Becoming Ottoman: Converts, Renegades and Competing Loyalties in the Early Modern and Modern Ages

This book examines the role of Europeans who settled in the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries and assumed “Ottoman identity”, be it by way of conversion to Islam and assimilating to the host society or by becoming loyal servants or subjects of the Ottoman state, identifying themselves as Ottomans, but retaining their faith. Bringing together a variety of case studies that reflect a broad range of individual experiences in changing historical circumstances, the book provides a detailed study of the process of Ottomanization. The book draws upon a variety of archival and other sources such as travelogues, diaries and folk epics, including lesser known examples, from early-modern Czech, Venetian and Wallachian views of converts, to case studies of 19th century British, German and Austrians who switched loyalty. They show that this process depended on a range of factors, from conversion, to integration into the culture of the ruling elites, fluency in the language, affiliation through family ties or marriage, and, most importantly, social status and professional rank. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Figures Contributors Introduction Part I Sixteenth to eighteenth centuries 1 Becoming Ottoman in the central European borderlands (Robyn Dora Radway) 2 A comparative study of renegades of German origin1 (János Szabados) 3 ‘I was honoured by the glory of Islam’: The conversion of a Dominican friar in the Ottoman capital (Vanessa R. de Obaldía 4 In search of a Polish layer under the Ottoman identity of Albert Bobowski alias Ali Ufkî. From being a ‘Polish captive’ to becoming an in-between 5 The man who marked the end of an era: Dimitrie Cantemir’s story from trusted Ottoman ally to traitorous rebel 6 Tempted by the ‘Turkish religion’: Converts, renegades and Turks in the account of a late sixteenth-century Czech Protestant member of the Habsburg embassy in Istanbul Part II Nineteenth century 7 Traitor, symbol, modernizer: The metamorphoses of the renegade in nineteenth-century Hungary1 (Heléna Tóth ) 8 Pragmatic allegiance: The conversion case of the political agent Michal Czajkowski1 (Aleksandar Zlatanov) 9 To abandon one’s homeland, name and religion: Germans becoming Muslims in the late Ottoman Empire (Yavuz Köse) 10 Multiple citizenship at work: aspects of legal, professional and intellectual affiliation of Andreas David Mordtmann in the 11 De-Ottomanization by Protestantization in the long nineteenth century: Mullah Mu.ammed Sükri Efendi becomes Pastor Joh Index