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Paul Wittek (11 January 1894,
Baden bei Wien Baden ( German for " Baths"; Central Bavarian: ''Bodn''), unofficially distinguished from other Badens as Baden bei Wien (Baden near Vienna), is a spa town in Austria. It serves as the capital of Baden District in the state of Lower Austria. Lo ...
— 13 June 1978, Eastcote, Middlesex) was an Austrian Orientalist and historian. His 1938 thesis on the rise of the Ottoman Empire, known as the '' Ghazi thesis'', argues that the Ottoman's ''raison d'être'' was the
expansion of Islam The spread of Islam spans about 1,400 years. Muslim conquests following Muhammad's death led to the creation of the caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by Arab Muslim forces conquering vast territories ...
. Until the 1980s, his theory was the most influential and dominant explanation of the formation of the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.


Biography

Wittek was conscripted at the outbreak of World War I as a reserve officer to an Austro-Hungarian artillery regiment. In October 1914, he suffered a head wound in Galicia and was taken to Vienna to recover. Subsequently, he served first on the Isonzo Front and in 1917 was drafted as a military adviser to the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, where he was stationed in Istanbul and Syria until the war ended. During this time Wittek learned
Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
and acquired the patronage of , the former German consul in Istanbul. After the war ended, Wittek returned to Vienna and continued his studies of ancient history, which he had already begun before the war. In 1920 he obtained his doctorate with a study of early Roman social and constitutional history. Wittek was in Vienna at the emergence of the fledgling discipline of
Ottoman studies Ottoman studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, costumes, religion, art, such as literature and music, science, economy, and politics of the Ottoman Empire. It is a sub-category of Oriental s ...
. He was co-editor and author of the first scholarly journal in this field called ''Notes on Ottoman History'', which was published from 1921 till 1926. For his livelihood Wittek worked as a journalist for the Austrian Rundschau. From 1924 on, he worked for the
German Archaeological Institute The German Archaeological Institute (german: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, ''DAI'') is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office of Germany ...
in Istanbul, where he focused on early Ottoman
epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
. Together with Turkish historians, he managed to prevent the sale of the Ottoman archives to Bulgaria as scrap paper. After the
rise of Nazism The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported th ...
in 1934 Wittek moved to Belgium, where he worked at the Institute for Byzantine Studies in Brussels with Henri Gregoire. After the German attack on Belgium Wittek fled in a small boat to England, where he was interned as an enemy alien. Thanks to the support of British Orientalists he was finally released and found a job at the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree- ...
. After the war he returned to his family, who had remained in Belgium. In 1948 he returned to London and took over the newly created Chair of Turkish at the
School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ...
(SOAS), where he remained until his retirement in 1961. Wittek, who was close to the George Circle, published little, but became very influential within his discipline. His only books, "The Principality of Menteşe" and "The Rise of the Ottoman Empire" appeared in the 1930s. In the latter Wittek formulated his Ghazi thesis, according to which the ideology of sectarian struggle was the major cohesive factor in the formative phase of the Ottoman Empire. The Ghazi thesis was, until Rudi Paul Lindner's nomad thesis in the 1980s, the prevailing view of the emergence of the Ottoman Empire.


Books

* Klaus Kreiser: "In Memoriam Paul Wittek", In: ''Istanbuler Mitteilungen'' 29 (1979), S. 5–6. * Stanford J. Shaw: "In Memoriam: Professor Paul Wittek, 1894–1978", In: ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'' 10 (1979), S. 139–141. * John Wansbrough: "Obituary: Paul Wittek", In: ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 42 (1979), S. 137–139. * Colin Heywood: "Wittek and the Austrian tradition", In: ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'' (1988), S. 7–25. * Colin Heywood: "A Subterranean History: Paul Wittek (1894-1978) and the Early Ottoman State", In: ''Die Welt des Islams'', New Series 38 (1998), S. 386–405. * Colin Heywood: "Boundless Dreams of the Levant": Paul Wittek, the George-"Kreis", and the Writing of Ottoman History, In: ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'' (1989), S. 32–50.


External links

*
Utz Maas: ''Verfolgung und Auswanderung deutschsprachiger Sprachforscher 1933-1945''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittek, Paul 1894 births 1978 deaths 20th-century Austrian historians Austrian people of Slavic descent People from Baden bei Wien Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy