From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Subject: Heavily Turkish-Quoted Historian "Stanford Shaw" is Reviewed
Summary: Shaw is exposed as inaccurate, unclear, and unreasonable 
Keywords: historical revisionists 
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 03:14:27 GMT


Those who quote from Professor Stanford Shaw .AND. those who feel as though 
expose's of his historical foolishness are biased please read the following.

The following is a book review of a text authored by Stanford Shaw. Not only
have Armenians and Greeks clearly demonstrated this historical revisionist for
the Turkish government a major "resmi tarih ureticisi" [official history
generator], but the following review of a sample of his "work" further
confirms Shaw's gross inaccuracy as a historian.

We can add Stanford Shaws "work" onto the pile of anti-Armenian and anti-
Greek (curiously read as pro-Turkish) historical garbage heap!


From: _SOAS Bulletin_, Vol XLI, Part 1, 1978, pages 160-162

STANFORD J. SHAW: History; of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. Vol. I:
empire of the Gazis. the raise and decline of the Ottoman empire, 1280-1808. 
351 pp.- Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1976. &12.50.

This work, the preface tells us, 'is the product of almost 20 years of
research in the Ottoman archives as well as other collections in Europe and 
the United States', The present volume is to be followed by a second, entitled
Reform, revolution, and republic:  the rise of modern Turkey, 1808-1975. 

Ottoman history being Clio's poor relation, we should be well satisfied if we
found here an accurate chronological account of events, retailed in an 
agreeable literary style; we might hope for a clear exposition of the
mechanics of government; and it would be a bonus if the underlying social and 
economic forces were described and assessed. But what have we in fact?

When one is dealing with the early--and the not-so-early--Ottoman state, the 
mere establishment of a name or a date is often a delicate question of 
collating Oriental and Western sources, so that the best final judgement must
be qualified by an 'on balance, therefore'. Here, - however, the author sails 
in without a qualm: not for him a pusillanimous 'perhaps' or 'probably'. He
may have his evidence to justify certainty for what others regard as 
uncertain, but it is perverse of him to offer his own dates for several events
which others regard as reasonably well established. Thus: the battle of
Kosedag occurred in 1243, not 1242 (p. 8), and that of Pelecanon in 1329, not
1328 (p. 15); Umur Beg of Aydin died -- or rather 'was killed' -- in 1348, not
1844 (p. I6); the battle of the Maritsa was in 1371, not 1364 (p. 18); Orhan 
died, it is generally agreed, in March 1362, not 1360 (p. 17); Bayazid I's 
campaign in western Anatolia was in winter 1389-90, not during the summer and
fall of 1390' (p. 30); Bedreddin was executed in 1416, not 1419, and Duzme
Mustafa 'fled to refuge with the Byzantines' well before 1420 (p. 43); the 
agreement ending the Ottoman-Venetian war is dated 25 January 1479, not 25 
June (p. 69); and if Selim I died on 21 September 1520 (p. 86), how could his
successor take Belgrade in the preceding month (p. 91) ?

This last example is not only the point where an elementary knowledge of
chronology, or indeed of simply arithmetic, brings the most cursory reader up 
short. He jibs first at the third sentence in the book, for the Ottoman state,
however late we choose to date its genesis, did not come to 'encompass' 
Hungary 'within two centuries' )p. 1); the 'Abbasid empire was not yet in 
existence in the seventh century (p. 2); if Murad I's 'first move' was in 
Anatolia in 1362. (p. 17), how could he return to capture Edirne in 1361 ?
(p. 18); Amadeo no doubt took Gallipoli on 24 August 1366, but hardly in 
response to a papal bull of 25 December 1366 (p. 19); the battle of Kosova 
(1389) did not take place 'less than two decades after Murad ascended the 
throne' (p. 22); Anatolia did not 'remain under the suzerainty of the 
Ilhanids' in the reign of Bayezid I (p. 30); if within a year of the battle
of Ankara Mehmed had 'a large Turkoman army ready and able to take on all
enemy' (p. 37), he was pretty dilatory about eliminating them; on p. 44 Mehmet
I annexes Aydin in 1425 and Mentese in 1426, to die, six lines - later, in
1421 (Murad II, however, conducts the same campaign, twice, at pp. 46 and 47);
since Bayezid I succeeded in 1389, Venice could hardly have 'signed a trade 
agreement ' with him in 1388 (p. 47): Albanian resistance 'beginning in 1443'
was not continued 'for another half-century' by George Castriotes (pp. 48-9), 
for he died in 1468; it was not Stefan Dusan who died in 1427 (p. 62) but 
Stefan Lazarevic; Mehmed II did not 'conquer' in Athens in January 1459 
(p. 63) but visit it (it had been taken by Omer Beg in 1456), apparently in 
August 1458; Bayezid II did not, after arriving at Istanbul, 'allow the 
Janissaries to execute Karamani Mehmet and his supporters and pillage their
houses and property' (p. 70): the riot occurred before Bayezid, at Amasya, 
knew that his father was dead; Prince Selim did not 'lead the Janissaries in 
several successful expeditions into Georgia well as the Safavid territories
in eastern Anatolia following the Sah Kulu revolt' (p. 79), for (apart from 
the fact that he did not command the Janissaries) he had left Anatolia the 
year before the revolt; nor was he in a position to send naval supplies to the 
Mamluks in January 1511 (p. 83). The most baffling figures are at p. 124, 
where the 'Cannon-Wagon corps ', with 400 men in 1574, is said to have been 
'organized in 63 battalions' : a seven-man battalion is real military 
curiosity.

