Inventing Laziness

Neither laziness nor its condemnation are new inventions, however, perceiving laziness as a social condition that afflicts a 'nation' is. In the early modern era, Ottoman political treatises did not regard the people as the source of the state's problems. Yet in the nineteenth century, as the imperial ideology of Ottomanism and modern discourses of citizenship spread, so did the understanding of laziness as a social disease that the 'Ottoman nation' needed to eradicate. Asking what we can learn about Ottoman history over the long nineteenth-century by looking closely into the contested and shifting boundaries of the laziness - productivity binary, Melis Hafez explores how 'laziness' can be used to understand emerging civic culture and its exclusionary practices in the Ottoman Empire. A polyphonic involvement of moralists, intellectuals, polemicists, novelists, bureaucrats, and, to an extent, the public reveals the complexities and ambiguities of this multifaceted cultural transformation. Using a wide variety of sources, this book explores the sustained anxiety about productivity that generated numerous reforms as well as new understandings of morality, subjectivity, citizenship, and nationhood among the Ottomans.

Plague – ”The Turkish disease”: a traditional Romanian perception (historical, theological, ethnological and epidemiological aspects)

The article addresses the issue of the traditional Romanian perception of the plague as ”Turkish disease” and presents relevant historical, theological, ethnological and epidemiological information. This perception is based on the memory of the frequent wars waged by the Ottomans on Romanian territory; wars during which contagious diseases were recurrent, and implicitly the plague. In historiography, the invocation of the plague epidemics in the context of Ottoman history was nuanced in the works of Mihail Critobul from Imbros, Dimitrie Cantemir, Montesquieu, Constantin Bazili. The reluctance of the natives towards the Turks is explained by the cultural, religious and linguistic differences, by the behavior of the Ottomans and by the non-acceptance of the other’s values. The inhabitants of the principalities believed that the plague also entered through the Ottoman ships coming from Constantinople and moored in the ports of Galați and Brăila. The epidemiological phobias of the natives were amplified by the fact that the Turks, especially those from the royal family, neglected any sanitary restrictions during the plague epidemics. The Ottoman plague’s fatalism is explained by their religious beliefs. The divine factor is also invoked in Romanian folklore, the plague being perceived as God’s punishment sent to the Turks for the misfortunes brought to the Romanians.

Serbia and Hungary in Theodore Spandounes’s Work On the Origin of the Ottoman Emperors

Theodore Spandounes was born in the middle of the 15th century to a family of the Greek exiles who had found shelter in Italy after the fall of Constantinople. The Spandounes family had not played any significant role in the history of the Byzantine Empire but his mother Eudotia came from the famous Kantakouzenos family. Members of the Kantakouzenos family played an important political role in Serbia until its annexation by the Ottoman Empire in 1459. Theodore established close relations with popes Clement VII and Paul III, who he advised on the Ottoman affairs. Probably around 1515, Spandounes wrote the first version of the treatise On the Origin of the Ottoman Emperors. In 1538 he dedicated the final version to Henry, Dauphin of France (the future king Henry II).As suggested by the title, the main objective of Spandounes’s treatise was to explain how the Ottomans rose from the humble beginnings to their current mighty status in a relatively short time. In its final version from 1538, the treatise consists of four parts, different in size, composition and content. The most original and creative part, which is also of the greatest importance to the scholars interested in the Ottoman history, is the second part. However, information concerning the history of Serbia and Hungary can only be found in the first part. A detailed analysis of Theodor’s treatise leads to the following conclusions: 1) Spandounes’s remarks concerning Hungary and Serbia are generally infrequent, and the events described were rather accidentally chosen; 2) The author pays more attention to Serbia, with which he was emotionally connected through his ancestors. The information about the genealogy of the ruling family is interesting and reliable; 3) Spandounes is barely credible in his descriptions of events from the 14th and 15th century. His accounts are tendentious and quite often false; 4) Information concerning Hungary becomes more frequent for years 1520–1538, and it is relatively credible.

