In the spring of 1566, the seventy-two-year-old Ottoman sultan, Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), launched what would be his final campaign into Hungary. After a month-long siege, the fortress of Szigetvár fell to the Ottomans on 7 September 1566. However, the sultan died in his tent shortly following the military success. The death of an Ottoman sultan during a campaign in the presence of 50,000 troops posed a serious risk of political instability. Given that the crown prince Selim (later Selim II, r. 1566–74) was located too far away from the army in the Anatolian town of Kütahya, the situation required skillful management. Announcing the sultan’s passing would have indicated a power vacuum at the top of the state and might have sparked confusion, disobedience, or even led to rebellion. To avert such threats, the sultan’s death was concealed for forty-eight days, during which time his body was discreetly interred inside the sultan’s pavilion, while all state affairs continued under the guise of his authority.Footnote 1 Only upon Selim’s arrival and formal accession to the throne was Süleyman’s death revealed. This masterful preservation of order during what could have easily turned into chaos was orchestrated by Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (in office, 1565–79).Footnote 2
This last campaign of Sultan Süleyman would be the last war between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy before the onset of the Long Turkish War in 1593. Sokollu, who was appointed grand vizier in 1564, only two years before Süleyman’s death, would become the central figure of this almost three-decade-long episode of peace between the two states, an observation also confirmed by contemporary Habsburg traveler Salomon Schweigger.Footnote 3 The anecdote in the opening paragraph about Süleyman’s death and how the process was controlled by Sokollu underscores the grand vizier’s primacy in the Ottoman administration from his first years in office. Although we read in this case about an exceptional power void that had to be managed with extreme care, many Ottoman grand viziers have exerted their authority for extended periods, often serving as arbiters of long-term stability in the presence of sultans. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s fourteen-year career suggests that longevity was a key factor in achieving such an influential tenure. The longer a grand vizier stayed in office, the greater his chance to inscribe his name on the record of his era through various means. Among other natural consequences, longevity often guaranteed a visible archival presence for grand viziers (as for any high-ranked statesmen), not only in Ottoman archives, but also in the archives of the European courts with which the Ottomans regularly corresponded. Greek historian Theoharis Stavrides was able to compose a biography of Mahmud Pasha Angelović (in office 1456–66; 1472–74), a grand vizier of a relatively early period that is not well-documented in the Ottoman archives, because the pasha held office for a total of nearly twelve years under Mehmed II (1453–81) and appeared frequently in contemporary European diplomatic reports—in this case, the Venetian and Ragusan primarily—which allowed the construction of a biography.Footnote 4 Two developments in the sixteenth century helped grand viziers gain an even bolder presence in European archives: Constantinople’s emergence “as a major site of diplomacy in tandem with its emergence as a major imperial center and capital,”Footnote 5 and the predominance of the office of grand vizier in government as “the ruler-centric tradition of political theory faded away in favor of the vizier-centric vision of government.”Footnote 6
Grand viziers were the executive heads of this new setting, and their primacy within the empire’s decision-making apparatus is well established among Ottomanists. Yet, as the field turned away from political history in the wake of the cultural turn in the humanities, the history of many Ottoman political institutions, including that of the grand vizierate, remained largely unwritten. Indeed, historians of all three major early modern Islamic empires have observed that the institutional history of the office has yet to be written.Footnote 7 Rather than the institution itself, historians have written predominantly on the individual careers of grand viziers. In addition to Theoharis Stavrides’s aforementioned monograph on Mahmud Pasha, numerous biographies have appeared in the last two decades.Footnote 8 Among the recent works, two deserve particular attention: The first is Georg B. Michels’s remarkable narrative based on European archival documents in a dozen languages, portraying Grand Vizier Köprülü Ahmed Pasha (in office 1661–76) as a truly European politician, personally involved in Central European politics for more than a decade. The second is Olivier Bouquet’s colorful narrative of Halil Hamid Pasha (in office 1782–85), notable for its unique exploration of a grand vizier’s life as well as his legacy in modern Turkey, for its unusually rich visual material, and because it represents a rare contribution from French historiography to the biographies of grand viziers.Footnote 9 One may add to this list a plethora of article-length studies that investigate selected dimensions of a grand vizier’s career or a certain aspect of the office.Footnote 10
Grand Vizierial Letters and Diplomatic Textuality
While it is impossible to cite all existing literature on the grand viziers here, what is notably lacking in scholarship is a systematic analysis of the Ottoman grand vizierial correspondence and its diplomatic textuality. Arno Strohmeyer uses the term Medialität to refer to the communicative qualities of early modern diplomatic letters, which, as a form of media, served to “convey information interpreted and situated within horizons of meaning.”Footnote 11 In other words, textual (or visual and ceremonial) symbols in the early modern world were not decorative or secondary but integral to the enactment and legitimation of power.Footnote 12 As we illustrate in the discussion below, this also applies to Ottoman letters. By “diplomatic textuality,” we refer to the communicative features in a diplomatic letter, including language, rhetoric, tone, emotional register, and any politically and diplomatically meaningful message, policy, proposal, accusation, or expectation communicated therein.Footnote 13 The exploration of such features in grand vizierial correspondence is only possible through their serial reading. Thanks to the European record-keeping and archival preservation methods that have been central to the emergence of the modern information state, as recent scholarship in this area has convincingly shown, the originals of outgoing grand vizierial letters survive in large numbers at the Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (HHStA) in Vienna and other European repositories.Footnote 14 Thus, a study of the grand vizierial letters necessitates working in European repositories, a fact observed by many Ottomanists working on a wide array of topics.Footnote 15
The present article is inspired by the archival observation that, between what one may call the grand vizierial turn in Ottoman administration in the mid-sixteenth century and the bureaucratic reforms of the 1790s, Ottoman grand vizierial correspondence remained the central medium of communication between Constantinople and European courts, including Vienna. The scholarship has not yet treated these letters as a primary medium of Ottoman diplomacy because, following the cultural turn in the humanities, especially since the rise of New Diplomatic History,Footnote 16 research on Ottoman-European diplomatic history has shifted toward irregular forms of diplomacy and its performative, ceremonial dimensions. This shift has helped scholars explore the versatile world of early modern Ottoman-European diplomatic encounters, from work on transimperial diplomatic subjects and dragomans to friendship, peace-making, and rivalry between Vienna and Constantinople, and from secretaries in European embassies in Constantinople to the alba amicorum, the illustrated friendship books.Footnote 17 Yet, the diplomatic textuality of high-level political correspondence, despite its centrality to Ottoman diplomatic processes, continues to be an understudied theme.Footnote 18
The diplomatic textuality of the Ottoman letters has been a victim of a persistent prejudice that such letters were “mostly empty bombast,”Footnote 19 a view reinforced by the Ottoman chancery’s frequent use of sarcasm, idioms, tropes, poetic circumlocution, and strategic (dis)simulation. This is not to deny the highly advanced scholarship in Ottoman diplomatics, the field that examines the structural, grammatical, and material features of high-political letters and their evolution over time.Footnote 20 Yet, political and diplomatic historians have long dismissed the ornate, rhymed, and rhetorically sophisticated and literarily elegant style of the letters, which blended Arabic and Persian vocabulary with Turkish grammar, as merely ceremonial and analytically thin. A further complication has been the general difficulty in identifying the scribes and not knowing how much an incumbent grand vizier, chancellor, or any third parties may have influenced the composition of any given letter.Footnote 21
