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Ottoman Ego-Documents: State of the Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2021

Selim Karahasanoğlu
Selim Karahasanoğlu*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Istanbul Medeniyet University; and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Georg Forster Experienced Research Fellow, Institute of Turcology, Freie Universität Berlin
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: selim.karahasanoglu@medeniyet.edu.tr
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Extract

Research into ego-documents has being going on around the world for several decades, especially in continental Europe. The Dutch historian Jacques Presser, the inventor of the term, used “ego-document” to refer to materials such as diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, and personal letters. The term was first used in the English language by Peter Burke. Some groups of historians, such as the one in Berlin under the leadership of Claudia Ulbrich, prefer to use the term “self-narrative” instead. Kaspar von Greyerz, leader of the Basel team and a leading critic, considers the term “ego-document” an unfortunate one on account of its connotation of Sigmund Freud's concept of ego. He claims that early modern material does not reflect the inner psychological state of the writer but rather the formal, outward facade. Artificial periodization prevents us from understanding the nature and intellectual heritage of the human being. The question is, “What changed with the transition from premodern to modern when suddenly characters started to see themselves as historical figures worth talking about?”

Type
Roundtable
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 301 - 308
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Presser, Jacques, “Memorires als geschiedbron,” Winkler Prins Encyclopedie, cilt. 8 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1958), 208–10Google Scholar; quoted in Ego-Documents and History: Autobiographical Writing in Its Social Context since the Middle Ages, ed. Rudolf Dekker (Hilversum, Netherlands: Verloren, 2002), 17.

2 Burke, Peter, “Representations of the Self from Petrarch to Descartes,” in Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present, ed. Porter, Roy (London: Routledge, 1997), 21Google Scholar. See Dekker, Rudolf, “Jacques Presser's Heritage: Ego-Documents in the Study of History,” trans. van Werven, Diederik, Memoria y Civilization 5 (2002): 14Google Scholar.

3 Kaspar von Greyerz, “Ego-Documents: The Last Word?” German History 28: no. 3 (2010): 273–82. Von Greyerz suggests using “self-narrative” or “personal narrative.” R. Aslıhan Aksoy Sheridan suggests the exact opposite (see her contribution to this roundtable).

4 A recent discussion problematizing the category “early modern” and proposing emphasis on continuity instead is a positive development. See Virginia H. Aksan, Boğaç A. Ergene, and Antonis Hadjikyriacou, eds., “Chasing the Ottoman Early Modern,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 7, no. 1 (2020): 7–86. I do not know what Palmira Brummett means exactly by saying that the notion of “early modern” does not match self-narratives. See Palmira Brummett, “Marking Time on the Early Modern: Kings, Conquests, Commune, Continuum,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 7, no. 1 (2020): 14; Beshara Doumani, “Epilogue 2: The Limits of Knowledge Production as a Subversive Practice: The ‘Early Modern’ in Ottoman Studies,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 7, no. 1 (2020): 85. If she means that the medieval-early modern-modern periodization has little potential for an elaboration on the nature of ego-documents, I am in agreement.

5 Haluk Gökalp, Eski Türk Edebiyatında Manzum Sergüzeşt-Nameler (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2009), 604. For the list and descriptions of these nineteen sergüzeştnames written in verse, see 12–26. This is not the full list. New materials are being gradually revealed by researchers. One example is the Tuhfetü’l-İhvan by the Bosnian poet and author İntizami (d. after 1611). See Bosnalı İntizami, Tuhfetü’l-İhvan: XVI. Yüzyıldan Bir Katibin Sergüzeşti, ed. Cihan Okuyucu and Sadık Yazar (Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2020). Sergüzeştnames are not always in verse. I can cite two 16th-century examples written in prose. One, by Hacı Ahmed Efendi (d. after 1542), is full of dream records and contains his hajj journeys. See Hacı Ahmed Efendi, Sergüzeşt: 16. Yüzyılda Bir Otobiyografi ve Ravzatü’t-Tevhid: Zeynilik Tarihine Işık Tutan Sembolik Bir Eser (İnceleme-Metin-Tıpkıbasım), ed. Mertol Tulum (Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2014), 131–72. The second is Arz-ı Hal ü Sergüzeşt-i Gilani, written by poet Mahfi-i Gilani around 1557–58. See Gülşah Taşkın, “On Altıncı Yüzyıla Ait Otobiyografik Bir Eser: Arz-ı Hal ü Sergüzeşt-i Gilani,” Turkish Studies 8, no. 4 (2013): 1339–50.

