MA MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES THESIS 2021 THOMAS STEIN

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Thomas Stein

S2984520

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MA MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES University, Faculty of Humanities 30th June 2021

Course Code: 5854VTMES Number of EC: 20 20 932 words Supervisor: Dr Hans Theunissen Contents:

INTRODUCTION 2

CHAPTER 1: MAPPING OUT STRUCTURES 11

CHAPTER 2: MEETING THE STRUCTURES 19

CHAPTER 3: FINDING THE STRUCTURES 24

CONCLUSION 36

BIBLIOGRAPHY 39

1 Introduction

In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt. The invasion ended in September of 1801 with the capitulation of the French administration in Egypt. Geographically speaking, the direct effects of the invasion were minimal, since the French withdrew after three years without acquiring any permanent additions to the Empire. However, the French invasion force was accompanied by a group of scientists whose research is believed to have been influential, contrary to the French military incursion. These scientists wrote down almost everything they saw in the at that moment to them still largely unknown lands. The major scientific breakthrough for the Europeans in Egypt was made possible not by a scientist, however, but by a soldier. In July of 1799 a French officer named Pierre-François Bouchard (1771-1822) stumbled upon a stone when he was working on the foundation of a fort near the Egyptian town Rashid (Rosetta).1 After the French defeat in Egypt, the stone became British possession under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801). The stone, which is still on display in the British Museum, is inscribed in three languages with a decree of king Ptolemy V (r. 204-181 BC). The importance of the discovery of the stone lies in the fact that it was inscribed in Ancient Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphic writing. This fact helped Thomas Young (1773-1829) and Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, a major step towards learning more about ancient Egypt. The Napoleonic invasion of Egypt is often seen as the starting sign of European academic interest in the . Earlier European interest in the Middle East is often said to be only theological in nature.2 Franz Babinger (1891-1967) also claims that ‘Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt started the westernization’3. With this, Babinger means that the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon started an exchange in ideas between Europe and the Middle East which resulted in the Middle East copying many ‘western’ cultural elements. This process Babinger calls ‘westernization’. This thesis further researches the first notion put forward by Babinger. Namely that the 1798 invasion started the European non-theological academic interest in the Middle East. I will look at one of the earlier European scholars on the Middle East, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856), and at the influence of earlier work in the field of Middle Eastern studies on the rise of Middle Eastern studies after 1798. Another influence which is, according to me, a factor in the rise of Middle Eastern studies after 1798 is the emergence of historicism in the field of humanities.4 Historicism provided a new way of looking at history throughout the humanities. Its goal within the field of history was to provide a more ‘objective’ view of the past, or as Leopold von Ranke put it: ‘Only say how it actually was’5. To get a good view of what is and what is not new in the field in which I am navigating this thesis, I will first give an overview of the literature which has been written on the subject. This literature review will be divided into three parts, the first part dealing with the rise of Middle Eastern studies after 1798, the second part dealing with the emergence of historicism and the third part dealing with the earlier work done by European translators in the Middle East.

1 “Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone” British Museum, accessed April 12, 2021, https://blog.britishmuseum.org/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-rosetta-stone/. 2 Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber Der Osmanen und Ihre Werke, ( 1927), 198. 3 Ibidem 198, translation by author. 4 Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, ‘Romanticism: Breaking the Canon’, Art Journal 52, no. 2 (Summer 1993) 18-21, there 18. 5 Leopold von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker: von 1494 bis 1535 ( 1824), IV.

2 Literature review

The development of the fields of which the Middle Eastern studies are comprised have been studied a lot, but these works are mostly dedicated to a single field, like the development of the study of the language. Most of the works dedicated to the development of the field are confined to the study of a single language or area within the Middle East. Since the central question of this thesis deals with the development of Middle Eastern studies as a whole, I will be using works from various fields in the literature review. All of these works deal with the development of these fields. The focus of the thesis itself will be on a western historian who writes on the history of the . I have chosen to do this because the research in the thesis would otherwise become too broad. I will be analyzing the works in chronological order of publication in order to show the developments in the literature over the last hundred years. The first work I want to discuss is Die Türkischen Studien in Europa bis zum auftreten Josef von Hammer-Purgstalls by Franz Babinger.6 It is an article from 1919, published in the renowned German magazine on the Middle East, Welt des Islams. Babinger gives an overview of the development of the study of the within the German-speaking world. His overview starts with Hans Schiltberger, at the end of the fourteenth century, and ends with Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Babinger manages to give a comprehensive overview of the development of the study of the Turkish language in 27 pages. The conclusion of the article is that the interest in the Turkish language as a subject of study was mostly due to the necessity of translators which spoke Turkish in Europe. He sees that this eventually develops into a field of study, equal to the fields of Arabic and Persian studies. An important factor for him in this process is the work written by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Von Hammer-Purgstall ensures, according to Babinger, that the study of Turkish in Europe is able to shake off the shackles of the theology. It becomes a field of study in which the researcher should do his research without the eventual theological implications in mind. The second work I want to discuss is Die Arabischen Studien in Europa bis den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts by Johann Fück (1894-1974). 7 The book was published in 1955 and attempts to give an overview of the development of the study of Arabic until the turn of the twentieth century. It gives an incredibly detailed overview of the developments of the study of Arab texts in the German-speaking world. Fück works very systematically, explaining larger developments in the study humanities and following the explanation of these developments, he gives examples within the works of individual writers and professors. Fück states that, during the 17th century, most of the German research into the Middle East was theological in nature.8 This claim is grounded in the same belief as the aforementioned statement that Orientalism until 1798 was mostly theological in nature. He reenforces this statement by introducing , a Dutch theologist, in his chapter on Orientalism during the Enlightenment.9 The Enlightenment is seen as a period in which most sciences tried to free themselves from the shackles of religion which bound them to a dogmatic worldview. Fück believes that Orientalism underwent this same transformation, but it took more time for the field to grow. Fück credits (1716-1774) for this development. According to Fück, he was the first German speaking Arabist who tried to look at the Arab texts like ‘a spectator in the theatre’.10 Fück sees the same development in the Arabic studies as Babinger sees in the Turkish studies, but he sees that it is happening earlier, already in the 18th century.

6 Franz Babinger, ‘Die türkischen Studien in Europa bis zum Auftreten Josef von Hammer-Purgstalls’, Die Welt des Islams 7 (Dec. 31, 1919) 4, 103-129. 7 Johann Fück, Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig 1955). 8 Ibidem 90. 9 Ibidem 105 10 Ibidem 123, translation by author.

3 The third work I want to review is Orientalism by Edward Said (1935-2003).11 Writing about the Middle East without naming this groundbreaking 1978 work by Edward Wadie Said has become almost impossible. The publication has sent shockwaves throughout the field of Middle Eastern studies. This is because his work laid bare a broad issue within the academic world of Middle Eastern studies. Said analyzes academic and non-academic works from France and England. The main theory put forward by Said is that the power-relations between Europe and the Middle East, which had shifted in favor of Europe in the twentieth century, influenced the way people thought about the Middle East. Said sees this same unintentional playing out of power-relations in the European academic works on the Middle East. A crucial factor within this theory is, according to Said, that a nation had colonies in the Middle East. Only then the power-relations could really have an effect. This meant that Said did not include German literary works in his analysis. This is one of the most-heard criticisms on his work. The fourth work I want to review is Europe and the Middle East by Albert Hourani.12 It is a collection of essays published in 1980, but the essay which is of specific importance to this thesis is the essay The Present State of Islamic and Middle Eastern Historiography which was completed in 1974. Hourani writes on the state of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies in Europe and the Middle East itself. The main conclusion of the essay is that in order for the fields to grow, a lot of work needs to be done to uncover more sources and make them accessible to the general public. Hourani mentions that, at the time of writing, the professional study of Islamic history goes back only two generations. He then elaborates on this, by stating that the field of Islamic studies in the 19th century was centered around the ‘science of religion’.13 The field of Islamic studies and specifically Islamic history is a part of Middle Eastern studies, and researchers of the Middle East have done earlier research into the history of the Islam. Hourani’s notion of a religiously dominated Islamic history, written by European historians, in the 19th century stands in sharp contrast to the notions put forward by Fück and Babinger. Hourani sees a later shift from religiously focused research on the Middle East than Fück and Babinger see. This could very well be because of the publication by Said since this had made people studying the Middle East more aware of the power-relations at play within the academic world. The last publication I want to analyze is the book German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship by Suzanne Marchand.14 The book was published in 2010 and analyzes the development of Middle Eastern studies in the German world. The book places itself in the gap left by Edward Said in his earlier discussed work, Orientalism.15 Edward Said left out the German scholars in his analysis because he thought that they were not influential enough and the fact that they did not have colonies in the Middle East meant that the power-relation central to his argumentation was not there. Marchand argues that the German- speaking scholars were influential in the field of Middle Eastern studies and that their works should be taken into account.16 Her analysis of the German works is comprehensive, giving an overview of German literature on the Middle East in different eras. On the first page of the book, she explains that German ‘orientalism’ was fueled mostly by religion, or in her own words: I have been forced to conclude that German orientalism – defined as the serious and sustained study of the cultures of Asia – was not a product of the modern, imperial age, but something much older, richer and stranger, something enduringly shaped by the

11 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978). 12 Albert Hourani, Europe and the Middle East (Oakland, 1980). 13 Ibidem 162. 14 Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, Religion, Race, and Scholarship (Cambridge, 2010). 15 Edward Said, Orientalism. 16 Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire 1.

4 longing to hear God’s word, to understand the meaning of his revelation and to propagate (Christian) truths as one understood them.17 Her opinion on the development of Middle Eastern studies is, much like Hourani’s, that the field took a long time to free itself from religious pressures. The texts above give a short overview of the literature on the development of Orientalism and the developments within this literature. As can be seen in the literature review, the opinion on the hold of the religious yoke on the field of Middle Eastern studies has differed over the last one-hundred years. During the first half of the 20th century, the consensus was that the Middle Eastern studies had slowly but surely been able to loosen itself from the religious chains during the 18th and 19th centuries. This idea, however, shifted somewhere between 1955 and 1974, when Hourani published his article on the field of Islamic history and explained the religious influences on it. This publication was followed by Edward Said’s Orientalism, which emphasized the role of power-relations in Middle Eastern studies even further. Then Suzanne Marchand, in her book on German-speaking scholars of the Middle Eastern studies strengthened the idea of a religiously dominated field of Middle Eastern studies by saying that it was only halfway through the 19th century that there came European scholars capable of giving an objective view of the Middle East and putting their religious preferences aside. The second part of this literature review will be dealing with the development of humanities in the early nineteenth century. Since it’s impossible to give an entire overview of this development in a few paragraphs, I will be focusing on the development of the German trend of Historicism and the way it was viewed in literature over the last sixty years. Historicism is a way of looking at the past which treats the past as a period in its own right instead of looking through the perspective of one’s contemporary glasses to the past. In 1954, Dwight Lee and Robert Beck published an article in The American Historical Review named ‘The Meaning of “Historicism”’.18 They sought to answer the questions ‘in what senses has historicism been defined or used? What are theories or concepts or conditions which seem to require a new label? what at this time may be regarded as a “proper” use of the word?’.19 The definition of historicism, according to the authors, is ‘the belief that the truth, meaning and value of anything is to be found in its history’, meaning that the only way in which a current event or situation can be explained, is by looking in detail to its history and the way in which it came to be.20 In comparison to later works on historicism, this gives a rather positive view of the tradition. A second publication on the definition of historicism is Karl Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism.21 Popper’s work from 1961 looks at what a historicist truly does. He explains that a historicist often does not merely explain current events by looking at its past, but often tries to form an overarching theory in order to predict future events.22 His criticism is aimed at the ‘predicting of historical developments to the extent to which they may be influenced by the growth of our knowledge’.23 He says that no form of science can predict its own future results. Popper’s work is mostly aimed at the formulators of historical theories like Marxism and Fascist theories. The work started a new era, in which the focus was more on the way in which historicists try to predict the future on the basis of their historical research, instead of the historical research itself.

