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Karl Sax's Letters About "The Bosnian Turks" and the Turkish Language in Bosnia (19Th C.)

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Karl Sax's Letters About GAMER, I, 1 (2012) s. 23-36 KARL SAX'S LETTERS ABOUT "THE BOSNIAN TURKS" AND THE TURKISH LANGUAGE IN BOSNIA (19TH C.) Ekrem Čaušević* Özet Karl Sax’ın “Bosnalı Türkler” Ve Bosna’da Türk Dili Hakkındaki Mektupları (19. Yüzyıl) 19. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında, Bosna-Hersek, Avrupalı devletlerin diplomatları ve gezginlerince daha sık ziyaret edilir hale gelmişti. Ziyaretçilerin eve dönüşleri, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun en batı ucundaki bu vilayet ile ilgili tecrübeleri hakkında çeşitli metinlerin (bilhassa da seyahatnamelerin) basılması süreçlerine sahne oldu. Bu seyahatnameler sıklıkla Bosna Hersek'in coğrafi özellikleri hakkında bilgilere, doğal bolluk ve güzelliklerine, şehirlerine, yollarına, ekonomisine, yönetimine, yerleşik halkına, yaşam tarzlarına, geleneklere, Müslüman halkın gayri-müslimlere yönelik tavırlarına, inanç özgürlüğüne ve diğer temel haklara atıfta bulunuyordu. Buna rağmen, dönemin dilbilimsel ve kültürel görünümü ile ilgilenen bir Türkolog, bu konularda “(tüm mezhepler içerisinde) her dinden oldukça az sayıda Bosnalı Türkçe konuşuyordu”, “Türkçe konuşabilenler bile bu dilde çok zor iletişim kurabiliyordu” ve “yerli Türkler (Bosnalı Müslümanlar) de kendi aralarında yerel (Slav) dili konuşuyordu” gibi ifadeler dışında oldukça sınırlı sayıda bilgiye ulaşabiliyor. Bu dönemde Bosnalı Müslümanların dilleri ve kültürü konusunda araştırma yapan iki yazar ön plana çıkıyor; bunlardan ilki Prusya Konsolosu Otto Blau ve eseri Bosnisch- türkische Sprachdenkmäler, diğeri ise Saraybosna'nın Avusturya Konsolosluğu'nda üst düzey yetkili olarak çalışan Karl Sax’dır. 1862 ve 1863 yıllarında Karl Sax, Alman bir profesör olan * Prof Dr., Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Head of the Department of Turkology, University of Zagreb/CROATIA. Ekrem Čaušević Wickerhauser'a göndermiş olduğu iki mektubu yayınlamıştır. Her iki mektup da Alman süreli yayını Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'ta yayımlanmıştır. Profesör Wickerhauser'ın Karl Sax'a yanıt olarak gönderdiği diğer mektuplar korunamamış olsa da, Sax'ın yanıtlarından, kendisinden Bosna'da kullanılan Türk dili, “Bosnalı Türkler” (yani Bosnalı Müslümanlar) ve onların Türk edebiyatı ve klasik eserleri hakkında hakimiyetleri konularında bilgi istendiği anlaşılmaktadır. Sax'ın Bosnalı Müslümanlar hakkındaki yargılarına ve onların Türk dili ve edebiyatı üzerine hâkimiyetlerine çekinceyle yaklaşılması gerekmekle birlikte, Sax'ın mektupları Türk dilinin Bosna ağzı hakkında önemli bilgiler sunmaktadır. Bu makale, daha önce Türkoloji çalışmalarında kendilerine yer bulmayan, Sax'ın mektuplarına atfedilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Bosna'da Türk dili, Türkler, Boşnaklar, Bosna'da Türk şiiri. Abstract In the second half of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina was more frequently visited by foreign diplomats and travellers from European countries. Upon their return to their countries, some of these visitors would publish a variety of texts (mainly travelogues) about their travel experiences in this westernmost province of the Ottoman Empire. These travelogues frequently mention the facts related to the geographical characteristics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its natural abundance and beauty, its cities, roads, economy, government, inhabitants, lifestyle, customs, attitudes of Muslims towards non-Muslim population, freedom of religion, and other liberties. A Turkologist with an interest in linguistic and cultural aspects of that period, however, can find very little information of interest in these sources other than the few statements that "very few Bosnians (of all denominations) speak Turkish", that "even those who speak Turkish can barely communicate in this language" and that "the local Turks (the Bosnian Muslims) speak the native (Slavic) language with each other". The two authors in this period that do focus on the languages and culture of Bosnian Muslims in their publications are the Prussian Consul Otto Blau in Bosnisch-türkische , I, 1 (2012) , I, 1 (2012) Sprachdenkmäler, and Carl Sax, a senior official at the Austrian Consulate in Sarajevo. In 1862 and 1863, Carl Sax published two letters that he had originally sent to a German professor GAMER 24 Karl Sax's Letters About "The Bosnian Turks" called Wickerhauser. The letters were published in a German periodical titled the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. The letters from Professor Wickerhauser to Carl Sax were not preserved, but from Sax´s replies to Professor Wickerhauser, it is evident that Carl Sax was asked to provide detailed information about the Turkish language in Bosnia, about “the Bosnian Turks” (i.e. Bosnian Muslims), and