Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:33:08.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Attempt To Revive Turkish Printing in Istanbul in 1779

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Richard Clogg
Richard Clogg
Affiliation:
King's College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although the activities of the first press established in the Ottoman Empire for theprinting of Turkish books, that of İbrahim Müteferrika which operated between 1927 and 1974, have been well documented, less is known about the circumstances under which printing in Turkish was revived later in the centurey. Two letters preserved among the papers of the British botanist and patron of science, Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), however, throw interesting light on an abortive attempt to restart Turkish printing in the Ottoman capital under British auspices in 1779.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 67 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 On Turkish printing in Istanbul during the eighteenthcentury see Osman, Ersoy, Türkiye'ye matbaantngirişi ve ilk baszlan eserler, Ankara üniversitesi Dil yeTarihCoǵrafya Faküitesi Yayimlari 129, Kütüphaneciiik Enstitüsü Yayima 1 (Ankara, 1959);Google ScholarFranz, Babinger, Stambuler Buchwesen im 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1919);Google ScholarSelim, Ger‖ek, Türk Matbaaciliǵi:İbrahim Müteferrika Matbaasi (Istanbul, 1939);Google ScholarOmont, H., ‘Documents sur l'imprimerie àConstantinople au XVIIIe siècle,’ Revue desBibliothèques, 5 (1895), 185–200, 228–236;Google ScholarBirge, J. K., ‘The Printing of Books in Turkey in the Eighteenth Century,’ The Moslem World, 33 (1934), 292–294;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHeifening, W.,‘über Buch- und Druckwesen in der alten Türkei: Em Berichtdes Preussischen Gesandten zu Konstantinopei aus dem Jahre 1819,’ Zeitschrzft der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, n.s.,25 (1950), 592–599;Google ScholarGiambatista, Toderini,Letteratura Turchesca (Venice, 1787), III, 6ff.;Google ScholarSimonify, A., Grahim Müteferrika: Bahnbrecher des Buchdrucks in der Türkei (Budapest,1944).Google Scholar

2 Calendared by Warren, R. Dawson inThe Banks Letters: A Calendar of the Manuscript Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks Preserved in the British Museum and the British Museum (Natural History) andother Collections in Great Britain (London, 1958).Google Scholar

3 British Museum Add. MS 33977, f. 103r.

4 This was not, of course, the case. The books printed by Müteferrika are recorded by Ersoy, , Türkiye'yemathaanzn, pp. 37–45.Google Scholar

5 I.e., Dr. Samuel Johnson.

6 The Imperial Austrian internuntius in Istanbul atthis time was Baron von HerbertRathkeal (Georgios, Laios, OEllinikos Typos tis Viennis apo tou 1784 mekhri tou 1821[Athens, 1961], p. 18).Google Scholar The Swedishtraveller Jakob Jonas Bjūrnstahl records of Herman Boerhaave, the great Dutchphysician, that ‘ein Theil seiner Werke ist von dem nunmehr verstorbnenrūmischkaiserlichen Drogman Herrn Herbert, der sich des Beystandes einesgelehrten Türken dazu bedient hat, ins Türkische übersetzt (Jakob Jonas Bjūrnstahl's Briefe auf semenausländischen Reisen an … C. C. Gjūrwell … Aus deinSchwedischen übersetzt von J. E. Groskurd [Leipzig andRostock, 1782], V, 433Google Scholar cited in Lindeboom, G.A., Herman Boerhaave: The Man and his Work[London, 1968], p. 360).Google Scholar According to C.E. Daniels, Sultan Mustafa III, during a particularly severe outbreak of the plague in1767, in which many important officials died, ordered his doctor, Subhi, and thedragoman of the Imperial Austrian Embassy, Thomas von Herbert, forthwith totranslate the works of Boerhaave. Daniels prints a French translation of part of the 1768Subhi/Herbert version in parallel with part of the text of Boerhaave's, Aphorismi de Cognosceiidis et CurandisMorbis … (Leiden: Lugduni Batavorum,1709)Google Scholar and his Institutiones Medicae in usus annuae exercitationis domesticos (Leiden: Lugduni Batavorum, 1708);Google ScholarDaniels, C. E., ‘La Version orientale, Arabe et Turque, des deux premiers livres de Herman Boerhaave,’ Janus, 17 (1912), 299–312Google Scholar. Earlier Turkish translations of the works of Boerhaave appear to have been in existence for Toderini records that some of Boerhaave's medical works had been translated during thereign of Sultan Ahmet III (1703–1730) by ‘un letterato Turco,’assisted by a doctor, who was either a Jew or a Greek, (LetteraturaTurchesca, 1, 135;Google ScholarDaniels, , ‘La Versionorientale,’ p. 297).Google Scholar One of these works may have actually been set upin type on Müteferrika's press, for according to Daniels, Professor AlbertSchultens of Leiden University received a proof copy of Boerhaave'sInstitutiones and Aphorismi printed in ‘Arabic’ in Istanbul, Ca.1733 (Ibid., p. 296). Cf., Albert Schultens, Oratio Academica inMemoriam Hermanni Boerhaavii, yin summi … (Leiden: Lugduni Batavorum, 1738), p. 49: ‘Ante quinquennium examinavi specimina versionis, Boerhaavio transmissa Constantinopoli, atque Archetypo fideliter respondere deprehendi.’Google Scholar

7 British Museum Add. MS 33977, f 102v–103v. Inthe interests of intelligibility slight changes have been made in Matra'spunctuation.

8 I.e., the kumbaraci başi.

9 This was Mustafa Aǵa or İngiliz Mustafa. Among other contemporary references to Campbell is that of the Venezuelanrevolutionary leader, Miranda, who met Campbell during his visit to Istanbul in 1786,Archivo de General Miranda: Viajes Dianios 1785–1787 (Viajes porGrecia, Turquía y Russia) (Caracas, 1929), II, 155.Google Scholar

10 British Museum Add. MS 33977, f 107r, v. A letter that Matra had written to Banks on 17 August does not survive.