17 Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, 1. 18 Dwight Lee, Robert Beck, ‘The meaning of “historicism”’ The American Historical Review, 59, no. 3 (April 1954) 568-577. 19 Ibidem 568. 20 Ibidem 577. 21 Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (Milton Park, 2002). 22 Ibidem 143. 23 Ibidem VII

5 An example of a work influenced by Popper is ‘Historicism, History, and the Figurative Imagination’ by Hayden White.24 The article was published in the journal History and Theory in 1975. White’s definition of historicism overlaps partly with the definition given by Lee and Beck, but eventually uses Popper’s more negative idea. White explains that the historicist wants to ‘use his knowledge of the past to illuminate the problems of his present or, worse, to predict the path of history’s future development’.25 A recent publication on the development of the field of Humanities as a whole, is ‘The Pursuit of History’ by John Tosh, published in 2015.26 He says that Historicism was a facet of Romanticism, a movement in European thought and art around 1800. In literature this idea was actualized by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). His idea was to pull his reader out of his own context and to inject him into the past by recreating the atmosphere of a past age. In historical research the idea of Historicism was represented by Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886).27 He aptly summarized the idea of Historicism with the often-quoted sentence: ‘Bloss sagen wie es eigentlich gewesen ist’28. This would translate to ‘only say how it actually was’. According to Tosh, this sentence means more than just the intention to reconstruct past events. It also means that ‘the atmosphere and mentality of past ages had to be reconstructed too’.29 Tosh’s book on the development of the field of humanities gives a clear overview of the way in which humanities developed throughout time. It is a structured account of what has influenced these developments and the important characters in this process. A second book from 2015 which I have chosen to review is ‘A New History of the Humanities, The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present’ by Rens Bod.30 The book gives an overview of the development of humanities. It starts in the Antiquity and ends in the ‘Modern Era’ with the last part dealing with Media studies, to us a very contemporary phenomenon. His view on the development of Historicism is that during the nineteenth century, humanities became ‘new’. The focus in Western universities shifted to philology as a course on itself without the diplomatic or theological ideals behind it. His idea on Ranke is that he is in the tradition of Vico and Herder. An important citation which Bod gives is that the Historicists ‘wanted to treat all historical periods as having equal status’.31 His view of historicism is the same as the view presented by Tosh. These texts give a short overview of the development of the definition of historicism and the implications over the last sixty years of calling oneself a ‘historicist’. Up to the 1950s, historicism was seen as merely a way of explaining events on the basis of the history surrounding the event. Looking at the past to explain events and situations was at the heart of historicism, but in the 1960s, thanks to Karl Popper’s publication, the notion of historicism took a negative turn. His explanation of historicism as a way of looking at the past which too often attempts to predict the future influenced the literature on the subject significantly. The two publications from 2015 show that more recent works on the idea of historicism take a less activistic approach than the publications from the 1960s and 1970s. They explain the main ideas of historicism as an idea in its own time, a very historicist approach.

24 Hayden White, ‘Historicism, History and the Figurative Imagination’ History and Theory, 14 no.4, (December 1975) 48-67. 25 Ibidem 48. 26 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of History (Milton Park 2015). 27 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History 24. 28 Ranke, Histories of the Latin and German Nations from 1494-1514 p. 74 29 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History 25. 30 Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities, (Oxford 2015). 31 Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities 251.

6 In the next part of the literature review, I will be giving an overview of the literature on western non-theological academic interest in the Middle East, specifically the interpreters and their institutions. Until shortly, there was very little academic interest in these so-called ‘dragomans’, but recently a lot of articles on their roles in the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers have appeared. The first literary work I would like to discuss is an article called From Babel to Dragomans by Bernard Lewis.32 A dragoman is ‘an official state or diplomatic interpreter, developed in the context of premodern Mediterranean statecraft from antiquity onward’.33 The article was originally presented to the British Academy in 1998 and was re-published in a bundle of articles written by Bernard Lewis called From Babel to Dragomans, just like the article. As the title, quite brilliantly, suggests, Lewis looks at the development of the use of translators from the biblical story of the tower of Babel to the use of dragomans in the Ottoman Empire. It gives a quick overview of the development of this profession with creative use of sources like biblical texts. He claims that the first form of diplomatic contact between Europe and the Middle East in which a translator was needed was in the year 906 CE when a Frankish queen named Bertha sent the Abbasid Caliph al-Muktafi a letter.34 He then explains how translating developed as an occupation on its own both in service of European governments and the Ottoman Empire. He claims that the 15th century was a turning point in this development, since European governments started to open embassies in Istanbul and needed people who were proficient in Turkish. At first the embassies employed so-called ‘Levantines’, Christians living in the Ottoman Empire, because they already knew Turkish and often Italian as well. Around the 19th century, this system died out, according to Lewis, and was replaced by a system which used European people who were taught Middle Eastern languages.35 The second article I want to analyze is ‘Interpreting Dragomans: Boundaries and Crossings in the Early Modern Mediterranean’ by Natalie Rothman.36 It is an article published in 2009 in the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History. The research she has done for this article eventually resulted in a book on the dragomans. The article focuses on the Venetian bailaggio. This was the Venetian embassy at the Ottoman Porte. Connected to this was an institution which educated Venetian diplomats for work at the Porte. The article gives insight in how the recruitment process for dragomans worked and evolved over time, since the Venetians did not have a large pool of citizens to recruit from, they kept using Ottoman Christians until later than the other European powers. The conclusion is that the Venetians recognized the fact that it was necessary for the dragomans to have double allegiances, but that this also posed a threat for their loyalty to Venice. The last book I want to discuss is called ‘The Dragoman Renaissance, Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism’ by E. Natalie Rothman.37 The central questions of the book are: ‘Who were the dragomans? Where did they hail from, and what, exactly, did they do? How were they understood by contemporary political and diplomatic circles in Istanbul and beyond, and what role did they play in systematizing and circulating knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, its histories, languages, and societies?’38 The book combines earlier research on the individual dragomans, the social and institutional dimensions of their lives and much more, but

32 Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans (London 2004). 33 Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism (Ithaca, 2021) 4. 34 Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans 21. 35 Ibidem 28. 36 Natalie Rothman, ‘Interpreting Dragomans: Boundaries and Crossings in the Early Modern Mediterranean’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 51, no. 4 (October 2009), 771-800. 37 Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance. 38 Ibidem 1.

7 the real revisionist part of the book is the focus on semiotics, or the dragomans’ use of symbols and signs.39 The importance of the book for this thesis is the way in which it summarizes multiple earlier studies into the dragomans. It explains the dragoman education, as well as the development of the traditions which are important to this thesis. An important notion for the thesis is the part where Rothman talks about the Venetian bailaggio as a school for the dragomans. In this part she says that the bailaggio was centered around the recruitment and transformation of future dragomans which made them ‘imbued with a particular trans-imperial habitus.’40 The combination of the longer development of the dragoman institutions in Europe and the individual stories and examples make this book easy to read and very helpful for anyone interested in European non-theological interest in the Middle East. As can be seen from this literature review on the two articles and the book, the academic research into the dragomans has evolved a lot over time. Where Lewis’ article mostly focuses on the recruitment when it comes to dragomans in European service, Rothman’s article already goes into the employment and dangers of being a dragoman. The ultimate culmination of this knowledge is the book, also written by Rothman, on the institutions, recruitment and employment of dragomans as well as their semiotics. Since the academic scope has only recently been laid on the dragomans and their occupations, I expect more detailed research into the dragomans over time.

Research questions

As we have seen in the first part of the literature review, more recent literature on the development of Middle Eastern studies claims that the field was only able to lose the shackles of religious influences in the second half of the 19th century. The older literature, however, claims that the scholars had already done this at the beginning of the 19th century. This could be a consequence of Edward Said’s Orientalism and the shockwaves which it sent through the field. This difference in the literature is what the central question of the thesis is about. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, whose life and work will be central to the thesis, is a scholar of the Middle East in the early 19th century. The works which I will be using are Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung and Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. I will be using these works as a case study to research the demonstrated difference in the literature between the academic publications on the development of Middle Eastern studies from before Edward Said’s Orientalism and the publications which came after. The main question of the thesis will be: were Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s works influenced by the tradition of historicism and non-theological interests in the Middle East before the 1798 French invasion of Egypt? The influence of the emergence of historicism on the works of Von Hammer-Purgstall would prove that he was not guided in his works by a theological calling, but by the notion that the world surrounding him needed explaining. The influence of non-theological academic research in the Middle East before 1798 would not only prove that not all the academic work before 1850 was done from a religious point of view, but also that he tried to keep his works objective when looking at the sources. The first sub question, which will be answered in the first chapter, is how did Historicism develop and what are its defining characteristics? To answer this question, I will be relying mostly on secondary sources and on lectures, given by two prominent characters in the emergence of historicism, Von Humboldt and Von Ranke. The second sub question, which will also be answered in the first chapter, is how did the educational translatory institutions develop and what were some of the major non-theological academic additions on the Middle

39 Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance 16. 40 Ibidem 21.

8 East made by (former) interpreters before 1798? This because the formation of the translatory educational institutions shows a different form of interest in the Middle East than the regular theology-serving interest. I will mostly be focusing on the development of the interpreters and their systems of education for this question as well as the academic works published by these interpreters. I will again mostly be using secondary sources to answer this question. The third sub question, which I will attempt to answer in the second chapter, is how was Von Hammer-Purgstall influenced by the rise of Historicism and the traditions of the interpreters or dragomans? These structures both emerged during or just before he started actively publishing his works. I will not yet be looking at the works written by Von Hammer- Purgstall in this chapter. I will, instead, be looking at the life of Von Hammer-Purgstall and his forms of education. I will be giving a short overview of his works, but no in-depth analysis yet. For this chapter, I will be relying mostly on secondary literature since there are not a lot of primary sources available on the life of Von Hammer-Purgstall. In the third chapter I will attempt to answer the fourth sub question, namely are the influences of Historicism and the interpreters and their research visible in Von Hammer- Purgstall’s works? This because if this is the case, this means that the scholars on the Middle East after 1798 had some form of earlier non-theological research to fall back on, and the 1798 invasion of Egypt would not be the only reason for the kickstart of the Middle Eastern studies. This will be the largest chapter in which I will analyze Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works. I will be analyzing the works looking for the characteristics of Historicism, which I will outline in the first chapter. I will also be looking at how he bases his research on earlier research done by the interpreters before him and his own education as an interpreter.

Methodology

For the methodology, I have chosen for a step-by-step approach of the problem. In the first chapter I will be looking at what the signifiers are of the elements I am looking for. Concretely this means that I will be looking at historicism and what its defining characteristics are. This could be anything like a very specific statement often used by historicists to the way in which sources were used by the historicists. Secondly, I will be looking at the main non-theological forms of academic interest in the Middle East. I will be looking at the works of science which were produced in Europe on the Middle East before 1798 as well as the traditions of the interpreters before 1798. I will be looking at how Von Hammer-Purgstall comes into touch with historicism and the traditions of the translators earlier on in his life. This is what the second chapter will be about, as well as giving an overview on how his life developed. In the third chapter, I will be using the aspects which I have outlined in the first two chapters to analyze the two selected works by Von Hammer-Purgstall. I have made a selection of excerpts from the books which I am going to discuss. These excerpts are divided in two, in the first part I will discuss possible historicist notions within the works by Von Hammer-Purgstall, the second part will be dedicated to the influences by former translators. I have come to this selection by analyzing the introductions and conclusions to the chapters which Von Hammer-Purgstall writes and by looking at his source-material in the bibliography. Then I will try to explain how these fit into the narrative of Von Hammer-Purgstall’s life. This methodology should eventually help me answer the main question of the thesis, how Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works were influenced by developments and structures from before 1798. The historicism-part of the essay will mostly be focusing on the historicists’ methodology and the similarities between this methodology and the methodology employed by Von Hammer-Purgstall. This is might be hard to make 100% concrete, but I will attempt to give as concrete signifiers of historicism as possible based on secondary literature and lectures and essays by two founders if the idea. For the translators and their traditions in form of educations

9 it should be easier to give concrete signifiers of this in his research. This because Von Hammer- Purgstall, in the book Des osmanischen Reiches, Staatsverfassung und Verwaltung, builds on the work by another interpreter and academic on the Middle East, Mouradgea d’Ohsson, and because of the annotations that he made in his text. Now I will get into the first chapter.

