From Vienna to the Kalmyk lands: the construction of place in the Seyahatnâme

Abstract

In the past few decades, scholars have pointed to the importance of a travel account’s very spatial setting in the construction and representation of place, in marking out the cultural and political boundaries. Yet that aspect has been little explored when it comes to Ottoman travel writing, especially from the early modern era. This article examines the role of spatial setting in the construction of place in Evliyâ Çelebi’s Seyahatname, of Vienna and the Kalmyk lands in particular, two places outside the Ottoman imperial realm. The accounts illustrate how greatly the specificity of each place in the Ottoman territorial imagination defines Evliya’s depiction of those locales. For Evliyâ, it is argued, Vienna and the Kalmyks lands represent two wholly different and exclusive foreign places: the former is constructed as an urban space beneficial to Ottoman material interest, and the latter as a pastoral space without such benefit.