Several statements betray a certain topographical confusion: Sogut is not 'in
north-eastern Anatolia' (p. 13), if, from Yenisehir, 'Osman moved' northward',
he was going not 'up' the Sakarya but down it, and if 'south-west', he was not
headed 'toward the Sea of Marmara' (p. 14); the Goynuk region is not 'on the 
Sea of Marmara' (p. 15) but east of the Sakarya; Edirne, it is stated (p. 17),
'commanded the gap between the Balkan and Rhodope mountains formed the by the
Maritsa river'. whereas if it commands a 'gap', it is that between the Rhodope
and the Istranca ranges, and if it commands the Maritsa valley, that is
something more than a gap; Komotini is not 'on the Aegean' (p. ~20); Timur,
starting from Tabriz, did not 'cross the Taurus mountains into Anatolia' in 
1386 (p. 32); if 1396 Sigismund 'led a large Crusader force through Serbia,
crossing the Danube at Nicopolis and then capturing the Danubian towns of 
Vidin  and Orsova' (p. 33), it is a wonder that Bayezid ever caught up with 
him if Timur had advanced 'from Sivas to Ankara via the well-watered northern 
route' (p. 30), he would not have passed through Kayseri; in 1413 Mehmed did
not 'smash [sic] Musa's army at Viza, near Filibe' (p. 39): there was a
skirmish at Viza, which is no great distance from the Black Sea coast, and the
decisive battle took place near Samakov; if Duzme Mustafa had been sent 'to
Gallipoli' (p. 44), he did not need to 'cross into Europe' six lines later; in
1443, Hunyadi did not march 'down' the Morava but up it, he did not go 'over
the Balkan Mountains' to get from Nis to Sofia, and 'Trayan gate' is odd for 
'the gate of Trajan' (p. 51); in 1444 the Crusaders did not march 'west along
the Danube toward Varna' (p. 52) but east; an armada 'built in Gallipoli' did
not need to go 'through the Dardanelles' to get to the Sea of Marmara (p. 56)
and since bel means 'pass' or 'saddle' and since all the chroniclers speak of
the difficult terrain, it is careless to speak of the battle with Uzun Hasan 
(fought, incidentally, not in 1472 but 1473) as occurring 'on the plain of 
Otluk Beli' (p. 66).

The following passage (pp. 69-70) offers an example, not unique, of lack of 
historical method: 'Gedik Ahmet Pasa was now made sancak bey of Avlonya and 
commander of the Ottoman fleet in the Aegean with the task of organizing the 
campaigns against both Italy and Rhodes. His first fleet took the Greek 
islands of Cephalonia and Zanta and then put Rhodes under siege beginning on 
December 4, 1479, while another force sailed around southern Italy and landed 
at Otranto on August 11 to initiate the second phase of the campaign . . .
Gedik Ahmet returned to Rumeli in the winter of 1481 to raise additional 
forces and was there when the news arrived of the sultan's sudden death (May
3, 1481), as a result of which the siege of Rhodes was broken off.... the 
force at Otranto [left] without leadership, . . . finally left for home on 
July 10'. What can be the source for this grotesque picture of Gedik Ahmet as
Ahmed as C-in-C Aegean? The Ottoman attacks on Rhodes and Otranto created such
a stir in Christendom that they are both elaborately documented, and unless
all the historians are wrong they were entirely separate operations. The first
siege of Rhodes was conducted by Mesih Pasa; it began seriously only in May
1480; and it was broken off in August, several months before Mehmed's death, 
as a result of d'Aubusson's heroic defense. Gedik Ahmed's force, sailing from 
Valona, did not trail 'around southern Italy' but went direct across the 
strait of Otranto (atlas!). It did not land  'at' Otranto on 11 August 1480 
(the day Otranto fell to an attack from the landside) but near Otranto on 28 
July, and the garrison did not 'leave for home' on 10 July 1481 but 
surrendered on 10 September, after prolonged siege, to the Duke of Calabria--
whereupon many the Janissaries entered his service and fought in his wars.