10 Chapter 1: Mapping out Structures

The first chapter of this thesis will be dedicated to creating the framework which allows me to build the rest of my argumentation. In that light, I will be discussing two very important notions in this chapter, the first being the emergence of historicism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and the second being the development of institutions dedicated to the education of diplomatic officials serving European powers within the Ottoman Empire. The goal of this chapter is to map out earlier institutional and academic influences on Von Hammer- Purgstall’s work. To strengthen the argument that a lot of the non-theological academic work from before 1798 was done by (former) interpreters, I will give two examples of interpreters whose work have greatly influenced Von Hammer-Purgstall, and are still influential works in their respective fields today. The development of historicism is part of the development of Romanticism within western-European literature and academia. To aptly explain this development, I will be using the research question how did historicism develop and what are its defining characteristics? Firstly, I must explain what historicism is. Historicism is a form of looking at the past in which the historian tries to disassociate himself from his contemporary world and upbringing in order to give an objective view of a different time and place. It is different from natural sciences in the fact that it deals with individuals instead of general theories. Historicism is a development which, according to Tosh, began to influence the humanities in the first half of the nineteenth century. This is not to say that there were no earlier historians which had used this way of looking at the past. Tosh states that in the ancient times, in Islam and dynastic China and in the West after the Renaissance there had been a form of awareness of the difference between historical eras. He follows this statement by saying that it was not until the first half of the nineteenth century that there was a period in which ‘all the elements of historical awareness were brought together in a historical practice that was widely recognized as the proper way to study the past.’41 Historicism began in , where it was named ‘Historismus’ and started to spread throughout Europe around 1800. According to a book by Georg G. Iggers on the development of the German conception of history the notion of history dealing with individuals as a contrast to the natural sciences, which deal with general theories, is not something which only came up in the 19th century. This idea has existed since Aristotle.42 The aspect which is new in the rise of historicism in the 18th and 19th centuries is the notion that the individuality of each period should not be measured along certain timeless values.43 This idea first rose with Giambattista Vico’s (1668-1744) publication of New Science (1725).44 Near the end of the 18th century this idea gained more support in the publication of Johann Gottfried Herder’s (1744-1803) Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774).45 This sudden mobilization of these older ideas into a body of theory and eventually a practice of science did not come out of nowhere. According to Iggers it was a reaction to Enlightenment patterns of thought like the idea of natural laws. This reaction was triggered by the disappointment of the German intelligentsia with the French Revolution. In 1789, most of the German academics had supported the French Revolution and the Enlightenment values on which it was based. In 1792, when the French

41 Tosh, The Pursuit of History 23. 42 Georg Iggers, German Conception of History, The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, (Lebanon 1984) 29. 43 Ibidem 30. 44 Giambattista Vico, The New Science (1725). 45 Johann Gottfried Herder Auch eine Pholosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774).

11 Revolution had reached its terroristic phase, German intellectuals became disenchanted. This disappointment was strengthened by the period of French domination of Germany under Napoleon,46 and ‘led to a widespread re-examination of natural law doctrine.’47 Iggers concludes that the French Revolution had a major impact on the German view on history. First of all, the idea which the Enlightenment had brought up that there were universally applicable ethical and political values was completely nullified by the horrors of the French Terreur regime. Secondly, the Germans started looking at their history as a history of the formation of a nation. Thirdly, the role of the state, which in the 1790s was seen as mostly a ceremonial task and directed at making people as free as possible, was re-evaluated and eventually the state was given far-reaching powers in order to ensure the well-being of its citizens.48 The development of historicism is thus not one of a sudden emergence of the set of values which we now look for in a good historian. The idea that a historian looks at the individual and a natural scientist looks at the general is something which has been around since antiquity. Historicism developed so suddenly in Germany after 1800 because it was a reaction to the disappointment felt by the German intelligentsia towards the Enlightenment and its ideals, embodied by the French Revolution. This led to a re-evaluation of those ideals which eventually led to the rise of historicism and its values. In order to answer the question ‘what are the characteristics of historicism?’, I will look at writings and lectures by two major theorists and practitioners behind the historicist movement, namely Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) and Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886). Von Humboldt was a Prussian philologist and statesman. He was an employee of the Prussian ministry of education and proposed reforms to the educational system.49 His writings were influenced by the same developments as the process of the rise of historicism as a whole. He was one of the scholars who at first proposed to limit state-involvement in society in order to improve the liberty of the individual, but later on in his life, he reformed the Prussian education system in such a way that it improved state-control over the universities and schools. Von Ranke was a historian, much less involved with politics than Von Humboldt. He started by writing a history on Martin Luther (1483-1546) which eventually evolved into a history on the development of Germanic and Romanic peoples in the late 15th and early 16th century.50 Much like Von Humboldt, Von Ranke was heavily influenced by the French Revolution and the developments which it underwent. The French Revolution was his first delve into modern history and eventually led to him forming his specific methodology which is still practiced today. Firstly, I want to look at a lecture by Von Humboldt. Von Humboldt’s notion of treating history is known as the ‘Doctrine of Ideas’. His doctrine, as he explains in his 1821 lecture to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, can be summarized in three main ideas. The first is that ‘historical phenomena are merely the external manifestation of underlying eternal ideas.’51 The second idea is that the ideas are timeless, but not abstract or universally valid. This means that the ideas have ‘concrete historical individualities.’52 The third idea is that the historian’s task is

46 Georg Iggers German Conception of History, 40. 47 Ibidem 40. 48 Ibidem 42. 49 David Sorkin, ‘Wilhelm Von Humboldt: The Theory and Practice of Self-Formation (Bildung). 1791-1810’, Journal of the History of Ideas (January – March 1983) 1, 55-73, there 55. 50 Leopold von Ranke, ‘Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ The Theory and Practice of History, Edited by Wilma Iggers and Konrad von Moltke (Indianapolis 1973), 35. 51 Georg Iggers, introduction to The Idealistic Theory of Historiography, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Classical Formulation, (Abingdon, 2010), 3. 52 Wilhelm von Humboldt, ‘Lecture 4’.

12 to understand these historical individualities in their own right.53 This means that ‘there is no place for abstract deductive thinking in this process.’54 In the 1821 lecture, Von Humboldt says that ‘the historian’s task is to present what actually happened’.55 This is not as easy as it looks though. Von Humboldt explains that past events often are not completely visible to a historian. A great amount of what happened only exists in ‘the world of senses.’56 It is up to the historian to add the rest based on intuition. Another problem a historian might encounter is the fact that sources are often scattered, or isolated as Von Humboldt calls it. It is the job of the historian to collect the source material and put this material in the right perspective.57 If a historian only describes what the sources say without putting them in the correct perspective, he is ‘choosing actual error in order to escape the potential danger of error’.58 The job of the historian, according to this lecture, can be summarized as giving an as objective view as possible on the basis of sources. These sources need to be categorized and put in the right perspective. This is where the interpretative part of being a historian comes into play. Leopold von Ranke also had a lot of influence on the development of historicism. Unlike Von Humboldt, he did not view himself as a methodologist, but a real historian, devoting most of his time to writing on historical eras.59 He did, however, give some lectures in the winter of 1831-1832 in which he explained his methodology.60 In one of these lectures he explains that his methodology is largely the same as Von Humboldt’s. He says that history is unique in the fact that it is a science as well as an art-form. It is a science because it requires the historian to collect data and do research, but it is an art-form because it requires the historian to recreate past events.61 In order to obtain this recreation of past events, Von Ranke explains that six demands result from it. The first demand is pure love of truth.62 Secondly, he names a documentary, penetrating, profound research.63 The third demand is a universal interest.64 The fourth demand is penetration of the causal nexus, meaning we should be satisfied with simple information.65 The fifth demand is impartiality.66 The sixth demand is conception of the totality.67 This gives a clear overview of what Von Ranke expects from a historian. He also sees the difference between the German words ‘Geschichte’, from the German word Geschehen which means ‘what happened’ and has an objective task in just telling what happened, and ‘Historie’ which has a subjective task. The great task of a historian is to unify these words. Some important historians who followed this tradition in the time were Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) and Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829). Von Herder’s theories were paramount to the formation of the historicist traditions and Von Schlegel was one of its most outspoken followers. The idea did not limit itself to the study of history, as Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861) and Gustav Hugo (1764-1844), two jurists, identified a way to study the

53 Von Humboldt ‘Lecture 4’. 54 Ibidem. 55 Ibidem ‘Lecture 5’. 56 Ibidem. 57 Ibidem ‘Lecture 6’. 58 Ibidem. 59 Ranke, The Theory and Practice of History, ‘The Idealistic Theory of Historiography’, 25. 60 Ibidem 25. 61 Ibidem 25. 62 Ibidem 39. 63 Ibidem 39. 64 Ibidem 40. 65 Ibidem 40. 66 Ibidem 41. 67 Ibidem 43.

13 history of law in a historicist manner.68 The aforementioned Vico and Herder also studied history by using a historicist methodology of putting sources in their respective contexts and order. Herder’s idea of the uniqueness of each state and the way in which it should develop is a keen example of historicism in the sense that the respective context for each state should be taken into account. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), another historian who followed the historicist tradition, extended this idea to the individual. He said that each individual and his actions could not be reduced to common denominators, but rather should be treated as the dynamic spontaneous phenomena which they were.69 To conclude this part of the chapter I will take a brief look at the answer to the question: what are the characteristics of historicism? Historicism is a broad movement and is based on a long tradition of investigating the individual instead of the general. There are no timeless values along which one can measure the rights or wrongs of past societies. This, concretely, means that a historian should abstain from naming his opinion in a piece of writing on a society in a different context. To perform historical research means to puzzle together a scattered number of sources and putting them in the right perspective. This means that a historian should give the right weight to each individual source in his research. This is of course not objectively measurable, which makes this the subjective part of the historian. However, it is essential to do this because just describing what de sources say does not enable the historian to recreate the past event. The emergence of historicism was not the only process which might have had a great influence on academics interested in the Middle East in the nineteenth century. The development of institutions dedicated to translations for diplomatic purposes and eventually institutions dedicated to the education of these translators were of great importance to European scholars interested in the Middle East. The research question for this second part of the chapter will be how did the educational translatory institutions develop and what were some of the major non-theological academic contributions on the Middle East made by (former) interpreters before 1798? The earliest and most extensive form of recruitment and training of young men into diplomatic officials specifically educated for service in the Ottoman Empire was equipped by the Italian city-state of Venice. An activity which started to develop in the early-modern period, so around 1500. According to Rothman, the dragomans were recruited from three major groups of citizens. The first group was made up out of citizens by birth or people born in Venice. The second group came from the Venetian colonies in the Adriatic and eastern Mediterranean. It was usually the elites of these colonies which were recruited into the diplomatic service. The third and largest group which was recruited into the dragomannate were Roman Catholics from the Ottoman capital of Istanbul or other parts of the Ottoman Empire.70 The Christian Ottomans were often called Levantines. These recruits, or their parents since they were often recruited between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, saw Venetian employment as a stepping-stone to a career in Venetian service or, in the case of the Ottoman Catholics, as a way to gain authority within their community. The Venetians preferred to take in youngsters whose family members had been dragomans themselves.71 According to Bernard Lewis there was a certain form of distrust and disdain when talked about the Levantines which were in the diplomatic service. This distrust essentially boiled down into three categories.72 The first category was incompetence. The European diplomats often

68 Norman Levine, ‘The German Historical School of Law and the Origins of Historical Materialism’ Journal of the History of Ideas (July – September 1987) 3, 431-451, there 432. 69 Georg Iggers, German Conception of History 10. 70 Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance 26. 71 Ibidem 28. 72 Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans 25.

14 thought that the Levantines were not fluent enough in Turkish. According to Lewis, this complaint was usually not justified as most of the Levantines in European diplomatic service were qualified enough to do their job properly. The second complaint was disloyalty. The Levantines were seen as serving their own interests. According to Lewis, it is true that a lot of the Levantine dragomans sold their allegiance to the highest bidder. They did not only sell out to the Ottoman Empire, but more often they switched to different European powers. So, Levantines which had English and French roots, but were in the English diplomatic service would often switch to the French service, taking all the secrets from the English embassy with them. A third accusation was that the Levantine dragomans were too frightened to perform their job properly. According to Lewis, this complaint is justified by evidence as well. The Levantine’s fear came from the fact that they were not protected by any form of diplomatic status, something which their European colleagues were. This fear resulted in an unwillingness to translate severe messages in a severe tone. Lewis bolsters this claim with an excerpt of a letter sent by a dragoman to an Ottoman official in which the dragoman takes a submissive tone towards the Ottoman official. These frustrations with the employment of Levantines eventually became such a concern for European embassies in the Ottoman Empire that they decided to stop using the Levantines as diplomatic servants. Somewhere in the 17th or 18th century, some European powers decided to train their own translators for diplomatic service in the Ottoman Empire.73 This was not a homogenous process. Each country had its own process of forming the educational institutions which had to provide the diplomats of the future. The training itself also took on various forms in different European countries. The French started teaching young men Middle Eastern languages and then sent them to the embassies in the Ottoman Empire to serve as a sort of interns. These young apprentices were called jeunes des langues.74 The school for these apprentices was founded in 1669 in France. In Austria, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s country, Die Kaiserliche und Königliche Orientalische Akademie was founded in 1754.75 The building which formerly housed the academy is currently serving as the US embassy in Vienna. According to the website of the embassy, the Akademie was founded to improve cultural and economic relations between the Austrian empire and the Ottoman empire, but looking at the timing of the foundation of the academy and having read Lewis’ book, I think it is more likely that it was done to end the dependence on Levantine dragomans for diplomatic translations to Turkish. Concluding the overview of the development of the European diplomatic and language institutions in order to better communicate with their Ottoman counterparts, I think that it is safe to say that these institutions were mostly developed out of necessity. At first the Europeans thought that they had the perfect solution for the problem of the language-barrier at the hand of the Levantine Christians, which could often speak a European language and Turkish. This system worked for a long time, but eventually ended because of constant complaints about the loyalties and competence of the Levantine Christians. Somewhere in the 17th and 18th centuries a number of major European powers decided to train their own people in order to overcome these difficulties. This was the start of institutionalized non-theological European interest based on language in the Middle East. It might seem that this only served the practical goals of the European powers, but the emergence of educational institutions eventually resulted in more academic works on the Middle East. The last part of this chapter will be dedicated to major semi-academic contributions made by two former translators. Both were not educated at the translatory institutions, but their

73 Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans 27. 74 Ibidem 27. 75 ‘Geschichte der Konsular-Akademie und der Boltzmanngasse 16’ accessed april 19, 2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20130215041453/http://german.austria.usembassy.gov/history.html.

