Critobulus of Imbros

Kritobulos of Imvros , or even Michael Kritopulos ( medium Greek Μιχαήλ Κριτόβουλος Mikhail Kritóvoulos , Κριτόβουλος ὁ Ἰμβριώτης Kritóvoulos o Imvriótis ) was on Imbros born, Greek -writing historians . His date of birth is uncertainly given around 1400–1410. He was a contemporary of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. Fatihs , about and for whom he wrote a historical work that revolves around the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. In addition to his story, he wrote a Jesus prayer , a poem in praise of St. Augustine and a homily on the Christ Passion . He was appointed governor of Imbros by the Sultan for a period of ten years .

Life and Political Work

Michael Kritopulos was born into a wealthy, distinguished, politically influential Imbriotic family during the first decade of the 15th century. Nothing concrete is known about the exact nature of his studies and training; Information on this can only be obtained through his works. It can be assumed, however, that Critobulus dealt intensively with the classical canon in his youth, as the profound knowledge of the ancient historians and the literary complexes of the ancients ( Iliad , Alexander's Anabasis , ...) show. In addition, in his portrayal of the plague of 1467 and his praise for the Sultan's Jewish doctor, Yakub von Gaeta , we encounter a knowledge of specialist medical terms and concepts that he could hardly have gathered from the texts of the ancients. In 1444, around September 28th, he was safely in Imbros, as the informant Kyriakos di Filippo de 'Pizzecolli of Ancona tells us in his diary entry for that day and a letter dated September 29th.

We can see the first political activity that we can understand from sources in the period following the fall of Constantinople. During this time, Kritobulos campaigned for the political security of the islands of Lemnos , Imbros and Thasos and the protection of the frightened population. On his own initiative he wrote petitions to the Admiral Hamza and the Sultan with the request to accept the surrender of the islands and to give them as a fief to the Genoese Gattilusi , and was successful. In 1455/6 the sultan had his admiral Yunus-Bey move in the fief and appointed Critobulus as governor of Imbros.

In the following year, Critobulus succeeded through political and diplomatic tactics, the plan of Pope Kalixt III. to thwart who wanted to take over the islands of Lemnos, Thasos and Samothrace as well as Imbros. After he was able to fend off the Pope's claim to Imbros through diplomatic moves, he corresponded with the Sultan and Demetrios Palaiologos , the brother of the former Byzantine emperor and vassal of the Sultan in the Peloponnese, in order to convince the latter to also visit the islands of Imbros and Lemnos to be transferred as a fief. The Sultan agreed to the initiative of Kritobuilos, after which the latter was able to take over the islands and their fortresses in the name of Demetrios Palaiologos without fighting and bloodshed.

Despite his political successes, he was forced to leave Imbros in the summer of 1467 when the Venetians seized the island. As his remarks on the plague of 1467 suggest (see above), Critobulus seems to have gone to Constantinople. We are still aware of a letter from Georgios Amirutzes to Critobulus from 1468, after which documents about him are lost. His later activities as secretary to the sultan or as a monk in Athos are controversial in scholarship.

Works

The history of Critobulus

Critobulus wrote his story about the conquest of Constantinople and the first years of the Sultan's reign, probably between the summer of 1453 and the year 1467. The leitmotifs of the presentation are the comparison of the deeds and the person of the Sultan with the life of Alexander the Great ; a comparison that the sultan - in this respect similar to numerous Roman emperors - was probably not only offered by Critobulus, but consciously cultivated, checked and promoted from an early age, and the translatio imperii from the Byzantines to the Ottomans.

The work begins with the death of Murat II and the rise of Mehmet to sultan. The following main part of the work describes in detail the conquest of the city, then Kritobulus describes various campaigns of Mehmet, for example on the Peloponnese or against the remainder of Trebizond . The historian also mentions the Sultan's commitment to repopulate Constantinople, or Ḳusṭanṭīniyye / قسطنطينيه, as the city was to be called in the following centuries, to restore it to its former splendor and to transform it into a residence suitable for a world power through a magnificent building program .

