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Georgius Huszthius, a Traveller from Croatia, and His Account of the Ottoman Naval Campaign in India (1538–1539)

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Georgius Huszthius, a Traveller from Croatia, and His Account of the Ottoman Naval Campaign in India (1538–1539) Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Volume 68 (3), 349 – 362 (2015) DOI: 10.1556/062.2015.68.3.10 GEORGIUS HUSZTHIUS, A TRAVELLER FROM CROATIA, AND HIS ACCOUNT OF THE OTTOMAN NAVAL CAMPAIGN IN INDIA (1538–1539) ANĐELKO VLAŠIĆ TÜBİTAK Research Fellow, History Department, Koç University Rumelifeneri Yolu, 34450 Sarıyer/Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] This paper analyses the description of the Ottoman naval campaign in India (1538–1539) in the travelogue of the Croatian traveller Georgius Huszthius, a trumpeter in the fleet of Hâdım Süley- man Pasha during the Indian campaign; thus he is an excellent witness to these events. The aim is to compare Huszthius’s account with other primary sources for the mentioned events and secondary sources published up to now. Huszthius’s travelogue named Descriptio peregrinationis Georgii Huszthii and published in 1881 is historically significant, because it gives us new information about the mentioned Ottoman campaign and also corroborates the testimonies of the Portuguese chroni- clers and of an anonymous Venetian author whose journal Viaggio di un comito Veneziano da Ales- sandria all’ assedio di Diu was published in Venice in 1540. Huszthius’s and the unknown Ve- netian’s works represent the only two first-hand accounts of the Indian campaign from the side of the crew of the Ottoman fleet. Their works confirm Portuguese primary sources and give us a more balanced view on Hâdım Süleyman Pasha’s naval campaign. Huszthius’s travelogue’s section con- cerning the Ottoman naval campaign in India and the siege of Diu still has not been fully examined by Turkish historians and this paper is an attempt to ameliorate that situation. Key words: Georgius Huszthius, India, Ottoman naval campaign, siege of Diu, Hâdım Süleyman Pasha. Primary Sources for the Ottoman Campaign in India Researchers use as primary sources only Portuguese accounts of the Indian campaign and the report of an unknown Venetian boatswain who was, among other Venetian sailors, employed by Hâdım Süleyman Pasha during the Indian campaign (Kerr 1812, p. 257). The main Portuguese sources for the history of the siege of Diu of 1538 are two books. The first is named Da Ásia by the authors Diogo do Couto and João de Barros, of whom the latter one is the author of the relevant part, named Dos feitos 0001-6446 / $ 20.00 © 2015 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 350 ANĐELKO VLAŠIĆ que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento, e conquista dos mares, e terras do Ori- ente. Decada quarta. Parte segunda (The deeds that the Portuguese did in the dis- covery and conquest of the seas and lands of the Orient. Volume four. Part two), print- ed by the Régia Officina Typografica of Lisbon between 1777 and 1788. The other book was written by Lopes de Sousa Coutinho and is called Historia do cerco de Dio (The history of the siege of Dio), printed in Lisbon in 1890. Valuable treatises on the afore-mentioned event are papers published by Luciano Ribeiro: O primeiro cerco de Dio (The first siege of Dio), published in Studia No. 1, pp. 201–295 in 1958, Preâm- bulos do primeiro cerco de Diu (Preambles to the first siege of Diu), Studia No. 10, pp. 151–193, 1962, Em torno do primeiro cerco de Diu (About the first siege of Diu), Studia Nos 13–14, pp. 41–104, 1964, and a book named Mais documentos relativos ao primeiro cerco de Dio (More documents relating to the first siege of Dio), pub- lished in Lisbon in 1966. As for the Ottoman sources, one must point out that Ottoman narratives of the siege are rare. One source is a book by Kâtib Çelebi called Tuhfetü’l-Kibâr fi Es- fâri’l-Bihâr, printed by İbrahim Müteferrika in Istanbul in 1729. Hâdım Süleyman Pasha’s own account is missing from his collection of letters (Kurtoğlu 1940). The Turkish researcher Ertuğrul Önalp (2008, pp. 236–237) used the books of Portuguese authors who in turn used the anonymous Venetian’s account when describing the Ottoman fleet’s activities in the Indian Ocean. As for the anonymous Venetian author, there are two printed versions of his ac- count, both in Italian. The first is called Viaggio di un comito Veneziano da Alessand- ria all’ assedio di Diu (Voyage of a Venetian boatswain, from Alexandria to Diu) and it was printed in Venice in 1540 (Kerr 1812, p. 257). The second version is named Viaggio scrito per un comito venetiano che fu condoto prigione dalla citta de Ales- sandria fino al Diu nella India, col suo ritorno, poi al Cairo del 1538 (Voyage writ- ten by a Venetian boatswain who was imprisoned in the city of Alexandria, and which finished in Diu, in India, until his return through Cairo, in 1538) (Anonymous Author 1550, Vol. II, pp. 1476–1509). These descriptions differ in several