Tchavdar Marinov's article on Macedonia is the last article in the polylingual nationalisms special issue that Alexander Maxwell and I edited.

I know I shouldn't complain but here's a thing that bothers me a lot. Whenever a scholar decides to publish his/her PhD thesis as a book, the relevant thesis suddenly evaporates. Then, researchers cannot access that thesis until it emerges as a book.

Onlar yolun sonunda, biz yolun başındayız! Safımız milletle birdir. Millet bizimle beraberdir.

Forthcoming! Looking forward to it. I suppose it's the bigger project of his article that he published in 2016: "Nationalism in Function: "Rebellions" in the Ottoman Empire and Narratives in Its Absence" Economy of Revolution by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan cup.org/4u4XyJH

This Friday, May 29! Register: ucdavis.zoom.us/.../register...

Join OTSA for “Empire of Officials: Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Bureaucracy" with Abdulhamit Kırmızı, Marmara University and University College Dublin, on Friday, May 29, 2026 at 12pm CST (8pm Istanbul) via Zoom. Register here: ucdavis.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

I finally managed to take a start for my thesis:) One of the first paragraphs I come up with involves "liminal space" and "habitus". I hate myself. I carry a boring/outdated literature in my toolbox with my global historiography instincts. Reproducing big theories : lazy academic instinct:)

Update: there are "official" rumors that it's going to be reopened, soon enough. Seriously, again... There's zero legal certainty! I'm ashamed to be part of a law school in Turkey for once. (Couple of times) Seeing all these after being trained with the legal knowledge turned into a joke.

İstanbul Bilgi University (Suraiya Faroqhi was part of it for some time. Also a preeminent law scholar Rona Aybay worked there)is no more... Academia is not a wise choice for a career even after you get your tenure. There is ZERO LEGAL CERTAINTY in my country.

I will give an online lecture "Wars, Nations, and States: Rethinking State Formation in the Balkans" at UCLA on 19th May 2026. Join us via zoom: www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/1...

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't ask for "books" here, but the time and money are the greatest enemies of young "scholar-want to be's" like me. I would be very pleased if anyone has access to those. Apparently I had a hard time with my institution's library.

Also, buying books from "abroad" has become a disaster because new regulations came into place. Living in Turkey has such ridiculous problems, unfortunately.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't ask for "books" here, but the time and money are the greatest enemies of young "scholar-want to be's" like me. I would be very pleased if anyone has access to those. Apparently I had a hard time with my institution's library.

Upcoming conference: Mecmuas in the Ottoman World. Interdisciplinary Approaches and Current Research 4–6 June 2026 mecmuaconference.univie.ac.at

One of the most inspiring academic books I've read in recent years. It's in Turkish now. I have been wondering about the translations of legal, political, and social terms that Prof Troyansky used. Let's dive into it.

One of the most crucial days in Ottoman historiography: 24th of April. Several debates, huge literature, and unresolved claims... For me, the importance is beyond "what really happened", the real question is "why do we have it?" The answer is also beyond than "nationalism" debates.

With a chapter I co-authored with Antonis Anastasopoulos

Empire, Capital and Rurality in the Modern Middle East 23-24 April 2026 University College Dublin www.academia.edu/165684795/Wo...

End of my 2 day trip to İstanbul. I'm flattered that I had a chance to visit (again) St Benoît, Bulgarian Catholic Church of Galata, and obviously the Iron Church in Fenar. It's indeed an imperial capital.

There is a thriving literature of 18th-c. Ottoman trade manuals. We also know of a couple of Greek and Ottoman Turkish ones. A comparative study would be path-breaking for Ottoman economic (but also social and economic) history.

Kitabımın Türkçe baskısı bugün çıktı: Muhacirler İmparatorluğu! İletişim Yayınları'na @iletisim.com.tr çok minnettarım. Muhteşem çevirisi için Renan Akman'a çok teşekkür ederim. iletisim.com.tr/kitap/muhaci... (1)

Music in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Caucasus and Central Asia 15.04.2026, 5 p. m. Mustafa Avcı (Koç University, Istanbul) Music, Dance, and Ecstasy: The Cultural Meanings of Ecstasy from the Ottoman Era to Contemporary Turkey Zoom-Link: orientalistik.univie.ac.at/fachrichtung...

Starting a pinned thread for my work, since I'm no longer on academia .edu! My first monograph, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law" (Oxford, 2018) Int'l law wasn't just from in the West! And neither was Ottoman abolition. tinyurl.com/PoWsBook

That's extremely worrying to see. Even Digital Humanities? Seriously, it's just an emerging field that adapts "humanities" into the new tools brought by computational sciences.

DH was supposed to save the humanities. Now it is among the majors that Syracuse University is "sunsetting"--along with Classics and Classical civilization.

Iyi bayramlar to the entire Muslim world/Eid Al-Fitr mubarak. May it bring peace and prosperity to the nations under oppression.

