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On the recensions of Uruj's ‘History of the Ottomans’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

V. L. Ménage
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Extract

The so-called ‘Anonymous Chronicles’ of the Ottoman dynasty and the closely related texts which pass under the name of Uruj present formidable problems to an editor, for they are not ‘histories’ in the classical sense, handed down in copies made for scholars by professional copyists, but rather storybooks of the genre of the Baṭṭāl-nāme and the Dānishmend-nāme, written for the edification and entertainment of the ordinary man, so that many a ‘copyist’ was in effect a redactor or even an author, freely paraphrasing his model, adding new stories or alternative versions of old ones, and occasionally stitching together two recensions to make a new and fuller version.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1967 , pp. 314 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1967

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References

1 Giese's introduction to his edition appeared first as ‘Die ältesten osmanischen Geschichtsquellen’, Janus, I (Festschrift Lehmann-Haupt), 1921, 28ndash;35Google Scholar, and then, much expanded and with a full description of the MSS, as ‘Einleitung zu meiner Textausgabe der altosmanischen anonymen Chroniken’, Mitt zur Osmanischen Ceschichte, I, 1921, 49ndash;75Google Scholar; there followed Die altosmanischen anonymen Chronilcen: Teil I, Text and Variantenverzeichnis, Breslau, 1922Google Scholar, and Teil II Übersetzung, Leipzig, 1925Google Scholar. The last, with some corrections to the text and valuable notes communicated by Mordtmann, J. H., reaches only to Text, p. 125, the point at which the MSS of Type W1 (see below) end.Google Scholar

2 Only one MS is listed in Istanbul kütüpaneleri tarih-coğrafya yazmalan kataloglari, I, 2, 1944, pp. 177-8Google Scholar, and that is a copy made for 'Alī Emīrī of the Berlin MS (Giese's B); another, wrongly identified as a is described at p. 210. However MSS of this text are, as is only to be expected, fairly common in Turkey; Forrer, L. (‘Handschriften osmanischer Historiker in Istanbul’, Der Islam, XXVI, 3, 1942, 173ndash;220Google Scholar) lists seven, besides the 'Alī Emīrī copy of B. While in Turkey in 1958ndash;1959 I saw a few more. These MSS belong as follows to the three groups into which Giese divided the MSS (all from European libraries) which were available to him: (1) Type W1,: Istanbul University Library TY 3704 (Forrer, no. 10a); Süleymaniye, Bağdadh Vehbi 1233 (Forrer, no. 10b); Topkapi Sarayi, Sultan Reşad 700 (F. E. Karatay's catalogue, no. 625); Belediye, Cevdet K 255 (fully described by Sadettin Buluc in Die Welt des Islams, Sonderbd. (Festschrift Giese), 1941, 72ndash;4); Type W2: Süleymaniye, Hüsrev 386 (Forrer, no. 10d); Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu 41 (described by Aḥmed Refīq, who thought it an Uruj, in TTEM, XVI, 1926, no. 14 (91), 69ndash;78);Google Scholar Konya, library of Bay Izzet Koyunoğlu (published by Ertaylan, I. H. as Beşir Çelebi, Tevarih-i Al-i Osman, Istanbul, 1946Google Scholar, on which see Erzi, A. in Belleten, XIII, 1949, 181–5); to this group probably belongs also Aya Sofya 3018 (Forrer, no. 10g); closely related are those which (like Giese's R) have continuations: Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu 85; Türk Tarih Kurumu 117 (dated 935/1529, and hence perhaps the oldest dated MS); Type W3: Istanbul University Library TY 587 (Forrer, no. 10e); Süleymaniye, Haci Mahmud 4820, ff. 83ndash;99 (fragments only); Arkeoloji Müzesi 1331 (Forrer, no. 10h); Topkapi Sarayi, Revan 1100/1 (Karatay, no. 677: a short continuation is appended to the W3 text); Topkapi Sarayi, Revan 1101/2 (Karatay, no. 707; Forrer, no. 10f: has a short continuation). A hitherto unrecorded type is presented by the Edirne MS briefly described on p. 322 below.Google Scholar

3 These passages peculiar to Type W1, occur mostly in: the earlier pages of the work but a few, both in prose and in verse, are found throughout the ‘Legendary history of Constantinople’ which occupies pp. 74ndash;111 of Giese's text); in the later part of the text (events of 858 onwards) Type W1, contains no verse passages but does have a few prose passages (here very short) which Ire lacking in Type W3.