6 See Erdal İnönü, Anılar ve Düşünceler, vol. 1 (Istanbul: İdea Yayınları, 1995); vol. 2 (Istanbul: Yorum Yayınları, 1998); and vol. 3 (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2001). I thank İsenbike Togan for bringing İnönü's memoirs to my attention, and showing that he mostly talks about the people around him rather than himself.

7 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Padişahın Toplumsal ve Siyasal Seçkinlerle Karşı Karşıya Gelen Sıradan Tebaası: Hikayelerini Ortaya Çıkarabilir miyiz?” in İmparatorluğun Öteki Yüzleri: Toplumsal Hiyerarşi ve Düzen Karşısında Sıradan Hayatlar, ed. Fırat Yaşa (Istanbul: KÜY, 2020), 13–49.

8 Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Personal Luther: Essays on the Reformer from a Cultural History Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 1 n1.

9 Kitabü’l-Menamat: Sultan III. Murad’ın Rüya Mektupları, ed. Özgen Felek (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2014).

10 A recent discovery presents the deep sorrow of a clerk, Yazıcı Mustafa, upon the death of his son Muhammad in 1720. See Mustafa Demir, “Sergüzeşt-i Aşık Yazıcı Murtaza (İnceleme-Metin)” (MA thesis, Hitit University, 2020), 19, 49–50, 56–69.

11 Winfried Schulze, “Ego-Dokumente: Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte? Vorüberlegungen für die Tagung ‘Ego-Dokumente,’” in Ego-Dokumente: Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte, ed. Winfried Schulze (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996), 11–30; quoted in von Greyerz, “Ego-Documents,” 279.

12 Suraiya Faroqhi considers Evliya's account to be an ego-document. See her “Padişahın Toplumsal,” 16. In the same way, Okuyucu and Yazar assert that travelers’ accounts are a subcategory of ego-documents, “the most common one.” See İntizami, Tuhfetü’l-İhvan, 28. Okuyucu and Yazar are generous enough to include embassy documents under this category. See İntizami, Tuhfetü’l-İhvan, 29.

13 Mine Mengi emphasizes how hard it is to discover Evliya's ego in his works. See Mine Mengi, “Seyahatnamenin Otobiyografi/Sergüzeşt-i Evliya Bölümleri,” Hikmet-Akademik Edebiyat Dergisi 2, no. 5 (2016): 87–95.

14 Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, vol. 1, ed. Orhan Şaik Gökyay (Istanbul: YKY, 1996); vol. 2, ed. Zekeriya Kurşun, Seyit Ali Kahraman, and Yücel Dağlı (1999); vols. 3–4, ed. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (1999–2001); vol. 5, ed. Seyit Ali Kahraman, Yücel Dağlı, and İbrahim Sezgin (2001); vols. 6–7, ed. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (2002–2003); vols. 8–10, ed. Seyit Ali Kahraman, Yücel Dağlı, and Robert Dankoff (2003–2007).

15 The “autobiographies” of the famous 16th-century architect Sinan (d. 1588) are an example. It is accepted that, even if they were not written by him, they were prepared under his direction or the narrative was dictated and taken down verbatim by a person such as his contemporary and friend Sai Mustafa Çelebi (d. 1595–96). See Uğur Tanyeli, Mimar Sinan: Tarihsel ve Muhayyel (Istanbul: Metis, 2020), 238–79. For the texts, see Sinan's Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth-Century Texts, Introductory Notes, Critical Editions and Translations, trans. Howard Crane and Esra Akın, ed. Gülrü Necipoğlu (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006).

