruisit, incendia et mit en ruine, puis il revint après avoir capturé un certain nombre de captifs. S’il avait passé un mois sur la côte des Pouilles et y était resté, nombre de forts auraient été pris. » (anda kāfirlerüñ bir ḳaç pāre ḥiṣārın alub yıḳub ve yaḳdı ve ḫarāb eyledi ve andan daḫi bir miḳdār esīrlerin alub yine döndi ve eger bir ay miḳdārı daḫi Pūlya yaḳasında ṭurılub ve eglenür olsa nice ḥiṣārları daḫi alınur idi : Ġazavāt, 273 r°). 46 Ġazavāt, 276 r°–278 r°. Cf. Vatin, « Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse : un pacha qui n’était pas du sérail », 120–21. 47 Au printemps 1541, les informateurs vénitiens signalaient que Soliman « ne se reposait pas trop sur Barberousse » : Ernest Charrière, Négociations de la France dans le Levant I (Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1848), 473–74. 48 On peut remarquer que sur le moment, dans le rapport (vraisemblablement rédigé par Muradi) envoyé après la bataille de Préveza par Hayreddin (Ġazavāt, 302 v°), tel du moins qu’il est repris par Celalzade, il n’est pas question des différends qui l’avaient opposé aux officiers qui l’accompagnaient : cf. Celālzāde Muṣṭafā genannt Ḳoca Nīşāncı, Geschichte Sultan Süleymān Ḳānūnīs von 1520 bis 1557 oder Ṭabaḳāt ül-Memālik ve Derecāt ül-Mesālik, ed. Petra Kappert (Wiesbaden : Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), 322 v° sq.

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La brutale mise à pied de Lütfi Paşa en mai 1541 changea sans doute la donne. Hayreddin en tout cas semble avoir vu une occasion de régler ses comptes et n’aurait pas hésité à donner le coup de pied de l’âne, reprochant notamment à Lutfi d’avoir laissé se perdre des places maghrébines et mis Alger en danger en refusant de laisser sortir la flotte49. On peut imaginer que, pour Hayreddin, c’était le bon moment pour faire hommage de sa biographie à Soliman, non sans y inclure des textes où il polémiquait au grand jour avec ses ennemis politiques et en complétant par la même occasion sa biographie, où il eût été dommage que ne figurât pas la glorieuse victoire de la Préveza. Cette hypothèse se heurte cependant à une objection. En effet, le Fetiḥnāme-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa, précisément consacré aux années 1537–1538, fut rédigé au début de l’automne 1538 et son seul manuscrit daté est en tout cas antérieur au 18 mai 153950. Or ce poème contient les mêmes récits et anecdotes critiques à l’égard des deux grands-vizirs51. Il paraît donc clair que la polémique était bien vivante avant la mort d’Ayas probablement et avant la mise à pied de Lütfi certainement. On peut cependant noter un ton un peu différent, non pas à propos de Lütfi avec qui l’échange reste assez feutré dans les deux versions en vers et en prose52, mais bien en ce qui concerne Ayas. Précisons d’abord que, dans le Fetiḥnāme, seul s’exprime Ayas Paşa, dans son rôle de grand-vizir et de supérieur hiérarchique du beylerbeyi des îles, alors que dans les Ġazavāt, ce sont tous les pachas du divan qui agissent et s’expriment : non seulement cela retire un peu de légitimité à leur position, mais, surtout, le débat n’oppose plus deux responsables, mais un grand homme à un groupuscule de fonctionnaires lâches et égoïstes. Lorsque Hayreddin refuse de partir en 1538 avec tous les bateaux prévus par l’ordre impérial, Ayas lui répond, dans le Fetiḥnāme : « Tel est l’ordre du sultan, ô pacha : ce que veut le chah du monde est que tu armes ces bateaux et t’en ailles »53, et les pachas dans les Ġazavāt : « Vraiment, vraiment, fais ce que tu voudras, mais pars afin que nous sauvions [nos têtes], car l’ordre de Son Excellence le padichah refuge du monde est qu’il y ait cent 49 Charrière, Négociations de la France I, 496–97. 50 Cf. supra, n. 11. 51 Une confusion de ma part fait que je n’ai eu accès à aucun des deux manuscrits du Fetiḥnāme-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa. On sait néanmoins que la version versifiée des Ġazavāt le recopie verbatim, « senza modifiche nemmeno formali » selon la formulation de Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 24. Je me suis donc reporté, pour les analyses qui suivent, à l’unique manuscrit de ce poème, également intitulé Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa, conservé à la bibliothèque du palais de Topkapı, sous la cote R. 1291. Pour éviter toute confusion, je le citerai infra sous la forme Fetiḥnāme in Ġazavāt en vers. 52 Fetiḥnāme in Ġazavāt en vers, 210 r°–v°, Ġazavāt, 173 r°–v° (cité supra n. 45). 53 Fetiḥnāme in Ġazavāt en vers, 218 v° : Emr-i sulṭān eyle oldı ey paşa // Ṭonadub gemileri imdi revān / Gitmegüñ ister dėdi şāh-ı cihān.

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cinquante bateaux54. » Dans le premier cas, c’est le grand-vizir qui parle, non sans une certaine dignité ; dans le second, des hommes affolés pensant plus à eux qu’à leur devoir. Hayreddin persistant dans son refus, la version des Ġazavāt fait agir les pachas dans une panique redoublée et sans respect d’eux-mêmes : Mais quand il se fut ainsi exprimé, ils refusèrent et lui firent force grands reproches, lui disant : “Vraiment, fais-nous pour le moment la bonne grâce de prendre [les rameurs] disponibles qui sont venus, de pourvoir à cent cinquante bateaux et de sortir d’ici, car tu vas nous faire subir la colère du fortuné padichah.” Et ils lui baisèrent le cou et l’oreille55. Dans le Fetiḥnāme, si le contentieux n’est pas minimisé, le grand-vizir répond avec autorité sans sortir de son rôle : « Ce qu’entendant, le renommé Ayas dit : Les rameurs en tout cas sont bien visibles ! Rassemble-les, prends-les avec toi, sors en mer et fais une campagne sûre et aisée56. » On ne retrouvera pas non plus dans le Fetiḥnāme les propos un peu insultants par lesquels Hayreddin commence sa réponse dans les Ġazavāt : « Pachas ! Quoi que vous craigniez pour vos têtes, par Dieu je crains plus encore que vous pour la mienne57 ! » Les opposants de Hayreddin font alors état – pour le contraindre à partir avec la flotte – d’une information mensongère selon laquelle Andrea Doria se trouve en Crète. Le Fetiḥnāme précise qu’Ayas Paşa en fit part au sultan pour obtenir un ordre auquel Hayreddin fût contraint d’obéir et se donne la peine d’expliquer sa conduite : « Eh bien, quand cet homme bouge, c’est que tel est l’ordre du padichah, bonnes gens ! Voilà pourquoi il prit sur lui dans sa peur de monter alors cette tromperie et envoya au padichah un rapport mensonger : car si l’autre partait, c’en était fini de ce différend58. » Certes, la peur d’Ayas Paşa est ici évoquée d’un mot, mais si sa conduite est blâmée, sa personne n’est pas ridiculisée. Il cherche à mettre un terme à un débat qui n’a que trop duré et il est moins 54 Ġazavāt, 276 v° : Elbetde elbet ne eylerseñ eyle hem-ān bundan çıḳ biz ḳurtulalum kim pādişāh-ı ʿālem-penāh ḥażretlerinüñ emri bu-dur kim yüz elli pāre gemi ola. 55 Ibid., 277 r° : dėdükde anlar ise ḳabūl ėtmeyüb elbetde eyü ve egretilü kerem eyle sen bunda ḥāżır gelenleri al ve yüz elli pāre gemü tedārükin görüb bundan çıḳıñuz kim bizi devletlü pādişāhuñ ġażabına uġradursın dėyü aña bir niçe imtinān-ı ʿaẓīme eylediler ve boynın ve ḳulaġın öpegördiler. 56 Fetiḥnāme in Ġazavāt en vers, 219 r° : Anı işidüb Ayās nāmdār / dėdi kim kürekçi ḫōd āşikār // Anları cemʿ eyleyüb alġıl de sen / baḥra çıḳ eyle sefer ṣāġ ü āsen. 57 Ġazavāt, 277 r° : paşalar sizler nice başuñuzdan ḳorḳarsañuz v-Allāhi ben sizlerden daḫi artuḳ başumdan ḳorḳaram. 58 Fetiḥnāme in Ġazavāt en vers, 220 r°–v° : Ỉmdi ḳaçan olur anuñ cünbüşi / pādişāhuñ emri bu çūn ey kişi // Eyle olsa kendüden ḳorḳub hem-ān / iş-bu telbīsi ėdüben ḳorḳub hem-ān // pādişāha ʿarż ḳıldı bī-ḫilāf / çūn çıḳa ol ṭaşra gider iḫtilāf.

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question de la lâcheté et l’incompétence du grand-vizir que de savoir dans quelle mesure un ordre impérial doit être appliqué à la lettre. Bref, il n’y a assurément pas de différence de fond entre les deux versions, également polémiques, mais bien de ton : on relève dans les Ġazavāt une causticité qui me semble absente du texte du Fetiḥnāme. L’hypothèse d’une mise en forme plus tardive du texte des Ġazavāt en prose, après la destitution de Lütfi Paşa en mai 1541, ne me paraît donc pas absolument invalidée par l’analyse du Fetiḥnāme. On ne sait pas grand-chose de la diffusion de ce dernier, dont on ne connaît que deux manuscrits, le seul daté et possiblement autographe59 n’étant d’ailleurs pas celui qui se trouve au palais de Topkapı, mais celui qui a été conservé au Caire. Au contraire, un exemplaire des Ġazavāt en prose fut remis à chaque vizir60, ce qui confirme le caractère politique de l’ouvrage. Un peu dans la hâte, sans se préoccuper de combler une lacune de deux ans dans le récit, Muradi aurait donc complété le travail en menant le récit jusqu’aux derniers événements. Ceux-ci concernaient encore Hayreddin, fût-ce marginalement, dans la mesure où la victoire de son esclave Hasan concernait son royaume d’Alger. Quoi qu’il en soit, les Ġazavāt s’achevaient sur l’arrivée à Istanbul du rapport de Hasan Ağa sur le siège d’Alger, à la fin de l’hiver 1541 ou au début de 1542. C’est donc en 1542 que Muradi acheva la mise au point de son ouvrage et c’est en 1542 que les vizirs l’engagèrent à abandonner la mer pour la terre et à se faire, dans la suite du second vizir Rüstem Paşa, l’historiographe de la nouvelle campagne de Soliman-le-Magnifique. 5

Quid de la pars secunda ?

C’est ainsi que, quittant Istanbul dans l’armée de Soliman le 16 şaʿbān 949 / 25 novembre 1542, Muradi participa le calame à la main à la campagne de Hongrie de 1543. Pour la première fois depuis dix ans, il n’était pas sur la flotte de Hayreddin quand celui-ci partit pour une campagne navale franco-ottomane en occident, à l’occasion de laquelle il dut hiverner à Toulon. Nasuh Matrakçı consacre plus d’une page et de belles miniatures à cette aventure dans sa propre histoire de la campagne hongroise de Soliman en 1543. Ce n’est pas le cas de Muradi, mais ce dernier n’oublia pas cependant Hayreddin, puisqu’il rédigea lui aussi un récit de cette campagne, qu’il fit suivre de celui des dernières 59 C’est l’hypothèse de Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 19, précisément parce que ce manuscrit porte une date très proche des événements. 60 Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ, 8 r°.

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années de son ancien patron. C’est ce texte, conservé sous la forme d’un unique manuscrit à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, qu’Aldo Gallotta appelle la pars secunda des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa. Plusieurs arguments militent en ce sens : le fait que le manuscrit porte incontestablement la signature de Muradi sous la forme de plusieurs chronogrammes recopiés à la fin ; le fait qu’il complète et achève la biographie du héros ; le fait enfin que le manuscrit de l’Escurial porte une note en arabe, traduite en espagnol, qui précise qu’il s’agit du premier livre (sifr, traduit en espagnol par tomo), le second manquant61. En admettant que cette note prouve absolument qu’il avait existé un second volume des Ġazavāt, une pars secunda, devons-nous pour autant admettre que celle-ci n’est autre que le manuscrit de Paris ? Cela ne me semble pas assuré. Car Muradi n’est pas l’auteur d’un seul livre. Sans être à proprement parler un « nègre », puisqu’il s’était donné un nom de plume dont il signa la plupart de ses écrits, il travaillait sur commande, se pliant au style et aux règles des genres qu’il abordait. Les Ġazavāt en prose fournissent de la première à la dernière ligne un bel exemple de langue populaire, très idiomatique, avec quelques procédés sur lesquels je reviendrai, qui affectent avec art la forme d’une geste épique orale ne fournissant aucune indication de date, destinée à être dite oralement devant un public peu lettré62. Quelles que puissent être les origines des diverses composantes du texte soumis en 1542 au sultan et aux vizirs, Muradi avait veillé à donner une unité stylistique à l’ensemble. Un exemple frappant est la façon dont, dans la dernière partie, il fait de la reine Isabelle de Hongrie une héroïne de la zimma résistant aux pressions de Ferdinand de Habsbourg par fidélité envers son défunt mari qui lui aurait dit en mourant : Son Excellence Sultan Soliman m’avait confié cette forteresse. Me voilà mourant à présent. Si je meurs, fais-y bien attention, ne remets ce dépôt à nul autre qu’à son maître. Si tu ne respectes pas ce dépôt mais le donnes à un tiers et t’inclines pieusement devant le bas-monde, tu m’en rendras compte dans l’autre monde63.

61 Wa huwa sifr al-awwal khaṣṣat al-sifr al-thānī : cf. Gallotta, « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », 32. 62 Je n’ai malheureusement pas pu avoir accès à Aldo Gallotta, Il turco ʿosmānlı del xvi sec secondo il « Ġazavât-ı Ḫayreddīn Paşa » (Naples : Istituto universitario orientale, 1984). 63 Ḥażret-i Sulṭān Süleymān baña bu ḳalʿeʾi emānet vėrmiş idi ve ben daḫı uşta şimdiki-ḥālde ölü yürürem eger ölürsem bu emāneti zinhār ve zinhār ṣāḥibinden ġayrī kimesneye vėrmeyesin dėyü ve eger bu emānete ḫıyānet ėdüb aḫarlara vėrüb dünyāya ṭaparsañ āḫiretde senden ṭaleb ėderem dėmiş-dür (Ġazavāt, 308 v°).

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Cette belle histoire, tout un chacun le savait quand Muradi la racontait, était une contre-vérité historique manifeste. Non seulement le discours prêté à Jean Zápolyai est en contradiction avec le traité de Várad de 1538, mais il paraît évident que sa veuve se préoccupait plus des intérêts de Jean-Sigismond, le fils qu’elle venait de mettre au monde, que du bon droit du sultan ottoman. Enfin, quel qu’ait été son rôle dans les négociations de 1540–1541, en négligeant l’action de ses conseillers Martinuzzi et Petrovics et en mettant en pleine lumière l’héroïque princesse, Muradi choisissait à l’évidence de donner une couleur épique, et même mythique, à l’histoire. On ne trouve pas trace de ces fabrications poétiques dans le récit historique de son Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ-i Şiḳlōş. Muradi rédigea également des narrations poétiques et un poème didactique ; il mit sans doute la main à la dernière version du Kitāb-ı baḥriyye de Piri Reis ; il est enfin l’auteur d’un texte historique en prose plus noble, à la gloire du sultan, dont les premiers folios n’étaient certainement pas à la portée du grand public. C’était donc un écrivain caméléon, qui pouvait au besoin changer de style pour parler des mêmes événements. Il s’agit donc de déterminer dans quelle mesure le texte du manuscrit de Paris, qui de toute manière fut rédigé plusieurs années après ce qui serait la pars prima des Ġazavāt, se présente comme une suite. Une première difficulté vient du fait que le manuscrit est incomplet, le début – qui aurait peut-être fourni quelque indication à ce sujet – ayant disparu. Mais d’autres éléments de réflexion méritent l’attention. Une particularité exceptionnelle de ce texte, qui n’a pas échappé aux commentateurs, est que Muradi y a reproduit, apparemment verbatim (en dehors sans doute des premières lignes) des correspondances entre le pacha et son souverain : on peut lire plusieurs firmans et même un fetiḥnāme de la campagne de Hongrie. Il est vrai que ces insertions cessent dans les dix derniers folios (sur 51), qui racontent le retour de la flotte vers Istanbul et les dernières années du héros. Mais les quatre premiers cinquièmes du texte frappent par la présence de ces très longues citations qui interrompent le récit avec lourdeur. Dans de pareilles proportions, cette pratique n’est pas habituelle dans l’historiographie ottomane. On n’a plus affaire ici à une biographie épique, à un ġazavātnāme, mais plutôt à un travail d’historiographe officiel dépouillant les archives de l’État mises à sa disposition. Dans la « première partie », il est fréquemment question des ordres émis par le sultan, mais deux seulement sont reproduits, avec discrétion et sans que cela vienne alourdir le récit64. Dans la « seconde partie », au contraire, de larges portions du texte sont consacrées à ces copies, avec cet 64

164 r°, 212 r°.

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inconvénient supplémentaire que le procédé entraîne de nombreuses répétitions, le récit des événements se trouvant plus d’une fois résumé une seconde fois dans la première partie des ordres transcrits. En outre la fin du manuscrit, qui travaille à faire de Hayreddin un saint patron des marins ottomans, retrouve un peu de l’esprit de la « première partie », en sorte que l’ensemble de la « seconde partie » manque d’équilibre. On serait tenté de se demander, sans du reste avoir d’argument bien solide pour appuyer pareille hypothèse, si le manuscrit de Paris n’est pas un travail préparatoire. Dans tous les cas, il ne répond pas à l’évidente volonté d’unité littéraire qui frappe dans la « première partie ». De façon générale, d’ailleurs, le niveau littéraire de cette possible seconde partie est plus élevé que celui de la « première ». Pour ne pas alourdir mon propos je me bornerai à comparer la façon dont Hayreddin est présenté. Il est nommé 547 fois pour 321 folios dans la « première partie » et seulement 34 fois pour 51 folios dans la seconde, ce qui pourrait confirmer qu’on a moins affaire à la geste épique du héros. Surtout, dans 525 cas, il est nommé très simplement, de façon basique, avec son nom, un titre souvent, mais non toujours complété de ḥażret. À onze reprises, une duʿā courante et qui ne devait pas poser de problème à l’auditoire, était ajoutée : yessere Allāhu te‘ālā mā-yeşa’. Il arrive cependant, à de rares occasions, qu’une formule un peu plus noble précède l’introduction du nom : ol server-i mucāhidīn yaʿnī kim, trois fois65 et également ol server-i mücāhidīn ve serdār-ı ehl-i dīn yaʿnī kim66 ; ol reʾīsü-l-mücāhidīn yaʿnī kim, trois fois67 ; ol ḥażret-i ʿālī-cenāb, une fois68. Ce n’est qu’au tout début, à un endroit où il est normal qu’un auteur ottoman fasse un peu étalage de style noble, qu’on repère ol emīrü-l-ümerāʾi-l-kirām ẕī-l-ḳadri ve-l-iḥtirām Cezāʾir beglerbegisi aʿnī ol reʾīsü-l-mucāhidīn fī-l-baḥri Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa69, formule qui du reste n’est pas d’un gongorisme excessif. Dans la « seconde partie », en revanche, pour 30 apparitions du nom70, j’ai relevé, à côté de 13 désignations basiques, 16 cas où le nom est précédé d’une formule noble71. Je n’en citerai que quatre :

65 66 67 68 69 70 71

4 r° (sans yaʿnī kim), 284 v°, 304 v° 249 v°. 178 r°, 214 v° (sans kim), 264 v°. 238 v°. 3 r°. J’exclus quatre apparitions au sein d’un firman. 2 r°, 3 v°,5 r°, 5 v°, 5 v°, 13 r°, 17 r°, 18 r°, 19 v°, 19 v°, 20 v°, 33 r°, 34 r°–v°, 36 r°, 46 r°, 47 v°.

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Ol bende-i girdgār ü ʿaduvv-i küffār-ı ḫāksār ü ġazākār ü cihād-efkār ü zaḥf-iḫtiyār aʿnī Ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa-yı ẕī-l-iḳtidār ü ʿaduvv-şikār ve reʾīsü-l-mucāhidīn fī-l-biḥār72. Ol ḥażret-i ṣāḥibü-l-ʿizz ve-d-devlet ve mālikü-n-nuṣret ve-l-furṣat ve pehlivān-ı zamān ve bende-i şāh-ı cihān aʿnī Ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa-yı server-i mübārizān ve serdār-ı mucāhidān73. Ol bebr-heybet ve esed-şevket ve pelenk-mahābet ve ejder-heybet pehlivān-ı cihān ve bende-i çāker-i Ḥażret-i Sulṭān Süleymān aʿnī Ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa-yı kāmbīn ve kāmrān74. Ol pehlivān-ı cihān ve Nerīmān-ı zamān ve muʿīn-i ehlü-l-imān server-i mübārizān ve serdār-ı dilāverān eseddü-llāhi-l-meliki-l-mennān aʿnī Ḥażret-i Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa-yı reʾīs-i mucāhidīn ve ʿabdi meliki-l-mennān75. Ces formules montrent à l’évidence des ambitions littéraires absentes de la « première partie », où Seyyid Murad s’est au contraire efforcé avec brio de donner un style populaire et oral plus propre à l’art du conteur. Deux tics de rédaction, qui réapparaissent régulièrement, sont frappants. Le premier, rencontré à huit reprises76, consiste à reporter après le verbe une subordonnée finale, donnant ainsi à la phrase un tour plus vivant : Sulṭān Ḳorḳud hażretlerinüñ ʿādeti bu idi kim vaḳtuhā bir nice altun ve aḳçe iḫrāc ėdüb ṣadaḳa içün77. Yer yer78 begler daḫı gönderdi ol vilāyetüñ żabṭı ve ḥıfẓ ü ḥirāseti içün79. 72

5 r° : « Cet esclave de Dieu Agissant, ennemi des vils mécréants, qui mène la gaza, songe au djihad et aimé des troupes – autrement dit Son Excellence Hayreddin Paşa capable, dont l’ennemi est la proie, capitaine des combattants de la foi sur les mers. » 73 5 v° : « Son Excellence dotée de gloire et de prospérité, maîtresse de la victoire accordée par Dieu et de l’occasion, le héros de son temps et l’esclave du chah du monde, bref Son Excellence Hayreddin Paşa, chef des champions et commandant des combattants de la foi. » 74 33 r° : « Le champion de ce monde ayant la majesté du tigre, la pompe du lion, la royale aura du léopard et la majesté du dragon, l’esclave et serviteur de Son Excellence Sultan Soliman, autrement dit Son Excellence prospère et fortunée Hayreddin Paşa. » 75 34 r°–v° : « Ce champion de ce monde, le Neriman de son temps, l’appui des gens de la foi, le chef des champions et commandant des braves, le lion de Dieu le Seigneur qui est Toute bonté, autrement dit Son Excellence Hayreddin Paşa, guide des combattants de la foi et serviteur du Seigneur qui est Toute bonté. » 76 8 v°, 11 v°, 57r°, 61 r°, 179 r°, 259 v°, 261 r°, 283 r°. 77 11 v° : « C’était la coutume de Sultan Korkut que, en son temps, il déboursait une certaine quantité de pièces d’or et d’aspres, pour pratiquer l’aumône canonique. » 78 Leçon E : bir bir ; VIJB : yer yer. 79 61 r° : « Il envoya un bey dans chaque lieu, pour assurer le contrôle, la garde et la protection de ce pays. »

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Göñüllü gemüleri daḫı bu ḫaber anda alub girü döndiler anları hem-ān ol sāʿat gördükleri maḥallde gelüb Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa Ḥażretlerine bu ḫaberi vėrmek içün80. Un second procédé, particulièrement fréquent puisque je l’ai relevé 44 fois, consiste à créer des sortes de présents de narration en employant un duratif en mekde / maḳda sans y ajouter -dur ou -idi : Ve ada kāfirleri daḫı anlaruñ kendülerden yaña ḳaçduḳların görüb anları almaḳ içün bir nice ṣandāllar ṭonadub gelmekde81. Gördiler kim vāḳıʿā ol dėdükleri bigi sekiz şeyḫler ol eve ṭolub bir dīvān ėdüb ittifāḳ ėtmekde82. Souvent l’effet est appuyé par un uşda : Ve revāne olub uşda gelmekde83. Ve tedārükinde olub uşta yaraḳ görüb ve tedbīr itmekde84. Ces effets de style visant à l’évidence à rendre le texte vivant et à lui donner un aspect oral sont présents sur l’ensemble de la « première partie », ce qui confirme la volonté chez Muradi de donner une unité littéraire à son œuvre. Ils sont en revanche absents de la « seconde partie », où il n’avait pas opté pour les mêmes partis-pris stylistiques. 6

Conclusion

Au terme de ce petit exercice, quel apport puis-je espérer avoir fourni à ce que nous savions déjà du processus de rédaction des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa en prose ? On peut le résumer en quelques mots. La critique interne du texte et l’attention au contexte politique dans lequel se mouvait Hayreddin viennent 80 81 82 83 84

283 r° : « Apprenant cette nouvelle, les bateaux de volontaires rebroussèrent chemin, au moment même où ils venaient de les voir, pour porter cette nouvelle à Son Excellence Hayreddin Paşa. » 77 v° : « Les mécréants de l’île, ayant vu que les captifs fuyaient dans leur direction, mirent à l’eau un certain nombre de barques pour les récupérer. Ils s’approchaient. » 113 r° : « Ils constatèrent qu’en effet, comme [les dénonciateurs turcs] le disaient, huit cheikhs emplissaient la maison : ils tenaient conseil et complotaient. » 164 v° : « Ils vont et les voilà qui font route. » 309 v° : « le voilà faisant ses préparatifs, pourvoyant à l’armement et prenant des dispositions. »

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confirmer, mais aussi préciser un peu les principales conclusions de mes prédécesseurs : c’est probablement vers la fin de mai 1534 que Hayreddin obtint de Soliman le commandement de la flotte pour la campagne de la saison, ainsi que la commande d’une biographie destinée à justifier sa promotion, ce qui l’amena à se tourner vers Seyyid Murad, alias Muradi, qui désormais demeura auprès de lui jusqu’à la fin de 1542, moment où il quitta Istanbul pour participer à la campagne impériale de Hongrie dont, dans la suite du vizir Rüstem Paşa, il devait être l’historiographe. Aussi le récit des Ġazavāt s’achève-t-il sur la défaite de Charles Quint devant Alger en 1541. La chronique en prose est rédigée dans un évident souci de cohérence littéraire, comme un ensemble, et la critique interne amène à considérer que Muradi la composa entre l’été 1540 et le début de 1542. Cependant, quelle que soit la forme de la documentation dont il faisait usage, Muradi semble bien avoir rédigé après 1540 toute une première partie couvrant la vie de Hayreddin de sa naissance à son retour de Tunis en 1536, et avoir incorporé à ce moment, outre le récit des événements de 1541 évidemment mis par écrit postérieurement, une matière plus anciennement pré-élaborée traitant des années 1537–1539, ce que confirme l’existence de deux poèmes concernant les trois campagnes concernées, composés sur le moment. Il se pourrait que ce processus un peu compliqué doive être mis en rapport avec la présence au grand vizirat d’Ayas Paşa puis Lütfi Paşa, avec lesquels Hayreddin n’étaient pas en bons termes, ce dont il ne fait pas mystère dans les parties concernant les années 1537–1539 : ainsi pourrait s’expliquer la composition tardive et la remise au sultan et à ses vizirs, après la mise à pied de Lütfi Paşa, des Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa. Muradi reçut-il à son retour de Hongrie la commande officielle d’une seconde partie ? Le début du manuscrit de Paris ayant disparu, nous l’ignorons. Mais l’analyse du texte lui-même donne à penser que, dans l’état que nous lui connaissons en tout cas, il ne constituait pas à proprement parler une suite, mais plutôt un nouvel ouvrage du prolifique Muradi. Bibliographie

Sources Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris



Sources publiées

Manuscrits, Turc 75 (Murādī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ-i fetḥ-i Şiḳloş Ustūzġūn ve Ustūn-ı Belġrād). Bibliothéque du Palais de Topkapı, Istanbul Manuscrits, R. 1291 (Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayr ed-Dīn Paşa).

Celālzāde Muṣṭafā genannt Ḳoca Nīşāncı, Geschichte Sultan Süleymān Ḳānūnīs von 1520 bis 1557 oder Ṭabaḳāt ül-Memālik ve Derecāt ül-Mesālik, ed. Petra Kappert. Wiesbaden : Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981.

Réflexions sur le processus de rédaction des Ġazavāt

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Charrière, Ernest. Négociations de la France dans le Levant I. Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1848. Fernández Alvarez, Manuel. Corpus documental de Carlos V II. Salamanque : Universidad de Salamanca, 1975. Gallotta, Aldo. « Il Ġazavāt-ı Ḫayreddīn Paša di Seyyid Murād », Studi Magrebini 13 (1981). = « Ġazavāt-i Hayreddīn Paša » di Seyyid Murād : ed. in facs. secondo il ms. 1663 dell’Escurial di Madrid con le varianti dei mss. Barb. Or. 127 della Biblioteca Vaticana, Cod. or. fol. 40 della Württemberg. Landesbibliothek di Stoccarda, T.Y. 94 e 2459 della Üniv. Kütüphanesi di Istanbul, Or. quart 1751 della Staatsbibliothek di Berlino. Napoli : Centro di Studi Magrebini, Studi magrebini 13 (1983). Gündoğdu et al., Abdullah. Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa Gazavâtnâmesi ve Zeyli. Ankara : Panama, 2019. La Primaudaie, Élie de. « Documents inédits sur l’histoire de l’occupation espagnole en Afrique (1506–1574). » Revue Africaine 29 (1877) : 83–86. Naṣūhḥü’s Silāḥī (Maṭrāḳçī), Beyān-ı Menāzil-i Sefer-i ʿIrāḳeyn, ed. Hüseyin G. Yurdaydın. Ankara : TTK, 1976. Vatin, Nicolas. Ferîdûn Bey. Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár. Édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-aḫbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr (ms. H 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkapı Sarayı). Vienne/Munster : LIT Verlag, 2010.



Études

Bosio, Giacomo. Dell’istoria della sacra religione e illma militia di san Giovanni Gierosolimitano, vol. II. Rome : Guglielmo Facciotti, 1602. Gallotta, Aldo. « Il “Ġazavat-ı Ḫayreddin Paşa” pars secunda e la spedizione in Francia di Ḫayreddin Barbarossa (1543–1544). » In Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V. L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood et Colin Imber, 77–89. Istanbul : Isis, 1994. Gallotta, Aldo. « Le Ġazavāt di Ḫayreddīn Barbarossa. » Studi Magrebini 3 (1970) : 79–160. Guglielmotti, Alberto. La Guerra dei pirati e la marina pontificia del 1500 al 1560. Florence : successori Le Monnier, 1876. Gürkan, Emrah Safa. Sultanın Korsanları. Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500–1700. Istanbul : Kronik, 2018. Tracy, James D. Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War. Campaign, Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002. Vatin, Nicolas. « Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse : un pacha qui n’était pas du sérail. » Turkish Historical Review 10 (2019) : 107–31.

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Vatin, Nicolas. « Comment Ḫayr ed-Dîn Barberousse fut reçu à Istanbul en 1533. » Turcica 49 (2018) : 119–51. Vatin, Nicolas. « Sur les objectifs de la première campagne navale menée par Ḫayred-dîn Barberousse pour le compte de Soliman le Magnifique (1534). » Archivum Ottomanicum 35 (2018) : 173–91. Yurdaydın, Hüseyin. « Muradî ve Eserleri. » Belleten XXVII, 107 (1963) : 453–66.

9 Peacemaking between the Ottoman Empire, the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy Sándor Papp

‫ض‬ ‫�ا �ع � ��س� ا ا حت�� ا‬ ‫ب ۀر � ل م و ر م‬ ، ‫کا ر‌ع�ا لی‬ � ‫ب�ن��د � ن�ا چ���ی�ز ��سر‬ ‫ش ن‬ ‫پ�ا پ� ����ا ��د ور‬ bu yazılan ʿahd-nāmeyi gendü mübārek elümle ḳrāluñ ėlçilerine vėrdüm … I have handed over this written peace treaty to the royal envoy with my own holy hand1

∵ Starting with the Ottoman Empire’s conquests, which brought them to the forefront of the Northern Balkans, where they confronted the southern expansion of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, the two powers considered one another as rivals and enemies.2 The clashes most likely started in 1366, when Louis the Great of Hungary briefly extended his control to the northwestern part of Bulgaria and annexed the Banate of Vidin.3 The adversarial relationship remained up to the 18th century and the end of the final great Turkish war of Emperor Joseph II. Despite the constant military situation, the great wars were broken up by periods of peace of varying lengths. The value of the peace 1 The ʿahdnāme sent by Sultan Bayezid II to the King Hungarian Wladislaus II (Constantinople, 4th or 5th November 1503), Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi E. 7675. 2 This article has come about through the activities of the Ottoman Period Research Group, a joint endeavor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Szeged (FIKP Program TUDFO/47138–1/2019–ITM). 3 Sándor Papp, “Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (From the Beginning to 1540),” in Fight against the Turk in Central-Europe in the First Half of the 16th Century, ed. István Zombori (Budapest: METEM and Historia Ecclesiastica Hungarica, 2004), 37–52.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_011

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treaties and armistices to diplomatic history need not be explained,4 but we have no critical publication of these sources, according to unified principles. While the texts of several examples are known from separate publications, an up-to-date, critical publication is essential for a uniform examination of this source type. The Ottoman Period Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Szeged is engaged in the discovery, processing and translation of peace treaties, armistice documents, temporary agreements, and commercial treaties.5 As, in the early period, the Ottoman Empire 4 Martin Espenhorst, ed., Frieden durch Sprache? Studien zum kommunikativen Umgang mit Konflikten und Konfliktlösungen, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz. Band. 91 (Göttingen: Vadenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2012) ; Guido Braun and Arno Strohmeyer, eds., Frieden und Friedenssicherung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Das Heilige Römische Reich und Europa. Festschrift für Maximilian Lanzinner zum 65. Geburtstag, Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte, 36 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2013). 5 The members employed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences  – University of Szeged Research Group of the Ottoman Age: Sándor Papp, Péter Bara, Csaba Göncöl, Szabolcs Hadnagy, Krisztina Juhász, Gellért Ernő Marton, and János Szabados. Their work is assisted by non-employed members Zsuzsanna Cziráki, Hajnalka Tóth and Sándor László Tóth from the University of Szeged Department of Early Modern and Medieval Hungarian History. Scholarship student Gergely Brandl participates in the research as an external member. For the preparation of the present paper I have used the following writings related to the topic that are not cited separately: Zsuzsanna Cziráki, “Making Decisions at the Imperial Court in Vienna Related to the Election Procedure of the Resident Ambassador Simon Reniger von Renningen (1649–1666) in Constantinople,” Archivum Ottomanicum 33 (2016): 91–99; Zsuzsanna Cziráki, “Language Students and Interpreters at the Mid-seventeenth-century Habsburg Embassy in Constantinople,” Theatrum Historiae 19 (2016): 27–44; Zsuzsanna Cziráki, “‘Mein gueter, väterlicher Maister’  – Wissensübertragung unter Diplomaten der kaiserlichen Interessenvertretung an der Hohen Pforte in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Chronica: Annual of the Institute of History University of Szeged 19,1 (2019): 42–83; Hajnalka Tóth, “‘Unutulmuş Biriyim’: 17. Yüzyıl Ortasında Macar Süvari Subay ile Budinli Türk Çavuşun Serbest Bırakılma Hikâyeleri,” Güney Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi / Journal of South-Eastern European Studies 24,2 (2013): 49–67; Hajnalka Tóth, “Entstehung eines auf Osmanisch verfassten Friedenskonzepts: Ein Beitrag zu der Vorgeschichte des Friedens von Eisenburg 1664,” in Ottomans – Crimea – Jochids: Studies in Honour of Mária Ivanics, ed. István Zimonyi (Szeged: University of Szeged, Department of Altaic Studies, 2020), 311–24; Hajnalka Tóth, “Roma çasarıyla şevketlü padişahımuzun sulh [u] salahı olub – The two Ali Pashas of Temeşvar on the Habsburg, Hungarian and Ottoman Frontier at the Time of the Rákóczi War of Independence,” in Şerefe. Studies in Honour of Prof. Géza Dávid on His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Pál Fodor et al. (Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, 2019), 459–79; János Szabados, “A 17. századi Habsburg-hírszerzés ‘gyöngyszeme’, Hans Caspar budai titkos levelező (1646–1659) munkássága: Vázlat egy nagyobb összefoglaláshoz,” Aetas 31,3 (2016): 77–92; Gergely Brandl et. al., “Kommunikation und Nachrichtenaustausch – Verhandlungsstrategie der habsburgischen Seite bei der Friedensverhandlung von Szőny 1627,” Chronica: Annual of the Institute of History University

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communicated with European countries and drafted diplomatic correspondence and treaty ratifications in various languages, it is necessary to examine the structure of the Ottoman state alongside the philological processing of the sources in Turkish, Latin, Serbian, German, and Hungarian. In addition, it is necessary to discuss, in a historical introduction, the creation of the treaties and the history of the negotiations according to the different periods. In the view of the research group, the legal successor to the medieval Kingdom of Hungary after 1541, from the perspective of international law and diplomacy, was the section of the country under the control of the Ferdinand I (1527–1564), King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. Therefore, he stepped into the legal role of the Hungarian state prior to the battle of Mohács in connection with Ottoman-Hungarian relations. This is the historical basis upon which the publication of sources evaluates the research topic from the 15th to the middle of the 18th centuries. Austrian and Hungarian historiography has formulated a nearly identical opinion of the above.6 According to recently discovered data, the Ottomans themselves also considered Ferdinand I to be the Hungarian king until the turning point of 1528–1529. The Hungarian estates elected two kings following the death of Louis II of Hungary (1516–1526) at the battle of Mohács. This led to a divide and a civil war that lasted decades, as well as facilitating the consolidation of Ottoman rule in Hungary. The estates first elected John Szapolyai (1526–1540) as king, and we have data on his first diplomatic mission to Istanbul, in October 1527, from the Ottoman treasury log (ruznamçe), which registered the provisions for the mission.7 At that time, John Szapolyai of Szeged 19,1 (2019): 113–40; Krisztina Juhász, “A második szőnyi béke margójára. Adalékok az 1642. évi szőnyi békekötés történetéhez,” in Oszmán – magyar viszony a 16–18. században: Tanulmányok a Magyar Királyság és az Oszmán Birodalom népeinek  – magyarok, törökök, rácok, tatárok, zsidók, görögök és egyéb népek – hétköznapjairól; egyén és közösség viszonya, ed. Zsuzsanna J. Újváry (Budapest: Szent István Társulat az Apostoli Szentszék Könyvkiadója, 2020), 171–88; Marton, Gellért Ernő, “On the Question of the Negotiations Between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans at Szécsény and Buda (1628) through Palatine Miklós Esterházy’s Letter to the Head of the Hungarian Negotiators,” Rocznik Przemyski Historia 55,1 (2019): 79–91; Szabolcs Hadnagy, “Köprülü Mehmed Paşa‌’nın Eğri valiliği: bir Osmanlı devlet adamının idarecilik hayatından soru işaretleri,” Güney Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi / Journal of South-Eastern European Studies 25 (2014): 25–34. 6 Géza Pálffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century, transl. Thomas J. and Helen D. DeKornfeld (New York, Boulder, Colorado: Distributed by Columbia University Press, Center of Hungarian Studies and Publications. Inc. Wayne, New Jersey, 2009). 7 T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul (BOA), Kamil Kepeci (KK), 1764. 22. 22. Muharrem 934 (18 October 1527) (ʿan teşrīf-i ėlçi-i Erdel).

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was in Cluj in Transylvania, so it was no wonder that the envoy was considered, in Istanbul, to be the Transylvanian ambassador (ėlçi-i Erdel).8 This naturally relates to Szaployai’s previous title of voivode of Transylvania. Although this information was unknown up to this point, European sources state that commissioners were continuously sent by the Ottomans to Szapolyai, as well.9 The task of the unknown Transylvanian delegation may have been to prepare for the trip of the ambassador, Hieronym Łaski, who, in February 1528, persuaded the sultan to recognize his ruler as king and to sign a treaty with him. Treasury log entries (ruznamçe) on daily expenses have also survived from this diplomatic mission. Through these, it can be determined that Łaski and his entourage, who were negotiating in Istanbul as the delegation of the Hungarian king, were not considered as actual envoys of the Hungarian king, but as “men of Transylvania (merdüm-i Erdel).” In these entries, the name of the envoy is rarely seen, but indirect data can be used for identification. For example, according to an entry in the ruznamçe in question, gifts of apparel and 10,000 akçe were given to Łaski on 2 February 1528, information that precisely corresponds to the envoy’s journal entry.10 After Łaski’s return to Hungary, János Habardanecz and Siegmund Weichselberger arrived at Istanbul as representatives of the second elected King of Hungary, Ferdinand I (1527–1564). According to the data from the ruznamçes, they were still considered as the envoys of Hungary when King John again sent his diplomats, who were again registered as the Ban of Transylvania’s men (merdüm), to the Sublime Porte.11 The change in the position of the Sublime Porte can also be precisely traced through the ruznamçe entries. The Ottoman Empire was preparing for a campaign against Ferdinand Habsburg in 1529. This was the first time that the Hungarians, who were aligned with Szapolyai, allied with the Ottoman army. From this time onward, John

8

Gábor Barta et al., Két tárgyalás Sztambulban. Hyeronimus Łaski tárgyalása a töröknél János király nevében. Habardanecz János jelentése 1528. nyári sztambuli tárgyalásairól, Régi Magyar Könyvtár Források 5 (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 1996), 21. 9 Barta et al., “Két tárgyalás Sztambulban,” 19–20. 10 BOA, KK 1764 29., 11 Ca (Cemaziyülevvel) 934 (2 February 1528) teşrīf-i merdüm-i Erdel … ki tehī dest āmed naḳdiye 10,000 (aḳçe); Barta et al., Két tárgyalás Sztambulban, 19–20, 165. 11 BOA, KK 1764. 37., L(Şevval) 934 (19 June–17 July 1528 (probably at the beginning of Şevval) teşrīf-i ėlçiyān-i Üngürūs; BOA, KK 1764 41.11 Za (Zilkade) 934 (28 July 1528) inʿām be-merdüm-i Erdel bān ki ḥāliyā ʿan cānib-i Erdel āmed; for the operation of the diplomatic missions see: Barta et al., “Két tárgyalás Sztambulban,” 165, 173; Sándor Papp, Die Verleihungs-, Bekräftigungs- und Vertragsurkunden der Osmanen für Ungarn und Siebenbürgen. Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), 36–47.

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Szapolyai was called the King of Hungary in the ruznamçes (be-merdümān-i Yānoş ḳrāl-i Üngürǖs).12 During the period of the dual election of kings, John I (1526–1540) was master of both sections of the country, thus he was King of Hungary, and then his son John II, better known as John Sigismund (1540–1571), inherited the throne in Buda as the elected king. Another twist took place in 1541, when John II took the title of elected King of Hungary, which he held until 1571. However, he later renounced this title through his treaty with Maximilian II. This period is the first phase of the formation of the Principality of Transylvania.13 The primary source material related to Hungarian/Habsburg-Ottoman peace treaties is found at the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA) in Vienna. The most prevalent sources are held in three large collections of documents and several manuscript collections. The source type that should be emphasized above all others is the Turkish document collection (Türkische Urkunden) in the diplomatic section, which is split into two separate branches, in terms of its archiving. The collection containing the original documents is stored in tubes (I use the abbreviation TU for this type of document later, in particular in the attached database). The second, similarly titled Turkish document collection is organized in boxes that contain documents folded in 19th-century blue-grey wrapping paper (for these I use the abbreviation TUK). It must be noted that the storage and identification system of the Ottoman documents is being altered during the rearrangement of the archives, after which each individual copy will have its own number. The third large collection is the series of peace treaties (Staatsverträge), which only contains copies. Here, can be found the Turkish-language copies of the Ottoman documents that interest us, alongside their translations in Latin or other languages. In addition to the above, copies can be found in two other archives that preserve Ottoman Turkish language sources: the Oriental Manuscript Collection (Orientalische Handschriften) and the monarchy’s Oriental Diplomatic Academy Collection (Orientalische Handschriften der ehemaligen Konsularakademie). Furthermore, the research naturally extends to the manuscripts of the National Library in Vienna (Nationalbibliothek Handschriftensammlungen, Orientalische Handschriften) and the Department of Near Eastern Studies in the University of Vienna.

12 BOA, KK 1764 61., 28 Cā (Cemaziyülevvel) 935 (7 February 1529). 13 Papp, Die Verleihungs-, Bekräftigungs- und Vertragsurkunden, 53–84.

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Alongside the research in Vienna are the Hungarian collections, such as the Hungarian National Archives, the Archiepiscopal Archives in Esztergom, and the manuscripts of the University Library in Budapest, as well as the collections of archives outside the country in Bratislava, Cluj-Napoca and Prešov. After Vienna, the materials of greatest significance are found in Istanbul, in the enormous Ottoman-period archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) and the separate collections of the Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Müzesi Arşivi ve Kü­tüphanesi). Alongside these, copies and inşa collections that have versions of relevant peace treaties are among the manuscripts of several mosque libra­ ries (Nurosmaniye, Süleymaniye, Bayezit Kütüphanesi).14 The so-called writings of Cevdet Pasha (Atatürk Kitaplığı Muallim Cevdet Yazmaları) and his manuscripts preserved in the collections of the Atatürk Library (Atatürk Kitaplığı) include volumes that contain data from the aforementioned ruznamçes (Nr. 0,71., Ruznamçe Defteri), related to the Sublime Porte’s provisions for Hungarian delegations prior to the battle of Mohács. As I indicated above, we have very few Austrian and Hungarian sources for the negotiations in the 15th and the first half of the 16th centuries. The series of economic entries for Istanbul that allow for the examination of the dynamics of the diplomatic missions are essential for discovering the early history of relations. In publishing the peace treaties, we utilized the treaty versions ratified by the Ottoman side, where possible, and where these were lacking, we used contemporary Turkish copies as a basis. These versions can be found mostly in Vienna, starting from the second half of the 16th century. There are cases, such as with the 1547 peace treaty, where there are several manuscript and printed versions of the Ottoman treaty, but we have included the contemporary, official German translation, because it arrived with the lost originals and was also a product of the Ottoman chancellery and is therefore of almost the same value as the lost original.15 14 E.g.: Bayezit Kütüphanesi (BK), Veliyüddin 1970, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi (TSMK), R. 1942 Ecnebi hükümdarlara ahd, R. 1954 Münşeat (1687–1711), B. 174 Münşeat (1684–85), H. 1366 Ahd-name suretleri (1673–1733). 15 Ernst Dieter Petritsch, “Der habsburgisch-osmanische Friedensvertrag des Jahres 1547,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs (MÖS) 38 (1985): 49–80; Ferīdūn Aḥmed Beg, Mecmūʿa-i münşeʾātü s-selāṭīn. II. İstanbul. 1275 (1858), 76–78 (Constantinople, 954. Şaban 23. = 8 October 1547; BK, Veliyüddin 1970 145r–148r; Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Handschriften und Inkunabelnsammlung Orientalische Handschriften (HS) H. O. 50 fol. 260r–263v (954. Şaban 23. = 8 October 1547); Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA) Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (HHStA) Türkische Urkunden Karton (TUK) 1. 19–28 June 1547 (copy of a contemporary Latin translation with no date); ÖStA HHStA Türkische Urkunden (TU) Nr. 17 (German translation by Tercüman Murad. 954. Şaban 29. / 14 October 1547).

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Unfortunately, the original ratifications made by the Hungarian king, or in the Habsburg imperial chancellery, are no longer in Istanbul. Generations of Hungarian researchers, including myself, have searched for these in the Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi and Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi), archives of the grand vizier (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) and the sultan (Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi) for decades, without success. Therefore, it can be presumed that the original documents created in the chancellery of the Kingdom of Hungary, and later the central agencies in Vienna ratifying the treaties, no longer exist. Without these, the publication must be based on the contemporary copies of the treaties. It is particularly fortunate that in Vienna two imperial ratifications have survived in Latin, written on parchment, and signed by the monarch and the chancellor. One of these even received a stamp, so was fully ready to be issued.16 A full-sized copy on paper of one of the documents was also found.17 It can be assumed that this was the model upon which the final imperial ratification was designed and from which the text was copied onto the original parchment version. We should not forget that the Turkish correspondence of Ferdinand I and his son Maximilian II (1564–1576) has been published in a fine and exemplary publication. The publication of the transcriptions, German translations, and clearly legible facsimiles of the peace treaties of 1559, 1562 and 1565 has served as one of the models for our planned research.18 In addition, Ernst Petritsch has prepared a catalogue of Turkish documents (dating from 1480 to 1574) preserved in the HHStA, which has enabled us to locate the Viennese copies, such as the document from 1574.19 Due to the nature of the sources and the differing research methodologies, the topic has been divided into five major groups. The first covers a period of about 100 years and deals with the medieval Turkish-Hungarian treaties from the start of the 15th century to 1519. The period 16

Ratification by Ferdinand III for the treaty signed with Sultan Ibrahim. ÖStA HHStA TU 26. Vienna, June; Ratification by Ferdinand III for the treaty signed with Mehmed IV. (Original Latin with copy) ÖStA HHStA TU 11. Vienna, 11 September 1650 (Original Latin with copy). 17 Rudolf II to Murad III. ÖStA HHStA TU 26 May 1583 (Copy of the original Latin ratification on paper in the original size. Next to this, a contemporary Latin copy.) 18 Anton C. Schaendlinger and Claudia Römer, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien I (Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen) II (Faksimile), Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften 163, Osmanisch türkische Dokumente aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien, vol. 1 (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1983), 59–65. Nr. 23; 67–74. Nr. 25; 87–94 Nr. 32. 19 Ernst Dieter Petritsch, Regesten der Osmanischen Dokumente im Österreichischen Staats­ archiv. I. (1480–1574) (Wien: MÖS, Ergänzungsband 10/1., 1991).

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starting from 1528, when King John I became a vassal of the sultan, and running to the enthronement of John II in 1540, belongs to the second group. Two documents have survived from this period, one of which is related to the peace treaty of John I with Süleyman I, and, in my opinion, is a 16th-century forgery. The second is the Ottoman-Hungarian agreement of 1540, in which the sultan recognizes John II as the King of Hungary.20 Several publications of both copies are known, and the inclusion of these sources is justified, because at the time of signing, both Szapolai rulers were Hungarian kings.21 The next unit is the period of the 16th-century peace treaties, which lasted until the outbreak of the Long Turkish War. Eleven peace treaties were signed during this period (1547,22 1559,23 1562,24 1564,25 1568,26 1574,27 1575,28 1576,29 1577,30 1583,31 1590),32 20 Papp, “Die Verleihungs-, Bekräftigungs- und Vertragsurkunden,” 149–58. Nr. 1.1–3; 159–62. Nr. 2. 21 Ibid., 53–72. 22 Petritsch, “Der habsburgisch-osmanische Friedensvertrag,” 68–80; Ferīdūn, Mecmūʿa II, 76–78; BK, Veliyüddin 1970, 145r–148r; ÖNB, HS, H.O. 70, 260r–263r; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 19–28 June 1547. 23 ÖStA HHStA TU 31 January 1559; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 31 January 1559; Schaendlinger and Römer, “Die Schreiben Süleymāns,” 59–65; Petritsch, “Regesten,” 131–32; ÖStA KA HKR SR KzlA Kt. 56, nr. 3; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Nr. II. Ratification by Ferdinand I. 24 ÖStA HHStA TU 2 August 1562; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 2 August 1562; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 1 July 1562; Schaendlinger and Römer, “Die Schreiben Süleymāns,” 67–74. 25 ÖStA HHStA TU 16 February 1565; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 27 January 1564; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 1, 16 February 1565; Schaendlinger and Römer, “Die Schreiben Süleymāns,” 87–94; 6 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri (972 / 1564–1565); T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. Özet – Transkripsiyon ve İndeks, ve Tıpkıbasım. I–III, Ankara, 1995, Nr. 796 (tokuz yüz yetmiş iki senesinün mübarek Receb ayınun onbeşinci güni = 972. Recep 15. = 16 February 1565). 26 ÖStA HHStA TU 20–29 March 1568; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften, Kt. 1, 31 May 1568; ÖStA HHStA StAbt Türkei I, Kt. 24, Konv. 2, 70–90, 975. Ramazan 21–30 / 20–29 March 1568; ÖStA HHStA TUK 2, 29 February–9 March 1568; Ferīdūn, Mecmūʿa II, 96–100. 27 ÖStA HHStA TU II, 16–25 November 1574; ÖStA HHStA TUK, Kt. 2, 16–25; BOA 26 Mü­himme defteri Nr. 908; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Kt. 1, Nr. IV (981 Zilhicce, 1.–10. / 24 March–2 April 1574). 28 BOA 27 Mühimme defteri Nr. 256. 29 ÖStA HHStA TU 2–11 October 1576; ÖStA HHStA TUK 984 Ramazan 15 / 6 December 1576. 30 ÖStA HHStA TUK 2–10 February 1577; ÖStA HHStA TUK 2, 20–29 January 1577 / 984, Zilkade 1–10; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1; NAD 3–5; Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası. III. [Kostantiniye]: Cerīde-yi ʿAskerīye Maṭbaʿası) 1298 /1881, 65–69. 31 ÖStA HHStA TU 26 May 1583; ÖStA HHStA TUK 2 [26 May 1583]. 32 ÖStA HHStA TU 29 November 1590; ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 2, 1590–91 (= Beginning of December 1590); ÖStA HHStA TUK Kt. 2, 1590–91 (= Prague, 2 February 1591); ÖStA, HHStA Staatsverträge Kt. 2, Fasc. 1, 1591 (999 Safer 1 / 29 November 1590).

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and in addition to these, I have included the final document of the 1533 peace negotiations.33 This peace was accepted by both sides, even though it was not drafted in a standard treaty (or the copy was lost).34 Also included is the document of the first armistice formulated in 1545.35 The period of the Peace of Zsitvatorok is the fourth, which created the opportunity for peace negotiations to take place in Hungary. In theory, the ambassadors bringing the ratifications exchanged them at the border between Esztergom and Komárom. The final period starts with the aforementioned 1664 treaty36 and lasts up to 1739.37 These peace negotiations typically took place on the frontiers, so at Karlowitz and then at Passarowitz, with English and Dutch mediation. The Peace of Vasvár (1664) is also discussed in this section, despite the fact that there were no mediated negotiations, just a treaty proposal by the imperial envoy Simon Reniger, accepted by the grand vizier. There is a great lack of sources for the period prior to the battle of Mohács, and different methods must be followed, in part, from those in the other sections. At times, we must be satisfied with being able to determine the date of the treaties. There is information on 34 peace treaties from Hungarian, Turkish and Byzantine historical works, as well as in old literature in Latin and German from 1416–1528. However, it must be noted that the data in contemporary sources are sometimes erroneous, so it is necessary to check the 33 ÖStA, HHStA, StAtbt Türkei I, Kt. 3, Konv. 1. fol. 62; Petritsch, “Regesten,” 26–27, Nr. 14; Gévay, Antal, Urkunden und Actenstücke zur Geschichte der Verhältniße zwischen Österreich, Ungarn und der Pforte im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, vol. 1 (Vienna: Schaumburger Verlag, 1841), 138, Nr. 66. 34 Lajos Fekete, Einführung in die osmanischtürkische Diplomatik der türkischen Botmässigkeit in Ungarn (Budapest: Königliches Ungarisches Staatsarchiv, 1926), 3–5, Nr. 1; Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Claudia Römer, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben und Privatbriefe der Zeit Sultan Süleymān des Prächtigen aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften, vol. 357 (Vienna: Österreichische Aka­ demie der Wisschenschaften, 2007), 46–7, Nr. 4. 35 Petritsch, “Regesten,” 48, Nr. 83; ÖStA HHStA, Staatsverträge, Abschriften Karton 1; ÖStA HHStA, TU Kt. 1, 5 February 1545. 36 ÖStA HHStA TUK, Kt. 10, 16 della Luna Muharrem l’anno 1075 cioé alli 9. ó. 10 Augosto 1664. Nel campo Vasvar; ÖStA HHStA TUK, Kt. 10, 1075, Rebiyülevvel 1 / 22 September 1664; BOA, Düvel-i Ecnebiye Defterleri (DED), Nr. 57/1; Nemçe Ahd Defteri (NAD) 17–19, 1074; Muharrem 16 / 8 August 1664, 1075, Rebiülahir 1.–10 / 22–31 October 1664; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası. III.,” 89–90; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers. 1535–1855 (London: Foreign Office, 1855) 38–43. 37 BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1; NAD 179–184, 25 September 1739 / 1152, Cemaziyülahir 21–10.3; ÖStA KA SR KzlA Kt. 57, Nr. 74; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 88–107; ÖStA HHStA TUK, Kt. 14; ÖStA HHStA Orient. HS., 584, 64–79.

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old, accepted dates for peace treaties and armistices.38 Data connected to the peace negotiations can also be found in the archives of states with diplomatic ties to the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. As it is known that the channel for diplomatic contact between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in the first period took place in the Serbian and Slavonic languages, a great deal of attention must also be given to the southern Slavic source materials. An example is Vuk Grgurević, who was from the Branković fa­mily and received the title of despot from Matthias Corvinus. Vuk conducted significant mediation between the Hungarian king and Ottoman sultan in the 1480s.39 Davor Salihović has conducted very thorough research related to the Bosnian and Croatian frontier, based on source critiques, and is critically analyzing the existing literature in his dissertation. In addition, he has compiled a significant collection of documents employing materials from Venice, Dalmatia and other archives, which to date have not been used.40 The research of Bálint Lakatos has also been very useful. He has compiled a database of diplomatic missions from the Jagiello period, as well as a history of diplomatic relations.41 Supplementing these with the results of Vilmos Fraknói, it is possible to obtain reliable information about the identities of envoys for the period 1458 to 1519.42 In only six cases have actual treaty documents survived from the considerable number of communications about peace treaties and armistices, and the first of these is from 1444.43

38 Davor Salihović, “Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier toward the Ottoman Empire in the Reign of King Matthias Corvinus, 1458–1490,” (PhD diss., Magdalene College, Cambridge 2020). 39 Kатарина Митровић, Пет писама деспота Вука Гргуревића, Браничевски гласник 3–4 (2004–2005), 63–83. 40 Davor Salihović, ed., Monumentorum variorum pertinentium ad historiam mediaevalis Croatiae contiguarumque partium tomus primus (Zadar: Državni arhiv u Zadru, forthcoming 2020). 41 Bálint Lakatos, “A király diplomatái. Követek és követségek a Jagelló-korban (1490–1526) I. rész. Kutatási vázlat,” Történelmi Szemle 61,4 (2019): 593–616. 42 Vilmos Fraknói, “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái,” Századok 32, 33 (1898, 1899): 1–14, 97–112, 385–404, 481–9, 769–81/1–7, 291–309, 389–410, 773–87, 869–78. 43 Francisc Pall, Ciriaco d’Ancona e la crociata contro i Turchi Bulletin Historique de l’ Académie Roumanie, XX., Vălenii-de-Munte (Bukarest, 1937), 62; Sándor Papp, “II. Murád szultán és I. Ulászló lengyel és magyar király 1444. évi békekötése,” Acta Historica 109 (1999): 47–62; Kołodziejczyk, “Ottoman-Polish,” 197–99.

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Besides this, the peace treaties of 1483,44 1488,45 1498,46 1503,47 and 151948 are known. It must be added that the dating of the first two documents is uncertain.49 The letter of the Serbian despot Đurađ Branković, from 1449, can be used to supplement these. These show that the despot offered to mediate and listed the articles of peace to be included.50 The letter related to the peace treaty between King Matthias and Sultan Bayezid II, probably dated to 1483 in error, has been known for a long time. This document is worth a separate examination because the form of the text does not conform to 15th-century Turkish-European peace treaties.51 The first surviving document in Turkish 44 Epistolae Matthiae Corvini. (Cassovia 1743) 1–2; Stephanus Katona, Historia critica Regum Hungariae, stirpis mixtae XVI (Budae: 1793), 525 (by mistake Katona, “Historia critica,” XII, 525, by Hammer); Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches II (henceforth GOR) (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1963, 2nd ed.), 287; GOR, IX. 287, Nr. 105; Gabriel Noradounghian, Recueil d’Actes Internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman. Traités, conventions, arrangements, déclarations, protocoles, procés-verbaux, firmans, bérats, lettres patentes et autres documents relatifs au droit public extérieur de la Turquie I (Paris – Leipzig – Neuchatel: 1897), 21, Nr. 105; Vilmos Fraknói, Mátyás király levelei. Külügyi osztály. Második kötet. 1480–1490 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1895), 286. 45 Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi (TSMA) E. 4861. GOR II, 297; GOR, IX, 284, Nr. 108; Noradounghian, “Recueil d’Actes,” I., 22. Nr. 107; Hazai, “A Topkapu Szeráj,” 294–95, Hazai, “Urkunde des Friedensvertrages,” 141–45. Kellner-Heinkele et al., eds., “Monumenta et Studia,” 534–40. 46 Антоній Р. Годинка, “Отворенъій листъ султана Баязита ІІ. о мирѣ его съ Владиславомъ корольомъ угорськьімъ и чешськьімъ р. 1498,” Zbornik naučnih radova: Ferdi Šišiću povodom šezdestegodišnjice života, 1869–1929, ed. Grga Novak (Zagreb, 1929), 645–49; Vladimir Čorović, “Der Friedensvertrag zwischen dem Sultan Bayazid und dem König Ladislaus II.,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG) 90 (1937): 52–59; Domokos Kosáry, Magyar külpolitika Mohács előtt (Budapest: Magvető Kiadó, 1978), 82. 47 Annales regum Hungariae ab anno Chr. 997 ad annum 1564 deducti ac maximam partem ex scriptoribus coaevis, diplomatibus, tabulis publicis, et id genus litterariis instrumentis congesti opera et studio Georgii Pray, vol. 3 (Vienna, 1765) 305; Katona, Historia Critica, XVIII, 345; GOR, II. 616–620; Noradounghian, “Recueil d’Actes,” I., 24. Nr. 118; MNL OL DL. 30498; TSMA E. 7675; ÖStA HHStA AUR 20 August 1503. 48 Noradounghian, “Recueil d’Actes,” I., 27. Nr. 137; Maximilian Schimek, Politische Geschichte des Königreichs Bosnien und Rama (Wien: Christ. Friedr. Wappler, 1787), 198–198; Lajos Thallóczy and Sándor Horváth, Magyarország melléktartományainak okmánytára. III. Alsó-Szlavóniai okmánytár (Dubicza, Orbász és Szana vármegyék). 1277–1710 (Budapest: Magyarország melléktartományainak oklevétára 1912), 279–86; MNL OL. DL. 24393. 49 Salihović, “Definition,” 12–81. 50 József Teleki, Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon, vol. 2 (Pesten: Emich Gusztáv Könyvnyomdája, 1853), 244. 51 Sándor Papp, “II. Murád szultán és I. Ulászló lengyel és magyar király 1444. évi békekötése,” Acta Historica Acta Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József nominatae 109 (1999): 47–62.

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(a copy of the treaty) is undated and was published by György Hazai with philological precision. He determined its date (1488), but this is also uncertain.52 The entries in the treasury log (ruznamçe) of the amounts issued to foreign envoys during diplomatic missions provide outstanding information on the arrival of Hungarian envoys.53 It can only be regretted that these have not survived in the Turkish archives and manuscripts from the period prior to 1488. However, serious attention must be given to the sources that are available from the second half of the 15th to the first half of the 16th centuries.54 The entries in question record intensive Hungarian diplomatic missions in 13 separate years (1488, 1489, 1491, 1489, 1495, 1503, 1504, 1506, 1507, 1508, 1509, 1510, 1511), from which four peace treaties were signed (1488 (?), 1491, 1495, 1498). It is also necessary to use the archives of the sultan’s palace (Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi) for the Turkish documents from before the battle of Mohács.55 For the time being, there is only what can be considered full documentation in the case of a single treaty, that of 1503. We have the Latin translation of the sultan’s ratification in Vienna; the royal ratification is also known, and the original Turkish version is preserved in Istanbul.56 Many have studied the document, but to date, only a photograph of it has been published.57 Tayyip Gögbilgin came closest to 52 TSMA E. 4861; György Hazai, “A Topkapu Szeráj Múzeum levéltárának magyar vonatkozású török iratai,” Levéltári Közlemények 26 (1955): 286–95; György Hazai, “Urkunde des Friedensvertrages zwischen König Matthias Corvinus und dem türkischen Sultan 1488,” in Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Volkskunde und Literaturforschung (Steinitz-Festschrift) (Berlin, 1965), 141–45; Barbara Kellner-Heinkele et al., eds., Monumenta et Studia Turcologica. Ausgewählte Schriften von György Hazai, Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Türkvölker (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2012), 534–40. 53 Sándor Papp, “A török béke kérdése a Dózsa-féle parasztháború idején,” in Certamen III. Előadások a Magyar Tudomány Napján az Erdélyi Múzeum-egyesület I. szakosztályában, eds. Emese Egyed and László Pakó (Cluj-Napoca: Erdélyi Múzeum Egylet, 2016), 229–43. 54 BOA, KK 4988; AK, MC y. O71. 2b; BOA, D.BRZ 20611; BOA, KK 1764; BOA, KK 1863; BOA, D.BRZ 20614; BOA, D.BRZ 20614; BOA, KK 1864; BOA, MAD 162; BOA, MAD 162; BOA, MAD 94. BOA, KK 1766. 42. The defters above contain data on Hungarian and Habsburg diplomatic missions from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century. Szabolcs Hadnagy is carrying out the very laborious work in Istanbul. 55 It was possible to reconstruct the peace treaty between Matthias I and Mehmed II in 1477 from these materials. For this see Sándor Papp, “Ştefan cel Mare, le roi Mattias et l’Empire ottoman,” in Enjeux politiques, Économiques et militaires en Mer Noire (XIVe–XXIe siècles) Études à la mémoire de Mihail Guboglu, eds. Faruk Bilici et al. (Braïla, 2007), 363–90; Sándor Papp, “Ştefan cel Mare, Mátyás király és az Oszmán Birodalom,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 121,2 (2008): 303–25. 56 ÖStA HHStA AUR 1503. 08. 20; MNL OL DL. 30498; TSMA E. 7675; Dr. Lajos Thallóczy –Sándor Horváth, Jajcza (bánság, vár és város) története 1450–1527 (Budapest: Hornyánszky Viktor Kiadása, 1915), 167–70. Nr. 56; GOR II. 616–20. 57 Tayyip Gökbilgin, “Korvin Mathias (Mátyás)ın Bayezid II.e mektupları ve 1503 (909) osmanlı – macar muahedesinin türkçe metni. La traduction des letters de Korvin Mathias

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publishing the text, and a copy in Arabic script by his own hand has survived in his estate.58 At the same time, there is a Latin copy of the sultan’s ratification that was originally made from a Serbian translation. The question arises as to whether the Turkish original in Istanbul was returned when the Turks occupied Buda, or whether it never made it to Hungary, and instead a Serbian version was sent, authenticated with a tughra.59 I lean toward the belief that the Serbian version was to aid understanding, while the Turkish version was the final treaty document. The 1519 treaty document is very interesting as for a long time only the Hungarian ratification in Latin was known.60 However, not long ago, a version of the text in Serbian was found in Bratislava, which also includes the translation of the Hungarian royal version. I believe that they presented the Ottoman negotiating delegation with the Hungarian royal version translated into Serbian, in accordance with contemporary diplomatic practice. This is because the envoys found this much easier than the Latin version, being largely from the Balkans.61 The first known peace treaty in the second, post-1526 group was the joint treaty of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Hungarian king Ferdinand I with Süleyman I, which the Habsburg brothers ratified separately (1547).62 From this point to the outbreak of the Long Turkish War (1591/3), data and treaty documents are known for six peace treaties or armistices (1559, 1562, 1568, 1574, 1577, 1590). A characteristic of these negotiations is that they took

58

59 60

61 62

á Bayezid II. et le texte turc du traité Hungaro-Ottomans de 1503 (909),” Belleten 87 (1958): 369–90, reproductions III–XXII; Mübahat Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerinin dili (Diplomatik) (İstanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür ve San’at Vakfı, 1998, 2nd ed.), 459–60. Ekler, 39a–b. I was able to examine the estate of Tayyip Gökbilgin in several sections between 2017 and 2019 in Istanbul. I would like to express my gratitude to the son of the deceased professor and the caretaker of his estate, Altay Mehmed Gökbilgin, for his kind invitation and hospitality. The sultan’s ratification of the treaty, Constantinople, 4 November 1503, MNL OL DL 39328 (documents received from the archives in Vienna. 277-B) (Version translated from Serbian to Latin). MNL OL DL. 24393; Thallóczy and Horváth, “Jajcza,” 279–86; Yekeler et al., eds., Arşiv belgelerine göre Osmanlı’dan günümüze Türk-Macar ilişkileri = Török-Magyar kapcsolatok az Oszmán birodalomtól napjainkig: a levéltári dokumentumok tükrében (İstanbul / Isztambul, 2016), 13–18; Éva Teiszler, “Török várak – Magyar várak. Status quo a hadszíntéren és a jagelló-kori török-magyar békeszerződésekben,” Aetas 33,4 (2018): 100–7. Slovenský národný archív, Hodnoverné miesto, Bratislavská kapitula, 1926 Capsa 28, fasc. 7, nr. 41. http://monasterium.net/mom/SK-SNA/3900-HodnoverneMiestoBratislavs kaKapitula/1905/charter (4 January 2020). Petritsch, “Der habsburgisch-osmanische Friedensvertrag,” 49–80; Sándor Papp, “Kárrendezési kísérletek a hódoltságban az 1547. évi békekötés után,” Keletkutatás (1996 Ősz (Autumn)–2002 Tavasz (Spring)): 141–60.

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place in Istanbul, led by ambassadors such as the Archbishop of Esztergom, Antal Verancsics. The treaty copies were ratified by both rulers. A new period started after the Long Turkish War, hallmarked by the Peace of Zsitvatorok, which ended the war (1606). As a precursor to the signing of the treaty, seven peace negotiations took place between 1595 and 1606 in Hungary (1595, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1601, 1603, 1604). The negotiations always occurred in the fall and winter months, and sometimes fighting continued in the meantime (such as in 1604). The attempts at Habsburg-Ottoman peace during these years developed the terms and practices that were employed in the decades to come. Peace treaties were signed a total of 18 times between 1606 and 1699, which are not list here, but are detailed in the appendix below. Five of the above agreements were made at a location in Hungary, a site on the border near Komárom (1606, 1618, 1625, 1627, 1641). It was characteristic of these negotiations in Hungary that they took place under the direction of the local Ottoman officials and the palatine,63 for the most part in Hungarian or Turkish, and resulted in treaty texts in Hungarian, Latin and Turkish that were ratified by the rulers of both empires. This system did not always operate in accordance with the preliminary plans, and were treaties created where the ratification was doubtful (1644). The so-called treaty of Szőny in 1627, which then was a model for later agreements, took place in this period. At the same time, it is also known that Johann Rudolf Schmid von Schwarzenhorn travelled to Istanbul in 1649 for peace negotiations and the issuance of a preliminary treaty. The versions of the treaty were prepared in Istanbul and were notarized by the internuncius Johann Rudolf Schmid and the grand vizier Kara Murat. This long period lasted until 1664 and the treaty of Vasvár, in which the Hungarian estates had no say. The documents from the 1627 peace negotiations were processed in the seminars of the University of Szeged’s Doctoral School of History. The members of this research group made their first joint publication from these materials.64 The final type of peace negotiations began with the peace of Vasvár. In this case, there were no preliminary negotiations in Hungary, just a review of the imperial draft treaty and the agreement of the Ottomans, after which a dual ratification took place. In the cases of Karlovitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718), for example, the negotiations with the Sublime Porte were sometimes mediated by foreign powers (England and Holland). A common characteristic of 63

64

The Primate Archives in Esztergom have a great deal of data on the Hungarian negotiations, some concerning the ratifications of the sultan and the emperor specifically: Acta radicalia, Classis B. This is where the documentation and records of the peace negotiations held in Hungary in 1606, 1627 and 1641 can be found. Gergely Brandl et al., “Válogatott források az 1627. évi szőnyi békeszerződés történetéhez,” Lymbus. Magyarságtudományi Forrásközlemények 15 (Budapest, 2017), 151–203.

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the Habsburg-Ottoman agreements was that every treaty text, starting from the peace of Vasvár, was negotiated without the Hungarian estates. It has come to light from the materials of the Passarowitz negotiations that they wanted to invite the representatives of the affected imperial nations, the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia, but the estates did not give financial support to the participation of the envoys.65 During the processing, we will follow the methodology of three document collections. Theunissen studied Venetian-Ottoman relations in a PhD dissertation that included a very detailed introduction to the history and diplomacy primarily from professional literature but made no translations of the documents.66 This was followed by Kołodziejczyk, in 2000.67 After an introduction to the diplomacy and history in brief, he published the Polish-Ottoman peace treaties with exemplary English translations in this book. Finally, in 2003, I published the imperial pledges and deeds of appointment between 1528 and 1605 for the Hungarian kings and then Transylvanian voivodes and princes who had become vassals of the sultan. In the introduction, I concentrated primarily on the operation of the Ottoman chancellery and the history of the creation of the documents.68 For all of the versions, including those in Latin, we intend first to publish either the original or the manuscript that is closest to it, as I have emphasized above. However, there are also printed publications of the treaty texts in many instances, starting primarily from the 17th century. We have used the 18th–20th-century document collections, such as Du Mont,69 Noradounghian,70 Testa,71 and the Latin translations of Ottoman treaties published in England for informational purposes only.72 This is also true for introductory work on 65 Der Türken-Krieg 1716–18, Feldzug 1717/18, in Feldzüge des Prinzen Eugen von Savoyen, 17, nach den Feld-Acten und anderen authentischen Quellen bearbeitet in der Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abtheilung von Ludwig Matuschka (Vienna: Verl. d. K. u. k. Generalstabes, 1891), 337. 66 Hans Peter Alexander Theunissen, “Ottoman Venetian Diplomatics: the ʿAhdnames. The Historical Background and the Development of Category of Political-Commercial Instruments together with an Annotated Edition of Corpus of Relevant Documents,” (PhD diss., Universiteit Utrecht 1991). 67 Kołodziejczyk, “Ottoman-Polish.” 68 Papp, “Die Verleihungs-, Bekräftigungs- und Vertragsurkunden,” 11–134. 69 Jean Du Mont, Corps universel diplomatique du droit de gens, vols. 1–8 (Amsterdam et à la Haye, 1726–1731). 70 Noradounghian, “Recueil d’Actes,” 1897–1903. 71 Baron de Testa, Recueil des traités de la porte Ottomane avec les puissances éntragères (Paris: Amyot, I.–XI. 1864–1911). 72 ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers.

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Austrian state treaties prepared at the start of the 20th century.73 We also reviewed the literature related to Ottoman international treaties within the wider scope of the research.74 Two major publications of sources appeared on the part of the Turks in the 19th century, which largely contain sources for diplomatic history. The first collection of documents is the famous, two-volume “Correspondence of the Sultans” of Feridun Bey from the 16th century.75 A very valuable, anonymous collection of letters is preserved in Vienna containing material which, in many respects, is similar to that of the “Correspondence of Sultans.” The first (surviving) Habsburg-Ottoman peace treaty from 1547 can be found in this manuscript.76 All of the other ratifications of treaties, Zsitvatorok of 1606, Vienna of 1615, and Szőny of 1627 and 1642, are later additions to the volume.77 Every 17th-century addition was included from the manuscript materials in the libraries of the mosque and palace libraries in the 19th century, while the editing of the work was being done for the printer.78 The second 19th-century Turkish publication of sources contains Ottoman peace treaties and commercial agreements in five volumes.79 A total of 12 Habsburg-Ottoman peace treaties are found between pages 60 and 134 of the third volume, but the actual number is more than the 12 preserved here. This is because, starting from the 1699 treaty of Karlowitz, the main agreement is accompanied by additions and commercial agreements. The following treaty texts from the period can be found in the volume: 1568, 1576, 1608, 1615, 1627, 1641, 1645, 1664, 1699, 1717 and 1739. These copies were included in the volume from the Ottoman archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) and the diplomatic materials related to the foreign powers.80 A review of the materials in com73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80

Ludwig Bittner, Chronologisches Verzeichnis der Österreichischen Staatsverträge. Die österreichischen Staatsverträge von 1526 bis 1763, vol. 1 (Vienna: Adolf Holzhausen, 1903). Listing this literature would be too long, so I will only mention two old and essentially forgotten books: ʿAli Reşād and Macār İskender (mütercimler), Ḳāpītǖlāsyōnlar tārīḫi, menşeʾi, aṣılları (Dārü seʿāde: Ḳanaʿat Maṭbaʿası, 1330 [1914]); Ekrem Reşat, Osmanlı Muahedeleri ve kapitülâsyonlar 1300–1920 ve Lozan Muahedesi 24 Temmuz 1923 (İstanbul: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitaphanesi, 1934). Ferīdūn, Mecmūʿa II. ÖNB, HS H. O. 50 fol. 260r–263v. TSMK H. 1366, R. 1942, R. 1954. Sándor Papp, “Feridun Beyin münşeati: Mecmua-ı Münşeatü s-Selatin (Macaristan’a ve Erdel’e ait XVI–XVII. yüzyıl belgelerinin incelenmesi,” Archivum Ottomanicum 34 (2017): 129–37. “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası. III.” BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD.

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parison with the documents surviving in their originals in Vienna confirm that there are occasions when an intermediate version, not the final peace treaty, can be read in the Turkish publications of sources, just as in the Hungarian cases. Thus, a variant of the 1568 treaty of Adrianople appears in two publications of sources, but this does not reflect the final version of the peace treaty.81 Since, as noted above, we endeavor to publish the final version in every case, we have made efforts to uncover the original versions in Vienna. We must also consider the contemporary or later variants of the texts, as they can provide data related to the history of the creation of the treaties, or aid in our interpretation of certain parts of the texts. Useful from this perspective are the 16th-century manuscript collections found, for example, in the Bayezid mosque library, which contains the texts of the treaties from 1547, 1562, 1568, and 1576.82 The official protocols of the Ottoman court, the so-called defters of important matters (mühimme defterleri), have also preserved three peace treaties, from 1565,83 157484 and 1575.85 The eastern collections of western countries also preserve the Ottoman treaty documents in great quantities,86 but these can only be used to fill in gaps. However, there is a defter containing copies of the decrees of the sultan’s divan, made during the 17th-century wars of re-conquest, which includes correspondence between the sultan’s vassals and their sovereign. This presumably fell into imperial hands as war spoils during the retaking of Buda, and then went to Göttingen in Germany.87 Having reviewed the volume several times, I believe that these were prototypes of the nāme-i hümāyūn defteris. The particular significance of the defters is that the documents included here are official copies of the original versions. This preserves a version of the 1649 peace treaty, which can be compared with the original text preserved in Vienna, or with the texts of the 1650 and 1651 documents, which were continuously amended until the creation of the final version. Several versions of the 1664 peace of Vasvár are also known from this, and these have been most recently studied 81 László Szalay– Gusztáv Wenczel, Verancsics Antal összes munkái, vol. 5 (Pest: Monumenta Hungariae Historica Scriptores 6, 1860), 216–33; István Sinkovics, Magyar történeti szöveg­ gyűjtemény, vol. 2/2 (Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1968), 140–52. 82 BK, Veliyüddin 1970. 83 “6 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri” Nr. 796. 84 BOA 26 Mühimme defteri Nr. 908. 85 BOA 27 Mühimme defteri Nr. 256. 86 E.g.: Jan Schmidt, A Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the John Rylands University at Manchester, Islamic Manuscript and Books, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 87 Göttingen, Niedersächsische Nationalbibliothek (NN), 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29.

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by Hajnalka Tóth.88 A letter has been discovered in the Istanbul archives in which the grand vizier informed the sultan of the draft treaty given to him, and which the Ottoman ruler then accepted.89 The following appendix shows the current state of the research, which means that the existing data will be supplemented in the coming years. It is only possible to make claims about a version of a treaty with certainty when we have completed the background research on its signing. The appendix does not include the full extent of material from the research presented above, but this portion illustrates the type of multifaceted source material we are dealing with.

Appendix

List of Peace Treaties Related to the 17th Century 11 November 1606. Treaty between Rudolf I and Ahmed I.90 11–20 November 1608. Treaty between Ahmed I and Rudolf II (which Matthias II did not ratify), (ratification by Ahmed I, Constantinople), 6–15 May 88 Hajnalka Tóth, “The circumstances and documents of the Peace of Vasvár,” Archivum Ottomanicum 34 (2017): 243–56; Tóth, “Entstehung”, 311–24; Hajnalka Tóth, “Vasvár előtt: Habsburg-oszmán megegyezési kísérlet Temesváron 1663 – ban,” Aetas 35,3 (2020): 46–60. 89 BOA. İbnülemin, Hr. 408. 90 ÖStA HHStA Österreichische Staatsverträge Abschriften, Karton 2. Fasc. 1. This is the Turkish translation of the version of the treaty of Zsitvatorok made for Johann a Molard, which was copied for Adam Herberstein on 14 October 1608. This document, just like the original, contains the signatures of the Christian side in Turkish and Latin versions. The original of this can be found in the ÖStA HHStA Türkische Urkunden on microfilm. MNL OL Mikrofilmtár; another copy, which only contains the articles of the treaty of Zsitvatorok, can be found in: ÖStA HHStA Österreichische Staatsverträge Abschriften, Karton 2. Fasc. 1. (without folio). In this copy, the articles of peace appear with more items missing. For example, article 1 omitted the fact that the envoys must go to the court of the padishah with gifts, mentioning instead that the emperor and the sultan refer to one another as father and son; ÖStA HHStA Orientalische Handschriften (Orient. HS. 584) 3–5; ÖStA HHStA Nicht katalogisierte Karton; Ferīdūn, Mecmūʿa II., 438–43. This version is a translation of Emperor Rudolf’s original ratification: Brandisch, 9 December 1606 (Kurt Holter, Studien zu Ahmed Ferîdûn’s Münšeʾât es-selâtîn. Mitteilungen des österreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung Ergänzungsband 14 (1939), 443) on which the date of 9 Cemaziyülevvel 1606 can be read. Holter believed that this was a mistake. This was not the case, as the translator simply transcribed December as Cemaziyülevvel; and since December was regularly transcribed as Cemaziyülevvel, this was one if its Muslim names; Jean Dumont, “Corps universel,” V/2, 78–80; Ludwig Fekete, Türkische Schriften aus dem Archive des Palatins Nicolaus Esterházy 1606–1645 (Budapest: Fürst Paul Esterházy, 1932), 5–5–7. Zsitvatorok, 11. November 1606; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 1–6.

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1609 (Constantinople, official copy of the sultan’s ratification; on the back in Italian is an inscription to confirm that this copy was brought by Adam Herberstein).91 25 April–4 May 1610. The renewed ratification of the treaty of Zsitvatorok between Ahmed I and Rudolf II (ratification by Ahmed I, Constantinople), 12 February 1610 (Vienna, ratification by Matthias II).92 11–20 February 1614. Ahmed I confirms the treaty signed with Matthias II.93 91 ÖStA HHStA TUK 4. 10–21 October 1608 (more precisely: 1 Recep 1017 / 11 October 1608), Latin translation of the Turkish peace treaty; ÖStA HHStA TUK 4. 10–21 October 1608. The official translation of the ratification by the sultan 1–10 Safer 1018 / 5–15 May 1609; the Italian translation of the peace treaty by Andrea Negroni highlighted, on the title page, that the said treaty was brought by Herberstein, 1017. al primo della luna di regiep cioe di novemberio or made on 4 October 1609. Differences between this version and the original Zsitvatorok version are pointed out in the margins; ÖStA HHStA Österreichische Staaatsverträge 2. Fasc. 1, without folio (the full introduction is included, but it lacks the date and location); BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 5–7; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 69–72 (the introductory section and date are incomplete); Ferīdūn, “Mecmūʿa II.,” 412–15. The beginning is incomplete and the davet is missing (Holter, “Studien,” 443.), but the date is complete. The contemporary German version and publication of the Turkish version were based on the Italian translation by Andrea Negroni: Karl Nehring, Adam Freiherrn zu Herbersteins Gesandtschaftsreise nach Konstantinopel. Ein Beitrag zum Frieden von Zsitvatorok (1606) (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1983), 199–207. 92 ÖStA HHStA TU, original ratification by the sultan, 25 April–4 May 1610; ÖStA HHStA Österreichische Staatsverträge, Abschriften. Karton 2. Fasc. 1 (without folio). Matthias II sent Andrea Negroni and Bonhom to show the differences between the original version of the treaty of Zsitvatorok and the version brought by Herberstein at the Sublime Porte (ÖStA HHStA Türkei I. Karton 92. Konv. 2 (1610), 8–10. Matthias II to Sultan Ahmed I, Vienna, 12 February 1610). The new ratification by the sultan was the result of this diplomatic mission. The articles of peace have a new arrangement, whereby they retained the 20-year duration of the previous arrangement, then stated that the emperor could be addressed as king; ÖStA HHStA TUK 4. 11 October 1610 (the date was written on the document retrospectively, so it cannot be determined from the document when it was created); ÖStA HHStA TUK 4. 12 February 1610, copy of the Latin ratification by Matthias II; the German translation of the ratification by the sultan was the work of the Turkish translator János Illésy, but the date differs from the previous versions: 1021. Anfang des Monats Rebiyülevvel = 30 June 1612. As the document informs the reader about the results of the negotiations of Matthias’s two envoys, Peter Bonhomo and Andrea Negroni, who were at the Sublime Porte in 1610, the reason for the “incorrect” date might just be a clerical error. Another view may just be that the Sublime Porte issued a peace treaty again on 30 June 1612. ÖStA HHStA TUK 4. 7–16 June 1610, original copies on parchment (fol. 1–4.), and copies of Illési’s translation, on which the date 1–10 Rebiyülevvel 1021 (= 30 June 1612) appears. However, the last document is the Italian translation of the ratification by the sultan dated 7 June 1610 (fol. 32–33.). In view of the information outlined above, it is possible that a ratification by the sultan was also made in 1612. It is only possible to proceed further with critical analyses of the text. 93 ÖStA HHStA TU, 11–20 February 1614, Edirne. Mehmed IV confirms the treaty.

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21–29 June 1615 (ratification by Ahmed I, Constantinople), 05–14 September 1615. (New Turkish ratification by Ahmed I, Constantinople.) Treaty between Rudolf II (Matthias II) and Ahmed I.94 1616. Treaty between Matthias II and Ahmed I.95 26 June–4 July 1617. “Kommerz-traktat”: commercial agreement on land and sea between Ahmed I and Matthias II.96 27 February 1618. Latin translation of the Komárom agreement, with copies of the original signatures.97 94 ÖStA HHStA TU, 5–14 September 1615, original (Holter, “Studien,” 444); ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2.Nr. XIII. 1 Cemziyülahir 1024 / 28 June 1615, ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 1. XIII. Turkish handwritten temessük (preliminary agreement), perhaps even contemporary (it can only be determined when the copy was made based on the paper), Buda, 26 August 1615 (made during the negotiations of Ahmed kethüda and Gaspar Gratiani, and when the text was completed, they described the process in detail, during which this very interesting version was created); ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 1. Copy of the ratification by Ahmed I, made by a European (11–20 Şaban 1024 / 5–11 September 1615; ÖStA HHStA Orientalische Handschriften (Orient. HS. 584), 5–6; ÖStA HHStA Orientalische Handschriften (Orient. HS. 584), 5–6; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 7–10; Ferīdūn, “Mecmūʿa II.,” 419–22 (Holter, “Studien,” 444) (5 lines are missing from the original); “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 72–77; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Nr. XIII. 1 Cemziyülahir 1024 (copy made in 1615 in Buda); Fekete, “Türkische Schriften,” 7–14. Starting from July 1615 (this version is the temessük (preliminary agreement) of the commissions that met on the island of Komárom); ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 7–12 (1 December 1615). 95 BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD.7–10; Seres conditionum et pacificationis,[…], ÖStA HHStA Handschriftensammlung (HS) W 518. Latin ratification from Matthias II, Vienna, 1 May 1616; Prague, 10 May 1616, which completely rewrote the treaty of 1616 ratified by Rudolf; Fekete, “Türkische Schriften,” 16–17. Vienna, 1 May 1616; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 01 May 1616; perhaps another Italian copy can be connected to this, which can be found at ÖStA HHStA Türkei 1. Karton 106. Konv. 1. 254–255. ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 12–19 (12 May 1616). 96 ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge und Abschriften Karton 2. Fasc. 2. Nr. XV. 21–29 Cemziyülahir 1026 / 26 June–4 July 1617, a copy made of the original surviving document by a European. At some point, a series of versions of Habsburg-Ottoman peace treaties was copied from the materials in Vienna. They were written by the same hand, but it is not known by whom or why. 97 ÖStA HHStA TUK 7. C. 1618. die 27. februarius, Comarn; ÖStA HHStA TUK 7. D. 1618. [die 27.] februarius, Comarn. ; ÖStA HHStA TUK 7. D. 27 February 1618, an original Latin version of the Komárom agreement with signatures and seal; ÖStA HHStA Handschriftensammlung (HS) W 518. 27 February 1618, for the Italian and Hungarian versions of the text, see: Ferenc Salamon, Két magyar diplomata a tizenhetedik századból (Pest: Kiadja Ráth Mőr, 1867), 274–278; Fekete, “Türkische Schriften,” 23–27. Komárom, 7–17 February 1618; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 20–23 (27 February 1618).

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12 May 1618. The Újbars (Nový Tekov) treaty on the villages handed over to the Ottomans at Esztergom, and their taxation.98 1625 Treaty between Murad IV and Ferdinand II. Peace negotiations in Hungary (Gyarmat), 26 March 1626. (Although it is the opinion of the professional literature that this was never ratified, the date indicated is that of the Latin ratification by Ferdinand II.).99 13 September 1627 (treaty of Szőny); 30 November–09 December 1627. Ratification by Murad IV (Constantinople).100 19 March 1641. Peace negotiations on the field of Szőny. Peace treaty of the commissioners of Ibrahim and Ferdinand II.101 26 June 1644. Ratification by Ferdinand III of the treaty signed with Sultan Ibrahim. For some reason, the original Latin was not sent to Istanbul.102

98 ÖStA HHStA TUK 7. A. 12 May 1618. 99 ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Nr. Fasc. 2. XVII (1625, Tractatus Gyarmatiensis); ÖStA HHStA HS, W 518. 21r–25r. Ferdinand II, 26 March 1626. 100 ÖStA HHStA TU, 3 November–9 December 1627, original ratification by the sultan (Holter, “Studien,” 447) BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 10–14; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 77–81 (on page 77, it is noted that the sultan ratified the treaty between 1–10 Rebiyülahir 1037 / 10–19 December 1627; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 2. Nr. XVIII, 21–30 Rebiyülevvel 1037 / 30 November–9 December 1627; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 2. Nr. XIII. Vienna, 10 September 1628; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 2. XIII. 1 Muharrem 1037 / 12 September 1627, only includes the articles of peace; ÖStA HHStA Orient. HS. 584, 6–8; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 26–31. 101 ÖStA HHStA TUK, Szőny, 19 March 1642, the original versions of the second agreement at Szőny in Latin and Hungarian with signatures and seals (the date of the text cannot be correct, it was made either on 19 Zilhicce 1051 / 21 March 1642 or 19 March 1642 / 17 Zilhicce 1051; Latin ratification (?) by Ferdinand III, draft, ÖStA HHStA TUK 8. 25. Vienna, February 1642; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 14–15; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 84–88. This includes only the articles, not the full text, and is abridged; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Nr. XIX (in error (?) it was not the Ibrahim’s name that was written on it, but that Mehmed (IV)) (the original date: 1–10 Receb 1025 / 15 July 1616 (?), on the reverse side of the last page, “1650, Diploma e Ratificazione del G.S. Sultan Mehmet della prorogata pace partate dall’ Ambasc. Hassan Bassa”; in the same location, on a copy written by a Turk, is given the date 1–10 Şaban 1060 / 30 July–8 August 1650 (on the basis of the above, the labeling of the document is incorrect); ÖStA HHStA HS, W 518, Szőny, 19 March 1642, Latin; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 31–34; 35–38 (19 March 1642, 23 March 1642 and 01 July 1642). 102 ÖStA HHStA, Vienna, 26 June 1644 (confirms the 1642 treaty of Szőny); the delegation of Hermann Tschernin took the ratification by Ferdinand III to the Sublime Porte, and the Ottoman ratification should have been made at this time. Tischer Franz, Zweite Gesandtschaftsreise des Grafen Hermann Czernin von Chudenic nach Constantinopel im Jahre 1644 (Neuhaus: A. Landfrass, 1879), 34–35; GOR V. 351–52.

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12 June 1649. Treaty between Ferdinand III and Sultan Mehmed IV, which Johann Rudolf Schmid and the grand vizier, Kara Murat Pasha, established and stamped. This was later ratified.103 1650. Treaty between Ferdinand III and Mehmed IV.104 11 September 1650. (Vienna) Ratification by Ferdinand III of the treaty signed with Mehmed IV. Original Latin version.105 20 September 1650. The Latin translation of the sultan’s ratification.106 19–27 August 1650. Ratification by Mehmed IV sent to Ferdinand III.107 9–10 August 1664. The treaty of Vasvár between Leopold I and Mehmed IV at the Ottoman camp next to Vasvár (according to the Ottoman dating: 9 September 1664). Ratification by Emperor Leopold I, 22 September 1664; the grand vizier ratified it in the name of the sultan at the Ottoman camp next to Érse­ kújvár (Nové Zámky) (22 September–1 October 1664); (a later version ratified by the sultan with a date of 16–25 May 1665 has not been found in Vienna).108 103 ÖStA HHStA TUK 8, Constantinople, 2 Recep 1059 / 12 June 1649, treaty text with the seal of the grand vizier Kara Murat Pasha; ÖStA HHStA TUK 8, 2 Recep 1059 / 12 July 1649 (the Muslim year was written on the copies as 1049 instead of 1059), the internuncius Johann Rudolf Schmid and the grand vizier Kara Murat Pasha established this and stamped it with their seals. The Italian translation of this treaty has survived in two copies here; ÖStA HHStA TUK 8, 1 July 1649, the articles of peace from the treaty, Schmid’s name (Jo. Schmidt) is at the end; ÖStA HHStA TUK 8, 1 July 1649, the version of the treaty prepared as a decorative manuscript book with Schmid’s signature and seal (appearing as Schwarzenhorn in the signature); Göttingen, NN, 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29 59v–61r; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. Fasc. 2. Nr. XX, date is very incorrect: Xti. 1649 sene 1059; ÖStA HHStA HS, W 518. 14r–26v. Constantinople, 01 July 1649, the Latin translation of the Turkish text alongside the ratification by the emperor; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 15–17; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III,” 84–88; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 35–38 (1 July 1649) and no date alongside the ratification by the emperor. 104 Göttingen, NN, 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29, 71, Mehmed IV to Ferdinand III, Constantinople, 1–10 Rebiyülahir 1060 / 3–12 April 1650 (this may only be the version of the treaty that Hasan agha took to Vienna to negotiate); Göttingen, NN, 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29, 76v, Mehmed IV to Ferdinand III, 20 Rebiyülahir 1060 / 22 December 1650; Göttingen, NN, 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29, 74v. –75; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge Karton 2. XIX. 105 ÖStA HHStA TU, 11 September 1650, original Latin with a copy. 106 ÖStA HHStA TU, Constantinople, 20 September 1650, the Latin translation of the original Turkish; ÖStA HHStA TUK, no date, Italian translation of the ratification by the sultan brought and delivered by Elçi Hasan, honorary pasha of Timişoara. 107 ÖStA HHStA TU, Constantinople, 21–29 Şaban 1060 / 19–27 August 1650, original and final ratification by the sultan. Elçi Hasan Pasha delivered it during the course of an audience with the emperor on 20 December 1650; Göttingen, NN, 4 o Cod. MS. Turcica 29. 81–82v, Mehmed IV to Ferdinand III, the final version of the peace treaty, which they sent to Vienna after Hasan agha, 28 Şaban 1060 / 26 August 1650. 108 ÖStA HHStA TUK 10, the treaty of Vasvár, the Italian translation of the first version of the peace treaty. The original text was written in Turkish and Latin, which the commissioners

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1680/1681, Treaty between Leopold I and Mehmed IV.109 26 January 1699. Treaty between Leopold I and Mustafa II. Imperial ratification (Vienna, 16 February 1699); sultan’s ratification (Edirne, 22 February– 3 March 1699).110

Acknowledgements

Ernst Dieter Petritsch, István Fazekas and András Oross assisted me in my archival research, and I thank them for their professional help. The colleagues at the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv followed my research with exceptional interest, and I give special thanks to Katrin Kininger and Gerhard Gonsa for their support.

countersigned; the grand vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha signed the Latin version and Simon Reniger signed the Turkish one. These received dual dates, “16 della Luna Muharrem l’anno 1075 cioé alli 9. ó. 10 Augosto 1664. Nel campo Vasvar.” The Christian date can be converted to 9 August; ÖStA HHStA TUK, 9 September 1664, copy of the Latin version of the ratification by Leopold I; ÖStA HHStA TUK, 1 Rebiyülevvel 1075 / 22 September 1664, ratification by Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, on behalf of the sultan; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 17–19 (two versions, the first is the renewal of the treaty, 16 Muharrem 1074 / 8 August 1664; the second is the version made at Nové Zámky, 1–10 Rebiyülahir 1075 / 22–31 October 1664); “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 89–90; ÖStA HHStA Staatsvertäge Abschriften 3, version of the treaty of Vasvár from three European authors. ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 38–39, 39–43 (the first document does not contain the final articles of peace; the second is the final agreement). 109 ÖStA HHStA TUK, 1680 / 1091 (in Turkish but not written by a Turk), Turkish translation of the ratification by Leopold with the articles of peace. ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 44–46. 1681. It must be pointed out that there is no other known version of this treaty to date. 110 ÖStA HHStA TU, Edirne, 21–29 Şaban 1110 / 21 February–2 March 1699, original Ottoman ratification, 85×237 cm, with German translation and Ottoman copy; BOA, DED, Nr. 57/1. NAD 21–27; “Muʿāhedāt mecmūʿası III.,” 92–102; ÖStA HHStA Orient. HS. 584, 13–22; ÖStA Kriegsarchiv (KA), ZSt (Zentralstellen) HKR (Hofkriegsrat), SR (Sonderreihe) Kanzlei Karton 56. nr. 46 (?) (Latin print); ÖStA HHStA TUK 1699. Jänner 26. Friedenstractat von Karlovitz (1 Turkish copy, 3 Latin copies, 1 Latin Venetian version, 1 Italian version with the 15 articles of the treaty  – also in Turkish, written by a European); Abweichungen des lateinischen vom osm. Vertragstext, verzeichnis durch die kaiserl. Dolmetsche angefertigt; 16 February 1699, Vienna, Ratification of the Karlowitz Peace by Emperor Leopold I. Original Latin, parchment, partly gold ink, 2 copies, 1 excerpt. Copy; ÖStA HHStA Staatsverträge, Abschriften 3; Treaties between Turkey and the Foreign Powers, 47–59 (26 February 1699).

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10 Traces of the Captive Copyist Derviş İbrahim in Sebastian Tengnagel’s (d. 1636) Notebooks Hülya Çelik Sebastian Tengnagel was the second librarian of the Kaiserliche Hofbibliothek at Vienna from 1608 to 1636 and played an important role in the acquisition of “Oriental” manuscripts.1 His private library, which includes at least 179 Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish manuscripts, is part of today’s Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the Austrian National Library.2 The ongoing research project “The Oriental Outpost of the Republic of Letters. Sebastian

1 For Tengnagel as a librarian see Franz Unterkircher, “Hugo Blotius und seine ersten Nachfolger (1575–1663),” in Geschichte der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek I, ed. Josef Stummvoll (Wien: Georg Prachner Verlag, 1968), 129–45; for Derviş İbrahim see Robert John Jones, Learning Arabic in Renaissance Europe (1505–1624), eds. Alastair Hamilton and Jan Loop, The History of Oriental Studies, vol. 6. (Leiden: Brill, 2020), especially 56–66; for Tengnagel’s diverse role within the Republic of Letters see Martin Mulsow, Die unanständige Gelehrtenrepublik: Wissen, Libertinage und Kommunikation in der Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2007), 143–90. On different aspects of Tengnagel’s manifold activities see Thomas Wallnig, “Sebastian Tengnagel und Johann Seyfried – Österreichische Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Späthumanismus und Gegenreformation,” in Les bibliothèques et l’économie des connaissances / Bibliotheken und die Ökonomie des Wissens 1450–1850: Colloque international / Internationale Tagung, 9–13 Avril/ April 2019 Sárospatak, eds. Frédéric Barbier, István Monok, and Andrea Seidler (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtár és Információs Központ, 2020), 161–73; Paola Molino, “The library, the city, the empire,” in Knowledge and the Early Modern City: A History of Entanglements, eds. Bert De Munck, Antonella Romano (London: Routledge, 2019), 223–49; Chiara Petrolini, “Roma, Vienna e l’Oriente. Le lettere di Sebastian Tengnagel e Pietro Della Valle,” in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 100, 1 (2020): 349–73; Hülya Çelik and Chiara Petrolini, “Establishing an ‘Orientalium linguarum Bibliotheca’ in 17th-century Vienna. Sebastian Tengnagel and the trajectories of his manuscripts,” Bibliothecae.it 10 (2021): 175–231 (doi: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2283-9364/13081). 2 Gustav Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der KaiserlichKöniglichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien, 3 vols., (Wien: Druck und Verlag der K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865–1867), vol. 3, IX. Nearly all of Tengnagel’s manuscripts have been catalogued digitally by the Austrian National Library. Additionally, a digital library of Tengnagel’s manuscripts and books from and about the “Orient,” in connection with his correspondence, is being prepared by the project team.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_012

Traces of the Captive Copyist DERVİŞ İBRAHİM

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Tengnagel (d. 1636), the Imperial Library in Vienna, and Knowledge about the Orient,”3 of which Claudia Römer is a co-leader, investigates the life, work and impact of Tengnagel as a librarian, scholar and potential informant of the Habsburg court through his manuscripts, books, correspondence and notebooks.4 The contents of the notebooks in particular are the main source that will shed light on Tengnagel’s scholarly practices. As Claudia Römer has shown,5 Tengnagel had at least one helping hand, namely, “Dervīş İbrāhīm bin Muḥammed Şikārī Şāʿirī al-Abṣalūyī,” who was an Ottoman captive and was imprisoned in the castle of Yanık/Győr (between Budapest and Vienna).6 What becomes clear when studying Tengnagel’s notebooks is that Derviş İbrahim not only served as a copyist but also played an active role in Tengnagel’s process of knowledge acquisition. Derviş İbrahim’s hand appears in a number of notebooks, the so-called “Sammelhandschriften” of Tengnagel.7 As evidenced by the countless leaves written by the enslaved copyist and scattered throughout several notebooks, Derviş İbrahim was no mere copyist but a teacher or language assistant and even an informant, who provided expert knowledge on place names, Arabic, Persian and Turkish vocabulary, historic events and many further “Orient”-related topics. Another interesting aspect of the notebooks is the variety of multilingual and thematic knowledge to which Tengnagel had access via unidentified Ottoman brokers in the widest sense: Armenians and Greeks.8 Furthermore, it is very likely that Tengnagel met people (merchants, traders, Christian scholars) originating from the Ottoman Empire either on his 3 The project was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF P-30511), ran from 2018 to 2021, and was conducted by Hülya Çelik, Paola Molino, Chiara Petrolini and, Claudia Römer. The project lead was Thomas Wallnig. 4 We were unable to give the notebooks our detailed focus until the final year (2020) and we will be investigating these in an upcoming project framework. 5 Claudia Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist Working for Sebastian Tengnagel, Librarian at the Vienna Hofbibliothek, 1608–1636,” Archív orientálni, Supplementa VIII (1998): 330–49. 6 Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 343. The epithets given indicate that Derviş İbrahim was a versatile personality. See subchapter 2, “The Poet.” 7 These notebooks of Sebastian Tengnagel may be defined as “open, multiple-text manuscripts,” which “are manuscripts that were prepared in order to be kept and progressively filled with texts that are not predetermined in detail but certainly are in broad outline.” Cf. Antonella Brita and Janina Karolewski, “Unravelling Multiple-text Manuscripts: Introducing Categories Based on Content, Use, and Production,” in Exploring Written Artefacts: Objects, Methods, and Concepts, 2 vols, ed. Jörg B. Quenzer, Studies in Manuscript Cultures, vol. 25 (eds. Michael Friedrich et al.) (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2021), vol. 1, 459–90, there 475–77. 8 On the mobility of Ottoman Armenians in early modern times see Sebouh Aslanian, “Port Cities and Printers: Reflections on Early Modern Global Armenian Print Culture,” Book History 17 (2014): 51–93 (https://history.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/17.aslanian-libre.pdf) (accessed on 30 October 2022).

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journey to Italy or on other journeys in Europe, and that the mediating languages with these acquaintances were Armenian or Greek. The aim of this contribution is twofold. First, I will present two of Sebastian Tengnagel’s numerous notebooks and elaborate on their contents in relation to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge on the Ottoman world from the end of the 16th to the start of the 17th centuries. Second, I will try to continue from where Claudia Römer left off when she presented Derviş İbrahim’s letter to Tengnagel, revealing the circumstances in which the former had been forced to copy the requested manuscripts.9 Tengnagel’s correspondence contains his occasional complaints about Derviş İbrahim’s skills as a copyist, but, at the same time, he describes him as a poet and a painter. Two of Tengnagel’s notebooks contain a poem evidently composed by Derviş İbrahim and their subject matter give us hints of his authorship. These two poems, presented here in facsimile, together with a transcription and translation, not only give a glimpse into the literary taste and poetic ability of an Ottoman subject in European captivity, but also demonstrate how the study of a librarian’s notebooks can enhance our knowledge of cultural exchange in early modern times. In order to provide the context of the poems, I will start by summarizing the contents of the two notebooks, with a particular focus on Derviş İbrahim and Sebastian Tengnagel’s writings in these sources. Next, I will speculate on Derviş İbrahim’s social background; and in the final section of my contribution, I will discuss two poems authored by the captive scribe somewhere near Vienna at some point during the last years of the 16th century and the first two decades of the 17th century. 1

The Notebooks

Description and contents of the first notebook (Cod. 15161): Tengnagel labeled Cod. 15161 on fol. 1r in the following way: “Miscellany in Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew, that I started to write – as a beginner (lit. “lacking experience”)  – when I had just started studying those languages.”10 The catalogue entry describing these “Miscellanea” in the Tabulae codicum goes no 9

In “An Ottoman Copyist,” Claudia Römer transcribed and translated Derviş İbrahim’s letter to Sebastian Tengnagel, now preserved in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Cod. A. F. 32, fol. 36. The letter was received by Tengnagel May 20, 1610. A facsimile is reproduced on p. 350 of Claudia Römer’s article. 10 “Miscellanea in Turcicis et Arabicis, et Hebr. a me cum his linguis operam dare incipiebam rudi Minerva notata”.

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further than the information “[Suppl. 702.] ch. XVII. 100. f. Sebastianus Tengnagel, Miscellanea Arabica, turcica et hebraica.”11 The manuscript is of mixed linguistic content and consists of 100 folios. The content of this notebook is of great interest to scholars of the history of knowledge, as well as the history of cultural contacts between the Ottoman and the European world. Here, I will only highlight certain parts of the notebook that are related to Tengnagel’s quest for Islamic knowledge and his interactions with his scribe.12 On fol. 11r to 15r, for example, there is information about the prophet Muḥammad and the period after his death. While it is in Latin, it is obviously from a Hebrew source (“These Mohammedan Caliphs were recorded by me from the Jewish Zacuto”).13 On fol. 17r (cf. Appendix 10.1.), we find Tengnagel’s poor Arabic handwriting and his translations of Turkish words and phrases into Latin (and occasionally into German), such as “warm” / ıssı14 (�‫)ِا ��سي‬, ‘warm’; ‫ن‬ �), for ḳanda idiñ, ‘Where have you “ub fuisti” / ḥanda-idin or ḥandaydın (� ‫ح ن���د ی��د‬ been?’; “in foro” / pāżārdaydım/pāżārda-yidim ( ‫� �ا رد ای��د‬ ‫‘ )پ�ا �ض‬I have been at the ‫م‬ ‫َ آ ن‬ bazaar’; ne aldın (� ‫‘ ) ن��ه � �ل�د‬What did you get?’, which remains untranslated; “Pruna emi.” / eriḳ‫ ق‬aldım ( ‫‘ ;)ا ر�یق� ا �ل�د‬I have bought prunes.’ “Quanti emisti” / ‫��ه ا �ل�د � ن‬ � ) ‘Howe‫ م‬much did you pay for them?’; “Decem asperis.” / On ḳaça aldın‫ی�( ق‬ ‫چ‬ � ‫‘ )ا ن� ا‬Ten aḳceye (‫�ی���ه‬ aspers’, etc. The conversation list eventually ends with ‫و ج‬ the following interesting questions: “Quid auduisti de Turcis” / Ne işidiyorsın İslāmdan ‘What do you hear about the Turks/Islam?’; “Turch ist ser starch” / İslām peḳ ḳuvvetlidür ‘The Turk/Islam is very strong’; “Ich hab gehort, sii werden tzamen schlagen.” / İşidiyorum bir birisiyle dögüşüler15 ‘I heard that they beat each other.’ The same hand occurs in several passages of the second notebook, Cod. 15165.16

11 Tabulae codicum manu scriptorium praeter graecos et orientales in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi asservatorum; ed. Academia Caesarea Vindobonensis (Wien: Gerold, 1864– 1899), vol. 8: Cod. 14001–Cod. 15500, 134, and http://bilder.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de /hs//katalogseiten/HSK0751h_b0134_jpg.htm (accessed on 30 October 2022). 12 We note that not all the folios contain writing: at least 20 folios, mostly the versos of the folios, are blank. 13 “Hi Chaliphae Muhammedani ante 30 annos a me e Zachuto Hebraeo enotati sunt”. This might be Abraham Zacuto’s Sefer ha-Yuḥasin (“The Book of Lineage”) which is a chronological history of the Jews from the Creation to 1500; cf. Abraham bin Samuel Zacuto, Samuel Shulem (ed.), Sefer ha-Yuḥasin (Constantinople, 1566). I am thankful to Nil Palabıyık for this information. 14 The Latin transcriptions of Turkish in Arabic script are my own. 15 One would expect dögüşürler. However, the writer may simply have forgotten to write the letter rāʾ, or the writing may indicate a regional accent or dialect. 16 For example, fol. 27v.

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After further excerpts in Latin accompanied by Hebrew notes comes one of the two poems of Derviş İbrahim (fol. 26r), to which we will return. Then there is a single inserted page from a Hebrew-Latin printed copy of the Ten Commandments and followed by the “Lord’s Prayer in Arabic (Pater noster Arabice),” in large, legible characters in Latin on the left-hand side and in Arabic language in Latin script on the right-hand side. What follows are several markers showing the material with which Tengnagel acquired his knowledge of several languages: various writing styles in Arabic (including the Syriac alphabet); on fol. 32v is Tengnagel’s handwriting giving the title of the page as “Some Arabic and Hebrew pieces that I collected from an African Jew who used to teach me Arabic in 1601.”17 Fol. 33r even contains material relating to linguistic concerns: in his word list Tengnagel writes the Turkish words he hears in Latin script and gives the translation sometimes in German but mostly in Latin. This list of 97 words may also have been copied out of a dictionary,18 as its thematic order is not dissimilar to that of the known (partly printed) dictionaries of the time.19 It gives words such as “Aga / Dominus” (“lord”), “Caddon / Domina” (“woman, lady”), “Schelebi / Nobilis” (“gentleman”), food names like “Ekmech / panis” (“bread”) or “Pengir / caseus” (“cheese”), or words regarding writing such as “Callem / penna” (“pencil”), “Diwid / atramentarium” (“inkstand”). The Latin spelling (or transcription) of some of the Turkish words suggests that Tengnagel’s source may have not been a native speaker of Ottoman Turkish, as in, for example, “Ientz / Puer / bub” (“youth/boy”), “Ioth / podex” (“buttocks”), “South / Lac” (“milk”), “Tzanum / anima” (“my fried”), “Tenun / corpus” (“your body/body”), “zadsch / pilus” (“hair”), or “Bas / caput” (“head”). Another list of Turkish words and sentences is on fol. 36v. This sheet is an insert, as the paper is different and in a smaller format from the rest of the notebook.20 The title of the list is given and written by Tengnagel on fol. 37r as “Some Turkish words, slightly altered (or: corrupted), written down long ago by 17 “Arabica et Hebraea quaedam a Iudaeo Africano accepta, qui me anno 1601 in Arabicis instruebat.” 18 A similar Arabic-Turkish dictionary but without any Latin annotations is to be found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Marsh 42, and was used by Justus Raphelengius and later by Jacobus Golius (fol. 93–113), cf. Nil Palabıyık, “Justus Raphelengius (1573–1628) and Turkish Folk Tales,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 139,2 (2019): 333–59, here 342. 19 For another dictionary never printed but circulating in manuscript copies see, for example, Filippo Argenti’s Regola del parlare turcho from 1533; cf. Milan Adamović, Das Türkische des 16. Jahrhunderts nach den Aufzeichnungen des Florentiners Filippo Argenti (1533) (Göttingen: Pontus-Verlag, 2001). 20 Folios 36, 37 and 38 are obviously crinkled and were either part of an earlier notebook/ scrapbook, or separate leaves.

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me.”21 It contains more German translations than Latin ones but, as with the previously mentioned list, the Turkish is written in Latin script and includes sentences such as “Basara giederum / eo in forum” (“I am going to the bazaar”), “Ne allersun / was kaufts” (“What are you buying?”), “Ben atgim echmech gierum / ich bin hungerig, wol gern broot” (“I am hungry, I eat bread”) and the place name “Stani Beligrad / Weißenburg.” Fol. 38r is a continuation of translated sentences and words such as “Alla birigiat wersan / Got danck euch” (“Thank you! May God give you blessed increase”), “Alla bin birigiat wersan / Got danck euch tausentmal” (“May God give you the greatest blessings”), “Acscamma / nacht” (“night”), and “Karaluck / abendt” (“evening”).22 Fol. 40r has the same handwriting as that of fol. 17r of this notebook,23 which also occurs in other notebooks. It gives the three words saḥt (“hard, strong; harsh”), oġlan (“boy; youth”) and ḥalāyiḳ (for ḫalāyiḳ; “creatures; female slaves, female servants”) and Tengnagel has added the Latin spellings or transcriptions and German translations. The same folio continues with the names of Arabic months in Latin script and further words with German or Latin translations. Fol. 41r again shows traces of Derviş İbrahim writing Persian words such as āfitāb-perest (“sun-worshipper”), āteş-perest (“fire-worshipper; Zoroastrian”), perestegān (“worshippers”), māhtāb-perest (“moon-worshipper”), büt-perest (“idolater”). In addition, similar short entries by him appear on folios 44r and 45v. Fol. 49 contains a further list entitled “Persian words that I learned in the year 1605 from a certain Armenian priest who had travelled almost all over the East.”24 This is also a list that needs detailed linguistic and content-oriented investigation. It is a linguistic mix and shows the vocabulary of a Mediterranean Ottoman more than a dominantly “Persian” one. What follows is Yūsuf ibn Abū Daqn aka Joseph Barbatus’ grammar of Arabic in manuscript form.25 The grammar is written twice, once partly, on folios 53v to 100v. According to 21 “Vocabula quaedam Turcica, sed nonnihil corrupta, a me olim notata.” 22 Ottoman-Turkish ḳarañlıḳ – which is intended to go with “karaluck”  – actually means “darkness.” 23 The hand again occurs for the last time on fol. 48r writing Bizim babamuz Allāh gökyüzinde (“Our Father, who art in heaven”), together with Tengnagel’s note “Pater noster qui es in coelis.” To the right of this handwriting, we see writing samples trying to emulate Arabic script, so we can assume that Tengnagel also used these notebooks to practise writing with Arabic letters. 24 “Vocabula Persica quae accepi a quodam Presbytero Armeno, ao. 1605, qui totum fere Orientem lustraverat”. 25 As Jones underlines, Barbatus was the Egyptian teacher of Thomas Erpenius. Cf. Jones, Learning Arabic, 25 and 167 and Alastair Hamilton, “An Egyptian traveler in the Republic of Letters: Joseph Barbatus or Abudacnus the Copt,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 57 (1994): 123–50.

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Robert Jones, the complete version (fol. 85v–53v) is an autograph.26 This part of the notebook is titled by Tengnagel, on fol. 101v, as “Iosephi Barbati Grammatica Arabica.” Description and contents of the second notebook (Cod. 15165): The catalogue entry for this manuscript in the Tabulae codicum is slightly more detailed: “Miscellaneous collection of Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Armenian words with a Latin translation; moreover, an Arabic calendar of the saints transcribed from a codex of the Palatine Library.”27 Although this notebook contains 20 fewer folios than the first notebook, it is a much more complex manuscript from a thematic perspective. It contains multilingual vocabulary lists consisting of Armenian both in Armenian and Latin script, with Latin translations; lists with Turkish and Latin words (fol. 5v); and a list with Latin, Arabic, Turkish and Persian words (from right to left, fol. 6r–12r; cf. Appendix 10.2.); the lists continue throughout the notebook.28 Derviş İbrahim’s poem is preceded by a similar word list written by himself on fol. 13r–14v and followed by individual Arabic and Persian verses from known poems, with interlinear Turkish translations (fol. 15r–19r)29 that were either made by İbrahim or copied from an existing manuscript (for example from a commentary, şerh). The quadrilingual word list continues (fol. 19v–22v) and is followed by further lists that can be considered as small “transcription texts,”30 as they consist of words either in Turkish or another “Oriental” language, in Latin script, and Latin translations, as with the first notebook described above. The quadrilingual word list with Persian, Turkish, Arabic and Latin occurs again on fol. 33v–40r and is followed by a word list of a different structure from fol. 40v to 42v: each page is ordered in four columns either as “ʿarabī / türkī / ʿarabī / türkī” or as “farsī / türkī / fārsī / türkī.” From here to the end of the notebook – fol. 43r–80v, including some blank pages – there is a considerable 26 Jones, Learning Arabic, 168. 27 “Sylloge miscellanea vocabulorum arabicorum, persicorum, turcicorum et armeniorum cum interpretation Latina; item calendarium Sanctorum arabicum e cod. Pal. Descriptum,” cf. Tabulae codicum, vol. 8, 134 and http://bilder.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs//katalog seiten/HSK0751h_b0134_jpg.htm (accessed 30 October 2022). 28 This must be another quadrilingual word list in preparation for the publication of a dictionary. 29 Fol. 15r–17r, for example, contain Persian couplets from the introductory part of Saʿdī Shīrāzī’s Gulistān with interlinear Turkish translations above the couplets, the latter very probably being ad hoc translations of Derviş İbrahim. 30 For the importance of transcription texts in the study of spoken Ottoman see, for example, Éva Á. Csató, Astrid Menz, Fikret Turan, eds., Spoken Ottoman in Mediator Texts (Turcologica 106, ed. Lars Johanson) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016).

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mix of note-taking by Tengnagel and writings in other hands ranging from a calendar (fol. 74r–77v) copied by Tengnagel himself and titled by him “Kalendarium Sanctorum ex MSo. Palatino a me descriptum,” with his addendum “Reliqui menses desunt in autographo Palatino, unde haec exscripsi,”31 to the Alifba,32 the Abjad arrangement of the Arabic letters, or Arabic prayers like the Subḥānaka, the Basmala or the Koranic chapter al-Fātiḥa (fol. 54v–58v). This notebook demonstrates different levels of Tengnagel’s knowledge, as his notes go beyond mere word lists and reflect geographical and historiographic textual excerpts33 or references. Furthermore, the order and arrangement of the vocabulary lists show some degree of discipline in writing34 – in the Arabic script written mainly by Derviş İbrahim, as well as in the Latin written by Tengnagel. The latter’s interest in Islamic religious contexts is also reflected in this notebook. On fol. 47v, for example, Tengnagel writes the words of the seventh ayah of the second Koranic chapter al-Baqara (“The Cow”) as a list, without connecting the Arabic letters with each other and adding the Latin meanings of the words. A comparison of these two notebooks shows that we “witness” a similar set of people materialized through their scriptural “textual witnesses”: Sebastian Tengnagel, Derviş İbrahim; bilinguals or semi-bilinguals such as Armenian and Greek Ottomans and “informants”; agents or intermediaries; another Turkish in Arabic script but not as erudite or as literate in Ottoman Turkish as Derviş İbrahim; and very probably others.

31 32

The months of June, July and August are missing. Not only the Arabic alphabet itself, but also some pages of the first units combining the Arabic letters with each other. 33 That Tengnagel translated passages or chapters from Turkish (semi-)historiographic manuscripts into Latin in his notebooks can also be seen as preparatory work for a dictionary. For example, André Du Ryer also used similar excerpts in his Rudimenta grammatices linguae turcicae, published in 1630 in Paris, as on pages 94–96, with the endnote “Decerptum ex Regum Persarum Annalibus, quas Author nuper ex Orientalibus plagis asportavit.” Cf. Alastair Hamilton, “André Du Ryer,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, vol. 9: Western and Southern Europe (1600–1700), eds. David Thomas and John Chesworth (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 453–65. 34 E. Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism, (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021). See especially Chapter 5, “Disciplining Language” on Du Ryer and other Orientalists’ Turkish studies and lexicographical works. Another interesting work similar to Tengnagel’s projects is Giovanni Molino’s Turkish grammar. See Milan Adamović, “Giovanni Molino und seine türkische Grammatik,” Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae 24 (1–4) (1974): 37–67; and on his dictionary see Elżbieta Święcicka, ed., Dictionary of Italian-Turkish Language (1641) by Giovanni Molino (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2020).

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What also needs to be underlined is the possibility that these notebooks (and a handful of others)35 contain not only ephemeral notes of a layman learning Oriental languages, but visualized projects (at least in part) intended for publication.36 That Tengnagel had explicit publication projects, such as a polyglot dictionary or the history of Islamic dynasties, is also clear from his correspondences with scholars such as Thomas Erpenius, Jacob Christmann, or Jacques-Auguste de Thou. A potential benefit of Tengnagel’s notebooks, in combination with Tengnagel’s annotations in his Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts, is the fact that they allow one to trace the development of Tengnagel’s transcription techniques.37 2

The Poet

Among the Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in Sebastian Tengnagel’s private Oriental library are at least five that must have been copied by the captive scribe Derviş İbrahim.38 By the end of the 19th century, these five manuscripts had even confused Gustav Flügel, leading him to make unverifiable

35 The notebooks (some of which are actually catalogues) under detailed investigation within the project are the codices 8997 (http://data.onb.ac.at/dtl/7637104), 9690, 10364 (http://data.onb.ac.at/dtl/2990423), 12650 (catalogue, http://data.onb.ac.at/dtl/7382915), 13429, 13928 (catalogue), 15160, 15161, 15162 (http://data.onb.ac.at/dtl/7349019), 15164, and 15165 (all accessed on 30 October 2022). 36 Tengnagel’s lexicographical work demonstrates that he was also interested in Persian and Ottoman-Turkish poetry. On Tengnagel and a Gulistān manuscript previously owned by Tengnagel, now preserved in the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, ms. Pers. 4., see Paul Babinski, “Ottoman Philology and the Origins of Persian Studies in Western Europe: The Gulistān’s Orientalist Readers,” Lias 46/2, Special Issue: Empires of Knowledge (2019): 233–315, there 241–44. The digitized catalogue entry of 1894 is accessible at http://bilder.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs//katalogseiten/HSK0719_b395_jpg.htm) (accessed on 30 October 2022). 37 Tengnagel’s visualized projects, as well as his transcription systems and techniques regarding Arabic, Persian and Turkish, occupies a subchapter of the forthcoming project book. 38 A. F. 5 (Taqwīm al-Buldān), A. F. 12 (Tārīḫ-i Cennābī, from which Sebastian Tengnagel translated the life of Timurleng into Latin in his notebook Cod. 8997, fol. 55r–62v), A. F. 26 (Luġat-i Emīr Ḥüseyin el-Āyāsī, which is the famous dictionary of Niʿmetullāh, d. 1561–2), A. F. 31 (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī), and A. F. 53 (Tārīḫ of al-Makīn). Only Cod. A. F. 26 is digitized and available here: http://data.onb.ac.at/dtl/8148799 (accessed on 30 October 2022). Cf. also Çelik and Petrolini, “Establishing an ‘Orientalium linguarum Bibliotheca’,” 202 and 204–6.

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assumptions about their creator,39 Derviş İbrahim. Therefore, these manuscripts will be an important part of the study of Sebastian Tengnagel’s scholarly and library-oriented endeavors – he commissioned the copying processes and corrected the scribe’s errors – and will be illustrated in detail in the project team’s forthcoming book. Nevertheless, what must be underlined here is the copied manuscripts’ thematic (lexicography, history, religion and geography) and linguistic (Arabic, Persian and Turkish) diversity, which points to the captive’s abilities as a scribe as well as to his educational and social background. The fact that Derviş İbrahim was criticized by Sebastian Tengnagel for his inferior copying skills of Arabic (language) does not make the “Turkish” captive “ignorant”; at the same time, Tengnagel’s criticism implies an expectation that he would possibly have retracted some decades later. Tengnagel’s scholarly work with Turkish sources during his service as an imperial librarian suggests that he was well aware of the complexity of contemporary Ottoman language.40 It is also very probable that Tengnagel only gradually came to understand Derviş İbrahim’s educational and social background and its potential for the copying of Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts. The only full “signature” with a nisba (adjective marker of origin) of Derviş İbrahim is to be found in the colophon of Cod. A. F. 5, which is a copy of the famous Taqwīm al-Buldān of Abū l-Fidā (d. 1331),41 finished in 1610. According to this colophon, the captive scribe is “Dervīş İbrāhīm bin Muḥammed eş-şehīr bi-Şikārī // el-mulaḳḳab bi-Şāʿirī el-İbṣālūyī // ġulām-ı Ḥayder Muḥibb 39

For example, in the case of the dictionary, Cod. A. F. 26, Flügel determines the copyist as an unknown dragoman, although it is Derviş İbrahim’s hand, cf. Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften, vol. 1, 146f. As the copy of this manuscript was very likely made during İbrahim’s one-month-stay in Vienna in 1614, his handwriting may seem different (more accomplished) from his writings in the other manuscripts. In the case of two other manuscripts (A. F. 53 and A. F. 12) copied by Derviş İbrahim, Flügel surmised them to have been copied by a European hand, cf. Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften, vol. 2, 85–7 and 113. Following Flügel, Rothman suggests that “Cenābī’s manuscript, in other words, was likely procured for Tengnagel shortly after it had been created, and was possibly copied especially for him.” See Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 214. 40 On the different language registers of Ottoman Turkish and the importance and role of Arabic and Persian for the standard language see, for example, Christine Woodhead, “Ottoman Languages,” in Christine Woodhead, ed., The Ottoman World (London: Routledge, 2012), 143–58. 41 Cod. A. F. 5 is a copy of a Heidelberg codex, cf. Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 334 and Jones, Learning Arabic, 57–60.

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Ḳunabī.”42 Claudia Römer read the nisba as “al-Abṣalūyī” and, pointing to a suggestion made by Paul Wittek and Friedrich Kraelitz-Greifenhorst,43 noted that she was unable to find a place name in the Crimea that corresponded with this nisba. She also noted that Tuncer Baykara suggested reading it as “al-Ibṣalūyī.”44 Following Baykara, I also propose to interpret İbrahim’s nisba as “al-İbṣālūyī” and to connect him rather with today’s Turkish border city İpsala, thus transferring him from Crimea to Thrace. İbrahim nearly always presents himself as “Dervīş İbrāhīm,”45 suggesting a Sufi order background.46 In (Ottoman-)Turkish, the byname (laḳab) derviş has the meaning of “an initiated member of a ṣūfī order.”47 Described by Tengnagel as a poet and painter, Derviş İbrahim was also labeled as a “Persian” and a “Turk.”48 This confusion or ascription to two different origins49 is understandable and may relate to the captive’s good abilities in Persian. This itself has its root in his being most probably a Sufi dervish (poet) and, therefore, with a knowledge of Persian and Ottoman-Turkish poetry. 42 Cod. A. F. 5, fol. 117v. Römer adds that Derviş İbrahim “originally was a slave (ġulām) of a certain Ḥayder Muḥibb Qannabī,” although one could also suggest reading Ḳunabī or Ḳanabī instead of Ḳannabī, as the teşdīd most likely belongs to the word Muḥibb. Cf. Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 334. 43 Friedrich Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, Paul Wittek, “Einleitung der Herausgeber,” in Mitteilungen zur Osmanischen Geschichte I (1921–22): 1–12, here 2–3, noting that İbrahim is from Crimea and that he wrote his letter in 1630. The letter was probably written in 1610 (see footnote 9 and 48) and there is no evidence of İbrahim originating from there. Nevertheless, the idea that Derviş İbrahim might have come from the Crimea may be rooted in the fact that Ğazi II Giray’s (r. 1588–1596 and 1597–1607) soldiers were active in the military conflicts in the Long Turkish War. 44 Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 334. 45 However, he signs his letter to Tengnagel as “el-faqīr // İbrāhīm // Dervīş // giriftār,” “The poor İbrahim Derviş, prisoner”; cf. Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 346 and 348. 46 Of course, he could have been a dervish of another order. For an inner-Ottoman comparison, see Michael Winter, “Egyptian and Syrian Sufis Viewing Ottoman Turkish Sufism: Similarities, Differences, and Interactions,” in The Ottoman Middle East. Studies in Honour of Amnon Cohen, eds. Eyal Ginio, Elie Podeh (Brill: Leiden, Boston, 2014), 93–111. 47 Gustav Bayerle, Pashas, Begs, and Effendis. A Historical Dictionary of Titles and Terms in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1997), 36. 48 For example, on the back of Derviş İbrahim’s letter to Tengnagel, Tengnagel writes: “Litterae Abrahami sive Ibrahim Persae Dervisi sive Monachi apud Turcas Iaurino ad me datae Ao M.D.C.X. XX.o Maii”; cf. Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 343 and 347. 49 Jones, Learning Arabic, 58 quoting a letter from Tengnagel to Jacob Christmann (1554– 1613), professor in Heidelberg (preserved in ÖNB, Cod. 9737r, fol. 187): that Tengnagel founds it hard to believe, that Derviş İbrahim claims to be a Persian, suggests that İbrahim tried to hide his real origin or even identity.

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As Derviş İbrahim was described by Tengnagel as a “poet,” and İbrahim called himself “Şāʿirī” (“poet”) and “Şikārī” (“pertaining to chase”, “hunter”) – the first probably and the latter obviously a pen name50 – examining the biographies of poets (tezkire-i şuʿara) written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries may provide useful information about the captive scribe. In Aşık Çelebi’s (d. 1572) tezkire titled Meşāʿirü ş-Şuʿarā51 we come across one “Şikārī,” whom the author describes as being from İpsala and professionally a qadi (judge).52 Although the place would correspond very much to the nisba in the colophon of A. F. 5 (Taqwīm al-Buldān), it is highly questionable whether a person working as a judge at the time when Aşık Çelebi wrote his tezkire – which he finished in 1568 – could be identified as a captive scribe active between 1608 and 1614. That Derviş İbrahim was active in this time span we already know on account of his copying services for Sebastian Tengnagel. Although it is not impossible for a judge to have had the byname derviş, we may assume that a member of this profession would have had a higher level of knowledge of written Arabic than that of İbrahim. As Claudia Römer and Robert Jones have already pointed out, Tengnagel was so dissatisfied with Derviş İbrahim’s copying of manuscripts in the Arabic language that he informed his peers of this in numerous letters and even noted it in the manuscripts themselves.53 However, we know that his (Turkish) services were needed; and possibly his comprehension skills of Arabic were at such a level that he was able to translate the Koran into Turkish.54

50 Şikārī may also be a hint to a position related to the şikar ağaları (“the aghas of the hunt”) within the Ottoman state apparatus. Cf. Mehmed Zeki Pakalın, “Şikâr Ağaları,” in Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1983), vol. 3, 355–56. 51 Cf. V.L. Ménage, “ʿĀshıḳ Čelebi,” in EI2, (doi: 10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0786). For Aşık Çelebi’s tezkire see Hatice Aynur, Aslı Niyazioğlu, eds., Aşık Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkiresi Üzerine Yazılar (Istanbul: Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2011). 52 Filiz Kılıç, Aşık Çelebi, Meşâirü’ş-Şuarâ, 3 vols., (Istanbul: İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Yayınları, 2010), vol. 3, 1426f. 53 Römer, for example, points to Tengnagel’s note on Cod. A. F. 5, fol. 117r “finis libri. Desunt sex vel 7 lineae, quas scriba meus omisit, ubi Auctor huic operi extremam imposuisse manum prodit. […],” Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 334. Römer also suggests that “Tengnagel simply seems to have forgotten to turn the page, because on fol. 117v we find the complete colophon […].” An alternative suggestion could be that Tengnagel allowed Derviş İbrahim to write these lines on another occasion and after Tengnagel made his note. 54 ÖNB, Cod. A. F. 6, a complete Koran with interlinear Turkish translations very probably made by Derviş İbrahim. The colophon gives 15 December 1555 as the date of the copy, Gran/Usturġon as the place of the copy, and a certain “ʿĪsā bin Şāhīn” as the copyist. As we know that İbrahim used (or was forced) to copy the colophons of copied manuscripts, the

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One fact that makes it more difficult to determine Derviş İbrahim’s identity with the help of the tezkires is that, in the two poems presented here, he used two different pen names: in the first poem the pen name “Şākirī” – which is obviously not Şikārī – and in the second “İş eri” (“capable man”). The use of different pen names by the same poet was not uncommon.55 The pen name İş َ ‫ش‬ �� eri, if it is indeed İş eri, is written in two words: “‫اِ � ا ر �ی‬.”56 Also, in other bibliographic dictionaries such as the much later Sicill-i Osmanî, composed by Mehmed Süreyya, the name “Şikārī Çelebi” is found in combination with the place İpsala. However, here he is described as a judge and a poet of the time of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617).57 Nor, in this case, can we be sure if the entry really refers to Derviş İbrahim.58 Although we only have evidence of İbrahim’s services as a copyist from 1608 onward, he must have been captured when Györ was reconquered by the Habsburgs in 1598.59 To what is already known about Derviş İbrahim (or İbrahim Derviş) we only can add for now that it is very probable that: (I) İbrahim came from İpsala; (II) he was well educated in (Ottoman-)Turkish and Persian; (III) he is very likely to have had a medrese education; and (IV) he was either a member of a Sufi order in İpsala or somewhere else close to the Habsburg borders before 1598.

authorship (of the Koranic text) of İbrahim needs to be verified. Cf. Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften, vol. 3, 39. 55 Orhan Kurtoğlu, “Divan Şiirinde Mahlas Değiştiren ve Birden Fazla Mahlas Kullanan Şairler,” bilig 38 (2006): 71–91. See also Harun Tolasa, Sehî, Lâtîfi ve Âşık Çelebi Tezkirelerine Göre 16. Yüzyılda Edebiyat Araştırması ve Eleştirisi (Ankara: Akçağ Yayınları, 2002) (1st edition Izmir: Ege Üniversitesi Matbaası, 1983); here, see especially 232–38. 56 Tarama Sözlüğü. XIII. Yüzyıldan Beri Türkiye Türkçesiyle Yazılmış Kitaplardan Toplanan Tanıklariyle, 8 vols. 3rd edition (Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu Yayınları, 2009) vol. 3, 2112f.: “iş eri: İş adamı, iş ehli, elinden iş gelir, iş başaran.” Although the use of such a pen name is not common, I have preferred to choose the reading “İş eri.” This might also be read as İşārī (“conveyed by a signal, indicated”) by disregarding the writing as two words. Or by disregarding the kesre it can be read as “Aş eri” (“man of the dervish kitchen”), both of which are less likely alternatives in my view. 57 Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmanî (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996) (ed. Nuri Akbayar), vol. V, 1601. 58 In other tezkires of the time, namely those of Kınalızade Hasan Çelebi (d. 1604), Beyani (d. 1597) and Mustafa Ali (d. 1600), the pen name “Şikārī” is not mentioned at all. 59 Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist,” 334, footnote 20: “It was probably during one of the campaigns of the Long War that İbrāhīm fell into the hands of the Imperial troops.”

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283

The Poems

The first poem (cf. Appendix 10.3.) consists of five couplets, as was customary at the time,60 and is written in the meter Fāʿilātün – fāʿilātün – fāʿilātün – fāʿilün (remel). The love poem (gazel) has a lyrical tone: the lover on the one hand is longing for his beloved, and on the other hand he is asking for a remedy to cure his illness which, of course, is his love for the beloved. İbrahim – either because of his probable mystic background or simply due to his relatively good poetical skills – uses metaphors and poetical imagery that can also be read with a mystical interpretation. The penultimate couplet, in particular, is very melodic due to its parallel structure: the two hemistichs begin with Ey and Vey, followed by an iżāfet construction with three elements and ending with the Turkish genitive suffixes. Finally, both hemistichs end with an iżāfet construction of two elements. In the fourth couplet, Derviş İbrahim compares the intoxicated eyes of his beloved with the narcissus, commonly used in Persian and Ottoman poetry to represent the beloved’s eye due to its shape.61 In the next couplet, he introduces “the cup of Cem (cām-ı Cem),” with a play on words. The image of Cem or Cemşīd (Jamshid), a hero in Iranian mythology, is often evoked in Ottoman Divan poetry in combination with his legendary cup.62 İbrahim’s languishing 60 This is the most popular length for lyric (love) poems as far as the classical times of Ottoman courtly poetry production is concerned – the second half of the 15th and the 16th centuries; cf. Edith Gülçin Ambros, “Osmanlı Gazelinin Uzunluğunda Görülen Gelişmeler: 16. Yüzyılda Durum,” in Life, Love and Laughter: In Search of the Ottomans’ Lost Poetic Language. A Collective Volume in Memory of Arne A. Ambros, ed. Edith Gülçin Ambros (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2015), 55–61 (originally published in Archivum Ottomanicum 18 (2000): 91–97). 61 Cf., for example, Riccardo Zipoli, “Chapter 7: Poetic Imagery,” in A History of Persian Literature I: General Introduction to Persian Literature, ed. J.T.P. de Bruijn (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 172–232, there 191: “Shaped like an open eye, it is commonly used to represent the eyes of the beloved which are often conceived as being languid, intoxicated (mast), or ailing (bimâr), to convey their artful and coquettish beauty and attractiveness.” 62 Cf. Cl. Huart and H. Massé, “D̲ j̲ams̲h̲īd,” Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. (doi: 10.1163/ 1573-3912_islam_SIM_1978), İskender Pala, Ansiklopedik Divân Şiiri Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2012) (22nd edition), 356 and Zipoli “Poetic Imagery,” 208: “The cup, however, forms a kind of fixed pair with Jamshid (highlighted by the wordplay: jâm-e Jam ‘the cup of Jamshid’) who, according to tradition, discovered wine. This strictly Persian myth is combined with a more specifically Muslim tradition: in the Qur’an cups are offered to the blessed in Paradise (Suras LII: 23–24, and LVI: 17–18).” See also Zipoli “Poetic Imagery,” 231: “[…] he was the first to drink wine (later traditions claim he discovered wine) […]. In poetry he is mainly connected with the motif of the cup (see Jâm) that revealed the secrets of the world.”

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in a prison cell influenced his art. Notable is his use of various synonyms for the word “captive” or “slave,” such as bende, ġulām and esīr, and a word close to “captivity,” namely dām, which means “trap,” offering us a window into his low moods and suffering. Pāye buldum ḥasretüñden ey civān-i ġonçe-fem Eşk-i gül-gūnum āḫir laʿlüñ ġamıyla dem-be-dem Gerçi āzādam cihānuñ yoḳ diyārından velī Bende-i sulṭān-ı ʿışḳam gerdenümde ṭavḳ-ı ġam Derd-i ʿışḳuñ-çün devā ṣordum eṭibbādan şehā Didiler yoḳ şerbet-i laʿl-i lebüñden ġayrı em Ey ġulām-ı lehce-i ḫāṣṣuñ faṣīḥān-ı ʿArab Vey esīr-i nergis-i mestüñ ẓarīfān-ı ʿAcem Murġ-ı dil dām-ı belādan Şākirī bulmaz ḫalāṣ İçmedin tā bir gözi bādām elinden cām-ı Cem The longing for you, o rosebud mouthed young man, gave me dignity, Finally, with the grief caused by your ruby lips, I am shedding rosy tears from time to time! Though I am free63 of the world’s non-existent country, I am the slave of the sultan of love [and] bear the chain of grief around my neck. O king, I asked the physicians for a remedy64 for the illness caused by love for you, They told me that there is no other medicine than the sorbet of your ruby mouth! O you, the eloquent men of Arabia, the slaves of pure speech!

63

Note the use of the rhetoric element antithesis (teżādd) with the words āzād (“free”) and bende (“slave”). For teżādd in Ottoman Divan poetry, cf. also M.A. Yekta Saraç, Klâsik Edebiyat Bilgisi: Belâgat. 7th edition (Istanbul: Gökkubbe, 2010), 163–72. 64 Again, we see here the use of antithesis with the words derd (“illness”) and devā (“remedy”).

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O you, the witty men of Persia, the prisoners of the intoxicated narcissus eyes! The bird of a heart cannot be free of the trap of misfortune, Şākirī,65 Before it has drunk the cup of Cem from the hand of one with almond-eyes!66 The second poem (cf. Appendix 10.4.) is in the meter Fāʿilātün/feʿilātün  – feʿilātün – feʿilātün – faʿlün/feʿilün (remel) and consists of five verses. The poem is written in a very legible nesih script. Structured in the form of a gazel or a nazm (aa xa xa xa …), traditionally used in love poetry, İbrahim’s verses convey a religious warrior’s feelings and ambitions about starting a ġazā, a campaign of Islam. The poem is addressed to the sultan himself and supposedly (other fellow) warriors. The setting and the mood suggest that it could have been written or conceived when İbrahim was embarking on the campaign that would be his last. The fourth verse is the most striking, with İbrahim referring to the “sorrows of a campaign’s adventure.” The poem reads as follows: Bir mücāhid ḳuluñuz terk iderüz cān u seri Pādişāhum nideyin ṣoñra ṭuyarsın ḫaberi Ḳaçmañuz tīġ ü teberden çalışuñ dīn yolına O benüm boynuma ger var-ise anuñ żararı Biz-de iḳdām idelüm varmaġa bir gün ilerü Girü ḳalmaz bu ġazādan kimüñ olsa cigeri Mācerā-yı seferüñ derdini ger şerḥ itsem İstimāʿ idene te’s̱īr ide ol ġam es̱eri ʿAzm ider oldı ġazā-yı sefere sulṭānum Ḳıl aña ḫayr u duʿā ol-da ḳuluñdur İş eri

65 İbrahim compares his heart to a bird that is captured and cannot be freed from the trap of misfortune. Being a well-known image in Ottoman Divan poetry, it can also be seen as a reference to Derviş İbrahim’s lived experience as a captive. 66 Gözi bādem / “almond-eye”: The almond is compared or equated with the beloved’s eye due to its similarity in form; cf. Pala, Ansiklopedik Divân Şiiri Sözlüğü, 53.

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Being one of your striving servants, I am prepared to die for you, My king, what can I do, you will hear the news later! Do not run away from the sword and the hatchet, strive on the path of religion, If this should prove harmful, I will shoulder it! I also shall struggle to progress one day, Whoever is brave will not fail this campaign of Islam! If I were to tell about the sorrows of the campaign’s adventure, That work of grief would affect the listeners! My sultan is determined to start the campaign of Islam, Utter your blessings on him, and he is your slave, İş eri! Both poems – perhaps the first more than the second – demonstrate Derviş İbrahim’s proficiency in writing (love) poems in Ottoman Turkish in an elaborate and accurate style and manner. Had he not been a prisoner of war, we may have come across his poems not in the forgotten notebooks of a 16th/ 17th-century librarian but in one of the Ottoman-Turkish collections of Divan poetry (mecmua-i eşʿar) scattered throughout the Ottoman Balkans to the Eastern borders of the Empire. 4

Conclusion

In my contribution I have tried to show that, in order to obtain a more complete picture of the roots of scholarly work in Ottoman-Turkish text production in 17th-century Europe, we have to consider not only published but also planned material. We also need to consider witnesses who depict a development in erudition in combination with the joint or collaborative (though not always simultaneous) work of an imperial librarian in Vienna and an Ottoman captive of Sufi and Balkan background. Besides this, studying Tengnagel’s notebooks in detail will provide us with further information about an Ottoman captive’s life in or near Vienna, and his role in the creation of what is today assumed to be geographically of Ottoman provenance. In these notebooks we find multilingual vocabulary lists, excerpts, translations of pieces of historical and religious works, tables of contents of important works, lists of work titles, and many other understudied texts. From a codicological perspective, these notebooks seem to be open, multiple-text manuscripts that were used when needed and may contain drafts (müsvedde) or working copies for publication projects. This also applies

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to Sebastian Tengnagel’s correspondence. In these notebooks we find excerpts of works, vocabulary lists in two, three or four languages, and inventory lists of Oriental collections in European institutional and private libraries, such as that of Thomas Erpenius. Undoubtedly, these notebooks not only demonstrate Tengnagel’s knowledge of the languages, and his collaborative work or scholarly contacts with his copyists/informants, but they also denote the collection of information from manuscript and printed sources and hint to Tengnagel’s ongoing projects for eventual publication.67 As the five manuscripts mentioned above and copied by Derviş İbrahim range between 1608 and 1614, they are of great interest particularly because, from a history of knowledge perspective, they may offer insights into Tengnagel’s development in scholarly practices. As Natalie Rothman recently demonstrated, the role of Vienna’s imperial librarians in the Republic of Letters, as well as the impact of their scholarship on the formation of Oriental Studies in Europe, needs acknowledgement and deeper research.68 Studied together with Derviş İbrahim’s entries in the notebooks, the manuscript copies made by him will also offer more insight into the circumstances in which he had to copy, as well as underlining or perhaps contradicting assumptions about his origin.

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude to Edith Gülçin Ambros, Nil Palabıyık, Chiara Petrolini and the anonymous reviewer of this article for their valuable suggestions and remarks on earlier versions of this study. The author is wholly responsible for any errors or misinterpretations.

67

68

For a scholar similar to Tengnagel, whose role in Oriental Studies is unacknowledged and understudied, see Nil Ö. Palabıyık, “An Unsung Hero of Oriental Studies in Leiden: Anton Deusing (1612–1666) and His Persian and Turkish Dictionaries,” Lias 46/2, Special Issue: Empires of Knowledge (2019): 157–200. Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 313, footnote 13. On the role of Ottoman scholarship within Oriental studies in 17th-century Europe, see Nil Ö. Palabıyık, “LIAS Special Issue: Empires of Knowledge: How Ottoman Scholarship Shaped Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Introduction,” Lias 46/2, Special Issue: Empires of Knowledge (2019): 137–56.

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Figure 10.1

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ÖNB, Cod. 15161, fol. 17r

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Figure 10.2

ÖNB, Cod. 15165, fol. 7v

Figure 10.3

ÖNB, Cod. 15161, fol. 26r

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Figure 10.4

ÖNB, Cod. 15165, fol. 14r

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Święcicka, Elżbieta, ed. Dictionary of Italian-Turkish Language (1641) by Giovanni Molino. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2020. Tabulae codicum manu scriptorium praeter graecos et orientales in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi asservatorum. vol. 8. Ed. Academia Caesarea Vindobonensis (Wien: Gerold, 1864–1899). Tarama Sözlüğü. XIII. Yüzyıldan Beri Türkiye Türkçesiyle Yazılmış Kitaplardan Toplanan Tanıklariyle. 3rd edition vol. 3 Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu Yayınları, 2009. Tolasa, Harun. Sehî, Lâtîfi ve Âşık Çelebi Tezkirelerine Göre 16. Yüzyılda Edebiyat Araştırması ve Eleştirisi. 2nd ed. Ankara: Akçağ Yayınları, 2002. Unterkircher, Franz. “Hugo Blotius und seine ersten Nachfolger (1575–1663).” In Geschichte der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek I, ed. Josef Stummvoll, 129–45. Wien: Georg Prachner Verlag, 1968. Wallnig, Thomas. “Sebastian Tengnagel und Johann Seyfried  – Österreichische Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Späthumanismus und Gegenreformation.” In Les bibliothèques et l’économie des connaissances / Bibliotheken und die Ökonomie des Wissens 1450–1850: Colloque international / Internationale Tagung, 9–13 Avril/April 2019 Sárospatak, eds. Frédéric Barbier, István Monok, and Andrea Seidler, 161–73. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtár és Információs Központ, 2020. Winter, Michael. “Egyptian and Syrian Sufis Viewing Ottoman Turkish Sufism: Similarities, Differences, and Interactions.” In The Ottoman Middle East. Studies in Honour of Amnon Cohen, eds. Eyal Ginio, Elie Podeh, 93–111. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014. Woodhead, Christine. “Ottoman Languages.” In The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead, 143–58. London: Routledge, 2012. Zacuto, Abraham bin Samuel, and Samuel Shulem, ed. Sefer ha-Yuḥasin. Constantinople, 1566. Zipoli, Riccardo. “Chapter 7: Poetic Imagery.” In A History of Persian Literature I: General Introduction to Persian Literature, ed. J.T.P. de Bruijn, 172–232. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009.

11 Learning the Language of Things: Glimpses into Ottoman Inventories of the 16th and 17th Centuries Hedda Reindl-Kiel History seems to be a perfect refuge to escape contemporary adversities, but nobody can escape the time he or she lives in and its Zeitgeist. Almost a century ago, Johan Huizinga wrote his classic Herfsttij der middeleuwen and sketched the late Middle Ages not, contrary to the general trend, as a time of new perspectives but as a gentle waning.1 Although Huizinga published his book in 1919, its roots lay in the time before World War I, and thus a melancholic anticipation of the end of an epoch lies like a delicate shroud over the whole work. Indeed, historians in general tend to ask questions they are confronted with in their own time rather than the issues that bothered people in olden days. Thus, in our throwaway society with its high level of transient consumption, we became interested in goods of desire of the past. Huizinga’s statement that “the history of culture has as much to do with the dream of beauty and the illusion of a noble life as with demography and taxes”2 in a way legitimises such an approach. In the Ottoman case, available sources for this interest are mainly inheritance registers, lists of confiscated items taken in by the royal palace, and treasury inventories, all of them types of document that pre-eminently reflect the material culture of the ruling elite or at least the upper echelons of society. This feature has the advantage that listed objects might have survived in the collections of museums or had been visualised in contemporary miniatures. Yet, before identifying a piece in a picture, the researcher has to figure out the

1 Johan Huizinga, Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen: Studie over levens- en gedachtenvormen der veertiende en vijftiende eeuw in Frankrijk en de Nederlanden (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1919). I used the edition Groningen: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1975. 2 Ibid., 89. The translation is mine. The English translation of 1924 (Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries. London: E. Arnold, 1924) is inchoate. Due to Covid-19 restrictions I was unable to consult the new translation by Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzch (Johann Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

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meaning of a term in the document he or she studies. All too often, our dictionaries leave us in the lurch. 1

Kerenüm, a Noble Fur

A good example is an item in a lavish gift package Bayezid II sent on 1 Rebiʿ I 913 H (11 July 1507) to the Sultan of Egypt,3 Qansawh al-Gawrī (r. 1501–1516). It contained (next to 30 male slaves and a range of luxury fabrics) a collection of fur plates (tahta),4 among them blue (kebud) keremün, each sort nine-fold.5 Hülya Tezcan translates keremun as “foal”.6 Yet, foal, although sometimes manufactured into clothing, does not have a particularly attractive pelt and belongs (and belonged) to the rather inexpensive furs. It is clear from the outset that we are confronted here with a loan word which neither has its roots in Persian nor in Arabic. As in Ottoman times the bulk of noble furs were imported from Russia, a distorted borrowing from Russian would seem natural, but this line of enquiry yielded no results either. The search led me eventually to Mongolian. Indeed, Lessing’s Mongolian-English Dictionary specifies the word keremy(n) as “dark brown squirrel.”7 In Bayezid’s 3 Istanbul, Atatürk Kitaplığı, Muallim Cevdet 71, fol. 107b (İrsaliye be-Sultan-ı Mısır). On the mutual form of address and titles between Ottoman and Mamluk rulers see Cihan Yüksel Muslu, “Attempting to understand the language of Diplomacy between the Ottomans and the Mamluks (1340s–1512),” Archivum Ottomanicum 30 (2013): 247–67. Elias I. Muhanna, “The Sultan’s New Clothes: Ottoman-Mamluk Gift Exchange in the Fifteenth Century,” Muqarnas 27 (2010): 189–208, here 195, No. 48 (following Feridun Ahmed Beğ, Mecmuʿa-yı Münşeʾāt al-Selātīn. I, [Istanbul] 1848, 341), gives as date for the embassy 18 October 1507, but states that no gifts are mentioned. In 1510 Sultan Bayezid II sent three plates (tahta) of keremün (next to plates of sable and ermine in a triple pack respectively) to his Persian antagonist Shah İsmaʿil, Muallim Cevdet 71, fol. 207a. 4 The term is used for a piece which is sewn together with several parts of fur matching in colour and derivation, fairly similar to modern fur ‘plates’ (or ‘bodies’). Different from modern ‘plates’/‘bodies’ the Ottoman term does not indicate a fixed size; cf. Hülya Tezcan, “Furs and skins owned by the Sultans,” in Ottoman Costumes: From Textile to Identity, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Istanbul: Eren, 2004), 63–79, here 66. 5 The number nine was regarded as magical and therefore preferred in diplomatic gift exchange. Cf. Gerhard Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen II (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1965), 624–29, No. 976. 6 Tezcan, “Furs and skins,” 65. 7 Ferdinand D. Lessing, ed., Mongolian-English Dictionary. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960, 457. In an earlier article I mistook the word as ‘weasel’, Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Status, Honour and Luxuries: Some Remarks on Material Exchange between Russia and the Ottoman Empire,” Istorichesky Vestnik 30 (2019), 80–111, here 86.

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gift package keremün was accompanied by sable, lynx (from the belly)8 and ermine, all extremely costly pelts. Hence, keremün must be a fur of this highend category and there is but one candidate: miniver.9 The Ottoman use of a Mongolian word for this pelt possibly points to an Ilkhanid tradition. The colour blue in this context is less outlandish than it seems at first glance. The hue kebud is usually associated with a greyish dark blue, and the winter pelt of squirrels from some regions of Siberia (area around the rivers Lena and Ob) has often a bluish colour. Hence, we cannot exclude the possibility that keremün-i kebud indicates this kind of fur. On the other hand, furs had been dyed from early times onward,10 and indigo was an export product of Russia,11 the main source for Middle Eastern luxury furs. 2

Kaknus, a Bird That Is Not Necessarily a Swan

Another incompletely lexicalised term puzzles the modern researcher of material culture: kaknus (kuknus in Persian), a term derived from Greek κύκνος, ‘swan.’ In inventories it surfaces occasionally as the material of smaller luxury objects. We find, for example, in Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha’s assets a dagger (hançer) with a hilt made of kaknus burnu.12 Dictionaries give for kaknus only the translation ‘phoenix.’13 But a ‘phoenix nose’ does not make sense. Thus, the term cannot point to the mythical bird often referred to in poetry. Nevertheless, a royal treasury register of the early 16th century (probably from 1518/19) records the hilt of a dagger and two knife handles as made of bini-i 8 9 10 11 12 13

Unlike other furs, the pelt from lynx bellies is considered precious because of the particularly long hair. For miniver pelts see Paul Schöps et al., “Das Eichhörnchen (Feh) und sein Fellwerk,” Das Pelzgewerbe NF, IX/4 (1958): 154–63. This text is largely incorporated into the German Wikipedia article “Feh.” https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feh (accessed on 8 January 2021). For Ottoman dyed furs, see Tezcan, “Furs and skins,” 74–75 and figs. 3–5 (for extant specimens). Cf. Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Les marchands de la cour ottoman et le commerce des fourrures moscovites dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 11,3 (1970): 363–90, here 368. Istanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), D.BŞM-MHF 45, fol. 2b. Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi (TSMA), D. 26, fol. 19 a, with the variant kakunuz burnu. Şemseddin Sami, Ḳāmus-ı Türkī. Dersaʿadet: İḳdām Maṭbaʿası, 1317), 1077, gives a description of a legendary bird (tayr-ı mevhum) with many holes in its beak which produces tones as soon as a wind blows. There were many legends of this kind. The production of sounds by holes in the beak is a popular image in Ottoman poetry.

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mürg-i kaknus (bini being the Persian equivalent of burun).14 The use of the word mürg suggests that we are indeed dealing here with a bird, although the use of ‘nose’ instead of beak (gaga or minkar) seems somewhat outlandish. There is, however, a bird species that matches in a way these descriptors: the Helmeted Hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a rather big bird living in rainforests of Southeast Asia (particularly of Indonesia and Malaysia).15 Schuyler Cammann in his seminal article on hornbill ivory describes the animal as extremely ugly.16 It has a bulky protuberance (“casket”) surmounting a long bill that consist of keratin. Beak and helmet are yellow with a red periphery and the material is somewhat easier to carve than elephant ivory. It is usually called ‘hornbill ivory’ (sometimes also “golden jade” or “ho-ting”),17 although its structure differs greatly from elephant ivory. The material was favoured in China and Japan, where it sometimes found use in small objects such as belt buckles18 14 TSMA, D. 3/2, fols. 7b–8a. The document is undated, but since it lists some belongings of “the late Sultan Ahmed” (esbab-ı merhum Sultan Ahmed der yek sanduk) and equestrian utensils (? erkebdâr [erroneously for rikâbdâr] esbabı) and six banners “taken from Shah İsmaʿil” (Ibid., fols. 9b,10a), it must have been taken down between July 1515, when Selim I returned to Istanbul (see Feridun Emecen, Yavuz Sultan Selim (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2016), 178), and his death in September 1520. Recorded items of Arabic origin, such as two awnings (sayeban-ı ʿArabi), D3/2, fol. 4b, suggest that the document was drawn up after Selim’s conquest of Egypt. Selim came back to the Ottoman capital on 25 July 1518 (Emecen, Yavuz Sultan Selim, 334). 15 The most comprehensive work on hornbills is Alan Kemp, The Hornbills: Bucerotiformes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). For a good description of the Helmeted Hornbill (with illustrations) see Linda Crampton, “The Helmeted Hornbill: A Bizarre and Critically Endangered Bird,” Owlcation (June 8, 2020), https://owlcation.com/stem/The -Helmeted-Hornbill-A-Large-and-Bizarre-Bird-of-Asian-Forests (12 January 2021). – To see the bird’s beak as a nose is obviously not an idiosyncracy of Ottoman Turkish, in German the Hornbill bird family bears the name Nashornvögel (in modern Turkish the Helmeted Hornbill is called miğferli boynuzgaga). 16 Schuyler Van Rensselaer Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” University Museum Bulletin 15,4 (1950): 18–47, here 19. 17 See Giovanna Bortolaso, “Imitations and substitutes for ivory: A short history,” Elfenbein und Artenschutz/Ivory and Species Conservation. INCENTIVS-Tagungsbeiträge der Jahre (2004–2007) / proceedings of INCENTIVS-Meetings (2004–2007), ed. Bundesamt für Naturschutz (Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 2008), 27–36, here 31; Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 21. Edgard O. Espinoza and Mary-Jacque Mann, Identification Guide for Ivory and Ivory Substitutes, second edition (Baltimore: World Wildlife Fund, 1992), 23. 18 For the use by Chinese carvers see Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 26–33. Berthold Laufer, “Supplementary Notes on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory,” T’oung pao 17 (1916): 348–89, here 383–86. He connects the story of Ibn al-Akfani about khutu originating from the forehead of a large bird with the Helmeted Hornbill (Ibid., 387–89). For Ibn al-Akfani’s account see Eilhard Wiedemann, “Über den Wert von Edelsteinen bei den Muslimen,” Der Islam 2 (1911): 345–58, here 354, note 2.

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plume holders, archer’s rings,19 snuff bottles20 and netsuke.21 In the Ottoman context it surfaces only in the top category of luxury items, and since it must have been fairly rare, extant pieces drew but little attention of art historians. To my knowledge, only Schuyler Cammann has adverted to the presence of hornbill ivory objects in the collections of the Topkapı Sarayı Museum, reporting that “[I]t was long believed to have been made from the beak of the fabulous phoenix.”22 We have come full circle: kaknus is indeed hornbill ivory. 3

The Problems of a Hackneyed Word: Minder

For a modern researcher, problems arise not only when terms are absent in dictionaries; often a word is lexicalised but the meaning is nevertheless unclear or ambiguous. Such a case is the term minder. Dictionaries generally give the meaning “cushion (to sit on), mattress.”23 The royal treasury register of the early 16th century (probably from 1518/19) mentioned above24 lists several specimens with the addition yek-merdî, a somewhat enigmatic term that we find normally in combination with table ware.25 As a matter of fact, the meaning of this Persian compound is rather simple: ‘for a single man.’ The frequent mention of the term together with porcelain dishes reflects a convention of the Ottoman upper class that the pater familias would generally eat his meals alone, indeed in a similar manner to the sultans.26 In the Ottoman elite, this 19 Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 30. 20 See for example Virginia Davis and Jan Sanders, “The Chester Beatty collection of Chinese snuff bottles,” Hermathena 136 (Summer 1984): 44–45. Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 31. 21 See, for example, Noriko Tsuchiya, Netsuke: 100 miniature masterpieces from Japan (London: British Museum Press, 2014), 200. Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 34–35. 22 Cammann, “The story of hornbill ivory,” 44. John Pope provided him with a photograph of a spoon made of hornbill ivory in the collections of the Topkapı Sarayı Museum, Ibid., 43, fig. 16. 23 Redhouse, Türkçe/Osmanlıca-İngilizce Sözlük / Turkish/Ottoman-English Dictionary, 18th ed. (Istanbul: SEV Matbaacılık, 2000), 778. The first edition, Sir James W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon (Constantinople: A.H. Boyajian, 1890, reprint: Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1974), 1998, has “a cushion, on which to sit or lie.” 24 D. 3/2. 25 See, for example, Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi ve 1640 tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1983), 203. 26 Cf. the stipulation in Mehmed II’s kanunname: Ve Cenâb-ı şerîfim ile kimesne taʿam yemek kanunum değildür. Meğer ki ehl-i iyâlden ola. (My rule does not allow for anybody to eat with my noble majesty, unless he/she is a member of my family); Ahmed Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnameleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri I (Istanbul: Fey Vakfı, 1990), 327.

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tradition was still alive at the beginning of the 20th century.27 Small dishes in the size befitting a single diner would be served for this purpose,28 in contrast to the large bowls and plates for communal meals. A yek-merdi minder is thus an individual sitting cushion in contrast to a sitting pad for several persons. In contrast to a makʿad, a sitting pad (for several people) on top of a sofa pedestal, a minder would be laid on the floor. 4

What to Drink from maşraba?

In some cases early inventories from the royal hazine answer questions modern researchers had not asked. This is the case with the drinking vessel maşraba (tankard), which (in silver) belonged (approximately from the last quarter of the 15th until the early 17th century) to the standard gift set (sürahi, carafe – tepsi, tray – maşraba) at the royal court and in the ruling elite. We do not have evidence for what kind of beverage was served in this set. The fragment of an inventory from Bayezid II’s time (25 Zilhicce 892 H/12 December 1487) lists among silver, gold and crystal jars six tankards, two of them specified as su maşraba (water tankard).29 This feature suggests that the other four tankards were destined for other drinks, şerbet (sweet fruit drink), or even wine.30 Such a set, additional to its material value, was definitively an allusion to the high status of the recipient. According to Gelibolulu Mustafa ʿAli, being a guest in someone’s house, it was not appropriate to finish dishes off because they might be destined for the servants, while the latter would generally not get şerbet.31 Large parts of the upper echelons of Ottoman society conceived drinking parties as permissible or even appropriate for their own select circles (but not for commoners). Even Bayezid II, whose piety earned him the byname Veli

27 Cf. Muammer Tuksavul, Doğudan Batıya ve Sonrası (Istanbul, 1981), 74. 28 An inventory of the Sultan’s privy chamber treasury (hass oda hazinesi) from 1680 records a number of yek-merdi vessels; TSMA, D. 11, fols. 56b, 57a, 58a, 58b, 59a, 60b, 61b, 62b, 63b, 64a, 65a/b, 67b. 29 TSMA, D. 10730, 3 and 5. Another short fragment from the same year (Receb 892 H/ 23 June–22 July 1487), TSMA D. 8577, written in another hand, listing 25 tankards, does not make this difference. 30 Of course, ayran or boza were also beverages one could serve in a maşraba. But they were less prestigious than şerbet and wine. 31 Gelibolulu Mustafa Âli, Görgü ve toplum kuralları üzerinde ziyâfet sofraları (mevâidüʾnnefâis fî kavâidiʾl mecâlis), vol. 1, ed. Orhan Şaik Gökyay (Istanbul: Tercüman 1001 Temel Eser, 1978), 230.

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(saintly) would hold banquets of wine.32 Gelibolulu Mustafa ʿAli’s instructions on how to arrange a drinking party (bade meclisi) and how to behave in such an event33 points to a wide acceptance of carousing in the Ottoman elite of the late 16th century. We have to admit, though, that the drinking vessels in Mustafa ʿAli’s description were not tankards but jugs (kadeh). The latter surface every so often in gifted drinking sets instead of tankards. These few examples might illustrate that even lexicalised terms are sometimes not directly understandable. Yet, working with inventories is only fruitful if it serves a deeper understanding of the culture which used and enjoyed the registered objects. Hence, we often have to look to a deeper layer, the symbolic connotation. 5

Underwear Gifts and the Hürrem Sultan’s Consignment

One of the first Ottoman defters dealing with gifts I came across long ago was a treasury register of the beğlerbeği of Aleppo in 1658–1660 and 1665,34 in all likelihood Kethüda Gürcü Mehmed Pasha.35 Among the many notes related to received and re-gifted items, we come across 47 entries for underwear as a gift, usually gönlek, don ve uçkur, vest, underpants and waistband – somewhat eccentric for a prude society such as the Ottomans. While such garments in the assets of a deceased person are neutral everyday items, they must have had a symbolic meaning if given as a gift. A short letter from 1548 or 1549 by the beloved wife of Süleyman the Magnificent, Hürrem Sultan (Roxelane in the West), to the Polish King Sigismund II 32 Cf. the account in the Hanivaldanus chronicle, Richard Fr. Kreutel, Der fromme Sultan Bayezid. Die Geschichte seiner Herrschaft (1481–1512) nach den altosmanischen Chroniken des Oruç und des Anonymus Hanivaldanus (Graz etc.: Verlag Styria, 1978), 183–84. 33 Gelibolulu Mustafa Âli, Görgü ve toplum kuralları, 158–59. 34 BOA, MAD 14724. 35 As Kethüda Mehmed is not the only Gürcü Mehmed Pasha of his time and often confused with the grand vizier (Koca) Gürcü Mehmed Pasha, it is not easy to follow his career, See “Mehmed Paşa, Gürcü,” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 28 (Istanbul 2003), 510–11. Kethüda Gürcü Mehmed Pasha served as governor of Aleppo 1658–1560, became governor of Cyprus 1660, and held again the office of Aleppo 1665–1666 (?). An inscription of a fountain the pasha built in Ihtiman (today’s Bulgaria) reveals that he was the former majordomo of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, therefore his byname Kethüda. The inscription bearing the date 1070 H (1659–60), today in the local museum of Ihtiman, has been quoted by Evliya Çelebi, see Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnamesi III. Kitap. Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi Bağdat 305 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsiyonu – Dizini, eds. Seyyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (Istanbul: Yapı ve Kredi, 1999), 220.

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Augustus facilitates the understanding of such a gift’s meaning. Hürrem wrote that she sends him two sets of underwear, six handkerchiefs and a napkin.36 Of course, that was not a strange idea of an ingenuous woman living in the secluded quarter of the royal harem. It was a sophisticated move of Ottoman diplomacy. During most of the 16th century the Ottoman sultans avoided to honour unbelievers with diplomatic gifts,37 since they regarded such presents predominantly as an affirmation of a high status that they found inappropriate for a non-Muslim. Furthermore it was important to eschew the exploitation of this kind of offerings for propaganda purposes by the receiving side.38 Nevertheless, the Porte needed good relations with her neighbours. Thus, Hürrem’s gift of underwear was a perfect solution: it was a private present, did not come directly from the sultan, was completely unsuitable for any propaganda in Poland, and it was a strong signal of friendship, intimacy and cordiality. We can conclude that underwear as a gift indicates warm friendship, not very different from cosmetic gifts between female friends in our days. 6

Tusks and Horns in the Royal Treasury

Unfortunately, semiotic studies in the field of Ottoman history are still in their infancy. Thus, it is sometimes a tedious, difficult and frustrating task to make 36 Warsaw, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie (The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw), AKW, Dz. tur., k. 68, t. 110, nr 219; for a facsimile of Roxelana’s letter see Uğur Ünal and Władysław Stępniak, eds., Yoldaki Elçi: Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Türk-Leh İlişkileri / Poseł w drodze: Stosunki turecko – polskie od czasów osmańskich do dnia dzisiejszego. (Istanbul: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, 2014), 18. 37 Güneş Işıksel, La diplomatie ottomane sous le règne de Selîm II: paramètres et périmètres de l’Empire ottoman dans la troisième quart du XVIe siècle (Paris etc.: Peeters, 2016), 8–14, detected for the reign of Selim II that the Porte transferred the diplomatic traffic with Western powers largely to the governors of border provinces. Cf. also Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Ottoman Diplomatic Gifts to the Christian West,” in The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Culture: Papers from the International Conference at the National Museum in Krakow, June 26–27, 2015, eds. Robert Born and Michał Dziewulski in collaboration with Kamilla Twardowska (Kraków: The National Museum, 2015), 95–116, here 100–2. 38 Private gifts bestowed in a concealed manner were a tried and trusted means for that purpose. In the report of the papal legate describing the official audience of the Ottoman emissary Andreas Grecus-Pontcaracce with King Maximilian I in Stams on 24 July 1497 we find a good example for this approach. Via the envoy of Naples the Ottoman legate made known that he had to present gifts for the king and the queen. But as they were neither very substantial nor precious, he did not hand them over publicly but covertly. See Johann Gröblacher, “König Maximilians I. erste Gesandtschaft zum Sultan Baijezid II.,” in Festschrift Hermann Wiesflecker zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Alexander Novotny and Othmar Pichl (Graz: Historisches Institut der Universität, 1973), Beilage Nr. 1, 73–80.

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sense of some objects listed in 16th and 17th century inventories. One group of items is particularly enigmatic: tusks and horns. An early royal hazine inventory of 1496 lists no less than 72 elephant tusks (dendan-i fil), twelve rhinoceros horns (şah-ı gergedan) and 740 walrus tusks (dendan-ı mahi).39 Five years later, the number of walrus tusks had increased to 760 and ten antlers of a reindeer or elk (bulan) had been added, while only two rhino horns were left.40 The inventory audit of 1505 yielded again 740 whole walrus tusks plus 19 in pieces.41 The two rhino horns were still in their place, but one reindeer antler seems to have disappeared, with the document now listing only nine.42 Yet, in a supplement (eski defterden eksik gelen esbablar) we find the missing piece and 13 additional walrus tusks.43 A heavily damaged treasury inventory from 1513/1514 records two rhino horns and 655 walrus tusks.44 In January 1518, the sultan’s officials checked the treasury again and protocolled only 33 walrus tusks,45 a result corroborated in a simultaneous summary (icmal) register.46 The stocktaking of 1518/19 (?) enumerates 625 whole walrus tusks and 26 in pieces and additionally an unspecified quantity in tiny (hurde) shards.47 The fragment of a treasury inventory from 1530/1 notes the presence of 70 walrus tusks..48 An undated supplement to “the old register” records again 13 additional walrus tusks.49 The archive catalogue suggests that the latter document is connected with a list of precious gifts to Şehzade Selim that bears the date 8 Cemazi I 970 H (3 January 1563).50 Both documents 39 TSMA, D. 4/1, fol. 7a. For the term dendan-ı mahi and the Turkish form balık dişi as a loan translation from Russian see Zygmunt Abramowicz, “The expression “fish-tooth” and “lion-fish” in Turkish and Persian,” Folia Orientalia 12 (1970): 25–32. The term is evocative of Albertus Magnus’ description of a walrus as a ‘haired wale’; Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus Libri XXVI. Nach der Cölner Urschrift II, ed. Hermann Stadler (Münster i.W.: Verlag der Aschendorffschen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1920), 1525. Laurence Moulinier, “Les baleines d’Albert le Grand,” Médiévales 22–23 (1992): 117–28, here 120 and 125. 40 TSMA, D. 3/1, fol. 4a. This register, bearing the date 1 Şaʿban 907 H (9 February 1502) lists the inventory of the royal treasury (hazine-i enderunî). 41 TSMA, D. 10026, fol. 7b. The register bears the date 10 Şaʿban 910 H (16 January 1505). 42 D. 10026, fol. 8b. 43 TSMA, D. 3/4, fol. 7a. 44 TSMA, D. 5, fol. 3a. One upper edge of the document, bearing the date, is partly missing; only the day (11) and the year (919) are visible, but not the month. Worm damage and particularly water spotting impede the defter’s reading. 45 TSMA, D. 6/1, fol. 6a. The register bears the date 23 Zilhicce 923 H/6 January 1518. 46 TSMA, D. 6/2, fol. 4b. 47 D. 3/2, fol. 7a. 48 TSMA, D. 1023, fol. 2b. The register is a ‘copy’ (suret) of an evidently lost inventory. 49 TSMA, D. 10019, fol. 8b. 50 TSMA, D. 10021.

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feature an impeccable nesih without personal peculiarities. Thus, the dating might be connected with the situation when the two documents were found and remains hypothetical. 7

Fish Teeth or Walrus Tusks

In the Ottoman Empire, walrus tusks were usually imports from Muscovy. Pomors (a Russian ethnic group settled primarily on the shores of the White Sea since the High Middle Ages) would hunt walruses for their tusks as well as for their blubber.51 After the abandoning of the Western Settlement on Greenland around 1400 and the Eastern Settlement approximately in the second half of the 15th century,52 Europe was unable to source anywhere near as much walrus ivory, now imported from Muscovy. In other words it became a scarce material,53 which would have been reflected in higher prices. In the 17th century the tsar took a tithe on walrus tusks.54 As far as we know, Ottoman merchants used to buy furs and walrus tusks in Moscow.55 We do not have a series of complete inventories of the Ottoman royal treasury. The available documents represent perhaps only the contents of a part of the rooms housing the sultan’s collections. That is to say, we cannot work with comprehensive data. Nevertheless, with due care, we can detect a certain trend: the walrus tusk craze reached its peak definitely during the reign of Bayezid II. This is probably not entirely coincidental, since this was a time, when Ottoman-Muscovite diplomatic relations started to develop.56 51

Alexei Kraikovski, “‘The Sea on One Side, Trouble on the Other’: Russian Marine Resource Use before Peter the Great,” Slavonic and East European Review 93/1 (2015): 39–65, here 54. Although Kraikovski’s data are mainly from the 17th century, we take them mutatis mutandis as valid for the 16th century as well. 52 Kirsten A. Seaver, “Desirable teeth: the medieval trade in Arctic and African ivory,” Journal of Global History 4 (2009): 271–92, here 272. 53 Xavier Dectot, “When ivory came from the seas. On some traits of the trade of raw and carved sea-mammal ivories in the Middle Ages,” Anthropozoologica 53,14 (2018): 159–74, here 167. 54 Kraikovski, “‘The Sea on One Side, Trouble on the Other’,” 54. Raymond H. Fisher, The Russian Fur Trade, 1440–1700 (Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1943), 51. 55 The Ottoman ‘royal merchants’ (hassa tacirleri) are well documented for the second half of the 16th century, see Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lermercier-Quelquejay, “Les marchands de la Cour ottomane,” 363–90. Mihnea Berindei, “Contribution à l’étude du commerce ottoman des fourrures moscovites: La route moldavo-polonaise, 1453–1700,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 12,4 (1971): 393–409. 56 For a list of embassies between the Ottoman court and Muscovy, see Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri, second edition (Ankara: TTK, 1987), 245–48.

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A document from 1509 suggests that trade between Muscovy and the Ottomans was already flourishing.57 8

Collecting Alicorns

Yet, a more or less assured supply of walrus ivory does not explain why the Ottoman court would amass such a huge amount of tusks as recorded in 1502. For handles of knives, pommels and hilts of swords and daggers walrus ivory had a long tradition in the Islamic world. It seems that the frostwork-like appearance of carved walrus ivory appealed particularly to Ottoman taste.58 Hence, having a stock of it at hand to provide the royal workshops with material seems plausible. But, for this purpose, an amount of 760 tusks is much too high a number. What was then the drive for collecting so many pieces? And why would sultans also want to gather the horns and antlers of strange animals? As I have shown elsewhere, the Ottomans regarded antlers of reindeers and horns of rhinos as alicorns, originating from fabled unicorns.59 Additionally, horns must have been a visible sign of power, as Albrecht Fuess has shown in his insightful article on the double-horned turban of the Mamluk elite at the turn of the 15th to the 16th centuries. Ibn Ilyas linked this fashion with Zulkarneyn, the double-horned Alexander the Great in Islamic lore.60 In the Ottoman sphere, a package of diplomatic gifts to Kaiser Ferdinand III (in the internal document labelled Bec kralı) in 1650 we find a jewelled horn occupying a prominent place.61 Maybe we can interpret this as faint reminis57 TSMA, D. 9860. For closer information about this document, see Reindl-Kiel, “Status, Honour and Luxuries,” 85, note 26. 58 Matthew Elliott Gillman, “A Tale of Two Ivories: Elephant and Walrus,” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie VII, Historia del Arte (N. Época) 5 (2017): 81–105, here 89–91. 59 Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Solomon’s Unicorn,” in Kanûnî Sultan Süleyman ve Dönemi: Yeni Kaynaklar, Yeni Yaklaşımlar/Suleyman the Lawgiver and his Reign: New Source, New Approaches, eds. Muhammed Fatih Çalışır et al. (Istanbul: İbn Haldun Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2020), 323–48, here 337–43. In the Islamic world unicorns did not have a singular specific appearance and were void of any religious connotation; see Richard Ettinghausen, The Unicorn. Studies in Muslim Iconography 1, (Washington: The Lord Baltimore Press, 1950), 55–58. 60 Albrecht Fuess, “Sultans with Horns: The Political Significance of Headgear in the Mamluk Empire,” Mamluk Studies Review 12,2 (2008): 71–94. 61 Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Symbolik, Selbstbild und Beschwichtigungsstrategien: Diplomatische Geschenke der Osmanen für den Wiener Hof (17. –18. Jh.),“ in Frieden und Konfliktmanagement in interkulturellen Räumen: Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie in der Frühen Neuzeit, eds. Arno Strohmeyer et al. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2013), 265–82, here 270.

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cence of the heydays of horns, and a signal that the Ottoman side officially recognised, albeit teeth-gnashingly, the emperor as an (almost) equal ruler. 9

A Modest Interest in Elephant Tusks

Tusks were, however, a different thing. The royal treasury housed not only elephant and walrus tusks. The undated inventory of ca. 1518/19 records also 23 boar tusks (dendan-ı hınzır),62 probably from wild boars, but we cannot exclude that they came from wart hogs in the south of Africa. The tusks of wart hogs are namely part of the group of ivories.63 Maybe the dendan-ı hınzır had arrived in the royal treasury by way of Cairo. Did the royal court collect them in the same manner as walrus tusks? One might expect that elephant ivory would become more frequent in the royal treasury after the conquest of Egypt. But this is not the case. As elephant ivory became available to a greater extent to the Western bourgeoisie after 1400,64 this tenuous interest of the Ottomans is all the more astonishing. Unfortunately, from the early 16th century I have not found any information that could shed light on this matter. Later in the century, an entry in the list of goods auctioned after the execution of Şeytanoğlu Mihal (Michael Kantakouzenos)65 in 1578 is of interest. Şeytanoğlu Mihal, an Ottoman tycoon with family ties to Wallachia, an ally of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and active in the fur trade with Muscovy as a hassa tacir (royal merchant), left an enormous fortune that is evocative of the possessions of a vizier. The Ottoman authorities confiscated his assets and sold a smaller part in an auction.66 The entry reads: “figured elephant tusk, 1 piece, value 30 [akçe]” (musavver fil dişi, ʿaded 1, kıymet 30).67 The price for the ‘figured’ (painted?) tusk is amazingly low, given that the daily wage for a construction worker in Istanbul was at that time 62 D. 3/2, fol. 12 a. 63 Espinoza and Mann, Identification Guide for Ivory, 9 and 20. 64 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, Elfenbeikunst im Mittelalter (Fribourg: Office du Livre; Berlin: Mann, 1978), 14, 131, 174. 65 On him see Tom Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 193–208 (the Kantakouzenos family), 202–13 (Şeytanoğlu and the Orthodox church). In times of closed libraries, I am grateful to Elias Kolovos for providing me with the precise page numbers. 66 The auctioned properties are listed in TSMA, D.8483/1. TSMA, D. 8483/2 records Mihal’s other possessions. 67 D. 8483/1, fol. 4a.

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approximately 5–6 akçe per day.68 Equally remarkable is the disinterest of the royal court to take the piece into the sultan’s treasury, in contrast to an “empty box, made in Venice (?), elephant ivory, 1 piece”.69 Was the tusk’s quality too low, or did elephant tusks lack idiosyncrasies that walrus tusks had? Şeytanoğlu owned several objects adorned with walrus ivory,70 yet not a single tusk is on record, despite this material being part of the merchandise of royal fur traders. 10

Walrus Tusks on Campaign and in Diplomatic Gifts

Among the small number of belongings seized in 1513 from the strangled favourite son of Bayezid II, Prince Ahmed, after Selim I had defeated him, were – in addition to his cloths, underwear, linen, and some other accoutrements – two walrus tusks,71 indicating that even during his last desperate attempt to secure the throne for himself he had, while fighting for his life, carried walrus tusks with him. Thus, in Ottoman eyes, walrus tusks must have had properties beyond the material value. Obviously, they attributed an apotropaic impact to the tusks. Given, however, the mass of tusks in Bayezid II’s treasury, magical perceptions alone fall short as an explanatory factor. In 1485 an envoy of Murtaza Khan, the ruler of the Golden Horde, presented Bayezid with the precious tusks and with sable furs.72 The Polish king Jan Olbracht sent (probably in 1501) among other gifts various sable fur coats (schube), four dentes piscis (“fish teeth”/walrus tusks), and silver cups.73 When, in 1510, the sultan dispatched an opulent gift package to the Persian Shah İsmaʿil, he included nine tusks.74 The Prince (voyvoda) of Moldavia, when delivering the poll tax, (cizye) would regularly supply the Ottoman court with 68 Şevket Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diger Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 1469–1998/500 Years of Prices and Wages in Istanbul and Other Cities (Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü, 2000), 69. 69 D. 8483/2, fol. 5a. The document is somewhat difficult to read (siyakat, mostly without diacritic points). 70 D.8483/2, fols. 4a, 5a, 6b, 12b. 71 TSMA, E. 747/12. 72 Brigitte Moser, Die Chronik des Ahmed Sinân Čelebi gennant Bihišti: Eine Quelle zur Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches unter Sultan Bâyezid II. (München: Dr.Dr. Rudolf Trofenik, 1980), 104–5 (German translation) and 224 (fol. 24r). 73 Ünal and Stępniak, eds., Yoldaki Elçi, 12. 74 Muallim Cevdet 71, fol. 207a.

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costly walrus tusks as an add-on75 (which was for certain an enforced ‘gift’).. At times the Crimean Khans also embellished their presentation packs with walrus tusks.76 Hence, ‘fish teeth’ were a truly royal gift. The view that walrus tusks were an appropriate gift to a sovereign was by no means an Ottoman idiosyncrasy is not only demonstrated by the dispatch from the Polish king, it is also recorded as an established custom in the West, primarily in Scandinavia. The Norwegian king Magnus VI Haakonson had already presented Philip III the Bold of France with a carved tusk in the seventieth of the thirteenth century.77 And in 1479, King Hans of Denmark received a horn made of walrus ivory from Iceland.78 With due care, we might state that the tusks had become a symbol of kingship for the Ottomans, similar (until the present day) to ermine in the West. We must not forget that after the conquest of Constantinople the Ottoman court was preserved to establish beyond the domestic sphere a public image as attractive for the Islamic world as for the West. This happened by keeping Turkic traditions and merging them with Islamicate customs, while adopting new elements of Western court culture. 11

Instead of a Conclusion

Exploring Ottoman material culture via documents is a thorny path, as I tried to demonstrate here with a few selected examples. In some cases we are only (!) confronted with problems of lexicography, in others with an underlying symbolic meaning that is often not too easy to decipher. In a culture where, in contrast to Western traditions, pictorial representation is the exception rather than the rule, we have a long way to travel before reaching a level that enables us to employ insights comparable to those in Huizinga’s book mentioned at the outset of my observations. After all, in our work we Ottomanists are – to use Mehmet Genç’s saying – ‘ants on the pilgrimage to Mecca.’ My old friend Claudia has already covered a very substantial distance through her studies, and I wish her good progress on this journey for a long time to come.

75 76 77 78

BOA, D.BRZ d. 20614, 86, 202, 282. BOA, D.BRZ d. 20614, 204. Dectot, “When ivory came from the seas,” 163. Seaver, “Desirable teeth,” 277.

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Seaver, Kirsten A. “Desirable teeth: the medieval trade in Arctic and African ivory.” Journal of Global History 4 (2009): 271–92. Şemseddin Sami, Ḳāmus-ı Türkī. Dersaʿadet: İḳdām Maṭbaʿası, 1317. Tezcan, Hülya. “Furs and skins owned by the Sultans.” In Ottoman Costumes: From Textile to Identity, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann, 63–79. Istanbul: Eren, 2004. Tsuchiya, Noriko. Netsuke: 100 miniature masterpieces from Japan. London: British Museum Press, 2014. Tuksavul, Muammer. Doğudan Batıya ve Sonrası. Istanbul, 1981. Unat, Faik Reşit. Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri, second ed. Ankara: TTK, 1987. Wiedemann, Eilhard. “Über den Wert von Edelsteinen bei den Muslimen.” Der Islam 2 (1911): 345–58.

