Mirrors of the World: Alexander Romances and the Fifteenth Century Ottoman Sultanate PDF
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Mirrors of the World: Alexander Romances and the Fifteenth Century Ottoman Sultanate Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1k61d921 Author Beaudoen, Lee Andre Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Mirrors of the World: Alexander Romances and the Fifteenth Century Ottoman Sultanate A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Lee Andre Beaudoen 2017 ã Copyright by Lee Andre Beaudoen 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Mirrors of the World: Alexander Romances and the Fifteenth Century Ottoman Sultanate by Lee Andre Beaudoen Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Michael G. Morony, Chair Beginning in the third century BCE, just after the death of the Alexander III of Macedon, a series of historical and romanticized narratives begin to circulate that told the tale of his life, adventures, and military career. These textual representatives were only one aspect of a broader category of Alexandriana – the textual, visual, material and folkloric representations – that highlighted the deeds of Alexander the Great. Textural representations of Alexandriana spread throughout the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Central Asia, and were rendered into a broad range of languages including, Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, Ethiopic, Mongolian, Persian and Ottoman Turkish. Previous readings of Ahmedi’s fifteenth-century Ottoman Turkish rending of the Iskendername have correctly placed it as part of the nisahatname ‘mirrors for princes’ genre, but have underplayed its role in the almost two-millennia tradition of the Alexander Romance cycle. This oversight missed several opportunities to investigate Ottoman participation in the long durée of Mediterranean cultural continuity of the Alexander Romance tradition. Furthermore, the beginning of the fifteenth century offered a narrative link between the Ottoman and Alexandrine historical contexts that has been overlooked thus far. Equally important, the Ottoman Civil war and Wars of the Diadochi offered an opportunity for understanding the role of the Alexander ii narrative in the fifteenth century Ottoman context. Mid-fifteenth century association and emulation of Alexander the Great provided both narrative links between Mehmed the Conqueror and Alexander the Great. Such links re-shaped a “Mediterraneaninzed” Ottoman imperial paradigm that sought – if only ephemerally—to re-unite the Mediterranean world under the Ottoman standard. Translatio imperii was encapsulated within both the Alexandrine and Ottoman narratives and represented not a single context but several distinct contexts (trans- imperial, geographic, intra-dynastic and inter dynastic translatio imperii) which highlighted a series of circumstantial parallelisms (Narrative, Person, Place and Event) between these two narratives. This significance of Ottoman participation in the broader Mediterranean cultural world represented a major step in a cultural continuity and Mediterranean cultural unity that both shows the Ottoman relationship with the distant past and its entry into the early modern world as a major world empire. iii The dissertation of Lee Andre Beaudoen is approved. Gabriel Piterberg Teofilo F. Ruiz Domenico Ingenito Michael G. Morony, Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv For my parents, Linda M. Tremblay and Fred V. Beaudoen, who have always proudly supported me. v Mirrors of the World: Alexander Romances and the Fifteenth Century Sultanate Table of Contents From Babylon to Konstantoniyye: Linking the Ancient with the Early Modern 1 Chapter 1 – “To the Strongest” - Alexandriana The Romances and Histories 25 Chapter 2 – Jamshid’s Cup and Alexander’s Mirror (Jām-e Jam ve ‘Ayina-i 69 Iskandari): The Persian Romance Tradition Chapter 3 - From the Argaead to the Ottoman Narrative: Connections 113 between Fifteenth Century Ottoman Reality and Fourth Century Alexandrine Reality Chapter 4 - Translatio Imperii: Transitions of Power in the Fifteenth 150 Century Ottoman Context Chapter 5 - The Mirror of the World: Circumstantial parallelism and the 184 Fifteenth Century Ottoman Stake in Textual Alexandriana Chapter 6 - Final Conclusions 208 Appendix A – Berzunza’s Alexandriana 217 Appendix B - Summary of Ottoman Textual Alexandriana Currently Housed 223 in the Süleymaniye Library Bibliography 233 v i Acknowledgements This dissertation has been an incredible experience of growth from which I have learned volumes. Through it I have grown as an academic and scholar, writer, historian, linguist, and person. Mirrors of the World raises questions about the Ottoman fifteenth century and its relationship to antiquity. Some of these questions I have I answered, some I hope to continue to answer in the future, and some I hope others will answer. This project could have been completed without the assistance and support of the many mentors, colleagues, peers, family and friends whom I have encountered in the process. It has been a great pleasure to have worked with my advisor Professor Michael Morony and the members of my committee: Gabriel Piterberg, Teofilo Ruiz and Domenico Ingenito. I leave UCLA enriched from their inspiration, insight, patience, and erudition. I am grateful to Linda Darling for her time, encouragement, and inspiration in this project. I am also grateful to those within the UCLA community who contributed to shaping me as a scholar during my tenure at UCLA: John Langdon, James Gelvin, Nile Green, Peter Stacy and S. Peter Cowe. I am grateful to those from outside the UCLA community who have contributed to this project by lending an ear, giving a suggestion, or showing their support in its the earliest stages and throughout: Selim Kuru (University of Washington), Reşat Kasaba (University of Washington), Ciğdem Kafesciğlu (Boğaziçi University), Claudia Rapp (University of Vienna), Gönül Tekin, Anthony Greenwood (ARIT), and David Durand-Guedy. My thanks go out to my colleagues at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Studies (RCAC) who provided both funding and an excellent environment to research, discuss ideas, and draft much of this material during my tenure there as a Junior Residence Fellow from 2015-2016. I am particularly grateful to Chris Roosevelt, Buket Coskuner, and Mehmet Kentel for their support. I am also grateful to the librarians and staff at the Suleymaniye Library, ELTE Medieval, CEU, YRL, and ARIT for their assistance while conduction the research for this dissertation. My gratitude also goes out to those in History Department at CEU who welcomed me as part of the dissertation support program and made the completion of this project abroad possible: Dr. Aziz al-Azmeh and Dr. Tolga Esmer. vii I would like to extent special thanks to my writing partner, colleague, and friend Dr. Serena Love who read every chapter of this dissertation, pushed me to get the next words onto the page, and held me to my writing goals. My thanks go out to all my peers and colleagues who have encouraged, challenged and supported me through these years, especially to Dr. Marlena Whiting and the imminent Dr. Daniel Fittante. Your conversations and words of encouragement went miles in helping me bring this phase of the project to a close. To my amazing family, Linda, Marlise, David, Aria, and Misha who have supported and encouraged me to chase this dream. Finally, I wish to acknowledge those who supported me unquestioningly during the early years of graduate school both in Seattle and Los Angeles but who did not see this project’s completion: Fred Beaudoen and Brent Garback. To all of you I am Grateful. Lee A. Beaudoen Budapest, Hungary 18, May 2017 viii
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