Letter of dedication to the Sultan

In his (second) dedication letter preceding his work, Critobulus presents his intention to write the history and a rough overview of the content and interpretation to the reader and the sultan. The basic intention of the work is the lack of Greek-speaking, i.e. in a world and The scientific language of the West and thus accessible, historical works. Because, writes Critobulus, “many of the Arab and Persian writers will also record these [events] more precisely and transmit them to posterity, well informed and from their own experience of the events [...] [but] those reports will only [...] who understand their language gain knowledge. This work, however, will be revered and admired not only by the Greeks, but by all western peoples [...] and many others. "

Another, this time more substantive, intention confronts us when Critobulus aims at the power of the events and deeds of the Sultan, in which he "united works and words, philosophy and kingship in one person as a good king and a strong fighter" that drove him to write. Following on from this exaggeration of the sultan's deeds, there is also the comparative representation of the sultan and Alexander the great, which runs through the history as one of the leitmotifs: “But your deeds, although they are glorious and in no way those of the Macedonian Alexander [d . Major] and generals and kings of his format are inferior [...]. "

The leitmotif of the translatio imperii Byzantine (= Roman) and Persian rule (and world domination, which can also be found in the Alexander picture) is already contained in the first lines of the work, in the address of the letter. In the traditional Byzantine tradition, Kritobulos addresses Mehmet as “autocrat” (autocrator), but adds the title of “King of Kings” (shâhanschâh) to the Persian tradition; combines, so to speak, the ruling traditions of the two great, ancient world powers Rome and Persia, two political contradictions and continents, which now seem united under Mehmet II. This claim is also shown in the following when, in addition to several decorative, ruling epithets, the Sultan is referred to as the "Lord of the earth and the sea", that is, the ruler of ecumenism, and, with the immediately following "according to the will of God" , the divine right to which not only the Byzantine emperors owed their legitimacy, is reserved for Mehmet.

This synthesis of East and West as well as the hybridization of the traditionally opposing domains and types of rulership, which is practiced on the basis of the ruler's title, can also be found in a different form in other parts of the work. Thus, Critobulus Mehmet lets the mythical ancestors of the Persians, Achaemenes and Perseus, in turn descend from their Greek ancestors and also in the Troy episode in which Mehmet appeared as the avenger of the Trojans (Turci = Teucri) and, like Alexander and many generals before him who visited the graves of the heroes. An Iliad by Ioannes Dokeianos from around 1470 shows that Mehmet consciously drew a connection, however intense, to the epics and heroes of Homer .

Contents of the five books

The first book describes the beginning of Mehmet's reign. Critobulus describes the assumption of rule, the construction of the fortresses on the straits and the subsequent deterioration in relations between Byzantium and Ottomans. He also reports on the siege and capture of Constantinople.

The second book describes how Sultan Mehmet tries to repair the damage in and around Constantinople through targeted military and civil building policies and to develop the city into a residential city. The same impetus can be used to explain the sultan's settlement policy and the appointment of Gennadios as the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. In addition, Kritobulus describes the sultan's war campaigns northwards into areas of today's Serbia and the loss of the islands of Lemnos, Thasos and Samothrace to the Italians.

The third book deals with the complete conquest of the Byzantine despotism of the Peloponnese. As a reason for the annexation, Critobulus gives the differences between the despots, which predispose the Peloponnese to be a gateway for the peoples of the West, and refers to the despots' failure to pay tributes to the Sultan and the geostrategic position of the Peloponnese in relation to a possible invasion of Italy. He also describes the Sultan's raids and war expeditions in the Aegean and comes back to the Sultan's resettlement and building policy in Constantinople.

The fourth book is devoted to the annexation of the remainder of Trebizond and the area of ​​the city of Sinope. Furthermore, Kritobulus describes the conquest of Lesbos and Mytilene and war campaigns against the principality of Wallachia , in the area of ​​today's Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and against the Venetians in the Peloponnese.

The fifth book shows Mehmet's campaigns against the Venetians in the Aegean Sea and against Paionia and Illyria in the north of the Balkan Peninsula, i.e. against areas that had developed into the spheres of interest of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy . In addition, Kritobulus gives examples of the sultan's patronage of culture and science and describes the effects of an epidemic in the Balkans, in Asia Minor and Constantinople.

style

Critobulus writes in very good, Atticistic Greek, the scholarly language of the time. Some datives show deviations, the syntax is strongly based on that of the classical period. In addition, Kritobulos tends to use an archaic vocabulary, he rarely uses new loanwords. Only in some areas of the text, probably when it seemed appropriate to him, did he try to express himself in high style. The literary adaptation or citation of or from texts of the ancients, such as speeches by Thucydides, is strongly represented.

