University of Heidelberg

GÁBOR KÁRMÁN (University of Leipzig) opened the conference with a paper on the image of "the Turk" presented in the works of the "Turkish scribe" Jakab Harsányi Nagy. Analyzing Hasányi's writings about the Ottomans both in the time of his official correspondence in the service of the Transylvanian embassy in Constantinople and twelve years later as a court counselor (Hofrat) of the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Kármán was able to show how the author's representation of the Ottoman Empire developed from the stereotype commonly espoused by Transylvanian diplomats towards a much more sympathetic appraisal of the Ottomans. Placing these literary representations in their historical contexts, Kármán furthermore suggested that Harsányi's works provide an insight into the perception of the Empire by its tributary states.

NUR SOBERS KHAN (University of Cambridge) talked about "Identity formation and legal categories of ethnicity (cins) in early modern Ottoman Istanbul". These categories of ethnicity were part of the detailed descriptions of slaves recorded in the şerīʿat court registers when they were manumitted. As opposed to the aṣıl, a slave's "origin" in a more geographical sense, his cins declared him a member of one of a limited number of easily identifiable "ethnic groups". Of course, these labels did not necessarily mirror the more complex reality of the diverse ethnic backgrounds of slaves in the Ottoman Empire, but as the documents suggest that these labels were made known to the manumitted slaves, we may assume that they contributed to the formation of their new social identities, even more so as we may also assume that these labels matched the perception of the majority of the population.

AYLIN BESIRYAN (European University Institute, Florence) investigated "The transcultural dimension of the Ottoman constitution" of 1876. While this document was not the first of this sort in the Muslim world and while certain groups within the empire had already given themselves "constitutions" using this very term in French and Judaeo-Spanish, the history of the Ottoman constitution is especially interesting because it took place in what may be called the most cosmopolitan state in the world. Therefore the state-initiated drafting process incorporated influences from a plurality of formal and informal agents based inside and outside the empire with the most diverse professional, ideological and cultural backgrounds. Besiryan showed how the debate led to an exemplary transcultural synthesis of different legal traditions, ideas, and models.

In his presentation, SOTIRIOS DIMITRIADIS (SOAS, London) analyzed the transformation of the port city of Salonica as a process of modernization put at the intersection of two different processes: state driven modernization and the emergence of new social groups as a result of economic change in Salonica as a port city, i.e. a commercial center. Against the background of the developments in the second half of the 19th century, he examined what effect the novel conditions of that time had on Salonica, on the various social groups inhabiting the city and their position vis-à-vis the Ottoman state and its reformist agenda. Employing the concept of "space" as a key analytical category, Dimitriadis argued that the cityscape (perceived space) of Salonica was radically transformed by the agency of several new social institutions (lived space), which again based their decisions on a new discourse on how a city should function (conceived space).

The conference's keynote lecture was given by SURAIYA FAROQHI, who is currently teaching at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her presentation on "Trading between East and West: The Ottoman Empire of the early modern period" unfolded a fascinating panorama of the Ottoman Empire's global commercial links. Faroqhi arranged her topic geographically, starting with the Ottoman Empire's trade relations to the east and then proceeding clockwise to those of the south, the west and the north. She thus demonstrated with the help of numerous striking examples the Empire's outstanding significance as a major hub with regard to the flows of objects and ideas between Europe and Asia. An audio recording of her talk is available from the website of the Cluster "Asia and Europe in a global context".

PATRIZIA KERN (Heidelberg University) discussed the extent to which the concept of 'neo-Ottomanism' is applicable when analyzing the representation of history in recent exhibitions in Turkey. Kern focused on two projects initiated by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality: Miniatürk and the Panorama 1453 Historical Museum. By putting her examples in relation to official cultural policies and ongoing societal and political debates, Kern showed how the re-evaluation of the Ottoman past ('neo-Ottomanism') has become a driving force in the creation and arrangement of these exhibitions.