15 careers as translators and their semi-academic publications might have been a result of the same structures which influenced the emergence of the diplomatic educational institutions. The first former translator I will discuss is Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski (1623-1698). He was a linguist from the north of modern-day France, then a duchy named Lorraine, and was the author of one of the first major Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish to Latin dictionaries. The second person I discuss is Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson (1740-1807). He was a Catholic Armenian diplomat in Swedish service, so he was a Levantine, and he was the author of the Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, one of the first major studies of the Ottoman Empire published in Europe. Menisnki was widely celebrated in his time and still is today, although there is very little information on his life. He was educated in the Oriental languages by a Jesuit named Giattini in Rome and in 1652 he joined the Polish ambassador on a trip to Istanbul. On the trip he made such an impression on the Polish diplomats that he was sent out as an ambassador to Istanbul later on. His work as an ambassador required for him to be naturalized to Polish nationality, so he added ski to his last name, Menin, causing his name to become Meninski.76 In 1661 he became interpreter of Oriental languages at the court of Vienna, a post which required him to accompany multiple ambassadors to Istanbul. In 1671 he was made a council of war to the Austrian emperor, an impressive position for a non-native to hold, and he was made first interpreter to the emperor. He died in 1698. His greatest work, published in 1680, was the Thesaurus Linguarium Orientalium Turcicae Arabicae Persicae. It was a four-volume dictionary translating several Middle Eastern languages to Latin with a complete grammatic overview.77 Meninski is an example of a scholar who turned his knowledge of languages into an academic career. Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson was a half-French Ottoman Armenian Catholic in Swedish diplomatic service. His life is better documented than Meninski’s. He was born and educated in Istanbul and lived in Stockholm, Paris and Istanbul.78 He was born as Ignatius Mouradgea and added the name d’Ohsson later in his life in order to add a French component to his name.79 He was educated in Istanbul’s Franciscan and Dominican schools which ensured a western form of education as well as a versatility in the languages that he spoke. In 1763, at the age of 23, he became a translator at the Swedish Legation. Within five years he had worked himself up to the position of first translator. He served in the post of first translator to the Swedish Legation until he moved to Paris in 1784 in order to write his masterpiece, the Tableau Général.80 In his time in Istanbul, Mouradgea d’Ohsson studied Islamic history and culture, preparing his major work far in advance. His work as first translator and various financial dealings had made Mouradgea a wealthy man and his marriage in 1774 to a rich man’s daughter benefited his financial status even more.81 His wife died in 1782 and in 1784 he left for Paris to start the work on his Tableau Général. The Tableau Général’s title would translate to a ‘General Picture of the Ottoman Empire’. Calling a book which, in a modern edition, would require 2,500 pages to print a ‘general picture’ might seem like a stretch. However, like everything in historical research, this notion has to be seen in the proper context. During the time of writing, the Enlightenment ideals were on the rise. One of these ideals was a ‘universal science of order’.82 In this sense, the

76 Alexander Chalmers, A new General Biographical Dictionary (1815) 97. 77 Ibidem 97. 78 Carter Vaughn Findley, Enlightening Europe on Islam and the Ottomans, Mouradgea d’Ohsson (Leiden 2019) 1. 79 Ibidem 17. 80 Ibidem 18. 81 Ibidem 18. 82 Ibidem 101.

16 ‘general picture’ which d’Ohsson tried to give of the Ottoman Empire also had an idealist cause, namely, to enforce reforms in the Ottoman Empire. This notion is visible throughout his work.83 The work was divided into two parts and four volumes. The first half of the work was dedicated to the Islamic laws which were in effect within the Empire. In his works, d’Ohsson shows to have thought about all Ottoman legislation when writing his work, not just limiting himself to the Islamic laws. In the title, d’Ohsson expresses that he is going to mention the history of the Ottoman Empire as well. Back in the day, however, ‘history’ could mean the same as what is today ‘natural history’. Accordingly, d’Ohsson does not give the history of the Ottoman Empire but limits his work to the ‘natural history’ of the Empire, mainly focusing on the taxonomy of the Empire and the digressions which took place in its development.84 Mouradgea d’Ohsson, much like Meninski, was trained as an interpreter which eventually led to a more academic interest. The sudden emergence of this desire of former translators to publish semi-academic works is to be linked to the institutionalization of the translatory educational schools. These provided a haven for people not that interested in theology, but who were interested in the Middle East. A more pragmatic outlook on the Middle Eastern studies meant that people could do academic research without having to serve a religious goal. Developments in Europe and between European powers and the Ottoman Empire resulted in a different outlook on the Middle East within European academia. In the last part of this chapter, I have looked at two early translators who, after their diplomatic careers, became amateur academics of the Ottoman Empire who were either born in or influenced by European powers. Although neither of them attended one of the dragoman educational institutions, both were recruited into the diplomatic service of a European power and both, after their service, retired to Europe to write academic works about the Ottoman Empire. Both of their works were highly respected in their times and still are today. Hence the contributions of former interpreters to the academic knowledge on the Middle East is an important factor in the development of our knowledge on the region. Concluding the first chapter, I will look at the two questions which I sought to answer in the chapter. The first question was ‘how did historicism develop and what are its characteristics?’ Historicism developed as an answer to the Enlightenment ideals, which after the period of Terreur in France had disappointed the German intelligentsia. It was a nuanced answer to the absolutist notion of transcendental truths which the Enlightenment had raised. The characteristics of historicism and historicist research are recognizing the fact that every period has its own context, and that this context has to be honored. This means that when researching a different culture or time, one has to try and recreate the specific context of the time by correctly evaluating and ordering the sources available. For the second question, on the earlier non-theological forms of academic interest in the Middle East, I have shown the development of the dragoman institutions in Europe. They developed out of necessity, because of fears of incompetence at the earlier process of using the Levantines. I have attempted to give this overview of the development of translatory educational institutions because translators played an important role in the early formation of our knowledge of the Middle East. These two factors, the emergence of historicism and the institutionalization of the employment in diplomatic service, have thus greatly influenced our knowledge on the Middle East. The emergence of historicism taught us to research the studied object in its own context, not only historically, but also culturally. The institutionalization of the translatory educational system gave us knowledge of the languages of the region which could be used as a tool to gain a different form of knowledge on the Middle East which could be expanded upon later on. Political and scientific changes within Europe did not only change the relationship with the

83 Ibidem 101. 84 Findley, Enlightening Europe on Islam and the Ottomans 102.

17 Ottoman Empire, but the way in which the Ottoman Empire was seen within European science. The addition of a pragmatic goal to Middle Eastern studies, next to the earlier religious goal, gave European scholars on the Middle East a new vacuum in which to navigate their studies. The need for European diplomatic translators in the Middle East not only influenced the institutionalization of diplomatic educational systems, but also the career-prospects of these translators. After their diplomatic career, they could start publishing about the Ottoman Empire since there was now a form of non-theological interest in the Middle East in Europe.

18 Chapter 2: Meeting the structures

85 Lithograph by Austrian painter Adolf Dauthage of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, 1852.

In the second chapter of my thesis, I will look at the life of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall and when he was possibly influenced by the historicist movement and the emergence of educational institutions for diplomatic translators. I will first give an overview of his life. For this I will rely heavily on a dissertation written by Tuğba İsmailoğlu Kacır. It is a German dissertation on the life of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall and his reception in the community of historians on the Ottoman Empire titled Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall un seine Rezeption in der Geschichtsschreibung über das Osmanische Reich.86 The main question in this chapter will be ‘how was Von Hammer-Purgstall possibly influenced by the rise of historicism and the traditions of the interpreters or dragomans?’ In order to give a complete answer to the question, I will have to give an overview of Von Hammer-Purgstall’s life and education, and then explain how and where he could have been influenced by the emergence of historicism and the diplomatic educational systems. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall was born on the 9 June 1774 and grew up in the Austrian city of Graz. His father was discharged from state service, where he had served his entire life, for being too friendly towards the Jesuits. His father’s former position within the governmental institutions had made him an influential man even after his discharge which meant that he had the possibility to send his son to a good school. In 1787, when he was 13, Von Hammer- Purgstall was sent to the Wiener Orientalischen Akademie to get educated in the Middle Eastern languages.87 This school is an example of one of the institutionalized dragoman educations which I have described in the previous chapter. In order to be accepted into the school, he had to follow a preparatory course of a year, already sleeping at the school. This meant that he could

85 Batuhan Takis, ‘Remembering Joseph von Hammer in the age of alienation’ published 22 of November 2019, accessed 28 of June 2021 https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2019/11/22/remembering-joseph-von-hammer- in-the-age-of-alienation 86 Tuğba İsmailoğlu Kacır, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall und seine Rezeption in der Geschichtsschreibung über das Osmanische Reich (Vienna 2015). 87 Ibidem 13.

19 not see his family - something which Von Hammer-Purgstall had to get used to - because it was not customary to go home to your family during vacations at the school. When he 15 years old, he was accepted.88 The most important language which was taught was Turkish, but he also learned Persian and Arabic. Furthermore, the education entailed the study of law, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, music, logic, physics, geography, history and philosophy. This gave Von Hammer-Purgstall an advantage when he started to publish his works compared to his predecessors in the diplomatic service, like Meninski and d’Ohsson, because he had a wider range of academic skills. The Wiener Orientalischen Akademie had a religious foundation, like most schools in those days.89 The religious nature of his education, however, could not stop Von Hammer- Purgstall from taking an interest towards the French Revolution, a political development which started during his first year on the Akademie and was often discredited by religious institutions. The revolution had made such an impression on the young Von Hammer-Purgstall that he became interested in the politics of his time. Events like the Austrian war with the Ottoman Empire between 1788-1791 and the death of the emperor Josef in 1790 further sparked his interest in politics.90 While his interest in politics was started by these events, Von Hammer- Purgstall’s academic life went well. He was appointed as a translatory help to the director of the Akademie. A role which allowed him to further develop his skills in Middle Eastern languages.91 The extracurricular involvement of Von Hammer-Purgstall in the Akademie meant that a study which usually took four years took him ten years to complete. KacIr argues that this was not a disadvantage, however, since it gave him the opportunity to complete his development as a scholar.92 Eventually his involvement in the Akademie got him a position within the state apparatus as a sort of intern at the Staatskanzlei.93 During this internship, he was still a student at the Akademie. This position within the state enabled him to start working on the first articles he wrote on the life and works of Kâtib Çelebi (1609-1657), the author of an encyclopaedia on the Ottoman Empire.94 During this period, Von Hammer-Purgstall also made the acquaintance of a Swiss historian called Johannes von Müller (1752-1809), an author of Swiss histories and on the life of Napoleon. Von Müller became enthusiastic about the young Von Hammer-Purgstall and introduced him to colleagues. Two of these colleagues were Johann Gottfried von Herder and Friedrich von Schlegel. Von Herder and Von Schlegel were two of the main opponents of the French Enlightenment and among the first formulators of the ideas of historicism. Von Herder encouraged Von Hammer-Purgstall to write on the Middle East and was most interested in his works on the Middle East because of the large number of Middle Eastern sources which he used.95 Von Hammer-Purgstall had most probably learned about the ideas in his history classes, but the encounters with these historicists is a clearer way of a possible influence on him. After his period at the Akademie, he was recruited into the Austrian diplomatic service as an employee at the embassy, although he never really enjoyed this employment.96 In 1799 he was employed in Istanbul, where he became a translator at the embassy. It is said that the first time he trod Asian ground, when he crossed the Bosporus in Istanbul, he ‘threw himself to

88 KacIr, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall 14. 89 Ibidem 16. 90 Ibidem 16. 91 Ibidem 17. 92 Ibidem 18. 93 Ibidem 19. 94 Ibidem 18. 95 Ibidem 20. 96 Ibidem 24.

