Dr. Nadezhda Alexandrova will present her research proposal on the topic: "Love and Violence: Literary Transmissions of the Image of the Janissaries among the Communities across the Ottoman Empire in the 19th c." on 15 December 2016 (Thursday) at 16:30h at CAS Conference Hall. 

Abstract:

My project displays the intricate entanglements of cultural histories among the different communities in the Ottoman context of the 19th c. It reveals the unknown history of reception of the French novel "Les Janissaires" by Alphonse Royer"(1842, Brussels, 1844, Paris) in Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Karamanlica and Armenian language. The case study of the rapid translation wave of this piece of sentimental literature within just several decades (1840s-1870s) clarifies my main objective of research. It is that the literary interactions between the intellectual elite of the different communities in the Ottoman Empire lead to transmissions of concepts, images, and perceptions of emotions, that were much more dynamic and influential than the National literary histories would have us to believe.
One such image is that of the janissaries – troops, founded in the 14th c. as a paid infantry, recruited from non-Muslim communities as military slaves, trained to serve the Ottoman dynasty. The novel and its wide reception undoubtedly serve as an example of the creation of a monolithic and monstrous image of the janissaries as violent criminals, abductors of women and ruthless assassins of Christians whose order had declined and was finally dismantled. Moreover, the novel illustrates how the process of orientalization of the image of the violent janissaries involved borrowing characteristics from the repertoire of sentimentalism and the genre of the historical romance. "Les Janissaires" dealt widely with the motive of interfaith love between Muslim men and Christian women where religion was a necessary impediment for true and mutual love to prevail.
The initial goal of my research was by tracking the fluidity of the flow of ideas among the above-mentioned readerships to prove in a somewhat Saidian stance how the orientalist perspectives are enacted onto the local Ottoman contexts by means of literature. But the deeper I got into researching the heritage of the original author Alphonse Royer the wider my scope of primary sources from the 19th c. grew (including historiographical works from that period, on the one hand, and literary works of the members of the intellectual elites of the ottoman communities, on the other hand). By now I have come to the following working hypothesis:
The intensification of the creation of the evil fictional image of the janissaries started after the end of the Janissary corps (in 1826 during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II). The image achieved a significant vitality during the Tanzimat period, and was further transmitted in the literatures of the newborn nations in Southeastern Europe. It was born from the synergic effect of three factors – the Western European fictional and historiographical works; the official Ottoman policy of spreading the grand narrative of reforms; and the evolving nationalism of the different communities in the empire during the 19th c. There are similarities between the utilization of the image of the Janissaries as an evil force for the Ottoman state and for the different communities in the empire in the 19th c. who were following their own nationalistic drives and modernization efforts. The latter included also a desire for modernization of the field of literature, which involved the embracement of new genres and romanticized characters, such as those of the determined janissary and his beloved.