Building and expanding on the recently growing observations of Ottomanists who have highlighted the profoundly rich subtext of Ottoman epistolary practice,Footnote 22 we argue, through a serial perusal of the mutual correspondence between Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and two Habsburg emperors, Maximilian II (r. 1564–76) and Rudolf II (r. 1576–1612), that the grand vizierial letters were not written merely to display stylistic sophistication of the Ottoman chancery; rather, these grand vizerial letters served, in the absence of permanent Ottoman embassies abroad, as the working interface through which the Ottoman court communicated and negotiated across borders, as the work of Selim Güngörürler has recently implied also in the Ottoman-Safavid context.Footnote 23 Then, this article shows that, for the political and diplomatic historian, there is still much to be learned from a line-by-line, serial, era- and grand vizier-specific (and eventually macro-scale and diachronical) textual analysis of grand vizierial letters as the primary medium of early modern Ottoman diplomacy. We acknowledge the highly sophisticated scholarship in the field of Ottoman diplomatics that has studied the philological, grammatical, structural, and material aspects of these letters, making them the “subject” of their research. Yet, we approach these letters as sources for reconstructing early modern Ottoman-Habsburg (and broader Ottoman-European) diplomacy, in place of frequently highlighted ad hoc diplomatic encounters between Constantinople and Vienna, as well as other European courts.Footnote 24
The analysis below reinforces these arguments by seeking answers to the following questions: How did Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and his interlocutors articulate and negotiate political hierarchies, roles, and relationships through the written word in the second half of the sixteenth century? What rhetorical strategies did Sokollu, as grand vizier, deploy to assert Ottoman primacy, and how did the Habsburg emperors respond? How did Sokollu and the Habsburg emperors navigate competing claims to dignity, legitimacy, and parity in their textual exchange? And finally, how did both sides employ a flexible yet continuous notion of assumed “friendship,” while navigating the contradictory claims of the two capitals?Footnote 25
Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s Correspondence with Vienna
Sokollu was one of the many reputable grand viziers who served Sultan Süleyman, together with İbrahim Pasha (in office, 1523–33), Lütfi Pasha (in office, 1539–41), and Rüstem Pasha (in office, 1544–53 and 1555–61), yet he turned into a towering figure inside the Ottoman court during the reign of Selim II and the first five years of Murad III (r. 1574–95), arguably becoming one of the most remarkable figures of the “Eurasian age of chief ministers.”Footnote 26 Born into a Balkan Christian family, Mehmed was originally from the present-day village of Sokolovići in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was rendered as Sokol in Ottoman records, hence the nickname Sokollu (in Turkish, also Sokullu), meaning “from Sokol.” He entered the Ottoman palace through the child recruitment system (devşirme). At the age of eighteen, he was recruited and brought to Istanbul, where he converted to Islam and received the name Mehmed. Following his education in Enderūn,Footnote 27 he entered court service and rose through various positions within the Enderun system. In 1544, he was appointed as the fourth vizier of the imperial council (divān-ı hümāyūn), marking his entry into high-level state administration. Over the subsequent years, he was successively promoted to the third and second vizier positions.Footnote 28 In 1565, a year before the death of Sultan Süleyman, he was appointed grand vizier. He held this position until his assassination in 1579 at the age of seventy-four.
The fourteen-year tenure made Sokollu the second-longest reigning grand vizier, and according to the nineteenth-century historian of the Ottoman Empire, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, one of the two competitors for the status of the most successful Ottoman grand vizier, the other being Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha of the seventeenth century (in office 1661–76). According to Hammer-Purgstall, Sokollu was the winner as the more upright among the two.Footnote 29 Giancarlo Casale emphasized Sokollu’s lasting memory even beyond the palace, pointing to his role in helping the Ottoman dynasty secure nominal authority as the caliphs of the universal community of Muslims on a scale never equaled before or since.Footnote 30 This success was not based on military expansion; Sokollu’s “vision was founded on trade, logistics, and diplomacy.”Footnote 31 That vision was accompanied by an intellectual agenda that left behind a carefully constructed textual legacy: Sokollu commissioned Feridun Bey (d. 1583), his private secretary who held the court offices of chief of scribes and chancellor during Sokollu’s tenure, to prepare a letter compilation, resulting in the creation of Münşeʾātü’s-Selāṭīn (Correspondence of Sultans), one of the finest examples of this popular Ottoman literary genre.Footnote 32 Likewise, on the grand vizier’s instructions, numerous contemporary scholars penned illustrated chronicles, portraying the grand vizier in their richly illustrated narratives as the linchpin of Ottoman government.Footnote 33 Thus, Sokollu, among his other qualities, was a grand vizier who paid attention to the political and intellectual representative quality of the written word.
Sokollu’s correspondence with Vienna also testifies to the grand vizier’s attention to diplomatic textuality. The exchange between Sokollu and the Habsburg Emperors Maximilian II (r. 1564–76) and Rudolf II (r. 1576–1612) spanned the period from Sokollu’s appointment to the grand vizierate in 1565 until shortly before his assassination in 1579. This period was characterized by relative stability, as both courts sought to avoid open war. Instead, hostilities played out in the form of recurring border raids and localized clashes, usually carried out by provincial forces, a phenomenon most recently analyzed by James Tracy.Footnote 34 The letters, therefore, revolve around a recurring set of themes, such as frontier tensions, peace negotiations, dynastic affairs, and broader claims to imperial legitimacy. At the same time, the exchange reveals a sustained and reciprocal diplomatic dialogue, with Sokollu’s letters frequently responding to or referencing earlier Habsburg communications. However, our focus here is not on the political matters; instead, we examine how those matters were represented, narrated, and choreographed textually.
For our textual analysis, the Ottoman side of the discussion is mainly built on eighteen original Ottoman Turkish letters attributed to Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. One of the letters, dated 9 July 1565, is preserved in Mühimme Defteri (literally “register of important affairs”) no. 6 at the Ottoman archives branch of Türkiye’s Directorate of State Archives (BOA) in Istanbul, while the remaining seventeen, spanning the period from 12 March 1567 to 23 September 1579, are held at the HHStA in Vienna.Footnote 35 Although these letters do not form a fully continuous record, the extant material is sufficient to trace recurring themes and rhetorical patterns in the exchange. In addition to these original versions, a significantly larger volume of Sokollu’s correspondence survives in contemporary Latin or German translations, many of which lack a corresponding original.Footnote 36 In total, approximately fifty-five letters from Sokollu’s side (including translations) have been collected and documented over the course of the GraViz project. Our analysis relies primarily on the Ottoman-language originals, but in a few cases where only Latin or German translations survived, we also use those. On the Habsburg side, the archival record is uneven. Not all letters sent to Sokollu appear to have been fully copied or preserved, and in many cases, only partial records have survived. To reconstruct the imperial side of the exchange, this study draws on a combination of extant fair copies and draft versions (Konzepte). While there exist the final versions of some letters, others survive only as what appear to be penultimate drafts, often marked with corrections or marginalia, revealing the internal processes of composition rather than the final text dispatched to the grand vizier. These materials nonetheless offer valuable insight into Habsburg diplomatic rhetoric and strategic positioning.
