KONGRE BİLDİRİLERİ
Many of the documents and defters in the Munich collections were most probably war booty of
individual persons. In some cases these persons wrote the place, the date and sometimes even their
names into such defters, but also into prayer books and Korans. According to such an entry one of the
defters was found in the deserted encampment before Vienna in 1683 by an unknown person. In some
way or the other it came into the court library of the bishop of Salzburg. Victorious Emperor Napoleon
took it away to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. After his deposition it had to be restored to its
owner. But exactly then Salzburg for a short period of time had become part of Bavaria. So it ended up
in the Bavarian State Library.66 During the second battle of Mohacs in 1687 the Elector’s interpreter
Lucas Michaelowiz, had taken several Ottoman defters from the Ottoman camp near Esseg. But the
elector had them taken away from him. So they might be among the defters in the State Library. In his
opinion their value was 100 ducats and he asked for seven Ottoman prisoners of war, in order to collect
their ransom for himself as a compensation for this and other losses. But the Bavarian authorities
judged that the prisoners he had chosen were the most distinguished among the prisoners and they
expected a much higher ransom from them. The interpreter’s request therefore was rejected. Later,
however, eight prisoners not identical with those he had originally wanted were granted to him by the
elector.67
The Jesuit Innocentius Piscius, had also got hold of a defter, two prayer-books and a Koran in
newly conquered Buda in 1686. He donated these volumes to his fellow Jesuit Ferdinand Orban, a
collector of exotic books and objects68, for whose collection a museum was built in Ingolstadt. A
collection of Ottoman books and objects was part of it. After his death his collection became the
property of the Jesuit school and after the order was abolished, it was passed on to the Bavarian
University which at that time was still in Ingolstadt, but in 1826 it was transferred to Munich.
Several of our documents and defters point directly to the Hungarian territory. Some others
might have been part of the personal belongings of Ottoman soldiers from other parts of the Empire.
In some cases even parts of the Imperial chancery or personal archives of Pashas were left behind.
Consequently a great variety of documents and defters appeared on the theatre of war, where some
intelligent persons at times tried to collect and safe them. But many a soldiers must equally have taken
away one or the other book. Quite often such books were donated to scholars and clerics and by way
of such educated men finally came into monasteries and libraries. It is interesting to note that not only
beautifully written and costly bound objects were collected by these persons but even small-format,
simple and even damaged volumes were taken along. This seems to prove that it was not always the
expected value that caused a person to carry home such an object. Probably the motive was more often
a high esteem for anything written, even when it came from the enemy. Bringing home such a nice and
meaningful keepsake and showing around such an exotic piece might also improve a person’s prestige.
We do not know how many defters Lucas Michaelowiz had carried away and whether the price he
expected to get for them was realistic. But what he expected shows that already at his time there was
at least a small and limited market even for Ottoman documents and defters.
During the 18th century no new Ottoman documents and defters enriched the Munich collections.
But from the library of Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, who had died in 186169, the Bavarian State Library
received an interesting volume.70 On its empty pages of thick European paper 70 Ottoman documents,
most of them petitions (arz) from the 18th century had been pasted. Fallmerayer seems to have acquired
66 BSB Cod. turc 141; Aumer, Türkische Handschriften, S. 40.
67 Graf Topor Morawitzky, „Beiträge zur Geschichte der Türkenkriege von 1683 bis 1688“. Oberbayerisches Archiv 17 (1857) Heft 2, p. 182,
Heft 3, p. 8, 18, 24-25.
68 For him and his collection see: Ulla Krempel, „Die Orbansche Sammlung, eine Raritätenkammer des 18. Jahrhunderts“. Münchner Jahrbuch
der Bildenden Kunst 19 (1968) pp. 169-184.Peter W. Schienerl, „Ferdinand Orban (1655-1732)“. Diplomaten und Wesire. Krieg und Frieden
im Spiegel türkischen Kunsthandwerks“. Ed. by Peter W. Schienerl and Christine Stelzig. Munich 1988, pp. 175-181.
69 For his biography see: Martin Thurnher (Ed.), Jacob Philipp Fallmerayer. Wissenschaftler, Politiker, Schriftsteller. Innsbruck 1993; Thomas
Leeb, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer. Publizist und Politiker zwischen Revolution und Reaktion (1885-1861). Munich 1996.
70 BSB Cod. turc. 337.
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Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü
them during his travels in the Ottoman Empire in order to use them for exercises. As transcriptions
written with a pencil in his handwriting show, he really practiced reading Ottoman documents with
the help of these texts. Apart from that volume, the State Library preserves some Ottoman documents
and letters from his own time and circle. The famous library of the French orientalist Étienne-Marc
Quatremère was bought for the Bavarian State Library in 1858. With its extremely valuable books,
often illustrated with miniatures, the collection reached a new dimension71. The Quatremère collection
also added copies of Ottoman treaties with Venice, England and France (from the 16th to the 19th
centuries) to the collection of documents72. One of the copyists, by the way, was James Redhouse, the
sultan’s tercüman73.
Some individual gifts and acquisitions from the book market and from private persons added to
the collection the hüccets from the 17th century. The estate of the Valide Sultan Pertevniyal brought
a considerable number of defters,