Five Osmans : the Ottoman crisis of 1622 in early seventeenth-century literature / Irena Ajdinović

• VerfasserIn: Ajdinović, Irena
• Place / Publishing House: Istanbul : The Isis Press, 2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: First edition
• Language: English
• Classification: 17.71 - Literaturgeschichte; 15.68 - Türkei
• Physical Description: 168 Seiten; Illustrationen, Karte; 24 cm
• Notes: Enthält Literaturverzeichnis auf Seite [155]-165

In my dissertation I explore the early seventeenth-century literary representations of the 1622 Janissary uprising against Sultan Osman II (1618-1622). The young Ottoman sultan lost his life during this rebellion, and news of his death caused a sensation both in the Ottoman Empire and in the West. It also inspired works of poetry, five of which are still preserved today.: The five Osmans. These include three tragic plays, one epic, and a rhymed chronicle. My dissertation presents a comparative investigation of these literary texts. More specifically, I have examined the distinction between the texts originating from the regions with little direct contact with the Ottoman world; those on the Ottoman border; and an Ottoman text itself. I have identified similar representation mechanisms of the contemporary historical events throughout these texts. I have found that ethnic/religious and political stereotyping are highly interrelated across the five Osmans. Osman II, and other protagonists of the rebellion, are construed in the texts through “double attribution”: as political figures on the one hand, and as the heads of the Ottoman Empire on the other. In general, certain political roles are criticized because of an association with ethnic and/or religious identities, while, at the same time, the reader could identify with other political roles within the same identities. To conclude, the contemporary literature about the Istanbul crisis of 1622 reveals a complicated attitude, rather than a clear-cut bias, toward the Ottoman power structures.