Du machst Witze! :rofl:
Wer dich ermorden will, kann wohl schwerlich dein "Freund" sein. Heiraten oder Unterwerfungs- und Demutsgesten waren allein der verzweifelten Lage von Byzanz geschuldet und erzwungener politischer Opportunismus. Keinem byzantinischen Kaiser wäre es auf der Höhe seiner Macht eingefallen, eine "purpurgeborene" Kaisertochter einem in seinen Augen barbarischen Ungläubigen zu Frau zu geben.
Nö, ich mache keine Witze.
Ich wollte nur darauf hinweisen, dass in Anatolien damals die Gesellschaft durchaus auch "fluide" war, wie Historiker es beschrieben haben. (Siehe den Thread über die Türkifizierung von Anatolien, wo wir die Verhältnisse dort schon diskutierten und siehe Zitat unten) Dass heißt, mit simplen und klaren Feind-Freund-Grenzen werden wir der Beschreibung der dortigen Situation nicht gerecht, da die Verhältnisse fließend, komplexer waren.
So verheiratete Johannes Kantakouzenos VI. seine Prinzessin Theodora mit dem Emir Orhan, sein Nachfolger wollte auch seine byz. Tochter zwecks Bündnis verheiraten. Murad heiratete die bulgarische Zarenschwester Thamar, und so weiter. Ähnelt eben manchmal den mitteleuropäischen Praktiken, wo Kriege geführt wurden, Frieden und Allianzen geschlossen wurden, Bündnisse per Heirat zwischen den Adelshäusern geschlossen wurden, und so weiter.
Natürlich wurden dort (in Mitteleuropa) keine Bündnisse (auch per Heirat) geschlossen, wenn ein Reich auf der "Höhe seiner Macht" war und es nicht nötig oder opportun erschien.
"The exposed lands between central Anatolia and the easternmost boundaries of the Byzantine Empire became a frontier:
a haven for all those swashbuckling, fortune hunting men, Christians, Muslims, orthodox, heterodox, eclectic preachers, and followers who roamed the countryside and the cities in search of a new life. This frontier was politically multilayered, historically always evolving and unpredictable, as well as pioneering and culturally heterogeneous. It had been so for at least a century before the Ottomans first appeared on the scene. Many of the social and cultural interactions had become institutionalized, with
comfortable exchanges between governments, as would be expected with the repeated cycle of violence and cooperation among frontier groups. My purpose in describing the unfolding of this frontier throughout the century is to demonstrate the degree to which exchange was allowed and expected, so that it therefore had become a sort of “habitus”;31
forms were mixed and fluid and much more complex and indefinite than previously presented. The Ottoman rise has to be reinterpreted in this light.
Prior to the fragmentation of the Seljuk polity, the frontiers between these two declining powers were carved as a practical space, claimed as akra by the Byzantines and as uc by the Seljuk state. This space, which often develops at the interstices of empires, was important not only in terms of its own social and cultural identity, to which I return, but also because both empires defined their relations to each other and their influence on each other through their penetration of these spaces into the territories of the other. Thus, for the Byzantines, the cultural hegemony they exercised in the Seljuk uc and beyond, evident in the churches, artifacts, Christian liturgical documents, and important Christian influence in the lands of the Seljuk Empire during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, was a sign of their continued success. In contrast, as Keith Hopwood argues, the reverse was also true: we need only mention the nature of
Komnenian Turkophiles, the example of the emperor Manuel I (1143–1180), who had parts of his palace decorated in the Turkish style and who promoted Turkish or pro-Turkish councilors in his government.32 In this frontier space, it became common for both sides to provide leadership for the other. Examples among the Byzantines are Manuel Komnenos,Manuel Mavrozomes –
the highranking Byzantine officer appointed to the Seljuk regional administration – and Manuel Palaiologos, who alternated between Seljuk service and the throne of Nicea.
These three were all interstitial men who belonged to both sets of elites.
