Erasing oral residue and correcting scribal error: re-interpreting the presence of mnemo-technical practices in Ottoman manuscripts in the early modern period

The international conference Culture of Memory in East Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages (1000-1600) was held at Poznań University Conference Centre in Ciążeń (March 12-14, 2008). The conference was attended by participants from Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Norway, the UK, the USA and Poland. The event was organized by Poznań University Library (represented by Rafał Wójcik) with the co-participation of the Centre of Theoretical Studies at Charles University in Prague (represented by Lucie Doležalová) and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest (Gábor Farkas Kiss). The conference was partly financed by Poznań University Library and partly from a grant awarded by the International Visegrad Fund. Ms Norton’s presentation entitled Re-interpreting the presence of mnemo-technical practices in Ottoman manuscripts in the early modern period dealt with the production, transmission and reception of texts in early modern Ottoman manuscripts. These processes were shown as a slow change in the transition from oral culture to literate culture. Ms Norton’s paper was an interesting contribution and reference to work of such researchers in orality as Walter J. Ong or Michael T. Clanchy. Ms Norton also pointed out that the content of the corpus of 25 manuscripts known as Gazavat-i Tiryaki Hasan Paşa had been known to the inhabitants of the borderland between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy in South-East Europe of the time.