Introduction: Contacts, Encounters, Practices: Ottoman-European Diplomacy

Year 2016, , 269 - 276, 27.07.2016

Michael Talbot Phil Mccluskey

https://doi.org/10.18589/oa.588057

Abstract

On 24 June 2014, a small group of doctoral students and early career researchers met at the University of St Andrews to discuss ideas of contacts, encounters, and practices between the Ottoman Empire and European states between the
sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.1
The east coast of Scotland may not seem the
most obvious location for a workshop on Ottoman-European diplomacy – Scotland as an independent kingdom never sent ambassadors to Istanbul, and only
in the later nineteenth century do we find local Scottish businessmen acting as
Ottoman consuls in Edinburgh and Glasgow to protect the interests of Ottoman
commercial shipping in the docks on Clydebank and Tayside – but the beautiful
surroundings of the oldest of Scotland’s ancient universities, which celebrated
its 800th anniversary in 2013, and the surprisingly sunny and warm weather,
helped the conversations to flow.

Keywords

Contacts, Encounters, Practices

Giriş: Temaslar, karşılamalar ve uygulamalar: Osmanlı-Avrupa Diplomasisi, 1500-1800

Abstract

On 24 June 2014, a small group of doctoral students and early career researchers met at the University of St Andrews to discuss ideas of contacts, encounters, and practices between the Ottoman Empire and European states between the
sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.1
The east coast of Scotland may not seem the
most obvious location for a workshop on Ottoman-European diplomacy – Scotland as an independent kingdom never sent ambassadors to Istanbul, and only
in the later nineteenth century do we find local Scottish businessmen acting as
Ottoman consuls in Edinburgh and Glasgow to protect the interests of Ottoman
commercial shipping in the docks on Clydebank and Tayside – but the beautiful
surroundings of the oldest of Scotland’s ancient universities, which celebrated
its 800th anniversary in 2013, and the surprisingly sunny and warm weather,
helped the conversations to flow.

