2017. Vol. 5, no. 1. Roman Hautala

2017. Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 220-225

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22378/2313-6197.2017-5-1.220-225

      FICTIONAL MARRIAGE PROPOSAL
OF ANONYMOUS ASTRAKHAN KHAN

Roman Hautala 1,2
1 Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences
Kazan 420111, Russian Federation
2 University of Oulu
Oulu 90570, Finland
E-mail: romanhautala@gmail.com

The following text is reproduced from a handwritten copy of the letter made by the Italian humanist Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601) and contained in one codex of Ambrosiana Library in Milan (R 104 sup., fol. 194r) [see the description of the codex in: 3, no. 341. p. 125]. This codex (588 folios) contains Italian and Latin texts of the 16th century of extremely diverse content, which does not allow to determe neither the name of the author of the reproduced letter, nor the date of its writing. Nevertheless, a reference to the name of “Luther” in the letter suggests that it must have been written in the 16th century and an indication of the main purpose of the letter – matchmaking to anonymous queen – makes it possible to put forward quite a bold (but, for now, unproven) hypothesis that this letter might be addressed to approximates of the Polish Queen Bona Sforza and the widow of King Sigismund I the Old starting with the April 1, 1548. Following this hypothesis, the alleged author of the letter could be the ruler of Astrakhan Yamgurchi or the Crimean khan Sahib Giray. However, this assumption remains only a hypothesis, and the author of this article hopes that future researchers will be able to identify both the author of the letter and its recipients.
Be that as it may, this letter is of undoubtedly fictitious character since it does not indicate the name of its author and the date of writing and obviously differs from official form of the Tatar rulers’ letters. Undoubtedly, this letter refers to the literary genre of fictional letters of the rulers, which became extremely popular in Europe since the second half of the 15th century. As an illustration of this genre, the author of this article presents a “letter” of the Turkish sultan to the Tatars and their “response” from the fictional collection of “Letters of the Great Turk” [1, fol. 18r] of Laudivius Hierosolymitanus, which was a relatively widespread in Europe in the last quarter of the 15th century, republished 18 times in different cities of Western Europe according to Incunabula Short Title Catalogue of the British Library (http://istc.bl.uk/search/search.html) as well as published in Italian translation in 1563 by Lodovico Dolce [2, p. 51].

Keywords: Tatar rulers of the 16th century, kingdom of Poland, collection of manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, literary genre of fictional letters, Latin sources

For citation: Hautala R. Fictional Marriage Proposal of Anonymous Astrakhan Khan. Golden Horde Review. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 220–225.  DOI: 10.22378/2313-6197.2017-5-1.220-225

Thanks

I express my sincere thanks to Vladislav Gulevich and Ilya Zaytsev for valuable comments on the interpretation of the text. Of course, only the author of this article remains fully responsible for potential errors in the reading and interpretation of the letter’s text.

REFERENCES

  1. Laudivio Zacchia (Laudivius Hierosolymitanus). Epistolae magni Turci. Treviso, ca. 1475. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: 4o Inc.s.a. 1197 p. 22 fols. (In Latin)
  2. Lettere del Gran Mahvmeto imperadore de’ Tvrchi: scritte a diversi re, prencipi, signori, e repvbliche, con le risposte loro; ridotte nella volgar lingva da m. Lodovico Dolce. Insieme con le lettere di Falaride Tiranno de’ gli Agrigentini. Vinegia, Gabriel Golito de’ Ferrari, 1563. 192 p. (In Italian)
  3. Revelli P. I codici ambrosiani di contenuto geografico con XX tavole fuori testo. Milano, Luigi Alfieri, 1929. 196 p. (In Italian)

About the author: Roman Hautala – Ph.D. (History), Senior Research Fellow, Usmanov Center for Research on the Golden Horde and Tatar Khanates, Sh.Marjani Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan (7, Baturin Str., Kazan 420111, Russian Federation); Docent, Historical branch at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3898-0107 (1, Pentti Kaiteran Str., Historia, PL 1000, 90570, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland). E-mail: romanhautala@gmail.com

Received  January 17, 2017
Accepted for publication  March 6, 2017
Published online March 30, 2017