Remembering the Ottomans across Post-Ottoman Spaces

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

In the last decade, Eastern European and Middle Eastern scholars have increasingly reconsidered the important role Ottoman legal, social, economic, and religious structures played in the transformation of the region’s nation-states, challenging narratives of the “Sick Man of Europe.” Maria Todorova’s distinction between legacy as continuity and legacy as perception is particularly useful in understanding how the Ottoman past is both materially present in legal and social institutions and continually reinterpreted through changing historical narratives. The scholars in the roundtable reconsider the role of memory in refashioning and reshaping the Ottoman past across Eastern Europe and the Middle East. With specializations on empires and emerging nation-states such as Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Turkey, the roundtable participants will address the following questions: How did historical actors remember or forget the Ottoman past throughout the twentieth century? How is the recent past weaponized? What stigmatizations of the Ottoman legacy across post-Ottoman spaces have persisted? How did the political, social, and cultural reforms unfolding in Turkey affect relations and memories across Southeastern Europe? The post-Ottoman lens invites a transregional approach, drawing parallels with other imperial contexts, like the Habsburg, Italian, German, and Russian empires, by situating Southeastern Europe within broader global transformations. The roundtable format will provide an opportunity for participants to share their insights on the specific cases they study, but also to engage in conversation about the larger questions their work seeks to address. They will reflect on the ways their scholarship aspires to expand the horizons of future research.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Hannes Grandits, Humboldt U Berlin (Germany)

Roundtable Speakers

• Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, Rutgers, The State U of New Jersey

• Zeynep Ertuğrul, Columbia U

• Milena Methodieva, U of Toronto (Canada)

• Jovo Miladinovic, U of Konstanz (Germany)

• Lediona Shahollari, U College London (UK)