The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography (Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage)

This discussion of historiography concerning the Ottoman Empire should be viewed in the context of the discipline's self-examination, which has been encouraged by recent conflicts in south-eastern Europe and the Middle East. The contributors analyze the fashion in which the historiographies established in various national states have viewed the Ottoman Empire and its legacy. At the same time they discuss the links of 20th-century historiography with the rich historical tradition of the Ottoman Empire itself, both in its metropolitan and its provincial forms. The struggle against anachronisms born from the nationalist paradigm in history doubtless constitutes the most important common feature of these otherwise very diverse studies. Throughout, the contributors have distanced themselves from the nostalgia for "the past greatness" of certain rulers of yore, and aimed for a detached, source-based assessment of historical developments. They have made a conscious effort to debunk ancient myths, although, human weakness being what it is, their successors probably will accuse them of being responsible for new myths in their turn.

Fikret Adanir, Ph.D., is Professor of Southeast European and Ottoman-Turkish History at the University Bochum.
Suraiya Faroqhi, Ph.D., is Professor of Ottoman History at the Universitey of Munich.

Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction
Suraiya Faroqhi and Fikret Adamr 1

Chapter One. Bad Times and Better Self: Definitions of Identity and Strategies for Development in Late Ottoman Historiography, 1850-1900
Christoph Neumann

Chapter Two. Research Problems concerning the Transition to Tourkokratia: the Byzantinist Standpoint
Klaus-Peter Matschke

Chapter Three. The Ottoman Empire in the Historiography of the Kemalist Era: a Theory of Fatal Decline
Busra Ersanli

Chapter Four. Non-Muslim Minorities in the Historiography of Republican Turkey: the Greek Case
Hercules Millas

Chapter Five. Ottoman Rule Experienced and Remembered: Remarks on Some Local Greek Chronicles of the Tourkokratia
Johann Strauss

Chapter Six. Islamization in the Balkans as a Historiographical Problem: the Southeast-European Perspective
Antonina Zhelyazkova

Chapter Seven. The Formation of a 'Muslim' Nation in Bosnia-Hercegovina: a Historiographic Discussion
Fikret Adamr

Chapter Eight. Hungarian Studies in Ottoman History
David and Pal Fodor

Chapter Nine. Coping with the Central State, Coping with Local Power: Ottoman Regions and Notables from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century
Suraiya Faroqhi

List of contributors
Bibliography
Index

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