Arhiva IRIMIA Mihaela
Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Ovidius” Constanţa nr.22 / 2011 vol.1
IRIMIA MIHAELA - Bound East for Exile: The Case of Claude-Alexandre Bonneval alias Ahmet Pasha
(pag. 77-82)
Count Claude-Alexandre de Bonneval (1675-1747), turned, after conversion to Islam, Ahmet Pasha, is an exciting case of self-assumed exile with imbroglios involving the big powers of the day (Venice, Austria, Turkey, France) in the background. The politico-diplomatic and military components of these relations were far from alien to his personal life and public career. His (spurious) Memoirs do not simply raise auctorial doubts. They host material of genuine interest for the analyst of cultural identity/ies and of the imagological threads that go into their making. This paper deals with the long symbolic exile experienced by an exciting character subject to public metamorphoses. It also looks into the everyday observed by his interested eye spying customs, values, protocols and practices of the Western and Eastern cultures in which he lived.