Association and Identity in Eastern Mediterranean (1300-1360). Building and Coagulating Groups, Networks and Lordships

奥斯曼帝国出现在地中海东部。为了了解其权力结构的支柱、它施加的暴力以及它惊人的同化能力，人们必须仔细审查施加暴力的个人和暴力概念如何在东地中海空间流传，他们如何同居，以及他们如何在冲突中达成和解。拟议的项目是基于近年来在奥斯曼帝国、拜占庭和中世纪研究方面取得的研究成果。借助于一种受到网络理论启发的方法论，它旨在将奥斯曼帝国研究从保罗·维特克所著的所谓加沙理论的主导地位中解放出来。领土和社会边界的渗透性允许存在异质的、但也是短暂的军事-政治结构。该项目调查这些组织如何确定其身份，他们如何保证和合法化自己的存在和主张。它致力于寻找构成积极在地中海东部和东南欧实施暴力的协会的具体族裔和政治因素。重点在于“土耳其人”与加泰罗尼亚公司的接触，以及进入东南欧的团体与安纳托利亚的奥斯曼帝国统治者之间的关系。该项目分析了在这方面迄今被忽视的来源，即加泰罗尼亚公司的文件，以及货币和考古证据；它还重新解释了叙事来源。

The Ottoman state emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean. In order to understand the pillars of its power-structure, of the violence it exerted and its astonishing ability to assimilation one has to scrutinize how individuals exerting violence and concepts of violence circulated in the space of the Eastern Mediterranean, how they cohabited and how they reached reconciliation in conflicts. The proposed project is based on results of research achieved in Ottoman, Byzantine and Medieval studies during recent years. With the help of a methodology inspired by network theories it aims at the emancipation of Ottoman studies from the dominance of the so-called gaza theory authored by Paul Wittek. The permeability of territorial as well as social boundaries allowed for the existence of heterogenous, but also ephemeral military-political constructs. The project investigates how such groups identified its identity, how they guaranteed and legitimised their existence and claims. It engages in the search after the concrete ethnic and political elements making up the associations active in exerting violence in the Eastern Mediterranean and South-Eastern Europe. The focus lies on contacts of the "Turks" with the Catalan Company and the relationship between the groups entering South-Eastern Europe with the Ottoman ruler in Anatolia. The project analyses sources hitherto neglected in this context, namely the documents of the Catalan Company, along with numismatic and archaeological evidence; it also re-interprets narrative sources.