Self-Portrayal as a Friendly Intermediary and an Agent of Peace
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha consistently referred to himself in his correspondence using phrases such as “bu muḫliṣiñüz” (this sincere one of yours) and “bu muḥibbiñüz” (this friend of yours). Through such self-designations, he repeatedly framed himself as a trustworthy and loyal intermediary to the Habsburg court. From his earliest days in office, he repeatedly underlined his efforts to interpret the incoming letters in the best way possible before presenting them to the sultan. “As a sign of our friendship, we have interpreted your letter most moderately and appropriately, and presented it to the sultan’s throne with the utmost respect,” he wrote in March 1567.Footnote 37 In another letter, this one from April 1565, he noted that Maximilian II’s “letter declaring confidence and trust is presented with the best interpretation and the most fortunate words to the foot of the sultan’s felicitous throne.”Footnote 38 Over the following fourteen years, Sokollu’s correspondence abounded with such assertions and recurring references to his personal efforts to preserve peace between the two courts. He wrote about the tenacity with which he strove to reinforce peace and friendship and his “ardent and diligent work to strengthen the peace and concord.”Footnote 39 He frequently declared that it was due to his diligent work that the peace was maintained. He claimed that each time he was presenting the incoming letters of the emperor to the sultan, he reported to the sultan that Vienna was “steadfast in matters of peace and reconciliation and that they do not act contrary to the treaty.”Footnote 40 In a remarkable passage from a letter from June 1578, he wrote:
God, all-knowing and wise, is sufficient as a witness that, while the bandits on your side have remained unchecked and continued their acts of corruption and malice, this loving friend of yours has consistently sought the preservation of peace and harmony, striving for the well-being of the tax-paying and non-tax-paying subjects of both sides. For this reason, every petition received has been submitted to the threshold of the [sultan] … with various favorable interpretations, in the hope of tempering the flames of his wrath.Footnote 41
Furthermore, he added, when the letters dispatched from Vienna and the petitions submitted by the Austrian resident ambassador in Constantinople complained about “harms and losses” suffered by Austria, these matters were presented to the sultan “down to the most minor and insignificant details,” yet only through the best possible interpretation.Footnote 42 This carefully calibrated language combined intimacy with a certain degree of boldness, creating a diplomatic persona grounded concurrently in sincerity and self-confidence. In this way, Sokollu presented himself not simply as a representative of the sultan but as an intermediary whose discretion could be relied upon in navigating delicate political circumstances.
It also appears that Sokollu felt increasingly insecure due to the intermediary role he played, or he attempted to portray himself as such in the correspondence. In the letters, the grand vizier consistently presented himself as a vulnerable mediator who bore personal risk in preserving peace. In a letter dated 18 February 1570, he writes that by acting as a peacemaker, he incurred “considerable distress with our most powerful emperor and my colleagues,” underscoring the political cost of his efforts.Footnote 43 This theme recurs in a letter from 27 August 1570, where he lamented that the sultan “does not cease to inquire about [certain demands] and to impose penalties upon me,” and that “the blame has been cast upon me. As a result, I endure great disgrace and reproach from all.”Footnote 44 Sokollu deployed this argument again in the context of prisoner exchanges, warning on 29 March 1573, that if Christian captives are released while Muslim ones remain in bondage, “all blame and burden would fall upon me,” and that he would be accused throughout the empire of favoring Christians over his own people.Footnote 45 Here, as elsewhere, Sokollu deployed his position as an advocate of peace as a moral argument, highlighting his vulnerability while appealing to Maximilian’s sense of reciprocity. At the same time, he contrasted his own discretion and loyalty with the sultan’s potential for harsh retaliation. In May 1573, he revealed that he concealed provocative Habsburg demands, including ransom payments for captured Janissaries, “to avoid disturbing the peace,” warning that “if [the sultan] had seen these letters, there is no doubt that zeal for the true faith and immediate vengeance would have been forthcoming.”Footnote 46 He reiterates this role he played as a diplomatic screen in later letters, noting on 23 November 1573, that he does not “permit all disturbances to reach the ears of his imperial majesty,”Footnote 47 and in a letter from March/April 1574 that he withheld the reports about plundering by Habsburg forces to protect “this blessed friendship and peace.”Footnote 48 Across these appeals, Sokollu cultivates a dual image: a loyal intermediary absorbing external provocations and a moral agent whose ability to preserve stability depends on Habsburg restraint as much as on his own protective discretion. As these examples show, the grand vizier’s emphasis on his own peaceable intentions and the hardships he endured was a consistent rhetorical strategy. By implying that the sultan was unaware of many developments, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, speaking in a deferential and self-effacing tone, subtly presented himself, rather than the distant sovereign, as the true fulcrum of practical authority and the most reliable guarantor of peace. Maximilian acknowledged this dynamic by entrusting pressing matters to Sokollu, thereby endorsing the grand vizier’s pivotal role in monitoring and maintaining diplomatic relations.
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s continuous efforts in his letters to present himself as the key interlocutor and a promoter of peace between the two realms did not go unnoticed by the Habsburg emperors. On the contrary, his role was repeatedly acknowledged and praised, underscoring his importance in a peace process that was never definitively concluded but required regular renewal to reaffirm its validity. One clear example appeared in a letter from Maximilian, dated April 1575, in which the emperor wrote: “Indeed, we rightly acknowledge you as the principal author and promoter not only of this extended and confirmed peace but also of the earlier peace that was established. We accept this with the utmost gratitude and a most gracious heart.” Similar formulaic expressions of gratitude and praise recurred frequently in the correspondence. On 9 March 1576, Maximilian emphasized: “We kindly understood with what zeal you have undertaken to promote the matter of peace prolonged between us and your most serene emperor, and you have indeed brought it to such a point that the desired result has at last followed. This we receive with a kind and grateful spirit, and we trust that you will show no less care in fostering and defending this same peace than you did in establishing it.” Shortly thereafter, on 22 March, he wrote again, this time citing information received via David Ungnad, the Habsburg resident ambassador at the Porte: “We have learned of your exceptional diligence, care, and concern for the peace negotiations that you have pursued up to now. We accept this with a kind and most grateful spirit. We recognize you as the principal author of this peace and we place our utmost trust in you for its preservation.” The Viennese court thus recognized Sokollu as the key interlocutor in the preservation of peace.
