Cultural Communication Between Ottoman Empire And Europe During The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century

The dissertation is guided by Marxist historical materialism; it pertains to the principle of valuing the history itself as well as analysis of it. The analysis is primarily concerned about the relationship between Ottoman culture and the Eropearn culture in its late years. Regarding the approach of its composition, the dissertation pays great attention to the analysis with respect to the vision of development and changes; it not only analyzes the specific events under specific historical circumstance, but also puts it under the complex historical background for probing. The dissertation analyzes the characteristics of communication between the two cultures through the analysis of the characteristics of the Ottoman Empire and the European countries of their internal problems and cultures respectively.As an empire that covers the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe and also being the close neighbor of the European countries, the empire had had various ways of cultural communication with the European countries during it's about six hundred years of history. During the late years of the empire, the scientific development of Europe was enormous; Europe became powerful very fast owing to the invention of things including transportation vehicles, and communication approaches, and so on. As a matter of fact, they began to expand to other areas of the world, and this involved cultural communication with the covered regions. As the nearest country to its east, it turned out that Ottoman Empire encountered the European culture first and foremost. Since the failure of besieging Vienna in 1683, the Ottomans began to be in the lower hand in its confrontation with the Europeans; the Napoleonic landing on Egypt in 1798 marked the overall intrusion of Europe to the Ottoman Empire, and the "Eastern Issue" came about as the aftermath, the channels of communication between the two cultures began to have an all around communication thereafter. So the dissertation mainly focuses on the analysis of the cultural communication of them of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The dissertation consists of 8 parts of introduction, six chapters of the body, and conclusion.In introduction, it points out the goal, the significance, the current situation of the research about the theme, the guiding principles and methodology, the main content and characteristics of the dissertation. The dissertation is focused on the study of cultural communication between Ottoman Empire and Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is great significance of studying the cultural communication between the two cultures.Chapter 1 focuses on the analysis of the composition, characteristic and achievements of Ottoman culture. It points out that Ottoman culture is composed of Islamic culture, Turkish culture and other elements; the uniqueness, tolerance and openness characteristics of the culture, and the achivements of the culture in the field of architecture, literature, and so on.Chapter 2 analyzes the other part of communication, European culture of its composition, characteristics and achievements. The culture is composed of Greek culture, Roman Culture, Christian culture and other elements; the culture has the characteristics of influence by Christianity, commerciality and expansion, the culture achieved a lot in many fields including ideology, science and others.Chapter 3 deals with the background of the cultural communiction. It was carried out in a time when Ottoman Empire was declining and Europe was developing very fast. It leads to the communiction between the two with the characteristics of Ottoman culture meeting challenges from European culture and there are impacts caused following it.Chapter 4 discusses about the influence of reformation in the empire to the cultural communication between the two. The reformation itself is a result of the communication. Mohammed·Ali Reform served as example to the reform in the hinterland of the empire; Selim III Reform and Mahmud II Reform led to strongerand more powerful reform------Tanzimat Reform; Tanzimat Reform adopted andabsorbed many aspects of European culture, its one of the most successful reforms of the empire; during the reign of Abdulhamit II, the reform was still underway.Chapter 5 discusses about the impact of European culture to Ottoman culture. It deals with the approaches and manifestations of European culture to Ottoman culture; the impact of French culture, British culture and German culture to the empire are illustrated respectively.Chapter 6 probes the issue of the modernization emergence in the empire with the impact of the cultural communication. There is great influence of the European culture to Ottoman culture in terms of the emergence of its modernization. The modernized characteristics were revealed in both the spiritual realm and the material realm. As the capital of the empire, and with concentrated cultural communication, the modernization of Istanbul represents the full fledged achievements of the cultural communication.In the conclusion part, the conclusion of the dissertation is concluded as the follows: 1. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century cultural communication between Ottoman Empire and the European countries, the relationship is as 'challenge-response', as a matter of fact, there was great difference between Ottoman culture and European culture. 2. The difference between the two culutures leads to the result that European culture affects Ottoman culture than vice versa, and the offset of social patterns. 3. The cultural communicational structure between Ottoman Empire and Europe happened as the multibodies of Britain, France and Germany exerting impact on the monobody of Ottoman Empire. 4. The legacy of the cultural communication between the two cultures became the sources for the heritage and innovation of modern Turkey. 5. In respect of the scholasitic perspective and methodology of the study about the cultural communiction between the two, European centered approach should be discarded.