12 Ottoman History Viewed from the “Periphery”: Al-Isḥāqī’s 1623 Chronicle of Egypt Jane Hathaway Professor Claudia Römer has always struck me as someone who in person and in public conducts herself with understated modesty and imperturbable calm. Yet beneath this placid exterior lie depths of truly formidable knowledge that make her one of the world’s leading scholars of Turkic philology, literature, and history. In these qualities, Professor Römer reminds me to some extent of the late Professor P.M. Holt (1918–2006), who was a pioneer in my own field of specialization, the history of Ottoman Egypt. This comparison allows me to make a hopelessly awkward transition to the subject of my contribution to Professor Römer’s festschrift, which concerns a work that Professor Holt once dismissed.1 In several seminal publications in the early 1960s, Holt described Akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fi Miṣr al-Qāhira min arbāb al-duwal, a narrative chronicle by the early seventeenth-century Egyptian scholar Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʿṭi al-Isḥāqī (d. ca. 1650), as a “thin production” of “inferior value.”2 Holt essentially invented the scholarly study of Egypt under Ottoman rule, drawing almost entirely on Arabic narrative sources, and was one of the earlier generation of historians whose work I most admire. Nonetheless, I have revisited several of his typically understated assertions over the years in light of my own findings.3 Here, I wish to revisit al-Isḥāqī’s chronicle. I have not discovered a 1 Note on transliteration: Since this collection is addressed mainly to a Turcologist audience, I have used modern Turkish renderings of terms such as şeriat and mahkeme, as well as Turkish names. Arabic names and Arabic and Ottoman Turkish book titles are transliterated according to the standards of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Words such as “qadi,” which can be found in an English-language dictionary, are rendered without italics or diacritics. 2 P.M. Holt, “The Beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the Seventeenth Century,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24, 2 (1961): 214–48, here 215; P.M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516–1922: A Political History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), 314. 3 See, for example, Jane Hathaway, “The Exalted Lineage of Rıdvan Bey Revisited: A Reinterpretation of the Spurious Genealogy of a Grandee in Ottoman Egypt,” in Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman Middle East and the Balkans: A Volume of Essays in Honor of

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_014

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long-lost manuscript of this work, which was printed several times by Egyptian government-sponsored presses in Cairo between 1859 and 1897, leading to the acquisition of the chronicle by numerous university libraries in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.4 However, I find that reading al-Isḥāqī’s work in the context of what we now know about seventeenth-century Egypt and about early seventeenth-century Ottoman dynastic politics leads to a new appreciation of the work’s utility as a provincial source with a distinctive world view. This essay represents a preliminary reappraisal of the work. 1

Who Was al-Isḥāqī?

Like so many other historians of Ottoman Egypt before the second half of the eighteenth century, al-Isḥāqī is known to us only through his chronicle. His “full” name, as noted in a 1733 manuscript copy, was Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʿṭi b. Abī al-Fatḥ b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Mughni b. ʿAlī al-Isḥāqī al-Shāfīʿī al-Manūfī.5 Thus he was clearly of a lengthy Muslim lineage and, equally clearly, from the town of Manūf, a.k.a. Menouf or Minūf, in the Nile Delta, northwest of Cairo. He appears to have made his career in this town, probably as the judge of the Shāfīʿī legal rite, which predominated in Lower Egypt, in the local law court, or mahkeme. In the course of his chronicle, he recounts noteworthy events that had happened, or supposedly happened, in the town. Thus he tells us that a female mule gave birth to a horse in Manūf in mid-1041/1631, “after I had finished writing this history.”6 His penchant for accounts of this sort of marvel, known collectively as ʿajāʾib, provides a clue to his profession, for he tells us that in 994/1586, the Circassian emir Süleyman b. Ahmed b. Özdemir, known Norman Itzkowitz, eds. Baki Tezcan and Karl K. Barbir, International Journal of Turkish Studies 13, 1–2 (2007): 97–111. 4 A World Cat search yields forty-one copies in libraries throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Lebanon, and Qatar. Surprisingly, thirty-one are in North America. Most of the late nineteenth-century printings feature the chronicle of ʿAbd Allāh al-Sharqāwī (d. 1812), Tuḥfat al-nāẓirīn fī man waliya Miṣr min al-mulūk wa-l-salāṭīn, printed in the margins. 5 The manuscript, bearing the title Kitāb Laṭāʾif akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fi Miṣr al-Qāhira min arbāb al-duwal, is housed in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Two critical editions based on this manuscript and bearing the same title also exist, edited by Muḥammad Raḍwān Muhanna (Al-Manṣūra, Egypt: Maktabat al-Imān, 2000), and edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jāmiʿī, 2003). 6 Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʿṭi al-Isḥāqī, Kitab Akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fī Miṣr min arbāb al-duwal (Cairo: Al-Maṭbaʿa al-Yamāniyya, 1892–1893), 94.

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as “the Mute” (al-Akhras), brought a grain of rice inscribed with sūra 112 of the Qurʾān7 to the mahkeme of Manūf, where al-Isḥāqī saw it.8 Süleyman would have been the grandson of the famous Mamluk-turned-Ottoman statesman Özdemir Pasha, who conquered part of the Horn of Africa for Süleyman I, and a nephew of the commander and grand vizier Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha (term 1584–1585).9 This anecdote reveals that al-Isḥāqī frequented the şeriat court of Manūf and that he had access to what he calls the aʿyān of Egypt – that is, the province’s notables, who in the late sixteenth century included the descendants of Ottoman statesmen, as his chronicle amply attests. Members of the ulema  – Islamic scholar-officials  – and the government bureaucracy were arguably in the best position to compose annalistic histories of a given city or province. First of all, they had perhaps the highest degree of literacy of anyone in Ottoman society. They also had access to documents, such as summaries of court cases, tax and salary registers, and the daybook (ruzname) of the governor, that would enable them to reconstruct key events of recent years. For earlier events, they typically relied on the annals of earlier chroniclers, if these existed and were available, as well as bodies of popular lore. Muslim court judges, in addition, saw a cross-section of provincial society parade through their courts every week and were intimately familiar with the legal frameworks within which provincial society functioned. In the previous century, the Hanafi judge of the Mediterranean port of Damietta, ʿAbdüṣṣamed Diyārbekrī (d. ca. 1550), had composed a lengthy history of Egypt in Ottoman Turkish, itself a translation and continuation of an earlier Arabic work by the late Mamluk chronicler Ibn Ṭūlūnī (1433–1517).10

7 8 9 10

Known as Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (sincere devotion): “Say: He is God, the one, God, the absolute. He begets not, nor is he begotten, and there is none comparable to him.” It is possible that either al-Isḥāqī or the emir himself intended a play on the words akhras and ikhlās. Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 158. On Özdemir Pasha’s conquests, see Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 52–54. On Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha, see Kemal Çiçek, art. “Osman Paşa, Özdemiroğlu,” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 33 (Istanbul: Diyanet Vakfı, 2007), 471–73. The two chronicles are ʿAbdüṣṣamed Diyārbekrī, Nevādirüʾt-tevārīh, a.k.a. Tercüme en-nüzhe es-seniyye fī zikriʾl-hulefā ve-l-mülūkiʾl-miṣriyye, and Badr al-Dīn Ḥasan b. Ḥusayn al-Ṭūlūnī, Nuzha saniyya fī akhbār al-khulafāʾ wa-l-mulūk al-miṣriyya. See Benjamin Lellouch, Les Ottomans en Égypte: Historiens et conquérants au XVIe siècle (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 107–33; see also Lellouch’s transcription and translation of excerpts from Diyārbekrī’s history, 288–393, and the manuscripts listed in the bibliography.

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The Nature of the Chronicle

Al-Isḥāqī, for his part, made no attempt to produce a comprehensive provincial history on the model of Diyārbekrī’s. He refers to his own effort as an ʿujāla, something thrown together hastily, thus perhaps explaining Holt’s “thin production” label. In contrast to Diyārbekrī’s opus, comprising multiple hundreds of folios in most manuscripts,11 Akhbār al-uwal runs to a modest 175 pages or so in the late nineteenth-century printed editions. As the work’s title suggests, its purpose is to catalogue those who administered Egypt. It is comprehensive in its chronological scope, beginning with remote antiquity and running through the early reign of Murad IV (r. 1623–1640). Al-Isḥāqī’s knowledge of pre-Islamic history is decidedly modest, to be sure. Occupying only the first twenty pages of the chronicle, it seems to draw largely on Isrāʾīliyyāt, or pseudo-biblical lore of pre-Islamic prophets transmitted in the early Islamic era. Even here, the author’s favoritism for Egypt is evident; he claims that Jesus was born in Egypt but was taken to Greater Syria in infancy, and that the prophet Jonah was sent to “Nineveh, a village in Egypt.”12 Equally striking is his penchant for digression. In recounting the famous episode from the life of the Prophet Muḥammad when a spider spins a web across the mouth of the cave where Muḥammad and Abū Bakr are hiding from the Meccan polytheists, he discourses at some length on the occasions on which spiders have helped prophets.13 3

The Caliphal Period

The advent of Islam provides al-Isḥāqī with a clear ordering principle for the bulk of his chronicle. He provides lists of the early caliphs whose empires included Egypt, from Abū Bakr through the Abbasid caliph al-Mustaʿṣim (r. 1242–1258), who was murdered by the invading Mongols. His chief sources on the early centuries of Islam appear to be the Arabic chronicles of Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (ca. 838–923) and the great Egyptian historian and hadith scholar Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (1445–1505). Yet he also has access to a corpus of fantastic and off-color popular anecdotes. One source he off-handedly cites for some of these is Akhbār Miṣr wa-ʿajāʾibihā (Stories of Egypt and Its Marvels) 11

Lellouch cites five manuscripts with 161, 203, 362, 367, and 452 folios. See Les Ottomans en Égypte, 280–84. 12 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 5, 19. 13 Ibid., 12–13. See also Qurʾān 9:40.

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by one Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf;14 others may draw on the Thousand and One Nights and oral lore. This divergence in sources results in a decidedly disjointed tone. Thus, on the one hand, he disparages the Muʿtazilite theological principle that God created the Qurʾān, enforced by al-Ma‌ʾmūn (r. 813–33) and al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 833–842), and praises their successor al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861) for suppressing Muʿtazilism and following the teachings of the rigorously conservative Baghdadi scholar Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (780–855). On the other hand, he relays a series of what can only be called “fart jokes” concerning al-Muʿtaṣim and indulges in a lengthy digression on roses, of which al-Mutawakkil was fond.15 One of his digressions allows him to interject an anecdote from the Ottoman era into his description of the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Mustāʿin (r. 862–866): he mentions “a woman from the descendants of the emirs of the Ottoman state” (imrāʾa min awlād umarāʾ al-dawla al-ʿuthmāniyya) who died in Egypt without heirs, so that the imperial treasury confiscated her estate. Among her belongings was a pearl that recited the Qurʾān; al-Isḥāqī claims that this marvel dated from his own lifetime, during the governorship of Mehmed Pasha “al-Wazīr,” i.e., Kul Kıran (on whom more below), who served from 1607–1611.16 Part of the point of recounting the Abbasid caliphate in a chronicle of Egypt is that it ended in Egypt. After the Mongol sack of Baghdad, a purported member of the Abbasid family fled to Cairo, where the nascent Mamluk Sultanate recognized him as caliph, even though he and his successors had no real authority. After conquering Egypt in 1517, Selim I took the last Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil (r. 1517), to Istanbul, along with a great many other prominent prisoners; he returned to Cairo after Selim’s death. He surrendered his title before his exile, thus bringing the Abbasid caliphate to an end.17 4

Autonomous Dynasties that Governed Egypt

At this point, just over halfway through his opus, al-Isḥāqī shifts his focus from caliphal dynasties whose domains included Egypt to dynasties and polities 14

This is probably Akhbār al-zamān wa-ʿajāʾib al-buldān by Ibrāhīm Wāṣif Shāh, seemingly inspired by al-Masʿūdī’s (d. ca. 956) Jawāhir al-buḥūr wa-waqāʾiʿ al-umūr wa-ʿajāʾib al-duhūr wa-akhbār al-diyār al-miṣriyya. It was published in French translation by Bernard Carra de Vaux as L’Abrégé des merveilles (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1898; republished Paris: Sindbad, 1984), based on a Bibliothèque nationale manuscript. 15 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 78–81, 83. 16 Ibid., 88. 17 Lellouch, Les Ottomans en Égypte, 19.

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that governed Egypt directly. A key source for much of this information is the Khiṭaṭ of the Mamluk Sultanate-era historian al-Maqrīzī (1364–1442). Some members of the Abbasid royal family governed Egypt, including the future caliph al-Muʿtaṣim, whom al-Isḥāqī describes as a despotic administrator  – not surprisingly, given his aversion to him as caliph. He put down a Bedouin rebellion with 4,000 of his Turkish mamluks (atrāk), foreshadowing his heavy dependence on them during his caliphate.18 His elder brother, the scholarly caliph al-Ma‌ʾmūn, forced to come to Egypt in person to quash another rebellion several years later, wanted to measure the pyramids.19 Al-Isḥāqī presents the Ṭūlūnids, descendants of a Central Asian Turkish mamluk assigned to Egypt by the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtazz (r. 866–869), as a separate dynasty from the Abbasids. This is probably how Ottoman-era Egyptian historians regarded them  – not inappropriately, since they administered Egypt with near-complete autonomy for four decades. In al-Isḥāqī’s narrative, incursions into Egypt by the Fatimids, who had conquered most of North Africa from the Abbasids’ various governors, began immediately after the Ṭūlūnids were deposed. The Ikhshīdid governors, who administered Egypt from 935–969, are incorporated into the Ṭūlūnid chapter and presented as forgettable and ineffectual, with the predictable exception of the Ethiopian eunuch regent Kāfūr (r. 966–968), whose military prowess arguably delayed the Fatimid conquest of Egypt. Kāfūr’s reign gives al-Isḥāqī the opportunity to exhibit a dismaying degree of racial prejudice. After noting that the eunuch cultivated an entourage of African ghulāms, he digresses on Blacks (aswad), claiming that they have natural rhythm and that they dance to the beat of drums even in the Egypt of al-Isḥāqī’s day. These regrettable stereotypes appear to derive from books of marvels, although the chronicler also cites al-Suyūṭī’s smaller hadith collection as “support” for his assertions.20 4.1 The Fatimids Al-Isḥāqī’s pronouncements on the Fatimids reveal how little Egyptian scholars of the Ottoman period knew about the Ismāʿīlī counter-caliphate that founded Cairo. While the chronicler is aware of the dynasty’s purported descent from Fāṭima, the daughter of the Prophet Muḥammad, he notes that some historians believe that the Fatimids descended from a “Magian,” i.e., a Zoroastrian. Similarly, he acknowledges that the name al-Qāhira derives from 18 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 104. 19 Ibid., 104–05. 20 Ibid., 110. The collection is known as al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr.

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the Arabic designation of the planet Mars (al-Qāhir), which was in the ascendant when the city was founded, but claims that the planet “signified that the Turks (al-atrāk) must certainly possess this city and its domains.”21 The only Fatimid caliph whom he discusses at any length is the “mad” al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh (r. 996–1021), for whose reign he relies on the relatively well-informed account of the Mamluk-era historian Ibn Kathīr (1300–1373). Thus, he reports al-Ḥākim’s stringent policies toward non-Muslims and his apparent murder, as well as the eschatological claims of the Druze, who believe that al-Ḥākim is divine and will return to usher in a messianic age.22 In contrast, he makes no mention of the Nizārī-Mustaʿlian schism within Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism following the death of the caliph al-Mustanṣir (r. 1036–94). 4.2 The Ayyubids Considering that the Ayyubid dynasty, founded by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb, the famous Saladin (r. 1171–1793), returned Egypt to the Sunni fold after two centuries as the seat of the Ismāʿīlī caliphate, al-Isḥāqī seems to have little to say about them. He gives a garbled account of the occupation of Yemen by an Ismāʿīlī rebel in 1173, which prompted Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn to send in an army of occupation under his brother “Shams al-Dawla” (actually Shams al-Dīn Tūrānshāh).23 He also notes the confrontation between Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s great-nephew, al-Ṣalīḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb (r. 1205–1249), and “Zaydā Fransas,” or “Saint Francis,” presumably Louis IX of France, the future Saint Louis, who besieged Damietta as Najm al-Dīn lay dying of an abscess in al-Manṣūra.24 Apart from these two military incidents, his coverage of the Ayyubids relies heavily on ʿajāʾib stories, including the infamous tale of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, following the death of the last Fatimid caliph, finding a drum in the abandoned palace that, when he beat it, caused everyone in the edifice to break wind.25 A more obscure marvel concerns a woman from Alexandria, “Bint Hudaverdi,” who had no hands yet who was able to write in calligraphic script with her feet.26 4.3 The Mamluks Baybārs al-Bunduqdārī (r. 1260–1277), founder of the Mamluk Sultanate, appears in connection with the victories of al-Ṣalīḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb’s Turkish mamluks over the Crusaders, then over the Mongols. Like most Ottoman-era 21 22 23 24 25 26

Ibid., 111. Ibid., 112, 117. Ibid., 118. Ibid., 123. Ibid., 119. Ibid., 120.

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chroniclers, whether based in Egypt or otherwise, al-Isḥāqī frames the so-called Baḥrī Mamluk phase of the sultanate (1260–1382), when the regime was dominated by mamluks of Kıpchak Turkic origin, as al-dawla al-Turkiyya, “the Turkish regime,” to distinguish it from the succeeding Circassian period. Like other Ottoman-era writers, too, he is influenced by the extensive lore of Baybārs and his successor Qalāwūn (r. 1279–1290) as recounted in the Sīrat al-Ẓāhir Baybārs, a massive compilation of fantastical and often anachronistic adventure tales, originally recited orally.27 The Circassian era, dawlat al-Jarākisa, in Egypt (1382–1517) is dominated by Sultans Qāytbāy (r. 1468–1496) and Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–1516), whose defeat by Selim I gave the Ottomans control of Syria. Like the sixteenth-century chronicler Diyārbekrī, al-Isḥāqī seems to be affected by the aura of reverent nostalgia surrounding Qāytbāy, whom he calls “the best of the Circassian sultans” and the one most loved by Egypt’s reaya. He recounts Qāytbāy’s love of Sufis and his service to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina: he rebuilt the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, adding a madrasa and library; he endowed numerous villages in Egypt to provide grain for Mecca and Medina.28 In describing Qāytbāy’s repairs to the Prophet’s Mosque, al-Isḥāqī digresses on his own hajj in 1022/1614, when the Egyptian pilgrimage commander, Kasım Bey, held the pilgrims at the Prophet’s house for three days out of fear of an attack by the Anaza Bedouin.29 In contrast to the reign of Qāytbāy, which the chronicler presents as idyllic, Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī’s reign is marked by oppression and corruption. The sultan’s soldiers robbed the common people, while the sultan himself confiscated inheritances. Unlike Qāytbāy, furthermore, al-Ghawrī seems to be the target of stories describing the outlandish behavior of Circassians.30 These tales, as relayed by al-Isḥāqī, may provide a clue to perceptions of Circassians among Egypt’s intelligentsia in the early seventeenth century, a juncture at which they were becoming more numerous in the province. Circassian mamluks offered 27

See Gamāl al-Ghitānī, ed., Sīrat al-Ẓāhir Baybars, 50 parts in 5 volumes (Cairo: Al-Ha‌ʾya al-Miṣriyya al- ʿĀmma liʾl-Kitāb, 1996); Georges Bohas and Jean-Patrick Guillaume, eds., Le Roman de Baïbars, 11 vols. (Paris: Actes Sud/Sindbad, 1985–1998); Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 50–52, 138–39. 28 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 136–37. Qāytbāy was also responsible for the green dome over the Prophet’s tomb. 29 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 136–37. On Kasım Bey, see Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions, 149–51, 160, 166–67, 181, 185. 30 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 138.

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an alternative to the soldiers of devşirme origin who were fomenting rebellion in Egypt and in the imperial capital at just this time.31 4.4 The Ottomans The Ottoman dynasty occupies its own section of Akhbār al-uwal, although al-Isḥāqī provides only cursory detail on Ottoman origins and early conquests. His description of Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople allows him to digress on the wonders of the city under Ottoman rule and on the number of soldiers stationed in the capital: he claims to have current figures from the time of writing in 1623, courtesy of a member of the soldiery, including 40,000 Janissaries, 60,000 imperial sipahis, and 24,000 acemi oğlan.32 He is also duly impressed with Selim I (r. 1512–1520), the conqueror of Egypt, recounting the tale of how he miraculously escaped death at the hand of his father, only to overthrow his father years later, and how he died of an untreated boil.33 5

The Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn

Apart from these rather random anecdotes and digressions, however, the chronicler’s chief interest, where the Ottoman dynasty is concerned, is its additions to the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn (Evkafüʾl-Haremeyn), the imperial pious endowments for Mecca and Medina. These had been inaugurated under the Mamluk Sultanate in order to provide grain for the holy cities, since grain could not be grown in the Hijaz. Under the Ottomans, these endowments would expand to provide religious and educational services, as well as basic infrastructure, for the populations of the holy cities and for pilgrims to Mecca; endowed villages and properties would spread throughout the empire. The all-important grain-producing villages, however, were located exclusively in Egypt; their produce was transported to the Hijaz every year with the Egyptian 31

Jane Hathaway, “Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul: The ‘Eastern’ Alternative,” in Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands, eds. Hakan Karateke, et al. (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018), 22–42; Jane Hathaway, “The ‘Mamluk Breaker’ Who Was Really a Kul Breaker: A Fresh Look at Kul Kıran Mehmed Pasha, Governor of Egypt 1607–1611,” in The Arab Lands in the Ottoman Era: Essays in Honor of Professor Caesar Farah, ed. Jane Hathaway (Minneapolis: Center for Early Modern History, University of Minnesota, 2009), 93–109. 32 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 143. 33 Ibid., 144, 147. See also Feridun M. Emecen, Yavuz Sultan Selim (Istanbul: Yitik Hazine Yayınları, 2010), 344–46, citing Hoca Sadeddin’s Tācüʾt-tevārīh.

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pilgrimage caravan.34 Al-Isḥāqī lists the villages added to specific imperial endowments under Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566), Murad III (r. 1574–1595), and Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603). His descriptions reveal specific concentrations of Awqāf villages. Most of the villages that Mehmed III endowed, he points out, were located in al-Bahnasā subprovince in Middle Egypt, likewise the location of several villages endowed under Murad III.35 Mention of these endowments gives the chronicler the opportunity to reintroduce the subject of his pilgrimage to the holy cities in 1022/1614, and to proceed to a discussion of the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn in general.36 The chronicler’s intense interest  – not to call it an obsession  – with the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn, along with his familiarity with the villages endowed, suggests that he may have been involved with the process by which villages were assigned to these enormous foundations. While foundation deeds (waqfiyyas), accounts of Awqāf revenues, and similar documents typically mention endowed villages, as do numerous Egyptian chronicles, the manner in which villages in different Egyptian subprovinces were identified as candidates for endowment remains mysterious. To a certain extent, pre-Ottoman precedents, above all those of the Mamluk Sultanate era, must have determined the selection, although numerous villages were endowed to the Awqāf under the Ottomans that had never enjoyed such a link before.37 Subprovincial ulema such as al-Isḥāqī may well provide a missing piece of the puzzle: they would have supplied the subprovince- and village-level knowledge of the revenue-producing capacities of various villages, their officials, their links to potentially disruptive Bedouin tribes, their proximity to transport routes, and so on. Local knowledge of the sort that al-Isḥāqī possessed would thus have proven invaluable to sultans and other statesmen (and -women) seeking to found or expand such endowments. 6

The Murder of Osman II

Apart from Ottoman additions to the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn, the topic that receives most space in al-Isḥāqī’s coverage of the Ottoman dynasty is the murder of seventeen-year-old Sultan Osman II by disgruntled palace soldiers 34

See Jane Hathaway, The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 60–62, 181–83. 35 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 148–50. 36 Ibid., 150–51. 37 Heinz Halm, Ӓgypten nach den mamlukischen Lehensregistern, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1979), passim.

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in 1622. The chronicler obviously regards the murdered sultan with some degree of sympathy; he labels him al-maẓlūm al-shahīd, “the wronged, the martyred.”38 At the same time, however, he depicts Osman as an intransigent youngster who refuses to concede to the soldiers’ demands. More damningly, in al-Isḥāqī’s eyes, he rejected the counsel of the saintly “Mahmud Efendi,” i.e., Mahmud Hudāyī (1541–1628), the great Sufi “saint” of Üsküdar, who advised him to abandon his plan of making the hajj and moving the imperial capital to Egypt.39 Astonishingly, al-Isḥāqī blames the sultan’s death entirely on the imperial soldiery, al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr, while exonerating the newly-appointed grand vizier, Kara Davud Pasha (term May–June 1622), whom most court chroniclers regard as the true murderer. In al-Isḥāqī’s account, Kara Davud locks Osman in Yedikule Prison for the night, then returns in the morning to find him dead.40 This terrifying incident occurred shortly before al-Isḥāqī began compiling his chronicle and doubtless colors his attitude toward the imperial soldiery in Egypt, which becomes evident in the last section of his chronicle. 7

Ottoman Governors of Egypt

This last section, the longest in the entire chronicle, concerns the governors of Egypt under the Ottomans. It is typical of what Holt called “sultan-pasha” chronicles in listing the names of the governors (pashas), providing the dates of tenure and length of time in Egypt for each, and noting a few noteworthy events during each term. For the governors during the first several decades of Ottoman rule in Egypt, al-Isḥāqī relies on the chronicle of Muḥammad Ibn Iyās (1448–ca. 1524),41 perhaps oral lore, perhaps even Diyārbekrī. Notwithstanding, he seems unusually attuned to fiscal matters, waqf, and events in Minūfiyya. Thus he notes that under the Hungarian eunuch admiral Süleyman Pasha (terms 1525–1535, 1536–1538), the registers (Arabic singular daftar, Turkish defter) in the governor’s council chamber burned and were replaced with new registers called dafātir al-tarbīʿ, tarbīʿ being the term employed in Ottoman 38 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 148. 39 Ibid. See also İbrahim Peçevi, Tārīḫ-i Peçevī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-i ʿĀmire, 1281/1864), vol. 2: 382. 40 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 149. In contrast, see Gabriel Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 80–81, 100–4, 106, 109; Peçevi, Tārīh-i Peçevī, vol. 2: 387–88. 41 Muḥammad b. Iyās, Badāʾīʿ al-zuhūr fī wāqāʾīʿ al-duhūr, trans. Gaston Wiet as Histoire des mamlouks circassiens, 2 vols. (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1945) and as Journal d’un bourgeois du Caire: Chronique d’Ibn Iyās (Paris: Armand Colin, 1955).

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Egypt for a cadastral survey. An emir named Keyvan (“Saturn”) was appointed to measure Egypt’s villages for the 1528 tarbīʿ, the only survey that the Ottomans conducted in Egypt.42 Later, he recounts Sinan Pasha (terms 1567–1568 and 1571–1574) deposing the capricious emir of Minūfiyya, Manṣūr b. Baghdād, a chieftain of the Baghdādī Bedouin confederation, and replacing him with one of his brothers.43 As the chronicle progresses to al-Isḥāqī’s own lifetime, personal anecdotes and eyewitness accounts grow more frequent. Thus, the chronicler recalls that he was at the home of the naqīb al-juyūsh, the official who oversaw the payment of the soldiers’ salaries, in Cairo when the earthquake of 999/1591 hit and saw the lotus tree in the courtyard sway.44 (This, incidentally, tells us something about the circles in which al-Isḥāqī moved and probably indicates that he traveled to Cairo regularly.) Perhaps inevitably, this recollection leads to a digression on earthquakes in Islamic history.45 7.1 Soldiery Revolts The most common motif running through al-Isḥāqī’s coverage of these later years, however, is that of rebellious imperial soldiers, to whom he refers, as in his coverage of Osman II’s murder, as al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr. He first mentions a revolt ( fitna) under Üveys Pasha (term 1586–1591), who, according to the chronicler, encouraged the awlād al-ʿArab (literally, “sons of the Arabs”) to enter the regiments and adopt the soldiers’ uniforms.46 As I have pointed out elsewhere, the awlād al-ʿArab were not Arabs in the modern sense of the word; rather, the term was a fluid label that could indicate various local or localized elements, including not only Arabophone urban commoners and peasants but Bedouins and “Asiatics” of various kinds. The awlād al-ʿArab stood in stark contrast to the Rūm oğlanı (“sons of the Rūmīs”), the soldiers from the central Ottoman lands, many of whom had been recruited through the devşirme.47 Al-Isḥāqī’s ʿaskar al-manṣūr appear to consist largely of these kullar of devşirme origin  – the same elements who overthrew Osman II – and he portrays them as inherently 42 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 150; Nicolas Michel, L’Égypte des villages autour du seizième siècle (Leuven: Peeters, 2018), 120–25, 441–46. 43 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 152. 44 Ibid., 154. 45 Ibid., 154–55. 46 Ibid., 154. 47 Jane Hathaway, “The Evlād-i ʿArab (‘Sons of the Arabs’) in Ottoman Egypt: A Rereading,” in Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West, vol. 1, eds. Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 203–16; Jane Hathaway, “A Re-examination of the Terms Evlād-i ʿArab and Rūm Oğlanı in Ottoman Egypt,” in The Turks, eds. Hasan Celâl Güzel, et al., 6 vols. (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2002), 3: 531–36.

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rebellious. They rebel again under Şerif Mehmed Pasha (term 1596–1598), who locks himself in Cairo’s citadel until the end of his tenure.48 The growing global fiscal crisis that engulfed much of the world at the end of the sixteenth century provides the conjunctural context for the soldiers’ restiveness.49 Egypt’s seven regiments of soldiery all received cash salaries from the provincial treasury, as well as allotments of food and clothing. The tımar system was never introduced in the province; instead, Egypt, like Yemen and Baghdad-Basra, was a salyane province that delivered an annual tribute to the imperial treasury.50 As a result of galloping inflation toward the end of the century, the soldiers’ salaries, which they often received late and in debased coinage, grew increasingly worthless. The consequent financial hardship was particularly severe for the three cavalry regiments – Gönüllüyan, Tüfenkciyan, and Çerakise – whose salaries were the lowest among the regiments to begin with, and whose duties were often concentrated in the countryside, quashing Bedouin revolts and ensuring that irrigation canals were maintained. Thus, they could not open shops in the urban bazaars as members of the other regiments, above all the Janissaries, habitually did. They therefore relied on an illegal tax on the peasantry known as the ṭulba, which imposed a considerable burden on Egypt’s already strapped rural population. Egypt’s governors, for their part, faced a stark choice between paying the soldiers’ salaries and various bonuses, notably the bonus that traditionally accompanied the arrival of a new governor, and remitting the annual tribute to Istanbul. If they chose to forgo timely salary payment and canceled bonuses in the interest of paying the tribute, they could be sure that the soldiery would rebel. This was, at base, what happened to Üveys Pasha and Şerif Mehmed Pasha, whatever the particular circumstances of their tenures may have been. The soldiers’ rebellious tendencies culminated in the murder of the governor Ibrahim Pasha in 1604. This incident has been covered in numerous secondary publications and is likewise narrated in other Egyptian chronicles, most notably that of al-Isḥāqī’s younger contemporary Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Siddīqī (1596–1676). Both chroniclers relate that on his arrival in Egypt, Ibrahim angered the soldiers by refusing to pay them the 48 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 158. 49 Ömer Lutfi Barkan, “The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Middle East,” trans. Justin McCarthy, International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 3–28; Jane Hathaway, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800, 2nd ed. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020), 61–62. 50 Halil İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600, trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), 104–05; Hathaway, Arab Lands, 2nd ed., 48.

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customary governor’s accession bonus. Members of the three cavalry regiments ambushed and killed him when he left Cairo to cut an irrigation channel in Shubra, today a huge neighborhood in Cairo but at the time a village just northwest of the city. They beheaded him, along with his comrade Mehmed Bey b. Hüsrev Pasha, and paraded the heads around Cairo.51 While Ibn Abī al-Surūr seems to have no opinion of Ibrahim Pasha, al-Isḥāqī describes him as an “independent-minded” (mustaqillan bi-ra‌ʾyihi) person who refused to take counsel. He refused to heed the high officials (akābir al-dawla) who warned him that no governor had ever cut that particular irrigation channel before, for the ritual was the prerogative of the zāʿīm Miṣr, an informal title held by one of Egypt’s sancak beyis.52 By providing this detail, al-Isḥāqī implicitly makes Ibrahim Pasha responsible for his own death. The soldiers received their comeuppance with the arrival of Öküz Mehmed Pasha, known by later Egyptian chroniclers as Kul Kıran, “breaker of the kullar.” Al-Isḥāqī and Ibn Abī al-Surūr agree that Öküz Mehmed defeated the rebellious soldiers militarily, but beyond this, their accounts of his governorship could hardly be more different. Ibn Abī al-Surūr portrays the pasha as a liberating hero who abolished the ṭulba, triggering a cataclysmic rebellion by the cavalry regiments that he crushed by uniting the soldiers stationed in Cairo with the sancak beyis and the Arab tribes. He beheaded the ringleaders on the spot and sent the rest, in chains, to Yemen to end their lives fighting the imam of the Zaydī Shīʿites. His achievement amounted to “the second Ottoman conquest of Egypt” in Ibn Abī al-Surūr’s opinion.53 Al-Isḥāqī is far less fulsome, matter-of-factly noting the pasha’s success in uniting the beys, officers, and Arab shaykhs, and the resulting victory. He seems more concerned with pointing out that Öküz Mehmed executed several tyrannical kāshifs, or subprovincial administrators in charge of maintaining irrigation works (the title was a holdover from the Mamluk Sultanate), in key Nile Delta subprovinces. The victims included Süleyman b. Dirʿat (?), a patronym that seems to refer to a suit of armor, kāshif of al-Isḥāqī’s home province of Minūfiyya; Köse Ali, kāshif of al-Buḥayra; and Perviz Macar (“the Hungarian”), kāshif of Gharbiyya. Of these three, Perviz Macar was the most notorious. Several years earlier, in 1010/1601, the governor Yavuz Ali Pasha had heard complaints against him when he was kāshif of Minūfiyya; Minūfiyya’s qadi had 51 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 163–64; Muḥammad b. Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddiqī, Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya fī dhikr wulāt Misr wa-l-Qāhira al-Muʿizziyya, ed. ʿAbd al-Rāziq ʿAbd al-Rāziq ʿIsa (Cairo: Al-ʿArabī, 1988), 177–78. 52 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 162–63. 53 Ibn Abī al-Surūr, Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya, 181–84.

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told him before he even arrived in Egypt that Perviz must be executed.54 His exactions were so notorious that he is even mentioned by the court chronicler Mustafa Ṣāfī Efendi (d. 1616).55 Yet Ibn Abī al-Surūr never mentions him or any of the other corrupt kāshifs. Clearly al-Isḥāqī’s entrenchment in one of Egypt’s key subprovinces affects his framing of Öküz Mehmed Pasha’s reforms; since his purview is not limited to Cairo, he is able to present a broader context for the governor’s actions. This wider perspective is valuable since, after all, Öküz Mehmed’s measures had their most profound impact in Egypt’s countryside. Al-Isḥāqī seems more impressed with Öküz Mehmed’s successor as governor, Sufi Mehmed Pasha (term 1611–1615), who, by the chronicler’s account, arrived in Egypt with 40,000 soldiers from “Rūm” who were to be exiled to Yemen after fomenting rebellion in the imperial capital in 1020/1611–1612. (Ibn Abī al-Surūr claims only 1,000 soldiers who were sent to Egypt by the grand vizier after Sufi Mehmed was already ensconced in Cairo.) The soldiers, no doubt aware of the death sentence to which service in Yemen often amounted, refused to leave Cairo. Al-Isḥāqī relates in considerable detail how the governor deployed over a dozen beys and kāshifs, led by one Fındık Bey, along with Bedouin tribesmen and al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr, to defeat the rebels, whom he calls khawārij, “Khārijites” – a standard Ottoman-era epithet for heretics and insurrectionists – in the streets of Cairo. Ibn Abī al-Surūr’s account of this episode is far more succinct and excludes Fındık Bey; instead, Abdin Bey (called Abdi by al-Isḥāqī), the former pilgrimage commander, plays the hero.56 The last governor to take office before the overthrow of Sultan Osman II was the notorious Mere Hüseyin Pasha, an Albanian devşirme recruit whose sobriquet derived from his habit, while serving as grand vizier (June–July 1622 and February–August 1623), of shouting “Take him!” (mere in Albanian) when ordering the torture or execution of one or another accused miscreant.57 Al-Isḥāqī clearly loathes Mere Hüseyin, no doubt in part because he knows what will transpire during Mere’s forthcoming grand vizierate. He notes that during Mere’s governorship, Egypt suffered a low Nile and high prices; the population’s suffering was exacerbated by the corruption of Mere and his cronies. 54 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 159, 165–66. It is not entirely certain that the kāshif of Minūfiyya was the same Perviz since the sobriquet Macar is not used to identify him. 55 Mustafa Ṣāfī, Muṣṭafā Ṣāfī’nin Zübdetüʾt-tevārīhi, ed. İbrahim Hakkı Cuhadar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003), 2: 90; Hathaway, “Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul,” 28. 56 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 167–68; lbn Abī al-Surūr, Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya, 191. 57 Metin İ. Kunt, “Ethnic-Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5 (1974): 233–39, here 235; Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy, 100–1, 109–12, 127–31, 180.

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The chronicler takes pains to point out that after the 1622 revolt in Istanbul that resulted in Osman II’s overthrow, another revolt occurred that allowed Mere to claw his way to the grand vizierate. By al-Isḥāqī’s account, echoing the Turcophone chronicler İbrahim Peçevi, a number of ulema in the imperial capital prayed in the Mosque of Mehmed the Conqueror for Mere’s removal, only to have his followers attack them, killing some and exiling others.58 Sultan Murad IV, during whose reign al-Isḥāqī completed his chronicle, took the throne in 1623, following the deposition of Mustafa I, and allowed these exiled ulema to return to Istanbul. Al-Isḥāqī may well have known some of these scholars personally; at the least, he sympathized with them as scholar-officials who were unjustly persecuted. He notes that Murad initially restored Mere Hüseyin to the grand vizierate but ultimately executed him – a fate that the chronicler obviously feels was deserved. Ibn Abī al-Surūr, in contrast, has far less to say about Mere, though he does note that he became grand vizier after Osman II’s murder. He does, however, recount a story about Mere beating to death a Jewish merchant who allegedly held part of the annual tribute that the pasha owed at the time of his departure from Egypt.59 Both chroniclers appear to draw on an already-established practice of portraying Mere as gratuitously violent, although al-Isḥāqī goes much farther in depicting his corruption and lack of scruples. 7.2 The Ordering of State and Society At numerous points in his coverage of the Ottoman governors of Egypt, al-Isḥāqī lauds the intervention of a group he calls akābir al-dawla, which translates roughly to “the great ones of the state.” (In one instance, they are called arbāb al-dawla, “lords of the state.”) These are the people who act as a check on the governor’s actions. They seem to be instrumental in selecting the qāʾim maqām, the official, usually a sancak beyi, who, after the deposition of the governor, presides over Egypt until his successor arrives.60 They persuade Üveys Pasha to release an emir whom he has imprisoned for failing to remit village revenues.61 They warn the ill-fated Ibrahim Pasha not to cut the irrigation dam.62 They help Mustafa Pasha to escape after he is imprisoned by his successor, Mere Hüseyin.63 And in one of the last dated entries in al-Isḥāqī’s 58 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 170–71; Peçevi, Tārīh-i Peçevī, vol. 2: 390. On the “second revolt,” actually a sort of putsch by elements of the palace soldiery, see Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy, 109–12. 59 Ibn Abī al-Surūr, Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya, 205–6. 60 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 165. 61 Ibid., 158. 62 Ibid., 166. 63 Ibid., 173.

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chronicle, they prevent the followers of Silahdar Ibrahim Pasha from extorting money from Cairo’s merchants.64 But who, exactly, are they? They are not ümera, for al-Isḥāqī repeatedly mentions them alongside Egypt’s ümera, who at the time of his writing seem to have encompassed both sancak beyis and certain high regimental officers. They may be officials attached to the governor’s council, or divan, without being part of his personal entourage: officials such as the agha of the Müteferrika regiment and the kethüda of the Çavuşan regiment, who were usually appointed from Istanbul, as well as the ruznameci, the bureaucrat who kept the governor’s daybook (ruzname), and the chief scribe (katib) of the divan. Quite possibly the chief qadi of Egypt also belonged to this category. By evoking them, the chronicler conveys his belief in a “state,” or administration, that transcends the caprices of individual governors. It seems to comprise an administrative core of appointed officials who do not necessarily serve at the pleasure of the governor and who act in concert to maintain order and stability, particularly during the dangerous transitional period between governors. They also offer counsel in the hope of preventing foolish actions on the part of particular governors, and intercede to protect other officials and the populace at large when these actions cannot be prevented. Ibn Abī al-Surūr, it is worth noting, never uses the word dawla in his chronicle. In light of his firm belief in a body of “caretakers” of the state, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that al-Isḥāqī’s chronicle ends not with yet another governor’s tenure but with a closing essay that lays out the five major estates that comprise a just society, drawing on “the author of Al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya,” presumably al-Suyūṭī.65 These are, in descending order, prophets; ulema; kings; the “middle people” (awsāṭ al-nās), who enforce justice in social interactions; and finally those who “manage themselves,” i.e., the commoners, or reaya. This schema is clearly a variant of the “circle of justice” familiar from numerous works of Ottoman statecraft and the “mirror for princes” literature.66 What distinguishes al-Isḥāqī’s scheme from more conventional specimens of the circle of justice is that it lacks a well-defined place for the military; instead, 64 Ibid., 174. 65 The full title is al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya wa-l-munḥa al-makkiyya. See Mufti Ali, “Muslim Opposition to Logic and Theology in the Light of the Works of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505)” (unpublished PhD diss., University of Leiden, Leiden 2015), 55 n. 364. Though there are several other works called al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya, only one other is chronologically possible: Al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya fī-l-sifārat al-turkiyya by Abūʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Tamgrūtī, an account of the author’s embassy to the Ottoman Empire from Morocco in 1589–1591. 66 Linda T. Darling, A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization (London: Routledge, 2013).

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the “middle people” would seem to subsume all those in government employ, whether soldiers, military commanders, or bureaucrats. The akābir al-dawla would presumably fall into this category. So, too, however, would al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr, and for this reason it is telling that the ulema, including qadis and muftis employed by the state, occupy a higher place in al-Isḥāqī’s ideal social hierarchy. Even if they do not have coercive power over the military – or over the rulers, for that matter – soldiers and sultans alike should seek and heed their counsel. Failure to do so can lead to catastrophes such as the murder of Osman II or Mere Hüseyin’s attack on Istanbul’s ulema. This five-part social stratification reappears in the lengthy chronicle of the early nineteenth-century Egyptian historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī (1753– 1825), who places it at the beginning of his work.67 He reproduces al-Isḥāqī’s text more or less verbatim, though he amplifies it with Qurʾānic verses and hadiths. Al-Jabartī’s schema has been remarked by historians of Ottoman Egypt whereas his debt to al-Isḥāqī and, through him, to al-Suyūṭī is usually overlooked.68 Al-Jabartī himself credits al-Isḥāqī only once, as the source of a story concerning the reign of Murad III, and, in general, is reluctant to mention his debt to earlier Ottoman-era historians.69 However, it appears that Akhbār al-uwal served as an intermediary between al-Jabartī and al-Suyūṭī and thus provided a degree of intellectual continuity between late Mamluk and late Ottoman scholarship. 8

Conclusions

Akhbār al-uwal offers a snapshot of the concerns of Egypt’s religious and intellectual cadres at a critical juncture in Ottoman history: the height of the 67

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī, ʿAjāʾib al-āthār fī-l-tarājim wa-l-akhbār, ed. Shmuel Moreh (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Institute of Asian and African Studies, 2013), 1: 8–10. 68 Shmuel Moreh, The Egyptian Historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī: His Life, Works, Autographs, Manuscripts and the Historical Sources of ʿAjāʾib al-āthār, Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 32 (Oxford: Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester, 2014): 302–10; Lars Bjørneboe, In Search of the True Political Position of the ʿUlama: An Analysis of the Aims and Perspectives of the Chronicles of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī (1753–1825) (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press and the Danish Institute in Damascus, 2007), 250. 69 Al-Jabartī, ʿAjāʾib al-āthār, 1: 22–23 and 1: 5; P.M. Holt, “Al-Jabartī’s Introduction to the History of Ottoman Egypt,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, 1 (1962): 38–51, here 40; Jane Hathaway, “Introduction” to Al-Jabartī’s History of Egypt (a collection of translated excerpts from ʿAjāʾib al-āthār) (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2009), xxv–xxx.

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multi-pronged seventeenth-century crisis, the aftermath of the first regicide in Ottoman history. If we regard al-Isḥāqī as fairly typical of the era’s provincial ulema, then we can conclude that they were an adequately, though by no means thoroughly, well-read population, conversant with the classics of Abbasid- and Mamluk Sultanate-era annalistic history, as well as with the standard hadith collections and Muslim exegetical works. At the same time, they had access to a rich vein of “marvels” (ʿajāʾib) literature that figured prominently in shaping their views of particular epochs and rulers. Towering above all other intellectual influences was the prolific late Mamluk-era polymath Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, whose impact on Ottoman intellectual life – not simply in Egypt but in the empire at large – deserves a separate study. At the same time, the chronicle reveals interests distinctive to al-Isḥāqī. His familiarity with the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn, down to specific villages in specific Egyptian subprovinces that were endowed to the foundations during the Ottoman era, make his work a valuable resource on the functioning of this vital institution. His preoccupation with the Awqāf is only one indicator of his intense concern for the Muslim holy cities. Mecca and Medina were a common fascination of officials in Egypt, given the province’s role as the source of the cities’ grain and the terminus of one of two annual pilgrimage caravans. Yet al-Isḥāqī’s interest seems to transcend the utilitarian. It is no accident that his most personal remarks occur during evocations of his pilgrimage in 1022/1614. In the context of the historiography of Ottoman Egypt, al-Isḥāqī’s chronicle falls chronologically in-between those of Diyārbekrī and Ibn Abī al-Surūr and offers a useful supplement to both. Like Diyārbekrī, he was a judge in a provincial city. While Manūf was far smaller than Damietta and could not boast the maritime commercial connections or the cosmopolitanism of a Mediterranean port, it was nonetheless an important node of intra-provincial commerce, both overland and via the Nile. We can even argue that the subprovincial orientation of both chroniclers made them particularly well-attuned to developments that were not dominated, or even mediated, by Cairo. Both devote far more space to events outside Cairo than Ibn Abī al-Surūr, the scion of an eminent Cairene Sufi dynasty. Cairo is, so to speak, Ibn Abī al-Surūr’s universe. This perhaps explains his seemingly unique depiction of Kul Kıran Mehmed Pasha as the “second conqueror” of Egypt. Though the soldiers’ rebellion occurred largely in the countryside, the dénouement, with the parade of severed heads and the governor’s public condemnation of the survivors, occurred in Cairo.70 Al-Isḥāqī’s subprovincial perspective, in contrast, accounts for his more 70

Ibn Abī al-Surūr, Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya, 181–88.

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Hathaway

measured appraisal of Kul Kıran Mehmed as a subduer of rapacious kāshifs in Egypt’s countryside. The fact that al-Isḥāqī lived and worked in Manūf makes his chronicle uniquely valuable. A Cairo-based historian could probably not have provided comparable detail on villages endowed to the Awqāf al-Ḥaramayn or on the daily machinations of the kāshifs who oversaw subprovincial irrigation infrastructure. At the same time, the chronicler’s narrative demonstrates that subprovincial ulema were not necessarily isolated from the professional and intellectual currents flowing through Cairo and Istanbul. Al-Isḥāqī clearly enjoyed sustained links to high officials in Cairo and traveled to the provincial capital regularly. Al-Isḥāqī’s description of the events surrounding the deposition and murder of Osman II, furthermore, hints at connections to the imperial court, or at least familiarity with the work of contemporary court chroniclers who were documenting these harrowing events. It seems clear that he had access to some of the same sources of information that informed the chronicles of Mustafa Ṣāfī and İbrahim Peçevi, even at a time when these chroniclers were still composing their narratives. An enduring mystery of Akhbār al-uwal is why the author treats Kara Davud Pasha, the purported murderer of Osman II, so leniently. One possibility is that al-Isḥāqī himself had ties to Kara Davud, even though the latter never went to Egypt, in marked contrast to his three successors as grand vizier, all of whom had served as governors of the province.71 Such ties could explain the hostility with which al-Isḥāqī treats Mere Hüseyin, who took advantage of Kara Davud’s execution to claim the grand vizierate, and his insistence on the inherent rebelliousness of the imperial soldiery. A connection to Mustafa I is perhaps even more likely, since the chronicler launched his work during Mustafa’s reign and speaks of him reverently as mawlāna, “our master.”72 Quite possibly Mustafa commissioned a history of Egypt during his brief second reign, which could account for al-Isḥāqī’s characterization of his work as an ʿujāla. The chronicler may then have returned to his work under Murad IV, whom he also calls mawlāna; this would explain asides such as “after I had finished writing this history,” noted above. All these considerations demonstrate that where Ottoman-era provincial chronicles are concerned, the local and the imperial are intertwined, even inextricable. Akhbār al-uwal is not simply a provincial chronicle that has value 71

In addition to Mere Hüseyin Pasha, Lefkeli Mustafa Pasha (grand vizier July–September 1622, governor 1618–1619) and Gürcü Mehmed Pasha (grand vizier September 1622– February 1623, governor 1604–05). 72 Al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal, 3, 170.

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only as a source for the history of Ottoman Egypt. Its author’s observations shed light on events and attitudes from Manūf to Istanbul in a manner that we might not at first expect from the work of a country judge. Where events in Cairo are concerned, al-Isḥāqī’s work provides a subprovincial supplement. Where events in Istanbul, and more particularly at the Ottoman court, are concerned, it provides a critical view from a well-connected periphery. In the final analysis, Akhbār al-uwal is a “thin production” only in terms of its brevity. Meanwhile, its value to historians of both Ottoman Egypt and the Ottoman court is far from “inferior.” Bibliography

Published Primary Sources

Bohas, Georges, and Jean-Patrick Guillaume, eds. Le Roman de Baïbars, 11 vols. Paris: Actes Sud/Sindbad, 1985–1998. Ghitānī, Gamāl al-, ed. Sīrat al-Ẓāhir Baybars, 50 parts in 5 volumes. Cairo: Al-Haʾya al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li’l-Kitāb, 1996. Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddiqī, Muḥammad. Al-Nuzha al-zahiyya fī dhikr wulāt Misr wa-l-Qāhira al-Muʿizziyya, ed. ʿAbd al-Rāziq ʿAbd al-Rāziq ʿIsa. Cairo: Al-ʿArabī, 1988. Ibn Iyās, Muḥammad. Badāʾīʿ al-zuhūr fī wāqāʾīʿ al-duhūr, trans. Gaston Wiet as Journal d’un bourgeois du Caire: Chronique d’Ibn Iyās. Paris: Armand Colin, 1955. Ibn Iyās, Muḥammad. Badāʾīʿ al-zuhūr fī wāqāʾīʿ al-duhūr, trans. Gaston Wiet as Histoire des mamlouks circassiens, 2 vols. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1945. İbrāhīm Peçevī. Tārīḫ-i Peçevī, 2 vols. Istanbul: Maṭbaa-i Amire, 1281/1864. Isḥāqī, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Mu‘ṭi al-. Kitāb Laṭāʾif akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fī Miṣr min arbāb al-duwal, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jāmiʿī, 2003. Isḥāqī, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Mu‘ṭi al-. Kitāb Laṭāʾif akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fī Miṣr min arbāb al-duwal, ed. Muḥammad Raḍwān Muhanna. Al-Manṣūra, Egypt: Maktabat al-Imān, 2000. Isḥāqī, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʿṭi al-. Kitāb Akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fī Miṣr min arbāb al-duwal. Cairo: Al-Maṭbaʿa al Yamāniyya, 1892–1893. Jabartī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-. ʿAjāʾib al-āthār fī-l-tarājim wa-l-akhbār, ed. Shmuel Moreh, 4 vols. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Institute of Asian and African Studies, 2013. Jabartī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-. Al-Jabartī’s History of Egypt, ed. Jane Hathaway. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2009.

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Muṣṭafā Ṣāfī. Muṣṭafā Ṣāfī’nin Zübdetü’t-tevārīhi, ed. İbrahim Hakkı Cuhadar, 2 vols. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003.



Secondary Sources

Ali, Mufti. “Muslim Opposition to Logic and Theology in the Light of the Works of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505).” PhD diss., University of Leiden, Leiden 2015. Barkan, Ömer Lutfi. “The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Middle East,” trans. Justin McCarthy. International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 3–28. Bjørneboe, Lars. In Search of the True Political Position of the ʿUlama: An Analysis of the Aims and Perspectives of the Chronicles of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī (1753–1825). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press and the Danish Institute in Damascus, 2007. Çiçek, Kemal. “Osman Paşa, Özdemiroğlu.” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 33. Istanbul: Diyanet Vakfı, 2007, 471–73. Darling, Linda T. A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization. London: Routledge, 2013. Emecen, Feridun M. Yavuz Sultan Selim. Istanbul: Yitik Hazine Yayınları, 2010. Halm, Heinz. Ӓgypten nach den mamlukischen Lehensregistern, 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1979. Hathaway, Jane. The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. 2nd ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020. Hathaway, Jane. The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Hathaway, Jane. “Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul: The ‘Eastern’ Alternative.” In Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands, eds. Hakan Karateke, et al., 22–42. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018. Hathaway, Jane. “The ‘Mamluk Breaker’ Who Was Really a Kul Breaker: A Fresh Look at Kul Kıran Mehmed Pasha, Governor of Egypt 1607–1611.” In The Arab Lands in the Ottoman Era: Essays in Honor of Professor Caesar Farah, ed. Jane Hathaway, 93–109. Minneapolis: Center for Early Modern History, University of Minnesota, 2009. Hathaway, Jane. “The Exalted Lineage of Rıdvan Bey Revisited: A Reinterpretation of the Spurious Genealogy of a Grandee in Ottoman Egypt.” In Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman Middle East and the Balkans: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz, eds. Baki Tezcan and Karl K. Barbir, International Journal of Turkish Studies 13, 1–2 (2007): 97–111. Hathaway, Jane. “The Evlād-i ʿArab (‘Sons of the Arabs’) in Ottoman Egypt: A Rereading.” In Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West, vol. 1, eds. Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki, 203–16. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

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Hathaway, Jane. A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003. Hathaway, Jane. “A Re-examination of the Terms Evlād-i ʿArab and Rūm Oğlanı in Ottoman Egypt.” In The Turks, 6 vols., eds. Hasan Celâl Güzel, et al., Vol. 3, 531–36. Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2002. Holt, P.M. Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516–1922: A Political History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966. Holt, P.M. “Al-Jabartī’s Introduction to the History of Ottoman Egypt.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, 1 (1962): 38–51. Holt, P.M. “The Beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the Seventeenth Century.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24, 2 (1961): 214–48. İnalcık, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600, trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973. Kunt, Metin İ. “Ethnic-Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5 (1974): 233–39. Lellouch, Benjamin. Les Ottomans en Égypte: Historiens et conquérants au XVIe siècle. Leuven: Peeters, 2006. Michel, Nicolas. L’Égypte des villages autour du seizième siècle. Leuven: Peeters, 2018. Moreh, Shmuel. The Egyptian Historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī: His Life, Works, Autographs, Manuscripts and the Historical Sources of ʿAjā’ib al-āthār (Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 32). Oxford: Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester, 2014. Piterberg, Gabriel. An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

13 Time-Related References and Markers in the Kadı Court Registers of Kandiye (Heraklion) Antonis Anastasopoulos The concept and uses of time, as well as the practicalities of measuring time in the Ottoman Empire, are research topics about which innovative and thoughtprovoking research has been produced in recent years.1 Probate inventories (tereke defterleri) from the pages of kadı court registers, in particular, have been researched for items imported from Europe, including clocks and watches, within the framework of a discussion of “modernization” and “westernization.”2 This paper also examines kadı court registers for time-related information, but of a different sort, namely temporal references and markers.3 These may be arranged into two groups. The first group concerns the functioning of the court and procedural matters. It includes not only the most obvious and frequent temporal marker, namely, the date of a court hearing, the registration of a contract or other notarial deed at the court of law, and the issuance and (less 1 See, for instance, Les Ottomans et le temps, eds. François Georgeon and Frédéric Hitzel (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012); Andreas Lyberatos, “Clocks, Watches and Time Perception in the Balkans: Studying a Case of Cultural Transfer,” in Encounters in Europe’s Southeast: The Habsburg Empire and the Orthodox World in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, eds. Harald Heppner and Eva Posch (Bochum: Winkler, 2012), 231–54; Avner Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Marinos Sariyannis, “‘Temporal Modernization’ in the Ottoman Pre-Tanzimat Context,” Études Balkaniques 53,2 (2017): 230–62. 2 See, for instance, Fatma Müge Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 97–107; Rossitsa Gradeva, “On ‘Frenk’ Objects in Everyday Life in Ottoman Balkans: The Case of Sofia, Mid-17th–Mid-18th Centuries,” in Relazioni economiche tra Europa e mondo islamico, secc. XIII–XVIII / Europe’s Economic Relations with the Islamic World, 13th–18th Centuries. Atti della “trentottesima settimana di studi” 1–5 maggio 2006, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi ([Grassina]: Le Monnier, 2007), 788–90; Demetris Papastamatiou, Wealth Distribution, Social Stratification and Material Culture in an Ottoman Metropolis: Thessaloniki according to the Probate Inventories of the Muslim Court (1761–1770) (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2017), 169–71, 178–79. 3 Eleftheria Zei, “Χρόνοι και χρόνος στις νησιωτικές κοινωνίες μέσα από τα νοταριακά αρχεία (17ος–18ος αι.),” Mnimon 27 (2005): 9–26, has used time-related references in Greek notarial documents in order to study the rural economy of the islands of Naxos and Paros.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_015

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often) the receipt of a decree by the kadı court, etc., but also references to the number of days that the plaintiff was given in order to bring forward witnesses. The second group of temporal references and markers relates to the narrative structure of the entries of the kadı court registers regarding the legally relevant events and actions that they summarise, as well as the time distance between the court hearing and the actual events giving rise to it. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the sense and uses of time among the Ottomans, by drawing attention to such references and discussing their basic features based on the kadı court registers of the town of Kandiye (mod. Heraklion), on the island of Crete. The kadı court registers of Kandiye are held at the Vikelaia Municipal Library in Heraklion. This paper relies on three fully and one partly published registers from the years 1669–1675, 1683–1686, 1688–1689 and 1750–1767,4 as well as on 38 original entries to be found on pages 366–377 of the kadı court register no. 2 4 This paper has benefited not only from the published Greek summaries of the entries of the kadı court registers of Kandiye, but also from the unpublished transcriptions into the Latin alphabet that Miklós Fóti of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences made in preparation of the summaries. I would like to thank Marinos Sariyannis for granting me access to the transliterations. When necessary, I have consulted the original kadı court registers. The publication of extensive summaries in Greek of the entries of the registers is the object of a project funded by the municipality of Heraklion. So far, this project (under the directorship of the late Elizabeth A. Zachariadou) has led to the publication of the following volumes: Eleni Karantzikou and Pinelopi Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας (1669/1673–1750/1767), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou (Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2003); Maria Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1673–1675), Μέρος Β΄ (1688–1689), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou (Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2008); Gülsün Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1672–1674), Μέρος Β΄ (1683–1686), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou (Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2010); Gülsün Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Δεύτερος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1661–1665), Μέρος Β΄ (1670–1671), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou (Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2014). See also Miklós Fóti et al., “Highlights of the Turkish Archive of the Municipal Vikelaia Library – Part I,” Archivum Ottomanicum 26 (2009): 179–218; Miklós Fóti et al., “Highlights of the Turkish Archive of the Municipal Vikelaia Library – Part II,” Archivum Ottomanicum 27 (2010): 171–209. Greek translations of selected entries from these registers were previously published by Nikolaos S. Stavrinidis, Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων αφορώντων εις την ιστορίαν της Κρήτης, 5 vols. (Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 1975–1985). For the purpose of consistency, I have chosen not to consider the part of the second register concerning the years 1661–1665, as it antedates the conquest of the town of Kandiye and comes in fact from the kadı court of the military camp-cum-settlement of İnadiye outside that town. For that court and its kadı, see Elias Kolovos, “A Town for the Besiegers: Social Life and Marriage in Ottoman Candia outside Candia (1650–1669),” in The Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman Rule: Crete, 1645–1840. Halcyon Days in Crete VI. A Symposium Held in Rethymno, 13–15 January 2006, ed. Antonis Anastasopoulos (Rethymno: Crete University Press, 2008), 103–75, here 107–8; Marinos Sariyannis, “Η δικαστική οργάνωση και το ιεροδικείο

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(7 October 1704–14 January 1705).5 The published registers have been used for the following discussion on the dating and arrangement of entries in the registers, while the original entries – with additional information from the published material, where necessary – have been used for time-related wording that concerns court procedure and the facts of the cases that the court handled. As the Kandiye kadı court registers were compiled in their current form during the early 20th century, and it is doubtful if they contain all the folios of the original registers,6 I have refrained from a statistical analysis of their contents, preferring to adopt a qualitative approach instead. 1

The Court of Law

The vast majority of the entries of the four published kadı court registers of Kandiye are dated. As was standard practice in Ottoman administration and justice, dates in the registers of Kandiye in most cases were written in full in Arabic, for example, Fiʾl-yevmiʾs-sābiʿ min Recebüʾl-ferd li-sene sitt ve sebʿīn ve miʾe ve elf.7 In some cases, more consistently in our sample, when the date of arrival of an order was recorded, shortened forms of dating were used, in which numbers were written in figures and sometimes only the initial or final letter of the names of months appeared, for example, fī 15 R(ebiyülahir) sene 1095,8 or fī 11 şehr-i Rebīʿyülāḥir (sic!) sene 1176.9 In months that are well represented in our sample, we see that the court conducted business during most days of a month. The best represented years are 1081, 1082, 1083 and 1084 AH (1670–1674 CE), with 336, 564, 726, and 526 entries, respectively. The busiest months involved 70–80 cases, and the relevant entries are spread over 24–27 days of each month. These figures show that the court of Kandiye, in the years immediately after the surrender of the town to the Ottomans, examined an average of 2–3 cases per day. At first glance, this does not look like much work for the court of law, but, as noted above, we do not know if the extant registers contain all court business. Besides, in order to

5 6 7 8 9

του Χάνδακα στη νεοκατακτημένη Κρήτη,” in Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 17–40, here 21–23. Greek translations of 15 of these entries have been published by Stavrinidis, Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων, vol. 3. I read and transliterated these entries into the Latin alphabet in the context of the project cited in footnote 4 above. Ibid., vol. 1, κγ΄. The very small number of cases documented in some years in comparison to other years and the long periods of time without any court activity give evidence for many folios missing or having been misplaced. Karantzikou and Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας, 445–46. Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας, 698. Karantzikou and Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας, 428.

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draw a definitive conclusion, one should bear in mind several parameters such as the population of the town and district, the extent of social acceptance of the kadı court as an institution, and the division of labour between the court in Kandiye and the courts of naibs in the nahiyes.10 Moreover, it is essential to collect and consider statistical data from many years. In any case, the distribution of entries appears as follows in the busiest month of our sample, Cemaziyelevvel 1083 (25 August–23 September 1672):11 Table 13.1 Distribution of entries in Cemaziyelevvel 1083

Date Number of entries Date Number of entries

1

2

3

10

11

12

13

14

15

2

1

4

2

5

4

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26

27

28

29

30

1 –

2

4 6

2 –

5 4

3

6 8

4

3 –

7 3

2

8

9

3

3

3

1

5

1

3 –

2 –

Note: Cases dated “last ten days” (evahir) of the month: 2

At the level of individual days, there may be up to 11 entries attributed to a single day, as was the case on 12 Rebiyülahir 1082 (18 August 1671).12 The fifth day of the month singled out above, Cemaziyelevvel 1083 (29 August 1672), was another busy day for the court, involving eight cases. These and other days with a similar number of entries suggest that there were days when the court of law could be quite busy. If we attempt to divide the entries according to the modern four seasons, in order to ascertain if the court was busier in certain periods of the year, we observe fluctuations between seasons that are sometimes but not always considerable. For instance, in a year that is “full” in terms of the number of entries, we count 184 entries for the period from 1 December 1671 to 29 February 1672, 172 for the period from 1 March to 31 May 1672, 198 for the period from 1 June to 31 August l672, and 201 for the period from 1 September to 30 November 1672. As the results are not uniform for all the years of our sample, and because of 10 For the nahiyes and naibs of the district of Kandiye, see Sariyannis, “Η δικαστική οργάνωση,” 28–33, 34–38. 11 Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας. 12 Karantzikou and Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας.

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the limitations of the latter, as explained above, it is not possible to draw a definite conclusion on this matter. The entries themselves do not appear in strict chronological order in the pages of the kadı court registers.13 Even though there is generally a linear sense of progression in time, in the way that the entries have been arranged, it is quite common to find entries of earlier dates in between entries that otherwise follow a chronological order. Thus, for instance, on pages 29 to 32 of the kadı court register no. 2, there are 11 entries dated Zilhicce 1081 (11 April–9 May 1671) arranged in the following order, in terms of their dates: 22, 26, 26, 28, 2, 17, 5, 29, 28, 5 and 9.14 A few pages down, 35–36, an entry dated 9 Cemaziyelevvel 1081 is preceded and followed by entries dated Zilkade and Zilhicce 1081, which themselves are not in strict chronological order.15 Another facet of this phenomenon is that there can be entries of the same date on different pages of a register, separated by entries of other dates. The two entries dated 28 Zilhicce 1081 (8 May 1671) in the example that we gave above is one such case. Another is three entries dated 5 Rebiyülahir 1099 (8 February 1688): the first is to be found on page 186 of the kadı court register no. 5 and the other two on page 188, with four entries dated 9, 10, 1 and 10 Rebiyülahir between the first and the second, and one entry dated 12 Rebiyülahir between the second and the third.16 This shows a lack of a strict sense of arrangement on the basis of time that may have stemmed from practical reasons, such as the order in which notes about each case were made available to the scribe(s). However, the extent to which this phenomenon is observed in the registers leaves no doubt that it also reflects the mentality of that era, or at least of the personnel of the court in Kandiye, about time.17 It is reasonable to attribute the relatively few entries dated not by exact date but by the third of the month (evail, evasıt, evahir)18 to 13 Cf. Boğaç A. Ergene, Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 128–29. 14 Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Δεύτερος κώδικας, 161–66. 15 Ibid., 170–73. The spatial aspect does not concern us here, but it should be noted that one of these entries was the copy of a hüccet about the sale of land near Kandiye issued by the qadi of Mahmudpaşa in Istanbul. 16 Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 357–61. 17 For note-taking as the factor which possibly explains mistakes and repetitions in the kadı court registers, see Ergene, Local Court, 126–28. See also Iris Agmon, “Recording Procedures and Legal Culture in the Late Ottoman Shariʿa Court of Jaffa, 1865–1890,” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004): 333–77, here 335, 337. 18 See, for instance, Karantzikou and Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας, 48, 51, 54, 55, for entries dated “last third of Rebiyülahir 1082” (27 August–4 September 1671).

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sloppy note-taking, but these, too, may be considered evidence of a mentality of temporally arranging and dating official court business that differed from the “modern”, Western-dominated one. Incoming orders, one of the categories of entries found in kadı court registers, are sometimes accompanied by a note about the date at which they reached the kadı court of Kandiye. For instance, a berat dated 15 Receb 1177 (19 January 1764) was recorded (kad vaṣale ileynā) in the register of the kadı of Kandiye less than a month later, on 14 Şaban of the same year (17 February 1764).19 However, another imperial decree  – a ferman  – was issued on 25 Şaban 1175 (21 March 1762) but was copied in the kadı court register seven months later, on 11 Rebiyülahir 1176 (30 October 1762).20 The former was about the appointment of the mütevelli of a vakıf and the latter concerned repairs to the Sultan İbrahim Han mosque in Kandiye. Almost a century earlier, during the 1670s and 1680s, the time that elapsed between the issue of an imperial decree and its receipt by the court of justice in Kandiye ranged, in most cases, from less than a month to four months.21 In one extreme case, two fermans were copied in the kadı court register 14.5 years after they had been issued; they were issued on the first 10 days of Rebiyülahir 1081 (18–27 August 1670) and arrived in Kandiye on 22 Rebiyülevvel 1096 (26 February 1685). They both were concerned with the tax immunity of the villages belonging to the vakıf of the Valide Sultan, and apparently – as the editors of the volume point out – were sent to Kandiye together with the documents of appointment of a new mütevelli and farming out of the revenue of a vakıf village that were copied immediately after them in the kadı’s register.22 Even though, in most instances, we do not know the exact reason(s) why a sultanic decree arrived sooner or later in Kandiye, it is reasonable to assume that urgency, relevance and the interests of those concerned were important factors that determined the speed of dispatch. Some entries contain multiple temporal layers. For instance, a berat of Osman III dated to the middle 10 days (evasıt) of Muharrem 1170 (6–15 October 19 Ibid., 465. 20 Ibid., 428, where the ferman has been misdated 15 Şaban 1175. 21 See, for instance, Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας, 37, 38–39,40, 41, 496–97, 508, 552–53, 628, 657, 660–61, 664, 666–67, 673, 674, 676, 677, 680–81; Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 263–64, 265, 268, 269–70, 272, 281, 457, 460, 478. On the other hand, buyruldus issued in Kandiye by the local governor could be copied in the kadı court register on the same day when issued (see, for instance, Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 480–81) or with a distance of only a few days, three in the case of a decree issued on 23 Şevval 1094 (15 October 1683); Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας, 474. 22 Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας, 668–70.

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1756) renewed an earlier berat issued by his predecessor Mahmud I in Zilkade 1165 (10 September–9 October 1752). Osman’s berat took effect retrospectively from 28 Safer 1168 (14 December 1754), that is, the date of his ascent to the throne. Admittedly, this is a document that was not produced by the kadı court of Kandiye, but the latter inadvertently added one more temporal layer: even though the scribe did not record the date of registration in the register, he placed it on a page whose other two entries were dated more than six years after its issue, namely 7 Receb and 11 Şevval 1176 (22 January and 25 April 1763, respectively).23 Apparently, the holder of the berat, the head (ustabaşı taʿbīr olınur ketḫüdālıḳ ḫiẕmetine […] beratıyla mutaṣarrıf olan) of the guild of shoemakers (bapuşcı eṣnāfı), needed to have it copied in the kadı court register at that late date for some unspecified reason. As the ascent of a sultan to the throne was an important event at the imperial level, so was the succession of one kadı by the next at the local level.24 As the new sultan was required to renew berats, so that they would remain valid, the new kadı had to renew the appointment of naibs or appoint new ones.25 Three notes in the kadı court register no. 5 refer to the end of the term of office of one kadı and the beginning of the term of office of the next, marking the point in the register where the handling of cases by the former ended and their handling by the latter started. It seems ironic that, even though these notes concern milestones for the court of law and the register, two of the three are undated.26 With regard to the trial process as such, the entries of the kadı court registers contain some time-related wording, such as verb forms with temporal suffixes and adverbs of time, which indicates the order in which things

23

Karantzikou and Photeinou, Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας, 446. Cf. Stavrinidis, Μεταφράσεις, vol. 5, 220. The summary by Stavrinidis is more accurate than that by Karantzikou and Photeinou. 24 For the kadıs of early Ottoman Kandiye, see Sariyannis, “Η δικαστική οργάνωση,” 22–28. For an interpretation of kadı appointments that combines a time-centred perspective with the question of state power see Karen Barkey, “In Different Times: Scheduling and Social Control in the Ottoman Empire, 1550 to 1650,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38,3 (1996): 460–83, here 473–76. 25 Halil İnalcık, “Maḥkama – 2. The Ottoman Empire.” The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, vol. 6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 3–5, here 4–5; Gilles Veinstein, “Sur les nâʾib ottomans (XVème–XVIème siècles),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001): 247–67, here 250–51. 26 Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 233, 357, 449. For the kadıs’ term of office see Yavuz Aykan and Boğaç Ergene, “Shariʿa Courts in the Ottoman Empire before the Tanzimat,” The Medieval History Journal 22,2 (2019): 203–28, here 212–13.

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happened in the courthouse.27 For instance, a typical entry summarising a trial in which the defendant denies the accusation contains several such grammatical forms and reads that when the plaintiff finishes presenting their case, the defendant is asked about the plaintiff’s claim and in reply they deny their guilt ([…] dedikde ġıbbeʾs-suāl […] inkār edicek […]).28 After this, when the plaintiff is asked to produce evidence of their claim (beyyine ṭaleb olındıḳda), they present witnesses who, when asked to give their testimony (istişhād olındıḳlarında), do so. Next, their reliability is checked and, upon confirmation, their testimonies are accepted, after which the kadı announces his decision. Following this, an outline of the trial is recorded in the court register (edā-yı şehādet-i şerʿiye eylediklerinde baʿdeʾt-ta ʿdīl veʾt-tezkiye şehādetleri maḳbūle oldıḳdan ṣoñra […] baʿdeʾt-tenbīh mā vaḳaʿa biʾt-ṭaleb ketb olındı).29 Despite the abundance of adverbials and adverbs of time, the general impression that the entries give in regard to the duration of a trial is that of relative temporal flatness, or “temporal compression,” as Boğaç Ergene has labelled this phenomenon.30 As they contain only the legally relevant information about the court cases that they summarise, it looks as if each trial reached its conclusion in one day, and in fact did not last long. However, there are certain entries showing that  – at least for some trials  – this was not the case, as they mention that several days were given to the plaintiff to produce witnesses. This may explain why, in a legal process whose basic rules are very simple, some plaintiffs appear as though they had come to court totally unprepared, as if to lose their 27 Geoffrey L. Lewis, Turkish Grammar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967) and Ioannis Chloros, Λεξικόν τουρκο-ελληνικόν, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Patriarchikon Typographeion, 1899–1900) have been used as guides in order to describe grammatical forms in this paper. 28 A variant reads: […] dedikde ġıbbeʾs-suāl ve akībüʾl-inkār […]; Heraklion, Vikelaia Municipal Library, Turkish Archive of Heraklion, kadı court register no. 2 (hereafter: TAH 2), 371, no. 1080 (7 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [7 October 1704]). When the defendant’s position was summarised, the wording was adapted as follows: […] dedikde ġıbbeʾs-suāl rāhib-i mesfūr […] cevābında […] deyü mukābele edicek ġıbbeʾl-isṭintaḳ müddeʿī-i mezbūr […] cevābında […] dedikde; TAH 2, 366, no. 1065 (15 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [15 October 1704]). Or: […] dedikde ġıbbeʾs-suāl ẕimmīye-i mesfūre […] cevabında […] deyü inkār ile cevāb vericek; TAH 2, 367, no. 1068 (17 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [17 October 1704]). Other variants also occur in the pages of the kadı court registers. According to Frédéric Hitzel, “De la clepsydre à l’horloge. L’art de mesurer le temps dans l’Empire ottoman,” in Les Ottomans et le temps, eds. Georgeon and Hitzel, 11–37, here 19–20, it is possible that hourglasses were used in kadı courts in order to ensure a fair distribution of speaking time between plaintiff and defendant. If indeed so, there is no mention of such a practice in the entries of the kadı court registers that I consulted. 29 TAH 2, 376, no. 1095 (14 Şaban 1116 [12 December 1704]). A variant for “mā vaḳaʿa” is “mā hüveʾl-vākiʿ”; TAH 2, 368, no. 1070 (19 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [19 October 1704]). 30 Ergene, Local Court, 138–40.

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case. Perhaps it was not that they were uninformed about the procedure, but that ultimately, they failed to find witnesses; only the court scribe did not write down that they were given a certain number of days to do so. In some cases, they were given only a few days, such as three (üc gün mehl verilip ityān-ı beyyineden kemāl mertebe iẓhār-ı acz) or five (beş gün mehl verip ityān-ı beyyineden kemāl mertebe iẓhār-ı acz edip).31 However, at other times they were given a much greater number of days: 30 on one occasion (beyyine ṭaleb olındıḳda otūz gün mehl ver{v}ilip ityān-ı beyyineden biʾl-külliye iẓhār-ı acz etmeġin).32 More often than not, the time that was given to the plaintiffs was not specified in the entries: baʿd[eʾl]imhāliʾ[ş-]şerʿī ityān-ı beyyineden iẓhār-ı acz edip.33 In one such case, an entry dated 1 Recep 1083 (23 October 1672) ends with the request of the plaintiff to be granted time to find witnesses: ityān-ı beyyine içün istimhāl etmekle mehl-i şerʿī ile imhāl olunup.34 One hundred days later, on 13 Şevval 1083 (1 February 1673), a trial with the same litigants and about the same issue – a real estate transaction – was recorded in the kadı court register. The plaintiff was still unable to obtain witnesses (ityān-ı beyyine içün mehl-i şerʿī istimhāl olunup mezbūre […] ityān-ı beyyineden iẓhār-ı acz edip) and this time her lawsuit was rejected.35 According to another entry, the plaintiff was “several times” given the opportunity to find witnesses before the court of law decided to dismiss the case (ityān-ı beyyine içün istimhāl edip birḳac defʿa mehl-i şerʿī ile imhāl olundukdan ṣoñra ityān-ı beyyine edememeğin).36 2

Situating Events in Time

It is quite common for the entries of the kadı court registers to situate in time the events that they summarise. The standard way of doing so was in relation to the day of the court hearing and the registration in the kadı court register. For events that happened days, months or years before coming to court, 31 32 33 34 35 36

Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 240 (26 Muharrem 1085 [2 May 1674]); Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Δεύτερος κώδικας, 225–26 (15 Cemaziyelahir 1081 [30 October 1670]). TAH 2, 372, no. 1082 (17 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [17 October 1704]). TAH 2, 371, no. 1079 (28 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [28 October 1704]). See also TAH 2, 372, no. 1081 (3 Recep 1116 [1 November 1704]), where the word “biʾl-külliye” has been inserted before “iẓhār.” Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας, 197–98. Ibid., 271. Ibid. 231–32 (9 Şaban 1083 [30 November 1672]). Cf. Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 508 (23 Şevval 1100 [10 August 1689]).

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the typical phrasing was “tārīḫ-i kitābdan … gün/ay/sene muḳaddem.”37 In taxrelated cases, the exact year was often cited in addition: tārīḫ-i kitābdan dört sene muḳaddem bin yüz on iki senesine maḥsūb olmak üzere.38 The time distance between the event and the court hearing did not always need to be long. For instance, a military officer reported to the court of law a fatal accident that had happened on the same day (“tārīḫ-i kitāb günü”), asking for an on-the-spot inspection to be carried out.39 Making a record of when the events giving rise to legal proceedings took place was reasonable, particularly in the case of trials, given that time was a legal parameter affecting the validity of a claim made before the court of law. It was also important in instances such as accidents, especially fatal ones, or the discovery of corpses, which might lead to lawsuits by the victims or their relatives. More specifically, time was important in terms of the limitation period that applied.40 According to an entry dated 1 Cemaziyelevvel 1081 (16 September 1670), a lawsuit about a vineyard was rejected on the grounds that 20 years had elapsed (tārīḫ-i kitābdan yiġirmi sene muḳaddem) without the plaintiff claiming its ownership, while the limitation period was 15 years (bilā ʿöẕr on beş sene mürūr eden daʿvānıñ istimāʿı bilā emr memnūʿ olub).41 In another lawsuit concerning real estate, the defendant won the case by producing witnesses who confirmed his claim that he had bought the property 17 years earlier, in the presence of the plaintiff, and had possessed it throughout all these years without anyone contesting his ownership:

37

The day of involvement of the court could also be used as the starting point of a time limit which was set, for instance in relation to a lease, a mortgage or the repayment of a loan: tārīḫ-i ḥüccetden iki yüz bir gün ecel-i maʿlūmemiz ḥulūlinde, tārīḫ-i kitābdan iki yüz bir gün tamāmına değin; TAH 2, 373, no. 1084 (3 Recep 1116 [1 November 1704]). 38 TAH 2, 369, no. 1073 (22 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [22 October 1704]). 39 Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας, 203 (18 Zilhicce 1084 [26 March 1674]). For a similar case in which it was not only specified that the accident had happened on the same day but also that it had been at noon see Coşkun Yılmaz, ed., İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri 75. Adalar Mahkemesi 1 Numaralı Sicil (H. 1178–1184 / M. 1764–1771) (Istanbul: Kültür AŞ, 2019), 36–37. 40 On limitation see Ergene, Local Court, 146–47 and footnotes 6–7; Haim Gerber, State, Society and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 91, 110. 41 Aivali et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Δεύτερος κώδικας, 344. The lawsuit was rejected also because the plaintiff was a convert whose Christian family, including himself, had previously fled to enemy territory (dārüʾl-ḥarba firār edüb) during the war for the conquest of Crete. As a result, they had lost ownership of their land. However, this reasoning does not concern us here.

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tārīḫ-i kitābdan on sekiz sene muḳaddem işbu ḥażır biʾl-meclis Abdur­ raḥman […] iştirā […] bir sene mālikāne żabṭ eyledikden ṣoñra merḳūm Abdurraḥman Çavuş daḫi müddeʿī-i mezbūr Muṣṭafa bin Meḥmed muvā­ cehesinde elli ġurūşa beyʿ ve teslīm […] mülk-i müşterām olmak üzere tārīḫ-i mezbūrdan bilā-nizāʿ żabṭ ederim.42 Time could also be a decisive factor in relation to the validity of contracts. In one instance, the kadı cancelled a marriage that had been contracted five days earlier, because it was discovered that the wife had not completed the waiting period from her first marriage, as required by law: iddeti münḳażiye olmayub.43 To provide a further example, on 22 Cemaziyelahir 1116 (22 October 1704), a Muslim military officer contested the validity of the sale of a neighbouring house by its Muslim owner to an Armenian. The plaintiff based the lawsuit on his right of pre-emption, and the two parties centred their arguments on when exactly the sale had taken place and how quickly the plaintiff had expressed his objection to it. As a result, the entry is full of time-related references, the plaintiff claiming that he had found out about the sale on Tuesday mid-afternoon and that he immediately claimed his right of pre-emption (mesfūr Boġoz ermeni iştirā eylediğini yevm-i Ṣalı vaḳt-i aṣırda istimāʿ eylediğim ḥīnde bilā-teʾḫīr ḥaḳḳ-ı şufʿamı ṭaleb edip), and the defendant replying that the sale had actually taken place on the Monday morning (yevm-i Bāzār ertesi ḥīn-i duhāda iştirā eylediğini muḳır olup) and that the plaintiff had not asked to exercise his right of pre-emption.44 Ultimately, two witnesses confirmed the claim of the plaintiff, who also took an oath that he had not stayed silent about his wish to buy the house (yevm-i Ṣalı vaḳt-i aṣırdan iki gün muḳaddem olan aḳd-i meẕkūrda sükūt etmediğine baʿdeʾt-taḥlīf ), thus winning his case.45 In cases of outstanding debts of people who had died, it was crucial to point out that the debt had been created while the debtor was still alive and that it had not been discharged by the time of their death. In such cases, the moment of transition from life to death became legally significant. For instance, according to an entry dated 17 Cemaziyelahir 1116 (17 October 1704), the two parties 42 TAH 2, 370, no. 1977 (26 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [26 October 1704]). 43 TAH 2, 366, no. 1063 (16 and 21 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [16 and 21 October 1704]). 44 For the association of the time indications duha and asır with the Muslim daily prayers see Avner Wishnitzer, “‘At Approximately Eleven, Just Before Nightfall’: An Introduction to Ottoman Temporal Culture,” in Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East: “Modernities” in the Making, eds. Dror Zeʾevi and Ehud R. Toledano (Berlin: De Gruyter Open, 2015), 121–34, here 124. Cf. Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, 24–25, 32–33; Hitzel, “De la clepsydre à l’horloge,” 14–15. 45 TAH 2, 369, no. 1074.

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agreed that the late Hüseyin owed 48 kuruş to Elya, but disagreed as to whether he had partly paid it back to her before he died. The words for “life” and “death” repeatedly appear in the entry as time markers in contexts supporting the arguments of one side or the other (ḥuyūtı zamānında ẕimmīye-i mesfūre Elya‌’ya ḳırḳ sekiz ġurūş deyni olub […] bāḳī on üç ġurūş ile bir rubʿı ḳableʾl-edā mezbūr Ḥüseyin fevt olmaġla […] ḥuyūtı zamānında s̠emen-i meẕkūrdan bir ḥabbe ve bir aḳçe almadım […]). In the end, Hüseyin’s day of death was again used as the point in time according to which the two Muslim and two Christian witnesses determined when Elya had acknowledged that Hüseyin had indeed paid back the largest part of his debt to her (vefātı tārīḫinden dört gün muḳaddem).46 It is interesting to note that in this and other lawsuits involving the properties or debts of people who had died, the exact date of death was not recorded (the standard phrasing being “bundan aḳdem fevt/hālik olan”), as it was a legally inconsequential piece of information, even though it was used as a time marker in relation to the legally relevant events laid out in the register of the kadı court.47 Overall, the entries of the kadı court registers abound with adverbs of time and temporal participles, prepositions, postpositions and adverbial forms that were a linguistic tool that the court scribe(s) used to show that the judge had put events in their right order and had thus made an informed and legally justified decision: kabl, as in ḳable edā-ı ḫiẕmet (before he had completed his service [to me]);48 iken and şimdi, as in mülk-i müşterām iken şimdi żabṭıma māniʿ olur (while it is my private property that I bought [from him], now he obstructs me from taking possession of it);49 elan, as in elān beynimizde taḳsīm olunmayub (we still have not divided it between us);50 akdem, as in Vāṭya nām ḳaryede sākin iken bundan aḳdem fevt olan (who has died before this, while he resided in the village of Vathia);51 hin-i … de, as in ḥīn-i taḳrīrinde (when he stated);52 sonra, as in verās̠eti … münḥaṣıre oldıḳdan ṣoñra (after [it was established that] his heirs were limited to …);53 adverbial forms of verbs ending in -dikte or -diğinde, as in ṭaleb eylediğimde/eyledikde (when I/he asked);54 elhaletü hazihi, as in elḥāletü 46 TAH 2, 367, no. 1068. 47 See also TAH 2, 372, no. 1081 (3 Recep 1116 [1 November 1704]); TAH 2, 376, no. 1095 (14 Şaban 1116 [12 December 1704]); TAH 2, 377, no. 1098 (14 Şaban 1116 [12 December 1704]); TAH 2, 377, no. 1099 (20 Şaban 1116 [18 December 1704]). 48 TAH 2, 366, no. 1064 (15 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [15 October 1704]). 49 TAH 2, 366, no. 1065 (15 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [15 October 1704]). 50 Ibid. 51 TAH 2, 367, no. 1068 (17 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [17 October 1704]). 52 Ibid. 53 TAH 2, 368, no. 1070 (19 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [19 October 1704]). 54 Ibid.

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hāẕihī beynimize müslimūn-ı muṣliḥūn ṭavassut edip (now Muslim reconcilers have mediated between us);55 değin, as in altı güne değin edā eylemezsem (if I do not pay within six days);56 bade-, as in baʿdeʾl-ḳabż (after taking possession [of the vineyard]);57 badehu, as in baʿdehū mezbūr […] daḫi fevt olmaġla (as the aforementioned also died afterwards);58 ilâ, as in ilāʾl-helāk (up to his death);59 hâlâ and sabıka (in its adverbial form), often appearing in relation to current and former office holders, respectively, as in ḥālā Resmo yeñiçerileriniñ aġası (the current head of the janissaries of Rethymno) or sābıḳā Girid defter­ dārı (the former defterdar of Crete).60 The di-past is usually the tense in which past acts are narrated in the entries of the kadı court registers; the miş-past was used in the trial discussed above, between a Muslim and an Armenian, to describe the purchase of the house by the opposing party: ol dāḫi iştirā eylemiş.61 In sales of real estate, the past tense is juxtaposed with the present tense in relation to the transfer of ownership from the seller to the buyer: ḥaḳ ve alāḳam ḳalmadı baʿdeʾl-yevm […] mülk-i müşterāsıdır (no right or connection [of mine] was left, from now on … it is his purchased property),62 or on iki ġurūşı […] yedinden tamāmen aḫẕ ü ḳabż eyledim baʿdeʾl-yevm […] mülk-i müşterāsıdır (I received the full amount of 12 kuruş from his hand, from now on … it is his purchased property).63 3

Conclusion

A “negligent and undisciplined attitude towards time, be it at the personal level or at the collective, institutional, level” was the criticism that Western visitors to the Ottoman Empire typically levelled against locals.64 The time of the kadı 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Ibid. TAH 2, 370, no. 1076 (24 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [24 October 1704]). Ibid. TAH 2, 377, no. 1099 (20 Şaban 1116 [18 December 1704]). TAH 2, 372, no. 1081 (3 Recep 1116 [1 November 1704]). TAH 2, 367, no. 1069 (19 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [19 October 1704]); TAH 2, 371, no. 1080 (7 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [7 October 1704]). TAH 2, 369, no. 1074 (22 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [22 October 1704]). TAH 2, 371, no. 1078 (28 Cemaziyelahir 1116 [28 October 1704]). TAH 2, 373, no. 1085 (8 Recep 1116 [6 November 1704]). Andreas Lyberatos, “Time and Timekeeping in the Balkans: Representations and Realities,” in Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Volume Four: Concepts, Approaches, and (Self-) Representations, eds. Rumen Daskalov et al. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017), 257–90, here 285. Cf. Wishnitzer, “‘At Approximately Eleven’,” 121–22.

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court registers is the time of the legal institution from which they emanate.65 When judged against the biased view of Western observers, the registers would be found lacking in temporal precision. However, the registers contain a fair number of time-related references and markers that correspond to the needs of the legal process and which are apparently in harmony with the wider sense of time, as well as with the timekeeping practices of the state and society with which the court was associated. The day when the court handled a case was used as the starting point of the time of the registers. The vast majority of the judicial and notarial entries of the registers were precisely dated, and time was then calculated back from that date in terms of days, months or years. Even though exact dates were not given for past events, they were usually correlated in the same manner, that is, by the number of days, months or years that separated one from the other, while temporally more vague adverbs, prepositions, postpositions and other grammatical forms signifying “before,” “after,” “while,” etc., were also in use with regard to the description of the court procedure and to the facts on the basis of which the judge made his decision. If it was required for legal purposes, the time of the day when something happened might also be described more precisely. Ultimately, the time of the kadı court registers may serve as a reminder of the relativity of time measurement. One needs it – or its precision – to the extent that it is purposeful in the context of one’s mentality, activities and way of living.66 Bibliography

Primary Sources Turkish Archive of Heraklion, Vikelaia Municipal Library

TAH 2, 366, no. 1063–65. TAH 2, 367, no. 1068–69. TAH 2, 368, no. 1070. TAH 2, 369, no. 1073–74. TAH 2, 370, no. 1076. 65

66

For the impact of the kadı court on the textual features of its registers see Ergene, Local Court, 125–41. Cf. Işık Tamdoğan-Abel, “L’écrit comme échec de l’oral? L’oralité des engagements et des règlements à travers les registres de cadis d’Adana au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 75–76 (1995): 155–65, here 156–59. See Sariyannis, “‘Temporal Modernization’,” 243–47 for a survey of diaries and chronicles produced by Ottoman Muslims and Christians, displaying differing degrees of timerelated precision in different contexts.

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TAH 2, 370, no. 1077. TAH 2, 371, no. 1078–80. TAH 2, 372, no. 1081–82. TAH 2, 373, no. 1084–85. TAH 2, 376, no. 1095. TAH 2, 377, no. 1098–99.



Published Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Aivali, Gülsün, et al. Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τέταρτος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1672–1674), Μέρος Β΄ (1683–1686), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2010. Aivali, Gülsün, et al. Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Δεύτερος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1661–1665), Μέρος Β΄ (1670–1671), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2014. İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri 75. Adalar Mahkemesi 1 Numaralı Sicil (H. 1178–1184 / M. 1764–1771), ed. Coşkun Yılmaz. Istanbul: Kültür AŞ, 2019. Karantzikou, Eleni and Photeinou, Pinelopi. Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Τρίτος κώδικας (1669/ 1673–1750/1767), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2003. Stavrinidis, Nikolaos S. Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων αφορώντων εις την ιστορίαν της Κρήτης. 5 vols. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 1975–1985. Varoucha, Maria, et al. Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας. Μέρος Α΄ (1673–1675), Μέρος Β΄ (1688–1689), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2008.

Agmon, Iris. “Recording Procedures and Legal Culture in the Late Ottoman Shariʿa Court of Jaffa, 1865–1890.” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004): 333–77. Aykan, Yavuz and Ergene, Boğaç. “Shariʿa Courts in the Ottoman Empire before the Tanzimat.” The Medieval History Journal 22,2 (2019): 203–28. Barkey, Karen. “In Different Times: Scheduling and Social Control in the Ottoman Empire, 1550 to 1650.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38,3 (1996): 460–83. Chloros, Ioannis. Λεξικόν τουρκο-ελληνικόν. 2 vols. Istanbul: Patriarchikon Typographeion, 1899–1900. Ergene, Boğaç A. Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744). Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003. Fóti, Miklós, et al. “Highlights of the Turkish Archive of the Municipal Vikelaia Library – Part I.” Archivum Ottomanicum 26 (2009): 179–218.

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Fóti, Miklós, et al. “Highlights of the Turkish Archive of the Municipal Vikelaia Library – Part II.” Archivum Ottomanicum 27 (2010): 171–209. Georgeon, François and Hitzel, Frédéric, eds. Les Ottomans et le temps, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. Gerber, Haim. State, Society and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Göçek, Fatma Müge. Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Gradeva, Rossitsa. “On ‘Frenk’ Objects in Everyday Life in Ottoman Balkans: The Case of Sofia, Mid-17th–Mid-18th Centuries.” In Relazioni economiche tra Europa e mondo islamico, secc. XIII–XVIII / Europe’s Economic Relations with the Islamic World, 13th–18th Centuries. Atti della “trentottesima settimana di studi” 1–5 maggio 2006, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 788–90. [Grassina]: Le Monnier, 2007. Hitzel, Frédéric. “De la clepsydre à l’horloge. L’art de mesurer le temps dans l’Empire ottoman.” In Les Ottomans et le temps, eds. François Georgeon and Frédéric Hitzel, 11–37. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. İnalcık, Halil. “Maḥkama – 2. The Ottoman Empire.” The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, vol. 6, 3–5. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991. Kolovos, Elias. “A Town for the Besiegers: Social Life and Marriage in Ottoman Candia outside Candia (1650–1669).” In The Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman Rule: Crete, 1645–1840. Halcyon Days in Crete VI. A Symposium Held in Rethymno, 13–15 January 2006, ed. Antonis Anastasopoulos, 103–75. Rethymno: Crete University Press, 2008. Lewis, Geoffrey L. Turkish Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. Lyberatos, Andreas. “Clocks, Watches and Time Perception in the Balkans: Studying a Case of Cultural Transfer.” In Encounters in Europe’s Southeast: The Habsburg Empire and the Orthodox World in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, eds. Harald Heppner and Eva Posch, 231–54. Bochum: Winkler, 2012. Lyberatos, Andreas. “Time and Timekeeping in the Balkans: Representations and Realities.” In Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Volume Four: Concepts, Approaches, and (Self-) Representations, eds. Rumen Daskalov et al., 257–90. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017. Papastamatiou, Demetris. Wealth Distribution, Social Stratification and Material Culture in an Ottoman Metropolis: Thessaloniki according to the Probate Inventories of the Muslim Court (1761–1770). Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2017. Sariyannis, Marinos. “‘Temporal Modernization’ in the Ottoman Pre-Tanzimat Context.” Études Balkaniques 53,2 (2017): 230–62. Sariyannis, Marinos. “Η δικαστική οργάνωση και το ιεροδικείο του Χάνδακα στη νεοκατακτημένη Κρήτη.” In Maria Varoucha et al., Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου. Πέμπτος κώδικας. Μέρος

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Α΄ (1673–1675), Μέρος Β΄ (1688–1689), ed. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, 17–40. Heraklion: Vikelaia Dimotiki Vivliothiki, 2008. Tamdoğan-Abel, Işık. “L’écrit comme échec de l’oral? L’oralité des engagements et des règlements à travers les registres de cadis d’Adana au XVIIIe siècle.” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 75–76 (1995): 155–65. Veinstein, Gilles. “Sur les nâʾib ottomans (XVème–XVIème siècles).” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001): 247–67. Wishnitzer, Avner. Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Wishnitzer, Avner. “‘At Approximately Eleven, Just Before Nightfall’: An Introduction to Ottoman Temporal Culture.” In Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East: “Modernities” in the Making, eds. Dror Zeʾevi and Ehud R. Toledano, 121–34. Berlin: De Gruyter Open, 2015. Zei, Eleftheria. “Χρόνοι και χρόνος στις νησιωτικές κοινωνίες μέσα από τα νοταριακά αρχεία (17ος–18ος αι.).” Mnimon 27 (2005): 9–26.

Part 3 Conquering, Administering and Financing Ottoman Provinces

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14 On the Administration of the Ottoman ‘One-Fifth Tax’ on Prisoners of War (15th to 17th Century) Pál Fodor 1

Spoils of War and the ‘One-Fifth Tax’ in Islam and in the Ottoman Empire

Islam was born as a desert religion, and the victorious warriors spreading the true faith were desert nomads. Plunder was therefore a prominent feature in the wars of conquest right from the beginning, and inevitably became a question for Islamic law. For this, as in all other matters, guidance was sought in the deeds of the Prophet, particularly the decisions he made after the Battle of Badr of 624, when a dispute broke out between him and his followers on the sharing of the spoils. The Prophet’s command is recorded in two verses of the Quran. In sura 8, verse 41, we read: And know that anything you obtain of war booty – then indeed, for Allah is one fifth of it and for the Messenger and for [his] near relatives and the orphans, the needy, and the [stranded] traveler,1 Sura 59, verse 7 repeats this thesis, adding, “And whatever the Messenger has given you – take; and what he has forbidden you – refrain from.”2 These commands of the Quran were combined with the customary law that emerged in the wars of conquest to form the basis of the Islamic law of how the spoils of war were to be acquired and divided. The various Islamic states attempted to observe and enforce these rules, but of course did not always succeed, as government practices and customary law changed according to political aims and military situations. Even the Islamic jurists were sometimes obliged to close their eyes to methods that violated the law. Islamic law takes the premise that for the unfaithful, loss of property is punishment for their faithlessness, and the warriors share possession of any

1 Quran. Sahih International translation (quran.com). 2 Ibid.

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booty taken from the enemy and on the lands of the enemy.3 Taking booty (ganima, or in Turkish, ganimet) is only ‘lawful’ under two conditions: 1. it is acquired by force (anvatan) and 2. with the permission of the leader (imam, kalifa) of the Islamic community. The booty may be movable and immovable property, or persons (the latter consisting of prisoners of war, and women and children). Only those who took part in the fighting could share the booty, and only after victory. The place where the booty was to be divided was a point of dispute among schools of religious law: some permitted it to be carried out immediately on hostile soil, others insisted it should be done at home. As prescribed by the above verses of the Quran, one-fifth of the booty (hums) was due initially to the Prophet and his family, and later to the state which took over his role. Jurists stated variously that it must be divided into three or six parts, and spent on as many different purposes. The remaining four-fifths of the booty was divided among the adult male soldiers, but not shared equally: a horseman received two or three parts and a foot-soldier one part. Since commanders, before the battle, usually promised extra shares for soldiers who distinguished themselves, the amount distributed in this way was subtracted from the total before it was shared out. Various views emerged concerning the division of the immovable (particularly landed) property, but there one simple rule applied in the Ottoman Empire: everything went to the state. Plundered livestock were shared according to the general rules, although several jurists argued that any animals that could not be driven to Islamic territory must be slaughtered and burned. This also applied in general: if it was not possible to take the spoils home, they should be destroyed rather than pass into the hands of the unfaithful. Prisoners of war were the most valuable spoils of war. Although the Prophet allegedly recommended massacring some of them4 and releasing others for a ransom or exchanging them for Muslim prisoners, later jurists were unable to reach a consensus in the question. Some (like Abu Hanifa) expressly prohibited the ransoming of prisoners for money; others approved. In practice, however, individual interests prevailed: one of the most remunerative areas 3 For what follows, see Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), 118–32; Şinasi Tekin, “XIV. Yüzyılda Yazılmış Gazilik Tarikası ‘Gâziliğin Yolları’ Adlı Bir Eski Anadolu Türkçesi Metni ve Gazâ/Cihâd Kavramları Hakkında,” Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (1989): 156–63; Ahmet Özel, İslâm Devletler Hukukunda Savaş Esirleri (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1996); Nihat Engin, Osmalı Devletinde Kölelik (İstanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Vakfı, 1998), 22–30. 4 On the contradicting traditions and conceptions regarding this question, see Lena Salameyh, “Early Islamic Legal-Historical Precedents: Prisoners of War,” Law and History Review 26,3 (2008): 521–44.

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of commerce during the Ottoman age, providing thousands of soldiers with a living, was trade in prisoners. The first 250 years of the Ottoman state consisted of a series of victorious raids and wars of conquest, generating a constant stream of booty. The rules and procedures for dividing what was taken in battle emerged through a combination of religious law, state interests and customary law.5 Ottoman tradition places the introduction of the ‘one-fifth’ payable on prisoners (and clearly other goods) to the second half of the fourteenth century, the reign of Sultan Murad I (1362–1389).6 The ruler allegedly decided on the advice of scholars of Islamic law from the more advanced Muslim centres in the East not to let the income accruing to him by law to go to waste. The Ottomans called this tax by the Persian name penc ü yek (later contracted to pencik), which meant ‘one-fifth,’ just as the original Arab word hums (although in some sources, the Turkish translation of these, beşte bir, also occurs). Pencik was initially collected by provincial judges (kadı), but the work was later entrusted to separate pencik collectors. Since the value of a captive was originally set uniformly at 125 akçes, the tax payable per head was 25 akçes. In general, pencik was collected in kind if there were more than five prisoners, and money was paid only by those who brought in fewer than five prisoners. After the Battle of Nicopolis (1396), Bayezid I – who in his initial rage massacred many Christian captives – first selected “his own portion” of the prisoners and the soldiers received only those who were left over.7 The great campaigns led by the sultans were considered the best opportunities to acquire slaves. Pencik was usually collected from the owners of the prisoners on the way home, although there were rare occasions 5 For this distinct “set of normative practices and rules” (“international law of captivity”) which emerged in the wake of Ottoman conquests in Central and Eastern Europe, see in detail: Géza Pálffy, “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman–Hungarian Frontier in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century,” in Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth–Early Seventeenth Centuries), The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, Politics, Society and Economy 37, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007), 35–83; Will Smiley, From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law, The History and Theory of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018): Ottoman–Russian frontier, 18th–19th centuries. 6 İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları. Vol. I. Acemi Ocağı ve Yeniçeri Ocağı. 2nd ed. (İstanbul: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1984), 6–12, 86–90; Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı,” Revue des Études Islamiques 37 (1969): 21–47; Yusuf Hakan Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800–1909 (Houndmills, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), 19–20; Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı, “İstanbul Gümrük Defterine Göre Karadeniz Köle Ticareti (1606– 1607),” History Studies 3,2 (2011): 371–84, here 371–73. 7 Johannes Schiltberger, Türkler ve Tatarlar Arasında (1394–1427), transl. Turgut Akpınar (İstanbul: İletişim, 1995), 36.

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when they did not have to pay anything. In 1484, Sultan Bayezid II attempted to raise his soldiers’ enthusiasm for the Moldavian campaign by announcing that those who fought heroically would not have to pay pencik on their prisoners.8 The first (and sadly the last) detailed pencik regulations survive from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. These kanunnames were in reality sultanic commands issued at the request of sections of the military and some officials who had an interest in acquiring captives.9 At that time, the akıncıs stationed in the European frontiers were – after the Tatars – the most prolific takers of slaves, and the rules for collecting pencik were specifically directed at their activities, specifying their obligations and rights concerning the captives they took. The decrees divided the akıncıs’ pillaging expeditions into three types: 1. akın: great raids with the personal involvement of their commanders (akıncı beğleri); 2. haramilik: a raid involving more than one hundred akıncıs but not led by their beğs; 3. çete: a minor incursion involving less than a hundred soldiers. Only the captives taken in the first two types were subject to pencik. Soldiers did not have to pay pencik on their prisoners if they took them in an expedition less than a hundred strong or went after slaves on their own account. The rate of pencik by that time was no longer a simple fifth. The central government, having gained in strength, demanded for itself all boys aged between ten and seventeen, but released some as rewards to the soldiers who caught them. In compensation for taking the most valuable slaves en masse, the government assigned twenty boys to the akıncı beği, five to the pencik collector, one to the highest-ranking tovıca (akıncı officer), and one to each two lower-ranking tovıcas. Pencik due on the other slaves was usually collected by ‘one-fifth commissioners’ (pencik emini) at crossing points, ferries and harbours. The commissioners worked under the ‘chief one-fifth collector’ (pencikçi başı), but we have no information as to where he was based and what areas his powers extended to. The commissioners had their own scribes who registered all captives, recording the value of each and the amount of pencik payable. The akıncı beğis were also obliged to keep registers of captives and of pencik, and the defters of both sides had to be sent to the court, which was supervising the whole process. At the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, simple valuation gave way to more refined methods. Slaves were then divided into several categories 8 Kâmil Kepecioğlu, “Bursada Şer’î Mahkeme Sicillerinden ve Muhtelif Arşiv Kaynaklarından Toplanan Tarihî Bilgiler ve Vesikalar,” Vakıflar Dergisi 2 (1942): 405–17, here 406. 9 There were three decrees: the first is undated, the second is from 1493, and the third is from 1511; published in Uzunçarşılı, Kapukulu Ocakları, I., 86–90. On the second, see also Beldiceanu, “En marge,” 44–47 and facsimile.

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with different values and pencik rates. The kanunname issued on 6 January 1511 specified these as follows (the names of the categories are in brackets): 1) from ‘nursing babes’ (şirhorbeççe) to age three, sum payable in pencik was 10–30 akçes; 2) for ages three to eight (beççe), it was 100 akçes; 3) for ages eight to twelve (gulamçe), 120–200 akçes; 4) for boys who had reached puberty (gulam), 250–280 akçes; 5) for bearded unbelievers, 200–270 akçes; 6) for elderly unbelievers, 150–200 akçes; 7) for ageing and worn (or crippled) infidels, 130– 150 akçes; 8) for one-eyed or one-armed boys and adults, 130–150 akçes; and 9) for women (mother, virgin, child, old, sick or defective), 120–150 akçes. The government also levied the one-fifth tax on plundered livestock (horses, cattle, sheep, etc.). We find nothing about this, unfortunately, in our sources. The decrees only say that the old law and customs are to be followed in taxing animals.10 By the sixteenth century, ‘one-fifth’ had effectively become a levy in cash, apart from the state’s portion. The slave owners were issued tax payment certificates (tezkere) that they could present at subsequent customs and crossing points on their journey, although they still had to pay the crossing tolls or customs duties (bac-i ubur, resm-i geçüd, resm-i üsera, etc.) due on slaves (and livestock).11 While the value of slaves shows relative constancy (a Szeged pencik register surviving from 1552 valued most captives at 1,000 akçes, which roughly corresponds to the average prices we may infer from the decree),12 the crossing tolls or customs duties grew substantially during the sixteenth century. At 10

Uzunçarşılı, Kapukulu Ocakları, I., 87, 89. We know of several cases when the pencik and the one-fifth tax on animals were combined. 11 Alan Fisher, “The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire: Markets and State Taxes on Slave Sales. Some Preliminary Considerations,” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi, Beşeri Bilimler 6 (1978): 149–74, here 164, 167–68; Erdem, Slavery, 19–20; Yağcı, “İstanbul Gümrük Defterine Göre,” 373–74. 12 János Hóvári, “Customs Register of Tulça (Tulcea), 1515–1517,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 38, 1–2 (1984): 115–47, here 130. It can hardly be a coincidence that import duty (i.e. ‘one-fifth tax’) of 250 akçes per prisoner was also collected in Bursa (1485), Trapezunt (1485) and Caffa (1542): Halil İnalcık, Sources and Studies on the Ottoman Black Sea. Vol. I. The Customs Register of Caffa, 1487–1490 (Cambridge, Mass.: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 1996), 145–46, 185: n. 1. Nonetheless, the value of a slave always showed considerable variation; see Halil İnalcık, “Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire,” in The Mutual Effects of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian Worlds: The East European Pattern, Studies on Society in Change, 3, eds. Abraham Asher et al. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn College Press, 1979), 25–52, here 43–45; İzzet Sak, “Konya’da Köleler (16. Yüzyıl Sonu–17. Yüzyıl),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 9 (1989): 169–75; Yvonne J. Seng, “Fugitives and Factotums: Slavery in Early Sixteenth-Century Istanbul,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39,2 (1996): 136–69, here 142–47, 155–56; Yücel Öztürk, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Köle Emeğinin Rolü ve Hacmı,” in Osmanlı Devletinde Kölelik: Ticaret, Esaret, Yaşam, eds. Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı and Fırat Yaşa (İstanbul: Tezkire, 2017), 31–56, here 34–35.

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Tulcea (Tulça) on the Lower Danube, one akçe was collected on each slave in 1515–1517, and twenty in 1590.13 The few available items of data suggest that the crossing toll, having stood at one or two akçes early in the century, increased by a factor of ten or twenty by the middle (at least in Europe; there were wide differences between the eastern and western halves of the empire, and among different provinces, in the way they taxed the slave trade, especially as regards slave markets). This is borne out by figures from Buda: toll for slaves was twenty akçes in 1551.14 2

Pencik Collection on the North-Western Borders – Some Evidence from Ottoman Hungary

The system of public administration set up by the Ottomans after they established themselves in the central area of Hungary naturally incorporated the pencik. We know from the account books of the province of Buda that revenues from one-fifth tax belonged to the Buda and Pest tax-farms, and in 1558–1560, the ağa of the azabs of Buda Castle (first Dur [Tur] Ali and then Hüseyin) was the commissioner for collection of the one-fifth in the province (emin-i pencik-i üsera).15 We know from a later decree that the Buda azab ağasıs retained this function continuously up to May 1573, when – since they had not paid a single akçe into the treasury for years – they were dismissed, and a timar-holder of Simontornya (Şimontorna) was given the job of collecting the one-fifth tax from the sancaks west of the Danube (from Esztergom to 13 Hóvári, “Customs Register of Tulça,” 130; Fisher, “The Sale,” 168. This was the rate applied at most crossing points on the Lower Danube in the second half of the sixteenth century: Nicoară Beldiceanu and Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Acte du règne de Selim I concernant quelques échelles danubiennes de Valachie, de Bulgarie et de Dobrudja,” SüdostForschungen 33 (1964): 91–115, here 111. I. Beldiceanu seems to have misunderstood this passage (“En marge,” 37), when she mentions 20 akçes collected as pencik, which, like Fisher, she has confused with the crossing toll. The text states only that the pencik at these places was abolished, but does not at all say that the sum of 20 akçes collected in its place was also pencik. It is manifest from the amount itself that these crossing points no longer operated as places where pencik was collected, and in future only the then-customary 20-akçe crossing toll was paid on prisoners. 14 Lajos Fekete, Die Siyāqat-Schrift in der türkischen Finanzverwaltung. Vol. 1, Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, 7 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1955), 231. In Caffa, on the Crimean Peninsula, 27 akçes were collected as ‘bridge tolls’ (resm-i köprü) as early as 1542: Mihnea Berindei and Giles Veinstein, “Règlements de Süleymān Ier concernant le livā de Kefe,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 16 (1975): 57–104, here 74; Fisher, “The Sale,” 163. 15 Lajos Fekete and Gyula Káldy-Nagy, Rechnungsbücher türkischer Finanzstellen in Buda (Ofen) 1550–1580. Türkischer Text (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1962), 421, 443, 466, 595, 692.

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Szigetvár).16 Another passage of the 1558–1560 account book suggests that the Koppány (Kopan) sancak had its own agent.17 In early 1580, a ziamet-holder of Pécs (Peçuy) called Hasan became district governor of the Szigetvár (Sigetvar) sancak. One of the conditions of his appointment was that he was to attach the one-fifth tax of the Szigetvár and Székesfehérvár (İstolni Belgrad) frontier regions to the sultan’s domains.18 There was also a pencik commissioner in Jenő (Yanova) in 1658.19 From these few and somewhat contradictory records it is difficult to tell whether an Ottoman government organization to collect pencik was maintained in every sancak. When we consider that the capture and trade in slaves was of enormous significance in Hungary at that time (in the Kingdom as well as the Ottoman territory), we may infer that collection of pencik was not confined to the centre of the province, and that there must also have been agents (pencikçis) in the sancaks (mostly those at the frontier), who sometimes worked under a chief tax-farmer-entrepreneur supervising the whole vilayet or a large region. This hypothesis is supported by the following two documents. Both concern the appointment of a pencik collector: the first took office in Szolnok (Solnok) sancak on 14 January 1555, and the second in Fülek (Filek) sancak on 16 January 1555: Command to the district governor of Szolnok, Mahmud Beğ: you sent a letter stating that a pencik collector is needed in the aforementioned district; Tur Ali, the bearer of this command, presently the chief ağa of the beşlis stationed in the district, would be capable of providing this service. Accordingly, I order you to engage the above named in the service of pencik collection in the said district as stated in your report.20 16 Géza Dávid, Osmanlı Macaristan’ında Toplum, Ekonomi ve Yönetim: 16. Yüzyılda Simontornya Sancağı, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları 81, transl. Hilmi Ortaç (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1998), 99: n. 28. 17 Fekete and Káldy-Nagy, Rechnungsbücher, 594. 18 Géza Dávid, “Szigetvár 16. századi bégjei,” in Tanulmányok a török hódoltság és a fel­ szabadító háborúk történetéből. A szigetvári történész konferencia előadásai a város és a vár felszabadításának 300. évfordulóján, ed. László Szita (Pécs: Baranya Megyei Levéltár – Magyar Történelmi Társulat, 1993), 159–91, here 166–67; cf. Géza Dávid, “Die Bege von Szigetvár im 16. Jahrhundert,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 82 (1992): 67–96, here 79. 19 Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, Nos. 33–41. 20 Ṣolnoḳ beği Maḥmūd beğe ḥüküm ki: mektūb gönderüb livā-i meẕkūrde pencīkçi lāzım olmağın biʾl-fiʿil livā-i meẕkūrde vāḳʿi olan beşlülere baş ağa olan dārende-i fermān Ṭur ʿAlī ḫidmet-i merkūmuñ ʿuhdesinden gelür kimesnedür deyü ʿarż etdüğüñ ecilden buyurdum ki ʿarż etdüğüñ üzere livā-i meẕkūrde pencīk ḫidmetin meẕkūre etdüresin. Amasya, 20 Safer 962 [=14 January 1555]: İstanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşbakanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), Mühimme Defterleri (MD) 1, 284. No. 1608.

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[Command to] the district governor of Fülek, Hamza – may his glory be lasting! –: you sent a letter stating that a pencik collector is needed in the aforementioned district and that Mehmed, the bearer of this command, the alaybeği of the district of Szécsény, would be capable of providing this service. Accordingly, I order you to engage the above named in the service of pencik collection in your district.21 From the petitions for appointment and the approval of the petitions, we may infer that the officials chosen for the post would have a considerable task, and that the scale of the Ottoman slave trade in Hungary was growing as Ottoman government consolidated its power there. This also follows from contemporary Hungarian and Habsburg sources (private and official correspondence, diplomatic reports, memoirs, narrative sources, etc.), which are consistent in describing extensive activities in taking captives and selling them as slaves.22 The revenue from pencik on captives recorded in official Ottoman documents (customs registers, account books and land/tax survey registers), however, was relatively small (if it appears at all). The sum received by the Buda treasury under the heading of pencik was 18,966 akçes in 1559 and 43,245 akçes in 1560.23 For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that every captive was valued at 1,000 akçes in these two years. This gives the figures for the numbers of slaves to be registered in the province of Buda as 94–95 in 1559, and 216 in 1560.24 The customs registers give a similar picture. According to Lajos Fekete, 64 prisoners passed through the Buda customs in 1571, 155 in 1573, and “approximately” 80 in 1580 (the duty there, as discussed above, was 20 akçes in mid-century and 25 akçes in 1571). One single prisoner appears in the Szolnok customs register 21 Filek sancāğı beği Ḥamza dāme ʿizzuhu[ya ḥüküm ki:] mektūb gönderüb livā-i meẕkūrde pencīkçi lāzımdur deyü Seçen sancāğı alay beğisi dārende-i fermān Meḥmed ḫidmet-i meẕkūrüñ ʿuhdesinden gelür kimesnedür deyü ʿarż etdüğüñ ecilden buyurdum ki ʿarż etdüğüñ üzere sancāğuñda vāḳʿi olan pencīk ḫidmetin meẕkūre etdüresin. Amasya, 22 Safer 962 [=16 January 1555]: BOA MD 1, 286. No. 1626. 22 Key studies on this question: Sándor Takáts, “A török és a magyar raboskodás,” in Rajzok a török világból. Vol. 2, ed. Sándor Takáts (Budapest: Genius, 1915), 160–303; Dávid and Fodor, eds., Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders. 23 Fekete and Káldy-Nagy, Rechnungsbücher, 767; Gyula Káldy-Nagy, Magyarországi török adóösszeírások (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970), 69–70. 24 Although Behram Çavuş remitted 118,925 akçes in pencik to the treasury within a year after his appointment in 1573 (Dávid, 16. Yüzyılda Simontornya Sancağı, 99: n. 28), a considerable proportion of this sum, given what had gone before, was probably arrears. Thus the 600 or so slaves (or 850, if we take Fekete’s average prices of 1573) we can derive from this figure is almost certainly not the ‘product’ of a single year.

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(where the beğ requested a separate pencikçi), and there was also negligible traffic in Esztergom (Estergon).25 At the outset, the Buda treasury seems to have been over-ambitious in its forecast (clearly working on the yield from the frequent clashes of the time): in 1546, a revenue of 40,000 akçes was earmarked for captives coming over the Buda crossing (resm-i geçüd-i esara), which means they envisaged the transport of about 2,000 slaves a year. This item does not appear in subsequent survey registers, possibly indicating that the hopes had not been fulfilled. The assessment of the annual pencik revenue, however, proved more accurate. The account books of Buda show that figure of 40,500 akçes earmarked from the 1560s onwards was indeed attained.26 How can the obvious contradictions in these sources be resolved? There is no completely satisfactory answer, but we can identify some components. One possible partial explanation is that more prisoners were taken and traded than are reflected in Ottoman accounts, probably due to Ottoman military organisation and court policy. The military organization of Ottoman Hungary did not include akıncıs, previously the champions of cross-border captive-taking, and so the taking of prisoners was no longer such a systematic operation and became decentralized and haphazard, carried out in much smaller enterprises. Except during the great campaigns, slaves were mostly acquired in raids and in skirmishes with Hungarian border defence forces, by small bands who claimed that under customary law, these circumstances exempted them from paying tax. The existence of such a customary law (for which the çete of the akıncıs may have served as a precedent) is clear from the following two decrees: Given to Mehmed, agent of the finance director of Buda, Halil Beğ. Command to Ali, governor-general of Buda: Nezir, presently commissioner of Esztergom, has sent a defter and reported that some persons owe crossing toll and pencik but are unwilling to pay. I order that upon receipt of my noble command, without delay, fully collect and recover the crossing toll and pencik from everybody who is in arrears thereof and seize it for my imperial treasury. Many have stated that they do not intend to pay pencik because they [captured] few [prisoners] and brought them out on foot. However many captives they bring – either mounted or on 25 Fekete and Káldy-Nagy, Rechnungsbücher, 743–44. 26 BOA Tahrir Defterleri 410, 15 (1546); 343, 12 (1562); 592, 4–5 (1580); 611, 3 (1590); publication of the first two: Gyula Káldy-Nagy, Kanuni Devri Budin Tahrir Defteri (1545–1562) (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1971), 11–12, 15; cf. Fisher, “The Sale,” 169 (with several misunderstandings).

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foot, whether many or few – they must immediately pay the pencik due on them, and do not allow anyone to seek an excuse or to enter a dispute.27 The Esztergom commissioner thus reported that those who set out to capture slaves and took only a small number did not want to pay crossing toll or pencik. The court was evidently under great pressure to respect this widely-held custom, because six months later, it gave approval for infantry to be exempted from payment of pencik. From that time, prisoners taken by foot-soldiers did not come to the attention of the administration: It is written. Given to Behram Kethüda on 20 August 1552. Command to Hızır, Buda finance director of the imperial treasury – may his prosperity be lasting! –: I order not to collect pencik from those who go to the country of the miserable unbelievers on foot and take captives from there; I order you not to collect pencik on captives obtained by infantry among whom there were no cavalry. But apart from the infantry, the law provides that pencik will still be payable by cavalry and those who go and take slaves by ship. If anyone except infantry takes prisoners, collect the pencik from them and do not allow anyone to seek an excuse or to enter a dispute.28 27 Budūn defterdārı Ḫalīl beğüñ ādamı Meḥmede verildi. Budūn beğlerbeğisi ʿAlīye ḥüküm ki: hāliyā Estōrgōn emīni Neẕīr defter gönderüb baʿż-i kimesnelerde resm-i geçid ve pencīk aḳçesi olub edāsında ʿinād etdüklerin iʿlām etmeğin buyurdum ki ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda teʾḫīr etmeyüb mīrīye ʿāid olan resm-i geçid ve pencīk her kimüñ ẕimmetinde var ise bi-ḳuṣūr cemʿ ve taḥṣīl etdürüb ḫızāne-i ʿāmīrem içün żabṭ etdüresin. Baʿż-i kimesneler pencīk vermede azdur ve yayaḳ çıḳarmışdur deyü nizāʿ ederlerimiş. Eğer atlu ile ve eğer yaya ile eğer az ve çoḳ her ne mikdār esīr çıḳar[ur]larise pencīklerin alıverüb kimesne taʿallül ve nizāʿ etdürmeyesin. Edirne, 22 Safer 959 [=18 February 1552]: İstanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi (TSMK), Koğuşlar 888, 66b; published in: Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, “Az ország ügye mindenek előtt való”. A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei (1544–1545, 1552) / “Affairs of State Are Supreme”. The Orders of the Ottoman Imperial Council Pertaining to Hungary (1544–1545, 1552), História Könyvtár, Okmánytárak, 1 (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézet, 2005), 258–59: No. 41. 28 Yazıldı. Behrām ketḫüdāya verildi. Fi 29 şaʿbān sene-i 959. Ḫızāne-i ʿāmīremüñ Budūn defterdārı Ḫıżır dāme iḳbāluhuya ḥüküm ki: hāliyā küffār-i ḫāksār vilāyetinden piyāde varub esīr çıḳaranlardan penc ü yek alınmamasın emr eyleyüb buyurdum ki içlerinde atlu olmayub piyāde varanlar çıḳardukları esīrden penc ü yek aldurmayasın. Āmmā piyādeden ġayri atludan ve gemi ile varub esīr çıḳaranlardan kānūn üzere kemākān penc ü yek alınur. Piyāde ṭāʾifesinden ġayri her kim esīr çıḳarur ise kemākān penc ü yeklerin aldurub kimesneye taʿallül ve nizāʿ etdürmeyesin. İstanbul, 25 Şaban 959 [=16 August 1552]: TSMK Koğuşlar 888, 377b; edited in Dávid and Fodor, “Az ország ügye,” 594–95: No. 318.

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Another factor reducing the number of registered captives is the apparent attempt by the pashas and beğs in Hungary  – who always took many prisoners – to have themselves exempted from payment of pencik and customs duties.29 Since the administration understandably could not collect tax on slaves intended as gifts to the sultan (the ‘emperor’s slaves’), it became a custom among military commanders to send most of their slaves to Istanbul. This was not just to show generosity towards their sovereign and other important dignitaries. They hoped, as was traditional, that the sultan would return some of the slaves to them as a sign of appreciation, thus both gaining approbation and obtaining slaves on which they did not have to pay duty.30 Smuggling and corruption were clearly other factors in constraining the treasury revenues from the slave trade. A mention of the problem in the Treaty of Adrianople of 1568 illustrates how well known it was. Article 15 states that the frequent appearance of slave traders in Hungary was damaging to both the Habsburg and the Ottoman side, because Ottoman beğs and soldiers along the border abduct people of all ages in large numbers, but particularly pre-pubescents, taking them and secretly selling them to buyers, causing great losses to both us and His Highness [the sultan]; we therefore resolve that in future such buyers will not be allowed to approach the borders of Hungary and shall be prohibited from carrying on trade in people.31 This illegal activity is unlikely to have ceased at the time. The explanation for the contradiction stated above ultimately lies not in this or any one of the other factors we have discussed, but in their combination, and the overall practice of taking prisoners in Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The special conditions in Hungary obliged the Ottomans to deviate from their previous methods of taking prisoners and to adapt to the aims and 29

According to Lajos Fekete (Rechnungsbücher, 744) captives of pashas and beğs could cross the border without payment of customs duty. Assessment of the volume of the Black Sea slave trade encounters the similar problem that the Crimean khan and kalgas were also exempt from customs: Öztürk, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Köle Emeğinin Rolü,” 48. 30 The same happened to the beğlerbeği of Bosnia in January 1592: the imperial council informed him that two slaves that had converted to Islam were being returned to him to serve him in future: BOA MD 69, 164, No. 328. On the sending of slaves to Istanbul, see also Nida Nebahat Nalçacı, Sultanın Kulları. Erken Modern Dönem İstanbul’unda Savaş Esirleri ve Zorunlu İstihdam (İstanbul: Verita, 2015), 52–54. 31 István Sinkovics, ed., Magyar történeti szöveggyűjtemény, vol. 2/1, transl. Győző Kenéz (Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1968), 147.

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methods of the Habsburg-Hungarian side. The latter did not take prisoners for the purpose of selling them into slavery or using them as soldiers. Instead, they put up the valuable prisoners for ransom as a way of making up for the frequent non-payment of soldiers’ pay. The Ottomans soon emulated this approach, leading to the development of an idiosyncratic market sector in Ottoman-age Hungary.32 Captured soldiers (particularly of high rank, so-called ‘major captives’) were not usually sold into slavery but held in prisons or under private guard in the hope of a trade. Since the ‘major’ or wealthy captives were intended in any case to be returned for ransom or in exchange for high-value captives taken by the other side, and high-value captives were usually claimed by the sultan’s court, the traditional administrative procedures for captives lost much of their relevance. When facing the interests of the government or the commercial interests of powerful provincial grandees (pashas and district governors), the officials responsible for collecting pencik and customs could – if they wanted to retain their positions – do no more than shut their eyes and stop their ears. This they did despite fearsome official reprimands and threats to make them pay for the lost or hidden revenues.33 We may therefore conclude that the Ottoman registers record only a fraction of the actual trade in prisoners. This is illustrated by a specific case: a sultanic command of December 1589 anticipates that the sale of captives taken by the extremely warlike Şehsüvar Bey, who after various posts as district governor in Hungary became governor-general of Bosnia, and died at the end of January 1588, will yield 35,000 guruşes (approximately 20,000 ducats).34 32

For all of this, see Pálffy, “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman–Hungarian Frontier,” 35–83. Turkish historians have also started to recognize the significance of this peculiar area of business and take it into account when estimating the magnitude of the slave trade; see, for example, the excellent essay by Öztürk, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Köle Emeğinin Rolü,” particularly 51–56. 33 See the command sent to the district governor and the judges of the district of Pécs, and the agents of the Dráva crossing points in 1605: Peçūy sancāğı beği ve livā-i mezbūrda olan ḳādılara ve nehr-i Drāva yālılarında olan iskele żābitlerine ḥüküm ki: Ḳānīje ve sāʾir cāniblerde dārüʾl-ḥarbden çıḳan esīrlerüñ pencīği muʿtād-i ḳadīme üzere alınmaḳ emrüm olmışdur. Buyurdum ki - - - vuṣul bulduḳda ḫuṣūṣ-i mezbūrda her biriñüz gereği gibi muḳayyed olub dārüʾl-ḥarbden çıḳub iskelelere ve sāʾir geçidlere uğrayan esīrlerüñ pencīğin mīrī içün ḳabża meʾmur olanlara olıgeldüği üzere aldurub pencīği alınmadın bir esīri geçürmeyüb bu bābda māl-i mīrīye ġadr olmaḳdan ziyāde iḥtiyāṭ eyleyesiz. Şöyle ki bir ferd ḥimāyet oluna anlardan alınacaḳ rüsūm size tażmīn etdürilür. Aña göre muḳayyed olasız. 24 Cemaziülahir 1014 [=6 November 1605]: BOA MD 77, 77, No. 261. 34 BOA MD 66, p. 97. Nos. 210, 211. 10 Safer 998 [=19 December 1589]. On the beğ’s activities in Hungary: Pál Ács, “The Rise and Fall of a Notorious Renegade: The Story of Sásvár/ Şehsuvar Bey, 1580,” in Identity and Culture in Ottoman Hungary, Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Türkvölker, 24, eds. Pál Fodor and Pál Ács (Berlin: Klaus

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Taken together, the annual number of captives acquired in Hungary nearly reached the number taken to Crimea. The latter has been estimated by a recent and thorough calculation, correcting an error that had persisted for decades, at 750, and the total number of captives involved in Eastern European trade has been put by the same calculation at about 3,000.35 These figures show that the number of prisoners taken and traded in Hungarian (Central European) lands made up a substantial proportion of the Ottoman total. 3

Pencik Collection by Tax-Farm – Three Cases from the Imperial Capital

In the sixteenth century, collection of pencik started to be farmed out (iltizam, mukataa). One of the most sought-after and lucrative tax-farms at that time was the pencik mukataası of Istanbul. We can get an insight of its financial affairs between 1570 and 1610 through one legal document, one interesting set of papers and a brief account book. A legal document (sicil) dated between 21 and 30 March 1576 tells us that, a short time before that, the Istanbul pencik mukataası was sold for a three-year term at the price of 5,300,000 akçes (equivalent to 88,333 ducats). A new entrepreneur, Mehmed Çelebi, son of Kara kadı, resident in the Sultan quarter of Üsküdar, offered a further 500,000 akçes and finally leased out the tax-farm for three years for 6,000,000 akçes (100,000 ducats). In the court, before four witnesses, several ‘notables’ (ayan) testified that Mehmed Çelebi was completely suitable for the task, had sufficient funds, and was honest and god-fearing.36 Mehmed Çelebi is likely to have served his term, but we do not know whether he continued after the three years or someone else took his place. (Given the typically high turnover of tax-farmers, the latter would not be surprising.) In 989/1581, however, the tax-farm was certainly taken over by a three-member company, again for three years. One of them, Cafer, died soon afterwards, and Rızvan Çavuş, who did not take effective part in the shared task, was expelled from the company through the certification of the Galata kadı and the testimony of several ‘expert’ Muslims. This left a Jew named Mazalto to carry on the business alone. Mazalto had previously been involved in tax-farming in various Schwarz Verlag, 2017), 209–22; on his death: Wien, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, HausHof- und Staatsarchiv, Türkei I. Karton 65. Konv. 1. 1588. I. (thanks to Géza Dávid for this information). 35 Öztürk, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Köle Emeğinin Rolü,” 49, 56. 36 BOA D.GNK 23790, 2.

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capacities (scribe, money collector, entrepreneur) for twenty or thirty years. At the end of the three years (992/1584), he ostensibly took on another Jew, Şimoyil, and together they took a lease on the tax-farm for a further six years for 12,700,000 akçes (195,385 ducats), also undertaking to pay the accumulated deficit of more than 2,100,000 akçes. Şimoyil soon went bankrupt, however, and Mazalto dismissed him, running the tax-farm alone again for three years, at a staggering loss: he added 2,000,000 akçes to the existing deficit. Unabashed, he started his second term (995/1587), but the deficit continued to grow. After three months, he forged an association with his co-religionist Simon, son of David, in whose name a new contract was made. They set Simon’s wages at 200 akçes (per day?), had the first three years declared closed, and had two further three-year cycles added to the current cycle. Adding a surplus of 600,000 akçes, they undertook to pay 19,650,000 akçes (equivalent to 163,750 ducats at that time) for the nine-year period. They also promised to pay off the entire deficit that had accumulated since 1581. After a year of working under this arrangement, they were subjected to an inspection, which found that the deficit had grown further (by 1,800,000 akçes in one year), taking the total to 6,500,000 (or 6,200,000 according to another document). Simon also owed 4 or 5 million akçes to various merchants, and his guarantors were nowhere to be found. The authorities realized that if they took no action, Simon would not even meet his undertakings for the current period, let alone pay his old arrears. A more suitable entrepreneur was sought. A merchant and court çavuş named Acemzade Mehmed made an application to the divan, offering to take on the operation of the tax-farm for a period of nine years starting 27 November 1589, for the price of 19,650,000 akçes, but he set strict terms: he would not stand surety for the old deficits, which should be recovered from the previous farmers; the 600,000 akçes paid to the treasury would be accounted as an advance; he would be confirmed in his office as çavuş; he could employ anyone he wished as scribe or servant; if another entrepreneur made a higher offer in the meantime, they may not take away the tax-farm until the advance had been repaid; the previous wages would be payable to him from the beginning of the enterprise. Interestingly, it was only on 30 August 1590 that the grand vizier approved his written offer to the imperial council and ordered the diploma of appointment to be issued, even though the enterprise’s first three-year cycle had begun three-quarters of a year earlier (on 27 November 1589).37 37 BOA Maliyeden Müdevver (MAD) 3247, 1–6. He paid the fee on his diploma of appointment (120 akçes) on 29 May 1591. Fisher has made a brief reference to the defter (‘The Sale’, 169 and 173: n. 57), but he seems to have misunderstood this too. The amounts pledged in 1586 and 1589 also appear in Çizakça’s list of tax-farms: Murat Çizakça, “Tax-farming and Financial Decentralization in the Ottoman Economy, 1520–1697,” The Journal of European Economic History 22 (1993): 219–50, here 249; cf. Ibid., 230.

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We can therefore see that one of the empire’s largest pencik payment operations, the Istanbul mukataa, in a similar way to most other tax-farms at that time, was contending with severe problems. Owing to excessive offers and financial machinations, serious deficits accumulated over the years. By contrast, a two-year account produced twenty years later (1609–1611) paints a picture of a consolidated tax-farm. The tax-farmer then was Murad Ağa, court müteferrika. He managed the business so well that in addition to the 3,436,994 akçes (27,495 ducats at that time) payable by daily instalments, he generated a surplus of 86,845 akçes and paid the old wages charged against the tax-farm (109,500 akçes).38 This was an impressive (and very rare) profit, even though the annual revenue – no doubt due to the great wars and internal turmoil at the end of the century – was about half a million akçes lower than it had been at the end of the sixteenth century. For the state, this was compensated by stable management and higher-than-anticipated revenue, greatly needed for the pay of the numerous court mercenaries and pensioners.39 Murad Ağa’s achievement is all the more remarkable when compared to the figures for the tax-farm three years previously (between November 1606 and November 1607). The two tax-farmers in that period collected only 938,758 akçes on 3,488 slaves as against the offers of the preceding entrepreneurs and Murad Ağa (who undertook to annually pay over 2 million and 1.7 million respectively).40 These detailed accounts, broken down monthly and daily, also show the changes in the categorization and taxation of captives that had taken place since the early-sixteenth-century kanunname. Most of the old categories remained, but we also find new ones: one was ‘little ones’ (küçük), which the publisher of the source surmises to mean the 3–8-year age group known as beççe; and balaban, meaning ‘large’ and probably equivalent to the ‘bearded’ (adult male) category of the old regulation. The tax rates for each category had changed considerably: adult men (‘bearded’) were taxed as before at the rate of 240–250 akçes, but the amount payable for ‘nursing babes’ (şirhore), was 185–330 akçes rather than the old 10–30 akçes, and for beççe, 100 akçes were levied instead of old rate of 75–175 akçes.41 At least as important is that in the second part of the account book, covering captives brought by ship and the pencik levied on them, the number of categories decreased to three: ‘large’ (i.e. adult: kebir), ‘little’ (küçük) and ‘nursing babes’ (şirhore). This seems to have 38 BOA Kepeci 5015, 6. The accounts cover the period 1 September 1609 to 10 August 1611, but the document, curiously, is dated 31 July 1611. 39 On such stipend-holders, see e.g. BOA MAD 5227, 87, 150 (12 Zilkade 1099 [=8 September 1688]). 40 Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı, “H. 1015/1016 (M. 1606/1607) Tarihli İstanbul Gümrük Defteri,” History Studies 5,2 (2013): 507–36. 41 See also Yağcı, “İstanbul Gümrük Defterine Göre,” 378–79 and 381–82: tables 4 and 6.

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been an important step towards the changes to pencik that reduced the many categories to a mere two: ‘large’ (kebir) and ‘little’ (sagir) and set the ratio of amounts payable to 2:1. (This was comparable to a practice that had long been in use at certain customs stations, including Bursa, Caffa and Azak, whereby flat-rate customs duty/pencik were levied on each captive.) We will now trace the course of this change. 4

Pencik Collection during the Imperial Campaigns – the Techniques of Levying the ‘One-Fifth’ in the Seventeenth Century

Although there were military incursions and raids into enemy territory and everyday cross-border prisoner-taking expeditions that assured a constant stream of captives  – and pencik revenue  – even in peacetime, the imperial campaigns were what generated the greatest opportunities for both ordinary soldiers and the state. One such was the Mohács campaign of 1526. The chronicler Peçevi wrote that in this campaign of ample booty, the spoils that fell to the army of Islam greatly exceeded the usual quantity. Everyone filled his bags with gold and silver vessels and fine fabrics, keeping only the necessities as they threw aside their coarse sacks and blankets, and they drove prisoners like herds of sheep. Nobody doubted that they numbered twice as many as the army of Islam.42 The army command, upon their arrival in Pétervárad (Petrovaradin) on 4 October, announced to the troops that they “must pay the one-fifth tax for every captive, or forfeit them.”43 Unfortunately, we do not know the numbers, but we may be sure that the revenue was sufficient to let government leaders sleep in peace. We do not know the mechanism of collecting pencik in 1526, but descriptions of other campaigns record that pencik commissioners (pencik emini) and scribes (katib) were appointed in accordance with old tradition. This was done in the early autumn of 1595, when the Ottoman army retreating from 42 Tārīḫ-i Peçevī, vol. 1 (İstanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1281/1864), 102. 43 Feridun Ahmed Beğ, Münşeatü’s-Selatin. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. (İstanbul: Darüʾt-Tıbatiʾl-Amire, 1274/1858), 565; Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Feldzugstagebücher des ersten und zweiten ungarischen Feldzugs Suleymans I., Beihefte zur WZKM, Band 8 (Wien: Verlag des Verbandes der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Österreichs, 1978), 92 (60/5).

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the allied Transylvanian and Wallachian forces with a large train of prisoners, was required to pay pencik over a two-day period at the bridge of Giurgiu (Yergöğü).44 Abdülkadir Efendi, to whom we owe this information, also gives important details in his description of the Polish (Hotin) campaign of 1621. At that time, pencik was collected at the Danube bridge of Isaccea (İsakçi), where two ducats were levied uniformly on each captive. To speed up the process, the certificates of payment (for which the chronicler used the word temessük) were partly made out in advance and were sealed with the seal of the defterdar. The collectors of tax arrears (baki kulları) and commissioners (emin) thus had the receipts at the ready at the bridge as they awaited the soldiers bringing the captives.45 In summer 1658, the Ottoman government mounted an attack on several fronts against Transylvania to punish Prince George II Rákóczi’s ‘disobedience.’ First, the army of Seydi Ahmed Pasha invaded the principality, and then Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha laid siege to the fortress of Jenő (Yanova), taking it on 3 September. Nine certificates of payment issued between 12 and 16 September 1658 by Mustafa, a pencik collector appointed at that time, somehow made their way into the possession of the Batthyány family, who preserved them in the family archives. Most of the captives mentioned in these documents were children, and most of their owners were soldiers from Buda (chiefly janissaries), who had obviously taken them as booty during the hostilities. The certificates give few details, mostly confined to the main physical characteristics of the captives, and they give the names of seven of the nine owners. They do not mention the value of the captives or the amount of pencik payable (or even if it was a fixed sum, which was most likely, or based on a valuation), and state only that it had been paid. Here I present two of the receipts, one for a female and the other for a male prisoner: The reason for writing this document is as follows: the one-fifth tax payable on the blue-eyed, blond-eyebrowed, blond-haired, tall, Hungarian slave-girl has been collected. [From] Yusuf Çorbacı. Written on 12 September 1658. Mustafa, pencik commissioner of Jenő.46

44 Topçular Kâtibi ʿAbdülkādir (Kadrî) Efendi Tarihi (Metin ve Tahlîl), Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları III/21, ed. Ziya Yılmazer (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003), 78, 83. 45 Ibid., 753–54. 46 Sebeb-i taḥrīr-i ḥurūf oldur ki: kök gözlü ṣarı ḳaşlu ṣaruşın uzun boylu cāriye-i macāriyetüʾlāṣliye pencīği alınmışdur. Yūsuf çorbacı. Taḥrīren fi 14 ẕīʾl-ḥicce sene-i 1068. Muṣṭafā, emīn-i pencīk-i Yanova. Between the date and the signature is another, pençe-like signature and oval seal. Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No 33.

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Figure 14.1

Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No. 33

Figure 14.2

Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No. 35

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The reason for writing this document is as follows: the one-fifth tax payable on the greenish-brown-eyed, fair-eyebrowed, fair-faced, approximately seven- or eight-year-old, Hungarian boy has been collected. [From] Turak Beşe of the third regiment. Authentic. Written on 16 September 1658. Mustafa, pencik commissioner of Jenő.47 Before the Vienna campaign of 1683, there were also arrangements made for the many anticipated prisoners, and as in 1621, certificates were written in advance. Fortunately, some of these slips of paper were not used and are preserved in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul. We can thus show what they looked like and find out how pencik was collected at that time. There are thirteen dossiers containing 2,316 tezkeres. The first 157 are from 10 July 1683, and those that follow are dated 17, 25 and 28 July and 4 and 6 August. After that, the certificates are incomplete, mostly missing the day and month. Writing in 1621, the chronicler Abdülkadir called these ‘blank’ (beyaz), but as the examples below show, this is not to be taken literally. In fact, documents where the main text was written in advance, leaving spaces for the details, and the seal (usually square, sometimes oval) was appended, were also called ‘blank.’ Let us examine the kinds of certificate prepared for taxation of prisoner-taking in 1683. In one type, the age and main physical characteristics of the captive were given with spaces to be filled in at the time and place the prisoner was inspected: The reason for writing this document is as follows: among the prisoners taken in the Hungarian campaign, one-fifth tax of three guruşes and collection fee of forty akçes has been collected [on] the … eyebrowed, … eyed, approximately … year-old [prisoner], and the certificate has been issued accordingly. 10 July 1683.48

47 Sebeb-i taḥrīr-i ḥurūf oldur ki: ela gözlü açıḳ ḳaşlu beyaz beñizlü taḫmīnen yedi sekiz yaşında oğlan-i macāriyetüʾl-āṣliye pencīği alınmışdur. Üçünci cemāʿatüñ yoldaşlarından Ṭuraḳ beşe. Ṣaḥḥ. Taḥrīren fi 18 ẕīʾl-ḥicce sene-i 1068. Muṣṭafā, emīn-i pencīk-i Yanova. Between the date and the signature is another, pençe-like signature and oval seal. Körmend, Batthyány Archives, bundle 250, title 2, No 35. 48 Sebeb-i taḥrīr-i ḥurūf oldur ki: Ungurūs seferinde aḫẕ olunan esīrlerden  … ḳaşlu  … gözlü taḫmīnen … yaşında … mīrī içün üç ġurūş resm-i pencīk ve ḳırḳ aḳçe vech-i maʿāş alınub teẕkere verildi. Fi 15 receb sene-i 1094. Square seal underneath, centre. BOA D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 3.

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Figure 14.3

BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 3

Figure 14.4

BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 5

Figure 14.5

BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 2, No. 9

Figure 14.6

BOA, D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 13

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There was a certificate of simpler structure that did not mention the characteristics of the prisoner: The reason for writing [this document] is as follows: among the prisoners taken in the Hungarian campaign, three guruşes as one-fifth tax for the treasury and forty akçes as collection fee has been collected [on] …, and the certificate has been issued accordingly. 10 July 1683.49 Then there was an even briefer version that did not even mention the term pencik: The reason for writing [this document] is as follows: among the prisoners taken in the Hungarian campaign, three guruşes for the treasury and forty akçes as collection fee has been collected [on] …, and the certificate has been issued accordingly. 17 July 1683.50 These receipts certified the payments of the tax due on adult prisoners. The certificates produced for captive children were similar, but with half the amounts: The reason for writing this document is as follows: among the prisoners taken in the Hungarian campaign, one-fifth tax of one and a half guruşes for the treasury and collection fee of twenty akçes has been collected [on] the black-eyebrowed, black-eyed, approximately two-and-a-half year-old boy, and the certificate has been issued accordingly. 10 July 1683.51 What information can we glean from these laconic certificates? By this time, pencik had long since ceased to be a valuation-based tax varying from case to case, and was a uniform ‘flat-rate’ tax. In 1683, one-fifth tax of three guruşes 49 Sebeb-i taḥrīr oldur ki: Ungurūs seferinde alınan esīrlerden … [blank line] resm-i pencīk üç ġurūş mīrī ve ḳırḳ aḳçe vech-i maʿāş alınub teẕkere verildi. Fi 15 receb sene-i 1094. Square seal underneath, centre. BOA D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 5. 50 Sebeb-i taḥrīr oldur ki: Ungurūs seferinde alınan esīrlerden … [blank line] üç ġurūş mīrī ve ḳırḳ aḳçe maʿāş alınub teẕkere verildi. Fi 22 receb sene-i 1904. Square seal underneath, centre. BOA D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 2, No. 9. 51 Sebeb-i taḥrīr-i ḥurūf oldur ki: Ungurūs seferinde alınan esīrlerden ḳara ḳaşlı ḳara gözli taḫmīnen iki buçuḳ yaşında ġulāmdur. … [blank line] resm-i pencīk içün bir buçuḳ ġuruş mīrī ve ḳırḳ aḳçe maʿāş alınub teẕkere verildi. Fi 15 receb sene-i 1094. Oval seal underneath. BOA D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 13. There was also a shortened form of the ‘child slips of paper,’ with no reference to physical characteristics or age; see e.g. ibid., Dosya 4, Nos. 182–83; Dosya 7, No. 175, etc. For safety’s sake, they wrote the word sagir (little) on some of them, such as ibid., Dosya 1, No. 8; Dosya 4, No. 182.

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(i.e. thalers) was payable on each adult captive (kebir) and one and a half on each child (sagir). If these were Spanish thalers (riyal guruş), this was equivalent to 390 akçes for adults and 195 akçes for children (1 guruş=130 akçes); but if they were Dutch lion thalers (esedi guruş; then equivalent to 120 akçes), which is more likely, then the pencik rates were 360 and 180 akçes respectively. Collection fee (vech-i maaş or simply maaş, lit. ‘subsistence cost’) was levied at the rates of 40 and 20 akçes respectively. The number of surviving pencik receipts in itself indicates the not-unfounded anticipation of acquiring ample booty and prisoners on this campaign: the enormous army of Kara Mustafa Pasha was entering rich and hitherto untouched western lands. If Abdülkadir was correct in stating that two ducats were levied as pencik on each captive in 1621, then the rate was lower in 1683 (roughly one and a half to one and three quarters ducats). In fact, the amount levied in 1621 was probably higher than average.52 This may be inferred from a brief statement compiled in the second half of 1693 and spring 1694, which provides further important pieces of information on the pencik administration of the period. The title of the defter states that it contains “the sicil papers submitted to the agents for [collection of pencik tax on] captives obtained in the Várad and Debrecen areas during the imperial campaign of 1004.”53 The ‘campaign’ referred to was the march of the imperial army, led by Bıyıklı Mustafa Pasha, to relieve Belgrade, which was under siege by the Christian forces. The fort proved too difficult to take, and the Christian army abandoned its siege on 12 September. Some units of the late-arriving Ottoman army and the Tatar auxiliaries took revenge through merciless raids on Hungarian lands to the east of the Tisza, especially around Debrecen and Várad (Varat). According to a contemporary Ottoman chronicler, the Tatars returned with more than 500 captives.54 Contemporary Hungarian sources speak of several thousand Hungarian prisoners.55 On 29 October 1693, the Ottoman command provided to seven ‘agents’ (mübaşir) receipts called sicil 52

A possible explanation is that the number of prisoners was much higher than usual, and the treasury had a particular need for the revenue to offset the enormous military expenditure; see Yağcı, “İstanbul Gümrük Defterine Göre,” 376. 53 Biñ yüz dört senesinde vāḳʿi sefer-i hümāyūnda Vāraṭ ve Döbresīn etrāfında alınan esīrler içün mübāşirlere verilen sicīl kāğıdlarıdur. Fi 28 ṣafer sene-i 1105 [=29 October 1693]. BOA MAD 2967, 5. Nalçacı, too, knows this defter, but devotes only one sentence to it: Sultanın Kulları, 52 and n. 57. For a portion of a somewhat similar defter from 1735–1737: Ibid., 47 and 143–44: Ek 1. 54 Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Paşa, Zübde-i Vekayiât. Tahlil ve Metin (1066–1116/1656–1704), Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, III/11, ed. Abdülkadır Özcan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1995), 458. 55 István Sugár, Lehanyatlik a török félhold (Budapest: Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, 1983), 313.

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(lit. legal certificate of a kadı), obviously ‘blank,’ with which they could set about collecting pencik. The receipts then, too, were of two kinds: a ‘large paper’ for adults (kağıd-i kebir) and a ‘small paper’ for children (kağıd-i sagir). The rates were the same as they were ten years previously: three guruşes for adults and one and a half for children. The seven agents were provided with 1,782 receipts, 1,352 for adults and 430 for children. The payments and account started within a few days (and dragged on for long months, without being completed). These show that only 561 (389 child and 172 adult) receipts were used, implying the payment, in principle, of 1,424.5 lion thalers (171,383 akçes).56 Only two of the seven made their full payments, however, the rest having provided the treasury, by spring 1694, with between one and two thirds – on average, 66% – of the amount demanded. The defter explicitly confirms the above inference that pencik lost all relation to the value of captives in the second half of the seventeenth century, and amounted to a uniform three esedi guruşes (360 akçes) for adults and one and a half guruşes (180 akçes) for children, supplemented with collection fee of 40 and 20 akçes respectively. The pencik certificates were produced in advance and usually given to high-ranking officials for the purpose of collecting the tax. In 1693, the agents were nearly all ağas working for various high officials and pashas.57 The payment receipts issued to the owners of the captives were regarded as legal certificates of the kind usually issued by kadıs (sicil), a reference to the canonical-law basis of the tax, but were most often known as tezkere. Another kind of certificate, the temessük, was issued to the commissioners (pencikçi, mübaşir) who collected the pencik when they passed it on to the treasury. The sources presented here clearly attest that for the Ottoman Empire, the taking of prisoners – as a way of life, an area of business and source of manpower  – was no less important in the late seventeenth century than it had been at the empire’s beginning and during its golden age.58 The ‘one-fifth tax’ 56 The esedi guruş was in principle equivalent to 120 akçes, making this sum worth 170,940 akçes. For some entries, however accounts give somewhat higher amounts in akçes than are obtained from exact multiplication. 57 Ahmed Ağa, commander of the former chief finance director’s doorkeepers; Ismail Ağa, member of an élite corps of the court (gedikli müteferrika); Hasan Ağa, chief page of the treasury; a certain Ömer Ağa; Ali Ağa, court messenger (gedikli çavuş); Ramazan, commissioner of the finance director’s expenses; Ali Ağa, majordomo of Hamza Pasha’s household. 58 According to Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, the Ottoman government’s revenue from the Crimean slave trade alone amounted to 30,000 ducats in 1528: Legatio Laszky apud Sultanum Solymannum anno 1527 functa. Actio Hieronymi Laszky apud Turcam nomine Regis Iohannis, in Documente privitóre la Istoria Românilor, vol. 2/1, ed. Eudoxiu de

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levied on prisoners (pencik resmi) survived – with further alterations – up to the middle of the nineteenth century (in the final period, it was set as 9% of the average price of slaves, supplemented by ‘expenses’ [harc], which were equivalent to 10% of the tax),59 and was abolished when the imperial government resolved to restrict, and ultimately to prohibit, the slave trade through a series of decrees.60 After the decree of 1857, customs duties levied on slaves were removed from the customs tariffs, and the debts owed to the treasury by merchants farming these taxes were written off.61 Thus ended the six hundred year history of the Ottoman Empire’s Islamic-law-based one-fifth tax on prisoners of war. Bibliography

Primary Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşbakanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul

D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 1, No. 3., No. 5, No. 8. and No. 13. D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 2, No. 9. D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 4, No. 182–83. D.BŞM. PNR Dosya 7, No. 175. D.GNK 23790, 2. Kepeci 5015.



Maliyeden Müdevver

MAD 3247, 1–6. MAD 2967, 5. MAD 5227, 87, 150 MAD 7273, 10, 23, 31, 39, 47, 55, 59, 63, 71, 79, 91, 123 Hurmuzaki (Bucuresci: Academieî Române, 1891), 54. The pencik was also a constant and substantial item in the annual income of the crossing points and harbours on the Lower Danube; see e.g. BOA MAD 7273, 10, 23, 31, 39, 47, 55, 59, 63, 71, 79, 91, 123 (between 1598 and 1614). For how the prisoners who passed into state ownership were used, see Nalçacı, Sultanın Kulları, 63–87. 59 Ehud R Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 68. 60 First was the closure of the Istanbul slave market at the end of 1846, followed by the abolition of the slave trade across the Persian Gulf (1847), the prohibition or restriction of the Georgian and Circassian slave trade (1854–1857), and the banning of trade in black people (1857): Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade, 102, 107–8, 121, 135–43; Erdem, Slavery, 94–124. 61 Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade, 70.

On the Administration of the Ottoman ‘ One-Fifth Tax ’



Mühimme Defterleri



Batthyány Archives, Körmend



Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien



Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, Istanbul

379

MD 1, 284. No. 1608. MD 1, 286. No. 1626. MD 69, 164, No. 328 MD 77, 77, No. 261. MD 66, Nos. 210, 211. Tahrir Defterleri 343 Tahrir Defterleri 410 Tahrir Defterleri 592 Tahrir Defterleri 611

Bundle 250, title 2, Nos. 33–41.

Türkei I. Karton 65. Konv. 1. 1588. I.

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Schaendlinger, Anton C. Die Feldzugstagebücher des ersten und zweiten ungarischen Feldzugs Suleymans I., Beihefte zur WZKM, Band 8. Wien: Verlag des Verbandes der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Österreichs, 1978. Schiltberger, Johannes. Türkler ve Tatarlar Arasında (1394–1427), transl. Turgut Akpınar. İstanbul: İletişim, 1995. Tārīḫ-i Peçevī, vol. 1. İstanbul: Maṭbaʿa-i Āmire, 1281/1864. Topçular Kâtibi ʿAbdülkādir (Kadrî) Efendi Tarihi (Metin ve Tahlîl), Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları III/21, ed. Ziya Yılmazer. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003. Yağcı, Zübeyde Güneş. “H. 1015/1016 (M. 1606/1607) Tarihli İstanbul Gümrük Defteri.” History Studies 5,2 (2013): 507–36.



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Erdem, Yusuf Hakan. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800–1909. Houndmills, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. Fekete, Lajos. Die Siyāqat-Schrift in der türkischen Finanzverwaltung. Vol. 1, Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, 7. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1955. Fekete, Lajos, and Gyula Káldy-Nagy. Rechnungsbücher türkischer Finanzstellen in Buda (Ofen) 1550–1580. Türkischer Text. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1962. Fisher, Alan. “The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire: Markets and State Taxes on Slave Sales. Some Preliminary Considerations.” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi, Beşeri Bilimler 6 (1978): 149–74. Hóvári, János. “Customs Register of Tulça (Tulcea), 1515–1517.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 38, 1–2 (1984): 115–47. İnalcık, Halil. “Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire.” In The Mutual Effects of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian Worlds: The East European Pattern, Studies on Society in Change, 3, eds. Abraham Asher et al., 25–52. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn College Press, 1979. Káldy-Nagy, Gyula. Magyarországi török adóösszeírások. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970. Kepecioğlu, Kâmil. “Bursada Şer’î Mahkeme Sicillerinden ve Muhtelif Arşiv Kayna­ klarından Toplanan Tarihî Bilgiler ve Vesikalar.” Vakıflar Dergisi 2 (1942): 405–17. Khadduri, Majid. War and Peace in the Law of Islam. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955. Nalçacı, Nida Nebahat. Sultanın Kulları. Erken Modern Dönem İstanbul’unda Savaş Esirleri ve Zorunlu İstihdam. İstanbul: Verita, 2015. Özel, Ahmet. İslâm Devletler Hukukunda Savaş Esirleri. Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1996. Öztürk, Yücel. “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Köle Emeğinin Rolü ve Hacmı.” In Osmanlı Devletinde Kölelik: Ticaret, Esaret, Yaşam, eds. Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı and Fırat Yaşa, language ed. Dilek Inan. İstanbul: Tezkire, 2017. Pálffy, Géza “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman–Hungarian Frontier in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century.” In Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth–Early Seventeenth Centuries), The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, Politics, Society and Economy, 37, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, 35–83. Leiden, Boston: Brill 2007. Sak, İzzet. “Konya’da Köleler (16. Yüzyıl Sonu–17. Yüzyıl).” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 9 (1989): 169–75. Salameyh, Lena. “Early Islamic Legal-Historical Precedents: Prisoners of War.” Law and History Review 26,3 (2008): 521–44. Seng, Yvonne J. “Fugitives and Factotums: Slavery in Early Sixteenth-Century Istanbul.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39,2 (1996): 136–69.

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Sinkovics, István, ed. Magyar történeti szöveggyűjtemény, vols. 2/1, transl. Győző Kenéz. Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1968. Smiley, Will. From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law, The History and Theory of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Sugár, István. Lehanyatlik a török félhold. Budapest: Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, 1983. Takáts, Sándor. “A török és a magyar raboskodás.” In Rajzok a török világból, vol. 2. Ed. Sándor Takáts. Budapest: Genius, 1915. Tekin, Şinasi. “XIV. Yüzyılda Yazılmış Gazilik Tarikası ‘Gâziliğin Yolları’ Adlı Bir Eski Anadolu Türkçesi Metni ve Gazâ/Cihâd Kavramları Hakkında.” Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (1989): 156–63. Toledano, Ehud R. The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, vol. I. Acemi Ocağı ve Yeniçeri Ocağı. 2nd ed. İstanbul: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1984. Yağcı, Zübeyde Güneş. “İstanbul Gümrük Defterine Göre Karadeniz Köle Ticareti (1606–1607).” History Studies 3,2 (2011): 371–84.



Internet Sources

Quran. Sahih International translation (quran.com).

15 Exchange Rates, Pay Years and Prebends in 17th–18th Century Ottoman Europe as Reflected in Taxation and Funding the Military Some Key Examples

Nenad Moačanin Here I intend to discuss the possibly common elements among some apparently almost unrelated phenomena or sets of practices, that is, the different poll-tax rates, payments of garrison soldiers, and the assignment of prebends to the provincial cavalry in the northwestern part of the Ottoman empire in the 17th century. As far as the cizye is concerned, I have paid particular attention to the cash ocaklıks of the garrisons in Kanije/Nagykanizsa and adjacent fortresses. In most of the sancaks where the collected cizye was used for the benefit of these troops, the rates were remarkably higher than those in the neighbouring regions of Hungary and most of Bosnia and Serbia. A document from 1665/66 enumerates ways of payment and sources of income for the garrisons in the eyalet of Kanije.1 In most cases, the payment had to be made, as referring to a 341-day period: in one case it was 300, and in another it was sebin hesabından (“based on calculating seventy”). Then follows the list of kazas in İzvornik/Zvornik, Slavonia and Hungary, with figures of the cizyehanes plus the respective tax rates. In İzvornik and in parts of Pojega/Požega, the rates of akçes per unit were considerably high, generally reaching 379 akçes, while on the left bank of the Drava River, the rates were lower –100 akçes for some, or more. Finally, various mukataas are mentioned as the source of payment, but this is not relevant to the present study. The real challenge is how to explain the difference between the high and low rates of the cizye. It probably had nothing to do with the relative wealth, population density, or traffic network inside the particular kaza. The answer must be sought elsewhere, but where exactly? 1 T.C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), MAD.d. 03774_00127.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_017

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Figure 15.1

Moačanin

Document 1, T.C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), MAD.d. 03774_00127

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First, in my opinion, what matters most is the question of the tax basis. At that time, it was certainly not the hane as understood in the so-called ‘classical age’. On the other hand, it was too early for the “more canonical” cizye, which was supposed to have been introduced by the “reform” from 1691. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the “reform” had simply given the final form, or refinement, to the transformative process that had started around 1650. What had happened in the period of transition was a shift from the social principle (hane as a household) to the economic one (landholding, or more precisely to the full-sized farm or the tamam çift), to the combined one (full-sized holding plus the average number of adult males per holding).2 Here, we must focus our attention to the landholding principle. Given the fact that one full-sized farm could normally sustain two households, let us consider the amounts of cizye per unit. Sometimes it was close to 250 akçes, at other times it was slightly under 400. This might suggest dues of two guruşes per unit with two households. In the first case, it stands for a guruş at the nominal exchange rate of 120, while in the second case, the exchange rate was the actual one, that is, 190 akçes. Exactly seventy coins make for the difference, which in turn might play a certain role in deciphering the “cryptic” formula “gayr ez sebin.” The meaning was well known to the maliye bureaucrats, who did not take the trouble to leave an explanation for the historians working 350 years later. In contrast with previous historiography, our task is to try to enter their minds, in order to establish more refined explanations. The extant literature is not copious. The explanation it offers is not wrong, yet I feel that things were more complex. Let us not overlook another problem. In the Bosnian sancak, some kazas have had two different tax rates of cizye, yet this cannot be explained by referring to the akçe/guruş ratio, simply because the difference was about 15 to 20%, which was distinctly less than in case of exchange rates. I think it is safe to posit that in such cases the exchange rate was nominal, but since much of the land was in hands of Muslims, the lesser amount might point toward the baştine haracı as opposed to slightly higher hane haracı. Because the “seventy principle” in the case of exchange rates means a deduction of approximately one third, what remains is close to two thirds. This induces us to interpret anew the equally peculiar expression “sülüsan üzere,” emerging in the late 16th century and eventually becoming quite widespread in the realm of assigning cavalry prebends. In such occurences, I do not imagine, say, a sipahi’s grant of some 6,000 akçes being straightforward and 2 Nenad Moačanin, “Stanovništvo Bosanskog ejaleta u 18. stoljeću prema popisima glavarine,” Rad HAZU 516 (2013): 95–120.

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worth only 4,000. Rather, the main concern for the state must have been to prevent a further decline in the timar system, inter alia, by manipulating with the exchange rates, lest changes in the realm of assigning grants should not only contribute to the further “decline” (in fact transformation) of the classical system, but worse, should become senseless. At the nominal exchange rate, such a timar was worth fifty guruşes. If the prebend-holder could somehow manage to receive this amount, the operation would turn to his advantage, his apparently “diminished” income reaching one third more in terms of the real exchange rate (9,500 akçes)! But, since he was allowed to convert, or to claim only 4,000 (equalling 33.3 silver coins at the nominal rate), he might still have some profit by turning the value of these 33 guruşes into akçes at the real rate (6,333). He was probably free to proceed in this way. In turn, this might contribute to influencing agrarian relations in gaining some semi-feudal features, meaning more control over the subjects. In the opposite case, the village might pay only 21 guruşes. As for the peasants, it is more likely that they could have the hard currency at the real exchange rate. Given the persistence of the “classical prices” for the agricultural product, this might force them to sell, for example, grain at an index of 1.58, as compared with the situation 100 years earlier. Again, the two-thirds principle is in the background. In such circumstances, many non-Muslim villages tied to the cash ocaklık of the Kanije troops were bound to meet their cizye obligation at the rate of 190 akçes or more for a guruş, which was unfavorable. The same can be said for the collective timars, which are the focus of Klára Hegyi’s investigation.3 Why do the berats first mention the “ideal” amount, and then say that the sum to obtain was only two thirds? Conservatism, perhaps? Therefore, it would be very interesting to investigate the careers, the social background, and the economic state and activities of the “two-thirds” cavalrymen along similar lines of reasoning. In 1626/7 for the kaza of Bijeljina/Beline in İzvornik, the rate of cizye was set at 379 akçes per unit (presumably a full-sized farm with two households).4 Let us now speculate a little: if at the same time the village happened to belong to a sülüsan üzere timar of, again, 6,000 akçes, then it would be another misfortune, with their dues toward the sipahi being set at 50 instead of 32 guruşes. Perhaps the rate of 2 × 190 was influenced by an additional factor: an explanatory note 3 Klára Hegyi, The Ottoman military organization in Hungary (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018). 4 Nenad Moačanin, “O izvorima za demografsku povijest Osmanskoga carstva,” Vojetov zbornik (2006): 247–58.

Exchange Rates, Pay Years and Prebends in 17th–18th Century

Figure 15.2

Document 2, T.C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), D.CMH.d.26578/2

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in the cizye defteri for Beline insists on payment in silver guruşes, because the usual practice was to collect the instalment in mariashes, a Hungarian currency of a very low quality (“eski maramuş olunmaya”).5 True, the twothird prebends did emerge earlier, around 1580, but it is safe to assume that instead of the guruş, the gold coin might well have been used as a mediating reference unit. To return for a moment to models of land occupation and taxation, let us pay attention to the way of how the defter designated the tax units. It was done by using pseudonyms, calling literally everybody “Vuk Petre.” No X, son (or brother) of Y. It is possible that this strange device indicates a full-sized farm with two households on average (John Smith plus Jim Brown).6 The marginal notes do mention some real names, but in such cases they refer to particular people who handed over the due amount for the whole village. Moreover, the population was divided into two main groups. About 82% of entries for “Vuk Petres” were underlined twice, while the rest of some 18% had no marks. Probably the strokes indicate that the money “had arrived” (resid). The majority of these entries divided into those who presumably had paid the cizye at the universal rate of 379 akçes (44% of the total), and those who, for unknown reasons (perhaps due to the size of the household, or to the “imperfect” size of the farm), had paid slightly more or slightly less (398 or 343 akçes; 38% of the total). One example of misunderstanding the role of exchange rates, or how such cases can help to open new vistas, appears in the kadı’s sicil for Novi Pazar/ Yeni Pazar from 1766/68. A holder of a zeʿamet worth 36,749 akçes rented the one-year income for 2,150 guruşes to a lessee, who in turn was to act as the subaşı of the said domain. The editor’s comment stresses the extraordinarily “fraudulent” character of the agreement, as if manifesting the weakening of the state’s control. In his opinion, the sum in guruşes was far lower than it would have been if it had conformed to the exchange rate.7 In other words, the lessee had managed to take possession of the domain at a nominal sum. Astonishingly, the commentary declares that this had occured despite the exchange rate of 8 (!) akçes for a guruş. Even in case of an involuntary slip (8 instead of 80), the result would have been much too high, as compared with 308 guruşes, the normal result of conversion at the official rate of 120 akçes, or 5 BOA, D.CMH.d.26578/2. 6 BOA, DCMH.d.26578. The qadis might like such a solution, remember the “Zeyds” and “Amrs” from the fetvas! 7 Ahmed Aličić, ed., Sidžili kadije kaze Novi Pazar: od 1766. do 1768. godine (Novi Pazar: Istorijski arhiv “Ras,” 2012), 32–33.

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the actual figure of 190. But, what really happened in this business? The editor of the mentioned sicill sees this case as an example of blatant breaking of the law, yet no charge for grave transgression against the persons involved, one İbrahim müteferrika (the zeʿamet holder) and one Salihpaşazade Emrüllah bey (the lessee) was ever raised. The sum of 2,150 guruşes in fact corresponded very well to the worth of the prebend. How was it possible? Let us not forget that we are dealing with prebends, which were still quite an attractive reward by that time. Moreover, the “obsolete” tapu tahrirs were also used, despite the time gap of some 200 years. This brings us to reconsider the meaning of akçes. As a kind of “accountancy money,” they began to play the role of “points,” just like those assigned to competitors in modern TV shows. Thus, in terms of the worth of the agricultural product, being relatively constant, they did not suffer from debasement and/or disappearence. So, we have to revert to the 16th-century situation, when the exchange rate was about fifty for a gold coin. Viewed from this context, the “ideal” worth of the zeʿamet would be 739 ducats, which in turn would produce about 2,150 guruşes to cover the transfer of rights in 1766. Last but not least, many questions remain open. Is it possible to investigate social and economic patterns that might have influenced such puzzling practices? As for the cizye, the easiest case seems to be Hungary, with its double-payers (dues toward Ottomans as well as toward Christian landlords). Bosnia was a more complicated case, yet the presence of numerous farms inhabited by zimmis, but in the hands of Muslims, may help to clarify the picture to some extent. Still, according to what was said above (a full-sized farm subject to dues of 2 guruşes), it seems that most of the areas of the Ottoman Balkans were bound to make payment at the nominal exchange rate of akçes for a guruş. Furthermore, who fared better within the class of the garrison troops? Those whose per diems originated from the money collected as poll tax, or from various mukataas at the real exchange rate, had fewer guruşes at their disposal. This might sound strange, but the above-mentioned source notes the number of days in the pay year for some fortresses in the eyalet of Kanije, each time less than 354 or 355, that is, 341 and 300.8 Otherwise, the havaleci could have appeared to collect fewer guruşes than expected, in the case of nominal exchange, but at the level of total akçes, all was fine. The opposite was true when the principle “seventy” was applied. The neferat at the türbe of Kanuni Süleyman near Szigetvár, the fortresses of Kaposvár and Pécs,9 as well as those guarding the shops at Osijek,10 were unusually paid “sebin hesabından.” The 8 9 10

300 days would correspond to the Rumi fiscal year, but not 341. Including the baruthane of Pécs. Probably in suburbs (varoş/palanka).

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number of days of the pay year was not specified, but it can be inferred from other data (244). Could this suggest that a “higher” salary (the salary being provided through cizye – not received from a mukataa – in silver coins at the nominal exchange rate) entailed a shorter pay year? I did not examine other garrison pays in Hungary, but it seems that in the Dinaric south the sebin basis was quite widespread, both amounts being recorded – the one-day total for all the members of the garrison, and then the total for the reduced year, styled “fi sene-i kamile.”11 This might bring a kind of “surplus” into play, yet we cannot say whether here a state philosophy of devlet (commonwealth) had also entered the field, deliberately helping the poor devils (militiamen, and in a way, the zimmis as well) who had no other source of income. On the other hand, such circumstances might increase our understanding of the necessity of attaching many distant tax districts in the South to the Hungarian districts. Interestingly, this way of funding the military never give rise for complaints. I can only cite one example. In 1717, the servants of a camiʿ in Banja Luka had submitted a complaint stating that the officials of the mukataa at Kobaš calculated six akçes for one para, 240 akçes for a guruş, while at the same time shortening the fiscal year by 108 days, leaving that period of time unpaid. The governmental reply was that the exchange rate should be 190 akçes for a guruş,12 while there was no reproach in case of the “missing” 108 days. This might suggest that here the payment was made in the sebin way. The more so, because cash payments for the militia on the Bosnian frontier in the 18th century refer to only 238 days.13 And, the servants of the mosque were askeris, after all. Yet, in contrast with examples cited above, here the loss for the recipients was much greater, even if the decision from the imperial order had been duly obeyed. In the rather vast scope of examples for the sebin payments in Bosnia, we meet the pay year of 230 days and more – up to 242. Now we should discuss the very nature of the term. Was it a designation for a percentage, or not? The answer seems to be both yes and no. In any case, it seems more likely that the number of days in the pay year was the basic idea, while 70% in terms of cash might result from our calculation, but not necessarily (rather, 67 to 69% was more common). It follows, from the complaint of the religious servants, that the 11 BOA, DBKL_d. 32182_00004ff. 12 Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Orijentalna zbirka, doc. nr. 46. 13 We may speculate that the real exchange rate, namely fewer silver coins, was maintained due to some additional income received by many of the militiamen, consisting of ocaklık timars and some landholding (çiftliks etc.) in general.

Exchange Rates, Pay Years and Prebends in 17th–18th Century

Figure 15.3

Document 3, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti (Zagreb), Orijentalna zbirka (The Oriental Collection of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), doc. nr. 46

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sebin principle meant a reduction of 108 days. Instead of saying “yüzde yetmiş” the bureaucrats cherished the roundabout way of expression. In such a vein, in the case of Kanije, the days are mentioned: “341 gün hesabından” and “300 gün hesabından.” Then comes “sebin hesabından” instead of 244 or so. The reason for this might be found simply in the tendency to use a “poetical” phraseology, not unlike using Arabic words for winter months (erbain, hamsin). Indeed, if we take seventy days from every hundred days of the lunar year, the figures match quite well. Inter alia, poetical expression occasionally penetrates even the very dry language of the tahrirs, such as “cizye-i şahi ve ispence-i sipahi.”14 In conclusion, we may say that various measures undertaken by Ottoman financial bureaucracy in the 17th–18th century display a very delicate intertwining of various principles, not necessarily to the detriment of the final recipients of the salaries. Bibliography

Primary Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

DBKL_d. 32182_00004ff. DCMH.d.26578. DCMH.d.26578/2. MAD.d. 03774_00127.



Secondary Sources

Aličić, Ahmed, ed. Sidžili kadije kaze Novi Pazar: od 1766. do 1768. godine. Novi Pazar: Istorijski arhiv “Ras,” 2012. Hegyi, Klára. The Ottoman military organization in Hungary. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018. İnalcık, Halil. Hicri 835 Tarihli Süret-i Defter-i Arvanid. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1954. Moačanin, Nenad. “O izvorima za demografsku povijest Osmanskoga carstva.” Vojetov zbornik (2006): 247–58. Moačanin, Nenad. “Stanovništvo Bosanskog ejaleta u 18. stoljeću prema popisima glavarine.” Rad HAZU 516 (2013): 95–120. 14 Halil İnalcık, Hicri 835 Tarihli Süret-i Defter-i Arvanid (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1954) (kanunname).

16 Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces A Study On Provincial “Budgets,” the Income Side Linda T. Darling In honor of Claudia Römer, who has devoted her career to deciphering hardto-read Ottoman documents and making them accessible, this study examines the income and expense summaries (icmal-ı muhasebe, known as “budgets”) of the Ottoman Empire. The term “budget” is a misnomer, as these documents were not projections of the future but were produced after the year to which they pertain; nevertheless, it has become traditional as a designation for these documents and will be used here.1 The budgets summarized the ruznames or ruznamçes, daybooks or detailed daily records of income and expenditure. The importance of the Ottoman budgets is widely acknowledged, but the budgets themselves are rarely studied, although they have begun to attract the attention of scholars, mostly in Turkey. In addition to budgets for the empire as a whole, the archives contain budgets for other institutions such as governmental bureaus, evkaf (revenue sources dedicated for charitable purposes), and provinces, as well as for individuals, mostly provincial governors and tax collectors.2 The majority of studies concentrate on the budgets of the central treasury during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the Ottoman fiscal system became entwined with that of western Europe. Earlier centuries and provincial treasury budgets have gained less attention. This study reviews the bibliography on budgets before the nineteenth century and inspects in greater detail the provincial budgets of sixteenth-century Syria. Rather than focusing on a single budget, as most previous publications have done, this 1 For a fuller discussion of central treasury budgets and their production see Linda T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Assessment and Collection in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1600 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 231–45, and Mehmet Genç and Erol Özvar (eds.), Osmanlı Maliyesi Kurumlar ve Bütçeler (Istanbul: Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi, 2006), which unfortunately does not have a bibliography. All archival documents are from Istanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivi Başkanlığı, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA). 2 Published budgets of provincial governors include: İ. Metin Kunt, Bir Osmanlı Valisinin Yıllık Gelir-Gideri: Diyarbekir, 1670–1671 (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1981); Dündar Aydın, “Osmanlı Devrinde XVI. Yüzyılda Erzurum Beylerbeyisi Ayas Paşa’nın Bir Yıllık Bütçesi,” OTAM 8 (1997): 393–477; Bilgehan Pamuk, “XVII. Yüzyılda Bir Osmanlı Paşasının Masraf Bilançosu [Erzurum],” Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 22,34 (2003): 107–24. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_018

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article considers what can be learned from a series of budgets examined collectively. Due to space limitations, the investigation is restricted to the income side of the budget; the investigation of expenditures is reserved for another occasion. 1

State and Provincial Treasury Budgets in the Ottoman Archives

The budgets of the central treasury in Istanbul summarize income and expenditures over a year’s time. They are usually attached to detailed lists (s. ruzname or ruznamçe, daily list) of revenues received and payments made for salaries, supplies, and other expenses and often including figures from the previous year.3 These budgets look as if they should have been produced annually, but for the entire sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fewer than twenty such documents are known. The first to study them was Ömer Lütfi Barkan, who during the 1940s published three sixteenth-century budgets he found in the Ottoman archives.4 Ahmet Tabakoğlu assembled budgetary totals for nineteen years in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in order to track the state of the empire’s finances over time.5 In addition, he transcribed the budgetary document (icmal) from 1104/1692–93 in full.6 In 2006, Mehmet Genç and Erol Özvar published eleven additional budgets from the sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, with introductory articles by a number of scholars.7 Halil Sahillioğlu published another budgetary document from the early sixteenth century in a memorial volume for Barkan, and the earliest budget surviving in the Ottoman archives was published by Baki Çakır.8 Tabakoğlu’s work is the only one to have 3 For a list and description of these daily registers see Bilgin Aydın and Rıfat Günalan, Osmanlı Maliyesi ve Defter Sistemi (Istanbul: Yeditepe, 2008), 175–85. 4 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Mali Yılına ait bir Bütçe Örneği,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 17 (1953): 252–332; Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “954–955 (1547– 1548) Mali Yılına ait bir Osmanlı Bütçesi,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1955): 219–76; Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “H. 974–975 (M. 1567–1568) Mali Yılına ait bir Osmanli Bütçesi,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1957): 277–332. 5 Ahmet Tabakoğlu, Gerileme Dönemine Girerken Osmanlı Maliyesi (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 1985), 14–15. 6 Tabakoğlu, Osmanlı Maliyesi, 367–75. He also studies finance documents of the eighteenth century in detail. 7 Genç and Özvar, Osmanlı Maliyesi Kurumlar ve Bütçeler. 8 Halil Sahillioğlu, “1524–1525 Osmanlı Bütçesi,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası: Ord. Prof. Ömer Lütfi Barkan’a Armağan 41 (1985): 415–52; Baki Çakır, “Osmanlı Devleti’nin Bilinen En Eski (1495–1496) Bütçesi ve 1494–1495 Yılı İcmalı,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 47 (2016): 113–45.

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examined the data from these documents in a serial fashion to follow the ups and downs of Ottoman finances. In contrast, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of provincial budgets in the archives, located mainly in the Maliyeden Müdevver collection of the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archive.9 These, of course, are the copies sent from the province to the Porte; the provincial copies have apparently vanished with the provincial archives. These budgets, like petitions and orders, were one of the primary vehicles of communication between the provinces and the capital, one of the ways in which the Ottoman government sought to keep itself informed of conditions in its far-flung territory and control the activities of its agents.10 Provincial budgets appear to have been produced not only annually, according to the solar year, but also whenever the governor or provincial treasurer changed, which could be oftener than once a year. Thus, the dates and periods covered are irregular, and sometimes there is more than one budget for a single year. These budgets were produced by most of the empire’s provinces outside of Rumeli and Anadolu, which were covered in the imperial budgets. Not all the budgets for any one province are extant; the archives have more for some provinces than for others, and there are substantial gaps. The absence of a budget for a particular year does not indicate that the Ottomans failed to produce one. Coverage for the empire’s earlier years is thinner than for later periods. The study of these budgets is crucial for our understanding of Ottoman finances, provincial conditions, and central-provincial relations. Analyses of Ottoman economic strength are usually based only on the revenues of the central government, sometimes adding in the revenues allocated through the timar system that funded the provincial cavalry. In a few studies, these revenues are supplemented by revenue held by provincial elites (ayan), often as evidence of the competition for power between the state and the elites. Usually mentioned but not incorporated, because not yet measured, is the revenue from evkaf; although these revenues did not accrue to the state, they supported public services and paid the wages of a significant percentage of the Ottoman 9 10

A partial list with descriptions is in Aydın and Günalan, Osmanlı Maliyesi ve Defter Sistemi, 186–96. On correspondence between province and capital see Yusuf Oğuzoğlu, “Osmanlı Devle­ tinde Taşra ile Merkez Arasındaki Bürokratik İşleyiş Hakkında Bazı Bilgiler (XVII. ve XVIII. Yüzyıllar),” in Osmanlı-Türk Diplomatiği Semineri (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1995), 31–42. On some of the people involved in provincial-central communications see Linda T. Darling, “Istanbul and Damascus: Officials and Soldiers in the Exercise of Imperial Power (c.1550–1575),” in Osmanlı İstanbulu IV, eds. Feridun M. Emecen et al. (Istanbul: 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi and İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 2017), 313–38.

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population, the religious cadre and their employees. Another neglected holder and dispenser of revenue, however, is the provincial treasuries, which collected and allocated an unknown proportion of the Ottoman state’s total wealth. This money was not included in the central treasury budgets, where the only amounts listed were the surplus funds sent by the provincial treasuries to Istanbul, not the sums spent in the provinces. Unless the provincial treasuries are taken into consideration, studies on the Ottoman economy and on issues like centralization and military funding are incomplete. Some provinces sent large amounts of cash to Istanbul, where it became part of the central treasury’s expenditures, while others received monetary aid from Istanbul or from other provinces. Some provinces’ revenues were quite stable, while others’ fluctuated over time. The study of provincial treasury revenues is difficult due to the numbers of treasuries and reports, which vastly exceed those for the central treasury. Nevertheless, it is a task that must be undertaken if we are to obtain a full picture of Ottoman governmental revenue and the Ottoman economy. The first provincial budgets to be studied were those of Egypt, Cyprus, and Yemen. Stanford J. Shaw in 1968 transcribed and translated the budget of Ottoman Egypt for 1005/1596 as an offshoot of his larger work on the financial administration of Egypt in the Ottoman period.11 Halil Sahillioğlu in 1967 published the initial budget of Cyprus from 979–980/1571–1572, and Recep Dündar published two later budgets from the period 1608–1610 but made no comparison with the earlier budget.12 Sahillioğlu also published a budget of Yemen from 1599–1600, while a contribution by Salih Özbaran discussed seven budgets of Yemen for the late sixteenth century and translated the one from 968/1560–1561.13

11 Stanford J. Shaw, The Budget of Ottoman Egypt, 1005–1006/1596–1597 (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1968); Stanford J. Shaw, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962). 12 Halil Sahillioğlu, “Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ın İlk Yılı Bütçesi,” Belgeler 4,7/8 (1967): 1–33; Recep Dündar, “Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ın 1017–1018 (1609–1610) Yılı Bütçesi,” in Proceedings of the Third International Congress for Cyprus Studies, vol. 1, History, ed. İsmail Bozkurt (Gazimağusa, Cyprus: Eastern Mediterranean University, 2000), 265–83. Recep Dündar, “18 Mart–14 Haziran 1608 Yılı Kıbrıs Eyaleti Bütçesi,” Turkish Studies 5,4 (Fall 2010): 1032–48. The ruznamçe from 1608–9 has been analyzed in a Turkish thesis: Halil İbrahim Cellatoğulları, 15 Haziran 1608 (1 Rebîü’l-Evvel 1017)–4 Şubat 1609 (28 Şevval 1017) Tarihli Kıbrıs Eyaleti Bütçe Defterinin Değerlendirilmesi, Yüksek Lisans Tezi (Hitit Üniversitesi, Çorum 2018). 13 Halil Sahillioğlu, “Yemen’in 1599–1600 Yılı Bütçesi,” in Yusuf Hikmet Bayur’a Armağan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1986), 287–319; Salih Özbaran, “The Ottoman Budgets of

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My article in a 1997 journal issue dedicated to Halil Sahillioğlu first drew attention to the budgets of the Syrian provinces while discussing the role of provincial treasuries in the economic changes of the seventeenth century.14 Mehmet İpşirli translated the earliest surviving budget from Damascus/Şam, dated 986–987/1578–1579, and Yasuhisa Shimizu studied the duties of the defterdar of Aleppo/Haleb based on two collections of provincial budgets from the sixteenth century.15 There were three treasuries in Syria: Haleb, Şam, and Tripoli/ TrablusŞam. Seventeen registers containing over 90 budget documents survive from these three treasuries for the sixteenth century. The earliest comes from 977–978/1570 and belongs to Haleb; the first separate budget for TrablusŞam comes from 994–995/1586–1588. Ironically, there is no single year in which simultaneous budgets from all three Syrian treasuries happen to exist.16 Most studies of provincial budgets generalize on the basis of a single register, but this study will examine the entire series of Syrian budget registers in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), covering the last three decades of the sixteenth century. These are, for Haleb: MAD7146, a collection of budgets covering the period 976–1002/1569–1594,17 MAD4771, a collection covering 994–1010/ 1586–1601, MAD4943 dated 1001–1002/1593, and MAD1346 dated 1004–1005/ 1596. For Şam, they are: TT621, a collection covering the years 986–993/1578– 1586; TSMA D.3491, a collection covering 989–91/1581–1583; MAD2521 dated 1000/1591–1592; MAD1653 dated 1000–1001/1592; MAD1003 dated 1001/1592; and MAD4928 dated 1004/1595–1596. For TrablusŞam, they are: MAD4658, covering 999–1000/1590–1592; MAD7291 dated 1000/1591–1592; MAD5810 dated 1005/1596–1597; and MAD1576 dated 1006–1007/1597–1598. It is impossible to tell how the budgets that remain to us originally developed. The earliest Syrian budgets, those of Haleb from 977/1570, already demonstrate a standardization of format that suggests the existence of a prior tradition of provincial finance reports that no longer survive. The same is true the Yemen in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Ottoman Response to European Expansion, ed. Salih Özbaran (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994), 49–60. 14 Linda T. Darling, “Ottoman Provincial Treasuries: The Case of Syria,” in Mélanges Halil Sahillioğlu, in Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies no. 15–16 (1997): 103–10. 15 Mehmet İpşirli, “Some Remarks on the Province of Damascus and Its Budget for March 1578–March 1579, under the Governorship of Sokulluzade Hasan Pasha,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Bilad al-Sham during the Ottoman Era, Damascus, Syria, 26–30 September 2005 (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2009), 57–65; Yasuhisa Shimizu, “16. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Halep Defterdarlığı,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 51 (2018): 29–61. 16 Not even the otherwise un-noteworthy year 1022–1023/1613–1614, which had many registers including MAD 5458, MAD 7345, MAD 15721 (all for Haleb), MAD 1004 (Şam), and MAD 880 (Şam and not TrablusŞam as the catalog states). 17 For a detailed list see Shimizu, “16. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Halep Defterdarlığı,” 52–54.