Such a failure to present accurately a straightforward narrative does not
inspire confidence that 'institutions' will fare better, and indeed the 
section (pp. 22-8) devoted to  'Ottoman institutions and society in the
fourteenth century', a period for which practically nothing is known, contains
much that can only be (unconvincing) speculation. I doubt, for example, 
whether 'in all internal matters each tribe or clan was autonomous' (p. 2s), 
whether nomads entering Anatolia, whatever Turkish customs they brought, 
brought also 'particularly Turkish forms of military organization, 
bureaucratic structure, and taxes' (p. 23), whether lads destined for the 
Janissaries were 'educated in the Turkish language, Islam, Arabic, and other 
characteristics of the Ottoman way' (p. 26): they did farmwork, and how should
they learn Arabic?  I know of no justification for the statement (p. 26)
that mukata's is the Ottoman equivalent for the Seljuk term ikta': the 
definition of the Nasihatname (tr Behrnauer, in ZDMG, xviii, 1864, 726-7,
= Koci Bey risalesi, ed. Aksut 112) seems conclusive and suits the known 
facts.

Matters are little better for the later centuries: (p. 58) '[The Grand Vizier]
was entrusted with the imperial seal, which had to be applied to all state 
decrees, not only those of the sultan himself, but also lesser regulations
issued by other principal officers' (is the seal really meant--or the tugra?);
(p. 104) 'The circumstances under which the sultan could confiscate the
properties of members of the Ruling Class were also set down', seil. in 'the
famous Kanunname-i Al-i Osman' which 'Ebu us-Su himself drew up ' (no comment)
(p. 118) the Seyhulislam is included among the members of Diva, whereas much
of the significance of his office arose from the very fact that he was not;
(p. 123) the Janissaries numbered 'no more than 30,0000) men under Suleyman',
whereas the highest figure published for that reign, from the 'archival 
sources' which the book purports to exploit is 12,131 (they were not,
incidentally, armed with 'rifles' in the sixteenth century, nor had Bayezid II
developed for the artillery 'more effective shells than were available in the
past'). At p. 124 we have the unexceptional sentence: ' The kapikulu also had
a cavalry branch, the Kapikulu Suvarileri. Occasionally, it is confused with 
the provincial cavalry but in fact was quite distinct, being maintained in
Istanbul by a salaries rather than timars'; but this very confusion seems to
have invaded p. 46: 'The kapikulu men ... were divided into two services: (1)
the Sipahi cavalry supported mainly by feudal timars and under the control of
the old Turkish nobility . . .'.

Many of these misapprehensions presumably arise from an imperfect command of 
terminology. 'Gulam' does not mean 'foreign youth' (p. 27); A sultan is not a
'civil ruler of Islam' (p. 33); the nisanci  hardly the 'chief scribe' 
(p. 58); only in French is the Venetian representative termed baile (p. 62);
the followers of Kadizade were not called Kadizadeler (pp. 77, 206) but
Kadizadeliler; the Hall of the Divan was situated not in Enderun (p. 115) but
in the Birun; ispenc resmi is not 'paturage tax' (p. 120); for 'nuzul bedeli'
(alighting tax)' (p. 120);  read rather nuzl and understand 'payment in lieu
of provisions': 'mezul' (read ma'zul) means 'out of office' rather than 
'dismissed' (p. 136); the Kalenders were characterized not by 'unkempt hair
and beards' (p. 154) but by being clean-shaven; for muzhir (p. 160) read
muzhir (=muhdhzir); and only in the most literal sense does uc anbarli mean a
ship 'with three storerooms' (p. 167): it is a 'three-decker'.