Indeed, both Selim II and Murad III appeared as inactive figures in the background of Sokollu’s correspondence. We find signs of this in a letter from Maximilian to Sokollu, dated 27 August 1576: “We believe that it is unlikely that these actions were done with [the sultan’s] knowledge … as we are firmly convinced of his serene and even-tempered nature.” In this way, Maximilian implicitly distanced the sultan from direct accountability, acknowledging Sokollu’s self-portrayal as the key arbiter and the executive head of state. We may interpret this phenomenon as a diplomatic reflection of a contemporary transformation in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-sixteenth century: namely, the shift from a sultan-centered state to a grand vizier-centered one. As historian Hüseyin Yılmaz observed, by the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottoman sultan was gradually evolving into a “legitimating figure” while the grand vizier was “promoted to the position of actual ruler.” The grand vizier’s supremacy in decision-making was symbolized in his possession of the imperial seal. The holder of the office increasingly became the gatekeeper of information flow at the top of the palace, and wielder of judicial, military, and administrative power. He brought matters to the sultan’s attention, but also shaped and executed policy through a vast apparatus centered on the dīvān (imperial council) as well as his personal residence, which was used as an office. Sokollu’s role as Maximilian II’s and later Rudolf II’s interlocutor and the guarantor of peace must be understood in this light. Yet, as we show in the next section, this was a peace that was bound with many preconditions.
Peace: Permanent but Conditional
In classical Islamic jurisprudence, the world was conceptually divided into two main spheres: Dār al-Islām, or the Abode of Islam, and Dār al-Ḥarb, or the Abode of War. The Abode of Islam referred to territories under Muslim rule where Islamic law prevails, while the Abode of War denoted lands outside Muslim authority, where, hypothetically, a constant state of war was presumed to prevail. We know that once the Ottomans began losing battles and territories in the eighteenth century, this theoretical separation became void; the post-1683 Ottomans increasingly transformed into peace-seekers. Yet, even during the era of territorial expansion, the Ottoman Empire frequently disregarded that dichotomy and took a pragmatic approach by recognizing a third category: Dār al-Ṣulḥ, or the Abode of Truce. The latter applied to states with whom peace treaties were established. It was the notion of the Abode of Truce that shaped Ottoman understanding of peace, permitting stable, long-term truces with non-Muslim powers, contrary to the rigid notion of perpetual hostility implied by the Abode of War.Footnote 49 This doctrinal flexibility was clearly reflected in the diplomatic correspondence of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha with Vienna. For Sokollu, peace was certainly a rhetorical tool, but his letters occasionally alluded to peace also as a religious and moral imperative. In this way, Sokollu’s diplomatic language abided by the Islamic legal tradition while almost continuously pursuing a practical, friendly policy toward Vienna. In his letters, Sokollu idealized peace as a moral duty. Yet, he reminded Vienna frequently that to maintain permanent peace with Constantinople, they had to comply with the policies of the Ottoman court, punish those involved in banditry and cross-border raids, and, most importantly, deliver the yearly tribute in a timely manner. Only then could the stability and welfare of subjects on both sides be guaranteed, which, in theory, was the responsibility of both sides.
Theoretically, peace was a gift of the sultan, as explicitly stated in a letter from Sokollu’s earliest days in office.Footnote 50 Ten years later, his language was modified as he increasingly referred to peace as a function of many parameters. On 16 October 1575, he wrote that anyone who violated the conditions of peace had to be punished, so that no one could dare to think about the violators that “they acted against the treaty and nothing happened to them…”; it was “better to punish those bandits and to sustain the tranquility of the poor than trampling upon of many thousands of people on both sides” through open conflict. If a fortress had to be demolished on the Habsburg side to prevent such outcomes, it was “not appropriate to disrupt peace and treaty due to a piece of fortress” as it could lead to open hostilities.Footnote 51 The same year, on 4 December, Sokollu wrote: “What is appropriate for us and for you is that those who are committed to peace and treaty are respected; the mischief-makers on both sides are not shown any leniency, and those who act contrary to peace and treaty are punished and reprimanded.”Footnote 52 On 10 May 1576, referring to an inquiry by Maximilian in a recent letter dispatched from Vienna about the deployment of Ottoman troops along the Transylvanian border, Sokollu remarked that a movement of Habsburg troops had been recently reported to Constantinople, which provoked the mobilization of Ottoman troops in the area. However, Sokollu added, that upon reading Maximilian’s most recent letter, frontier pashas in Bosnia, Timisoara, and Buda received “numerous warnings and reiterations … to dismiss the troops and to avoid causing any situation in violation of the treaty, unless there was a situation on the [Habsburg] side that violated the peace.” All this was done “for the strengthening of the pillars of peace and amity” between the two courts.Footnote 53
As we read in letters from 1576 and 1577, paying the tribute to the Ottoman court on time was also a requirement of peace. The following passage is from a letter written by Sokollu in July/August 1576:
[Y]our tax, which has been regularly sent according to the established tradition for many years since the times of your predecessors as a requirement of your friendship with the mighty sultanate, and a sign of your utmost care for that friendship, has not been sent in its time and season; its delay until now is contrary to peace and the treaty between us.
For the sultan not to “consent to any action that would violate the treaty,” the tax had to be delivered on time. Otherwise, the sultan would set aside his friendship with Vienna, which could “cause great regret.” Should that occur, the enemies who “pretend to be friends” of the Habsburg emperor would also not desire the friendship between the emperor and the sultan to continue, and each of those supposed friends would “follow a different path to the transgressions” against Vienna. Moreover, Sokollu asserted that while it was “easy to destroy the foundations of friendship,” once difficulties arose and the relationship collapsed, “it would have been immensely difficult to re-strengthen it.”Footnote 54 In a summary provided by Sokollu in a letter dated January 1577, we learn that Maximilian II responded to Sokollu that Vienna was sending the tax for the sake of peace and amity, and that the delays in its dispatch were due to “transgressions and excesses” on the Ottoman side that violated peace. Sokollu responded, still addressing Maximilian II, who had died in October 1576, that transgressions and excesses were taking place due to the Habsburgs, and added that, for the mutual true friendship to continue, it was important that persons causing wickedness be punished and “fall into disgrace and perish.”Footnote 55 In the next letter, which was also the first one addressed to the newly crowned Rudolf II, Sokollu reasserted the same idea and closed his letter noting that those who “cause disorder in the well-protected domains of the sultan,” and thus act “contrary to the treaty and covenant” should have been appropriately punished, so that “no one dares to cause situations contrary to the peace and reconciliation between us in the future.”Footnote 56
This emphasis on the conditionality of peace was present in all other letters Sokollu dispatched to Rudolf II. “If the subjects are not at peace and there is interference and transgressions from both sides, how can the agreements, treaties, and peace and amity be upheld?” he asked in May 1577.Footnote 57 In August, he requested from Rudolf II that “no actions contrary to the sultan’s approval or against peace and order should be undertaken,” and that “all efforts should be made for the security of the country and the welfare of its subjects.” In November 1577, he complained that no responses were dispatched from Vienna. By December, the grand vizier had received reassurances from Rudolf II that the yearly tribute of Vienna was on its way to Constantinople. Having acknowledged this as a sign of Vienna’s willingness to cooperate, he listed several violations reported by Ottoman administrators along the Habsburg frontier and concluded his letter as follows: “It is imperative to exercise extreme caution and vigilance regarding such incidents that could nullify the treaty. If any breaches of the treaty and guarantees agreed upon between the two parties occur on your part, it will become impossible for us to adhere to the treaty and guarantees on our side.”Footnote 58 In late Spring, early Summer 1578, the delayed tributes were finally delivered to the Ottoman court, together with many complaints about border violations committed by Ottoman raiders. In response, in a letter dated 17 June 1578, Sokollu listed complaints submitted by Mustafa Pasha, the Governor of Buda, and added that his goal was to ensure the permanence of the treaty and the mutual trust between the two courts. For that to be achieved,
It is appropriate to approach matters with a mindset of ‘let bygones be bygones’ (meżā mā meżā). Henceforth, should any actions or circumstances arise that contravene the treaty and the trust [between us], they must be duly considered, and those who fail to comply with the terms should be dealt with accordingly. Therefore, when this letter of goodwill reaches you, may your sincere friendship and perfect amity toward the threshold of the abode of happiness guide your actions as per the directives of the sultanic letter. From now on, ensure that your tribute—traditionally sent to [our court] akin to the Lote Tree—is dispatched without delay and on time.Footnote 59
Reciprocity and Habsburg Assertiveness
The strictly conditional “friendship” so frequently invoked by Sokollu placed the Habsburg emperors in a persistent double bind. On the one hand, they were expected to provide continuous reassurances to the Ottoman side to stabilize peace along a volatile frontier. On the other hand, they used this very context to call out Ottoman border violations, demand reciprocity, and assert their own status as an imperial power, despite military asymmetries and the burden of tribute payments. We will now discuss how both Maximilian II and Rudolf II navigated this delicate balancing act, exploring the variations and continuities in their rhetorical strategies as they sought to negotiate a relationship structured by both deference and resistance, at times mirroring Ottoman assertiveness, while occasionally deflecting it.
