HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN STATE 1299-1566
HIST 203, FALL 2006
Aslı Niyazioğlu
aniyazioglu@ku.edu.tr
Office hours: Tue Thu. 11-12
Fen 215
This course examines the history of the Ottoman State from its origins as a tiny frontier
principality to its transformation into a world empire, and the social, political and cultural
changes that accompanied this process. Students are also introduced to the principal
historiographic debates on this period.
Course Requirements
You are required to attend all classes (see the general catalogue of the university p. 58)
not to miss exams/presentation and required to submit your essay on time (in case of
illness a valid medical excuse has to be submitted within one week of absence). You will
take one midterm exam (Nov 7th Tuesday during class) and a final exam. They will
include the material covered in both the lectures and the readings. There will be two short
quizzes, not announced beforehand, where you will be asked to identify major events,
people, or concepts in a few sentences.
You will also give a presentation and submit a short essay. For the presentation, you
will work in groups of two. Each will be graded separately and submit a separate paper.
The presentation (about 15 minutes) will be a review of the readings of the week that will
be assigned to each group. They will take place each Thursday [except the presentation of
the Week 9 which will be on Nov 21st]. The essay will be based on your presentation. It
will be about 8 pages (double spaced) and due on Dec 26. In your presentation and essay,
you will introduce the major historical events and people, discuss the historical
significance of your subject, summarize the main arguments of the author, and comment
on the authors’ (or in some cases fılm directors’) approach. The presentation will be brief,
so organize your time carefully. Here are some questions which you may want to pursue:
How do the historians whose works you read approach their subjects? Which sources do
they use? What questions do they ask? What do the authors of the primary sources
emphasize/omit/or alter about the events and people they describe? And how do the
movies represent the past?
Grading will be as follows:
Presentation and essay:
Pop quizzes and participation:
Mid-term exam:
Final exam:
10%
20%
35%
35%
Readings are electronically available at: http://libunix.ku.edu.tr search Reserves by
Course under Hist 203. If you have any questions regarding this, see İlkay Gürbüz at
Suna Kıraç Library. You could also purchase a reader in hardcopy from the photocopy
center at the library.
CLASS SCHEDULE
TueThu 15.30-16.45 at CAS B40
Week 1 (Sep 19-21)
Introduction
Week 2 (Sep 26-28) From Frontier Principality to Statehood
Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, The Construction of the Ottoman State,
(Berkeley: 1995), 1-28.
Norman Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Chicago: 1972), 10-24.
**Movie of the Week: Dracula (selected parts)
Week 3 (Oct 3-5) Mehmed II and Constantinople
Halil Inalcık, “The Policy of Mehmed II towards the Greek Population Istanbul and the
Byzantine Buildings in the City,” DOP 23 (1970): 231-49.
** Movie of the Week: Kahpe Bizans (selected parts)
Week 4 (Oct 14) Topkapı Palace: Central Administration and the Sultan’s
Household
Gülru Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth
and Sixteenth Centuries, (Cambridge, MA: 1991), 53-69, 111-13,
159-65.
**Source of the Week
Bobovi, Serai Enderun, Partial translation into English by C.G. Fisher and A.
Fisher, “Topkapı Sarayı in the Mid-Seventeenth Century: Bobovi’s
Description,” Archivum Ottomanicum X 1985 [1987]: 33- 37, 79-80.
[Daily life of the male pages described by a music instructor of the palace
of Polish origin, who also lived there as a page.]
PLEASE NOTE:
This week’s lecture will take place at the Topkapı Palace Saturday Oct 14th. Time to be
announced.
Week 5 (Oct 17-19)
The Ottomans and their Neighbors
Cemal Kafadar, “The Ottomans and Europe,” in Handbook of European History, 14001600, eds. T.A. Brady, et at., (Leiden: 1994-5), 607-635 [589-607,
recommended.]
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History of the Ottoman State 1299-1566
Gülru Necipoğlu, “Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the
Context of Ottoman-Habsburg-Papal Rivalry,” The Art Bulletin 71
(1989), reprinted in Süleyman the Second and his Time, edited by
Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (İstanbul: 1993): 163-195.
** Movie of the Week: Adventures of Baron Münchausen
Week 6&7 (Oct 26-31) Age of Süleyman
Leslie P. Pierce, The Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire,
(Oxford: 1993), 57-90.
