The Inner-Ottoman Orientalist Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723)

Abstract

Dimitrie Cantemir(1673-1723), a prolific man of letters, was an Orientalist raised in the Ottoman Empire during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He was born in the Principality of Moldavia, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, and became a renowned historian, geographer, musician, theologian, politician, linguist, musicologist and diplomat, and one of the most intelligent figures in 18th century Europe. Interestingly, he has been evaluated differently in Moldavia, Romania, Turkey, and Russia, due to his major stages in life occurring in different countries such as his birth in Moldavia, education in Istanbul, and political asylum in Russia. As an Orientalist, he left several treaties of monumental significance that covered the spectrum of philosophy and history of both Orient and the West. His magnum opus was 『The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire』, which was a marvelous treatise and is acknowledged as a primary historical source of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that values intellectual quest of the Orient. Another masterpiece was 『The Book of the Science of Music according to the Alphabetic Notation』, which was a different treatise on Turkish classical music and the innovative system of musical notation. Because of this, Cantemir is highly regarded as a preeminent oriental scholar who conducted a first-hand study on the history and culture of the Ottoman Empire. More importantly, paying attention to the fact that Cantemir spent almost half a lifetime living and studying in Istanbul, this paper aims to explore answers to three questions; First, what was the historical and educational backdrop that made Cantemir an outstanding literary scholar and Orientalist of the time possible? Second, what was the broad outline and historical value of his greatest masterpiece on the Ottoman history? Third, what was the reason of Turkish people’s unfavorable emotions on Cantemir contrary to Europeans? Ultimately, this thesis concludes that Dimitrie Cantemir was one of the most prominent Orientalist scholars on history and culture of the Ottoman Empire and an active contributor to the Oriental Studies in Europe with the help of a high-quality education and learning in Istanbul.