Hollanda Cumhuriyeti’nde ve Anadolu’da bir yurtsever: Hekim Başı Murat Efendi ya da Pieter Van Woensel (1747-1808)

Abstract

Reality values in historical and fictitious texts demonstrate significant differences basically owing to factors as style, context and interpretation. Whilst this case is considered as a very usual one in so far as fictitious texts are concerned or perhaps on the contrary, it is by no means expected to occur, it surely gains a vital importance and determines the validity and reliability criteria of those texts. Thus this study aims primarily to conduct a comparative analysis from the perspective of Turkey of the 21st century concerning how the observations of the Dutch traveller, military doctor, patriot, republican, Pieter van Woensel in the Ottoman territory in the 18th century had been interpreted in his own era and in the Netherlands of the 20th century. In this process, Van Woensel, who is a patriot and a supporter of the Enlightenment, affected to search the reality, has been introduced to readers by taking into account his era, context, international political conditions and zeitgeist, whilst also the impact of the hermeneutics on the reality value in historical texts has been evalauted.