A complex and dynamic semantic field underlies Ottoman discussions about establishing and negotiating difference in society – a field which comes into view once we ask about terms, metaphors and images at play in the Ottoman semantics relating to social difference and their respective connotations and genealogies. Exploring Ottoman ideas about tribes and tribal society in the late-Ottoman period, the paper zooms in on one pertinent example: The ongoing negotiation of what is perceived as civilized and modern and what, one the other hand, stands apart, being conceptionalized as different, backward or regressive. For empirical evidence, the paper cross-reads a series of six reports (layihas) dated between 1880 and 1919, which comment on the situation in Ottoman Iraq, Hicaz and Yemen. In these texts, Ottoman officials share their views on the social structure of tribal societies, along with their suggestions for reform and modernization. In their writings, authors engage with sociological and political theories then en vogue in Europe and apply relevant concepts and terminologies to examples in the Ottoman-imperial context. The paper inquires about their translations of key concepts, terms and ideas into Ottoman Turkish. Their translation choices and semantic decisions are read against the backdrop of previous discussions on socio-political order and the terminologies applied when talking about difference in society in the Ottoman realm. It will be argued that in their layihas, authors selectively re-activate and modify layers of existing Ottoman concepts, among them a?iret, kavm and kabilet, as well as introducing contemporary European ideas into the mix. Ottoman concepts of tribes and tribal society in the late-19th century are being read here as results of complex transcultural encounters and entanglements. The layiha series illustrates how processes of knowledge transfer in the late-Ottoman realm are not one-way streets, but multiply entangled and multidirectional. Ottoman approaches to engage with social realities and challenges in governing tribal societies drew on European ideas and terminologies, while also taking inspiration from previous discourses led in Ottoman-Turkish, Persian and Arabic. The layihas also serve as a springboard into attempts to customize and pluralize approaches from conceptual history (Koselleck et al.) to better suit the Ottoman case, exploring the late-19th century as a period of accelerated conceptual change in the discussions about social structure, as well as accommodating transcultural and multilingual perspectives.

For a long time, the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires were perceived as failed states whose dissolution after World World I was interpreted as a historical necessity due to their inability to react adequately to the challenges of a modernizing world. However, recent historiography has shown that the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires were dynamic states to whom the majority of their citizens were loyally attached. What is more, their élites had modernizing agendas including civilizing missions addressing cultural and economic peripheries and aiming at educating a population which was considered backward in order to integrate it in new modes of the production of goods and to make it accept expanding state bureaucracies. At the same time, local élites should be – at least to a limited extent – coopted and integrated in processes of decision making in order to secure their loyalty towards the imperial metropolis. Recent research has shown that local élites made use of these imperial integration policies to pursue their own political agendas (e.g. Judson 2016). Focusing on the transfer and popularization of the concepts of “science” and “progress” by the imperial administration of late Ottoman and Habsburg Bosnia the paper conceptualizes these civilizing missions as processes of knowledge circulation. Following recent approaches of the history of knowledge (e.g. Sarasin 2011) the paper focuses on the mediality and materiality of the circulating knowledge and concentrates on popularizing media like almanacs issued by the imperial authorities both in Ottoman Turkish and Serbo-Croatian/Bosnian. In so doing, the paper investigates in the first step continuities and discontinuities of the Ottoman and Habsburg civilizing missions and the concepts they promoted. Analyzing popular media published by the local Bosnian Muslim élites as well, the paper asks in the second step how these concepts were appropriated by local Muslim élites and integrated into their own political, social, and cultural agendas. In the last step, the paper tries to reconstruct transimperial dimensions of these transfers involving Muslim intellectuals all over the late and post-Ottoman world.

The paper follows, first, the symbolic geography approach, related to the postcolonial studies (the construction of stereotypical images of the “Orient” /E. Said/, “the Balkans” /M. Todorova/, “Eastern Europe” /L. Wolff/), by analyzing the Austrian Lloyd’s travel guides to the Orient. Its focus is on the images and expectations of the steamship route Rousse – Varna - Constantinople. The Austrian Lloyd Travel Guides clearly postulated the trains and ships as a modern, civilizational “home”, guarding the travelers from the uncultivated, unknown, exotic and dangerous land that the steamers pass by. Second, the text, follows the methodology of the cultural history of technology, and analyzes the establishment of modern transport infrastructure, perceived as a civilizational achievement, in the region between the Lower Danube – (the port city of Rousse), and the Black sea region (the port city of Varna). It will compare the external foreign perspective towards the region in the second half of the 19th century represented by the specific genre of the Austrian Lloyd travelers’ guide. As a reference point, it will present the internal, once again foreign, perspective by the Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian consulate reports of Adolf Tedeschi from Varna. It was the interplay between introducing the actual modern technologies of the time and the construction of narratives of the “Orient”, such as the cultural sights worth to be seen, the exoticism of the Hinterland in comparison to the waterfront, which shape the image of the city of Varna. All that in the high peak of the newest technological breakthrough – the steamers.

Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, German troops had destroyed the historic centres of Leuven in Belgium and shelled the cathedral in Reims. These damages were harshly condemned in the Entente states’ war propaganda as violations of international regulations of the Hague Convention (1907). As a reaction the German implemented the so-called Kunstschutz [Monument Preservation Service]: Academics were asked to take steps to ensure the basic security of the monuments, to document the damage done and to research heritage sites in the occupied territories. These demonstrations of a careful handling of the cultural goods had a clearly propagandistic attitude and were intended to be “mitigating” in the forthcoming peace talks. At the same time, the research and photo campaigns formed a platform for cultural and academic exchange between the occupiers and the occupied, with long-term effects in the following decades. Although Kunstschutz took place in the context of a mechanized war, which had devastated wide areas of land, the protection of art in World War I was a milestone on the road to a transnational appreciation of cultural objects. For the first time in the history of military conflicts, protection was provided for the cultural heritage of inimical and conquered territories. The planned presentation will take a closer look at the activities of the Deutsch-Türkische Denkmalschutz Kommando [German-Turkish Monument Protection Command] within the larger framework of the Kunstschutz in the Middle East, and as a platform for transnational scientific exchange. In addition, the paper will investigate how Kunstschutz became a "travelling concept" and how it was transnationally appropriated for example in the context of the Russian protection initiatives during the occupation of the Ottoman provinces of Trabzon, Erzurum and Van.