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by Bart Severi
2000, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
This study concerns itself with the first Imperial Envoy Gerard Veltwijck (ca. 1500—1555), who negotiated with the Ottoman Sultan Süleymān. Using newly discovered as well as recently published sources, it will focus on the part this diplomat of Charles V played in the negotiations with the Sublime Porte and on the considerable problems the French King and his representatives in Istanbul experienced during the talks. The Most Christian King thus became a victim of his ambivalent foreign policy while his alliance with the Sultan experienced a severe crisis. Finally, this study tries to demonstrate the impact of a diplomatic sojourn in the Levant for the envoy, as such a mission was very often followed by a considerable and far from only financial reward.
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2015
This paper sheds new light on the diplomats from the Low Countries, sent by the Habsburg rulers to the Sublime Porte throughout the 16th century. Some of them have become well-known, others were unjustly forgotten. They are Corneille de Schepper, Gerard Veltwijck, Ogier de Busbecq, Albert de Wijs, Karel Rijm and Philibert de Bruxelles. It reveals the diplomatic and non-diplomatic activities they pursued and the innovative role in the professionalization of diplomatic practice they played.
2015
This dissertation is an overview of the life and the career of Ottoman grand vizier Rüstem Pasha and contextualization of his grand vizierate with respect to foreign policy, bureaucratization and economic policies. This dissertation shows that beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was transformed from an expansive Muslim empire into a bureaucratic state and that Rüstem Pasha was the architect when he was acting its primary promoter and designer. The dissertation analyzes the religious and political reforms of Ottoman grand vizier Rüstem Pasha (1544-1561), which led the way for restructuring the empire and transforming it into an early modern bureaucratic state. It explores the stages of his life as a Christian boy who converted to Islam and was educated in the Ottoman palace and, after serving in several provincial governorships, attained the position of the grand vizierate. It also shows how his career was structured and enhanced through Ottoman educational institutions, as well as how he envisioned and enacted an institutionalized government system by creating new methods of record keeping in decision-making, and developing a record tracking system, as well as by standardizing career paths for officers. Having witnessed the inconclusive and draining wars with both the Safavid and the Habsburg empires, Rüstem Pasha abandoned the traditional universalist claims and engagement in gaza (holy raiding) activity, which had been the most conspicuous feature of Ottoman ideology since its inception in the fourteenth century, and instead adopted more peaceful relations with the empire’s neighbors. The dissertation also shows how he contributed to the spread of an orthodox Sunni Islam as faith and practice within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire and how he influenced the territorialization of Shiite Islam promoted by the Safavids in neighboring Iran. Signing peace agreements with the Safavids (1555) and the Habsburgs (1547) also enabled him to focus on the efficient use of internal resources by initiating new fiscal institutions to channel the economic resources into the central treasury.
2005, Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150-jährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Wien, 22.-25. September 2004
This paper focuses on one particular aspect of political and cultural contacts between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires that has received little attention, namely the representation of 16th century Habsburg embassies during their stay abroad. This element is closely linked with the way in which the Habsburg rulers saw themselves and vigorously tried to create an image of their monarchy. The first impression of a prince, as Machiavelli pointed out in his 'De principatibus', is determined by the impression one gets from the men in his environment. At least in the 16th century, this adage was incessantly applied by Habsburg rulers in maintaining diplomatic contacts with other monarchs. Not only did they instruct their envoys to pay a great deal of attention to this aspect of their mission, but also the envoys exerted themselves to maintain their ruler's 'réputation', both visually and verbally. Recent research has shown that a cultural interpretation of diplomacy can shed light on the way in which two radically different cultures interacted. Christian Windler has successfully applied this model of interpretation to the 18th century relations between France and Algiers. Diplomacy is here seen as an element of representation of the State, of its values, its monarch and its culture and the diplomats as the more important actors in this process. The great value attached to reputation and physical appearance by both the Ottomans and the Habsburgs must be understood within the context of a slowly evolving modus vivendi of diplomatic relations wherein, in this century, no rules or protocol had been set and wherein both parties tried to enforce new regulations and modes of conduct. The paper reflects upon the cultural relevance of representation, using examples from 16th century Habsburg embassies in the Ottoman Empire. Aspects which are discussed are the material equipment of Habsburg envoys (clothing, horses, gifts, etc), the verbal communication (the envoy's oratio for example), conflicts over formal hierarchy with both Ottoman dignitaries and Christian colleagues and, finally, iconographic material. All these aspects were equally important for rulers and diplomats to create an image of the embassy in particular and the relations between the Emperor and the Sultan in general. By interpreting its place in Early Modern culture, the lecture also tries to show the historical relevance of the discussed themes and offer a broader view on the subject, together with outlining some possible thoughts for future research.