Maximilian II, who in his youth had criticized his father Ferdinand for what he saw as passivity in the face of the Ottoman threat to the Christian population, was profoundly chastened by the humiliating experience of 1566. Despite amassing a numerically impressive force, Maximilian had failed to prevent the Ottoman troops from capturing Szigetvár, resulting in the almost complete annihilation of the stationed garrison, while his own attempts to lay siege to Ottoman fortresses had come to nothing. Clearly overwhelmed by the challenge of leading a large but unruly multinational army and plagued by financial problems and estrangement from part of his officer corps, Maximilian was forced to retreat to Vienna, deeply distressed by the experience and with his reputation severely damaged. From that point onward, he had little choice but to adhere to the long-standing Habsburg strategy of appeasing Ottoman concerns while, wherever circumstances allowed, pressing for reciprocal restraint.Footnote 60 This cautious approach is clearly reflected in his correspondence with Sokollu, where Maximilian II consistently refused unfounded accusations, proposed remedies for legitimate grievances, and called on Sokollu to enforce discipline among unruly Ottoman troops, always seeking to uphold a fragile balance through reciprocity. At the same time, however, Maximilian II did not entirely shy away from asserting Habsburg political claims when he deemed them defensible, as in the case of his bid for the Polish throne. As early as 1565, he had explored the possibility of a Habsburg succession in the Kingdom of Poland in the event of the demise of its king. However, when this opportunity first arose with the death of King Sigismund II Augustus in 1572, it was not Maximilian’s son, Archduke Ernest, who was chosen as the new monarch, but rather Henry of Valois, from the rival French royal family. Henry’s departure in 1575 to succeed to the French throne as Henry III opened up a new opportunity, with Maximilian himself now being the candidate for succession. Although this renewed bid for the Polish throne was again unsuccessful, resulting in the coronation of the Transylvanian ruler Stephen Báthory as King of Poland in 1576, it did raise concerns among the Ottomans, who were naturally attentive to the prospect of increased Habsburg power in Poland, a kingdom with which they had repeatedly engaged in military conflict.Footnote 61 Maximilian tried to assuage these concerns by presenting his candidacy as compatible with continued peace and mutual respect, rather than as a provocation against the Porte. He emphasized the Habsburg commitment to stability, urging the Ottoman side to disregard false reports and refrain from escalation. In a letter dated 9 March 1576, Maximilian II wrote the following:
As our sincere commitment to maintaining peace can be sufficiently perceived from these actions, we confidently trust that your most serene emperor [sultan] and you yourself will respond to us with the same integrity, that you will not heed any rumors or even false reports from those who hate peace and tranquility and devise every possible means to disturb it, nor will you prepare arms, but rather report the matter to us, so that we can apply appropriate remedies without delay, and furthermore see to it that the Turkish officials and soldiers stationed at the borders will keep within their own limits and adhere to the provisions of the extended peace, as peace currently stands, and that they do not continue their usual incursions, depredations, and acts of violence.Footnote 62
While justifying his position in the Polish succession and urging Sokollu to dismiss baseless allegations, Maximilian simultaneously shifts the burden of maintaining peace onto Sokollu, whom he holds responsible for Ottoman compliance. In a letter dated 22 March 1576, he similarly rejected suspicions of Habsburg military preparations toward Poland or Transylvania, affirming his commitment to the “stable and long-lasting” peace recently renewed between the two powers. Pointedly, he adds: “We do not see any justifiable reason why his serene highness should be so offended by the Polish matter, that he should take occasion thereby to break the peace without any cause given by us.”Footnote 63 Once again, he concludes by reminding Sokollu of his obligation to ensure discipline and peace along the border.
Maximilian II presents himself as a principled yet peace-seeking ruler who defends legitimate Habsburg claims without aggression, framing his actions—such as his Polish candidacy—as compatible with mutual respect and the preservation of peace. Notably, at no point in his correspondence with the Sokollu does Maximilian II resort to veiled threats of military retaliation, unlike Sokollu. Instead, Maximilian II appeals to mutual obligations, while calling out Ottoman violations in firm terms when necessary: “We are all the more surprised by those things that have been carried out for some time by Turkish officials and soldiers in a manner that completely disregards this peace and are conducted in a hostile manner that is more suited to war than to peace.”Footnote 64 By doing so, Maximilian II reinforced his image as a restrained and lawful sovereign; he portrayed himself as committed to peace but unafraid to expose Ottoman breaches or demand accountability within a framework of reciprocity.
