L’inventario della spezieria di Giovanni Zavanti al Cairo (1732)

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 421-495
Author(s):  
Alessandra Quaranta
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
Pharmaceutical Activity

Abstract The inventory of the apothecary Giovanni Zavanti, a Venetian pharmacist who worked in Cairo in the 1730s, was drawn up by the Egyptian city’s British Consulate in 1732. Since this institution ensured formal juridical protection to the English shopkeepers of the Levant Company, but devoted little attention to their need for health care, this historical source can be considered a rare testimony of European medical-pharmaceutical activity in the Levant. The inventory’s importance is also connected with the specific political and socio-cultural context of Egypt, the most economically important province of the Ottoman Empire. Substantial groups of English, French and Dutch merchants lived in the Muslim society of Cairo and were officially represented by their respective nations in the eighteenth century. The Venetian, also active in Cairo, could not count on the protection of their State institutions during the Turco-Venetian conflicts (1645–1718). In this complex context, Zavanti tried to take advantage of his professional activity and built up different socio-cultural relations to defend his properties and commercial interests. He was in contact with fellow countrymen, Arabic Christians of Egypt, Jews, Turkish officials and the Franciscan confraternity Custodia Terrae Santae. As second-generation immigrants from Venice, the Zavantis experienced a difficult process of cultural integration in Egypt.

Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

Imports to Smyrna between 1794 and 1802: New Statistics from the Ottoman Sources

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesud Küçükkalay
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
Transport Maritime ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
La Modification ◽  
New Statistics ◽  
Trade Partners

AbstractThis study is based on the foreign customs registers of the port of Smyrna in the Ottoman Archives of Istanbul. In this paper 115 ports, 112 ships, 2859 pieces of goods, and 1273 merchants have been investigated for the period 1794-1802. This information indicates that the transformation of the Ottoman Foreign trade at the turn of the eighteenth century was linked to the following economic trends of the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries: the emergence of the European supremacy in naval transportation, a change in the terms of trade that was disadvantageous for the Ottomans, and a shift in the trade partners of the Ottoman Empire. Cette contribution exploite les données des registres de la douane ottomane du port de Smyrne, consignant les importations étrangères, conservés aux archives d'Istanbul. L'étude porte sur les cargaisons de 112 navires en provenance de 115 ports, 2859 pièces de marchandises et 1273 marchands dans les années 1794-1802. Les données témoignent que la transformation du commerce ottoman étranger en fin du XVIIIème siècle est liée aux tendances économiques de la seconde moitié du XVIIIème et de la première moitié du XIXème siècles. Elles reflètent la domination européenne dans le domaine du transport maritime, la modification des conditions commerciales au détriment des Ottomans et un changement des partenaires commerciaux de l'Empire.

National identity in the Ottoman Empire as a historical and social fact

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isra Shengul Chebi ◽  
Dilshat Karimova
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Turkish State ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Defined both in an individual and in a social or cultural context, identity is a historical phenomenon; a consistent, complete sense of identity develops in the historical process. Social relations created by historical conditions shape Turkish identity, just like other collective identities. Revealed as one of the oldest nations in history, Turkish identity has also been shaped by the amalgamation of the effects created by the rule of law in the collective consciousness. Despite the fact that the length of the historical process makes it difficult to clearly identify the stages of the adventure, when studying Turkish identity it is necessary to look at the Ottoman Empire, which is a prerequisite for the modern Turkish state, and the self-identification of the society that feels belonging to the above state. Indeed, it is not very wrong to associate the phenomenon of identity as a topic of discussion with the relationship of the Ottoman state with the modern nation states of the West. In this context, it would be appropriate to touch upon the perception of identity in the Ottoman Empire.

scholarly journals Bulgaria in old Serbian accounts of pilgrimage

Balcanica ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Tomislav Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
The Road ◽  
The People

A rather small portion of old Slavonic literatures is thematically linked with the journey to the Holy Land. Of many Serbian pilgrims over the centuries only three left more detailed descriptions of Bulgarian places and parts: patriarch Arsenije III, Jerotej of Raca and Silvestar Popovic. They described, each in his own way, some of the places and areas along the road to Istanbul or Salonika. Their vivid depiction of encounters with people and observations about the places they saw on their way reveal only a fragment of life in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman empire. In a seemingly ordinary way, they incorporate into their own epoch the legends heard from the people they met. The descriptions of Bulgarian parts in the Serbian accounts of pilgrimage have all the appeal that generally characterizes travel literature. Although their literary value is modest they belong among the works characterized by the simplicity and immediacy of experience. Rather than being the result of a strong literary ambition, they are witness to the need to speak about the great journey, quite an adventurous enterprise at the time.

