Thirty Years in the Service of the Habsburgs: Insight into the Devoted Work of the Turkish Dragoman (Interpreter) Johann Adam Lachowitz (1678–1709)

Abstract

The article focuses on the career and activities of Johann Adam Lachowitz. In December 1707, the Commander of Pétervárad (present day Петроварадин (Petrovaradin) in Serbia) nominated him as the head of a committee which met with the Ottoman commissaries on the border between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. The committee was created to negotiate in the case of 55 Muslim and Greek merchants who were murdered in Kecskemét on April 3, 1707. The negotiations took almost one and a half years and were his last completed assignment. He died a few months later, just after the consensus was reached in May 1709. Lachowitz did not have a violent death, but one can assume that the deplorable living conditions he had to endure his whole life, might have largely contributed to his indisposition and subsequent death. This paper shall provide an insight into these living conditions. The research on the career of the Turkish interpreter, later the Chief interpreter and then the secretary, can further enrich the academic narratives about the lives, services and office advancements of the lower officials in the Habsburg diplomatic organization. The interpreters (in the presented case, the interpreters of Oriental languages (dragomen)) assisted both courts with their services, which were arduous and often required personal sacrifices. They were the backbone of all the diplomatic structures in the Sublime Porte, in Vienna and on the Habsburg–Ottoman border as well. The outbreak of conflicts, the process of peace making and the corroboration of peace treaties were dependant on their contributions. Even though they were not soldiers, they nevertheless risked their lives while serving in an especially influential part of the Habsburg state structure. * This paper was written with the support of the János Bolyai Research Scholarship (Temesvári Oszmán aga diplomáciai tevékenysége a 17–18. század fordulóján a Habsburg-oszmán határvidéken, 2016–2019). The research related to this paper was supported by the Austrian-Hungarian Action Foundation (Osztrák-Magyar Akció Alapítvány) and by the Ministry of Human Capacities (Emberi Erőforrások Minisztériuma) through the grant (code no. 20391-3/2018/FEKUSTRAT). This paper is written as a contribution of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence, the Department of Medieval and Early Modern Hungarian History (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) (University of Szeged), and the MTA–SZTE Research Group of the Ottoman Age.