Browsing by Author "Otman, Elvin"

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Open Access
The Crescent, the Lion and the Eagle: re-analyzing the Ottoman Apulian Campaign and Attack on Corfu (1537) in the context of Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry
(2018-01) Otman, Elvin
This dissertation produces a detailed historical narrative of the Ottoman Apulian Campaign and the Attack on Corfu in 1537. Although the Apulian Campaign, a natural consequence of the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry, which characterized the sixteenth-century Ottoman policies and discourse of universal sovereignty, was originally planned as an Ottoman-French joint military operation, it remained as an individual Ottoman attack on the south eastern Italy since the French King did not offer his already promised military support during the campaign. The attacks of Andrea Doria and the Venetian captains on the Ottoman ships during the campaign changed the course of the initiative and Sultan Süleyman I ordered the attack on the island of Corfu, under Venetian control. The Ottoman attack were ended since the season of war ended and the Ottoman army returned to Constantinople without having completed the conquest of Corfu. This dissertation mainly argues that one could not understand why the Ottomans engaged in such a venture without analyzing the nature of the rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg dynasties in the sixteenth-century. The study defines the campaign as the Apulian Campaign and defends the argument that the Ottoman sought to establish some sort of suzerainty in south eastern Italy, bound to the Habsburg realm. Moreover, it asserted that the campaign should not be evaluated as the “Expedition of Corfu” by stating that Corfu was not the principal target of the Ottomans in 1537. The impact of the 1537 Campaign on the Ottoman-Venetian relations is also discussed in this study.
Open Access
The role of Alvise Gritti within the Ottoman politics in the context of the "Hungarian Question" (1526-1534)
(2009) Otman, Elvin
Alvise Gritti is one of the most interesting and vivid characters appeared in both Ottoman and European history of the sixteenth century. As an Istanbul-born Venetian, Gritti was the son of Andrea Gritti, the Doge of Venice elected in 1523, from a non-Muslim Ottoman woman. Since he was accepted as illegitimate according to the Venetian law, he was deprived from the right of participation into the Venetian politics. He found the opportunity of having a political carrier in Istanbul, his birth place, where he had come to engage in commerce; mediated between the Ottoman sultan and the European states; and undertook important tasks in the “Hungarian Question”, which was considered as one of the most important political problems of the period. This thesis intends to peruse the life and the roles of Alvise Gritti within the Ottoman politics. In this context, besides the political conjuncture of the period, the family, the personality, and the extensive commercial and political networks of Alvise Gritti and the tasks that he undertook as part of the “Hungarian Question” mainly by light of the Venetian sources. The thesis reaches the conclusion that Alvise Gritti is one of the “versatile personalities” of his time; he advanced through the present political system and deposed by the same system whenever he started to use it for his benefits. Thus, it was deduced that the examination of the life of Gritti and his political roles is important and necessary not only to reveal a figure rarely appeared in the Ottoman history but also to understand the general political structure and the diplomatic relations of the period more clearly.