Ottoman History Podcast

The biography and intellectual legacy of Komitas Vardapet, an orphan from Kütahya who became one of the foremost Armenian intellectuals of his day, is firmly embedded within Armenian national lore. Yet, seldom has it been told as an Ottoman story. Drawing on sources in Turkish, Armenian, and English, this mixtape presents the life and works of Komitas through some of the earliest recordings of Armenian music, including his own performances. Part 1 deals with the early life of Komitas Vardapet, his education in Etchmiadzin and Berlin, and the crystallization of his ideas about folk music and culture.

Following the World War I period, the founders of a new Turkish Republic sought to define and legitimize the new order as a break with the Ottoman past. In this episode, Yasemin Gencer explains the ways in which notions such as childhood were used to construct the image of a renewed Turkish society in the nationalist press during the early years of the Republican period. - http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/

During the nineteenth century, imperial states became increasingly concerned with the management of disease and resources. For the Ottoman Empire, the issues of disease and water converged on the hajj pilgrimage, which brought annual throngs of thirsty disease vectors to the Hijaz region. In this podcast, Michael Christopher Low examines the su meselesi or 201Cwater issue201D of the Ottoman Empire during the Hamidian era and its importance for understanding the ecological transformation of Saudi Arabia over the past century. - See more at: http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2010/04/hajj-water-saudi-arabia.html#sthash.2TFQ0I9F.dpuf

Bu ezber bozan podcastımızda Prof. Dr. Cem Behar bizlere 16. yüzyılın ortalarında zuhur eden geleneksel Osmanlı/Türk musikisinin modernizasyon projesi çerçevesinde bir çok "icat edilmiş gelenek" ile nasıl inkıta'ya uğratıldığını anlatıyor. Günümüz Türk Sanat musikisi ile Osmanlı dönemindeki musikinin kompozisyon ve icraları arasındaki farklılıklar üzerinde durarak "gelenek"in yerini nasıl "gelenekçilik"e bıraktığına dikkati çektikten sonra, geleneksel Osmanlı/Türk musikisinin bir çok karanlık yönüne ışık tutuyor.

Even when writing the history of a particular geographical space, historians often find themselves circling the globe in search of new source material for research. This may be especially true for historians of Lebanon, whose archival sources are spread throughout various libraries in Lebanon, the Middle East and the West. In this episode, Graham Pitts shares his own research experience and discusses some of the different sources and archives available to scholars working on the history of modern Lebanon.

The image of prostitution as humanity's "oldest profession" often obscures the fact that this phenomenon has carried different social meaning and economic value across time and space. In this episode, Dr. Gary Leiser explores social understandings of prostitution in the Eastern Mediterranean between various political and legal frameworks during the medieval period.

Part 2 of Episode 97 of Ottoman History Podcast is a mixtape displaying examples of European classical music referenced in Ottoman literature.

Osmanlı toplumunun yaşamının hızla değiştiği bir dönem olan 19. yüzyılda sanat alanında da birçok yenilikler ortaya çıktı. Bu podcastın birinci bölümünde Doç. Dr. Melda Üner ile batılılaşma ve modernleşme paradigmaları çerçevesinde 19. yüzyıl Türk Edebiyatı’nda müzik ögesinin nasıl kullanıldığını konuşacağız. Dönemin bir çok edebi eseri üzerinde yoğunlaşarak Tanzimat ve Servet-i Fünûn gibi iki ayrı edebi dönemde Osmanlı aydınının batılılaşma ve modernleşme karşısındaki tavırlarını ve “Doğu” ile “Batı” arasındaki tercihlerini tartışacağız. The nineteenth century not only radically transformed daily life in Ottoman society but also introduced new artistic styles. In part one of this podcast, Assoc. Prof. Melda Üner examines the element of music in nineteenth-century Turkish literature along the paradigms of westernization and modernization. Exploring a number of contemporary works, she focuses on Ottoman intellectuals’ attitudes towards westernization and modernization and demonstrates how they took sides between “East” and “West” in two different literary periods: the Tanzimat and Servet-i Fünûn.

The spread of public transportation in the form of boats and trams in late Ottoman Istanbul changed the lived geography of the city and created new public spaces of interaction. In this episode, Jim Ryan discusses the debates surrounding social conduct and gender relations on the trams and how this new mode of transport fit into the larger transformations of Ottoman urban space.

Printing in Ottoman Turkish first emerged during the eighteenth century. Yet, even when print had arrived in full force by the middle of the nineteenth century, it remained forbidden to print the text most sought after by Ottoman readers: the Qur'an. In this episode, Brett Wilson discusses the rise of print and Qur'an printing in the Ottoman Empire as well as the emergence of Turkish translations of the Qur'an in the late Ottoman and early Republican eras.

Following the First World War, Eastern Mediterranean ports cities lost much of their cosmopolitan character with the rise of nationalism. Given the violent and disruptive nature of this change, it is natural that these multicultural spaces are remembered with a great deal of nostalgia. However, the cosmopolitan nature of the port was also the product of a certain historical context in which Mediterranean ports became important spaces of contact, conflict, and social change. In this episode, Sotiris Dimitriadis reconstructs this historical context and explains the ways in which the urban space of Salonica (in modern-day Greece) was refashioned as part of the economic and social transformation of the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat period.

Osmanlı tarihçileri uzun bir zamandır 17. yüzyılın krizlerle dolu ilk yarısında klasik Osmanlı kurumlarının geçirdiği büyük dönüşümlere odaklanmaktadır. Bu podcastımızda Taylan Akyıldırım le Anadolu’yu tamamen etkisi altına alıp önemli siyasi, iktisadi ve toplumsal etkiler yaratan Celali İsyanları üzerine konuştuk. Küçük Buz Çağı, Fiyat Devrimi, Osmanlı gerilemesi, Askeri Devrim gibi paradigmalar çerçevesinde bu isyanların nedenleri ve sonuçları üzerinde durmaya çalıştık. Ottoman historians have long focused on the radical transformation of classical Ottoman institutions during the first half of the seventeenth century. In this podcast, Taylan Akyıldırım discusses the political, economic and social effects of the Celali Revolts that dominated the entire Anatolian countryside. He tries to underline the reasons for and consequences of these revolts within the frameworks of paradigms such as the Little Ice Age, the Price Revolution, Ottoman Decline and the Military Revolution. Note: the podcast is in Turkish.

Maps are as useful as they are problematic. They not only represent spaces in a particular way but also shape the way people interact with those spaces. In this episode, Timur Hammond discusses trends in scholarly approaches to cartography over the past decades as Nick Danforth and Chris Gratien unveil their new website the Afternoon Map, a collection of provocative and useful maps related to Ottoman and modern Turkish history.

Maps are as useful as they are problematic. They not only represent spaces in a particular way but also shape the way people interact with those spaces. In this episode, Timur Hammond discusses trends in scholarly approaches to cartography over the past decades as Nick Danforth and Chris Gratien unveil their new website the Afternoon Map, a collection of provocative and useful maps related to Ottoman and modern Turkish history.

Orhan Pamuk is easily the most well-known Turkish novelist outside of Turkey, and his works have been translated into dozens of languages. In this episode, linguist Bernt Brendemoen, who has translated a number of Pamuk's works into Norweigian, shares some of his experiences from working with the author and other translators and some thoughts on the message of Pamuk's literature and new museum based on the novel Museum of Innocence (Masumiyet Müzesi).