CONTENT ANALYSIS of the VIEWS of HISTORY DEPARTMENT STUDENTS on the IMPORTANCE of FAMILY HISTORY TEACHING

This paper discusses the question of reliability addressed to the primary sources in respect to the information they provide by taking as a case Ottoman-Safavid relations. Modern Ottoman historians usually rely on Ottoman primary sources and read the information given by the Safavid-Persian sources with doubts. In this study, I compare and contrast Ottoman and Persian sources as well as European sources by focusing on the background of the 1555 Amasya Peace Agreement as one of the periods that Ottomans and Safavids had frequent diplomatic relations. I try to show how Celalzade whose narrative has been relied by the Ottoman historians absolutely manipulated the reality and how Persian and European sources concur on certain details contrary to Celalzade’s account. Therefore, I argue that there is no hierarchy among primary sources in respect to reliability and one should approach each one of these sources equally critically regardless of the identity of its author