2015, Extract from PhD research, based on original archival research
Analysis of the intricate selection process of envoys, couriers and resident diplomats of the Habsburg monarchs to the Ottoman Empire. Although far from a strict procedure, candidates were chosen throughout the century based on a handful of criteria. This paper describes the process and the factors that had an impact on it. The paper shows how Ottoman preference towards certain diplomatic competences and the trust placed in the dragomans directly and indirectly changed the selection process. It also demonstrates how Hungarian magnates struggled to strengthen their influence on Habsburg-Ottoman diplomacy. Lastly, it describes which measures were taken to cope with the chronic shortage of suitable candidates.
2019, Turkish Historical Review
The Amasya Treaty (1555) ended a half-century of Ottoman-Safavid military and ideological rivalry during the sixteenth century. My paper focuses on why the Ottoman and Safavid empires made this treaty despite a long-standing ideological and political divide. It has been widely held that the Safavids could not afford such a costly rivalry and, tired of the Ottoman military campaigns, they pleaded with the Ottomans to make peace. Based on my comparative research in Ottoman, Persian, and European sources, I find that this narrative misses many essential points and omits certain historical facts just before the treaty was signed. I argue that the Ottomans also wished for and, at once, requested peace with the Safavids. I show that, although the Ottoman army ostensibly left Istanbul to fight with the Safavids in 1553, the primary motive was to use warfare as a diplomatic tool to force the Safavids to ask for peace.
Modern scholars tend to view Ottoman-Safavid relations from a sectarian angle as well as through a military lens. Such a narrow focus often comes at the expense of broader strategic and political considerations. The subject of this paper, the capture of an Indian elephant by Ottoman troops, its handover to the French embassy, and the ensuing diplomatic developments, may not be central to the campaign that the Ottomans launched against Iran in 1548-49, yet it offers unique insight into the relations between these powers. What is more, it sheds light on Safavid-Mughal and Ottoman-Mughal relations as well as on wider rivalries between European powers that were tangentially involved in this struggle, the Habsburgs, France, and Venice.
2019, ICTA
Ottoman padishas,diplomatic presents, 16-17th centuries
2019
2019, The Battle for Central Europe, edited by Pál Fodor. Leiden and New York: Brill, 2019, 287–307.
This is the original manuscript version of my 2016 Szigetvar Conference paper. The published version in the Brill volume is somewhat shorter. From the mid-fifteenth century through the early eighteenth century the Ottomans were an important player in European power politics, the only Islamic empire that challenged Christian Europe on its own territory. The Ottomans were a constant military threat to their Venetian, Hungarian, Polish-Lithuanian, Spanish and Austrian Habsburg neighbours and rivals. Ottoman expansion, itself a consequence of imperial ambitions and responses to geopolitical challenges, led to imperial rivalry with the Habsburgs in the Mediterranean and Hungary, and with the Safavids of Persia in Azerbaijan and Iraq. Ottoman conquests in the sixteenth century reshaped geopolitics in a vast area from central Europe and the Mediterranean to Greater Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Ottomans consolidated their conquests against both their Habsburg and Safavid rivals, and the empire's borders in Hungary saw only minor adjustments until the end of the sixteenth century. The first section of my paper briefly reviews how Süleyman's conquests and the resulting Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry in Hungary shaped power relations in the region. The second section compares the sinews of power of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. In the last two sections I address Ottoman and Habsburg military commitments. These sections show that the Ottomans enjoyed military superiority against their Habsburg rival during Süleyman's reign. While the Habsburg Monarchy did not have a standing field army until after the Thirty Years' War, Ottoman military pressure in Hungary forced the Viennese government to establish along the Habsburg-Ottoman border in Hungary and Croatia a permanent border defence force, which could be considered the first permanent army of the monarchy. Since the Habsburg government financed, supplied and administered the anti-Ottoman border defence in Hungary and Croatia in cooperation with the Hungarian, Croatian, Bohemian and Austrian Estates, the Ottoman challenge profoundly shaped the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy's military, financial and state institutions.
