Grand Dragoman

The Dragoman of the Sublime Porte (Ottoman Turkish: ; ), Dragoman of the Imperial Council (), or simply Grand Dragoman (, ) or Chief Dragoman (), was the senior interpreter of the Ottoman government—frequently referred to as the "Sublime Porte"—and ''de facto'' deputy foreign minister. From the position's inception in 1661 until the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the office was occupied by Phanariotes, and was one of the main pillars of Phanariote power in the Ottoman Empire.

History

In the Ottoman Empire, the existence of official interpreters or dragomans is attested from the early 16th century. They were part of the staff of the (), who was responsible for foreign affairs within the Imperial Council. As few Ottoman Turks ever learned European languages, from early times the majority of these men were of Christian origin—in the main Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, and Greeks. A dragoman may have already existed under Mehmed II (), when Lütfi Bey was sent to conclude a peace treaty with the Republic of Venice. The first known holder of such a post was a certain Ali Bey, who conveyed a treaty to Venice in 1502. His successor was Yunus Bey, a Greek convert to Islam, who was in turn followed by Ahmad, a German convert initially called Heinz Tulman. By the middle of the 16th century there were apparently several dragomans in the service of the Ottoman government—all of whom were Christians—one of whom apparently served as chief dragoman ().

In 1661, the Grand Vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha appointed the Greek Panagiotis Nikousios as Chief Dragoman to the Imperial Council. He was in turn succeeded in 1673 by another Greek, Alexander Mavrocordatos. These men began a tradition where almost all subsequent Grand Dragomans of the Porte were members of a small circle of Phanariote families. The Phanariotes, taking their name from the district of Constantinople where the Patriarchate of Constantinople settled in 1599, were an elite group of Greek or Hellenized magnate families that made enormous fortunes through trade and tax-farming. Their wealth, and the close contacts they had with the Ottoman sultan and his court as purveyors, advisors, and middlemen, they acquired enormous political influence, especially over the Patriarchate and the Eastern Orthodox communities of the empire more generally. During the 17th century, many Phanariotes gained political experience as representatives () of the princes (voivodes or hospodars) of the tributary Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia at the Sultan's court, where, in the words of C. G. Patrinelis, "their task was to sustain their masters’ always precarious position by bribing Ottoman officials in key positions and, above all, to pre-empt and disrupt, by hook or by crook, the machinations of the rivals who coveted the princes’ enviable posts". Others had also served in the staffs of the European embassies in Constantinople. Nikousios, for instance, had previously (and for a time concurrently) served as translator for the Austrian embassy.

All dragomans had to be proficient in the , the —Arabic, Persian, and Turkish—that were commonly used in the empire's administration, as well as a number of foreign languages (usually French and Italian). Due to their education in Italy, some spoke Latin as well. In practice, however, the responsibilities of Dragoman of the Porte went beyond that of an interpreter; as the historian Douglas Dakin writes, " he Dragomanhad become virtually the foreign secretary for European affairs". The salary of the Dragoman of the Porte amounted to 47,000 annually. The post was the highest public office available to non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, and bound with privileges otherwise denied to the Christian subjects of the Porte, such as permission to grow a beard; dress in the same kaftans as the Ottoman officials, and use ermine fur; or the permission to ride a horse. Other privileges also followed, such as tax exemption for themselves, their sons, and 20 members of their retinue (twelve servants and eight apprentices); exemption from all customs fees for items destined for their personal use; and immunity from all courts except from that of the Grand Vizier. All these privileges made the position highly coveted, and as the office was often handed down within the same family, it became a chief object of the Phanariotes' aspirations and rivalries.

The success of the post led to the creation of a similar office, that of Dragoman of the Fleet, in 1701. In practice, the latter often served as a stepping-stone to the office of Grand Dragoman. There were also junior dragomans for specific jurisdictions, for example for the Ottoman army, or for the Morea Eyalet, but these positions were never formalized in the same manner. From 1711, many former Grand Dragomans or Dragomans of the Fleet were appointed to the positions of princes of the Danubian Principalities. These four offices formed the foundation of Phanariote prominence in the Ottoman Empire. The knowledge of foreign languages also made the Phanariote dragomans crucial intermediaries for the transmission of European concepts and technologies to the Ottoman Empire during the latter's attempts at modernization. Thus the Grand Dragoman Constantine Ypsilantis translated French military manuals for the reformed Nizam-i Djedid Army, while Iakovos Argyropoulos translated into the Ottoman Turkish language from French the first modern Ottoman geographical work, as well as a biographical history of Catherine the Great.

The Phanariotes maintained this privileged position until the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821: the then Dragoman of the Porte, was beheaded, and his successor, , was dismissed and exiled in 1822. The position of Grand Dragoman was then replaced by a guild-like Translation Bureau, staffed initially by converts like and Ishak Efendi, but quickly exclusively by Muslim Turks fluent in foreign languages.

List of Dragomans of the Porte

Footnotes

References

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{{Ottoman Empire topics

Phanariotes
1661 establishments in the Ottoman Empire
1822 disestablishments in the Ottoman Empire
Dragoman of the Porte
Foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire