EUROPEAN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SOURCESON NADIR SHAH AFSHAR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32653/CH222%25pKeywords:
Nadir Shah Afshar, eighteenth-century European sources, Orientalism, biographical tradition, Enlightenment, historiographical narratives, representation of the EastAbstract
The article offers a comprehensive examination of eighteenth-century European representations of the personality and reign of Nadir Shah Afshar as they emerged within the intellectual and political milieu of the Enlightenment. Drawing on a wide range of diplomatic, memoir, missionary, and historiographical sources, it analyzes the mechanisms through which the image of an Eastern ruler was constructed in European culture of the period. The study identifies the key narrative strategies that shaped the representation of Nadir Shah– from the heroic portrayal of a “liberator” and reformer to the formation of a stable image of the “Oriental despot,” embodying the concept of unrestrained and destructive power. The article demonstrates that European interpretations of Nadir Shah’s rule took shape within broader Enlightenment discourses: critiques of despotism, the growing interest in universal history, the consolidation of a colonial gaze, and emerging attempts to conceptualize the East as a cultural and political “Other.” As a result, the figure of Nadir Shah became embedded in binary oppositions that contrasted the “civilized” West with the “barbaric” East, reinforcing the fundamentally ambivalent character of his portrayal in European historiography. Critiques of ‘Eastern despotism,’ fascination with ‘exotic’ societies, and the affirmation of a Eurocentric model of historical development contributed to the emergence of a contradictory and multifaceted image of Nadir Shah. The analysis underscores the need for a critical reassessment of this European corpus with close attention to its textual origins, rhetorical functions, and wider political-intellectual context. Such an approach makes it possible to uncover the mechanisms through which Enlightenment thinkers constructed and instrumentalized the figure of Nadir Shah in debates on political authority, legitimacy, and civilizational development. It also enables the reconstruction of a more complex, multilayered picture of the reciprocal perceptions and cultural projections that shaped interactions between East and West in the early modern period.
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