It is within this framework of reciprocity that the Habsburg understanding of “friendship” finds its expression. While references to friendship in Maximilian’s letters are somewhat less frequent and certainly less effusive than in Sokollu’s letter, the term appears repeatedly, for instance, when Maximilian praises the grand vizier’s efforts in “promoting the renewal of peace and friendship”Footnote 65 or when emphasizing his own commitment to “maintaining firm peace, friendship, and good neighborliness”Footnote 66 with the Porte. Much like Sokollu’s rendering of the concept, the letters of Maximilian and Rudolf II reflect a strong, inherent correlation between peace and friendship. However, unlike the Ottoman interpretation, the Habsburgs did not view friendship as inextricably linked to a hierarchical differential. For the Ottomans, “friendship” implied a contracted relationship that, despite its effusive rhetoric, served the practical function of providing a flexible diplomatic framework that excluded the obligations of a formal alliance while upholding the sultan’s superior stance toward his neighbors.Footnote 67 By contrast, as the historian Evgeny Roshchin emphasizes, traditional medieval conceptions of “vertical” friendship, originally between a prince and his subjects, became increasingly intertwined in early modern Europe with a more “horizontal” understanding of friendship between monarchs. Increasingly, this idea came to function as a utilitarian tool for stabilizing and maintaining the binding character of political arrangements at a time when religion and kinship were no longer sufficient to ensure rule enforcement.Footnote 68 Thus, while these “horizontal” elements foreshadowed modern ideals of sovereignty and equality, the concept of “friendship” remained ambiguous enough throughout the early modern era to allow pragmatic application in relations among powers of various standing, including a non-Christian power like the Ottoman Empire.Footnote 69 By leaving the exact balance between equality and hierarchy unresolved, the Habsburg emperors were forced to continually renegotiate their position vis-à-vis an Ottoman counterpart for which its own predominance remained unquestionable.
After Maximilian II’s death in October 1576, his son Rudolf II faced the same dilemma: how to avoid war while upholding the principle of reciprocity. Notably, Rudolf’s correspondence with Sokollu Mehmed Pasha adopts a sharper tone and greater directness than his father’s. Unlike Maximilian, he does not entirely refrain from invoking the possibility of military action should peaceful means prove insufficient. This is already evident in his first letter to Sokollu, dated 13 October 1576, in which he reports Maximilian’s death. While affirming his commitment to peace and acknowledging Sokollu’s role in establishing and extending it, Rudolf immediately juxtaposes this with a collection of violations perpetrated by Ottoman troops and officials.
[They] harass our dominion and faithful subjects in various ways, seize our fortresses and castles, force towns, districts, and villages which have never before been tributaries to your most serene emperor to surrender; and if any refuse to submit, they plunder their goods, devastate the districts and villages with fire and sword, slaughter the wretched inhabitants, or carry them off into slavery. Given these excesses, no other outcome can be expected from our side except that, provoked and incited by such grievous injustices, we will be compelled, though unwillingly, to abandon such an oppressive and unjust friendship, and to resort to both offensive and defensive remedies, which, by the grace of God, are not lacking to us.Footnote 70
The phrase “oppressive and unjust friendship” is particularly revealing, as it directly referred to Sokollu’s favored rhetorical formula invoking “friendship” as a means of enforcing Habsburg compliance. By framing that very friendship as burdensome and violent, Rudolf figuratively lifts the veil from its diplomatic pretense. His reference to “remedies, which … are not lacking to us” is a thinly veiled allusion to military retaliation, which his father, in later years, had carefully avoided. In characterizing the relationship as an “oppressive and unjust friendship,” Rudolf exposes the latent tension embedded in the very term. Whereas Maximilian had operated within the ambiguous space between hierarchical expectation and reciprocal parity, Rudolf momentarily renders explicit what had previously remained implicit: that “friendship,” as invoked by the Ottoman side, could function as a vehicle of asymmetry rather than mutuality. One may speculate that Rudolf, newly ascended to the throne, saw it as fitting to signal to the grand vizier that the new emperor was not to be underestimated.
Yet this brief exposure of the asymmetry embedded in the language of friendship does not signal a departure from established practice. Despite the sharpened rhetoric, Rudolf preserves his father’s custom of rhetorical deference toward Sokollu. His carefully balanced threats are often followed by renewed gestures of esteem: “In recognition of the effort and diligence you have devoted to preserving and strengthening this beneficial peace, we will, on every occasion, demonstrate our benevolent regard for your endeavors. This will allow you to experience firsthand our favorable, grateful, and generous disposition toward you.” Thus, in a carefully calibrated interplay of adulation and firmness, confrontation and conciliation, Rudolf seeks to assert parity between the two realms and impress upon Sokollu the seriousness with which he intends to govern.
The delicate language that balances firmness and conciliation characterized Rudolf II’s correspondence with the grand vizier. While emphatically rejecting responsibility for border hostilities, he repeatedly demands redress from the Ottoman side and voices indignation at what he sees as inaction and one-sided accusations. In a letter dated 10 February 1577, he condemns “those who, while themselves engaging in nothing short of hostile actions … nonetheless do not hesitate to transfer the blame for all this to our side, falsely accusing us as violators of the peace.” He insists on the return of fortresses captured by Ottoman forces and underscores his own efforts to restrain imperial officials from breaching the peace. The demand for restitution becomes a recurring theme. In one instance, Rudolf writes: “we have learned, not without justified astonishment, that instead of providing appropriate remedies for the offenses committed by your soldiers in the borderlands in violation of the agreed peace terms, you have instead sought to place the blame for such actions entirely upon our own forces.” He laments that “no punishment has been imposed on those who have recklessly and audaciously violated the peace” while pledging to punish any transgressors on his own side “with utmost severity.”Footnote 71
Yet even amid these sharpened tones and mounting frustrations, Rudolf consistently seeks to maintain a workable relationship with Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. He continued to appeal to the grand vizier’s authority and sense of responsibility, urging him to impose discipline and implement remedies. In doing so, Rudolf adheres to the pragmatic course charted by his father: asserting Habsburg claims and defending reciprocity without breaking the fragile peace. His correspondence reflects an ongoing effort to assert equality without provoking open conflict, a diplomatic balancing act that, for a short spell, contained the structural tensions and recurring frontier violence. Perhaps partially due to this tenuous equilibrium of principled reciprocity and limited confrontation, the outbreak of large-scale war was delayed until the eruption of the Long Turkish War in 1593.
Allegories of Peace and Simulation in Sokollu’s Correspondence
In comparison to Maximilian II and Rudolf II’s letters, which directly tackled issues and matters at hand through a direct, plain political prose, a notable characteristic of Sokollu’s letters was the frequent use of symbols and poetic language. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s letters to Vienna were composed in Ottoman Turkish, the empire’s official administrative and diplomatic language. Ottoman Turkish was grammatically Turkish, but it evolved under strong Arabic and Persian literary influence, particularly from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Arabic, associated with religion and law, and Persian, favored for its literary elegance, heavily influenced the lexicon and style of Ottoman Turkish. Its highly ornate and formal register was often inaccessible to the public. Nonetheless, it was promoted by Ottoman chancelleries as a sign of intellectual and diplomatic sophistication. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s letters to Vienna, written in the high age of Ottoman classical poetry, contained many notable examples of this elevated and highly stylized language. In an international diplomatic context, the use of such language was intentional, adding a layer of literary refinement to the solemn diplomatic engagement and, thus, concurrently projecting cultural sophistication and an assumed political and military superiority.
