GraViz: The Ottoman Grand Vizierate (1560s to 1760s)

Ottoman sultans were the nominal heads of the state, but grand viziers were often the executive heads and de facto rulers. As such, they may be likened to modern chief ministers. As the most important statesmen inside the Ottoman court, grand viziers intensively corresponded with European courts and exchanged letters with European statesmen, including emperors, kings, and their ministers. However, among all European courts, grand viziers in Constantinople had the most frequent correspondence with the Hofburg in Vienna, a necessity dictated by the extensive common border between the two states for four centuries. This intense correspondence is preserved today in the archives of Vienna and Istanbul. In the GraViz Project, we transcribe the correspondence of six selected grand viziers with Vienna: Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (1565-1579), Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (1656-1661), Köprülü Fazil Ahmed Pasha (1661-1676), Kara Mustafa Pasha (1676-1683), Nevsehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha (1718-1730), and Koca Ragip Pasha (1757-1763). The grand viziers are selected according to their historical significance which, in turn, is determined by several criteria: the length of tenure that enabled a grand vizier to communicate frequently with Vienna, availability of the originals of grand vizierial letters in the archives, and the material significance of the letters as archival artifacts. By analyzing letters written by some of the most influential grand viziers from the 1560s to the 1760s, GraViz will also examine the textual transformation of Ottoman diplomacy and continuities and ruptures in the diplomatic attitude of the empire vis-a-vis a foreign court. GraViz transcribes, digitally edits, and annotates the letters written in Ottoman Turkish by these grand viziers and addressed to the statesmen in Vienna and letters written in German and Latin by the Habsburg statesmen and addressed to these grand viziers. We translate the Ottoman letters into English. All of the end products are then published digitally and presented open-access on the webpage of the QhoD project, qhod.net.