Spoke not Hub: Regional Ottoman Manuscripts in the British Library

About

Ottoman Turkish manuscripts have been a part of the British Library’s collection since its inception in 1753. The combined desire to represent Ottoman high culture, as well as the more mundane impact of Istanbul as a central hub in the manuscript trade, turned the erstwhile Imperial capital into one of the stars of the Library’s Ottoman Turkish collection. Familiarity bred comfort, ensuring a collection that was largely conceived, rightly or wrongly, as Istanbul-focused. Over the course of its history, however, the Library was enriched by examples of provincial Ottoman manuscript production. The cataloguing of the British Library’s complete Ottoman holdings, in the light of new research, has finally helped put these peripheral productions into relief. The nexus of Imperial, Imperial-adjacent, and elite manuscript production remains a core component of studies on the collection. But a new approach to extra-Istanbul creations is helping to underscore the diverse and divergent stories that emerge when the spotlight is shifted. In this talk, I will explore some British Library Ottoman manuscripts clearly identified as being from provincial workshops in Rumelia, the Aegean, southern or eastern Anatolia, and northern Mesopotamia. I will also tease out issues associated with contextualization of potentially provincial works, emphasizing gaps in our knowledge impeding identification. Together, I hope to inspire a view of our holdings as a holistic representation of Turkic production in the Ottoman Empire.

Dr Michael Erdman (PhD SOAS 2018) is the Head of the Middle East and Central Asia Section at the British Library. His scholarship focuses on language change and management in Turkic- and Arabic-speaking communities in Anatolia and Central Asia.