Search

[German Version] Especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the image of the “terrible Turk” as the pagan archenemy of Christendom spread among the population of the Christian West, encouraged by spokesmen for the church and the secular authorities, who called for a religious war against the Turks (and imposed a “Turkish levy” to finance it). After c. 1500, the pressure and dissemination of anti-Turkish propaganda played a significant role. A broadsheet published in Rome in 1453 describe…

[German Version] The Ottomans, sometimes called the Imperial House of Osman (the dynasty’s founder), were the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. In a broader sense, the term denotes the Muslim (and since around the mid-19th cent. officially even the non-Muslim) population of this last Islamic empire. It had arisen from the chaos surrounding the collapse of Mongol rule over the Seljuks, developing from an Anatolian principality into an immediate neighbor and rival of Byzantium, until finally, with the c…

[German Version] I. Geography – II. History – III. Society – IV. Religions – V. Literature I. Geography “Asia Minor” serves as the historical designation of the peninsula between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; its eastern boundary is marked by the Amanus, the Anti-Taurus, and the upper reaches of the Euphrates (Turkey). To the north and south, coastal mountain ranges (t…

Cetinje (Turk. Çetince; in Ottoman orthography, Çetiīne) is a town in present-day Montenegro (Crna Gora; Turk. Karadağ), with a population of 13,991 (2011), which is located at the foot of Mt. Lovćen, roughly 30 kilometres (19 miles) southwest of the country’s capital, Podgorica. It served as the political, cultural, and spiritual centre of the principality of Montenegro (from 1910, a kingdom) until the end of World War I. Cetinje is famous for its Monastery of the Holy Mother of God (Bogorodica), as well as a rich tradition of publishing in Cyrillic, which began in the las…

Basiret (Baṣīret) was an Ottoman periodical that was published—with interruptions due to censorship—from 20 Şevval (Shawwāl)1286/23 January 1870 until 20 May 1878, when it was closed by the government. Initially, it consisted of four pages per issue and appeared five days a week (except Fridays and Sundays). Later, it was published every day, with more pages, and its daily circulation rose from roughly 300 to about 1,000. The newspaper was revived again briefly, on 29 September 1908. Basiretçi Ali (Baṣīretçi ʿAlī) Efendi, the paper’s concessionary and long-serving princi…