Ottoman Studies

The Central European military frontier in the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries hides a treasure of military history information. This collective volume provides a fascinating overview to scholars and students interested in the paradigms of the history of frontiers, of imperial structures, and of early modern state finances.The first part of the book examines the birth and development of the Hungarian and Habsburg defence systems from their origins until their dissolution in the early eighteenth century. The second part focuses on the Ottoman military establishment in Hungary. Special emphasis has been put throughout on administration, finance, manpower problems, and aspects of the military revolution in the marches.The book is unique in its complex and comparative approach; no similar effort has yet been made concerning other areas of the Ottoman Empire.

This book contributes to Ottoman history and modern Middle East studies with theoretical implications beyond both. The author challenges the current paradigm of societal decline as inadequate for understanding the Ottoman society and state during this period, and he proposes our examining the signs of modernity and vitality which made the middle centuries of Ottoman rule entirely comparable with its European and Asian counterparts.

Did the 'seventeenth-century crisis' visit the Ottoman Empire? How can we situate the explosion of rural violence and the rebellions of the turn of the seventeenth century in the Anatolian countryside? The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia provides the reader with a fresh and innovative perspective on the long scholarly debate over the question of 'decline' in early modern Ottoman history. It offers a new agenda, new type of source material, and a new methodology for the study of demographic crisis. Through a systematic examination of little-known detailed av rız registers, Oktay zel demonstrates in detail the mass desertion of rural settlements, the destruction of agricultural economy, and the resulting collapse of rural order in Ottoman Anatolia at the turn of the seventeenth century.

Although scholars have begun to revise the traditional view that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked a decline in the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, Baki Tezcan's book proposes a radical new approach to this period. While he concurs that decline did take place in certain areas, he constructs a new framework by foregrounding the proto-democratization of the Ottoman polity in this era. Focusing on the background and the aftermath of the regicide of Osman II, he shows how the empire embarked on a period of seismic change in the political, economic, military, and social spheres. It is this period - from roughly 1580 to 1826 - that the author labels "The Second Empire," and that he sees as no less than the transformation of the patrimonial, medieval, dynastic institution into a fledgling limited monarchy. The book is essentially a post-revisionist history of the early modern Ottoman Empire that will make a major contribution not only to Ottoman scholarship but also to comparable trends in world history.

The unprecented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. This book examines the sources of royal women's power and assesses the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition. By examining political action in the context of household networks, Peirce demonstrates that female power was a logical, indeed an intended, consequence of political structures. Royal women were custodians of sovereign power, training their sons in its use and exercising it directly as regents when necessary. Furthermore, they played central roles in the public culture of sovereignty--royal ceremonial, monumental building, and patronage of artistic production. The Imperial Harem argues that the exercise of political power was tied to definitions of sexuality. Within the dynasty, the hierarchy of female power, like the hierarchy of male power, reflected the broader society's concern for social control of the sexually active.

This volume explores the forms, nature, and function of popular protest and political participation in the Ottoman Empire. Taking as a starting point the seminal work of the leading historian Suraiya Faroqhi, to whom the volume is dedicated, the contributions investigate major aspects of popular and elite involvement in Ottoman political life from the early seventeenth century to World War I. The studies deal with a wide range of topics, such as the political and judicial functions of petitions, contentious protest and revolt, factionalism, violence and crime, provincial political households, elections to city councils, commercial propaganda, and resistance to state imperatives. The contributors challenge received wisdom and show the importance of the Ottoman subjects' participation in decision making and political processes - despite the restraints imposed by the imperial ideological order.