scholarly journals The Rushdie Affair – Politics, Culture and Ethnicity in Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album

Politeja ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (8 (31/2)) ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Ossowska-Czader
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
British Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Hanif Kureishi ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
The Face ◽  
British Muslims

The aim of this paper is to show how politics, culture and ethnicity interweave in the context of the Rushdie Affair in both the real‑life dimension of the historical events taking place in the late 1980s, as well as the literary dimension of the novel by Hanif Kureishi entitled The Black Album. The paper briefly outlines the Rushdie Affair as it unfolded in the British public sphere with particular emphasis placed on the process of consolidation of the Muslim identity among the representatives of different ethnic groups in Great Britain in the political and cultural context of the event which is deemed to be defining from the point of view of British Muslims. The author of the paper presents the profile of Hanif Kureishi, to indicate why he is ideally positioned to look critically at both sides of the conflict. The paper analyses the novel itself insofar as it examines the implications of the Rushdie Affair depicted in The Black Album, the reactions of the second‑generation immigrants of Pakistani descent in the face of the controversy, the influence this event exerted on the process of their searching for identity as well as their integration into British society. Two opposing identity options taken up by the protagonists of The Black Album are analysed by the author of the paper.

The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman Experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seven Ağir
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Price System ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Fixed Price ◽  
Grain Trade ◽  
The Creation

Ottoman reformers' re-organization of the grain trade during the second half of the eighteenth century had two components—the creation of a centralized institution to supervise transactions and the replacement of the fixed price system with a more flexible one. These changes were not only a response to strains on the old system of provisioning, driven by new geopolitical conditions, but also a consequence of an increased willingness among the Ottoman elite to emulate the economic policies of successful rival states. Thus, the centralized bureaucracy and political economy of the Ottoman Empire at the time had remarkable parallels with those in such European states as France and Spain.

Caught between Two Empires: The Teaching of Persian in Bosnia at the Time of Transition from Ottoman to Austro-Hungarian Rule

DIYÂR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-207
Author(s):  
Munir Drkić
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
British India ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
Mass Expansion

This article considers the presence of Persian within the educational system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the westernmost frontier of the ‘Persianate world’, between the 1860s and the first decade of 1900. Based on a survey of primary sources, such as the first journals introduced in Bosnia by the Ottoman administration, I show that the introduction of new educational establishments in the 1860s and 1870s brought a mass expansion of the teaching of Persian in Bosnia. Even after the Austro-Hungarian occupation of 1878, Persian continued to be taught in old and some newly founded schools. However, the following decades saw a lively debate on the teaching of Persian, highlighting the redundancy of this language in a new social and cultural context. As a result, Persian was completely removed from Bosnian schools at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to presenting new knowledge about the spread of Persian in the Balkans, and the instruction of foreign languages in the Ottoman Empire, I intend to demonstrate here that a similar process of withdrawing and removing Persian from the educational system was occurring in Habsburg Bosnia simultaneously with the decline of Persian in British India.

Harvest of Briars

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-158
Author(s):  
A. Wess Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
Third Phase

This chapter examines the competition with the Ottoman Empire and Russia, from the reconquest of Hungary to Joseph II’s final Turkish war. On its southern and eastern frontiers, the Habsburg Monarchy contended with two large land empires: a decaying Ottoman Empire, and a rising Russia determined to extend its influence on the Black Sea littorals and Balkan Peninsula. In balancing these forces, Austria faced two interrelated dangers: the possibility of Russia filling Ottoman power vacuums that Austria itself could not fill, and the potential for crises here, if improperly managed, to fetter Austria’s options for handling graver threats in the west. In dealing with these challenges, Austria deployed a range of tools over the course of the eighteenth century. In the first phase (1690s–1730s), it deployed mobile field armies to alleviate Turkish pressure on the Habsburg heartland before the arrival of significant Russian influence. In the second phase (1740s–70s), Austria used appeasement and militarized borders to ensure quiet in the south while focusing on the life-or-death struggles with Frederick the Great. In the third phase (1770s–90s), it used alliances of restraint to check and keep pace with Russian expansion, and recruit its help in comanaging problems to the north. Together, these techniques provided for a slow but largely effective recessional, in which the House of Austria used cost-effective methods to manage Turkish decline and avoid collisions that would have complicated its more important western struggles.

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