2018, Carigradska pisma Antuna Vrančića. Hrvatski i engleski prijevod odabranih latinskih pisama / The Istanbul Letters of Antun Vrančić. Croatian and English Translation of Selected Latin Letters
The introductory study contains the biography of bishop and diplomat Antun Vrančić, as well as an analysis of his diplomatic missions to Istanbul and of the political situation in Central and Southeast Europe in the sixteenth century.
2018, CIÉPO 22 Uluslararası Osmanlı Öncesi ve Osmanlı Çalışmaları Komitesi, Bildiriler Kitabı - II
Our focus is on the sixteenth century European diplomatic practice in the Ottoman capital during Süleyman I's reign. We wish to highlight the earliest diplomatic mission (by Janos Hoberdanecz) sent by King Ferdinand of the Austrian Habsburgs in 1528. This was a particularly important era in order to show that the intra-European conflicts did have their reverberations on the diplomatic scene in the Ottoman capital. As primary sources, Marino Sanudo's diaries (Il Diarii) and the embassy reports in Antal Gevay's " Urkunden und Actenstücke… " are utilized. These bear importance not only for the content of the diplomatic mission, but also for the opportunity they offer with regards to the understanding of the Ottoman foreign policy in Europe as presented by the attitude and perceptions of the high level Ottoman bureaucrats.
Article from: Türkenkriege und Adelskultur in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16.-18. Jahrhundert (Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia, Band 14, GWZO, Universität Leipzig) / Born, Robert ; Jagodzinski, Sabine (eds.). - Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag , 2014. 87-104 (ISBN: 978-3-7995-8414-2). Summary: In the 16th and partly in the 17th century, the Croatian and Slavonian nobility often threatened the Habsburgs with surrender to the Ottomans, especially in times of fierce combats. Other social strata, the peasants and the military, even voluntarily changed sides and accepted the jurisdiction of a more amenable overlord in their attempt to survive. Their interactions with the Ottomans therefore cannot be characterised as merely confrontational. Actually, conditioned by an attempt to avoid devastation and annihilation, the opposing sides were engaged in various types of rather complex interactions and thus challenged the paradigm of antemurale Christianitatis. This paper addressed two main issues. Firstly: were the threats of surrender to the Ottomans a plausible political option in the Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom? Secondly, the question as to whether the Ottomans can be seen as the principal adversaries of the Croatians and Slavonians during the early modern period, the archenemy of Christianity. Paper scrutinised everyday practices of interactions with the Ottomans at the Military Border as well as forms of negotiations of different representatives with the Ottomans.
Abstract This article examines the reasons why Süleyman the Magnificent executed his son Şehzade Mustafa during the Nahçıvan military campaign of 1553. According to the dominant narrative in both Ottoman sources and academic literature, Süleyman’s concubine and later wife Hürrem Sultan and her closest ally, Süleyman’s son-in-law Rüstem Pasha, plotted against Mustafa in order to save the throne for one of Hürrem’s own sons. Though the latter was widely beloved, this scheme cost him his father’s favor. Afterward, however, the sultan regretted the decision and dismissed Rüstem Pasha from his position as grand vizier. This article examines the roles of Sultan Süleyman, Şehzade Mustafa, Hürrem Sultan, and Rüstem Pasha in the Ottoman, Venetian, Habsburg, French, and Persian sources, investigating why the sultan executed the prince in the context of the Ottoman succession experience. Adding complexity to the common narrative, this article concludes that the sultan, who was losing his authority to the prince, desired to consolidate his power and to remove his dynasty from the competition between social groups that had characterized earlier succession struggles. Keywords: Şehzade Mustafa, succession, fratricide, Hürrem Sultan, Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, Rüstem Paşa
