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Browsing by Subject "Ottoman"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Gifts in motion: Ottoman-Safavid cultural exchange, 1501-1618
    (2012-08) Arcak, Sine
    Between the sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the Shiite Safavids of Iran and the Sunni Ottomans of Turkey--two of the greatest Islamic empires in history--developed a complex relationship in which tenuous peace alternated with bloody conflict, often with dizzying speed. This dissertation is the first systematic study of this relationship from the perspective of visual culture, and focuses specifically on the objects exchanged, through gifting, by the royal courts of these two empires. These objects--ranging from lavishly illustrated books and exquisite silk carpets to richly embroidered tents, chandeliers and even live birds of prey-- enriched the visual culture of each court, and led to the formulation of two distinctive artistic canons with a lasting legacy in the artistic traditions of each empire. This study aims to deepen our understanding of this cultural exchange and the role it played in the relations between these two rival empires. It argues that the movement of luxurious objects functioned as a primary mechanism for the expression of competitive interaction between the two courts. This thesis focuses primarily on gifts received by Ottoman sultans from Safavid shahs from the early sixteenth century to the early seventeenth century. Specifically, the exchange of gifts between the two courts is explored at certain key moments in the development of their relationship, each of which forms a separate chapter in the dissertation. Through an examination of the elaborate ceremonies that typically accompanied the exchange of objects at these moments, I investigate the ritual use of material culture to project both political power and cultural influence in the early modern world. The four chapters are organized in rough chronological order, with each one focusing on a specific exchange or a set of ceremonial exchanges that provide visual and material clues about how objects functioned in the early modern Muslim world. Each case study takes as its unit of analysis a group of routinely exchanged objects on the one hand, and one-of-a-kind objects on the other. I examine both the actual gifts exchanged, as well as manuscript paintings depicting and describing their ritual presentation and reception. The textual evidence ranges from treasury records and court chronicles to epistolary sources and first-hand ambassadorial accounts in Ottoman Turkish, Persian and Italian. The purpose of each chapter is thus to understand the potential and actual movement of objects in illuminating the convoluted relationship between two rival empires.
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    Imperial Daydreaming: Disentangling Contemporary Ottoman Nostalgia in Turkey
    (2020-05) Karakaya, Yagmur
    This dissertation investigates Ottoman nostalgia in Turkey, a dynamic process observed in two forms: State-sponsored populist neo-Ottomanism exemplified in rallies and museums, and the Ottomania—the popular cultural fascination with the Ottoman past—observed in leisure activities. Turkey’s early-twentieth-century foundational premise was the dramatic rejection of the Ottoman past, best signaled by the abolishment of the Arabic script and banning religious garb in State institutions. Today this regime has been replaced by that of the authoritarian populist Justice and Development Party, or AKP. Where the early Republican regime attempted to root Turkey’s origins in ethnicity rather than religion, the AKP mines Ottoman history and symbolism as a central source of legitimacy. To unpack the ways Ottoman nostalgia is produced, mobilized and contested, I employ a multi-method qualitative research design: 1) Ethnographic fieldwork in the Panorama History Museum of Conquest in Istanbul, and the Commemoration of the Conquest, both powerful sites of state-led neo-Ottomanism. 2) Textual analysis of the popular television show Magnificent Century, the best-known vehicle of the popular cultural Ottomanian fever, and its state-produced counterpart Resurrection Ertugrul, and 3) Interviews in six diverse cities, exploring how ordinary people make sense of both state-led and popular manifestations. Rather than focusing on one level – state, society, or popular culture, this project brings together state-led endeavors, popular culture, and their audience reception. This highlights the interactions among them, and shows how political efforts are contested and how different groups ‘buy in’ to these to different degrees. I found that that the bombastic spectacles of the AKP may have sacralized the Ottoman past, but their claims to a second Muslim “re-conquest” have pushed a segment of the population in Turkey to question the “emotional manipulation” of politicians “exploiting” this holy past. In line with this, people who were followers of lighthearted Ottomania chose to move away from Ottoman nostalgia altogether. I argue that neo-Ottomanism has coopted Ottomania, a potential, light-hearted cosmopolitan engagement with the Ottoman past, and made it “his,” by hardening its fluid boundaries into rigid heteronormative, and overly self-assured categories.
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    Three Faiths, One Holy Land: An Interfaith Study on Holy Land Pilgrimages in the Early Modern Period
    (2020-06) Kolden, Crystal
    The Holy Land, which includes the city of Jerusalem and surrounding holy sites, has long been a pilgrimage destination in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The Ottoman era of Jerusalem, beginning in 1517, saw a major influx of pilgrims from all three faiths, and this led to a convergence of varying perceptions of the same geographical space. At the same time, a shift was occurring from the predominantly religious purposes for individual travel in the medieval period to the more secular or touristic motives of travel beginning in the early modern period. This shift, combined with the geographical origins, professions, and attitudes of individual pilgrims, further added to the varying viewpoints of the Holy Land, even within the same faith. This study seeks to explore these intersecting viewpoints by examining the accounts of four pilgrims in the Holy Land during the early modern period: David Reubeni, a Jewish political activist and adventurer (1523), Henry Timberlake, a Protestant merchant (1601), Evliya Çelebi, an Ottoman Muslim travel writer (1648-1650; 1672), and Henry Maundrell, an Anglican chaplain (1697).