Jean de Thévenot
Jean de Thévenot (born June 16, 1633 in Paris , † November 28, 1667 in Miyana ( Persia )) was a French traveler to Asia who described his trips in detail. He was also a linguist , scientist and botanist .
Life
Jean T. was the nephew of the collector of travelogues and later director of the Bibliothèque Royale, Melchisédech Thévenot (approx. 1620–1692). He received his education at the College of Navarre . Studying the travel reports of other travelers led him to go abroad himself, which his living conditions allowed him. He left France in 1652 and initially toured England , the Netherlands , Germany and Italy . In Rome he met the orientalist Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville , who invited him to be his companion on a planned trip to the Levant . D'Herbelot was withheld by private affairs, but Thévenot sailed from Rome in May 1655. After waiting in vain for d'Herbelot in Malta for five months , he traveled on to Constantinople alone .
Travel to Asia Minor and Africa
T. stayed in Constantinople until the end of August of the following year and then traveled on to Smyrna , across the Greek islands and finally to Egypt , where he arrived on January 1, 1657. He stayed in Egypt for a year, then toured Sinai and, after returning to Cairo , joined a pilgrimage that went to Jerusalem during Lent . He visited the most important pilgrimage sites in Palestine and, after having been attacked twice by corsairs , traveled by ship to Damiette , Egypt , so that he was back in Cairo on August 14, 1658, at the time of the flood of the Nile.
In January 1659 he sailed on from Alexandria with an English ship, called at the Tunisian ports of Tunis and La Goletta , got into a sea battle with Spanish pirates, from whom a ship could be stolen from an English merchant ship as a prize and finally reached Livorno on December 12th . April. He then spent four years at home studying in preparation for further journeys, and in November 1663 he traveled again east towards Alexandria and from there on to Sidon , from where he traveled by land to Damascus , Aleppo and then through Mesopotamia to Mosul , Baghdad and Mendeli in Kurdistan continued.
Travels to Persia and India
Here he reached the border with Persia on August 27, 1664 and traveled there via Kermanshah Hamadan to Isfahan , where he spent five months (October 1664 to February 1665 ), and then joined the jeweler and traveling salesman Jean-Baptiste Tavernier with the he traveled via Shiraz and Lar to Bandar Abbas , where he hoped to find a ship passage to India . Although Tavernier was making good progress along the way, resistance from the Dutch was to be expected, so de Thévenot thought it wiser to take another route. He returned to Shiraz, visited the ruins of Persepolis and reached Basra , from where he sailed on November 6, 1665 with the ship Hopewell . He reached the Indian Surat on January 10, 1666.
death
Thévenot stayed thirteen months in India and crossed the country from Surat via Golkonda to Masulipatam ( Machilipatnam ) and returned, also by land, to Surat, from where he sailed to Bandar Abbas and traveled on to Shiraz. He had to spend the summer of 1667 in Isfahan because he was badly wounded by an accidental pistol shot; Nevertheless, he dared to continue his journey to Tabriz in October , but died on the way there at Miyana on November 28, 1667.
meaning
Thévenot was an excellent linguist who spoke Turkish , Arabic, and Persian , and was a curious and careful observer. He also had talents in the natural sciences, especially botany, so he also brought together an important botanical collection in India. In particular, he made the coffee bean popular in France. His works are still valued today, although it was justly noted that, unlike Jean Chardin , he only recognized the facade of the Asian world.
Publications
The description of his first trip was published in Paris in 1665; it represents the first part of his collected voyages . The book received the printing privilege in December 1663. The introduction proves that Thévenot himself compiled the report for publication before starting his second trip. The second and third parts were compiled from his travel diaries after his death and published as quarto volumes in 1674 and 1684 respectively. A collected edition was published in Paris in 1689 and a second in 5 volumes in Duodec format in Amsterdam in 1727. There is a mediocre English translation by A. Lovell (fol., London, 1687). A German edition was published in 3 parts by Fievet in Frankfurt.
Quote
The following quote from him bears witness to the remarkable tolerance at a time in Europe that was in part still marked by religious disputes: “There are many in Christendom who believe that the Turks are great devils, barbarians and people without faith, but they are Those who met and spoke to them disagree; for it is certain that the Turks are good people who very well act according to the commandment given by nature, that we should only do to others what we want, that we should be done. "
Works
- Translations into German
- "Thevenot's travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, what is dealt with from the oriental journey / and among other things the submissive rulers of the Great Turks / the customs / religions / powers / secular regiment / languages and customs of the inhabitants of this great empire. As also ... Constantinople ... Egyptens ... Mecha / and other places more in Asia and Africa ... In addition to ... the siege of Baghdat, which used ceremonies when accepting the emissaries of the Great Mogul ", Frankfurt am Main, Philipp Fievet, 1693.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Glenn Sundeen: Thevenot the Tourist: A Frenchman Abroad in the Ottoman Empire . In: Distant Lands and Diverse Cultures: The French Experience in Asia, 1600-1700 . (Ed .: Glenn Joseph Ames, Ronald S. Love), Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p. 2
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Thévenot, Jean de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French traveler to Asia, linguist, natural scientist and botanist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 16, 1633 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 28, 1667 |
| Place of death | near Miyana ( Persia ) |