Nederland-Turkije, 1675-1678. (Dutch/Flemish)

TURKEY; NETHERLANDS; IZMIR (Turkey)

When the Dutch Republic and the Ottoman Empire established formal relations in 1612, they committed themselves to maintaining friendly diplomatic relations as well as commercial ones. Seventeenth-century Dutch diplomacy in Istanbul revolved around Dutch trade, especially in Izmir. Ottoman cultivation of the Dutch served mainly international strategic purposes, for their role in which the Dutch received unusually benign Ottoman treatment. Formal diplomacy aside, relations between these states and their subjects materialized in the everyday contact between Turks, Franks, Latins, Greeks, Armenians and Jews in Izmir. The development of that city peaked during the pivotal years 1675-1678. In these mere four years a confluence of administrative, commercial, and international political developments transformed the Dutch nation of Izmir from a collective of smuggling freebooters into a discrete professional community. As such, these years are an endpoint as well as a starting point in Ottoman-Dutch relations: they mark the shift of the primacy of the Dutch Levant trade in a Mediterranean mould, towards the primacy of professional Dutch international diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of De Zeventiende Eeuw is the property of Universiteit Utrecht and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)