4 Giese, ‘Einleitung’, 62, referring to Text, p. 87, 1.23, p. 116, 1. 13, p. 116,1.28.

5 Ever since Hammer (GOR, I, xxxvii), the authorship of this text has been generally ascribed o the müderris and qāḍī Muḥyīeddīn b. 'Alī Jemālī (d. 957/1550), but the evidence for this dentification is tenuous: it consists only of the coincidence that Muḥyīeddīn is reported to have written a history of the Ottomans in Turkish (described by tr. Mejdī, 390, as kitāb-i laṭīf—an epithet hardly appropriate to the Anonymous Chronicles), and that some MSS of the Anonymous end with the events of the year preceding Muḥyīeddin's death.

6 Ed. Giese, p. 127,1.2: … hijretün sekiz yüz dolcsan dokuzinda idi. Andan-sovra Sulṭān Bāiyezīd Istanbullda qarār edüb devlet irtifā'inda idi; the entry for no year before this point is so rounded off.

7 It is to be presumed that the redactor of Type W3 based his text on a recension reaching to 899, added an account of the events of 905ndash;7 (perhaps a short ), and then resumed the regular annalistic account with 915, the earliest year for which a record was available to him.

8 Thereafter Giese gives, side by side, the independent accounts of the two Types down to le point where MS W1, ends (pp. 118ndash;25), and then the continuation of Type W3 (pp. 125ndash;53).

9 Babinger, F., Die frühosmanischen Jahrbücher des Urudsch, Hanover, 1925.Google Scholar

10 Ed. Babinger, 139: … hijretün sekiz yüz doksan dolcuzinda idi. Andan Sulṭan Bāyezīd devlet ü sa'ādetle Qosṭanṭinigyede qarār edüb her gün devlet ü sa'ādet artmakd, a idi (cf. p. 315, n. 6, above; the resemblance is still closer in the Arabic script, where irtifā'inda and artmakda have nearly the same outline).

11 Ed. Babinger, p. 20, 1. 4: zamānimizda vezīr, a phrase lacking at the corresponding point in C (= p. 92, 1. 18) and in the Anonymous Chronicles (ed. Giese, p. 20, 1. 22).

12 Ed. Babinger, introduction, viii-ix.

13 In Orientaliache Literaturzeitung, XXIX, 1926, cols. 433–8.Google Scholar

14 Giese, F., Die altasmanische Chronik des 'Āšiḳpašazāde, Leipzig, 1929, introduction, 14 and 26.Google Scholar

15 Buluç, Sadettin, Untersuchungen über die altasmanische anonyme Chronik der Bibliothèque Nationale zu Paris, suppl. turc 1047, anc. fonds turc 99, Breslau, 1938 (hereafter Untersuchungen).Google Scholar

16 Untersuchungen, 11, 19.

17 Untersuchungen, 54ndash;5.

18 Parmaksizoglu, Ismet, Manisa Genel Kütüphanesi: tarih-cografya yazmalars, I, Istanbul, 1952, p. 9, no. 12. By the courtesy of the authorities of the Bibliothèque Nationale and of the Turkish Libraries Directorate I have microfilms of P, Pa, and M.Google Scholar

19 ‘The rise of Ottoman historiography’, in Lewis, B. and Holt, P. M. (ed.), Historians of the Middle East, London, 1962, 152–67 (at p. 152).Google Scholar

20 account (§ 4) is very close in verbal detail to that of the Anonymous Chronicles, but has some important differences: the dreamer is not , there is no mention at all of 'Abdul'azīz, the girl is named , and Edeball is evidently living not at Konya but somewhere near Sögüt. In making these modifications to the story, ‘Āpz. was perhaps influenced by what he had been told in his youth by 'Edeball Maḥmüd ' (end of § 4). All the same it is strange that he does not name Edeball until nearly the end of the story (ed. Giese, p. 10, 1. 13): up to that point the interpreter of the dream has been merely ‘a certain ’.

21 The first part of this story, as told in the Aya Sofya MS, is summarized by Halil, Mükrimin in Islâm, ansiklopedisi, art. ‘Ertugrul Gâzî’, IV, 332a, where he notes that MS Aya Sofya 2705/8 is an abridgement, with a continuation added, of the text preserved in MS Dresden Or. 111, an anonymous history of the Ottomans reaching to the year 908. The story is reproduced in its essentials by ‘Ālī (Kunh al-, v, 24), who says that he found it ‘in an old book composed under Bāyezid II’—presumably the work contained in the Dresden MS.Google Scholar

22 The word katir, missing in this MS, is to be supplied from the parallel passage in Urnj (p. 8, 1. 2 [O] = p. 83, 1. 14 [C]), described below as account (3).

