  zimina-ev-vestnik-2025-4.pdf |
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- The Sublime Porte in the 16th–17th century English drama
- Zimina E.V. The Sublime Porte in the 16th–17th century English drama. Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 2025, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 140–146. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2025-31-4-140-146
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2025-31-4-140-146
- УДК: 821(410.1).09”16/17”
- EDN: QXIXFV
- Publish date: 2025-09-09
- Annotation: The peak of the Ottoman Empire development, associated with the reign of Sultan Suleiman (1494-1566), attracted Europe’s attention not only during the reign, but also long after the sultan’s death. The paper looks into the reason for staging plays wrıtten by T. Kyd, E. Settle, W. Davenant, R. Boyle, F. Greville and based on the most tragic episodes of the period: the executions of Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and Shehzade Mustafa, the heir to the Ottoman throne. Apart from regarding the Ottoman state as exotic, the playwrights demonised the Ottomans and declared the triumph of Christianity, which added to the popularity of these plays. Being an island, England, nevertheless, feared the Ottomans, that is why the plays explain Ottoman victories by the treacherous and unpredictable character of their sultan rather than by their military skill. The playwrights also draw parallels with certain turning points in the history of England. The majority of these playwrıghts do not aim to picture historic events or life in the sultan’s palace in a realistic way. We believe that such plays played a double role: as warning to contemporary monarchs and as a propaganda tool.
- Keywords: 16th-18th century English drama, Ottoman Empire, demonisation of Ottomans, Suleiman I Kanuni, Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, Shehzade Mustafa, East-West dichotomy.
- Literature list: Источники Boyle Roger. The Tragedy of Mustapha, the son of Solyman the Magnificent, 1665. URL: https://books.google.ru/books?id=sE5rgmDNGWgC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y&hl=ru#v=onepage&q&f=false Davenant William. The Siege of Rhodes, 1656. URL: http://www.operalib.eu/zpdf/siegerhodes_bn.pdf Greville Fulke. The Tragedy of Mustapha, 1609. URL: https://archive.org/details/tragedyofmustaph00grev Kyd Thomas. The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda, 2008. London, Lulu.com, 104 p. Settle Elkanah. Ibrahim the illustrious Bassa. A tragedy, 1677. URL: https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_ibrahim-the-illustrious-_settle-elkanah_1677/page/16/mode/2up?q=Traytor Исследования Al-Olaqi Fahd M. A Christian hero in the Ottoman Palace. Trames, 2022, vol. 26 (76/71), no. 4, pp. 427–441. Al-Olaqi Fahd M. The Oriental Other: Soliman the Magnificent in Kyd’s “Soliman and Perseda”. Trames, 2013, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 35–54. https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2013.1.02 Babinger Franz. Osmanlı tarıh yazarları ve eserleri. Ankara, Kültür Baklanlığı Yayınları, 1992, 502 p. Campbell Killis. The Sourse of Davenant’s Albovine. The Journal of Germanic Philology, 1902, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 20–24. Clot Andre. Suleiman the Magnificent. London, Saqi books, 2012. [Epub Version]. Erkoç Seda. Dealing with Tyranny: Fulke Greville’s Mustapha in the Context of His Other Writings and of His View on Anglo-Ottoman Relations. Osmanlı Araştırmaları, 2016, no. 47, pp. 265–290. https://doi.org/10.18589/oa.582985 Erkoç Seda. Repercussions of a Murder: the Death of Sehzade Mustafa on the Early Modern English stage. Budapest, Central European University, 2008, 93 p. Gülter Işın Şahin. The Image of Ibrahim Pasha in Early Modern English drama: Thomas Kyd’s The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 2019, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 29–38. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.443926 Knolles Richard. The Generall Historie of the Turkes, 1603. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.02270 Uzunçarşılı Ismaıl. Osmanlı Tarihi II. Cilt: İstanbul'un Fethinden Kanunî Sultan Süleyman'ın Ölümüne Kadar. Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2011, 793 p. Vitkus Daniel J. Turning Turk: English Theatre and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570–1630. New York, Palgrave Macmillan Publ., 2002, 258 p. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05292-6