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medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025, pp. 41-67, 2025/11/27
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