Sultan Abdulmecid's 1846 Tour Of Rumelia And The Trope Of Love

Abstract

This paper relies on two premises in tackling a theme common to all papers in this volume. First, modernity is a complex, historically salient phenomenon, which consists of a ‘bundle’ of parallel economic, political, and sociocultural processes. Second, nationalism and modernity are intimately related and very recent phenomena. In terms of setting a mass-scale sociocultural precedent which permanently altered the notion of public space and the discourse and practices of power, both nationalism and modernity in Europe can be traced no earlier than the French Revolution. Within the Ottoman realms, these phenomena were announced in a most lasting, implication-rich manner by the Greek Revolution of 1821-1829.