The Content, Religious and Political Background of the Turkish Calendar: the First Printed Work in Europe

After the conquest of Istanbul, European Christian powers started preparations for the Crusades and held meetings and congresses through the Roman-Germanic Empire and the Papacy. Apart from the meetings, a nine-page booklet called A Warning to Christians Against the Turks was printed in the Gutenberg Printing House, the first printing house in Europe, as a call for unity. This single-copy work, whose existence was not known for hundreds of years, was brought to light in the 19th century under the name T & uuml;rk Takvimi (Turkish Calendar) and with the claim of being the first printed calendar in Europe. This copy examined within the scope of this study is available in the Munich Digital Library. Digital libraries in Europe and international databases were scanned for secondary studies related to the work. Some works that could not be obtained by this method were received from various university libraries in Turkey. In this study, it has been seen that the calendar in question is an open propaganda text. Both the Christian statesmen of the period and the European Christian society are the target audience of the calendar, and Muslims/Turks are the parties considered enemies in the calendar. Therefore, the calendar in question was constructed based on religious references, and a text was created based on twelve months, referring to the twelve apostles. The effect of the propaganda in question was tried to be increased by mentioning the names of saints considered sacred to Christians in each month. The selection of some of the saints from Anatolia is evaluated as an effort to make Muslim lands a legitimate target based on religious origin. This calendar, which is a call for a crusade, includes addresses to all the influential Christian powers of Europe, primarily the Roman Germanic Empire, as well as England, France, Hungary, Burgundy, Castile, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Venice, Naples and Aragon. However, the center of the call is the emperor, the regions he ruled over and the German people who were his subjects. The Germans are at the forefront of the people directly addressed, since the calendar was printed both in German geography and in the German language. In addition to the Germans, the Ragusans, Albanians, Bulgarians, Dalmatians, Kosovars and Slavs in the Balkan countries were also invited to this union, and efforts were made to ensure these people who were part of the Ottoman Empire or lived within its borders, to take action. Turkish Calendar, which has a limited number of studies on it, has only appeared in a work translated into Turkish in Turkish literature. No study has been found in Turkish about the work. Through this study, it is aimed to reveal the formative process of the work in question, and the thesis which this work is the first-printed book of Europe, the work analysis and to inform the researchers who examine the process, about the existence of the calendar. Since the important elements accepted by the Christian society were specifically selected in the text, these issues were determined one by one through religious reference sources in our article. As a result of this study, it is aimed to make researchers studying the period aware of the existence of this calendar.