Travellers in Ottoman Lands II

This volume has a special focus on the Ottoman Balkans and Anatolia as seen and described by travellers from both within and outside the region. 26 papers shed valuable light on the topics of Christian-Muslim and East-West relations, and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to successor nation-states in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The twenty-six chapters of this volume have their origins in a three-day seminar organised by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) in conjunction with the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo, with additional support from Cornucopia magazine. This multi-disciplinary event attracted a wide range of participants from around the world, including Europe, the United States of America, the Balkans, Turkiye and other parts of the Middle East. This volume has a special focus on the Balkans and Anatolia, as seen and described by travellers from both within and outside the region. Much still remains to be learned about travellers in the Ottoman Balkans, who can shed valuable light on the topics of Christian-Muslim and East-West relations, and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to successor nation-states in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapters cover a variety of subjects, with sections on landscapes; religion and travel; European travellers from merchants to kings; fantasies, images and folktales; and imperial discourse, the rise of nations, and reportage. Contributors to the book are specialists from a range of academic disciplines, who draw on a wide selection of theoretical perspectives and research methodologies.

Preface: Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo – Aid Smajić

An Introduction to Travellers in Ottoman Lands II: the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond – Paul and Janet Starkey

Part 1: Landscapes

1 ‘The khans of Bosnia are large barns’? A material approach to mobility in Ottoman Bosnia from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century – Vincent Thérouin

2 Eco-Narrative of the Balkans in the sixteenth-century chronicle Hasht Bihisht, by Idrīs Bidlīsī – Sabaheta Gačanin

3 Representation of rivers in travel literature in the German language on late Ottoman Bosnia – Nedim Rabić and Amer Maslo

4 Counting the Ottoman Capital: Auguste Viquesnel’s Voyage dans la Turquie d’Europe and travel writing as a quantitative source – Burak Beşir Fındıklı

5 Travellers’ Narratives on the Ottoman House: filling the missing links in the evolution of structure and form – İbrahim Canbulat

Part 2: Religion and Travel

6 The Mystical Aspect of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s Travels: the spiritual visions that shaped Ibn

Baṭṭūṭa’s path – Ibrahim Al-Khaffaf

7 Mobility among Ottoman ʿulamāʾ: Mudarris Ḍiyāʾ al-dīn ʿAbdullah b. Muḥammad al-Akhiskhāwī in Sarajevo – Velida Mataradžija

8 Foreign travel writers’ perceptions of religious orders in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the long nineteenth century – Omer Merzić and Vedrana Šimić

9 The ‘Millet-system’ to the test: religious freedom, tolerance and coexistence in nineteenth-century Ottoman Bosnia as revealed in Arthur J. Evans’s 1875 travelogue Through Bosnia and Herzegovina on foot – Ines Aščerić-Todd

Part 3: Travellers from Diplomats, Merchants and Physicians, to Photographers, Botanists and Kings

10 Descriptions and images of women in the Ottoman Balkans in sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Netherlandish travelogues – Maja Perić

11 On Departing the Ottoman Empire; the return of Peter Mundy (1597–c. 1667) from Constantinople through the Balkans to London in 1620 – Jennifer Scarce

12 Mixing Western and Eastern medical practice in the Ottoman Empire: the adventures of a Transylvanian doctor in Constantinople, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq (1815–1838) – Alexandru Balas

13 The Journey of His Majesty King Friedrich August of Saxony through Istria, Dalmatia and Montenegro in the spring of 1838 with Bartolomeo Biasoletto – Kristina Milković

14 Girault de Prangey and his connection to Lamartine’s Anatolian Colonisation Project – Anastasia Uskova†

Part 4: Fantasies, Images and Folktales

15 Mermen, revenants, unicorns: fantastic creatures in Western travel writing on the Ottoman Empire – Doris Gruber

16 Fair Boys and Wicked Ladies: peoples of the Balkans in the work of Enderunlu Fazıl Bey – Michael Erdman

17 En plein air: three artist-writers and their travelling companions in Rumelia – Janet Starkey

18 Imagological models of Bosnia in pictures and words: Heinrich Renner’s travelogue Durch Bosnien und die Herzegovina, Kreuz und Quer [‘Criss-cross through Bosnia and Herzegovina’] (1896) – Aida Abadžić Hodžić

19 An American, a Scot, and an Irishman at a Turkish coffeehouse: Tales recounted in Ottoman coffeehouses introduced to the Western World – Melike Tokay

20 ‘The Hero’s Journey’ out from Under The Yoke – Gemma Masson

Part 5: Imperial Discourse, the Rise of Nations, and Rapportage

21 Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer – Christina Erck

22 Edith Durham: Balkan Traveller, Anthropologist, and ‘Mountain Queen’ – Paul Starkey

23 Backwardness and Otherness: Ahmed Şerif’s Description of the Ottoman Provinces (1909–1914) and the Question of Ottoman Orientalism – Patrick Schilling

24 The Ottoman Empire and Italian imperial discourse: How Ottoman rule in Albania was represented in Italian literature to legitimate its imperial ambitions – Pietro Dalmazzo

25 The Balkan nations in the Italian Travelogue Mirror: a contribution to the study of reportage (1774–1922) – Konstantin Dragaš

26 Travelogues published in Bosanska Sumejja: magazin za žene i porodicu from 2000 to 2022 – Azra Hasanović

Papers read at the Seminar ‘Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond’ held at of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, on 24-26 August 2022

Contributors

Index

• Edited by Ines Asceric-Todd
• Edited by Aid Smajić
• Edited by Janet Starkey
• Edited by Paul Starkey