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of the central government budgets; the earliest surviving examples, those from the 1520s, exhibit a format that did not change substantially over the subsequent two centuries, indicating that they followed a time-honored tradition that stretched back before the sixteenth century, even to pre-Ottoman times.18 The budgets of Haleb and Şam all follow the same format; those of Trablus deviate from the formula slightly in the direction of greater informality, which might be expected from a smaller treasury with perhaps fewer categories of revenue and expenditure. This format puts the total at the top of the list, with the breakdown or breakdowns beneath it; Güvemli called this the staircase (merdiven) method.19 2

Structural Features of Provincial Budgets

Provincial budgets were created by provincial defterdars or treasurers, and they usually bear the name of the defterdar. They may also name the governor of the province, especially when he served as the nazır-ı emval or supervisor of the sultan’s provincial revenue.20 Rarely, the governor is mentioned without the defterdar, presumably in gaps between defterdar appointments. Studies of the provincial defterdarlık disagree on the date of its institution, depending on which sources they consult. The oldest authority, İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, traced the office of defterdar to the Selçuk and İlhanid müstevfi and noted that prior to the establishment of Ottoman provincial defterdarlıks there were mal defterdars in the provinces, subordinate to the timar defterdars, who accounted for cash revenues such as cizye, market taxes, and tolls.21 Based mainly on evidence from the chronicles, he reported that in fiscal terms the 18 A study that traces the Ottoman accounting system back to Abbasid times is Oktay Güvemli, Türk Devletleri Muhasebe Tarihi, vol.1: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’na Kadar (Istanbul: Avcıol Basım-Yayın, 1995). 19 Oktay Güvemli et al., Accounting Method Used by Ottomans for 500 Years: Stairs (Merdiban) Method (Ankara: T.C. Maliye Bakanlığı, Strateji Geliştirme Başkanlığı, 2008); For outlines of various budget organizational formats see Sahillioğlu, “Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ın İlk Yılı Bütçesi,” 4–5. 20 The office of nazır-ı emval was first mentioned in 1527 in a register of provincial appointments, according to Bilgin Aydın and Rıfat Günalan, “XVI. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Eyalet Deftdarlıklarının Ortaya Çıkışı ve Gelişimi,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 30 (2007): 27–160, here 61. See also Aydın and Günalan, Osmanlı Maliyesi ve Defter Sistemi, 13–26. The use of the term “Halep defterdarı” can be found as early as 1517; Ibid., 64. 21 İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilatına Medhal (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1941), 124, 216–17; İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilatı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1948), 325, 330–31.

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eastern provinces were all under the authority of the Arap ve Acem Defterdarı stationed in Aleppo until some year before 1573.22 At that point the separate provincial defterdarlıks (s. hazine defterdarlığı) of Diyarbekir, Erzurum, and Şam were established, and shortly thereafter Karaman and Rum were separated from Anadolu and likewise TrablusŞam from Şam. Mübahat Kütükoğlu put that change in the first years of the reign of Selim II (r.1566–1574).23 More recently, Erol Özvar as well as Bilgin Aydın and Rıfat Günalan employed rüus (appointment) and mühimme (important affairs) registers to pinpoint the development of the provincial defterdarlık. According to Özvar, the earliest extant mühimme register, dating from 1544–1545, mentions the defterdars of Diyarbekir, Baghdad, and Budin, but not Haleb or any other.24 However, this register does contain index headings and mühimme entries referencing the Mısır defterdarı and the Arap or Arabistan defterdarı, who was mentioned numerous times.25 Aydın and Günalan found in the rüus defterleri mention of the defterdars of Şam in 1547 and Diyarbekir in 1554, and they list many other references to provincial defterdars prior to 1573.26 Yasuhisa Shimizu put the date of the change at 1567, noting that while Haleb and Şam began as separate sancaks of the larger province of Arabistan, in about 1549 they became separate provinces (s. vilayet), and from the 1540s on, both mühimme and tahrir (revenue survey) registers list separate finance officials for Haleb and Şam, while other sources still speak of an Arabistan defterdarı. Shimizu found that in the 1560s, the defterdar of Haleb (also called the Arap defterdarı) still seemed to be superior to the defterdar of Şam, while the nazır (supervisor of sultanic revenues) of Şam appeared superior to the nazır of Haleb.27 How can these differences be reconciled? Since every year taxes were collected and reports were made, and when they were not made and sent to the 22 Uzunçarşılı, Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilatı, 327, 330. 23 Aydın and Günalan, “XVI. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Eyalet Deftdarlıklarının Ortaya Çıkışı ve Gelişimi,” 64. 24 Erol Özvar, “XVII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Değişim: Rum Eyaletinde Hazine Defterdarlığından Tokat Voyvodalığına Geçiş,” XIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi (1997): Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2002), 3: 3, 1605–34. 25 Topkapı Sarayı Arşivi H.951–952 Tarihli ve E-12321 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, ed. Halil Sahillioğlu (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2002), 413, and entries 6 (Mısır), 64, 165, 314, 336, 363, 390, 443, 483, 502, 520, and 547 (Arabistan). 26 Aydın and Günalan, “XVI. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Eyalet Defterdarlıklarının Ortaya Çıkışı ve Gelişimi,” 65. 27 Shimizu, “16. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Halep Defterdarlığı,” 32–35. The superiority of the nazır of Şam can be explained by the fact that the nazır was usually the provincial governor, and despite Haleb’s financial leadership, the governor of Şam exercised political/ military leadership in Arabistan.

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imperial capital, investigations were carried out, Ottoman governance would necessitate having some kind of financial secretary or mal defterdarı in each province at all times.28 Thus, the first question should not be the presence or absence of a defterdar, but rather the point at which the subordinate mal defterdarı gained status, outranking the timar defterdarı and becoming the chief financial officer in the province. I propose that this change happened with the conquest of Syria and the establishment of the Arap ve Acem defterdar centered in Aleppo, who ranked just below the defterdars of Rumeli and Anadolu. The second question then becomes the point at which the defterdars in eastern provinces other than Haleb came out from under the authority of the Arap defterdarı.29 A mere mention in a source is insufficient to determine the precise ranking of these officials, and a more nuanced study of defterdars’ titles and appointment orders will be necessary. The orders of preparation for the Yemen campaign in 1568, however, suggest that the defterdar of Haleb still held precedence over the defterdar of Şam in that year and that the reorganization of the defterdars took place after that date, perhaps during the Yemen war or the war for Cyprus.30 The Syrian provincial budgets do not go back far enough to settle this question directly, but they do provide the names of provincial defterdars over quite a long period as well as the dates when they controlled the province’s finances (see Appendix A).31 Finance scribes were not generally listed in the rüus defterleri kept by the reisülküttab, the chief scribe, so their precise appointment and dismissal dates must be determined from other sources. It may be possible, however, to pin down the reorganization of the treasuries to 977/1570 by looking at the form of the budgets themselves. Although they all have the same basic format, there are indications that the first budget that survives, the one for 977/1570, was actually the first one produced by the 28

For investigations into missing registers and revenue around 1544 see Linda T. Darling, “Investigating the Fiscal Administration of the Arab Provinces after the Ottoman Conquest of 1516,” in The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century, eds. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen (Göttingen: V&R, Bonn University Press, 2017), 147–76. 29 In 1544 the defterdar of Diyarbekir was addressed as mal defterdarı in a mühimme entry; H.951–952 Tarihli ve E-12321 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, No. 94, 114. 30 These orders, mainly from mühimme register 7, were read in connection with my study, The Janissaries of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century, or, How Conquering a Province Changed the Ottoman Empire, Otto Spies Memorial Series, vol. 6 (Berlin: EG Verlag, 2019), although the study itself had a different focus. 31 A few budgets, such as MAD 4771, 20, separate out revenues according to defterdarlıks rather than years or revenue types; these give us more precise dates.

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Haleb defterdarlık after the reorganization and the ensuing change in status of the provincial defterdars. This budget covers the period from 4 Şevval 977 to 15 Şevval 978, or 12 March (Nevruz) 1570 to 12 March (Nevruz) 1571. The defterdar who produced the budget was named Mehmed Çelebi, and partway through the year he was joined by another (diğer) Mehmed Celebi; they finished out the year together. For each category of revenue listed, their budget included both the total for the current year and the total for the previous year, as well as the difference between them. This was unique; the subsequent budgets list only the totals for the current year, with an occasional exception for a single category, but never for the entire budget and never with the differences. The final income category was “the remainder from the previous years from 944 to 976,” or 1538 to 1569. No other budget has remainders carried over from such a long period, over 30 years; more typical was five to ten years. Finally, there are several extant versions of this budget, each one correcting errors in the one before. It appears that 1570 was some sort of fresh start in the budgeting process, which would be explained if the treasuries were reorganized in 977/1569–1570. Another issue that arises with detailed study of the provincial budgets is the question of currency, at least the official currencies and the official exchange rates. The budgets from the 1570s in Syria are written in akçes, the small Ottoman silver coins, but because the akçe was already fluctuating in value (and because bulky silver was exchanged for gold for transportation to Istanbul), the amounts are normally also expressed in gold coin (the word used is hasene, occasionally altun, and once filori, all names for a coin equal in value to the Venetian ducat). The normal exchange rate for most of the sixteenth century was 78 akçe to the gold coin, visible in a fragmentary budget from 949/1542–1543 and well into the 1570s.32 In 1577 the exchange rate began to waver between 78 and 80 akçe to the gold coin.33 After 1583, some budgets were expressed only in gold coins, dropping the akçe.34 After 1590 the gold coin in the budgets was sometimes said to be worth only 39 (later 40) of the silver currency; therefore, the silver coin in these budgets must be not the akçe but the para (pâre), worth 1.5–2 akçes.35 In Syria, the ruznames or daily accounts on which the summaries are based were in fact usually kept in paras; that coin was doubtless more useful for accounting purposes since according to Şevket 32 33 34 35

See TSMA D.8548 and MAD 7146, 10, 56, 198. See MAD 7146, 76; MAD 2521, 1. See MAD 7146, 104, 110, 176–231; TSMA. D.3491. See MAD 7146, 158, 164; MAD 1620, and many seventeenth-century icmals.

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Pamuk the para was more stable than the akçe.36 At the same time, the most frequent coin in the treasury, according to some budgets of the 1590s, was the large silver guruş (a word used in this period for several European coins), most often the esedi guruş, the Dutch lion thaler.37 Eventually budgets appeared that were expressed in esedi guruş.38 In the 1640s there were also budgets expressed in kamil guruş, the Spanish pieces of eight.39 In most cases, the budgets translated these coinages into gold coins. The reasons for these currency choices were not expressed. At all these times, however, the budgets listed a variety of actual coins in the treasury. Grasping how the Ottomans used coins, conceptually as well as physically, would be particularly helpful in understanding the finances of the Ottoman seventeenth century. 3

The Provincial Revenues of Syria

The provincial budgets detail the revenues that entered the provincial treasuries, some of which were spent in the province (mainly on military salaries) and some remitted to the central treasury in Istanbul or sent to other provinces to cover deficits there. These budgets cover one of the three large divisions of provincial revenue, cash taxes. The second is evkaf; some of these revenues were spent in the province on charitable or infrastructural projects or to support the poor or the families of the donors, and some were remitted to Istanbul or other provinces to support charitable institutions there. Reaching a firm total for these revenues (estimated at 80 percent of the land revenue) will involve perusal of a large number of evkaf account registers.40 The third income source is the revenues covered by the timar system, some of which, again, were spent in the province on timar-holders’ or officials’ expenses, and some of which were remitted to Istanbul as part of the sultanic hass, the sultan’s properties within the timar system. We have figures on the total timar revenues from the Syrian provinces for certain scattered years, none of them the same years as the provincial budgets (for these figures and their sources see Appendix B). Since we do not have timar revenue and provincial treasury totals for the same year, comparison becomes difficult and can only yield a rough idea of 36 Şevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 96. See MAD 7146, 158, 164; MAD 2521; MAD 933. 37 See MAD 7146, 164. 38 See MAD 956, MAD 952, MAD 1006, MAD 1568. 39 See MAD 1277. 40 Boaz Shoshan, Damascus Life, 1480–1500: A Report of a Local Notary (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 51.

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the scope of the fiscal situation. However, comparing the timar revenue for the province of Şam in the year 977/1569–1570 to the cash revenues for a decade later, the year 986–987/1579, yields interesting results. Of the revenue coming from the land via the timar system, roughly 30% belonged to local timar holders and remained in the province while 70% belonged to the hass of the sultan and was sent to Istanbul. Of the cash revenue in the Damascus treasury a decade later, 58% was spent locally and remained in the province while less than half, 42%, was sent to Istanbul or paid for expenses outside the province. Averaging both types of revenue together, approximately 44% remained in the province and 56% left for other parts of the empire. Here are the figures: Table 16.1 Destination of revenues of Şam, 977 and 986–987

Timar revenue total Treasury cash income Totals

15,804,300 16,196,000 32,000,300

Amount remaining in province Amount remaining in province Amount sent from the province to Istanbul

4,760,000 9,314,538 14,074,538 17,925,762

Thus, the revenue actually collected in Şam was almost twice as much as what could be seen from the central records by themselves. If that is true for the whole empire, its financial picture must be very different from what we have supposed by looking only at the central budgets. Totaling either land or cash revenues alone would also yield a misleading impression of the fiscal relationship between capital and province. It would be interesting to see how these ratios compare to those of provinces elsewhere in the empire or to Syria under the Mamluks. The funds remaining in the province, nearly half the total (in this province at this date), supported military and governmental activities not included in the central budget. In calculating the finances of Syria, it is necessary to reckon with the fact that although many of the financial reports were compiled on an annual basis, some of them covered periods shorter or longer than one year. The cause was usually that during that interval the provincial treasurer changed; other reasons could be that the governor changed or that a special request was made by the central administration for an accounting. Additionally, some reports omit the akçe figures, while others omit the figures in gold coins. As a result, it is necessary to calculate from the information given what those figures should be. Since all budgets include at least one set of coinage figures, the exchange rate employed, and the dates covered by the report, filling in the blanks involves

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only simple arithmetic. The result is a list of annualized figures for each income category that can be compared to one another, something that could not occur with the publication of individual budgets (see Appendix C). Averaging the amounts of money collected and disbursed from Syria’s three treasuries in the last quarter of the sixteenth century reveals no real surprises but some interesting twists. The income, expenditures, and remittances to the Porte of the three Syrian treasuries, measured in gold coins, average out as follows: Table 16.2 Sixteenth-century averages, Syrian treasuries

Haleb Şam TrablusŞam

Income

Expenditures

Remittances

524,829 472,128 267,770

167,182 281,266 212,028

340,403 136,580 50,655

Sources: Haleb: Shimizu, “16. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Halep Defterdarlığı,” 56; Şam: TT621, TSMA D.3491, MAD 2521, MAD1653, MAD1003; Trablus-Şam: MAD 1620, MAD 4658, MAD 7291.

The remaining funds include remittances to other provinces, payment of debts, and similar types of payments, as well as arithmetic errors, of which there were many. Thus, while Haleb took in the most money, Şam spent the most on local expenses, followed closely by TrablusŞam , and Haleb spent the least. Haleb, however, remitted the most to the Porte and also frequently sent money to Şam and other places. Disaggregating the totals for Haleb, the only province whose sixteenth-century budgets survive in large numbers, the income for the years up to 984/1576 was always below 500,000 gold coins, but after that point the average rises to 540,000. The amounts also begin to bounce up and down; during the last quarter of the sixteenth century the highest figure was 880,673 and the lowest was 332,321. Thus, although throughout the empire in this period the currency was in crisis, Syria’s finances were apparently improving in terms of gold coins, whose value remained relatively stable across these decades. The reason for the revenue increase seems to be the collection of avarız, the occasional tax; see below for the increasing frequency of avarız collection in the late sixteenth century. I say “seems,” because the figures given for avarız in these budgets vary wildly, and some of the annualized figures look quite improbable. Without a closer investigation of avarız collection in this period, it is impossible to estimate the accuracy of the annualized totals or to identify

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the population who paid the tax. If we take the figures literally, however, the avarız does appear to account for the increase in total revenue, since after 984/1576 it averaged over 100,000 gold pieces. This increase took place despite decreases in population as measured by Barkan, decreases in agricultural production as measured by Margaret Venzke, and turmoil in the countryside due to the Celali movements.41 In the sixteenth century avarız was collected mainly from non-Muslims, while in the seventeenth century it was also collected from Muslims. It is probable that Syrian peasants, especially Christian peasants, experienced increasing difficulty paying their taxes in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Studies of the period’s unrest have not paid attention to the religious identity of those involved, but these budgets show that it might be salient. Migration, conversion, and other coping mechanisms should also be researched. Each treasury’s total income (asl-ı mal) was composed of several categories of funds. Listed first in the budgets were three income sources that did not fit into any larger category. These were avarız, which became a new budget category in this period; beytülmal, which in the Ottoman context referred mainly to unclaimed inheritances awaiting disposition, from both the askeri and the reaya; and bakiye, arrears, in this case usually the arrears of years long past. Next came mahsulat, incoming revenues, subdivided into several categories. The first was bekaya, the normal arrears of the previous few years, caused mainly by the fact that it took longer than a year for the tax collectors to complete their rounds. After that came mukataat, the revenues of tax farms; and cizye, the poll tax on non-Muslims. Lesser in amount were rüsum-u berevat, fees for renewing berats, especially those for timars; which was followed by tefavut or fazla, fees charged for changing silver into gold, or para and şahi coins into akçes; and finally emval-ı müteferrika, miscellaneous funds, a collection of smaller income sources. 41 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’Empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siècles,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 1 (1958): 9–36, but see Charles Issawi, “Comment on Professor Barkan’s Estimate of the Population of the Ottoman Empire in 1520–30,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1 (1958): 329–47; Margaret L. Venzke, “The Question of Declining Cereals’ Production in the Sixteenth Century: A Sounding on the Problem-solving Capacity of the Ottoman Cadastres,” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984): 251–64, here esp. 261–64 (but note that a decline in village agriculture was balanced by grain-growing on abandoned fields); Mustafa Akdağ, Türk Halkının Dirlik ve Düzenlik Kavgası (= Celâli İsyanları) (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1975); William J. Griswold, The Great Anatolian Rebellion, 1000–1020/1591–1611 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983).

406

Darling

A comparison with the published budgets of Cyprus and Yemen listed above in notes 12 and 13 shows that the income categories in these provinces were similar to those listed above for Syria, with a few exceptions. All have budget lines for mukataa, cizye, and beytülmal figures. Cyprus budgets have additional categories for the tax farm on sugar processing and the sheep tax (adet-i ağnam), which was not significant enough in Syria to be a separate budget line. On the other hand, the category of tefavut, money-changing fees, was relatively insignificant in Cyprus, only appearing as part of the emval-i müteferrika, miscellaneous funds. As Yemen was not a timar province, the revenue from the land tax, which in timar provinces was paid to the holders of timars and hass, went directly to the provincial treasury and formed the most important income category in its budget. Yemen also had a separate budget line for revenues from the iskeles or ports, but no separate lines for tefavut or avarız. Presumably, every province’s budgets will show these minor variations depending on the income sources that predominate in each place. The allocation of revenues among the various budget lines also changed over time. Avarız in the sixteenth century was an occasional levy, but sometime before the seventeenth century it became an annual tax.42 This tax did not appear in the budgets for the 1560s,43 but it was collected in Haleb in 982–983/1575, in Şam in 986–987/1579, and in Trablus by 999/1590 at the latest (no earlier budgets for Trablus exist); after that it appears nearly annually. This is earlier than hypothesized by Halil İnalcık, who thought the avarız began to be collected annually during the Long War with Austria (1593–1606).44 Özvar, looking at central treasury budgets, states that avarız was collected with “some degree of regularity” after 1581,45 but the Syrian provincial budgets show avarız collection every year after 1575 except for 991–992/1584, 995–996/1587, 42 For the procedures concerning these taxes see Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy. 43 According to the central government budgets, avarız was only collected once between 1547 and 1581; Erol Özvar, “Transformation of the Ottoman Empire into a Military-Fiscal State: Reconsidering the Financing of War from a Global Perspective,” in The Battle for Central Europe: The Siege of Szigetvar and the Death of Süleyman the Magnificent and Nicolas Zrnyi (1566), ed. Pál Fodor (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 21–63, here 46. 44 Halil İnalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700,” in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, ed. Ronald Jennings (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 283–337, here 314–15; Harold Bowen, “Awarid.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (1960–2007), 1: 760–61. 45 Özvar, “Transformation of the Ottoman Empire,” 46. Incidentally, although Özvar reports that the budgets of Bayezid II do not show the collection of avarız, the ahkam registers and kadı sicills do record that it was collected several times during his reign, for military and naval expenses and for repairs after earthquakes; Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “Avarız.” İslâm

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

407

996–997/1588, and 1001–1002/1593. Moreover, one of Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha’s reports to the sultan (telhisler), undated but probably from 1590 or 1592, states that at that time avarız was already customarily collected annually.46 Cizye revenues in Syria were not high, surprisingly, but they were higher in Haleb and Trablus than in Şam. The bakiye, old arrears, varied in amount but generally decreased over time in all three provinces, in contrast to the bekaya, recent arrears, which stayed level or increased, especially in Haleb, which may indicate either more widespread delays in tax collection or greater assiduity in collecting arrears. Income from zeamets belonging apparently to people who died, which was formerly collected by the central treasury’s mevkufat kalemi, appeared in the income of the provincial treasury in the 1590s. This shift may have taken place because by that time the mevkufat kalemi was too busy collecting avarız.47 Revenues from rüsum-u berevat ceased in Haleb after 1585 and became sporadic in the other provinces, although berats were still being written. On the other hand, tefavut remained healthy and in fact increased, especially around 1582, to become larger than the amounts of cizye collected. Advance payments on mukataas started appearing around 1585, but other mukataa revenues seem to have decreased after 977/1570, whether averaged over the whole period or only the years in which figures were entered into the budgets. There were other small indications of late sixteenth-century financial difficulties as well; after 1582, the treasury of Şam occasionally collected surplus funds from the evkaf, and in 1591 the treasury of TrablusŞam recorded income from a loan. 4

Conclusion

None of the late sixteenth-century fiscal changes discussed above suggest serious fiscal problems in Syria itself. What they do suggest is the beginning of a trend that continued throughout the seventeenth century, the enrichment of the provinces and the corresponding financial difficulties of the central treasury, caused in part by the retention of more of the empire’s wealth

46 47

Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1940–1988), 2: 16; Akdağ, Türkiye’nin İktisadî ve İçtimaî Tarihi, 2: 110 n.2, 283 n.1, 389 n.1. Halil Sahillioğlu, ed., Koca Sinan Paşa’nın Telhisleri (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2004), 165. For the collection of the avarız by the mevkufat kalemi see Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy, 87–95; Sahillioğlu, Telhisler, 165–66.

408

Darling

in the provinces.48 This was true of both cash revenues and timar revenue. The timar system underwent changes as the timar-holding sipahis lost their central role in the Ottomans’ military formation, and their number declined in some provinces, but not in all; in some it grew.49 Timars were increasingly used to support the provincial garrisons that spread around the empire in the seventeenth century. So also were cash revenues, as many of the garrison soldiers were paid in cash. Other tax revenues, rather than being remitted to the central treasury, were by imperial order disbursed for expenses in the province, or in a neighboring province, in order to meet infrastructural needs and to subsidize increased provincial responsibilities.50 The research has not yet been done that would reveal, for the empire as a whole, the proportions of money retained in the province, money spent provincially, and money sent to or from Istanbul. In fact, what this study shows is that there is still a great deal to do before we understand provincial finances. As we move from studying individual muhasebe icmals to include other aspects of provincial finance, to compare provinces across the empire, and to examine changes over time, we will gain a better idea of the role of provincial state finance in the economy of the province and the empire. A comparison between the Syrian provinces and several Anatolian or Balkan provinces would be desirable. We will also be able to fill in one of the missing segments of early modern imperial finance as we discover in detail how much revenue was collected but left in the province, how provincial expenses were met, and through whose hands this money flowed. The documents are not easy to decipher, being written in the half-shorthand, half-secret code of siyakat script, but they are full of valuable information. By giving us facts on the ground, the provincial budgets of Syria help to settle some open questions. For instance, they allow us to specify 977/1570 as the date of the reorganization of the treasuries/treasurers of the Arab provinces, and to obtain a list of the names and dates of provincial treasurers  – not a 48 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Malî Yılına ait bir Bütçe Örneği,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 15 (1953/54): 251–329, here 256; Darling, “Ottoman Provincial Treasuries: The Case of Syria”. 49 Linda T. Darling, “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite in the Late Sixteenth Century,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 43 (2014): 193–226; Linda T. Darling, “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite in the Late Sixteenth Century – Part II, Including the Seventeenth Century,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 45 (2015): 13–35. 50 Rhoads Murphey, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century,” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 419–43; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change, 1590–1699,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, eds. Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 411–636, here 566.

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

409

complete list by any means, but much greater detail than we had before. They also allow us to date the time when the avarız became an annual tax to the period 982–999/1575–1590, during the war with Iran, rather than to the Long War with Austria (1593–1606). This date suggests that the importance of that war, and of Ottoman-Iranian relations in the late sixteenth century generally, has been underestimated. The fact that the war led to no permanent territorial gains does not minimize its effect on the empire and its people. Finally, this study of the budgets raises new questions. One question that touches many fields of inquiry is the Ottomans’ conception of their coinage and the uses of the different coins, both practical and symbolic. How money was exchanged in the marketplace, how people felt about coins that were not their own but were current in the empire, or why certain coins were chosen to represent Ottoman finances at different times are all questions worth pursuing. Another issue is the relationship between timar revenue and cash income, which forms one indicator of the relationship between the province and the central government. It could also be a valuable key to the changes in the timar system from province to province in the late sixteenth century. The provincial finance reports reveal changes in the proportion of different income sources (and doubtless different types of expenditure). The differences between the provinces in revenue, spending, and remittances, compared with provinces in other regions of the empire, would illuminate the functioning of the empire as a whole. Thus, the provincial budgets are an important tool for gaining a perspective on the empire as an empire – not merely the central government in Istanbul but the government with the governed, the capital with its provinces, and the provinces with each other – and to clarify the interconnections between politics, administration, and economic life.

Appendix A: Syrian Defterdars, 16th Century

HALEB Mehmed Çelebi/Efendi, 23 Ramazan 976/11 March 1569 to 15 Sevval 978/ 12 March 1571 Bali, 28 Zilkade 982/12 March 1575 to 19 Zilhicce 984/10 March 1577 Halil, 19 Zilhicce 984/8 March 1577 to 16 Muharrem 986/25 March 1578 İbrahim Efendi, 24 Muharrem 988/11 March 1580 to 5 Safer 989/12 March 1581 İbrahim Efendi ve Sinan Efendi ve Seyfullah, 16 Safer 990/12 March 1582 to 26 Safer 992/20 March 1583 Mustafa Çelebi, 27 Safer 991/22 March 1583 to 9 Rebiülevvel 992/21 March 1584 Ramazan Efendi, 26 Rebiülahir 994/16 April 1586 to 18 Rebiülevvel 995/ 27 February 1587

410

Darling

Yahya Efendi, 26 Rebiülevvel 995/6 March 1587 to 25 Zilhicce 995/27 November 1587 Mahmud Efendi, 26 Zilhicce 995/27 November 1587 to 4 Cemaziülevvel 997/ 21 March 1589 Ömer Efendi ve Seyyid Ahmed Efendi, 4 Cemaziülevvel 997/21 March 1589 to 15 Cemaziülevvel 998/22 March 1590 Ali mirmiran ve nazır-ı emval, 15 Rebiülevvel 998/22 January 1590 to 1 Cemaziülevvel 998/8March 1590 Nuh Efendi, 15 Cemaziülevvel 998/21 March 1589 to 26 Cemaziülevvel 999/ 22 March 1591 Seyyid Ahmed Efendi mubaşir, 2 Cemaziülahir 998/9 March 1990 to 3 Cemazilahir 998/10 March 1590 Mahmud Efendi, 21 Cemaziülahir 999/23 March 1591 to 8 Cemaziülahir 1000/ 22 March 1592 Mahmud Efendi ve Ömer Efendi, 8 Cemaziülahir 1000/23 March 1592 to 19 Cemaziülahir 1001/23 March 1593 Ahmed ve Ali defterdaran, 19 Cemaziülahir 1001/23 March 1593 to 1 Cemaziülahir 1002/22 February 1594 Ali defterdar, 26 Zilhicce 1001/23 September 1593 to 29 Cemaziülahir 1002/ 22 March 1594 Ali Efendi defterdar-ı sabık, 1 Receb 1002/23 March 1594 to 10 Receb 1003/ 22 March 1595 Ali Efendi ve Mehmed Efendi Bosnevi, 11 Receb 1003/23 March 1595 to 22 Receb 1004/22 March 1596 Mehmed defterdar, 22 Receb 1004/22 March 1596 to 1 Cemaziülevvel 1005/ 21 December 1596 Malik Mehmed Efendi, 1 Cemaziülevvel 1005/21 December 1596 to 30 Muharrem 1006/12 September 1597 Mehmed Efendi el-Halebi, 13 Rebiülahir 1006/23 November 1597 to 29 Zilhicce 1006/3 August 1598 Ali Efendi defterdar, 14 Zilhicce 1006/18 July 1598 to 24 Şaban 1007/22 March 1599 Ali Efendi mubaşir, 24 Şaban 1007/22 March 1599 to 27 Rebiülahir 1008/ 15 November 1600 Mehmed Efendi Bosnevi mubaşir, 2 Cemaziülevvel 1007/1 December 1598 to 5 Ramazan 1008/20 March 1600 Ali Efendi mubaşir, 27 Muharrem 1009/8 August 1600 to 1 Şevval 1009/5 April 1601 Ali Efendi mubaşir and Beşir Paşa nazır, 3 Zilkade 1009/6 May 1601 to 15 Zilhicce 1009/17 June 1601 Mehmed Efendi defterdar, 26 Zilhicce 1009/28 June 1601 to 19 Ramazan 1010/ 13 March 1602

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

411

Muharrem Efendi mubaşir (kaimakam-i Mehmed Efendi defterdar) ve Beşir Paşa, 26 Zilhicce 1009/28 June 1601 to 9 Safer 1010/9 August 1601 Muharrem Efendi mubaşir (kaimakam-ı Mehmed Efendi defterdar) and Rıdvan Çavuş (kaimakam-ı vezir Mehmed Paşa nazır-ı emval), 12 Safer 1010/12 August 1601 to 29 Safer 1010/29 August 1601 Malik Mehmed Efendi mubaşir, 10 Rebiülevvel 1010/9 August 1601 to 14 Cema­ ziülevvel 1010/10 November 1601 Mehmed Efendi mubasir, 14 Cemaziülahir 1010/10 November 1601 to 28 Saban 1010/21 February 1602 ŞAM Hüsrev Bey, 2 Muharrem 986/11 March 1578 to 12 Muharrem 987/11 March 1579 Mehmed Çelebi, 14 Muharrem 988/2 March 1580 to (blank) Seyfullah Efendi, 1 Muharrem/5 Safer 989/11 March 1581 to 16 Safer 990/ 11 March 1582 Hasan Paşa, 10 Rebiülevvel 990/4 May 1582 to 13 Safer 991/8 March 1583 Ahmed defterdar, 15 Muharrem 991/8 February 1583 to 26 Safer 99121 March 1583 Mehmed Efendi, 14 Cemaziülevvel 999/9 March 1591 to 13 Safer 1000/ 30 November 1591 Ali Efendi, 14 Safer 1000/1 December 1591 to 6 Cemaziülahir 1000/20 March 1592 Mahmud Efendi, 12 Şaban 1000/25 May 1592 to 20 Rebiülevvel 1001/ 26 December 1592 Mehmed Efendi, 20 Rebiülevvel 1001/25 December 1592 to 13 Cemaziülevvel 1001/ 18 February 1593 Bali Efendi, 1 Muharrem 1004/6 September 1595 to 27 Ramazan 1004/25 May 1596 Ali defterdar, 9 Rebiülahir 1005/30 November 1596 to 20 Receb 1005/9 March 1597 TRABLUSŞAM Mehmed Efendi 989 Ahmed Efendi 993 Ömer defterdar, 7 Cemaziülahir 994/26 May 1586 to 11 Rebiülahir 995/ 21 March 1587 Mehmed diğer defterdar, 15 Rebiülevvel 999/12 January 1591 to 11 Şaban 999/ 4 June 1591 Mehmed Efendi defterdar, 26 Safer 1000/13 December 1591 to 22 Ramazan 1000/2 July 1592 Ali Efendi defterdar, 6 Cemaziülahir 1000/10 March 1592 to 12 Şaban 1000/ 24 May 1592

412

Darling

Mehmed defterdar, 23 Ramazan 1000/4 July 1592 to 23 Cemaziülevvel 1001/ 26 February 1593 Ali defterdar, 26 Muharrem 1005/19 September 1596 to 10 Safer 1005/3 October 1596 Mahmud Efendi, 23 Şevval 1006/30 May 1598 to 22 Cemaziülahir 1007/21 January 1599

Appendix B: Revenues in the Tımar System

Source: Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, 11 vols., ed. Ahmet Akgündüz (Istanbul: Osmanlı Araştırmaları Vakfı, 1996–), 7: 21, 62, 39, 45.

TT263 Şam 955/1548 Mahsulat Hass of padişah Hass of beylerbey and defterdar and kethüda and timar defterdarı and dizdar and emirü’l-ʿarab and zuʿema and sipahiyan

(total revenue) 13,663,396 (leaves the province) 10,354,909 (remains in province) 3,594,827

TT258 Nablus 955/1548 Mahsulat 1,353,107 Hass of padişah 844,394 Hass of beylerbey 202,508 Tezkireli sipahis (3) 28,200 Tezkiresiz sipahis (36) 157,473 TT266 Aclun 955/1548 Mahsulat Hass of padişah Hass of beylerbey Tezkireli sipahis (7) Tezkiresiz sipahis (54)

1,083,435 253,422 511,390 64,690 240,318

TT304 Gazze 964/1557 Mahsulat Hass of padişah Hass of beylerbey Zuʿema (4)

1,722,791 592,470 478,167 171,246

413

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

Tezkireli sipahis (20) Tezkiresiz sipahis (75)

158,534 322,474

Source: BOA TT263 Şam 955/1548 Mahsulat 13,663,396 Hass of padişah 10,354,909; deymos 3,610,333 mukaseme 2,744,576 Hass of mirmiran, defterdar, kethüda, timar defterdarı, dizdar, emirü’l-ʿarab, zuʿema, ve sipahiyan 3,594,887 TT289 Kudüs 961/1556 Mahsulat 637,065 Hass of padişah 160,384 mukaseme 147,539; maktuʿ 12,845 Mirliva, zuʿema, timars 476,681 Mirliva 201,325 Timars: tezkireli 51,687 Zuʿema 37,108 tezkiresiz 186,561 TT474 Şam 977/1569–1570 Mahsulat 15,804,300 Hass of padişah 11,044,300 Mirlivas, defterdars, kethüda, timar defterdarı, zuʿema, ağa, dizdar, şeyhs of ʿurban, sipahis 4,760,000 Mirmiran 1,000,000 Defterdars, mirliva of Tadmor, kethüda, timar defterdarı 502,000 Zuʿema, ağa, dizdar, meşayih-ʿurban, amir shahi (51) 1,157,000 Timar sipahis (366) 1,984,000 Tezkireli (155) 1,233,000 Tezkiresiz (211) 751,000 Türkmen and haric-ez-defter 117,000

414

Darling

Appendix C: Syrian Budget Figures, Annualized in Gold Coins*

HALEB

Register Page Hijri date Days Currency Asl-ı mal Avarız Beytülmal Bakiye

366 78

411790

1844

Mahsulat Bekaya

MAD7146 232

976–977

409946

5093

7146

32

977–977

88

1409957

22787 1327878

59291

7146

40

977–977

88

1409957

2696412 1387170

59208

7146

44

977–977

88

1409957

2240079 1387170

7146

4

977–978

366 akçe78

436524

409946

7146

10

977–978

366

439641

43033

7146

20

977–978

103

107420

47177

7146

24

977–978

103

107419

47177

7146

35

977–979

103

107419

7146

28

978–979

90

173460

7146

48

982–983

365

470896

40000

430896

32840

7146

60

982–983

365

470896

20000

463778

44615

7146

56

983–984

365 altun

492688

7146

68

983–984

365

484368

9329

475167

43791

7146

76

984–985

382 78 or 80

498400

22550

1683

468268

32139

7146

84

986–987

366

519651

10203

1158

507289

18276

7146

88

987–988

365

543266

3238

3322

535706

18444

7146

96

990–991

365

639211

15920

3869

614713

28744

7146

198

990–991

365 filori

644065

17628

3859

4743

7146

104

991–992

365

569471

1318

3861

528485

16399

7146

123

994–994

81

905217

7146

114

439641

25425

8900

20000

14883

994 = 005

318

532150

6941

5080

86962

496226

14384

MAD4771

6

994–995

347 hasene

483575

6361

4655

13188

454192

91420

MAD4771

7

995–996

372 hasene

518960

4808

7258

503772

105025

7146

127

996–997

366

477469

11595

373

422020

109419

7146

143

996–997

366 79

474620

11595

373

444986

159204

7146

151

996–997

368

473576

11500

965

319394

108576

* Italics indicate annual amounts calculated from partial figures provided in the report.

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

Mahsulat -ı cedid

Mukataat Cizye Rüsum-u Tefavut Emval-ı Peşin-i Tebdil berevat müteferrika mukataa

395650

362513

1327874 1327874

25148

980

2402

4604

1266890

38055 1820

3504

17598

132005

38055 1820

3475

17594

1310275

1266890

38055 1820

3508

17594

389905

370057

16731

148

2284

2703

392608

370057

16731

148

2284

2703

25425

22449

10450

25425

22449

10450

6290

17906

10450

283073

27910

1902 1959 3512

372395

16355

766

1766

5772

375036

19969 7574

5305

12359

18864 7574

5305

12359

393952

20929 1070

3848

12275

404232

21058 1259

4105

5584

463758

375037

474479

439205

18935

541

15797

12375

479421

444449

28301

741

39914

3854

568425

464457

30054

743

73169

17563

617828 394992

24581

644

85493

6341

396114

349166

13315

218

31055

12640

378388

322209

11653

17069

11785

5175

398818

361578

14794

20233

2172

3377

312550

17000

8916

14854

2088

260775

8277

14666

2062

16861

8843

14719

2070

310002

415

416

Darling

HALEB (cont.)

Register Page Hijri date Days Currency Asl-ı mal Avarız Beytülmal Bakiye MAD4771

498413

83447

9197

61932

113864

324818 82125 36865

6427

Mahsulat Bekaya

10

997–998

366 hasene

329089

57982

7146

158

998–998

46 40.5

7146

164

998–998

2 39 para

9559532?

7146

172

998–998

46 78 or 80

1121581

324818

MAD4771

12

998–999

367 hasene

664349

37399

MAD4771

13

999–1000

365 hasene

332321

29

311905

35528

MAD4771

15

1000–1001

336 hasene

389137

15315

2270

1330

403711

61195

7146

176

1001–1002

182 hasene 80

795994

79959

942

2470

138483

7146

185

1001–1002

182 hasene 80

795994

79959

942

2470

138483

7146

796763

5419

9042 19412

9298

598946

85247

186

1001–1002

182 78 or 80

795994

79959

942

2470

MAD4771

16

1001–1002

336 hasene

240387

44987

596

432

548019

110520

MAD4943

6

1001–1002

181 78 or 80

800386

79382

929

2466

523361

139248

MAD4771

18

1002–1003

365 hasene

471583

38722

2040

3804

423036

60712

MAD4771

19

1003–1004

365 hasene

439098

104

1573

429

329815

86855

660289

118491

2516

MAD1346

1004–1005

MAD4771

20

254 para 39/ 40 1004–1007 1095 hasene

293533

58707

2814

MAD4771

22

1007–1008

365 hasene

571203

104289

3002

MAD4771

23

1008–1009

134 hasene

1433594

281472

MAD4771

24

1009–1010

338 hasene

474504

138483

542342 131489

41758

425921

53090

939

341 1148586

143017

74851 20746

352125

20762

3653

ŞAM

Register Page Hijri date Days Currency Asl-ı mal Avarız Beytülmal Bakiye TT621

2

986–987

366 78 or 80

206197

26206

624

TT621

10

987–988

365 78 or 80

263905

29807

1371

TT621

18

989–990

366 80

300355

36327

3094

1

989–000

366 hasene

300355

37026

3095

31011

TSMA3491 TT621 TSMA3491

22

990–91

354 80

283682

12973 12117

3

990–991

324 guruş

164658

18470

Mahsulat Bekaya 179348

179347

224132

40282

4943

255291

312917

4943

255291

31667

256346

9479

8593

152922 1406841

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

Mahsulat -ı cedid

Mukataat Cizye Rüsum-u Tefavut Emval-ı Peşin-i Tebdil berevat müteferrika mukataa

271103

250173

9361155

9210045

2736

17410

37230

103477

844371

733784

560984

373483

12375

276377

250116

342515

302417

520485

733784

731

13070

65752

17409

735

62978 9307

7434 14255

14896

18026

6987

1194

19943

19943

7408

381800

32878

17997

58

520485

381800

32878

17997

58

520485

381800

32878

17997

58

393759

381831

27328

17074

1835

384111

33059

18096

58

362478

303586

26014

18226

14651

342910

301504

19616

14202

7586

921

483877

zeamet

TŞam emlak 708 69770 baha 652 7714

167043

12347

9174

963

440

372777

301550

19598

14010

365

3514

869375

878655

23294

50111

53507

663

14405

451

590943

addl bakiye 7480

Mukataat Cizye Rusum-u Tefavut Emval-ı berevat müteferrika

141209

127196

166984

14117

223623

167159

18982

989

167159

18982

989

246865

69770

145333

189730

Mahsulat -ı cedid

417

699

1037

18950

19385 1578

12276

820

17066

373188 4664

12540

251964 3149

23701

13791

167830

17454

948

31807

28823

329230 4115

117397

10699

715

10667

3370

33624 4203

418

Darling

ŞAM (cont.)

Register Page Hijri date Days Currency Asl-ı mal Avarız Beytülmal Bakiye

TSMA3491

5

991–991

30

253954

131010

TT621

30

991–2

363 80

217908

TT621

36

992–3

366

207250

15522

2112

821974

4176

2292

215 80

422170

249

1259

MAD2521

1

1000–1000

64 guruş 80

MAD2521

5

MAD1653

4

1000–1001

MAD1003

4

1001–1001

56 80

380532

MAD4928

4

1004–1004

262 80

376756

MAD4928

10

1004–1004

70 80

284095

Mahsulat Bekaya

7559

4496

205923

22786

150151

162215

25607

216895

1146

315

195643

10724

6517 95630

1939

2028 42950

300142 20601

210693

TRABLUSŞAM

Register Page Hijri date Days Currency Asl-ı mal Avarız Beytülmal Bakiye

Mahsulat Bekaya

MAD1620 MAD4658 102

999–9

MAD4658

68

999–1000

MAD4658

58

1000–0

204 para 40

189690

MAD7291

2

1000–0

204 altun

189690

14574

MAD4658

26

1000–1

237 para 39

MAD5810 MAD1576

5

146 para

342894

74 para

306871

250229 49084 1312

4009

124999

2826 77

9228

10986

1005–5

15 para

836215

3723

1006–7

237 para

221634

27

166506

139709

5893 893

Bibliography

Archival Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivi Başkanlığı, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

MAD 880. MAD 933. MAD 952. MAD 956.

419

Financial Reporting from the Ottoman Syrian Provinces

Mahsulat -ı cedid

Mukataat Cizye Rusum-u Tefavut Emval-ı berevat müteferrika

1491682

218340 2729

183135

123127

17453 1003

21984

1955

zeamet

96434

85100

11265

510

11629

1328

3078937

185881

15797

285

11446

14058

166757

5437

97910 1223 2240912 28011

Mahsulat -ı cedid

75711

8877

8942

200355

22709

20159

56916

159630

12300

22176

16576

260

3440000 43000

4704

58

3062502 38281

15956

199

77280

966

80104 1001

Mukataat Cizye Rusum-uTefavut Emval-ı berevat müteferrika

114897 280877

13471

23109 23848

227997

64328

19206

9203

48

3125

5598

192

32372

243

3723

160650 160650

5822

62301

7514

724695

68912

182943

7973

iqraz-loan 1430?

addl bakiye 6020

420

Darling

MAD 1003. MAD 1004. MAD 1006. MAD 1277. MAD 1568. MAD 1620. MAD 1653. MAD 2521. MAD 4658. MAD 4771. MAD 5458. MAD 7146. MAD 7291. MAD 7345. MAD 15721. TT621.



Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi, Istanbul

TSMA D.8548. TSMA D.3491.



Published Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Topkapı Sarayı Arşivi H.951–952 Tarihli ve E-12321 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, ed. Halil Sahillioğlu. Istanbul: IRCICA, 2002.

Akdağ, Mustafa. Türk Halkının Dirlik ve Düzenlik Kavgası (= Celâli İsyanları). Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1975. Aydın, Bilgin and Günalan, Rıfat. “XVI. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Eyalet Deftdarlıklarının Ortaya Çıkışı ve Gelişimi.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 30 (2007): 27–160. Aydın, Bilgin and Günalan, Rıfat. Osmanlı Maliyesi ve Defter Sistemi. Istanbul: Yeditepe, 2008. Aydın, Dündar. “Osmanlı Devrinde XVI. Yüzyılda Erzurum Beylerbeyisi Ayas Paşa‌’nın Bir Yıllık Bütçesi.” OTAM 8 (1997): 393–477. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’Empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siècles.” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 1 (1958): 9–36. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “H. 974–975 (M. 1567–1568) Mali Yılına ait bir Osmanli Bütçesi.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1957): 277–332.

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421

Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “954–955 (1547–1548) Mali Yılına ait bir Osmanlı Bütçesi.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1955): 219–76. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Mali Yılına ait bir Bütçe Örneği.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 17 (1953): 252–332. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Malî Yılına ait bir Bütçe Örneği.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 15 (1953/54): 251–329. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “Avarız.” İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2, 13–19. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1940–1988. Bowen, Harold. “Awarid.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, 1: 760–61. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1960–2007. Cellatoğulları, Halil İbrahim. “15 Haziran 1608 (1 Rebîü’l-Evvel 1017)–4 Şubat 1609 (28 Şevval 1017) Tarihli Kıbrıs Eyaleti Bütçe Defterinin Değerlendirilmesi.” MA thesis, Hitit University, Çorum 2018. Çakır, Baki. “Osmanlı Devleti’nin Bilinen En Eski (1495–1496) Bütçesi ve 1494–1495 Yılı İcmalı.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 47 (2016): 113–45. Darling, Linda T. The Janissaries of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century, or, How Conquering a Province Changed the Ottoman Empire. Otto Spies Memorial Series, vol. 6. Berlin: EG Verlag, 2019. Darling, Linda T. “Istanbul and Damascus: Officials and Soldiers in the Exercise of Imperial Power (c.1550–1575).” In Osmanlı İstanbulu IV, eds. Feridun M. Emecen et al., 313–38. Istanbul: 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi and İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 2017. Darling, Linda T. “Investigating the Fiscal Administration of the Arab Provinces after the Ottoman Conquest of 1516.” In The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century, eds. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, 147–76. Göttingen: V&R, Bonn University Press, 2017. Darling, Linda T. “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite in the Late Sixteenth Century – Part II, Including the Seventeenth Century.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 45 (2015): 13–35. Darling, Linda T. “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite in the Late Sixteenth Century.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 43 (2014): 193–226. Darling, Linda T. “Ottoman Provincial Treasuries: The Case of Syria.” In Mélanges Halil Sahillioğlu, in Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies no. 15–16 (1997): 103–10. Darling, Linda T. Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Assessment and Collection in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1600. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Dündar, Recep. “18 Mart–14 Haziran 1608 Yılı Kıbrıs Eyaleti Bütçesi.” Turkish Studies 5,4 (Fall 2010): 1032–48. Dündar, Recep. “Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ın 1017–1018 (1609–1610) Yılı Bütçesi.” In Proceedings of the Third International Congress for Cyprus Studies, vol. 1, History, ed.

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İsmail Bozkurt, 265–83. Gazimağusa, Cyprus: Eastern Mediterranean University, 2000. Faroqhi, Suraiya. “Crisis and Change, 1590–1699.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, eds. Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert, 411–636. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Genç, Mehmet and Erol Özvar, Osmanlı Maliyesi: Kurumlar ve Bütçeler. 2 Vols. Istanbul: Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi, 2006. Griswold, William J. The Great Anatolian Rebellion, 1000–1020/1591–1611. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983. Güvemli, Oktay, et al. Accounting Method Used by Ottomans for 500 Years: Stairs (Merdiban) Method. Ankara: T.C. Maliye Bakanlığı, Strateji Geliştirme Başkanlığı, 2008. Güvemli, Oktay. Türk Devletleri Muhasebe Tarihi, vol. 1: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’na Kadar. Istanbul: Avcıol Basım Yayın, 1995. İnalcık, Halil. “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700.” In Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, ed. Ronald Jennings, 283–337. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985. İpşirli, Mehmet. “Some Remarks on the Province of Damascus and Its Budget for March 1578–March 1579, under the Governorship of Sokulluzade Hasan Pasha.” In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Bilad al-Sham during the Ottoman Era, Damascus, Syria, 26–30 September 2005, 57–65. Istanbul: IRCICA, 2009. Issawi, Charles. “Comment on Professor Barkan’s Estimate of the Population of the Ottoman Empire in 1520–30.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1 (1958): 329–47. Kunt, İ. Metin. Bir Osmanlı Valisinin Yıllık Gelir-Gideri: Diyarbekir, 1670–1671. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1981. Murphey, Rhoads. “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century.” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 419–43. Oğuzoğlu, Yusuf. “Osmanlı Devletinde Taşra ile Merkez Arasındaki Bürokratik İşleyiş Hakkında Bazı Bilgiler (XVII. ve XVIII. Yüzyıllar).” In Osmanlı-Türk Diplomatiği Semineri, 31–42. Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1995. Özbaran, Salih. “The Ottoman Budgets of the Yemen in the Sixteenth Century.” In The Ottoman Response to European Expansion, ed. Salih Özbaran, 49–60. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994. Özvar, Erol. “Transformation of the Ottoman Empire into a Military-Fiscal State: Reconsidering the Financing of War from a Global Perspective.” In The Battle for Central Europe: The Siege of Szigetvar and the Death of Süleyman the Magnificent and Nicolas Zrnyi (1566), ed. Pál Fodor, 21–63. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

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Özvar, Erol. “XVII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Taşra Maliyesinde Değişim: Rum Eyaletinde Hazine Defterdarlığından Tokat Voyvodalığına Geçiş.” XIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi (1997): Kongreye Sunalan Bildirirler, 3: 3, 1605–34. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2002. Pamuk, Bilgehan. “XVII. Yüzyılda Bir Osmanlı Paşasının Masraf Bilançosu [Erzurum].” Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 22,34 (2003): 107–24. Pamuk, Şevket. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Sahillioğlu, Halil. ed., Koca Sinan Paşa‌’nın Telhisleri. Istanbul: IRCICA, 2004. Sahillioğlu, Halil. “Yemen’in 1599–1600 Yılı Bütçesi.” In Yusuf Hikmet Bayur’a Armağan, 287–319. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1986. Sahillioğlu, Halil. “1524–1525 Osmanlı Bütçesi.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası: Ord. Prof. Ömer Lütfi Barkan’a Armağan 41 (1985): 415–52. Sahillioğlu, Halil. “Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ın İlk Yılı Bütçesi.” Belgeler 4,7/8 (1967): 1–33. Shaw, Stanford J. The Budget of Ottoman Egypt, 1005–1006/1596–1597. The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1968. Shaw, Stanford J. The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962. Shoshan, Boaz. Damascus Life, 1480–1500: A Report of a Local Notary. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Shimizu, Yasuhisa. “16. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Halep Defterdarlığı.” Osmanlı Araştır­ maları 51 (2018): 29–61. Tabakoğlu, Ahmet. Gerileme Dönemine Girerken Osmanlı Maliyesi. Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 1985. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilatı. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1948. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilatına Medhal. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1941. Venzke, Margaret L. “The Question of Declining Cereals’ Production in the Sixteenth Century: A Sounding on the Problem-solving Capacity of the Ottoman Cadastres.” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984): 251–64.

17 The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century Géza Dávid Hatvan, a fairly insignificant fortress in Heves county, was captured by the forces of Yahyapaşazade Mehmed, the beylerbeyi of Buda (Ottoman Budun, Budin), during the spring of 1544.1 The exact day is unknown, so we cannot tell precisely when the town was made the centre of a new sancak within the vilayet of Buda. Referring to an article by Lajos Fekete,2 Andreas Birken maintained that it was created in 1543.3 Checking the quoted text, my impression is that the German scholar misunderstood the word idem in brackets in Fekete’s original, because it refers to the pronunciation of the place-name, that is, Hatvan, and not the date of calling into life the sancak. Gyula Káldy-Nagy posited without further explanation (but probably relying on the year of preparation of the first mufassal defteri of the region) 1545–1546 as the date of establishing this administrative unit.4 However, in a note on the same page,5 he cites a mü­himme defteri entry dated 1 February 1545, where the sancak of Egri Castle (liva-i kale-i Eğri) is mentioned with Veli as its bey.6 Seemingly, this remark has nothing to do with Hatvan, but if we realise that the sancak in question had a dual name – Eger (Ottoman Eğri) and Hatvan until 15507 – it seems quite plausible to equate the sancak of Egri Castle with the later liva of Hatvan at the start of 1545, or even somewhat earlier in 1544. Hatvan was almost uninterruptedly in Ottoman hands throughout the 16th century, with the exception of a short period of time in 1596. They also lost 1 For Claudia in friendship. 2 Lajos Fekete, “Osmanlı Türkleri ve Macarlar, 1366–1699,” Belleten 13,52 (1949): 663–743, here 680. 3 Andreas Birken, Die Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches. (Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B, Nr. 13.) (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1976), 28. 4 Gyula Káldy-Nagy, A Budai szandzsák 1559. évi összeírása. (Pest Megye Múltjából, 3.) (Budapest: Pest Megyei Levéltár, 1977), 9. 5 Káldy-Nagy, A Budai szandzsák, 9, note 17. 6 This entry was published by Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, “Az ország ügye mindenek előtt való.” A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei (1544–1545, 1552). “Affairs of State Are Supreme”. The Orders of the Ottoman Imperial Council Pertaining to Hungary (1544–1545, 1552) (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 2005), 61, No. 34. 7 Feridun M. Emecen and İlhan Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının kaynaklarından 957–958 (1550–1551) tarihli sancak tevcîh defteri,” Belgeler 23 (1999): 53–121, here 63.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_019

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

425

the town in November 1603, only for some months, until September 1604 and finally in 1686. The result of Markus Köhbach’s careful investigations was that the district of Hatvan must have been given some time in 1544 to Veli, the former mirliva of Klis (Ottoman Kilis, Italian Clissa, Hungarian Klissza). He also alluded to İbrahim Peçevi’s Tarih, who indicated the same year,8 which is not referred to by contemporary, local informers,9 as the creation of the new entity. However, the concordance of the names as given for the district governor of Egri Castle and that of the bey of Klis is a sound basis to conclude that the seemingly two administrative units (Egri and Hatvan) are one and the same, and that the Ottomans did not hesitate too long to appoint somebody to rule the region, and this person was called Veli.10 In contrast with several of his successors, Veli’s career is quite easy to follow.11 He was appointed to Klis on 18 September 1541, probably from Ergani (if I decipher this correctly).12 He then served in Hatvan between August (?) 1544 and 12 November 1547, when he became district governor of Nafpaktos (Italian Lepanto, Ottoman İnebahtı).13 From 30 December, he ruled Esztergom (Ottoman Estergon, Östörgon),14 where he remained for almost four years,

8 9

10

11 12 13 14

Markus Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek durch die Osmanen 1554. Eine historischquellenkritische Studie zur osmanischen Expansion im östlichen Mitteleuropa. (Zur Kunde Südosteuropas II, vol. 18.) (Wien – Köln – Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1994), 262, note 246. Thus, in his letter of 7 September, 1544 “Hans Lenkhauitsch” reported only that nineteen days earlier Veli bey received an order from the Sultan and had to leave his headquarter, Livno and go to Constantinople. Cf. Monumenta Habsburgica Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae, Slavoniae/Habsburški spomenici kraljevine Hrvatske, Dalmacije i Slavonije. III. Od 1544 godine do godine 1554, uredio Emilij Laszowski. (Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridiolanium, 40.) (Zagreb: Tisak Dioničke Tiskare, 1917), 189, No. 194. It remains a question if he really undertook the way to the capital city. We have to mention that Miklós Istvánffy, the significant humanist chronicler, speaks about a certain Deli Kurd as the head of the soldiers left in the fortification. The original wording is: “Meheme[te]s … imposito præsidio [to Hatvan], DeliCurtum ibi præfectum reli­ quit” (See Nicolai Isthvanfi Pannoni, Historiarum de rebus ungaricis, libri XXXIV. (Coloniae Agrippinae: Sumptibus Antonij Hierati, 1622), 273.) It is difficult to judge if the word præfectus was used here for the dizdar, another military commandant or the sancakbeyi. Since, however, Deli Kurd does not appear in any form in Ottoman material in connection with Hatvan, it is unlikely that he was the first mirliva there. Köhbach (Die Eroberung von Fülek, 261–64, note 246) carefully collected biographical and other data about him being reachable at the time he wrote his book. İstanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (= BOA), Maliyeden müdevver defterler 34, fol. 501r–504r. Emecen and Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının,” 59. Ibid., 62.

426

Dávid

until 2 November 1551. His next place was Koppány (Ottoman Kopan),15 from where he returned to Hatvan on 18 January 1553.16 The exact date of his transfer to Székesfehérvár (Ottoman İstolni Belgrad) is not known, but it must have happened before 10 October 1555.17 In all likelihood, his term of office there lasted until April 1559, when he was sent to Pozsega (Ottoman Pojega, Croatian Požega).18 But this “excursion” to the South lasted for only around four months; the date of his last appearance in this capacity was on 17 July of the same year.19 Next we meet him in Szolnok (Ottoman Solnık) between 1559 and 1562,20 though our proof of his being the same person is somewhat indirect. Namely, in this case, while there is no concrete evidence of his appointment, the fact that on one occasion “Veli bey” enjoys the same, though modest sources of income in the sancak of Buda, corroborates the assumption.21 The last letter addressed to him in Szolnok was signed on 28 September 1562.22 From this point, there is a missing link from the chain, but it seems plausible that he became district governor of Pécs (Ottoman Peçuy), where a Veli can be detected between 1562 and 1563 as sancakbeyi.23 He died there before 24 August 1563.24

15 16 17 18 19

Ibid., 64. Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Ehemalige Konsularakademie, Krafft 284, 160r–v. Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. Káldy-Nagy, A Budai szandzsák, No. 78. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, “Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos.” A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei (1559–1560, 1564–1565). “This Affair is of Paramount Importance.” The Orders of the Ottoman Imperial Council Pertaining to Hungary (1559–1560, 1564–1565) (História Könyvtár  – Okmánytárak, 6.) (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, Budapest, 2009), 22–23, No. 22. Cf. Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. 20 Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. 21 The place in question is Páty (near to modern Budapest), which was in his hands while the bey of Pozsega in 1559 (cf. Káldy-Nagy, A Budai szandzsák, No. 78.) and as the bey of Szolnok in 1562 (cf. Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, Kanuni devri Budin tahrir defteri (1546–1562) (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1971), 67, No. 93). 22 The document written by Antal Verancsics, the bishop of Eger was cited by Viktor Tomkó, “Török közigazgatás Magyarországon: a szolnoki szandzsákbégek története. I.” In Zounuk. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár Évkönyve 19. (Szolnok: Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár, 2004), 19. 23 The other Veli active in Hungary contemporaneously and being the mirliva of Simontornya (Ottoman Şimontorna) between 1562 and 1565 (cf. Géza Dávid, Osmanlı Macaristan’ında toplum, ekonomi ve yönetim. 16. yüzyılda Simontornya sancağı (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1999), 29 – the Hungarian version of this book was published in 1982) cannot be identical with him since he arrived directly from the centre filling the sekbanbaşı rank. Cf. BOA, Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 218, 15. 24 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 218, 8, 38, 70.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

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The second mirliva of Hatvan was Turahan (or Turhan), who came from İnebahtı and changed place with Veli on 12 November 1547, as hinted above.25 His tenure here ended 29 months later, on 15 April 1550.26 His follower was Arslan bey, “the son of Mehmed Pasha, the son of Yahya Pasha, the former mir of Klis.”27 He is the very same person about whom Claudia Römer wrote three articles (one of them in cooperation with Nicolas Vatin) and clarified several noteworthy milestones of his life.28 While collecting data on significant Ottoman families in Hungary, I found some complementary evidence on his career path, but some of the details still remain obscure.29 Accordingly, the first undisputable reference to him dates to c.1530, when – after the village of Leşniçe30 which according to the editors belonged to the nahiye of Morava in the sancak of Vučitrn/Vushtrri (Ottoman Vılçıtrın) – his çiftlik was entered. The amount of revenue coming from it was fixed, together with the settlement of 3,989 akçe and – somewhat unexpectedly – they belonged to the hases of the sancakbeyi in this united form. Fortunately for us, the scribe noted that the 25 26

27 28

29

30

Emecen and Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının,” 62. Turahan probably continued his career in Thessaloniki (Ottoman Selanik) and then from 18 September 1552 in Kruševac (Ottoman Alacahisar) but this equation needs further corroboration. See İstanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, 888, fol. 446r. Published by Dávid and Fodor, “Az ország ügye,” 654–55, No. 359. (Unfortunately, Rumelia and consequently the sancak of Thessaloniki is missing from the list Emecen and Şahin published therefore these statements cannot be verified.) Emecen and Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının,” 62. Claudia Römer, “Zu widersprüchlichen Beurteilungen eines Rechtsstreits durch die Kanz­ lei des Beglerbegi von Buda, Arslan Paša, im Jahr 1565,” Mitteilungen der Grazer Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 8 (1999): 29–41; Claudia Römer, “On Some Ḫāṣṣ-Estates Illegally Claimed by Arslan Paša, Beglerbegi of Buda, 1565–1566,” in Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber (Istanbul: ISIS, 1994), 297–317; Claudia Römer and Nicolas Vatin, “The Lion that was Only a Cat. Some Notes on the Last Years and the Death of Arslan Pasha, bey of Semendire and beylerbeyi of Buda,” in Şerefe. Studies in Honour of Prof. Géza Dávid on his Seventieth Birthday, eds. Pál Fodor et al. (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2019), 159–82. See also: Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 220–24, note 107. See Géza Dávid, “Macaristan’da yönetici Osmanlı aileleri,” OTAM 38 (2015 güz): 13–30, here 18 (with a mistake showing him as the bey of Fülek (Ottoman Filek, Slovakian Fiľakovo) for a short interval); Géza Dávid, “Arcképcsarnok-töredék a török korból: a hódoltság néhány jelentősebb oszmán családja és egyénisége,” in “A magyar múltat kutatni, írni és láttatni – ez által szolgálni a hazát.” Tisztelgő kötet J. Újváry Zsuzsanna 25. pázmányos oktatói éve előtt, eds. Bence Biró et al. (Budapest – Piliscsaba: Szent István Társulat, 2020), 121–24. Possibly identical with Lešnica, east of Vučitrn: https://geographic.org/geographic_names /name.php?uni=520510&fid=3576&c=kosovo: 42°51′24.0″N 21°07′03.0″E (accessed 25 May 2021).

428

Dávid

çiftlik belonged to “the son of Mehmed Bey, the son of Yahya Pasha.”31 (The fact that his family background was specified clearly shows the importance of the clan.) For some years, Arslan disappears from our eyes and we only meet him again when he brings the news of Franz Katzianer’s defeat to the Porte. He was granted Pozsega and its vicinity, in order to create a new sancak there, which included further extending the borders, to pacify the territory and to prepare the first defters. These were seemingly fairly difficult tasks for a bey in his first post. However, he was not daunted by the challenge: by 1540, the first register of the district had been finished.32 Here we find the earliest, though posterior official entry dated 28 November 1540, where he is mentioned as the bey of Pozsega. However, we have no reason to doubt that he had already been in this position approximately three years earlier: this time we can trust the testimony of the narrative sources. In the additional remark cited above, the amount of Arslan’s sources of revenue is given as the comparatively low sum of 204,114 akçe.33 From Pozsega, Arslan moved to Prizren (Ottoman Prizrin) on 18 November 1541,34 and then possibly to Vučitrn, at least according to an Ottoman chronicle.35 So far, I have been unable to find an archival record corroborating this piece of information. Unfortunately, the journal of the 1543 campaign does not contain the administrative unit in question, although several other beys figure in it;36 furthermore, this year is poorly documented in general. However, we can state with certainty that after 1 February 1545 he was no more in office in Vučitrn, because the leader there was Mehmed. Among the commanders mobilised then, we find an Arslan as the district governor of Ohrid (Ottoman Ohri).37 In April 1545, the mirliva of Euboea/Évia (Ottoman Agriboz) bears the same name.38 One of these people could be our Arslan, though this is no more than speculation. Our next clear evidence for him dates to 15 April 1550, when

31 167 numaralı muhâsebe-i Vilâyet-i Rûm İli defteri (937/1530). II. Vılçıtrın, Prizrin, Alaca-hisâr ve Hersek livâları. Dizin ve tıpkıbasım. (T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Başkanlığı, 69.) (Ankara 2004), fol. 354 of the facsimile edition. 32 It is preserved in two volumes: BOA, Tapu defteri 204, 203. They were described by Fazileta Cviko, “O najstarijem popisu požeškog sandžaka,” Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 34 (1982/83): 129–35. 33 Tapu defteri 204, 1. 34 Maliyeden müdevver defterler 34, fol. 427a. 35 Cf. Römer, “On Some Ḫāṣṣ-Estates,” 297. She cites Hammer who used Sinan çavuş’s work. 36 Mehmet İpçioğlu, “Kanunî Süleyman’ın Estergon (Esztergom) seferi 1543. Yeni bir kaynak,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 10 (1990): 137–59, here 142–43. 37 Dávid and Fodor, “Az ország ügye,” 60–61, No. 34. 38 Dávid and Fodor, “Az ország ügye,” 183, No. 123.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

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he is transferred from Klis to Eger and Hatvan.39 This is in tune with Antal Verancsics’s (1504–1573) information in his letter of 20 May 1550, where he calls him the bey of Kalocsa40 and Hatvan, whose territory was now extended as far as Eger.41 While the “Gate of Upper Hungary” was not in Ottoman hands at this point, the usage of the name in this connection hints at later plans to make it the centre of an administrative entity. From Hatvan, Arslan went directly to Székesfehérvár,42 and was employed there until c. the beginning of October 1555. On the 10th of that month, Antal Verancsics and Ferenc Zay (1498–1570) reported to Ferdinand that Arslan “was put to Greece, near the Albanian sea shore.”43 Perhaps they were wrong in specifying the territory, because we find him in Silistra (Ottoman Silistre) instead. To be more precise, we know for sure that he was appointed from this place to Lippa (Romanian Lipova) in the vilayet of Temesvár (Ottoman Temeşvar/Tımışvar, Romanian Timişoara), on 5 January 1557.44 From there, he moved to the liva of Mohács (Ottoman Mihaç), later Pécs, after its new seat, and worked there until the summer of 1559.45 Somewhat later, he is mentioned in a document as being no different from a pensioner (mütekaid);46 although perhaps he was only dispossessed (mazul) for a while. But he was reactivated soon and sent back to his first “station,” namely Pozsega on 18 October 1560.47 He then went to Szendrő (Ottoman Semendire, Serbian Smederevo), where his presence can be traced for the first time on 23 June 1563.48 When Zal Mahmud Pasha was forced to leave Buda, he dealt with the affairs of the province between approximately 3 August and 20 November 1564.49 Partly because his performance in this 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Emecen and Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının,” 62, 101. This sounds queer since the town in question lies some 200 kms on road south of Hatvan and never appears in Ottoman documents as part of this sancak; it belonged to Szeged (Ottoman Segedin) as a seat of a nahiye. See Verancsics Antal m. kir. helytartó, esztergomi érsek összes munkái. VII. Vegyes levelek, 1549–1559. Közli László Szalay. (Magyar Történelmi Emlékek. Második osztály, írók, 10.) (Pest: Eggenberger Ferdinánd, 1865), 66, Nr. XXXIV. Cited by Römer, “On Some ḪāṣṣEstates,” 297. Krafft 284, fol. 20. Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. BOA, Mühimme defteri 2, 208, No. 1881. Géza Dávid, “Mohács – Pécs 16. századi bégjei”, in Pécs a törökkorban, eds. Ferenc Szakály and József Vonyó (Tanulmányok Pécs Történetéből, 7.) (Pécs: Pécs Története Alapítvány, 1999), 71 and notes 157–58. Mühimme defteri 4, 132, No. 1347. Mühimme defteri 4, 146, No. 1482. Römer and Vatin, “The Lion that was Only a Cat,” 162. Géza Dávid, Török közigazgatás Magyarországon. Doktori disszertáció (Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest 1995), 207–10.

430

Dávid

capacity was outstanding, and partly because his name had already been circulating among possible candidates, on 10/12 May 1566, he became the provincial governor of Buda.50 His inglorious end on 3 August 1566 is well known. At this point, I stop giving the more or less complete life stories of the district governors of Hatvan. The main reason is the unevenness of sources, at least of entries that indicate the previous (or next) post of a person. For instance, we have six individuals called Mehmed. It is unlikely that they can be one and the same person throughout, since at least one of them died as the mirliva of Esztergom in 1567. It is also clear that two of them returned to their earlier posts here. Consequently at least two, and at most four, Mehmeds are involved. In the same way, we meet two Sinans in Hatvan: the one appearing earlier cannot be the same as his namesake who held four consecutive posts in Hungary during these years; he worked at Gyula,51 when our Sinan, who arrived from Simontornya and left for Szekszárd (Ottoman Seksar), appears in Hatvan. The other Sinan is first mentioned before 4 September 1580, without showing his previous position. The Sinan referred to had been last mentioned in 1573 as the mirliva of Szeged. My knowledge of this is insufficient to judge whether or not he can be identified as the same person emerging seven years later. Altogether, 31 district governors of Hatvan could be identified. In several instances, we can tell exactly the day of their appointment and the end of their service in the sancak. We can often be this accurate because the central (and local) administration was admirably effective. Working on the pertinent material, I am increasingly convinced that for most of the missing data it is the destruction of several volumes kept in the 16th and 17th centuries that is responsible, rather than the negligence of the scribes. The length of office of the mirlivas of Hatvan varied significantly, from zero days to 66 months. The aborted appointment took place in 1580, when Osman bey, the former district governor of Szécsény (Ottoman Siçen), received Hatvan, but for an unknown reason he was unable to embark on his activity there (müyesser olmayan). Instead, the sancak of Szolnok was given to him. The longest period of service in Hatvan can be connected to Mahmud bey, who had been the defter kethüdası of the vilayet of Buda earlier. His first post as governor was Szekszárd, followed by Hatvan, where he worked between 10 July 1572 and 5 January 1578. For the time being, it is difficult to tell if it 50 See Mühimme defteri 6, 535, No. 1164. Published in 6 numaralı mühimme defteri 972  / 1564–1565. Özet  – transkripsyion ve indeks. III. (T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Başkanlığı, 28. Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn sicilleri dizisi, III.) (Ankara 1995). 51 Cf. I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants. The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550–1650 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 152–53.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

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was Sokollu Mehmed’s conscious policy to keep his trustworthy people at the same administrative unit for longer than usual, but certain signs point in that direction. Veli bey first spent more than three years in the centre of the new entity and more than 2.5 years on the second occasion, approximately 62 months altogether. We can justifiably regard him as the founder of the sancak. Mehmed bey, who had two or three terms in Hatvan (see Nos. 5, 9 and 11 in the list below), functioned there for 55 or 58 months. Then we have the second Arslan bey between mid-July 1592 and 3 September 1596, with 50 months and the second Sinan bey between 30 July 1579 and 18 January 1583, with 42 months. The last person whom I wish to allude here is the first Arslan bey, who was the last to be in Hatvan for longer than 30, almost exactly 33 months. Then we have four individuals with a length of 20–29 months, nine with 10–19 months and seven with fewer than 10 months and two with an unknown period of time. If we count with 51 years from which we have comparatively reliable knowledge about the beginning and the end of the appointments and 29 sancakbeyis in service (in two cases there is no reliable documentation), we can say that the average time of service is 21 months. In my earlier studies of this type, I occasionally observed somewhat more elongated averages,52 but sometimes, as in the case of Pozsega, the arithmetic mean was even lower, only 13.5 months.53 It is not easy to understand the reason for the differences, but they are partly the result of my broadening database over the last 30 years. The annual income of the district governors in Hatvan varied between 200,000 and 384,084 akçe. The highest sum was granted to the first Arslan bey in 1550. Twelve people enjoyed more than 200,000 but less than 300,000 akçe, seven between 300,000 and 400,000 akçe, but three of these had to dispense with less than 300,000 akçe. These figures give the impression that Hatvan was not a lucrative sancak. The composition of the sancakbeyis’ prebends can be compared using eight different lists between 1553 and 1592, which contain the sources of revenue in detail.54 If we analyse them, it is immediately obvious that besides Hatvan, no 52 Géza Dávid, “Die Bege von Szigetvár im 16. Jahrhundert,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes in memoriam Anton C. Schaendlinger 82 (1992): 67–96, here 95 (21 months). Géza Dávid, “The Sancakbegis of Arad and Gyula,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 46 (1992/93): 143–62, here 160 (24 months); Géza Dávid, Osmanlı Macaristan’ında toplum, ekonomi ve yönetim, 32 (somewhat less than three years); Dávid, “Mohács – Pécs 16. századi bégjei,” 85 (19 months). 53 See Géza Dávid, “Pozsega 16. századi szandzsákbégjei – kitekintés a 17. századra,” Keletkutatás (2020, ősz): 5–31, here 23. 54 Krafft 284, fol. 160r–v, Krafft 284, fol. 425v–426r, Tapu defteri 318, 4–5; Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Türkische Handschriften, Flügel Vol. 2, 1387 (Mxt. 597, 169);

432

Dávid

other settlement was uninterruptedly in the hands of the district governors. Generally speaking, three major and several smaller changes can be observed with the passing of time. Considerable overlapping is detectable between 1553–1554 and 1556, at least as far as places in the nahiyes of Hatvan and Pásztó (Ottoman Pastoç) are concerned. However, most of the 19 villages in the nahiye of Salgó (Ottoman Şalgo) disappear in two years, but this is not a miracle, since the castle of Salgó was conquered precisely at that time (Hungarian literature posits that the fort in question was taken by Toygun Pasha in September 1554) and dues could only be estimated (ber vech-i tahmin), specifying merely the sum total to be paid.55 In a short time, it may have turned out that taxes could not be collected from them or only in a limited extent. By 1560, several settlements had been taken away from the mirliva and 26 new places were granted to him instead. The next, perhaps most unusual transformation, since it happened within a year or so, can be witnessed in the case of Sinan bey. Two lists have survived containing his hases. The first more or less resembles the previous ones; the second shows a completely different picture. The number of settlements is reduced to 15, but most are more important localities, namely varoşes (i.e., oppida or market towns, according to previous Hungarian denomination, which the Turks usually accepted for their ranking). It is interesting to note that Eger is once again mentioned, this time as the seat of a nahiye, and the town itself is also allotted to the mirliva. The last significant restructuring of the has estates of the district governor of Hatvan occurred in 1592, when a few settlements were taken away from him and others were added to his sources of revenue. It is noteworthy that a couple of villages were granted to the beys from the sancak of Buda until 1579. This can be explained at the initial phase by saying that, at the start, the incomes of the liva were not enough to remunerate the chief administrator. However, by 1579 this explanation is no longer valid. The other reason for alterations in the structure of goods assigned to the district governors was the increase of revenue of the given settlements. For instance, one could, in principle, collect 9,715 akçe in 1553–1554 and 35,000 akçe in 1584 from Hatvan itself, which is a rise of more than 3.5.

55

Tapu defteri 662, 4; Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 325, 434; Tımar ruznamçe defteri 78, part Hatvan, 6 (my page numbering); Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 336, 478; Tapu defteri 675, 3. The values indicated for the relevant villages are generally identical with those given in the first mufassal defteri of the sancak in 1546 (probably misdated for 1550 by Fekete). Cf. Lajos Fekete, A Hatvani szandzsák 1550. évi összeírása (Jászsági Füzetek, 4.) (Jászberény: Jász Múzeum, 1968), passim.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

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Regionalism in sancakbeyi appointments has been usefully discussed by Metin Kunt, alongside other issues considered above.56 The practice followed in the district of Hatvan does not show a significant deviation from the general tendencies within the empire: four officials arrived from and left for a sancak in the vilayets of Buda and Temesvár (of whom one had been the aga of the gönüllüs in Buda); eight came from another centre of Ottoman Hungary; four were given another role (three as sancakbeyi¸ one as muharrir) within the vilayet of Buda; two had served in Rumelia prior to their post in Hatvan and subsequently returned to Rumelia; five had previously served in Rumelia; one had had a post in and one went to Anatolia; one had had a job in the court; and no relevant data whatsoever have survived for four of them. In other words, we can say that very few mirlivas were sent to Hatvan from faraway places and from Istanbul. 1

Veli Bey

Appointment: August (?) 1544 End of office: 12 November 1547 He came from Klis, where he was appointed on 18 September 1541, possibly from Ergani.57 He served in Hatvan between August (?) 1544 and 12 November 1547. From that day, he received İnebahtı. From 30 December, he ruled Esztergom. He remained there until 2 November 1551. His next place was Koppány. 2

Turahan (Turhan) Bey

Appointment: 12 November 1547 End of office: 15 April 1550 He arrived from İnebahtı, directly changing place with Veli, and possibly went to Thessaloniki. The sum total of his hases was 240,000 akçe when starting his office.58 56 Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants, 67–76. 57 For the details in the cases of Veli and Arslan see the notes above added to the text in which they are introduced. 58 Emecen and Şahin, “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının,” 62.

434 3

Dávid

Yahyapaşazade Arslan Bey

Appointment: 15 April 1550 End of office: 18 January 1553 The first reference to him is from 1530, when his çiftlik is mentioned. For some years he disappears from sight. He was granted Pozsega in 1537. He received Prizren on 18 November 1541. Then he possibly held office in Vučitrn. The next clear evidence about him dates to 15 April 1550, when he is transferred from Klis to Eger and Hatvan. From here he went directly to Székesfehérvár and was employed there until c. the beginning of October 1555. We find him in Silistra, which he leaves for Lippa on 5 January 1557. From there he moved to Mohács/Pécs, where he stayed until the summer of 1559. Somewhat later he is mentioned as a pensioner, although perhaps he was only dispossessed for a while. He was soon reactivated and sent back to his first “station,” Pozsega, on 18 October 1560. Next, he went to Szendrő, where he can first be traced on 23 June 1563. When Zal Mahmud Pasha was forced to leave Buda, he dealt with the affairs of the province between approximately 3 August and 20 November 1564. Partly because his performance in this capacity was outstanding, and partly because his name had already been circulating among possible candidates, on 10/12 May 1566, he became the provincial governor of Buda. He was executed on 3 August 1566, near Nagyharsány. He was granted 384,08459 or 300,86960 akçe. 4

Veli Bey (Second Time)

Appointment: 18 January 1553 End of office: before 10 October 1555 He returned to Hatvan from Koppány on 18 January 1553. He was transferred to Székesfehérvár before 10 October 1555.61 His term of office there lasted until approximately April 1559. He was then sent to Pozsega for some months, around July.62 We meet him in Szolnok between 1559 and 1562. He disap59 60 61 62

Ibid. Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 209, 36. Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. Káldy-Nagy, A Budai szandzsák, No. 78.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

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pears for a while. It seems plausible that he became district governor of Pécs between 1562 and 1563. He died there before 24 August 1563. His annual income amounted to 290,335 (or 290,226) akçe in 1553.63 5

Mehmed Bey

Appointment: before 10 October 155564 End of office: 30 October 155665 Neither his previous nor his next place of office is known. He received 250,338 akçe per annum.66 6

Mustafa Bey

Appointment: 30 October 1556 End of office: before 12 November 1557 He came from remote Nusaybin (today in Turkey, near the Syrian border, in the vicinity of Mardin) and received 250,000 akçe.67 His list of income in a prebend journal shows 250,338 akçe.68 7

Ahmed Bey

Appointment: before 12 November 1557 End of office: unknown He appears only when a missing part of his hases is spoken about on the date indicated above.69

63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Krafft 284, fol. 160r–v. Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek, 262, note 246. Mühimme defteri 2, 176, No. 1608; Krafft 284, fol. 425v–426r. Krafft 284, fol. 425v–426r. Mühimme defteri 2, 176, No. 1608. Krafft 284, fol. 425v–426r. Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 216a, 77.

436 8

Dávid

Hasan Bey

Appointment: 5 November 1558 End of office: 6 May 1560 He arrived from Delvine, and his following post was Adilcevaz (today in Turkey, north of the Lake Van).70 The sources of revenue granted to him amounted to 291,035 akçe.71 9

Mehmed Bey (Second Time)

Appointment: 6 May 1560 End of office: last mentioned on 17 October 1563 While out of office, he was charged, on 30 July 1559, with supervising the ferry place and arresting the rioters in the judicial administrative unit of Kandıra (today in Turkey, c.150 km east of Istanbul) and two months later with finding and handing over şehzade Bayezid’s (1525–1561) rebels.72 The sultan gave him Hatvan, together with the equivalent of his previous annual salary (namely, 250,338 akçe), but a short time later he received an increase of 40,000 akçe, reaching a total of 290,338 akçe.73 The last entry relating to him on 17 October 1563 concerns the village of Szurdokpüspöki (in Nógrád County), which was donated to him with the stipulation that “wherever he possesses a sancak,” it should remain a part of his hases.74 10

Ferhad Bey

Appointment: before 30 November 1563 End of office: unknown

70 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 216, 25; Mühimme defteri 4, 67, No. 680, respectively. 71 Tapu defteri 318, 4–5. 72 3 numaralı mühimme defteri (966–968 / 1558–1560) Özet ve transkripsiyon. (T.C. Başba­ kanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Başkanlığı, 12. Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn sicilleri dizisi, I.) (Ankara 1993), 66, No. 157; 116, No. 298. 73 Mühimme defteri 4, 67, No. 681. 74 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 218, 61 (earlier 37).

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

437

We only meet him when his intervention on behalf of a timar-holder on the date indicated above is positively taken into consideration by the Imperial Council.75 11

Mehmed Bey (Third Time?)

Appointment: before 11 December 1564 End of office: 26 February 1565 He is first referred to on the date above.76 His next post was Esztergom,77 where he died on 17 September, 1567.78 12

Ahmed Bey

Appointment: 26 February 1565 End of office: c.15 October 1566 He received Hatvan as a müteferrika of the Sublime Porte, with the starting sum of 200,000 akçe,79 which was increased by 20,000 akçe in April 1566.80 13

Şehsüvar Bey

Appointment: c.15 October 1566 End of office: 13 March 156881

75 76 77 78

Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 218, 88 (earlier 64). Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 74, 351. Ibid., 463. Antal Velics  – Ernő Kammerer, Magyarországi török kincstári defterek. II. (1540–1639). (Budapest: Atheneum Társulat, 1890), 373.  – The 1570 detailed survey of the sancak speaks about a deceased Mehmed bey who founded a tekke for the dervishes of Osman baba within the castle at an unspecified date. Consequently, it cannot be judged which Mehmed established the lodge. See Tapu defteri 550, 16. Published by Gusztáv Bayerle, A Hatvani szandzsák adóösszeírása 1570 – ből. Defter[-i] mufaşşal-i [sic!] livā[-i] Ḥaṭvān. (Hatvani Lajos Múzeum Füzetek, 14.) (Hatvan 1998), 28. 79 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 74, 467. 80 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 220, 67. 81 BOA, Tımar ruznamçe defteri 25, 56.

438

Dávid

Before his appointment to Hatvan, he was the aga of the gönüllüs of Buda.82 He then went to Lippa, where he first enjoyed 264,093 akçe; probably the same sum as in his previous place.83 In all likelihood, he cannot be identified as the famous Şehsüvar bey of the 1580s.84 14

Ahmed Bey

Appointment: 13 March 1568 End of office: 4 March 1570 He arrived from Lippa. His later career cannot be followed. His yearly income reached 287,317 akçe, but a part of it could not be assigned.85 From an order of the Imperial Council, we learn that he was the son of Toygun Pasha, the beylerbeyi of Buda (1553–1556 and 1558–1559).86 15

Sinan Bey

Appointment: 4 March 1570 End of office: 10 July 1572 He came from Simontornya87 and went on to Szekszárd.88 His prebends, with some surplus (ziyade), were 272,278 akçe, which were rounded down  (?) to 250,000 akçe, once again a little more than the unspecified official amount.89

82

Maliyeden müdevver defterler 2356, 19. The date corresponds to his taking over his insignia during the campaign of Szigetvár. 83 Maliyeden müdevver defterler 563, 61. From Lippa he went to Amasya and then returned to the town on the left bank of the River Maros on 28 October 1577. Cf. Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 28. 84 This other officeholder was active in Csanád (Romanian Cenad) and Szécsény in the same period. See Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 29, 23, respectively. 85 Maliyeden müdevver defterler 563, 61. 86 7 numaralı mühimme defteri (975–976 / 1567–1569). Özet  – transkripsiyon  – indeks. III. (T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Başkanlığı, 37. Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn sicilleri dizisi, V.), (Ankara 1999), 155–56, No. 2288. 87 Maliyeden müdevver defterler 563, 51. 88 Ibid., 53. 89 Ibid., 51.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

439

He is obviously different from another Sinan also active in Hungary at that time.90 16

Mahmud Bey

Appointment: 10 July 1572 End of office: 5 January 1578 His previous and first post as district governor was Szekszárd; he had earlier been the defter kethüdası of the vilayet of Buda.91 His hases in Hatvan amounted to 269,564 akçe.92 His next “station” is unknown. 17

Ahmed Bey

Appointment: 5 January 1578 End of office: before 2 March 1579 He had previously been active in the sancak of Pakriç (Hungarian Pakrác, Croatian Pakrac)/Zaçasna. He was granted 312,818/315,064 akçe.93 A little later, he was charged with preparing the new cadastral surveys of Pécs, Szigetvár (Ottoman Sigetvar)94 and Nógrád (Ottoman Novigrad),95 perhaps also of Szekszárd.96 18

İskender Bey

Appointment: before 2 March 1579 End of office: 30 July 1579

90 91 92 93 94 95

Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants, 152–53. Maliyeden müdevver defterler 563, 53. Ibid., 51. Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 20. Mühimme defteri 39, 24, No. 60. Géza Dávid, “Defter,” in Jankovich Miklós (1772–1846) gyűjteményei (Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2002), 259, No. 238. 96 Mühimme defteri 39, 321, No. 621.

440

Dávid

He appears in a mühimme defteri entry on the above date.97 He was the son of Ulama bey/pasha. His next office is unknown. He probably enjoyed the same revenues as his successor: 315,064 akçe.98 19

Sinan Bey

Appointment: 30 July 1579 End of office: 18 January 1583 Before Hatvan, he administered the sancak of Dukagin. The district to which he was next appointed remains obscure. The nominal value of his estates was 330,000 akçe, but only 315,064 akçe was actually allocated to him (in the form of ber vech-i tekmil).99 20

Mehmed100 Bey

Appointment: 18 January 1583 End of office: 8 April 1584 He was the district governor of Lippa until the date given above.101 He then went to Szekszárd.102 Though it happened rarely, he had to except somewhat

97 Mühimme defteri 33, 64, No. 714. Two petitions by him have survived, both dated on 5 May 1579. See: Claudia Römer, Osmanische Festungsbesatzungen in Ungarn zur Zeit Murāds III. Dargestellt anhand von Petitionen und Stellenvergabe (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Schriften der BalkanKommission. Philologische Abteilung.) (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995), 165–67, Nos. 29 and 30. 98 Flügel 1387, 169. 99 Ibid. The icmal defteri of 1580 is misleading since it only enumerates sources of income coming up to 289,664 akçe (cf. Tapu defteri 662, 4) but the villages and mezraas belonging to the liva of Buda are missing from this list while we find them in the ruznamçe cited in the preceding note. 100 A Hungarian letter gave his byname as “Karaferi” which suggests that he probably originated from Veroia (Ottoman Karaferye), Greece. Cf. Pál Jedlicska, Adatok erdődi báró Pálffy Miklós a győri hősnek életrajza és korához. 1552–1600 (Eger: Az Érseki Liceum Könyvnyomdája, 1897), 265. 101 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 20. 102 Ibid., 22.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

441

less in Hatvan than he had earlier been entitled to: instead of 250,193 akçe, he received only 241,693.103 21

Hacı/Elhac104 Bey

Appointment: 8 April 1584 End of office: 14 February 1585 The relevant prebend journal preserved three of his earlier centres of activity in particular, namely, Vidin, Shkodër (Ottoman İskenderiye) and Thessaloniki. More accurately, he was only appointed to this latter administrative unit, but he did not succeed in actually taking it over (müyesser olmamagla).105 Though he should have received 361,000 (or 360,000) akçe, only 289,664 could be collected for him.106 22

Mehmed Bey (Second Time)

Appointment: 14 February 1585 End of office: 5 September 1588 The explanatory part of the relevant entry in the prebend journal of 1585 explicitly states that he had previously been the bey of Hatvan, where he was granted 287,860 akçe instead of 310,992.107 His next office is unknown. 23

Osman Bey

Appointment: 5 September 1588 End of office: before 17 August 1589 103 Ibid., 20. 104 This form was used in a document given to the Franciscans of Gyöngyös and the priests of Nagyvárad (Romanian Oradea) in July 1584. Cf. Magyar Ferences Könyvtár és Levéltár, Gyűjtemények, XII/2, Török levelek, No. 83. 105 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 325, 434. Another source states that he was dispossessed from Thessaloniki (Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 20); in practice this meant the same unfavourable position. 106 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 325, 434. 107 Tımar ruznamçe defteri 78, part Hatvan, 6 (my page numbering).

442

Dávid

He came from Esztergom and began his role in Hatvan on the above date.108 We have no data regarding either his annual income or his later life. 24

Mehmed Bey (Third Time?)

Appointment: before 17 August 1589 End of office: 22 August 1589 He first appears in this position in a document concerning an initial tımar bestowal.109 One month later, he was sent to Székesfehérvár.110 We cannot confirm if he can be identified with the Mehmeds under Nos. 20 and 22. 25

Mustafa Bey

Appointment: 22 August 1589 End of office: 12 June 1590 Mustafa was the mirliva of Kyustendil (Ottoman Köstendil).111 No other relevant details are known about him. 26

Ali Bey

Appointment: 12 June 1590 End of office: before 29 October 1590112 He had been the sancakbeyi of Nógrád and Szécsény prior to his appointment to Hatvan. Though his nominal hases were 360,260 akçe, he had to accept a lower sum (ber vech-i tekmil): 289,664 akçe.113

108 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 262, 20. 109 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 252, 43. 110 Ibid., 48. 111 Ibid. 112 Tımar ruznamçe defteri 131, part Szolnok, 29–30 (my page numbering). 113 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 336, 478.

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

27

443

Osman Bey

Appointment: before 29 October 1590 End of office: no actual activity in Hatvan The earlier district governor of Szécsény, Osman bey had received the sancak of Hatvan before the above date. However, for various reasons, he was unable to take up his service there (müyesser olmayan). This was resolved by giving him the sancak of Szolnok.114 28

Mahmud Bey

Appointment: unknown End of office: 28 May 1592 His office in Hatvan can be proven indirectly. A prolonged initial tımar bestowal was based on his recommendation (mukaddema Hatvan beyi Mahmud). Though the tezkere issued finally bears the date of 1 November 1592, it may well refer to a prior period from late 1590.115 29

Hüseyn Bey

Appointment: 28 May 1592 End of office: before 14 July 1592 His short term of office began on the day shown above. He arrived from Szécsény.116 His revenues reached 289,755 akçe, according to the last icmal def­ teri of the sancak of Hatvan.117 The circumstances of his departure cannot be definitively clarified; we only find a ruznamçe entry with the above date in connection with his follower: this contains Arslan bey’s initiative of appointing the alaybeyi of the liva.118 114 Tımar ruznamçe defteri 131, part Szolnok, 29–30 (my page numbering). 115 Tımar ruznamçe defteri 143, part Buda, 5. 116 Klára Hegyi, A török hódoltság várai és várkatonasága. II. (História Könyvtár. Kronológiák, adattárak, 9.) (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 2007), 885, note 5. Based on Maliyeden müdevver defterler 15957, 885. 117 Tapu defteri 675, 3. 118 Tımar ruznamçe defteri 168, part Hatvan, 13–15 (my page numbering).

444 30

Dávid

Arslan Bey

Appointment: before 14 July 1592 End of office: died on 3 September 1596 We first hear of him as the sancakbeyi of Hatvan, in the above-cited document (see No. 29). Both Turkish and European sources agree on his being the son of Sarı Ali bey, a prominent commandant of the Hungarian border region.119 Arslan accompanied his father to Çıldır, where the latter became the beylerbeyi. After his father’s death, Arslan returned to the European hemisphere of the empire. In 1594, he bravely defended Hatvan, his seat, for more than two months.120 However, in 1596, despite his fierce fight, he failed to escape death during the attack of the Habsburg troops.121 The date of his passing away is preserved in contemporary Hungarian chronicles.122 31

Nebi Bey

Appointment: unknown End of office: 16 May 1598 The last sancakbeyi to be detected arrived to Hatvan at an unidentified date and remained there until the above day, when he was sent to Nógrád.123 One district governor may possibly be missing before Nebi and undoubtedly one is missing after him. My next piece of information regarding a Hüseyn bey here dates to January 1601.124

119 For his short biography see İbrahim Peçevi, Tārīḫ-i Peçevī, 2 Vols. (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-i ʿĀmire, 1281–83), vol. 2, 451. 120 In one of Arslan’s personal recommendations the court’s attention is called upon a soldier who fought heroically 66 days during the siege; the warrior in question got an initial timar. See Tımar ruznamçe defteri 259, 565. 121 Cf. Tārīḫ-i Peçevī, vol. 2. 451–52. 122 Among others: Rövid magyar kronika. Sok rend-béli fő historiás könyvekböl nagy szorgalmatossággal egybe szedettetett és irattatott Petthö Gergelytül. (Kassa 1753, reprint Debrecen 1993), 142. Cited by Nándor Szederkényi, Heves vármegye története. II. (Eger: Heves Vármegye Közönsége, 1890), 287–88. 123 Kâmil Kepeci tasnifi 254, 50. 124 Velics–Kammerer, Magyarországi török kincstári defterek, II. 702.

445

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century



Appendix Date of Start, End and Duration of Appointment, Previous and Following Places of Service, and Amount of Income of the sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

Name

Start of servicea

End of service

Duration of service

Veli

August (?) 1544

c.39 months Klis

Nafpaktos

Turahan Arslan Veli 2nd time Mehmed

12 November 1547 15 April 1550 18 January 1553

12 November 1547 15 April 1550 18 January 1553 before 10 October 1555 30 October 1556

29 months Nafpaktos 33 months Klis c.33 months Koppány

Thessaloniki? 240,000 Székesfehérvár 384,084 Székesfehérvár 290,335

Mustafa

around 10 October 1555 30 October 1556

Ahmed

c.12 November 1557

c.12 November 1557 ?

Hasan

?

6 May 1560

Mehmed 6 May 1560 2nd time Ferhad

after 17 October 1563

Mehmed before 11 December 3rd time? 1564 Ahmed 26 February 1565

last mentioned on 17 October 1563 mentioned on 30 November 1563 26 February 1565 c.15 October 1566

Previous place of service

Next place of service

13 months

Amount of hases (akçe)b

250,338

13 months

Nusaybin

c.15.5 months c.15.5 months 42 months

Delvine

250,338

Adilcevaz

mazul from Hatvan

291,035 290,338

less than 2 months 3 months 20 months

Esztergom müteferrika

220,000

a Figures are rounded up or down and indicated in months. b Always the highest value will be shown, independent of whether the given person really received that sum or had an outstanding part of it.

446

Dávid

(cont.) Name

Start of service

End of service

Duration of service

Şehsüvar c.15 October 1566

13 March 1568

17 months

Ahmed Sinan Mahmud Ahmed

13 March 1568 4 March 1570 10 July 1572 5 January 1578

4 March 1570 10 July 1572 5 January 1578 c.2 March 1579

İskender Sinan Mehmed Hacı/ Elhac Mehmed ş2nd time Osman

c.2 March 1579 30 July 1579 18 January 1583 8 April 1584

Mehmed 3rd time? Mustafa Ali

before 17 August 1589 22 August 1589 12 June 1590

30 July 1579 18 January 1583 8 April 1584 14 February 1585 5 September 1588 before 17 August 12 months 1589 22 August 1589 less than 1 month 12 June 1590 11 months before 4 months? 29 October 1590 0 days

14 February 1585 5 September 1588

Osman

before 29 October 1590 Mahmud ? Hüseyn 28 May 1592 Arslan

before 14 July 1592

Nebi

?

28 May 1592 before 14 July 1592 3 September 1596 16 May 1598

Previous place of service

Next place of service

aga of the Lippa gönüllüs in Buda 24 months Lippa 28 months Simontornya Szekszárd 66 months Szekszárd c.13 months Zaçasna muharrir in the vilayet of Buda c.5 months 42 months Dukagin 15 months Lippa 11 months mazul from Thessaloniki 43 months Hatvan

264,093

287,317 250,000 269,564 315,064 315,064 ? 330,000 250,193 361,000 310,992

Esztergom Székesfehérvár Köstendil Szécsény

360,260

Szécsény

? more than 1 Szécsény month 50 months ?

Amount of hases (akçe)

289,755

Nógrád

The Sancakbeyis of Hatvan in the 16th Century

447

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Dávid, Géza. “Defter.” In Jankovich Miklós (1772–1846) gyűjteményei. Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2002, 259. Dávid, Géza. Osmanlı Macaristan’ında toplum, ekonomi ve yönetim. 16. yüzyılda Simontornya sancağı. İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1999. Dávid, Géza. “Mohács – Pécs 16. századi bégjei.” In Pécs a törökkorban, eds. Ferenc Szakály and József Vonyó, 85–123. (Tanulmányok Pécs Történetéből, 7.) Pécs: Pécs Története Alapítvány, 1999. Dávid, Géza. “Török közigazgatás Magyarországon.” PhD thesis, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest 1995. Dávid, Géza. “The Sancakbegis of Arad and Gyula.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 46 (1992/93): 143–62. Dávid, Géza. “Die Bege von Szigetvár im 16. Jahrhundert.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes in memoriam Anton C. Schaendlinger 82 (1992): 67–96. Emecen, Feridun M. and İlhan Şahin. “Osmanlı taşra teşkilâtının kaynaklarından 957–958 (1550–1551) tarihli sancak tevcîh defteri.” Belgeler 23 (1999): 53–121. Fekete, Lajos. A Hatvani szandzsák 1550. évi összeírása. (Jászsági Füzetek, 4.) Jászberény: Jász Múzeum, 1968. Fekete, Lajos. “Osmanlı Türkleri ve Macarlar, 1366–1699.” Belleten 13,52 (1949): 663–743. Flügel, Gustav. Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der KaiserlichKöniglichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien, Vol. 2. Wien: Druck und Verlag der K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865. Hegyi, Klára. A török hódoltság várai és várkatonasága. II. (História Könyvtár. Kronológiák, adattárak, 9.) Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 2007. İpçioğlu, Mehmet. “Kanunî Süleyman’ın Estergon (Esztergom) seferi 1543. Yeni bir kaynak.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 10 (1990): 137–59. Jedlicska, Pál. Adatok erdődi báró Pálffy Miklós a győri hősnek életrajza és korához. 1552–1600. Eger: Az Érseki Liceum Könyvnyomdája, 1897. Káldy-Nagy, Gyula. A Budai szandzsák 1559. évi összeírása. (Pest Megye Múltjából, 3.) Budapest: Pest Megyei Levéltár, 1977. Káldy-Nagy, Gyula. Kanuni devri Budin tahrir defteri (1546–1562). Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1971. Köhbach, Markus. Die Eroberung von Fülek durch die Osmanen 1554. Eine historischquellenkritische Studie zur osmanischen Expansion im östlichen Mitteleuropa. (Zur Kunde Südosteuropas II, vol. 18.) Wien – Köln – Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1994. Kunt, I. Metin. The Sultan’s Servants. The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550–1650. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Monumenta Habsburgica Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae, Slavoniae/Habsburški spomenici kraljevine Hrvatske, Dalmacije i Slavonije. III. Od 1544 godine do godine 1554, uredio Emilij Laszowski. (Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridiolanium, 40.) Zagreb: Tisak Dioničke Tiskare, 1917.

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Pannoni, Nicolai Isthvanfi. Historiarum de rebus ungaricis, libri XXXIV. Coloniae Agrippinae: Sumptibus Antonij Hierati, 1622. Römer, Claudia and Nicolas Vatin. “The Lion that was Only a Cat. Some Notes on the Last Years and the Death of Arslan Pasha, bey of Semendire and beylerbeyi of Buda.” In Şerefe. Studies in Honour of Prof. Géza Dávid on his Seventieth Birthday, eds. Pál Fodor et al., 159–82. Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2019. Römer, Claudia. “Zu widersprüchlichen Beurteilungen eines Rechtsstreits durch die Kanzlei des Beglerbegi von Buda, Arslan Paša, im Jahr 1565.” Mitteilungen der Grazer Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 8 (1999): 29–41. Römer, Claudia. Osmanische Festungsbesatzungen in Ungarn zur Zeit Murāds III. Dar­ gestellt anhand von Petitionen und Stellenvergabe. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Schriften der Balkan-Kommission. Philologische Abteilung.) Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995. Römer, Claudia. “On Some Ḫāṣṣ-Estates Illegally Claimed by Arslan Paša, Beglerbegi of Buda, 1565–1566.” In Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber, 297–317. Istanbul: ISIS, 1994. Rövid magyar kronika. Sok rend-béli fő historiás könyvekböl nagy szorgalmatossággal egybe szedettetett és irattatott Petthö Gergelytül. Kassa 1753, reprint Debrecen 1993. Szederkényi, Nándor. Heves vármegye története. II. Eger: Heves Vármegye Közönsége, 1890. Tomkó, Viktor. “Török közigazgatás Magyarországon: a szolnoki szandzsákbégek története. I.” In Zounuk. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár Évkönyve 19. Szolnok: Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár, 2004. Velics–Ernő Kammerer, Antal. Magyarországi török kincstári defterek. II. (1540–1639). Budapest: Atheneum Társulat, 1890. Verancsics Antal m. kir. helytartó, esztergomi érsek összes munkái. VII. Vegyes levelek, 1549–1559. Közli László Szalay. (Magyar Történelmi Emlékek. Második osztály, írók, 10.) Pest: Eggenberger Ferdinánd, 1865.



Internet Sources

https://geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=520510&fid=3576&c =kosovo: 42°51′24.0″N 21°07′03.0″E (accessed 25 May 2021).

18 Paths of Glory: The Rise of the Köprülüs and the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi (1663) Özgür Kolçak In Ottoman historical studies, the Köprülü rise to power in the second half of the 17th century has long attracted avid scholarly attention. Notwithstanding the need for further studies unraveling the intricacies of the initial phases of the Köprülü government and, in particular, Köprülü Mehmed’s tenure in the grand vizierate (1656–1661) and the first years of Fazıl Ahmed’s office, the relevant literature for the most part unanimously agrees on the factors leading to the pertinacious seizure of political power by the Köprülü viziers. Succeeding a period of political instability and weak governments marked by strikingly swift changes in the office of the grand vizier, Köprülü Mehmed was aided in his venture by an auspicious set of circumstances: (1) the 1656 Incident (i.e., Çınar Vakası) in Istanbul that wiped out major political actors and created a vacuum for a fresh reconfiguration; (2) the harsh and bloody methods applied by Köprülü Mehmed against his rivals; (3) the Queen Mother Turhan Sultan and Mehmed IV’s support for their chosen grand vizier.1 Köprülü Mehmed’s yielding of political power was, nevertheless, not without opposition. Deli Hüseyin (d. 1658, celebrated commander of Ottoman forces in Crete), Seydi Ahmed (d. 1660), and the renowned Celâli leader Abaza Hasan (d. 1659), among several candidates, considered themselves better suited for the grand vizierial office. In the end, though, they all paid the price for this with their lives. In 1661, Köprülü Mehmed succeeded in passing the seal of the grand vizierate to his son, Fazıl Ahmed – a unique phenomenon in 1 Recently, Ottoman Studies have been enormously impoverished by the passing of İ. Metin Kunt. His pioneering work in Ottoman history and the Köprülü era, specifically, opened the path for future generations of scholars, and left a distinguished mark in the field. İ. Metin Kunt, “The Köprülü Years: 1656–1661,” (PhD diss., Princeton University, New Jersey 1971); Halil İnalcık, Devlet-i ʿAliyye. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Araştırmalar  – III. Köprülüler Devri (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2015), 27–60; Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier: Politics and Patronage in the Ottoman Empire during the Grand Vizierate of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha (1661–1676),” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 2016), 17–55; Cumhur Bekar, “The Rise of the Köprülü Family: The Reconfiguration of Vizierial Power in the Seventeenth Century,” (PhD diss., University of Leiden, Leiden 2019).

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Ottoman administrative history. Before this, two basic characteristics of the Köprülü house were already becoming apparent: it sought political prosperity through victories attained on the battlefield and employed these military triumphs to accumulate family wealth in the regions recently occupied by Ottoman armies.2 Fazıl Ahmed undertook his father’s legacy to build up a fully-fledged political house with immense riches. However, like his father a few years before, in his early years in power, he suffered critical moments when he came very close to being dismissed from the grand vizierate. In this paper, I will describe the attempt of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi, the reisülküttab (chief of clerks), to secure the grand vizierate for his son-in-law, Kadızade İbrahim, in 1663, and analyze the disagreement within the Ottoman political leadership regarding the possible prospects of a shift of power between the Köprülü and Şamizade houses. The critical question in this context is whether these two figures were part of a larger factional rivalry in the imperial court, and the arguments they applied in their struggle to lead Ottoman power. A narrative of events will show that in 1663 the Köprülü government under Fazıl Ahmed was unable to enjoy the uncontested authority it would gain in later years. 1

A Narrative of Events: The Uyvar Campaign and the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed

On September 12 1663, the Ottoman army was busy besieging the fortress of Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky, Slovakia) in Habsburg Hungary. A few months before, the political tension over Transylvania had escalated into massive military clashes between the Ottoman and Habsburg armies. In August, the Ottomans were able to crush a German-Hungarian force that attempted a surprise attack on the Ottoman army at Ciğerdelen (Párkány/Štúrovo, Slovakia). However, that day the Ottoman soldiers besieging the fortress were astonished by the circulating news of the execution of the esteemed reisülküttab Şamizade Mehmed 2 İ. Metin Kunt, “The Waqf as an Instrument of Public Policy: Notes on the Köprülü Family Endowments,” in Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1994), 189–98; Özgür Kolçak, “A Transylvanian Ruler in the Talons of the ‘Hawks’: György Rákóczi II and Köprülü Mehmed Paşa,” in Turkey & Romania: A History of Partnership and Collaboration in the Balkans, eds. Florentina Nitu et al. (İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Belediyeler Birliği, 2016), 341–59; Özgür Kolçak, “Köprülü Enterprises in Yanova ([Boros]Jenő/Ineu) and Varad ([Nagy]Várad/Oradea): Consolidating Ottoman Power and Accumulating Family Wealth (1657–1664),” Archivum Ottomanicum 37 (2020): 69–85.

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and his son-in-law Kadızade İbrahim, the pasha of Niğbolu. According to the chronicler Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa, the rumor was that Şamizade Mehmed had secretly written a letter to the court complaining about the inept decisions and actions of the 27-year-old grand vizier, Fazıl Ahmed. Şamizade suggested a replacement for the office who would fare better at the job: his son-in-law, Kadızade İbrahim. Interestingly, Şamizade’s letter was forwarded by Sultan Mehmed IV to Fazıl Ahmed with the addition of an imperial order asking his grand vizier to answer the charges. Nevertheless, the sultan permitted Fazıl Ahmed to deal with the author of the letter when his accusations had been proven wrong. On Fazıl Ahmed’s order, first Şamizade Mehmed and then Kadızade İbrahim were strangled in the trenches.3 Their severed heads were then carried by Çevik Haseki, a kapucılar kethüdası (superintendent of the gatekeepers), to Adrianople, where they were publicly displayed before the royal palace for a few days.4 As one of the most comprehensive descriptions of this event, Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa’s narrative seems to be a recollection of details that made their way through time and space to the Ottoman courtly circles of the last decades of the 17th century. To gain a better understanding of the disputes revolving around Şamizade Mehmed’s death, we need to take a closer look at the chronicles and reports produced by contemporary observers. To begin with, Ottoman authors in the company of the grand vizier remain intriguingly silent on the matter. Both Ta’ib Ömer and Mehmed Necati, whose work sought to broadcast the virtues and good deeds of Fazıl Ahmed, and to promote his campaigns as the fulfillment of divine will, utter not a single word on the Şamizade incident.5 Mühürdar Hasan Ağa, the seal-bearer of the grand vizier, who otherwise provides the most elaborate account of the 1663–1664 campaigns, merely notes, in a few phrases, the righteousness of his master, in executing the reisülküttab and his son-in-law without discussing the circumstances of a broader political struggle. He was, after all, sure that “the entire world was filled with joy after these [two] were killed.” He further adds that as they had committed 3 Nazire Karaçay Türkal, “Silahdar Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa, Zeyl-i Fezleke (1065–22 Ca. 1106 / 1654–7 Şubat 1695),” (PhD diss., Marmara University, İstanbul 2012), 307–8 [=Zeyl-i Fezleke]. 4 Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa, Vekâyiʿ-nâme: Osmanlı Târihi (1648–1682), Tahlil ve Metin Tenkidi, ed. Fahri Ç. Derin (İstanbul: Çamlıca, 2008), 159–60 [=Vekâyi‘-nâme]. See also the marginal note inserted in a copy of Ibn Kemal’s chronicle in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, H.O. 46a, fol. 124r. 5 Tâʾib Ömer, Fethiyye-i Uyvar ve Novigrad, Istanbul, Istanbul University Rare Books Library, İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal, no. 2602; Mehmed Necati, Ez-Menâkıbât-ı Gazâ ve Cihâd (Târîh-i Sultân Mehmed Hân bin İbrahim Hân), Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, no. 1308. Cf. Cengiz Ünlütaş, “Tarih-i Sultan Mehmed Han (bin) İbrahim Han,” (MA thesis, Ege University, İzmir 1998).

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uncountable crimes, “everybody blessed [their] master for this deed.”6 Osman Dede of Erzurum, another member of the Köprülü household, assures his readers of the above conviction by stating that “they [Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim] had both transgressed their boundaries in the extreme.”7 In turning a blind eye to the possible outcomes of a conflict with the powerful reisülküttab and his candidate for the grand vizierate, authors with ties to the Köprülü household were actually reflecting earnest anxiety. Şamizade Mehmed had been an influential member of the Ottoman government since 1656 and had a very close relationship with Turhan Sultan, the queen mother, who in 1663 still partly held the reigns of the Ottoman state.8 On the contrary, according to several sources, from the moment Fazıl Ahmed took charge of the top vizierial office in the empire, he was not particularly favored by Turhan Sultan.9 Fazıl Ahmed, acknowledging the formidable strength of the coalition of Turhan Sultan, Solak Mehmed Ağa (the chief imperial eunuch), and the reisülküttab against him, a year earlier when he was in Istanbul, might have sought the support of Şamizade Mehmed.10 Şamizade also possessed legendary wealth that became a popular topic of gossip among the soldiers in the Ottoman camp.11 Therefore, we might argue that his advice to the court that Kadızade İbrahim, who was raised within the Şamizade house and formerly served him as chamberlain (kethüda),12 should be appointed grand vizier in place of Fazıl Ahmed, was built on solid ground. 6

Abubekir Sıddık Yücel, “Mühürdar Hasan Ağa‌’nın Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh’i,” (PhD diss., Erciyes Üniversitesi, Kayseri 1996), 172 [=Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh]. “Mezbûrlar katl olındukdan sonra cümle ʿâlem şâd oldı. Zîrâ kabahatleri başdan aşmış idi. Efendimüz tahammül idemeyüp katl eyledi ve herkes efendimüze bu husûs içün duʿâ eyledi”. 7 Arslan Boyraz, “Köprülüzâde Fazıl Ahmet Paşa Devrinde (1069–1080) Vukuatı Tarihi: Trans­kripsiyon ve Değerlendirme,” (MA thesis, Marmara University, İstanbul 2002), 17. “İkisinin dahi cerîmeleri kendü hadlerini ziyâde tecâvüz eylemeleri idi”. 8 Paul Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire, from the Year 1623, to the Year 1677. Containing the Reigns of the Last Three Emperors, viz. Sultan Morat, or Amurat IV. Sultan İbrahim and Sultan Mahomet IV, His Son, the Thirteenth Emperor, Now Reigning (London: Printed by J.D. for Tho. Baffet, R. Clavell, J. Robinson, and A. Churchill, MDCLXXXVII), 112; Ekin Emine Tusalp Atiyas, “Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence: Ottoman Scribal Community in the Seventeenth Century,” (PhD diss., Harvard University, Boston 2013), 134; Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier,” 104; Cumhur Bekar, “The Rise of the Köprülü Family,” 118–24. 9 Nicoló Barozzi and Guglielmo Berchet, Le Relazioni degli Stati Europei Lette al Senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneziani nel Secolo Decimosettimo, Turchia I/2 (Venezia: P. Naratovich Edit., 1872), 206, 257; Erhan Afyoncu and Uğur Demir, Turhan Sultan (İstanbul: Yeditepe Yayınevi, 2015), 152–53; Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier,” 106. 10 Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire, 116–17. 11 Ibid., 135–36. 12 Vekâyiʿ-nâme, 159–60; Zeyl-i Fezleke, 307.

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A detail asserted by Levinus Warner, the resident ambassador of the Dutch Republic to the Porte (1655–1665), helps us to assess the gravity of the machinations taking place between the Ottoman military quarters at Érsekújvár and the Ottoman court in Adrianople. According to Warner, Şamizade’s letter calling for the doom of Fazıl Ahmed was addressed to Turhan Sultan, not to Mehmed IV.13 For this reason, in his doctoral dissertation on the rise of the Köprülü family, Cumhur Bekar convincingly argues that it was eventually the sultan who sanctioned the execution of Şamizade and Kadızade, as an act of defiance against his mother’s authority over state affairs.14 Evliya Çelebi, the renowned 17th-century Ottoman traveler, was indirectly involved in the scuffle. He joined the Ottoman army at Osijek, Croatia, in the first days of July 1663, in the retinue of Kadızade İbrahim.15 Evliya Çelebi’s perspective of the events as an enlisted member of Kadızade İbrahim’s troops gives us a solid foothold to counterweight the line of narrative upheld by the aforementioned chroniclers fostered by the Köprülüs. The day Kadızade İbrahim was summoned to Fazıl Ahmed’s tent, Evliya Çelebi was having breakfast with him in the company of a few other notables. Kadızade İbrahim adopted a worried look when leaving his tent to meet Fazıl Ahmed, as noted by Evliya Çelebi. Evliya, interpreting this as a bad omen, unwittingly rushed to Köse Ali Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman army in Transylvania in 1661. Although he does not explicitly state the purpose of carrying the news to Köse Ali, Evliya might have hoped that the commander-in-chief would intervene in the affair in favor of his benefactor. In his narrative, Evliya concurs with Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa in that Şamizade Mehmed had dispatched a letter to Adrianople asking the grand vizierate for his son-in-law, İbrahim. Evliya claims to have been an eyewitness to the scene where an enraged Fazıl Ahmed, waving a letter in his hand, interrogated Şamizade. Evliya appears to be the only Ottoman author close to the disputes in the Ottoman camp who refers to Şamizade’s letter. The fact that Evliya’s work was not in circulation in Constantinople before the mid-18th century 13

Levini Warneri, De Rebus Turcicis. Epistolae Ineditae, ed. G.N. du Rieu (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1883), 93–95, no. 94, 16 October 1663, Constantinople. I am grateful to Cumhur Bekar for drawing my attention to Warner’s letter and for providing me with a translated version of the document. 14 Bekar, “The Rise of the Köprülü Family,” 121–22. 15 In his travel book, Evliya Çelebi refers to Kadızade İbrahim as “our master” on several occasions. See, for example: Evliya Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, 6. Kitap: Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi Revan 1457 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsiyonu-Dizini, eds. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2002), 155, 172 [= Seyahatnâme, VI].

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lends credibility to Fındıklılı Mehmed’s account.16 In this letter, according to the accounts given by Evliya Çelebi, Şamizade Mehmed supposedly recommended his son-in-law for the grand vizierate because it was not Fazıl Ahmed but İbrahim Pasha who had been victorious at Ciğerdelen. Fazıl Ahmed was no more than an awkward and unseasoned youth, he claimed. The reisülküttab denied having written such a document and argued that his seal had been counterfeited, but to no avail. However, Evliya’s account begins with his last words on the day that his patron, Kadızade İbrahim, and the reisülküttab were strangled. Evliya condemns his own account of the day in that it was recited repeatedly by those lacking the true facts of the incident. Evliya claims to have details and inside knowledge, and maintains that he had seen the turn of events coming as early as the first day on which Kadızade İbrahim had joined the main Ottoman army at Osijek, two and a half months earlier.17 According to Evliya, writing about the day that Kadızade İbrahim first encountered Fazıl Ahmed in the Ottoman army, Kadızade’s entry into the camp had become a spectacle that was discussed by various parties. He pompously paraded through the army dressed in flamboyant clothes, girded with spectacular weapons, “as if he were a grand vizier.” He led a formidable force of over 3,000 men, clearly exceeding the number expected from someone in charge of the modest district of Niğbolu. By all accounts, Evliya was very pleased at being part of such a flamboyant entourage and seems to have considerably inflated the total number of men under Kadızade İbrahim’s banner. Andreas Höltzel, an Austrian spy in the Ottoman camp in 1663, and an anonymous list enumerating Ottoman troops at the siege of Érsekújvár, attribute a unit of 300 men to Kadızade İbrahim.18 However, not everyone shared Evliya’s sentiments on Kadızade’s entourage. Some among the army reproved Kadızade for displaying a “vizier-like” spectacle despite being merely a governor. Others, most likely including Evliya, found it befitting the “state of his patron, the reisüküttab.” For them, after all, it was customary for a protégé to make a splendid appearance at a military venture, masterminded by his patron along with other dignitaries.19 16 Pierre A. McKay, “The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi, Part I: The Archetype,” Der Islam, 52,2 (1975): 278–98; Uğur Demir, “Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi’nin Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi’ne İntikali Meselesi,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 39 (2012): 205–16. 17 Seyahatnâme, VI, 201–3. 18 Andreas Höltzel, Relatione, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Ital. Fol. 53, fols. 90r–91v; Martin Meyer, Diarium Europaeum Insertis quibusdam, maximè verò Germano-Gallo-Hispano-Anglo Polono Sueco-Dano-Belgo-Turcicis Actis Publici, X, Franckfurt am Mäyn, in Verlegung Wilhem Serins, 1664, 680. 19 Seyahatnâme, VI, 109. “… efendisi Reʾisülküttâb devletinde. …”

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That day, Evliya Çelebi noticed, Fazıl Ahmed did not like what he saw. In a private conversation with İbrahim Pasha, he hinted at İbrahim’s likely demise in the coming days, through adroitly chosen words that only a small number of well-versed men could understand.20 In fact, as long as the Ottoman army was on Hungarian soil, the tension between Fazıl Ahmed and Kadızade İbrahim never ceased. In early August 1663, Kadızade İbrahim and a number of other Ottoman dignitaries were tasked with crossing the Danube and erecting a defensive line for the Ottomans constructing a bridge over the river. During this time, Kadızade İbrahim maintained communication with Şamizade Mehmed. Upon receiving intelligence of the approaching enemy under Ádám Forgách, the captain of Érsekújvár, he forwarded the news to the Ottoman camp by two messengers: one to the grand vizier, the other to Şamizade Mehmed. Fazıl Ahmed and his immediate retinue sneered at Kadızade’s assessment of the German-Hungarian forces coming in hordes. It was him, once again, disclosing his cowardness and feminine temperament, whom they taunted. Şamizade, in his reply, encouraged his son-in-law to take up arms and to prove himself. However, Evliya Çelebi suspected more. First of all, he was not convinced of the auspiciousness of Fazıl Ahmed’s order for Kadızade’s troops to follow the fleeing enemy after the battle at Ciğerdelen. They had fought for five hours and were completely exhausted, and Evliya thanked God that Şamizade Mehmed had sent them a fair amount of baked mutton, bread, and fodder. Moreover, not a single Ottoman soldier, all within a distance of merely half an hour, came to the aid of the fighting Kadızade troops during these five hours.21 The executions of Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim seem to have had repercussions within the Ottoman political body well into the 18th century. It was, most probably, a revisited debate, especially in the post-Köprülü era following the disastrous siege of Vienna in 1683 by another Köprülü-affiliated vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha.22 While reading about Şamizade’s murder in İsazade’s chronicle, an anonymous hand left a sidenote stating that before the Ottoman army embarked on the campaign against Érsekújvár, Fazıl Ahmed and Şamizade Mehmed were summoned to court together. At the meeting, the Ottoman sultan strictly warned his grand vizier to follow Şamizade’s counsel on all important matters – an order that deeply offended Fazıl Ahmed. Then, the sultan addressed Şamizade saying that he would hold him personally responsible for the state affairs during the campaign, because 20 Ibid. 21 Seyahatnâme, VI, 185. 22 Note that Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa’s account from the end of the 17th century is the earliest Ottoman historical source that goes into any detail about Şamizade’s execution in 1663.

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the “paşa [Fazıl Ahmed] was still a boy.” This offended Fazıl Ahmed all the more. From that day onward, Fazıl Ahmed waited for the right moment to remove Şamizade. One day, he sent a letter from the military camp to Adrianople asking and receiving permission to kill Kadızade İbrahim. When he showed the sultan’s rescript to Şamizade Mehmed, he, not unexpectedly, intervened to save his son-in-law. Fazıl Ahmed then dispatched another letter to Mehmed IV accusing Şamizade of defying the sultanic authority and hindering the implementation of the imperial order. The Ottoman sultan now decreed that both Şamizade and Kadızade should be executed.23 For the anonymous author, it was Fazıl Ahmed’s deceitful ways and false accusations that caused the loss of the lives of two innocent Ottoman statesmen. 2

Diverging Paths: What Did Şamizade Mehmed Actually Offer?

In any event, Şamizade Mehmed was of the view that Fazıl Ahmed’s command of the Ottoman army would not bring any good to the sultanate. In his alleged letter, he clearly referred to Fazıl Ahmed’s lack of experience in the business of state. The young grand vizier did not seek counsel, acted recklessly and without prudence, and his imprudent boldness would not let him end the war favorably.24 From the reports of the Habsburg envoys who visited the Ottoman military camp in 1663–1664, it becomes clear that Şamizade Mehmed believed in the instrumentality of diplomatic tools and military means in solving disputes between the Ottomans and Habsburgs. Thus, I would speculate that Şamizade Mehmed had doubts about the performance of the Ottoman army and favored signing an honorable peace (with support from the queen mother) underlining the Ottoman supremacy in the diplomatic arena vis-à-vis its Habsburg counterpart and was willing to give up the possible territorial gains that might occur in the campaign’s following days. According to Diarium Europaeum, Şamizade Mehmed was never in favor of a military confrontation with the Germans. He believed that this could quickly turn into a protracted war that would last no fewer than three or four years, and perhaps as long as 30. Earlier Ottoman chronicles, in fact, had never recorded a war with the Germans ending sooner than 15 years. Fazıl Ahmed, on the other hand, was not inclined to compromise with the emperor and asked him for an incredibly large amount of money. In the meantime, according to 23 ʿÎsâ-zâde Târîhi (Metin ve Tahlîl), ed. Ziya Yılmazer (İstanbul: İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 1996), 79. “Paşa tâzedir; suret-nümâ olan ahvâli senden bilürüm.” 24 Levini Warneri, De Rebus Turcicis, 93–95, no. 94, 16 October 1663.

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this account, he unjustly accused Şamizade of sending secret letters to the garrison of Érsekújvár and seeking an unauthorized accord with the enemy without his approval, costing him his life.25 It is not possible to verify the content of this passage, which seems to have been based upon hearsay and friendly chats (with a generous amount of imagination) among the German troops who participated in the 1663–1664 war. Although the essential elements of the narrative were undoubtedly fictitious, it is important to establish the fact that the German-speaking public had a peace-seeking image of Şamizade in contrast to an image of a war-mongering Fazıl Ahmed. Dávid Rozsnyai, who was Transylvanian magnate Gábor Haller’s Turkish interpreter in 1663, records in his diary a very similar episode regarding Şamizade Mehmed. According to what he heard among the Ottomans at Érsekújvár, Şamizade was strangled by the grand vizier for having received money from the Germans in exchange for a secret deal.26 The Habsburg reports sent to Vienna from the Ottoman military camp confirm that Şamizade was in busy engagement with Habsburg diplomats. In the summer of 1663, before the Ottomans headed towards Érsekújvár, the Habsburg diplomats held a series of talks with the Ottoman leaders as the Ottoman army marched through Belgrade and Buda. During these negotiations, the Ottoman leadership proved to be a difficult partner for the Habsburg delegation.27 Nevertheless, it maintained diplomatic contact until the Ottoman troops reached Buda, thanks to Şamizade Mehmed’s efficiency within the Ottoman leadership. However, Fazıl Ahmed had long been determined to occupy the fortress of Érsekújvár, as the city, in his opinion, promised a vast, populated area that could be levied for the Ottoman treasury alongside the gold and silver mines in its surroundings. Thus, he rejected military attempts on Komárom and Győr, where the land offered nothing but rocks, swamps, and fierce resistance to a besieging army.28 25 Martin Meyer, Diarium Europaeum Insertis quibusdam, maximè verò Germano-GalloHispano-Anglo Polono Sueco-Dano-Belgo-Turcicis Actis Publici X (Franckfurt am Mäyn: Wilhem Serins, 1664), 682. 26 Rozsnyay Dávid, Az Utolsó Török Deák, Történeti Maradványai, ed. Szilágyi Sándor (Pest: Eggenberger Ferdinánd M. Akad. Könyvárusnál, 1867), 329. 27 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv [=  OeStA], Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [=  HHStA], Türkei I/135, Konv. 4, fols. 53v–57r, From Simon Reniger to Leopold I, 10 July 1663, Osijek; OeStA, Kriegsarchiv [=  KA], Alte Feldakten 159, 1663/7/82a, fols. 546v–47v, From Simon Reniger to Raimondo Montecuccoli, 21 July 1663; Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 140–41; Ertuğrul Oral, “Mehmed Halife, Tarih-i Gılmani,” (PhD diss., Marmara University, İstanbul 2000), 89–90. 28 OeStA, KA, Alte Feldakten 159, 1663–7–55, fol. 463v, Brazza’s report, 6 July 1663, Cluj-Napoca; Seyahatnâme, VI, 89, 158–59; Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 147–48.

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It is therefore understandable that the Habsburg envoys pinned hope on Şamizade’s mediation for procuring a peace treaty with the Porte. In early June 1663, Johann von Goëss, the Habsburg plenipotentiary envoy who had been holding diplomatic negotiations with the Ottomans since the early days of that year (he first went to Timişoara to discuss a possible peace with Köse Ali Pasha),29 promised Şamizade Mehmed 1,000 ducats in the event of securing an agreement between the Habsburg and Ottoman courts. According to his joint report with Simon Reniger to the Hofburg (dated June 14), Şamizade was the only person in the Ottoman camp who dared to speak his true mind before the grand vizier. Şamizade Mehmed did not reject the idea but told the envoy that such dealings could only be conducted in private quarters, and not in public.30 A few days later, the Habsburg diplomats learned that a certain İbrahim Pasha (seemingly Şamizade’s son-in-law) would rally a strike force from the Ottoman frontier soldiers to foray into Miklós Zrínyi’s estates. Von Goëss and Reniger interpreted this plan as Şamizade (and his supporters’) strategy to end the armed conflict with the Habsburgs without tarnishing the sultan’s glory.31 In the face of such a minor undertaking, and considering the acute disaccord between Zrínyi and the high officials at the Viennese court, Leopold I would be unlikely to be compelled to hit back, and the two parties could then carry on with diplomatic proceedings to reach an agreement. On the same day, Johann von Goëss sent another report to the Geheimrat Johann Ferdinand von Portia underlining the differing positions of Şamizade and the grand vizier. In his report, he once again stated that Şamizade declared his readiness to work for an honest treaty.32 On July 20–21, the Habsburg envoys passed on new intelligence to Vienna demonstrating Şamizade’s growing influence on the front. Nearly a week earlier, Fazıl Ahmed had received a disturbing letter from Adrianople stating that 29 The Ottoman treasury paid the daily sum of 6,000 akçes to Johann von Goëss between June 5 and November 15 1663, for the duration of his diplomatic negotiations with the Ottoman officials: The T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (The Presidential Ottoman Archives [=  BOA]), Kamil Kepeci [=  KK]. 1957, 32, 36 (three entries), 38, 48; BOA, İbnülemin-Hariciye 132, 8 Muharrem 1074/12 August 1663. Also see Alfons Huber, “Österreichs diplomatische Beziehungen zur Pforte, 1658–1664,” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 85, 2 (1898): 571–76; Hajnalka Tóth, “Vasvár előtt. A vasvári békekötésig vezető út [Before Vasvár. An Attempt at a Habsburg-Ottoman Compromise at Temesvár in 1663],” Aetas 35,3 (2020): 46–60. 30 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/135, Konv. 3, fols. 83/3–96r, from Von Goëss and Reniger to Leopold I, 14 June 1663, Belgrade. For the reference see: fol. 90v. 31 Ibid., fols. 92v–92r. 32 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/135, Konv. 3, fols. 97v–107v, 14 June 1663, Belgrade, for the reference see fols. 101v–101r.

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certain political actors were plotting to discredit him in the eyes of the sultan. More importantly, Turhan Sultan had also sent him a letter about the possible peace. For the queen mother, the envoys relate, it was the best option for Fazıl Ahmed to obtain a respectable peace, if he could, and return to the court.33 Assuming that Johann von Goëss and Simon Reniger were accurate in their observations, Turhan Sultan, explicitly backing a peace plan, must have enhanced Şamizade’s position within the Ottoman military leadership. The picture was obvious: a sultan in his early twenties and his grand vizier, likewise in his twenties, against an aged bureaucrat of the empire and the queen mother, who had been acting as de facto regent of the sultan for almost 15 years, and who was calling for sobriety in military decisions. However, the loss of Şamizade in September came as a devastating blow to the Habsburg diplomats, who relied upon his influence over Ottoman decision-making processes. On September 19 1663, both von Goëss and Reniger expressed their grief to the Hofburg when they saw the severed heads of Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim in Buda being carried to Adrianople.34 By December 30, after the retreat of the Ottoman high command to their winter quarters in Belgrade, the circumstances had changed considerably. Reniger wrote that day to the emperor that Fazıl Ahmed was now the only authority over the military affairs, and that those opting for a quick end to the war had subsided into silence for fear of their lives. The grand vizier solidly believed in the supremacy of the Ottoman forces, particularly after what he had accomplished at the battle of Ciğerdelen nearly five months earlier.35 3

Waging an Unjust War: Becoming the “Oppressor” as a Reason for Losing a Battle

Johann von Goëss and Simon Reniger firmly believed that after Şamizade Mehmed had been strangled certain parties in the Ottoman army fell silent. 33 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/135, Konv. 4, fols. 58v–63v, from Von Goëss and Reniger to Leopold I, 20 and 21 July 1663, Buda. For the reference see fol. 59r. 34 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/135, Konv. 5, fols. 17v–17r, 19 September 1663, Buda. “Hiemit berichten wir alleundethenigst, daß den 16. diß Reisketab und seine Tochter Manns deß Bassa von Nicopoli kopf nach Adrianopl hier durch passiert, warumb diser guette Mann welcher sonst alzeit zum fridt gerathen so eillents und unversehens hingericht worden, können wir aigentlich nit wissen” (fol. 17v). See also von Goëss’s statement in his individual report from the same day: Türkei I/135, Konv. 5, fols. 15v–16v, Buda. “Reis Ketabs, der zum Frieden woll geneigt wäre …” (fol. 15a). 35 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/136, Konv. 2, fols. 67v–71v, 30 December 1663, Belgrade, for the reference see: fols. 67r–68v.

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In their abovementioned report of September 19 1663, they stated that the Ottomans were hoping to take the fortress of Érsekújvár in a couple of days’ time; otherwise, the seat of the grand vizier would be in grave peril.36 Ottoman chronicles and documents corroborate the presence of conflicting parties within the Ottoman political body and the Ottoman field army. Decades later, in his chronicle, Raşid Mehmed Efendi discussed the tension created by opposing views on how to receive the Habsburg envoys in 1663 as follows: before the Ottoman army began its march towards Érsekújvár from Buda in July, Fazıl Ahmed summoned the envoys to his tent with the aim of “hindering the tittle-tattle of those clattering as ‘they rejected the infidel seeking and soliciting peace’ and demonstrating to everybody the stubbornness and obstinacy of the cursed [the envoys].” According to Raşid Mehmed, with this move, Fazıl Ahmed hoped to “seal the lips of evil-speakers.”37 From his description two elements become evident: first, Fazıl Ahmed was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of concluding a peace, especially after the Ottoman troops walked as far as the westernmost frontier of the empire; second, he felt compelled to show a group of malcontent people within the army that he was paying due attention to diplomatic means. Fazıl Ahmed’s resolution to keep the Ottoman fighting force engaged with the Habsburg targets most likely had something to do with the debate taking place in Adrianople in late 1662, early 1663. Should the Porte campaign against the Venetians or the Habsburgs? A detailed discussion of the developments preceding the Ottoman court’s decision to take military steps in Central Europe would exceed the scope of this paper. I will limit myself to a number of selected facts directly related to our topic. In the last months of 1662, the Ottoman imperial court apparently favored an offensive against the Venetian strongholds in Dalmatia. In September, Mehmed IV appointed Fazıl Ahmed as the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman army that would set off towards Dalmatia to capture the fortresses of Kotor, Šibenik, and Split.38 According to Osman Dede, Fazıl Ahmed did not believe that a military engagement with the Venetians at sea would yield positive results. That is why, along with the other dignitaries in the gathering, he supported an undertaking on the Bosnian marches that could bring territorial gains to the empire.39 For this purpose,

36 See note 33. 37 Târîh-i Râşid ve Zeyli, I (1071–1114/1660–1703), eds. Abdülkadir Özcan et al. (İstanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2013), 28. “… ʿkâfir sulha tâlib ve râgıb iken kabûl ve iʿtibâr etmediler’ deyü güft u gû hudûsuna sedd olup melâʿînin muhâlefet ü inâdlarını bu defʿa dahi cümleye göstermek hasebiyle ʿerbâb-ı taʿna mühr-i leb olurdu’ deyü. …” 38 Tâʾib Ömer, Fethiyye-i Uyvar ve Novigrad, fols. 5v–5r; Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 128–30. 39 Erzurumlu Osman Dede, Târîh-i Fâzıl Ahmed Paşa, 4–5.

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the Ottoman bureaucracy dispatched numerous orders to local officers and commanders, either to ensure that they joined the Venetian campaign or to entrust them with the compilation of levy registers for quartering provisions.40 In short, when the imperial tent was erected at Davudpaşa on March 5, 1663,41 the Ottoman military endeavor was officially set up against the Serenissima. Thereafter, letters from the Hungarian frontier calling for attention to the gravity of the Habsburg intervention in the Transylvanian affairs arrived one after the other to the imperial court. Thus, in April, Mehmed IV revoked his earlier decision and instead authorized a campaign against the Habsburgs.42 Fazıl Ahmed was seemingly delighted with such a turn of events. According to his seal-bearer, Hasan Ağa, he lectured the officials in the imperial council on the righteousness of a war against the sultan’s archenemy, the Habsburgs, instead of the Venetians, who were not in a position to harm Ottoman bases on land.43 In a miscellaneous manuscript preserved today at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatürk Library (Muallim Cevdet, no. 92), a fictitious letter sheds light on the plausible repercussions of the last-minute change that dragged the Ottoman army across the Danube a year later. The author of the document, probably a middle-ranking officer with ties to Gürcü Mehmed Pasha, the governor-general of Aleppo, seemingly fabricated a royal letter by Leopold I, in which the emperor mocked Sultan Mehmed IV and, using brusque language, as the rightful Hungarian king, demanded the restitution of all fortresses once belonging to the Kingdom of Hungary, including Osijek. The anonymous penholder claims that Leopold I’s letter was addressed to İsmail Pasha, the governor-general of Buda (1660–1663), and that it was perhaps one of the letters forwarded from the marches to Adrianople inciting the sultan to steer his army towards Hungarian soil. According to the heading, added by the same hand, the sultan was enraged when he received the letter and ordered Fazıl Ahmed to lead the army immediately to Hungary.44 The document’s wording and content point strongly to an imagined medley of arguments advocating the notion that the Porte had no other option but to wage war against the Habsburgs. The letter had no ambition to make a difference at the Porte; it surely lacked proper 40 BOA, KK. 7423, 13–19; BOA, Bâb-ı Âsâfî [= A], Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn [= DVN] 34, no. 24/1, 24/2. A. DVN. 35, no. 98; BOA, Maliyeden Müdevver Defterler [= MAD]. 4537, 6639. 41 BOA, KK. 1957, 65. 42 Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 130–31; Vekâyiʿ-nâme, 157. 43 Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 131. 44 Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatürk Library, Muallim Cevdet Yazmaları, no. K 92, fols. 56v–56r. “Bu dahi Beç kralından bin yetmiş üç senesinde İsmail Paşa‌’ya gelen mektûbdur ki bundan sefere mübâşeret olundı saʿâdetlü pâdişâh gazaba gelüp vezîr-i aʿzama sefer(!) git didi”.

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characteristics of royal diplomatic correspondence. Gürcü Mehmed’s client, as we may call our author, was most probably pursuing the ongoing bickering between Ottoman soldiers on the merits of the campaign against the Habsburg possessions across the Danube. We should note that Gürcü Mehmed had previously served as chamberlain to Fazıl Ahmed’s father, Köprülü Mehmed, and as a trusted official of the former was appointed governor-general of Buda in 1664, immediately after the war ended with the Habsburgs.45 Therefore, the author was probably also speaking on behalf of a wider audience supporting Fazıl Ahmed’s cause. The style and chosen addressee of the fethname of Uyvar, and the supplementary notes about the fortresses occupied by Ottoman forces in 1663–1664 in the subsequent pages of the manuscript, strengthen the impression that it is the work of the same person.46 Not surprisingly, a true manifestation of discontent emerged after the Battle of Saint Gotthard, where the Ottoman army suffered a considerable defeat in the summer of 1664, while striving to cross the river Rába. At this point, accusations against the army command were voiced loudly. Evliya Çelebi, for instance, was blunt and cruel in his allegations against the army’s “unseasoned and fledgling lords” who, because of their “self-proclaimed actions,” caused a demeaning defeat on the part of the Ottomans. He articulated his discontent through the words of Kazancızade Süleyman Ağa, an old-time friend, with whom he chatted on the return journey from the battleground. Kazancızade attributed the failure to the grand vizier’s decision to reject the Habsburg envoys’ peace offers. Moreover, Evliya claimed that the infidels sent envoys once more seeking peace, which was likewise declined, and, in this manner, they became “oppressed” (mazlum).47 By offering an additional and more elaborate explanation for the Ottoman failure in 1664, Evliya Çelebi reveals to us notions of Ottoman border perceptions and peace-keeping strategies that have remained largely unexplored to date. In another passage of his travel book, when describing the formal exchange of the imperial ambassador Walter Leslie and Ottoman ambassador Kara Mehmed Pasha in the village of Szőny between Esztergom and 45 Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 32; Evliya Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, 7. Kitap: Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi Bağdat 308 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsiyonu-Dizini, ed. Yücel Dağlı, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Robert Dankoff (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2003), 59 [Seyahatnâme, VII]; Ramazan Aktemur, “Anonim Osmanlı Vekayinâmesi (H. 1058–1106/M. 1648–1694) (Metin ve Değerlendirme),” (MA thesis, Istanbul University, İstanbul 2019), fol. 49r; Reinhard Lüdicke, “Eine Gesandtschaftsreise nach Konstantinopel 1665–66. Aufzeichnungen des Freiherrn Joh. Theod. v. Reck im Freiherrlich-Landsbergschen Archiv des Hauses (Dren-)Steinfurt,” Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte (Westfalens) 64,1 (1906): 191–247, here 221. 46 Muallim Cevdet, no. 92, fols. 55r–58v. 47 Seyahatnâme, VII, 41–42. “Bu hâl üzre küffâr mazlûm olmuş idi.”

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Komárom in 1665, Evliya, who was part of the Ottoman delegation, declared the spot as the borderline fixed by Süleyman I more than a century earlier. According to Evliya, Sultan Süleyman had erected his tent in that very plain after he had captured the fortresses of Esztergom and Székesfehérvár (İstolni Belgrad) in 1543. For him, the Ottoman army under the command of Fazıl Ahmed was already doomed against the imperial forces because it had blindly ignored Süleyman’s curse on his offspring trespassing the borderline that he had established between the two empires.48 Confirming this respectful perception of boundaries by the Ottomans, in his history, Paul Rycaut cited the murmuring Ottoman soldiers who retreated from the battlefield in 1664. They accused the grand vizier of doing a poor job during the battle and lamented the recklessness they had committed by attempting to cross the Rába. They firmly believed that violating Süleyman’s oath was defaming this saintly sultan.49 Evliya Çelebi was neither alone nor was he the first to underline the grave consequences of exceeding Sultan Süleyman’s borders. Abdülkadir Efendi, a 17th-century Ottoman chronicler, was aware that crossing the “Gazi Sultan Süleyman Han borders” translated into a declaration of war on the Habsburgs and vice versa.50 Likewise, in 1628, Hans Ludwig von Kuefstein, the imperial ambassador to the Porte, wrote in his diary that Sultan Süleyman supposedly cast a spell on the borderline passing through Szőny and cursed any party that would trespass it and violate the peace.51 Therefore, the denunciation of Fazıl Ahmed by his contemporaries for stretching the Ottoman military sphere of maneuver beyond the range tallied by sultanic wisdom was not the invention of his immediate rivals. Rather, it was an adjusted argument within the Ottoman political society with its roots in the past.52 48 Ibid., 78–79. 49 Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire, 158. 50 Topçular Kâtibi ʿAbdülkâdir (Kadrî) Efendi Tarihi (Metin ve Tahlil)-I, ed. Ziya Yılmazer (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2003), 7. “… Gâzî Sultân Süleymân Hân ʿaleyhiʾrrahmetü ve’l-gufrân sınurlarından …”. 51 Karl Teply, Die kaiserliche Großbotschaft an Sultan Murad IV. im Jahre 1628. Des Freiherrn Hans Ludwig von Kuefsteins Fahrt zur Hohen Pforte (Wien: Verlag A. Schendl, 1976), 33–34. 52 A broader discussion of Sultan Süleyman’s legacy in early modern Ottoman military society has the potential to reveal a much more complex phenomenon. In his studies, Pál Fodor has demonstrated that another legacy to the opposite effect, widely embraced by certain groups in the Ottoman military, also originated from Süleyman: its proponents saw, for instance, the occupation of Vienna as an imperative. For Fodor’s formulation of the image of Süleyman in Ottoman military affairs see: Pál Fodor, “Ungarn und Wien in der osmanischen Eroberungsideologie (im Spiegel der Târîh-i Beç krâlı, 17. Jahrhundert),” Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (1989): 81–98; “Ottoman Policy Towards Hungary, 1520–1541,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45,1–2 (1991): 271–345; The Unbearable Weight of Empire. The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy

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A similar line of arguments, asserted against another Köprülü vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, in conjunction with his ambitious venture against Vienna some 20 years later, offers final evidence to this effect. Apart from the negative image of Kara Mustafa portrayed in Ottoman chronicles for leading the Ottoman army to a disaster in 1683, an anonymous source abruptly laid blame elsewhere. In 1682, according to this author, the peace treaty with the Habsburgs was unjustifiably broken by the Ottomans, and all havoc inflicted on them in the ensuing years was a direct result of this violation that had caused the loss of the Ottomans’ moral superiority vis-à-vis the Roman emperor.53 I believe that this is the reason why the Habsburg ruler appeared as the Iranian King Ânûşîrvân (Hüsrev I), renowned for his sense of justice, in Kara Mustafa’s dream, before he embarked on his campaign against Vienna. Although Hasan Efendi, the celebrated dream-teller of the time, interpreted the dream as a mournful outcome for the future military enterprise, Kara Mustafa refused to abandon the campaign. Fındıklılı Mehmed Ağa, along with our anonymous chronicler, citing Kara Mustafa’s dream in his chronicle, omitted certain aspects of the episode, while maintaining the general idea. However, the unnamed author referred, on at least one more occasion, to the Roman emperor as “Anuşirvan the Just.”54 Thus, the concept of “just war” seems to have remained central to Ottomans, especially when, for one reason or another, they did not share the enthusiasm of the party administering a given military venture. We are therefore in a position to discern two specific notions present in the discussion of the righteousness of a crusade: (1) being on the “just” side; and (2) not rendering the enemy “oppressed.” 4

After Şamizade Mehmed: Lingering Disputes and Redistribution of Resources

In 1664 and 1665, Fazıl Ahmed resumed his struggle to hold onto the grand vizierate, admittedly with success. In the autumn of 1664, in an attempt to diffuse the agitated tide in Adrianople after the Ottoman troops had been vanquished at Saint Gotthard, which according to Reniger was likely to turn against him, Fazıl Ahmed sent a report to the court describing the campaign (1390–1566) (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2015), esp. Chapter II. 53 Şuayp Ateş, “17. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısına Ait Anonim Bir Tarihçe. ‘Vekâyi-i Viyana’ (Trans­ kripsiyon ve Değerlendirme) (1075–1099/1664–1688),” (MA thesis, Gaziosmanpaşa University, Tokat 2015), 102. 54 Ibid., 106–7, 109; Zeyl-i Fezleke, 785–86.

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as a straightforward success on the whole. Consequently, and probably with the aid of Kara Mustafa, the grand vizier-to-be, whom he had last seen as kaymakam before he departed for the Hungarian campaign in 1663, succeeded in ensuring a celebration of victory by the Porte in early September.55 As can be discerned from the Ottoman sources, certain groups within the court were still striving to oust Fazıl Ahmed from his office in the spring of 1665.56 Nonetheless, the Köprülü vizier overcame all the hostilities and emerged victorious in the end. This, of course, did not mean that he received support from all political actors on the scene. For many, there was a critical question yet to be answered about the Ottoman campaign of 1663–1664: was it really economically advantageous for the Ottoman state to occupy the fortress of Érsekújvár? Or, did it generate too much expenditure for limited economic gain? In 1665, when he visited Constantinople for diplomatic purposes, the imperial ambassador Walter Leslie remarked that the grand vizier was not particularly eager to discuss issues regarding the newly occupied fortress. The recently established province was unable to pay the salaries of the garrison soldiers in the stronghold, and the aemuli of the grand vizier were making a fuss to the queen mother and the sultan about the fact that the fortress brought practically nothing in material advantage.57 Research by modern scholars has disclosed the fact that the Ottoman bureaucracy was also unable to overcome the financial deficiencies of the province in the following decades. The local treasury had to be backed by fiscal revenues transferred from various part of the Balkans and from the central treasury.58 The argumentation propelled by Fazıl Ahmed’s rivals was thus solid. However, in the short term, there were always those profiting from the territorial expansion of the empire, or at least from an ongoing military expedition. 55 OeStA, HHStA, Türkei I/137, Konv. 3, fols. 8v–16v, from Simon Reniger to Leopold I, 1 October 1664, Érsekújvár, for the reference see fol. 15r; Vekâyiʿ-nâme, 154; Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire, 156–57. 56 Mustafa Zühdi, Ravzatü’l-Gazâ, İstanbul University Rare Books Library, İ.Ü. TY. 2488, fol. 59r; Cevâhirü’t-Tevârîh, 287; Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire, 163. 57 Walter Leslie’s ambassadorial report has been published by Alois Veltzé, together with Simon Reniger’s Final relation. Alois Veltzé, “Die Hauptrelation des kaiserlichen Residenten in Konstantinopel Simon Renigen von Reningen 1649–1666,” Mitteilung des k.u.k. Kriegs-Archivs N.F., 12. Bd. (1900): 57–170. For Walter Leslie’s report see “Hauptrelation des Grafen Leslie,” 152–63. For the reference see: 159. 58 Mark L. Stein, “Ottoman Bureaucratic Communication: An Example from Uyvar 1673,” The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 20 (1996): 1–15; Ahmet Şimşirgil, “Osmanlı İdaresinde Uyvar’ın Hazine Defterleri ve Bir Bütçe Örneği”, Güney Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 9 (1998): 325–55; Klára Hegyi, The Ottoman Military Organization in Hungary. Fortresses, Fortress Garrisons and Finances (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018), 206–7.

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I refer here to the land and revenue grants in a conquered area exacted from the sultan as a traditionally acknowledged right of the leaders/promoters of a triumphant campaign, and the vast autonomy in redistributing state revenues by the grand viziers during wartime.59 That said, even a comparatively minor incident of removing an official from the political playing field brought about fundamental changes in many lives. This also applied to the execution of Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim. The day after Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim had been strangled in the trenches of Érsekújvár, the Ottoman bureaucracy started to issue orders pertaining to the confiscation of the money, goods, and immovable assets of the deceased. On September 13 1663, an order was issued to the kadı and kaymakam of Belgrade instructing them to collect all the assets belonging to Şamizade Mehmed, with the assistance of Çavuşbaşı İbrahim, who had been commissioned for the task. The treasurer of the executed reisülküttab was to be sent to Adrianople with the cash, goods, merchandise, horses, camels, and mules appropriately listed in a register.60 The kadı and kaymakam of Belgrade likewise received an order concerning Kadızade İbrahim’s properties under their jurisdiction.61 A certain Mahmud, originally assigned with repairing the fortress of Belgrade, helped İbrahim with the undertaking.62 On the same day, orders with similar content were also dispatched to the Ottoman officials in Niğbolu and Kastamonu to collect any of the wealth and possessions of Kadızade İbrahim that left unclaimed in these dominions. Kadızade probably had hereditary ties to Kastamonu, where he possessed a farm and several slaves, in addition to a flock of sheep, cattle, horses, and camels.63 The Ottoman government was meticulous in its effort to claim all these properties. When the news of some rice stocked by Kadızade in Travnik, Bosnia came to their attention, the government officials sent orders to the castle commander to safeguard the foodstuff (probably for the needs of the army).64 Even nine horses, once confided by Kadızade to Cafer Pasha, the former mutasarrıf 59

60 61 62 63 64

Douglas Howard, “The Ottoman Timar System and Its transformation, 1563–1656,” (PhD diss., Indiana University, Indiana 1987), 115–17; Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 179–82; Pál Fodor, The Business of State. Ottoman Finance Administration and Ruling Elites in Transition (1580s–1615) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018), 78–81. MAD. 18214, 2; MAD. 3279, 29. MAD. 18214, 3. MAD. 3279, 29, 29 Safer 1074/2 October 1663. Evliya Çelebi confirms that one of the two officers who confiscated Kadızade İbrahim’s valuables in Belgrad was Çavuşbaşı İbrahim (Seyahatnâme, VI, 202). MAD. 18214, 2 and 3. MAD. 3279, 29.

Rise of the Köprülüs & the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi 469

of Szeged, were unable to escape the grasp of the Ottoman bureaucracy.65 Likewise, in early October, the Porte employed Cafer, a çavuş in the court, for shipping Kadızade İbrahim’s horses and camels in Ankara and Kayseri to Istanbul.66 Apart from Belgrade, Şamizade’s wealth and estates seem to have been mainly concentrated in Istanbul. In early October, Muslı Ağa, the chief master of the imperial stable, transported all that was left in the city from the former reisülküttab to Adrianople.67 Şamizade Mehmed and Kadızade İbrahim’s transported money and assets arrived at the court in Adrianople in three shipments in October-November 1663. Muslı Ağa, charged with the organization of the confiscation and shipping of Şamizade’s valuables to Istanbul, was the first to hand over the property. The confiscated goods of both the reisülküttab and his son-in-law from Belgrade arrived in the following month. All the items were then submitted to Mehmed IV for inspection before they were finally delivered to the inner treasury. Based on the register enlisting these confiscated items, the Ottoman sultan picked out several items to be redistributed among some of his subjects, with Musahip Mustafa Pasha receiving the lion’s share.68 Below the pinnacle of the administrative mechanism that was the Ottoman court, there were also those eager to claim their share of the reshuffling of revenues. Notably, certain figures remunerated with the dues vacated by the death of Şamizade Mehmed were members or clients of the Köprülü household. Two days after Şamizade was killed, the ration of rice that had been allocated to him from the paddies in Plovdiv was evenly divided between (Mezaki) Süleyman Efendi, the second tezkereci, and (Semiz) İbrahim Ağa, the chamberlain of Fazıl Ahmed.69 The next day, it was Acemzade Hüseyin Efendi’s turn. As the 65 66 67 68

MAD. 3279, 29, 2 Rebiülevvel 1074/4 October 1663. BOA, Mühimme Defteri [= MD] 94, 27/122, evâil-i Rebiülevvel 1073/3–11 October 1663. MD 94, 27/121, evâil-i Rebiülevvel 1073/3–11 October 1663. Topkapı Palace Museum Archives [=  TSMA] d. 2315, fol. 42r: “Sene 1074 māh-ı Rebīʿülevvelinde maḳtūl Reʾīs Efendi’niñ İstanbul’dan mīr-āḫor-ı kebīr Muṣlı Aġa yedinden rikāb-ı hümāyūna gelüp dāḫil-i ḫazīne olunan muḫallefātı beyān olunur.” Fol. 44a: “Ḥużūr-ı hümāyūn-ı pādişāhīde bu defterde dāḫil olan eşyālardan baʿżı ḳullarına iḥsān olunan ve silaḥdār aġaya teslīm olunan eşyālardır.”; fol. 44r: “Sene 1074 māh-ı Rebīʿü’l-āḫırda reʾīsü’lküttāb Şāmīzāde Meḥmed Efendi’nin Belġrad’da olan esvābınıñ ḥużūr-ı hümāyūndan dāḫil-i ḫazīne-yi enderūn olan eşyāsıdır.”; fol. 45v: “Bu zikr olunan muḫallefātlardan gerek dārü’s-saʿāde aġası sābıḳ Meḥmed Aġa‌’nıñ gerek Reʾīs Efendi’niñ baʿżı ḳullarına fermān-ı hümāyūnları virilen eşyālardır defterde mestūr olan eşyālardandır.” 69 KK. 7516, 36, 11 Safer 1074/14 September 1663. Süleyman Mezaki entered Köprülü Mehmed’s corps of scribes when the latter was appointed grand vizier in 1656 (Mustafa Safayi Efendi, Tezkire-i Safayi, ed. Pervin Çapan (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı Yayınları), 540). Being of Bosnian origin, Süleyman Efendi seems to have established a close relationship with the Köprülü house. At the very least, we know that he was close enough to Köprülü Mehmed to insert his name in the letter of oath signed by Barcsay Ákos in

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new reʾisülküttâb, he asked for the revenues generated by the taxation of merchandise at Istanbul’s Langa Gate, which were unclaimed after the death of Şamizade.70 In the meantime, Fazıl Ahmed snatched up a highly allegorical trophy from what had been left behind by Şamizade Mehmed: his mansion in Adrianople. A few years earlier, Evliya Çelebi saw the mansion which, in his eyes, was one of the city’s architectural hallmarks.71 Now, in the absence of its former owner, Mehmed IV granted the mansion to his rising grand vizier, who seemed to reset the political configuration within the empire with accomplished and firm hands. Şamizade’s mansion soon became an edifice of political power for the Köprülüs in Adrianople. In the summer of 1665, Fazıl Ahmed invited the imperial ambassador Walter Leslie to his new estate, where the Habsburg delegation was entertained with sumptuous meals and splendid games in the large garden of the residence.72 For this purpose, in February 1665, it seems that the grand vizier transacted 8,950 akçes from the state treasury to cover the expenses of the materials and wages for a refurbishment of the residence.73 In 1676, when Fazıl Ahmed died, the family had no intention of losing the mansion: at the time of the official recording of the deceased vizier’s estates, two legal documents (hüccet) attesting to the ownership of the property were made ready for inspection.74

70

71 72

73 74

1658 (İ. Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, “Barcsay Akos’un Erdel Kırallığına Ait Bazı Orijinal Vesikalar,” Tarih Dergisi 4,7 (1952): 51–68, here 59). He served Fazıl Ahmed following his father in the grand vizierate as tezkereci (İbnülemin-Hariciye 1/97, 6 Şevval 1071/4 June 1661 and 1/98 (3 Ramazan 1072/22 April 1662)). Also see Ahmet Mermer, Mezaki: Hayatı, Edebi Kişiliği ve Divanının Tenkitli Metni (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Yayınları, 1991); Özlem Ercan, “Baba-Oğul Sadrazamların Şairlere Farklı Yaklaşımları ve Fazıl Ahmed Paşa‌’ya Yazılan Manzumeler,” Turkish Studies 7,2 (2012): 461–80. KK. 7516, 36, 12 Safer 1074/15 September 1663. In 1664, Acemzâde Hüseyin Efendi compiled the Ottoman version of the treaty text of Vasvár (Zühdi, Ravzatü’l-Gazâ, fols. 37r–39r) and joined the retinue of Fazıl Ahmed in the Cretan campaign of 1666–1670 and in Kamaniets-Podilskyi in 1672 (Ahmed Resmi Efendi, Halîfetüʾr-Rüʾesâ, eds. Mücteba İlgürel and Recep Ahıskalı (İstanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1992), 41–42). Evliya Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, 3. Kitap: Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 305 Yazmasının Transkripsiyonu-Dizini, eds. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 1999), 257. OeStA, KA, Alte Feldakten 166, 1665/13/Beilage, fol. 9r; “Hauptrelation des Grafen Leslie,” 153; Paul Tafferner, Der Röm. Kay. May. Leopoldi I. An Deß grossen TürckenSultans Mehmet Cham Ottomanische Porten Anno 1665. den 25. May abgeordnete Bottschafft, Welche Ihro Hochgrafl. Excellentz, etc. Herr, Herr Walther Leßlie, deß Heil. Röm. Reichs Graff und Herr zu Pettau … denckwürdig verrichtet (Wien, [ca. 1670]), 101–2; Erzurumlu Osman Dede, Târîh-i Fâzıl Ahmed Paşa, 58–59. KK. 1960, 102, 2 Şaban 1075/18 February 1665; 107, 5 Şaban 1075/21 February 1665. MAD. 4043, 261, şehr-i Zilkade 1087/January-February 1677.

Rise of the Köprülüs & the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi 471

5

Conclusion

For Fazıl Ahmed, and for the Köprülü house in the long run, the struggle against Şamizade Mehmed brought about three practical consequences. Above all, by eliminating a formidable rival, Fazıl Ahmed succeeded in maintaining his office and remaining in power. A change in the grand vizierate, such as the replacement of Fazıl Ahmed in 1663 with Kadızade İbrahim, Şamizade Mehmed’s son-in-law, would have rendered void any discussion of the so-called Köprülü era in Ottoman history. The challenge was bold; peril was close and imminent. In 1665, the Köprülü vizier was seemingly able to consolidate his power vis-à-vis all potential rivals and mechanizations against his person, and in this way, he undoubtedly paved the way for the long-lasting Köprülü government throughout the second half of the 17th century. In the immediate aftermath of Şamizade’s execution, Fazıl Ahmed used his unchallenged powers to make room for his clients within the administrative system and to allocate them secure incomes. As has been outlined above, certain members of the Köprülü government, such as Mezaki Süleyman Efendi, Acemzade Hüseyin Efendi, and Semiz İbrahim Ağa, began to receive larger revenues such as those formerly enjoyed by Şamizade Mehmed or his son-in-law. The Köprülü household also gained material benefits from the 1663–1664 war with the Habsburgs. Fazıl Ahmed strongly favored the continuation of military undertakings against the Habsburg lands and was rewarded for his victory before the walls of Érsekújvár in 1663. Although the Ottoman initiative turned into a failure the following year, Fazıl Ahmed managed to purchase a number of properties in the city of Érsekújvár before the Ottoman army was vanquished by the allied forces at Saint Gotthard. In late April 1664, he owned a slaughterhouse, 16 houses, 43 shops, 2 mills, and a barber shop, as well as several parcels of land adjacent to the outer walls. Fazıl Ahmed’s trade was profitable; for all the listed properties, he paid the modest sum of 60,000 akçes.75 In a submission to the sultan soon thereafter, he asked to be granted the towns of Surán and Komjátin, with all their villages and pastures. His request was duly granted. The Köprülü investments in Érsekújvár were to thrive in the following years. At this point, a recurring debate and unsolved complexity of early modern Ottoman political and military history resurfaces: what did the occupation of Érsekújvár by Ottoman forces bring to the central treasury? For now, we must content ourselves with the knowledge that this question was not a priority for those such as Fazıl Ahmed Pasha who, resting on their elevated standing 75 MAD. 3279, 390.

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within the campaigning army, collected lucrative assets and landed properties as a result of their successful military operations.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Cumhur Bekar, Günhan Börekçi, Zsuzsanna Csiráki, Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, Feridun M. Emecen, Pál Fodor, and Géza Pálffy for their insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved my manuscript. Bibliography

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Rise of the Köprülüs & the Execution of Şamizade Mehmed Efendi 475 Demir, Uğur. “Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi’nin Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi’ne İntikali Meselesi.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 39 (2012): 205–16. Ercan, Özlem. “Baba-Oğul Sadrazamların Şairlere Farklı Yaklaşımları ve Fazıl Ahmed Paşa‌’ya Yazılan Manzumeler.” Turkish Studies 7,2 (2012): 461–80. Fodor, Pál. The Business of State. Ottoman Finance Administration and Ruling Elites in Transition (1580s–1615). Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018. Fodor, Pál. The Unbearable Weight of Empire. The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2015. Fodor, Pál. “Ottoman Policy Towards Hungary, 1520–1541.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45,1–2 (1991): 271–345. Fodor, Pál. “Ungarn und Wien in der osmanischen Eroberungsideologie (im Spiegel der Târîh-i Beç krâlı, 17. Jahrhundert).” Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (1989): 81–98. Hegyi, Klára. The Ottoman Military Organization in Hungary. Fortresses, Fortress Garrisons and Finances. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018. Howard, Douglas. “The Ottoman Timar System and Its transformation, 1563–1656.” PhD diss., Indiana University, Indiana 1987. Huber, Alfons. “Österreichs diplomatische Beziehungen zur Pforte, 1658–1664.” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 85, 2 (1898): 571–76. İnalcık, Halil. Devlet-i ʿAliyye. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Araştırmalar  – III. Köprülüler Devri. İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2015. Karaçay Türkal, Nazire. “Zeyl-i Fezleke (1065–22 Ca. 1106 / 1654–7 Şubat 1695).” PhD diss., Marmara University, İstanbul 2012. Kolçak, Özgür. “A Transylvanian Ruler in the Talons of the ‘Hawks’: György Rákóczi II and Köprülü Mehmed Paşa.” In Turkey & Romania: A History of Partnership and Collaboration in the Balkans, eds. Florentina Nitu et al., 341–59. İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Belediyeler Birliği, 2016. Kolçak, Özgür. “Köprülü Enterprises in Yanova ([Boros]Jenő/Ineu) and Varad ([Nagy] Várad/Oradea): Consolidating Ottoman Power and Accumulating Family Wealth (1657–1664).” Archivum Ottomanicum 37 (2020): 69–85. Kunt, İ. Metin. “The Waqf as an Instrument of Public Policy: Notes on the Köprülü Family Endowments.” In Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber, 189–98. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1994. Kunt, İ. Metin. “The Köprülü Years: 1656–1661.” PhD diss., Princeton University, New Jersey 1971. Lüdicke, Reinhard. “Eine Gesandtschaftsreise nach Konstantinopel 1665–66. Aufzeichnungen des Freiherrn Joh. Theod. v. Reck im Freiherrlich-Landsbergschen Archiv des Hauses (Dren-) Steinfurt.” Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte (Westfalens) 64,1 (1906): 191–247.

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McKay, Pierre A. “The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi, Part I: The Archetype.” Der Islam, 52,2 (1975): 278–98. Oral, Ertuğrul. “Tarih-i Gılmani.” PhD diss., Marmara University, İstanbul 2000. Rycaut, Paul. The History of the Turkish Empire, from the Year 1623, to the Year 1677. Containing the Reigns of the Last Three Emperors, viz. Sultan Morat, or Amurat IV. Sultan İbrahim and Sultan Mahomet IV, His Son, the Thirteenth Emperor, Now Reigning. London: Printed by J.D. for Tho. Baffet, R. Clavell, J. Robinson, and A. Churchill, MDCLXXXVII. Şimşirgil, Ahmet. “Osmanlı İdaresinde Uyvar’ın Hazine Defterleri ve Bir Bütçe Örneği.” Güney Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 9 (1998): 325–55. Stein, Mark L. “Ottoman Bureaucratic Communication: An Example from Uyvar 1673.” The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 20 (1996): 1–15. Teply, Karl. Die kaiserliche Großbotschaft an Sultan Murad IV. im Jahre 1628. Des Freiherrn Hans Ludwig von Kuefsteins Fahrt zur Hohen Pforte. Wien: Verlag A. Schendl, 1976. Tezcan, Baki. The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Tóth, Hajnalka. “Vasvár előtt. A vasvári békekötésig vezető út [Before Vasvár. An Attempt at a Habsburg-Ottoman Compromise at Temesvár in 1663].” Aetas 35,3 (2020): 46–60. Tusalp Atiyas, Ekin Emine. “Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence: Ottoman Scribal Community in the Seventeenth Century.” PhD diss., Harvard University, Boston 2013. Ünlütaş, Cengiz. “Tarih-i Sultan Mehmed Han (bin) İbrahim Han.” MA thesis, Ege University, İzmir 1998. Uzunçarşılı, İ. Hakkı. “Barcsay Akos’un Erdel Kırallığına Ait Bazı Orijinal Vesikalar.” Tarih Dergisi 4,7 (1952): 51–68. Yücel, Abubekir Sıddık. “Mühürdar Hasan Ağa‌’nın Cevâhirüʾt-Tevârîh’i.” PhD diss., Erciyes Üniversitesi, Kayseri 1996.

Part 4 Founding Mosques, (In-)alienable Waqfs, and Circulating Goods

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19 Reflections on the Problem of Identifying the Founder of the Mosque of Ferhad Beg in Pécs Nedim Zahirović The town of Pécs (Peçuy in Ottoman, Fünfkirchen in German) came under Ottoman rule in 1543 and remained in Ottoman hands until 1686. After the conquest, Pécs initially belonged to the subprovince (sancak) of Mohács (Mohaç). By 1570 at the latest, the subprovince of Pécs was established with the town of Pécs as its administrative seat.1 The town also became an important centre of Muslim religious life. After the conquest, the Ottomans immediately converted the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul into the mosque of Sultan Süleyman I (1520–1566).2 Apart from this, there were at least six other mosques in Pécs.3 After the Ottomans had lost Hungary to the Habsburgs, the Ottoman mosques in Pécs suffered different fates: some were converted into churches, some repurposed, and some destroyed. Although the most famous preserved mosque in Pécs is the former mosque of Kasım Pasha (now the Catholic parish church),4 the best preserved is the mosque of Yakovalı Hasan Pasha.5 According to the detailed register (mufassal defter) of the subprovince of Pécs from 1579, there was a neighbourhood (mahalle) in the town of Pécs called Ferhad Beg. This neighbourhood centred around a mosque bearing the same name. Evliya Çelebi visited Pécs in the summer of 1663 and described what he called the mosque of Ferhad Pasha. This mosque survived the Habsburg reconquest of Hungary, as was mentioned in the first Habsburg survey of Baranya 1 Sándor Papp, “Peçuy,” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (TDVİA), (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, İslâm Ansiklopedisi Genel Müdürlüğü, 1988–2013), vol. 34, 214–16. 2 Szabolcs Varga, Irem kertje. Pécs története a hódoltság korában (1526–1686) (Pécs: Pécsi Püspöki Hittudományi Főiskola, 2009), 111; Balázs Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek a hódolt Magyarországon (Budapest: MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, 2014), 427. 3 Different numbers of mosques and Muslim prayer houses in Pécs are reported in the literature. According to Evliya Çelebi, there were seventeen Muslim houses of prayer in Pécs. He named seven as mosques, the others as mescids; see Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 433–35. 4 Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 417. For Kasım Pasha see Géza Dávid, “An Ottoman Military Career on the Hungarian Borders: Kasım Voyvoda, Bey, and Pasha,” in Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 265–98. 5 Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 405–13.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_021

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from 1687. The mosque was acquired by the Dominicans in the 18th century and converted into a church. It served as a church for the Dominican Order until 1771, when the Dominicans inaugurated their new church in Pécs. However, not long afterwards, when Emperor Joseph II dissolved the Dominican Order in 1786, the area where the old church was situated was confiscated by the state and sold to private individuals. At the beginning of the 20th century, Béla Németh (the author of the history of the Dominican Order in Pécs) wrote that the mosque mentioned in the Habsburg survey from 1687 on the former Király Street was located at no. 4 Kazinczy Street, inside the building where the municipal casino was located at that time.6 The real breakthrough in research into the history of this mosque came in the 2000s. An exploratory trench was opened in 2004, and in 2005 Győző Gerő published an article on the building.7 Between December 2007 and May 2008, an extensive archaeological, historical, and art-historical research project was conducted on it. The findings were published in an article written by László Gere (a researcher into cultural monuments) and the Ottomanist Balázs Sudár.8 In the article, Sudár addressed the history of the mosque during the Ottoman period and in particular tried to identify its founder. My paper is also an attempt to establish who founded this mosque in Pécs. First, it should be borne in mind that there are plenty of examples to show that identifying the founders of Ottoman mosques often proves difficult. The above-mentioned mosque of Yakovalı Hasan Pasha also survived the Habsburg reconquest of Pécs in 1686 and was converted into the Chapel of Saint John Nepomuk. Other buildings comprising the külliye (building complex) of Yakovalı Hasan Pasha were turned into a hospital.9 The history of this mosque was first explored in the first three decades of the 20th century, but it was not until 2006 that Sudár finally managed to identify its founder.10 Remarkably little was known about Yusuf Pasha, the founder of the mosque in the central Bosnian town of Maglaj, until Machiel Kiel wrote an article about this mosque in 2008. Kiel showed that this mosque was erected by Kalaun Yusuf Pasha, and that it was built around 1620, rather than in the 16th century, as

6 7

Béla Németh, A pécsi dominikánus ház története (Pécs: Taizs József könyvnyomda, 1903), 65. Győző Gerő, “A pécsi Ferhád pasa dzsámi épületegyüttese és a Ferhád pasa mahalle,” Műemlékvédelem 49,6 (2005): 350–56. 8 László Gere and Balázs Sudár, “A pécsi Ferhád-dzsámi,” Archaeologiai Értesítő 136 (2011): 269–296. 9 Balázs Sudár, A pécsi Jakováli Haszan pasa-dzsámi (Budapest: Műemlékek Nemzeti Gondnoksága, 2010), 51–53. 10 Balázs Sudár, “Ki volt Jakováli Haszan pasa?,” Pécsi Szemle 9,1 (2006): 27–34.

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claimed by previous authors.11 Not far from Maglaj lies the small Bosnian town of Gračanica, where there is an Ottoman mosque built in the classical style. Although locals call it the mosque of Ahmed Pasha of Buda, to this day it is not clear who this Ahmed Pasha actually was.12 The mosque of Lala Pasha in the Bosnian town of Livno was long thought to have been founded by Lala Sokollu Mustafa Pasha.13 Only recently did Fazileta Hafizović show that this was not the case, the mosque most probably having been founded by another Mustafa who served as governor of the subprovinces of Klis and Požega, and who became the tutor of the princes (lala) at the end of the 16th century.14 The four Ferhadija mosques in Bosnia (in Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Tešanj and Žepče), built by Ottoman dignitaries named Ferhad, represent a special case in this regard.15 Only the founder of the Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka has been unequivocally identified thanks to the preservation of a copy of its foundation charter, as well as the fact that the career of its founder, Sokollu Ferhad Pasha, has been well researched.16 By contrast, very little is known regarding the founders of the Ferhadija mosques in Sarajevo, Tešanj and Žepče – sometimes only information that has been handed down by oral tradition. With regard to the Ferhadija mosque in the town of Tešanj, its founder is thought to have been Ferhad Beg, whose grave lies in front of the building. According to the inscription on his tombstone, this Ferhad Beg died in the month of Receb in the year 11

Machiel Kiel, “The Mosque of Kalaun Yusuf Pasha in Maglaj: Its Date of Construction and Stylistic Features,” Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 57 (2008): 205–14. 12 Mehmed Mujezinović wrote (though without indicating sources) that this mosque was built between 1593 and 1595; see Mehmed Mujezinović, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine. Knjiga II: Istočna i centralna Bosna (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1977), 185. There is no reliable information in the sources about its founder. According to local tradition, Ahmed Pasha (Ahmed-paša Budimlija in Bosnian) arrived in Gračanica from Buda (Budim in Bosnian) and settled there when this city fell into Habsburg hands in 1686. Local legend also has it that Ahmed Pasha built a clock tower (saat kulesi), a bathhouse (hamam), a school (mektep) and several shops (dükkân) in the town of Gračanica; see Edin Šaković, “Značaj vakufa u razvoju gračaničke čaršije,” Gračanički glasnik 17 (2004): 69–81, here 71–72. 13 For Lala Mustafa Pasha see Bekir Kütükoğlu, “Lala Mustafa Paşa,” TDVİA, vol. 27, 73–74. 14 Fazileta Hafizović, “Lala Mustafa-paša  – kliški sandžakbeg i vakif džamije u Livnu?,” Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 66 (2017): 99–109. 15 Hazim Šabanović, originally intending to find the identity of the founder of the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo, dealt with all these Ferhadija mosques; see Hazim Šabanović, “Ko je osnovao sarajevsku Ferhadiju,” Glasnik Vrhovnog islamkog starješinstva 4 (1953), 32–40; Hazim Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik Ferhad-beg Vuković-Desisalić,” Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 4 (1957): 113–27. 16 Regarding his life and career see Elma Korić, Životni put prvog beglerbega Bosne: Ferhadpaša Sokolović (1530.–1590.) (Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu, 2015).

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975 (11 January–9 February 1568). His father was called İskender.17 According to local tradition, the Ferhadija mosque in Žepče is the oldest mosque there. Nothing is known about Ferhad Beg, who founded the mosque. The oldest gravestone in the cemetery around the mosque dates from 1643. The mosque was renovated in 1872.18 The mosque of Ferhad Beg in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo was completed in the year 969 (21 September 1561–9 September 1562). Šabanović ascertained that one Ferhad Beg (Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić) was the governor of the subprovince of Bosnia in the spring of 1568, without offering convincing proof that he had actually founded this mosque in Sarajevo. He emphasised how curious it is that in Sarajevo, a city rich in oral traditions, nothing had come down about the founder of this mosque.19 The problems in identifying the founders of mosques are not confined to those erected in the distant provinces of the Ottoman Empire, but also concern mosques far closer to Istanbul. The mosque of Ferhad Pasha in Çatalca, for instance, was built by the famous architect Mimar Sinan, but it was not known for sure who this Ferhad Pasha was. Fazıl Ayanoğlu believed him to be identical with Ferhad Pasha, who held the office of grand vizier twice in the 1590s.20 In contrast, Aptullah Kuran wrote that this Ferhad Pasha could not possibly have founded the mosque in Çatalca, arguing instead that it was the vizier Damad Ferhad Pasha, who was married to Hümaşah Sultan, the granddaughter of Sultan Süleyman I.21 In order to identify the founder of the mosque of Ferhad Beg/Pasha in Pécs, Sudár considered four Ferhads in the above-mentioned article. The first Ferhad was the aforementioned Sokollu Ferhad Pasha, a relative of the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Sokollu Ferhad Pasha became the governor of the subprovince of Klis in 1566, and held this office until 1573, when he was appointed governor of the subprovince of Bosnia.22 In 1580, he was appointed the first governor of the newly established province (eyalet) of Bosnia. He then 17 18 19 20 21

22

Mehmed Mujezinović, “Konzervacija nadgrobnog spomenika Ferhada, sina Skenderova,” Naše starine 6 (1959), 247–50. Mujezinović, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine, 246–48. See also, Adem Handžić, A Survey of Islamic Cultural Monuments until the End of the Nineteenth Century in Bosnia (İstanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1996), 45. Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik,” 114. Fazıl Ayanoğlu, “Ferhat Paşa ve Gizli Kalan Vakıfları,” Vakıflar Dergisi 7 (1968): 145–48, here 147. For Ferhad Pasha see Mehmet İpşirli, “Ferhad Paşa,” TDVİA, vol. 12, 383–84. Aptullah Kuran, “Çatalca’daki Ferhad Paşa Camii,” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi: Humaniter Bilimler 3 (1975), 73–90, here 76; Aptullah Kuran, Mimar Sinan (İstanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı Yayınları, 1986), 21. See also, Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 400–2. Korić, Životni put, 45.

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assumed the office of governor of the province of Kefe in 1584, returning to Bosnia the following year and moving to Buda in 1588. Ferhad Pasha governed the province of Buda until September 1590, when he was murdered during a mutiny of janissaries in Buda.23 His mosque in Banja Luka was completed in 1579.24 The Hungarian monument researcher Győző Gerő regarded Sokollu Ferhad Pasha as the founder of this mosque in Pécs.25 Sudár wrote that Sokollu Ferhad Pasha cannot be excluded as its founder but stressed that there were no verifiable ties between Sokollu Ferhad Pasha and the town of Pécs. The second Ferhad was Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić. According to Sudár, Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić first held the office of governor of the subprovince of Klis, and thereafter the offices of governor of Pakrac and Bosnia, respectively. Sudár mistakenly believed him to be the same Ferhad Beg who founded the Ferhadija mosque in Tešanj. The third Ferhad whom Sudár saw as a possible founder of the mosque in Pécs governed the subprovince of Szekszárd (Seksar) in 1570, and subsequently served as the governor of the subprovince of Pécs between 1571 and 1573. He also died in this town. The fourth Ferhad was a certain Ferhad Beg who held the office of governor of the subprovince of Nógrád in 1573 and who briefly governed the subprovince of Pécs from December 1589 to January 1590.26 Data from a register preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna could help us to resolve this question. It is a ruznamçe register bearing the shelf mark Mxt. 571, in which the transfers of benefices between 1572 and 1576 in the province of Buda were recorded.27 An entry in this register dated 24 Muharrem 980 (16 June 1572) states that the governor of the subprovince of 23 Ibid., 139, 156, 203. 24 For its charter of foundation see Asim Muftić, Moschee und Stiftung Ferhād Pascha’s in Banja Luka (Gräfenhainichen: Schulze, 1941); Fazileta Hafizović, “Vakufnama Ferhad-paše Sokolovića,” in Vakufname iz Bosne i Hercegovine, ed. Lejla Gazić (Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu, 1985), 217–32. 25 Gerő, “A pécsi Ferhád pasa,” 350–56. See also, Ibolya Gerelyes, “Ottoman architecture in Hungary: new discoveries and perspectives for research,” in Centres and peripheries in Ottoman arhitecture: Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage, ed. Maximilian Hartmuth (Sarajevo: Cultural Heritage without Borders, 2010), 50–60, here 57. 26 Gere and Sudár, “A pécsi Ferhád-dzsámi,” 271–73. Regarding the third and fourth Ferhad see also Géza Dávid, “Mohács-Pécs 16. századi bégjei,” in Pasák és bégek uralma allat: Demográfiai és közigazgatás-történeti tanulmányok, ed. Géza Dávid (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005), 301–321, here 310. 27 Regarding this register see Gustav Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien, vol. 2 (Wien: Druck und Verlag der K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865), 467. Regarding ruznamçe registers see Douglas Howard, “The BBA ‘Ruznamçe Tasnifi’: A New Resource for the Study of the Ottoman ‘Timar’ System,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 10,1 (1986): 11–19. Regarding

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Pécs Ferhad Beg had been awarded for life (ber-vech-i çiftlik) a large benefice (zeamet) providing annual income of 30,000 aspers (akçe). The following explanation states that this benefice was given to him because he possessed houses in the town of Pécs and had many ties to this town (mīr-i müşārün-ileyh ḳullarınuñ nefs-i Peçūyda evleri ve ʿalāḳa-ı kes̱īresi olub).28 This large benefice belonged to Mehmed, the former governor of the subprovince of Pécs, before being granted to Ferhad Beg. Mehmed Beg had also been given this large benefice for life.29 Ferhad Beg, who took over the administration of the subprovince of Pécs in June 1571, died shortly before 24 November 1573, as we can conclude from another entry dated 19 Receb 981 (24 November 1573), according to which the right of usufruct to his large benefice was transferred to his son Rüstem. Rüstem himself had previously had a benefice of 30,000 aspers in the subprovince of Pécs as well. Rüstem evidently left his large benefice in order to take over that of his late father. In the following note listing the revenues, it was stated that this benefice had previously been given to his father Ferhad Beg for life (çiftlik ṭarīḳiyle her ḳanda sancaḳ taṣarruf ederse ḫāṣṣlarından maḥsūb olmaḳ üzre livā-ı mezbūr begi olan Ferhād Beg ḳullarına ṣadaḳa vu ʿināyet olunub). It was granted to Rüstem because he owned houses in Pécs, he was connected to this town by many ties, and his children needed income from it (müteveffā-yı mezbūruñ oġlı Rüstem ḳullarınuñ Peçūyda evleri ve ʿalāḳa-ı kes̱īresi the importance of ruznamçe registers for biographical research see Nejat Göyünç, “Timar Ruznamçe Defterleri’nin Biyografik Kaynak Olarak Önemi,” Belleten 60,227 (1996): 127–38. 28 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Sammlung von Handschriften und alten Drucken, Mxt. 571, fol. 9v. 29 He came to Pécs in 1567 from the post of governor of the subprovince of Nógrád, see Dávid, “Mohács-Pécs 16. századi,” 309. In his work on the first governors of the subprovince of Krka (Kırka), Dávid wrote that this Mehmed Beg “disappeared like camphor from Pécs in 1571”; see Géza Dávid, “The Formation of the sancak of Kırka (Krka) and its First begs,” in Ottomans – Crimea – Jochids: Studies in Honour of Mária Ivanics, ed. István Zimonyi (Szeged: University of Szeged, 2020), 81–96, here 94. However, Mehmed Beg did not “disappear” from Pécs but died in this town in 1571; Wien, ÖNB, Mxt. 571, fol. 9v. Mehmed Beg had three sons: Derviş, Mustafa and Ahmed. All three were the holders of the benefices in the subprovince of Pécs. All three received an addition (terakki) to their revenues because they allegedly participated in the battle during which György Thúry, the captain of Kanizsa, lost his life; see Ibid., fol. 16r–16v. However, all three entries were annulled (crossed out in red ink). Mehmed Beg conducted a detailed survey of the subprovince of Szigetvár in 1570, during which he committed many abuses; see Dávid, “Mohács-Pécs 16. századi,” 309. These increases in the incomes of his sons may have been the result of the abuses committed by him. A certain Memi Beg/Pasha erected a building complex (külliye) in Pécs; see Balázs Sudár, “Baths in Ottoman Hungary,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 57,4 (2004): 391–437, here 426; Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 422–423. Whether this Mehmed Beg is identical with the benefactor Memi Beg/Pasha is currently unknown; cf. also Dávid, “The Formation of the sancak,” 93–94.

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olmaḳla oġlancıḳları bu zeʿāmete muḥtāc olmaġın).30 These two entries in register Mxt. 571 clearly indicate that Ferhad Beg and his family lived in Pécs and that this town was the centre of their lives. The large benefice awarded to Ferhad Beg comprised the revenues from the villages of Meger, Malom, and Kökey in the judiciary subdistrict (nahiye) of Pécs, the village of Sen Gal in the subdistrict of Senlorinç (Szent Lőrinz), and a village in the subdistrict of Szászvár (?), whose name I could not decipher. The village of Meger (Megyer) is now a district of the city of Pécs,31 and the village of Kökey is almost certainly identical with the present-day village of Kökény,32 which lies about 10 km south of the city centre. The village of Malom (Málom) is now a settlement on the outskirts of the city of Pécs.33 The village of Sen Gal (Szent Gál) lay between Pécs and Szigetvár.34 When the right of usufruct of this benefice was transferred to Rüstem, the composition of the revenues remained unchanged. I have no knowledge of what became of him afterwards. According to an entry dated 2 Safer 1003 (17 October 1594) in ruznamçe register no. 168, kept in the Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA) in Istanbul, this large benefice in the subprovince of Pécs was held by a certain Mustafa Çavuş.35 It could be that Rüstem received a benefice elsewhere or that he died. Then again, he might have fallen in battle at the beginning of the Long Turkish War. According to Evliya Çelebi, Ferhad Pasha also erected a Halveti lodge (tekke) and a bathhouse in Pécs. On the map of the town of Pécs from 1687, there is also a small square building next to the mosque. Gere and Sudár suggest that it could have been a fountain (şadırvan) or a tomb (türbe).36 If it was a tomb, it is quite plausible that this Ferhad Beg/Pasha was actually buried in it – provided, of course, that he had founded this mosque. Ferhad Beg had a çaşnigirbaşı (chief taster) named Hurrem.37 His ulufecibaşı (commander of salaried men) is also mentioned in the sources, though unfortunately without any indication of his name.38 On 10 Rebiülevvel 983 (29 June 30 Wien, ÖNB, Mxt. 571, fol. 162v. 31 Cf. Dező Csánki, Magyarország történelmi földrajza a Hyunadiak korában, vol. 1 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1894), 506–507. 32 Ibid., 499. 33 Ibid., 505. 34 Ibid., 525. 35 İstanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri (BOA), Ruznamçe Defteri (RZD) 168, fols. 415–16. 36 Gere and Sudár, “A pécsi Ferhád-dzsámi,” 295. In his monograph about the Ottoman mosques in Hungary, Sudár mentions only the tomb; see Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 401. 37 Dávid, “Mohács-Pécs 16. századi,” 310. 38 Zekâi Mete, “Osmanlı Taşrasında Bürokratik Müamelat: Sancakbeyi Belge ve Defterleri,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 19 (1999): 181–221, here 185, note 22.