17. yüzyılda Fransız seyyah J. B. Tavernier, Topkapı Sarayını tasvir ederken, hareme ilişkin bilgi vermesinin mümkün olmadığını, zira hareme girmenin neredeyse imkânsız olduğunu söyler. Tavernier’in, fazla görünmediklerini söylediği hareme mensup kadınların etkinlikleri, perde arkasından da olsa hiç küçümsenemeyecek ölçüdeydi ve her biri birer başrol oyuncusuydu. 17. yüzyılda gelişen olayların ve şartların tanıdığı olanaklar ölçüsünde konumları yükselen valide sultanlar her alanda etkinliklerini artırdı. Artık “saray” ve özellikle “harem” siyaset oyununun sahnelendiği yerdi. Bu oyunda sultan başrolden düşmüş, yerini başkaları almıştı. 16. yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren Topkapı Sarayı Haremi ön plana çıkmaya başladı. Özellikle valide sultanların artan siyasi gücünün yanında darüssaade ağalarının siyasi güce kavuşmaları da bunda önemli bir rol oynadı. Ancak Harem’in asıl etkin bir rol oynamaya başlaması, 17. yüzyılın başında şehzadelerin sancaklara gönderilmeyip yerine haremde yaşamaya başlamasıyla oldu. Bu yeni durumla birlikte Osmanlı hanedanı içinde süregelen iktidar oyununun sahnelendiği yer harem oldu. Yazar Murat Kocaaslan, Topkapı Sarayı haremini ele aldığı bu çalışmasında, Osmanlı hanedanı üyelerinin yaşadığı haremin mimari örgütlenmesini ve kadınların mimariye olası etkilerini, özellikle IV. Mehmed’in saltanat dönemi çerçevesinde tartışıyor. Bununla birlikte haremdeki mimari örgütlenmenin beraberinde getirdiği “bilinçli” veya “bilinçsiz” olarak oluşturulan sınırlara dikkat çekiyor. Osmanlı hanedan üyelerinin yaşadığı haremde mimari şekillenmenin doğrudan statüyle ilgili olduğunu, bu örgütlenme içinde haremde yaşayan her bir bireyin sınırlarının kesin olarak çizildiğini ve bu sınırların aşılmasına izin verilmediğini ileri sürüyor. Haremdeki bu sınırların mimariye bire bir uygulandığını ortaya koyuyor. Bu anlamda haremdeki mimari örgütlenmenin sarayın genel mimari örgütlenmesiyle de örtüştüğünü belirtiyor

In 1657 King Charles X Gustaf of Sweden sent Claes Rålamb as an envoy to Sultan Mehmed IV's court. While he was there Rålamb commissioned 20 large paintings in oil on canvas, depicting an imperial procession through Istanbul in September 1657, providing a revealing insight into the court of Sultan Mehmed IV in Ottoman Turkey. For the first time Rålamb's paintings are published here in 'The Sultan's Procession'. This beautifully illustrated book - containing over 150 colour illustrations - comprehensively covers the full history of the paintings, including a technical analysis from the conservation of one of the paintings. The book also provides a full history of Claes Rålamb and his mission, including the political background of the Swedish embassy, Rålamb's biography and English translations of primary sources in Swedish and Turkish archives. Among the illustrations are over 100 watercolours of people in the Ottoman society from the costume album acquired by Rålamb in Istanbul. These unique Rålamb paintings provide a rare window into life at the Ottoman court in the 17th century.

The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire explores the serious and far-reaching impacts of Little Ice Age climate fluctuations in Ottoman lands. This study demonstrates how imperial systems of provisioning and settlement that defined Ottoman power in the 1500s came unraveled in the face of ecological pressures and extreme cold and drought, leading to the outbreak of the destructive Celali Rebellion (1595-1610). This rebellion marked a turning point in Ottoman fortunes, as a combination of ongoing Little Ice Age climate events, nomad incursions, and rural disorder postponed Ottoman recovery over the following century, with enduring impacts on the region's population, land use, and economy.

The Ottoman Empire had reached the peak of its power, presenting a very real threat to Western Christendom when in 1683 it suffered its first major defeat, at the Siege of Vienna.  Tracing the empire's conflicts of the next two centuries, The Ottoman Wars: An Empire Besieged examines the social transformation of the Ottoman military system in an era of global imperialism Spanning more than a century of conflict, the book considers challenges the Ottoman government faced from both neighbouring Catholic Habsburg Austria and Orthodox Romanov Russia, as well as - arguably more importantly - from military, intellectual and religious groups within the empire.  Using close analysis of select campaigns, Virginia Aksan first discusses the Ottoman Empire's changing internal military context, before addressing the modernized regimental organisation under Sultan Mahmud II after 1826.  Featuring illustrations and maps, many of which have never been published before, The Ottoman Wars draws on previously untapped source material to provide an original and compelling account of an empire near financial and societal collapse, and the successes and failures of a military system under siege.  The book is a fascinating study of the decline of an international power, raising questions about the influence of culture on warfare. 