Tradition, rediscovery and reception

The historical work of Critobulus came to us in a single manuscript ( autograph ), which probably came from the author himself. The manuscript was written on Venetian paper, which was made between 1465 and 1467. The original is still in the library of the Topkapi Seraglio in today's Istanbul .

It is uncertain how much the historical work of Kritobulos of the 19th century in the period since the emergence in the mid-15th century and its rediscovery beginning rezipiert was. Translations, copies or larger citations from other authors are not known. Therefore, the work remained largely unknown in the West. This only changed after the German philologist Konstantin von Tischendorf succeeded in viewing the codex and in 1860 published a German edition of the letter of dedication from Critobulus to the Sultan. In Paris in 1870 Karl Müller published an edited version of the historical work in the Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum .

Another Bucharest edition followed in 1963 by Vasile Grecu , which was not based on viewing the original manuscript in the seraglio, but on Karl Müller's transcription . A comparison of the transcript was also omitted. In addition, it is criticized that Grecu is (too) based on Russian literature on the subject, English-language literature was hardly processed. Furthermore, the strong acceptance of statements by Marx and Engels or an interpretation through the glasses of historical materialism in the introductory chapters - probably corresponding to the circumstances of the time - is striking. The legible and understandable style of the Romanian text and the bilingual, annotated publication of the text were positively noted. In 1983 a modern, critical edition appeared within the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae .

More fonts

The Jesus prayer, the homily and the poem in honor of St. Augustine show in their execution and tradition that Critobulus belonged to the circle of Gennadios Scholarios , the first Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople during the Turkish rule . In addition to his relationship with the Sultan, these relationships gave him the opportunity to gain an insight into the politics of the day around the conquest.

Critobulus and the Contemporary Byzantine Historians

In contrast to the historical work of Critobulus, in which the panegyric character predominates despite critical passages, Michael Dukas sees the Sultan as “his bête noir. "This is expressed by Dukas through the numerous pejorative epithets - such as" [w] wild beast, [...] serpent, forerunner of the Antichrist, [...] Nebuchadnezzar at the gates of Jerusalem "- which he gives to the Sultan. This negative attitude of the historian is also expressed in the political name of the sultan when he - as the "antipode" of Critobulus - Mehmet "consistently as τὺραννος [...], thus in accordance with the Byzantine understanding of rule as rebel and usurper against the lawful Ruler ”, names. The imperial coronation of Constantine XI. is accepted by him "only very reluctantly", since he, as a supporter of the Church Union, mocks that the anointing was not carried out by the United Patriarch. If the question of ecclesiastical union and the behavior of the individual actors in relation to it is one of the central points of reference in Dukas' work, this question is of no interest to Kritobulos.

Another example of the different representation and interpretation of the person of Mehmet, which also underlines the polar position of the historical works of the Dukas and Critobulus to one another, is the episode about the killing of Loukas Notaras and numerous other nobles who had previously been ransomed. Dukas expands the scene with the Sultan personally incriminating attributions (drunkenness, pederasty, irrationality), whereas Critobulus places the event in the intrigues of a camarilla of the court, which Mehmet can only get rid of after the incident; Laonikos is a 'defused' and slightly more diffuse version of the duka.

Georgios Sphrantzes uses the "correct terms also used in diplomatic dealings." He does not practice excessive demonization, even though he calls Mehmet the "leader of the infidels" after the sultan's murder of his own son and his escape. In contrast to the positive and seminal picture of Critobulus, the work is characterized by “pessimism and de [m] belief in the punishing hand of God, which uses the military-political enemy”. He leaves out dogmatic questions.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles pursues a Graecization of Byzantine history. In the political term he uses a 'mainstreaming': In his version of the story almost all rulers bear the title βασιλεύς.

Laonikos, Dukas and Sphrantzes do not offer any information that goes beyond the politico-military events or a crude psychogram of the Sultan associated with them. Further information on imperial political as well as cultural objectives and concepts for the expansion of Constantinople into a residence is only available from Kritobulus - in this connection the central theme of his work.

