Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed

Abstract: In the course of Ottoman history, a long-standing alliance with the Giray house allowed for military cooperation; yet, classical Ottomans writers held a paradoxical posture toward Crimean Tatars. One current of tradition praised them as handsome and skilled warriors, but a purported betray...

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Main Author: Maya Petrovich
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Université de Provence 2018-10-01
Series:Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/11238
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author Maya Petrovich
author_facet Maya Petrovich
author_sort Maya Petrovich
collection DOAJ
description Abstract: In the course of Ottoman history, a long-standing alliance with the Giray house allowed for military cooperation; yet, classical Ottomans writers held a paradoxical posture toward Crimean Tatars. One current of tradition praised them as handsome and skilled warriors, but a purported betrayal by Tatars during the battle against Tīmūr in 1402 evolved into a recurrent motif of Ottoman historiography, justifying the ambivalence which the courtly elites felt toward Chinggisids and the northern steppe. The catastrophic period of Tatar expulsion and their resettlement in Ottoman territories in the 1850s and 1860s gradually led Ottoman writers toward a reassessment of the Crimea, projecting a new romantic image of Tatars as heroic, embattled and loyal fellow Muslims. Finally, in the twentieth century, new paradoxes arose, marking the formerly nomadic Tatars as closely related to the Black Sea and Anatolia, and yet also distinctly exotic and “Asiatic.” The study demonstrates that complex cyclical processes of fluidity and crystallization were always operative within Ottoman perceptions and their definitions of non-Ottoman peoples, including the Tatars.
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series Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
spelling doaj-art-9a52bd94454e4679802f8d7716cc71f22025-01-09T13:21:57ZengUniversité de ProvenceRevue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée0997-13272105-22712018-10-01143vol. 14310.4000/remmm.11238Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the RepressedMaya PetrovichAbstract: In the course of Ottoman history, a long-standing alliance with the Giray house allowed for military cooperation; yet, classical Ottomans writers held a paradoxical posture toward Crimean Tatars. One current of tradition praised them as handsome and skilled warriors, but a purported betrayal by Tatars during the battle against Tīmūr in 1402 evolved into a recurrent motif of Ottoman historiography, justifying the ambivalence which the courtly elites felt toward Chinggisids and the northern steppe. The catastrophic period of Tatar expulsion and their resettlement in Ottoman territories in the 1850s and 1860s gradually led Ottoman writers toward a reassessment of the Crimea, projecting a new romantic image of Tatars as heroic, embattled and loyal fellow Muslims. Finally, in the twentieth century, new paradoxes arose, marking the formerly nomadic Tatars as closely related to the Black Sea and Anatolia, and yet also distinctly exotic and “Asiatic.” The study demonstrates that complex cyclical processes of fluidity and crystallization were always operative within Ottoman perceptions and their definitions of non-Ottoman peoples, including the Tatars.https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/11238subjectivityTatarsKeywords: OttomanTurkishEurasiaMongols
spellingShingle Maya Petrovich
Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
subjectivity
Tatars
Keywords: Ottoman
Turkish
Eurasia
Mongols
title Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
title_full Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
title_fullStr Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
title_full_unstemmed Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
title_short Uncanny Beloveds and the Return of the Repressed
title_sort uncanny beloveds and the return of the repressed
topic subjectivity
Tatars
Keywords: Ottoman
Turkish
Eurasia
Mongols
url https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/11238
work_keys_str_mv AT mayapetrovich uncannybelovedsandthereturnoftherepressed