20 the ground and kissed the earth of his intellectual fatherland’.97 During his employment in Istanbul, he met Mouradgea d’Ohsson. He worked in Istanbul until 1806, a period in which he acquired many Middle Eastern works for his personal manuscript collection.98 This enabled him to later use primary sources for his studies. In 1807, Von Hammer-Purgstall was called back to Vienna because his employers believed he was too friendly to the French in a period of war between the two major European powers after the French Revolution.99 In 1809, Von Hammer-Purgstall went to Paris, where he met Wilhelm von Humboldt, the historicist mentioned in the previous chapter.100 The two kept in contact about the work that they both did. In 1811, Von Hammer-Purgstall was involved in the development of the first ideas of an Austrian Akademie der Wissenschaften, an idea which eventually materialized in 1847, the Austrian equivalent of the English Royal Society. His involvement shows the status which Von Hammer-Purgstall enjoyed within the Austrian academia. In forming this idea, Von Hammer- Purgstall conversated with Friedrich von Schlegel.101 Von Schlegel was, much like Von Hammer-Purgstall, a philologist and diplomat, however he was an employee of the German diplomatic service. Von Hammer-Purgstall’s academic prowess can also be seen in the fact that he published the journal Fundgruben des Orients from 1809 onwards. The journal published articles dealing with the Middle East.102 In the course of his life, Von Hammer-Purgstall proved to be a very prolific writer, with a clear focus on the Middle East and Persia. The following list gives an overview of what are considered to be his most important publications in chronological order: - Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung aus den Quellen seiner Grundsgesetze (1815) - Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens mit einer Blüthenlese aus zweyhundert persischen Dichtern (1818) - Morgenländisches Kleeblatt (1819) - Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (10 vols, 1827-1835) - Geschichte der Goldenen Horde in Kiptschak (1840) - Geschichte der Chane der Krim (1856). Especially the ten-volume Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, the first volume of which is analyzed in the third chapter, is considered his masterpiece. The number of publications by Von Hammer-Purgstall on the Middle East as well as his involvement in the publication of a journal and the foundation of the Austrian Akademie der Wissenschaften rightfully earns him the title of ‘scholar’. This status was confirmed when in 1847 he was chosen as the first president of the Akademie der Wissenschaften. Von Hammer-Purgstall had every possibility to be influenced by the ideas of the many historicist thinkers which surrounded him, like Von Humboldt, Von Schlegel and Von Herder.103 His notion of historical research was much the same as Von Ranke’s. As Paula Sutter Fichtner names it, in her article on Von Hammer-Purgstall and Franz Bernhard von Bucholtz, an Austrian historian, writes:

97 KacIr, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall 26, translation by author. 98 Ibidem 38. 99 Ibidem 44. 100 Ibidem 52. 101 Ibidem 54. 102 Ibidem 143. 103 Paula Sutter Fichtner, ‘History, Religion, and Politics in the Austrian Vormärz’, History and Theory 10 (1971) 1, 33-48, there 38.

21 Both Hammer-Purgstall and Bucholtz subscribed to Ranke’s contention that historical truth could only be established when an investigator immersed himself in the data of his material, then crystallized from this the meaning of the events which he was studying.104 Whether this historicist outlook on historical research actually resulted in a historicist methodology is a question which will be looked into further in chapter three. The influence of the emergence of institutions dedicated to the education of European men fluent in the Middle Eastern languages is clear as well. Von Hammer-Purgstall was educated as one of these diplomatic interpreters and thus schooled in Arabic, Persian and, most importantly, Turkish. He stood in the tradition of many men before him, educated to serve his country on the international theatre, not with weapons, but with words. At the Akademie he was undoubtedly taught from the Meninski dictionary Thesaurus Linguarium Orientalium Turcicae Arabicae Persicae. This is more than just an assumption, because among the French loot after the 1809 capture of Vienna was the new edition of the Meninski dictionary.105 Kacır also mentions that Von Hammer-Purgstall, after 1811 when he was not in diplomatic service anymore, found the time to read the Meninski dictionaries again.106 Furthermore, he had helped his friend Bernhard Freiherr von Jenisch (1734-1807) with the republication of the dictionary.107 His connection to Mouradgea d’Ohsson was even more clear. The two were acquainted since they had met in Istanbul and knew of each other’s works. One of Von Hammer-Purgstall’s first publications in 1815, Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung,108 is expanding upon earlier work done by Mouradge d’Ohsson in his Tableau Général. Both of these works discussed the development of the judicial system and the laws connected to it in the Ottoman Empire. These works were revolutionary in their time, since they looked at the Ottoman judicial system using Ottoman sources, instead of European sources.109 The only scholar who had done this before them was Luigi Ferdinando conte Marsigli (1658-1730) in his work on the Ottoman military laws called Stato militare dell’ imperio Ottomano, incremente e decrement del medesimo published after his death, in 1732.110 In order not to duplicate Marsigli’s work, Mouradgea d’Ohsson had looked at the religious laws in the Ottoman Empire.111 D’Ohsson had the idea to make an overview of the civil laws of the Ottoman Empire as well, but his untimely death put a stop to this plan.112 Von Hammer-Purgstall decided to fill the gap in the work of Mouradgea d’Ohsson with the publication of his Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung. The sudden interest in the Ottoman laws by European ‘academics’ is a strange phenomenon. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is the 1648 treaty of Westphalia. Within the international relations, it is seen as the starting point for a form of structured international relations within Europe.113 The Thirty Years War (1618-1648), which precedes the treaty, is seen as one of the reasons for the emergence of the modern European state.114 The recent emergence of the strong European state could very well be the reason that

104 Ibidem 38. 105 Kacır, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall 50. 106 Ibidem 224. 107 Ibidem 175. 108 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung (Vienna 1815). 109 Kacır, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall 190 110 Luigi Fernando Marsigli, Stato militare dell’ imperio Ottomano, inceremente e decremente del medesimo (The Hague, 1732). 111 Kacır, Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall 190 112 Ibidem 191. 113 Manuela Spindler, International Relations, A Self-Study Guide to Theory (Leverkusen 2013) 18. 114 Ibidem 18.

22 scholars had started taking a look at how ‘the neighbors’, or the Ottomans, had done this, however, further research into this specific topic is necessary. The inspection of Ottoman laws as an example would require a different way of looking at the Ottoman Empire from before. The change in the way Europeans looked at the Ottomans was not brought about by actual changes within the Ottoman Empire, but, again, by changes within European history. In the last part of this chapter, I have looked at the occasions on which Von Hammer- Purgstall was possibly influenced by former translators and translatory institutions. His education is a first hint at this possible influence since he was educated by one of the institutions which grew out of the need for reliable translators. Here, he was introduced to the works of Meninski, one of the former translators who later became an amateur academic. Through his work, which he got when he left the Akademie, he was acquainted with Mouradgea d’Ohsson. Another former translator who had published semi-academic works. In this chapter, I have looked at how Von Hammer-Purgstall might have been influenced by the emergence of historicism and the academic attempts to map the Middle East from before 1798. It mostly gives an overview of his life with the moments in which he encountered these two structural changes, which eventually might have influences his works, pointed out. After this chapter, it is clear that Von Hammer-Purgstall was part of a sort of network of historicists. He was acquainted with Von Humboldt, Von Herder and Von Schlegel. All three of them were important figures in the formulation of historicist ideas. He worked closely with them on several occasions, like with the deliberation on the foundation of the Austrian Akademie der Wissenschaften. It would not be strange if he was influenced by their way of thinking, like Fichtner says. He was also heavily influenced by the institutions which shaped so much of our thinking on the Middle East, the educational institutions for translators. He attended one of these institutions and worked as an interpreter for a short time. The academic attempts from before 1798 by (former) translators were influential to his life as well. Not only for the strengthening of his own knowledge, like Meninski’s dictionary, but also for the subjects he decided to write upon, like Mouradgea d’Ohsson. In this chapter, I have shown that Von Hammer-Purgstall had every opportunity to be influenced by the emergence of historicism and the institutionalization of diplomatic translatory schools. However, only after a study of his works is it possible to definitively state that Von Hammer-Purgstall was indeed influenced by these structures. The next chapter will be dedicated to this study.

23 Chapter 3: Finding the Structures

In the last chapter, I have shown that Von Hammer-Purgstall was surrounded by prominent figures within the historicist movement and was educated in the tradition of the interpreters. This means that he had every opportunity to be influenced by both of these developed structures. In this chapter, I will analyze two works by Von Hammer-Purgstall in order to see if he was indeed influenced by the historicists and the translatory education in his works. For this analysis I have decided to look at the first work published by Von Hammer-Purgstall, namely Des Osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung aus den Quellen seiner Grundsgesetze, and his most famous work, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. The last work has ten volumes, which is a lot to analyze in a single chapter, so I have decided to look at the first part of the work. I will be analyzing these works, looking for signifiers of historicism and application of earlier published or collected knowledge by former interpreters. The main signifiers of historicism I have explained in the first chapter. They are the attempt to explain a current situation by looking at its past, the use and arranging of primary sources in a way that, according to the author, best explains the studied object, and the idea that every time and period is a subject to be studied on its own, meaning that a work on a different time and place should not project current-day values on the time in the work. The criticism on the historicist tradition by Karl Popper, explained in the introduction, is not of influence on the works of Von Hammer- Purgstall, since in his work, he deals with historical situations only, avoiding contemporary or future situations. An important notion when looking at the works of former interpreters is that the education of these translators was only institutionalized in the 18th century, so it is not easy to draw a clear line between what is and what is not an interpreter before that. In the chapter, I will start with a remark on each book as a whole as being influenced by either historicism or the emergence of translatory institutions, and then give examples of these influences within the texts. To be clear, I am not insinuating that every argument in these books is completely grounded in historicism, or that every source used is a source which stems from – former – translators and their possible academic interests later in life. The point which I am trying to make is that Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works were possibly influenced by the emergence of these structures. In the books, I have looked for instances where Von Hammer-Purgstall analyzes the studied subject without comparing it to a set of timeless values, studies the individual, uses the historical process as a way of explaining a later event and where he collects a scattered set of sources, putting them in the, according to him, most correct order and perspective. Since it is quite difficult to prove a negative, the focus in the analysis will be on the latter two. The selection on the influence of former translators has been made by examining the bibliography and annotations. In the bibliography, I have researched the names which were mentioned, looking for translators. Then, I have looked through the annotations and the rest of the book to see in what capacity the sources by the translators were mentioned and used. Again, the selection I have made is not a complete representation of his works, it is merely a way of establishing the possible influences which might have played a role in the emergence of Middle Eastern studies. Firstly, I will analyze the book which was published first, Des Osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung aus den Quellen seiner Grundsgesetze. It was published in 1815 in Vienna and it is one of the earlier works of Von Hammer-Purgstall. In this book, Von Hammer-Purgstall gives an overview of the development of the civilian laws within the Ottoman Empire. A historicist idea behind the book is already visible when reading the contents-section.115 Here Von Hammer-Purgstall shows that he methodically analyzes the

115 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung XXXVII.