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1575), a certain İbrahim, the son of Ferhad Beg, was awarded a benefice of 8,166 aspers in the subprovince of Szolnok. İbrahim distinguished himself in the battle in which Prebeg János was captured.39 Unfortunately, it is impossible to conclude from the entry whether İbrahim’s father, Ferhad Beg, was identical with our Ferhad Beg. There is strong indication that Ferhad Beg, who died in Pécs in November 1573, was of Herzegovinian origin, for on 6 Zilkade 981 (9 March 1574), the transfer of the benefice from a certain Ali Aga to Mehmed Hersek (Mehmed from Herzegovina), the nephew of Ferhad Beg (Peçūy sancaḳbegi olan Ferhād begüñ ḳarındaşı oġlı olub), was registered.40 This begs the question of whether this Ferhad Beg was actually identical with Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić. As already mentioned, Hazim Šabanović wrote two articles in the 1950s in which he attempted to identify the founder of the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo. Šabanović’s articles were inspired by an article by the Bosnian art historian Đoko Mazalić. In his article, Mazalić dealt with three paintings kept in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.41 A note on the back of the painting depicting Mary with Infant Jesus reveals that it was painted by a certain Todor Vuković in the house of Ivan Woiwode in Sarajevo in April 1568, when Ivan’s brother Ferhad was the governor of the subprovince of Bosnia. Mazalić also argued that it was none other than this Ferhad Beg, who had a Christian brother named Ivan, who founded the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo.42 Although he could not offer compelling proof that this Ferhad Beg was indeed the founder of the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo, his article is important, because he demonstrated that this Ferhad Beg came from the medieval Herzegovinian family of Vuković Desisalić, which appears in historical sources in the first half of the 15th century. In 1435, Vuk Desisalić and Ivan Vuković were mentioned in a document. The family entered Ottoman service probably in the second half of the 15th century or even earlier. At any rate, a certain Ivan Desisalić is mentioned as a tax farmer (amaldar) of the judiciary district (kaza) of Novi in 1489.43 One member of this family, by the name of Grgur Desisalić, served in the retinue of Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha,44 39 Wien, ÖNB, Mxt. 571, fol. 361v. 40 Ibid., fol. 198r. His benefice of 11,029 aspers was in the subprovince of Pécs. 41 Đoko Mazalić, “Nekoliko starih slika,” Glasnik Hrvatskih zemaljskih muzeja u Sarajevu 54 (1942): 207–40. 42 Ibid., 221. 43 Today Herceg Novi in Montenegro. 44 For Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha see Şerafettin Turan, “Hersekzâde Ahmed Paşa.” TDVİA, vol. 17, 235–37.

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travelling as his envoy to Dubrovnik in 1492. The family appears again in sources in the middle of the 16th century, albeit now in two lines: a Muslim and a Christian.45 If we assume that Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić is identical with Ferhad Beg who died in Pécs in November 1573, and that it was he who founded both the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo and the mosque of Ferhad Beg in Pécs, this will explain the absence of oral traditions concerning the Ferhadija mosque in Sarajevo: the founder of the mosque had died in Hungary, memory of him faded, and only his name was preserved in the name of the mosque. However, there is another indication that Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić founded the mosques in Sarajevo and in Pécs as well. If someone had wanted to erect a mosque, he would have had to have been wealthy. How did Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić become rich enough to found two mosques? To answer this question, allow me to briefly summarise his career.46 Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić was first the cavalry captain (alaybeyi) of the subprovince of Bosnia.47 He was subsequently appointed the first governor of the subprovince of Pakrac in 1557.48 He seems to have held this post continuously until 1566. It is not known where he served in 1567. According to Šabanović, he was appointed governor of the subprovince of Bosnia in the spring of 1568.49 There is no indication in the literature or any other sources what the next stage of his career was. If we assume that he was identical with the founder of the mosque of Ferhad Beg in Pécs, it is possible that he was appointed governor of the subprovince of

45 Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik,” 117. 46 Sudár also briefly summarized his career. However, his biographical sketches of Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić contain some errors; see Gere and Sudár, “A pécsi Ferhád-dzsámi,” 271; Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek, 401. 47 Korić, Životni put, 39. 48 Hazim Šabanović, Bosanski pašaluk. Postanak i upravna podjela. 2nd ed. (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1982), 67. Šabanović argued that Ferhad Beg came to Čazma from the post of the governor of the subprovince of Klis; see Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik,” 118–19. The subprovince of Pakrac (other names were the subprovince of Začesna and the subprovince of Cernik) was established in 1557. The seat of this subprovince was first in Čazma and then in Pakrac in Slavonia. The subprovince of Pakrac belonged first to the province of Rumeli, and then from 1580 to the province of Bosnia; see Nenad Moačanin, Turska Hrvatska. Hrvati pod vlašću Osmanskoga Carstva do 1791. Preispitivanja (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1999), 38. 49 Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik,” 125. Ferhad Beg is very likely to have been succeeded by Hamza Beg; see Markus Köhbach, Die Eroberung von Fülek durch die Osmanen 1554. Eine historisch-quellenkritische Studie zur osmanischen Expansion im östlichen Mitteleuropa (Wien et al.: Böhlau, 1994), 54.

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Szekszárd in 1570 followed by governor of the subprovince of Pécs in 1571.50 As we can see, Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić served in the subprovinces that were close to the Habsburg border. A source of income for the Ottoman dignitaries and soldiers who served on the Ottoman borderlands of Bosnia and Hungary was raids into Habsburg territory, from where they returned with booty – mainly cattle and captives. The ransoming and sale of captives was a profitable business.51 However, ransoming was usually a protracted affair, and most captives never had a realistic chance of being ransomed.52 Therefore, we can assume that the vast majority of captives were sold at the slave markets in the Ottoman Empire. As the governor of Pakrac, Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić would undoubtedly have participated in such raids. In 1557, he took part in an incursion into the area close to Zagreb.53 In September 1558, together with several other Ottoman governors, Ferhad Beg raided the area around Glina and Topusko south of Zagreb.54 In 1560, when Ottoman troops from Bosnia raided the territory around Križevci in Slavonia, Ferhad Beg did not take part because he was ill.55 We do not know whether Ferhad Beg was satisfied with the profit yielded by the raids into Habsburg territory or not. In any case, he was inclined to sometimes increase the taxes unlawfully on the territory of his subprovince, prompting complaints about him from the local population. Moreover, he was notorious for his brutality, as he captured Christian peasants who lived in his subprovince and sold them into slavery.56 The possibility that he needed this money to build his mosques cannot be ruled out.57

50 Moreover, Dávid doesn’t give any information about the place where Ferhad Beg served before he was appointed governor of the subprovince of Szekszárd; see Dávid, “MohácsPécs 16. századi,” 310. 51 Géza Pálffy, “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman-Habsburg Frontier in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2007), 35–83, 39. 52 Tobias P. Graf, The Sultan’s Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite, 1575–1610 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 75. 53 Vjekoslav Klaić, Povjest Hrvata. Od najstarijih vremena do svršetka XIX. stoljeća, vol. 3,1 (Zagreb: L. Hartman, 1911), 218. 54 Ibid., 220–21. 55 Ibid., 231. 56 Nenad Moačanin, Slavonija i Srijem u razdoblju osmanske vladavine (Slavonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2001), 138–39; Nenad Moačanin, Požega i Požeština u sklopu Osmanlijskoga Carstva (1537.–1691) 2nd ed. (Jastrebarsko: Naklada Slap, 2003), 51. 57 For example, the construction of the mosque of Sokollu Ferhad Pasha in Banja Luka was financed with money received from the ransom of Wolf Engelbrecht von Auersperg; see Korić, Životni put, 214.

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My article contains another example of how difficult it sometimes is to identify people who were influential members of the Ottoman political elite in their day and who, among other things, also acted as the founders of mosques. As Šabanović noted, Ottoman dignitaries are often hard to identify, because they usually appear only with their names and titles in the sources (Pasha, Beg, Aga), meaning that dignitaries with the same name can easily be confused with each other.58 When trying to ascertain who founded the mosque of Ferhad Beg/Pasha in Pécs, there was a Ferhad Beg who was connected in many ways to the town of Pécs, and who also died there in November 1573. He was likely of Herzegovinian origin. He had one son by the name of Rüstem, who also lived in Pécs. Although we have no irrefutable proof, such as the mosque’s foundation charter, the appearance of the expression ʿalāḳa-ı kes̱īre (“many ties”) in the registration of the benefices of him and his son Rüstem in register Mxt. 571 is enough to persuade me that this Ferhad Beg founded the mosque in Pécs (mentioned in the detailed register of the subprovince of Pécs from 1579 as the mosque of Ferhad Beg) and which Evliya Çelebi called the mosque of Ferhad Pasha in his Seyahatname. However, whether this Ferhad Beg/Pasha is identical with Ferhad Beg Vuković Desisalić remains a moot question. Bibliography Mxt. 571.



Primary Sources Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Sammlung von Handschriften und alten Drucken, Wien T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri, Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

Ruznamçe Defteri (RZD) 168.



Secondary Sources

Ayanoğlu, Fazıl. “Ferhat Paşa ve Gizli Kalan Vakıfları.” Vakıflar Dergisi 7 (1968): 145–48. Balázs Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek a hódolt Magyarországon. Budapest: MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, 2014. Csánki, Dező. Magyarország történelmi földrajza a Hyunadiak korában, vol. 1. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1894. 58 Šabanović, “Bosanski namjesnik,” 117. Regarding the problem of identifying Ottoman dignitaries, see also Dávid, “The Formation of the sancak,” 94–95.

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Dávid, Géza. “An Ottoman Military Career on the Hungarian Borders: Kasım Voyvoda, Bey, and Pasha.” In Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, 265–98. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Dávid, Géza. “Mohács-Pécs 16. századi bégjei.” In Pasák és bégek uralma allat: Demográfiai és közigazgatás-történeti tanulmányok, ed. Géza Dávid, 301–321. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005. Dávid, Géza. “The Formation of the sancak of Kırka (Krka) and its First begs.” In Ottomans – Crimea – Jochids: Studies in Honour of Mária Ivanics, ed. István Zimonyi, 81–96. Szeged: University of Szeged, 2020. Flügel, Gustav. Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der KaiserlichKöniglichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien, vol. 2. Wien: Druck und Verlag der K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865. Gere, László, and Balázs Sudár. “A pécsi Ferhád-dzsámi.” Archaeologiai Értesítő 136 (2011): 269–296. Gerelyes, Ibolya. “Ottoman architecture in Hungary: new discoveries and perspectives for research.” In Centres and peripheries in Ottoman arhitecture: Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage, ed. Maximilian Hartmuth, 50–60. Sarajevo: Cultural Heritage without Borders, 2010. Gerő, Győző. “A pécsi Ferhád pasa dzsámi épületegyüttese és a Ferhád pasa mahalle.” Műemlékvédelem 49,6 (2005): 350–56. Göyünç, Nejat. “Timar Ruznamçe Defterleri’nin Biyografik Kaynak Olarak Önemi,” Belleten 60,227 (1996): 127–38. Graf, Tobias P. The Sultan’s Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite, 1575–1610. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Hafizović, Fazileta. “Lala Mustafa-paša – kliški sandžakbeg i vakif džamije u Livnu?” Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 66 (2017): 99–109. Hafizović, Fazileta. “Vakufnama Ferhad-paše Sokolovića.” In Vakufname iz Bosne i Hercegovine, ed. Lejla Gazić, 217–32. Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu, 1985. Handžić, Adem. A Survey of Islamic Cultural Monuments until the End of the Nineteenth Century in Bosnia. İstanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1996. Howard, Douglas. “The BBA ‘Ruznamçe Tasnifi’: A New Resource for the Study of the Ottoman ‘Timar’ System.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 10,1 (1986): 11–19. İpşirli, Mehmet. “Ferhad Paşa.” TDVİA, vol. 12 (1995): 383–84. Kiel, Machiel. “The Mosque of Kalaun Yusuf Pasha in Maglaj: Its Date of Construction and Stylistic Features.” Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 57 (2008): 205–14. Klaić, Vjekoslav. Povjest Hrvata. Od najstarijih vremena do svršetka XIX. stoljeća, vol. 3,1. Zagreb: L. Hartman, 1911.

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Köhbach, Markus. Die Eroberung von Fülek durch die Osmanen 1554. Eine historischquellenkritische Studie zur osmanischen Expansion im östlichen Mitteleuropa. Wien et al.: Böhlau, 1994. Korić, Elma. Životni put prvog beglerbega Bosne: Ferhad-paša Sokolović (1530.–1590.). Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu, 2015. Kuran, Aptullah. Mimar Sinan. İstanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı Yayınları, 1986. Kuran, Aptullah. “Çatalca‌‌’daki Ferhad Paşa Camii.” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi: Humaniter Bilimler 3 (1975): 73–90. Kütükoğlu, Bekir. “Lala Mustafa Paşa.” TDVİA, vol. 27 (2003): 73–74. Mazalić, Đoko. “Nekoliko starih slika.” Glasnik Hrvatskih zemaljskih muzeja u Sarajevu 54 (1942), 207–40. Mete, Zekâi. “Osmanlı Taşrasında Bürokratik Müamelat: Sancakbeyi Belge ve Defterleri.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 19 (1999): 181–221. Moačanin, Nenad. Požega i Požeština u sklopu Osmanlijskoga Carstva (1537–1691). 2nd ed. Jastrebarsko: Naklada Slap, 2003. Moačanin, Nenad. Slavonija i Srijem u razdoblju osmanske vladavine. Slavonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2001. Moačanin, Nenad. Turska Hrvatska. Hrvati pod vlašću Osmanskoga Carstva do 1791. Preispitivanja. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1999. Muftić, Asim. Moschee und Stiftung Ferhād Pascha’s in Banja Luka. Gräfenhainichen: Schulze, 1941. Mujezinović, Mehmed. Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine. Knjiga II: Istočna i centralna Bosna. Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1977. Mujezinović, Mehmed. “Konzervacija nadgrobnog spomenika Ferhada, sina Skenderova.” Naše starine 6 (1959): 247–50. Necipoğlu, Gülru. The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. London: Reaktion Books, 2005. Németh, Béla. A pécsi dominikánus ház története. Pécs: Taizs József könyvnyomda, 1903. Pálffy, Géza. “Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman-Habsburg Frontier in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders, eds. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, 35–83. Leiden et al.: Brill, 2007. Papp, Sándor. “Peçuy.” TDVİA, vol. 34 (2007): 214–16. Šabanović, Hazim. “Bosanski namjesnik Ferhad-beg Vuković-Desisalić.” Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 4 (1957): 113–27. Šabanović, Hazim. “Ko je osnovao sarajevsku Ferhadiju.” Glasnik Vrhovnog islamkog starješinstva 4 (1953): 32–40. Šabanović, Hazim. Bosanski pašaluk. Postanak i upravna podjela. 2nd ed. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1982. Šaković, Edin. “Značaj vakufa u razvoju gračaničke čaršije.” Gračanički glasnik 17 (2004): 69–81.

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Sudár, Balázs. A pécsi Jakováli Haszan pasa-dzsámi. Budapest: Műemlékek Nemzeti Gondnoksága, 2010. Sudár, Balázs. “Ki volt Jakováli Haszan pasa?” Pécsi Szemle 9,1 (2006): 27–34. Sudár, Balázs. “Baths in Ottoman Hungary.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 57,4 (2004): 391–437. Turan, Şerafettin. “Hersekzâde Ahmed Paşa.” TDVİA, vol. 17 (1998): 235–37. Varga, Szabolcs. Irem kertje. Pécs története a hódoltság korában (1526–1686). Pécs: Pécsi Püspöki Hittudományi Főiskola, 2009.

20 “A Man You Do Not Meet Every Day”

The Waqf Founder as a Benevolent Employer and the Waqf as a Sinecure for the Founder’s Retainers Kayhan Orbay Historians who do not specialize in waqf studies often present waqf institutions as ‘religious’ or ‘pious foundations,’ perhaps in an effort to make them more intelligible to their readers. This is also the case for some waqf historians who are lackadaisical about waqf sources other than endowment deeds. Annexing the adjectives ‘pious’ and ‘religious’ to these institutions is similar to another misleading intellectual construction: the coining of inept terminological categories such as ‘Islamic city’ and ‘Islamic accounting.’ Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern societies were not incapable of establishing an economic and social institution for its own sake or an institution running solely for the material interest of its founder. Insisting on overemphasizing the religious aspect of the waqf institution has overshadowed the economic, commercial, and social functions performed by these institutions, and impeded the application of a thorough institutional and economic analysis grounded in theories of sociology, management science, and economics. Waqf literature in Turkish has defined the waqfs as charitable institutions, a description employed increasingly in mainstream waqf studies in recent decades. That a waqf had to be devoted to a charitable purpose was a legal obligation for establishing a ‘true waqf’ or ‘legal waqf’ (vakf-ı sahih). Hence, the foundation of a waqf involved perforce a charitable act, and the waqfs developed as an institutional form of charity. Yet, this does not come to mean that the founders were so munificent as to donate all their fortune to an array of charitable services, that the return from the endowment was to be spent fully on a charitable purpose, or that the waqf concealed the political and pecuniary advantages that the founder stood to gain.1 This paper looks at the patronage provided by the waqfs through diverse mechanisms which constructed the image of founders as benefactors and 1 Astrid Meier, “For the Sake of God Alone? Food Distribution Policies, Takiyyas and Imarets in Early Ottoman Damascus,” in Feeding People, Feeding Power, eds. Nina Ergin et al. (Istanbul: Eren, 2007), 121–47, here 123.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_022

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altruists. It will shed light on waqfs’ stipend-recipients (zevaidhoran) and foodrecipients (taamhoran) who are usually omitted in the relevant literature despite being a large beneficiary group that had a great role in cultivating the founders’ image. The founders of large waqfs will be presented as ‘employers’ and ‘managers,’ who were the executive authorities that they vested in themselves by the endowment deeds and the roles they exercised in order to build up their patronage. These administrative roles added another layer to their public personas as benevolent patrons. They often took on both roles, as benefactor and employer, and they were recognized in the eyes of society as “benevolent employers.” Lastly, the paper underlines that waqfs were used to sustain a household and to dispense favor to attendants in three ways: by allocating them an income, by employing them in waqf offices, and by allowing them to benefit or profit from waqf resources. 1

Construction Work and Architectural Patronage

Founders had diverse motives for creating a waqf, ranging from personal desire or moral purpose for doing good and helping others in order to receive God’s mercy to gaining esteem and enhancing their influence in society, from bypassing inheritance laws to guaranteeing the rights of managing the return from endowed properties, from alleviating social pressure by conforming to the custom of sharing their wealth to imitating former magnates, and from evading confiscation to managing money under waqf law.2 The devout purpose declared by the dedicators in the waqfiyyes, the foundation charters, might disguise some of their intentions. By revealing the actual functioning of their waqfs and their beneficiaries, we can elicit the founders’ ulterior aims. Whatever it might be, the founders of great waqfs who performed a range of charitable services for the benefit of the public patronized many people from almost every stratum of society. They emerged as magnanimous people and were held in high public esteem. However, it was not simply the colossal brick-and-mortar buildings that gave them the epithet of patron, but also the fact that these institutions allowed the builders, and the waqf employees and beneficiaries, to earn their bread and butter. To be a patron, one needs to have financial power and govern a “redistributive mechanism” for spreading wealth 2 Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 25–37; Amy Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 100–13; Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyılda Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003), 37–82.

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in the form of cash, assets, rights, or titles.3 Looking at how this mechanism was built and operated, how financial resources were generated and administered, where the money came from and where it was spent, allows us to observe the patronage system’s functioning. In other words, institutional, social, political, cultural, and architectural patronage manifested itself chiefly in the functioning of waqfs. And, the founders preserved their influence and their image as patrons as long as they continued to manage the waqfs and the waqf funds. Architectural patronage, for instance, does not reveal its full measure in the inventory, location, schematic drawings, and photographic illustrations of buildings. Rather, it manifests as a relationship between the patron, the builders, and the buildings of the project, in commissioning builders and in constructing edifices, and in the relation of the patron with the town and town-dwellers through their buildings.4 By means of the construction of the waqf complexes, the founders commissioned and sponsored – for the limited period of the construction work  – the architects, stonemasons, stone carvers, carpenters, smiths, tilers, and the artists who ornamented the edifices. Extensive construction works not only supported the people employed in the building project, but also induced the growth of the town economy by creating large employment opportunities, by making wage payments, and by the purchase of building materials. The construction of the Süleymaniye waqf complex in Istanbul, which lasted almost 10 years and cost millions of silver coins, is not unique, but is the best-known instance of the enormity of such projects and their stirring impact on the economy.5 In addition to the waqf service structures (müessesat-ı hayriye or imaret/ foundations), the waqfs, with extensive urban revenues, included incomeyielding properties (müsakkafat/endowments; endowed income-generating buildings) such as houses, baths, shops, covered bazaars, workshops, and storehouses, all of which provided the infrastructure and backed urban economic and commercial life. Waqfs’ facilities and their nearby residential settlements midwifed the emergence of new districts, which carried the name of the waqf 3 Kayhan Orbay, “Vakıf Ekonomisi ve Yeniden-Dağıtım,” in CIEPO-22 Symposium, vol. 1, eds. Kenan İnan et al. (Trabzon: İleri Haber Ajansı, 2018), 111–19. 4 Therefore, although many publications include ‘architectural patronage’ in their titles, their authors have contributed little to our understanding of how architectural patronage actually worked. The seminal work of the late Barkan has not been surpassed to date. See Ömer Lütfi Barkan, Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti İnşaatı (1550–1557) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1972). 5 Barkan, Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti İnşaatı. See also Pia Hochhut, “Zur Finanzierung des Baus einer Sultansmoschee: Die Nuruosmaniye,” in Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschaftsund Sozialgeschichte: in memoriam Vančo Boškov, ed. Hans Georg Majer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986), 68–75; Fahri Unan, Kuruluşundan Günümüze Fatih Külliyesi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003).

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founders.6 Thus, the reputation of the patron and employer germinated via the erection of waqf buildings and properties. However, the founders assumed and perpetuated the roles of patron and employer in a true sense by virtue of the waqfs’ economic and social influence, as this was experienced by the public in their daily lives and in their pockets. The neighborhood dwelled in waqf houses, were employed by the waqf, ran their business in the waqf shops, paid rent to the waqf budget, traded with the waqf, bathed in the waqf bathhouse, worshipped in the waqf mosque. Furthermore, their children attended the waqf’s school, and poor and needy people of the neighborhood were served food from the waqf kitchen.7 Thus, the waqf touched almost every facet of life through developing intense financial, commercial, social, and emotional bonds. The waqfs provided the institutional base upon which the “sense of local identity and cohesion”8 developed on the neighborhood scale. Likewise, the inhabitants, dwellers of small towns in particular were affiliated with the waqfs, and the same bonds were established spreading even to the peasantry by way of land, buildings, and the employment offered by waqfs in the countryside.9 The waqf of Ghazi Süleyman Pasha, for instance, in the relatively small town of Bolayır, employed around 180 people and the waqf of Saruca Pasha in the town of Gallipoli employed about 60 in their offices.10 The same waqfs, located on the Gallipoli Peninsula, owned numerous urban properties in these towns and rural holdings, some in close proximity to the towns. When we closely examine the small peninsula of Gallipoli, where the waqfs supported many employees and beneficiaries, where their families as denizens of the towns utilized waqf services and properties, and where peasants in the surrounding waqf villages enjoyed the benefit of being registered as “waqf reaya,” including the exemption from 6

Halil İnalcık, “Istanbul: An Islamic City,” Journal of Islamic Studies (1990, 1): 1–23, here 10; Howard Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts, eds. Irene A. Bierman et al. (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991), 173–243, here 220f; Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003); Hasan Hüseyin Güneş, Kudüs Meğaribe Mahallesi (Ankara: Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2017). 7 Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyılda Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi, vii. 8 Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul, 4. 9 Kayhan Orbay, “The Waqf of Saruca Pasha in Gallipoli and Agricultural Economy in 17thCentury Thrace,” A.Ü. Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi (OTAM) Dergisi 27 (2010): 143–63; Hatice Oruç and Kayhan Orbay, “Filibe’de Şehabeddin Paşa Vakfı 1632–1641 (H. 1041–1051),” İ.Ü. Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 18 (2010): 19–57, here 34. 10 Orbay, “The Waqf of Saruca Pasha in Gallipoli”; Kayhan Orbay, “Gazi Süleyman Paşa Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi ve 17. Yüzyılda Trakya Tarımsal Ekonomisi,” A.Ü. Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 30,49 (2011): 145–81.

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extraordinary levies, it becomes clear how all these people felt themselves tied to the waqfs by bonds of economic, moral, and emotional dependence. To give an example, Saruca Pasha completed his waqf before his death. He had spent a part of his career in Gallipoli and after his dismissal from the viziership, he resided there for some time until he was called to duty again. He was dismissed again in 1453, whereupon he returned to Gallipoli, where he passed away in 1454. Saruca Pasha was given the chance to display his largesse by way of the visual landscape of his grand waqf. His foundation comprised a mosque, a medrese (higher learning center), and an imaret or public kitchen, a building typically consisting of a refectory, a dining room, a pantry, a scullery, and ovens. His endowments in the town included a caravansary, a covered marketplace, shops, multi-flat buildings (yahudihane), houses, rooms, and a bathhouse. The financial condition of the waqf at the pasha’s time is unknown to us due to the dearth of archival records. However, some waqf account books beginning in the year 1609 are available and they inform us about its financial power.11 In 1609, his waqf employed 63 people who were paid circa 84,000 akçe annually. The müderris (professor) in his medrese, the sole medrese in the town, received 50 akçe daily and 10 pupils attended it. The account books are silent about the capacity of his (the town’s only) imaret. Yet, we read that circa 136,000 akçe was spent on kitchen consumption in 1609. These figures from the early 17th century are enough to show the prominence of the waqf in the town economy, which would not have been very different during the pasha’s lifetime. It was this institutional power behind the pasha that made him the patron of the town: in other words, and taking the liberty of transposing this from another context altogether “a man you do not meet every day.”12 2

The Waqf Management’s Control of the Patronage-dispensing Mechanism

The waqfs brought recognition to their founders as esteemed, devout, and charitable people, who, for the most part, were in charge of the management of the waqfs, and concurrently held the social influence. The waqfs raised them or the person who was specified as the manager (mütevelli) – be he the prayer leader (imam) or another civil servant in the neighborhood – to the position

11 T.C. Cumhurbaşbakanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), MAD 5933. 12 For a similar figure, see Jeffrey T. Roesgen, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash (New York: Continuum, 2008), 27–28.

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of community leaders.13 However, most founders designated themselves, their family members, and descendants as managers of their waqfs. Many endowment deeds contained stipulations assigning manumitted slaves and their offspring to the management after the founders’ line ended. As the management passed to a member of the founder’s progeny, it was not only the management rights and pecuniary advantages associated with it that were taken over. The patron-client relationships, namely the political and social legacy of the founder, their role in the public and business community, and their concomitant high reputation, were also handed over to the inheritor.14 In many waqfs, the founder retained the administration and a generous part of the waqf income was distributed within a circle of kith and kin in the form of budget surplus and/or salary payment. However, in a substantial number of waqfs, the employees, even managers, and beneficiaries were chosen from outside this circle. The preacher of the neighborhood mosque (vaiz, hatib), the schoolteacher (muallim), the local judge, and the servants of other waqfs, such as the scribes and managers of larger nearby waqfs, were designated as the first or the succeeding manager after the dedicator. These appointees were likely regarded as trustworthy individuals due to their economic and social status. But more can be assumed; for instance, the social position of a woman impeded her from dealing personally with pecuniary affairs, especially in the case of cash waqfs. It was a plausible decision, therefore, for some founders to divest themselves of managerial authority and to name a mosque preacher, a local judge, a scribe, or a manager of another waqf, who was able to keep accounts or had personnel to keep the books, as the waqf manager. These individuals recognized who would be trustworthy borrowers of waqf funds or reliable lessees for a waqf house, and who the neighborhood’s swindlers were. Their leadership in social, cultural, or religious life rendered the preacher, the prayer leader, or the judge managers of several waqfs, and in return, the management of waqfs made them even more influential in the community. Thus, the management of waqfs and their funds was concentrated in the hands of a couple of people who held prominent positions in society and who, thanks to the waqfs, also gained prominence in the 13 Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul. 14 Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, “‘In the Image of Rūm’: Ottoman Architectural Patronage in SixteenthCentury Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 70–96, here 78; Salma Nasution Khoo, “Waqf and Social Patronage among the Tamil Muslim Diaspora in the Straits Settlement of Penang,” in Comparative Study of the Waqf from the East: Dynamism of Norm and Practices in Religious and Familial Donations, ed. Miura Toru (Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko, 2018), 141–164, here 143.

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commercial and financial markets. This enabled the same managers to pool funds of different waqfs,15 thereby augmenting their financial faculty, and in turn, their social standing. It was, in fact, this managerial control over waqfs and the accompanying financial power that established patronage and client relations and supported the founders or the managers in their position as community leaders. Providing public services was actually a mechanism to build up and maintain the image of patrons, whether in society at large or in a small neighborhood. This worked in two ways. First, performing public services by building and putting mosques, masjids, caravansaries, hospitals, schools, and higher-education centers into service was already a symbol of patronage. People were grateful for having places to pray in their vicinity and to educate their children; travelers and merchants were grateful to find accommodation for themselves and their pack trains; and the sick were thankful to have care day and night and to recuperate without hospital charges. By supplying basic necessities, such as bearing the cost of laying ducts and bringing water, building a fountain or a bathhouse  – although the bather defrayed the bill  – waqf founders were labeled philanthropists and patrons of neighborhoods or far beyond. Second, for the men who were employed by the waqfs to fulfill the aforesaid services, the patron was also their “benevolent employer.” Many kept their jobs through the patronage network of the founders and managers, regardless of whether the position required skills. As explained above, they were more grateful than the neighborhood community who benefited only from the public services. Thus, the waqfs performed and supported religious, health, and educational services, and patronized many people who worked for, or benefited from, all the waqfs’ services. 3

Intersecting Fields of “Waqf Economy” and Patronage

It is impossible to fathom how patronage was instituted and the founders were identified as employers without understanding the aforementioned economic and social bonds established through the actual running of the waqfs. There 15 Ronald C. Jennings, “Loans and Credit in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16,2/3 (1973): 168–216; Murat Çizakça, “Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 1555–1823,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38,3 (1995): 313–54; Eleni Gara, “Lending and Borrowing Money in an Ottoman Province Town,” in Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, eds. Markus Köhbach et al. (Wien: Institute für Orientalistik, 1999), 113–19.

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are two concepts, I believe, that provide insight in this case: the “redistributive functioning of waqfs” and the “waqf economy.”16 The large waqfs derived their immense budgets from extensive agricultural lands and numerous urban properties, sometimes spreading into the adjacent towns and districts.17 A sizable part of their income was drawn from diverse sources of taxation funneled into the economy of the town where the waqfs were located through a range of channels; namely through salary and wage payments, repair work, distribution of budget surplus, foodstuff and material purchases, and all the other financial transactions and expenditures on items needed for the upkeep of the waqfs. The institutionalized mechanisms of waqf income redistribution generated a field of economic influence. Taxpayers, wholesalers, merchants, artisans, shopkeepers, waqf employees, and beneficiaries were involved in this field. Patronage was raised upon this field and was sustained provided, and as long as, the waqf was financially capable of keeping the mechanisms of redistribution open. In other words, the founders maintained their patronage for as long as, and depending on, the extent that they loosened the purse strings of the waqf budget for redistribution. 4

Employment, Salary Payments, and the Figure of Benevolent Employer

One mechanism of redistribution was the salary payments to the waqf employees. The same mechanism worked for establishing and fostering the bonds of patronage. Major waqfs provided large employment capacities, easily amounting to more than several hundreds of posts in various divisions for skilled and unskilled people, from an accountant and scholar to a reciter of prayers and a dishwasher. The employment capacity of the waqf of Süleymaniye in Istanbul, not including the beneficiaries, was over 900 individuals, in the late 16th century.18 At around the turn of the same century, the four imperial waqfs

16

Kayhan Orbay “Imperial Waqfs within the Ottoman Waqf System,” Endowment Studies 1,2 (2017): 135–53; Orbay, “Vakıf Ekonomisi ve Yeniden-Dağıtım.” 17 For the extension of waqf rural properties, see Kayhan Orbay, “Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters in Seventeenth-Century Anatolia: A Case Study of the Waqf of Bâyezîd II,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 15,1–2 (2009): 63–82. Also see Oruç and Orbay, “Filibe’de Şehabeddin Paşa Vakfı.” 18 Kayhan Orbay, “The Magnificent Süleymâniye Owed a Debt to the Butcher and the Grocer,” Belleten 75,272, (2011): 87–133.

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of Edirne employed about 700 people in their permanent staff.19 And, the four famous large waqfs of Bursa employed more than 600.20 Many recipients of stipends are not included in these figures. The employment capacity of the large waqfs is impressive in these cities, which rose as a result of the crucial role of the imperial waqfs in their rise to prominence. However, it should be noted that there were also workers and beneficiaries in a great number of other waqfs in these cities. The endowment deed functioned like a labor contract between the waqf and the employee, as it contained stipulations for the required skills and the job description for the position. The deed was declared by the founder and was implemented by him/her as the first manager. The appointments to the upper positions were made directly by the managers. The people who held a post in the waqf were ensured a permanent and safe job, and were grateful to the employer for their family’s “tuz etmek” (literally salt and bread). The most crowded offices were assigned to the mosques. In these offices, many unskilled workers were permanently employed in mostly single task-based and part-time positions at very low pay.21 The underlying reason for this was apparently to create employment and to relieve poverty which, in turn, supported the image of the generous patron. It seems, however, that the higher and prestigious positions in the waqfs, such as lectureships in education centers and deputy managerships, were earmarked for the trustworthy, skilled men among the household and entourage.22 They were sometimes appointed to the posts having been named by the founder directly in the endowment deed.23

19 Kayhan Orbay, “Muhasebe Defterlerine Göre 17. Yüzyıl Başlarında Üç Şerefeli Camii Vakfı,” H.Ü. Türkiyat Araştırmaları 15 (2011): 159–165; Kayhan Orbay, “Edirne II. Bayezid Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1597–1640),” A.Ü. Güneydoğu Avrupa Çalışmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi (GAMER) 1,1 (2012): 113–41; Kayhan Orbay, “Edirne Muradiyye Vakfı’nın Mali Yapısı ve Gelişimi,” Belleten 78,283 (2014): 983–1031; Kayhan Orbay and Hatice Oruç, “Sultan II. Murad’ın Edirne Câmiʿ-i Şerîf ve Dârü’l-hadîs Vakfı (1592–1607),” İ.Ü. Tarih Dergisi 56 (2012): 1–24. 20 Kayhan Orbay, “16. ve 17. Yüzyıllarda Bursa Ekonomisi: Sultan Çelebi Mehmed Yeşil İmaret’inin Mali Tarihi (1553–1650),” A.Ü. Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi (OTAM) Dergisi 22, (2007): 125–58; Kayhan Orbay, “Bursa‌’da Sultan II. Murad Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1608–1641),” İ.Ü. İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 61,2 (2011): 293–322; Kayhan Orbay, “Emir Sultan (Mehmed El-Buhari) Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi,” U.Ü. Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 22,22 (2012): 23–42; Kayhan Orbay, “Orhan Gazi Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihinden Bir Kesit (1593–1641),” Vakıflar Dergisi 38 (2012): 65–84. 21 See footnotes 19 and 20. 22 Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 27–28. 23 Yusuf Sağır, “Vakfiyesine Göre Köprülü Mehmed Paşa Vakıfları,” (PhD diss., Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, İzmir 2005), 82–83.

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Many needy and disabled people pleaded to the waqf for aid. In these cases, the waqfs preferred to put them on salary by filling job vacancies in low-paid, part-time positions rather than granting a stipend. This made poor or disabled people feel better, as they earned a wage in return for a job. For the waqf, employing a person in a vacant position to fulfill conditions set in the endowment deed was a better option financially than assigning a monthly allowance and bearing its extra cost to the budget. Thus, the waqf was the first resort for many people who hoped for tenured and salaried employment. The founder, acting herein as the employer and manager, received, evaluated, and approved applications and issued an appointment letter, and in this way constructed a patronage system that supported the livelihood of tens sometimes hundreds of families. Around the year 1600, for instance, the four large waqfs in Bursa paid out more than 600,000 akçe per annum on salaries.24 Much greater sums for salaries were regularly distributed in the “waqf cities,” where the largest waqfs of dynasty members and high-ranking state servants were located. These salary payments are to be considered as the transfer of regular purchasing power to large societal sections which, in turn, circulated in the town economy and supported retailers, producers, and merchants. This is how the employment and salary payments eventually enlarged the patronage network. The waqf offices, chiefly the offices offering religious services, presented such employment opportunities for unskilled and needy people that there was a constant demand and pressure for the creation of new offices or for the growth of the number of the existing staff. This situation straitened the waqf budgets.25 In fact, these offices mostly offered low-paid and part-time employment. Still, they supported the livelihood of people, and assigning these posts became a means of charity and of showing patronage. However, since the salary rates  – particularly for such positions  – were usually fixed in the waqfs’ endowment deeds, as time went by, the purchasing power of salaries eroded due to price inflation. This also happened to the salaries of other permanent full-time employees who earned their living in the waqf and whose services were crucial to the running of the institution.26 Therefore, they officiated in more than one post to compensate for their income loss. In order to make this measure feasible, the vacant part-time positions were not filled and were returned to the waqf. This, in turn, reduced the waqf’s employment capacity,

24 See footnote 20. 25 Yediyıldız, Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi. 26 Oruç and Orbay, “Filibe’de Şehabeddin Paşa Vakfı,” 7.

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and culminated in a shrinkage of employment opportunities available to needy people and open to be utilized for patronage. 5

Managers as velinimet: Expanding Patronage through Wages, Purchases, and Repairs

In a similar way to the salary payments, the wage payments, waqf purchases, and repairs also developed a network of patronage extending to a wider public of laborers, craftspeople, and tradesmen. For their daily operations, large waqfs made extensive purchases of goods and services. The range of goods demanded extended from brooms and nails to dishes, roof tiles and paper sheets. Thus, the regular and large-scale purchases of waqfs, as institutional customers, supported a large body of retailers and wholesalers. Waqfs made wage payments to the porters and wagon drivers for transporting goods in-kind from villages to the waqfs, and for carrying waqf purchases from grain markets or from slaughterhouses to the waqf storehouse and kitchen. The services of pathfinders, candlelighters, and town criers were often required. It is easy to imagine that the retailers, wholesalers, and many workers of diverse occupations considered the waqf managers, who were loyal, reliable, and wealthy customers, as patrons or ‘velinimet.’ Their support for the local craftspeople and merchants was sometimes entered into the endowment deed as a stipulation.27 What was the monetary volume of these outlays for wages and purchases, which the large waqfs registered below the entry of miscellaneous expenditures? Miscellaneous expenditures fluctuated year by year, but, for example, Bayezid II’s waqf in Amasya spent between 50,000 to 100,000 akçe annually on wage payments and consumer goods in the last years of the 16th century.28 Adding to this sum, the kitchen expenses for foodstuffs in the range of 700,000–800,000 akçe shows the extent of disbursements through which a single, large waqf pumped cash into the town economy. The imperial waqfs, a term collectively referring to the large waqfs of the dynasty and dignitaries, with their public kitchens, were an indispensable part of the system of food provision in Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul – Ottoman cities with a high concentration of large waqfs. The imperial waqfs performed the same function on the same scale in the smaller cities of Tokat and Amasya, where several large 27

Gabriel Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System (Sixteenth–Twentieth Centuries),” Islamic Law and Society 4,3 (1997): 264–97, here 281. 28 Orbay, “Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters.”

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waqfs had been established, and also in Gallipoli, where a single large waqf performed the same role. 6

Repairing the Waqf Properties and Recovering the Patronage

Waqf buildings were repaired regularly. Although some large waqfs employed building workers and repairmen among their permanent staff for the routine and minor repair works, such services were repeatedly sought in the labor market. In particular, great disasters caused serious damage to waqfs’ service buildings. In the wake of such disasters, the waqfs had to undertake extensive repair and reconstruction works that came at a huge cost. This cost re-invigorated the town economy in a similar manner to the initial construction work of the waqf buildings. Yet, the waqfs’ role in disaster relief and patronage toward the town dwellers was greater than the repair of service buildings which, in and of itself, was significant for reinstating the ordinary course of public life, as seen in Amasya after the major earthquake of 1598.29 The commercial infrastructure in towns was mostly owned by the waqfs and the cost of rebuilding and restoring dilapidated buildings was covered by them. After the Celali attack on Bursa in 1608–09, for instance, the waqfs of Orhan Ghazi, Murad II, Emir Sultan, and the waqf of Çelebi Mehmed, bore enormous repair expenses amounting to hundreds of thousands of akçe and reconstructed the commercial infrastructure, eradicating the ‘Celali effect’ in a couple of years.30 It might be supposed that waqfs increased their support for poor and needy people during economic and social crises.31 However, natural or human-made disasters depleted waqf finances and left them in a difficult situation, which, in turn, disrupted the functioning of the waqf economy.32 Rather than providing further support for the people in need, they constricted their charitable 29 Orbay, “Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters”; Kayhan Orbay, “Coping with Institutional and Financial Crises in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Ensuring the Survival of Ottoman Royal Waqfs,” Medieval History Journal 22,2 (2019): 229–52. 30 See footnote 17. 31 Fariba Zarinebaf, “Women, Patronage, and Charity in Ottoman Istanbul,” in Beyond the Exotic: Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies, ed. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 89–101, here 92. 32 Kayhan Orbay, “The ‘Celâlî Effect’ on Rural Production and Demography in Central Anatolia; the Waqf of Hatuniyye (1590s to 1638),” Acta Orientalia: Academiae Scientiarum Hung. 71,1 (2018): 29–44.

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activities. In other words, disasters also damaged the mechanism of providing patronage. Thus, when the waqfs helped the town economy to recover from the effects of disasters via their extensive repair and restoration projects and restored the daily routine of commercial and social life, they also recovered the patronage system. During post-disaster recovery, the managers re-established their image as patrons and made it once again visible to the public. Disasters also gave rise to opportunities for the emergence of new patrons, as they paved the way for the establishment of fresh waqfs over the ruined, burnt-down properties seen after the great fire of 1660 in Istanbul.33 7

Waqfs as Sinecures for Retainers

Along with the dynastic waqfs, waqfs founded by high-ranking state servants were larger in size and financial capacity. For high-ranking servants, establishing a waqf was partly the result of the social pressure that was created at large by societal expectations on the rich and powerful, and partially at the behest of the sultan, who expected his servants who had accrued their wealth in governmental duties to do so.34 The other possible motives for establishing a waqf have been suggested in the introductory pages of this paper. However, the need to secure their wealth for themselves, their immediate family, and their household-family35 was certainly a primary motivation. At the same time, the waqfs were a means of sustaining retainers in the innerhousehold (iç halkı, enderun) and the outer-household (taşra halkı, birun), solidifying authority over them, and sponsoring the attendants in their entourage (tevabiʾi). I would also argue that their households (kapı halkı) were a source of social pressure that forced dignitaries to establish a waqf in their interests and for their benefit. In other words, the demand for redistribution of wealth in exchange of loyalty came from the retainers. Although dignitaries were paid high sums on active duty, and engaged in trade and tax farming, their spending was also sizable due to their large 33

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Kenan Yıldız, 1660 İstanbul Yangını ve Etkileri: Vakıflar, Toplum ve Ekonomi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2017); Ramazan Pantık, “Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları: Yönetimi, Kentsel Gelişime Katkıları ve İktisadi Yapısı,” (PhD diss., Ankara, Department of History, Hacettepe University, 2021). Rifa‌ʾat Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 57–58. Naomi Tadmor, “The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth-Century England,” Past & Present 151 (1996): 111–40.

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households.36 Forming a crowded, or “excellent household,” and holding armed men at command, shortened the period of suspension from active duty, and hastened and facilitated the rise to higher posts.37 But, it also meant more men to pay, equip, and feed.38 While they were on duty, assigning prebendal lands and promoting the careers of retainers could work to a certain extent.39 However, keeping a household imposed a heavy financial burden when state servants were suspended from office.40 Although this interval was mostly treated as a duty period, and the state servants were assigned an income either from the budgets of sultanic waqfs or from the revenues of state tax farms, this was not enough for maintaining their households and often led to their disbanding.41 It was not easy to form a household, to find loyal and capable men with whom to form a web of political and pecuniary interest. Therefore, the high-ranking elite had the additional concern of putting savings aside for their household-family and, at the very least, for their right-hand men in their inner- and outer-households for the days when their revenues fell – be it after they were retired, were suspended, dismissed, or decapitated – and their wealth was confiscated. This concern was shared by the household members who had a common fortune and fate with their patrons to the extent that, in some cases, the households were inherited by the sons.42 At this point, the foundation of a waqf was an investment for a rainy day – not only for the dignitaries, but also for their extended-family and households.43 However, not all family members or the 36

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39 40 41 42 43

Metin Kunt, “Derviş Mehmed Paşa, Vezir and Entrepreneur: A Study in Ottoman PoliticalEconomic Theory and Practice,” Turcica, revue d’études turques 9,1 (1977): 197–214; Metin Kunt, Sancaktan Eyalete, 1550–1660 Arasında Osmanlı Ümerası ve İl İdaresi (Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yay., 1978), 98; Metin Kunt, Bir Osmanlı Valisinin Yıllık Gelir-Gideri Diyarbekir, 1670–71 (Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yay., 1981); Bilgehan Pamuk, “XVII. Yüzyılda Bir Osmanlı Paşasının Masraf Bilançosu,” Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 22,34 (2003): 107–24. It seems that it was not easy to calculate the real income of state servants while they were on duty, and even after their probate inventory had been made. See Halil Sahillioğlu, Koca Sinan Paşa’nın Telhisleri (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2004), 252–53. Kunt, Sancaktan Eyalete, 104. Michael Nizri, “The Religious Endowments of Şeyhülislam Feyzullah Efendi: The Waqf Institution and the Survival of Ottoman Elite Households,” in Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East, eds. Dror Zeʾevi and Ehud R. Toledano (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 31–43, here 35. Kunt, Sancaktan Eyalete. Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı Tarihine Aid Belgeler: Telhisler (Istanbul: İ.Ü. Edebiyat Fak. Yay., 1970), 9. Orhonlu, Telhisler, 13–14. Ibid.; Nizri, “The Religious Endowments of Şeyhülislam Feyzullah Efendi,” 39. Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies, 108.

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retainers desperately sought a place in the waqf or an allocation. Certain sons of dignitaries and retainers built their own careers and founded their own waqfs. Whether or not they were driven into poverty when their fortune took a turn for the worse, the founders, their family and household members, and even certain retainers who were advanced in their career, for instance a müderris (professor), enjoyed a high and steady income from the waqfs.44 Thus, even members of the ruling family founded their own waqfs or were allotted an income from dynastic ones.45 However, establishing a large waqf required significant capital. Dignitaries sought land grants (temlik) from the rulers to finance them. It seems that the land grants were offered to bureaucrats who were favored and esteemed by the sultan for their loyalty and their foresightedness in taking financial or military measures, or to vizier-commanders who defeated foes and conquered lands in the name of the sultan. A land grant was given on the condition that the land be handed over to a waqf.46 Dignitaries had to prove that they provided generous endowments and show that they founded a purely charitable waqf. Alleviating social pressure and meeting the ruler’s expectations by founding a waqf, the bureaucrat could now also designate himself and his heirs as the manager with authority to administer waqf surplus funds, allocate part of the waqf income, or guarantee regular payments to family members. In doing so, as Baer put it, the welfare of his or her family and progeny was a primary concern; however, this concern extended to people outside the family and, in particular, to the household members.47 8

Appropriating Funds for the Household

The waqf, as many historians have contended, was used to foster bonds of dependence and loyalty between the founders and their household members, or, in general, between superiors and subordinates;48 it “support[ed] and

44

Rifa‌ʾat Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 46. 45 M. Çağatay Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1985); Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques,” 220; Yediyıldız, Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi, 253–54. 46 See John Michael Rogers, “Waqf and Patronage in Seljuk Anatolia: The Epigraphic Evidence,” Anatolian Studies, v. 26 (1976): 69–103, here 87. 47 Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System,” 265. 48 Marlene Kurz, “Gracious Sultan, Grateful Subjects: Spreading Ottoman Imperial ‘Ideology’ throughout the Empire,” Studia Islamica 107,1 (2012): 96–121.

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reinforc[ed] these social units and their cohesion.”49 Loyalty and dependence were not for free but you had to invest and pay for them. The redistributive mechanisms of waqfs were useful devices for this investment, and since these devices strengthened the founders’ political and economic position together with that of their household and entourage, they were targeted by their rivals.50 As mentioned earlier, some household members or people within their entourage parted ways, made their own fortune, and even founded their own waqfs.51 However, the rest had to lean on their patrons. By taking these people into the “mürtezika” group (beneficiaries) in the endowment deed, the founders continued to patronize their comrades, servants, concubines, and manumitted slaves. Having modest or no economic means of their own, these groups were largely dependent on their patrons’ charity. Thus, the founders also ensured the loyalty of these people through a lasting bond of patronage.52 Thus, the waqf beneficiaries named in the endowment deed were more privileged compared to the stipend-holders (zevaidhoran). They were paid from the waqf budget and, in order of priority, their pay usually came directly after the repair expenses for the waqf service buildings and for the properties of perpetual income. The stipend-holders, on the other hand, were paid if the waqf was able to produce a budget surplus. In general, the allowance of the beneficiaries was considerably higher than the wages of the waqf employees and it could be bequeathed to their children pursuant to the stipulation invariably appearing in the endowment deed. Moreover, although adapting the salary levels to inflation was rarely seen in waqfs, the allowances of beneficiaries were generally re-evaluated.53 This obviously depended on the same ratification procedure that was in place for ordinary salary increases within the spending-control system of the waqfs. 9

Distributing Paid Positions to Retainers

Another way of resuming patronage and maintain retainers was to employ them and their sons in the waqf offices as vazifehoran, the permanent salaried staff. This ensured them a regular income, but in contrast with the beneficiaries, the pay was given in return for work. Considering the conditions of the Ottoman 49 50 51 52 53

Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System,” 264. Sahillioğlu, Koca Sinan Paşa‌’nın Telhisleri, 18, 57, 85, 202. Pantık, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları, 223, 252. Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System,” 275. Pantık, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları, 102.

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economy in the pre-modern era, the dignitaries did not build industrial facilities and appoint their household members as general directors, departmental managers, accounting directors, or purchasing or customer relations managers. Even if they had built a facility, their properties might have been confiscated. However, a waqf could be used as a family enterprise unthreatened by confiscation and in this sense supplied quite similar positions. There were a few positions in the ordinary waqfs that were founded by the public. These positions were mostly reserved for the founder and his/her family and were for the most part low-paid jobs. However, in the large waqfs there was more room for the men from the founder’s household. They were employed in well-paid positions as deputy managers (kaimmakam-ı mütevelli), professors (müderris), procurement superintendents (vekil-i harç), kitchen stewards (şeyh-i imaret), and chief accountants (katib-i vakıf ).54 These higher positions were limited in number, but there were tens of less-paid permanent positions, and in some large waqfs, all these positions were spared for the household members of the founder.55 At the same time, they received their pension from the waqf if they became disabled and unable to work. Furthermore, in some waqfs, their sons were nominated as their successors in endowment deeds. 10

Getting the Most Out of the Waqf

The “waqf economy” provided further material advantages for the founder’s retainers.56 Establishing a business connection with the waqf as a vendor and undertaking revenue farming (iltizam) from the waqf were profitable ventures. Legally, there was no restriction or inconvenience for the founder, his family, and household members in developing such a business relation with the waqf. However, it can be assumed that being an “insider” made a difference in terms of standing out among commercial rivals. There were two more ways for deriving pecuniary gains from the waqf for which the household members took advantage of their insider position and close relationship with the waqf management. As is known, the waqfs built and rented out buildings to craftsmen. They did not engage in producing and selling commodities. However, the number of shops and manufactories owned by the large waqfs occasionally created monopolistic conditions in certain 54 Pantık, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları, 102. 55 Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System,” 271f; Pantık, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları, 388–391. 56 Baer, “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System,” 270–71.

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sectors or town districts  – independently of the imperial decree which, in some instances, had already granted such a privilege. This opportunity was offered by the wider application of the double-renting method or icareteyn.57 This renting method opened a new field of investment for the rich, enabling them to arrange long-term lease contracts. Since the double-renting included a down payment, it provided an advantage to the investors who kept ready cash. To make a profit from the long-term lease of waqf properties, the retainers rented the manufactories, shops, and houses not to operate them or to reside in them but to sublet to a third parties at higher rents. All the transactions were legal and only required the approval of the waqf manager, who was also the retainers’ patron. In this way, a retainer alone, in partnership with, or cooperating with other retainers, could rent several manufactories, and become sector monopolists.58 Evidently, being a member of the founder’s household, enjoying an insider’s position, and the patronclient relationship, allowed for material gains. 11

From Refectory to Public Kitchen

The most expensive charitable institution to run was an imaret. Food distribution was a tool to tackle poverty and to participate in charitable actions, which brought respect, influence, and legitimation. Distributing meals and bread was a charitable activity that took place in the public eye, more so than many other acts, and was an excellent way of broadening and reinforcing ties of patronage. The imarets were actually designed as the institution’s refectory and were intended for serving food primarily to the waqf staff. The meals were cooked according to the recipes of daily allocation of foodstuffs minutely detailed in the endowment deeds.59 After the waqf workers were served, many waqf kitchens were obliged to distribute meals cooked from the leftover foodstuff to poor and needy people.60 The founders and the succeeding waqf managers considered the imarets as the most effective and convenient means of practicing charity and extending their patronage. Men of influence, such as the chief military judges, local 57

Kayhan Orbay, “Failure of Waqfs to Adjust Rental Rates to Prices; Structural Impairment or Managerial Rigidity,” Bulgarian Historical Review 1,2 (2017): 18–42; Ramazan Pantık, “Osmanlı’da İcâreteyn Uygulaması Hakkında Yeni Değerlendirmeler,” Vakıflar Dergisi 48 (2017): 75–104. 58 Pantık, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları, 287–89. 59 A. Süheyl Ünver, Fatih Aşhanesi Tevzinamesi (İstanbul: İstanbul Fethi Derneği, 1953). 60 Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence.

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judges, and provincial and local governors, attempted to participate in this patronage mechanism. They abused their position by exceeding their authority and issued documents entitling the holders to receive meals from the imarets. Some upper-ranking waqf employees and the families of grandees also took the opportunity to get involved in this mechanism by obtaining entitling documents with the intention of re-allocating them within their patronage network. Thus, food distribution was extended toward their household members, poor and needy people in the neighborhood, and toward religious groups.61 I suggest that a feature of the document entitling the holder to receive food, and unexpectedly, the rigidity of the stipulations in the endowment deed, encouraged the circulation of entitling documents. Holders could transfer their rights through selling, bequeathing, renouncing, and most likely through transferring this right to another beneficiary. Perhaps, the waqf employees also got fed up with the eternally fixed menu that was served to them for every single meal. To cut expenses in times of financial distress, to foresee and stabilize expenditures in times of increased price volatility, or when the kitchen did not operate because of damage following, for example, an earthquake, the waqfs remunerated title holders for their meal rights. However, the waqfs also practiced this when none of the above conditions were in force. One can assume that employees pressed for such a regulation. Thus, there were waqfs that paid cash to some of their employees in return for their meal allocations and served food to others. At the same time, it is doubtful whether the waqf employees who appeared, on paper, to be eating at the waqf kitchen were actually sitting at the dining table. Instead, it sounds more realistic to suppose that the waqf manager and the other senior staff, who had a daily allocation of several meals and sometimes tens of loaves, delivered this food to their household servants, perhaps shared it with the folk around the waqf, or gave it to the poor. The ordinary waqf officers, on the other hand, might have consumed the set meals day in, day out. Local governors abused their authority in order to infiltrate this influential mechanism of patronage.62 They issued their own entitling documents, which had originally been left to the discretion of the waqf manager. Furthermore, prominent families held several entitling documents, though it is unclear how they managed to obtain them. It is likely that the real beneficiaries were their

61 Kayhan Orbay, “Distributing Food, Bread and Cash: Vakıf Taamhoran and Fodulahoran Registers as Archival Sources for Imarets,” in Feeding People, Feeding Power, eds. Nina Ergin et al. (Istanbul: Eren, 2007), 171–96. 62 Orbay, “Distributing Food, Bread and Cash.”

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household servants and people in need, although the beneficiaries were mentioned as their “connections and supporters.”63 Moreover, the state allowed more and more people, including those in need and also state servants, to receive food from the waqf kitchens.64 However, when their rights fell vacant due to death or renunciation, their rights were re-assigned to people who did not necessarily meet the criteria of the original assignment.65 As mentioned earlier, the imarets were already the most costly charitable service in the waqfs and the expansion of food distribution became a drain on the waqf resources.66 The sultan issued orders forbidding the granting of any further allowances from the vacancies (mahlulat), and any issue of new documents was made contingent on the petition (arz) of the central supervisory authorities of the waqfs and the patent (berat) of the ruler.67 I believe, contrary to some suggestions, that the growth in the number of food-recipients cannot be hastily read “in the context of Ottoman decline and the ensuing drop in the power of the central government to control efficiently the affairs of the waqfs.”68 Rather, it was a natural development within the historicity of the waqf institution stemming from the legal ground allowing for transferable entitling documents and from the rigidity of the endowment deed. It also manifested itself in the capital Istanbul and in Bursa, where neither the lack of a central authority nor its weakness can be presented as arguments. In this regard, the inefficiency of the control and monitoring mechanisms of the waqf system compared to present-day standards and the imperfections of waqf law can also be considered as contributing factors. All in all, it was exactly this development that turned the waqf refectory into a public kitchen and made it an instrument of welfare policy. 12

Patronizing the Social Security System

It is widely thought that food distribution from the waqf kitchens was the most effective instrument of dispensing patronage. Moving from this assumption, historians have paid great attention to the waqf kitchens and their beneficiaries. Nevertheless, it is sensible to acknowledge that the most effective instrument 63 64 65 66 67 68

Oded Peri, “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 167–186, here 175. Orbay, “Distributing Food, Bread and Cash,” 177–78. Ibid., 178. Peri, “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy”; Orbay, “Distributing Food, Bread and Cash.” Ibid. Peri, “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy,” 175.

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of dispensing patronage was to put money into people’s pockets. Another question arises at this point in the study of waqfs: why have the historians of the patronage system in the Ottoman Empire overlooked the issuing of stipends as an instrument of patronage? A likely reason is that stipend-recipients (zevaidhoran) were not named in the endowment deeds, and their names appeared scattered and sporadically in the court records. Waqfs kept separate detailed registers called “defter-i zevaidhoran” for their stipend payments, where all the stipendiaries were recorded with their names and payments. Since most waqf historians were oblivious to these registers written in siyakat script,69 they could not make use of their valuable content. Recipients of stipends were entitled to receive an allowance on the approval of their plea and the issue of a confirming document by the waqf manager.70 They were not listed in the endowment deed.71 Therefore, their status and rights were different from the beneficiaries stipulated in the deed and were similar to the food-recipients, who gained their rights with the title (temessük) of the waqf manager. These two groups, the stipend and food-recipients, overlapping to some degree, were bestowed stipends and food so long as the waqf had a budget surplus. As there was no limit to the number of stipend-recipients and foodrecipients, they tended to increase.72 The stipend allocation enlarged the sphere of patronage to diverse segments of society. These segments consisted mainly of retired and disabled waqf and state officers, poor and elderly people, and widows without a livelihood.73 Malfeasance by deputy managers and high-ranking state servants can be presumed in the extensive distribution of stipends. However, the central state itself was a principal distributor. Retired state servants and military personnel, including janissaries and timariots, their family members who were driven to poverty, and even high-ranking state servants who were temporarily suspended from duty and recalled to the center to 69 Siyakat is a writing style that bizarrely was claimed to be enciphered on the grounds that it was used in keeping financial records that needed to be made illegible to the fox in the henhouse. In fact, the Ottoman accountants acted more practically and developed a less complicated way to keep the records confidential: they put the financial registers in a chamber and locked the door before leaving. 70 For a study on stipend-recipients, see Özge Aslanmirza, “Surplus-Receivers (ZevaidHoran) from Imperial Waqfs: Between Philanthrophy and Political Economy,” (MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2017). 71 MHM 73, 469, decree no: 1035. 72 Orbay, “Bursa‌’da Sultan II. Murad Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi.” 73 Özge Mete, “Osmanlı’da Hayırseverliğin Kapısını Çalmak: Gülbahar Hatun Vakfı’nın Zevāidhorānları,” in CIEPO – 22 Symposium, vol. 1, eds. Kenan İnan et al. (Trabzon: İleri Haber Ajansı, 2018), 137–40.

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wait for re-appointment, were allocated a stipend.74 The entitling documents for the stipends were usually inherited or renounced in favor of immediate family members, and the vacancies were filled with new candidates. The allocations for stipend holders imposed a heavy financial burden on the waqfs. In the accounting year 1585–86, the Süleymaniye in Istanbul paid 1,237,546 akçe for the salary payments of its permanent staff and spent 971,378 akçe for kitchen expenses. The stipend payments added 1,174,986 akçe to the expenditures, a sum exceeding the kitchen outlays and equaling the salary payments. There is another striking example this time from the waqf of Muradiyye in Edirne.75 In 1601, 148 people were employed in the permanent offices and were paid about 178,000 akçe. The number of stipend-recipients was a little less at 132 persons. Nevertheless, the waqf paid twice as much, about 408,000 akçe, to the stipend-recipients than it did to the employees. In other words, the financial burden of the stipendiaries was great for certain waqfs. However, even in these extreme cases, it is unsafe to suppose that the stipend payments drove the waqfs to financial ruin. The payment for stipendiaries was allocated from the revenue surplus. Their payments debilitated the waqfs and reduced the surplus at hand for other expense items, deferred repairs, or precluded keeping safety funds. It is worth noting once more that stipend distribution was contingent upon the surplus income and was paid to the recipients as long as the waqf generated budget surplus. When the surplus declined due to disasters, agricultural crises, rebellions, and so on, stipend payments were reduced or suspended until the budget allowed for payments once again.76 The stipendiaries were actually the first group to have their allocations cut in times of financial hardship.77 However, reducing or cutting the payments came at a social price. Contraction in the stipend distribution or its suspension did not come simply to mean an interruption in the patronage system. Stipend distribution was part 74 MAD 6482. Also see Orbay and Oruç, “Sultan II. Murad’ın Edirne Câmiʿ-i Şerîf ve Dârü’l-hadîs Vakfı,” 7–8. 75 Orbay, “Edirne Muradiyye Vakfı’nın Mali Yapısı ve Gelişimi.” For another waqf of Murad II in Edirne see Orbay and Oruç, “Sultan II. Murad’ın Edirne Câmiʿ-i Şerîf ve Dârü’l-hadîs Vakfı,” 7–8. 76 Orbay, “Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters”; Orbay, “The ‘Celâlî Effect’”; Orbay and Oruç, “Sultan II. Murad’ın Edirne Câmiʿ-i Şerîf ve Dârü’l-hadîs Vakfı,” 14. 77 MHM 73, 162, decree no: 380. Kayhan Orbay, “Financial Development of the Waqfs in Konya and the Agricultural Economy in the Central Anatolia (Late Sixteenth–Early Seventeenth Centuries),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2012): 54–116, here 107, 111; Kayhan Orbay, “‘They Left Behind Institutions in Financial Jeopardy’: Central Anatolian Waqfs in the Wake of the Great Flight,” Radovi-Zadova Za Hrvatsku Povijest 51 (2019): 103–16.

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of the social security system provided jointly by the state and waqfs. Reducing the number of stipendiaries, or cutting their payments, also sapped the social security system. The interpretation given to the rise in the number of food and stipendrecipients reflects each historian’s approach. Reading from the viewpoint of waqfs, many historians emphasize the financial burden the recipients posed for the waqfs. However, was it not the distribution of food and stipends that made the waqfs social welfare institutions? The increase of recipients could be read as the waqfs fulfilling one of their essential functions: social assistance. A reading from the perspective of the state and the ruling family would suggest that the distribution of food and stipends was a mechanism for alleviating poverty, and the ruling family deliberately made this distribution through waqfs, in order to show its munificence and legitimation. At the same time, the state could easily adopt other approaches when driven solely by financial considerations. The budget surplus of many centrally supervised waqfs had to be delivered to the central treasury. Therefore, it can be surmised that when the state finances worsened, the state cared little for the welfare functions of the waqfs or their beneficiaries. In such situations, it ordered the dole distribution to be cut and demanded the delivery of the waqf budget surplus directly to the treasury. 13

Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, waqfs functioned as agents of social welfare and as effective instruments of patronage. This paper offers a glimpse of the waqfs’ multifaceted and multilayered activities in several fields of patronage. The ways in which the sultans and the ruling dynasty attempted to show their magnificence and to legitimize their authority through waqfs were copied by the higher echelons of civil servants and provincial elites (ayans), and lower in the social hierarchy, and on a smaller scale, by low-ranking servants and well-to-do neighborhood benefactors. The construction of a patronage system began with the construction of the waqf, and its mechanism recurred through the major repairs. Providing employment and a regular salary to people, whether they deserved it in terms of skills. or they desperately needed it in order to survive, generated patronage and presented the image of a ‘benevolent employer.’ The hiring of workers and the large-scale purchases by the large waqfs further extended the sphere of patronage toward wage earners, artisans, craftsmen, and merchants. In this way, the latter regarded the waqf institution and its manager as their velinimet.

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The waqfs supplied several mechanisms within and through the waqf institutions to maintain and foster the patronage network of dignitaries. Three such basic mechanisms were allocating a share of waqf income, employing retainers and their relatives in the waqf offices, and allowing household and entourage members to earn income through dealings with the waqf. One of the most conspicuous means of social patronage was the distribution of food to poor, elderly, and disabled people. However, many waqf kitchens began primarily as institutional refectories and gradually transformed themselves into public kitchens by distributing food and bread to large sections of the community. The field of patronage was widened through the addition of stipend-recipients who were not initially stipulated in the endowment deed. These recipients comprised poor and needy people, but also retired waqf officers, retired civil, and military servants. Consequently, stipend distribution was an instrument for providing patronage and functioned as a facet of the social security system. The patronage system in the waqfs grew out of the finances made possible by the day-to-day functioning of the waqfs. As a result, the framework of the waqf economy provides important insight into the development and functioning of a distinct patronage system. Bibliography

Primary Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşbakanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul



Printed Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

MAD 5933. MAD 6482. MHM 73, 162. MHM 73, 469.

Orhonlu, Cengiz. Osmanlı Tarihine Aid Belgeler: Telhisler. Istanbul: İ.Ü. Edebiyat Fak. Yay., 1970. Sahillioğlu, Halil. Koca Sinan Paşa‌’nın Telhisleri. Istanbul: IRCICA, 2004.

Abou-El-Haj, Rifa‌ʾat Ali. Formation of the Modern State. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2005. Aslanmirza, Özge. “Surplus-Receivers (Zevaid-Horan) from Imperial Waqfs: Between Philanthrophy and Political Economy.” MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 2017.

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Baer, Gabriel. “The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System (Sixteenth–Twentieth Centuries).” Islamic Law and Society 4,3 (1997): 264–97. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti İnşaatı (1550–1557). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1972. Behar, Cem. A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Çizakça, Murat. “Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 1555–1823.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38,3 (1995): 313–54. Crane, Howard. “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy.” In The Ottoman City and Its Parts, eds. Irene A. Bierman et al., 173–243. New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991. Gara, Eleni. “Lending and Borrowing Money in an Ottoman Province Town.” In Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, eds. Markus Köhbach et al., 113–19. Wien: Institut für Orientalistik, 1999. Güneş, Hasan Hüseyin. Kudüs Meğaribe Mahallesi. Ankara: Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2017. Hochhut, Pia. “Zur Finanzierung des Baus einer Sultansmoschee: Die Nuruosmaniye.” In Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: in memoriam Vančo Boškov, ed. Hans Georg Majer, 68–75. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986. İnalcık, Halil. “Istanbul: An Islamic City.” Journal of Islamic Studies (1990, 1): 1–23. Jennings, Ronald C. “Loans and Credit in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16,2/3 (1973): 168–216. Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem. “‘In the Image of Rūm’: Ottoman Architectural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus.” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 70–96. Khoo, Salma Nasution. “Waqf and Social Patronage among the Tamil Muslim Diaspora in the Straits Settlement of Penang.” In Comparative Study of the Waqf from the East: Dynamism of Norm and Practices in Religious and Familial Donations, ed. Miura Toru, 141–164. Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko, 2018. Kunt, Metin. Bir Osmanlı Valisinin Yıllık Gelir-Gideri Diyarbekir, 1670–71. Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yay., 1981. Kunt, Metin. Sancaktan Eyalete, 1550–1660 Arasında Osmanlı Ümerası ve İl İdaresi. Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yay., 1978. Kunt, Metin. “Derviş Mehmed Paşa, Vezir and Entrepreneur: A Study in Ottoman Political-Economic Theory and Practice.” Turcica, revue d’études turques 9,1 (1977): 197–214. Kurz, Marlene. “Gracious Sultan, Grateful Subjects: Spreading Ottoman Imperial ‘Ideology’ throughout the Empire.” Studia Islamica 107,1 (2012): 96–121. Meier, Astrid. “For the Sake of God Alone? Food Distribution Policies, Takiyyas and Imarets in Early Ottoman Damascus.” In Feeding People, Feeding Power, eds. Nina Ergin, Christoph K. Neumann, Amy Singer, 121–47. Istanbul: Eren, 2007.

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Mete, Özge. “Osmanlı’da Hayırseverliğin Kapısını Çalmak: Gülbahar Hatun Vakfı’nın Zevāid-horānları.” In CIEPO – 22 Symposium, vol. 1, eds. Kenan İnan et al., 137–40. Trabzon: İleri Haber Ajansı, 2018. Nizri, Michael. “The Religious Endowments of Şeyhülislam Feyzullah Efendi: The Waqf Institution and the Survival of Ottoman Elite Households.” In Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East, eds. Dror Zeʾevi and Ehud R. Toledano, 31–43. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Orbay, Kayhan. “Coping with Institutional and Financial Crises in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Ensuring the Survival of Ottoman Royal Waqfs.” Medieval History Journal 22,2 (2019): 229–52. Orbay, Kayhan. “‘They Left Behind Institutions in Financial Jeopardy’: Central Anatolian Waqfs in the Wake of the Great Flight.” Radovi-Zadova Za Hrvatsku Povijest 51 (2019): 103–16. Orbay, Kayhan. “The ‘Celâlî Effect’ on Rural Production and Demography in Central Anatolia; the Waqf of Hatuniyye (1590s to 1638).” Acta Orientalia: Academiae Scientiarum Hung. 71,1 (2018): 29–44. Orbay, Kayhan. “Vakıf Ekonomisi ve Yeniden-Dağıtım.” In CIEPO-22 Symposium, vol. 1, eds. Kenan İnan et al., 111–19. Trabzon: İleri Haber Ajansı, 2018. Orbay, Kayhan. “Imperial Waqfs within the Ottoman Waqf System.” Endowment Studies 1,2 (2017): 135–53. Orbay, Kayhan. “Failure of Waqfs to Adjust Rental Rates to Prices; Structural Impairment or Managerial Rigidity.” Bulgarian Historical Review 1,2 (2017): 18–42. Orbay, Kayhan. “Edirne Muradiyye Vakfı’nın Mali Yapısı ve Gelişimi,” Belleten 78,283 (2014): 983–1031. Orbay, Kayhan. “Edirne II. Bayezid Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1597–1640).” A.Ü. Güneydoğu Avrupa Çalışmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi (GAMER) 1,1 (2012): 113–41. Orbay, Kayhan, and Hatice Oruç. “Sultan II. Murad’ın Edirne Câmiʿ-i Şerîf ve Dârü’lhadîs Vakfı (1592–1607).” İ.Ü. Tarih Dergisi 56 (2012): 1–24. Orbay, Kayhan. “Orhan Gazi Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihinden Bir Kesit (1593–1641),” Vakıflar Dergisi 38 (2012): 65–84. Orbay, Kayhan. “Emir Sultan (Mehmed El-Buhari) Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi,” U.Ü. FenEdebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 22,22 (2012): 23–42. Orbay, Kayhan. “Financial Development of the Waqfs in Konya and the Agricultural Economy in the Central Anatolia (Late Sixteenth–Early Seventeenth Centuries).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2012): 54–116. Orbay, Kayhan. “Bursa‌’da Sultan II. Murad Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1608–1641).” İ.Ü. İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 61,2 (2011): 293–322. Orbay, Kayhan. “The Magnificent Süleymâniye Owed a Debt to the Butcher and the Grocer.” Belleten 75,272, (2011): 87–133.

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Orbay, Kayhan. “Muhasebe Defterlerine Göre 17. Yüzyıl Başlarında Üç Şerefeli Camii Vakfı.” H.Ü. Türkiyat Araştırmaları 15 (2011): 159–165. Orbay, Kayhan. “Gazi Süleyman Paşa Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi ve 17. Yüzyılda Trakya Tarımsal Ekonomisi.” A.Ü. Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 30,49 (2011): 145–81. Orbay, Kayhan. “The Waqf of Saruca Pasha in Gallipoli and Agricultural Economy in 17th-Century Thrace.” A.Ü. Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi (OTAM) Dergisi 27 (2010): 143–63. Orbay, Kayhan, and Hatice Oruç. “Filibe’de Şehabeddin Paşa Vakfı 1632–1641 (H. 1041– 1051).” İ.Ü. Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 18 (2010): 19–57. Orbay, Kayhan. “Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters in Seventeenth-Century Anatolia: A Case Study of the Waqf of Bâyezîd II.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 15,1–2 (2009): 63–82. Orbay, Kayhan. “16. ve 17. Yüzyıllarda Bursa Ekonomisi: Sultan Çelebi Mehmed Yeşil İmaret’inin Mali Tarihi (1553–1650).” A.Ü. Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi (OTAM) Dergisi 22, (2007): 125–58. Orbay, Kayhan. “Distributing Food, Bread and Cash: Vakıf Taamhoran and Fodulahoran Registers as Archival Sources for Imarets.” In Feeding People, Feeding Power, eds. Nina Ergin, Christoph K. Neumann, Amy Singer, 171–96. Istanbul: Eren, 2007. Pamuk, Bilgehan. “XVII. Yüzyılda Bir Osmanlı Paşasının Masraf Bilançosu,” Tarih Araş­ tırmaları Dergisi 22,34 (2003): 107–24. Pantık, Ramazan. “Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları: Yönetimi, Kentsel Gelişime Katkıları ve İktisadi Yapısı.” PhD diss., Hacettepe University, Ankara, 2021. Pantık, Ramazan. “Osmanlı’da İcâreteyn Uygulaması Hakkında Yeni Değerlendirmeler.” Vakıflar Dergisi 48 (2017): 75–104. Peri, Oded. “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 167–186. Roesgen, Jeffrey T. Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. New York: Continuum, 2008. Rogers, John Michael. “Waqf and Patronage in Seljuk Anatolia: The Epigraphic Evidence.” Anatolian Studies 26 (1976): 69–103. Sağır, Yusuf. “Vakfiyesine Göre Köprülü Mehmed Paşa Vakıfları.” PhD diss., Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, İzmir 2005. Singer, Amy. Charity in Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Singer, Amy. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Tadmor, Naomi. “The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth-Century England.” Past & Present 151 (1996): 111–40. Uluçay, M. Çağatay. Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1985. Unan, Fahri. Kuruluşundan Günümüze Fatih Külliyesi. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003.

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21 Sorge und Vorsorge

Das Testament (vasiyetname) eines osmanischen Kavallerieoffiziers vor dem Feldzug 1664 und die Fromme Stiftung (vakıf) eines Oberstallmeisters vor einer Dienstreise nach Mekka im Jahre 1681 Hans Georg Majer

Nach dem Ende seines Feldzuges gegen Kaiser Leopold in Ungarn im Jahre 1663, hatte sich Großwesir Köprülüzade Ahmed Pascha (1661–1676) nach Belgrad in das Winterquartier zurückgezogen. Die Truppen waren in ihre über das Land zerstreuten Winterquartiere abgerückt. Energisch betrieb der Großwesir die Vorbereitungen für den kommenden Feldzug.1 Da wurde er von Nachrichten aufgeschreckt, der Gegner sei mitten im Winter zu einem Vorstoß tief hinein auf osmanisches Gebiet aufgebrochen, marschiere mit starken Kräften auf Szigetvár und Fünfkirchen (Pécs). Er sandte Befehle an Truppenteile im Norden, sofort aus ihren Winterquartieren aufzubrechen und zur Abwehr nach Esseg (Osijek) und Fünfkirchen zu eilen. Auch er selbst brach am 2. Februar bei klirrendem Frost, und ohne Gepäck, mit den in Belgrad verbliebenen Einheiten auf. In diesen Tagen, zwischen dem 29. Januar und dem 7. Februar verfasste Süleyman Ağa, als Kâtib der Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar Offizier einer der vier Abteilungen der großherrlichen Pfortenreiterei, ein für ihn selbst und seine Nächsten wichtiges Schriftstück. Er war zum Kampf gegen die „ungarischen Räuber“ aufgeboten worden und dürfte sich zu dieser Zeit, ebenso wie Hasan Ağa2 einer der Kommandeure der Aşağı Bölükler, also der Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar und Ulûfeciyan-ı yemin,3 im Gefolge des Großwesirs auf dem Weg nach Mitrovitz (Sremska Mitrovica) oder schon dort befunden haben. Die tödlichen Gefahren des bevorstehenden Winterfeldzugs standen ihm vor Augen, ließen ihn an die letzten Dinge denken und drängten ihn, seine Angelegenheiten zu regeln. 1 Den Feldzug des Großwesirs hat sein Siegelbewahrer aus nächster Nähe beschrieben: Krieg und Sieg in Ungarn. Die Ungarnfeldzüge des Großwesirs Köprülüzâde Fâzıl Ahmed Pascha 1663 und 1664 nach den „Kleinodien der Historien“ seines Siegelbewahrers Hasan Ağa. Übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Erich Prokosch (Graz/Wien/Köln: Styria, 1976). 2 Krieg und Sieg in Ungarn, 146. 3 Über diese Einheiten unterrichtet Abdülkadir Özcan, „Ulûfeciyan.“ Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (= TDVİA) 42 (2012), 126–27.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_023

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Der Großwesir tat sich schwer, die Abwehr zu organisieren. Die angefor­ derten Truppen ließen auf sich warten. Unbehelligt erreichten die christlichen Truppen unter den Grafen Nikolaus Zrínyi und Wolfgang Julius von Hohenlohe-Neuenstein die Festungen Szigetvár und Fünfkirchen (Pécs) und belagerten sie, allerdings ohne Erfolg. Sie verwüsteten zahlreiche Dörfer im Umfeld und zerstörten schließlich noch die strategisch wichtige Brücke von Esseg (Osijek), ehe sie vor den aus verschiedenen Richtungen anrückenden osmanischen Kräften zurückwichen.4 Der Großwesir sah keine Notwendigkeit mehr, weiter vorzurücken und kehrte in sein Winterquartier Belgrad zurück. Den unmittelbaren Gefahren entronnen zog mit ihm wohl auch Süleyman Ağa zurück nach Belgrad, sein Schriftstück in der Satteltasche. 1

Der Kâtib der Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar Süleyman Ağa

Über dreihundert Jahre später stießen die Organisatoren einer Ausstellung über den Fürstbischof von Münster Christoph Bernhard von Galen (1606–1678)5 im Archiv seiner Familie auf Haus Assen, einem Renaissancewasserschloss im Kreis Soest, Westfalen, auf ein Bündel osmanischer Schriften, die ihr Interesse erregten, denn der kriegserfahrene Bischof hatte dem Kaiser im Jahre 1663, trotz der Gefährdung seines Bistums durch die Niederlande, Truppen zur Abwehr der Osmanen in Ungarn gestellt. Diese Truppen hatten am Winterfeldzug teilgenommen und dann am 1. August 1664 als Teil der Reichsvölker in der Schlacht von St. Gotthard/Mogersdorf gekämpft. Der Bischof selbst, der als einer der beiden Reichskriegsdirektoren unermüdlich Nachschub organisiert hatte, war erst kurz vor der Schlacht in Wien eingetroffen, war also selbst nicht an ihr beteiligt. Die osmanischen Schriftstücke im Archiv seiner Familie6 datieren fast alle 1664 und deuten damit auf die Schlacht, während der sie Münsteraner Soldaten als Beute in die Hände gefallen sein dürften. Von ihnen gelangten sie dann zu ihrem Bischof. Unter den Schriftstücken sticht eine Urkunde mit tuğra sofort ins Auge. Diese tuğra erweist sich überraschenderweise nicht als tuğra eines Sultans, sondern als die seltene tuğra eines osmanischen Prinzen, des Prinzen Ahmed, Sohn Sultan Bayezids II., der jahrzehntelang Gouverneur von Amasya war 4 Siehe dazu: Georg Wagner, Das Türkenjahr 1664 eine europäische Bewährung (Eisenstadt: Roetzer, 1964), 91–99. 5 Ausstellungskatalog: Bommen Berend. Das Fürstbistum Münster unter Bischof Christoph Bernhard von Galen 1650–1678 (Landesmuseum Münster [1972]), 87. 6 Heute befinden sich die Galen’schen osmanischen Schriftstücke im Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe Archivamt für Westfalen. Das hier besprochene hat die Signatur: Ass.L-445a, Nr. 8. Dr. Gunnar Teske danke ich für Auskünfte und die Druckgenehmigung.

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(1481–1513). Das Datum der Urkunde ist 1501. Ein zweites Stück, die Bittschrift eines Kadis, rückt aber auch diese Urkunde ins Jahr 1664, denn sie erklärt, warum die Prinzenurkunde von Amasya nach Ungarn und schließlich nach Westfalen kam. Ein Fremder machte dem Schejch und Nachkommen des gleichnamigen Derwischschejchs Bahaʿeddin sein Amt streitig. Der Kadi bat den Großwesir um eine Entscheidung zugunsten des rechtmäßigen Nachkommen. Die Prinzenurkunde, die die alten Stiftungen des Derwischkonvents bei Suşehri und seine Privilegien schützt, sollte den Anspruch stützen. Da der Großwesir in Ungarn Krieg führte, folgte ihm der Bote wohl bis aufs Schlachtfeld.7 Ebenso vom Winter 1663/1664 datiert die beglaubigte Abschrift eines sultanischen Fermans über eine Mukataa-Angelegenheit in Üsküb (Skopje).8 Neben weiteren Stücken taucht in diesem Zusammenhang auch das Schriftstück wieder auf, das Süleyman Ağa im Winter 1664 aufgesetzt hatte. Er dürfte es während des Feldzuges 1664 mit sich geführt haben, bis zur Schlacht an der Raab. Was dort geschah, wie das Schriftstück in Münsteraner Hände kam, wer es dem Bischof übergab und ob Süleyman Ağa überlebt hat, all das bleibt im Dunkel. Ins helle Licht stellt die Urkunde aber die Befürchtungen und die Vorsorge eines osmanischen Kavallerieoffiziers angesichts seiner unmittelbar bevorstehenden Feldzugsteilnahme. Es ist ein einzelnes Blatt (29,4 × 21cm) mit schildförmigem Wasserzeichen, in der Mitte zum hochrechteckigen Format vieler osmanischer defter gefaltet. Von den vier so entstehenden Seiten, ist nur eine beschrieben (Abb. 21.1). Der Text lautet in Übersetzung: Der Inhalt des Defters ist wie folgt: aufgelistet werden die Pferde [differenziert als at und bargir]9 und die übrige Ausrüstung (pusat),10 die 7 8 9

10

Hans Georg Majer, „Ein Nišân des Osmanenprinzen Aḥmed, des Statthalters von Amasya, für die Zâviye des Schejch Bahâʾ ed-Din vom Jahre 906/1501,“ Südost-Forschungen 31 (1972): 319–31. Hans Georg Majer, „Nešto za java-džizieto i maden mukataa nezaretot na Skopje i Vučitrn vo 1663 godina,“ Institut za nacionalna istorija: Glasnik 18,3 (1974): 127–38. Neben der Bedeutung Pferd geben die Wörterbücher für at auch die Bedeutung Hengst. Für bargir/beygir geben die neueren Lexika Lastpferd, ältere auch Wallach, Passgänger u. a. Für den Kavalleristen Süleyman Ağa bezeichnen beide Begriffe Reitpferde. Evliya Çelebi erwähnt bargir als Last- wie als Reitpferd (ich danke Klaus Kreiser für diese Auskunft). Süleyman Ağa unterscheidet klar zwischen den beiden Bezeichnungen. Ist at für ihn ein Hengst, bargir ein Wallach? Ist ein unterschiedlicher Wert angesprochen? Ohne mich festlegen zu können, differenziere ich in der Übersetzung rein sprachlich zwischen Pferd (at) und Ross (bargir). Davon abgesehen dürfte rein äußerlich mit dorı at ein Brauner, mit al bargir ein Fuchs gemeint sein. Zu diesem Begriff siehe: Andreas Tietze, „Türkeitürkisch: posat, pusat,“ in Osmanistik – Turkologie – Diplomatik. Festgabe an Josef Matuz, Hgg. Christa Fragner und Klaus Schwarz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992), 303–09.

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Abb. 21.1

Majer

Testament Süleyman Ağas Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe Archivamt für Westfalen, Münster, Ass.L-445a, Nr. 8

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wir mit unserem vollen Einverständnis den Männern gegeben haben, die durch Gott des Allerhabenen Befehl in unseren Diensten stehen. Nach mir soll niemand, von unseren Erben oder von außerhalb, auf welche Art auch immer sich einmischen und widersprechen. Jeder einzelne [von ihnen] soll Eigentümer der Pferde und Rösser, die er reitet und der Ausrüstung werden, die sich in seinem Besitz befindet. Geschrieben in der ersten Dekade des Monats Receb des Einzelnen des Jahres 1074. I. Dem Hasan ist der Braune (doru at), den er reitet und das Schwert und die Axt, die er gürtet, mit der ganzen Ausrüstung [von mir] gegeben worden. [Seitlich dazu:] Der mit seinem Geld gekaufte Sklave (gulam) Yusuf, von Herkunft Zigeuner (tuti el-asl),11 ist sein Eigentum. II. Und das braune Ross (bargir), das Sakallı Mehmed Bey reitet, gehört mitsamt der Ausrüstung ihm. [Seitlich dazu:] und das silberne Schwert, das er gürtet, ist mit seinem eigenen Geld bezahltes Eigentum. III. Und der Braune, den Yūrd (?) Mehmed Bey reitet und das silberne Schwert, das er gürtet, gehören ihm. IV. Der Fuchs (al bargir), den Avdām (?) Ahmed reitet und das rot (çunduri?) silberne Pferdegeschirr (raht), und das silberne Schwert und der Sattel, mit der [übrigen] Ausrüstung gehören ihm. V. Das braune Ross, das Türk Ali reitet, gehört ihm mitsamt der Ausrüstung. VI. Und das graue Ross, das Kara Mehmed reitet, gehört mitsamt der Ausrüstung ihm. VII. Und der braune Passgänger (dorı yorga), den Uzun Ali reitet, gehört mitsamt der Ausrüstung ihm. VIII. Dem Çokacı Mehmed Bey schulden wir den Preis für Stoffe, zu zahlen sind 7.120 Akçe [seitlich]: In Worten: sieben tausend einhundert zwanzig Akçe. 11 Auf den ersten Blick würde man unbekümmert übersetzen: von Herkunft ein Papagei, denn die Wörterbücher geben für tuti in verschiedener Schreibweise die Bedeutung Papagei. Mit der Aussprache dudu wird das Wort statt der weiblichen Anreden kadın und hanım benützt, es kann unter anderem aber auch alte Armenierin bedeuten. Zu einem käuflich erworbenen männlichen Sklaven (gulam) passt all das nicht, zumal der Ausdruck üblicherweise eine ethnische Herkunft angibt, wie beispielsweise bei zwei Sklaven weiter unten im Dokument: macar el-asl (ungarischer Herkunft) und eflaki el-asl (walachischer Herkunft). Im Türkiye’de halk ağzından derleme sözlüğü, Bd. 10 (Ankara 1978), 3943 ist jedoch für den Raum von Kastamonu das Wort todi belegt mit der Bedeutung çingene, Zigeuner und dieselbe Bedeutung hat es bei den Karagöz Spielern, siehe: Metin And, „Karagöz üzerindeki bilgilere yeni katkılar,“ Türk Dili 19,207 (Aralık 1968): 497–518, hier 514. Dimitri Theodoridis, München, schulde ich wieder einmal Dank für die Lösung eines sprachlichen Rätsels.

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IX. Unsere Schulden bei Hacı Mustafa-zade Ali Efendi, zu zahlen sind 3.550 Akçe [seitlich:] In Worten: drei tausend fünf hundert fünfzig Akçe. X. Und Hasans Jacken und Kaftane, sind neben dem bereits Erwähnten, gemäß seinem Defter Eigentum von früher. Wegen keiner seiner Sachen soll er belästigt werden. XI. Bei Durmuş Bey ist der Rest des Preises für das Ross von 2.700 Akçe [noch offen] [seitlich:] In Worten: zwei tausend sieben hundert Akçe. [zwischen den Einträgen steht sechs Mal die Feststellung sahh, richtig, ohne dass sie stets einem bestimmten Punkt dieser Liste zuzuordnen ist]. Wenn, so Gott der Allerhabene will und beim Feldzug gegen das ungarische Raubgesindel, zu dem wir jetzt befohlen sind, auf Gottes des Allerhabenen Befehl hin unsere Lebensspanne zu Ende geht und wir ins Jenseits hinüberschreiten und, nachdem die oben aufgeführten Sachen auf die festgelegte Art und Weise den Besitzern übergeben worden sind, ist alles was ich besitze mein freies Eigentum: meine restlichen Pferde und mein Zug Lasttiere und das übrige Pferdegeschirr (raht) und meine Schwerter und Pelze, das Zelt. Für alles was ich an Besitz habe, ob Bargeld oder Dattelkerne, soll der erwähnte, verdiente Hasan mein erwählter Testamentsvollstrecker (vasi-i muhtar) sein. Er soll meinen oben verzeichneten Gläubigern meine Schulden auszahlen und dann die restlichen Dinge (eşya) unserem Bru­ der İbrahim Ağa und unserer Schwester Ayşe Hatun zuschicken und aushändigen. Von außen soll sich niemand auf irgendeine Weise einmischen. Und der Sklave namens Siyavuş, walachischer Herkunft und der Sklave Kenan, ungarischer Herkunft, die ich derzeit besitze, lasse ich nach dem Wunsche Gottes des Allmächtigen und nach der Art und Weise des Siegels der Propheten frei. Wenn mir auf Geheiß Gottes des Allmächtigen bei diesem Feldzug der Trank des Glaubenszeugen bestimmt ist und dieser sündige Knecht in die Ewigkeit gelangt, sollen sie frei wie die übrigen freien Muslime und ihr eigener Herr sein. Niemand soll bezüglich ihrer Sklavenstandes streiten und prozessieren. Sie sollen beide zu [meinem] Bruder gehen und wie die übrigen Dienstleute frei Dienst leisten. Und auch Bruder und Schwester und andere von außen kommende sollen sie nicht bedrücken und sie als Sklaven fordern. Unseren Sklaven Muslih habe ich unserem Bruder İbrahim Ağa als echte Schenkung zum Geschenk gemacht und übergeben. Wegen des Winters ist er noch nicht [zu ihm] geschickt worden. Er soll hingeschickt und übergeben werden. Der Koran, den ich derzeit lese, schenke und übergebe ich dem erwähnten Hasan,

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um ihn einmal im Jahr in ganzer Länge zu rezitieren und das religiöse Verdienst [der Lesung] der edlen Seele des erhabenen Gesandten – Gott segne ihn und gebe ihm Heil – zum Geschenk zu machen. Gott sei Lob, er ist unendlich erhaben, Er gewähre und bestimme eine siegreiche Rückkehr mit der gesamten Gemeinde Muhammads. Geschrieben in der ersten Dekade des Monats Receb des Geehrten des Jahres 1074 [29. Januar–7. Februar 1664]. Süleyman, Kâtib der Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar [darunter sein Siegel] Vorgangszeugen (şuhud ul-hal): İmam Ali Efendi, İbrahim Çelebi el-Kâtib, Mustafa Çelebi Kadizade, Ahmed Çelebi Halife-i Ulûfeciyan-ı yemin, Sahib-i hanemiz Mustafa Çelebi, Hocamız Suhte Ali Efendi. Süleyman Ağa war sich der Gefahren, die ihm beim bevorstehenden Winter­ feldzug drohten, offenbar sehr bewusst. Es war mit blutigen Kämpfen gegen die Eindringlinge zu rechnen und der klirrend harte Winter kündigte quälende Strapazen an. Er dachte an den Tod, der wenn Gott es wollte, ihn ereilen konnte und an die Folgen, und wurde aktiv. Die erste Sorge galt seinen sieben Gefolgsleuten. Sie waren nicht seine dienstlichen Untergebenen, sie waren die Männer seines persönlichen Gefolges, für die er sich verantwortlich fühlte. Die Pferde, die sie ritten und die Waffen, die sie trugen, sollten ihnen gehören. Um sie gegen mögliche Einsprüche von Seiten seiner Erben oder anderer abzusichern, hielt er diese Schenkungen vorsorglich auf einer Liste (defter) schriftlich fest. Zudem bestätigte er Eigentumsrechte zweier Gefolgsleute, indem er ein silbernes Schwert Sakallı Mehmed Beys, sowie Hasans Sklaven Yusuf und auch seine Jacken und Kaftane, als schon früher mit deren eigenem Geld erworbenes Eigentum klarstellte. All dies trennt er von seinem künftigen Nachlass ab, ebenso wie seine Schulden, die nach der Scharia im Todesfall, wie auch die Bestattungskosten, vor der Erbteilung abgezogen und bezahlt werden. Aus diesem Grunde führte Süleyman Ağa auch seine Schulden in der Liste auf, und zwar nach ihrem Umfang: beim Tuchhändler Mehmed Bey sind es 7.130 Akçe für Stoffe, bei einem der gelehrten Ulema Hacı-Mustafa-zade Ali Efendi sind es 3.550 Akçe, ohne dass er den Grund nennt, und bei Durmuş Bey, möglicherweise einem Pferdehändler, sind es 2.700 Akçe als Restzahlung für ein Pferd. Insgesamt hat er also 13.370 Akçe Schulden. Diese Regelungen und ihren Grund hat er in Form eines datierten defters als ersten Teil der vorliegenden Urkunde niedergeschrieben. Die Schenkungen,

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die sich bereits in den Händen der Beschenkten befanden und die Schulden wurden also klar von dem im Falle seines Todes verbleibenden und zu teilenden Nachlass getrennt. Der zweite Teil des Dokumentes ist das eigentliche Testament, mit dem nach islamischem Recht der Testamentsvollstrecker ernannt werden kann, in dem, was religiös empfohlen wird, Sklaven freigelassen werden können und mit dem bis zu einem Drittel des Nachlasses Legate festgelegt werden können.12 Der verbleibende Teil ist der Nachlass, der schließlich nach einem differenzierten Schlüssel verteilt wird. Als Testamentsvollstrecker (vasi) bestimmte er seinen vertrauenswürdigen Gefolgsmann Hasan. Zwei Sklaven sollen im Falle seines Todes freigelassen werden und als freie Muslime in den Dienst seines Bruders İbrahim Ağa treten. Sie verbleiben damit geschützt im Familienverbund. Einen dritten Sklaven hat er bereits seinem Bruder geschenkt, sodass er eigentlich nicht ins Testament gehört, er ist wegen des Winters diesem aber noch nicht zugesandt worden, sodass die Schenkung noch nicht ganz vollzogen ist. Den restlichen Nachlass, recht unpräzise aufgezählt als Pferde, Maultiere, Zaumzeug, Schwerter, Pelze und Zelt, Bargeld und sonstige Kleinigkeiten, soll der vasi seinem Bruder und seiner Schwester zusenden und übergeben. Andere Erben sind nicht vorhanden, Süleyman Ağa hatte also weder lebende Eltern noch Frauen oder Kinder. Die künftige Erbteilung, die durch die Scharia detailliert geregelt ist, und daher im Testament nicht berührt wird, ist in diesem Fall einfach, die Schwester wird die Hälfte des Anteils ihres Bruders am Erbe erhalten. Wie das Verhältnis zu Hasan scheint auch das Verhältnis Süleyman Ağas zu seinem Bruder eng und vertrauensvoll gewesen zu sein, denn er vertraute dem Bruder nicht nur seine beiden Freigelassenen an, er hatte ihm auch schon zuvor einen Sklaven geschenkt. Datum, Unterschrift und Siegel des Ausstellers sowie die Namen von sieben Zeugen geben diesem Dokument ein gewichtiges Aussehen. Ist dies aber ein formelles, originales osmanisches Testament? Das sollte sich eigentlich durch den Vergleich mit anderen osmanischen Testamenten klären lassen. Im Standardwerk zur osmanischen Diplomatik, Mübahat Kütükoğlus Osmanlı Belgelerin Dili, findet sich im Register auch wirklich das Stichwort vasiyetname.13 Doch auf der angegebenen Seite steht unter der Rubrik Gerichtsdokumente lediglich das Wort vasiyetname innerhalb einer Klassifizierung der osmanischen Archivalien, von der aus sie auf das diplomatische Werk des bulgarischen

12 Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: OUP, 1964), 173–74. 13 Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerinin Dili (Diplomatik) (Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür ve San’at Vakfı Yayını, 1994), 414.

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Osmanisten Boris Nedkov verweist.14 Bei Nedkov findet sich aber wiederum nur der Begriff vasiyetname in Listen von Urkundentypen ohne weitere Erläuterung.15 Auch in den übrigen Werken zur osmanischen Diplomatik wird dieses vasiyetname soweit ich sehe nicht behandelt. Das bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass die Osmanen nur den Begriff, nicht aber die Sache kannten. Das vasiyetname Sultan Murads II. von 1446, dessen arabisches Original und zwei osmanische Übersetzungen Halil İnalcık publiziert hat16 und in dessen zeitgenössischer osmanischer Übersetzung der Begriff vasiyetname für diese ganz persönliche Urkunde des Sultans erscheint,17 ist wohl das älteste erhaltene Beispiel. Darin enthalten sind persönliche Verfügungen, aber auch Gedanken, die sich der Sultan über seinen Tod und seinen etwaigen Begräbnisort machte. Die einzelnen Bestimmungen trug er dem Kadiasker Molla Husrev persönlich vor, worauf dieser die Urkunde ausfertigte. Diese Urkunde wurde vom Kadiasker bestätigt, die Datierung steht am Schluss und als Zeugen fungieren prominente Männer, die der Sultan, der die Macht gerade wieder auf sich nahm, zu Wesiren wählte. Es handelt sich also um eine Urkunde, die mit dem damals höchsten Richter des Reiches, dem Kadiasker, angefertigt wurde. Dies deutet an, dass Testamente als rechtliche Angelegenheit im Osmanischen Reich Gerichtssache waren und damit, zumindest in späterer Zeit, auch in die Protokollbücher der Kadiämter (sicill) einzutragen waren. Befragt man erhaltene Sicille, so finden sich dort immer wieder Einträge, in denen Personen über ihre Hinterlassenschaften bestimmen, soweit das rechtlich zulässig ist (vasiyet). Diese Verfügungen wurden vor Gericht behandelt, sei es, dass der Testator persönlich vor Gericht erschien, sei es, dass Zeugen auftraten, die bestätigten, dass der Verstorbene vor seinem Tode bestimmte Verfügungen getroffen hat. Es ging oft um die Freilassung von Sklaven, um die Verteilung bestimmter Summen an die Armen des Viertels, um Zeugen die Verfügungen des Verstorbenen vertraten, und sogar erreichten konnten, dass der Fiskus, der die Hand auf den Nachlass gelegt hatte, weil Erben fehlten, das Geld zur Erfüllung der Verfügung des Verstorbenen zurückerstattete. Das Gericht prüfte die Angelegenheiten, soweit nötig, und trug die Verhandlung in das Protokollbuch ein. Auf Verlangen wurde eine entsprechende Gerichtsurkunde ausgestellt, mit der Darstellung des Vorganges vor Gericht, dem Datum und den Namen der Zeugen des Vorgangs vor Gericht 14 Ibid., 10. 15 Boris Nedkov, Osmano-Turska Diplomatika i Paleografiya, Band 1 (Sofia: Nauka i İzkustvo, 1966) 125, 157. 16 Halil İnalcık, Fatih Devri Üzerinde Tetkikler ve Vesikalar I (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 21987), 102–03, 204–15, Levha III. 17 İnalcık, Fatih Devri, 205, Levha III.

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(şuhud ul-hal). Es ist die übliche Gerichtsurkunde, das hüccet, das von Vančo Boškov und Mübahat Kütükoğlu behandelt worden ist.18 Eine solche Urkunde war diplomatisch gesehen kein vasiyetname im Sinne eines eigenständigen Urkundentyps. Der Begriff kommt, soweit ich sehe, als Eigenbenennung in diesem Zusammenhang auch nicht vor. Es ist daher nur konsequent, wenn Mübahat Kütükoğlu derartige Urkunden bei der Behandlung des hüccet lediglich als inhaltlich spezielle hüccets unter der Bezeichnung vasiyet hüccetleri kurz streift.19 Betrachtet man das Dokument Süleyman Ağas genauer, so fällt auf, dass der Begriff vasiyetname auch darin nicht vorkommt. Es ähnelt einem Gerichts­ dokument, insofern es mit dem Datum und der Zeugenreihe (şuhud ul-hal) endet. Doch im Gegensatz zu einer ausgefertigten Gerichtsurkunde fehlen über dem Urkundentext Name, Amtsbezeichnung und Siegel eines Kadis. Die bei Gerichtsurkunden am Ende übliche Zeugenreihe ist zwar vorhanden, doch fehlt die in Gerichtsdokumenten häufige Floskel „und andere Anwesende“. Dafür erscheint am Ende des Dokuments, wie in Schreiben staatlicher Amtsträger üblich, Amt, Name und Siegel des Ausstellers der Urkunde. Süleyman Ağas Schriftstück ist also kein vasiyet hücceti, keine Urkunde aus dem Bereich des Gerichts. Andererseits ist da der Begriff vasiyetname. Das persische nāme bedeutet Brief und bildet im Osmanischen zahlreiche zusammengesetzte Begriffe mit der Bedeutung Urkunde oder Brief, vom sultanischen Siegesschreiben ( fethname) bis zum privaten Liebesbrief (muhabbetname). Das besondere an all diesen Urkunden oder Briefen ist, wie Mübahat Kütükoğlu schreibt, dass entweder über dem Text oder unter dem Text der Name des Ausstellers oder Verfassers steht.20 Man darf daraus wohl folgern, dass in der osmanischen Diplomatik auch das vasiyetname eigentlich eine Urkunde ist, die über oder unter dem Text den persönlichen Namen des Ausstellers trägt. Damit wäre der Begriff vasiyetname im Sinne der Diplomatik allgemein erklärt als eine Urkunde, durch die der Aussteller persönlich, also nicht vor Gericht, seinen letzten Willen schriftlich niederlegt. Im heutigen Sprachgebrauch wird vasiyetname ganz allgemein als schriftliches Testament bezeichnet,21 sodass man heute durchaus auch ein ausgefertigtes Exemplar des gerichtlichen Urkundentyps 18

Vančo Boškov, „Die ḥüccet-Urkunde  – Diplomatische Analyse,“ in Studia Turcologica Memoriae Alexii Bombaci Dicata (Napoli: Istituto universitario orientale, 1982), 81–87; Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerin Dili, 350–59. 19 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerin Dili, 353. 20 Ibid., 146 dabei zählt sie 43 dieser Begriffe auf. 21 So definiert Abdüsselam Arı in seinem Artikel „Vasiyet.“ TDVİA 42 (2012), 552 ganz allgemein: „Vasiyetin kaydedildiği belge’ye vasiyetname denir“.

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vasiyet hücceti, damit bezeichnet finden kann. Wie aber ein persönliches vasiyetname aussah, welches Formular es hatte, ist mit diesen Überlegungen noch immer nicht geklärt und die Tatsache, dass in der einschlägigen Literatur darüber nichts zu finden ist, lässt vermuten, dass entsprechende Originale äußerst rar sind. Süleyman Ağas Schriftstück könnte ein solches Original sein. Bewiesen ist das aber erst, wenn weitere Stücke auftauchen. Es könnte nämlich auch sein, dass Süleyman Ağa im Winter beim Heer keine Möglichkeit hatte, seinen letzten Willen vor Gericht festzulegen. Vielleicht halfen ihm dann die Männer, die seine Zeugen waren. Vier von ihnen tragen den Titel Çelebi, drei den Titel Efendi. Es waren also Männer von Ansehen, die auch über eine gewisse Bildung, auch über eine gewisse juristische Bildung verfügten und die ihm offenbar persönlich nahestanden. Ein Imam, ein Sekretär, ein Halife der Ulûfeciyan-i yemin, sein Hauswirt und sein Lehrer. Sie alle scheinen mit ihm beim Heer gewesen zu sein und sie könnten die Urkunde zusammen mit ihm als juristischen Notbehelf entworfen haben. Unabhängig von seiner noch unbefriedigenden Einordnung in die osmanische Diplomatik, erlaubt dieses seltene Schriftstück einen Blick auf die persönlichen und menschlichen Verantwortlichkeiten, die einen osmanischen Kavallerieoffizier des 17. Jahrhunderts vor dem militärischen Einsatz bewegten. 2

Der Oberstallmeister des Sultans Sarı Süleyman Ağa

In einer völlig anderen Situation und auf eine ganz andere Weise begegnete siebzehn Jahre später ein Oberstallmeister des Sultans drohenden Gefahren, die ihn zu handeln veranlassten. Der Oberstallmeister (mirahor-i evvel) Sarı Süleyman Ağa22 veranlasste am 31. Mai 1681 eine Gerichtssitzung in seinem Haus in Üsküdar, um eine Fromme Stiftung (vakıf) prüfen, genehmigen und protokollieren zu lassen. Damit wandelte er sein Anwesen im Dorf Kuruçeşme am Bosporus (Stadt Beşiktaş, Kaza Galata) in eine Fromme Stiftung um. „Das stattliche, 22 Über ihn siehe: Hans Georg Majer, „Bavyera ve İstanbul’da İzleri Olan Bir Osmanlı Sadrıazamı: Sarı Süleyman Paşa,“ Osmanlı İstanbulu III. III. Ululararası Osmanlı İstanbulu Sempozyumu Bildirileri 25–26 Mayıs 2015, Hgg. Feridun M. Emecen u.a. (Istanbul: İstanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi, 2015), 19–51. Eine überarbeitete und vor allem seine Frommen Stiftungen berücksichtigende, erweiterte deutsche Version erschien unter dem Titel: „Spuren des osmanischen Großwesirs Sarı Süleyman Pascha in Bayern und Istanbul,“ Eothen. Münchner Beiträge zur Geschichte der Islamischen Kunst und Kultur 7 (2018): 189–224. [Beim Druck gerieten die Worte „Erstellt von“ fälschlich vor den Titel des Aufsatzes].

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dreistöckige Hauptgebäude lag direkt am Ufer des Bosporus, dahinter führte die Straße vorbei, und oberhalb der Straße lag ein großer Garten (hadika), darin Lauben, Hütten und Gartenpavillons (köşk), fruchtragende und andere Bäume, ein Wasserbecken und ein Springbrunnen. Auch eine Küche, ein Wasch­haus, ein Hamam und ein Abort fehlten nicht“.23 Nördlich dieses Gartens gehörten ein weiterer Garten (bağ) und unbebauter Grund von insgesamt acht dönüm (7.500 m2) noch dazu. Es war nicht das erste Mal, dass er als Stifter wirkte. Seine erste Stiftung (1677) galt seiner Heimatregion um Prijepolje (Pripol), in geringerem Maße auch Užice (Ujice), Skopje (Üsküb) und kleineren Orten, die zweite (1681) betraf seine noch heute erhaltene und erst dieser Tage restaurierte Freitagsmoschee in Üsküdar. Als Stiftungsgut hatte er einen großen Teil seines Immobilienbesitzes und seines Barvermögens in diese Stiftungen eingebracht. Der Stiftungszweck war religiös, er hatte Moscheen und Medresen erbaut oder restauriert, hatte Geld für neues oder zusätzliches Personal und besondere Dienstleistungen bereitgestellt.24 Die Stiftungsverwaltung als mütevelli und die Stiftungsaufsicht als nazır hatte er bis zu seinem Tod sich selbst vorbehalten. Bahaeddin Yediyıldız nennt diese Form der Stiftung vaqf semi-familial, also eine Mischform von öffentlicher Stiftung und Familienstiftung.25 Die neue Stiftung hatte einen anderen Charakter,26 ihr Stiftungszweck war, zumindest kurzfristig, nicht religiös, es war ein vaqf de famille, eine Familienstiftung. Denn in der Stiftungsurkunde legte er fest, dass er zu Lebzeiten selbst im gestifteten Anwesen am Bosporus wohnen wolle. Nach seinem Tod aber könne seine Ehefrau Saliha Hatun weiterhin dort wohnen, es stehe ihr aber frei, das Anwesen auch zu vermieten. Die Miete stehe ihr zu. Nach ihrem Tod sei das Anwesen bis zum Ablauf des Mietverhältnisses dem allfälligen Mieter zu belassen. Danach solle das Anwesen an die Stiftung seiner in Üsküdar gebauten Moschee gehen und vom Stiftungsverwalter vermietet werden. Die Mieterträge seien für die Bedürfnisse der Moschee einzusetzen. Offenbar sah er die Kuruçeşme-Stiftung als zeitlich aufgeschobene Zustiftung zu seiner Moscheestiftung in Üsküdar. Fromme Stiftungen hatten neben ihrem religiösen Zweck oft auch den Nebenz­weck, das Vermögen des Stifters vor staatlichem Zugriff zu schützen und ihm, und nach ihm seiner Familie, meist durch das Amt des Stiftungsverwalters (mütevelli) ein sicheres Einkommen zu sichern. Bei der Kuruçeşme-Stiftung 23 Majer, „Spuren des osmanischen Großwesirs,“ 219. 24 Ibid., 210–19. 25 Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, Institution du Vaqf au XVIIIè siècle en Turquie – étude socio-historique(Ankara: La Société d’Histoire Turque, 1985), 13–19. 26 Majer, „Spuren des osmanischen Großwesirs,“ 219–20.

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stand dieser zweite Zweck ganz offensichtlich im Vordergrund, allerdings nicht über das Amt des mütevelli, sondern direkt als Stiftungszweck. Aus welchem Grund wollte Sarı Süleyman Ağa gerade zu diesem Zeitpunkt das Wohnrecht in diesem schönen Anwesen am Strand des Bosporus, seiner yalı, für sich und seine Ehefrau sichern? Ein Schlaglicht darauf wirft eine Passage in der Relazione, die der venezianische Bailo in der osmanischen Hauptstadt, Giambattista Donado, am 20. August 1684 dem Senat in Venedig vortrug. Bei der Charakterisierung des osmanischen Führungspersonals berichtete er über Sarı Süleyman (Solimano),27 er sei, nachdem ihn Großwesir Köprülüzade Ahmed Pascha zum hohen Rang seines Amtschefs (sadaret kethüdası) erhoben habe, des Öfteren mit dem Wesir Kara Mustafa Pascha in einen Wortwechsel geraten. Daraus habe sich ein Konkurrenzkampf ergeben, es sei Neid entstanden und habe schließlich zu offener und öffentlicher Feindschaft geführt. Nach dem Tod Ahmed Paschas 1676 wurde Kara Mustafa Pascha Großwesir und Sarı Süleyman verlor sein Amt, doch der Sultan, der Sarı Süleyman seit seiner früheren Zeit am Hof schätzte, übernahm ihn als Oberstallmeister in großherrliche Dienste. Seine tödliche Abneigung gegen Kara Mustafa Pascha habe er, so Donado, auch vor dem Angesicht des Sultans nicht verborgen. Daher habe ihn der neue Großwesir mit dem Auftrag, die Aquädukte von Mekka zu reparieren, von der Hauptstadt entfernt. Ohne diesen Hintergrund zu erwähnen, berichtet auch der Geschichtsschreiber Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Pascha, Sarı Süleyman Ağa habe den Befehl erhalten, unverzüglich über See nach Ägypten und von dort weiter zu seinem Bestimmungsort Mekka zu reisen, um den Heiligen Bezirk zu reinigen und die Wasserleitungen (su yolları) zu reparieren.28 In Mekka, der Heiligen Stadt, die unter der besonderen Fürsorge des Sultans stand, hatte kurz nach dem Ende der jährlichen Pilgerfahrt, am 15. Januar 1681, wie Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall dem Defterdar folgend schreibt, durch Wolkenbruch eine ungemein grosse Überschwemmung Statt gefunden, indem die Bergströme, von den benachbarten Bergen zusam­ menschiessend, das Heiligthum der Kaaba eine Elle hoch über der Thorschwelle durch vier und zwanzig Stunden füllten. Als das Wasser verlaufen war, trug man fünf und zwanzig Leichen aus dem Heiligthume heraus. Ein grosser, auf dem Platze der Geburtsstätte des Propheten 27 Giambattista Donado, „Relazione,“ in Relazioni degli Ambasciatori e Baili di Venezia a Costantinopoli, volume unico, parte II, Hgg. Niccolò Barrozzi und Giulielmo Berchet (Venedig 1873), 316. 28 Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Paşa, Zübde-i Vekayiât. Tahlil ve Metin (1066–1116/1656–1704). Hazırlayan Abdülkadir Özcan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 1995), 121 und danach Meḥmed Rāşid, Taʿrīḫ. 2nd ed. Bd. I (Istanbul 1282/1865), 369.

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gepflanzter Sycomore, welcher ein Kaffehhaus überschattete, hatte beym Einbruche der Bergströme den dort Versammelten, die sich auf die Aeste retteten, zur Zuflucht gedient, aber die Gewalt des Stromes riss denselben um, und trug ihn mit hundert fünfzig Leichen bis zum Thore Ssafa; die Moschee, hundert vierzig um die Kaaba gebaute und der Wuth der Ueberschwemmung ausgesetzte Häuser waren spurlos weggerissen, der jemenische Teich war mit Aesern von Kamehlen und Hausgeräthe aller Art gefüllt, mehr als fünftausend Lastthiere waren zu Grunde gegangen.29 Erdreich und Sand hatte sich in der Stadt aufgehäuft30 und, besonders schlimm, die Wasserversorgung war zusammengebrochen, die Leitungen mussten dringen repariert werden. Großwesir Kara Mustafa Pascha lag gewiss daran, wie Donado schreibt, den gefährlichen Rivalen aus dem Dunstkreis des Sultans zu entfernen. Aber bei der Hilfe war auch Eile geboten, und er konnte durchaus auch sachlich begründen, warum seine Wahl gerade auf den Oberstallmeister gefallen war. Sarı Süleyman Ağa war nämlich, wie seine Stiftungsurkunden zeigen, durchaus mit Problemen der Wasserversorgung vertraut, er hatte schon an verschiedenen Orten, besonders sichtbar aber in Üsküdar, Wasserleitungen, Wasserspeicher, Brunnen und Brücken gebaut oder auch repariert.31 Für die Durchführung seiner Aufgabe in Mekka erhielt er Allerhöchste Unterstützung: Mehmed IV. verfasste ein beyaz üzerine hatt-ı hümayun,32 ein Briefchen (Abb. 21.2), geschrieben in seiner eigenen, schwer lesbaren Handschrift, an den Vali von Ägypten, den Bosniaken Osman Pascha,33 das Sarı Süleyman Ağa höchstwahrscheinlich persönlich vom Sultan entgegennahm und dann in Kairo dem Gouverneur überreichte. Der Sultan schrieb (Abb. 21.2): 29 Joseph von Hammer[-Purgstall], Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Band 6 (Pest: Hartleben Verlag, 1830) (Nachdruck Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1963), 369–70 nach Defterdar, Zübde-i Vekayiât, 117–18 und diesem folgend Rāşid, Taʿrīḫ, Bd. I, 365–66. 30 Plötzliche Überschwemmungen, die verheerende Schäden anrichteten, kamen in Mekka wegen seiner geographischen Lage immer wieder vor, beispielsweise auch 1630, siehe: Suraiya Faroqhi, Herrscher über Mekka. Die Geschichte der Pilgerfahrt (München: Artemis, 1990), 151–55. 31 Siehe Majer, „Spuren des Großwesirs,“ 213–19. 32 Zu diesen eigenhändigen Sultansschreiben siehe: Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerinin Dili, 172–83, besonders 175–78. 33 Franz Babinger, Das Archiv des Bosniaken Osman Pascha. Nach den Beständen der Badischen Landesbibliothek zu Karlsruhe, herausgegeben und erläutert von Franz Babinger (Berlin: Berliner Reichsdruckerei, 1931), 35: Inhaltsangabe und Umschrifttext, der an einigen Stellen zu korrigieren ist, Urkunde III: Faksimile.

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Abb. 21.2

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Hatt-ı hümayun Sultan Mehmeds IV. Das Archiv des Bosniaken Osman Pascha. Nach den Beständen der Badischen Landesbibliothek zu Karlsruhe, hrsg. von Franz Babinger (Berlin: Berliner Reichsdruckerei, 1931), 35: Urkunde III: Faksimile

Mein Wesir Osman Pascha, Beschützer Ägyptens: ich habe den Ober­ stallmeister meines kaiserlichen Steigbügels beauftragt und abgesandt, die bei der Heiligen Kaaba zerstörten Wasserleitungen und andere Schäden zu reparieren. Bei seiner Ankunft sollst Du Dich bemühen, ihm die für die Reparaturen durch meinen Ferman bestimmten Gelder (altun) vollständig zu übergeben und sonstige Gerätschaften und nötigen Dinge [und] die aus Ägypten abzusendenden Zimmerleute und Materialen, was sie auch sein mögen, unverzüglich bereitzustellen und mit sicheren Schiffen an ihren Bestimmungsort zu senden. Du sollst Dich bemühen, diese wichtige Angelegenheit unverzüglich auszuführen. Die Reise nach Mekka war lang und keineswegs ungefährlich, weder auf dem Landweg noch auf dem Seeweg, was zahlreiche Tote bei der jährlichen

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Pilgerfahrt bezeugen.34 Für Sarı Süleyman Ağa aber barg schon die bloße Abwesenheit vom Hofe Gefahren. Der Konflikt mit dem Großwesir konnte fraglos Befürchtungen erwecken, bei persönlicher Abwesenheit waren sie noch drängender. Zwar hatte der Oberstallmeister das Wohlwollen des Sultans, aber auch Kara Mustafa Pascha saß fest im Sattel. Sollte er aber unterwegs zu Tode kommen oder während der Abwesenheit in Ungnade fallen, würde wohl sein Vermögen konfisziert werden. Nachdem ein großer Teil davon schon unangreifbar in Fromme Stiftungen umgewandelt worden war, hieß das, dass sein Anwesen in Kuruçeşme in Gefahr geriet. Durch die Umwandlung in eine Fromme Stiftung sicherte er es als Wohnort für sich, falls er unter ungünstigen Umständen, aber wohlbehalten zurückkäme. Auf jeden Fall aber war seine Ehefrau Saliha Hatun dadurch geschützt. Saliha Hatun bint İbrahim Ağa war die Tochter der Schwester seines einstigen Gönners, des Gesellschafters des Sultans (musahib) Bizaban Tavşan İbrahim Ağa, eines Stummen, den er sehr verehrte. Diese Nähe spricht auch aus der Stiftungsurkunde für seine Moschee in Üsküdar von 1677, in der er bestimmt hatte, an Bizaban Tavşan İbrahim Ağas Türbe in Edirne die Stelle eines Grabwärters (türbedar) einzurichten, und für Beleuchtung und tägliche Koranlesungen zu sorgen.35 Dieselbe Vertrautheit hatte auch İbrahim Ağa gezeigt, als er ihn, seine Frau und ihre gemeinsamen Nachkommen zu Begünstigten einer Frommen Stiftung gemacht hatte, in die er sein Anwesen (menzil) in der Kefçe Mahallesi in Üsküdar eingebracht hatte. Ohne die Stiftungsbestimmungen zu ändern, hatte Sarı Süleyman Ağa 1677 eine beträchtliche Zustiftung gemacht.36 Da in den Stiftungsurkunden von 1677 und 1681 die Kefçe Mahallesi als Wohnort des Oberstallmeisters angegeben wird, könnte die Familie zu dieser Zeit sogar in diesem Anwesen gewohnt haben. Was hatte seine Ehefrau im Falle seines Todes zu erwarten? Das Einkommen als mütevelli und nazır seiner Stiftungen ging nach ihm an seine männlichen Erben. Nach dem Erbrecht der Scharia stand ihr zwar ein Achtel des Erbes zu, aber worin bestand dieses Erbe noch, nachdem viele Teile des Vermögens in Stiftungen eingebracht worden waren? Allerdings hatte Sarı Süleyman Ağa Saliha Hatun schon in der Stiftungsurkunde der Moschee in Üsküdar ein lebenslanges Einkommen (vazife) aus dem Überschuss der Stiftung in Höhe von dreißig Akçe täglich bestimmt.37 Das war dieselbe Summe, die er für sich selbst, als mütevelli und nazır, festgelegt hatte. Ein Brunnen, den sie bauen 34 Antonis Anastasopoulos, „In Preparation for the Hajj: the Will of a Serdengeçti From Crete (1782).“ Archivum Ottomanicum 23 (2005/06): 79–92. Gilles Veinstein, „Les pélerins de la Mecque à travers quelques actes du Qâḍî de Sarajevo (1557–1558),“ Turcica 21–23 (1991): 473–94. 35 İstanbul Müftülüğü Şer’iyye Sicilleri Arşivi, Üsküdar Şer’iyye Sicili No. 278, 49a. 36 Majer, „Spuren des Großwesirs,“ 219. 37 Ibid., 215.

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ließ,38 könnte auf ein gewisses eigenes Vermögen hinweisen. Ganz offensichtlich zur Sicherstellung seiner Frau in einer nicht vorausschaubaren Situation diente dann die Kuruçeşme-Stiftung, die sich deutlich von seinen übrigen, dem üblichen Schema folgenden Stiftungen abhob. Ausdrücklich bestimmte er Saliha Hatun zur lebenslangen Nutznießerin des Anwesens nach seinem Tode, sei es als Bewohnerin oder als Vermieterin, im Falle der Vermietung sicherte er ihr die Mieteinkünfte als persönliches Einkommen. Man könnte einwenden, dass Sarı Süleyman Ağa diese Stiftung eingerichtet habe, ehe er den Auftrag erhielt nach Mekka zu reisen. Doch zwischen dem Termin vor Gericht am 31. Mai 1681 und dem Befehl unverzüglich aufzubrechen vom 3. Juli 1681, lag nur rund ein Monat. Beratungen und Besprechungen dürften sich allerdings schon seit dem Eintreffen der Nachricht von der katastrophalen Überschwemmung über eine einige Zeit hingezogen haben, sodass Sarı Süleyman Ağa längst vor der offiziellen Aufforderung Bescheid wissen und vorsorglich handeln konnte. Der Oberstallmeister kehrte erfolgreich zurück und verblieb auch weiterhin in seinem einflussreichen Amt an der Seite des Sultans. Die Feindschaft zwischen ihm und dem Großwesir aber blieb, der Geschichtsschreiber Silahdar nennt ihn und den Schwarzen Obereunuchen Yusuf Ağa die größten Feinde des Großwesirs, der sie seinerseits auch nicht mochte,39 und selbst der kaiserliche Botschafter Conte Caprara nannte ihn einen wütenden Feind des Großwesirs.40 Er schloss sich mit Musahip Mustafa Pascha, dem Obersten der schwarzen Verschnittenen Yusuf Ağa, wohl auch der Hasseki,41 und anderen zusammen, die am Sturze des Großwesirs arbeiteten. Als dieser vor Wien scheiterte, sahen sie ihre Stunde gekommen und erwirkten beim Sultan den Befehl zur Hinrichtung Kara Mustafa Paschas. Sarı Süleyman Ağa erhielt den Auftrag, den Nachlass des Hingerichteten zu registrieren, dem er mit aller Gründlichkeit nachkam, was ihm den Rang des Dritten Wesirs einbrachte.42 Nur zwei Jahre später, nach einem erfolgreichen Feldzug, den er gegen Polen führte, erhielt er am 18. Dezember 1685 selbst das Reichssiegel als Großwesir. Wiederum zwei Jahre später, nach der verlorenen Schlacht von Mohács 1687 und einer Rebellion der Armee, erreichte auch ihn der Hinrichtungsbefehl. Die Situation, die der Oberstallmeisters Sarı Süleyman Ağa sechs Jahre zuvor hatte befürchten müssen, trat nun für den Großwesir Sarı Süleyman 38 İstanbul Müftülüğü Şer’iyye Sicilleri Arşivi, Üsküdar Şer’iyye Sicili No. 286, 50a. 39 Silāḥdār, Ta‌ʾrīḫ, Band 2 (Istanbul 1928), 119. 40 Hammer, Geschichte, Band 6, 426 Anm. a: „In der Relazione particulare del Conte Caprara sind die Belege dieser Feindschaft häufig: Il cavallerizo maggior nemico arrabiato del G.V. F. 94.“ 41 Donado, „Relazione,“ 317. 42 Silāḥdār, Ta‌ʾrīḫ, 121, 124.

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Pascha ein: er verlor Amt und Leben. Die Moschee-Stiftung in Üsküdar und die Kuruçeşme-Stiftung wurden durch sein vorsorgliches und vorausschauendes Handeln aber zur finanziellen und sozialen Sicherung für Saliha Hanım. Ob sie in der Folge das Stiftungs-Anwesen in Kuruçeşme selbst bewohnt hat oder es vermietete, geht aus den bisher bekannten Quellen nicht hervor. Während Sarı Süleyman Pascha und einige seiner Nachkommen ihre letzte Ruhestätte im Hof seiner Moschee in Üsküdar fanden,43 ist Saliha Hatuns Grab und ihr Todesdatum bisher unbekannt. Frömmigkeit und Fürsorge für die Familie über den Tod hinaus, zeigt sich auch darin, dass er in seinen Stiftungsurkunden Vorsorge getroffen hat für regelmäßige Gebete nicht nur für die Seelen des Propheten, vieler Frommen, seiner Wohltäter bis hin zu den Muslimen insgesamt, sondern ausdrücklich und oft namentlich auch für seine Eltern, Geschwister, Kinder, seine Frau und für sich selbst.44 3

Zum Abschluss

Außer dem gemeinsamen Namen und Titel, ihrer Funktion im Dienst des osmanischen Staates und der Tatsache, dass sie mit Pferden zu tun hatten, war Leben und Situation der beiden Süleyman Ağas sehr unterschiedlich. Süleyman Ağa, der vierthöchste Offizier der Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar, einer Elitereiterei, lebte nicht in einer Kaserne, sondern, wie es bei seiner Einheit durchaus üblich war, zur Miete.45 Sein Vermögen bestand vor allem aus drei Sklaven, Pferden, Maultieren, der zugehörigen Ausrüstung, Kleidern, Schwertern und einem Zelt. Doch er hatte vertraute Gefolgsleute und auch einen kleinen Kreis von Männern, auf die er als Zeugen für seine letztwillige Verfügung bauen konnte. Woher er kam, wer sein Vater war, wie er zu den Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar gekommen war bleibt dunkel, die Namen seiner Geschwister zeigen aber, dass er aus einer muslimischen Familie stammte. Auch Süleyman Ağa, der großherrliche Oberstallmeister, kam aus einer muslimischen Familie. Doch wie er aus der Provinz in den Hofdienst kam, bleibt offen.46 Dort aber fand er Gönner, stieg auf, diente einem Gesellschafter des Sultans, einem Großwesir und dem Sultan selbst, konnte ein beachtliches Vermögen ansammeln, das er mit Weitsicht in Fromme Stiftungen umwandelte. Seine Fähigkeiten und 43 Majer, „Spuren des Osmanischen Großwesirs,“ 223; Mehmed Nermi Haskan, Yüzyıllar boyunca Üsküdar, Bd. 1 (Üsküdar: Üsküdar Belediyesi, 2001), 345–46. 44 Majer, „Spuren des Osmanischen Großwesirs,“ 211–12. 45 Abdülkadir Özcan, „Ulûfeciyan.“ TDVİA 42 (2012), 126–27. 46 Donado, „Relazione,“ 316 schreibt richtig er sei aus der Herzegowina gebürtig und etwas rätselhaft, er sei bei Gelegenheit einer Gesandtschaft der Ragusaner in die osmanische Hauptstadt gelangt.

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sein Ehrgeiz machten sein Leben spannungsreicher und riskanter als das des Namensvetters. Er stieg auf zum Pascha, zum Wesir und schließlich erreichte er noch das höchste Amt im Reich, das Großwesirat. Von dieser Höhe aber ging der Sturz ins Bodenlose. Beiden gemeinsam war die Gewissheit, dass angesichts drohender Gefahr ihr Leben in Gottes Hand lag und von seinem Willen abhing, dem sie sich auch willig zu beugen bereit waren. Sie sahen aber die Verpflichtung, im Interesse ihrer Nächsten zu handeln. Das waren beim einen die Gefolgsleute und die Geschwister, beim andern war es die Ehefrau. Doch das vasiyetname des Kavalleristen ging im Krieg verloren. Falls aber Zeugen überlebten und vor Gericht aussagten, könnten seine Verfügungen doch noch wirksam geworden sein. Was allerdings aus den Begünstigten wurde ist ebenso wenig bekannt, wie sein eigenes Schicksal. Der Oberstallmeister hingegen konnte noch sechs Jahre sein yalı am Bosporus mit Frau und Familie genießen, soweit seine Karriere das zuließ. Was aus Saliha Hatun danach wurde, bleibt offen. Der gemeinsame Sohn konnte aber ein Stück der Karriere des Vaters bis hin zum Amt des Oberstallmeisters wiederholen, ein positiver Hinweis wohl auch auf ein weiteres geschütztes und behütetes Leben der Mutter. Bibliografie

Primärquellen İstanbul Müftülüğü Şer’iyye Sicilleri Arşivi, Istanbul

Üsküdar Şer’iyye Sicili No. 286 and 278.



Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe Archivamt für Westfalen, Münster

Ass.L-445a, Nr. 8.



Publizierte Primärquellen



Sekundärliteratur

Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Paşa. Zübde-i Vekayiât. Tahlil ve Metin (1066–1116/1656–1704). Hazırlayan Abdülkadir Özcan. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 1995. Meḥmed Rāşid, Taʾrīḫ, Bd. I, 2. Aufl. Istanbul 1282/1865. Silāḥdār. Ta‌ʾrīḫ. Band 2. Istanbul 1928.

Anastasopoulos, Antonis. „In Preparation for the Hajj: the Will of a Serdengeçti From Crete (1782).“ Archivum Ottomanicum 23 (2005/06): 79–92. And, Metin: „Karagöz üzerindeki bilgilere yeni katkılar.“ Türk Dili 19,207 (Aralık 1968): 497–518.

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Majer

Arı, Abdüsselam. „Vasiyet.“ TDVİA 42 (2012): 552–55. Babinger, Franz. Das Archiv des Bosniaken Osman Pascha. Nach den Beständen der Badischen Landesbibliothek zu Karlsruhe, herausgegeben und erläutert von Franz Babinger. Berlin: Berliner Reichsdruckerei, 1931. Bommen Berend. Das Fürstbistum Münster unter Bischof Christoph Bernhard von Galen 1650–1678. Landesmuseum Münster [1972]. Boškov, Vančo. „Die ḥüccet-Urkunde – Diplomatische Analyse.“ In Studia Turcologica Memoriae Alexii Bombaci Dicata, 81–87. Napoli: Istituto universitario orientale, 1982. Donado, Giambattista. „Relazione.“ In Relazioni degli Ambasciatori e Baili di Venezia a Costantinopoli, volume unico, parte II, Hgg. Niccolò Barrozzi und Giulielmo Berchet. Venedig, 1873. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Herrscher über Mekka. Die Geschichte der Pilgerfahrt. München: Artemis, 1990. Hammer[-Purgstall], Joseph von. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Band 6. Pest: Hartleben Verlag, 1830. (Nachdruck Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1963.) Haskan, Mehmed Nermi. Yüzyıllar boyunca Üsküdar, Bd. 1. Üsküdar: Üsküdar Belediyesi, 2001. İnalcık, Halil. Fatih Devri Üzerinde Tetkikler ve Vesikalar I. 2. Aufl. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1987. Krieg und Sieg in Ungarn. Die Ungarnfeldzüge des Großwesirs Köprülüzâde Fâzıl Ahmed Pascha 1663 und 1664 nach den „Kleinodien der Historien“ seines Siegelbewahrers Hasan Ağa. Übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Erich Prokosch. Graz/Wien/Köln: Styria, 1976. Kütükoğlu, Mübahat S. Osmanlı Belgelerinin Dili (Diplomatik). Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür ve San’at Vakfı Yayını, 1994. Majer, Hans Georg. „Spuren des osmanischen Großwesirs Sarı Süleyman Pascha in Bayern und Istanbul.“ Eothen. Münchner Beiträge zur Geschichte der Islamischen Kunst und Kultur 7 (2018): 189–224. Majer, Hans Georg. „Bavyera ve İstanbul’da İzleri Olan Bir Osmanlı Sadrıazamı: Sarı Süleyman Paşa.“ In Osmanlı İstanbulu III. III. Ululararası Osmanlı İstanbulu Sempozyumu Bildirileri 25–26 Mayıs 2015, Hgg. Feridun M. Emecen u.a., 19–51. Istanbul: İstanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi, 2015. Majer, Hans Georg. „Nešto za java-džizieto i maden mukataa nezaretot na Skopje i Vučitrn vo 1663 godina.“ Institut za nacionalna istorija: Glasnik 18,3 (1974): 127–38. Majer, Hans Georg. „Ein Nišân des Osmanenprinzen Aḥmed, des Statthalters von Amasya, für die Zâviye des Schejch Bahâʾ ed-Din vom Jahre 906/1501.“ SüdostForschungen 31 (1972): 319–31. Nedkov, Boris. Osmano-Turska Diplomatika i Paleografiya, Band 1. Sofia: Nauka i İzkustvo, 1966.

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Özcan, Abdülkadir. „Ulûfeciyan.“ TDVİA 42 (2012): 126–27. Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford: OUP, 1964. Tietze, Andreas. „Türkeitürkisch: posat, pusat.“ In Osmanistik – Turkologie – Diplomatik. Festgabe an Josef Matuz, Hgg. Christa Fragner und Klaus Schwarz, 303–09. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992. Türkiye’de halk ağzından derleme sözlüğü, Bd. 10. Ankara, 1978. Veinstein, Gilles. „Les pélerins de la Mecque à travers quelques actes du Qâḍî de Sarajevo (1557–1558).“ Turcica 21–23 (1991): 473–94. Wagner, Georg. Das Türkenjahr 1664 eine europäische Bewährung. Eisenstadt: Roetzer, 1964. Yediyıldız, Bahaeddin. Institution du Vaqf au XVIIIè siècle en Turquie  – étude sociohistorique. Ankara: La Société d’Histoire Turque, 1985.

22 The Place of Egypt and Syria in the Circulation of Goods in the Eastern Mediterranean The Abiding Importance of the Ottoman Domestic Market as a Key Dimension of Overall Maritime Trade in the Mid-18th Century Rhoads Murphey The liberalization or deregulation of markets was a less prominent feature of eigthteenth-century Syria and Egypt than is commonly supposed. Although these regions are often portrayed in the secondary literature and in the accounts left by contemporary Western travellers as having fallen under the sway of local bosses, warlords, clan-leaders, notables and neo-Mamluks, in practice it was not always so easy for foreign traders to circumvent local agents or manipulate markets, even in cases where they were able to exert some pressure through representation provided by a local consular official. They were more dependent than dominant in most local markets and, even with greater levels of local autonomy emerging in some parts and ports (Damietta or Rosetta / Rashid) versus more strictly regulated traffic of (Alexandria / Iskenderiyye) in Egypt, commodity trading in foodstuffs particularly tended to be earmarked for government procurement (for the army or the Imperial Kitchens) or sequestered for shipments to domestic consumers in major Ottoman population centers, in particular the capital Istanbul, or for charitable distributions such as the annual contributions for residents of The Holy Cities Mecca and Medina. Market access to foreign traders for some cash crops such as cotton was perhaps less restricted than it was for foodstuffs such as wheat and rice, but, for much of the eighteenth century, even such commercial goods were not consistently available to Western traders in reliable and predictable quantities. A number of factors conspired to limit market access including, but not resitricted to, market disruptions caused by war and the periodically intesified rivalry and competion between the Western trading powers themselves, in particular the English and French, for the dominant share of the local supply of strategic commercial goods. The unreliability of supply to French traders operating in the relatively remote ports such as Sidon which tended to be less subject to state regulation and control than the ports of Northern Syria on the one hand and Egypt on the other, is reflected in the data compiled by Thomas Philipp.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_024

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Table 22.1 Exports of cotton thread from acre, 1700–1786; data supplied by Thomas Philipp, Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City – World-Economy and Local Politics, 1730–1841 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 197

Table Showing the Quantity of French Exports of Cotton Thread From Sidon / Acre in the years between 1722 and 1777 Year

Quantity of Cotton Thread Exported (in kantars)

Value of cargo (in units of 1,000 livres)

1722 1723 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 1729 1730 1731 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752

1,448 6,014 3,678 13,500 11,862 15,925 11,316 12,066 7,255 6,427 12,927 21,063 14,888 14,047 11,500 14,560 11,383 19,635 21,141 17,650 13,657 12,934 4,483 ND 2,970 6,746 1,046 3,200 6,823 6,776 7,100

130 612 319 1,080 949 1,214 1,023 1,086 653 665 1,241 2,061 1,340 1,194 920 1,092 1,000 1,693 1,832 1,436 1,253 1,097 269 ND 297 877 136 512 887 881 1,137

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Murphey

Table 22.1 Exports of cotton thread from acre, 1700–1786 (cont.)

Year

Quantity of Cotton Thread Exported (in kantars)

Value of cargo (in units of 1,000 livres)

1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1776* 1777

10,033 12,430 13,630 6,716 4,115 4,600 3,950 657 793

903 1,243 1,363 806 535 483 395 95 393

* Gaps in the data due in part to the disruption of Mediterranean trade during the RussoOttoman War of 1768–1774 and other causes.

Philipp’s data shows that the precipitous collapse suffered in 1744 – despite a brief period of recovery from 1753 to 1755 – was sustained. The period of the Seven Years’ War (1754–1763) gave rise not just to supply disruptions resulting from blockade; it also accentuated existing trade rivalries. Although there is no data available for the period 1760 to 1775, the overall trend seems to suggest that Ottoman government or domestic supply contracts remained the most remunerative and reliable source of profit for Western traders and the years of exceptional high volume for some cash crops such as cotton remained just that; exceptional. In this context, it is worthwhile remembering that internal transport routes via the Nile or Red Sea for Egypt meant that the easiest and most profitable markets for local producers were not distant markets in Europe, but often those closest to hand. Steam navigation and rail transport was eventually to change the logic of such risk-benefit calculations, but this transport revolution was not destined to occurr until the mid-nineteenth century; gathering pace in the period between the 1820s and the 1890s. In the early and middle decades of the eighteenth century, the trade was dominated by small fleets, with limited access by foreign traders to the supply and production areas of the interior and the circulation of goods was largely resricted to near-by domestic markets and domestic population centres by means of cabotage and maritime caravan. Other contemporary sources confirm the impression, suggested by erratic export volumes, that the scale of foreign participation in local markets such as Sidon, Acre was not was of a kind or volume to wield market-distorting

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545

consequences. Fredrik Hasselquist who visited Acre in 1751 offered his rather pessimistic view of the dismally stagnated state of trade in this southern Syrian port at that time.1 If one turns one’s attention to the commercial impact and profitability of rice as compared to that of cotton, it can be seen that the importance of this foodstuff far outweighed that of its cash crop alternatives. We know from contemporary sources that, large as it was, the share of the Egyptian rice crop set aside each year for supplying the needs of the palace kitchens in Istanbul which consisted of around 400 tonnes constitued only around 7 per cent of the crop available for shipment.2 According to the data provided for 1751 by Hasselquist, 60,000 sacks of rice were exported every year: “of which the greatest part goes to Turkey” i.e., the Ottoman lands in the eastern Mediterranean.3 Accordingly, the Istanbul palace kitchen’s requisition of 3,000 ardabbs (× 0.13554 = 406.62 tonnes) at below market prices still left the lion’s share of the 5,772.6 tonne supply for distribution and sale by a variety of vendors to other, mostly domestic, market destinations. The palace kitchens accounted for only roughly 1/14th of the total consumption of Egyptian rice. Other parts of the production were sent to the destinations where they attracted the highest price or incurred the lowest shipping costs. In effect this meant that market forces were at play in determining market destinations whatever might happen at the other end in terms of narh-controlled prices for domestic Ottoman consumers. A close relationship existed between crop shortages, high prices and profitability for local and indigenous suppliers, producers, transporters. Brokers 1 Fredrik Hasselquist, Voyages and travels in the Levant in the years 1749, 50, 51, 52 (London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1766), 151: “On the 30th (of April 1751) I came to the town of Acra. … Here lay three French merchant ships which is the only nation which continues to trade to this port. I paid a visit to the French vice-consul who is here for the sake of five merchants who carry on a trade to Marseilles.” 2 Daniel Crecelius and Hamza ʿAbd al-ʾAziz Badr, “An Egyptian Grain Shipment of 1763 to the Imperial Pantry in Istanbul,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 30 (1993): 193–98, here 194: “The Sultan’s government requisitioned 3,000 ardabbs of rice annually, 2,000 ardabbs of which came from Faraskur (near Damietta) and 1,000 from the area of Damietta itself. This demand remained constant through the end of the eighteenth century. The government set aside for the purchase of this rice the sum of 492,000 paras annually prior to its reform of 1107/1695–1696 (164 paras per ardabb), but thereafter lowered the price per ardabb and reduced the overall expenditure to 480,000 paras (160 paras per ardabb).” 3 Hasselquist, Voyages, 109. The formula for conversion of ardabbs of rice each consisting of 180 litres into metric tons (tonnes) the following guideline was used: for a substance with a density of 753 kg/m3 (hulled rice) the multiplier for converting to tonnes is 0.13554 per ardabb. If each sack is considered as weighing 96 kg., then 60,000 sacks was the equivalent of 5,772.6 tonnes.

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Murphey

and commercial agents also, for obvious reasons and in particular in order to reduce the risk of loss due to either shipwreck or piracy, or spoilage of perishable cargoes tended to offer such foodstuffs for sale on the local markets or to arrange for their transfer to a nearby port where the price regime offered the greatest opportunity for profit. Even cash crops such a silk from Lebanon were largely disposed of on the local markets of Damascus and Cairo for use in production there rather than necessarily exported to Marseilles or a more distant market in another part of the empire.4 The trade in many commodities was dominated by modest merchants who operated on a relatively modest scale. The patterns of trade conducted by such modest merchants through their close-knit family networks stretching across the southern sector of the Mediterranean from Tunis to Suez and from the South to the mid-Mediterranean destinations have been studied in detail by Sadok Boubaker.5 One of the chief conclusions reached by Boubaker with reference to his extensive data was that the biggest part of trade was accounted for by multiple small consisgnements that travelled a shortish distance to the nearest profitable port.6 The trade in provincial settings was in the hands of locally based brokers and small traders or occasional traders, i.e., traders who confined themselves mostly to local or regional suks and bazars, as opposed to large-scale negociants or tuccar whose scope of trade was more inter-regional or even international and whose scale of business entitled them to the higher-status 4 By focusing on the impact of basic cereal production and identifying wheat cultivation as the: “locomotive of the local economy” (p. 174), Linda Schilcher was conscious of the fact that, until the coming of the age of rail transport, the distribution radius for such products remained rather narrow. It was only the opening of the branch line from Haifa to Dera‌ʾa in 1905 that made the cereal producing area of the Hauran accessible to international shipping. See Linda Schilcher, “Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of Large-Scale Commercialization,” in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, eds. Çağlar Keyder and Faruk Tabuk (Albany: NY, 1991), 173–95. Schilcher further argues that foreign capital played a relatively minimal role in transforming the local economy in the Arab provinces until at least the 1880s when state indebtedness came into play as a factor after the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration in 1881. 5 See in particular, Sadok Boubaker, “Négoce et enrichissement individuel à Tunis du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 50,4 (2003–04): 29–62. 6 Ibid., 36: “La famille Nouri  … exportent vers Alexandrie, Istanbul et Tripoli. Il est également attesté que les frères Nouri se déplacent souvent dans les provinces orientales de l’Empire ottoman.” The capital Istanbul provided the exception to this mostly localized pattern of trade. The scale of its daily consumption, in particular of grain and other foodstuffs, was so monumental that it was required to draw on the widest possible supply radius to satisfy the needs of its resident population.

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designation of hwace (pl., hacegan).7 Such individuals traded not with cargoes carried by carracks and caravans over long-distance routes, but employed mostly small-capacity sailing vessels commonly encountered in the eastern Mediterranean. These vessels who mostly plied the coastal waters, called variously polacres, xebeks (zebeks) and barques, were all vessels of limited draft suitable for light winds and for navigating the shallows near river mouths and coastal approaches.8 The detailed description of local market supply conditons and goods circulation in Cairo and the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt provided in the Aja‌ʾib al-Athar fi’l-Tarajim wa’l-Akhbar of Jabarti allows us to make a closer correlation between factors such as climate, environment, the administrative reach exercized by local officials and the degree of other forms of government interference so as to reach conclusions about the influence of these and other local conditions on evolving patterns of trade in the middle decades of the eighteenth century.9 By comparing Jabarti’s observations with the carefully compiled account of wheat prices on the Cairo markets provided by Raymond in his still unsurpassed work entitled Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle published in 1974, we are able to gain a closer understanding of the exact nature of the relationship and interplay between these various factors.10 In relation to wheat prices, what is noteworthy is the dramatic effects of inelasticity of supply and the massive consequences of crop shortages on price fluctuations in local markets which can be directly connected with supply 7

Reproductions of engravings depicting the various types of small-scale merchants operating in the local markets of Syria are provided by François Charles-Roux in his study, Les échelles de Syrie et de Palestine au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1928). See in particular the plate entitled: “Le magasin d’un commerçant turc” and plate XI: “Marchand Arabe”. 8 For a description of the suitability of these shallow-draft vessels for navigating the river mouths at the entry way to the Nile near Damietta and their use in preference to deep draft large-capacity European vessels anchored in the roads outside the harbour, see Hasselquist, Travels, 110: arrival at Damietta on 19th March 1751. For illustrations of the types of vessels in use, see Pierre-Jacob Gueroult du Pas, Recüeil des vuës de tous les differens bastimens de la mer Mediterranée (Paris: Pierre Giffart, 1710), http://gallica.bnf.fr /ark:/12148/btv1b84543459/ (accessed on 10 October 2022). 9 In our analysis, we will be making use of the English version in three volumes edited and translated by Thomas Philipp and Moshe Perlmann, Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti: History of Egypt, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994). 10 The year-by-year price table from André Raymond, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle. Tome I (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1974) is found in Chapter 2: “Les Prix,” 53–80: Table 3 – “Prix moyens et prix maximaux du blé en niṣf par ardab (en monnaie constante).” This table provides an account of the wide fluctuations in wheat prices on the Cairo market that show in particular the dramatic effect of poor harvest years on food prices for urban consumers.

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disruptions of local provenance, i.e., drought, poor harvests, flooding and the like. For this reason, there is a pressing need to investigate such local factors in detail and not always insist on the purported dominance of the foreign trading ‘nations’ nor on the apparent ‘collapse’ of Ottoman imperial authority and the market anarchy that resulted, but instead pay attention to the classic correlation between supply and demand and the effects of cyclical shortages and poor harvests which offered opportunities for short-term profit for local and regional growers and transporters. It should never be forgotten that food and other basic household necessities were above-all commercial commodities that attracted price speculation and invited market manipulation whenever the opportunity arose. It was not just the larger cargo vessels flying a foreign flag that sought to exploit such opportunities, but also local agents. In times of dire shortage of basic foodstuffs export bans on wheat and other grains were routinely imposed and the foreign fleets were – at least officially – excluded from participation in activity that would adversely affect local supply and restricted to the role of domestic freight forwarding and the carrying of grain cargoes between Ottoman ports. Comparison of the quantitative data provided by Andre Raymond with the qualitative assessment of the local conditions that gave rise to market fluctuations and price rises provided in Jabarti’s Aja‌ʾib al-Athar, reveals the degree to which local conditions effected local markets in the pre-industrial era. Global influences such as encouragement of increased production for the international market came into play only later, during the era of steam navigation in the Mediterranean. The distortions in local markets that can be observed after the transport revolution played no comparable role in the eastern Mediterranean during the closing decades of the era of sail in the period leading up to France’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. In the pages which follow we will offer an overview of Jabarti’s observations from the Aja‌ʾib al-Athar covering the period from 1695 to the early 1770s and comment on their connection with the irregularities, price fluctuations and other occurrences of abnormalities in market conditions in Cairo noted in Raymond’s statistical account.11 1

Jabarti, Ajaib al Athar Vol. 1, 419 (1760) Among the meteorological events of the time was the following. On Saturday, the 19 of Jumada I 1174 (December 28, 1760) a fierce shifting gale

11

For the precise figures, the reader is referred to the excerpt from Raymond’s table 3 (see preceding footnote) provided in Appendix One at the end of our contribution.

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blew from the west, sinking 33 ships in Alexandria’s Muslim harbour and three in the Christian harbour. Some vessels were also sunk in the Nile and a number of trees were blown down. Note: This passage provides a rough indication of the proportion of foreign (short and long-distance) versus local (short and medium distance) trade emanating from Alexandria around the year 1760. 2

Vol. I, 41–43 (1695) [41] The rise of the Nile was low this year (1106/Aug. 1694–Aug. 1695) and receded quickly so that the land was parched. Food became expensive and there was famine. (…) During the year the government conceded a reduction in the miri taxes because of the poor irrigation and the drought. [42] In the middle of Muharrem 1107 (end of August 1695) the poor and the beggars – men, women and children – gathered and went up to the citadel (…) and complained loudly of hunger. When no one answered them (…) [43], they went down to Rumayla Square and looted the granaries, the wheat storehouses and the store-houses of the kethuda of the governor which was full of barley and beans. The incident led to a rise in prices so that an ardabb of wheat was sold for 600 paras, barley for 300, beans for 450 and rice for 800. Lentils were not available at all. (…) The governor Ali Pasha was dismissed on August 29 and when the new governor Ismail Pasha arrived on 27th September and noticed the distress and high prices the people were suffering, he ordered that the poor be assigned to the amirs and notables to be looked after. He himself took a portion of them as did the dignitaries of state. He distributed to them enough bread and food mornings and evenings until the high prices abated.

Note: We learn from this passage that market regulation was only one tool in the tool box to be used in the event of shortfalls in the food supply. Charity and free distributions of food was another. A number of short-term measures could be introduced to relieve temporary supply imbalances. 3

Vol. I, 150 (1695)

Necrology of Küçük Mehmed, başodabaşı of the Mustahfızan Corps in the Cairo citadel and ally of Amir İbrahim Bey Faqari; assassinated on 28 August 1694 in

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revenge for his strict adherence to the protecting of the narh regime which made him very unpopular in certain quarters. On the occasion of an insufficiently high Nile flood in the year 1106 (1694–1695) when drought had spread throughout the land, so that an ardabb of wheat, usually priced at 60 paras, rose to 72 paras, Küçük Mehmed went down to Bulak, held a session at the tekke there and had the intendants brought to him. He forbade them to raise the price above 60, threatening and warning them. Note: Raymond’s data (provided in Appendix One below) confirms the efficacy of these measures. His data records prices ranging between 50 and 76 paras in the following period. 4

Vol. I, 50 (1705) In that year (1116 = 1704–1705) the Nile was late in rising. On the 11th day of the Coptic month of Tut (…) the rains came. The Nile rose to 17 cubits high and a bit more but it did not cover all the land and it receded quickly. Prices rose until an ardabb of wheat reached 240 paras. Beans and lentils were 200 para, barley was 100, rice was 400. (….) Many beggars crowded the streets.

Note: The inelasticity of supply of agricultural goods meant that prices could never be guaranteed on local markets. Grower/producers and middlemen routinely sought to profit from short harvests or evade price controls by illegal exports to maximize their gain. 5

Vol. I, 55–56 (1708–09) On 24 February 1709 Muhammad Bey (al-Kabir, al Faqari) who had been in Upper Egypt came to Cairo. He went up to the Citadel and the members of the six ocaks got together and agreed to put an end to the renewed illegal taxes in Cairo and its environs. They wrote a list of these. They also agreed that whoever had a position in the mint, the granaries, the two Nile quays or the slaughterhouses should not draw their salary from the divan, nor should he be affiliated with any of the ocaks. None of the merchants should seek protection in the ocaks, the mühtesib should

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supervise their affairs and standardize their weights as usual … No one should impede the Nile ships carrying grain for the granaries. All Nile ships ought to be permitted to carry such grain, none of them should fall under the protection of any particular ocak. Everything coming to Cairo from villages belonging to the amins and designated as food ought not to be taxed the tithe. No animals or coffee should be sold to Europeans. A ratl of coffee beans should not be sold for more than 17 nisf fiddas (paras). Note: The enforcement of these ideal norms and regulatory intentions was not always so easy to impose. From pronouncement  / proclamation to enforcement and implementation remained a far stretch. Reformist viziers, amirs and ocak officers may come and go and for a time some teeth was placed into policing of announced measures. However, when profit opportunities were highest, the market tended to be either un-regulatable or self-regulating. Still, effective enforcement of the narh price regime was occasionally if not continuously achieved. 6

Vol. I, 95 (1723) On the 17th day of Rabi II 1135 (25 January 1723) an agha came from Istanbul with a decree authorizing payment of 60 purses (1,500,000 paras) to the governor of Jidda so that he could buy an Indian ship to transport grain to the Two Holy Cities. This was to replace a ship that had sunk earlier. The agha was accompanied by a wealthy Syrian merchant who had his retainers with him.

Note: The passage reveals the importance of internal and short-distance trade in basic essentials alongside the higher profile trade in luxury goods or touristic souvenirs. 7

Vol. 1, 96 (1723) Another event of the year (1135 AH): Two shayka vessels arrived. They were loaded with wheat from Hawran; each carried 10,000 ardabbs (1422 tons) all of which was sold in Damietta. The price of grain in Cairo was high because of the low Nile the previous year. Word of this spread and this was the reason for the arrival of the two ships. (Emphasis is mine)

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Note: High prices on Egyptian market attracted spontaneous supply from the outside to supplement inadequate supply from local sources. 8

Vol. I, 630–31 (1772) Necrology of Jabarti’s Relative, a Rich Merchant of Cairo Whose Wealth Derived from Trade with the Hidjaz The honourable ship-captain Muhammad al-Misri al Juddawi, was a successor of the late Mehmed Odabaşı, drummer of the Mustahfizan. The later was the husband of my grandmother, the mother of my late father. He married my grandmother upon the death of my grandfather in 1114 (1702–03) and lived with her in the port of Jidda. She bore him two sons, Muhammad and HÜSAYN and after Mehmed Odabaşı’s death in 1154/1741–1742, the family consisted of the two biological sons (Muhammad and HÜSAYN), their (half-)brother from another marriage called Mahmud and several freedmen, one of whom was the biographee Muhammad. He was brought up by his master’s son, my uncle HÜSAYN. When he grew up, he went into commerce, served as captain of large vessels in the Red Sea and became one of the distinguished sea captains. He became famous and wealthy. He built a home in Cairo (…) bought mamluks, slaves and slave girls and he had homes in both Cairo and [631] Jidda. He died on 27th Rabi II 1186 / 29th July 1772 in Syria (during a commercial voyage) on his way back to Cairo.

Note: The radius of commercial activity covered by Juddawi seems to have included Cairo, Jidda and Syria which, by themselves without reference to wider markets, offered plenty of scope for the accumulation of considerable wealth. 9

Vol. I, 248–249 (1743) In the days of Yedekci Mehmed Pasha (gov. 1743–1745) the troops rioted demanding their pay and rations from the granary. Since there was not a single ardabb in the granary the governor issued a ferman calling for a meeting in the house of Ali Bey al-Dimyati, the defterdar, to ascertain who owed grain to the granary and to extract it from them. It was determined that Ibrahim Bey Qatamish owed 40,000 ardabbs. When he claimed inability to pay in kind, they set a sum in lieu with a price of 60 paras per ardabb for wheat and 40 paras for barley. They added up the sum he owed. It came to 80 purses (2,000,000 paras) (…). Everyone who

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owed grain paid for it at that rate. That was the first time that such an innovation had been allowed, assessing a price for grain of the granaries for those from whom it was due. Note: There is no data for the year 1743 offered in Raymond’s data set, but the efficacy of measures taken in the subsequent period (1746 to 1756) aimed at restoring some degree of regularity and predictability to the exchange of basic consumer goods in urban markets seems clear. Jabarti’s comment that these measures were unprecedented is not entirely accurate. Similar measures were employed to clear the debts of outgoing governors. See the entry relating to the year 1698 summarized below. 10

Vol. I, 46 (1698)

Ismail Pasha’s tenure in office lasted 2 years. The in-coming governor (Hüsayn Pasha) audited his predecessor and found that his accounts showed 50,000 ardabbs of wheat were missing. Hüsayn reimbursed treasury with 50 purses (1,250,000 paras) cash in lieu. Note: The Price per ardabb was a mere 50 para. This transaction set a precedent that arguably served to encourage speculation and hoarding of grain. See the preceding excerpt (Vol. 1, p.248 for the year 1743) which records the balancing of a shortfall of 80,000 ardabbs owed by Mamluk Amir Ibrahim Bey Qatamish at a price of 60 para for wheat and 40 para for barley. It can be concluded that such transactions effectively undermined the narh regime if we consider that recorded prices around 1742 (in the latter case) were 156 para per ardabb for wheat and in the former case (1696; a time of famine) at least 420 and perhaps as much as 600. It would seem that the potential for astronomically high profit was hard to resist by merchants, officers of state and local amirs alike. 11

Vol. I, 313 (Late 1740s Early 1750s) Necrology of Ibrahim Katkhuda, rais Mısr, ca. 1748–1754, d. Dec. 1754 His Time of Ascendancy Coincided with the Governorships of Ragıb Mehmed Pasha (1746–1748) Kör Ahmed Pasha (1748–1751), Sharif Abdullah Pasha (1751–1753) and Mehmed Emin Pasha (1753) Ibrahim Katkhuda occupied himself with public affairs, collected the taxes owed to the state and spent them on various projects. He also supervised the fodder rations, the revenue belonging to the (state) granary, the

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preparations for the pilgrimage and the sending of the remittance to Istanbul, as well as the need of the state and the governorates. Note: The years of relative price stability between roughly 1747 and 1756 correspond to the period of settled conditions and a stable equilibrium in the political sphere. The undisputed sway of the duumvirate led by Ibrahim Katkhudua Kazdağlı and Ridwan Katkhuda al-Jalfi (1747–1754/early 1755) resulted in a relative absence of vendettas. While the vali’s authority was to some extent eclipsed, law and order prevailed under the guidance of the ocak officers turned governors. 12

Vol. I, 331–332 (1755) Necrology of the Ibrahim’s Co-partner in the reislik Ridwan Katkhuda, d. Early Part of 1755 Approx. 6 Months after the Death of Ibrahim So ended the regime of Ibrahim and Ridwan (with the assassination of Ridwan). It had lasted for about seven years. During this period Cairo was peaceful, free from strife and violence. The northern and (332) southern regions were safe and secure. Prices were good and conditions satisfactory. (…) The poor lived at ease. Both great and small lived in abundance.

13

Vol 1, 416 (1761) Late in 1174/1761 the governor Mustafa Pasha was replaced by Kamil Ahmed Pasha (gov. for less than one year) who was astute and strong willed. He scrutinized governmental decisions and began travelling about and examining granaries and crops so that the amirs united against him. Ousting him they restored the previously dismissed Mustafa Pasha (Köse Bahir, gov. 1758–1761) in his stead and then again after a short interval (1761–1762), petitioned the Porte on his behalf.

14

Vol 1, 417–419 (1765) Period of the Rise of Ali Bey During this period (early 1760s) Ali Bey, Bulut Kapan, rose to prominence and importance. (…) [418] The city prospered, the population was at ease, business was profitable, prices were cheap and the villages were

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thriving (…) [419]. By the end of 1178 (Zilhicce = June 1765), Ali Bey had become very powerful: The pilgrimage caravan had proceeded smoothly and without incident; the miri taxes were collected. Fodder allowance and pay were issued and the donation of alms and provisions for the Two Holy Cities and the granary were gathered. Note: Autonomy does not always equate to anarchy. The notion that a period of perceived political upheaval always adversely affects commerce can be questioned. A strong-man in control can actually provide the security and predictability that favours trade and, by suppression and control of bedouin attacks on trade caravans, supports the easy circulation of goods. 15

Vol. I, 514 (1768) On the 19th of Shaban 1182 / 30 December 1768 distribution of funds was made to the people and the poor.

Note: Whoever wields power stays in place only when traditional and customary supports to the poor and underprivileged are observed and honoured. Food riots are inconsistent with exercise of political control: top priorities for any governor (or reis Mısr) consist of fodder and allowances to the military class and affordable (or free) food for the urban poor. The 1783–1784 price jump after crop failures whose effects were compounded by supply disruptions is among the most dramatic recorded in the statistics compiled by Raymond. See Appendix 1. 16

Vol. II, 123 (1783) This year (1197 / 7 Dec. 1782 to 25 Nov. 1783) the Nile fell rapidly before the Feast of the Cross (17–20 Tut = last days of September). The ground remained dry in the south as well as the north. Grain became scarce because of this and because of the plundering committed by the amirs and the disruption of transport from the south, the price of wheat was on the loose until it reached 10 riyals (approx. 430 para) an ardabb and the poor suffered greatly from hunger. Murad Bey (rebel Mamluk amir) arrived at Bani Suwayf (approx. 140 km south of Cairo on the Nile) where he retained and waylaid travellers. His men looted the cargo of every ship that passed going up-stream or down-stream.

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Vol. II, 225 (1787) Restoration of ‘Normalcy / Order’ with the Arrival of Kapudan Pasha Cezayirli Hasan Pasha on 8th August 1786 (12 Shevval 1200) On the 14th Rabi I 1201 (4 January 1787) – people complained of rising prices. Hasan Pasha and the ihtiyars [of the ocaks] … agreed that a meeting would be held in the barracks of the Janissaries with the agha, the muhtesib and the customs chiefs present and the assembly would draw up a list of prices which would be announced to the public. Whoever then disobeyed or hoarded goods would be executed. On Saturday the 16th (6 January) the meeting took place in the barracks of the Janissaries. A tariff for bread, meat, cooking butter and other goods was drawn up (…). The price of mutton was fixed at 8 paras – it had been 10 – water buffalo at 6 – it had been 7 – (…) bread at 1 para for 10 okkas etc. THE RESULT WAS A FOOD SHORTAGE, with meat becoming unobtainable, or, if found, of the worst quality and consisting mainly of bones, liver, lungs and tripe. On Saturday 23rd (13 January 1787) Muhammad Pasha, the discharged governor of Egypt, left Bulaq for Rosetta.

Note: A relatively rapid return to normal conditions was achieved during Hasan Pahsa’s brief tenure as governor in 1787. After Hasan Pasha’s recall in autumn 1787 to command the navy in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1787–1792, a further dramatic price jump was recorded in 1789. With the imposition of strict price controls, some goods avoided the market all together, but bread prices seemingly did stabilize, at least so far as the data from Raymond’s table would seem to indicate. 18

Vol. II, 415 (1793) During the year by the 16th of Muharrem (24 August 1793) equivalent to the 18th of the Coptic month of Misra (…) the Nile achieved its high level. Therewith the prices became lower and the month was blessed with an excess of grain so that the yield of a single faddan increased to that of five faddans. The Nile reached a medium flood and remained steady at its first gate. The water pervaded most of the land because people had attended to damming the flood, digging canals and improving bridges.

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Note: The falling prices are reflected in Raymond’s table for the year 1795 which saw a decrease from 1793 prices ranging between 256 and 342 paras per ardabb to price levels between 79 and 130 paras in 1795. Jabarti’s account provides some indications of Egypt’s potential for surplus agricultural production in the good years. Even after taxes and trade there is still, in many if not most years, plenty to go around. The main question for debate is not the adequacy of production levels, but rather disagreements over distribution priorities. See the passages from Jabarti’s history provided in the excerpts which follow. 19

Vol. 1, 574–575 (1769) Necrology of Bedouin shaykh and amir: Humam ibn Yusuf ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Humam ibn Subayh ibn Sibih, al-Hawwari (d. 8 Shaban 1183 / Dec. 7, 1769) / Chief of Upper Egypt If travellers of guests arrived in his courts he would assign servants to them, furnish them suitable lodgings and provide them with everything that they required. Sugar, honey, vessels and other such things would be given to them. They would be fed every day – lunch, dinner and breakfast in the morning. (…) Shaykh Humam had a large number of slave girls, concubines, Mamluks and slaves. (…) For the cultivation of sugar cane alone he had 12,000 head of cattle and this does not take into account those used for the cultivation and threshing of grain, for irrigation and for mills, nor does it include water buffaloes and dairy cattle.

Note: The level of patronage and scale of charitable benevolence of this bedouin shaykh was on a scale equal to that of viziers and beys. His accumulation of wealth was also on a monumental scale. 20

Vol. I, 577 (1770) Necrology of Bedouin Shaykh Suwaylim ibn Habib and His Brother Salim [Bedouin Chief in Lower Egypt Centred in Qalyubiya Province Located between Cairo and Tanta] When Habib died … his son Salim assumed the chieftainship. .(…) His every command and prohibition were fulfilled and nothing was done without his advice and consent. He became responsible for the watch

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over both sides of the Nile from Bulaq to Rosetta and Damietta. He alone commanded 1,000 cavalry. Note: Successful co-optation of tribes was a factor in the maintenance of good order. One must avoid the temptation of being misled by Ibn Khaldun’s deterministic assumption that tribalism and anarchy are synonymous. 21

Vol. I, 644 (1774) As the year began (1188 / March 1774 to March 1775) the governor of Egypt was Halil Pasha. Restricted from the exercise of his functions he possessed nothing of the office except the name and title on paper; full power of action lay with the great amir Muhammad Bey Abu Zhahab. The amirs and men of state were his mamluks or protégés. IT WAS A TIME OF QUIET, CALM AND SECURITY (emphasis is mine). Conditions were on the whole satisfactory and prices were low. There was a remnant of men upon whom a sense of shame and decency rested.

Note: Stability was achieved by a kind of close working relationship and cooperation between Ottoman governors and mamluk amirs sharing a compatible interest in the preservation of social order to their mutual benefit. The Ottomans were not too fussed about who (or which faction) held the reins of power so long as taxes were paid and social order was preserved. Jabarti seems quite sanguine or perhaps rather resigned about this situation. 22

Vol. II, 24–25 (1777) Necrology of Yusuf Bey, al-Kabir One of the Principal amirs of Muhammad Bey Abu Zhahab Made amir and married to Abu Zhahab’s sister in 1186/1772–1773. He spent huge sums on (improving and extending) his mansion (in Cairo). No sooner would he complete works on parts of it – having paved and tiled it with fine-grained marble of perfect workmanship, set up the ceilings, the woodwork, the windows, the lattice work, and the painting – than his evil genius would prompt him to demolish it completely and rebuilt it according to another design. Such was his habit. Once 80,000 ardabbs of grain [x 0.1422 = 11,376 tons] were delivered to him from his lands in Upper Egypt, and he devoted their entire value to expenses for plaster, lime, stone, timber, iron and other materials.

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Note: The conversion ratio for 180 litres of wheat into metric tons (tonnes) for a substance with density: 790 kg/m3 (wheat) is 0.1422. The minimum average price in the mid-1770s = 80–100 paras per ardabb = 80 × 80,000 represents a value of between 6.4 and 8 million paras which can be compared to the average annual treasury contribution (irsaliyye) of 25–35 million in these years. Supplementary Documentation concerning Egypt’s Status as the Bread-basket of the Empire Before closing our account of the role played by Egypt and Syria in the empire’s general economic prosperity it is appropriate that we consider other sources that corroborate the observations made by Jabarti in his history. We may start this account with the regulatory provisions outlined in an imperial ferman dated August 1753 which reiterated the government’s determination to secure a strict enforcement of the bans on the export of grain from Egypt to the market in Europe. Such export bans were periodically introduced with the aim of alleviating the suffering and hardship of the sultan’s subjects in major population centres such as the capital Istanbul.12 22.1

23

Excerpt from the Text of a Ferman Dated 1753 concerning the Shipping of Egyptian Cereals to Istanbul zehair-i merkûme evvel-i emirde Âsitâne-i Saadetime âmed şüd eden tüccar kalyonlarına verilip tüccar kalyonları tamamen hamûleleri alarga etmedikçe üç direklilere ve müsteʾmin sefînelerine bir habbe zahire ve emtia tahmîl olunmamak ve onlar hamûleleri tekmil ile alarga etdikten sonra yine Âsitâne-i Saadetime gelecek üç direkli sefînelere tahmîl olunup onlar dahi tamam olup alarga etdikten sonra kefere limanına vürud eden müsteʾmin sefînelerinden Âsitâne-i Saadetime doğru gelmek şartıyla ol tarafta konsoloslarından kavî sened ahz olunarak müsteʾmin sefînelerine dahi vazʿ u tahmîl ve cümlesi Dersaâdetime tesyîr olundukdan sonra Izmir ve Sakız ve Selanik iskelelerine naklolunmak üzere müsteʾmin sefînelerine ve sefâin-i saireye tahmîl olunmak hususu (…) nizâmdan maksûd-ı aslî zehair-i merkûmede Âsitâne-i Saadetimde olan kuttân ibadullahın zaruret ve ıztırab çekmeyip safa-yı hâtır ile taʿayyüşleri irâdesine mübtenî olmağla mukaddema sâdır olan emr-i şerifim mantûku hilâfına kimesneyi hareket ettirmeyip, nizâm-ı merkûmun idâme ve muhafazasına ale’d-devam nezâret ve ihtimâm olunarak pey der-pey

12 Osmanlı Belgelerinde Mısır (T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, Istanbul 2012), 64–65: document dated evasit-i Şevval 1166 / 11–20 August 1753.

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Âsitâne-i Saadetime zehair-i merkûmenin kesret ve vefret üzere vürûduna saʿy ü dikkat olunmak fermân-ı hümâyûnum olmağın (…). Note: For us to believe that these objectives were always achieved and these directives always obeyed would be naïve in the extreme. However, to argue the opposite that these stated priorities and moral imperatives were never observed and virtually unenforceable would represent an equally serious distortion of prevailing economic reality. Regulation of the economy and enforcement of export bans was never 100% effective because the gains to be made from avoiding regulation were so tempting to traders (both international and indigenous), but to say that the government’s achievement rate in the regulatory sphere was zero would be to exaggerate the scale of the problem as well as the success rate of would-be scoffers and evaders of regulation. Egypt’s role as the empire’s breadbasket and a main source of comestibles for imperial institutions in the central provinces of the empire including the imperially-endowed mosques and imarets of Istanbul, Edirne and Bursa which served at the same time as customers and purchasers as well as distributors and purveyors of the surplus produce of Egypt is confirmed in documents of the sixteenth century. Two examples will suffice as a reminder of Egypt’s productive capacity and key importance as a source of plenty in the Northern provinces. One of these is the data for consumption of rice provided from Egypt in the accounts of the soup-kitchens of the Süleymaniye Mosque in 1585 and the other an account of the expenditure of the kitchens and pantry of the Imperial Palace in Istanbul in an entry from Mustafa Selaniki’s history for September 1594.13 From the records of the Süleymaniye Mosque published by Barkan we can confirm that the modest surpluses leftover after the regular statutory distributions of charitable meals for the poor, the endowment was able to transact sales (in modest quantities) of any surpluses in their own storerooms and granaries as a source of income for the imaret. Newly purchased Egyptian rice amounting to 1194 kiles (approx. 1.5 tonnes) was acquired by the endowment at the pre-devaluation price of 33 akçes per kile (1.2828 kg) thereby increasing the reserves in their storerooms from 4374 kiles (approx. 5.6 tonnes) to 5571 kiles (approx. 7.1 tonnes) and leaving a comfortable margin to accommodate the kitchen’s needs for the coming year.14 13 Ömer L. Barkan, “Suleymaniye Camii ve İmareti Tesislerine Ait Yıllık Bir Muhasebe Bilançosu 993/994 (1585–1586),” Vakıflar Dergisi 9 (1971): 109–62. See in particular 140 (mübayaat) and 154 (bakiyye + mübayaat) and Selaniki Tarihi, 2 vols., ed. Mehmet Ipşirli (Istanbul, 1989), vol. 1, 386; the entry dated evahir-i Zilhicce 1002 / mid-September 1594. 14 See Barkan, “Suleymaniye Camii,” 154. For the jump in the per kile price for rice from 33 to 44 akçes after the 1586 devaluation, see Şevket Pamuk, “Ottoman Consumer Prices,

The Abiding Importance of the Ottoman Domestic Market

561

Data provided in Selaniki’s history allow us to gauge the scale of food transfers in various categories from Egypt to the Palace Kitchens ca. 1594. According to Selaniki, the steadily increasing budget for the Imperial Kitchens rose from an annual level of 4.8 million akçes during the reign of Sultan Suleyman, to 6.3 million under his son Selim II (1566–1574), rising to 15.6 and for a time even as high as 20 million akçes during the sultanate of Murad III (1574– 1595). According to Selaniki’s estimation, in round figures, Egypt’s contribution in kind to that outlay of 20 million amounted to some 6 million or approximately 30% of the total.15 The regulations dating from 1753 cited above,16 suggest that far from retreating from its provisionist position of the sixteenth century and capitulating to pressures to introduce a less restrictive laissez-faire approach to the distribution and sale of comestibles and foodstuffs, the government remained firmly committed to the core principles and dictates of the traditional moral economy developed and maintained in earlier centuries.

Appendix 1

Wheat prices in the Cairo grain market expressed in paras per ardab for the period 1695 to 1798 Years

Ann. Av.

Max.

Years

Ann. Av.

Max.

Years

Ann. Av.

Max.

1695 6 7 8 9

108 181 ND 50 ND

235 420 76 50 ND

1730 1 2 3 4

63 ND 76 104 50

70 95 76 130 52

1765 6 7 8 9

67 91 111 64 ND

120 120 120 76 ND

15 16

1469–1914,” http://www.pierre-marteau.com/currency/indices/ottm-02.html. For information confirming the sale of surplus quantities of rice on the open market of Edirne, itself in the vicinity of another rice-growing area at Plovidv (Filibe), at prices advantageous to the balance sheet of the endowment of Bayezid II, see Kayhan Orbay, “Edirne II. Bayezid Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1597–1640),” Ankara Üniversitesi: Güneydoğu Avrupa Çalışmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi (GAMER) 1 (2012), 113–41. Mehmet Ipşirli, Selaniki Tarihi, vol. 1, 386: “mahruse-i Mısr’dan elli bin altunluk (50,000 × 120 = 6,000,000) meʾkulat gelür.” By the mid-1590s, the market price of rice had reached the 60 akçe level. See Pamuk, loc. cit. See note 12 above.

562

Murphey

(cont.)

Years

Ann. Av.

Max.

Years

Ann. Av.

Max.

Years

Ann. Av.

1700 1 2 3 4 1705 6 7 8 9 1710 11 12 13 14 1715 6 7 8 9 1720 1 2 3 4 1725 6 7 8 9

77 41 74 57 56 63 150 85 37 ND 24 63 39 31 66 28 53 60 87 70 58 43 29 54 150 60 38 36 74 79

105 62 74 57 81 93 218 136 50 ND 24 70 63 37 82 33 102 89 182 72 72 66 106 82 240 76 50 68 96 85

1735 6 7 8 9 1740 1 2 3 4 1745 6 7 8 9 1750 1 2 3 4 1755 6 7 8 9 1760 1 2 3 4

41 53 41 51 49 40 118 156 ND ND 81 84 67 108 58 63 ND 76 58 47 77 ND ND ND 155 60 64 66 ND 66

47 99 41 59 58 58 143 156 ND ND 112 115 81 124 58 107 ND 101 61 61 91 ND ND ND 155 60 78 79 ND 66

1770 ND 1 ND 2 155 3 152 4 131 1775 87 6 82 7 198 8 96 9 76 1780 ND 1 81 2 ND 3 ND 4 322 1785 352 6 315 7 106 8 158 9 ND 1790 75 1 97 2 341 3 256 4 ND 1795 79 6 102 7 74 8 77 –

Max. ND ND 255 197 148 117 82 198 111 99 ND 115 ND 495 715 360 405 135 192 410 86 254 745 342 ND 130 112 90 86

Note: Figures in boldface type indicate extreme fluctuation or sudden short-term price changes.

The Abiding Importance of the Ottoman Domestic Market

563

Bibliography

Printed Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti: History of Egypt, 3 vols., edited and translated by Thomas Philipp and Moshe Perlmann. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994. Gueroult du Pas, Pierre-Jacob. Recüeil des vuës de tous les differens bastimens de la mer Mediterranée. Paris: Pierre Giffart, 1710. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b 84543459/ (accessed on 10 October 2022). Hasselquist, Fredrik. Voyages and travels in the Levant in the years 1749, 50, 51, 52. London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1766. Osmanlı Belgelerinde Mısır, ed. T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, Istanbul, 2012. Selaniki Tarihi, vol. 1, ed. Mehmet İpşirli. Istanbul, 1989.

Barkan, Ömer L. “Suleymaniye Camii ve İmareti Tesislerine Ait Yıllık Bir Muhasebe Bilançosu 993/994 (1585–1586),” Vakıflar Dergisi 9 (1971) : 109–62. Boubaker, Sadok. “Négoce et enrichissement individuel à Tunis du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle,”Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 50,4 (2003–04) : 29–62. Charles-Roux, François. Les échelles de Syrie et de Palestine au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1928. Crecelius, Daniel, and Hamza ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Badr. “An Egyptian Grain Shipment of 1763 to the Imperial Pantry in Istanbul,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 30 (1993): 193–98. Orbay, Kayhan. “Edirne II. Bayezid Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1597–1640),” Ankara Üniversitesi: Güneydoğu Avrupa Çalışmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi (GAMER) 1 (2012): 113–41. Pamuk, Şevket. “Ottoman Consumer Prices, 1469–1914.” http://www.pierre-marteau .com/currency/indices/ottm-02.html. Raymond, André. Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle. Tome I. Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1974. Schilcher, Linda. “Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of Large-Scale Commercialization.” In Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, eds. Çağlar Keyder and Faruk Tabuk, 173–95. Albany: NY, 1991.

Part 5 Minorities, Moral and Control

∵

23 Die politische Balkandiaspora im Abendland des 15. Jahrhunderts Oliver Jens Schmitt Rund 150 Jahre dauerte die osmanische Eroberung des Balkans. Vor der endgültigen Eingliederung in ihr Provinzsystem überzogen die Osmanen in der Regel die einzelnen Regionen des Balkans jahrzehntelang mit Raubzügen, deren Ziel die Verschleppung von Menschen in die Sklaverei war. Die Eroberung setzte daher viele Menschen im Balkan gegen ihren Willen in die Bewegung – die einen in die Sklaverei, die anderen versuchten, sich durch Flucht dem Zugriff der Osmanen zu entziehen. Über ein Jahrhundert hinweg flohen Teile der orthodoxen wie katholischen Bevölkerung des Balkans nach Westen und nach Norden. Ihre Nachfahren leben zum Teil noch heute als anerkannte Minderheiten in ihren Aufnahmeländern (Italo-Albaner, Burgenland-Kroaten). Die osmanische Eroberung des Balkans rief so die Entstehung von BalkanDiasporagemeinschaften im katholischen Europa hervor. Diese Gruppen sind jeweils einzeln recht gut erforscht. Historiker bestimmten ihr Interesse dabei meist nach ethnischen Kriterien, indem sie wahlweise Serben, Griechen, Albaner oder Bosnier in den Blick nahmen; oder aber sie beschäftigten sich mit einem der Aufnahmeorte (Venedig, Rom, das Königreich Neapel, das Köni­ greich Ungarn). Die dabei angewendete Begrifflichkeit ist uneinheitlich: sie reicht von Flüchtlingen, Migranten, Repatriierten bis hin zu Exilanten.1 Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht, die Fülle der existierenden Einzelarbeiten zu bündeln und die Frage zu beantworten, ob es im 15. Jahrhundert so etwas wie eine politische Balkandiaspora in den katholischen Aufnahmegesellschaften gegeben hat. Er beschränkt sich also auf den politischen aktiven und entsprechend sichtbaren Teil der großen Fluchtbewegung aus dem Balkan, und 1 Michel Balard und Alain Ducellier, Hgg., Migrations et diasporas méditerranéennes (Xe– XVIe siècles) (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2002); William Miller, „Balkan exiles in Rome,“ in Essays on the Latin Orient, ed. William Miller (Nachdruck Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1921), 497–515; Jonathan Harris, „Despots, Emperors, and Balkan Identity in Exile,“ The Sixteenth Century Journal 44,3 (2013): 643–61; Jonathan Harris, Greek Emigres in the West, 1400–1520 (Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995), vager Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung 21–22; Bernard Doumerc, „Les Vénitiens confrontés au retour des rapatriés de l’empire colonial d’outre-mer (fin xve–début xve siècle),“ in Migrations, Hgg. Balard und Ducellier, 375–98.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_025

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er beschränkt sich auf christliche Exilanten.2 Und er versucht, die Akteure und Akteurinnen für einmal gemeinsam zu betrachten, am Anfang zunächst als heuristische Kategorie, die eine nationalhistoriographische oder gruppenspezifische Sichtweise, wie sie in der Forschung vorherrscht, ergänzt. Dieser Beitrag möchte auch die Begrifflichkeit etwas (nach)schärfen. Er lehnt sich an Überlegungen der jüngeren Diasporaforschung an, wenngleich diese weder den hier behandelten Zeitraum noch den Balkan wesentlich berücksichtigen.3 Insbesondere die Einsicht, dass Diasporagruppen in der gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Praxis entstehen, indem Loyalitäten festgelegt und dadurch Gruppen erst gebildet werden, erweist sich als fruchtbar für den hier verfolgten akteurszentrierten Ansatz.4 Als prägend für Diasporagruppen wird die räumliche Zerstreuung hervorgehoben, die, und das ist zentral, gewaltsam verursacht worden ist: die Akteure der Balkandiaspora des 15. Jahrhunderts teilen eine gemeinsame Gewalterfahrung. Ein zweites Element ist der Blick auf die alte Heimat: wie versuchten vertriebene Adlige, ihre alten Herrschaften wieder aufzurichten oder die Beziehung in die Herkunftsregion aufrechtzuerhalten? Schließlich geht es darum, die eigene Gruppe in der Fremde zu bewahren und nach außen abzugrenzen. Hier müssen wir fragen, welche Gruppen gemeint sind. Gab es so etwas eine balkanische Solidargemeinschaft im abendländischen Exil?5 Wesentlich aber 2 Osmanische Prinzen im byzantinisch-balkanischen und abendländischen Exil stellen ein eigenes Thema dar. Mit den hier behandelten Akteuren standen sie kaum in Berührung: Erich Trapp u.a., Hgg., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, 13 Bde. (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1976–1996), Nr. 9082, Nr. 19575, Nr. 21133; Franz Babinger, „Dâwûd Čelebi, ein osmanischer Thronwerber des 15. Jahrhunderts,“ SüdostForschungen 16 (1957): 297–311; Colin J. Heywood, „Mustafa Düzme.“ Encyclopedia of Islam, online; Colin J. Heywood, „Mustafa Čelebi.“ Encyclopedia of Islam, online; Franz Babinger, „‘Bajezid Osman’ (Calixtus Ottomanus), ein Vorläufer und Gegenspieler Dschem-Sultans,“ La Nouvelle Clio 3 (1951): 349–388; Nicolas Vatin, Le Sultan Djem (Istanbul: Société turque d’histoire, 1997); Nicolas Vatin, „L’affaire Djem (1481–1495),“ in Les Ottomans et l’Occident (XVe–XVIe siècles), Hg. Nicolas Vatin (Istanbul: Isis, 2001), 93–103. 3 Robin Cohen, Global diasporas: An introduction (London/New York: Routledge, 2008); James Clifford, „Diasporas,“ Cultural Anthropology 9,3 (1994): 302–38; zu migrationshistorischen Ansätzen s. jüngst Johannes Preiser-Kapeller u.a., Hgg., Migration Histories of the Medieval Afroeurasian Transition Zone. Aspects of mobility between Africa, Asia and Europe, 300–1500 C.E. (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020), darin: Charalambos Gasparis, „Migration and Ethnicity in the Venetian Territories of the Eastern Mediterranean (13th to 15th Century),“ 193–221 sowie Thomas Ertl, Erzwungene Exile: Umsiedlung und Vertreibung in der Vormoderne (500–1850) (Frankfurt a. M. / New York: Campus, 2017). 4 Rogers Brubaker, „The ‘diaspora’ diaspora,“ Ethnic and Racial Studies 28,1 (2005): 1–20. 5 Brubaker, „The ‘diaspora’ diaspora,“ 5–6.

