344 chapter 8
felt during this period is clearly illustrated by an episode in Nu’man Efendi’s
(d. after 1755) autobiographical work Tedbîrât-i pesendîde (“Agreeable mea-
sures”). A well-educated member of the ulema, he participated in the talks
establishing the Austrian-Ottoman border following the Treaty of Belgrade
(1739) and describes with pride how easily he understood (using an English
telescope) and emulated the function of a surveying instrument, which the
Austrians had just learnt and were keeping secret.41
It was noted above that the decades between the 1730 revolt and the 1768–74
war were marked by an internal peace of sorts, a kind of armistice between
the central government, which pursued experiments in administration and
finance, and the janissary army, which enjoyed its share in power since no-
body interfered in its workings and since its own right to interfere in poli-
tics was de facto legitimized. The same years formed one of the rare periods
in Ottoman history in which military action did not seem too urgent: after
some wars against Russia and Austria in the 1730s, which were more success-
ful than not, and especially after the peace with Persia in 1746, no campaign
was waged and it might appear that the Ottomans were confident that they
would be perfectly capable of winning the war against Russia when it finally
erupted in 1768. However, the devastating results of that war appear to have
created a renewed sense of urgency for reform; at least this is what the num-
ber and character of political tracts composed after it ended suggest.42 The
“Westernizing” authors aside (as they will be studied in the next chapter), this
second outburst of eighteenth-century political thought was, in fact, the swan-
song of “traditionalist” reform. It should be stressed once more that this term
does not imply that the treatises to be examined advocate any return to the
“old law”, as did early seventeenth-century authors (although they often used
this term in an effort to couch their proposals in the traditional language of
their predecessors); rather, in a similar manner to Defterdar and Nahifi, these
works are formed of compilations of older pieces of advice that their authors
deemed appropriate, combining “traditional” (i.e. older views on society and
state) with a keen eye for specific measures. On the other hand, from among
41 Nu’man Efendi – Savaş 1999, 66–68, 89–90; Nu’man Efendi – Prokosch 1972, 40–50, 86–94;
Kurz 2011, 197–199. The instrument in question could have been Jonathan Sisson’s 1725
theodolite with telescopic sights, as it was supposed to have been invented by “a wise
English monk” twenty-five years before (Nu’man Efendi – Savaş 1999, 84; Nu’man Efendi –
Prokosch 1972, 80). According to Prokosch (ibid., 215–216, fn. 40 and 42), the surveying
method used by the Austrians was invented by Johann Praetorius in the early seventeenth
century and improved by Johann Jacob Marinoni in the early eighteenth century, and was
not kept secret (the maps, on the contrary, were).
42 On the perception of this change cf. Menchinger 2017, 5–6 and 28–30.