透过夜色:18世纪伊斯坦布尔的夜生活、光明与权力

Into the Dark: Power,Light,and Nocturnal Life in 18th-Century Istanbul

本文分析了18世纪的伊斯坦布尔夜间娱乐的不同传统,并证明了夜间娱乐对于社会、政治和文化生活的重要性。本文的主要论点是:宫廷里以灯光证明苏丹权力在夜间的存在,并且保证了他和精英人士的联系,这对于专制制度下的世袭政府至关重要。不过,这种情况还是说明朝廷对夜晚的控制有限。黑夜使得邻居成为监视盲区,社区巡逻失去效用,很大程度上使得夜间发生的事都隐藏在当权者的眼皮底下。因而,夜晚也为非法的社会活动,甚至是颠覆性的政治行动提供了机会。

This article analyzes different traditions of nocturnal conviviality in 18 th-century Istanbul and demonstrates their importance on social,political,and cultural life. The main argument is that the palace used the night to demonstrate its power in spectacles of light and to cultivate personal relations among the elite,which was crucial for a patrimonial government based on face-to-face interaction.However,it was exactly the reliance on such interaction that marked the limits of the palace’ s hold of the night. With the neighborhood gaze blinded by darkness,communal policing lost much of its effectiveness,leaving nocturnal social life largely concealed from the eyes of the authorities. Nighttime therefore offered opportunities for illicit modes of socialization and,at times,for subversive political action.