AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

In my dissertation I have explored the early seventeenth-century literary representations of the 1622 janissary uprising against Sultan Osman II (1618-1622). The young Ottoman sultan lost his life during this rebellion. The news of Osman’s death caused a sensation both in the Ottoman Empire and in the West. It also inspired works of poetry, five of which have been preserved until today: three tragic plays, one epic, and a rhymed chronicle. My dissertation presents a comparative investigation of these literary texts. Focusing on the distinction between the texts originating from the regions with little direct contact with the Ottoman world, those on the Ottoman border, and an Ottoman text, my research has identified similar representation mechanisms of the contemporary historical events across cultures. In each of the five Osmans, the ethnic/religious and the political stereotyping are interrelated. Certain political roles are criticized because of an association with ethnic and/or religious identities, while, at the same time, there is also a degree of identification with other political roles within the same identities. As an outcome, the characters of Osman II and other protagonists of the rebellion are construed along the lines of double attribution, as political figures on the one hand, and as the heads of the Ottoman Empire on the other. In conclusion, the contemporary literature about the Istanbul uprising of 1622 reveals mixed feelings, rather than a clear-cut bias toward the structures involved in this Ottoman crisis.