Page 127 - sfogliabile 49

The best-kept secret in the Mediterranean: Barbarossa’s 1534 Tunis campaign 393

productions of the şehnâme writers were monitored by the sultan and
his intimate circle . In this respect, Süleyman must have directly
58
intervened at least in Ârif Çelebi’s Süleymannâme and approved its
final shape. At the same time, it is also probable that the damage that
the Ottoman defeat in 1535 caused to the sultan’s image and strategy
in the Mediterranean was not seen very clearly at the time of the first
Süleymannâmes. The concern of Bostan Çelebi and Matrakçı Nasuh
seems to be limited to the representation of the ephemeral success of
Barbarossa’s conquest of Tunis and his subsequent defeat as a mere
historical fact. In line with changes in the understanding of Ottoman
dynastic image, later Süleymannâmes opted for a distinct variety of
historical discourse to mask the damage it entailed to the reputation
of the sultan and his struggle against the Habsburgs. Nevertheless, as
is seen in Âşık Çelebi’s Meşâirü’ş-şuarâ, non-political contemporary
sources identified the year 1534 with Barbarossa and emphasized his
Tunis campaign as a marker of that time.

Conclusions

The conquest of Tunis in 1534 provoked a swift retaliation from
Charles V and resulted in Barbarossa’s defeat by the emperor the
following year. Charles V’s victory was celebrated Europe-wide and
gained an enormous popularity over time, equating the expulsion of
Barbarossa from Tunis with the conquest of Carthage by Scipio. In
fact, it was the only major setback for Süleyman and Barbarossa
against the Habsburgs in the Mediterranean and was seen as an
ineradicable stain on the careers of the sultan and his admiral. The
outcome affected the way in which the struggle for Tunis was handled
in Spanish and Ottoman historiographical traditions. Whereas
Charles V’s expedition became an important element of Habsburg
propaganda over the years, Barbarossa’s defeat turned the initial
victory into a defeat, making it a problematic event about which
Ottoman historiographers produced different narratives. The main
divergence among the Ottoman chronicles dealing with this topic lay
in their inconsistent explanations as to why Barbarossa took the
sultan’s fleet towards Tunis and conquered it. Some sources
attributed it to the sultan’s specific orders and some either denied the
existence of any official instruction or avoided addressing the question
by ignoring the campaign. The different forms of explanation that the

58 F. S. Eryılmaz, The Sulaiman-nama (Süleyman-name) as an Historical Source cit., pp.
189-190.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)