Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/yvjrdclj4y
Dragomano nostro della Porta: Dragomans of the Porte in the Service of Dubrovnik in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Vesna Miović
; Institute for historical sciences of CASA in Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Abstract
From 1430, Ragusan envoys were dispatched to the Porte sporadically, while from 1458 Dubrovnik started paying tribute to the Ottomans, delivered every year by two Ragusan noblemen, the so-called tribute ambassadors. Clearly, at the Porte they needed the assistance of good interpreters, or dragomans. Considering that prior to the mid-sixteenth century the Ragusans did not have their own dragomans, they used the services of the official interpreters of the Porte. These dragomans translated their letters, reports, petitions and complaints to the sultan and the Porte. In addition, they escorted the tribute ambassadors during official receptions before the sultan and the viziers. Yet the tribute ambassadors did not require their presence during certain confidential talks with the viziers, as in this period these Ottoman dignitaries came mainly from the Slavic-speaking territories. Moreover, the tribute ambassadors who travelled to Istanbul upon several missions must have picked up at least some Ottoman Turkish.
In their search for the interpreters in Istanbul, the Ragusans always insisted that the persons required for this task were to have full proficiency of the Slavic language spoken by the Ragusans as well as of the Ottoman Turkish. The dragomans Kasım, Skender Bey, Murad, and most probably also Yunus Bey and Ibrahim Bey were able to understand the Ragusans speaking their own language. There is reason to believe that other dragomans of the Porte were just as equally skilled in it, to whom the Ragusans referred as “our dragomans”, such as Çoban and Ali Çelebi. Proficiency in Ragusan language thus proved a major qualification in the selection of these dragomans.
From the mid-sixteenth century on, the Ragusans had their own skilled dragomans who, by the end of the 1560s or the beginning of the 1570s, fully replaced the dragomans of the Porte in the receptions before the sultan and the viziers. However, the contacts between the Dubrovnik Republic and the dragomans of the Porte were not brought to an end, because the Ragusans still needed their valuable connections, power and influence at the Porte.
From the end of the 1580s, the dragomans of the Porte are mentioned in archival sources merely as the recipients of the usual gift on the occasion of tribute delivery. Apparently, this changed with the emergence of the Fanariots as the chief dragomans of the Porte, members of the Greek families settled in the Istanbul quarter of Fener. Ragusan interests at the Porte were protected by Panayoti Nicoussios Mamonas, the first in the long succession of the Fanariots to act as chief dragomans of the Porte, his successor Alexander Maurocordato, along with all the others, virtually without exception.
Keywords
dragomans of the Porte; Dubrovnik Republic; Ottoman Empire; 15th century; 16th century
Hrčak ID:
267659
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2021.
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