Just published. A Turkish-language history of the Soviet Union, written with @onurisci.bsky.social. Somewhat in the way that Dan Diner asked in Cataclysms how 20th-century history might be told looking out from Odesa, we approach Soviet history with Turkish connections/comparisons in mind.

Şimdi tüm kitapçılarda…

Yıllar süren uzun bir yolculuğun sonunda yeni kitabımızın Ekim ayında @kronikkitap.bsky.social tarafından yayımlanacağını paylaşmaktan mutluluk duyuyoruz. Kitapta gökyüzünde bir anda belirip, muazzam bir enerjiyle parlayıp kayan bir yıldızın hikayesini anlattık, umarım beğenirsiniz.

We held a conference on The Ottomans and Diplomacy @newnhamcollege.bsky.social 10-12 July 2025, including 26 papers from historians from France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the US. The full programme is on our website. Photos by Dasha Tenditna

Istanbul’s Orthodox community marks the birth and baptism of Jesus of Nazareth. 2025 epiphany ceremony held by the Fener Greek Patriarchate on the cold waters of the Golden Horn. 🎄 ⛪️ 🎉

2025 will be the 1700th anniversary of the First Nicene Council. Pretty little Anatolian town for history fans and tile lovers. #nicenecreed #iznik

I contributed to an edited collection on the Black Sea based on an excellent conference we held in Wien back in 2020. @univie.ac.at To read my chapter (Mare Clausum: War and Diplomacy on the Black Sea, 1939 – 91) see the @degruyterbrill.bsky.social link below. www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

Rough times will pass. Happy thanksgiving, so long, and thanks for all the turkey 🦃

www.yirmidort.tv/gundem/baede... This is still Ethem Sancak’s TV channel no? @heissenstat.bsky.social Used to make ferry rides in Istanbul a truly Orwellian experience 🧐

This statement, from the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirms that Turkey cooperated w/ the UAE in arresting & extraditing the 3 Uzbeks who killed Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE. The attackers may have thought they’d be safe in Turkey. But their extradition reflects strengthened UAE-Turkey ties.

Adam Hanieh's "Laundering Carbon" exposed the hollow politics behind fossil-centered states' excitement on the carbon trading market, which are amounting to a string of land grabs in Africa with terrible results for indigenous communities.

Last day of the conference in Boston @aseees.bsky.social. If you’re still around, come join our roundtable at Simmons (3rd floor - 12:00pm-1:45pm). Michaela Papa, Anton Fedyashin, Pedram Partovi, Zhen Han and I will be discussing how BRICS fits in the new multi-polar international order.

My first time at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, MA. Gorgeous building, great library but I’m a bit underwhelmed by the museum itself tbh. You can spare about 90 minutes for the whole tour, including 2 short movies that last for about 30 minutes.

Looking forward to our panel with Serhii Plokhii, Mark Steinberg, Frank Sysyn and Susan Smith-Peter at the @aseees.bsky.social 56th Convention in Boston this weekend. We'll discuss how textbooks in English have presented Russian and Ukranian historical narratives and how those have at times clashed.

My latest article (with @samueljhirst.bsky.social) ‘Let the Black Sea Unite Us’: the 1967 Soviet-Turkish industrial agreement and Ankara’s cold war rapprochement with Moscow. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Annual pilgrimage to Martin’s for Richard Stites - the best advisor and a great human being

Looking forward to our panel with Serhii Plokhii, Mark Steinberg, Frank Sysyn and Susan Smith-Peter at the @aseees.bsky.social 56th Convention in Boston this weekend. We'll discuss how textbooks in English have presented Russian and Ukranian historical narratives and how those have at times clashed.

Cold War Historians...not at all thorough or complete so pleae make suggestions or ask to be added! go.bsky.app/NAWTQUp

I hadn’t seen anyone else do it, so I’m working on a starter pack of Russia/USSR/Eurasia historians. Check it out! go.bsky.app/CagBxPQ

At the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava.

if you’re new here, those of us who’ve been on bluesky a while have a LOT of lore to catch you up on that is frankly not very interesting. we’re gonna try to tell you about something called “alf hog” and you’ll be like “wait, that’s it? huh. alright. well, sounds like you had fun.” i can't wait

Been on this platform for over a year now but kept my X acct to follow several pundits/outlets posting in Turkish. Like others, I have noticed the surge of ex-X users moving here since Nov 6th. But what’s interesting is that, my X feed has concurrently turned from revolting to wholly irrelevant.

Bluesky tip for newbies: Bluesky has no real algorithm. Likes here do nothing but show the poster that you enjoyed their content. That kindness is always going to be appreciated by creators, but if you want to help to boost something here, you have to repost it so others see it. 🙂

The US edition of TO THE CITY spotted in the wild, at a branch if the New York Public Library. You can buy your copy in the US now.

Hello Bluesky, I am a historian based in Ankara. A few months ago, Oxford University Press published my first book, which explores the way that Russian and Turkish revolutionaries arrived at a statist partnership as they responded to post-WWI liberal internationalism.

You can now access the PDF copy of our roundtable with Sergey's thought-provoking response

tnsr.org/roundtable/b.... Meanwhile, here's my response to the Texas National Security Review roundtable on my book, To Run the World. Some reflections here on ideology, legitimacy, economics, and morality in the Cold War. Plus a few ambitious zingers - check it out.

two lil’ guests in my office, enjoying their mid-semester break

#Slavin WW2 memorial in Bratislava for fallen Soviet soldiers. It’s perplexing to see how starkly the public opinion is divided in Czechia and Slovakia over the War in Ukraine.

New statue commemorating the victims of the Prague Spring (Invasion of the city by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968) was unveiled this past August near the Kampa Museum. I just had a chance to visit Czech sculptor Jiří Sozanský’s pertinently entitled “August 1968/1969.”

crescent & star on crimson sky dot com

I participated in a recent roundtable on Sergey Radchenko’s latest account of the Cold War. I am biased, but I think the results are a fun read. To read my review, see 👇 tnsr.org/roundtable/b...

A tweet you still think about

This post has been living rent-free in my head all week. “I would like a SMALL APPLE”

I moved back to Turkey about a decade ago, and there has been some dark moments. But at the centenary of the republic I am hopeful, not least because there is a new generation but also bright young women who will take this country in the right direction. 🇹🇷 💯 #Atatürk

Just received a copy of the recently published - A Hundred Years of Republican Turkey, edited by Alp Yenen and Erik-Jan Zürcher. This book, to which I contributed with two chapters, is the collective work of numerous great scholars. Happy to be among them. Many thanks, Alp

Bluesky over the Golden Horn

I wasn’t planning my first post to be a self-promoting one but happy to see my article published in Diplomatic History. Here we go: Were Stalin’s demands from Turkey in 1945 real ? Was this a case of Turkish calumny? Based on research in multiple country archives my take 👉 https://t.co/ithXwf1le3