This dissertation is a study of the processes involved in the making of Sultan Süleyman’s image and reputation within the two decades preceding and following his accession, delineating the various phases and aspects involved in the making of the multi-layered image of the Sultan. Handling these processes within the framework of Sultan Süleyman’s deeds and choices, the main argument of this study is that the reputation of Sultan Süleyman in the 1520s was the result of the convergence of his actions and his projected image. In the course of this study, main events of the first ten years of Sultan Süleyman’s reign are conceptualized in order to understand the elements employed first in making a Sultan out of a Prince, then in maintaining and enhancing the sultanic image and authority. As such, this dissertation examines the rhetorical, ceremonial, and symbolic devices which came together to build up a public image for the Sultan. Contextualized within a larger framework in terms of both time and space, not only the meaning and role of each device but the way they are combined to create an image becomes clearer. This dissertation argues that Süleyman started his sultanic career with the inherited elements of dynastic and divine legitimation. He took over an already established model, and put deliberate effort in the actualization of this model through pursuing an active and visible mode of sovereignty in the 1520s. Bu doktora tezi Sultan Süleyman’ın tahta çıkmasından önceki ve sonraki onar yıl içinde imajını ve itibarını oluşturan süreçleri ve Sultan’ın çok katmanlı imajının oluşumunda etkili olan aşamaları ve unsurları incelemektedir. Söz konusu süreçlerin Sultan Süleyman’ın eylemleri ve kararları çerçevesinde incelendiği bu çalışmanın temel argümanı Sultan Süleyman’ın 1520’lerdeki itibarının eylemleri ile yansıtılan imajın birleşmesinden kaynaklandığıdır. Bu çalışmada öncelikle şehzadenin Sultan’a dönüşümünde, ardından sultanın imajının ve otoritesinin muhafazası ve geliştirilmesinde rol oynayan unsurların anlaşılması açısından Sultan Süleyman’ın saltanatının ilk on yılında meydana gelen temel olaylar kavramsal çerçeveye yerleştirilmektedir. Bu bağlamda, bu doktora tezi Sultan’ın kamusal imajını oluşturmak üzere bir araya getirilen retorik, törensel ve sembolik araçları incelemektedir. Bu araçlar zaman ve coğrafya çerçevesinde daha geniş bir bağlama yerleştirildiğinde, her aracın anlamı ve rolü kadar imajı oluşturmak üzere ne şekilde bir araya getirildikleri de aydınlanmaktadır. Bu çalışma ışığında, Sultan Süleyman’ın kariyerine hanedana ve ilahi desteğe dayalı meşruiyet unsurlarını miras alarak başladığı, 1520’ler boyunca aktif ve görünür bir hükümdarlık biçimi izleyerek devir almış olduğu mevcut modeli gerçekleştirmeye bilinçli bir çaba gösterdiği anlaşılmaktadır.
2000
2014, Acta Histriae
The correspondence of Oghier Ghislain de Busbeq shows that an effective Habsburg ambassador at the Ottoman Court had some freedom of maneuver in guiding the direction of diplomatic discussions.
This article expands an earlier article published in Turkish under the title « Giovan Francesco Giustinian : Osmanlı Donmasına Venedik Teknik Yardımı (1531-1534)”, in Türkler ve Deniz, ed. Özlem Kumrular, Istanbul, 2007, and for the first time in English on http://www.archivodelafrontera.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/A-MED28.pdf. It deals with Venetian technical assistance brought to build transatlantic vessels in Istanbul to compete with Portuguese,at the request of Ibrahim pasha.
Robert Born, Michal Dziewulski, Kamilla Twardowska, Daniela Sogliani, Hedda Reindl-Kiel, Natalia Krolikowska, Emese Pásztor, Ács Pál
The conference was an accompanying event to the exhibition "Ottomania. The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art" at the National Museum in Krakow. The book presents 11 papers of specialists from a broad range of historical disciplines, dedicated to the Ottoman-European relations during the Renaissance period, with special focus on Central-Eastern Europe.
2002, EAST EUROPEAN MONOGRAPHS
2014, Dalmatia and the Mediterranean: Portable Archaeology and the Poetics of Influence, ed. Alina Payne
2007, French Historical Studies
Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 39/67 (2020), s. 139-214
2008
2012, Osmanlı’da Strateji ve Askeri Güç [Strategy and Military Power in the Ottoman Empire—Collected Studies] Translated by M. Fatih Çalışır. Istanbul:Timaş Yayınevi, 2012, 59–96.
Turkish translation of Information, Ideology, and Limits of Imperial Policy: Ottoman Grand Strategy in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry,” in Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman eds., The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 75-103.