The first letter addressed to Maximilian II by Sokollu, dated 12–21 March 1567, was a simple and short text composed only to acknowledge the friendly intentions of the Habsburg emperor, which had been recently declared in a letter dispatched from Vienna. These letters were part of the intensive exchange of correspondence and communication between the two courts prior to the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1568. In this letter, Sokollu reciprocated Maximilian’s sentiments with a closing passage that contained elaborate allegorical imagery, comparing the growth of mutual friendship and trust between the two courts to the blossoming of a radiant flower garden:
Until now, those who sought friendship at the exalted threshold of felicity and attained their desire, have passed through places where discord takes root and strived greatly in order to strengthen the edifice of friendship. Since this is so, if you, too, in your pursuit of friendship, exert the effort that many other sovereigns have shown, it is to be hoped that for those well-wishers who strive to build a bond of amity, every matter will become easy, and, before long, concord will take the place of war and tumult, allowing joyful blossoms to flourish among all friends, bringing cheer to all places. What more could be said that remains beyond the bounds of your noble knowledge?Footnote 72
The frequent use of blossoming flowers as metaphors for peace and friendship reflects, above all, a contemporary cultural phenomenon: the flourishing of floriculture in the Ottoman capital and the striking abundance of flowers in the palace gardens, the residences of statesmen, and throughout the cityscape during Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s era, as noted by numerous travelers.Footnote 73 This was likewise the high point of Ottoman literary productivity and classical poetry, where poets regularly used flowers as symbols of friendship, love, and beauty. Considering a more speculative explanation, we could also mention the impact of Islamic conceptions of aesthetics, which emphasized not only visual appeal but also functionality.Footnote 74 In this sense, likening peace to blossoming flowers suggested that peace was mutually advantageous for both parties, as it would provide relaxation to the troops and subjects.
Only a month later, Sokollu again reiterated the friendly language of the previous letter, but this time he conveyed his determination regarding the anticipated peace in a tone resembling that of a high-ranking statesman offering friendly counsel to a lesser official.
Those entrusted with the quelling of tumult and sedition, once armed with the instruments of sincere friendship and the means of concord, can at once subdue strife and discord wherever they appear; the remedy to such unrest is within reach and within grasp. Should circumstances demand it, as we have whispered into the ear of your envoy who is currently at the imperial threshold, even the surrender of a few fortresses and barracks, if it serves to fortify the edifice of peace and concord, must be reckoned among the highest duties. If such matters do not reach their full completion, many ill-wishers shall arise who shake the very foundations of peace and concord. For indeed, far-sighted sovereigns of old, by means of this remedy, entered the fortresses of safety and security, and for the ease of their realms and subjects, they relinquished many lands, provinces, and fortresses. Should the same intent manifest itself on your side as well, then all affairs and agitations will incline toward goodness. Above all, friends who profess amity must of necessity fulfill their duties toward one another with tokens of kindness and gestures of gentle courtesy.Footnote 75
In the imagery of this letter, peace was likened to a fortress, one that a sovereign might enter only by relinquishing actual fortresses. Sokollu presented the act of yielding a stronghold in exchange for peace as a remedy long employed by far-sighted rulers of the past to safeguard their realms and subjects. Maximilian II was reminded that, should he adopt the same remedy for disputed fortresses, many disagreements and unsettled matters between the two parties could be brought to a favorable conclusion. Such a “token of kindness and gesture of gentle courtesy” was expected from a sovereign who professed friendship.
Finally, in a letter from February–March 1579, Sokollu described peace as “the master of all judgements,” in reference to a saying from the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. This letter was written in the aftermath of numerous exchanges between the two capitals, when Vienna delayed the delivery of the yearly tribute. Sokollu had reminded in his previous letters that the delayed tribute had to be dispatched as soon as possible to preserve peace. The tribute was finally delivered to the Ottoman court, but many complaints about border incursions by Ottoman agents were attached to it. In response, Sokollu, speaking from a position of superiority and in a hierarchically assertive manner, echoed a dictum he used only a year ago and stated that both sides should act with a mindset of “let bygones be bygones” (meżā mā meżā) and, because peace was “the master of all judgements,” the Viennese court was expected to obey that dictum.Footnote 76
While the symbolism and elevated diction projected confidence in the Ottoman position vis-à-vis Vienna and reflected Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s assured posture, the correspondence also operated as a screen, concealing political conditions that might otherwise have weakened the grand vizier in his dealings with the Habsburg monarchy. The last five years that Sokollu held the office of the grand vizier overlapped the first five years with Sultan Murad III on the throne. Murad III was a sultan who was portrayed as weak by Ottoman and European contemporaries. Moreover, after assuming the throne, he gradually came under the influence of an anti-Sokollu faction in the palace, thus multiplying the challenges Sokollu had to deal with as grand vizier: conveying the image of a powerful sultan to foreign courts while surviving the domestic threats to his position made by rivals who had allied themselves with the sultan. About Murad III, Giacomo Soranzo, the Venetian Bailo in Constantinople between 1576 and 1581, observed the following:
The sultan’s poor physical gifts are not dissimilar from those of his soul. He neither possesses nor is he capable of appreciating any noble art, except a little poetry. He is estranged from the affairs of the state, and when he attends any such activity, it is because of custom and urgency rather than personal inclination. He is very little dependent on himself. He is personally adverse to war, not being at all bellicose or inclined to military exercises. He abstains even from hunting, from which his predecessors took particular pleasure. Miserly to the extreme, he dispenses all the offices and posts to whoever offers the most, selling himself off in unmentionable ways and with most offensive manners from the point of view of justice.Footnote 77
Indeed, Murad III showed little personal interest in directly managing the affairs of the empire.Footnote 78 During the first five years of his reign, the responsibility fell to Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Additionally, the sultan’s unwillingness and incapacity to engage in state affairs had to be carefully and strategically concealed in Sokollu’s letters to Vienna. This is where we observe concrete examples of diplomatic simulation in the grand vizier’s letters. Sokollu portrayed Murad III as a courageous, warlike sultan, whose enthusiasm for shedding blood could be barely restrained. In this way, Sokollu’s letters became instruments of diplomatic simulation, constructing and presenting a particular image of the reigning sultan.Footnote 79
One of the most effective methods of achieving this was to evoke the memories of past sultans, who had notable achievements against the Habsburgs, and position Murad III alongside them as the inheritor of their legacy and even a more enthusiastic warrior compared to them. Sokollu’s letters argued that Murad III’s willingness to wage wars surpassed that of his predecessors, Selim I and Süleyman I. “The bravery, courage, sharpness, and calmness of our prosperous ruler, and the pleasure he takes in wielding the instruments of war and killing, far exceed those of his illustrious grandfathers. In particular, he ascended to power at a young age, and his zeal for holy war (jihad) knows no bounds,” wrote the grand vizier in one of the first letters he dispatched to Vienna after Murad III assumed power.Footnote 80 Sokollu’s alignment of Murad III with Selim I and Süleyman I was deliberate; the new sultan, who possessed neither military skills nor any interest in habits like hunting that former generations of sultans enjoyed, had to be painted in diametrical opposition to reality.