In the 1620s, Barbary pirates raided the port of İskenderun, capturing several vessels and razing the customs house. This incident triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity between the Ottoman Empire and almost all diplomatic representatives at the Porte. The incident, as JOSHUA WHITE (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) showed in his paper, is therefore highly revealing about changing conditions in the Mediterranean at a time when Venice's commercial power was on the retreat while the 'Northerners', particularly England and the Netherlands, were gaining increasing importance in the Mediterranean trade, while also illuminating the poorly understood fiscal and political relations between Istanbul and the Ottoman periphery in Syria during this period of transition.

Focusing on the rise to prominence of Graz and Banja Luka, two cities situated on the periphery of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, MAXIMILIAN HARTMUTH (Istanbul) raised the question of the extent to which the man-made environment can serve as a source of the history of antagonistic societies. He demonstrated that the peripheral location of "frontier spaces" does not necessarily hinder their participation in technological and artistic innovation. Moreover, the military and demographic situation in such areas made it possible for marginalized groups to leave their mark on the monumental landscape in a way which would have been impossible in the core areas, thus creating an easily traceable link between the architectural topography of the area and its frontier situation.

In his contribution, MORITZ DEUTSCHMANN (European University Institute, Florence) examined the Iranian province of Azerbajdzhan in the nineteenth century where Iranians, Russians, and Ottomans vied with one another for political power. Christian missionaries played a key role in this frontier region and were themselves part of the inter-imperial rivalry, with Russia attempting to influence the Armenian Apostolic Church. Surprisingly, in stark contrast to policy at home, in Azerbajdzhan the Ottomans encouraged the conversion of Armenians to Catholicism as a means to increasing their own influence in the region.

DOROTHE SOMMER (University of Leiden) summarized her recently concluded doctoral research on freemasonry in Ottoman Syria based on interviews and work in the archives of a variety of Masonic Lodges all over Syria. She argued that, especially outside Beirut, freemasons were the only group whose membership bridged the religious divides between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The great overlap in membership between individual lodges is striking, as is the almost total absence of Westerners in the membership rosters. Contradicting previous research, Sommer therefore concludes that Syrian freemasonry cannot be regarded as the vanguard of Western imperialism but instead acted independently in an attempt to promote a new Syrian self-perception.

In contrast to the bulk of Europeanist studies on advice literature delving into its substantive details, LINDA DARLING (University of Arizona) looked at Eastern and Western "Advice literature as a transcultural phenomenon" itself. After having traced the ancient roots of the genre to the Eastern concept of the "Circle of Justice", she followed its separate developments up to the point where at least European advice literature had lost the awareness of these common roots. Nevertheless, in the early modern period it was Europe where Ottoman advice literature was translated and read, but not vice versa. After both strands had, each on its own, arrived at the notion that simply telling the ruler to be strong and good was no longer sufficient to make the state strong and good, convergence was reached again in the eighteenth century, when internal and external crises caused the Ottomans to begin importing advice from Europe.

FELIX KONRAD's (Kiel University) presentation entitled "'Erâzil' and 'canaille': Ottoman and European perceptions of social unrest in the Patrona Halil rebellion of 1730" analyzed how different observers perceived the social unrest of Istanbul's population, in order to explore contemporary notions of social order and disorder. Konrad explained that the main differences between the descriptions of this rebellion originated mainly from the observers' points of view. While the European or Ottoman origins of the sources did not have a great influence on how the rebellion was perceived, it seems that some accounts had been written from what could be called the palace perspective, while others rather viewed the riots from a city-dweller perspective. It is these perspectives and their underlying assumptions about what society looked like, which shaped the way the rebellion was described.

HIMMET TAŞKÖMÜR (Harvard University) presented a paper entitled "From great sedition to great revolution: Ottoman responses to the French Revolution". Until today, scholarship on Ottoman reactions to the French Revolution tended to underestimate the role which the revolution played in the Ottoman discourse before the Napoleonic Invasion of Egypt (1798). Taşkömür challenged this notion. Drawing on Arabic, Turkish, and Persian manuscripts he showed that the Ottoman awareness of, and the engagement with, both the ideology and the political implications of the French Revolution were much stronger then hitherto expected.