„Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan“

How did intellectual elites, who had acquired their position and formed their self-conception within the Ottoman Empire, deal with its loss and change? This question is discussed by looking at their representations of Southeast Europe in Ottoman and Turkish travel literature. The study analyses their attempts to continuously reposition themselves, their homeland and Southeast Europe in times of a shifting international balance of power. It also explores two mechanisms of processing the things observed – wonder and remembering. This approach allows us to reassess the importance of the lost region to the authors’ present and sheds new light on the transition from empire to republic.