respects, not only in their titles, but also in both substance and diction (Kerr 1812, p. 257). Georgius Huszthius’s Life and Travels Georgius Huszthius (his Latin name) or Juraj Hus Rasinjanin (his Croatian name) (written also as Gjuro/Đuro Hus/Huz/Hwz/Husz/Husti/Huszti) was born in ca. 1510 in Rasinja (today Croatia, then part of the Hungarian Kingdom) and died after 1566 in Pozsony (today Bratislava, in Slovakia). Huszthius was the first known renaissance traveller and travelogue writer from Croatia. He was a native of the village of Rasinja and thus called “de Rascinia”, “de Rasinya”, or “Rasciniensis” (Istvánffy 1622, Vol. XI, p. 115; Horányi 1776, Vol. I, p. 189). Huszthius was educated in the Latinist cur- riculum at the University of Pécs in Hungary. As a young man, in 1532 he was ab- ducted from his village by Ottoman soldiers on their retreat from an unsuccessful military campaign to Vienna. He was taken to Istanbul as a slave of the Ottoman def- Acta Orient. Hung. 68, 2015 GEORGIUS HUSZTHIUS’S ACCOUNT OF THE OTTOMAN NAVAL CAMPAIGN IN INDIA 351 terdar İskender Çelebi, and he spent the next ten years (1532–1542) in the Muslim world of the Middle East. As an Ottoman slave, he took part in Sultan Süleymanthe Magnificent’s military campaign against Persia (1534–1536). When defterdar İsken- der Çelebi fell into disgrace and was hanged in Baghdad, his property was transferred to İbrahim Pasha, and later to the Sultan. Huszthius became an apprentice trumpeter in the service of the musical master Pervane Usta in Galata, Istanbul. After four years he was liberated by the Sultan, with limited mobility right throughout the Ottoman Empire. Soon afterwards he enlisted as a military trumpeter: he was hired for a better salary, and from 1536 to 1538 he practised in Egypt with the army units. Subsequently he took part in the naval campaign in India as a trumpeter. Afterwards, back in Cairo, Huszthius decided to leave the army and head back home, this time as a pilgrim, and he went to Jerusalem, Damascus, Anatolia, the island of Khios, Sicily, Naples, Genoa, Rome, Ancona, Rijeka, Zagreb, and finally Pozsony (now Bratislava in Slovakia), capital of the Hungarian Kingdom under Habsburg rule, where he died around 1566 (Krasić 1993, Vol. 3, p. 68; Stepanić 2011, p. 1). His manuscript represents one of the most valuable travelogues of the 16th century (Humski 2002, Vol. 5, p. 17; Laszowski 1925, p. 112). Description of Georgius Huszthius’s Manuscript Several years after Huszthius returned home, he decided to write a report which would be a recount of his travels. One should bear in mind that Huszthius had a classical humanist education, hence he wrote in Latin. His travelogue has been preserved in two manuscript versions: the first, entitled Georgii Huz peregrinatio Hierosolimita- na (The pilgrimage of Georgius Huz to Jerusalem), written in Latin and dated 10th November 1548, in Pozsony (today Bratislava), is preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, Austria (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, under the signature 9528). It is a copy of the text the author claims to have sent to Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg in the same year. Much later, in 1566, Huszthius wrote a new, expanded and more elaborate version of his voyages named Descriptio peregrinationis Georgii Huszthii (Description of the travel of Georgius Huszthius), also in Latin, dated 27th October 1566, and dedicated to Hieronymus Beck, Emperor Ferdinand’s counsellor. The manuscript of the latter version was transcribed in Kroatisch-Jahrndorf (Hun- garian: Horvátjárfalu, Croatian: Hrvatski Jandrof), today in Slovakia, and is pre- served in the Vatican Library in Rome (Codex Bibliothecae Vaticanae Romae) under the registration number 931 (fol. 30, pag. 60) (Stepanić 2011, p. 1; Krasić 1993, Vol. 3, p. 68). Croatian academician Petar Matković edited and published Husztius’s manu- script with commentaries in 1881 (Huszthius 1881). This edition is based on the later manuscript but different parts of text from the older manuscript are added to illustrate differences between the two versions. The edition comprises 38 pages (Matković 1881; Stepanić 2011, p. 1). Huszthius’s work was translated into Hungarian by the Hungarian historian Lajos Tardy in 1977. This book includes a short introduction, the text of the Acta Orient. Hung. 68, 2015 352 ANĐELKO VLAŠIĆ manuscript and notes (Tardy 1977, pp. 208–269)1. It is important to mention that Huszthius’s manuscript is not a journal but a retrospective interpretation of past events. Huszthius extensively narrates his travels throughout the Middle East and the wars in which he participated. He also relatively precisely described the Indian campaign on seven pages of his manuscript. One may argue that his work is one of the most literate and attractive works (from the viewpoint of a layman lecturer) amongst the so-called prisoner travelogues of European Christians in the Ottoman Empire, including Johann Schiltberger’s Reisebuch (Homann 1995, Vol.
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