Dragut, un corsario enemigo, admirado y temido

Abstract

The figure of Dragut, Dragutto or Turgut Reis, occupied an exceptional place in literature and Spanish historiography. His contemporaries admired this fearsome enemy rather than criticizing him (especially in the part regarding the Italian coasts). Subsequently, when Dragut achieved to conquer almost all the eastern Tunisian coast (Mahdia, Susa and other cities), he broke again the fragile Spanish-ottoman balance. Actually, Dragut meant to Tunis what the Barbarossas meant to Algiers, the eliminator of the Spanish influence in Tunis, from then converted into regency. The role of Dragut explains that, after his death, the chroniclers who narrate the history of the Spanish monarchs tend to demonize him, after understanding the role that Dragut had played in the battle for the control of Maghreb.