An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play

278 Pages·2003·2.35 MB·English

by  Gabriel Piterberg

An Ottoman Tragedy
studies on the history of society and culture
Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, Editors
An Ottoman Tragedy
History and Historiography at Play
gabriel piterberg
University of California Press
berkeley los angeles london
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Piterberg, Gabriel, 1955–
An Ottoman tragedy : history and historiography at play / Gabriel
Piterberg.
p. cm.—(Studies on the history of society and culture ; 50)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0–520–23836–2 (cloth)
1. Turkey—History. 2. Historiography—Turkey. I. Title.
II. Series.
dr438.8 .p58 2003
956(cid:1).015—dc21 2002152983
Manufactured in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). (cid:1)(cid:2)
For Uri, who puts things in perspective,
and to my parents
Soon as I beheld thee, mazed and wildered grew
my sad heart;
How shall I my love disclose to thee who
tyrant dread art?
How shall I hold straight upon my road,
when yonder Torment
Smitten hath my breast with deadly wounds by her
eyelash-dart?
Face, a rose; and mouth, a rosebud; form,
a slender sapling—
How shall I not be the slave of Princess such
as thou art?
Ne’er hath heart a beauty seen like her of graceful
figure;
Joyous would I for yon charmer’s eyebrow with
my life part.
Farisi, what can you do but love that peerless
beauty?
Ah! this aged Sphere hath made me lover of
yon sweetheart.
A Gazelwritten in 1622 by Farisi
(Sultan Osman II’s mahlasor pseudonym),
published and translated by E.J.W. Gibb. Was it
dedicated to Sultan Osman’s beloved, Akile,
daughter of the SheyhülislamEsad Efendi?
The skeptical theses based on the reduction of historiography
to its narrative or rhetorical dimension have been in circulation
for a few decades, even if their roots, as we shall see, are more
ancient. In general, the theoreticians of historiography who
propose them care little for the concrete work of historians. But
even historians, aside from some token homage to a “linguistic
turn” or “rhetorical turn” currently in vogue, are scarcely inclined
to reflect on the theoretical implications of their own profession.
Rarely has the chasm between methodological reflection and actual
historiographical practice been as pronounced as in the last few
decades. It seems that the only way to overcome it is to take the
challenge of the skeptics seriously and attempt to articulate the
point of view of those who work in contact with documents, in the
broadest sense of the term. My solution transfers to the actuality
of research the tensions between narration and documentation.
It does not propose a rapprochement between theoreticians and
historians, and probably will displease them both.
carlo ginzburg, History, Rhetoric, and Proof
In the preceding tale, I have tried to narrate the process of failure,
the process of defeat. I thought first of that archbishop of
Canterbury who set himself the task of proving that God exists;
then I thought of the alchemists who sought the philosopher’s
stone; then of the vain trisectors of the angle and squarers of the
circle. Then I reflected that a more poetic case than these would
be a man who sets himself a goal that is not forbidden to other
men, but is forbidden to him. I recalled Averroës, who, bounded
within the circle of Islam, could never know the meaning of the
words tragedyand comedy.I told his story; as I went on, I felt
what that god mentioned by Burton must have felt—the god who
set himself the task of creating a bull but turned out a buffalo. I
felt that the work mocked me, foiled me, thwarted me. I felt that
Averroës, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having
suspected what a theater is, was no more absurd than I, trying to
|imagine Averroës yet with no more material than a few snatches
from Renan, Lane, and Asín Palacios. I felt, on the last page, that
my story was a symbol of the man I had been as I was writing
it, and that in order to write that story I had had to be that man,
and that in order to be that man I had had to write that story,
and so on, ad infinitum.(And just when I stop believing in him,
“Averroës” disappears.)
jorge luis borges, “Avërroes’ Search”

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
A Note on Transliteration xv
Introduction: The Content and Form of This Study 1
iipart i. foundations
1. The Plot 9
2. The Formation and Study of Ottoman Historiography 30
3. An Interpretive Framework 50
ipart ii. historiography
4. Tug˘i’s Representation of the Haile-i Osmaniye:
The Perspective of the Imperial Army 71
5. The Formation of Alternative Narratives:
Hasanbeyzade and Peçevi 91
6. The Conception of the State Narrative 114
part iii. the state
7. The Early Modern Ottoman State: History and Theory 135
8. The Ottoman State as a Discursively Contested Field 163
Epilogue: Poetics of Ottoman Historiography:
Preliminary Notes 185
ix