Modern History Sourcebook:
Thomas Thorton:
The Phanariots of Moldavia, 1809
The education of the boyars is little superior in point of real utility to that of the
common people. The children are instructed by priests in the houses of their parents, and
are surrounded by chinganehs, who corrupt them by abject servility and a base
compliance with all their caprices. Formed by such tutors, they pass into a world of
hypocrisy and vice, without one just principle to regulate their conduct, without one
generous purpose, or one honourable sentiment. They adopt indiscriminately the vices,
without inheriting the vivacity, of the Greeks, or veiling them with that delicacy which
the Greeks have not wholly relinquished. They confound whatever is most degrading in
luxury with the fair fruit of civilization, and in their rude adoption of European
manners, they plunge into promiscuous debauchery, and indulge to excess in an unprincipled
passion of gaming. Like the Poles and Hungarians the boyars inherit a taste for
magnificent dresses and splendid equipages: they love balls and public entertainments, but
their assemblies are rude and tumultuous. Their tables are open to every person of their
acquaintance, but are inelegantly served. In the cities they are forbidden to form
connexions of intimacy, or even to keep up intercourse, with strangers; but I have
occasionally lodged for a night in their country seats, and was always received and
treated by them with a plain but decent hospitality.
The Greeks adopt a more than Asiatic luxury: they sleep after dinner on their sophas,
whilst a female servant fans away the flies and refreshes the air which they breathe: They
exact from their attendants the respect and homage which they have seen paid to the
Turkish grandees; but feeling within themselves no consciousness of personal worth or
importance, they cannot command with Turkish dignity, the petulance of vanity betrays
itself in harsh expressions, and insulting behaviour, to their inferiors. On the death or
deposition of a prince the divan assembles, and immediately assumes the administration of
public affairs. All the creatures or dependents of the prince are removed from office, and
other persons are appointed, who are continued in 2uthority until the arrival of his
successor. The catmacam, or lieutenant of the newly created prince announces the
nomination of his master, but does not interfere in the affairs of government, further
than in superintending the collection of the prince's revenues. The fallen sovereign is
immediately forsaken by his courtiers, is always treated with neglect, and sometimes with
insult and abuse. He returns privately, and without pomp, to Constantinople, where he
retires to his seat in the Fanal or on the shores of the Bosphorus. With the usual modesty
of rayahs the princes resume their habits of submission, and the exterior of
humility. They are followed only by a single servant; but at home they are surrounded by a
princely and titled household: they allot to particular officers distinct portions of
service, and pass the day in planning new schemes of ambition, or in receiving the secret
homage of their clients and vassals....
Source:
From: Thomas Thorton, The Present State of Turkey, (London: Joseph Mawman,
1809), Vol. II, pp. 369-371, reprinted in Alfred J. Bannan & Achilles Edelenyi, eds., Documentary History of Eastern Europe, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1970), pp.
118-119.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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