24 different laws within the Ottoman Empire. He goes into each set of laws, starting out with the laws set up by Sultan Mehmed II and then moving into the laws issued by Sultan Süleyman. Each category of laws gets his own part, from punishments and police-laws to the military laws of the empire. Within these sections, he elaborates on the changes for every state-employed position inflicted by the new laws. This shows a focus on the individual, one of the signifiers of historicism. It is not the focus on the individual as being a single person, but the focus on each and every individual law, and the consequences of these laws to the individual state- employed positions which show the historicist hand of the author. A more specific example of historicism within the text is found in the bibliography. Here Von Hammer-Purgstall gives an overview of the sources which he is going to use.116 The sources are compiled out of Ottoman sources, written by historians and legal scholars alike, and sources written by European scholars on the Middle East. It is twenty pages long, which gives an indication of the immense background study required to write the book, as well as the diversity which Von Hammer-Purgstall saw necessary in order to write such a work. After this, there is an introductory chapter. In this Von Hammer-Purgstall gives a literature review, where he analyzes some earlier works on the subject and the gap which his work tries to fill.117 Also in the introductory chapter is a short historical overview of the Ottoman Empire, why and how it became the state which it was in the early 19th century and an overview of the development of Islamic law within the state.118 The historical overview starts with a short look at the development of the major powers in the Middle East and the development of the khalifate and the eventual emergence of the Ottoman Empire. This introductory chapter is 87 pages long. The in-depth analysis of the laws surrounding the civilian laws, which the book is focused upon, and the realization that the time in which the laws were formed should be aptly explained in order to understand the formation of the laws is a clear signifier of historicism. Von Hammer- Purgstall shows awareness of the fact that the time and place in which the laws are formed are different from the time and place in which he and his readers live. He gives an explanation on this because he sees the importance of the historical background of the laws to the formation of these laws. In the actual analysis of the laws, Von Hammer-Purgstall works very methodically. He starts his analysis with the laws applied by Sultan Mehmed II. Sultan Mehmed II was the first to publish laws on a grand scale within the Ottoman Empire. In the introduction, he had already given a short overview of what had happened during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II. Here, he explains that the Ottoman administration and bookkeeping system is something which they had taken from an earlier power in the region, namely the Ikonium dynasty of the Seljuk Empire, also called the Rum Seljukids. This claim is made on the basis of the Oğuzname, a collection of Tatarian writings.119 This meant that the bookkeeping and administration systems of the Ottoman Empire were both influenced by Persian and Turkish traditions. After this, Von Hammer-Purgstall explains that the Ottoman dynasty forms from the demise of the Seljuks in 1263.120 This is followed by an explanation of what Mehmed II did in his reign, how he earned the title of ‘the conqueror’ and why he is important for a book mostly dealing with judicial matters.121 In the first chapter, he builds upon this explanation of the formation of the Ottoman dynasty. Von Hammer-Purgstall starts by explaining that the Ottoman constitutional laws divided the administration into three ‘Portes’.122 He then explains the various important roles

116 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung XVI-XLVI. 117 Ibidem 1. 118 Ibidem 60. 119 Ibidem 48. 120 Ibidem 48. 121 Ibidem 71. 122 Ibidem 88.

25 of these Portes, starting with the first Porte, like the grand vizier123 and then slowly works his way down the ladder within the Ottoman Empire towards the second and third ‘Porte’. Von Hammer-Purgstall’s first chapter shows the way in which he had been influenced by the historicist movement. The way of writing is very methodical, and he uses various sources, ranging from the laws themselves to historical accounts written by Europeans and Ottomans alike. The main historicist element within the first chapter is the fact that Von Hammer- Purgstall explains the laws and their formation by giving the historical background in which they have been formed. This shows quite clearly the importance he sees in the historical process for the formation of the laws. In the second and third chapters, Von Hammer-Purgstall analyzes the laws imposed by Sultan Süleyman. Süleyman was also called ‘the lawgiver’ in the Ottoman Empire because of the many laws he had issued. In the introduction to the book, Von Hammer-Purgstall again gives historical background information on the way in which Süleyman reigned and the major feats of his reign. He explains that most of his laws were built upon the laws which Mehmed II had installed during his reign.124 He then goes on to explain how Süleyman centralized the empire. Süleyman, according to Von Hammer-Purgstall, put up a system where every district in the Turkish part of the empire was assigned to a Kiaschife, or an officer from the ranks of the Mamluks.125 Their task was to watch over the canals of the province to which they were assigned, and to prevent those canals from flooding. After this, Von Hammer-Purgstall explains how Sultan Süleyman streamlined the imposition of financial policies within the empire by appointing stewards, or so-called Emini.126 This precise analysis of the changes which Süleyman employed to rule an ever-expanding empire continues. He discusses the role of the Pasha127, the ‘pious foundations’128 and the minting of coins.129 Süleyman, according to Von Hammer-Purgstall, regulated almost everything within the empire in order to rule over such a large area,130 or as Von Hammer-Purgstall put it very poetically when talking about the seven branches of law which were reformed by Süleyman: This way one had the seven parts, in which the spirit of the Ottoman legislation, like the beam of light in seven colors, bright, which bulges itself like splendid rainbows over the far area of European and Asiatic states from the Orient to the Occident, and towers the names of the lawgivers to the Pleiades131.132 The quote above shows the historical perspective which Von Hammer-Purgstall looks for when analyzing the formation of the laws. He shows an understanding of the fact that the empire had become large and that a centralized system of government was needed. Out of this necessity, the reforms by Süleyman were born. Von Hammer-Purgstall uses a multitude of sources when dealing with the subject. He uses the letters of a French translator, JM Digeon, but he also uses the Ottoman laws themselves as sources throughout the text.133 This shows his eagerness to get as close to the truth as possible when dealing with these laws. Again, the chapter is built upon the historical background given in the introduction. A very historicist notion. Von Hammer- Purgstall combines this with a readiness to use Middle Eastern sources as well as European

123 Ibidem 88. 124 Von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung 72. 125 Ibidem 101. 126 Ibidem 112. 127 Ibidem 126. 128 Ibidem 134. 129 Ibidem 140. 130 Ibidem 73. 131 A constellation made up of seven stars. 132 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung 73, translation by author. 133 Ibidem 101.

26 sources. The combination of the two and how he categorizes these sources to come as close to the truth as possible are signifiers of historicism as well. Another instance which the signifies historicism in Von Hammer-Purgstall’s work is his use of the Mémoires du baron de Tott, sur les Turcs et les Tartares (1785).134 It is a book written by François Baron de Tott (1733-1793). He was a Hungarian in French diplomatic service. De Tott was a military man who went into the diplomatic service in 1755. His job in the diplomatic service was to learn Turkish in order to report back to the French state on the status of the Ottoman military. He reported that the Ottoman military was weakened and technologically lacking compared to the European powers. Von Hammer-Purgstall uses letters by Louis Charles de Peyssonel,135 a French consul at Smyrna, to criticize these findings. In the letters by De Peyssonel, he says that the Baron de Tott’s work on the first glance seemed easy to read, however that the author had: Not sufficiently unfolded the profound knowledge which a long residence in Turkey, a close attention to the language, and the important affairs that he has treated there, have given him of the government, laws, manners, customs and character of the Turks; and that his intention seems to have been, only to touch lightly on a great subject, on which one might expect from him more extensive information. I thought too that the Turks might be seen on a more advantageous side for them, than that by which Baron de Tott has shown them to us.136 The fact that Von Hammer-Purgstall uses this second work by a diplomat with an opposing opinion to that of Baron de Tott is yet another example of him attempting to find the truth by analyzing and using as much available source-material on the studied subject as possible. The historicist notions which I have looked for in the works of Von Hammer-Purgstall are instances in which he studies the individual, analyzes the studied subject without comparing it to a set of timeless values and where he collects a scattered set of sources, putting them in the, according to him, most correct order and perspective. The way in which the book is written is an example of historicism. Within the larger work he is trying to accomplish, Von Hammer- Purgstall looks for a way to analyze the individual laws and their effects on individuals. The sources he uses are also instructive for his historicist methodology. He is not afraid to use sources which disagree, like the work of Baron de Tott and the criticism of De Peyssonel. After having established the historicist notions in Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, I will now analyze the work for the use of the works of translators. As I have shown in the first chapter, there was a tradition of former translators of Middle Eastern languages becoming scholars of the Middle East. The first notion of this is Von Hammer-Purgstall’s Curriculum Vitae. He himself was trained and employed as a diplomatic interpreter. This is where his interest in the Middle East stems from and thus the basis of all of his scholarly works on the Middle East. The most obvious notion of Von Hammer-Purgstall making use of the dragoman traditions within the book is the existence of the book itself. Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung is a book on the civil laws of the Ottoman Empire. He has written this book because one of his colleagues and acquaintances, Mouradgea d’Ohsson, had written a book on the religious laws in the Ottoman Empire.137 D’Ohsson was planning on writing a part on the civil laws as well, but according to Von Hammer-Purgstall this ambition was not realized ‘during his life because of the circumstances of the time and then because of

134 François Baron de Tott, Mémoires Du Baron de Tott: Sur les Turcs et les Tartares (, 1784). 135 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung XXXII. 136 Charles de Peyssonel, An appendix to the memoirs of Baron de Tott; being a letter from Mr de Peyssonnel, … to the Marquis of N***. Containing some observations relative to the Memoirs that have appeared under the Baron’s name. – Translated from the genuine French Edition (London 1786) 2. 137 Mouradgea Ignatius d’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, (Paris 1788).

27 his too early death’.138 Von Hammer-Purgstall’s work was clearly built upon the work of Mouradgea d’Ohsson. Like a modern-day scholarly article could be a completion of someone else’s theory, Von Hammer-Purgstall saw it fit to complete Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s work. In doing so, Von Hammer-Purgstall shows the usefulness of the earlier European academic works on the Ottoman Empire done by translators. The idea to write the book is not the only thing Von Hammer-Purgstall could thank Mouradgea d’Ohsson for. In the introduction, which is an important part of the book as we have seen, Von Hammer-Purgstall cites the Tableau general de l’Empire Othoman multiple times. Von Hammer-Purgstall also references the dictionary by Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski twice when speaking about the definitions of specific words.139 These books were the major publications of Mouradgea d’Ohsson and Meninski, and both were very influential in their time. Therefore, it is not strange that Von Hammer-Purgstall uses these works for background information on the Ottoman Empire. Mouradgea d’Ohsson is not the only translator whose work served as a backbone to the scholarly work of Von Hammer-Purgstall. The section of the book in which he lists his sources is filled with the works of (former) translators and interpreters. The first I will light out is Karóly Reviczky (1737-1793). He was an interpreter at the Austrian embassy in Istanbul. He had worked on multiple translations for the embassy, from Ottoman treatise to a poem by the Persian poet Hafez (1320-1390).140 Reviczky was not trained by the same form of institutional education for translators as Von Hammer-Purgstall was. He was schooled at home, but showed an early aptitude for language. This eventually led him to become an Austrian ambassador in Istanbul. His travels also led him to Warsaw (1772-1779), Berlin (1779-1785) and London (1786-1790).141 He was an esteemed translator, scholar and collector of books. Von Hammer- Purgstall, in Des osmanischen Reiches, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, uses his translation of a treaty published by Ibrahim Effendi.142 Von Hammer Purgstall’s use of this source not only shows his willingness to use all kinds of sources, but also shows that he trusted the works which translators did before him, no doubt a legacy from his time in the translatory educational system. A third work by a translator which Von Hammer-Purgstall finds trustworthy enough to use in his analysis is the État général de l’empire ottoman, depuis sa fondation jusqu’a présent by François Pétis de la Croix (1653-1713).143 De la Croix was a student of the jeunes des langues, a project set up by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) to train foreign officials which were capable of multiple languages.144 Here he was taught everything he needed to know to become a diplomatic interpreter at the Porte. This meant that he had to know Middle Eastern languages like Persian, Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. Von Hammer-Purgstall used the work by De la Croix for the instruction of Turkish words and names which were useful to travelers.145 Again, this shows the use of the emergence of language-focused educational institutions stimulated by the European powers to Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works. He could easily look at the works which his predecessors had made when looking for sources. Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung is embedded within a longer tradition of scholarly works made by former diplomatic translators employed by

138 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung 3. 139 Von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung 190, 293. 140 Michael O’Sullivan, A Hungarian Josephinist, Orientalis tand Bibliophile: Count Karl Reviczky, 1737-1793 (Cambridge 2014) 61. 141 Ibidem 61. 142 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung XXX. 143 Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, Législation Orientale (Paris 1778). 144 Ingrid Cáceres-Würsig, The Jeunes de langues in the eighteenth century, Spain’s first diplomatic interpreters on the European model (2012) 130. 145 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung XXVIII.

