ΓΙΑΓΚΟΣ (Ιωάννης) ΑΡΙΣΤΑΡΧΗΣ [pseudonym Charikles]: Reise-Briefe eines Diplomaten. Wismar 1880 First and only edition. In 8vo (19x13 cm). Contemporary cloth over boards. Text clean and bright. Complete: 319 p. Overall in very good condition. Ioannis Aristarchis (1811–1897), a prominent Fanariot Greek of the 19th century, served as the Ottoman ambassador to Berlin in the mid-1870s. In 1876, appointed to his new post in Persia, he traveled through the Levant, recording his impressions in this volume, published under the pseudonym Charicles (Χαρικλής). Aristarchis was part of a select group of Greeks in Ottoman service who, after the mid-century reforms, promoted the ideology of Ελληνοοθωμανισμός (Greco-Ottomanism): the belief in forging a reformed Ottoman state based on equality among its peoples, where Greeks, by virtue of their education and economic strength, could eventually predominate. This movement saw Slavic expansion as the greatest threat and sought Greek Turkish cooperation as the solution. A very rare travel account to the Levant written by a Greek diplomat in Ottoman service ,a unique book Aristarchis kept a daily travel diary, beginning in Vienna on 29 May 1876, immediately after the Bulgarian revolt. Aristarchis crossed the Balkans amidst an open revolt, and left precious eyewitness testimonies, describing them as a modern Babel. By the summer he reached Constantinople, where he remained for some time, leaving invaluable first-hand testimony of the city’s condition on the eve of Russian intervention. In early 1877 he travelled across Anatolia to Baghdad and onward to Ispahan, offering rare and detailed observations on regions then still largely inaccessible to foreign travellers. Published in 1880, just after the Berlin Congress reshaped the Balkan order, this book appeared in a very limited print run. Today it is extremely rare, and absent from all major collections.