In another letter from July/August 1576, Sokollu wrote: “By the grace of Almighty God, our fortunate ruler, his majesty, possesses power and strength in perfection. In whichever side he directs his imperial attention, by the will of Almighty God, there is nothing to stand in front of him.”Footnote 81 In this case, Murad III was characterized as an invincible and divinely sanctioned sovereign. In other instances, Sokollu’s simulation extended to the military preparedness of the Ottoman army, openly threatening Vienna. In 1576, he wrote: “You must have certainly heard from those who come and go to your court that the troops of our majesties the prosperous sultan, whose numbers reach the stars, and his victorious banners are always ready and prepared; you must have likewise heard the extent of his power and glory and his might and harshness, which do not require any explanation.”Footnote 82 In a letter from 1577, Sokollu mixed allegory with menace, likening the Ottoman army’s size to the stars in the sky. “Thanks be to God, the power and strength, the grandeur and majesty of the sultan of the inhabited quarters of the world are at the highest level, and his soldiers, who are as numerous as the stars, are stationed at the borders, serving as the hunters of his enemies by God’s will. If these soldiers are given permission, you know what will happen to the countries, provinces, subjects, cities, and villages.”Footnote 83 The next year, the grand vizier was trying to convince Vienna that his previously mentioned “favorable interpretations” were done “in the hope of tempering the flames of [the sultan’s] wrath.”Footnote 84 Through such hyperbolic formulations, Sokollu magnified Murad’s military prowess, aiming to convey to Vienna a sense of awe and intimidation. These passages showed that the diplomatic correspondence of Sokollu with Vienna aimed to cover and hide as much as it revealed and disclosed. In this way, the grand vizier’s letter turned into an instrument of diplomatic image-making, which was essential in asserting Ottoman supremacy and maintaining diplomatic leverage against the Habsburg monarchy during a period of intense rivalry.
Conclusion
Our serial reading of the correspondence between Vienna and Constantinople during the tenure of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha provides fresh insights into what we call the diplomatic textuality of grand vizierial letters. The recurrent themes in the letters included border tensions, peace negotiations, dynastic politics, and broader questions of imperial legitimacy. Yet, the language used to discuss these themes made the letters sites of symbolic performance, in which hierarchy and authority were represented and negotiated by both the Habsburg and Ottoman courts. The textual instruments of this performance included rhetorical nuance, formal conventions, strategic self-presentation, literary imagery, as well as simulation and dissimulation. In letter after letter, accusations and veiled threats were cautiously blended with reassurances, and the conditionality of friendship and peace were frequently reiterated through an assertive language, especially on the Ottoman side. Using such discursive instruments, Sokollu consistently portrayed himself to Vienna as a trustworthy mediator, personally invested in the preservation of peace, while simultaneously insisting on tribute payments and border security as indispensable foundations of a “friendship” that, in accordance with Ottoman custom, could only ever be unequal. Peace is depicted as a gift conditional on Habsburg compliance; friendship was celebrated and cherished, but it required concrete demonstrations, and an ever-present cordiality masked intimidation. In this way, Sokollu’s letters emerge not as hollow texts of literary ornamentation but as pragmatic instruments of negotiation, at once conciliatory and coercive, conveying a genuine desire to preserve the status quo, while constantly reminding the Habsburgs of the Ottoman military preparedness for war. Maximilian II and Rudolf II, in turn, responded with a calibrated mixture of deference, assertion, and appeals to reciprocity. They defended Habsburg interests, highlighted Ottoman breaches when necessary, and asserted their authority, while avoiding open military confrontation and paying the annual tribute to Constantinople as agreed in 1547.Footnote 85 Yet, they simultaneously alluded to a parity of status between the two states, framing the relationship around a flexible notion of “friendship” maintained via reciprocal obligations for border security. Thus, both sides couched their relationship in a rhetoric of friendship that remained fluid, allowing the Ottomans to assert their superiority while enabling the Habsburgs to maintain claims to equality.Footnote 86 This was diplomatic textuality at play, helping Vienna and Constantinople sustain a functional yet inherently tense relationship.
Our findings, based on the exploration of these letters’ diplomatic textuality, have broader historical significance beyond the period examined in this article. First, our analysis demonstrates that there is much to be discovered in the textual dimension of early modern Ottoman-European diplomacy. As previously stated, recent scholarship, influenced by New Diplomatic History, has inspired scholars to explore the performative aspect of diplomacy, from ceremonies to gift exchange. However, this focus has obscured the core medium of the diplomatic moment and processes: the correspondence. This deficiency is especially remarkable from the Ottoman perspective. In the absence of permanent Ottoman embassies, sultanic and grand vizierial letters were the core medium of diplomatic communication for the Ottoman court. It was through these letters that the Ottoman court fundamentally articulated and negotiated hierarchy, authority, and peace. The seemingly pompous and lifeless facade of Ottoman grand vizierial correspondence concealed, first and foremost, nuances reflecting the political atmosphere of the era and the nature of the relationship between Vienna and Constantinople. That is, a cross-centuries analysis of grand vizierial correspondence can reveal correlations between shifts in international politics, particularly changes in the balance of power, and transformations in the diplomatic language of the Ottoman court and its European interlocutors.Footnote 87 In the meantime, these letters may provide us with glimpses of the character of the person in whose name the letters were written. In short, scholarship has much to learn from a cautious, line-by-line, serial reading of the letters: behind the elaborate style and linguistic embellishments of each letter stood a cautiously constructed diplomatic message that was shaped and reshaped by the ever-evolving balance of power between the two courts.
This article also demonstrates the necessity of using Habsburg and Ottoman sources concurrently, irrespective of archival provenance. A better understanding of Habsburg-Ottoman diplomacy necessitates a simultaneous, rigorous analysis of German and Ottoman sources, accompanied by, where possible, the use of archival materials in Latin and other European languages employed in diplomatic correspondence.Footnote 88 One should note that the number of contributions from Turkish scholarship that make comparative use of German and Ottoman sources has been growing recently,Footnote 89 but the inherently reciprocal and dialogical nature of diplomacy still contains many underexplored and under-researched dimensions that may be fully explored by meshing in future research the archival evidence in both languages.Footnote 90 This underscores the continued importance of European archives for Ottoman history; the originals of these letters were preserved for centuries in many European archives from Dubrovnik to Sweden, from Warsaw to London. Ultimately, integrating European archival material is essential to reconstructing the political agency of the office of grand vizier in European-Ottoman diplomatic relations.
Acknowledgments
This article is published within the framework of GraViz: The Ottoman Grand Vizierate 1560s to 1760s project (https://qhod.net/context:graviz/sdef:Context/get?locale=en), funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, P-36216) between September 2023 and August 2026 and carried out at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). GraViz investigates the history of the Ottoman grand vizierate with a particular focus on the diplomatic correspondence of selected early modern Ottoman grand viziers with the Viennese court. The principal investigator is Yasir Yılmaz. The archival source editors are Nilab Saeedi and Michael Vogelsberger. The data modeling is implemented by Stephan Kurz, Dimitra Grigoriou, and Jakob Sonnberger. All GraViz sources are published open access within the QhoD infrastructure (https://qhod.net/context:qhod/sdef:Context/get?locale=en), a digital editing project at the IHB, ÖAW, dedicated to the history of Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy in early modern and modern era and led by Arno Strohmeyer. In this article, only the first reference to GraViz contains the full citation information; from the second reference onward, only the document title, access date, and permalink to the cited source are provided.
