Gallery
Busbecq
Montagu
Mikes
Moltke
Letters from Turkey were a genre of letter collection written by Europeans who had been to Ottoman Empire. Usually, the letters were published with various titles, but they are popularly known as "Letters from Turkey" or "Turkish letters". Below is the summary of these.
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-1592) was a diplomat in the Holy Roman Empire. [1] He was sent to the Ottoman Empire to discuss the disputed territory of Transylvania (modern west Romania) in 1554. During his stay his addresses were Rüstem Pasha and Semiz Ali Pasha both of which were grand viziers. Upon returning to his country he published the letters he had written to his colleague Nicholas Michault under the title Turcicae epistolae. Busbuecq is also known for his introduction of tulip, from Turkish flora to Europe. [2]
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was the wife of Edward Wortley Montagu, the British ambassador to Ottoman Empire between 1716-1718. [3] The letters about her travels and observations about Ottoman life was published under the title Turkish Embassy Letters . [4] One of her important observations was the primitive form of smallpox vaccination.
Kelemen Mikes (1690–1761) was a Hungarian essayist, noted for his rebellious activities against the Habsburg monarchy. [5] Although backed by Ottoman Empire, Hungarian rebels were defeated and Mikes had to choose a life in exile. After 1715, Mikes spent the rest of his life in Tekirdağ, a city near to Constantinople. His work is known as Letters from Turkey.
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891) was an officier in Prussian army. [6] He spent four years in the Ottoman Empire as a military advisor between 1835-1839. Upon returning to Germany, he published Letters on Conditions and Events in Turkey in the Years 1835 to 1839.
Edirne, formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated 7 km (4.3 mi) from the Greek and 20 km (12 mi) from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1369 to 1453, before Constantinople became its capital.
This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1721.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband on the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Constantinople. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762.
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke was a Prussian field marshal. The chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, he is regarded as the creator of a new, more modern method of directing armies in the field and one of the finest military minds of his generation. He commanded troops in Europe and the Middle East, in the Second Schleswig War, Austro-Prussian War and Franco-Prussian War. He is described as embodying "Prussian military organization and tactical genius". He was fascinated with railways and pioneered their military use. He is often referred to as Moltke the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who commanded the German Army at the outbreak of the First World War.
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, sometimes Augier Ghislain de Busbecq, was a 16th-century Flemish writer, herbalist and diplomat in the employ of three generations of Austrian monarchs. He served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople and in 1581 published a book about his time there, Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum, re-published in 1595 under the title of Turcicae epistolae or Turkish Letters. His letters also contain the only surviving word list of Crimean Gothic, a Germanic dialect spoken at the time in some isolated regions of Crimea. He is credited with the introduction of tulips into western Europe and to the origin of their name.
Mustafa Reşid Pasha was an Ottoman statesman and diplomat, known best as the chief architect behind the Imperial Ottoman government reforms known as Tanzimat.
The Battle of Nezib was fought on 24 June 1839 between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. The Egyptians were led by Ibrahim Pasha, while the Ottomans were led by Hafiz Osman Pasha, with Helmuth von Moltke the Elder playing an advisory role, in command of the Ottoman artillery.
Lady Emmeline Charlotte Elizabeth Stuart-Wortley was an English poet and writer, best known for her Travels in the United States, etc. During 1849 and 1850. She was editor of The Keepsake volumes for 1837 and 1840.
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was the Ottoman sultan's harem – composed of the wives, servants, female relatives and the sultan's concubines – occupying a secluded portion (seraglio) of the Ottoman imperial household. This institution played an important social function within the Ottoman court, and wielded considerable political authority in Ottoman affairs, especially during the long period known as the Sultanate of Women.
The Karacaahmet Cemetery is a 700-year-old historic cemetery located in Üsküdar, on the Asian side of Istanbul. Karacaahmet cemetery is the oldest and largest in Istanbul at 750 acres (3.0 km2), and the largest burial ground in Turkey by the number of interred.
Edward Wortley Montagu was an English coal-owner and politician. He was British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, husband of the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and father of the writer and traveller Edward Wortley Montagu.
The Turkish Bath is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862. The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in a harem. It has an erotic style that evokes both the Near East and earlier western styles associated with mythological subject matter. The painting expands on a number of motifs that Ingres had explored in earlier paintings, in particular The Valpinçon Bather (1808) and La Grande odalisque (1814).
Rüstem Pasha was an Ottoman statesman who served as Grand Vizier to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Rüstem Pasha is also known as Damat Rüstem Pasha as a result of his marriage to the sultan's daughter, Mihrimah Sultan, in 1539. He is regarded as one of the most influential and successful grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire.
Semiz Ali Pasha was an Ottoman statesman from the Sanjak of Bosnia who served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1561 to 1565. He was the beylerbey (governor) of Egypt Eyalet from 1549 to 1553. Semiz Ali Pasha was born in Prača in Bosnia, and replaced Rüstem Pasha as a Grand Vizier. After palace schooling, he discharged high-level functions along the Ottoman Empire. His epithet "Semiz" means "fat" in Turkish.
Şehzade Bayezid was an Ottoman prince as the son of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Hurrem Sultan. After the execution of Şehzade Mustafa, the heir apparent to the Ottoman throne in 1553, Bayezid became the popular heir among the army. Throughout the 1550s, when Suleiman was already in his sixties, a protracted competition for the throne between Bayezid and his brother Selim became evident. Bayezid had fallen into disfavour with his father, who was angered by Bayezid's disobedience stemming from around the same years, as opposed to Selim, who would eventually succeed as Selim II. After being defeated in a battle near Konya in 1559 by Selim and Sokullu Mehmet Pasha with the help of the Sultan's army, Bayezid fled to the neighbouring Safavid Empire, where he was lavishly received by Tahmasp I. However, in 1561, on the continuous insistence of the Sultan throughout his son's exile and after several large payments, Tahmasp allowed Bayezid to be executed by agents of his own father.
Letters on Conditions and Events in Turkey in the Years 1835-1839 or Letters from Turkey for short, is the name given to the series of letters written by Helmuth von Moltke during his stay in the Ottoman Empire between 1835 and 1839.
The Rev. Prebendary James Dallaway FSA was an English antiquary, topographer, and miscellaneous writer. He is known for his account of Constantinople and the Greek islands, published in 1797; and his county history of the western parts of Sussex, of which he published two volumes in 1815–19.
The Manas Family were an Ottoman-Armenian family that provided Imperial Portraitists to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire in the later half of the 19th century. Some were also chief secretaries to the Ottoman Embassy in Paris and others were music composers.
Established in 1826 after the Auspicious Incident, the Ministry of War lasted up to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Within the ministry there were offices for procurement, combat arms, peacetime military affairs, mobilization, and for promotions.
The Turkish Embassy Letters are a letter collection of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's reflections on her travels through the Ottoman Empire between 1716 and 1718. She collected and revised them throughout her life, circulating the manuscripts among friends, and they were first published in 1763 after her death.