Last of the Ancients, First of the Moderns: The Ottoman Historian Ahmed Vasif (ca. 1730-1806)
As a EUME Fellow Ethan will follow up his doctoral research in “Last of the Ancients, First of the Moderns,” a project in intellectual biography that focuses on the transitional Ottoman statesman and historian Ahmed Vâsıf Efendi (ca. 1730-1806) and his milieu at the dawn of the modern period. Under Mustafa III, Abdülhamid I, and Selim III, the Ottoman Empire began its first attempts at European-style administrative and military modernization. These efforts are well-attested and are invariably depicted as a watershed in the empire's development. Yet less understood is the surrounding intellectual climate. The last quarter of the eighteenth century was particularly traumatic for the empire and the political life of the period suggests that elites underwent a moral and intellectual crisis, struggling, as challenges forced new worldviews upon them, to answer pressing questions: Why did this happen? How could this happen? What must be done?
“Last of the Ancients, First of the Moderns” is a project in intellectual history that will clarify this juncture in the empire through the study of a leading figure, the statesman and historian Vâsıf (ca. 1730-1806), and his circle. It explores the moral and intellectual reaction of Ottoman elites to the challenges posed by European ascendancy and the empire's eroding power, helping to both contextualize and historicize the early Ottoman experience of modernity. Vâsıf and his milieu not only shed light on completely new aspects of Ottoman letters—heated debates over moral renewal, justice, and human agency—but they also demonstrate a vital intellectual response that was deeply enmeshed in currents of Islamic philosophy, ethics, and statecraft.