Works

• De rebus gestis Mechemetis II. In: Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum . Ed. by Karl Müller . Volume 5, part 1, Firmin-Didot, Paris 1873, pp. 40-161 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).
• Din domnia lui Mahomed al Il-lea anii 1451-1467. De Rebus per annos 1451–1467 a Mechemete II gestis. Ed. and over. by Vasile Grecu. Ed. Acad. Republicii Populare Romîne, Bucharest 1963.
• Historiae (= Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae . Vol. 22). Rec. Diether Roderich Reinsch . De Gruyter, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-11-008969-6 .
• Mehmet II conquers Constantinople. The first years of reign of Sultan Mehmet Fatih, the conqueror of Constantinople (1453). The historical work of Critobulus of Imbros (= Byzantine historians . Vol. 17). Trans., Included. and explain by Diether Roderich Reinsch. Styria, Graz 1986.

literature

• Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Ulrich Rehm: Introduction. The historical figure of the sultan. In: Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Ulrich Rehm: Sultan Mehmet II. Conqueror of Constantinople - patron of the arts. Cologne [u. a.] 2009, pp. 7-13.
• Friedrich Blass : The Greek and Latin manuscripts in the Old Seraglio at Constantinople . In Hermes 23, 2 (1888), pp. 219-233.
• Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium . In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers 37 (1983), pp. 15-34.
• Diether Roderich Reinsch : Kritobulos of Imbros: Learned historian, Ottoman raya and Byzantine patriot . (PDF; 144 kB) In: Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta 40 (2003), pp. 297-311.
• Diether Roderich Reinsch: Introduction. In: Mehmet II conquered Constantinople: The first years of reign of Sultan Mehmet Fatih, the conqueror of Constantinople (1453). The historical work of Critobulus of Imbros. Trans., Included. and explain by Diether Roderich Reinsch. Graz 1986 (= Byzantine Historians; Vol. 17), pp. 9-19.
• Diether Roderich Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the representation of the contemporary Byzantine historian. In: Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Ulrich Rehm: Sultan Mehmet II. Conqueror of Constantinople - patron of the arts. Cologne [u. a.] 2009, pp. 15-30.
• Gyula Moravcsik: Byzantinoturcica. The Byzantine Sources of the History of the Turkic Peoples. Vol. 1. 3rd unchanged edition. Leiden 1983.