Turkish Historical Review 1/2 (2010): 125-163.
Sixteenth-century North Africa, the "Forgotten Frontier" between two rival empires, the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, came into the latter's orbit with the incorporation of the North African corsairs into the Ottoman empire. The employment of these corsairs and the incorporation of their lands created opportunities as well as problems. This article aims to highlight the reasons behind and the limits of the cooperation between North African corsairs and Istanbul when the importance of the former for the latter reached its zenith, in tandem with the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry in the Mediterranean. It furthermore tries to demonstrate the details of the relationship between the imperial centre in Istanbul and the frontier provinces of North Africa with its centrifugal elites. Thus it reveals the diversity of Ottoman administrative practices as well as the pragmatism and flexibility of the Ottoman government. Finally, it delineates the role that the corsairs played in the shaping of the Mediterranean strategy of the Ottoman empire.
In March, 1943, Zeki Kuneralp, a young Turkish diplomat, reached Bucharest. Romania was then in war in the ranks of the Axis Powers; and she had recovered Bessarabia, that she had been forced, under pressure from Germany, to yield to the Soviet Union in 1940. It was the time of the Antonescu regime; and the Romanian Army was fighting in Russia under very harsh conditions. The Romanians, nonetheless, “not cruel by nature” were still easygoing “as their history witnesses”.
This study is a preliminary attempt to chart out the manifold ways Ottomans envisioned and imagined the Euro-Christian world during early modern times. Through the study of a selection of various sources ranging from pseudo-historiographic warrior epics to lyric poetry, the main objective will be to expose the multivocality and ambivalence of Ottoman texts dealing – exclusively or partially - with the Western cosmos. By a careful analysis of the narratological structure of specific Ottoman works, the degree to which Euro-Christians had permeated the minds (and souls) of Ottoman-Muslims will be evaluated. The examination of recurrent stock images, stereotypes, and depictions of Euro-Christians will hint at the ways Ottomans constructed and articulated a discourse of alterity based on the juxtaposition of a (pure and ideal) Self against a (reprehensible and threatening) Other. Simultaneously, instances where these seemingly unflinching and fixed boundaries were questioned, challenged, or overlooked will be located and contextualized. All in all, the aim will be to open a vista to the complex and colorful representational world of early modern Ottomans.
The Jagiellonians in Europe: Dynastic Diplomacy and Foreign Relations. Edited by Attila Bárány, in co-operation with Balázs Antal Bacsa. Debrecen, 2016. (Memoria Hungariae, 2) ISBN 978-963-508-833-1. pp. 133–158.
2016
A slightly extended version of the M.A. Thesis, Boğaziçi University, History Department, 2015. The main concern of this study is to make a foreign policy analysis of the Ottomans, and to try demonstrating how policy-making might have affected the Ottoman take during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Under light of former studies and primary evidence, I will try to prove that there were concrete instances of Ottoman military intervention in the war. Second, I’ll try to answer why the Ottoman Empire should be regarded as a player on the scene of this continental political crisis, even though they remained largely non-participant, by pointing out to the psychological effect of the Ottoman power on the European states, relying on contemporary diplomatic reports. Lastly, I present the study of a primary source: The final ambassadorial report of Paul Strassburg, the envoy of Swedish King Gustav II Adolph in Constantinople in 1632 and 1633, is translated from its original Latin transcription and evaluated in its historical setting.
2016
This article examines the Ottoman counter-intelligence mechanism and the extent to which it succeeded in preventing enemy intelligence. In the 16th century, the length and the scope of both Ottoman–Habsburg and the Ottoman Safavid Rivalry convinced the Ottomans to establish an intelligence network that gathered information in a large geography. Nevertheless, in the war of information between the Ottomans and their rivals, the success of Ottoman information-gathering was intertwined with the efficiency of Ottoman counter-intelligence. In order to gain an advantage in “politics of information”, the Ottoman secret diplomacy successfully refused its enemies a comfort which it sought for itself: access to information about the adversary.
This paper looks at the evolution of the image of the Turk in the Germanies throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While scholars have argued that the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the Siege of Vienna in 1683 were the main turning points in the German representation of the Turk, I argue that Suleyman's siege of Vienna in 1529 was the second major event that altered German perceptions and fears of the Ottoman Turk.