Stefania Costache - From Ruscuk to Bessarabia: Manuk Bey and the Career of an Ottoman-Russian Middleman at the Beginning of the 19th Century (original) (raw)
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XIX. Türk tarih kongresi. Ankara: 3-7 Ekim 2022. Kongreye sunulan bildiriler III/1,, 2024
Published in: XIX. Türk tarih kongresi. Ankara: 3-7 Ekim 2022. Kongreye sunulan bildiriler III/1, edited by Abdullah Kaymak – Selin Eren – Semiha Nurdan – Kübra Güney – Muhammed Özler. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2024, 291–316. The collections of the Dubrovnik State Archives in Croatia are among the most extensive and informative for the study of the late medieval Mediterranean. Their value has been recognized by generations of researchers who have relied on the detailed archival registers of medieval Dubrovnik in their investigations of political, economic and social relations between various actors, states or communities in the Balkans during the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries. The close relationship that Dubrovnik had with the Ottoman Empire in that time was refl ected and manifested in the quite considerable amount of Ottoman correspondence and diplomatic material that was preserved in the archives of this medieval commune. Therefore, the focus of this paper will be a particular collection of sources consisting of documents and letters composed in the Slavic language, written in the Cyrillic script and issued by various Ottoman offi cials in the Balkan domains of the Ottoman Empire as well as by the Ottoman sultans themselves. In this work I intend to off er a broad survey and a brief analysis of these documents, along with a consideration of the most important issues and questions that researchers of these sources might be faced with. Furthermore, I will also try to examine their diplomatic features in the context of fi fteenthcentury Ottoman diplomatic practices, thus providing a contribution to the better understanding of the process of document creation and transmission of information in the Ottoman Empire’s early relations with Slavic communities in the Balkans.
Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Professor Moačanin, the Doyen of Ottoman Studies in Croatia 3. Ottoman Bosnia, Turkish Croatia, and Turkey in Europe 3.1. Michael Ursinus, Serving King and Sultan: Pavao Grgurić and his Role on the Hungaro-Ottoman Frontier in Southern Bosnia, c. 1463-1477 3.2. Géza Dávid, The Sancakbegi̇s of Pozsega (Požega, Pojega) in the 16th Century 3.3. Fazileta Hafizović, Nahiyes of the Sandjak of Pakrac: The Unknown Nahiye of Kontovac 3.4. Kornelija Jurin Starčević, Settlement of Lika and Three Ottoman Nahiyes: Novi, Medak and Bilaj Barlete in the 16th Century . 3.5. Hatice Oruç, Ocaklık Timar in the Sanjak of Smederevo 3.6. Machiel Kiel, Margariti/Margaliç: Emergence, Development and Downfall of a Muslim Town at the Edge of the Islamic World (Greek Epirus) 3.7. Vjeran Kursar, Monks in Kaftans. Bosnian Franciscans, Robes of Honour, and Ottoman Sumptuary Laws 3.8. Anđelko Vlašić and Okan Büyüktapu, Hasan Esîrî’s Mi’yârü’d-Düvel ve Misbârü’l-Milel as a Source for the History of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina 3.9. Ekrem Čaušević, Fra Mate Mikić-Kostrčanac and the Turkish Language: Manuscripts, Copyists, and the Transfer of Knowledge in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 3.10. Slobodan Ilić, ʿAbd al-Majīd b. Firishte (d. 1459/60) and the Early Turkish Reading of Ḥurūfī Corpus Canonicum 3.11. Claudia Römer, The Annular Eclipse of the Sun of 7 September 1820 – a Report in Tārīḫ-i Cevdet 3.12. Tatjana Paić Vukić, Presenting the Ottoman Heritage: An Exhibition of Islamic Manuscripts in Zagreb 4. Distant Borders and Regions 4.1. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, Amœnitates Tauridicæ: La Crimée ou la douceur de vivre selon Evliyâ Çelebî 4.2. Linda Darling, Resource Extraction in a Newly Conquered Province: Ottoman Syria in the Mid-Sixteenth Century 4.3. Mahmoud Yazbak, Penetration of Urban Capital into the Palestinian Countryside: The Beginnings, Jaffa in the 1830s 5. Glimpses Beyond the Ottoman Border: Habsburg Croatia and the Republic of Dubrovnik 5.1 Borislav Grgin, The Ottoman-Croatian Border at the End of the Middle Ages 5.2. Vesna Miović, From Tears to Poison: Ragusan Dealings with the Enemies from the Ottoman Neighbourhood 5.3. Zrinka Blažević, Inter spem et desperationem: Diplomatic Emotions of the Habsburg Envoys at the Ottoman Court (1553–1557) 5.4. Hrvoje Petrić, On the Economic History of Zagreb in the 17th Century 5.5. Nataša Štefanec, Arms Race on the Habsburg-Ottoman Border in the 16th Century: Arsenals, Small Firearms, Artillery and Ammunition on the Croatian and Slavonian Military Border 6. Bibliography of Professor Nenad Moačanin https://openbooks.ffzg.unizg.hr/index.php/FFpress/catalog/book/131
35th Annual Conference for the Society for the Study of French History, 2022
When Pierre David was dispatched to Bosnia in 1807 his mission was clear: he had to enlist the Ottoman local governor and make sure the French interests in the area could be accomplished. After conquering Dalmatia, Napoleon put his eyes on the Balkans and he forged an alliance with the Ottomans against Russia. David’s mission seemed easy, but when he reached Travnik he understood that Hüsrev Mehmet, the man of Istanbul in that mountainous, troubled and important frontier province of the Ottoman Empire, was his only chance to succeed. Surrounded by the suspicion of the locals, who feared a French invasion from the near Dalmatia, David found in Hüsrev not only a Francophile and an open interlocutor, but a trusted ally. Since their very first encounter the consul labelled the governor the ”aimable visir” and their bond also developed into a personal friendship. On the other hand, Hüsrev also counted on David for his own political and personal survival, as he had to face challenges during one of the most troubled periods in Ottoman history.These two men coming from extremely different walks of life, and very different cultures, David a bourgeois from Calvados and Hüsrev a former slave and a consummate member of Ottoman elite, tried to support each other in an ever-changing scenario. This paper analyses the encounter between these two men through the diplomatic correspondence of David with the French Minister of the Foreign affairs. Their friendship, which also inspired the novel “Bosnian Chornicle“ by Ivo Andrić, remained solid even when the flamboyant Napoleonic foreign policy changed the cards on the table and Ottoman internal order seemed to crush the fate of the pasha. Their encounter makes emerge not only the personal figures of these two characters, but it also shows the importance of the Balkans in Napoleonic tactics at the beginning of the 19th century, as well as the complex and difficult relationship between Ottoman centre and periphery.