“…Joyful Blossoms will Flourish Among Friends, Bringing Cheer to all Places…” Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s Correspondence with the Habsburg Court (1565–79)

Abstract This article examines Ottoman grand vizierial correspondence as a central yet understudied medium of early modern Ottoman-Habsburg (and Ottoman-European) diplomacy. While scholarship on Ottoman diplomatics has extensively analyzed the philological, grammatical, structural, and material features of high-political letters, what we name the diplomatic textuality of grand vizierial correspondence, consisting of rhetoric, linguistic tone, emotional register, and any politically meaningful communicative content, remains insufficiently explored. Building on recent observations concerning the rich subtext of Ottoman epistolary practice, we argue that grand vizierial letters were not merely stylistically ornate products of chancery conventions nor “empty bombast”; they constituted the principal working interface of Ottoman diplomacy in the absence of permanent embassies abroad. Through a serial reading of the correspondence between Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and the Habsburg emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II, we demonstrate that these letters functioned as dynamic instruments of negotiation, hierarchy-making, and diplomatic communication between Constantinople and Vienna. We argue that a diachronic and serial analysis of early modern grand vizierial correspondence may reveal previously unexamined correlations between shifts in international politics, changing balances of power, and transformations in Ottoman-European diplomatic language.