• Walter POHL – Nina MIRNIG (Eds.) – Annamaria PAZIENZA – Irene BAVUSO (Guest Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025

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A truly sensational find is presented in volume 23 of Medieval Worlds: a newly discovered Christian world chronicle in Arabic, which Adrian C. Pirtea examines in a preliminary case study. We furthermore open a new series on Multilingualism in Premodern Societies, which investigates patterns of communication, mobility and power in connection with language use in a Eurasian context. This first instalment focuses on Urban Administrative Spaces (guest editor: Katalin Szende), in which two captivating articles make use of pragmatic literacy and investigate chancery documents of the 14th-17th centuries: Lena Sadovski uses them to draw out skilfully the multilingual environment of Venetian Dalmatia. Marijana Mišević highlights in her study the potential of this hitherto underused source for studying the communication between Ragusans and Ottomans. Our cluster on Moving Jobs: Occupational Identity and Motility in the Middle Ages (guest editors: Annamaria Pazienza and Irene Bavuso) is continued from volume 20 (2024) with three contributions investigating how mobility could have meaningful impact on social advancement and identity formation: Joe Glynias presents a new view on the renowned 11th-century Baghdadi physician Ibn Buṭlān and his career as Christian Arabic author. The movement of peasants in 10th-century Spain as reconstructed from charters serves for Robert Portass as model to develop ideas on the mobility of local communities. Irene Bavuso combines theories of mobility and sedentism to offer new perspectives on artisans in early medieval England. A rare source on papermaking in 13th-century Baghdad was transcribed and partially translated by Shiva Mihan for a further addition to our volume on Mongols’ Baghdad. Knowledge Transmission through Manuscript Cultures before and after the Conquest (guest editors: Bruno de Nicola and Nadine Löhr).

medieval worlds is open to submissions of broadly comparative studies and matters of global interest, whether in single articles, companion papers, smaller clusters, or special issues on a subject of global/comparative history. We particularly invite studies of wide-ranging connectivity or comparison between different world regions.

Apart from research articles, medieval worlds publishes ongoing debates and project and conference reports on comparative medieval research.

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medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025

ISSN 2412-3196
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ISBN 978-3-7001-5131-9
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2,
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400
https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: bestellung.verlag@oeaw.ac.at
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The Written Communication Between Ragusans and Ottomans Before the Mid-17th Century: Notes on Multilingualism and Language Ideologies

    Marijana Mišević

medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025, pp. 41-67, 2025/11/27

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no23_2025s41


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doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no23_2025s41

Abstract

This paper is an essay on the extant products of pragmatic literacy that testify to centurieslong written communication between Ottomans and Ragusans, emphasizing its multilingualism and multiscripturalism. It rests on the assumption that there is a benefit in studying this corpus by using language and literacy ideologies both as hermeneutical tools and as objects of historical investigation. This rarely, if ever, applied approach entails examining changing patterns in linguistic choices made within the distinct and/or intersecting realms of pragmatic literacy, as well as underlying explicit and implicit ideas about language and literacy use – issues that can be addressed, in the context of Ottoman-Ragusan relations, from at least the late 14th century onward. The main and modest ambition of this paper is to draw attention to the arguably neglected complexity of the history of this communication, and to suggest that its more detailed investigation could offer additional insights into the cultural and power relations between the two polities, the changing ways in which the Ottomans and Ragusans perceived and managed diversity, and the historically shifting relationships among users of multiple languages (Latin, Ragusan Romance, Italian, Slavic, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Persian) and scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek). Although the relationship between the Ottomans and Ragusans – as it pertains to the movement of documents and people across vast geo-linguistic spaces – can be traced up to c. 1808 (the fall of the Dubrovnik Republic), the present discussion is confined to the period between the 1390s and the 1650s. This period may be further subdivided into several phases, each of which will be outlined in broad strokes and illustrated through representative literacy events.

Keywords: late medieval, early modern, multilingualism, pragmatic literacy, Ottomans, Ragusans, South-Slavia