Renegade ( lat. Renegatus from renego “I renounce”) - a person who has converted from one religion to another; in a figurative sense - a person who has betrayed his convictions and transferred to the camp of opponents, an apostate, a traitor [1] . In Europe, the Middle Ages and the New Age, the term meant a Christian who sided with the Muslims ( Arabs , Turks ) and converted to Islam [2] .
Ottoman
In the state apparatus and army of the Ottoman Empire , renegade Christians were a mass phenomenon. These were both Christians from the lands conquered by the Turks (Greeks, Serbs, Albanians), and numerous adventurers from Western Europe (Italians, French, Germans, Dutch) who wanted to make a career at the Sultan’s court or (as in the case of the Dutch corsairs) rob European ships based on the ports of the Barbarian coast . The role of renegades in the heyday of the XV-XVI centuries and the subsequent decline of the Ottoman Empire is estimated by historians as extremely contradictory. On the one hand, their contribution to the development of Turkish statehood during the Ottoman expansion is undeniable:
Strange as it may seem at first glance, however, the fact that the greatness of the Ottoman Empire and its splendor at the best of its existence was to some extent created by the hands of Christians is not subject to the slightest doubt. There were many adventurers from Christians who entered the army of the Turks and took part in their campaigns; they provided particularly important services to the Turks in those branches of the military and naval affairs in which the Turks themselves did not possess sufficient experience and knowledge; they were in charge of artillery, fleet, worked in arsenals and shipyards ... All the most important administrative posts were in the hands of Christian renegades ... The position of a great vizier was, as it were, a privilege of Christian renegades and was not awarded to persons of Turkish origin ... Systematic patronage of Christian renegades, the custom to give them the best and lucrative places brought undeniable benefit to the empire.
- N. A. Skaballanovich [3]
On the other hand [2] [4] , their absolute lack of principle, a consumer attitude to the new homeland, the hypocrisy of conversion to Islam, which ultimately led to the erosion of the national identity of the Ottoman ethnos , are noted:
The Decline of the High Port in the 17th Century attracted the attention of Turkish contemporary writers. In their opinion, the cause of the decline was the “Ajemoglans,” that is, the children of the renegades, and the sincerity of the neophytes was not questioned. Some renegades were energetic and helpful people ... but most of them looked for a warm place and mined sinecures through the harems of viziers, filled with Polish, Croats, Italians, Greek women, etc. These crooks, withoutni foi ni loi , destroyed the Ottoman ethnic group, and real Ottomans already in the XVIII century. were reduced to the position of an ethnic group oppressed in their own country. The influx of foreigners crippled the stereotype of behavior, which affected the venality of the viziers, the bribery of judges, the decline in the combat effectiveness of the troops and the collapse of the economy. By the beginning of the XIX century. Turkey has become a "sick man . "
- L. N. Gumilyov
Famous Renegades [5] [6]
- Cassius (Banu Kashi)
- Kose Michal
- Aruj Barbarossa
- Hyr ad Din Barbarossa
- Uluj Ali
- Murat Reis Jr
- Bonneval, Claude Alexander de
- Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Stanislavovich
- Boehme, Jozef Zaharias
- Lutfi Pasha, Omer
- Langevich, Marian
- Urben, Ismael
- Murad, Leila
See also
- Muvalladah
- Apostasy
- Traitors
- Defector
- Irtidad
Notes
- ↑ Renegade // Large explanatory dictionary of the modern Russian language / Ed. D.N. Ushakova . - M .: Astrel - AST, 2009 .-- 1280 s. - 1,500 copies - ISBN 978-5-17-023907-8 .
- ↑ 1 2 Gumilyov L.N. Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth. - M .: DI-DIK, 1997 .-- 640 p. - (Works of L.N. Gumilyov). - 12,000 copies. - ISBN 5-87583-007-7 .
- ↑ Skaballanovich, 1878 , p. 424-427.
- ↑ Smirnov V.D. Kuchibey Gomyurdzhinsky and other Ottoman writers of the XVII century on the causes of the decline of Turkey. SPb., 1873.
- ↑ Ragunstein A.G. Pirates under the banner of Islam. Robbery on the Mediterranean Sea in the XVI - early XIX century . - M .: Veche, 2012 .-- 296 p. - (Maritime Chronicle). - ISBN 978-5-4444-0003-6 .
- ↑ Zhukov K. A. Poles in the Ottoman Empire and Russia (60–70s of the XIX century) // Problems of National Strategy: Journal. - 2015. - No. 6 (33) . - ISSN 2079-3359 .
Literature
- Renegade // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- Skaballanovich N. A. Politics of the Turkish government in relation to Christian subjects and their religion // Christian Reading : Journal. - SPb. : St. Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy, 1878. - No. 9-10 . - S. 423-464 .
- Graf, Tobias P. The Sultan's Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite, 1575-1610 . - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 .-- ISBN 978-0-19-879143-0 .