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ist, dass diese Strukturen erst entstehen, dass sich die politischen Exilanten in der neuen Heimat zurechtfinden mussten. Um diese Prozesse nachzuvollziehen, benötigen wir einen knappen Über­ blick über Akteure, Motive der Flucht, Zielorte, Bedingungen der Aufnahme. 1

Überblick über Akteure, Motive der Flucht, Zielorte und Aufnahmebedingungen

Es flohen Adlige und (katholische und unionistische) Kleriker aus jenen Teilen des Balkans, die unter Mehmed II. erobert wurden, d.h. aus einem Raum, der sich von der Morea in einem Bogen über Epirus, Albanien und Bosnien bis nach Serbien zieht. Der südöstliche Balkan hingegen war schon früh unterworfen worden, Fluchtbewegungen gingen (zahlenmäßig schwer fassbar) über die untere Donau in die Walachei und die Moldau sowie aus dem Großraum Konstantinopel in Richtung Kreta – mit anderen Worten, sie blieben innerhalb des byzantinischen Commonwealth, des großen orthodoxen Kulturraums. Abgesehen von vereinzelten byzantinischen Gelehrten verließen Orthodoxe diesen kulturell vertrauten Raum nicht.6 6 Claudine Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains et la Chrétienté grecque aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Rom: École française de Rome, 1997); Claudine Delacroix-Besnier, „Les Grecs unionistes réfugiés en Italie et leur influence culturelle,“ in Migrations et diasporas, Hgg. Balard und Ducellier, 59–73; Thierry Ganchou, „Démètrios Kydonès, les frères Chrysobergès et la Crète (1397–1401): de nouveaux documents,“ in Bisanzio, Venezia e il mondo franco-greco, Hgg. Chryssa Maltezou/Peter Schreiner (Venedig: Istituto ellenico di studi bizantini e postbizantini, 2002), 435–94; Thierry Ganchou, „La famille Koumosès (Κουμούσης) à Constantinople et Négrepont, avant et après 1453,“ in Βενετία  – Εύβοια, Hgg. Chryssa Maltezu und Christina Papakosta (Venedig: Istituto ellenico di studi bizantini e postbizantini, 2006), 45–107, Ausführungen zur Migrationsgeschichte besonders 46–50; Thierry Ganchou, „Sujets grecs crétois de la Sérénissime à Constantinople à la veille de 1453 (Iôannès et Nikolaos Polos): une ascension sociale brutalement interrompue,“ in Il Commonwealth veneziano, Hgg. Gherardo Ortalli u.a. (Venedig: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2015), 339–90; Guillaume Saint-Guillain, „La carrière d’un prélat unioniste au milieu du XVe siècle et l’établissement du culte grec à Venise,“ Thesaurismata 39/40 (2009/2010): 91–110; Harris, Greek emigres, 14–16 (Georgios Sphrantzes zog sich nach Korfu zurück, Frankulios Servopulos in die Morea; der serbische Despot Georg Branković kaufte viele Byzantiner frei, die 1453 in osmanische Gefangenschaft geraten waren); Lidia Cotovanu, „L’émigration sud-danubienne vers la Valachie et la Moldavie et sa géographie (XVe–XVIIe siècles): la potentialité heuristique d’un sujet peu connu,“ Cahiers balkaniques 42 (2014), http://journals.openedition.org/ceb/4772; Lidia Cotovanu, „A la recherche de nouveaux contribuables: politiques publiques de colonisation rurale avec des « étrangers » (Valachie et Moldavie, XIVe–XVIIe siècles),“ Revue des études sud-est européennes 53 (2015): 33–71.

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Dies zeigt, dass die Fluchtbewegungen zur Zeit Mehmed II. eine andere Qualität besaßen. Sie richteten sich in abendländische Staaten. Freilich legte dies allein schon die Geographie nahe: Morea, Epirus und Albanien waren auf die Adria hin ausgerichtet; Morava-Serbien nach Ungarn; Bosnien in beide Richtungen. Zu unterscheiden ist zwischen Fluchtbewegungen der Bevölkerungen und jenen der Eliten. Angesichts der osmanischen Raub- und Sklavenzüge zogen sich Menschen aus den betroffenen Gebieten zuerst in das nahe Ausland zurück, Gebiete, die nicht dem jeweiligen (albanischen, serbischen, bosnischen, moreotischen usw.) Landesherrn unterstanden und als christliches (aber oft anderskonfessionelles) Ausland Schutz verhießen. Teile des venezianischen Seereichs, die Republik Dubrovnik sowie die Grenzgebiete des Königreichs Ungarns boten hier vorübergehend oder dauerhaft Schirm; über Jahrzehnte etwa brachten sich herzegowinische Hirten mit Familien und Herden hinter der Mauer von Ston in Sicherheit, welche die ragusanische Halbinsel Pelješac/Sabioncello abschloss. Südalbaner setzten gerne über die schmale Meerenge in das venezianische Korfu über.7 Eine Flucht über längere Distanzen setzte erst dann ein, wenn sich die Osmanen dauerhaft in einem Gebiet festsetzten: ablesbar ist dies an der Rhythmen der albanischen Flucht: Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts, als Bayezit I. den Druck auf den Balkan stark erhöhte; nach 1417, als der osmanische Sancak in Mittel- und Südalbanien entstand, 1466/67 als Mehmed II. Skanderbegs Machtgebiet mit Feuer und Flamme verwüstete; nach 1479, als Venedig Shkodra/Skutari und sein Umland nach jahrelangen schweren Kämpfen abtreten musste. Die Fluchtbewegungen aus dem westlichen Balkan richteten sich vorwiegend nach Italien: im Adriaraum nahm Venedig sehr viele Menschen auf, 7 1436 etwa flohen zahlreiche südalbanische Adlige auf das nahe Korfu, das unter venezianischer Verwaltung stand; die Osmanen erhoben sofort Klage; Venedig verwies darauf, dass auf Korfu auch verwundete Osmanen gepflegt worden seien; Joseph Valentini, Acta Albaniae Veneta saeculorum XIV et XV, Bd. 15 (München und Palermo: Trofenik und Tosini, 1972), Nr. 3736; Oliver Jens Schmitt, Das venezianische Albanien 1392–1478 (München: Oldenbourg, 2001); Ermanno Orlando, Strutture e pratiche di una comunità urbana: Spalato 1420–1479 (Wien/Venedig: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti/Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2019); Emir O. Filipović, „The Ottoman Conquest and the Depopulation of Bosnia in the Fifteenth Century,“ in State and Society in the Balkans, Hgg. Srđan Rudić und Selim Aslantaş (Belgrad: The Institute of History Belgrade – Yunus Emre Enstitüsü Turkish Cultural Centre Belgrade, 2017), 79–101; Milenko Krešić, „Depopulacija jugoistočne Hercegovine izazvana turskim osvajanjem,“ in Hum i Hercegovina kroz povijest. Zbornik radova s Međunarodnoga znanstvenog skupa održanog u Mostaru 5. i 6. studenoga 2009, Bd. 1, Hg. Ivica Lučič (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2011), 757–76.

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die vor den Osmanen auswichen; dabei handelte es sich zum einen um akute Flucht vor anrückenden osmanischen Verbänden, aber auch um Arbeitsmigranten, die langfristig eine bessere Zukunft in der Adriametropole sahen. Viele dieser Menschen waren bereits venezianische Untertanen, bewegten sich also innerhalb desselben Staatsverbands. Viele andere wiederum waren zunächst in venezianische Küstengebiete Albaniens und Dalmatiens geflohen und von dort aus weitergereist. Zur Integration und zur Kontrolle der bal­ kanischen Zuwanderer schuf Venedig eigene Institutionen: in scuole (wohltätige Bruderschaften) für Albaner (1442), Dalmatiner (1451) und Griechen (1498) sollten sich die Migranten organisieren, Fürsorgemaßnahmen treffen und gleichzeitig erfassbar bleiben. Das schnelle Wachstum dieser Bruderschaften aber beunruhigte die venezianischen Behörden, so im Falle der überwiegend katholischen Albaner gleich nach der Gründung der albanischen scuola, während der konfessionelle Unterschied zu den orthodoxen Griechen und deren Ablehnung der in Venedig geltenden Kirchenunion von Florenz (1439) die Institutionenbildung dieser anderskonfessionellen Gruppe verzögerte. Anders verhielt sich die Republik gegenüber den Witwen und Waisen der Verteidiger von Shkodra, die 1479 geschlossen abgewandert waren  – sie hatten Mehmed II. Angebot, unter der Bedingung des Abfalls zum Islam zu bleiben, abgelehnt. Für diese Gruppe schuf Venedig ein eigenes Amt, das noch mehr als drei Jahrzehnte später Renten auszahlte sowie Mädchen mit Mitgift und Burschen mit Posten in Heer und Flotte ausstattete. In Venedig obwaltete jedenfalls eine nach landsmannschaftlichen Kriterien ausgerichtete und institutionell abgesicherte Gruppenbildung, die Soziabilität und Pflege des Herkommens ermöglichte. Allein die Griechen zählten Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts 4–5000 Menschen, die albanische Gemeinschaft dürfte nicht viel kleiner gewesen sein. Neben Venedig nahm das Königreich Neapel besonders viele Flüchtlinge aus dem albanischen Raum sowie aus der Morea auf, dort wiederum viele Albaner, die sich auf der Peloponnes um 1400 niedergelassen hatten. Sie wurden meist kompakt angesiedelt. Im Kirchenstaat gewährten neben Rom v.a. ostitalienische Häfen wie Fano Zuwanderern aus dem Balkan Aufnahme.8 8 Brunehilde Imhaus, Le minoranze orientali a Venezia 1300–1510 (Rom: Il Veltro 1997); Ermanno Orlando, Migrazioni mediterranee. Migranti, minoranze e matrimoni a Venezia nel basso medioevo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014); Alain Ducellier u.a., Hgg., Les chemins de l’exil. Bouleversements de l’Est européen et migrations vers l’Ouest à la fin du Moyen Âge (Paris: Armand Collin 1992); Lucia Nadin, Migrazioni e integrazione. Il caso degli albanesi a Venezia (1479–1552) (Rom: Bulzoni 2008); Lucia Nadin, Shqipëria e rigjetur. Zbulim gjurmësh shqiptare në kulturën dhe artin e Venetos në shek. XVI. Albania ritrovata. Recuperi di presenze albanesi nella cultura e nell’arte del cinquecento veneto (Tirana: Onufri 2012); Lovorka Čoralić, U gradu

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Die Forschung zu Flucht aus dem Balkan im Zeitalter der osmanischen Eroberung des Balkans ist entweder maritim oder kontinental ausgerichtet. Selten nur wird das Offensichtliche zusammengedacht: denn Menschen aus dem zentralen Balkan, d.h. der Vardar-Morava-Furche, Rückgrat des serbischen Staates und Vormarschachse der Osmanen, flohen kaum über die Berge nach Italien. Zum einen wandten sich vor allem transhumante Vlachen nach Nordwesten, in die Weidegebiete der Herzegowina und Bosniens  – diese Menschen verblieben innerhalb des osmanischen Machtbereichs und beteiligten sich bald selbst als Hilfstruppen an osmanischen Raubzügen gegen Ungarn und Venedig. Die sesshaften Adligen und Bauern Serbiens hingegen flohen über die Donau und bildeten im Süden des Königreichs Ungarn bald einen erheblichen Teil der Bevölkerung.9 Die Fluchtbewegungen richteten sich nicht zufällig an die genannten Zielorte. Nicht nur Verkehrswege und leichte Erreichbarkeit fielen dabei ins Gewicht. Es ging immer auch um kulturelle Nähe, politische und gesellschaftliche Anbindung, die Möglichkeit einer leichten Integration. So erklärt sich Svetoga Marka. Povijest hrvatske zajednice u Mlecima (Zagreb: Golden Marketing 2001); Chryssa Maltezou, „Profughi greci a Venezia dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli: tra mito e realtà,“ in L’Europa dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli, 29 maggio 1453 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sul basso medioevo, 2008), 355–74; Rosa Maria Piccione, Greeks, Books and Libraries in Renaissance Venice (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020); ein Beispiel regionaler Zuwanderung bei Sotires Kutmanes, „Ευβοιείς στη Βενετία, 15ος–17ος αι.,“ in Βενετία  – Εύβοια, Hgg. Chryssa Maltezu und Christina Papakosta (Venedig: Istituto ellenico di studi bizantini e postbizantini, 2006), 203–16; übergreifend Michel Balard und Alain Ducellier, Hgg., Migrations et diasporas méditerranéennes (Xe–XVIe siècles) (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2002). 9 Nedim Filipović, „Vlasi i upostava timarskog sistema u Hercegovini I,“ Godišnjak Akademije nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine 12/Centar za balkanološka istraživanja 10 (1974): 127– 221; Nicoară Beldiceanu, „Les Roumains des Balkans dans les sources ottomanes,“ Revue des études roumaines 19/20 (1995/96): 7–21; Nicoară Beldiceanu, „Sur les Valaques des Balkans slaves à l’époque ottomane,“ Revue des études islamiques 34 (1966): 83–132; Nicoară Beldiceanu / Irène Beldiceanu- Steinherr/Petre S. Năşturel, „Les recensements ottomans effectués en 1477, 1519 et 1533 dans les provinces de Zvornik et d’Herzégovine,“ Turcica 20 (1988): 159–71; Snježana Buzov, „Vlasi u bosanskom sandžaku i islamizacija,“ Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 41 (1991): 99–111; Neven Isailović, „Legislation concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans before and after Ottoman conquest: an overview,“ in State and Society in the Balkans, Hgg. Srđan Rudić und Selim Aslantaş (Belgrad: The Institute of History Belgrade – Yunus Emre Enstitüsü Turkish Cultural Centre Belgrade, 2017), 25–42; Jusuf Mulić, „Društveni i ekonomski položaj Vlaha i Arbanasa u Bosni pod osmanskom vlašću,“ Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 51 (2001): 111–46; Ivan Jurković, „Das Schicksal des kroatischen Kleinadels unter dem Druck des Osmanenreichs,“ East Central Europe 29,1–2 (2002): 235–48; zu den ungarisch-osmanischen Beziehungen s. die grundlegende Monographie von Tamás Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács. A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526 (Leiden und Boston/MA: Brill, 2018).

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auch, dass byzantinische Griechen nach Möglichkeit im griechischsprachigen Raum blieben, also der venezianisch beherrschten Inselzone von Korfu bis nach Kreta, während sich albanische und slawische Flüchtlinge des Westbalkans in nahe und sprachverwandte Küstenzonen unter venezianischer Herrschaft und von dort aus in italienische Häfen wandten, wo sich bereits Landsleute aufhielten und es auch Arbeit gab. 2

Das vorosmanische balkanische Familiennetzwerk des balkanischen Adels

Für die politischen Eliten des Balkans lagen die Dinge oftmals noch etwas günstiger. Lange vor der endgültigen Unterwerfung des Balkans durch Mehmed II. hatten die meisten Adelsfamilien der bedrohten Gebiete, die vor und auch zeitgleich zu den osmanischen Angriffen genug unter eigenen inneren Fehden zu leiden hatten, Strategien der Rückversicherung entwickelt. Schon der serbische Zar Stefan Dušan war in das venezianische Bürgerrecht eingetreten, und die Markusrepublik band durch eine entsprechende Politik zahlreiche Fürsten des Balkans an sich. Balkanfürsten erwarben Immobilien in sicheren Gebieten  – besonders attraktiv auf serbische und bosnische Adlige wirkte das sprachlich verwandte Dubrovnik, wo sie Häuser kauften und Geld wie Schmuck hinterlegten. Dubrovnik bot sich als sicherer Hafen an, besonders in finanzpolitischem Sinne, und schützte so seinerseits seine Karawanen im unsicheren Binnenbalkan vor Übergriffen durch die Balkanadligen.10 Byzantinische Aristokraten legten ihr Geld an den Börsen von Venedig und Genua an und pflegten enge politische und geschäftliche Beziehungen zu den jeweiligen Patriziaten.11 Der bosnische, serbische und walachische Adel stand oftmals in Vasallenverhältnissen zur ungarischen Krone – die serbischen Despoten Stefan Lazarević und Georg Branković waren ungarische Magnaten mit ausgedehnten Lehen, auf denen sich in steigender 10

11

Ruža Ćuk, Srbija i Venecija u XIII i XIV veku (Belgrad: Prosveta, 1986); Momčilo Spremić, Srbija i Venecija (Belgrad: Službeni glasnik, 2014); Marko Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija (Sarajevo: HKD napredak, 1996); Esad Kurtović, Iz istorije bankarstva Bosne i Dubrovnika u srednjem vijeku. Ulaganje novca na dobit (Belgrad: Istorijski institut, 2010); Nada Grujić und Danko Zelić, „Palača vojvode Sandalja Hranića u Dubrovniku,“ Anali Dubrovnika 48 (2010): 47–132, mit Abbildung des Wappens (49), eine Liste weiterer Hausbesitzer (50), so die Brüder Sanković 1390; König Tvrtko II. und Hrvoje Vukčić (1399), Radoslav Pavlović (1427). Thierry Ganchou, „Le rachat des Notaras après la chute de Constantinople ou les relations “étrangères” de l’élite byzantine au XVe siècle,“ in Migrations et diasporas méditerranéennes, Hgg. Balard und Ducellier, 149–229; Klaus-Peter Matschke, „The Notaras Family and its Italian Connections,“ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 59–72.

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Zahl serbische Flüchtlinge niederließen.12 Das Königreich Neapel schließlich hatte traditionell eine adlige Klientel im südwestlichen Balkan gepflegt; unter König Alfons V. von Aragón traten Adlige von der Herzegowina über Albanien bis in die Morea in neapolitanische Vasallität ein.13 Häuser, Konten, politische Absicherung durch Bürgerrecht und Vasallität gehörten also zu den Instrumenten dieser Rückversicherungspolitik. Für den Adel aber zählte vor allem Verwandtschaft zu den entscheidenden Überlebensstrategien. Wenn hier überhaupt von einer politischen Balkandiaspora gesprochen werden kann, dann weil der Adel des vorosmanischen Balkans durch ein dichtes Netz von regionalen Heiratsbeziehungen tatsächlich zu einer Gemeinschaft geworden war: einer Verwandtschaftsgemeinschaft, nicht aber einer politischen Solidargemeinschaft. Denn der osmanische Erfolg beruhte unter anderem auf der Zerstrittenheit der christlichen Regionalherren. Niemand hat diese Welt besser beschrieben als der ungarische Balkanmediävist Ludwig von Thallóczy: (…) dies rührt auch daher, dass die kleinen Dynasten auf der ganzen Halbinsel, die theilweise ihre Unabhängigkeit einbüssten, theilweise sich bedroht sahen, in gegenseitigen Familienbündnissen ihr Heil und die Verstärkung ihrer Herrschaft suchten. Das Hauptziel ihrer Bestrebungen war ja doch immer die Erhaltung des eigenen Stammes, der Glanz und der Reichthum ihres Hauses. Diese zwar natürliche, aber jedes principielle Zusammengehen, jedwede Unterordnung ausschliessende Politik musste der mächtig aufschiessenden türkischen Macht die Wege ebnen. Während das osmanische Reich mit concentrirter Kraft und einheitlich vorging, fühlten sich die christlichen Nationen nur von Fall zu Fall solidarisch. Einerseits sehen wir ungarische, deutsche, serbische, croatische, bosnische, albanesische, italienische, polnische, griechische und walachische Familien in inniger, durch die Verschiedenheit der römischen, orthodoxen und auch patarenischen Confession 12 Ludwig von Thallóczy, „Bruchstücke aus der Geschichte der nordwestlichen Balkanländer,“ Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina 3 (1895): 298– 371; Aleksandar Krstić, „“Which realm will you opt for?” The Serbian nobility between the Ottomans and the Hungarians in the 15th century,“ in State and Society in the Balkans, Hgg. Aslantaş und Rudić, 129–63. 13 Constantin Marinescu, „Alphonse V, roi d’Aragon et de Naples, et l’Albanie de Skanderbeg,“ Mélanges de l’Ecole Roumaine en France 1 (1923), 1–135; Constantin Marinescu, La politique orientale d’Alfonse V d’Aragon, roi de Naples (1416–1458) (Barcelona: Institut d’estudis catalans, 1994); Momčilo Spremić, „Vazali kralja Alfonsa Aragonskog,“ Zbornik filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 12 (1974): 455–69; Francisc Pall, „I rapporti italo- albanesi intorno alla metà del secolo XV,“ Archivio storico delle provincie napoletane serià III. 4 (1965): 123–226.

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nicht gestörter Verwandtschaft, welche trotz nationaler und staatlicher Gegensätze dennoch zu Stande kam. Andererseits aber bedurfte es nur eines kleinen Anstosses, und das Conglomerat zerfiel sogleich in seine Elemente. Im Hause Osman kommen auch Familienzwistigkeiten vor, aber es siegt schliesslich immer das Grundprincip der türkischen Politik, der Eroberungkrieg, die Expansion.14 Die Heiratsbande aber reichten weit über den Balkan hinaus nach Ungarn, ins Reich und nach Italien. Viele Adelsfamilien hielten dabei mehrere Eisen im Feuer. Sie diversifizierten ihre Rückversicherungen durch regionale Heiraten und Ehebündnisse bzw. Vasallentum nach Italien, Ungarn und ins Reich: der Fürst der Herzegowina Stefan Vukčić (1435–1466) ließ sich ins venezianische Patriziat aufnehmen und verheiratete seine Töchter an den König von Bosnien (Katharina), an Ivan Crnojević von Montenegro (Mara); sein Sohn Vlatko ehelichte zuerst die Nichte des mächtigen Grafen Ulrich II. von Cilli (der auch Schwager des serbischen Despoten Georg Branković war), in zweiter Ehe dann Margherita de Marzano, eine neapolitanische Hochadlige.15 Noch eindrucksvoller ist die Heiratspolitik des serbischen Despoten Georg Branković (1427–1456): seine Tochter Mara heiratete Sultan Murad II., eine zweite Tochter, Katharina, einen der mächtigsten Adligen Ungarns, Graf Ulrich II. von Cilli; sein Sohn Lazar Helena aus dem Kaisergeschlecht der Palaiologen, Stefan und Milica schließlich ehelichten albanische Adlige. Lazars und Helenas Kinder heirateten in die Geschlechter der Kotromanić (Mara/Jelena), Kastriota (Skanderbegs Sohn Ivan II.) und Tocco von Kephallonia (Milica).16 3

Gespaltene Familien

Wer vom Adel nach Westen oder Norden floh, wandte sich also nicht ins Nichts, sondern wanderte ein in wohl vorbereitete Strukturen. Dies minderte nichts 14 Thallóczy, „Bruchstücke,“ 322. 15 Ludwig v. Thallóczy, Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter (München, Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1914), 181; Sima Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić-Kosača i njegovo doba (Belgrad: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1964). 16 Thallóczy, „Bruchstücke,“ 336; Momčilo Spremić, Despot Đurađ Branković i njegovo doba (Belgrad: Srpska književna zadruga, 1994); hervorragend vernetzt waren die mittelalbanischen Araniti. Franz Babinger, Das Ende der Arianiten (München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1960); Paolo Petta, Stradioti, soldati albanesi in Italia, sec. XV–XIX (Lecce: Argo, 1996); Paolo Petta, Despoti d’Epiro, Principi di Macedonia (Lecce: Argo 1999); Harris, „Despots“.

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an der Tatsache, dass die Flucht eine ultima ratio darstellte. Zum Verständnis des politischen und sozialen Verhaltens der Flüchtlinge ist eine Beobachtung entscheidend, die oft nicht angestellt wurde, weil die Forschung sich entweder ganz auf die Flüchtlinge in ihrem neuen Umfeld oder überwiegend auf die Eingliederung von Balkanadligen in die neue osmanische Welt beschränkt hat. Nämlich die Tatsache, dass Flucht nicht gleichzusetzen ist mit der Aufgabe der Beziehungen in die alte Heimat. Mehr noch, die meisten Adelsfamilien des Balkans teilten sich entlang politischer Bruchlinien.17 Es gab kaum eine Familie, die sich ganz für die Flucht entschied. Zweige wichtiger Familien waren schon vor der osmanischen Eroberung ins Lager des Sultans übergegangen. Nicht überall war die Feindschaft so tief wie zwischen den beiden letzten byzantinischen Despoten der Morea, Thomas, der in Rom 1465 starb, und Demetrios, das als Kostgänger des Sultans 1470 verschied. Im Gegenteil, wir müssen stets damit rechnen, dass Verwandte im abendländischen Exil und im osmanischen Reich miteinander Kontakt hielten.18 Letztere sind zu unterteilen in ein „inneres Exil“, Orthodoxe, die aus antilateinischem Reflex oder anderen Gründen in ihrer eroberten alten Heimat blieben, sich aber nicht mit den Osmanen einließen, und jenen, die bewusst Teil der osmanischen Reichselite blieben. Zu betonen ist, dass die Osmanen die Eliten der eroberten Gebiete umwarben und über osmanisierte oder islamisierte Verwandte geflohene Familienangehörige zur Rückkehr bewegen wollten.19 Die herzegowinische Dynastie der Kosače ist das Paradebeispiel der mehrfachen politischen Ausrichtung in einer Dynastie: von den drei untereinander zerstrittenen Söhnen Stefan Vukčićs entschieden sich Vlatko für Venedig, Vladislav für Ungarn und Stefan, als Muslim Ahmed, für das osmanische Reich. Dabei blieben die osmanenfeindlichen Brüder Vlatko und Vladislav zuerst ganz in der Nähe der 1466 osmanisch gewordenen Herzegowina. Offensichtlich hofften sich immer noch auf eine Rückkehr. Die drei Brüder hielten Kontakt, man traf sich auf einer Insel bei Dubrovnik. Als das Ende kam, warnte Stefan-Ahmed, vom Sultan mit der endgültigen Liquidierung der Kosača-Macht beauftragt, Vlatko rechtzeitig und ermöglichte diesem

17

Oliver Jens Schmitt, „Traîtres ou champions de la survie ? Les seigneurs de tendance ottomane dans les Balkans à l’époque de la conquête ottomane,“ Travaux et mémoires (im Druck). 18 Denis A. Zakythinos, Le despotat grec, Bd. 1 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1932), 241–284; Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, Bd. 2 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1978), 196–200, 219, 230. 19 S. unten das Beispiel der Kinder der Despina Araniti.

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einen geordneten Rückzug in ein nun definitives Exil weit entfernt von der alten Heimat.20 Bei Palaiologen und Kosače haben langjährige innerdynastische Konflikte im Schatten der osmanischen Expansion das Fluchtverhalten bzw. die Eingliederung in das osmanische Machtsystem bestimmt. Ähnliches lässt sich bei den Araniti, Muzaki, Kastriota, Zenebish oder Dukagjin beobachten, alles albanische Adelsgeschlechter, die im Augenblick der osmanischen Eroberung in einen christlichen und einen pro-osmanischen, in der Regel rasch islami­ sierten Zweig zerfielen.21 Es gingen jene, die ihren pro-osmanischen Verwand­ ten unterlegen waren oder die ein Arrangement mit den Osmanen ablehnten. 4

Adlige Damen im Exil

Und es gingen viele Frauen. Der weibliche Charakter der politischen Balkandiaspora fällt dann auf, wenn man sich nicht auf eine ethnische Gruppe beschränkt. Im Augenblick der Flucht reisten viele Damen ohne ihre Männer, die getötet worden oder verstorben waren. Zwischen 1453 und 1468 war eine ganze Generation balkanischer Fürsten verschwunden, vom letzten byzantinischen Kaiser über Georg Branković, den letzten bosnischen König, Stefan Vukčić von der Herzegowina bis zu Skanderbeg. Der Tod der Männer schuf Raum für Frauen, Raum auch für politisches Handeln. So weiblich war Macht in der Balkangeschichte schon lange nicht mehr gewesen, wie in diesem besonderen Moment, einer völligen Ausnahmesituation. 20 Thallóczy, Studien, 241–47; Petar Vrankić „Stjepan/Ahmed-paša Hercegović (1456.?–1517) u svjetlu dubrovačkih, talijanskih i osmanskih izvora,“ Hercegovina 3 (2017): 9–67; Heath W. Lowry, Hersekzâde Ahmed Paşa: An Ottoman Statesman‘s career and pious Endowments (Bahçeşehir University Press, Istanbul, 2001); Đuro Tošić, „Fragmenti iz života hercega Vlatka Kosače,“ Istorijski časopis 56 (2008): 153–72; Irène Beldiceanu- Steinherr /Boško Bojović, „Le traité de paix conclu entre Vlatko et Mehmed II,“ Balcanica 24 (1993): 75–86; ein vergleichbares Gespann, das freilich ganz im osmanischen Lager stand, sind Mihajlo und Mahmud Pascha Angelović, Theoharis Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs. The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474) (Leiden: Brill, 2001); Aleksandar Krstić, „Prilog biografiji velikog vojvode Mihaila Anđelovića,“ Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 52 (2015): 359–79. 21 Halil İnalcik, „Timariotes chrétiens en Albanie au XVe siècle d’après un registre de timars ottoman,“ Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs 4 (1951): 118–38; Ferit Duka, Shekujt osmanë në hapësirën shqiptare (studime dhe dokumente) (Tirana: Toena, 2009); Ferit Duka, Berati në kohën osmane (shek. XVI–XVIII) (Tirana: Toena, 2001); Ferit Duka, „Profili i një qyteti shqiptar të kohës osmane. Gjirokastra gjatë shek. XV–XVI,“ Studime historike 1–2 (2002): 7–27; Ivan Božić, „O Dukađinima,“ in Nemirno pomorje XV veka, Ivan Božić (Belgrad: Srpska književna zadruga, 1979), 332–84.

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Die höchstrangigen unter den geflohenen Damen waren die beiden Witwen der letzten beiden bosnischen Könige. Beide stammten aus hochadligen Geschlechtern: Katharina, Witwe des vorletzten Königs Stjepan Tomaš, war die Tochter des herzegowinischen Fürsten Stjepan Vukčić Kosača und der Helena Balsha, deren Vorfahren bis 1421 die Zeta/Montenegro und Nordalbanien beherrscht hatten. Jelena/Mara hingegen entstammte dem serbischen Despo­ tengeschlecht der Branković und hatte den letzten bosnischen Monarchen Stjepan Tomašević geehelicht, ein Heiratsband, das Bosnien und Serbien gegen die Osmanen zusammenschließen sollte, aber den Zorn des Sultans hervorrief und den Untergang beider Staaten beschleunigte.22 Auch aus Albanien kamen hochadlige Damen, denen in Italien ein feierlicher Empfang bereitet wurde: am berühmtesten war die Witwe Skanderbegs, Andronika Kastriota, deren Mann Vasall der neapolitanischen Krone gewesen war und 1461/62 im neapolitanischen Thronstreit den letztlich siegreichen König Ferrante unterstützt hatte. Der König persönlich lud am 26.2.1468 kurz nach Skanderbegs Tod die Witwe, die er als „liebste Mutter“ bezeichnete, ein, ihr Lehen in Apulien zu beziehen. Andronika setzte über die Adria, gemeinsam mit zahlreichen anderen Witwen albanischer Türkenkämpfer, die und deren Nachkommen im neapolitanischen und später süditalienisch-spanischen Adel aufgingen.23 Andronikas symbolisches Kapital war das Ansehen ihres Mannes. Es gelang ihr, ihre Familie geschickt durch Ehen mit dem neapolitanischen Adel zu verbinden und ihrem Sohn Ivan eine führende Stellung im Königreich zu sichern. 1485 erhielt dieser als Herzog die Gebiete Soleto und S. Pietro in Galantina im Salento als Lehen.24 Außerordentlich umtriebig war auch die Schwiegermutter Skanderbegs, Despina Araniti, geborene Pietrina Francone, deren Schicksal wir weiter unter genauer betrachten. Aus der ersten Ehe ihres Mannes, Araniti Komino, stammte Angelina Araniti, die den von den Osmanen geblendeten serbischen Despoten Stefan Branković heiratete und ihrerseits eine Symbolfigur der orthodoxen Damenwelt im Exil darstellte. Am Beispiel der hochadligen Damen lassen sich jene oben abstrakt ausgeführten Strukturen der politischen Diaspora veranschaulichen, vor allem ihre mehrfache politische Verankerung. Eindrücklich wird diese schon am Beispiel der bosnischen Königinnen, die ganz unterschiedliche Wege wählten: Als der letzte bosnische König von den Osmanen 1463 hingerichtet worden war, floh Königin Katharina gemeinsam mit Jelena/Mara nach Dubrovnik, 22

Neven Isailović, „Bračni planovi Kotromanića i državna politika Bosne polovinom XV veka,“ in Pad srpske despotovine, Hg. Momčilo Spremić (Belgrad: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 2011), 203–14. 23 Oliver Jens Schmitt, Skanderbeg (Regensburg: Pustet, 2009), 291–92. 24 Petta, Despoti, 28–31.

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dem traditionellen Fluchtort westbalkanischer Adliger. Dort trennten sich ihre Wege. Katharina ließ sich in dem, was von der Herzegowina geblieben war, also dem Land ihres Vaters und ihrer Brüder nieder, während Mara in das venezianische Split ging und im dortigen Stefanskloster Wohnung nahm. Von dort aus spann sie über die Grenzen hinweg ihre Fäden zu zwei weiteren Schlüsselfiguren der adligen Damenwelt, zugleich Beispiele für ein „inneres Exil“ im osmanischen Reich: denn Mara/Jelenas Tante war niemand geringerer als die Sultana Mara Branković, die Witwe Murads II., damals schon an ihrem Witwensitz im makedonischen Eževo (heute Daphni) lebend. Mara unterhielt dort einen kleinen Brankovićhof im Herzen des osmanischen Reiches, denn ihre Schwester Katharina-Kantakuzene, Witwe des bei Thronkämpfen ermordeten Grafen Ulrich II. von Cilli, hatte sich nach längeren Irrfahrten im Reich entschlossen, ihren Lebensabend mit ihrer Schwester, der Sultana, zu verbringen. Jelena/Mara gliederte sich freilich nicht ruhig in die kleine Welt serbischer Exilantinnen ein, sondern intrigierte auf heftigste bei Sultan Mehmed II. gegen ihre Tante Katharina-Kantakuzina und brachte diese sogar in ernsthafte Gefahr. Nach dem Tod ihrer beiden Tanten unternahm sie alles, um deren Erbe anzutreten, was Sultan Bayezid II. in Teilen auch anerkannte (1491). Die streitsüchtige Prinzessin, zu Lebzeiten als „böse Frau“ bezeichnet, verbrachte schließlich ihr Lebensende bei ihrem Onkel Manuel Palaiologos in Thrakien und starb nach 1500.25 Mit anderen Worten: die serbischen Edeldamen wanderten zwischen den Welten, die jeweils auch ihre eignen waren. Katharina-Kantakuzina und Mara/Jelena blieben nicht im katholischen Europa, sondern fühlten sich wohler im Umfeld jener serbischen Einflussgruppe im osmanischen Reich, für die die Sultana sinnbildlich stand. Katharina-Kantakuzina hatte nach der Ermordung ihres Gatten in der ungarischen Adelswelt keinen Platz mehr gefunden, auch bei Friedrich III. war trotz Überlassung einer Burg in Krain kein dauerhaftes Bleiben, so kehrte sie in den Schoss der Familie zurück. Auch Mara/Jelena berechnete ihre Chancen und entschied sich für die Rückkehr und die Integration in die osmanische Welt. Die Damen genossen hohe Protektion – für Katharina-Kantakuzina und ihre Ansprüche auf das Schloss Belgrado im Friaul, wo ihr blinder Bruder Despot Stefan mit seiner Frau Angelina residierte, setzte sich Mehmed II. persönlich ein. Verkaufen wollte die Dame im Exil an Graf Leonhard von Görz, mit dem sie über ihren ermordeten Mann verbunden war und dem sie ihr Leid klagte. Schließlich schenkte sie das Schloss Belgrado

25 Đuro Tošić, „Posljedna bosanska kraljica Mara (Jelena),“ Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 3 (2002), 29–60.

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dem Matteo Spandino, Vater des Geschichtsschreibers Theodor Spandugino. Selbst wurde sie nahe Strumica begraben.26 Die serbische Prinzessin, Witwe eines ungarischen Magnaten, vom Kaiser des Westens und vom Sultan gefördert, im Milieu ihrer weiblichen Verwandten lebend, mit alten Beziehungen zum Adel im Südostens des Heiligen römischen Reichs, verstorben in Makedonien, aber über ihre Schenkung Gönnerin des Vaters eines Orientkenners, der das Wissen vom osmanischen Reich in Europa entscheidend prägte. Dies sind Stränge im Leben der Katharina-Kantakuzina Branković-Cilli. Die ältere Königin Bosniens, Katharina, hingegen wandte sich nach Rom, wo sie von den Päpsten zwischen 1467 und 1478 6541 Scudi an Rente ausgezahlt erhielt. Allein schon aufgrund ihres königlichen Ranges genoss Katharina am päpstlichen Hof und beim italienischen Adel eine besondere Stellung: 1471 etwa wohnte sie der Ehe per procuram der Zoe Palaiologina mit Großfürst Ivan III. von Moskau bei, gemeinsam mit der Gattin Lorenzo de’ Medicis, Chiara Orsini und anderen italienischen Edeldamen. Katharina versuchte wiederholt, die Macht ihrer Dynastie wiederherzustellen. Ihre beiden Kinder Sigismund und Katharina waren nach 1463 den Osmanen in die Hände gefallen. Die Königin versuchte, sie auszulösen. 1472 scheint ihr Bruder, niemand geringerer als Ahmed Hersekoğlu alias Stefan Kosača, eine mögliche Freilassung angedeutet zu haben. Jedenfalls schickte die Königin 1470 eine unter anderem von Kardinal Bessarion unterstützte Gesandtschaft an Herzog Galeazzo Maria Sforza nach Mailand mit der Bitte um einen Beitrag zu einem Lösegeld für die königlichen Kinder; 1474 trugen ihre Gesandten ebenfalls in Mailand ein Ansuchen um Unterstützung einer möglichen Rückkehr der Königin vor. Katharina war bis zu ihrem Tod 1478 eine Gestalt, die zahlreiche bosnische Adlige im Exil unterstützte, die von Rom aus ein Netzwerk spann, das die römischen Emigranten, darunter auch führende Griechen, ebenso umfasste wie die italienische Hocharistokratie (Sforza, Gonzaga). Auf ihr Grab ließ sie in ihrer Muttersprache die stolze Inschrift anbringen, die an „die bosnische Königin Katharina, Tochter des Stephan, Herzogs vom heiligen Sabbas und der Helena aus dem Hause des Kaisers Stephan, des bosnischen 26

Konstantin Jireček, Geschichte der Serben, Bd. 2 (Gotha: Perthes, 1918), 247–48, 1460 misslang der Verkauf ihrer kroatischen Güter an Kaiser Friedrich III.; mehr Glück hatte sie dann, auch im Namen ihres blinden Despoten-Bruders, beim Verkauf ihrer Ländereien an Ban Johannes Vitovec und die beiden Ritter von Weispriach für die hohe Summe von 62.000 Dukaten. Schon 1458 hatte ihr der Kaiser die Burg Gurkfeld in Krain (slow. Krško) übergeben. 1461 war sie über Venedig nach Ragusa und Korfu zu Mara gereist. 1469 hielt sie sich nochmals in Ragusa auf; vgl. Franz Babinger, „Le vicende del Castello friulano di Belgrado sul finire del Medio Evo,“ in Aufsätze, Babinger, Bd. 3, 144–63.

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Königs Gattin“ erinnern sollte. Ihr Königreich vermachte sie Papst Sixtus IV., vorbehaltlich einer Rückkehr ihrer zu Muslimen gewordenen Kinder zum christlichen Glauben.27 Wie Mara/Jelena hatte Katharina ihre familiären Beziehungen zum osmanisch gewordenen Balkan nicht abbrechen lassen.28 Der Brankovićdynastie gehörte auch die bereits erwähnte Angelina Araniti an. Sie hatte den blinden Despoten Stefan geheiratet, als dieser als Flüchtling nach einer Station bei seiner Schwester Katharina-Kantakuzina nach Albanien gekommen war (1460); erstaunen muss dies nicht, da Skanderbeg selbst wohl eine Branković zur Mutter hatte. Angelina und der blinde Despot erwarben 1465 die schon erwähnte Burg Belgrado in Friaul, wo Stefan von Hilfsgeldern des Papstes, Venedigs und Ragusas ein bescheidenes Leben führte. Das Schreiben, das er kurz vor seinem Tod an die Republik Dubrovnik schrieb, erlaubt einen seltenen Einblick in die Bitterkeit, die die Exilanten empfanden.29 Nach Stefans Tod (1477) entfaltete Angelina eine beeindru­ ckende Tätigkeit. Wie ihre Schwägerin Katharina-Kantakuzina übergab ihr Kaiser Friedrich III. eine Burg, Weitersfeld bei Mureck in der Steiermark, und unterstützte sie bei der Verheiratung ihrer Tochter Mara mit Bonifaz III. von Montferrat  – diese Dynastie leitete sich auf die byzantinischen Palaiologen zurück, und Mara begegnete dort ihrem Verwandten Konstantin Araniti, einem der bekanntesten Exilanten überhaupt. Angelina selbst aber entschied sich nach schweren Niederlagen Friedrichs III. gegen Matthias Corvinus zur Reise nach Ungarn. Ihr toter Mann hatte dies verweigert, da Matthias Corvinus ihn nicht mehr als serbischen Despoten anerkannt hatte. Angelina aber gelang es, nach dem Tod des von Matthias eingesetzten Despoten Vuk Grgurević ihrem Sohn Georg die Despotenwürde von ungarischer Gnade zu verschaffen. 27 Đuro Tošić, „Bosanska kraljica Katarina (1425–1478),“ Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 2 (1997): 73–112 (mir nicht zugänglich); Michael Arndt, „Die ursprüngliche Grabinschrift der bosnischen Königin Katharina,“ Südost-Forschungen 26 (1977): 211–22; Esad Kurtović, „Prilog bibliografiji radova o bosanskoj kraljici Katarini Kotromanić (1425–1478),“ Franciscan Theology Sarajevo 22 (2005): 201–11; Emir O. Filipović, „Was Bosnian Queen Catherine a member of the Third Order of St Francis?,“ Radovi. Sveučilište u Zagrebu. Zavod za hrvatsku povijest 47 (2015): 165–82. 28 Ludwig von Thallóczy, Studien, 110–20. Ihre Gesandten in Mailand beschrieben ihre Herrin im Jahre 1474 folgendermaßen: „la Regina a mantegnudo multi che furno baroni del suo regno li qual amora apresso essa stentano cum speranza de regnar cum suo figliolo in suo Regno, et hora havendo speranza de regnar cum suo figliolo in suo Regno“ (ibid., 117). 29 Ljubomir Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma. Knjiga 1. Dubrovnik i susedi njevogi. Drugi deo (Belgrad und Sr. Karlovci: Srpska manastirska štamparija, 1934), 161–62, der Despot betonte mehrfach, wie geschwächt er durch seine Krankheit sei und bat die Republik um Fürsorge „meine Angelina“ und seine Kinder Georg, Mara und Jovan, da er selber ihnen keine Reichtümer hinterlassen könne.

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Der junge Despot wurde vom König standesgemäß mit einer Verwandten der Königin Beatrix von Aragón verheiratet. Die Ehe scheiterte bald, und Georg zog sich 1496 als Mönch aus dem politischen Leben zurück. Die letzte Staatsreise führte ihn und seine Mutter in die eigentliche Heimstatt des orthodoxen Adels, ein Fürstentum, das weder katholisch noch muslimisch beherrscht war, sondern wo orthodoxe Kultur sich frei entfalten konnte: die Walachei, wo Radu IV. Angelina und Georg aufnahm; Georg trug wesentlich dazu bei, dass der frühere Patriarch von Konstantinopel Niphon in der Walachei die Kirche kulturell und organisatorisch erneuerte. Georg, als Mönch Maxim, stieg gegen Ende seines Lebens zum Metropoliten von Belgrad auf, der gefährdeten Grenzfestung Ungarns an der Grenze zur alten Herrschaft seiner Familie, dem serbischen Despotat. In Südungarn, wo die Branković Großvasallen der ungarischen Krone gewesen waren, entfaltete die albanische Prinzessin eine Tätigkeit als Stifterin. Wichtige Kirchen und Klöster der serbischen Kultur Südungarns (heute: Vojvodina in Serbien) gehen auf diese adlige Dame zurück, die wie ihre Verwandten durch Italien und das Reich gewandert war, am Schluss aber in ein orthodoxes Milieu zurückkehrte: als Gattin des entschieden antiosmanischen Stefan Branković kam für sie Eževo nicht in Frage. Vielmehr trug die orthodoxe Albanerin maßgeblich zur Absicherung serbischer Kultur an der umkämpften ungarisch-osmanischen Grenze bei, so durch die Stiftung der Kirche des hl. Lukas in Kupinovo, des Klosters in Obed, sowie vor allem, gemeinsam mit ihrem Sohn Georg und dem walachischen Fürsten Mihnea dem Bösen, des Klosters Krušedol in der Fruška Gora (1509–1514). Letzteres wurde zur Grablege der ungarischen Branković. Nach ihrer vernichtenden Niederlage gegen die Habsburger rund 180 Jahre später verwüsteten fliehende osmanische Truppen das Kloster und zerstreuten die Gebeine der Exilanten in alle Richtungen.30 Für keine andere Emigrantin ist die Quellenlage so dicht wie für Pietrina Francone, bekannt als Despina Araniti, die über die bereits geschilderten Beziehungen mit dem Netzwerk der Brankovićdamen verbunden war. Diese Tochter eines apulischen Freischärlers hatte den albanischen Freiheitshelden Araniti Komino in zweiter Ehe (für beide Gatten) geheiratet. Araniti Komino, Schwiegervater Skanderbegs, hatte 1433–1436 einen großen Aufstand gegen 30 Jireček, Geschichte, Bd. 2, 245, 253–54; Momčilo Spremić, „Despot Stefan Branković Slepi,“ Glas CDXIV Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti (2010): 115–43, zu Stefans Brief 140–41; Jelena Erdeljan, „The Balkans and the Renaissance World,“ Izkustvovedski četenija 1 (2017): 193–208; Liviu Pilat, „Mitropolitul Maxim Brankovici, Bogdan al III-lea şi legăturile Moldovei cu Biserica sârbă,“ Analele Putnei 1 (2010): 229–38, (mit der älteren Literatur); Maxim wurde zwischen November 1507 und April 1508 von Niphon zum Metropoliten geweiht (ibid., 232).

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die Osmanen angeführt. Von seinem Schwiegersohn an den Rand gedrängt, hatte er sich 1456 ganz in die Arme Venedigs geworfen, während Skanderbeg neapolitanischer Vasall blieb. Nach dem Tod ihres Mannes hatte Pietrina die Führung der verzweigten Familie übernommen und Vorbereitungen für eine Flucht getroffen: gleich nach dem Tod Aranitis ließ sich dessen Sohn Thomas in Venedig die Familienprivilegien bestätigen (Juni 1461). Im September 1463 reiste die Witwe nach Venedig, und im Mai 1465 und im August 1466 erschienen Despina bzw. ihre Gesandten weitere Male in der Lagunenstadt. Aranitis Witwe baute Verbindungen zu führenden Patriziergeschlechtern wie den Tiepolo, Loredan und Diedo auf.31 Im Sommer 1466 schlug dann der Familie die Stunde, als Mehmed II. ihr Stammland in Mittelalbanien überrannte. Kurz zuvor hatte Despina noch den Übertritt des nordalbanischen Berisha-Stammes zu Venedig eingefädelt. Als sie mit rund zwanzig Personen in Venedig eintraf, wurde sie als Witwe eines venezianischen Gefolgsmanns und gut bekannte Edeldame fürstlich empfangen und großzügiger bewirtet als Skanderbeg; im Palazzo des Patriziers Giovanni Tiepolo wurden Geflügel und Malvasierwein aufgefahren.32 Despina begann sogleich, ihre Fäden in die große Politik zu spinnen, um für sich und ihre Kinder ein neues Leben in der italienischen Elite aufzubauen. Der Hof von Mantua, zu dessen Markgräfin Barbara Gonzaga (geborene von Brandenburg) sie eine enge Beziehung aufnahm, sollte den Zugang zur reichen Mailänder Herzogsdynastie der Sforza erleichtern, aber auch, über den Hof der Este in Ferrara, den Weg nach Rom, dem Ziel vieler Exilanten, ebnen. Despina unterhielt mit Markgräfin Barbara über Jahre hinweg einen lebhaften Briefwechsel. Geschickt bat sie bald um Hilfe für eine Reise nach Rom und Fürsprache in Mailand, bald aber drohte sie verhüllt, die Osmanen würden ihre Kinder umwerben. Diese Ankündigung bewog Markgraf Ludovico Gonzaga, an Kardinal Bessarion und Papst Paul II. zu schreiben, um sich für Despina einzusetzen. Vor Weihnachten 1468 reiste Despina unter Zurücklassung ihrer Familie nach Ferrara, wurde dort aber von der Nachricht überrascht, ihre Kinder seien nach Albanien zurückgekehrt, angeblich weil sie die Nachricht vom Tode ihrer Mutter erhalten hätten. Über den Winter 1468/69 bemühte sie sich um die Heimkehr ihrer Kinder und die Verheiratung ihrer Tochter nach Mailand. Zwei Söhne und zwei Töchter aber blieben im nunmehr osmani­ schen Albanien. 31 Schmitt, Das venezianische Albanien, 508; Valentini, Acta Albaniae Veneta Nr. 6420; 7043; Oliver Jens Schmitt, „Actes inédits concernant Venise, ses possessions albanaises et ses relations avec Skanderbeg entre 1464 et 1468,“ Turcica 31 (1999): 247–312, Nr. 13, 38, 38; Franz Babinger, „Arianiti Comneno, Schwiegervater Skanderbegs,“ Studia Albanica I (1964): 139–47; Babinger, Das Ende der Arianiten, 24–25. 32 Schmitt, Actes, Nr. 37, 38, 43.

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In Mantua hatte Despina mit ihren Forderungen den Bogen überspannt. Der Markgraf unterband eine Reise nach Mailand aus Furcht, sein mächtiger Nachbar könnte den Eindruck gewinnen, er wolle eine lästige Bittstellerin los werden; der Markgraf legte Wert auf die Feststellung, dass die Emigrantin nicht zu seinem Hofstaat gehörte. Despina drängte es indes, nach Rom zu reisen; venezianische Patrizier rieten ihr, dies nur mit möglichst großem Gefolge zu tun, um entsprechend Eindruck zu erwecken. Kurz vor Ostern 1469 traf sie am Hof der Este ein. Dort verfehlte sie nicht, vor Kaiser Friedrich III. zu treten, dem sie auch ihren Sohn (wohl Konstantin) vorstellte. Vom Kaiser erhielt sie aber nur gute Worte. Ende April 1469 erreichte sie Rom, wo sie einen gesellschaftlichen Triumph feierte: sie durfte ihren Sohn vor der Kurie vorstellen. Auf Aufforderung des Papstes gab Konstantin Araniti Proben seiner Sprachkenntnisse im Albanischen, Slawischen, Griechischen und Latein und wurde dafür von den Kardinälen gefeiert. Nach Mantua schrieb die stolze Mutter, sie habe nun Hoffnung auf Geld, doch bleibe die Mantuaner Markgräfin ihre einzige Herrin. Gegen Ende des Jahres 1469 hielt sich Despina wieder in Ferrara auf, von wo aus sie meldete, dass ganz Albanien osmanisch geworden sei und sie fürchte, dass ihre in der Heimat verbliebenen Söhne zum Islam abfallen könnten – dies, um den Besitz der Familie zu behalten. Sie plante eine Reise nach Albanien, um ihre Kinder herauszuholen, der Papst habe ihr versprochen „va e mena la tua fameia qua a Roma, e nui provederemo a tuti“. Despina legte großen Wert darauf, sich als Skanderbegs Schwiegermutter vorzustellen und unter diesem Titel für sich und ihren Sohn päpstliche Subventionen zu erhalten.33 Auch in den 1470er Jahren reiste Despina zwischen Rom, Venedig und Mantua, immer im Interesse ihrer Kinder, auf der Suche nach Subsidien und in eigenen Geschäften (sie bot an, Waren aus Dalmatien und Albanien zu besorgen). Es gelang ihr nicht, ihre Familie zusammenzuführen. Auch die Araniti teilten sich in einen Zweig, der das Integrationsangebot der Osmanen annahm, und einen, der im Abendland aufstieg: Konstantin Araniti träumte gar offenbar davon, zum Oberhaupt der Balkandiaspora in Italien zu werden. Er war an allen Höfen Europas bekannt: Despina hatte die Wege am päpstlichen Hof gebahnt und auch zu den Habsburgern bereitet (1489 ihr stellte Friedrich III. eine Urkunde aus); Kaiser Maximilian I. hätte ihn um ein Haar 33

Archivio di Stato di Mantova. Archivio Gonzaga b. 2890, l. 61, f. 41v, 64v, 65r; b. 2409 c. 673 und 674 (diese beiden Dokumente verdanke ich Claudia Märtl, München); b. 2411 (Brief vom 24.4.1469 Vorstellung im Konsistorium); b. 1228, c. 754 (italienisches Zitat); b. 289 l. 61, f. 65r; Archivio di Stato di Rona. Camerale I. vol. 1481, f. 13r, f. 20v. (40 Dukaten als Auszahlung mit der Erwähnung der Konsistoriumssitzung) (freundlicher Hinweis von Claudia Märtl).

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zum kaiserlichen Generalvikar in Italien ernannt. Begünstigt wurde Konstantin maßgeblich dadurch, dass seine Nichte von Kaiser Friedrich III. mit dem Markgrafen Bonifaz III. von Montferrat verheiratet wurde, der selbst aus dem Kaisergeschlecht der Palaiologen stammte; an diesem Hof stieg Konstantin rasch auf. Später wurde er zweimal als päpstlicher Statthalter in Fano eingesetzt. Konstantin starb 1530, sein Sohn fiel als Offizier des päpstlichen Heeres im Jahre 1551. Die Heiraten seiner zahlreichen Töchter veranschaulichen, wie sich die Araniti in die italienische Gesellschaft und die sich in Italien integrierenden Exilanten aus dem Balkan eingliederten: die Ehemänner waren Carlo III. Tocco, Enkel des serbischen Despoten Lazar Branković; Leka Dukagjin aus einer großen nordalbanischen Familie; Zanobio de’Medici, aus einem weniger wichtigen Zweig der Florentiner Herrscherfamilie; Lionello Pio di Carpi, 1530 päpstlicher Statthalter der Romagna; Rinaldo Ottoni, ein Adliger aus den Marken; Gaspare und Giorgio Trivulzio, aus mailändischem Hochadel; Juan Conte de Luna, Burghauptmann von Mailand.34 4.1 Von Byzanz nach Venedig: Anna Notara Mit der serbisch-albanischen Adelswelt und deren Verästelungen in den italienischen Hochadel, nach Ungarn und wieder zurück in die Walachei und das osmanische Reich hatte jene adlige Dame am wenigsten zu schaffen, die in der Forschung wohl am bekanntesten ist, auch wenn die Quellen zu ihr spärlicher fließen, als ihr Ruhm vermuten ließe: Anna Notara, eine der drei Töchter des letzten byzantinischen Großkanzlers Lukas Notaras, jene Frau, die als Patronin nicht nur der byzantinischen Flüchtlinge in Venedig auftrat, sondern als eine Art ungekrönte Kaiserin im Exil. Ungekrönt, denn im Gegensatz zu den beiden echten Königinnen aus Bosnien und den anderen genannten Damen, aber auch den vielen Witwen albanischer Kleinadliger, stammte Anna von einem Kaviarhändler ab und keinesfalls aus einer altehrwürdigen Herrscherfamilie. Dafür besaß sie, was anderen Damen abging: Geld, viel Geld, aus den Anlagen ihres Vaters in Venedig und Genua.35 Im Gegensatz zu anderen Damen im Exil pochte Anna, die von homines novi abstammte, im Exil besonders auf ihre orthodoxe Identität und bedrängte Venedig mit Bitten um orthodoxen Gottesdienst, was Bessarion und andere Unionisten mit scheelem Blick beobachteten. 34 Babinger, Das Ende der Arianiten, 28–30; 37–38; 86–91. 35 Das folgende stützt sich auf Thierry Ganchou, „Les tribulations vénitiennes de la Ca’ Notara (1460/1490). À la recherche du Plutarque d’Anna,“ in Manuscripta graeca et orientalia. Mélanges monastiques et patristiques en l’honneur de Paul Géhin, Hgg. André Binggeli u.a. (Leuven: Peters, 2016), 384–442, der alle früheren Arbeiten ersetzt; Matschke, „The Notaras Family“.

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Gestört wurde sie in ihrem Machtwillen nur von ihrem Bruder Jakobos, der als einziger männlicher Spross der Notaras das Gemetzel überlebt hatte, das Mehmed II. unter den Notarades angeordnet hatte. Am Sultanshof hatte er seinen Glauben wechseln müssen. Mit Hilfe des unionistischen Patriarchen Gregorios Mammas war Jakobos auf abenteuerliche Weise aus dem großherrlichen Serail entkommen. Seine Schwester denunzierte ihn in Italien als Muslim. Sie wollte die wohl gefüllten Bankkonten für sich behalten. Jakobos aber erhielt 1459 Unterstützung von Papst Pius II. und Kardinal Bessarion, und so stimmte Anna im Januar 1460 einer Teilung des Familienvermögens zu. Bald aber erlangte sie die Kontrolle über ihren Bruder, über dessen Trauma­ tisierung (Hinrichtung von Vater und Brüdern, Bekehrung zum Islam, vom Papst gestreutes Gerücht des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Mehmed II.) man nur mutmaßen kann. Jedenfalls verheiratete ihn Anna mit Zampeta, der Tochter eines moreotischen Türkenkämpfers in venezianischen Diensten, Isaak Paraspondylos Asanes, der in Waffenbruderschaft zur albanischen Familie Bokali stand, und selbst mit einer Bokali verheiratet war. Als Isaak nach der venezianischen Niederlage gegen die Osmanen an die Lagune reiste, wurde er von Anna geschnitten und vom Senat rasch nach Nauplia zurückgeschickt (1481).36 Was Anna von den anderen Damen auch unterscheidet, war ihr Versuch, eine eigene kleine Herrschaft für Flüchtlinge aufzubauen, und zwar in der Maremma, im Örtchen Montauto, auf sienesischem Gebiet. Anna und Jakobos (den sie bei Verhandlungen vorschob, um Bessarions Hilfe zu erlangen), wurden in das Bürgerrecht Sienas aufgenommen und kauften im Juli 1474 Montauto, das sich als sumpfiges Malarialoch entpuppte. Annas Versuch, ihre Macht zu territorialisieren, scheiterte; anders als die hochadligen Damen hatten die Notaras niemals eigene Ländereien besessen, weder zu Hause in Byzanz noch im Exil.37 5

Katholische und orthodoxe Exilanten im Vergleich

Was lässt sich aus dem Gesagten nun für unsere Fragestellung ableiten: Das vorosmanische balkanische Verwandtschaftsnetzwerk des balkanischen Adels wurde durch die Eroberung nicht sofort zerschlagen. Vielmehr ordnete es sich 36

Sebastian Kolditz, „Mailand und das Despotat Morea nach dem Fall von Konstantinopel,“ in Geschehenes und Geschriebenes, Hgg. Sebastian Kolditz und Ralf C. Müller (Leipzig: Eudora, 2005), 367–407, hier 391. 37 Ganchou, „Tribulations,“ 395–96.

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neu. Dass gerade das bereits vor 1459 mit dem Haus Osman eng verwobene dynastische Geflecht der Branković am deutlichsten Tendenzen zu einer Rück­ kehr in den weiteren orthodoxen, nunmehr im politischen Sinne osmanisch überwölbten Raum zeigte, darf kaum erstaunen. Die Orthodoxie war in dieser Dynastie bei allen Verbindungen nach Westen deutlich ausgeprägt. Den Branković gelang der Weg zurück, in ein serbisch geprägtes Südungarn, ihnen gelang auch der Weg weiter in die neue orthodoxe Welt an der unteren Donau, die Walachei und die Moldau. Einen anderen Weg ging der katholische Adel, dessen Frontstellung gegen die Osmanen schon vor der Katastrophe viel entschiedener gewesen war als die schwankende Haltung der Orthodoxen; hinzu kamen unionsfreundliche und eindeutig antiosmanische Fürsten wie Thomas Palaiologos. Für sie gab es nur einen Weg zurück mit Waffengewalt. Thomas wurden dabei bald die Grenzen aufgezeigt. Mit Verweis auf sein früheres politisches Scheitern verhinderte Venedig, dass der Despot aktiv in den venezianisch-osmanischen Krieg eingriff, der 1463 ausbrach.38 Andere Herren waren zum Zeitpunkt der Flucht zu jung, als dass sie sofort hätten zurückschlagen können. Möglich war dies ohnehin nur dann, wenn das Aufnahmeland gegen die Osmanen Krieg führte. Die vielen albanischen Adligen in Neapel mussten stillhalten, solange Neapel unter der Hand die Osmanen in ihrem Krieg gegen Venedig begünstigte. Erst als die Osmanen sich 1480 gegen Otranto wandten, durften junge adlige Exilanten im Königreich Neapel aktiv werden. Skanderbegs Sohn Ivan II. brachte am Balkan aber keinen Fuß mehr auf den Boden. Ein Rückkehrfieber erfasste nach Mehmeds II. Tod (1481) jene Adligen, die nach der venezianischen Niederlage aus Montenegro und Nordalbanien (1479) geflohen waren. Zwar erlangten die Crnojević und Dukagjin ihre alte Machtstellung wieder, doch um den Preis der Unterwerfung unter die Osmanen. Die Herren machten eine zweite für Exilanten typische Erfahrung  – sie hatten den Bezug zur alten Heimat verloren und die Lage vor Ort, vor allem die Loyalitäten der Bevölkerung, falsch eingeschätzt.39 38 Setton, Papacy, Bd. 2, 268; Zakythinos, Despotat, 288–89; Archivio di Stato di Venezia. Senato Secreta 22, f. 14r „ex diversis respectibus suspiciamus quod idem despotus habeat animum conferendi se ad expeditionem istam … que res magna scandala et inconvenientia producere posset“: Venedig bat den Papst ausdrücklich darum, den Despoten an der Abreise zu hindern. 39 Jireček, Geschichte, Bd.2, 235–36; Istorija Crne Gore, Bd. 3: Od početka XVI do kraja XVIII vijeka; Teil 1 (Titograd: Redakcija za istoriju Crne Gore, 1975), 12–33; Schmitt, Skanderbeg, 297–98; Konstantinos Giakoumis, „The Ottoman Campaign to Otranto and Apulia (1480– 1481),“ Epeirotika Chronika 38 (2004): 277–309, hier 292–94; B. Đurđev, Turska vlast u Crnoj Gori u XVI i XVII veku (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1953).

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Nach 1481 wurden zwar im Exil immer wieder Pläne zu Landeunternehmen geschmiedet, so im Umfeld des italienischen Feldzugs Karls VIII. oder des venezianisch-osmanischen Krieges von 1499–1503, doch war zum einen die osmanische Militärmacht im westlichen Balkan längst viel zu stark, als dass solche Unternehmungen Aussicht auf Erfolg gehabt hätten, zum anderen waren die Diasporapolitiker bald unfähig, bald unwillig – Andreas Palaiologos, der mit einer römischen Prostituierten verheiratete Titulardespot der Morea, bot im November 1494 seine angeblichen Rechte auf die Kaiserreiche Byzanz, Trapezunt und gleich auch noch das serbische Despotat gegen eine Leibrente dem französischen Monarchen an. Der Vertrag erwies sich als ungültig, und Andreas übertrug seine Ansprüche 1502 auf das spanische Königspaar.40 Das Beispiel des Andreas Palaiologos verweist auf das Phänomen, dass spätestens die zweite Generation der Exilanten kaum mehr an Rückkehr und Wiedererlangung der alten Herrlichkeit dachte, sondern sich mit der gefestigten Macht der Osmanen abfand. Viele hatten in den süditalienischen Adel eingeheiratet und dienten nun in habsburgischen Heeren auf den Kriegsschauplätzen Europas. Jene orthodoxen, ganz überwiegend albanischen Kleinadligen, die nach Venedig gegangen waren, kämpften als Stradioti gegen die Feinde Venedigs in Oberitalien.41 5.1 Exil an der Grenze zur alten Heimat: serbische Adlige in Südungarn Anders gestaltete sich die Lage der Serben in Südungarn: sie verfügten über ihre Despoten, ihre Kirchen, eine feste und große, über Jahrzehnte gewachsene, von der ungarischen Krone geförderte Gemeinschaft von Zuwanderern in südungarischen Komitaten. Die von Matthias Corvinus unterstützten Despoten Vuk und Georg, die schon durch ihren Titel die Kontinuität des 1459 eroberten Despotats zum Ausdruck brachten, beteiligten sich an den ungarischen Kriegen gegen den osmanischen Balkan; was die albanischen Stradioti für Venedig waren die serbischen Husaren in Ungarn, was albanische und griechische Seeleute in der venezianischen Flotte, waren die Nasadisten der ungarischen Donaustreitmacht  – um 1475 sollen rund 15.000 Serben für Ungarn gedient haben, geführt von Adelsfamilien wie den Jakšić und Belmužević. Dabei 40 Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, Bd. 2, 461–63. 41 Franz Babinger, „Albanische Stradioten im Dienste Venedig,“ in Aufsätze und Abhand­ lungen zur Geschichte Südosteuropas und der Levante, Bd. 3, Franz Babinger (München: Trofenik, 1976), 266–76; Stathis Birtachas, „Stradioti, Cappeletti, Compagnie or Milizie Greche: “Greek” Mounted and Foot Mercenary Companies in the Venetian State (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries),“ in A Military History of the Mediterranean Sea, Hgg. Georgios Theotokis und Aysel Yıldız (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 325–46; viel Material auch in Petta, Despoti, 61–100 zur Familie Castriota-Granai.

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drangen serbische Husaren wiederholt tief in den osmanischen Balkan vor, freilich ohne die Kräfteverhältnisse grundlegend ändern zu können. Auch an der Donau bemerkenswert sind aber im Wortsinne fließende Grenzen: denn viele serbische Türkenkämpfer hatten zuerst im osmanischen Heer gedient; erst als sie dort ihren Aufstieg behindert sahen, schlugen sie sich auf die Seite Ungarns.42 Dies zeigt, wie sehr gerade Orthodoxe sich mit keiner der beiden Welten, der katholischen und der osmanischen, wirklich anfreunden konnten. Dies galt für die serbischen Reiter und Adligen mit ihrem Hin- und Herschwanken, aber auch für Anna Notara in Venedig, die von ihrem orthodoxen Gottesdienst träumte. 5.2 Kleriker im Exil Im katholischen Europa aufgehoben fühlten sich Katholiken und Unierte. Ihnen ging es weniger um Heimkehr wie vielen Orthodoxen (die meisten Griechen im Abendland waren zumeist ohnehin nur auf der Suche nach Lösegeld zum Freikauf von Gefangenen und hatten keine Absicht, sich in der katholischen Fremde niederzulassen43), sondern um die Bekämpfung der Osmanen. Das galt für jenen Mann, der als Zentralfigur der Balkandiaspora schon an mehreren Stellen erschienen ist: Kardinal Bessarion, einen der wichtigsten politischen Schriftsteller seiner Zeit, zugleich Schutzpatron der Exilanten. Bei ihm liefen viele Fäden zusammen. Der zweite griechische Kardinal, Isidor von Kiew, hingegen war nach 1453 ein gebrochener Mann, der nicht wie Bessarion unermüdlich zum Kreuzzug trieb.44 42 Jireček, Geschichte, Bd.2, 242; Krstić, „Which realm will you opt for?,“ 150–53. 43 Harris, Greek emigres, 21–22. 44 Aus der verstreuten Literatur zu Kardinal Isidor von Kiew Peter Schreiner, „Ein byzantinischer Gelehrter zwischen Ost und West. Zur Biographie des Isidor von Kiew und seinem Besuch in Lviv (1436),“ Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grotta­ferrata 3,3 (2006): 215–28; Peter Schreiner, „Geträumte Topographie. Isidor von Kiew, ein unbekanntes Kloster und die Justinianssäule zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts im Vat.Gr. 1891,“ Travaux et Mémoires 14 (2002): 553–60; zu Kardinal Bessarion s. Claudia Märtl/Christian Kaiser/Thomas Ricklin, Hgg., „Inter Graecos latinissimus, inter Latinos graecissimus“. Bessarion zwischen den Kreuzzügen (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013) sowie Panagiotis Kourniakos, „Die Kreuzzugslegation Kardinal Bessarions in Venedig (1463–1464),“ (unveröff. Diss., Universität zu Köln, 2009). Schriftstellerisch weniger prominente unionistische Kirchenfürsten werden demgegenüber gerne übersehen, s. Saint-Guillain, „La carrière d’un prêtre unioniste“: Sabas, Bischof der Thermopylen, zunächst als unionistischer Missionar in Griechenland, muss sich nach Venedig zurückziehen, wo er Ende 1451 sein Testament schreibt; am 7.5. 1452 übertrug ihm Papst Nikolaus V. die Kirche der Krajina, jenes Gebiet am Westufer des Skutarisees, wo die Union umgesetzt worden war; vgl. dazu Sima Ćirković, „Archiepiscopus Craynensis,“ Istorijski zapisi 73,1–2 (2000): 47–54.

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Bessarion trug viel bei zur zumindest vorübergehenden Gruppenbildung der Exilanten. Katharina von Bosnien, Anna Notara und Andronika Kastriota scharten ebenfalls Gefolgsleute um sich, in Ungarn übernahm Angelina AranitiBranković eine vergleichbare Rolle. Zu unterstreichen aber ist, dass die politische Diaspora keinen Zugriff hatte auf die zahlenstarken Flüchtlingsund Einwanderergemeinschaften. Gerade Venedig unterband dies rigoros, zu groß war die Furcht vor einem Kontrollverlust.45 Die adligen Damen und Herren hatten kein Fußvolk, keinen Resonanzboden ihres Machtanspruchs. Dies erklärt die Bereitschaft zur Rückkehr oder zur vollständigen Integration in den europäischen Adel oder das venezianische Patriziat (so die venedigtreuen Kosača). Nirgends war die Diaspora so stark und politisch wirksam wie bei den Serben im Königreich Ungarn: nur dort kam der alte Adel in Verbindung mit anderen geflohenen Bevölkerungsteilen. Der Raum spielte dabei eine große Rolle, das Migrationskontinuum vom inneren Balkan über die Donau hinweg in die pannonische Ebene. Zu einem Ende kam diese antiosmanische serbische Diasporawelt mit dem Zusammenbruch des Königreichs Ungarn (1526). Diese Diasporabildung der ungarischen Serben erfolgte durch Entwicklun­ gen, die auf die frühneuzeitlichen Konfessionationen hindeuten, nämlich eine eigene konfessionelle Kultur, eine ausdifferenzierte Gesellschaft, eine eigene Elite.46 Dem gegenüberzustellen ist die Gruppenbildung der katholischen Albaner in Venedig: kaum eine andere Einwanderer- und Flüchtlingsgruppe verfügte über eine so wirkmächtige Publizistik wie die katholischen Albaner. Die Skanderbegbiographien der Priester Marinus Barletius und Demetrio Franco wurden in ganz Europa gelesen und haben über Jahrhunderte das Balkanbild des Abendlands geprägt. Zugleich unterstrichen sie das Recht der Flüchtlinge auf Aufnahme. Das Außenrelief der albanischen Scuola in Venedig zeigt die von Osmanen belagerte Festung Shkodra. In Süditalien erinnerten die Zuwanderer in ihren Volksbräuchen an Skanderbeg. Sie wollten den Italienern zeigen, dass sie nicht mit leeren Händen kamen, sondern Zuwendung und Förderung verdienten, weil sie Italiens Vormauer verteidigt hatten.47 45 Orlando, Migrazioni mediterranee, 76–78, 89–98. 46 Emanuel Turczynski, Konfession und Nation. Zur Frühgeschichte der serbischen und rumänischen Nationsbildung (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1976). 47 Francisc Pall, „Marino Barlezio. Uno storico umanista,“ Mélanges d’histoire générale 2 (1938): 135–315; Lucia Nadin, Marino Barlezio tra Venezia, Padova, Vicenza. Paesaggi Veneto-scutarini. Shejzât s.n. 2016/1–2, 46–60; Francisc Pall, „Di nuovo sulle biografie scanderbegiane del XVI secolo,“ Revue des études du sud-est européen 9,1 (1971): 91–106; Agostino Pertusi, Martino Segono di Novo Brdo vescovo di Dulcigno. Un umanista serbo-dalmata del tardo Quattrocento (Rom: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1981); Oliver Jens Schmitt, „Paul Angelus, Erzbischof von Durazzo, und seine Bedeutung

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Schluss

Die politische Balkandiaspora entstand, um einen theoretischen Gedanken der Einleitung wiederaufzugreifen, tatsächlich in der Praxis. Eine bereits bestehende Adelswelt hatte sich nach Westen und Norden verschoben. Wie andere Diasporen hatte auch die politische Diaspora des spätmittelalterlichen Balkans die Fäden in die alte Heimat nicht abreißen lassen. Sprachlich und konfessionell war sie vielgestaltig, und der tiefe mentale Graben zwischen Katholiken und Orthodoxen verschwand durch das Erlebnis von osmanischer Eroberung und Flucht nicht. Die Flucht führte beide nicht zusammen. In der Diaspora verschwanden alte Konflikte, die den Zusammenbruch der christlichen Balkanwelt so erleichtert hatten, nicht. Eine politische Balkandiaspora gab es in dem Sinne, wie es vor der osmanischen Eroberung einen durch Verwandtschaft gekennzeichneten Balkanadel gegeben hatte. Wie jener war diese zu keinem Zeitpunkt eine Interessens- oder gar Solidargemeinschaft. Sehr wohl aber bildet sie eine wissenschaftliche sinnvolle Betrachtungseinheit: diese lehrt, das Verhalten der politischen Eliten des Balkans in einem Zeitalter zu verstehen, in dem sichtbare Eigenstaatlichkeit durch die osmanische Eroberung zerstört und alte Spielräume zwischen Osmanen, Ungarn und Venezianern beseitigt worden waren. Nicht beseitigt aber wurde die alterprobte Fähigkeit der regionalen Adelsfamilien, sich anzupassen und so viel wie möglich ihres alten Einflusses zu bewahren, ob in einer neuen Heimat, am Rande der alten Heimat oder im neuen osmanischen Machtgefüge.48 Bibliographie

b. 1228. b. 2409. b. 2411. b. 2890.

Quellen Archivio di Stato di Mantova Archivio Gonzaga

für den Türkenkampf Skanderbegs,“ Thesaurismata 30 (2000): 127–61; Nadin, Migrazioni, 67–100. 48 Für die frühe Neuzeit s. Noel Malcolm, Agents of Empire. Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth Century Mediterranean World (London: Allen Lane, 2015).

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Archivio di Stato di Roma



Archivio di Stato di Venezia

Camerale I. vol. 1481.

Senato Secreta 22.



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Kutmanes, Sotires. „Ευβοιείς στη Βενετία, 15ος–17ος αι.“ In Βενετία – Εύβοια, Hgg. Chryssa Maltezu und Christina Papakosta, 203–16. Venedig: Istituto ellenico di studi bizantini e postbizantini, 2006. Lowry, Heath W. Hersekzâde Ahmed Paşa: An Ottoman Statesman’s career and pious Endowments. Istanbul: Bahçeşehir University Press, 2001. Malcolm, Noel. Agents of Empire. Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth Century Mediterranean World. London: Allen Lane, 2015. Maltezou, Chryssa. „Profughi greci a Venezia dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli: tra mito e realtà.“ In L’Europa dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli, 29 maggio 1453, 355–74. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sul basso medioevo, 2008. Marinescu, Constantin. La politique orientale d’Alfonse V d’Aragon, roi de Naples (1416–1458). Barcelona: Institut d’estudis catalans, 1994. Marinescu, Constantin. „Alphonse V, roi d’Aragon et de Naples, et l’Albanie de Skanderbeg.“ Mélanges de l’École Roumaine en France 1 (1923): 1–135. Märtl, Claudia, Christian Kaiser, and Thomas Ricklin, Hgg. „Inter Graecos latinissimus, inter Latinos graecissimus.“ Bessarion zwischen den Kreuzzügen. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013. Matschke, Klaus-Peter. „The Notaras Family and its Italian Connections.“ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 59–72. Miller, William. „Balkan exiles in Rome.“ In Essays on the Latin Orient, Hg. William Miller, 497–515. Reprint Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1921. Mulić, Jusuf. „Društveni i ekonomski položaj Vlaha i Arbanasa u Bosni pod osmanskom vlašću,“ Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju 51 (2001): 111–46. Nadin, Lucia. „Marino Barlezio tra Venezia, Padova, Vicenza. Paesaggi Veneto-scutarini,“ Shejzât s.n. (2016/1–2): 46–60. Nadin, Lucia. Shqipëria e rigjetur. Zbulim gjurmësh shqiptare në kulturën dhe artin e Venetos në shek. XVI. Albania ritrovata. Recuperi di presenze albanesi nella cultura e nell’arte del cinquecento veneto. Tirana: Onufri, 2012. Nadin, Lucia. Migrazioni e integrazione. Il caso degli albanesi a Venezia (1479–1552). Rom: Bulzoni, 2008. Orlando, Ermanno. Strutture e pratiche di una comunità urbana: Spalato 1420–1479. Wien/Venedig: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti/Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2019. Orlando, Ermanno. Migrazioni mediterranee. Migranti, minoranze e matrimoni a Venezia nel basso medioevo. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014. Pall, Francisc. „Di nuovo sulle biografie scanderbegiane del XVI secolo.“ Revue des études du sud-est européen 9,1 (1971): 91–106. Pall, Francisc. „I rapporti italo- albanesi intorno alla metà del secolo XV.“ Archivio storico delle provincie napoletane serià III. 4 (1965): 123–226.

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24 Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des Ahdname von Fojnica Michael Ursinus Unsere verehrte, liebe Jubilarin wird mir nachsehen, dass ich ihr hiermit einen Beitrag widme, dessen ersten Teil sie bereits gesehen hat. Das war indes vor Auflösung des Rätsels. Jetzt, in erweiterter Form, stellt sich vieles in anderem Licht dar, und ich bin zuversichtlich, dass ihr die Lektüre des Ganzen nicht langweilig wird. Seit Jahrzehnten nämlich steht das berühmte Ahdname von Fojnica im Zentrum einer weit über den Kreis der Gelehrten hinausgehenden Diskussion.1 Für die einen ist das Ahdname Ausdruck islamischer Toleranz gegenüber Christen im „Haus des Islam“ (darü l-islam) generell, für die anderen Ausdruck franziskanischer Privilegierung gegenüber anderen christlichen Untertanen. Dabei ist die Authentizität des im Franziskanerkloster von Fojnica aufbewahrten Sultansbefehls umstritten – schon früh wurde nämlich bemerkt, dass der Text zwar in türkischer Sprache verfasst, die Datumsangabe hingegen nach dem christlichen Kalender erfolgt ist, und zwar unter Nennung von Tag und Monat, jedoch unter Auslassung des Abfassungsjahres, was für die osmanische Kanzleipraxis eher ungewöhnlich ist. Auch konnte man feststellen, dass im Text typische Abschreibfehler vorkommen, die der sultanischen Kanzlei kaum unterlaufen sein dürften. Schließlich ließ die Wiedergabe des sultanischen Handzeichens, der Tughra, Zweifel an seiner Echtheit aufkommen. Doch auch gegen die Annahme, es handele sich nicht um das Original, sondern um eine 1 Der Terminus „Ahdname“, zusammengesetzt aus dem arabischen Wort für „Verpflichtung“, „Pakt“, „Vertrag“ (ʿahd) und der persischen Wendung für „Schriftstück“, „Brief“ (nāme), bezeichnet in der osmanischen Kanzleipraxis herrscherliche Gnadenerweise gegenüber verschiedenen sozio-politischen Gruppen wie Mönchen, Stämmen, Stadtgemeinden oder Staaten. Daher werden als „Ahdname“ auch die zwischenstaatlichen diplomatischen „Verträge“ verstanden, die in der westlichen Historiographie meist als „Kapitulationen“ (von den „Kapiteln“ solcher Vertragstexte abgeleitet) bezeichnet werden: Güneş Işıksel, Jacques Thobie, „Capitulations,“ in Dictionnaire de l’Empire Ottoman. Avec la collaboration d’Elisabetta Borromeo, eds. François Georgeon et al. (Paris: Fayard, 2015), 220–23. Allgemein und umfas­ send zu „Ahdname“ im Sinne von Kapitulationen: Hans Theunissen, „Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The ʿAhd-names. The historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Commercial Instruments together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents,“ The Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies 1,2 (1998): 1–698. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_026

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(spätere) wortgetreue Abschrift des ursprünglichen Ahdname, ließen sich berechtigte Bedenken anmelden, fehlte doch jegliche Beglaubigung durch einen osmanischen Kadi oder dessen Stellvertreter, was ordnungsgemäß ausgeführte Abschriften sonst auszuzeichnen pflegt – zusammen mit der Formel, dass die Kopie (arab. sura) eine getreue Abschrift des Original (arab. asl) darstelle. Einzig der Wortlaut des Ahdname von Fojnica galt in der Forschung gemeinhin als authentisch.2 Der Ferman (osman. hüküm) vom Jahre 1483 enthält die früheste Nachricht von der Bestätigung und Bekräftigung des ursprünglich durch Sultan Mehmed II. Fatih zugunsten der in den Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Zvornik wohnhaften Mönche ausgestellten „edlen Vertragsschreibens“ (ahdname-i şerif) durch dessen Sohn und Nachfolger Bayezids II. (reg. 1481–1512). Auch wenn hierbei der Ausstellungsort (in den meisten späteren Fassungen des Ahdname üblicherweise als „Feldlager von Milodraž“ angegeben) nirgendwo zur Sprache kommt,3 ebensowenig wie das Kloster Fojnica, das noch aus vorosmanischer Zeit stammende, nahegelegenene Franziskanerkloster, so können wir dennoch davon ausgehen, dass bei dieser Erwähnung das Ahdname von Fojnica gemeint ist, das der Überlieferung nach seitens des Eroberers den Mönchen im „Feld von Milodraž“ ausgehändigt wurde – im Unterschied zu jener Schutzgarantie, die von Sultan Mehmed II. wohl bereits im Frühjahr/Sommer des Jahres 1462 den Franziskanermönchen von Srebrenica gewährt worden war.4 2 Zur Frage nach der Authentizität des Ahdname von Fojnica haben umfassend zuletzt gearbeitet: Srećko Džaja, „Fojnička Ahdnama u zrcalu paleografije, pravne povijesti i politike: Kontekstualizacija Ahdname bosanskih franjevaca,“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 31 (Sarajevo, 2009): 103–28 sowie Sándor Papp, „Gesetzliche Garantien für die christlichen Gemeinden im Osmanischen Reich. Überlegungen zur Vertragsurkunde der Franziskaner in Bosnien im Kontext der Diskussion um das Millet-System,“ in Osmanischer Orient und Ostmitteleuropa. Perzeptionen und Interaktionen in den Grenzzonen zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Robert Born und Andreas Puth [Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 48] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014), 301–320. Vgl. weiterhin Vančo Boškov, „Pitanje avtentičnost Fojničke ahd-name Mehmeda II iz 1463. Godine,“ Godišnjak društva istoričara Bosne i Hercegovine XXVIII–XXX (1979), 87–105, mit Hinweisen auf bereits früher geäußerte Zweifel an der Echtheit des in Fojnica aufbewahrten Stückes. Zum kürzlich erfolgten Versuch, die Frage nach der Authentizität des Ahdname von Fojnica durch eine Altersbestimmung des Papiers, auf das es geschrieben wurde, zu klären, vgl. Vjeran Kursar, „Monks in Kaftâns. Bosnian Franciscans, Robes of Honour, and Ottoman Sumptuary Laws,“ in Life on the Ottoman Border. Essays in Honour of Nenad Moačanin, ed. Vjeran Kursar (Zagreb, 2022), 143–66; hier: 144. 3 Michael Ursinus, „Dževdet-paša i Fojnička ahdnama,“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 49 (2018): 131–140. 4 Hazim Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti u Bosni iz druge polovine XV stoljeća“ (Sarajevo, 1949). Poseban otisak iz „Istorisko pravnog zbornika,“ sv. 2, 177–208 + 11 Tafeln; hier: 199–200, Tafel IX. Auf die Bedeutung dieser Urkunde machte zuerst aufmerksam Vančo Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 91. Zuletzt hierzu Michael Ursinus, „Jedno osmansko jamstvo zaštite u korist franjevačkih redovnika Srebrenice iz godine 1462,“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 47 (2017): 195–204.

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Durch diese Nachricht von der persönlichen Entgegennahme des „edlen Vertragsschreibens“ durch Sultan Bayezid II. zum Zwecke der Bestätigung (eine übliche osmanische Praxis nach der Thronbesteigung eines neuen Herrschers) kommt dem Hüküm von 1483 eine zentrale Bedeutung zu. Es belegt nämlich in aller Deutlichkeit, dass das ursprünglich wohl im Frühjahr/Sommer 14635 ausgestellte Ahdname von Fojnica zwanzig Jahre später, im Jahre 1483, noch existent war, als es im Feldlager Bayezids II. durch diesen bestätigt und bekräftigt wurde, sodass den Empfängern daraufhin das im Folgenden näher zu betrachtende, die Gültigkeit des väterlichen Ahdname auch für die Regierungszeit des Sohnes bekräftigende Befehlsschreiben ausgestellt werden konnte. Während die in Kraljeva Sutjeska aufbewahrte Abschrift von Hazim Šabanović bereits 1949 auf vorbildliche Weise im arabischen Typendruck ediert und mit einer serbokroatischen Übersetzung versehen wurde, soll im Folgenden die in Fojnica verwahrte spätere (und im Unterschied zu Kraljeva Sutjeska unbeglaubigte) Abschrift des Fermans erstmals der Öffentlichkeit in Transkription und Übersetzung vorgelegt werden, um die große textliche Übereinstimmung beider Fassungen darzulegen: Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1212: Abschrift (unbeglaubigt, aus dem 19. Jahrhundert stammend) des Hüküm Sultan Bayezids II., datiert 29. Mai–7. Juni 1483: Transkription: Hüve (1) Mefāḫirü l-ümerāʾi l-kirām merāciʿü l-küberāʾi l-fiḥām ẕū l-ḳadri ve-l-iḥtirām Bosna ve Hersek ve İzvorniḳ sancaḳları begleri (2) dāme ʿizzühüm ve ẕikr olınan sancaḳlar ḳāḍīleri dāme fażlühüm tevḳīʿ-i refīʿ-i hümāyūn vāṣıl olıcaḳ maʿlūm ola ki bundan evvel (3) babam Sulṭān Meḥmed ḫān ṭābes̱erāhü ruhbānlar ḥaḳḳında ve sākin oldıḳlar kenisalar ve kendülerinüñ nefsleri ḥaḳḳında (4) yemīn-i muġallaẓa ile ʿahdnāme-i şerīf virüp mezīd-i ʿināyet idüp buyur­ mışdur ki ruhbānlara ve kenisalarına (5) kimesne māniʿ ve müzāḥim olmıyup iḥtiyāṭsız memleketümde duralar ve ḳaçup gidenlere emn ü amān ola ki gelüp (6) bizüm ḥāṣṣa memleketümüzde ḫavfsız sākin olup kenisalarında mütemek­ kin olup ve yüce ḥażretümden ve vezīrlerümden (7) ve ḳullarumdan ve reʿāyālarumdan ve cümle memleketüm ḥalḳından kimesne mezbūrlara daḫl ve taʿarruż idüp incitmiyeler kendülerine (8) ve cānlarına ve māllarına ve kenisalarına ve yabandan daḫi ḥāṣṣa memle­ ketüme adam getürlerse cāʾiz ola deyü ḥükm-i şerīfde 5 Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti,“ 205.

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(9) yemīn ile ʿahdnāme virilüp getürüp pāye-i serīr-i aʿlāma ʿarż itdüklerinde benüm daḫi ʿizz-i ḥużūrumda maḳbūl (10) olup ben-daḫi babam merḥūm yemīni ile yemīn idüp ve ʿahd olınup bu ḥükm-i şerīfi ellerine virdüm-ki (11) min baʿd daḫi aṣlā bir ferd muḫālefet itmiyeler mādām-ki bunlar benüm ḥiẕmetüme ve emrüme muṭīʿ olup ʿiṣyān (12) itmiyeler kimesne bunlara bi-vech daḫl ve taʿarruż itmiyeler kimesne māniʿ ve müzāḥim olmıyalar eslemiyenleri (13) siz ki sancaḳbegleri-siz ve siz ki ḳāḍīler-siz emrümi icrā itdirüp bunları kimesneye incitdürmiyüp (14) daḫl idenlerüñ ḥaḳḳından gelüp ʿinād idenleri ʿarż idesiz şöyle bilesiz ve baʿde n-naẓar bu hükmi şerīfi (15) ellerinde ibḳā idüp ʿalāmet-i şerīfe iʿtimād ḳılasız taḥrīren evāḫir aḫeri r-rebīʿīn (?) sene s̱emān ve s̱emānīn (16) ve s̱emānemiʾe (17) bi-yurt (18) Çırpan Übersetzung: Er! [Anrufung Gottes] Stolz der edlen Emire, Zuflucht der stolzen Großen, Besitzer von Macht und Ehre, Sandschakbeys von Bosna, Hersek und Zvornik (möge ihre Erhabenheit andauern!), und Kadis der genannten Sandschaks (möge ihre Tugend währen!)  – bei Ankunft des erhabenen großherrlichen Befehls sei kund, dass vor einiger Zeit mein Vater Sultan Mehmed Han (möge [Gott] ihm die Erde leicht machen!) zugunsten der Mönche, der Kirchen [oder Klöster], in denen sie leben, sowie zugunsten ihrer eigenen Seelen mit heftigem Schwur ein edles Ahdname erließ und ihnen [damit] höchste Gunst erwies [indem] er befahl, dass niemand die Erwähnten und ihre Klöster behindern und bedrängen darf. Ohne Furcht sollen sie in meinem Herrschaftsgebiet wohnen können, und [selbst denen,] die [das Land] verlassen haben und zurückkommen, soll Sicherheit und Schutz zuteil werden, sodass, wenn sie hierher kommen [um] sich ohne Angst in unserem eigenen Herrschaftsgebiet anzusiedeln, sie sich in ihren Klöstern niederlassen sollen. Niemand, [weder] von [seiten] meiner erhabenen Majestät, [noch] von meinen Wesiren, meinen Dienstmannen, meinen steuerpflichtigen Untertanen und der gesamten Bevölkerung meines Herrschaftsgebiets darf sich in die [Angelegenheiten der] Erwähnten einmischen und sie tyrannisieren, noch sie verletzen, [weder bezüglich] ihrer Person, [noch] ihres Lebens, ihres Besitzes oder ihrer Klöster; und wenn Leute aus der Fremde in unser eigenes Herrschaftsgebiet

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kommen sollten, so ist dies erlaubt. Mit diesen Worten und mit einem Schwur im edlen Befehlsschreiben wurde ein Ahdname erteilt, [das die Mönche jetzt] hergebracht haben und das, als sie es dem Fuße des höchsten Thrones darreichten, auch in meiner erhabenen Gegenwart [wohlwollend] angenommen wurde. Auch ich (ben dahi) legte mittels des Schwures meines Vaters (babam merhûm yemini ile) einen Schwur ab (yemin edüp), [woraufhin] es zugesichert (ahd olınub) wurde, und ich habe das edle Befehlsschreiben ihnen ausgehändigt, damit künftig gar niemand [ihnen feindlich] entgegentreten möge – solange sie mir zu Diensten sind, meinem Befehl Gehorsam leisten und sich nicht auflehnen. Niemand darf sich grundlos [in ihre Angelegenheiten] einmischen und sie tyrannisieren. Niemand darf sie behindern und bedrängen. [Bezüglich] derjenigen, die nicht hören [wollen], habt ihr, die ihr die Sandschakbeys und ihr, die ihr die Kadis seid, meinen Befehl auszuführen und dafür zu sorgen, dass niemand jene [die Mönche] quält, und diejenigen, die sich [in ihre Angelegenheiten] einmischen, sollt ihr ihrer [gerechten] Strafe zuführen und diejenigen, die Widerstand leisten, sollt ihr melden. Dies sollt ihr wissen! Nach Prüfung sollt ihr dieses edle Befehlsschreiben in ihren Händen belassen. Dem edlen Zeichen sollt ihr Vertrauen schenken! Geschrieben im letzten der Rebiʾiyîn im Jahre achthunderachtundachzig im Feldlager von Çırpan. Kommentar: Im Unterschied zu späteren Bestätigungsurkunden ist hier nirgendwo vom Begriff ‚tecdid‘ (Bestätigung, Bekräftigung, Erneuerung) die Rede; es wird lediglich davon gesprochen, der Gnadenerweis sei dem Sultan persönlich vorgelegt worden, und zwar seitens „der [in den Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Zvornik lebenden] Mönche“. Die Bekräftigung der Gültigkeit des von seinem Vater Sultan Mehmed II. (wohl im Frühjahr/Sommer 1463) gewährten Ahdname auch während seiner eigenen Regierungszeit wird durch die Formulierung im Hüküm Bayezids II. gestützt, dieser sei „auch in meiner erhabenen Gegenwart [wohlwollend] angenommen“ worden. Vor allem aber lässt die Bekräftigung des väterlichen Schwures durch den Sohn keinen Zweifel daran, dass letzterer das Schreiben des Vaters vollumfänglich in seiner Gültigkeit bestätigt. Tatsächlich liefert der Wortlaut einen Hinweis darauf, dass Bayezid II. 1483 den Schwur seines Vaters nicht nur bestätigt, sondern gar wiederholt. Wie anders ist sonst die Textstelle zu verstehen, wo der Aussteller (Bayezid II.) in der ersten Person Singular formuliert: „Auch ich (ben dahi) legte mittels des Schwures meines Vaters (babam merhûm yemini ile) einen Schwur ab (yemin edüp)“. Tatsächlich hatte das vorliegende Hüküm zuvor betont, das von Mehmed dem Eroberer gewährte Ahdname sei mit einem „heftigen Schwur“ einhergegangen.

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Dieser wiederholte Schwur Bayezids II. hat meines Wissens die Aufmerksamkeit der Forschung noch nicht auf sich gezogen. Ein solcher wiederholter Schwur scheint im Widerspruch zur Feststellung Vančo Boškovs zu stehen, wonach jedes Ahdname über einen Schwur verfügt, ein per tecdid bestätigtes Ahdname jedoch keinen solchen aufweist.6 So betrachtet hätten wir es im Falle des Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 nicht mit einer bloßen Bestätigung (tecdid) eines Ahdnames zu tun, sondern mit einem Ahdname eigener Gültigkeit.7 Dagegen sprechen jedoch der Kontext sowie die oben erwähnten Formulierungen des Hüküm von 1483 bezüglich der Vorlage und wohlwollenden Akzeptanz des Ahdname Mehmeds des Eroberers im Feldlager Bayezids II., was in der Sache dem Vorgang des Tecdid entspricht, auch wenn dieser Terminus hierbei nicht gebraucht wird. Wie aber ist dieser wiederholte Schwur dann zu erklären? Der Text bietet hierzu vielleicht einen Anhaltspunkt: Hier heißt es, Bayezid hätte sein Gelübde „mittels“ des Schwures seines Vaters abgelegt. Dies könnte bedeuten, dass er, direkt an den väterlichen Schwur anknüpfend, diesen auf den bestätigenden Ferman gewissermaßen „überträgt“. Sollte diese Deutung nicht zutreffen, und ließe sich keine überzeugende Erklärung anderer Art finden, wären wir allerdings genötigt, die diesbezügliche Lehrmeinung zu relativieren und einmal mehr davon auszugehen, dass die osmanische Kanzleipraxis des 15. Jahrhunderts noch nicht in vollem Umfang „etabliert“ war und daher „Ausnahmen“ zuließ. – Wie dem auch sei, wir gehen davon aus, dass es sich beim Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 (lediglich) um ein Befehlsschreiben zur Bestätigung (tecdid) eines voraufgegangenen, zwanzig Jahre früher gewährten Ahdname handelt. Der Zeitpunkt der Bestätigung, etwa zwei Jahre nach Regierungsantritt des neuen Sultans, entspricht dem üblichen Ablauf von Tecdid-Maßnahmen. Ein solcher Tecdid-Ferman, so Boškov, zeichne sich nun dadurch aus, dass üblicherweise im Ferman [nur] die wichtigsten Anordnungen [des Ahdname, M.U.] aufgeführt werden. Wir sagen die wichtigsten, denn in solcherlei Dokumenten, in denen Privilegien bestätigt werden, die von Seiten der vorangehenden oder früherer Herrscher erteilt wurden, hat man diese Privilegien bei notwendiger Kürzung paraphrasiert. Die Privilegien [jedoch], die in diesem Ferman enthalten sind, sind exakt dieselben, Wort für Wort, wie diejenigen im Ahdname.8 6 Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 100. 7 Dorf südwestlich von Stara Zagora im heutigen heute Bulgarien. 8 Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 91: „[…]  iz koje su, po običaju, u ferman unesene najznačajnije odredbe. Kažemo najznačajnije, jer se u ovakvoj vrsti dokumenata, u kojima se potvrđuje privilegije date

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Gemeint ist hierbei das Ahdname im Franziskanerkloster zu Fojnica mit Ausstellungsort Milodraž. Diese (über weite Strecken) festzustellende wortwörtliche Entsprechung zwischen dem Wortlaut des Hüküm Bayezids II. und dem Text des im Kloster zu Fojnica aufbewahrten Ahdname-Exemplars soll nachfolgende Übersicht verdeutlichen: Wortlaut des Fermans von 1483

Wortlaut des Ahdname im Franziskanerkloster zu Fojnica … [indem] er befahl, dass niemand … und habe befohlen, dass niemand die Erwähnten und ihre Klöster die Erwähnten und ihre Klöster behindern und bedrängen darf. behindern und bedrängen darf. Ohne Furcht sollen sie in meinem Bedenkenlos sollen sie in meinem Herrschaftsgebiet wohnen können, Herrschaftsgebiet wohnen können, und [selbst denen,] die [das Land] und selbst denen, die [das Land] verlassen haben und zurückverlassen haben und zurückkommen, kommen, soll Sicherheit und soll Sicherheit und Schutz zuteil Schutz zuteil werden, sodass, wenn werden, sodass, wenn sie hierher sie hierher kommen [um] sich kommen [um] sich ohne Angst in ohne Angst in unserem eigenen unserem eigenen Herrschaftsgebiet Herrschaftsgebiet anzusiedeln, anzusiedeln, sie sich in ihren Klöstern sie sich in ihren Klöstern niederniederlassen sollen, und niemand, lassen sollen. Niemand, [weder] von [weder] von [seiten] meiner [seiten] meiner erhabenen Majestät, erhabenen und erhabenen [so!] [noch] von meinen Wesiren, meinen Majestät, [noch] von meinen Wesiren, Dienstmannen, meinen steuermeinen Dienstmannen, meinen pflichtigen Untertanen und der steuerpflichtigen Untertanen und gesamten Bevölkerung meines der gesamten Bevölkerung meines Herrschaftsgebiets darf sich in die Herrschaftsgebiets darf sich in die [Angelegenheiten der] Erwähnten [Angelegenheiten der] Erwähnten einmischen und sie tyrannisieren, einmischen und sie tyrannisieren, noch sie verletzen, [weder bezüglich] noch sie verletzen, [weder bezüglich] ihrer Person, [noch] ihres Lebens, ihrer Person, [noch] ihres Lebens, ihres Besitzes oder ihrer Klöster; und ihres Besitzes oder ihrer Klöster, und wenn Leute aus der Fremde in unser wenn Leute aus der Fremde in unser eigenes Herrschaftsgebiet kommen eigenes Herrschaftsgebiet kommen sollten, so ist dies erlaubt. […] sollten. […] od strane prethodnog ili ranijih vladara, te privilegije parafraziraju uz obavezno skraćenje. Privilegije sadržane u ovom fermanu potpuno su iste, od riječi do rijeći, sa onim u ahd-nami“.

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Es muss daher als „unüblich“ betrachtet werden, dass sich zwischen Ahdname und Bestätigungs-Ferman hier eine derartige textliche Übereinstimmung ergibt. Wie Boškov in aller Deutlichkeit sagt, ist diese frappierende Übereinstimmung9 auch nur dort gegeben, wo von den Privilegien die Rede ist; an jener Stelle hingegen, wo der Ferman ausführt, das Ahdname Mehmeds sei „mit einem Schwur im edlen Befehlschreiben“ ergangen, enthält das Ahdname im Franziskanerkloster zu Fojnica als Wortlaut diesen Schwures die Wendung „Ich schwöre mit festem Eid, um unseres Beschützers willen, der Himmel und Erde erschaffen hat, um der sieben Mushafs, um unseres erhabenen Propheten, um der einhundertvierundzwanzigtausend Propheten, [und] um des Schwertes willen, mit dem ich umgürtet wurde“.10 An dieser Stelle ist festzuhalten, dass diese Schwurformel nicht, wie in einem Ahdname des 15. Jahrhunderts zu erwarten gewesen wäre,11 zu Beginn des Textes (gleich nach der Intitulatio) ausgesprochen wird, sondern hier zum Schluss hin eingefügt wurde, während der Ferman von 1483 mit der Erwähnung des „heftigen Schwures“ noch vor Beginn der Dispositio eine frühzeitige Positionierung des Schwur-Elements im ursprünglichen Text (nämlich dem seiner Vorlage) suggeriert. Nach den Untersuchungen von Vančo Boškov und dem oben Gesagten gilt, dass der uns vorliegende Wortlaut des Ahdname im Franziskanerkloster zu Fojnica die authentische Wiedergabe einer Paraphrase seiner ursprünglichen Dispositio darstellen dürfte, nicht jedoch den authentischen vollen Wortlaut des Ahdname selbst, ebensowenig wie seine ursprüngliche Gestalt und Gliederung. Halten wir daher fest: Im Hüküm von 1483, ausgestellt zwischen dem 29. Mai und 7. Juni im Feldlager von Čirpan bei Stara Zagora im heutigen Bulgarien, findet sich die Paraphrase der Dispositio des zu bestätigenden Ahdname eingebettet in ein sultanisches Befehlsschreiben (osmanisch hüküm) eigener Struktur und Anlage, ganz so wie im Falle des Ahdname für die Mönche von Srebrenica.12 Vom originalen Ahdname von Fojnica (Milodraž) verliert sich mit Ablauf des Jahres 1483 jede Spur.

9

Vgl. die textliche Gegenüberstellung Ferman – Ahdname in arabischem Typendruck bei Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 97–98. 10 Im Originalwortlaut: „yemin-i müğallaza ederin ki yeri ve göği yaradan perverdigar hakkıyçün ve yedi mushaf hakkıyçün ve ulu peygamberimiz hakkıyçün ve yüz geğirmi dört bin peygamberler hakkıyçün ve kuşanduğum kılıç içün“. 11 Boškov, „Pitanje,“100: „Ipak, analiza ahd-nama pokazuje da postoji razlika u mjestu gdje se zakletva nalazi. U ahd-namama iz 16. v. zakletva se nalazi pri kraju teksta, kao što je to slučaj u fojničkoj ahd-nami“. 12 Ursinus, „Osmansko jamstvo,“ 201.

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Andererseits liefert das Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 durch seine For­ mulierung (Übergabe des originalen Ahdname im Feldlager von Čirpan durch die Mönche; Entgegennahme und Bekräftigung durch den Sultan in eigener Person) einen unumstößlichen zeitgenössischen Quellenbeleg, der dazu geeignet ist, restliche Zweifel an der ursprünglichen Existenz eines Ahdname Mehmeds II. zu Gunsten der Mönche in den Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Zvornik zu zerstreuen. Dabei darf natürlich nicht übersehen werden, dass sich auch das Hüküm Bayezids II. nicht im Original, sondern lediglich in abschriftlicher Form erhalten hat (bisher sind, wie oben angeführt, zwei Abschriften bekannt geworden, von denen nur eine beglaubigt ist). Die hier vorgestellte unbeglaubigte zweite Abschrift aus dem Franziskanerkloster Fojnica folgt der beglaubigten Fassung Wort für Wort, sodass davon ausgegangen werden kann, dass es sich um eine wortgetreue Abschrift der beglaubigten Fassung im Franziskanerkloster Kraljeva Sutjeska handelt, allerdings unter Auslassung der dort oberhalb des Siegelabdrucks angebrachten Beglaubigungsformel mit der namentlichen Nennung des Abschreibers, von dem weiter unten noch zu sprechen sein wird. Schon Šabanović hat die Fassung Fojnica dem 19. Jh. zugeschrieben.13 Wahrscheinlich ist, dass das originale Hüküm Sultan Bayezids II. im 19. Jh. schon (lange) nicht mehr existent gewesen sein dürfte. 1

Zur frühen Transmissions-Problematik

Für die Zeit nach der Inkorporation einer Zusammenfassung des ursprünglichen Ahdnames Mehmeds II. (des Eroberers) in das Hüküm Bayezids II. im Jahre 1483 schweigen unsere Quellen über dessen weitere Geschichte, falls es nicht überhaupt kurz darauf verlorengegangen ist. Was einzig bleibt, ist die Überlieferungsgeschichte jenes sultanischen Befehlsschreibens, in das die Paraphrase seiner Dispositio Eingang fand. Im Folgenden soll unter Vorlage eines Fermans aus der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts dargestellt werden, wie das Hüküm Sultan Bayezids II. von 1483 nun seinerseits Gegenstand der Bestätigung (tecdid) durch nachfolgende Sultane geworden zu sein scheint: Für den Sohn und Nachfolger Bayezids II., Sultan Selim I. (reg. 1512–1520), sieht es zwar so aus, als habe sich 13 Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti,“ 191. Sie stammt von derselben Hand wie Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1218, deren Original im Franziskanerkloster zu Kraljeva Sutjeska liegt (und zwar unter Acta Turcica, fasc. 24, dat. 9.–18. August 1527).

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kein diesbezüglicher Tecdid-Ferman erhalten, und auch aus der Regierungszeit Sultan Süleymans des Prächtigen (reg. 1520–1566) liegt uns kein originaler Tecdid-Ferman vor, der das Hüküm Bayezids II. erkennbar zum Gegenstand gehabt hätte. Doch verfügen wir über einen Original-Ferman seines Sohnes und Nachfolgers Sultan Selim II. (reg. 1566–1574) vom 8.–17. Juli 1567 (Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1226, siehe unten), in dem sich ein Hinweis auf die Bestätigung eines „altüberkommenen hüküm“ (hükm-i kadim) bzw. „erhabenen Befehlsschreibens“ (hükm-i münif) findet, das von seinem Vater, also Sultan Süleyman dem Prächtigen (merhûm babam hüdavendigâr),14 den in den Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek, Zvornik und Klis wohnhaften Mönchen ausgestellt worden war. Durch die Qualifizierung dieses hüküm als „altüberliefert“ (kadim) – und zwar dort, wo die dem Vorgängerbefehl entstammende Dispositio zitiert wird (abschließend mit der Wendung deyü „so lautend“)  – wird diese Wendung „altüberkommenes hüküm“ vom Aussteller dem Wortlaut des Fermans Sultan Süleymans des Prächtigen zugeschrieben, was bedeutet, dass schon dieser Sultan jenes hüküm als „altüberliefert“ (kadim) qualifiziert haben muss, und damit seinen Ursprung auf die Regierungszeit mindestens seines Vaters (Selim I.), wenn nicht gar Großvaters (Bayezid II.) zurückverwiesen hat. So ist es durchaus möglich, dass wir es hier, im Ferman von 1567, tatsächlich mit einem Rückbezug auf das oben wiedergegebene Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 zu tun haben  – oder aber mit einem Rekurs auf eine denkbarerweise bereits unter Selim I. vorgenommene Bestätigung (tecdid) des Fermans seines Vorgängers.15

14

Vgl. die Überlieferungsgeschichte des Muaf-name Sultan Süleymans des Prächtigen für die Nachfahren einer Palastdame (kira) der Hafsa Sultan, seiner Mutter: Colin Heywood, „An Ottoman ‘Exemption Letter’ (Muʿāf-nāme) Dated 1015/1606 for the Karaite Descendants of Fātima Hātūn, kira of Hafsa Sultan, the Mother of Süleymān the Magnificent: A Document from the National Museum of Lithuania,“ in Ottoman War and Peace. Studies in Honour of Virginia, eds. H. Aksan Frank Castiglione et al. (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020), 345–67 (im Druck). Ich danke dem Autor für seine freundliche Bereitschaft, mir bereits vor Drucklegung Einsicht zu gestatten. Die Wendung ‘hüdavendigar’ als Ehrenbezeichnung für Sultan Süleyman scheint in der osmanischen Kanzleipraxis häufiger und auf Schriftstücken gänzlich unterschiedlichen Typs vorzukommen: Vgl. ergänzend Fojnica AT 14, Nr. 2921 (Ferman Selims II, dat. 28. Juli–6. Aug. 1567, mit Rückbezug auf Vorgänger-Sultan); TD 157 (mufassal tahrir defteri für Bosnien, abgeschlossen 1530), 1026. 15 Ganz ähnlich verweist ein Hüccet aus der Zeit kurz nach Wiedererrichtung des Patriarchats von Peć/Ipek durch Sultan Süleyman den Prächtigen (Fojnica AT 8a 1213, datiert 31. Dezember 1563) auf die Existenz eines „edlen Befehlsschreibens“ (ellerinde olan hükm-i şerif) in den Händen der lateinischen Mönche und Geistlichen von Visoko, Kraljeva Sutjeska sowie der sultanischen hass von Vareš, Fojnica und Kreševo, als diese sich unter Zuhilfenahme muslimischer Sachverständiger mit allem Nachdruck gegen die

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In nachfolgender Transkription und Übersetzung des Fermans von 1567 wurde die Zusammenfassung der Dispositio des Vorgängerbefehls durch Kur­ sivschrift kenntlich gemacht und die Wendung für „altüberkommenes Befehlsschreiben“ fett hervorgehoben: Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1226: Originalferman, datiert 8.–17. Juli 1567: Transkription: Hüve [Tughra:] Selim II. (1) Mefāḫir ümerāʾi l-kirām merāciʿi l-küberāʾi l-fiḥām ẕevi l-ḳadr ve-l-iḥtirām el-muḥtaṣṣūn bi-mezīd ʿināyeti l-meliki l-ʿallām Bosna ve Hersek ve İzvorniḳ ve Klis (2) sancaḳları begleri zīde ʿizzühüm ve mefāḫirü l-ḳużāt ve-l-ḥükkām maʿādinü l-fażāyil ve-l-kelām ẕikr olınan sancaḳlar ḳāḍīleri (3) zīde fażlühüm tevḳīʿ-i refīʿ-i hümāyūn vāṣıl olıcaḳ maʿlūm ola ki taḥt-i hükūmetüñüzde vāḳiʿ olan kenisalar ruhbānları (4) dergāh-i muʿallāma adam gönderüb kendülere ve kenisalarına ve esbāb ve emvāline kimesne daḫl ve taʿarruż itmiyüb (5) kenisalarında ve yirlü yirlerinde sākin ve mütemekkin olub mādām[ki] ḫiẕmetüme ve emrüme mutīʿ ve münḳād olub (6) ʿiṣyān itmiyeler şerʿ-i şerīfe muḫālif aṣlā ve ḳaṭʿā kimesneyi bunlara bī-vech daḫl ve tecāvüz itdürmiyüb (7) rencīde ve remīde itdürmiyesiz eylemeyüb şerʿ-i ḳavīme ve ellerinde olan ḥükm-i ḳadīme muḫālif (8) iş itmek isteyenleri ve menʿle memnūʿ olmıyub ʿinād idenleri ʿarż eyliyesiz diyü merḥūm babam ḫüdāvendigār ṭābes̱erāhü (9) ḥükm virdügin ve ḥāliyā tecdīd olınmasın iʿlām eyledükleri eclden buyurdum ki bu bābda sābıḳā virilen (10) ḥükm-i münīf ile ʿamel eyleyüb ḫilāfına cevāz göstermiyüb aña muġāyir ve şerʿ-i şerīfe muḫālif mezbūrlara daḫl (11) itmek isteyenleri menʿ ve defʿ eyliyesiz memnūʿ olmıyub temerrüd ve ʿinād idenleri yazub bildiresiz (12) şöyle bilesiz ve baʿde n-naẓar bu ḥükm-i şerīfümi ellerinde ibḳā idüb ʿalāmet-i şerīfe iʿtimād ḳılasız (13) taḥrīren fī evāyil şehri Muḥarrem el-ḥarām sene ḫams ve sebʿīn ve tisʾa-miʾe (14) bi-maḳāmi (15) Ḳusṭantiniye fiskalischen Ansprüche des Patriarchen Savatije sowie des Metropoliten Jozef Radonić zur Wehr setzten.

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Übersetzung: Er! [Anrufung Gottes] Stolz der edlen Emire, Zuflucht der stolzen Großen, Besitzer von Macht und Ehre, von der Gnade des höchsten Königs Ausgezeichnete, Sandschakbeys von Bosna, Hersek, Zvornik und Klis (möge ihre Erha­ benheit andauern!), und Stolz der Kadis und Richter, Fundgruben von Tugenden und Weisheit, Kadis der genannten Sandschaks (möge ihre Tugend währen!) – bei Ankunft des erhabenen großherrlichen Befehls sei kund, dass die Mönche der Klöster, die in Eurem Zuständigkeitsbereich gelegen sind, jemanden an meine Hohe Pforte gesandt haben. Sie erklärten, dass mein verstorbener Vater, der Hüdavendigar (möge sein Grab ihm angenehm sein!) ihnen ein Befehlsschreiben ausgestellt hat, das jetzt bestätigt werden möge, [und zwar] dass niemand die Erwähnten und ihre Klöster, ihre Sachen und ihre Besitztümer stören und bedrängen darf. Solange sie in ihren Klöstern und [den für sie] vorgesehenen Orten wohnen und siedeln und mir zu Diensten sind, meinem Befehl gehorchen, unterwürfig sind und sich nicht erheben, darf absolut niemand zulassen, dass sie entgegen der edlen Scharia [dadurch] tyrannisiert und gequält werden, dass man sie grundlos bedrängt und belästigt. Diejenigen, die entgegen der geradlinigen Scharia und dem in ihren Händen befindlichen altüberkommenen Befehlsschreiben beabsichtigen, Ärger zu stiften, und diejenigen, die sich nicht vom Verbotenen abbringen lassen und Widerstand leisten, sollt Ihr melden! Daher befehle ich jetzt: Ihr sollt gemäß dem in dieser Sache erteilten edlen Befehlsschreiben verfahren und nichts zulassen, was ihm widerspricht. Diejenigen, die beabsichtigen, sie im Widerspruch dazu und zur edlen Scharia zu bedrängen, sollt Ihr davon abbringen. Diejenigen, die man nicht daran hindern kann, die widerspenstig sind und Widerstand leisten, sollt Ihr aufschreiben und melden. Dies sollt Ihr wissen: Nach Prüfung soll dieses Befehlsschreiben in ihren Händen verbleiben. Dem edlen Zeichen ist Vertrauen zu schenken! Geschrieben in der ersten Dekade des verbotenen Monats Muharrem im Jahre neunhundertfünfundsiebzig. In der Residenz Konstantinopel Selbst ein nur kursorischer Textvergleich zeigt, dass in den kursiv gesetzten Teilen des obigen Fermans von 1567 (als Zusammenfassung der Dispositio eines Fermans Sultan Süleymans des Prächtigen) die Weisungen des Hüküm von 1483 zwar noch generell anklingen, textliche Übereinstimmungen

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inzwischen jedoch weitgehend oder gar gänzlich fehlen.16 So stellt sich die Frage, wie (und wann) das auf 1483 datierte Hüküm Bayezids II. von osmanischer Seite „wiederentdeckt“ wurde. Denn wie anders ist die in der obigen Gegenüberstellung dokumentierte verblüffende textliche Übereinstimmung zwischen ihm und den aus dem 17. Jahrhundert stammenden Fassungen des Ahdname (darunter das im Franziskanerkloster zu Fojnica aufbewahrte) zu erklären? Ihnen muss das Hüküm Bayezids II. (im Original oder in abschriftlicher Form) bzw. eine hierauf unmittelbar fußende Textfassung vorgelegen haben. Diese Frage lässt sich in ihrem zweiten Teil mit Bestimmtheit beantworten: Schon Šabanović hat als Urheber der in Kraljeva Sutjeska erhaltenen Abschrift des Befehlsschreibens Bayezids II. einen gewissen Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed identifiziert, Kadi von Saray und Neretva, und ihn dem 16. Jahrhundert zugeordnet.17 Anhand der uns zur Verfügung stehenden Quellen lässt sich dieser Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed zeitlich genauer einordnen: Er tritt ca. 1565–66 als amtierender Kadi von Saray (und Neretva) sowie (gelegentlich) als „Inspektor“ (el-müfettiş) auf;18 danach zeichnet er (mindestens einmal) als „ehemaliger Kadi von Saray und Neretva, beauftragt mit der Generalinspektion der Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Klis“.19 Denkbar ist, wenn auch nicht belegbar, dass seine Rolle als Kopist von mehreren zeitlich z.T. weit zurückreichenden Urkunden in seine Amtszeit als Generalinspektor der drei Sandschaks gefallen ist.20 Hierfür würde vielleicht sprechen, dass sich die von ihm besorgten Abschriften über 16

Vielleicht darf man die Passage „Solange sie in ihren Klöstern und [den für sie] vorgesehenen Orten wohnen und siedeln und mir zu Diensten sind, meinem Befehl gehorchen, unterwürfig sind und sich nicht erheben,  […]“ als Entlehnung aus dem Hüküm von 1483 ansprechen, wo es heißt: „[…] damit künftig gar niemand [ihnen feindlich] entgegentreten möge – solange sie mir zu Diensten sind, meinem Befehl Gehorsam leisten und sich nicht auflehnen“. 17 Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti,“ 191–92. Šabanović liest die arabische Beglaubigungsformel wie folgt: „Hazihi suretü’l-hükmi’ş-şerif nukilet anhi bi-lâ tağyir zebereha el-fakir Seydi Mahmud bin Mehmed el-kadi bi-Saray ve Netertva“. 18 Fojnica AT I-22 (‚vesika‘, datiert 19. Juli 1565); Fojnica AT III-107 (Abschrift eines fermans datiert 29. Zilhicce 973H/ 17 Juli 1566). Als „Inspektor“ (el-müfettiş) wird er z.B. in nachfolgenden Urkunden tituliert: Fojnica AT 22 rasuđe građe (Abschrift eines ferman, datiert 29. August–8. September 1564); Fojnica AT 8a 1222 (temessük, datiert evail Zilhicce 973H/19.–28. Juni 1566). 19 Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 14. 20 Kraljeva Sutjeska, Acta Turcica, Kut. III, fasc. 8, br. 50 ( ferman, datiert 29. Mai–7. Juni 1483); Fojnica AT I-16 (datiert 4. Aug. 1563); Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 14 (temessük, datiert evahir Rebi II 922H/24. Mai–2. Juni 1516).

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mehrere Klöster Bosniens und der Herzegovina hinweg verteilt finden. So könnte sich selbst eine Antwort auf die Frage, wie es zur „Wiederentdeckung“ des Hüküm Sultan Bayezids II. gekommen ist, abzeichnen: Wenn nicht bereits im Zusammenhang mit der Amtstätigkeit Seydi Mahmuds als Kadi von Saray und Neretva sowie „Inspektor“ (el-müfettiş) mit Sitz in Sarajevo (ca. 1565–1566), dann vielleicht später (nach ca. 1567) im Zuge seiner Rolle als Generalinspektor der drei Sandschaks. Letzteres erscheint weniger wahrscheinlich, da der Kopistenvermerk in der Abschrift des Hüküm Bayezids II. im Franziskanerkloster von Kraljeva Sutjeska seine Funktion lediglich als „Kadi von Saray und Neretva“ (ohne jeden Hinweis auf eine etwaige Funktion als Generalinspektor) anführt. Deshalb spricht manches dafür, dass diese Abschrift bereits vorher, nämlich zu jener Zeit ausgefertigt wurde, als der Ferman Sultan Süleymans des Prächtigen gerade dessen Sohn Selim II. zur Bestätigung vorgelegt werden sollte. Auch wenn hier eine schlüssige Antwort auf die Frage nach Gründen und Zwecken einer solchen Abschrift zum fraglichen Zeitpunkt ausbleiben muss – soviel wird man auf jeden Fall festhalten können: Ohne diese „Wiederentdeckung“ und Abschrift durch Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed wäre nach dem Verlust des Originals (wohl bald nach 1483) auch die Paraphrase des Ahdname Mehmeds II., an die sämtliche späteren Fassungen des Ahdname von Fojnica (Milodraž) mehr oder minder wortgetreu anknüpfen,21 mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit für immer verloren gewesen.22 Im Andenken an ihn sei hier deshalb abschließend seine „Unterschrift“ mitsamt Funktionsbeschreibung als Generalinspekteur der Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Klis sowie sein Siegel abgebildet:23

21 Siehe oben, textliche Gegenüberstellung und Fußnote 6. 22 Sollte die in Kraljeva Sutjeska erhaltene, durch Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed besorgte Abschrift bereits vor dem verheerenden Klosterbrand von ca. 1590 dort aufbewahrt worden sein, wäre sein Erhalt ein besonderer Glücksfall, da unter den heutigen osmanischen Beständen des Klosters kaum mehr als ein halbes Dutzend Stücke zu finden sind, die aus der Zeit vor der Feuersbrunst stammen. Von diesen wird etwa die Hälfte heute (wie bereits früher?) in einer kunstvoll verzierten Pappschatulle eingerollt aufbewahrt (archiviert als Faszikel 24). Es gibt jedoch keinerlei Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass auch Seydi Mahmuds Abschrift des Hüküm von 1483 einst auf solche oder ähnliche Weise separat abgelegt worden wäre. Die rückseitigen Notizen in Lateinschrift und Bosančica geben bezüglich Art und Ort der ursprünglichen Aufbewahrung keinen weiteren Hinweis: Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti,“ 192. 23 Ausschnitt aus Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 14.

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Figure 24.1

2

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Siegel, “Unterschrift” und Funktionsbeschreibung des Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed als Generalinspekteur der Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und Klis, Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 14

Zwischenergebnis

Mit dem Verlust (wohl bald nach 1483) des originalen Ahdname Sultan Mehmeds II. (des Eroberers) für die in den Sandschaks von Bosna, Hersek und İzvornik wohnhaften Mönche reißt die direkte Überlieferung des Wortlautes des Ahdname von Fojnica (Milodraž) ab. Sein Wortlaut wird schon bei der Bestätigung des Ahdname durch Bayezid II., den Sohn Mehmeds II., nur noch zusammenfassend wiedergegeben und in eine Paraphrase umformuliert, und zwar unter Beibehaltung der Schwurformel, gar unter nochmaliger Ablegung eines herrscherlichen Schwures durch den neuen Herrscher. Dennoch ist das Ahdname seit seiner Bestätigung durch Sultan Bayezid II. im Frühsommer des Jahres 1483 der Form nach (trotz des nochmaligen Schwures) „nur noch“ ein bloßer Herrscherbefehl (hüküm), der lediglich eine Paraphrase

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des ursprünglichen Ahdname enthält und bei Regierungsantritt jedes neuen Herrschers in Gestalt eines sultanischen Befehlsschreibens (hüküm) zur Bestätigung (tecdid) vorgelegt wird. So ist verständlich, dass sich sein Wortlaut im Zuge solcher Bestätigungsvorgänge von Mal zu Mal (durch weitere Paraphrasierungen) immer weiter vom Ursprung entfernt und schließlich kaum noch seine Herkunft verrät. Der Wortlaut sämtlicher Fassungen des im Feldlager von Milodraž ausgestellten Ahdname, wie sie sich in verschiedenen Franziskanerklöstern (und andernorts) bis heute erhalten haben, entspricht über ganze Passagen hinweg Wort für Wort der im Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 enthaltenen Paraphrase des Originals, und nicht etwa den durch diverse Bestätigungsvorgänge (tecdid) „abgeschliffenen“ Formulierungen der Herrscherbefehle. Sie knüpfen stattdessen an die Wendungen des Hüküm Sultan Bayezids II. mehr oder minder direkt an. Für sie muss also eine Vorlage in Gestalt des Hüküm von 1483 (im Original oder abschriftlich erhalten) existiert haben. Eine solche Vorlage, so zeigt diese Studie, wird in Gestalt jener Abschrift zur Verfügung gestanden haben (bzw. zur Verfügung gestellt worden sein), die wohl um 1566/7 durch Mahmud bin Mehemmed, Kadi von Saray und Neretva, auf der Grundlage des Hüküm Bayezids II. von 1483 erstellt worden war. Es ist sicher kein Zufall, dass – wie weiter unten gezeigt werden soll – mehrere Sultansbefehle, die erstmals wieder mit direkteren (wenn auch keineswegs immer wortwörtlichen) Entlehnungen aus dem Hüküm Bayezids II. (bzw. der von Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed von Sarajevo aus besorgten Abschrift dieses Hüküm) aufwarten, nicht in Istanbul, sondern in Belgrad ausgestellt wurden, so der bekannte Ferman Sultan Ahmeds I. vom 19.–28. Februar 1607.24 Derselbe Ausstellungsort lässt sich auch für die im Franziskanerkloster zu Gorica aufbewahrte, durch Habil bin Receb, Kadi von Belgrad kurz darauf als beglaubigte Abschrift erstellte Fassung des Ahdname von Milodraž feststellen, von der weitere Fassungen in Visovac und Zaostrog existieren, die ebenfalls in Belgrad erstellt wurden.25 Habils Amtszeit als Kadi von Belgrad lässt sich ungefähr auf das Jahrzehnt 1609–1619 eingrenzen.26 Der (mehr oder minder) direkte 24 Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1293, dat. evahir Şevval 1015H/ 19.–28. Februar 1607; vgl. Josip Matasović, „Regesta Fojnicensia,“ Nr. 196. Hierzu etwa Karlo Jurišić, Katolička crkva na Biovskoneretvanskom području u doba turske vladavine (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1972), 196–97.; Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 102; Papp, „Gesetzliche Garantien,“ 313. 25 Franziskanerkloster Zaostrog AT Nr. 2; Franziskanerkloster Visovac: Signatur A 74. Sulejman Bajraktarević, „Turski dokumenti u Splitskom arheološkom muzeju i u Franje­ vačkom samostanu na Visovcu,“ Jugoslavenska Akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Starine vol. 44 (1952): 25–63, hier: 51 (Bajraktarević liest hier jedoch Kāmil ibn Redžeb, Kadi von Belgrad). 26 Der Name Habil gehört zu den selteneren Eigennamen. Da es sich zudem um einen einflussreichen Kadi handelt, dessen Unterschrift sogar das Friedensabkommen von

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Rückgriff auf den Text des Hüküm von 1483 – hier wie dort – hat also offenbar von Belgrad seinen Ausgang genommen, und zwar bereits unmittelbar nach der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert. Hiermit mag im Zusammenhang stehen, dass die Franziskaner in Gestalt des minister provincialis während des Krieges mit Habsburg (1593–1606) den osmanischen Regierungsstellen ihre Belange nachweislich mehrfach in Belgrad vorgetragen haben,27 wo Großwesir Koca Sinan Pascha zwischen September 1593 und Mai 1594 für längere Zeit sein Zelt aufgeschlagen28 und Großwesir Damad Ibrahim Pascha über viele Monate hinweg bis zu seinem Tod am 10. Juli 1601 seinen Wintersitz genommen hatte.29 Selbst der Sultan (Mehmed III., reg. 1596–1603) hatte vor der Entscheidungsschlacht von Mezö-Keresztes (Haçova, 26./27. Oktober 1596), bevor er seine Truppen bekanntermaßen in eigener Person gegen den Feind führen sollte, zeitweise in Sarajevo30 und tagelang in Belgrad geweilt (9.–20. August 1596).31 Dennoch sah sich der Verfasser einer kurzen Notiz (in Bosančica) auf der Rückseite eines der in Belgrad zugunsten der Franziskaner ausgestellten Befehlsschreiben (AT II-85 vom 27. März 1594) veranlasst, über die anhaltende Wirklosigkeit der osmanischen Schutzbestimmungen zu klagen: „Ne služi aman sada ništa“ (Der Frieden[svertrag] nützt jetzt gar nichts mehr). 3

Zur späteren Transmissions-Problematik

Wie oben ausgeführt, beginnt die Geschichte der herrscherlichen Schutzgewährungen zugunsten der Katholiken Bosniens bereits 1462. Noch bevor den Mönchen Bosniens, der Herzegovina und im Sandschak von Zvornik das berühmte Ahdname durch den siegreichen Sultan Mehmed Fatih 1463 Zitva (1606) schmückt, ist seiner Laufbahn vergleichsweise leicht nachzuspüren. Nach Amtszeiten in Buda (1598) kam er nach Belgrad, wo er lange verweilte und bis 1619 nachweisbar ist, Von dort hat er mit Kaiser Ferdinand korrespondiert (freundliche Mitteilung von Aleksandar Fotić, Belgrad, 27. Oktober 2015). Zu Habil als amtierendem Kadi von Belgrad vgl. Fojnica AT 2 132, dat. evail Safer 1024H/ 2.–11. März 1615. 27 Mehrere Befehlsschreiben zugunsten der Franziskaner wurden während dieser Zeit in Belgrad ausgestellt, darunter die folgenden: Michael Ursinus, FOJNICA 2. Osmanski dokumenti iz arhiva franjevačkog somostana (Turski izvori  – Acta Turcica [51–100]). Pročitao, preslovio, preveo i opisao prof. dr. Michael Ursinus, emeritus (Fojnica, 2019), Hefte 7–11; hier Heft 10, Nr. 83, 14–21 (datiert 27. März 1594); Nr. 84, 24–31 (selbes Datum); Nr. 85, 34–41 (selbes Datum) und Nr. 88, 56–63 (datiert 22. August 1596). 28 Vgl. Resimli Haritalı Mufassal Osmanlı Tarihi (bir Heyet Tarafından Hazırlanmıştır), 6 Bde (Istanbul 1958–1963); Bd. 3 (Istanbul: Şehir Matbaası, 1959), 1596–1601. 29 Zum Itinerar Großwesir Damad Ibrahim Paschas loc. cit., 1647–56. 30 Ein Ferman Mehmeds III., ausgestellt „in der Stadt Sarajevo, der behüteten“ zwischen dem 31. März und 9. April 1596, mag hier als Beleg genügen: Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1317. 31 Resimli Osmanlı Tarihi, 1624.

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im Feldlager von Milodraž ausgefertigt und (so die franziskanische Überlieferung) Fra Anđelo Zvizdović ausgehändigt wurde, gab es bereits ein solches für die Klosterbrüder der Bergbaustadt Srebrenica, das wahrscheinlich schon im Frühjahr/Sommer des Jahres 1462 durch Sultan Mehmed Fatih ausgestellt worden war und das sich nicht allein auf die Klosterinsassen, sondern auch auf all diejenigen Arbeitskräfte (katholischen Glaubens) erstrecken sollte, die die Mönche auf die sultanischen Bergbau-Domänen zu bringen erlaubt sein würden. Dieses Ahdname von Srebrenica, so der Sohn und Nachfolger Sultan Mehmed Fatihs, Sultan Bayezid II. (1481–1512), habe den franziskanischen Ordensleuten, ohne dass explizit von einem Ahdname die Rede wäre, dazu die „Erlaubnis“ (arabisch: izn) und „Genehmigung“ (arabisch: dustur) erteilt und sie des Schutzes vor Belästigungen durch Jedermann versichert, solange sie der Hohen Pforte treu und ergeben seien. Ihr Kloster und ihr Besitz würden durch den heiligen Schwur und die (verpflichtenden) Äußerungen des Sultans vor fremder Einmischung geschützt.32 Srebrenica geht also Milodraž voraus. Mehr noch: Ein in Gorica aufbewahrtes Exemplar des Ahdname von Milodraž ist älter als das im Museum zu Fojnica ausgestellte Stück.33 Doch beide sind deutlich jünger als das Original, das nicht mehr existiert, von dem wir aber mit Bestimmtheit sagen können, dass es einmal existiert hat. Jedoch hat auch jenes Hüküm vom Jahre 1483, das die früheste Nachricht von der Bestätigung und Bekräftigung des ursprünglich durch Sultan Mehmed II. Fatih ausgestellten „edlen Vertragsschreibens“ (ahdname-i şerif) enthält (vgl. oben), die Zeitwirren ja nicht im Original überstanden. Von ihm gibt es, wie zu zeigen war, lediglich eine gut 80 Jahre spätere Abschrift vom Jahre 1566/7, ausgefertigt durch Seydi Mahmud, Sohn des Mehemmed, Kadi von Sarajevo und Neretva. Der Textvergleich hat bewiesen, dass der bekannte Wortlaut des berühmten Ahdname im Museum zu Fojnica mit der 1483 erstellten Paraphrase der Urkunde Sultan Mehmed Fatihs über weite Strecken identisch ist. Dasselbe gilt für die in Gorica aufbewahrte Fassung, ja für mindestens weitere zwei Dutzend Exemplare in verschiedenen Franziskanerklöstern Bosniens, der Herzegowina und Kroatiens (und sogar ungarischen Archiven). Wie ist das möglich? Wenn der Text all dieser Fassungen mit dem „zusammengefassten Inhalt“, also der Paraphrase des ursprünglichen, wohl 1483 verlorengegangenen (oder einbehaltenen) Originals identisch ist, können all diese Fassungen nicht den 32 Šabanović, „Turski dokumenti,“ 199–200 + Tafel 9; Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 91–92; unter Wiederaufnahme der Diskussion: Ursinus, „Jedno osmansko jamstvo zaštite u korist franjevačkih“. 33 Ursinus, „Dževdet-paša i Fojnička ahdnama“.

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Wortlaut des Originals wiedergeben, enthält das Hüküm doch lediglich eine Paraphrase des von Mehmed Fatih ausgestellten Originals – nicht den Originalwortlaut selbst! Die in Gorica, Fojnica, Kraljeva Sutjeska, Zaostrog, Visovac und vielen anderen Archiven vorhandenen Fassungen sind allesamt (direkt oder indirekt) auf der Grundlage der durch Seydi Mahmud erstellten Abschrift entstanden, und zwar seit dem frühen 17. Jahrhundert. Maßgeblich scheint dabei Habil, Sohn des Receb gewesen zu sein, Kadi von Belgrad zwischen ca. 1609 und 1619, von dem mehrere beglaubigte „Abschriften“ in verschiedenen Franziskanerklöstern liegen.34 Doch können wir hier wirklich von „Abschriften“ sprechen? Der zentrale Text wird hier nämlich – wie an anderer Stelle näher ausgeführt – in einen neuen Rahmen eingebettet, mit einer neuen Einleitungsformel gerahmt sowie mit Ausstellungsort (erst jetzt „im Feldlager von Milodraž“) und -Datum („28. Mai“) versehen (und dies unter Verwendung des julianischen Kalenders bei häufig fehlender oder apokrypher Jahresangabe nach der Hidschra-Zählung) – mitunter gar durch eine Tughra „ergänzt“ (wie im Falle des Exemplars von Fojnica, dessen Tughra nicht einmal die Mehmed Fatihs ist, sondern der seines Sohnes und Nachfolgers, Bayezid II., nahekommt).35 Sie als „Neuausfertigung“ im Sinne frommer Verfälschungen von für echt gehaltenen, aber im Original verloren gegangenen Urkunden (wie sie in mittelalterlichen europäischen Klöstern häufig vorkamen) zu bezeichnen, wäre vielleicht angebrachter und dem Verständnis des Vorgangs dienlicher als von intentionalen Fälschungen bzw. Falsifikaten zu sprechen, wie dies gelegentlich geschehen ist. Der (mehr oder minder) direkte Rückgriff auf den Text des Hüküm hat also offenbar von Belgrad seinen Ausgang genommen, und zwar bereits unmittelbar nach der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert. Hiermit mag im Zusammenhang stehen, dass die Franziskaner unter ihrem minister provincialis während des Krieges mit Habsburg (1593–1606) den osmanischen Regierungsstellen ihre Belange nachweislich mehrfach in Belgrad vorgetragen haben. Auch hatte Großwesir Koca Sinan Pascha zwischen September 1593 und Mai 1594 für längere Zeit in Belgrad verweilt, und Großwesir Damad Ibrahim Pascha hatte über viele Monate hinweg bis zu seinem Tod am 10. Juli 1601 hier seinen Wintersitz genommen. Selbst Sultan Mehmed III. (reg. 1596–1603) war vorübergehend hier anwesend gewesen.

34 So in Gorica (Livno), Zaostrog und Visovac. 35 Boškov, „Pitanje,“ 94–95. (Einleitungsformel), 100–101. (Ausstellungsort und Datum) sowie 93–94. (Tughra).

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Rezeption in Belgrad

Wie aber soll man sich einen solchen von Belgrad aus erfolgten Rückgriff auf den Text des Hüküm von 1483 (bzw. dessen Kopie durch Seydi Mahmud, Kadi von Sarajevo) während dieser Jahre vorstellen? Könnte dieser Text, von Seydi Mahmud als Kadi von Sarajevo 1566/7 kopiert, bis zur Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert nach Belgrad gelangt und dort unter noch näher zu bestimmenden Umständen rezipiert worden sein? Oder ist er möglicherweise dort bereits vorhanden gewesen, etwa in einem Protokollbuch (sicil) der Kadis von Belgrad, aus dem schon Seydi Mahmud geschöpft haben könnte? Letzteres ist sehr unwahrscheinlich, besagt sein Beglaubigungsvermerk doch ausdrücklich, dass die Kopie „ohne jede Veränderung vom edlen Befehlsschreiben angefertigt“ worden sei, und nicht als Sicil-Auszug. In einem Sicil finden sich Sultansurkunden lediglich in abschriftlicher Form, und dies nicht selten um Anredeformulare und andere Teile des Originals verkürzt. Die Vermittlung über ein Protokollbuch der Kadis von Belgrad kommt also kaum in Betracht. Was die Sultansbefehle dieser Zeit angeht  – lässt sich in ihnen denn ein Widerhall des Textes von 1483 sowie Rückbezüge auf Mehmed den Eroberer ausmachen? Ein Original-Ferman Sultan Mehmeds III. (reg. 1596–1603), ausgestellt in Belgrad zwischen dem 4. und 13. Mai 1601,36 von dem eine fehlerhafte Abschrift in Fojnica scheinbar vom 2. Juni 1601 datiert,37 erwähnt das Ahdname in den Händen der Mönche Bosniens erstmals als Werk „meines verstorbenen Vorfahren, dem verziehen werden möge, des edlen, als Märtyrer gefallenen Gazi Sultan Mehemmed Han, Gott möge ihm seine Gnade erweisen und Vergebung gewähren“. Von Milodraž ist hier nicht die Rede, aber unzweifelhaft bezieht sich dieser Ferman auf das Ahdname von Milodraž. Anklänge an Formulierungen des Textes von 1483 sind nicht erkennbar. Ein abschriftlich überlieferter Ferman Sultan Ahmeds I. (reg. 1603–1617), ausgestellt in Istanbul und datiert 28. Februar–9. März 1607, vermerkt ausdrücklich, das Ahdname (gemeint ist das Ahdname von Milodraž, ohne diesen Ausstellungsort jedoch zu nennen) sei von „meinem Vorfahren, Sultan Mehemmed Han ‘dem Älteren’“ (im Unterschied zu Sultan Mehmed III.) den 36

Fojnica Acta Turcica 2 Nr. 287, dat. evail Zilkade 1009H/4.–13. Mai 1601. Vgl. Josip Matasović, „Regesta Fojnicensia,“ Nr. 188. Hier erstmals „Merhûm ve mağfur lehü ceddim gazi-i sa‌ʾid ve şehid Sultan Mehemmed Han“. 37 Fojnica Acta Turcica 12b 2625. Fälschlich datiert selh Zilkade 1009H/2. Juni 1601. Kein Beglaubigungsvermerk (Kopie des 19. Jahrhunderts).

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Mönchen Bosniens erteilt worden. Von einem etwaigen Rückgriff auf den Text von 1483 ist auch hier nichts zu merken.38 Anders der von Sultan Ahmed I. fast zur selben Zeit, nämlich zwischen dem 19. und 28. Februar 1607 ausgestellte und wegen seiner Bedeutung in der Literatur schon wiederholt genannte Ferman (er bestätigt die Gültigkeit des Ahdname [gemeint, aber nicht spezifiziert, ist wieder das von Milodraž]). Er wurde wie der Ferman Mehmeds III. in Belgrad promulgiert. Doch im Unterschied zu oben wird hier in aller Deutlichkeit auf den Text von 1483 rekurriert. So heißt es in ihm wörtlich: Solange die Erwähnten meiner Hohen Pforte treu ergeben sind, darf man ihre Klöster und ihren Besitz nicht behindern und nicht verletzen. Ohne Furcht sollen sie in meinem Herrschaftsgebiet umherziehen [dürfen], und solange sie keine Umstände verursachen, die Strafen veranlassen würden, darf sie niemand von meinen erhabenen Wesiren, Beylerbeyis, Sandschakbeyis und der Landesbevölkerung tyrannisieren, und diejenigen, die unter ihrer Gewalt stehen, darf gemäß altem Herkommen niemand in Dienst nehmen. Absolut niemand darf sich einmischen! Das ist nicht der Text von 1483, aber eine unmissverständliche Anspielung darauf!39 Dieser Ferman, das sei noch einmal betont, wurde in Belgrad, nicht Istanbul wie der vorangehende, ausgestellt. Neben der unvermittelt Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts einsetzenden Serie von „Neuausfertigungen“ von Ahdname-„Kopien“, die der Paraphrase von 1483 über weite Strecken wörtlich folgen, nun also auch eine Sultansurkunde, die aus dem Text von 1483 mehr oder weniger wörtlich „zitiert“! Beiden, der von Habil, Sohn des Receb besorgten „Neuausfertigung“ des Ahdname sowie dem Befehlsschreiben Sultan Ahmeds I. ist gemeinsam, dass das eine wie das 38 Fojnica Acta Turcica 2 Nr. 293 (Abschrift, beglaubigt vom Kadi und Naib von Kreševo sowie vom Kadi von Tešanj). Vgl. Zaostrog, Acta Turcica Nr. 97 und 98 (beide Abschriften beglaubigt durch Hüseyin ibn Mehmed, Naib von Saray). 39 Fojnica Acta Turcica 8a Nr. 1293 (Original-Ferman): „mezburlar madamki bab-i saadetime tabi olalar kilisa ve mallarına maniʾ ve müzahim olmıyub ihtiyatsız memleketimde gezüb madamki cürüm icab eder hususları sadır olmaya vüzera-yi izamım ve beğlerbeği ve sancakbeği ve sayir memleket halkından kimesne rencide eylemiyüb ve kendü zir-i destinde olanları olıgeldüği üzere istihdam eyleyüb asla kimesne karışmıya“. Eine in mancherlei Details abweichende Kopie des Originals ist Fojnica Acta Turcica 2 Nr. 119. Vgl. Zaostrog, Acta Turcica Nr. 111 (Abschrift beglaubigt durch Mehemmed ibn Süleyman, Naib von Kreševo) und Nr. 112 (Abschrift ebenso beglaubigt durch Mehemmed ibn Süleyman, Naib von Kreševo).

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andere Schriftstück in Belgrad ausgestellt wurde, bei einem Zeitunterschied von vielleicht gerade einmal zehn Jahren. Es spricht daher vieles dafür, dass deren gemeinsame Vorlage, nämlich der Text von 1483, den (wie wir wissen) Seydi Mahmud als Kadi von Sarajevo 1566/7 in Gestalt einer von ihm selbst beglaubigten Abschrift aufgezeichnet hatte, bis zur Wende des 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert nach Belgrad gelangt war. Natürlich wird man sich schwertun, einen stichhaltigen Beweis hierfür vorzulegen  – wir sind es gewohnt, uns in der Geschichtsschreibung mit Indizienbeweisen zufrieden zu geben. Dennoch verlangt obiger Befund, der letztlich sämtlichen heute existenten Fassungen des Ahdname (von Milodraž) ihre Authentizität, ja selbst ihren Charakter als getreue Abschriften des Originals abspricht, nach einem stichhaltigen Beleg. Woher aber sollen wir den nehmen? Wieder erweisen sich die franziskanischen Klosterarchive zusammen betrachtet als schier unerschöpfliche Quelle für die Geschichte des Katholi­ kentums unter osmanischer Herrschaft im Allgemeinen und die Geschichte der franziskanischen Klostergemeinschaften im Besonderen, wobei einzelne Klöster nicht selten durch Dokumente beleuchtet werden, die nicht im eigenen Archiv, sondern dem eines mitunter weit entfernten Klosters liegen. Für unseren Zusammenhang genügt der Hinweis, dass es eine Statthalterurkunde des herzegowinischen Sandschakbeyi, aufbewahrt in Zaostrog, ist, die es uns erlauben wird, die Situation im fernen Belgrad um die Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert ein Stück weiter zu erhellen. Der Statthalterbefehl, ausgestellt im Feldlager zu Duvno (heute Tomislav­ grad) in der mittleren Dekade des Monats Şevval im Jahre 1004H/8.–17. Juni 1596 durch Hüseyin Paşa, Sandschakbeyi von Hersek,40 enthält eine Wendung, die wegen ihrer Bedeutung im Wortlaut wiedergegeben werden soll: Die Mönche Bosniens, die nach Duvno gekommen seien, um ihr Anliegen vorzubringen, hätten (zur Untermauerung) ihrer Bitte um ein Schreiben (mektub) des Statthalters, das sie vor Übergriffen beim Durchwandern herzegowinischen Territoriums beschützen sollte, ein Dokument vorgelegt, und zwar „die Kopie eines edlen Befehlsschreibens seiner Majestät des verstorbenen Sultans Mehemmed Han (möge Gott seinen Ruheplatz erleuchten!), versehen mit der Unterschrift des Mevlana Mahmud Efendi, der das Amt des “Mufti” von Belgrad bekleidet [oder: bekleidet hat]“. Man ist sofort versucht, an die von Seydi Mahmud, Kadi von Sarajevo besorgte Abschrift des Hüküm Bayezids II. zu denken, in dem dieser das Befehlsschreiben seines Vaters Sultan Mehemmed Han mit eigenem Schwur bekräftigte. Damit wäre bewiesen, dass die bosnischen Franziskaner 1596 40

Zaostrog, Acta Turcica Nr. 85.

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Zugriff auf die von Mahmud besorgte und mit seiner Unterschrift beglaubigte Abschrift des Textes von 1483 hatten, denn dies genau scheint der Statthalterbefehl aus Duvno mitzuteilen. Es stellen sich jedoch mehrere Probleme: Die Frage, wie es in der Kanzlei des Statthalters zur Verwechslung zwischen Mehmed II. und Bayezid II. hat kommen können, ist letztlich bereits beantwortet: Bayezids Befehl dreht sich einzig und allein um die Bestätigung des edlen Befehlsschreibens seines Vaters, Sultan Mehemmed Hans, sodass dort von Anfang an allein von Letzterem namentlich die Rede ist. Gewichtiger sind die Bedenken bezüglich Mahmuds: Kann es sich bei Mahmud dem Kopisten und Mahmud dem „Mufti“ um dieselbe Person handeln? Immerhin liegen fast 30 Jahre zwischen dem Datum der Abschrift (1566/7) und deren (hypothetischer) Vorlage 1596, und da Seydi Mahmud wohl um oder bald nach dem Datum der Abschrift zum Inspektor befördert wurde, kann es sich zum fraglichen Zeitpunkt um keinen ganz jungen Mann mehr gehandelt haben. Dabei ist aber zu bedenken, dass das Datum der Vorlage (1596) nicht zwingend noch in seine Amtszeit als „Mufti“ von Belgrad fällt. Die Formulierung der Statthalterurkunde erlaubt die Möglichkeit, dass diese bereits eine gewisse Zeit zurückgelegen haben könnte. Was aber machen wir aus der Angabe, er habe das Amt des „Mufti“, nicht des Kadi von Belgrad bekleidet? Es ist ungewöhnlich, wenn auch nicht völlig ausgeschlossen, dass ein Kadi Mufti wird. Vielleicht ist „Mufti“ hier nicht im engeren Sinne als Amtsbezeichnung gebraucht worden, sondern als eine Art „Ehrenbezeichnung“ für einen altgedienten, verdienstvollen Kadi und Inspektor (müfettiş)? Vielleicht aber haben wir es hier schlicht mit einem (geringfügigen, jedoch folgereichen) Schreibfehler der Statthalter-Kanzlei zu tun: Drei Punkte mehr über dem fraglichen Wort hätten nämlich statt „Mufti“ das Wort „Müfettiş“ (Inspektor) ergeben! Ich neige dazu, letzterer (emendierter) Lesung den Vorzug zu geben. – Damit bleibt nur noch die Frage nach Belgrad versus Sarajevo. Die Antwort ist schnell gegeben: Im 17. Jahrhundert erhielten Kadis von Sarajevo recht oft anschließend das Kadiamt von Belgrad. Auch das umgekehrte kam vor, doch nicht so häufig.41 So ist nichts Ungewöhnliches daran, wenn Mahmud als ehemaliger Kadi von Sarajevo nach Belgrad gewechselt haben sollte, um dort seines Amtes als Inspektor (nicht Mufti!) von Belgrad zu walten! So interpretiert, hätten wir hier den Beweis vor uns liegen, dass die amtie­ renden Kadis in Belgrad, ebenso die vorübergehend hier weilende osmanische Zentralregierung, aber auch die betroffenen Franziskaner spätestens seit 1596 41

Ich verdanke diesen Hinweis der Freundlichkeit meines langjährigen Freundes, Kollegen und ehemaligen Lehrers Hans Georg Majer (München), einem ausgewiesenen Spezialisten (u.a.) auch der osmanischen Ilmiye-Institution und deren komplexen Kadi-Laufbahnen.

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Zugriff auf den Text von 1483 hatten, mitsamt der Para­phrase des ursprünglichen, von Mehmed Fatih wohl 1463 erteilten Ahdname (von Milodraž). Damit war die Voraussetzung dafür geschaffen, den im Ahdname verbrieften herrscherlichen Schutz (aman) durch „Neuausstellungen“ in Gestalt (beglaubigter) angeblich originalgetreuer Abschriften wieder wirkungsvoller zu gestalten.

Anhang

Edition des Statthalterbefehls Hüseyin Paşas von 1596 (Franziskanerkloster zu Zaostrog, Acta Turcica Nr. 85) Transkription: Hüve [Pençe am rechten Rand:] Ḥüseyin Paşa ṣaḥḥa [Siegel:] Ḥüseyin (1) Bāʿis̱-i taḥrīr-i ḥurūf budur ki Bosna ruhbānları bu cānibe gelüp iʿlām-i ḥāl idüp (2) merḥūm Sulṭān Meḥemmed Ḫān nevvere llāhu merḳadahu ḥażretlerinüñ emr-i hümāyūn ṣūretin Mevlānā Belġrad müftīsi [recte: müfettişi] olan (3) Maḥmūd Efendinüñ mümżāsıyla īrād idüp mażmūn-i saʿādetleri mūcebiyle livā-i Hersekde gezdügümüz yirlerde (4) kimesne daḫl ve taʿarruż itmiyüp rencīde ve remīde eylememek içün mektūb ṭaleb itmegin eylemegin taḥrīr olınup (5) virilmişdür vuṣūlinde gerekdür ki merḳūm ruhbānlar livā-i mezbūrede gezüp yürüdükleri yirlerde (6) vechen mine l-vücūh voyvodalarımız ve sāyir adamlarımız ve āḫer kimesne ferd-i efrāddan rencīde ve remīde (7) eylemiyüp daḫl ve taʿarruż itmemek içün işbu ḥurūf ber sebīl-i temessük ketb olınup (8) ellerine vażʿ ve defʿ olındı mūcebiyle ʿamel olına taḥrīren fī evāsıṭ şehri (9) Şevvāl el-mükerrem sene erbaʿa ve elf min hicreti n-nebeviyye (10) bi-yurt (11) Duhna [Nachgestelles „Postscriptum“ im rechten Randspiegel:] (1) merḳūm ruhbānlar Maḳarsḳa ve Zaostroġ (2) manastır[lar]da sākin olup vilāyetde (3) cerr itdügi terekden ve sāyirden (4) ḳalʿe aġalar ve neferātı daḫl (5) itmiyüp rencīde ve remīde eylemiyeler

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Verso: BOSANČICA: Kćniga pašina da f(ra)tri slobodno nose umanastir što naprose! Vunu i sir i sve da nitko nesmete. B. 51 Übersetzung: ER [Anrufung Gottes] [Pençe am rechten Rand:] Hüseyin Pascha, korrekt [Siegel:] Hüseyin Der Anlass zur Niederschrift der Buchstaben ist folgender: Die Mönche Bosniens sind hierher gekommen und haben ihr Anliegen vorgebracht: Sie haben die mit der Unterschrift des Mevlana Mahmud Efendi, der das Amt des Mufti [recte: Inspektors] von Belgrad bekleidet, versehene Abschrift eines großherrlichen Befehls seiner Majestät des verstorbenen Sultan Mehemmed Hans (Gott erleuchte seine Ruhestätte!) vorgelegt: „Gemäß seinem erhabenen Inhalt darf sich dort, wo wir im Distrikt (liva) der Herzegowina umherziehen, niemand in uns[ere Angelegenheiten] einmischen und uns quälen!“ Da sie ein Schreiben (mektub) [mit der Weisung] erbitten, dass sie nicht bedrängt und tyrannisiert werden dürfen, wurde ein solches ausgestellt und ihnen ausgehändigt. Bei seiner Ankunft ist es erforderlich, dass an den Orten, zu denen sie im genannten Liva ziehen, sie [weder] von unseren Voyevoden, anderen Leuten [unseres Gefolges] noch von sonst irgend jemandem auf irgendeine Weise bedrängt und tyrannisiert werden. Dieses Schriftstück wurde in Gestalt einer Bestätigung (temessük) niedergeschrieben, damit man sich [in ihre Angelegenheiten] nicht einmischt und sie quält, und ihnen ausgehändigt. Es soll diesem gemäß vorgegangen werden. Geschrieben in der mittleren Dekade des verehrten Monats Şevval im Jahre tausendundvier [der Hidschra, entsprechend 8.–17. Juni 1596]. Im Feldlager zu Duvno [heute Tomislavgrad] [Nachgestelltes „Postscriptum“ im rechten Randspiegel:] Die genannten Mönche sind in den Klöstern von Makarska und Zaostrog ansässig. Festungs-Kommandanten und -Besatzungen dürfen sich in das, was sie im Vilayet durch Almosensammeln an Kleinigkeit [erzielen] und anderes nicht einmischen. Man darf sie nicht bedrängen und tyrannisieren! Verso: In Bosančica-Schrift: „Schreiben des Pascha: Die Mönche sind befugt, frei ins Kloster zu bringen, was immer sie zusammenbetteln! Wolle und Käse und alles übrige. Niemand darf sie stören B. 51“

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Figure 24.2a Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 85 (recto)

Ursinus

Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des Ahdname von Fojnica

Figure 24.2b Zaostrog, Acta Turcica, Nr. 85 (verso)

625

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Bibliographie

Quellen Franziskanerkloster von Fojnica

Fojnica Acta Turcica (AT) 2, Nr. 119. Fojnica AT 2, Nr. 287. Fojnica AT 2, Nr. 293. Fojnica AT 2, Nr 132. Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1213. Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1222. Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1293. Fojnica AT 8a, Nr. 1317. Fojnica AT 12b, Nr. 2625. Fojnica AT I-22. Fojnica AT III-107. Fojnica AT 14, Nr. 2921. Fojnica AT 22. TD 157.



Franziskanerkloster zu Kraljeva Sutjeska



Franziskanerkloster Visovac



Franziskanerkloster Zaostrog

Acta Turcica, fasc. 24.

A 74.

Acta Turcica (AT) Nr. 2. AT Nr. 85. AT Nr. 97 AT Nr. 98. AT Nr. 111. AT Nr. 112.



Literatur

Boškov, Vančo. „Pitanje avtentičnost Fojničke ahd-name Mehmeda II iz 1463. Godine.“ Godišnjak društva istoričara Bosne i Hercegovine XXVIII–XXX (1979): 87–105. Džaja, Srećko. „Fojnička Ahdnama u zrcalu paleografije, pravne povijesti i politike: Kontekstualizacija Ahdname bosanskih franjevaca.“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 31 (Sarajevo, 2009): 103–28.

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Heywood, Colin. „An Ottoman ‘Exemption Letter’ (Muʿāf-nāme) Dated 1015/1606 for the Karaite Descendants of Fātima Hātūn, kira of Hafsa Sultan, the Mother of Süleymān the Magnificent: A Document from the National Museum of Lithuania.“ In Ottoman War and Peace. Studies in Honour of Virginia, eds. H. Aksan Frank Castiglione et al. 345–67. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020 (forthcoming). Işıksel, Güneş, Jacques Thobie, „Capitulations.“ In Dictionnaire de l’Empire Ottoman. Avec la collaboration d’Elisabetta Borromeo, eds. François Georgeon et al., 220–23. Paris: Fayard, 2015. Kursar, Vjeran. „Monks in Kaftâns. Bosnian Franciscans, Robes of Honour, and Ottoman Sumptuary Laws.“ In Life on the Ottoman Border. Essays in Honour of Nenad Moačanin, ed. Vjeran Kursar, 143–66. Zagreb, 2022. Matasović, Josip. „Regesta Fojnicensia,“ Nr. 196. Hierzu etwa Karlo Jurišić, Katolička crkva na Biovsko-neretvanskom području u doba turske vladavine. Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1972. Papp, Sándor. „Gesetzliche Garantien für die christlichen Gemeinden im Osmanischen Reich. Überlegungen zur Vertragsurkunde der Franziskaner in Bosnien im Kontext der Diskussion um das Millet-System.“ In Osmanischer Orient und Ostmitteleuropa. Perzeptionen und Interaktionen in den Grenzzonen zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Robert Born und Andreas Puth [Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 48], 301–320. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014. Resimli Haritalı Mufassal Osmanlı Tarihi (bir Heyet Tarafından Hazırlanmıştır), 6 Bde. Istanbul 1958–1963, Bd. 3. Istanbul: Şehir Matbaası, 1959. Šabanović, Hazim. „Turski dokumenti u Bosni iz druge polovine XV stoljeća.“ IstoriskoPravnog Zbornike 2 (1949): 177–208, 11 Tafeln. Sulejman Bajraktarević, „Turski dokumenti u Splitskom arheološkom muzeju i u Franje­ vačkom samostanu na Visovcu.“ Jugoslavenska Akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Starine vol. 44 (1952): 25–63. Theunissen, Hans. „Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The ʿAhd-names. The historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Commercial Instru­ ments together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents.“ The Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies 1,2 (1998): 1–698. Ursinus, Michael. FOJNICA 2. Osmanski dokumenti iz arhiva franjevačkog somostana (Turski izvori – Acta Turcica [51–100]). Pročitao, preslovio, preveo i opisao prof. dr. Michael Ursinus, emeritus. Fojnica, 2019. Ursinus, Michael. „Dževdet-paša i Fojnička ahdnama.“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 49 (2018): 131–140. Ursinus, Michael. „Jedno osmansko jamstvo zaštite u korist franjevačkih redovnika Srebrenice iz godine 1462.“ BOSNA FRANCISCANA 47 (2017): 195–204.

25 Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments

Sultanic Rescripts in Favour of Metropolitans and Bishops from the 17th Century Eleni Gara The accommodation of Christian ecclesiastical institutions was a feature of Ottoman statehood from the very beginning but acquired new characteristics after the conquest of Constantinople and the appointment of Patriarch Gennadios by Sultan Mehmed II. Thanks to the study of Ottoman archival sources, we can now follow the transformation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople into an Ottoman institution and understand how it operated under Ottoman law.1 A major insight from recent research is that the Church’s position in the Ottoman institutional framework changed considerably over time and that changes are reflected in the documents issued for the higher clergy. In her teaching and writing, Claudia Römer has always drawn attention to the 1 Josef Kabrda, Le système fiscal de l’Église orthodoxe dans l’Empire Ottoman (d’après les documents turcs) (Brno: Universita J.E. Purkynĕ, 1969); Halil İnalcık, “The Status of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Under the Ottomans,” Turcica 21–22 (1991): 407–36; Paraskevas Konortas, “Considerations ottomanes au sujet du statut du Patriarcat orthodoxe de Constantinople (15e–16e siècles): Quelques hypotheses,” in Communications grecques présentées au IVe Congrès International des Études du Sud-Est Européen, ed. Comité National Grec des Études du Sud-Est Europėen (Athens, 1990), 213–26; Paraskevas Konortas, Οθωμανικές θεωρήσεις για το Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο: 17ος–αρχές 20ού αιώνα (Athens: Αλεξάνδρεια, 1998); Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Δέκα τουρκικά έγγραφα για τη Μεγάλη Εκκλησία (1483–1567) (Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1996); Mustafa Macit Kenanoğlu, “Osmanlı Devleti’nin Gayrımüslim Teb’anın İdaresinde Kullandığı Bir Yöntem Olarak ‘Ruhanî İltizam’ Sistemi,” Dîvân İlmî Araştırmalar 14 (2003): 67–84; Mustafa Macit Kenanoğlu, Osmanlı Millet Sistemi: Mit ve Gerçek (Istanbul: Klasik, 2004); Tom Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Phokion Kotzageorgis, “Socio-Economic Aspects of a Tax: The Metropolitans’ and Bishops’ Pişkeş (Second Half of the Seventeenth Century),” in New Trends in Ottoman Studies: Papers presented at the 20th CIÉPO Symposium Rethymno, 27 June–1 July 2012, eds. Marinos Sariyannis et al. (Rethymno: University of Crete, 2014), 207–22; Phokion Kotzageorgis, “The Newly Found Oldest Patriarchal Berat,” Turkish Historical Review 11 (2020): 1–27; Hasan Çolak and Elif Bayraktar-Tellan, The Orthodox Church as an Ottoman Institution: A Study of Early Modern Patriarchal Berats (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2019); Elif Bayraktar-Tellan, “The Patriarchate of Constantinople and the ‘Reform of the Synod’ in the 18th-Century Ottoman Context,” Chronos 39 (2019): 7–22. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_027

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significance of the different types of Ottoman documents and of their wording. This article in her honour presents and discusses in detail, by using close reading and comparative analysis, a hitherto unrecognised type of document issued for metropolitans and bishops in the 17th century. It is a standardised rescript in response to grievances that served, as I argue, as decree of appointment. Its aim was not to redress injuries already inflicted but to prevent such injuries from happening and to pre-empt obstacles that the appointee was likely to encounter in the course of his duties. 1

Ottoman Documents for the Appointment of Metropolitans and Bishops: The General Picture

All ecclesiastical appointments in Ottoman territory, whether for the Patriarchate of Constantinople or for other churches, were made in the name of the sultan and were accompanied by the issuing of two documents: an investiture document (berat) and a sultanic order ( ferman) addressed to the judicial and executive authorities of the appointee’s diocese. The berat delineated the scope of his jurisdiction and described his rights vis-à-vis the Ottoman authorities and the religious and lay members of his flock. The ferman, on the other hand, served as decree of appointment for the new metropolitan or bishop. It notified the authorities about the appointment and urged them to prevent the hierarch from being harassed in the execution of his duties. With a few notable exceptions, appointment fermans (the term was coined by Paraskevas Konortas) have not attracted much attention. In result there is not much research on their development over time, even though it is recognised that their content is closely and bi-directionally linked to that of the berats.2 Apart from a rescript issued in 1635 for Ioseph of Pelagonia, a metropolitan of the Church of Ohrid,3 the appointment fermans known from the bibliography date from the 1660s onwards.4 From the perspective of diplomatics, they belong to the hükm-i şikâyet type, that is, they are sultanic rescripts issued in 2 Kabrda, Le système fiscal, 28; Konortas, Οθωμανικές θεωρήσεις, 46–47, 392, note 10. 3 Ioseph had assumed office in April 1633. The surviving ferman was issued on 16 May 1635, at the renewal of Ioseph’s berat. Both documents are published in Macedonian translation (with facsimiles) in Turski Dokumenti za Istorijata na Makedonskiot Narod. Serija Prva: 1607–1699, vol. 2, ed. Vančo Boškov (Skopje, 1966), 7–8, doc. no. 9, dated 27 Ramazan 1042 (berat); 130–31, doc. no. 247, dated 29 Zilkade 1044 ( ferman). See also Kabrda, Le système fiscal, 107–9, doc. no. I ( ferman) (French translation, facsimile); 136–37, doc. no. 23 (berat) (French summary, facsimile). The dates of the documents are as stated by Boškov, not as claimed by Kabrda. 4 The earliest one was issued for Ioakeim of Verroia in 1669. Ioan. K. Vasdravelles, Ιστορικά Αρχεία Μακεδονίας Β΄. Αρχείον Βεροίας – Ναούσης 1598–1886 (Thessaloniki: Εταιρεία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών, 1954), 45–46, doc. no. 55. French summary: Kabrda, Le système fiscal, 111–12, doc. no. 3.

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response to a petition.5 The best-known specimens were issued for metropolitans of Crete and survive as entries in the sharia court registers (kadı sicilleri) of Kandiye (Gk. Herakleion). The earliest example among the Cretan documents dates from 22 January 1688 and was issued upon the petition of Patriarch Iakovos on behalf of Metropolitan Athanasios. The ferman is addressed to the governor of Kandiye and to all the kadıs of the island and notifies them that Athanasios has the right to collect the ecclesiastical taxes and dues incumbent on the Christian inhabitants of Crete by virtue of a sultanic berat and a patriarchal letter that grants him plenipotentiary power. It further describes the metropolitan’s exact entitlements, and orders all judicial and executive authorities of Crete to abstain from specific actions that would constitute an encroachment on his rights.6 The scribe of the sharia court did not register the investiture document of Athanasios, but only his appointment ferman. There is therefore no absolute certainty that the order in question was issued alongside the berat at the time of Athanasios’s appointment. However, it is the most economical assumption. The kadı sicilleri of Kandiye include several pairs of ecclesiastical berats and fermans dating from the 18th century, which indicates that the absence of Athanasios’s berat should probably be attributed to the seventeenth-century court’s record-keeping practice: by all appearances, scribes only started to systematically register both documents in the 18th century. The ferman obtained by Athanasios must have been issued on the occasion of his appointment, either simultaneously or very shortly after the berat, as with the later documents of this kind. For the sake of comparison, Arsenios of Crete obtained the berat and the ferman on the same day (3 November 1702), while his successor, Ioasaph, received the documents within two consecutive days (6 and 7 July 1704).7 In short, by the 1660s it was an established practice of the Ottoman bureaucracy to issue appointment fermans alongside berats for newly appointed hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Furthermore, in view of the earlier rescript for a metropolitan of the Church of Ohrid, there is no reason to assume 5 Josef Matuz, Das Kanzleiwesen Sultan Süleymāns des Prächtigen (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974), 107–11. 6 Nikolaos S. Staurinides, Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων αφορώντων εις την ιστορίαν της Κρήτης, vol. 2 (Herakleion, 1986), 312–14, doc. no. 953 (Greek translation). See also Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου Πέμπτος Κώδικας, Μέρος Β΄: 1688–1689, eds. Maria Varoucha et al. (Herakleion: Βικελαία Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη, 2008), 456, doc. no. 816 (Greek summary). The document is dated 18 Rebi I 1099. I am grateful to Marinos Sariyannis for giving me access to the unpublished transliteration. 7 Staurinides, Μεταφράσεις, vol. 3, 283–85, docs no. 1617 (berat), 1618 ( ferman), dated 12 Cemazi II 1114; 311–15, docs no. 1681 (berat), 1682 ( ferman), dated 3 and 4 Rebi I 1116, respectively (Greek translation).

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that this practice was a new development. In that case, why are there no other such documents, dating from earlier times? Is this lack due to the poor state of the archival record and/or the deficient registration of ecclesiastical berats and appointment fermans in the kadı sicilleri of Ottoman towns? 2

Hunting for Seventeenth-century Appointment fermans

In the sharia court records of Kara Ferye (Gk. Veroia/Verroia/Berroia) there survive two pairs of documents from the 1640s, registered in consecutive order and consisting each of a berat and a sultanic rescript for two metropolitans of Verroia. The first pair is dated 1 August 1645 and was issued for Ioasaph who, as explained in the berat, was appointed as metropolitan after his predecessor’s “promotion” to patriarch of Alexandria.8 The second pair of documents was issued on 11 May 1649 for Ioakeim, who succeeded Ioasaph after his death.9 By good fortune, Ioasaph’s election memorandum survives and corresponds fully to his berat: Ioasaph had been elected to the see of Verroia on 24 June to replace Ioannikios, who had been “promoted” to the throne of Alexandria.10 There is no doubt whatsoever that a sultanic order obtained by a metropolitan so soon after his election and, above all, issued on the very same day as his berat, could be anything else but an appointment ferman. Nonetheless, the documents given to Ioasaph and Ioakeim of Verroia do not resemble, either in form or content, the appointment fermans of later periods. In contrast with the ferman for Athanasios of Crete (1688) discussed above, the orders in question are in the form of a rescript in response not to the patriarch’s petition, but to that of the newly appointed hierarch. In this respect, they resemble the appointment ferman for Ioseph of Pelagonia (1635). However, the two metropolitans of Verroia had not petitioned the sultan for an order to notify the authorities of their diocese about their assuming office, as Ioseph had done,11 but for a redress of grievances. They had both complained 8

ΓΑΚ Νομού Ημαθίας (State Archives of Imathia), Veroia, Ιεροδικαστικός Κώδικας Βεροίας (Kara Ferye Kadı Sicilli, henceforth KKS) 17, 179 (f. 90r), docs no. 1 (berat), 2 ( ferman), dated 8 Cemazi II 1055. 9 KKS 19, 335 (f. 21), docs no. 1 (berat), 2 ( ferman), dated 28 Rebi II 1059. 10 Dimitris G. Apostolopoulos and Panagiotis D. Michailaris, Η Νομική Συναγωγή του Δοσίθεου: Μια πηγή και ένα τεκμήριο, Α΄ (Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1987), 285, doc. no. 568 (summary), dated 14 June 1645 (Julian calendar). 11 “mālīye ṭarafından yedine virilen berāt-i şerīfüm mūcibince ẕikr olunan Perlepe ve Manastır medrepolidlıḳlarında żabṭ u ṭaṣarruf itmek rıcāsına iʿlām eylemegin müceddeden mālīye ṭarafından virilen berāt-i şerīfüm mūcibince żabṭ u ṭaṣarruf itdürilmek bābında emr olunmaya buyurdum ki”. Kabrda, Le système fiscal, pl. 1.

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that various office holders and private individuals had been harassing them in the execution of their duties, claiming that this was injustice (hayfdur) and requesting an imperial order to counteract such behaviour. The two fermans are practically identical in content and wording. The metropolitans’ oppressors are not named but are defined by their capacity as magistrates appointed by the provincial governors, holders of prebends, janissaries, and other office holders.12 The petition enumerates various abuses that can be summarised as follows: a) making false charges against the metropolitan of his having insulted Muslims and lured young servants away, and of owing money; b) disputing his right to change garments or carry arms and ammunition when travelling through dangerous territory; c)  hindering him from seizing the inheritance of clergy and monks who had died intestate; d) interfering in ecclesiastical matters, especially in the appointments and dismissals of clergy and the performing of marriages; and e) confiscating his horses and mules for state service. The comprehensiveness of the grievances presented, their generic and stereotypic character, and finally, their similarity to clauses found in later appointment fermans, should have been enough to arouse suspicion, even if we did not know that the two metropolitans had not yet assumed office and that the orders were issued on the same day as their berats. The documents in question clearly aimed not to redress harassment that had already taken place, but to prevent it from happening. Recognising the rescripts obtained by Ioasaph and Ioakeim of Verroia as appointment fermans is crucial, because it allows us to identify other documents of this kind that may have hitherto passed unnoticed. There are many extant rescripts from the 16th and 17th centuries issued in response to petitions by metropolitans and bishops, which are routinely taken at face value as referring to actual grievances. However, several of these are practically identical to the documents in question and should be identified as appointment fermans. Up to now, I have been able to identify 12 such documents issued for hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and one for a bishop of the Armenian Church (Table 25.1). Four of the documents have been located in the unpublished sharia court records of Kara Ferye (the two mentioned above and two others from 1620) and the rest in various publications. Some of the latter are published in abbreviated translation or paraphrase but the similarity of their content is such as to leave no doubt that they belong to the same type. The few cases in which not only fermans but also berats or election memoranda survive (Table 25.2) offer additional corroboration of the conclusion that this 12 “baʿż-ı mīrlivā voyvodaları ve ṣubaşıları ve zuʿamā ve erbāb-ı tīmār ve sipāh ve yeniçeri ve sāʾir ehl-i ʿörf ṭāʾifesi ve ġayrīler”.

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particular type of hükm-i şikâyet (henceforth the grievance type) was issued upon the appointment of a hierarch to serve as an accompanying document to his berat. 3

Appointment fermans of the Grievance Type: Form and Content

The appointment fermans of the grievance type located so far date from the period 1572–1663. Almost all of these are found in sharia court records or mühimme registers; only two survive in their original form.13 Apart from the first document on the list, which dates from 1575 (the renewal of a rescript originally issued in 1572) and evidently belongs to a transitional form, and the last, which dates from 1663 and is in many ways similar to the newer type of appointment ferman, all other documents follow the same, highly standardised template. The documents are addressed to one or several kadıs, depending on the location of the diocese, occasionally also to provincial governors (sancakbeys). From the perspective of diplomatics, they exhibit the usual traits of sultanic orders of the hükm-i şikâyet type. As expected, the kadı sicilleri entries, which constitute the bulk of our documents, lack the invocatio and the tuğra and start with the inscriptio and the salutatio. There is nothing remarkable in this part of the text: the titles and salutations are the usual type for kadıs and sancakbeys.14 The salutatio is followed by the typical notificatio: “as soon as the sublime, exalted imperial writ arrives, may it be known”.15 The main part of the documents consists of the narratio, which includes the hierarchs’ grievances, and the dispositio, which presents the sultan’s orders. Both parts are highly standardised and make use of specific formulations (Tables 25.3 and 25.4). The closing part of the documents would have been unremarkable were it not for an interpolation between the formulaic phrases of the sanctio and the corroboratio, which reads: “after inspection, you should let this imperial order of mine 13

They are the ones issued for Nikandros (1572/1575) and Serapheim of Kos (1626) and belong to the Ottoman archive of the Holy Monastery of St John the Theologian in Patmos. I am grateful to my colleague Elias Kolovos and to the librarian of the Monastery, Mr Ioannis Melianos, who made the documents available to me. 14 Anton C. Schaendlinger and Claudia Römer, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, Militärbeamte, Beamte und Richter: Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen [Osmanisch-Türkische Dokumente aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien, Teil 2] (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986), xiii–xv, xviii. See also Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlı Belgelerinin Dili (Diplomatik) (Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür Ve San’at Vakfı, 1994), 103, 105–6, 107–8. 15 “tevḳīʿ-i refīʿ-i hümāyūn vāṣıl olıcaḳ maʿlūm ola ki”.

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remain in his hands”.16 The phrase is found in all but two of the documents that I could access in the original or in transliteration,17 which indicates that it was typical of appointment fermans given to metropolitans and bishops. The earliest document on our list concerns Bishop Nikandros of Kos. It dates from 28 December 1575 and renews, on the occasion of the enthronement of Murad III, a rescript originally issued on 25 November 1572.18 The document belongs to a transitional form but is undoubtedly an appointment ferman of the grievance type.19 The comparison with a standardised rescript from 1620, issued for Bishop Theophanes of Kampania,20 shows that the content of the two documents is almost identical, even though the wording differs (Table 25.5). The standardised rescript is more succinct in its language, but at the same time offers clarifications. For example, instead of the general order “You should not let the poll-tax collectors demand without reason the runaways’ poll tax” found in the rescript of 1572/1575, the standardised rescript from 1620 has: “You should not let anyone demand the runaways’ poll tax from the men who are with him and have not been residing in a place for six months”. The differences of the two documents are few but not insignificant. The standardised rescript from 1620 contains a grievance that is not found in the earlier document: that the bishop had been prevented from taking possession of the inheritance of members of the clergy, which rightfully belonged to the patriarch. It further contains an order not found in the earlier document: that village priests were prohibited from performing marriages without the bishop’s 16 “şöyle bilesiz ve baʿdeʾn-naẓar bu ḥükm-i hümāyūnumı mezbūruñ yedinde ibḳā eyleyüp ʿalāmet-i şerīfe iʿtimād ḳılasız” (interpolation in bold). 17 It is not found in the fermans issued for Nikandros of Kos (1572/1575) and the Armenian bishop Yermenos (1622). 18 “sene-i s̱emānīn ve tisʿi miʾetin Recebinüñ ṭoḳuzunda ḥükm-i şerīf virilüb ḥālā cülūs-i hümāyūnum olmaḳla ol ḥükm-i şerīf getürüb taḥrīr olunmasın ṭaleb iderüm diyü bildürdi”. The document is dated 15 Ramazan 983. For a description and summary, see Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein and Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Catalogue du Fonds Ottoman des Archives du Monastère de Saint-Jean à Patmos: Les vingtdeux premiers dossiers (Athens: Fondation Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 2011), 87–88, doc. no. 41. See also Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, “Συμβολή στην εκκλησιαστική ιστορία της Κω (1572–1648),” Αριάδνη 17 (2011): 203–35: 208–9 (paraphrase). 19 We do not know the dates of either Nikandros’s election or appointment to the see of Kos (Ott. İstanköy). Nonetheless, given that the renewal of investiture documents in the name of new sultans was standard practice, it is safe to assume that the rescript the bishop submitted for renewal served as an appointment ferman and had been originally issued to accompany his berat. 20 The order is addressed to the kadıs of Selanik and Kara Ferye and the diocese is described as situated in the districts (nahiyeler) of Karaca Ova and Vardar. In a register compiled in 1706, the bishopric is referred to as Kanbana. Kotzageorgis, “Socio-Economic Aspects of a Tax,” 220.

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consent; otherwise, they would be chastised in accordance with the sharia. On the other hand, the rescript from 1572/1575 contains two orders that were not included in the standardised document: a) that cases of blasphemy and insult should be dispatched to the Porte for trial; and b) that no one was allowed to interfere if the bishop suspended a priest from his duties, “according to their vain customs”. We have already discussed the appointment fermans given to Ioasaph (1645) and Ioakeim of Veroia (1649) and summarized the grievances presented in the narratio. The standardised rescript from 1620, as in general the appointment fermans from the first decades of the 17th century, include the same articles, albeit in a simpler wording (Table 25.3). The part related to the orders (dispositio), on the other hand, is more extensive in the fermans from the 1640s (Table 25.4). Originally, the standardised rescript did not include detailed orders relating to the grievances presented. The early specimens include only three such clauses: a) that the hierarch in question had sole jurisdiction in matters of marriage, and village priests were not allowed to perform marriages without his consent; b) that his horses and mules were not to be confiscated on behalf of couriers or palace officials; and c) that his agents were not to be harassed with demands for the payment of the “runaways’ poll tax” (yave haracı). The rest of the grievances were covered by the general instruction “You should investigate the matter and prevent future transgressions from happening”. However, the fermans from 1644 and 1645 include two additional clauses: a) that the hierarch in question was authorised to collect all the ecclesiastical taxes and dues in his diocese; and b) that he was to inherit the possessions of intestate clergy on behalf of the patriarch. Further clauses were added in 1649: a) that no one was allowed to oppose his punishment of subordinate members of the clergy; b) that no “outsiders” were allowed to interfere in the appointment of priests and monks; c)  that the sharia court should assist him in collecting taxes in arrears; d) that no one was to object if he were to change his garments when travelling through dangerous places; and e) that no one should raise objections in regard to ecclesiastical property in mortmain (vakf ). 4

Putting Changes in Perspective

Why these differences? In the case of additions and clarifications, a plausible explanation is that they had been proved as necessary in judicial practice. Omissions, however, are not easy to explain, especially if we consider that the orders not included in the standardised template regarded issues that continued to be present in the rescripts, albeit in the form of grievances. As to the changes that occurred in the 1640s, my comparative analysis of berats and

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fermans, which I cannot present here for lack of space, shows that they are due to the integration in the appointment fermans of clauses found in the berats of that period. From a broader perspective, the inclusion of new clauses can best be understood in the light of the multifaceted crisis faced by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which culminated in the middle decades of the 17th century.21 The nature of the clauses added in the appointment fermans in the 1640s is indicative of the concerted effort made by the Church and the Ottoman administration to support the authority of the higher clergy. The main aim was to enable the financial survival of the Church and to ensure the collection of ecclesiastical taxes and dues, a considerable portion of which, the so-called “state taxes” (miri rüsum), was destined for the Treasury. It is surely not a coincidence that the change in the documents is concurrent with the establishment, probably in 1640/1, of the piskopos mukataası kalemi, a special office at the department of imperial finances responsible for ecclesiastical appointments and the collection of the respective revenues.22 The standardised rescript of the grievance type appears to have fallen in disuse in the 1660s. The last document on our list dates from 1663, while a rescript issued on 18 May 1661 for the metropolitan of Sophia already belongs to the newer, better-known type of appointment ferman, and was issued in response to the patriarch’s petition.23 My research has established that this type derives from a template that was already in use for the appointment of patriarchal envoys plenipotentiary (vekils), which naturally required the patriarch’s petition. The appointment ferman for Auxentios of Andros (5 April 1654),24 the first extant example of this type for a hierarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, is practically identical – apart from the necessary modifications – to a ferman 21

Eleni Gara and Ovidiu Olar, “Confession-Building and Authority: The Great Church and the Ottoman State in the First Half of the 17th Century,” in Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th centuries, eds. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 159–214. 22 Konortas, Οθωμανικές θεωρήσεις, 171–74. I wish to thank Prof. Konortas for pointing out to me the connection. About the piskopos mukataası kalemi see also Halil İnalcık, “Ottoman Archival Materials on Millets,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York – London: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1982), vol. I, 438–47; Kotzageorgis, “Socio-Economic Aspects of a Tax.” 23 Kabrda, Le système fiscal, 109–11, doc. no. iii, dated 19 Ramazan 1071 (French translation). 24 Elias Kolovos, Η νησιωτική κοινωνία της Άνδρου στο οθωμανικό πλαίσιο (Andros: Καΐρειος Βιβλιοθήκη, 2006), 277–79, doc. no. 137, dated 17 Cemazi I 1064 (Greek translation). Auxentios was elected to the see of Andros on 20 February 1654. Apostolopoulos and Michailaris, Νομική Συναγωγή, 322, doc. no. 693.

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issued for the patriarch’s envoy to Kayseri a year earlier (20 March 1653).25 In addition, it describes Auxentios as the patriarch’s vekil,26 a term also found in the ferman for Athanasios of Crete (1688) discussed above.27 It is impossible to go into detail, but I would suggest that the change in the type of appointment fermans issued for metropolitans and bishops after 1660 is closely connected to two developments in the ecclesiastical administration, which reached a peak in the middle decades of the 17th century: the extensive use of patriarchal envoys for the collection of ecclesiastical taxes in arrears and the proliferation of exarchies, that is, dioceses administered by a vicar appointed by the patriarch.28 At first, the Ottoman administration issued different types of appointment fermans for the two categories of hierarchs (regular metropolitans and bishops, on the one hand, and patriarchal exarchs, on the other), even though they had the same rights and duties. In the course of time, there was a convergence between the two types. It is indicative that an appointment ferman for a patriarchal vekil to Kayseri, issued on 14 August 1638, incorporates the sultanic orders in favour of metropolitans and bishops found in the fermans of the grievance type.29 Later in the 17th century, in the course of rationalising procedures and standardising document production,30 the type of appointment ferman given to metropolitans and bishops (the grievance type) was substituted with the type developed for patriarchal exarchs and envoys plenipotentiary. 5

Conclusion

The Ottoman archival records abound with rescripts responding to petitions for a redress of grievances. Some of these were submitted by metropolitans and bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople or of other churches. Historians 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ayla Akgün, 63/2 Numaralı Kayseri Şer’îyye Sicili (H. 1063–1064 / M. 1653–1654) Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirme, MA Thesis (Erciyes University, Kayseri 2009), 138–39, doc. no. 382, dated 20 Rebi II 1063. “ḥālā ṭarafumdan vekīlüm olan Aḳsentiyos nām rāhibe ẕikr olunan medrepolidlıġı żabṭ ėtdürüb”. I am grateful to Elias Kolovos for allowing me to consult his unpublished transliteration and a copy of the original document. “ḥālā berāt-ı ʿālīşān ile üzerlerine metrepolidleri olan Atanasiyoz nām rāhibe veya ṭarafından vekīline patriḳ-ı mezbūrın defter [ve] mektūbı mūcibince”. Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulou, Ο θεσμός της πατριαρχικής εξαρχίας, 14ος–19ος αιώνας (Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1995), 63–66. Bayram Üstün, 41/2 Numaralı Kayseri Şer’iyye Sicili (H. 1048 / M. 1638/1639) Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirme, MA Thesis (Erciyes University, Kayseri 2009), 385–86, doc. no. 555, dated 3 Rebi II 1048. Compare Kotzageorgis, “Socio-Economic Aspects of a Tax,” 216.

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tend to take such rescripts at face value and regard them as having been produced within the framework of Ottoman grievance administration, following its well-known procedures.31 However, this does not apply in the case of the standardised rescripts for metropolitans and bishops discussed in this article. There is conclusive evidence that rescripts of this kind, which were composed according to a distinct template, served as accompanying fermans to investiture documents (berats): they were routinely issued at the time of a hierarch’s appointment and were equally routinely renewed alongside the berat after the enthronement of a new sultan. The standardised rescripts in question were issued with the aim to prevent metropolitans and bishops from facing obstacles in the course of their duties, not to restore injustice or to remedy harm that had already been inflicted. I am not suggesting that hierarchs did not encounter behaviours such as those described in the rescripts: they often did or, more accurately, were likely to do so. Muslims might resent seeing a Christian religious travel with an armed retinue; prebend holders might oppose his demand to collect taxes from the inhabitants of their prebends; village communities might contest his efforts to apply the canon law in regard to marriages; provincial officials might illegally confiscate the estates of intestate clergy. This is exactly why there was need for a standardised appointment ferman: to cover the most common types of obstacles a hierarch was likely to face in the course of his tenure and to notify the judicial and executive authorities of his diocese about his rights and entitlements. However, it is important to keep in mind that the rescripts in question were appointment fermans: they do not relate to what had happened but to what might occur. The hitherto unrecognised appointment ferman discussed in this article (the grievance type) emerged in the last decades of the 16th century, expanded in content in the 1640s, through the addition of new clauses, and remained in use until the 1660s. In the course of that decade, it was substituted with another type of document, equally standardised, which was already in use 31 See, especially, Halil İnalcık, “Şikâyet hakkı: ʿArz-i hâl ve ʿarz-i mazhar’lar”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 7–8 (1988): 33–54; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Political Activity Among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570–1650)”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 1–39; Michael Ursinus, Grievance administration (şikayet) in an Ottoman province: The kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints’ of 1781–1783 (Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005); Eyal Ginio, “Coping With the State’s Agents ‘From Below’: Petitions, Legal Appeal, and the Sultan’s Justice in Ottoman Legal Practice”, in Popular Protest and Political Participation in the Ottoman Empire: Studies in Honor of Suraiya Faroqhi, eds. Eleni Gara, M. Erdem Kabadayı and Christoph K. Neumann (Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi University Press, 2011), 41–56.