28 European powers to the Ottoman Porte. The book itself is based on a gap in the work of one of these former translators, Mouradgea d’Ohsson. Within the book, there are multiple instances of Von Hammer-Purgstall making use of the work done by translators before him as well. His use of works by Karóly Reviczky and François Pétis de la Croix when conventional sources fell short shows the solution which the emergence of the emergence of the educational translatory institutions gave to a common problem studying a certain subject, this problem being a lack of sources. The solution was provided by the collection and translation of Middle Eastern sources by these institutions and their former students. Von Hammer-Purgstall’s Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung bases most of its research on a set of older structures like the emergence of historicism and the consolidation of diplomatic translatory schools. The influence of historicism on his works is quite visible. He is prepared to analyze every possible source on a subject, from various, sometimes conflicting points of view, to come as close as possible to the truth which he seeks in his studies. This urge to objectively describe his studied subject is visible mostly in the sources which he uses. He uses a combination of Ottoman sources and European sources, looking at where they agree and disagree. Von Hammer-Purgstall also leaned on earlier work done by translators. This could be a scholarly work, like Mouradgea d’Ohsson, or basic translatory work, like Karóly Reviczky’s. In Des osmanischen Reiches, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung it is clear that Von Hammer-Purgstall already in his first work was influenced by the education which he enjoyed and by the historicists he had met during his studies. The second work, the 10 volume Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, is a monumental work, published between 1827 and 1835. It is the biggest and most comprehensive work by Von Hammer-Purgstall and is generally seen as is best work as well. In this analysis, I will be analyzing the first volume of the work since it gives the background needed for this analysis. I will, again, start by looking for examples of historicism in his works and then look for the influences of former translators and their works. A first example of historicism which I want to give is a sentence in the prologue. Here Von Hammer-Purgstall explains the lack of personal preference he had when writing the work. The sentence goes as follows: In the innermost conviction of the rules of eternal foresight and retribution, their godly spirit goes over the weapons of history, without the man knowing, wherefrom and whereto I have seized these feathers, without preferences and reluctance, without preference for persons and peoples, for nations and religions, but with love for noble and good, with hatred for shameful and bad, without hatred against Greeks or Turks, without preference for Muslims or Christians, but with love for regulated power and well-ordered governance, for administration of justice and art of war, for openly worthy preparations and a scientific basis, with hatred, on the other hand, against indignation and suppression, against cruelty and tyrants.146 Here, Von Hammer-Purgstall explains his objective point of view when conducting his research. He specifically says that he is not doing this out of a religious point of view. He is not for or against the Ottoman Empire. He simply attempts to write an objective book on the empire. This is a sign of historicism. He tries to give an objective view throughout the books. Simply stating what the sources tell him, without a personal preference. A second example of historicism in the Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches which says something about the entirety of the book is the layout of the book. It is of course in this book that Von Hammer-Purgstall tries to explain a situation by looking at its specific past. He writes the book in chronological order, starting at the formation of the Turkish people in the

146 Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (Vienna 1827-1835) 15.

29 first chapter.147 The book is called Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, not Geschichte der Türken. In looking at the background of the Turkish people, where the empire originated from and how it became this way, is a historicist notion in itself. Von Hammer-Purgstall then moves on to the start of the Ottoman dynasty, again not the Ottoman Empire itself, but the family that leads it. Here he gives an overview of the Ottoman dynasty, based on the genealogical sources which he named in the source-overview. He also explains how the Ottoman dynasty was a vassal of the Mongols and the Seljuks before gaining independence.148 He explains how Osman the first, the founding father of the Ottoman dynasty, was also the first of his tribe to get land within ‘Rum’.149 Von Hammer-Purgstall does not just start the book this way. Each chapter starts with an explanation of the used sources, and the flaws of the sources as well as a short summary of relevant information to the later writings in the chapter. In short, Von Hammer- Purgstall gives a lot of information before even beginning to write about the Ottoman Empire itself. This background information, explaining how the Ottoman Empire came to be by explaining the historical process which made it, is an example of historicism. Another example of historicism is the beginning of Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, much like Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, by giving an overview of the sources he will use. He arranges the sources in seven categories, these being the genealogical and chronological works, the geographic works, the universal historical works, the general historical works on the Ottoman Empire, the specialist historical works, the descriptions of the lives of famous individuals and the collections of state writings.150 These seven categories already show the totality of the research done by Von Hammer-Purgstall. He then proceeds to list the sources he uses. This list is about 17 pages long, which is long for a bibliography. It becomes even more impressive when one realizes that these sources are only the ones being used in the first volume and that they are only the Middle Eastern sources which he uses. The source-overview itself gives the name of the author, the name of the book and a few sentences on the work. The source-overview shows the urge of Von Hammer-Purgstall to turn every stone around to approach the truth as closely as possible. This can be seen from the fact that, within the section on the specialist historical works, he uses seven books on the life of Sultan Selim.151 These range from a book by İshak Çelebi on the coronation of Sultan Selim and his war with his brother Ahmed in 1512,152 to Selim-name-i Sa’ededdin on the character of Sultan Selim.153 He then uses seven more works to look specifically into Selim’s conquest of Egypt, in 1517.154 This example of his eagerness to use as many sources as possible on a single subject shows the way in which Von Hammer-Purgstall attempted to write. He was trying to shine light on the issue from every possible angle in order to back his claims. The Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches starts with a chapter on the origins of the Turkish people. In this chapter, Von Hammer-Purgstall gives multiple possible answers to the question, who are the Turks descended from? A possible answer, according to Von Hammer- Purgstall, is that they were descendants of the Tatars and the Mongolian people.155 This notion stems from Tatarian and Mongolian historians themselves, as Von Hammer-Purgstall explains. Another possible explanation is that they were descended from the Scythians, an Eastern- European nomadic people which inhabited Eastern Europe and Western Asia until 300 BC.

147 Ibidem 33. 148 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 62. 149 Ibidem 88. 150 Ibidem 17. 151 Ibidem 25-26. 152 Ibidem 26. 153 Ibidem 26. 154 Ibidem 27-28. 155 Ibidem 33.

30 According to Von Hammer-Purgstall, the Byzantines thought they were descended from the Persians. Non-Byzantine historians ‘have fabled of the Trojan origins of the Turks, and immediately made them into descendants of Hector and Teucer’.156 Von Hammer-Purgstall himself believes the notion that they are descendants of the Scythians and their first king, Targitaus.157 He claims this on the basis of writings by Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian and often seen as the west’s first true historian,158 and the writings of Chalcondyles, a 15th century Greek historian.159 The historicist aspect within this argumentation is not the answer that Von Hammer-Purgstall believes is the correct one, but the options that he gives. This is very much in the spirit of Ranke, when not sure, organize your sources in a way that you can give an answer. It is better to try and fail than never to try in these things, and always give the other options and as many sources as possible. In the fourteenth chapter, Von Hammer-Purgstall discusses the reign of Sultan Mehmed II, the eventual conqueror of Constantinople in 1453. Here, he shows another example of the historicist influences on his work. Von Hammer-Purgstall starts the chapter by discussing the hardships which Sultan Mehmed II had to overcome to gain stability in his ever-growing empire. Von Hammer-Purgstall explains that Sultan Mehmed II had to deal with constant resistance by an Albanian military leader named (1405-1468).160 Sultan Mehmed II was forced to make a deal with Skanderbeg when he tried to defeat one of the last bastions of the , in modern-day Trabzon. Here, Von Hammer-Purgstall looks at the individual. He analyzes the deeds by both Skanderbeg and Sultan Mehmed II.161 Furthermore, he explains the peace between Skanderbeg and Sultan Mehmed II by looking at the historical background of their peace. Sultan Mehmed II offered the peace-agreement to end his ongoing war with the Byzantines and Skanderbeg accepted the proposal in order to be able to peacefully rule over and Epirus.162 Here, Von Hammer-Purgstall shows the historical process from both perspectives in order to give the complete picture and explain the eventual peace- agreement between the two. Another instance of Von Hammer-Purgstall being influenced by the historicist movement is seen in the introduction to the chapter, where he explains the lack of Ottoman historical writings on Skanderbeg. This ‘deepest silence’, as Von Hammer- Purgstall poses it, by the Ottoman historians is grounded in the fact that Skanderbeg’s deeds would bring dishonor on the Sultan.163 In order to solve this problem, Von Hammer-Purgstall shifts to a different source than the Ottoman sources, which he would usually use. Here he uses Marin Barleti (c.1450-1460 – c. 1512-1513). Barleti was an Albanian priest and historian. The fact that Von Hammer-Purgstall not only shows the eagerness to use a source outside of his usual range, but also mentions why he does this, and how limited he is in the available sources show the historicist influence in the work. He would prefer to use multiple sources, but this is not possible on this occasion. Even when the situation seems so difficult, Von Hammer- Purgstall did analyze different European works, but concluded that later works on Skanderbeg’s life have copied most of their work from Barleti’s work. This also shows Von Hammer- Purgstall’s urge to get as close to a ‘clean’ source as possible. Now that I have established these historicist notions within Von Hammer-Purgstall’s monumental Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches and Des osmanischen Reichs,

156 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 34, translation by author. 157 Ibidem 34. 158 John Gammie, ‘Herodotus on Kings and Tyrants: Objective Historiography or Conventional Portraiture?’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies, (1986) 3 171-195, there 171. 159 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 33. 160 Ibidem 458. 161 Ibidem 459. 162 Ibidem 461. 163 Ibidem 458.

31 Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, I will make a comparison to a work which is more closely linked to historicism, namely Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker: von 1494 bis 1535 by Leopold von Ranke. The book was first published in 1824 and was commended in its time for the wide variety of sources it used.164 It was the first major historical work by a man who is seen as one of the formulators of the historicist methodology. The work focuses on the Romanic and Germanic peoples between 1494 and 1535. In the prologue, Von Ranke discusses an important point. He says: ‘the intention of a historian depends on his view; from this, there are two things to say’.165 He then goes on to explain the two main points of view within European historiography on the Germanic and Romanic peoples. The first theme is that European history has developed as a unity between the Germanic and Romanic peoples.166 According to this idea, the Germanic and Romanic peoples have developed evenly and along the same lines. The second theme is that the peoples have developed individually.167 Each of them had a different path towards the 1494 situation. Von Ranke explains in the prologue that he will give both narratives in the book, but that he sees the second as the correct way of conducting historical research. He sees the focus on the individuals in the past to explain the contemporary collective as the task of the historian. This plea on the task of a historian is ended with the famous quote ‘[the historian] only wants to say how it actually was’.168 This focus on the individual is a sign of historicism and something which is visible in Des osamischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, where Von Hammer-Purgstall explains the development of the individual laws. The fact that Von Ranke is prepared to give the other narrative as well shows the same view on historical work as Von Hammer-Purgstall shows in his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, where he often gives both theories and chooses the one which, according to him, fits best. Another historicist notion in the Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker is the introduction. Von Ranke starts the book by writing an introduction in which he gives some historical background on the period. It starts with a short overview of Athaulf (370- 415), a Visigoth king in the fifth century.169 This king lived more than a thousand years before the actual studied period. The introduction goes on for 23 pages. Von Ranke gives a complementary background of the developments in Europe which he finds necessary to explain the situation in 1494. He even states this in the prologue, where he says that the introduction is meant to explain how Europe has developed to the point of 1494.170 This shows the same awareness of the importance of historical processes as Von Hammer-Purgstall shows in his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches and Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung where Von Hammer-Purgstall gives the same explanatory introduction in order to give his argumentation the notion of a historical process. The historicist notions within Von Hammer-Purgstall’s monumental Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches are clear. The way the book is made up, chronologically, not just starting with the foundation of the Ottoman Empire, but giving the historical background to explain this event, is a testament to these historicist influences. Within the book itself, there are multiple instances of historicism. He uses conflicting sources, gives an explanation of each source, and then elaborates on what he thinks is the best option and why. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the used sources and the relevant historical background. This introduction is then

164 J. D. Braw, ‘Vision as Revision: Ranke and the Beginning of Modern History’ History and Theory, (2007, 4) 45- 60, there 46. 165 Leopold von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker, IV translation by author. 166 Ibidem IV. 167 Ibidem V. 168 Ibidem VI. 169 Ibidem XVII. 170 Ibidem IV.

32 followed by the events which he wants to discuss, but he always keeps in mind why and how these events are a result of their respective historical processes. Basically, Von Hammer- Purgstall does the same as Von Ranke does in his monumental Geschichte der romanischen und Germanischen Völker. These historicist notions show the influence of the historicists Von Hammer-Purgstall encountered earlier in his life. This is the strength of the work. Every chapter is outlined by a historical background and relevant source-material. This reliance on the emergence of a newer structure like historicism, which always attempted to give an objective view of the studied subject, shows that the Middle Eastern studies was not bound to religious shackles until deep into the nineteenth century. There are instances in which earlier scholars of the subject attempt to objectively state the facts without merely serving a religious purpose. Now that I have established these historicist notions within the first volume of the Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, I will now look at the influences of former translators and their academic works on the book. The first observation which I want to make concerns the prologue to the book. Here, Von Hammer-Purgstall names the fact that a lot of the sources which he uses were by ‘the emperor’s embassy officials taken to Vienna, or translated by the emperor’s court interpreter’.171 He names two interpreters which, according to Von Hammer- Purgstall, combined with the emperor’s embassy officials, are the basis of the European knowledge on the Ottoman history. According to Von Hammer-Purgstall, ‘without the advantage of my location, the sources would have failed me’.172 With this, he means that the fact that he lived in Vienna gave him an advantage when it came to sources, because of the work of embassy officials and court translators to collect Ottoman sources. He, of course, also benefited from the time he had spent in Istanbul in the employment of the Austrian diplomatic service. Here, as we have seen, he had collected a number of Ottoman sources in his manuscript collection which he could later use in his research. The advantage of being in Vienna is explained by Von Hammer-Purgstall. He mentions two translators by name. Hans Caudir von Spiegel (early 1500s-1579) and Vincenze Bratutti (1615-1680). Bratutti was an interpreter at the courts of Ferdinand III in Vienna and King Philip IV in Madrid.173 He published an Italian translation of Hoca Sadeddin Efendi’s (1536-1599) Crown of Stories. His translation was called Chronica dell’origine, e progressi della Casa Ottomana.174 Bratutti was a Venetian dragoman, educated by the Venetian system. According to Alexander Bevilacqua and Helen Pfeifer, he ‘benefited from the language schools established by European states in the period.’.175 As we have seen, the Venetians were the first to institutionalize these schools since they had earlier ties with the Ottoman Empire. Von Hammer-Purgstall uses his works a lot, he refers to these throughout the book.176 Franz Babinger, in his article Die türkischen Studien in Europa bis zum Auftreten Josef von Hammer-Purgstalls, mentions that the source is used in the argumentation a lot as well between the pages 574 and 648. This shows that Von Hammer-Purgstall readily accepted the help he could get through his former education and the earlier works made by translators. A second instance of Von Hammer-Purgstall using a source by a former interpreter which I want to point out is the use of a translated source, translated by Caudir von Spiegel. Caudir von Spiegel was the court interpreter to Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-1564).177 He had

171 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 15 translation by author. 172 Ibidem 15 translation by author. 173 Natalie Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance 223. 174 Ibidem 223. 175 Alexander Bevilacqua, Helen Pfeifer, ‘Turquerie: Culture in Motion, 1650-1750’ Past & Present (2013, 221) 75-118, there 90. 176 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 134, 146, 151, 174, 316. 177 Ibidem 23.