This was what the akra/uc was about, the continual presence of one in the house of the other. Yet, lest we become complacent about this image of the frontier, we should be reminded that Manuel Palaiologos himself, who was close to the Seljuk sultan and escaped into his territory in 1256, was first robbed by the Turcoman nomads and then sent on to the court.33 The terrain was rough; sedentary populations were in perpetual danger of invasion; and the akınjıs were ready for the next call to action, often operating in
mixed Turkish-Christian groups of men participating in the action for the spoils, the division of booty and slaves.
Regardless of whether Muslims and Christians felt the urge to mark their frontiers as boundaries and to delineate them, boundaries were mobile markers of difference, allowing both sides to make ample use of them, ordering a pattern of communication between groups because both sides used each other’s markers liberally. For example, what became an important monument to Seyyit Battal Gazi (located at Nakoleia/Seyyit Gazi) was turned into a pilgrimage site for all who considered themselves of frontier heritage. Moreover, they told analogous narratives and even cohabitated, increasingly adopting each other’s characteristics. Their myths and legends emphasized
interfaith alliances and passions, often crossing geographical and cultural frontiers. For example, the Byzantine tale of Digenis Akrites was based on Arab-Byzantine wars, but Digenis himself was “the offspring of a cross-frontier love match,” and Battal Gazi, the Turkish counterpart, was inadvertently killed by his Byzantine beloved.39
The culture that developed was
certainly multiethnic, multireligious, nomadic, and sedentary, conflict-ridden and peaceful, all at the same time. On the ground, social relationships accrued through simple contact. Nomads and settled agriculturalists lived in precarious symbiosis on both sides of the frontier, where, among the peasantry and the nomads, the similarity of occupations and the resemblance between the Turkic yürüks and the Christian nomadic elements in the Balkans would facilitate not only exchange and cooperation, but also, when necessary, conquest.40 Religious ceremonies linked to the local church, evoking fertility rites for land and animals, were shared by Christians and Muslims, indicating the closeness between the two traditions, as well as the willingness of local populations to mesh their rituals.41 Besides, as the result of at least a century of frontier confrontations, Muslim and Christian forces had grown to know each other, and had developed a
syncretic understanding with militaristic overtones. There is no denying that this was a disputed frontier where Greek akritoi confronted Muslim fighters, and
they raided on each other and stole from each other. However, in the process, they also learned from each other, growing closer and each discovering the sociopolitical and economic exigencies of the other.
...
Seljuks had been known for their heterodox, heterogeneous, and mobile populations, many of them dervish colonies, preaching an
Islamic–Christian synthesis.
...
We can understand the rise of Osman (1290–1324) and his son Orhan (1326–1359) as the leaders of an incipient state in terms of their initial construction of a hub-and-spoke network structure of which they became the center, as well as the brokerage they initiated among otherwise separated groups and their effective multivocality maintained by the network structure they assembled through their actions.
In ways that are reminiscent of the rise of the Medici in Renaissance Florence,50 Osman and later Orhan found themselves at the center of a network structure that they might not have intended to create, but which they established as they became the brokers among groups.
...
According to some European sources, it seems likely that Osman and his family were one among three important founding warrior families:
Osmanogulları, Mihalogulları, and Evrenosogulları.
The Ottoman state was cofounded by these three families, one of Islamic descent and the other two converted Christians.
...
Osman’s entourage was built on close friendships, with both Muslim and Christian men who shared the same lifestyle, and with local Christian chieftains joining him as his comrades (nökers), such as Mihal from Harmankaya; Evrenos, a converted Christian of Aragonese or Catalan origin56; or the numerous Christian friends he acquired through his associate Samsa Cavus.57 That both Köse Mihal and Evrenos Bey saw themselves as near equals of Osman, and that they were the only two converted companions of Osman to have been addressed with the title “malik,” usually reserved for the sultans, indicates the degree to which these two men were above the others in their closeness to Osman, and their relative equality. This is why they are mentioned in the European sources as close friends and allies of Osman, who could have become leaders themselves.
...