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for the appointment of a patriarch’s envoys plenipotentiary and exarchs. This appointment ferman was also a rescript but did not present any grievances. The petitioner, whether the hierarch himself or the patriarch on his behalf, simply asked for an imperial order to counteract possible transgressions of his rights by provincial officials or members of his flock. Unsurprisingly, the new type of appointment ferman incorporated the clauses found in the old type and included further additions and clarifications. From the 1680s onwards, in a development that is closely related both to the Ottoman bureaucracy’s tendency to standardise procedures32 and to the empowerment of the patriarch vis-à-vis metropolitans and bishops,33 petitions for new appointment fermans were submitted only by the patriarch. For the time being, it must remain an open question why the appointment fermans for metropolitans and bishops issued between the 1570s and the 1660s had to assume the guise of rescripts in response to grievances. The comparative study of Ottoman and Greek sources may hold the answers, but this is a matter for another study.

Appendix

(Appointment fermans of the grievance type) Table 25.1 List of documents

No. Date

Diocesea

Hierarch

Publication / archive

1

Kos

Nikandros

Vatin et al., Monastère de SaintJean, 87–88, doc. no. 41 (summary); Zachariadou, “Συμβολή,” 208–9 (paraphrase)

1572, 25 November / 1575, 28 December

a English rendition according to Nomikos Michael Vaporis, Codex (Β´) Beta of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: Aspects of the History of the Church of Constantinople (Brookline MS: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1975). 32

33

For the Ottoman finance administration, see, especially, Rhoads Murphey, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century”, Poetics Today 14 (1993): 419–43; Linda T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire 1560–1660 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). Gara and Olar, “Confession-Building and Authority”, 188–91.

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Table 25.1 List of documents (cont.)

No. Date

Diocese

Hierarch

Publication / archive

2

1609, 14 June Kaisaria

unnamed

3 4

[1620] 1620, 30 November 1622, 1 August

unnamed Theophanes

Ronald C. Jennings, “Zimmis (Non-Muslims) in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 21,3 (1978), 225–93: 266–7 (paraphrase, with mistakes) KKS 9, 16, doc. no. 1 KKS 9, 20, doc. no. 1

5

Verroia Kampania

Yermenos Kaisaria (Armenian Church)

6

1626, 11 April Kos

Serapheim

7

1635, 4 November

Anthimos

8

1644, 28 June Amasia

Trapezous

Arsenios

Mustafa Sözcü, Kayseri’nin 25 Numaralı Şerʿiyye Sicili’nin 101–60. Sayfalarının Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirilmesi H. 1034 (M. 1624–1625), MA Thesis (Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Kahramanmaraş), 97–98, doc. no. 647 (transliteration); Jennings, “Kayseri,” 267–68 (paraphrase, with mistakes) Vatin et al., Monastère de Saint-Jean, 287–88, doc. no. 3 (summary); Zachariadou, “Συμβολή,” 215–16 (paraphrase) Turan Açık, “Trabzon Rum Metropolitleri Hakkında Bazı Gözlemler (1610–1670),” Osmanlı Mirası Araştırmaları Dergisi (OMAD) 4, no. 10 (2017), 1–26: 11–12 (paraphrase) Canan Yıldırım, 4 Numaralı Amasya Şerʿiye Sicili’nin Transkripsiyonu ve Değerlendirmesi, MA Thesis (Amasya University, 2018), 260–61, doc. no. 113/3 (transliteration, with many mistakes)

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Table 25.1 List of documents (cont.)

No. Date

Diocese

Hierarch

Publication / archive

9

1645, 1 August 1649, 11 May 1649, 13 May– 11 June (renewal)

Verroia

Ioasaph

KKS 17, 179 (f. 90r), doc. no. 2

Verroia Amasia

Ioakeim Arsenios

1660, 5 February 1663, 9 July

Trapezous

Philotheos

Ikonion

Antonios (?)

KKS 19, 335 (f. 21), doc. 2 Fatma Gül Töremiş, H. 1058–1059 (1648–1649) Tarihli ve 7 Numaralı Amasya Şer’iye Sicili’nin Transkripsiyonu ve Değerlendirilmesi, MA Thesis (Amasya University, 2019), 164–66, doc. no. 58/4 (transliteration, with many mistakes) Açık, “Trabzon Rum Metropolitleri,” 12 (paraphrase) Ayşe Güngören, 12 Numaralı Konya Şerʿiye Sicili (1074–1075 / 1663–1664) Değerlendirme ve Transkripsiyon, MA Thesis (Selçuk University, Konya, 2020), 502–3, doc. no. 264–4 (transliteration)

10 11

12 13

Table 25.2 Dates of election and appointment

Doc. No.

Diocese

Hierarch

Date of election (Gregorian calendar)

Date of appointment

8 9

Amasia Verroia

Arsenios Ioasaph

1644, 12 Februarya 1645, 24 Juneb

12

Trapezous

Philotheos

1660, 3 Januaryc

1644, 28 June ( ferman) 1645, 1 August (berat, ferman) 1660, 5 February ( ferman)

a Apostolopoulos and Michailaris, Νομική Συναγωγή, 174, doc. no. 210. b Ibid., 285, doc. no. 568. c Chrysanthos Trapezountos, Η Εκκλησία Τραπεζούντος (Athens: Εστία, 1933), 572.

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Table 25.3 The hierarchs’ grievances

No. Grievance (in order of appearance)a

Doc. No. Year

I

3, 4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626

8, 9, 10

1644, 1645, 1649

II

III

medrepolidlıġuma / pisḳoposlıġuma / müteʿalliḳ kefere ṭāʾifesinüñ senevī mīrī rüsūm ve taṣadduḳ aḳçelerin ve panayırları ve nikāḥları resmin cemʿ eyledügümde sancāḳ-begi voyvodaları ve ṣubaşıları ve zuʿamā ve erbāb-i tīmār ve ġayrīler ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf rencīde iderler biʾl-fiʿl medrepolidlıġuma müteʿalliḳ ẕikr olunan ḳāḍīlı­ḳlarda sākin papas ve keşīşlerüñ ve sāʾir ẕimmīlerüñb üzerlerine edāsı lāzim gelen senevī mīrī rüsūm ve taṣadduḳ aḳçelerin ve panayırları ve nikāḥları ve manastırları resmin ve sāʾir medrepolidlıḳ maḥṣūlātin ḳadīmden olıgeldügi üzre ve müceddeden yedüme virilen berāt-i hümāyūn mūcibince ṭaleb ü taḥṣīl eylemek istedügümde baʿż-ı mīr-livā voyvodaları ve ṣubaşıları ve zuʿamā ve erbāb-i tīmār ve sipāh ve yeniçeri ve sāʾir ehl-i ʿörf ṭāʾifesi ve ġayrīler mücerred celb ü aḫẕ içün ḫilāf-i şerʿ ü ḳanūn ve muġāyir-i berāt-i hümāyūn rencīde iderler ve ben mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken baʿż-ı kimesneler gelüb sen bize sögdüñ ve oġlanımuz ayartduñ veya saña ḳarż aḳçe virdüḳ diyü

3, 4, 5, 6, 1620, 8, 9, 10 1622, 1626, 1644, 1645, 1649 3, 4, 5, 6 1620, 1622, 1626

ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf rencīde eyledüklerinden ġayrī baʿż-ı maḫūf u muḫāṭara olan yirlerden aḥsen vech-ile geçmek içün libāsumı teġayyür idüb silāḥ esbābı getürdügümde ehl-i ʿörf ṭāʾifesi ve voyvodalar ḫilāf-i muʿtād daḫl iderlerc ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf rencīde eyledüklerinden ġayrī baʿż-ı maḫūf 8, 9, 10 olan yirlerden aḥsen vech-ile geçmek içün tebdīl-i cāme ü kisve eyledügümde baʿż-ı voyvodalar ve ḳapu ḳulları ve sāʾir ehl-i ʿörf ṭāʾifesi ḳadīmden olıgelmişe muḫālif ve yedümde olan berāt-i şerīfe muġāyir bī-vech daḫl ve rencīde iderlerd

1644, 1645, 1649

a Doc. no. 6 has a somewhat different order of grievances: I, II, III, V, VI, IV, VII, VIII. b In doc. no. 9, the list also includes bishops. c Instead of “silāḥ esbābı getürdügümde”, doc. no. 3 has “defʿ-i mażarret içün getürdügüm pāre ve yaraġına”. d In doc. no. 8, the enumeration of the abusive officials is followed by the phrase “celb-i māl içün tebdīl-i kisve eylemişsin diyü”.

643

Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments Table 25.3 The hierarchs’ grievances (cont.)

No. Grievance (in order of appearance)

Doc. No. Year

IV

ve medrepolidlıġuma / pisḳoposlıġuma / müteʿalliḳ bir papas veya bir keşīş ve-yāḫūd bir ḳaloġrıya mürd olsa baṭrıḳa ʿāʾid olan metrūkāti elümde olan berāt-i hümāyūn mūcibince żabṭ eyledügümde baʿż-ı kimesneler māniʿ olurlare ve mezbūr metrepolidlıġuma müteʿalliḳ bir papas veyā bir keşīş ve-yāḫūd bir ḳaloġrıya mürd olsa / mürd olan pisḳoposlar ve papaslar ve keşīşlerüñ ve ḳaloġrıyalaruñ / muʿtād-i ḳadīm üzre paṭrıḳa ʿāʾid olan metrūkātlerin elümde olan berāt-i hümāyūn mūcibince baṭrıḳ içün aḫẕ u ḳabż eyledügümde beytüʾl-māl ve ḳassām ve ādemleri ṭarafından ve āḫardan bī-vech ve ḫilāf-i berāt-i şerīf māniʿ olurlar ve ʿazl u naṣba müsteḥıḳḳ olan papasları ve keşīşleri āyīnimüz üzre ʿazl u naṣb eyledügümde baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girüb redd olunan papas papaslıḳ itdürürler ve āyīnimüze muḫālif vażʿ iden papas ve keşīşlerin āyīnimüz mūcibince / āyīn-i ʿāṭılamuz üzre / ʿazl u naṣb ve teʾdīb eyledügümde ḫāricden baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girer redd olunan papas āyīnimüze muḫālif girü fużulī papaslıḳ itdürürlerf ve benüm maʿrifetüm yoġ-iken ḳurā papasları nikāḥ-i cāʾiz olmıyan kefereye nikāḥ iderler

3, 4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626

8, 9, 10

1644, 1645, 1649

3, 4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649

ve benüm maʿrifetüm yoġ-iken ḳurā papasları āyīni­müze muḫālif nikāḥ-i cāʾiz olmıyan kefereye nikāḥ iderler

8, 9, 10

V

VI

VIa ve kefere tāʾifesinüñ cānib-i mīrīye ʿāʾid olan rüsūm ve taṣadduḳ aḳçelerin elümde olan cerīd[e] ve berāt mūcibince lāzim gelen bāḳīyelerüm şerʿle ṭaleb eyledügümde baʿżıları virmekde teʾellül ü nizāʿ iderler

8, 9, 10

3, 4, 5, 6

10

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649 1649

e Instead of only “baṭrıḳa ʿāʾid olan metrūkāti” and “baʿż-ı kimesneler”, doc. no. 3 has “baṭrıḳa ʿāʾid beş biñden aḳall olan metrūkāti” and “baʿż-ı kimesneler ve ümenā vu ʿummāl”, respectively. f Doc. no. 10 has a more detailed phrasing in the second part of the sentence: “ḫāricden baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girüb āyīnimüze muḫālif baʿż-ı kimesneler daḫl u rencīde iderler ve metrepolidlıġuma müteʿalliḳ ʿazl u naṣba müteʿalliḳ (sic!) müsteḥıḳḳ olan papas ve keşīşleri āyīnimüz üzre ve berātum mūcibince ʿazl u naṣb eyledügümde ḫāricden baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girüb [āyīnimüze] muḫālif redd olunan papası fużūlī papaslıḳ itdürürler”.

644

Gara

Table 25.3 The hierarchs’ grievances (cont.)

No. Grievance (in order of appearance)

Doc. No. Year

3, 4, 5, 6 ve ben mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken / taḥṣīl iderken / bineṭurduġum bārgīr / at ve ḳaṭırı / taṣarrufumda olan atı ve ḳaṭırı / baʿż-ı ḳapu ḳulları ve ulaḳlar elümden alub ve ben mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken / cemʿ iderken / taṣarrufumda 8, 9, 10 olan bārgīr ve ḳaṭırı baʿż-ı ḳapu ḳulları ve ulaḳlar elümden alub ḫilāf-i şerʿ şerīf rencīde iderler ḥayfdur diyü VIII ve altı ay bir yirde sākin olmadın yanumda olan ādemlerinden 3, 4, 5, 6 yave ḫarācı ṭaleb iderler ḥayfdur diyü

VII

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649 1620, 1622, 1626

Docs no. 3 (unnamed metropolitan of Verroia, 1620), 4 (Theophanes of Kampania, 1620), 5 (Armenian Bishop Yermenos of Kaisaria, 1622), 6 (Serapheim of Kos, 1626), 8 (Arsenios of Amasia, 1644), 9 (Ioasaph of Verroia, 1645), 10 (Ioakeim of Verroia, 1649). Table 25.4 The sultan’s orders

No. Order (in order of appearance) I

Ia

Doc. No. Year

3, 4, 5, 6 ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda ḫuṣūṣ-ı mezbūre muḳayyed olub göresin fīʾl-vāḳiʿ ḳażīye rāhib-i mezbūruñ didügi gibi ise menʿ / menʿ u defʿ / idüba 8, 9, 10 ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda bu bābda ṣādır olan emrüm üzre ʿamel idüb daḫı ḥuṣūṣ-ı mezbūra muḳayyed olub göresiz fīʾl-vāḳiʿ ḳażīye rāhib-i mezbūruñ didügi gibi ise menʿ u defʿ idüb 9, 10 medrepolidlıġa dāḫil ẕikr olunan ḳāḍīlıḳlarda / tābiʿ taḫt-i ḥükǖmetiñüzde / sākin papas ve keşīşlerüñ ve sāʾir ẕimmīlerüñb gendü āyīnleri üzre senevī üzerlerine edāsı lāzim gelen / düşen / mīrī rüsūm ve taṣadduḳ akçelerin ve panayırları ve nikāḥları resmin ve manastırları resmin

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649 1645, 1649

a In doc. no. 6, “ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda” is followed by “bu bābda ṣādır olan fermān-i celīlü’lḳadrum mūcibince ʿamel”. b In doc. no. 9, the list also includes bishops.

645

Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments Table 25.4 The sultan’s orders (cont.)

No. Order (in order of appearance)

Doc. No. Year

Ib

9, 10

1645, 1649

3, 4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649

II

IIa

IIb

III

ve mürd olan ruhbān ve ḳaloġrıyalaruñ baṭrıḳa ʿāʾid olan metrūkātin ve sāʾir gendüye ʿāʾid medrepolidlıḳ maḥṣūlin ḳadīmden olıgelen ʿādet ü ḳanūn üzre / muʿtād-i ḳadīm üzre / ve berātı mūcibince medrepolid-i merḳūm rāhib ṭaleb ü taḥṣīl eylemek ve aḫẕ u ḳabż itdürüb / baṭrıḳ içün aḫẕ u ḳabż itdürüb / beytü’l-māl ve ḳaṣṣām ve ādemleri ṭarafından bī-vech şerʿle daḫl u taʿarruż itdürmeyesizc ẕikr olunan ḫuṣūṣlar içün rāhib-i mezbūrı ve yanında olan ādemlerini ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf kimesne rencīde ü remīde itdürmeyesind mīrī rüsūm cemʿ itdükde rāhib-i mezbūrı ve yanında ādemlerin ẕikr olunan ḫuṣūṣlar içün ḫilāf-i ʿādet ü ḳanūn ve muġāyir-i berāt-i hümāyūn ṭāʾife-i mezbūreden ve sāʾir ḳapum ḳullarından / ve ġayrīden ve āḫardan bir ferde ol-vechle daḫl ve rencīde ü remīde itdürmeyüb ve āyīnlerine muḫālif vażʿ iden papas ve keşīşlerin āyīn-i ʿāṭılaları üzre teʾdīb eyledügümde kimesne māniʿ olmaya ve itdürülmeye ve medrepolidlıġına tābiʿ ʿazl u naṣba müsteḥıḳḳ olan papas ve keşīşlerin āyīn-i ʿāṭılaları üzre ve yedinde olan berāt mūcibince ʿazl u naṣb eyledügünde ḫāricden baʿż-ı kimesneler aralarına girüb āyīnlerine muḫālif redd olunan papasa fużulī papaslıḳ eylemeye ve itdürmeyesiz ve rāhib-i mezbūruñ maʿrifeti yoġ-iken ḳurā papaslarına nikāḥ itdürmeyesin ve rāhib-i mezbūruñ maʿrifeti yoġ-iken ḳurā papaslarına nikāḥ itdürmeyüb teʾallül iderler ise şerʿle teʾdīb olunub nikāḥlarına / keferenüñ nikāḥ ḫuṣūṣına / rāhib-i mezbūrdan ġayrī kimesneyi daḫl itdürmeyesin

8, 9, 10

10

1649

10

1649

3

1620

4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626

c The last part of the sentence (after itdürüb) is present only in doc. no. 10. d In doc. no. 3, “yanında olan ādemlerin” is followed by “yave ḫarācı ṭaleb iderler”.

646

Gara

Table 25.4 The sultan’s orders (cont.)

No. Order (in order of appearance)

Doc. No. Year

ve rāhib-i mezbūruñ maʿrifeti yoġ-iken ḳurā papaslarına āyīnlerine muḫālif nikāḥ-i cāʾiz olmıyan kefereye nikāḥ itdürmeyesiz iderler ise āyīnleri üzre teʾdīb itdürüb keferenüñ nikāḥı ḥuṣūṣına medrepolid-i merḳūm rāhibden ġayrī kimesne daḫl itdürmeyesize IIIa ve defter mūcibince teveccüḥ iden bāḳīlerüñ daḫı şerʿle mütevecciḥ olanlardan biʾt-temām alıvirüb IIIb ve baʿż-ı maḫūf olan yirlerden aḥsen vech-ile geçmek içün tebdīl-i cāme ü kisve eyledügünde ḫilāf-i şerʿ rencīde itdürmeyesiz IIIc ve kiliseye müteʿalliḳ bāġ ve bāġçelere ve çiftliklere ve tarlalara ve çayırlara ve sāʾir keniseye vaḳf olunlara yedinde olan berāt-i hümāyūnuma muḫālif āḫardan bir ferd daḫl itdürmeyesiz IV ve mīrī rüsūm taḥṣīl iderken bineṭurduġı / taṣarrufında olan / bārgīr / at ve ḳaṭırı / ulaġa ve sāʾir ḳapum ḳullarına aldurmayub ve rüsūm cemʿinde iken taṣarrufında olan bārgīr ve ḳaṭırı ulaḳ ve sāʾir ḳapum ḳullarına aldurmayasın / aldurmayub rencīde itdürmeyesiz / V ve altı ay bir yirde sākin olmadın yanında olan ādemlerinden yave ḫarācı ṭaleb alınavirmeyesin

9, 10

1645, 1649

10

1649

10

1649

10

1649

3, 4, 5, 6

1620, 1622, 1626 1644, 1645, 1649 1620, 1622, 1626 1645

VI

ve yanında olan ādemlerine ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf ehl-i ʿörfden ve āḫardan bir ferde rencīde ü remīde itdürmeyesiz ve bi’l-cümle ḳadīmden olıgeldügi üzre ʿamel idüb ḫuṣūṣ-ı mezbūr içün tekrār ḳapum şikāyeti gelmelü eylemeyesin / emr-i āḫar irsāline muḥtāc eylemeyesin /

8, 9, 10

3, 4, 5, 6

9

3, 4, 5, 6, 8,1620, 9, 10 1622, 1626, 1644, 1645, 1649

Docs no. 3 (unnamed metropolitan of Verroia, 1620), 4 (Theophanes of Kampania, 1620), 5 (Armenian bishop Yermenos of Kaisaria, 1622), 6 (Serapheim of Kos, 1626), 8 (Arsenios of Amasia, 1644), 9 (Ioasaph of Verroia, 1645), 10 (Ioakeim of Verroia, 1649). e Doc. no 10 has a shortened version.

Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments

647

Table 25.5 The standardised rescript of the 1620s compared to an earlier form

No. Nikandros of Kos (1572/1575)

GRIEVANCES I

III

VII

II

pisḳoposlıġuma müteʿalliḳ olan yirlerde kefere ṭāʾifesinden ve papaslardan senevī mīrī rüsūmı cemʿ itmek istedügümde erbāb-i tīmārdan ve sipāhī ve yeñiçeriden ve bażʿ-i eşrākīyeler mīrī rüsūm taḥṣīline māniʿ olmaḳ isterler ve mīrī rüsūm taḥṣīline gitdügümde baʿż-ı maḫūf u muḫāṭara olan yirlerden mīrī rüsūm aḳçesiyle aḥsen vech-ile geçmek içün kisvemüzi teġayyür iyleyüb ve ḫavfumdan silāḥ esbābı getürdügümde sen keşīşlik kisvesi teġayyür eylemişsin diyü celb-i māl içün sancāḳ-begi voyvodaları ve ġayrī bī-vech rencīde iderler ve binedurduġum atı ve ḳaṭırı cebrī elümden almaḳ isterler ve baʿż-ı kimesneler cemʿ eyledügüm mīrī rüsūm aḳçesin ve beni ve ādemlerümi dutub sen bizüm dīnimüze ve aġzımuza sögdüñ veyā oġlanımuz ayartduñ ve-yāḫūd saña ḳarż aḳçe virdürüz diyü bunuñ ems̱āli baʿż-ı nesneler ister idüb baña ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf ẓulm u teʿaddī itmek isterler

Theophanes of Kampania (1620) pisḳoposlıġuma müteʿalliḳ kefere ṭāʾifesinüñ senevī mīrī rüsūmın ve taṣadduḳ aḳçesin cemʿ eyledügümde sancāḳ begi voyvodaları ve ṣubaşıları ve zuʿamā ve erbāb-i tīmār ve ġayrīler ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf rencīde iderler ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf rencīde eyledüklerinden ġayrī baʿż-ı maḫūf u muḫāṭara olan yirlerden aḥsen vech-ile geçmek içün libāsumı teġayyür idüb silāḥ esbābı getürdügümde ehl-i ʿörf ṭāʾifesi ve voyvodası ḫilāf-i muʿtād daḫl iderler

ve mīrī rüsūm taḥṣīl iderken taṣarrufumda olan atı ve ḳaṭırı elümden alub ve ben mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken baʿż-ı kimesneler gelüb sen bize sögdüñ ve oġlanımuz ayartduñ veya saña ḳarż aḳçe virdüḳ diyü

648

Gara

Table 25.5 The standardised rescript of the 1620s compared to an earlier form (cont.)

No. Nikandros of Kos (1572/1575)

ve pisḳoposlıġuma müteʿalliḳ olan papaslardan birinüñ āyīn-i bāṭılamuza muḫālif baʿż-ı ifʿāl-i ḳabāḥā ṣādır olub papaslıḳdan ve kiliseden refʿ eyledügümde müslimānlardan baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girüb redd olunan papasa papaslıḳ itdürürler VI ve benüm maʿrifetüm yoġ-iken ḳurā papasları kefereye nikāḥ iderler VIII ve mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken benden ve yatumca bile olan ādemlerümden yave ḫarācın ṭaleb iderler diyü V

ve ʿazl u naṣba müsteḥıḳḳ olan papasları ve keşīşleri āyīnimüz mūcibince ʿazl u naṣb eyledügümde baʿż-ı kimesneler aramuza girüb redd olunan papas papaslıḳ itdürürler

I

ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda göresiz rāhib-i mezbūruñ didügi gibi ise menʿ idüb

GRIEVANCES V (cont.)

ORDERS

Theophanes of Kampania (1620)

II

ḥükm-i şerīfüm varduḳda göresiz fe-vāḳiʿ ḳażīye didügi gibi ise meẕkūruñ cemʿ eyledügi rüsūm-i mīrīye rāciʿdür ẕikr olunan ḫuṣūṣlar içün ḫilāf-i şerʿ rāhib-i mezbūrı bī-vech rencīde itmek isteyenleri menʿ u defʿ idüb incitdürmeyesiz

ve benüm maʿrifetüm yoġ-iken ḳurā papasları nikāḥ-i cāʾiz olmıyan kefereye nikāḥ iderler ve altı ay bir yirde sākin olmadın yanumda olan ādemlerinden yave ḫarācı ṭaleb iderler ḥayfdur ve pisḳoposlıġuma müteʿalliḳ bir papas ve-yāḫūd bir keşīş veya bir ḳaloġrıya mürd olsa baṭrıḳa ʿāʾid metrūkāti [elinde] olan berāt-i hümāyūn mūcibince żabṭ eyledügümde baʿż-ı kimesneler māniʿ olurlar

ẕikr olunan ḫuṣūṣlar içün rāhib-i mezbūrın ve yanında olan ādemlerini ḫilāf-i şerʿ-i şerīf kimesneye rencīde ü remīde itdürmeyesiz

Grievance Redressal and Ecclesiastical Appointments

649

Table 25.5 The standardised rescript of the 1620s compared to an earlier form (cont.)

No. Nikandros of Kos (1572/1575)

ORDERS (cont.)

III

dīnimüze ve aġzımuza sögdüñ diyü bunuñ ems̱āli daʿvā idenleri şāhidler-ile ḳapuma gönderesiz ki bunda şerʿle istimāʿ oluna

IV

ve atın ve ḳāṭırın daḫı bī-vech kimesneye aldurmayasız

V

ve meẕkūr mīrī rüsūm cemʿinde iken yave ḫarāccılarına bī-vech yave ḫarācın aldurmayasız ve rāhib-i mezbūr āyīn-i bāṭılaları üzre papaslıḳdan refʿ eyledügi rāhiblere ḫāricden kimesne-yi bī-vech daḫl itdürmeyesiz

IIb

VI

Theophanes of Kampania (1620)

ve rāhib-i mezbūruñ maʿrifeti yoġ-iken ḳurā papaslarına nikāḥ itdürmeyüb teʾallül iderler [ise] şerʿle teʾdīb olunub nikāḥlarına rāhib-i mezbūrdan ġayrī kimesne-yi daḫl itdürmeyesiz ve mīrī rüsūm taḥṣīl olunurken taṣarrufında olan atlara ve ḳaṭırlara ulaġa ve sāʾir ḳapum ḳullarına aldurmayub ve altı ay bir yirde sākin olmadın yanında olan ādemlerinden yave ḫarācı ṭaleb itdürmeyesiz

bi’l-cümle ḳadīmden olıgeldügi üzre ʿamel idüb ḫuṣūṣ-ı mezbūr içün emr-i āḫar irsāline muḥtāc eylemeyesiz

The Roman numbers in the second column indicate the number of the grievance/order as presented above (Tables III–IV). New elements in pre-existing articles are in bold in the standardised rescript.

650

Gara

Bibliography

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ΓΑΚ Νομού Ημαθίας (State Archives of Imathia), Veroia, Ιεροδικαστικός Κώδικας Βεροίας (Kara Ferye Kadı Sicilli) KKS 9. KKS 17. KKS 19.

Ιεροδικείο Ηρακλείου Πέμπτος Κώδικας, Μέρος Β΄: 1688–1689, eds. Maria Varoucha et al. Herakleion: Βικελαία Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη, 2008. Apostolopoulos, Dimitris G. and Michailaris, Panagiotis D. Η Νομική Συναγωγή του Δοσίθεου: Μια πηγή και ένα τεκμήριο, Α΄. Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1987. Çolak, Hasan and Bayraktar-Tellan, Elif. The Orthodox Church as an Ottoman Institution: A Study of Early Modern Patriarchal Berats. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2019. Kolovos, Elias. Η νησιωτική κοινωνία της Άνδρου στο οθωμανικό πλαίσιο. [Ανδριακά Χρονικά 39] Andros: Καΐρειος Βιβλιοθήκη, 2006. Schaendlinger, Anton C. and Römer, Claudia. Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, Militärbeamte, Beamte und Richter: Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen. [Osmanisch-Türkische Dokumente aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien, Teil 2] Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986. Staurinides, Nikolaos S. Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων αφορώντων εις την ιστορίαν της Κρήτης, 5 vols. Herakleion, 1986. Turski Dokumenti za Istorijata na Makedonskiot Narod. Serija Prva: 1607–1699, vol. 2, ed. Vančo Boškov. Skopje, 1966. Ursinus, Michael. Grievance administration (şikayet) in an Ottoman province: The kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints’ of 1781–1783. Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. Vaporis, Nomikos Michael. Codex (Β´) Beta of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: Aspects of the History of the Church of Constantinople. Brookline MS: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1975. Vasdravelles, Ioan. K. Ιστορικά Αρχεία Μακεδονίας Β΄. Αρχείον Βεροίας – Ναούσης 1598–1886. Thessaloniki: Εταιρεία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών, 1954. Vatin, Nicolas, Veinstein, Gilles and Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. Catalogue du Fonds Ottoman des Archives du Monastère de Saint-Jean à Patmos: Les vingtdeux premiers dossiers. Athens: Fondation Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 2011.

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Açık, Turan. “Trabzon Rum Metropolitleri Hakkında Bazı Gözlemler (1610–1670).” Osmanlı Mirası Araştırmaları Dergisi (OMAD) 4, no. 10 (2017): 1–26. Akgün, Ayla. “63/2 Numaralı Kayseri Şer’îyye Sicili (H. 1063–1064 / M. 1653–1654) Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirme.” MA thesis, Erciyes University, Kayseri 2009. Bayraktar-Tellan, Elif. “The Patriarchate of Constantinople and the ‘Reform of the Synod’ in the 18th-Century Ottoman Context.” Chronos 39 (2019): 7–22. Chrysanthos Trapezountos. Η Εκκλησία Τραπεζούντος. Athens: Εστία, 1933. Darling, Linda T. Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire 1560–1660. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Faroqhi, Suraiya. “Political Activity Among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570–1650).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 1–39. Gara, Eleni and Olar, Ovidiu. “Confession-Building and Authority: The Great Church and the Ottoman State in the First Half of the 17th Century.” In Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th centuries, eds. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, 159–214. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Ginio, Eyal. “Coping With the State’s Agents ‘From Below’: Petitions, Legal Appeal, and the Sultan’s Justice in Ottoman Legal Practice.” In Popular Protest and Political Participation in the Ottoman Empire: Studies in Honor of Suraiya Faroqhi, eds. Eleni Gara, M. Erdem Kabadayı and Christoph K. Neumann, 41–56. Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi University Press, 2011. Güngören, Ayşe. “12 Numaralı Konya Şerʿiye Sicili (1074–1075 / 1663–1664) Değerlen­ dirme ve Transkripsiyon.” MA thesis, Selçuk University, Konya 2020. İnalcık, Halil. “The Status of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Under the Ottomans.” Turcica 21–22 (1991): 407–36. İnalcık, Halil. “Şikâyet hakkı: ʿArz-i hâl ve ʿarz-i mazhar’lar.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 7–8 (1988): 33–54. İnalcık, Halil. “Ottoman Archival Materials on Millets.” In Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, vol. I, 438–47. New York – London: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1982. Jennings, Ronald C. “Zimmis (Non-Muslims) in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 21,3 (1978): 225–93. Kabrda, Josef. Le système fiscal de l’Église orthodoxe dans l’Empire Ottoman (d’après les documents turcs). Brno: Universita J.E. Purkynĕ, 1969. Kenanoğlu, Mustafa Macit. Osmanlı Millet Sistemi: Mit ve Gerçek. Istanbul: Klasik, 2004.

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Kenanoğlu, Mustafa Macit. “Osmanlı Devleti’nin Gayrımüslim Teb’anın İdaresinde Kullandığı Bir Yöntem Olarak ‘Ruhanî İltizam’ Sistemi.” Dîvân İlmî Araştırmalar 14 (2003): 67–84. Konortas, Paraskevas. Οθωμανικές θεωρήσεις για το Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο: 17ος–αρχές 20ού αιώνα. Athens: Αλεξάνδρεια, 1998. Konortas, Paraskevas. “Considerations ottomanes au sujet du statut du Patriarcat orthodoxe de Constantinople (15e–16e siècles): Quelques hypotheses.” In Communications grecques présentées au IVe Congrès International des Études du Sud-Est Européen, ed. Comité National Grec des Études du Sud-Est Europėen, 213–26. Athens, 1990. Kotzageorgis, Phokion. “The Newly Found Oldest Patriarchal Berat.” Turkish Historical Review 11 (2020): 1–27. Kotzageorgis, Phokion. “Socio-Economic Aspects of a Tax: The Metropolitans’ and Bishops’ Pişkeş (Second Half of the Seventeenth Century).” In New Trends in Ottoman Studies: Papers presented at the 20th CIÉPO Symposium Rethymno, 27 June– 1 July 2012, eds. Marinos Sariyannis et al., 207–22. Rethymno: University of Crete, 2014. Kütükoğlu, Mübahat S. Osmanlı Belgelerinin Dili (Diplomatik). Istanbul: Kubbealtı Akademisi Kültür Ve San’at Vakfı, 1994. Matuz, Josef. Das Kanzleiwesen Sultan Süleymāns des Prächtigen. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974. Murphey, Rhoads. “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century.” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 419–43. Paizi-Apostolopoulou, Machi. Ο θεσμός της πατριαρχικής εξαρχίας, 14ος–19ος αιώνας. Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1995. Papademetriou, Tom. Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Sözcü, Mustafa. “Kayseri’nin 25 Numaralı Şerʿiyye Sicili’nin 101–60. Sayfalarının Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirilmesi H. 1034 (M. 1624–1625).” MA thesis, Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, 2015. Töremiş, Fatma Gül. “H. 1058–1059 (1648–1649) Tarihli ve 7 Numaralı Amasya Şer’iye Sicili’nin Transkripsiyonu ve Değerlendirilmesi.” MA thesis, Amasya University, 2019. Üstün, Bayram. “41/2 Numaralı Kayseri Şer’iyye Sicili (H. 1048  / M. 1638/1639) Transkripsiyon ve Değerlendirme.” MA thesis, Erciyes University, Kayseri 2009. Yıldırım, Canan. “4 Numaralı Amasya Şerʿiye Sicili’nin Transkripsiyonu ve Değerlen­ dirmesi.” MA thesis, Amasya University, 2018. Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. “Συμβολή στην εκκλησιαστική ιστορία της Κω (1572–1648).” Αριάδνη 17 (2011): 203–35. Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. Δέκα τουρκικά έγγραφα για τη Μεγάλη Εκκλησία (1483–1567). Athens: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 1996.

26 Living Together in the Quarters of a City

Non-Muslims in the Judicial Registers (Şerʿi Mahkeme Sicilleri) of Trabzon in the Second Half of the 17th Century Kenan İnan

This article deals with the non-Muslims in and around the city of Trabzon and tries to shed light on their different daily activities in the second half of the 17th century. Despite their gradual decline, the presence of the Christian population continued in the city after the Ottoman conquest of 1461. By the middle of the 17th century, Trabzon was institutionally converted into a classical Ottoman city. From the end of the 16th century and throughout the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire witnessed unpresented social, economic, and political developments. The Porte’s loss of control in the provinces, celali and sekban movements, long-lasting Iranian wars, and financial crisis dramatically changed the daily lives of the Ottoman citizens, whether Muslims or non-Muslims. As reflected in judicial registers, Trabzon also experienced all the above-mentioned disruptive developments of the 17th century but survived and emerged with enormous amount of social and economic activities concerning the whole population. It seems that the non-Muslims had a great share in this. On 15 August 1461, Mehmed II conquered Trabzon.1 The city came under Ottoman rule at a later date than most of the Ottoman Anatolian cities and also protected a considerable amount of the non-Muslim population. According to the sources, after the conquest, Mehmed II transferred some of the population of the city to other parts of Anatolia and Istanbul and introduced some Muslim Turks to the city.2 However, it is clear that this pattern of immigration 1 For detailed information on the Ottoman conquest of Trabzon see Kenan İnan, “Trabzon’un Fethi,” in “Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından”, Onyedinci Yüzyıl Ortalarında Trabzon’da Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat (Trabzon: Trabzon Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2013), 15–28. 2 Nihal Atsız Çiftçioğlu, Osmanlı Tarihleri I (İstanbul: Türkiye Yayınevi, 1949), 208; Tursun Bey, Tarih-i Ebü’l-Feth, Hazırlayan A. Mertol Tulum (İstanbul: İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 1977), 110; Kritovulos Tarihi 1451–1467, transl. Ari Çokana (İstanbul: Heyamola Yayınları, 2013), 521; Konstantin Mihailoviç, Memoirs of a Janissary, transl. Benjamin Stolz (Michigan: Ann Arbor, 1975) 121; For the compulsory in and out migration to Trabzon see Heath W. Lowry, Trabzon

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_028

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İnan

and emigration did not change the non-Muslim population of Trabzon to any great extent. Thus, this situation was unique up until 1583, when the Muslim population surpassed the non-Muslim population for the first time. At the end of the 15th century, the population of Trabzon was 2,015 Muslims and 5,549 Christians, according to the tahrir defters (land registers). Again, at the end of the 16th century, there were 6,083 Muslims and 4,901 Christians, bringing the total population to 11,000 people. However, we do not have tahrir defters for the second half of the 17th century; instead we have avarız defters (extraordinary tax registers), which provide insufficient data to estimate the population of Trabzon. In addition to the avarız defters are archival sources such as cizye defters (poll-tax registers) and cizye evrakı (poll-tax documents), though even these materials fail to give us the exact size of the non-Muslim population in 17th-century Trabzon.3 The Judicial Registers (Şerʿi Mahkeme Sicilleri) are among the most important sources for writing the social, economic, and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. The functions of the qadi (judge)4 and the sicils has helped us to understand the daily life of the Ottoman society in the centres and provinces.5 The investigation of the sicils has altered some of our beliefs about the Ottoman state and society. The courts situation makes the available information unique, as such data cannot be gathered from other archival documents. In recent years, scholars have paid great attention to the sicils of Trabzon, which contain a great deal of information on the social and economic life of the city. We have Şehrinin İslamlaşması ve Türkleşmesi 1461–1583 (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2012); M. Hanefi Bostan, XV-XVI. Asırlarda Trabzon Sancağında Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2002) Nedim İpek, “Osmanlı’da Sürgün: Trabzon Örneği,” Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi 13,26 (2019): 363–86. 3 For the population of Trabzon at the end of 17th century and throughout the 18th century see Miraç Tosun, Trabzon’da Cemaatler Arası İlişkiler (1700–1770) (Trabzon: Serander Yayınları, 2018), 39–58. 4 For 17th-century Ottoman court procedures and the functions of qadi see Ronald Jennings, “Kadi, Court and Legal Procedure in 17th Century Ottoman Kayseri,” Studia Islamica 48 (1978): 133–72; İlber Ortaylı, Hukuk ve İdare Adamı Olarak Osmanlı Devletinde Kadı (Ankara: Turhan Kitabevi Yayınları, 1994). 5 Some important scholarly studies use sicils: Ronald Jennings, Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999); Ahmed Akgündüz, Şer’iye Sicilleri Mahiyeti Toplu Kataloğu ve Seçme Hükümler, vol. 1 (İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Vakfı Yayınları, 1988); Özer Ergenç, Osmanlı Klasik Dönemi Kent Tarihçiliğine Katkı XVI. Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya (Ankara: Ankara Enstitüsü Vakfı, 1995); Suraiya Faroqhi, Osmanlı’da Kentler ve Kentliler Kent Mekanında Ticaret Zanaat ve Gıda Üretimi 1550–1650, Türkçesi Neyyir Kalaycıoğlu (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1994); Amy Singer, Kadılar, Kullar, Kudüslü Köylüler, transl. Sema Bulutsuz (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996).

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also investigated many aspects of Trabzon’s social and economic life using the mentioned sicils.6 We do not claim to give a full account of every aspect of non-Muslim life in Trabzon and its environment in this work. However, we think that the sicils provide very valuable information on non-Muslim life in Trabzon in the second half of the 17th century. In the administrative division of the Ottoman Empire, Trabzon was at first a sancak (sub province), then at the end of the 16th century it became a province with the sancak of Batumi. In the 16th century, Trabzon was an important port for the Ottomans on the Black Sea coast, connecting the Black Sea to the inner parts of Anatolia, and by the trade road to Iran. The Ottomans used Trabzon’s mentioned peculiarities against Iran during the eastern campaigns.7 However, various developments in the 16th and 17th centuries, such as the plague epidemic,8 the Cossack attacks on the southern coast of the Black Sea, the financial crisis of the late 16th and 17th centuries, the movements of the 17th century in terms of celalis (rebels) and sekbans (mercenary units, bandits), administrative problems, and the Ottoman Crete campaign, affected the city9 and its population. To follow are some sicil records relating the above-mentioned problems. A sicil record concerning the Black Death in Trabzon: That is, according to an old custom among the people of the city, they escaped to the villages and townships because of the Black Death. For this reason, the baths are now empty and until the people have returned to the city; from the beginning of June, there will be a maximum of 140 akçes (aspers) of a reduction per month in the share of Kule bath 6 Most of these articles are gathered in Kenan İnan, ‘Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından’: Onyedinci Yüzyıl Ortalarında Trabzon’da Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat (Trabzon: Trabzon Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2013). 7 Mehmet Hanefi Bostan, XV–XVI. Asırlarda Trabzon Sancağında Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat, 18–23. 8 See Ronald Jennings, “Plague in Trabzon and Reactions to it according to Local Judicial Registers,” in Studies on Ottoman Social History in the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. Ronald Jennings (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999), 667–676; see also İnan, “Trabzon’da Yönetici Yönetilen İlişkileri (1643–1656),” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 23 (2004): 23–60. 9 For information on the Ottoman siege of Crete see İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, III. vol. 1. (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1983), 216–22; On the social, military and economic developments in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries see Halil İnalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700,” in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, ed. Ronald Jennings (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 283–337; Mehmet Öz, Kanun-ı Kadimin Peşinde Osmanlı’da Çözülme ve Gelenekçi Yorumcuları (İstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2015).

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owner Elhac Muslu, as there is a sale in the other baths of the city. [Selh Cemaziyülahir 1059/10 July 1649]10 and Cossack attacks on the city itself: That is, Elhac Mehmed of Trabzon sets forth a claim in the presence of Ahmet Çelebi bn. Abbas Reis: in Trabzon, in the shopping district of Gazazlar: I owned a shop for which I paid 5 akçe rent per month to [the] Hatuniye pious foundation. Ahmet Çelebi repaired the shop and now possesses it. I ask the court that Ahmet Çelebi be questioned about the matter and to then establish its legitimacy. Ahmet Çelebi was asked about the matter and he answered: the mentioned shop was owned by Küçük Ahmet Çelebi for more than 10 years. Later he [Küçük Ahmet Çelebi] died and mentioned that the shop was burned during the invasion of rus-i menhus (Cossaks) and remained in ruins. About 12 years ago, from the time of the aforesaid document, Küçük Ahmet’s son-in-law, Ali Çelebi, sold this shop to me on the condition that five guruş (piaster) rent should be paid to the pious foundation. I repaired the shop with my money and now more than twenty years later, the shop is under the ownership of Küçük Ahmet and myself. Until now, 20 years have passed in which no claim about the matter has been brought forward by Elhac Mehmet or anybody else. Elhac Mehmet denied the explanation. Ahmet Çelebi was asked to corroborate his words with evidence. From the trusted men Mehmet Çelebi bn. Bali and Murad Beşe bn., Abdullah supported Ahmet Çelebi’s statement in court as witnesses. The testimony of the witnesses was accepted by the court and Mehmet was dismissed from the case. [Evasıt Recep 1058/31 July–9 August 1648]11 In one of the attacks, the bedesten of the city was burned and people escaped from the city.12 Between 1481 and 1583, there were 35 identified Muslim quarters 10 Istanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), Trabzon Şeriye Sicilleri, 1831, 24/4. (From now on T.Ş.S.) According to court records, the Black Death existed in Trabzon during the following years see T.Ş.S., 1837, 18/8. 11 T.Ş.S., 1831, 3/5. Another example shows that the extent of the devastation of Cossack invasion was enormous. T.Ş.S., 1831, 88/2. A decree addressed to the judge of Trabzon tells that “in Trabzon, the shops devoted to the mescid which had been built by Tavaşi Mahmud Ağa in Debbağhane quarter, were burned during the invasion of the Cossacks and need to be repaired and mended” [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1059/23 April–2 May 1649]. 12 For detailed information on Bedesten of Trabzon see İnan, “Bedestenlerin Türk Ticari Mimarisindeki Yeri ve Trabzon Bedesteni,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 97–120.

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and 48 identified Christian quarters. However, in 1583, there were 26 Christian and 28 Muslim quarters.13 This structure prevailed until the 1650s. According to sicil records, in the 17th century, the Muslim and non-Muslim quarters were not strictly divided in Trabzon. This fact is supported by many sicil records, especially in property transfers and related disputes.14 This structure was a well-known character of Ottoman cities in the classical age and later,15 though of course, there were some quarters heavily populated by Christians.16 A development arose in terms of population, whereby the number of Muslims began to increase, and they started to settle more in Christian quarters. A survey shows that in the second half of the 17th century, non-Muslims tended to sell much in rural areas but bought more in the city. While more Muslims were penetrating into the rural areas, it seems that non-Muslims were leaving rural areas to go Trabzon or other regions. The number of transactions around Trabzon and the nahiye (subdivision of a kaza) of Akçaabat illustrates this tendency for non-Muslims.17 One may suppose that one of the reasons was the extraordinary circumstances of the 17th century. All types of administrative problems, heavy and unjust tax implications, with many additional complications, created an unsafe environment both for Muslims and non-Muslims.18 Another issue concerning the non-Muslim population of Trabzon was conversion to Islam.19 A survey of sicils between 1648 and 1656 shows only one official ihtida (conversion).20 However, in the same period, we have found conversions in different sicil records such as property transfers and disputes. Furthermore, we have obtained information on converted slaves of different 13 Bostan, XV–XVI. Asırlarda Trabzon Sancağında Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat, 138–140. 14 For detailed information see İnan, “1831 Nolu Şer’iye Siciline Göre 17. Yüzyıl Ortalarında Trabzon’da Mülk Satışları,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 153–174. 15 Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Şehrindeki ‘Mahalle’nin İşlev ve Nitelikleri Üzerine”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 4 (1984): 69–70. 16 According to sicils, some of Trabzon’s heavily populated Christian quarters in the 17th century were: Çölmekçi, Ayo Gorgor, Ayo Keraki, Ayo Marina, Kemerkaya, Urgancı and Vaz Molaka. 17 İnan, “Kadı Sicillerine Göre Akçaabat’ta Mülk Satışları (1648–1658),” Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 181–194. 18 For a general outline on the tax collection, related problems, and fiscal administration in the Ottoman Empire between 1560–1660 see Linda T. Darling, Gelir Artışı ve Kanuna Uygunluk Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Vergi Toplanması ve Maliye Yönetimi 1560–1660, transl. Adnan Tonguç (İstanbul: Alfa/Tarih, 2015). 19 On this subject see Heath W. Lowry, Trabzon Şehrinin İslamlaşma ve Türkleşmesi 1461–1583, third ed. (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2005); for objections to some of Lowry’s points see Bostan, XV–XVI. Asırlarda Trabzon Sancağında Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat, 319–52. 20 T.Ş.S., 1832, 93/8.

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nationalities.21 The changes in the non-Muslim population of the Of kaza (district) may provide clues about the decrease in the non-Muslim population of Trabzon province in general. A study on Of kaza shows some dramatic changes in the population. The Christian population of the kaza at the end of the 16th century was 2,819 hanes (houses) and in 1641–1642 the Christian population was only 441 cizyehanes (poll-tax-paying houses). Thus, in 40 years the Christian population decreased by 85 percent, while the Muslim population failed to rise to the same extent. The decrease can be explained in several ways. One reason was conversion. The second was that in 1615, the qadi of Of kaza remarked, in a petition, that as a result of the governor Ömer Pasha’s oppression, many villagers left their homes during the night, and no one knew their whereabouts. Again, in 1609, in a decree sent to the qadi of Maçka, it was said that the celalis were very active in the region. The Christian population of the Of kaza further decreased by 1653 and this time the non-Muslims in Of occupied only 90 nefers (houses). The governor of Trabzon Mehmet Pasha, when he sent the detailed cizye defter to İstanbul, explained the population decrease by saying that some had died, some had left their homes, and others had become Muslims. According to the tahrir of Mehmed Pasha, by the end of the first half of 17th century, only 14 villages of the Of kaza had non-Muslims inhabitants.22 A survey between the years 1643 and 1656 shows that  – especially in the years 1650–1651 – many villages were abandoned by their inhabitants and that tax collectors could not collect any tax.23 Ömer Ağa, who was appointed to collect the bedel taxes for the years 1059/1649 and 1060/1650, stated in the court: According to the decree sent from the Porte, when we sent a man on our behalf to collect the tax from the village of Nefs-i Yomra and others, it was reported that the village was empty, ruined and barren and there were no people involved in agriculture. Thus, it was impossible to collect the tax. The village was 21 İnan, “Trabzon’da İhtida Olayları,” Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 295–305. 22 İbrahim Sezgin, “XVII. Asırda Of Kazasının Nüfusu,” in Trabzon ve Çevresi Uluslararası Tarih-Dil-Edebiyat Sempozyumu 3–5 Mayıs 2001, vol. 1 (Trabzon: Trabzon Valiliği İl Kültür Müdürlüğü Yayınları, 2002), 153–55. 23 For similar events in Trabzon province around 1650s see İnan, “Trabzon’da YöneticiYönetilen İlişkileri 1643–1656,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 195–235; see also Yücel Dursun, “Trabzon Eyaleti’nde Kırsal Yerleşim: Yomra Nahiyesi Örneği (1461–1682),” (PhD diss., Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi, Trabzon 2015), 187–194; for a general outline of the social unrest in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 16th and throughout the 17th centuries see Oktay Özel, “Şiddetin Egemenliği 1550 ila 1700 Arasında Celaliler,” in Osmanlı Dünyası, ed. Christine Woodhead, transl. Gül Çağlalı Güven (İstanbul: Alfa/Tarih, 2018), 245–68.

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recorded in the defter 6,000 akçe fief. Now I want the court to ask Defter Kethüdası, Tımar Defterdarı, Alay Beyi Yusuf Çavuş and other Muslims to describe the real situation and record it in their own words. The mentioned people answered that they bore witness to the fact that there was nobody in the mentioned village and that it was impossible to collect the tax. [Evail Rebiyülahir 1061/24 March 1651]24 Again, in the same years, many villagers came to Trabzon court or complained to the governor about the unjust and illegal taxes. This was done by all religious groups – Muslims and non-Muslims.25 The collection of unlawful taxes from the people of Trabzon province continued in the years to come. Another example concerning non-Muslims is as follows: Osman Pasha, the governor of Trabzon province, held a meeting and spoke in the presence of the document holder and the non-Muslim poll-tax payers of the city of Trabzon: Before this, non-Muslim tax-paying subjects paid their duty taxes of three or four guruş per person every year to the governor of the province. Now, I also want this tax in the manner written, but they do not want to pay. I wish the non-Muslims to be asked about the matter and their answers [to] be written down. The non-Muslims answered: the previous governors of the province, by usurping power and contrary to law and religion, made us pay three or four guruş tax per person. Thus, we could not pay any more and we obtained a decree from the Porte announcing that taxpayers should pay 25 akçes per person. They presented the decree. It was opened and read. In the contents, it was ordered that the non-Muslims should pay no more than 25 akçes per person and the Pasha was ordered to take 25 akçes and agreed to collect 25 akçes per person. However, the representative of the governor did not agree to take 25 akçes. The present situation [was] written down and a copy of the document was given. [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1063/10–19 March 1653]26 24 T.Ş.S., 1832,16/2. From the end of 16th century and during the 17th century different research stuides point to a fall in population in Anatolia, the Balkans, and Syria. For a discussion of, and various reasons for, this fact see Oktay Özel, “Population Changes in Ottoman Anatolia during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The ‘Demographic Crisis’ Reconsidered”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 36,2 (May, 2004): 183–205. 25 T.Ş.S., 1832, 6/6. 26 T.Ş.S., 1833, 32/6. Following sicil record T.Ş.S., 1834, 63/4. A decree addressed to the judge of Trabzon dated [Evail Cemaziyülevvel 1064/20–29 March 1654] shows that the unlawful tax demand from the non-Muslims in Trabzon continued in the following year.

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The year 1655 seems to have caused more problems for the whole population of Trabzon. In this year, Yusuf Pasha was appointed as governor of Trabzon. The sarıcas and the sekbans who came to Trabzon with Yusuf Pasha, caused a great deal of disorder in the city and its environs, such as violence, killing, rape, and unlawful imprisonment. The disorder affected all Muslim and non-Muslim populations. The longstanding problem between the janissaries and the sarıca-sekban once again appeared and a janissary hunt took place in the city.27 Here follows sicil records concerning the problems. The non-Muslims Suziri v. Suva, Vasil v. Kristofur, Yuri v. Sabuftu, Yuri v. Tudor, Havurdi v. Suziri of Eylaka village of Maçuka district and others altogether stated in the court: 10 days prior to the date of this document Trabzon’s present governor Yusuf Pasha’s appointed konakçı (billeting officer) Ramazan Ağa came to our village, hit our priest with a mace and killed him. We wish from the court that the case be investigated and written down. The court sent Mevlana Şeyh Mehmed Efendi. He went to the place where the event had taken place and saw that the priest’s whole body was wounded by a mace. The dead body was inspected, and the situation was recorded; then he informed the court. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1065/18–27 March 1655]28 That is, the resident religious scholars, righteous people, small and big fief holders, janissaries, other subjects, and citizens of Trabzon, altogether spoke in the court: the present governor of Trabzon, Yusuf Pasha, came to our city with some sarıca and sekban. In the regions, villages and towns, the mentioned sarıcas raped women and boys. They killed priest İbrail in the village of İlaksa. They also assaulted janissaries, hitting and swearing at some and putting bridles on them and making them carry straw. In short, in our province, it is impossible for people to get along with one another. Up until this point, the governors of the province had disbanded the sarıca and the sekban when they came to the province. Thus, the trusted men of the notables of Trabzon were sent to Yusuf Pasha. They explained the situation and suggested that he should act like the previous governors. Yusuf Pasha appointed Mahmud Ağa as deputy and sent him to the court. He stated that Yusuf Pasha also wanted to disband the 27 T.Ş.S., 1834, 57/3. The Sicil record reveals that the sarıcas tortured a janissary and imprisoned him for days. The court intervened and according to other janissaries’ testimony, he was rescued. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1065/18–27 March 1655]. 28 T.Ş.S., 1834, 47/3.

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sarıca and the sekbans, as the province was a frontier and there was a possibility that the Cossacks would attack the region. Thus, these people were necessary for defending the region. Religious scholars, righteous people, small and big fief holders, janissaries of the province said that no one should hamper the rights of the governor. If the enemy attacks the province, we promise to defend the province with all our strength. The explanation is recorded. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1065/18–27 March 1655]29 That is, from the trusted people of the residents of Trabzon, Veli Çelebi bn. Bostan Çavuş and Mustafa Çelebi bn. Mehmed stated in the court: at the time of afternoon prayer at a place close to the Kavak Meydan, four people from the sarıcas of governor Yusuf Pasha took a woman by force, while she was walking among the Muslim graves. Then, they assaulted her in turn, in the graveyard. We have hard evidence about the event. The situation was recorded by the will of the people of the city. A copy of the document was given. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1065/18–27 March 1655]30 That is, Keşiş, identified as non-Muslim by the residents of the Hamurya village of the district of Maçuka, stated in the court: when Yusuf Pasha, the present governor of Trabzon, came to Trabzon, his clerk Efendi sent a man to our village. He delivered straw to me and to my young son Yordan. When we came to his residence, he said that the straw was not enough and demanded more. He imprisoned my young son for three days and assaulted him. I wish the situation to be considered. The young boy was brought before the court and the situation was considered. He said that the mentioned clerk kept me for three days and nights and assaulted me. His words were written down, and a copy of the document was given. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1065/18–27 March 1655]31 1

The City and Daily Life

Despite all the problems in the city and its environment, all kinds of daily activity were happening in Trabzon. The city’s people usually lived in two-storey houses that had enough fruit trees enough to supply the residents with fruit. Nearly all the houses had a storehouse or storeroom and most of the houses 29 T.Ş.S., 1834, 47/6. 30 T.Ş.S., 1834, 57/2. 31 T.Ş.S., 1834, 57/4.

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had small bakeries for household needs, even though the city had bakeries. The city at the time had great olive fields and the Christian population of the city paid a special tax for the olive farming. A decree addressed to the judge of Trabzon: To the judge of Trabzon: it is an old custom to collect tax for the olive trees of the non-Muslims of Trabzon. Thus, this year as well, Ali Ağa is appointed to [collect] the tax. When he arrives, it is necessary that you should let him to collect the mentioned tax. Let nobody oppose or hamper the business. And also, let nobody be shown hostility or be offended. [Evahir Zilhicce 1066/9–18 October, 1656]32 A three-year survey of Trabzon concerning property sales between 1648 and 1651 and a survey of nahiye of Akçaabat from 1648–1658 provide important information about the sale and purchase of houses by religious groups, and their prices. Between 1648 and 1651, 175 property transfers took place in the city: 107 between Muslims, 32 between non-Muslims, 16 between Muslims and non-Muslims, and 18 between non-Muslims and Muslims. In relation to all religious groups, 119 sales took place in Trabzon and 54 in rural areas. In Trabzon, out of 119 sales 75 were between Muslims, 25 between non-Muslims, 13 from Muslims to non-Muslims, and 6 from non-Muslims to Muslims. The currency used in almost all the transactions were foreign currencies such as Riyali (Spanish-oriented silver coin) and Esedi (Dutch-oriented silver coin) gurus, because of the conditions at the end of the 16th and throughout the 17th centuries. The investigated property transactions show that the non-Muslims lived mostly on the eastern side of the city, while the Muslims lived mostly in the citadel and the western side. It seems that the Hatuniye mosque and medrese in the western side of the city resulted in the concentration of the Muslim population. The sicils show that after the Ottoman conquest, for some time the public square on the eastern side was referred to by the Muslims as Kafir Meydanı (infidels’ square), later Meydan-ı Şarki (eastern square). The change of name or exclusion of the term Kafir may have happened after the building of İskender Pasha Mosque and Medrese in Kafir Meydanı at the start of the 16th century.33 32 T.Ş.S., 1835, 61/1; T.Ş.S., 1835, 21/3. On the history of olive agriculture in Trabzon and the non-Muslims’ role in these activities see Zehra Topal, “Trabzon’da Zeytinciliğin ve Zeytinyağı Üretiminin Tarihçesi,” Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi 19 (2015): 167–206. 33 On the İskender Pasha Mosque see Ömer İskender Tuluk, “Trabzon İskender Paşa Camii: Fiziksel Gelişim Süreci Üzerine Tarihsel Bir Değerlendirme,” in Trabzon Kent Mirası Yer

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Lending and borrowing money is one of the most important factors in many economical activities in the cities. In the second half of the 17th century, most of the lending and borrowing activities in Trabzon were transacted by the Muslims. A study on this activity between 1648 and 1656 shows that34 there were 231 sicil records concerning lending and borrowing, with 165 between Muslims and 66 somehow related to non-Muslims. Of these cases, 26 were between non-Muslims; in 37 cases Muslims lent money to non-Muslims; and only in 3 cases did non-Muslims lend money to Muslims. The Muslim money pious foundations also lent money to non-Muslims in small amounts. About 50 percent of the lending involved 0–50 guruş. With regard to all religious groups, in 25 cases money was borrowed by rehin (security); in 76 cases the borrowed money was paid back from muhallefat (the inheritance); and in 21 cases by sulh (compromise). Sometimes, the borrowing or lending resulted in fights and injuries. Figures show that almost half the debtors did not or could not pay their debts on time. But, more importantly for the Muslims, the majority of the debtors were askeri people rather than reaya (tax-paying subjects). It is interesting that, in the given time period, the highest sum of money was borrowed by a government official from a non-Muslim. Sicil records informs us that the Defterdar of Rum Ahmet Efendi borrowed 1,440 guruş from a non-Muslim of Gümüşhane. The Defterdar did not or could not pay the money back and later they settled for 750 guruş. However, the records reveal that the two people had known each other previously. Ahmet Efendi had actually borrowed 4,366.5 guruş from Murad v. Tınas and paid it back. [Evasıt Cemaziyülahir 1061/31 May–9 June 1651].35 The lending and borrowing involved heads of religious communities. In a sicil record, the Greek Orthodox bishop of Trabzon borrowed 150 guruş. In a later case, he was jailed for an unspecified reason. A certain Mehmed Beşe payed 40 guruş and saved him from imprisonment. The bishop’s debt rose to 190 guruş. [Evasıt Cemaziyülevvel 1062/19–28 April 1652].36 Sicil records show that the Ottoman siege of the island of Crete (1644– 1669) against the Venetians37 effected the social and economic life in Trabzon. The cost of the expedition gave rise to avarız taxes being levied from the

Yapı Hafıza, eds. Ömer İskender Tuluk and Halil İbrahim Düzenli (İstanbul: Klasik 2010), 145–154. 34 İnan, “Trabzon Şer’iye Sicillerine Göre 17. Yüzyıl Ortalarında Borç-Alacak İlişkileri,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 121–146. 35 T.Ş.S., 1832, 28/1, 28/2. 36 T.Ş.S., 1832, 107/6. 37 For the siege of Crete and later developments see Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. 3, part 1, 216–22, 414–21; see also Cemal Tukin, “Girit.” TDVİA 14 (1996), 85–93.

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provinces, including Trabzon.38 The tax was used to employ skilled people for ship-building and siege affairs. To some extent, the non-Muslims of Trabzon were also involved in the siege. According to sicil records, beldars (diggers) were of great importance during the siege of the castle of Candia.39 A sicil record informs us that seven beldars were requested from Trabzon and most of the bails for the diggers were non-Muslim settlers of Trabzon [Evasıt Ramazan 1078/23 February–4 March 1668].40 In the Ottoman classical cities, trading areas, bazaars, and shops were usually separated from the residential areas. It seems that in Trabzon this tradition was also observed and sometimes the court intervened to protect the pattern. In one of the sicil records: Selim Beşe bn. Mustafa Beşe, Karaca Süleyman and others of Ayo Vasil quarter of Trabzon set forth a claim in the presence of the cauldron maker Christian Kuzma: Kuzma had established a cauldron-making shop in his settled house and began to do business. In addition to this, he opened up a door in his house despite the old, established structure and by coming and going from this door to his shop, he has caused us all hardship. In short, in the middle of our quarter, the cauldron-making business is harmful. We ask the court that this shop be banned [from] here and established somewhere else. Kuzma was asked about the matter, and he answered: I bought the house eight years ago. Before that cauldron making was not done in this house. I opened the door and established the shop. I promise to close the door and stop cauldron making. Kuzma was given three days to remove the door and transfer his shop to another place. [Evahir Zilhicce 1061/4–13 December 1651]41 In the 17th century, as was the case in most of the Ottoman cities, the governor and the qadi of the city did not have official premises for their governmental works. It was a duty for the city people to hire a konak (residence) or saray (palace) when a governor arrived. It seems that for the year 1062/1652, this matter became a problem between the Muslims and non-Muslims of the city of Trabzon. 38 On the collected taxes from Trabzon for the siege of Crete see İnan, “Trabzon Kadı Sicillerinde Girit Seferi Hakkında Kayıtlar,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 275–93. 39 During the siege of Candia [Crete], Grand Vizier Fazıl Ahmet Pasha’s petition to Sultan Mehmet IV actually emphasises the urgent need for bildars. See Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. 3, part 1, 417. 40 T.Ş.S., 1845, 67/3. 41 T.Ş.S., 1832, 51/2.

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The small fief holders and notables of Trabzon had the Christians of the city called to the court and set forth a claim in their presence: since there had been no special palace for them, when the Trabzon province governor came to the city, the notables and fief holders hired a palace in the citadel and its rent was paid by us. Now, Trabzon province governor Osman Pasha’s representative has come, and the governor is also about to come. Thus, it is necessary and important to clear a palace for him. We are not able to rent a palace this time. Let the Christians of the city hire a palace and accommodate the governor. The Christians answered: “We are not able to accommodate the governor either. When he comes, let him settle wherever he wants”. The problem was referred to Hüseyin Efendi, Mufti of Trabzon. He said: “Accommodating the governor is a duty for all the people of the province, not only for fief holders and notables.” Both sides were told to prepare a residence for the governor. [Evasıt Cemaziyülahir 1062/19–28 May 1652]42 2

Trading among Non-Muslims

The importance of Black Sea trade was echoed by the famous 17th-century Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. He pointed out that there were 8,000 people in 8,000 shops in Istanbul involved in trade around the Black Sea. Again, in the 18th century, the British Consulate in Istanbul mentioned that the Black Sea trade was very profitable.43 Evliya Çelebi observed that Trabzon’s main trading area was in Aşağı Hisar (Lower Castle). There was another small trading area in Orta Hisar (Middle Castle). Sicil records show that in the lower castle, traders and guilds of different faiths were doing trade.44 In this area, there was a big trading place called Suk-ı Sultani (Sultan’s Market). In the centre of the market was a bedesten and around this were inns, mosques, and people occupied in different professions. The bedesten of Trabzon were full of traders from Trabzon province and other regions as far-flung as Iran. Transit traders did their trading and then stayed in inns around the bedesten. In bedesten, tellal taifesi (town criers) were both Muslims and non-Muslims. The sicil records 42 T.Ş.S., 1833, 6/8. 43 Doğu Akdeniz’de Liman Kentleri (1800–1914), eds. Çağlar Keyder et al. (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1994), 45. 44 Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, eds. Zekeriya Kurşun II. Kitap (İstanbul: YKY, 1999), 47–55; For detailed information on the trading activities in Trabzon during the second half of the 17th century see İnan, “Kadı Sicillerine Göre 17. Yüzyıl Ortalarında Trabzon Esnafları ve Faaliyetleri,” in Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından, 57–82.

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reveal that the burning of stores and shops that took place during the Cossack attacks did not affect the city’s desire for trade. The sicil records show that the extraordinary developments of the 17th century, both internal45 and external, did not stop the Black Sea trade. Trabzon’s trade with the other ports or interior regions of the Black Sea continued. The trading network of traders in Trabzon played an important role in this development. We believe that one of the main reasons of this was the involvement of askeri (tax-exempt people) in trading.46 Furthermore, even before the Ottoman conquest and after Trabzon had developed economic and military relations with Istanbul, the court records reveal that the traders of Trabzon had relations with other ports of Ottoman Anatolia: Erzurum in the east, connecting it as far as Halep, Bağdat in the south, and Iran and India in the east. In this trading network, the non-Muslims of Trabzon played an important role.47 The entries show that many people originating from Trabzon (Muslims48 or non-Muslims)49 moved from Trabzon, settled in other cities and interior regions of the Black Sea, and then continued trading activities with Trabzon.50 Yoranda v. Nikola of Trabzon Kemerkaya quarter spoke in the court before Yordan v. Todori the father and representative of Ezam: Five months ago, in Caffa, I gave 245 kuruş-worth of clothes to Ezam, the

45

In Trabzon province, complaints were brought to the governor of Trabzon that bandits were hindering traders in Of kaza for some time [Evail Zilkade 1066/21–30 August 1656] T.Ş.S., 1835,54/1; Similar complaints were repeated in the presence of the governor of Trabzon informing him that traders were prevented from trading in Gönye castle and that their goods had been confiscated by bandits. [Evahir Cemaziyülahir 1067/5–14 April 1657] T.Ş.S., 1836, 14/3. 46 While there are many court entries on that topic, we will give just one example outlining that Fazlullah Bey, the previous governor of Kefe from the quarter of Ortahisar in Trabzon, sold his shops and cellar in Trabzon’s market to previous Janissary officer Mustafa Çavuş for 470 gurus [Gurre Ramazan 1074/28 March 1664], T.Ş.S., 1840, 25/5. 47 T.Ş.S., 1831, 16/5, T.Ş.S., 1832, 41/2. These two entries consist of names of non-Muslim traders in Trabzon. 48 We will be content with giving some sicil records numbers that show Muslim involvement in trading and other activities: T.Ş.S., 1837, 22/2 (Rumelia); T.Ş.S., 1843, 50/3 (Erzincan and Bağdat); T.Ş.S., 1843, 19/3 (Rumelia); T.Ş.S., 1843, 22/1; T.Ş.S., 1843, 23/5 (Rumelia, Georgia); T.Ş.S., 1843, 33/1(Rumelia); T.Ş.S., 1843, 51/1 (Rumelia). 49 T.Ş.S., 1837/20/1 (İstanbul). 50 For Trabzon’s relations with North of the Black Sea before the Ottoman conquest see Rustam Shukurov, “The Empire of Trebizond and the Golden Horde”, in I. Uluslararası Karadeniz Tarihi Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, eds. Kenan İnan and Deniz Çolak (Trabzon: Avrasya Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2020), 89–95.

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son of Yordan. Ezam paid me 60 kuruş and his father paid the rest. [5 Şaban 1069/28 April 1659]51 Elkas, resident of Trabzon, set forth a claim in court in the presence of Lefter v. Kiraku: My brother Yanul was trading with Lefter’s brother Adem. Yanul died in Rumelia in Mankaliya town, and his inheritance remained with his partner Adem. Later, Adem also died, and the inheritance was taken by Lefter. Now I want to get my brother’s share from Lefter. Lefter said that he did not know about Elkas’s brother’s trading with his brother Adem and got nothing from the inheritance. The court asked Elkas to show proof. He could not show any proof about the happenings. Lefter swore and Elkas was dismissed from the case. [Evahir Rebiyülahir 1062/31 March–9 April 1652]52 Sutusiye bt. Gorgor spoke in the court in the presence of Lasferi v. Yur: My husband jeweller Keraku v. Hıristofur has been living in the town of Mankaliye in Rumelia for 12 years; he left me without alimony. I have to pay avarız, nüzul other annual taxes ordered by decree. Now I cannot cope with all the expenses. Lasferi is my proxy to go to Mankaliye, to agree, according to law, and to take the money I paid for the taxes. If my husband wishes to divorce me, Lasferi is also my proxy for mihr (dowry), other credits and for any type of legal proceedings. [Evail Muharrem 1079/11–20 June 1668]53 From the trusted people, Elhac Recep bn. Hasan bn. Mustafa and Elhac Yusuf bn. Hasan b. Abdullah spoke in the court to be witnesses on behalf of Yani v. Arslan of Trabzon Ayo Gorgor quarter: the deceased, Arslan zimmi, who settled in Buratu kaza in Hungary to do trade, is the father of Yani. Yani is entitled to his father’s inheritance. The inheritance has to be recorded in the kaza and brought back. We are witness to this case. Tuduri v. Yani is appointed to sue those who received the inheritance and to send to Yani as proxy [Evahir Cemaziyülahir 1064/8–17 May 1654].54 There were many types of artisans and tradesmen grouped under guilds in Trabzon. According to the records, some of the professions were carried out 51 52 53 54

T.Ş.S., 1837, 61/2. T.Ş.S., 1832, 103/3. T.Ş.S., 1845, 21/1. T.Ş.S., 1833, 95/5.

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virtually by non-Muslims. While the goldsmith (kuyumcu) was not the monopoly of non-Muslims, the head of this class was a non-Muslim.55 The pottery artisans (çölmekçi) were also represented by a non-Muslim. The crafts of the shoemakers (babuççu), cauldron makers (kazgancı), silk manufacturers (ipekçi), furriers (kürkçü), and peddlers (çerçi)56 involved a considerable number of non-Muslim tradesmen. In addition to these professions, the grain, olive,57 linen,58 and silk59 trades  – both in and around the city  – had nonMuslim traders. Here is an interesting sicil record about linen trading: Yani v. Dimitri of Faroz quarter of Trabzon sets forth a claim in the presence of guest linen trader Yasef v. Serkis: a villager was bringing my prepaid linen, Yasef intervened, entered my house and tried to take the linen by force. The Muslims saved me and took my prepaid linen. I ask the court that Yasef should be asked about the matter and necessary things be done. Yasef answered “I struggled before Yani’s house. Yani pushed me inside his house and locked me up. Then he called people and made out that I was guilty.” The court asked Yasef to bring proof of whether he was forced to enter the house. He said he did not have proof. Yani was asked to swear about the developments. He swore. The court decided that since Yani confessed that he entered the house without permission he [should] be punished. [Evail Zilhicce 1077/25 May–3 Jun 1667].60 As in all part of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the Black Sea, the slave trade was one of the most profitable trading activities. In Trabzon, Muslims and non-Muslims possessed male and female slaves, who generally fetched more than 100 guruş. This was almost equal to the price of a two-storey house in Trabzon. Slave traders usually sailed or went over the land to Georgia, bought slaves, and sold them in Trabzon. Russian slaves were also owned in Trabzon.61 55 T.Ş.S., 1832, 14/8. 56 T.Ş.S., 1834, 9/6. 57 T.Ş.S., 1835, 21/3. Derviş Beşe, the agent of Todori, who lives in Istanbul and is a native of Polatana village of the Trabzon district, sets forth a claim in the presence of Mehmet Ağa, the trustee of the Hatuniye Pious Foundation and Ali, the Cabi of Polathane village of the same foundation: I possess an olive garden of the foundation by rent. However, people established a bazaar in the garden and the olive trees were harmed. I ask the court that the bazaar be established in its old place. The court ordered that the bazaar should be established in the old place [22 Muharrem 1066/21 November 1655]. 58 T.Ş.S., 1831, 36/12; 16/5. 59 T.Ş.S., 1832, 45/3. 60 T.Ş.S., 1844, 33/4. 61 T.Ş.S., 1845,42/2; 46/1; T.Ş.S., 1844, 54/4.

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669

The Armenians

The investigated sicil records in this study show that the Armenians, whether settled or staying in Trabzon for different reasons, made a considerable contribution to the social and economic life of the city. Thus, we decided to present some sicil records concerning their activities. As already mentioned, after the conquest of Trabzon, some of the non-Muslim population of the city was transferred to other parts of Anatolia and Istanbul, while the mainly Muslim population was brought from Anatolian cities and settled within the city walls. Orta Hisar was one of the main areas in which the Muslims were settled. For the second half of the 17th century, while our sources do not mention Greek Orthodox people in this section of the city, we have court records relating to the existence of an Armenian population which, in general, was scattered around the city’s quarters in the eastern suburbs. It seems that the Armenians continued to live in this part of the city.62 They were very much involved in trading activities in Trabzon and in transit trades. We have court records concerning the trading activities and related problems of the Armenians of Trabzon from 1061–1072/1650–1662. Musa Beşe bn. Mahmut of Tokat sets forth a claim in the presence of Bektaş v. Esfezavir: I bought 110 red Moroccan hides for 82 guruş and 35 akçe from him. In return, I gave a horse valued 15 guruş and the rest in cash. Later, I realized that the Morocco leather was of Bitlis origin. Thus, I thought that I had been deceived. Now I want the court to ask him about the matter, cancel the agreement between us and make him pay my money back to me. Bektaş answered that the agreement was valid but and denied that the Moroccan leather was of Bitlis origin. People knowledgeable people about the issue investigated the Moroccan leather carefully and decided that the Moroccan leather did not originate in Diyarbekir origin but in Bitlis. The court decided that a deception had happened, and the trade agreement was cancelled. [Evasıt Şevval 1061/26 September–5 October 1651]63 There are entries of theft related to the Armenian traders. It seems that the Armenians who were doing transit trade had valuable goods and a considerable amount of money with them. Thus, when they came to Trabzon, they were closely followed by robbers and became their targets in inns and caravansaries.

62 Bostan, XV–XVI. Asırlarda Trabzon Sancağında Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat, 160–62. 63 T.Ş.S., 1832, 38/2.

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İnan

The Armenian trader Avdik v. Murad sets forth a claim in the presence of traders and settlers of Trabzon inn Kesbir v. Abdullah, Behiya v. Şirvan, Doruk v. Sircan and Karabed v. Mıgırdiç: I am suspicious that 10 days before this date, on the night of the fifth day (Thursday), the janissaries named Ivaz and Mevlüt opened my room in the inn and stole my 240 guruş. I have no lawsuit or disagreement with any other people. Other Armenians confirmed the explanation. [Evail Muharrem 1063/2–11 December 1652]64 In three separate sicil records, we can follow a theft inquiry concerning Armenians. An interesting thing about the entries is that they point to a group of people in Trabzon called Acem taifesi (Iranians). At the beginning of the 14th century, the most important trading square in Trabzon, without an alternative Greek name, was directly called meydan. This seems to be the result of the opening of the Trabzon-Tabriz trade route after 1260 and the effect of introducing eastern traders to the city.65 It is logical to think that this group had been living in Trabzon for a long time and that, even before the conquest of Trabzon, the city had considerable economic and political relations with powers in Eastern Anatolia and Iran. After the Ottoman annexation, the city continued its trading activities with Iran and beyond. Mehmed bn. Abdullah of Iranians sets forth a claim in the presence of Armenian Kesbir v. Abdullah: 10 days before the date of this document during the night, in the quarter of Yeni Cuma, I broke into the houses of Mühürdar Ali, Satılmış and Mustafa for theft. I stole some property and commodities and shared them with my partner guest Mehmed and Mülkun, who is the brother of Kesbir already present in the court. Thus, my partners are Mülkun and guest Mehmed. Kesbir has nothing to do with the theft and is not my partner. This explanation was written down by the will of Kesbir. [Selh Şaban 1065/ 4 July 1655]66 A day after the above court hearing: An Armenian resident of Trabzon, Kasbar v. Murat sets forth a claim in the presence of Iranian Mehmed bn. Abdullah: Mehmed confessed that he stole properties and commodities of Mühürdar Ali Ağa, Satılmış 64 T.Ş.S., 1833, 26/2. 65 Anthony Bryer, David Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, vol. I “The City of Trebizond” (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1985), 198. 66 T.Ş.S., 1835, 7/9.

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and Mustafa during the night and so was arrested and put in a prison. Now, Ali Ağa, the representative of the governor, of Trabzon accuses me of being the partner of Iranian Mehmet and wants to put me in prison. I want the court ask Iranian Mehmet and to record his statement. Mehmet answered that when he stole the mentioned goods, he shared them with his partners Mehmet and Armenian Melkun. Kasbar was not his partner and had nothing to do with the theft. [1 Ramadan 1065/5 July 1655]67 As a continuation of the above theft: Robber Mehmed bn. Abdullah of the Iranians in Trabzon sets forth a claim in the presence of Armenians of Trabzon Kasbar and Melkun v. Murat: I shared the stolen goods of Mühürdar Ali, Satılmış and Mustafa of Yeni Cuma quarter with my partner Mehmet and guest Melkun, who is present in the court. My partners are Melkun and Mehmet, who is absent from the court. Kasbar has nothing to do with this theft and he did not know about it. Melkun denied Iranian Mehmed’s allegations, saying that he was imprisoned for 25 days, even though no stolen goods were found on him. The court decided that Iranian Mehmed’s allegations and confessions were illegitimate and was informed that Melkun had no previous crime record. [15 Ramadan 1065/19 July 1655]68 After the above theft, almost a year later we have another theft case in Trabzon court. This theft was also carried out by an Iranian called Mehmet Heybet. It is not clear whether Mehmet Heybet is the same person as the previous Iranian robber Mehmet bn. Abdullah. However, the robbery was also carried out in Yeni Cuma quarter, as with the previous one, and the case shows that Mehmet Heybet had been punished because of his previous thefts and his right arm had been cut off. This makes possible that the two robbers were the same man. İplikçi Mahmut, Hüseyin and Beşir bn. Satılmış of Yeni Cuma quarter sets forth claims separately in the presence of Mehmet Heybet of Iranians:  10 days ago, during the night, our houses were broken into, and the stolen goods were found with Iranian Mehmet. We ask the court to take the necessary action. Iranian Mehmet accepted the allegation, adding that he had also stolen a mule of an Armenian resident from Sivas, loaded the stolen goods and was caught in the place called Hoşoğlan, while he 67 T.Ş.S., 1835, 8/1. 68 T.Ş.S., 1835, 9/3.

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İnan

was on the run. The Iranian’s right hand had previously been cut off. Now according to criminal law, the court decided that his left foot should be cut off. [Evail Ramadan 1066/23 June–2 July 1656]69 Another theft happened some years later in Trabzon and both parties were non-Muslims. Armenian trader Ketsun v. Sefer from the town of Kürtün sets forth a claim in the presence of Armenian Bahadır v. Bagos: 15 days ago, in the caravansary, inside my clothes and baggage I had one purse of guruş and some scrap akçes. They are lost. I am suspicious that they were stolen by Bahadır. I ask the court to refer the matter to Bahadır and for his words to be written down. Bahadır accepted that he stole Ketsun’s 470 guruş and handed them over to muleteer Banus, who was not present at the court. Bahadır’s statement was recorded at Ketsun’s demand. [21 Şevval 1069/12 July 1659]70 Some court records concerning Armenian traders in Trabzon are naturally about credit-loan relations. Armenian trader Carık v. Serkis sets forth a claim in the presence of Armenian İsvadi v. Lunbarun that he owes some money. The debtor accepted the claim. He was ordered to pay the money back. [Evail Zilhicce 1063/23 October–1 November 1653]71 Armenian trader Murat from Kürtün stated, in the presence of Konstantin Reis v. Trandafil from İstanbul Yeniköy quarter and his partner Ezam Reis: Previously I lent 880 Esedi Guruş to Konstantin and Ezam to provide capital for their ship. Now I have received the mentioned money. [Evasıt Şevval 1068/11–20 July 1658]72 Armenian trader Abdullah v. İvat from Halep district sets forth a claim in the presence of ship captain Kapudanoğlu Doka v. Breşkovo from Sinop district: I lent 1,000 Riyali guruş to Doka 16 months ago. I received 200 guruş 69 70 71 72

T.Ş.S., 1835, 49/2. T.Ş.S., 1837, 92/3. T.Ş.S., 1833, 54/9. T.Ş.S., 1837, 17/10.

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and asked for the rest and we settled for 300 Riyali Guruş and he gave me a debt bill. However, he does not want to pay. I ask the court to order him to pay the debt. Doka answered that he borrowed 500 Riyali Guruş from Abdullah and when he asked for the money paid it back in Kefe, in the presence of Mustafa Efendi qadi of Kefe, and he was discharged from the charge of embezzlement by Abdullah. He presented a proof dated 1068 Şevval 27, with the signature of Kadı Mustafa Efendi. Abdullah rejected the proof. Doka was asked to present further support for his proof. Tarakçı Ali Beşe b. Ali and Mehmet b. Mahmut testified in favour of Doka. Abdullah was dismissed from the case. [25 Zilkade 1068/24 August 1658]73 Armenian Bagos, brother of Tomas v. Amirasi deceased in Trabzon, sets forth a claim in the presence of Armenian Evsab v. Kesbaz from Orta Hisar quarter: 30 years before the date of this document, when my brother was alive, I lent 15,000 akçe to Evsab. Tomas died 30 years later, and the money remained with Evsab. I ask the court that my money be returned to me. Evsab stated that 40 years before the date of this document, by means of an inheritance share, the problem had been resolved. Tomas died 30 years after this event and did not sue me during these 30 years for it. Now I present a fetva to the court that it is not permissible to bring a case before the court concerning the matter. According to fetva, Bogos was dismissed from the case. [3 Cemaziyülahir 1069/26 February 1659]74 The interest of Trabzon Armenians in trade emerges with further court records. One concerned a donation. Hanım bt. İstefanos of Trabzon Kanita quarter stated in the court before his son-in-law Armenian Hocasar v. Avdik:  10 years prior to the date of this document, I gave 150 guruş to my son-in-law for trade from the mihr that I inherited from my husband and from my share. Now, I have donated the mentioned money and its interest to my son-in-law. [Evasıt Şaban 1068/13–22 May 1658]75 We have interesting court records about injuries and death, regarding the settled Armenians of Trabzon and the traders who stayed in inns in Trabzon. 73 T.Ş.S., 1837, 22/1. 74 T.Ş.S., 1837, 46/6. 75 T.Ş.S., 1837, 12/6.

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İnan

Kamber Ağa, representative Mehmet Ağa of Trabzon, governor Mehmet Pasha, stated in the court: on the night in which the document was written, Armenian Sava, the caretaker of a Trabzon inn, was found dead. I request the court to explore the event and for the results be written down. Mevlana Şeyh Mehmet, and Muslims whose names are mentioned in the attached document, were sent to the crime scene. It was discovered that Sava died in the inn and that his body was transferred to his brother Kiraku’s home. The inspection team went to Kiraku’s home; the corpse was inspected. It is understood that the head of the deceased was jet black and that blood was coming out of his mouth. Kiraku, the brother of Sava, said that his brother had epilepsy. He suffered an epileptic seizure and fell face down, and they do not have a case against anyone. Mevlana Şeyh Mehmet wrote down the statement at the place and informed the court. [3 Cemaziyülahir 1069/26 February 1659]76 4

Religious Institutions Concerning Non-Muslims

After the conquest of Trabzon, some important churches were converted into mosques.77 Many churches, monasteries, and pious foundations of different faiths continued their usual activities without interruption. The presence of churches, pious foundations, and monasteries can be followed in the sicil records, with direct reference to buildings or clergy of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Churches. Many of the references appear in records concerning property transfers without the names of the churches. According to the sicils, in a property transfer in Trabzon in Ayur quarter, the sold property adjoined an Armenian church and a Greek Orthodox church [Evahir 76 T.Ş.S., 1837, 44/12. Further court records concerning the city’s Armenians show the inclusion of Armenians in the daily life of the city, for example T.Ş.S., 1837, 65/3: An inheritance case concerning Armenians dated [13 Şaban 1069/6 May 1659]; T.Ş.S., 1838, 39/4: A property transfer record concerning Armenians of Trabzon dated [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1072/3–12 December 1661]. 77 On the Byzantine churches in Trabzon see Selina Balance, “The Byzantine Churches of Trebizond,” Anatolian Studies 10 (1960): 141–75. See also Ronald Jennings, “Pious foundations in the society and economy of Ottoman Trabzon, 1560–1640,” in Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ed. Ronald Jennings (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999), 613–666, 643; for the presence of non-Muslim clergy in and around Trabzon and their activities for the 17th century see Ronald Jennings, “The Society and Economy of Maçuka in The Ottoman Judicial Registers of Trabzon, 1560–1640,” in Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ed. Ronald Jennings (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999), 592–93.

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Zilkade 1058/6–15 December 1648].78 The Armenian bishop of Trabzon sold a property in Meydan-ı Şarki quarter, which adjoined an Armenian church. [Evahir Rebiyülevvel 1060/23 March–1 April 1650].79 Property transfer in Eksotha quarter, the sold house and garden adjoined a church. [Evahir Safer 1059/5–14 March 1649].80 In addition to the given information, further sicil records show the presence of different churches in different quarters of Trabzon. These were: in Zograf quarter [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1059/23 April–2 May 1649];81 in Van quarter [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1059/23 April–2 May 1649];82 in Vaz Molaka quarter [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1059/ 23 April–2 May 1649];83 in Ayoyin-i Sagir quarter [Evahir Rebiyülevvel 1060/23 March–1 April 1650];84 and in Alaiddin quarter [Evail Şevval 1063/25 August–3 September 1653].85 In a sicil record concerning a property transfer in Ayomarina Kebir quarter, the sold property adjoined a church’s pious foundation [Evasıt Recep 1060/9–18 July 1650].86 A property transfer record confirms that the sold property in Ketancı quarter adjoined a monastery [Evail Rebiyülevvel 1059/15–24 March 1649].87 Another property transfer record confirms that the sold property in Kindinar quarter adjoined another monastery [Evasıt Rebiyülahir 1062/21–30 March 1652].88 5

Conclusion

It is known that the negative developments in the Ottoman Empire from the end of the 16th century and continuing almost throughout the 17th century mostly affected Ottoman Anatolia. Trabzon province and its central Trabzon city seem to have been affected by these negative developments, based on the examples given in the study. In addition to the issues, village evacuations, banditry, illegal taxes, plague epidemics, and Kazakh raids seem to have caused economic and social problems for the city. These issues affected the entire population of Trabzon, whether Muslim or Christian. Non-Muslims, who comprised the majority of the population until the last quarter of the 16th century, 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

T.Ş.S., 1831, 8/11. T.Ş.S., 1831, 44/10. T.Ş.S., 1831, 15/7. T.Ş.S., 1831, 20/8. T.Ş.S., 1831, 20/18. T.Ş.S., 1831, 21/5. T.Ş.S., 1831, 49/14. T.Ş.S., 1833, 46/9. T.Ş.S., 1831, 59/4. T.Ş.S., 1831, 19/4. T.Ş.S., 1832, 98/8.

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lost their superiority in 1583 and there was a serious decrease in their population in the 17th century. As reflected in the documents, in the unsafe environment that emerged, some left their homes, some died or were killed, and some became Muslims. The non-Muslims who left the city or province settled in other ports or inner cities of the Black Sea. The migrants did not sever their relations with the city, and the remaining non-Muslims continued with their lives, taking part in all kinds of daily activities in the city. Trabzon’s Greek Orthodox community usually conducted commercial activities in the region and around the Black Sea. The resident or transit trading Armenians, on the other hand, were at the forefront of trade with the East and the South. Since the conquest of the city, the tax-exempt administrative sector, and the janissaries, gradually increased their weight in the administration and economy of the city as a typical feature of the 17th century and controlled most of the commercial activities. All these factors, as examined under different headings, show that the 17th century represented a very difficult period for Ottoman citizens, whether they were Muslims or Christians. Bibliography

Primary Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul Trabzon Şeriye Sicilleri T.Ş.S.

T.Ş.S., 1831 3/5; 8/11; 15/7; 16/5; 19/4; 20/8; 20/18; 21/5; 24/4; 36/12; 44/10; 49/14; 59/4; 88/2. T.Ş.S., 1832 6/6; 14/8; 16/2; 28/1; 28/2; 38/2; 41/2; 45/3; 51/2; 93/8; 98/8; 103/3; 107/6. T.Ş.S., 1833 6/8; 26/2; 32/6; 46/9; 54/9; 95/5. T.Ş.S., 1834 9/6; 47/3; 47/6; 57/2; 57/3; 57/4; 63/4. T.Ş.S., 1835 7/9; 8/1; 9/3; 21/3; 49/2; 54/1; 61/1. 14/3.

T.Ş.S., 1836

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T.Ş.S., 1837 12/6; 17/10; 18/8; 20/1; 22/1; 22/2; 44/12; 46/6; 61/2; 65/3; 92/3. 39/4.

T.Ş.S., 1838

25/5.

T.Ş.S., 1840

T.Ş.S., 1843 19/3; 22/1; 23/5; 33/1; 50/3; 51/1. 33/4; 54/4.

T.Ş.S., 1844

T.Ş.S., 1845 21/1; 42/2; 46/1; 67/3.



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İnan, Kenan. “Trabzon’da Yönetici-Yönetilen İlişkileri 1643–1656.” In ‘Mahmiye-i Trabzon Mahallatından’: Onyedinci Yüzyıl Ortalarında Trabzon’da Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat, 195–235. Trabzon: Trabzon Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2013. İnan, Kenan. “Trabzon’da Yönetici Yönetilen İlişkileri (1643–1656).” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 23 (2004): 23–60. İpek, Nedim. “Osmanlı’da Sürgün: Trabzon Örneği.” Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi 13,26 (2019): 363–86. Jennings, Ronald. Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Women, Zimmis and Sharia Courts in Kayseri, Cyprus and Trabzon. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999. Jennings, Ronald. “Plague in Trabzon and Reactions to it according to Local Judicial Registers.” In Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Ronald Jennings, 667–676. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999. Jennings, Ronald. “Pious foundations in the society and economy of Ottoman Trabzon, 1560–1640.” In Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Ronald Jennings, 613–666. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999. Jennings, Ronald. “The Society and Economy of Maçuka in The Ottoman Judicial Registers of Trabzon, 1560–1640.” In Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Ronald Jennings, 583–612. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999. Jennings, Ronald. “Kadi, Court and Legal Procedure in 17th Century Ottoman Kayseri.” Studia Islamica 48 (1978): 133–72. Keyder, Çağlar et al., eds. Doğu Akdeniz’de Liman Kentleri (1800–1914). İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1994. Lowry, Heath W. Trabzon Şehrinin İslamlaşması ve Türkleşmesi 1461–1583. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2012. Ortaylı, İlber. Hukuk ve İdare Adamı Olarak Osmanlı Devletinde Kadı. Ankara: Turhan Kitabevi Yayınları, 1994. Öz, Mehmet. Kanun-ı Kadimin Peşinde Osmanlı’da Çözülme ve Gelenekçi Yorumcuları. İstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2015. Özel, Oktay. “Şiddetin Egemenliği 1550 ila 1700 Arasında Celaliler.” In Osmanlı Dünyası, ed. Christine Woodhead, transl. Gül Çağlalı Güven, 245–68. İstanbul: Alfa/Tarih, 2018. Özel, Oktay. “Population Changes in Ottoman Anatolia during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The ‘Demographic Crisis’ Reconsidered.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36,2 (May, 2004): 183–205. Shukurov, Rustam. “The Empire of Trebizond and the Golden Horde.” In I. Ulusla­rarası Karadeniz Tarihi Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, eds. Kenan İnan and Deniz Çolak, 89–95. Trabzon: Avrasya Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2020.

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Sezgin, İbrahim “XVII. Asırda Of Kazasının Nüfusu.” In Trabzon ve Çevresi Uluslara­ rası Tarih-Dil-Edebiyat Sempozyumu 3–5 Mayıs 2001, vol. 1, 153–55. Trabzon: Trabzon Valiliği İl Kültür Müdürlüğü Yayınları, 2002. Singer, Amy. Kadılar, Kullar, Kudüslü Köylüler, transl. Sema Bulutsuz. İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996. Topal, Zehra. “Trabzon’da Zeytinciliğin ve Zeytinyağı Üretiminin Tarihçesi.” Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi 19 (2015): 167–206. Tosun, Miraç. Trabzon’da Cemaatler Arası İlişkiler (1700–1770). Trabzon: Serander Yayınları, 2018), 39–58. Tuluk, Ömer İskender. “Trabzon İskender Paşa Camii: Fiziksel Gelişim Süreci Üzerine Tarihsel Bir Değerlendirme.” In Trabzon Kent Mirası Yer Yapı Hafıza, eds. Ömer İskender Tuluk and Halil İbrahim Düzenli, 145–154. İstanbul: Klasik, 2010. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. Osmanlı Tarihi, III. Vol. 1. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1983.

27 İbrahim Efendi (d. 1697), an Ottoman Scribe Turned Dominican Monk, and His Library between Constantinople and Venice Tijana Krstić A few years ago while browsing through Stephan Roman’s The Development of Islamic Library Collections in Western Europe and North America, an interesting detail caught my attention in a chapter on Italian manuscript collections. Explaining the provenance of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts in the Marciana library in Venice, Roman states (unfortunately, without further references) that they in part stemmed from the personal collection of a certain Ibrahim of Pera – an Ottoman official and secret Christian who defected to Venice in 1690, and subsequently helped Venetians develop a study of “oriental languages” before he died in 1697.1 This information intrigued me for two reasons. First, despite the welldocumented Ottoman-Venetian relations and ubiquity of the Ottoman-issued documents in the Venetian archives, we still know next to nothing about Ottoman manuscripts that ended up in the Serenissima and the use to which they were put.2 Second, there is a growing body of scholarship on Eastern Christians from the Ottoman Empire, especially Maronites, who for various reasons travelled to Rome and other European centers of learning and became members of the Republic of Letters by teaching Arabic, Syriac, and other languages in demand by European humanists and missionaries in the sixteenth 1 Stephan Roman, The Development of Islamic Library Collections in Western Europe and North America (London: Mansell, 1990), 159. Other “oriental” manuscripts in Marciana come mostly from the much larger collection of Giacomo Nani (1725–1797), Venetian admiral and art collector. On that collection see Simone Assemani, Catalogo de’ codici manoscritti orientali della Biblioteca Naniana compilato dall’abate Simone Assemani professore di lingue orientali nel Seminario e socio dell’Accademia delle Scienze Belle Lettere ed Arti di Padova. Vi s’aggiunge l’illustrazione delle monete cufiche del Museo Naniano, 2 vols. (Padova: Stamperia del Seminario, 1787–1792). 2 See Maria Pia Pedani, I “Documenti Turchi” dell’Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Roma: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1994). For a study of provenance of a manuscript produced in the Ottoman Empire, but now housed in Venice, see Ella Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance. Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2021), 113–39. © Tijana Krstić, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_029 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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and, especially, seventeenth centuries.3 However, the studies we have of learned Muslims who travelled to Europe and took part, as either Muslims or converts, in the humanist, polemical, missionary and/or other projects underway among European literati in the confessional age are few, and even fewer are the examples of such literati coming from Ottoman domains.4 Claudia Römer brought to light the story of one such individual – İbrahim Derviş, an enslaved Turkish-speaking Muslim who helped Sebastian Tengnagel (d. 1636), the librarian of the Habsburg Imperial Library in Vienna, copy Abū l-Fidā’s Taqwīm al-buldān in 1610.5 But, as Römer shows, İbrahim Derviş was not a highly educated scholar who would have been able to advance in a substantial way European scholars’ growing curiosity about the Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages, the Qurʾan, and Islamic learning in general.6 In contrast, Ibrahim of Pera allegedly put his learnedness and his private library in the service of the Venetian Republic and its study of the “Orient.” Recent research has come to appreciate the importance of early modern Istanbul and other Ottoman urban centers, their diplomatic scene, as well as the role of Ottoman Muslim, Christian and Jewish intellectuals  – both itinerant and home-bound – in the genealogy of early modern Orientalism.7 As 3 See, for instance, Bernard Heyberger, ed., Orientalisme, science et controverse: Abraham Ecchellensis (1605–1664) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); Aurelien A. Girard, “Teaching and Learning Arabic in Early Modern Rome: Shaping a Missionary Language,” in The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe, eds. Jan Loop et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 189–212; John-Paul Ghobrial, “The Life and Hard Times of Solomon Negri: An Arabic Teacher in Early Modern Europe,” in ibid., 310–33, etc. 4 Well-known stories are those of Leo Africanus (formerly Ḥasan al-Wazzān) at the Papal court in Rome, masterfully reconstructed by Natalie Zemon Davis in her Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), and of Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Hajarī (d. after 1640) and his interactions with the scholars in France and Netherlands, studied by Gerard A. Wiegers in his A Learned Muslim Acquaintance of Erpenius and Golius: Ahmad b. Kâsim al-Andalusî and Arabic Studies in the Netherlands (Leiden: Dukumentatiebureau Islam-Christendom, 1988). Other examples include the Moroccan captive Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī who copied the Qurʾan for Heinrich Hottinger and Persian convert Haqvirdi who taught Jacobus Golius Persian in Leiden. See Jan Loop, Johann Heinrich Hottinger. Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 154–56. 5 Claudia Römer, “An Ottoman Copyist Working for Sebastian Tengnagel, Librarian at the Vienna Hofbibliothek, 1608–1636,” Archiv orientální LXVI (1988): 331–350. 6 On this effort see in particular Alexander Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018) and the ongoing ERC project entitled The European Qurʾan (EuQu; https://euqu.eu/). 7 See especially John-Paul Ghobrial, “The Archive of Orientalism and Its Keepers: Reimagining the Histories of Arabic Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe,” Past & Present 230, issue suppl. 11 (2016): 90–111, John-Paul Ghobrial, “Migration from Within and Without: In the Footsteps

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Natalie Rothman argues, Orientalist epistemologies were neither produced exclusively in the “West,” nor were they solely the outcome of the European Enlightenment. Rather, they had more complex routes that connected sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman literati and European diplomatic and missionary corps in Ottoman domains in complex processes of exchange and commensuration.8 Piecing together the stories of individuals from the Ottoman Empire who contributed to what John-Paul Ghobrial has dubbed the “archive of Orientalism” are of particular interest in this respect, as they highlight the routes and contacts through which texts, objects, ideas, and their interpretation found their place in this archive. What kind of expertise could Ibrahim of Pera – or rather, İbrahim Efendi, as he would have been known to his Ottoman peers – make available to his Venetian interlocutors? What kind of manuscripts did he bring with him and why? How did he fashion himself to the Venetian authorities and how did they perceive him? What kind of Muslim was he and why did he convert to Christianity? In what follows, I explore the routes İbrahim took  – both physical and spiritual – and the people and texts he interacted with on the way, especially prior to his arrival in Venice, to get into the position of contributing to the Venetian study of the “Orient.” I first reconstruct his education and career as an Ottoman official, the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity, arrival in Venice, as well as his subsequent trajectory based on available sources and contextual evidence. This reconstruction is based mostly on his own story and the reports of various Venetian officials because, despite searching for İbrahim across various genres of Ottoman sources, from appointment registers to contemporary chronicles, his trail proved surprisingly elusive for an official of his rank. After considering the details of his career, I juxtapose them to the contents of the manuscript collection he brought with him, in search of further clues to his professional formation, intellectual outlook, and spiritual peregrinations within and between Islam and Christianity. As I argue, İbrahim Efendi’s “dossier” is, on the one hand, revealing of personal aspects of Ottoman elite learning, reading and belief, as well as how they were made sense of by Venetian elites simultaneously engaged in their own project of studying Ottoman culture, language and religion. On the other, various first- and third-person narratives of İbrahim’s conversion, together with of Eastern Christians in the Early Modern World,” Transactions of the RHS 27 (2017): 153–73; Paul Babinski, “Ottoman Philology and the Origins of Persian Studies in Western Europe: The Gulistan’s Orientalist Reader,” Lias 46,2 (2019): 233–315 and Ella Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance. 8 Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 11–12.

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his personal library, tell a complex story of his journey from Islam to Catholic Christianity via Eastern Orthodoxy. These narratives, besides exposing the complex connections between the Ottoman, Habsburg and Venetian officials as well as various types of Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim religious specialists, also highlight the contextual and situational aspects of confessional belonging, underscoring the relationship between mobility in the age of confessional polarization and local processes of identification.9 1

From İbrahim b. Ahmed to Paolo Antonino via Abraham Albanese

As it turns out, although he does not feature in Ottomanist scholarship, İbrahim Efendi is not entirely unknown to the scholars who have studied production of knowledge about the “Orient” in Venice. Italian scholars Bartolommeo Cecchetti and, more than a century later, Francesca Lucchetta, a prominent Arabist, introduced İbrahim to scholarship by publishing two key documents: his own petition to the Venetian Doge on April 15, 1692 in which he was seeking appointment as instructor of Arabic, Persian and Turkish “languages and sciences” in the school for Venetian dragomans,10 and the Senate’s decision from May 3, 1692 to approve his petition and appoint him in this capacity.11 These two documents containing biographical details are principal sources on İbrahim’s life story, along with the information drawn from his obituary that is cited in the catalogue (published in 1779) of the library of the Dominican convent of Saints John and Paul (Santi Giovanni e Paolo), to which he had originally bequeathed his manuscripts.12 In the two documents from 1692, he is referred to as “Abramo Albanese cristiano, già ( formerly) Ibrahim Dachmet turco” and “Ibraim Achemet Turco hora Abraham Albanese,” respectively, which suggests that his birth name was İbrāhīm b. Aḥmed, and that he was of Albanian origin, 9

On the relationship between global processes of movement and local processes of identification see John-Paul Ghobrial, “Moving Stories and What They Tell Us: Early Modern Mobility between Microhistory and Global History,” Past & Present (2019): Supplement 14: 243–80. 10 Francesca Lucchetta, “Lo studio delle lingue orientali nella scuola per dragomanni di Venezia alla fine del XVII secolo,” Quaderni de Studi Arabi 5–6 (1987–1988): 479–98, with petition on 497–98. 11 Bartolommeo Cecchetti, “L’insegnamento del turco e dell’arabo in Venezia,” Rivista orientale 1 (1867–1868): 1126–31, with the decision on 1126–28. 12 Domenico Maria Berardelli, “Codicum omnium graecorum, arabicorum aliarumque linguarum orientalium qui manuscripti in bibliotheca Sanctorum Joannis et Pauli Venetiarum ordinis Praedicatorum asservantur catalogus,” Nuova raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e filologici XX (1779): 161–240; with biographical details on 168–71 [hereafter: Berardelli].

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while he assumed the name of Abraham upon arrival in Venice. In the obituary it is mentioned that he was born in Pera, in Constantinople, to Muslim parents, and that he died in Venice on November 12, 1697, at the age of 56, which would put his birth to some time around 1641–1642.13 We also find out that he was confirmed and anointed with chrism in the church of Saint John the Baptist of Catechumens in Venice in April 1691, and that in January 1693 he joined the Dominican order, taking the monastic name of Paolo Antonino.14 Reconstructing the details of İbrahim’s Ottoman career, however, is a bit more challenging task. In the petition to the Doge from April 15, 1692, İbrahim – now Abraham – styles himself in the following terms: I was raised in the rank of efendi, that is man of letters, in Constantinople. I served that [i.e. Ottoman] empire in multiple notable positions, as is known by some representatives and many foremost servants of Your Serenity and those who serve the Serenissima as dragomans. My humble name is also not unknown to the supreme magistrate of this glorious and most peaceful domain. I do not dare tire Your Excellency with the story of my existence. I will only say reverently that illuminated by God with curiosity to read about the things related to the holy faith and the sacred Gospel of Christ, I became convinced of its truth and the fallaciousness of the Qurʾan. So about twenty years ago in Belgrade, while I served there as the tax collector (esattore) for the Porte, I received the water of sacrosant baptism from Don Luca, chaplain of the imperial resident. I thought of immediately seeking refuge in Christendom, but engaged tirelessly in various tasks outside of Constantinople, in Europe, Asia and Egypt as secretary and tax collector of the Porte, I never had the time to carry out my wish. But eventually, having become aware that some hints about my change of religion reached the ears of the Imperial Council, I abandoned all my fortunes and with little money in my hand I arrived in Serenissima two years ago and decided to end my days here. I would have immediately submitted myself to the sublime presence of Your Serenity to offer the vassalage of my unworthy person, but first I wanted to gain some knowledge of this language and make myself known as a true Christian indoctrinated in Catholic faith. At present, Most Serene Prince, I satisfy my ancient desire and prostrate myself at your feet reverently. I beg you to admit me among your humble subjects, having nothing but little money and not insignificant knowledge of Arabic, Persian and 13 Ibid., 168; 171. 14 Ibid., 169–70.

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Turkish languages and sciences, which I offer entirely to Your Serenity, my beloved and revered Supreme Prince.15 Several key details of İbrahim’s career may be discerned from this biographical sketch. First of all, his insistence on being a “man of letters” (efendi) who attained considerable knowledge of Turkish, Arabic and Persian languages and “sciences” deserves some consideration. Efendi was an Ottoman title of Greek origin used since the fifteenth century in Turkish and Greek to refer to various dignitaries. By the seventeenth century it was increasingly common as a designation for the members of the scribal (kalemiye) and judicial/scholarly (ilmiye), as opposed to the military class (seyfiye).16 Given that he worked as a tax collector and secretary, İbrahim’s career as an Ottoman official did not follow the judicial and scholarly track but that of the scribal and financial services. Over the sixteenth century, Ottoman Empire underwent a process of bureaucratization that resulted in increasing differentiation and professionalization of various branches of bureaucracy, propelling the scribal class to a new prominence.17 During the seventeenth century, the growing presence of European traders and diplomats in Ottoman cities, as well as intense military activities, especially from the 1640s onwards, forced the Ottoman government to develop a more efficient system of communication with foreign powers, which further empowered the Ottoman scribal class, especially the office of the Chief Chancellor (reisülküttap).18 The ongoing changes and growing complexity in the revenue-raising system similarly led to the growing need for scribes and tax officers.19 15 Luchetta, “Lo studio,” 497 [my translation from Italian]. 16 See Bernard Lewis, “Efendi,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (1960–2007), doi: 10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_2170 (accessed on 30 April 2021). 17 On this trajectory see, for instance, Cornell H. Fleischer, “Preliminaries to the Study of Ottoman Bureaucracy,” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 135–41; Cornell H. Fleischer, “Between the Lines: Realities of Scribal life in the Sixteenth Century,” in Studies in Ottoman History in Honor of Professor V.L. Ménage, eds. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994), 45–62; Christine Woodhead, “Scribe to Litterateur: The Career of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Katib,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 9,1 (1982): 55–74; Linda Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy. Tax Collection & Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1996), etc. 18 Damien Janos, “Panaiotis Nicousios and Alexander Mavrocordatos: The Rise of the Phanariots and the Office of Grand Dragoman in the Ottoman Administration in the second half of the Seventeenth Century,” Archivum Ottomanicum 23 (2005/2006): 177–96, here 185. 19 Darling, Revenue-Raising.

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In the late sixteenth century, it was still common – although not a sine qua non – for the scribes (katip) to have a medrese education.20 However, by the early 1650s, when İbrahim likely started his education, fewer candidates for the jobs in the scribal and financial services were medrese graduates, with the paths of ilmiye and kalemiye separating more decisively. Instead, it became common to receive a thorough on-the-job training that often began while scribe apprentices were attached to a household of a particular high-ranking dignitary.21 This practical knowledge and skills in a wide variety of disciplines would have been combined with training in traditional Islamic sciences, often taught by private tutors with medrese credentials rather than acquired through formal attendance of medrese, although completing several levels of the medrese curriculum was also common.22 By the second half of the seventeenth century, the scribes and secretaries from the Ottoman chancery did not lag behind the ulema in learnedness and came to see themselves as intellectual pillars of the Ottoman state.23 Judging by the prolific literary output of the bureaucrats (i.e. of the imperial scribal class) of this period, especially histories and advice literature, many of them had an encyclopedic knowledge of administrative procedures, types of documents and correspondence issued by various departments of imperial bureaucracy, familiarity with aspects of theology, law, rules of moral conduct, history, geography, language and literature (in both Arabic and Persian), astronomy, mathematics and traditional Islamic sciences.24 20 21

22

23 24

See Woodhead, “Scribe to Litterateur.” See Erhan Afyoncu and Recep Ahısalı, “Katip” (Osmanlı Dönemi), in TDVİA, https:// islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/katip#2-osmanli-donemi (accessed on 24 April 2021); Ekin Emine Tusalp Atiyas, “Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence: Ottoman Scribal Community in the Seventeenth Century,” (PhD diss., Harvard University, Boston 2013), 192–216. However, as Tusalp Atiyas shows, there were still examples of people alternating between legal and administrative bureaucracies, as well as many instances of medrese graduates entering bureacracy. See for instance, 173. Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha was himself a medrese graduate who went into bureaucracy. See M. Tayyib Gökbilgin and R.C. Repp, “Köprülü,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (1960–2007), doi: 10.1163/ 1573-3912_islam_COM_0530 (accessed on 24 April 2021). Despite the overlap in education and reliance of the scribal class on tutors with medrese backgrounds, by the mid seventeenth century the rift and competition between the ulema and the bureaucrats, who criticized both the level of former’s knowledge and their social entitlements, was in full swing. See Tusalp Atiyas, Political Literacy; Harun Küçük, Science without Leisure. Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660–1732 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 94–102, 132. See Tusalp Atiyas, Political Literacy, 134; Henning Sievert, “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon: Usual and Unusual Readings of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Bureaucrat,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies, XLI (2013): 159–95, here 163. For instance, see Tusalp Atiyas, Political Literacy, 132–61; Küçük, Science without Leisure, 131–38.

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It is interesting, therefore, that Abraham’s obituary, composed by his Dominican brethren, suggests that upon his studies he had joined the scholarly (ulema) ranks.25 Furthermore, in the letter accompanying and endorsing Abraham’s petition to the Doge, former Venetian bailo to Constantinople, Giovanni Battista Donà (bailo 1681–1684) confirms that Abraham was indeed an efendi, and that, moreover, he supervised the teftardari (Tr. defterdar; chief financial officer) and could have attained the post of a cadilischier (Tr. kazasker; chief military judge) or even the mufti (Tr. müftü; chief jurist).26 This would imply not only that İbrahim completed the highest level of the medrese studies but also that he was at some point formally accepted into the hierarchical service envisioned for scholars (mülazım), at the top of which were the posts of the chief military judge and chief jurist.27 A closer look at Donà’s work from 1688, entitled Della letteratura de’ Turchi (about which more below), reveals that his own understanding of the term efendi was informed by the interactions he had during his tenure as a bailo in Constantinople with a retired Ottoman official who held a string of judicial posts, a certain ʿAbdullah Efendi. Upon introducing ʿAbdullah Efendi, whose library he apparently had access to, Donà explains that efendis were men who applied themselves to the study of law, implying that only those in the ilmiye track were entitled to call themselves by this title, and that they represented the intellectual elite of the empire.28 This discrepancy between what can be surmised of İbrahim’s career from his own petition and from the way bailo Donà sought to present him is interesting and we will return to it when we take a closer look at his book collection. The obituary suggests that İbrahim served as a secretary and tax collector in Buda, Belgrade, Crete, Egypt and Constantinople.29 We do not learn either from the obituary or from İbrahim himself what kind of taxes he was collecting, but given his extensive contacts with Christians in various places where he served (as will be discussed below), it is possible that at least at some point he collected taxes from non-Muslim subjects (such as cizye or avarız) or dealt 25 “Adolescens linguis Arabicae, ac Persicae addiscendis magna contentione animum applicuit, quo in studio tantum profecit, ut brevi inter ejus Sectae Doctores, reique sacre administros cooptatus fuerit.” See Berardelli, 168. 26 Luchhetta, “Lo studio,” 496. She refers to ASV, Senato terra, filza 1149, April 18 1692. Donà does not reveal the source of this information. 27 See Abdurrahman Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 72. 28 Giovanni Battista Donado, Della letterature de’ Turchi (Venezia: Andrea Poletti, 1688), 3–4. “… tra Sudditi de’ Turchi viene impiegato al presente un gran numero, che si dicono Effendi, quali sono gli huomini applicati, come dicono loro, alla Legge.” 29 See Berardelli, 169.

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with customs dues.30 In light of the frequent changes in place of deployment, İbrahim was likely not a member of provincial bureaucracy, which often controlled local tax collection, but rather an official who was sent from the capital, possibly along with a more illustrious patron.31 While he does not speak about any specific patron, the fact that he was of Albanian origin and worked in the financial services in the period between the 1660s and 1690 points to the possibility of his being part of the wider Köprülü patronage network.32 Indeed, greater part of İbrahim’s career coincides with the long tenure of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha as Grand Vizier (1661–1676), which was characterized by a sustained effort to curb the influence of the provincial administrators and their households, and centralize the resources and collection of taxes in the hands of the central administration controlled by the Köprülü clan.33 Specific places where İbrahim served as a tax collector fall within the foci of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha’s and later Köprülü viziers’ fiscal reform efforts, especially Egypt and Crete. Unfortunately, it is not possible to precisely reconstruct the order in which İbrahim held his posts. Based on his life story as laid out in the petition to the Doge, we can tentatively locate him in Belgrade in the early 1670s, where he says he was secretly baptized by a certain Don Luca, the chaplain of the Habsburg ambassador (residente cesareo).34 While I was not able to find any reference to this particular chaplain, reports to the Propaganda Fide from the Catholic bishops and clergy posted in Belgrade and its environs suggest that 30

Linda Darling mentions that by the mid 1650s the majority of avarız collectors came from the palace or the retinues of great men of state. See Darling, Revenue-Raising, 174. 31 I am grateful to Linda Darling for pointing this out. Unfortunately, a targeted search (based on projected years of service) in appointment (tevziat) registers of cizye and avarız collectors did not result in any clues on either İbrahim or his patronage network (intisap). I thank Günhan Börekçi for his kind assistance in research into this issue. 32 On the importance of “ethnic-regional solidarity” (cins), such as Albanian, Bosnian, or Circassian, for elite networking in the seventeenth century see Metin Kunt, “EthnicRegional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, 3 (1974): 233–39; on the role of Albanian cins in the Köprülü network building and patronage see Cumhur Bekar, “The rise of the Köprülü family: the reconfiguration of vizierial power in the seventeenth century” (PhD diss., Leiden University, Leiden 2019), 179. 33 On aspects of Köprülü reforms see Gökbilgin, “Köprülü”; Jane Hathaway and Karl Barbir, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800 (London, New York: Routledge, 2008), 76–78; Fehmi Yılmaz, “The Life of Köprülüzāde Fazıl Muṣṭafā Pasha and his Reforms (1637–1691),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 20 (2000): 165–221. 34 The diplomat in question could have been either Giambattista Casanova, the Habsburg ambassador to the Porte between 1665 and December 1672, or his successor Johann Christoph von Kindsperg (1672–1678). On both see Yasir Yılmaz, “The Road to Vienna: Habsburg and Ottoman Statecraft during the Time of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Paşa” (PhD diss., Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 2015), 143–44.

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İbrahim’s experience would not have been unusual. For instance, a letter sent to Rome by the vicar of the Belgrade bishop in Sirmium on March 4, 1675 asks for permission to administer sacraments to an unnamed secret Christian in Ottoman service who for his own security had to continue to serve in that capacity.35 Interestingly, İbrahim/Abraham/Paolo Antonino’s obituary suggests that this turn of duty in Belgrade was preceded by service in Egypt, where he read “day and night” Christian sermons in Arabic, which led him to realize, “with the assistance of the Holy Spirit,” the truth of the Gospel and the deception of the “Muhameddan superstition.”36 This experience, according to the obituary, prepared İbrahim to embrace Christian religion. He may have gone to Egypt as a member of the retinue of Kara İbrahim Pasha, the personal lieutenant of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, who was the governor of Egypt from June 1670 to September 1673, tasked with stopping the embezzlement of the revenues by local beys.37 Indeed, the chronicle of Mehmed ibn Yusuf el-Hallak mentions in the section on Kara İbrahim Pasha’s governorship an incident from July 1673 involving the “scribe for the miscellaneous expenses (müteferrika) and arrears collection (havale) bureaus, İbrahim Efendi,” who beat up a janissary of Ruznameci Efendi (Chief of the Daily Ledger; treasury official issuing receipts for payment), which led to his dismissal from both scribal posts.38 Could this pugnacious scribe be “our” İbrahim, who then got posted to Belgrade? Unfortunately, although Mehmed ibn Yusuf el-Hallak as well as other contemporary chroniclers mention various İbrahim Efendis for the period between the 1660s and 1680s, only the above-mentioned case seems to correspond to our İbrahim’s profile.39 35

Antun Dević, ed., Đakovačka i Srijemska biskupija. Spisi generalnih sjednica Kongregacije za Širenje Vjere, 17. Stoljeće (Zagreb: Hrvatski državni arhiv, 2000), 643. I thank Emese Muntan for sharing this source with me. 36 Berardelli, 168. “In Egypto vero, quo Quastor aerarius missus fuerat, diurna, nocturnaque manu libros Arabici sermonis assidue versans, in sacrosanctum Jesu Christi Evangelium forte incidit, ex cuius lectione adeo, Spiritu Sancto asstante, illustratus fuit, ut Mahumetanam superstitionem, & Alcorani deliria detestatus, Christiane Fidei, ac Religionis vehementissimo ardore flagrare cæperit.” 37 On Kara İbrahim Pasha’s reforms see Jane Hathaway, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 148–50. 38 Meḥmed ibn Yūsuf el-Ḥallāḳ, Tārīḫ-i Mıṣır, İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler Kütüphanesi, TY 628, 206a. He dates the incident to “1084 Rebiü’l-sâni on dördüncü günü,” which is July 29, 1673. I thank Günhan Börekçi for sharing his copy of this manuscript with me. 39 Besides Meḥmed ibn Yūsuf el-Ḥallāḳ, Tārīḫ-i Mıṣır, I also consulted [Defterdar] Sarı Mehmed Pasha, Zübde-yi Vekayiât: Tahlil ve Metin (1066–1116 /1656–1704), Abdülkadir Özcan, ed. (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1995); Ramazan Aktemur, Anonim Osmanlı Vekayinamesi (H. 1058–1106/M. 1648–1694) (Metin ve Değerlendirme), (MA thesis, İstanbul

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Chronicles do not reveal any clues about his post in Crete, where İbrahim seems to have served some time between the mid-1670s and mid-1680s. Here too, among the many İbrahim Efendis mentioned in the sources, it is hard to find anyone who would fit our protagonist’s description. The victory in the Cretan War with Venice (1645–1669), and the subsequent incorporation of the island into the Ottoman land and fiscal system, was the crown achievement of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha’s career and a great boon for his patronage network.40 The administrators sent from Constantinople to survey, tax, and administer the new domains were key to this enterprise, and İbrahim seems to have been one of them. What we know is that on March 13, 1690 İbrahim fled Constantinople and arrived in Venice on October 16 that year, via unknown route. In his petition to the Venetian Doge he suggests that it was the rumors about his secret change of religion and the possibility of their reaching the ears of the Imperial Council that prompted him to take the decisive step that he had delayed for twenty years. Interestingly, İbrahim would not have been the only example of an Ottoman kâtip turning Christian in Constantinople around this time. The case of Patburnuzade Mehmed Efendi, a high-ranking clerk of the Office of the Daily Ledger (ruznamçe-i evvel),41 is particularly infamous because he is known both as a heretic (zındık) and as a Greek Orthodox neomartyr.42 According to the Ottoman sources, Patburnuzāde Meḥmed Efendi blasphemed against the Prophet, was tried, and executed in front of the sultan in Kaǧıthane in 1681, despite denying the charges.43 However, Christian sources, one of which refers to Patburnuzade by the name of Ahmetes polites onomazomenos pazpurunes (“Ahmed, Stanbouliot, surnamed Pazpurun”) allege that he had converted to Orthodox Christianity with the help of his Russian concubine and was executed as an apostate.44 While it is by no means certain that both Ottoman and University, İstanbul 2019); Abdülkadir Özcan, ed., Anonim Osmanlı Tarihi (1099–1116/ 1688–1704) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2000); and Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha, Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa Vekâyiʿ-nâmesi (Osmanlı Tarihi 1648–1682): Tahlil ve Metin Tenkidi, Fahri Ç. Derin, ed. (Istanbul: Çamlıca, 2008). 40 See Molly Greene, A Shared World  – Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton, 2000), 18–39. 41 Erhan Afyoncu, “Rûznâmçe.” TDVİA, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ruznamce (accessed on 25 April 2021). 42 The case is studied from the perspective of both Ottoman and Greek sources by Marinos Sariyannis, “Aspects of ‘Neomartyrdom’: Religious Contacts, ‘Blasphemy’ and ‘Calumny’ in 17th Century Istanbul,” Archivum Ottomanicum 23 (2005/2006): 249–63, esp. 252–59. 43 For a study of this case based on Ottoman sources see Ömer Menekşe, Osmanlı Toplu­ munda Zındıklık. Patburnuzade Örneğinde Bir Inceleme (Istanbul: Cağaloğlu, 2019). 44 Sariyannis, “Aspects of ‘Neomartyrdom,’” 255.

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Greek sources are actually speaking about the same person, it is intriguing that both suggest that Patburnuzāde was a victim of gossip of his colleagues in the financial department.45 This echoes İbrahim’s fears that his secret conversion would be outed and reach the ears of the grand vizier, especially given his high rank and the competitive environment in the financial bureau. Even more intriguing is the information found in a Greek chronicle of a Phanariot clerk Demetrios Ramadanes (fl. c.1730), reported by Marinos Sariyannis, according to which a decade after Patburnuzade’s alleged conversion, another kâtip from reisülküttap’s department converted to Christianity.46 His name was Mustafa Efendi, he was a Muslim of Albanian origin who was always on good terms with Christians, and had a very good knowledge of Arabic. Ramadanes states that this Mustafa Efendi then escaped to Venice where he was baptized as Stephanus and entered the Franciscan order.47 As it happens, the detailed reports of the Venetian bailos from Constantinople, which would normally be an invaluable source on such a case, do not exist for the period between 1684 and 1699 due to Venice’s taking part in the Holy League against the Ottomans.48 But the similarity of Mustafa’s story with İbrahim’s is striking – is it possible that two clerks from the Ottoman financial bureau fled Constantinople at roughly the same time, both joining a monastic order in Venice? Or did the Greek chronicler perhaps get his names wrong? We will return to this question when we look more closely at İbrahim’s manuscripts. It appears that upon arriving in Venice in October 1690 and becoming a catechumen in 1691, Abraham at some point headed to Rome to prostrate himself at the feet of the pope, who encouraged him to stay in Rome and continue deepening his commitment to the Christian faith. However, Abraham preferred Venice, where he promptly returned. He reports in his petition to the Doge that his teaching services were here sought by Marc ‘Antonio Mamuca, the chief dragoman of the emperor, for his nephew, and by Tomaso Tarsia, the first dragoman of Venice, for the language instruction of his son. Abraham petitioned the Doge to support him in opening a school and academy for the education of 45 Ibid., 253, 256. 46 On the identity of the chronicler see Sariyannis, “Aspects of ‘Neomartyrdom,’” 256. Johann Strauss mentions the same case, although he attributes the chronicle in question to Kaisaros Dapontes (1712–1784). See Johann Strauss, “Ottoman Rule Experienced and Remembered: Remarks on Some Local Greek Chronicles of the Tourkokratia,” in The Ottomans and the Balkans – A Discussion of Historiography, eds. F. Adanır and S. Faroqhi (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2002), 193–221, 205–6, n. 55. 47 Sariyannis, “Aspects of ‘Neomartyrdom’,” 259, especially n. 38. 48 See Maria Pia Pedani, “Elenco degli inviati diplimatici veneziani presso i sovrani ottomani,” EJOS 5,4 (2002): 1–54, esp. 46–47.

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the giovani di lingua, i.e. Venetian dragomans in training, who were otherwise trained in Constantinople by a hoca (teacher) who did not teach them other than simple reading and writing. Abraham offers to undertake the instruction for whatever pay the Senate might find fit, since he has no other ambition than to live constant in Catholic faith and fidelity to the Venetian Republic.49 As already mentioned, in this endeavor he had the wholehearted support of the former Venetian bailo to Constantinople, Giovanni Battista Donà. Donà was keenly aware of the imperfections in the dragomans’ training in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, considering it a matter of utmost importance to the Republic.50 Already before embarking on his service in the Ottoman capital, Donà started to learn Turkish and was the first bailo in over a century to do so. His teacher in Venice was an Armenian Dominican missionary by the name of Yovhannes Konstandnupōlsec’i (Giovanni Agop), who was Istanbul-born but trained by the Jesuits in Rome.51 Upon his return to Venice, in 1688 Donà published two books, Della letteratura de’ Turchi (On the Literature of the Turks) and Raccolta curiosissima d’adaggi turcheschi (A Most Curious Collection of Turkish Sayings). As Natalie Rothman points out, the former especially “radically challenged contemporary European understanding of Ottoman culture (or lack thereof),” putting forward the argument that, contrary to the perception of the Ottomans, they had “literature” and a sophisticated linguistic register in which to articulate it. Delle letteratura de’ Turchi thus surveyed Ottoman achievements in the fields of “grammar, poetry, logic, mathematics, geometry, optics, music, medicine, herbal alchemy, chemistry, history, politics, geography, and devotion,” along with excerpts from the sources translated by the Venetian dragoman Rinaldo Carli.52 However, Donà was also very much aware that without training in Arabic and Persian, Venetian dragomans would not be able to master the highest register of Ottoman Turkish that was essential to statecraft and operations of various imperial offices, from the Imperial Council, to the courts of law, and the notarial and secretarial bureaus. In his Della letteratura, he writes: The Turkish language is  … adorned with Persian, like we do with the Tuscan … In the same way one also finds the Arabic among the Turks, as the Latin is among us; as the Qurʾan is written in that language, the Arabic 49 Lucchetta, “Lo studio,” 498. 50 Ibid. On Venetian problems with the training of dragomans see E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2012), especially 165–88. 51 Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 141. 52 Ibid., 216.

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is necessary to them, as to us is the language in which Sacred Scripture is to be found. Arabic styles, words, and terms are used entirely for ornamentation, for elocution, and for decorum, especially in the affairs, the commandments, and other orders of major business and negotiations; in letters of the Prince, Ministers, Paşas, and in orders of the Imperial will.53 He continues by stating that the most erudite among the Ottomans, that is, the men of law, “parish priests and other clerics,” but also distinguished men in notarial, secretarial and chancery services, all speak and write Arabic.54 Presumably combining both the medrese education and the experience in Ottoman bureaucracy, İbrahim/Abraham must have appeared to Donà like a perfect man to teach the dragoman apprentices.55 Furthermore, it appears that Abraham’s arrival in Venice and hiring by the Venetian Senate stirred excitement also among the Catholic scholars working on the printing of the Qurʾan in Padua with the support of Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo. The text that was eventually printed in Padua in 1698 was the Alcorani Textus Universus. It was the first time that the publication of the Qurʾan in Europe was accompanied by the full translation, critical notes, and polemical refutation, all of which was the deed of Lodovico Maracci, a Catholic clergyman who also served as a confessor to Pope Innocent XI.56 For Maracci and many other members of what Alexander Bevilacqua has termed the “Republic of Arabic Letters” in Europe, the translation and refutation of the Qurʾan was a prospective means of evangelization but also a polemical instrument in the struggle with both Islam and other rivaling Christian denominations whose teachings could be “exposed” as akin to Islam. However, it was also undeniably a scholarly endeavor in which Maracci used a variety of Islamic religious works, including Qurʾan commentaries and hadith, to explain the meaning of the text.57 53 Donado, Della letteratura, 6–8, translated and cited in ibid., 169–70. 54 Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 170. 55 It is not clear whether İbrahim became acquainted with Donà and various Venetian officials, to whom he refers in his petition to the Doge, already during his time as an Ottoman official or only after his arrival in Venice. Donà’s regular dispatches from Constantinople to Venice during his bailate, from 1681 to 1684, suggest that the Venetians interacted often with the Defterdar himself and his retinue, chiefly over the issue of customs, but I did not come across a mention of İbrahim. For Donà’s dispatches see ASVe, Senato Dispacci Costantinopoli, f. 162 (on interactions with the Defterdar see for instance, a dispatch from May 1682, 78r–85v). 56 Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters, 44; 59. 57 Ibid., 54.

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In the process of preparation for printing, in December 1692, a problem emerged because Maracci sent to Padua his translation and the critical notes and refutation, but not the text of the Qurʾan itself. However, there was apparently no text of the Qurʾan to be found in Padua, which underscores relative lack of access to the Muslim holy book even in the European centers of learning invested in the study of it. Furthermore, there was a need for someone who would correct the printed pages in Arabic. The man who was originally hired for the job was Timoteo Agnellini (Humayli b. Daʿfi Karnush), a Syriac Orthodox Christian from Diyarbakır who converted to Catholicism in the early 1670s. Agnellini was invited to Padua around 1688 to teach Oriental languages and help the publishing endeavor in Arabic, but for unknown reasons left in 1693, leaving Cardinal Barbarigo without a proof reader. In June 1695 Barbarigo wrote that he had the Qurʾan in press and was in urgent need of a corrector, mentioning that he had heard of an Ottoman renegade in Venice who was well acquainted with Arabic language and might be persuaded to come to Padua for a fair price.58 This was most likely Abraham, or Paolo Antonino, who was at that time already initiated in the Dominican order and working as a teacher of Oriental languages in the Venetian school for the dragomans. Donà’s own Armenian teacher of Turkish, Giovanni Agop, himself a Dominican, belonged to the circle of Catholic scholars in Padua, so it is likely that they were aware of Donà’s protege. Moreover, given that Donà’s brother Andrea worked in the Pia Casa dei Catecumeni, where Agop was helping him catechize the Turkish-speaking neophytes,59 it is possible that this was the route by which Abraham became known to Donà in the first place. This connection would appear to be substantiated by a breviary in Armenian language produced by the Dominican order, which was later found among Abraham/Paolo Antonino’s manuscripts.60 As a newcomer from the Ottoman lands who claimed to have already been baptized, Abraham likely passed through the Casa dei Catecumeni upon his arrival in Venice, as this was the route by which converts were both catechized and integrated into the local networks of patronage.61 Abraham certainly did not lack patrons among the Venetian clergy, as his obituary emphasizes that he received his monastic robe from the Grand Master of the Dominican order himself, Fr. Antonino Cloche, in a public ceremony attended by many people

58 59 60 61

Ibid., 61. Rothman, The Dragoman Rennaisance, 141. Bererdelli, 232, Cod. XCVII; Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana [hereafter: BNM] Or. 50. On this institution see Rothman, Brokering Empire, 122–62.

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on January 5 1693.62 It would appear, based on this, that Abraham was the focus of great expectations in Venetian clerical and diplomatic circles. Besides being busy with teaching giovani di lingua, it is possible that the reason why Abraham aka Paolo Antonino could not undertake the task of proofreading the Qurʾan in Padua was that by mid 1695 he was already afflicted by the disease and vehement rheumatism that apparently plagued him towards the end of his life, which ended rather early, at the age of 56, on 12 November, 1697.63 His Venetian career was thus cut short, raising more expectations than it apparently fulfilled. His teaching post was supposed to be taken over in 1705 by Solomon Negri (d. 1727), one of several Eastern Christians (in this case, a Melkite from Damascus) who left an indelible mark on the development of early modern Oriental studies in Europe. However, Negri’s relationship with the Venetians ended in 1708, after which the school for the dragomans in Venice appears to have ceased functioning, at least until 1747.64 İbrahim/Abraham/Paolo Antonino thus became only a curious footnote in the history of the Venetian school for giovani di lingua, the story of his rich Ottoman career and spiritual vagaries only partially and strategically revealed in a couple of petitions and the obituary his fellow Dominicans composed upon his death. But do the books he left behind help us add further nuance to his elusive biography? 2

İbrahim Efendi’s Library

The “oriental” manuscripts of the Marciana Library have been enumerated in two unpublished inventories,65 separate published catalogues of the original 62 Abraham’s monastic name, in fact, combined that of St. Paul (himself a convert formerly known as Saul) and the name of the master of the order, Antonino. See Berardelli, 170. 63 Ibid., 171. 64 See Cecchetti, “L’insegnamento,” 1129–30. For a detailed study of Negri’s negotiations with the Venetians see Francesca Lucchetta, “Un progetto per una scuola di lingue orientali a Venezia nel settecento,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 1 (1983): 1–28 and Ghobrial, “The Life and Hard Times of Solomon Negri,” 320–23. On the school for dragomans in Venice after 1708 see Maria Pia Pedani and Antonio Fabris, “L’ultimo atto della Scuola Veneziana dei giovani di lingua a Constantinopoli,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 11 (2016): 51–60, here 52. 65 Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Codices Arabici, Turcici, Persici, et Sinenses, Coptici et Armeniaci, Hebraici Indici ac Syriaci, etcaet. 1795– (in manuscript); G. Veludo, Codices orientales Bibliothecae ad D. Marci Venetiarum, 1877 (unpublished inventory of the manuscripts). Scanned images of both of these inventories can be found on the website of the Nuova Biblioteca Manoscritta (http://www.nuovabibliotecamanoscritta.it/catalogo .html).

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collections that make the bulk of today’s holdings – of the Dominican convent of Sts. John and Paul, and of the Venetian admiral Giacomo Nani, respectively –,66 as well as more recent publications dedicated to the Persian and Turkish manuscripts in the collection.67 Although a modern comprehensive and analytical catalogue of the entire collection has still not been published, significant progress has been made since 2012 by Erica Ianiro and Sara Fani on identifying the contents of each codex and providing relevant codicological and bibliographic information, which can be accessed through the online catalogue.68 Despite all these research tools, an unsuspecting researcher might be forgiven if while browsing the “oriental” manuscript holdings of the Marciana Library they do not realize that a particular manuscript once belonged to İbrahim Efendi. That information is available only in a footnote of Berardelli’s catalogue from 1779, which is in Latin, while most of the other catalogues, including the online one, do not specifically mention it.69 The best insight into the extent of İbrahim Efendi’s library is thus provided by Berardelli, who states that the Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in the library of the monastery of Saints John and Paul once belonged to Brother Paolo Antonino, and after his death entered the communal library.70 Since Berardelli does not specify any other origin of the “oriental” manuscripts in the monastic library, we might assume that all of the 66 codices he lists once belonged to Paolo Antonino. However, a comparison between Berardelli’s and Marciana’s online catalogue reveals that only 47 of those codices eventually found their way into the Marciana collection. This happened around 1810, after the suppression of the monastic orders during the Napoleonic rule in Venice, and systematic removal, transfer, and consequent damage to the art and various objects of cultural value once housed in the Venetian monasteries and

66 See Berardelli, and Assemani, Catalogo de’ codici manoscritti orientali. 67 Angelo M. Piemontese, “Elenco dei manoscritti persiani nella Biblioteca Marciana di Venezia,” in Annali della Facoltà di Lingue e letterature straniere di Ca’ Foscari XIV, 3, Serie Orientale 6 (1975): 299–309; Angelo M. Piemontese, Catalogo dei manoscritti persiani conservati nelle Biblioteche d’Italia (Roma: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1989); Kudret Altun, “Venedik Marciana Kütüphanesindeki Türkçe Yazma Eserler,” Türk Dili Dergisi 574 (1999): 892–903. 68 Nuova Biblioteca Manoscritta (http://www.nuovabibliotecamanoscritta.it/catalogo.html). 69 Exception is Piemontese, Catalogo dei manoscritti persiani, 319. 70 For the inventory see Berardelli, 231–40. On the provenance of the books see 168–70: “Orientalum vero linguarum Codices, Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, usui quondam fuere Fratris Pauli Antonini Affendi Albanensis, Turcae prius religione, & origine Christiani deinde nominis, ac Praedicatorii Instituti professoris, eoque vita functo, in communem Bibliothecam repositi sunt, ipsique plene addicti.”

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confraternities.71 In what follows, I consider the contents of İbrahim Efendi’s library based on Berardelli’s description of all the codices, recent cataloguing information on those codices that ended up in Marciana, as well as my own observations on the select manuscripts I had a chance to consult. So, what kind of books did İbrahim/Abraham bring with him to Venice? Can we assume that he collected these books over time and read them himself? In which way does the content of his library correspond to or contradict the biographical sketch that he provides in his petition to the Venetian Doge? Does it confirm the perception of him by contemporaries like Donà, especially with respect to the claim that he was a medrese-educated scholar who could have gone on to become the chief military judge or even the chief jurist? And what of the claim we find in his obituary that his conversion to Christianity followed feverish reading of Arabic Christian books while he was a tax collector in Egypt? Unlike some of his peers in Ottoman chancery who were more literarily inclined, İbrahim does not seem to have left any written work or a personally compiled miscellany that could give us a better insight into his intellectual and spiritual outlook.72 However, his collection makes it possible to explore the questions posed above. First of all, with sixty-six volumes this was a substantial collection for late seventeenth-century standards: a recent study of book collecting and reading in seventeenth-century Istanbul classifies those who owned between 50 and 90 titles as “bibliophiles,” one category below the “mega owners” at the top.73 Based on figures from probate registers, İbrahim’s library was comparable to those of many high-ranking bureaucrats.74 Although we cannot dismiss the possibility that he simply bought books from somebody’s estate after their death, given the cost that would entail as well as the content of the library, we have every indication that this was a collection put together over time by a man with particular intellectual horizons, professional needs, and spiritual outlook that echo İbrahim’s trajectory as reconstructed in the first part of the paper. 71

Nora Gietz, “The Effects of Revolutionary and Napoleonic Policy on the Artistic Patrimony of Venice (1797 and 1806–1814)” (PhD diss., University of Warwick, Coventry 2013). 72 See, for instance, the case of Ragıb Mehmed Pasha (d. 1763), the bureaucrat and later Grand Vizier, who compiled a personal miscellany containing references to his interests and works held in his own personal library. See Sievert, “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon.” 73 See Meredith Moss Quin, “Books and Their Readers in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul” (unpublished PhD diss., Harvard University, 2016), 87. 74 See Henning Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze  – Bücher von Bürokraten in den MuḫallefātRegistern,” in Buchkultur in Nahen Osten des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, eds. Tobias Heinzelmann and Henning Sievert (Bern: Peter Land AG, 2010), 234.

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The thing that strikes one upon a closer look at the contents of the codices from İbrahim’s collection is a near complete75 absence of texts related to Islamic theology (Ar. kalām) and law (Ar. fiqh) – subjects key to any Muslim scholar’s training, especially at the higher levels of medrese education.76 Except for the short exegesis of surat al-fātiḥa in one of the codices,77 absent are also the disciplines of Qurʾanic commentary (Ar. tafsīr) and the study of the Prophetic tradition (Ar. ḥadīth). This, combined with the fact that it included only a volume containing parts of the Qurʾan rather than the entire text,78 would have made İbrahim’s collection of little use to scholars like Maracci seeking to understand Islamic sciences and scholarly apparatus, although it should be remembered that even such scholarly centers like Padua did not have access to a copy of the Qurʾan or its excerpts at the time. Did İbrahim perhaps intentionally leave the books on Islamic law and theology behind because he was afraid that they could potentially compromise him at his destination? This appears unlikely: after all, some of the other books he brought along that contained religious texts could have been equally compromising. One could speculate that he left such books behind in anticipation of teaching “Oriental” languages, but if he had any information on what was expected or needed from such a teacher in Europe at the time, he would have known that a knowledge of both Arabic and Qurʾanic sciences were in great demand by European literati seeking services of scholars coming from the Ottoman domains.79 If, however, we take into consideration the fact that he was a financial clerk, ommission of particular subjects from his collection becomes less surprising. Probate registers of eighteenth-century Ottoman bureaucrats suggest that, unlike the ulema, the bureaucrats generally preferred books for personal refinement, intellectual edification, worldly 75 I say “near complete” because several codices that may have contained texts that are related to some aspects of these subjects – judging from Berardelli’s cursory description of contents – have gone missing since he published his catalogue. For instance, Cod. CX (Berardelli, 235) may have been a fetva collection. 76 Ottoman medreses were ranked according to the payment their instructors were receiving, ranging from twenty akçe for the lowest to fifty akçe for the highest level of the so called “outer” system. After completing these stages of learning, a student moved to the “inner” system that was the equivalent of the “graduate education,” pursued in the institutions established by the sultans (medāris-i ḫāḳāniye). See Ahmet Tunç Şen, “The Sultan’s Syllabus Revisited: Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Madrasa Libraries and the Question of Canonization,” Studies Islamica 116 (2021): 198–235, 206–7. For a discussion of the Ottoman medrese rankings and their curricula see Câhid Baltacı, XVI. Asırlar Osmanlı Medreseleri (Istanbul: İrfan Matbaası, 1976), 35–45; Cevat İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, Vol. 1 (Istanbul, 1997), 36–38; 61–107. 77 Berardelli, 234, Cod. CVII; Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana [hereafter BNM] Or. 37. 78 Ibid., Cod. CVI; BNM Or. 15. 79 See Girard, “Teaching and Learning Arabic”; Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters.

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wisdom and moral comportment (encompassed by the concept of ādāb) over traditional Islamic sciences, so in this respect the absence of books on kalām, fiqh, tafsīr and ḥadīth in İbrahim’s collection fits his professional profile.80 However, it does raise the question of whether İbrahim had indeed completed higher levels of medrese education and attained the ulema rank, as Donà and İbrahim’s obituary suggest. That is not to say that the books taught in Ottoman medreses were entirely absent from his collection. Based on the available studies of Ottoman educational curricula, it appears that İbrahim’s collection included all the key books taught at the elementary school (sıbyan mektebi) and lower level medreses in terms of Arabic syntax (naḥw) and morphology (ṣarf). Thus, it included morphology primers such as Taṣrīf al-ʿizzī by ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn Ibrāhīm al-Zanjānī,81 Mirāḥ al-arwāḥ by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Ibn Masʿūd,82 and Kitāb al-mirāḥ fī sharḥ mirāḥ al-arwāḥ (a commentary on Ibn Masʿūd’s work),83 which were taught to students just starting their education.84 There was also al-Maqṣūd fī ʿilm al-taṣrīf, a text on morphology ascribed to Abū Ḥanīfa, which was taught at middle levels of medrese education.85 In terms of syntax, the collection featured staples such as Al-Kāfiya of Ibn al-Ḥājib, al-Jurjānī’s al-ʿAwāmil al-miʾa, al-Muṭarrizī’s al-Miṣbāḥ, as well as Yaʿqūb b. ʿAlī al-Bursevī’s Sharḥ iʿrāb dībācat al-Miṣbāḥ (a commentary on al-Muṭarrizī’s Iʿrāb dībācat al-Miṣbāḥ).86 There were also more advanced texts on syntax, some of which were taught at the higher levels of medrese education, like ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (Molla Cami)’s al-Fawāʾid al-ḍiyāʾiyya fī sharḥ al-Kāfiyya, a commentary on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s al-Kāfiya.87 His collection also included other commentaries on al-Kāfiya, such as that of ʿAlī al-Qārī (d. 1605), entitled al-Fatḥ al-rabbānī fī sharḥ al-Zanjānī88 80 See Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze,” 221; Sievert, “Eavesdropping,” 167–68. 81 Berardelli, 238, Cod. CXLV; BNM Or. 11, 41v–56r (another copy is contained in Cod. CXLVI; BNM Or. 12). 82 Ibid., Cod. CXLV; BNM Or. 11, 1v–39v. 83 Ibid., Cod. CXLI; BNM Or. 29. 84 For instance, famous Ottoman scholar Taşköprüzāde (d. 1561) lists these ṣarf books (and the naḥw books mentioned further in the paragraph) as the ones with which he began his studies under the watchful eyes of first his father and then tutor, before starting medrese education. See Betül Can, “Fatih Döneminden Tanzimat’a Kadar Osmanlı Medreselerinde Arapça Öǧretimi” (PhD diss., Gazi Üniversitesi, Ankara 2009), 99. 85 Berardelli, 238, Cod. CXLV; BNM Or. 11, 56v–79v. On its usage in medrese education see Can, Fatih Döneminden, 156. 86 Berardelli, 236, Cod. CXXV; BNM Or. 17. 87 Ibid., Cod. CXXVI; BNM Or. 18. This text is listed as taught in medreses by İbrahim’s contemporary, İshak b. Hasan al-Tokadi (d. 1689) in his Naẓmu’l-ʿulūm. See Can, Fatih Döneminden, 117. 88 Berardelli, 238, Cod. CXLII; BNM Or. 9, 3v–43v.

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and by another unidentified commentator.89 Furthermore, İbrahim also brought several Arabic dictionaries, like Fīrūzābādī’s Al-Qāmūs90 and Ismāʿil b. Ḥammād al-Jawharī’s al-Ṣiḥāḥ fī al-lughat,91 as well as Ahterī’s Arabic-Turkish dictionary (completed in 1545),92 all of which were used at the highest levels of medrese education.93 In light of this, one might argue that İbrahim’s collection was superbly equipped for training anyone who aspired to acquiring the basics of Arabic language. However, the collection did not seem to include any classical texts on rhetoric (Ar.  ʿilm al-balāgha),94 the mastery of which was central to the social capital of the increasingly prominent and politically ambitious Ottoman scribal class in the second half of the seventeenth century.95 This absence is interesting both in light of İbrahim’s own career as a scribe of central Ottoman bureaucracy and his aspiration to improve giovani di lingua’s facility with higher registers of Ottoman Turkish, but it is likely reflective of his specialization as a financial rather than chancery clerk. Besides having at his disposal one unidentified inshāʾ (epistolary and prose writing) manual, which has been lost,96 it would appear that İbrahim could teach Ottoman belāġat (rhetoric) and feṣāḥat (eloquence) through classical texts in Ottoman Turkish, such as Hoca Saʿdeddin’s history entitled Tācüʾt-Tevārīḫ97 and Ali Çelebi’s Hümāyūn-nāme (Turkish translation of Anwār-i Suhaylī of Ḥusayn Wāʿiẓ Kāshifī)98 – both of which were well loved and frequently owned by Ottoman bureaucrats99  – as well as a compilation of stories about wonders of the Creation (ʿacāʾib ve

89 90 91 92 93

94

95 96 97 98 99

Ibid., 236, Cod. CXXVII; BNM Or. 19. Ibid., 238, Cod. CXLVIII, which did not make it into the Marciana collection. Ibid., Cod. CXL; BNM Or. 16. Berardelli, 239, Cod. CXLIX; BNM Or. 21. See Shahab Ahmed and Nenad Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syllabus: A Curriculum for the Ottoman Imperial medreses Prescribed in a fermān of Qānūnī I Süleymān, Dated 973 (1565),” Studia Islamica 98/99 (2004), 183–218, 204–5, and Can, Fatih Döneminden, 115, 132. For a re-evaluation of Ahmed and Filipovic’ arguments and a more complete picture of subjects and books studied at imperial medreses see Şen, “Sultan’s Syllabus Revisited”. These were, for instance, al-Qazwīnī’s (d. 1338) Talkhīs al-Miftāḥ; the commentary on it by al-Taftazānī (d. 1390), entitled Al-Mutawwal, and the abridgement of the latter work, also by al-Taftazānī, Al-Mukhtaṣar. See Christopher Ferrard, “Ottoman contributions to Islamic rhetoric” (PhD diss., University of Edinburg, Edinburgh 1979). Tusalp Atiyas, Political Literacy, 132–91. Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXXIII. Ibid, 235, Cod. CXIV; BNM Or. 30. Ibid., Cod. CXV; BNM Or. 31. See Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze,” 238–39.

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ġarāʾib),100 Lamii Çelebi’s ʿIbretnāme,101 and two texts by Kemalpaşazade, Risāle-i yāʿiya (on the meaning of Persian ending -ī) and Daḳʾāyiḳ al-ḥaḳāʾyiḳ (on explanation of 400 Persian words).102 Another way of helping Venetian giovani di lingua master the eloquence of Ottoman Turkish was to also teach them Persian, the vocabulary, grammar, and literary rhetoric of which were integral to Ottoman belāġat and feṣāḥat.103 For this task Abraham could rely on several Persian-Turkish dictionaries in his collection, such as Baḥr al-gharāʾib of Luṭf Allāh b. Abī Yūsuf Ḥalīmī104 and Lughat-i Niʿmat Allah,105 as well as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Angūrī’s (fl. 1356) prosodic Arabic-Persian dictionary, entitled Silk al-javāhir, with interlinear Ottoman Turkish glosses.106 He also had at his disposal a versified primer of Arabic metric in Persian with interlinear Turkish glosses (Farāhī’s Niṣāb al-ṣibyān) as well as other similar texts featuring elsine-i s̠elās̠e, or the three literary languages of the Ottoman Muslims.107 Many of these texts were used in Ottoman medreses in the late 17th and 18th centuries.108 Additionally, İbrahim’s collection included some Persian classics that were very popular with Ottoman bureaucrats, such as the Pandnāma of Aṭṭār109 and Saʿdī’s Gulistān,110 as well as the famous inshāʾ collection of ʿAbd al-Raḥman Jāmī (Munshaāt-i Jāmī).111 In addition to these, İbrahim/Abraham brought with him a variety of texts that he would have used in his career as a financial scribe. Thus, there is a volume on mathematical calculations (Ar. ḥisāb) containing unspecified texts 100 Berardelli, Cod. CXI; BNM Or. 32. 101 Ibid., 237, Cod. CXXXII; BNM Or. 44. 102 Ibid., 237, Cod. CXXXI; BNM Or. 25. In the online catalogue of Nuova Biblioteca Manoscritti this manuscript is mistakenly identified with Cod. CXXXVII in Berardelli’s catalogue, which is in fact BNM Or. 197. 103 On Persian manuscripts in İbrahim’s collection see items number 381, 383, 389, 396, 397, 400, 402, and 403 in Piemontese, Catalogo dei manoscritti persiani, 335–48. For a recent discussion of knowledge of Persian and Persia in Venice see Giorgio Rota, Under Two Lions: On the Knowledge of Persia in the Republic of Venice (ca. 1450–1797) (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), who also reflects on İbrahim’s role in the transmission of this knowledge (43). I thank Giorgio Rota for making a copy of the Piemontese catalogue available to me. 104 Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXXVII; BNM Or. 197. 105 Ibid., 238, Cod. CXLIII; BNM Or. 35. 106 Ibid., 239, Cod. CLII; BNM Or. 47. 107 Ibid., 239, Cod. CLIII; BNM Or. 42. 108 See Can, Fatih Döneminden, 124 (under the rubric of “Furs”). 109 Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXX; BNM Or. 38. 110 Ibid., 240, Cod. CLV; BNM Or. 46. See also Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze,” 238. 111 Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXXIX; BNM Or. 45. See also Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze,” 238.

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in Persian and Ottoman Turkish,112 a volume on lunar calendar,113 and two unidentified and lost volumes that Berardelli described as “expense book” (liber expensarum), which may have been actual tax registers of some kind.114 Although training in hesap was part and parcel of the medrese curriculum, here we have a selection of texts that befitted more an Ottoman tax collector. For instance, the five practitioners of astrology that Grand Vizier Fazıl Ahmed Köprülü took on the campaign to Belgrade in 1663 were all also tax collectors, one of whom, Tezkireci İbrahim, partially translated Noel Duret’s Nouvelle theorie de planets into Ottoman Turkish.115 Many of these tax collectors were also subsequently involved in the reform of the Ottoman calendar in 1677 that was supposed to lead to more just taxation practices.116 An indispensable tool for a tax collector also would have been ʿAyn ʿAlī’s Ḳavānin-i āl-i Os̱mān, a treatise from 1607 on the Ottoman Empire’s tımar system and its revenues, which İbrahim also brought with him to Venice.117 The encyclopedic character of his collection is rounded off by several unidentified and now lost books on logic (Ar. manṭiq) in Persian and Arabic,118 as well as two lost volumes in Arabic that Berardelli describes as summulae and quaedam ad summulas spectantia119 – most likely refering to works on dialectic method (Ar. ādāb al-baḥth) and disputation (Ar. jadal), which were experiencing resurgence in the 17th-century Islamic world.120 The profile that emerges of İbrahim as a collector is that of a learned man who possibly completed lower to middle levels of medrese curriculum but pursued mainly the scribal profession and had wide-ranging interests reflective of scribal elite culture. But what picture do we get of İbrahim as a spiritual man? What kind of Muslim was he and do we get any insight into his turn towards Christianity?

112 Ibid., 236, Cod. CXVI; BNM Or. 22. The text in Persian may actually be ʿAlī Kuşçu’s Risāle der ʿilm-i ḥisāb. See Cevat İzgi, “Osmanlı medreselerinde aritmetik ve cebik eğitimi ve okutulan kitaplar,” Osmanlı Bilimi Araştırmaları 1 (1995): 137–38. 113 Berardelli, 236, Cod. CXVII; BNM Or. 39. 114 Ibid., Cod. CXVIII and Cod. CXIX. 115 Küçük, Science without Leisure, 109; 119. 116 Ibid., 109; 132–35. 117 Berardelli, 235, Cod. CXIII; BNM Or. 36, copied in 1619. 118 Ibid., 236, Cod. CXX; Cod. CXXI, and Cod. CXXII. 119 Ibid., Cod. CXXIII and Cod. CXXIV. 120 Khaled El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 60–96. The description in Latin probably derives from Summulae logicales, the title of the standard textbook on logic by Peter of Spain (13th c.). See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peter-spain/ (accessed on 26 April 2021).

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The books that İbrahim brought give an elusive sense of what kind of Muslim he might have been. On the one hand, his library contained several texts that point to mainstream Sunni sensibility, such as the famous poem in praise of the Prophet, Qaṣīda al-Burda by the Mamluk-era poet al-Būṣīrī (d. c.1294),121 and a miscellany containing the most popular Ottoman Sunni Hanafi catechetical texts, such as Birgivi Mehmed’s (d. 1573) Vaṣiyetnāme, Kadızade Mehmed’s (d. 1635) Risāle-yi ṣalāt, and the anonymous Cevāhirü’l-islām (c.1540).122 Interestingly, İbrahim seems to have acquired this miscellany from someone named Mehmed Ayyub only in 1679 – which would have been after his conversion to Christianity, if his own testimony to the Doge is to be believed. His collection seems to have contained other devotional texts, including what was likely a book of sermons123 and a book on “divine love” (possibly a Sufi treatise?),124 but they were lost in the meantime. What did survive, however, are three interesting volumes of Sufi poetry: two copies (one partial) of the divan of the (in)famous Hurufi poet Imaduddin Nesimi (d. c.1417) and one volume of devotional poems (ilahi) by various Sufi authors of the Halveti and Celveti silsiles. One of the codices containing Nesimi’s poems is a miscellany that has an inscription stating: “This is the miscellany of the true 12 saintly men” (Yā majmūʿa al-ṣadīqī ithna ʿashara rijālan), presumably referring to the 12 imams (venerated by the Twelver Shiʿites). In addition to Nesimi’s poems, the miscellany contains various other texts, including epistolary models and some records of commercial transactions, and can be dated to c.1668–1670.125 The other codex contains only Nesimi’s divan in Turkish and was copied by a certain Dervīş Ṣāliḥ Pīr al-ʿAbbār (?) in 1621.126 The miscellany with the Halveti and Celveti Sufis’ ilahis, on the other hand, contains the Ṭarīḳatnāme and devotional poems by Mahmud Hüdayi (d. 1628), the famous Celveti Sufi, followed by the poems of Küçük Mahmud Efendi  (?), Zakirzade ʿAbdullah Efendi (also a Celveti, d. 1657), Eşrefzade 121 Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXXVIII; BNM Or. 10. 122 Ibid., 234, Cod. CVII; BNM Or. 37. On these catechisms see Tijana Krstić, “From Shahāda to ʿAqīda: Conversion to Islam, Catechization, and Sunnitization in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Rumeli,” in Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History, ed. Andrew C.S. Peacock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 296–314; Tijana Krstić, “State and Religion, ‘Sunnitization’ and ‘Confessionalism’ in Süleyman’s time,” in The Battle for Central Europe: The Siege of Szigetvar and the Death of Suleyman the Magnificent and Miklos Zrinyi (1566), ed. Pál Fodor (Budapest, Leiden: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Brill, 2019), 65–91. 123 Berardelli, 234, Cod. CVIII (“Turcarum Orationes & Devotiones”). 124 Ibid., 235, Cod. CIX (“De Amore Dei juxta opinionem Turcarum”). 125 Berardelli, 237, Cod. CXXXV; BNM Or. 23. 126 Ibid., Cod. CXXXVI; BNM Or. 43.

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(possibly Eşrefzade Rumi, d. 1469), Ömer Fuadi (a Halveti, d. 1636), and ʿAbd al-Ahad Nuri Sivasi (a Halveti, d. 1651).127 It is difficult to surmise from this whether İbrahim had inclinations towards a particular Sufi order, let alone an affiliation with one. Even though Nesimi was one of the central poetic voices of Alevi Islam and a model for the Safavid Shah Ismail’s own poetry,128 he also inspired many Ottoman Sufis of different silsiles, such as Halveti master Niyazi-i Mısri, and was generally considered a talent who, as an Ottoman biographer put it in his Tezkire, was “first to make a name for himself through poetry in the Turkic tongue.”129 Also, unlike Shah Ismail’s poetry, Nesimi’s was much more complex in language and content, suggesting that he envisioned as his audience intellectual elites, possibly of more urban background.130 Indeed, that is exactly what the Ottoman scribal class professed itself to be, especially in the second half of the seventeenth century, and being steeped in Sufi ethos and poetic language was characteristic of the scribes as a “sociotextual” community.131 As several scholars have recently pointed out, most notably Derin Terzioǧlu in her work on confessional ambiguity, the notion that the enlightened elites (Ar. khawāṣṣ) were permitted to engage with the “most controversial strands of peripatetic philosophy and intellectual Sufism,” as long as they did so in intimate gatherings rather than in the presence of commoners (Ar. ʿawāmm) in public spaces, was well established in Ottoman culture, even during the “age of confession-building” and Sunnitization.132 Philo-Alidism, or non-sectarian veneration of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and the Prophetic Household (ahl al-beyt), which included the Twelve Imams issuing from the line of ʿAlī, was part and parcel of both Ottoman Sufi ethos and the elite intellectual culture it informed, although the level of 127 Ibid., Cod. CXXXIV; BNM Or. 26. 128 On overlaps between the two, see Ferenc Csirkés, “Messianic Oeuvres in Interaction: Misattributed Poems by Shah Esmāʿil and Nesimi,” Journal of Persianate Studies 8 (2015): 155–94. 129 Ottoman poet Latifi (d. 1582), quoted in Kathleen R.F. Burrill, The Quatrains of Nesimi, Fouteenth-Century Turkic Hurufi (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1972), 24. On Niyazi-i Mısri’s reading of Nesimi see Derin Terzioğlu, “Mecmūʿa-i Şeyh Mısrī: On yedinci yüzyıl ortalarında Anadolu’da bir derviş sülūkunu tamalarken neler okuyup yazdı?,” in Mecmūa: Osmanlı edebiyatının kırkambarı, eds. Hatice Aynur et al., (Istanbul: Turkuaz, 2021), 291–321. 130 Csirkés, “Messianic Oeuvres,” 157. 131 This is Tusalp Atiyas’ term, which she borrows from Sheldon Pollock. See Tusalp Atiyas, Political Literacy, 38. 132 See Derin Terzioğlu, “Confessional Ambiguity in the Age of Confession-Building: PhiloAlidism, Sufism and Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, 1400–1700,” in Entangled Confessionalizations?, eds. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu (Picataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 563–624, 593–594.

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tolerance for it fluctuated over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.133 Thus, having two volumes that contain Nesimi’s poetry, one of which makes a respectful reference to the 12 imams, does not automatically make İbrahim an Alevi, Bektashi or a Shiʿite, but rather situates him within this milieu of the Ottoman elite culture open to the search for higher spiritual truth, in which various Sufi luminaries, past and present, as well as ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and his descendants, were considered eminent guides.134 So, İbrahim’s manuscripts containing Muslim devotional and catechetical texts do not necessarily depart from the profile of him as representative of the Ottoman scribal class. Where his collection does go beyond typical is when we get to his collection of Christian texts in Arabic and Turkish. He owned copies of the Old Testament,135 Psalms of David,136 the New Testament,137 Acts of the Apostles,138 the Apocalypse139 and a lost volume of psalmi poenitentiales,140 all in Arabic. There was also a book on Jesus’ miracles and the Vita of St. Mary of Egypt in Arabic, now lost,141 as well as a volume on canonical hours according to the Coptic rite, in Coptic.142 These last few items suggest that İbrahim obtained a number of his Christian manuscripts in Egypt, seemingly corroborating the story found in his obituary that it was here that he read “day and night” Christian sermons in Arabic, which led him to realize the truth of the Gospel and the deception of the “Muhameddan superstition.”143 In Egypt (or from Egypt) he obtained another interesting manuscript, Abū al-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī’s (d. 1048) Kitāb al-āthār al-bāqiya ʿan al-qurūn al-khāliya (Vestiges of the Past) (c.1000), a work by a Muslim who, just like İbrahim, was keenly interested in the history and culture of different peoples, including various 133 Ibid. Terzioğlu argues that in the second half of the seventeenth century, following the normalization of Sunni-Shiʿi relations after the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, non-sectarian Philo-Alidism was given more leeway, especially towards the very end of the century, which witnesses a sort of “societal pushback to decades of Sunni revivalist ascendancy in the Ottoman imperial center”. Ibid, 604. 134 On Ottoman bureaucrats’ interest in mysticism see also Sievert, “Eavesdropping,” 174, 177; Sievert, “Verlorene Schätze,” 220. That being said, Sievert does not record any other instance of a bureaucrat owning Nesimi’s divan. 135 Berardelli, 231, Cod. XC; BNM Or. 1. 136 Ibid., Cod. XCI; BNM Or. 2. 137 Ibid., 232, Cod. XCIII; BNM Or. 3. 138 Ibid., Cod. XCIV; BNM Or. 4. 139 Ibid., Cod. XCV; BNM Or. 5. 140 Ibid., Cod. XCII. 141 Ibid., 234, Cod. CIII and Cod. CIV. 142 Ibid., 233, Cod. XCVIII; BNM Or. 48. 143 Ibid., 168.

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denominations of Christians living in Islamic domains.144 The work is essentially a comparative study of calendars, but included other information on mathematics, astronomy, and history that would have been of interest to İbrahim as a financial clerk. It also included the earliest known reference in an Arabic source to Risāla al-Kindi (Apology of al-Kindi), the well-known polemical tract by ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b. Isḥaq al-Kindī (late 8th/early 9th c.), an Arab Christian, in defense of Christianity against Islam.145 In addition to these, İbrahim obtained several volumes containing treatises of Eastern Christian authors in Arabic. One, copied in Lebanon c.1529,146 contained the writings of Athanasius of Alexandria (Athanasiyūs al-Iskandarī) (d. 373); Paul of Antioch (Būlus al-Rāhib al-Anṭākī), the bishop of Sidon (early 13th c.);147 Elias of Nisbis (Iliyya ibn Shina or Bar Shinaya) (d. 1046), a “Nestorian” author with great reputation in the Islamic world;148 and Sophronius “The Sophist,” Archbishop of Jerusalem (d. 638).149 Another volume contained the writings of St. John Chrisostom, St. Basil and John of Damascus.150 However, it is the third volume, also containing a work of John of Damascus, that suddenly reveals clues to İbrahim’s life and career prior to arrival in Venice, which are not mentioned in heretofore known and published documents.151 The online catalogue entry by Sara Fani identifies the copyist of this manuscript as Ghrīghūr al-Ḥājj b. Ḥajj ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḫūrī al-Manṣūr, nicknamed Ibn Yūsuf al-Najjār al-Ḥalabī, an Orthodox prelate from Aleppo who completed the manuscript in Constantinople, on 25 May 1689/Shaʿbān AH 1100.152 Here we must return to the chronicle of Demetrios Ramadanes, the Phanariot clerk (megalos spathares) whose work covers the period of 1648–1704. He reports on 144 See the English translation of al-Biruni’s work by Edward Sachau, The Chronology of Ancient Nations (London: William H. Allen, 1879). 145 Berardelli, 234, Cod. CI; BNM Or. 14. In fact, the title of the entry in Berardelli’s catalogue is “Dialogus de rebus Fidei Christianum inter, & Mahumetanum.” The manuscript is copied in Egypt in AH 1092/1681 (in Coptic year 1397). On al-Kindi’s Apology and its growing popularity among Syriac Christians in the seventeenth century see P.S. van Koningsveld, “The Apology of al-Kindi,” in Religious Polemics in Context, eds. Theo L. Hettema et al. (Assen: Van Goricum, 2004), 69–92. 146 Ibid., 232, Cod. XCVI; BNM Or. 6. 147 David Thomas, “Paul of Antioch,” Christian-Muslim Relations 600–1500, doi: 10.1163/18778054_cmri_COM_25473 (accessed on 29 April 2021). 148 Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, “Elias of Nisibis,” Christian-Muslim Relations 600–1500, doi: 10.1163/1877-8054_cmri_COM_23350 (accessed on 29 April 2021). 149 Daniel J. Sahas, “Sophronius, ‘the Sophist.’,” Christian-Muslim Relations 600–1500, doi: 10.1163/1877-8054_cmri_COM_23441 (accessed on 29 April 2021). 150 Berardelli, 233, Cod. XCIX; BNM Or. 7. 151 Ibid., 234, Cod. C; BNM Or. 8. 152 https://nbm.regione.veneto.it/StampaManoscritto.html?codice=49546 (27 April 2021).

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the events from c.1690 concerning “a certain Mustafa effendi, a scribe at the kalem [bureau] of the Reis Effendi [i.e. Head of the Chancery], of Albanian origin, his parents Turks by birth [meaning born Muslims]”: This man, being learned, with good knowledge of the Arabic language, and always on good terms with Christians, liked our customs, and one day he trusted a certain Hadji Grigoris from Aleppo, very erudite in the Arabic language, and asked him about the dogmas of the Orthodox faith. And Hadji Grigoris instructed him on all our dogmas. Then he went to Moses, metropolitan of Sylebria [Selymbria; Silivri], an Arab, and asked him for a Gospel in Arabic. And after he read it and understood all the advice of Christ, he was deeply moved and felt devoutness, so that he immediately decided to become a Christian. And first, he went and disclosed his aim to Tzelebi Yannakis and to the patriarch kyr Kallinikos [Kallinikos II], being his friend, and then he went to Galata to the Capuchin friars and told them his purpose. And they too instructed him accordingly. But he told them: “Just one thing troubles me. I notice many differences among Christians, with some called Easterners, other Catholics, and yet others by other names.” And the friars replied to him: “All these are Christians. Whether Easterner or Catholic, they are the same.” So, he believed and left Istanbul and went to Venice, and after he was baptized as Stepahnos, he became a Franciscan friar.153 Since it would be exceedingly unlikely that two clerks from the Ottoman chancery, both of Albanian origin and learned in Arabic letters, socialized at the same time with a certain Hadji Grigoris of Aleppo and approached him for information on Christian religion, subsequently converting to Christianity and escaping to Venice where they entered a monastic order, we have to wonder whether Mustafa Efendi from Ramadanes’ chronicle was actually our İbrahim. The identification of Mustafa Efendi with İbrahim is also supported by the contents of the manuscript Hadji Grigoris copied for İbrahim, which is the work of John of Damascus known as An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (the title in Arabic in the manuscript is al-Miʾah maqālah fī al-imān al-urthūdhuksī),154 and thus directly corresponds to the purpose of instruction in faith that bound the two men according to Ramadanes. It is not clear why Ramadanes would 153 Konstantinos N. Sathas, Mesaioniki Vivliothiki, vol. 3 (Venice: Tipis tou Hronou, 1872), 42–43. I am grateful to Nikolas Pissis for translating this passage from Greek. 154 https://nbm.regione.veneto.it/StampaManoscritto.html?codice=49546 (accessed on 30 April 2021).

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substitute the names (both Muslim and baptized) of the Ottoman clerk, but it is possible that he had reasons to protect İbrahim’s identity. Interestingly, he openly mentions the names of the Christian prelates involved in this incident of conversion, which included men from the very center of the Orthodox Christian establishment in the Ottoman Empire, such as the thrice-patriarch Kallinikos II (1688, 1689–1693, 1694–1704), an ally of Dositheos II, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1669–1707), and by extension, of Grand Dragoman Alexandros Mavrocordatos (in office 1673–1709).155 Our İbrahim Efendi thus emerges as an epitome of what Sir Paul Rycaut dubbed  – no doubt tendentiously  – chupmessahi (presumably from hubmesihi) or “good followers of messiah” sect, by which he referred to views held by “the young scholars in the Grand Signiors Court” who maintained that Christ was God and Redeemer of the World. Rycaut claimed that there were many wearers of the white turban in Constantinople who secretly professed these views and were ready to openly confess to it and even suffer martyrdom.156 While it is unlikely that there existed a “crypto-Christian” clique among the Ottoman scribes, it appears that frequent contacts with various Christian dignitaries, both Ottoman and foreign, helped İbrahim Efendi – and possibly other Ottoman bureaucrats – access, explore, and discuss more freely Christian writings and beliefs under the guise of everyday business of governance. 3

Conclusion

Based on his petition to the Doge, his book collection, as well as various circumstantial evidence, it appears that İbrahim’s spiritual journey to Christianity was a long process that may have lasted for almost three decades, from the late 1660s to the early 1690s, and unfolded in several stages. The first and longest part of that journey appears to have started in Egypt and entailed a gradual acceptance of general Christian beliefs and doctrines, most of which İbrahim encountered through the writings of Eastern Christian authors, in Arabic. If we accept Ramadanes’ story, once İbrahim came to view Christian beliefs and doctrines as true, he was confronted with the multiplicity of Christian denominations, which in the era of confessional polarization must have presented a 155 On the common causes of these three men see Nikolas Pissis, Russland in den politischen Vorstellungen der griechischen Kulturwelt 1645–1725 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage, 2020). 156 Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Otoman Empire (London: R. Clavell, J. Robinson and A. Churchill, 1686), 244–45. See also Sariyannis, “Aspects of ‘Neomartyrdom,’” 258.

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particular challenge to any intellectually inclined Muslim or Jew contemplating conversion to Christianity. Upon his arrival in Venice, this journey continued within the more specific framework of post-Tridentine Catholicism. Interestingly, İbrahim’s petition to the Doge tells a different story, one that possibly attempts to “Catholicize” his trajectory and cover up the long and intensive exposure to what could have appeared to the Venetian Catholic establishment as “schismatic” influences.157 So rather than dating his conversion to late-1680s Constantinople and acknowledging the help of various Orthodox clergy who were apparently involved in the process, İbrahim back-projects it to the 1670s and credits a Catholic chaplain of the Habsburg envoy to the Ottomans as the person through whom he received the sacrament of baptism. We might therefore read the petition to the Doge as evidence of İbrahim’s – or rather Abraham’s – newly acquired confessional and political insight. This insight he may have acquired during the time he spent in Rome, some time in 1691–1692, where he went to “perfect” his understanding of faith, and where he likely encountered many other converts to Catholicism and learned how to tell his story in a way that elicits a positive response from Catholic authorities.158 Unlike many Ottoman converts to Catholicism in Venice, whose stories Natalie Rothman analyzed based on the records of the Casa di Catechumeni, in his petition to the Doge Abraham did not simply present his conversion in terms of a change in personal circumstance and spatial transition (Istanbul to Venice), but highlighted individual choice to become Christian and Catholic while being an Ottoman official, and the process of inner transformation

157 Although the Greek Orthodox establishment in Venice at this time, represented by the Metropolitans of Philadelphia Gerasimos Vlachos (d. 1685) and Meletios Typaldos (d. 1713), was moving closer towards a rapprochement with Catholicism and practice of “interconfessional tolerance,” precisely the opposite was true of the Orthodox ecclesiastical circles in Constantinople who sought to curb Catholic missionary influence and conversions to Catholicism while articulating Orthodox confession. On Venice see Dimitris Paradoukalis, “Coexistence and conciliation between Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism in Venice  – The case of Gerasimos Vlachos (1607–1685), Cretan Metropolitan of Philadelphia” (PhD diss., Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, 2021); on Constantinople, especially on the activities of Dositheos of Jerusalem, see Norman Russell, “From the ‘Shield of Orthodoxy’ to the ‘Tome of Joy’: The Anti-Western Stance of Dositheos II of Jerusalem (1641–1707),” in Orthodox Constructions of the West, eds. George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 71–82. 158 See Cesare Santus, “Wandering Lives – Eastern Christian Pilgrims, Alms-Collectors and ‘Refugees’ in Early Modern Rome,” in A Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome, eds. Emily Michelson and Matthew Coneys Wainwright (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 237–71.

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that it was premised on.159 This drama of inner transformation is elaborated even further in his obituary, which details his intense engagement with the Christian Scriptures while serving in Egypt, although it is impossible to know whether this was flourish added post mortem by his Dominican brethern or a reflection of Abraham’s own evolving sensibility about how to narrate his conversion. The dossier of İbrahim’s conversion was clearly composite, with multiple authors and locations that affected the details of the narrative. Part of this process of learning how to present himself may have entailed making changes to his curriculum vitae to accentuate his academic credentials in Islamic sciences. As we saw, İbrahim’s collection did not contain any volumes in Islamic law, theology, or Prophetic traditions, all of which were mainstays of medrese education, especially at the higher levels, making it doubtful that he at any point embarked on the formal hierarchical scholarly/judicial (ilmiye) path. Rather, for the most part, his appears to have been a reference library befitting of a bureaucrat working in the financial services, who may have completed lower to mid-levels of medrese curriculum. While ulema’s reputation as epitomes of learning was challenged in the Ottoman Empire at this very time by the ascending scribal class adept in a variety of epistemic fields, in Venice, being a “doctor” of Islamic sciences rather than “only” a bureaucrat would have likely enhanced the value of İbrahim’ conversion in the eyes of the authorities and his job prospects at the time of increasing demand for Christians learned in “Oriental” languages. Bailo Donà suggested that much by choosing to emphasize İbrahim’s supposed ulema credentials, and the Dominicans’ obituary reflects pride in the fact that a converted Muslim “doctor” joined their order.160 We might read this “framing” of İbrahim by the Venetian diplomatic and religious officials as well as his own presentation of his background as part of the negotiation and calibration of the Ottoman and Venetian understandings of what “elite” meant in the Ottoman context. Despite the known documentary evidence featuring Abraham’s own words, it is, thus, his manuscript collection that turns out to be his most important autobiographical “statement” and key to understanding the complexity of the routes that brought him to Venice and poised him to contribute to the study of Ottoman culture as well as “oriental” languages and sciences in Serenissima. Looking at his collection as a unit provides fascinating insights into both 159 On narratives by Ottoman converts from Islam to Catholicism in Venice see Rothman, Brokering Empire, 87–121. 160 Donà’s understanding of the hierarchical order of Ottoman society is also expressed in his Della letteratura, 17–18, where he speaks “della precedenza delli Dottori” over all other social groups other than the royal family.

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his educational and spiritual horizons, allowing us to trace his explorations between different registers of elite learning, as well as within and between Islamic and Christian traditions. Viewing it only in terms of “Turkish,” “Persian” or “Arabic” manuscripts it contained, or blending it without indication into the larger collection of the “oriental” manuscripts in Marciana, facilitates what Rothman has dubbed as “amnesia” of Orientalism’s genesis, and impedes the study of the “specific communicative circuits and institutionalized genres of knowledge” that it was premised on.161

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Günhan Börekçi, Natalie Rothman, Nikolas Pissis, Linda Darling, Derin Terzioǧlu, Giorgio Rota, Nir Shafir and Emese Muntan for their help at various stages of doing research for this paper and writing it up under the conditions of limited access to sources and literature during the pandemic. I am especially grateful to Günhan Börekçi for the digital copies of many of the primary sources consulted and suggestions on where I might look for clues on İbrahim Efendi. Research for this essay was undertaken as part of my work on the OTTOCONFESSION project, and was supported by the funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 648498). Bibliography

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28 Becoming a Master Artisan in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire Central Provinces, Late 1500s to Early 1800s Suraiya Faroqhi In any artisan group, there exist rules and regulations that govern the training of the new generation; and since before the second half of the nineteenth century, many if not most artisans were illiterate, this training was largely oral and took place in the workshops of the masters and sometimes in their homes as well. In the Ottoman setting, even in the second half of the nineteenth century, personal accounts written by artisans were virtually non-existent, and apprenticeship contracts were rarities as well.1 What we know about these men (and a very few women) mostly comes from the attempts of the sultan’s bureaucracy to regulate the activities of urban artisans; rural crafts while existing, remained mostly in the shadow. In Ottoman towns, artisan guilds provided the framework within which masters and apprentices operated. At least among the masters organized in guilds, consensus was crucial; but the mechanisms of consensus formation mostly remain unknown. From the viewpoint of Ottoman bureaucrats, it was the principal aim of official regulation to ensure that the army, the navy, and the sultan’s palace received the goods needed for their functioning. In this endeavor, the sultans’ administration adhered to practices inherited from the past (traditionalism). Moreover, officials focused on the procurement, at often below-market prices imposed by decree of the monarch (narh), of foodstuffs and manufactured goods from villages and towns (provisionism). In so doing, officials were much inclined to promote the short-term interests of the sultans’ treasury, even at the expense of long-term gains (fiscalism).2 Given the gap between administratively determined prices on the one hand, and market prices on the other, it was an obvious challenge to prevent artisans from subverting regulations. As 1 The single memoir of an Ottoman workman known today has been published in Donald Quataert and Yüksel Duman, ed., “A Coal Miner’s Life during the Late Ottoman Empire,” International Labor and Working Class History 60 (2001), 153–79. 2 Mehmet Genç, “Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth Century. General Framework, Characteristics and Main Trends,” in Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey 1500–1950, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 59–86, at 60.

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we will see, the ‘ideology’ that craftsmen imbibed in the course of their training may have limited their interest in material gain; but we do not know whether in times of economic opportunity, most artisans really were responsive to the demand of their ‘betters’ that they should be content with subsistencelevel earnings.3 Production could only take place if the artisans at issue could find food and raw materials at prices that they could afford. In Ottoman documents, ‘provisionist’ measures therefore were likely to take center stage. Before the changes of the mid-nineteenth century, the sultans’ administration assumed that apart from Istanbul every town could – ideally – feed its inhabitants out of the produce of its own district. As for raw materials, artisans were to supply themselves locally as well. Whenever they were unable to do so, the sultans’ administration emitted regulations according local craftspeople monopolies on the purchase of raw wool, silk or hides. Export prohibitions served the same purpose.4 These bureaucratic priorities determine the sources that we possess and the very obvious lacunae of the latter as well. Certainly, one could argue that the Ottoman central administration had reason to monitor artisan training and enforce adherence to apprenticeship contracts – if indeed the latter existed. It is intriguing that in a polity with an active and even invasive bureaucracy, the regulation of apprenticeships had such a low priority. At present, we can only continue to hunt for further evidence. Even if the central government did not monitor apprenticeships, the sultan’s administration wanted to ensure that the artisans at issue had obtained the skills necessary to ensure the quality of the goods received by the army, the navy, and the sultan’s palace.5 Goods sold in the market were subject to 3 Eunjeong Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul. Fluidity and Leverage (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 57–65. 4 Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia. Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting 1520–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 142. 5 In a recent comprehensive study, Gábor Ágoston has focused on Ottoman competence in military technology. While his special interest is in the ‘brain gain’, i.e. the readiness to incorporate non-Ottoman technicians in the armaments sector, the efficient functioning of the cannon foundry and the naval arsenal presupposed a local labor well trained in the relevant technologies: The Last Muslim Conquest. The Ottoman Empire and its Wars in Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), 290–95. However, the surviving sources say little about how young boys/men received their technical training, and the same thing applies to architects. Even so, Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 153–54 has pointed out that in the 1500s, the royal storehouse and the affiliated workshops served as a reservoir of capable young men from among whom the chief architect Sinan picked his collaborators. Distinguished students apparently received one-on-one instruction by Sinan in person.

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quality controls as well. After all, the sultans’ legitimacy depended largely their dispensing of justice; and this role of the monarch became visible through a well regulated marketplace. Therefore, in accordance with Ottoman political perceptions, local and central administrators were to remedy the complaints of purchasers dissatisfied with the goods that artisans and tradesmen had sold to them. In this context, the Islamic judges (qadis) frequently recorded complaints about ‘clumsy’ (ham-dest) artisans; and they tended to assume that craftspeople lacking skills validated by their fellow guildsmen were the source of the trouble. It is worth noting that this concern was perennial, obvious already in the 1500s and 1600s and continuing into the eighteenth century, when emitting comprehensive guild regulations and solving problems connected with the entitlement of artisans to their workplaces occupied center stage. Artisans liked to claim that by limiting competition among their fellow craftspeople, they protected the interests of the public.6 Assigning artisans so-called ‘slots’ or positions (gedik), without which no one could legally open a shop, was a favored device for minimizing competition. We begin our study with a short presentation of the most important primary sources that throw at least some light upon apprentices and apprenticeships. In the second section, we discuss a few cases from which, in the near-absence of the relevant contracts, we may discern the manner in which a young boy might acquire competence in a given craft. While female apprentices were a rarity, they did occasionally emerge in the sources, and we pay special attention to them. Some of the available documents are due to apprenticeships broken off before the relevant training was complete, by the apprentice and/or his family, or else on the initiative of the master. The third section deals with the acquisition of ‘artisan ideology’ and the texts and ceremonies, by which young men were to learn about the ethical side of being an artisan. In the fourth part, we focus on the people who worked in craft shops without being either masters or apprentices, such as journeymen, slaves and temporary workpeople. While clear-cut in theory, the borders between these categories were often porous in practice. In the fifth and final section, we discuss the changing aims and practices of the Ottoman governmental elite in the late 1700s and early 1800s, paying special attention to the reactions of artisans-in-spe. Fortunately for historians, the changes of this period have resulted in an increasing number of documents.7 6 Betül Başaran, Selim III, Social Control and Policing in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 147. 7 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Ottoman artisans in a changing political context. Debates in historiography,” in Dimensions of Transformation in the Ottoman Empire from the Late Medieval Age to Modernity. In Memory of Metin Kunt, eds. Akşin Somel and Seyfi Kenan (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 123–48.

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Admittedly, even in the archives of the years around 1800, apprenticeship remains a ‘poor relation’ compared for instance to the appointment of guild headmen, or the transfers of the all-important ‘slot’ or gedik. For the study of apprenticeship, gediks are relevant as in the course of the eighteenth century, the assumption became widespread that to avoid stigmatization as a ham-dest interloper, any artisan had to acquire the right to exercise his craft in a stipulated place: He could acquire his gedik by inheritance, purchase or even by renting the ‘slot’ from the owner; presumably the members of the guild needed to accept the newcomer as well, but the particulars remain in the shadow. Historians have often focused on these ‘slots’ as legitimate though intangible items of property and thus viewed gediks as harbingers of the property regimes of the 1800s and 1900s, in which ownership of resources was the key concern. However, we adopt a rather different approach and study the ways in which the all but ubiquitous gediks limited the chances of a recently trained artisan to open his own shop.8 After all, the acquisition (or failure to acquire) a gedik was part of the process by which a suitably trained young man became (or did not become) an independent workshop owner. Despite the scarcity of sources, Nalan Turna has located sufficient material to write the first study specifically treating Ottoman apprenticeship, the present article being the second one.9 While she focuses on the nineteenth century, Turna has found scattered references from earlier times too, which the present author only knows from her publication. As historians interested in the issue continue to hunt for records, we may ultimately be able to ‘stitch together’ our findings into something resembling a scholarly ‘patchwork quilt’; and once we have an overview over the available sources, a broader theoretical understanding will become possible as well. 1

The Sources

From the sixteenth century, and in the rare case of Bursa even from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, the scribes serving Ottoman judges recorded a variety of cases submitted to the qadi’s court. Apart from disputes which the judge decided according to Islamic law, simple contracts between individuals entered the registers as well. Among the complaints relevant to the artisan 8 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım, “Gedik. What’s in a Name,” in Bread from the Lion’s Mouth. Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in Ottoman Cities, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi (London: Berghahn Books, 2015), 217–36. 9 Nalan Turna, “Ottoman apprentices and their experiences,” Middle Eastern Studies 55, 5 (2019): 1–18 (683–700) DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2018.1561440.

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world, fraud was of special importance for our purposes; for what complainants saw as fraud might simply be a mishap due to a lack of competence, and thus to a deficiency in training. Hitherto neglected by historians, fraud cases are of significance to scholars studying the transmission of skills and among other issues, they concern the training of apprentices at least implicitly. Other cases, distinct but related, involve artisans exercising a trade although their fellow guildsmen had not authorized them to do so: The complainants may have regarded the ‘interloper’ as insufficiently trained, and thus likely to cause trouble due to his poor workmanship. Once again, these types of dispute hinged on the question whether the culprit had learned his trade in the approved fashion. However, it is good to keep an open mind; for some artisans may have accused their colleagues of deficient skills merely to rid themselves of an unwelcome competitor. Apart from court cases, regulations issued by the Ottoman administration were sometimes relevant to artisan training as well. Ottoman official documents focus on Muslims; however, a recent study of late eighteenth-century Istanbul has suggested that in those years, about forty percent of the inhabitants were non-Muslims.10 Even if this is a rough estimate, clearly the study of Ottoman artisans needs to include sources from Orthodox and Jewish milieus as well. Unfortunately, these records, often inscriptions or legal opinions, do not say much about the training of artisans either. Given this situation, for the most part, we depend on ‘lucky finds’ of relevant documents, located when working on a different aspect of artisan life. In consequence, we have no option but to combine evidence from different towns and centuries in a manner, which would be unacceptable if dealing with an issue on which a larger number of documents were at hand. Attempting a degree of damage control, we concentrate on Anatolia and the Balkans before the social and administrative changes of the Tanzimat period, paying special attention to Istanbul. 2

Training a Young Craftsperson

Presumably, many apprentices lived with their parents, but our evidence  – such as it is – often concerns young people living in the household of their master or mistress. A master might take his apprentice with him when he traveled. We possess an example from Ankara: at the end of the sixteenth century, both parents of a young boy (and not just the father), turned to the qadi when the master did not bring back his apprentice when reappearing in the city. Perhaps the mother had played a role in the decision to let the boy go; or 10 Başaran, Selim III, 60–61.

