Cultural Integration and the Making of Empire: Ottoman Poetry in Seventeenth-Century Bosnia

This article examines Bosnian participation in Ottoman poetry production in the seventeenth century. It follows the careers and personal lives of thirty seventeenth-century Ottoman-Bosnian poets, and identifies common career trajectories, poetic styles, and relations with other segments of Ottoman society. Since poetry was a central component of Ottoman culture, this analysis of Ottoman-Bosnian poetry production sheds new light on Bosnian cultural integration into the Ottoman Empire, thus adding another layer to our understanding of Bosnian incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. Bosnians' active participation in Ottoman poetry cycles is a manifestation of Bosnian identification with Ottoman culture more generally. Moreover, this article claims that this cultural identification stood on the basis of Bosnia's successful political and military integration into the Ottoman Empire.