Die Karriere des deutschen Renegaten Hans Caspar in Ofen (1627–1660) im politischen und kulturellen Kontext

The author examines 17th-century Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy, with a focus on the frontier. This work centres on the life and work of a so-called renegade, who was born Alexander Fischer in Vienna but later converted to Islam, serving successive viziers in Buda as Hüseyin Chiaus (Çavuş), while learning Hungarian. Between 1629 and 1660, he was employed as a spy by Habsburg diplomats and frontier officials, by the dignitaries of the Kingdom of Hungary (under the pseudonym Hans Caspar), and occasionally by the princes of Transylvania. He wrote dozens of reports (in both German and Hungarian), which are published in the second half of this volume. These sources are of great importance for the study of the Habsburg–Ottoman frontier as they provide pieces of information, for instance about the court dignitaries of the Vizier of Buda or about the Ottoman delegations sent by the Sublime Porte to the viziers, which cannot be retrieved from other sources. In addition, Hans Caspar’s reports are a valuable contribution to the research on renegades as the information they contain enriches the current state of research from several aspects.