Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi
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Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi Efendi (ca. 1670–1732), also Mehmed Efendi (sometimes spelled Mehemet Effendi in France), was an Ottoman statesman who was delegated as ambassador by the Sultan Ahmed III to Louis XV's France in 1720. He is remembered for his account of his embassy mission (a sefâretnâme, "book of embassy").
Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi was born in
He rose through the military hierarchy and then oriented his career to the service of the finances of the state, as superintendent for the Ottoman
His sefâretnâme is one of the most important examples of the homonymous genre, both for its literary merits and in terms of the insights it provides on his time and environment. He describes his journey to France, the 40-days quarantine near Toulon for fear of plague, his journey through Bordeaux towards Paris, his reception by Louis XV, the ceremonies and the social events to which he participated, notably a night at the theatre, places of interest in Paris, the curiosity with which he examines the Western culture and the curiosity he aroused among his Western interlocutors, for instance his days of fasting in Ramadan, July/August 1720, becoming a reason for public gathering for curious Parisian women.
Aside from setting the pace and nature of the long-term trend of
After another embassy mission this time in
His son
Gallery
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Mehmed Efendi arrives at theTuileries on 21 March 1721. Charles Parrocel.
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La sortie de l'ambassadeur turc du Jardin des Tuileries, Gobelins Manufactory, 1734-1737.
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Mehmed Efendi with the child Louis XV.
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Mehmed Efendi in Paris.
Sources
- Philip Mould & Company. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
- ^ İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı, Türkiye Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1971, p. 60.
- Mehmed efendi, Le paradis des infidèles: Relation de Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed efendi, ambassadeur ottoman en France sous la Régence, traduit par Julien-Claude Galland, intr. & notes par Gilles Weinstein (Paris: François Maspéro, 1981).
- Fatma Müge Göçek, East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
- Tomas Guarisco, Un ambassadeur ottoman à Toulouse sous la Régence : expérience diplomatique, échanges culturels et interactions sociales (M.Phil Thesis, dir. Mathieu Grenet, Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès, 2017).