Institution:	Institut für Osmanistik und Turkologie
Leiter/in:	Prof. Dr. Elke Shoghig Hartmann
Kooperationspartner	Istanbul Medeniyet-University, Türkei, Department of History (Prof. Dr. Selim Karahasanoǧlu)
Mitarbeiter/innen:	Gülşen Yakar (Ph.D. Candidate, Research Assistant at the History Department of Istanbul Medeniyet University), Talha Murat, (Ph.D. Candidate, Free University, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies); Beyza Murat-Abdukarimova, Emre Eken, Özlem Özdemir-Kumbar
Förderung:	Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung
Laufzeit:	01.01.-31.12.2024

Kurzbeschreibung

Ego-documents – first-person narratives such as diaries, memoirs, autobiographies and private letters – are vital sources for cultural and intellectual history. While such documents have been the object of substantial research in European countries, they have largely been neglected in scholarship on the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922). This project will focus on the study of ego-documents in the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern period, 1500-1800, that is, before its so-called Westernization. The project will challenge existing scholarship that views writing about the self as a largely modern, Western practice, and assumes that Early Modern ego-documents do not show the inner world nor reflect the psychological condition of the authors. Building on preliminary research already undertaken by the applying collaborative partner, this project will challenge this widespread scholarly perception by bringing to light new ego documents from the Early Modern Ottoman Empire that have been neglected by researchers to date, in particular manuscripts held in libraries in Germany. By identifying the “ego” in the documents at hand and in the ones yet to be discovered, the project will show the existence of the authors’ inner world together with proof of their psychological fluctuations. I will argue that some materials are so personal that they can best be described with the term “ego.” This proposed project will have an impact on the fields of history of childhood, family history, the history of emotions, psychohistory, microhistory and also intellectual history, history of mentalities and the history of thought. Without confining itself with geographical, ethnic, class-based and linguistic frameworks, this project aims to encompass the material beyond the borders of Turkey and Ottoman Turkish. Straddling Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Ottoman Empire represents a highly vibrant intellectual entity encapsulated in its varied ego-documents which have rich potential for contribution to the existing body of knowledge.