The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 415
composed c. 1804.67 The authorship of this essay has been disputed; by his own
account, Koca Sekbanbaşı (Çelebi Efendi) must have been born c. 1718/9 (he
claims to have been 87 years old when composing his treatise). He had been
participating in campaigns since 1733 and served continuously since 1768,
while in his life he had been a prisoner of the Russians (W239). Based mainly
on “Sekbanbaşı” ’s claiming the authorship of the Maçin petition in 1791 (W261),
Kemal Beydilli recently identified him with none other than Ahmed Vâsıf
Efendi (d. 1806), the well-known diplomat and historiographer (also a captive
of the Russians in 1771), thus making him another example of a radical change
in attitude (considering his 1784 treatise).68 It appears that Vasıf ’s attitude
vis-à-vis Europe had changed radically after his embassy to Spain (1787–88),
just as Ratıb Efendi had had a similar experience during his days in Vienna.69
Beydilli’s arguments seem convincing, although the propagandistic character
of the tract seems very different from Vasıf ’s sober and complex thoughts in his
earlier works. Yet as, the authorship of the treatise is still disputed, we will use
the pseudonym “Sekbanbaşı” when analyzing it. The structure of the work is of
special interest since it also reveals the arguments made by the opponents of
reform: as also implied by its title, it was conceived of as an imaginary account
of a discussion with calumniators, containing answers to a series of objections
raised against the Nizam-i Cedid army. Sekbanbaşı maintains that, due to the
long period of peace, most of the experienced warriors had died and most in-
habitants of the Ottoman Empire had been living in ease and comfort; as a re-
sult, when war with Russia began there was a lack of discipline and subsequent
“corruption and disorder” (here one may discern an echo of Resmi Efendi’s first
treatise). Furthermore, the rabble that gathered in the coffee-houses and tav-
erns discussed and criticized the measures taken by the government; they were
not punished immediately, as happened for instance in the times of Süleyman
the Magnificent, because “the force of necessity obliges the government to
overlook their faults” (W221). Sekbanbaşı was then summoned “from the high-
67 The treatise has been published twice in Turkish: Hulâsat ül-kelâm fi redd il-avâm / Koca
Sekban başi’nin idare-i devlet hakkinda yazdığı lâyiha dır. Istanbul: Hilal Matbaasi [1332]
[1916] (Supplement to Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuasi); Abdullah Uçman (ed.), Koca
Sekbanbaşı risalesi, Istanbul 1975. Unfortunately, none of these editions was accessible to
me; here I used its English translation, in an appendix in Wilkinson 1820, 216–294. On the
treatise see also Aksan 1993, 61–62 (=Aksan 2004, 38–41); Beydilli 2005; Şakul 2005, 131–135;
Menchinger 2017, 238–240.
68 Beydilli 2005; cf. Menchinger 2017, 268–276, who summarizes the debate on the author-
ship of the text and also finds the attribution to Vasıf more than plausible.
69 Menchinger 2014a, 29–30 and 96–100; Menchinger 2014b; Menchinger 2017, 118–131. On
other instances of Vasıf ’s change of attitude under Selim III see Menchinger 2014a, 248–
262; Menchinger 2017, 201–205, and 215–216.