As to its general presentation of the Ottoman 'power structure', the book 
seems to reflect a less than critical acceptance of the simplistic prejudices
displayed by the more chauvinistic popular writers of modern Turkey. Ottoman
policy is shown as a series of lurches, as one or other of the constituents of
the 'Ruling Class' (always with upper case) gains the ascendancy over its 
rivals: the ' Turkish nobility' (whomever they may be), 'the Candarli' 'the
devsirvme' (a 'political group', according to the index), and, in the early 
days, the wily Christian princesses and their advisers. What, for example, is
the evidence justifying this passage (p. 28) ? ' The manner in which Bayezid
[I] came to power determined what followed. Of Murat I's sons, Bayezit and 
Yakup, the latter was the elder and tended to represent the Turkoman notables
in the struggle for power within the Ottoman court; Bayezit, the son of a 
Greek woman, was the candidate of the new Christian and convert elements
brought to the fore by Murat. In the end Bayezit was able to secure the
throne at Kosova not because of the power of his supporters per se (most of 
the army at that time was dominated by the Turkoman notables through the 
Candarli family), but rather simply because he was on the scene while Yakup 
was in Anatolia recruiting Turkomans [sic]. Bayezit's supporters among the
Christians vassals in Murat's camp had him confirmed as ruler before the
Turkoman notables knew that Murat was dead, concealing this fact until they 
could assassinate Yakup, thereby leaving the latter's supporters with a fait
accompli. The Candarli and other notables accepted Bayezit's accession because
he was the last surviving male member of the Ottoman dynasty.' Granted that it
is the historian's duty to offer an interpretation of events, his prior duty
is to marshal the data; and in this instance the one thing that seems certain
about Yakub's death is that it occurred at Kosova, where he was leading his
contingent of troops, and on the day of the battle. The earliest Ottoman 
source says that he was killed after consultation among 'the begs' -- and 
whoever they may have been, they were not 'the Christian vassals'.

The remarks on learning and literature can only be called comic especially 
after 'European observers' are castigated (p. 139) for a 'lack of linguistic
as well as aesthetic qualifications needed to discern and appreciate cultural
developments'. Let a single quotation (p. 141) serve with exclamation marks 
supplying sufficient comment: 'Their work [that of the saz folk poets] is best
exemplified and preserved in the 12 epic poems [!] of [!] Dede Korkut as well
as the works of [!] Seyyit Battal Gazi and Denismentname [sic], written by
[!] Danisment Ahmet Gazi'. (The index defines Dede Korkut as '14th-century
Anatolian folk poet', Seyyit Battal as '13th-century poet', and Danisment 
Ahmet Gazi as '13th-century Anatolian poet and Turkoman prince'.) And to take 
a single description of a work: the Kasf al-zunun (p. 286) is not a book of
'biographies of the most important writers in the eastern world at that time',
nor does its title really mean ' Survey of Thoughts of names of Books and
Sciences'. That it lists 'over 1500 books' is, however, correct: Flugel's 
numbering goes to 14,501.

Perhaps a historian need know nothing belles-lettres...But he has presumably
read the chronicles, so that it is odd to encounter 'the fifteenth-century
Ottoman chronicler Mustafa Naima' (p. 112); 'Kasifi adds important information
on Orhan's invasion of Rumeli' (he doesn't mention them); 'Envreri's 
Dusturname, presented to Grand Vezir Karamani Mehmet Pasa' (in fact, Mahmud
Pasa); 'Kritovolos's Tarih-i Sultan Mehmet Han-i Sani..., written partly[!]
in Greek'; and Sehdi may well 'provide...information on the Conqueror's
reign', but we are unlikely to know until a manuscript turns up (p. 145).

And now a penultimate word for the publisher.

This book appears under the imprint of a British university press. Has it 
declared redundant its copy-editors and proof-readers? Perhaps a publisher
cannot mend a monotonous and rambling style, enlivened only by cliches and 
ludicrous metaphors ('the Oguz nomads bounced off the . . . defense tier', '
culminated his expansion ', ' pulverize the opposition ',' Kadi Burhaneddin
expanded '). Perhaps too the classics are so dead that nobody boggles at
'Romanus Diogenus', the river 'Hermon',' Dorylaem ', 'Paleologues' as a 
singular,' Mitilene', 'Constantine Iragasis' (p. 52: presumably an impressive
misprint for 'Dragases'), ' Gennadins/Gennadious Scolarious'. But surely 
somebody at Cambridge ought to hesitate over 'most of who', 'unexperienced',
'firearmed muskets', 'acquiessence', 'tributory', 'straight and narrow'. In 
respectable English -- and American -- usage, the use of 'due to' where' owing
to' is required is still a solecism, and the past tense of 'lie' not yet
'laid'.

According to the dust-cover, this book 'sweeps away the accumulated prejudices
of centuries'. One prejudice that has vanished in the process is respect for
accuracy, clarity, and reasoned judgement. 

						V.L. Menage



-- 
David Davidian dbd@urartu.sdpa.org "It has been ever thus in all things, son, 
SDPA Center for Regional Studies    Whatever we thrash we give to the wind, 
P.O. Box 382761                     We too have been blown by the world's wind
Cambridge, MA 02238                 The chaff is gone but the grain remains." 
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:9203 talk.politics.mideast:18933 talk.politics.soviet:7184 soc.culture.greek:7845 soc.culture.europe:7580 soc.history:7578 soc.culture.jewish:14662