The Mission and Diplomatic Language of Fethnames in Ottoman Diplomacy in The Context of 1715 Morea Fethname

The tradition of sending fethname in order to announce the victories won in the Turkish-Islamic states, both within the country and to foreign states, was continued in the Ottomans as well. However, the Ottomans developed a peculiar style to themselves in the practice of sending fethname, as in many traditions they inherited from the Turkish-Islamic states before them too. So much so that the Ottomans attributed different meanings to the practice of sending a fethname beyond just declaring a victory won inside and outside the country. The fethnames, sent to the kaimmaqam, who deputized the grand vizier in Istanbul and to administrators such as kadi and beylerbeyi in the provinces, to announce the victory to the public, were actually aimed at enhancement the loyalty of the public to the state and their services. Fethnames sent to foreign countries had a diplomatic mission. By emphasizing the power and magnificence of the Ottoman Empire with the victory in the fethnames sent abroad, the friendship and loyalty of the friendly or allied countries was strengthened and continued, while a threat was implied to the countries that were hostile. So much so that this tradition has become the language of good news for friend and threat to enemy in Ottoman diplomacy. For this reason, it has been interpreted that the main function of the Ottoman fethnames was war propaganda or a display of power and splendor. In fact, the mission that the Ottomans attributed to the fethnames changed occasionally in the historical process. They used fethnames to emphasize their power and magnificence during the periods when they were politically and militarily strong, while they were used to make diplomacy effective when they were weak politically and militarily. Therefore, it can be said that the function of the Ottoman fethnames changed over time in parallel with the political and military position of the state, as a reflection of the change in Ottoman diplomacy and diplomatic language. The Fethname of Morea, which was written by the chronicler Mehmed Raşid Efendi after the re-conquest of Morea in 1715 and sent to nearly fifty statesmen and rulers, is an appropriate case of this change. Because the re-conquest of Morea, which was lost with the 1699 Karlowitz Treaty, was an important opportunity to repair the loss of military and political prestige suffered by the state. The aforementioned fethname was the manifestation of a diplomatic aim to eliminate the pessimistic mood in the domestic public opinion caused by this loss of prestige and the doubts about the power of the Ottomans in the neighboring countries. Today, only two copies of this fethname have been found out of nearly fifty copies. Of these two copies, the one sent to the Iranian ruler Shah Hussein is in the No. 6 Nâme-i Hümâyûn Register in the Presidency Ottoman Archives. The other copy, sent to the kaimaqam who deputized for the Grand Vizier and to the Kadi of Istanbul, is in the Library of Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi, no. 3655/4. In the study, text criticism was made between these two copies based on the second copy and these two documents were compared in terms of diplomatic language. Based on the Fethname of Morea, it has been tried to make some inferences about the role of fetihnames, which is an important document type of Ottoman diplomatic, in Ottoman Diplomacy and the changes they have shown in the historical process.