TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

of a first-hand observer. Therefore, in many cases he provides valuable unique details of
events, which is absent in other sources. So, keeping in mind the fact that he was part of
the ‘Ottoman regime’, thus has a heavy bias and pejorative attitude towards qizilbashes,
Kemalpaşazāde’s three works are probably the most informative and certainly among
the most valuable primary sources for the subject of the present thesis.
Kemalpaşazāde finished the eighth volume of his Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman 51
(KPZ8a), which comprises the reign of Bayezid II until the early months of the year
1511, during the last years of Bayezid II, most probably in 1511. 52 Being finished before
Selim I’s ascendance, Defter VIII of Kemalpaşazāde holds a peculiar position among the
Ottoman chronicles, which had been written under Selim I or his son Süleyman I.
Although Kemalpaşazāde’s usual pejorative-biased attitude regarding the qizilbash
affairs are equally echoed in this chronicle as well, Defter VIII’s account on Prince
Selim as the governor of Trabzon fundamentally differs from the retrospective
treatments of other Selim-nāme authors – and from Kemalpaşazāde’s own later works as
well. Defter VIII also provides valuable knowledge concerning the Ottoman response to
the rise of Shah Ismail from the year 1500 on and the activities of qizilbashes in
Anatolia before 1511.
Kemalpaşazāde completed Defter VIII with an addendum 53 written during the
reign of Süleyman I 54 and comprising the events from the year 1508 to the accession of
51
Kemalpaşazāde’s Defter VIII is published by Ahmet Uğur. See Kemalpaşazâde, Tevârih-i Al-i Osman,
VIII. Defter, ed. Ahmet Uğur, Ankara: TTK, 1997.
52
See Ahmet Uğur, “Kemal Paşa-zāde ve Sekizinci Defter”, in Kemalpaşazâde, Tevârih-i Al-i Osman,
VIII. Defter, p. XXIX.
53
This addendum is published by Ahmet Uğur. See Ahmet Uğur, The Reign of Sultan Selim I in the Light
of the Selim-nâme Literature, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985, pp. 28-64.
54
As Ahmet Uğur determines, Selim is mentioned in the text as merhum or deceased while Suleyman is
mentioned as the sultan of our time. See Ahmet Uğur, “Selim-nāmes”, in his The Reign of Sultan Selim I
in the Light of the Selim-nâme Literature, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985, p. 23.
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