CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Bilaloglu, Ahmet |
|---|---|
| Title | The Ottomans in the Early Enlightenment: The Case of Public Libraries in the Reign of Mahmud I (1730-54) |
| Summary | The thesis explores cultural politics in the Ottoman Empire from 1718 to 1754 by focusing on the patronage activities of a select group of bureaucrats/intellectuals whose careers spanned the reigns of two early eighteenth-century sultans, Ahmed III (1703-30) and Mahmud I (1730-54). It attempts to locate cultural production in the Ottoman Empire within a broader framework of early modern history and re-evaluate the ideologically-loaded concepts that have marked Ottomanist historiography on the period, such as “the Tulip Age,” “westernization” or “modernization.” In doing so, it attempts to answer some challenging questions such as whether it is purely coincidental that the Ottoman network of actors discussed in this thesis invested tremendous time and material into cultural enterprises such as the introduction of the printing press, establishment a productive paper mill in Yalova and founding of multiple vaḳıf (religious endowment) libraries not only in Istanbul but also in Anatolia and Rumelia at the very same time that their European counterparts engaged in similar types of enterprises that are celebrated in European historiography as the Enlightenment. It also asks whether it is possible to dismiss such developments simply as reflections of the personal tastes of the two bibliophile sultans, Ahmed III and Mahmud I, who on several occasions issued imperial decrees about the importance of establishing libraries all around the Empire. Rather, it was the cultural production and personal resources of this network that remained one of the constants in a period of political turmoil that even resulted in the dethronement of Ahmed III. |
| Supervisor | Esmer, Tolga; Al-Bagdadi, Nadia |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/bilaloglu_ahmet.pdf |
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