Recent historical studies on the Ottoman Empire have taken for granted that subjects of the Ottoman polity flourished under a so-called "Pax Ottomanica." This edited volume probes the rosy narrative of Ottoman tolerance that has long dominated the discussions. The articles carefully strive to contextualize the many issues that sound like ethnic slurs, racial stereotyping, religious discrimination, misogyny and elitism to modern ears. The goal of the volume is not to prove that Ottoman society was a persecuting one, or that dislike or distrust was its defining characteristic, but to investigate the axes of tension, blemishes, and fractures in the everyday practice of coexistence in a dynamic, multi-religious, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic empire in which difference was the norm rather than the exception.

Interdisciplinary in conception, this cooperative study by the world’s lead­ing Islamists consists of sixteen chapters and three general introductions tracing in historical perspective the adminis­trative, economic, and cultural aspects of various regions of the Ottoman Em­pire as well as the overall structure of the Empire itself. A complete glossary of Arabic, Turkish, and Persian terms is provided, as well as a bibliography of major works in European and non-European languages. More than forty photographs illustrate changing tastes in Islamic architecture and art.   The fourth in a series of biennial colloquia sponsored by and published as Papers on Islamic History, under the auspices of the Near Eastern History Group, Oxford, and the Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania.

Traditionally Sultan Selim III has been considered the first modern Ottoman reformer, the man who initiated the Ottoman Empire’s transformation into a relatively modern state. Using documents found in the archives of Istanbul, Stanford Shaw shows that Selim was much more a traditional reformer than a modern one and that his continuance of the old practice of playing off supporters against each other led to chaos, confusion, and the collapse of the reform movement. Shaw concludes that Selim’s failure served as an example to his successors to introduce more radical and extensive reforms.

This volume deals with the history of the Ottoman-Polish political and diplomatic relations, and with the role and function of international treaties in early modern Europe, especially in the contacts between the Christian and Muslim states. The extensive introduction consists of two parts: Part I examines diplomatic problems concerning "capitulations" ('ahdnames), demarcation protocols (hududnames) and other Ottoman and Polish documents related to peace. Part II provides a chronological survey of the Polish-Ottoman relations covering the years 1414-1795, and then follow the texts of 69 documents composed in Turkish (rendered in a Latin transcription), Polish, Latin, Italian, and French. Turkish and Polish texts are provided with English translations. 32 documents preserved in originals are published in full facsimiles as well. The publication is enriched with bibliography, directory of geographical and ethnic terms, index and 3 maps.

The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule provides an original perspective on the history of the Shiites as a constituent of Lebanese society. Winter presents a history of the community before the 19th century, based primarily on Ottoman Turkish documents. From these, he examines how local Shiites were well integrated in the Ottoman system of rule, and that Lebanon as an autonomous entity only developed in the course of the 18th century through the marginalization and then violent elimination of the indigenous Shiite leaderships by an increasingly powerful Druze-Maronite emirate. As such the book recovers the Ottoman-era history of a group which has always been neglected in chronicle-based works, and in doing so, fundamentally calls into question the historic place within 'Lebanon' of what has today become the country's largest and most activist sectarian community.

Bu kitabın öne sürdüğü tez şudur: Lale Devri diye isimlendirdiğimiz dönem bir değişme ve rönesans devridir ve belki de İmparatorluğun yegane rönesans devridir. Hem devri yaratan şartları, hem de daha sonra gelen sultan III. Selim'le başlayıp Tanzimata kadar uzanan devirleri izah etmek ve anlamak bakımından Osmanlı tarihi için son derece önemlidir. Gerçi Patrona Halil isyanı köşkleri yıkmış, lale tarlalarını tarümar etmiş, III. Ahmed'i tahtından indirmiş, yenilik ve değişmenin ilk ciddi temelini atan İbrahim Paşa'nın cesedini sokaklarda sürüklemiş ve köpeklere parçalattırmıştır.

