Entertaining the Crowds: Early Ottoman Historiography between Orality and Bestseller

The present paper deals with the issue of defining functional tools able to help modern historians understand the genesis and evolution of historiography in 14th-century Anatolia. It emphasises the indistinct lines between hagiographies and sagas and between leader-centred and popular texts, while making a strong case for the key role played by the necessity of creating entertainment. Having become bestsellers exponentially raised the chances of these creations to survive across centuries. Most of the texts we use today as historical sources were designed to entertain their consumers. Moralising or ideologically manipulating them came only in the second or third place.