16 İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “İlk Dönem Osmanlı İlim ve Kültür Hayatında İhvanu's-Safa ve Abdurrahman Bistami,” Divan: İlmi Araştırmalar 1, no. 2 (1996): 239; Yazıcı Murtaza, Arnavutluk'tan Basra'ya 18. Yüzyılda Kayserili Bir Katibin Seyahat Anıları, ed. Mehmet Yaşar Ertaş (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2020). Even though Ertaş calls this a travel memoir, the author himself called his text a mejmua (13). Kabudlu Mustafa Vasfi Efendi, Tevarih (Analysis-Text-Maps-Index-Facsimile), ed. Ömer Koçyiğit (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 2016).

17 Jan Schmidt, “The Adventures of an Ottoman Horseman: The Autobiography of Kabudlı Mustafa Vasfi Efendi, 1800–1825,” in The Joys of Philology: Studies in Ottoman Literature, History and Orientalism (1500–1923), vol. 1 (Istanbul: ISIS, 2002), 165–286.

18 Fikret Sarıcaoğlu, “Katib Çelebi'nin Otobiyografileri,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi 37 (2002): 302, 303, 306. For the translation of autobiography in Süllemü’l-Vüsul see also Orhan Şaik Gökyay, “Kendi Hal-Tercümesi,” in Katip Çelebi'den Seçmeler (Istanbul: Devlet Kitapları, 1968), 202–3; Houria Yekhlef, “Katip Çelebi ve Süllemü’l-Vusul'u” (PhD diss., Ankara University, 1996), 22–23. Gökyay also includes Fezleke and Keşf-üz-zunun, where his life and memoirs appear intermittently. See Orhan Şaik Gökyay, Katip Çelebi: Yaşamı, Kişiliği ve Yapıtlarından Seçmeler (Ankara: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1982), 1.

19 Mehmet İpşirli, “Osmanlı Vekāyiname Müelliflerinin Eserlerinde Kendileri Hakkında Verdikleri Bilgilerin Otobiyografik Değeri (XVI–XVII: Asırlara Ait Misaller),” in XVII. Türk Tarih Kongresi, vol. 4/1 (Ankara: TTK, 2018), 1–16.

20 Selim Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü: Sadreddinzade Telhisi Mustafa Efendi Günlüğü (1711–1735) Üstüne Bir İnceleme (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2013).

21 Great credit goes to the person who first discovers new material, but integrating it into the research literature is of great importance for the particular discovery to find the place it deserves. If an ego-document is not related to world literature, and if it is not treated as a valuable source itself, then it becomes merely a source of information and not a source that has the potential to reveal the voice of an individual. For such a publication, I cite Kemal Beydilli's Osmanlı Döneminde İmamlar ve Bir İmamın Günlüğü (Istanbul: Tarih ve Tabiat Vakfı, 2001).

22 Orhan Şaik Gökyay, “Sohbetname,” Tarih ve Toplum 14 (1985): 56–64; Cemal Kafadar, “Self and Others: The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century Istanbul and First-Person Narratives in Ottoman Literature,” Studia Islamica 69 (1989): 121–50.

23 Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, “Niyazi-i Mısri,” Şarkiyat Mecmuası 7 (1972): 183–226; Derin Terzioğlu “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Narratives and the Diary of Niyazi-i Misri (1618–94),” Studia Islamica 94 (2002): 139–65.

24 Fazıl Işıközlü, “Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivinde yeni bulunmuş olan ve Sadreddin Zade telhisi Mustafa Efendi tarafından tutulduğu anlaşılan H. 1123(1711)–1148(1735) yıllarına ait bir Ceride (Jurnal) ve Eklentisi,” in 7. Türk Tarih Kongresi: Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, vol. 2 (Ankara: TTK, 1973), 508–34.

25 Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü.

