Trade with the Orient in the early modern period and the formation of identity of the Transylvanian Saxons. The Ottoman carpets of the Protestant Parish Church CA in Bistrita (Romania) in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

自1952年以来，德国国家博物馆收藏了55条奥斯曼地毯，这些地毯来自比斯特里塔的新教教区教堂，从公元前16世纪到18世纪。在历史完整性方面独一无二的这一藏品，将首次成为一个全面研究项目的主题，该项目不仅将分析地毯在早期现代时期的意义，还将分析它们在19世纪和20世纪初产生的身份认同作用。这些地毯产于安纳托利亚，从15世纪中期开始通过贸易路线到达特兰西瓦尼亚。作为具有重要经济意义的奢侈品，它们证明了奥斯曼帝国和基督教欧洲之间密切的商业联系和文化交流；它的中心特兰西瓦尼亚有时受制于奥斯曼帝国的统治。对具有代表性的20件地毯进行艺术-历史和艺术-技术检查，并分析海关登记簿等书面来源，目的是查明日期和原产地，以更准确地确定时间范围和贸易路线。作为地位的象征和礼物，地毯在德国贵族和中产阶级以及特兰西瓦尼亚的行会的代表性文化中发挥了作用。从宗教改革开始，他们进入了新教教堂，通常是作为捐款，在那里，尽管他们的伊斯兰根源，特别是祈祷地毯，他们被赋予礼仪和仪式的职能。库存、圣人登记簿和遗嘱等来源预计将揭示这一点。还将研究在地毯上发现的历史铭文和涂鸦。该项目将研究19世纪和20世纪地毯的命运。在19世纪上半叶，他们并没有受到教区居民的太大尊重，这从他们的现状可以看出。然而，他们是特兰西瓦尼亚德语文化的一部分，并为特兰西瓦尼亚撒克逊人扮演了塑造身份的角色，在公元前19世纪罗马尼亚民族主义努力的过程中，他们试图通过自己的历史意识将自己与邻近的民族区分开来。从1907年开始，地毯被当作博物馆物品对待，经常填满新教教堂的大墙空间。在那里，它们被展示为公元前15至17世纪特兰西瓦尼亚经济全盛时期的见证，这一经济全盛时期受到奥斯曼帝国贸易联系的强烈影响。通过安纳托利亚地毯，该项目将研究早期现代跨奥斯曼帝国贸易的重要方面，以及这些货物在特兰西瓦尼亚和奥斯曼帝国之间的边界地区的用途和意义。人们预计会对地毯本身的贸易有新的见解，地毯作为奢侈品在大宗商品集团中占据着特殊的地位，以及它们的重要性和后来在特兰西瓦尼亚的使用，它们将奥斯曼帝国的一部分文化带到那里，自己也成为了撒克逊文化的一部分。

Since 1952 the Germanisches Nationalmuseum has had in its holdings 55 Ottoman carpets from the 16th to the 18th c. from the Protestant Parish Church in Bistrita. This collection, unique in terms of its historical completeness, will, for the first time, be the subject of a comprehensive research project, which will analyze not only the significance of the carpets in the early modern period but also their identity-generating role in the 19th and early 20th c. The carpets, made in Anatolia, reached Transylvania via trade routes from the mid-15th c. on. As economically significant luxury items they testify to the intensive commercial ties and the cultural exchange between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe; its hub Transylvania was at times subject to Ottoman dominance. Art-historical and art-technological examinations of a representative selection of 20 carpets and analysis of written sources such as customs registers, will aim to pinpoint dates and places of origin to determine time frames and trade routes more accurately. As status symbols and gifts the carpets played a role in the representational culture of the German nobility and middle class as well as the guilds in Transylvania. Starting with the Reformation they found their way into Protestant churches, usually as donations, where, despite their Islamic roots, especially of the prayer rugs, they were accorded functions in the liturgy and ceremonies. Sources such as inventories, sacristans registers and wills are expected to shed light on this. Historical inscriptions and graffiti found on the carpets will also be studied. The project will examine the fate of the carpets in the 19th and 20th c. as well. In the first half of the 19th c. they were not greatly esteemed by the parishioners, as witnessed by their present condition. Yet they were a part of the German-speaking culture in Transylvania and assumed an identity-shaping role for the Transylvanian Saxons, who, in the course of Romanian nationalist endeavors in the 19th c., attempted via their own historical awareness to delimit themselves from the neighboring ethnic groups. From 1907 on the carpets were treated as museum items, often filling large wall spaces in Protestant churches. There they were displayed as testimony to Transylvanias economic heyday in the 15th to the 17th c., which was strongly influenced by the Ottoman trading links. By means of the Anatolian rugs the project will examine important aspects of early modern period trans-Ottoman trade as well as the use and significance of these goods in the border regions between Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire. New insights are expected on the trade with carpets themselves, which as luxury goods assumed a special status within the commodity groups, as well as their importance and later use in Transylvania to where they transported a piece of Ottoman culture and themselves became an element of Saxon culture.