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else she possessed family connections that facilitated the ultimate retrieval of the youngster.11 We find more detail in the legendary vita of a saint of artisan background, recorded in the mid-seventeenth century in/around the northern Anatolian town of Merzifon. However, to the extent that he had really existed (and was not the stuff of legend) the subject of the story on record probably had lived in the fifteenth century.12 The boy who was to become the saintly Piri Baba arrived in the town from a nearby village, because his mother, presumably a widow, had wanted him to serve an apprenticeship with a Merzifon artisan; in some versions of the story, this man was a shoemaker. The youngster lived in his master’s home and if ordered to do so, ran errands not just for the master but for the master’s wife as well; in fact this woman was one of the first to believe in the boy’s saintly qualities. When the master went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he specified that the apprentice was to remain in his home, but work for another artisan in the daytime. After his return, the original master planned to reclaim the youngster; and the legend claims that during the master’s pilgrimage the boy and the shoemaker, who was now in Mecca, maintained contact by miraculous means.13 Supposedly immersed in otherworldly concerns, the future saint might be careless about his obligations on the job; and when that happened, his master often beat him. To a degree, these punishments likely were part of a youngster’s education; but when the neighbors felt that the irate artisan was going too far, they interceded to protect the apprentice from further mistreatment. We may assume that the neighbors felt special concern since the boy was the son of a widow who perhaps continued to live at some distance away. Thus, the apprentice had no relatives easy to reach and ready to protect him. In Jewish milieus as well, artisans might have their apprentices live in their homes, possibly holding out the hope that in due course, the young man might 11 Ankara Şer’iyye Sicilleri, vol. 5, 31–32, No. 140. The master had sold his apprentice as a slave. I have not been able to find out whether this volume is part of the lot transferred to the Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, or whether it remains in the Millî Kütüphane (Ankara). Scholars will probably consult the electronic versions in İSAM (İslâm Araştır­ maları Merkezi, Istanbul). 12 Suraiya Faroqhi, “The Life Story of an Urban Saint in the Ottoman Empire,” Tarih Dergisi, Ord. Prof. İ. Hakkı Uzunçarşılı Hâtıra Sayısı XXXII (1979): 655–78, 1009–18. The author of the legend of Piri Baba was likely a certain Şamlıoğlu Hoca İbrahim, a man probably connected with the dervish lodge bearing Piri Baba’s name. In the 1970s, Prof. Mustafa Canpolat of Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi, Ankara University had been kind enough to examine the language of this text, suggesting a date of composition in the 1600s. 13 Faroqhi, “The Life Story,” 670–75.

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marry the master’s daughter.14 In a case, which occurred in Salonika during the second half of the sixteenth century, there was apparently no contract protecting the apprentice when working in his master’s business. Within a few years, the master at issue, who was probably quite wealthy, twice threw young men out of his business, whom he had originally considered as future husbands for his only daughter and by implication, as his possible successors. While Jewish law differed from Islamic and Orthodox law, the case does make the reader wonder whether in the Ottoman world, many boys both Muslim and non-Muslim learned their trades without any formal apprenticeship contract. A case from seventeenth-century Ankara confirms this assumption: we have the record of a dispute, in which a young man demanded wages for a ten-year period of service to his master.15 The latter managed to avoid payment by claiming that the complainant had been his apprentice. As apprenticeships lasting for more than five years were unusual, it is noteworthy that despite the long period of service at issue, the two parties had never entered into a formal contract.16 Perhaps the master had used his ‘local influence’ to ensure a decision in his favor. Masters – and the Ottoman administration too – considered it a nefarious practice for artisans to get involved with the apprentices serving a colleague. From one of the few documents referring to this practice, albeit in frustratingly vague terms, we learn that some masters had perhaps instigated the apprentices serving their colleagues to disregard the orders that the youngsters had received. Matters become even more complicated because the text deals with two distinct issues, namely the refusal of soldiers who had entered Istanbul trades to perform the services that the sultans’ administration demanded, in addition to the problem at issue here, namely that of the masters interfering with the apprentices of other men. We may conjecture that the rebellious masters had encouraged the apprentices to support them in their defiance, perhaps against the local guild hierarchy. However, this explanation is a mere hypothesis.17

14

Minna Rozen, “Jamila Ḥarabun and her two Husbands. On Betrothal and Marriage among Ottoman Jews in Sixteenth-century Salonika,” Journal of Family History XX(X) (2018): 1–26. DOI: 10.1177/0363199018766876. 15 Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen, 280. 16 Turna, “Ottoman apprentices,” 4 has a reference to a nine-year apprenticeship for the weaving of a light silk cloth. Her article contains a sampling of apprenticeship periods, as customary in the 1600s and 1700s. 17 Istanbul, T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), Mühimme Defteri 64, 143, No. 374 (996/1587–1588).

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In the rare instances of young women learning a trade, we may assume that they too, often lived in the households of their mistresses. At least this seems to have been true in the case of a sixteenth-century Bursa girl, who was to learn how to weave the silk fabric known as vale.18 We know about the case because the mistress had tried to arrange a marriage for her charge in the absence of the father, who had joined the sultan’s army. Apparently, there was reason to assume that he would not return. However, the girl’s father did manage to come back and disapproved of the marriage, ending the relationship between the girl and her mistress. Now it was common for poor parents to hand over their children, often girls, to a family with more significant resources; and in some cases, the natal families allowed the household where the girl had been in service to find her a husband. Perhaps the father, recently returned from the wars, did not relish the idea that his neighbors might think him a pauper incapable of taking care of his daughter. Further ‘live-in’ arrangements were likely among the trainees of the exclusively female – and super-exceptional – guild of Thessalian women, who in the eighteenth century manufactured soap for sale. To enter this organization a girl or woman had to be either a daughter or a daughter-in-law of a member, a rule that indicated training within a household.19 On the other hand, the competence of these women enjoyed at least some recognition. For we know about the existence of the guild because its members applied to a church dignitary for protection against their male competitors, and this clergyman was willing to support them. Moreover, we may assume that the female embroiderers, whose names appear on certain Orthodox liturgical textiles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had acquired their very considerable expertise while working with older female practitioners in a domestic setting.20 In other cases, these women seem to have learned the craft from their husbands.

18

Fahri Dalsar, Türk Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihinde Bursa‌‌’da İpekçilik (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi, 1960), 122 and 320. 19 Spyros L. Asdrachas et al., Greek Economic History. 15th to 19th Centuries, 2 vols. (Athens: Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, 2007) vol. 2, ed. Efthychia D. Liata and partly translated by John Davis, 284–85. Unfortunately, the source text relevant to the women’s guild is not available in translation. I have therefore relied on the oral translation of Anna Vlachopoulou, a friend who is a native speaker of Greek. 20 Anna Ballian, “Epitaphios from Eğin/Kemaliye,” in Relics of the Past. Treasures of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Population Exchange / The Benaki Museum Collection / Reliques du passé. Trésors de l’Église orthodoxe grecque et l’Échange de population / Les collections du Musée Benaki, exhibition catalogue, ed. Anna Ballian (Athens and Milan: Benaki Museum and Five Continents Editions, 2011), 156–57.

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Artisan Ideologies

To become fully recognized artisans, Muslim trainees at least at certain times and in certain places, needed to become familiar with the teachings of the so-called fütüvvetnames, texts that often went back far beyond Ottoman times and taught modesty, self-control and a lack of concern with material gain as major virtues.21 Certainly, we need to be cautious about attributing economic motivations to the authors of texts claiming to focus on otherworldly matters; some authors of spiritual treatises doubtless were unconcerned about the advantages that worldly gains might entail. However, a degree of skepticism is in order: as the sultans’ government conceded only minuscule profits to many artisans, it was probably rather convenient for officialdom if many craftsmen felt that they should not be much concerned with material gain. Possibly, the fütüvvetnames had originated in the medieval urban fraternities known as the ahis, although the exact connections remain unknown. For most records concerning the ahis only go back to the late fifteenth and sometimes even to the sixteenth century, when these groups had lost much of their previous importance. Presumably, many young artisans imbibed the ethos of the fütüvvetnames at the ceremonies that accompanied the acceptance of new masters into a guild (şedd kuşanmak/the girding of the loins). These gatherings, in which the participants prepared and consumed halva while commemorating the family of the Prophet Muhammad must have aided the diffusion of politico-religious ideology as well – if indeed the artisans possessed the means needed for festivities of this kind.22 However, some of the wealthier guilds of seventeenth-century Istanbul celebrated the entry of new men with much fanfare, so that we should probably not overestimate the effects of the fütüvvetnames when it came to promoting other-worldliness.23 Moreover, in cities with guilds whose membership contained Christians as well as Muslims, particularly in Istanbul, people must have toned down their commitment to fütüvvet, which excluded non-Muslims by definition.24 Most importantly, the Ottoman central administration never 21 Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerde Fütüvvet Teşkilâtı ve Kaynakları,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 11 (1949–1950): 6–354. 22 Irène Mélikoff, “Le rituel du helva, recherches sur une coutume des corporations de métiers dans la Turquie médiévale,” Der Islam 39 (1964): 180–91. 23 Evliya Çelebi b Derviş Muhammed Zılli. Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu – Dizini, vol. 1, ed. Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman, and Yücel Dağlı (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2006), 238–39. 24 Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du dix-septième siècle, Essai d’histoire institutionelle, économique et sociale (Istanbul, Paris: Institut Français d’Archéologie d’Istanbul and Adrien Maisonneuve, 1962), 362–67.

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adopted the numerous moral strictures against the practitioners of certain crafts, which however were standard in some fütüvvetnames. By contrast, in early modern Sarajevo young men seeking recognition as master artisans needed to demonstrate their familiarity with these texts.25 Prudence thus demands that historians avoid blanket statements about the importance of fütüvvet in artisan lives. Likely, in some places certain artisans were serious about many – if not all – of the lessons propounded in these texts. In other contexts, people may have listened with respect and then gone about their business ‘as usual.’ 4

Not a Master, Not an Apprentice, but a Person Trained in Arts and Crafts

Only masters were guild members, and the apprentices were their future successors. However, a workshop might employ other people as well. In Bursa at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, weavers quite often employed slaves, whom they might encourage to work hard by promising to liberate them when these servants had woven a certain quantity of fabric.26 In 1530, İbrahim Pasha (d. 1536), at that time still the favorite and grand vizier of Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566) entrusted a number of recently Islamized slaves of Bosnian, Hungarian and ‘Frankish’ origin to Bursa weavers, who were to teach the young men to manufacture specified types of silk fabrics.27 As most of these people probably had not been weavers in their hometowns or villages, and certainly were unfamiliar with the intricacies of weaving high-quality silks, the employment of these slaves involved skill formation through rather intensive training in a difficult craft. Moreover, when it came to the world of entertainment, some slave traders trained young girls in singing, dancing and playing musical instruments, skills that were of commercial value because the young women who had mastered 25 Inez Aščerić-Todd, “The noble traders. The Islamic tradition of ‘Spiritual Chivalry’ ( futuwwa) in Bosnian trade guilds (16th–19th centuries),” The Muslim World 97 (April 2007), 159–73; Inez Aščerić-Todd, Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia. Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society (Leiden: Brill, 2015). While comprehensive, this book says very little about apprentices. Presumably, the guilds did not take it upon themselves to regulate relations between masters and apprentices. 26 Halil Sahillioğlu, “Slaves in the Social and Economic Life of Bursa in the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries,” in Halil Sahillioğlu, Studies on Ottoman Social and Economic History (Istanbul: IRSICA, 1999), 105–74 and Halil Sahillioğlu, “15. Yüzyıl Sonunda Bursa‌‌’da Doku­ macı Köleler,” in Atatürk Konferansları (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983), 217–29. 27 Dalsar, Türk Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihinde, 319.

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them fetched significantly higher prices.28 Such training could take place in elite households too, but here the motive was non-commercial. At least around 1700, the wife of an Ottoman vizier seems to have felt that she owed it to the dignity of her household to entertain prominent female visitors by competent musical performances; training talented slave girls as musicians thus was almost obligatory for a senior elite woman.29 Moreover, the palace administration serving Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648–87) sent slave girls with musical talents to the houses of esteemed musicians for training. This was a borderline case, as the girls only spent a few weeks or months in the homes of these musicians, so that the training period was too short for a formal apprenticeship. Even so, these arrangements clearly served skill formation.30 Thus, at least certain kinds of slaves were first trainees and later servitors of considerable competence. After manumission, which in early sixteenth-century Bursa might take place after about ten years, these men and women must have often used their skills in the marketplace. In some trades, there was an intermediate stage between apprentice and master, known as kalfa or journeyman. Turna has pointed out that kalfas were rare in documents of the seventeenth century, and has proposed, to my mind with good reason, that to a significant extent, they were a novelty of the 1700s, when the prevalence of inheritable gediks made it impossible for many young artisans who had completed their training to open their own shops. In Turna’s view, such men had no chance of achieving the autonomy inherent in running their own enterprises, and could only work for an established master.31 At most, a senior journeyman could hope that his employer would die without sons, because in that case, a journeyman might take over the gedik.32 This arrangement meant that Ottoman apprentices, once they had acquired competence and seniority, had reason to stay in the workshop of the master that had trained them. Put differently, Ottoman customs precluded journeymen’s migrations comparable to the Tour de France and the Wanderschaft of young German-speaking artisans. Conflicts between masters and kalfas/journeymen, so frequent in European settings, surface but rarely in Ottoman documents. Even so, a few eighteenth28 Sahillioğlu, “Slaves,” 140 and 155. 29 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters, ed. Anita Desai and Malcolm Jack (London: Virago, 1994), 104. 30 Günnaz Çaşkurlu, Osmanlı Sarayında Sanatçı Cariyeler. IV. Mehmed Dönemi (1677–1687) (Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2020). 31 Turna, “Ottoman apprentices,” 7. 32 Suraiya Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire. Crafts and Craftspeople under the Ottomans (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 126.

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century records from the qadi registers of the Anatolian town of Kütahya show that such conflicts did sometimes occur. The artisans at issue, all Armenians, manufactured coffee cups made of faience, some of which featured elegant decorations and thus demanded considerable skill; however, cheap varieties with unsophisticated décor were available too. Dated to 1766, the dispute hinged on wages, and in addition, on the possibility that journeymen might set up their own pottery wheels and compete with their masters, or that masters might work on the wheel themselves and thus make it difficult for the journeymen to earn a living.33 This court case confirms Turna’s assumption that masters and kalfas had a similar level of skill, and that journeymen remained journeymen because no masters’ positions were available. Her hypothesis becomes even more convincing when we take into account another document from the same period, which shows that in 1768, a sizeable number of Kütahya’s Armenian journeymen working for coffee-cup manufacturers had recently left the trade.34 We do not know whether the young men now labored in other lines of work, or else tried their fortune in another city. Perhaps the scarcity of recorded conflicts between the masters and their juniors was due to the rules of propriety: These unwritten regulations may have demanded that artisans should resolve disputes within the guild, without turning to the qadi. To date, we have not found any evidence of journeymen’s associations, which by contrast were quite active in certain parts of early modern and modern Europe. Some artisans employed laborers (ırgad) for short periods, about whose level of training we know nothing. In certain towns, masters and workpeople met in a site well known to the persons concerned, often in the open air. At least in seventeenth-century Bursa, these ırgad changed jobs quite frequently, as we can infer from commands issued by the sultans, which forbade them to leave their masters before completing the tasks assigned to them.35 Presumably, these men, who perhaps had begun but not completed their apprenticeships, were not in line for becoming masters. On the other hand, in a few Bursa contracts that have entered the qadi registers, the apprentice hired himself out to the master, just as he would have done if he had been an ordinary servant. The only difference was that when an apprenticeship was at issue, the master committed himself to teaching his skills to his servitor.36 33

Garo Kürkman, Toprak, Ateş, Sır. Tarihsel gelişimi, atölyeleri ve ustalarıyle Kütahya çini ve seramikleri (Istanbul: Suna ve İnan Kıraç Vakfı, 2005), 82–84. 34 Kürkman, Toprak, Ateş, Sır, 82. 35 Dalsar, Bursa‌‌’da İpekçilik, 123. 36 Dalsar, Bursa‌‌’da İpekçilik, 121.

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In certain crafts and petty trades, serial or chain migration to the Ottoman capital appears in the archival documentation during the eighteenth century and becomes more widespread in the nineteenth.37 Around 1800, Istanbul grocers, bakers, and millers came from a limited number of provincial places, and presumably, they had found employment because they knew people from their hometowns, who were willing to vouch for the good behavior of the newcomers. We have no information on the manner in which these migrants had acquired their skills; but likely, some of them had trained ‘back home’ and found jobs because of known competence, while others were still very young and relied on their masters in Istanbul to train them. This situation probably explains why in certain buildings dedicated to crafts and trade (han), there were Armenian teachers who taught Armenian boys whenever their masters gave them leave.38 Quite possibly, the teacher received his remuneration from education-minded masters. 5

Around 1800: Young Artisans in a Changing World

In recent years, historians have paid much attention to the crisis of the late 1700s and early 1800s, when Russian expansion towards the Mediterranean seemed for a while to threaten the very existence of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the Treaty of Balta Limanı (1838) greatly advantaged the foreign importers of factory-made goods, often produced in Britain, while disadvantaging local merchants/manufacturers and further limiting the already scanty revenues of the Empire.39 For a long time, contemporaries – and historians in their wake – assumed that this situation resulted in the disappearance of all local industries. However, from the 1990s onwards, Donald Quataert showed that local manufacturers in Anatolia and the Balkans adapted to the new situation, for instance by using factory-made imported yarn to weave cloth that corresponded better to local tastes than was true of the imported varieties.40 However, these adaptations were possible only because manufacturers used cheap non-guild labor, especially women and children, while small-scale 37 Baṣaran, Selim III., 139–44; Cengiz Kırlı, “A Profile of the Labor Force in Early NineteenthCentury Istanbul,” International Labor and Working Class History 60 (2001): 125–40. 38 Kevork Pamukciyan, “18. Yüzyılın Sonlarında İstanbul Hanları,” reprinted in Kevork Pamukciyan, İstanbul Yazıları (Istanbul: Aras Yayıncılık, 2002), 119–23. 39 Şevket Pamuk, Uneven Centuries. Economic Development of Turkey since 1820 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 97. 40 Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (reprint Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 49–99.

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entrepreneurs exploited both their workforces and their own labor power in order to compete with machine-made articles. While our study ends before the young craftspeople of Istanbul, the Balkans and Anatolia experienced the full force of these changes, even in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, apprentices and other workpeople experienced conditions that made skill formation difficult. A major factor of unrest was the proliferation of mercenary bands, recruited to fight the many wars, in which the empire participated at that time. Left without employment once the war had ended, these men often preyed upon the civilian population. Even worse, once the supply system of the Ottoman army had broken down, the same thing happened to military discipline, and unpaid soldiers robbed peasants and townspeople. In areas with large non-Muslim populations, these people were often a favored target, a fact undermining the previously well-established legitimacy of Ottoman rule in the Balkans.41 Refugees entering Istanbul tried to make a living; and some of them must have entered the service of artisans as laborers without recognized – but perhaps existent – competences. Representatives of the Ottoman central power, including Selim III (r. 1789– 1807) developed a veritable phobia concerning unattached males trying to make a living in Istanbul, called bachelor or bekar although many of these men had families back home. On the orders of Selim III inspectors hunted down these ‘suspicious characters’ in order to send them back to their hometowns or villages, although given the technical means of the time, success was probably spotty.42 Apprentices that had quarreled with their masters were likely targets for expulsion. Istanbul population counts undertaken around 1800 show that many artisans worked with a single helper, apprentice or workman, who may often have lived in his master’s shop guarding it at night without extra pay. Especially those young men that had arrived in Istanbul as ‘serial migrants’ used this arrangement, as the administration insistently demanded guarantors for every migrant that its officials tolerated in the city: After all, if everything went well, live-in apprentices and workpeople could count on their masters to furnish the required guarantees. However, we do not know how skill formation fared under these circumstances. Young men may have had only limited motivation

41

For a good example of the sufferings of the subject population in the Balkans of the late 1700s and the subsequent loss of the sultans’ legitimacy, see Norbert Randow, ed. and tr., Sofroni von Wraza. Leben und Leiden des sündigen Sofroni (Leipzig/Germany: Insel Verlag, 1979). 42 Başaran, Selim III, 95.

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to spend time on learning to make high-quality goods, at a time when the market for such items visibly contracted. Certainly, the sultan’s court continued to buy significant quantities of luxuries, despite the expenditures for a new-style army, which swallowed a large share of the empire’s limited revenues. Especially in the manufacture of weapons there was a demand for highly trained specialists, and a few men, some of them Armenians, did take advantage of this situation. In the early 1800s, the Ottoman ambassador to Paris reflected on this state of affairs, pointing out, that Ottoman artisans/technicians might benefit if they were to obtain access to an institution such as the Parisian Conservatoire des Arts et des Métiers.43 6

In Conclusion

As the scarcity of contracts shows, most apprentices belonged to an oral culture when they entered into a relationship with their masters and the families of the latter, becoming temporary members of the masters’ households. When it came to conflicts over pay, especially if the servitor claimed to be a workman rather than an apprentice, the master must have usually had the upper hand. Especially once the Ottoman administration demanded with increasing frequency that migrants to Istanbul must show a guarantor, an apprentice who had arrived in the Ottoman capital as part of a chain migration urgently needed the support of his master. Moreover, as gediks were inheritable, few positions were available to young men who were not the sons of masters; such journeymen must have had a difficult time when they tried to make a living in the Ottoman capital. Presumably, however, the frequent epidemics that cut off the lives of Istanbul’s inhabitants must have opened up ‘slots’ that young migrants could fill. Had no such newcomers been at hand, the elite would likely have complained about the lack of men to provide the services to which people of high rank had become accustomed. Turna’s observation that journeymen were rare before 1700 and proliferated in the eighteenth century is an important contribution to our understanding of the Ottoman craft world. It is likely that the increasing number of jobs requiring a gedik is only one aspect of an overarching problem, namely a lack of demand for the products of artisan workshops. In the 1960s, historians would have claimed without hesitation that the competition of goods from the industrializing societies of Europe led to the constriction of outlets for Ottoman craft 43 Stéphane Yérasimos ed. and tr., Deux Ottomans à Paris sous le directoire et l’empire. Relations d’ambassade. Moralı Seyyid Alî Efendi, Abdurrahim Muhibb Efendi (Arles: Actes Sud/ Sindbad, 1998), 209–10.

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production.44 However, more recent studies have shown that in the early to mid-eighteenth century, when gediks became popular in Istanbul, the impact of European industrial imports was still minimal. It is more probable that the unending wars between 1683 and 1718 and once again after 1768, had exhausted not only the revenues of the Ottoman treasury, but the resources of ordinary townspeople as well.45 After all, as the Ottoman government poured all available resources into warfare, the protection of trade routes became a secondary issue, which led to the further contraction of civilian markets. Admittedly, this statement is simply the most recent attempt to explain the decreasing opportunities for young artisans in the years around 1800. From the 1970s onwards, we have seen several attempts to explain the problems of Ottoman artisans, all of which have attracted attention for a while and then lost credibility. We simply have to continue our research. Bibliography

Primary Sources Milli Kütüphane, Ankara

Ankara Şer’iyye Sicilleri. Vol. 5, 31–32, No. 140.



T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

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Evliya Çelebi. Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1. Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu – Dizini, eds. Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman, and Yücel Dağlı. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2006. Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Turkish Embassy Letters, ed. Anita Desai and Malcolm Jack. London: Virago, 1994. Yérasimos, Stéphane, ed. Deux Ottomans à Paris sous le directoire et l’empire. Relations d’ambassade. Moralı Seyyid Alî Efendi, Abdurrahim Muhibb Efendi. Arles: Actes Sud/ Sindbad, 1998. 44 Ömer L. Barkan, “The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East,” International Journal of Middle East Studies VI (1975): 3–28. 45 Mehmet Genç, “L’économie ottomane et la guerre au XVIIIème siècle,” Turcica XXVII (1995): 177–96.

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Ağır, Seven, and Onur Yıldırım, “Gedik. What’s in a Name.” In Bread from the Lion’s Mouth. Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in Ottoman Cities, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi, 217–36. London: Berghahn Books, 2015. Ágoston, Gábor. The Last Muslim Conquest. The Ottoman Empire and its Wars in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Aščerić-Todd, Inez. Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia. Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Aščerić-Todd, Inez. “The noble traders. The Islamic tradition of ‘Spiritual Chivalry’ ( futuwwa) in Bosnian trade guilds (16th–19th centuries).” The Muslim World 97 (April 2007): 159–73. Asdrachas, Spyros L. et alii. Greek Economic History. 15th to 19th Centuries. 2 vols. Athens: Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, 2007. Ballian, Anna. “Epitaphios from Eğin/Kemaliye.” In Relics of the Past. Treasures of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Population Exchange  / The Benaki Museum Collection / Reliques du passé. Trésors de l’Église orthodoxe grecque et l’Échange de population / Les collections du Musée Benaki, exhibition catalogue, ed. Anna Ballian, 156–7. Athens and Milan: Benaki Museum and Five Continents Editions, 2011. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. “The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East.” International Journal of Middle East Studies VI (1975): 3–28. Başaran, Betül. Selim III, Social Control and Policing in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Çaşkurlu, Günnaz. Osmanlı Sarayında Sanatçı Cariyeler. IV. Mehmed Dönemi (1677– 1687). Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2020. Dalsar, Fahri. Türk Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihinde Bursa‌‌’da İpekçilik. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi, 1960. Duman, Yüksel, and Donald Quataert. “A Coal Miner’s Life during the Late Ottoman Empire.” International Labor and Working Class History 60 (2001): 153–79. Faroqhi, Suraiya. “Ottoman artisans in a changing political context. Debates in historiography.” In Dimensions of Transformation in the Ottoman Empire from the Late Medieval Age to Modernity. In Memory of Metin Kunt, eds. Akşin Somel and Seyfi Kenan, 123–48. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Artisans of Empire. Crafts and Craftspeople under the Ottomans. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia. Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting 1520–1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Faroqhi, Suraiya. “The Life Story of an Urban Saint in the Ottoman Empire.” Tarih Dergisi, Ord. Prof. İ. Hakkı Uzunçarşılı Hâtıra Sayısı XXXII (1979): 655–78. Genç, Mehmet. “L’économie ottomane et la guerre au XVIIIème siècle.” Turcica XXVII (1995): 177–96.

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Genç, Mehmet. “Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth Century. General Framework, Characteristics and Main Trends.” In Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey 1500–1950, ed. Donald Quataert, 59–86. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. Gölpınarlı, Abdülbaki. “İslam ve Türk İllerde Fütüvvet Teşkilâtı ve Kaynakları.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 11 (1949–1950): 6–354. Kırlı, Cengiz. “A Profile of the Labor Force in Early Nineteenth-Century Istanbul.” International Labor and Working Class History 60 (2001): 125–40. Kürkman, Garo. Toprak, Ateş, Sır. Tarihsel gelişimi, atölyeleri ve ustalarıyle Kütahya çini ve seramikleri. Istanbul: Suna ve İnan Kıraç Vakfı, 2005. Mantran, Robert. Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du dix-septième siècle, Essai d’histoire institutionelle, économique et sociale. Istanbul, Paris: Institut Français d’Archéologie d’Istanbul and Adrien Maisonneuve, 1962. Mélikoff, Irène. “Le rituel du helva, recherches sur une coutume des corporations de métiers dans la Turquie médiévale.” Der Islam 39 (1964): 180–91. Necipoğlu, Gülru. The Age of Sinan. Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. London: Reaktion Books, 2005. Pamuk, Şevket. Uneven Centuries. Economic Development of Turkey since 1820. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pamukciyan, Kevork. “18. Yüzyılın Sonlarında İstanbul Hanları.” Reprinted in Kevork Pamukciyan, İstanbul Yazıları, 119–23. Istanbul: Aras Yayıncılık, 2002. Quataert, Donald. Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution. Reprint Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Randow, Norbert, ed. and tr. Sofroni von Wraza. Leben und Leiden des sündigen Sofroni. Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1979. Rozen, Minna. “Jamila Ḥarabun and her two Husbands. On Betrothal and Marriage among Ottoman Jews in Sixteenth-century Salonika.” Journal of Family History XX(X) (2018): 1–26. DOI: 10.1177/0363199018766876. Sahillioğlu, Halil. “15. Yüzyıl Sonunda Bursa‌‌’da Dokumacı Köleler.” In Atatürk Konferansları, 217–29. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983. Sahillioğlu, Halil. “Slaves in the Social and Economic Life of Bursa in the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries.” In Studies on Ottoman Social and Economic History, 105–74. Istanbul: IRCICA, 1999. Turna, Nalan. “Ottoman apprentices and their experiences,” Middle Eastern Studies 55,5 (2019): 1–18 (693–700). DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2018.1561440. Yi, Eunjeong. Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul. Fluidity and Leverage. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

29 Nightlife in Istanbul: Sex Crimes and Social Control from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries Fariba Zarinebaf 1

Introduction

The eighteenth century has long been ‘the black hole’ of Ottoman studies and viewed as the beginning of ‘decline’ rather than transformation and the Ottoman transition to modernity. Urban and social history offer a context in which long term changes in social landscape, demography, migration, as well as urban disasters and crime can be examined from below depending on sources. Ottoman modernity has often been studied from a western perspective or the ‘impact of the West’ framework due to lack of attention to the transitional eighteenth century. This paper will trace the continuity of urban institutions, culture as well as forms of social control at both community and state levels to regulate sexual interactions in residential neighborhoods as well as public spaces of entertainment. I will argue that the rise in migration as well as the number of single women and foreigners in some districts like Galata led to a change in sexual conduct as well as a backlash against the violation of the traditional social and urban order. In addition, the spread of pandemics and disease was seen as a direct outcome of the breakdown of moral, sexual and social order, a trend that continued into the nineteenth century. A community watch system emerged in the eighteenth century that scrutinized the settlement of migrants, single men and women as well as sexual conduct at the mahalle well into the nineteenth century. The zoning and control of public and private spaces of entertainment as well as the control of commercial sex workers and their body by the state took place as foreign as well as local women got involved in organized ‘sex trafficking’ during the war periods. Istanbul as the capital of the Ottoman Empire and a major commercial center was home to a diverse population and a growing number of migrants and foreigners of almost half a million by the late eighteenth century. Istanbul also had an important underworld, where crimes ranged from petty thefts to organized theft and prostitution as well as homicide and armed assaults.1 While 1 Fariba Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_031

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there was greater tolerance for petty crimes and moral misconduct in the early modern period, the state increasingly took an active role in punishing what it regarded as crimes against ‘public order and public health’ in the nineteenth century and left a paper trail behind in the form of police reports.2 Night life also assumed greater importance with the spread of public places of entertainment like coffeehouses and taverns as well as modern establishments, which concentrated in Galata and later in Pera (bars, hotels, public brothels).3 The state began associating crime with migrant groups as well as single men and women who lived as marginal communities on edges of corporate groups and neighborhoods. In the aftermath of urban upheavals and urban disasters like plagues and fires, the state increasingly turned to such measures as inspection and expulsion of marginal men and women who were accused of the violation of sexual and social boundaries by moralists and officials alike, a trend that gained importance in the second of the eighteenth century and continued into the nineteenth century.4 However, historians of the Ottoman empire have not paid much attention to the evolution of Ottoman penal code and punishment of sex crimes from the early modern to the modern periods. This is in part due to the dearth of archival material and police records for the early modern period. The Islamic court 2 I would like to thank Antonis Anastasopoulos for his suggestions and feedback on the earlier version of this article. For a discussion of police records, prison registers and Islamic court records on crime see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 5–7. See also Boğaç A. Ergene, Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003); Leslie Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Order in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Elyse Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path: Illicit Sex, Law and Criminality in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008); Başak Tuğ, Politics of Honor in Ottoman Anatolia, Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Surveillance in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2017); Avner Wishnitzer, As Night Falls: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities after Dark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), Avner Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in Late Ottoman Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). For medieval Cairo and Damascus see, Carl F. Petry, The Criminal Underworld in a Medieval Islamic Society, Narratives from Cairo and Damascus under the Mamluks (Chicago: Middle Eastern Documentation Center, 2012), 123–65. 3 See Wishnitzer, As Night Falls. 4 In Mamluk Cairo and Damascus, according to Petry, stoning to death and execution were punishments for fornication. As in Istanbul, prostitution was taxed and tolerated but from time to time it was suppressed through fines, imprisonment and the death penalty. To mark off ‘reputable’ from ‘immoral women,’ women’s comportment and mobility came under scrutiny in Mamluk as well as Ottoman cities. In Ottoman Aleppo, according to Semerdjian banishment was the preferred punishment for prostitutes in the eighteenth century, while in Anatolian cities, Tuğ found that ta‌ʾzir, which she interprets as flogging seems to have prevailed.

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records do not cover sex crimes systematically and in great detail since any accusation required four Muslim male eyewitnesses or the entire neighborhood. In Galata, the judges were typically reluctant to prosecute these accusations due to problems of procedure and the plural legal system in mixed places like Galata and Pera. At times of urban upheavals, the police increasingly took up this role without conducting proper trials and following the şeriat procedure. The prosecution and punishment of crime passed under the jurisdiction of secular officials but the kadı (Islamic judge) was still involved in ordering an investigation and reporting to the imperial council. This paper is based on Islamic court records, prison registers, as well as imperial orders and petitions. The sources change for the nineteenth century as the Ministry of Interior took over the prosecution of criminal matters and set up a new penal code inspired by the French penal code and public health regulations during the Tanzimat Reforms (1839–1876). The Tanzimat reforms, more than anything else, expressed new ideals of governmentality following the suppression of the janissary corps in 1826 and the provincial ʿayan class in the aftermath of upheavals in an attempt to centralize the administration of policing through legal and police reforms that were unprecedented in Ottoman history.5 In addition, public health measures to fight off contagion from pandemics and sexually transmitted diseases were also inspired in part by western (French) models. The explosion of foreign prostitution in Istanbul also had to do with loopholes in the legal order and multiple jurisdictions between the Ottoman police and the embassies.6 The first part of this paper focuses on the role of the Ottoman state in policing public spaces and sex crimes in response to the growing rate of crime and urban violence in the eighteenth century. The second part focuses on the explosion of sex crimes at times of war and social dislocation by local and foreign sex workers, the spread of sexually transmitted disease and the adoption of modern penal laws and public health policies. Finally, the appendix provides two petitions by sex workers to the Ministry of Interior from their exile. I will compare and contrast the methods used by the Ottoman state to impose social and moral discipline on marginal men and women in various parts of 5 Ferdan Ergut, Modern Devlet ve Polis (Istanbul: İletişim, 2021, fourth ed.), Noémi Lévy-Aksu, Ordre et désordre dans l’Istanbul ottomane (1879–1909) (Paris: Karthala Editions, 2012). 6 On mixed modern tribunals and cases of multiple legal jurisdictions see, Sinan Kuneralp & Emre Öktem, Chambre des conseillers légiste de la Sublime Porte: Rapports, avis et consultations sur la condition juridique des ressortissants étrangers, le statut des communautés non musulmanes et les relations internationales de l’Empire ottoman (1864–1912) (Istanbul: Editions Isis, 2012). This is a great source on cases of crime committed by foreigners in the Ottoman empire and the problems of legal jurisdictions in the late nineteenth century.

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Istanbul in response to growing sex crimes in the long nineteenth century. I will also shed light on the evolution of penal code from the eighteenth century to the Tanzimat era, a period of enormous change in Istanbul. 2

Community Watch System and Social Control

In Islamic cities, the Islamic judge and his officers and an informal community watch system monitored sexual conduct and crime at the neighborhood level. The state also held Muslim and non-Muslim community leaders responsible for reporting crime and illicit conduct and sometimes a whole community had to pay fines if they refused to do so. I have already shown elsewhere that the Islamic court and non-Muslim communal leaders often investigated and punished ‘moral misconduct’ among their members but they had to report repeat offenders to the state.7 For example in 1769, a group of Muslim residents of the neighborhood of Neslişah Sultan mahalle in Edirne Kapı in the district of Istanbul proper, led by the Imam Mehmed Efendi and Muezzin Molla Mehmed came to the Istanbul Bab court and presented a lawsuit against Mehmed Beşe and his wife Fatma, his son Ismail, his daughter in-law, his brother in-law, the latter’s wife and son and two sisters.8 They states that the entire family lived in a house in the neighborhood and disturbed the peace of the neighborhood (emn ü asayiş) by their aggressive conduct. They also brought unrelated and unkown (mechulü’l-ahval) men and women to their house and this undermined the peace and tranquility of the neighborhood. The residents demanded the expulsion of the family from the neighborhood. The kadı recorded the agreement of the family to leave the neighborhood and settle elsewhere and reported it to the imperial council. This case underscores the importance of the community watch system in the mahalle in reporting cases of ‘moral misconduct’ to the kadı in the eighteenth century. A few days later, the residents of three mahalles like the Ali Pasha Atık mahalle near Edirne Kapı led by the Imam Abdullah Efendi, Imam Mehmed Said Efendi of Al-Hac Muhiyuddin mahalle, and Imam Mustafa Efendi of Çağır Ağa mahalle, and the müezzins came to the Istanbul Bab mahkemesi and presented a lawsuit against Papas Andon, son of Anfirya.9 They stated that the latter had settled in their neighborhood and established his house as a mobile 7 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 90–105. 8 Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM), Şer’iye Sicilleri, series 1, vol. 32, 30b. 9 Ibid., 30b–31a.

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tavern (ayaklı) becoming a vendor of wine and alcoholic drinks, undermining the peace of the neighborhood. They sold wine to their youth while women were assaulted by drunk men on the streets. They stated that they had tried to stop Andon peacefully several times but he did not follow suit. They demanded the expulsion of Andon from their neighborhood. The kadı ordered his expulsion and stated that if he refused to leave the neighborhood, Andon would be subject to forced labor on the galleys. The kadı asked for an imperial order to that effect. From these two cases it becomes clear that the community watch system led by the Imam of the neighborhoods and the residents played a key role in reporting cases of moral misconduct and presenting lawsuits against neighbors, mostly women and minorities who were accused of such conduct to the kadı. In most cases a whole neighborhood stood as witnesses. The kadı reported the case to the imperial council together with a recommendation for a form of punishment in order to obtain an imperial order. The imperial council rarely opposed the decision of the kadı, which represented a collective punishment at the neighborhood level. Conversely, the neighborhood led by the Imam could also agree to the return of the accused to the neighborhood if the latter mended his/her lifestyle. Thus, the neighborhood rather than the state in the above cases initiated an investigation and brought a lawsuit to the court, demanding a specific form of punishment. In regular cases of crime and in the absence of a regular and independent police force, the Ottoman state relied on a number of state officials like the kadı and his deputies as well as the day and night police, composed of janissaries, to control crime in most cities of the empire.10 In addition, the community watch and moral guarantors in the neighborhood and the market place reported repeat offenders to the kadı and the police as well as the imperial council that met several times during the week. They also pledged for the good conduct of residents as well as guild members to the kadı. The kadı played a key role in ensuring the application of kanun and şeriat to civil and criminal cases. He was appointed by the government, received a salary and served for a short period (1–2 years) before he was appointed to another judgeship.11 The judge relied on local heads of religious communities in complex cases that involved people from various religious backgrounds. The oral testimony of upright Muslim men (2 to 4) was required in every case as well as written evidence and documents. The testimonies of non-Muslims 10 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 128–33. 11 On community watch and moral guarantors, see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 130–33. On the authority of the kadı, see Ibid., 143–46. On policing Istanbul, see Ibid., 133–39.

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and occasionally women were used in mixed trials involving non-Muslims. It is hard to quantify crime through these registers since many cases were settled outside of the court (usually after trial). The night police sometimes arrested sex workers without a proper trial, usually during patrols and either banished them to the islands and towns such as Bursa or held them in prison. So, already in the eighteenth century, we witness arrests without proper kadı trials by the night police. As women became more visible in public places, sumptuary laws set up regulations on movement, dress and comportment for men and women (Islamic modesty for women), Muslims and non-Muslims, and elites and subjects/reaya (color, headgear, luxury items like furs and silk). However, in the eighteenth century, we witness the constant violation of these norms and codes as well as sexual boundaries among the population of Istanbul, particularly in Galata and Pera. 3

Galata the ‘Sin City’

Due to its position as the former Genoese hub and the port of European trade, Galata remained the red-light district of Istanbul with its row of taverns (200 according to Evliya Çelebi) that served mixed clients as well as Europeans.12 The Islamic court of Galata located at the heart of the Muslim neighborhood near the Arab Camiʿi in Galata received many lawsuits about disorderly conduct and illicit sexual interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslim residents often demanded the closure of taverns in their neighborhoods and the banishment of prostitutes.13 The state clamped down harder on Muslim delinquency in the eighteenth century. Both prostitution and drinking were tolerated in the red-light district of Galata due to the presence of a large number of Europeans as well as nonMuslim communities. Non-Muslims were allowed to consume wine as long as they did not sell it to Muslims in Ottoman cities. While coffeehouses spread all over the city and became places of Muslim male sociability, taverns remained clandestine and required legal permission to operate in certain spaces in non-Muslim neighborhoods. They had to be owned by non-Muslims

12 13

Fariba Zarinebaf, Mediterranean Encounters, Trade and Pluralism in Early Modern Galata (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018), 62–67. Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 86–111.

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and paid the wine tax to Muslim and non-Muslim tax farmers.14 In Istanbul, I have shown that both Muslim and non-Muslim women and men operated in the semi-official and informal red-light district of Galata as well as residential neighborhoods.15 In the eighteenth century, prostitution was on the rise due to an increase in the number of single men and marginal women in the commercial areas and even in residential neighborhoods.16 The state did not intervene in the moral disciplining of non-Muslim men and women unless they were repeat offenders and their community leaders complained to the state officials. However, the moral policing of Muslim women fell under the jurisdiction of the kadı, the imam of residential quarters who led the community watch and the night police as I have shown above. During the Tulip Era (1718–1730), all kinds of entertainments took place at the public and private spaces in Istanbul. In addition, nightlife was assuming greater importance during religious holidays (Ramadan) when men and women (and children) stayed in mosques till late and strolled on the streets and public spaces.17 Public parks also attracted men and women during the night, and there were accusations that they got involved in illicit sexual interactions. The night watchman and the bostancıbaşı (head of guards in charge of policing the shores Bosphorus and the Golden Horn) were charged to arrest anyone strolling on the streets or public parks after the late-night prayer was over.18 Night inspections and raids by the night watchman to arrest marginal women and prostitutes were clearly on the rise in greater Istanbul in the late eighteenth century.19Banishment was the most popular form of punishment for Muslim prostitutes as well as some non-Muslims during this period while imprisonment in the Baba Cafer prison was also another option.20 The state took measures to carry out surveys and surveillance of public spaces like bachelors’ rooms, hans, guilds as well as coffeehouses in Galata and Kasımpaşa and expelled migrants and non-guild members in 1763. Clearly, they were seen as “trouble makers” and dangerous for “public security.” In addition, single and migrant men and women were seen as a threat to the “moral fabric” of a Muslim society. Social class played an important role in the adjudication 14 15 16 17

Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 100–1. Ibid., 90–98. Ibid., 86–100. Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 205–8. 18 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 45–50, 51–61. 19 Ibid., 90–97. 20 Ibid., 107–9.

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of these accusations and women with no family ties, moral guarantors and social standing suffered the most while men often went unpunished.21 The public presence of women on the streets could also lead to disorderly conduct and the intermingling of sexes in the evening when darkness became a form of protection. Furthermore, imperial orders banned women from traveling alone to Istanbul without an official permission and going to the pudding shops of Galata unaccompanied by male relatives. To combat crime and control the nightlife, from time to time the police closed down taverns and brothels in Istanbul in 1772 and 1790 (see above cases).22 These measures were largely ineffective as prostitution continued in the red-light district of Galata and grew in scope in the nineteenth century. The state also monitored the presence of women in public spaces at night through the neighborhood watch led by the imam and by the muhtar (headman of a city quarter) in the nineteenth century. For example, in June 1816, Amine bint Habibe, a resident of Ali Fakih mahalle near Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque in the district of Istanbul submitted a petition against the residents and officials of her mahalle and Imam Seyyid Abdülhalim Efendi as well as the kadı and zabıt (policeman) for ordering her expulsion from her house.23 After an investigation, the residents and the imam testified that she was involved in prostitution ( fuhuş) and brought unrelated men to her house, undermining their ‘peace and tranquility.’ They stated to the imperial council that they could rent her house to an upright person or sell it and requested an imperial order to that effect. The imperial order for her expulsion was read out to Amine hatun by the kadı. It is noteworthy that the community watch system controlled the conduct of women as late as the nineteenth century. However, it is also important to draw attention to the agency of the accused women to fight back and petition the imperial council against the community watch system although it was ineffective. We will see that women reserved this right in the later period (see below).

21 On the public visibility of women in the nineteenth century see Edmondo De Amicis, Istanbul (1874), transl. Neynun Akyavas (Ankara: TTK, 1993), 195–215. See also Zarinebaf, Mediterranean Encounters, 262–64. 22 İSAM, Şer’iye Sicilleri 1/35, 97; 1/65, 87. On imperial orders by Sultan Selim III on women’s comportment and sumptuary laws, see Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları, Nizam-i Cedit (Ankara: TTK, 1988), 97–103. 23 Istanbul Mahkemesi 121 Şe’iyye Sicili (1231–1232/1816–1817), prepared by Şevki Nezihi Aykut (Istanbul: Sabancı University Press, 2002), 178.

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The Crimean War and Global Sex Trafficking in Pera

The Crimean War (1853–56) brought a large number of French and English soldiers to Galata and Pera in the mid-nineteenth century. A large number of French (400,000) and English soldiers and sailors (250,000), in addition to a small Sardinian force (18,000) who were the allies of the Ottoman Empire against Russia were involved in the Crimean War and some were stationed in Istanbul. The war and its aftermath also doubled the population of Europeans in Pera.24 In 1885, the total population of greater Istanbul according to a cadastral survey was 873,575.25 Of this number, 237,299 (close to one-third) residents lived in the district of Galata and Pera/Beyoğlu.26 In 1885, there were 129,243 foreigners in the city as a whole (14.79 percent of the total population). Foreigners or those with foreign passports made up half of the population in Pera and Galata. This was an important change in the demographic composition of Galata and greater Istanbul that created issues with multiple legal jurisdictions between the embassies and the Ottomans state when crime by foreigners or those under embassy protection took place. Many Ottoman subjects also took up European and Russian, and later Greek protection in order to enjoy commercial privileges and legal protection. The Black Sea was the center of slave trafficking with the Crimean Tatars as the main agents and Istanbul as the main port in the early modern period. The opening of the Black Sea to Russian and international commerce opened up the networks and ports of trade and slave trafficking after the Russian takeover of Crimea in 1784. Historians seldom associate the opening of the Black Sea with the rise of modern sex trafficking, the establishment of a modern penitentiary system as well as policing and public health policies. A few historians like Zafer Toprak and Rıfat Bali have written on the explosion of “new 24

Steven Rosenthal, “Foreigners and Municipal Reform in Istanbul: 1855–1865,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11 (1980): 227–245, 229–30. See also Alan Duben and Cem Behar, Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility, 1880–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 25 Stanford Shaw, “The Population of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979): 265–277, 266–268. The population of greater Istanbul was 873, 575 in 1885. Of this number, Muslims made up 44.06 per cent, Greek Orthodox 17.48 per cent, Armenian Gregorians 17.12 per cent, Jews 5.08 per cent, Catholics 1.74 per cent, Protestants 0.09 per cent, and Bulgarians 0.5 per cent of the total population. 26 İlhan Tekeli, “Nineteenth Century Transformation of Istanbul Metropolitan Area,” in Villes ottomanes à la fin de l’Empire, eds. Paul Dumont and François Georgeon (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1992), 33–45. See also François Georgeon, Au pays du Raki, Le vin et l’alcohol de l’empire ottoman à la Turquie d’Erdoğan (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2021).

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prostitution” and the transformation of Istanbul into an international port of white slave trafficking with connections to Odessa, Salonica, Alexandria, and Buenos Aires, from the Crimean War to WWI.27 Rıfat Bali traces the outburst of prostitution during this period to the Crimean war when the Russian and Romanian captives in Istanbul got involved in organizing trafficking with the help of local dealers.28 With the opening of the Black Sea trade to international shipping, many sex workers from Romania, Galicia, Russia, Austria and Poland arrived to Istanbul. Under the capitulations, the Ottoman state could not arrest and punish European and Russian subjects even if they were involved in sex trafficking. The networks were also too complex and fluid for the police, provided that it was not part of them, to control them. Corruption at all levels was no doubt rampant due to economic needs. In addition, a high rate of crime was the direct outcome of the presence of large foreign military forces in Istanbul and war-time conditions during the Crimean War. The explosion of prostitution servicing soldiers and others made Istanbul an international hub of sex trafficking with a wide network of operators from Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and western European countries. Galata remained the center of commercial sex but public brothels spread to Üsküdar and Muslim neighborhoods as well. According to Malte Fuhrmann, Ashkenazi Jews from Galicia, Russia, Poland and Romania who used the protection system that the capitulations accorded to the subjects of European embassies operated some of Galata’s new brothels.29 For example, bout 300 Austro-Hungarian prostitutes from Galicia and Bukovnia operated brothels in Pera and Galata. 27 Rıfat N. Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople, 1854–1922 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008), 11–20; Rıfat N. Bali, “1900 Yüz Yıllarda Istanbul’da Yahudi Fuhuş Tacirleri,” Tarih ve Toplum 235 (July 2003): 9–19; Zafer Toprak, “Genel Evleri.” Dünden Bugüne Istanbul Ansi­klopedisi, vol. 3 (Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı, 1994), 392–3; Zafer Toprak, “Istanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zuhrevi Hastalıklar, 1914–1933,” Tarih ve Toplum 7, 39 (March 1987): 31–40. For Cairo see the excellent study of Khaled Fahmy, “Prostitution in Egypt in the Nineteenth Century,” in Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East, ed. Eugene Rogan (London, 2010), 77–103; Hanan Hammad, “Between Egyptian ‘National Purity’ and ‘Local Flexibility’: Prostitution in al-Mahalla al-Kubra in the First half of the 20th Century,” Journal of Social History 44,3 (Spring 2011): 751–83. For Iran see, Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure, Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005). For Egypt see, Liat Kozma, Policing Egyptian Women: Sex, Law and Medicine in Criminal Law in Khedival Egypt (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011). 28 Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople, 10–20. 29 On the involvement of European and Russian women in commercial sex in the nineteenth century see Malte Fuhrmann, “Western Perversions at the Threshold of Felicity: The European Prostitutes of Galata-Pera (1870–1915),” History and Anthropology 21 (2010): 159–72. See also Rıfat N. Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople 1854–1922

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Moreover, eastern European criminal rings and their Ottoman interlocutors handled global trafficking in commercial sex in Galata.30 European prostitutes fell under the legal jurisdiction of the embassies. The Ottoman government did not intervene in their punishment until later in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the protection system was also used by criminal elements, prostitutes and traffickers to evade the Ottoman legal jurisdiction.31 For example, when the Ottoman government tried to arrest European prostitutes and their Ottoman organizers, they claimed European protection and evaded Ottoman control.32 In 1876, the Ottoman government attempted to clean up Galata from foreign prostitutes by arresting them and putting them on two ships to deport them. However, the European embassies forced the Ottoman government to abandon the plan and set them free.33 The embassies often imposed small fines on traffickers who operated between Istanbul, Bombay, Alexandria and Buenos Aires during and after the Crimean War. 5

“Frankish Disease,” Contagion, and a Case of Suicide

With the alarming spread of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis ( ferengi or zührevi hastalık) during wartime, the government established the Bureau of Sanitation (Sıhhiye) in Galata in the 1880s and passed laws on the registration of public brothels and prostitutes, their forced health inspection and medical examination, treatment, forceful entry into houses of prostitution and their banishment to Anatolian towns.34 These measures failed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Police reports made frequent reference to the spread of the “Frankish disease” as the following case demonstrates. For example, according to a police report, a certain Hasan Efendi, a scribe in the military who resided in the Emin Bey quarter near Bayezid neighborhood in Istanbul, was found dead in (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2008); Mark David Wyers, “Wicked” Istanbul: The Regulation of Prostitution in the Early Turkish Republic (Istanbul: Libra Kitap, 2012). 30 Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople. 31 On the use of the Habsburg consular protection system by eastern European prostitutes and pimps in the 1870s, see Fuhrmann, “Western Perversions,” 161–63. See also Toprak, “İstanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zührevi Hastalıklar,” 31. 32 Fuhrmann, “Western Perversions,” 161–63. 33 Ibid., 161–62. 34 Osman Nuri Ergin, Mecelle-i Umur-i Belediyye, vol. 6 (Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Bele­ diyesi Yayınları, 1995); Wyers, “Wicked” Istanbul, 60–67.

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his house in 1893. The police found a note in which he claimed that he was going to commit suicide because he had caught the venereal disease ( ferengi hastalığı) from a certain “morally corrupt” Ahmed at work through a glass of water, which the latter had handed to him. He insisted in his letter that he had never been to a public brothel and had led a moral life for more than thirty years. He also claimed that the doctors had not detected his illness and were also responsible for the spread of the disease possibly to his children. He asked in his note that his three children be treated if they showed any signs of contagion. He expressed a wish to be buried in Eyüp or Üsküdar. He ended his letter asking the sultan for the protection of his wife and children as well as forgiveness from his family and relatives. This is a rare suicide note from a male victim of venereal disease that was preserved by the police department.35 It also shows that doctors were still unable to detect and treat venereal disease particularly among male clients whom the government did not target as carriers and therefore, the disease spread rapidly. Although Hasan denied any contact with a prostitute, it is highly likely that he was trying to uphold his reputation as a government employee, father and husband even if he had come into contact with a prostitute. He implied that Ahmed carried the disease and passed it on to him through a glass of water. Clearly, the Frankish disease had spread with an alarming rate even among civil servants and policemen. 6

Punishing New Prostitution

With the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the Ottoman government attempted to clamp down harder on prostitution and targeted streetwalkers and brothels rather than the clients. The Tanzimat reforms undermined the jurisdiction of Islamic courts over criminal cases in general and sex crimes in particular. The muhtar rather than the imam assumed responsibility of surveilling the mahalle (quarter) and reporting sexual misconduct to the local police. The new penal law increased the authority of the state over sex crimes and public delinquency (drinking). The police assumed the role of public prosecutor in the new judicial system and the kadı’s jurisdiction remained limited to civil and family cases. The high number of foreign sex workers and the multiple jurisdictions exercised by the embassies made it difficult for the Ottoman state to monitor the activities of sex workers and their organizers.

35 T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı (BOA), Y.PPK.ZB 101/2. The document contains the suicide note as well as the police report.

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The state placed the regulation of prostitution under the supervision of the police department to control the spread of Syphilis. It also punished organizers who trafficked young Muslim women and children. Trafficking underage women and children was a new form of sex crime. In addition, the zoning of brothels (Pera, Galata, Kasımpaşa, and Şişli) and their classification into public and private houses, bars and hotels gave the police department jurisdiction over their control.36 So, the control of sex workers, their isolation, forced treatment and registration as well as punishment became the goal of the new penal code inspired by the French penal code in 1858. The jurisdiction of policing and punishing moral misconduct passed from religious communal leaders and the kadı to the newly established police department, the Public Bureau of Health and the Ministry of Interior and Public Safety (dahiliye nezareti).37 The Ministry of Interior and the office of Public Order (emniyet-i umumiye) sought to regulate prostitution in accordance with the şeriat and the concept of ‘public order’ and ‘public health’ and set up fixed penalties during the Young Turk rule.38 In 1911, a commission was set up by the Ministry of Interior to examine the spread of sexually transmitted disease by streetwalkers and set up regulations for personal hygiene and public health regulations (sıhhiye nizamnamesi) for public brothels and prostitutes in the Beyoğlu district.39 The neighborhood watch was placed under the authority of the muhtar who was a secular official. He together with the residents could ask collectively for the banishment of local prostitutes from their neighborhood and report the cases to the police. The banishment of prostitutes and operators to Anatolian towns like Bursa and Kayseri to isolate these women continued although it was now for a longer period. These women could also petition to return to their homes if local authorities issued permission (see appendix). It is interesting that the Ministry of Interior took over the duties of the neighborhood watch and reintroduced the law of “forceful entry” (baskın) into houses suspected of prostitution in 1911, since the constitution of 1876 had guaranteed the inviolability of domicile and protected it from intrusion.40 Prostitutes were to be arrested and placed in women’s prison (nisa tevkifhanesi) and then in a house of correction (ıslahhane).41 Police also carried out regular 36 Toprak, “İstanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zührevi Hastalıklar”, 1914–1933,” 32. 37 BOA, ZB, 387/146; 390/3; HR.ID 532/10, DH.ID 65/46, DH.ID 47–1/11, DH.ID 89–1/2, DH.EUM.VRK 18/42. On modern policing see Noémi Lévy and Alexandre Toumarkine, eds., Osmanlı’da Asayiş, Suç ve Ceza, 18–20. Yüzyıllar (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2007). 38 Ibid. 39 BOA, DH.ID 46/82. 40 BOA, DH.ID 89/1. 41 BOA, DH.ID 65/46.

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raids into houses suspected of prostitution in Beyoğlu (Giladani and Linardi sokak) in 1904 as well as hotels in Sirkeci in 1911.42 A whole neighborhood was destroyed near Fatih Camii as a center of prostitution.43 It is interesting to note that the new set of regulations regarding prostitution was justified in the name of public health (sıhhat-ı umumiye) and targeted only prostitutes and operators. Accordingly, a new public health police (inzibat-ı sıhhiye polisi) was set up to battle the spread of sexually transmitted disease, known as the Frankish disease.44 According to the new penal code (kanun-i ceza) of 1858, after forceful entry and the arrest of prostitutes, the police could first imprison them from 48 hours to three months, depending on the level of felony and then banish them from three to six months if they did not improve their conduct. Banishment to Anatolian towns for several years was still the most popular form of punishment for trafficking women and for prostitution. Sometimes, residents petitioned the banishment of prostitutes from their neighborhood. For example, the residents and French monks in Feriköy submitted a petition to the police, demanding the expulsion of three French women who operated from a house in 1883.45 In 1914, Christian and Jewish community leaders appealed to the government to close down brothels or relocate them since the police took bribes and consular courts refused to punish their own subjects.46 As in the past, these women could petition to return to their home on account of hardship (see appendix). Some took European citizenship to escape Ottoman legal jurisdiction. During the Allied occupation of Istanbul from 1918 to 1923, a new set of regulations (nizam) regarding prostitution appeared.47 They led to its classification into public and private and allowed the operation of public houses and their zoning in the red-light districts. They also set up rules for the licensing and registration of public houses and the establishment of hospitals, medical examination and treatment of prostitutes under the supervision of the police department. Previously too, since sexually transmitted diseases were growing at an alarming rate in Istanbul, the Ministry of Interior had taken further steps to 42 43 44 45 46 47

BOA, Cevdet Zabtiye 387/146; DH.EUM. KADL 4/38. BOA, Cevdet Belediye 94/4663. BOA, DH.EUM.EMK5. BOA, Y.PRK.ZB 2/72. Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople, 30–31. Toprak, “İstanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zührevi Hastalıklar,” 31–40; Clarence Richard Johnson, Constantinople To-Day or The Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life (New York: The McMillan Company, 1922), 1. See also Clearance Richard Johnson, ed., Istanbul 1920 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları 1995) and Stefanos Yerasimos, Istanbul, 1914–1923 (Istanbul: İletişim, 1992), 88–92.

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exile operators and female slave (beyaz kadın) traffickers who were Ottoman subjects to Anatolian towns. The police expelled men and women who were involved in promoting prostitution to towns in Anatolia like Kayseri and Iznik in 1911. The jurisdiction of foreign prostitutes and operators continued to fall under the control of their embassies. In 1916 the police exiled several Jewish operators from the public brothels of Galata (umumhane) who claimed to be Ottoman subjects, Dina Klazari, Sultan Israil, Baş Peron, Victoria Beha, and a Romanian subject, Agustina, to Kayseri for five months. One of the women named Madam Pasiç could not be identified by the police. After banishment, these women petitioned the Ministry of Interior to return to Istanbul since their children and spouses were left there and needed their assistance.48 A police report stated that Dina Klazari, known as Sarı Madam, was a white slave sex trafficker and operated from the brothel (umumhane) number five on Şerbethane Street in Galata/Pera. While she was exiled to Kayseri, her husband Marco was banished to Sivas in 1915. Their petition, however, did not get them out of Kayseri (see Appendix, Document 2) and Sivas. In 1916, she petitioned again to be sent from Kayseri to Ankara and be placed under the supervision of the community since they could not find employment and the means of living in Kayseri after having sold all their belongings. It appears they (husband and wife) managed to move from Kayseri and Sivas to Ankara. In Ankara, Sarı Madam petitioned to be sent to Istanbul due to the illness of her husband and her inability to gain a living.49 (see fig 29.1 and document 3 in Appendix) It is interesting that these sex traffickers were able to successfully petition the Ottoman government (Ministry of Interior) for their place of banishment and return. It is not clear whether these four operators were originally Ottoman subjects or had obtained Ottoman citizenship through marrying Ottoman men. Many were Russian Jewish subjects. For example, in a raid the police arrested a Russian trafficker, Yako Abramovim Kaçızım for being an operator together with his wife who invested in public brothels (umumhane) in Galata in 1914.50 In 1915 Osman Bedri Bey, the chief of police, expelled 168 foreign white slavers from Istanbul.51 The explosion of prostitution continued during World War I and after the allied forces had occupied Istanbul. According to Clarence Richard Johnson who used information from the Central Sanitary Bureau for the period 1917–20, there were 4,000–4,500 prostitutes in the city of whom only 2,171 were registered. Of this number, 1,367 of them were non-Muslim and 804 were Muslim. 48 49 50 51

BOA, DH. EUM ADL 12/31. BOA, DH. EUM.ADL 48/13. BOA, DH.EUM S.SB 3/4. Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople, 54.

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Figure 29.1 The petition of Dina Klazari to the Minister of Interior in 1916 (see document 3) BOA, DE EUM Adliye, 48/13 (1335/1919)

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Figure 29.2

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Shops and people on narrow uphill street of steps in Pera (Yüksek Kaldırım) Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside

Most operated from 175 brothels in Beyoğlu, Galata, Eminönü, Kadıköy, and Üsküdar. However, 446 registered prostitutes, whom Johnson describes as “unclassified,” did not report to the Central Sanitary Bureau. Therefore, their whereabouts were unknown.52 The largest concentration of brothels was in Galata (77 brothels) and the neighborhood of Abanos in Pera/Beyoğlu (59 brothels), where Ottoman non-Muslim and foreign prostitutes operated most of the brothels. The best houses (17) in Galata were in Şerbethane street with 97 inmates. In addition, a few private houses in Üsküdar (Bülbüldere) and Kadıköy (Moda) belonged to Muslim operators and were off limits to nonMuslim clients.53 Most of the Muslim prostitutes were unlicensed and operated in these two districts, Kadıköy and Üsküdar. Of these, most were between the ages of 19 and 22 and some were as young as 14 and carried venereal disease.54 In Pera, Galata and Tophane, 231 unregistered prostitutes operated as waitresses in 58 bars that served mostly Allied soldiers and sailors.55 52 53 54 55

Johnson, Constantinople To-Day, 355–65. Ibid., 356–60. Ibid., 366–67; Toprak, “İstanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zührevi Hastalıklar,” 166. Giovanni Scognamillo, Beyoğlu’nda Fuhuş (Istanbul: Altın Kitaplar Yayınevi, 1994), 67–87.

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For example, in a report by the police station in Beyoğlu in May 1907, Muslim and Christian women and young children were found procuring below a hotel. Their pimp (simsar) was arrested in May, 1907.56 Another police report confirmed the prostitution of Muslim and non-Muslim children who were 13–14 years old in hotels in Galata and emphasized the need to survey all the brothels in Galata due to the spread of venereal disease in May, 1907.57 The police also reported the prostitution of German women in Bel Dunya hotel in Haydarpaşa, in May 1909.58 Another police report noted the arrival of prostitutes from Austria and Hungary, the role of operators in trafficking them to Istanbul illegally and confirmed the need for these women to obtain necessary documentation (registration as prostitutes) from the Ottoman government or face arrest in February 1907.59 A report by the Galata city council noted the spread of venereal disease in Galata to more than 100 houses in 1907.60 The Central Sanitary Bureau inspected the houses regularly. In addition to these, there were 17 pensions and rendezvous places run by Greeks, Armenians and Italians for the clients who were financially better off. Galata had 662 registered prostitutes of whom 335 were Greek (28 Hellenic subjects), 169 Russian, 68 Jewish, 47 Armenian, 19 Austrian, 12 Romanian, 4 Italian, 2 Bulgarian, 2 Serbian, 1 American, 1 French, and 1 German. All registered girls in the Central Sanitary Bureau had to be 18 but some unregistered ones were as young as 13. They had to undergo medical examination every week. In Galata, 100–150 girls were examined every day in five examination places in the city. The number of foreign and Ottoman prostitutes who received treatment at the Şişli hospital in Istanbul was 11,863 between 1917 and 1920. The Şişli hospital was a former Bulgarian boys’ school that became the first hospital set up in Istanbul to deal with venereal disease by the British. Before this, cases were treated at the Haseki hospital.61 Those with a venereal disease who were treated at the Şişli hospital, where conditions were very poor, received a certificate of health. The examination book contained information on the name, father’s name, nationality, age, occupation, and physical traits (height, color of hair and eyes), date of examination, disease, date of departure and the signature of the doctor.62 However, the forced treatment of registered prostitutes caused a backlash among the

56 57 58 59 60 61 62

BOA, Zabtiye Nezareti, 385/146. BOA, Zabtiye Nezareti (ZB), 385/136. BOA, ZB 339/125. BOA, Zabtiye Nezareti, 380/135. BOA, ZB 373/98. Johnson, Constantinople To-Day, 363–64. Ibid., 363–65.

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women and did not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease among their clients. Venereal disease also spread with the rise in global trafficking that connected Istanbul to such ports of sex trade like Alexandria and Buenos Aires. The government imposed regular health inspection on prostitutes and did not interfere with their clients. Registered prostitutes carried registration books that identified them (name, age, origin, nationality, physical traits and address) and stated the date of medical examination, disease and the signature of the doctor treating them.63 In his book, Atik Fuhuş (old prostitution), that was first published in 1924, Ahmet Rasim (1865–1932), an Ottoman journalist and author, moralized on the loss of innocence describing the “old prostitution” as a hidden pleasure that was confined to a few houses and taverns in Galata.64 He believed that the explosion of “new prostitution” (yeni fuhuş) where the government imposed a new set of laws on the licensing and registration of brothels and prostitutes and the spread of prostitution to new public spaces of entertainment like bars, hotels, casinos, rendezvous houses and brothels in Galata and Rue de Pera during the war years, was like a snake that moved from location to location and was, therefore, harder to control. It was the not until the establishment of the Turkish Republic when prostitution was made illegal. 7

Conclusion

Istanbul, with a long Byzantine and Italian legacy and a port city with a mixed population, shared the sexual mores of other port cities like Venice during the Ottoman period. While the Ottoman state like its European counterparts tolerated prostitution, it invited local communities to safeguard their communal and sexual boundaries and to report habitual (usually female) offenders and those who crossed religious boundaries to the state.65 While the kadı and the heads of non-Muslim communities played the key role in prosecuting sex crimes during the classical era, the night police assumed greater importance in carrying out raids and break-ins into houses, hans, bachelors’ rooms and public parks to arrest prostitutes who operated outside the red-light district of Galata in the early modern period.

63 Johnson, Constantinople To-Day, 355–67. 64 Ahmet Rasim, Fuhuş-i Atik (Istanbul: Üç Harf Yayınları, 2005), 8. 65 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 110–11.

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War, allied occupation and the division of Istanbul under different allied jurisdictions made the city a heaven for international trafficking as well as a center of global crime rings. Following the Tanzimat reforms and the new penal code, the modern police assumed greater control of new public places of entertainment as well as residential neighborhoods. Prostitution had evolved from a crime against God into a crime against the public order and public health in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The state became more involved in regulating and punishing Muslim and non-Muslim prostitution with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases but did not control male clients. The registration of brothels and sex workers as well as their forced medical examination and treatment were directly influenced by European public health policies on sexually transmitted diseases.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Antonis Anastasopoulos for his suggestions and feedback on the earlier version of this article.

Appendix

The first two documents show the banishment of prostitutes from Istanbul to Iznikmit in the late eighteenth century and from Istanbul to Kayseri in the early twentieth century. The third document reflects their ability to petition the Ministry of Interior in order to return to Istanbul after a period of rehabilitation. They show that they had children with them while their husbands stayed behind in Istanbul. Document 1 […] Um Kölsum; Kadıköylü Şerife Nefise; Konyali Habibe; Aksarayli Habibe; Şehr Eminli Ayşe; Habaşi Habibe; … Zuleya; Başı Gözel Kızı Ayşe; Fatma Na‌ʾile The aforementioned prostitutes have been arrested by prison officers and have been imprisoned. All command belongs to the Sultan. Your servant, M Imperial order: The aforementioned are prostitutes and have not kept to themselves. Therefore, they have been ordered to be banished to Iznikmit by the çavuş (officer), July 1772.66 66 BOA, CZ 29/2.

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Document 2 The Office of Public Order and Police in Istanbul67 The Bureau Division: Public [section] 2417 Private [section] 184 To the Ministry of Interior In response to the command of the Head of Public Order and the document (tezkire) no. 222 issued in March 1331/1916, we have taken measures to banish to Kayseri, the residents of Galata and Ottoman subjects accused of slave trafficking. They are Madam Victoria, Dina, Sultana and a Romanian subject, Agustina. Since we have not obtained any information regarding Madam Pasiç, we are reporting the situation and awaiting an order. The Head of Public Police (polis müdür-i umumisi) 25 March 1331/1916. Document 3 (see fig. 29.1) To the Ministry of Interior The petition of your cariyes. Your cariyes were banished from the Gate of Felicity (Istanbul) to Kayseri six months ago while my husband remained in Istanbul. We have suffered greatly in Kayseri and I am petitioning by love of God for the Sultan’s (May he live long) mercy to have compassion toward our children and to allow us to return to our homes in Istanbul in order to take care of them. We are unable to live in Kayseri and take care of ourselves and our children. Therefore, please have mercy on us by issuing imperial orders to that effect and forgive our attempt to petition your highness. All commands belong to our Sultan. Ottoman subjects: Bas Izdaç, Agustina Lanikyan?, Dina Kilazari, Sultana Israil, Victoria Beha, Inha? Bibliography

Primary Sources Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Islam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM), Istanbul

Şer’iye Sicilleri, series 1, vol. 32 (1/32). Şer’iye Sicilleri 1/35. Şer’iye Sicilleri 1/65.

67 BOA, DH.EUM ADL 12/31 (date: 1334/1915).

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T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul

Cevdet Zabtiye 387/146. Cevdet Belediye 94/4663. HR.ID 532/10. DH. EUM ADL 12/31. DH. EUM.ADL 48/13. DH.EUM.EMK5. DH.EUM. KADL 4/38. DH.EUM.VRK 18/42. DH.EUM S.SB 3/4. DH.ID 46/82. DH.ID 47-1/11. DH.ID 65/46. DH.ID 89/1. DH.ID 89-1/2. Y.PPK.ZB 101/2. Y.PRK.ZB 2/72. ZB 339/125. ZB 373/98. ZB 387/146. ZB 390/3. Zabtiye Nezareti, 385/146. Zabtiye Nezareti, 380/135. Zabtiye Nezareti (ZB), 385/136.



Published Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Istanbul Mahkemesi 121 Şer’iyye Sicili (1231–1232/1816–1817), prepared by Şevki Nezihi Aykut. Istanbul: Sabancı University Press, 2002.

Ahmet Rasim. Fuhuş-i Atik. Istanbul: Üç Harf Yayınları, 2005. Bali, Rıfat N. “1900 Yüz Yıllarda Istanbul’da Yahudi Fuhuş Tacirleri.” Tarih ve Toplum 235 (July 2003): 9–19. Bali, Rıfat N. The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople 1854–1922. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2008. Boyar, Ebru, and Kate Fleet. A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. De Amicis, Edmondo. Istanbul (1874), transl. Neynun Akyavas. Ankara: TTK, 1993. Duben, Alan, and Cem Behar. Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility, 1880– 1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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Ergene, Boğaç A. Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744). Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003. Ergin, Osman Nuri. Mecelle-i Umur-i Belediyye, vol. 6. Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Yayınları, 1995. Ergut, Ferdan. Modern Devlet ve Polis. Fourth ed. Istanbul: İletişim, 2021. Fahmy, Khaled. “Prostitution in Egypt in the Nineteenth Century.” In Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East, ed. Eugene Rogan, 77–103. London, 2010. Fuhrmann, Malte. “Western Perversions at the Threshold of Felicity: The European Prostitutes of Galata-Pera (1870–1915).” History and Anthropology 21 (2010): 159–72. Georgeon, François. Au pays du Raki, Le vin et l’alcohol de l’empire ottoman à la Turquie d’Erdoğan. Paris: CNRS editions, 2021. Hammad, Hanan. “Between Egyptian ‘National Purity’ and ‘Local Flexibility’: Prostitution in al-Mahalla al-Kubra in the First half of the 20th Century.” Journal of Social History 44,3 (Spring 2011): 751–83. Johnson, Clarence Richard. Constantinople To-Day or The Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life. New York: The McMillan Company, 1922. Johnson, Clearance Richard, ed. Istanbul 1920. Translated by Sönmez Taner. Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1995. Karal, Enver Ziya. Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları, Nizam-i Cedit. Ankara: TTk, 1988. Kozma, Liat. Policing Egyptian Women: Sex, Law and Medicine in Criminal Law in Khedival Egypt. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011. Kuneralp, Sinan, and Emre Öktem. Chambre des conseillers légiste de la Sublime Porte: Rapports, avis et consultations sur la condition juridique des ressortissants étrangers, le statut des communautés non musulmanes et les relations internationales de l’Empire ottoman (1864–1912). Istanbul: Editions Isis, 2012. Lévy-Aksu, Noémi. Ordre et désordre dans l’Istanbul ottoman (1879–1909). Paris: Karthala Editions, 2012. Lévy, Noémi, and Alexandre Toumarkine, eds. Osmanlı’da Asayiş, Suç ve Ceza, 18–20. Yüzyıllar. Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2007. Matthee, Rudi. The Pursuit of Pleasure, Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500– 1900. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Peirce, Leslie. Morality Tales: Law and Order in the Ottoman Court of Aintab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Petry, Carl F. The Criminal Underworld in a Medieval Islamic Society, Narratives from Cairo and Damascus under the Mamluks. Chicago: Middle Eastern Documentation Center, 2012. Rosenthal, Steven. “Foreigners and Municipal Reform in Istanbul: 1855–1865.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11 (1980): 227–245. Scognamillo, Giovanni. Beyoğlu’nda Fuhuş. Istanbul: Altın Kitaplar Yayınevi, 1994.

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Semerdjian, Elyse. Off the Straight Path: Illicit Sex, Law and Criminality in Ottoman Aleppo. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. Shaw, Stanford. “The Population of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979): 265–277. Tekeli, İlhan. “Nineteenth Century Transformation of Istanbul Metropolitan Area.” In Villes ottomanes à la fin de l’Empire, eds. Paul Dumont and François Georgeon, 33–45. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1992. Toprak, Zafer. “Genel Evleri.” Dünden Bugüne Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 3. Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı, 1994, 392–3. Toprak, Zafer. “Istanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zuhrevi Hastalıklar, 1914–1933.” Tarih ve Toplum 7,39 (March 1987): 31–40. Tuğ, Başak. Politics of Honor in Ottoman Anatolia, Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Surveillance in the Eighteenth Century. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2017. Wishnitzer, Avner. As Night Falls: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities after Dark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Wishnitzer, Avner. Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in Late Ottoman Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Wyers, Mark David. “Wicked” Istanbul: The Regulation of Prostitution in the Early Turkish Republic. Istanbul: Libra Kitap, 2012. Yerasimos, Stefanos. Istanbul, 1914–1923. Istanbul: İletişim, 1992. Zarinebaf, Fariba. Mediterranean Encounters, Trade and Pluralism in Early Modern Galata. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Zarinebaf, Fariba. Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700–1800. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

Part 6 The Empire at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century and Beyond

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30 Strolling around Vienna Unarmed. Rıza Nur and His “Letters from Vienna” (1911) Yavuz Köse Vienna was rarely a first destination for Ottoman travellers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least for those who left travel descriptions.1⁠ Certainly, from the mid-19th century onwards France, with its capital Paris, was the preferred destination, followed later by other European countries such as Great Britain or Germany.2 Vienna appears mostly as a stopover for travellers on their route, unless they had a mission there. When we look further back, we may consider the first attempt to conquer the capital of the Habsburg Empire in 1529 as an unaccomplished mission. Even then Ferdinand I (by then King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia and Archduke of Austria) was probably the target of Sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566) and not Vienna.3 But in 1683, Vienna became the “Golden Apple” (ḳızıl elma), a symbolically and materially highly valuable target to be conquered.4 Despite this clear motive and goal, this mission was also doomed to failure. Close to 20 years earlier, Evliya Çelebi, certainly the most famous Ottoman traveller, visited Vienna in the delegation of the envoy Kara Mehmed Pasha, in 1665. His short stay5 is 1 See Baki Asiltürk, Osmanlı Seyyahlarının Gözüyle Avrupa (Istanbul: Kaknüs, 2000), 140–48; on the reports of the Ottoman envoys sent to Vienna see İbrahim Şirin, Osmanlı İmgeleminde Avrupa (Ankara: Lotus, 2006). 2 Baki Asiltürk, “The image of Europe and Europeans in Ottoman-Turkish travel writing,” in Venturing beyond Borders – Reflections on Genre, Function and Boundaries in Middle Eastern Travel Writing, eds. Bekim Agai, Olcay Akyıldız and Caspar Hillebrand (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2013), 29–52, here 35–36. 3 Christoph K. Neumann, “Wie wichtig war Wien? Versuch einer Einordnung der Belagerung in die osmanische Geschichte,” in Die Osmanen vor Wien. Die Meldeman-Rundansicht von 1529/30. Sensation. Propaganda und Stadtbild, eds. Ferdinand Opll and Martin Scheutz (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2020), 203–18. 4 On the term “Goldener Apfel” (Kızılelma) see Claudia Römer, “Seyahatnâme’deki Halk Hikâyeleriyle Avusturya Halk Hikâyelerinin Karşılatırılması,” Doğumunun 400. Yılında Evliyâ Çelebi, eds. Nuran Tezcan and Semih Tezcan (Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2011), 291–96. 5 The information varies from two weeks to two months. Gisela Procházka-Eisl, “Evliya Çelebi’nin Viyana Yolculuğu,” in Doğumunun 400. Yılında Evliyâ Çelebi, 112–17, here 116.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_032

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in contrast with his vivid and at times fantastic descriptions of the city.6 Just a few years after the failed siege of 1683, Osman Ağa (from Timişoara) became a prisoner of war for around 11 years, seven of which he spent in Vienna as an involuntary resident, before finally escaping in 1699. He described his adventurous experiences in Vienna in his astonishing autobiography.7 It is noteworthy that Vienna, in addition to the prisoners of war in the 1670s, already had its own “Turks,”8 among whom was the Armenian merchant Johannes Diodato. Diodato was born in Istanbul in 1640, and after settling in Vienna (around 1660s), he opened the first “Wiener Kaffeehaus” in 1685.9 This brings us to the main protagonist of this paper, Rıza Nur, who visited Vienna in 1911. He was astonished by the high volume of coffee houses that could be found “at every step” (“Burada adım başına bir ḳahveḫāne vardır”)10 and which attracted the attention of new visitors. Rıza Nur visited Vienna for a specific reason but not primarily to drink coffee. As with to Evliya Çelebi,11 he admired the city’s physicians, whose expertise he desperately needed. At that time, Rıza Nur was neither physically nor mentally in good shape. He was a prolific writer with an impressive range of subjects from medicine to divan poetry, from history to opera. In his will, which was published for the

6

Im Reiche des Goldenen Apfels. Des türkischen Weltenbummlers Evliya Çelebi Denkwürdige Reise in das Giaurenland und in die Stadt und Festung Wien Anno 1665. 2nd ed., übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Richard F. Kreutel, (Graz et al.: Verlag Styria, 1963). 7 Der Gefangene der Giauren. Die Abenteuerlichen Schicksale des Dolmetschers ʿOsman Ağa aus Temeschwar, von ihm selbst erzählt, übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Richard F. Kreutel und Otto Spies (Graz et al.: Verlag Styria, 1962). 8 I refer here to Rubina Möhring, who mentions around baptized 650 prisoners of war in the chapter “Wiener Türken,” Türkisches Wien (Wien: Herold, 1983), 64–69. See also Anna Ransmayr, “Greek Presence in Habsburg Vienna: Heyday and Decline,” in Across the Danube: Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities (17th–19th C.), eds. Olga Katsiardie-Hering and Maria Stassinopoulou (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 135–70; David Do Paço, “A case of urban integration: Vienna’s port and the Ottoman merchants in the eighteenth century,” Urban History (2020): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1017/S096392681900110X (accessed on 17 May 2021) and Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz, Gerhard Milchram (eds.), Die Türken in Wien. Geschichte einer jüdischen Gemeinde (Wien: Jüdisches Museum Wien, 2010). 9 Karl Teply, Die Einführung des Kaffees in Wien. Georg Franz Koltschitzky, Johannes Diodato, Isaak de Luca (Wien, 1980). 10 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart 2005/2 (letter 8), 59–60. 11 An Ottoman Traveller. Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi, translation and commentary by Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim (London: Eland, 2010), 242–47.

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first time in 1967,12 he listed his 71 works, half of which remained unpublished and partly unfinished. And probably not without pride (and presumably with some wit), he states in his memoirs that he was 1.69 m tall and that the length of his books was 1.37 m.13 Among his unpublished writings are the “Letters of Vienna” (Viyana Mektūbları), which are presented here. These texts were only rediscovered in the early 1960s; and although Barbara Flemming drew attention to them in 1965, they have remained unnoticed until today.14 His stay in Vienna in 1911 went equally unnoticed, even though Rıza Nur refers to it in his memoirs, yet without giving any precise dates. In the research literature, this short trip has remained largely unmentioned.15 After a short introduction to its author and the circumstances of his journey to Vienna, the manuscript and its special features will be discussed. The “Letters from Vienna” may be considered as part of the Ottoman travel literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And yet, they are remarkable in view of their scope, and the considerably detailed and well-informed descriptions of the city, its institutions and population, as well as its cultural peculiarities. The letters also reflect the author’s personal interests, such as politics, medicine or science. Further, the language of the articles – despite the author being a proponent of the Turkification (and simplification) of the Ottoman language16 – is far from being a plain language.17 Compared with Rıza Nur’s memoirs, which “hardly needed ‘Turkification’ or ‘simplification’,”18 the Vienna letters are full of Persian and, to a greater extent, Arabic terms.19 12

Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, 4 vols. (Istanbul: Altındağ Yayınevi, 1967, reprint Frankfurt a. M.: K.G. Lohse, without year). For a later publication, see Hayat ve Hatıratım. Rıza Nur Kendini Anlatıyor, ed. Rıza Nur (Abdurrahman Dilipak, Istanbul: İşaret, 1992). 13 For a list of Rıza Nur’s published and unpublished works, see Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 43. 14 Flemming mistakenly dates the letters to 1908, by referring to 1326 as a Hijri date. Barbara Flemming, “Turkish Manuscripts in the Staatsbibliothek,” in Barbara Flemming, Essays on Turkish Literature and History (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018. This article was first published in 1965), 35–46, 44; Barbara Flemming, Türkische Handschriften (= VOHD, vol. XIII, 1) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1968), 171. 15 Zakir Avşar does refer to this trip, but only by quoting the relevant passages from Rıza Nur’s memoirs. Zakir Avşar, Her zaman, Her şeye, Herkese Muhalif. Bir Türkçü’nün Portresi Dr. Rıza Nur (Istanbul: Bengi Yayınları, 2011, first published 1992), 89. 16 See Flemming, Türkische Handschriften, 174–75. 17 Christine Woodhead, “Ottoman languages,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London, New York: Routledge, 2012), 143–59. 18 Barbara Flemming, “Turkish Manuscripts,” 43. 19 However, Rıza Nur, in his last letter, discusses the need to simplify the Turkish language by purging all Arabic and Persian words and argues: “This century is the century of simplicity,

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However, this contribution will focus less on the linguistic aspects of the letters and will address Rıza Nur as a tourist against his will, together with his description of the city of Vienna, its inhabitants, and their preference for and appreciation of coffee and coffee houses. 1

Who Was Rıza Nur Afraid of?20 Some Biographical Information

Rıza Nur was born in Sinop, in 1879, into a conservative Muslim family. He graduated from the military medical school and worked as a doctor and teacher at the Faculty of Medicine in Istanbul until 1908, when he decided to pursue a political career. Until then he had been widely publishing on medical topics, both for an academic readership and the wider public.21 After the restoration of the constitution in 1908, he was elected to the parliament at the age of 29 and became its youngest member. Being supportive of the İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (The Committee of Union and Progress, CUP), he soon joined the opposition liberal party (Osmanlı Ahrar Fırkası – Ottoman Liberal Party, September 1908–April 1909). Accused of playing a role in the 31 March Incident – the conservative countercoup of 1909 – he flew to Egypt but returned shortly afterwards. He had started to publish harsh criticism against the CUP in the local press and was put under severe pressure by its leading members. In his memoirs he reports an incident with Mehmed Talât (Talât Pasha)22 who, after reading one of his articles, said to him “Kefenini hazırla” (prepare your shroud).23 Because of several (open) warnings that he would be killed, Rıza Nur arranged a bodyguard and eventually always carried a gun (rovelver) with [therefore] everything must be simplified”. Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları  – Ansiḳlopedi (muḥīṭü’l-maʿārif)”, Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 9, 74–75. 20 This title refers to Hülya Adak’s article on Rıza Nur, “Who is afraid of Dr. Riza Nur’s Autobiography?,” in Autobiographical Themes in Turkish Literature: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, eds. Olcay Akyıldız, Halim Kara and Börte Sagaster (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2016), 125–41. 21 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 43–47. For the works he wrote during his exile (1913–1919), Rıza Nur provides information on the places they were written. See Doḳtor Rıżā Nūr, Ġurbet daġarcıġı (Ḳāhire: Maṭbaʿa-i Hindiyye, 1919), 4–8. 22 Hans-Lukas Kieser, Talaat Pasha. Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide (Prince­ ton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018). 23 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 282–84, 286–88 and vol. 2, 289, and also 338–40. On the conflicts and disputes between the CUP and the opposition, see Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 165–68. On the Young Turk Revolution, see The Young Turk Revolution and the Ottoman Empire. The Aftermath of 1908, eds. Noémi Lévy-Aksu and François Georgeon (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017).

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him.24 The pressure grew as he continued to severely criticise the CUP government, and on 19 July 1910 – notwithstanding his status as a parliamentary deputy – he and other opposition figures were imprisoned for several months, accused of establishing a secret committee (cemʿiyyet-i ḫafiyye) to conspire against the CUP government.25 News of his arrest spread throughout Europe and was reported in the newspapers just a few days later.26 On 20 September 1910, Rıza Nur was released with 25 other arrested defendants for lack of evidence. Yet, on the same day, he was rearrested on the basis of allegedly new evidence. On 4 October, all members of the secret committee still imprisoned were released by the martial court due to the Ramadan feast – except Rıza Nur.27 On 20 October 1910, the daily La Constitution reported that the trial of Rıza Nur was still ongoing, but that a verdict could be expected in the next few days, because “aucune [autre] prevue sérieuse n’existe contre Riza Nour bey qui sera mis en liberté, ces jours-ci.”28 Two days later, he was released from prison.29 In December, the opposition in the Ottoman parliament tried to set up a parliamentary investigation committee for an inquiry into the arrest of deputies and allegations of torture. A deputy even presented whips and sticks that

24 25

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28 29

Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 286. Feroz Ahmad, “Riā̊ḍā Nūr.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (online), and François Georgeon, “Religion, politics and society in the wake of the Young Turk Revolution: The ‘Ramadan Freedom’ in Istanbul,” in The Young Turk Revolution, eds. Lévy-Aksu and Georgeon, 177–95, here 186. The memoirs of the only female defendant also provide interesting information about the secret committee and the trial: A. Filiz Evcimen Salıcı, ed., 1910 Cemiyet-i Hafiye Davasının Tek Kadın Sanığı Şahende Hanım’ın Sûzişli Hatıraları (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2016). See, for instance, “Un comité secret en Turquie,” Le Figaro (21 Julliet 1910), 2; “La JeuneTurquie sévit contre ses adversaires,” Le Petit Parisien (21 Julliet 1910), 3; “Le cas du député Riza Nour,” Le Pays (12 Août 1910), 2; “Ausland, Geheimkomitee,” Agramer Zeitung (21. Juli 1910), 3; “Das Geheimcomité,” Arbeiter-Zeitung (21. Juli 1910), 4; “Der türkische Geheimbund”, Prager Abendblatt (21. Juli 1910), 2; “Der türkische Geheimbund,” Die Zeit (21. Juli 1910), front page. See also 1910 Cemiyet-i Hafiye, 168, and on Ottoman reporting, 175–89. “Alle verhafteten Mitglieder des reaktionären Geheimbundes, ausgenommen Abgeordneter Dr. Riza Nur, wurden vom Kriegsgericht anläßlich des Beiramfestes freigelassen,” “Freilassung der Mitglieder des reaktionären türkischen Geheimbundes,” Neue Freie Presse (5. Oktober 1910, Nr. 165166), 5. See also La Rédaction, “Réponse à une accusation,” Mècheroutiette 11 (1. Octobre 1910), 15–18. “Le comité secret,” La Constitution (20 Octobre 1910), 2. “Riza Nour bey,” La Turquie (24 Octobre 1910), front page. In Rıza Nur’s book on the issue, the given date is “12 Teşrīn-i evvel [1326]” (25 October 1910). See Doḳtor Rıżā Nūr, Cemʿiyyet-i ḫafiyye (Dersaʿādet: Selānik maṭbaʿası, 1330/1919), 251. In 1910 Cemiyet-i Hafiye Davasının Tek Kadın Sanığı, 173 (footnote 67) the release date is 21 October 1910.

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had been used to torture30 those arrested, but they lost the vote.31 The CUP members had previously decided at a meeting to reject the parliamentary inquiry initiated by the opposition, which indicates that the government was unable or unwilling to act independently of the CUP leaders. The opposition press called them a “Triple Comité Union et Progrès (occulte, parti parlementaire et gouvernement).”32 Rıza Nur held the leading members of the CUP  – Talât, but especially Dr. Mehmed Nâzım and Dr. Bahaeddin Şakir, the “masterminds of the Young Turk Revolution”33 – responsible for his imprisonment.34 Although he was badly affected by his stay in prison, he apparently still attended parliamentary sessions at end of December.35 Yet, he must have felt the need to recover: After the prison stay, I felt dazed […] This stay in prison cost me heavily in every respect. My health suffered damage. In particular, I had become forgetful and dazed. I went to Vienna for a change of place (tebdīl-i havā) (in order to recover).36

30

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32 33 34 35

36

In detail, see Rıżā Nūr, Cemʿiyyet-i ḫafiyye. The tortures were also described in detail during chamber sessions. See Chérif [Pacha], “La Débâcle,” Mécheroutiette 14 (Janvier 1911), 2–6, and “Türkische Kammerdebatte über angebliche Mißhandlung verhafteter Abgeordneter,” Neue Freie Presse (1. Januar 1911), 3; “Die Differenzen im jungtürkischen Komitee,” Freie Neue Presse (4 Januar 1911), 2; also “L’enquête parlementaire,” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 15–17. “Türkische Kammerdebatte,” 3; “Die Kammerdebatte über das Exposé des Großwesirs,” Neues Wiener Journal (9 Dezember 1910), 12; “La politique du gouvernement. La quatrième journée des débats. Le discours du Grand-vézir,” La Turquie (9 Décembre 1910), front page; R. Gyne, “L’affaire Riza Nour,” La Turquie (31 Décembre 1910), front page. “Türkei – Jungtürkische Parteikonferenz (29. Dezember),” Wiener Zeitung (30. Dezember 1910), 14, and “Le dilemme Turc,” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 43–50, here 49. Kieser, Talaat Pacha, 55. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 2, 339–40. According this report, Rıza Nur was attending the chamber debate end of december: “Der oppositionelle Abgeordnete Riza Nur begründete den Antrag mit dem Hinweis auf Mißhandlungen einzelner wegen Teilnahme an dem Geheimcomitee ‘Islahat’ Verhafteten und warf der Regierung eine Verletzung der Verfassung vor […] Unter allgemeiner Aufmerksamkeit erklärte der Abgeordnete Riza Nur, das Geschehene müßte vergessen werden und betonte die Notwendigkeit der Abänderung der auf die Verhaftung von Deputierten bezüglichen Artikel der Verfassung.”, “Türkische Kammerdebatte über angebliche Mißhandlung verhafteter Abgeordneter (Konstantinopel, 31. Dezember),” Neue Freie Presse (1. Januar 1911), 8. “Hapishaneden çıkınca sersem gibi idim […] Bu hapislik bana her cihetle pek pahalıya oturmuştu. Sıhhatim rahnedar olmuştu. Bilhassa unutkan ve sersem olmuştum. Viyana‌’ya tebdīl[-i] havaya gittim.” Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 2, 340.

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Rıza Nur’s Travel to Vienna and the Viennese Letters’ Journey to the Berlin State Library

When exactly Rıza Nur left for Vienna, and how long he stayed there, remains unclear. The year 1326 (1910/1911) is the only direct reference in his Viennese letters. Nor does he mention any date concerning his journey and stay in his memoirs.37 As already noted, he had attended the chamber meeting on 30 December 1910, which indicates that he could have only begun his journey to Vienna in January 1911. In a report on an Ottoman chamber meeting, presumably early in January 1911, it is mentioned that Rıza Nur, due to his stay in prison, “devenu sourd au cours des son imprisonnement, est maintenant en traitment à Vienne”.38 This is confirmed in the introduction to his book Cemʿiyyet-i ḫafiyye, which is dated “Viyana, Ḳānun-i s̱ānī [1]326.”39 Presumably, he had already started to write this book about the events that led to his imprisonment and the torture he had to endure during his stay in Vienna. If we assume that he finished his introduction on the first day of Ḳānun-i s̱ānī 1326, this would correspond to 14 January 1911. In his fifth letter, Rıza Nur mentions that he received the news of the Bāb-ı ʿĀlī (Sublime Porte) fire while visiting some Viennese museums.40 This fire took place on 6 February 1911.41 He probably informed himself about the extent of the damage through Ottoman newspapers (“gelen ġazetelerden öğrendim”), although the fire was also reported in the Viennese press.42 Going on this evidence, we can narrow down his stay in Vienna to the period between early January and at least February 1911. During his stay in Vienna, he was accompanied by a translator from Istanbul who had a knowledge of German.43 It seems that it was no secret that Rıza Nur travelled to Vienna. Although he was reported on quite frequently during this period, including in Austrian newspapers, his visit apparently attracted no media attention. The reason was that he was travelling privately, rather than in an official capacity as a member of parliament. 37 38 39 40 41 42

43

Ibid., 340–41. “L’enquête parlamentaire,” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 17. Rıżā Nūr, Cem‛iyyet-i ḫafiyye, 14. Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Bizde müzeler,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 5, 30. Uğur Tanyeli, “Mimari.” (Bâbıâli), Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı ve Tarih Vakfı, 1993), 523. Rıza Nur took German lessons before 1908, but was unable to deepen his knowledge, which he regretted as, according him, excellent literature in German existed in all areas of science. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 161–62. See for instance, “Brand des Pfortengebäudes in Konstantinopel,” Wiener Zeitung (6. Februar 1911), 2 or “Brand der Hohen Pforte in Konstantinopel,” Neues Wiener Tagblatt (6. Februar 1911), 3. Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 67.

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Since these letters had never been published and at the time were only mentioned in Rıza Nur’s will,44 together with his other published and unpublished works, they remained unnoticed for almost 30 years. His contentious nature and at times fundamental oppositional stance probably played a role in this. Rıza Nur, who was a member of parliament after his return from Vienna, was a founding member of another opposition party, the Ḥürriyet ve İʾtilāf (Freedom and Accord Party, 1911).45 After the coup d’état of the CUP leaders Talât, Cemal and Enver, in January 1913, the party was forbidden and Rıza Nur was rearrested and finally exiled.46 He lived in Switzerland, France (where he married)47 and Egypt, before returning to Istanbul after the armistice in October 1918, and was again elected as a member of the Ottoman parliament for Sinop. In 1920 he joined the Nationalist Movement under Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), serving the movement as Minister of Education (1920–1921) and Minister of Health (1921–1923), and as a representative of the Ankara government in the negotiations with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine (1921). And most notably, after he was elected as member of the new parliament in Ankara, he was sent with İsmet İnönü as a representative to the Lausanne Conference (1922–1923). Soon he came into conflict with Mustafa Kemal and again left Turkey “to go into self-imposed exile in France.”48 Between 1926 and 1933 he lived in Paris, where he also wrote his memoirs, and then moved to Alexandria, writing on topics such as literature and history. After the death of Atatürk, he returned to Turkey in 1939, where he published journals such as Türk Bilig Revüsü/Revue de Turcologie and the weekly Tanrıdağ. He died in 1942. Andrew Mango characterises him as “A man of violent passions, and a racist nationalist, he is remembered as one of Atatürk’s main detractors.”49 Because of this enmity towards Atatürk and İsmet İnönü, Rıza Nur decreed in his will that if both were still alive after his death, he would be buried in Alexandria instead of Sinop.50 He had copies of his works made in Alexandria in 1935 and offered them, with manuscript copies of his memoirs, to libraries in Germany (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin), Great Britain (British Museum, London), France (Bibliothèque National, Paris) and the Netherlands (University library, 44

The letters were listed with other (un-)published works he had intended for the library in Sinop. In the draft of his will that is part of the Berlin volume, the letters are not listed. “Sinobda Rıżā Nūr kütübḫānesi”, Ms. or. quart 2005/9, 72/646. 45 “Die Partei der liberalen Entente,” Das Vaterland (23. November 1911), 4. 46 On his exile and works during the years 1913 and 1918, see Rıżā Nūr, Ġurbet daġarcıġı. 47 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 282 and vol. 2, 418–25. 48 Adak, “Who is afraid of,” 128. 49 Andrew Mango, Atatürk (London: John Murray, 1999), 553. 50 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 41. His grave is located in Istanbul (Merkezefendi Cemetery).

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Leiden),51 on the condition “that the manuscripts were not to be made available to readers until 1960”.52 Cavit Orhan Tütengil was the first to discover (by chance) the manuscripts in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, in 1963.53 Two years later, for the first time, Barbara Flemming reported on the volumes from the pen of Rıza Nur, which had been acquired by the Staatsbibliothek Berlin 1934/1935, and described them in the volume on Turkish Manuscripts of the Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD, vol. XXII, 1), published in 1968.54 3

Mektūb or maḳāle? Some Features of the Letters

At first glance, the term “mektūb” appears a little misleading, as the letters clearly resemble short articles that Rıza Nur most likely intended to publish. By noting, at the end of his ninth letter, “Bu maḳāleler 9 dāne idi. Bir dānesi ġayb olmuşdur,”55 the author makes it clear that he deliberately chose the epistolary form without addressing a specific person. This was quite a popular choice for writers of travel accounts,56 the most famous examples including the “Letters from Turkey” by Ogier Ghislin de Busbecq (1522–1592), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) and Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891). The Ottoman traveller Halit Ziya [Uşaklıgil] also used the “Letters from …” form to describe his travel to Germany in 1915, in his “Almanya Mektubları”.57 To my knowledge, the journalist Mahmud Sadık, who visited Vienna in January 1917, on behalf of the journal S̱ervet-i Fünūn (and “Le Soir”? ‫)�لو��سوا ر‬, is the only author who, like Rıza Nur, titled the series of articles “Viyana mektūbları.”58 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Barbara Flemming, “Turkish Manuscripts,” 45–46. Cavit Orhan Tütengil, Doktor Rıza Nur üzerine üç yazı – yankılar – belgeler (Ankara: Güven Matbaası, 1965), 41, 45. Tütengil, Doktor Rıza, 14. On Tütengil, see Flemming, “Turkish Manuscripts,” 42–43. Flemming, “Turkish Manuscripts,” 35 and Flemming, Türkische Handschriften, 170–77. “Viyana mektūbları,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, 83 pages. At the end of the second letter, he adds “the third letter is lost”. Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Her şeyimizde bir ḫuṣuṣiyyet-i milliyye olsun,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 19. Zoë Kinsley, “Travelogues, Diaries, Letters,” in The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, eds. Nandini Das and Tim Youngs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 408–22. For other and later examples of travelogues entitled “…  mektūbları”, see Leyla von Mende, “Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan”. Impressionen osmanischer und türkischer Südosteuropa-Reisender (1890–1940) (Baden-Baden: Ergon Verlag, 2021), 401–28. In total, this is the third time he visited Vienna, after 1884 and 1912. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana mektūbları. Bir naẓar-ı ʿumūmī,” S̱ervet-i Fünūn, 1333 (29 Kānūn-i evvel 1332), 79–82. The other articles were published later: “Viyana ve vals,” 1334 (12 Kānūn-i s̱ānī 1332), 91–94, “Şehremāneti ve güzel Viyana,” 1336 (26 Kānūn-i s̱ānī 1332), 128–30, “Viyana

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Rıza Nur’s eight letters consist of 83 numbered pages and are written in a legible rıḳʿa script with black ink.59 With reference to Adam Gacek, we may classify the text as a holograph, that is, “a work written entirely by its author […] in the form of either a draft or fair copy.”60 As the author himself also refers to the letters as drafts (“eserlerimin müsveddeleri”61), and no other copies exist, we can conclude that they were not copied by someone else.62 The draft character is confirmed by certain characteristic features of drafts, such as cancellations/deletions, additions and corrections.63 Each letter has the heading “Viyana mektūbları” and a thematic title, and is numbered. Its length varies between 7 and 15 pages, with most letters being 10 pages long. Three stars are used as markings in each letter to separate paragraphs, as in printed books or manuscripts. The content and form indicate that the texts were designed for a series of articles in a newspaper or magazine, some including footnotes and the insertion of terms written in Roman script, such as “sui generi” [sic], “Tribune,” “Louvre,” “Ringstrasse,” “Solidarité,” “Handels Krankhus” [sic], “Melange,” “Nuss,” “grappen” [sic] (Krapfen) “Milieu,” “Methode rationelle,” “logique”.64 All the letters end with the name of the author “Doḳtor Rıżā Nūr,” as well as the location, Vienna. Thus, in conception, they resemble other travel letters published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.65 Some of them, such as Cenap Şahabettin’s ve moda,” 1337 (9 Şubāṭ 1332), 145–49, “Viyana ve ḳahveḫāneleri,” 1339 (15 Mārt 1333), 176–79, “Viyana ticāret oṭası  – Avusturya ticāret oṭaları,” 1343 (12 Nisān 1333), 260–63, “Bāzār-ı Leẕīẕīyāt,” 1345 (26 Nisān 1333), 296–98, “Viyana: Ḫıṭṭa-i Raḥm ve şefḳat,” 1347 (10 Māyıs 1333), 343–45, “Viyana: Meded ve şefḳat yurdı,” 1349 (24 Māyıs 1333), 384–87, “Imparatoruñ Ḫāṭırası -Ḫastaḫāne,” 1351 (7 Ḥazīrān 1333), 430–33. On Mahmud Sadık, who was a close friend of Ahmed İhsan, see Ahmet A. Ersoy, “Ottoman and the Kodak Galaxy: Archiving everyday life and historical space in Ottoman illustrated journals,” History of Photography 40,3 (2016): 330–57. 59 For a detailed description, see Flemming, Türkische Handschriften, 170. 60 Adam Gacek, “Arabic Holographs: Characteristics and Terminology,” In the Author’s Hand. Holograph and Autorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition, eds. Frédéric Bauden and Élise Franssen (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020), 55–77, here 55–56. 61 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 1, 39. 62 Flemming describes the whole volume as “Unika.” Flemming, Türkische Handschriften, XI. 63 Gacek, “Arabic Holographs,” 56. For examples see “Viyana mektūbları,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, 15/62, 20/67, 21/68, 23/70, 42/89, 57/104, 73/119, 84/130. 64 See, for instance letter, 1, 6 or 8. For the terms written, see “Viyana mektūbları,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, 11, 22, 31, 40, 48, 60, 61, 82, 83. 65 To name just a few examples: Ahmed Rasim, “Bulġāristān Mektūbları,” published in İstişare (1908); Ahmed Emin’s [Yalman] “Bükreş Mektūbları,” published in Ṭanīn (1915); Halit Ziya [Uşaklıgil] “Almanya Mektūbları,” published in Ṭanīn (1915); Ali Topçiyef, “Arnavudluḳ Mektūbları,” published in Ḥakimiyyet-i Milliye (1926); Ahmed İhsan, “Cenevre Seyahatı. Birinci Mektup,” published in Resimli Uyanış/Servetifünun in 1932.

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Table 30.1 “Viyana mektūbları” and their subheadings

Letter

Subheading

pages

Translation

1 2

Viyana bize bir ḫazīne Her şeyimizde bir ḫuṣuṣiyyet-i milliyye olsun

1–9 10–19

3 4

? Viyana‌’da Rāʾiḫsrāt

lost 20–29

5 6 7 8 9

Bizde müzeler İstanbul’un i‛mārı Viyana‌’da müʾessesāt-ı ṭıbbiye Viyana ve Viyanalılar Ansiḳlopedi (muḥīṭü’l-ma‛ārif )

30–36 37–46 47–56 57–71 72–83

Vienna is a treasure to us A national character should be inherent in everything we do/have ? The parliament (Reichsrat) of Vienna Our museums Istanbul’s building development Hospitals in Vienna Vienna and the Viennese Encyclopaedia

Source: Ms. or. quart 2005

Avrupa Mektupları and Ahmet Rasim’s Romanya Mektupları, were later republished as books.66 Compared to other Ottoman travelogues (whether in the form of serial publications or monographs) from the late 19th until the early 20th centuries, Rıza Nur’s letters contain one of the longest coherent descriptions of the city of Vienna.67 Nevertheless, as the titles indicate, most of the letters also deal with 66 Von Mende, “Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan,” 63–64, and 401–28. 67 Mahmud Sadık’s 10 letters from Vienna have each 2 to 5 pages. For other travelogues devoted to Vienna, of varying length and intensity, see for instance Ömer Faiz Efendi, Sultan Abdülaziz’in Avrupa Seyahatı (Istanbul: Boğaziçi Yay., 1991). The historian Hayrullah Efendi devotes around 16 pages to the description of his Vienna stay. Ercüment Kuran, “Osmanlı aydını Hayrullah Efendi’nin Viyana seyahatları (1862–1864),” Türk Kültürü Araştırmaları 34,1–2 (1996) (Dr. Orhan F. Köprülü’ye Armağan, publ. 1998): 95–99. See also Hayrullah Efendi, Avrupa Seyahatnamesi (translated into modern Turkish by Belkıs Altuniş-Gürsoy) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 2002), 28–35. Ahmed Midhat, as his onward journey was delayed, involuntarily spent two full days and nights in Vienna and still devoted 61 pages to it: Avrupa‌’da bir cevelān (Istanbul: Tercüman-ı Hakikat Matbaası, 1307/1890), 968–1029. Ahmed İhsan [Tokgöz], who also spent two full days in Vienna on his trip to Europe, described the city in about 10 pages: Avrupa‌’da ne gördüm? (Istanbul: Âlem Matbaası, 1307/1890), 550–64; Fağfurizade Hüseyin Nesimi, who spent three days in Vienna, only needed four pages for his description: Seyahat (Hanya: Yusuf Kenan Matbaası, 1320/1904), 41–45; Süleyman Şükrü: Seyahatü’l-kübrā (Petersburg: 1325/1907), 216–18. Finally, Halit Ziya [Uşaklıgil] devoted in his serial articles published in the

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issues that relate to the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul particularly, but they do so in comparison and reference to Vienna. 4

“Vienna Is a Very Beautiful City.”68 Rıza Nur Strolling through Vienna

In his letters, Rıza Nur rarely gives private information or expresses how he felt in Vienna. Therefore, it is helpful to consult his memoirs, which allow an insight into his general condition and mood in Vienna. His stay in prison exhausted him physically and mentally. He expected the change of location to improve his health in general. He sought medical treatment in Vienna where, in his opinion, there were the best medical facilities, and to which he devoted one of his letters.69 He hoped to get some rest and that his ear would heal. He continues: Vienna is a beautiful city. It is surrounded by forests. I walked in these forests, stayed there. I felt refreshed. I visited Vienna’s institutions, museums, faculties and hospitals, library and the beauties (mehasini). I wrote about 10 articles about that. Unfortunately, I could not publish them. At present they are in my library in Sinop.70 As we know now, these texts were part of the bound manuscript that ended up in Berlin. Apparently, in Vienna he was able to relax for the first time in ages, as he writes: In Vienna it was the first time since the second constitutional era (1908) that I walked around without a revolver again. This is what I felt. It was newpaper Tanîn in 1915 several pages to Vienna (Almanya Mektupları, ed. Özgür İldeş (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2021)), like Abdülhak Hamid [Tarhan]: Abdülhak Hâmid’in Mektupları (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 1995). A certain (Eczacı) Edhem Ismail published in 1896 (27 August, 10 and 17 September) in the journal Müṭālaʿa three short articles under the title “Viyana‌’dan Mektub-ı Mahsus.” 68 “Viyana pek güzel bir şehirdir”. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 2, 341. 69 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana‌’da müessat-ı ṭıbbiye”, Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 7, 47–56. 70 “Viyana pek güzel bir şehirdir. Etrafı ormanlıktır. Bu ormanlarda dolaştım, durdum. Kendime geldim. Viyana‌’nın müsseselerini, müzelerini, fakülte ve hastahanelerini, kütüphane ve mehasini gezdim. Bulara dair on kadar makale yazdım. Maatteessüf neşredemedim. Elʾân Sinop’taki kütüphanemdedir”. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 2, 341.

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as if a weight had fallen off me, a pressure had disappeared. I felt again secure in life.71 If we recall what he had gone through – the period before he had been imprisoned, followed by his traumatic experiences in prison – it is easy to understand his relief in Vienna. The fact that it is only in the final letter (9) that Rıza Nur indicates he will be undergoing various medical treatments in Vienna suggests that the sequence of letters does not necessarily follow a chronology. The author gives no dates in his letters. Some do not deal with Vienna at all, or do so only marginally, and this is particularly true of letters 2, 5, 6 and 9, the headings of which indicate that the author is more preoccupied with the conditions in his homeland than with Vienna. He informed himself about the events there through the Ottoman press, which was obviously available in Vienna.72 The title of his first letter – “Vienna is a treasure for us” – already makes it clear that Vienna is not only a beautiful city, but is first and foremost an exemplary place where “we,” that is the Turks (Türkler), can learn a lot. Vienna, according to Rıza Nur, is for them much more important and relevant than Paris or Berlin (“Viyana bize … daha iyidir, daha lāzımdır”).73 The author is entirely in line with his predecessors, who in the last third of the 19th century – here, Ahmed Midhat and Ahmed İhsan are particularly noteworthy  – had already pointed out in their travelogues the necessity for orientation towards Europe/the West. Of course, depending on their political orientation, the travellers provided a more or less differentiated and critical perspective on European civilization. The recommendations for adaptation

71 “Meşrutiyetten beri ilk defa olarak işte Viyana‌’da rovelversiz gezdim. Bunu hissediyorum. Üstümden yük, bir sıkıntı kalkmış gibi idi. Hayat emniyeti duyuyordum”. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 2, 341. 72 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Bizde müzeler,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 5, 30. 73 The author (YK) will elaborate on this topic in his forthcoming article “‘Vienna is a Treasure to Us’: Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Role Models for the Late Ottoman Empire,” Comparative 32, 3/4 (2022): 395–411 (Special issue: The Ottoman Empire and the ‘Germansphere’ in the Age of Imperialism, edited by Elife Biçer-Deveci and Ulrich Brandenburg). On Ottoman intellectuals in Egypt who also thought that the Ottoman Empire should transform and reform itself, taking Austria-Hungary as an example see: Adam Mestyan, “A Muslim Dualism? Inter-Imperial History and Austria-Hungary in Ottoman Thought, 1867–1921,” Contemporary European History 30 (2021): 478–96, and Alp Yenen, “Evisioning Turco-Arab Co-Existence between Empire and Nationalism,” Die Welt des Islams 61 (2021): 72–112.

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were correspondingly far-reaching or narrow.74 The specific perspective of Rıza Nur in this regard will not be further discussed in the following.75 The aim is to outline the author’s view of the city that had a special place in Ottoman history.76 He is surprised by how many “Turkish” (instead of Ottoman) objects can be found in the museums, and the care with which the “Turkish” cultural heritage is preserved amazes him.77 In his fourth letter, the author strolls through the city centre and is delighted with the buildings, wide streets, statues, squares and beautiful gardens. However, he notes that the cold penetrating wind of Vienna interferes with his walks through the city. The area around the Hofburg theatre (Altes Burgtheater), the City Hall and the parks in front of it, and the university building make a strong impression on him.78 The “Ringstrasse” overwhelms him: “Actually, because of the splendour of these streets and magnificent buildings Vienna is superior to Paris.79 Accordingly, they call this city ‘the large constructed city’. Therefore, it ranks first”.80 But, the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) building seems to fascinate him the most. He considers it one of the most beautiful and worthy buildings of Vienna. Besides the detailed description of the building and its architecture, Rıza Nur gives insight into the members of the parliament and its peculiarities concerning the distribution of deputies (in total 516), as well as the party in government, which he describes as the Catholic Party (Ḳatolik fırḳası). This represents the population, the majority of which is Catholic. Apparently, he attended a session of parliament, which he describes in detail over almost four pages (24–28). The municipality was also controlled by the Catholics, who were famous for their anti-Semitism (“Yahūdī düşmanlıġı ile meşhūrdur”).81 Rıza Nur refers in particular to an unnamed mayor who, according to him, was in office 74 Asiltürk, “The image of Europe and European,” 40–46, and for Southeast Europe see von Mende, “Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan.” 75 His critical and Turkist positions – more in line with Ahmed Midhat than with Ahmed İhsan – are outlined in his second letter. “Her şeyimizde bir ḫuṣuṣiyyet-i milliyye olsun,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 2, 10–19. 76 For other travelogues with description of Vienna, see Asiltürk, Osmanlı Seyyahlarının Gözüyle, 141–48. 77 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana bize bir ḫazīne,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 1, 1–9. 78 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana‌’da Rāʾiḫsrāt,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 4, 20–29. 79 Most of the Ottoman travellers compared Paris with Vienna, mostly in favour of the city on the Danube. See Asiltürk, Osmanlı Seyyahlarının Gözüyle, 143–47. 80 “Ḥaḳiḳaten Viyana, bu soḳāḳlardaki güzellik ve muḫteşem binālar cihetiyle Paris’e fāʾiḳdir. Ḥatta bundan dolayı bu şehre mebānī-yi cesīme şehri daḫi diyorlar. Bu cihetle birinciligi ḳazanıyor.” Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – İstanbul’un iʿmārı,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 6, 41. 81 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana‌’da Rāʾiḫsrāt,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 4, 23.

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for about 15 years and shaped the cityscape with his urban infrastructural measures. He is referring to Karl Lueger (1844–1910) – an enthusiastic Catholic and anti-Semite – who was mayor of Vienna between 1897 and 1910 and who played an important role in Vienna’s development into a modern metropolis and a “garden city.”82 According to Rıza Nur, Karl Lueger is said to have initiated the urban development process: “Whoever constructs a building here will remain tax-free for 15 years.”83 Rıza Nur and Mahmud Sadık are fascinated by the beauty of the city’s public gardens.84 Rıza Nur considers the Türkenschanzpark (Türk istiḥkāmatı bāġçesi) particularly worthy of mention, and points out that the Ottomans had built a fortification at this location during the siege of 1683. And, he adds that the eaves of the coffee house built there are decorated with the star and crescent.85 Rıza Nur used a map to see the whole of Vienna, as he writes.86 The very first thing to attract the attention of visitors are the coffee houses, he writes in his letter entitled “Vienna and the Viennese” (letter 8). At every step, they will encounter one.87 He is not alone in this assessment. Other Ottoman visitors to the city, such as Hayrullah Efendi, Ahmed Midhat, Ahmed İhsan [Tokgöz], Halit Ziya [Uşaklıgil] and Cenap Şahabettin, frequently mention the coffee houses of Vienna, as well as the public gardens.88 Again, Mahmud Sadık must be singled out, as he devotes one of his letters to coffee and the coffee houses of Vienna. He agrees with Rıza Nur that in almost every street of Vienna there is at least one coffee house.89 Although there are also numerous coffee houses in Istanbul, they are by no means comparable to those in Vienna. According to Rıza Nur, even the modest ones are similar to the coffee house of the luxury hotel Tokatliyan.90 He starts his eighth letter with a quote from François-René de Chateaubriand’s (1768–1848) Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, in which the 82 https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Karl_Lueger (accessed on 6 March 2021). 83 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – İstanbul’un iʿmārı,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 6, 42. 84 Mahmud Sadık devotes one of his letters to the municipality and the gardens. He even quotes a speech by Lueger (Doḳtor Luʾeger) in his article. “Şehremāneti ve güzel Viyana”, 128–30. 85 He adds a footnote in which he states that, although there was a “Türkenstraße” in Vienna, he was unable to find anyone who could tell him the reason for this naming! Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – İstanbul’un iʿmārı,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 6, 42. 86 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – İstanbul’un iʿmārı,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 6, 40. 87 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 59–60. 88 Asiltürk, Osmanlı Seyyahlarının Gözüyle, 143–47. For Hayrulla Efendi, see also Hayrullah Efendi, Avrupa Seyahatnamesi, 30. 89 Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana ve kahvehaneleri,” 178. Hayrullah Efendi counts 1,000 restaurants and coffee houses. Avrupa Seyahatnamesi, 30. 90 Hayrullah effendi stresses the differences by pointing to grubby coffee houses in Istanbul. Hayrullah Efendi, Avrupa Seyahatnamesi, 30.

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author describes his impressions when he walked through Galata in the early 19th century. Apparently, Rıza Nur had grossly modified (even distorted) the passage in his Ottoman translation, in order to emphasise the strong contrast with what he then tells about Vienna and the Viennese. According to Rıza Nur’s version Chateaubriand depicts Galata as a crowded district with streets full of mud and its people dressed as if for carnival; the Muslims are only interested in buying, hanging around mosques the whole day, or spending their time in coffee houses chitchatting; they are lazy. This all may be hard to digest, he admits, but the truth is the truth, and one should learn from it.91 Certainly, these distortions were more a paratextual comment on the situation in Istanbul. Yet, there is at least one aspect shared by the inhabitants of Istanbul and Vienna: the coffee houses. Ironically, whereas Muslims spending time in coffee houses is proof of their laziness,92 the same practice is presented in a particularly positive light in the case of the Viennese.93 “The Viennese day and night spent their time in coffee houses. Those who come late won’t get a seat”.94 Most of the coffee houses have three areas: one for reading the daily papers and talking; one for playing billiards; and another for playing cards. Every coffee house offers around 30 local and international dailies: even Parisian coffee houses would not offer this much variety, the author stresses.95 The most popular coffee is of course the “Melange,” also called “Viennese coffee,” world famous and served only in Vienna. It is so delicious 91

The author has no reference, but mentions an article (maḳāle) that he remembered again while writing. It is most likely a passage from [François-René] M. de Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris (Paris: Bernardin-Béchet, 1859, first ed. 1811), 193–94. 92 On laziness in the late Ottoman empire see: see Meliz Hafez, Inventing Laziness. The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). 93 In 1781, the German author Friedrich Nicolai visited Vienna and described the coffee houses as places of leisure and the Viennese as idlers. Friedrich Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz, im Jahre 1781 (Berlin und Stettin: [Friedrich Nicolai], 1785), vol. 5, 235–37. 94 Mahmud Sadık also points to the importance of coffee houses as places of communication. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana ve ḳahveḫāneleri,” 177. In the application form for recognition as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, one reads that the “Viennese coffee house is considered a mecca of communication”. https://www.unesco.at/kultur/immateriel les-kulturerbe/oesterreichisches-verzeichnis/detail/article/wiener-kaffeehauskultur (accessed on 7 March 2021). On the coffeehouse culture of Vienna, see Ludwig Hirschfeld’s travel guide from the late 1920s, “Kaffeehauskultur,” in Wien (Wien: Milena, 2020, first ed. 1927), 35–49. 95 See also Mahmud Sadık, who mentions that some of the coffee houses provided small libraries. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana ve ḳahveḫāneleri,” 176–78.

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that one can’t get enough: “the pleasure of this coffee is similarly overflowing [like the foamed milk].”96 He specifies the price per cup at 54 Heller (equates 90 para), and in the poorer districts of the city (including the 20th district), it is offered for 20 to 25 Heller. A basket of bread is also served. In another letter, he points to a strange custom (bir ġarīb bir ʿādetdir) connected with drinking coffee: the waiter (“Keller” [sic] “yaġānī ġārson”) would always bring two glasses of water, which are replaced with fresh glasses after a while, regardless of whether you have drunk from them or not. Most probably, he was unaware (like Mahmud Sadık)97 that one of the glasses was intended for cleaning the coffee spoon and not necessarily for drinking.98 Coffee houses did not offer alcoholic beverages (“meşrubāt-ı küʾūliyye”),99 but in any case, the Viennese were not fond of drinking alcohol (excessively) – they would take some beer or wine with dinner. But mostly, they prefer to drink milk, milk-based drinks and a lot of water, which is famous for its quality. Of course, as elsewhere, members of the lower classes, especially the worker (mob), would be drunk because: Workers and coachman, whose noses are as purple as eggplants from drinking, are not rarely encountered. However, one must excuse these poor people. They are forced to drink alcohol because of the harshness of their existence, the exhaustion caused by the hardest work, the psychological torture of constant existential worries; but also, in order to find their strength, even if temporary, which is already running out in the morning, to forget their worries and thoughts, even if for a fleeting moment.100 96 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 60. 97 Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana ve kahvehaneleri,” 179. 98 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 62. In the late 1920s, the waiter would still bring two glasses of water. Hirschfeld, Wien, 41. 99 Mahmud Sadık also mentioned that – apart from light and sweet liqueurs – alcohol was not served in the coffee houses. He also states that only workers would visit locations where they would offer alcohol. He suspected that people visited these places less for the alcohol than for the cheap food. “To put it bluntly, I saw neither a drunk nor a tavern.” Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ, “Viyana ve kahvehaneleri,” 179. We learn from Ludwig Hirschfeld that in the late 1920s, some coffee houses started to serve beer. “Kaffeehauskultur,” 43. 100 “Burnu içkiden pāṭlıcān gibi mosmor olmuş ‛amele ve arābacılara teṣādüf nādir deġildir. Bu zavāllıları ma‛zūr görmeye mecbūruz. Müdhiş bir derd-i ma‛işetle en aġır işlerde çalışaraḳ bī-tāb düşenler, kederden dimāġını ḳurtaramayanlar o yorġunluġu giderüb ṣabaḥdan beri artıḳ bitmiş olan ḳuvvetiniñ yerine muvaḳḳat olsun biraz ḳuvvet almaḳ, o derdleri, düşün­ celeri bir müddet-i muvaḳḳate için olsun unutmaḳ için onu içmeġe kendilerini mecbūr görüyorlar.” Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 63.

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The author does not delve further into this topic. He prefers to devote himself to the enjoyable aspects of Vienna. He is particularly enthusiastic about the bread, which he describes as extremely tasty and unique in the world, the confectionery, and especially the pastries. These are in different shapes, but mostly in the shape of a half-moon, “our sacred national shape” (“bizim muḳaddes şekl-i millīmiz”) and are crispy and buttered, sweet or salty. Some of them are filled with raisins, others with nuts. And, another appetizing sweet called “grappen” (that is “Krapfen” – doughnuts), would only be sold at carnival.101 On the other hand, Vienna offers other sweet temptations. Confectioners such as “Demel” and “Gerstner” are presented as famous institutions. Because of all the culinary delights, the city should not only be called the city of “great buildings”: it also deserves to be called the “city of fine food” (“aġdiye-i laṭife şehri”).102 The veal is of an indescribable quality. It is not meat: it is almost like milk, declares Rıza Nur with rapture. The cutting into various pieces is done by professional female butchers, our author reports. In the morning, the Viennese have a “früştük” consisting of coffee with milk, bread and butter. Lunch consists mainly of a soup, salad and meat, followed by a dessert. Since the Viennese are passionate theatre and music lovers, and performances start at 7.00 PM, they attend them without having their evening meal. Afterwards, around 10.30 or 11.00 PM, the visitors all flock to the restaurants and pubs.103 The bodies of the Viennese are “fleshy and robust”; their cheeks are red as beet. At first, Rıza Nur attributes their constitution to the cold, but soon rejects this idea, instead tracing it back to exercise, work and milk, as well and to the water of Vienna, which is famous for its high quality. Because of the health of the Viennese and the dazzling beauty (ḥüsn-i mirʾātı) of the women, the city should also be called the “city of health and beauty” (ṣiḥḥat ve ḥüsn şehri). However, the author states that Viennese women are virtually addicted to sweets and it is they who fill the famous confectionaries. He adds that the dental surgeries, which can be found on every street, are also visited only by women, just as at home. Since they eat so much sugar, their pearly teeth start to rot – “let’s go to the dentist,” where their teeth receive gold or platinum crowns. As Rıza Nur continues, many women are left without a husband, referring to the latest statistics which show that Vienna, like Paris, is threatened by a serious decrease in its population (tenāḳuṣ-ı nüfūs).104

101 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 61. 102 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 65. 103 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 65–66. On this, see also Ludwig Hirschfeld, “Kaffeehauskultur,” 43. 104 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana ve Viyanalılar,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 8, 67.

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Yet, the most devastating diminution was still to come. Rıza Nur visited Vienna once again in the 1920s, to have his morphine-addicted wife treated.105 He was shocked to see how the First World War had affected the city. The consequences of the First World War had massively changed the city. In Mahmud Sadık’s letters from the war year of 1917, this is not so evident. However, Ludwig Hirschfeld’s text from the same year gives a good impression of how hardship came to the city with the war. In his short article “Der letzte Kaffee” (The Last Coffee), he describes how coffee is being adulterated with various surrogates (barley, caramel sugar, chicory) and how this hurts the Viennese. For them “coffee is not a food but a matter of the mind.”106 According to Hirschfeld, the restrictive visiting hours were a great burden: “Vienna without coffee: you can’t imagine it. The same way the Kahlenberg could just be razed or a decree could appear that Viennese women and girls must not weigh more than 45 kilos.”107 Before the First World War, Viennese women were famous for their beauty, Rıza Nur reminds us again in his memoirs.108 Once they were regarded as the most beautiful women in the world: “Tall, fleshy, milky and smooth skin, cheeks like spring or like an apple. Wonderful blue eyes, blond hair; so beautiful they used to be. Now, they have gone. Weak, pale skin women. Those red cheeks are ruined.”109 The war, poverty and suffering are the reasons for this, the Viennese tell him.110 5

In Lieu of Conclusion: “Vienna Is Dead” – In Search of the Lost Vienna

Rıza Nur’s Vienna from 1911 has become part of what Hirschfeld called the “Museum of memories” (“Museum der Erinnerungen”), a distant memory. His 105 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 3, 1338–39. 106 Ludwig Hirschfeld, “Der letzte Kaffee. Wiener Elegie,” Neue Freie Presse (27 May 1917), in Ludwig Hirschfeld, Wien in Moll. Ausgewählte Feuilletons 1907–1937, ed. Peter Payer (Wien: Löcker, 2020), 114–17. 107 “Wien ohne Kaffee: man kann es sich gar nicht vorstellen. Ebensogut könnte der Kahlenberg abgetragen werden oder eine Verordnung erscheinen, daß die Wiener Frauen und Mädchen nicht mehr als 45 Kilo wiegen dürfen.”, Hirschfeld, “Der Letzte Kaffee,” 117. 108 On gender aspects in Rıza Nur’s memoirs see Adak, “Who is afraid of”. 109 “Uzun boyu, balık eti, süt beyaz ve pürüzsüz bir deri, bir bahar gibi veya elma gibi al al yanaklar. Güzel mavi göz, sari scalar … Böyle güzellerdi. Baktım, böyle kadın yok. Cılız, benzi soluk kadınlar. O kırmzı yanaklar mahvolmuş.” Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 4, 1339. 110 Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 4, 1338–39. After his visit to Russia in 1921, he revised his opinion that the most beautiful women in the world were Viennese. Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 3, 813.

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“Viyana mektūbları” were to be published, but this was never realized. Except for a few mentions, these letters were never edited. The intention of this article was to draw attention to the letters and their context of origin, and to focus on Rıza Nur’s journey and its background, which has rarely been considered before. Furthermore, the aim of this article was to demonstrate how Rıza Nur depicted the city and its inhabitants. Not all of the surviving letters deal with Vienna; rather, they discuss the socio-political situation in Istanbul around 1911. The institutions and people Rıza Nur visited in Vienna show that his choices were motivated by his interests, such as politics, medicine, culture and science. As a politician, physician, author and Turcologist, he was interested in relevant institutions, such as the university and libraries in Vienna. He apparently maintained his contacts with the court librarian Friedrich Johannn Kraelitz von Greifenhorst (1876–1932), whom he visited for the first time in 1911.111 Kraelitz von Greifenhorst became the first professor of Turkology at the University of Vienna in 1923.112 In his memoirs, Rıza Nur mentions that, during his later visit to Vienna, he not only met Kraelitz von Greifenhorst again but also Halide Edib and Adnan Adıvar. According to Erika Glassen, Adıvar went to Vienna in 1925 to visit his wife Halide Edib, who was there for a treatment. Since Rıza Nur gives no dates in his memoirs concerning his trip, we may assume that he was there in 1925.113 Looking back from 1925 to his first visit, he says:114 111 Rıżā Nūr, “Viyana mektūbları – Viyana bize bir ḫazīne,” Ms. or. quart 2005/2, letter 1, 5. 112 Before he became the first full professor of Turkish, a position he held until 1932, Kraelitz von Greifenhorst has been teaching at the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He may be considered the founder of Ottoman Turkish diplomatics. It should not go unmentioned, however, that he was part of a well-organized anti-Semitic network at the University of Vienna in the interwar period that drove Jewish and leftist researchers out of the university. Klaus Taschwer, “Geheimsache Bärenhöhle. Wie eine antisemitische Professorenclique nach 1918 an der Universität Wien jüdische Forscherinnen und Forscher vertrieb,” in Alma Mater Antisemitica. Akademisches Milieu, Juden und Antisemitismus an den Universitäten Europas zwischen 1918 und 1938, eds. Regina Fitz et al. (Vienna: new academic press, 2016), 221–42. 113 Erika Glassen, “Die Pionierin der türkischen Frauenbewegung und humane Nationalistin: Halide Edip Adıvar und ihre Erinnerungen. Mein Weg durchs Feuer,” in Literatur und Gesellschaft: Kleine Schriften von Erika Glassen zur türkischen Literaturgeschichte und zum Kulturwandel in der modernen Türkei, ed. Jens Peter Laut (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2016), 367–79, here 376. 114 “Viyana‌’yı dolaştım. Bu şehri çok severim. Güzel sokakları, kalabalık, hereket, faaliyet dolu, halkı nazik, musıkısi meşhur bir şehirdi. Konser şehri adını taşırdı. Paris’te en büyk kahvehâneler bile şapka ile girer, şapka ile otururlar. Burda hiç kimse şapka ile girmezdi. Ne bakayım?! Viyana sönmüş … Ne o kalabalık, ne o faaliyet, hiç biri yok. Viyana‌’yı Avusturya‌’nın haşmetli devrinde görmüştüm. Şimdi zavallı memleket sekiz milyonluk bir halka, avuç içi kadar bir toprağa münhasır kalmıştır. Türkiye’den toprakca da, insanca da az. Muharebe ne fena şeydir. Bu memleketi bütün mânasıyla yıkmış. He mağlubiyet  … Vakıa Avusturya

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I strolled through Vienna. I love this city very much. Its street, crowd, busyness, action, its nice people, famous music. ‘Concert city’ it would be called back then. Even in the biggest [prestigious] coffee houses of Paris they would go in with hats, and sit with hats. Here, nobody would do this. But, what do I see?! Vienna is dead. There was neither the bustle nor the activity, nothing was there any more. I have seen Vienna in Austria’s sublime period. Now, this poor country is reduced to a people of eight million, within a land just the size of a palm (avuç içi kadar). Austria is now smaller both in land and population than Turkey. How evil war is. It has demolished the country in every sense. It is true, Austria plagued great trouble for Turkey. And yet, I cursed all those who demolished this beauty and blew out this civilization. What shall we say, states, mankind are like this, they tear each other apart (birbirini yerler).

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Hülya Çelik, who brought these letters to my attention. Bibliography

Primary Sources



Published Primary Sources

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Ms. or. quart 2005/2.

Doḳtor Rıżā Nūr, Ġurbet daġarcıġı. Ḳāhire: Maṭbaʿa-i Hindiyye, 1919. Doḳtor Rıżā Nūr, Cemʿiyyet-i ḫafiyye. Dersaʿādet: Selānik maṭbaʿası, 1330/1919. Evliya Çelebi. Im Reiche des Goldenen Apfels. Des türkischen Weltenbummlers Evliya Çelebi Denkwürdige Reise in das Giaurenland und in die Stadt und Festung Wien Anno 1665. 2nd ed., übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Richard F. Kreutel. Graz et al.: Verlag Styria, 1963. Osman Ağa. Der Gefangene der Giauren. Die Abenteuerlichen Schicksale des Dolmetschers ʿOsman Ağa aus Temeschwar, von ihm selbst erzählt, übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt von Richard F. Kreutel und Otto Spies. Graz et al.: Verlag Styria, 1962.

Türkiye’ye çok büyük belâlar açtı. Fakat buna rağmen, bu güzelliği yıkanlara, bu medeniyeti söndürenlere lânet ettim. Ne diyelim, devletler, insanlear böyle, birbirini yerler …” Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, vol. 4, 1138–39.

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Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, 4 vols. Istanbul: Altındağ Yayınevi, 1967 (reprint Frankfurt a. M.: K.G. Lohse, without year). Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım. Rıza Nur Kendini Anlatıyor, ed. Abdurrahman Dilipak. Istanbul: İşaret, 1992.



Newspaper and Journal Articles

“Freilassung der Mitglieder des reaktionären türkischen Geheimbundes.” Neue Freie Presse (5. Oktober 1910, Nr. 165166), 5. “La Jeune-Turquie sévit contre ses adversaires.” Le Petit Parisien (21 Julliet 1910), 3. “Le cas du député Riza Nour.” Le Pays (12 Août 1910), 2. “Le comité secret.” La Constitution (20 Octobre 1910), 2. “Riza Nour bey.” La Turquie (24 Octobre 1910), front page. “Un comité secret en Turquie.” Le Figaro (21 Julliet 1910), 2. La Rédaction, “Réponse à une accusation.” Mècheroutiette 11 (1. Octobre 1910), 15–18. Chérif [Pacha], “La Débâcle.” Mécheroutiette 14 (Janvier 1911), 2–6. “Türkische Kammerdebatte über angebliche Mißhandlung verhafteter Abgeordneter.” Neue Freie Presse (1. Januar 1911), 3. “Die Differenzen im jungtürkischen Komitee.” Freie Neue Presse (4 Januar 1911), 2. “Die Kammerdebatte über das Exposé des Großwesirs.” Neues Wiener Journal (9 Dezember 1910), 12. “La politique du gouvernement. La quatrième journée des débats. Le discours du Grand-vézir.” La Turquie (9 Décembre 1910), front page. Gyne, R. “L’affaire Riza Nour.” La Turquie (31 Décembre 1910), front page. “Le dilemme Turc.” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 43–50. “Türkische Kammerdebatte über angebliche Mißhandlung verhafteter Abgeordneter (Konstantinopel, 31. Dezember).” Neue Freie Presse (1. Januar 1911), 8. “Brand des Pfortengebäudes in Konstantinopel.” Wiener Zeitung (6. Februar 1911), 2. “Brand der Hohen Pforte in Konstantinopel.” Neues Wiener Tagblatt (6. Februar 1911), 3. “L’enquête parlamentaire.” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 17. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana mektūbları. Bir naẓar-ı ʿumūmī.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn, 1333 (29 Kānūn-i evvel 1332), 79–82. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana ve vals.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1334 (12 Kānūn-i s̱ānī 1332), 91–94. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Şehremāneti ve güzel Viyana.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1336 (26 Kānūn-i s̱ānī 1332), 128–30. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana ve moda.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1337 (9 Şubāṭ 1332), 145–49. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana ve ḳahveḫāneleri.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1339 (15 Mārt 1333), 176–79. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana ticāret oṭası – Avusturya ticāret oṭaları.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1343 (12 Nisān 1333), 260–63. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Bāzār-ı Leẕīẕīyāt.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1345 (26 Nisān 1333), 296–98.

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Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana: Ḫıṭṭa-i Raḥm ve şefḳat.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1347 (10 Māyıs 1333), 343–45. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Viyana: Meded ve şefḳat yurdı.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1349 (24 Māyıs 1333), 384–87. Maḥmūd Ṣādıḳ. “Imparatoruñ Ḫāṭırası -Ḫastaḫāne.” S̱ervet-i Fünūn 1351 (7 Ḥazīrān 1333), 430–33. “Ausland, Geheimkomitee.” Agramer Zeitung (21. Juli 1910), 3. “Das Geheimcomité.” Arbeiter-Zeitung (21. Juli 1910), 4. “Der türkische Geheimbund.” Die Zeit (21. Juli 1910), front page. “Der türkische Geheimbund.” Prager Abendblatt (21. Juli 1910), 2. “Die Partei der liberalen Entente.” Das Vaterland (23. November 1911), 4. “L’enquête parlementaire.” Mécheroutiette 15 (Février 1911), 15–17. “Türkei – Jungtürkische Parteikonferenz (29. Dezember).” Wiener Zeitung (30. Dezember 1910), 14.



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Flemming, Barbara. Türkische Handschriften (= VOHD, vol. XIII, 1) Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1968. Gacek, Adam. “Arabic Holographs: Characteristics and Terminology.” In In the Author’s Hand. Holograph and Autorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition, eds. Frédéric Bauden and Élise Franssen, 55–77. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020. Georgeon, François. “Religion, politics and society in the wake of the Young Turk Revolution: The ‘Ramadan Freedom’ in Istanbul.” In The Young Turk Revolution, eds. Noémi Lévy-Aksu and François Georgeon, 177–95. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017. Glassen, Erika. “Die Pionierin der türkischen Frauenbewegung und humane Nationalistin: Halide Edip Adıvar und ihre Erinnerungen. Mein Weg durchs Feuer.” In Literatur und Gesellschaft: Kleine Schriften von Erika Glassen zur türkischen Literaturgeschichte und zum Kulturwandel in der modernen Türkei, ed. Jens Peter Laut, 367–79. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2016. Hafez, Meliz. Inventing Laziness. The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Hayrullah Efendi. Avrupa Seyahatnamesi. Translated into modern Turkish by Belkıs Altuniş-Gürsoy. Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 2002. Heimann-Jelinek, Felicitas, Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz, and Gerhard Milchram (eds.), Die Türken in Wien. Geschichte einer jüdischen Gemeinde. Wien: Jüdisches Museum Wien, 2010. Hirschfeld, Ludwig. Wien. Wien: Milena, 2020 (fist ed. 1927). Hirschfeld, Ludwig. “‘Der letzte Kaffee. Wiener Elegie.’ Neue Freie Presse (27 May 1917).” In Hirschfeld, Ludwig. Wien in Moll. Ausgewählte Feuilletons 1907–1937, ed. Peter Payer, 114–17. Wien: Löcker, 2020. Kieser, Hans-Lukas. Talaat Pasha. Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018. Kinsley, Zoë. “Travelogues, Diaries, Letters.” In The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, eds. Nandini Das and Tim Youngs, 408–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Köse, Yavuz. “‘Vienna is a Treasure to Us’: Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Role Models for the Late Ottoman Empire.” Comparativ Vol. 32 No. 3/4 (2022): 395–411. Kuran, Ercüment. “Osmanlı aydını Hayrullah Efendi’nin Viyana seyahatları (1862– 1864).” Türk Kültürü Araştırmaları 34,1–2 (1996) (Dr. Orhan F. Köprülü’ye Armağan, publ. 1998): 95–99. Lévy-Aksu, Noémi, and François Georgeon, eds. The Young Turk Revolution and the Ottoman Empire. The Aftermath of 1908. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017. Mango, Andrew. Atatürk. London: John Murray, 1999.

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Mende, Leyla von. “Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan”. Impressionen osmanischer und türkischer Südosteuropa-Reisender (1890–1940). Baden-Baden: Ergon Verlag, 2021. Mestyan, Adam. “A Muslim Dualism? Inter-Imperial History and Austria-Hungary in Ottoman Thought, 1867–1921.” Contemporary European History 30 (2021):478–96. Möhring, Rubina. Türkisches Wien. Wien: Herold, 1983. Neumann, Christoph K. “Wie wichtig war Wien? Versuch einer Einordnung der Belagerung in die osmanische Geschichte.” In Die Osmanen vor Wien. Die MeldemanRundansicht von 1529/30. Sensation. Propaganda und Stadtbild, eds. Ferdinand Opll and Martin Scheutz, 203–18. Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2020. Nicolai, Friedrich. Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz, im Jahre 1781. Vol. 5. Berlin und Stettin: [Friedrich Nicolai], 1785. Ömer Faiz Efendi, Sultan Abdülaziz’in Avrupa Seyahatı. Istanbul: Boğaziçi Yay., 1991. Procházka-Eisl, Gisela. “Evliya Çelebi’nin Viyana Yolculuğu.” In Doğumunun 400. Yılında Evliyâ Çelebi, eds. Nuran Tezcan and Semih Tezcan, 112–17. Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2011. Ransmayr, Anna. “Greek Presence in Habsburg Vienna: Heyday and Decline.” In Across the Danube: Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities (17th–19th C.), eds. Olga Katsiardie-Hering and Maria Stassinopoulou, 135–70. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Römer, Claudia. “Seyahatnâme’deki Halk Hikâyeleriyle Avusturya Halk Hikâyelerinin Karşılatırılması.” Doğumunun 400. Yılında Evliyâ Çelebi, eds. Nuran Tezcan and Semih Tezcan, 291–96. Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2011. Şirin, İbrahim. Osmanlı İmgeleminde Avrupa. Ankara: Lotus, 2006. Sohrabi, Nader. Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tanyeli, Uğur. “Mimari.” (Bâbıâli), Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1. Istanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı ve Tarih Vakfı, 1993, 523. Taschwer, Klaus. “Geheimsache Bärenhöhle. Wie eine antisemitische Professorenclique nach 1918 an der Universität Wien jüdische Forscherinnen und Forscher vertrieb.” In Alma Mater Antisemitica. Akademisches Milieu, Juden und Antisemitismus an den Universitäten Europas zwischen 1918 und 1938, eds. Regina Fitz et al., 221–42. Vienna: new academic press, 2016. Teply, Karl. Die Einführung des Kaffees in Wien. Georg Franz Koltschitzky, Johannes Diodato, Isaak de Luca. Wien, 1980. Tütengil, Cavit Orhan. Doktor Rıza Nur üzerine üç yazı – yankılar – belgeler. Ankara: Güven Matbaası, 1965. Woodhead, Christine. “Ottoman languages.” In The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead, 143–59. London, New York: Routledge, 2012. Yenen, Alp. “Evisioning Turco-Arab Co-Existence between Empire and Nationalism.” Die Welt des Islams 61 (2021): 72–112.

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https://doi.org/10.1017/S096392681900110X (accessed on 17 May 2021). https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Karl_Lueger (accessed on 6 March 2021). https://www.unesco.at/kultur/immaterielles-kulturerbe/oesterreichisches-verzeichnis /detail/article/wiener-kaffeehauskultur (accessed on 7 March 2021).

31 Some Remarks on the Hitherto Unpublished Memoirs of a Member of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Sanjak of Alexandretta/Hatay Heidemarie Doğanalp-Votzi The typescript I will discuss in this article is an unofficial, unpublished one. I do not know how many people have already read the text, but I imagine they are not too many, largely because of the difficulties in reading and understanding the typescript.1 Some months ago, I was given a copy of these memoirs by a friend of mine. The memoirs were written by his grandfather, a member of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Sanjak of Alexandretta, later called Hatay. Out of respect for the privacy of my friend’s wider family, I will not mention the name of the author, although I know it and I know details of his family background as well. Nor will I mention the village from which the author of the typescript came, otherwise, he and his wider family (most of the family members live in Turkey) could very easily be identified, as he seems to be rather well known there, at least in Hatay itself. So, we shall call the author Abdi Bey from the Hatay region for the time being. Abdi Bey was not one of the most prominent members of the Kuva-yi Milliye at that time, but he was active in his ambitions (the “Turkish claim”) for around 20 years up to the foundation of the State of Hatay (Hatay Devleti), in 1938, and the incorporation of the region into the boundaries of the Turkish Republic, in 1939.2 1 Note by the author: Although I knew her earlier, I became more closely involved with Claudia Römer in the 1990s, when we began to collaborate on two scientific projects initiated and financed by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. From this collaboration emerged a friendship which has lasted between us since then. 2 These memoirs have recently been published in a book. See: İsmet Bozoğlan: Kuseyrli Bir Mücahit. Abidin (Çirkin) Ertuğrul’un Anıları. 1918–1938 İşgal Yılları ve Hatay Devletine Giden Yo. (Ankara: Günce Yayınları, 2021). I have only just obtained a copy of this book and therefore have not had the chance to study it thoroughly. Another branch of the family was intending eventually to publish the memoirs of their grandfather. So, you can be sure that the name of the cited person whom we call Abdi here is Abidin (Çirkin) Ertuğrul from Paslıkaya/Altınözu/Kuseyr. As far as I can see for now, drawing on the above cited publication: The original typescript has been changed in many ways, for instance with regard to

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_033

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Abdi Bey named the manuscript version of his memoirs and the finished produce as: “Hatay Mücadelesine toplu bakış.” The first title, when he began his memoirs (the typescript) was “Antakya Nasıl İşgal edildi ve milli Savaş Nasıl Başladı.” The text I was given consists of 73 pages. The first 12 pages (dealing with the year 1918) are typed with a very old typewriter ribbon and are very difficult to read, because some letters cannot be deciphered. From then on, the quality of the ribbon improves and up to page 59 the typescript can be read without any great difficulty. Another obstacle in reading the text is the assignment of numbers to the pages (called sahife) in the text. Up to page 7 of the original text, pages are added and given numbers in a rather spontaneous way. So, there are pages without a number, two page 3s and two pages 4s. The second page 3 seems to have been added later, as it is typed in the better quality ribbon. Altogether, the first pages up to sahife 7 comprise 12 pages. Pages 33 to 38 are missing, and two pages are added at the end.3 While it is not clear when Abdi Bey began to type his memoirs, it is known that he finished them on 1 March 1985, the day on which his wife, to whom he had been married since 1925, died (“Ve 1925 te evlenmiş olduk,” 69).4 He writes, on the very last page of his memoirs, that he had started the armed struggle at the age of 18 and finished it at the age of 38, when Hatay became part of the Turkish Republic (23 July 1939). How does one deal with a text like this? The typescript has never been published; nor has it ever been revised by anybody else, as far as I know. There has been no censorship whatsoever, except the self-censorship of Abdi Bey himself (sometimes to be seen in the pages he has subsequently added to his memoirs). Our study will not be a critical and thorough research of the historical contents of Abdi Beys memoirs. Nor will it examine historical events and developments in the Sanjak of Alexandretta, in comparison with the existing literature on this topic. Abdi Bey was not a very prominent person in the history the Sanjak of Alexandretta between the years 1918 and 1939, so his memoirs can be regarded as a “history from the bottom,” even though it is full of “official” narratives. orthographic features. Some footnotes on people cited in the memoirs are given. Headings (which are not found in the original) are interwoven, etc. In this way, and given all the orthographic and linguistic changes to be found in Bozoğlan’s publication, his book is of little relevance to our very study, which focuses on the linguistic aspects in the original typescript. 3 I was assured that the manuscript is in the original form as it was handed over to my friend by close relatives of his. 4 Transl. “and we were married 1925.”

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There are some autobiographical publications from more prominent people concerning the history of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, such as that of Aburrahman Melek,5 former Prime Minister of the State of Hatay, and one of the former presidents of this republic, Tayfur Sökmen.6 Nor will this essay investigate the geographical terminology used in the typescript, which would have to be studied more deeply. There were a lot of changes to place names, villages, mountain ranges and other geographical denotations throughout the years of the Turkish Republic.7 Furthermore, while the names of many people are cited in the typescript, this is neither the time nor the place to go into their very biographies in any detail. A more comprehensive historical study on these matters will hopefully be written at a later date. In this essay, we will first give a brief overview of the historical events that took place in the Sanjak of Alexandretta after the First World War up to the incorporation of this Sanjak, then named Hatay,8 into the Republic of Turkey. We will then focus on the linguistic peculiarities to be found in the typescript. In this context, we wish to discuss some specific passages of Abdi Bey’s memoirs. After the armistice of Mudros and the disarming of the former Ottoman Army, there began an armed resistance movement among former officials in the Ottoman Army and among other armed people, forming a sort of paramilitary or irregular army. This illegal militia was called Kuva-yi Milliye. Our Abdi Bey was part of this militia. The Kuva-yi Milliye was most active in four fields of action. The first and main focus was on defeating the Greeks and then the Greek army in the Aegean regions; the second focus was on the south-eastern regions and the Sanjak of Alexandretta against the French and the Armenians; and the third was on the Pontus region against the Pontus Greeks. Later on, the Kuva-yi Milliye was also

5 Abdurrahman Melek, Hatay Nasıl Kurtuldu (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1991), http://www .melek.net/hatay.htm (accessed on 4 January 2021). 6 Tayfur Sökmen, Hatay’ın Kurtuluşu İçin Harcanan Çabalar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1992). 7 Comp.: Sevan Nişanyan, Adını Unutan Ülke: Türkiye’de Adı Değiştirilen Yerler Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Everest Yayınları, 2010). 8 The name Hatay was given to the region by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). To cite Klaus Kreiser in this context: “Kemal Paschas Bedürfnis, neu zu benennen, ging jedoch über Personen hinaus. Die heutigen Namen ganzer Provinzen (etwa Hatay) und Städte (etwa Diyarbakır) sind das Resultat einer Leidenschaft, die bei ernsthaften Philologen schmerzliche Reaktionen auslöst.” Klaus Kreiser, Atatürk, Eine Biographie, 2nd ed. (München: C.H. Beck, 2014), 18.

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engaged in putting down local resistance within Anatolia against the Kemalist movement.9 1

A (Very) Brief Overview over the Historical Events in the Region

After the First World War, France was given the responsibility for the League of Nations mandate over Syria and Lebanon. France saw herself confronted by a complicated socio-political situation there. The population of the Sanjak of Alexandretta was not predominantly Turkish in the 1920s. The ever-growing Turkish influence in the Sanjak was acquiesced by the French mandate-power until it was almost irreversible. The reason for this lay in the fear that Turkey might take sides with Nazi Germany. The conflict regarding the region of Alexandretta was a consequence of the serious political changes that took place after the First World War in the Near East, as soon as Great Britain and France had divided up their spheres of interest in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, in 1916. France occupied the region in October 1918 and in November of the same year, the Sanjak of Alexandretta was installed.10 France was almost immediately confronted by revolts and uprisings in the Sanjak and in the whole of Syria. A number of uprisings against the French occupation took place during the period 1918 to 1921. Some had a more Arabic-nationalistic background, some were motivated by religious reasons, and others were more Turkishnationalistic. All of them were supported by the Kemalists in the following years. Confronted with these revolts, France, whose military resources were limited after the First World War, shifted to a policy of divide et impera. On 20 October 1921, the Treaty of Ankara was signed. According to this treaty, Ankara was to stop all military support for the Syrian rebels. On the other hand, Ankara was guaranteed special rights and privileges within the Sanjak of Alexandretta. 9

10

See Mevlut Bozdemir, Armee und Politik in der Türkei (Frankfurt: Dağyeli Verlag, 1988), 81–144. For the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Alexandretta region see also: Ahmed Bedevi Kuran, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda İnkilâp Hareketleri ve Milli Mücadele (İstanbul: Çeltüt Matbaası, 1959), 778–84. For the Pontus region see: Mirko Heinemann, Die letzten Byzantiner. Die Vertreibung der Griechen vom Schwarzen Meer. Eine Spurensuche (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2019), 155–225. Up to 1918, the region of Alexandretta was part of the Ottoman vilayet of Aleppo. See Dalal Arzuzi-Elamir, Arabischer Nationalismus in Syrien. Zaki al-Arsuzi und die arabischnationale Bewegung an der Peripherie Alexandtretta/Antakya 1930–1938 (Münster-HamburgLondon: LIT Verlag, 2003), 16.

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The Treaty of Ankara had an important impact on further developments in the region: Die französischen Mandatsbehörden rechtfertigten ihre Turkisierungspolitik in der Region Alexandretta mit diesem Abkommen, indem sie behaupteten, lediglich seine Bestimmungen durchzuführen. […] Der Türkei gewährte dieses Abkommen weitreichende Möglichkeiten, sich in die inneren Angelegenheiten der Region Alexandretta einzumischen mit dem Argument, die große türkische Minderheit zu schützen. Die „besondere Lage“, in welche das Abkommen die Region Alexandretta versetzte, bewirkte, dass es weder zu einer Kooperation oder Solidarisierung unter den verschiedenen Bevölkerungselementen kam noch zu einer Integration im syrischen Mandatsgebiet, dem die Region Alexandretta, auch nach dem Abkommen, angehörte. […] Das Ergebnis war, dass sich ein Konflikt zwischen zwei Nationalitäten, der türkischen und der arabischen, zusammenbraute.11 From 1921 onwards, a policy of Turkification was launched in this region. The education system was formed according to Turkish wishes, although the Turkish-speaking population was then in the minority. The administration of the Sanjak was largely in Turkish hands. Turkish was introduced as the third official language besides Arabic and French. There followed years of conflict between the different ethnic groups within the Sanjak and armed resistance against the French mandate-powers. Each of the different groups of population in the region tried to enlarge its influence and strength. According to official French statistics from 1936, the population of the Sanjak of Alexandretta was 219,000 people, of whom 38.9 per cent were Turks, 28 per cent were Alawi Arabs, 10 per cent were Sunni Arabs, 8.2 per cent were Christian Arabs (Syrian and Greek Orthodox), and 11.4% were Armenians, the remainder being Kurds, Circassians, and Jews.12 However, Turkey always claimed that the vast majority of the region was Turkish.13 Conflicts between Arabs and Turks became ever more acute and bloody in the Sanjak. In the course of the negotiations for independence between France and Syria, in 1936, Turkey stood up for the alleged Turkish majority. 11 Ibid., 77. 12 Ibid., 25. 13 Şerife Yorulmaz, “Fransız Manda Döneminde İskenderun Sancağı (Hatay)’nın SosyoEkonomik ve Siyasal Durumuna İlişkin Bazı Kayıtlar (1918–1939),” Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi 22,6 (1998): 231–59, here 240 [https:// dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/20673 (accessed on 4 January 2022)].

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Nevertheless, in September 1936, a “Friendship and Alliance Treaty” was signed between Syria and France. Turkey, with the support of Great Britain, sent its claims over the Sanjak of Alexandretta to the League of Nations. Finally, the Sanjak of Alexandretta became an autonomous “entité distincte.”14 Behind this appeasement policy by Great Britain and France toward Turkey lay their concern that Turkey could take the side of Nazi Germany. Thereafter, the French supported the Turks in achieving a majority by any means. The elections for the regional parliament took place 2 July 1938. The preceding weeks were full of intensive manipulation, repression and bloody fighting between Turks and Arabs. Arabs and Armenians who transgressed into the inner Syrian border were not allowed to return to the Sanjak. On the other hand, thousands of Turks came in from Turkey. Finally, the Turks won 66 per cent of the votes. This is how the Republic of Hatay came into being. On 2 September 1938, the newly elected parliament assembled for the first time. The assembly consisted of 22 Sunni Turk, 9 Alawi, 5 Armenian, 2 Orthodox Christian, and 2 Arab deputies.15 Finally, on 28 June 1939, the parliament of Hatay voted for the anschluss with the Republic of Turkey. 2

Linguistic Aspects of the Text

In reference to Claudia Römer and her main field of academic research, I wish to put emphasis on the linguistic aspects of Abdi Bey’s memoirs. We must bear in mind that the typescript was finished in the year 1985, when Abdi Bey was 84 or 85 years old. As far as I was told by his grandchild, Abdi Bey used to read newspapers and books. In this regard, it is surprising how little a person’s orthography and style writing is influenced by reading texts composed in the standard language. First of all, we should remember that extensive passages of the typescript are quite hard to decipher because of the poor quality of the typewriter ribbon. Furthermore, there are a lot of typographical errors. However, we shall overlook these, as while they hinder the reading of the text, they are of no relevance from a linguistic perspective. We wanted to observe the striking peculiarities and specifics found throughout the text, although they seem to change

14 Arsuzi-Elamir, Arabischer Nationalismus in Syrien, 79. 15 Ibid., 186.

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slightly from the start to the end of the memoirs. The English translation of the quotations in this article can be found in the footnotes. 2.1 Interpunction The first peculiarity we find in the whole typescript is the almost total absence of interpunction. This reminds us of Ottoman texts. There are no full stops used. Sometimes commas are inserted. These rare commas are also used to end sentences. Even if a comma is put to the end of a sentence, the following sentence does not generally begin with a capital letter. It is seldom, and only in the last pages of the typescript, that commas are used in the standard way. Furthermore, there are no paragraphs whatsoever, to give a certain structure to the text. This again reminds us of Ottoman scripts. As an example, I wish to cite a passage in which Abdi Bey tells us something about his youth: […] Tahsilimi Köyde medresede yaptım 18 yaşıma kadar köydeki Delikan­ lılarla beraber hep bizim evde onlara ziyafet çekerdim annemde benim bu Bonkör hareketime yardımcı olurdu, Bu arada çokta silaha maraklı idim hatta Maviserle, tabanca ile kuşları vururdum kurşunum hiçte boşa gıtmezdi bölgede sayılı nişancılardan idim işte bu arada fransızlar antakya havalisini işğal ettilerçetelikler başladı […] (p. 69).16 2.2 Capital and Small Letters The use, or more precisely, the non-use of capital letters is another specificity reminding us of Ottoman texts. Proper nouns are predominantly written with small letters. Sometimes capital letters are used accidentally, as can be seen from the above and following quotes. Nevertheless, there is sometimes a widespread use of capital letters. They seem to be used to stress the importance of something or to underline the official character of an event. For example, when explaining the Treaty of Ankara, 1921, Abdi Bey describes this event in his own words as follows: […] sene 1921 idi Fransızlar Ankara Hökümetine Şöyle Bir Teklif Yapmıştı Bizi Suriye Topraklarında Rahat Burakınız İskenderun Sancağını Muvakkat Bize Burakınız Bizde Size Yunan Harbinde Azami Yardım Edelim Demişlerdi 16 “I got my education in the village’s medrese. Up to the age of 18, I used to be together with the male youngsters and to regale them in our house. And my mother used to support me in my obliging behavior. At the same time, I was very interested in weapons. With a Mauser or a revolver, I used to shoot birds. And my bullet never failed. I was one of the regarded marksmen of the region. At that time, the Frenchmen occupied the area of Antakya. And the guerrilla-war began.”

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Bu Teklif O Zaman İçin Ankara Hökümetinde İyi Karşılanmıştı ve Ankara İmzalanmıştı […] (p. 26).17 2.3 Missing Separation with Regard to Inflections in Proper Names As mentioned above, proper nouns are very rarely capitalised. Another striking feature is that proper nouns with Turkish case endings are never separated by an apostrophe. […] maraş, antep, kilis cephelerine Katıldım fransızlarca idama mahküm edilmiştim, 1921 de antep, kilis tahliye edildi bir çok arkadaşla kilise yerleştim […] (p. 66).18 Missing Separation of the Turkish de, da in the Meaning of “also, as well” The Turkish de, da in the meaning of “also, as well,” is hardly ever written separately. For example: 2.4

[…] bir çok hocalar teşfik (sic!) ediliyordu türkler dinsiz ir buraya gelirlerse burayıda dinsiz yapacaklar deye hocalar konuşturuluyordu […] (p. 41).19 I wish to quote again from the typescript, where the missing separation of Turkish de (in the meaning of “as well”) can be seen. In this quotation, it becomes clear whom the forces of the Kuva-yi Milliye were fighting against in the first place: […] fransızlar ilk olarak iskenderun, belan, kırıkhan, Reyhanlı, dört yolu ermenistan haline geirmeni (sic!) ihmal etmemişlerdi hata musa Dağı ermenileride geri getirmişlerdi hepsinede silah vermişlerdi, hassadaki ermeniler tamamen silahlı idi […] (p. 70).20 17 “It was the year 1921. The Frenchmen made following proposal to the government in Ankara. Let us in peace in the lands of Syria. Surrender the Sanjak of Alexandrette to us for a while. And we are going to give you maximal support in the Greek war. This proposal was at that time welcomed by the Ankara government and the Treaty of Ankara was signed.” 18 “I took part in the front lines of Maraş, Antep and Kilis. I was sentenced to death by the French. In 1921 Antep and Kilis were abandoned [i.e. by the French troops], I settled down with some friends in Kilis.” 19 “Some hocas were incited. They were brought to say that the Turks are infidels and that if they come here, this region will become infidel as well.” 20 “The Frenchmen did not refrain from turning first of all Iskenderun, Beylan, Kırıkhan, Reyhanlı, and Dörtyolu into a state of Armenia. They even brought back the Armenians of

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Some Peculiarities regarding the Vocalisation and Orthography of Words We can disregard words that are rarely used. We can also disregard typographical errors. We will just cite some words that are frequently used in the typescript and are more or less consequently and consistently written as they are throughout the text. 2.5

a>u akruba instead of akraba The Turkish term for relative(s), akraba is continually written as akruba. An example is below: The context: Abdi Bey writes about ex-members of the Kuva-yi Milliye who launched anti-Turkish propaganda in the region of Kırıkhan in the year 1936, saying that they were against the şapkas (sent from Turkey to be distributed among the Turkish population in the Sanjak of Alexandretta), and claiming that the Turks (meaning the Turkish government) were gavur (infidels), and that the strong French army would never withdraw from Syria and the Sanjak. The (Turkish) inhabitants of Hassa objected to these statements.21 […] bu yolda hassa ahalisi adeta seferber oluyordu dağlı akrubalarını ve tanıdıklarına daime doğru yolu gösteriyorlardı […] (p. 50).22 burakmak instead of bırakmak Context: in the aftermath of the death of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) on 10 November 1938, Abdi Bey describes the reactions of the people around him. In this case, he writes about Tayfur Sökmen, the then president of the Republic of Hatay: “[…] Tayfur bey aylarca matem tutarak sakal burakmıştı” (p. 60).23 k>h ahşam instead of akşam The Turkish word for “evening,” akşam, is consistently written as ahşam throughout the typescript. In order to comprehend the following citation, we have to note here that the members of the Kuva-yi Milliye are called mücahit Musa Dagh. They handed out weapons to all of them. The Armenians of Hassa were fully armed.” 21 “… kimini şapka aleyinde kimini türkler gavurdur deye kimide koca fransız ordusu buradan çıkmaz deye kandırtyordu …” (50). 22 “In this way, the population of Hassa always stood up to show their relatives and acquaintances the right way.” 23 “Tayfur Bey was mourning for months and let his beard grow.”

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by Abdi Bey. Only toward the end of the typescript does he try not to use this term, tending to avoid it: […] ahşam üzeri mücahitler basklıka köyüne gittiler […] (p. 21).24 ahtarma instead of aktarma The same is true of the Turkish term for “to change a means of transportation,” aktarma, which is written as ahtarma. Context: after the incorporation (annexation) of the Sanjak of Alexandretta on 23 July 1939 into the territories of the Turkish Republic, the above-mentioned Tayfur Sökmen left the region by train and went to Ankara. Many people who had previously worked in the parliament of the former State of Hatay accompanied Tayfur Sökmen part of the way: […] bizde tirene binmiş olduk adana da ahtarmasını yaptık ve biz geri dönerek ayrılmış olduk […] (p. 62).25 ğ>v sovuk instead of soğuk In the typescript, the Turkish term for “cold,” soğuk, is constantly written as sovuk. For example, Abdi Bey writes about the daily life of the militia of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the late autumn of the year 1919: […] çamaşırlarımızı sovuk suyla yıkıyorduk fa kat bitleri Temizleyemiyorduk zaten onlar bize çok iyi arkadaş olmuşlardı […] (p. 20).26 i>e deye instead of diye Throughout the typescript, the Turkish diye is written as deye. Diye, the gerund of the Turkish verb demek, “to say,” is used in its adverbal form as “saying,” where a direct quotation is the object (or subject) of another verb, or when a diye clause expresses the thinking behind or the reasons for someone’s action(s).27

24 “In the evening, the mücahits went to the village of Baslika.” 25 “We also got into the train and helped him to change trains in Adana. After that we parted, as we returned.” 26 “We were washing our clothes with cold water in the han but, we were not able to clean away the lice. They had become our friends, anyway.” 27 See Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake, Turkish. An Essential Grammar (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 277.

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Context: Abdi Bey, who was then working in the parliament of the Republic of Hatay, returns to his house on the evening of the day on which Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) had died: […] Ahşama İzinli Olarak Eve geldiğimde Üç Yaşındaki Kızım Baba Tatamız (sic!) Ölmüş Deye Hıçkıra Hıçkıra Ağlıyordu […] (p. 60).28 Here is also a reminder that Abdi Bey tends to use capital letters when events of high importance to him are happening. seyasi instead of siyasi The same shift from i to e happens in the case of the English term for “political,” Turkish siyasi; throughout the text this word is written as seyasi. In the following quotation, Abdi Bey tries to sum up, for his potential readers, the 20-year struggle for the “Turkish claim” from his own perspective: […] Evet Sayın Okucularımız güney ellerimizdeki fransızlara karşı yapılan silahlı Mücadelyi ve hatayın gerek silahlı 8 sene mücadelsini Ocak 1926 tıya kadar, 10 sene Gizli 1936 hatay davasının çıkmasına kadar 1936–37–38 seyasi halk evi çalışmaları 1938 hatay devletinin kuruluşu ve seyasi çalışması ve hatay meclisinin son kararı ile 23 temmuz 1939 anavatana İlhak edilmesini okudunuz […] (p. 65).29 ü>ö hökümet instead of hükümet Throughout the typescript, the Turkish term term for “government,” hükümet, is written as hökümet. In the following quotation, Abdi Bey once again writes about the 1921 treaty of Ankara. This treaty seems to be somewhat of a turning point in his life. As already noted, Abdi Bey was sentenced to death by the French, but he never mentions any reason for this sentence. He had to flee to the then state-territories of the Turkish Republic after the Treaty of 28 “When I returned home on leave around evening my three-year-old daughter sobbed as if her heart would break, saying our father had died.” 29 “Yes, my esteemed readers, now you have read about the armed struggle against the Frenchmen in our southern regions, about the necessary eight-year-long armed struggle in Hatay up to January 1926, about the ten years of secret combat for the cause of Hatay up to 1936, about the political activities of the halk evi institutions in the years 1936, 1937 and 1938, about the foundation of the State of Hatay and its political activities and, finally about the incorporation into the homeland following the last decision taken by the Parliament of Hatay on 23 July 1939.”

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Ankara, namely to Antep and Kilis. From there, he and his comrades launched other armed attacks (consistently called akın in the memoirs) in the Frenchoccupied Sanjak of Alexandrette. Incidentally, the militia in which he was active from 1922 to 1926 had the name Boz Kurt (“[…] bu defa teşkilatın adı boz kurt idi […],”30 p. 30). […], işte bu Durum karşısında fransızlar ankara hökümetine sulh teklifi yapıyorlardı bizi Şimali suriyede rahat burakın iskenderun sancağını muvakkat bize burakın bizde Antebi , kilisi , mersini adanayı tahliye edelim diyorlardı, Batı cephesinde Hökümetimizin düşmanı çok ağır olduğu için iskenderun sancağını muvakkat fransızlara burakmak suratile teklifi kabul ediyor ve 1921 de ankara da ankara anlaşması imza ediliyor […] (p. 63).31 2.6 The Use of Words Borrowed from European Languages Up to this point, we have only cited pecularities in the typescript concerning words commonly used in Turkish, regardless of their origin – whether Turkish, Arabic, or Persian. Now we shall consider how Abdi Bey uses terms borrowed from European languages, in this case and in this context still largely from French. There are many instances of vowels being inserted between consonants, especially i. As is well known, Turkish tries to avoid a combination of two consonants, which is why, in words borrowed from other languages, vowels are frequently inserted in the spoken vernacular language. However, this type of vowel insertion is incorrect, according to standard Turkish. Abdi Bey consistently writes tiren instead of tren, filim instead of film, and for turizm, he writes türizim. In the latter case, it seems as if he is trying too hard (and incorrectly) to make the term sound French. On the other hand, he even inserts vowels into words stemming from Persian, so he writes pişman as peşiman. We give just one quotation to show the vowel insertion in Persian words: Abdi Bey mentions Turkish families who had not supported the Turkish claim over Hatay. Please note, again, the specific usage of capital letters in the quotation below.

30 “This time the name of the organisation was Boz Kurt.” 31 “In this situation the French made a peace proposal to the government in Ankara; they said: Leave us in peace in northern Syria. Leave the Sanjak of Iskenderun to us for a while. We will surrender Antep, Kilis, Mersin, and Adana to you. Because our government [i.e. the government of Ankara] had a huge enemy on the Western frontline, it accepted the proposal to leave the Sanjak of Iskenderun to the French for a while. In that way the Ankara Treaty was signed in Ankara 1921.”

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[…] İlhaktan Sonra Çok Peşiman Olmuşlardı Fakat Neye Yarardı. Son Peşimanlık İşe Yaramaz Derler […] (p. 57).32 g>ğ Another peculiarity in his orthography for terms stemming from European languages is his usage of the yumuşak g. Throughout the text, he writes ğurup instead of grup, ğaraj instead of garaj, propağanda instead of propaganda, and telğiraf instead of telegraf. Sometimes he is not that consistent. This is the case with his writing of the Turkish term for Switzerland, İsviçre, which in some passages is written as İsfiçre. Let us consider two examples of the different ways of writing Switzerland in the text. According to Abdi Bey, the Rebuplic of Hatay was intended to become a second Switzerland: “[…] Bir İsfiçre Olması Düşünülüyordu […]” (p. 59).33 Abdi Bey repeats this, writing İsfiçre several times in the following pages. Later on, he changes to the correct form İsviçre, although this time it is written with a small letter: “[…] Evet Atatürkün istegile (sic!) kurulan hatay devleti tam isviçre gibi bir devlet Olarak kalacaktı […]” (p. 64).34 The striking peculiarities discussed above are just a small sample of the many idiosyncrasies in the typescript. We did not deal with Abdi Bey’s specific terminology in this essay, but to give some examples:35 he consistently uses Alevi for the Syrian/Arab Alawis/Nusayris; the Greek Orthodox Arab Christians are designated as Rum;36 and the Turkish term for a small district, kaza (which stems from Arabic), is termed as ada. Finally, throughout the typescript, Abdi Bey uses the designation ilhak for the incorporation into/the annexation of Turkey. 3

Conclusions

In this article, I have attempted to examine some linguistic aspects of the memoirs of one member of the Kuva-yi Milliye in the Sanjak of Alexandretta/ 32 “After the incorporation they became very remorseful. But what was the good of that? Late remorse does not avail, as they say.” 33 “It was thought to become a Switzerland.” 34 “Yes, the state of Hatay, which was founded according to the will of Atatürk, should become and remain a state like Switzerland.” 35 We refrain from giving further quotations here. 36 This term seems to be used for the Greek-Orthodox Arabs in the region up to now. See: Nadine Friedrich, “Sozio-ökonomische Migrationsgründe arabisch-christlicher Minderheiten von Hatay nach Mersin  – eine Fallanalyse,” (MA thesis, Universität Wien, Wien 2014), 53.

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Hatay, whom we called Abdi Bey. At the same time, I have tried to throw some light on the content of these memoirs, both in the historical context and in Abdi Bey’s individual context. The most striking linguistic feature of Abdi Bey’s typescript, which he completed in 1985, can be found in the orthography, when compared with standard Turkish. It is possible to differentiate three main aspects in this regard: The first is the missing interpunction and the incorrect use of small and capital letters. This seems to be an interesting lore from the Ottoman/Arabic script-system. The second peculiarity of the text is the absence of spaces. In Turkish de, da in the meaning of “also, as well” is always orthographically separated. Nor is there any separation between proper nouns and a following Turkish inflection. The third peculiarity lies in the vocalisation of words and the insertion of vowels, largely in the writing of terms stemming from European languages. While some of the specificities in regard to the vocalisation of words can surely be explained by the influence of the local dialect of Hatay, others are to be regarded as an over-emphasis of European loanwords. In terms of the content of these memoirs, both in the historical context and in Abdi Bey’s individual context, we may cite Bozdemir: Die im allgemeinen als Nationale Streitkräfte (Kuvayi Milliye) bekannten nationalen Widerstandkräfte zeigten eigene Organisations- und Kampfformen. Sie können allgemein als Guerrilla charakterisiert werden. Allerdings eine Guerrilla, die später politisierte. Wenngleich der Widerstand gegenüber den Besatzungsmächten ein Anliegen aller Gruppen war, handelte es sich bei der Guerrilla um eine gemischte Gemeinschaft, die unterschiedliche und auch manchmal widersprüchliche Ziele verfolgte.37 In this way, guerrillas in the Sanjak of Alexandretta had their own specific historical and socio-political background. Abdi Bey explains the primary motivation for joining the armed resistance movement in the words of one of his comrades: “[…] bir türküm asla gavura hizmet edemem […]” (p. 12).38 But, who were these indfidels (gavur), in the context of the region? On the one hand, they were the French mandate forces. On the other hand, and initially, as is clear from Abdi Bey’s memoirs, they were the Armenians.

37 Bozdemir, Armee und Politik in der Türkei, 82. 38 “I am a Turk; I will never serve the infidels.”

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During the First World War, the Armenians of this area (as with the whole vilayet of Aleppo) were originally supposed to have been exempted from deportation. Ultimately, however, in late July 1915, the authorities in Istanbul issued an order to deport them, too. The only two important towns with a large Armenian population in the region were Alexandretta/Iskenderun and Beylen. There were also a number of scattered rural communities, such as the one in Musa Dagh, where an Armenian resistance movement against the planned deportation emerged.39 In the first pages of Abdi Bey’s memoirs, and especially in the last six pages of his typescript, which he composed on the day his wife had died, the “Armenian threat” is given as the main reason to join the armed struggle. Abdi Bey’s engagement developed, in the years leading up to 1939, a dynamic of its own – a dynamic directed by Kemalist Turkey and its claims over the Sanjak of Alexandretta. Bibliography

Primary Sources



Published Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Typescript of Abidin (Çirkin) Ertuğrul’s memoirs (private holding).

Bozoğlan, İsmet. Kuseyrli Bir Mücahit. Abidin (Çirkin) Ertuğrul’un Anıları. 1918–1938 İşgal Yılları ve Hatay Devletine Giden Yol. Ankara: Günce Yayınları, 2021.

Arzuzi-Elamir, Dalal. Arabischer Nationalismus in Syrien. Zaki al-Arsuzi und die arabischnationale Bewegung an der Peripherie Alexandtretta/Antakya 1930–1938. MünsterHamburg-London: LIT Verlag, 2003. Bozdemir, Mevlut. Armee und Politik in der Türkei. Frankfurt: Dağyeli Verlag, 1988. Friedrich, Nadine. “Sozio-ökonomische Migrationsgründe arabisch-christlicher Minderheiten von Hatay nach Mersin  – eine Fallanalyse.” MA thesis, University of Vienna, 2014. Göksel, Aslı and Celia Kerslake. Turkish. An Essential Grammar. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. Heinemann, Mirko. Die letzten Byzantiner. Die Vertreibung der Griechen vom Schwarzen Meer. Eine Spurensuche. Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2019. 39

See Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 611.

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Kévorkian, Raymond. The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Kreiser, Klaus. Atatürk, Eine Biographie. 2nd ed. München: C.H. Beck, 2014. Kuran, Ahmed Bedevi. Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda İnkilâp Hareketleri ve Milli Mücadele. İstanbul: Çeltüt Matbaası, 1959. Melek, Abdurrahman. Hatay Nasıl Kurtuldu. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1991. http:// www.melek.net/hatay.htm (accessed on 4 January 2021). Nişanyan, Sevan. Adını Unutan Ülke: Türkiye’de Adı Değiştirilen Yerler Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Everest Yayınları, 2010. Sökmen, Tayfur. Hatay’ın Kurtuluşu İçin Harcanan Çabalar. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1992. Yorulmaz, Şerife. “Fransız Manda Döneminde İskenderun Sancağı (Hatay)’nın SosyoEkonomik ve Siyasal Durumuna İlişkin Bazı Kayıtlar (1918–1939).” Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi 22,6 (1998): 231–59. https:// dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/20673 (accessed on 4 January 2022).

32 Making the Best of It. The Graduates of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere, 1911–1916 Maria A. Stassinopoulou 1

Introduction

The subject of this chapter is a group of Greek-Orthodox women, who received professional training as kindergarten teachers in Zincidere, a town close to Kaisareia (Kayseri), in the last years of the Ottoman Empire.1 It follows them after graduation and traces them after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey agreed upon in Lausanne in 1923. Positioning individuals in the context of families and towns of origin and their common school experience, following surviving members of the group after forced migration to various places in Greece (or elsewhere), understanding how the new umbrella identity of refugee affected them, belongs to an ongoing research project with the aim of a group biography of these female educators. A key motivation is to piece together whole individual life patterns, that is to follow the complete trajectory of lives that historiography neatly divides into general perspectives before and after the traumatic experience of violence and displacement. The main sources used here are the extensive archival papers of the Asia Minor Anatoli Association, the founding institution of the college, and oral testimonies from the Oral Tradition Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. Family archives (including that of my own family) and diverse digital repositories offer, sometimes unexpectedly, a path worth pursuing. While 1 The college was called Didaskaleion Nipiagogon in Greek. Stefo Benlisoy, “Education in the Turcophone Orthodox Communities of Anatolia During the Nineteenth Century” (PhD diss., Boğaziçi University, Istanbul 2010) translates it literally as Kindergartners Training College, as does Gülen Göktürk in Well-Preserved Boundaries. Faith and Co-Existence in the Late Ottoman Empire. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies 28 (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020). The full name of the college in the town of Zincidere goes back to the name of the building and school complex of the Monastery of Flaviana, honouring Saint John the Baptist (in Greek Moni Timiou Prodromou Flavianon). When I refer to the college, I therefore use both toponyms, Flaviana and Zincidere; when I discuss the town in other contexts, I only use Zincidere.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_034

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not every phase can be reconstructed for every single individual, the sources available for each one of the women shed light also to the lives of the others, while information about the group as a whole, fills gaps in individual lives.2 Even if administrative papers, for example applications for jobs, redefine the individuals involved according to their own categories and goals and reflect the necessities of the moment in which they were created, they still add to the mosaic of information. The collective identities of bilingual, Turkish- and Greek-speaking, Christian students and the educational policies and partly nationalist aims of private associations in the late 19th and early 20th century, which among other things sought to found schools as a means to expand standardized learned Greek among Christian populations, form currently the main scope of research in the history of education of the Greek Orthodox in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. I am more interested here in following life paths of female actors, who originated mostly from the vilayets of Ankara, Konya, and Adana. Through the joint training experience in a modern educational institution, their professional definition as graduates of the college and their interaction with administrative authorities they become visible as a group and allow a collective biographical approach to their lives and to their own agency.3 By insisting on the microlevel, I propose a detailed observation at the intersection of education, migration, and professional emancipation. Educated women from this area remain – as opposed for example to educated women from the European territories of the Ottoman Empire or from the compact Greek settlements of Western Asia Minor – on the margins of the history of 2 On group biographies as a form connecting individual lives to the general historical context see Barbara Caine, Biography and History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Sabina Loriga, “The Plurality of the Past: Historical Time and the Rediscovery of Biography,” in The Biographical Turn. Lives in History, eds. Hans Renders et. al. (London: Routledge, 2016), 31–42; certain aspects of this approach are common also to collective biographies, see Wilhelm Heinz Schröder, “Kollektive Biographien in der historischen Sozialforschung: eine Einführung,” in Lebenslauf und Gesellschaft: zum Einsatz von Biographien in der historischen Sozialforschung, ed. Wilhelm Heinz Schröder (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1985), 7–17, https://nbn-resolv ing.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-340739 (accessed on 1 March 2021). 3 On late Ottoman education reforms Benjamin Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); for an overview of normative Greek texts of the era propagating the strengthening of Greek national identity over all other goals of education, see Katerina Dalakoura, “Εκπαίδευση και γυναικεία συνείδηση στις ελληνικές κοινότητες του οθωμανικού χώρου (19ος αι.): Το αδύνατο, το « ανωφελές » και το « άκαιρον » ενός φεμινιστικού αυτοπροσδιορισμού,” Ariadni [Yearbook of the School of Philosophy of the University of Crete] 13 (2007): 223–44; on different school types for girls eadem, Η εκπαίδευση των γυναικών στις ελληνικές κοινότητες της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας. Κοινωνικοποίηση στα πρότυπα της πατριαρχίας και του εθνικισμού (19ος αιώνας–1922) [Τεκμήρια  – Μελέτες Ιστορίας Νεοελληνικής Εκπαίδευσης 27] (Athens: Gutenberg, 2015), 102–37.

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education and labor, the history of displacement and migration, and the history of social group formation both in relation to the Ottoman Empire and to Greece.4 Ethnic and national identity is, I believe, just one among numerous fluid social group identities that human beings might share and sometimes might care (or be forced) to declare in the course of their lives, while at the same time practicing, what has aptly been designated as “everyday ethnicity”.5 Here I prefer to follow thin threads and perform small stitches, in order to narrate life histories of women, who have left, if at all, only light traces behind.6 Some confusion arises from defining spaces in parallel terminology systems. Publications might use exclusively or interchangeably the names of metropolitan dioceses in the area, ancient Greek place names  – commonly used during the period among international diplomats, travelers, and Greek intellectuals originating from the area, and finally the imperial administrative reforms impacting the territorial extension of vilayets, sandjaks, and kazas.7 An additional complexity is added by the Karamanlı manuscript and print literature addressed to Greek Orthodox Turcophone Christians and using the Greek alphabet for Turkish texts. The same term is applied as a group designation 4 Kathleen Weiler, “Reflections on Writing a History of Women Teachers,” Harvard Educational Review 67,4 (1997): 635–57; Barbara Caine, Biography and History, 61–64; Dee Polyak, “I wish that I could have known before. Female biography and feminist epistemologies,” in The Invention of Female Biography, ed. Gina Luria Walker (London/New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2018), 259–72; for a seminal monograph focusing on the life of a female teacher in Athens and Constantinople Efi Kanner, ΄Εμφυλες κοινωνικές διεκδικήσεις από την Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία στην Ελλάδα και στην Τουρκία. Ο κόσμος μιας Ελληνίδας χριστιανής δασκάλας (Athens: Papazisis, 2012). 5 Rogers Brubaker et al., Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton: Oxford University Press, 2006), part II. 6 Johanna Gehmacher et al., “Editorial: Leben in Bewegung. Interdependenzen zwischen Biographie, Migration und Geschlecht,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 29,3 (2018): 7–16. 7 Issues of geographical and ethnoreligious terminology are solved in current bibliography mostly ad hoc: see e.g. the author’s demarcation of the “area of Cappadocia” and the “area of Lycaonia” in Sia Anagnostopoulou, Μικρά Ασία, 19ος αι.–1919. Οι ελληνορθόδοξες κοινότητες. Από το Μιλλέτ των Ρωμιών στο Ελληνικό Έθνος (Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 1997), 160–75; see also Göktürk, Well-Preserved Boundaries, 6–8, about the interchangeable use by the author of terms such as “Cappadocian Christians”, “Cappadocian Orthodox”, and “Anatolian Christians” and on the other side (as she puts it) of the terms “Turk” and “Muslim”. For a critical survey Aude Aylin de Tapia, “Orthodox Christians and Muslims of Cappadocia: Intercommunal Relations in an Ottoman Rural Context (1839–1923),” (PhD diss., Boğaziçi University 2016), Part I, Geography and Demography. On the ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine terminology used by the material collectors of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, see M.B. Sakellariou, “Τα όρια των χωρών και των επαρχιών της Μικράς Ασίας,” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 8 (1990): 207–20.