26 As he himself revealed his identity: “Macuncuzade abd-i fakir, Kadı-i Baf, Mustafa-yı fakir.” See Istanbul Hacı Selim Ağa Manuscript Library, Kemankeş, no. 234, 135a; İsmet Parmaksızoğlu, “Bir Türk Kadısının Esaret Hatıraları,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi 5, no. 8 (1953), 77–84. Fahir İz adapted the manuscript to printed Ottoman Turkish: Fahir İz, “Macuncuzade Mustafa'nın Malta Anıları: Sergüzeşt-i Esiri-i Malta,” in Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı: Belleten 1970 (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1971), 69–122. Cemil Çiftçi adapted the text to modern Turkish; see Macuncuzade Mustafa Efendi, Malta Esirleri: Ser-Güzeşt-i Esiri-i Malta, ed. Cemil Çiftçi (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 1996). For the original manuscript, see Istanbul Hacı Selim Ağa Manuscript Library, no. 234, 135a–162a. “Makale-i Zindancı Mahmud Kapudan” suffers from the same fate. Fahir İz seems to have had a certain interest in this kind of material, as he introduced another captivity narrative by freeman Yusuf and again adapted the original manuscript to Ottoman Turkish and had it printed. See Fahir İz, “Makale-i Zindancı Mahmud Kapudan,” Türkiyat Mecmuası 14 (1964): 111–50. Even though İz did not say much about this manuscript or try to define its genre, in subsequent literature it is cataloged among Ottoman captivity memoirs. This has to be taken cautiously. If freeman Yusuf is the narrator here and writes about somebody other than himself, in this case Zindancı Mahmud Kapudan, then this should not be treated as an ego-document. The narrative can be considered the story of Yusuf's own life from the time of his being kept in Alexandria due to severe weather conditions and afterward being conveyed to an island. After being released from the island by the coming of a corsair ship, Mahmud Kapudan appears and then Yusuf somehow becomes invisible. Moreover, another Yusuf, called slave Yusuf in the story, complicates everything. We do not know whether there is another Yusuf on the ship or whether, at some point in the narrative, Yusuf switches from first person to third. Of course, in the process of copying manuscripts the narrative may have undergone changes, and these points are hard to resolve. Yusuf's journey from Alexandria started in 1674, and the account we have today was copied in 1745. We cannot know at what points our copyist Süleyman bin Halil el-Giridi intervened and blurred certain details. Finally, this is not a standard captive's tale containing a master-slave narrative, but rather a corsair tale of the sea with a heavily fictive tone. Cemil Çiftçi adapted this text to modern Turkish: Yusuf Efendi, Mahmut Kaptan’ın Anıları, ed. Cemil Çiftçi (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 1996). For the original manuscript see Istanbul Köprülü Library, Hafız Ahmed Paşa, no. 214/2, 70a–108b.

27 Hacı Selim Ağa Library, Kemankeş, no. 234, 135a.

28 “Şilden Burnu” in Piri Reis's (d. 1553) Kitab-ı Bahriye. See Piri Reis, Kitab-ı Bahriye, ed. Bülent Özükan (Istanbul: Boyut, 2013), 330–1.

29 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Turc 223. The letter is between folios 61a and 71b in the manuscript entitled Recueil de traités sur la correspondance officielle. Halil Sahillioğlu, “Akdeniz'de Korsanlara Esir Düşen Abdi Çelebi'nin Mektubu,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi 13, no. 17–18 (1962–63): 241–56. Sahillioğlu presents a full, professional transcription of this material but there is more needed to place this material in the genre of captivity narrative.

30 İrvin Cemil Schick is not being fair when he says that non-Westerners did not produce captivity narratives because there was no audience in those countries and no printing press to feed such an audience. He confines himself to citing the works of Temeşvarlı and Macuncuzade. See Avrupalı Esireler ve Müslüman Efendileri: “Türk” İllerinde Esaret Anlatıları, ed. İrvin Cemil Schick (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2005), 9 n2. In 2005, several more captivity narratives were found, as elaborated in the present article.