23 At ff. 12r-13r, M presents almost verbatim the passage referring to ‘ Aḥmed which was quoted from MSS P and Pa by F. Giese (ed. of 'Āpz., introduction, 26, and Die verschiedenen Textrezensionen des 'Āšiqpašazāde … (Abh. Pr. Ak. Wiss., 1936, Phil.-hist. KI., 4), 5), and by S. Buluç (Untersuchungen, 47).

24 Comparison with O and P shows that the correct order of the first leaves of M is: [1 leaf lost] 1ndash;7 [lacuna] 10ndash;13 [lacuna] 8ndash;9 [lacuna] 14ndash;24. The stories summarized here begin on lOr and end on 9v.

25 Halil, Mükrimin, however, in an aside in Islâm ansiklopedisi, IV, 331, spoke of Uruj as having used the Anonymous Chronicles as the basis for his own work.Google Scholar

26 e.g. Urudsch, p. 14, 11. 16ndash;19 [O] = p. 88, 11. 23ndash;5 [C] (lacking at Anon., p. 13, 1. 16); p. 41, 11. 12ndash;15 [O] = p. 108, 11. 20ndash;1 [C] (lacking at Anon., p. 52, 1. 13).

27 For these chronological lists see Historians of the Middle East (cited in n. 19 above), 157ndash;9 (H. Inalcik) and 170ndash;2 (V. L. Ménage), and further V. L. Ménage, history of the Ottomans.…, London, 1964, 14ndash;16.

28 The first is at Urudsch, p. 45, 1. 19 [O] = p. 112, I. 1 [C] (sub anno 824), lacking at the corresponding point in Anon., p. 55, I. 13; the last is at p. 127, l. 10 [C] (sub anno 876), lacking at Anon., p. 113, 1. 22.

29 The MS consists of 102 fols., 14 x 10 cm. The main work in it, headed Āl-i ', consists of 89 fols. with 13 lines to the page, written in a small neat , fully vocalized. It is preceded by eight unnumbered fols., bound in later, of fragments (poems by Firāqī, Nejātī, Mesīḥī, and others); it is followed by a short work entitled K. Rāḥat al-insān, written in the same hand as the , and consisting of medical precepts and prescriptions. Nowhere in the MS does a date of copying appear.

The begins with a dībāje which agrees almost verbatim with that of the Cambridge MS of Uruj and, like C, contains no author's name. After the āmīn (Urudsch, p. 4, 1. 16 [O], cf. p. 80, 1. 14 [C]), the text begins, slightly differently from O and C but almost exactly as Type W3 of the Anon. (ed. Giese, p. 4, 1. 5), with the words: ḥikāyetde kim ' …. The historical account is brought down to 896/1491.

30 Thus there is no reference to Elvan Čelebi's menāqub and no digression on or on Umur Beg of Aydin; there is no regular mention of the viziers and the beylerbeys; is not called ‘the vizier of our time’; there are no verses; and the dream of is interpreted by Edebali, with only a passing mention, as in Anon., of 'Abdul'azīz.

31 The recension represented by the Edirne MS appears also in the fragments of a text bound in as the fifth and last section of the British Museum MS Add. 7870 (Rieu, CTM, 251b); the last page has survived, to show that the text ended, exactly as the Edirne MS, with the words Bayram namāzini Qosṭanṭiniyyede kilub olub elči girü gitmekde (the reference being to the conclusion of peace with Egypt at the end of 896/1491, cf. Anon., p. 125, 1. 26); there follows the date of copying, 1 Rajab 950/30 September 1543. The dībāje, if there was one, is lost, as are the pages recording the death of Murād II.

Also apparently belonging to this recension is MS E 50/643 of the Müze Kitapligi of Bursa, described by Muharrem Ergin in TDED, IV, 1ndash;2, 1950, 112ndash;13. It begins (without a dībāje) as Type W3 of Anon. (p. 4, 1. 5: ḥikāyetde …) and ends with the description of a fire in Bursa in 896 (cf. Anon., p. 125, 11. 24ndash;5), the penultimate event mentioned in the Edirne MS and the British Museum fragment.