33 learned the Turkish language as a prisoner of war and was later appointed as a translator by the emperor. The Austrian Hieronymus Beck von Leopoldsdorf (1525-1596) had acquired a copy of the writings of Muhyiddin Ibn-Alaeddin Ali El-Cemali on the history of the Ottomans and brought this back in 1550. Caudir von Spiegel was ordered by the emperor to translate this work into German.178 Von Spiegel translated the work into Latin and German. According to Von Hammer-Purgstall, this was the first account of Ottoman history in a European language.179 Up to 1550, the history of the Ottomans had mostly been written by Europeans based on stories and fables according to Von Hammer-Purgstall.180 Von Hammer-Purgstall uses this source to write a short, but comprehensive, introduction with background information on the early history of the Ottoman Empire. Another source which Von Hammer-Purgstall uses is, again, the Tableau général.181 He uses the source in his part on the first Ottoman state institutions. This is a parallel to Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung in which Von Hammer-Purgstall also uses the Tableau général for the formation of institutions in the Ottoman Empire. Here he uses it as a source for the institutionalization of the pensions of former janissaries, an elite infantry unit within the Ottoman army. Again, Von Hammer-Purgstall relies heavily on an academic source by a former translator. All of this is only in the first volume of course. Von Hammer-Purgstall’s work Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches is strongly situated within the work of former translators. He relied on their works when the Middle Eastern sources were lacking, or when he was unable to acquire those sources. He gave note of earlier work done by translators on the subjects which he spoke of. Von Hammer-Purgstall had most probably been acquainted with these works through his time at the Wiener Orientalischen Akademie and this benefited his scholarly works. This shows that Von Hammer-Purgstall did benefit from the location in which he wrote his works, because of the translatory institutions. These schools, combined with the longstanding diplomatic relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Austria, gave Von Hammer-Purgstall access to a plethora of sources which his manuscript collection from his time in Istanbul lacked. He could, in his research, fall back on the research already done by European translators on the Middle East, like Bratutti and Von Spiegel. Von Hammer-Purgstall’s reliance in the emergence of these institutions shows that the European non-theological scholars of the Middle East were not floating in a vacuum without earlier work to build upon. They could rely on works and sources which were available because of the necessity of having European men trained in Middle Eastern languages in the time. To conclude the third, and final, chapter of my thesis, I will formulate an answer to the main question of this chapter. This question being: ‘are the influences of historicism and the interpreters and their research visible in Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works?’ The answer to this question is, based on my research into these two books, yes. Von Hammer Purgstall has used many aspects which characterize historicism. He has shown in both these books an urge to collect and analyze as many sources as possible. These sources could be contradicting sources, like the sources on the origins of the Turkish people. Then, he categorized those sources in a way which seemed most logical to him, eventually choosing to believe the source which he found most trustworthy. The historicist basis of this methodology is not only visible due to the signifiers of historicism which I have determined in chapter 1, but also because of the methodological similarities between Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works and Von Ranke’s Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker. As for the influences of the translators, Von Hammer-Purgstall based his works on the works of many translators. The entirety of Des

178 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches 23. 179 Ibidem 23. 180 Ibidem 23. 181 Ibidem 99.

34 osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung is based on an earlier scholarly work by a former translator, Mouradgea d’Ohsson. In the works himself, his argumentation and collection of sources is often based on the works of (former) translators as well. He says as much in the prologue to the book Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. The emergence of institutionalized translatory schools in Europe had gifted Von Hammer-Purgstall a major body of work to fall back upon when doing his research. This means that, much like the sudden emergence of former translators publishing semi-academic articles on the Middle East and the academic interest in the Ottoman judicial system, changes in the European academic views on the Middle East came from developments within Europe.

35 Conclusion

To summarize this thesis, in the first chapter I have looked at how historicism has developed and what possible signifiers could be. I have also looked at the development of the educational institutions for translators and two translators which were important to the development of Von Hammer-Purgstall into a scholar. The emergence of historicism is linked to the events which took place during the French Revolution and the scientific branch of the Enlightenment linked to it. The German intelligentsia, which initially supported the Enlightenment movement, lost their trust in the French Revolution and the Enlightenment after it boiled down to a bloodbath in which a lot of people were killed for their political convictions and their family’s background. Historicism developed as a countermovement. Historicists urged people to look at historical events without measuring it by a set of timeless values. They were also asked to respect the historical process behind events, and not merely study the events themselves. These were the major signifiers of historicism which I have used in this thesis. The development of the educational institutions for translators was born out of necessity. European powers needed trustworthy people who spoke Middle Eastern languages to form and entertain diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. Earlier, the European powers had used Catholics from the Middle East, so called Levantines, to translate in diplomatic settings, but these turned out to be not as trustworthy as initially thought. Therefore, the European powers founded institutions to educate European boys and men in Middle Eastern languages. The Venetians started this in the 16th century and soon the other powers followed suit. France founded its system of language teaching for diplomats, the École des jeunes de langue, in the 17th century, and Austria did the same in the 18th century. This institutionalization ensured the collection of certain Middle Eastern sources, translated or in their original state, within Europe. Two translators who did not go through this educational system but were influential in the emergence of the Middle Eastern studies are Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski and Mouradgea Ignatius d’Ohsson. Both of them had worked as a translator for European diplomatic services in Istanbul and both of them published influential scholarly works later in life. In the second chapter, I have looked at the life of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall and the moments in which he could possibly have been influenced by the emergence of historicism and the translatory educational institutions. He was educated at one of these institutions, the Wiener Orientalischen Akademie, so that is a moment in which he most probably was influenced by the intellectual visions and principles of these schools. At the Akademie he was very probably taught from Meninski’s dictionary, and during his stay in Istanbul after his school-period, he met Mouradgea d’Ohsson. The historicist movement could have influenced him through his personal acquaintance, the Swiss historian Johannes von Müller. Von Müller stood in contact with many prominent figures in the historicist movement, like Friedrich von Schlegel and Johan Gottfried von Herder. Von Müller introduced Von Hammer-Purgstall to these historicists and they stood in close relation to the work which Von Hammer-Purgstall eventually produced. Both the institutionalization of the diplomatic translatory educational systems and the emergence of historicism had every opportunity to influence Von Hammer-Purgstall’s way of thinking. In the third chapter, I have looked at two works by Von Hammer-Purgstall, in order to establish whether the possible influences are visible in Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works. I have analyzed Des osmanischen Reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung and the Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. In both these works, the influences were visible. In Des osmanischen reichs, Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung the main example of the historicist notion is the way in which the work is made up. It is built in a very historicist way. At first there is the necessary historicist background on the rulers which made the laws before explaining the laws

36 themselves. The translatory influences on the work are visible in the sheer existence of the book itself, because Von Hammer-Purgstall builds upon, and finishes, the older work by Mouradgea d’Ohsson on the Ottoman laws. In the Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, the historicist notions are visible in the layout of the work as well. Von Hammer-Purgstall gives a historical background on the existence of the Ottoman Empire before discussing the Empire itself or even the Ottoman dynasty which founded it. The translatory influences on the work are named in the prologue, where Von Hammer-Purgstall identifies the benefits of his location. He writes his works in Vienna and this is a benefit because of the many translatory sources which were collected and brought to the city. The background to my analysis of Von Hammer-Purgstall’s works is formed by the paradigm-shift in the Middle Eastern studies caused by Edward Said’s publication of Orientalism in 1978. Publications which I have analyzed from before 1978 were unanimous in the way in which they saw Middle Eastern studies develop over time. Publications by Babinger and Fück both mentioned that the Middle Eastern studies were able to lose the strong grip of religion on the scientific field in the early nineteenth century. This is a notion which I have tested in this thesis. The publication of Orientalism put the focus within literature on the development of Middle Eastern studies on power-relations, but Said deliberately left out the German literature, mistakenly, I would argue. One of the power-relations which was brought to the center of attention was the influence of western religions on European academic interest in the Middle East. This resulted in authors like Suzanne L. Marchand and Albert Hourani publishing chapters on the religious influences of the church on western academic interest in the Middle East. They both saw a much longer trajectory before Middle Eastern studies could lose its religious shackles. Suzanne Marchand went as far as claiming that almost all nineteenth-century European scholars of the Middle East were influenced by religion in their research, and that the reason why they were interested in the Middle East was simply ‘a longing to hear God’s word’. In this thesis, I have attempted to prove that the notion that the Middle Eastern studies became a science not related to religion only in the 19th century after the 1798 Napoleonic invasion of Egypt or later, should be nuanced. It is true that a lot of European academic studies of the region have long been servant to religious goals. However, the researchers who were the ‘first’ to start working on the Middle Eastern studies not directly serving a religious goal in the 19th century were only able to do so because of earlier non-religious academic works on the Middle East. Furthermore, the 1798 Napoleonic invasion of Egypt may have been a catalyst for European research into the Middle East, but there were more structures which were of influence, like the emergence of the historicist movement, which tried to give as objective a view as possible of the objects which it studied, or the emergence of diplomatic translatory institutions focused on the Middle East. I have attempted to illustrate this point by analyzing Von Hammer-Purgstall’s life and works. The implication of this thesis for the literature is not one of ‘wrong’ or ‘right’, but one of nuances. It is undoubtedly true that religion did have a strong grip on the Middle Eastern studies, even far into the 19th century. However, this is not true in every single case. Furthermore, the emergence of historicism as a movement within the humanities has been left out of the research after Said’s publication. The existence of earlier non-theological forms of academic interest in the Middle East has only rarely played a part in the research on the development of Middle Eastern studies. The central idea of the thesis is that Von Hammer- Purgstall and his contemporaries had certain non-theological structures to fall back on when conducting their research. These structures were new in their time and have played a role in the development of Middle Eastern studies away from religion. The title of the thesis, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, might, even after all this, seem a bit strange. It is part of a quote attributed to Bernard of Chartres. John of Salisbury, a

37 former student of Bernard, said that he would often compare the students to ‘dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants.’. This was because earlier research done by the ‘giants’ allowed the ‘dwarfs’ to see further than their predecessors had done. Much like John was gifted with a more precise vision of his surroundings because of earlier research, Von Hammer-Purgstall and his contemporary colleagues were gifted with a more precise vision of their subject, the Middle East, because of the earlier non-theological scholarly interest in the Middle East. The research which I have conducted is far from complete. It is a case-study and comes with all the disadvantages of a case-study. First and foremost, the scholar which I have chosen to analyze, Joseph Von Hammer-Purgstall, focuses on the history of the Ottoman Empire. This means that I am attempting to state something about an entire field of study without using cases from every branch within this field of study. Further research into the influence of the emergence of historicism and the diplomatic translatory institutions on other branches of Middle Eastern studies could give a more complete picture. Secondly, due to the limited scope of a master’s thesis, the subject is limited to two works by Von Hammer-Purgstall. The analysis of more works by Von Hammer-Purgstall could provide a more complete picture of the influences of the aforementioned structures on his works. Thirdly, there most certainly are more structures at play in the development of Middle Eastern studies away from religion. This, again, is not something which can be analyzed within a single thesis, but further research could give more clarification on this notion.

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