31 Hindi Mahmud, Sergüzeştname-i Hindi Mahud: İnebahtı Gazisi Hindi Mahmud ve Esaret Hatıraları, Beyan Ola Cihanda Sergüzeştüm (İnceleme-Tıpkıbasım), ed. Ahmet Karataş (Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2013), 13–14.

32 Kafadar, “Self and Others,” 132–33. For a version of the entire text in Turkish using the Latin alphabet, see Belkıs Altuniş Gürsoy, “Siyasetname Hüviyetinde Bir Esaretname,” Erdem 60 (2011): 77–141.

33 Aslı Niyazioğlu, Dreams and Lives in Ottoman Istanbul: A Seventeenth-Century Biographer's Perspective (London: Routledge, 2017).

34 See footnote 9.

35 Al-Hallaq Ahmad al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-Yawmiyya, 1154–1175, ed. Ahmad ʿIzzat ʿAbd al-Karim (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Jamʿiya al-Misriyya li-l-Dirasat al-Tarikhiyya, 1959); Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). Long before the publication her book, Sajdi introduced the original manuscript from Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. See Dana Sajdi, “A Room of His Own: The ‘History’ of the Barber of Damascus (fl. 1762),” MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (2003).

36 My talks with Derin Terzioğlu in Berlin in 2016–17 helped shape my ideas, especially as to whether the material was a genre or even multiple genres in Ottoman literature.

37 Sarıcaoğlu, “Katib Çelebi'nin Otobiyografileri,” 298–99; Orhan Şaik Gökyay, “Katip Çelebi: Hayatı-Şahsiyeti-Eserleri,” in Katip Çelebi: Hayatı ve Eserleri Hakkında İncelemeler (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1991), 3. For Süyuti's autobiography see Dwight F. Reynolds, ed., Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), 202–7. For Katip Çelebi taking Süyuti as a model, see Sarıcaoğlu, “Katib Çelebi'nin Otobiyografileri,” 299 n6.

38 For this justification, see Sarıcaoğlu, “Katib Çelebi'nin Otobiyografileri,” 302.

39 Vildan Serdaroğlu Coşkun, “Sergüzeştüm Güzel Hikayetdür”: Zaifi'nin Sergüzeştame'si, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: İSAM Yayınları, 2013), 18. Writers seemed to need to emphasize that they did not aim for self-praise when sharing experiences of their life journeys. See `Ali Öztürk, “Bir Sufi Otobiyografisi: Şah Veli Ayıntabi'nin (v. 1013/1605[?]) er-Rıhletü's-Seniyye'si,” Dinbilimleri Akademik Araştırma Dergisi 20, no. 2 (2020): 696.

40 Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, Imam Hafız Mehmed Efendi also described his diary as a ceride. See Beydilli, Osmanlı Döneminde İmamlar.

41 Zilfi, Madeline C., “The Diary of a Müderris: A New Source for Ottoman Biography,” Journal of Turkish Studies 1 (1977): 157–74Google Scholar.

42 Semra Çörekçi, “A Methodological Approach to Early Modern Self-Narratives: Representations of the Self in an Ottoman Context (1720s–1820s)” (PhD diss., Istanbul Medeniyet University, forthcoming). Çörekçi is working on a number of brand new sources. For her take on the understudied dream book of Kulakzade Mahmud Pasha (d. 1745), chief administrative official (mutasarrıf) for Awlonya (Vlorë), see her contribution to this roundtable. This source has been cited previously in several publications but without the author identified.

43 Öztürkçü, İbrahim, İbnülemin'in Rüyaları (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2018)Google Scholar.

44 Türkiye Diyanet Foundation, Centre for Islamic Studies, Orhan Şaik Gökyay Evrakı, OŞG-1: Gökyay'ın Otobiyografisinin Yer Aldığı Defterler ve Belgeler (1930).

45 Ersoy, Osman, XVIII. ve XIX. Yüzyıllarda Türkiye'de Kağıt (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1963), 31–36Google Scholar.