Comparison of Ottoman Empire and Qing Dynasty through Süleyman Şükrü's Seyahatü'l Kübra and Kang Youwei's Turk Travelogue

Abstract

In 1906, Traveller Karçınzade Süleyman Şükrü, starting from Anatolia, travelled to Iran, Ashgabat, Bukhara, Baku, West Turkistan, Caucasus, Austria, France, Marseille, Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Aden, India, Kolkata, Colombo, Ceylon, Singapore and China and reached Russia as the last stop, St. Petersburg. The impressions of China found in Seyahatü'l Kübra are grouped under eleven headings. Şükrü tried to reveal clear data about China's outer seas, rivers, architecture of cities, temples, mosques, the situation of European states in China, what foreigners do, and the number of Muslims and mosques in the section of impressions of China. Similarly, in 1908, Kang Youwei, who came to Ottoman Empire, which he called the Turk Empire, collected his travel notes under the title of Turk Travelogue. In his travelogue, he gave detailed information about the political structure, military structure, education, architecture and historical places of the Turks. By comparing many points which he witnessed in Ottoman Empire with his own country or European countries, he examined the similarities or differences of these countries with the Ottoman Empire. The aim of this study, which is a comparative study, is to examine the similarities and differences between the two countries in line with the perspectives of Şükrü and Kang. For this reason, in addition to the comparison method, content analysis, text scanning and text analysis methods will be adopted as a review method in the study.