Ottoman and Turkish Impressions In Montagu, Craven and Barkley

Western writers have often been fascinated by the East. There are numerous non-fictional and fictional writings in which the East is reshaped through a Western prospect. The aim of this study is to interpret, compare and contrast three different pieces of travel writing about the Ottaman Empire and the Turks in relation with travel literature terminology. Another aim of this paper is to discuss the reasons for the writers’ positive, negative and ambiguous reflections. The first piece of work, The Turkish Embassy Letters (1717), belongs to the 18th century female travel writer Lady Wortley Montagu who has been widely popular with her objective and positive descriptions of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish women. Montagu has produced an alternative discourse in order to challenge and change the Western male gaze which has fantasized and stereotyped an egzotic and erotic Eastern rhetoric. The second work, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinaple in Series of Letters (1786), belongs to another 18th century female travel writer, Lady Craven. Craven has observed the Turkish women of higher rank in particular, and has identified interesting but unreliable and false assumptions about the Ottoman authority. Travelling to Turkey has meant a means of liberation from the strictures of the English homeland for Montagu and Craven. The third work, Bulgaria before the War during Seven Years’ Experience of European Turkey and Its Inhabitants (1877), was written by Henry C. Barkley, a British civil engineer and a writer. The Turkish impressions in the works have been inspired by real observation and experience at times but most of the time the travels to the Ottoman lands have meant for their authors an escape in order to produce fantasy. The selected travel writings in this work prioritize different topics in relation with their authors’ preoccupations. The writers had written their texts after reviewing their travel notes on arrival to their hometowns, hence their suggestions do not reflect complete truth. While Montagu takes a philosophical and an aesthetic viewpoint in describing the Turkish music, poetry, gardening and cuisine, Craven and Barkley prefer to adopt a colonial perspective.