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Article ID: CBB043544269

To Observe, to Record, to Depict: Memorializing the Circumcision of an Ottoman Prince, C. 1582–C. 1600 (2019)

Şahi̇n, Kaya (Author)

History and Theory
Volume: 58
Issue: 4
Pages: 43-67
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

DOI: 10.1111/hith.12135

URI: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hith.12135

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A circumcision celebration in the summer of 1582, organized by the Ottoman ruler Murād III (r. 1574–1595) for his son Meḥmed, is one of the most extensively recorded events in early modern Ottoman history. Contemporary and near-contemporary testimonies include archival sources, odes, event-based narratives, illustrated accounts, passages in regnal and universal histories, and several descriptions by European observers. The celebration occurred amid tensions fueled by ongoing warfare, rising prices, elite factionalism, and apocalyptic anxieties. It also coincided with a time of exceptional cultural productivity at the Ottoman palace and among the Ottoman literati. This article discusses the celebration's treatment in event-based narratives, illustrated accounts, and regnal and universal histories from the period, to emphasize the multiplicity of approaches to the writing and recording of history. Ottoman works of a historical nature defy easy categorizations such as official history or court history; they also blur compartmentalized notions of history, art history, and literature that emerged in the nineteenth century. Ottoman historical writing, like any other historical tradition, was closer to a meeting ground, where authors and patrons gathered and competed, than a common ground where consent and hegemony were supposedly produced. Authorial agency was crucial in creating demand, fostering competition, and building reputation; moreover, authors and patrons had to negotiate a multiplicity of languages, linguistic registers, styles, and techniques, some of which had been bequeathed by past generations, whereas others had been invented or reinvented recently.

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