The focus on the essentialist identities of the “Turks” and their religious ethos completely misses the point. It was not that the rising Ottomans did not understand the differences between religions and cultures, it was rather that once they became brokers and brought together diverse populations, they understood better than anyone else that the acquisition of power and respect, the construction of a new order, necessitated working with differences, accepting them, and
crossing over boundaries. Moreover, they needed to be
inclusive because they did not have the forces to afford a strategy based purely on adversarial tactics.83 At this juncture, religion at the frontier was not institutionalized.
The Turcoman tribes and the new leaders of the frontier raids
had not developed a strong institutional Islamic identity. Moreover, on neither side did frontier life lend itself to strong orthodoxy; religious leaders were less permanent and more transient like the populations they tried to influence.
Churches and mosques, institutions of religious learning, were in the larger towns or urban centers, less so at the frontier. Words, actions, and ideologies were expressed similarly to all, but interpreted differently across networks.
Over time, the boundaries between conqueror and conquered, Christians and Muslims (but also Jews), and nomadic and settled populations would emerge.
...
The movement across religions sometimes even emboldened Greek Orthodox theologians to preach in conquered Ottoman territory and to engage Muslims in theological debates.
The courts of the sultan were also eclectic, combining Christian theologians, Jewish philosophers and theologians, dervish leaders, and many others giving and getting advice. At the same time, the tolerant and liberal discourse of the Ottoman leaders toward other groups and religions was the result of multivocal signaling. That is, the manner in which the religious discourse was formulated was correct, but was also partly a mechanism of survival in a multiethnic, multireligious society. When Ottoman leaders accepted Christian faith, they were behaving according to the precepts of Islam that accepted Christianity and Judaism as the other religions of the book that were fully pleasing to the Muslim population. Yet, they were also agreeable to and welcomed the Christians themselves, who perceived their discourse as open minded. Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Salonica, who was captured by the Turks and spent time with them in the sultan’s court, relates many court gatherings in which the Turks questioned him and other Christian theologians regarding their faith, especially on their unwillingness to accept Mohammed as a prophet, given that Turks readily recognized Christ!87 Palamas also described many interactions in the streets in which the relativemerits of Islam and Christianity were compared, discussed, and accepted as alternative and compatible ways of approaching faith,88
so much so that Palamas assumed that the Turks and Byzantines were going to reach an inter-confessional concordat.
...
Added to the brutality was the capture of slaves and their sale in slave markets.
Everyone participated in these markets: Turkish warriors bringing Christian slaves, and Christian warriors bringing Christian and Muslim slaves. Turks were sellers and buyers of slaves, engaging in markets in their regions as well as in Aegean markets farther away. Slaves certainly were highly valued as a commodity in the medieval trade economy, engaging Europeans, especially the Genoese, in trading with the Turks.94
...
Not only did the founders of the Ottoman state choose to bridge across social and cultural systems, bringing together religious networks and innovating to construct a hybrid state, they also moved further to base their emerging empire on a remarkable new elite that combined the best warriors and administrators:
they included the best Christian and Muslim fighters, the ablest Christian and Muslim administrators, and religious men ofmany different persuasions: Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Sunni, and Sufi Islam. They coopted their enemies; instead of pursuing a policy of de-Byzantification, they recognized the value of their rivals, accepting Byzantine and Balkan aristocracies into their new administration.
They valued innovation and change as much as they valued and needed institutional continuity. The next chapter explores the institutionalization of such an imperial construction.
Finally, that this corridor between east and west, the frontier zone between a Christian empire and a Muslim empire, gave birth to such a powerful
symbiosis of sorts is important. It is also important to understand that much of this
Islamo-Christian synthesis was built not just because there was hybridity in the air. Rather, it was built because of the exigencies on the ground, because people realized that they required allies, and because they understood that the construction of a new society, a better edifice, would have to incorporate rather than exclude. This lesson has long since been forgotten."
aus:
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1175068/?site_locale=en_GB
Hier mal zwei Grafiken aus dem obigem Buch, welche das Netzwerk der Beziehungen der ersten beiden osmanischen Emire darstellen, und zeigen, wie vielgestaltig man sich das Netzwerk vorzustellen hat:
Kreis = Muslim
Quadrat = Konvertit
Dreieck = Grieche