Transottomanica: Practices of "Transcultural" Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel addresses different aspects of diplomatic contacts between the Ottoman Empire and its East European neighbor states in the Early Modern period from a multidisciplinary perspective. The case studies focus on (seemingly) peripheral actors of diplomacy such as clergymen and artists and communicative practices of negotiating peace and narrating these processes. The papers analyze both ego-documents and classical sources of diplomatic history from a perspective of cultural history. At the same time, they apply approaches from the history of art and narratology. Such an approach based on a great variety of different sources written in Russian, Latin, Ottoman Turkish and local vernaculars shall contribute to a differentiated understanding of Early Modern diplomatic practices and at the same time to problematizing the analytical category of ‘transcultural encounters’.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, to 1800

Chair

• Jan Hennings, Central European U (Hungary)

Papers

• Cultures of Contract: A Transottoman Perspective on Negotiating Peace in Early Modern Europe - Dennis Dierks, U of Jena (Germany)

• Chroniclers, Intermediaries, and Entrepreneurs: Observations on the Artists in the Context of the Diplomatic Delegations to Constantinople - Robert Born, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (Germany)

• Self-fashioning of the Dragoman as Peacemaker: Alexandros Mavrokordatos and his Practices of 'Transcultural' Diplomacy - Nikolas Pissis, Humboldt U Berlin (Germany)

Discussants

• Stefan Rohdewald, U of Giessen (Germany)

• Tomasz Grusiecki, Boise State U