Ottoman History and the Islamic-Ottoman Cultural Legacy in Bosnia in the First Edition of the Encyclopaedia of Yugoslavia (1950–1971)

The article analyses how the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia (1955–1971) treated the Ottoman history and Islamo-Ottoman cultural legacy. The article is based on encyclopedic articles, documents related to the editing and writing of the encyclopedia and marginalia written by the editor-in-chief of the project. The first edition of the EJ was affected – albeit inconsistently – by the officially sanctioned anti-Ottoman discourse that presented this era as the time of oppression and backwardness. The Ottoman history in Bosnia was seen as an important topic and it was given a large space. In contrast to the articles on ideologically important topics, a large portion of articles on Ottoman history was written in a neutral manner. The Islamo-Ottoman contributions to Bosnian cultural legacy were marginalized as part of the deliberate editorial policy. This policy changed only in the last, 8th, volume reflecting political changes in the country.

Curious Readers: The Bodleian’s Book of Curiosities as a Fatimid View of the World Through Ottoman Eyes

An illustrated cosmographical and geographical manuscript at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, known as the Book of Curiosities, has recently seen a rare confluence of public and scholarly attention. It is widely regarded as one of the outstanding Arabic works of geography, with stylistically idiosyncratic maps and a text that can be traced back to Egypt in the Fatimid period. However, few concrete facts are known about the history of this unique artefact. This article will identify and analyse the traces left by some of its previous owners and thus unlock the Ottoman history of this Fatimid work. By placing it in a concrete temporal and geographical context, we are better able to envisage the intellectual, social, and political environment in which this book could make sense to its owners and readers.

Syrian Refugee Middle School Students’ Perceptions of the History Subjects Taught in Social Studies Lessons

The purpose of this research is to determine perceptions of refugee middle school students in Turkey about history subjects taught in social studies classes. Accordingly, the study was designed in the phenomenology model, a qualitative research method. The sample included 58 middle school 7th and 8th grade Syrian students (28 female, 30 male) legally registered in Gaziantep province of Turkey in 2019-2020. Convenience sampling method was used to select the schools, and criterion sampling, a purposive sampling method, was used to select the sample from students in these schools. Research data were collected with a questionnaire form containing open-ended questions created by the researcher, and subjected to descriptive analysis. Considering the results of the research, one can say that the students could remember the history subjects they learned, and found Ottoman history subjects more interesting. However, they found history lessons boring, and studying history subjects was not effective in creating patriotic perceptions.

Analysis of Poster Designs of Turkish TV Series on Ottoman History

TV series are significant media products when considered as part of audience's leisure activities at home. Marketing of leisure activities to the audience in front of the screen as an indicator of individuality is one of the basic conditions of media consumption. With the watched product, the person feels that he belongs to a community, or, on the contrary, he is unique. It is possible for the individual who watches the historical series to adopt/reflect the national and social spirit. Again, as a part of the consumer society, the displays of the spectacular elements that emphasize the individual's need to express himself/herself with commodities are quite high. In the study, the poster designs of two series that are shown in Turkey (and in various countries of the world) and reach a wide audience have been examined with both visual design elements and principles and semiotics to reveal clues about cultural memory and orientalism in terms of reflecting the Ottoman history.

AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN RESEARCHERS OF THE 19TH – 20TH CENTURIES. THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY AND ARCHIVES OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The article analyzes the role of Austrian and Hungarian researchers of the 19th – 20th centuries in studying the history of the Ottoman Empire. It is noted that the earliest publications of the Ottoman documents were made in the first half of the 19th century. The orientalists J. von Hammer-Purgstall, A. Geway and A. Vambery made a significant contribution to the search for and use of archival documents during this period. In the first half of the 20th century, the Turkish scientists, with the active assistance of several European Orientalists, such as I. Karachon, P. Wittek and L.Fekete, began to reveal the contents of some Ottoman archives and systematize the documents. As a result of the activities of these researchers, a new stage was set in the study of the Ottoman history, diplomacy, and paleography, as well as in the development of archives administration in Turkey. The author concludes that the publication of the Ottoman documents, which contain valuable information about the socio-economic and political life of all the peoples of the Empire, contributed to the further scientific interest and analysis of the Ottoman documents. The studies conducted by the AustroHungarian scientists revealed that the archives of Turkey contain a large number of valuable materials that are important for studies in the history of the Turkish people and the peoples of the Arab countries, the Balkans, Iran, the Caucasus and all the countries that were under the Ottoman rule.