IWETHEY v. 0.3.0 | TODO
1,095 registered users | 0 active users | 0 LpH | Statistics
Login | Create New User
IWETHEY Banner

Welcome to IWETHEY!

New Adventures in the seraglio and environs
For no particular reason, I decided recently that it was time to plaster over one of the innumerable lacunae in my historical awareness and learn something more about the Ottoman Turks than I dimly recall from my two mediaeval history courses in 1973. Thus far this month I’ve read Lords of the Horizons (Jason Goodwin), a rather lightweight, heavily anecdotal but withal entertaining account of their rise and fall; 1453 (Roger Crowley), which tells the tale of Mehmet II’s siege and sack of Constantinople—a nearer-run thing than I’d recalled from the last time I visited the subject; presently not quite halfway through The Ottoman Centuries (Brian Kinross, or “Lord Kinross” as he is styled on the cover). I have broken off (the dog will want shortly to be walked) at the top of the roller coaster, with the empire under its tenth sultan, Suleiman I (“the Magnificent”) at the peak of its economic, military, cultural, political power, a society at once more coherent and more diverse, more tolerant, more technologically advanced than its Christian counterparts to the west. I already know from Goodwin’s gloss what comes next: Suleiman the Magnificent is succeeded in 1566 by his surviving and least-gifted son, Selim the Sot, and thereafter the Ottomans, while they capture additional territory, never quite retrieve Suleiman’s mojo, and their empire, which Gibbon among others has argued may be regarded as the logical and final linear successor to the Rome of the Caesars, ultimately expired, as Hemingway once observed of the process of bankruptcy, “gradually, then suddenly,” with geopolitical consequences of which we are daily made aware.

Anyway, it’s a fascinating subject. Goodwin is a travel writer and novelist, and brings these sensibilities to his book, which is chatty and discursive and decidedly short on scholarship, weighing in at a little over three hundred pages. Crowley’s account of the fall of Constantinople is workmanlike and detailed, is the shortest at a svelte 260 pages. Kinross’ book, at 628 pages in my so-called “Folio” edition, is impressive for the depth of its erudition and the fluidity of its style, and is the title I’d recommend, at least to anyone with the kind of time on his hands we generally associate with elderly annuitants.

For those who prefer the tl;dr version, there’s this, from the late John Updike:
Ottoman

Lessons in history: the Greeks
Were once more civilized than Swedes.
Iranians were, for several weeks,
Invincible, as Medes.

The mild Mongolians, on a spree,
Beheaded half of Asia; and
The Arabs, in their century,
Subdued a world of sand.

Just so, the cushioned stool we deign
To sit on, called the Ottoman:
We would not dare, were this the reign
Of Sultan Selim Khan.

From India to Hungary
The Ottoman held sway; his scope
Expanded well into the sea
And terrified the Pope.

And Bulgar, Mameluke and Moor
All hastened to kowtow
To tasseled bits of furniture.
It seems fantastic now.
cordially,
New Fun factoid
Speaking of seraglios, the Ottoman sultans, what with a well-stocked harem being one of the perks of office, tended many of them to leave a lot of offspring, and no particular stigma or political disadvantage attached to what in the Christian west was abhorred as “bastardy.” In other words, a sultan’s son had a shot at the job whether mama was a wife or a concubine. Having learned early on that disappointed consanguine claimants were apt to stir up trouble later on, the practice grew up—actually formalized under Mehmet II (“the Conqueror”)—for the contending heirs to establish the legitimacy of the succession by killing or attempting to kill their brothers, the new sultan being the last man standing, which must have made for some tense moments in the nursery growing up.

fraternally,
New Having missed courses devoted to the Turks I can appreciate their relationship to *cough*
the rather dull Christian groups (as they morphed through Calvinist masochists, spawned our very own Puritans--pretty much ejected from Europe--allowed to spawn on these shores. Is it pre irony that Suleiman I was succeeded by a nebbish, presumably by accident of Laws ..as led to the misfortunes of our-fair Century and the current Turk-dictator-while-'democrat'? By any lights though, mojo is in short supply now and for the foreseeable.

As to that most-democratic attitude -vs- the hypocrisy of Christian bastardy, I'd have to rate the described 6 minus 1 = 5; 5 minus ... 2 minus the Last == a Dear Leader, as pretty thick-headed (or beheaded) reasoning, especially if the present Dear Leader adheres. This presents evidence that their fortunes declined on some similar sinking-rate as say, 1968 to current here in the Land [..where all men are created Equal. Save for the men you bought.]

My ignorance is large, but past peripatetic investigations suggest that the Peak-'goodness' can rarely/never? be sustained long; does pernicious intrusion of the mobs account for these declining peaks, where a one was hoping for plateaus--in your much larger experience of the more perspicuous scribes?
(If it does, then perhaps our recent examples are correct): we're fucking Doomed, next. More likely than not.

Cheerily/under the circumstances wherein Truthiness can get you jailed. Or at least, demoted.
     Adventures in the seraglio and environs - (rcareaga) - (2)
         Fun factoid - (rcareaga)
         Having missed courses devoted to the Turks I can appreciate their relationship to *cough* - (Ashton)

Is there an LRPDism competition going on for some reason?
69 ms