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of Christian Turcophone populations in the area, a tendency which has been criticized.8 These are obviously not only issues in terminology but the outcome of different interpretations of linguistic as well as of demographic and settlement information.9 The pupils and later graduates of the Kindergarten Training College first migrated at a young age (sometimes under the age of ten), leaving mostly smaller towns for school over a long distance and in quite complex travel arrangements. Some of them would move after graduation from job to job. Their early professional experience coincided with the Great War and the culmination of violent unrest, disruption and forced migration. For some of them migration continued even after their initial settlement in Greece. The experience of migration and education change existing cohesive structures and create alternative ones, be they ethnic or national, linguistic, religious, class or gender related. Nevertheless, spaces for individual agency exist even in enclosed systems, such as the family or the school community. In this project, teacher training in the second decade of the 20th century is perceived more as

8 Göktürk, Well-Preserved Boundaries, 6; but cf. Richard Clogg, “A Millet within a Millet: the Karamanlides,” in Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics, Economy and Society in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Dimitri Gondicas and Charles Issawi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 115–42. On Karamanlı manuscript and book culture see Evangelia Balta, “Οι πρόλογοι των καραμανλίδικων βιβλίων πηγή για τη μελέτη της «εθνικής συνείδησης» των τουρκόφωνων ορθόδοξων πληθυσμών της Μικράς Ασίας,” Mnimon 11 (1987): 225–231; Evangelia Balta, “‘Gerçi Rum isek de Rumca bilmez Türkçe söyleriz’. The Adventure of an Identity in the Triptych: Vatan, Religion and Language,” Türk Kültürü İncelmeleri Dergisi 8 (2003): 25–44; Johann Strauss, “Is Karamanli Literature Part of a ‘Christian-Turkish (TurcoChristian) Literature’?,” in Cries and Whispers in Karamanlidika Books. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Karamanlidika Studies (Nicosia, 11th–13th September 2008), Turcologica 83, eds. Evangelia Balta and Matthias Kappler (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2010), 153–200. 9 The importance attached to this research focus is quite evident e.g. in Evangelia Balta, “Introduction. Cries and Whispers in Karamanlidika Books Before the Doom of Silence,” in Cries and Whispers, 11–22, here 15: “What the historian should be interested in first and foremost is to investigate the identity-consciousness of the Turcophones themselves in historical time and space, in Cappadocia in the nineteenth and in the early twentieth century, as well as in the major urban centers of the empire, where they sought a way out through migration, and to follow the manifestations of this identity”. On the interdependent aspects of nationalism and emancipation see Efi Avdela and Angelika Psarra, “Engendering ‘Greekness’: Women’s Emancipation and Irredentist Politics in Nineteenth-Century Greece,” Mediterranean Historical Review 20,1 (June 2005): 67–79; see also Katerina Dalakoura, “Changing Identities in Ottoman Context: The National ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in 19th Century Greek Women’s Writers Writings,” Espacio Tiempo y Educación 4,1 (2017): 1–21, doi: http:// dx.doi.org/10.14516/ete.2017.004.001.173 (accessed on 3 March 2021).

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a fortuitus opportunity for individuals10 and less as an instrumentalization of women teachers in national projects. 2

The Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana

The Kindergarten Training College was largely financed by the Asia Minor Association Anatoli, a private cultural and educational institution founded in Athens at the initiative of erudite men from Anatolia.11 After other projects of the association to provide Turcophone settlements with teachers, who would staff local schools and apply Greek school programs, this would become the last big endeavor of the association. The college aspired to train specialized kindergarten educators in the spirit of the Froebel method – stressing in particular the role of women educators therein – and to provide them with an excellent knowledge of learned Greek. Greek national ideological concepts formed part of the curriculum and pupils excelling in reproducing them received particular mention.12 The adapted Froebel method was considered appropriate for introducing small children to a second language, among other things because it stressed the importance of female nurturing kindergarten educators (as developed in particular by Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow). Additional important items of the curriculum for the teachers were learning to use of the so called Spielgaben (in Greek Φρεβελιανά δώρα), specially designed objects to be used by the children, abundant exercise outdoors with educational walks and gardening projects and games, as well as extensive musical training – the latter 10 Ania Loomba, “Dead Women Tell No Tales: Issues of Female Subjectivity, Subaltern Agency and Tradition in Colonial and Post-Colonial Writings on Widow Immolation in India,” History Workshop 36 (Autumn 1993): 209–27; Albert Bandura, “Exploration of Fortuitus Determinants of Life Paths,” Psychological Inquiry 9,2 (1998): 95–99; Sarah A. Curtis, Civilizing Habits. Women Missionaries and the Revival of French Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 11 Kyriaki Mamoni, “Το αρχείο του Μικρασιατικού συλλόγου «Ανατολή»,” Mnimosini 7 (1978– 79), 123–50; Maria Sideri, “Σύλλογος Μικρασιατών Ανατολή”, Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού Μ. Ασία (published 2002) http://asiaminor.ehw.gr/forms/fLemmaBodyExtended .aspx?lemmaID=6357 (accessed on 29 August 2022). The papers of the Asia Minor Association Anatoli are housed in Estia Neas Smyrnis and are classified according to the metropolitan see to which they refer – they are quoted here as AA, followed by the name of the see and the number of the document. A detailed inventory exists, Lida Istikopoulou, Το Αρχείο του Μικρασιατικού Συλλόγου «Ανατολή». Ευρετήριο (Eptalofos, Athens, 2012); I would like to thank the personnel of the library of Estia Neas Smyrnis. 12 AA, I Καισαρείας, 239, report of director Tzoannopoulou, 20 March 1914, including the long poem of the excellent pupil Efterpi Emmanouil Tsalikoglou about Macedonia and proposing her for a prize.

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in its Greek version both in liturgical Greek Orthodox music and in Western tunes for children and their accompanying instruments.13 The Froebel system was discussed in learned journals in Greece and the Ottoman Empire in the last third of the nineteenth century. It was explicitly mentioned in the legislating process in both states in the last years of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century and introduced into Greek schools both in Greece and the Ottoman Empire.14 The new college in Zincidere was the second private Greek speaking institution of this specialized type. It followed the college in Kallithea, in the outskirts of Athens, founded in 1897 by the Union of Greek Women under the particular influence of Aikaterini Laskaridou (née Christomanou, Vienna 1842–Athens 1916). The law paving the way for the foundation of training colleges exclusively for kindergarten teachers as part of state education was passed in 1914,15 three years after the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere had received its first students.16 The first state college in Greece exclusively for kindergarten educators opened in 1914 (until then colleges for elementary 13 On the revised Froebel pedagogy as a shared platform of international educational communication see Christa Kersting, “Weibliche Bildung und Bildungspolitik: das International Council of Women und seine Kongresse in Chicago (1893), London (1899) und Berlin (1904),” Paedagogica Historica 44,3 (2008): 327–46, here 337–8. On the Spielgaben Ulf Sauerbrey, Michael Winkler, Friedrich Fröbel und seine Spielpädagogik. Eine Einführung (Leiden e.a.: Ferdinand Schöningh/Brill, 2018), 167–183. On Froebel and kindergarten education in Greece see Maria Kyrgianni, “Οι παιδαγωγικές απόψεις του Fr. Fröbel και της M. Montessori για την προσχολική αγωγή και η διάχυσή τους στην ελληνική εκπαιδευτική πραγματικότητα” (MA thesis, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki 2014), (https://ikee.lib.auth .gr/record/270334/files/GRI-2015-14877.pdf, accessed on 4 June 2021). The songs of the Froebel system, used also by Tzoannopoulou, were recreated for Greek children by Alexandros Katakouzinos (text) and Julius Henning (music) in a project financed by the Filekpaideftiki Etaireia for its elementary schools and kindergartens, Zoi Dionysiou, “Τα Νέα Παιδαγωγικά Άσματα του Ιουλίου Έννιγγ (1880–1890),” Μουσικοπαιδαγωγικά 14 (2016): 54–88. 14 Οn discussions in the public sphere about elementary education in the late Ottoman period see İshak Tekin, “1876–1923 Yılları Arasında Çocuk Eğitimi Konusunda Yazılmış Kitapların İncelenmesi,” İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Dergisi/ Journal of the Human and Social Sciences Researches 6/3 (2017): 1589–1623; Oya Dağlar Macar, “Ottoman Greek Education System and Greek Girls’ Schools in Istanbul (19th and 20th Centuries),” Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice 10,2 (2010): 805–17. 15 On the institutional framework see Sifis Bouzakis and Christos Tzikas, Η κατάρτιση των δασκάλων-διδασκαλισσών και των νηπιαγωγών στην Ελλάδα. Α΄ Η περίοδος των διδασκαλείων 1834–1933 (Athens: Gutenberg 2002); see also Aikaterini Dalakoura and Sidiroula ZiogouKarastergiou, Η εκπαίδευση των γυναικών-Οι γυναίκες στην εκπαίδευση. Κοινωνικοί, ιδεολογικοί, εκπαιδευτικοί μηχανισμοί και η γυναικεία παρέμβαση (18ος–20ός αι.). (Association of Greek Academic Libraries, Kallipos, 2015), 232, 240, https://repository.kallipos.gr/handle /11419/2585 (accessed on 1 February 2021). 16 Higher schools for girls, for example in Constantinople, included already in the late nineteenth century in their curricula subjects relevant to kindergarten teaching. Pupils were

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school teachers had offered additional classes for kindergarten teaching). Following the growing number of professional schools for girls, the first state kindergarten training college in the Ottoman Empire opened its doors in 1915. Inside the Asia Minor Anatoli Association the initiative for the college was pushed to a large extent by Georgios Askitopoulos, a teacher and intellectual from Constantinople with teaching experience with bilingual students in Neapolis (Nevşehir) and later an inspector for schools and kindergartens for the association. He was a strong proponent of educating local girls as kindergarten teachers and built up the case for immediate modernization of the existing elementary schools and kindergartens, not least through a heart wrenching report about their miserable state observed during an inspection tour.17 The director, Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou, came from a family of educators. She visited the school of Stenimachos18 and graduated from the Zarifeion School for Girls in Philippoupolis (Plovdiv), where she would teach from 1904 to 1906. She then became an assistant of Laskaridou in the first college of Kallithea. She was chosen by her mentor to become the director of the new Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere. Together with her sister Polyxeni, also an educator, she signed a private agreement with Laskaridou in August 1911. After hurried preparations, the two sisters arrived at their post to start the school year in September. Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou remained there  – with the exception of the yearly summer break – until schools in the larger school complex were closed in 1916 (information about the dates of the closing of the other schools is not consistent in the sources). In her later report of the year 1919 she mentioned that she had been forced to close down the college in 1916 due to heavy presence of armed forces and continuous unrest in Zincidere; already through the year 1916 she had mentioned in her regular reports changes due to the stationing of army units in the area. Before leaving the college, she entrusted, according to her final report, the papers and funds to the protosynkellus (deputy bishop) of the Metropolis of Caesarea and director of the priest seminary in the complex, Nikolaos. From 1917 to 1919 she was director of the Higher School for Girls in Mersin.19 From 1925 to 1950 Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou would offered the option of focusing on these in an additional third year: see Dalakoura, Η εκπαίδευση των γυναικών, 103–123 (on the Zappeion and Pallas schools). 17 Karatza, “Η παιδεία στο Γκέλβερι της Καππαδοκίας,” 140–41. 18 Koula Xiradaki, Από τα αρχεία του ελεγκτικού συνεδρίου. Παρθεναγωγεία και δασκάλες του υπόδουλου ελληνισμού (Athens, 1972–73), Vol. II, 36; photograph of Tzoannopoulou in Stenimachos, 41 (on other members of the family 33–34). 19 On the first school year see alongside the letters of Tzoannopoulou the report of the board to the general assembly of the Anatoli Association, Επετηρίς του Συλλόγου των Μικρασιατών «Ανατολής», Έτος εικοστόν πρώτον, 11 Σεπτεμβρίου 1911–31 Αυγούστου 1912 (Athens:

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Figure 32.1

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Graduation class 1915 with director, teachers, and the metropolitan of Caesarea Ioannidou family archive

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become the director of the college in Kallithea and an important personality of kindergarten education in Greece. She supported her former pupils arriving as refugees in Greece and looking for work, by providing them among other things with references for the Greek authorities.20 3

The Students

From Smyrna where she was residing in November 1919, Tzoannopoulou sent to the Anatoli Association a summary report and an attached list of graduates including their current occupation.21 Of the 42 graduates mentioned in the list, 10 had been local girls from Zincidere, with mixed finance models to cover tuition and half boarding. The remaining 32 girls must have been full boarding students with Anatoli scholarships; in earlier reports there are mentions of girls covering tuition on their own.22 The 32 full boarders came from places as far from the school as Filadelfeia (Alaşehir), Ankara, Yozgat, Adana, and Isparta but also from villages and small towns in the vicinity such as Andronikion (Endürlük), Moutalaski (Talas) and Tavlusun.23 The first class consisted of girls who transferred from the adjacent Central School for Girls of the Metropolis of Caesarea and of pupils from the area close to the school receiving the Anatoli scholarship; they graduated in 1913.24 The students’ costs were mainly covered through the Anatoli scholarships, while the communities sending them to the school were bound by contracts to Athanasiou G. Deligianni, 1913), 15–16, 21, and balance sheet tables. On the early Tzoannopoulou reports after her arrival in the fall of 1911 see also Giannis Betsas, “Το διδασκαλείο νηπιαγωγών στα Φλαβιανά (Ζιντζίδερε) της Καισάρειας (1911–1916),” Mikrasiatiki Spitha 19 (2015): 85–96, here 90. On Tzoannopoulou in Mersin see Katerina NikolaidouDanasi, Καισάρεια, vol. 1 (Thessaloniki: Mavrogenis 2017), 372. On Nikolaos Papanikolaou (later metropolitan of Grevena), ibid., 280–84. 20 See mentions of her supportive actions in Xiradaki, Από τα αρχεία του ελεγκτικού συνεδρίου, vol. I, 14–15, and earlier mentions in Nikolaidou-Danasi, Καισάρεια, 135, fn. 39. 21 The attached list of graduates AA, I Καισαρείας, 293, Πίναξ αποφοίτων, 3.11.1919, has been published by Betsas, “Το διδασκαλείο νηπιαγωγών στα Φλαβιανά,” 92–93. 22 ΑΑ, I Καισαρείας, 215, Letter Tzoannopoulou to AA, 22.9.1913. The student is reported to belong to the first class and to have graduated 1913, but is not included in the final report. 23 Of the 32 students from towns other than Zincidere five originated from Yozgat, four from Neapolis (Nevşehir), three from Attaleia (Antalya), two each from Isparta, Moutalaski (Talas), Niğde, and Tavlusun; finally, one each from Adana, Agios Konstantinos (Aikosten) in Develi, Andronikion (Endürlük), Ankara, Filadelfeia (Alaşehir), Gelveri (today Güzelyurt), İncesu, Kaisareia (Kayseri), Permata (Bermede), Poros (Bor), Sinasos (today Musta­ fapaşa), and Zal(l)ela, also known as Tzalela or Evmorfochori (Djemil/Cemil). 24 See full description of the graduation ceremony in AA, I Καισαρείας, 155.

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Figure 32.2

Stassinopoulou

Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou (seated, second from the right) in the autumn of 1911 with her first pupils in Zincidere Photo copyright Enosi Smyrnaion, in Engyklopaideia Meizonos Ellinismou, Syllogos Mikrasiaton “Anatoli”

employ them upon graduation in the kindergartens of their towns of origin.25 Not all graduates could find employment in their communities of origin, leading to professional mobility. Graduates originating for example from Zincidere were reported in 1919 as employees of kindergartens in Adana, Aikosten in Develi, Kaisareia (Kayseri), and Moutalaski (Talas). Despoina Sofroniadou from Zallela from the 1913 graduation class on the other hand signed in December 1917 a contract with her hometown community to work as a kindergarten teacher,26 a post she still held in 1919, according to the list. 25

This concept had already been tested with graduates of the prestigious Omireio School for Girls that trained elementary school teachers, who would sometimes also be employed as kindergarten teachers: Dimitris Kamouzis, “Η γυναικεία εκπαίδευση και ο γλωσσικός εξελληνισμός των τουρκόφωνων Ρωμιών της Μικράς Ασίας: το Ομήρειο Παρθεναγωγείο Σμύρνης (1881–1922),” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 19 (2015): 115–34. See also examples of contracts translated into Greek in Xiradaki, Από τα αρχεία του ελεγκτικού συνεδρίου, vol. I, 26–29. 26 Matoula Kouroupou and Evangelia Balta, Ελληνορθόδοξες κοινότητες της Καππαδοκίας. Ι. Περιφέρεια Προκοπίου. Πηγές στα Γενικά Αρχεία του Κράτους και στο Κέντρο Μικρασιατικών Σπουδών (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 2001), 95.

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Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou, a competent and erudite educator with a background from the European territories of the Ottoman Empire, arriving from the urban environment of the growing capital city of Athens, entered a world she knew little about. She took some time to understand and work through the not always harmonious relationship between the Anatoli Association, with its offices far away in Athens, the Metropolitan of Caesarea, who visited his flock in irregular intervals from Constantinople, and the Educational Brotherhood of Cappadocians in Constantinople, as well as through the local communities and their representatives. Finally, there were also the relations with her colleagues in the college and in the adjacent schools of the larger complex, in particular the Central School for Girls, who took some time to adjust to the existence of a new educational institution, with different concepts than their own. While mastering the delicate relationship with the Metropolis of Caesarea, the provider for larger institutions than the one she was directing,27 she needed at the same time to navigate through the politics of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and of the Greeks of the capital of the empire vis à vis the new situation after 1908.28 This larger context influenced the everyday administration of the school and the urgently needed solutions to administrative problems, for example arranging for money transfers in order to receive books and other teaching materials, the so called Spielgaben or Froebelgaben. That Tzoannopoulou managed to achieve four graduation cohorts, despite the initial reservation (to say the least) she met with, speaks of great tenacity and fortitude.29 In the mentions 27

See Dalakoura, Η εκπαίδευση των γυναικών, 167–238, on the diverse types of private (church, local communities, associations) and state financing of Greek female education in the late Ottoman Empire and how these created a complex (sometimes disharmonious) system of relations. On the connection and dispute between the Central School for Girls of the Metropolis of Caesarea and the Kindergarten Training College see Nikolaidou-Danasi, Καισάρεια, 120–36. 28 On Greek community politics during the last decade of the Ottoman Empire see Dimitris Kamouzis, Greeks in Turkey. Elite Nationalism and Minority Politics in Late Ottoman and Early Republican Istanbul [SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East 29] (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis 2021), 20–27. 29 To the advantage of the historian, Tzoannopoulou describes with aplomb and in detail her decision making. The uneasiness of the personnel of the Central School for Girls of the Metropolis of Caesarea, but also of church dignitaries with reference to accepting the changes brought by the Kindergarten Training College pervades the letters of the first school year. It even led, according to Tzoannopoulou, to colleagues of the Central School dispensing lower grades on conduct to otherwise excellent students, who had switched to the new founded College; AA, Ι Καισαρείας, 157, 3. Orders of books and Froebel teaching materials have been preserved in another section of the papers, namely the correspondence of the Anatoli Association with the Georgiades et Tchaoussoglou enterprise in

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I have found, the graduates remembered fondly and proudly that she had been their director and usually mentioned her together with her sister Polyxeni, who was a teacher at the school, as “the Tzoannopoulou sisters.” 4

Teachers in Different Places

The narrative identities of the women themselves in later phases of their lives did not necessarily coincide with the aims of ethnographic research seeking to preserve memories of Asia Minor refugees in Greece. Sofia Dondolinou, a material collector from the Oral Tradition Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens (CAMS), was not happy with one of the persons recommended to her in 1952 during her search for material on Tavlusun. “She is not such a good informant, because being an educated person, she is quite high-handed in what she says. But one can get at least some information from her about her hometown and in particular about education in the neighboring villages of Kaisareia (Kayseri).”30 Ten years later, Ermolaos Andreadis,31 one of the key Turkish speaking collaborators of the archive, declared the same person competent. There were now of course not as many potential informants left alive. But perhaps the fact that Andreadis’s father had grown up in Gelveri (Güzelyurt) and his mother in Neapolis (Nevşehir), that is in the area in which the graduates had spent their childhood and youth, contributed to his ability in discerning and accommodating more easily in his interview technique class, education, and habitus differences; differences, that did not always fit in the archive’s unifying perception of lost Cappadocian folklore.32 Constantinople, which arranged for money transfers and for the delivery to Zincidere of materials arriving from Vienna; AA, Γ Κωνσταντινουπόλεως – Νικομηδείας, indicative letters of the years 1911 and 1912: 289, 304, 307, 309, 311, 313, 315, 318, 324. 30 Informant cards, Tavlusun, Efthalia Kazazoglou 1952 and 1962, Oral Tradition Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies (CAMS). I would like to thank Dimitris Kamouzis and Varvara Kontogianni for their support during my research. For an introduction to the history of the archive see Evi Kapoli, “The Archive of Oral Tradition at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies: its formation and its contribution to research,” Ateliers d’anthropologie. Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative 32 (2008), https://doi.org/10.4000 /ateliers.1143 (accessed on 5 March 2021). 31 Ilektra E. Andreadi, “Ερμόλαος Ανδρεάδης (Κωνσταντινούπολη 1910–Αθήνα 2004),” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 15 (2008): 439–55, doi.org/10.12681/deltiokms.269 (accessed on 4 March 2021). 32 On the complexities of historiography and anthropology in dealing with diversity among Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire, see Eirini Renieri, “Ανδρονίκιο. Ένα καππαδοκικό χωριό κατά τον 19ο αιώνα,” Mnimon 15 (1993): 9–67 [partly translated in Turkish and English as Irini Renieri, “Andronikio: A 19th century Cappadocian village,”

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Melpo Logotheti-Merlier, the director of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies distinguished between “the refugees, the people” and the “scientists,” as if the experience of education and of the trauma of refugee displacement, or of erudition and of valid experiences of everyday life and ritual, were in some way mutually exclusive. The idea of authenticity being related to lower or no education can sometimes be found in comments of the material collectors in their efforts to locate “adequate” informants, in particular as regards the central Anatolian areas.33 The woman who had provoked differing opinions as to her aptitude as a potential informant was Efthalia Kazazoglou, née Frengoglou (figure 32.3). Born in Tavlusun around 1894, she graduated from the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere with the second graduation class of 1914. She married shortly after graduation and moved with her husband to Kaisareia (Kayseri). She taught in kindergartens in the larger area including her hometown of Tavlusun.34 The family left in February 1924 and arrived via Egypt and in Kayseri with its Armenian and Greek Cultural Heritage, Hrant Dink Foundation Publications 2016, 40–61, https://hrantdink.org/attachments/article/340/Kayseri-with-its -Armenian-and-Greek-Cultural-Heritage.pdf, accessed on 31 August 2022]; Aude Aylin de Tapia, “D’un ethnonyme à l’autre. Les chrétiens orthodoxes turcophones de Cappadoce à la fin de l’Empire ottoman,” in Minorités en Mediterranée au XIXe siècle. Identités, identifications, circulations, eds. Valerie Assan, Bernard Heyberger, and Jakob Vogel (Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2019), 65–83; Aude Aylin de Tapia, “Orthodox Christians and Muslims of Cappadocia”; Ayşe Ozil, Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Empire. A Study of Communal Relations in Anatolia [SOAS/ Routledge Studies on the Middle East 19] (London and New York: Routledge/ Taylor and Francis, 2013), 10–21. 33 Merlier responded thus to a text initially published in 1933 by Georgios Askitopoulos; in this text Askitopoulos had used the phrase “an army of scientists,” when referring to people, who could potentially be sent questionnaires about language and folklore; Georgios Askitopoulos, “Μικρασιατική Λαογραφία,” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 7 (1988): 303–12, here 312, https://doi.org/10.12681/deltiokms.195 (accessed on 5 March 2021). She did on the other hand later praise Askitopoulos’ contribution to the Centre: “[…]  contributors are also those Refugees, people of substantial Greek erudition, often Turkish speaking, who had been teachers or professors in Asia Minor  […]. I must name here G. Askitopoulos from Constantinople  […]”, “Υοσγάτη ή Γιοσγάτη,” in Η Έξοδος, vol. 3, eds. Paschalis Kitromilidis et al. (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 2013), 125–30, 130, fn. 7. On erudite memory practices particularly of scholars from Thrace Aimilia Salvanou, Η συγκρότηση της προσφυγικής μνήμης. Το παρελθόν ως ιστορία και πρακτική (Athens: Nefeli, 2018). 34 According to Bedross Der Matossian, “Ottoman Armenian Kesaria/ Kayseri in the 19th century,” in Kayseri with its Armenian and Greek Cultural Heritage, Hrant Dink Foundation Publications 2016, 27, Armenians were the largest Christian population group inside the city, while Greek orthodox formed the largest Christian population group in the settlements surrounding the city. The same author mentions a “Frenkoghli” clan, as one of the main opponents in a divisive feud of Armenian elite families in the city from

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Figure 32.3

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Efthalia Kazazoglou, née Frengoglu (class 1914) in Kermira (Germir) in 1922 with her husband Courtesy of Kedros Publishers

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Piraeus to Thessaloniki following continuous professional moves and investments of Efthalia’s husband in bakeries, mills, and animal husbandry. She continued working in kindergartens in Tyrnavos and Nevrokopi and after 1937 in Piraeus and Kallithea, where she retired in 1947.35 A member of the first graduation class, Aikaterini Pingietoglou (or Piniatoglou) was born in Zincidere36 and was a student of the Central School for Girls of the Metropolis of Caesarea before continuing on to the Kindergarten Training College. She became the star pupil of Aikaterini Tzoannopoulou in the first graduation class of 1913. About to depart for her summer vacation that year and still without certainty about the financing of a Froebelian model kindergarten attached to the college, as a practice kindergarten for her students, Tzoannopoulou recommended to her employers in Athens, Pingietoglou as the first employee.37 According to the summary list, she was still working at the kindergarten in Zincidere in 1919. Her sister Alexandra on the other hand, a graduate of the 1915 class, was employed for a year (1915–16) in Zincidere, before finding a post in a kindergarten in Kaisareia (Kayseri). From there Alexandra must have left for Smyrna (a narrow escape, as she describes it, and considering that the area was the theater of extreme violence throughout 1919 and 1920, this seems to be accurate). It was in this moment of need that she turned to the Anatoli Association applying for the payment of delayed wages. In her letter she mentioned proof signed by director Tzoannopoulou and the protosynkellus (deputy bishop) of the Metropolis of Caesarea and director of the priest seminary in the school complex, Nikolaos.38

35

36

37 38

1820 to 1880 and one of the wealthy merchant families who expanded their networks from Constantinople to Manchester, ibid., 29, 31 (https://hrantdink.org/attachments /article/340/Kayseri-with-its-Armenian-and-Greek-Cultural-Heritage.pdf, accessed 31 August 2022). Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, Tavlusun, informant’s cards Efthalia Kazazoglou (née Frengoglou); Soula Efstathiadou, Καππαδοκία. Πριν και μετά (Athens: Kedros, 2014), 121–22, 127; Theo Pavlidis, Ένα δένδρο με πολύ απλωμένα κλαδιά, family memoir https://www .theopavlidis.com/AsiaMinor/kermira.pdf (accessed on 1 March 2021); Xiradaki, Από τα αρχεία του ελεγκτικού συνεδρίου, vol. I, 166. The two sisters, Aikaterini and Alexandra, must have been related to the wealthy tobacco manufacturer of Batum, Lazaros Piniatoglou, who originated from Zincidere, see Ioannis I. Kalfoglous, Historical Geography of Asia Minor. Translated and edited from the original manuscript by Stavros Th. Anestides (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 2002), 31; on members of the Piniatoglou family during that period see also Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, testimonials Zincidere. AA, I Καισαρείας, 202, Tzoannopoulou to AA, 17.6.1913. AA, I Καισαρείας, 295, Alexandra Pingietoglou, Smyrna, to the president of the Anatoli Association, 10.9.1920. Each document at my disposal regarding the two sisters offers a slightly different form of their family name.

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While this particular document is yet to be located, there is a similar one dating from 1916 and concerning Amalia Serafeimidou, from the first graduation class of 1913. In the document Tzoannopoulou confirms wages earned, while Nikolaos confirms payments due by Serafeimidou, also a native of Zincidere, to the Metropolis of Caesarea.39 Both women probably had their tuition fees covered by the Metropolis and were given the chance by Tzoannopoulou to return this student loan, by working in the model kindergarten, a concept which had been tried out for excellent graduates of the Central School for Girls, who would proceed to work in the adjacent orphanage.40 I am not yet certain about the fate of Alexandra Piniatoglou after 1920. But Amalia Serafeimidou was already in Greece in 1926. The document mentioned above formed part of her application for recognition of services, deposited at the police directorate of Thessaloniki in August 1926. The application was moving through offices of the Ministry of Education and the Foreign Ministry, which had asked for confirmation from the Anatoli Association, now in its new role of supporting educators and pupils arriving as refugees in Greece.41 The application included also an affidavit signed by two witnesses and confirming her work as a kindergarten teacher in 1915–16: Serafeimidou was already seeking employment. It was not uncommon for refugee teachers unable to provide papers to be employed on the basis of such affidavits with the signatures of two witnesses. Amalia Serafeimidou-Intzesiloglou remained in the Greek school system and taught in several school districts in Macedonia.42 For these early appointments an exam in the Greek language was also necessary.43 39 AA, I Καισαρείας, 297, confirmation for Amalia Serafeimidou, Zincidere, 19.9.1916, and confirmation of the same content signed by Tzoannopoulou in Kallithea 9.6.1925. Both documents were attached to an application of Amalia Serafeimidou in Thessaloniki in 1926, describing the type of student loan she and her sister had received from the foundation for the poor in Zincidere and her application for the wages remaining, after balancing the debt; on the employment arrangement between Central School for Girls and orphanage, Nikolaidou-Danasi, Καισάρεια, 137. 40 Ibid., 132. 41 Τριακονταπενταετής δράσις του Μικρασιατικού Συλλόγου “Ανατολή” (Athens: Koronaiou-Denaxa 1925), 29–36. 42 See family recollections of her grandson, Nintze Nintze https://nl-nl.facebook.com/per malink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02GLdZ4xVzzLm8sg3EdXo6VMrMS316NT78a223Bthvax8q 9L7NhGUjo8uw1KdLL4Btl&id=1842710148&__tn__=K-R. The school diplomas are now to be found in the manuscript collections of the Historical Archives of the Benaki Museum, Nr. 346, Tsalikoglou Papers (with thanks to Tasos Sakellaropoulos, Maria Dimitriadou and Souzana Zengkini). 43 Royal decree published in the Official Gazette of Greece, 4 April 1923 “On testing of foreign holders of a teachers’ diploma with Greek ancestry wishing to be integrated into the diploma holders from Greek training institutions” (Φ.Ε.Κ. 90/Α, 6).

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The so-called “double witness teachers” provoked mostly negative reactions from local teachers, at least in the area of Western Macedonia, where another woman from the graduation class of 1913, Polyxeni Kioleoglou, originally from Zincidere, who in 1919 was reported to be working in Hamidiye (today Syria), managed already in 1924 to be appointed as a kindergarten teacher in the district of Florina.44 She remained in the Greek school system for many years and died in 1971.45 Be it the impressions the new graduates created as teachers on younger pupils, the expectation of a paying job for girls in families with many children or that of a better position in the marriage market with a diploma of higher education, the college and the prospect of a scholarship were already creating a new prospect for girls in the area. Maria Devletoglou, an informant born in 1902 in Moutalaski (Talas), remembered in 1955 how she had dreamt of finishing elementary school in her hometown and then becoming a boarder in Zincidere; but with the Great War schools would close all the time and none of her dreams had materialized.46 5

From Home to School to Another Country

A scholarship application read: “With tears in her eyes, she [Eleni] begs me to send her as well to a school of higher education in order for her to reach perfection, after having finished the local school for girls”.47 Ioannis Hatziarzoumanidis from Yozgat, father of the siblings Marianthi and Eleni Arzoumanoglou, was pleading in early August 1913 for a second scholarship for the same family (other pairs of sisters appear in the summary list, but it is not yet clear if the fees were paid for all of them by the Anatoli Association). As he went on to explain, the family did not have the means to send the younger 44 Aikaterini Kozidi, “Το προφίλ των εκπαιδευτικών πρωτοβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης Φλώρινας (1914–1939),” (MA thesis, University of Western Macedonia, Florina 2016), https://dspace .uowm.gr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/400/Kozidi%20Aikaterini.pdf?sequence =1&isAllowed=y (accessed on 1 March 2021), 25, 95, for Kioleoglou’s file see in particular 110. Kozidi makes the point that the linguistic qualifications of the refugees did not fit the urgent policies of the period, which lay in qualifying as soon as possible local kindergarten and elementary teachers with the necessary Slav Macedonian or Aromanian linguistic background. 45 Xiradaki, Από τα αρχεία του ελεγκτικού συνεδρίου, vol. I, 170. 46 Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, Moutalaski, informant card Maria Devletoglou, 4.1.1955, collector Hara Lioudaki. 47 Ioannis A. Hatziarzoumanidis, Yozgat, to the President of the Anatoli Association, Athens, 4/19 August 1913, AA I Καισαρείας, 206 [register number 11336].

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girl to college. From the later testimonial of Marianthi for the Oral Tradition Archive in April 1953, we know that their father had been a successful cattle merchant with a wide range of activity reaching to Adana and Mersin. Both parents had moved in 1899 from Kayseri to Yozgat, which was becoming part of the larger Kayseri trade network.48 In 1913, at the time the letter was written, Muslim refugees from the Balkans were being forced to move to the inner Anatolian sandjaks, including Yozgat.49 This and other effects of the Balkan wars will certainly have influenced the local economy, but if and how they played any part in the economic difficulties of the family as mentioned in the letter is not yet clear. The handwriting of the letter feels slightly awkward and youthful  – comparison with later letters by the younger daughter, Eleni, for whom the scholarship was requested for, make it quite plausible, that she wrote this application letter herself. One can almost imagine her, part composing the text, part transforming what her father was dictating in his regional Greek variant into learned Greek (according to later testimonials of Marianthi, the elder daughter, both parents spoke Turkish and Greek). Marianthi had finished the sixth class of the Central School for Girls of the Metropolis of Caesarea in 1912 and the first preparatory class of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in 1913. She already knew the school complex well and must have already been quite proficient in learned Greek.50 Both girls would take the long trip to school on horseback, the letter having been received by the Anatoli Association and achieved its purpose.51 They finished college one after the other, Marianthi in 1915 and Eleni with the last cohort of graduating students in 1916. 48 Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, Yozgat, Marianthi (sometimes Maria in AA documents) Ioannidou (née Arzoumanidou/Arzoumanoglou, both name forms in AA documents). According to Donald Quataert, “Limited Revolution: The Impact of the Anatolian Railway on Turkish Transportation and the Provisioning of Istanbul, 1890–1908,” The Business History Review 51/2 (Summer 1977): 139–60, 146, the traditional caravan routes were still responsible in the early 20th century for the majority of commerce transportation in the area, despite incentives offered by the railway company. 49 Şerife Geniş and Kelly Lynne Maynard, “Formation of a Diasporic Community: The History of Migration and Resettlement of Muslim Albanians in the Black Sea Region,” Middle Eastern Studies 45,4 (2009): 553–69, here 560–61. 50 In her last year at the Central School for Girls, she had been one of the students affected by the disputes of the teachers, and had been given low conduct grades, but despite that had managed a solid 7,93 (out of 10). In the preparatory class of the college, she had achieved a better average, which will have made her summer vacation even more enjoyable, AA I Καισαρείας, 155, lists of pupils and grades, cf. 181, 188, 203. 51 Their father expressed his gratitude in a second letter (this time written by a different hand, perhaps a professional scribe), AA I Καισαρείας, 224 [register number 11547], Ioannis A. Hatziarzoumanoglou [sic], Yozgat, to the President of the Anatoli Association,

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Both sisters are listed in 1919 as teaching in Yozgat, but this seems to have transpired differently for each one of them. Marianthi must have worked for some time, but then stopped to prepare her dowry and did not think of a professional career, while Eleni must have continued work. In her oral testimonial of the year 1953, Marianthi reported effects of local violence on the family. The 1920 fights between the founding family of Yozgat, Çapanoğlu, which remained loyal to the sultan after 1918, and Kemalist forces, a “major event” in the history of the town, to use the expression of Suraiya Faroqhi,52 affected the loyalist elements among the Greek population, who stood by the Çapanoğlu family. According to Marianthi, the family home was burnt down, and both their father and her fiancé, himself a teacher, were murdered by the fighters of Çerkez Ethem, entering Yozgat ahead of the Kemalist troops.53 According to her narrative, Marianthi then proceeded to earn money as a professional embroiderer (Yozgat was an important center of textile manufacture and trade), and as soon as schools opened again, she taught kindergarten. The pattern of professional choices of the two sisters (or the family plan for them) repeats itself in Athens, where, in late 1922 after a long trip via Mersin, the women and the youngest boy of the family finally managed to reunite with the elder brothers and an uncle, who had arrived earlier.54 Marianthi married in 1927 and did not look for a kindergarten teaching post anymore. Widowhood in 1946 led to her becoming a fulltime shop manager, taking over the enterprise of her deceased husband. She was recruited around 1950 by the former inspector of her college and now neighbor, Georgios Askitopoulos, to support him in his work for the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. Eleni (figure 32.4), on the other hand, remained single, as was the unwritten Athens, 28.10.1913; see also letter concerning the acceptance of the younger sister, AA I Καισαρείας, 299, Copie de lettres, 11531 undated, but probably November 1913. The train connection was not very far away, but traditional travelling, probably with business associates or other family members, was chosen over it. The trip from Yozgat to Kayseri on horseback had been calculated in 1899 as 26 hours, to which at least another four hours should be added to reach Zincidere, Kalfoglous, Historical Geography, 152. 52 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Yozgat.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (1960–2007), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8024 (accessed on 1 February 2021); “Υοσγάτη ή Γιοσγάτη,” in Η Έξοδος, vol. 3 (as in fn. 33). 53 Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, Yozgat, Marianthi Ioannidou. See also other Yozgat testimonials with narratives of the local massacre of the loyalist Greeks of Yozgat. 54 This longer trip did not follow the shorter route via the ports of the Black Sea, which was chosen during the later migration of the majority of the community by its leaders; s. e.g. “Υοσγάτη ή Γιοσγάτη,” in Η Έξοδος, vol. 3 (as in fn. 33), 126–27. It was perhaps chosen because of the professional connections of the deceased father in the cities of Adana and Mersin, or because the road connections to the Black Sea ports were blocked in 1922.

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Figure 32.4

Eleni Arzoumanidou, Kindergarten Lavrio 1953 Ioannidou family archive

prerequisite for kindergarten teachers in most European countries well into the twentieth century55 and enjoyed a fulltime career in the kindergartens of Kallithea, Lavrio, an industrial town of Attica with a substantial refugee population, where she was appointed director, and Corinth, her last professional position.56 Two further graduates from Yozgat, Eleni Papazoglou (daughter of one of the leading figures of the Greek community of Yozgat and a friend of the two sisters) and Sofia Sousounoglou, were also employed in Yozgat in 1919. While the former would not work in Greece, having married quite soon after her arrival there,57 the latter seems to have become a kindergarten teacher in Kavala.58 55

56 57 58

The paradigmatic life of a single teacher is narrated by Max Liedtke, Das Fräulein Lehrerin. Beispiel: Fräulein Helene Käferlein (1901–1975), ihre Erniedrigungen, Ihre Leistungen. Eigentlich denkmalwürdig (Bad Heilbrunn: Verlag Julius Klinkhardt, 2019); the exclusion of married women from the teaching profession either by law or by unwritten convention applied to a large number of European societies. For the Greek case, see Efi Avdela, “Η θέση της δασκάλας. Λόγοι και αντίλογοι σε ένα μεσοπολεμικό έντυπο,” Dini 3 (1988): 46–53; Dalakoura and Ziogou-Karastergiou, Η εκπαίδευση των γυναικών, 244–45. Archive of Oral Tradition, CAMS, Yozgat, Marianthi Ioannidou; Ioannidou private family papers. Ioannidou private family papers. Under her maiden name she is mentioned in 1948 and in 1956 in the correspondence section of the newspaper Didaskalikon Vima as having been a resident in Kavala (http://

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The fifth graduate from Yozgat, Ypatia Alekiozoglou, was already married at the time of the report: along with another four young women she belonged to the small group of graduates, who had already in 1919 left their teaching ambitions behind and married. Considering that the average marriage age of women is reported in many testimonials by female informants as being between 14 and 16, the fact that 36 out of 42 women (one graduate had passed away by 1919) remained unmarried and were employed as kindergarten teachers three to six years after graduation is significant. There are several possible reasons for this: changing attitudes towards women with a profession, immediate financial needs of distressed middle-class families due to the continuous economic instability, the effects of permanent violence surrounding them, and perhaps even the absence of men, who were being drafted, deported, killed, or were leaving the country. 6

An Educational Identity

The job profile of the graduates of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere coincides with that of graduates from other schools in the broader Greek speaking educational system, both in Greece or the big coastal cities of Asia Minor, but also for example in the protestant schools of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which were quite successful in the area around Kayseri. Ethnoreligious boundaries between communities might indeed have been well preserved and that applies also to the Greek protestants of Zincidere, where the communication between Orthodox and Protestants is described from the Protestants’ perspective as based on mutual tolerance as opposed to other communities, where animosities between the two groups are said to have been not uncommon.59 But the example of Viktoria Seirinidou60 shows that the life of a teacher, who as a protestant girl doe.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/10NOV1948.pdf, http://doe.gr/wp-content/uploads /2019/12/20SEP1956.pdf; (accessed on 4 June 2021)). She must have been one of two graduates of the college, who taught in kindergartens in the city: Lazaros Papadopoulos and Katerina Themelidou, “Δάσκαλοι από την « Καθ’ημάς Ανατολή » που υπηρέτησαν στη Δημοτική Εκπαίδευση Καβάλας,” in 100 χρόνια ελεύθερη Καβάλα–100 χρόνια ελεύθερη εκπαίδευση, eds. Nikolaos G. Georgiadis et al. (Drama: Ekpaideftikos Kyklos, 2017), 13–16. 59 Sofoklis Seirinidis, Εικόνες από τη ζωή του Στέφανου Ι. Σειρηνίδη, 2nd ed. (Athens 1964), 18. I would like to thank Dr. Anna Serafeimidou-Vagiaki for important clarifications concerning the genealogies of the Zincidere protestants and for providing me with a scan of Sofoklis Seirinidis’ book. 60 Oral Tradition Archive, CAMS, Zincidere, testimonial Viktoria Seirinidou. On mission schools Konstantia P. Kiskira, “Προτεστάντες ιεραπόστολοι στην καθ’ ημάς Ανατολή, 1819–

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visited at first the mission school of Zincidere (where her older sister Efronia was her teacher), might intersect with the life of a Greek-orthodox kindergarten teacher from the Kindergarten Training College. After six years of school at her home town, Seirinidou was sent at the age of 14 to the Arsakeion College of the Filekpaideftiki Etaireia in Kerkyra, from where she transferred after three years to the Arsakeion College of Athens to complete her training. If her recollection of the dates is correct, it took her seven years to complete her higher education, followed then by a spectacular career. She taught for three years at the American School in Smyrna, she became in 1913 (at the age of 24) director of a Greek school (or schools?) in Kaisareia (Kayseri) and later in Moutalaski (Talas). In 1918 she taught for a year at the American School at Gedikpaşa in Constantinople, a co-educational elementary school, from where she then transferred back to Smyrna. According to her narrative, she left the city three days before the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. In Athens she was awarded an ABCFM scholarship, which took her to New York, where she later worked and studied. She returned from there to Piraeus and finally to Athens as a dentist. Seirinidou must have left Kaisareia (Kayseri) for Moutalaski (Talas) just as Alexandra Piniatoglou was arriving there from Zincidere to teach for a few years. Did the two women perhaps meet in Smyrna, where Piniatoglou was staying in 1920? In Moutalaski Seirinidou might have also met another graduate, Amalia Serafeimidou, who was teaching kindergarten. In the second decade of the twentieth century three young bilingual women from a small town with a disproportionately large school infrastructure were pursuing their careers with impressive mobility. While the focus of this project remains firmly on the graduates of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere, connecting the dots across the borders between schools with different and even competing agendas, such as the ABCFM, might in the end prove quite rewarding in understanding and telling the lives of the women, who graduated from them. Looking at the lives of members of the group, it appears that their college experience had changed them radically in comparison to the generation of 1914: η δράση της American Board,” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 12 (1997): 97–118; eadem, “‘Evangelising’ the Orient; New England womanhood in the Ottoman Empire, 1830–1930,” Archivum Ottomanicum 16 (1998): 279–94; Hayriye Hale Kozlu, “The Protestant Buildings in Turkey/Kayseri Central Mission Station in the 19th Century: Within the Scope of American Board’s Missionary Movement,” in Academic Studies in Architectural Sciences, ed. Hayriye Hale Kozlu; Merih Erol, “‘All we hope is a generous revival’: The Evangelization of the Ottoman Christians in Western Anatolia in the Nineteenth Century”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları/ The Journal of Ottoman Studies 55 (2020): 243–80; American Board Pamphlet Collection of the Digital Library for International Research, http://dlir.org/arit-pamphlet-collection.html (accessed on 1 February 2021).

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their parents (from dress code to language usage) and provided them with invaluable assets already in their original job placements in Asia Minor. The exclusive use of learned Greek during their training and the required use of Greek even during breaks and free time enhanced othering. Already in schools in their towns of origin, the girls had been exposed to critical attitudes towards their bilingualism and towards the regional variants of Greek used by them, and the experience was intensified during college training.61 But through this alienating process they internalized the new agency and mobility options, which standardized learned Greek combined with their training as specialized kindergarten teachers provided them with. After the exchange of populations, they used their linguistic expertise and professional assets to find jobs in the Greek school system or to reinvent themselves as professional women and were able to regain upward mobility for themselves and their families in the new life settings as undesired refugees.62 While their lives are also part of larger structures and global shifts, they deserve, as a group and each one of them separately “a room of one’s own”: a narrative space in which their stories can be told keeping at a certain distance the disruptive noises of centennial memorial practices at state level. 61 Eleni Karatza, “Η παιδεία στο Γκέλβερι της Καππαδοκίας,” Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 3 (1982): 127–148, https://doi.org/10.12681/deltiokms.281 (accessed on 4 March 2021); Report of the teacher of the Kindergarten Training College of Flaviana in Zincidere, Eleni Stavridou, AA I Καισαρείας, 217, 03.10.1913. Despite being extreme in its wording, the General Royal Consulate Report 57, Historical Archive of the Foreign Ministry, Embassy of Constantinople 1916, B/59, published in Anagnostopoulou, Μικρά Ασία, 581–596, is certainly indicative of the attitude of Greek nationals towards bilingual orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire prevailing at least in the early twentieth century; see also Sia Anagnostopoulou, “Greek Diplomatic Authorities in Anatolia,” in Cries and Whispers, 63–78, here 72. 62 Mutual alienation was not only based on economic fears of the local population and urgently implemented measures of the state to support incoming refugees, but also on cultural divergence, see indicatively Dimitra Giannuli, “Greeks or ‘Strangers at Home’: The Experience of Ottoman Greek Refugees during Their Exodus to Greece, 1922–1923,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 13,2 (1995), 271–87; Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, “Economic Consequences following Refugee Settlement in Greek Macedonia, 1923–1932,” in Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey, ed. Renée Hirschon (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003), 64–77; Nikos Andriotis, “‘Εμείς’ και οι ‘άλλοι’: Πρόσφυγες και γηγενείς στην Ελλάδα του Μεσοπολέμου,” in Μετανάστευση, Ετερότητα και Θεσμοί υποδοχής στην Ελλάδα. Το στοίχημα της κοινωνικής ένταξης, ed. Andreas Ch. Takis (Athens: Sakkoula, 2010), 15–37. For an introduction to the larger context of displacement and refugees during and after WWI see Peter Gatrell, “Refugees.” 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2014), https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/refugees (accessed on 1 March 2021).

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33 Heritage Discourse in Early Republican Turkey: The Journal Ülkü (1933–1950) Re-Examined Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth After contemplating everything, we see that the reality of homeland relies on memories. Homeland will remain as long as there is a past to remember and a generation to remember it.1

∵ The Ottoman sultanate, as a multiethnic and dynastic state, had a very different notion of its ‘heritage’ from that of the republic that was established in part of its territory in 1923. That territory inherited the material cultural remains on it and in its soil. This paper seeks to reconstruct fragments of early Republican deliberations about how a selection of Anatolia’s material inheritances could be revalued as the modern Turkish nation’s heritage. This process, as I will show, is sometimes all too simplistically represented as an institutionalized rejection of the Ottoman past. Through an analysis of the discourse on the nation’s heritage in the journal Ülkü, which could be construed as a herald of the ‘authorized heritage discourse’ (a term and concept to be explained below), I aim to extend our insight into some of the structures of early Republican Turkey’s ‘heritage-making.’ Among other things, I will argue that this was not a linear process. Rather, the articles in Ülkü reveal a dynamic discourse with different priorities and motivations even in its relatively short period of publication. 1

Introduction

The term ‘heritage’ has been assigned various meanings, all suggesting notions beyond its materiality. More than anything, it has come to be perceived as 1 Remzi Oğuz Arık, Halkevlerinde Müze, Tarih ve Folklor Çalışmaları Kılavuzu (Ankara, 1947), 5. [Transl. ADH].

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004545809_035

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a process, or a series of meanings, that inform our perception of the past. Contemporary values assigned to selected tangible or intangible remains of the past have consequently been instrumental in the formation of shared cultures and identities in nation-building processes. Scholars of ‘critical heritage studies,’ inaugurated in the 1990s and gaining traction in the 2000s, have discovered discourse as a central subject of investigation, exposing the thought processes that lead to judgements on valuation, management, and representation. In her seminal work Uses of Heritage, Smith defines heritage as “not only a social and cultural resource or process, but also a political one through which a range of struggles are negotiated.”2 She emphasizes that the way in which heritage is talked and written about significantly influences our perception. For a more official discourse, she coined the term ‘authorized heritage discourse’ that “privileges monumentality and grand scale, innate artefact/site significance tied to time depth, scientific/aesthetic expert judgement, social consensus and nation building.”3 Heritage discourse was also instrumental during the Early Republican period in Turkey for establishing a new identity for the nation in line with modernization efforts. In the Ottoman period, the origins of an official heritage discourse and its consequent practices can be linked to a response to the European interest in the archaeological assets of the Empire and implied territorial ownership. As a part of the modernization efforts of the 19th century, the discipline of archaeology and the institution of the museum were adopted from Europe.4 The Imperial Museum (Müze-i Hümayun) in Istanbul and its collection were thus initially intended for foreign eyes, with the purpose of consolidating the empire’s territory, thus watering down the didactic function of the institution.5 The transition from the Ottoman Empire to the secular Republic of Turkey brought with it many cultural and social reforms. The attempt to rewrite an official Turkish history with the aid of archaeological data also began during this period. It resulted in the production of a well-known text entitled Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları (Outlines of Turkish History).6 This publication was based on a grand narrative titled ‘Turkish History Thesis,’ which, with evidence from archaeological, anthropological, ethnographical, and linguistic research, 2 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (London: Routledge, 2006), 7. 3 Ibid., 11. 4 Çiğdem Atakuman, “Value of Heritage in Turkey: History and Politics of Turkey’s World Heritage Nominations,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23,1 (2010): 107–31, here 111. 5 Wendy Shaw, Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology, and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 224. 6 Afet İnan et al., Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1930).

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was to prove that Turks were a people of white race. They left their homeland in Central Asia due to climate change and spread civilization along the way.7 Archaeology thus became an essential tool for affirming the Turks’ territorial rights in Anatolia, while the emphasis on prehistory disassociated Turkish history from the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, it provided supposed proof of the origins of European civilization in Anatolia. The discourse that dominated this period was heavily supported by scientific data, particularly from archaeological and anthropological research.8 Due to lack of solid evidence and anticipated advances in research, the History Thesis was eventually abandoned, but heritage discourse continued to dominate issues of national identity, belonging, and a shared national culture. Therefore, the articles published in the 1930s and 1940s in the journal Ülkü constitute a unique body of data for an analysis of the construction of the official heritage discourse in Turkey. Building on the valuable research that approached the period and subject from a critical perspective, notably those of Atakuman9 and Tanyeri-Erdemir,10 this study offers a review of the period’s heritage discourse, as represented in the journal Ülkü. It was published in Ankara by the People’s House (Halkevi), the central cultural and educational institution of Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party (RPP). As one of the main tools for communication between the ruling party and the citizens, the contributions in this publication on topics ranging from archaeological excavations in Anatolia to the preservation of Islamic monuments have been essential for reinforcing an official heritage discourse throughout the 1930s and 1940s.The article will first provide a brief history of the institution of People’s Houses, then a short overview of the journal Ülkü. Subsequently, it will discuss, in four thematic sections, a selection of articles from the journal that were found representative for the discourse.

7

For an analysis of the thesis see Büşra Ersanlı, İktidar ve Tarih: Türkiye’de “Resmî Tarih” Tezinin Oluşumu (1929–1937), 7th ed. (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2018). 8 Atakuman, “Value of Heritage,” 112. 9 Çiğdem Atakuman, “Cradle or Crucible: Anatolia and Archaeology in the Early Years of the Turkish Republic (1923–1938),” Journal of Social Archaeology 8 (2008): 214–35; “Shifting Discourses of Heritage and identity in Turkey: Anatolianist Ideologies and Beyond,” in In Search of Pre-Classical Antiquitiy: Rediscovering Ancient Peoples in Mediterranean Europe (19th and 20th c.), ed. Antonino de Francesco (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 166–81. 10 Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir, “Archaeology as a Source of National Pride in the Early Years of the Turkish Republic,” Journal of Field Archaeology 31,4 (2006): 381–93.

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The People’s Houses and Ülkü

The People’s Houses (Halkevleri) were established in 1932 as cultural and educational centers of the ruling RPP.11 Working parallel with research institutions dedicated to language and history (such as the Turkish Language Society and the Turkish History Society), the Houses were designed to disseminate the state’s new policies and ideology to a broader public.12 Functioning under the ruling party in urban centers, these institutions were considered essential for the propagation and appropriation of social and cultural reforms and organized their activities in line with this aim. The 1930s began as a period of institutional reorganization, during which many social and cultural associations were closed or repurposed.13 One of the most influential of these reforms concerned the Turkish Hearths, or Türk Ocakları, nationalist cultural centers that were inaugurated in 1911. They continued to receive support from the government after the declaration of Turkish Republic in 1923 and conducted cultural and educational activities with the goal of achieving national unity.14 After their closure in 1931, the establishment of a new network of centers called Halkevleri, People’s Houses, was put in progress. These centers were to function in the cultural and political sphere. While their research on local history would contribute to the establishment of a unified 11

For detailed research on the origins, establishment, and functioning of the People’s Houses see, for example, Kemal Karpat, “The Impact of the People’s Houses on the Development of Communication in Turkey: 1931–1951,” Die Welt des Islams 15,1/4 (1974): 69–84; Kemal Karpat, “The People’s Houses in Turkey: Establishment and Growth,” Middle East Journal 17,1/2 (Winter  – Spring 1963): 55–67; Neşe Gürallar Yeşilkaya, Halkevleri: İdeoloji ve Mimarlık (İstanbul: İletişim, 1999); Sefa Şimşek, “‘People’s Houses’ as a Nationwide Project for Ideological Mobilization in Early Republican Turkey,” Turkish Studies 6,1 (2005): 71–91; Nurcan Toksoy, Halkevleri: Bir Kültürel Kalkınma Modeli Olarak (Ankara: Orion, 2007); Anıl Çeçen, Atatürk’ün Kültür Kurumu Halkevleri (Ankara: Gündoğan Yayınları, 1990); Alexandros Lamprou, Nation Building in Modern Turkey: The ‘People’s Houses’, the State and the Citizen (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015). 12 Lamprou, Nation Building in Modern Turkey, 19. 13 Atatürk’s 1930 trip throughout the country is considered a turning point for Turkey’s cultural heritage. On visiting the monuments in Konya, he penned a well-known telegram to İsmet İnönü. Divided into two sections, the short text emphasized the neglected state of archaeological sites and Islamic monuments (such as the Seljuk period buildings in Konya) and called for urgent action. Consequently, an expert committee began work on future steps and a new protection program was presented. (Emre Madran, “Cumhuriyet’in İlk Otuz Yılında [1920–1950] Koruma Alanının Örgütlenmesi I,” ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi 16,1–2 [1996], 59–97, here 69.) 14 Karpat, “The People’s Houses,” 55–57.

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national culture, their activities were regarded as essential for the transmission of RPP’s political reforms all over the country.15 Hence, the direct involvement of the ruling party with the activities of the Houses would improve the communication between Ankara and the countryside and ensure the immediate transfer of information to the countryside.16 The Houses also played a big part in the in the construction of Turkey’s national culture in the Early Republican Period. The new artistic forms and social activities introduced by these institutions offered, in the words of Öztürkmen, a “new sense of attachment to the changed boundaries of the motherland and to the culture growing within it.”17 The Houses were instructed to function, ideally, in nine separate working sections, with at least three branches required to open a House. The working branches, or kols, give a clearer idea of the issues that were prioritized and considered essential. These sections comprised Language, History and Literature; Fine Arts; Theater; Sports; Social Assistance; Courses; Library and Publications; and Museum and Exhibitions.18 They were responsible for carrying out various activities that ranged from local ethnographic and historical research, the collection of archaeological, ethnographic, and historical material to celebrate local and national festivities, and adult education. Initially opening in 14 large cities, by the time of their closure in 1951, a total of 478 Houses existed.19 Starting in 1940, in smaller towns or villages where it was not possible to fulfill the requirement of forming three branches to open a House, Halkodaları, People’s Rooms were established to respond to the demand. Their number by 1950 was 4,322.20 In 1946, after the introduction of parliamentary democracy, the People’s Houses and Rooms became a much-debated domestic issue between the RPP and the opposition, the Democrat Party. Although, in principle, the Houses were open to all citizens, they were in essence entirely funded and controlled by the ruling RPP and had no legal status independent from it. The two parties were unable to come to an agreement on the fate of these institutions, so n 1951, a year after the DP came to power, the People’s Houses and Rooms were eventually closed. 15 Ibid., 69. 16 Çeçen, Halkevleri, 73. 17 Arzu Öztürkmen, “The Role of People’s Houses in the Making of National Culture in Turkey,” New Perspectives on Turkey 11 (Fall 1994): 159–81, here 161. 18 In 1940, the Language, History and Literature section was renamed as ‘Language and Literature’ and History was merged with Museums and Exhibitions under the new title ‘History and Museums’ (Lamprou, Nation Building in Modern Turkey, 35). 19 Çeçen, Halkevleri, 108. 20 Karpat, “The People’s Houses,” 63.

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It was essential for the Houses to devise different models to reach the public. A system of communication that consisted of libraries, public lectures, and publications was established from the early days.21 Noteworthy among the publications are the periodicals that each House was encouraged to issue. Published in varying frequencies in almost 70 centers, these journals were essential for the transmission of a carefully curated content throughout the country. Due to the financial difficulties caused by the world economic crisis and the restrictions introduced by the new press law, in some cities they replaced the local press that either had to close or completely change their policies.22 The efforts of the state in spreading the alphabet reform by publishing journals countrywide was also a contributing factor.23 The main journal of the People’s Houses was Ülkü, the Ideal, published by the Ankara House. Besides providing exemplary content, Ülkü was also responsible for monitoring and guiding the other journals to ensure a certain standard.24 It is the most consistently published journal of the Houses; the three series “Series I” (1933–1941), “New Series” (1941–1946), and “Series III” (1947–1950) were issued without interruption for almost 19 years. While the first and third series were monthly, the New Series was printed every 15 days. [Figs 33.1–33.3]. The topics featured in Ülkü were clearly defined and the authors were invited to use a simple öz Türkçe that the reader would easily understand. In an article published in the first issue in 1933, topics that could be covered were grouped as follows: Literature and language (poetry, stories, novels, portrayals, analyses); Fine arts (music, painting, sculpture, architecture); History, sociology and philosophy; Economy and agriculture; Public education; Defense; Womanhood; Science; 21 Karpat, “The Impact of the People’s Houses,” 70. 22 Nurettin Güz, “Halkevleri Dergilerinin Siyasal ve Kültürel Hayatımızdaki Yeri,” in Prof. Dr. Necmettin Sefercioğlu Armağanı, ed. Ersin Özarslan (Ankara: Gazi Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi, 2001), 83–101, here 88. 23 Mustafa Oral, Kemalist Cumhuriyetin İnşası. Bir İdeolojik Aygıt Olarak Ülkü Dergisi (İstanbul: Yeni İnsan Yayınevi, 2016), 20. 24 Nurettin Güz, “Kültür Ocakları Olarak Halkevi Dergileri,” in Tüm Yönleriyle Medya ve İletişim, eds. Metin Işık and Ayhan Erdem (Konya: Eğitim Kitabevi, 2008), 65–95, here 83.

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Public health and demography; Sports and recreation; Village life; Bibliography; News from the People’s Houses; and News and suggestions.25 In spite of these preset topics, the changing directors and their personal interests and backgrounds still influenced the content. The first series was initially published under the directorship of Nusret Kemal and Necip Ali and featured articles that promoted the new ideals and policies on modernization, especially in areas of language and history. Between 1936 and 1941, Ülkü was directed by the renowned historian Fuat Köprülü. In this period, the journal had a more didactic and academic tone, focusing essentially on research. The second series, Yeni Seri, was directed by Ahmet Kutsi Tecer. During the tenure of Tecer, who was a writer and artist, the journal took a different path and published mainly on art, literature, and folklore.26 A similar structure and content was maintained in the third series under the directorship of Mehmet Tuğrul. Ülkü was published by the administrative center of the People’s Houses in Ankara for a specific target group, namely the educated reader. Teachers, doctors, and state officials were to connect with each other via this publication and ensure the proper transmission of messages. Making a clear distinction between two separate target groups, the Ankara House also published the newspaper Yurt specifically for the training of peasants.27 In line with the emphasis on archaeological research at the time, articles on the history and cultural heritage of Turkey are encountered frequently in Ülkü. Some of these are very detailed accounts of certain historical periods, sites, or new findings. In addition to these articles that are highly descriptive in nature, a relatively large number of articles are characterized by a more theoretical approach, allowing an insight into the heritage discourse of the 1930s and 1940s. In the analysis of all contributions to Ülkü in this period, four recurring themes were identified. The first group consists of articles written with the intention of raising awareness of Anatolia’s material inheritance. Their authors demand respect for valuable objects and monuments and emphasize the significance of learning about the past and safeguarding its remnants. The articles 25 “Ülkü’nün Yazı Bölümleri,” Ülkü 1 (Feb. 1933): 90–93. 26 Karpat, “The Impact of the People’s Houses,” 71. 27 Oral, Kemalist Cumhuriyetin İnşası, 125–26.

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belonging to the second group are meant to be informative for the contemporary reader and tackle topics related to research methods and terminology. The third group identified is dedicated to museums, their history, and future projects. The final set of contributions specifically refers to tourism, introducing it as a new source of income for the country and an instrument to enhance the citizens’ awareness of cultural heritage. 3

Building Awareness and Respect

This group of articles in Ülkü represents the most common theme, educating the reader about the perceived value of Turkey’s cultural heritage and trying to develop a sense of respect toward it. With an emphasis on the richness of Anatolia’s past, the authors attempt to simultaneously inform and educate the readers, implying a direct connection between such awareness and the level of civilization. Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar],28 for example, writing on the historical monuments and the rich past of the country, lamented the fact that this wealth had not been properly researched, represented, or even protected. According to him, the population’s disinterest in antiquities was due to the lack of proper education and a sense of appreciation.29 Criticizing the Ottoman attitude toward historical monuments, he held the empire’s lack of interest in excavations and antiquities responsible for the loss of valuable artefacts to European museums. He also added that the excavation sites were left unprotected, resulting in their decay. Şinasi strongly argued the importance of protecting all types of monuments, and stated that while this may not have been an essential issue for other nations, “it is not an exaggeration to say that this is a vital issue for us.”30 Şinasi divided the issue into two categories  – antiquities and museums, and the protection and repair of monuments – and listed a number of steps to be taken, which included conducting excavations, opening new museums of antiquities, assigning guards to protect archaeological sites, transferring the recently found stone artefacts of sculptures to museums, and finally educating the staff. He also reminded the reader of the Islamic monuments that needed immediate attention. The piece concluded with a couple of suggestions, such 28

Surnames were adopted in Turkey in 1934 and until then the authors published under their given names. In this article, for the sake of clarity, square brackets will be used for the names given before the Surname Law. 29 Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar], “Tarihî ve Millî Abidelerimiz,” Ülkü 6 (July 1933): 467. 30 Ibid., 468–69. [Transl. ADH].

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as the possible repurposing of historical buildings as museums and proper consideration of antiquities during urban projects, in order to avoid destruction.31 The next contribution that tackled similar issues is by a “Professor Milliner” (probably the Austrian archaeologist Franz Miltner), who again elaborated on the rich past of the country and the urgency of its protection. He began his article with the statement that Turkey had regained its independence and was considered a civilized, modern state; it was time to work on the country’s rich past and strive to be among those nations known for their scientific and artistic achievements.32 As with Abdülhak Şinasi, he also attributed the theft of artifacts to neglect. He claimed that such an attitude toward antiquities would not be appreciated by civilized nations and offered four solutions that would help Turkey to secure a place among these states: to protect monuments from the elements; to transfer them to museums; to excavate; and to publish previous and future work. He added that although all these measures would require a considerable amount of money, antiquities would eventually bring income to the country.33 Interesting, too, was the public lecture by scholar and Ataürk’s adopted daughter Afet [İnan], published in the September 1935 issue of Ülkü. On the issues of awareness and monument protection, she is documented to have said: We must try to find a way to make the nation appreciate history and archaeology. A love for history must be cultivated. It will be our mission to consider the cultural wealth and national greatness of the Turkish nation. We must preach the protection of antiquities as a national duty.34 It can be deduced from this statement that the neglect toward antiquities and its consequences in the Ottoman period were believed to be caused mainly by a lack of awareness and information. The emphasis on the ‘national duty’ to be awakened among citizens was repeated in the following pages of the same issue, which presented the working program of the Turkish Historical Society. The article announced the forthcoming publication of Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları, then elaborated on the program, which relied heavily on the collection of material, research, publication, and exhibition.35 In line with the emphasis on the role of citizens in preserving antiquities, the same issue of Ülkü also featured an instructional article targeting members 31 32 33 34 35

Ibid., Ülkü 6 (July 1933): 472–75. Prof. Milliner [Franz Miltner], “Eski Eserleri Niçin Korumalıyız,” Ülkü 10 (Nov. 1933): 298. Ibid., 299–300. Bayan Afet [İnan], “Türk Tarihine Önem,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935): 5–6. [Transl. ADH]. “Türk Tarihi Araştırma Kurumunun Programı,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935): 8–12.

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of the People’s Houses employed in the museum sections. The article offered detailed information on the proper techniques and methods involved in copying and documenting historical inscriptions.36 The February 1936 issue of Ülkü included several articles on the opening of the Faculty of Languages and History and Geography at Ankara University, on January 9, 1936. The opening speech of Culture Minister Saffet Arıkan and Afet İnan’s first lecture were published in the journal for a wider audience. Arıkan focused his speech on the Turkish History Thesis, which, according to him, was able to prove with archaeological evidence that high culture was initially established and spread by the Turks. Praising the recent scientific work, he raised the issue of problematic descriptions of the Turks in history books. According to Arıkan, not only the foreign authors of these books should have been blamed, but also our ancestors, who did not appreciate their own antecedents.37 As the Turkish archaeological excavations progressed, articles on recent work began to be featured in Ülkü, mostly in the form of scientific reports, and in some cases offering insights into how the heritage discourse was perceived by the researchers. An interesting example of these was a two-part article by Afet İnan that narrated her trips to the archaeological sites of Karaoğlan Höyüğü and Gavurkale (south of Ankara) in 1937. That year, İnan and Eugene Pittard visited Karaoğlan twice and she wrote these two pieces based on her impressions of the area and her interactions with the villagers. The first article started with their encounter with a woman riding a horse – described as a Türk Amazonu – who persuaded them to visit her village, Karaoğlan. Once in the village, İnan enquired about the höyük (man-made mound). The villagers mentioned that they found various ceramics on the höyük and, once on top of it, she noticed (and warned the reader against) some traces of illicit digging. They then took a walk in the village, visited the school, and talked to people.38 The second article began as she visited Karaoğlan again and met the villagers at the construction site of the new school building. They climbed the mound together and a Bay Abdullah informed them about the recent archaeological work done at the site by the Historical Society. As she listened to him and enjoyed the scenery, she started thinking of the Hittite open-air temple that they were to visit that day, Gavurkale, imagining the Turkish villagers in Hittite clothing. Professor Pittard, who accompanied her during the trip with his wife, said to her, with reference to the villagers, that they were “beautiful 36 Ankara Müze ve Sergi Kolu, “Tarih Belgeleri Nasıl Derlenmelidir,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935): 13–17. 37 “Yeni Fakültemizin Açılışı,” Ülkü 36 (Feb. 1936): 403–4. 38 Prof. Afet [İnan], “Arkeoloji Gezileri I: Uğurlar Olsun,” Ülkü 64 (June 1938): 295–98.

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and [had] the features of white race.” Only those “who do not know them, would call the Turks Mongolite.”39 While they drove to Gavurkale (a name she found inappropriate), she informed the Pittards about the significance of the area in Hittite history and tried to envision, in detail, the performance of a ritual, from the arrival of the emperor onward. Moved by this story, they visited the temple and appreciated the recent generation’s respect for their past.40 In late 1939 and early 1940, few articles on the contribution of the People’s Houses to the formation of Turkey’s national culture were published. An example of these was written by Yaşar Nabi [Nayır] and focused on the language, history, and literature research conducted by the Houses. It was specifically highlighted in the article that, in addition to research, an awareness among citizens was essential for the protection of monuments. Spreading the new Turkish history to the people was also the duty of the Houses.41 The following year, translations of sections on the People’s Houses from Donald Everett Webster’s 1939 book The Turkey of Atatürk were provided to the reader. These sections reviewed the nine working branches of the Houses and mentioned, with reference to the Museum and Exhibition section, that Turkey had only recently become aware of its rich past.42 The same year, Kemal Turan published a piece detailing the recent regulations concerning the Houses. The article announced the separation of the History section from Language and Literature, and the formation of a new section entitled History and Museums. Three working areas of this new section were defined as the dissemination of historical knowledge to the public via publications, translations and lectures; conducting research on local history and its publication; and safeguarding historical monuments and antiquities in the area. Turan then claimed, Safeguarding the monuments is a major task that we owe to Turkish cultural history. […] The members of the People’s Houses, the largest cultural personnel of the Republic, are the real guardians of this treasure. Reminding the reader yet again of the negligent attitude prevalent in the past, the author expressed his confidence in the people to protect antiquities, not merely for their scientific value, but also for the sake of ‘civilization’.43

39 Prof. Afet [İnan],“Arkeoloji Gezileri II: Açık Eti Mağbedinde,” Ülkü 64 (June 1938): 299. 40 Ibid., 300–1. 41 Yaşar Nabi [Nayır], “Halkevleri’nin Dil, Tarih, Edebiyat Yolundaki Çalışmaları,” Ülkü 73 (March 1939): 46–47. 42 Peyami Erman, “Yeni Bir Esere Göre Halkevlerimiz,” Ülkü 81 (Jan. 1940): 264. 43 Kemal Turan, “Halkevleri Çalışmalarında Bazı Esaslar,” Ülkü 93 (Nov. 1940): 204–5. [Transl. ADH].

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Articles with similar commentaries are rare in the second series of Ülkü. However, Halim Baki Kunter, one of the most outspoken figures of the period regarding monument protection, started to share his perspective in the last two issues. His first contribution was aptly entitled “Is it money or mentality that is needed for the protection of antiquities?” and concerned the negligence toward an old fountain in the Central Anatolian town of Kırşehir. Kunter strongly emphasized the intangible value of antiquities and monuments which, for him, were “instruments that strengthen our belief in our existence.” He then claimed that the most common but incorrect justification against the protection of monuments was finances. However, before (and even more than) the money, one needed a certain mentality, an understanding. He then describeed in detail the process that led to the gradual decay and removal of the 16th-century fountain and provided photographical proof.44 Kunter’s articles on the state of Islamic monuments continued to appear frequently in the third series of Ülkü. For example, in an article about the Ulu Cami in Malatya, the reader learned from him that although the historical mosque was internationally known and documented, the correspondence with the state authorities regarding a proper restoration project had not been successful. He referred to the report submitted to the state by the renowned French art historian Albert Gabriel, which described the monument as being a discovery, but in a derelict state.45 Kunter had a second article in the same issue, this time on individuals who intentionally harmed monuments. He provided several photographs illustrating cases in which people had written or painted on historical buildings. He referred to Ottoman vakfiyes (endowment deeds) that mentioned such behavior and to the existence of staff whose sole responsibility was for the prevention or cleaning of the graffiti. This “crime,” he thought, had recently resurfaced, and one horrifying example was the cowboy drawing by children on the fountain of Mimar Sinan’s türbe. (Fig. 33.4) He lamented this and asked: How can Turkish children, who used to watch Sinan’s minarets from their cribs, who grew up in the shades of Süleymaniye, commit this disrespectful act? How can families, school and community not prevent this? 44 Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Eski Eserleri Korumak İçin Para mı Lâzım, Anlayış mı?,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 125 (Dec. 1946): 17. Kunter contributed to the final issue of Ülkü’s New Series, this time reporting on the state of two monuments in Sivas, Divriği, following the recent problematic restoration. He argued that the Ulu Mosque and the Darüşşifa deserved better care regardless of cost, because protection of such masterpieces was a national duty. Halim Baki Kunter, “Divrik’te Ulu Cami ve Turan Melik Darüşşifası,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 126 (Dec. 1946): 12–13. 45 Halim Baki Kunter, “Eski Malatya‌’da Ulu Cami,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947): 9, 11.

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Reminding the reader of the significance of a proper upbringing, he eventually suggested that the People’s Houses and Rooms should be more involved.46 In a following issue, prominent archaeologist and ethnographer Hamit Zübeyr [Koşay], had a similarly mannered article, this time focusing on the problem of illicit digging. Calling this pursuit “a disease,” Koşay expressed his concern toward authorized treasure hunters. He then took the reader through various stages in the mind of the treasure hunter, which began with hope and expectation and were replaced with persistence, when the treasure could not be found.47 The same issue featured an article by Kunter on two historical tombstones in Bursa that had been subject to destruction. Yet again emphasizing the significance of historical monuments in instilling feelings of appreciation and pride in citizens, he questioned how this destruction could have happened before the eyes of everyone, especially the Ministry of Education and the Directorate of Museums. He recounted two anecdotes of when he had personally witnessed people intentionally harming monuments. In both cases, he handled the situation by talking to the vandals “in a language that they could understand,” and was confident that they would not repeat this act thereafter. For Kunter, tolerating such destruction would have been contributing to a crime, the prevention of which should be a national duty.48 Kunter continued to write on the neglect toward monuments. A further example was his article on the Kazasker Hüsamettin Mosque in the Şehremini quarter of İstanbul, which was known to have been in ruins since the late 19th century. During a visit to the site in 1945, Kunter noticed that what had previously remained of the building, a minaret, and a gate, has by then completely disappeared. He started an investigation to determine what had happened. After a series of correspondence, he discovered, to his surprise, that the mosque had been demolished by the Directorate of Pious Foundations on the decision of one of its architects, and that the stones had been taken to other mosques to be reused. The authorities were too late to find out about this and, at that point, all they could do was conduct an investigation and subsequently file a complaint. The author found this chain of events unacceptable and urged the necessary precautions to be taken.49

46

Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Anıtları Kirletenler,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947): 36–37. [Transl. ADH]. 47 Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, “Tarih ve Müze: Define Arama Hastalığı,” Ülkü III. Seri 5 (May 1947): 9. 48 Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Nasıl Kıyılabilir?,” Ülkü III. Seri 5 (May 1947): 30–31. 49 Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Bir Anıtın Kayboluşu,” Ülkü III. Seri 8 (Aug. 1947): 24–26.

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In the next issue of Ülkü, Kunter reported from Eskişehir about a historical soup kitchen that he encountered during a research trip with colleagues. As they approached the building, they were warned by local children to stay away from the ruins. However, the team ignored the advice. On approaching the site, they noticed a strong smell that made it clear that the soup kitchen was being used as a public toilet. Kunter condemned this act, calling it disrespect not only toward the monument, but against its builder, our civilization, history, and moral values in general. He also raised his concerns about the health hazards and the harmful effects of this usage pattern on the children playing in the area.50 Two years later, in 1949, Kunter approached the issue of monuments from a more theoretical perspective. Assigning a social and an economic value to the monuments, he first elaborated on the former. “Our antiquities,” he stated, are indeed the common heritage of humanity, “but to us,” he elaborated, they also possess a national meaning: Our monuments are works of art that allow us to love our history and country, connect us to one another, make us proud of our Turkishness. Because they help national sentiments to live on and get stronger, monuments must always exist, never disappear. The role and function of antiquities and monuments in the birth of national spirit and the development of nationalistic sentiments is essential. The economic value, for Kunter, was no less significant than the social one. He first drew attention to urban projects, during which many monuments had been sacrificed and hoped in the future this could be avoided by having more informed staff. He then focused on tourism, which would be a very beneficial source of income, if Turkey were to invest in infrastructure. “Our neighbor Greece,” he says, “as a result of an organization and development of tourism movement, hopes to secure fifty million liras in foreign exchange.”51 The same year, he also published a follow-up article in which he reviewed the current state of Ottoman buildings in the country. He stated that the estimated number of monuments was between 10,000 and 150,000, adding that there had not been a comprehensive evaluation of their restoration and maintenance costs. The regulations on antiquities from 40 years earlier, Kunter maintained, failed to respond to current conditions and needed to be revised. 50

Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Bir Aşevinin Sonu,” Ülkü III. Seri 9 (Sept. 1947): 37–38. 51 Halim Baki Kunter, “Meselelerimiz: Türkiye’nin Anıtlar Davası,” Ülkü III. Seri 26 (Feb. 1949): 5–6. [Transl. ADH].

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On the issues of ownership and authority, he detailed the different bodies responsible for the upkeep of monuments, a situation that necessitated tighter control and reorganization. The article ended with a section on future policies. Kunter argued that the Directorate of Pious Foundations did not have the necessary budget to restore all the monuments. Nor was the additional support it received from the state sufficient. An option for the future would be to generate income through a well-regulated tourism policy.52 The above examples featured protection of monuments as a common theme, implying a direct connection between this awareness and the level of civilization. The richness of Anatolia’s heritage was also a recurring theme that not only assumed Anatolia as a homeland for the Turks, but also assigned a specific role to the nation. This heritage discourse was a tool to validate national unity and place Turkey among the world’s civilizations.53 The period until Atatürk’s death in 1938 was indeed a very productive one for archaeology. Research in this field was regarded as very significant, as it was anticipated to confirm Turks as the original inhabitants of Anatolia and as the forerunner of Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. After the presentation of the highly speculative Turkish History Thesis at the First Turkish History Congress in 1932, the necessity for scientific research became even more imminent. Focusing on the recovery of ancient racial and material connections to Anatolia, the evidence resulting from anthropological and archaeological research served to disconnect the Turkish history from the Islamic past.54 After 1938, due to the aftermath of Atatürk’s death, the effects of the Second World War, and the lack of evidence, the Turkish History Thesis was quietly withdrawn. The period of scientifically supported discourse, based on archaeological and anthropological evidence, was gradually replaced as the state supported a national identity more closely aligned with the majority’s religion, especially from the 1950s.55 Such a shift represents itself in the gradual drop in the number of articles in Ülkü dedicated to archaeological finds. Instead, a focus on the values and state of preservation of Ottoman period monuments begins to emerge. Those by Kunter, from 1936 but becoming more common in the second series (sometimes with more than one contribution per issue) are worth particular evaluation. After the declaration of the republic, the maintenance and ownership of monuments were shared among various authorities. The palaces became the 52 53 54 55

Halim Baki Kunter, “Meseleler: Anıtlarımızın Durumu,” Ülkü III. Seri 26 (May 1949): 6–8. Atakuman, “Shifting Discourses,” 167. Atakuman, “Cradle or Crucible,” 224. Atakuman, “Value of Heritage,” 112.

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responsibility of the Grand National Assembly (TBMM); medreses, primary schools, and türbes the Ministry of Education. However, mosques were initially under the remit of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and then the General Directorate of Pious Foundations. Sebils, fountains, castles, towers, and cemeteries became the municipalities’ responsibility and bridges became that of the Ministry of Public Works.56 In 1932, the Şer’iye ve Evkaf Vekaleti (Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments) was replaced with the General Directorate of Pious Foundations. The Vakıflar Kanunu, issued in 1936, gave the responsibility of all vakıf buildings to the general directorate, putting it in charge of their administration and maintenance.57 The following lines give an idea of the attempt made to fit the institution and the buildings of the Pious Foundations were attempted into the heritage discourse: It can be said that the history of pious foundations begins with the history of the Turk. As the Turks spread from central Asia, they brought with them not only heroism and civilization, but also notions of kindness and charity.58 The carelessness and lack of expertise of the Ottoman administrators were assumed to have resulted in the collapse of the system of pious foundations and the destruction of many monuments.59 The Republican administration was then determined to take control of the institution and work on the rehabilitation of this rich heritage. 4

Defining Methods and Terminology

The first series of Ülkü, in particular, included several articles that can be described as being descriptive, informative, and focused on building a terminology regarding cultural heritage. An early example of these was a rather lengthy piece written by Remzi Oğuz [Arık], which elaborated on the relationship between history, archaeology, museums, and tourism. The author described history as a science that showed the level of civilization and added 56 Emre Madran, “Cumhuriyet’in İlk Otuz Yılında (1920–1950) Koruma Alanının Örgütlenmesi I,” ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi 16,1–2 (1996): 66. 57 Madran, “Cumhuriyet’in İlk Otuz Yılında,” 78. 58 Cumhuriyetten Önce ve Sonra Vakıflar (Istanbul: Vakıflar Umum Müdürlüğü Neşriyatı, 1937): 5. [Transl. ADH]. 59 Ibid., 9–17.

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that other disciplines, such as anthropology, ethnology, ethnography, paleontology, epigraphy, paleography, and archaeology “rescue history from being a mere fairy tale.” He then defined each discipline, dedicating the lengthiest section to archaeology, which to him (as an archaeologist) was the one that helped to locate a certain civilization within human history.60 The following year, Mehmet Saffet published a detailed article on the history of archaeological research in Anatolia from the 1830s onward. These studies, which focused largely on the Hittite period, verified for him the fact that it was the Turks who brought to the region an advanced civilization.61 In 1935, Remzi Oğuz [Arık] published an article entitled Göllüdağ Hafriyatı (Excavations at Göllüdağ). The actual report was prefaced by an elaboration of the value of excavations. An informative section explained what an excavation was, its uses, methods, and significance. According to the author, excavations in remote areas not only provided an economic benefit, but they also influenced the villagers emotionally and morally.62 In 1936, Halim Baki Kunter published an article in which he presented and discussed the value of vakfiyes as valuable research material. He elaborated on the history and types of such documents and provided examples demonstrating how they could supplement research in the areas of language, history, and sociology. The article ended with information on how to compile and publish them.63 Afet [İnan]’s first lecture at the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography at Ankara University was also published in Ülkü and had a similar attitude regarding the use of potential sources and methods for historical research. She presented a summary of the Turkish History Thesis, which to her, at the time, had already proven the Turks to be the founders of ancient Mesopotamian and Anatolian civilizations. She then offered the students possible research topics that ranged from the origins of the Ottoman Empire to the sources for the study of the Turkish Republic.64 Another of İnan’s lectures, a similarly informative one, was published in in Ülkü in the same year. The lecture began with a detailed section on the definition and formation of archaeological mounds, 60

Remzi Oğuz [Arık], “Müzecilik: Tarih-Arkeoloji-Müzeler-Turizm,” Ülkü 19 (Sept. 1934): 29–31. 61 Mehmet Saffet Engin, “Eti Abideleri ve Sanat Eserleri Araştırmaları Tarihçesi (1),” Ülkü 24 (Feb. 1935): 418–26. 62 Remzi Oğuz [Arık], “Kazım: Göllüdağ Hafriyatı,” Ülkü 26 (April 1935): 97, 99. 63 Halim Baki Kunter, “Vakfiyelerin Tarih ve Sosyoloji Bakımından Önemi,” Ülkü 35 (Jan. 1936): 335–40. 64 Bayan Afet [İnan], “Yeni Fakülte Açıldıktan Sonra Bayan Afet’in İlk Dersi,” Ülkü 36 (Feb. 1936): 406–9.

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elaborating on the reasons behind continuous settlement in one place. İnan also emphasized the distinction between a mound and a tumulus or kurgan, the first being a settlement, the latter a tomb. The rest of the article was a very detailed narration of the excavations at Alacahöyük, including recent progress and finds. This research, she stated, was only the beginning for the Historical Society, which was determined to rewrite Turkish history, correcting mistakes along the way.65 The protection, collection, documentation, and display of antiquities were represented in these articles as national duties to which all citizens, not just the experts, were expected to contribute. While the research of Historical and Linguistic societies was highly praised and offered to the public in the form of simplified articles, the detailed instructions mentioned above specified how members of the People’s Houses could participate in local historical research. In a manual for the History and Museum sections of the Houses, it is clearly indicated that the state may not be able to respond to every case regarding antiquities as rapidly as needed. The People’s Houses constituted an essential workforce that could help with such cases. The staff were expected to collect and document material, publish research results, collaborate with official bodies, educate locals, and act as local tour guides. The same publication included a phrase that summarized the emphasis put on the role of the Houses: “It is not possible to send an archaeologist to every corner of the country. However, we can easily find citizens in every town who appreciate the ethnography and art of our country.”66 5

Institutionalization Efforts

Articles focusing on museums constituted another group that may be identified as representative for Ülkü. Touching upon the history and future of Turkish museology, these commentaries give clues about the Republican perception of Ottoman museology and define the new direction that are perceived as essential for the future. Writing on the role of language and history in cultural reforms in an article entitled “Our Cultural Revolution,” the sociologist Mehmet Saffet [Engin] pronounced the need for a “national museum.” Emphasizing not only the artistic 65 Bayan Afet [İnan], “Alacahöyük Kazımı Hakkında Bayan Afet’in Söylevi,” Ülkü 39 (May 1936): 167–70. 66 Remzi Oğuz Arık, Halkevlerinde Müze, Tarih ve Folklor Çalışmaları Kılavuzu (Ankara, 1947): 115–17. [Transl. ADH].

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but also the educational role of this planned institution, he stated that art and science museums were both essential to inspiring and informing people. Without giving any further detail on the museum project, he advised that the new museum would soon be opened in Ankara.67 This museum project was featured again by Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar] in the next issue. In this article, which reviewed the issue of national monuments in the country, he listed the future steps to be taken in terms of preserving antiquities. One of these steps was the establishment of a ‘Hittite Museum’, which was to house the numerous Hittite artifacts uncovered in the recent excavations.68 Şinasi continued to focus on museums in the following issues of Ülkü. One article opened with the history of collecting in the Ottoman palace, then praised the work of Halil Edhem Bey. He believed that Halil Edhem’s contribution to Turkish museology and efforts toward the protection of antiquities were so immense that if he were to write his memoirs, future generations would benefit greatly from it. He also agreed with Edhem that a history of Turkish museology needed to be written.69 In the following issue, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic, we see Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar] this time elaborating on the perceived necessity of a museum dedicated to the Kemalist revolution. He reminded the reader of the earlier initiatives to establish such an institution, which, due to reasons unknown to him at the time, had not been successful. Suggesting that one reason could possibly have been the lack of space, he then informed the reader about a possible location. The house at which Mustafa Kemal had stayed in the Şişli district of Istanbul was bought by the Istanbul Municipality and a team began working on it in 1929, collecting a variety of related material. It was eventually decided that this museum should concentrate only on the last 10 years and the rest of the material was sent to the Beyazıt Public Library and Museum. Another project to display the Republican reforms was proposed by the Istanbul People’s House. The house planned an exhibition in the hamam of Hagia Sophia on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Republic. However, this application was not approved. The most recent attempt to found an İnkılâp Müzesi (Museum of the [Kemalist] Revolution) was by the Ankara People’s House. The author, being hopeful

67 Mehmet Saffet [Engin], “Kültür İnkılâbımız,” Ülkü 5 (June 1933): 353–54. 68 [Hisar], “Tarihî ve Millî Abidelerimiz,” 473. 69 Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar], “Eski Eserler: Bizde Müzeciliğin Başlangıçları,” Ülkü 8 (Sept. 1933): 133.

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about this attempt, announced that the RPP had agreed to dedicate the building to this purpose.70 Such a museum, he wrote, would add value to Ankara and would not only commemorate the past, but also inspire the present: “The museum will not be a mere monument that commemorates the bygone object, but also a source of inspiration for an ongoing life.”71 Abdülhak Şinasi’s next contribution was a series entitled “Turkish Museology,” dedicated to Osman Hamdi Bey. In three articles appearing in 1934 and 1936, Şinasi offered the reader a glimpse of Osman Hamdi’s life.72 The articles were enriched with anecdotes and focused in detail on the academic and artistic endeavors of Osman Hamdi. What makes these seemingly biographical contributions relevant to this article are the comments of the author implying that Osman Hamdi was underappreciated. He claimed, for example, that nobody in his home country remembered that 1906 was his 25th anniversary as the museum director. As he was already a known figure abroad, many colleagues sent him their greetings, published articles for the occasion, and even honored him with memberships. However, in his own country there was no acknowledgement of his success.73 Similarly, while Osman Hamdi’s death in 1910 was widely covered in the French media, the Ottoman press was very sparse in its coverage, which Şinasi found to be insufficient and “full of mistakes.” Although his funeral was well attended, he considered that a crowded ceremony and the commemorative plaque placed in the museum were not enough by which to remember him; and that his tomb should be taken over by the Istanbul Museum, with at least a statue of him adorning the garden.74 Another author who wrote on museology was the historian Enver Behnan [Şapolyo] in 1934. In his short article entitled “The History of Museology,” Behnan provided an outline of the history of Turkish museums, an area which he claimed to still be in the initial phase. He underlined the necessity of museums that were dedicated to revolutions, as they represented the most recent history of countries and had great educational value.75 The following issue featured a further article that evaluated the need for museums, especially the establishment of a scientific tradition in archaeology.76 70 Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar], “Eski Eserler: Bir İnkılâp Müzesi İçin,” Ülkü 9 (Oct. 1933): 260–62. 71 Ibid., 264. [Transl. ADH]. 72 Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar], “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey,” Ülkü 14 (April 1934): 111–15; “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey II,” Ülkü 16 (June 1934): 290–295; “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey III,” Ülkü 39 (May 1936): 187–91. 73 [Hisar], “Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey II,” 293. 74 [Hisar], “Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey III,” 191. 75 Enver Behnan [Şapolyo], “Müzecilik: Müzeciliğin Tarihi,” Ülkü 18 (Aug. 1934): 430–31. 76 [Arık], “Tarih-Arkeoloji-Müzeler-Turizm,” 31.

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Elaborating on the educational function of museums, Remzi Oğuz [Arık] stated that such institutions would help citizens to become more self-confident and change foreigners’ misconceptions about Turkey: And the eyes are turned to museums that have various functions. These eyes see with great warning and attention how the notions of nation and nationhood can be preached via museums, and the fact that these new temples can instill self-confidence and trust. How easy it is for a nation like ours, which was thought to live solely on looting and fighting, to dispel this slander by looking at the documents collected in the Topkapı Museum, Islamic Arts Museum, Ethnography Museum in Ankara, and the museums in Konya and Adana! These new temples suggest that this nation produced everything from a small button to a magnificent machete and had a grand system of economy, thought, and especially taste and pleasure.77 Münir Hayri [Egeli] returned to the issue of a Revolution Museum. Referring to similar initiatives in Soviet Russia, Italy, and Germany, his article offered guidelines to the future institution: a “Devrim Müzesi” that communicateed to the masses and taught the visitor “what they owe to the revolution.”78 He continued to list in detail the objects and documents that could be included in this museum and recounted the preparations required. The role of the People’s Houses would be instrumental to him in completing this task. Therefore, they should immediately begin collecting relevant material, before they are completely lost, and start to display them. These exhibitions could then be opened to the public on the Independence Day of a given city, or on the anniversary of the day of Atatürk’s arrival. The rest of the article included detailed instructions on the sections of these exhibitions and their technical qualities.79 The last mention of museums in the first series of Ülkü was in the year 1939 and on the occasion of the recent passing of Halil Edhem Eldem, the renowned scholar and museologist. The article, written by the archaeologist Arif Müfid Mansel, praised the work of Eldem, especially at the Imperial Museum. He added, despite “the monarchy that only assigned material value to antiquities,” and continuous wars, Eldem was able to bring the museum to European standards.80 77 Ibid., 34. [Transl. ADH]. 78 Münir Hayri [Egeli], “Etütler: Devrim Müzesinde Halkevlerinin Ödevi,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935): 19–21. 79 Ibid., 22–24. 80 Arif Müfid Mansel, “Halil Edhem Eldem,” Ülkü 71 (Jan. 1939): 384.

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Museums were not treated in the second and third series of Ülkü except for one article by Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, which appeared in 1947. This time arguing for the necessity of an ethnographical museum that he called Halk Müzesi, Koşay suggested that this institution should mainly be about “representing the Turks as major components of world history, as well as their material and immaterial culture, lives and great achievements.” The museum would illustrate that Turkish culture had adopted many ancient and local traditions, and, he added, “the saying ‘We are the descendants of the Hittites’ is indeed true.”81 The Halk Müzesi, for him, should be “the reflection of national consciousness.” The article then took a didactic form, outlining a rough program that would lead to the establishment of such an institution.82 Museums as centers for education and the display of antiquities were clearly considered significant components of the general discourse on heritage. With collections consisting of archaeological and ethnographical material, the new institutions were designed to offer a common culture and national unity. The plans for a national museum in Ankara had begun in the early 1920s. A small collection of archaeological, military, and ethnographic artefacts was opened to the public in the Ankara fortress in 1925.83 At that time, the Republican government had included new museums in its program, which mentioned three projects relating to an archaeological, an ethnographic, and a revolutionary museum. The preparations for an ethnographic museum in Ankara began in 1924 at the Namazgah Hill, a site of public prayer. The museum was opened to the public in 1930 with its collection of various costumes and ethnographic artifacts, as well as numerous religious objects confiscated from the dervish lodges. Preparations for Ankara’s archaeological museum were also underway and in 1945 a Hittite Museum was also opened in the fortress, with the idea of repurposing two Ottoman structures, the Mahmud Pasha bedesten and the Kurşunlu Han. As the articles in Ülkü and other sources suggest, there must have been considerable frustration among the intelligentsia regarding the delays in the project.84 Construction and cleaning work at the site continued

81 Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, “Türk Halk Müzesi,” Ülkü III. Seri 10 (Oct. 1947): 4. 82 Ibid., 5. 83 Wendy M.K. Shaw, “National Museums in the Republic of Turkey: Palimpsests within a Centralized State,” in Building National Museums in Europe 1750–2010. Conference Proceedings from EuNaMus, Eurpoean National Museums: Identity Politics, the Uses of the Past and the Eurpoean Citizen, Bologna 28–10 April 2011, eds. Peter Aronsson and Gabriella Elgenius (Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press, 2011, URL: https://ep.liu.se /ecp/064/038/ecp64038.pdf, 925–51, here 931. (accessed on 31 May 2021)). 84 Wendy Shaw, “Museums and Narratives of Display from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic,” Muqarnas 24 (2007): 253–79, here 264, 265.

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until 1968, when the Hittite Museum was reorganized and opened to the public as the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.85 Revolutionary museums and exhibitions became a trend that rose to popularity especially in the 1920s and 1930s in Russia. The idea of such a museum dedicated to the Kemalist revolution was proposed initially in 1927 by Fuat Köprülü following his trip to Soviet Russia. Impressed by the museums that presented the Bolshevik Revolution to the masses, and motivated to spread the Republican reforms at home, Köprülü had in mind a complex that housed displays on the various stages of the Kemalist revolution, as well as an archive and a library. The plans for a revolution museum were put on the agenda the same year by Koşay, who had been appointed as the Director of the Museum of Ethnography and suggested that a dedicated section could be opened in his museum. His proposal was accepted by the Ministry of Education, and government institutions and civil associations were asked to assist in the collection of material, which was defined as “all kinds of works and memorabilia related to the National Struggle and the Turkish Revolution.” However, these plans were not realized and the Ethnographical Museum had to be opened without a section on the Kemalist reforms. The material collected for this museum was transferred to the Museum of Revolution (Devrim Müzesi), which was opened in 1942 at the Institute of Turkish Revolutionary History at Ankara University. In 1929, a similar initiative was underway by a team in Istanbul, under the leadership of Muhittin Üstündağ, the mayor of Istanbul. The project consisted of a Public Museum and Library to be opened in the medrese in Bayazid. The Public Museum and Library were opened in 1939 as the Belediye Müzesi ve Kütüphanesi. The house in which Atatürk resided in the Istanbul borough of Şişli was bought in 1928 by the municipality and began to assemble a collection related to him. The museum was opened to the public in 1942.86 Although the İnkılâp Müzesi was discussed in RPP’s general congresses in 1931, 1935, 1939, and 1943, a comprehensive project was never pursued.87 6

Tourism

Tourism and the role of antiquities in the promotion of Turkey, and in the strengthening of the bond between the citizens, was a recurring topic in Ülkü. Writing in the first issue of the journal, the bureaucrat Reşit Saffet [Atabinen] 85 Shaw, “National Museums,” 941. 86 Mustafa Oral, “Ankara Etnoğrafya Müzesi İnkılâp Şubesi,” Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi 29–30 (May–Nov. 2002): 119–24. 87 Şimşek, “People’s Houses,” 85.

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emphasized the rich and unique cultural heritage of Anatolia and added that the natural and historical beauties would be a way to deepen the connection between the citizens and the country. According to Saffet, the benefits of Turkish citizens becoming acquainted with their own country, as well as some foreign ones, would serve an educational purpose. Foreign tourists visiting Turkey, on the other hand, were for him a more political and economic concern.88 The foreign tourists, once they visited Turkey, would be convinced that the same level of civilization could be found here. “Tourism is a very powerful, gentle and effective tool of propaganda. It plays a significant role not only for the promotion of Turkey to foreigners, but also for bringing countries together.”89 Pointing to significant incomes from tourism in France, Italy, and Austria, he drew a road map showing how Turkey could improve infrastructure and policies.90 Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar], in 1933 (in the sixth issue of Ülkü), emphasized the correlation between civilization and the preservation of antiquities in his article entitled “Our Historical and National Monuments.” Comparing Turkey’s archaeological heritage to Greece and Egypt, he claimed that antiquities were as valuable as mines, forests, fields, and rivers.91 In 1934, the renowned archaeologist Remzi Oğuz [Arık] contributed to Ülkü’s museology section with an article titled “History-Archaeology-MuseumsTourism.” In the last section of the article, he offered his own definition of tourism as a phenomenon of recent times in which people sought to learn things much quicker. The world’s nations would have to adapt to this new situation and use this opportunity to represent themselves.92 After highlighting the role of museums for tourism, he concluded his piece with the note that Turkey would also benefit from local tourism: Tourism has so far been defined as “the trade that enables foreigners to visit, see another country!” [But this] definition has many shortcomings for Turkey. Because Turkey is the only country in the world that needs its own children to visit and learn about it, even more than the foreigners!93 In 1935, Remzi Oğuz touched on the benefits of archaeological excavations to local the economy and tourism. In an article titled “Göllüdağ Excavations,” he reviewed the methods and significance of archaeological digs, stating that 88 89 90 91 92 93

Reşit Saffet [Atabinen], “Turizm,” Ülkü 1 (Feb. 1933): 64–65. Ibid., 66. [Transl. ADH]. Ibid., 68–70. [Hisar], “Tarihî ve Millî Abidelerimiz,” 467. [Arık], “Tarih-Arkeoloji-Müzeler-Turizm,” 35. Ibid., 36. [Transl. ADH].

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they not only contributed to the village economy in terms of employment and education, but could potentially prepare the area for tourism. Referring to his aforementioned article on tourism, he repeated that people had come to prefer learning by visiting places to reading about them: People today read very little. One must tell them things in a way that they can easily understand with their eyes. This is the real reason why masses of travelers go from one country to the other. Each country, each city, is trying to benefit from this inadequacy and merit of humanity. He then compared the substantial investments made in Rome for archaeological excavations (40 million Italian Lirets in four years) to the number of tourists who had come to see the finds, demonstrating to the reader how profitable tourism could be for a country.94 He ended this article in a similar tone to the previous one. Defining domestic tourism as “yurdu tanıma,” he claimed that discovering one’s homeland was almost a duty in civilized nations, in order to awaken the curiosity in young people about their own country.95 The most detailed article on tourism appeared in Ülkü in 1938. Yaşar Nabi, writer and publisher, discussed the assets of a country that would attract tourists, giving advice on how to improve the infrastructure and how to advertise. He began by acknowledging the fact that, due to more urgent matters, there had not been much progress in tourism. He then announced the establishment of the Tourism Bureau under the directorship of Vedat Nedim Tör.96 After elaborating on the natural attractions of Turkey, he proceeded with the significance of antiquities for tourism. According to Nabi, although Turkey had been home to many civilizations that had left behind valuable works of art and monuments, the actual value of antiquities did not always correspond to their touristic importance: “Here, propaganda comes into play. A historical monument attracts tourists in relation to its worldwide fame, rather than its actual value.”97 An example of this was the promotion of Roman and Hellenistic heritage in Greece and Italy, which tourists visited having already acquired prior knowledge. This value, he claimed, could only be achieved by proper propaganda that could eventually bring Turkey’s heritage the attention it deserved. The author then expressed his concerns about the hurried visits of tourists from cruise ships that brought little economic benefit. It would be more beneficial, he said, to attract travelers who would stay much longer, especially in regions 94 95 96 97

Remzi Oğuz [Arık], “Kazım: Göllüdağ Hafriyatı,” Ülkü 26 (April 1935): 100. [Transl. ADH]. Ibid., 101. Yaşar Nabi [Nayır], “Turizm: Turizm Mes’elesi ve Türkiye,” Ülkü 67 (Sept. 1938): 53. Ibid., 56.

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with a rich history. The Aegean region, he suggested, if the necessary infrastructure was provided, could be a destination for foreign tourists who were already familiar with the Aegean civilization in Greece. The archaeological sites in Central Anatolia, such as Alacahöyük or Boğazköy, could meanwhile be made more accessible for local tourists, until they were ready for international visitors.98 In the second series of Ülkü, the subject of tourism was only briefly considered by Hamit Zübeyr Koşay. Writing in detail about the old Turkish houses in Silifke, Koşay underlined the historical value of residential architecture. He was convinced that the preservation of these houses and their conversion into museums might also generate income. This contribution concluded with a plea to the local administrators and the directors of People’s Houses to act against the rapid decay of these monuments.99 Although it was treated in a few articles, tourism seems to have been regarded as crucial not only in terms of its financial benefits, but also for the promotion of Turkey. The stress on domestic tourism for the sake of national unity and the establishment of a sense of belonging strikes as a recurring theme. The authors repeatedly referred to the richness of Anatolia’s past and natural beauties, presenting it to the citizens as a redefined entity with a new historical narrative meriting a visit.100 In this sense, tourism was regarded as an integral instrument in the official heritage discourse. Authors believed that learning about the historical sites of the country and visiting them in person would enhance an attachment to the country and develop a sense of appreciation. Opening the country to international tourism was clearly seen integral, too, albeit from an economic perspective. Making direct comparisons with countries like Greece or Italy, Turkey was represented as the homeland of these cultures possessing a much higher potential. The non-material benefits of international tourism were remembered, the authors being confident that would also benefit Turkey’s international prestige. 7

Conclusion

I have sought to demonstrate that the heritage discourse of the 1930s and 1940s in Turkey was very much in a negotiation phase. Most authors were scholars 98 Ibid., 56–57. 99 Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, “Silifke’nin Türk Evleri,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 39 (May 1943): 14. 100 Arzu Öztürkmen, “Turkish Tourism at the Door of Europe: Perceptions of Image in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” Middle Eastern Studies 41,4 (2005): 605–21, here 607–8.

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Figure 33.1 Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü I Seri, 1 (Feb. 1933), cover page)

Figure 33.2 Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü Yeni Seri, 16 (May 1942), cover page)

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Figure 33.3 Covers of Ülkü from three different series (Ülkü III. Seri, 25 (May 1949), cover page)

Figure 33.4 The sebil of Mimar Sinan’s mausoleum, Halim Baki Kunter, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Anıtları Kirletenler,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947), p. 37

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in areas such as archaeology, ethnography, or history, who also held official positions as experts in state institutions. This allowed them to be involved and influential in decision-making processes. The heritage discourse, which was being constructed and negotiated in a very dynamic scientific atmosphere, was transmitted to the public through Ülkü. The Kemalist discourse favored a narrative charged with uniting the nation under a common denominator of Turkishness, with a strong emphasis on ancient roots and language, over one that corresponded with the country’s linguistic and religious diversity.101 As the periodical of the main People’s House in Ankara, Ülkü offers a unique insight into contemporary deliberations about the function of the nation’s heritage during the nation-building process. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Ankara Müze ve Sergi Kolu, “Tarih Belgeleri Nasıl Derlenmelidir,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935), 13–17. [Arık], Remzi Oğuz, “Müzecilik: Tarih-Arkeoloji-Müzeler-Turizm,” Ülkü 19 (Sept. 1934), 29–36. [Arık], Remzi Oğuz, “Kazım: Göllüdağ Hafriyatı,” Ülkü 26 (April 1935), 97–101. Arık, Remzi Oğuz. Halkevlerinde Müze, Tarih ve Folklor Çalışmaları Kılavuzu. Ankara, 1947. [Atabinen], Reşit Saffet, “Turizm,” Ülkü 1 (Feb. 1933), 63–70. Cumhuriyetten Önce ve Sonra Vakıflar. Istanbul: Vakıflar Umum Müdürlüğü Neşriyatı, 1937. [Egeli], Münir Hayri, “Etütler: Devrim Müzesinde Halkevlerinin Ödevi,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935), 18–24. [Engin], Mehmet Saffet, “Kültür İnkılâbımız,” Ülkü 5 (June 1933), 351–54. Engin, Mehmet Saffet, “Eti Abideleri ve Sanat Eserleri Araştırmaları Tarihçesi (1),” Ülkü 24 (Feb. 1935), 418–26. Erman, Peyami, “Yeni Bir Esere Göre Halkevlerimiz,” Ülkü 81 (Jan. 1940), 259–65. [Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Tarihî ve Millî Abidelerimiz,” Ülkü 6 (July 1933), 467–75. [Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Eski Eserler: Bizde Müzeciliğin Başlangıçları,” Ülkü 8 (Sept. 1933), 132–37. [Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Eski Eserler: Bir İnkılâp Müzesi İçin,” Ülkü 9 (Oct. 1933), 260–65.

101 Atakuman, “Cradle or Crucible,” 217.

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[Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey,” Ülkü 14 (April 1934), 111–15. [Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey II,” Ülkü 16 (June 1934), 290–295. [Hisar], Abdülhak Şinasi, “Türk Müzeciliği: Müzelerimiz ve Hamdi Bey III,” Ülkü 39 (May 1936), 187–91. [Miltner, Franz], Prof. Milliner, “Eski Eserleri Niçin Korumalıyız,” Ülkü 10 (Nov. 1933), 298–301. [İnan], Bayan Afet, “Türk Tarihine Önem,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935), 5–7. [İnan], Bayan Afet, “Yeni Fakülte Açıldıktan Sonra Bayan Afet’in İlk Dersi,” Ülkü 36 (Feb. 1936), 406–9. [İnan], Bayan Afet, “Alacahöyük Kazımı Hakkında Bayan Afet’in Söylevi,” Ülkü 39 (May 1936), 167–70. [İnan], Prof. Afet, “Arkeoloji Gezileri I: Uğurlar Olsun,” Ülkü 64 (June 1938), 295–98. [İnan], Prof. Afet, “Arkeoloji Gezileri II: Açık Eti Mağbedinde,” Ülkü 64 (June 1938), 299–301. Koşay, Hamit Zübeyr, “Türk Halk Müzesi,” Ülkü III. Seri 10 (Oct. 1947), 4–5. Koşay, Hamit Zübeyr, “Tarih ve Müze: Define Arama Hastalığı,” Ülkü III. Seri 5 (May 1947), 9. Koşay, Hamit Zübeyr, “Silifke’nin Türk Evleri,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 39 (May 1943), 12–14. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Eski Eserleri Korumak İçin Para mı Lâzım, Anlayış mı?,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 125 (Dec. 1946), 17. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Divrik’te Ulu Cami ve Turan Melik Darüşşifası,” Ülkü Yeni Seri 126 (Dec. 1946), 12–13. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Eski Malatya‌’da Ulu Cami,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947), 9–11. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Anıtları Kirletenler,” Ülkü III. Seri 1 (Jan. 1947), 36–37. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Nasıl Kıyılabilir?,” Ülkü III. Seri 5 (May 1947), 29–31. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Bir Anıtın Kayboluşu,” Ülkü III. Seri 8 (Aug. 1947), 24–26. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Gördüklerimiz, Düşündüklerimiz: Bir Aşevinin Sonu,” Ülkü III. Seri 9 (Sept. 1947), 37–38. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Meselelerimiz: Türkiye’nin Anıtlar Davası,” Ülkü III. Seri 26 (Feb. 1949), 5–6. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Meseleler: Anıtlarımızın Durumu,” Ülkü III. Seri 29 (May 1949), 6–8. Kunter, Halim Baki, “Vakfiyelerin Tarih ve Sosyoloji Bakımından Önemi,” Ülkü 35 (Jan. 1936), 335–40. Mansel, Arif Müfid, “Halil Edhem Eldem,” Ülkü 71 (Jan. 1939), 383–86. Nayır, Yaşar Nabi, “Turizm: Turizm Mes’elesi ve Türkiye,” Ülkü 67 (Sept. 1938), 53–64.

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Nayır, Yaşar Nabi, “Halkevleri’nin Dil, Tarih, Edebiyat Yolundaki Çalışmaları,” Ülkü 73 (March 1939), 44–48. [Şapolyo], Enver Behnan, “Müzecilik: Müzeciliğin Tarihi,” Ülkü 18 (Aug. 1934), 428–31. Turan, Kemal, “Halkevleri Çalışmalarında Bazı Esaslar,” Ülkü 93 (Nov. 1940), 203–6. “Türk Tarihi Araştırma Kurumunun Programı,” Ülkü 31 (Sept. 1935), 7–12. “Ülkü’nün Yazı Bölümleri,” Ülkü 1 (Feb. 1933), 90–93. “Yeni Fakültemizin Açılışı,” Ülkü 36 (Feb. 1936), 403–5.



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Index Abdülhak Şinasi [Hisar] 841, 842, 852, 852n69, 853, 853n70, 857 Abdülkadir Efendi, chronicler 371, 465 ʿAbdurraḥmān Čelebi Firāqī/Firāṭī 45 Abū l-Maḥāmīd at-Tabrīzī 44 Abū Naṣr Saʿīd b. Muḥammad Qaṭṭān al-Ġaznavī 45 Abushka 145 Acaib, genre 170 account book 361, 367, 369 Acemzade Mehmed, tax-farmer 368 Adana, vilayet of Adana 798, 800n31, 806, 813–814, 822, 823n54, 854 Adilcevaz 436, 445 Adıvar, Adnan 782 Adrianople (Ott. Edirne), treaty of 206n101, 255, 365, 453, 455, 458, 460–463, 466, 468–470 Afet [İnan] 835n6, 842–844, 850–851 Afghanistan 49n33, 81 ağa, aga 226, 230, 274, 360–361, 369, 377n57, 433, 453–455, 463, 466, 469, 471, 486, 489, 521–523, 526–528, 531, 533–534, 536–538, 656n11, 658, 660, 662, 668n57, 670–671, 674, 740, 764 agency 744, 806, 808, 809n10, 827 ahdname for Srebrenica 606, 616 ahdname of Milodraž (Fojnica) 605–606, 612–614, 616–622 Ahi(s) 727 Ahmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1557 435 Ahmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1565–1566 437 Ahmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1578–1579 439 Ahmed Çelebi, Halife-i Ulûfeciyan-ı yemin  527 Ahmed İhsan [Tokgöz] 773n67,775–777 Ahmed kethüda 258n94 Ahmed Midhat 773n67, 775, 776n75, 777 Ahmed Paşa, founder of the mosque in Gračanica 481n12 Ahmed Pascha, Köprülüzade, grand vizier 521, 533

Ahmed Vefik Pasha 127, 128, 149 Ahmed, Prinz 522 Ahmed I, Ottoman Sultan, 1603–1617  256–258, 282, 614, 618, 619 Akçe. See also coinage 234, 242, 273, 305–306, 347, 357, 359–360, 362–364, 367, 368n37, 369, 373, 373n48, 375 nn. 49–51, 376–377, 383, 385, 386, 388–390, 401–403, 427–428, 431–443, 445, 446, 460, 470, 471, 484, 497, 502–504, 514, 525–527, 536, 560n13, 561, 561n15, 642–644, 647, 655, 656, 659, 669, 672, 673, 699n76 Akhfash 84, 99 akın 358, 694, 800 akıncı 358, 363 akıncı beği 358 Albania, Albanien 81, 206n101, 569–571, 574, 578, 581, 583–584, 587 Albanian, origin 327, 684, 689, 692, 708 Albanian sea 429 Aleppo, beğlerbeği of 300, 792, 803 Aleppo. See also Haleb 397, 399, 400, 463, 707, 708, 738 Alexandretta, sancak of 12, 790 Alexandria 319, 542, 549, 631, 707, 746, 747, 755, 770 Alfons V, King of Aragón, 1416–1458 574 Alger 216, 221–222, 224–225, 228, 236 Algeria 64, 75 Ali Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 442, 444, 552, 554–555 Ali Efendi, İmam, witness 527 Ali Efendi, suhte, witness 527 ʿAli Reşād 254n74 Ali, Governor-general of Buda 363 Aličić, Ahmed 388n7 alicorn 304 Alqosh 74 Al-Shanfara 127 Amasya 361n20, 362n21, 438n83, 503, 504, 522, 523, 640–641 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) 825, 826 American School at Gedikpaşa 826

868 Amman 70 Anadolu 395, 399–400, 705n129, 718 Anatolia 61, 62, 64, 72–74, 76, 97–98, 139, 433, 653, 655, 666, 669–670, 675, 723, 731–732, 751, 792, 809, 836, 848, 850, 857, 859 Anatolian Arabic 71, 73, 77 Andreadis, Ermolaos 816 Andronikion (Endürlük) 813 Ankara 33n44, 38–39, 264, 469, 561n14, 723, 724n11, 725, 734, 751, 770, 792–793, 795–796, 798–800, 806, 813, 836, 838–840, 843, 850, 852–856, 862 Ankara, vilayet of 806 Ankara, treaty of 792–793, 795–796, 799–800 Ankara Çapanoğlu family 823 Ethem, Çerkez 823 Antep 796, 800 Antoniadis, Georgios 127 apprentice, apprenticeship 11, 687, 694, 719–725, 728–730, 732 Arabic xxx, 2, 8, 29, 44, 45n11, 49–50, 54, 60–81, 85, 87, 88n101, 98–99, 121, 126, 128–129, 131, 133–136, 139, 142, 150, 162, 165, 172–173, 176, 251, 270–279, 281, 295, 297, 313, 315–316, 319, 323, 328, 392, 681–682, 684–687, 690, 692–695, 697–703, 706–709, 712, 765, 792–793, 800–802 Arabic dialects 64, 66–67, 69, 74–76, 87 Aramaic 8, 63, 74, 75 Neo- 61, 63, 67, 69, 74 Araniti, Angelina 590 Araniti, Despina (Francone, Pietrina)  576n19, 578, 582 Araniti, Georg, Mönch Maxim (Monk Maxim) 582 Araniti, Komino 581, 584 Araniti, Konstantin 584 Arbel 74n58 Archiepiscopal Archives in Esztergom 244 Armenian Church 632, 674–675 Armenian(s) 11, 191, 200, 271, 669–671, 673– 674, 676, 730, 733, 754, 791, 793–794, 796n20, 802–803, 817n34 Arsakeion 826

Index Arslan Bey, sancakbeyi of Ohrid 428 Arslan Bey/ Paşa, sancakbeyi of Pozsega, Prizren, Vučitrn, Klis, Eger and Hatvan 427, 428, 431 Arslan Paşa, beyleybeyi of Çıldır, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 444 artisan(s) 167, 719–724, 727–728, 733 arz 512 Arzoumanidou (Arzoumanoglou), Eleni  821 Arzoumanidou (Arzoumanoglou), Marianthi 822n48 Asia Minor 805–806, 816, 817n33, 825, 827 Asia Minor Anatoli Association 805, 809, 811 askeri, class 405, 663, 666 Askitopoulos, Georgios 811, 817n33, 823 asl-ı mal (opening balance) 405 Atatürk (Mustafa Kemal) 770, 791n8, 797, 799, 852 Athens 809–810, 815–816, 819, 821n47, 823, 826 Attaleia (Antalya) 813n23 Austria 241, 406, 409, 746, 754, 763, 783, 857 ayan, provincial notables 367, 395, 739 Ayas Paşa, grand vizier of Süleyman I  227–228 Ayşe Hatun, sister of Süleyman Ağa 526 azab 360 azab ağası 348 Azak (Azov) 370 Bāb-ı ʿĀlī (Sublime Porte) 769 bac-i ubur 359 Badr 355 Baghdad 68, 73, 317, 324–325, 39 Bahaeddin Şakir, doctor 768 Baḥirnâme (by Murâdî) 217, 219 baki kulları 371 bakiye (arrears, longterm) 405, 407 balaban 202n80, 369 Balkans 10, 72, 187–190, 193, 201, 239, 251, 286, 389, 467, 567, 569, 572–574, 576, 591, 659, 723, 731–732, 822 Banate of Vidin 239 banishment/exile 113, 738n4, 742–743, 747, 749–751, 756 Banja Luka 390, 481, 483, 488n57

Index Baron de Testa 253n71 Barwar 67 baştine haracı 385 Bayezid I [Bayezit I], Ottoman Sultan, 1389–1402 357, 570 Bayezid II [Bayezit II], Ottoman Sultan, 1481–1512 239, 249, 249n1, 295, 299, 303, 306, 358, 406n45, 503, 561, 579, 601, 603, 604, 608, 613, 616, 617, 621 Bayezid mosque library 255 Bayezid, şehzade 436 Beatrix of Aragón 582 Bedouin 318, 320, 322, 324–325, 327, 555, 557 beer 779 Beheim, Martin 186, 194 Bekaya (arrears, recent) 407 Belgrade, Belgrad 376, 459, 460n30, 461, 468–469, 685, 688–690, 703 Belgrado (Friaul) 581 Beline/Bijeljina 386 Belmužević family 588 benefactor 455, 484, 494 beneficiary 494, 511 benevolent employer 10, 493, 494, 499, 500, 515 beng 107–108, 122 ber vech-i tahmin 432 ber vech-i tekmil 440, 442 berat 11, 341–342, 512, 629–631, 633, 638 Berber languages 75 berş 107–109, 122 beşli 361 Bessarion 580, 583, 585–586, 589 beşte bir. See also pencik, penc ü yek 357 Beylen 803 beylerbeyi 160, 189, 195, 424, 438, 444 beylerbeyilik des îles 219, 222, 228 beytülmal (moneys on hold) 405–406 bilingualism 64, 827 bird 30–31, 80, 138, 285, 296–297 bishop(s) 11, 192, 193, 199, 201, 426, 629, 632, 634, 635, 637–639, 644, 646, 663, 675 Bıyıklı Mustafa Paşa 376 Blount, Henry 199–200, 204 von Böhtlingk, Otto 140n29, 151 Bokali family 586 Bonhomo, Peter 257n92

869 Bonifaz III. of Montferrat 581, 585 books 8, 50, 55, 60, 71, 127, 133, 140, 146–147, 157–158, 161–162, 165, 171–172, 174–176, 254n74, 255n86, 270–271, 318, 360, 362–363, 453n5, 473, 497–498, 572, 693, 696, 698–700, 701n93, 703–704, 755, 765, 771–773, 794, 815, 843 booty. See also spoils of war 355–357, 370–371, 376, 488 Bopp, Franz 137n26, 149n50 Boškov (Vančo) 606, 629n3 Bosna (sancak) 199n63, 573n10, 600, 602–603, 607–613 Bosnia, Bosnien 166, 365n30, 366, 383, 389–390, 468, 481–483, 486–467, 487n48, 488 boza 107–108, 122, 299n30 Branković family 248 Branković, Georg 569n6, 573, 575, 577 Branković, Jelena/Mara 579 Branković, Katharina-Kantakuzene 579 Branković, Lazar 585 Branković, Mara 578–579 Branković, Milica 575 Branković, Stefan „der Blinde“ (“the Blind”) 578, 582 Bratislava 244, 251 de la Broquière, Bertradon 188n13, 190, 198, 202 Buda (Ott. Budin, Budun), vilayet, sancak, town of 424 budget 393–397, 400–401, 403, 405–406, 496, 498, 500, 502, 508, 513–515, 561, 848 central 403 provincial 401 Buharalı Şeyh Süleyman Efendi 127 bulan (reindeer, elk) 302 Bulgaria 184, 187, 192n31, 193n35, 194–195, 198, 202, 206n101, 239, 746 Bulgarians 166, 193n36, 194, 198, 200 Bureau of Sanitation 747 bureaucrat 8, 125, 160, 329, 461, 507, 698n72, 706n134, 711, 856 bureaucratization 686 Burgenland 567 Bursa 370, 501–504, 512, 560, 722, 726, 728–730, 742, 846

870 de Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin 185n1, 194, 202, 771 Cafer, tax-farmer 367 Caffa 359n12, 360n14, 370, 666 Cairo 305, 314, 317–318, 324, 326–327, 331–333, 546–552, 554–555, 558, 561, 746n27 Campaign (Corfu) of Süleyman the Magnificent, 1537 6, 189n17, 300, 728 Campaign (France and Italy) of Hayreddin, 1543–1544 219 Campaign (Hungary) of Süleyman the Magnificent, 1543 428, 465 Campaign (Provence) of Charles Quint 224 Campaigns (Cyclades) of Hayreddin, 1537 and 1538 223 Çapanoğlu family 823 capitulations 746 captive 272, 278–279, 281, 284, 286, 357, 362–363, 370–371, 373, 375–376 beççe 359, 369 gulam 279, 284, 359, 525 gulamçe 359 kebir 369–370, 376–377, 675 sagir 370, 376–377 şirhorbeççe 359 şirhore 369 Carlo III Tocco 585 Carullah Veliyüddin Efendi 164, 171 cash waqf 498 Caspian-Caucasian region 61 Çatalca 482 Catholicism 194–195, 710 Caucasus 72, 81, 163 Celali 405, 451, 504, 653, 655, 658 Celali effect 504 cem‛iyyet-i ḫafiyye 769n39 Cemal Paşa 770 Cenap Şahabettin 772, 777 çete 358, 363 Cevdet Paşa 128, 244 chancery 687, 694, 698, 701, 708 Charles du Fresne du Cange 150 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 1519–1556 251 Charrel, Louis 146n43 de Chateaubriand, René 777

Index China 43, 51, 52, 168, 297 Christians 11, 46, 165, 186, 188, 196–200, 203, 207–208, 654, 657, 665, 676, 681, 688, 692, 696, 707–708, 711, 727, 801, 807, 827n61 Greek Orthodox 793, 801, 805–807, 826 Turcophone 807–809 Protestant 198 Christmann, Jacob 278 von Chudenic, Hermann Czernin 259n102 Church Council, 343 c.e. 196, 198, 207 Church of Ohrid 629, 630 Ciğerdelen (Párkány/Štúrovo) 452, 456–457 Çıldır 444 Cilicia 69, 75, 77 Čirpan 602–603, 606–607 cizye 306, 383, 125, 385–386, 388–390, 392, 398, 405–407, 654, 658, 688–689 cizyehane 383, 658 Classical Arabic 26n31, 74, 78, 99, 135 clergy 186, 628, 632, 635–636, 638, 674, 689, 694–695, 710, 726 Cluj 242 Cluj-Napoca. See also Cluj 244 coffee 8, 12, 107–115, 123, 175, 551, 730, 766, 777–781 coffee house culture 778n94 coffee house, coffeehouse 12, 107, 109, 738, 742, 764, 766, 777–779, 783 coinage 325, 402, 403, 409 akçe 234, 376, 377n56, 388, 390, 686, 401–402, 405 altun 234, 401, 535 esedi guruş 376, 386, 402, 672 filori 401 gold 402 guruş 376, 386, 388, 390, 662 hasene 401 kamil guruş 402 para/pare 401 sahi 405 silver 306, 370, 386, 388, 390, 401–402, 405, 459, 495, 662 collection fee. See also maaş, vech-i maaş 373, 375–377 Colloquial Arabic 78 Comarn 258n97 competition 395, 687n22, 721, 733

Index confectioner 780 conjunctor ki (Persian) 16–17, 20–22 Constantinople. See Istanbul Constantinople 2, 197, 203, 251n59, 256–260, 307, 321, 425n9, 455, 467, 569n6, 628–630, 632, 636–637, 685, 688, 691–693, 694n55, 707, 709–710, 810n16, 815, 819n34, 826–827 Educational Brotherhood of Cappadocians in 815 conversion 197, 388, 405, 545n3, 559, 657–658, 683, 692, 698, 704, 709–711, 859 Corinth 824 counter-expectation (pragmatics) 15, 17, 28–29, 33–34, 36 Crete, Crète, Kreta 5, 125, 159n4, 218, 229, 337, 345n41, 348, 426, 451, 630–631, 637, 655, 663, 664n38, 688–689, 691 Crimea 280, 367, 745 Crimean War 745–747 Crnojević, Ivan 575, 587 Croatia 253, 455, 763 crossing tolls 359 Crusade, 1443–1444 186, 189n13, 199n25, 204 Csanád (Rom. Cenad, Ott. Çanad/Çenad), sancak of 438n84 Çukurova 75 CUP members 768 curriculum 687, 703, 711, 809 customs duties 359, 365, 378 Cyclades 218, 223 Cyprus 396, 400, 406 dafi’ü’l-gam 108, 122 Damad Ibrahim Paşa 615, 617 Damascus. See also Şam 69, 397, 403, 546, 696, 707–708, 738n2, 738n4 Danube 129, 360, 371, 378n58, 457, 463–464 Daphni 579 Daragözü 70 darü l-islam 599 Debrecen 376 defter 255, 323, 363–364, 368n37, 376, 377, 388, 430, 523, 526–527, 658–659 defter kethüdası 430, 439 defterdar. See also treasurer 398 arabistan defterdarı 399

871 arap ve acem Defterdarı 399 hazine defterdarı 399 mal defterdarı 400 timar defterdarı 400, 412–413, 659 Deli Kurd 425n10 Demel (confectioner) 780 Demetrios (Palaiologos) 576 Demetrios Ramadanes 692, 707 dendan-ı hınzır (boar tusk) 305 dendan-ı mahi (fish teeth) 302 der-kenar 159, 160 Dernschwam, Hans 193, 200, 202–203 Derviş İbrahim 8–9, 270–283, 285, 287 Develi, Agios Konstantinos (Aikosten)  813n23 Devletoglou, Maria 821 dictionary 2, 5, 19, 24, 79, 128, 131–132, 135, 140n30, 142, 145, 274, 276n28, 277n33, 278, 295, 313n1, 701–702 Diodato, Johannes 764 diplomatics 4–5, 157, 629, 633 divan 8, 120, 123, 127, 219, 228, 255, 329, 368, 550, 704 Divan poetry 8, 121, 283, 284n63, 285n65, 286, 764 Divinia Commedia 127 Diyarbekir 399, 400n29, 669 Doge 684–685, 688–689, 691–692, 694n55, 698, 704, 709–710 Dominicans 480, 696, 711 don (underpants) 685, 689 Dona, Giovanni Battista 688, 693 Donado, Giambattista, Bailo 533 Dondolinou, Sofia 816 Donner, Otto 144n39 Doria, Andrea 218, 229 Doria, Gianettino 223 Dragomans 684–685, 693, 695–696 Dubrovnik 189n14, 191n26, 200,–202, 206, 487, 570, 573, 576, 578, 581 Dukagin, sancak of 440 Dukagjin, Leka 577, 585, 587 Dur [Tur] Ali, azab ağası of Buda, pencik emini 360 Durak Reis, captain of the Imperial Navy  218 Dušan, Stefan 573 Duvno (Tomislavgrad) 620, 623

872 East Anatolia 60n1, 73 Eastern Orthodoxy 684 ecclesiastical appointments 629, 636 education 11–12, 199, 282, 499, 501, 683, 687, 692, 694, 699–701, 711, 724, 731, 770, 793, 806–808, 810, 813, 816–817, 820–821, 826, 838–839, 841, 846, 849, 855–856, 858 Eger (Ott. Eğri) 424 Egri Castle, sancak of 424–425 Egypt (Ott. Mısır, Ger. Ägypten) 314 Egyptian Arabic 68, 72, 78, 80–81, 98–99 Egyptian commodity trading 542 rice 542, 545, 560 cotton 544–545 coffee 551 wheat 542, 553, 555 barley 553 mutton 556 Egyptian dialects 61 Elçi Hasan (Hassan Bassa) 260n106 elegy 8, 107–111, 113, 123 elephant tusk 305 Elhac/Hacı Bey, sancakbeyi of Vidin, Shkodër, Thessaloniki, Hatvan 441, 526–527 elsine-i selāse 60, 172–173, 702 emancipation 12, 806 professional 12, 806 emin 360, 371 emin-i pencik. See also pencik emini 360, 371n46 emval-i müteferrika (various funds)  405–406 Engin, Mehmet Saffet 851, 852n67 England 199n63, 252–253 enjambement 120–121 Enver Behnan [Şapolyo] 853 Enver [Paşa] 770 Epirus 569, 570 Erdel (Transylvania, Erdély, Siebenbürgen, Principality of Transylvania) 242–243, 371, 452, 455 Ergani, sancak of 425, 433 Erpenius, Thomas 275n25, 278, 287 Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky, Uyvar) 260, 452 Erzurum 130, 399, 454, 666 Esad Efendi 38, 150 Esseg (Osijek) 521–522

Index Esztergom (Ott. Estergon, Östörgon) 244, 247, 252, 259, 360, 363–364, 425, 430, 433, 437, 442, 445, 446, 464, 465 Etaireia, Filekpaideftiki 826 Ethem, Çerkez 823 Euboea/Évia (Ott. Agriboz) 428 evidentiality 15, 75, 76 Evliya Çelebi 161–162, 185n2, 192n31, 197, 201–202, 455–457, 464–465, 468n62, 470, 479, 485, 489, 665, 727n23, 742, 763–764 exchange of populations 805, 827 exchange rate 385–386, 388–390, 401, 403 Fälschungen (falsifications) 617 Fano 571 faux amis 80 Fazıl Ahmed, grand vizier 451, 453–454, 689, 703 Feraḥ-nāme (Hundred Hadith collection)  (15th cent.) 34 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1558–1564; King of Hungary, 1526/27–1564 241–242, 245 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, 1637–1657 2 Ferec baʿde ş-şidde, FBŞ (15th cent.) 38 Ferej baʿde š-šidde 38 Ferhad Beg, founder of the mosque in Pécs  483 Ferhad Beg, founder of the mosque in Tešanj 483 Ferhad Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 444 Ferhad Paşa, founder of the mosque in Çatalca 482 Ferīdūn Ahmed Beg 244n15, 370n43 ferman 341, 552, 559–600, 604, 606, 608, 612, 614, 618–619, 629–631, 633–634, 636–639 Ferrante I, King of Naples, 1458–1494 574 Ferrara 166, 583–584 Fertile Crescent 60, 98 Fetḥ-i ḳalʿe-i Nôva (by Murâdî) 218, 225 Fetiḥnâme-i Hayr ed-Dîn Paşa (by Murâdî)  218, 225, 228 fetva 117, 169, 673, 699n75 Filadelfeia (Alaşehir) 813 fire 30, 107, 112–113, 143, 146, 186, 275, 505, 769

Index First World War. See also WWI 12, 294, 746, 751, 781, 791, 792, 803, 827n62, 848 fiscalism 719 Flaviana 12 Kindergarten Training College of 810–811, 817, 822, 825–826 Moni Timiou Prodromou in 805 Central School for Girls in 813, 815, 819–820, 822 Florenz 571 Florina 821 Flügel, Gustav 270n2, 278 Fojnica, Franciscan monastery in BiH 11, 599–600, 605–609, 611–612, 616–618. 619n38, 626 folk poetry 8, 108, 121, 123 food shortages, Egypt 547 food-receivers (taamhoran) 494 Forgách, Ádám, captain of Érsekújvár 457 France 219, 223, 231, 294, 307, 314n4, 319, 682n4, 729, 763, 770, 792–794, 857 Franciscans of Gyöngyös 441n104 Franciscans, Franciscan friars in Bosnia  600n2 Frankish disease 747–748, 750 Frenchization 134 Frenkoghli family 817n34 Friedrich III., Holy Roman Emperor, 1440–1452 579, 580n26, 581, 584–585 Froebel 809–810, 815n29 Method 128, 136–137, 140, 142, 145, 147, 510, 703, 809 Spielgaben/Froebelgaben 809, 815 Fruška Gora 582 Fuad Pasha 128, 150 Fülek (Slovakian Fiľakovo, Ottoman Filek)  361, 427n29 Fünfkirchen (Pécs) 479, 521–522 fünuniyya 107–108, 122 fur xix, xx, xxii, xxiv, 1–3, 71, 240n4, 295–296, 305, 521, 522n6, 523n9, 525–527, 529, 532–538, 568, 571, 573–574, 576–577, 579–580, 582–584, 586–589, 599, 601, 604, 606–607, 608n14, 609–617, 620–621 fütüvvetname(s) 727–728 Galata 367, 531, 708, 737–739, 742–747, 749, 751, 753–755, 757, 778

873 Galen, Bernhard Christoph, Fürstbischof von Münster (Prince-archbishop of Münster) 522 ganima, ganimet 356 gayr ez sebin, sebin hesabından (way of payment “by calculating/minus seventy”) 383, 389, 392 Ġazavât-ı Hayr ed-Dîn Paşa (by Murâdî) 8, 216–218, 235–236 Ġazavât-ı Hayr ed-Dîn Paşa, second part (by Murâdî) 231 Gazavatname-i Sultan Murad 161n12, 186n4, 204 gazel 27, 283, 285 gedik 21, 722, 729, 733 Gelveri (Güzelyurt) 813n23, 816 Gênes 223 Genua 573, 585 Georgiades et Tchaoussoglou, firm in Constantinople 815n29 Georgian 130, 378n60 Gerlach, Stephan 198 Germany 255, 314n4, 763, 770–771, 792, 794, 854 Gerstner (confectioner) 780 gift 18, 295–296, 299–301, 306–307 von Goëss, Johann, Habsburg plenipotentiary envoy 460 gömlek/gönlek (vest) 300 gönüllü ağası 235, 325, 433, 438 Gonzaga, Barbara 583 Gonzaga, Ludovico 583 Gorica, Franciscan monastery near Livno, BiH 614, 616–617 Göttingen 240n4, 255, 260n103, 263, 278 Gračanica 481 grammar 127, 129, 135, 140, 145, 147, 275, 693, 702 grand vizier 125, 160, 245, 247, 252, 256, 260, 261n108, 300n35, 315, 323, 327–328, 332, 368, 371, 407, 451, 453–462, 465, 467, 469–470, 482, 664n38, 689, 692, 698n72, 703, 728 Gratiani, Gaspar 258n94 Great Britain 763, 770, 792, 794 Great War 808, 821 Greece 12, 107n7, 429, 440n100, 805, 807–808, 810, 813, 816, 820, 824, 825, 847, 857–859

874 Greek 1, 125–127, 129–135, 137, 141–142, 146, 148, 163, 165, 173, 175n84, 176, 272, 277, 296, 336n3, 337n4, 338n5, 639, 663, 669–670, 674, 676, 686, 691–692, 710n157, 745, 754, 791, 793, 796, 801, 805–807, 809–810, 813, 815n27, 820–827 regional variants of 827 learned 827 Greek Orthodox Church 674 von Greifenhorst, Friedrich Johannn Kraelitz 4, 280, 782, 782n112 Grgurević, Vuk 248, 581 grievances 629, 631–633, 635, 637, 639 group biography, collective biography 805 guarantor, guarantee 733, 507 guild headman (headmen) 722 guild regulation(s) 721 guild(s) 342, 721–722, 725–728, 730–731, 714, 743 Gulf Arabic 73 Gulistān 278n36, 702 Gul-Ṣanavbar 56n61 Gürcü Mehmed Paşa 300n35 guruş 347, 376, 385–386, 388–390, 402, 659, 662–663, 668–670, 672–673 Gyarmat 259 Gyöngyös 441n104 Gyula, sancak of 424, 430 Habil bin Receb, cadi of Belgrade 614 Habsburg 1–2, 188, 193, 240n5, 242–243, 245, 250n54, 251–254, 258n96, 271, 282, 362, 365–366, 344, 452, 458–464, 466, 470–471, 479–481, 488, 615, 617, 682, 684, 689, 710, 747n31, 763 Habsburg Monarchy 2, 240 Hacı/Elhac Bey, sancakbeyi of Vidin, Shkodër, Thessaloniki, Hatvan 441 Hadji Grigoris of Aleppo 708 Haft Paykar 51 Haleb. See Aleppo 397–401, 404, 406–407 Halide Edib [Adıvar] 782 Halil Beğ, finance director of Buda 363 Halit Ziya [Uşaklıgil] 771, 773n67, 777 halkevleri 837 Hamidiye (in Syria) 821 Hamit Zübeyr Koşay 846, 855, 859 von Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph 3, 533

Index Hamza, district governor of Fülek 362 hançer (dagger) 296 hane 385 hane haracı 385 haramilik 358 harc 378, 509 Hasan Ağa, confidant and vasi of Süleyman Ağa 226, 230, 377n57, 453, 463 Hasan Ağa. lieutenant de Hayreddin à Alger 226 Hasan Bey, sancakbeyi of Adilcevaz, Hatvan 444 Hasan, ziamet-holder, pencik emini 230, 358, 361 Hasankeyf 68, 70, hases of sancakbeyi 427, 432–433, 435–46, 439, 442 hashish 107–108, 122 hassa tacir (royal merchant) 305 Hasseki Gülnuş Emetullah 537 Hatay 12, 69, 789–791, 793–794, 797–803 Hatay Devleti 789 Ḫaṭīboġlı (Ibn Ḫaṭīb) 38 Hatt-ı hümayun, beyaz üzerine 534–535 Hatvan, sancak, nahiye, town, fortress of 9, 185–197, 199–205, 207–208, 314, 326, 337–339, 361, 385, 424–427, 429–434, 436–445, 479–481, 483–485, 489, 495–497, 503–505, 510, 570, 655, 657, 662, 667, 672, 720, 724, 730, 805n1, 823–826, 845, 851 Hatziarzoumanidis (Hatziarzoumanoglou), Ioannis A. 821 havaleci 389 Hayreddin Barberousse (Barbarossa) 8, 216–224, 226–230, 233–236 Hayrullah Efendi 773n67, 777 Hazār savāl-i Malīka 43, 52–53, 55 Helmeted Hornbill 297 hemistich 115, 120 hendiadys 121 Henning, Julius 810n13 Herberstein, Adam Freiherr von 256–257 Hercegnovi 218, 225 Hersek, sancak of 486, 601–603, 607, 609–613, 620 Herzegowina 538n46, 572, 574–577, 579, 616, 623 Herzl, Theodor 125

Index Heves county 424 high-culture 108, 110, 120–121, 123 Hirschfeld, Ludwig 779, 781 Historiographie ottomane (Ottoman historiography) 599 Hızır, finance director of Buda 364 Hoca Sadeddin 185n2, 195, 205, 701 Hofburg theatre 776 von Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, Graf Wolfgang 522 Holland 252 Homs 69 horn 304, 307, 315, 743 hotels 738, 749–750, 754–755 Hotin (Pol. Choczim) 371 household 190, 377n57, 507–512, 516, 548, 662, 687, 705, 723, 726, 729 hüccet, court document 470, 530–531 hüdavendigar 608–610 hükm-i şikāyet 629, 633 hüküm of Bayezid II of 1483 249, 601, 603– 604, 606–608, 611, 612n22, 614–616, 618 Hümaşah Sultan 482 hums 356–357 Hungarian estates 241, 252–253 Hungarian king 241–242, 245, 248, 251, 463 Hungary, Hongrie 219–220, 226, 230–232, 236 Hürrem Sultan 300–301, 485 Ḥürriyet ve İ’tilāf (Freedom and Accord Party, 1911) 770 Hüseyn Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1592 443 Hüseyn Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1601 444 hypocoristics 66–68, 98 Ibn Khaldun 166, 171, 558 İbrahim Ağa, Bizaban, Musahib 469, 471, 526, 528, 536 İbrahim Ağa, brother of Süleyman Ağa 469, 471 İbrahim Çelebi el-Kâtib, witness 527 İbrahim Müteferrika, dignitary in Novi Pazar 389 Ibrahim of Pera (Ibrahim Efendi; Paolo Antonino) 681–683 İbrahim Paşa, grand vizier of Süleyman I  227 İbrahim Peçevi, Ottoman historiographer/ chronicler 150, 232, 328, 331–332

875 Ibrāhīm, scribe or author of a maṯnavī dated 1368 51, 52n41, 53 icareteyn (double-renting) 510 icmal defteri 440n99, 443 icmal-i muhasebe (muhasebe icmal) 9, 393 Idris-i Bidlisi 185n2, 195, 199, 205, 207–208 Illésy, János 257n92 İlmiye 621n41 iltizam. See also mukataa, tax-farm 367, 509 imaret, public soup kitchen 497 İncesu 813n23 indefinite article 73–74, 98 India 49, 81, 666 indigo 296 indirective copula imiş 17, 19, 20, 33 İnebahtı 425, 427, 433 İnönü, İsmet 770, 837n13 interrogatives 68–69, 98 inventory 64, 299, 302, 305, 495, 506, 809n11 İpsala 280–282 Iran 61, 69n36, 81, 409, 655, 665–666, 670 Iraqi Arabic 66–68, 76–77, 99 irgad (laborer) 730 Iršād al-Mulūk va-s-Salāṭīn 54 irsaliyye (annual contribution from Egypt to Ottoman central treasury) 559 Isabelle, widow of Jean Zapolyai, mother of Jean-Sigismond 231 Isaccea (Ott. İsakçi) 371 İskender Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 439 Islamic law 9, 355, 357, 699, 711, 722 Islamic theology 699 İsmail, Shah of Persia, 1501–1524 295n3, 306, 705 Isparta 813 Istanbul 2, 9, 11, 47, 57, 107, 109, 149, 196, 219–220, 221n24, 223, 226, 230, 232, 236, 241–242, 244–245, 250–252, 256, 259, 295n3, 297n14, 317, 325, 328–330, 332–333, 365, 367, 369, 373, 378n60, 394, 396, 401–403, 408–409, 433, 436, 451, 454, 463, 469–470, 482, 485, 495, 500, 503, 505, 512, 514, 542, 545, 551, 554, 559–560, 614, 618–619, 653, 665– 666, 668n57, 669, 672, 682, 693, 698, 708, 720, 723, 725, 727, 731–734, 737, 739–740, 742–747, 750–751, 754–757, 764, 766, 769–770, 774, 777–778, 782, 803, 835, 846, 852–853, 856

876 İstanköy (Kos) 634n19 Istvánffy, Miklós, Hungarian historiographer/ chronicler 425n10 İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (The Committee of Union and Progress, CUP) 766 Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow 580 ivory 297–298, 303–307 İzvornik (Zvornik) 383, 386, 613 Jabarti, Egyptian historian 559 Jagiello family 248 Jakšić family 588 James I, King of England and Ireland, 1603–1625 106–107 janissaries 158n1, 321, 325, 348, 371, 483, 513, 556, 632, 660–661, 670, 676, 741 Jenő (Rom. Ineu, Ott. Yanova) 361, 371, 373 Jidda 551–552 John II [John Sigismund], King of Hungary, 1540–1571 243, 246 John Szapolyai, King John, former Ban of Transylvania, 1526–1540 241 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1765–1790 239, 480 Julien, Stanislas 130 kadeh (jug) 300 kadı 9, 190, 336–349, 357, 367, 377, 468, 523, 600, 611–612, 614, 615n26, 616–621, 630–631, 633, 673, 739–744, 749, 755 kadı sicilleri 630–631, 633 Kadıköy 753 Kadızade İbrahim, Şamizade Mehmed’s son-in-law 10, 452–458, 461, 468, 471 Kadizade Mehmet 108–109 Kaffeehauskultur (coffee house culture)  778n94 kağıd-i kebir 377 kağıd-i sagir 377 Kahlenberg 781 Kaiserliche Hofbibliothek 270 kaknus 9, 296–298 Kalan Yusuf Paşa 480, 660 kalemiye 686–687 kalfa (journeyman) 729 Kalīla wa-Dimna 78 Kallithea 810–811, 813, 819, 820n39, 824 Kalocsa 429

Index Kandıra 436 Kandiye (Herakleion, Heraklion) 9, 337, 630 Kanije (Nagykanizsa) 383, 386, 389, 392 kanunname 359, 369 Kanuri 63 Kaposvár 389 Kapudan Cezayirli Hasan Paşa, Ottoman admiral and field commander 556 Kara Ferye (Veroia) 631–632, 634n20 Kara Mehmed Paşa 464, 763 Kara Murat (Murad) 252, 260 Kara Mustafa Paşa 296, 376, 466, 533–534, 536–537 Kara Mustafa, Merzifonlu, grand vizier 457 Karaman 143n36, 399 Karamanlı 807, 808n8 Karlovitz 252 Kastamonu 468, 525n11 Kastriota, Andronika 578, 590 Kastriota, Georg, called “Skanderbeg” 575, 577 Kastriota, Ivan II 575, 587 Katakouzinos, Alexandros 810n13 Katharina, daughter of Queen Katharina of Bosnia 575 Katharina, daughter of Stefan Vukčić; Queen of Bosnia 575 katip 161–162, 687, 691–692 Kâtip Çelebi 165–167, 170 Katzianer, Franz 428 Kavāid-i Osmāniyye 150 Kaisareia (Kayseri), Caesarea, metropolis of  805, 813n23, 814–817, 819, 826 Kazazoglou, née Frengoglou, Efthalia, 817 kebikeç 174 Kefçe Mahallesi in Üsküdar 536 Kemalpaşazade 185n2, 194, 702 keremün 295–296 Kerkyra 826 Khuzestani Arabic 73 Kilis 425, 796, 800 kindergarten 805, 810–811, 813–814, 819–821, 823–827 kindergarten education 810n13 Kingdom of Hungary 239, 241, 245, 248, 463 Kingdom of Hungary, Polyxeni 811, 816 Kitâb-ı baḥriyye (by Piri Reis) 217, 219, 232

Index Kitāb-i Jumjuma 56 Klis (Ital. Clissa, Hung. Klissza, Ott. Kilis), sancak of 425 Koca Hüseyin 185n2, 195, 205n101 Koca Sinan Paşa 407, 615, 617 Komárom 247, 252, 258, 459, 465 Konya, vilayet of 25 Koppán (modern Törökkoppány, Ott. Kopan), sancak of 361, 426, 433–434 Koppány (Ott. Kopan) 361, 426, 433–434 Köprülü, family (household) 9, 451–452, 454, 455, 457, 469, 471, 689, 703 Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha 9, 261n108, 300n35, 464, 467, 689–691, 703 Köprülü, Fuat 840, 856 Köprülü Mehmed Paşa, grand vizier 300, 371, 451, 464, 469 Korfu 570, 573 Kotromanić, Sigismund 575 Következik, 5. Mehmed Bey 326, 428, 431, 435, 525, 527 Kozluk-Sason 74 Kraljeva Sutjeska, Franciscan monastery in BiH 601, 607–608, 611–612, 617 Krapfen (grappen) 772, 780 Krušedol 582 Kruševac (Ott. Alacahisar), sancak of 427 Kunter, Halim Baki 845–848, 850 Kupinovo 582 Kurdish 61, 64–66, 68–69, 73–74, 76–78, 80, 99, 130 Kurmanji Kurdish 64, 67–68, 75–76, 99 Kuruçeşme on the Bosporus 531 Kütahya 44–45, 48n26, 730 Kuva-yi Milliye 12, 789, 791, 796–798, 801 Kuwait 80 Kyustendil (Ott. Köstendil), sancak of 442 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 205, 771 Lake Van 75, 436 Lala Mustafa Paşa, the founder of the mosque in Livno 481n13, 481n14 Lala Sokollu Mustafa Paşa 481n13 Lāmiyyat al-Arab 127 Laskaridou, née Christomanou, Aikaterini  810 Latakia 69 Latifi (Abdüllatif) 169, 171

877 Lausanne Conference, 1923 770 Lavrio (in Attica) 824 Laz 76, 130 Lazarević, Stefan 573 League of Nations 792, 794 Lebanon 74, 314n4, 546, 707, 792 Lehce-i Osmāni 127–128 Lehcetüʾl-lugāt 128, 150 Lenkhauitsch, Hans 425n9 Lenormant, François 143–144, 150 Leonhard, Duke of Görz 579 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1658–1705 2 Lescalopier, Pierre 200, 202–203 Leslie, Walter, imperial ambassador to the Porte 464, 467, 470 Lesvos 166 Levantine Arabic 8, 74, 99 lexicography 8–9, 127, 279, 307 library 8, 10, 45, 164, 171, 190, 243–244, 255, 270–271, 276, 278, 320, 337, 343n28, 463, 483, 681–682, 684, 688, 696–698, 704, 711, 770n44, 774, 838, 852, 856 light verb constructions 77 Lippa (Rom., Ott. Lipova), sancak of 429, 434, 438, 440 liva. See sancak 424, 429, 432, 440n99, 443, 484, 623 liva-i kale-i Eğri 424 Livno 425n9, 481 Logotheti-Merlier, Melpo 817 Long Turkish War 246, 251–252, 280n43, 485 Louis II, King of Hungary, 1516–1526 241 Louis the Great, King of Hungary, 1342–1382 239 Lueger, Karl 777 Lugat-ı Çağatayi ve Türkī-i Osmānī 127, 145, 151 de Luna, Juan 585 Lütfi Paşa, grand vizier of Süleyman I  227–228, 230, 236 maaş. See also vech-i maaş (collection fee)  376 Macār İskender 254n74 Macedonia 199n63, 205–206, 820–821 Maghrebinian dialects 69

878 Mahmud Beğ, district governor of Szolnok  361 Mahmud Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1592  430 Mahmud Bey, sancakbeyi of Szekszárd, Hatvan, 1572–1578 430 Mahmud Paşa Angelović 188, 204, 577n20 Mahmud Paşa, Zal, beylerbeyi of Buda 429, 434 mahsulat (funds) 405, 412 mahzenü’l-esrar 108, 114, 122 makʿad (sitting pad for several people) 299 Mammas, Gregorios 586 Mantua 583–584 manuscripts 4, 8, 22, 45–46, 54, 157–158, 161, 164, 168–171, 173–175, 243–244, 250, 270–272, 277n33, 278–279, 281, 286–287, 315n10, 316, 681, 683–684, 692, 695–698, 706, 712, 771–772 Mara, daughter of Stefan Vukčić 575, 578–579, 581 Marciana 681, 695n60, 696–698, 712 Mardin 68, 73 Maremma 586 Maronites 681 Maros river 438n83 Marseilles 545n1, 546 de Marzano, Margherita 575 masʾala (mesʾele) 43, 46, 50, 54–57 maşraba (tankard) 299 master (in a guild) 727 matbah-i amire (palace kitchens in Istanbul) 150 Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary and Croatia, 1458–1490 248, 250n52, 581, 588 Matuschka, Ludwig 253n65 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1486–1519 243, 245, 301n38, 584 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1564–1576 243, 245 Mazalto, Jewish tax-farmer 367–368 mazul 429, 445, 446 Meali 110 de’ Medici, Lorenz 580 de’ Medici, Zanobio 585 Medieval Kingdom of Hungary 239, 241, 248 Mediterranean basin 99

Index medrese 190, 282, 497, 662, 687–688, 703, 856 medrese education 687, 694, 699, 700–701, 711 Mehmed Ali Paşa 125 Mehmed Beg, the former governor of the subprovince of Pécs 484 Mehmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Esztergom, Hatvan 1555–1556, 1560–1563, 1564–1565 426, 435 Mehmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan, 1583–1584, 1585–1588, 1589 441–442 Mehmed Bey, sancakbeyi of Vučitrn 427 Mehmed Çelebi, tax-farmer 367, 401 Mehmed II, Ottoman Sultan, 1444–1446, 1451–1481 189, 587, 604, 606, 607, 612, 613 Mehmed III, Ottoman Sultan, 1595–1603  322, 615, 618, 619 Mehmed IV, Ottoman Sultan, 1648–1687  260, 451, 453, 455, 463, 535, 729 Mehmed Nāzım, doctor 768 Mehmed Paşa, Sokollu, Grand Vizier 221, 482 Mehmed Paşa, Yahyapaşazade, beylerbeyi of Buda 424 Mehmed Pascha, Sarı, defterdar 533 Mehmed Talāt 766 Mehmed, alaybeği of Szécsény 362 Mekka 533–535, 537 Melange 772, 778 Melek, Abdurahman 791 Meninski, Mesgnien 2, 151 Mersin 800n31, 811, 813n19, 822–823 mersiye 17 Merzifon 724 Meşāʿirü ş-Şuʿarā 281 mesnevi 8, 110, 122 Mesopotamian Arabic 69 metropolitans 11, 629–632, 634, 637–639, 710n157 mevkufat (a finance bureau) 407 Mezö-Keresztes (Haçova) 615 Middle East 60–61, 63, 68, 71, 75, 77, 81, 84, 87, 314 Middle Eastern Sprachbund 61–62, 97 Middle Persian 69, 78 migrants, serial 732 migration 12, 205, 653n2, 731, 733, 737, 805–808, 823n54

Index Mihnea “der Böse” (“the Bad”), Prince of Wallachia 582 Mikyāsüʾl-lisān kıstāsüʾl-beyān (Mikyās) 127, 139, 149 Milodraž (Milodraževo) 600, 605–606, 612–620, 622 minder (sitting pad) 299 Ministry of Interior 739, 749–751, 756–757 miniver 296 Minorque 224–225 mirahor-i evvel, Oberstallmeister (Crown Equerry) 531 mirative; mirative marker; mirative particle  7, 15, 19, 21–22, 25, 28–29, 32, 35–37 mirliva. See sancakbeyi 413, 425, 428, 430, 432 Mısır. See Egypt 399 Mitrowitz (Sremska Mitrovica) 521 mobility 271n8, 684, 738n4, 814, 826–827 Mohács (Ott. Mihaç), sancak of 429, 479 Mohács, battle of (1525) 241, 244, 247, 250, 370 Mohács, battle of (1687) 537 Moldau (Moldova) 569, 587 Molla Abdurrahman Efendi 127 von Moltke, Helmuth (the Elder) 771 monopoly, monopolies 668, 720 Montauto 586 Mordtmann, Andreas David 39, 130, 149 Morea 569, 570–571, 574, 576, 588 Morocco 64, 67, 75, 669 Mosul 68 Mousouros, Konstantinos 126–127 Moutalaski (Talas) 813–814, 821, 826 muamele 160 mübaşir 376–377 müderris 497, 507, 509 Mudros 791 mufassal defteri 424, 432n55 muharrir 433 mühimme (registers of important affairs)  399, 633 mühimme defteri 430n50, 440, 447 mühimme defterleri 255 mukataa, of Istanbul. See also iltizam, tax-farm 367 Müller, Max 142 multilingual vocabulary lists 276, 286 münazara 8, 107

879 Münir Hayri [Egeli] 854 Murad Ağa, court müteferrika, tax-farmer 369 Murad I, Ottoman Sultan, 1362–1389 202, 357 Murad II, Ottoman Sultan, 1412–1451 504, 514n75, 529, 575, 579 Murad III, Ottoman Sultan, 1574–1595 245, 322, 330, 561, 634 Murad IV, Ottoman Sultan, 1623–1640 109, 259, 316, 328, 332 Murâdî, author of Ġazavât-ı Hayr ed-Dîn Paşa 8, 204, 216–218, 222, 231, 235–236 Muscovy 303–305 Muslims 11, 163, 188, 190, 194, 196, 198, 203, 208, 367, 385, 389, 632, 638, 653–655, 657–659, 662–664, 668–669, 674, 676, 682, 708, 723, 727, 742, 778 Mustafa Ali 282n58, 299n31, 300n33 Mustafa Bey, sancakbeyi of Kyustendil, Hatvan, 1589–1590 442 Mustafa Bey, sancakbeyi of Nusaybin, Hatvan, 1556–1557 435 Mustafa Çelebi, house owner of Süleyman Ağa 527 Mustafa Çelebi, Kadızade, witness 527 Mustafa IV, Ottoman Sultan, 1807–1808 172 Mustafa Pascha, Kara, vizier, grand vizier  533–534 Mustafa Pascha, musahip 537 Mustafa, pencik collector 357–358, 361–362, 371 müteferrika of the Sublime Porte 437 mütekaid 429 mütevelli, Stiftungsverwalter (manager of the foundation) 532 Nafpaktos (Ital. Lepanto, Ott. İnebahtı), sancak of 425 Nagyvárad (Rom. Oradea, Ott. Varat/Varad)  441n104 nahiye 427, 429n40, 432, 485, 657, 662 Najdi Arabic 70 Nasihatname 108 Naṣīraddīn et-Ṭūsī (Nasiruddin-el-Toussy)  126 Nasuh Matrakçı 230 nationalism 808n9 Nauplia 586

880 nazır (supervisor) 399 nazır-i emval (financial supervisor) 398 Neapel 567, 571, 574, 587 Neapolis (Nevşehir) 811, 816 Nebi Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 444 Necati Beg 110 Negev 75 Negri, Solomon 696 Neo-Aramaic 61, 63, 67, 69, 74 neo-Mamluks 542 Muhammad Bey al-Kabir 550 Ibrahim Bey Qatamish 552–553 Ibrahim Katkhudua Kazdağlı 554 Ridwan Katkhuda al-Jalfi 554 Ali Bey, Bulut Kapan 554 Murad Bey 555 Muhammad Bey Abu Zhahab 558 Nevrokopi 819 New Penal Code 739, 749–750, 756 New Prostitution 755 New York 826 Nezir, emin (commissioner) of Esztergom  363 Nicomedia 166 Nicopolis 357 Niğbolu 453, 456, 468 Niğde 813n23 Nigerian Arabic 63 Nikolaos, protosynkellus 811 Nile River 544 Niphon, Patriarch of Constantinople 582 Nógrád (Ott. Novigrad), sancak of 439 Nógrád county 436 North Africa 68, 318 Northern Balkan 239 Notara, Anna 585, 589–590 Notaras, Jakobos 586 Notaras, Lukas 585 Nur, Rıza, doctor 12, 764–778, 779n96, 780–782 Nusaybin, sancak of 435 oath 346, 465 Obed 582 ocaklık timar 386, 390n13 Ohrid (Ott. Ohri), sancak of 428, 629–630 Olbracht, Jan 306 Old Anatolian Turkish 7, 15, 17, 27, 37 Old Turkic 15, 23

Index one-fith tax. See also pencik resmi, resm-i pencik onomatopoeia 138 opium 107–109 Orientalism 682–683 Orsini, Chiara 580 Oruç Barberousse 217 Osijek/Ösek (shops) 389, 455–456, 463, 521–522 Osman Ağa 764 Osman Bey, sancakbeyi of Esztergom, Hatvan, 1588–1589 441 Osman Bey, sancakbeyi of Szécsény, Hatvan, Szolnok, 1590 443 Osman II, Ottoman Sultan, 1618–1622 322, 327, 330, 332 Osman III, Ottoman Sultan, 1754–1757 341 Osman Pascha, Bosniak, vali of Egypt, 1680–1683 534–535 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA) Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (HHStA) 244n15, 263, 367n34, 379, 473 othering 827 Otranto 587 Ottoman Empire 6, 9–12, 107, 125–127, 197, 201, 240, 242, 248, 271, 303, 336, 348, 355–356, 357n5, 377, 383, 393, 482, 488, 513, 653–655, 675, 681, 683, 685–686, 709, 711, 731, 737–738, 745, 774, 805–807, 810–811, 815, 835–836, 850 Ottoman governors of Egypt 323, 328, 488, 558 Yedekci Mehmed Paşa 552 Mustafa Paşa, Köse Bahir 554 Kamil Ahmed Paşa 554 Halil Paşa 558 Ottoman Period Research Group Szeged 8, 239n2, 240 Ottoman travelogues 773 Ottoman treasury log (ruznamçe) 241 Ottoman Turkish, Ottoman-Turkish 3–5, 7–8, 37, 45, 51, 60–61, 76, 125–145, 148, 157, 166, 172, 176, 243, 270, 274, 277, 280, 282, 286, 313n1, 315, 693, 701–703 Ottoman-Hungarian agreement 246 Ottomanisation 8, 184, 189n17, 190, 208 Ottomanization 134 Ottoni, Rinaldo 585

881

Index Pakrac (Hung. Pakrác, Ott. Pakriç)/Zaçasna, sancak of 439 Palaiologina, Helena 580 Palaiologina, Zoe 580 Palaiologos, Andreas 588 Palaiologos, Manuel 579 Palaiologos, Thomas 587 Palestinian Arabic 66, 75 Papazoglou, Eleni 824 Paraspondylos Asanes, Isaak 586 Paris 3, 6, 149–150, 218, 231–233, 236, 277n33, 733, 763, 770, 775–777, 780, 783 parody 110 Passarowitz 247, 252–253 Pásztó (Ott. Pastoç), nahiye of 432 Patburnuzade Mehmed Efendi 691–692 Patriarch 193n35, 582, 628, 630–631, 634–635, 637, 639, 708–709 Patriarchate of Alexandria 631 Patriarchate of Constantinople 628–630, 632, 636–637, 815 Patron 231, 233, 456, 494–499, 501, 510, 689 patronage 10, 493, 495, 499–500, 502–505, 508, 510–516, 557, 689, 691, 695 Páty 426n21 Paul II., Pope, 1464–1471 583 peace 239, 247–249, 252, 255, 257n92, 259, 370, 458, 460–462, 464–465, 740–741, 744 peace treaty 8, 239, 244, 246, 250n55, 251, 254–255, 460 peacemaking 239 Peć (Ipek) 608n15 Pécs (Ott. Peçuy, Ger. Fünfkirchen), sancak of 479, 521–522 Pécs, baruthane 389n9 Pelješac 570 Peloponnese 163 pencik collection 9, 361–362 pencik emini. See also emin-i pencik 358, 370 pencik mukataası 367 pencik register 359 pencik resmi. See also resm-i pencik, one-fifth tax 9 pencik, penc ü yek. See also beşte bir 357 pencikçi başı 358 Pera (Beyoğlu) 685, 738, 739, 742, 745, 746, 749, 751, 753, 755 Permata (Bermede) 813n23

Persian xxx, 2, 7–8, 16–17, 20–22, 25, 28–29, 30n40, 36–37, 43–45, 47–48, 50–51, 60–69, 71–73, 75–81, 87, 98–99, 121, 127, 129, 133–140, 145, 172–173, 176, 270–271, 275–276, 278–280, 282–283, 295–298, 306, 357, 681–682, 684–687, 693, 697, 702–703, 712, 765, 800 pest 360 Pétervárad (Serb./Ott. Petrovaradin) 370 petition 160, 512, 630–632, 636, 658, 684–685, 688–689, 691–692, 694n55, 698, 709–710, 744, 749–751, 756–757 Peyami Erman 844 Pferde (horses) 523, 525–528 phoenix 31, 296, 298 phraseology 8, 61–63, 77–78, 99, 392 Pingietoglou (Piniatoglou), Aikaterini 819 Pingietoglou (Piniatoglou), Alexandra  819n38 Pio di Carpi, Lionello 585 Piraeus 726n19, 819, 826 Piri Reis 217, 232 Pirizade Mehmed Sahib Efendi 166 piskopos mukataası kalemi 636 polar question 19 Poros (Bor) 813n23 Port Mahon 224, 227 Pozsega (Croat. Požega, Ott. Pojega), sancak of 426 pragmatic; pragmatic particle, pragmatic content 17 Prešov 244 Prévéza 218, 221, 227n48, 228 Prijepolje (Pripol) 532 Princess of China 43, 51 prisoners of war. See also captive, slave 9, 356, 378, 764 Prizren (Ott. Prizrin), sancak of 428 Prodromos (Ptohoprodromos), Theodoros  132n19 prohibition 107, 109, 123, 557 provisionism 719 Public Brothels 738, 746–747, 749, 751 Qansawh al-Gawrī, Sultan of Egypt, 1501–1516 295 Qīlqi 52n42 Qïrq Farż 49, 53, 56 Qïrq Savāl 55

882 Qïrq Suʾāl 43, 45, 47–49, 53, 55–56 Quint, Charles 217, 222, 224, 236 Qur’an 283n62 Quṭb, author of the Khwarezmian Xosrow-ū Šīrīn 53 Radu IV, Prince of Wallachia, 1495–1508 582 Rákóczi II George, Prince of Transylvania, 1648–1660 452 ransom 356, 366 ratification 245, 250–252, 256–261, 507 reading xxx, 6, 12, 22, 43, 46, 147, 167, 174–176, 280, 282n56, 314, 457, 515, 629, 683, 693, 698, 766, 778, 789–790, 794, 858 Red Light District 742–744, 755 redistribution/redistributive mechanism  500, 505 reduplication 71, 73, 98, 137 refugee 805, 817, 820, 824 Asia Minor refugees in Greece 817 refugee displacement 817 reisülküttab (chief of scribes) 400, 452–454, 456, 468–469 relations and conflicts of Hayreddin with the pashas, especially with Ayas and Lütfi 227 Remzi Oğuz [Arık] 834n1, 849–850, 854, 857 von Renningen, Simon Reniger, imperial resident to the Porte 240n5 Republic of Letters 270, 287, 681 Reşit Saffet [Atabinen] 856 resm-i geçüd 359, 363 resm-i pencik. See also pencik resmi resm-i üsera 359 retainer 510 rhetoric 701–702 rhinoceros horn (rhino horn) 302 Riedl, Szende 144 riḳʿa 168, 772 Rila Monastery, Bulgaria 197, 200 Ringstrasse 772, 776 Rızvan Çavuş, tax-farmer 367 Roehrig, Frederick 145 Romance languages 75 Romania 81, 746 Rome, Rom 125, 681, 690, 692–693, 710, 858

Index Rosen, Georg 130, 150 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1576–1612) 245n17, 256–258 Rum 47, 52, 125, 324, 327, 399, 663, 801 Rumeli 43, 184, 188–191, 395, 400 Rumelia 121, 139–140, 433, 667 Rumelian style 121–123 Russia 295–296, 745–746, 770, 854, 856 Rüstem Paşa, vizier of Süleyman I, future grand vizier 219, 230, 236 rüsum-u berevat (document fees) 405, 407 rüus (reisülküttab’s register) 399–400 ruznamçe 160, 250, 394, 441n107, 443, 483, 485 S. Pietro in Galantina 576 Šabanović, Hazim 481n15, 482, 486–487, 489, 482, 486, 487n48, 489, 601, 607, 611 Sadaret Kethüdası 533 Saʿdī Shīrāzī 276 Sadık, Mahmud 771, 777, 778n94, 779 Sadullah Paşa 125 Şākirī 282, 284–285 Salgó (Ott. Salgó), nahiye of 432 Salih Reis 223 Salih Zeki 126n4 Saliha Hatun, wife of Sarı Süleyman Ağa  536 Salihpaşazade Emrüllah Bey, dignitary in Novi Pazar 389 Şam. See also Damascus Şamizade Mehmed Efendi, chief of clerks  10, 452 Sanaa 70 sancak 188, 361, 385, 424, 426–428, 430–433, 436, 439–440, 443, 479, 484, 570, 655 sancakbeyi 425n10, 426–427, 433, 442, 444, 491 Sanskrit 78, 137, 142, 176 Sarajevo 481–482, 486–487, 612, 614, 616, 618, 620–621, 728 Šarāyiʿ al-Aḥkām 55 Schaendlinger, Anton C. 5, 370n43 de Schepper, Cornelius Duplicius 203 school, elementary 700, 810–811, 814n24, 821, 826 von Schwarzenhorn, Johann Rudolf Schmid scribe 252

Index Şehsüvar Beğ, Governor-general of Bosnia  366 Şehsüvar Bey, sancakbeyi of Hatvan 366, 437–438 Şehzade Mehmed, son of Süleyman I 217 Seirinidou, Viktoria 825n60, 826 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Ottoman historian  169, 561 Selim I, Ottoman Sultan, 1512–1520 297, 306, 317, 320, 321, 607, 608 Selim II, Ottoman Sultan, 1566–1574 301n37, 399, 561, 608, 609, 612 Selim III, Ottoman Sultan, 1789–1807 732, 744 Selim, Şehzade (II) 302 Senyor Momars (Gaspard Ludwig Momartz) 133n22 Serafeimidou-Intzesiloglou, Amalia 820 şerbet 299 Serbien 569, 578, 582 şerh 164–165, 276, 285 S̲ervet-i Fünūn 771, 772n65, 785 sex workers 737, 739, 742, 746, 748–749, 756 sexually transmitted disease 739, 749–750, 755 Seydi Ahmed Paşa 371 Seydi Mahmud bin Mehemmed, cadi of Sarajevo and Neretva 611–612, 614 seyfiye 686 Şeytanoğlu Mihal (Kantakouzenos, Michael) 305 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria 580 Shkodër (Ott. İskenderiye), sancak of 441 sicil, kadi court book 159, 367, 377, 388, 618, 655, 657, 659, 663–666, 668–670, 674–675 Siège d’Alger, 1541 (Siege of Algier, 1541) 225 Siena 586 Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland, 1530–1572 300 Silistra (Ott. Silistre), sancak of 429 Simon, son of David, Jewish tax-farmer 368 Simontornya (Ott. Şimontorna), sancak of  360, 426n23, 430 Simoyil, Jewish tax-farmer 368 Sinan Bey, sancakbeyi of Dukagin, Szeged, Hatvan, 1579–1583 431–432, 440 Sinan Bey, sancakbeyi of Gyula 430

883 Sinan Bey, sancakbeyi of Simontornya, Szekszárd, Hatvan, 1570–1572 430 Sinan Çavuş, Ottoman historiographer/ chronicler 428n35 Sinasos (Mustafapaşa) 813n23 Sinop 672, 766, 770, 774 Sirāj al-Qulūb 7, 43–51, 53–54, 56–57 Şişli 749, 754, 852, 856 Siyavuş Paşa 190, 526 skill formation 728–729, 732 Sklaven 525–529, 538 Skopje (Üsküb) 532 Sykes-Picot agreement 792 slave(s). See also prisoners of war, captive Slavonia 383, 487n48, 488 Slovenský národný archív 263 Smyrna 166, 813, 819, 826 American School in 826 Sofia, Bulgaria 184–208 conquest 185, 191–192, 195, 197, 201–202, 207 interconfessional relations 198 Neomartyrs, Sofian 198–199 St George the New 196 St Nicholas the New Churches 197 St George, the Rotunda 196 St Sophia 196–197 mosques 196, 204 Büyük Cami 189 Sofu Mehmed Paşa 189, 204 mineral springs 184, 197, 204, 206–207 Dubrovnik merchants 200–202 Sofroniadou, Despoina 814 Sofu Mehmed Paşa 189, 204 Sökmen, Tayfur 791, 797–798 Sokollu Ferhad Paşa 481–483 Sokollu Mehmed Paşa 221, 305, 482 Soleto 578 Sorani Kurdish 61, 64 Sousounoglou, Sofia 824 South-eastern Europe 81 Soviet Russia 770, 854, 856 Soviet Ukraine 770 Spandino, Matteo 580 Spandugino, Theodor 580 spoils of war. See also booty 355–356 spoken language 8, 80, 108, 120–121, 123, 134

884 Sprachbund 61–62, 97 St. Gotthard/Mogersdorf, battle of 522 Standard Average European 63, 97, 99 Standard Average Middle Eastern 61 Stara Zagora 604n7, 606 Steinthal, Heymann 142, 149n50 Stjepan Tomašević, King of Bosnia, 1461–1463 578 Ston 570 Strumica 580 su yolları, Mekka 533 Sublime Porte. See also Bāb-ı ʿĀlī şuhud ul-hal, Vorgangszeugen (witnesses of the process) 527, 530 suicide 748 Süleyman Ağa, Sarı, Oberstallmeister (Crown Equerry), later grand vizier 536, 538 Süleyman I [Süleyman the Magnificent], Ottoman Sultan, 1520–1566 246, 251, 315, 322, 465, 479, 482, 763 Süleymaniye 244, 495, 500, 514, 560, 845 Sultan İbrahim Han mosque, Kandiye 341 Sultan Ibrahim, Ottoman Sultan, 1640–1648 245, 259 sürahi (carafe) 299 surprise (pragmatics) 7, 15, 17–20, 27–30, 33–34, 36, 452, 846 syntactic inversion 115, 120 syntax 73, 114, 700 morpho-syntax 17, 21 syphilis 747, 749 Syria or Syrian 9–10, 64, 67, 69, 74, 76, 98, 316, 320, 393, 397, 400–401, 403–404, 406–408, 435, 542,545, 547n7, 551–552, 559, 659n24, 792–794, 797, 821 Syriac 274, 681, 695 Syrian Arabic 63, 76–78, 80, 99 Szécsény (Ott. Siçen), sancak of 362, 430, 442–443 Szeged (Ott. Segedin), sancak of 8, 359, 430 Székesfehérvár (Ott. İstolni Belgrad) 361, 426, 429, 434, 442, 465 Székesfehérvár (Ott. İstolni Belgrad), sancak of 361 Székesfehérvár, Silistra, Lippa, Mohács/Pécs, Szendrő, beylerbeyi of Buda 434 Szekszárd (Ott. Seksar), sancak of 430, 483

Index Szendrő (Serb. Smederevo, Ott. Semendire), sancak of 429 Szigetvár (Ott. Sigetvar), sancak of 361, 439 Szolnok (Ott. Solnık), sancak of 361, 426, 430, 443 Szurdokpüspöki 436 tahta (fur plate) 295 takmīl al-īmān 49, 53, 55–56 Talât Paşa 766, 768, 770 Tanzimat Period 147, 149, 723, 740 Tanzimat Reforms 739, 748, 756 Taqwīm al-Buldān 279, 281, 682 Tartous 69 Tatars 144, 358, 376, 745 taverns, bars 738, 742, 747, 749, 753, 755 Tavlusun 813, 816–817 tax 9, 325, 341, 357, 359–363, 365, 369–371, 373, 375–378, 383, 385, 388–390, 393, 404–409, 486, 657–659, 662–663, 691, 743 tax collector 405, 407, 685–686, 688–689, 698, 703 tax-farm. See also iltizam, mukataa 9, 360, 367–369 taxes 294, 378, 398–399, 402, 405, 432, 488, 549, 550, 553, 555, 557–558, 630, 635–638, 658–659, 663, 664n38, 667, 675, 688–689 avarız 404–407, 409, 654, 663, 667–689 cizye 306, 383, 385–386, 388–390, 398, 405–407, 654, 658, 688–689 land tax 362, 406 adet-i ağnam (sheep tax) 406 sugar tax 406 tecdid 603–604, 607–608, 614 tefavut (exchange fee) 405–406 telhis (report) 160 temessük 258n94, 371, 377, 513, 623 Temesvár (Rom. Timişoara, Ott. Temeşvar/ Tımışvar), vilayet of 429, 433 temporal compression/temporal flatness 343 Tengnagel, Sebastian 2–3, 8, 270–273, 278, 278n38, 279–281, 287, 682 tepsi (tray) 299 Tešanj 481, 483 testament (last will), vasiyetname 528, 530

885

Index textiles, Orthodox liturgical 726 tezkere 359, 377, 443 tezkire-i şuʿara 281 von Thallóczy, Ludwig 574, 581n28 The People’s Houses. See also halkevleri Thessaloniki (Ott. Selanik), sancak of  427n26 de Thou, Jacques-Auguste 278 Tiepolo, Giovanni 583 timar 325, 386, 395, 398, 400, 402, 406, 408– 409, 412–413, 442–443, 444n120, 703 hass 402–403, 406, 412–413 zeamet 417 timar-holder 360, 402–403, 437 Tinos 223–224 Tisza river 376 tobacco 8, 106–110, 113, 123, 134 Tokatliyan, hotel 777 Topkapı Müzesi Arşivi ve Kütüphanesi 244 Toulon 230 tovıca 358 Toygun Paşa, beylerbeyi of Buda 432, 438 Trablus (Trablusşam). See also Tripoli Trabzon 11, 166, 197, 653–675 Tractatus Gyarmatiensis 259 traditionalism 719 Traité du Quadrilatère (attributed to Nasiruddin-el-Toussy) 126 Transylvania (Erdel, Erdély, Siebenbürgen, Principality of Transylvania) 242–243, 455 Transylvanian ambassador (ėlçi-i Erdel) 242 Trapezunt 359n12, 588 Travnik 468 treasurer. See also defterdar central 393, 394, 396, 402–403, 406–407, 467, 471, 515 provincial 395, 560 treasury 241–242, 250, 294, 296, 298–303, 305–306–317, 325, 360, 362–365, 368, 375–377, 393, 398, 402, 407, 467, 469–470, 515, 553, 559, 636, 690 treaty 241–261, 365, 460, 466, 470, 706n133, 731, 792–795, 799 Treaty of Ankara 792–793, 795, 799 Treaty of Balta Limanı, 1838 731 Treaty of Szőny 252, 259 Tripoli. See also Trablus (Trablusşam)

Trivulzio, Gaspare 585 Trivulzio, Giorgio 585 Tsalikoglou, Efterpi Emmanouil 809n12 Tschernin, Hermann 259n102 tuğra 159–160, 522, 633 Tulcea (Ott. Tulça) 360 Tunis 69, 222, 224–227, 236, 546 Tunuslu Hayreddin Paşa 125 Tur Ali, beşli ağası of Szolnok 360–361 Turahan (Turhan) Bey, sancakbeyi of Nafpaktos, Hatvan, Thessaloniki 427 Turan, Kemal 844 Turandot 43, 51, 53–57 Turanian Akkadism 146 Turanian languages 143–144, 146 türbe of Kanuni Süleyman 389 türbedar 536 Turco-Tatar languages 144 Turgut Reis 223 Turhan Sultan 451, 454–455, 461 Türkenschanzpark 777 Turkey 5, 12, 61, 68, 75, 393, 435–436, 545, 770, 783, 789, 791–794, 797, 803, 805, 835–837, 840, 842, 844, 847–848, 854, 856–859 Turkic 7, 15–17, 19–20, 23, 26, 28–29, 34, 37, 43–46, 48, 50–51, 60–64, 69, 73–75, 98, 137, 140, 142–145, 313, 320, 705 Turkification 765, 793 Turkish agent marker -CI 64 Turkish History Thesis 835, 843, 848, 850 Turkish nationalism 834, 842 Turna (Nalan) 722 Turoyo (Ṭurôyô) 70 Tütengil, Cavit Orhan 771 Tyrnavos 819 Tzoannopoulou, Aikaterini 811, 815, 819 Tzoannopoulou, Polyxeni 816 Überschwemmung in Mekka (flood in Mecca) 534n30 uçkur (waistband) 300 Újbars (Nový Tekov) 259 Ülkü 12, 834, 836–837, 839–859, 862 Ulrich II., Duke of Cilli 575, 579 Ulûfeciyan-ı yemin 521, 527, 531 Ulûfeciyan-ı yesar 521–522, 527, 538 underwear 300–301, 306

886 Ungarn 5, 522–523, 567, 570, 572, 575–576, 581, 585, 588, 590–591 unicorn 304n59 Union of Greek Women 810 University Library in Budapest 244 unresolvable question 19, 27 Üsküdar 323, 367, 531–532, 534–538, 746, 748, 753 Uşşakizade İbrahim Efendi 163 Užice (Ujice) 532 vakıf/evkaf (pious foundation) 341, 393, 395, 402, 407, 531, 849 Valide Sultan 341 Vambery, Armin 128n9 Várad (Nagyvárad, Rom. Oradea, Ott. Varat)  452n2 Vardar Yenicesi 107n8 Vardarlı Fazli (Fazlî-i Vardarî) 8, 107–111, 121–122 varoş (oppidum, market town) 389n10 Vasfi Efendi, Kabudli 163 vasiyet hücceti (last will) 530–531 vasiyetname (last will) 528–531, 539, 704 Vasvár 247, 252–253, 255–256, 260 vech-i maaş. See also maaş (collection fee)  376 Veli Bey, sancakbeyi of Ergani, Klis, Hatvan, Nafpaktos, Esztergom, Koppány, Székesfehérvár, Pozsega, Szolnok, Pécs 425n9, 426, 431, 433–434 Veli Bey, sancakbeyi of Simontornya 426n23 Venedig 533, 567, 569–573, 576, 583–590 Venice (Ital. Venise, Ger. Venedig) 2, 11, 248, 306, 681–685, 691–698, 703, 707–708, 710–711 Verancsics, Antal, Archbishop of Esztergom, Hungarian diplomat, historiographer/ chronicler 252, 429 Veroia (Ott. Karaferye) 440n100, 631, 635 Vidin, sancak of 191n23, 239, 441 Vienna 1–5, 7–8, 12, 60, 176, 193n36, 243–245, 247, 249–250, 254–255, 257, 258n95, 261, 270–272, 279, 286, 373, 457, 459–460, 466, 483, 682, 763–783, 810 Viennese coffee 778 vilayet 361, 399, 424, 428–430, 433, 439, 623, 803

Index Visovac (Franciscan monastery in Dalmatia) 614, 617 Vitosha, Mountain, Bulgaria 184, 203, 205 Vojvodina 582 Vosporomahia (βοσπορομαχία) 133 Vrančič, Anton 193–194, 202 Vučitrn/Vushtrri (Ott. Vılçıtrın), sancak of  427 Vukčić Kosača, Stefan I, herceg 575n15, 576, 578 Vukčić Kosača, Stefan II (Hersekoğlu, Ahmed) 575n15, 576 Vukčić Kosača, Vladislav 576 Vukčić Kosača, Vlatko 575–576 Vuković Desisalić, Ferhad Beg 482–483, 486–489 Vuković, Ivan 486 Vullers, Johann Augustus 150 Walachei (Wallachia) 569, 582, 585, 587 walrus tusk 303 waqf economy 500, 504, 509, 516 waqf manager (mütevelli) 498, 510–511, 513 waqf, waqfiyye (foundation charters, endowment deed). See also vakıf 494 Wars 239, 255, 355, 357, 369, 653, 726, 732, 734–735, 822, 854 Iran War, 1578–1590 409 Long War with Austria, 1593–1606 188 First World War, 1914–1918 781, 791–792, 803 Weitersfeld 581 wh-question 17–18, 28–29, 34, 36–37 Wien 6, 245n18, 263, 447, 522, 537, 782n112 Wiener Kaffeehaus (Viennese coffee house)  764 wine 107–109, 122, 299–300, 741–743, 779 WWI. See also First World War 746, 827n62 Xosrow-ū Šīrīn 53 Yahya Paşa 189, 428 Yakovalı Hasan Paşa 479–480 Yakut 140, 145 Yanko bin Madyan 197 Yanık (Győr) 271 Yaşar Nabi [Nayır] 844, 858 yek-merdi 298–299

Index Yemen 46, 69–70, 77, 319, 320n27, 325–327, 396, 396n13, 400, 406 Yeni Pazar (Novi Pazar) 388, 388n7 Young Turk Revolution 766n23, 767n25, 768 Yozgat 813, 821–825 Yurdaydın, Hüseyin 216, 219 Yusuf Ağa, Black Grand Eunuch 537 Yūsuf ibn Abū Daqn (Joseph Barbatus) 275 Zaçasna, sancak of 439 Zagreb 488 Zal(l)ela or Tzalela or Evmorfochori (Djemil/ Cemil) Sofroniadou, Despoina 813n23 Zamakhsharī, Jār Allāh 173 Zampeta, daughter of Paraspondylos Asanes, Isaak 586

887 Zaostrog, Franciscan monastery in Dalmatia 612–614, 617, 620, 623 Zápolyai, Jean-Sigismond 232 Zay, Ferenc, Hungarian diplomat, historiographer/chronicler 429 Zazaki 76 Zenebish family 577 Žepče 481 zevaidhoran (stipend-receivers) 494, 508, 513 ziamet-holder 361 Zincidere 12, 805, 810–811, 813–814, 816, 819–821, 823, 825–827 von Zrinyi, Graf Nikolaus 522 Zvornik, sancak of 383, 600, 602–603, 607–608, 610, 615

Brill_OEH78.qxp_SPINE = 64mm 27-07-2023 15:19 Pagina 1

gisela procházka-eisl, Ph.D. (1992) in Turkology, University of Vienna, is Associate Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Studies. She has published several monographs and many articles, mainly on Ottoman literature and culture. Her most recent book is Enverīzāde Saʿdullāh Enverī Efendi’s “Treatise on Austria” (Risāle-i Avusturya) (EBVerlag, 2022). isbn 978-90-04-51651-9

*hIJ0A4|VRWVRz issn 1380-6076

This book is volume 78 in the series th e ot t om an e m p ir e and it s he r it ag e

oeh 78

brill.com/oeh

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“Buyurdum ki….” The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond studies in honour of claudia römer

the ot toman empir e and it s herit age

“Buyurdum ki….” – The Whole World of Ottomanica and Beyond

yavuz köse, Ph.D. (2011), in History and Culture of the Near East and Turkology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, is Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Vienna. His most recent publications include the edited volume (together with Onur İnal) İktidar Tohumları. Osmanlı Çevre Tarihi Üzerine İncelemeler (İletişim Yayınları, 2022).

ç el ik, kö s e and pr o c h á zka -eis l ( Eds.)

hülya çelik, Ph.D. (2016) in Turkology, University of Vienna, is Juniorprofessor of Ottoman and Turkish Literature and Culture at the Ruhr University Bochum. Her most recent publications include “Introducing Transcription Standards for Armeno-Turkish Literary Studies”, in Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies 3,2 (2022), (together with Ani Sargsyan).

This book is dedicated to Claudia Römer and brings together 33 contributions spanning a period from the 15th to the 20th century and covering the wide range of topics with which the honouree is engaged. The volume is divided into six parts that present current research on language, literature, and style as well as newer approaches and perspectives in dealing with sources and terminologies. Aspects such as conquest, administration, and financing of provinces are found as well as problems of endowments and the circulation of goods in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Another main topic is dedicated to minorities and their role and situation in different provinces and cities of the Ottoman Empire, as represented by various sources. But also topics like conversion, morality and control are illuminated. Finally, the volume provides an insight into the late Ottoman and early republican period, in which some previously unpublished sources (such as travel letters, memoirs) are presented and (re)discussed. The book is not only aimed at scholars and students of the Ottoman Empire; the thematic range is also of interest to linguists, historians, and cultural historians.

edi ted b y hülya çeli k , yavuz k ös e and gi s ela pr ocház k a-ei s l

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