Military defeat transformed Ottoman confidence into anxious curiosity about Europe

Evidence

In the absence of the historical conditions that motivated it in the first place, it sometimes became a purely formal minor genre, employed for its value as an exotic conversation piece more than its power to evoke earnest religious sentiment. Privileged Europeans could now for the first time afford to imagine the exotic not as something to fear and admire, but as something to be amused by. (There were chinoiserie rooms and busts of Turks and Africans inside the chateaux. In the parks outside there were caged monkeys and free-roaming peacocks. Live “Turks” and “Tatars” often added to the exotic coterie, as in the case of the Kamerturken at the court of Prussia’s Frederic III.) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 183 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The waning Ottoman threat turned European orientalism from fear into amusement — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 183; Ottoman travel writing shifted from contempt toward grudging admiration of Europe; Ottoman attitudes toward Europe shifted from contempt to detailed curiosity by 1665. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1081

Broader Connections

• The waning Ottoman threat turned European orientalism from fear into amusement #complicates (0.72) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 183