Tarihin en büyük savaşlarının ayrıntılı dökümleri, hasım kuvvetlerin stratejileri, taktikleri, askerî harekâtın düğüm noktaları.Dünyadaki çeşitli orduların üniforma, teçhizat, tarih ve teşkilatı, geçmişleri ve bugünleri. Osmanlı silahlı kuvvetlerinin ilk kapsamlı moder nleşme çabaları, geleneksel ve yeni askerleri, askeri potansiyeli, talimli bir ordu kurma teşebbüsleri.Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Rus çariçesi İkinci Katerina’ya karşı yaptığı ikinci savaşı sonlandıran Yaş Antlaşması’nı imzaladığı 1792 yılında büyük bir bunalımın içindeydi. 1768’de başlamış olan ve Rusya yanında Avusturya’nın da bir süreliğine katılmış olduğu savaşlar dizisi neticesi Kuzey Karadeniz sahilleri kaybedilmiş, devlet iflas etmiş, orduları dağılmış ve kaybedilen topraklardan akan binlerce mülteci muazzam bir kargaşaya yol açmıştı. 1789’da tahta çıkan genç ve enerjik Sultan III. Selim, silahlı kuvvetler başta gelmek üzere imparatorluk kurumlarının mevcut halleriyle devam etmelerinin imkânsız olduğunu anladığından, devletin bütün kaderini değiştirecek bir yenilenme hareketini başlattı: Nizam-ı Cedid. Avrupalı muadilleriyle boy ölçüşebilecek yepyeni bir ordu ve donanma kurmayı hedefleyen Nizam-ı Cedid programı yanında eski kurumların da elden geçirilip düzene kavuşturulmasına çalışılıyordu. Tam da Fransız Devrimi ile Napolyon Savaşları’nın bütün Avrupa’yı kasıp kavurduğu zamana denk gelen Nizam-ı Cedid döneminde Fransızlara, Ruslara, iç isyancılara ve hatta İngilizlere karşı güçlerini deneyen Osmanlı askerleri, başarısızlıklar yaşadıkları kadar, günümüzde unutulmuş önemli başarılara da imza atabilmişlerdi. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun kaderini değiştiren bu dönemi ele aldığı elinizdeki eserde David Nicolle, Osmanlı devletinin askeri potansiyelini değerlendiriyor, merkezdeki ve taşradaki, geleneksel ve yeni askerlerini tasvir ediyor.

This study of the Tunisian army and government in the time of the pasha-bey Hammûda the Husaynid (1777--1814) stresses the deeply Ottoman character of these institutions and the political and administrative impact of the jurisdictional authority of the Ottoman Porte on the province in general. This work thus initiates a systematic revision of a major thesis that has prevailed in the body of contemporary research on the Tunisian Regency. Asma Moalla shows that the Regency's administrative and political evolution from the end of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth was not a process of a gradual and irreversible emancipation from the influence and authority of the central Ottoman state.

Drawing upon Ottoman, Russian, and Bulgarian archival sources, this book explores the nexus between the environment, epidemic disease, human mobility, and the centralizing initiatives of the Ottoman and Russian states in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As part of a broader discussion on Ottoman-Russian diplomacy, this book re-conceptualizes Ottoman-Russian relations in the Black Sea region in the 18th and 19th centuries. In response to significant increases in human mobility and the spread of epidemic diseases, Ottoman and Russian officials - at the imperial, provincial, and local levels - communicated about and coordinated their efforts to manage migratory movements and check the spread of disease in the Black Sea region. By focusing on the settlement of migrants and refugees along the peripheries of the Ottoman and Russian Empires and by foregrounding the role of local and municipal-level state authorities in the management of migration, Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region contributes to the developing field of provincial studies in Ottoman and Russian history. This is an important book for anyone interested in comparative imperial history, migration, diaspora formation and the spread of epidemic diseases.