Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir, called Demetrius Cantemir in Western books and Kantemiroglu in Turkey, lived from 1673 to 1723. The Encyclopaedia of Islam describes him as a hospodar, a tributary prince of Moldavia under the Ottomans, and as a renowned musical practitioner and theorist. ¹ He is remembered in two different ways: in Western Europe as an authority on the history and condition of the Ottoman Empire, and in Turkey chiefly for his music. ¹

He was born on 26 October 1673 at Silisteni, the son of Constantin, who was prince of Moldavia from 1685 to 1693. ¹ In 1687 he was sent to Istanbul as a princely hostage. He stayed until 1691, returned in 1693, and remained there until 1710, when he was himself appointed Boghdan beyi, governor of Moldavia. ¹ As prince he resided in Jassy, the Moldavian capital, from 1710 to 1711. ²

The article says that he promptly formed an alliance with Peter the Great, and that when the Ottomans won unexpectedly in 1711 he had to flee. He then lived in Russia, attached to the court. ¹ The article on the Pruth campaign reports that the support promised to the Tsar in a secret treaty with the prince of Moldavia was never delivered, because drought and locusts had ruined the crops. ³ Another article, written from the Ottoman side, calls his conduct treachery and says it had let Peter overrun most of Moldavia. ⁴ The article on Moldavia adds that Cantemir had secretly accepted the Tsar's protection in 1123/1711 in order to recover the Budjak. ⁵ The consequences were lasting. After 1711 the Porte chose the princes of the principalities only from a few Phanariot Greek families, and the article dates the Phanariot period in Moldavia and Wallachia from 1123/1711 to 1236/1821. ^{6 5} See the Treaty of Pruth and the Phanariots. In Russia he took part in the Caucasian campaign of 1722, fell ill, and died on 21 August 1723. ¹

Whatever his political importance, the article says it is his scholarly and creative achievement that justifies his reputation. He was as familiar with Islamic as with classical and contemporary European culture, a polymath with interests in architecture, cartography and geography who also wrote on philosophy and theology. ¹ His history of the growth and decay of the Ottoman Empire, first published in English translation in 1734-5, remained the standard source on the Ottomans in Europe for a century and is still of interest for his own observations. A further work, on the religion and state of the Ottoman Empire, stayed undeservedly in its shadow. ¹

Other articles of the Encyclopaedia draw on him as a witness. One notes his statement that Moldavia and Wallachia were never subject to the devshirme. ⁷ Another reports that he called the dervish poet Niyazi secretly a Christian, a suggestion the article says Niyazi's Divan does not justify. ⁸ A third traces the epithet "the Lawgiver" for Suleyman to its first mention in his work in the early 18th century. ⁹

In Turkey he is known as Kantemiroglu and renowned for his musical accomplishments. He was an outstanding tunbur player, and his innovative treatise influenced theoretical writing down to the middle of the 19th century. The modern repertoire preserves many pieces attributed to him; some are spurious, but his collection of notations is an invaluable record of late 17th-century Ottoman instrumental music, and shows him to have been a skilful and innovative composer. ¹ The treatise, Kitab-i Ilm-i musiki ala vechi'l-hurufat, is dated 1110/1700. ¹⁰

The article on music says the treatise stripped away the cosmological accretions of older theory and shows the main structural features of a specifically Ottoman musical idiom. His approach to scale resembles that of the Persian treatise Shadjara dhat al-akmam, with a much fuller account of the modal system, and his descriptions imply an approximate quarter-tone. ^{11 12} The earliest description of the Ottoman fasil is his, of 1110/1700. ¹⁰ In the article on the taksim, his treatise describes an extensive improvised instrumental taksim that touches on thirty other makams before returning to the first mode. ¹³ His history and treatise also serve as sources for the mehter, the Ottoman military band. ¹⁴

One article of the Encyclopaedia gives his death as 1727, against 1723 elsewhere; the museum follows the Supplement article devoted to him. ^{11 1}