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The ottoman historiographer Acic paca-Zade and the importance of his chronicle as a source for late-byzantine and early-ottoman history

Articles

• Σαββίδης, Αλέξης Γ. Κ.
• Σαββίδης, Αλέξης Γ.Κ.

Asik-Paca-Zade (c. 1400 - c. 1486), the oldest and —perhaps— themost important among the early Ottoman (Osmanli) chroniclers, composedthe «Tevarih-i Al-i Osman» (Chronicle of the House (=Dynasty)of Osman), a lengthy (166 chapters) account of early Turkish historyfrom the early 13th century until the late 1450s, following the captureof Constantinople (Istanbul) by the sultan Mohammed (Mehmet) II«Fatih> (the «Conqueror») on 29 May, 1453.The importance of this authentic work is immense, since it includes —among others— a comparatively trustworthy (though sometimes impregnatedby fable and legend) account of the arrival of the early Osmanlisin Anatolia, following their repulsion from inner Asia by the Mongols.It also contains valuable pieces of information on the gradual expansionof the Ottoman Sultanate in Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula in thecourse of the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as important details on the policy pursued by the Conqueror concerning his Christian subjects.Several manuscripts of the chronicle’s old Ottoman script (in Arabiccharacters) survive in museums and libraries in Turkey (Top Kapi),and its first ed. by Ali Bey (Istanbul 1914) was followed by two morein the reformed latinized Turkish alphabet by F. Giese (Leipzig 1929)and Ç. N. Atsiz (Istanbul 1949), while a German translation (withcommentaries) of the chronicle by R. F. Kreutel appeared in 1959(Graz-Vienna).

• History and Archaeology

• Ιστορία

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltiokms/article/view/2660
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/deltiokms.279