Szuverenitás és reprezentáció. Erdély a Porta 17. századi diplomáciai rendszerében
Sovereignty and Representation: Transylvania in the Seventeenth-Century Diplomatic System of the Sublime Porte

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses Transylvania’s sovereingty towards the Ottoman Empire through a comparative analysis of the principality’s diplomatic representation at the Sublime Porte. Four major questions are examined in detail. First, how were the embassies structured? What different forms and ranks of deputies did various political entities deploy to represent their interests in the Ottoman capital? Second, can the embassy’s location be taken as an indicator of the prestige of the representatives residing there? Third, what was the ceremonial aspect of their presence, that is, the formal acts of the entry of the diplomats to Constantinople and their audiences with the grand vizier and the sultan? Last, what conclusions can be drawn from the occasional mistreatment of diplomats? The typology of the diplomatic representatives at the Sublime Porte and the terminology associated with them proved to be unfit for showing clear distinctions between the treatment of tributaries and independent states. The topography of the residents’ lodging also showed divisions running along different lines. The analysis of diplomatic ceremonies, however, did point to distinct boundaries between the peripheries of the empire, its tributaries, and the states independent from the sultan’s rule. Both the quantitative and qualitative differences in the diplomatic ceremonies in Constantinople proved to be weaker between Transylvania and the independent states than among the principality and the voievodates of Moldavia and Wallachia. The cases of mistreatment, on their part, pointed to an important chronological divide in the prestige Transylvania enjoyed at the Sublime Porte and the analysis shows that this change tookplace in the late 1650s and early 1660s.

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