Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

― 31 ―
son thought so highly of Richard Knolles (1550?-1610) as to call him "the first
of historians; even though the good doctor was quick to add that the historian
was "unhappy ... in the choice of his subject: To explain the "beginning,
progresse, and perpetuall felicity of this the Othoman Empire," Knolles referred
to
such a rare unitie and agreement amongst them, as well in the manner of their
Religion (if it be so to bee called) as in matters concerning their State
(especially in all their enterprises to be taken in hand for the augmenting of
their Empire) as that thereof they call themselves Islami, that is to say Men
of one minde, or at peace amongst themselves; so that it is not to bee
marvelled, if thereby they grow strong themselves, and dreadfull unto others.
Joyne unto this their courage, ... their frugalitie and temperatenesse in
their dyer and other manner of living; their carefull observing of their
antient Military Discipline; their cheerefull and almost incredible obedience
unto their Princes and Sultans .... Whereunto may bee added the two strongest
sin-ewes of every well governed Commonwealth; Reward propounded to the good,
and Punishment threatened unto the offender; where the prize is for vertue and
valour set up, and the way laid open for every common person, be he never so
meanly borne, to aspire unto the greatest honours and preferments both of the
Court and of the Field.[3]
Whatever the value of Knolles's explanations, however, they are dearly not
targeted at the earlier phase of Ottoman history, or at the formative stages of
the state, as such. This is also true of the more theoretical discourse on
comparative political systems undertaken by various Renaissance European
authors, such as Machiavelli and Jean Bodin, whose works must have been read by
some of the authors of the abundant European historical literature on the
Ottomans. It was in fact none other than Knolles who translated Bodin's De la
legislation, ou Du gouvernement politique des empires into English just before
writing his history of the Ottomans.[4] Like Knolles, the writers of comparative
politics analyzed the strengths of the Ottoman system as it stood after the
process of imperial construction but were not interested in that process itself.
Nor is there anything specifically Ottoman in Knolles's account; all of the
"factors" mentioned by him might apply to any of the Turco-Muslim polities the
Ottomans competed with. Knolles was explaining the success not of the Ottomans
in particular but of the "Turk" — a designation that was more or less synonymous
with "Ottoman" and often also with "Muslim" among the Europeans of his age.
Besides, as impressive as Knolles's precociously analytical attitude may be, it
is submerged in hundreds of pages of traditional histoire événementielle.
This is also true for the most comprehensive and monumental narra-
― 32 ―
tive of Ottoman history ever written, Die Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches by
the Viennese historian Joseph yon Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856), who represents
the culmination of that tradition.[5] And it is true, though there are more than
glimpses of a new historiography here, even for Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), the
Rumanian medievalist, whose neglected history of the Ottoman Empire is, on the
33