Diplomatie als kollektive Praxis: Botschaftssekretäre und diplomatischer Alltag im frühneuzeitlichen Istanbul , by Florian Kühnel

Istanbul as a hub of intercultural diplomacy has attracted the interest of the New Diplomatic History in recent decades. Florian Kühnel’s postdoctoral thesis can be assigned to this historiographical direction. Furthermore, he aims to correct an imbalance in research by rethinking diplomacy as a ‘collective practice’ which includes the impact of low-ranking actors. To this end, he focuses on embassy secretaries, a category of diplomatic actors which has so far been neglected by research, in order to overcome the focus on diplomats in the ‘front row’ such as ambassadors. At first glance, the choice of Istanbul as the location of a research study that aims to reconceptualise early modern diplomacy may be surprising. Actually, Florian Kühnel himself states that the Sublime Porte was a diplomatic post which was in many respects quite different from other sites of diplomacy in Europe. Furthermore, English or British diplomacy in Istanbul represents a special case in itself as it was exercised and financed partly by the Crown and partly by the Levant Company. The author turns doubts about the representative status of his case-study into a virtue by arguing that the peculiarities of English diplomacy in Istanbul and the intercultural setting at the Bosphorus posed a particular challenge to the actors involved and therefore makes it the ideal subject for examining the entire range of diplomatic and consular practices.