Cantemir and the 'order of things' in Ottoman society


Sözen Z.

Cogito, cilt.13, sa.3, ss.22-30, 2021 (Scopus) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 13 Sayı: 3
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Dergi Adı: Cogito
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.22-30
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Dimitrie Cantemir, Ottoman Empire, Principalities
  • İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The source of inspiration for this paper is Cantemir's book on musical theory, Kitâb-i 'ilm al-musîqî 'ala vechi'l Hurûfât (Book of the Science of Defining and Performing Music with Letters), written in Turkish somewhere between 1703 and 1705, followed by a Collection of melodies. The two works are known as Kantemiroğlu Edvarı, which is a massive attempt to impose order on what seemed to be a chaotic mess based on oral transmission through a notation system invented by Cantemir himself. In a similar vein, Cantemir's History was far more than a passive narration of the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire; it was a search for a taxonomic system by graphing and codifying Ottoman society for the purpose of understanding and communicating the logic of transformation.