Remarks

1. ^ "Kritoboulos of Imbros' History of Mehmed the Conqueror opens with a dedicatory epistle to the Sultan: [...]." (Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium , p. 18.)
2. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 298.
3. ↑ "We do not know when Kritobulos was born. The political role he played in the years from 1453 to 1466 presents him to us as a mature adult […]. I think we cannot be much mistaken in assuming that Kritobulos was born around 1400 to 1410. "(Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 299.)
4. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 300.
5. ↑ See, also for the preceding and following, G. Moravcsik: Byzantinoturcica , pp. 432–433, and Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 299.
6. ^ G. Moravcsik: Byzantinoturcica , p. 433, and Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 300-1.
7. ↑ G. Moravcsik: Byzantinoturkica , p. 433, and Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 301.
8. ↑ G. Moravcsik: Byzantinoturcica , p. 433, and Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 301 .: “[…] that at the end of his life he had become a monk on Mount Athos, are pure fantasy and there are no clues to this, whatsoever, in any of the sources. ”With Moravcsek, however, this claim can still be found.
9. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , pp. 297, 300. - "The watermarks [su] thus confirm the textual evidence of GI 3, Kritoboulos' History of Mehmed the Conqueror, whose narrative breaks off with the close of the year 1467." (Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium , p. 17.)
10. ^ "The comparison with Alexander the Great becomes the leitmotiv of Kritoboulos' work [...]. As the unicum Kritoboulos manuscript in the Saray is presumed to be Kritoboulos' autograph and dedication copy, the Saray Arrian would appear to be a pendant volume intended to enable the Sultan to appreciate for himself the validity of his neo-Alexander image. This image was cultivated by the Sultan from his youth. "(Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium , p. 18.) -" According to Kritobulos, his [Murats] son ​​and successor Mehmed saw himself right from the start as a second Alexander with the objective of world domination. "(Reinsch, Kritobulos von Imbros , p. 302)
11. ↑ Reinsch: Kriotbulos of Imbros , p. 302.
12. ↑ Mehmet also consciously used the 'know-how' and skills of Italian artists and architects to set Western European Renaissance accents in visual art and buildings. For further information, see Asutay-Effenberger, Rehm: Introduction, pp. 10-12.
13. ↑ Critobulus finished the first version of his historical work, the content of which ran until 1461, in the autumn of 1466 and handed it over to the sultan with an explanatory letter of dedication, which is still available in Istanbul today; the second edited by Tischendorf was lost. Our author then revised the work again and handed it over to the Sultan again in the autumn of 1467 with a new letter of dedication. See Reinsch: Mehmet II conquered Constantinople , p. 14.
14. ↑ Critobulus, Letter to the Autonomous Ruler, § 3.
15. ↑ Critobulus, Letter to the Autonomous Ruler, § 1.
16. ↑ Critobulus, Letter to the Autonomous Ruler, § 1.
17. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the representation of the contemporary Byzantine historians, p. 22: "In the case of Critobulus of Imbros the conqueror sultan is the legitimate successor of the Byzantine emperors [...]."
18. ↑ “With the title used here, Critobulus places the Sultan in the succession of both the Byzantine emperors and the Persian great kings [...]. Mehmet himself [.] Let his Greek law firm refer to himself as “megas authentes” and “megas amiras sultanos”. ”(Reinsch, Mehmet II. Conquered Constantinople , p. 298 [= note 3/1]). See also Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the presentation of the contemporary Byzantine historians, p. 22.
19. ↑ Critobulus, Book I, chap. 4, § 2.
20. ↑ See Reinsch: Mehmet II. Conquers Constantinople , p. 326 [= note. 170/2 and 170/4].
21. ↑ See Critobulus, Book IV, chap. 11, §§ 5-6.
22. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 26.
23. ^ "Any deviation from the general canon in his text does not go beyond the scope of the best works of Byzantine historiography." (Reinsch, Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 302)
24. ↑ "As a rule, Kritobulos' style is straight forward and generally stays within what the ancients called the μέσος χαρακτήρ. [...] Kritobulos masters the fine art of literary imitation to an astonishing degree. "(Reinsch, Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 303)
25. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 297: “Proof of this fact are the many corrections and sometimes substantial additions in the margins of the text. The corrections and additions are such that they can only have been made by the author himself. We also know the characteristics of Critobulus' handwriting from a [nother] manuscript [...]. "
26. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 297: "[...] (as the paper's watermarks prove) [...]." - "Both GI 3 [= des Kritobulos Geschichtswerk] and GI 12 can be assigned to the period 1466–1467 on the evidence of watermarks used in two Greek manuscripts dated 1466 and 1467 (Vat. Ott. 395; Paris 1969, respectively), the 1466 manuscript having been copied in Constantinople by Thomas Prodromites. "(Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium , P. 17.)
27. ↑ “[…] Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who, incidentally, seemed to have known Kritobulos' work; it looks as though he borrowed certain phrases from it. "(Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , p. 301)
28. ^ F. Blass: The Greek and Latin manuscripts in the Old Seraglio at Constantinople . In Hermes , 23, 2 (1888), p. 231 and there the information in footnote 2 to C. v. Tischendorf: The Seraglio Library and Aristobulus , in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung of June 29, 1872 No. 181 Beil. - Although European scholars had long hoped for large finds of unknown manuscripts in the sultan's library, "[t] he only unique text to be discovered [.] Was not a classical work, but Kritoboulos' History of Mehmed the Conqueror ." (Julian Raby: Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium , p. 16.)
29. ↑ Review by Radu R. Florescu in Speculum 40, 1 (1965), pp. 139–141.
30. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , pp. 297-300.
31. ↑ Reinsch: Kritobulos of Imbros , pp. 298-9.
32. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 15.
33. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 15.
34. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 17.
35. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the representation of the contemporary Byzantine historians, p. 20. ἡγέμον serves as a more neutral designation.
36. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 20.
37. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, pp. 16-17.
38. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, pp. 24-25.
39. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 21.
40. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 21.
41. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, p. 18.
42. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Representation of Contemporary Byzantine Historians, pp. 20-21.
43. ↑ Reinsch: Mehmet the Conqueror in the Presentation of the Contemporary Byzantine Historians, pp. 26-27.