how much knowledge they had about the Turkish literature and its literary classics. Although Sax´s information and judgements about the Bosnian Muslims and their knowledge of the Turkish language and literature can not be taken without some reservation, his letters, nevertheless, provide important information about the Bosnian variety of the Turkish language. This paper is dedicated to Sax's letters, which have so far not been available to Turkologist. Keywords: Turkish language in Bosnia, Turks, Bosniaks, Turkish poetry in Bosnia I. The view from the other side of the Sava River The defeat at Vienna in 1683 marked the end of the Ottoman expansion, and the subsequent military failures and territorial retreats of the Ottomans dispelled the myth that their army was invincible. The effects of these events are well known: the Peace Treaties of Karlowitz (1699), Požarevac (1718), and Belgrade (1739) established a stable border along the Sava River for the Hapsburg Monarchy, while the Ottomans had to withdraw from the greater part of the Croatian Kingdom's territory. Although the Croatian Military Frontier lost its basic defence role after these military failures, the frontier system was not abolished; on the contrary, it was extended into the territories of Slavonia and Banat. The Military Frontier continued to exist because of the centralist and absolutist policies of the Habsburgs, but also because it enabled them to mobilize numerous troops quickly and cheaply in crisis situations. Due to this course of events, European fears of the “Tatar hordes" and the “Saracen infidels" gave way to "ordinary" human curiosity about everyday life in the Ottoman Empire. Thus travelogues became a popular genre favoured by European readers. Nevertheless, rarely did a travel writer find the strength to free , I, 1 (2012) himself even momentarily from the everyday, heavily Christian- influenced prejudices of the time. If we disregard the mainly GAMER 25 Ekrem Čaušević idealised descriptions of "European Turkey" and Istanbul, garnished with various (often unreliable) juicy stories about the harem, harem plots, and the life of the Sultan's concubines, many European travel writers experienced the Ottoman Empire as a symbol of absolutist rule and tyranny, and as a space of chaos, anarchy, extortion, and corruption. At the same time, they viewed the Turks themselves as barbarians indulging themselves by humiliating and oppressing their Christian subjects. Needless to say, this implied a stereotype of Islam as a traditional and uncompromising enemy of Christianity.1 Marija Todorova writes that, until the eighteenth century, authors of accounts about the Ottoman Empire titled as travelogues and diaries were mainly members of diplomatic missions to the Porte, merchants, pilgrims, and prisoners-of-war. During the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century, they were joined by antiquarians, scientists, or simply adventurers and "romantics who were searching for authentic remains of ancient Greece".2 Despite their prejudices, these people, as often as not highly educated in the humanities, left valuable observations about a very broad range of aspects of everyday life, about people and customs, administration, cities and towns, forts, etc. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many travel writers practically made a fetish of "the folk spirit" – the folklore and particularly the folk literature of the Ottoman Empire's Balkan subjects. Needless to say, this was directly correlated with the scientific interests and readers' tastes of the time, beginning with Romanticism, which aroused great interest in "uncivilised peoples" who lived their traditional way of life and in "close contact with nature". The European reader's interest in the events in the Balkans was aroused by the national movements of the Balkan peoples and the status of "the Ottoman Christians". In the nineteenth century, people travelled to "European Turkey" from almost everywhere in Europe, but the most numerous among this eastward-travelling motley crew were travel writers from Italy and German-speaking areas. 1 Marija Todorova dedicates a chapter to European travelogues about the Ottoman Empire in her book Imagining the Balkans, Oxford University Press, 1997. As a long time has elapsed since its publication, Todorova's book is now one of many dealing with the topic. , I, 1 (2012) , I, 1 (2012) 2 İbid. pp. 62-88. Fragments about travelogues from the Balkans in German, with short biographies of their authors, were published by Miloš Okuka and Petra Rehder in their book Das zerrissene Herz – Reisen durch Bosnien-Herzegowina 1530- GAMER 1993, Verlag C. H. Beck, München, 1994. 26 Karl Sax's Letters About "The Bosnian Turks" In the mid-19th century, consulates of some European countries operated in Bosnia. They carefully monitored the political feelings of the local population about the Ottoman bureaucratic
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