Gülru Necipoğlu, “The Süleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 3
1985: 92-117 [optional]
Week 7 (Nov 2) Land, Peasants, and the State
Norman Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Chicago: 1972), 40-49.
Amy Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials, Rural Administration around
sixteenth-Century Jerusalem, (Cambridge: 1994): 119-31.
Leslie Pierce, Morality Tales, Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab,
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: 2003), 351-74.
Week 8 (Nov 7-9)
Cities and City-Dwellers
Ethem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters, “Was there an Ottoman city?”
in their The Ottoman City between East and West : Aleppo, Izmir, and
Istanbul, (Cambridge: 1999), 1-17.
Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu “’In the Image of Rum’: Ottoman Architectural Patronage in
Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 70-96.
** Source of the Week
Evliya Çelebi, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, translated by R. J. von
Hammer (London: 1884), vol. II 12-13, 46, 49, 100-102.
MIDTERM Tuesday Nov 7th, in class.
Week 9 (Nov 14-16): Late Sixteenth Century-The Beginning of Decline?
Cemal Kafadar, “The Myth of the Golden Age: Ottoman Historical Consciousness in the
Post-Süleymânic Era,” Cemal Kafadar and Halil Inalcik eds. Süleyman the
Second and his Time, (Istanbul: 1993), pp. 37-48.
**Movie of the Week: İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında (selected parts).
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History of the Ottoman State 1299-1566
**Source of the Week:
Mustafa Ali. Counsel for Sultans, Edited and translated with notes by Andreas Tietze,
(Vienna: 1979), vol 1, pp. 66-85. [Discourse on signs, reasons, and
remedies of decline according to influential late sixteenth-century author.]
Week 10 (Nov 21-23): Transformations in Provincial Administrations and Anatolian
Uprisings
Metin Kunt,
The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial
Government 1550-1650, (New York: 1983), pp. 77-99.
Karen Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization,
(Ithaca, 1994), pp.141-89.
Week 11 (Nov 28-30):
Social Unrest in the Capital
Gabriel Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play, (Berkeley
and London: 2003), pp. 9-30.
Ralph Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: the Origins of a Social Beverage in the
Medieval Near East, (Seatle: c1985), pp. 72-112.
Week 12 (Dec 5-7): Sufis, Preachers, and the Ulema
Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 45 4 (1986): 251-269. [also
available on-line, check olis electronic resources/jstor]
Zeynep Yurekli-Gorkay, “A Building between the Public and Private Realms of the
Ottoman Elite: The Sufi Convent of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in Istanbul,”
Muqarnas 20 (2003)
**Source of the Week:
Katib Çelebi. The Balance of Truth, Translated wit an introduction and notes by G.L.
Lewis, (London: 1957): pp. 42-46; 60-62, 132-152. [comments on the
period’s intellectual controversies and an autobiographical passage by a
seventeenth- century intellectual]
Week 13 (Dec 12-14): Struggle to Maintain Superpower Status: The Empire and the
World
Giancarlo Casale, “The Ottoman Age of Exploration: Spices, Maps and Conquest in the
Sixteenth-Century Indian Ocean,” Unpublished diss., Harvard University, 2004: 1-15.
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Week 14 (Dec 19-21): In the Garden, At the Sufi Lodge, and the Coffee shop: Social
Contexts of Literary and Scholarly Pursuits
Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire,
(NY: 2000); 185-204.
Cemal Kafadar, “Self and Others: The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century
Istanbul and First Person Narrative in Ottoman Literature,” Studia
Islamica 79 1989: 121-150.
**Source of the week:
Selected Ottoman lyric poetry from Ottoman Lyric Poetry, An Anthology, edited and
translated by Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, and Mehmet
Kalpaklı, (Austin: 1997), 2-23 [Optional], 31, 33-35, 51, 104
(translations); 164, 166, 170, 188-89, 213-16, 218, 245-46 (notes);
272-91 (Ottoman Turkish texts) [Optional].
WEEK 15 (Dec 26-28)
Review and Discussion
ESSAY DUE Tuesday DEC 26 to be submitted in class.
Late submissions will not be accepted without valid medical excuse to be
submitted within one week of absence.
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