Plural Pasts

In this book, narratives of the Ottoman/Habsburg sieges of Nagykanizsa (1600/01) act as a fulcrum around which to explore Ottoman textualities and literacy practices and the diverse roles that the various accounts had, including constructing identities, forging diplomatic alliances and legitimising political ideologies and geo-political imaginations.

Claire Norton is Reader in History at St Mary's University.

Introduction 1. The Authority of Eyewitness Accounts Reconsidered 2. Fethnames: Not Just Literary Bombast 3. The Gazavatnames: Erasing Oral Residue and Correcting Scribal Error 4. The Gazavatnames: Re-Writing the Exemplar - Individual Scripta 5. Writers Reading: Reading the Gazavat-i Tiryaki Hasan Päa with Katib Çelebi and Naima 6. Nationalism and the Re-Invention of Early Modern Identities Conclusion: Making the Sieges of Nagykanizsa Morally Defensible