Immigrant Narratives: The Ottoman Sultans' Portraits in Elisabeth Leitner's Family Photo Album, circa 1862-72
This article is a study of the family photo album of Elisabeth Leitner (ca. 1842?-1908), a Hungarian immigrant in the Ottoman empire. The album contains a complete set of cartes de visite portraits of the Ottoman sultans by the Abdullah Frères. As the only surviving example of such a collection with...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2018]
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| In: |
Muqarnas
Year: 2018, Volume: 35, Issue: 1, Pages: 193-228 |
| Further subjects: | B
Elisabeth Leitner
B Ottoman sultans B Immigrant B cartes de visite B Connected Histories B family album B Abdullah Frères B Leopold Amery B Photography B Missionaries B Bursa B Hungarian B Istanbul |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article is a study of the family photo album of Elisabeth Leitner (ca. 1842?-1908), a Hungarian immigrant in the Ottoman empire. The album contains a complete set of cartes de visite portraits of the Ottoman sultans by the Abdullah Frères. As the only surviving example of such a collection with a known provenance, it provides a rare opportunity for understanding how such images were used in the context of identity formation and social mobility undertaken by a member of the immigrant population. The album, which has never been studied before, is also a fascinating source for investigating the history of Hungarian immigrants in the Ottoman empire who were displaced after the 1848 Revolution. The article approaches the intriguingly autobiographical album by means of a close reading of Elisabeth Leitner's diaries and unfinished autobiography. My interpretation serves to dismantle notions of a carefree global cosmopolitanism and exposes a historiographical bias that privileges men and their collections of images and ethnographic artifacts over those of women. Elisabeth Leitner's writings and photographic collection also represent a vast and entirely untapped resource for investigating cultural contacts between Europe and the Ottoman empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-8993 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Muqarnas
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/22118993_03501P009 |
