Review article
Sokollu Mehmed-Pasha and the South Slavic Identity Politics in the Nineteenth Century
Sang Hun Kim
; Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul
Abstract
The nineteenth century was a period of national awakening in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. For all three nations, creating the national identity meant creating national history and mythos as well. The iconic personality that reflects this process was Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (1506−1579). Originally from Bosnia, he made a stellar political career in the Ottoman Empire. He was the Grand Vizier from 1565 to 1579, and remained in the office during the reign of three sultans: Suleiman the Magnificant, Selim II and Murad III. According to many historians, he was the most powerful Grand Vizier in the entire history of the Ottoman Empire. The greatness and historical importance of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha were firstly acknowledged in oral tradition, and only after the national awakening in the nineteenth century did his personality come into focus of interest among the newborn national intellectual elite in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Consequently, three significant historical books were published in Zagreb, Sarajevo and Belgrade between 1886 and 1901, telling the story of the life and career of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. The books are: Glasoviti Hrvati prošlih vijekova (Notable Croats of the Past Centuries, Zagreb 1886) by Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski; Kratka uputa u prošlost Bosne i Hercegovine (A Short Introduction into the History of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo 1900) by Safet-beg Bašagić; and Znameniti Srbi muhamedanci (Notable Mohammedan Serbs, Belgrade 1901) by Milenko Vukićević. All three authors tried to incorporate Sokollu Mehmed Pasha into their own national tradition: Kukuljević into Croatian, Bašagić into Bosnian and Vukićević into Serbian. Therefore, at the end of the nineteenth century Sokollu Mehmed-Pasha was an iconic personality for national and identity politics of Croats, Bosnians and Serbs, respectively
Keywords
Croatia; Serbia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Sokollu Mehmed Pasha; national history; myth
Hrčak ID:
188737
URI
Publication date:
3.10.2017.
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