On April 3, I'll be presenting at Bilkent Grad Symposium on Bulgarian "denial"(?) of Ottoman "heritage"through examples from lonca structure & local trade with its legal and social aspects. I'll also use gazettes and literary studies of poets and writers to discuss the changes in "Turkish" elements.

📅 13 mars 1848 : devant la révolte du peuple viennois, Metternich démissionne. Celui qui symbolisait l’ordre de Vienne depuis 1815 est contraint de fuir, emporté par la vague révolutionnaire... 👇 ehne.fr/fr/encyclope... 🤝 @lettres-sorbonne.bsky.social @aphg.bsky.social

Looks extremely familiar to me. :) I love reading ,talking about books even writing book reviews but I am afraid of one thing that is the most essential :)

I know that picture quality is really bad but does anyone have any guesses?

Some books have their own history (of mobilization) by existence.

“Times of Challenges to Regional and Global Security: Russia’s War on Ukraine” 🗓️26 February 2026, Thursday 🕑14.00 – 17.15 📍TEPAV For registration ⤵️ 🔗https://form.jotform.com/260420996054963

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe is now available in paperback. Plus take advantage of @stanfordpress.bsky.social Valentine’s Day Sale for a few more days. www.sup.org/books/histor... 🗃️ #menasky #ottoman #bosniaandherzegovina #bosnia #muslims #austriahungary

In 2024, Alexander Maxwell and I organized a workshop on nationalist polylingualism in East-Central Europe and the Balkans. The first article from the special issue of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics developed from that workshop has now been published. #nationalisky

Are you writing a book on the Middle East or the Global South? If so, let me know! I just joined Lynne Rienner Publishers as a consulting editor and am eager to bring engaging, innovative, and impactful scholarship to readers around the world.

I have a (Turkish) friend who studied Serbians for his master's. I do know many Turks studying Greeks in the Ottoman context. People do not ask them questions like "are you a Serbian migrant or "did you come to Turkey via mubadele?". On the other hand, if you study Bulgarians,people always assume++

There is music in the air! 🎶 Our summer lecture series "Music in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, the Caucasus & Central Asia" brings together an international group of scholars exploring musical cultures, sound, and exchange across regions. Details coming soon — stay tuned!

It's frustrating to see Kemalizm still being characterized as an ideology that destroyed ethnic diversity. Ethnic homogenization or segmentation didn't suddenly appear with the Republic or Kemalizm. Also, it's quite fun to see AKP as part of the "negotiation" :)

Has anyone ever encountered Finnish merchants with Russian passports (for obvious reasons) who traded in the Ottoman Empire?

Scholars used to call the Ottoman Empire “a near-perfect military society,” but really it all depended on 1,000 scribes in Istanbul who did spreadsheets by day and wrote Persian poetry by night

The area of intellectual history has a great potential in terms of original contribution but it's also risky either you may come up with 'proofless' arguments for the sake of "originality" or you literally repeat the already existing literature. When it comes to my areas of interest+

Historians are expected to do "empirical research"before conducting a theoretical / conceptual framework. Is it really the only "valid" way? Especially considering that "empirical-first" scholars even fall into misconceptions, unable to build logical connections between the data and the theory.

Sometimes we tend to overestimate our proficiency in languages. I mean, pre-Reform Russian Orthography turned out to be a real challenge that I initially ignored. Tracing "Ottoman names" through Russian gazettes is especially a difficult job.

It seems that throughout history, highly educated people from modest origins have almost always faced the same challenge: finding financial stability—be it in ancient China, the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century, or our own time.

(In Turkish) A rare post on bluesky outside my usual content of history, law, and politics. From my 20 years of engagement in music and 10 years of blogging, I've delved into the current struggles of Turkish pop through the example of a pop star: Hande Yener.

happy bday Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, b1799 “Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.” "My backwoods days dragged slow & quiet Dull fence around, dark vault above Devoid of God & uninspired, Devoid of tears, of fire, of love."

Happy bayram / Eid Al Adha Mubarak I hope that the social and political problems we're dealing with in Turkey, and the humanitarian issues in the Muslim world will come to an end soon.

Recently I've been delving into some books and I'd like to recommend one by Darin Stephanov, "Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire, 1808–1908" One of the few works that inspired me a lot in terms of writing/planning and use of sources. #academicdiary #nocontexthistory

Some phenomenal "oppositional" discourses have been voiced by Turkish people in recent days. This one is really iconic. So, we did have a protest culture, after all!

📍İstanbul’daki meslektaşlara ve arkadaşlara: 24 Nisan Perşembe 18:00’de Minerva Han’da @MSCActions MAKEFRA projem çerçevesinde 17. ve 18. yüzyıllarda Osmanlı’ya Avrupalı göçü ve vatandaşlığıyla ilgili araştırmamı sunacağım. Hepinizi beklerim!