Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

dominant Ottoman state in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Timur even
divided what might be called the "core lands" of the Ottoman family among
Bayezid's sons. Ottoman historical consciousness was probably moving toward
literary expression already under Bayezid , when the polity started to outgrow
its frontier identity and to acquire, much more systematically and
self-consciously than before, modes of governing and ideologies associated with
the nonfrontier civilization. The earliest redaction of Ahmedi's chronicle seems
to have been written before the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis (Nigbolu ) .[98] It may
be around those years that his brother, Hamzavi , composed a collection of tales
of Hamza q from the existing lore about that hero of Islam, the uncle of the
Prophet.[99]
Whatever the precise dating of these early attempts turns out to be, there can
be no doubt that historical writing came into its own among Turcophone
Anatolians in the fifteenth century. In addition to the sizable body of
literature on the Ottomans themselves, to which we shall turn our attention
shortly, many "classics" of the long adventure that saw Muslims settle in and
then overpower Asia Minor — the vitae of Sari Saltuk and Haci Bektas , the gests
of Seyyid Battal Gaza and Gazi Umur Beg — were written down in this century. The
history of the Seljuks was rendered into Turkish for the first time by
Yazicizade , who appended to his largely translated work some original material
on the principalities and the Oguz traditions.[100] He even referred to the main
epic of the Oguz people, the tales of Dede Korkut, which also was given its
written version at around the same time, in a separate book that included
ancient Inner Asian lore along with the somewhat more "historical" gaza
adventures of the Türkmen in northeastern Anatolia.[101] All of these works were
written under different circumstances of course; not all were produced for the
Ottomans or even in the Ottoman realm. The Akkoyunlu dynasty, too, the main
rivals of the Ottomans in the east between the heyday of the Karamanids and the
rise of the Safavids, had their story written down under Uzun Hasan (r.
1466-78).[102] More-focused studies of patronage and composition are needed to
assess the meanings and
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interrelationships of these works. It should be clear, however, that the
impressive historiographic output of the Ottomans in the fifteenth century must
be seen in the larger context of transformations in the historical consciousness
of Turco-Muslim Anatolians.
These transformations were undoubtedly related to the maturing identification of
Turks, "real" or newly made, with the history and geography of the region as it
was refashioned in the late medieval era. There were also claims to be made,
rivalries to be sorted out, and hegemonies to be confirmed and legitimized. All
this must also be related, on the one hand, to the transition from oral to
written culture in certain circles and, on the other, to a series of complex
ideological experiments in response to unprecedented political problems starting
with an identity and confidence crisis following the Timurid debacle. Numerous
signs point to the emergence of a new historical consciousness among the
Ottomans as the dust began to settle after Timur's violent intrusion and the
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