CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Demirel, Ahmet |
|---|---|
| Title | Career Trajectories of Ottoman Pashas of Buda: Networks of Power, Factionalism, and the Politics of Ethnic???Regional Solidarity |
| Summary | Focusing on the career trajectories of the Ottoman governors-general of Buda and the concept of ethnic–regional (cins) solidarity, this thesis attempts to understand how the Ottoman Empire governed its provinces and its ruling elite. This study takes a broad perspective on Ottoman administration, integrating the empire’s conception of governance, political patronage, prosopography, and social network analysis. It positions Buda as both a provincial post and one tied directly to central decision-making, vital for both war and peace. This thesis seeks to understand how the Ottoman ruling elite built power and advanced their careers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Examining Buda helps answer key questions: What were the career paths of its governors-general? Did the career trajectories change during wartime? How did powerful factions, such as the Bosnian Sokolovićs and Albanian Köprülüs, affect the decisions on who was to go to Buda through ethnic or regional affiliations? Did the Ottoman state follow a systematic appointment pattern, or did political shifts in Istanbul and/or Ottoman Hungary affect patterns? To address these questions, this thesis uses prosopography and social network analysis (SNA), with data visualizations generated through UCINET and NetDraw. A closer examination of the career paths of the individuals who governed Buda in the late sixteenth century offers valuable insight into the factional rivalries and elite power struggles that shaped the Ottoman imperial system. Through the lens of this key borderland post, this thesis explores the rise of the Bosnian Sokollu faction and its consolidation of influence through the concept of ethnic–regional solidarity, as well as its confrontation with a competing Albanian faction led by Koca Sinan Pasha. These rivalries, rooted in shared regional, linguistic, and political affinities, reveal the deeper dynamics of patronage, solidarity, and competition that structured Ottoman elite politics during this period. |
| Supervisor | Radway, Robyn Dora; Krstić, Tijana. |
| Department | Historical Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/demirel_ahmet.pdf |
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