Description
The Yolcili Kitabi (Travel Book), written by the Ottoman physician, statesman and historian Hayrullah Efendi (1818-1866) after a trip to Europe, makes it difficult for the reader to reconstruct the exact course of the author's travels. As the work shows, this is due to the fact that it is an attempt to transfer the genre of the route-based modern travel guide - known primarily from the Murray, Baedeker and Joanne series - to Ottoman literature.
The text can therefore be described as the first Ottoman travel guide. Hayrullah orientates himself strongly on French models, but also incorporates Ottoman pre-texts and elements of the travelogue. Thus, he adapts the genre to his needs, which are to be seen against the background of the reform endeavours of the Tanzimat period. The detailed analysis of the work also provides an opportunity to shed light on the hitherto little-studied relationship between travel guide and travelogue and to develop a differentiation criterion.
An annotated transcription and translation of essential parts of the text make its complex structure clearly understandable for the first time and enable access to this work beyond Ottoman studies.
Caspar Hillebrand, Universität Bonn.