Keywords

Michael Talbot, Phil McCluskey, Osmanlı-Avrupa

References

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Nuri Yurdusev (Basingstoke & New York, 2004), 131-150. 3 Rifaat Ali Abou-El-Haj, ‘Ottoman diplomacy at Karlowitz’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 87 (1967), 498-512; Rifaat Ali Abou-El-Haj, ‘The formal closure of the Ottoman frontier in Europe, 1699-1703’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 89 (1969), 467-475; Charles Ingrao, Nikola Samardžić & Jovan Pešalj (eds.), The Peace of Passarowitz, 1718 (Indiana, 2011). On the idea of ad-hoc diplomacy: Bülent Arı, ‘Early Ottoman diplomacy: Ad Hoc Period’ in Ottoman Diplomacy, ed. Yurdusev, 36-65; Virginia Aksan, ‘Ottoman-French relations, 1739-1768’ in Studies on Ottoman Diplomatic History, ed. Sinan Kuneralp (Istanbul, 1987), 41-58. 4 Maurits van den Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and Beratlıs in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 2005); Ali İhsan Bağış, Osmanlı Ticaretinde Gayri Müslimler Kapitülasyonlar: Beratlı Tücarlar Avurpa ve Hayriye Tüccarları, 1750-1839 (Ankara, 1983); Daniel Goffman, ‘The Capitulations and the question of authority in Levantine trade’, Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986), 155-161; Alistair Hamilton, Alexander de Groot & Maurits van den Boogert (eds.), Friends and Rivals in the East; Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 2000); Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (London & New York, 2004). Gülrü Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnificent and the representation of power in the context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal rivalry’, The Art Bulletin 71 (1989), 401-427; Konrad Dilger, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des osmanischen Hofzeremoniells im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (München, 1967); Güneş Işıksel, ‘Les méandres d’une pratique peu institutionalisée: La diplomatie ottomane, XVe-XVIIIe siècle’, Monde(s) 5:1 (2014), 43-55; Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, ‘Polish embassies in Istanbul: Or, how to sponge on your host without losing your self-esteem’ in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi & Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg, 2003), 51-58; Karin Åhdal (ed.), The Sultan’s Procession: The Swedish Embassy to Sultan Mehmed IV in 1657-1658 and the Rålamb Paintings (Istanbul, 2006); Christine Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infidel: The Ottoman and French Alliance in the Sixteenth Century (London & New York, 2011). 6 In her study on sixteenth-century Ottoman power and diplomacy, Palmira Brummett suggested that a focus on the Ottomans’ eastern borders would greatly advance our understanding of their global outlook and diplomatic mechanisms, and recent studies have certainly borne this out. Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany, 1994), 10. See, for example: A.C.S. Peacock, ‘Introduction: The Ottoman Empire and its frontiers’ in The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (Oxford, 2009), 1-27; A.C.S. Peacock & Annabel Teh Gallop (eds.), From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia (Oxford, 2015); Cihan Yüksel Muslu, The Ottomans and the Mamluks: Imperial Diplomacy and Warfare in the Islamic World (London & New York, 2014). 7 John Watkins, ‘Toward a new diplomatic history of medieval and early modern Europe’, The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38:1 (2008), 1-14; Stephen Pelz, ‘Towards a new diplomatic history: Two and a half cheers for international relations methods’, in Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations, eds. Colin Elman & Miriam Fendius Elman (Cambridge MA, 2001), 85-110; A. Nuri Yurdusev (ed.), Ottoman Diplomacy: Conventional or Unconventional? (Basingstoke & New York, 2004). Daniela Frigo, ‘Prudence and experience: Ambassadors and political cultures in early modern Italy’, The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38:1 (2008), 35-55. 9 Daniela Frigo, ‘Introduction’ in Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450-1800, ed. Daniela Frigo, trans. Adrian Belton (Cambridge, 2000), 1-24 at 12. 10 Some fairly recent examples include: Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Espionage in the sixteenth century Mediterranean: Secret diplomacy, Mediterranean go-betweens, and the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry’, Ph.D. Dissertation, Georgetown University, 2012; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Information, ideology, and limits of imperial policy: Ottoman grand strategy in the context of OttomanHabsburg rivalry’ in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire, eds. Virginia Aksan & Daniel Goffman (Cambridge, 2007), 75-103; Dror Ze’evi, ‘Ottoman intelligence gathering during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Palestine’ in The Ottoman Middle East: Studies in Honor of Amnon Cohen, eds. Eyal Ginio & Elie Podeh (Brill, 2014), 45-54, especially 47-50; Metin Ziya Köse, Doğu Akdeniz’de Casuslar ve Tacirler: Osmanlı Devleti ve Dubrovnik İlişkileri, 1500-1600 (İstanbul, 2009). 11 On the kâbusnâme in general and in comparison, see: Linda Darling, ‘Mirrors for Princes in Europe and the Middle East: A case of historiographical incommensurability’, in East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin, 2013), 223-242. 12 There is a much-disputed travel account of this embassy: Süleyman Ağa, Süleyman Ağa Seyahatnamesi, ed. Gündüz Akıncı (Ankara, 1973). See: İbrahim Şirin, Osmanlı İmgeleminde Avrupa (Anara, 2006), 144-160. 13 Hacer Topaktaş, ‘Osmanlı diplomasisinde “tayinat” sisteminin uygulanışı ve kaldırılışı (1794) üzerine bazı tespitler’, Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi 10:1 (2015), 31-49. 4 E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca & London, 2012), especially 165-188; Maurits van den Boogert, ‘Intermediaries par excellence? Ottoman dragomans in the eighteenth century’ in Hommes de l’entre-deux: Parcours individuels et portraits de groupes sur la frontière de la Méditerranée, XVIe-XXe siècle, eds. Bernard Heyberger & Chantal Verdeil (Paris, 2009), 95-116; Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Mediating boundaries: Mediterranean go-betweens and cross-confessional diplomacy in Constantinople, 1560-1600’, Journal of Early Modern History 19 (2015), 107-128; G.R. Berridge, ‘Dragomans and Oriental Secretaries in the British embassy in Istanbul’ in Ottoman Diplomacy, ed. Yurdusev, 151-166. 15 Virgina Aksan & Daniel Goffman, ‘Introduction: Situating the early modern Ottoman world’ in Early Modern Ottomans, eds. Aksan & Goffman, 1-12 at 9.